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monaboyd Jun. 29th, 2006 02:29 am)
flybynite29.livejournal.com posting in monaboyd Jun. 29th, 2006 02:29 am)Title: Imitation of Life: Pt. 1/??
Author: flybynite29
Rating: Series R-NC17, this part R for graphic description of murder, language
Pairings: Billy Boyd/Dominic Monaghan (a bit later in the story), brief mentions of Billy/omc, the cast of Lost popping up in various places and positions.
Summary: Billy Boyd's a hard-working, straight-laced, small town detective with a secret. When the course of The Job takes him directly into the path of his daydreams, he has no choice but to follow. Billy's fantasy has become someone else's obsession... and the results could be deadly.
Disclaimer: I do not own Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, or any of the other real-life persons in this work; I'm just playing with them for a bit. I do own Detective Bailey Connor, however, for better or worse. No money is being made off of any of this, and I adore all of these people far too much to intend any disrespect.
Warnings: AU, Work in Progress, Graphic descriptions of serial murder, gore, general squick
Feedback: I live for it. : )
a/n: I've taken great liberties with location and timing -amongst other things- for the purpose of this story. I haven't pulled any punches with the gore in this fic, so if you are squeamish about that type of thing, please beware. Although parts are definitely meant to be humorous, this will get quite dark in places because I'm dealing with a very disturbed mind (apart from my own ; )). The filming of Rings took place just as in real-life: with the sole exception of Billy not being cast in the role of Pippin. The details of Lost are all as is.
Prologue
No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes
~Paint It, Black
The Rolling Stones
"If there's a connection here, I ain't gettin' it, man." Bailey Connor tossed the crime scene glossies to the restaurant table in disgust, picking up his Reuben sandwich instead, making a face at it. "I feel like there's something right in front of me, somethin' I should be seeing, but I just can't quite connect the frigging dots."
Billy felt the exact same, had done since day one. He leafed through the pictures as he half-heartedly sipped at his tepid mug of tea. He'd been through them countless times before and nothing about them made any more sense to him this time around. Yet... that feeling was there, the sensation of something right on the tip of his tongue, something he just couldn't seem to spit out. Maybe if he wasn't so bloody fucking tired; he was far past the point of being able to form any type of coherent thought.
There were seven separate sets of death scenes, each new one more hideous than the last. And none of them even remotely similar to each other in choice of victim, style or execution.
Bailey read his thoughts. "Yeah...this asshole has commitment problems, alright. That's two gunned down so far- the doc and the Egyptian." He separated two of the photos from the pile with his fingertips, gently tapping the one to the left. "But our Egyptian friend didn't get off nearly as easy as the good doctor."
"I wouldnae exactly call being gutshot and dropped ten stories t' splatter on the kerb 'getting off easy', mate.", Billy said wryly. "Was hardly enough of him left t' scrape up."
Dr. Harley Fishbaum, one of Florida's most promising young neurological surgeons, cut down in his prime. He had been the first, found the Monday before after an 'anonymous tip' from the murderer himself led the detectives to his body.
Each day after had brought a new horror.
"At least the doc didn't suffer long.", Bailey commented bleakly. "Can't say the same for this poor bastard." He poked at the picture of the former Egyptian soldier.
Nicholas Zahrif- tied up, drugged, tortured at length, finished off after an eternity with a pop to the back of the head, execution style. By that time, the bullet had been a mercy.
"Donnae forget th' lass in th' gun count.", Billy reminded his partner softly. "The M.E. said 'tis likely she was shot after she was..." Billy faltered, trying to find the right word. "Mauled, I guess works as well as anything. The bullet wound was very likely th' actual cause of death. The rest was done while she was still conscious."
Connor glanced down toward the picture of the girl, then quickly away, unable to look too closely at the destruction, even in a photograph. She was the only female victim...and out of all of the deaths, hers had to be the most hideous. At first they had thought she had been gotten to by animals- that's how mutilated she had been. But it had only been some sort of tool, fashioned to mimic the bite of a huge carnivore. A twenty-one-year-old former Miss New Hampshire, filthy rich, by all accounts a first-class bitch in life. In addition to the mock-bites obliterating her chest and abdomen, her once-beautiful face had been slashed up beyond recognition. The message left with her body had been short and sweet, and made the most sense out of all of the notes: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...
"She's the only chick in the bunch.", Connor mused. "Do you think that means something, Billy? She was the most brutal, her face was virtually obliterated, postmortem. No other reason for that than to erase her, as a person. Was she special to him, somehow? Was she personal?"
Billy shook his head. "M' feeling is no. That she's th' only female so far. There'll be more, she's not an anomaly. She was only slashed so badly because it fit with the killer's plan. None of these are 'personal' to this monster. They're all just portions of a larger work...his 'masterpiece'."
Connor blew out a frustrated breath and took a sip of watery Pepsi. "Okay, two for sure, possibly three shootings. Two slashings as the cause of death; Handi-Man and Peanut Butter Dude today."
'Handi-Man' was Paul Timmons, an anonymous, middle-aged businessman with a secret penchant for adventure. He'd recently broken both legs in a mountain-climbing fall, was still hobbling around on crutches when the killer caught up to him. The broken bones were painful, certainly...but just a drop in the bucket next to what was to come. He had been found dumped in the back alley of a strip mall. In one hand, the inevitable note, in the other the number for a phone-sex hotline. The killer had re-broken both legs, crushing the bones nearly into dust before finally slitting his throat, the bloody knife left in his lap.
