skin a body. Of course, if you were Predator, it was easy, but for the rest of us… Well, it’s an enormous task to undertake,” Xavier looked at me. “Feeling better?”
“Some, but you smell like the damned Pine-Sol too.”
“Shut up about the Pine-Sol, go get a HEPA-Mask. Now.” Xavier looked at the counter pointedly. I grabbed the HEPA-Mask and shut up. “There were also no hesitation marks, no details overlooked and I can’t figure out the knife he used, but it is incredibly sharp, most likely carbon steel and designed for the job. I don’t think it is something you can buy off the shelf at any local store. It was probably special order.”
“Why do all our serial killers buy specialty items off the internet?” I asked.
“Because they can,” Xavier responded. “Besides, why settle for something that’s half the quality when you can spend a few more bucks online and get the good stuff? I wouldn’t do that. I’d shop online. Besides, it is a lot harder to track down some anonymous knife purchase from the internet or gun show. But we could walk into a pawnshop or sporting goods store and figure out how many freaks and collectors have purchased specialty blades. Hell, ordering your knives was a chore. Even with the badges we still had to register to purchase them because they were customized and the guy wanted to keep all the spec information in case you had to have one replaced.”
“Xavier, focus,” Lucas said to him, eyes narrowed.
“Oh wow, he’s high,” I said, jumping from my chair. “Too much Pine-Sol.”
“It would explain the rapid heartbeat and the feeling that I’m moving at a million miles a minute,” Xavier answered. “Also it would account for the weird feeling of having my head detached from my shoulders and floating like a balloon. Maybe I should get a glass of water or something else not caffeinated. Maybe I should eat something with chocolate.”
“Sit down,” Lucas forced the slightly smaller man into a chair.
“Head between your legs, deep breaths,” I told him. “Why chocolate?”
“Why not?” Xavier said, voice muffled, hands gesturing oddly between his legs as he talked.
As Xavier worked to get his senses back, I took a moment to survey my surroundings. I was getting used to morgues, this one wasn’t much different. There weren’t that many people around and the entire place smelled like disinfectant and Pine-Sol. There was only one other person. I hadn’t been introduced to him yet, but he seemed important.
“Ok, I’m better,” Xavier stood up slowly. “Dr. Ericson, these are my collogues; Dr. Aislinn Cain and Dr. Lucas McMichaels.”
“I’m the medical examiner,” Dr. Ericson shook my hand.
“Pleasure, sort of,” I answered taking my hand away from him. “You did the first autopsies?”
“Yes.”
“Did they all smell like Pine-Sol?” I asked.
“Yes, we weren’t sure why though, it seems you managed to figure it out,” there was a tone to his voice. I was also getting used to working with men like him. Most of the time, my presence was accepted but once in a while, I found a man that thought a woman shouldn’t be working with this group of misfits. Most men didn’t realize I was as damaged, if not more so, than my merry group of misfits.
“Only because I have migraines,” I soothed his ego.
“When was your last check-up?” He asked, looking at me intently.
“A couple of months ago, but Xavier monitors them all the time,” I assured him.
“And your last neurological screening was clean?”
“Yes, I just get tired when we go out on back to back calls, the eye glaze is a result of that, not of an oncoming migraine,” I realized he understood what he was talking about. People who didn’t have personal experience with migraines, rarely understood.
“Are you sure?” He flashed a light in my eyes.
“Trust me; I’ve been dealing with them for as long as I could walk, I know my auras.”
“I believe you; I’m just worried about your current state. You appear to be in the early stages of a migraine, which would significantly impact the investigation.”
“Yes it would, I would remove myself for the duration of a migraine, because my judgment becomes flawed as does my thought process. However, that is not the case here. If I have a headache, it is exactly that, a headache and is the result of the overwhelming smell of Pine-Sol in the other room. It is unlikely to be a migraine or any other medical condition.”
“Your eyes are bloodshot and seem glazed, you have deep circles under them, meaning that you are not getting as much blood to your face as usual, these are all migraine indicators.”
“They are also indicators of sleep deprivation,” I reminded him.
