Do it, the voice said.
Crutch sprang to his feet and threw himself onto Leon, wrapping his arms and legs around the black inmate’s body. He did hundreds of push-ups every day in his cell, and was stronger than people thought.
Leon tried to shake him off. When that didn’t work, he brought a fist up, and clocked Crutch in the back of the head.
“Let go, motherfucker,” Leon said.
The other inmates were slapping their sides with laughter. They did not see the threat, just as Leon did not see the threat.
Bite him, the voice commanded.
Crutch sunk his teeth into Leon’s neck and tore away at the flesh until he’d found the jugular vein. Warm blood splashed onto Crutch’s face and streamed down his neck. He brought his face away, and watched the blood geyser out of Leon’s body.
Leon screamed and did a pirouette with Crutch still hanging on. Then he fell backwards, his body making a terrific Whumph! as it landed on the grass. The other inmates stepped back, their laughter gone.
Crutch stayed on top of Leon, and drank his blood. He knew the perils of this, the inmates rife with AIDs and other fatally transmitted diseases, but he did not care. He had missed the erotic ecstasy of tasting a person’s blood as the life seeped from their body. It was like dying and going to heaven.
It was love.
Finally the guards pulled him off Leon’s lifeless body, and hauled him away.
Chapter 38
“I think we’re going about this wrong,” DuCharme said.
Food was fuel during an investigation. They were eating chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant called Pepe’s in North Miami. Vick had not spoken ten words to the detective since he’d weaseled his way into her apartment a few hours ago. She still wanted to rip his head off for what he’d done to her.
“How so?” she replied, upping the word count.
“Son of Sam’s crimes are somehow similar to Mr. Clean’s crimes, right?”
Vick wiped her chin with a paper napkin and nodded.
“If we can figure out the similarity, it will lead us to figuring out what Mr. Clean does for a living, right?”
DuCharme’s tone was nothing but condescending. Like the investigation was his, and she was just palling along for the ride.
“Get to the point,” she said.
“We’ve just wasted two hours reading up on Son of Sam, and haven’t found the similarity. Maybe we should be reexamining the files on Mr. Clean instead. You never know – something might jump out at us.”
Vick stopped eating. DuCharme was as thick as a brick when it came to police work, yet this was a good idea. Even blind pigs got acorns, she supposed.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Vick said. “Instead of looking at files, why don’t we go and look at one of the crime scenes? It will give us a better feel for him.”
“You mean where he dumped one of his victims?” DuCharme asked.
“Yes. I did that when I was writing my thesis on Son of Sam. I flew to New York, and went to several locations in Queens where Son of Sam shot his victims while they were sitting in their cars. It helped me get a feel for the guy’s psyche.”
“Any victim of Mr. Clean’s in particular?”
“Barrie Reedy, the boy Mr. Clean abducted before Wayne Ladd. Reedy’s body was found two weeks ago in West Broward. The scene will be the freshest.”
DuCharme flashed a toothy grin. There was a sparkle in his eye that said he thought there was still hope for them. Vick was going to make sure that sparkle was gone when the case was over. Until then, she would just have to suffer.
Taking Vick’s Audi, they drove north on I-95 into Broward, then headed west on Sunrise Boulevard to the overgrown field near the Sawgrass Mills Mall where Reedy’s body had been found. Vick parked on the shoulder, and they both got out.
The afternoon air was moist and still. In the west, black storm clouds filled the horizon, their march toward the city slow and ominous. By early evening, some area of the county would be punished by their fury.
Vick trudged through the tall grass with DuCharme kicking at her heels. Reedy’s body had been found in the middle of the field next to the shopping mall, approximately a hundred yards from the service road. If she remembered correctly, the body had been fresh, and had not started to decompose.
She came to the crime scene and stopped. It was a flat area with knee high grass. A No Dumping sign was posted on a nearby tree, covered in lewd graffiti. Pieces of yellow police tape still lay on the ground, the weeds flattened from the CSI people looking for clues. She rose on her tip-toes and did a slow three-sixty spin, staring.
“What are you looking for?” DuCharme asked.
“The reason Reedy’s body was dumped here,” she replied.
“What do you mean?”
Vick lowered her heels and turned to face him. “Rule one of finding a body. Why was it dumped here? There’s always a reason. Most of the time, it’s the most convenient spot for the killer to use. That’s not the case here. Mr. Clean had to park on the service road, and carry Reedy’s body from his vehicle to this spot. Why did he do that?”
A cigarette had appeared in DuCharme’s mouth, a lit match in his hand. He took a deep drag and shrugged.
“We need to find out,” Vick said. “Let’s start walking the field.”
“What are we looking for?”
“The thing which attracted Mr. Clean to this area.”
Vick took a Kleenex from her purse and wiped the sweat off her brow. Then she put on a pair of shades and started her hunt. DuCharme took off in the opposite direction.
She took fifteen steps and came to a small clearing with soda cans littering the ground. The spot looked like a teenage hangout. Kneeling, she ran her fingers through the grass, and found several cigarette butts and gum wrappers.
She stood up and walked around the clearing. She came to a well-worn trail which led directly back to the Sawgrass Mall on the other side of the field. She guessed this was where teenage workers at the mall came on their break to drink sodas and smoke.
She spent another twenty minutes searching the field, but eventually came back to the hangout spot. It was the only place on the field where there was any sign of human activity. DuCharme soon joined her, his forehead glistening with perspiration.
“Find anything?” he asked.
“You’re standing in it,” Vick replied.
He looked around. “What am I missing?”
“Mr. Clean dumped Reedy’s body near a spot where teenagers hang out. Why did he do that, instead of dumping it someplace else?”
DuCharme had to think for a second.
“He wanted it to be found?” the detective asked.
“Yes. And he got his wish. Reedy was found right away. The question is, was this the first time Mr. Clean did this, or have we found a pattern?”
Back in the car, they poured through the case files of Mr. Clean’s killings of prostitutes. Vick immediately found a number of similarities that had not popped out at her before. The bodies of his victims had been found near well-used areas in Broward County, including several public parks, the Holiday Tennis Center, a half-dozen shopping malls, and several golf courses. Each body had been found in a relatively fresh state, allowing the police to clearly identify what had been done to it. In every case, the body had been discovered by someone who regularly frequented the area.
So what did it all mean? Vick didn’t know. She shut her eyes and basked in the car’s AC, trying to figure it out. Mr. Clean had hidden his victim’s bodies well enough to avoid immediate detection, yet in spots where he knew the bodies would be eventually found, usually within twenty-four hours of having been dumped.
She glanced at DuCharme. He was reading a file, his lips moving silently.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.