Time of the Dragon: Part One

Author's note: Although "Time of the Dragon" is easily a stand-alone work(in fact, part one here -"Mulligan and the Serial Killers" has languished as a stand-alone short story from some time), as a reader, you might want to begin with the Jack Goldman predecessor "The Dragon Rises" :

ID: 899648   (Rated: 18+) The Dragon Rises  The opening novella in the Jack Goldman series and the sequel to Evil Wind. by Jack Goldman

It will help you know the characters a little more. While this story moves quickly and (I hope) packs a punch, taking the time to read "The Dragon Rises" will certainly enhance your experience here.

All comments, constructiive helpful criticism and suggestions are welcome. You don't have to be polite, in fact the more to the point you are, the better it is for me to understand.

Time of the Dragon

Part One: Mulligan and the Serial Killers

By Jerry A. Powell

May 18

An hour or so past midnight, Philip Stark, an attorney of some prominence, ran upon the Lexus parked at an odd angle. He noticed it there when he jogged by the night before, thought he'd heard whimpers, but figured it was the wind. Now, as Phil thought more about it, he became concerned that it might have been someone calling for help. A report to the cops would result in questions regarding his jog at midnight along a Dallas freeway service road, since he lived in Carrollton. They might visit the house and his wife would overhear. She would realize he lied about not seeing Beverly anymore. He couldn’t have that. The cost of divorce would be staggering, at least half his fortune. He continued jogging.

May 19

Frank Mulligan placed the fingerprint kit in the trunk as I waited inside the car. While we collected evidence at a 7-11 robbery, the busy Saturday night had turned into Sunday morning. As soon as I let the office know by radio we were finished, we caught another crime scene.

"Looks like a homicide at 3400 LBJ Freeway on the north side service road," said the clerk at CSI headquarters. "Time and date it at 12:30 a.m.; Central Dispatch asks that you contact them for more details."

I acknowledged the call as Mulligan slid into the driver’s seat.

"Jack, it’s gotta be our killer," he said. "That’s right near the sand-pile. It’s gotta be him."

Almost sixty, he still possessed jet-black hair. It topped a corded face made large by the thinnest frame I had yet seen on a man well over six-feet tall.

"You always say that," I said.

"You think it ain’t?"

"Nope," I said with a certainty that disturbed Mulligan.

“You may be my Sergeant, but you‘re still a rookie in my book," he said.

I laughed, "We all have to start somewhere."

He laughed, too. "So, you finally acknowledge you're a rookie. It’s about time you learned your place, Young Jack Goldman. I talked to your dad today, by the way. He says there's hope. Said he finally got across to you what I’ve been saying to him. You ever wanna make Deputy Chief like him, you gotta know your place."

Mulligan once ran the Crime Scene Investigations Unit back when it was called the Physical Evidence Unit. He left the department four years ago, not long before I was promoted to Patrol Sergeant. I got his job by lateral transfer when his successor quit late last year.

My father is Benjamin Goldman, a legendary police officer, now retired. He and Mulligan were lifelong friends. Mulligan watched me grow up, so most of the time to him, I was "Young Jack Goldman". During a phone call last February, Dad told me he and Mulligan had planned a fishing trip to Colorado. They wanted me to join them. I agreed without hesitation. As a boy I tagged along with them when they vacationed in the Arkansas Ozarks. I listened to "Uncle Frank's" CSI tales while we watched our corks bob in the water. Although I majored in Physics while in school, I minored in Forensics, probably thanks to Mulligan.

On the trip, I learned Mulligan became bored with retirement. I knew then he still belonged in CSI. He still needed to tell those stories, to figure out how it all occurred and hopefully, which bad guy did it. So, I talked him into returning as a civilian technician.

It was easy.

A series of ATM bombings, in which the so-called Lansing gang were the prime suspects, led to a high profile scandal involving judges in both Dallas and Fort Worth. The incidents were the first motivators I used. But, the subsequent disappearance of Lisa Lansing, one of the leaders of the Lansing gang, the periodic surfacing of a maniac known as "The White Plague", and three known active serial killers in North Texas drew him in for good.

He came back cranky, bossy, and as I hoped, always on the lookout for a serial killer. While he may have read one too many cop novels while waiting on the fish to take bait, in truth, his entire attitude was exactly what I wanted and what my team needed.

