Part Four – Finding a Ghost

Story Beginning

Hanging a map of Philly had required removing a few pictures from the wall, but Martin couldn’t be bothered to care. Hand clutching onto a notebook, his eyes jumped from the page to the pins he’d positioned across the metropolis, a frown tugging at the corners of his lips. The project had taken two days and required weeding through not just his initial twelve cases, but the other unresolved ones on his docket. Honing in on the ones which featured postmortem knife wounds consumed the most time. Those got the red pins.

Running his fingers through his messy hair, he reached for his cold cup of coffee and swallowed a gulp. A half-eaten bagel and an ashtray full of cigarette butts lay on the table beside his files, which were strewn about in a haphazard mess. Martin sighed, knowing he should shower and wishing he could summon an appetite, but the crime scene photos from the Davies murder kept playing in his head like a bad song on repeat. Pools of red had soaked through the plush, white carpet. The victims bled out, the same way Jill Franklin should have, had she merely been stabbed.

Peter Dawes must not have had a taste for the stuff yet.

Martin shook his head. The rational part of his mind still thought this was all insane, but the dots were finally connecting in what was once a nonsensical investigation. Even if the improbable wasn’t true, Dawes could have been acting under the influence of this woman – whatever she was – and locked in some form of hypnotism. Maybe Carlos only thought he saw teeth. Or maybe the woman had dental prosthetics and was using Dawes as her muscle. Martin hadn’t figured out how to explain the supernatural yet, but he was sure something could force this to make some twisted sort of sense.

Vampires didn’t exist. Regardless of how he was treating this case now.

Reaching into his pocket, Martin plucked a cigarette out of his pack and continued staring at the wall. Bill had done a meticulous job of picking out the cases he felt had the strongest connections, but there was still an undercurrent of suspicion within the other cases; an eerie omen that told Martin they could very have been orchestrated by Dawes, too. “People snap…”

“… The doctor sold his soul to the devil…”

“… All of the time,” he told himself. “This one just happens to have a vampire fetish.”

Smoke rose from the end of the cigarette when he lit it. Martin reached for the notebook and went back to revisiting the crime scene locations on his list. The collection of red dots had formed a cluster, with a few others scattered about the city as though he’d wandered off and…

… Got hungry…

… Pursued another victim somewhere else. But the largest concentration of points seemed to be establishing some sort of base of operations. Perhaps that’s where he’d been living this whole time while surviving off the radar. Martin stuck the final pin into the map and backed away, his eyes fixed on the Strawberry Mansion area of Philadelphia. The pins branched out several blocks to a couple of miles in each direction before becoming sparse, but this only served to affirm where the killer’s home was.

“Fucking snake in the grass,” Martin muttered. “Hiding in plain sight with the gangs and crackheads.” Was this what happened to Bill Frazier? Did he see this area staring back at him and decide to wander into the lion’s den? Martin considered someone with Peter Dawes’ level of insanity and wondered how good of an idea it was to go there alone. If Dawes really was the murderer…

“Sidearm. Loaded. Even if he’s got fifty fucking knives, I’ll be armed.” Martin wasn’t sure how to scare his target out of hiding, but canvassing the area would at least feed the pangs of intuition driving him. A distant voice in the back of his mind issued the words of warning, reminding his better judgment that others went before him and vanished. He knew more than most of them had, though. Wasn’t this what he was supposed to do? Wasn’t he a police officer, after all?

“No such things as vampires.”

Silently, he wondered if those would be his last words.

***

The evening was mild for late May, with the wind providing enough chill to necessitate the use of a jacket. Pedestrians wandered up and down Ridge Ave., a transit bus screaming toward the Northwest and pausing only to pick up new passengers. Dilapidated buildings had been interspersed among houses with bars and gates. Small, urban churches painted a bleak picture of light inside the darkness. Martin found himself lost in the morbid thought of how many funerals they probably paid host to throughout the year.

He had attempted to dress as casually as possible; something reminiscent more of an unassuming neighbor, than a cop looking for a killer. The shoulder holster had remained at home and the gun tucked into the back of his pants. His jacket concealed his police microphone and the inside pocket carried his badge. Prepared or not, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a child playing an adult’s game.

Perhaps he should call for backup.

“And explain this to Graham?” he asked himself. “Yeah, right.” No, this was up to him for now. If he could catch Dawes, then Martin would talk to the Lieutenant. Martin wouldn’t have to mention the word vampire, then. It would be sufficient enough for him to say he located a murder suspect.

But first, Martin needed something to go on.

“You’re around here somewhere, you bastard.” Martin continued walking around the area he had outlined in red with his marker. He wrote down cross streets and possible intersections to examine, encompassing a swatch of asphalt approximately ten city blocks either way from his starting point. The city was active and alive, with plenty of people…

… Prey…

… Starting their night as Philadelphians often did. Lots of liquor. A lot of mischief. It all made Martin wistful for the simpler days, when he was carting off drunks and arresting disorderlies; not chasing after pseudo-immortals. ‘Think like your target,’ he chided himself. ‘You’re evading an arrest warrant while still wanting to get your kicks. Where do hide out?’ Martin paused at an intersection and peered up at a non-descript estate he figured housed a few floors of apartments. A quick glance at the cross-streets summoned an image of the map hanging from his wall. The epicenter laid somewhere around the corner, just a block or two down the street and maybe a little more North. Turning to head in that direction, he glanced first at the front doors of the apartment building and froze when one of them opened.

Martin’s heart leaped into his throat at who he saw walk out.

