The Face-Off Killer #1

The Face-Off Killer

Somewhere in the city of Boston

“Good lord!” exclaimed Detective Ansen Cole, as he looked at the sight in front of him with something bordering on morbid fascination.

“What an inapt thing to say, Cole! All godliness has deserted this world…that’s why stuff like…this happens,” his partner, Detective Lance Carter, said in reply. He was looking at the sight before him with more of disgust and abhorrence.

Cole didn’t reply to his partner, but kept on looking with the same expression.

In front of them, lying spread-eagled on the ground, was a corpse. Stripped completely naked, with the throat and wrists clearly slit. From the anatomy, it was clear the corpse was that of a woman.

But the fact  baffling the two detectives was the face of the corpse…or rather a lack of it. The facial skin had been completely ripped off, leaving only a bloody mass of flesh in its place.

“Cole. Cole! Look over there,” Carter nudged his partner sharply in the elbow, making him snap out of his staring and concentrate on his partner’s words.

“Huh? What?” Cole muttered.

“Look over to the wall…there’s something written over there!” Carter repeated, pointing to the wall in front of them, which indicated the dead end of the alley they both stood in right now.

Cole followed the direction of Carter’s outstretched hand.

His eyes landed on something written on the wall. Even in the daylight, it wasn’t bright enough for him to make out what was written. So he inched closer to the wall, taking care to sidestep the corpse and avoid any crime scene contamination.

‘AT MY REQUEST NEVER SHALL YOU SCOFF, LET’S PLAY A GAME CALLED FACE-OFF’.

This cryptic, weird message was written on the wall. The letters had a dark red hue.

Cole assumed that it was nothing but red spray paint.

“Do you think it’s been written in the victim’s blood?” Carter asked Cole, and now his voice reeked of morbid fascination.

“Bah! Don’t be so melodramatic, Carter! It’s obviously red spray paint. Haven’t you seen enough graffiti in your patrol days to be able to tell dark red spray paint from blood?” Cole chided his partner lightly.

“Sorry. This whole face-off thing is giving me the heebies-jeebies. We can assume the killer wrote this message, right?” Carter replied.

“Yes, of course. Makes perfect sense. The victim’s face ripped off…a different kind of face-off…literally face-off.” Cole replied, thoughtfully.

“Who called us here? Can you remember?” Carter asked his partner.

“Dispatch said an anonymous caller had reported a body lying here. That’s about all I know. Did you see anyone on the way in? I know I didn’t.” Cole said to his partner.

“Nopes.  Didn’t see anyone here. Funny thing, eh? Why would someone call us here, to a crime scene, and then scarper?” wondered Carter.

“Well, there are two possibilities. Either he is the killer, whose idea of fun was to commit this grisly crime and then call the cops to his own crime scene. Or he was some other kind of shady character, who happened to come here to do his business and chanced upon this,” Cole replied.

“Hmmmphhh. The crime scene people will be here soon. Only they can tell us more about this murder now. Let’s get out of here…the sight and smell both are killing me,” Carter said, wrinkling his nose and turning his face away from the body.

“You’re right. Let’s leave,” agreed Cole, and both detectives hurriedly walked out of the alley.

Somewhere else in Boston

He caressed the face in front of him, his fingers touching the skin delicately, like a passionate lover trying to fill his senses with the ecstasy of feeling his beloved.

“Oh! Azalea! My dear, sweet Azalea! The love of my life! Why, why did you have to leave me, huh? Why? Why? Why did you break my heart?” he said, his voice low, melancholy.

The ‘face’ he was touching was actually skin ripped off from his first victim. He had torn off the face in one clean go, using a surgical instrument, leaving behind only a bloody mass of flesh and the bone underneath. This ‘face’ he fitted neatly over one of the numerous mannequin face models he had in his ‘workshop’, which was the basement of his house. The face had adjusted nicely over its plastic support structure, giving an impression of a real face, albeit disembodied. The red, full lips, the pert nose and the blue eyes and the fair skin. All he needed to do was get a proper wig to fit the face.

That wasn’t a problem- he had hundreds of wigs of various colors in his collection. The woman he had killed was a blonde, so he chose a blonde wig from his collection and placed it neatly atop the ‘skull’.

The result astounded him, gave him immense pleasure and a shot of ecstasy that a dose of morphine couldn’t equal. He was so impressed by his work that he started dancing about the room in joy.

“Azalea! Azalea! I’ve done it, Azalea! I’ve brought you back in my life! I’m so happy. Now we will live happily ever after…with the others, my dear Azalea!” he screamed, prancing about the room like a child who has received the best Christmas presents of his life.

He admired his work from various angles. He took numerous photos of ‘Azalea’ on his digital camera. One of the images from his collection would make a good screensaver on his laptop.

