Beastmark

By D. Kenton Mellott

There's been a murder.

No surprise there. In a city of over two million people, well, there's always a murder. Every day. Usually more than once a day. Just a sad fact when you put that many agitated humans in one place.

Fortunately, for somewhat burned-out Homicide Lieutenant Tyler Whitfield, most of the murders resolved themselves. That's because it was usually friends shooting or stabbing friends, relatives quaffing relatives; gang members dispatching rival gang members; or something similar.

The killers tend to sober up, then cool off and turn themselves in -- usually accompanied by a tearful plea for mercy -- or someone rats them out for reward money. Or, they make a run for the border. Or, more than likely, no one really gives a rat's ass about the dead person and you simply fill out the proper forms and close the book.

Get a cold beer.

Unless the victim is a "somebody," whose death actually means something. Especially if the media gets wind of the crime. Kind of like Susan Arnet.

As in Professor Susan Arnet. Whose headless corpse is discovered in her living room.

Crap. All seven shades worth.

Still, the case should be cut and dried -- there’s the body, right there in the freaking victim’s own house. Except there are complications. Like no medical records to help ID the body, no real evidence at the scene, no witnesses, and no effing easy solutions.

Oh yeah, and then there’s this occult symbolism associated with the corpse that Marjo Canard, the City Medical Examiner, discovered.

Bloody hell. And on a Monday, too. It was going to be a really bad week...

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Kenton Mellott
• Release date: Sep 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9780981884660

Book preview

Chapter 1

Crossing the Line

The year 1545

These are the words of Father Luis de la Vela, in the name of the Holy Father of us all and in the love of his Son.

It has been five days since we landed on the coast, and they have been far worse than the entire journey across the ocean from Spain.

We are forty men strong, led by Captain Diego de Benez.

We have been plagued from the very first step onto this accursed land — a handful grew ill after the first day, from bad food or water it was thought.

Others were taken ill after incessant attacks from flies, mosquitoes, and every kind of biting creature that God in his Infinite Wisdom has seen fit to deposit in this hellish place. We can only endure this hardship by smearing ourselves with mud.

And every day the savages and heathen natives harass us — they dare not face our armor and weapons, but strive to inflict damage from afar with arrows, rocks, and a variety of other missiles.

We pray for relief from our misery.

Present Day, Sunday evening

Damn...

He enunciated the word slowly and carefully, drawing the sound out as though in a state of dazed astonishment, with an undertone of almost spiritual intensity. Puzzled rapture.

Misplaced reverence, if you will. If you have the will. A sickly grin.

He had scooted shakily across the faux leather seats, raising himself up unsteadily to appraise his puffy face looming grotesque and indecent in the rear view mirror, his eyes darting furtively and cautiously at the road to make sure he didn’t end up momentarily wedded to the concrete berm or, far worse, consummated with some other hurtling vehicular mass — even this late the loop was swirling with the usual blend of skillful motorists and inept morons. Mostly the latter.

I wonder how many of these people have had too much to drink? Been over-served, he laughed moronically to himself.

Such wafting, idle, ethanol-infused thoughts lazily drifted in from nowhere particular in his mind — he shook his head to clear it, blinked his eyes, swerved unexpectedly, then sloppily brought the car back into his lane.

Oops — crossed the brain-blood barrier — he laughed foolishly to himself, his head bopping and lolling haphazardly to the side.

Damn, he muttered aloud once again, opening his blood-shot eyes and with arched brows renewed his study of the mirror, regarding his darkling visage with appropriate and justifiable alarm.

You look like seven shades of shiny goat crap.

His straight black hair was raggedly unkempt, the crows’ feet around his haggard-looking eyes made him look older than he really was, and the mottled and splotchy skin under those dark brown eyes added an unwanted touch of age that only dim lights could obscure.

Lay off the booze, eat right, cut out the smoking, get some decent sleep and maybe he’d be okay. He chuckled, a raspy, harsh, smoke-rattled sound.

Almost handsome.

Now, however, he simply looked like warmed-over crap.

Seven shades worth, he thought to himself and grinned without humor.

His accompanying chuckle morphed into a rumbling laughter that suddenly provoked a coughing and hacking fit. As he lurched and fought to catch his breath, he was once again forced to do battle to keep his car between the white lines. It was a white-knuckle duel between himself and the unruly steering wheel.

