A police drone made a pass over the apartment complex, shining its severe spotlight on the circus below. Red and blue lights from a swarm of police cars outside danced on Sam’s face as he watched the forensic team finally conclude their exhaustive examination of the scene inside the kitchen. Sam snapped on a pair of latex gloves and approached the dismembered mess that was once Joseph Billings. Kathy continued to snap photographs as Sam dropped to one knee and gently lifted the severed left leg. Dark burn marks were evident around the entire circumference of the upper thigh, and the putrid smell of smoldering body hair still lingered.
“Could you lift up the head, Sam?” Kathy asked. Sam set the leg down and gently lifted Billings’ severed head, which had the same dark burn marks around the circumference of the neck. Billings’ face was contorted into a sea of unimaginable pain and anguish. Kathy took her photos, and Sam carefully dropped the head into a small, black bag. A coroner whisked it away.
“You tried to warn him, Sam,” Tommy said.
Sam backed away from the carnage, tearing off the gloves. “Should have put him under surveillance. Jesus. I fucked this up,” Sam admitted, and walked over to the open kitchen window, glancing down to the alley below. A throng of neighbors dressed in robes and pajamas strained their necks to get a better view. Sam’s eyes stopped on an old lady; although it was dark, he could see that the woman was dressed in layers of clothes and a big green floppy hat, her face partially hidden by a brown scarf.
He turned away from the window and watched as two assistant coroners pushed the pieces of Billings into a black body bag, and zipped it up.
[][][]
Tommy followed Sam into the hallway, where a group of officers stood by.
“Okay, listen up,” Sam said, angry with himself for the missed opportunity. “I want reports taken from every person who lives within three hundred yards of this joint, and no sloppy bullshit either. I want to know everything these people may have seen in the last week around this neighborhood. Any asshole drops an attitude or refuses to talk, come and get me, and I’ll deal with it.”
[][][]
The sky began to lighten with the morning sun, and Sam was grateful for the bit of warmth as he stood in the center of the alley. “Anybody know where Kenny is?” he called out.
“Right here, Sam,” Kenny said, breaking through a group of uniformed officers.
“Where are we at?” Sam asked.
Kenny motioned for an assistant, who handed him a clear plastic bag that contained a kitchen knife, stained with blood.
“This could be what we’ve been waiting for,” Kenny said, muffling a yawn.
Sam took the bag and lifted it into the bright light of the police drone.
“Billings had no visible stab wounds,” Kenny added.
“This is definitely our killer’s blood,” Sam replied, cautiously hopeful, and handed the bag back to Kenny.
“If he’s got a record, we’ll get a match in a heartbeat,” Kenny said as the two men made their way down the alley.
“Call me a cynic, but I don’t see this ending that easy,” Sam said. “He’s like a ghost, this fucker.”
They stopped at the entrance to the back stairwell.
“Think he’s workin’ alone?” Kenny asked.
“Maybe not. Fuck, I don’t know,” Sam said. “Let’s run a scent check in every nook and cranny of that place.”
Kenny smiled. “Already did, but that place has more smells running through it than a sewer system.”
“I know it’s a long shot, but maybe we can trace a stink that shouldn’t be there.”
“You’ll have a full report in the morning,” Kenny said, and disappeared up the metal stairs.
[][][]
“I heard a scream and looked out my window and that’s when I saw the dude just standin’ there, like a statue,” the middle-aged EDM DJ said. He grabbed some pills with a shaky hand and swallowed hard.
Sam stood in the kitchen of the DJ’s second-floor apartment as Tommy and a uniformed officer waited nearby. Framed Electric Zoo and Ultra Music Festival posters covered the walls.
“What did he look like?” Sam asked.
“I know this is going to sound a little creepy, and totally bizarro, but, well, he didn’t have a face.”
Sam’s eyebrow arched. “What do you mean he didn’t have a face?”
“I mean just that. There was no face, no eyes, no mouth, no chin, no nose, no eyebrows, no lips. He didn’t have a face!”
The DJ pulled another pill out of his shirt pocket and popped it in his mouth. “I’ll be sleepin’ with a nightlight on for the rest of my life.”
Sam glanced over to Tommy, who just shrugged and asked, “Was his face deformed maybe?”
“No, it wasn’t deformed, dude. It didn’t exist. There were no features! He had a head, but that was it. Nothin’ else.”
“How many pills you swallowed tonight?” Sam asked.
“I was clean and sober till this shit came down and fucked me up good. This kind of trauma calls for some kind of government assistance, don’t you think?”
“Did you hear any strange sounds? Like short bursts of sound?” Sam asked.
“No, I didn’t hear no weird sounds, and trust me, I’m the fuckin’ king of weird sounds.”
Frustrated, Sam made his way out of the kitchen with Tommy and the uniformed officer in tow. “One last thing,” Sam said, turning back. “Was the dude carrying anything?”
The DJ thought hard about it and closed his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, he was holding something big in his left hand. Something bulky.”
“What did it look like?” Sam asked.
“I couldn’t really tell. Like a big fuckin’ baseball bat from hell.”
Sam needed more than another vague description. “Can you be any more specific than that?”
“No, it was something, but I wasn’t really looking at it. I was just locked onto that fucker’s faceless face. I mean, who doesn’t have a face?”
[][][]
The media trucks, news drones, reporters, and curious neighbors were long gone when dawn broke, shrouding the city in a foggy, golden haze. Sam watched as the coroner’s truck drove off and disappeared into early morning traffic.
It all seemed too coincidental, and Sam wondered if The Revenger was hiding right under his nose. He dismissed Buzz, and certainly Tommy, but deep down he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe his killer was a cop or a detective, someone on the inside. The DJ’s strange description of the faceless man kept his mind churning. Sam leaned his tired body up against the police van’s back door as a bleary-eyed Tommy approached.
“Tell me you got something or don’t tell me anything at all,” Sam said.
Tommy arched his back and rolled his neck from side to side. “The out-of-work DJ had the best description so far.”
“Great, let’s put out an APB on a man with no face.”
“They’re still searching for eyewitnesses,” Tommy said through a yawn, “but so far, no one saw anything unusual around Billings’ apartment, aside from me and you last week.”
“Well,” Sam said, trying to hide a reflexive yawn in return. “At least we know one thing for sure. Something went wrong for our hero tonight. I’m gonna sit down with internal affairs this afternoon, and push for an investigation,” Sam declared. “I want to know who, besides Buzz, you, and myself, knew about Billings.”
“You think it’s someone within the department?”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so,” Tommy conceded. “It was impressive, the way you took control of the scene tonight.”
“Yeah, right. Billings is Humpty Dumpty, the press is all over this like flies on dogshit, and our boy is still out there.”
“That’s true, but still . . . I learned a lot tonight.”
Sam laughed. “Well, then I guess it wasn’t a total loss. You hungry?”
“Fucking starved.”
“Good. Then you can buy me breakfast. I just so happen to know a scuzzy little joint not far from here that serves the best country-fried steak in the whole city.”