While a few others emerged with him – all of them a little too well-dressed for the neighborhood – the man Martin honed in on broke away from the pack, a deliberate tenor to his walk. He jogged down a short set of stairs, his black, wing-tipped shoes moving swiftly toward the sidewalk, and adjusted the black suit jacket he wore. At the bottom of the stairs, he hesitated, affording the detective a better look. Martin swallowed hard. There stood the medical student whose picture lay in Peter Dawes’s file folder.

Or, at the very least, he looked like he was the same height and build. Short, brown hair; sunglasses concealing his eyes. They called to mind the person Jill Franklin had last been seen with and the black suit added further credence to the suspicion. He did appear to be in his mid-to-late twenties and even if he wasn’t Dawes, he was close enough to the scene of Jill Franklin’s murder to be pulled in for questioning.

No, it was Dawes. Martin knew it. Yet, at the same time, there was something a bit different about the man. The great humanitarian and model citizen seemed far removed from the man who placed a cigarette into his mouth and pulled a lighter from his pocket. No, this man screamed of danger, emanating enough intrigue that the ladies probably ignored the warning sirens for the chance at a romp in the sheets with him. The Peter Dawes of the interviews sounded like he wouldn’t be caught parking in the wrong spot. This one looked more than capable of murder.

The end of his cigarette burned a brilliant orange and with the first puff, he flicked the lighter closed and pocketed it. His temporary stop transformed into a purposeful stride again, and Martin realized it was now or never. Call for back up? Write down the location he just emerged from? While both appeared the options of a sane man, Martin imagined Dawes on his way to another murder and opted for the third door. He started tailing his target, staying as far from Dawes as possible while studying him as much as he could. The former doctor seemed oblivious to everything around him; stuck on whatever task he had set his mind to accomplish. Other people passed him and both parties remained apathetic toward the other, although his walk did slow a little when a woman passed and looked him over.

He stopped as if debating something. Then he stepped up his pace once again. Martin smirked to himself.

‘Not this one. Right, Dawes?’

Only a half block down and across another intersection, Dawes made an abrupt turn down a side street. The light turned, forcing Martin to stop and look both ways, crossing quickly when the endless stream of oncoming traffic abated enough to allow him to run. Martin frowned and looked ahead. The fading figure of Peter Dawes was continuing down the street without skipping a beat.

“Shit,” Martin said, picking up the pace of his stride. When the rest of the traffic passed, the buildings flanking them created a quiet vacuum, with them the only two people walking down the street. Dawes was ahead of him by at least a hundred yards, but Martin slowed his pace in favor of moving with more stealth. Reaching behind his back, Martin drew his gun and kept it concealed by his side. His suspect appeared none-the-wiser to the fact that he was being followed.

Until Martin’s shoe hit a rock.

The noise was slight, but Dawes stopped immediately and raised the cigarette to his mouth in one careful motion. Martin paused as well and sized Dawes up, wondering if he was going to turn around and look behind him. A cloud of smoke rose from Dawes’ mouth and still, the man did not motion one way or the other. Instead, he remained frozen in place.

Martin took a deep breath to steady his racing heart.

As Martin exhaled, a smile broke out on Dawes’ face. He flicked the cigarette away, toward a neighboring building littered with construction warnings and scaffolding. The detective remained still, his gaze fixed on the man in front of him. Out of instinct, he cocked back the hammer of his gun. Finally, Dawes shifted to face Martin.

An eyebrow raised, he examined Martin while the detective kept the gun lowered at his side. The two engaged in a stalemate, neither moving except to breathe. No, Martin appeared to be the only one doing that; he couldn’t see any sign of the characteristic rise and fall of the other man’s chest. Instead, the statuesque posture returned, interrupted only when Dawes tilted his head and furrowed his brow.

Martin finally spoke. “Are you Peter Dawes?” he asked, shouting toward the tall figure. The traffic resumed its steady flow, but neither one acknowledged it; both seemed intent to carry on the staring contest for a few beats longer. Martin expected Dawes to start running. With his list of charges there was no way he’d stay to face the music. Yet, Dawes remained in position.

Dawes smiled. Then he began to laugh.

The sound bore a sadistic amount of pleasure to it. Advancing a few paces, Dawes stopped again and continued staring at Martin while grinning like the Cheshire cat. “Well, that has to be one of the more interesting questions I have been asked lately,” he said, his voice carrying an odd intonation. Chilling. Educated, and yet cold-blooded at the same time. “And, who might you be?”

Martin felt the impulse to flash his badge, but didn’t motion for it. “My name is Detective Martin Sanchez. I’m with the homicide division of the Philadelphia Police Department.” Martin listened to the echo of his voice, which sounded a lot more confident than he felt. “Mr. Dawes, you have a warrant for your arrest, for the murder of Lydia Davies and Liam Collins. You are also wanted for questioning in connection to several other murders, including Detective Jill Franklin.”

The laugh from before was nothing compared to the one that followed the list’s enumeration. Martin felt like he’d slipped a punch line into the statement without intending to and was forced to wait for the suspect’s laughter to subside before hearing a response. “My, you must be a clever mortal,” Dawes said, using the final word with a hint of disdain. “One of you has not has not come snooping around in some time. You daft creatures are still working on that adulterous wench’s case?” Dawes shook his head. “I hardly thought you would be so persistent.”

Martin didn’t want to admit he was the first one in years to touch the case. “That’s what happens when you keep killing people, Dawes…”

Dawes flicked his hand up to stop Martin, grimacing as he did. “Please stop using that name.”

“What would you prefer I call you?”

“Nothing, thank you. And spare me the lecture. If you expected me to issue some sort of remorse, you came to the wrong being.”

“No remorse, huh? Not even for Jill Franklin or Bill Frazier?” Martin swallowed hard, struggling to maintain an air of authority despite how much the exchange unnerved him. “How about those other people you’ve murdered? Not a shred of fucking remorse for any of them, Dawes?”

