FIC: One Good Man 16/?

[geekwriter143.livejournal.com]

Author: geekwriter
Title: One Good Man – Part Sixteen
Rating: R
Category: case file, romance
Warnings: graphic crime scene description
Summary: They were sent out to rural Nevada to investigate a simple convenience store robbery, but Nick and Greg have stumbled on to something much bigger.



"So, the kid lost his lunch, huh?" Brass asked as he kicked gravel over the pile of Greg's vomit. He looked into the car's back window and cringed. "Not that I blame him. Hey, I'm not contaminating evidence or anything by covering this up, am I?"

"No," Nick said as he squatted down to inspect the car's grille. He'd opened the front door cautiously and turned off the engine and the lights. The iron scent of blood was overwhelming, coupled with the stench of excrement and decay. Brass had actually breathed a sigh of relief when Nick shut the door again.

"Christ all-freakin-mighty," Brass said as he inspected the car. "You think a teenager did this?"

Nick shrugged. "He knew it was there, that's for sure. Couldn't be anywhere near this car and not know."

"Should I go see if the kid's all right?" Brass asked.

Nick had sent Greg back to the Tahoe to get the cameras ready. He looked over his shoulder and smiled. "Nah. I'll do it. And don't make a big deal about it, OK?"

"I won't say a word," Brass said. "This is his first scene, right?"

"First murder," Nick said. "First time he was the one to discover the bodies. First dismemberment. I know I blew chunks my first scene like this." He stood up and stretched out the ache in his arms.

"I probably did, too," Brass admitted. "But it's been so many decades…" he laughed ruefully and shook his head.

Nick headed back towards the Tahoe where Greg was making sure the cameras had film. "You all right?" he asked softly.

"Embarrassed, but otherwise unharmed," Greg said, sliding one of the cameras into its case.

"No need to be," Nick whispered, opening his collection kit and checking its contents. "Nobody saw it but me."

"Brass saw it."

"Brass doesn't care."

"The state trooper saw it before he took that kid away."

"Maybe not. And even if he did, you still don't have anything to be embarrassed about. Everyone throws up at least once."

"Even you?" Greg looked over at him sharply.

Nick smiled at him and nodded. "Yeah. Even me. Especially with something like that." He picked up a camera. "How are your one-to-ones?"

Greg shrugged. "Good, but not great."

"Let's practice, then. We got nothing but time until the coroner shows up."

Greg nodded and turned, leaning back against the Tahoe as he gazed at the car Brass was standing as far away from as possible. "Would it be completely inappropriate to tell you that you're really hot when you turn all cop like you did tonight?"

Nick laughed. "What?"

"I'm just saying that you look good when you pull a gun." He frowned. "It's weird. I never really saw the sex appeal of guns until tonight. Well, you know, except for on 'Charlie's Angels,' but that was really more about Farrah Fawcett running in high heels with no bra. And I guess it wasn't so much the gun that was hot as you being all commanding and in charge."

Nick grinned and shook his head. "Come on, help me set up the lights."

Greg sighed and looked at the car again.

"You can stay here if you want," Nick said softly.

"Don't coddle me," Greg snapped. He set his mouth in a tight line and headed towards the car with a determined stride.

Nick sighed and grabbed his lighting equipment before following Greg towards the scene. He shouldn't have suggested that Greg stay behind, he knew that. He had to act like a coworker, not like a concerned boyfriend. The job was tough, but he had to give Greg the chance to get through it on his own. He had to fight the urge to protect him when protecting him also meant holding him back.

He showed Greg how to set the lights up for good scene illumination and chattered about the basics of good one-to-one crime scene photographs as he explained to Greg what pictures to take from what angles and why.

They'd just finished up the midrange photos when the coroner's van pulled up.

"Hey," David said, hopping out of the van and snapping on latex gloves as he walked towards them. "What do we have?"

"It's kinda hard to explain," Nick said. "You're just gonna have to see for yourself."

"Really?" David said. "Anybody touch the bodies? Paramedics, first officer on the scene—"

"No," Greg said. "I was the first on the scene and I didn't get any closer than looking through the windows. We didn't call for paramedics."

"Why not?" David asked. "If you didn't open the car how could you be sure they were dead?"

Nick rolled his eyes and gestured to the car door. "After you," he said. He opened the back door and swung it open slowly.

David looked into the backseat for a moment, his face blank. "Well," he said. "That explains why you didn't call paramedics."

"God, that reeks," Brass said, lifting a cloth handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth.

"It is a bit piquant, isn't it?" David asked. "Well, they're dead. I'd do a liver temp, but I wouldn't know where to find the liver."

