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

limping down the long airport concourse and noticed a black woman holding the hand of a small boy and as we passed Ringo winked and the child looking back returned the wink and gave a gap-tooth smile. Suddenly the child let out a loud laugh and I looked back and saw the child struggle loose from the woman’s grip and laughing run into the arms of a well-dressed man. Ringo watched as the two embraced and continued on. Was there anything more magical than a child’s laughter he thought and for a brief moment felt depressed.
Growing up as an only child he always wanted a big family with lots of children running around the house causing havoc, but his wife Elizabeth was too busy, first going to college to get her Master’s Degree in Business Administration and then working her way up to becoming a Vice President at Abbott Laboratories, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. She often told him about how she hated his job, the late nights and the violence. We both knew that he could probably get a higher paying job as a college professor or researcher, but John Ringo loved being a police officer and on more than one occasion was told that he loved my job more than her. He guessed that it was only a matter of time before their marriage fell apart, she had her priorities and he had his. But right now his slight depression or my marriage had to be put on hold, the X-Man had killed again and that was all that mattered. He maneuvered my way through the arriving and departing passengers his mind elsewhere. He didn’t want to believe that it was the works of the same man or rather the same monster that had brutally killed five other young, black women. He had thought about little else on his flight back from the academy. I reached the automatic doors of the men’s washroom, pushed the button and entered. He splashed some cold water on my face and rubbed briskly. He pulled a paper towel from the dispenser wiped his face and looked in the mirror. His eyes were blood-shot and he needed a shave, his dark skin was still taunt, but he looked tired and older than his thirty-three years. Long ago he decided he looked better with a baldhead rather than a head of premature mingling graying-hair. He went into one of the stalls, sat on the stool and raised his left pants leg and looked at the ugly scar that ran from his calf to my his ankle. He removed a small jar from my pants pocket and gently rubbed the medication on the scar and quickly left the wash room and hurried outside, he had to get to the latest crime scene and hoped that the scene had been correctly preserved and that possible evidence not destroyed or disturbed. Curious police officers often would arrive at the scene and walk around, unintentionally destroying or disturbing valuable evidence. Precious hours had been lost and he understood the importance of examining the crime scene as soon as possible. As he exited the men’s room and looked into the sea of hurrying people and wondered if he was among them, if he was here searching, hunting for another victim, could any of them provide him with an answer, but, he was the hot-shot homicide detective sergeant considered the expert, people looked to him for answers, he was the one with a Doctor’s Degree in Criminology from the University of Virginia and considered by the big brass in the Chicago Police Department as their ace homicide investigator and he knew he was ultimately responsible for catching the killer the media had dubbed the X-Man and he also knew he would take the heat if the X-Man was not caught soon.
The police department hated the term serial killer because it scared the shit out of the citizens who began arming themselves and forming neighborhood watches. Every time the X-Man struck the media had a feeding frenzy giving the name of the victim and address. Since all of the victims were black and lived in Bronzeville, the neighborhood preacher and civil right activist accused the police department of not during enough because they were black and poor, but he knew better, the department was doing all it could to catch the X-Man, but just hadn’t got lucky, he would make a mistake, something dumb, like dropping his wallet in the victim’s home, or like Ted Bundy getting stop for a traffic violation, and he knew that often luck was just as important as investigations. His partner Evetta Lunden was doubled parked at the curb and she waived as I came out the door.


KENNEDY EXPRESSWAY
Serious rain and snow had arrived, cold and unannounced; causing overworked storm drains to back up, flooding basements and in some of the poorer area in the city the streets were assailed by filth. Auto collisions played a drumbeat on the urban streets as impatient drivers hurried to get nowhere. I threw my bag into the back seat, climbed into the unmarked Crown Victoria and slammed the door. Evetta switched on the wipers put the car into gear and the tires whined on the wet pavement as she pulled into the maddening O’Hara traffic. The black unmarked Ford sped down the slick expressway, the wipers going full blast fighting the backwash from the semis and the rain. The heavy rain had replaced the snow and was punctuated by flashes of thunder and lightning adding to the traffic congestion, even at this time of the day. We sat in silence as I laid my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes.

JOHN RINGO
Is it him?

EVETTA LUNDEN
We think so, same MO.

JOHN RINGO
Vic?

EVETTA
Peggy Smith twenty-five, 5’3”, 110 pounds, short black hair and dark skin, no known boyfriends, worked as a clerk in Black Pride bookstore on 51st Street and was a source of joy and help to her mother, Katherine and her Alzheimer afflicted father, Robert. Peggy was found yesterday after the maintenance man went to investigate foul odors coming from the apartment, saw her door opened and went in to investigate, he found her in the bathtub at her Ist floor apartment, where she lived alone, at 5225 South Prairie Avenue estimated time of death between 2-3 am rainy and snow and she was a member of Melony Fitness Center in Dolton, Illinois.