"Just th' single case of suffocation.", Billy added, poking at another glossy.
"Yeah." Bailey nodded. "Our cowboy. Mr. Enigma himself."
Jason Lyle, thirty-five-year-old, devastatingly handsome small-time horse rancher...with one hell of a secret. When the detectives had started to dig into his background they had found a curious thing. Jason Lyle did not exist. The actual owner of the name had died as an infant, his identity taken over at age seventeen by a certain Dean Patrick Macalley. All subsequent efforts to unearth the actual bio of the elusive Mr. Macalley had dead-ended.
In the midst of the information age, in a time when any Tom, Dick, or Harry with internet access could track down anyone with a few well-placed keystrokes, this bloke had somehow managed to effectively obliterate all traces of his real self, had stayed successfully veiled behind the life of a dead child for nearly two decades. Dean Macalley had been the quintessential hidden man.
Until somebody had finally found him.
His nose had been duct-taped over and his lips sewn shut. He had died choking on his own screams, literally eating his own words. The killer had done part of the detectives' homework for them- the victim's real name had been helpfully spelled out on a gaudy, Las Vegas-style nametag, and safety-pinned to his forehead.
Bailey looked down at the photo of Jason Lyle and winced at the thick black seam sealing the corpse's mouth. "Bad shit, man." He shook his head, further mussing his dreadlocks, then tapped the remaining photograph in the pile. "Okay, that leaves one. Our star attraction." He looked over at Billy and his voice grew serious. "I still say this one's the key to the whole thing, partner." He tapped the picture of the large black man once again, for emphasis. "He had to be a direct target. He was just too goddamn big not to be. Billy...this guy was untouchable."
"Aye, well...I'd say he got touched, wouldn't ye?", Billy replied softly, looking down at the grisly remains.
Mualo Awala Mumbar, a.k.a. Papa Bear, one-time leader of a ruthless militia faction in Ethiopia, who had moved up ten years before to become the top drug kingpin in the southern United States. The courts, the cops and above-board government agencies had been trying to take him down legally for a decade. The mob, rival drug heads, and the more underground branches of the U.S. government had been trying to take him down in a much more permanent way for just as long. Mumbar, unlike the other high-ups, didn't travel with bodyguards. He didn't need them. Unbeknownst to the kingpin, however, his luck had run out. After ten long years, one of the agencies had finally closed in, had him under heavy surveillance, cornered, was just waiting for the right moment to swoop in and take him out. They swooped, guns at the ready- only to find out they were a few minutes too late.
The killer had somehow waltzed in and whacked Mumbar right under the nose of the CIA.
"Christ, Bill...I could understand if it was the Feebs, but this was the Agency watching him. You don't just sneak past the goddamn CIA!" Bailey looked pained. "Either this fucker's plumb mental or he has the biggest set of balls I've ever seen. Mumbar had to've been the key- it wouldn't have been worth the risk otherwise!"
Billy shook his head and said firmly, "I'm still certain he was just a means t' an end- his identity didn't matter, except for how he fit into th' big picture. These are all just pieces of a bigger puzzle. They're chosen because of what they represent. Th' killer needed a drug lord, so he got a drug lord, as simple as that."
Connor huffed out an irritated breath, but let the argument rest for the moment. "Well, no matter why he did it, I have to say, the bastard did us a favor with this one. I'm not sorry to see that asshole Mumbar gone. Don't think anyone with a badge is sorry."
"Even he didn't deserve this kind of hell, Bailey.", Billy replied quietly, tapping the photograph himself. "No matter what he did on this earth."
The CIA had arrived belatedly to find Papa Bear propped against the trunk of a mangrove tree, arms spread and tied above his head, spikes driven through the wrists, for all intents and purposes crucified. After he was strung up, the killer had hammered more spikes into various places on his body and left him to die of massive blood loss, a bible placed gently at his feet. The note driven into his tethered hand had kept with the religious theme: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil..."
"He's got no race barrier, no language or religion barrier, crosses over into both genders. This guy's totally friggin' unpredictable, partner." Connor ran his hands over his face in frustration. "How do we begin to compete with that, Bill?"
Billy shook his head once again and immediately regretted it. His exhaustion seemed to catch up to him all at once, stealing his breath and sending his vision swimming. He pinched the bridge of his nose, hard, trying to regain some equilibrium. Things finally settled back to normal, more or less, but he knew he couldn't keep up at this pace. He wasn't twenty anymore, and he'd been at it non-stop for a week now.
Bailey noticed his partner's sharp intake of breath and looked closely at Billy, concerned by what he saw. "You gotten any sleep lately, man?", he asked gently.
"Aye...a bit.", Billy hedged. A very wee bit- in the last week, he'd maybe averaged two hours a night. Every time he closed his eyes his mind was haunted by broken, torn corpses and, worse... a sense of failure. The surety that he was missing something vital, something he should be seeing, and the longer he kept on missing it, the higher the body count would go. And the more personal the stakes would become.
"Don't burn out on me, Bill. Take care of yourself." Bailey tapped his hand to make sure he had his attention. "I mean it, brother. I need you."
