The Book of 21 Read online

  THE BOOK OF 21

  by Todd M. Ohl

  Copyright Todd M. Ohl 2012

  Kindle 2012 Edition (First Release)

  ISBN: 978-0-9857717-0-6

  All rights reserved. Any reproduction or distribution of this book without the written permission of the author is prohibited.

  This book is a work of fiction. Historical events and figures mentioned in the work are used fictitiously within the story, and the descriptions given are not to be construed as factual depictions of real events. All names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real events or actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth…

  - Revelation 3:7

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: The Den

  Chapter 2: A Stop for Breakfast

  Chapter 3: The Ivory Tower

  Chapter 4: A Letter from Beyond

  Chapter 5: The Chase

  Chapter 6: Hallman’s Apartment

  Chapter 7: Rue to the Morgue

  Chapter 8: The Roundhouse

  Chapter 9: Tea Time

  Chapter 10: Home, Sweet Home

  Chapter 11: On the Town

  Chapter 12: A Rude Awakening

  Chapter 13: Back to Work

  Chapter 14: Fanelli’s Vigil

  Chapter 15: The Light of the Moon

  Chapter 16: John Exits, Stage Left

  Chapter 17: Heading Home

  Chapter 18: Putting on the Ritz

  Chapter 19: Harry Loses His Cool

  Chapter 20: Calling All Cars

  Chapter 21: The Altar

  Chapter 22: The Ride

  Chapter 23: Time for Thought

  Chapter 24: Morning Mail

  Chapter 25: Monkeyshines

  Chapter 26: Two Can Play That Game

  Chapter 27: Reaching Out

  Chapter 28: A Visit to Ben

  Chapter 29: On the Road Again

  Chapter 30: Harry Goes to Work

  Chapter 31: A Shopping Trip

  Chapter 32: Good Luck

  Chapter 33: A Stop for Pants

  Chapter 34: A Drive to Fields

  Chapter 35: Grave Digging

  Chapter 36: The Shell Game

  Chapter 37: A Stop at the House of God

  Chapter 38: Geolocation, Geolocation

  Chapter 39: The Door That No Man Openeth

  Chapter 40: The Back Door

  Chapter 41: Back to the Old Grind

  Chapter 42: The Problem at the Front

  Chapter 43: To the Apse

  Chapter 44: A Call from God

  Chapter 45: Exorcising the Rat

  Chapter 46: Bats in the Belfry

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Lou Fanelli’s pudgy knuckles rapped twice upon the heavy oaken door.

  Though protected from the downpour by the porch roof above, he pulled his patrolman’s raincoat tight to guard against the gusting wind. He was only a block away, and about to pass the house on his way to his favorite coffee shop, when the routine disturbance call came in. If all went well, he would have this wrapped up and be on his way to sip some nice warm java in a few minutes.

  Fanelli raised an eyebrow and knocked again.

  As he waited, he soaked in his surroundings. The old Victorian was a pristine and well-maintained home in a graffiti-ridden neighborhood. Though the combination of mustard paint, teal trim, and red shutters struck Fanelli as ugly, he had watched enough home improvement shows on cable to realize they were actually authentic shades for the home.

  Two windows flanked the doorway—one to the left, and one to the right. Each spilled light onto the porch. If the inhabitants were not coming to the door, Fanelli thought that the windows might give him a glimpse as to what was happening inside.

  He shuffled about six feet to his left and peered in a window. Behind the lace drapery, a lamp illuminated what appeared to be a sitting room. The light made it seem as if someone was home, but he could not be sure; in this neighborhood, homeowners often left a few lights on when they were away.

  Dispatch told Fanelli that the caller heard moaning and yelling. Fanelli knew these sounds were not always associated with distress; they could be signs of several types of play. With Pennsylvania Commonwealth University so close, there could be a few causes that were more likely than foul play: some frat brothers could be drunk, or some jock could be home alone with his girlfriend having another type of fun.

  “Some kinky son-of-a-bitch gets a little loud while getting his rocks off, and here I stand in the rain—fantastic.”

  He stared at the door for a few more seconds and imagined some lucky young kid inside the house, humping the star cheerleader.

  “Come on, ya prick,” he murmured.

  After banging on the door a few more times, he shoved his hands into his raincoat and sniffed, sucking back the mucous that the rain had loosened. He then exhaled heavily, shook his head, and even let himself think about that cup of coffee for a split second before deciding it was time to try the window to the right of the front door.

  The view through that pane appeared to be the same as the other. Another lamp shone brightly behind a lace curtain, and he could vaguely make out shapes of furniture. As he looked inside, however, he realized that there were small specks of something dark on the lace, almost as if someone splashed some coffee on the curtain.

  Fanelli furrowed his brow and shook his head. There was an odd quality to the liquid, and he knew what it was. Spattered on the lace drapery, lamp, and even the window itself, was blood.

  As he pulled his .40-caliber Glock handgun from its holster, Fanelli flattened his back to the wall between the window and door. Keeping himself in this position was his best bet; he knew that turning to face either the door or the window would leave his back exposed to the other.