Then more screensavers would come, when the ‘others’ would come. The other faces, from other women; faces he needed to bring back Azalea completely. He had been rejoicing because, even after losing practice for a long time, his first ‘job’ had gone pretty well. But now he had other jobs to finish, for bringing that one job to completion- the job of resurrecting Azalea completely.

The next morning, somewhere in Boston, two separate articles appeared in the same newspaper

Woman’s body found in alleyway; police mystified

Boston: In a hocking development yesterday, police found a corpse dumped in an alley on Maple Avenue. The corpse, according to sources, is that of a woman in her late twenties. The corpse was completely naked, and had its throat and wrists slit. But the most horrifying and baffling fact is that the corpse’s face had been completely ripped off. The police are experiencing great difficulty in identifying the victim because of the lack of any ID, and, well, the victim’s face.

Woman went missing from home day before yesterday; hasn’t been found yet

Boston: In a strange incident, a twenty-eight year old woman, Ashley Browne, mysteriously disappeared from home on the day before yesterday, and hasn’t been found yet. She went missing sometime in the evening, says her husband, before he got home from work. The husband, Roger Browne, contacted the police yesterday morning itself, but they refused to register Ashley as a missing case because of the 24-hours policy and the fact she was an adult who could hang around on her own. When a worried Roger further pleaded with them to look into her disappearance, their response was nothing short of hostile.

“They accused me of having bumped off my wife and then reporting her as missing to the cops,” a bewildered Roger says.

The police’s blatant refusal to investigate this disappearance even after 24 hours have passed is as mystifying as the whereabouts of Ashley Browne.

Ashley is blonde, petite and was last seen on the morning of 24^th March, day before yesterday. If you happen to see her anywhere in your vicinity, please call her husband on this number….

“Carter! Carter! Ashley Browne! I think our victim is Ashley Browne!” yelled Cole, as he abandoned his coffee and croissant and ran off to find his partner, clutching the newspaper in his hand.