“You’re right. I’m sorry Dr. Cain. I am not only the medical examiner, I run a private practice and my daughter has migraines and a small benign brain tumor that causes them,” he stepped back from me.
“Meaning migraines are personal for you,” I gave him my best apologetic smile. “No need to apologize, I take my migraines very personally as well.”
“Can you explain the blood at the scene?” I asked.
“I can,” Xavier looked at me.
“Fine, you both can, if we can get the room aired out. I don’t think you should go back in without a respirator.”
“I think that is sound advice for all of us,” Dr. Ericson walked out of the hallway, into another room. He came back with full facial masks complete with HEPA-Filters. “We also deal with diseased animals.” He told me with a grin.
Masks in place, we walked back into the room. Dr. Ericson moved to one side, Xavier moved to the other. Dr. Ericson seemed fine with Xavier taking the lead.
“See here?” He pointed to the victim’s neck. His voice sounded weird coming through the mask. “He is getting through most of the skin, but not all of it. After the victim hangs for a while, the blood stops flowing out of the head while the victim is alive. After the victim dies, the blood pressure continues to build in the head and face region. Eventually, since the killer has removed so much skin, the artery and vein that runs through the neck ruptures. The rupture breaks the layer or two of skin the killer is leaving. It isn’t spray because it happens well after death, but it is a considerable pool simply because the blood is exiting the body. This seems to be increased, the pressure, I mean, by the fact that it’s so cold. The blood is clotting and starting to freeze, this causes the rupture to be larger than it would be in warmer temperatures.”
“Wouldn’t freezing have the opposite effect?” I asked, slightly confused.
“It would in the limbs,” Dr. Ericson said, “but in the torso and the head the blood freezes slower because it stays warmer longer. Think of it as lividity. Normally, a hung body ruptures the vessels in the eyes, nose and ears because that is the thinnest part. But here, because the body is missing so much skin, the rupture happens in the major vessels, creating a larger pool.”
“Is the lack of skin an issue for keeping the body warm?” I asked.
“Yes, a serious issue. The feet are showing signs of freezing shortly after or in a few cases, before death,” Dr. Ericson volunteered.
“How long does this take?” Lucas asked.
“Three or four hours,” Xavier answered. “He is using a blowtorch on the hard parts and peeling the skin off, so the toes, fingers and face all show signs of direct flame. But he is removing the scalp before he torches the face. From what I can tell, he starts at the feet. He skins the bottoms and torches the tops. This probably creates enough pain that he can untie the victim and begin skinning the ankles. After he is finished with the ankles, he reties their feet and strings them up. Once they are hung, he can work on the legs. What I don’t understand is why he takes them down, unties them again and takes the skin from the inner legs after he has finished everything else.”
“Assault on their femininity?” Lucas looked at him. “You said earlier he takes the torch to their lower geni
talia. Could it be that he skins the inner legs and then torches the genitalia?”
“Yes, that’s possible,” Xavier responded.
“Then maybe that’s why he does the outer legs first, but leaves the inner legs for last,” Lucas offered.
“Now for the odd part, Dr. Ericson, will you help me turn her?” Xavier asked and the two men rolled the victim over. Xavier pointed to the heel of the victim.
“He’s leaving a patch,” I said looking at it.
“That he is,” Xavier answered.
“Why that patch?” Lucas asked.
I stared at the patch of skin; it was the wrinkled part on the back of the leg, where the calf muscle meets the tendons in the ankle. There was a flash of memory, the bow and arrow laid out in the snow.
“Achilles,” I answered.
“Our brains don’t work like yours,” Lucas reminded me.
“There was a bow and arrow in the snow, made of human skin and he’s leaving the part where the Achilles Tendon connects to the calf muscle. Achilles was killed by an arrow shot into the heel, it was the only part of him not immortal.”
“First, I think it odd that you made that connection,” Xavier said, “second, you’re right, that is the spot where Achilles would have been mortal, but why?”
“That sounds like a Lucas question,” I said. We all turned to stare at the big man.
