It Was Only Once

Johnny Ramadi was on his way home and was taking his normal shortcut through Radley Park in Nashville. He'd done it every night since he got out of prison after doing a year for soliciting a prostitute. Considering that the initial charge was attempted murder, he'd gotten off better than he'd expected. His lawyer had pointed out to the prosecutor that the female victim was a known prostitute and that Mr. Ramadi had only requested a certain service she provided. During the course of enjoying that service, Mr. Ramadi had left his DNA on her face.

The lawyer further argued that without a witness or video and given the circumstances, the DNA was no proof Mr. Ramadi had tried to kill the woman. The DA countered that the victim had picked Mr. Ramadi out of a lineup as the man who beat her. The defense lawyer smiled and said he'd bet she wouldn't be so sure once he cross-examined her on the witness stand.

"Your own record of her testimony when she picked my client out of your lineup indicates she pointed to two other men of similar appearance to my client before she selected him. Also according to her testimony, she'd serviced sixteen men that night and at least six asked her for and received oral sex. I don't think it'll take much to get her to admit she might have picked the wrong man.

"It will also sound suspect that you arrested my client and put him in a photo lineup only after you had a DNA match. My client's criminal record clearly listed his only other offense as soliciting and he lived in the same area. There were three other men with a history of physical abuse of prostitutes living in the area and you didn't have their photos on file. Why didn't the department put all of them in the lineup, and why was it only a photo lineup instead of an actual, in-person lineup?

"It looks to me as if you'd already decided my client was guilty and the lineup was only done to improve your shaky case. Perhaps one of the arresting officers could shed some light on that when I cross-examine him on the witness stand.

"The fact is all you have is my client's DNA on her face which is entirely explainable given the act she performed for him. Everything else is just suspect evidence. Maybe a jury will believe your case and maybe they won't. My client is willing to plead guilty to soliciting a prostitute and serve up to a year in prison if you'll drop the attempted murder charge. If you accept his plea and ask for a sentence of a year in prison, it will appear as if you've done your job. If you take this to trial and then lose the case...well...if I remember the law correctly, DA's are elected, aren't they?"

The DA finally agreed to reduce the charge to soliciting if Johnny would enter a plea of guilty. Johnny was happy to do just that.

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To Johnny, what he'd done was justified. He'd paid for a blowjob but the whore insisted he wear a condom. She hadn't said anything about that when she stuck her naked tits into his open car window, but she'd pulled the condom out of her purse as soon as he parked in the lot of a closed warehouse, paid her, and got his cock out.

Johnny had told her he wasn't about to wear a condom. The whore shrugged and told Johnny to take her back to her corner again. That's when Johnny hit her in the face hard enough she was dazed. He got out, walked around his car, and then dragged her out the door and onto the ground.

She'd fought him as hard as she could, but he fought back with his fists until she was unconscious. He'd thought about fucking her, but he could never get it up unless the whore was awake and talking to him. He kicked her in the ribs, got in his car, and drove away.

She'd been found the next morning by the first warehouse worker that drove into the parking lot. She'd spent a week in the hospital and had then picked Johnny out of a photo lineup of men who had prior convictions for solicitation after the DA had gotten the DNA match back from the lab.

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It was four in he morning when Johnny entered the park. It was four because the bar where he worked as a bouncer didn't close up until three. It wasn't much of a job, but his prison record pretty much ended any job offers from any other type of business except the drug business, and Johnny was smart enough to know that most street dealers led very short lives. Competition in the drug trade was stiff, and knocking off the corner dealer so you could take his place was a common thing.

Bouncing was easy for Johnny because he was tall and he'd kept in shape in prison by lifting weights. He'd kept in shape mostly so no other inmate would fuck with him. A couple had tried, early on, but when they ended up in the hospital wing, word got around, and he was left alone.