While Martin expected saying his name again would generate some response, Dawes only continued peering at Martin until a grin swept across his face once more. The heart inside Martin’s chest continued to pound and Dawes knew it; he was feeding off it. Martin was scared out of his mind.

“Come alone, Detective?” he asked.

Martin shook his head. “I have several units dispatched as we speak,” he said.

“Don’t con a con artist – you reek of fear. You have no cavalry. It is simply you and I, is it not?” The air around him changed, from annoyed to cunning within moments. Martin raised his gun a few inches as his skin began to crawl, but Dawes did something far different than Martin expected.

He looked to his left, at an alleyway intersecting the side street.

Then he looked at Martin deliberately before dashing toward the building under renovation.

Dawes disappeared down an adjoining alley. Martin swore under his breath, ignoring that he’d just been issued a dare as he uncovered his police microphone and keyed it. “Officer needs assistance. Murder suspect being pursued close to the –” He spun to glance toward the street signs again. “– Intersection of 31st and Page. Request all available units as suspect is believed armed and dangerous.” Releasing the button, Martin started a sprint for the alley, turning the corner and charging several paces before stopping. Dawes had vanished again like a ghost. The area contained no sign that he’d been there and the construction site was…

A plastic sheet covering an open doorway fluttered as if it’d been disturbed. “Got you,” Martin muttered as he dashed for what appeared to be a side entrance. Lifting the sheet with his free hand, he aimed the gun in front of him and slipped into the vacant building as quietly as possible. The plastic fell behind him when he let it go. Clutching the gun now with both hands, he snuck down a corridor which emptied out into a main vestibule. Two large rooms jutted from the left and right, but a quick glance revealed no sign of the suspect whatsoever.

Martin frowned while slowly pacing toward a flight of stairs. The son of a bitch was here somewhere, he just knew it. “Come on, Dawes, where are you?” he said as his gaze jumped around, afraid to settle on one place for too long. Closing the distance between himself and the staircase, he looked upward and began ascending. The building had to have been at least four stories tall, with God only knew how many rooms on each floor above. It was a fucking rat trap and now, he was the rodent.

Releasing a sigh, he walked up the next stair, but hesitated before proceeding any further. He was five seconds from calling it off when two things happened, one right after the other. First, the recollection of those damn crime scene photos resurfaced as if Lydia Davies was calling out from the great beyond and asking him to avenge her murder. Jennifer Graham spoke next, asking Martin if he thought it wasn’t worth setting all of these victims’ families at ease. Compelling, though they were, Martin still didn’t know if he was keen to search this building from roof to cellar for his killer.

That’s when Martin heard a shoe scuff against the floor on the next level up. At once, Martin’s fear was replaced by a sense of victory. “There you are, asshole,” he said, a smile breaking out on his face.

Martin started up the stairs again, this time taking one after the other, ascending without hesitation. As the stairs twisted in a ninety degree angle, he leaned against the railing and snaked around the bend without giving his target a clean shot at his chest. Dawes was probably armed with something; might have had a gun as well for all Martin knew, but there would at least be a knife. Yes, the sociopath wouldn’t be caught without his weapon of choice. ‘Brought a knife to a gun fight…’

“… In and out, like the guy was some fucking butcher…”

‘… Did you, Dawes?’ Martin mused as he reached the second floor and pressed his back against the wall. He lifted his gun and looked from side to side, but didn’t have time to do much else.

The room in front of him was encased in shadows, with a tiny amount of moonlight sneaking through one of the plastic-draped windows. The moonlight caught a glimmer, but no sooner did Martin see the sheen of the blade than it sank deep into his shoulder and pinned him square against the wall. Yelping, Martin let go of the gun inadvertently and heard it hit the gritty concrete underneath him. One fleeting second was all he had to regret letting go of the pistol before his shoulder wailed at him.

He shut his eyes and clenched his teeth against the pain, then forced himself to gaze at the knife once more. The handle jutted out of him and a patch of crimson red blood was already staining Martin’s coat, but the laughter of Satan distracted him from studying it much further. Martin turned his head and glanced toward the shadows again.

“Stupid fucking mortal.” The words came out deliberately, with a condescending tone permanently etched into the man’s voice. “I am not one easily given over to mercy, Detective, but I thought I would see if your confidence would outweigh your sense of self-preservation. Should have listened to that petrified little heartbeat of yours.”

Dawes emerged from the shadows, staring Martin down with a wicked smirk curling the corners of his lips. The sunglasses on his face did nothing to mask the coldness in his eyes and Martin knew right then and there he had just made the worst mistake in his life “You wished to capture me?” Dawes asked, almost intentionally hiding something in his mouth. “You wished yourself a waltz with the devil?”

This time he grinned widely, and when he did, Martin’s heart became a permanent tenant in his throat.

“Then let us begin.”

Story Conclusion (Coming Soon)

Part Three – The Red-Headed Woman

Story Beginning

The Feds only glanced at the case once before dismissing altogether.

Martin remembered sitting in the corner of the room, drinking coffee as the FBI agent shrugged off Carl Powers. “You’re looking for a serial killer when there’s nothing to support the idea,” he said brusquely, walking past the rank and file detectives as though the building was on fire. “At best, you have a few homicidal Goths or a gang of vampire wannabes who’re concealing their work using knives. I’m willing to bet, though, that half of these cases are just stabbings that your department has mislabeled.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Powers said, looking something like the small dog chasing after the big one. “These murders are not random. In fact, we have reason to believe there may be more. We have a ton of unsolved homicides that…”

“That just seems to suggest your department is inept, sir. What do you want the Federal Bureau of Investigation to do about it?”

