Welcome Back, Jack

By Liam Sweeny

When Jack was six years old, his parents were brutally slain by a serial killer. The police later found drifter Clyde Colsen driving a stolen car, his clothes soaked in blood. He was tried, convicted and executed. Jack grew up knowing the police got their man.

Now a decorated homicide detective in New Rhodes, Jack arrives at the third crime scene of the "South End Killer" murders and finds his name. He will soon find out something else: thirty years ago, they got the wrong guy. And now the right guy's come back to pay Jack and New Rhodes his bloody respects.

As Jack struggles to stay on the case, his cat-and-mouse game with the killer makes him wonder if he's the cat or the mouse. His family and everyone in his life is fair game. As the killer escalates and threatens the entire city, Jack has a question he must answer in his desperation: can he stop the monster without becoming one?

Praise for WELCOME BACK, JACK ...

"I've been following Liam Sweeny's writing career for several years. He started out pretty good and now — with WELCOME BACK, JACK — he's become smokin' good! I predict this novel will propel him to the highest ranks of novelists writing police procedurals. That may look like I'm climbing out on a limb and if so, it's an extremely stout and solid limb. This ranks with the best of the genre and Sweeny is poised to become a writer of the highest rank. Remember his name — you're going to be seeing it a lot." — Les Edgerton, The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping, The Rapist, The Bitch and others

"A new dark, very dark star has appeared in the noir spectrum and what a star it is. WELCOME BACK, JACK is the real deal, as down and deliciously dirty as it gets but with a wonderful fresh style and artistry that is as compelling as it is addictive. This is one hell of a start to what promises to be a unique series." — Ken Bruen, author of the Jack Taylor series

"When a triple homicide in New Rhodes bears worrisome similarities to one from police officer, Jack LeClere's, childhood, nothing can stop him from following the sinewy clues to their horrific conclusion. As long as writers like Liam Sweeny can work the police procedural to such great affect, readers will follow Jack back to the gritty streets of New Rhodes gladly. Sweeny's writes beautifully and WELCOME BACK, JACK is full of memorable characters. Claustrophobics beware!" — Patricia Abbot, author of Concrete Angel

"Equal parts police procedural and psycho-thriller, Liam Sweeny reinvents a genre with WELCOME BACK, JACK. When serial killing gets personal, Jack LeClere is dragged underground into the past. Literally. With crisp, taut dialogue, fast-paced action, and more plot twists than the subterranean tunnels Jack must navigate to earn redemption, Sweeny taps into modern-day, urban paranoia, mining the best of Ellroy, Cain, and Westlake. Sweeny pays homage while tearing up some serious new ground." — Joe Clifford, author of Lamentation and December Boys

"Do yourself a favor: Before you start reading WELCOME BACK, JACK, clear your schedule. You're not going to be able to stop until you've seen it through to the explosive finale." — Rob Hart, author of New Yorked

• Language: English
• Publisher: Down & Out Books
• Release date: Sep 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370771790

Liam Sweeny

Liam Sweeny is an author from upstate New York. He began writing fiction six years ago, as a result of volunteering in Post-Katrina Louisiana in 2005. He has written three novels, one novella and one collection of short works. His crime/noir fiction has appeared on various sites such as "Powderburn Flash", "Flash Fiction Offensive", "Shotgun Honey", "Spinetingler Magazine", "A Twist of Noir" and others.

