The Monster of Detroit

A monster is loose on Detroit, Mulligan and Marshall are tasked with catching him.

The shrapnel from Belleau Wood woke me from slumber on May 10th, 1938 as the rain poured down upon the city, still early at 3:35. I clutched my shoulder, ugh.., ”Darn war wound!”, I grunt. To myself, the bottle of bourbon by my bed helped a bit, wondering what the next day would bring. Looking over at beautiful Sarah, sleeping soundly - thank God for that. She gets weary enough looking after the boys, so the sleep does her good. She and Mavis Marshall get along swell; our younger boys are growing up with their kids. Family, it’s why we go to work each day, and why we sacrifice comfort, wealth, and pleasure. We go to Church to lead our kids to God, and to teach them to be fine men and women.

By 4:00, I realized I wasn’t getting back to sleep, so I got out of bed and started the routine: cold water to the face and a shave, combed my hair, got the brown checked blazer, tan slacks, blue shirt, red blue and white patterned necktie, and brown shoes. I hung my jacket on a chair, put on the coffee percolator, and then lit a cigarette. It was quiet, but that’s the normal routine: bourbon, prayers, readings, cigarettes, coffee. It’s usually around 4 or 5 when either the nightmares or the shrapnel get me up, the price I paid for Uncle Sam. Worth it;: they send a check a month, and I got some medals.

Sarah was up at 5:00 to make breakfast, such a wonderful wife. I don’t deserve her, but I thank God for his wonderful gift to me. She and I talked about the coming day. It's been tough times for everyone, and the Depression continues. Our new Hudson is running like a dream and such a dream to own. But our 1928 Model A was at the end of its days. Its performance was going out and the winter salt did its damage on our car, but I’ll try to be better with this new car.

At 6 AM, we woke the boys to get them all dressed and ready for school. With 6 of them, they take a lot of work, but are a blessing to each and everyone, even in these tough times. We get through. My suits are maintained and so are my ties, a few hats, and I have a blessing of good work; the Department hasn’t fired me yet. I’m a blessed man, but the toils of my duties are there every day. My new partner, Jack Marshal, is a stuck-up kid, with lots of book smarts but needs a lot of shaping on the street. The cadavers and corpses will always exist, will always be my work to clean up, and Marshall, well, he’s learning.

At 6:30 I put on my raincoat, and my brown hat, topped up my flask, made sure I had a full pack of cigarettes, checked my revolver to see if it was loaded, and made sure the safety was on. I kissed Sarah and made sure the lads were on their way to school. I chuckled as I saw the boys start a race with a couple of the neighbor kids to see who could get to school first, ha! I almost wish I was them again, but I enjoy being a cop; so I lit a cigarette and got into our Hudson, and began to drive to the precinct. It was nice enough, despite the rain. The shrapnel kept biting, darn kraut potato masher blew up near me, clipped a few buddies, but I made it through. They didn’t get all the shrapnel, but I still live, for better or worse. 

I got to the station, parked the car, and walked up to the homicide squad. I put the cigarette butt in the ashtray and walked into the squad room and sat down. I chatted with other detectives about our various ongoing cases and our families. Young Marshall came in and sat down alone, apparently, the boys weren’t too fond of the kid either. Oh well, maybe he’ll learn in time.

At 7:00, the Skipper came in to give us our cases. He seemed in a bad mood,

“All right lads, get the hacks off our backs, those ambulance-chasing reporters are at the scenes before the beat cops could get there, so let’s hop to it! Mulligan and Marshall, you’ve got a tough one, not too far from here down on the corner of Washington Boulevard and Lafayette: a woman found beaten and strangled, hacks all over. Coroner and Tech Services will meet you on the scene. Hop to it boys, you have a monster to catch! Rogers, Williams you have...”

Young Marshall jumped up so quick I thought the Skipper had called him to attention. I moseyed on out, meeting him at the top of the steps,

“Morning, youngster. You drive, just don’t drive as fast as you jumped up from that chair that there chair!”

“Sure old-timer. Hittin’ the bottle a bit too much?”

“Stow it Jackrabbit! You’ve only had a couple of cases under your belt. You are a good cop, but you haven’t seen enough gruesome stuff yet. You may know the book by heart, but I’ve been on every desk on the Force, hotshot. You’ve got potential, but you’ll have to learn the street like you know the rule book.”

