Coffee, the dark nectar of life, was amazing at injecting caffeine into a groggy mind, but there was only so much that it could do. For instance, if you have stayed awake for longer than twenty-four hours, a pot will not do you much good. Detective David King was finding that out. He was making his second pot when his phone rang. He fumbled with the thing in his pocket before he was able to answer. “Hello,” he said, his gruff voice laced with agitation.
“Oh wow, someone isn’t having a good evening.” It was Anderson. There were times when King was happy to hear Ben’s voice, this was not one of them. If he could reach through the phone and choke the asshat, he would have gladly done so.
King pressed the phone between his ear and shoulder to take a sip of his coffee. “I haven’t gone to sleep yet,” he admitted. In all honesty, he hadn’t even known what time it was until his friend had called. 8:45. He was late for work. Surprised no one had called him before then. Captain probably had something to do with that. “You don’t call to chat. What’s going on?” Not when there was work to be had, at least. Anderson did call every once in awhile to talk or invite King to get a beer, an offer he took him up on most of the time. More so, now that he was alone. Tonight, however, he was all business.
“Doctor Phillips wants to talk to you.”
It was never good when Phillips, Bates City medical examiner, wanted to speak with anybody. That meant there was something strange with the examination. “I’ll be there in twenty,” King said and hung up, no time to say goodbye. Twenty minutes didn’t leave time for a shower, so he had to pray that he didn’t stink as he grabbed his keys and headed out the door, not even bothering to change clothes. Gross, he knew, but he was on a bit of a time limit.
It took King fifteen minutes to reach the medical examiner’s office; his best time yet. The office was a lone, stout brick building with double steel doors as an entrance. There were limited windows and every one of them had bars going across them. It had always felt, to King, that whoever designed the building was trying to keep the dead from getting out. He knew that was not the case. It was so people didn’t break in and destroy evidence, which had happened on more than one occasion; security measures had been taken to ensure it would never occur again.
Doctor Charles Phillips was in his office, on the first floor, waiting for King. “You look like shit,” the good doctor informed him, never one for white lies. Doctor Phillips was a plump man with a head that grew out of his shoulders, skipping the neck. His eyes were so dark, they were almost black. A combination which had earned him the nickname Owl. To enforce the nickname, he wore horn-rimmed glasses.
“Is that your medical opinion, Chuck?” The glare King received from the shorter man could have melted ice. Chuck, in Phillips opinion, was the most idiotic nickname you could ever call someone named Charles. Owl wasn’t much better, but the latter would at least get a chuckle from him. “What do you got for me?”
“Some fucked up shit that I don’t know what to make of.” That had to be the first time King had heard Phillips admit to something like that. He was a man that enjoyed the strange. Liked to point out the disturbing facts in a murder and smile as he did so (you had to have some kind of dark humor in his field). It had to be really fucked up for him to say something like that. King waited for the man to continue. “C’mon. I’ll show you.” Oh yeah, this was fucked.
The medical examiner’s building was three stories, one on top, a basement, and a sub-basement.. The pair went down to sub-basement, which was where the morgue resided; the basement was nothing but filing cabinets full of records and old reports. The corpse of Andrew Wood was still on the examination table. All of the blood had been cleaned off of the man, making the gaping hole in his chest all the more out of place.
“I called as soon as I was finished examining the body,” Phillips started, walking to the other side of the table, “I thought you would want to see this.” Not really, but it was part of King’s job to look at such things. He really didn’t know what he was looking at, aside from a body missing a heart. So, he prompted Phillips to inform him. “This heart was not cut out.”
That certainly got the detective’s attention. “What do you mean it wasn’t cut out?”
“Do you see these marks?” Phillips pointed out scratches on the visible bones. King nodded. “They’re teeth marks.” Okay. They were teeth marks. What exactly was the significance in that. The lack of sleep slowed down King’s thinking. Phillips gave him an annoyed glare. “Something ate his heart out of his chest. While he was still alive, mind you.”
No. That wasn’t possible. Only an animal was capable of doing something like that, and there were no signs of anything other than humans in the house. No prints, no hairs. Not to mention there had only been handprints, human handprints, on either side of the body’s chest. A human could not eat through human bone. Jaw muscles were not strong enough. “Are you sure they’re not tool marks?” King knew he was insulting Phillips just a bit, but there had to be another explanation. There just had to be.
“Nope. They are definitely teeth marks. From what, I have no idea. Not my field. I’m having someone come by and look. She should be able to let us know what it could be.” Phillips covered the body, finished with the macabre show. “I can tell you, whatever it was, it was pretty big.”
Jessica has said something about a big dog, but the detective tossed the thought aside. He already knew no animals had been in the house. No use coming back to it. “When will your expert arrive?”
“Tomorrow, but I really don’t think she’s going to be much help. I have never seen anything like this before, and I’ve dealt with animal’s before.”
King cast a skeptical eye. There had to be some kind of animal that matched these marks. This murder was unusual, but it was not unnatural. “Let me know what she says.” He would have preferred to be there when she arrived, but he was going to have to sleep sometime.
“Will do. I already faxed my full report to the station. It should be on your desk by now. I emailed it, too. Just in case.” The fax was more for the Captain than King. Captain Williams was less technically inclined than most, though he was just a short five years older than King.
The pair headed out of the room, and up the stairs. Only King left the building, Phillips returning to his office. The air outside was nice. A little on the warm side, but there was a nice cool breeze to even it out. It was also quiet; the medical examiner building was on the border of Bates City, and was the only building active building in the area. Quiet enough he could think. Mostly about Woods’ heart. He still couldn’t fathom the idea that something had ate the man’s heart, while he was still alive. What would drive someone, or something, to do such a thing?
