ARAWN
I walk into the police station with a strange feeling.
Two of my men are walking in with me and this surely doesn’t help from getting weird looks thrown at us.
I clear my throat as I stop in front of what seems to be a reception desk run by uniformed rookies. “I’d like to talk to Detective Ramirez.”
The young man looks at me wide-eyed as he looks down at his computer. “Sure, Sir. Do you have an appointment? Is he expecting you?”
I just stare at him. “No.”
He gets visibly uncomfortable and eyes up at the men standing behind me. “Okay, Sir. Let me call him real quick. Please, take your seat.”
“Thank you.” I step away from his desk, and we sit down on a few chairs fixated on the wall to wait for the detective.
While we wait, I wonder how Nerthus must have been feeling waiting for someone to help her out as she was looking for her friend.
As a man dressed in a worn-out suit turns around the corner, I get up on my feet. My men following me swiftly. “Hi, I’m Detective Ramirez. How can I help you, gentlemen?”
I shake his hand and have his slender frame shaking up. “My woman was questioned a few days ago. She talked about the victims having strange signs and I would like to have a look at that. Maybe I could help your investigation a little bit.”
He nods while his eyes wander back in front between my men and me. “I’m sorry, but I have a few murder cases running at the same time. Maybe if you could provide me with a little more information.”
“Is there a room we can talk in private?”
He gestures to the long hallway as he nods. “Sure. Please, follow me.”
A few minutes later, we are sitting in an overcrowded room, and I get why he told me that he had a few cases running at the same time. To be honest, only I found a rattly chair to sit down on. My men are still standing behind me, making the already messed up room look like there was no room left for us to breathe.
“Hendricks… Hendricks…” he repeats while typing furiously on his keyboard.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes as it couldn’t be that difficult to remember an interrogation that took place yesterday and involved a victim marked in a strange way.
Especially as Nerthus isn’t easy to forget.
“Was she questioned as a suspect or a witness?” he asks, his eyes still glued to the screen.
I clear my throat, shifting in my seat. “A witness, if you can call it that.”
“Ah, yes. Here it is. Nerthus Hendricks… Case file 2015-A567BG. Homicide of Lan Hoang. Vietnamese Citizen. 16 years old. Without work permit or legal resident status,” he sighs as he stands up and goes to rummage through his high piles of files to find the file and the ones attached to that. “Here you go.”
While Aleksei doesn’t seem to be impressed, Vito groans as Detective Ramirez opens the file and discloses the photographs with the corpse and the carved body parts.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he laughs. “I thought you would be tougher than that.”
I chuckle as I move my chair closer to his desk and start looking at the pictures. “Did you ever find out what those signs mean?”
“No,” he shakes his head, picking up one of the photographs. “A colleague of mine thought it might have something to do with the zodiac signs, but the next body we found…”
He opens the next file and looks through the photographs. “… had similar signs, but they were now far away from something like this. So, we thought it had something to do with him not being that good at carving human skin yet.”
“No one is born a master,” I say while checking out a photograph, and while Aleksei chuckles lowly, I suppose that Vito is fighting hard not to gag.
“They look like random signs indeed,” I observe, making the detective nod. “But he seems to get more pleasure out of it here. Looks like he took his time to do these.”
“Yeah,” the detective agrees, opening the next file. “The last woman we found looked like he used her skin as a canvas.”
I hum as I turn the picture towards me. “There is barely a free spot. But he didn’t touch her face.”
Looking up, I find Detective Ramirez already nodding. “It’s never the faces.”
“That’s odd. Someone targeting prostitutes and doesn’t disfigure their faces?” I ask, raising a brow.
Ramirez shrugs, turning a gum in his mouth. “Maybe there is no hate involved for those women especially.”
“Some sexual or sadistic pleasure but still love for the women? This is just absurd,” I chuckle, not seeing any sense in the fact.
“Maybe some psycho who sees them as an art project. He seems to be impotent as the acts of violence were with random objects found in the alleys we found the women.”
“So, he seems to fail his service when he is ready for them and panics? Was there any sperm found in the vicinity of the body?” I ask, getting more confused.
“Not of anyone who could have been considered a suspect,” he answers, and Vito groans.
The detective laughs as he leans back in his seat. “It’s a dirty city, boy!”
Redirecting his gaze to me, he gets serious again. “Anyone fitting the profile on the territory, Mr. Rodberg?”
“Not that I would know of,” I shake my head, lifting the newest file to hand them to my men. “But I will have them looking into it.”
Nodding again, he observes them going through the file. “I will appreciate you letting me know.”
“Of course,” I say, standing up to shake his hand. “Thank you for your time.”
He takes the file back from Aleksei’s hand as we walk out.
We are already steering into traffic on the dark SUV as Vito turns towards me from the passenger seat. “Boss, the place where they found the latest victim. I think I know it.”
I must be wearing the same expression Aleksei is flashing him as he barks out. “Huh? Where from? It’s just a dusty corner.”
“Not a corner.” Vito clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “It’s a bridge. It’s where I collected that red-haired woman in the car with that beachwear model. She broke Giulio’s nose at it.”
Aleksei roars with laughter while I just glare at him, my chest squeezing painfully.
Derek.