“Help us!” Powers stopped in his tracks. The entire homicide department watched as he threw up his hands and raised his voice to the federal agent. “You barely looked at the Franklin murder case, Agent Blane, and didn’t bother to listen to two words I had to say about the other cases. We have enough evidence to suggest these murders are linked together. Fucking hell, they’re all happening in the same section of Philadelphia!”

Blane turned around, facing the latest piece of meat being tossed at the dogs for consumption. Truthfully, Powers was just at the end of his rope; that’s why he called the Feds in the first damn place. The federal agent was less-than-sympathetic to his cause, though. “Sir, what you have are some fringe Goths or a gang war – just like every other city in the United States – and that’s your jurisdiction, not ours. A serial killer has a modus operandi and ‘he prefers women’ is not enough. You don’t even have the physical evidence to link the same killer to each murder. No fluids. No hair, fabric, anything that has appeared at each crime scene that you can use. All you have is a hunch and I’m doing you the favor of saying you’re wrong.” He nodded to Powers. “Good day, sir.”

The fed stormed out of the office and, in his wake, left Powers’ hope for salvation, shattered into a thousand pieces. Powers stared at the doors, looking more like a madman than Bill Frazier had ever looked to Martin.

It was hard for Martin to buy that Bill started believing in the undead.

Running his fingers through his hair in a huff, Martin glanced from the wall of his apartment to the table positioned in front of his couch. A long-forgotten cigarette wafted smoke in front of his notes, next to a cup of coffee which had grown cold hours ago. Martin’s mind wandered through the maze laid out before him by Bill, a few conclusions becoming more and more evident. Agent Blane was full of shit. This was no gang war.

But then, what was it?

Martin sighed, sitting back against the stained fabric and flat cushions. He didn’t need to reread the files; he knew them all by heart. When Bill disappeared, there were ten murder victims who had his interest piqued. Nobody doubted they all looked suspicious, with similar stab wounds and punctures. Bill took two additional cold cases on independently, though, and linked them to the others. There was something Bill recognized in each case that proved the same person was behind them all, something none of his successors were able to pinpoint themselves.

Pictures of those twelve victims hung on Martin’s wall, the major facts of each case jotted onto paper and tacked beside them. All, but one, were female. Two found in similar, if less graphic, positions as Jill Franklin. What set them apart had nothing to do with gender or any form of externals since eight of them weren’t targeted for sex. Random was his modus operandi, but there was something else that connected Bill’s original ten. Something Martin noticed when Jill Franklin died.

The knife wound on each victim was postmortem. The coroner from each autopsy had confirmed as much. And while the crime scenes were devoid of spatter and mess, the victims themselves had lost a lot of blood from a secondary wound.

“… A guy murdered his girlfriend and then became a vampire.”

Martin frowned at his notes. The crime scenes were way too clean for anyone’s taste. No hairs. A couple of black fibers in one that could have belonged to anything. Most happened outside, in places contaminated by city debris and Mother Nature. For all they knew, there could have been plenty of physical evidence, but nothing linked directly to the victim. Martin swore as he picked up his pack and lit another cigarette. He took a drag and continued staring at the photographs in front of him. There was more to this. Bill wouldn’t have arrived at a conclusion straight out of a fiction novel without a damn good reason; he just wasn’t that unhinged.

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Isn’t that right?” Martin sighed. “Alrighty, then. What the fuck did you find, Bill?” Nodding to himself, Martin rose from his seat and padded to the bedroom. There had to be something in the box of evidence he still had scattered on top of his desk at work.

It only took Martin a few minutes to shower and dress. As he entered the police precinct and marched to his desk, he nodded at Lieutenant Graham and said, “Cleaning that shit up and getting it back down to the basement,” before continuing on his trek. She nodded, a pleased expression on her face that indicated she bought it. Good, Martin thought as he approached his desk. Now he wouldn’t have her breathing down his neck.

The box and its contents were exactly as he left them, with the tape recorder and Dawes’ file placed in the center of Martin’s desk. Martin picked up the tape recorder and plucked out Chloe Poole’s interview, so he could return it to its case. With a flippant toss, Poole returned to her crypt…

“…Yes, he was acting a bit strangely…”

… And joined the others who believed Peter Dawes should’ve been nominated for sainthood.

The others.

Martin stared into the box and raised an eyebrow. He’d not bothered with the other co-worker interviews because the reports all indicated a lot of the same that Miss Poole had to offer. Peter wouldn’t kill anyone. Peter wasn’t that kind of person. No, not even if his girlfriend was caught in bed with another man; he’d sooner kill himself. Fucking spotless record. Not even a traffic ticket. What the fuck made him pull the knife on his girlfriend, then? The answer to that question had to be in there somewhere.

Martin glanced around quickly for Lieutenant Graham’s location before digging further through the tapes. Names were followed by their relevance, listed as ’Temple Med Ctr.’ or ’Landlord’, but one tape in particular stuck out to Martin as he rifled through and stopped to study at it.

‘Carlos Velez – Coffee Shop’

He hadn’t seen this one on the original interview list. In fact, he hadn’t seen any mention of any tape-recorded conversations with anyone from the coffee shop. This had to be one conducted by Bill himself. Martin looked around again and hesitated while Lieutenant Graham walked into her office, waiting until she closed the door before pocketing the tape and rifling through the rest of the box. Seeing nothing else that piqued his interest, he grabbed for the crime scene photos – throwing them on top of the Dawes file – and put the lid back on the box of evidence. Martin stole a quick moment to slip the tape player into his pocket, too, and threw the pictures and file folder on top of the box before grabbing it and starting for the basement.

Well, he told her he’d be returning the box. He didn’t promise everything would be in it.