Billy's lips turned up in a genuine smile, small as it was. "Donnae be going all sentimental on me now, love.", he winked. "You'll ruin your bad-boy image." Billy's voice was teasing, but he knew Connor's statement was a serious one. He cared about Billy, and deeply.
As the only two (known) gays in the Burton PD, it was somehow almost inevitable that they'd end up in bed together. And so they had. But they had been lovers for exactly one night before realizing they'd wind up hating each other. Their partnership- and much more importantly their friendship - was much too dear for that.
Maybe that would make things easier..., Billy mused to himself, not for the first time. Maybe it would be easier not to have to go home to a cold, empty bed, to actually come home to a pair of warm, loving arms, to someone he could share his thoughts and fears with. Maybe then, even amidst this darkness, he'd be able to find a measure of peace. It had been a long time since he'd known comfort and even longer since he'd known anything resembling peace.
As for lovers...at present, Billy had none. None that weren't actually figments of his imagination, that is.
He reached out and picked up his wallet from where it lay on the tabletop and opened it, thumbing his way into the photo section. He looked at one of the pictures for a long moment, some of the stress-lines on his face smoothing out, his smile making it to his eyes for the first time that day. Then he slipped the wallet into his back pocket and absentmindedly took a sip of his now-cold tea.
Bailey watched the scene with amusement. "Dom have any ideas about all this? Have a suspect for us, maybe? Shit...ask him, gotta be better than anything we've come up with so far.", he deadpanned, lips twitching, trying not to laugh outright.
Some cops carried a rabbit's foot for luck, some a spent bullet, some snapshots of their wives and children.
Billy carried Dominic Monaghan.
"Shut it. Not another fecking word!", Billy growled menacingly, blushing to the roots of his hair, mortified. He didn't know which was more disturbing- that he had grown careless enough to let Bailey catch him at this wee ritual, or that the motion had become so ingrained he wasn't even aware he was doing it anymore.
Billy Boyd - proud, upright Scotsman, tough as nails detective - had a school-lassie's crush on a film celebrity. It was appalling, really, when you got right down to it.
It had all started with Fellowship of the Ring. Billy had watched the adorable, mischievous hobbit Merry cavorting onscreen, and his heart had missed a beat. Then he had seen the lad stripped of the makeup and furry feet, and had lost his heart altogether.
Then Charlie Pace had come along, and now Billy was hopelessly addicted, blew off important cases to race home, unwilling to miss even a single minute of the programme. The times that he had no choice but to remain at the station, he'd flee to the men's loo, locking himself in with his portable telly, pleading the onset of illness or tainted roadside hamburgers. The other cops rolled their eyes at each other and remarked how very odd it was that Detective Boyd always seemed to fall prey to some devastating intestinal malady during the same primetime hour each Wednesday night, then was somehow miraculously healed immediately afterwards.
The amused glances and rumors around the squad room were bad enough, but if any of Billy's fellow peace officers were to actually nose into his office computer and open up the file marked 'Missing Person' , Billy would have no choice but to eat his gun. The file was filled to bursting with pictures of Dominic, articles, film reviews, tabloid blurbs... every little scrap Billy could get his hands on.
He knew it was the height of insanity to leave those things around where anyone, with just a wee bit of prying, could get a glimpse of them, but Billy practically lived at the station, and could not imagine a whole day going by without gazing upon his Dommie. All Billy had to do was look at Dom, think about Dom, and the world grew a little brighter, lost some of its nasty, bleak edges. Billy realized his behavior was something bordering on stalkerish- Christ...truth be told, he'd locked people up for far less- but, in all honesty, his obsession was perfectly harmless, just a bit of boyish fantasizing, would never come to anything, at any rate.
'Aye...I'll bet that's just what Hinckley, Jr. told himself, too, y' great bloody wanker!', Billy chastised himself harshly. He looked over the table at his partner, determined to work up some line of defense for his actions, but could only blush madly.
Billy still had enough wits about him to know that fantasy very rarely jibed with facts. The real Dominic was undoubtedly nothing like Billy had made him out to be in his mind, was most likely a first-class arsehole in person. Billy told himself this frequently, but he didn't really believe it. Deep in his heart, Billy knew Dom was just what he appeared to be- a bright, talented, gentle, beautiful young man. Besides, didn't really matter, did it? 'twasn't as if Billy would ever actually meet him.
And, oh Christ... Connor was positively grinning now. Once he got going in taking the piss about Dom, he was relentless. Billy was still trying to live down Bailey's most recent Christmas gift (given and opened at the station's annual holiday party, no less): a pair of boxers with the words 'The Brandybuck Stops Here' boldly emblazoned across the arse. It was best to cut things off before they had a chance to get started. "Connor, I swear t' Christ...", he warned.
Bailey realized the extent of Billy's embarrassment, and left off poking fun in favor of empathy. "Shit, man...lots of kids have pictures and stuff they tote around of their favorite movie stars. Stuff they clip out of Tiger Beat and whatnot."
"'m very nearly thirty eight, Bailey.", Billy remarked dryly. "Long gone from m' teeny-bopper days." He paused a moment, then added firmly, "And I'll have y' know I've never in m' life cracked th' cover of a Tiger Beat."
Connor rolled his eyes then winked flirtatiously. "Hey, Bill...I offered. You turned me down. I've got nothin' against a little role-playing." He glanced down at his own dark skin and grinned. "We could always dim the lights."