Chapter #1: Channing McGregor: The woman who lives

I am sitting in the darkened living room, staring apprehensively at the land line telephone on the side table next to the sofa. I expect the phone to start ringing off the hook anytime, and shatter the deathly silence of my Upper East Side apartment. It's still light outside, but I have drawn the blinds of all the windows in my apartment, turned off all tube lights and only left on the two lamps I have kept in every room of my house. I like this kind of ambiance when I have the urgent need to feel protected; somehow the semi-dark rooms seem to envelop me in a safe cocoon of their own.
I get up from the sofa and go to my study-cum-library, where, on a huge teak work desk, my MacBook sits patiently, screen glowing, waiting for me to come and start working on it. The beginning of the first draft of my next book lies open in MS-Word, just the way I had left it after a wave of writer's block had unexpectedly hit me earlier today morning. I have mails to check and answer, and articles to edit and write. I have to write the weekly post on my blog, Women's Weekly as well. Yup, I'm a very busy woman with a lot of stuff waiting to be done.
After all, I am Channing McGregor, author of one non-fiction and two fiction books, founder and editor of a firebrand women's magazine called The Feminista, a blogger and a women's rights activist as well.
I move from the study to the kitchen, where I proceed to make myself a cup of tea. Even this simple task seems tedious and daunting right now- that's the extent my mind has been muddled with recent events. Still, I persist, in order to make myself do something and get rid of my mental paralysis.
While the water boils in the kettle, I sit down at the kitchen table, picking up a book lying there and leafing absent-mindedly through the pages. My gaze involuntarily goes towards the bathroom door towards the left of the hallway outside the kitchen. Anytime, I expect my boyfriend, Tory, to come out of the bathroom in his robe, saying "What's on the menu tonight, precious?" with a huge smile on his handsome face and his hair dripping wet.
Which is when I am rudely reminded by my rational brain that Tory is now my ex-boyfriend. He is out of my life, so I should put him out of my mind as well. Which is a little hard for me. Not only because I still love him a lot, but because he is the owner and MD of the media house that owns and publishes The Feminista. Which means that we still see a lot of each other for work related purposes. It's not one bit easy for me. I am really eager to know how it affects him.
The break-up has also been hard on me because this was no ordinary break-up; but a high-profile, scandalous end to a high-profile relationship between two people constantly in the media spotlight because of their work. My ex, Tory Adams, was caught in a compromising position, inside his car, with none other than my blonde, buxom secretary at my magazine's office, Layla- that too by a particularly tenacious tabloid reporter. You can easily imagine what happened next. Sleazy reports in tabloid newspapers by sleazepot journalists, being chased by these same people for 'sound bytes' on my knowledge on, or opinion about Tory's infidelity, photos of him with Layla splashed across the front pages of second grade magazines and being repeatedly telecast on news channels, request for interviews describing the 'break-up process' and how I am coping with it, incessant questions about why Tory had cheated on me and what I will do with Layla, and speculative articles about the same everywhere on the internet as well.
Strangely, it's been three weeks since I and Tory went our own ways, but the media and public's interest in our private lives seems insatiable. The controversy refuses to die down, and wherever I go, I feel like people are talking about the break-up behind my back, promptly stopping the conversation whenever I come within hearing range. This is happening at the office, at author speaking engagements, seminars for women, functions for women's rights activists, and just about everywhere I go. The whispers and gossip, at least in my assumption, are still raging on like a fire that refuses to be put-out, and I'm still getting phone calls from over-inquisitive reporters and acquaintances. That's one reason why I'm afraid of the telephone nowadays.
On top of all this is the problem that has been nagging me for some time now. It's not a full-blown problem yet, just a small, niggling threat that creeps up on me every now and then.
As editor of a women's magazine that openly discusses women's issues, especially abuse and sex crimes against women, I have, unsurprisingly, managed to make many enemies. Both local and international enemies, since The Feminista has offices in London, Paris, Stockholm, New Delhi, Istanbul and even Lahore and Hong Kong. I also work with women's organizations to rehabilitate victims of domestic violence, another tricky terrain where husbands and boyfriends threaten to make life hell for us.
Lately, I've been getting anonymous calls from someone who claims he will kill, one by one, all the victims of domestic violence and sex crimes whom I have managed to help get justice and have their perpetrators prosecuted. A part of me thinks I should ignore this type of empty threats, which aren't new to me. I've been called names and threatened with rape, acid attacks, mutilation in the form of letters or phone calls or Twitter and FB messages and mails; once, my car was punctured and graffiti consisting of cuss words painted all over it. I am used to this and know how to ignore it and go on with my work.
But a nagging doubt at the back of my head says that this guy could be an actual killer and will come true on his claims, thereby harming innocent lives and undoing all the work I have done all these years to give these women a new lease of life. I'm afraid to go to the police, lest this news leak out and augment the media gossip and interest in my private life and matters head out of control. I'm not exactly close to my family, who live in Alabama and am hesitant to share this with my friends and colleagues, not knowing how they will react or of they will take me seriously. I keep thinking that this will stop if I ignore it, but it won't and i know it. And if I don't tell anyone or take action soon, this may escalate into a full-blown disaster.
A loud hissing noise shakes me out of my thoughts,and I see that the water is overflowing over the sides of the kettle now. I run to the stove and turn it off. And then, the loud, shrill trin-trin of the land line phone penetrates my senses, and I dash to the living room and pick up the phone with trembling hands.
"Hello?" I speak apprehensively into the phone.
"Hello, this is Detective Brenda McKinsey of the NYPD. Am I speaking to Miss Channing McGregor?" came a professional female voice from the other end.
My feeling of apprehension grows even more pronounced.
"Yes, Detective?" I say.
"We found a body on Fifth Street today. It's a female in her early twenties, and we found your number in her pocket phone dairy. Can you come to the station to talk to us?" the detective replies.
It must be someone I had once rescued from a rapist, a stalker, or an alcoholic boyfriend or husband or father- I always gave my number to all these woman and asked them to keep in touch.
"Was it murder, Detective?" I ask, my heart beating very fast now.
"Yes, we have reason to think it was. Why don't you come down to the station and I will tell you all about it?" she replies.
With a feeling of lead having dropped into my stomach, I say, "Sure. I will be down there ASAP Detective."

An excerpt from The Reaper's Rage

John, Henry, Nick, Nancy and Brenda were having a really tough time. They had been besieged by journalists and reporters since they had stepped out of their homes that morning. It was especially bad outside the police station and the CSI headquarters. The parking lot was thronged with reporters, and the roads were jammed with vans belonging to news channels. As the five members of Operation Grim Reaper team arrived at work, microphones were thrust into their faces, cameras took their pictures and video cameras captured their reactions live.

“Special Agent Hartigan, has the FBI really taken over the Grim Reaper case?”

“Agent, do you think the New York police is sloppy and ineffective?”

“Detective Stalinzki, why was the news of inclusion of an FBI agent in the investigation kept secret?”

“Lt. McKinsey, do you think that the news that you started a new line of investigation should have been given out to the public earlier? They have a right to know something is being done about them”

“Agent Hartigan, do you think your experience with the BAU gives you an edge over the NYPD?”

“Detective Stalinzki, do you think that Agent Hartigan will repeat what Agent Sharpe, his colleague, did on the Green River case?”

“Lt. McKinsey, do you think that Agent Hartigan is trying to expose the ineptness of the New York Police?”

“Mr.Summers, do you think that Agent Hartigan has been butting in this investigation unwantedly?”

