Authors: Anthony Thomas
Capt. Davis turned to walk out the door. Burncutt walked out with him.
I looked at the lifeless body of the woman and shook my head. I saw one of the techs collecting carpet samples. This was normal, in case we found the suspect and he had trace evidence of this carpet on his clothes.
“Excuse me,” I said to the young man. Red-haired, he had a freckled face and looked like he was still in high school. A little
nerdy. I saw that the name on his shirt said Chris. He stood up, smiling as if he was waiting for me to ask him something.
“How can I help you, Detective?”
“What have you got so far?”
“Nothing solid right now, but we will go over every inch of this place with a fine tooth comb if necessary.”
“It is necessary,” I said. I looked him over from head to toe. When I got down at his feet, I saw something.
“Hold it! Don’t move.”
There was the corner of a sheet of paper was sticking out from under the sofa. I knelt down to take a closer look. It had blood on it.
“You have any gloves and a pair of tweezers?”
“Sure.”
He reached in his pocket and brought out a pair of gloves and gave me the pair of tweezers he had been using to get carpet samples.
“What’s up, Detective?”
“I’m--not sure,” I said, examining the paper.
I grabbed the paper with the tweezers. It was a flyer for a Billy’s Pest Control Company.
I gave it to the tech to have it tagged and bagged. I took a photo of it with my phone.
“What is that?” asked Burncutt.
The tech started to answer.
“The detective here saw a bloody piece of paper under the sofa and--”
“Never mind, get it to the lab, pronto. I want it checked for prints, DNA, the whole works. Got it?”
“Yes sir,” said the tech.
I looked at Burncutt and turned and walked out the front door.
Detective Glass was still consoling the husband and Burncutt was interviewing the neighbor who discovered the body. I didn’t see Chad.
I noticed all the beautiful houses in the neighborhood and thought how until this these people had felt safe in these homes. This murder had changed the neighborhood forever. I imagined that some of them would be gone by the summer, which was only about two months away. Just move, why not? They could afford it.
I walked over to the crime scene tape where Charlotte was waiting for me. Reporters were hurling questions at me from every side. I told them that the Chief was handling all press conferences and he alone would answer any questions they might have. Charlotte gestured me to call her. I nodded as inconspicuously as I could, so the others wouldn’t see. I turned and walked to my car.
I phoned dispatch and told them I would be 10-10 for about an hour. I called Charlotte and told her I had an hour break and to meet me Johnny’s. Johnny’s was downtown and a good quiet hangout spot.
“So, what do you want on your hot dog?” I asked.
“The usual,” said Charlotte.
“Two for me and one for her, and make them all the way, Johnny.”
“You got it, Detective,” said Johnny.
Johnny’s Hot Dogs was a small one man diner in the city plaza. Johnny had been in business for almost 20 years in the same spot when he got out of the army after the Gulf War in ‘91, he decided to open up his own business. He tried leasing a building for a restaurant, but it fell through within a year because the owners raised the rent when he started to make money. He started bringing a hot dog stand to the plaza. His hot dogs were such a success, after a couple of years the mayor had a permanent stand built in the city plaza for Johnny.
We got our hot dogs and walked over to a park bench and sat down.
I took a large bite of one of my hot dogs. Charlotte pinched off a small piece and ate.
“So, what’s up?” I asked trying to chew, swallow, and talk at the same time.
“You need to slow down. I’m not that good at CPR.”
“Sorry, I was hungry! No--HOWNGRY!”
She smiled. “So can I get something for the record or what?”
I finished chewing and wiped my mouth with a napkin.
“I wish I could give you something right no, but honestly, we don’t have much to go on ourselves. But--I will tell you this.” I wiped his mouth again with the napkin. “The guy calls himself, The Reaper.
“Aren’t you all the ones who give out names to the psychopaths?”
“Not this time. He chose it for us. I’m thinking it’s a clue as well, but like I said, we don’t have much to go on.”
“Ok, if that is all you got, then that is all you got. I will do a short column tonight for the morning paper.”
Charlotte stood up.
“You hardly touched your hotdog. Is there something wrong?”
“It’s nothing.”
She turned her face from me. I thought she was hiding tears.
I got up and held her. She relaxed a little in my arms, but I could feel how tense she was, as if she was holding herself together with sheer will power.
“Whatever it is, I’m here for you,” I said. Always remember that.” When she looked at me, her eyes had lost their professional, confident glow. It was as if she was pleading, without saying anything.
The occasion called for me to say it, even though I hadn’t been able to before.
“I love you Charlotte, I love you so very much.”
She looked at me. Now there were tears in her eyes.
“I love you too Jared. I do.” She paused a minute. We both had to let what we were saying sink in. It had been a long time coming. “I love you very much.”
I almost teared up myself. I had found the woman of my dreams and I loved her and she loved me. It was all in the world that mattered right then. I was so elated, that I felt I could climb Mount Everest and pull a star from the sky and place it in her hands.
I gently kissed her, not caring who saw us or what they thought. We were two people, in love.
Chapter Five
The Reaper lit a cigarette and exhaled a steady stream of smoke. He picked up the TV remote and flipped through the channels until he found the local news station. The murder on Lakeview was plastered all over the wide-screen TV. He watched for a few minutes to see if he would be named. He wasn’t. He snarled and threw the remote at the TV. He looked down at the motionless body of the man tied up on the floor. The Reaper knelt down and took his knife out.
Dave Robinson’s eyes grew large at the sight of the blade. He tried to shout for help but the gag suppressed his voice.
