PART – 2 – NIGHTMARE
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I don’t know for how long I sat that way; long enough to feel silly I suppose. The house stood in its usual quietness. The Polish folks were stirring next door: I could hear the flush. I realized I had to pee real badly. “Don’t you whine, missy. Don’t you be a weakling!” I heard mother’s voice in my head. She’d usually smack me on the mouth the minute a pout formed.
“Think!” I commanded myself. Whoever was inside, obviously did not want to harm me. Otherwise I wouldn’t have woken up in one piece. The cleaver would be lodged in my skull, for example. Besides, it was clear that no one was inside this room. Either they’d let themselves out, or they were in the kitchen or in the bathroom.
As if in answer, the power came back. Thank god I’d left the lights on everywhere. I got out of bed, still clutching the cleaver behind my back. I plastered myself against the wall next to the bedroom door, counted to three under my breath and peeped out quickly into the corridor and withdrew. The corridor was clear.
I stepped into the corridor and put my ear against the bathroom door: there was no sound. I turned to the living room door. I usually keep this closed...hate the stale smell of soup and beans floating to my bedroom. Cursing myself, I dropped to my knees, pushed the door in one swing and lunged inside. And felt silly. The place was empty. I was angry now. I stomped across to the bathroom, the cleaver in mid-swing. Of course no one was inside.
I kept the cleaver on the bathtub and finished my morning ablutions. ‘Here’s what you’ll do, missy,’ I thought, ‘you’ll make yourself a strong coffee. You’ll take a nice, hot shower. Then you’ll head out to Sammy’s diner and have a big, badass breakfast. Then, you’ll go to Port Authority bus station and book a Greyhound for Kissimmee. You’ll come back, pack a suitcase and leave. Just leave. Write a note to the concierge to clear out your stuff. Leave tips for him. Leave your set of keys. Just leave, leave, leave.’
It was almost noon by the time I returned triumphantly to my hole-in-the-wall. I had a ticket for a 4:30pm Greyhound. 34 hours journey by road. 3 transfers. I couldn’t wait to get out of this dump. Just being outside; amidst people and under the open sky, it felt so good...so wonderfully ordinary. I actually wondered if I was responsible for the coffee cups somehow. I mean I’d been slugging a lot of brandy lately. Momma and Cristo were big time coffee addicts. Maybe I was missing them so much that I was mimicking them under the influence.
I opened the door to my flat, just in time to see the bedroom door close softly. ‘Who is it?’ I yelled, anger and fright sucking the blood right to my brain. I locked the front door and ran towards the lift. Once in the lobby, I dialed 911 and reported an intruder.
The cops came within two minutes. ‘I’d gone out to run some errands,’ I told the two officers. ‘I returned a couple of minutes ago. I was just about to get inside my flat when I saw someone closing the bedroom door. I mean, I did not see the person...I just saw the door closing. Like...the bedroom door is right opposite to the front door.’
Officer Nguyen nodded. ‘Floor and flat number?’
‘815, 8th floor. Take the left corridor when you get off the lift. Last flat on your left,’ I said as I handed the keys.
‘Stay here, do not come upstairs. Once we’ve cleared the place, Officer Gutierrez will come down and escort you, okay?’
I nodded. Officer Gutierrez had already drawn her weapon and was heading towards the stairs. Officer Nguyen took the lift.
Officer Gutierrez returned to the lobby after fifteen minutes. ‘Your flat is clear, Miss. Could you please come upstairs?’
Officer Gutierrez made small talk in the lift. The weather. This building. Low crime during the storm. All the while she was studying me. I could feel it in my bones. Her eyes were like smudges of midnight. I felt any moment she’d lunge at my exposed throat and start sucking out my blood. I disliked Gutierrez. Lithe, firm, porcelain skin. The kind of woman that drove Cristo crazy.
Inside my flat, Officer Nguyen was casually studying my collection of tinned food. Yeah, it looked odd – all my kitchen shelves had tinned food. I had just one cabinet with two or three pots and pans. And cups and spoons. My fridge was filled with alcohol.
‘Sit down, please,’ Officer Nguyen pointed at the sofa. He sat opposite to me on the coffee table. Gutierrez remained standing, arms folded across her chest.
