Crime Rave (17 page)

Detective Synthia Günn

I
n spite of the alien proof of life you’ve always wanted, you don’t think you can do this, as you urinate for what feels like the fifteen millionth time today. Not have the baby, not these interviews, not any of it. You still can’t accept that the body parts you saw earlier are now full-blown bodies, alive and breathing. Talking. Telling the strangest stories you’ve ever heard.

You want to crawl back into bed and prepare for the appointment next week. You want to read more about what it will feel like, what kind of pain you’ll be in after, the risks for future pregnancies. You want to focus on what’s concrete and real. Not these
Outer Limits
episodes that have become today.

Now you wonder, should you tell him? Does he need to know? Would he convince you to keep it? Would he want the baby, raise the child on his own? Would that make you want it, too? And how do you even feel about him? You don’t remember ever loving anyone, it was too much a risk. Not even the pets around the commune. They were never yours. Nothing has ever been yours. Only this baby. And you’re sure you don’t want it. Or do you? How
would
you know?

For the first time since getting clean you think about using. A thin, white line. That fuzzy glow the world takes on when under an influence. Three fingers of whiskey, neat, all down in one gulp. A vodka tonic, light on the tonic, burning the voices in your head quiet. Peace. You don’t know how you’re going to make it through this. Any of it. You have no idea at all.

12:30 PM Spruce-Musa Hospital

D
J Fetish, aka John Doe, wakes up remembering all of what happened at the rave and knowing exactly his role in the disaster. The question he asks himself is whether he should come clean or not.

There is also the question of his ex-girlfriend, Liria, who he had accidentally killed in the throes of an ecstasy-laced passion the year before. He dumped her into a manhole long before the massacre at Crane’s mansion. But since he survived last night’s rave, his girlfriend has been right by his side.

Sometimes she looks the way she did when she was alive: gorgeous, tan, perfect, her long blue hair framing her angel face in a way that makes him hard. Other times her visage is purple, puffy from asphyxiation, her tongue peeking through swollen lips. Sometimes she has love in her eyes, like she forgives him. Other times, there is only fury and a desire for revenge against him for what he’s done.

To come clean or not to come clean, that was the question.
If Crane is still alive then I can pin it on him. If he’s dead, then who cares.

DJ Fetish rings the nurse call button and Nurse Jonelle takes the call.

“We feeling all right, sugar?” The nurse asks as she waddles in, checking his vitals.

“I just feel, I dunno, strange. And I’m trying to understand what happened.” The DJ affects puzzlement.

“Aren’t we all, John,” she laughs. Liria likes the sound and shimmers.

“Are there other survivors?” The DJ asks in his most innocent voice.

“Yes, indeed, the Good Lord saw fit to save a few of you from that wreckage. Didn’t you see them when you woke up?”

“I’m not sure. It’s all jumbled. What about Mr. Crane? Did he make it?”

“Did you see that man at the party, honey? Cuz if you did you need to talk to the detectives right away.” Nurse Jonelle’s demeanor becomes serious. Her gaze intensifies as she looks at the DJ. He gets uncomfortable. Shit. He might have said too much.

“I don’t feel so good.” The DJ tries to cover up his flub.

“What hurts?” Nurse Jonelle maintains her suspicious gaze. The detectives advised all the staff to report back any possible witness statements they overhear.

“My head hurts. I feel dizzy,” the DJ feigns.

Nurse Jonelle leaves the room to get an aspirin. On her way she runs into the detectives and Agent Quatro, who ask for the DJ’s location.

“He’s in there, officers,” Nurse Jonelle points. “And I think he’s hiding something. He was asking me about the survivors, and about if Mr. Crane survived. He’s up to no good, and ain’t very clever about it neither, you ask me,” Jonelle harrumphs.

“Thank you,” says Quatro. “We appreciate the tip.”

Red Feather, Günn, and Quatro knock on the door, introducing themselves. DJ Fetish appears to be talking to someone who isn’t there and jumps when they walk in.

Quatro makes a point of shaking his hand, performing the same eyes closed ritual. She opens them quickly, shocked, and pulls her hand back as if it’s been burned, showing the first bit of emotion Red Feather has seen on her level face.

“We’d like to ask you some questions about the rave last night.” Red Feather flips his notebook open and Günn starts recording.

“Sure,” the DJ says looking nervous more than ill, “but I’m not really feeling very well.

“Shouldn’t take long. Nurse is on the way with some aspirin.”

“Tell him!”
Liria hisses. “Tell him what you did, you monster!” Lira bares her teeth at the DJ and spits. He flinches. Everyone notices.

“What do you remember?” Red Feather sits next to the bed.

“Nothing.” He looks unsettled, peeking into the corner of the room where Liria repeats, “Tell them what you did, you monster!”