“Miss Willows, do you think Agent Hartigan will catch the killer and take all the credit for it?”

“Detective Stalinzki, is it true that you dropped Lt. Samuel Hernandez from the investigating team because he pegged a rich socialite as the suspect?”

“Agent Hartigan, do you think the killer has a reason to be afraid of you, since you hunt these kind of people?”

All that the team members said in reply was ‘No comments’.

Henry and Brenda somehow snuck out of the station into the CSI building without getting noticed by the media. John, Nick and Nancy were waiting for them there.

“This is getting out of control!” exclaimed Nick as Brenda and Henry approached them.

“How could Samuel do this? How could he have jeopardized the investigation for a petty grouse?” wondered Nancy.

“His ego made him do this. He is so used to using his muscle to elicit confessions from the street scumbags that he has forgotten how to use his brain. Anything goes not according to his whims, he will make others pay for it” said Brenda, scathingly.

“And now Patricia Cain is being dragged into this mess, unnecessarily. She may have a reputation for a wild past, but that doesn’t mean anyone can peg her as the killer” said Henry.

“Well, he sure knew how to get back at me, by ratting out on our investigation to make us all look like idiots. It was my plan to keep this investigation a secret till we have covered all bases and cast our net, but there goes the plan” said John, bitterly.

“What if he tells the media about all the progress we have made?” asked Nancy, with alarm.

“The killer is watching the news right now. She knows I’m here with you, and she already has a suspicion we are catching up with her. If he makes public the investigation details, we can anticipate that the trail will go cold again. Or else…” said John, hesitating.

“Or else what, John?” asked Nick, anxiously.

“The murders will escalate. And I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that this is what will happen” said John. He had little idea how soon he was going to be proved right.

                                       ***********

It was 11.50 p.m. that very evening. The five team members of Op Grim Reaper were together in Room 101. They hadn’t left the building since morning. They didn’t wanna face the grueling questions by the media, which had also made it impossible for them to go out anywhere to continue the investigation because they would be followed everywhere. One of Henry’s men had been kind enough to bring them food and coffee. All they did was sit and follow news reports, and waited with a sense of dread to see their investigation jeopardized more. The fact that Samuel Hernandez was being pulled up for his antics was not very much of a consolation, because they figured he would do anything to get his revenge.

All five of them had dozed off in their chairs, when they were woken up by an officer.

“There is a 911 from Fifth Avenue. They just found another body” said the officer, with bated breath.

The whole team lost all sleep at this declaration, and got up to leave for the crime scene. It was going to be a long night ahead.

                                                    *************

The Operation Grim Reaper team stood at the latest dump-site. They knew that the media had been camping outside the PD HQ for the whole day, so it was a given that they would be followed to the crime scene too. Therefore, Detective Stalinzki had deployed a large number of his officers to put road blocks half a mile both directions of the dump-site, to dissuade any over-eager reporters or cameramen desperate to get a snapshot of the dead body.  The area had been cordoned off to the residents in the immediate vicinity in this one mile radius; cops stood at the entrance of every apartment building to keep curious residents from coming outside to take a look. The body lay on the edge of an alleyway, in full public view, unlike the earlier murders, where the body was dumped in the alleyway. This murder was not meant to be a shocker…it was meant to be noticed by the police, and the city. It was a message, loud and clear, from the Grim Reaper.

John and Nancy stood on one side of the corpse. The coroner’s assistant, Dr. Devon Hodgkins, was kneeling over the corpse on its other side.

“He died some three hours ago. Cause of death was due to excessive hemorrhage both by virtue of severing of the carotid artery, and multiple stab wounds on the torso” said Dr. Hodgkins.

“The killer used the same method to kill. But this is overkill…going by the number of stab wounds on the body” said John. He was right; the body had been stabbed all over, apart from the slit throat and the castration.

“And the mutilation wounds to the face are much deeper this time. It’s as if the killer wanted to scratch this poor guy’s face off” Nancy observed.

“Look at the amount of blood. The killer is outraged…this is a huge escalation” John said, a note of worry in his voice.

“I found the severed penis here” said Nick, standing beside a Dumpster and pointing to a small black mass lying on the ground in front of him.

“The killer has taken all forensic counter-measures again” Nancy made another observation.

“True. Her rage has not affected her organization and efficiency” said John.

“Do we know the victim?” said Brenda, standing a little way off from the body. Dead bodies made her extremely uncomfortable.

“He is Joshua Smith. The owner of Smith and Broderick Pharmaceuticals. I am calling his fiancée right now. She might be able to give us something” said Henry, standing with his men behind Brenda.

