Scarlet Billows

The woman's naked body is a pale jumble, like discarded laundry in the street. It glistens almost golden beneath the rain and the sodium glare of a lamplight.

It is impossible to approach her without splashing in her blood, which spreads in scarlet billows and cascades into the gutter

She appears to be wearing a long purple scarf.

*

The autopsy report describes a single wound to the abdomen. A deep slash with a sharp blade. Enough to be fatal by itself. But not the cause of death.

Probably while still conscious, she was strangled with her own intestines.

*

Her name was Lucinda Brown.

There is something about it that fastens to my subconscious, as tenacious as a shark bite. Not the crabby girl in the Peanuts cartoon. It circles and repeats with the annoying insistence of a half-forgotten song.

*

I query the database. There are plenty of knife-related killings, yet not so many involving the mutilation of women.

They are years apart, but three more names make a tenuous connection:

Jennifer Diver, Susan Tawdry, Charlotte Lenya.

*

I posit a serial killer to my boss. Difficult to prove. And – if true – how realistic is it that he would stop at four victims?

When my theory gets leaked to the press, one particular tabloid headline effectively ruins my career:

WATCH OUT, OLD MAC IS BACK!