Damn, damn, damn, he thought bitterly, savagely — why didn’t I just have a beer or two and go home?

He felt a series of little jolting tremors as his tires passed over the center line reflectors and he quickly brought the car back into his lane, again. He opened his eyes wide, blinking several times as though it might help, willing them to focus.

Could have just stopped, said hello to the boys and moved on, but I had to have a beer, then another and another. He blinked and shook his head to clear his vision. A flashing streak of lightning rent itself across the night sky. Perfect, and now it was going to rain. He scowl-frowned.

Dammit, I should get a bite to eat. A taco or burger or something.

At that thought his stomach, like an obedient servant, sat up and churned to life — he wagged his head in contempt. He groped on the passenger seat for his smokes, fumbled to find the pack, roughly shook one out, then cursed loudly when it fell to the floor and rolled out of sight.

He finally wrestled another out and managed to fire it up, but only after almost lighting the filter end. You are a piece of work, he thought in semi-drunken anger. He was thumping over the reflectors again. Semi? What in the hell am I doing?

There it was again.

Like an old friend that calls every so often just to check in and say hello. That familiar and merciless self-pity creeping up on him — a gnawing, soul-dampening, morose feeling which he knew would eventually coalesce into a depressing sense of self-disdain and despair.

His clear and apparent awareness of that, though, was of no consequence, because a sort of ill-defined regret and sadness welled up and washed over him, souring his whole outlook, sucking his energy and will away. He was no longer hungry. Just tired, dog tired.

Shit. He said the word as though it were a basic summation of his current state of life, wrapped up and embraced by a sad sort of stoic acceptance — blowing out a stream of acrid smoke and shaking his head in gloomy resignation at a future with little prospect for improvement.

He switched on the radio, cranking the volume up to drown out and otherwise occupy his beer-addled thoughts. He focused on the hazy speedometer, shaking his head groggily as he tried to read the numbers, and then easing his foot off the accelerator when he realized he was pushing eighty.

He was running over the reflectors again.

Must be this effing wind, he thought, feeling himself buffeted about as a sharp gust caught the car and thunder echoed across the sky. Sure, it’s the wind. He laughed derisively.

Everyone has a bear to cross, wasn’t that what they said? Hah, you idiot, he laughed drunkenly to himself. Nothing like a cross bear to make life more difficult!

His bear, or his cross, he grinned stupidly to himself, was that he couldn’t stop thinking — part of his mind was always there, alert and watching, always ready to chastise him about his shortcomings and faults, quick to remind him of his frequent falls from grace, there to remind him of what might have been, or what could yet be. Always there to make those cutting little remarks, there to scorn him for his weakness and lack of will.

Just to stop thinking for awhile, that was all he wanted. Of course, the booze never really worked and he’d given up drugs many years ago; a little grass now and then back in college, but that hadn’t worked any better — he just ended up feeling foggy and putting on weight. He patted his belly. Speaking of weight...

He chuckled without mirth.

Getting involved on a good case, sifting through the puzzling pieces of evidence, searching for those crucial bits of fact which solve a mystery — that always worked. It meant something. Thinking problems through to a solution was a job he was good at doing.

Putting the bad people behind bars. That was cool.

But that wasn’t happening much recently. For the last year he’d drifted, losing interest, losing focus. Not engaged enough to do anything properly In truth, not doing his job at all. A swirling piece of crap, vanishing down the drain of life. He grunt-chuckled at that crisp imagery, coughed to clear his throat and started to think. Always a bad idea.

The truly and magnificently irritating fact was, he wasn’t even sure why things had become this way. It was like, one minute he was in control of his life, with clear goals and a great work ethic. A quick flash forward and he was in this damn car, drunk and musing over his shitty life. There had to be an reasonable answer.

Yeah, if you’re such a great thinker; why can’t you figure this mess out?

He ground out the cigarette angrily as the import of that thought struck home, trailing sparks and ashes onto the floor mat, already pockmarked with melt spots from months of such misuse. Key Bloody Riced.

He loved his job when it was interesting, engaging. It focused his mind, made him feel whole, important, confident. It was something he felt comfortable doing.

