Los Angeles

It was in the City of Angels. The men of the Los Angeles Police Department, or LAPD for short, called this summer of the year the Summer of Blood. The media had been the first to come up with the name, and the LAPD had continued to use it because it fit very well.

Blood Summer.

A brutal killer had put his bloody stamp on that summer. Investigators still hadn't caught this psychopath. And from the looks of it, he had just struck again.

Los Angeles thought Detective Brooks. City of Angels.

Brooks screwed up his face. For his life, he couldn't figure out what this depraved, shallow, sick, deviant pile of filth of a city could have to do with angels; Brooks had lacked the imagination for years. Heavenly conditions didn't prevail here; quite the opposite.

Brooks had been with the LAPD for twenty years and had seen some things in his career. Bad things. Nightmarish images. Hundreds of victims, most of whom had been shot. A bullet in the heart. Or in the head. Or both.

Los Angeles, he thought again. City of angels. Don't make me laugh.

Brooks often wondered why he was still here at all. Why didn't he finally leave? L.A. was a sunlit tomb where you could decay without anyone noticing. Some didn't even notice themselves, and they decomposed alive and knew nothing about it.

Nearly thirteen million residents lived in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the giant juggernaut that ate its way a mile further into the desert year after year until it eventually reached Las Vegas, and two cursed cities would finally be merged. Then a vengeful God would have an easier time wiping them off the earth one day in the distant future.

With Sodom and Gomorrah, the detective thought, God had to strike twice. With L.A. and Las Vegas, it may be enough to strike once. Let's hope so.

Los Angeles lay on the infamous San Andreas Fault, a geologically unstable fault zone. Since 1800, the city had been hit by nine significant earthquakes, but it wasn't dead. It had the most criminals, deranged people, smog, and trigger-happy cops, though the latter was just a reaction to the circumstances. The best weather was also here; one might add California sunshine. One could rarely complain about cold, wet days in L.A., more about too much heat, which became incredibly unappetizing when a decomposing body was lying in a room, and the air conditioning hadn't kicked in.

Such was the case with the dead body they found that day.

Brooks had received the call forty-five minutes ago, and along with five LAPD officers, he had broken down the door of the big house.

"Why is it so dark in here?" asked Brooks now.

The cones of light from the powerful flashlights twitched through the entry hallway, feeling their way through the darkness as the men braced every second to encounter something terrible, something heinous.

"Somebody ripped out the fuse. That's why the damn AC isn't working." One of the officers shrugged. "Before that, he pulled down the blinds."

It was a bizarre situation. Outside, the California sun was shining from an azure sky; here, it was an inky black night. It was also blisteringly hot, the air dull, muggy, and oppressive because the air conditioner was running out of power. In other words, everything was the way California and this city have always been. The gritty side of Hollywood, the hippies, the Satanists, the serial killers.

Shiny surface, pitch-black soul.

Brooks and the officers moved slowly further into the house. Swarms of flies swarmed up and buzzed away in all directions as the men approached with their flashlights.

Flies. They were always where there were dead bodies. They laid their eggs on the corpses, on which fly maggots hatched, ate the mortal flesh, and grew until they pupated. From these pupae came new flies, and they laid their eggs on the same body. Or on a fresh body. Because there was certainly no shortage of those in L.A.

"Here!" one of the officers suddenly shouted. And then, "Oh, God."

The dead man lay on the floor, arms and legs outstretched.

In the chest, a yawning black hole, darker even than the darkness of this apartment.

"He ripped his heart out," the ME stated with professional matter-of-factness, shining his light on the young man's torso. Cut ribs protruded pointedly from the gaping, sticky red opening.

The ME carefully stalked the blood-red floor in his Tyvek suit, snapping a photo now and then. The L.A. Coroner's Office was world famous - not just since then-Chief, Thomas Noguchi had broken his silence and published two books about his most famous cases, which included Marilyn Monroe, James Belushi, Robert Kennedy, and Sharon Tate, who the infamous Manson Family had massacred in 1969.

"That's just ... Damn," cursed the ME.

"What is it?" asked Brooks with a deep frown.

"Here, look at this. Is that a dog?"

It was a dog and what was left of it.

The dog lay next to the male victim. Maybe the animal had been trained. A fighting dog. But from the looks of it, not battle-hardened enough. The perverted killer hadn't only killed the dog, but he had also cut off its head and front and hind legs and laid them on the ground next to the man's limbs. One front paw next to the arm, one hind paw next to the leg. He had placed the dog's head on top of the corpse's head, so investigators had to wipe the animal's blood off the man's head to make an initial identification.

"Good heavens, it's him," the ME groaned.

"Who?" asked Brooks. Although one of the technicians had wiped the dead man's face clean, he lacked the imagination to recognize in this stuffy, stinking darkness, in that face smeared with human and dog blood, a man he knew. Or should know.

The ME seemed to have guessed Brooks' thoughts and shone his flashlight on the dead man's face. "Vincent Calitri," he said.

"Holy shit," Brooks whispered. "Vincent Calitri?" He didn't just know him, the detective knew the victim very well.

"Looks like it."

Vincent Calitri wasn't just anyone. He was David Calitri's son and, in turn, was Brooks' boss and the boss-in-chief. The chief of police of the LAPD.

This was his house.

And the dead man was his son.

And that son had been slaughtered.

"He killed him in his father's house?" asked Brooks with a deep frown. "Or did the boy still live here?"

"No," said one of the officers, "he lived with his girlfriend a block away." He approached the body. "Either the killer killed him here on site or elsewhere and brought the body here."

"And the dog?"

"The dog, too."

"Yes, I can see that," Brooks replied. "Find out as soon as possible whether the boy and his yapper were killed here or somewhere else - if you can find out. And send a team to Calitri's apartment immediately. And find his girlfriend!"