  He reached up to the radio on his shoulder and spoke in a quiet but clear voice. “This is Fanelli. I got what looks like blood splattered on the inside of a window here. There’s no answer at the door. We may have people in trouble inside. I’m going to check it out.”

  Fanelli heard no reply. He reached for the radio again, and was about to ask whether anyone had heard him, when a woman’s voice buzzed back from his shoulder, “Units on the way. Advise you wait for their arrival.”

  He could not tell if the woman was bored or annoyed. It sounded as if she were a little of both. He rolled his eyes.

  “Acknowledged,” he replied.

  Looking at the blood-spattered windowpane, he knew that waiting might be the smart thing to do, but it was not the human thing to do; people could be in there waiting for help. Fanelli had too many faces in his mind—faces of people who could have been saved if the cop on the scene had been a few seconds faster. He was not going to have another. He moved closer to the door and cleared his throat.

  “Police! Open up!”

  After a second, he reached out and tried the knob; the door was locked.

  Peering back over his shoulder, Fanelli looked for motion in the window. He then glanced back to the door. Nothing seemed to be happening at either location. He wheeled quickly to face the door, hoisted his Glock, aimed at the doorframe next to the knob, and fired three rounds to loosen up the wood. He then targeted the frame next to the dead bolt and squeezed off three more shots. With all his might, he kicked the door open.

  The door swung away, sending splinters of wood sliding down the ha
llway inside. On both the left and right walls, about five feet away, were sets of double doors. Along the left wall, beyond the doors, a staircase rose into darkness. Straight ahead, at the end of the hall, was a single door.

  Fanelli hissed. Whoever was in there, he knew, now had the advantage.

  His mind quickly processed the situation. The doors were actually the best part of the scene; if someone came at him through the doors, he would hear the latch click open. The immediate danger came from the stairs that ascended into darkness; somebody could be sitting at the top of those stairs right now, watching him and waiting to blow his head off. In that case, he would not see anything until the shot came; if that happened, he might, just might, catch a glimpse of his killer in the muzzle flash, right before he died.

  Glancing to his right, he saw a long row of light switches. Only one of them was in the down, or off, position. Since the light at the top of the staircase seemed to be the only one in the house that was off, Fanelli went for it. Keeping his gun trained on the top of the stairs, he flipped the switch.

  Light bathed the landing at the top of the stairs. It was barren of human life, at least for now. There was still the chance someone might be just out of sight in the upstairs hall, waiting for him to let his guard down. He knew he needed to be careful, but he also knew that someone might be bleeding to death in the next room. The clock was ticking.

  He decided that the possible life of a person in the bloodstained room took priority over his own. He slid down the hall to the double doors on the right, leaned in, and listened carefully for any movement. After a second of silence, he reached out and turned the knob slowly.

  The doorknob rotated and let out the slightest click. He froze. If someone was in there, the click just announced Fanelli’s exact location. He took a deep breath to steady himself. No bullets were flying through the door; he tried to tell himself that meant he might get out of this house alive.

  Fanelli turned the knob until the door wobbled, loose in the frame. He listened for one more second before he gave the door the slightest push.

  While the door swung slowly open, he straightened himself and decided to slice pie; it was a slow maneuver, and involved swinging himself like a door. That meant starting with his outstretched gun pointing parallel to the wall and sliding steps until he was aiming straight into the room. The method revealed the room to the officer a little at a time so that they could accomplish two things: react to dangers in an incremental manner, and avoid death.

  He began sidestepping to the left. Items in the room appeared from left to right: a blue chair, a pole lamp, and a bookshelf. Everything seemed normal. With his next step, three things revealed themselves at once. He saw a red velvet curtain along the back wall, the back of a computer monitor perched on the corner of a desk, and on the hardwood floor in front of the desk, blood.

  Fanelli swallowed hard and listened for any movement, in the room, on the stairs, or at the hall doors. There was nothing. Everything was still.

  As he continued his swing slowly, he saw a dismembered arm on the blood-dewed floor. The humerus was protruding from the shoulder end. Fanelli sucked in a quick breath.

  He slowly took his next step and saw two dismembered legs. They were crossed, as if severed while their owner was causally watching the evening news. Behind them sat a torso without limbs or genitalia; the hairy chest and lack of breasts told Fanelli that it was male.

  He swung a little more to see a head sitting beside the torso. Its eyes were wide open, staring at him from the floor. Some kind of bloody tissue was jammed into its gaping mouth. From the short and curly hairs that sat on the chin, he was guessing that bloody tissue was the torso’s missing genitalia. With all there was to process, Fanelli took a second to realize that a machete was sticking out of the top of the head.

  “A bit much,” he whispered.

  After taking a slow breath to calm down, he continued. With another step, he saw the other severed arm. He took a few more steps, and saw the drops of blood on the floor finally began to subside by the window at the front of the house.

  He scanned the window a bit closer. At first, the amount of blood in the room made it seem as if the window was clean, but then he saw the small crimson marks he identified from the porch. The blood spatters slowly dripped downward.