When King reached his car, his phone rang. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket. When he saw the name on the screen, he froze like a deer in the headlights. It was his wife, Tabitha. Ex-wife. He was going to have to remember that. Well, sort of. They weren’t technically divorced. They were never going to get back together, but they were still married. Yeah, didn’t make sense to him either.
After the third ring, he picked up. “Hey, Tabby,” he said, hoping she couldn’t hear the drain in his voice. She, being his wife, always knew when he was exhausted on the phone. He was trying to avoid a lecture.
“Hello, David.” It was so nice to hear her voice. That was the first time she had called him since their separation. Hearing her calm, gentle tone had always put him at ease, made him feel loved, and it did the same still. “How have you been doing?”
“I’m doing good.” Just a little white lie. No need to made her worry about him. She had enough on her mind with her father, Owen, and his Alzheimer’s. He wanted to be the last thing on her mind. “How about you?”
“Doing okay. Could be better. Could be worse.” A silence fell between the two, neither knowing what to say. King could imagine her tugging at the end of her strawberry blonde hair as she tried to think of something to say, which she finally did. “I heard someone killed your killer.”
King rested his head on the roof of his car. Not exactly where he wanted this conversation to go, but he felt it necessary to respond. He still wanted to hear the sound of her voice. “Yeah. I’m trying to catch them now.” When the news caught wind that The Crucifix Killer had been murdered, there was celebration. People were glad the streets were safe once again! What they failed to realize was that someone possibly much worse had killed the man. They just gave credit to some good samaritan. It was wrong, but not their fault for believing that. The details of Andrew Woods’ murder had not been made public. No one knows what that woman did to him. If they did, they would not be so happy. Just as scared, or more so.
Another silence, this one much different than the first. Tabitha wanted to say something, King could feel it, but she didn’t know how to put it into words. There was a murder to solve, but he could give her the time he hadn’t before to collect her thoughts. “Get off the case. I have a really bad feeling about it. Please, get off the case.” There was fear in her voice. Genuine fear. Tabitha had gotten bad feelings before, she believed herself to be a “sensitive,” but had never sounded terrified as she did right then.
“You know it doesn’t work like that,” he sighed. Since he walked into Woods’ house, something had been telling him to get out. To get off of the case. Hell, to get out of town. Something, he didn’t know what, was going to happened, and it wasn’t going to be good. Woods’ death was just the beginning. Tabitha just confirmed that fear. But he couldn’t go, couldn’t get off the case. A morbid curiosity had taken hold. He had to know who that woman was. Had to. No matter what, he was going to find out.
King practically felt Tabitha’s jaw clench. She knew exactly why he was staying. “Fine. Just be careful. I don’t want Anderson to have to call me to tell me you’re dead.”
“I’m always careful,” he tried to reassure her.
“No, you’re not,” she replied, her voice trembling. King’s heart shattered. His wife was scared. Terrified for his safety, and it was mostly his fault. Getting off the case would be easy. All he had to do was tell Captain he wanted off, and that was it. Captain Williams had told him several times that if he wants off a case, or doesn’t want to take one, he didn’t have to. There were plenty of other detectives that would gladly do so. But King just couldn’t let go. He had to solve them. Had to know who did it and why. Had to face the monsters himself. It was the same this time, but he knew it was going to be dangerous. Felt it in his bones. Tabitha felt it, too.
Tabitha sniffed back her tears, and exhaled slowly. “I have to go. If I stay on here any longer, I’m going to cry, and then I’ll have to kick your ass.” They shared a chuckle, at the inside joke. The first time she had said that, was when he had asked her to marry him. She had started to bawl like a baby, and then got mad at him for it. Told him she was going to kick his ass for making her cry. She said it on their wedding day as well. It was during their first dance. Her head had been resting on his shoulder, her long, strawberry blond hair down and sway in time with the dance, and her normally pale face red and puffy from crying. She had whispered it in his ear so no one else could hear. It had been the second happiest moment of his life, the first when his daughter was born nine months after that.
“I love you, Tabby.” He poured his heart into those four words, hoping she could hear the love he still had for her. Even if they never got back together, he wanted her to know how he felt about her. She was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him, and gave him the greatest gift in the world.
“I know you do,” Tabitha said, and then hung up. That stung. Stung quite a bit. He wanted badly to hear his wife, say she loved him as well. It would have made it night. But he couldn’t blame her for not saying it. There was no doubt that she loved him, but she had been upset with him. Once again, he had chosen his job over her. She had just pleaded for him to drop a case, afraid for his safety, and he had blew her off. If the roles had been reversed, he would have been pissed as well.
King placed the phone in his pocket and got in the car. For ten minutes, he just sat there, thinking. Thought about Tabitha, what he wanted in life, and the case. He had to solve this case. No matter what, he had to do it. He was already on it, firmly latched, and couldn’t let go of that. But he wanted his wife back. That wasn’t going to happen unless he got himself off of the job. Retiring was an option. He had already done his twenty years. Had solved many cases as a detective. Captured many monsters. There would always be more monsters, but there will more people to catch them. The good were always outnumbered, but they would have to fight them regardless. He could always help as a consultant, if it was asked of him. But the case he was currently on had to be solved
His mind was made up. He started the car and drove to the station. When he informed Captain Williams of his intentions, the man looked at him, a grin on his face, and said, “About damn time.” At least one of them was enthused of his decision.
Sin Eater 