Killing off the Ho,Ho,Ho's

~"Do you hear the People Sing"~

** ** ** ** ** **

Circumstantial is such a pretty word. Especially when the Mayor was screaming it at the police Captain. Now I'm sure that someday the Mayor will get tired of having to come save my butt, but I don't figure that day will appear until he gets tired of seeing his daughter's smiling face across the dinner table ... instead of on a milk carton.

Or, give the people I got her back from, some Tijuana-made, gangbang, snuff porno. If she was lucky enough to die that quickly.

De Rossi Family ... yeah, not too many women got that lucky with that group, though.

Smoking a cigarette in clear violation of building ordinances, smoking laws, and good sense, I skipped like a merry elf out the front door of the police station. Behind me, a storming police captain was eating crow for probably a few more hours till he got that DNA report then it would be the Mayor who would feel like he had been ass-raped. And I don't want my best "hole card" to ever feel like that about me ... so ... I have to solve this crap before then. I palmed my phone, dialing one handed as I walked.

"Leia. I need the photos of the latest crime scene."

"You are completely mad. You've got minutes before the biggest manhunt in this city's history starts looking for you. John, go to ground!"

"Nope. Can't do that, Princess." I tossed my half-dead cigarette into the window of an open squad car. "I need those photos and the clock is ticking."

She used foul language at me.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," I said.

"JOHN!"

I hung up.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful; her wrath's going to be delightful. And since I've no place to go ... let it go, let it go. Can't hold it back anymore. Do you want to build a snowman?

I fucking hate my brain at this time of year.

Leaving dignity aside, I ran at a sprint to Leia's laboratory.

Knowing me as she does, Leia had the photos spread out on her silvery metal table. I walked in, gave them a long slow detailed looking over. Paused for a longing look into my lover's eyes that told of my urgent desire to bang her nine ways to Sunday, I sprinted back out the door. Stored in my brain I would ponder the photos when I had the time. For now, I was running like a baby iguana on Fernandina Island in the Galapagos, with every hungry snake on Earth behind me.

Buses are my best friends. Stay in motion, stay in random locations. Think happy thoughts.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

Pop the clutch on my brain and go-go gadget detective.

Facts: Candy was murdered. She saw her killer, he looked like Santa. He killed her brutally. Tossed the bloody beard in a dumpster across the street, but kept on the bloody Santa suit. He had a getaway car.

Facts: Craig Doss, forensics photographer, somehow had a photo taken before Candy could get snow on her head, but her body wasn't found for hours. Yet Leia, whose judgment I trust, says he's harmless. He took the picture of the two dead girls I had seen earlier.

That brought the new pictures to the forefront of my mind and they startled me. Almost as if I was holding them, I leafed through the pictures. These two girls had been killed in a similar way to Candy ... and yet not. The torturous brutality that had been dealt out to Candy wasn't evident. The throat stab was there, the disembowelment and the use of their intestines as sick garland, yes, yes all the same. Then I saw it. The looks on their faces.

Pain.

Oh, yes. That was there, but it wasn't even close to what had been on Candy's. Hers had been a face that had endured hell itself before she died. These two Sisters of No-Mercy had been killed quickly and then put on this macabre Seasonal display of horror. This was for show.

This was for show?

Fact: The killer wanted the police to think he was a serial killer. That Candy wasn't isolated but part of a series of similar murders.

"Why?" I asked myself.

As the bus I was on approached the center of the city I saw the tall lighted Christmas tree playing peek-a-boo between the buildings. There was a large crowd gathered around it for the carols, both listening and singing. Terrible Christmas sweaters were in abundance.

I left the bus.

Crowds suited me better. Helped me focus. Focus.

Fact: Miss Behave lied to me about the crime scene. Why?

Why, Why, Why, I hate the fucking word why!

Half of me wanted to run for ground. I have a few hidey holes like the one under Leia's home. Places I set up to hide if the worst happened and I had an army of bad guys after me. Well ... now it was an army of good guys and I was being seen as the bad guy. I so badly wanted to bury my head in the sand and stay hidden till spring.

The other half?

Well, it wanted to go beat the crap out of Miss B and her two drag queen friends Bubbley-Squeek and Mad Donna. A bit of payback for the other morning was a pleasant thought. Beating some answers out of the three of them. Then beating them for a bit longer just for the fun of it.

