"Shit!"
My partner covered his nose and mouth with his handkerchief to block out the stench coming from the makeshift operating table. He stepped away from the crime scene and faked his interest in the medical books and journals stacked on a nearby study nook.
I snorted at the rookie detective and stared straight at the body lying on the table. Its skin was meticulously stripped off with such surgical precision that it looked like the poster of the muscular system we had in our highschool Biology lab. One of the eyeballs was still intact but the other was already hanging from the socket by a thin thread of muscle. Next to the head was an open jar with what smelled like formaldehyde. It was probably prepared as a storage for the eyeballs. Majority of the internal organs were gone, most likely stashed and added to the doctor's repulsive anatomical collection. Well, except for the large intestines whose length had been rolled out next to the body.
"Would you consider becoming a vegetarian, Detective?" I teased him.
My partner groaned. I couldn't blame the kid. He just graduated from the academy and it was the first time he had seen something gruesome in a crime scene. Nothing in his training could have prepared him for something like this.
He better recover fast. I thought. This was our breakthrough moment after all.
We had been working our asses off on this case for eight months but those sleepless nights and coffee-fueled days were about to end soon because we had finally caught the Flayer. That's the nickname the police force had given to the serial killer who had been dumping skinned bodies in different parts of the city.
The Flayer had targeted teenage white girls from impoverished communities who had been prostituting themselves to make ends meet. The killings had shocked the whole city and parents trembled in fear for their children. These had prompted the local government to call for more vigilance and to direct more resources into capturing the culprit.
The Flayer had been elusive but lately had become sloppy or maybe had grown bolder as my partner, Jason suggested. He had tried to entice a pair of girls one night. This was different from his usual S.O.P. of hunting a lone prey who was offering her services in some discrete part of the neighborhood. The recent string of murders broadcasted by news networks had one girl becoming suspicious and rejecting his advances while her companion boarded the car. The former girl eventually came out as a prime witness while the latter ended up on the operating table in this very basement.
All clues pointed to a retired surgeon living alone in a nearby suburb. We drove to the sixty year old man's elegant Spanish architecture-inspired mansion to invite him over to the precinct for questioning. When we arrived at his doorstep, he welcomed us with an unapologetic smile and a bloody scrubsuit as if he was waiting for us all this time.
"Ahhh, you have finally found me." He said. He was immediately handcuffed and brought to the precinct without any struggle.
I left the basement to my partner's capable hands while the other police officers gathered more evidence. I explored the mansion trying to make some sense out of this grisly murders. What could have motivated a well-accomplished and affluent former head of the surgery department of a prestigious hospital to commit these crimes?
My thoughts had led me astray and I found myself in a courtyard with a stone well in the middle. It appeared to have been neglected for years. My detective instincts went on overdrive mode. I lifted the wooden cover, beamed my flashlight and peered down at the darkness. A skull grinned back at me from down below and a girl's voice eeriely whispered to my ear.
"Father had been looking for you…"
I screamed as I felt some force pushing me down to the ground. I grayed out for a few seconds and when my vision came back the first thing I saw was my partner's worried face.
"Alicia, are you alright? I was following you down into this courtyard when I saw you collapse."
I sat up rubbing the back of my head feeling for any lumps that could have resulted from the fall. "I'm fine." I reassured him. "Maybe I'm just exhausted…"
My partner looked at me with anxious eyes, opened his mouth to say something then shut it again.
"Just spit it out, Jason." I said irritably.
"I don't know if I should say this now…" He hesitated. "I've found this in one of the doctor's journals." He handed me an almost faded photograph of a smiling little girl with blond curly hair. I stared at it for a minute trying to recall when and where I had seen the same picture before. My memories did not fail me. It was the same picture my mother had in her house.
"Wait… Is this.. ?" I turned the photograph over and saw my name scribbled in cursive writing at the back.
"His wife left him with their daughter when she was only four. She took the girl with her and refused to let him see her. She was furious over his affair with one of their maids. An illegitimate child was born from the affair but the doctor couldn't accept her as his own."
"I wasn't as beautiful as you. Father used to tell me that."
I heard the girl's voice again. I rubbed my temples as my headache grew worse. My single mother had always struggled to raise me when I was young. Never did she sought help from my absentee father nor told me stories about him no matter how insistent I was.
"What happened to his younger child?" I asked Jason.
"I'm guessing she was the first victim."
"He never loved me. He wanted me to look like you but I can never be like you."
"Stop…" I whispered.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
I could hear Jason's faint voice amidst the girl's taunting.
"He killed them for you, Alicia."
"I said stop…"
"Those poor girls died because of you. Father just wanted your attention. That's all."
"That's not true…"
"He wanted you to come find him…"
I saw a young girl with brown skin and dark curly hair emerge from the shadows. Her dress was dripping wet and her face had bloody cuts all over it. She walked passed Jason and stood in front of me.
"…and you did find him, Alicia."