Progeny (3 page)

I walked over and took a spot next to Rick and Pax.

“Any evidence?” I asked.

“We’re going to take the gauze the man wore back to the lab and process it. We’ve learned a few things here, though,” Rick said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I’ll let Ed go over it with you,” Rick said.

Ed removed the gloves he wore and went to the sink to wash up. He spoke over the sound of the running faucet. “The incisions that removed the skin were surgical in nature. You can see it clearly—definitely a scalpel. The same tool was used to cut the man’s throat.”

“That was the cause of death?” I asked.

Ed shook his head, bumped the faucet off with the back of his wrist, and dried his hands. “No. We have ligature marks in the muscle around his neck. It looks like he was choked with something thin, electrical cord or something of that nature. I believe the cut to the throat from the scalpel was to drain the blood.”

I didn’t respond.

Ed pointed at the body. “Same scalpel for the skin though, like I said. You can see how neat the cuts are around the ears.”

I looked at the cuts. They were indeed neat and precise.

Ed stepped back to us, across the table that the man’s body lay upon.

“Anything to help us with an identification?” I asked.

“We have a tissue sample for DNA. That’s about it, aside from a height, weight, approximate age, and race,” Rick said.

“So what are those?” I asked.

“Seventies, from what I can tell. I have the height at five-seven. The weight of the remains is one hundred and ninety-one. Probably a few pounds more with the skin and blood.”

I pulled my notepad from my suit pocket and jotted down what Ed had told me.

“Tox screen?” I asked.

“We’re still waiting on it… but…” Ed let out a breath and scooped up a folder from the stainless-steel shelf running along the wall. “Have a look at this.”

He handed me the folder. I flipped it open and thumbed through the first couple pages. They appeared to be old documents of some sort. I stopped when I reached the photos.

“I was the assistant medical examiner for the Redding murders. I had Brenda dig through our archives and find the file,” Ed said.

I looked at the photos of four men. They were all identical.

“Look here,” Ed said. He pointed at the areas of skin remaining on our corpse and then at the corresponding images in the folder. “See that?” he asked. “Identical. And look here.” Ed pointed at the legs of the man on the table and then at the photos. “You see the damage to the leg muscles here?” That’s where they were hung.”

“Hung?” I asked.

“Hung upside down to drain the blood while the skin was removed.”

I was quiet, looking for words. “So, um, we have a copycat. Is that what you’re saying?” I asked.

“It’s damn near perfect,” Ed said.

I flipped the folder closed. “I didn’t live down here when this was going on. How much did the press actually know? How many of the details were actually distributed?” I asked.

Ed scratched his bushy eyebrows. “Never any specifics, Kane.”

“That’s leaving us a couple options.” I took a moment and thought about it further. “Someone on the inside got access to either your or the police’s files. Redding shared his methods with someone, or he had an accomplice. Whatever the exact scenario is, someone is out recreating his work.”

Ed nodded. “If they are, we’ll be seeing more bodies. And I doubt it was from our end, as far as the files go.”

“How are you so certain?”

“We store our archives here. I’m the only person who has the key, and this is the only file. Someone would have had to get in and make copies or memorize this file without my knowledge. It’s just not that likely is all I’m saying.”

I thumbed the folder back open and searched for dates on the sheets but didn’t see any. “Where are the dates on these, Ed?”

He peered around the side of my shoulder and flipped back to the first page. “These first couple are overviews.” He thumbed four or five pages in. “There you go.” Ed’s finger landed on a date, April 10, 1984. “Thirty years ago today,” he said.

I thumbed to the next date, the next, and then the final. “Four days in succession, we found bodies?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Ed said.

“Okay, Rick, Pax, why don’t you guys get back and see what you can get from that gauze. Get going on whatever photos and fingerprints you guys got from the scene this morning. I’ll check in with you back at the station later this afternoon.”

“Sounds good,” Rick said. He and Pax started for the door.

“Rick,” I said.

He stopped and turned.

“Find out where our evidence, files, and everything else is on the Quilter case. Have someone bring it to you guys in forensics.”

“Will do.”

