Chapter Thirteen

Sauer steamrollered into the office with a large take-out coffee in one hand and a toasted sandwich in the other. It was just before seven in the morning. Hobbs was already there, his elbows in front of him, his head resting in both his hands—a case file opened in front of him. Outsiders would think Hobbs was hard at work, but Sauer knew better. Hobbs was sleeping. He loudly threw a pile of case files in front of the sleeping captain. Hobbs’s body shook with fright when the pile hit the table, but other than that, he did not move.

“I will kill your mother and feed her liver to my dog!” Hobbs howled without lifting his head. Sauer laughed. “You leave my mother out of this. Besides, she eats little lads like you for breakfast.” But Sauer knew better. Hobbs worked through the night again, not wanting to go home because that meant being alone. Sauer knew Hobbs hated being alone. He also knew that was the main reason why Hobbs drank too much, loneliness and ghosts from the past. Yet, Hobbs just could not bring himself to enter into a relationship. When really drunk, Hobbs would sometimes argue the pros and cons for being in a relationship and being alone to whoever cared to listen.

Sauer stirred a couple of tablespoons of sugar in a large beer mug filled with water. He then placed the mug underneath Hobbs’s chin. “Drink, it does wonders for a hangover.” The captain slowly lowered one hand and started downing the water. He slurped the last sugary dregs out of the mug and then burped loudly.

“Your mother gets to live another day,” he grinning at Sauer.

“Listen, leave my beloved mother out of this. The superintendent wants to see us. Pronto.”

“What the fuck for? Aren’t we his hardest working members?” Hobbs wondered out loud.

“He wants to know about the Face Lifter. The press was all over him last night and he couldn’t get hold of us. Shame, poor him, probably scared of the big flashing cameras,” Sauer said sarcastically.

Hobbs pulled his lithe body from the chair, stretched tall nearly touching the ceiling, then straightened his tie. He dragged his jacket on as he walked out of the office. Sauer thought he looked shameful and drunk.

“Been home yet?” Sauer asked trotting next to Hobbs.

“Do I look that bad?”

Sauer nodded and gave him a handful of peppermints. Hobbs threw the whole lot into his mouth.

Just as they walked out of the office, the phone rang. Hobbs and Sauer looked at each other. Neither one wanted to answer it. Hobbs stared at Sauer and said, “Go pick up the phone before I shove it up your ass.”

“Sauer,” he answered the phone.

“Morning Inspector,” a cheerful voice blabbered on the other side. “It’s Joey Mayer here. When can you come and see me? I have some fascinating things to share with you. Bring that handsome captain of yours with you.”

“Morning Doctor Mayer,” Sauer replied equally cheerful. “We’ll be there as soon as the superintendent is finished with us.” He then gave Hobbs a quick look and added, “Captain Hobbs is his normal, handsome and cheerful self and I am sure he can’t wait to see you again.”

Hobbs’s head snapped up at the last sentence and he glared at Sauer. “You are again taking your mother’s life in your own weak little hands.”

Both men laughed as they walked down the corridor to the superintendent’s office. Old Faithful, also known as Mrs. Smith, the superintendent’s secretary was not at her desk. The two walked through her office to the superintendent’s door.

Sauer knocked on the open door as he entered. Superintendent Mike Hansen was an old man close to retirement, brainy and sharp with watery grey eyes that never missed a thing.

“Morning boys, what news have you got for me this morning,” he greeted them. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “I think we are looking in the wrong places. I am sure the scumbag is right here under our noses. I also think that the two of you will not sleep, eat or shit until this killer is either dead or behind bars.” Both detectives were still standing. They knew this would not take long.

“Thank you for you kind words sir,” Sauer lied. “We were actually on our way to Doctor Mayer. She phoned and requested our presence at the lab as soon as possible. But to be honest, we don’t have much leads. And we have other cases to solve as well.”

The old man stood up behind his desk and looked the detectives in the eye. “From now on, the two of you work only the Face Lifter case. I want to know everything about this guy—what he eats, where he sleeps, where he grew up…everything. You understand me!” Hansen spewed the words at them. “And I will be updated every hour on the hour! You understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” they said together and walked out of the office.

They walked out of their building into the already beating sun. It was going to be one blistering hot summer’s day on the Highveld. Sauer puffed like a steam engine the two blocks up the hill to the government mortuary. Outside the mortuary, they stopped. Sauer took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. “What are you looking at handsome,” he growled at Hobbs. Together they entered the morgue. The stale smell of decay, death and chloroform greeted them. As always, Sauer was glad he had not yet had his solid breakfast or coffee. It would probably be cold by the time they got back to the office. He would hate to make a mess on the mortuary floor because he was beginning to like Doctor Mayer.

“Good morning you handsome lot you,” beamed Doctor Mayer as the two detectives walked into her office. She had a cream bun in one hand, coffee in the other and eyes only for Hobbs. She gave him the sincerest motherly look over. Hobbs blushed faintly and started pressing his thick hair into place. He knew he looked like death warmed up. From the corner of his eye he could see Sauer smirking at him.

