A/N: Thanks again for reading and the reviews! Since I missed last weekend, and I don't think I'll be able to post anything this coming weekend, here's the next chapter.
Ch. 5: Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
GIL
March 10, 2011
Los Angeles
He heard the humming from the old Blues singer, Blind Willie Johnson, coming from the speakers as the vinyl spun on the record player. The sound of it radiated into the dark depths of his soul. It sounded like the never-ending yearning, the breath, of the beast that resided in the dark.
The light from the television casted a light across the dark living room. There was a dim light above the stove in the kitchen. As he sat in the recliner in the living room, eyes on the television, his left hand scratched over the ears and head of the dog, Rex, that was at his side. Bringing the cup up, he took a drink then leaned his head back as he closed his eyes.
He was tired. He hadn't felt this tired in a long time. As he stared at the TV, lost in thought, a poem entered his head.
"His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world. As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, the movement of his powerful soft strides is like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stands paralyzed. Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly. An image enters in, rushes down through the tense, arrested muscles, plunges into the heart and is gone."
It was a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke titled 'The Panther'.
An ache, his need, grew as he glanced toward the kitchen. Under the staircase that went to the second floor was the door to the basement. He'd been thinking about it since he first discovered the name. And now that he knew what the man who owned the house had done he felt the aching desire pound in his heart and clench the hand that gripped the cup.
The part of him that had to choose what to do felt like that panther in Rilke's poem. He was pacing, around and around in a cage within his own body. Trapped not by his mind but by his heart. The one no longer belonged to him but to the woman he loved. The heart that'd been pierced by her so long ago was the thing that now caged the beast that pounded within it.
He could let it out; go down there and let the beast out.
Or, he could wait. He could be patient.
Feeling his finger tap against the cup as the music that played from the turning record, he let out a breath and returned his focus onto the muted television. He didn't have to hear the new report to know what was being said. It wasn't that he was reading the lips of the news anchors, or that he had 'closed captions' on.
He knew what they were saying because they were talking about him. There was a tension in his back, his shoulders, and he felt another ache as he read the words on the screen. FBI Agent Moore was trying to lure him out by using his wife. This was the third press conference in a little over two weeks. He saw several familiar faces at the press conference that had been recorded earlier that day in Las Vegas. They were holding it outside of a hotel. The name was clearly visible.
It was a tactic. Sara was at that hotel, being watched 24/7. She was bait. They were daring him to try to get to her, having her at a hotel instead in a secure safe house or worse, a jail cell.
He remembered the earlier reports from when the news first broke replaying in his head: "Let it be known that we have Mrs. Sidle, the fugitive wife of the convicted serial killer Gil Grissom, in custody. Until Grissom's capture, or death, we will not in any way grant her the immunity that she's requesting," FBI Agent Moore had spoken to the cameras, his eyes fixated straight ahead. He was talking directly to him. "There will be no deal-"
It was a bold move, outing everything like that to the public instead of keeping it behind closed doors. He wondered how the DA and AG felt about FBI Agent Moore going on national television. Moore was under the impression that he was the one in control. He probably also thought he was in Las Vegas. Agent Moore had no clue who he was dealing with.
He had been expecting to have seen Special Agent Rick Culpeper, but apparently whoever was in charge of the FBI Las Vegas field office hadn't been impressed with his performance and had him replaced. He didn't know Agent Moore, but it didn't matter. He didn't have to know him to know how he was going to use him.
Reaching up with his left hand, he rubbed at the tension in his right shoulder. It was sore. His fingers felt over the top of the scars on his back. Old faint scars from when he had Heather whip him after he'd been at a low point; believing he'd committed murder.
This whole thing was about scars. He had been scarred. His body wasn't where the real damage occurred. The scars left on his flesh were superficial compared to the scars inflicted on his mind. The evidence of the scars of his mind were only seen in how he killed his victims. How he had hid behind a mask his whole life.
Before, he'd been blinded to his own scars; refusing to stop and take a good long hard look at himself. Then he was forced to do it. Still blinded, but clarity took a while. It took stripping the mask off completely, and freely, in front of his wife in order for him to see himself.
Then, he drowned himself in whiskey to try to stop it. He couldn't afford to be in blissful denial any longer. Now, seeing the scars through his eyes every time he looked into a mirror felt deserved. Fair and just. What he did, who he has become, should be visible for all to see.
It was who he was. He knew his path. It never wavered. He never let it.
Rainer Maria Rilke had also written that "But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths."
He remembered a few months ago, after Sara had left, sitting at the bow of his boat, staring at the night sky as his mind searched for a new path. He had struggled because he couldn't tell where Gil Grissom started and where the killer inside of him ended. The beast that resided deep within his dark depths. He felt his presence, heard his thoughts and words. Felt his pain much deeper than ever before.
He also felt her, in the quiet. His wife. And he missed her.
He fought against another, different surge of desire, as he dropped his hand away from his shoulder and leaned his head back against the chair while closing his eyes.
