Interruptus

“You are kidding me.” Blair exclaimed with disbelief when Jim dropped a two inch sheaf of paper on his desk. It was late, really late and they’d been chasing this sword theory all day.
“List of recent purchases of katana, wakazashi, and tanto” He declared listing the different types of Japanese blades they were looking at.

On his fevered X trip Jim had been right; the latex impression of the blade that killed the first victim was exactly the configuration of one of these blades. They knew it wasn’t a tanto because of the wound depth. It had been through and through, and a tanto would have been too short so there would have been bruising where the hilt struck the body. That left the wakazashi - the short sword, or the katana - the long sword. They even did some gruesome experimenting on a pig haunch - a dead pig’s haunch - looking at the cutting patterns of a sharp sword. Now they were pretty sure the dead boater was killed in the same way. Jim imagined, a tanto since the wakazashi and katana would be too awkwardly long to cut someone’s throat from behind. What they hadn’t realized was just how many martial artists, weapons fanciers and bored people with money bought swords in Cascade over the last year!

Who the hell would be running around Cascade killing people with a sword? And why? Jim’s working theory was that the killer fancied himself some kind of crime fighter. The first dead guy, by witness testimony from his girlfriend, was smacking her around. She ran from him and that was the last time she saw him. Maybe the slasher ‘saved’ her by taking out the boyfriend. The guy who was killed by his boat was jimmying a cockpit window. They figured that from the screwdriver dropped on the deck and his fingerprints all over the window and sill. Besides, his boat keys were at his house. They figured he got down to the boat, realized he’d forgotten his keys and was breaking in to his own boat.
Still didn’t explain why the Slasher was using swords not a gun or a knife.

“Okay, change of plan.” Their captain declared, bursting into the office.
Blair welcomed the break from scanning the gazillion names in front of him. Simon was holding a file.
“From the coroner’s office. They recovered some metal fragments from the db in the park. They were embedded in the guys vertebrae.” He paused for effect, “ the metal was old, very old. So if you’re theory holds….”
“We’re looking for an old sword.” Blair finished. He dropped his portion of the cursed list with satisfaction. “There’s got to be way fewer people with old swords .”
Jim rocked back in his chair thinking. “Collectors for sure, and the museum.”
“But this is nuts!” Blair declared. “Why is this guy running around with an old sword killing people? What, is he Secret Ninja Guy, Cascade’s Covert Crime fighter?”
“You got your martial arts mixed up, Chief.” Jim said correcting him. “Ninjas don’t use katana - that’s Japanese Samurai stuff.” Abruptly he let his chair settle back to the floor. “Martial arts - this dude is into martial arts right?”
“Maybe. Odds are he didn’t just learn to use a sword without all the other stuff.”
“Cap., remember last year we had a dead body, a known addict, in the park - same area?”
“Yes, petty criminal - had a record of muggings, assaults and petty larceny - to feed his habit no doubt.”
Jim nodded in agreement. “Remember the cause of death?”
“Yeah, somebody smashed his throat in - he asphyxiated.”
“Yeah, but the bruising wasn’t consistent with a blow from a bat or crushing hands…” Jim paused, “I bet you it’s the same guy.”
“Yeah, but no blade.” Blair countered.
Jim nodded, “Yeah, but that injury - fractured larynx, fractured vertebra - that’s a fist or a foot or an elbow or something.” He shrugged. “I dunno, might not be connected anyway, just a feeling I’m getting.”
He turned his attention back to the report Simon had brought in.
“Let’s split this up.” he said to the other two, “Blair and I will check out the museum. It’s after hours, but I bet we could find someone in charge. Captain, you could run down a list of serious weapons collectors in Cascade.”
Simon snorted in disbelief. “Tomorrow. I’ve got things planned with my kid this evening and I’m not going to get on my ex-wife’s shitty side by standing him up again.”
Blair and Jim exchanged a smile. “Good enough captain. We’ll call your cell if we get any good leads.”