***

The cop working the desk down in archives was easy to pacify. Martin claimed the folder and photos he snatched from the top of the box were from a different case. His coworker offered nothing more than an apathetic shrug, not even bothering to examine the contents of the box before walking off to shelve it. Martin mused that he could have probably snatched the blood-soaked knife from inside and walked off with it…

“Son of a bitch knew what he was doing. In and out, like the guy was some fucking butcher.”

… And nobody would have given a damn about it.

Instead, he only had his sidearm and his contraband when he found himself sitting in the middle of JFK Plaza, revisiting his conversation with Bill from three years back. His hand drifted slowly into his pocket as he considered what could have been flying around in his friend’s head; the things he didn’t vocalize to Martin knowing he might sound insane. Martin thought up an amendment to their conversation – the one where the fatigued and haunted Bill Frazier confessed that maybe his ghost was a vampire. Somehow, Martin could picture this with much more clarity now.

“I must be fuckin’ out of my mind,” Martin said, but he still slipped the tape out of his pocket and placed the small tape player next to him, so he could extract the three-year old testimony from its case. Within a few seconds, the tape was secured inside the player and Martin’s thumb hovered over the ‘play’ button. He felt like Alice about to enter the looking glass.

Before he could stop himself, he pressed play.

Bill Frazier was the first to speak. “This is Bill Frazier. Interview conducted June 17, 1983, approximately six months after the Davies murder. Witness Carlos Velez – Hispanic male, twenty-two years old – present. Mr. Velez was a college student at Temple University at the time of the murder. Mr. Velez, thank you for agreeing to this interview, sir.”

“You’re welcome, Detective,” Carlos said, sounding very lucid, if a bit apprehensive.

“Now, for the record,” Bill said, “You were present at the Broad Street Café on the evening of January 20, 1983, am I correct?”

Carlos paused to take a deep breath. “Yes, I was.”

“And you claim that you recognize the man in this photograph?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“For the record, this is a photograph of Dr. Peter Dawes – Caucasian male, twenty-eight years old at the time of the murder.” Bill paused. “Could you please tell me what you remember about that night, Mr. Velez?”

“Yes, sir.” Carlos hesitated for a moment, indulging in another cleansing breath that reminded Martin of a woman in labor. Whatever he was about to say was difficult for Carlos to force out. “I… I used to be a regular back around that time. I came here after classes to do homework and read since I shared an apartment with a couple of rowdy roommates.” He let out a nervous laugh. “Kinda… hard… to get any studying done when your roomies invite their friends over to get drunk all the time.”

“Understood,” Bill said. “For the record, you’re a student of Temple University?”

“Yeah, pre-med.”

“And you were here doing school work on the evening you spotted Peter Dawes?”

“Um, yeah. I’d actually seen him a few times. He’s one of the doctors down at the hospital. I remembered him ‘cause he helped my roommate once. Nelson got a little screwed up and split his cheek open after falling down the stairs. Dawes stitched Nelson up.”

“What was your impression of Dawes?”

“Seemed like an okay guy.” Martin pictured Carlos shrugging. “He ribbed on Nelson for getting smashed. Made me laugh, in any event.”

“How did Dr. Dawes appear on the night in question?”

“He was really fidgety. Something was bothering him. He relaxed when this red-headed chick sat down near him, but I could tell something was off about the whole thing.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Carlos hesitated. “You ever watch those movies where you know the main guy’s about to walk around a corner?” he asked rhetorically. “And you know there’s some ax murderer waiting for him with an axe? Well, that’s what I kept thinking when I saw him talking to this lady. I don’t know why I kept watching them, but I did and, you know, I kept thinking to myself that he shouldn’t be talking to her. She was doing something to him.”

“Doing what?”

Carlos’ voice became soft, as though he was lost in the recollection. “She was fucking with him. Fucking with his mind. His eyes got really distant and he looked just like those people that get hypnotized on TV.”

“So, this red-headed woman was hypnotizing him?”

“That’s what it looked like to me.”

“Did you hear anything she was saying?”

Carlos hesitated. “Nah, I didn’t. But…”

“But what?”

“But, after they’d been talking like this for a bit, I saw her get creepy close to him. Just for a few seconds, almost like she was about to do something to him. I was staring by this point and… Man, I don’t know how she didn’t pick up on it. She might not have cared, for all I know. ‘Cause only a minute later, he got up and left. When he walked away, she just grinned like the fucking devil.” Carlos paused and began to murmur. “She was the fuckin’ devil. Fuckin’ monster, that’s what she was.”

Bill paused before issuing his next question. His voice became oddly quiet as well. “What makes you say that?”

There was an interminable pause. “I saw that bitch do something after that,” he said.

“What did you see?”

Carlos scoffed. “You won’t fuckin’ believe me.”

“I took the tip you called in seriously, Carlos. Try me.”

“No, I don’t want you to tell me to see a shrink or some shit. I’ve seen a shrink already and he nearly committed me, alright? People keep telling me I didn’t see what I saw, but I fucking saw it. I only started coming back here a month ago because I was afraid I’d see that redhead again.” He stopped. “And I’m not one of those druggies either, before you accuse me of that. Never touched the shit in my life.”

“I know you’re not. Now, what did you see her do?” There was silence. A vision entered Martin’s mind of Bill leaning forward in his seat and staring straight into the young man’s eyes. “I know you want to tell me, Carlos. You can trust me; I’m not going to call you crazy. I just want to know the truth.”

Carlos hesitated once again. Then he began to speak. “She left and I just shook my head and started packing up my books. It’s funny –” He laughed sardonically. “– ‘Cause I finished my coffee and thought to myself that the doctor sold his soul to the devil. And then I left and saw it.”