Book preview

WELCOME BACK, JACK

A Jack LeClere Crime Novel

Liam Sweeny

PRAISE FOR WELCOME BACK, JACK

"I’ve been following Liam Sweeny’s writing career for several years. He started out pretty good and now—with Welcome Back, Jack —he’s become smokin’ good! I predict this novel will propel him to the highest ranks of novelists writing police procedurals. That may look like I’m climbing out on a limb and if so, it’s an extremely stout and solid limb. This ranks with the best of the genre and Sweeny is poised to become a writer of the highest rank. Remember his name—you’re going to be seeing it a lot." —Les Edgerton, author of The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping, The Rapist, The Bitch and others

"A new dark, very dark star has appeared in the noir spectrum and what a star it is. Welcome Back, Jack is the real deal, as down and deliciously dirty as it gets but with a wonderful fresh style and artistry that is as compelling as it is addictive. This is one hell of a start to what promises to be a unique series." —Ken Bruen, author of the Jack Taylor series

"When a triple homicide in New Rhodes bears worrisome similarities to one from police officer, Jack LeClere’s, childhood, nothing can stop him from following the sinewy clues to their horrific conclusion. As long as writers like Liam Sweeny can work the police procedural to such great affect, readers will follow Jack back to the gritty streets of New Rhodes gladly. Sweeny’s writes beautifully and Welcome Back, Jack is full of memorable characters. Claustrophobics beware!" —Patricia Abbot, author of Concrete Angel

"Equal parts police procedural and psycho-thriller, Liam Sweeny reinvents a genre with Welcome Back, Jack. When serial killing gets personal, Jack LeClere is dragged underground into the past. Literally. With crisp, taut dialogue, fast-paced action, and more plot twists than the subterranean tunnels Jack must navigate to earn redemption, Sweeny taps into modern-day, urban paranoia, mining the best of Ellroy, Cain, and Westlake. Sweeny pays homage while tearing up some serious new ground." —Joe Clifford, author of Lamentation and December Boys

"Do yourself a favor: Before you start reading Welcome Back, Jack, clear your schedule. You’re not going to be able to stop until you’ve seen it through to the explosive finale." —Rob Hart, author of New Yorked

Copyright © 2015 by Liam Sweeny

Second Edition August 2018

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Down & Out Books

3959 Van Dyke Rd, Ste. 265

Lutz, FL 33558

DownAndOutBooks.com/

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover design by Chuck Regan

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author/these authors.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome Back, Jack

About the Author

Also by the Author

The Down & Out Books Publishing Family Library of Titles

A preview of Ryan Sayles’s Warpath

A preview of Eric Beetner & Frank Zafiro’s The Backlist

A preview of Matt Hilton’s The Lawless Kind

To Mary Anne and Robert Sweeny,

without whose love and support,

I wouldn’t be writing.

Chapter One

South End nights belonged to the drunks, degenerates, addicts and their feeders, and a handful of unlucky souls forced by short straws to preside over the darkness and the damned.

It was three a.m. and Jack LeClere fumbled for a match. His fingers trembled in the frigid late November air. He had a brushed chrome Zippo that Mary gave him in his pocket, but he never found time to get fluid.

The smell of sulfur replaced the hot coffee he’d had to sacrifice when the call got him up. He took a whiff of the matchstick, grunted and tossed it to the curb.

Third nightmare he’d had in a week. For once, he was glad to get the reprieve, such as it were.

His partner, Eddie Gamble, was late, as usual. He’d just been promoted to Proud Papa six months ago. His wife, Sarah, fell in love with a man in a uniform, but she wasn’t in love with late night calls; the price Gamble paid for not having to go on shift. Jack was just covering for someone.

It’s a fucking mess in there, Jack. Jeff Mitchell was one of the responding officers who secured the scene. He was a golem in a midnight navy blue uniform with horsehair brows and grim eyes. A fucking mess. The techs are processing the house. The M.E. just got here.

Jack took a deep drag of his smoke, feeling the kick of cold carcinogens. He trailed his exhale with a cough and a renewed vow to quit.

What’re the basics? I barely got anything on the call.

Mitchell scratched his neck. Nine-one-one got it about an hour ago, he said. He knew the dispatcher’s name, just like the other two.

He flipped out his notepad. Three victims, the Masons: father, Matthew; mother, Sheila; and daughter, Kyla. The father took one in the head, the other two… Mitchell took a loaded breath. You tell me, I guess…

Thanks, Mitch, Jack said as he started up the stairs.

