Book One: Part One: Evil X 3 - Chapter One
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible
New Living Testament, copyright ©1996, 2004.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishing, Inc.
Quotations used by permission from Bartleby.com ©1993-2004
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Foreword
This is the first in a series of books with a vast amount of characters.
Janis Baker, a Lieutenant with the Montie Police Department, a divorced mother who shares custody with her son.
On most any given day, the city of Montie, is a quiet city. There will always be the occasional public drunk or speeder, and yes, people and places get robbed. Suicides, domestic disputes, and barroom fights happen.
It has been five years since an attempted bank robbery; two years since anyone went missing, and every now and then, an unexplained murder will take place.
Montie goes way back in the history books, but the events that are about to take place, will rewrite Montie’s history for a very long time to come.
In small steps, Lieutenant Janis Baker, and her partner, Ed Manning, work on unraveling a series of brutal murders. Murders that lead Baker and Manning, to one dead end after another.
One of those dead ends being that Baker becomes a target.
The killer is smart enough to leave no clues as to his identity and has his own code of justice.
The action is fast-paced.
Welcome to Montie, where each day is more than just an adventure.
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Prelude
A young boy, age 10, in the state of Maine, was sentenced to a mental hospital for extensive evaluation for setting a fire that killed his parents in 1995.
A young girl, age 10, lost her parents to a tragedy, also in 1995.
Neither one knew at the time their lives would intertwine.
She went on in later years to get married, have a son, and attend the police academy.
Twenty years after he was admitted to the institution, he escaped. What would become of him would change both their lives forever.
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Death hath so many doors to let out life. The Custom of the Country. Act II. Sc. 2.
Beaumont and Fletcher
Godly people find life, evil people find death. Proverbs 11:19
I open every door and put every evil person I can find where they belong‒‒in hell.
Freddy
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Friday - May 14th - 9:07 p.m.
The crime scene unit had just finished up and were leaving the Marcus Arms Apartments where a dead body had been discovered.
The victim; Arnold Kilpatrick, retired two-star Army general, formerly attached with the 317th Airborne Division, was found face up on his living room floor. A widower for seven years, has left two sons and one daughter behind, who would be notified prior to the autopsy if possible.
The general was a mess.
His throat was slit with a smooth-edged blade, and a large X-shaped pattern that went from left shoulder to right hip, and right shoulder to left hip, had literally opened up his chest. The two slash grooves were three inches deep. Probably done after the throat. There appeared to be very little struggle, giving Lieutenant Janis Baker, the impression the general probably knew the perp.
Carl Macklin, Senior Forensic Pathologist, explained to her that he would have all the prints found, numbered, and identified within a few hours. The scene provided no hair samples anywhere in the apartment that appeared different from the general’s gray hair that was now a bloody mess across his chest. His head apparently had been shaved bald. There didn’t appear to be any skin residue or blood marks under the victim’s fingernails to indicate a struggle, but scrapings were taken just the same.
There was a note attached to the victim’s body.
LIVE ON RAEH.
Lieutenant Baker had a strong suspicion they wouldn’t find the perp’s prints anywhere.
Ten Minutes Earlier
Mrs. Mattingly heard a knock on the door.
“Yes? Who is it?”
“The night janitor, miss. I need to check the plumbing in all of the bathrooms on this floor.”
Mrs. Mattingly opened her door one inch to see who it was. She wasn’t aware her building even had a janitor, especially one at night.
She was still scared and shaking over what she had seen across from her at the Marcus Arms Apartments. That poor man being killed! She knew it was her civic duty to call the police right away. What frightened her most; she thought she recognized the killer. That made it all the worse for she thought him to be a good and justly man.
What she didn’t realize is that the killer saw her, too.
The slight opening of the door was all it took.
The night janitor kicked the door back, causing Mrs. Mattingly to stumble backward and fall to the floor. She was seventy-eight.
“Oh, my heavens! It is you! I don’t believe it!”
“Believe what you want, you old bitch! I’m the last thing you’ll ever see.”
He bent down overtop her and swiftly sliced her throat, and hurriedly made the sweeping arcs of the X across her chest, and then spent a few moments with her eyes.
He popped them from her sockets with the tip of his blade, and then placed them in his pocket, underneath a plastic raincoat covered in blood. He then scribbled a note with his left hand, writing the words backward.
LIVE ON EES.
The Quick Call
“Hey, Baker. Got a few minutes?”
“Sure, Ed. I’m only up to my ass in blood. What’s up?”
“I have something special to show you. Right across the street from you. Apartment 230.”
“Okay. I’m just finishing a few loose ends. I’ll be there in five to ten.”
Three Minutes Ago
At the catholic church of St. Peter’s, a man with labored breath, stepped inside the church, and bent to one knee, making the sign of the cross with his right hand. He then stood erect and walked over to a confessional booth. He opened the door, sat down, and waited a few minutes.
On the other side of a screen, a door opened, and a priest sat down.
“Good evening. How may I help you?’