Bouncing didn't pay a lot, but it had other benefits. Johnny liked whores because whores gave blowjobs and he liked seeing a whore suck his cock until he filled her mouth with his cum. Some would gag, but he'd hold their mouth shut and pinch their nose until they had to swallow. The ones who swallowed by themselves were his favorites, and being a bouncer in a cheap-ass bar like "Jacks and Jills" gave him a chance to know many who would.

He'd gotten a blowjob in the men's room of the bar that night after the bar closed, and he'd gotten it for free. All the whores knew he'd kick their asses out of the bar unless they agreed to his terms. They made a lot of money in the bar restrooms during the night, so sucking his cock once a week or so without getting paid was worth it.

As Johnny walked down the sidewalk, he was thinking about that whore. Her name was Sheila and she grinned when he shot her mouth full of cum and smacked her lips after she'd swallowed and then sucked his cock some more. Johnny thought the next night, he'd find her after the bar closed and have her suck his cock again.

That was when he saw the person walking toward him, though he couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. He decided the person was probably a man because no woman except a whore would be out by herself in the park and once the bars closed at three, all the whores would go home to clean up and get some sleep before the next night. They wouldn't be walking through the park hoping to find a john. It was probably some fucking drug addict looking to roll him for a few bucks so he could score his next fix.

If Johnny hadn't been such a big man, he would probably have been a little worried, but the guy walking toward him looked pretty skinny and weak. He figured he could take the guy without even breaking a sweat. Johnny even moved a little so he was meeting the guy head on. It always made him feel good when a smaller man moved out of his way. That meant the man was afraid of him and Johnny liked everybody to be afraid of him.

They were six feet apart and the man still hadn't moved to the side, but Johnny wasn't worried. If the guy thought he was going to make him move, he was wrong. Johnny would just push him off the sidewalk and laugh, then continue walking.

Johnny didn't see the flick of the wrist that caused the razor-sharp blade of the stiletto to swing from the handle and lock open. He barely felt the prick of the point as it pierced his shirt and then entered just under his breastbone. Then came the stab of intense, internal pain when it pierced his heart. That pain became unbearably intense when the blade was jerked hard to the side and sliced through his heart and then though his left lung.

Johnny fell backwards then and started coughing up blood. The killer pulled out the stiletto as Johnny fell, wiped the blade on Johnny's shirt, and then watched him until he stopped breathing. The killer folded the stiletto and stuck it in a back pants pocket and then checked Johnny's throat for a pulse. Finding none, the killer smiled and took a single playing card, the three of hearts, from a back pocket and laid it on his chest. A few seconds later, the killer was walking back down the sidewalk.

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When Tom Coventry got to the park, the area around the body had been taped off by the two uniforms who'd responded to the 911 call from a park employee and the Crime Scene techs were looking for evidence. Mason Adams, the Coroner, was also there, and he looked up when Tom asked him if he had a time of death.

"Hi, Tom. Looks like you get to add this fucking mess to the others. It's the same cause as the other two as near as I can tell. Long, sharp blade just under the breastbone and through his heart. I won't know for sure until I open him up, but I'd bet my left nut his heart and lung are slashed just like the other two. Time of death is probably sometime between two and five this morning."

Mason looked up then and smiled.

"Morning Connie. Sorry about my language, but I didn't see you standing there. Looks like you and Tom have another one on your list."

Tom hadn't heard Connie Reynolds walk up, but he knew she was there because they'd ridden together. She was a new detective he was training. Connie was thirty-six, had an excellent record as a uniform, and thanks to the Governor's directive that the police department should increase the number of female officers and detectives, Connie had been offered the opportunity.

Tom wasn't sure how he felt about that. He'd worked with partners before, but they'd always been men, and you could act normal around a partner who was a man. If you felt like saying, "fuck", you just said it and the other guy would either just nod or say, "I hear that, Tom." With a woman, you had to watch what you said. Women today seemed to interpret almost anything as sexual harassment.

