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

noticed an apartment with no door. I stopped and scanned the room with my flashlight and looked inside. A shabby dressed man was under a pile of newspapers spread over the bare floor and there was a glob of shit in a filthy toilet.

RINGO (SHAKING THE MAN)
Wake-up!

After a few hard shakes the man opened blood-shot eyes.

MAN
What the fuck?

RINGO (PULLING THE MAN TO HIS FEET)
How long you been in here?

MAN (RUBBING HIS EYES)
All night

RINGO
Did you see or hear anything unusual?
MAN
Fuck naw, I was pretty fucked-up, I just crashed

I summoned one of the officers who escorted the man from the building. On the third floor a two man forensic team was foraging for clues around the apartment, collecting and bagging items that might be significant. The maintenance man, George Wills was talking with a two detectives. He was short with stooped shoulders and a mat of dirty gray hair. His dark red lips had the signs of a wine drinker and looked to be in his late fifties.

RINGO (TALKING WITH DETECTIVE RODRIQUEZ)
What you got?

DETECTIVE RODRIQUEZ (THE DETECTIVE FLIPPED THROUGH HIS NOTEBOOK)
Mr. Wills stated that he live in the basement and is the janitor, rent collector, maintenance man and security for the building. He further states that he had informed the victim last week that he wanted to exterminate her apartment and she suggested today because she had an early morning class we were just leaving to go to his office

The maintenance man led us into a large well-organized basement apartment/office and gave me Cynthia White’s folder. There was a copy of her pictured Indiana Driver’s license that revealed that she twenty-one and a signed six month lease three months earlier, in the employment box on the lease application she had marked “Student.

RINGO
What kind of young lady was she?

WILLIS
Quiet, good tenant.

RINGO
Boyfriends, friends?


WLLIS
I don’t think she had a steady fellow, but on some Fridays a group of her friends would came over, look like they were studying because they were all carrying books and book bags

RINGO
Thanks, I’ll send someone over to get the folder so we can make copies

I returned to the third floor apartment and entered the small bathroom, the smell of blood and putrefied flesh was overpowering. I watched as some of the younger officers rushed out the room and emptied their stomach in the kitchen sink. I was reading the preliminary report when Doc Dixon, Charley Turner and Evetta Lunden arrived and a few minutes later Patricia Woods arrived. Captain Patricia Woods blond hair was tied in a bun and stuffed under a Chicago Bulls basketball cap. She was shapely but not especially good looking. She was white and the Ist Deputy Superintendent trouble shooter and reporting directly to him. She knew John Ringo only by reputation and had followed some of his cases. She noticed how handsome he was and the air of confidence and strength he generated. Based on what she heard, she was curious about this police officer with a PH, D and worked the most ghastly homicides. He seemed to be respected by the other officers, crime scene people and the EMS personnel. She noticed his easy going matter, shaking hands with some officers, patting shoulders and occasionally sharing a smile, he obviously had charm and charisma. Patricia was smart and knew when to be feminine and when to be tough. Unlike some of the other female police officers who received promotions or good assignments by kissing asses or flirting with the bosses she earned her way by hard work, working harder and working longer hours than her male colleagues, and she never dated other cops. I moved closer to the bathtub and knelt over the blood soaked body. The victim was an attractive dark brown skin woman with short black hair, a supple body and large breast. Her naked body was in the tub a black, knotted pair of panty hose was tied tightly around her neck, her bulging unseeing eyes seemed to be looking directly at me and pleading for me the save her. The trademark X was cut into her torso and smeared in blood on the wall. I felt a tremendous wave of grief flood through me and felt dizzy, my legs went weak, a familiar reaction to an all-too-familiar sight. Charley immediately went to work taking photos and dusting for prints, Dixon donned latex gloves, white evidence suit with foot booties and began examining the body

DIXON (GENTLY FEELING THE VICTIM’S ARMS)
Look likes a semi-advanced state of rigor, I’d estimate she was killed five or six hours ago and there is a bruise on her forehead

Evetta and I carefully walked down the hardwood floor hallway leading from the bathroom. Evetta pointed to what appeared to be scuff marks on the floor. I placed an evidence marker near the marks and we continued walking down the hall. On the right was a small kitchen; there were no dishes in the sink and the floor smelled like it had recently been mopped with Lysol. The front room contained only throw pillows a television, a small table and a CD player it was neat I noticed as we continued down the hallway. The bedroom was to the left of the hallway and contained a queen-sized bed, an opened closet door and a dresser drawer; I carefully opened the three drawers and looked inside.