"There," Greg said, shining his flashlight on a chunk of something. "Is that liver?"

David gazed at it for a moment. "Kidney," he said. "I think. Not that it matters. Doing a liver temp on a liver removed from the body would be pointless. Besides, from the smell I'd say they've been dead long enough to come to room temperature. Rough estimate, five to seven days." He cocked his head and squinted into the back of the car. "Shine the light there, if you would," he said.

Greg shined his flashlight where David wanted it but didn't look. Instead, he looked away, a grimace on his face as he shifted from foot to foot.

"I've never actually seen one of those before," David said. "I mean, except in photographs, of course."

And Nick actually had to bite his tongue to keep from making a very, very bad joke.

"Jack the Ripper removed the genitalia of his victims," David said. "As did several other serial sexual killers, but I've never come across an actual excised vulva before."

And Nick squinted his eyes shut because he wanted to make another very bad joke, because when things were that gruesome you had to either laugh or lose your mind.

Greg let out a nervous laugh, though, and soon Brass was chuckling and Nick opened his eyes and smiled and he knew he shouldn't laugh. None of them should laugh. It was so far from funny, it was millions of miles away from funny but sometimes laughing was the only thing you could do in the face of something so supremely fucked up.

"Come across a vulva," David said. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. Hilarious. One of you Three Stooges want to start processing so I can get this back to the morgue?"

"Yeah," Nick said, lifting his camera to take the initial close-ups without scale markers or placards. He took all the photographs he could from the side of the car nearest the road, then moved around to the other side where Greg was still standing with his flashlight illuminating the back seat, his head tipped to one side.

"What do you got, kid?" Brass asked.

Nick looked up at Greg and was going to say something comforting, but when he saw Greg's expression he saw that Greg wasn't upset or sick. He was thinking.

"Greggo?" he asked softly.

"It's a shrine," Greg said. "It's not just…I thought it was just, you know, body parts thrown back there for whatever reason, but look at the way they're arranged." He shone his flashlight across the seat slowly from left to right as he spoke. "A hand, a right hand, the hand that would be closest to the door if you were sitting in the seat. A head almost nestled in place, facing forward like he wants it to be able to see where it's going. A foot with toes towards the front of the car. Female genitals just this side of the center. Why?"

Nick shrugged. "I told you, Greg, we don't—"

Greg flicked the flashlight up to hit the car's rearview mirror. "So he can look at it while he's driving."

Nick let out a slow breath. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, because you can't see the whole backseat in the rearview, the front seats are in the way. But he made sure to put that where he could see it."

"A souvenir, maybe," Greg said. "To remind him of something? The piece of kidney right next to it. And then the two feet. They're not…I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think they're from the same person. They're, what? Three sizes apart?"

"My guess is four," David piped up.

"Pointing forward again," Greg said.

"And side by side, as if they belonged together," Nick said. "As if they could start walking? And the next head, also facing forward."

"The placement of the hands is curious," David said. "The fingers pointing towards the back of the car this time? And at angles, like they're…strangling the second head."

"I'm gonna have nightmares," Brass sighed. "Could you guys hurry it along?"

"Get good photos of that kidney piece," David said. "I want to look at it as soon as you're done."

Greg and Nick finished taking close-ups, both with and without scale markers. Nick slung his camera to the side as David reached for the piece of internal organ.

"Well," David said, "I'm pretty sure this is kidney, however…"

Nick leaned over his shoulder and looked at it. "Is that…?"

"What?" Greg asked, coming around the side of the car to see what Nick and David were looking at.

"Definitely bite impressions," David said. "Not to mention, this kidney's been cooked."

"I, uh, I'm gonna go see if there's any noise on the radio," Brass said, "see if they found out who owns this car, yet."

"Good idea," Nick said, suppressing a smirk. "Hey, Greg, run and get the casting equipment while I get pictures of this."

Once they'd collected all the evidence they could and made a quick sketch of the car and its contents, David and an assistant removed the human remains and all that was left was to wait for auto detail to come for the car.

"David," Brass called, stepping out of the car as David finished loading the last of the remains into the van. "Don't go anywhere. Highway patrol went to the home of the registered owner of the car, one Pete Werner. They're requesting a coroner and the crime lab." He sighed. "I'm guessing it's not pretty. They said to bring barf bags and holy water if we've got it."

"Barf bags," Greg said. "See? I told you they saw."

Nick waved the comment away. "What's the location?"

"About eight miles due east," Brass said, pointing behind him.

"This is within his comfort zone," Nick said, looking up and down the darkened road. "He knew it would be safe for him here. I haven't seen any cars up and down this road the whole time we've been on it, have you?"

