No Rest for the Wicked

4. DONUTS

Stepping out of the elevator, Dexter saw the familiar bullpen before him filled with the hardworking Miami Dade County police. In his right hand he held a large, white box and as he walked he made sure it stayed perfectly horizontal. “Right on time, grasshopper,” Vince Masouka said, moving to meet me. I opened the white box, revealing the donuts I had brought for the day.

“Cream-filled or raspberry?” I asked.

“Cream-filled, of course.” He said and hungrily bit into his probably-not-so-healthy breakfast.

“Hurry up and eat yours,” Vince said, his mouth still filled with his sugar-laden breakfast, “I hear LaGuerta’s got an especially juicy scene for us today.” He said, the donut in his hand having seemingly evaporated over the course of those few seconds. I took a donut of my own – raspberry – and dug in, considering what Masouka would consider ‘especially juicy’ (although, knowing Masouka’s personal life, I’m sure I don’t want to pursue that too much). “Meaning what, exactly?”

“Multiple victims, initial report from the officer on-scene indicates that a bladed weapon was used,” Vince said, taking a file from his desk and flipping through it. “Drug den, so we’ll need toxicology. Tiretracks leading away from the hous–”

“Wait, tiretracks? In Miami?”

“It’s not exactly down-town. It’s a mud-road,” Masouka explained, “Actually, I’m surprised we found the scene as fast as we did. Anyway, as I was saying: Drugs, tiretracks, blood by the bucket-load and no witnesses or suspects. A real mess,” he said happily.

Masouka hadn’t been kidding. There were five victims on the scene, all killed with what I suspected was a large knife of some sort. There was cocaine on the table – presumably the corpses-to-be had been sniffing when the killing began – now coloured red by the not-insignificant amount of blood, that had sprayed across the entire room. The whole scene felt as though I was back on the basic forensics-course, which in retrospect I might as well have been.

What’s this? Had a killer more skilled than him stumped the Diligent Detective Dexter, one capable of hiding his tracks in a whole new and extraordinary way that would leave our Dark Avenger slack-jawed and bewildered? No.

Rather, I had a kid from the Academy with me who was still taking the forensics course. In theory he would only observe and his influence on my work would be minimal, but in practice he was asking so many inane questions that I found it hard to concentrate. I was used to working with professionals, a lot of them specialized in a field and able to give an expert opinion. This kid, though, Jonathan Mitchell, was more of a hindrance than a help. I’d been urged to try and give him some work-experience by giving him some of the more routine assignments that came with the job, but if his interpretations of the bloodspatter were to be taken seriously, it seemed I might as well just retire.

Bloodmisting from exhalation and bloodmisting from a beating were unmistakably different – I ought to know, having dedicated my life to it – yet he insisted that the victims had apparently been subject to a blunt force beating, this despite the light, thin sprays of blood, indicating a long knife had been used. It seemed far more likely, that the knife had penetrated their windpipe and their last few breaths had caused the mist.

I sighed, when he reported his ‘findings’ to me and decided to double-check them to find the actual causes of the mist. I knelt over the corpse marked with a nice yellow sign naming him ‘A’ (of course no ID had come back on the victims yet, so until then he wasn’t even a John Doe). I looked at the man; Hispanic, mid-thirties, dark hair, the front of his chequered shirt covered with misting. My faithful, yet incompetent partner had already taken the necessary pictures so I examined the fabric closely. Much to my surprise it seemed that Jonathan wasn’t as incompetent as I had thought him to be. The blood had come from a blunt-force beating, no question about it, but that left me with another question; when none of the corpses in here bore injuries that would indicate a beating then where had this mist come from? Surely, the laws of physics had not simply decided to play games with Dearly Deranged Dexter?

Though, I admit, it would make this case a lot easier to close.

Five people dead: two Caucasians, two Hispanic and one of middle-eastern descent. One of my fellow Travellers had had a productive night a few days ago and that didn’t account for another variable we’d found; the bloodmisting was AB-negative, a bloodtype none of the Dearly Departed Drug-abusing people had.

Angel Batista had earned his nickname long before any of the rest of us. For a Cuban named Batista it was probably not all that unusual to specify that you weren’t related to Fulgencio Batista, but to the rest of us he was simply Angel-no-relation, a fine detective who even possessed some respect for the ‘lab rats’ of the force, a trait I’ve found mysteriously absent in a lot of officers for reasons unknown.

