Nemesis-continued (Draft)

 7:02 pm.

      Deco found Elise propped up against a mirrored dresser when she finally got to the bedroom, staring intently at the dead man lying before her, with her back towards the reflective glass and her arms crossed--pondering. For a moment there was silence, further elasticizing the ghastly air existing within the space.

    "Unsightly, isn't it?" Deco broke the silence or at least made an attempt at that. Elise did not respond. She didn't seem to want to. Instead, her eyes remained fixated on the man's corpse. It appeared that this was all she'd done before her partner's arrival; studying the body carefully that is. Examining the stabs wounds that covered the surface of his body almost entirely.

    "He must have been stabbed through every follicle, if you ask me," Elise finally said. She then walked over to the nightstand on the side of the bed, pulled a cigarette from the half-open pack of Marlboro that laid there and flamed it. After a rather long inhale, she let out a sigh accompanied by the usual gray fumes a smoker is apt to produce during the act.

    "How do you mean?" Deco asked and walked over to the opposite side of the bed so as to face her partner.

    "It's a bit of an exaggeration of course, but apparently these stab wounds take up about eighty percent of his body, wouldn't you say?"

    "I'm not sure you could call them stab wounds, more like deep punctures. But sure. And you think it means something?"

    "I'm not sure any of this means anything," Elise said as she put out the cigarette. "Just that this guy is dead and someone had quite some time on their hands to make sure of that. Do you think his head was severed before or after he was poked full of holes and left to bleed out like a pig?" she asked. Deco shrugged, gesturing for the pack of smokes. Elise grabbed and tossed them to her partner.

"I think Sue sue-mae Bachi may prove more qualified to answer that," Deco said flicking the butane and setting the tobacco stick afire.

    "I'd be disappointed if the coroner wasn't, although at this point we've got pretty much all we need to go on," Elise replied.

    As for the message, clue, evidence or whatever, left on the wall by the killer, seemingly notarized by the scarlet fluid once running through the dead man's veins, Elise had studied it for quite some time until now. In fact, that was all she did up until the moment her partner joined her, in spite of which as she now veered her attention to it, it appeared to Deco that this was the first time she gave it attention. She played it off as such. And easy enough. Initially, Elise understood that it was a cipher.  Even disappointing, well maybe not so much a disappointment as it was typically terrifying, was the fact it wasn't at all cryptic because it was by the killer's design. But she had seen the pattern before. Thus was the sort of thing her father, a career cryptologist with the C.I.A, challenged her to solve as a child. And the killer's code seemed familiar in exactness.

                                      

                                                                   00100001

                                                           00100100

                                                               0111

                                                           01001011

                                                           01000101

                                                           01001011

    Knowing that the cipher, which, at this point, she seemed to cringe at the reference, was simply a date in binary numbers, mostly, Elise wondered if her partner had figured as much. It mattered if she had. Twelve, twenty-fourth, two thousand and seven, the day I became a killer, she thought. There were a few that had been privy to this information and Deco would, no doubt, soon be the newest member of the club, if she hadn't already been inducted. That would be a problem much less consequential than the one to arise should say, Deco finds out that the members of said club were directly involved, intentionally and unintentionally, in what transpired on that date, let alone that one of them was the corpse above which they were now congregated.

 

    "Can I ask you a question, De-?" Elise asked having decided she had to know exactly how much her partner knew at this point.

    "I know that it's a date," Deco interjected. "Christmas eve o seven. Except--"

   "Well, I figured as much. But that's not what my question is about."

   "Well let's have it then."

   "How could you have known that I might have had a thing with this guy? Not that I'm saying I did."

   "It's a pattern running through these cases, isn't it?Well, it's the pattern here, according to Monvie at least. The guy talked me into the loop regarding a lot of things around here you know. Unprompted too. Although, he didn't seem as sure about this one as he did about the previous two. What was it..? Addie McAllister and Goldie Brenan? Both were in their late twenties. One a registered nurse, the other an interior designer, among other things, and both quite smitten with you. It seemed divulging the information brought him pleasure, I thought.  He's a real detective that one. A cop with the need to run his mouth that much is bound to be a loose end needing to be tied up, if I may channel my inner wise-guy." Deco said smiling.

    A bad joke, but it was one tied to a concept she'd come to accept somewhat having dealt with mob-affiliated drug dealers and crooked lawmen, at every tick of the spectrum, as a narcotic detective at her previous duty station. 

