Morgan upgraded his assessment when he reached the end of the foyer, which opened into a living room to the right. There was a lot of blood, and one could only call it a living room in the loosest of terms. A Hispanic male slumped over on a leather sofa in sweats and a U of C T-shirt. He was in decent shape, until someone had put a slug in his head and redecorated the wall with bits of his brain matter. The smell of it was thick and pungent in the air, so the guy had been dead a few hours at least. As for the rest of the living room, every last piece of furniture and decoration had been smashed to pieces, demonstrating a level of violence far in excess of that needed to ransack the place.
Initial impression: crime of passion. Someone had been very upset about something or someone. The rest was up to Sock for now. Morgan continued walking toward the staircase and had to stop to get out of the way of a young beat cop hustling to get to the front lawn before he puked. Welcome to homicide, kid. Sometimes it ain’t cool or fun. Needless to say, it put Morgan on edge. Even strong stomachs had their limits. He kept his breath coming through his mouth only and climbed the stairs two at a time.
The temperature dropped a good ten degrees by the time he reached the landing. No draft blew through the house, however. If some dumbshit had opened a window to air out a crime scene before the evidence guys had done their job, he was going to give someone a reason to be sick.
Disbelieving voices, low and muttering, came from the room at the end of the hall that doubled back from the top of the stairs. Tom walked by a workout room with weights and a treadmill and then a spare bedroom. Items were knocked over and broken, more like an afterthought than an actual effort to destroy.
And still the temperature turned colder. Morgan thrust his hands into the pockets of his leather coat and forced his breath to slow and get shallower. The stench had taken on a different tone. Someone had spilled their guts onto the floor. He had seen it before with knife and bullet wounds. Gut deaths were some nasty shit.
Morgan paused when he reached the door. Goose bumps ran down his spine. He closed his eyes and tried to will away the nervous knot in his stomach. This had happened a couple other times in the past, on the verge of stepping into a crime scene he would never truly walk away from. Some crimes had a way of burning themselves indelibly upon your soul, and no effort could scour it clean. They changed you, and you had to hope you were strong enough not to let it take you down a dark path that might end your life or at least your career as a cop.
This was going to be one of those crimes.
Two officers had handkerchiefs over their mouths. They were staring across the room, which Morgan found obscured by a corner of wall marking the entry into the room. He cleared his throat, and both of them jumped, wide-eyed, glazed with fear and then relief.
“The fucking cavalry has arrived!” one of them said, raising his fists into the air. “This is brutal shit, man. It’s all yours, detective-”
Morgan stuck his arm across the entry, blocking his escape. “I’ll need one of you to stay,” he replied. “Draw straws or something.” He took a step around the corner and stopped dead. “Jesus motherfucking Christ!”
“Brutal, man, I warned you,” the first said. The other just nodded, refusing to pull the cloth from his mouth.
Morgan waved at the second guy. “Go. Brutal boy can stay.”
“Aw, shit, detective. Come on.”
He narrowed his gaze at the cop, mouth drawing into a thin line. Morgan did “angry face” very well. “You’re staying. Greenie over there can go puke now. Go!” The other hurried out, and Morgan slowly turned back around to face the bed on the opposite wall. “What a goddamned mess.”
“I told you, detective,” came the muffled reply. “Brutal. Sick fuck.”
Morgan swallowed down the bile in his throat. He had abruptly forgotten to watch his breathing and sucked in a lungful of the putrid air. The woman on the bed had been gutted and had the same dark hole in her forehead as the dead man downstairs. Dark splotches of blood and matter coated the headboard and wall behind her. The rest of her was just a grizzly mound of red straight out of a horror movie. From the neck down, Morgan hardly recognized the rest as having been human. Whoever had attacked her had not just cut her open, they had actively yanked her insides out.
“You touched anything over there, officer?”
“No, sir,” he said. “I’m not getting close to that. Blood on the floor around the bed, too. Maybe not just hers.”
Morgan nodded and stepped toward the end of the bed. The woman lay slumped against the headboard, pillows pushed to the side. Her legs were pushed apart at an uncomfortable-looking angle, with her hands clenched in her lap. Likely, she was alive when her gut had been split open. So much for anger. They had a genuine psychopath on their hands. Still, Morgan eyed the mass of organs and entrails spilled out on the bed. They did not look quite right, far more mass than should have been coming out of the human body. Given the blackening, pulpy mass in the chest cavity, the lungs and heart were still tucked up inside. So why did this look all wrong?
Careful of the blood spatter on the floor, Morgan stepped around the corner of the bed and moved in for a closer look, holding his breath as he did.
“You see something, detective?”
Morgan waved him off, leaning over the body. He started to reach down, to pull some of the gore aside, but froze, inches away. Something tiny and far too recognizable lay buried with the bloody remains. He stood up, staring at it in disbelief. “Ah, fuck me, man.”
“What is it?”
It couldn’t be. Sweet Lord above, let it not be. Morgan leaned back over, his hand trembling. He slipped his gloved hand beneath what might have been kidney and lifted, exposing a miniature arm and hand with its tiny fingers to go along with the face he could not believe he was seeing. Morgan’s heart thumped like a mad drummer in his chest.
LEAVE MY BABY ALONE! The voice burst inside his head, a screaming, rage-filled bomb.
Morgan stumbled back, clutching at his head. “God… damn.. .”
“Sir? What the hell?” The officer rushed over to Morgan, gripping an arm to steady him.
Tom gasped, sucking in the foul air, sure that any moment he would be spewing his coffee all over the floor. “Pregnant,” he said, shrugging off the hand and making for the door. “She was pregnant!”
“Ah, shit,” the officer said with quiet shock.
Morgan stumbled down the hall, grasping at the rail to keep his balance. He had to get out.
He killed my baby! He killed him. He must die. Must die! Help me kill him. You must!
Morgan tripped and fell going down the stairs, clutched at the handrail and kept himself from somersaulting down to the bottom, but only managed to delay the fall. He did a tumbling, rolling slide over the last dozen stairs before thudding onto the hardwood floor of the foyer. Someone had torn the babe right out of her womb, massacred her flesh and left the infant to rot away in the wake of blood. The voice was right. Someone would have to die for this.
YES. You will help me. He must die.
Morgan struggled back to his hands and knees. “Get out of my head.”
No. You will help me. My baby needs justice.
What was this shit? The Oxycontin was fucking with him, causing hallucinations. That had to be it.
Let me in, Detective Thomas Morgan. You will help me get justice.
“Tom, you okay?” Sock was kneeling beside him. “What the hell is going on?”
Sock’s voice sounded hollow, distant. Tom’s muscles were weak and trembling. “Sock? She was… The vic…” Morgan sagged sideways into Sock, who grabbed a hold to keep him upright.