"Well, geez Jack, did they say if it was under the freeway bridge at the sand-gate or not?" Mulligan asked, now a little irritated.

"They didn't say, but I already know it's not. If I remember right it’ll be just down from the exit ramp. The bodies found will be near it, but not in it. So, I don't think it's him."

Mulligan chose not to comment. I suspected he hoped I was wrong so I said, "I worked Auto Theft for two years, remember? The whole city was my beat and I know it like the back of my hand."

Mulligan harrumphed, "Bragging, are you now? Guess I was wrong about you knowing your place."

I laughed again, then he did as well.

We arrived to flashing red lights in every direction. I counted five squad cars surrounding a silver Lexus parked near the outer perimeter of an office complex that bordered the freeway service road. There were dead people inside; we knew that much from Central Communications. Someone had noticed the smell. Some of the nighttime office workers who made the original call lingered in the well-lit area adjacent to the Lexus, but the cops on the scene kept them far enough away to avoid problems. The small crowd seemed orderly and obedient.

Mulligan jumped from the car and pulled equipment from the trunk before I could even open my door.

"Sergeant Goldman?" asked an overweight, gray-haired Northwest Patrol Division Lieutenant as I stepped out.

"That’s me." I looked him in the eye only after scanning the scene. There were too many cops.

"I’m Lieutenant Briggs. Mind if I release some of my squads? Dispatch says they got calls waiting all the way to daylight."

I smiled at him. "You can have ’em all back but one two-man car."

"Good deal," said Briggs as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "I figured Ben Goldman’s boy would have plenty of common sense and I was right. I’ll leave the first unit on the scene and put the others back in service. You think the same guy done this that killed them others?"

"No. I don’t. Five were dumped in water, two buried in those under-bridge sand piles the city uses during ice storms. I doubt it’s him."

At that, Briggs seemed relieved. He waved goodbye and signaled to his officers. They were gone in less than a minute.

Sam Davidson and Mark Sheehan, both veterans of my crew, arrived and Mulligan barked something at them. They quickened their pace, videos and cameras operated with precision.

Mulligan opened the door of the Lexus with a Slim-Jim while he wore protective rubber gloves. Two bystanders and one of the cops immediately threw up. Mulligan yelled; the remaining cop snapped to and waved away the other bystanders. There was really no need since they were already fleeing the stench of the dead. I’d remembered to soak my nostrils with Vicks.

Mulligan expertly collected samples of hair, blood and tissue. With each collection, he removed soiled gloves and placed a clean pair on his hands. Finally, he stood back and surveyed the scene.

"Toss me those tongs and give me a few minutes before you start the vac," Mulligan said to Davidson while staring at the smaller of the two bodies, one that appeared to be a toddler. He used them to pick up a bloody Miss Piggy and put her in a sack. He placed the sack beside a row of Baggies and other sacks and tubes full of collected samples. These he arranged inside the trunk of Davidson’s vehicle.

The firemen assigned to the ambulance as paramedics looked restless. One of them pinched his nose and asked Mulligan something rather loudly and from a distance. Mulligan nodded and they wasted no time departing. Things seemed to get more peaceful when the last of the flashing lights had faded.

The cop who vomited approached, still pale and shaking. I could tell he felt embarrassed, but his uniform remained as impeccable as his haircut. His name plate indicated "John Smith."

He saw me looking at it longer than usual and said, "Yep, that's my real name."

I laughed and handed him a "wipey" from our stock in the glove box. He started to gag again and I held out the jar of Vicks.

"Rub this in your nose. It’ll help. Did you run the plate to get the owner’s name?"

He nodded, took the Vicks and did as I suggested as quickly as he could. He caught his breath and said, "Like I told Mulligan, we sent a squad over to the registered address and found the husband. He’d already reported her missing two days ago. Said she and the toddler went to the mall and never came home. He said everything was fine between them, but she was a recovering alcoholic."

“She went on a binge?” I asked.

Officer Smith shook his head and said, “He didn't seem to think so. The last episode happened a year ago, but she never took the baby with her. Looks like she ran into the wrong guy this time. You think he picked her up at the mall? I heard that’s where he gets ‘em. Maybe he cut her and left her right here? Damn, you think he cut the baby?”

