Authors: Paizley Stone
The Lady Killer
Copyright © 2011 Paizley Stone
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1466406674
ISBN-13: 9781466406674
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62345-362-6
This book is dedicated to Beth and Frank.
Thank you for all your love,
friendship and encouragement.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person or situation is purely coincidental. All character names have been chosen at random.
CONTENTS
D
etective Laura Peterson awoke in a cold sweat. It was the same nightmare she had been having since she took this latest case. Running down a dark ally from a maniacal monster with glowing, yellow eyes and sharp teeth, she trips. Just as the creature is about to devour her, she wakes up with her heart pounding and a scream in her throat. It had been five months since the first body was found. Even though she had covered many cases in her career, none of them frightened her like this one. She had never encountered a killer so cold blooded, cleaver and illusive. Every clue led them in circles, until it finally dead-ended with the next victim. Each murder was staged exactly the same, as far as the body was concerned, but contained different evidence, which ultimately proved to be inconclusive.
As her feet hit the floor she muttered to herself, “Five in the morning. You might as well get up. Maybe something will break on the case today. Maybe something will be different, and you’ll get the one clue you need to finally put this guy away. You have to stop talking to yourself, or people will think you’re crazy. Why? No one is here to hear me.”
She laughed at her little play on words. Thinking out loud had become a bad habit from years of living by herself between dysfunctional relationships. It wasn’t really a bad life. Sometimes it was a little depressing, but she’d rather spend life alone than end up like one of her recent five victims, tortured and murdered in an abandoned building. As she stepped into the shower, she wondered how these women had wound up like that. Had they trusted someone who turned out to be the monster of their own nightmares?
Trust had always been an issue for her since childhood. The people who were supposed to protect her were the ones she feared the most. Did a functional family unit actually exist somewhere, other than on fictional TV shows from the sixties? Unlike her, there were people in life who loved their relatives and missed them when they were gone. In her line of work she saw it all the time, grieving spouses, mothers and fathers. It wasn’t easy being the one who had to deliver the bad news about murdered victims and question the families. Looking into their eyes and seeing the tears made her wonder even more about her own apathy toward death. Did having no emotional attachments of her own make her the perfect homicide detective? It wasn’t that she didn’t have empathy for them, or care that a life had been taken before its time. It was just that after years of seeing the same things over and over again, she became numb.
That’s what scared her most about the sick bastard she was chasing now. He brought up a sense of vulnerability in her, which she just couldn’t shake. Most murders were predictable and solved rather quickly, even if she didn’t have the actual perpetrator in custody. The motive was usually passion, greed or revenge. Even the seemingly senseless gang killings had hatred spawned by a history similar to the Hatfields and the McCoys. But this guy seemed to kill just for the pleasure of torturing his victims and leading the police on a wild goose chase.
She wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and took a long look. When had she gotten all those little lines on her face? How had she become the mechanical robot that got up, went to work each morning, and then crashed after a fourteen hour day only to get up and do it all over again? It wasn’t that she had to force herself, it was just who she was. To quote John Cougar Mellencamp, “life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.” Or was it just John Mellencamp at that time? Why didn’t he shorten it to John Cougar? That sounded far more like a rock star to her; not that she knew that much about being a rock star, or anything else other than a detective. These were just things she wondered about and would probably never get answers to. Her mind worked that way. Maybe that was what made her a good detective, she always thought outside the box. Many times she had been considered insane for the theories she came up with, but no one could fault her success rate, until now.
After getting dressed, she looked at herself in the full length mirror next to her closet. She was about medium height and slim. Her long, curly, brown hair fell gently around her face, and she had a graceful stance. People had told her that she was pretty, but she couldn’t see it herself. Her therapist said that was because of a poor self image. A long sigh came out of her as she thought about getting old. “Forty-two isn’t that old yet, maybe.” She had this deep fear of dying alone in some God forsaken nursing home, at the mercy of attendants who didn’t care. “Wow, depressing thoughts to start the day off! That’s my girl.”
Laura arrived at the precinct deep in thought. It was one of those times when you get somewhere but can’t remember driving. This case was getting to her and that was hard to do. Normally, she had nerves of steel, but now she felt more like gelatin. As she walked through the front door, the familiar smell of a building that was old and uncared for greeted her. That was something that would never change. Each brick had been placed there decades before by someone who no doubt had passed on to a different place, but his work had stood the test of time. How many detectives had passed through that doorway over the years? Considering how unstable she felt right then, it was reassuring to touch things as solid as wood and mortar.
She walked down the dark, musty hallway to the elevators and rode up to her office. Before she could sit down at her desk, she saw Captain Paul Rutledge coming toward her. “What are you doing in this early, Sir?”
“They just found another one, and there’s a twist this time.”
Her heart sank at the thought. “What now?”
“There’s a second body at the scene. They want you down there right away. We need to catch this guy, and catch him soon. The city is in a panic, and women are afraid to go out of their homes after dark. I don’t have to tell you that I have the Commissioner breathing down my neck, do I, Detective?”
“No, Sir, I understand. I want this guy as badly as anyone else, but we just can’t get a handle on him. Nothing about this set of murders makes any sense. We really do need a break.”
“Detective Murphy is already down there. I told him you would be on your way as soon as you got in.”
Laura looked puzzled. “Why didn’t you call and let me know?”
“Because I know you so well, and it has been almost a month since the last body. He has been killing once a month, so he was due. I knew you couldn’t sleep with that kind of pressure. You might not think I see what goes on around here, but I hear all the rumors, and I know the hours you’ve been putting in. When I say we need this one, it’s not because I doubt you in any way. I hope you know that.”
“Yes, Sir, I know it’s just concern on your part, but I think I’m beginning to doubt myself.”
“Laura, we have known each other more years than either of us will admit, and I’ve never seen you let me down or lose faith in yourself. Don’t start now!”
W
hen she arrived at the crime scene, she took a brief pause to collect herself. Normal blood and guts murder scenarios didn’t bother her that much, but this guy was a real sick puppy! What he did to these women was unspeakable, but she had to face it head on if she was going to get anywhere on this case. As soon as she opened the door, she saw Detective Dan Murphy headed toward her car. At least she got to see the hunky, Irish, calendar-boy first. He was very tall and muscular with a dazzling smile that she tried hard to ignore, even though it wasn’t working.
“Hey, it’s the same killer for certain.”
“Good morning to you also.”
Dan got a sheepish look on his face. The last thing he wanted was to look bad in front of her. “Sorry, Peterson, I didn’t mean to be so abrupt, but I’m unnerved by this set of murders.”
“No, Murphy, I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m trying to keep some sense of normalcy in a world that makes absolutely no sense to me right now.”