"Already on it."

"What is this?" Brooks' flashlight moved in slow circles over the man's torso and upper arms. Wounds everywhere. Lacerations with strange patterns. Brooks turned to the ME. "Did the killer cut these symbols into his flesh?"

The ME shrugged his shoulders. "Who else would have done it? Maybe he tortured him and then killed him."

"But why?" the detective asked. "This is downtown L.A. and a better neighborhood, not crappy Compton."

Compton was a suburb of Los Angeles, also called the murder capital of the United States. Just recently, Compton had earned the dubious honor of overtaking the previous murder capital, New Orleans. In addition to smog, a lot of powder vapor rose into the air in Compton.

It could happen anywhere, but it happens in Compton, said one at the LAPD.

"Was it maybe one of the gangs?" the ME asked. "Bloods, Sharks, and whatever they're all called? When they run out of ammo, and there's an enemy left, they beat him to death with the butt of their rifle. Was it the same here?"

It was possible. Except this wasn't Compton, it was downtown L.A., where there were three times as many cops on the street, and something like this still happened. And then at the Chief of Police's house, too. Brooks didn't even like to think about it.

"You think this was a revenge thing?" one of the officers asked.

Brooks shrugged his shoulders. "I can't say yet, and the evidence is still way too thin." He scanned the walls with the flashlight's beam. "Jesus Christ!" he groaned so abruptly that the others winced.

"What's that?" the officer asked.

All at once, Brooks longed for a cigarette, a beer, or something more substantial. There were signs on the door frame. Painted in blood, it seemed. The blood was fresh, only a few hours old. It couldn't be paint because Brooks saw the flies swarming as the flashlight hit them.

"That's a trail," Brooks said, carefully opening the door. "A trail of blood." He had seen similar things at the other crime scenes and the other victims this summer blood.

Slowly, Brooks moved forward, continuing to scan the walls. They were covered in blood spatter - a grisly trail that led Brooks and the investigators to where someone wanted them. Like signs on a scavenger hunt - as if this bloody arrangement was meant for the investigators, not someone else.

More bloodstains, as if painted with a finger, on the white wall. On a door and a door frame. Brooks and the officers crossed the dark apartment, following the trail of blood.

"Goddamn," Brooks muttered as he and two officers entered the kitchen. The blinds here were only half closed. Daylight was streaming in. Brooks flicked off the flashlight. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the new surroundings. He saw the large kitchen. The sideboard in the middle. The stove. And then, like a monolith at the center of it all, he saw the big fridge. White. Huge. The wall next to it was painted with blood. A few splatters on the fridge, too. But the killer quickly realized that the paint didn't stick to the coated surface.

Brooks squinted his eyes and read:

It's not over 'til it's over.

What was that supposed to mean? It's not over 'til it's over. Was that supposed to be goodbye? Or a threat?

Brooks didn't get a chance to continue his thoughts because already his eyes fell on something he had already noticed out of the corner of his eye. A plate cover. Silver, with a white tablecloth underneath. Arranged. Beautiful. But Brooks already suspected that it wasn't a joyful surprise the caterer had prepared for them but a kick in the stomach for anyone who saw it.

The detective stepped closer while the officers, guns drawn, looked around suspiciously, and the camera of the forensics technicians hurled lurid flashes that made colorful shadows dance before Brooks' eyes.

The white tablecloth. Written in blood. Brooks could guess what the killer had done. He had ripped out his victim's heart and taken it off with it. Had made a tour of the apartment, a merry little walk, and with the bloody heart painted the tables, doors, and walls like a child with a morbid paint box.

Brooks reached out his gloved hand, grasped the lid of the plate cover, and lifted it.

Then he saw what was under the hood. He had known beforehand what he would find there, so he wasn't too shocked; he just looked at what was presented to him with a petrified expression.

It was the heart of the young man. Sprinkled with herbs and pepper. Bloody. Raw. And hideously out of place on the porcelain plate on which it lay.

At that exact moment, Brooks deciphered the letters on the napkin, crinkled with blood. In a vague sense, a fearful summons could only occur to a psychopath. A message for the father of the murdered man showed that his son was irretrievably dead and his heart, the source of life, was waiting in the kitchen for dinner. A message that would probably kill Chief of Police David Calitri if he got to see it, perhaps from a level 10 heart attack on the Richter scale. Because there were things that would finish anyone off, Chief of Police of the LAPD or not.

To the killer, it would get him a one-way ticket straight to the gas chamber if they caught him. Or a rendezvous with lethal injection.

Like a flash of lightning on a snapshot in the night, the heart first shone before Brooks' eyes. Then he saw the writing, letter by letter, burned into his brain, seeing, again and again, the heart, shining red on the plate, while blood still oozed out - the rest of the blood that the mad killer had not smeared on walls and doors.

The napkin read:

Enjoy it d(e)ad.

Two sentences in one:

Enjoy it dead. Enjoy it, dad.

A message from the murderer to the father of the murdered man that looked like a message from the son to the father: Enjoy it dead. Enjoy it dad.

And then the other sentence. A message from the killer to the investigators?

It's not over 'til it's over.

Brooks could feel himself getting dizzy.

Yes, it was better that he get a new job and get out of LA. But before that, it was time to rename this monstrosity of a city.

From Los Angeles to Los Cadáveres.

From City of Angels to City of Corpses.

xxx

Thank you for following me to the end of the last story, and please accept my apologies for ending Guardian of the Death without another word addressed to you.

I am thrilled you are so attached to the story and the path my second favorite protagonists take to evolve and find their ways like I am.

I hope this story will live up to your expectations.

I hope you'll accompany me in the same way on the path of this new story.

Here's to an exciting journey together,

T73.