Bones and Cold Skin

Bones and Cold Skin
By Michael Angelo Niles
and
Maria Concepcion Panli/lio

Only one beast on Earth did this, Vince Miles told his writhing innards. Crosses, silver bullets, crystal amulets—all beyond the pale of this particular fetish; certainly so, considering the way it chose to flay the victim’s body over the Venetian tiles. Moonlight from an open window splashed icy blue tendrils over a tarsal bone, rib cage, tibia, and a perfectly set femur. The partly exposed digits spoke of small, strong fingers—most likely manicured, if not pampered by a fastidious life in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

As condos go, this one had the perks. A wide portico overlooking a serene lake shore, silk drapes, Mies van der Rohe decor, terrazzo marble fireplace, Picasso prints, and a plasma fish tank with sexy holograms diving for coral. Eyeing it all was an oil painting of Drake Hollow in his honker’s duds, looking like the heir to an oil tycoon.

Good life. Bad way to go, Miles thought, closely inspecting the skeletal bones. Wedged in the bony sculpture was a single black pearl. A calling card, like the four before it. Something noir. Cutesy. One beast enjoyed such things. Miles knew, even without the forensics lab’s conclusions, that Hollow’s killer had probed his flesh through and through, feeding on his urges.

He casually sniffed the brick surface as if to detect its fetor. "Got messy on the fifth one," he told Officer Andy Gunwick, the primary on the scene. Miles breathed, "all mucked up right here in this splotch."

"What splotch?" Gunwick asked, pushing his masked nose closer. "I don’t see nothing but—" He caught sight of it belatedly. "Oh shoot, that! Hey, you’re good, Miles. One freaking piece of work."

"Only mistake," Miles said, as if he admired the perp’s handiwork with a Latex-gloved hand, he traced the subtle outline of a bloodstain, one barely washed from the taffeta tiles, but still apparent to the naked eye. "Got careless just this once," he said. "Or just got bored with the efficiency of the other hits. Either way, it’s toying with our profilers, I’d say."

There he went again. That chilling way he referred to the killer as an "it" rather than a gender-specific entity. Of course, the junior officer could scarcely know about bone fetishes, about rare pearls, and leathery screams in the night.

Even so, Gunwick took a stab. "Okay. So it’s the Bone Maker guy, for sure, that right?"

"So far as it looks," Miles nearly croaked. "In case you didn’t notice, Gun, the whole body has been eviscerated. Left nothing to exhume but fused bones and about a third of Mr. Hollow’s skull. I’d say that’s a pretty good indication we’re dealing with the Boner, yes.

For six long weeks the killer had struck terror. All of them had been bachelors living in the secluded lake community. All dead. The Bureau was getting antsy, too. But for the life of him, Miles hadn’t snared a single suspect. Even the County Medical Examiner’s Office was lost for explanations.

Oh, they had all ignored Miles’ hunch that their killer wasn’t human, thanks to that prissy Dr. Prescott. Well, she’d see about that.

"Ever figure how he did them?" Gunwick asked as Miles dug the pearl from an una. "Bones don’t look right, you know? I mean, how’d they get fused like that?"

"Theory goes," Miles huffed, "they got torched somehow."

"Like in a kiln?"

"Got me. Fact is, it’s some pretty pissed psychopath out there. One capable of outsmarting every Dick Sleuth this side of Eugene. Even has Prescott’s panties all bunched up."

"So nobody’s got a clue, then?"

Gunwick aimed a flashlight at the crevices, chasing more evidence, but knew, as Miles did, that the place was dead. Save for the bloodstain, the ghastly bones, and a faint scent that Miles couldn’t place. A scent he knew. One that clung to the skin long after— A whiff of camphor and gardenias kissed his sinuses. Cold air gushed over the room as Miles looked past Gunwick in time to see her. Cripes, she had all but melted from the stygian night, pouring onto their cozy crime scene like fog.

Dr. Royce Prescott. All legs and shapely curves under a jet black Versace overcoat (and Miles hoped to hell nothing else!) draped over snugly fit Gucci slacks and high stiletto heels. If she wore anything under that leather coat, it would shatter his reverie of savoring her supple— "Bones again, boys?" asked Prescott, breaking Miles’ spell. She damn well knew the crime scene long before her arrival. Like the four before it, this one had the same modus operandi, set in scoria hues in the brick tomb just inches from Hollow’s silk drapes.

She pursed her rosy lips. "Back on the prowl, Vince boy? Thought the Bureau chased you from Special Crimes after the Teisha Boles file, wasn’t it?"

Still had fangs. Knew how to sink them deep into his cold, hungry flesh. He frowned, convinced she was seducing him right there in front of poor Drake Hollow. Admittedly, Miles was aroused by her steely aura, dark, catlike eyes, fiery auburn hair cropped short tonight, with steel earrings falling over a long, sensuous neck. Dressed to kill the likes of Gunwick, who was growing so stiff he could burst.