Billy finally cracked a grin. "Wouldn't matter...you're a talker in bed, and your Mancunian accent's for shite, mate."
Bailey snorted laughter. "Come to think of it, you'd probably make a piss-poor Wesley Snipes yourself."
Billy shook his head, picked up his soggy French Dip sandwich, studied it warily for a moment, then set it back down with a sigh. "Let's leave m' adolescent hormones behind and focus on th' here and now, yeah?" He gestured down to the crime scene photos, trying to regain a bit of dignity.
"Alright, alright.", Connor smirked. "I'll letcha off the hook...for now." He finished off the last of his soda, then said, cringing, "I'm almost afraid to ask, but what do the profilers have to say about our guy?"
Billy rifled through a manila folder, extracting a sheet of copy-paper. He squinted down at the print, but it was too fine, and he was too bleary-eyed to manage it without aid. He self-consciously rooted in his shirt pocket and took out his reading glasses, a faint blush once again tingeing his cheeks as he placed them on his nose.
"Fuckin' geezer.", Connor said fondly, grinning over at him.
"Sod off." Billy tried to sound appropriately menacing, but his rapidly-reddening face ruined the effect.
"Those things make you dead-sexy, you know that, right, Boyd? They should make you look all feeble and decrepit-like, but I have this uncontrollable urge to jump your bones whenever I see you wearing those."
"Try t' contain yourself, mate. I'd only fall asleep on y' at this point.", Billy smiled back tiredly. "Profile.", he reminded Bailey, waving the sheet for emphasis. "Now that th' fuckin' geezer's donned his spectacles."
"By all means, please continue, I can't wait to hear this." Connor rolled his eyes and picked up his sandwich, regarded it for a moment then put it back down unmolested, settling for lighting up a cigarette instead.
Billy began reading. "Twenty-one to fifty-two year old white male, low-end job, high school dropout, lives with a dominant female relative, may have some type of disability, something that hampers his everyday interaction with other people, causes timidity. History of sadism, voyeurism, torture of small animals, fire-starting. These are probably his initial killings, he's stayed low-profile before now. Unstable mentality- high chance of suicide or suicide-by-cop if he's cornered..."
Bailey chuffed out smoke. "What do they do, fill out a goddamn form letter and fax it around when someone requests a profile? Every single time I've read one of these, it's said the exact same thing. Only thing they forgot this time around was the bedwetting." He held up the pack of cigarettes and raised an eyebrow at Billy, who nodded. Connor lit one for him and handed it over. "Okay...we've heard the exalted opinion of the Almighty Eff Bee Eye. Now the important question: what do you say, Bill? I've never known you to be wrong yet. What's your gut telling you?"
Billy took a deep drag then looked up at his partner, face lined with exhaustion but eyes still sparking green fire. "That th' profile's a load of horseshit. Th' age range is probably on target, but, then again, th' wanker's have pretty much covered everyone but babes in nappies and Grandma Moses. The rest of it's pure swill. The bastard we're after is smooth, sophisticated, and intelligent. No, strike that...this one's bloody brilliant. I donnae know if this is his first time, but it sure as Christ willnae be his last. He's nowhere near suicidal, nor unstable - th' only way this fucker's going down is if we put him down."
Billy paused a moment, lost in thought, then continued in a soft, somber voice. "And I'll tell y' something else, something that scares th' absolute shite out of me: these victims aren't the ones he was after, Bailey. This is only a preview. He's playing with us, drawing us in. The notes, the phone calls telling us where t' pick up the bodies- he's involving us, moving us around like pawns on a chessboard. He's doing this all for us. These first are just t' get our attention, clue us into th' game. He hasn't begun t' go for his real target."
Connor opened his mouth to reply, but just then his cell phone buzzed. He flipped it open, listened, then snapped it back shut. "The morgue. They're ready to start the cut. Just awaiting our distinguished company. Ready, Billy-boy?"
Billy nodded and they pushed back their lunch plates, food untouched.
At the door, Connor turned to Billy and asked quietly, "Am I the only one going a little bit crazy with all this, partner? Is it just me, or does it feel like we somehow got catapulted straight into the motherfucking Twilight Zone?"
Billy shook his head and answered softly. "No. 'tis not just you, Bailey. 'm nearly off m' head with it."
The worry and fatigue that had been absent from Billy's features for a precious few minutes seeped back in. At the very same instant, he reached around to the back pocket of his trousers and fished out well-worn leather, bringing the item forward, thumb poised to flip back the cover. Then he blinked, stared at the wallet in his hands for a few beats, as if surprised to find it there, and determinedly shoved it back into place without opening it, cheeks once again turning a rosy shade of pink.
Connor bit back a grin. He might tease Billy mercilessly about his minor obsession, but was well aware of the therapeutic calming effects Dom had on his partner. He reached into Billy’s pants, plucked the wallet back out and pressed it into his hand, smiling. "Shit, brother...go ahead and give him a pet. You're gonna need all the serenity you can get where we're going."
to be continued.....
Author: flybynite29
Rating: Series R-NC17, this part R for graphic description of murder, language
Pairings: Billy Boyd/Dominic Monaghan (a bit later in the story), brief mentions of Billy/omc, the cast of Lost popping up in various places and positions.