“Sit,” she said waving the cream bun in the direction of a chair opposite her desk. The two men look at each other, then at the single chair. A silent, unanimous decision was made that Hobbs should sit down because of his fragile state. Sauer leaned his huge body again the wall, arms folded over his chest.

“Firstly,” she said taking big bites from the cream bun, chewing slowly while paging through a pile of papers on her desk, “your latest victim had lots of pig feces all over her. I will get to the sheet and pillows. I am sure that there would be a host of answers there.

“Pig shit?” Sauer asked loudly. “What the fuck are we dealing with?”

“Secondly,” Doctor Mayer continued, ignoring Sauer’s questions, “she was also sodomized, which means…” she said, looking up from the papers in front of her, “that she was buggered. Raped in the backside, that is. In case you did not know that.”

“I once had to work with a policeman who did not know these things. That is why I am explaining it to you like this. So that there would be no question as to what happened to the poor girl. In short, she was entered into both orifices. She was torn, but not badly, which indicates to me that she must have previously had intercourse this way.” Mayer took a deep breath. “But no semen was found, only a powdery substance that indicates to me that you killer wore a condom.”

“But she was found lying on her back,” Sauer blurted before thinking.

“So?” she asked. “There’s more to life than the usual missionary style. Sickos find all kinds of ways to live out their wacko fantasies.” She smiled sweetly at Hobbs.

“Thirdly, I have found out what you blunt instrument was.” She was silent for a moment, making sure that she had their full attention.

Sauer took a step towards her table. Hobbs sat upright. Finally, a clue.

“Your blunt instrument, gentlemen, was the killer’s teeth. He chewed her face off with his own teeth.”

“He what?” they asked in unison.

“That’s right,” she repeated, “he chewed her face off. Using his teeth. He chewed her tongue off. He somehow managed to chew her left eye off its sinew, and he chewed her nose off and the flesh on her cheeks. The right eye was damaged by stabbing. I suspect a sharp instrument like a knife was pushed into it slowly. The reason I suspect this is because the tearing is greater than what it would have been if the knife was stabbed in fast and forceful. The sinew cords would have been cut clean off. Not torn and stretched.”

She was silent for a moment before Sauer managed to gasp, “How? Is that even possible?”

“Of course. The muscles in one’s jaws are extremely powerful. It can be exercised just like any other muscle you know. It would probably take a few years of practice though,” she said finishing off the last bit of her cream bun and licking her fingers. She found a cloth and wiped her hands on it.

“In what order did he do it?” Hobbs asked.

“I can’t really tell you. All I can tell you is that he stabbed the knife into her right eye after she was dead. The other injuries are all very bloody. Which indicate to me she was alive when he did these evil deeds to her.” She looked up into the pale faces of the two detectives. “Must say, I have seen pretty much most things in my line of work. But this…this must be one of the most malicious killings I have come across.” She dropped her head and shook it.

She got up and walked around her desk. “Come with me,” she said to Hobbs as she started walking into the cold room adjoining her office. Sauer was so taken with this news that he followed them into the cold room, oblivious of the naked corpses lying on the slabs. Two assistants were busy preparing the corpses for autopsy. Some corpses were mangled from accidents; some missed limbs. Some had smashed-in heads. Some corpses were bloated. Most were shriveled and bone thin…acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Sauer had seen this before. A corpse of an infant was still wrapped in a baby blanket. Sauer saw all this, but for now it did not matter. Information is what mattered now. I will vomit later when I am relaxed. I am in control of my stomach, he said over and over to himself.

Doctor Mayer led them to another huge walk-in fridge. The temperature was freezing. The thermostat read minus two. She opened the huge steel door. Steel shelves lined the walls. Each shelve was packed with a body. The bodies were all wrapped in white plastic. Only a foot protruded and an identification tag was tied to it. On some shelves were two extremely thin corpses.

The detectives walked behind Doctor Mayer as she checked the toe tags. Eventually she stopped. “Jonathan,” she called out the door, “open this one up and put it on the examination table for me please.” Jonathan was a tall, gaunt looking black man that worked as a lab assistant. He pushed a thin, stainless steel trolley into the cold room. He effortlessly lifted the body Doctor Mayer pointed out to him onto the trolley. Then he wheeled the body out without saying a word. Sauer was amazed by the man’s strength.

* * * *

The examination room was small. There was one stainless steel table in the middle of the room surrounded by several metal basins. Stainless steel cabinets lined the walls. A massive extractor fan above the table sucked out the vile odors. The floor was tiled in white.

Jonathan should have retired a decade ago. His face was pastry and his overcoat hung on him like a sack. He wheeled Zeller’s body into the room, lifted her onto the examination table and without a word, started unzipping the white plastic from her body. He folded the plastic away from Zeller’s remains. Without a word, he turned and left.