Rick and Pax left the room.

“Do you have anything going on at the moment, Ed?” I asked.

“I just need to get our body here wrapped up and taken next door to storage. What’s up?”

“Can you hold off on that for a few minutes? I need you to give me a history lesson on the Quilter case.”

“Sure. Let’s head to my office. Bring that file. We’ll get it copied.”

I followed Ed out.

Angel peered out at the street through broken blinds. Policemen walked up and down the block, knocking on doors. They had already stopped at her front door, but she hadn’t answered. The home they stood in had been rented by Angel six months prior. The deteriorating bungalow had two windows at the front with a small, covered front porch. One of the front windows was broken at the bottom. A brown tarp covered the back of the home’s roof, where shingles were missing. The front of the garage had been cinderblocked in to create a makeshift bedroom. Most of the paint had worn from the exterior stucco. A small chain-link fence wrapped the perimeter of her lot. The neighboring houses stood just ten feet away on both sides. Neither of the two looked much better from the curb. Across the street was an empty lot.

When it had hit the market for rent, she acquired it for Carmen. Carmen had lived in the neighborhood with Angel’s father years back—the house they lived in used to stand in the vacant lot across the street. Carmen stated that every time she looked out the front window, over at the lot, a memory of Jack would come back. She stood in the window staring out, often.

The police returned to her side of the street.

“Mama, I think they are coming back.”

“Don’t worry about it, baby.” Carmen rose from their old green couch. She stretched her back and smiled. She walked to Angel at the window and ran her hand through Angel’s hair. “They don’t know anything, they’re just going door to door. Now, what kind of cake does my baby want for her birthday?”

Angel turned back toward the window to continue watching the cops. “Don’t be silly. I don’t need a cake.”

“You’re getting a cake. Me, you, and your father’s spirit are going to sit down as a family and celebrate your birthday.”

Angel looked back to Carmen. “Is that what he wants?”

Carmen nodded. “He told me this morning.”

Angel went quiet.

“Now what’s your problem?” Carmen asked.

Angel sulked. “He didn’t tell me anything this morning.”

Carmen took her by the chin. “He talks through me, to you. Why do we need to go over this every five minutes?” She squeezed Angel’s jaw. “He’ll talk to you when he’s ready.”

“Fine.”

Carmen pushed Angel’s face as she released her grip. “Quit being such a baby.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Carmen mimicked in a high voice. “That’s all I ever hear from you. Your father probably doesn’t talk to you because he doesn’t want to hear your whining. Toughen up.”

Angel raised her hand as if she was about to hit Carmen. “Do you want to see me toughen up?”

Carmen’s eyes locked on her. “Do it, and it will be the last thing you do.”

Angel set her jaw and stared at Carmen.

“What!” Carmen yelled. She stared at the ceiling. “I’m not actually going to do anything to her, geez.”

Angel watched Carmen. “What is he saying?”

Carmen dismissed Angel’s question. “Okay, okay,” Carmen said. “Fine. I’ll tell her.”

“Tell me what?” Angel asked.

Carmen took her eyes from the ceiling and looked back at Angel. “He doesn’t want us to fight.”

“Anything else?”

“He says he can’t wait to see you.”

“Really?” Angel smiled.

“Really, Angel.” Carmen shook her head. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, baby. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mama.”

Carmen took Angel in her arms. “Is everything set for the next?” she asked.

“Yes. I got the stuff I needed. We can go tomorrow, like we talked about. I did good with the last one, right?”

“You did. Very good,” Carmen said. “We still have a lot more work to do, though. We need to get moving.”

“I know.” Angel’s phone rang in her pocket. She slid it out, brushed her long dark hair from her ear, and answered. “Hello.”

“Hi, honey. Happy thirty-third.”

“Hi, Marcy. Thanks.”

“I wished you still called me Mom.”

“But you’re not my mom.”

Carmen grabbed Angel by the shoulder. “Is that that bitch? She’s not your mother!”

Angel put a finger over her own lips to quiet Carmen.

“I’ll put a shotgun in her mouth just like Cynthia!” Carmen snapped.