Summary: Billy Boyd's a hard-working, straight-laced, small town detective with a secret. When the course of The Job takes him directly into the path of his daydreams, he has no choice but to follow. Billy's fantasy has become someone else's obsession... and the results could be deadly.
Disclaimer: I do not own Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, or any of the other real-life persons in this work; I'm just playing with them for a bit. I do own Detective Bailey Connor, however, for better or worse. No money is being made off of any of this, and I adore all of these people far too much to intend any disrespect.
Warnings: AU, Work in Progress, Graphic descriptions of serial murder, gore, general squick
Feedback: I live for it. : )
a/n: I've taken great liberties with location and timing -amongst other things- for the purpose of this story. I haven't pulled any punches with the gore in this fic, so if you are squeamish about that type of thing, please beware. Although parts are definitely meant to be humorous, this will get quite dark in places because I'm dealing with a very disturbed mind (apart from my own ; )). The filming of Rings took place just as in real-life: with the sole exception of Billy not being cast in the role of Pippin. The details of Lost are all as is.
Prologue
No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes
~Paint It, Black
The Rolling Stones
"If there's a connection here, I ain't gettin' it, man." Bailey Connor tossed the crime scene glossies to the restaurant table in disgust, picking up his Reuben sandwich instead, making a face at it. "I feel like there's something right in front of me, somethin' I should be seeing, but I just can't quite connect the frigging dots."
Billy felt the exact same, had done since day one. He leafed through the pictures as he half-heartedly sipped at his tepid mug of tea. He'd been through them countless times before and nothing about them made any more sense to him this time around. Yet... that feeling was there, the sensation of something right on the tip of his tongue, something he just couldn't seem to spit out. Maybe if he wasn't so bloody fucking tired; he was far past the point of being able to form any type of coherent thought.
There were seven separate sets of death scenes, each new one more hideous than the last. And none of them even remotely similar to each other in choice of victim, style or execution.
Bailey read his thoughts. "Yeah...this asshole has commitment problems, alright. That's two gunned down so far- the doc and the Egyptian." He separated two of the photos from the pile with his fingertips, gently tapping the one to the left. "But our Egyptian friend didn't get off nearly as easy as the good doctor."
"I wouldnae exactly call being gutshot and dropped ten stories t' splatter on the kerb 'getting off easy', mate.", Billy said wryly. "Was hardly enough of him left t' scrape up."
Dr. Harley Fishbaum, one of Florida's most promising young neurological surgeons, cut down in his prime. He had been the first, found the Monday before after an 'anonymous tip' from the murderer himself led the detectives to his body.
Each day after had brought a new horror.
"At least the doc didn't suffer long.", Bailey commented bleakly. "Can't say the same for this poor bastard." He poked at the picture of the former Egyptian soldier.
Nicholas Zahrif- tied up, drugged, tortured at length, finished off after an eternity with a pop to the back of the head, execution style. By that time, the bullet had been a mercy.
"Donnae forget th' lass in th' gun count.", Billy reminded his partner softly. "The M.E. said 'tis likely she was shot after she was..." Billy faltered, trying to find the right word. "Mauled, I guess works as well as anything. The bullet wound was very likely th' actual cause of death. The rest was done while she was still conscious."
Connor glanced down toward the picture of the girl, then quickly away, unable to look too closely at the destruction, even in a photograph. She was the only female victim...and out of all of the deaths, hers had to be the most hideous. At first they had thought she had been gotten to by animals- that's how mutilated she had been. But it had only been some sort of tool, fashioned to mimic the bite of a huge carnivore. A twenty-one-year-old former Miss New Hampshire, filthy rich, by all accounts a first-class bitch in life. In addition to the mock-bites obliterating her chest and abdomen, her once-beautiful face had been slashed up beyond recognition. The message left with her body had been short and sweet, and made the most sense out of all of the notes: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...
"She's the only chick in the bunch.", Connor mused. "Do you think that means something, Billy? She was the most brutal, her face was virtually obliterated, postmortem. No other reason for that than to erase her, as a person. Was she special to him, somehow? Was she personal?"
Billy shook his head. "M' feeling is no. That she's th' only female so far. There'll be more, she's not an anomaly. She was only slashed so badly because it fit with the killer's plan. None of these are 'personal' to this monster. They're all just portions of a larger work...his 'masterpiece'."
Connor blew out a frustrated breath and took a sip of watery Pepsi. "Okay, two for sure, possibly three shootings. Two slashings as the cause of death; Handi-Man and Peanut Butter Dude today."
'Handi-Man' was Paul Timmons, an anonymous, middle-aged businessman with a secret penchant for adventure. He'd recently broken both legs in a mountain-climbing fall, was still hobbling around on crutches when the killer caught up to him. The broken bones were painful, certainly...but just a drop in the bucket next to what was to come. He had been found dumped in the back alley of a strip mall. In one hand, the inevitable note, in the other the number for a phone-sex hotline. The killer had re-broken both legs, crushing the bones nearly into dust before finally slitting his throat, the bloody knife left in his lap.
"Just th' single case of suffocation.", Billy added, poking at another glossy.
"Yeah." Bailey nodded. "Our cowboy. Mr. Enigma himself."
