Lone Lake Killer (7 page)

“I don’t know dude… I mean Deputy Tyler, you gotta ask this wrestler.”

“And where are we with finding this wrestler?”

“The search party came up empty. And County of course, is still balls deep in that Moshpit Festival.”

“Carli’s photos any good? She kept blathering about it.”

“Nope. Turns out she took
selfies of herself
.”

“For real dude?”

“Yep something about
chronicling her panic
… something for her vlog.”

“That freaking…”

“Let it go dude. Let it go.”

***

“So what does Mitch Marsh have to say about the bodies at Jensen Manor?”

“He says, he has no clue. Says he goes up there once a month to clean up and check on basics. That’s all.”

“But his fingerprints were all over the place.”

“So were Shane Monson’s and that other unrecognizable print.”

“Yeah, but Marsh’s prints were all over the place… door knobs, jambs, railings and most importantly, the freezer door.”

“Again same thing. Being a prepper he says he liked to store meat at various places. Something to do with risk diversification.”

“But then why’d he invite the Kip Carmichael guy? The guy in the cashmere?”

Tyler rifled thought his notes, “Mitch says, this Kip guy was supposed to get in touch with him after arriving in Lone Lake for prepping lessons. But he never did. Also, Kip’s girlfriend Mona admits getting into an argument when Kip had used her four thousand dollar Armani bag as a bugout bag.”

“Yeah, so what exactly is this bugout bag? Keeps cropping up.”

“Umm, a bag used by preppers to carry critical supplies to ride out the apocalypse.”

“What supplies?”

“According to Kate Marsh’s statement, these bugout bags contain – granola bars, water bottles, extra cash…”

“Jesus, that sounds like a school bag? Bet there is a juice box too.”

“Actually there is.”

“So this is what
prepping
is all about? Adults trying to play kids? Just another comic-con style scam where people just don’t want to grow up?”

“Yeah, adulthood is all about getting in touch with your inner four year old.”

***

“So what about the Monson kid? How does he tie into this mess? His prints were all over the living room.”

“Well, being a prepper and a responsible person who purportedly cared about his community, Mitch thought it would be a good idea to take Shane Monson under his wing and set him on the right path. Shane had been exchanging emails with Mitch for over six months.”

“Shit, so what about that bag of pot? Please tell me it’s not Shane’s bugout bag.”

“No. It was prison pot. The Monson idiot had stolen it on his way out.”

After ruminating Tyler ultimately asked, “So nothing to do with Carli?”

“Sadly no.”

“But we gotta do something real bad to her… make her pay.”

“We are just a couple of law abiding lawmen. She’s above us.”

“Perhaps we could pass a city wide ordinance to ban Carli, you know just for the heck of it.”

“I don’t know dude, sounds like a lot of paperwork.”

***

“So you think Mitch Marsh did it?”

“Too much smoke to say otherwise.”

The killer ran for a long, long time. Lars ran through fields, bushes, shrubs, knolls, streams, even the one that fed Lone Lake and finally through a herd of hogs tearing into a buffalo. After an hour of running, he finally arrived at his destination. The establishment had a blue and yellow logo. A yellow cross on a blue background. Not very imaginative.

Lars rushed though the emergency doors and collapsed into the first stretcher he came across.

Minutes later a lady in blue came by and inspected his tags. After what seemed like an eternity, she called out, “Ready the OR… patient’s lost like a gallon of blood… don’t you worry you sweet little thing. We’ll set you straight.”

The last thing Lars remembered was Doctor Dobberman asking him to count backwards from ten.

“Wufk… wufk… wufk…”

Soldier Field, Chicago – 2010

All Lars had to do was pass the ball to that clown Bozov. And all that asshole had to do was catch it. This wasn’t like walking a tight rope or riding a bicycle. Nope. No pressure, no wind, no crowd noise, no nothing. There was even a safety net. Totally ideal conditions.

Following instructions from his ring master, Lars had thrown a perfect spiral. The tape would prove it. But the fucking clown Bozov, had dropped the ball. And then the finicky Soldier field crowd had started a light riot and booed him off. Booed poor Lars off. People were such dipshits, thought Lars. Given his massive brain and reversible thumbs, he was pretty sure he was smarter than like say 95% of the people in the stadium… and definitely smarter than this fucking clown Bozov.

This dropped pass fucked up the act and put the entire circus in danger, especially with the whole PETA afflicted media calling for a ban on circus animals. Without guys like Lars, the circus would simply be weird dudes doing really, really weird things. No wonder the kids hated the novo shit.

Back in the locker room, still raging from the painted clown’s effort or the lack of, Lars had gotten into a yelling match with him. What started as jawing soon led to shoving, pushing and a slightly tight hold on the clown’s neck. The EMTs had revived the clown in two minutes. No biggie.

Next thing he knew, Lars had been cut and shipped off to some no name shit town called Spokane. He’d lasted three weeks there.

4 months later

“Shit dude,” Deputy Tyler looked up from his phone, “you aren’t going to believe this.”

“What?” Jake asked a bit annoyed. The bloody Sheriff had gone off on a vacation again leaving Tyler, himself and probably Bill to patrol the lonely streets of Lone Lake. At least there wouldn’t be any Carli drama this time, who through a series of shady schemes had made a killing on the serial killer memorabilia market. By touting herself as the
Lone Lake Killer’s
profiler, she had unloaded her battered Celica, most of her IKEA crap and that kooky serial killer profile to some agent in LA. And according to her Twitter, she was currently trying to score some crack on Sunset Boulevard for the experience. So Carli.

“County finally processed that gun from that
Lone Lake Killer
bullshit.”

“Oh yeah?”

“The prints on the gun couldn’t be found in the system.”

“Yeah dude, we already know that.”

“Apparently they sent the prints from County to Denver to DC and when they all came up empty, onto Interpol in Paris.”

“Jesus what’s wrong with these guys, it was just a murder… well okay two… but we got Marsh. Case closed.”

“Well, even they couldn’t crack it. So they forwarded it to the NSA.”

“What is that?”

“I don’t know what it stands for, but am pretty sure the folks that work there are smoking crack.”

“Probably an office policy. Like Margarita Fridays. Shit, wish we had such a policy.”

“They are saying they found our killer’s prints all over Congo… southern Congo to be specific.”

“Congo as in the country?”

“Yep.”

“The one with the rumble in the jungle?”

“Yeah that’s the one. The NSA folks are saying that the prints are consistent with a Swedish led research in Congo on
gorillas
.”

“
Gorillaz
like the band?”

“No dude, they are saying our killer… the
Lone Lake Killer
was a proverbial 600 pound Silverback Gorilla.”

“Da fuq.”

Moscow Machination:

International Satire

Inflight Terror:

Serial Killer Takes On Hijackers

Basics of Ransom:

Comedic Crime Thriller