Sweet Things V

Vivi stirred, sitting upright in a daze with a slight headache. She opened her eyes to see the firm couch under her legs, wondering where she was and what exactly happened. Then, like a wave, everything came crashing back to her. Her head pounded harder, and her stomach churned as the sight of that damn corpse sprung into her mind. Vivi knew she was in for some rough shit, but this was not the movies. She did not just see a corpse; she saw a massacre. The torn, discolored, skin that led to exposed meat and bone. It was like some deranged child took a butcher's knife to a doll. Vivi felt like she was ready to hurl, and it took everything in her to force it back down.

"Hey," Charlie said alarmed, ready to rush over from behind a nearby desk. "Are you okay?" Vivi held up and finger and nodded slightly. It took her a minute, but she was able to keep her stomach calm for now.

"Yeah, I… I'll be okay." She responded softly.

"Okay…" Charlie said, slowly sitting back into his chair. "Well, you can still take a rest for now, I still have some more files to go through."

"What kind of files?" Vivi asked, hoping to get her mind off the corpse.

"Hospital records, work files, home services, etcetera." Charlie sighed. "When working any case, it helps to be thorough, especially when it comes to serial killers. Could the victims have shared a cable service? Maybe our culprit might be a maintenance worker. Could the victims have shared a dentist? Maybe it was the dentist, maybe it was one of the nurses, or maybe the culprit happens to frequent there. So many avenues and it's up to us to narrow it down. And that," He smacks the stack of papers on the desk. "Takes a lot of reading." Charlie turns his head, sighs, and then looks Vivi in the eyes.

"Not all our work is blood and gore, most times we talk to people, travel, and read documents."

"I understand just…," She turned to lay back down on the couch. "Keep talking about what you found." She said.

Charlie tapped his fingers on the stack of papers before finally saying, "Alright."

He leaned back into the sturdy chair and recounted everything he could from birth dates to what kind of car each of the victims drove. And with every new bit of information, Vivi's mind drifted further and further away from the violence she saw earlier. Soon enough, her mind was now a web of information. connecting and cutting different strings until finally something hit.

"Wait, go back. What did you say about the last victim?"

"Who Beatrice," Charlie questioned as he sifted through the papers again to find what he said on her last. "Says here that she lived in Cape Town near the beach, why?"

"And the others?"

"Hmm let me see." Charlie said sifting through papers and calling out the towns each of the victims were from. "None of them live in the same area or even remotely close to a point of interest."

"No, they don't, but" Vivi said getting up and rushing over towards the desk. She grabbed a pen, a document with a blank back, and began drawing. First the dots, then town names on each dot, and lastly the streets and highways that connected them all. "They are on the way to each other." Vivi slid the makeshift map towards Charlie before resting her palms on the desk and watching him analyze her work.

"I don't quite remember all of these routes but…" Vivi leaned in closer. "From the ones I do remember there is a precedent here." Charlie said, putting down the paper and looking up at Vivi. "Well done." He smiled. Vivi beamed right back at him as she stood straight again.

"So," feeling proud of herself. "What now?"

"Now, we head home. I'll double check your handiwork with my map of the city and then we'll go from there, but first," Charlie's smile faded. "You need to know something else about the last victim you saw, Lucille."

"Okay…" Vivi replied softly, folding her arms across her chest.

Charlie took a deep breath and then said, "After you passed out and I took you upstairs, I went back down again to go over the details of Lucille's death with Cassius and well…," Vivi clenched her arms. "From what he told me, Lucille was strangled to death and then sawed to pieces."

"Sawed… as in a chainsaw?" Vivi whispered, feeling her stomach drop.

"Seems so yeah," Charlie shook his head. "Like some bullshit out of a horror flick."

"Okay…," Vivi nodded her head slowly. "Is that all?" Charlie took a long pause, prompting Vivi to bite down on her lower lip.

"The DNA samples that identified the culprit as a man wasn't skin or hair… it was semen."

Vivi did not have to hear anything else to know what that meant. The instant her mind registered the statement and the image appeared in her head; she vomited all over the floor.