The X-Man by Brian R. Lundin (100 best novels of all time .TXT) 📕

a lot.

WATSON
Who knows what goin’ on with these young people, all they seem to think about is drugs and sex. She walked around in the nude a lot, I guessed she was just a hot momma and sometimes, mainly when the boyfriend was over I smelled pot comin’ from her apartment.


EVETTA
What did you do after you finished peeing?

WATSON
I looked over at her apartment, but didn’t see anything so I figured they were gettin’ it on, I went back to bed. The next morning I saw all the police cars and found out that she was killed

EVETTA
Thank you, Mrs. Watson, you’ve been a great help, here’s one of my business cards, if you think of anything else give me a call

The old woman took the card and walked Evetta to the door.
Once in the car she called Ringo and told him of the conversation.

HYDE PARK BALL HEALTH CLUB -10 April 2008
Esau worked out regularly at the Hyde Park Ball Health Club concentrating mainly on lifting weights and had developed strong arms and hands. Esau watched the short, but well-built woman as she worked out with a personal trainer. The woman was on her back lifting weights while the trainer stood over her, after ten repetitions with the weights the woman and the trainer moved to the treadmill. The trainer set the machine to a fast walking pace and walked away. Esau wore a tight body suit that revealed his well-toned physic and he stepped on the machine next to hers. She was fast walking at a frantic pace and the sweat rolled down her face and into her low-cut gym top. After fifteen minutes she got off the treadmill, took a long drink from a designer water bottle, and placed it in a pink gym bag, smiled at Esau and started to walk away. Esau got off the machine smiled and walked towards the woman.

ESAU
That was some workout, I tried to keep up but it was too fast for me.


WOMAN
Yep it is pretty fast, and you have to work up to it

ESAU
Can I buy you a drink at the juice bar?

WOMAN (LOOKING AT HER WATCH)
Sure, my name is Louise.

ESAU
Esau, when are you here?

No set dates or time whenever I have time, thanks for the drink. I’ve got to run, keep working on your speed

ESAU (BIG SMILE)
Will do

Esau watched as Deloris entered the woman locker room with the trainer, he hurriedly dress waits in his rental car. Ten minutes later Louise leaves and get into a black BMW. Esau follow her as she went west on 55th Street, enter Washington Park and exit at 47th Street. He followed as she past cheap Arab liquor stores, taverns and fast food restaurants. She pulled into a reserved parking space behind the Black Ladies Boutique at 200 East 47th Street. Esau park his vehicle down the street from the location got out and looked through the front window of the boutique. Louise was talking with customers and workers in the Boutique; he read the sign on the door that stated that the store hours were 9:30 am – 5:00 pm. He looked at his watch it was 4:15 pm, he returned to his car and waited. At 5:30 pm the woman and two other females left and an old black man secured the door and the gates. In a few minutes the woman passed him in her BMW, he followed her east on 47th Street and when she turned on Forrestville Avenue and pulled into the garage at 4916 he parked a few doors down. The woman entered her home and Esau watched as the lights came on in the house. For some unexplained reason he felt nervous and strangely alone but he felt the excitement rising, it wouldn’t be long now. Esau watched the quiet street fill with people coming home from work and children playing in the streets. He watched Louise as she watered the plotted plants on the front porch and talked with her neighbors. As dark fell concerned mothers called for their children to come inside. He watched Louise leave the house from the rear door and walk to the garage. “Now is the time,” he mumbled to himself. He was hard now and he found it difficult to walk. He quickly walked into the alley and quietly opened the gate on the rear fence, entered the yard and stood behind a large maple tree next to the garage and looked through the garage window, a dog howled a two or three houses down and others joined in. “I should cut their damn throats,” he said quietly to himself as he silently entered the garage, turned off the light and struck Louise knocking her unconscious to the floor. He pulled down her gym shorts, put on a condom and climbed atop her as Louise came to she begin to struggle. Esau placed a large knife at her throat pulled a rag from his pocket and stuffed it into her mouth.

ESAU
Shut the fuck up or I’ll cut your throat

Louise lay still as Esau tied a black nylon pair of panty hose around her neck and pulled it tighter as he entered her. He became more excited and started to ejaculate when suddenly he saw a man coming into the garage carrying a tire iron his hand. Esau jumped up, losing his erection and the condom slid off. Esau brandished the large knife at the man and when he backed up he ran out the garage jumped the fence and ran out the alley.
Esua was pissed he was just about to get his nut when that asshole came into the garage. He heard police sirens and quickly ducked into the alley and started walking north staying close to the buildings and hiding in the shadows. When he reached 47th Street he blended in with the crowd turned west and popped two more pills.