I shook my head, "I’m guessing it’s not our guy, but the Medical Examiner will tell that story. By the way, I don’t see his ghouls. Did you call ‘em?"

“Sure did, but they only got two wagons working tonight and it’s a full moon.”

He focused on Sheehan, a bespectacled, intense man who looked more the scientist than a cop. "Why’s he setting up the camera on a tripod?"

"He’s gonna paint the scene."

"What?" he asked as he cocked a bushy eyebrow.

"He exposes the film over a long period of time. Makes everything crystal clear. We’ll paint it from six angles. Takes a lot of time, but that way we can go back to it and spot stuff we might have missed while at the scene."

A look of appreciation appeared on his face. "Well, I’ll be. Not bad. I never knew about that."

“It’s not something usually known in Patrol unless you draw a lot of homicides. We don’t do it at every scene.”

Mulligan motioned me over.

"Still think it’s him?" I asked.

"Nope, but it might as well be a serial killer."

"Yeah? Why?"

He pointed to various items in Davidson's trunk, "I found a bottle of Jack Daniels in the floor. Her purse too, and it looked undisturbed. There’s plenty of cash in it. It’s also got receipts from Neiman’s, Brooks Brothers, and Joe’s Liquor all dated the sixteenth starting at one o’clock. Then another credit card receipt for lunch and six drinks at Bennigan’s restaurant."

"So she did go on a drunk," I said.

Mulligan nodded, "D.L. says she’s barely over five feet tall and all of the Jack is gone. Add that to the six drinks at lunch and she couldn’t make it home. Must’ve pulled over on the service road and blacked-out. Look how the car wound up being parked. My money’s on alcohol poisoning, and she probably died of it right then and there. The child's car seat isn't buckled. Mom was probably too drunk to remember it."

"And the child?" I asked.

"The baby got it worse. I think she suffered all night, then died of heat exposure sometime the next afternoon. Yesterday’s temp got over a hundred. That explains the blood, too. Decomp moved fast and the larger body burst. The alcohol’s behind it, though. It’s a shame."

"Yeah," I said softly. We wouldn’t know for sure until the Medical Examiner told us, but our job was to make our best guess. Homicide could then decide to wait on the M.E. or move in a solid direction.

"Any decent prints?" I asked.

"One or two so far. Too big of a mess to get much with black powder on this one," he replied.

"Can we generate enough heat inside to use Superglue?"

When heated in a chamber, Superglue issues a gaseous substance that clings to even the smallest amounts of moisture left behind when fingers and palms touch surfaces. We had rigged several glass chambers back at our lab using light bulbs of various wattages, but a vehicle was a different story.

Mulligan responded, "Yeah, we can put a bowl of it on the middle armrest to center it up, then drape a heat lamp over it via an extension cord through the windows. We'll seal up the space the cord creates in the window with duct tape and it'll work like a champ."

Mulligan held out a sealed Baggie containing a photograph. The child, dimples prominent on each side of her smile, played amidst bluebonnets in a field as she held an Easter basket while a small woman appeared to clap. She and her mom dressed identically in pink, and boasted bright blue eyes, visible even from what looked to be an eight-foot camera shot. Both had blonde curls that dangled slightly from underneath a red bow of ribbons. He flipped over the Baggie to reveal the reverse of the photograph. Handwritten, it said, "Easter, 1985. Joyce and daughter, Becca. 'Daddy's Girl'."

"They're right, you know?" Mulligan remarked as he peeled off his gloves. "Alcoholism is a disease, but I think it’s airborne, like the flu and it infects innocent families like this one."

I looked at Mulligan and then all around as I said, "I’ve long felt there’s more floating on the wind than we suspect. Maybe it is airborne."

"Well, if it took the form of a man, he’d be the biggest serial killer of all. One we’d never catch. Shit, most all of us drink, anyhow. I know I need one after looking at this nightmare."

We stared at the vehicle another moment. Mulligan continued, "And another thing. I know it's Saturday night, but look how many cars are blowing by as they exit the ramp. It's a hell of a lot busier during the afternoon, too."

A jogger approached and Mulligan ran to him before he entered the scene. He asked a few short, then longer questions. The body language the jogger displayed indicated he had no wish to cooperate. I got curious and walked over.