He knew of one uniform sergeant who had made the mistake of telling one of the female uniforms she looked sexy in her police uniform. The woman was a new officer fresh out of the Academy, and the sergeant didn't think he was doing anything except giving her a compliment. She'd gone to human relations and claimed she was a victim of sexual harassment. That sergeant was given a month's suspension without pay, and it was doubtful he'd ever get any higher in the department than he already was.

So far, Connie had seemed to be pretty calm at the two other murder scenes they'd been to. She didn't throw up when she saw the blood and the dead body like many men did. She just started writing down what she saw in her notebook. Once they were back at their desks, Connie would tell him what she thought might have happened and he'd tell her his thoughts.

Connie saw the playing card on the man's chest and tapped Tom on the shoulder.

"That's the three of hearts. The last one was the two and the one before that was the ace. It has to be the same killer, doesn't it?"

Tom nodded.

"Looks that way. The thing that doesn't make any sense is that serial killers always pick a specific type of victim. Their victims might be young boys, or prostitutes, or something else, but they're almost always the same type. This one doesn't seem to have a type."

Tom said that because that's what Connie's background investigation of the victims had turned up so far.

There had been one male and one female victim before this one. Neither of them appeared to have had any connections to the other. The female was twenty-five and the male sixty-seven, so the killer wasn't targeting any particular age or sex. The male was white and the female was black, so it wasn't race. Neither was an immigrant. Both were third generation Americans.

One thing both had in common was both had criminal records. The black female had been convicted of robbery and had served two years in prison. For the two years after that until she was killed, her record was clean. The white male had pled guilty to simple assault and served a hundred and eighty days in the country jail. As with the black female, his record had been clean for the last three years. It was difficult for Tom to see how having a criminal record would connect either to a serial killer.

One other thing common to both victims was that the cause of death was stabbing with a long, very sharp blade of some kind. The initial penetration was just under the breastbone and pierced the heart. Subsequent manipulation of the knife had sliced into both the heart and left lung, further increasing the damage and the amount of internal bleeding. According to the Coroner, the intense internal pain resulting from the slashing would have rendered both victims incapable of doing much to defend themselves. Shock and internal bleeding would have reduced blood flow to the brain enough both had probably been rendered unconscious in less than ten seconds, and were dead within about five or six minutes.

Another commonality was neither of the victims including the guy the coroner was now loading into his van showed any kind of defensive wounds. During most knife attacks the victim will try to ward off the knife thrusts and in doing so will suffer cuts to their hands and arms. None of the victims had any injuries other than the single stab wound. To Tom, that was a pretty good indication the victims knew their killer and probably trusted them.

Patti Amos, one of the CSI techs had picked the playing card from the dead man's chest. As she put it into an evidence bag and then wrote the date, time, location, and her name on the bag, she told Tom and Connie she'd see if she could find fingerprints or DNA on the card. Then she fished a wallet from the guy's pant pocket, opened it, and showed a driver's license to Tom.

Tom wrote the guy's name and address and date of birth on his notepad and then nodded to Patti. She put the license and wallet into another evidence bag and said she'd check for prints and DNA on the contents.

Tom was doubtful she'd find anything. There hadn't been any prints or DNA that might identify the killer on any thing including the body on the last two victims. If the cause of death was the same for this last victim, that and the playing card would be nearly conclusive proof that there was a serial killer operating in the city. The lack of fingerprints and DNA indicated the murders were well planned in advance, also the mark of a serial killer. It looked like the killer also had a pretty good knowledge of what the police would look for at any murder scene, but that could probably be garnered by watching TV shows.

The card was a clue, sort of, but only maybe proved they were probably dealing with the same killer in all three murders. The CSI techs had determined the material in both the first two cards was the same and that the ink was also the same. By knowing the composition of the card stock and the ink, they'd been able to narrow down the list of possible manufacturers to just one -- HappyGameHouse.

