The Seven Deadly Seasons

Chapter Three - Seasons in the Sin

Biff Newly may be from uptown but he has some chutzpah!"When we get there just let me do the talking." Dirk Armstrong instructed his new partner Biff Newly on the etiquette he expected at the latest crime scene.

"According to dispatch the guy was participating in a colon-cancer walk-a-thon and then he just disappeared. Sounds pretty fishy to me," Biff closed the folder he was holding.

"Sounds pretty fishy to me." Dirk mocked Biff's words with a high-pitched whiney voice. "Just keep a clap on that trap rookie and learn to follow my lead. You may have been the cat's meow in the uptown precinct but here at the downtown precinct you're just knee-high to a grasshopper."

"That doesn't even make any sense," protested Biff.

"It wouldn't to a rookie loser like you. We're here, now can it you corn cob head."

The car pulled to a stop outside the alleyway where Vince DuLucas was found dead, or pieces of him anyway. Vomit was everywhere from all of the police officers puking when they saw his dead body. Basically your ability to control your vomiting at a crime scene determines your level of promotion in a police force. If you vomit at a murder scene you'll never make it above a beat cop, if you vomit at a jaywalking you'll probably never make it above meter maid, if you vomit when you read a written report about a parking citation being issued you'll probably end up a cadet forever. Homicide detectives never vomit. They could punch a rotten corpse in the stomach and it could shower maggots into their mouth and they would just spit them out and light a cigarette.

Vince DuLucas had been stripped of skin by some sort of fast moving blade and his bones had been broken open and the marrow sucked free. Dirk and Biff poked around the crime scene for a few minutes and were shown a bloody machete and a hammer discovered in a dumpster near the body. After listening to all of the evidence and hearing a preliminary report from the coroner, Dirk asked Biff the big question.

"So let's hear it rookie, what's your stupid theory?"

"Well," began Biff, "based on the coroner's report in seems likely that DuLucas was knocked unconscious by a blow to the head with that hammer as he paused at the entrance to this alley. He was then dragged inside and ritualistically butchered with the machete. Then the hammer was brought in to play for the killer to crack open his bones and cannibalize the marrow inside."

"Pretty good," commented Dirk with an approving nod.

Abruptly he gave a thumbs down sign.

"For a faggot!"

"Wha?" Biff questioned.

"You've got to think outside the box rookie!" Dirk put another cigarette in his mouth, realized his last one was still lit and threw them both in the gutter in frustration. "Here's how it went down. See that store over there?"

"Yeah," Biff nodded to the remote control car store where Dirk was pointing.

"The killer went in there and bought a remote-controlled helicopter and sat on top of this building over here. When DuLucas was running by he chased him down this dead-end alley and mercilessly skinned him alive with the blades of the helicopter. But that wasn't enough, oh no, this guy is a real nutjob. While DuLucas was down here getting his skin cut off by the whirlybird our serial murdering friend uses exhibit B."

Dirk gestured to the store next to the remote-controlled car store; Tom's House of Doorknobs.

Slade Gangrene! Who would have guessed a guy with a name like that would turn out bad?!"Chopper O'Sickfuck starts really lobbing some doorknobs down on DuLucas, and with the amount of damage he did to the guy's skeleton I think he left us a clue. Not just any 'Joe Doorknobkiller' could throw doorknobs with sufficient force to pulverize bones like that, it would take either a gorilla or…"

"Or?!"

"Or, a major league baseball player. About the only part you're right about is that he ate the bone marrow, which points to another clue. What major league baseball pitcher was recently released from his contract because he had Kuru, the cannibal brain disease?"

"Darryl Strawberry?"

"And?"

"Slade Gangrene!"

"That's right," Dirk snapped his fingers dramatically. "The only major league baseball player to ever eat the face off a fan."

"Don Mattingly did it once in 1987." Biff disagreed.

"No, he just ate the guy's nose, not his whole face." Dirk began sprinting to the car. "Quickly now, we have to hurry to Slade Gangrene's secret murder hideout without calling any backup because there may be some urgency to catching him!"