ESAU (LAUGHING)
Shit, that was close

No one on the street paid any attention to the little man who staggered every now and then, just another 47th Street drunk, they thought. Esau walked west on 47th Street until he reached Prairie Avenue he turned north, at 44th Street he turned into the alley and began looking in windows and at 4327 he saw the silhouette of a woman on the second floor. He stopped and watched. He couldn’t see her face but her body looked good. Esau studied the rickety rear porch and moved further back into the shadows and popped two more pills. He was flying and he had a hard erection. George “Bo” James a drug dealer who worked 43rd Street was also in the shadows and watched Esua as he climbed the rear porch stairs and enter the second floor apartment. It was an old depilated building in a drug and gang infested area. Evetta and I arrived at 10:00 am, police cars and an EMS vehicle were parked in front and a uniform police officer was posted on the front stairs to keep intruders out.

RINGO
What we got?

YOUNG POLICE OFFICER (VISIBLY SHAKEN)
Deceased black female, named Robin Honeywell, Thirty-two, divorced, single mom with two kids, boy three and a girl five, both kids have lived with their father in Detroit since June. Vics an executive secretary at the Learn to Read center on 47th Street. Two months pregnant and William Smith, her boyfriend was the father. Vic was found naked in bathtub, large x carved on her body and a bloody x smeared over the bathroom wall. When the victim failed to show up at work her supervisor sent a co-worker, William Johnson over to check it out. He stated that the front door was wide opened and when he went in he found her in the bathtub

The stink of unwashed bodies, urine and vomit washed over us as Evetta and I entered the dark building. We started up the stairs and stepped around a sleeping homeless man curled up in a dark corner. Another uniform police officer was posted at the second floor apartment surrounded by bright yellow tape and Crime Scene Tech was examining the door. We showed our badge to the officer and ducked under the tape and entered the small twelve-by-twelve, one bedroom apartment. It was darker in the apartment then it was in the hallway. Evetta found a light switch and flipped it, nothing happened. The only light came through the one bare window. We flicked on our flashlights and walked carefully down a narrow hallway trying not to step on anything and entered a small front room that contained a 12 inch television, a two seat brown couch and a brown old recliner. Off from the front room was the kitchen and on the stove was a pot still warm that contained greens. Further down the hall was the bedroom that contained a queen size bed, a three drawer dresser and a small clothes closet. Evetta took the closet and I started looking in the drawers.

EVETTA (LOOKING INTO THE CLOSET)
Nice wardrobe, conservative business suits and dresses, find anything?”

RINGO (OPENING THE FIRST DRAWER)
Blouses neatly folded, bras, women napkins, no panties

EVETTA (RIFLING THROUGH THE VICTIM’S CLOTHES)
No wallet or ID

The air in the bathroom which was next to the bedroom had the smell of death. I swept my light pass the sink, the toilet bowl and finally to the bathtub. As we entered the room we were careful not step in the pools of blood on the floor. The young naked woman was half sitting up in the bathtub full of bloody water, eyes bulging and foam was around her mouth and nose and one hand was resting on the bathtub rim. She was attractive despite the death mask. Her skin was very dark and she had short black hair and a nice body. Duct tape covered her mouth and a pair of brown panty hose was tied tightly around her neck and a deep x was carved in her chest and a large x smeared in blood was on the wall.

EVETTA
Jesus! Thinks it’s him?

RINGO
Yep

A young female Crime Scene Investigator accompanied by Doctor Dixon from the Medical Examiner‘s Office begin to unpack their equipment in the bedroom.

CSI INVESTIGATOR
Ok for us to start detectives?

RINGO
Yes, go ahead

Doctor Dixon squeezed himself between the toilet and the bathtub. He tenderly lifted the woman’s hand and turned it over.

DIXON (EXAMINING THE FINGERNAILS)
Hopefully we can find some hair, fiber or biological trace as he carefully wrapped her hands in plastic baggies. No rigor and the body is still warm, she’s been dead less than twelve hours

Dixon examined her neck and motioned for the CSI investigator to take pictures.

DIXON (POINTING TO THE VICTIM’S LARYNX)
There is evidence of Petechiae and sclera hemorrhage in the eyelids and the nostrils also there is a bloody discharge from the nose and mouth indicating some kind of trauma I believe the cause of death was ligature strangulation, but I’ll know more when I get her on the table

EVETTA
Let’s interview Mr. Johnson

Evetta and I found Mr. Johnson sitting in a squad car, shaking. I introduced myself and Evetta and helped him out the car and we walked to our vehicle, Mr. Johnson sat in the rear seat.

RINGO
Can you tell us what happened?

JOHNSON
Robin worked as an