HappyGameHouse turned out to be the US warehouse for a Chinese company that like a lot of Chinese companies was just a business front for other, smaller Chinese companies. Those smaller companies manufactured an assortment of stuff from adult sex toys to sexy women's underwear to cheap medical instruments to costume jewelry, and in this case, playing cards that cost a buck in any dollar store in the US. A call to HappyGameHouse had revealed they sold about half a million decks every year with about half of those decks having the same blue back as the cards from the two murders. The cards were a clue that wasn't a useful clue at all except to indicate the killer might be working through a list of people the killer had a reason to want dead.

Serial killers are usually pretty intelligent, so it could also just be the killer trying to make the police think the cards meant something in order to steer the investigation away from themselves. They could also be the killer daring the police to catch the killer. Tom had read about another serial killer who intentionally left clues behind.

Tom knew the CSI techs would comb the area for anything that might be even remotely associated with the murder so he wrote down his initial observations and then asked Connie if she was done. She said she was, so they headed back to the station to wait on the Coroner's report and the preliminary CSI report.

Tom and Connie's desk butted up to each other, and when they both sat down, Connie took out her note pad.

"Tom, did you notice anything different about this victim?"

Tom shook his head.

"No. He looked like the other two -- no defensive wounds and only the fatal wound to his chest. Why? Did you?"

Connie flipped the page of her notebook, then looked up at Tom.

"Yes, I did. The white guy was old enough he probably couldn't do much to stop the attack. Same with the black girl. She was only twenty-two, but she was a really small woman. This guy was over six feet tall and probably weighed about two-eighty. It's hard to believe that he wouldn't fight back against somebody trying to kill him."

Tom shrugged.

"I've seen it before, and it's always been that the victim either knew or at least trusted the killer. If this wasn't so similar to the other two, I'd suspect a close friend or maybe even a girlfriend, though I have no idea how anybody would learn how to use a knife like that. I've never seen that type of attack before.

"I was a Marine, and what the Marines taught me was to not stay in front of a person but to keep circling to the side. The idea was to make quick stabs and slashes at places where there are large arteries or veins close to the surface like the neck, the groin area and arms and thigh, or to cause shock by jabbing the internal organs from the side. They taught us to not stay close to the other person. It was jab and then back away, jab and back away just like a boxer does.

"The goal was to cause enough blood loss and pain in the other guy that he'd either collapse or decide he'd had enough and try to run away. Either way, he'd end up dead. As soon as we saw an opportunity, we were to stab or slash the opponent's throat. That sounds pretty cruel, but I can tell you from the training exercises that most knife fights last only a few seconds. You don't have time to stop and think. You just do what your training has taught you to do.

"To do what the autopsies showed, the killer would have had to be very close to the victim and then stay there long enough to whip the blade back and forth while it was still inside the victim. Even if the pain caused the victim to stop consciously fighting, you'd think there would be an instinctive reaction to push the killer away.

"I think you're right about the last victim. It's hard to believe that he didn't do something to the killer. Maybe Mason will find something on this one."

Connie sighed.

"Well, I'm not holding my breath. I'll go run Johnny Ramadi through NCIC. Maybe that will tell us something."

Connie started typing away at her laptop so Tom laid out the file he'd started. He was looking at the crime scene photos when Mason called him.

"Tom, I was right about the cause of death. The guy has a slash across his heart and left lung. I have some more information too. With the other two, I didn't see any marks other than the incision made by the knife. The incision on this guy is the same width but I saw two differences. The biggest is the depth of the initial stab wound and the resulting slashes.

"On the other two, their chests were actually pretty shallow, especially the female's. I estimated with those two that the blade would have been about four to five inches long and about half an inch wide. This one is about the same width, but it went in about six inches deep. If the killer used the same knife, they knew they didn't have to push the blade in as deep to reach the heart and lung of the other two victims.

"This guy was big enough that a four inch knife probably would have still killed him but he'd have been able to fight back for a while. It looks to me like the killer pushed the knife in as deep as it would go. I know that because there's a bruise on both sides of the incision. It's not very big, maybe eight millimeters wide by six millimeters long on each side. It's not just one bruise either. It's four. On each side of the incision are two rectangles about three millimeters long by three millimeters wide and separated by about three millimeters.