“Shut up!” the DJ snaps at her.

“Excuse me?” Red Feather says, prickling.

“Nothing,” DJ Fetish says. “Sorry.”

“You okay, sir, you look a little shaken up?” Red Feather frowns.

“I am. Quite. Wouldn’t you be?” The detectives and special agent stare at the DJ, who tries to be surreptitious with sidelong glances at something that isn’t there, failing miserably.

“The nurse said you asked about Mr. Crane. What was your relationship with him?”

“Nothing. No relation,” the DJ says. Too quickly.

“Didn’t he hire you to headline his party?” Günn snaps, the smell of an electrical fire and rotting corpses fills her nose. She catches Red Feather’s eyes.

“Well, yeah, but that’s not a relationship. That’s a business deal. I met the dude, like, once.” The DJ’s hands shake and his heart pounds. He knows they’re not buying what he’s selling.

Red Feather nods and Liria screams in the DJ’s ear: “MONSTER!” He flinches, big time. Almost like a seizure.

Agent Quatro feels a chill emanating from the empty corner that terrifies the DJ.

“John, we have several accounts from other survivors who claim that people started dying when you started deejaying. Care to explain?” Red Feather asks, his voice stern.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” The DJ looks away. Günn smells rotting flesh again. She gives Red Feather the signal, and this time Quatro also catches it.

“I think you’re lying to me, John. That is not a good idea.” Red Feather’s bad cop voice is steel even Superman couldn’t bend.

Liria starts poking the DJ. Hard enough for red marks and the start of bruises to emerge. He jerks each time and soon starts swatting her. Quatro begins to see the outline of a hazy figure with long blue hair.

“Tell him or I’m going to drive you crazy!” Liria the ghost screams.

“You are already driving me crazy, you dead bitch!” DJ Fetish screams back.

“TELL HIM MOTHERFUCKER! TELL HIM WHAT YOU DID TO US!”

Liria begins to beat the DJ in long swoops, he puts up his hands to fend her off. He can’t.

Red Feather knows a thing or two about ghosts, as does Agent Quatro, though neither had ever seen one so dramatic in its machinations before. Günn’s mouth drops open:
This is not happening.

“Stop!” The DJ screams. “Stop! You bitch! I’ll tell! I’ll tell!” John Doe sobs.

Liria stops, but stands over him, her distended face in a grimace and her hand raised to hit in case he loses his nerve.

“Tell them what you did to me first,” Liria commands.

“Detectives. Fuck.” He looks at Liria and shakes his head. “I killed my girlfriend.”

“This would be your girlfriend who you claimed went missing last year?” Red Feather refers to CSI Chang’s notes.

“Yes. It was an accident! I swear!” The DJ puts his hands out in supplication.

“So why didn’t you call the police if it was an accident?”

“Because we were both on drugs and she was already dead and I knew it would ruin my career. I was just hitting big time. So I dumped her in a manhole near her house and told everyone she left me.” The DJ starts to cry. “But I never did drugs ever again after that! I went totally straight!” As if that excuses a murder.

“She overdosed?”

“No,” The DJ sobs, “we were on E and we were in the park hugging, just hugging, and it felt so good, but I guess I hugged her too hard or too long or something because when I stopped she was dead and I didn’t even know when she died. Fuck!” He punches the mattress.

“Where is her body?”

The DJ gives Red Feather the address and Günn leaves the room to call it in. Liria steps back from the bed, a smug look on her bloated face.

“What about the rave last night? What do you remember?” Red Feather asks.

He thinks about lying again but the moment he does Liria is on him, pummeling, screaming.

“Okay! Okay! Goddammit! Mr. Crane hired me to help him kill everyone at the party!” The DJ shouts over Liria’s screams.

Liria sits back, satisfied. Red Feather’s eyebrows shoot up. Quatro knows he’s finally telling the truth; she felt it the moment her skin made contact with his. The smell of putrid flesh leaves Günn’s nose.

“Crane got loads of acid and mescaline-laced E to spike the water. I was working on a program that pinpoints vulnerable parts of the brain while on drugs. I figured out how to cause embolisms with messages coded into my music.”

“For God’s sake, why?” Red Feather is at a complete loss, looking at this mass-murdering lunatic.

“The scene! The rave scene wasn’t what it was when I started making music. So commercialized and pathetic. You know, in the old days you had to know someone who knows someone to even find where the next party was. Totally underground. Totally pure. Now they just put the address right on a flyer! Club rats call themselves ravers! As if they have some fucking clue about what raves are! And then my girlfriend died and I realized raves weren’t even about music and art anymore—they’re a glorified place to get high. Everyone is invited! Where’s the exclusivity? Where’d the underground scene go? The gritty? The real? All fake, now, man. And the longer I didn’t do drugs, the more I saw it. And I thought they deserved to die for being part of a corrupt world. The rave is just a metaphor, see? Everything’s eventually corrupted by money! By consumerism! By fucking wannabes who take a great thing and fuck it up!” Sheepish pause while he catches his breath. “Plus Crane paid me a million dollars.”