Angry? I was angry ... I wanted them to hurt.

Candy's killer had wanted her to hurt.

I stopped in my tracks and looked over the photos in my head again. That's when I saw something I had missed. I grabbed my phone.

"Leia, I need you to ..."

"No, John. No. You're now a wanted suspect. I can't help you." My lover sucked in a deep breath. "You need to turn yourself in to the captain."

So the captain was standing there next to her.

"I would kiss his pucker first. Thanks for nothing, bitch." I hung up.

I started looking around for police. Not that I was scared of them, I might need them to protect me from Leia. I had called her the "B-word" A pair of swollen balls would be a love tap next to that.

Of course thinking of them made my nuts hurt. I put my hand down the front of my jeans to shift the swollen twins to a more comfortable position.

I stopped with my hand holding my junk.

Fact: Candy had no nuts.

When you're trying to not attract attention standing in front of the huge lighted town square Christmas tree, in a crowd full of parents with young kids, with your hand in your pants ... looking for all the world like a pervert masturbating ... yeah, not the best idea.

"You, stop right there."

Sigh, and now I have to run. Again.

I'm no longer the man that once could do an obstacle course with a parkour flare, then PT in full pack for half a day. I'm no longer that man. Jesse Owens would have left me in his dust. But a jelly donut eating police officer? In a heavy crowd?

Smoked him.

And twenty minutes later, when I got my breath back, I went after the Santa killer. I now know for certain who it was. A bit of reflection had shown me all I needed to know.

** ** ** ** ** **

There is a love-hate feeling I get whenever I finally figure out who I'm looking for. I love that I've solved the mystery but I hate that I've let someone make a fool of me for as long as they did. This time it wasn't so bad, after all, I never trusted anyone that wasn't a longtime friend. When I've given out that rare gift of my trust and then had it used to make me the dupe, oh I'm ready to chew razor blades and spit barbwire.

Like I said, this time not so much.

I grabbed me one more of those million-dollar-a-mile cab rides and hustled my way back to the beginning. When I knocked on the door, my hand making a decorative wreath shake, I was willing to be civil. I mean understand me, I can be extremely lethal with someone when I know they're killers in their own right. My Beowulf rifle, for example, I could lay waste to a whole street full of bad guys, if I was so inclined. But this time I didn't want to make a scene of devastation and destruction. All I wanted was the bad guy to go to jail, to confess, to walk the green mile and that entire ruck. Because if he didn't do that, well, I might still get the finger for all this Christmas hooker murder shit.

So. No disintegrations.

That being my intent, I only brought along my M79 grenade launcher.

Have you ever bought a weed eater? Or, rather I mean, a piece of junk plastic thing from Walmart that looks like a weed eater? Notice how it doesn't last but a season or so? Yeah, it's not what the professionals use. They have their own brands they favor, Echo being one such. Now when you want a good tool you need to use what the people that make their living with such a tool use.

That has always been my philosophy and it has worked well for me, so far.

When the door opened I was holding a "Pirate Gun," aka the Seal Team 6's modification of the standard M79 grenade launcher. With its but-stock sawed off, the barrel shortened, and sites removed I looked for all the world like I was holding a giant flintlock pistol.

"Hey, there Miss Behave. I've changed my mind about that foursome you offered."

Her eye dropped to the two-inch wide barrel pointed straight at her flat bare midriff. "What the fuck, Taline?"

"Take a few steps back. That's right, just back your couch-padding ass back into your living room, bitch. That little trick on Lasair Street wasn't nice."

She shrugged "I figured having the cops after you might light a fire under your ass and get you to finding who killed Candy and my other my street sisters. I heard that there were two more of us dead ... I needed to do something."

I nodded and kicked the front door closed behind me as I stepped inside. "Oh, I understood. Even when I was getting the cuffs put on me I understood your motives. It was still a shit thing to do. Cost me time that might have been better spent. As is, I know who killed Candy."

"Who!"

"See, that's kind of what I'm talking about." Keeping the grenade launcher on her, I pulled my phone out my pocket and pushed a button. "I was even starting think it might be you. Then I found some more evidence and saw the error of my thoughts but till then I was focused on you, M.B. And that had me wasting time. All due to you wanting to light a fire under my ass."

"WHO, GODDAMN IT!"

Before I could answer there was the sound of laughter in the hallway outside. The door I had just closed had a key rattle in it, then it half-opened. The laughter had stopped at Miss Behave's enraged scream.