‘Are you all right, Ma’am?’ Officer Nguyen asked in the most professional ‘To Serve and To Protect’ tone.
‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘Sh...shaken up though. I...I think someone has been coming to my flat when I’m not around, officer.’
Officer Nguyen took down my basic details. He was one of those men who breathed audibly.
‘Ma’am we found a meat cleaver in your bathroom. Can you please explain that?’ Gutierrez asked.
I did not look at her when I answered. I explained the situation with coffee cups. ‘I would never, ever leave unwashed cups lying about like that. I mean look around this flat – you can see it’s immaculate.’
Officer Nguyen and Gutierrez exchanged glances. Something was said, unsaid.
‘Could you please follow me to your bedroom?’ Officer Nguyen stood up. He nodded at Gutierrez.
‘Why? What’s happening?’ I flinched at the way I whined.
Officer Nguyen did not reply. I followed him to my bedroom and staggered back. There were more than fifty paper cups lying about on the floor – the smell of stale coffee congealed in the room. The carpet was stained with coffee spills.
Behind me, I heard Gutierrez call for back-up and an ambulance.
‘I don’t know what’s happening, officer!’ I started shaking uncontrollably.
Officer Nguyen picked up a comforter from my bed and wrapped it around me. ‘Sit down, Miss.’
I sat at the edge of the bed. ‘I...I don’t drink coffee, Officer.’
‘Do you have any family living nearby?’
‘Of course she has.’
My head snapped up and I turned around. ‘Momma?’ I yelped. Momma was standing near the window, lips pursed and arms crossed, her right foot impatiently tapping the floor. The stance she always took before smacking my mouth.
‘Gutierrez! Need you here!’
I barely heard Officer Nguyen. ‘My own daughter, living in such filth!’ Momma was so angry.
‘No Momma!’ I sobbed. ‘It was intruders.’
Gutierrez rushed in. She put an arm around my shoulders.
‘Lay off my daughter,’ Momma’s voice was like a whiplash. Gutierrez stepped back immediately.
‘Come back to Wichita, girl. I’ll fix you up real good. Look at what you’ve done to your life. Living like a tramp.’
I trembled.
‘She’s coming with me..dum dee dee dah...to Kissimmee!’ My heart soared as I heard the voice. Cristo! Cristo stood at the door. ‘Hey honeybunch,’ he said as he swaggered in.
We heard some more footsteps and a couple of officers trooped in.
‘Now, now officers,’ Cristo drawled, ‘let’s not get excited. This is just a case of a scared little ‘un. Scaredly, scaredy cat.’
‘We’re not going to hurt you,’ Gutierrez said softly, kneeling down in front of me. ‘We just want you to be safe. We want our doctors to make sure you are okay.’
‘Don’t believe that bitch,’ Momma spat. ‘They’re gonna strap you to a stretcher and put you in a mental asylum.’
‘Run sugar, run!’ Cristo whispered. ‘Fire exit.’
In a flash I threw the comforter wrapped around me on Nguyen, kneed Gutierrez in her face, bounded on the bed and dived for the window. One of the backup officers caught my leg, but I slammed his nose real hard with my elbow. I was out on the ledge. I did not think twice. I jumped. That’s all I remember.
EPILOGUE
Officers Nguyen and Gutierrez sat quietly as Sergeant Reyes listened to Marge Sullivan’s recorded statement and made some notes on an A4 writing pad. Gutierrez had a broken tooth and an ugly swelling below her right eye. Lucky she did not end up with a broken nose.
Marge had escaped death: she’d fallen straight into a dumpster filled with torn sofa cushions and mattresses. An inch on the outside, she’d have hit the fire hydrant and the tarmac. She was rushed to the Bellevue and put under suicide watch after treatment for trauma. The doctors said she had the devil’s luck – she’d gotten away with just a couple of fractured ribs. It had taken her all of twenty minutes to give her detailed statement to the police.
‘There’s going to a review of this case obviously,’ Sergeant Reyes said, putting his pen down and cracking his knuckles. ‘I saw the footage of your body cameras. Christ...she spoke in three different voices. Hell, even that psychiatrist...what’s his name...Richardson? Anderson? Whatever...even he paled when he saw the footage. No wonder you both look like shit. Sorry about that bruise Gutierrez. You want time off?’