You might want Vicks for your nose. Everyone’s been asking for it. It’s bad.

Jack poked his head in the doorway. It was rank.

Nah, he said as he walked back down. Don’t think it’ll help any.

Suit yourself.

Just then he saw Gamble walking toward him, the patrol lights catching his tight, curly hair and the creases of his wrinkled jacket. A little cold for just a suit coat. Jack stifled a laugh with a grunt, ever thankful for Mary.

Sorry, man, Gamble said, Sarah was up with the baby. He pressed his palms into his eye sockets. He picks tonight to put up a fuss. An angel all day, straight from heaven. Till midnight.

Jack chuckled. How’s it feel being double-on-call?

Shoot me. Use my gun, even. No paperwork.

Hold that thought. He patted Gamble on the chest as he flipped his cigarette down into the storm drain. It’s probably you-know-who, I haven’t been in yet. Smells like ass.

Maybe it’s warm, then. Gamble started up the steps to the aged brownstone with lead shoes. Jack was right behind him. A crowd had gathered around Fourth Street, busybodies wearing pajamas and overstuffed jackets. Even the kids were out, shaky fingers grasping the police tape. Jack wondered if any of the concerned citizens would bring in a lead.

He scanned the crowd, tried to catalog each face, but the light wasn’t good. Maybe the killer was watching them.

The floodlights poured out of the open door, revealing moving shadows, empty body bags and the vacuum darting in and out of view.

A portly guy, bald on top, wearing a dirt-streaked cardigan and khakis, was seated in a recliner facing the wall opposite the front door with his arms on the armrests, calm-looking, serene and posed. Matthew Mason.

He was staring blankly ahead, cloudy eyes glazed over and frozen by the hole in his forehead. Medium caliber, by the look of the entrance wound. Jack donned his gloves and went to roll the head and look at the exit wound.

He’s patched up back there, Jack, the M.E. said. Let me get him off the chair and on the floor, best I can. I’m just guessing a thirty-eight, something like that.

Jack nodded and picked up a framed picture from the stand by the chair. A hiking scene in the mountains, the Adirondacks maybe. Jagged rock face behind them, flanked by smoother slopes farther off.

They had backpacks, walking sticks and must have been up high. Dad had them gathered in his arms and they were all smiling.

The daughter had an exhilarated look on her face. Her eyes were lit up, her cheeks flushed. Jack flipped the picture over and popped open the frame. On the bottom Kyla’s B-Day!—Mt. Marcy was written in blue ink.

They looked happy, Gamble said.

She’s about Paul’s age in this pic.

It’s a damn shame. Come over here, check this out.

Gamble led him to an office area on the other side of the room, just a desk with a jungle of paper surrounding a laptop.

Gamble rifled through a stack of papers. Receipts from Second Chance, Helping Hands of New Rhodes, the Red Cross, Salvation Army…

Jack scanned through other pages, receipts and placed them back on the desk gently.

I wish this asshole had a type.

I don’t know but we’d best get into the kitchen. They want to bag the two in there.

Sheila and Kyla Mason.

What about ’em? Eddie asked.

In the kitchen. Jack pointed to the picture. They have names, Eddie.

Jeez, sorry?

Nah, forget about it, Jack said. Tired, I guess. Had a nightmare and woke up to this.

The real nightmare was in the kitchen. They found the two women; he’d have to say women because of their hair length and bone structure. At least that’s what he could figure out from what he saw. There were no clothes, no skin below the hair-lines. They looked like pictures of the muscular system he’d seen in doctors’ offices.

Precise, clinical and damn near sterile. There were no pools of blood; there had to be pools of blood. But there weren’t, just muscle fibers, milky-white tendons and sinew, crisscrossed with faded blue veins and a patina of something slick coating the bodies. Gamble groaned in disgust.

