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The next morning, Sweeny glared down at the autopsy report that sat on his desk. It was not that the report itself was the source of his anger. It didn't tell him anything that he did not already know. He could tell that Mrs. Harper had been hung upside down with her legs shoved through the wall while she was still alive, so the bruising on her legs in the report was only to be expected. He was also aware that the cause of death was disembowelment. That much had been obvious to everybody that saw her body before she had been taken down.
The report underneath it did not have any new information for him either. The nurse, Susan, had obviously died after a frying pan handle had been shoved into her mouth with extreme force. The killer was strong. Sweeny had to grant him that. The wounds to her neck and wrists had obviously occurred before she had died. The bruising on her cheek was evidence that she had been hit at least twice in the face before she encountered the handle as well. All of this had been known to Sweeny at his first sight of the bodies. None of it gave him any insight whatsoever.
The report underneath both of these was not from the coroner's office, but it was equally as pointless. It was from the CSI group that had gone out and looked for anything that they could use to find this bastard. Sure, they had found plenty of James' fingerprints, but that was to be expected. He had come out and said that he had been there, and amazingly enough modern science had proved that he was telling the truth about that. What the same modern science could not do, however, was tell him anything about the killer. The only proof they had that he had been there was the two dead bodies that had been transferred to Martin's Mortuary.
Apparently he had the foresight to slip on some gloves before doing any of his dirty work. On top of that, he had also been clever enough to think about the possibility that some of his skin could be under his victims' fingernails. Both women's hands had been thoroughly sterilized after the finger nails were expertly cleaned. Not a single scrap of DNA had been left for analysis. There were not even any hairs that did not belong to either the nurse or Mrs. Harper. The killer had left no smudges, foot prints, or anything.
Sweeny had hoped that maybe even the tray of partially eaten bacon and eggs would have just a little bit of the mad man's saliva, but apparently he had only had an appetite for murder. The only person that had been eating any of that food was the sick woman. Well that and her cat that had been smart enough to get out of the man's way. It had come back and had stolen a few bites of egg before one of the crime scene guys had shooed it away. After that, it had sat at a distance and glared at everybody until someone from animal control arrived to pick it up.
None of this, however, was what really had been the source of Sweeny's malice. What angered him the most was the report that was not on his desk yet. It was the autopsy report for Detective Anderson. Stupid George Anderson. It was shortly after Sweeny had finished up at the coroner's office; he had received a call from the dispatcher saying that Anderson was missing.
Apparently an officer had showed up outside of the Harper residence in order to relieve Anderson, who had taken the first shift, but the detective was not there. At first Sweeny thought that this was because he had followed James and Jennifer over to the coroner's office. He thought it seemed strange that George would not have come in to see him when he saw that his car was parked outside, but then again Detective Anderson was a strange man.
Anderson had never liked the idea of teamwork. He always seemed to resent it whenever Sweeny got involved in one of his cases. He had accused Sweeny on a number of occasions of being a glory hog that tried to make everybody else look bad. The truth was that Sweeny just wanted to catch bad guys. He would have loved to have help on all of the cases that came his way, but he was rarely offered such assistance, and never did any come from Anderson. So it was not too strange that he preferred to stay in his car and wait for James and Jennifer to leave and continue following them.
What was strange about it was that Anderson would have known that he had a replacement coming. It would have been natural to assume that while he would want to keep Sweeny in the dark, he would have at least had the courtesy to let his replacement know why he would not be at his post. Maybe Anderson just did not think all that naturally, though. Sweeny had told the officer to stay at his post and let him know if Anderson or James Harper showed back up.
About twenty minutes later, the officer called and said that James and his girlfriend had returned to the apartment, but Detective Anderson had not. At this point, Sweeny began to suspect foul play. He told the dispatcher to alert all patrol units to keep an eye out for Anderson's car, and let him know immediately if they were able to find him. It had been shortly after midnight when the call came in.
Sweeny had still been dressed and alert due to the case bothering him, so it did not take him very much time to get over to the south side of the Mesa Mall parking lot. Situated about halfway between Chuck E Cheese and Taco Bell, his car sat with him in the driver's seat. Before Sweeny even got out of his car to talk to the patrolmen, an ambulance pulled into the parking lot without even using its siren or lights and a CSI van pulled in behind it. This was not a good sign, but at least it showed that the officers on patrol had good heads on their shoulders. They had realized the need to call for these other units without having to hear from Sweeny first.
When he had gotten close to the car, he had confronted a very pale looking cop. The young man had told him that he had better be prepared for the worst before letting him pass on. This was all the explanation he had been given. It seemed as though the patrolman was not in much of a talking mood as he walked back toward his car and doubled over. From the vomit near the driver side door, this was not the first time he had done this.
Unfortunately, Sweeny was prepared for the worst. In fact, he had redefined what it meant to find the worst lately. Whoever this man was, he was very 'creative' with his kills. He always seemed to be aware of needing to find the right way to display them after he was done. Sweeny took a deep breath and stepped up to the rolled down window.
