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

/> Ringo opened the fingerprint-dusted drawers; the top drawer was empty and noticed a smug on the top that had been dusted. The second drawer contained socks, neatly folded blouses, rent receipts and other papers. An empty trash basket sat beside the bed and I opened the third drawer and removed a dusted ledger. The ledger contained three columns of checks, checking account deposits and withdrawals another line contained credit cards payments and amount due.

RINGO (OPENING THE LEDGER)
She kept good books, and her last deposit of five hundred dollars was three days before she was killed, she had a balance of two thousand

EVETTA (LOOKING IN THE DRESSER DRAWERS)
Shit that’s more than I got. No underwear, no panties or bras


RINGO (WALKING TOWARDS THE BATHROOM)
Well, let’s wrap this up

FADE IN:
Ringo and Evetta walked towards Peggy’s bathroom her most private sanctuary, with every step they moved closer to the deadly confrontation and Peggy’s final moments on earth. I swung open the door of the bathroom and Evetta handed me the color photographs. Ringo loosen his tie unbuttoned the collar button and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and placed it back into his pants pocket. The scene was well preserved and processed; the entire bathtub had been dusted as well as the floor, sink, commode and cabinet, inside the medicine cabinet was dental floss, toothpaste, more feminine napkins, aspirins and a toothbrush. Ringo leafed through the photographs, frame by frame; the first photo was a close-up of Peggy’s face. She had long black hair and what appeared to be a nice body. Her grotesque, bulging, oversized eyes were wide open in terror and her face was distorted, a pair of knotted black panty hose was wrapped around her neck and gray duct tape covered her mouth, the images seared themselves into my mind, just like the others. The next photo was a full shot of the Peggy, naked in the bathtub. Another photo was a downward shot showing a long, deep incision that ran from both sides of her neck crossing at the top of her vagina, and the tub was quarter filled with bloody water. There was a full shot of the bathroom that showed the blood on the walls and a blood smeared large x on the medicine cabinet mirror. I walked around the tub and reconstructed the scene like a Hollywood film director preparing to shoot a scene: the killer enters the bathroom; did she know him, was she waiting for him? Was she in the shower or taking a bath and before she could react he hits and stuns her? Did she falls or was she placed inside the tub, was she dead before he carved the x on her body, or alive and felt the blade as it sliced through her skin?


RINGO
Special Agent Wesnek of the FBI Profiler’s Unit who had created a psychological profile of the X-Man told me that most serial killers fits easily into a profile, certain parts of the five similar rituals homicides in Chicago points to a psychotic: a spontaneous unbalanced individual, who may have auditory hallucinations and claim to hears voices or claim that we are receiving messages and commands from God. He may be delusional, which could be influenced by his background or childhood experiences, but three other cases submitted have all the symptoms of someone who is a psychopath. A psychopath differs from a psychotic in that he can be functional, hold a job even have a family, but nearly all psychopaths have antisocial personality disorders and lack a conscience and are prone towards violence to others. They are extremely cunning, charming and calculating and have no regards for human life or suffering. One study suggests that psychopaths have a strong genetic component. The study demonstrates that children with anti-social behavior can be classified into two groups: Those acquired their criminal behavior by genetic influences, and those who acquired it from their environment. His preoccupations with deviant sexual fantasies of one kind of another dates back to his childhood, our study of your case believes that your X-Man is extremely dangerous and will keep raping and killing and it seems like you have an individual that exhibits both traits. Your X-Man don’t want to kill his victims immediately, that would ruin it for him, he got off on the fear of his victims and the medical reports indicate that some of your victims wounds and sexual assaults were per mortem, at or near the time of death. Did the killer knock Peggy unconscious and when she came too did he strangle her just enough for her to lose consciousness again, and when she came too again that when he finally killed her? Any evidence of masturbation or sperm in the bathroom?

EVETTA (LOOKING AT ANOTHER REPORT)
Nope

FADE IN:
Ringo backed out of the bathroom; drained.
RINGO
I know he is still out there, somewhere, searching for another victim. All of the murders had the same Modus Operanti or MO: all of the victims were young black female, between eighteen and thirty-five, all attractive and living alone, all had the large X smeared in the bathroom and all were found naked in the bathtub. All of the victims’ underwear was missing, no fingerprints or trace evidence, no evident of a relationship or association with the victims and all of the victims were raped. After the killings does he calmly walk out the door and leisurely walk down the street, maybe go to a bar for a drink and join a society that he has no use for?

FADE IN:
Ringo staggers and is held up by Evetta.

EVETTA (HOLDING RINGO)
Let’s get out of here

FADE IN:
Evetta drives to the Special Crimes Bureau located at 2900 South Western Avenue

EXT- SPECIAL CRIMES BUREAU
The ancient white stone building used to be a storehouse for CTA buses and was purposely chosen for it remoteness. It was a converted warehouse built in 1935. There were no signs indicating it housed an elite investigative unit that consisted of specially selected and trained detectives and four sergeants who called the place home.

