Mysterious Couples Killer

Chapter 12

Inspector Moo’s POV

I wrapped around Battery, heading away from the bay. I had nowhere to go, but my hands seemed to act on their own, leading me somewhere. Flashes of murdered bride and groom flickered in my head. Ecohoes of Kelvin. I had finally called Doctor, Bradly spiff, the hematologists for an appointment.

I was approaching sitter, and I turned. Suddenly I knew where I was heading, I pulled into union square. Without even trying, I found myself in front of The brightly lit entrance of the Hyatt.

I badged the manager and took the elevator up to the thirtieth floor.

A single uniform guard sat in front of the Mandarin Suite. I recognized him, Aruther Benzene our if central. He stood up as he saw me approach.” Nowhere to go inspector?”

A crisscrossing barrier of yellow tape blocked the entrance to the Mandarin Suite. Benzene gave me the key. I peeled off a band or two tape and slipped under the rear. I turned the lock and I was inside.

I was sure I had missed something. I was also sure it was here. What?

The Suit was pretty much as I had left it. The oriental carpet in the living room had gone to Lee’s Lab. But the body positions and blood sites were clearly marked out with blue chalk.

I looked at the spot where Nathaniel Harry had died. In my mind, I retraced what had likely taken place.

They toasting each other.(I knew that from the half-filled champagne glasses on the table near the terrace) maybe he just gave her the earrings.(the open box was on the master bathroom counter.)

There was knock. Nathaniel Harry goes to answer. It was as if secrets were buzzing in the thick air. Alive with whispers.

The killer comes in carrying that champagne box. Maybe Nathaniel knows him. Maybe he just left him an hour before at the reception. The knife comes out. Only one thrust. The groom is pinned against the door, apoplectic. I happens so fast that he cannot scream.” Poor man went in his pants,” Fatimah had said.

The bride doesn’t scream? Maybe she’s in the bathroom.(the jewelry box.) maybe she went in there to put on the earrings.

The killer hunts through the suit. He intercepts the bride, coming out unsuspectingly.

I eveision Lizzy Harry— radiant, full of joy. He sees it too. Was he someone she knew? Had she just left him? Did Lizzy know her killer?

There’s a Navajo saying,” Even the still wind has a voice,”in the quiet, confessing hotel room, I listened.

Tell me Lizzy. I’m here for you. I’m listening.

My skin tingles with the chill of resurrecting each detail of the murder. She fights, tries to run away.( the bruises and small abrasions on her arms and neck) the killer stabs her at the foot of the bed. She doesn’t die immediately. He stab her again. And once more. When he is finished, he carries her to the bed) this is important. He is gentle with her. It makes me think he knows her. Maybe he once loved Lizzy? He folds her arms on her waist in the restful pose. A princess sleeping. Maybe he pretends what has taken place is only a bad dram.

Nowhere in the room do I feel the clinical pattern of professionals or hired killers. Or even someone who has killed before.

I’m listening.

A ferocious anger rises up in his blood. He realizes he will never see her again. His princess...

He’s so angry. He wants to lie down with her this one time. Feel her.

But he cannot. That would defile her. But he must have her. So he lifts her dress. Unless his gist.

It is all screaming at me. I’m sure there is one last thing am not seeing. Unraveled. What am missing what has everyone missed so far?

I step over the bed. I envision Lizzy, her horrifying stab wounds but her face is calm, unaccusing. He leaves her like that. He doesn’t take the earrings. He doesn’t take the huge diamond ring.

Then it hit me with the power of a train exploding from the dark tunnel. What was missing. What I hadn’t seen. Jesus Christ, Moo.

Rings!

I ran my mind over the image of her lying there. Her delicate, blood-smeared hands. The diamond was still there but...Jesus! Is it possible?

I ran back to the foyer and brought to mind the crumpled body of the groom.

They had just been married just few hours before, they had just completed their vows. But they weren’t wearing gold bands.

The killer doesn’t take the earrings. I realized.

He takes the rings.

Nine the next morning, I was in the Dr Sylvester spiff, a pleasant, smallish man with a narrow, chiseled face, who, with a trace of Eastern European accent, scared the hell out of me.

“Negli’s is a killer,” he stated evenly.” It robs the body of its ability to transport oxygen.

“In the beginning, the symptoms are listlessness, a weakening of immune systems and some light headedness. Ultimately, you may experience similar brain dysfunction to a strike and begin to lose mental capacity as well.”

He got up, walked over to me, cradled my face in his gentle hands. He stared at me through thick glasses.” You are already peaked,” he said pressing my cheeks with his thumbs.

Always take me a while for blood to get hopping in the morning,” I said with a smile, trying to mask the fear in my heart.

Well, in three months,” Dr spiff said.” Unless we reverse it, you will look like a ghost. A pretty ghost, but a ghost all the same,”

He went back to his desk and picked up my chart.” I see you are a police detective.”

“Homicide,” I told him.

“Then there should be no reason to go forward under any delusions I don’t mean to upset you. A plastic anemia can be reversed. Up to thirty percent, of the patients respond to regimen of biweekly transfusions of packed red blood cells. Of those who do not respond, a similar percentage can be ultimately treated through a bone marrow transplant. But this involves a painful process of chemotheraphy first in order to boost up the white cells.”

I stiffened. Kelvin’s nightmarish prediction we’re coming true.” Is there any way to know who responded to the treatment?”

Spiff clasped his palms together and shook his head.” The only way is to begin. Then we see.”

“I’m on an important case. Dr. Kelvin said I could continue to work,”

Spiff please his lips skeptically.” You May continue as long as you feel the strength.”

I meted out a slow, painful breath. How long could I hide this? Who could I tell?”if it works, how long before we see improvement?” I asked with some hope.

He frowned.”this is not like popping aspirin for a headache. I’m afraid we are in this for the long haul.” The long haul. I thought of Kalistus’s likely response. My chance at lieutenant.

This is it, Moo. This is greatest challenge of your life.

And if it doesn’t work, how long... before things starts to...

start to get worse? Let us attack this with optimism and hope. We will discuss that as we go along.”

Everything was thrown open now. The case, my career, all the goals of my life. The stakes had changed. I was walking around with time bomb ticking in my chest, tightly wound, incendiary. And the slow, disappearing fuse was all that I thought might be.

I asked quietly,” when do we start?”

He scribbled out the location of an office the same building. Third floor. Moffett outpatient services. There was no date.

If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to start right now.”