Belinda Cabbotry: The Midnight Jogger and Fire (PART 14)

"That does look...exact." David said comparing the footprint in the red sand on the paper to the one in the dirt in front of burnt out shell of a crime scene. The footprint in the ground had a telltale swirl on the side that Dr. Evans down the hall said matched a new Nike shoe they had just catalogued. A size ten men's, way to big for the corpse they had found.

"I'd say this is good enough evidence to reopen this case." Melanie said, shivering in the 70 degree heat.

"Yeah. I'll tell them when I get back. Thank the heavens it hasn't rained."

"We live in Arizona. We should thank the heaven's it has ever rained."

"So this killer," David snapped a photo of the footprint. "He exposed this Maybelle chic we found in the desert to the same fire?"

"Heck no! He wouldn't have been able to get her out! He probably just hijacked her car, rigged it to gas her, then drove her out in another car and ditched her."

"So if we throw out a search for her car, we might have a place to start."

Melanie nodded. "It would be our only lead."

"You don't sound so confident." Davis said. He put the camera back in it's bag and grabbed his keys.

"It's just," Melanie sighed, "In two bodies, he's left what, a footprint to connect them?"

"There's no such thing as a perfect crime." David told her.

"No, no there isn't. But there is such a thing as not leaving enough evidence for us to find."

David shrugged, "This guy has killed two people in a week, something tells me he'll slip up soon."

Melanie didn't say it, but she was thinking "After how many deaths though?"

***

"More pizza?" Veronica asked.

Melanie sneered. She had headphones in and a laptop in front of her, but still the nurse insisted that she was engaged in her dinner.

"This isn't pizza." Melanie muttered, turning up her music. And she was right. What sort of pizza has a pita crust and no tomato sauce. Not to mention it was covered in veggies instead of pepperoni.

Veronica pursed her lips and through her oven mitts down on the counter. She was glaring at Melanie, but she didn't dignify it with a verbal response. Eventually Veronica gave up and stomped over to the sink to wash up.

"Maybe you could save yourself some trouble and just give up on the nutrition meals." Melanie said, closing her laptop and standing up.

"Maybe you could give me some commentary to build off of." Veronica said, scrubbing viciously at the plates.

Melanie glared, and Veronica glared back.

"Add some flavor." Melanie yelled, "And stop treating me like I'm your daughter!"

"Stop acting like a kid then." Veronica yelled, throwing the plate against the sink with a clink.

Melanie marched out of the room and slammed the door of her office.

"DOOR OPEN!" Veronica yelled from the living room, her hands still wet and dripping.

Melanie threw the door open angrily, she glared maliciously. Then, watching Veronica's hands drip onto a book set aside on the floor, she bit her lip, preparing to yell.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Melanie rushed into the room and bent awkwardly to retrieve the partially soggy book. Toby Madison's Ten Thousandth Wonder. She flipped through the pages, stopping when she got to a page particularly wet, with a smudge where it used to read "And Marlene fell for the elf in an instant." Now it read "And Morlene felt for the elf in an instanl."

"Oh my god I'm sorry!" Veronica squealed.

"Go away!" Melanie yelled, rushing for her office and closing the door.

Veronica sighed, looking down at her wet hands. Stupid! She thought, You let her take the victim card. You shouldn't have let her whine...You should have watched where your hands were dripping. You shouldn't have come in with wet hands at all.

***

Daniel woke up a day or so later, he puked and sat down on the edge of the bathtub for a second as he caught his breath. He got up, slowly put on a fresh pair of underwear and a T-shirt he didn't care about, then curled up under the covers of his bed.

He wanted to die. No he wanted his ex-girlfriend to die, for getting him addicted. No he wanted the entirety of the universe to collapse in on itself and restart, so that maybe he could have had rich parents and good grades, and a desire to live.

Daniel tried to sleep, but now that he wanted to rest, he couldn't. His ears were ringing at the slightest noise, and every breath hurt.

No, he didn't want to die, he was dying, whether he wanted to or not.

