Inhuman: Detective Chase hunts an animal who protects his own

by Nathan Senthil

  “Any upcoming events?” the masked man said.

  As always, he was in the same outfit, the same setting.

  Tyrel explained South Korea and his plans for the owner of a restaurant that served live octopuses as cultural food.

  “I hope you utilize what I’ve taught you,” Mr. Bunny said.

  “Of course, I will. I’m not gonna slip again.”

  “Good. Seoul, you said?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay. Keep your email open. I’ll send you something.”

  “All right.”

  Tyrel added a new tab in Chrome and logged into his account. When done, he swiveled the chair and sprang to his feet.

  “And, Boone? This is our last chat.”

  Tyrel stopped on his tracks. Turned and looked at Mr. Bunny.

  “What? Why?”

  “My sojourn has concluded, because my work here is done. You knew this day was inevitable, didn’t you?”

  “Can I see you at least once?” He hoped he didn’t sound desperate. “I mean, I have a vague idea of how you look… forget it. Go get a straw. Let’s have a beer on Skype, for old times—”

  “Boone?”

  “Y-yes?”

  “I’m going to teach you one last but very important lesson, and I hope you master it like you did the others.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “Don’t bond.” And without any farewell, he cut the call.

  The suddenness of it dismayed Tyrel, but calling back would be fruitless—he’d tried a few times before. He sighed and walked to the kitchen, got a Corona six-pack and returned to the chair.

  He couldn’t hate Mr. Bunny. That psycho rabbit had given him a lot of his time, coached him, and possibly saved him from lifelong incarceration. Tyrel had enjoyed every second of their interaction.

  Mr. Bunny hadn’t acted like a pompous dick after their first encounter. He’d said he wasn’t contentious, just plain-spoken. But he’d gifted Tyrel a new iPhone 8 Plus, as a peace offering.

  Before accepting Mr. Bunny’s tutelage, Tyrel put forth a condition—he wanted to know how he had been found out.

  And his tutor had told him.

  From an anonymous contact, Mr. Bunny got a list of people who had filed for their juvenile records to be expunged. This list was an ideal pool to pick his successor from, he’d said. Then he filtered out everyone who’d gone to prison after turning eighteen, which left him with only twenty-four candidates, Tyrel being one of them.

  Mr. Bunny had fixed GPS devices under their cars to espy who led double lives and tracked them in the way naturalists observed wild animals. Not long after, Tyrel drove to Ottawa. Intrigued, Mr. Bunny noted where he’d parked his car and how long it had stayed there. When the news about Gerald’s murder hit the media, Mr. Bunny had taken a real interest in Tyrel. He dismissed the other twenty-three, untagged their vehicles, and exclusively researched his selection.

  “I was monitoring you twenty-four-seven,” Mr. Bunny had said. “When you booked a flight to Berlin, I did, too. I boarded the same train you did and followed you to Munich. Then to the bar where you picked up the woman you eventually skinned.”

  A flash thought reminded Tyrel of the beautiful man who’d bought him drinks when he was flirting with Mila.

  “Holy shit, I’ve seen you! I know how you look.”

  “No, you don’t. You know I’m blond and Caucasian. You can’t draw a perfect sketch from that memory. That’s why eyewitnesses are notoriously renowned for giving contradictory descriptions. And that is also why I dared to show up personally.”

  “But I know you’re handsome. Trust me, I remember that about men. I’m sure I will make you out if I see you again.”

  “Fat chance. Let’s not digress. So after you entrapped Mila, I checked into a hotel. All I had to do to confirm my doubts about you was to tune in to the news channel the next day.”

  “That is mind-boggling. All right. What now? Let’s start the… um… classes.”

  “Before we begin aggrandizing your brain, let me ask you something. As I told you, you will be required to leave your old life and mistakes behind and start afresh. I want you to liquidate all your assets and be ready when that time comes. Can you do that?”

  Tyrel was an adherent of animal rights and animal retribution. Nothing else mattered. On a less important note, he didn’t have anything left in Apex except bad memories.

  “I can do that.”

  “Good. The first lesson is grooming.”

  “Huh? What?”

  “Cut your hair short and shave that beard.”

