This girl is running through an abondoned warehouse. She'd been lured there earlier. She was running away from something she saw (still have to think what), and then stumbles on . . .
I tripped over big red shoes, falling face first unto the concrete floor. I breathed hard, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the new level of darkness. I swallowed the blood in my mouth quickly, wincing at the taste.
What I saw wasn’t exactly pleasant. My hand lay in a pool of blood, blood I knew wasn’t mine.
This time I spit the blood in my mouth out, along with gall and bile. I stood up slowly, feeling the pain in my arms and bruised knees. My hair was in my face, the blonde now dark with blood.
I swayed on my feet, feeling the rapid breaths catch in my throat.
I took a step, my legs shaking so badly my ankle almost gave way. A strip of moonlight lit up the crimson pool in front of me. How could I have missed it before?
Maybe it was because I’d been running. I wanted to run again right now, but neither my legs nor my conscience would allow me to.
I took another step, followed by another. The pool was big, leading halfway round a workbench.
I reached a spot behind the workbench, where the whole thing was fully in my sight.
And saw nothing.
It was just a pool of blood. I breathed a sigh of relief, crunching down so I could inspect it more closely. Maybe it was old blood. I leaned over it and dabbed the tip of my fingers in it, then held them up in the moonlight. It ran down my already red hand.
This is fresh, I thought putting a finger to my lips so I could taste to see if it was real. I drew it away again when I tasted the familiar irony tang.
Then I froze. Something wet and warm had just hit the back of my head. I swallowed, realizing what the drop must have been.
Slowly I lifted my head, my gaze going straight up into the rafters of the old warehouse. Between bales of hay and machinery, an arm hang limply, dripping with a dark fluid.
I fell back, my breath not even crossing through my teeth. The hand wore a stained red glove. One of the glove’s fingers hung empty.
My eyes closed as the familiar bile rose steadily in my throat. Hot tears formed at the corners of my eyes.
“Serial killer,” Sergeant Burke muttered under his breath.
Nicholson nodded, taking notes in a bright pink fluff-covered notebook. He other officers didn’t blame him, since they had to grab what they could too, the call having had come somewhere near two in the morning.
It was near four now, and most of them were bleary eyed and mousy. They rushed past me like so many faceless uniforms and over coats. The whole warehouse was taped off.
I sat on one of the workbenches, trying to look at anything but the body now lying on a stretcher near the door.
“See the way they picked out the flesh of his cheeks?” Burke pointed at the body’s face. “Same marks and disfigurement as the Mull and Binley cases.”
“Name of deceased Jake Foreman,” Nicholson informed the sergeant, glancing at his notes.
I swallowed at the lump in my throat.
My parents stood near the body, talking to one of the other officers. I didn’t want to look at them either.
“Feel sorry for the kid,” I heard one of the SOCOS say. “I wouldn’t want to stumble on a body, especially when it looks like that. Her colleague nodded sadly, glancing at the body.
His face, like those of Eric Mull and Frank Binley, had been surgically disfigured to look like a clown’s. His cheeks were hollowed out so that it looked like red circles with bits of white bone in them. His lips were cut and the blood drawn around them, like a clown’s smiling mouth. But what but the truly disgusting wound that spoiled his once magnificent face, was the gaping, bloody hole were his nose used to be, now resembling a clown’s punctured red nose.
He was dressed, as the others had been, in huge red shoes, too big shirt and pants, a ruff and suspenders, and his hair was dyed darker with blood drawn from the huge wound in his chest.
“Cuts inflicted post-mortem,” a pathologist bent over his face, examining the mockery. “Although his lips and cheeks were done before.”
Done. I grimaced in indignation. She made it sound like plastic surgery or something.
“And cause of death?” her assistant asked eagerly.
“Right now I’d say the wound to his chest,” she said, slowly moving his neck. “But will know for certain after the autopsy.
I winced again. Jake, the guy who was so afraid of needles for God’s sake, was going to be cut up slowly.
After a while the body was zipped up and loaded into a hearse. The Pathologist walked over to sergeant Burke and spoke quietly to him. I watched them sadly.
Burke nodded, and threw an edgy glance at me. When they were done talking, he and Nicholson made their way to where I was sitting. I gulped again, wondering what they’d think if I cried in front of them.
“Please state your name for the record,” Nicholson asked.
I told them, not thinking.
“Well Miss Nolan,” Sergeant Burke said, his voice sounding every bit as tired as he looked. “I’m afraid we have to escort you downtown for questioning.”
My father heard and came rushing over.
“Excuse me?” he said, coming to stand between the sergeant and me. “You cannot possibly suspect my daughter!”
“We are a bit curious as to what a sixteen year old girl was doing in an abandoned warehouse in the dead of the night,” Nicholson said.
Burke gave him a look and then turned to my father. “Standard procedure Mr. Nolan,” Burke proclaimed curtly. “She discovered the body.”
“She’s a minor!” My father said incredulously.
“Mr. Nolan I can see that,” Burke sighed. “We do not suspect your daughter of this murder because she has an alibi for other two murders, making it very unlikely she was involved here. However, we need an official statement from her.”
“For what?” my father asked as my mother moved closer.
“For evidence.”
“But you –,” my father started angrily, but my mother laid a hand on his arm.
“I understand you knew the victim personally?” Sergeant Burke asked, turning back to me.
I nodded.
“How personally? Friend? Boyfriend?” Burke pressed.
I shook my head. “Friend.”
“Now, why exactly were you here?” Nicholson asked.
I sighed dully, wondering what to do. If I answered their questions now, they could hold it against me. If I don’t, they could hold it against me too.
“I received a phone call this afternoon,” I said staring at my shoes. My parents looked at each other.
I saw Burke and Nicholson exchange significant looks.
“Indeed Miss Nolan?” Burke asked, his voice edgy again.
I nodded again, and started to tell them all about the call and the bait.
When I finished my parents gaped at me. Burke and Nicholson exchanged another significant look.
“Now it is more important than ever for us to take you down town,” Burke said finally. My father started to protest, but Burke silenced him by holding up his hand. “For protection Mr. Nolan.”
“Protection?” my mother asked worriedly. “From what?”
“From Harlequin,” I whispered to myself.
“Excuse me?” Nicholson said. All eyes turned back to me again.
I looked at them in exasperation. “That’s what he is, isn’t he? Some clown wannabe who disfigures his victims to look like harlequins.”
Burke and Nicholson stared at me. I realized the mistake I’d made. “How could you possibly know what he calls himself?” Nicholson asked.
“He – he told me in the phone call,” I said, not looking at them.
Burke sighed again. “I do not want to worry you Mr. And Mrs. Nolan, but The Harlequin uses these phone calls as a sort of calling card for his next victims. He would call them, his voice disguised as a different cartoon character each time, and invite them for a private show and a proposition that appealed to them. With Eric Mull it was a business agreement, to Frank Binley a tip. Now we just have to determine what he proposed to Foreman.”
I, of coarse, had known all this before, but I wasn’t about to let them know that.
My mother looked as though she was about to start crying. My father’s mouth hung open.
And the rest i still have to work on. This is supposed to be a part somewhere in the middle when the story has already developed a bit.
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