Lillian

This was Ed’s first visit to the Silver Goblet wine bar.  He hoped to hook up with the opposite sex for a one nighter and his recent attempts at other bars had been less successful, so he was feeling a little randy.

He sat down at the bar, ordered a cabernet and surveyed the room.  There were a few potentials of varying ages, hair colors and body types, but as he gazed over the crowd he could feel eyes staring back at him.  When he located the woman, he mused to himself, “she’s not the prettiest one here but she’s younger than my Mom and she’s alone!”

Ed smiled at the woman, took his wine and moved to her table.  Her name was Lillian.  She and Ed talked for a few minutes, small talk, but enough to establish that they both had the same intention, a one night tension release.

They decided that Ed’ s apartment was closer, paid their tab and walked the few blocks to Ed’s place, it was about 10:30.

Upon reaching Ed’s apartment, then closing and locking the door, they fell into a frenzy of undressing.  As they got down to underwear, Ed was so distracted by Lillian beginning to remove her bra that he didn’t see her palm a thin metal spike in her right hand.  

As her bra fell and Ed’s eyes were focused on her chest, Lillian moved her arms up to Ed’s shoulders.

Ed gave a quick intake of breath and felt a brief sharp pain, just before everything went black, as Lillian shoved the spike through his left ear and into his brain.  Unconsciousness was immediate, death followed shortly.

Lillian smiled as she redressed herself, reached into her purse for her surgical kit and began to hum as she prepared the cadaver for resection. 

2

Pure psychopaths are rare and Lillian wasn’t pure.  She could mimic emotions in spite of her inability to feel them and she appeared normal to those around her, but, she was a psychopath, not a sociopath, so these “anatomy lab” experiences that she was creating with men like Ed, were well planned and executed, without emotion or guilt.

Lillian was the product of a naive 13 year old girl and her 15 year old cousin, whose families thought adoption the best course of action.  Lillian was never adopted by a family and spent her youth and adolescence in an orphanage, where no one paid much attention to early aberrant behaviors and she learned to mimic those that brought even less.

She was very intelligent and breezed through college on a scholarship, deciding on Medical School, not out of altruism, but because that would allow her to take a human body apart, as you would a clock, to see what made it tick, just psychopathic curiosity.

Now in her 3rd year at Tufts University School of Medicine, Lillian was at the top of her class and regarded as a surgical prodigy by her instructor for Surgery I and II.  Her grant allowed her to live alone, freeing her for her extracurricular activities under less scrutiny than had she a roommate.

Lillian had spent the time with the cadaver that had been Ed studying the thymus gland for atrophy, which showed advanced aging of the gland, considering his age of 34, which she’d gotten from his driver’s license.  She’d then resected the appendix, that little worm like appendage off the large intestine, which to date, had no reason for being other than some use lost to evolution. 

Finally, she looked at the testicles, her curiosity from an incident in her past, when she was 17.  Her sex partner, a 15 yr old, Ralph, in the same orphanage, complained of one of his balls “going up” when he had sex with Lillian.  She checked the cremaster muscles, those used to pull the balls closer to the body and keep them warm, on her cadaver for any abnormality, discerned none, but took the R testicle for further study.  She finished by practicing her suturing technique, stitching the chest, abdomen and scrotum, then carefully ensured no fingerprints left on the body or the table, before letting herself out of Ed’s apartment and heading down the stairs to the street.  It was 1:45AM, Lillian put a scarf over her hair and the collar of her coat up to aid in obscuring her features from any surveillance cameras that she might pass.  The street was clear as she walked to the nearest subway station, she was home by 2:15AM.

3 (4 days later)

Detective Carl Willets phone rang at 3AM, he was only half asleep.  He had the night call and and was lead tonight for he and his partner Remus Forsythe.  He took the call from the night desk, Sergeant Thomas, “ Carl, sorry to wake you, we’ve got another one, white male, 34 yrs old, spike to the brain and carved up, just like the others!”

Carl picked Remus up in front of his house 30 minutes later and they proceeded to the apartment of Ed Wilson, recently deceased lounge lizard.  Ed’s remains had been found by the super of his building when he went in to investigate complaints of a bad odor coming from Ed’s apartment.  The black and white team that answered the call had found Ed laid out on his kitchen table naked, dead, surgically opened and the wound sutured closed.

The ME did this one as a priority as this was the 6th case in the last 3 months and so far, they’d been able to keep it out of the media, but that wasn’t going to last long if there were no answers forthcoming SOON!