The music had stopped, and the quietness of the house was thundering in its loudness against his ears. It was painfully quiet. In his life, before Sara, the quiet had felt as if it had a poetic quality to it and had always been a welcomed companion. "Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt in solitude, where we are least alone," as Lord Byron wrote. But now, he fought against the return to his previous life of solitude with his only companion being the silence and the beast that pounded at the door of his heart.
The silence had grown to become almost violent in nature; threatening to destroy him. He had told Sara that wherever she was, he would be with her, and she with him. That bond was strong, and it ached his troubled mind.
But, he also knew that once she got her freedom, it had no place for Gil Grissom in it.
There was an unrelenting need to leave and get back to the boat. Cast off and go. He could do that. If he left now, he would still be a fugitive. The FBI would still be after him. It wouldn't stop, but she would be left to face the punishment.
If there was one thing he wanted more than for Sara to get her life back, it was for him to have his freedom. He yearned for it as a starved man yearned for food and water. Having never experienced such deprivation, it was almost all too consuming. A comforting silence, with her beside him, was what he really wanted. He thought he would do just about anything to get back to hearing a silence that used to stretch over him like a safety-net because she was there with him.
Silence as a fugitive wasn't a pleasant sound. Neither was the silence of never hearing his wife's voice again.
There was always a choice to make. An option to consider and path to take.
Option 1: Be a fugitive and never see his wife again, which meant Sara's freedom as the price to pay.
Option 2: Go to prison and maybe see her again before his execution.
Option 3: Death.
Feeling a shiver run down his body, he worked his jaw as he pushed that thought all the way down into the depths. He refocused his mind as it shifted behind his closed eyelids to the vast emptiness of the barren desert of his mind. He needed to stop thinking. The desert always brought him a sense of peace. So quiet, vast openness, and the sky that went on for miles. Empty.
He swore if he concentrated hard enough that he could feel Sara all the way in Vegas. He didn't know who he was anymore without her.
And it seemed that without her, the beast that had been kept at bay was raging stronger than ever. He thought that killing Fernándo Valenzuela would have eased the desire, but it only felt like a taste, a sip, of what he really wanted. The monstrosities he wanted to unleash were nearly of biblical proportions, or ones of myths.
That wasn't what a good man or human being did. What he felt inside could only be attributed to not being human. He had never thought of himself as completely human anyway because pieces were missing, lost somewhere between the part of him that was still human and the part that always felt different. A spider. A monster.
A killer.
He put his head in his left hand, pressing his palm into his eye, as he fought down the desire to get up and go down into that dark basement. Instead, he pushed the desire down and caged the killer within. Imprisoned in the emptiness and doomed to the silence.
Without the killer keeping him company he suddenly felt very much alone. Alone with his thoughts. Alone in his actions. Alone in the presence of another man's dog at his side and a glass of his bourbon in his right hand.
There was no feeling of comfort there despite the security. Everything in this house was so quiet. He heard the hum of the refrigerator, the dog's movements because there was absolutely nothing else to hear.
It was empty. Cold. Isolating.
The boat had been warm and encompassed with noise and another's voice. The voice of his wife. His Queen, as he had called her. The troubling thoughts were still there, racing around in his mind as everything inside of him wanted to explode, including his heart, as he tried to think only of her. His life. His love.
"Aristotle said, "Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies". Wherever you go, wherever I am, we'll be together," he had told her.
Willing himself to believe those words, he felt the emptiness engulf every fiber of his being. It hurt to lie, and he couldn't lie anymore. It was in the quiet that he could be honest.
Truth was that he missed Sara because he couldn't feel her in the silence. He couldn't feel her in his soul. Digging deep, he tried to reach her, hear her, feel her, but all that surrounded him was the desert. The barren emptiness. The frozen tundra. The sea of red from all the blood he'd spilled.
Relationships were like air. It existed, humans breathed it, and it seemed to be everywhere. People related to each other, they liked to find common interests in something with someone else, and then a relationship seemed to form from that. He was the exception to the rule. He had a great distaste for relationships, even ones that he was unwillingly put in: the teacher/student relationship, the mentor/student relationship, and the supervisor/employee relationship.
However, he wanted a husband/wife relationship the moment he saw her. Sara had become his exception to all his rules. His exception to the rule that no one could be trusted. His exception to the rule that he couldn't and didn't want to love anyone. His rule that he couldn't form any human attachments.
She was his life. His air he breathed. Or, at least, she had been.
Trying to remember the comfort she brought him, the hand on his neck, he couldn't. Since he couldn't, he missed her hands holding onto him, keeping him steady when he felt like falling.
And this was him falling. Down through the depths of the abyss, where the monster stirred and ached, there were no hands there to catch him.
Utterly, and truly, alone.
Opening his eyes, he stared at the ceiling as his left hand once again petted the dog. Downing the rest of the bourbon in the cup, he stood and headed for the kitchen. As he passed the basement door he realized it should have been painfully obvious to anyone who cared to look upon him what he was on the inside.
A good man, he thought, was something he no longer was. He'd seen what he truly was underneath when he was drunk on his boat with all his walls and masks stripped away. When there had been no mask to hide behind, he saw red evil eyes of the beast.
