Herk looked at it. The name was ‘Frank Johnson’.
“Really?” Herk said to the doctor. “You couldn’t have been more creative?”
“It changes every month and I’ve used ‘Heywood Jablueme’ too many times. Now off with you!” They left the room.
“Is Doctor Jay always such a bundle of joy?” Herk asked Linda as they left the plane at Philly International the next day. Neither one spoke much on the trip.
Herk spent most of the flight reading over the encrypted files on his cell phone. He noticed Linda did the same while they flew to Philadelphia on a small charter plane.
“You caught him in one of his good moods,” Linda said. “I was hired right after he was appointed. The office you saw was a mess when he moved into it. I don’t think the last occupant was too happy to leave.” She adjusted an earring while staring at her reflection in a store window.
“Why do you say that?” Herk asked.
“The place was trashed. There was even a list of vendettas written on the wall with a sharpie. Took him weeks to clean that place up.”
They caught a ride to the Philadelphia police headquarters where the investigation was underway. Doctor Jay already had someone contact the Philly police about the federal interest in the case, but they didn’t seem too willing to cooperate. It took the president himself on the phone to the Mayor of Philadelphia to smooth things out. Linda told Herk on the way down she didn’t anticipate they would get much help from the police.
“I thought we were on the same side,” he told her. “Why won’t they rush to take advantage of our help?” He turned to watch the liberty bell slide past as the taxicab made its way to the police headquarters.
“Because then they would have to admit they can’t do it on their own. They’ll be glad to take any data and funds we can send their way. When it comes to getting any help in return, they stonewall. I’ve seen it happen before many times. Big city police departments can be the worst.”
“So how long have you been with Doctor Jay?” Herk asked after a few minutes.
“About as long as he’s had the position.”
“I take it I’m not the first person you’ve been assigned to watch.”
“This is the first time I’ve been assigned as a doctor to follow someone around,” she said. “I normally do field analysis work for his department. We don’t have a big staff or budget, so we don’t attract a lot of congressional attention. I think the president likes to keep us small for that reason. Ever since Watergate, the executive branch has downplayed their investigative staff.”
“I don’t plan on bugging hotel rooms,” Herk snickered.
“Nothing to find. These days all the private phone numbers are kept secure in the Internet cloud. Nixon’s plumbers wouldn’t have to force open a door to get what they wanted. Are you Greek by the way?”
“Yes,” he replied, “How did you guess?” Was it that obvious?
“Your middle name. I looked it up. Zenopolis sounded Greek. Where does the ‘Jones’ come from?”
“My grandfather, God rest his soul,” Herk explained. “He changed it when he became a citizen. He wanted something that sounded generic American. You?”
“Jewish,” she responded. “You couldn’t tell by Rabinowitz? My great-grandparents never bothered to change it.”
“I don’t assume anything. Looks like we’re here.”
Herk paid the cab driver with the money he’d been given by Doctor Jay before leaving the building where HERA had its office. The driver thanked him and sped away.
After they were buzzed through the entrance, Herk and Linda found themselves seated in front of a police detective named Foster whose precinct was where the latest victim of the serial killer was found. The detective, a tall black man in an impeccable suit, listened to what they had to say before telling them what he could do to help.
“It’s not up to me,” he told them. “The mayor’s office handles these things. The only reason it’s popping right now is that this is the third murder in two weeks where the victim was torn apart. Each time in or near an apartment and each time we think the perp used the screams of the woman victim to lure a man in to help her so he could get another victim.”
“Is there any information you’re not releasing to the public we should know about?” Herk asked.
Foster hesitated and looked at the door. “The president called personally to the mayor about this one, didn’t he?” he asked.
Herk and Linda nodded.
“We found flattened slugs around one of the bodies of the victims. He used a forty-four auto-mag which, close-up, should stop a gorilla. But the only blood we could find was that of the victim. We didn’t find any bullet holes on the wall, which would indicate a miss. They all bounced off something. Weirdest thing I ever saw. We also sent those tissue samples to Washington because they were unlike anything I ever came across.”
“We’ve had a look at those,” Herk said. “It’s why our office was sent in to investigate. Is there some way you could take me to the scene of the last crime? Sometimes it helps to go there and get a feel for the place.”
They left in Detective Foster’s car a few minutes later.
“It’s not much, as you can see,” Foster said as they walked around the quiet city street.
This was at one time a very prosperous neighborhood. Now it was a place where drug deals were made and gangsters parked their cars to lay low from the cops. It was also the place where a car was found with the remains of the latest victim.
There was a rumble sound as the elevated train sped overhead. Herk looked up to watch it pass. “How often does that train come by?”
“It’s pretty regular,” Foster said and scratched his chin. “I can get you a train schedule and we can go over it.” He looked around at the ground around where the other victim was found.
“You see anything funny around here?” Herk asked Linda.
“Nothing too obvious,” Linda called back to him. “You can tell something very violent happened from the rocks tossed all over the place.” She leaned over and picked up something. “A flattened bullet like this?” she asked Foster as she held one up.
Herk stood at the taped-off area where the murder took place and looked around. Other than the slug, there wasn’t much to distinguish it from the rest of this part of the city. Every block was splattered with trash and the row houses had bars in the windows. A few sullen young men lingered at the corner across the street and watched them from the distance. As Foster mentioned, there was an apartment building next door.
The taped-off area was between two buildings which where former warehouses of some kind. He saw the remains of a clock on one, but the name on the company, which once occupied it, was long faded. The traffic was light on these streets, as there was no reason for anyone to be here. Once there was a factory across the street, but he couldn’t tell what it used to make. The windows were all gone and water dripped inside it from the previous day’s rainfall.
“I think I’ve found another,” Linda called to Foster who went over to the place she pointed and took a picture of it with a small digital camera. Herk massaged the back of his neck and walked over to see what it was she’d found.
The door to the factory next to them blew open with the force of ten winds. Herk turned just in time to see a large figure emerge, howl and stalk in the direction of Foster and Linda. Herk was directly behind it and couldn’t tell much other than it was well over six feet tall and bulky. The beast, as that was how he thought of it, was a dark color. It closed in on Foster and Linda.