The problem was he’d lost interest lately, just seemed to float above everything, really nothing more than an apathetic lump of flesh. Drifting, just drifting, waiting for something, but not knowing what.

As he saw it, his work was beginning to become the same crap all the time — SSDD.

He snorted his disgust with himself. He knew the job itself really wasn’t the issue at all — it was him.

Even though he fully realized this — saw it, grasped it and understood it as clear as a mathematical formula, he was powerless to do anything about it. The will to change wasn’t within him, so he simply existed, moving listlessly from day to day, from drink to drink, doing the least amount of work possible to fly under the radar.

Except, he noted to himself in irritation as he attempted to mount a self-defense, I don’t really drink that much. Probably just once or twice a week, that’s all. He frowned. But then it’s always too much, too much, but the problem isn’t the booze, it’s my job. The work’s a bitch, a pain in the ass.

I used to love my work.

Christ, I always wanted to be a cop — but now all I do is show up, put in my allotted hours, hoping nothing serious happens so I won’t have to do anything, but sometimes wishing it would, but not caring one way or the other and damn it, I wish I’d find it exciting again, like when I first started — what’s wrong with me and damn, I’m back on these damn reflectors again...

He sighed heavily — thank God this was his exit.

He snubbed another cigarette out with a shaking hand, dusting the floor mat with fresh ashes. Now that you’ve got that off your chest, how about some female company? Maybe some willing young thing?

He felt a stirring in his mind, like an old dog that hears its name called. He chuckled in self-contempt. I am a hateful bastard, a real piece of work. He smiled humorlessly.

It’s okay, it’s okay, he repeated to himself like a mantra. Almost a chant. He nodded in affirmation. It’s okay. It’s okay. Said it enough to believe it.

Tomorrow you’ll be fine, tomorrow you’ll get your act together and close out the Jenkins case, and handle that Montoya deal.

Yeah, that’s it, a fresh start tomorrow.

Sure, I’ll do that. There were plenty of things to do, plenty of things.

He silently hoped he would have the strength to get up in the morning.

Chapter 2

Just Another Day in Paradise

Present Day, Monday

As he shambled Monday-morning-hangover-slow past the rows of standard department-issue desks, with even his footsteps sounding cursedly loud to him, the thought coursed through his mind, as it often did on such miserable days, that having his own small office — complete with an authentic engraved plastic nameplate on the door — was precious little compensation for quietly tolerating the seemingly endless and often petty stream of problems that flowed like water from a leaky hose.

That’s it! He stopped walking and stood smiling to himself. I’ve got this little spool of tape and I’m supposed to keep all the holes patched, but the damn hose is cheap and the pressure is too high.

He chuckled aloud at his clever metaphor.

Samuels, hunched over his computer station — a nasty stack of pending paperwork in front of his keyboard — glanced squint-eyed with a sour countenance at Tyler, and tossed him a so-you’re-talking-to-yourself-again-going-crazy look. Samuels shook his head and pursed his lips in mock sadness. He bent down and returned resolutely to his work.

Tyler scowled at him and went into his office.

He was leaning back precariously in his favorite chair, a battered old Army Surplus special he’d liberated from some godforsaken spot in the bowels of unclaimed goods, sipping coffee and reviewing reports with a baleful expression. SSDD, as he recalled from the previous evening’s drive home.

That brought a thin smile, at best.

He casually tossed a small sheaf of papers aside; it knocked over a paper clip holder, the cheap plastic kind with the magnet at the top — paper clips were sent scurrying across his desk and onto the floor. He swore without any real feeling and reached for another stack of reports. Welcome to the Big City.

He let out an indignant grunt and shook his head in sad disbelief.

Fifteen years of constantly banging his head against an ever-expanding human wall of impenetrable ignorance. Hey, that’s a good one. He rewarded himself with a half-grin.

Better yet, how about fifteen years of swimming in shit? Let’s not call a shovel a spade, okay. And his impact? Like punching water. The insanity went on, never missing a beat, and he doubted that he’d made much of a dent in it.

Wall 1, Tyler 0. Another half-grin.