Jason Lyle, thirty-five-year-old, devastatingly handsome small-time horse rancher...with one hell of a secret. When the detectives had started to dig into his background they had found a curious thing. Jason Lyle did not exist. The actual owner of the name had died as an infant, his identity taken over at age seventeen by a certain Dean Patrick Macalley. All subsequent efforts to unearth the actual bio of the elusive Mr. Macalley had dead-ended.
In the midst of the information age, in a time when any Tom, Dick, or Harry with internet access could track down anyone with a few well-placed keystrokes, this bloke had somehow managed to effectively obliterate all traces of his real self, had stayed successfully veiled behind the life of a dead child for nearly two decades. Dean Macalley had been the quintessential hidden man.
Until somebody had finally found him.
His nose had been duct-taped over and his lips sewn shut. He had died choking on his own screams, literally eating his own words. The killer had done part of the detectives' homework for them- the victim's real name had been helpfully spelled out on a gaudy, Las Vegas-style nametag, and safety-pinned to his forehead.
Bailey looked down at the photo of Jason Lyle and winced at the thick black seam sealing the corpse's mouth. "Bad shit, man." He shook his head, further mussing his dreadlocks, then tapped the remaining photograph in the pile. "Okay, that leaves one. Our star attraction." He looked over at Billy and his voice grew serious. "I still say this one's the key to the whole thing, partner." He tapped the picture of the large black man once again, for emphasis. "He had to be a direct target. He was just too goddamn big not to be. Billy...this guy was untouchable."
"Aye, well...I'd say he got touched, wouldn't ye?", Billy replied softly, looking down at the grisly remains.
Mualo Awala Mumbar, a.k.a. Papa Bear, one-time leader of a ruthless militia faction in Ethiopia, who had moved up ten years before to become the top drug kingpin in the southern United States. The courts, the cops and above-board government agencies had been trying to take him down legally for a decade. The mob, rival drug heads, and the more underground branches of the U.S. government had been trying to take him down in a much more permanent way for just as long. Mumbar, unlike the other high-ups, didn't travel with bodyguards. He didn't need them. Unbeknownst to the kingpin, however, his luck had run out. After ten long years, one of the agencies had finally closed in, had him under heavy surveillance, cornered, was just waiting for the right moment to swoop in and take him out. They swooped, guns at the ready- only to find out they were a few minutes too late.
The killer had somehow waltzed in and whacked Mumbar right under the nose of the CIA.
"Christ, Bill...I could understand if it was the Feebs, but this was the Agency watching him. You don't just sneak past the goddamn CIA!" Bailey looked pained. "Either this fucker's plumb mental or he has the biggest set of balls I've ever seen. Mumbar had to've been the key- it wouldn't have been worth the risk otherwise!"
Billy shook his head and said firmly, "I'm still certain he was just a means t' an end- his identity didn't matter, except for how he fit into th' big picture. These are all just pieces of a bigger puzzle. They're chosen because of what they represent. Th' killer needed a drug lord, so he got a drug lord, as simple as that."
Connor huffed out an irritated breath, but let the argument rest for the moment. "Well, no matter why he did it, I have to say, the bastard did us a favor with this one. I'm not sorry to see that asshole Mumbar gone. Don't think anyone with a badge is sorry."
"Even he didn't deserve this kind of hell, Bailey.", Billy replied quietly, tapping the photograph himself. "No matter what he did on this earth."
The CIA had arrived belatedly to find Papa Bear propped against the trunk of a mangrove tree, arms spread and tied above his head, spikes driven through the wrists, for all intents and purposes crucified. After he was strung up, the killer had hammered more spikes into various places on his body and left him to die of massive blood loss, a bible placed gently at his feet. The note driven into his tethered hand had kept with the religious theme: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil..."
"He's got no race barrier, no language or religion barrier, crosses over into both genders. This guy's totally friggin' unpredictable, partner." Connor ran his hands over his face in frustration. "How do we begin to compete with that, Bill?"
Billy shook his head once again and immediately regretted it. His exhaustion seemed to catch up to him all at once, stealing his breath and sending his vision swimming. He pinched the bridge of his nose, hard, trying to regain some equilibrium. Things finally settled back to normal, more or less, but he knew he couldn't keep up at this pace. He wasn't twenty anymore, and he'd been at it non-stop for a week now.
Bailey noticed his partner's sharp intake of breath and looked closely at Billy, concerned by what he saw. "You gotten any sleep lately, man?", he asked gently.
"Aye...a bit.", Billy hedged. A very wee bit- in the last week, he'd maybe averaged two hours a night. Every time he closed his eyes his mind was haunted by broken, torn corpses and, worse... a sense of failure. The surety that he was missing something vital, something he should be seeing, and the longer he kept on missing it, the higher the body count would go. And the more personal the stakes would become.
"Don't burn out on me, Bill. Take care of yourself." Bailey tapped his hand to make sure he had his attention. "I mean it, brother. I need you."
Billy's lips turned up in a genuine smile, small as it was. "Donnae be going all sentimental on me now, love.", he winked. "You'll ruin your bad-boy image." Billy's voice was teasing, but he knew Connor's statement was a serious one. He cared about Billy, and deeply.
As the only two (known) gays in the Burton PD, it was somehow almost inevitable that they'd end up in bed together. And so they had. But they had been lovers for exactly one night before realizing they'd wind up hating each other. Their partnership- and much more importantly their friendship - was much too dear for that.