Thinking back to his confrontation with McKeen, he remembered the words he'd spoken to him.
Looking down at him, head tilting to the side, he said, "Hello, Jeff."
McKeen's face dropped as he said, "Grissom? How did you find me?"
That was the question, wasn't it? The answer was a simple one. "I like to know how things work," he told him. "Once I know that, then I know how to get inside it, how to manipulate it...How to use it. That's what I do. This is what I'm built for."
He heard for himself how the beast worked. How he manipulated. That was what he did. It was how he worked. He couldn't help it. Even if he didn't want to, even if he didn't think that was what he was doing, it was. He was a manipulator of truth, and lies, and of people. The lies in his head weren't lies. And that thought was the most troubling because he had been certain that he'd been a good man. A good man who did bad things to evil people.
He didn't murder humans, he killed evil. It had been a distinction his mind had made, a truth that he had decided on, to justify the blood lust that filled every fiber of his being. An exception to the rule because he couldn't face the truth.
Ignored it, like he'd been ignored.
Evil men murdered.
The truth had been unburied; nothing could be kept secret forever. The 'if, then, else' statement that was presented to him revealed the truth: If evil men murdered, then murderers were evil; therefore, since he murdered people, then he, Gil Grissom, was evil.
An evil man who did evil things to evil people.
That had been his path, was his path, and as far as he could see through the sand of the desert that filled his mind, would always be his path.
He poured himself another drink, walked back into the living room and headed for the record player. Picking up the needle, he removed the record and then selected another. It was a new album, and EP recently released, and he'd never heard of the singer before but with a band name like The Bones of J.R. Jones, he had to find out what they sounded like.
He placed the vinyl on the player and dropped the needle.
Four Days Ago
~"Sing, sing, won't you sing for me
Beast in your belly, you've got to let it breathe—"~
The Penwick Hotel had been shut down for renovation but apparently the contract fell through because it was still an eyesore in the heart of Studio City Los Angeles. Upon inspection of the rundown hotel, having gone floor by floor, it was clear that it had been abandoned some time ago, but there were still floors with construction materials, plastic sheets, a ladder, and tools. There was also still power. Someone was fitting the bill for keeping lights on at the old Penwick. At closer examination, he didn't think any of it belonged to the once contracted construction crew.
Grabbing the tools up, he took them with him, along with the plastic sheets and drop cloths. After putting everything in the back of the truck, he headed away from the hotel to a hardware store, an electronics store, and then several clothing stores, including donation sites and uniform supply stores before heading to his boat.
~"Sing, oh, sing for me
Beast in your belly, lord, you've got to let it breathe—"~
Using the workstations that he'd set up in the hull of his boat, he got to work building his own low-tech surveillance devices. It wasn't hard. A few circuits, trip wires, laser lights, wi-fi cameras, springs and relays, and a wi-fi router and new laptop. He could access the free wi-fi hotspots in the area. He wouldn't be able to receive alerts to any movement or activity in real time, but he'd be able to upload anything recorded to the website he'd set up and could check it periodically to review any video footage.
If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that sooner or later, Nate Haskell would be back in Los Angeles. He wanted to be ready for him.
Once he had everything assembled, he changed his clothes. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had been wearing the same navy or beige uniforms for decades. He finished the uniform by pulling on a navy jacket and grabbed a reflective vest and hard hat before he grabbed up the bag with his diy surveillance equipment.
Before he left the boat, he grabbed one more item: a boat hook with an attached pole. He threw everything in the bag of the truck and headed back to the hotel.
He had to make sure it was all concealed, not giving anything away.
~"Breathe for me—"~
Three Days Ago
He parked behind Arvin Thorpe's house in East L.A. and shut off the engine before getting out. It was after midnight and the street was quiet. There were dogs barking, but he realized after his late-night walk on the first night, and the second night, that the barking of dogs in the neighborhood wasn't an uncommon occurrence. The traffic on the freeway could be heard, the occasional homeless person walking the alley looking for someplace to sleep or something to eat.
As he stood behind the fence, looking up at the white stucco house with the green trim, a shudder went through his body as he felt the night chill as the temperature dropped against his face. It wasn't Vegas cold, but the winter Los Angeles air had a chill to it. In his head, a new web that spun, racing rapidly through his ever active mind. The web spun a trap, an idea as he took in the house, the fence, yard and the dog barking.
Going to the truck, he opened the latch, pulled on a pair of thick latex gloves, and removed the boat hook. All garage doors were easy to break into if you knew how. Sliding the boat hook between the gap at the top of the door, he slid the hook back and then side-to-side. When he didn't hook the rope on the other side of the door, he tried again until he eventually snagged the rope line that was used to manually open the door from within. Pulling the rope between the door and frame, he grabbed it and pulled.
The door started to lift and he let go to let the rope move up and back with the door. Barking from the dog continued as he put the boat hook back into the cargo area of the truck and then grabbed the bag with the food. One thing he'd noticed about Arvin Thorpe's dog was that it was being underfed.