  Glancing back around the area he had already swept, he was amazed at the volume of blood. Spots of blood even dotted the ceiling. Thankful that it was almost over, he took the last step to reveal the remaining slice of the room.

  He saw a blue chair. Just behind the chair was a hand—a hand moving on top of a head.

  At the realization that somebody was hiding in there, Fanelli’s heart jumped, and his butt puckered tight. He struggled to control his fear and then let his fear became rage.

  “Don’t fucking move!” he roared.

  Fanelli entered the room and sidestepped toward the far corner to cover his exposed back.

  As he did, he scrutinized the man cowering behind the chair. The man was young, probably in his mid-twenties. He wore a t-shirt that clung to his well-toned upper body. Below his curly brown hair, his face looked as if he were about to burst into tears. The expression made him seem as if he were a five-year-old child that had been beaten once too often and was expecting to get it again.

  Although Fanelli was trying to scare the man, he knew this guy was already more scared than a cop could make anyone. Fanelli’s heart screamed out that this man was a survivor that needed help, but his head told him that he could not let his guard down just yet.

  “Everything is fine, just don’t move,” Fanelli said in a calmer tone, though he kept the gun trained, just in case.

  The odd thing, to Fanelli, was that the young man behind the chair seemed to have too little blood on him. Although there were a few spots on the guy, those could have easily dripped down from the ceiling.

  The man stared at the severed head in front of the desk for a few seconds, and then his hands dropped forward into his lap. Since the guy’s hands were in plain view, Fanelli decided he did not need to shoot just yet. With their movement, however, those hands were migrating to more versatile and dangerous positions.

  “No. Put your hands on your head,” Fanelli said.

  The man stood up.

  “I said, put your hands on your head.”

  Staring at the severed head, the man failed to react to Fanelli’s command. He teetered for a second and then staggered forward like a drunk.

  Fanelli took aim and then, through a clenched jaw, growled, “I said, put your fucking hands on your fucking head!”

  Fanelli wanted to punctuate the end of the sentence by cocking his pistol. However, the Glock did not have an external hammer. He suddenly realized that he might wind up shooting this guy because he could not make a simple sound effect. He bit his lip and started to squeeze the trigger.

  Just as Fanelli was expecting to hear the muzzle blast of his Glock, the man stopped and swayed, as if buffeted by a gentle breeze. After a few seconds, the man bent down took the grip of the machete in his hand, stood back up, and lifted the machete as if he were inspecting it. As the head tilted on the end of the blade, blood drizzled out of the mouth and nose. The man seemed to be oblivious to the sudden appearance of the blood, just as he seemed to be unaware of everything else in the room, including Fanelli.

  Fanelli backed up and watched the man raise the machete just high enough to stare into the eyes of the severed head. As he viewed the morbid scene, Fanelli’s jaw moved, but words escaped him.

  In a wobbly voice, the man sniveled, “Poor Yorick.”

  The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and his body started to convulse. A gush of vomit spilled out his mouth. He dropped to the floor, and began flopping around like a fish.

  Fanelli started around the desk, but then stopped himself. From experience, he knew this was some kind of overdose, and all he would do by trying to help was get covered by blood and spew. He had put himself at enough
risk for one night and held no desire to spend the rest of his life receiving treatments for HIV. He watched and waited. When the man finally stopped thrashing, Fanelli walked to the desk, pulled out the chair, sat down, and exhaled.

  He stared at the fresh corpse, now prostrate in a pool of blood and bile. He pondered how long the man had been hiding in that hole between the chair and wall, waiting for help. Letting his eyes wander back to the man’s last refuge, Fanelli saw one word finger-painted on the wall in blood—Hamlet.

  Through the window, flashing lights shot bursts of red and blue into the room. Footsteps thundered across the porch but then seemed to suddenly stop at the front door. Fanelli wondered what was keeping them.

  “Fanelli, it’s Moore. I’m coming in,” a voice boomed from the hall.

  Fanelli rubbed his forehead and murmured under his breath, “About fucking time.”

  Chapter 1:

  The Den

  Detective John McDonough knew why he was walking through the bone-chilling rain at three o’clock in the morning. It was not because he was the best, smartest, or even the most efficient detective on the force. It was because he was the low man on the totem pole in the homicide division, dispatch could not locate the detective that was supposed to be on call, and the commissioner wanted to soak up valuable face time on the morning news with a statement about a violent murder.

  Finding a crack in the wall of people surrounding the old Victorian, he turned his face away from a news crew making a telecast and flashed his badge to the cop manning the perimeter. He meandered through a swarm of policemen and climbed the stairs onto the porch. Safely out of the downpour, he removed his tan baseball cap and ran his fingers through his brown hair. He then straightened his tall frame and brushed the water off his trench coat.

  John stepped into the old Victorian home and found Fanelli standing in a doorway on the right side of the hall. He initially thought the room beyond the door was painted red, but gradually realized that the coloration was the result of blood spray. His shoulders slumped when he saw the dead man lying next to a pile of assorted body parts.