Maybe that would make things easier..., Billy mused to himself, not for the first time. Maybe it would be easier not to have to go home to a cold, empty bed, to actually come home to a pair of warm, loving arms, to someone he could share his thoughts and fears with. Maybe then, even amidst this darkness, he'd be able to find a measure of peace. It had been a long time since he'd known comfort and even longer since he'd known anything resembling peace.
As for lovers...at present, Billy had none. None that weren't actually figments of his imagination, that is.
He reached out and picked up his wallet from where it lay on the tabletop and opened it, thumbing his way into the photo section. He looked at one of the pictures for a long moment, some of the stress-lines on his face smoothing out, his smile making it to his eyes for the first time that day. Then he slipped the wallet into his back pocket and absentmindedly took a sip of his now-cold tea.
Bailey watched the scene with amusement. "Dom have any ideas about all this? Have a suspect for us, maybe? Shit...ask him, gotta be better than anything we've come up with so far.", he deadpanned, lips twitching, trying not to laugh outright.
Some cops carried a rabbit's foot for luck, some a spent bullet, some snapshots of their wives and children.
Billy carried Dominic Monaghan.
"Shut it. Not another fecking word!", Billy growled menacingly, blushing to the roots of his hair, mortified. He didn't know which was more disturbing- that he had grown careless enough to let Bailey catch him at this wee ritual, or that the motion had become so ingrained he wasn't even aware he was doing it anymore.
Billy Boyd - proud, upright Scotsman, tough as nails detective - had a school-lassie's crush on a film celebrity. It was appalling, really, when you got right down to it.
It had all started with Fellowship of the Ring. Billy had watched the adorable, mischievous hobbit Merry cavorting onscreen, and his heart had missed a beat. Then he had seen the lad stripped of the makeup and furry feet, and had lost his heart altogether.
Then Charlie Pace had come along, and now Billy was hopelessly addicted, blew off important cases to race home, unwilling to miss even a single minute of the programme. The times that he had no choice but to remain at the station, he'd flee to the men's loo, locking himself in with his portable telly, pleading the onset of illness or tainted roadside hamburgers. The other cops rolled their eyes at each other and remarked how very odd it was that Detective Boyd always seemed to fall prey to some devastating intestinal malady during the same primetime hour each Wednesday night, then was somehow miraculously healed immediately afterwards.
The amused glances and rumors around the squad room were bad enough, but if any of Billy's fellow peace officers were to actually nose into his office computer and open up the file marked 'Missing Person' , Billy would have no choice but to eat his gun. The file was filled to bursting with pictures of Dominic, articles, film reviews, tabloid blurbs... every little scrap Billy could get his hands on.
He knew it was the height of insanity to leave those things around where anyone, with just a wee bit of prying, could get a glimpse of them, but Billy practically lived at the station, and could not imagine a whole day going by without gazing upon his Dommie. All Billy had to do was look at Dom, think about Dom, and the world grew a little brighter, lost some of its nasty, bleak edges. Billy realized his behavior was something bordering on stalkerish- Christ...truth be told, he'd locked people up for far less- but, in all honesty, his obsession was perfectly harmless, just a bit of boyish fantasizing, would never come to anything, at any rate.
'Aye...I'll bet that's just what Hinckley, Jr. told himself, too, y' great bloody wanker!', Billy chastised himself harshly. He looked over the table at his partner, determined to work up some line of defense for his actions, but could only blush madly.
Billy still had enough wits about him to know that fantasy very rarely jibed with facts. The real Dominic was undoubtedly nothing like Billy had made him out to be in his mind, was most likely a first-class arsehole in person. Billy told himself this frequently, but he didn't really believe it. Deep in his heart, Billy knew Dom was just what he appeared to be- a bright, talented, gentle, beautiful young man. Besides, didn't really matter, did it? 'twasn't as if Billy would ever actually meet him.
And, oh Christ... Connor was positively grinning now. Once he got going in taking the piss about Dom, he was relentless. Billy was still trying to live down Bailey's most recent Christmas gift (given and opened at the station's annual holiday party, no less): a pair of boxers with the words 'The Brandybuck Stops Here' boldly emblazoned across the arse. It was best to cut things off before they had a chance to get started. "Connor, I swear t' Christ...", he warned.
Bailey realized the extent of Billy's embarrassment, and left off poking fun in favor of empathy. "Shit, man...lots of kids have pictures and stuff they tote around of their favorite movie stars. Stuff they clip out of Tiger Beat and whatnot."
"'m very nearly thirty eight, Bailey.", Billy remarked dryly. "Long gone from m' teeny-bopper days." He paused a moment, then added firmly, "And I'll have y' know I've never in m' life cracked th' cover of a Tiger Beat."
Connor rolled his eyes then winked flirtatiously. "Hey, Bill...I offered. You turned me down. I've got nothin' against a little role-playing." He glanced down at his own dark skin and grinned. "We could always dim the lights."
Billy finally cracked a grin. "Wouldn't matter...you're a talker in bed, and your Mancunian accent's for shite, mate."
Bailey snorted laughter. "Come to think of it, you'd probably make a piss-poor Wesley Snipes yourself."
Billy shook his head, picked up his soggy French Dip sandwich, studied it warily for a moment, then set it back down with a sigh. "Let's leave m' adolescent hormones behind and focus on th' here and now, yeah?" He gestured down to the crime scene photos, trying to regain a bit of dignity.
