The Dead and the Dying Read online

  "Sorry," I continue, "I didn't mean to..." I pause for a moment. "So is that going to be part of your essay?" I ask eventually, even though I can feel that the conversation is already irrevocably off the rails. "It's an interesting case. Timely, too."

  "Timely?"

  "Given that he's set to be executed tomorrow night."

  "Is he?" she asks. "I didn't realize."

  "You must be the only one who didn't," I point out. "It's all over the news."

  "Is it?" she asks unconvincingly.

  There's an awkward silence, and finally she looks across at the library desk. "I was just getting them out for some private research," she continues, turning back to me. "I read through the syllabus for the next few months and I thought I'd get ahead on a few things. I was going to research the gender elements of the case and how they relate to post-feminist..." Her voice trails off, and it's clear that she's making this explanation up as she goes along. I don't know why she wanted a bunch of books on the Gazade case, but she must be aware that I wrote most of the major texts on that asshole.

  "Sounds interesting," I reply, deciding not to dig any further. "Well, don't let me keep you, Paula. Have a good weekend, and I look forward to seeing your revised essay by Monday. Just send it to the usual email address and submit a hard copy to the faculty office."

  Smiling nervously, she mutters something inaudible and then hurries over to the desk. I head over to the journals section, but I can't help glancing over my shoulder and watching as Paula nervously checks out the books that she needs. It's clear that I'm not the only one who sets her on edge; the girl seems to be filled with panic whenever she has to talk to anyone, and even the mild-manned Janice, sitting behind the desk, seems to be having an effect. It's as if Paula's desperate to get the hell out of here, and finally she gathers up the books in her arms and heads to the door. Before she goes outside, however, she turns and looks back at me, and we briefly make eye contact for a moment.

  Damn it, why did she have to take those particular books? I wanted them.

  Realizing that I shouldn't have been watching her, I turn and make my way into the journals section of the library. I've got some weekend reading planned, and I figure I need to get my mind of everything that's going on with Paula. She's definitely an unusual student, but I need to stop over-thinking the situation. As her primary tutor for this year, I need to be able to develop a normal working relationship with the girl, and it's my duty to make sure that I'm not overcome by unwarranted suspicions.

  A couple of hours later, with a whole boxful of journals in my arms, I walk up the steps that lead to my front door. It's getting late, and as I set the box down and take my keys from my jacket pocket, I glance across the street and spot the pitch-black park opposite my home. There are a few lights in the darkness, which I assume must be caused by a bunch of kids. The park is usually pretty busy, even in the middle of the night, and I hesitate to even wonder what might go on in the shadows. Turning to the front door, I let myself in and carry the box to the kitchen, and then finally I remove my jacket and decide to leave all the work until tomorrow.

  I switch the television onto one of the news channels and listen to a discussion about the Sam Gazade case while I'm cooking. I swear to God, the whole town is talking about Gazade, and most people seem to be in favor of the fact that Gazade is set to be executed in twenty-four hours' time. I guess I can't blame them; after all, Sam Gazade kept this entire town in a grip of terror for two weeks when he went on his little killing spree. Four girls ended up dead in a variety of horrific ways, and since he was caught Gazade has been on a very slow, very drawn out trip to death. Even after the man himself stopped trying to escape the death penalty, various independent groups filed lawsuits to stop the state from executing him, and it's as if the whole town is holding its breath this week in a collective prayer that finally Gazade's going to die. Although I'm opposed to the death penalty, I've long since given up arguing with people about Sam Gazade. The man's going to be executed, people are going to feel better, and I guess the rest of us will just have to deal with it.

  Once I've eaten, I decide to finish up the bottle of wine that I opened last night, so I end up staying awake until well past 2am. Although I'm trying to ignore the Sam Gazade media circus, I can't tear myself away from the late-night discussion shows that drag the subject well into the early hours of the morning. I swear, everyone seems to be just saying the same thing over and over again, and the differences between the various participants are so minimal, it's as if a bunch of people are just angrily agreeing with each other. There's nothing new to say on the subject, and the whole thing is totally self-congratulatory. I should stop watching, but I can't help watching what amounts to a cultural car wreck. Despite my lack of interest, I end up watching with such intensity that at first I don't notice a bright flash outside my kitchen window.

  "It's a moment of catharsis," says one of the female discussion guests, before turning to the man sitting next to her. "If someone kills for fun, for pleasure, why should that person be kept alive for the rest of their life in a federal facility?"

  "So you want us to be like animals?" the guy replies. "You want us to kill our own, just because it'd be inconvenient to keep him alive?"

  "He's not one of our own," the woman says, sounding angrier and angrier with every utterance. "When he stepped over the line and killed those poor young women, he proved that he's not part of the human race any longer. He's the animal here, and there's no moral argument whatsoever for keeping that beast alive. We need to eradicate him from our society, from our thoughts, and we need to send out a powerful message that murderers won't be tolerated. For the sake of our community, we need to make sure that this execution isn't derailed by well-meaning but wrong-headed appeals for clemency. Sam Gazade has to die tomorrow night!"

  "Tonight, actually," says the show's host, smiling as he checks his watch. "It's past midnight, ladies and gentlemen, so we've now arrived at the big day!"