He had time. He had to have time. Nobody noticed this? Not even the smell?

Jack shrugged. Go check the living room again. And then check the back wall behind the recliner to see if Mason was even shot here.

Gamble went into the living room. Jack grabbed one of the techs.

Did you spray in here for fluids?

Our first stop, the tech told him. Found just a little pooling underneath the bodies, on the table from where they were, umm…

Posed.

Yeah, but other than that, there should be more blood. A lot more.

Is Larry still out there?

The tech pointed toward the living room. Your partner’s talking to him now. He’s been in here already to get time of death.

Thanks. Jack looked at the scene, at everything. The bodies were sitting upright at the table. They must have been posed and held until rigor set in. Soon, the bodies would lose rigidity and collapse, sliding off the chairs. They’d be in a bag by then.

The smell was overpowering, and he regretted not getting some Vick’s. There was a dinner plate in front of each body with silverware laid out. Their elbows were on the table, hands cupping the edges of the plates like a macabre suppertime scene. They reminded him of plates he and Mary used for company. He’d have to buy new ones.

There were dishes in the sink, and papers and magazines on the kitchen counter. Jack walked over to them and saw something familiar. His own name.

It was small, on the bottom right edge of a newspaper from six months ago. Detective Jack LeClere, others to be honored at the Annual New Rhodes Police Department Recognition Ceremony.

It was in the Community News section. Mary had it stuck to the fridge with a magnet.

Eddie, get out here.

Eddie must’ve been on his way. He was quickly peering over Jack’s shoulder again.

What do you make of this?

Eddie hopped over and pawed through the other magazines and papers.

These are all new. This month or last month. Did you know these people, Jack?

I didn’t recognize anyone in the picture. Jack thumbed the table. If that’s Sheila and Kyla, I can’t tell but…really, I don’t know ’em.

Okay. That’s pretty strange.

We passed strange fifteen minutes ago.

Eddie wretched. God, Eddie, don’t puke.

Killer had to leave this, Jack said. It’s evidence.

He had to leave the kitchen. His mind was being rendered by Escher.

Larry told me they’ve been dead for more than twenty-four hours, Gamble said, snapping Jack out of his own head. I also talked to the upstairs neighbor. She told me the daughter, Kyla, was a loudmouth, her words, but she hadn’t heard her over the weekend. She said she didn’t hear any other voices or anything. And the wall behind the husband’s head was clean. He wasn’t shot here.

The upstairs neighbors didn’t notice the smell?

She said she did, but thought it was a dead cat or something.

Mountain lions in the South End?

Yeah. Eddie stepped aside as the M.E.’s assistant walked into the kitchen with two bags.

They’re in rigor in the kitchen, Jack said. Rigor peaks at twelve. They should’ve been out of rigor by now.

This has got to be him.

I’d bet on it, Jack replied, but only one of the other murders he could’ve done by himself. Not the last one, not this one.

So, what do we want to tell the captain?

Jack walked outside, tapped a fresh cigarette on his pack and got the match to light with the first strike. He lit up to kill the smell still in his nose.

I don’t think we’ll have to tell him much. Harken said if we got another one, we’d set up a task force. So, my guess is to head back to the station.

What about that paper in the kitchen?

Jack took a drag. Can’t exclude it. But hell, even I don’t know what it means. So no use shining a spotlight on it.

Harken will, Gamble said. And if you don’t at least turn it on for him, he’ll swing it at you.

Yeah, he’d pretty much kill me on that.

Save yourself. I know if I go into overtime, Sarah’s gonna kill me.

Better her than this guy. Jack walked toward his car. See ya there, Eddie.

Jack took off down Fourth Street. Ginny’s Diner was open, with a full complement of endless coffee. But as much as he’d have liked to stop in, get some breakfast and chat with the old-timers, he wouldn’t know what to say.

