There is a serial killer out there killing gay men. Det. Ali Castillo is teamed with an FBI profiler to track the killer but, Castillo has his own demons to battle. Can he win against the killer and his own problems or will he die trying?

Vesuvius

By Alex J. McDonald

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Alex J. McDonald
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-6853-7

Chapter One

He rolled onto his side and scanned the room. When he tried to rise, bile rose in his throat. He waited-swallowing hard trying to choke it down then pushed up into a sitting position. The room tilted and he paused, waiting for the room to straighten up. When the dizziness passed he rose, carefully waiting for the room to fall from under him but it didn't. He took a few tentative steps and finally, confident he wouldn't fall on his face, crossed to the bedroom.

He stood at the bedroom door and waited for it, knowing the loneliness was there somewhere, sneaking up on him. The bed was neatly made as it always was, owing to not having been slept in for two years; the bed covers pulled taut, just the way she left them; her shoes still on the floor next to her side of the bed. He crossed the room hoping to sneak past but the sadness was there swirling around the floor like a fog, a tangible living thing, snaking around the base of the furniture, sliding up to engulf him once again. He tried to ignore it but it would not be denied. He realized it was not as strong lately; it seemed to have lost some of its power.

He made it to the bathroom and turned on the shower while the loneliness slithered under the door and hung in the corners, around the base of the toilet. The booze gave him some peace but it never lasted long enough. The pain dulled when he was occupied with work or other mental activities, but lay in wait for him to return unprepared so it could barge in on his mind, beating him up inside once again.

Ali showered then dried himself and glanced in the mirror; the bags under his eyes weren't too noticeable. He studied the gray in his mustache, the crooked nose, broken five times and felt old and tired. Ali dressed then went to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of hot, sweet Cuban coffee. Retrieving the morning paper from the front stoop, he sat at the dinner table and read the paper slowly, wondering if anything in it was really worth reading. It was full of death and crime and bullshit. He figured breakfast was a waste of time knowing his stomach probably would rebel against food anyway and was glad he drank vodka because the hangovers were less intense, at least he could function the next day. An old partner who was an alcoholic had taught him that. The same old partner ended up being forced to retire because he got caught drinking on duty and ended up homeless, sleeping in the bushes of a city park, covered with bug bites and open sores, smelling so bad he could not even stand himself. He eventually wandered, drunk, into the street and was hit by a fast moving car, lying dead, broken and bloody. Spending a lifetime as a spectator to the many ways humanity could mistreat each other would do that. It would be a few hours before Ali felt normal. He'd had a lot of practice the last two years.

Ali put his coffee cup in the sink and ran some water in it deciding he would wash it tonight with the rest of the dishes, maybe. He reached onto the top of the refrigerator and retrieved the pistol, clipping it to his belt. He picked up the leather clip and looked at the round gold badge with the seal of the state of Florida, police department and detective painted on it. He pinned the badge to the front of his belt and left the apartment.

Alejandro 'Ali' Castillo parked his Chevy in the back parking lot of the police station and trudged to the back door, stepping aside to let two uniformed officers pass. Inside the hallway, next to the door to the officer's locker room was a notice for a meeting of the newly forming Cuban-American officers Association. Alejandro didn't quite understand this need to have associations. In Miami, the police department had lots of organizations, Cuban-American officers association, Haitian-American officers Association, African-American officers and the Gay and Lesbian officers Association. Alejandro wondered why everyone wanted to be hyphenated Americans. Why couldn't they just be Americans? He especially didn't understand the Gay and Lesbian Associations. When did a sexual preference become special? Why not the child molesters and the people who had sex with animals? Maybe they should have an association. Alejandro figured if you made yourself diff erent from the majority, you would be treated differently than the majority. Besides, there were only fifteen Cuban officers in the department, not a real big association. Didn't make sense, but then nothing had made sense to him since Maria died. He wasn't even sure why he got out of bed in the morning.

Alejandro poured himself a cup of coffee in the detective squad room and took one sip when the commander, Lieutenant Burt Davis, breezed into the squad room and frowned at Alejandro with a disapproving look.

"Don't get comfortable, got a body on Design Row. Get your ass over there and find out what's up. Crime Scene is there already. See Sergeant Smith." Davis said as he disappeared into his office.

Design Row was a street of shops where the rich and politically powerful spent their time. Interspersed among the shops of expensive clothiers were restaurants with menus without prices. If you had to ask how much the cost, you shouldn't be there was the philosophy. The body was in the alley behind one of those restaurants. Ali could see the feet protruding from behind a green dumpster. He was met by a patrol sergeant in uniform, sweating in the morning sun. The weather should turn cool in a few weeks, bringing a sigh of relief from the poor slobs who had to wear polyester uniforms and thirty pounds of gear around their waists.

"Morning, Ali," Sgt. Smith shook his hand. "Nice way to start the day, huh?"

"Not hardly," Ali replied. "What's the story?"

"Patrol unit got the call from the Haitian cleanup guy, came in early to straighten up for the lunch crowd. Found the body when he took out the garbage. Victim's a white male, possibly thirties. Hard to tell though, the killer messed him up pretty bad. Can't see much of the face, it's pretty mutilated." Sergeant Smith flipped his notebook closed.

"Good thing the power crowd didn't find him first. The chief would have gotten an early morning call from one of the politically powerful." Ali smiled grimly.

"Probably will anyway. You know how it goes. Demands for extra patrols, screaming about the crime rate and all that," Smith agreed.

"Well, let's go spoil my day." Ali grimaced as he walked toward the dumpster.

The body lay on its back. The face, or what was supposed to be the face, pointed into the morning sun. The skin was chalk white and shiny, like most dead bodies after the blood stopped fl owing. The corpse was fully clothed, in fairly expensive clothes at that. Ali squatted next to the body and took an inventory, noticing the backs of the hands were a deep purple color. The face was criss-crossed with deep cuts, showing the white of the bone underneath. The cuts were clean, no blood, apparently done after the heart stopped - post mortem. The skin between the cuts was also purple, more lividity. Ali remembered the first dead body he had seen with lividity. He thought the victim had been severely beaten. The lividity meant the body had lain face down for a while with the arms down by its sides, probably somewhere else. It had been dumped here.

Ali noticed a blood stain on the shirt, upper chest. Not enough blood. Something was wrong with this picture. He slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and rolled the body onto its side. There...