  “But I love how I look,” Tyrel whined.

  “For any type of criminal, it is paramount to be average looking. You should be someone who eyes don’t pause to look at. So you are going to look boring. Not like the love child of Charles Manson and Bigfoot.”

  Tyrel laughed. “Fine. I can groom.”

  “Good. See you tomorrow.” The line went blank.

  Tyrel had gone to a barbershop the next morning.

  Mr. Bunny called at nine that night. “You look handsome.”

  Tyrel blushed and rubbed his smooth chin.

  “But I wanted you to look common.”

  “Huh? This is my face.”

  “Then we are going to have to do something about it, aren’t we? I know a plastic surgeon down in Brazil. He changes the faces of criminals all the time. There is a chance he may ruin your face and make it hideous, but you have to take that gamble.”

  Tyrel glowered at Mr. Bunny. He wasn’t going to let some underground doctor put a knife to his face.

  “Are you serious? Please tell me you’re joking.”

  The rabbit mask didn’t move a millimeter. The impassive blue eyes staring out of the laptop made Tyrel uneasy.

  “I was,” Mr. Bunny said.

  Tyrel released a huge breath and placed a hand on his chest.

  “Goddamn asshole.”

  Mr. Bunny cleared his throat, as if he had been smiling behind that stupid mask.

  “Next lesson. I believe you take trophies. Gerald and Mila were missing a certain body part. That has to stop.”

  “Why? The police will wise-up to the MO and link the murders? Don’t worry. They will never recover their hearts.” He paused. “I ate them.”

  “Taking hearts is not modus operandi. It’s signature. Apples and oranges,” Mr. Bunny said, calmly, unaffected by the chilling secret Tyrel had hoped would turn his stomach and give him the creeps. “MO pertains to functionality and signature to psychology. And yes, you are correct. They will link the murders. We don’t need that kind of heat.”

  Part ashamed that his little trick didn’t work, and part helpless because he couldn’t stop the ritual, he pursed his lips and avoided eye contact.

  Mr. Bunny sighed. “Okay. Is it really imperative that you eat them?”

  “Yeah. It is.”

  “I could never understand you serial killers and your fetishes.” Mr. Bunny shook his head. “Fine, fine, you can eat them. But there is a condition—the bodies must never be discovered. Dissolve them, or bury them, or puncture their stomachs, tie them to cinder blocks, and drop them above Mariana Trench. But no one should find the bodies.”

  “Got it. But wait, what do you mean you serial killers? Aren’t you one?”

  “Nope. Technically not yet.”

  Tyrel couldn’t stop laughing, and Mr. Bunny waited it out. Tyrel was elated because he knew what technically meant. At last, he was better at something than his teacher.

  “I’ve killed thirty-two, possibly thirty-three,” Tyrel said, “and I’m listening to someone who’s not even killed three?”

  “I’ve been learning crime for two decades, Boone. Killing and evading the consequences was easy back then, and it wouldn’t be any different now.”

  “So why haven’t you?”

  “Because murder doesn’t interest me. I have tectonic ambitions.”

  “What are they?”

  Although
Tyrel did not expect a reply, Mr. Bunny not only provided him with an answer, but an elaborate one at that.

  “I will kill fifteen people next year. The first ten are dry-runs to fix errors and gain firsthand experience.”

  Tyrel could swear he heard a hint of animation in his voice.

  “The last five will be related to the most powerful cogs in the criminal justice system.”

  “Well, I’ve killed a billionaire. Don’t know how you’re gonna one-up that.”

  “Killing a rich businessperson causes a small hiccup in the economy and demands a clamant response from the cops, I agree. But once the ardor of the initial stages of the investigation and bad publicity wears off, there is nothing to motivate them. But if you kill people who are close and dear to authorities responsible for criminal investigation and conviction, they will never stop giving their full effort until I either get caught, or they accept that the case is unsolvable and kill themselves.”

  “But that’s very personal.”

  “Exactly,” Mr. Bunny said, excited. Tyrel had another peek into his opaque shell. “I will help create an all-powerful team whose only job would be to hunt me down. A team made from the executive wing of criminal justice. And when I triumph, I will have proven to the world that justice is a mirage. But to actualize all this, I need the greatest weapon of mankind—knowledge. That’s why I’ve taught myself everything there is to learn about crime.”