Carl and Remus read the ME’s report on the latest “Ripper” victim, Ed Wilson.  He’d been rendered unconscious by the stylus to the brain, death occurring within a 15 to 20 minute window, then had very specific organs resected, appendix, thymus gland and the right testicle but not the left.  Signs that surgery had commenced after death were apparent by lack of blood splatter, as the heart was no longer pumping, so blood pooled, not spurted or flowed.  As in the other 5 cases, all male, each victim was surgically opened and closed, such that, until autopsy, no evidence was available to the naked eye that indicated what had been taken from the body.

The “Ripper” victims had all been subjected to surgery with the resultant collective lose of a L lung, a R kidney, an entire esophagus, one lobe of a liver, 4’ of small intestine, a spleen, a gall bladder, the pituitary gland, a prostate and now, Ed’s appendix, thymus and R testicle.

Carl had asked the ME, Dr. Frank Miller his opinion of these surgeries strictly from a medical viewpoint and Dr Miller had stated, “ Carl, most of these cuts were made by a surgeon or someone with training in the resection of common organs.  A couple, the thymus of Ed Miller and the gall bladder of victim #3 have some different components. These 2 resemble surgical techniques by someone who’s experimenting or doing this kind of surgery for the 1st time.  I’m going to call a friend of mine, Professor John George, Head of Surgery at Tufts Medical School and ask for his opinion on what training this depraved killer has had.”

It is 11PM at the Cherry Pit Lounge and Lillian, 3rd year medical student and budding surgeon, sits alone at the end of the bar, nursing a Cosmopolitan.  She feels the eyes of the man 4 stools down looking over her body, she looks up and smiles.

4

Mrs. Tolliver, aged 87 and a widow, shopped at Goodwill for less worn clothes.   By reducing her clothing costs, she was able to pay the co-pay for her prescriptions and stay within her budget, so she felt like a “smart” shopper.

She tried on a dark blue , knee length over coat that looked almost new and would be warm this winter.  The fit was close, the sleeves just a little short, but it looked good on her in the mirror.  She felt something in the left cargo style pocket of the coat and pulled from it a heavy duty plastic zip loc bag, screamed, dropped the bag and staggered back into the rack of clothes behind her….

Detective Carl Willets got to the ME’s office about 4PM, “ Anything on that organ found at the Goodwill yesterday, Frank?’  ‘Definitely human heart, looks male, probably in his 30’s, definitely surgically removed.  Some nut is out there practicing to be a free lance surgeon’ said Frank Miller, MD., ‘this organ was carefully resected then studied as if the perpetrator were preparing for an exam.  I would judge this organ to have been removed from the body no longer than 72 hours!  Do you guys have any leads yet? The papers are going to have a field day when this “ripper” thing gets out.”

Carl shook his head in agreement and asked, “ Did you hear anything from your friend at Tufts, the Professor?’  The ME was nodding as he spoke, “That was an interesting conversation!  John was of the my same opinion that this fiend is technically skilled in the resections that we have seen and is showing improvement in their suturing technique.  In a ghastly way, he is becoming a better surgeon!”

“We’re checking on all the defrocked Dr’s and Vet’s to see if anything shakes loose, but so far we have nothing.  We need for this guy to make a slip up!” mused Carl.  Carl’s phone buzzed, the view pad showing the call from Remus, “What’s up?’ Carl responded to the call, ” When are you coming back, I have something to show you, they’ve made their first mistake!’ Remus stated, ‘On my way,” Carl replied, thanked Frank for his time and left.

When Carl got back to his desk, Remus was waiting, “This is the coat from the Goodwill, take a look.’  Carl took the coat, turned it in his hands, sniffed the collar and said, ‘ I smell her perfume, whoever gave the coat to Goodwill”.  Remus smiled and said, “Smell the sleeves, particularly the right one.”  Carl did so, his eyes widening as he said, “the sleeve smells like Frank’s lab or a hospital”.  “Exactly,’ said Remus, “now turn the left sleeve inside out, gently, and feel near the cuff.”  

“I’ll be damned, there’s something near the edge of this cuff!” Carl exclaimed.  Remus said, “ I wanted us to check it out together,’ getting out a pair of scissors and handing them to Carl, “ lets take a look at what’s been hidden in that sleeve!”

Carl carefully held the lining away from the coat sleeve and slit the lining to reveal an 8” stainless steel barbecue skewer, held in place by 3 spaced stitches.  Upon further examination of the sleeve and lining, a slit was found in the end of the lining at the cuff, allowing a finger to be inserted into the liner and hook the ringed end of the skewer.