Xavier had an oogling buddy. The two stared at the animal skins spread out on special tables in the University of Missouri’s zoology department. In reality, they only stared at one skin, the one that Xavier had held up in the basement. He still hadn’t told us why he was so horrified to find it in the basement. There were endangered leopards, but tigers were considered more critically endangered if that made sense.
“You were right,” Dr. Ritter told him.
“I’ve seen one before,” Xavier said. “In the wild. I spent a summer in Siberia when I was in school.”
“For those of us playing the home game,” Gabriel interrupted, annoyed by the suspense.
“It’s the skin of an Amur Leopard,” Dr. Ritter told him. Alarm bells began to go off in my head. “In 2012, it was estimated that there were only about thirty left in the wild. It isn’t just critically endangered, it is practically extinct. There’s about 170 in captivity that are being used to breed for reintroduction, but so far, no luck. Owning this pelt is very illegal. I’d be very interested in knowing how the person came into possession of it.”
“So would I,” I told Dr. Ritter. “Let’s go find out.”
“Um, Ace, there’s a problem with that,” Xavier said.
“Yeah, I can’t beat it out of her because she’s old,” I was still heading for the door.
“No,” Gabriel grabbed my arm. “We don’t have her in custody. We don’t know where she is.”
“Oh yeah,” I stopped.
“Do you have any idea where she might be?” Gabriel had turned me so that I was facing him.
“No. I can’t imagine the family is protecting her now that Lee is dead and Joe is in custody for killing him. You heard Kyle, crazy is one thing, but murderously crazy is a whole different can of worms.”
“What about friends?” He asked.
“I don’t know if she has friends. Her own husband called her evil. Does Satan have friends?” I thought for a moment. My back was still tender. I’d already been shot three times and I didn’t have a serial killer in custody or my evil great-aunt who was hiding a suspected serial killer. This was not a good week.
“Would anyone in your family know?” Gabriel pressed.
“You seemed to have failed to grasp the concept of my family relations. I talk to Nyleena. Once a year, Nina calls me. I have more contact with The Butcher than I do my family. Although, I guess, technically, The Butcher is my family. I wonder what Lee meant about telling me how my grandfather always knew where I was?”
“Oh boy,” John sat down. “Here comes a tangent.”
“I don’t think so,” I told him. “I can guess that Gertrude has been feeding my whereabouts to him, but how did she know? As far as I know, the only people that would have been privy to that information would have been Nyleena and as it turns out, Nina. Nina wouldn’t have told Gertrude and Nyleena has about as much use for Gertrude as she does for a two-headed cow. Lee also said that my grandfather had been the murder weapon, not the murderer when it came to my grandmother’s death. And that The Butcher had tried to kill me before. Yet, I can’t remember an old man breaking into any place I lived to try to kill me.”
“This is a tangent,” John said.
“No, I don’t think it is,” I told him. “I think it’s all related, literally. What if August and I have more DNA in common than cousins should have? What if Gertrude is pulling The Butcher’s strings because August is his son?”
“There goes another fork in the family tree,” Xavier giggled.
“Thanks,” I shook my head. “My grandmother was killed in the sixties. After August was born. Gertrude does something to wind him up and he goes home and slaughters my grandmother.”
“Why not kill Gertrude?” Xavier asked.
“I don’t know, because they’re siblings or because Gertrude has more on him than just August.”
“That might make sense,” Gabriel cocked his head to the side. “You don’t remember being attacked by The Butcher because you weren’t. Grandpa sees that you are like him and he relates to you like a kindred spirit, but he has to keep Gertrude quiet, so he lies to her. He tells her he’s tried, but you were too much for him, age is making him slow and weak. He sends the creepy mail because it’s his way of keeping in touch with his granddaughter, but to Gertrude, it would appear like he was trying to psych you out.”
“But that doesn’t help us find Gertrude or August,” I sighed. “Or The Butcher for that matter.”
“It does make a stronger case for serial killing genes to be hereditary though,” Xavier offered.
“That’s true. If my grandfather really is August’s father, that’s a child and a grandchild that has followed in his footsteps. Granted, Eric is more mass murderer than serial killer, but for the sake of argument, I won’t split hairs over it.”
“Does this help?” John asked.
“Sometimes you just have to follow her logic along,” Xavier said. “There is the very real chance that it will lead somewhere.”
“If we could somehow let The Butcher know that Gertrude and August were wanted for murder, he might help,” I said to Gabriel.
“You want me to start posting their pictures on the news to lure The Butcher into helping us?” Gabriel looked skeptical.
“It might kill two birds with one stone. If my grandfather wants revenge, he’d do what he could to make it possible for us to capture her and her deranged son. While we’re working the case of the jaguar and feet,” I slapped myself in the forehead.
“That looked like it hurt, a lot.” Xavier winced.
“August is missing a foot. Well, not really missing it, we know where it is. He keeps it in a jar. He lost it as a child to a hog. From what I hear, the beast bit right through the bone and started munching on it.” I sat down and hung my head. “But there’s more to the story than that. He was with my grandfather at the time, he might have been three years old, maybe younger. Lee happened to be nearby. He heard August scream and rushed over. When he arrived, he had a pitch fork. Lee was stabbing the hog when legend says my grandfather grabbed hold of the thing’s tusks and broke its neck. The hog let go of August and the foot fell out of his mouth. For some reason, Gertrude kept it. Then August kept it.”
“That is a very disturbing story,” Xavier said. “I’m not Lucas, but I can pick out four aspects immediately that render it a horror story.”
“At least four,” Gabriel looked at me. “What’s your thoughts on it? True or legend?”
“True,” I told him. “I think my grandfather tried to feed August to a hog, I think he got caught and in a psychopathic rage broke the neck of a full grown hog, which says all sorts of things about him. I think August remembers it. And I think it probably was the straw that broke the camel’s back and August became a serial killer because of bad genes and childhood trauma. Also, I think I’m an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. I just never believed the story, not really.”
“Why do you believe it now then?” John asked.
“Because it explains everything,” I answered. “My grandmother was murdered a week later. What better way to wind up a serial killer than threaten to tell his wife about his inbred, illegitimate child that he tried to kill? He might not have been able to kill Gertrude at that moment, for whatever reason, so he goes home, grandmother does something to piss him off, he’s already in full psychopath mode and the house gets redecorated in her body parts.”
“And now you think you can lure him out of hiding by offering up your aunt and August as bait?” Gabriel asked.
“While we are concentrating on Gertrude and August, because the woman has to know her son is killing all these people, Malachi and the VCU can concentrate on The Butcher,” I told Gabriel. “Would you be okay with the FBI taking down The Butcher?”
“If the story is true and my grandfather broke the neck of a hog with his bare hands,” I didn’t finish my sentence.
I was just fine with that. I might have some of the psychopathic abilities, but I wasn’t Malachi Blake. Malachi could do things that I couldn’t. Even as an old man, I had a feeling that The Butcher was probably a force to be reckoned with and Malachi would have a better chance than me. Plus, if he killed Malachi, I’d have to put a bullet in his skull, maybe even six or seven. I was sure he was aware of that fact.