The dog being what was referred to as a Bullboxer, having been a mix being a boxer and pitbull, it was an energetic dog, and also a faithful one, and it was also very powerful and strong. But he could already tell by how it acted that it wasn't the least bit faithful to its current owner. For starters, he never left the backyard. There was no quality time spent to gain any real loyalty to the hand that never fed him.
Going around to the fence, he peered over the top and saw the dog jump up at him again from behind it. Smiling, he opened the package not of dog food but cooked chicken breasts and dropped a couple over the top of the fence into the yard. Then he went back into the garage as the dog ate. After a few minutes, and after shutting the garage door, he opened the door that led into the backyard as the dog sniffed around for more food.
Tilting his head at the dog, he grabbed another piece and tossed it on the floor away from the door. As the dog walked into the garage, he shut the door. It didn't take long, as he sat in a chair in the middle of the floor and let the door sniff at him as he offered more food. He didn't want to make the dog sick, but he was starving.
Leaning back in the chair, he petted the dog on its head as he thought of his own dog, Edmond. Checking the tag, he saw his name was Rex. Shaking his head, he went back to petting the dog behind his ears and body. The dog was all over him, desperately wanting to be petted. Rex probably hadn't been petted in weeks if not months.
"Good boy," he told him as the dog dropped back to the floor and started sniffing around for more food and possibly water. The dog knew his place; knew who the alpha was. It hadn't been his previous owner.
He didn't immediately go up to the house. In the backyard, the smell of cedar filled his nose as he walked around the property. The area surrounding the house were red cedar trees. The owner, Mr. Thorpe must have planted these himself because they were not native to Los Angeles, California. Yellow jasmines were planted up the walkway to the back porch. Then he spotted the only white hickory tree in the yard. Standing under the tree, he leaned against the grayish-white bark and reached up to take a hickory nut off the branch. Bringing the shell down to his face, he breathed in the smell of it. Glancing at the house, in his head, he heard laughter.
Breaking through the swirling fog of his mind was a horribly steady laugh; his glaring eyes stared at the broken glass as the laugh grew louder and stronger, bubbling up from his soul and out his own mouth. It was a laugh that had been burned into his mind a long time ago; put there by the man who had broken it a long time ago.
Tilting his head, he caught his dilated dark eyes in the broken mirror. As he squinted and studied his eyes closer his breath caught at the sight of a small red glow that started to fill them from the pupils. He jumped back, stumbling so fast that he slammed into the opposite wall with a loud, painful crack. Those were the eyes of an evil man.
"Do you ever wonder about being wrong? That your logic is flawed?" Sara's question filled his head.
"If I'm wrong, I'll be judged for it. But if I'm right, rewarded. That's how I'll know."
"Know what?"
Without taking his eyes off what he was reading, told her, "Whether or not I'm a good man, or an evil one."
His mind was anything but steady. Still, he told himself as he closed his eyes. After taking a few calming breaths, he re-opened his eyes and eyed the dog that walked up beside him. He tried to still his head, but a distant laugh engulfed the cloudiness of his mind, then it was quickly replaced with a gentle hand on the back of his neck.
"I love you," he heard Sara tell him.
It was time to go inside.
~"And wash, you better wash your hands
Grab the soap, use your frying pan—"~
It didn't take long before he gained access to the house. Using his laptop, he was able to do exactly what he thought he'd be able to do, "war driving" the security system. It hadn't been the first time he'd done it. Several of his victims had security systems, and that never stopped him before. It wouldn't now.
Moving through the house, he took in the downstairs living area as Rex followed close by him. Getting to the kitchen, he filled a bowl with water and sat it down for him before slipping his shoes off and heading upstairs. The floors on the second floor were hardwood when there had been carpet on the first floor. He'd mop up his prints later, but right now he had one goal in mind.
Sedating Arvin Thorpe and uncovering any secrets this house had to tell him.
He stood over the man in the bed, his mind thinking of how evil the man had to have been in order to produce a man as evil as Nate Haskell. Pulling the syringe from his pocket, he stabbed it into the man's neck and pressed the plunger down as Mr. Thorpe's eyes opened in surprise.
That was all he could do as his breathing slowed and body stilled. Tilting his head at him, he said, "You can tell a lot by a man by how he treats his dog. I can only imagine how you treated your son. Let's be clear, Mr. Thorpe, I am going to kill you. The how and when is up to you. You answer my questions, and I'll make sure it's as painless as possible. Understood?"
Mr. Thorpe could only stare up at him, but he didn't need for him to speak to receive his answer. Before the sun came up, the man was singing like a canary.
~"'Cause you've been digging down, burying dead—"~
He stabbed the shovel into the ground behind the Thorpe house, shoveling up the dirt where the grass had grown. Rex was watching him, panting in the midday heat as he laid in the shade of the house. As he dug up the bones that he learned was Arvin's wife, Lois, he couldn't help but think back to when he used to bury bodies in the ground.
