Mark of the Beast (19 page)

He personally believed that some, but not all, mystery writers have some occult knowledge of the crimes they write about. He sometimes contacted these mystery writers for either an analysis or insight into some of his more complicated cases. Such a case involved a Mr. James “Dean” Bellshaw.

Mr. Bellshaw, an avowed homosexual, HIV-positive, was on trial in Manhattan Third District Court, Criminal Division, for the rape and murder of seven young runaway boys who had been missing and were last seen around Times Square. Each of the victims had been brutalized. Their bodies were found at various hidden locations around Central Park near the aqueducts, where they could have been easily dumped from an overpass.

It was Detective Pellagrini, the strict vegetarian, who set the trap that eventually led to the capture of James Bellshaw. He methodically studied the modus operandi of the assailant.

“Look, let us follow his crimes objectively,” Pellagrini said.

“Jim, we have been following this crime now for six months,” Detective Stubbs, his partner, reminded him.

“But we have never looked closely at the pattern,” insisted Pellagrini.

“I don't see a pattern,” Stubbs responded, looking around at the others in the station's small meeting room.

A bald-headed young man in his late thirties, Stubbs sheepishly more or less followed Pellagrini. He sometimes had an idea, only to be critically and analytically refuted by Pellagrini, an exercise that both took no personal offense at.

“Me neither. I don't see any pattern,” Sergeant Maria Chintzy, who had followed the case with Pellagrini and Stubbs, chimed in.

“Okay guys, pay attention.” Pellagrini picked up a chalk, walked over to the board on the west corner of the detail room, and began to illustrate.

A slim, fifty-something-year-old gentleman, he hardly ever wore a suit, believing that suits actually masked one's true identity. Often considered too analytical by the rest of the group, he seldom got invited out to drink with the boys.

“The first body's time of death was analyzed to be approximately eight p.m.; the second body, twelve midnight; the third body, three a.m.; and the fourth, four a.m.—all on different days.

“Then there was a three- to four-week delay.”

“Three and a half,” Detective Stubbs interrupted in jest.

“Smarty,” retorted Pellagrini. “Four weeks, then it began again, first at nine p.m., then one a.m., then three a.m., again different days.…”

“I'm lost,” Chintzy interrupted, looking totally confused.

“Just bear with me for a second,” begged Pellagrini. “Look at the intervals between the crimes and the days separating each discovery. We have four, three, and one intervals in both the time and the days. Those corresponded to eight p.m., twelve a.m., three a.m., and four a.m. That also corresponded to the number of days apart.

“Then he started again, four weeks later, and had five and two intervals, again corresponding to nine p.m., two a.m., and four a.m. in time and days apart.”

“What the heck does all that mean, professor?” hissed Detective Stubbs in exasperation.

“What does it all mean, gentlemen and lady?” illustrated Pellagrini, posing like a college professor. “I think this guy is trying to give us his address.”

“You are crazy,” blurted out Stubbs. “Why would he give us his address? So we can go and catch him? Just send us a note and we'll be done with it.”

“Maybe he wants us to catch him in a bizarre kind of way, who knows?” answered Pellagrini. “A cry for help, just plain crazy, or demonically possessed.”

“Let him go jump into the Hudson River; that will solve our entire problem,” suggested Chintzy. “Or better yet, just drop us a note like Stubbs suggested.”

“Not these psychos,” Pellagrini said.

“So you think he lives at 43152 … what?” Chintzy asked, finally appearing to follow Pellagrini's logical thinking.

“It is not 43152 … what.” Pellagrini was anxious to reveal his thoughts. “I think it is number four hundred and thirty-one, on Fifty-second Street. Notice the four-week interval between four hundred and thirty-one and fifty-two.”

“Far out, Detective, that is funky. I would never have thought of that,” Chintzy said, nodding her head.

“So what do we do now? Arrest everyone living in the building on suspicion of murder?” asked Stubbs.

“No,” Pellagrini said. “I don't think he's finished yet. I believe his next move is for the apartment number. It's been two weeks now and no bodies have been found. However, we are not going to wait for him. I suggest we set a trap for him.”

