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Ch. 7

Games

Sleep had finally handed over its merits, and Danny felt rested enough to pull an all-nighter if it ever came down to it. He was not, however, in a sunny state of mind as he left the locker room with his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders sagging. The events of last night kept coming back to him, and he reluctantly pondered them with mild trepidation. After Mavin's soapbox tirade concerning gangs associating themselves with murderers, he had dropped Danny off at the crime lab without another exchange of words. After that, Danny had clocked out and gone straight home with Mavin's words buzzing incessantly in his brain.

The Hangman had allies. It was like a Charles Manson deal but without the whole brainwashing scenario. If anything, the Hangman had it easier since he didn't need to start some mind-altering cult to get people on his side. He was proficient to an unnatural, sickening degree.

What bothered Danny more, however, was Mavin. Only two deaths in and the detective was already getting weirder by the second. Danny had never felt so relieved as he had on waking up to the sound of his alarm rather than his phone, and he silently pleaded that Mavin would decide on making himself scarce today. Danny needed a break from the man, plain and simple.

Danny was heading toward the lab when he came across Mac walking briskly in the other direction.

" Just the man I wanted to see," Mac said by way of a greeting. " I'm going to the morgue. Care to join me?"

Danny was all ready to ask why when he recalled that he had yet to learn of anything Dr. Hawkes had to say about the bodies. He'd been too busy dealing with Mavin and his mind games.

Danny shrugged. " Sure." He turned and fell into step beside Mac.

" So," Mac began, " how'd the interview with Jake go?"

Danny grimaced. " Depends. How much did you hear about it?"

Mac smiled a knowing smile. " Only that you and Mavin went to question him."

Danny shook his head in dislike. " Mavin's a whack-job. We didn't learn a freakin' thing. Well, not right out. Jake wasn't the one who delivered the blank letter, and I was given the feeling that he wasn't too keen on that."

" Why do you say that?"

" He didn't look too happy when we asked him about it."

Mac nodded. " Probably not. How did Mavin react?"

Danny's insides seem to shrivel. He had not wanted to touch on this area since he was still debating on whether or not he should have reported Mavin. But Danny was not about to keep anything from Mac, not now. This wasn't some petty misdemeanor case.

" He… um… kind of… slugged the guy a hard right."

To Danny's alarm, Mac laughed.

" That isn't funny Mac," Danny admonished in wide-eyed disbelief. " We're gonna get our butts thrown off for this. I didn't even report him."

" No point to," Mac replied, still grinning. " If Jake had a problem with it, he would have reported it. Mavin and Jake…"

Danny released a sharp, irritated breath. It seemed everyone around him had suddenly lost the will to take anything seriously, and it was making him physically ill. " I know, it's their thing. Jake holds back info and Mavin uses him as a punching bag. All part of the freakin' game, right? Jake likes it; Mavin likes it, so it's all good. Let the masochists have their fun, we don't mind. It's just a game. No harm in having a little fun while we track down a man who likes to butcher people - why? - Because he thinks it's fun. Everything's in the name of good times. Well you know what? I don't like it. It's not a game Mac, it's perverted. You know what? I should go report Mavin. I mean where does he get off thinking he can go around hitting who ever he wants - suspects especially! The guy's a freakin' loon, you know that? I swear he's enjoying all this…"

Danny barely noticed the hand on his shoulder until the pressure increased and he was forced to stop. He snapped his head around, startled, to look at Mac. Mac appeared troubled.

" Danny, relax. No one said this was a game."

Danny bristled, his blood boiling. " Mavin begs to differ. Just ask him so you can get an earful about how this is all something we need to play along with - like a game. He'll set you straight. He likes setting people straight."

Mac said nothing as he studied Danny's face for a moment. " Do you need to be reassigned?"

Oh, Mavin would just love that. Poor Messer can't handle the facts so slinks off to work in the background. Danny shook his head vehemently.

" No."

Mac studied him for a second longer, then sighed. " All right. But the offer still stands, don't forget it."

CSINY

Sterility and steel, permeated by the pungent scent of formaldehyde and other chemicals, cold and seemingly uncaring, the morgue could be a nauseating place at times. It sometimes reminded Mac, twisted though it was, of a massive kitchen minus the stove - with all its tables, various knives, refrigeration system, and sinks. He felt a profound sense of pity for those forced to come here and identify bodies. Normally a viewing room was utilized where a person could see the deceased through a window from a small, comfortable room. But not all the time, and then people would be forced to enter a place to not only see death but taste it and smell it as well. At least at a cemetery there was a hint of something nicer in the surrounding trees, singing birds, and sunshine should the visitation be in the day. The morgue was far more morbid than a cemetery could ever be, even at night.