~"Grass grows tall on the things that you wish that you'd forget—"~
He'd purchased the vacant land that was in a secluded area that held the most variations in climate and environment, which was at the base of the mountains. After checking the boundaries of the lot, he had it fenced in. Using a chain and lock, he secured the piece of land and placed a sign on it. "Private Property" and another one, "No Trespassing".
Then he had to get approval from the city to turn it into a body farm to study the decay of human corpses along with how bugs and insects helped the process.
"And why would you want to—"
Explaining his reasoning, he told anyone who asked, "Studying bugs can help law enforcement determine time of death, even…where somewhere died; if their body had been moved based on the insects that live in certain areas."
After much convincing, it had been approved by the city and through the coroner's office where he used to work since they could provide him the bodies. Some of the cadavers were donated. All the others weren't.
From 1976 until he moved away to obtain his Doctorate in 1982, he filled the ground with some of the bones of 147 of his victims; that estimated out to be about 2 victims per month for six years. While some of his victims he disposed of in the body farm, others he had taken out to sea once he learned all about boats and how to sail. He wanted to learn everything he could. He had to know everything; how it all worked. He even bought a boat in the name of his alias Robert Waters.
How long did it take a pedophile's body to decay in the summer heat? He would watch the insects, documenting their arrival, which one arrived first to feast on the body, which was last, and how long did it take to reduce the body to a skeleton. Entomology was his passion other than killing and he had recently started getting interested in a new field called Forensic Entomology.
Picking up the shovel, he started digging a hole as the sun rose up over the mountains, announcing the dawn of another day. But for Mr. Jones, it would be his last as his eyes stared up wide at him as he turned the shovel towards him and then brought it down onto his neck, severing his head and killing him.
Tilting his head, he stared at the decapitated body as he wondered how the killer of Douglas Haskell felt when he'd done that.
He didn't feel anything.
~"And better clean, oh clean your plate
Mama's been slavin' in the kitchen all day—"~
After Arvin had told him of his wife's body, he had found an old news article in one of his boxes labeled '1968'. She had gone missing: Lois Thorpe. She'd been an Elementary school aid. That was why Nate, who he learned was actually Warner Thorpe, made it a point to mention that her death happened towards the end of the school year.
He pulled another woman's body out of the ground of the Thorpe's backyard. Her name was Nicole. That was all Arvin could remember of the woman. They hadn't been together long before Warner Thorpe, having only been about twelve or thirteen, killed her with a hand trowel. Arvin made Warner bury her the same that he'd buried his mother.
The youngest victim was a teen girl. A runaway. He also found skeletons of cats and dogs.
~"Make sure to wipe the filth from your shoes
No one 'round here wants to know what you've been up to—"~
In 1980, he purchased a warehouse not far from the body farm near the San Gabriel Mountains. It had a high 19-foot ceiling, security fence, and it was perfect. He renovated the top floor into his living quarters and the main floor was quickly filled with the subjects of his experiments and his passion. Insects and the bodies.
Moths and butterflies flew around the interior of the warehouse, the flies escaping through the windows, and the spider he'd bought, the Mexican red-knee tarantula, walked over his hand before he placed him down on the table. Brachypelma smithi. He was beautiful.
Picking up his camera, he focused the lens and snapped a photo. Then, he picked him up and carried him with him over to the metal autopsy table where Angela Matthews was awaiting him. She had murdered children at the hospital where she'd worked as nurse. For some reason, she'd been granted bail. It could have been due to her age, or the fact that her parents were members of the city government, either way she was out. He could have let her face trial, but given the money her parents had, it would be a long drawn-out process; that was even if she faced a trial.
Then he realized the real reason he wanted to take her. It had nothing to do with his concern that she would walk, but the fact that he wanted her. The newspapers had called her an "Angel of Death". He called her his next subject.
Setting the spider on his chest that was strapped to the table, he gave her a once over as he explained, "I've been experimenting with toxins. Spider venom. I need to see if it can be used to paralyze a human body. I tested it on pigs. Killed a few. This last pig survived and was paralyzed for four hours before it was able to move again. Then I cut its throat, sliced him up, and made breakfast."
The woman squirmed on the table as she listened to his words and panicked at the sight of the spider on her chest as he walked closer to her face. Araña, his pet archnid, wasn't what she should be fearing. The spider was the most calm and docile tarantula in the world. He was harmless. But the spider that picked and pried, weaved webs of torment and torture in his mind wasn't.
He knew that she couldn't actually feel it crawling. A tarantula's step was so light, so delicate, that it didn't leave any prints behind. It was a ghost. Just like him.
"If you survive, I promise not to slice you up and cook you for breakfast. However, I will cut your throat," he told her before picking up the syringe and then injecting it into her neck.
His experiment had failed. She died within an hour of the injection despite trying to revive her with the antidote. Mistake made, now he had to figure out how to correct it. Was it her weight? The amount of venom? The duration of time?
So many different variables to consider. He'd need another subject.
Arriving at the crime scene, he ducked under the yellow tape, ignored the detectives and crime scene analysts, as he headed up the staircase. It was a spiral and the dead woman was halfway between the fourth and fifth floor.