RINGO
Typical ladies things; perfumes, tampons and the like but no underwear, panties or brassieres

EVETTA (LOOKIG AT THE BED)
Look like she had laid her clothes out on the bed
I’ve got a wallet, stuffed under some women slips
Driver’s license, social security card, a pictured Chicago State Student Identification Card and a Hyde Park Bally Club membership card.

Evetta placed the wallet in an evidence baggie.I noticed that the pillows and the covers on the bed seemed ruffled and there was a small spot of blood and a white stain on the top sheet. The seams in the cheap shag carpet covering the floor also seemed disturbed and had an imprint. I placed evidence markers on the bed and the carpet and we backed out the room. I waived to Turner who joined us in the hallway. Charley Turner, the best crime scene technician I knew, was a big black man, over six-five and 220 pounds of solid muscle. He was a star tight-end at Notre-Dame, until a cheap shot tackle in his senior year blew out his knees.

RINGO
Take pictures of where I’ve placed markers, might be important

Turner did as directed and was exiting the bathroom and pointed to the kitchen. Doctor Dixon was removing his evidence suit when me and Evetta came into kitchen and sat at the kitchen table. Doctor Dixon wore green khaki pants and a heavy black shirt that looked two sizes too large, his white undershirt showed through; I didn’t know anyone still wore undershirts.

RINGO
What’s the verdict?

DIXON
She has a large bruise on the back of her head, look like a blunt instrument which probably knocked her unconscious, death was due to strangulation and it appears the sexual assault was post mortem

RINGO
What do you make of all the victims being posed in the bathtub?

DIXON
You know, once upon a time I attempted to play Sherlock Holmes and was quickly put in my place by a young lieutenant, now all I do collect any evidence during the autopsy that might be helpful and give it over to you guys. But since you are both good friends, I’ll try to answer your question. The killer is performing some sort of sadistic ritual by the way he carefully position the body, he’s satisfying some urge or trying to forget something, shows all the signs of a narcissistic sociopath, a new twist, I don’t think the victim was killed in the bathtub or bathroom and I think she was raped before and after she was killed, The bruises on her neck indicate that maybe the panty hose was used to kill her the knot is nearly as tight as we found on the others.

EVETTA
Could the incision have killed her?

DIXON
Could be, I guess, I’ll know more after we get her on the table

EVETTA
We found some scuff marks on the floor leading to the bathroom and blood and maybe semen in the bedroom and a wallet

Evetta opened the baggie and removed the license from the wallet.

EVETTA
Name Cynthia White, date of birth June 1, 1990, that would make her eighteen. Maybe the killer accosted the victim in the bedroom, she fought and he hit her on the head with something, that could account for the blood, and the bed seemed disturbed, maybe that where he raped her leaving the white stains, maybe semen

TURNER (POINTING TO A LAMP)
I found something, look like blood and hair on its base, I also found a slight print on the lamp

RINGO (HUGGING CHARLEY)
You‘re the best fuckin ‘tech” in the department

CHARLEY (WIDE GRIN)
Aw shuck

I welcomed the cold rain and wind as Evette and I left the building and wished it could wash away the smell of death. I noticed Emile Smiles a police reporter for the Sun-Times and William Hopps from the Chicago Tribune standing behind the police tapes among the drug dealers, a CBS news van was parking. Another young black woman raped and killed was more than news once the word got out reporters, anchor people and news producer would use it as their lead-ins for weeks. We hurried to my car and watched as the techs brought out Cynthia White’s in a body bag.
Esau, wearing all black clothing was in the rear of the crowd and watched as the police officers tried to maintain order. He knew they had found the body of the beautiful young girl on the 3rd floor. He remembered how she had smelled, how she had tried to fight him before he hit her with the lamp, knocking her unconscious long enough for him to undress and tied her spread eagle to the bedpost. He could still see the lust in her eyes when she awaken and felt his hard body on top of her plunging deeper and deeper into her bleeding and swollen vagina. “Are you virgin he asked her,” but she didn’t respond, so he kept plunging deeper and deeper while he placed the silk panty hose around her throat and the deeper he plunged the tighter her pulled the stocking and when he climaxed he pulled it even tighter until she stopped breathing.
He plunged the knife repeatedly into her neck and stomach and, carved an X into her chest. He untied her, pulled her off the bed and drugged her body into the bathroom where he gently propped her up in the tub and smeared an X with her blood on the wall. Before he left he took a Polaroid snapshot of her naked, dead body.

INT-AUTOPSY ROOM
Evetta and I entered the large brightly lit, cold sterile autopsy room and Doctor Dixon waived and beckoned at us. His usually bright and cherry face bore a look of concern, we donned the scrubs, gloves and masks given to us by the doctor and followed him as he went over to Cynthia White’s half-covered body lying on the cold steel table, drainage holes