If anything, he mused as he took a swallow of the thick black liquid, it’s gotten worse. He sat his cup down and looked in disgust at it. Just like the coffee — he reminded himself to get Johnson off coffee detail before he poisoned someone. An old joke that still amused him. And these days, that took some doing.

He took a deep drag on his cigarette — letting out a wavering stream of clotted and rolling smoke. He watched it with bemused detachment as it wafted upwards to the ceiling.

If Turner knew he was smoking in here, he’d have Tyler’s head on a platter, which is why he kept the window blinds drawn shut and had two of those little plug-in spray things squirting something in the air that, truthfully, smelled worse than the cigarette smoke.

He stared dispiritedly at his desktop. The cop of woeful countenance. No paperwork one morning would be an impossible dream. No such luck. Just more problems and bad coffee. Quite a complement to his hangover, and on a Monday morning, too. He sighed and surveyed his realm. He was unimpressed.

Might as well get started on that dent. That got a half-grin, too.

As he prepared to logon to the computer, he found it amusing (well, only slightly amusing, considering his pulsating head) that the whiz kids in IT had promised a paperless, eco-friendly, work environment in a few years, you know, if they could just get money for new computers.

So, the City put money in the budget and IT got their new computers.

Hell, there was more paperwork now than ever before because the damn computer made it easier to create more stinking paperwork. No trees saved at all. Another grandiose idea gone awry. Going green just meant spending more green.

He itched the side of his neck. With a throaty sigh scooped up a handful of laser printouts.

Six homicides over the weekend. He didn’t even worry about the attempted ones — that was work for folks in other areas of the department. His department only dealt with success.

Field work and paperwork. Ad freaking nauseam. Typically understaffed and over-worked, it meant more hassles, more hours, and more work.

Dent this.

Sure, sure, he reasoned amiably to himself, it was usually friends shooting or stabbing friends, relatives quaffing relatives; the kind of homicides that pretty much solved themselves. The killers tend to sober up or cool down and turn themselves in, usually accompanied by a tearful plea for mercy; or someone rats them out for reward money. Or, they make a run for the border.

Most of the cases were like that, and there was not much more police work involved than filling out the forms. Dot your tees and cross your eyes. Enough to bore you to tears; or whiskey, he thought ruefully. Ennui, anyone? He chuckled under his breath.

Sometimes, however, there was a killing with no clues, no evidence, no witnesses, just a stiff. The kind that stay unsolved and you just hope you’re able to quietly put it aside and get on with other business.

It was, after all, a very big wall...

And that was usually the case because most of the time it was just some scummy low-life that got killed and nobody much gave a crap. Or, maybe it was a nobody from the rougher sides of town, in which case nobody really gave a damn either. Many times, no one even stepped forward to claim the corpse. No trouble in any of those cases.

You had trouble — honest to God true pain-in-the-ass trouble — when there was no evidence, no witnesses, and the person murdered turns out to be someone important — a somebody. A real person, as it were. Sounds cold maybe, but that’s the way it is.

A murder — he sighed expansively — like this Arnet woman. He gingerly picked up the file, another scowl etched on his features.

I really don’t need this kind of misery to start my week. I have plenty of misery of my own. That thought evoked a sarcastic grin.

He opened the file with all the careful delicacy of a reluctant snake-handler preparing to milk a rattlesnake. He turned to the first page and shook his head as he started reading.

The facts seemed benignly straightforward. Someone had broken into Susan Arnet’s house — which explained the shattered back window — then murdered the woman and mutilated the corpse by taking the head.

Okay, maybe not completely straightforward.

Tyler nodded in wonder and moderate revulsion. He’d run across a couple of cases like this — usually gang-related or some crazy-ass cult. Even a few times where the murderer thought by taking the head the police wouldn’t be able to identify the body. Of course, that was nonsense. Then again, if the people committing these crimes thought clearly, yo, they wouldn’t be committing these crimes, right? Small grin that came and went.

But he would have heard about any damn cult and, besides, the body had been found right in the victim’s own living room, so there seemed to be no question of identity.

Well, except for a few minor and insignificant details, you know, like there appeared to be no fingerprints on file in any database for this Arnet woman, no dental records, and she appeared, after preliminary investigation, not to have been seeing a physician on a regular basis. So, absolutely nothing useful to help ID the body.

