Help Me

Rain poured from the heavens as Frank McCall’s S.U.V. rolled onto his driveway. The downpour was so heavy it was biblical. Frank sat, listening to the rhythmic sound of his wipers, barely able to see his front door. Unlike most of his neighbors, Frank didn’t have anyone to hurry inside to at the end of a long day.

The putrid odor in the air was barely noticeable after weeks of heavy rains and flooding. Flood waters covered the streets, and overflow from the storms continued rising. Frank looked down the road to see water forced out of the drainage system by the ongoing disaster. Most of the streets were underwater, and the forecast was for a longer stretch of bad weather.

As Frank prepared to brave the weather to get inside, his cell phone rang. Looking down at the number, Frank knew he had to answer. He pressed the screen, thinking, what fresh hell would this be?

Frank answered the call and started taking notes. Later, his engine roared to life, and Frank backed onto the street. Frank flipped the switch on his dash, activating the red and blue flashers. He wasn’t happy about it, but being on call went with the job.

Driving into Riverside, Frank steered north. With the flooding on the streets, there weren’t a lot of cars moving. His Expedition moved through the high waters with ease compared to smaller vehicles. As high up as it sat, Frank didn’t have to worry about water shutting down his engine.

Frank parked alongside the perimeter tape. Sitting there, watching the flurry of activity in front of a brown with white trimmed ranch home, he didn’t envy the patrol officers at the beginning of a long and wet shift. Judging by the look on some of their faces, the scene was miserable enough.

Frank stepped out, putting his foot in calf-hi water flowing down the street. He dropped his cigarette into the waters flowing past his feet, the butt floating away like a raft on a rapid river. He tucked his jacket closed, pulled the bill of his black cap down, and sludge through the waters in his knee-high boots.

The coroner’s office was coming out of the house when Frank approached. One of them sarcastically commented it’s all yours. Frank watched them go to their van. Lisa Vandyke, Joey Steele, and Mark Bledsoe climbed inside to dry off. They were more unsettled than he remembered seeing them.

“What do we have?” Frank asked, stopping at the front door and talking to the scene commander.

Sgt. Patton wasn’t new to any of this. He’d been around for twenty-two years and seen it all. When Will Patton didn’t have a picture of things, Frank knew it wouldn’t be an easy run down.

“I’ve never seen anything like this one,” Will Patton admitted. “It makes me glad I’m back in uniform and don’t have to wrap my head around it.”

“Gee, thanks,” sighed Frank, pushing past the uniformed staff and into the house.

The house was dark. Different officers were working by the light of flashlights throughout the residence. Frank worked his way through the main area and to the back. The victim was in a bedroom.

Oh, Jesus, Frank thought as he looked in. Now he understood. Will couldn’t fathom what they were looking at. Frank didn’t have the years, but this was the worst crime scene he’d heard of.

One of the crime scene techs, a young woman from India, worked her way through the bedroom. She was covered from head to toe in a bio-suit. Frank waited until she was looking his way to motion for her to come closer.

“Jesus, Anna, what the hell happened in here?”

Anna Acharya worked for the state. She was a smart one. Anna had an intuition about rooms that she used as she gathered forensics. She could read the scenes she worked on, seeing more than most of the investigators.

“Whatever did this needs put down,” she admitted.

Frank looked at the victim, a sixty-five-year-old schoolteacher. She was lying in bed when the first blow struck her in the side of the face. The gaping incision from an edged weapon wouldn’t be the fatal blow. It would have scared the woman, bringing her out of a dead sleep. She raised her hands defensively. The marks on her hands and forearms were a telling sign that her assailant kept swinging the blade at her.

He had fun? The thought made Frank cringe. The attacker might have enjoyed himself. Based on the savagery of the scene, Frank agreed. Whoever it was, they needed to be put down.

“Alright, I’ve seen enough. If you find anything in here that will help please call my cell.”

Frank left the tech at the scene and walked down the hallway with his stomach in knots. Much of what he saw defied words. The attacker opened up the owner of the house in a way that was reckless and mortifying. Her insides had been ripped from her torso and splattered against the walls. It was as if they wanted to know what it would be like.

Frank walked past the patrol units and straight to the scene commander. Will Patton stood there, in the rain, grimacing at what Frank just saw.