Spotting the body, he knelt down, pulled on a pair of gloves and then took liver temp. His eyes took in the lighting from the lamps that lit the staircase, the shadows made in the corners, the blood that had poured from her neck down the wooden steps. He stepped over the body and walked up to the next flight.
Peering over the railing, down at the body of Angela Matthews, he pulled up his camera, focused the lens and snapped a picture. Then he sealed her up into a body bag, took her to the coroner's van, and took her back to the morgue.
He had left nothing behind.
Then he tested the venom on Steven Antoine.
Arriving at the crime scene, he spotted the body of Mr. Antoine in the Los Angeles River. The section of it that actually held water. The body was floating on top of the water with five stab wounds to the chest.
After Mr. Antoine had died, two hours after the venom took effect, he arranged five different styles of knife on a table and then stabbed him once with each knife. He had been trying to determine which one he preferred. They all had various differences: the weight, whether it was a switchblade, foldable pocket knife, or a hunting knife that could be carried on his belt in a sheath.
He still preferred the scalpel but he also liked the pocket knife with a serrated 3-inch blade. It could be clipped to his pocket or belt and was easy to open with the flick of his thumb. He would start carrying it with him so that he always had a knife on hand.
Raising his camera, he took a picture of Mr. Antoine. Then he helped the police fish the body out of the water.
After many attempts, he finally perfected the venom. He could administer it to anyone without death occurring. The only effect would be paralysis and it would last for up to four hours, more or less depending on weight.
He drove Richard Vestile, who was still alive and paralyzed in the back of his car, wrists bound and mouth taped, to the train tracks not too far from his warehouse. The man was a professional contract killer and the only reason he'd found him was due to the fact that he'd left a witness behind. A kid.
Stopping the car near the train track, he got out and grabbed the wheelchair out of the backseat. Pulling Mr. Vestile into the chair, he wheeled him to the entrance of the tunnel under the overpass. As Vestile knelt on the tracks, he held the contract killer's own gun in his latex covered hand.
He'd never killed anyone by using a gun before. This would be the first time. A surge of something that felt like swirling butterflies filled his gut. Nerves? Was this what nervousness felt like?
There was a hesitation to his movements. He pointed the gun to the back of the man's head but his finger had yet to reach the trigger. He realized he was waiting on an answer to a question he hadn't even asked.
So, he asked, "You saw the kid...the boy, why didn't you kill him? He was a witness."
The killer, this evil man who murdered people for money, told him, "I don't kill kids. Only someone truly evil kills a kid."
But...wasn't that what Mr. Vestile was? A truly evil man? He couldn't shake the sudden feeling that this was a mistake. Maybe Richard wasn't evil...Or…
The choice was there, in his mind. To kill or not to kill. He had so many reasons why he had to kill him.
Only one "maybe" for not killing him. In the end, he knew what he needed to do. He had already made his choice.
Coming to a decision, his finger found the trigger.
Bang!
The echoing sound of the gunshot filled his ears and vibrated all the way down into his gut. Tilting his head as he watched the blood spill out over the wooden planks of the train track, seeing the damage he had done as the killer laid motionless and dead below him, he decided that he never wanted to shoot a gun again in his life.
Dropping it beside the murderer, he heard a horn blowing in the distance of the approaching train as he walked away. His camera rested against his chest, the strap feeling heavy on the back of his neck.
He didn't take Richard's picture.
~"Down, down in a hole in the ground
There are ghosts that never can be found—"~
Two Days Ago
~"Home, home, home is in the ground
You're only waiting at the end of the road—"~
Sitting on the floor in Arvin Thorpe's basement, he used the electric power drill to drill eight holes into the floor, two per table leg for the table he was going to secure to the floor. After the holes were drilled, he reassembled the metal table that he had disassembled from his boat, making sure that the holes to the legs were lined up with the holes in the floor. Then he used the impact wrench to bolt the table to the floor.
Next, he attached the straps for the arms, waist and the legs. Making sure everything was good and tight, he then went over to the man lying unconscious in the wooden kitchen chair. Grabbing him up, he grabbed Mr. Thorpe up under the arms and pulled him onto the table and then strapped him down.
~"And nothing's better than blood on blood
I promise brother, you are safe with us—"~
Walking through the doors of the church, bypassing baptismal font, he walked down the aisle, between the pews as his eyes glanced around the interior of the Catholic church. Not much had changed in thirty-five years. It still looked the same, only smaller, and dimmer, as a soft light illuminated Jesus on the cross and a statue of Mother Mary. And the candles. So many candles lit up, offering a prayer to someone who needed help.
Sitting in one of the pews near the front, he sighed as he thought about why he had decided to go there that late in the evening; it was after midnight and he felt tired, worn down, but mostly…
"Penny for your thoughts?"
"Mine are free, Father. You want anything else, it'll take a confessional booth," he told him as he glanced up at the priest who stopped next to the pew and then sat down in the one in front of him.
"We can go in there if you want."
