A Caduceus is for Killing Read Free

usually part of a nightmare. Wasn't it?
    The morning hadn't seemed right from the beginning. It was all a bad dream. Soon, she'd wake up to start the day.
    Moaning, she prayed it was true. "Okay, Andrea, time to wake up. Come on. Hurry up, police. Hurry. Please, God, why can't I wake up?"
    Nothing happened.
    Closing her eyes, she rested her head on her knees and waited.
    "SASQUATCH! HEY, Big-Foot, Sweetie, wake up," the day-Sergeant sneered, striking the dozing detective squarely on the nose with a large paper-wad. "Krastowitcz, someone found a body over at Dorlynd. Looks like a fresh one."
    "Fresh what?" Krastowitcz mumbled sleepily, sliding his size fifteens off his desk and sitting upright.
    Sergeant Gary Krastowitcz didn't mind the Big Foot remark. It fit his stature. At six-foot-seven, his thick, curly hair gave him a dark, wild-animal look that often startled. Only drunks or the insane gave him trouble during an arrest.
    "They've found a body. Nine-one-one called Dorlynd Security and they called us. Don't know any details except Regional said to send Homicide over, and you're Homicide. You'd better quit day dreamin' and haul your big ass over there."
    "Shit! I'll never get this report done. Did Trent clear the way and rope things off?"
    "Yeah, yeah, Krastowitcz. We always send the real cops in, first. It's the small clinic next to the hospital."
    "Faculty Building?"
    "Yeah, fifth floor, Medicine Department Chairman's office. There's a lot of upset people over there. They said to keep it hush-hush. Looks like another touchy one." The Sergeant chuckled. "Some rich doctor probably offed himself."
    Krastowitcz rubbed the back of his neck and looked up at the "hall of fame". Pictures of fresh homicides were displayed in a graphic montage of photographic horrors hung on his bulletin--board. Cause of death? Varied. But the causes weren't natural, unless violence was considered a natural phenomenon.
    What appeared to be a young man was stretched out on a road with bloody tire tracks emanating from his head, now smashed and broken like a pumpkin. No easy means of identification. Right this very moment the crime lab was tracing his clothing, but that's all they had.
    Another was a young female, slashed mercilessly until the skin of her face and neck resembled dripping red fringe. Until recently, Omaha homicides had been the simple by-products of child molestation, family disturbances, rape, or gang-related felonies. Lately, however, there'd been a rash of bizarre killings involving male sexual mutilation.
    "Krastowitcz," Captain Dunnally called to him from his office. "You've got to come up with something on that so-called hit and run. I need that report on my desk. I'm getting heat from the Chief because we can't produce. Some guy's head is all over the highway and we've got nothing. I don't understand it. Not even so much as car paint on the body. It's almost too clean."
    Krastowitcz leaned his head against the door frame. "Listen, Cap, you've got to give me some time to get it together." He strolled in, grabbed the Excedrin bottle on Dunnally's desk and carefully doled out four tablets. "Now, there's this call over at Dorlynd."
    "I know what you're going through, but things haven't changed. This ain't no Sunday social and I've got the same order from the Chief. As soon as you get back from Dorlynd, follow up anything you can come up with. We need to I.D. that body fast." Dunnally glanced at him almost sympathetically, but his words remained harsh. "And don't try that headache routine on me, Krastowitcz, I've got a big one of my own."
    "Tough shit!" Krastowitcz walked out the door, tossed the tablets over his tongue, and gulped a bitter swallow of cold coffee. On the Omaha Police Department for a life sentence, he'd joined the force at twenty-one after kicking around Omaha working odd jobs for