Psycho
Killer

No one knew people were getting kidnapped then killed. Not until after the bodies were discovered. Some passerby, stumbling, would be met with the fear and agony of the victim in their last moments. Building walls can make the city seem cavernous. Echoes of a shrill scream bound back. A woman who would have been lovely to meet once, her body stumbled on where a pedestrian feet ahead might have done so first. And all before a missing persons report. Crime scenes as empty of evidence as the air from which the body seemed to appear.

Authorities wished it was a one-off. That the killer wouldn't return. But then another woman's body was found, this nearly on top of some grandpas playing chess. There was no connection. Authorities, their hands shaking, dialed up the number to bring in a specialist after the third victim.

Black and white units. Strobe lights of blue and red that glare off the rain-slicked tarmac where Private Investigator Samuel Rafferty takes the stepway off the private jet.

“Detective Rafferty. I'm Police Lieutenant James Doyle,” said a man, mid-length hair balding (wearing it), horn-rim glasses and a graying goatee; holding out a handshake.

“Well-met, Lt.” Rafferty shifted his briefcase to accept the handshake. He was in a long gray trench coat with a high collar. “Your assessments were thorough, to the point; a tad misleading. By how much remains to be seen. The best I’ve seen out of any public agency.”

Doyle seemed to know he’s good. Rafferty conceals his annoyance.

“All-in-all. They tell me there is no time to waste. The killer will strike again soon, and if we don’t stop him he won’t stop himself.”

“That is disheartening,” Doyle said, seeming to shrink into the high collar of his own long coat.

“Buck up, Lt. It is my desire to see this maniac safely behind bars before my wife can set up the lab equipment in those Pelican cases she's offloading.”

“Your wife?” Doyle had to scamper to catch up again. “Wouldn't it be better if she were with you?”

“Only slightly, Lt. Doyle. Contrary to appearances she's a headstrong woman. She’s beautiful and more than capable. Besides.” They were stopped now by the open door of a Lincoln Continental. “We're not going to get any trouble from your men,” picking away a loose strand from Doyle's suit, “or from you.”

“No.”
“No.”

Sirens of the police interceptors howl and yell while they go, speeding, escorting the Continental off the runway, past a guard station, and onto blacktop in the direction of the scenic lighted skyline of the City Core.

The soap is scentless. The smell of blood from the garbage bag of torn women's clothing was unmaskable. Trophies from his victims; numbering five now. His five slaves, Jeremy thought. It causes him to smirk. Because, as of yesterday's press conference, anyone with an inkling of awareness could tell the police chief was lying. And they were no closer to catching him than they were to catching the Abominable Snowman.

Whatever loose skin particulate still clung to him came off on the heavy towel Jeremy dried off with. The Bose system in the ceiling of the first and second floor of his townhouse was on. The snare-bass and haunting melody of “Missing” (Todd Terry Remix) by Everything But The Girl played.

Emotion doesn't show on the impassive features. Silk ties hung in the closet with the garbage bag of torn, bloody clothing. On the other side of that were six-gallon buckets of commercial grade latex.

He is dried and was selecting off his paisley duvet the clothing he had meticulously prepared the evening before.

His workzone, the hall door one over from his bedroom, was a clean space taped round with sheet plastic and illuminated harshly by floodlights. His instruments were ready on a medical cloth over a stainless steel gurney.

Jeremy finished dressing. He went to the landing to the stair. The duffle bag he picks up has duct tape, a box cutter, handcuffs, zip ties, a bottle of chloroform, a cotton rag, and a compact sub-automatic machine gun he had purchased from a dealer Uptown. A mirror on the way out has a reflection belonging to other than Jeremy Utridge. Other than the one shown in the bathroom mirror upstairs earlier.

Into the nighted early morning he steps. The seasonal rain before summer pattering off his jacket. Still he removes a horsehair brush to swipe off anything the police might trace.

The lights shut off on him. P.I. Det. Samuel Rafferty had stopped banging his head against the desk. Now he just lies there. Looking into the eyes of a portrait.

Motion sensors click the lights off without signs of activity. His gray coat is crumpled in the corner where Det. Rafferty had thrown it when he stormed in. Now Rafferty sat still. Not asleep.