Half a mile on either side of the road block, people were clamoring to know what was going on. They were flashing their phone cameras, or craning their necks, or arguing with the cops to let them inside the blockade. In one of these crowds, at the front, she, the Grim Reaper stood, pretending to be a common New Yorker inquisitive about the goings on at the crime scene. She was dressed in blue jeans, a white shirt and a black overcoat, her eyes covered in rectangular spectacles. She could see the group of policemen standing at the mouth of the alleyway, prominent in the floodlights set up at the spot. She could see Agent Hartigan, standing with the brunette woman, looking at the body which she knew was there, even though it was being deliberately blocked from view.

The day that rocked the world

Remember 16th December 2012? Those of you who diligently read the newspapers certainly do. A 23-year old physiotherapy student, going back home with her friend after watching a movie, was brutalized, raped and left for dead by a gang of six men.
Let's do a fast forward of what exactly happened that night, according to the police and the newspapers. The girl and her friend, who happened to be a male, were returning home on a bus at 9.30 p.m. after watching a movie. Somehow, a group of five drunk men happened to be aboard that bus the same time, one of them a juvenile. The men must have felt that a young girl, travelling at night in Delhi in a bus with less passengers, in a country like India, was fair game. So they forcibly evacuated a vendor from the bus, and as the driver, acting as an accomplice, drove around the city, they beat up the girl's male friend, dragged her to the back of the bus, and raped her. If that wasn't enough, the juvenile among them first disemboweled the girl, then inserted a rod into the girl's innards. That was to make sure she bleeds out as much as possible and dies. Then they threw the girl, and her boyfriend, out on the road side and left them there, to die.
Passing vehicles saw a disrobed, terribly injured girl and an injured boy lying by the side of the road, on a cold December night, but none of them bothered to stop and help them. For an hour, the girl and her friend were lying there, in the biting cold, robbed of their dignity. Later it was said that this one hour delay resulted in the girl losing her life.
When the news of the gang-rape reached the public, somehow the whole thing erupted into a huge controversy. As the girl lay in the hospital, fighting for her life as doctors attempted to see how to put her life back on track, the six rapists, including the driver, were arrested. The Delhi police was on one hand scorned by the public for its shoddy functioning and execution of duties, while the Commissioner was praised by a prominent politician for his diligence in carrying out his duties. Confusing, no? The wave of outrage rooted in years of frustration moved on from Delhi to other Indian metro cities like Calcutta and Mumbai, leaving in its wake thousands of men and women, both young and old, out on the streets, peacefully but firmly protesting the incident on the streets. They were not only protesting the wanton brutalization of the Delhi girl, but also what the incident showed about how women are treated in India today.
The rapists said they had no regrets for what they had done to the girl, and they did what they did because she was out at night with a man who wasn't her brother or father. A popular Godman, now behind bars for sexually assaulting a girl in his ashram, said the girl should have begged with the rapists to leave her alone, since they were her 'brothers'. The head of a prominent religious outfit said that rapes are happening in 'urban' India because of 'Western culture'. As if women in villages don't get raped and killed over either caste and feudal and communal riots or personal grudge between families or just plain lust of misogynist, perverted men. A minister in Andhra said that the girl deserved what she got because she was on that bus, at night, with a boy. Other such derogatory and regressive comments were made by various people living in the Dinosaur age, especially a senior BJP minister's contention that the girl has been turned into a 'zinda laash' (living corpse) and a Bengal minister's 'dented-and-painted' comment that took the media by storm.
All this while, the girl showed extra-ordinary courage and fought for her life, asking her mother to deliver justice to her rapists, talking to the police and the doctors and thinking of her life after she recovered from her wounds.
Remember December 29th 2012, exactly a year ago from today? Today of last year was the day the girl finally breathed her last. Her death somehow gave a lot more impetus to the protestations by the public. The Verma commission released its laudable report, recommending the GOI to take certain corrective measures to ensure proper handling of incidents like the one in Delhi,  to see that affected women got adequate psycho-social and legal help to get justice, to increase conviction rates for rapists and to increase sensitivity and awareness of medical professionals and policemen towards rape victims. Eminent academicians like Harvard's Dr. Jacqueline Bhabha came to India to help the government frame proper laws to award punishment to rapists and other sex offenders. Looked like things would change finally for women in India.Fat chance.
All the government did was pass an utterly useless Ordinance that had no proper steps on how to actually help bring down incidents of sex crimes and ensure speedy justice for the victims. The juvenile, who was actually responsible for inserting the rod inside the girl's private parts and to a large part contributing to her death, got off easy because of the Juvenile Justice act. One of the rapists committed suicide and four are sentenced to death. That's good in a way, but not very good when you see the long-term ramifications. Still I read incidents of brutal rape and murder of women in India- not to forget the brutal, sadistic violation of a 5 year old girl in Delhi not long after the gang-rape of the student, and the gang-rape of a press photographer in Mumbai. Still the chauvinists continue to make insensitive statements, still the police continues to either act insensitive or dumb, still the political parties use such incidents for their own benefit ( Mamata Banerjee saying confidently that the spate of rapes in Bengal were a ploy by the rival party to discredit her government). The furor that the rape had created last year seemed to have died down by now, the outrage has receded and this isn't a hot topic of discussion anymore.
As to why I'm writing about this today? Because this incident somehow managed to pierce my heart, make a hole in there, make my blood go cold in my veins ( when I heard about the iron rod from a male friend who lives in Delhi and who attended the protests), and confirmed all my notions about what happens to many women in India who chose to live life their own way.
As to what I did about it? As a student of health sciences, I wrote a paper about the poor state of healthcare for rape victims and lack of proper resources for investigation of sex crimes( as we found out through our research) with a colleague and dear friend. The paper, if it gets accepted, will hopefully bring the Delhi incident into the limelight again and maybe somewhere, somehow, life for women in general, and for rape victims in particular, will change or at least more people will talk about it and try to change their mentality towards women.
As a crime author and as a woman, I think sexual violence against women is a global issue, and I shall continue to raise it, both in my stories and future articles. As a wannabe mental health professional, I will try to find out the reason why crimes against women are perpetuated- is it pornography combined with misogyny resulting in psychosexual aberrations? Or is it the culmination of psychopathologic rage of weak- minded men who take it out on women because they think women are weaker? Or the above factors combined with other factors? Someday I hope to find out. Till then, I hope that the Delhi girl's family finds peace in whatever little justice was accorded them for the atrocities committed against their innocent daughter, and strength to move on with life.