The sun was coming up, casting long shadows across the South End. It was originally a proud neighborhood separated by two groups: the Italians who lived in northern South End and the Irish who lived in the southern part. The canal split the two. Back in the city’s heyday, they all worked factory jobs and lived factory lives in brick row houses with rooms barely the size of a walk-in closet.

They were the expendable ones, and though the nationalities had changed, the pride went with the jobs leaving only the stink of desperation that clung to the garbage-strewn streets like mold.

The hill mercifully kept the rays out of his eyes. They were bloodshot, though he got sleep. He figured seeing the killer’s handiwork had turned the dial back on a few of those hours. Plus, there was the latest nightmare.

He hoped they had endless coffee and at least something digestible at the station.

Jack and Gamble walked into the briefing room, which by that time had already become the de facto headquarters of the task force. The room would fill quickly with the County Sheriff’s Office, State Police and, by the look of the two suits in the corner, the FBI.

The briefing room was on the second floor. The shades were drawn on the two windows lining the far wall. On a normal day, the briefing room could fit thirty people. It had a slide-out cabinet full of folding chairs. This room was where the shifts did roll call.

But today they had a big table in the center of it with organized stacks of paper like a chow line for information sheets and flow charts.

Jack patted Gamble’s shoulder. They each grabbed a muffin and coffee from the collapsible table on the side wall, underneath the whiteboard.

Hanging from the opposite wall was a tapestry of the victims, and Captain Harken was pinning up crime scene photos from the Masons’ apartment.

Gamble held two red plastic coffee stirrers like chop-sticks. This is the after-party from hell.

Too bad the DEA’s not here too. We could get primo uppers.

I wish I could DVR this, Gamble said.

Jack swallowed a bite of muffin. Harken would charge us too much for the show.

Harken was Jack’s boss. He was a man-bear with sharp, jagged brows, a salt-and-pepper moustache and grey stubble on his chin, a guy that blew off steam by spending a weekend in the deep woods with nothing but a sub-zero tent, twenty-gauge and, if he felt indulgent, a pack of cigars. He glanced at them and motioned them over.

Sorry to start without you boys, he said. I assume you know everybody from the Sheriff’s department, and the big guy over there is Commander Teague from the State Police. He nodded in their direction. Jack and Gamble followed suit.

The suits are Special Agents Haskell and Decker. Decker’s from the field office in Albany. Haskell’s a profiler. He asked to be assigned to the case. Right now it’s a joint command. We hope to keep it that way.

We’re beat, Cap.

I know, guys. I feel for ya. Just ya know…suck it up. He smiled.

A few minutes later, Harken gathered everyone around the table and made introductions. Then he started the brief.

Okay, so as of last night we can officially call this a serial murder case. The neighborhood’s calling him the ‘South End Killer,’ so for now, we’ll go with that.

He raced around the victim-board like the DEA had been there earlier.

What do we know? He pulled out a pointer and aimed it at the tapestry on the first victim.

Leiah Marcusen. He swept the pointer along her autopsy picture. Chase, Malloy, you caught this one. Walk us through it.

Sure thing, Malloy said. He fished his notepad from his inside coat pocket.

Dispatch got the call at nine-thirty-two on Friday, October twenty-sixth. Caller greeted the dispatcher by name and quickly gave the location and admitted to killing the victim. Her throat was slashed, and her carotid was cut clean across. The M.E. stated that exsanguination would’ve occurred within a minute, time of death would have put it within an hour of the call.

Chase picked up where Malloy left off. The body was mutilated postmortem. Her breasts were removed with a very sharp, thin blade, possibly a surgical instrument. Her breasts were not found.

Malloy squinted at his own handwriting and tossed the pad on the table. Marcusen was tied to the bed in four-point restraints, the type used in hospitals and psychiatric units. Rose petals were placed over her breast area.

He walked over to the board. Not a whole lot of trace evidence left at the scene, nothing to spark leads anyway, but there was a lot of blood. As far as we know right now, all of the blood was the victim’s. We didn’t get any reports of suspicious activity, nothing from our canvass has panned out so far.

