Slasher

Chapter 5

Robert Anstrom. Louis McCaffrey. Donald Blake. Jeff Charette. Gord Jabowski. Stephen Carlos. Seven of them in all. Seven murdered and savagely mutilated young men who'd had the misfortune to meet a monster. All captured on film for future edification. I felt dirty and sick at heart by the time I forced myself to walk away from the machine. David had said not to look. But how could I not? I had to know, didn't I? What if they weren't the right ones?

But they were. And all the scenarios were different. Robert fucked and brutally killed in an anonymous motel room. Louis in an alley. Gord was killed in a tree-shrouded park similar to the one Bobby had been found in. Stephen and Jeff met their end in a car -- not the Porsche this time, but a boxier job. Like an Escort wagon. Where had the bodies been found? Another search online and I had the answer. According to the L.A. Times all the bodies had been found in or near dumpsters scattered around the Ramparts division. Sending a message about the worth of the victims? The paper didn't say anything about where the vics had been picked up. West Hollywood? Or had they come from all over?

One thing was the same in all the locales -- uncoerced sex with an unseen man, then death coming at an unexpected moment. No one, from the looks of it, had fought back. Not seriously. And all had died.

What had made him sloppy on Bobby's? John said they had a witness. Had the sudden appearance of a third party scared the Slasher off before he could finish the job?

From what I could judge of the images the sex had been consensual. The victims had gone willingly enough, expecting nothing more than another hit of anonymous sex with a stranger met in a bar. The Slasher had used a condom, in at least one image I'd had an all too clear image of his latex covered erection just before it disappeared up Donald Blake's white ass.

That was another thing. All the vics were white. Which fit. From what I knew, serial killers often kept to the same victim profile type. In this case apparently young, gay, and Anglo.

I was suddenly glad to be an old man of thirty. And even happier that David was older.

I crawled into bed around 3:00 and forced myself up at 8:00 to go into work. David had not come home. I left a printed list of the victims' sites beside the computer and left for work.

I heard nothing all day. When I got home at 7:20 the house was still empty, but the list was gone. So David had been home long enough to retrieve it. Had he bothered to get any rest? The bed looked slightly more rumpled than when I made it this morning so I took that as a good sign. On the floor beside my laptop sat a brand new IBM desktop all wired to go. I plugged it in and signed on to our ISP, then I set up my hacking tools and tracer apps and got them chugging away on hacking the Slasher's trophy sites and resolving IP addresses. Given the number of hits each site had been getting it was going to be a long process. And out of all those hits, only one was important. The killer's. But we'd deal with that issue when the time came and I had something to work with. I went in to find something to eat from the freezer.

Not much looked good and I had to admit my appetite wasn't all that strong. Figuring I had to eat something I grabbed a frozen pizza and flashed it in the microwave. I ate it along with a bottle of beer. The beer was cold. The pizza tasted like cardboard, which is about what I was up for handling right then.

David came home around midnight. One minute I was asleep, the next, I felt a weight settle on the mattress.

"David? What time is it --"

"Late -- early, depends on your perspective," he said tiredly. "Go back to sleep, Chris."

I rolled over and sat up. He already had his pants off and with my help shed his shirt and lay back down. I pulled the sheet up over his heavy body and lay with my head on his shoulder. I was determined not to talk about what I had spent the evening doing. He needed to have a short period where he didn't have to think about the Slasher and work.

But that wasn't the way David's mind worked.

"I'm going to get him, Chris." David's voice rumbled against my skin. "I'm not going to let him kill any more gay guys."

"I know you won't, baby. But you need to rest now. Let's talk tomorrow."

"He thinks he's so smart. Got his whole shtick planned out so no one can catch him. Well, I will. I don't care how long it takes... I'll nail the bastard's sick hide."

"You will." I made small circles through the hair on his chest. I made my voice as soothing as I possibly could. "I know you will."

He suddenly rolled over and wrapped me in his arms. His mouth was warm against my neck. "What did I ever do to deserve you? I must have done something right in another life. One of these days you're gonna have to tell me what you see in me."

"I tell you all the time. You just don't believe me."

He laughed softly and snuggled deeper into my arms. I was so glad he was there. I wanted to hold him until this whole mess was over.

His breathing evened out and at last he slid into sleep. I didn't move for fear of waking him. Eventually I drifted off too.

No phone calls disturbed our much needed sleep. Maybe the entire Slasher task force had succumbed to exhaustion. I was just glad of the respite.

I awoke once to find the spot beside me empty. I rolled over in vague alarm but he soon slid back between the sheets. I moved so that I lay sprawled across him.

"What?" he murmured.

"I missed you."

"I went to get a glass of water," his voice rumbled with laughter. "I wasn't gone more than two minutes."

"Two minutes, two hours." My fingers walked up his chest, pausing to tease one nipple into hardness. "What's the diff?"

"Chris, sometimes I swear you're putting me on."

"No, never."

I eased my leg over his, pressing my hips against his growing hardness.

"Hmmm, part of you knows how to take me seriously."