‘No way.’
‘Can’t remember any case that deteriorated as quickly as this one,’ Officer Nguyen said.
‘What’s with this meat cleaver, Gutierrez? Sergeant Reyes pointed to Marge Sullivan’s meat cleaver lying on his table, packed in an evidence bag.
‘I’d like to send it for forensic tests, Sarge.’
Sarge Reyes started at the cleaver for a moment. ‘What’s going on in your mind?’
‘I got a bad feeling about this one. We did not just walk in on a psychotic episode...I think there’s something more to it. I mean...when we walked into her flat...the filth just hit us. Piles of unwashed dishes...I don’t think she ever got around to washing up. There was mould and fungus on some of the plates. Don’t think she cooked anything either. I mean there was tinned food everywhere. Tonnes of it. She had even stocked the bathroom shelves with tins. Her fridge was filled with alcohol. She was tottering on the edge of becoming completely dysfunctional. I mean – not a pint of milk, no eggs, bread – not a single everyday-stuff in that fridge. Her kitchen draws were filled with disposable stuff – plastic spoons and forks. So the meat cleaver seemed so very out of place. It looked new too. Nguyen checked her trash bin in the kitchen – found a two-week old Wal-Mart receipt. She had bought some Cognac, more tinned soup and the cleaver. It’s just a hunch, Sarge. I have a really bad feeling about this.’
Sergeant Reyes sat back in his chair, eyes closed.
‘We wanted to contact any of her family members or friends,’ Officer Nguyen said. ‘Her mobile phone has only two contact numbers – Mommy and Cristo. Both mobiles are unreachable. We also found Hertz rental bills in her purse. Looks like she’d taken a trip to Wichita and then to Kissimmee ten days ago.’
‘Get in touch with the local PDs in Wichita and Kissimmee,’ Sergeant Reeves said. ‘Let’s get an address for the numbers. And Gutierrez, get the work done on the cleaver.’
It was nearly 3am when Sergeant Reyes got a call from Officer Gutierrez. Preliminary luminol tests showed considerable blood traces on the cleaver. ‘Meet me in the office,’ Sergeant Reyes said as he got out of bed. ‘Call Nguyen too.’
Almost immediately, the hospital called the Sergeant. Marge Sullivan was missing. It was almost an hour before Sullivan’s flat was officially declared a crime scene. An APB was put up for Sullivan, her mother and Cristo.
A roll of 12,500 dollars was found bundled in one of Sullivan’s stockings. There were blood smears on some of the notes. ‘Robby,’ the Sergeant called out to one of the forensic guys, ‘can you do a luminol check in the bathroom? Just a hunch. She’d want to wash her hands in the sink...in case there was a homicide here.’
After a couple of minutes, Robby yelled from the bathroom. ‘Sarge! You gotta see this. It’s a fucking aurora borealis in the bathtub.’
Sergeant Reyes and his officers carefully stepped inside the dark bathroom. Indeed the luminol-treated bathtub glowed intensely under UV light.
‘There’s been some real butchery here,’ Robby said, a slight tremor in his voice. ‘That’s a lot of blood, Sarge. As you can see, there are traces of blood leading out of the bathroom.’
‘Treat the corridor. Follow the trail.’
There was considerable blood splatter in the middle of the corridor. There were minute droplets leading to the bedroom.
Gutierrez kept her pen on the floor to mark the area of the blood splatter. ‘Turn on the lights’.
She blinked a couple of times when the lights came on and looked up at the ceiling directly above the pen. There was a loft hatch.
‘We found a step ladder behind the cupboard in the living room,’ Robby called from the bedroom. ‘It’s got blood trace.’
‘Christ!’ Sergeant Reyes suddenly felt sick.
The loft hatch was opened with a crowbar, and Robby climbed into the loft. The heads of Mrs Sullivan and Cristo were found floating in two aquariums filled with formaldehyde. The rest of their bodies were missing.
Even after months of investigation, the file on Marge Sullivan remained slim. The bodies of Mrs Sullivan and Cristo remained untraceable.
Marge herself was never found.
© Sumana Khan - 2015