  “Wow!”

  Mr. Bunny wasn’t an android, after all.

  “But why justice? Don’t you—”

  “That’s enough. I’ve divulged more than I should have.”

  Is he feeling guilty for sharing his feelings? Or guilty for knowing that he is capable of emotions? How far up one’s ass does a person have to be to think he is not even a bit like ordinary folks?

  “Whatever gets your rocks up.” Tyrel lifted his hands in submission.

  “Okay, tell me. Before this brief distraction, you said you’ve killed thirty-two. I know what happened to the last two, but the remaining thirty?”

  Uh-oh. “I buried them.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t bury them on your property.”

  “Yeah… I kinda did.” Tyrel struggled to keep from scratching the back of his head.

  “Damage control. I can’t help you. And for obvious reasons, you can’t hire someone else to do it.”

  “Then?” Tyrel frowned.

  “You are gonna have to dig them all out and dispose of them responsibly.”

  “What! Are you kidding me? I don’t even remember where I buried most of them!” Tyrel took a deep breath and let it out.

  Serial killer problems.

  “Why should I even care? The cops are going to know I’m a murderer, anyway.”

  “But thirty bodies is a lot, and you are a cannibal. I cannot visualize this not morphing into a national sensation. And when the whole country sees your face on every news network for so many weeks, you will become infamous. Then people will remember your face. Unless you want to live in a cave for the rest of your life, you listen to me.”

  “Oh, shit. Maybe I can—”

  “Get. Rid. Of. Them.”

  “All right. I’ll try.”

  “I don’t believe you. So as a contingency plan, apart from your new American IDs, I will get you a pair of Mexican IDs. Use them if you need to leave the US for good.”

  Tyrel nodded, embarrassed.

  The dogmas Mr. Bunny talked about weren’t boring. As Tyrel had thirty-two crime stories, Mr. Bunny had turned them all into case studies. Mr. Bunny would ask Tyrel to describe each murder in great detail. When Tyrel was done reciting, Mr. Bunny would enumerate all the possible ways police could have solved it. It was a creative technique to remember missteps by. Tyrel had an electronic document full of notes with dos and don’ts, and a separate file for how he would do those thirty-two crimes differently now.

  In under two months, Tyrel absorbed what Mr. Bunny had to offer, and indeed became smart. Mr. Bunny educated him on the nuances of crime that most criminals overlooked. Tyrel acquired the finesse of an invisible cat burglar, the antithesis of his innate personality, which was along the lines of smash-and-grab.

  “The more planned and slick your works are,” Mr. Bunny said, “the better your chances of committing perfect crimes.”

  Tyrel was taught to switch off his cell phone before entering a crime scene. To change cars—or at least, change the tires and paint. To pick locks and hotwire cars. To buy generic clothes and shoes and incinerate them after the completion of a project. To wear a hairnet. To synthesize chloroform, ricin, and hydrogen cyanide. He was also taught how to use radio frequency jammers and override sophisticated security systems. And how to put together a pair of LED goggles to bypass CCTV’s facial recognition software.

  When Tyrel wanted to learn about fingerprints and DNA, Mr. Bunny dropped an atom bomb—the Canadian police already had Tyrel’s DNA profile in their system. Tyrel protested that there was no way. He didn’t bleed, nor did he fuck.

  Mr. Bunny asked if he’d touched the murder weapons with his bare hands. Tyrel had. He’d removed his gloves because holding the slippery metal and thrusting it into someone’s flesh while wearing latex was impossible. But he’d erased the fingerprints before he’d left Gerald’s house. Mr. Bunny said that sweat and dead skin cells, which made fingerprints, could also serve as an excellent source for DNA swabs. Tyrel remembered how hard it had been to wedge the javelins into Gerald’s shoulder, how his palms had sweated profusely.

  Mr. Bunny had access to expunged juvenile records and Tyrel’s travel plans. He even got police files from other countries. Who was this guy?