***

"Hey Emily," Veronica said into the telephone, "Sorry to wake you up, but could you possibly be of assistance?"

"Depends on the...yeah." Emily said after a second.

"Belin- Melanie is mad."

"Well if it's Melanie, then she's never forgiving you. Ever... What did you do?"

"I got her book wet." Veronica said through gritted teeth, as she dried the book with a hair drier.

"In that case, Belinda will kill you too when she...appears."

"What do I do? She doesn't like me, she's never liked me. How am supposed to do my job if she won't talk to me?"

"Have you tried taking an interest in what she likes?"

"Like guts and murderers?"

"Murders, then guts." Emily corrected.

"I'm serious."

"I am too. Look I just got a call from Tim down the hall, he says that the car we're looking for is a Blue Honda Insight. I'm not supposed to be telling Belinda this because she might go off, but if it helps you..."

"Blue Honda Insight." Veronica repeated. "Got it."

***

"So how are you feeling?" asked the woman with the thermometer.

"Like crap." Daniel mumbled. She stuck the thermometer in his mouth.

"You should, you had a fever for the last few hours." She pulled one of his eyelids open slightly and shined a light into it. "I'm glad to see you're awake, it was touch and go there for a few hours."

"Who are you?" He mumbled with the thermometer under his tongue.

"Dr. Emery." She shined the light into his other eye. When she was done, the thermometer went off and she checked it. "Temperature looks good."

"Why are you here?" He asked. Suddenly he was able to look at her. She had short, chin length, curly, blonde hair. She wasn't wearing any lab coat or anything, but she did have a hospital name tag on.

"I'm repaying a favor, this is my last one." She packed up her light and thermometer and a bunch of other medical equipment into a bag on his bedside table. "And I'm done."

"A favor to who?"

"It's in the letter." She stood up.

"What letter?" He asked, as she left his apartment. "Who sent you?"

***

"Melanie?" Veronica asked through the office door. "Belinda?"

"WHAT!" Melanie yelled.

"Emily called. Something about the car we're looking for."

"They're looking for." She corrected, "We are sitting here like bumps on a log."

"Still it can't hurt to kno-"

"It's irrelevant!" Melanie yelled, "A car is a car is a car!"

"Could you unlock the door at least?"

Melanie pursed her lips and unlocked the door to her office. Then she went back to sitting in front of her wall. Veronica cautiously opened the door and looked inside.

Melanie sniffed and dabbed her nose with a reddened tissue.

"Emily says it's a blue Honda Insight."

"So?" Melanie followed the long red strings with her eyes.

"I just thought... You might want to know." Veronica looked at the wall. Melanie had both the first fire and the new case up on her wall.

"You thought I might get up, run out the door, and look for the car?"

"Well, it is you."

"And what? Do I know more than about a hundred other police officers?" Melanie leaned her head onto her fist.

"Usually a lot more."

Melanie smiled. "You can call Emily back and tell her that the car is no longer blue. Anyone as careful enough to make a fire look like a suicide and leave no evidence in two separate murders, is not someone who would leave the murder weapon recognizable. He'll probably get it repainted, change the license plate number, probably the VIN numbers when he can. Knowing what kind of car it is doesn't make much of a difference now, does it?"

"Then..."

"You thought calling Emily would help you make a connection with me?" Melanie asked, dabbing her nose. "Did you not read my file when you took on me as a patient? I'm a deduction savant, I know when you feel bad, when you call my one sorry excuse of a friend, when you don't care." Melanie paused to let that sink in. "I don't care about the book, so just leave."

"If he disguised the car he'd need paints and painter people." Veronica said quickly. Melanie frowned. "Assuming he isn't already out of the state..." Veronica shrugged, "You could have all the car painting places in the area checked out. Insight's not to common, shouldn't be too hard."

"Good." Melanie nodded.

"Good?"

"Yup," Melanie lied down on the floor, "Too bad I already thought of that, and called it in an hour ago." She rolled her eyes. "See you tomorrow."

