It was a moonless night, in an isolated part of the city of Nashville. Closed stores met empty parking spaces, with some lingering patches of green that had yet to be engulfed by the surrounding concrete. Earlier that night it was the ideal hangout for college kids with their cars to get drunk and have fun. Some hours later it was the perfect place to butcher those very same teenagers with not a witness in sight, and now it was proving very difficult for the authorities to collect any evidence of the crime.
Within the perimeter of a police cordon the Forensic team of Nashville PD was doing the best they could to identify the mutilated corpses of what, only hours earlier, had been seven members of the Welch College Winning Baseball team, out celebrating their latest victory over Vanderbilt University for the Estate Championship. Now the prominent school athletes lay strewn all over the parking lot, maimed and bisected, with the graveyard as their most possible future.
A case like this, EVERY case like this, was a tragedy, at least that was what John Jefferson, lead forensic examiner of Nashville PD saw it. Jefferson was in charge of the scene of the crime. Jefferson was a peculiar sight considering his career path: Around faced, a six foot man with a body shaped like an oil tanker, a layer of paternal fat hiding a still active muscular physique. His gray hair cut with precision and a gentle demeanour. He was the last man you would think would expect to work in forensics, but this former rugby player was thorough and serious, willing to go the extra mile for any victim. Jefferson had vested interest in this latest slaughter, as this particular crime followed a pattern of previous crimes, making the Baseball Team victims number seventeen to twenty-four, it was also the second case with more than two victims, and the first to exceed three victims, a case this big needed the presence of the best the Forensic Teams could offer, not to mention that the challenge was upped to eleven if the evidence in this crime scene turned like all the previous crime scenes, putting his skill and the efficiency of Nashville PD into major question.
Sadly it appeared that the forensic teams was coming up empty-handed. No cameras, no phone recordings, no fingerprints, no footsteps, and to make it creepier, not a drop of blood present.
"So its true Jefferson, this thing is a damn vampire."
Jefferson sighted and turned to the Police Sergeant entering the crime scene, a sloppy-looking corpulent man with a gut that preceded a fat and uncaring face. Sergeant Clancy Wilson was the opposite of John in almost every way, a former soccer player who let himself go, choosing policing as an easy career. Wilson was not the greatest gift to policing, he had a brain of sorts, but he did not care much about serving the people, he just thought the world owed him something, so he climbed the police ladder through union politics rather than achievement, becoming a foot soldier of vested interests who sought to turn Nashville PD into an organization that did not view at all crimes equally.
John Jefferson stood up from examining the most unfortunate of the victims to face Wilson. Jefferson did not need to smell it to know the man was entering the crime scene with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in his mouth, a clear disregard for crime scene procedure.
"Sergeant Wilson, I think I have asked you about a hundred times not to enter a crime scene with food, beverages, or a lit cigarette."
Wilson pulled the offending cigarette out of his mouth and looked at him with mock sorrow, "Oh, you did? Forgive me, I did noy meant to upset the worms and maggots" Wilson ended his speech by tapping the cigarette so that the ash would fall on the floor.
Jefferson saw the ember fall and sighted, lesser men would take issue with such unprofessional behaviour, or the veiled insult, but with people with cameras approaching the scene and Wilson really not being worth getting angry at, Jefferson decided it was better to keep it civil.
"Are you coming to help with the investigation?" the question was out of protocol, nothing more, Jefferson knew very well that Wilson just looked out for his boys, Wilson's little network of informants about what was going inside the force, Wilson came to crime scenes mostly to keep tabs on what the reports would not say, and inform his handlers on what was going on the ground.
"Little there is to help, can't catch a guy if you do not give me and the boys any clues" Wilson strode pass Jefferson to take a look at the corpses. "I thought this guy was a small alley kind of bastard anyway."
Short in option Jefferson decided he would humour Wilson rather than making a scene, particularly with phone cameras trying to get pictures of them.
"If you have read the previous reports Sergeant, you would have noticed that the killer uses ambush tactics against his victims. The pattern on the previous seventeen victims suggests the killer targets victims out of opportunity rather than out of a pattern."
"You still count all those hobbos victims? You cannot count drunk hobbos knifing each other as victims" Wilson said, taking a sip from the coffee cup.