Over the years, Mac had built up a tolerance for the morgue's reputation, and soon it became just another place to him. Still, at times, thanks especially to the smells, he could not help feeling slightly repulsed by it. It was a fleeting feeling, though, since his mind was always on other matters.

Mac made a quick glance at Danny in passing observation. The day Mac had met Messer; his immediate impression of the young man was that he was tense. Mac had chalked it up to nervousness over whether he would be picked for the team or not. Mac had already selected Danny without having even seen him, yet even after Danny was integrated into the team he still maintained an aura of constant intensity. Laid back he was not, and at times it was difficult to tell if he was ever relaxed at all.

But Mac had come to realize what an agitated Danny actually looked like, and he was seeing it now. His gait was stiffer, his expression dark with a perpetual frown, and his back slightly bowed like a bristling wolf about to pounce or a snake about to strike. Topping it all off was a cold, penetrating gaze that Mac had personally seen cow suspects twice Danny's size. If only it could cow Mavin. Mac thought of things to distract Danny with as they maneuvered through the tables to where Dr. Hawkes was working.

" I ran the blood samples through DNA," Mac said. " The blood used for the snake at your scene belonged to Detective Megan Myers."

The change was uncanny. Danny's tension seemed to lift from him like an invisible shroud in a gust of strong wind.

" He saved her blood?"

" Yep. Which means our killer is no copy-cat."

" Somehow that thrills me even less. Weren't we supposed to be getting a profiler?"

Mac lifted his hand and pointed to the table where Dr. Hawkes stood. A female figure was standing on the other side of that table with her back to Mac and Danny. When Dr. Hawkes lifted his head to greet the two forensics with a nod, the woman turned and smiled at them.

She was a little older than Danny, but far younger than Mac by the look of her. Her straight, black hair that came down to the middle of her back was pulled back in a tail. She had a long, oval face and bright green eyes both friendly and intelligent. She was wearing a smart looking gray suit with the skirt being knee-length and her heels black like her hair.

She held out her well-manicured hand for Mac to take. He did, and he found her grip to be strong but not uncomfortably tight.

" Anita Farrone," she said. " You must be detective Mac Taylor."

Mac jerked his head in a nod. " I am. And this is Danny Messer."

She turned to Danny and the two shook hands as well. " I was just talking with Dr. Hawkes about your latest find."

Mac looked at the gray-skinned body with the chest marred by stitching marking where Hawkes had done his carving. He then looked at Hawkes.

" Anything to mention I don't already know?" Mac asked.

" Probably not," Hawkes said in his quiet way. At times Sheldon Hawkes seemed very out of place at the morgue. He had a gentle-natured, soft-spoken way about him that would have made him an excellent doctor with the ultimate bedside manner. But the young mortician had a dark streak to him manifested in his fascination on how, exactly, the body he was working on died.

Hawkes pointed to the stitched-closed slit on the neck. " There's bruising, indicating she was hung first, then her throat was slit. Same with your last vic." He pulled the dead woman's head to the side and pointed at a clod of mashed hair stained by dried blood.

" She was knocked out first." He gently moved the head back. " As for how the blood was removed, I can't quite confirm it, I can only offer an educated guess. Your killer probably used a siphon, a piece of hose jammed into the jugular perhaps. He might have even used the tail of the noose to allow the blood to drip into a container. But, as I said, it's all educated guessing." He lifted the corner of his mouth in a small smile. " Don't quote me on it. There are a number of different ways he could have collected the blood. He could've let it just… run down the body to drip from the feet."

" Lovely," Danny murmured with a frown of disgust. " Wouldn't that take a long time?"

" The Hangman made certain he had time," Anita said. " Your latest find was down in that basement for a while. The killer was obviously aware that the landlord wouldn't go down there until the tenants did enough complaining. I believe it was a similar scenario with the first body you came across. Actually, all the bodies ever found. He chooses the site of his killings by how much time they give him to gather the blood."

" That wasn't in the profile," Danny stated, seemingly amused.

Anita folded her arms. " I don't normally like to speak ill of colleagues, let alone mentors, but Dr. Castle's assumptions about the killer were not… thorough. Nothing against the man. He was good. But - and this is just my assumption - I think he was being pushed for results, so he slapped together what he could just to give the police something. No offense," she added to Mac.

Mac smiled. " I understand." All to well. His thoughts went immediately to Mavin and those times when he had hovered like a panther in the shadows as Castle reported his theories.

