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    The Pyramid Killer
    The Pyramid Killer
    The Pyramid Killer
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    The Pyramid Killer

    By Harvey Stanbrough

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A killer is moving through the city in darkness. He's raping and murdering women, and leaving nothing in his wake but a tell-tale calling card: a pyramid.

    For one woman, it's paint cans stacked against a wall. For another, it's a mound of dirt over her face in a shallow grave. For another it's carved into her forehead.

    Come along in this fast-paced mystery as Detective Lou Galecki and his partner, Detective Joe Balducci, look to set things right.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStoneThread Publishing
    Release dateMay 15, 2018
    ISBN9780463534656
    The Pyramid Killer
    Author

    Harvey Stanbrough

    Harvey Stanbrough is an award-winning writer and poet. He’s fond of saying he was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas, and baked in Arizona. After 21 years in the US Marine Corps, he managed to sneak up on a BA degree at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales in 1996. Because he is unable to do otherwise, he splits his writing personality among four personas: Gervasio Arrancado writes magic realism; Nicolas Z “Nick” Porter writes spare, descriptive, Hemingway-style fiction; and Eric Stringer writes the fiction of an unapologetic neurotic. Harvey writes whatever they leave to him. You can see their full bios at HEStanbrough.com.

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      Book preview

      The Pyramid Killer - Harvey Stanbrough

      The Pyramid Killer

      Harvey Stanbrough

      the Smashwords Edition of

      a novel from StoneThread Publishing

      To give the reader more of a sample, the front matter appears at the end.

      The Pyramid Killer

      It was just before 5 a.m. on a when Joe Balducci and I turned into the alley between Madison and Perth. It was as black as midnight. The sun wouldn’t be up for a couple of hours, and the sliver of a moon had set a few hours before.

      The headlights from the sedan ratcheted across the brick side of the building on the left. They moved up, then down, then slashed across a telephone pole and an assortment of empty silvery trash cans before stretching into the length of the littered asphalt alley. Finally they lit up the back end of a stained white garbage truck about halfway down the alley.

      A guy was standing in silhouette at the right rear corner of the truck. He wasn’t fat, but stocky. His face was angled down past the truck, probably looking at the reason we were here.

      At a distance in the headlights, he was wearing dark pants and a grey or off-white t-shirt. His hands were on his hips about where his belt would be. The sides of the soles of his shoes flashed white in the glare, but the shoes disappeared above that. Probably regular old black basketball shoes.

      The other side of him, the maw of the truck gaped open, a huge black square with trash piled a few feet high in the back.

      The trash guys must’a stopped when the man in the back saw the legs sticking out. They must’a decided not to compact what they had in the back ‘til they knew what they had in the back.

      As we pulled closer, the man’s clothes flashed into stained blue jeans and a grimy white t-shirt. He was about six-two, maybe 230, medium build for a guy his size. The t-shirt was at least a size too small. His belly wouldn’t keep him from seeing his toes, but he wouldn’t be able to see anything above them.

      Joe stopped the car.

      This was one of the narrow alleys in the old part of town. Two cars could pass, maybe, if the right door of one and the left door of the other were within an inch or so of the buildings on either side. And if the side view mirrors were turned flat. And if the dumpsters and electric poles weren’t there.

      As it was, the trash truck took up all of the open area. I’m not sure a bicycle could’ve gotten around it.

      When I opened the passenger side door, the humidity hit me before I even got out of the car. It poured over and around the car door, warm, heavy and damp. Imbedded in it was the stench of mold. Plus perfume and laundry soap and rotted meat. Maybe a thousand other smells, all mixed in. And underneath it all, the sour taste of sulphur.

      There wasn’t even a breeze, so the air was just hanging there with the smells seeping through it.

      I took a couple steps past the fender and flashed my badge at the guy behind the truck. Detective Galecki, 5th Precinct. I gestured toward Joe. This is Detective Balducci. And you are?

      The guy didn’t look around immediately. His black neck glistened with beads of sweat. His hair was nappy and black, with a touch of grey at the temples and a little streak of it running down behind his left ear. No sideburns, but a thin moustache below a flat, wide nose.

      As I waited for a response, I let my flashlight beam follow his gaze.

      No shoes, but a shiny black pump laying a few feet away. Small, narrow adult feet, each lolling to its side. The toes were splayed without a film stretched over them, so no pantyhose.