“Well Mr. Robinson, it looks like you are going to help me get more famous considering the fact that you and Detective Jackson made me who I am. You saw me crying in that courtroom. Long time ago. Too bad you won’t be around for the grand finale—they’re going to call it the trial of the century.” At that moment, The Reaper swiped the blade across the Assistant District Attorney’s throat. Blood oozed all over the dead man. The Reaper wiped his knife on the shirt of the corpse and stood up.
He extinguished his cigarette butt in the ash tray on the coffee table and stepped over the body and headed to the door. The doorbell rang. He froze.
He pressed flat against the wall away from the view of the windows and removed the switchblade from his pocket and opened it. He peered through the open edges of the curtains without touching them. Standing at the door was a neatly dressed brown-haired man in a uniform. He noticed a utility truck parked on the curb.
This is all coming apart. Sorry fella, you have to die!
He opened the door and greeted the man with a smile. The man was tall, with a slender build. He was wearing a uniform with a Signal Gas Company logo. The Reaper invited the man inside and closed the door behind them.
“Is...the...owner around?” he asked.
“Yeah, he is right over there on the floor.”
The man turned to where The Reaper pointed and before he could register what was happening, he was stabbed in the back of his neck. He collapsed to the floor. The Reaper moved quickly to wipe the blood off his knife onto the man’s clothes and exit the door before somebody else showed up.
Fortunately, the man didn’t block his truck in the driveway. He walked casually to his truck and backed out the drive way. Pulled out his new phone and sent a text to Detective Jackson. After sending the message, he removed the blonde wig and dark sunglasses and placed them in a bag beside him and turned on the radio. The newsflash caused him to panic.
“Police need your help in locating a white utility truck with the name Billy’s Pest Control on the door…..”
He turned off the radio. He saw a narrow dirt road coming up on the right that led to Lake Tuscaloosa. He reached a secluded embankment and saw that nobody was around. He grabbed the bag on the seat that had his change of clothes in it and threw them to the tree line. He looked around again and put the gear in neutral and released the brake. The truck rolled down the embankment and crashed into the lake taking the phone he had used and everything else that was incriminating.
The truck slowly submerged in the water and disappeared. He walked over to the tree line to conceal himself as he changed into a white T-shirt and blue jeans. He then opened his zippo lighter and burned his pest control costume beyond recognition. As he walked out to the main road he looked down and saw a bamboo fishing pole lying on the ground still intact but with no hook and picked it up.
He was in luck. There was a gas station about a quarter of a mile away.
The rain was gone and the sun beat down on the asphalt causing him to sweat profusely. He walked through the parking lot up to the front sliding doors. He felt immediate relief from the air conditioning system. The place was packed with people going fishing and people who already gave up for the day. With that fishing pole in hand, he mixed in with the crowd. He knew he could pass for anybody.
He observed the brown haired clerk behind the counter with a frustrated look on her face, waiting on a guy at her register who thought he was some sort of Romeo by complimenting her blue eyes. The guy wore a fishing cap, faded blue overalls and cowboy boots. Probably a truck driver, he thought.
The Reaper walked to the other side of the store. A pay phone was on the wall between the restrooms. He smiled at the ancient artifact. How convenient, he thought. Ruffling through the yellow pages, he found the number to a cab service. He reached in his pockets and pulled out two quarters. The cab dispatcher told him it would be about a 20 minute wait.
He thanked the woman and hung up, then walked back toward the counter. The smell of fried chicken had his attention. He realized he hasn’t eaten anything that morning and was hungry.
“Hi, can I help you?” asked the clerk.
“Yes.” He looked at her name on her shirt. “Uhm—Tabitha, I would like a two piece dark with fries and a coke, please.”
She grabbed a box off the counter and placed the chicken and fries inside. That will be $5.25 please.”
He gave her a $20 and added two packs of Marlboros to the list.
“Your total is $19.70, out of $20.”
He thanked her and walked out the door and sat down at a table to wait for his cab. Most of the fries were gone and he was finishing the chicken when the cab pulled up.
A heavy set black guy with glasses was driving.
“Excuse me sir, did you call a cab?”
The Reaper nodded. He threw what was left of his food in the trash bin near the door and opened the rear door of the cab and got in.
“Where downtown are you headed?” asked the driver.
“Take me to the YMCA.”
“All right, that’ll be $15, sir.”
He pulled out a twenty dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
“Yes sir, and thank you sir.”
The driver was talking. His son was going to Auburn in the fall. His wife was so proud—all her family had been to Auburn. The small talk fell on deaf ears as the Reaper was lost in his own thoughts. He contemplated his next disguise.
Hmm…A cab driver is not a bad idea.
Chapter 6
My head was pounding. Everything was hitting me at once. Although I didn’t care too much for Dave Robinson, still, I didn’t wish him death. The other guy appeared to be an innocent who just happened to see who The Reaper was before meeting his death. Who the hell
was
The Reaper?
My thoughts were interrupted by the CSU tech Chris, who I met on the other scenes.
“Detective, did you ever get that information I sent to you?” I turned to face him…puzzled.
“What information?” I asked.
“It was about the prints we picked up off the ball peen hammer, and the bloody flier you discovered.”
He had my full attention. “Go on.’
“Well, we were able to get a thumbprint from around the small end of the hammer and also we discovered that that flier was made locally once we used protein removal substance to lift the blood for sampling. We discovered a partial address of the publishing company under the blood. West End Publishing to be exact.”