  A smattering of applause breaks out in the studio audience.

  Hearing a noise outside, I turn and look out the window just in time for the second flash, and this time I take notice. Getting to my feet, I walk over to the window and stare out into the darkness. I want to believe that the flash was far off, but it seemed much closer, almost as if someone was taking a photo of me through the window. Granted, I've had a few glasses of wine and I might not be totally sharp, but I know what I saw. Stepping right up to the window, I stare out at the darkness, and although I can't see anyone, I can't shake the feeling that I'm being watched.

  Deciding that it would be better to find out the truth one way or the other, and perhaps emboldened by a little too much wine, I grab a knife from the cutlery drawer and head through to the hallway. Opening the front door, I step out into the night air, and I'm immediately overcome by the feeling that I'm overreacting. There's no-one out here, and I'm just a paranoid idiot. Still, I walk down the steps and take a look along the dark, deserted street, just in case. There's absolutely no-one about, and that 'flash' must just have been the product of my addled mind. With a heavy sigh, I turn and head back up the steps and into the house, and as I put the knife back in the cutlery drawer, I can't help feeling slightly pathetic. Am I really so impressionable that a late-night discussion show can make me believe that there's someone taking photos of me through the window?

  Once I've switched off the television, I finish the last of the wine before making my way through to the bedroom. It's nights like these that remind me that it's been five years since I was last in a relationship. If I'm not careful, I'm going to slip into a comfortable life, and I won't notice that I'm lonely until it's too late. Still, there's plenty of time to deal with that some other time. For now, there's all the excitement of the 'big day' to look forward to; after all, even though I'm not some kind of news-junkie bloodhound, I can't ignore the fact that we've finally reached the day when Sam Gazade is going to be executed. The world has held its breath for twel
ve years, and now the 'monster' is going to die and everyone will be able to breathe again.

  Unfortunately for the men of this city, another monster is about to be born in Gazade's image.

  Joanna Mason

  "I knew this would happen," I say as I follow Dawson along the corridor that leads to the examination room. "I knew you'd get some kind of bee in your bonnet about this body, and that you'd somehow manage to convince yourself that it's linked to the Sam Gazade case. I knew you couldn't resist."

  "If you think I'm wrong," he replies, stopping and turning to me as we get to the door, "then why did you bother to come down here at close to midnight on a Friday night? Why didn't you just bawl me out over the phone with your customary elegance and grace?"

  "Because I have nothing better to be doing," I reply. "Tragic, huh? Friday night and I'm all alone. I don't have a date lined up until Sunday."

  "Funny day for a date," he points out.

  "Funny date," I reply.

  He smiles. "Do you remember how Rachel Blackman was murdered?"

  "No," I say sarcastically. "It was the biggest case of my life, it consumed me for the best part of three years, it almost killed me, and I don't remember any of the details."

  "Humor me," he replies.

  "She was stabbed," I continue with a sigh. "Right in the heart, after he'd already made cuts to the sides of her face and to her hips. He'd taken to slicing away sections of skin."

  "And then?"

  "And then he carved into her genitals and made a kind of eight-pointed star shape, with the center gouged out."

  "And then?"

  "And then he cut off her breasts. And then, he dumped the body. We never found the breasts, and he never told us what he'd done with them."

  "I want to show you something," Dawson says, pushing the door open and leading me into the examination room, where Dr. Mezki and his assistant are working on the bloated corpse of the guy who was found in the alley earlier. To be honest, ever since the original Sam Gazade case, I've avoided this type of situation as much as possible. It's not that I'm squeamish; it's more that I feel as if I've seen more than enough of this kind of thing to last me a lifetime. When I joined the force, I told myself that I didn't want to become the kind of person who can look at a dead body and not feel sick to my stomach; now that I've been working for twelve years, I'm so far beyond the point of being desensitized, I sometimes find myself searching out horrific images online in an attempt to remember what it's like to be shocked.

  "Let me guess," I say wryly, "you found Rachel Blackman's boobs at last?"

  "Meet Edward Hunter," Dawson says as we approach the table. "Edward was, until a week ago, a commodities trader at one of the smaller brokerage firms in the city. He vanished some time over the previous weekend, and thanks to a wallet that was found in his trouser pocket, plus some D.N.A. work, we now have positive identification. From what we can gather so far, based on phone history, internet history, that kind of thing, Edward Hunter was a fairly normal guy with no obvious enemies. Nothing that stands out as a reason to kill him, anyway." He pauses. "The cause of death was a single stab wound to the heart."

  "That's hardly unusual," I reply. "A lot of people go for the heart. Or the brain. If they want to minimize the amount of blood they're going to have to clean up later, anyway. They try to avoid arterial spray. It's kind of a smart move, if you do it right."

  "The knife went in through the front of the torso," Dr. Mezki continues. "Look like a fairly large blade, but nothing huge. If you remember, Gazade used a hunting knife. I'd say that this was smaller, but no less effective. The killer certainly knew exactly where to push the weapon into the body."

  "Sure," Dawson replies, "but then..."