The jogger’s eyes darted in three different directions every second or so. I asked Mulligan, "He comes by every night?"

"Says no, but he’s lying. I can tell. Odd place to be jogging for the first time. His license lists a Carrollton address."

"Name?" I asked Mulligan.

"Philip Stark," he replied and then added, "Esquire." Though most would miss it, I'd known Mulligan long enough to catch the contempt in his voice.

I spoke to the jogger, "Mr. Stark, I’m Sergeant Goldman with Dallas CSI. We’re only building facts here, collecting evidence at the scene. We have no problem with you. If you did happen to swing by here last night, it might assist us in determining what happened. Can you help us out?"

The jogger looked down and away and then back at me. He said, "I’m sorry, Sergeant, this is my first time through and the first I’ve seen of this car."

I read him the same as Mulligan.

I asked Mulligan, "You expected the truth from this guy? Is he married?"

"Says he is."

I stared at the jogger a long moment, and clearly made him uncomfortable. Mulligan seemed to enjoy it. He smirked and turned away to hide a growing smile.

I told Mulligan, "Right now, we’ve got no reason to hold him. Verify his address with the dispatcher, then give him back his D.L. and send him on. We’ll let Homicide stop by his house and have a talk. Make sure you tell whoever gets assigned to check with his wife."

I saw the jogger close his eyes for an instant and slowly shake his head. Although muscular in tone, pretty much in shape, and clad only in a gray muscle shirt and shorts, he still looked soft. Mulligan acknowledged the radio report from the communications officer, waved a dismissive arm and the jogger took off.

"He says he handles divorces. That’s the only part I believed," Mulligan shook his head.

I looked at him. "Just a feeling?"

He ignored me. "I can't believe that guy," he said as he looked at the Lexus, then down the service road. "He might have saved that baby. Even if he didn’t see or hear a thing, he could have checked. No telling how many others came by and chose not to check either."

"Maybe there’s more than one 'serial killer' in the wind," I said as we watched the jogger disappear into the night.

May 20

The Medical Examiner's office did a blood alcohol test and reported it to Harold Vance, one of the homicide detectives with whom we closely worked. Harold gave us the preliminary findings. The mother, as we suspected, died of alcohol poisoning.

"He said it’s the highest level he’s ever measured in a human body that petite at that level of decomp and he can’t figure out how she made it as far as she did. He said the baby died of heat exposure sometime later, probably the next day but he can't pin it down this early."

Mulligan asked him before I had the chance, "Did you interrogate the jogger?"

"Yeah, we squeezed him some. He needed it. He caved when his wife started raising hell with him while we were there. She ranted and raved about some girl named Beverly until we finally decided to take him downtown and get him to write it all out. He admitted he ran by there both nights prior to the night the bodies were discovered, but he said he didn’t see or hear a thing. I asked him why he just didn't stop and check anyway. He said he figured if something was wrong, somebody driving by would have done something about it long before he got there. Said he couldn't be responsible under those circumstances. What a creep. No way we could prove otherwise just by talking to him."

We were silent. We knew what Vance would ask next, "Were y’all able to lift any prints? I’d love to put him touching that car. I’d risk my job to test a negligent homicide case on his sorry ass."

Mulligan looked at me. I nodded and he took the lead.

"We got some," he said as softly as I’d ever heard him speak. I visualized once more the photograph of "Daddy's Girl".

"And?" asked Vance.

"Just a bunch of tiny little hand prints inside, six or seven on every window."

Mulligan said no more. This time he let the evidence tell the story.

In September - Time of the Dragon - Part Two: Seeing Beverly



The scorching wind used a sword
let loose and forged by a dragon horde
while the knights of day searched in the dark
too late they learned that Time was Stark.



In December - Time of the Dragon - Part Three: L. J. Goldman - Fall of the Knight



The son of a knight well known
now a knight on his own
kept The Dragon at bay,
but his escape one day
gave Time the time to take a dragon's turn
to smoke, then singe, then burn and burn


In February, 2009 - Time of the Dragon - Part Four - Time of the Knight

Amongst the Oaks a mother hangs
along with her innocent four;
proof alone the Dragon lives
for another twenty-six more.

© Copyright 2003 Jack Goldman (UN: ocreview at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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