Red Feather sees spots dancing around his eyes and anger makes his hands shake. “Let me get this straight. Thirty-fucking-thousand kids deserved to die? Because you didn’t believe in the rave scene anymore?” He can see his fist going through the DJ’s face, clear as a crystal geyser. Quatro puts a hand on his shoulder. It calms him, but doesn’t make him any less angry.

“I’m sorry, okay!” The DJ cowers. “I don’t know what I was thinking!”

“And why the explosion?” Red Feather’s breathing is staggered.

“I didn’t have anything to do with that, I swear!” The quick penitent.

Quatro believes him and nods at Red Feather.

“And what was yours and Mr. Crane’s brilliant plan for after you murdered all those innocent people? Huh? What were you going to do with the bodies?”

“That wasn’t my deal, man! I don’t know what he was going to do. My role was the music. That’s all.”

Red Feather takes out his handcuffs and cuffs the DJ, dragging him from his bed.

“John Doe, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit mass murder and for contributing to said mass murder.” Red Feather Mirandizes DJ Fetish, while Liria laughs a cruel bray of justice.

Two patrolmen walk the DJ from the hospital to lock-up. Liria follows, taunting DJ Fetish with her screeching.

1:00 PM The Fairchild Home

O
n a Pasadena street lined with Victorian revival mansions, Officer Tim Tippett and his partner Hank Rodriguez are the first responders to Detective Günn’s dispatch call about a potential DB. Tippet and Rodriguez find the manhole in question and set up crime tape, awaiting the CSI team, who arrive still wearing lab coats. Priority is as priority does.

CSIs Pete Mazzotti and Tina Vasco—still on shaky terms after their rough morning—are the first on scene. They nod to the officers and hunker down to slide open the manhole cover. The rancid sweet-sickly smell of decompositions hits them in the face. Tina gags and Pete fights a full-on dry heave. Tina is less successful, turning her head as her breakfast comes up in a projectile scream.

“Fuck! Sorry guys!” She hates when this happens, wipes her mouth and rinses it with water, spitting away from the crime scene.

Pete Mazzotti shines a light into the depths, its halo scouring the dank below until it catches on the gleam of a skull, peppered with tiny pieces of flesh. “We have a body.” Mazzotti attaches a flash to their Polaroid camera and photos the remains in situ.

He looks at Tina.

“Guess I’ll be going to get her? Your fat ass will never fit,” Tina jokes, trying not to think about the smell. He’s just as slim as her, only taller.

“You are also the rock climber.”

“Goddammit.” CSI Vasco suits up as Mazzotti sets the small crane in place, body bag attached. Tina climbs down into the space, eyes watering from the stink, ignoring the tittering rodents into whose lair she descends. Vasco examines and photographs the body with a waterproof disposable camera. She notices thick gashes in the vic’s ribcage. This girl was knifed, not suffocated. Multiple times, by the look of it, though some tool marks might be obscured by rat teeth.

“Pete!”

“What you got?”

“Prelim exam, this woman was stabbed to death. Knife toolmarks all through the ribcage. Frenzied attack by the looks of it.”

“ME’s on route. Yell when you’re ready for a hoist.”

Pete goes to call Detectives Red Feather and Günn when a tired-looking yet perfectly-coiffed blonde woman walks toward them. As she gets closer, Mazzotti sees the coiffing can’t mask the madness of desperation in her eyes.

“What’s going on? What did you find? My daughter’s been missing! What did you find?!” Her hysteria blooms into a full anxiety attack as she rushes into the crime scene, something she’s been doing all over Los Angeles whenever she hears over the police scanner that a body’s been found.

“Ma’am please, we just got here. We don’t know what we’ve found yet. Officers, please escort this nice lady back to her home and wait with her.”

From inside the manhole CSI Vasco yells, “Okay, Pete! Bring her up!”

The woman’s eyes widen. “Her?!”

“Figure of speech, ma’am.” Mazzotti guides the woman toward the officers, who ask her to sit on the stairs. “Detectives will be here any minute, but in the meantime, do you have anything that might have your daughter’s DNA on it? Hairbrush? Toothbrush? Anything like that?”

“Her room’s just as she left it. For when she comes back,” her chin trembles.

“Okay, Mrs. —”

“Fairchild. Edith Fairchild. Pleased to…oh.” Force of habit. She’s not pleased at all.

“Mrs. Fairchild, if you could bring me those things I’d greatly appreciate it.”

Mazzotti hustles Mrs. Fairchild into her house as her daughter’s human remains are lifted from the ground.