Greg shook his head. "No, none, I…" He paled visibly. "Wait. You're saying that we were…we were supposed to be this guy's next victims?"

Nick was surprised that Greg hadn't assumed that from the start, but then again he hadn't come face to face with psychopaths as many times as Nick had.

"I'll wait for auto detail," Brass said. "You guys go ahead. Troopers have cleared the scene and taped it off already." He gave them directions and Nick and Greg packed everything back into the Tahoe then pulled out, David following in the coroner's van.

Greg was silent the first few miles. Finally, what he said was, "Zodiac Killer."

"Pardon me?" Nick asked.

"I grew up in Pacific Heights," Greg said. "The Zodiac Killer shot a cabbie on the corner of Washington and Cherry, not two miles from my house. I was probably eleven or twelve when I found out. It was…we used to sneak out and go to the corner and wait until midnight, see if he'd show. See if the ghost of the cabbie would appear. He never did, of course, but it scared the shit out of me. It was the first time I ever really paid attention to serial killers. I couldn't sleep for weeks, thinking that something like that could happen so close to where I lived. Do you think…do you think that's what this kid is?"

Nick shrugged. "Best not to expect anything. Just let the scene tell you what's going on."

Greg nodded and stared out the window. He sighed miserably.

"Pogo the Clown," Nick said softly.

Greg looked at him.

"John Wayne Gacy," Nick said. "He dressed up as Pogo the Clown to entertain at kids' birthday parties. He was the first serial killer I ever heard of. My brother told me all about him when I was seven or eight years old. I still hate clowns."

Greg nodded and reached out to squeeze Nick's thigh. Nick could see from the expression on his face that Greg knew Nick didn't hate clowns—he was terrified of clowns.

Then he caught sight of the flashing lights of state cruisers and took a deep breath as he turned down the long gravel driveway leading to a ranch-style house.

He and Greg hopped out of the Tahoe and flashed their badges. "Stokes and Sanders," Nick said. "Crime lab. What do we have?"

He thought the green cast to the middle-aged trooper's face wasn't a good sign. "Pete and Carol Werner," he said. "They've lived here about 20 years, kept mostly to themselves. Two kids, Amanda, 14, and Jason, 20. I, uh, I don't remember seeing them in town for the past month or so, but that's not unusual. They used to belong to the Baptist church, but they left the congregation a few years ago, now the only time they come into town is for supplies. They home schooled the girl."

"And the son?" Nick asked as he lifted the crime scene tape and ducked under it.

"Home schooled him too, until he was 17 or so. He worked at the feed store for about a year after that, but Tippy—he's the one owns the store—Tippy fired him after he started coming in late all the time, mouthing off to customers, that sort of thing. Showed up drunk once, and that was the last straw. That was two years ago, don't think he's worked since."

"Is Jason the suspect in custody?" Greg asked.

The trooper nodded. "Yeah. Mike, uh, Officer Fenton, he took him to the substation for questioning. You know that already, though, since you're the ones detained him in the first place." He stopped once they got to the front door. "You might want to prepare yourselves a minute 'fore you go in. Eddie--Officer King--his stomach's still not quite settled from it all."

Nick glanced over to where a trooper was on his knees next to the bushes on the far side of the crime scene tape. He had his arms wrapped around his waist and he was whispering something softly to himself that Nick thought was a prayer.

"Rookie," the trooper whispered. "Never even seen a body before. He's a good kid, though, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't razz him for it."

"Everybody throws up at least once on the job," Greg said, setting his kit down. He put on gloves and handed both Nick and the officer a pair.

"Uh," the trooper said, eyeing the gloves. "I think I'll stay out here, brief the coroner on what we got."

Greg nodded and put the gloves back.

Nick opened the front door slowly and stepped into something out of a psychotic's nightmare. The first room they entered was the living room, and the walls were covered in intricate writing in what he knew had to be blood. A woman's head was stuck on a coat rack next to the couch, wavy blonde hair hanging around it. Hanging from the ceiling was a mobile of fingers, toes, ears, and what Nick thought was probably a pair of lips. He took several preliminary photographs of the room, the head, and the grotesque mobile.

There was a notebook on the coffee table with "KEEP OUT: PRIVATE!!!" in thick black letters on the cover. Greg took a picture, then squatted down next to the coffee table and opened it carefully. "The Adventures of Jason Werner: Executioner," he read aloud from the front page. He let the cover fall shut.

They hugged the wall as they headed into the kitchen. There was a frying pan on the stove and the room smelled faintly of cooked meat. Nick grimaced when he thought of the cooked kidney from the car seat, but raised his camera anyway.