John Hartigan says HELLO

Hello Readers!
                        It's so nice to be finally be able to say hello to you all. I'm John Hartigan.
Now the very first question you 're asking is...John Hartigan who? Well, I would like to introduce myself as your next door neighbor( Sorry if I'm copying Peter Parker's line from Spiderman).
But this pain-in-the-neck author, an entity called Percy Kerry, always introduces me as an FBI Special Agent and a criminologist. Yes, I am an FBI Special Agent. And  because of my interest in observing and understanding criminal behavior, I have a degree in criminology; therefore I analyze the baddies I catch as well, as a side profession-thingy.
But I AM your next door neighbor, literally! I wake up at 5.30 a.m. every morning, like normal people.
I go for a jog every morning, for an hour, like normal Bostonians. I have a job that requires me on board almost 14 hours a day. A government job, which pays me a monthly salary.
I like to celebrate my birthday, which falls on July 13, with a cake, some beer, some nice dinner at a good restaurant which I can afford.
I love to eat everything under the sun, no restrictions on that aspect!
I also believe in burning everything I eat...so I jog 4 miles to and fro from 6 a.m. to 7.a.m. like I mentioned before.
I love to read. My taste is crime and spy novels, books on psychology, criminology and criminal law. I also love true crime and biographies.
Last but not the least, I survive on coffee! I have like six-seven cups a day...but not the decaf stuff. Never understood the logic of decaf coffee!!
Oops! Sorry folks...I think I'm getting a call. Let me see. Damn! It's work! I gotta run...but I hope I haven'y bored you with my 'saying HELLO' monologue. I will see you again...when my boss allows me to have some 'me-time' again! Adios! Take care, folks!
                                                                     Your next-door neighbor, John Hartigan

An excerpt from What The Eye Sees

Prologue

The 911 operator took a call from a much panicked woman at 11.28 p.m. on a cold Monday night.

“Help! Please, I need help,” the lady gasped.

“What is the nature of your emergency, Ma’m?”

“My daughter, my… baby…Astor…has gone missing…” the woman stammered.

“Your daughter is missing, did you say?”

“Yes…yes…my baby…”

“Her name is Astor, did you say?”

“Yes…Astor…my baby…”

“Can you please state your name and address, ma’m?”

“Huh? Of course…Rhonda Marshall, 203, Lincoln Street.”

“Ma’m, the police shall be at your residence soon”

“Thank you…thank you!” the woman gasped, and hung up.

The 911 operator immediately contacted the Boston PD.


Chapter 1

11.44 p.m. The Marshall residence

Boston PD Detective Ansen Cole (Homicide) was standing in the living room of 203, Lincoln Street.

“Mrs. Marshall…please calm down,” Cole said, unsuccessfully trying to calm down the panicked Rhonda Marshall, who had been crying inconsolably since the police had responded to her distress call.

“I’m…I’m…sorry. I…I must…must get a hold on myself” stammered Rhonda, dabbing at her face with a huge silk handkerchief.