"Alright, alright.", Connor smirked. "I'll letcha off the hook...for now." He finished off the last of his soda, then said, cringing, "I'm almost afraid to ask, but what do the profilers have to say about our guy?"
Billy rifled through a manila folder, extracting a sheet of copy-paper. He squinted down at the print, but it was too fine, and he was too bleary-eyed to manage it without aid. He self-consciously rooted in his shirt pocket and took out his reading glasses, a faint blush once again tingeing his cheeks as he placed them on his nose.
"Fuckin' geezer.", Connor said fondly, grinning over at him.
"Sod off." Billy tried to sound appropriately menacing, but his rapidly-reddening face ruined the effect.
"Those things make you dead-sexy, you know that, right, Boyd? They should make you look all feeble and decrepit-like, but I have this uncontrollable urge to jump your bones whenever I see you wearing those."
"Try t' contain yourself, mate. I'd only fall asleep on y' at this point.", Billy smiled back tiredly. "Profile.", he reminded Bailey, waving the sheet for emphasis. "Now that th' fuckin' geezer's donned his spectacles."
"By all means, please continue, I can't wait to hear this." Connor rolled his eyes and picked up his sandwich, regarded it for a moment then put it back down unmolested, settling for lighting up a cigarette instead.
Billy began reading. "Twenty-one to fifty-two year old white male, low-end job, high school dropout, lives with a dominant female relative, may have some type of disability, something that hampers his everyday interaction with other people, causes timidity. History of sadism, voyeurism, torture of small animals, fire-starting. These are probably his initial killings, he's stayed low-profile before now. Unstable mentality- high chance of suicide or suicide-by-cop if he's cornered..."
Bailey chuffed out smoke. "What do they do, fill out a goddamn form letter and fax it around when someone requests a profile? Every single time I've read one of these, it's said the exact same thing. Only thing they forgot this time around was the bedwetting." He held up the pack of cigarettes and raised an eyebrow at Billy, who nodded. Connor lit one for him and handed it over. "Okay...we've heard the exalted opinion of the Almighty Eff Bee Eye. Now the important question: what do you say, Bill? I've never known you to be wrong yet. What's your gut telling you?"
Billy took a deep drag then looked up at his partner, face lined with exhaustion but eyes still sparking green fire. "That th' profile's a load of horseshit. Th' age range is probably on target, but, then again, th' wanker's have pretty much covered everyone but babes in nappies and Grandma Moses. The rest of it's pure swill. The bastard we're after is smooth, sophisticated, and intelligent. No, strike that...this one's bloody brilliant. I donnae know if this is his first time, but it sure as Christ willnae be his last. He's nowhere near suicidal, nor unstable - th' only way this fucker's going down is if we put him down."
Billy paused a moment, lost in thought, then continued in a soft, somber voice. "And I'll tell y' something else, something that scares th' absolute shite out of me: these victims aren't the ones he was after, Bailey. This is only a preview. He's playing with us, drawing us in. The notes, the phone calls telling us where t' pick up the bodies- he's involving us, moving us around like pawns on a chessboard. He's doing this all for us. These first are just t' get our attention, clue us into th' game. He hasn't begun t' go for his real target."
Connor opened his mouth to reply, but just then his cell phone buzzed. He flipped it open, listened, then snapped it back shut. "The morgue. They're ready to start the cut. Just awaiting our distinguished company. Ready, Billy-boy?"
Billy nodded and they pushed back their lunch plates, food untouched.
At the door, Connor turned to Billy and asked quietly, "Am I the only one going a little bit crazy with all this, partner? Is it just me, or does it feel like we somehow got catapulted straight into the motherfucking Twilight Zone?"
Billy shook his head and answered softly. "No. 'tis not just you, Bailey. 'm nearly off m' head with it."
The worry and fatigue that had been absent from Billy's features for a precious few minutes seeped back in. At the very same instant, he reached around to the back pocket of his trousers and fished out well-worn leather, bringing the item forward, thumb poised to flip back the cover. Then he blinked, stared at the wallet in his hands for a few beats, as if surprised to find it there, and determinedly shoved it back into place without opening it, cheeks once again turning a rosy shade of pink.
Connor bit back a grin. He might tease Billy mercilessly about his minor obsession, but was well aware of the therapeutic calming effects Dom had on his partner. He reached into Billy’s pants, plucked the wallet back out and pressed it into his hand, smiling. "Shit, brother...go ahead and give him a pet. You're gonna need all the serenity you can get where we're going."
to be continued.....
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So glad you're still enjoying this. : ) Thanks so much for sticking with me.
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Wow, Billy's even more obsessed with Dom than me! lol!!!
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Wow, Billy's even more obsessed with Dom than me! lol!!!
I think he's even more obsessed than me, and that's saying quite a lot! *grin*
Thank you so much for reading and commenting, hope you continue to enjoy this. : )
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Um, am I right? *giggles like a git*
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(to the author): loving the Dommie crush!!!
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Thank you for all the great comments; hope you continue to enjoy as we go along. : )
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Billy and Dom and Lost! And one heck of a storyline! You rock, I can't wait to buy your first novel!. I will, of course, expect an autograph!*grins*
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Ohh, knew it was lost as soon as i heard peanut butter in the 1st chapter. *wins*
Keep up the good work, and I'll grab my teddy!