Greg pulled the refrigerator door open and let out a long, slow breath before taking a picture.

"What?" Nick asked.

"Breasts," Greg said.

"Please tell me you mean chicken breasts," Nick said.

Greg shook his head and shut the refrigerator door. "Human. Three of them."

"Where's the fourth?"

"I have a feeling we don't want to know."

Nick nodded and they moved out of the kitchen, back into the living room, then down the hall towards the bedrooms. Nick paused to read some of the writing on the wall. "The day has come the day is here the rivers run with blood and I am finally free."

"Poetic," Greg said sarcastically. The first room was obviously the girl's—Amanda. It was decorated in pale pink and blue with child-like angels playing on clouds on the wallpaper. There was a vanity table with a silver plated hairbrush and mirror on it, a tube of flavored lip-gloss, and a white leather Bible.

Nick slid open her closet door a foot or two and shone his flashlight inside. "No jeans," he said to Greg. "No pants at all. Just dresses and long skirts."

"Maybe it was a religious thing," Greg said. "One of my chem lab partners in college didn't wear pants because her religion frowned on it."

"And she was a scientist?" Nick asked.

Greg shrugged. "Yeah. I think her family really encouraged her, too. It wasn't like she was oppressed or anything, she just felt that wearing skirts was the right thing to do."

"Weird," said Nick.

"Says the man who eats Spam," Greg said.

"What?"

"You think I don't notice? I know that smell. I know you eat Spam in secret."

Nick laughed and blushed. "Well, it is Spam Lite."

"Eating in secret's a warning sign, Stokes. You might have an eating disorder."

"I knew you'd make fun of me for it, and sometimes I just want a Spamwich."

Greg rolled his eyes as they continued their preliminary walk-through. The second bedroom was the parents'. It was as neat as the girls'. Nothing seemed out of place except for a slight coating of dust on the dark furniture.

"I knew I smelled something," Greg said thickly as he glanced into the bathroom. He stepped back into the hall and let Nick see the blood-spattered walls, the bloody hacksaw and other assorted tools lying next to the tub. In the tub was a man's torso, arms removed just below the shoulders, head gone, legs removed at the knee. He was also missing his genitals.

"Father, maybe?" Nick asked as he raised his camera.

Greg nodded. "Yeah, maybe."

The last room was Jason Werner's. Like Nick had expected, it seemed to be the center of operations. There was minimal blood spatter, but the lower half of a woman's torso lay in the bed. After photographing it, Nick pulled the sheet up.

"Missing her, uh, girl parts?" Greg asked.

Nick shook his head. "No, just one breast."

"Guess we found number four."

"Guess we did," Nick said. "And, uh, I'm pretty sure we're going to have to swab her for biological evidence."

Greg clenched his teeth. "Great." He sighed. "You think that's Amanda?"

"I don't know. Seems the right age."

"He kills his sister and has sex with her dismembered corpse," Greg said. "Guess those lessons of Christian charity really sunk in." He looked around the room, at the drawings and writings tacked on every wall. "The sheer volume of writing is kind of staggering," he said. "Look at all those." He shined his flashlight on a stack of spiral notebooks similar to the one they'd found on the coffee table. "There's got to be, what? Twenty of them? And I bet they're full."

"Serial killers don't just become that way overnight," Nick said. "There are years of fantasy and half-hearted attempts before they actually begin to kill."

"Yeah," Greg said. He frowned, then, and shone his light on something under the bed. "And look," he said, "he kept Mom as a spare."

Nick squatted down and shook his head as he saw another woman's body beneath the bed. "Wait," he said. "Two heads in the car, male and female, one head in the living room, and one head still connected to a female body…that's four, not three."

"So Mom, Dad, and Sis weren't his only victims," Greg said.

Nick nodded and sighed.

"Nick," Greg said sharply.

"Hmm?"

"Nick, that's not a body."

"What?" Nick asked.

Greg lunged forward and grabbed the woman's arm to pull her from beneath the bed, and Nick was about to snap at him for contaminating evidence when he saw what Greg had seen. The woman wasn't decapitated, or dismembered, though she had been mutilated. The woman was bound, her arms tied against her sides, her legs wrapped together with coils of coarse rope. The woman's eyes were open and they glinted with terror as she looked frantically from Greg to Nick, then back again.

Nick sprung to his feet and ran down the hall. "David!" he shouted. "David, hurry! We've got one still alive!"

Comments

[geekwriter143.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but I should let you know that it's not all in my head. I get a lot of the science and investigation details from books and online sites. The rest of it? Well, I guess I'm just twisted that way. =)