" I took the time before coming here to try and put together a better composite," Anita went on. " It seems that this guy likes to play games."

Mac flicked his gaze over to Danny. Danny made no reaction except to shift his weight to the other foot.

Anita sighed thoughtfully. " I'm sticking with the theory of multi-personality. It's the only reason I can see for the snake. This may sound odd, but I believe that two of the personalities are in charge of the killings. We have two deaths in the same week, similar yet different. I wouldn't be surprised if the personalities are at odds with eachother, though I've yet to determine how exactly. There seems to be no competition, just collaboration. If anything the killer's more in competition with us. The predatory nature, I agree with. This guy's a hunter, maybe even actually hunted animals at one time. Personality-wise he likes to be in charge, he likes structure and rules. Things will go his way or not at all. Should anything be altered - say a body found sooner than expected or a victim found alive - well, I can't say for certain what he would do. You'd think he couldn't do worse than what he's already doing," she shrugged " but people, in general, are always full of surprises."

" Everything else is same old, same old. He's got a superiority complex; he's trying to prove himself better than us, so on and so on. He is working differently now, though. He used to drug his victims, now, apparently, he just knocks them out. You might say he's raising the stakes. Drugging them was safer. There was no chance for the victim to wake up at the wrong time or to realize what was going on and run off. I think he proved something with the first string of deaths, now he's taking it further. I hate to see what he has in store for traps."

" What about the letters?" Danny asked.

" All part of the game," Anita said. Danny did react to this with a quick dart of his eyes from wall to floor in an attempt at hiding his irritation.

Anita appeared not to have noticed. " It's how he controls us. The man knows how to use people. He knows what to look for in a messenger and how to get them to do as he says. He knows who would be more likely to follow him and who wouldn't. The Hangman does his homework."

" Anything different we should do then?" Mac asked. Anita bit her lip, shook her head, and lifted one shoulder.

" Sorry, not that I know of. Just… take it slow, I guess. This is just my opinion, but while helping Dr. Castle I always had this feeling that we were moving too fast, being pushed too hard. I know people are being killed, but keeping a fast pace didn't help matters much back then."

Again, Mac's thoughts fell to Mavin. He and Myers had always been the driving force, always rushing everything as though to compensate for always being too far behind. The one in charge of the case now, Detective Atkinson, was a levelheaded man in Mac's opinion. He was more into logic and facts than immediate results. Aiding him were two Federal Agents that Mac knew nothing about, but thus far had let New York police handle most of everything.

" I don't think that'll be a problem," Mac said.

" I think the real question is, will it make a difference?" Anita said. " But I've always seen myself as an optimist. Things might turn out different this time."

CSINY

Danny found the monotony of picking apart a bloody sheet a pleasant respite from driving around and going to scenes. The lab was quiet say for the hum of machines at work and the distant, low murmur of voices in the background. It may have been a pointless endeavor to search out hairs on the sheets not belonging to the vic, but they still had to try. Nothing was to change, Mac had said. The killer may be good, but he wasn't perfect. Something had to give eventually.

It sounded like weak hope to Danny, but he agreed with it all the same. Everyone slipped at some point. Everyone had a fault, a weakness, a careless side.

Danny's study of the sheet was absorbing. He pulled several hairs from the sheet, all the vic's by the length of them. Suddenly his phone chirped, startling him so that his head snapped up and his heart leaped into his throat. He pulled his phone from his pocket and snapped it open.

" Messer," he said, lifting up the end of the sheet toward his eyes.

" Messer, my man, guess what?"

Danny dropped his hand holding the sheet with a loud thunk, his blood already starting to roar through his ears. " What, Mavin?" he asked flatly.

" Just got an important message from a mutual acquaintance of ours. I'm coming to get you, Messer, so stay put."

Bite me, Mavin, Danny wanted desperately to spat, but Mavin had hung up. Danny's muscles began to knot, so he straightened to arch his spine until the individual vertebrae sang to him in the tune of cracks and pops. Then he shuddered, and gripped the sheet until his hand hurt. The thought of another little field trip with Mavin made his stomach turn. But Danny wasn't about to back down now, or ever for that matter.

NOTE

TBC, but I would think that was obvious. If you are wondering when something interesting is going to happen, you'd be asking at the right time. Here is a little sneak preview for next chapter - ahem - something interesting is going to happen. That is all I will say. I have to take it slow since I keep forgetting what I did in the last chapter and have to remember what needs to be mentioned in the next chapter. If I seem to be repeating myself on a lot of things, I apologize.