Read The Blood Detail (Vigil) for Free Online Page B

which everyone, including the families, naturally assumed were murders. During questioning, one of the prime suspects gave up his gang’s latest body disposal method, along with his personal complicity in the killings. It seemed that sometime in the previous eighteen months word had gotten around that a certain slaughterhouse was willing to get rid of human remains at no charge, just as long as the bodies were fresh. The suspect’s compatriots saw an opportunity, and went a little wild with the gangland retribution, taking out a sizable chunk of the opposition. The murderous twit Koi had in custody had become scared for his own safety, not because of his fellow gang members, but from the strange behavior of the friendly-neighborhood slaughterhouse owner. According to the gang-banger, the man had threatening eyes and blood in his mouth. He was quite certain “this dude” had been eating the bodies they had brought to him.
    Being a Saturday, a non-work day at the slaughterhouse, the wrath of the LAPD descended upon the Westside home of James Parsons. Surprised by the sudden appearance of the authorities, Mr. Parsons, a paunchy, balding bachelor, decided to burn his house down and make an escape through a tunnel he’d dug from his garage to a house three doors down which he also owned, under an assumed name. A swift call to the fire department kept the blaze from getting too out of hand, but by the time the investigating officers discovered the tunnel and the other house, Parsons was in the wind. The Detail got involved because of what was found in this other house—bedrooms filled with bodies, all in the process of being drained of their blood. These peculiarities were flagged, and the Detail was given jurisdiction over the case—although the report did not say who or what had determined this, only that a handoff had happened, without incident.
    Bethany Ganna and Erik Brancawitz were the group detectives assigned. They worked cooperatively with Koi and his partner, staking out the slaughterhouse, which Parsons returned to like a moronic salmon seven days later. They cornered him in the basement of the building and he again attempted to set the location ablaze, this time to no avail. To subdue the super strong Parsons, Ganna and Brancawitz excused Koi’s team and utilized newly issued veterinary-style tranquilizing rifles, tagging the struggling man in the neck and the chest. It took four more direct hits to his torso to bring Parsons down. As he fought the sleep effects of the high-dosage narcotic, the suspect broke through several walls along the ground floor of his business.
    Following the description of the somewhat dramatic apprehension, the remainder of the case notes had been redacted with a black marker pen. The lines were fresh, too. The pages had a half-chemical, half-licorice smell about them, which only meant one thing—I was only allowed to know so much, even though loose ends remained. What happened to Parsons after his detention? What did Robbery-Homicide know about the true nature of this man they’d begun to refer to as ‘The Bleeder’? I pondered the possibility of such crimes and associations existing, and yet somehow the Detail remained a relatively unknown organization. The chances of that happening seemed remote to me, but I had been in the dark until Jessup, so these people obviously knew how to cover their tracks. I went to the next file.
    Case BG-0001304 had been a homegrown Detail extravaganza from the beginning. Douglass and Racine worked this one, prompted by an informant they referred to in their report as FANCYPANTS—always typed out in full capital letters. FANCYPANTS had called in from a Pasadena pay phone on March the twelfth and informed Racine of a rogue fellow night owl who had left the Underground and was trolling vulnerable high schools for blood. The name the informant gave them was Delilah Theressi, and she was operating in and around the city of Glendale, the last this person