"They may be homeless, that does not make them any less human, or any less victims" emphasized Jefferson
"Then they should have stayed off the hooch, or the crack, or wherever they were on when they decided to knife each other to death" stated Wilson.
"The corpses of the homeless victims had been severed in a similar fashion as in on the other crimes, not to mention that, like in this crime, the blood had been thoroughly cleaned" explained the forensic, in a vain attempt to make the Sergeant see reason.
Wilson shrugged in disinterest, "You know what crack can do to you, hobbo on crack could have gone in a cleaning spree, I don't know."
Jefferson took a deep breath to calm himself, Wilson knew how to push his buttons, but the charade was going to far.
"Wilson, if you are here to waste my time then leave, I have a job to do."
Wilson gesticulated with a mocking tone on his voice as he addressed the tired forensic, "And I need to be here because so far you vultures have not been able to pull a fucking descent clue out of all this fucking shit."
Jefferson frowned, Wilson smirked, the Sergeant was really trying to push the forensic's buttons.
"Wilson! If you are so interested in pulling a clue then start looking for them rather than bother the forensic team!" Jefferson and Wilson turned to the source of the commanding order, Chief Theodore Rhodes went past the police cord and walked into the scene with a quick stride a little patience. The stone-faced man was in his mid-fifties, he stood at six-foot one inch tall with a skin of light ebony that called people's attention, his eyes of glimmering amber brown, a slowly receding hairline, and serious and focused a trait from his time as a soldier, a trait that came handy as he climbed the ranks of Nashville PD.
"Chief Rhodes" said Jefferson as he faced his superior officer.
Wilson shifted his position lazily and simply stated "Chief,"
Rhodes stepped between the two men to take charge "Things are difficult enough without you two fighting, so get along or get lost!"
Both men looked away, Jefferson in shame for not handling Wilson properly, Wilson because he did not want to get a lecture from the Chief.
"Now if you two are ready to play nice I want to know what happened here, who are the victims, and why the hell we have not caught the bastard yet?" ordered Rhodes as he turned to Jefferson for a debriefing by the forensic, John understood and began explaining to his superior officer.
"We have identified a series of seven corpses, all male of approximately eighteen to twenty-four years old, all murdered by the use of two lethal sharp instruments we assume it to be a blade and a spear of some sort" as Jefferson made his statement Rhodes eyes examined the scene, he counted at least thirteen different white sheet s covering what he assumed to be corpses.
"By the looks of it whoever did this was a fan of dismembering people…" pointed the Chiefas he knelled near the closest corpse to peek under the white sheet.
"Certainly several of the victims had limbs amputated, some died quickly, while others had signs that they were incapacitated before they were executed" pointed Jefferson.
Rhodes move to inspect another victim inside a convertible, stabbed on the back as he seemed to have tried to get into the car, inside which were scattered a few unopened cans of beer.
"This guys are wearing Welch's College Colours" turning his head Rhodes noticed the baseball bat tagged by the forensic team "Don't tell me this are school athletes?"
"I think were is the right word Comish" pointed Wilson as he lazily took a drag of his cigarette. Rhodes turned to the the out of shape Sergeant and glared at the man with an intense scowl, Wilson could feel the threat; the union may be protecting Wilson, but that did not stop Rhodes form being able to make the flabby arm of the law's life very unpleasant. Quickly Clancy dropped his cigarette inside the coffee, it went out with a soft *Pszzzt!* sound, much to Jefferson and the forensic team's pleasure.
Jefferson coughed and continued the debriefing.
"We have sent a team of officers to Welch College to confirm the identity of the victims, although two have been already identified as Rico Russo and Jerome King, senior baseball players at Welsh college and the only two carrying ID's at the time, we assume to buy the cans of beer you see scattered around the parking lot."
"Jesus!" Rhodes stroke his hair as he finally allowed the obvious to sink in: Seven college kids had been slaughtered, this was a political bomb that could end his and the major's career, not to mention that it was the tip of the iceberg that was his current woes.
"There is also no blood Comish, meaning it is our new friend" Wilson pointed the obvious with the pride of a useless man, the only way a man of his ilk could pretend to be useful.