“Good, Mrs. Marshall. Now, I must ask you some very important questions about Astor, okay. The sooner you help me get the answers, the sooner I can find Astor, okay,” Cole said in his smoothest voice.

This statement seemed to have worked on Mrs. Marshall like a charm. She immediately stopped crying, sat up straighter on the sofa and even managed a weak smile.

“Go on…ask your questions, Detective.” she said, this time not stammering at all.

“Okay. When did you last see Astor?” Cole asked, holding a pen and small notepad in his hand, ready to take notes.

“9 p.m. last night, when I put her to bed.”

“That was the daily routine for her?”

“Yes. You see, Detective, Astor was only seven. When you inculcate good habits in children from childhood, do they grow up to be responsible adults.” replied Rhonda Marshall, smiling again.

“Yes, yes. Very true. When and how did you find out she was missing?”

Rhonda’s smile faded and her face became grim again.

“I usually go to bed myself by 10 o’clock; but I was up late tonight, preparing a plan for an upcoming function at the local Community Center. I’m the organizer and convener of the Center’s activities. I got up at around 11.15 to get a drink from the kitchen. So I thought to just check on Astor before resuming my work. I went into her bedroom, and…and found her bed empty!” she looked about to start crying again.

“Alright…alright,” Cole spoke hastily to prevent that eventuality, adding, “What did you do then?”

“I proceeded to look for Astor, first, of course, in the upstairs rooms. Bathroom, other bedrooms, study…she wasn’t there. Then I proceeded to the rooms downstairs, and then the front and back yards. I couldn’t find her anywhere”

“Then you called 911?”

“Yes”

“Okay. How many of you are there, in this house?”

“There are three of us. Astor, me and my husband Graham. He’s in the merchant navy…he’s abroad, in England on a trip. I’ve called him, of course, and he’s on his way back here. He stays away from home for more than ten months of the year,” Rhonda replied.

Cole was scribbling away furiously in his notepad.

“Do you suspect anyone of having taken Astor? Any enemies, perhaps? Seeking vengeance?” he asked.

“No…no. Ours is a nice community…I wouldn’t suspect these people for a moment. No…I do not know about any enemies who would wanna take away Astor for settling personal scores,” Rhonda replied.

“What was Astor wearing?”

“Light pink pajamas. With Daffy Duck printed all over them. Her favorite” Rhonda replied, sadly.

“Alright. Any unusual details you may have observed, Mrs. Marshall, when you went into Astor’s room?”Cole asked.

“Of course not, Detective. I was shocked senseless when I saw Astor was not in her bed. My mind was preoccupied and not looking for things out of the ordinary,” Rhonda replied, indignantly.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Marshall. I was just asking so that I could get something to go on with. Even the smallest details can help crack a crime like this,” Cole apologized immediately.

“That’s quite alright, Detective” Rhonda replied, satisfied with his explanation.

“I’ll need a recent photo of Astor, of course” said Cole. 

 Within minutes, he was holding a Polaroid photograph of Astor Marshall in his hand. Astor Marshall was a cute, chubby seven year old girl. Her eyes were blue, like her mother’s and her auburn hair cascaded down to her shoulders in curls. In Cole’s opinion, she was a beautiful child.

Excerpt from The Crimson Dahlia

Prologue

Hello, I’m Lieutenant Will Masters of the Boston Police Homicide. At this very moment, I’m lying, on my back, on the own huge four-poster bed in my own bedroom of my own house.

My hands are bound together by thick ropes from my own tool shed. My feet are chained to the foot of the bed by a thick metal chain having two circular vice grips which fit perfectly around both my ankles.  My mouth is taped shut with a roll of thick cellophane duct tape. I have been completely stripped of my clothes, which are lying in a heap on one side of the bed.

The ropes are cutting into my wrists. I try to move, but I can only turn over on my side, which is, I think, because of the vice grips in which my feet are ensconced. I can’t move. I can’t scream for help. All I can do is make muted sounds of pain through the duct tape, which no one can hear; realize that I’m a prisoner in my own house and feel waves of great fear and panic.

Yes, I can think too. Think of how I came about to be in this position, and how I’m most certainly going to die. Die like those murders victims for whom I swear to get justice and fulfill my duties as a cop. In a few hours, I’m gonna be a corpse, just like the hundreds I’ve seen. I also realize that my death shall come about after I’ve experienced the extreme pain of torture which shall be inflicted on me, physically, emotionally and psychologically- just like some of the recent homicide victims, whose murders I have been investigation. My death will come as a mercy, a reprieve, and I’ll be made to plead for it; because I’d die rather than bear the pain which shall drive me insane and tear my soul apart.

But before I die, I want to tell you a story. The story of how all my cops instincts were not enough to save me from my current predicament. The story of how this situation came about, and how I never thought I was gonna be taken prisoner and die in my own house. My death shall not go in vain- the world should learn some lessons from my mistakes, and never repeat them in the future.