We got to the car. I lit up a cigarette after we got in, and we drove off to the scene. The eight-minute drive was a quiet one.

Upon arrival, we could see the crowd,. the patrolmen managed to get the barricades up, and the reporters were making their jobs a tough one in the rain. As we got closer, we saw Piker and Doc Brown working. Sure wasn’t a pleasant sight. The dame was naked, having been, upon first glance, likely dumped out of a car in that paved lot. As we were at the scene, I spoke to Piker and Doc Brown,

“Frank, Erick, what do we have?”

“Well, White Female, named Jessica Thompson, born May 27th, 1916 according to the driver’s license in her handbag that was dumped. All her cash was gone, no footprints. The trace evidence is scant; it’s a paved sidewalk, but funny thing…”, Frank trailed off.

“What?”, I asked.

“Looks like the killer wrote a note for us and left it in the young lady’s handbag. It’ll be bagged and tested for prints back at the station. It reads,

‘Well coppers, you have my message. Enjoy the chase. Hope you enjoy my little delight, more to come. You will not know when, but you’ll know soon. As the rope choked out the life of this broad, so will the next. My respite shall be in Hell’s gates of fire; the heat will I enjoy on and on.’”

“Cripes, fancies himself a bit of a poet does he? Looks like he’s got another dame in his sights, but where?”, I pondered.

“Who found her?”

“A building Janitor: beat cop’s over at that bench by the building with him.”

“How was she murdered, Doc?”, I asked.

“She was certainly beaten, and from the rope marks, my guess is Maguey rope. She appeared to have been tied up with it while she was beaten, then strangled with it. From what I saw on the body, she was likely raped, but I’ll run semen tests back at the lab and let you know. Time of death is hard to tell, with the cold rain and temperature last night, can’t be sure, but I’d guess around 1-3 AM”, finished Doc Brown.

“Anything else?”, I asked.

“Nope, sorry fellows”, they both said.

Surveying the scene— it was a gruesome scene— her body was badly bruised, and the strangle marks made it no more pleasant. She was a very pretty woman, darn shame. Surveying the scene, we found nothing new, no clothes, no footprints. Looked like a tough case ahead. The Detroit Press’s office is just a block east of where the body was found, so the hacks had their pictures before the beat cop could get back up from a Gamewell. We walked over to question the janitor, a short Negro male, about 50. He wore a pair of coveralls and a workman’s flat cap. Officer Henry Brock came to meet us,

“Sergeant Mulligan, Detective Marshall, this is Leroy Washington, a janitor in this building. He came yelling for help at 6 AM when he found the body. I went to a Gamewell to report it”, Brock told us.

“Okay, thanks to Brock”, I said.

“Mr. Washington?”, I asked.

“Yes suh. I was comin’ into work like usual when I saw that there woman lying in that alleyway. I went fo’ the law, right away”,. He started as he got up and spoke to us.

“Did you see anything, sir? Like a car driving away or was the body soaked like it is now?”, I asked.

“No suh, nothing. It was soaked like it is now.”

“Thank you, sir, we’ll call you through your employer if we need any more”, I finished.

“Sho’ thing suh. Terrible ain’t it?”, he finished.

“Yup. Have a fine day, sir”, I bade him.

Another tough case. was A poor woman, raped, murdered, and dumped in an alleyway with a cryptic message. No witness reports, little crime scene evidence, just a name, a corpse, and a cryptic message. Jack went to a Gamewell and called R&I. They would send the message through the radio. You could write it on a piece of confetti. We lit up cigarettes and walked back to the car. On the way, we discussed the case.,

“It’s a tough case. The dame seemed like a normal young woman, nothing suspicious from the looks of things, no money, no jewelry, a robbery gone wrong. But why the rape and murder? Maybe some bum found the body and stripped it of the valuables, some of the bums are cold enough to do that. I know times are tough, but jeez... that’s sick”, I pondered aloud.

“I agree, it’s certainly odd. Who would do such a horrible murder and rape like this?”, Jack asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Someone with a sick mind, that's for sure”, I grunted as I got in the passenger side.

We drove to the victim’s address according to her ID. On the way, I had a couple of swigs of bourbon. The youngster of course cringed a bit, but he’s learning to say things internally. We did chat some.,

“This one’s gonna be tough, she did have her wedding ring on accord to the bare to the bone finger. I hope she doesn't have kids. It’ll be tough to deal with just a husband; the kids are going to be broken up if so”, I muttered.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be rough. Though I’m not a fan of your drinking on duty, you’ll need that bourbon, I’m guessing”, Jack replied.