Angel covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “Shh. She’ll hear you.”

Carmen let out a breath in anger and walked back to the couch.

“It breaks my heart to hear you say that,” Marcy said.

Angel rolled her eyes. “Did you really call me to go through this today?”

“No. I didn’t. I wanted to see if you had plans today. If you’re not doing anything, maybe you can come over for dinner?”

Angel stared out the front window. She saw the police at the neighbor’s front door. “I’m busy.”

“With what?” Marcy asked.

“I just have a lot of stuff going on.”

“New man?” Marcy asked.

Angel smirked. “Kind of.”

“I’m not interrupting, am I?”

The cops outside made a right up the small sidewalk leading to her front door. “Shit, I have to go, Marcy.”

“Well, hold on a second, your father wants to say happy birthday.”

The cops walked up the front steps. Angel pulled her fingers from the blinds and retreated backward. “He’s not my father, and I said I have to go.”

Angel clicked the phone off and jammed it into her pocket.

The police officers knocked on the front door. Angel looked at Carmen on the couch.

Carmen grabbed a can of air freshener from the coffee table and sprayed it into the air. She set it back down on the table and gave the okay to answer.

Angel unlocked the door and swung it open. She rubbed her eyes. “Can I help you?”

Two uniformed police officers stood in front of her, one older, one younger—one thin, one round. She looked at their name plates: Henry and Telwan.

“Hello, miss. I’m Officer Telwan. This is Officer Henry. We’re from the Tampa Police Department. We’re investigating a crime that took place last night down the block here at the park. We’re just going door to door and asking if anyone had seen anything suspicious going on over there.”

“You obviously don’t live in this neighborhood. There’s always something suspicious going on over at that park,” Angel said.

“Happen to see anything last night or early this morning?” the older of the two, named Henry, asked.

“No. I just got up.”

The one named Henry poked his head in the door. He turned up his nose, apparently put off by the smell.

Angel recognized the cop being bothered by the odor. “Sorry if it smells in here. We had a raccoon get in through the roof. Died up in the attic. We got him out, but not the smell of him yet.

The officer nodded and looked at Carmen. “What about you, ma’am? Happen to see anything this morning?”

Carmen rose from the couch, sprayed some more air freshener, and walked to the door. She stood at Angel’s side. “Sorry. We’re just starting to get up and around today. What happened?” She put her hand in her back pocket and wrapped it around the handle of a scalpel.

The two officers looked at each other. Telwan answered. “We found the body of a deceased male.”

Carmen covered her mouth with her free hand. “That’s terrible. This neighborhood is getting worse and worse by the day. I think we’ve had two shootings down there in the last month.” She shook her head. “Um, I wish I could help, but like she said, we’re just getting up. We haven’t even been outside this morning.”

“Okay, ma’am. If you happen to think of anything, please call the Tampa Police Department.”

“Absolutely,” Carmen said. “Do you have a card or something?”

The officers each handed her one.

“Thank you for your time,” the one named Telwan said. The two cops turned and walked from the porch.

Angel closed the front door and leaned against it. “I told you we should have dumped that guy somewhere farther from here.”

“It’s fine, dear.” Carmen pointed toward the back room of the house. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

Angel followed Carmen from the home’s living room, back toward the additional bedroom that had once been the garage. Carmen pushed the door open, and the pair entered.

Angel had spent the last few months getting the room set up exactly as Carmen instructed. New lighting was put in, as well as a tile floor. Angel had taught herself everything she needed to know to do all the work herself. Center stage in the garage was a winch hanging from the rafters.

The back walls of the room were lined with tanning chemicals and equipment on shelving units. Different-sized frames for stretching hides were propped against the side walls. A rolling stainless-steel bread rack held trays filled with pieces of skin, drying under salt.

Angel took a seat at a work area in the corner. On the right corner of the table was a jar containing a couple sets of dentures. Directly in front of her was the back skin from the man in the park. She lifted a fleshing knife from the table and placed its blade on the skin.

Carmen rested her hand on Angel’s shoulder. “You have to be real careful, baby, or it will rip through.”