  "It's not something that's unique to Sam Gazade," I continue, determined to shut down this avenue of speculation. "Not by any means. You go through case files from the past year alone, you'll find plenty of people who were killed by a single knife wound to the heart. For most killers, it's the quickest route."

  "You want me to handle this?" Dr. Mezki asks. "Obviously the state of the body is bad. My best guess is that he died on Monday or Tuesday, and for the past three days he's been stored somewhere cool but not refrigerated. All of this means that it's difficult to examine the skin for signs of torture, mutilation, that kind of thing. Small cuts and bruises are pretty much impossible to spot, but bigger marks are still very much in evidence, and that's where we come to this." He indicates the area between the corpse's legs. "No penis," he says after a moment. "There's evidence of traumatic removal of the organ, probably shortly after death. The remaining stump area has been carved into a kind of star pattern. I pulled up the images of Rachel Blackman's body, and while the carvings aren't identical, they're too similar to be a coincidence."

  "Show me," I say, walking around to the other side of the table and immediately seeing that he's right: the stump where Edward Hunter's penis used to be, has been carved into via a series of thick, deep slices that have left a kind of eight-pointed star pattern. It's exactly the kind of wound that Sam Gazade left on his victims, although Gazade was always very precise and particular, whereas this person was much more sloppy.

  "Now do you believe me?" Dawson says, with a hint of satisfaction in his voice.

  "Did you find the penis?" I ask, feeling a tightening sensation in my chest as I realize that these similarities can't be as easily dismissed as I'd hoped.

  "Not yet," Dawson replies.

  "The victim didn't have breasts," Dr. Mezki continues, "but all indications are that he was a gentleman who spent time in the gym. He's well-built, with developed muscles in the arms, legs and abdomen. I'd say he must have hit the gym a couple of times a week, easily." He grabs a scalpel and indicates the chest area. "His pectoralis major and minor muscles have been removed, and they're also missing."

  "In other words," Dawson adds, "the killer cut off his man-boobs."

  "You can see the area where they were cut away," Dr. Mezki says, outlining a roughly rectangular area of dark, bloodied tissue. "It looks like some kind of large blade, possibly a pair of garden shears. Whatever it was, it was blunt, because you can see that in some places the cuts were very uneven. I'd hazard a guess that it took quite a while to get this done, and there are plenty of tears in the flesh."

  "Sam Gazade used medical equipment," I point out, even though I know I'm probably being pedantic. "He cut carefully. He used medical textbooks, and he knew what he was doing."

  "Still," Dawson replies, "we're clearly talking about someone who was familiar with Gazade's work. Or are you going to keep on insisting that this is just a coincidence?" He waits for me to say something. "Come on, Joanna. No-one likes the thought of a copycat, but we can't ignore the evidence that's right in front of us. The method of making the kill, the style of mutilation, the date and location of the body being found... What more do you want?"

  "What about the sides of the face?" I ask.

  "No signs of any injury," Dr. Mezki replies.

  "And his hips?"

  "Nothing."

  I take a step toward the body and stare down for a moment at the corpse. Dawson's right: the similarities are far too striking to be a coincidence, but at the same time, something's bugging me. There's none of the flamboyance and recreational torture that characterized Gazade's treatment of Rachel Blackman. This wasn't a performance by someone who relished what they were doing; it's more like the work of someone who hated every second of it, but who was determined to keep going regardless. They were probably sickened by every cut, but for some reason they obviously felt compelled to get the job done. "This isn't a copycat," I say eventually.

  "You're kidding," Dawson says with a sigh. "Seriously? You're still not convinced, despite everything?"

  "Seriously," I continue, staring at the bloodied mess where the man's chest muscles were removed. I remember seeing Rachel Blackman's body, and noting the way her breasts had been removed surgically and neatly. Even though this new
corpse is a decaying mess, it's clear that the removal of the pectoralis muscles was much more ragged: they were cut with a much rougher implement, and in places they were torn away. It's a crucial difference if we're supposed to be considering someone who wanted to recreate a previous crime. Most copycats admire and idolize their predecessors, and they almost want to become them, but this seems like the work of someone who just wanted to complete the job as quickly as possible. "This wasn't a copycat," I say again, as much to myself as to anyone else in the room. "Not in the conventional sense."

  "Because the victim's a guy?" Dawson asks. "Is that why?"

  "It's not a copycat," I say again, "but it's someone who wants to be a copycat. Someone who doesn't have the skill or the taste for blood, but who still feels compelled to go through with the killing. When Gazade stabbed Rachel Blackman in the heart, he was finishing her off after torturing her. Whoever killed this guy, though, just wanted to get to the important part, bypassing the torture. Why do that, if you wanted to copy someone you admired? There's only one possible reason." I turn to Dawson. "Whoever did this, they didn't enjoy it. They wanted to get it over with. They went straight for the heart, and then they performed the mutilations. They didn't bother with the build-up, probably because they couldn't stomach it."

  Dawson frowns. "So you're saying -"

  "This was someone who was having to fight their natural revulsion," I continue. "They hated the bloody side of the whole thing, so they minimized the gore. They just wanted to have the end result. It's not a true copycat, because a true copycat would want to recreate every second of the experience."