Sleep was where the weeks of this nightmare manhunt replayed lucidly. He was covered in blood. Lt. Doyle's blood. Flecks of the fallen police officers who were slain for their service escorting him into the ventilation level above the Metroway. The latest lead to the killer had been a setup. The dark shafts they had traversed were rigged with sadistic puzzle traps. Part of a lose-lose game.

When all who were left alive were Detective Rafferty and Lt. Doyle, they seemed to finally be making progress. Rafferty stepped through a trigger-wire which would've killed him, but Doyle threw himself into Rafferty, at once saving his life and rendering them both dazed.

Shadows, lengthy and damp, the killer emerges with a cruel blade. Doyle scrambles to his feet. A long arcing plunge he manages to evade. Just not the second time. The third.

Vision blurred, Rafferty sees only his partner struggling with a shadow figure. In the time of a blink the figure disappears, Doyle is strewn on the ground, and Rafferty finds his senses, finds his feet. He tries with his coat to staunch the bleeding. There was something panicky in Doyle's eyes as he grabs for Rafferty's arms, as if they were bobbing, tossed on waves, on the drink of the ocean. Doyle calmed, whispered to Rafferty, who by this time was smeared with blood:

“I hated that your rates were so high… that you couldn't catch the killer. A burden on—” coughing blood — “people in this city.”

“None of that now,” Rafferty says. “We have to follow our man. His footprints are right there.”

Vision clouding, death visible in his vision, Doyle rasps his last words:

“I fucked your wiffffe.”

The cubicle space, paid for by taxpayers, has Rafferty pressing his forehead into the desk, looking into the A.I.-generated likeness of who the supercomputer believed the next victim would look like. She would be lovely like the others. A blonde. A delicateness to the hourglass figure. Vulnerability around the light dove-shape eyes made Rafferty want to protect her from the evils of this world. “Run girl,” Rafferty said silently to the portrait. “Wherever you are, get out of there. Run.”

The Feds would be by in the morning to seize everything and remove him from the case. Martial Law would come into effect. Scorched Earth approach.

The elevator at the other end of the cubicle maze chimes. Its slow-opening doors click the lights back on, and when Rafferty raises his head off the desk, it's with the portrait photo sticking to his head. He already knows, with the obstruction in his view, that it's his wife.

“Get your ass up.” Sandra Rafferty. She wore military fatigues, her hair up and dark sunglasses, though it was night and they were indoors.

“Where were you on the morning of the 27th?” Rafferty demanded.

The date had significance to the case. That morning a lead developed into a rooftop chase with the perpetrator. Doyle was nowhere to be found, so Sam had to go without police escort. The killer knew the rooftops better, and so escaped.

“Where the fuck are the police,” Sam had huffed, hunched into his knees, an unfired revolver in his hand.

He heard his wife say, “Fucking your partner.”

Their heavy, panted breaths washed together, sweat scent intermingled; bodies clapping.

“What?”
“Hahaha.”

A long running joke among private investigator couples went that one was always off cheating on the other. Remnants of infidelity cases they used to work before they were up and running.

“The morning of your roof chase I was following a lead. Lab results on some trace material the killer left on the last victim. Latex from his disguise contained a chemical signature known to come from only one manufacturer in the city. A court subpoena later and I’m running a search on all non-commercial purchases made for the stuff since before the killings. Only one name came up.”

Sandra tossed a Petri dish taped to a readout to her husband.

“Jeremy Utridge. 309 Marigold Row, Old West End.”

The stretcher his soon-to-be victim was strapped to was set to standing. The position it had in the center of the workzone placed the gagged woman, eyes panicky and tear-streaked, directly under the floodlights and near to the gurney with the surgical tools. Jeremy was in the doorway dabbing at the wound in his side. In the struggle in the vent level, the policeman with the comical haircut had managed to redirect the blade into Jeremy. When Jeremy regained control of the knife, he buried it to the hilt in the clown-cop’s sternum. He then withdrew, hand a constant pressure on his side as he ran.

