The Beast of 1977 (Book 1)

Chapter 19

"What time is it?" Linus moaned while driving all too slowly down the desolate highway on a day that was nearing noontime.

Fitzpatrick looked out at the passing farmland scenery and asked, "Does it really matter?"

Linus must have sighed at least three to four times since leaving the house. The man's entire body felt as if it were carrying a load of bricks tied to his heels. No matter what, he just couldn't get the fog out of his brain.

"It's hard to believe that this thing hiked almost three miles away just to eat more people."

Stirring awake from his dull stupor, Linus glanced over and grunted, "Huh?"

"I said, I can't believe the thing hiked three miles just to eat more people." Fitzpatrick replied a bit louder.

"Yeah," Linus sighed again."

"You gotta be kidding me." Alan griped.

"Whaddya mean?"

"What's with all the damn sighing? You sound like my wife whenever she wants sex from me?"

Linus shrugged and said, "We just wrapped up a five and a half month kidnapping investigation, and you're asking what's with all the sighing?"

"For Christ's sake," Alan grumbled, "it's not the first kidnapping we've ever covered."

Linus didn't bother to look over at his partner, instead, he gazed upwards into the grey, brooding sky. "What would make a person do all of that, Al?"

"Do what?"

"Kidnap, rape and kill. He even raped the guys, for God's sake." Linus shook his head in shame. "I'm sitting here trying to figure out what sort of twisted event in this man's life could have brought him to such a point."

"Who knows?" Alan groaned. "He obviously had some kind of sick fetish that needed to be fulfilled. You mentioned it yourself back at the TV station."

"And the smell," Linus lamented. "How can any normal human being tolerate having all those dead bodies in that house and not become sick themselves?"

"After a while, even the most perverted person becomes accustomed to his or hers perversion. The man was obviously tormented."

Bruin only scanned the grazing land that passed by at 33 mph.

"I wonder if Gloria saw—

"That's enough!" A frustrated Fitzpatrick hollered.

A momentary quiet took place inside the car before Linus again sighed and said, "I suppose you're gonna tell me that I'm feeling sorry for myself, right?"

"No, it's not that." Fitzpatrick huffed. "You're shitting bricks because after all these months someone or something else got that fucker before you could. We all wanted to plug a bullet in the guy, but we missed out."

Linus rolled his eyes in the other direction, hoping that he could possibly ignore his partner's rant, but it seemed that the more he tried to focus on other matters, Gloria's pale, terrified image would cross his path in stunning full color.

"Whaddya think?" Fitzpatrick looked over.

"Think about what?"

Brice said about the fur. Do you believe that there could be a pack of wolves running around

wheel tighter. "I can't see wolves tearing through a wall like a

ever see the thing that could eat the way

to materialize inside his mind, but he had to sift through the

"A wolf," Fitzpatrick sniggered. "I swear that Brice gets

Linus smirked before asking, "You don't think too much of Pat,

not that I don't like the kid, it's just that...well, he's a kid." Alan tossed up his hands. "An Ivy league, smarty pants,

you trying to

like to play it like my wife;

the speedometer to notice

"Damn kids are taking our

"Is that all

"No, I also hope I get home in time

restrained himself as a semi-truck roared past them on the other side

"I was thinking about

anything. "It's a shame that you have to

"I hate to say this, but I think you have a better chance of speaking rationally with someone like O'Dea than you do with

"I can handle O'Dea, in

cruiser. For a few moments Linus actually believed that

you catch the body

"Which one," Linus glanced strangely over at

"The black

yeah, she

can see

Linus grinned...and drove

a barrage of officers and reporters all milling about the yard of a red and white brick house. Without uttering a single word, they climbed out of the vehicle and dragged themselves towards another squad car just a few feet

greeted as he placed the radio back into the holster inside the car. "Long time

"How are you,

and their four daughters. The mother was found in the living room. Her entire skull was cracked

even got the daughters, too?"

four girls. Two, four, seven and ten," Phelps chocked. "Something just...just tore its way through

found them?" Linus

She and the mother have coffee

men looked over to a distant pine bush and watched as the loudly weeping grandmother was consoled by a

two should see the bedroom." Phelps murmured. "You can hardly take two steps without...it's like something from out of one of these

peek inside, just to see what we're dealing

"I heard you found your

more like we found what was left of him." Fitzpatrick

way here." Phelps rubbed

Linus stepped forward, placed his right hand on Phelps' shoulder and sympathetically whispered into the man's

dropped his head in a noble lamentation before glancing back and saying, "Sometimes, losing a nephew feels like losing

we're still trying to sort out." Linus responded. "Our man kept a recording of all the rapes he committed. Last night, right after he got through with his last victim, something came

from forensics, doesn't believe it's a bear." Fitzpatrick added. "He says that the paw tracks

he stepped away from his cruiser and led Bruin

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