Now, however he showed his extraordinary skills by crawling around after something under the sofa. “Got something!” he said, pulling back out and revealing his find. In a split-second I had to decide whether it was appropriate to break into a broad grin when I saw what he had found; a bloody stainless steel cooking knife.

And there weren’t just blood on the blade, but on the handle as well. Any fingerprint on the knife would be well-preserved and likely we’d be able to get at least a partial print, which would make this case a lot easier to solve. Of course, if whoever we pulled in turned out to not have an AB-negative bloodtype, then there would be yet another problem.

Still, forensics would be quick on this one.

***

This case would be surprisingly anti-climatic it seemed. The blood on the blade had left an almost-perfectly preserved fingerprint, which Masouka had now fed to the database and was waiting for a match to turn up. The blood on the blade hadn’t been AB-negative, though, which left a few unanswered questions, but none that I couldn’t leave up to Angel. While I was interested in finding out more about the bloodspatter and how the medium velocity impact-spatter had come to be, when the victims didn’t bear any sign of a beating, but quite honestly I felt my summer had been busy enough without adding to it with yet another murderer, whose techniques left me asking questions.

Or, that’s what I thought at first, though.

“We got ‘im,” Angel said, pale and confused, as he handed me a folder. “Got a match for the fingerprint on the blade,” he continued in a detached voice. “The guy who wielded the blade Kamal Ahmed was one of the people found dead on the scene.” I frowned. “The middle-eastern one.”

“That can’t be,” I said, flipping to some of the pictures taken, “Based on the pattern of the blood on the ground, he was the first to go down.” I said, pointing to the distinctive wipe pattern and the shoeprints of more than one of the other people in the room. “The others went down quickly, yes, but I don’t think this guy stabbed himself through his own spine, killed the others and then threw the murder-weapon 10 feet under a sofa.”

Angel looked at me, helplessly, “’Thought I was going crazy. LaGuerta told me to come to you and ask if you’re 100% sure about this guy going down first?”

“Definitely. He could be a textbook case, actually.”

“’Fraid you’d say that.”

“Don’t worry, Angel. We’ll find out who did this,”

“How can you take it this easy? Two of the most heinous serial killers in Miami history in fresh memory and you’re not the least bit worried about another one?”

“Actually, no. We already know a lot about what happened, that he tried to cover up.”

“We do, socio?”

“Yes, we do. First, there was at least one more person present with bloodtype AB-negative – only 0,06% of people in the US has that. Either it’s our killer or there were another person present, in which case we’ll have a good chance of finding him between the known associates of our dear crack-heads.

”Second, this guy clearly knows enough about forensic procedures to try to keep us in the dark. Planting a false fingerprint would’ve worked under a lot of circumstances and if there hadn’t been so many inconsistencies in the evidence, we probably would have overlooked them and simply closed the case.

“Third, and this is most important, our guy has technique. He doesn’t just know how to kill, a lot of people do that, but he enjoys it. It’s a sport, a hobby. If you came to kill five people, wouldn’t you have used a gun? This guy came in using a knife he knew would be practically untraceable, yet it’s not one particularly suited for combat, killed five people up and close, wasting no movement and striking only the most vulnerable areas. He managed to stab one through the heart, sever another’s spine, rip up a pair of Adams apples and leave. That implies training, probably on a tournament level. Not military, the technique is too different.

“Fourth, he felt he had enough time to plant the fake evidence before he left. That indicates that he knew that no one would be visiting in the time it took him to plant the evidence and get out of there. Yet, he didn’t feel the need to dispose of the corpses, instead leaving them for the police to find.”

“And that tells us what?”

“This guy isn’t at all like the Ice Truck Killer who flaunted his kills with an artistic flair, nor like…” I hated myself for mentioning it, “the Bay Harbour Butcher,” the words tasted sour in my mouth. “Who would quietly dispose of his corpses, preferring no one to know about his work.

“This seems at once well-planned and careless. Might even be his first kill.”

“So… no hope of this guy just going away?”

“Sorry, amigo. I think he’ll be sticking around for a while,”

“Shit.”

“I know.”