"It’s Vince," Miles demurred, embracing the icy thrust of her wit. "And yes, I’m back on the prowl, or whatever the Corpse Farm is calling it nowadays."

She gave him a sultry grin. "Easy there," she urged. "I was merely testing for flaws," she half-lied, probing his hazel eyes. Miles well knew the tender probe of her blood red nails, kneading his naked flesh just a winter ago, an eternity back when he’d been led by investigative lust. A fling, yes.

"Ghastly way to go," she said, eyeing the bony protrusion near her gloved hand. She whistled softly. "Am I seeing what I think I see boys? Blood?"

"That’s right, Dr. Prescott," Gunwick confirmed, suddenly a forensics expert. "He’s getting sloppy, looks like."

"He?" she plied.

"And it—maybe even she," Miles spoke up. He had to assert his objective charge. "Who knows, really? But it’s definitely the Boner. Doubtful your expertise can do much for the deceased, I’m afraid."

He looked searchingly into her dark almond slits. "Care to tell us why you’re even on this case, Royce? Given the guy’s lack of flesh, isn’t it obvious what the cause of death is?"

"Only on the surface," Prescott rebutted.

"Cute,” Miles sighed. "Really cute. Clues, yes. Suspects?" Miles held the extracted black pearl at eye level. "Got no fibers, no hairs, no prints. Just this puppy right here."

"Yeah," Gunwick chimed in belatedly, as if the pun just sank in. "Pretty clever, Dr. Prescott. Surface? Bones?"

Miles got serious. "Say, Gun. Don’t you have a report to begin? I mean, the photographer’s job is done, so why don’t you go do what you PD boys do? Give us some room to scrape the paint, so to speak. Deal?"

"Oh yeah, sure thing. I’ll just go find a donut somewhere." He holstered his flashlight and pride, then left obediently, although Miles was hardly an authority, nor even a real profiler with the FBI (not after Teisha’s case got him demoted to a mere freelance stalker).

"Straight edged cop," Prescott observed aloud.

"Portland’s finest," Miles agreed.

"So why the leave-us-alone routine? Got some deviant hunch going through your mind again? Some kinky theory? Off the record like?"

"Don’t flatter yourself, Royce. It was a fling, that’s all. Or didn’t I satisfy your fetish enough that night?"

She touched a protruding cheekbone. "Oh come, come," she said, lifting her face to his. "Aren’t we going to be adults about this? After all," she sighed, brushing his lips, "what’s my fetish got to do with work, huh? Besides love is only skin deep, Vince darling."

Royce kissed him wetly. Crimson petals. Her lips devoured his, her tongue probing his life force, tasting his hidden fears. "Ooh," she breathed against his stubby cheek, arousing Miles with a gloved hand.

"Ooh what?" he said, breaking her tender spell. What did she think? He’d just melt in her arms after the way she ignored his calls? He’d simply— Camphor roses. Sweetly intoxicating, yes.

"Royce, stop. I’m—"

She held him closely, cupping his swollen nature. She groped for secrets only a medical examiner could erect so close to another man’s skeleton, for crying bloody murder!

"Royce," he insisted weakly.

She purred. "Isn’t this what you’ve coveted from the second you laid eyes on me?" Her eyes were piercing, a sly grin touching her lips, so wet and inviting. "And to think, I wore your favorite necklace. See?"

As she undid her coat, revealing sexy black pearls, her fully exposed bosom swollen with naughty overtones of creamy softness and hard, pink buds, Miles felt a strange tug at his skin, as if their physical magnetism were a tangible force crawling over his pores.

He blinked fiercely and jerked from her grasp. "No! Stop it, damn you!" he cried, forcing his senses awake. "Cripes! Have you no respect for the dead?"

"Oh, deliciously so," she cooed, red tongue flicking over her gorgeous mouth. With Miles groping for the gun he no longer had, she poured for her clothing, wavering nakedly before the terrace, a mere watery afterimage stalking his will, drawing out his energy in wispy cords. He tried to defy but couldn’t. If only Miles hadn’t sent Gunwick away. If only he hadn’t begged the Bureau to give him the Bone Maker case. If not for that and his knack for solving the most gruesome cases ever to cross anybody’s desk at Special Crimes, maybe he could have kept far from her seductive gaze.

As if melding with the scotia tiles there alongside Drake Hollow’s bony husk, he felt his skin furl back, blood surging hotly. He felt his cells joining hers. Royce Prescott, dead sexy, sweet as a fecund breeze overlooking Lake Oswego. Deep moans drained his tendons and fatty cells, leaving raw cartilage....

And bone!

"Ooh, darling," she breathed against his bare femur, already fused beside the others, cracking like embers, still smoldering in a terrazzo fireplace, still breathing porously, chasing her leathery black shadow into the night.

Ah yes, one last fling. Case closed. Stiff, cold facts, Vince boy. Ooh, deliciously so.

-o0o-