   "Although..." Deco spoke again but paused, pulled out another cigarette from the pack she held still and lit it as she walked to the window.

   The women had not been partners for very long, six months to be exact, not enough time to know someone, but Elise was quite good at reading people, and so she knew that the brief silence that existed now meant her partner held thoughts of doubt. How could she not? But as she, Elise, thought about it, it wouldn't matter in the end if Deco knew straight from the source. Hell, Deco did anyhow. What bothered her now was the final two lines of the six total, the ones she'd intentionally ignored so far. Perhaps it was coincidental or that they held a different meaning altogether, but EK, disguised in binary form as the rest of the killer's message, could only mean one thing; Elise Kélange.

    She stood staring blankly, distractedly at the corpse, trying to connect the dots in her head. On the night she killed the burglar and had been questioned by this, now the former officer, she had been convincing. Even through the preliminary investigation that ensued, after which she had been cleared of any wrongdoing. So it didn't make sense, but it was evident now someone knows something. She wasn't sure now what her next course of action would be, but she knew where she would start. Luko. But first, she had to put her partner at ease, so to speak, but before she could speak Deco interrupted.

   "You know Elise; it's quite beautiful. It is," she said.

   "What?" Elise asked as she joined her partner at the window.

   The night was a canvas as white as any beneath the overbearing dazzle of the street lights adorning the gated community, the sky too, strangely, almost as a mirror reflecting the white below, a bit of a contrast to the macabre cocoon in which they found themselves. I suppose the beauty of this is that it's almost as if the world has been covered by a purifying cloak that now seems as if it has smothered the world's problems, isn't it? Elise thought.

   "You would almost think that the world has been purified in a way. Done away with those with predilections for this,"  Deco continued, looking and pointing at the corpse.

   "I suppose it's a comforting thought," Elise said. Deco suspected there was a bit sarcasm in there somewhere. 

   "Ha! Yeah well, we know better than that, don't we? Which is why it's a bit childish, say you, maybe even dangerous to think in such terms," Deco retorted. Elise smirked.

   They both, looking out the window now, noted the commotion brewing below, a mixture of fellow officers, ME's, and the news media. Their eyes met, knowing what that meant.

   Before they could leave, with a much brighter tone as if she'd had some internal assessment that reassured herself of something, Deco said:

   "You know, it would be f*****g amazing that you...having killed this man, claimed it by notoriety...with his blood at that, would be standing here without a care in the world as if nothing has happened. The words that come to mind are along the lines of promiscuous-"

   "Hey," Elise Interrupted, smiling warily.

   Deco teased with a shrug. 

   Tell me something I don't know. Elise thought.

   "...Just calling it like see it," Deco continued. "At any rate, I haven't known you long, but I know a good person when I see one. A good cop too. Certainly not a narcissistic, hubristic f**k. A lady of the night you are, but not a killer."

   "Hey, f**k you very much, huh?" Elise said.

   Deco laughed.

   "No, but seriously I have nothing to hide," Elise made her case. "I know it may have looked that way, but you can only imagine my surprise when I saw that," Elise said pointing at the bloody wall.

   "I got a bit flustered, which was even more shocking. Don't think that I don't trust you because I do. And I'm sorry for that."

   "I just wish you would have told me. But what's done is done. Besides, we still have this clown out there we gotta catch before he or she goes and kill again. We need answers. I'm just as curious as you are at this point. And I think I know where we should start.

   Deco headed for the door first, stopping one last time to study the deceased as if mentally taking note of what was important. Then she made her way out, brushing shoulders with an ME carrying a stretcher. Elise followed.

   "All yours," she said to the ME's as she slipped out the door.

   Midway down the flight of stairs her phone rang. Her body shuddered in sync with the vibration of the phone, drawing her from her thoughts. She'd not been expecting any calls at such an early hour, at least not from the only contact marked DK in her phone. It had been almost six years.

   "Hello?" Elise answered.

   "Father has died," the voice on the other line said.

   "Well hello to you too, Dahlia."

   It was her older sister.

   "Whe-"

   "Last night," the caller cut in before Elise could get the question out."The family is gathering at Hargreaves Manor. It's important that you be there. Everything is up to you after all."

    "Wait, what!?" What did you just say?"

   Dahlia had hung up.

  

                                                                                           To be continued....