“I sure hope this monster resists; we can protect the city in self-defense”, I grunted.

“That’s not exactly department policy. We catch him and lock him up. The walls of Marquette prison hold those fellows quite well”, Jack stated.

“Listen, college boy, the book is good so that the guys on the take keep it in the dark, but it ain’t there to protect rapists and murderers. The law does a decent job, but they are neutered, keeping them monsters alive on our coin, instead of hangin’ ‘em high as the murders and rapes demand. You may have better Latin and English, but you haven’t seen a kid murdered, and I mean kid. Me and my old partner had to clean up a ten-year-old boy who was kidnaped and later murdered. The crud who did it maimed the boy by breaking his legs and arms then broke his jaw and then choked the life out of him. Thankfully, the inmates did us all a favor a year later by shanking the monster in the showers”. 

“Well Rusty, you seem to know this stuff quite well. Guess my learning continues. Learn something new every day!”

“Maybe you will, Wiseguy”, I said as I put out my cigarette butt in the car ashtray. 

We then got word on the radio that Mr. Dave Thompson had reported his wife missing the night before. Missing Persons had worked the case, but had found nothing concrete. We would use the phone at the home of the victim to let R&I know that we’ll have informed the victim’s husband.

We got to the victim’s house. It was a nice craftsman's home and looked like a happy home before some monster kidnapped the wife who helped maintain this lovely home. We walked up the walk. There was no car in the driveway. The husband was probably looking for his wife, not a piece of wonderful news will we bring. Upon knocking, a girl about 5, opened the door. She was disturbed and nervous.

“Hello Miss, we’re from the Police, this is Detective Marshall and I’m Sergeant Mulligan.  What's your name? Is your father home?”, I asked.

“Margo. No sir, he’s out looking for Mommy. Is she all right?”, she asked nervously.

“I’m sorry I have to break it to you like this, but your Mother, she’s been murdered. I’m so sorry”, I replied.

She burst into tears. I took her to the couch in the living room. I carried her to the couch. She held onto my arm crying into my suit sleeve. I never had little girls, but my brother had two of them. What a poor kid, losing her mother, at such a young age, hoping her Pop is good to her. A girl needs a mother, but without a father, it’d be real tough. Jack went to get her a glass of milk. She drank it. She was feeling a little better, but there was no talking coming out of her. I just let her cry on me, while I tried to comfort her. We couldn’t leave her alone in this state. Her Pop was worried about his wife if he left his little girl at home without a sitter, but I get it. Just as we were about to call for someone to watch the girl, a woman came in, screaming,

“WHO ARE YOU GUYS?!!!”,

“Detroit PD Sergeant Mulligan and Detective Marshall. Who are you?”, I asked.

“I’m Jessica’s sister, Britta Vincent! I’ve been watching little Margo, just stepped out to get something from the corner grocer”, she replied. “Did you find her yet? Is she all right?!”

“I’m afraid she’s been murdered”.

“Murdered?!”, she cried, “What?...How?...Who?...”, she babbled. As she broke down Jack caught her. I threw Jack my flask and he gave some to her to drink.

Hope the crud gets his chuckles while they last. His chuckles will end in a bullet through his sick mind. He’s made Mrs. Thompson’s sister cry now and has deprived a little girl of a mother. If Mr. Thompson has had anything to do with it, I’ll personally pull his arms and legs off, then I’ll break his jaw, and then I’ll shoot him. All in “self-defense”. He also caused me to lose more bourbon, another crime I’m sure.

Mr. Thompson came in 10 minutes after we got his daughter to bed with Mrs. Vincent to watch poor Margo. He was extremely agitated and was obviously under a lot of stress. We identified ourselves then,

“Sir, we have some bad news about your wife”, I said.

“W-w-what i-is is it? Is she all right?”, he asked.

“I’m sorry, but she’s been raped and murdered”.

He sat down in a chair, staring blankly out the front window, looking like he was in shock. Looks can be deceiving, I’ve seen ’em all, never trust a possible suspect. Though the pain looked like one of the typical reactions of pain for a man. He didn’t quite believe what happened. I know the feeling, a few of my buddies got it in the war, right in front of me. I’ll keep him on an unlikely suspect list. We need to clip this bird before he gets to another woman.