As a matter of fact, there was a comprehensive medieval weapons collection on display at the museum. There were a number of Samurai artifacts including weapons in the show. Unfortunately their hopes of a n easy investigation were dashed when the curator insisted that there were no missing pieces and no displays had been vandalized or objects stolen.
“What about archives?” Blair asked.
“Beg pardon?” the curator replied?
“Well, is the entire collection on display?”
“No, not at all. The rest we keep museum storage; the warehouse in back. We have climate controlled vaults there….”
“Would you know if anything had been stolen from the archives.” Jim asked going with Blair’s hunch.
The curator hesitated, uncertain. “Well, I’m not sure.” He frowned. “I could have my technicians go through the pieces one at a time and match them to the inventory, but that would take at least a day.”
“We’d appreciate your doing that, sir.” Blair said. Because he saw how reluctant the curator still was to embark on such a project, he added, “we have reason to believe the Cascade Slasher is using an old wakazashi or tanto to commit these crimes.”
“Good gracious!” The man exclaimed. “You’ll have that inventory by close of business tomorrow.”

They were unsurprised the next evening when the curator reported that indeed, a katana, wakazashi and tanto were missing from a locked, limited access, climate-controlled vault at the warehouse. Much put out by the burglary, the curator had anticipated their actions and also provided a list of people with access to the vault.
“Yancy Tate.” Blair said out loud.
“Where’ve I heard that name before?” Jim asked leaning over to look at the personnel file provided. The non-descript fellow gazing out of the picture immediately rang a bell.
“I know this guy. About a year ago he stopped an assault in the park across from the museum. Made the paper. I remember, he wanted to be a cop, but he didn’t make the height requirement….” his voice tapered off as both he and Blair made the same connection.
“Son of a bitch!” Jim swore. “He stopped that assault with some kick ass martial arts moves!”
“So you think what?”
“Look at how he fits the profile; he’s a wannabe cop, he got a taste of the limelight when he stopped that crime, he’s got the martial arts background, he as access to the vault, the swords are missing….” Jim shrugged - what else do we need?
When they ran it past their captain, he agreed that they should at least go talk to the guy before taking the step of getting a warrant to search his house. Just on the off chance they were wrong about him.

The warehouse seemed deserted by the time they got there. It was well after hours so regular staff was gone. Somewhere in the huge, dark building Yancy Tate patrolled. The vast space was divided by self contained climate-controlled rooms each running it’s own compressor so that if one container failed the others would not be compromised. The hum of the multitude of compressors was overwhelming to Jim’s senses. Without it he would have been able to find Yancy in the cavernous room by just listening for his heartbeat or footfall. As it was, all this background hum worked like white noise obliterating other frequencies.

Jim spied a catwalk that ran the length of the warehouse above all the climate-controlled vaults and headed for it. Up there he could at least use his other senses to find Yancy if he couldn’t isolate the compressor-hum, and eliminate it.

One minute Blair was taking Jim through a guided meditation, helping him isolate his senses, put the feedback in some kind of order…then he was staring stupidly at the blade that sprouted out of Jim’s chest. A blade so sharp that it sliced through the Kevlar vest twice - from back to front.
Just as quickly it was withdrawn and Jim fell to the catwalk floor.
Blair had no knowledge of how his gun came into his hand but he emptied the clip into the security guard standing behind Jim, bloody katana still in his grasp. The bullets punched him back and back till he went over the rail of the catwalk to the factory floor.
“No no no no no no” He tore off the bullet proof vest and Jim’s shirt to expose the wounds. The front one frothed pink - a lung hit, sucking chest.
“Goddammit, goddammit.” He slapped his hand over the hole to seal it and called in the back up with his other hand.

Simon had heard the “shots fired” call come in over the radio and hand made a mad Uey to turn back towards town, coming in so fast he almost beat the ambulance there. He came pounding up the catwalk just behind the paramedics and was greeted by a sight that made him stumble. Blair had Jim in his arms, and he was crying and swearing. Jim looked dead, staring as he was, in shock. Blood leaked out of his mouth and nose. As he watched, Jim’s eyes rolled back into his head and he was gone.
“NO, NO, NO, NO! ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY NOT, JIM!” Blair shouted.
Jim took a quivering half breath as if to oblige.