Blood Samples by Bonansinga Jay

Author:Bonansinga, Jay [Bonansinga, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2013-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

V. NOIR

"The dead of midnight is the noon of thought."

- Anna Barbauld

MAMA

Detective Third-Grade Gene Kilgallon stands alone in a still life from hell.

He wears rubber surgical gloves on his delicate, powdered hands.

He has cotton booties over his Armani loafers.

He writes notes in his spiral-bound, his handwriting forming tight little rows of dark blue ballpoint.

He records observations about the scene: 4:37 AM, Sunday, August 16th, a male Caucasian in his mid thirties slumped over a trundle bed in the corner of a low-rent shotgun shack, apparent cause of death either massive blood loss from apparent lacerations or asphyxiation from apparent ligature marks, depending upon the causes of lividity in the neck and facial areas (ME to determine time of death).

The detective makes precise notes about the blood patterns on the walls of this one-room cabin in which he is standing, the dark smudges indicating a struggle, the dark arterial spray across the refrigerator in the corner, fanning out along the wall, suggesting overkill, suggesting the perp might have known the victim, suggesting a possible grudge-killing.

Kilgallon takes deep breaths between each entry. The writing helps him concentrate, helps him focus on the fresh crime scene, helps him ignore his natural tendency toward over-reaction, toward emotional involvement, toward repulsion. A diminutive man with narrow, intelligent eyes, oversized ears, and razor-groomed black hair, Kilgallon is dressed in his customary double-breasted Brooks Brothers suit, crisp shirt and silk tie. He believes in order and neatness.

Sometimes he hears his mama's shrill voice in the back of his mind, admonishing him for being careless.

He pauses from his writing and takes a good long look at the scene.

The overriding feeling now is one of disappointment.

Only a few moments ago, Kilgallon had thought he had stumbled upon the handiwork of the Red River Killer, a notorious serial murderer whom the Stinson Homicide Squad (in cooperation with the local field office of the FBI) had been hunting for months. What a coup that would have been! A junior detective like Kilgallon, only thirty-two years old and fresh from patrol, still in the fifth month of his sixth-month probationary period, sent out on a simple errand to interview a night watchman at a remote forest preserve: Discovering the latest victim of the Red River Killer.

What a break!

But now... all Kilgallon sees is chaos.

He sees the broken glass strewn around the cabin, and the cardboard cylinder of corn meal lying on the floor, its dust blossoming across cracked linoleum. He sees the overturned chairs, the bloody arc on the mattress ticking, the imprint of a belt buckle on the headboard, and the drip patterns beneath the body indicating the victim was moved, perhaps post-mortem.

This is not the work of the Red River killer.

Kilgallon knows all too well the Red River killer's signature. Kilgallon had studied the Behavioral Science Unit's memos as though cramming for a final exam: The Red River's fetishistic attention to clean-up, the freshly scrubbed surfaces, the faint residue of cleaning fluid, the blood-soaked refuse neatly bagged and stacked near

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