  A day after Christmas, Tyrel received a chunky package in the mail. It contained Tyrel’s new identity, passport, social security number, the whole deal. And the contingency plan—two IDs from Mexico. There was also a note in it saying it was time to move.

  The next day, Tyrel left everything behind, including the Buick he’d had all these years. Though he broke into Shane’s new apartment before he left, searching for his stolen skulls, he didn’t actually meet Shane. He didn’t have the courage to say goodbye. He was crossing the line that day, and there was no turning back. Tyrel L. Boone would disappear from the face of the earth.

  While Tyrel was settling into his new house, Mr. Bunny called him. He didn’t inquire about the emotional turmoil accompanying the migration, or about the blues he felt in the new place. He asked if Tyrel was running short on cash, which was the case. Tyrel had long since given up asking how Mr. Bunny knew all this.

  Tyrel shrugged and said the old house and ranch hadn’t sold when he left Apex. Only the potato plantation had. More than ninety percent of the money he got from that deal went towards the care for his animals. Even that would last only for two years, and he might have to think about committing a robbery. Mr. Bunny ordered him not to do such a quotidian thing, promising he would watch Tyrel from a distance. And if he followed Mr. Bunny’s lessons, he would solve Tyrel’s financial troubles forever. That was kind of him.

  Tyrel emptied his last beer and looked away from the wall he had been staring at during his reverie. He needed to take a piss. He was about to push himself up to his feet, when he remembered something. Did he hear a beep while he was reminiscing about his precious time with Mr. Bunny?

  He opened his sleeping computer.

  A new email with the subject Handsel waited for him, and in it was a pair of tickets for his Seoul trip.

  Chapter 29

  April 10, 2019. 06:17 A.M.

  Gabriel stood in front of the bathroom mirror, examining his scalloped tongue. The Internet said his symptoms meant tongue cancer, but what didn’t entail the Big C nowadays? He doubted it was caused by overthinking or the dehydration resulting from staying awake the entire night. Once he had found their killer’s name, Gabriel wasn’t able to sleep.

  When the rush of breaking open the case had waned, Gabriel had called Emma and Bill to
share the news. They arrived at the apartment an hour later.

  Emma scanned Gabriel from head to toe. “I can’t tell you how satisfied my eyes are.”

  Gabriel had always worn a brown jacket, white shirt, and jeans. But that morning he was in nightwear—black sweatpants and a T-shirt, his lush hair tamed with a wavy metal hairband.

  “By the way, where is your motorbike?” Emma said.

  “I loaned it to a friend.”

  “Loaned your motorbike? You scrimped and saved to buy it, remember? What if your friend crashes it?”

  “Geez, Em,” Bill said. “Get off his back. You aren’t his mom.”

  “It’s all right, Em. It’s kind of a bribe to the FBI girl who’s been helping us. She will take good care of it.” Gabriel used his inhaler.

  “If you say so. Congrats, by the way.” Emma squeezed his shoulder on her way to the kitchen, chafing her hands as she went.

  Bill snooped around Gabriel’s bookshelf, which was overflowing with cases of PS4 games and animated TV shows. A minute passed before anyone spoke again.

  “By the way,” Emma emerged with a cup of coffee, “perhaps the reason Tyrel wasn’t on Han’s list—and it’s purely guesswork—was because he changed his name after killing Mila. Not legally—we would have a trail if he had, and we don’t. But with Noah’s help, it’s possible. Noah had the connections and the money to get his new buddy authentic IDs.”

  Changed his name. Of course Tyrel had changed his name. Gabriel had been racking his brain as to how Tyrel’s passport wasn’t registered in Seoul, and now Emma had found the answer. Another big mystery solved in one day.

  The night before, Gabriel had researched Tyrel using Madeline’s computer. His passport had been stamped at the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge the same afternoon Gerald was murdered. Gabriel retrieved the video from the booth. A blue Buick rolled past the camera, and on its roof were javelins wrapped in a yellow tarp. The border patrol officer talked to the man in the driver’s seat, who wore his long brown hair loose.

  Gabriel opened the passport image. Tyrel had his hair tied in a neat ponytail. Passport authorities must have asked him to comb the hair back and make his face less obscure, which was already hidden well by a thick beard.