"Honey, you okay?" asked Mad Donna. She peeked her head in, saw me, then saw the hand cannon.

"Come on in, Madness. And bring your little friend Giggles in as well." I slipped my phone back into my pocket. I gripped the short barreled weapon tight as I now had a room full of drag queens, one of whom was a military trained killer. "I was just telling Miss Behave I reconsidered having a wild sexual adventure with all of you. So, who gets fucked first?'

I swung the gun over to Bubbley-Squeek.

"Or tell me Craig; is the plan for you to fuck all of us, the way you did Candy?"

Bubbley-Squeek, aka Craig Doss when not in drag, eyed the grenade launcher in my hands with knowing attention. It was not the first time he had seen such a weapon. The forensics photographer then met my gaze with marginal contempt.

"You're supposed to be a smart man, Mr. Taline. That weapon would kill us all in this small room."

I grinned and nodded. "Yep, sure would. If I had it loaded with high explosive rounds. The shell I put in here wasn't that, though." I tilted my head in a thinking pose. "You know I can't remember if the round was white or blue. I know my white rounds are Willie Pete, but I can't remember if that what I put in here last. White or blue." I nudged the barrel, directing Bubbley-Squeek to go sit down. "Now, while we're waiting for the police, shall we discuss why you killed Candy?"

Miss Behave and Mad Donna were standing to the side looking at me like I was mad.

"I didn't kill Candy."

"Oh, don't give me that, Craig. See you made a few mistakes along the way." I lifted the grenade launcher a bit. "Ah, nope, nope, nope. Don't you move your hands out of my sight. See, I know that you have been through military training somewhere. What is it Army? Marines? Navy Seal?"

"1st Recon."

"Ah, yeah. Swift, Silent, Deadly." I shifted the weapon following him close. "But you see Bubbley, that cut to Candy's throat? That was too precise. True, it kept her quite while you punished her, but it was recognizably military. Might as well have signed your name on her forehead."

"What the fuck are you talking about, John? Bubbley-Squeek didn't kill my sister. They were friends!" Miss Behave spoke up. I held up a hand to silence her.

"Envy. Powerful thing that sin. Turn family against each other; put friends at each other's throats. Make enemies out of lovers." My attention never wavered from the drag queen sitting on the couch in front of my weapon. "And killers out of cops. Speaking of which."

The approaching storm of undulating sirens was hurricane in scale. CAT5, at least. I felt a bit of pride at that. It's a nice thing to know that you're that loved by the boys in blue. Appreciated for my many years of hard work and dedication.

"They're coming for you, Taline. Your DNA was found on Candy." Bubbley-Squeek gave one of those hideous giggles. "That's all the captain needed to get the mayor off his ass. You could hear him laughing all the way to forensics."

I nodded. "He's easily entertained. Little things make him so happy, but when disappointments hit he's so pitiful. Like a little boy whose lost his puppy." I listened to the growing noise. "Wow, they seem excited, huh?"

Bubbley-Squeek just eyed me, looking for a moment of weakness. I wish I could make sure she was unarmed, but there was no way I was going to get close to this drag queen who was an ex-Marine Recon.

"Taline?"

I didn't spare Miss Behave a glance, not here, not now. But I had her at the corner of my eye. That trick at the second murder site had cost my trust of her.

"Want to tell M.B. here why you decided to string her sister out like cedar garland, Craig? She deserves to hear it from you, not in a court transcript," I said.

"I didn't kill Candy, Mr. Taline. I have no idea what you're talking about." The photographer's voice was cool as snow melt. Not a moment's remorse tinted the eyes above that make-up enhanced femininity of her face.

I chuckled. Oh, well I'll explain it.

"Like I said, Craig, you fucked up. You should have known better! You're forensics, for fuck sake." I pointed at him with the weapon. "He took the crime scene photo right after he killed her. Didn't think about the snow build up, huh?"

Nothing, not even an eye blink.

"Then he decided to kill two more Sisters of No-Mercy to cover his tracks. What were you planning there, Bubbley-Squeek? Maybe do the twelve days of Christmas in dead drag queen hooker bodies?"

Still nothing.

"But see he was at that second crime scene in his official capacity. No red Santa suit." I smiled and let the bomb drop. "No fake beard to be discarded with his own hair and make-up on it."