I slid down the length of his body and teased one of his balls into my mouth. When I flexed my lips and took both of them in he groaned, his thick fingers twining through my short hair.

"Chris, honey -- oh, fuck, I can't -- Oh, God, yes. Yesssss!"

He opened his legs up to give me greater access and I took full advantage. My tongue circled the fat column of flesh then slipped over the monstrous mushroom-shaped helmet, lapping up the tasty dribbles of pre-cum that leaked out in a steady stream.

His hips were moving now in that ancient rhythm of need and I slathered his cock and balls with copious amounts of saliva. My head bobbed up and down on his shaft, and I inserted one finger past the ring of flesh guarding his love hole. My thumb played with the sensitive flesh behind his balls.

He was moaning now, given over completely to his lust; beyond reason. He rocked against me, fucking my mouth, reaching for release. I felt his approaching orgasm in the tightness of his scrotum and the steady pulse of his steel-hard cock.

David cried out my name and blasted his cum into the back of my throat. I swallowed each explosion then came back for more. Eventually there was no more and his softening cock slipped out of my warm mouth. I worked my way back up his body and planted light kisses all over his face and throat.

He wrapped his strong arms around me and nuzzled my throat.

"Like I said, someday you're going to have to tell me what you see in me."

"I thought I just did."

His laughter carried me back down into sleep.

Chapter 6

At 6:30 I rolled out of bed and caught David coming out of the shower. His hair was still damp and he had nothing but a towel wrapped around his thick hips. In the kitchen I discovered he already had a pot of coffee going. I poured a glass of orange juice and downed it in two gulps, then grabbed a banana out of the fruit basket on the kitchen table.

David came in and got coffee. He got me one too when I made the appropriate noises around my banana. I sipped it while I followed him back into the bedroom. He dropped the towel in the hamper and pulled out clean clothes, revealing two nice fat globes of his ass when he bent over to slide underwear and pants on.

I finished the coffee and grabbed my own shower. I came out in time to catch David at the door. He cupped my face in his big hand.

"I can't promise supper. Better plan on eating alone. I'll call if I know anything else." He looked regretful. "Any idea how your little search program is running?"

"I'll look in on it today, but I can tell you it will be slow. After that runs its course I still have to concoct something that will look for comparison IP's and store them somewhere so I can study them by hand. What do the profilers say about this kind of guy? Would he go back to visit his trophy sites a lot? Or would he have enough discipline to limit his visits?"

"I'm inclined to say he'll visit the sites frequently. They're his prize -- his proof that he got away with murder. That he's smarter than the rest of us." He frowned and ran his hand through his thick hair. "Since you say he put counters on the sites to see how many visitors he has, he'll want to check that out, too. Probably gives him a real sense of power to know he's got thousands of admirers around the world."

"I take it you're making sure the press doesn't get a hold of these sites?"

"Definitely, and I'm hoping to God he doesn't either, though I have the sneaking suspicion he will before this is over. He won't be able to help telling someone, and who better than the damn media? He wants the fame."

"I could live to be a thousand and I don't think I'll ever understand what compels someone to do this."

"Hell, the experts are just guessing too." David rubbed the knuckle of his right hand alongside my jaw. "They make pronouncements about how these guys think or how they'll act and it all holds up fine until the killers break the so-called rules, then the experts rewrite them. It's all a shuffling game between the facts and how much guesswork they're willing to apply."

I leaned in to kiss him.

He murmured against my open mouth. "Don't you go and get too involved in this. It's ugly stuff and there's no reason for you to see it."

I loved that he tried to protect me from the ugliness of his job. I terminated the kiss reluctantly. "I won't. I'll let the program run it's course then let you study the results."

"Good plan. I may need you to explain the whole damned thing to me, since I'm about as technical as a toothbrush, but we'll cross that bridge later. Love you, hon."

"Love you. Take care of yourself."

I watched him climb into his new Toyota Echo and back out of our curved drive. Realizing I stood on a public street still wrapped in nothing but a towel I hastily retreated back into the house and shut the door.

I should have listened to David. When it comes to what he does best -- outside of the bedroom -- he's a hell of a lot smarter than me. I can run circles around him, and most people, in the IT field, but dealing with the criminal element is beyond me. I wasn't lying when I told him I'd never understand people like the Slasher. What made someone, who started out the same as everyone else, turn out to savor the destruction of human life? Abuse in their own childhood? Or is that just another excuse in this age of excuses we seem to live in? Everyone's flawed in some way. Are some people less accountable for their actions in life?

In the end, I should have listened to David. In this case, at least, he knew best.

But the images of those dead men haunted me. Some had looked like little more than teenagers, though David had told me all the vics were adults with the exception of Stephen who had been only seventeen. But all still so young. Even Bobby, it turned out, was only twenty-two. I found myself thinking about them, about the moments before their death. Had they known what was coming? Did they see their own death and have time to regret anything that led up to it?

I did the same damned thing after the nine-eleven attacks on the World Trade Center. For days after I had been unable to think of anything but the people in those planes. They had to have known what was happening. It had taken me weeks to stop obsessing over people I had never met. Was I about to go back to that all over again?