“I would have to think about it,” Lucas answered. “I’m not often confronted with mythology and the mythological reasons for killing.”
“I’ll tell you all about Achilles, the Battle of Troy and the Elysium Fields when we get back to the motel and have some food in us,” I told him.
“Thank you,” Lucas looked at the ankle again. “What I can tell you is that this piece is purposely not removed.”
“I might have a theory on that as well,” I told them, “but I’ll wait until Lucas and I talk first.”
“Then I think we can call it a night here. We are just waiting for the next victim,” Xavier began removing his gloves.
Four
We ate dinner at a small diner. They had a decent menu with exotic fare such as bear burgers. I wasn’t brave enough to eat a bear burger, so I settled for a Philly Steak with Cheese. Lucas was brave enough and ordered the exotic fare cooked medium and slathered with condiments.
After dinner, we went to the motel. There was an interior hallway, but it was only used by staff. All the rooms had double entrances and the exterior door that opened onto the parking lot showed the most use. The key card reader was tarnished, dented, and scratched. The knob had a slight jiggle to it. The paint was peeling from the frame.
Inside there were adjoining doors. Knowing how I felt about adjoining doors, Gabriel had been nice enough to put Lucas and Xavier in that room. Gabriel and Michael had the room on the other side of me. Being a girl, the only girl, gave me the advantage of almost always getting my own room. The rare occasions when I couldn’t get my own room, I bunked with Lucas and Xavier and Lucas made sure that Xavier stayed in line.
Not that Xavier needed to be kept in line. He was a flirt and a tease, nothing more. His rude and inappropriate comments were meant to be playful. He was only a danger to himself, when a woman mistook his playful nature and gave him a good tongue lashing or a hard slap for his comments.
Despite the fact that Lucas and I both understood Xavier was only teasing, Lucas seemed to have made it his mission in life to protect me from it. When Xavier stepped over some invisible vulgarity boundary, Lucas quickly put him back in his place. All he had to do was look at the smaller man and Xavier would be out with an apology and a second or two later, the tension would drain from the room. Xavier would go back to being Xavier and the rest of us would go back to enjoying his company.
On the other hand, Xavier had developed a bit of a crush on my cousin Nyleena. He was very polite and gentlemanly around her. Never a vulgar comment to be found. I had made it very clear to Xavier that if he and Nyleena ever hooked up, I would probably kill him. She had enough problems in her life with just me, she didn’t need the complications of adding another serial killer chaser to it.
In reality, that meant that if Nyleena came to me and told me she had a thing for Xavier, I’d be planning their wedding. But for now, she didn’t and since she didn’t, I made it seem like I was the bad guy intent on stopping Xavier from having his prize.
My room was small with a single full size bed, a dresser that half the drawers didn’t open on and a TV on top of it, mounted with brackets to keep it from being stolen. A nightstand with a drawer that did open contained a Bible. The other side of the bed had a nightstand with no drawer and a lamp on it. There was a small, mostly clean bathroom. The shower curtain looked like it had been in existence since the 1940’s and had dark spots near the bottom that were either built up dirt or mold, but they seemed to be on the side between the shower curtain and the tub, so I could shower in safety. If it really creeped me out, I could always use one of the other showers in our little three room block.
Finally, there was a table that looked like it had been built by IKEA during the Dark Ages. It was cheap and scarred and the top had been replaced by a slab of real wood that was sealed to keep things from seeping into it. No one had bothered to stain it. It appeared to be pine or some other type of evergreen. It also appeared to have come from a really old tree as the three foot circumference of the table top was made from a single slice of aged timber. Around the table were three chairs, which was weird, as there were normally only two.
Of course, we would still need another chair or two. I had strict rules about Xavier sitting on my motel beds after leaving the morgue. I actually had that rule for everyone. If you’ve been to the morgue, you were banned from sitting on the bed I intended to sleep in unless you had changed your clothes and showered. The morgues always had their own unique smell that was carried from place to place to infect other locations with the sickly smells of death and something darker.