INT-FIRST FLOOR
A large room where the walls and ceiling were painted the usual stale municipal off-white. The room contained cubicles with top of the line computers for the detectives, two interrogation rooms with a row of a bus- station type chairs bolted against a wall and in the basement had four holding cell for prisoners.

FADE IN:
Ringo and Evetta entered the building and waive at Detectives Marcus Burke and Charley Turner that both had telephones to their ears, their suit jackets hung over the back of their chairs and their ties were loosened. They were writing on paper pads lying next to the Chicago Sun-Times, the headlines read in bold print “X-MAN STRIKES AGAIN,” both Detectives distractedly waived back. A young black man sitting hands handcuffed behind his back sneered at another detective who looked up from his desk and pointed to the second floor.


EVETTA (WALKING TO THE COFFEE MAKER SITTING ON A TABLE)
Maybe you should leave your gun here

INT-SECOND FLOOR
On the second floor were six offices; one for the lieutenant, one for each sergeant and one for the departmental clinical psychologist and two civilian secretaries shared a large workstation, Ringo enters Lieutenant David O'Shea office.

RINGO (SITTING DOWN ON ARM OF THE COUCH)
You wanted to see me?

FADE IN:
The lieutenant sitting behind his desk was dressed in his trademark dark blue suit, white shirt and dark tie and with barely a word, pulled the door shut. The dull clattering of typewriters spitting out reports from detectives and the two civilian secretaries from on the other side of his office filled the room.


LIEUTENANT O'SHEA
Don’t sit on the arm sergeant

RINGO (STILL SITTING ON THE ARM)
Long night?
LIEUTENANT
Shit yeah, the chief and the mayor is under a lot of pressure about this X-Man bullshit and you ain’t done shit to catch him.

RINGO (Overlooking the slight)
Got a little insight into the mind of our guy from the FBI, but not much else.

LIEUTENANT
Fuck insight, I need results!

RINGO (GETTING OFF THE ARM AND CASUALLY WALKING TOWARDS THE DOOR
Me too.

LIEUTENANT
What the fuck are you doing to catch this asshole?

RINGO (FEELING THE BLOOD RUSHING TO HIS BRAIN AND HIS ANGER RISING)
(CALMLY)
Everything we can, sir

LIEUTENANT
Whatever you need let me know and by the way, the head of the FBI Behavior Science Unit called and volunteered to help in any way possible, but until there is some federal violation they have to remain strictly as advisors and if this is a serial killer, VICAP, their Violent Criminal Apprehension Program found two other Victims in Gary that match his MO. The Mayor’s office is putting all kind of heat on the Chief, he even suggested hiring a psychic from California, and can you believe that bullshit.

RINGO
They grow California psychics like a cash crop. Talk about a circus if the media get hold to that. We’re trying to keep a lid on this thing, but eventually we are going to have to let the public know that maybe there’s a serial killer out there and the last thing we need is the press getting hold of it an scaring the shit out of the good citizens, the word serial killer scares the shit out of most people and we certainly don’t need good people walking around with guns, we’ve got enough of that already but you know, that if these killings were on the north side, in Lincoln Park, Wrigleyville or Bridgeport, the people would be enraged, It would be on the front page of the Sun-Times and the Tribune, shit the mayor might even demand the governor sent out the National Guard, but who gives a fuck about some poor-ass black women.

LIEUTENANT
Let’s not make this a race thing

RINGO (HEADING FOR THE DOOR)
Everything in Chicago is a race thing

INT-JOHN RINGO’S OFFICE

FADE IN:
Ringo calls Evetta, Detectives Willie Burke and Charley Turner the lead I.D. Tech, and Medical Examiner Doctor Anthony Dixon, the medical examiner’s Chief pathologist to his office. While waiting he post colored 11x 14 crime scene photos of the victim on the wall board. Willie Burke is the first to arrive, Willie Burke looked like a movie star. He was over six feet, a solid two hundred ten pounds and had flawless coffee colored skin. He was wearing red and black Michael Jordan gym shoes, red and black Michael Jordan sweat suit, a large gold chain hang around his neck and a red and black dew rag is tied around his bald head, Evetta s next to enter.

EVETTA (SMILING AND LOOKING AT WILLIE)
I thought the lieu told you to dress like a detective, not a pimp or bang-banger.

WILLIE
Well he did, but I explained to him to get information you got to fit in and if he wanted me to get Intel on X-man, leave me alone. He just shook his head.

FADE IN:
Charley Turner and Doctor Dixon enter and take a seat. Charley had a stocky frame and a loud gravelly voice and he always looked like he was angry at somebody or something, but he could find trace evidence that others missed. Doctor Anthony Dixon was in his early sixties, maybe five feet tall and weighed maybe 140 pounds and was considered an expert in the field of forensic science. He was fastidious and seemingly had a hand fetish because he was always washing his