“How do we do that?” Stubbs asked, showing an objection. “The last trap we tried nearly cost a life.”

“We need to start canvassing the building this time, taking nightly pictures of all suspicious characters, follow them randomly to various locations in the city, and see where that leads us.”

“That will need a lot of manpower, you know what I mean,” said Stubbs.

“And maybe womanpower, too,” corrected Chintzy.

“Well, excuse me.” Stubbs rolled his eyes in resignation.

“I will have a meeting with the chief tomorrow, and I need everyone's support,” Pellagrini said.

“You got mine,” Stubbs and Chintzy said almost simultaneously.

Detective Pellagrini was able to convince the chief of his plan. The plan was approved, and within two days twelve officers were assigned to the project.

After four days of active daily surveillance, Mr. James Bellshaw was subsequently picked up. He was followed twice to Central Park. On each occasion, he stopped at the north-end drive near the pond, came out, surveyed a particular area, then drove back home. Each occurrence happened late in the evening. A thorough search of his two-bedroom apartment revealed videos of older men with young boys in various sexual acts. Also a bracelet and an earpiece that were discovered eventually matched those of victims six and seven. He was charged with their murders pending further investigation of the other victims.

In court, Mr. Bellshaw, after initially pleading innocent to the charges, eventually changed his plea to guilty on the grounds of demonic possession.

He claimed that his ancestors were from Salem, Massachusetts, and that he was possessed by his great-great-grandmother—a theory found ridiculous by the court but not by Pellagrini.

“What do you mean, that's possible?” asked the chief when the gang returned to the precinct.

“I read somewhere that—” began Pellagrini.

“Here we go again,” two voices muttered, interrupting Pellagrini's explanation.

“Hey, let the man speak,” cautioned the chief, eyeballing everyone. “After all, he's the one who solved this case, not you. Go ahead.”

“As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted,” continued Pellagrini, shaking his head in feigned disbelief, “there was this bizarre ritual among the witches in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century after the famous Sarah Good and Rebecca Nurse trials.

“The story was that, whenever a witch got burned at the stake, the other witches, after bribing the municipal officeholders, were allowed to scavenge the remains of the dead witch. These remains were then used in the making of a secret potion. Those secret potions were revered because, when taken in daily drops, they acted as protection against conviction of witchcraft and being burned at the stake.

“If, however, a witch who happened to drink the potion was caught and burned, the spirit of that witch would automatically be transferred to the next of kin in that family.”

“Incredible, and unbelievable, but what does that got to do with this case?” Detective Schumann, another detective recently assigned to the case, asked.

“Well,” continued Pellagrini, “after these spirits passed on from person to person, they became restless and through some … occultation transformation … took on bizarre behaviors like Mr. Bellshaw's.”

“Occultation, hey, I think you made that one up. Can you spell and explain that in English, please?” mused Detective Stubbs.

“You are not gonna understand, even if I explain it ten times,” said Pellagrini.

“Try me,” Stubbs insisted.

“Please spare us,” interjected the chief. “Are you implying that if we execute this guy, it is possible that his spirit will enter into one of his relatives' bodies, and another killing spree will start all over again?” asked the chief.

“According to the annals of witchcraft … yes,” Pellagrini said.

“I never heard of such annals,” Chintzy remarked.

“That's because you don't read enough,” Schumann said.

“Yeah, I do, once in a while,” Chintzy said. “Check this out: I read about these two men who rented a truck and were randomly killing people at gas stations using a high-powered rifle. They must have mowed down eight people before they were finally caught. The strange thing was, one of them sent a note to the police chief saying, ‘I am the beast; you and your children are not safe.'”

“Creepy, but listen to this,” Stubbs said. “There was this bizarre case in either Chicago or Milwaukee of this man who molested and killed a dozen young boys and buried them all in his basement. I forgot how he was caught.”

“I think that was in Chicago,” Pellagrini said.