A few well-crafted curse words, another sigh, followed by a distracted drag on his smoke.

Tyler kept reading. No local family or relatives. He rubbed his forehead in anguish. Positive identification, in other words, simply could not be established at this time.

Other than that, it was open-and-shut. He smiled without any humor.

Arnet had been an associate professor at Dowdin College, which pretty much ruled out gang involvement. Then again, maybe she’d been a mule for the Cartel. He grimaced as he felt the inevitable pain starting in his forehead and radiating out like a bad rumor to the rest of his head and neck. Jokes were not going to help him out much with this case.

He wished he were selling real estate, or maybe cars. Shit, not cars, but real estate, maybe. He let out a long breath and shook his head. A mistake, wincing in the discovery; then reached for the bottle of aspirin tucked away in his desk. That stuff was as important to him as his gun. Well, that and antacids.

And don’t forget menudo — Mendoza had turned him onto that. His stomach growled at the prospect.

He closed the file with an irritated flourish. Why couldn’t this Arnet woman have been some prostitute or bag-lady or something? A few inquiries, for the record, and then let it go. That wasn’t going to work on this deal — he knew this one was going to be more involved. There would be community pressure for results. Closure. Justice delivered quickly. Find the bad person and punish them.

Sure — he muttered in irritation to — and then let out a short snort of derision. How was he going to get any results? He’d seen the preliminary reports and there wasn’t even the proverbial shred of evidence to go on. Zero, zip, nãda. He swore. Why can’t things ever be simple?

He rubbed the side of his head with the edge of this thumb as he dry-swallowed two plastic capsules filled with something that was supposed to help his headache. Maybe.

He grunted as he contemplated the overall state of affairs. No latents, no fibers, no weapons. Great. Hardwood floors and nothing worth an extra comment was recovered. Lovely. The Lab report would be in sometime later today.

I know what that will say without even seeing it. He shook his head, lightly and carefully. The neighbors heard nothing. Of course not, he thought with acid cynicism.

I sure wish this case was one I could hurry up and bury.

He put the file down and leaned back in the chair, positioning himself in a reflective and thoughtful posture while willfully assuming an air of exaggerated self-importance.

Now, it wasn’t that he didn’t try to solve every case, he ruminated philosophically as he took a long pull on a fresh cigarette — arguing the matter to himself — it’s just that if there’s nothing to go on, then, well, crap, there’s nothing to go on. You can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

The brutal logic and little biblical reference made him smile, but it quickly faded.

Come on, Tyler, his small still voice chided, you’ve solved tough cases before. His introspection continued as he reflected on the many cases he had closed out previously, some that had seemed really hopeless. He really had been a good cop.

Just not many lately, though.

Kind of like the clues in this case — zip, zero, nãda.

His features twisted into a mask of weary disgust. God, the work that he was going to have to do on this thing, and think of all the other active files he had going. This was going to be a bad week, a very bad week.

He took a drink of coffee — discovered to his distaste it was cold and nearly gagged — and slammed the old stained cup down hard with a satisfying ceramic bang.

He forcibly heaved himself up out of the chair, letting out a great rush of air.

I guess I should get out to the college and see what I can see. He sighed heavily, caught himself doing it, and frowned at the bad habit it had become.

Damn, he muttered under his breath, grabbing his cheap brown polyester jacket and slipping it on, pausing at the door for a moment to thoughtfully stare at his reflection in the small wall mirror.

He leaned in close and examined his face, nodding with appropriate certitude as he did so. No doubt about it, I’ve got an attitude problem.

It was true — when he was younger there wasn’t a case that Tyler Whitfield couldn’t solve. Wall or no wall. Hell, even last year he was kicking ass and taking names. He leaned forward to better examine his familiar and time-hardened features.

I must really be getting older. He opened the door. Or smarter. He closed the door and turned to take one last curious glance at his reflection in the glass of the door. Or lazier, he thought wryly, and headed for the parking lot.

He was in a contemplative mood as he drove toward Dowdin College.

He was always in a contemplative mood, no matter what he was doing — it was like some damn gypsy curse, always being forced to think, never able to empty himself and just sit around blissfully unreflective.