Time is running out. So I better start on my story, which starts from about a year ago…

12^th June 2013, Maple Street, Boston

I’m standing in a narrow alley on Maple Street, with my colleagues in blue. We have arrived five minutes ago, after Dispatch received an anonymous from someone reporting a dead body here.

The alleyway stinks heavily of urine and beer- no surprise there as it flanks the left side of a bar. But tonight, there is something else, apart from the stink, which has pervaded my senses. It’s a body, or what’s left of it, lying at the base of the huge wall at the rear end of the alley.

I’m saying what’s left of it because, seriously, the condition of the corpse is so bad I can’t bear to look at it. The head has been severed from the body, is a hand and a leg. The corpse is nothing more than a bloody mass of flesh, arranged in a way to keep the limbs together and yet emphasize the decapitation and dismemberment.

Another thing has grabbed my attention. On the wall behind the corpse, there are words written. In huge bold letters, with something that looks like blood- a crimson hue. I can clearly read the message in the clear daylight.

“HELLO COPS. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING.WITH LOVE, THE CRIMSON DAHLIA” is the message inscribed on the wall.

“What do you think it means, Lieutenant?” asks my colleague and friend, Detective Lance Carter, standing right beside me and staring at the message curiously.

“I don’t know, Detective. You have any ideas?” I ask him in return. I really have no idea about what to make of the message. It doesn’t make any sense. Who is this Crimson Dahlia person? And how can someone be so audacious so as to directly address the cops and say the words ‘with love’? Someone, I suspect, who isn’t afraid of the police at all, and think they can get away by taunting us directly in our faces, apart from leaving a dismembered corpse for us. Their idea of a horrible joke. Well, whoever this Crimson person is, I will soon catch up with them, and then the joke will be on them.

“No, Lieutenant. I’m as confused as you. I think we’ll know more when Dr. Styles is done with this” he says, looking at the corpse.

“Yes, Detective, I think so too. Till then, you go around with Detective Cole and find out if anyone at the bar saw anything last evening. Meet me at the station later.” I tell Lance.

“Yes, Lieutenant. See you.” Saying this, Lance rushes off to his partner, Detective Ansen Cole. One of my most promising young detectives, and, if I’m right, my successor to the Lieutenant position in a few short years’ time.

The crime lab people are processing the scene, one of them taking pictures of the mangled body from various angles. Another one is collecting samples from the message inscribed in red on the wall, and I hope it has not been written with the victim’s blood. It would be too disgusting.

Meanwhile, I watch as the people from the coroner’s lift the body, part by part, onto a stretcher. I have never understood how they can manage to do so with such efficiency, without flinching and throwing up. True, in my fifteen years of police work I have seen a lot of dead bodies, some of them mangled badly beyond recognition. I can tolerate the sight, but not actually having to touch it.

 Its afternoon now and I’m sitting in my office at the station and thinking of grabbing some lunch, as I peruse, on my desktop PC, the report Detectives Carter has just mailed me. It’s the report of the inquiries both Carter and Ansen Cole at Joey’s, the bar beside the alley where we found the body today morning. As usual, the staff at the establishment saw or heard nothing unusual, and if they were to be believed, neither did any of the patrons at the bar last night.

After all this time in the job, I have come to recognize that cracking such cases isn’t that easy. It will be sometime before we can even get our first break.

I proceed to file the report in the PD database, when my phone rings. It’s my wife, Luciana, on the line.

“Hey, Doc. How you doing?” I ask her, in the affectionate manner we had of talking with each other.

“Hey, Lieutenant-husband of mine. I’m not okay because I’m starving like mad, and I hope you will get your butt out of that office to join me for lunch,” she replies, her tone mirroring mine.

“Where do you fancy we should go, Doc?” I ask.

“Sanjay’s. I wanna have that chicken curry with the fried rice thingy again” she replies.

“Okay, honey. Meet me in the parking lot in 10 minutes. See you” I say.

“Allrighty. Love you, hon” Luciana says, bringing an involuntary smile on my face. We declare our love at least a 100 times to each other every day, even after being married for almost seven years now. I know, I know, it sounds silly and too lovey-dovey.

“Love you too babe” I reply, and hang up. After the hectic schedule and other demands my job makes on me, going back home to Luciana makes me so happy and content. Or rather, I should say, going home with Dr. Luciana Masters- we both work for the Boston PD. My wife is a forensic psychologist, and her office is in the station itself, but on a different floor. We come to work together every morning, and leave together every night. Our schedules suit each other perfectly, and we get to spend enough quality time with each other. I love my wife with all my heart, and she reciprocates my love with warmth and care. I am the luckiest man in the world.