People have always tried to defeat death, but there’s always a nut in the bunch who tries to create life out of death. Frankenstein, the book, was a story based on this concept and I’m sure Mary Shelley borrowed from something true she had heard or experienced. In the novel, Dr. Frankenstein waited for death to come and for body parts to become available, but I was afraid this killer wasn’t waiting. He was killing to harvest limbs and organs. What didn’t make sense was why would he dump them all.

I started to shake. Not from fear. The speed had kicked in with a vengeance. I put down the report and lit a cigarette. The room was quiet and a layer of smoke drifted around just short of eye level in the dim light. As I smoked, each drag long and deep, I sifted the facts of the case through my head.

Brueger mentioned the ME had determined that if the bodies were rearranged back to their proper order, each one would still be missing one part. Then there were the two heads in the boxes. Again, two white females. One I assumed belonged to the headless body. The other one, most likely, belonged to the jigsaw body they hadn’t found, or that hadn’t been dumped yet.

I was just feeling around in the dark.

I turned back to the file to investigate the victims themselves. All five, or six counting the head, were from the ages of twenty to twenty-two. They were all in college. They all disappeared on their way home from school, a week apart. The last one, the head, disappeared a week before yesterday. All the women lived within a ten-mile radius of each other, but it was not yet known if any of them knew each other.

I leaned over and picked up the phone. I dialed Brueger’s private line. It rang twice, and then she answered. “Lieutenant Brueger.”

“It’s McDonald. I need to ask you some questions. Can we talk?”

“Not on the phone,” she said quietly.

“Meet me at the Black Cat.”

“That dump again?”

“They let me run a tab,” I said. “See you in fifteen.”

I slammed down the phone. I was jittery. I needed a counter-dose. I checked the desk drawer. I was dry; no drink, no weed. I’d have to wait and grab some drinks at the Black Cat Club. I packed up my cigarettes and gun. I left the file on my desk.

Lieutenant Brueger was there waiting for me when I arrived at the club. She had a drink in front of her and shockingly a cigarette burning between her fingers. She watched me come in and make my way toward her without ever blinking or moving. I sat down, lit a cigarette, and looked at her.

“Well?” she said.