Driving was one of the worst times; he was stuck in the car with only himself and his thoughts. Or, worse, stuck with the talk show guys prattling on about the end of the freaking world. Left, right and center — they were all full of crap.

Sometimes this endless introspection had beneficial effects. He would mentally gnaw and gnash over some evidential morsel or bothersome problem until it dissolved into a usable solution.

Well, in the old days. An inward sigh.

Lately, though, his reflections had become bitter excursions of self-loathing and self-pity. To think about one’s self — at least in his case — was to basically end up vexedly irritated, depressed, and confused. Mostly just pissed off.

The key, he had realized in the last few months, was simply not to think about yourself, and if you did, then try and find something else to do, quick. Don’t look at that man behind the curtain.

He turned on the radio and found one of the local news stations. Might as well see what’s happening in the world — it’s in worse shape than I am. I’ll be at Dowdin soon enough and get irritated all over again.

Dowdin College sat comfortably enshrouded amidst hundreds of elms, maples, oaks and other native trees and shrubbery, testimony both to Dowdin’s longevity and the patient skill of its grounds keepers. Its sullen ash-gray buildings clashed in harsh contrast with the bright hues of early spring that were displayed on much of the foliage and ground cover. Tyler recalled most of the names of the trees, but had no idea exactly which tree was which.

The bulk of his college learning — he mused sadly — had gone that same route.

He didn’t care much for Dowdin, or any other college, these days.

That feeling had nothing to do with Dowdin itself; it was just that recently, whenever he happened to be in this area and drove by, the college reminded him of the carefree days he himself had once experienced as a university student, and those memories, instead of bringing pleasure, haunted him because they represented a happiness he believed had been lost and would never be regained.

What he felt — whenever he thought back to those days — was a hollow, kind of numb emotion, a longing for times which had been so full of hope and joy. Sure, that sounded like so much blather and bull now, but if he could just recapture the way he had felt back then. If just once more he could live like that, free from the burdens and banality of his present condition.

Damn, that was good melodrama, he grinned to himself. When the sense of humor goes — he pointed an imaginary gun to his head with his index finger — then I go, too. He squeezed the thumb down like a hammer, making an explosion of air as a sound effect.

The frustrating hunt for a parking spot, and a near collision in the crowded lot, brought him swiftly back to the urgency of the immediate moment. After finally finding a narrow slot he figured he could safely leave his car in (having recently misplaced his official Police Pass), he took off in search of the Humanities Building.

He managed, after trudging up steps, skulking down corridors, and receiving some odd looks when he asked for directions — like he was the world’s oldest graduate student or something — to find the right building and locate the Philosophy Department.

A little more legwork yielded the so-called Head of the Department, a diminutive and nervous man named Jonathan Milloy, Ph.D., who seemed quite agitated over Tyler’s visit and somewhat disturbed about Professor Arnet’s death — though Tyler got the distinct and sour impression that Milloy was far more concerned with the possible damage to the College’s public image than with Arnet’s murder.

The many foibles of human nature held little surprise for Tyler these days.

I think, Tyler said, edging his voice nicely with just the right bit of practiced vexation, we should concentrate on the fact that a person has been murdered, adding extra emphasis to the last word and watching with some satisfaction as Milloy cringed slightly, and see if there’s any information that will aid us in apprehending her killer.

He paused, and just to be irascible, added, Or killers.

Yes, yes, of course, Milloy said in flustered precision as he adjusted his wire-rim glasses. It’s tragic. He coughed and said quietly, Let’s step into my office and discuss this further.

They’d been in private discussion for about ten minutes, and it was turning out to be another sad highlight to an already crappy Monday. Not only was he totally put off by this character Milloy, but Tyler felt about as energetic as a log of dead wood. Hangovers have a way of doing that to a fellow.

Plus, this was proving to be a real dead-end, like he had figured. He really just wanted to leap up and get the hell out of there, but he might as well carry the charade on out to its asinine conclusion. That wall thing again.

Not that he was going to find out too damn much. He’d already asked all the standard information-gathering questions, classics right out of the damn textbook, thank you, and was busily trying to establish some kind of personality profile on Arnet.

He wasn’t getting much useful information and was getting just a little bit sick of the phrase zip, zero, nãda flitting unbidden through his thoughts like