I had been in my room a total of five minutes, when Lucas and Xavier came through the adjoining door. I smiled at them and made a mental note that the door was unlocked. If it had been someone else on the other side, I would have checked it immediately. Since it was Lucas and Xavier, I hadn’t bothered. Of course, in the event that a serial killer busted down my door, if the adjoining door was unlocked, I could run there and the big bad scary men on the other side could run to my rescue. That thought made me smile even wider.
“Gabriel and Michael are coming in through the front,” Lucas said as he walked over and unlocked the motel room door. Sure enough, Gabriel and Michael walked in, each with a chair in their hands. Xavier made a point to sit in one of the chairs at the table and gave me a grin while doing it.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Something about Achilles and the Hunter,” Gabriel answered.
“Oh,” I took my own seat. “Well, you all know the story of Achilles, dipped in the river to give him immortality except where his mother held him by the ankle?”
“Yes,” most of them said or nodded.
“Well, he was killed in the Battle of Troy by being shot in that spot by a bow and arrow. I just think there is some connection between the killer leaving that spot with skin and the signing of his kills with a bow and arrow.”
“But Achilles was male,” Gabriel pointed out.
“That’s true, but one tale says that Paris hid in the bushes and shot Achilles because Achilles was about to be privately married to Paris’s sister which would have ended the Trojan War and forced Paris to give up Helen.”
“I don’t remember that story from my history classes,” Lucas said.
“Well, it is just one of them,” I answered. “There are generally three explanations for Achilles death. Paris shot him with an arrow guided by Apollo because the rage of Achilles could not be tempered and might defy the fates. Paris shot him with an arrow as Achilles scaled the walls of Tr
oy and was helped by the Gods because it was not yet time for Troy to fall or that Paris shot him because he was marrying Paris’ sister and bringing an end to the war. In each version, Paris is seen as a coward and denied being considered a victor over Achilles because each one has the Gods helping Paris hit him where he was weak because Achilles was too strong to be reined in by Fate.”
“Using that, I can go with him being Achilles, strong enough to defy his fate in his mundane life or Paris, unable to stop killing because it is his fate. However, I’m still leaning towards a guy looking at life from the point of The Most Dangerous Game,” he shrugged.
“But Conrad had his hunter use a gun,” I countered.
“True, but he also had to use his wits, which is what our guy is doing. Besides, where does skinning fit into the story of Achilles and Paris?”
“They were Greeks and Trojans, so who knows. They did all sorts of things,” I looked at him. “Skinning only sort of fits with the Conrad theory, I’m sure the hunter skinned his game kills, but he also mounted the heads on his walls.”
“True, but it would be a lot harder to get away with mounting a head on a wall outside of a book,” Lucas said.
“That brings us to the next question, I think. What is he doing with the rest of the skin?” Gabriel interrupted.
“Good question,” Xavier seemed to think for a minute. “I can think of a medical reason for leaving the skin on that part of body. It is where the rope goes, if the rope rubbed the area, with only a layer or two of skin left, it’s going to start bleeding profusely. You have a major artery and vein that run in that area.”
“Well, that brings in an element of anatomy, he’d have to have a clue about the human body,” Lucas stated.
“Yep,” Xavier answered. “But it doesn’t tell us where the rest of the skin went. And we should clarify here, he is taking the epidermis, meaning only the outer layer of skin. This averages only three millimeters thick and around the eyes it is thinner, around the feet and hands it is thicker. The dermis and hypodermis are being left, that’s why they aren’t bleeding much, but those layers are not thick enough to keep the veins and arteries from rupturing when the pressure gets to a certain point. This is serious precision and the knife would not only have to be of extremely high quality, but very thin and incredibly sharp. I’m not sure how well it could be done with a scalpel. I‘d also like to point out how much the epidermis weighs on the average human. Most people have fifteen to twenty pounds of epidermis. That’s a lot of skin to be carrying around.”
“So, two opposing theories, and a man who walks around with fifteen to twenty pounds of skin that he then does something unknown with,” Gabriel said.
“Not opposing theories,” Lucas corrected, “just theories, Ace could be right about his feeling a need to buck the system or