I didn't dare look at the sites at work. Too much chance someone would catch me and that was a headache and a half I didn't need. Instead I finished up my work and rather than clock overtime like I normally did, I left with the rest of the drones.

Becky Sharpe, one of our site admins, caught me in the elevator. She grinned at me.

"Finally getting a life, Chris? Anything to do with your new boyfriend?"

Because of the publicity involved in the case where I had met David, damned near everybody, it seemed, knew about David and me. Just like I hadn't bothered concealing the fact that I was gay, I didn't hide my relationship with David either. I loved him too much to deny him that way. So as it stood, everyone at DataTEK knew all about Chris Bellamere's cop lover.

Becky loved to needle me around the other staff. She knew how much they hated reminders I was gay. Becky, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less who I slept with. She was a refreshing change at DataTEK and I always enjoyed her banter.

"What can I say, Beck." I grinned. "Men with guns. I'm a pushover."

She laughed and followed me out into the underground parking garage. I keyed my Escalade open and climbed into the cab.

She leaned out the window of her own car and couldn't resist a parting shot, aware of all those ears listening. "Depends on the caliber of the weapon, I always say."

"Oh, honey, you're wicked."

I was still chuckling when I pulled out into the heavy rush hour traffic, something I had forgotten about in my zeal to get home. I might as well have stayed at work for another hour.

It took me that long plus twenty minutes to get home; normally a thirty minute drive. I finally spun the SUV into our driveway and shut down the engine. I made sure to activate the alarm since I didn't want any repeats of the nasty business that had gone on last year when some homophobic junkie had spray- painted my fifty-thousand dollar truck.

I left the IBM to chug away at its task and logged onto my laptop to open one of the victim's sites. I deliberately stayed clear of Bobby's since it was more than I could take looking on the face of someone I had known. I found myself in Robert Anstrom's page. This time I noticed all the images were actually links which took me in to larger images that showed more detail. A lot of detail. That's when I first got the idea.

It took a single phone call to find what I needed; a legacy of over a decade in the industry. Li-shan Chong answered on the third ring.

"Lee," I said, trying to keep my voice level while I stared at the sickening image on my laptop screen. "Chris here. Chris Bellamere. How's it hanging?"

"Hey, Chris." Lee was an old colleague of mine. He'd moved on from DataTEK years ago and ran his own graphics company now. "Hanging tough, bra. Bigger than yours."

"In your dreams."

"There too." Lee laughed. He still had a trace of his Chinese accent though he had been in L.A. for over twenty years now, since he was eight. "What's up?"

"Need a favor. You still got that high-end graphics program you used to brag about? The one no one else in the world could afford?"

"Ah, that one. Sure. Just got the latest version. You need?"

"I need."

"Since when you into graphics?"

"Special project." I grimaced. "I won't need it for long."

"You still with DataTEK? I hear Petey's still making everyone's life a living hell."

"Man's gotta stick to what he does best."

"Right." I could almost see Lee make a face. Petey had given him an even harder time than he did me. But then Lee was even more out than I was. "So you need to borrow my program?"

"Just for a few days. Like I said, it's a short-term project."

"Sure. You want to come get it now?"

We arranged for me to pick up the software at his condo. I whistled when he gave me the address.

"Bev Hills -- we've moved up in the world. Didn't know JPEGs paid that well."

"JPEGs don't, Hollywood does. I'm involved in several computer-animation gigs now. Besides, it doesn't hurt having a partner who's a successful plastic surgeon."

"Oh, we dumped Dallas did we?"

"We did. The minute we caught him screwing some Hollywood twink half my age. What about you, you involved?"

I admitted I was, then added to who. Lee started laughing.

"A cop? A real live 'you have a right to remain silent' cop? You?"

"Me," I said weakly. I wondered what Lee would do if he saw David. He'd known of my taste for good-looking, empty-headed twinks. He'd never believe I'd fallen in love with David. "You'll have to come over and meet him sometime. Bring your plastic surgeon."

"Sounds like fun. Meanwhile, you'll be here today to get this?"

I glanced at my watch. "How 'bout half an hour."

"I'll have it ready."

By the time I got back home with the software package it was nearly eight o'clock and there was still no sign of David. I loaded the application and ran through some of the tutorials to get a feel for it, then I downloaded an images from one of the Slasher's sites.

I'd chosen the one of Robert again. The motel room seemed to offer more opportunity than an outdoor scene. If I could pinpoint the location of the motel, it would give the police a major break and might give them more witnesses. I figured that ought to be worth a bit of discomfort on my part.

I knew David wouldn't agree so I half-listened for the door. But it remained stubbornly closed and I remained glued to my desk, using the borrowed image enhancing software to study the brutal death scene of one Robert Anstrom.

Fortunately once a graphic image is expanded past a certain point, the human form tends to vanish into pixels. I was able to distance myself from the reality of what I was looking at my looking at everything but the body.

It worked. For the most part.

I mean, I only woke up screaming twice in the middle of the night.

[More to come]

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