“Well,” said Will. “Got any thoughts on this one?”

“Whatever did this is going to do it again,” answered Frank. “If this is the first one, the suspect just popped their cherry and I think they liked it. Make sure your guys canvas the area. Knock on doors and wake people up if they have to. If you get anything, call me directly.”

“Copy that,” sighed Will.

Frank walked back to his car, his boots sloshing in the flood waters covering the street. After he climbed in Frank sat there in silence. The scene was such a mess there wasn’t much to go on. All Frank knew was that the animalistic way she was attacked was like something from a horror movie.

A young boy sat inside his room. His eyes focused on Frank as Frank lit a cigarette. The boy smiled as Frank finally pulled away from the crime scene one house away from his.

His name was Michael. His parents called him Mikey, and Mikey should have been asleep hours ago. Mikey liked to play in his room after his parents went to bed. Playing by the window made him feel like he was outside and his action figures were having a grand adventure.

Mikey enjoyed watching the police next door. The lights from the squad cars in the distance made him smile. He liked watching the police, even on television. Something about them attracted Mikey’s interest.

As he played with his two action figures, quietly making sounds in his head, Mikey used the army man to kill the Indian doll. He thrust the Indian off the window ledge, like the two men were fighting on a mountain and the soldier threw his foe over the edge.

“Goodbye Detective,” Mikey whispered to himself as Frank’s taillights disappeared.

Frank made it home, parked his vehicle, and wandered into his apartment building. The third story of the old brownstone was all Frank’s. It gave him plenty of room, privacy, and a birdseye view of the water. As the third-floor tenant and owner of the building, Frank also had control of the roof, a place he wasn’t getting to spend much time visiting.

He moved a wood panel aside to put his hand on a screen. A red light moved downward, slowly reading his palm print. A beep came from the device and Frank’s door unlocked. Being a bit of a techy, Frank liked the bells and whistles of a state-of-the-art security system.

When he got inside he tossed his coat onto a hook. Frank slid his boots off and flung them beneath his coat. He wandered over to the computer station next to the bay windows. Sitting in his chair, Frank punched some notes in from the case he just caught. There were some details he didn’t want to forget.

When finished, Frank poured a glass of whiskey and sat there, looking out at the city. Tomorrow was another day. If he somehow managed to get any sleep after what he’d seen, he could hit the ground running. Frank slammed his drink before going off to bed.

Five hours later the sound of alarms going off in the distance mixed with a knock at the door. Frank rolled over, letting out a groan as he looked at his clock. Who the hell, he wondered.

After grabbing his gun, Frank walked to the front door of his apartment. He pressed a button next to a screen and could see a man in a black jacket standing outside his door.

“Who is it?”

“My name is Father Andrew Davis. I’m looking for Frank McCall,” the man answered.

Frank opened the door to the apartment. The gray-haired man with a slender build was wearing a priest's collar. He tucked his pistol behind his back and invited the priest inside.

“What can I do for you, Father?”

“Will Patton told me how to find you. I have some information about the murder last night,” explained Father Davis.

“You could have made an appointment, or stopped by the office,” Frank told him.

Father Davis explained that the information he had was out of the ordinary. The priest had been following cases and stumbled across something. He thought he’d found a suspect.

“Why didn’t you give this to Will?”

“Well, I think I can lead you to a suspect. But you’ll have to figure out who it is.”

“What got you into this?”

About a month ago, explained Father Davis, a new family came to Sunday Mass. There was something about them. As Father Davis got to know them after services, there was a darkness about them. The family had a dark energy they brought into the room.

“So it was a hunch that got you looking at this family?”

It wasn’t just a hunch. After the family left and the church emptied, Father Davis went back to his office and had a cigarette. He inhaled a couple of puffs and put the cigarette down. As he sat, preparing the evening sermon, he felt a chill run down his spine. Looking around the room, the smoke rolling off the tip of his cigarette, formed a message.

“What did it say?”

“Help Me,” answered the priest.

Father Davis was right. That wasn’t the kind of information taken lightly at the police station. It would have gotten the priest laughed out of the building.

“I see why Will wanted you to talk to me,” admitted Frank. “Will’s got quite a sense of humor.”

“I assure you, this is no laughing matter,” promised the priest.

To be continued…