Bill remained quiet, waiting patiently for the young man to continue his story. It took a long pause and a deep breath, but Carlos found the will to keep talking. “I walked outside and turned the corner to head back to the apartment. But then I heard something weird; some people talking from behind the building. I should’ve never fucking stopped, but I did. I even looked around the building, too.

“She was with some other guy dressed in a suit. He was holding a girl and the girl was thrashing around, but the guy had his hand over her mouth so people couldn’t hear her screaming. I should’ve done something, like yelled or called the cops or some shit like that. But it happened too quickly and I was too shocked to think of that.” He took an uneasy breath. “I swear to God, I saw her bite the woman – she had these two, massively long teeth that went right into the girl’s neck – and the dude held this girl still until the girl was fucking dead.”

Carlos’ voice cracked with the final words. Martin blinked as Carlos sniffled and laughed – Martin assumed at himself. “You know, I’m not one of those Goth people and shit. I don’t fuckin’ sit in my room thinking, ‘I wish vampires were real.’ But I saw them. I saw the bitch’s teeth a-a-and there was blood on her lips and everything. They just… threw this girl in the dumpster –” Another sniffle. “– And talked about her like she was a piece of meat. She said something about her tasting good and being able to do something now, but I just ran. I ran and nearly fucking shit myself as I kept seeing the girl die in my head.” He paused. “You said this dude killed his girlfriend?” Another sniffle. “I bet that redhead made him do it. That’s probably what they were talking about in there.”

Bill didn’t know what to say. The tape ended abruptly and Martin hit the stop button when nothing but dead air followed. His first inclination drifted toward one of Carlos’s fears; he figured the kid was some sort of drug addict or not right in the head. However, Martin’s instincts knew that wasn’t right. The kid was lucid. Scared, but still he knew exactly what he was saying and said it just like any other eyewitness to any other occurrence a little less supernatural.

“So, what, do you think this Dawes guy did it?”

“Wouldn’t matter if he did. Nobody can find the bastard anyway.”

“So, you agree that this man completely fell off the map – this man who, if I remember correctly, never jaywalked prior to this case – and has been on a killing spree ever since?”

“… I kept wondering if the man he saw was related to the coffee shop. He said he was meeting someone there.”

“… I finished my coffee and thought to myself that the doctor sold his soul to the devil…”

“I swear to God, I saw her bite the woman…”

“Bill thought Dawes was a vampire?”

“People don’t completely vanish.”

“He nearly covered it up with that knife wound, but there were two fucking puncture wounds and the knife wound barely bled out.”

“Holy shit, what am I thinking?” Martin asked himself as he leaned his elbows against his knees and slid both hands up to his temples. In one hand, he still clutched the tape recorder, as though he had forgotten it, but was too stunned to let it go. All of the voices in his head kept shouting their testimonies at a volume Martin could not ignore. So, this is what it felt like to tumble down the rabbit hole. So, this is what it felt like to lose your mind.

Martin shook his head. What would make a model citizen go on a three year murder spree?

“If he became a vampire,” Martin muttered and his grip upon reality finally let go. He dropped the tape recorder. It smashed into pieces when it finally hit the ground.

Part Four >>

Part Two – An Unlikely Killer

Martin could almost see the conversation.

The nurse’s name was Chloe Poole, a fifteen year veteran of Temple University Hospital that often worked the same shifts as Dr. Peter Dawes. On several occasions, she assisted him and seemed to know him better than any of the other nurses they had interviewed. Martin formed a mental picture of this nurse sitting down with the interviewing detective, possibly inside one of the hospital’s waiting rooms. “Miss Poole,” the interviewing detective had said, “Please tell me what you know about Peter Dawes.”

By now, she knew what happened to Peter’s girlfriend, Lydia Davies. The newspapers were right on top of the story when two bodies were found by Davies’ neighbor, Regina Donaldson. The front door had been left open, providing Miss Donaldson the jarring sight of two warm bodies and a room covered in blood when she entered the apartment. Martin figured it still haunted her in the wee, small hours of the morning. Hell, it would have unnerved a seasoned veteran like him, too.

Lydia Davies had been ushered into the afterlife next to a man named Liam Collins. Although there was no proof the two had been romantically-entangled, there was enough circumstantial evidence to see how Peter Dawes could have thought so; Collins was only partially-dressed and both bodies had been found in Miss Davies’s bedroom. The initial news reports never named a suspect and subsequent stories possessed a strange apathy toward even speculating motive.

Chloe Poole could read between the lines sufficiently enough, however.

“I know he was no murderer,” the tape-recorded voice said, speaking from three years in the past. “That’s why you people are asking about Peter. I don’t know who killed Lydia, but he wouldn’t ever harm her.”

“How do you know that, Miss Poole?” the detective asked from the corridors of time as well.

“You didn’t know him, sir. Peter wouldn’t harm anyone, especially not Lydia. Lydia meant the world to him.”

“Not even if Miss Davies had been involved with another man?”

Chloe Poole laughed. “That’d never happen.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She felt the same way about Peter. They weren’t attached at the hip or together every day, but every time I saw them, I had no doubt about their relationship. In fact, she was just here a couple of weeks ago to meet Peter for dinner after one of his shifts.”

“And everything looked alright between them?”

“Peter was stressed, but he looked happy to see her. Nothing seemed wrong with her.”

“You say stressed?”

“Yeah, you try working the emergency room for twelve hours straight. It had been a tough day. This place takes a lot out of you.”

The interviewing officer paused to switch tracks. “How long did you say they’d been dating?”

“Two years, I think.”

“So, during the course of two years, they never talked about getting married?”

“It’s the 80s, dear. Couples wait years before getting married these days. Peter had started mentioning it recently, that he was thinking about proposing to her.”

“Any problems between them during that time? Notable fights or threats or anything?”

