Where Monsters Dwell by Jørgen Brekke Read Free Book Online Page A

to the bust of Edgar Allan Poe didn’t look like any she’d ever seen before. Usually there was something peaceful about people, even if they were dispatched by the most brutal methods. But this corpse seemed … what could she say? It sounded melodramatic, especially in these surroundings, but it didn’t seem that the corpse had found peace. Presumably this was because the corpse had no skin, or maybe it was because the body was standing upright without a head. She had a strange feeling of unreality, as if she were looking at a ghost. She was immediately nauseous, a feeling she thought she’d left behind over the course of her career. The feeling scared her, because below the nausea something darker and more dangerous was lurking. The monster she had fought with back when her childhood had come to an end. Somewhere deep in her stomach she noticed the sinking sensation that she wouldn’t allow herself to feel.
    Laubach and a coroner whose name she couldn’t remember were preparing to untie the corpse from the pillar. They stopped working when she and Patterson came over to them.
    “What have you found so far?” Stone asked, noticing that the churning in her stomach stopped as soon as she began talking shop. Laubach was confidence personified, and old enough to be her father. Tall, half African American, his well-groomed hair starting to go gray, he had a sense of calm about him that came from the Deep South, but his mind was still quick. This combination of outer calm and sharp thinking made him a fount of laconic remarks. But today he had put aside any witticisms.
    “Well, I’ll tell you this—our friend here didn’t have a simple or quick death. He was tied to the pillar with steel wire around his arms, feet, and waist. He still has skin in some places. The marks from the steel wire show signs of swelling and bleeding, which tells us that he was alive when he was tied up.”
    “So his throat was slit and he was flayed as he hung here?” she asked, trying not to let the images take shape in her head.
    “Not exactly. Well, at least not in that order. All the skin on his upper torso between his neck, shoulders, and navel was removed, also on his back. It wouldn’t be possible to do that while he was hanging the way he is now. The skin was most likely taken off before he was tied up.”
    “And you said that he was still alive when he was tied up there. So in other words, he was…”
    “Skinned alive, yes,” said Laubach, completing her sentence.
    “Jesus Christ!” said Patterson. “But his head was upstairs in the office. Wouldn’t it be more logical that the murderer killed him up there, flayed him, and then dragged him down here to tie him up?”
    “There’s a good deal here that isn’t logical. His head was beaten severely before he died. There was blood and signs of a struggle in the office, but we don’t have a full picture yet. The cleaning woman made a mess up there, which makes our job even harder. We think he was knocked unconscious with a blunt instrument up in the office, but that he didn’t die from it. Then he was dragged down here and flayed, most likely on the lawn over there, where there’s quite a lot of blood.” Laubach pointed to a spot over by the fountain. “Then he was probably tied up and his throat cut, apparently with a small ax or a very heavy knife—possibly with more than one instrument. It took several hacks to get the head off. Finally he carried it back up to the office and put it in the wastebasket.”
    “Why do you think he did that?” Felicia asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
    “Does any of it make sense?” replied Laubach. “But I know what you mean. It seems unnecessary to take the head back upstairs. Maybe he did it to confuse us. I have no idea what the intent was. Maybe the killer was trying to tell us something.”
    “You’ve been watching too much TV,” said Patterson.
    “This might be one of those rare instances when reality is stranger