In spite of feeling ready for whatever awaited him, Sweeny had felt the need to suppress his gag reflex almost immediately. Sitting at the wheel, a naked Anderson gazed out of empty eye sockets. His hands were nailed down to the ten and two o'clock positions on the wheel. His hands and his face were the only unmolested parts about him though. If you could call having his eyes gouged out as being unmolested. Of course, compared to the rest of him, his missing eyes were only a slight scratch.
The skin of Anderson's anterior torso had been removed to show his chest and abdominal cavities. Everything had been removed. Anderson no longer had anything left inside of him. His heart and lungs, stomach, kidneys, intestines, and everything else had been placed in the seat beside him. The only things that kept his body upright were the large concrete nails that pinned his shoulders to the car seat.
The Detectives genitals had been removed, but they were not readily apparent among his other displaced organs. His legs had been amputated just above the knee and tossed into the rear window. All of the skin had been removed from on top of his thighs as well. Overall it was one of the most disturbing images that Sweeny had ever seen. Finally, a wave of nausea that could not be ignored had overtaken him and forced him to step away.
Thinking about it now only brought a fresh wave of revulsion and anger. He was mad at both the killer and Detective Sweeny. He did not believe for one second that Anderson had been murdered in his car outside of the apartment. Whoever had killed him had lured him away to someplace private where they were able to do their grotesque dissection of him. If Anderson had decided to follow somebody, he should have called or radioed in. They were dealing with a psychotic murderer after all.
He was also furious with this killer that eluded him. He seemed to be simply toying with the police. It was as if he was so confident in his ability to do as he wished without consequence that he was daring law enforcement to come after him. As far as he knew, CSI had not found anything that was even remotely useful in Anderson's car either. He couldn't help but feel as if he was still one step behind.
Anderson certainly hadn't helped with that. When he had seen the killer, he should have called for backup. Maybe they would have gotten their hands on him if the stupid detective had not been so afraid of accepting help. He was probably so into the idea of bringing the man to justice on his own that he walked right into a trap. Now all he had done was allow the sick bastard to send the rest of them a twisted message. Sweeny just wasn't exactly sure what the message was. He wasn't even certain about the cause of death for Anderson. Hopefully the coroner would be able to figure it out from the autopsy.
One thing that he did know, however, was that Anderson had been watching James' apartment at the time that he had been lured away. This meant that James was still at the center of everything. It was hard to imagine that he was the psychopath that was responsible for all of it, though. He had been genuinely upset to see how his mother had met her end. There was no way that he would have been able to act that well if he had been the one to kill her in such a savage way.
On top of that, he was the one who had told Sweeny that his mother might know something about this man. It would have been truly insane of him to send a detective to the place that he had just admitted to being if there was a gruesome murder to be discovered. Besides that, James had not worn gloves when he had been there, as evidenced by the recent finger prints he had left, whereas the knives that had been used on the nurse only bore her own fingerprints.
In addition to all of the obvious things, James was simply not a hardened killer. Sweeny had been around plenty of them to see the signs. James had none of these, but Sweeny still couldn't dismiss him as being truly innocent either. There was still something about the young man that made his face itch.
No matter what skeletons James had hidden in his closet, what mattered most to Sweeny was that he was the key to finding the killer. The man that was responsible for all of these deaths was obsessed with him. This meant that he needed to remain under constant observation. The next time death would come calling at the apartment; more responsible officers would be watching and would make the call.
Sweeny had already made sure that everybody knew how important it was not to go about making moves on their own. In addition to making this clear, he had also insisted that all shifts were made up of two officers. This would prevent one man from being able to be caught off guard and killed. Sweeny was not about to put up with losing any more police officers to this insanity.
A small man in a blue suit walked up to Sweeny's desk as he wondered what the murderer's next move would be. The man was small in every way. He stood only about five foot three inches tall and was pencil thin. He wore wire rimmed glasses that shielded intense green eyes. Sweeny was intimately familiar with him as the two of them had worked on a number of cases before. It was Miles Hook from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. He was not at all surprised to see him, what with the unsolved murder of a detective and all.
"Hello Miles, heard about our trouble have you?" He asked.
"Yes I have." Miles said. "It seems that you have a serial killer on the loose. I don't mean to butt in on your territory, but with the murder of Detective Anderson, we just became very interested."
"I welcome the help." Sweeny said, still moody, but happy to know that he was not alone in his endeavor. "As much as I value teamwork, nobody around here seems too inclined to lend a hand."
"I have heard that is because they feel like you move in on their cases too much." Miles said, smiling.
"I'm helpful." Sweeny said.
"Yes, so let me be helpful." Miles said. "The descriptions of how the victims had been displayed had really caught the attention of the FBI. They sent a number of unsolved murders my way that have similar attributes. It seems we have a real Picasso on our hands. One that strikes nationwide."
"Really?" Sweeny asked, perking up a bit. "Let me see what you have."