“Nope. Never saw any spats. He never complained about anything other than the fact that they were always so busy.”

“And Mr. Dawes has never done anything that would alarm you?”

“No,” she said, chuckling again. “Sir, no offense, but he was a typical guy. Would get mad, happy, sad, frustrated just like anyone else.”

“Now, what’s this about Dr. Dawes being absent from work for five days prior to Miss Davies’s death?”

There was a pause. Martin raised an eyebrow.

“Miss Poole?”

She hesitated again. “Sir, no matter what, Peter wouldn’t kill someone.”

“That’s not what I asked. Two people have died, Miss Poole. I know Mr. Dawes was a friend, but if he’s the one who killed these people, then you know as well as I do that we have to determine the truth. His fingerprints were found on the murder weapon.”

“Probably because he’d touched the knife before. He was constantly at her apartment.”

“Ma’am, was Dr. Dawes absent from work?”

“Yes. He did disappear pretty abruptly.” Chloe Poole sighed.

“And was he acting any differently than usual before that?”

This time the pause was interminable. Martin could see the detective eyeing Chloe with a deliberate stare as she looked away and frowned. Finally she responded, “Yes, he was acting a bit strangely. He was very edgy and impatient the entire week before he disappeared. A patient walked in looking for him and when Peter failed to walk out of the examining room, I went in to check on them. They were both gone.” She paused. “I kept wondering if the man he saw was related to the coffee shop. He said he was meeting someone there.”

“Who was he meeting?”

“I have no idea. Thought it was a woman, but he made it sound pretty platonic.”

“Why had he been acting edgy?”

“I don’t know,” Chloe said a bit softer. “I just know what kind of person Peter Dawes was. No matter how agitated he was, killing anyone would be the furthest thing from his mind. That boy had a heart of gold.”

The interviewing detective paused before issuing his next question, but from there, the conversation became nothing more than reinforcement that Peter Dawes was a good man. Bill Frazier followed the lead and questioned the workers at a local coffee shop, but all they could tell Bill was that the sainted doctor was seen speaking to a redheaded woman on the day of the murders. She lingered for fifteen minutes after he left before leaving herself. No one knew her name, but she was a regular who vanished after that evening as well.

“Is this the new Bermuda Triangle?” Martin muttered to himself as he continued digging through case files and tape-recorded interviews. It seemed as though everyone connected to this case was vanishing; the suspect, the red-headed acquaintance. Several investigators. Bill Frazier. Martin sighed and finally plopped down in his chair with Peter Dawes’s file in hand. The moment he opened it up, he was instantly startled by the first page that greeted him.

A picture of Dawes from medical school was attached to a dossier describing him. Martin’s eyes honed in on two features that rang a bell of recognition, from Jill Franklin’s murder. Tall. Twenty-eight years old. He had been a handsome man and looked like he could easily turn a lady’s head, even one in search of a deranged killer.

This begged the question, however, of what happened to Dawes if the man Martin saw in this old photograph was truly a serial killer. What would cause an otherwise model citizen to snap and not only kill his girlfriend of two years, but to go on a three year killing spree, all while slipping through the shadows of Philadelphia without so much as using his social security number? Bill Frazier had originally concluded Peter Dawes probably committed suicide, which seemed the more logical notion. However, once the first few victims in these serial murders emerged, Bill became convinced the jilted lover of this case was something more.

“Bill, I think you’re out in left field…”

“… About 6’2” or 6’3”. In his twenties. Brown hair…”

“… But I don’t have any better leads.” Martin sighed and continued staring at the picture, trying to picture the young man with dark sunglasses and a black suit, but what the others said two years ago was true – his description coincided with half the white male population of the city. With a sigh, Martin flipped the page and formed what he thought was the more plausible mental image, that of the heartbroken young doctor drowning in the Delaware River.

“Son of a bitch knew what he was doing…”

Martin pursed his lips in thought. Placing the tape player down onto his desk, he reached for Dawes’ folder again and opened back to Bill’s notes. Flipping past the initial entry, he passed the boring notions of Dawes’ spotless criminal record and reached the final pages of the file. However something seemed to be missing.

Bill’s notes abruptly came to an end, mid-sentence as Bill started writing additions to his initial notes. Martin flipped the page over and expected to see the sentence continue, but the back of the page was blank and no further notes followed. Only school reports and a birth record rounded out the remainder of the file. A quick rummage through the rest of the box showed nothing had fallen out of the file. Martin frowned. Now the case files were disappearing.

“Somebody needs to put a tent above this circus,” Martin said to himself as he shook his head. He scratched the back of his neck as he continued staring into the box and finally took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Rubbing his eyes, he lifted his wrist to peer at his watch and noticed for the first time that he’d been working Bill’s old case for the better part of the evening. It was time to take a…

“Sanchez? Working pretty late, aren’t you?”

Martin looked up in time to spot Lieutenant Jennifer Graham ten feet before she arrived at his desk. Glancing down, he took inventory of the mess his personal area had become before looking up at the middle-aged brunette he reported to. She appraised it in the same manner and smirked. “This is a promising sight. Are we following a lead on the serials?”

He paused to glance at his watch again. “A possible one, anyway. Going to break for dinner now.”

“Huh,” she said thoughtfully, allowing her eyes to drift across the box and its disheveled contents before picking up the file that had been placed upon Martin’s desk. She flipped it open, but then she stopped at page one. “Why do you have this file, Sanchez?”

Martin blinked. “Like I said, it’s a possible lead.”

“Sanchez, this is a cold case. Not a lead on the serials.”

“Actually, I think they might be connected.” Martin waited until the Lieutenant looked back at him before continuing. “Bill Frazier seemed to think so, too. This guy dematerialized and no more than a few months later we started getting the first rash of suspicious murders.”