Thanks, Malloy, Harken said. Let’s move on to victim number two. LeClere and Gamble, you caught that one and the one this morning. Can you give us a brief on what you found from the second case?

Jack looked over to Gamble, who’d done most of the legwork on that one.

There were two victims in the second case, Gamble said. John Ramos, twenty-nine, shot in the chest point-blank with a medium caliber bullet, not recovered. The second victim, Maria Ramos, thirty-two, was found in the kitchen, burnt alive, as established by the M.E. No evidence of a fire, no trace evidence, no blood, no good prints, nothing. Nada.

Captain Harken nodded and turned his attention to one of the suits.

Special Agent Decker has been assisting with the calls we’ve received at dispatch. Special Agent?

Decker, a gaunt, stark man with dark, deep set eyes, spoke up. We’ve analyzed the calls to dispatch, he said. First, we looked at where they came from, but it was a dead end. Internet call routed all over the world probably. We’re limited in the fact that this isn’t national security. We also determined that the caller was using a voice synthesizer. We can crack it, but we need a voice to compare it to.

Harken planted his hands on the table and shuffled some papers about, looking for something in his pile.

Okay, he said, before we look at last night’s crime scene, Special Agent Haskell would like to sketch out a preliminary profile of the suspect and see, based on last night’s incident, how it can be adjusted.

Special Agent Haskell was in his mid-sixties with grey hair lining the sides of his head and wispy, darker hair up top. He was dressed in FBI black, but his suit fit him poorly. His clothes reminded Jack of Gamble after a night of diaper duty.

For starters, Haskell said, we’re in a position where we can’t rule anything out, especially the possibility that the killer isn’t acting alone. Each crime—just looking at the first two—looks, for all intents and purposes, like they were separate incidents. The linking element was the phone calls to dispatch, which were unnecessary calls to make. And that’s a clue. He or they are playing with us, tying the crimes together; they’re putting themselves on our radar. But if that’s the only connection we can find, all he or they have to do is stop calling. We need to find other commonalities, and the killer or killers don’t seem to leave much. Haskell cleared his throat. We’re looking for someone, at least one of them, that’s intelligent, who probably has some medical or forensic training. He is meticulous and doesn’t attract attention in the neighborhood.

Haskell continued. "He has no specific M.O. that we can see. The calls aren’t an M.O., they’re a signature. If we assume he’s one killer, he’s confident. He’s likely killed before, here or elsewhere. Aside from living in the South End, the victims had no noticeable connection.

He does appear to do more work on the women. Mr. Ramos was shot quickly in the chest, while Maria Ramos was likely tortured. Yet with the first victim, Leiah Marcusen, her death was quick, and mutilation occurred postmortem. This guy could change tactics, stop calling dispatch, move from the South End. If he’s killing where he’s comfortable, or if the South End has a meaning to him, we have a better shot at stopping him.

Harken thanked Haskell as he sat down.

Before we move on to what happened last night, I just want to say… Harken looked back at the victim board. We need something, because right now, we’re chasing shadows.

Harken called Jack into his office after the briefing.

You wanna tell me something?

No, but I’ll tell you he left the newspaper that’s got my name on it.

And you don’t have anything to make of that.

I have plenty to make of it, except sense. I didn’t know them.

I’m thinking more like he knows you.

There’s that.

Harken sat down in his chair and swiveled it back and forth.

It’s evidence, he said. You aren’t the only one in it, so it really could mean anything.

Yeah.

But it means something, Harken said. If you know this asshole, I’m sure you don’t know how. But just…be careful, Jack. Keep sharp, okay?

I will, Cap.

Alright. Get over to autopsy then.