"Indeed, all the blood has been cleaned as thoroughly as it could be, the only blood left is anything that managed to deeply stain the fabrics of the car. We can assume it is our newest mystery killer" pointed Jefferson.
Rhodes took a deep breath, things were not looking right. Over a month ago a new crime wave began taking hold of the streets, random homeless people around the back allies of Nashville pop-up dead; at first it was weird stabbings and throat slit, no one made much fuzz of it at the time because they were, well, homeless people, the homeless die all the time from fights among homeless so no one in the force wanted to waste time and resources on it, besides, no politician would care much for a few John Smiths and Jane Does off the census, it wasn't like the homeless vote had a pull. But someone began to care, when the corpses began piling up, Jefferson, the forensic debriefing him, decided to care. Most officers and even Rhodes himself tried to chuck it under the rug as a new gang taking their frustration on the homeless, even when the victims grew to ten; it was Jefferson the one who noticed the pattern, that the corpses had been drained of all their blood, barely a drip left in their veins, or in the streets. Whoever was killing the homeless, it was able to suck all their blood, and with each killing it was getting better at cleaning the mess. Then came the prostitutes, and the drunks off alleys, the shopkeeper, and, a few night ago, the two kids slaughtered by the high-street at night. By the time police decided to give a fuck, very powerful people knew, and very powerful people began to care, people Rhodes did not want to make enemies of, more so than any bastard using Sergeant Wilson as eyes and ears. Now there was this killing, University students, just the thing you needed for shit to hit the fan. It was going to get far worst before it got better.
"Chief?"
Rhodes snapped of his thoughts, Jefferson and Wilson were looking at him, not sure what to do next.
"Yes? You were saying Jefferson?"
"I was saying sir, that some of the victims tried to engage the killer, as suggested by the corpses closer to the forested area."
Rhodes peeked at it, he could see four sheets covering what could be assumed to be three corpses and some sort of bundle. Rhodes took a peek under one of the two corpses parallel to each other, Wilson and Jefferson right behind him. Rhodes was shocked but what he saw, the wheels in his mind spun out of control, his eyes fixated on the scene, like watching a man being slowly crashed to death, the sheer horror of the implied scene had entrapped him, released only thanks to Wilson's nauseated reaction to the sight. Rhodes put down the sheet and stood up slightly dazed as the Sergeant emptied his stomach contents.
"I should have warned you sir, it was not a very pretty sight" explained the lead forensic as he made a sign to other forensics to adjust the white sheets on the corpses.
"That kid, he was sliced in half, like half-half, like cutting an onion in half" said Rhodes, still having trouble to process what he had seen under the sheet.
"Bisected top to bottom, yes. The bisected victim happens to be Rico Russo, the other was Jerome King. The evidence suggest that they engaged the killer while under the influence of alcohol, we could not measure their blood for alcohol content for obvious reasons but we found plenty of beer in both victims stomachs; I believe they charged armed with baseball bats, probably thinking they could take on a weirdo coming to steal some quick cash and maybe relieve the teenagers from their car. Rico Russo and Jerome King were swiftly bested by our perpetrator. Based on the precision and cleanliness of the cut the attack was most probably performed with an extremely sharp blade. While Russo was cut in half Mr. King had his hands severed by the attacker, left to suffer until the killer came back to sever his head, ending his life in the process" pointed Jefferson.
"The punks where drunk enough to be brave, and stupid enough to piss the big guy, same stuff when people get killed in bar fights" pointed Wilson. Rhodes did not disagree with his Sergeant's statement, a jock feeling cocky was prone to stupidity like that, it was a law of nature, and it was also nature that death would meet them sooner rather than later.
"And when the leads fell it all went further down to hell" reasoned Rhodes.
"It seems that two other victims tried to stand up to the killer to give their friends time to escape, which proved fruitless" Jefferson pointed to a victim between the first to victims and the car.
"Where is the second one?" asked Wilson.
"That" Jefferson hesitated for a moment, he did not like what he had to explain "That gentlemen is when things get worst."
After hearing the statement Rhodes was amiss for words, the only thing he could utter was a cliché: "Worst than seven dead teenagers?"
