The Unborn

Chapter 2

"I think we have another victim of the same sick son of a bitch," Mike?s voice crackled down the line.

A shiver ran through Ben and he cupped his head in one hand, his elbows propped up on his desk. "Same M.O?" He asked, referring to the killer's Modus Operandi. Some murderers use a particular style when they kill their victims; Albert DeSalvo strangled his victims and posed them in sexually degrading positions. Jeffrey Dahmer drugged and ate his prey, along with performing other cruel and unusual experiments on them. This killer removed breasts and cut stomachs open for kicks.

"Yup," said Mike, "right down to the missing breasts and the cut up stomach. This killer is just twisted, Benny Boy. A real freak of nature."

"This new vic, she got a name yet?" Ben asked, swapping the phone to his other ear.

"Not yet. There were no identifying belongings with her. She's got a birthmark on her left shoulder, though, so that may help figure out who she was."

"Was she…?" Ben was unable to finish his question. The mere thought of the answer was unthinkable.

"Pregnant?" Mike blurted out.

"Yeah," Ben whispered.

"Dunno yet. Won’t know until the Doc does the slice ‘n’ dice later this afternoon. Maybe he can give us something that can help us identify her too. With a bit of luck the killer might have left something of himself with her."

"Himself?" Ben paused. "Are we sure it is a he?"

"Are you thinking it’s a woman, Ben?"

"I don’t know what I’m thinking, Mikey. But I do believe it would be a mistake to rule every possibility out this early on."

"Yeah, I guess you’re right. So where to from here?"

"Are you going to the autopsy?" Ben asked, scooping up the photos, notes and other reports on his desk before tucking them neatly into a manila folder. He then placed them in his top drawer with the other information on Tessa Hunt.

"Was planning on it, why? You wanna do it instead?"

"No, no. I’ll leave that in your capable hands Mikey," said Ben as he rose from his chair and pulled his jacket from the back of the seat.

"I’ve got a few things I want to check out myself." Ben then rubbed his forehead vigor-ously and sighed down the phone.

"Aaww, hell, Ben. Don’t tell me you got another damn Brain Bleeder?"

That’s what Ben had always named his tension headaches down at the station. ‚Brain-Bleeders. Whenever a big case hit their desk, Ben always suffered a brain-bleeder. They didn’t just happen with any case, though, only the ones that turned out ugly and usually didn’t end too sweet. It was never a good sign when Ben suffered one of his infamous headaches.

"Fraid so," he replied, still massaging his temples and patting at his pockets, in search of his medication. As a rule, he generally had a stash in just about every coat and every drawer in his home and at the office; he even had a leaflet in the car. He despised taking the pills since they were strong enough to tranquilise a small horse, or so he believed. Yet, sometimes he was left with little choice. He found a leaflet in his coat pocket and held them tightly in his hand. "If these killing are linked, the press is going to have a field day with this Mikey. We need to sort this out now and with as little fuss as possible."

"Mum’s the word," said Mike.

"Well, I’m heading home for a bit. Gotta get rid of this bloody headache before it lands me in a heap. You right out there?"

"Sure thing, Ben. I’m just gonna have another walk through of the crime scene. Gimme a call when you’re back on deck."

"Will do," Ben agreed. He hung up the phone and said to himself, "Later." He looked down at the leaflet in his hand and headed for the bathroom. If he didn’t ease this headache soon, he’d be a useless wreck for the rest of the day.

Ben stood in front of the washbasin and stared in the mirror for a moment. There, staring back at him was a forty-something year old, washed up and burnt out shell of a man. He had nothing more to show for his twenty odd years as a cop other than a hardened expression and a sprinkling of grey hairs that seemed to multiply daily. His brown eyes narrowed, Ben couldn’t help but notice how lifeless they appeared. They held no fire, no passion, nothing.

Ben’s thoughts drifted back to Tessa, the memory of her murder still etched deeply in his mind. The sheer violence and ferocity of her attack chilled him to the very core. Ben rubbed his hands over his face. This murderer could have been straight from the pages of a Patricia Cornwell novel. In his twenty odd years on the force, he had never encountered a homicide quite like this. He had experienced numerous cases varying from assault and domestic vio-lence to sheer random acts of murder. Of the homicides, he’d found the usual causes to be robberies gone bad or a star-crossed lover turned jealous. Not once had he worked a murder that was committed for what seemed like nothing more than the sheer pleasure of the act itself. To Ben it felt very much like Tessa’s murder was fast shaping up to fall into the latter of the categories. Unless he uncovered a motive soon, he would be forced to acknowledge that a ‚thrill killer‛ was patrolling his territory. He couldn’t shake the images of Tessa’s mutilated body from his mind. They were engrained there, forever…

Vivid splashes of dried blood covered the young woman’s face, a deep three inch gash above her eye gaped wide open, exposing raw flesh and muscle. Around her neck were dark ligature marks; her wrists and ankles bore the same purple bands. Torn and jagged nails hung from her fingers and toes, her hands and heels showed evidence of cuts and scratches, perhaps from a futile attempt to defend herself. In her matted, bloodied hair were twigs and leaves along with various insects, native to the scrub-land where her body had been dumped.

These details were shocking enough, but the worst was still to come, the mutilation. How it turned Ben’s stomach to have to view such depravity and the barbaric nature of this crime. Both her breasts had been excised from her body. All that remained were two large patches of coagulated blood, fatty tissue and flesh. Yet it got worse, much worse. Her abdomen had been torn open from just below the navel, all the way down to the pubic bone. Internal organs were visible through the mess of more coagulated blood, muscle and flesh. This woman had almost been disemboweled; the evidence of this was obvious, with her intestines spilling from the cavity and over the side of her lifeless body.

Ben looked at his pills in his hand, then popped two from the leaflet and swallowed them down before splashing water over his face. Lowering his head, he stepped back from the mirror, his thoughts again returning to Tessa.

For a little over three weeks he had been working her case, so far his results had been zip. No witnesses, no real leads to speak of and nothing of importance was obtained from speaking with her neighbours. The woman was like a ghost. Everybody he spoke to knew who she was, yet none of them could tell him too much about her. She lived alone and kept pretty much to herself. He had tried to track down her next of kin but that even lead him down a fruitless path. Both her parents were dead. They were killed in an auto accident just on three years ago. She had no siblings that he had been able to uncover.