“Look,” Doctor Mayer said once Jonathan left, “from the way the flesh is torn, one can almost certainly conclude that it was ripped off with teeth. The killer must have bit into her face and then ripped the flesh off.” She looked at Hobbs and Sauer. Both stared at the corpse amazed.

“I’ve seen cases like this in my younger days. I worked for a relieve agency in darkest Africa where cannibalism was still practiced. They ate each other for several reasons. They were either angry with the person; in which case, they would cook him first and eat him as if to consume him completely. Or, they would want to consume part of the victim’s soul. Weird stuff…I know. But yes, what we have here is a man who eats his victims. A possible cannibal.”

“How can you know that? Her flesh was rotten…I saw the maggots crawling over her.” Sauer was confused.

“The killer left clear teeth marks on the cartilage bone of her nose. There are also two teeth mark scrapes on her left cheek bone.” Doctor Mayer took a deep breath and then continued, “We made some gypsum casts of the bite marks and will be able to give you more detail about the state of the killer’s teeth later today. We also sent what we could find under what remained of her fingernails away for genetic testing. It appears to me that she might have scratched her attacker. Also, the insects found on and in her body told us that she had been dead for between six and seven days. We look at the different development stages of the insects, be it still an egg, a larvae and so on, which gives us a pretty clear indication.”

“And the nail we found in her toilet that we left on your desk yesterday?” Sauer asked.

“With the towel?” Hobbs added.

“Everything was tagged and sent to the labs. I wrote a note to the genetic specialist about the towel. So we will just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I have asked for an investigation as to how one of my evidence pieces could end up in a household next to the mortuary.”

Hobbs looked at Sauer for a moment. Then, as if awakened from a dream, Sauer realized where he was and hurried out the cold room. Hobbs and Doctor Mayer could hear him vomit into the basin in Doctor Mayer’s office.

“So, he really can’t stand blood, gore and guts?” Doctor Mayer asked Hobbs.

“Yes.”

“Why? Surely he gets to see these kinds of things every day.”

“I’ll tell you the story one day.”

“In the meantime, young man,” she said as she placed her motherly hand on Hobbs’s shoulder, “I don’t want you to drink so much. How you going to catch this vile killer if you are drunk all the time. When last did you eat? I think you should come have dinner with me some time. That way I can make sure you eat properly.” She looked at him for a while before she added, “You remind me of the son I never had.”

“Excuse me?” Hobbs retorted now completely sober. Her hand was still on his shoulder and she seriously looked up at him.

“What I mean is that I would have liked to have a son like you. But between my work and travels, I never got around to laying down long enough to fall pregnant,” she said chuckling. “I don’t want you to mess up your life with your drinking, okay?”

Hobbs looked at her, not knowing what to think of what just happened. He then turned around and slowly walked out of the cold room. Just as he was about to open the door, he turned around and look at Doctor Mayer. She was still standing next to the rotted corpse, but smiling at him.

“Okay,” Hobbs said to her.

“Good,” she replied. “You can talk to me anytime.”

Hobbs found a very pale looking Sauer leaning and heaving over the basin.

“Lost your breakfast?” Hobbs smirked.

“No, I have not had any yet,” Sauer whispered.

“Good show. Can you imagine the mess you would have made if you did have your breakfast?” Hobbs said, walking out of the door and into the sunlight.

“Come,” he shouted back at Sauer, “we have work to do.” The walk back to the office was downhill.

Hobbs walked slowly next to Sauer who was still fighting off the nausea. “I told you not to eat that liver.” Hobbs liked to tease the big man. Sauer was feeling too fragile to talk so he gave his partner a fuck you look.

“You know what old sour puss,” Hobbs said, “I somehow think that old lady in the mortuary knows what she is talking about.”

“Why you say that,” asked Sauer, finally finding his voice. “What did the two of you do when I went for a barf?” he asked.

“The usual. We found a corpse-less slab and I bonked her brains out,” Hobbs smirked.

These comments actually made Sauer forget about the bile in his stomach as he grinned broadly: “You like banging old hags on the slabs, don’t you?”

“You know, for years we had to make do with Doctor Luther. And no one wanted to bang him. Not even me. And you know how often I get to go down on somebody.”

“I told you I would hire you a new whore for your birthday.”

“New whores? As in new on the block? They are on the block because they have normally done all the soccer players, rugby players and hockey players. Then they down grade themselves to chess players. And that is normally before they drop out of high school.”

“So chances are you did her at high school?”

“Possibly…but for now I’ll fantasize about the old lady in the morgue.” Both detectives laughed at this nonsense. Hobbs continued, “No serious, I think she is good at her job. She makes a bloody effort. This is refreshing in the South African Police Services of today. That decrepit Doctor Luther could never tell us anything other than ‘A blunt instrument was used and she was raped.’ As if that was not bad enough, we had to discover that old Luther sold body parts from the corpses to witch doctors, and the cherry on the cake was when they caught him selling forensic evidence to the accused.”

“The government pays so badly, old Luther had to do something to supplement his income,” Sauer said.