Jefferson walked towards a corpse, the second closest to the street, and lifted the white sheet covering it, underneath dead teenager lied, he may have been not older than eighteen, his face contorted in fear and pain, an arm an a leg severed, and a puncture in its lower back. The body looked as if had tried to crawl away, or rather, let crawl away as if part of a sadistic game.
"Holy Mary Mother of God" Rhodes whispered, he had seen many nasty accidents and gruesome murders, but this scene took the cake; although not as graphic as the teenager split in half Rhodes could feel the sheer terror emanating from the dead body, the killer took his time with this one, made him suffer.
"This is sick" Wilson limited himself to look away in fear.
"Your reaction is understandable Chief, as you may have already inferred this young man was tortured. The wound on his back appears to be the oldest, suggesting that the victim was paralyzed before he was executed. Preliminary analysis also suggests that he was the last of the victims to die" and as the forensic uttered the last word he lowered the sheet as if it was the end of a tragedy.
"And there were no witnesses?" Rhodes asked, the Chief had a feeling the answer was obvious, but he felt compelled look for any source of hope after seeing all he had seen so far.
"Unfortunately no sir, all the phones have gone missing, and there were no cameras in the area, the victims chose this place for a reason. They were found around a couple of hours ago by officers patrolling the area."
"They wanted to celebrate and get drunk, I know" Rhodes tilted his head worried, he needed something, it could not be another dead end. "Do we know anything about the weapon used?"
"So far we have been able to deduce that a long and very sharp blade was used for the killings, a long-sword, a machete, or maybe a katana, a Japanese long-sword " said Rhodes.
"That's it!? Man, I could have told you that!" shouted Wilson.
Rhodes turned to Wilson, he really did not like the presence of the fat bastard in the crime scene, so he thanked the excuse to get rid of him. "Then Sergeant, you can lead a team to comb the area, for anyone who could have seen a man carrying anything that could resemble or hide a sword, got it?"
Wilson pouted at the order, but was forced to utter a " Yes Chief, Sir" and left the scene.
Rhode look at the corpulent man go and felt sick to his stomach "Why do I keep him in my police force?"
"Because your political enemies want to have eyes and ears in the inside" replied Jefferson, aware that the question was entirely rhetoric.
Rhodes shook his head and turned to the forensic "Still, I should be able to kick him out."
"I think the adage goes: 'Is better to deal with the demons you know'."
"You are right, Wilson's handlers may replace him with someone who can do some real damage."
"Speaking of damage sir, there is something I need to show you."
Rhodes did not like Jefferson's tone, something was bothering the forensic, something beyond the torture and the bisecting,.
Jefferson took Rhodes in front of the teenager's car where he showed the Chief a hole, maybe thirty centimeters in diameter, penetrating the front of the car.
Rhodes was not sure what he was seeing, so he went with his gut and asked: "Did the killer did this?"
"I believe so sir, yes, some sort of spear, but its is only part of what I wanted to show you" Jefferson lifted the hood of the car, and showed the Chief a car engine wrecked beyond repair, the steel engine pierced clean.
Rhodes was in shock at the sight.
"What the hell could do this to a solid steel car engine?"
"We do not know sir, there is no trace of the weapon used on the car" explained Jefferson.
Rhodes covered his mouth, this was getting to weird.
"We have identified a similar weapon of small calibre being used on two of the victims, the only ones not to be dismembered" said Jefferson.
"Are you telling that our killer is learning new tricks?"
"Or has new toys sir" replied Jefferson matter-of-factly.
Rhodes look around, this was really going to be a bad day for Nashville PD once the news hit the newspapers and the parents came to look for their sons.
"Tell the boys to wrap things up and take the evidence to the station as fast an possible, we need to catch this bastard pronto" ordered Rhodes.
"I will take care of it sir."
"Just give the order Jefferson, you yourself need to take a break" said Rhodes.
Jefferson looked at the Chief with slight confusion.
"Sir, you want me to take a break now?"
"Yes Jefferson, you have been working too hard, There is a greasy spoon around the corner know for their pies. Go there, have a slice, I heard people there are very friendly, especially dog owners."
All of a sudden it dawned on Jefferson what his boss wanted to say. The forensic pocketed his notepad and looked at the Chief.
"Maybe you are right Chief Rhodes, maybe I need a break. Who knows, maybe I could meet some friendly faces."
"See that you do, see that you do."