RINGO
Let’s go to the scene, ok?
What’s the lieu saying?

EVETTA (SMILING)
The little general is in his usual tissy, with his no-nothing ass, getting in the way, fucking things up. He’s got the best detectives in the department and he won’t leave them alone, and giving the standard line of bullshit to the media and waiting for you to hurry back,

RINGO (LAYNG HIS HEAD ON THE BACKREST AND SIGHING)
You know all of the murders seem to be random and senseless, Wake me when we get there.

EXT. 5225 SOUTH PRAIRIE AVENUE
Evetta nudged me as she parked the car next to a three flat depressing looking building two doors down from 5225 South Prairie Avenue I awoke and looked around.

EVETTA (HOLDING A WHITE STYROFORM CUP)
Here, I thought you might need this,


RINGO (REMOVING THE CAP)
If you weren’t married to my best friend and I wasn’t the godfather to your three boys, I would hit on you.

EVETTA (LAUGHING)
And I wasn’t damn near old enough to be your mama.

RINGO (TOSSING THE CAP OUT THE WINDOW)
Who else is assigned?

EVETTA
Numnuts assigned Marcus Burke as the lead detective until you came back and Charley Turner, lead I.D. Tech. Turner was as grouchy as ever, but as usual very careful. He shot color and black and white photos and videotapes of the Vic and the apartment, sketched a floor plan that showed all angles of the apartment and the bathroom and filled out a VICAP report and a death scene checklist. The Medical Examiner Office sent Doc Dixon, their chief pathologist, Doc Dixon examined the body. The cause of death was strangulations but lacerations were found on her scalp, results of a blow with a blunt instrument and she was raped before and after death. Everything else in the apartment was in order but like the others, all of her underwear was missing.

RINGO
This guy is getting quite a collection of women panties and underwear, maybe he planning on opening up a ladies underwear boutique.


EVETTA
Charley found some open and unopened mail in her bedroom and a three day old Sun-Time Newspaper, O'Shea ordered everyone not to touch anything we didn’t have to and you can go from there.

RINGO
Fibers, hair any kind of trace evidence.

EVETTA
Charley vacuumed the entire apartment, we’ve got six bags, and it’s at the crime lab.

RINGO
Ok, let’s do a walk-around before we go in.

EXT. ALLEYWAY BEHIND 5225 SOUTH PRIARIE AVENUE
Evetta gathered up the folder and the clipboard. The snow and rain had stopped and we walked north on Prairie, turned right at the corner and walked the half bock to the Chicago Transit Authority Elevator station and entered the alley. The smell of rotten garbage, dog shit and decaying rodents were accentuated by the cold wind. A Chicago Transit Authority elevated train came to labored and noisy stop at the 51st Street elevator station and showered the alley with dust and sparks; we waited until the train moved on. This area of the city three miles from downtown and two miles from the expensive high-rise apartment buildings overlooking Lake Michigan consisted of ancient derelict tenement buildings, boarded up businesses, Arab liquor stores and storefront churches. Stray alley cats could be heard scrambling towards the overflowing garbage cans as the rats some as large as cats, hurried away. The alley creatures ran towards building openings and the cats hissed as they took flight after their prey,

EVETTA (WHSPERING)
I don’t think they like cops in this neighborhood.

RINGO (WATCHING THE HOSTILE EYES IN THE ALLEY)
I agree.

FADE IN:
They passed a fenced- in yard and a large pit-bull secured to a heavy chain came from somewhere growled and attacked the fence with a fury. An old woman with different colored rollers in her thin gray hair and wearing an oversized pink and yellow house dress with a pair of mismatched house slippers that covered her ashy bare feet and carrying a garbage bag, smacked the large beast with the back of her hand. The animal whimpered and lay on the ground. The woman eyed me and Evetta suspiciously and removed the lid on the garbage can. Large black flies flew out the can and she casually waived them away. Evetta nodded and smiled at the woman but she looked away. As we continued down the alley I could feel her eyes watching us.

RINGO
Remind me to have someone interview her, people think that serial killers jump out the bushes and grab their victims, but most of the times it is someone they know; a co-worker, the mailman and an old lady like that that have nothing else to do but look out their windows might have seen something.

EVETTA (MAKING A NOTE OF THE ADDRESS)
I read that the Summerdale Sandal that happen nearly fifty years ago was the result of a old lady going to the bathroom to pee, around three in the morning, looked out her window and saw the police officers placing stolen goods into their squad car.

FADE IN:
We continued walking and stopped at a battered sign on a post that read, 5225.