The Pit

“Like you said, you have to turn left.”

Jorge was losing what little patience he still possessed.  He punched the accelerator and laid some rubber as he made the turn.

At the end of the next stretch of Pell, where it went left again, Tall Man mumbled, “In that parking lot on the right, back by the dumpster”.  Jorge, now pissed, noticed the dumpster was way in back by another fence.  No people, no cars.  He bounced across the lot, braking hard by the trash container.  “You’re home,” he growled, looking at the meter.  “Eighteen dollars exactly.”

He turned his head as he saw Tall Man’s hand come over the back of the seat, with money, he assumed.  What he saw was a knife with a four or five inch blade pointing at his face.  “Gimme all your cash, punk,” Tall Man demanded.

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Detective Harrigan laid the Medical Examiner’s report on his desk.  Alicia Renoir’s death came from excessive blood loss, not physical trauma.  Most of the thirty-seven cuts on her body were superficial wounds – slashing, really.  Breasts, face, stomach and thighs.  The ones on her forearms were certainly caused while trying to defend herself.

Approximately eight of the wounds were caused by driving the knife directly into a sensitive area – bone, nerves, cartilage – then twisting the point repeatedly.  These, presumably, were attempts to cause intense pain.

Only one wound was completely different from the rest.  A direct incision made to the carotid artery on the left side of her neck, completely severing it.  This was likely the cause of death.

Remnants of duct tape glue found in the area of her mouth, and red marks around her wrists, indicated she had been bound and gagged at some point.  The tape and restraints were not found at the crime scene.

The M.E. had observed that a lot of blood loss occurred from the slash wounds, but not a fatal amount.  A couple had actually started to congeal, so were almost certainly all done before the fatal stab, which appeared to have been done intentionally to cause death.

To Harrigan’s homicide-drenched mind, it looked like the purp’s initial slashes and probes had been drawn out over time, probably to terrorize.  After “enough”, he or she had snuffed Alicia a day before her twenty-fifth birthday.

He shook a few Tums from a bottle and chewed them.

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“You’re pulling a knife on me, motherfucker!?” Jorge erupted.  His eyes were wide, teeth clenched and throbbing veins showed near his temples.  With his right hand he jammed his own stiletto into Tall Man’s right hand, causing him to yelp and drop his knife.  Next, Jorge slammed his right elbow into the bridge of Tall Man’s nose with an audible crack.

“You’re pulling a knife on me, motherfucker!?”  Tall Man groaned as he held his nose between the fingers of each hand, blood gushing down his face from both his nose and his hand.  Jorge leapt from the car, ran around and opened the right rear door.  Reaching in, he grabbed Tall Man by his paisley shirt and yanked him out of the car so hard that he lost his cowboy hat when his head snapped backwards.