Cause to Kill

“We don’t know,” another cop answered.

Yelling came inside.

Shots were fired.

“You two!” Henley roared to his men. “Go around back. Make sure no one leaves. Sullivan, Temple, keep your eyes on me.”

He squat-ran up the stairs and into the house.

Avery made a move to go after him.

“Hold up. Hold up,” a cop shouted.

Finley exited the house with his arms wide in pleasant victory, gun in hand.

“That’s right,” he said. “Game over for the serial killer.”

“Finley, what happened?” Avery shouted.

“I got him,” he declared, no sense of remorse or social etiquette. “Shot that mother-fucker. He pulled a weapon and I shot him. Saved some cop’s life and shot his white ass. That’s how we do it on the south side,” he declared and threw up a gang symbol Avery immediately recognized as the South Boston D-Street Boys.

“Slow down,” she said. “How do you know he’s our guy?”

Finley cocked his neck and opened his eyes wide.

“Oh yeah,” he declared, “That’s our guy all right. Caught him in the basement. Lot of sick shit down there. You gotta see it to believe it.”

Henley came out of the house.

“Sullivan,” he called, “get an ambulance out here, now, and get down in that basement. Dickers was shot. He needs support. Travers,” he said, “I want this place sealed off. No one in. No one out. You hear me? We don’t need anyone else contaminating the scene. Marley! Spade” he yelled to the back. “Get out here.”

“I need to see what’s in there,” Avery said.

“Go,” Henley waved, “she’s OK, Travers. Both of them,” he indicated Finley. “No one else.” And to Finley he added: “I’m going to need a statement from you, young man.”

“No problem,” Finley said. “Heroes tell tales.”

“Tell me everything, slowly,” Avery snapped.

Finley – still on an adrenaline rush – was hyped and bouncy.

“I did what you asked,” he said in his speedy, accented tone, “wrote down those tombstone names. A bunch of girls, maybe eighteen or twenty years old. I don’t know. I’m no good at math. Died in WWII. Then I saw this old guy watching everything from afar. Looked shady, you know? I alerted one of the other cops, because I’m a team player and all, and we went over to have a little chat. We get about halfway toward this guy and he bolts: hard run to the car. Who knew old people could run so fast? Jumps in and peels out. Wait until you see what we found. Solved the case single-handedly,” he said and slapped his chest. “Don’t worry. I’ll give you some props,” he added. “Who’s lazy now?!” he yelled to the sky.

All Avery heard was “tombstones…girls…died in WWII…” and she made a mental note to find out everything about those markers and the women they served.

Gun drawn, Avery moved through the front door.

The house had an old, musty scent to it, like someone hadn’t lived there in a long time. Carpets were dusty white. A staircase led to the second floor. Through the ceiling, Avery heard footsteps and someone yell, “Clear.”

“Down this way,” Finley said.

He led her around the stairs. A kitchen was on the left. To the right was a door that led to the basement. The scent was strong around the door: rotting corpses and scented oils. Oils, Avery thought; maybe this is our guy.

Creaky steps led to an expansive, dark basement with a stone floor. The smell was so strong Avery nearly retched: dead bodies and decomposition mixed with sweet-smelling fragrances to hide the scent. Air fresheners hung everywhere between the beams and exposed padding of the ceiling. Boxes lined nearly every wall, hundreds and hundreds of boxes. The only empty space held a long table marred with dried blood and cutting implements

Towards the back was a soiled bed.

A dead body lay on the bed, practically blue and decomposed from time, legs splayed open and tied to posts, along with the hands. It was a girl, someone young that Avery guessed had died years earlier.

Strange, sexual devices surrounded the area: bondage chairs; chains from the ceiling, and a swing. One of the boxes in the back was opened. Avery peeked inside and caught a glimpse of a woman’s body parts.

She held her nose from the stench.

“Jesus.”

“What did I tell you?” Finley beamed. “Crazy shit, right?”

A man lay dead at the foot of the wooden-post bed, 6’2” or 6’3”. He was old and lean, with long gray hair. Maybe sixty, Avery thought. A shotgun was by his hand.

The downed cop sat against a side wall being aided by his friend. Luckily, he’d worn a vest, but some of the shotgun shells had gone through his neck and face.

“My wife’s going to fucking kill me,” the cop said.

“Nah,” the other cop replied, “you’re a hero.”

The basement was dirty. Dust balls were everywhere. The tools on the desk, the desk itself, even the sex equipment had obviously never received a thorough cleaning. Boxes along the back were soiled and nearly falling over.

“I need to make a sweep,” Avery said. “Finley. Check the garage. See if you can find our blue minivan, and disguises, plants, needles: anything related to our case.”

“On it,” he said and bounded up the stairs.

The rest of the house appeared old and unlived in, with no pets and no plants. It was neat, tidier than the basement, but still caked in dust. No indication of any other perversions could be found on the higher floors. Pictures that lined the walls were quaint copies of artists like Bruegel and Monet. The suspect, it seemed, spent most of his time on the second floor, where Avery found his personal effects and clothing.

She headed outside.

The neighborhood had come alive. Police lights still turned. Crowds had gathered around the areas sectioned-off area.

Finley came panting back.

“Just an empty garage with a lot of junk lying around,” he said.

A picture of the killer had already taken shape in Avery’s mind, based off what she’d seen on the surveillance tapes and what she believed from previous experience. She imagined a strong, dainty young man – educated and anti-social, a man that liked art and had a mind for medicinal concoctions. The way he placed his women were like Parish paintings, or works by Alphonse Mucha. Similarly, the drugs he administered were artlike in their own way, drawn from a number of rare, illegal plants and flowers. He was also fastidious about details, and clean, just like the placed bodies with their washed clothing and clean skin.

This house?

The man dead in the basement?

George Fine?