Blink.

And there it was. A confession was given in one panicked flash of wide eyes. His mood changed. A tensioning of muscles he did his best to hide. It told of the fight or flight instinct revving up to full gear. I held the grenade launcher as steady as I could. I might get only micro-seconds.

"Yeah, Leia will have no trouble matching the make-up on your face now with the make-up she got off that beard. Probably some skin samples for her to test as well. And of course there will be saliva; you had to have drooled over getting to kill Candy so brutally. Right? That was the whole point, wasn't it Doss? To punish her for getting to do what you've always wanted to do."

Oh, I saw the verbal vorpal blade sink home on that one, snicker-snack. Bubbley-Squeek's eyes flashed with anger.

Miss behave saw it too.

"YOU BASTARD!"

Mad Donna caught her just before she charged her sister's killer. The dark haired drag queen using all her strength to hold the crying, infuriated and enraged Miss Behave back.

I nodded. "Let me guess. Little Craig here always felt he should have been born a woman but never could go through with getting the surgery?"

"Yeah! He said it would destroy his career if he transitioned." Mad Donna answered, she held her sobbing friend tight. "That he would lose all the respect of his peers."

"The police being on the whole such a conservative, old boy's club." I didn't give anything in the room so much as a glance. I was hyper-focused on the center of Craig's chest. All movement starts at that point. "Of course the beard wasn't the only mistake. Behave, who told you of the second murder's crime scene."

"THAT FUCKER!"

"What I thought. Probably suggested you tell me I was meeting you there, so I would approach at my ease." I smirked my derision at Craig. "Hard to know where a crime scene is before it's been reported to the police. Unless you're the one who did murder."

The cold eyes of a killer were on me.

"JOHN TALINE!"

The bullhorn from outside blared my name.

"Well. What a happy Christmas party this has become." I made a gesture toward the other two drag queens. "Darlings, be two good girls and go outside find a fat black man name DeLawrence. He's the one out there with a bullhorn he doesn't need."

"TALINE THROW DOWN YOR WEAPONS AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD!"

"That's him there." I licked my lips to wet them as I saw the tension building in Craig Doss. I had to speak through clenched teeth. "Tell him what you just learned about our lovely Bubbley-Squeek here. I'll lead her out to them, and I don't want them shooting me by mistake." I chuckled. "Although, in the Captain's case, it might not be a mistake."

Miss Behave was screaming as she was pushed and dragged to the door behind me. "I'll fucking get to you! I'm going to fucking scratch your god damn eyes out! I'll rip your throat out with a kitchen fork! You want your dick cut off? Your balls? I rip them off you with my bare hands!"

Then they were gone.

"Just us, Bubbley. Let's give them a few minutes then we'll follow. If you blink between that time and now I'll flatten you." The Pirate Gun never wavered.

He eyed it with a bit of contempt. "Is that thing even loaded? I know you didn't put white phosphorus in it. You can't get that shit in Civ life."

"Are you fucking kidding? I can make two phone calls and have five FIM-92 Stinger MANPADS, and a pizza delivered here. And the pizza wouldn't arrive first."

He smiled.

"I have to say I admire that you figured it out in such a few days. I was sure that it would take you until New Years to figure out it was me."

That rang strangely.

"You knew I would figure out it was you?"

"Oh, yes." Now Craig was grinning. "You didn't think I took my vengeance out on Candy right after you got done popping a load into her mouth just by chance did you?" One of those obnoxious giggles. He moved his hand to his mouth and tried to cover them as they got the better of him, "Oh, Taline, you did. No, I killed for my pleasure, true, but the timing was paid for in advance."

My brain popped the clutch on my thoughts and my mind went racing off trying to find a reason for that. All too quickly I was trying my damnedest to put the brakes on as I realized why Craig had said that.

I was now distracted.

His hand, that had seconds before been covering his mouth hiding giggles, shot behind his head and a guard-less Marine Ka-Bar was spinning in the air towards my chest. My finger pulled the trigger on the Pirate Gun even as it hit. From the wide barrel of the M79 grenade launcher erupted a flash of white that looked, for all the world, like a sock. A Kevlar bag, loaded with soft lead shit, it took Craig in the throat with more striking force than a professional baseball player's fastball pitch. The drag queen fell from the couch clutching both hands around that damaged throat, gasping for a breath of air around a swollen esophagus.