Shaking his head, he told him, "Thanks, but…no thank you." His hand reached into his pants pocket and he pulled out the rosary. His mother's. "I found this in a box." Labeled '1976'.
~"There's no telling what tomorrow will bring
We all have our devils and oh, you've got to let them sing—"~
That was two years after he last stepped foot in this church. He'd graduated college in '76, officially leaving behind his old life, his old home, and his mother. He didn't realize it until he found the rosary that his mother had stopped praying. She had stopped believing in God. And knowing that he still believed, she had slipped the rosary into his possessions.
It was an odd feeling, thinking that his mother had given him something that she thought he would need. Rubbing the rosary in his hand, he told the priest, "This was my family's church. I haven't been back here since...Since, I shook hands with the devil."
~"Sing, oh, sing for me
Beast in your belly, you've got to let it breathe
Sing, oh, sing for me—"~
The priest was looking at him, weary eyed but he wasn't afraid by what he'd told him. "Since you started to sin?" he asked.
He smirked, saying, "Long after that." Looking around, up at the cross, he told him, "I met a priest once who told me that even evil men deserved a chance at redemption. I don't believe that. For me, evil deserves to be killed. And since I'm evil…just like Father Thomas, it'll take my death to stop me."
"Father Thomas?" the man asked as he wrinkled his head in confusion.
"I met an evil man at this very church. He too wore a mask. The face of a good man with a priest's collar, priest's robes...Father Thomas. Underneath, he was a monster. I slay monsters."
"Meaning…?"
"I murdered him," he told him as he looked at the startled eyes of the priest.
The Father, whatever his name was, asked in confusion as his voice shook slightly, "I thought you didn't want to confess?"
He shook his head. "This isn't a confession, Father. I don't need nor want your forgiveness." He dropped the rosary in the priest's hand before telling him as he stood, "I just thought you would like to know who murdered Father Thomas in 1974."
Turning around, he left the Santa Monica church.
~"Beast in your belly, lord, you've got to let it sing—"~
That Evening
~"Home, home, home is in the ground
You're only waiting at the end of the road—"~
The man was standing in an alley, smoking a cigarette as he talked. And while he talked, his eyes roamed over him. How he twitched his left hand towards his back every time someone walked by on the sidewalk. The way his one good eye narrowed through the smoke. His left eye was black-and-blue. Thin, wiry body; he looked to only weigh about a buck-twenty. There was a wad of cash in his pocket. The stash of drugs in his other pocket.
He was a drug dealer. Dagan Kishbaugh. And he was telling him a story.
"He said his name was Fabian. Fabian! No one really has that name, do they? It has to be a joke or a fake name, so I immediately think this guy's a cop. I mean, Fabian?! And he's just talking, going on and on about how the homeless are really creatures called "shadow walkers" who're out to kill drifters. He's tweaking, man, I mean, going off on some weird, smoking too much Mary Jane, chasing the mother fucking dragon, bullshit. But I'm still hung up on the name thinking this guy has got to be a cop."
He only nodded as he continued to look the drug dealer over. Mr. Kishbaugh had spiky brown hair that stood up at odd angles and wore a pair of baggy jeans and a hooded sweatshirt that hung past the waistband of his pants. Concealment. He had drugs on him, and possibly a gun.
Mr. Kishbaugh leaned back against the wall, left leg lifted up to rest on the brick, as he waved his cigarette around as he went on with his story. "Next thing I know, he snaps. Grabs up this big baller, gangster looking dude right up off the couch by his throat. His throat! I couldn't believe it; he's got this dude up off the floor! Fabian's only five-six, a buck ten soakin' wet! He's got this dude up in the air! Then that's when I see his veins, man; they were popping. This dude was on something serious."
"Then what?"
Mr. Kishbaugh stared at him in disbelief and said, "He killed the guy. Strangled him. He turned to me and I thought I was next. He took two steps, threw a punch, and then dropped. Hit the floor like a lead balloon."
"Did he die?"
"Yeah. Right there on the floor at my feet. We took off, and, anyway, that's why the blackeye. I dealt that lethal shit to Fabian, and he croaked on me. The asshole owed me a hundred dollars. I searched his pockets after he died, only came up with lint."
He stared at Mr. Kishbaugh as he thought about what kind-of drug dealer tells someone that he had a blackeye because the last guy he had sold drugs to killed a man then died from the drug he'd just sold him. Either Mr. Kishbaugh was that honest or he was that far gone to care. In the end, he realized it didn't make much difference. He wasn't here to buy any drugs from him.
The thumping of the bass house music was pulsating the walls behind Mr. Kishbaugh as it blared out into the dark night. Then the door closed and it returned to only a muffled afterthought. The only light to have come from the inside of the club was a dark blue and blood red; it never even made a reflection in the rain puddles. He stepped forward to allow the two men who'd left arm-in-arm to pass behind him.
He watched as they turned the corner on the sidewalk before refocusing on Mr. Kishbaugh.
This could go one of two ways. One: Mr. Kishbaugh would scream and fight. Or, two...he would be cooperative as he froze up in fear.