“Father, forgive me, for I have sinned.”
“Sinned in what way, my son?”
“I have broken one of God’s, the Father’s commandments.”
“I see. Which commandment is this?”
“Father, I have killed. Two people tonight.”
Silence.
“Father, did you hear me? I said I killed two people.”
“Yes, I heard you. By all that is holy, I am not allowed to divulge this confession with the police. You do understand this? This confession in between you and me; and Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father.”
“Sure, I do. That’s why I came here.” The voice which was first unsteady and high-pitched, now became low and ominous. “I can get Christ’s forgiveness through you, and I will be absolved of all wrong doing.”
“It isn’t as simple as that. We must pray together. Then you, of your own volition, must turn yourself in. It is the only way to be truly forgiven by Christ and the Father. My son, as the gospel is known, and by it, men were saved through faith, since the very beginning of time. Let us now pray that we will find a path that‒”
“Bullshit, bullshit; BULL-FUCKING-SHIT! I ought to slice your fucking throat right here, right now!”
Silence again.
The door opened, then banged closed.
He was gone.
At the Latest Scene
“Busy night, huh, Baker?”
“Seems that way, Ed. What do we have here?”
“A fresh kill.
“A Mrs. Ethel Mattingly, seventy-eight. Retired seamstress, widow over ten years. She has one son who lives on the other side of the coast where all the surfers coin those stupid phrases. She lived here alone. Moderate lifestyle for a woman her age, nothing fancy.
“I put in a call to have the neighborhood patrolled. If they spot anyone suspicious, and like the norm; if he or she looks or acts suspicious, we pull them in for questioning.
“But whoever this is, they have some big balls, or tits.”
Baker pulled the sheet back, Ed covered Mrs. Mattingly with to just below her hips.
“Another one. Just like the victim across the street. Seems our boy‒”
“Or girl,” said Ed, half smiling.
“… or girl, is making the rounds tonight and quickly. What do you make of the time of death?”
“My guess, until the F-Team shows; which should be them I hear coming now. I’d say within twelve to twenty, as in minutes. But, Baker, that isn’t all.” Ed pointed at the victim’s face.
Baker leaned closer and looked at the face and upon closer inspection, saw blood slowly tearing from her eyes and matted the sides of Mrs. Mattingly’s hair above her ears.
With the apartment door wide open, the F-Team walked in and immediately set up shop, and started taking pictures, dusting the living room for prints, looking for possible hair fibers, and anything else to give them clues as to who the killer is.
Reaching for a pair of medical gloves from her jacket pocket, she pulled a pen from her shirt pocket and edged it under one eyelid. Lifting it back, she flinched backward for a second.
“Puts a stutter in your step, huh? He or she cut both eyes out, and to make this even stranger; he or she must have taken the eyes, because they aren’t anywhere to be found.”
“Great. Now we have a souvenir collector and a sick mind all wrapped up in one neat package; running around Montie some damn place. We need to nail this perp quick.”
“It doesn’t end there though. The hits keep rolling in. Here is what was tacked to her chest.”
Ed held up an evidence bag, and Baker read what was inside.
LIVE ON EES.
“My first thought was monkey-see, monkey-do, but the markings are just too fresh to be anything other than the same person.”
“Ed, we have an intensely shrewd and perhaps insane person at the same time we are dealing with.”
Baker walked to the two front windows of Mrs. Mattingly’s apartment and looked out across the way. She realized then what the message really meant.
“Ed, look at this.”
He looked in the same direction as she did.
“If that don’t beat all. Straight across from her. Same floor. She saw the whole damn thing. That’s why she called 911. That’s why I came over here to interview her. I was too late, and maybe by minutes; but he or she can’t be that far ahead of us.”
“The even sadder part, he had seen her watching. Somehow, he figured out exactly which apartment she was in and gained entrance, obviously forced. I would say he nearly kicked it off its hinges, and he, or she, wasn’t looking for conversation.
“You know what they say about things coming in three’s, Ed? Whoever killed these people, probably has one more to kill. Both Mrs. Mattingly and Arnold Kilpatrick both had notes attached to them.”
“You’re thinking that next person won’t have a hearing problem.”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
As she stared out across the way, then back at Mrs. Mattingly, now being photographed, and Carl and crew bagging and tagging potential evidence; Carl nodded her way with the understanding once he got any hits back on what they’ve collected, he would let her know. Both notes would be given to a handwriting expert for analysis.
The apartment, like the one across the street, was gone over with a fine-tooth comb, as the saying goes. Nothing would be left unturned.
Including the message.
Another Quick Call – 10:35 p.m.
“Stevie, I won’t be home until around midnight, I’m afraid. It’s been a rough night. If you’re awake when I get in, fine. If not, we’ll go out tomorrow morning for an early breakfast. I love you.”
She gets Stevie every other summer and every other major holiday for two weeks. This year she would have him for Christmas.
Mark couldn’t handle her being a cop.
Hell, sometimes, neither could she.