      Her legs were parted, angled away from each other a bit more than looked usual. Rape maybe? And both legs were smashed from mid-calf up to mid-thigh. Even in the flashlight beam the legs were a pale, sickly caucasian color with a blue tint. No wrinkles though. Well, except where they were smashed and blackish red. I don’t think tread marks count for wrinkles.

      And then the hemmed bottom of a black skirt or dress above that. And it was pushed up some. Maybe just because of the angle of the legs.

      Anyway, a skirt or dress, so probably a woman. Probably in her twenties or thirties.

      Very little blood between the left leg and the truck tires. She was definitely dead when the truck ran over her.

      The rest of the body was hidden beneath a pile of flattened cardboard boxes and a couple old wooden pallets squared up and laying on top. The pile was around five feet deep at the center and sloped down to either side.

      The man continued to look at the legs of the deceased for another few seconds.

      Then he jerked his head around as if he’d just heard me ask his name. Oh. Gibbons. Harlequin Gibbons.

      2

      Gibbons stuck out a gnarled, meaty black hand with greyish smears of something across the back of it. Probably courtesy of a ruptured garbage bag.

      I reached to shake it anyway. Being friendly helps in this business.

      But as he turned his head back toward the legs, he pulled his hand back slowly and let it drop, unshaken and forgotten. Helluva thing, ain’t it? Then he looked at me again. You guys see many’a these?

      Joe couldn’t help himself. One corner of his mouth curled into a half-smile, half-sneer. What, legs?

      The guy gestured with his right palm, a vibrant pink in the headlights. Well, you know, like this.

      Wanting to move things along, I shook my head. Not many. So why don’t you tell us what happened?

      The guy glanced down at the legs again, then looked at me. Well, firs’, she was dead before we ran her over, okay?

      Joe said, Whaddaya mean, dead before you ran her over?

      Oh, well, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just sayin’, we ain’t the ones made her dead. Then he turned away and pointed. See, I was on the runnin’ board up there. He turned back to us. On the right side of the truck.

      As he continued talking, I stepped past him and shined my flashlight beam into the back of the truck.

      The pile of garbage was only a couple feet deep, maybe three feet wide and a couple feet into the truck.

      I looked it over pretty good, but I didn’t see anymore body parts. I also didn’t see anything that looked like it might belong to the woman.

      As I stepped back around Gibbons, he was saying it was Alphie’s night to drive, so it was his turn to toss cans. He said it like it was a coveted position, something they might flip a coin over.

      He noticed the look that crossed my face and grinned. When you tossin’ the cans, you get to keep what you find.

      I rolled my hand at him as I flashed the light at the legs again and turned my attention there. Yeah, yeah. So the legs?

      Oh. Well, we come in the alley down there, and he raised his left hand in a vague gesture, like we couldn’t figure that out from the way the truck was facing. An’ we stopped only twice.

      Joe said, That’s a long way to come to only stop two times.

      The guy gestured toward the legs, his palm flashing pink again. "Well, this here was the third time, but— Anyway, the number of times we stop, it’s kind of a game we play. You know, so it ain’t so borin’.

      I dropped off at the corner back there an’ started tossin’ cans. You know, pick one up, dump it, set it down. Grab the next one, dump it, set—

      I rolled my hand at him again. Yeah, yeah. Get on with it.

      As he continued, I looked around. The hair on the back of my neck was crawlin’. Like maybe we were bein’ watched. Probably nothin’. Probably someone in an apartment above us somewhere.

      "Well, you gotta get in a rhythm. Then Mickey, he keeps the truck rollin’. You know, not fast, but I gotta hurry, doin’ both sides’a the alley like this. So anyway, he stopped ‘til I almost caught up an’ then he started rollin’ again. So I was really hurryin’, you know? But he finally thought I was fallin’ too far back so he stopped again.

      "That time he stayed stopped even after I tossed a couple’a cans.

      So I tossed a few more an’ then I needed him to move up. So I hopped back up on the running board to tell him. You know.

      Joe nodded as he lit a cigarette. He took a drag and let the cigarette dangle from the corner of his mouth while he slipped his lighter back into his pocket. Around the cigarette, he said, And?

      "Oh. Well, I was up on the runnin’ board an’ me an’ Mickey was laughin’ about somethin’ stupid. I don’t remember

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