The beast that pounded against his ribcage didn't care either way. He wanted out. He wanted to kill. And Mr. Kishbaugh would be his next victim. He stared at the guy as he felt his body tense in anticipation. This was going to get physical.
He reached up and took his glasses off his face and then slipped them into the breast pocket of his suit jacket.
"So, you want to buy some—" Before Mr. Kishbaugh could finish that sentence, he rushed him as he pinned him up against the wall. He tried to push him away as he yelled out, "Get the fuck off me!"
He grabbed Mr. Kishbaugh's wrist twisted it down and in, causing him to yelp in pain as he quickly removed the syringe and jammed it into his kick. Pressing his body down against his chest and shoving his leg hard in-between Mr. Kishbaugh's thighs, he held him up against the wall. He felt the body stiffen in his arms. Never lifting his full weight off the guy, he rested his left hand against the brick wall beside Mr. Kishbaugh's head.
"I didn't give you a full dose; only enough to make you cooperative. Be glad you can still talk, but in a whisper."
"Why—"
Question: Why?
It'd been years since he'd been physical with a victim before death. He usually paralyzed his victims to where they couldn't move nor speak. He always killed them in silence. No fight. No screams.
This experiment has been, so far, exhilarating. Closing his eyes slightly, he shivered at the emotion that rushed through his body. He'd never felt so much before a murder before. "I want to hear and feel your fear."
"Ar-are you going to rape me?"
He stared hard at Mr. Kishbaugh in confusion as he asked, "Why on earth would I rape you?"
Mr. Kishbaugh stared straight up at him as he said, "I-I don't know, man, sadistic people do that, ya know, th-they, uh, rape and murder."
"I'm not a rapist." He left the rest unsaid.
"Shit, man, this is so messed up," he whispered in fear. He heard the quake in his voice. The tightness in his throat. "This is-"
The talking was getting annoying. "Stop talking," he said just as he heard the backdoor open as a rush of music filled the stale air.
A couple of men were walking out but were held up at the door by some other people talking to them. They were laughing and talking as the music blared and bumped against the walls of the alleyway. He felt Mr. Kishbaugh went still as his eyes darted toward the group of men.
Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled the scalpel and felt the weight of it in his palm. He lifted it up and under the hoodie and the shirt underneath. As he slid the blade against Mr. Kishbaugh's rib cage, he felt his body go rigid.
Leaning down, he whispered into his ear, "Shhh, don't make a sound, just nod. You feel that?" he asked as he moved the blade from the left side below the ribs toward the belly button. He felt a nod into his shoulder and continued, "Pay attention and follow the blade." He slid it lower, letting the blade barely brush over the skin before dipping it below the waistline of the tight pants near his hip. "This is vital, Mr. Kishbaugh. If I cut here, that's called a vertical groin incision, not deadly. If you try to attract their attention, all I have to do is insert the blade deeper, right into the femoral artery. That is deadly. The first minute you'll bleed out profusely until you lose consciousness. Once that happens, your circulation will slow but your body will continue to pump blood out of your body. It'll take less than five minutes for you to bleed out."
The body under his was shaking and he heard soft mumbling then a choked sobbing against his shoulder. "D-on't, please, don't…"
As the people walked past them down the alleyway, he heard one guy yell back, "Wear a condom even if it's oral!"
"-I-I didn't, I haven't done anything—" Mr. Kishbaugh continued to say.
"Yes, you have. You dealt that "lethal shit" to Fabian, and because of that you killed two people. You put yourself in this position."
"Please don't, not with the knife...please, please...I'm sorry, you're right, I shouldn't have dealt that shit, man. I'll stop—"
"It's a scalpel, Mr. Kishbaugh, not a knife," he told his eyes bore into the scared, fearful eyes of the drug dealer.
He heard Mr. Kishbaugh swallow hard, feeling his Adam's apple bob against his collarbone, as he slid the blade up Mr. Kishbaugh's skin. "Dude, if you're trying to scare me straight, it's working. I won't deal again, okay? Can I go now?"
Staring down at him, he felt his need growing. "I told you I wasn't a rapist, Mr. Kishbaugh. I am, however, a sadistic murderer." He saw the widening of fear in his eyes right before he jammed the blade in between his ribs, the fourth and fifth, and right into the heart.
Feeling the blood covering his hand, the warmth of it, he shivered at the release his body felt as he finally gave into his need to kill. It was an addiction, much like the addict that bought their next fix until they overdosed. Again, he was reminded how he wouldn't stop; not until he was dead.
He eased Mr. Kishbaugh's lifeless body down in the light of the streetlight. Standing in the dark shadow of the alley, he stared down at the lifeless body as he wiped the blade clean and pocketed it. Then he pulled off the latex gloves as he left the alley and headed back to Arvin Thorpe's house.
He'd just bought the father of Warner Thorpe another day to live.
~"Down, down in a hole in the ground
There are ghosts that never can be found."~
TBC…
Disclaimer songs used/mentioned: "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" by Blind Willie Johnson and "Sing Sing" by The Bones of J.R. Jones.