The Uber driver disguise would work. The only giveaway for the woman in the business suit came after he winced and his mustache almost fell off.

She had kneed him in the side when he dove into the backseat with the chloroform rag. The gauze wrap he had put on under the latex gut must have come undone when he started to haul her unconscious form from the trunk.

Jeremy could picture the clean-up ahead of him; certain he trailed blood on the stoop, foyer, stair, landing, and hallway. He’s so caught with this picture — putting a keener edge on a scalpel, eyeing where he’s about to put it; the woman, a squirmer — that he doesn't hear the stealthy click of the front door opening.

Rafferty stuck his head in through a crack he made in the front door. He doesn't see anyone. He slides in, opens his trench coat — a spare his wife had for him — and comes up with a carbine assault rifle. The place reminds him of a DoubleTree Hilton. A boutique hotel. Think Pop Art paintings and Baroque wall and ceiling ornaments. Sounds coming from the second floor tell him to go up. Sandra is close behind him. She rechecks the corners he's checked, pointing a .45 Colt.

They step together taking the stairs soundlessly, leaning close to the wall, which is done in mock leafy foliage and a red neon sign of cursive lettering: Dominate. On the landing, they get their first glimpse of Jeremy Utridge. He's holding something. The light spilling onto the hallway floor reveals to the couple for the first time that they've been stepping over the killer's blood the entire time.

Sam — serious — turns to face his wife, who gets giddy at times like these. His hand signs tell her to wait and listen for the signal. Sandra gets it together, nods her agreement.

“Jeremy Utridge,” Sam says, coming around the door. “Place your weapon down and lay face down on the floor!”

“Lower your weapon,” commands Jeremy, the Uzi at his side, pointing it at the floor.

“Jeremy, I’m ordering you,” Sam says. The scan he does of the woman in the stretcher confirms she is not critically injured.

“No, I'm ordering you. My orders come from On-High. Your power means nothing here.”

Sam reminds himself to breathe. “Is that where killing nine innocent women came from?”

“The Holy Omniscient has given me the privilege of doing his works in cleansing their shadows. They are promised to me as slaves in the afterlife.”

The woman’s screaming has been muffled by the gag tied around her head. Sam has been panning further into the room, as if to get between her and Jeremy. Jeremy makes a move forward with his feet. This freezes Sam in place.

“How has he assured you he's real? Pool full of otters?”

The signal. Sandra rounds, framed in the doorway. Sam dives into the stretcher. Jeremy starts to bring up the Uzi, trigger squeezed, firing. Sandra has her weapon aimed. Sam lands on his side, the stretcher crashing behind him. Plaster dust erupts out of the walls where Jeremy's shots land. The high patter of loud rapid fire is punctuated by the thump-thump of Sandra’s .45 and the clank of Sam’s carbine (held chicken-wing as he dove). An instant, and Jeremy crumples to the ground.

“Are you okay?” said Sam.

“I'm fine,” Sandra was about to say, but is stopped. The gag loosened out of the woman's mouth; she wailed and sobbed.

They sat together on the lowest step of the stoop. Sam could be laying out in the high grasses and wildflowers of some meadow in the Swiss Alps, the way he was on an ambulance stretcher, fingers folded together behind his head to make a pillow.

Crime scene investigators were strolling around inside, their flashes bright as they photographed everything for evidence. The paramedics already had the remains of Utridge in a black body bag and were carting it down.

“I did it,” Sam quietly revels. “Last minute clutch and I pulled through.” Pressing his palms into his eyes like to dam tears of happiness leaking out, “Uh jeez, there's going to be so much heaped on me.” He sucks in a breath. Nearly a whisper, “I won.”

Sensing its approach, Sam kicks out with a foot, striking a passing stretcher, causing the body of the killer, Jeremy Utridge, to spill into the gutter.

“He hasn't grown up,” says Sandra.

The woman, they find out, is Maya Quinn. She was already recovering under a blanket with some hot chocolate the black and white units brought.

“I won,” Sam repeats.

Sandra lets the issue rest. She is safe in the flaw in her husband's powers of deduction. After all: appearances point to her getting away with the crime of her and Doyle's lurid affair.

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