“Speaking of Chicago, I remember this one vividly: that creep who seduced young boys brought them to his house, killed them, then cooked and ate them,” Chintzy said, nodding her head in anticipated approval.

“She remembered that one vividly,” mocked Stubbs.

Before an angry Chintzy had a chance to say what was on her mind about Stubbs, Pellagrini interrupted. “I don't think he cooked the whole person all at once, but rather cut him up piece by piece, stored him somewhere, then later cooked him.”

“Take the case of the husband and wife that needed babies so badly that they searched three states,” said Schumann, “found three pregnant women, and proceeded to cut the baby out of each womb. Mind you, no anesthesia, and no gloves.”

“I remember … that was gross,” Pellagrini agreed.

The conversations suddenly degenerated into who could recount the most gruesome crime.

“Oh let me tell you this one, I read … I said read”—Chintzy shook her head at Stubbs—“about this case from Los Angeles, where they were finding dead bodies with different parts missing. Some were Latinos, two black, two Asians, one Caucasian, and one American Indian. They finally arrested the psycho killer, and in his stinky basement floor, they found the missing different parts sewn together. When they questioned him, he claimed that he was about to create the perfect race.”

“Now, is that twisted or what?” Officer Martha Henry said in her loud voice as she walked in and overheard the conversation.

“Here goes the tattooed lady,” said Schumann, who had made it known he disapproved of her.

The guys whistled in support of Schumann.

“You know, fellows, two wrongs do not make a right, but two dumb dudes always make a doo-doo…,” retorted a cavalier Officer Henry, who was always quick with a response.

There was a burst of laughter in the room, including Pellagrini, who winked an eye at Officer Henry as if to say, “Nice comeback.”

“By the way, Schumann, do you have something against tattoos?” asked Officer Henry, spreading her hands and exposing the tattoo on her chest. “Or is it because you wish to have one?”

Officer Henry, an abrasive policewoman, was recently assigned to the precinct. She had caused quite a stir in the precinct, where most officers were conservative in their attire.

Officer Henry, however, wore slacks, and shirts with her belly sometimes exposed. She sported a beautiful butterfly tattoo on her left chest, sitting right on top of her upper breast area. She also had a tattoo of her dead brother's name on her back.

Being slightly well-endowed, a point she made obvious by her choice of clothing, she would often get comments like, “Oh, that's a beautiful butterfly.” To which she would always respond, “Wouldn't you like to have one?”

“No, I don't break laws,” Schumann said when asked the same question.

After a moment of intense stares from all, Henry spoke up.

“What the dickens are you talking about?” Henry asked, frowning, while everyone else looked at Schumann.

“There are no laws against tattoos,” the chief said.

“In the Bible there are,” Schumann answered.

“I didn't know you read the Bible. You surprise me all the time,” said a baffled Pellagrini. “But which law in the Bible are you talking about?”

“The law of 1928,” Schumann said without hesitation.

“What…?” echoed at least four voices in the room.

“Leviticus, the Book of Laws, chapter 19, verse 28, better known as the law of 1928, and it says, and I quote, ‘You shall not lacerate your bodies for the dead and do not tattoo yourselves, I am the Lord.' I call that the law of 1928.”

There was a momentary silence and a look of awe on everyone's faces.

“You fascinate me,” Pellagrini said. “I will check that out.”

“That's a bunch of crap,” Officer Henry finally said. “People have been tattooing themselves since antiquity.”

“Now, that's an educated woman,” Stubbs said, who could not resist.

“Yes, and I think you better reco-nize.” Officer Henry nodded while showing her familiarity with street slang by dropping the
g
in
recognize
.

There was some hissing and muttering in the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the chief said. “Let's not lose track of the issue at hand, and that is to congratulate Ed on a job well done.”

Everybody applauded.

“Way to go, Ed,” Stubbs blurted out.

“Don't forget next Thursday's banquet at the Sheraton in Manhattan in honor of our illustrious detective. The governor and the mayor will be there with all the precinct chiefs. I want you guys and gals to behave yourselves,” the chief finally instructed.