Larry Hershey, the county medical examiner, was the last person you’d expect to see squirreled away in a sterile white crypt. He reminded Jack of a picture he’d seen of Ernest Hemingway at a bar with James Cagney. The kind of guy with a superhero chin you’d imagine to find looking out over the top of Mount Kilimanjaro with the ridge of his hand over his eyes to block the sun. Instead, he peered over Kyla’s corpse with a headband magnifier.

This is, by far, the worst thing I’ve ever seen, Jack, he said. Kinda wish I worked in Albany County.

It was worse when they were in rigor.

I know…I was there, remember?

Long day, Larry. So, do we have a cause of death that’s not obvious?

Larry took his gloves off, walked over to the side cabinet and slapped on a new pair.

It’s hard to say. I’ve taken a liver sample for tox, but I won’t know anything until that gets back. And without the skin…no surface indicators.

Gamble walked over to Don Mason’s table.

They weren’t killed in the house, Gamble said. Would something like chloroform show up on the tox screen?

I had them test for phosgene; that’s what chloroform breaks down to. But I doubt it was chloroform. Enough to knock someone out is usually enough to kill them, and that much—we would have smelled it.

I don’t know what it smells like, Jack said.

I do, Larry replied. And I didn’t smell it.

Larry, how come there wasn’t any blood? Did the killer drain them or something?

Larry walked down to Kyla’s legs.

Actually, yes. He aimed the magnifier at the inside of her thigh, using a pair of tongs to separate the muscle tissue.

Whoever did this split the femoral artery, lengthwise. They would’ve drained out in a minute. But for that to happen, they would have to have been alive when the incision was made. Mr. Mason had the incision, too. That’s how I noticed it. So, I just looked for it with these two. You’re looking for something like ether as your ‘knock out juice,’ something like it.

What about roofies? Gamble asked.

Probably not. Whoever did these needed them anesthetized. Roofies would be unreliable. Larry pointed to Kyla’s body. If they can do this, they’d know to go pro with a drug.

Jack paced the floor with his arms folded. Gamble was by Larry’s side, looking through the magnifying glass as Larry threw around words of the trade. But Jack just kept staring at the skinned bodies, still slick with that glossy patina.

"Larry, what’s that film coating the bodies?"

That’s blood plasma, Larry said. It’s mostly clear, and what little red bloods cells are in it blend with the muscle tissue.

"What kind of person can do this?"

A sick individual, Larry said. But I’m guessing more than one sick individual.

No, I mean what kind of person can pull this. He pointed to Kyla’s body. Off?

Not an amateur, Larry said. This person has training and experience. They’re not squeamish. A lot of work went into this. They knew to split the femoral artery, and I’ve scanned every area of these bodies. He shrugged. It’s perfect. None of the dermis left behind, no gouges into the muscle fibers…

So we’re looking for a doctor, or a paramedic?

Not a paramedic, Larry said. "They don’t have experience cutting up bodies. And most doctors don’t have that experience either. Not that removing a person’s skin is a procedure anybody has experience with. Maybe a plastic surgeon, but that’s a stretch. This person’s worked with bodies before. I’d look for a surgeon, or a butcher, even."

An M.E.?

Larry laughed. I was at the bar last night. Karaoke, I know I got witnesses. But yeah, an M.E. could do this…a twisted one. Whoever did this, it isn’t their first time at the butcher’s block.

After a long day examining the third case, Jack and Gamble decided to top off the night at Emerald’s, a cop bar in Irish Town. Harken had given them both the next day off. Jack agreed to meet Eddie there after he dropped off some groceries.

He walked in and threw his coat on the back rack. Walter poured him a Jameson’s and gave a nod. Most days, Jack would have chatted a bit with him about the weather, politics, celebrity gossip and other assorted bullshit.

Walter was retired from the force, now a mentor, a saloon priest to give Jack many absolutions. He could see the worry in Walt’s wrinkles as he slid the glass over. He fished in his pocket, but Walter waved him off like he always did.

Eddie’s on the grotto, kid, he said.