Part One
"Now - while the leaves still dance on the wind
While the moon and the clouds come spinning
Will you whisper my name again?
Again and again and again…"
-Garbage "Desperate"
The Starry Night Hotel and Lounge: July 1979
"Goddamn, Paris. What do you think of it?" Detective Ken Williams examined the battered, blood-spattered, spray painted outline where Paige Sullivan had once been with avid interest and the fervid gleam of horrid fascination in his beady, gray eyes. "Why do you think she did it?
"I'm not Paige Sullivan, so I can't tell you why she did it." Detective William Paris, a seasoned cop on the Hollenbrooke police force, studied the grassy spot just above the sidewalk where outline was and then looked up to the balcony from which she had fallen. "I couldn't tell you at all."
"Well, she'd have to be downright crazy to do something like that." Williams stroked his thin, brown mustache with a thoughtful look on his face. "You'd have to be beyond insane to murder a guy and then jump off a balcony. Way beyond insane."
"Not just murder, Williams." Detective Paris lit a cigarette and took a deep, consuming drag. "She mutilated him." His voice dropped to a hushed, harsh whisper. "Chained him to the master bed and ripped into him with a silver hunting knife. She stabbed him a hundred and eleven times in various parts of the body." Paris threw his cigarette down on the ground in disgust. "The only crime Jonathan Freeman committed was having the bad taste to pick up Paige as his 'partner' for the night."
"Jonathan Freeman was the guy's name?" Williams took out his field notebook and began to write in brief shorthand. "And Paige Sullivan was the girl's?" Rocking back slightly on heels, Williams stopped writing to study what he had put down on his field notebook.
The evidence was damning, he thought with a frown. Paige's fingerprints had been all over that knife and a tiny fiber of her slinky, barely there, blue cocktail dress had been found underneath Jonathan's fingernails. Plus, what said 'guilty' more than committing suicide moments after the death of the person you were sharing a room with?
"You really think Paige killed Jonathan?" Williams searched the face of his partner, needing to find some comfort and absolution in the familiar face. "I mean how does a twenty year old hooker, who is barely five feet and weighs eighty-five pounds, fight and chain a twenty-eight year old man, who is six foot three and over two hundred pounds, to the bed? It just doesn't add up."
"Maybe she didn't fight with him. Maybe he let her tie him up. Some people like that kind of thing, you know? Maybe Paige convinced him it was all part of the 'entertainment' for that evening."
"Yeah, but it requires some amount of strength to rip and slash through skin more than a hundred times. Paige was twenty and human to boot. She wouldn't have that kind of strength."
"Maybe she wasn't what she seemed."
"Who discovered Jonathan's body?" Williams had a point to make, and damned if he was going to let the practical Paris ruin his line of thinking.
"A maid coming to work saw Paige's body, and called the cops. After they'd discovered what room she fell from, they went in to investigate."
"And that doesn't strike you as odd?" Williams shook his head and balled his fists tightly at his side. "Jonathan's being attacked with a hunting knife, in fact, he's stabbed several times over. He had to have screamed, cried for help, or something. You can't tell me the people next door didn't hear what was going on."
"They might've heard, and just not reported it. This isn't exactly the greatest section of town, just in case you hadn't noticed." Paris shrugged with a certain jaded dispassion on his face. "People don't usually call the police down here. It's all part of a 'code-of-honor' system thing they've got going. They don't rat each other out."
"Still, there's something not right. I can just feel it."
"Maybe so, but if Paige didn't kill him, who did? And why did she commit suicide?"
"I don't know." Williams's eyes went cool and blank with fierce determination. "But I'm going to find out." Signaling for his partner to follow, Williams walked over to their squad car and slipped into the driver seat.
"Where are we going?"
"The morgue," Williams answered curtly as he started up the engine of the car. "We're going to have a close-up and personal encounter with Paige."
They rode the rest of the fifteen minutes to the morgue in silence, each man immersed in their own thoughts. When they arrived, Williams let Paris do the sweet-talking and badge flashing until the Chief Medical Examiner finally forgave the lateness of the hour and let the two weary detectives see the body.
An assistant swathed in blue scrubs led them to the autopsy room where Paige had recently taken up residence. He carefully uncovered the white sheet draped over the body, giving both Williams and Paris a distinct and uncensored view of how people looked after they had fallen fifteen stories to the ground.
It wasn't a pretty sight. The face of Paige Sullivan was almost entirely purple and black, save the spots where the flesh had turned gray from hours of being dead. Her delicate fingers were curled stiffly into claws from rigor mortis, and her mouth was ajar, forming words that would never be spoken. Her eyes, glassy and flat, were still open.
Williams had seen dead people before, some twice as bad off as Paige was now, but the still, small form lying at an impossible angle on the stone-cold slab, disturbed him more than he cared to admit.
"She looks like hell."
"Well, she's been dead three hours. How do you think you'd look if been dead three hours, Paris?"
"I'm just commenting on what I see." Paris gave Paige a light shove with his hand, taking in every detail of the woman he fully considered to be a cold-blooded killer.
"Don't do that. Haven't you any respect for the dead?
"When the dead person in question is psychopathic murderer, then no, I don't."
"Still, dead is dead. And Paige Sullivan is definitely dead."
"Whatever." Paris shook his head, dismissing his partner completely, and bent down to examine her more closely. "Why didn't they close her eyes? They always close the eyes."
"Maybe they forgot this time."
"But why? That's completely out of accepted procedure."
"Like I know? If you're so hot to have her eyes closed, why don't you do it yourself?"
Paris rolled his own eyes expansively, and turned back to the body. There was evidence to be found here, some deep, primal instinct in Paris's bones were screaming it. And Paris never ignored instinct.
"Hey, look at this." It wasn't long before Paris found something, something that chilled him to the very core. "Look at the ring on her finger."
"Yeah, so?" Williams leaned over to inspect the ring, which looked to him like a harmless black flower of indeterminate origin.
"Yeah, so? Jesus, Williams, it's a black dahlia."
"A black dahlia?" Williams snapped straight up, a sense of foreboding seeping into him. "Are you sure? Sullivan's a human name."
"Take a look for yourself." Paris unscrewed the ring from a finger with some difficulty and handed it over to his partner. "But believe me, I'd know a black dahlia anywhere." He held up his own hand to show a ring identical to Paige's.
"Yeah, I guess you would." Williams twisted the ring around in his hands, comparing it with the black iris engraved on the face of his watch. "But Paige was human, wasn't she?"
"I assumed so." Paris narrowed his eyes and stared broodingly off into space. "This puts a whole new spin on the situation, doesn't it?"
"We should look into what Jonathan was, shouldn't we?" Williams adjusted his navy tie absently. "I mean, if he was a human…" He trailed off, and looked around slightly to reassure himself that they were alone in the room.
Paris nodded ascent, finishing his partner's thoughts for him. "We need to do some research. I'll drive back to the precinct."
Williams tossed the ring into his pocket and followed Paris. But as he walked away, he thought could feel the muddied, flat eyes of Paige watching him.
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