Veronica stood there for a second, stunned. Then Melanie shooed her away with her hand. She left the door open an inch and sat down on the couch. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw Melanie smile sincerely there for a second.

***

"What am I looking at?" Belinda asked, squinting at the car.

"What used to be an electric blue Honda Insight." David said, starring just as hard in disbelief. The hybrid was now purple with yellow flames running down the sides. The front bumper was silver, like it had just been sanded down to remove the paint. Most alarmingly though, was the melted tires and headlights and the burned corpse in the drivers seat with his left elbow sticking out the window and his right casually on the steering wheel.

"Taxidermy?" Belinda asked, "Putting live into his deep french fried calling card."

"One way to put it."

"Well at least he's committed." She smiled sarcastically. "What's that in the cup holder?"

"A coke. Aren't you the least bit curious about the melted rubber and plastic?"

"Half the car is plastic, that was a last minute blow torch touch up. A coke?" Belinda looked closer past the dead body into the cup holder at the can.

"Yeah? You thirsty?"

"A bit, but the jogger just decided that after removing every trace of DNA and fingerprints, to leave his Coke in the cup holder."

"So, it's probably the victim's."

"It's not." Belinda said, pulling her rubber gloves on and walking around the car to the passenger's seat. She grabbed the can and smiled. "Happy Hanukkah, Jogger." She read, "XOXO smiley face."

"Holy shist." David smiled, "He left us a can on purpose."

"And it's worse," Belinda looked up seriously, "he's Jewish."

David smiled, and laughed behind his hand.

"No, but seriously." Belinda looked over the can. "This is really not good."

"How so? Now we have a DNA sample, that helps, even if he hasn't been in the system, we can narrow it down."

"No, we have someone's DNA and fingerprint sample. AND, he has an in at the station."

"An in?" David asked.

"'Jogger'" Belinda repeated, "How would he know his name at the station was jogger? We've only been calling him that for about two days, and never to the public. The only way he would know what his nickname is, is if he's an officer on his case, or his accomplice is."

"Or if this wasn't his handiwork, if it was just an officer mimicking it to keep the case going."

"Paranoid much?" Belinda said, setting the can aside in an evidence bag.

"Fine, but what can you tell me for sure?"

Belinda bit her lip, she looked at the car and sighed. "The guy in the car, he's a dentist. He was killed by being strangulation with an inch thick rope by surprise at around 2:30 in the morning. No struggle so, I'd say he was woken up when he was hanged during REM sleep. After he died he was...uh..." Belinda paused, her mouth wide open and her eyes staring forward at the caramelized corpse.

"Bells, you okay?" David put an arm around her shoulder. She kept staring.

"Psychopath." She whispered.

"Bellie, it's okay, I don't need to know."

"He..." Belinda teared up. "He... Uh... while he was still alive, he was covered in accelerant during his strangulation and uh... Set on...fire." Belinda rubbed tears out of her eyes.

David didn't say anything, he just grabbed her shoulder and let her squeeze her eyes shut.

"He's not even human." She decided, "No human could watch that and still claim to be human."

"You know he hasn't had a problem with gruesome murder. You've never had a problem with gruesome murder. Ever."

Belinda shrugged his arm off. "This isn't gruesome murder, this is torture. A need for control. A desire to see pain." She sniffed and rubbed blood away from her nose with her finger. "So, three murders in less than a week. Clearly he has been planning this for a while."

"So either there is only so much you can plan and do in advance, or we have a small window before the next wave of homicides."

"Or a small window until his next wave. Not necessarily until the next wave."

"Oh I just love your unreasonable conspiracy theories." David said tiredly.

"It's not an unreasonable near-" fear, "We know for a fact that he had help collecting all those accelerants before."

David sighed and looked at the officers surrounding the car with plastic gloves and bags and brushes. "I'll make sure everyone is aware of the threat. But there's nothing we can do tonight."

"Good." Belinda nodded.

"Good?" David asked suspiciously.

"Yep, we'll just have to wait until he sets small orphan children and stabs prostitutes. Cheers Ripper." Belinda rubbed another tear out of her eye.