“We have a lot of suspects that disappear. What makes you think it’s Dawes and not any the other suspects from the hundreds of cold case files we have locked in archives?”

“I don’t know. Bill seemed pretty damn convinced and I wanted to know why. A detective’s intuition isn’t anything to sneeze at.”

She raised an eyebrow and then peered down at the file again. “So, you agree that this man completely fell off the map – this man who, if I remember correctly, never jaywalked prior to this case – and has been on a killing spree ever since?”

“I didn’t say I knew for sure, just that he was a possible lead.”

“Martin, let me give you some advice.” The Lieutenant peered up at Martin again, this time with a plaintive look in her eyes. “Don’t pursue this lead. Bill originally thought he committed suicide and all of the evidence we have has suggested the same thing. He cracked, killed his girlfriend when he found her with another man, and then offed himself. We’re just missing a body.”

She shut the file folder, passing it back to Martin before she turned to walk away. The implied order lingered where she left it. Martin glanced down at the folder and immediately thought of the missing notes, though. Was it possible?

“What did he end up saying?” Martin asked before he could stop himself. He watched as the Lieutenant paused in her tracks and turned to face him. Martin continued. “There’s a missing page. You said he thought Dawes committed suicide, but I know that changed. He confided that much in me before he disappeared.”

“What did he tell you?” she asked, her eyes scanning him as though waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“He said the cases were connected. Why was this file tampered with?”

Lieutenant Graham sighed and walked back over to Martin’s desk. “Do you really want to know what happened?”

Martin raised an eyebrow. “Well, it would be nice. Since you don’t think I should pursue this lead.”

She nodded. “You know what it’s like to watch a man go insane? Well, that happened to me with Bill. He started working the serial murders and before I knew it, I saw a sane man go from thinking some guy with a knife and a vampire fetish was screwing women and knocking them off… to thinking that a guy murdered his girlfriend and then became a vampire.”

The eyebrow remained arched. “Bill thought Dawes was a vampire?”

“I put him on administrative leave,” she said, “And ordered him to get evaluated by a psychiatrist. That’s why he disappeared, Martin. He went off to find this ‘vampire’ and never returned.” The Lieutenant paused for a deliberate moment before glancing at the box of evidence. “Peter Dawes killed himself.” Her gaze returned to Martin. “And this killer is still out there. Now unless you feel it’s not worth setting these victims’ families at ease, I suggest you refocus. This bastard is toying with us. He needs to be stopped.”

She turned again, but this time Martin didn’t stop her. Instead, he settled back in his seat and studied the file folder in his hands, the name looking back at him as if mocking him. The beige colored background with the typed black letters that formed a name that formed a riddle. How the hell did Bill get this far only to go crazy?

Without bothering to pack up the box, Martin grabbed his coat and left the riddle to simmer overnight. For now, it was late and he didn’t figure staring at the same information for another ten hours would grant him any new insight. Martin needed to get inside Bill Frazier’s head.

Just not so far that he ended up going crazy himself.

Continue Reading…

Author’s Note: This is a story written a few years ago in response to a challenge. If the vampire Flynn had been so prolific, what did the Philadelphia Police Department think of him? Thus do we have Martin Sanchez and his particular dilemma. He’s been assigned the case and might know a bit too much for his own good.

As a disclaimer, since this was a piece written for fun, there wasn’t much corresponding research. The police work here is straight out of television cop dramas and may or may not be plausible.

Part One – The Latest Victim

“Your vampire’s back.”

Detective Martin Sanchez rubbed his eyes and sighed, reluctant to look up at the man standing in front of his desk. With that one sentence, Charlie Masters ruined his entire day and Martin didn’t think it was going to get any better. Ignorance is bliss; that’s what the wise people always said.

Well, they never had to work for the Philadelphia Police Department.

Slowly, his eyes drifted upward until Charlie filled his line of vision with his incredible girth. The beat cop was no spring chicken and it showed in the laugh lines that made themselves pronounced when Charlie regarded the look on Martin’s face. “Sorry. I know it ain’t a hooker, but -” Charlie tossed the file folder onto Martin’s desk. “Happy birthday, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Martin said, speaking through a clenched jaw that could have cracked walnuts if one were poised between his teeth. Martin sighed and watched Charlie stroll away from his desk, with Charlie indulging in a hearty chuckle over something less-than-amusing. Another murder and still, the son of a bitch could stop to chortle.

Silently, Martin hoped he never developed that screwed up of a sense of humor.

Shaking his head, Martin’s eyes drifted to the folder, pausing to examine everything humanly possible about the exterior so he could prolong having to open the damned thing. Hell, why did he need to do that anyway, he knew exactly what it was going to tell him. More than likely it would be a woman – though, sometimes, the sadistic son of a bitch would leave a guy or two as if teasing the next person working his case. The pictures would vary because his modus operandi never remained the same, but two things would remain consistent about the victim in each case.

They’d have a clean cut across their neck, sometimes other stab wounds interspersed throughout their body. What made them eerily macabre was the presence of puncture wounds hidden underneath some of the shallower cuts. The cases would exhaust the list of suspects quickly, leaving no further avenues to explore. Just an unknown shadow that seemed to be perpetrating each murder.

Martin hadn’t wanted this assignment in the first place. It was referred to by homicide detectives as ‘The Vampire Murders’ and bore with it a curse that had become legendary. The first person to work the case disappeared under mysterious circumstances and was followed by a wake of bad luck for several who followed. Bill Frazier. Martin remembered that name and found himself revisiting it quite a bit more now that he’d been passed the torch. Bill himself didn’t start off with this wave of murders. It had been a completely different case that led to him becoming involved. [Continue Reading...]