by Bobby Nash
Oh, not that the reasons behind planned machinations were forgotten.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
The Controller would never take his eyes completely off the ultimate prize. There was a goal at the end of the game and The Controller was determined to win. The finish line was in sight and it was getting closer all the time. And even though there was still much work to be done to complete the project, he was confident he would reach that destination soon enough.
But why not have some fun getting there? In fact... he thought and looked at his watch, noting the time. He clicked the mouse on the computer at the far right. It was cued up and ready to pull the trigger as soon as his operative logged on. Which should happen any minute. It wouldn’t be long before testing resumed, but he had time to compose a letter beforehand.
A shudder of excitement passed through The Controller as nimble fingers began typing, the clacking of the keys filling the room as he composed the letter. He was confident in his choice. There was no time to waste squaring off against an unworthy opponent.
He was certain he had chosen wisely this time, but to make sure she was truly the one for him he would have to test her first. If she proved worthy, this would be but the first of many correspondences to come.
Licking his lips, he started typing.
Dear Detective Jackson…
five
Lawrenceville, Georgia
Three days ago…
Marnie Jameson was quite content with her new life.
Retirement was not turning out to be the beginning of the end she had dreaded it to be. In the months leading up to her retirement party, Marnie had fretted over the decision. She had even changed and re-changed her mind at least five times. Oh, she put on a good act for her friends and colleagues, but in truth, she was terrified of the prospect. The fear of no longer being needed plagued her right up to her very last day on the job.
And beyond.
Now, two weeks into her retirement, she found that there was plenty to keep her occupied. So far, she had finally gotten around to weeding her flowerbeds and performing a minor landscaping miracle on the disaster area that had been her front lawn. The brutally hot summers in Georgia did nothing to help her pretty flowers grow. It would take a lot of extra tender loving care, and time, to make her plants blossom and bloom. The Georgia weather was not good for them or her allergies. Not for the first time, she contemplated packing up everything and moving to a more temperate clime.
Somewhere with a lot less humidity, of course.
Marnie’s husband, Frank, had passed away three years earlier so her grandson, Billy, helped her with the trim. With her arthritis, there was little chance in hell that she would be able to do it on her own.
Billy was her pride and joy. The biggest plus to being at home all day was spending more time with the boy. Well, when she could pull him away from the computer or the TV. Like many kids his age, he had never had to live without a computer of some kind within arm’s reach at all times. She loved her smartphone, but even she could set it down every now and again.
Billy’s parents were gone. His Dad, whom Marnie affectionately referred to as that no good sonuvabitch, was God only knew where. No one in the family had heard so much as a peep from him in ten or eleven years. Marnie wondered if Billy even remembered his father, much less missed him. They never spoke on the subject and she was hesitant to bring it up. She knew the day would come when her grandson would start to ask questions about his father. It was only a matter of time It wasn’t a conversation she looked forward to having with him, but she had been mentally preparing herself for it since the no good sonuvabitch ran off.
If it ain’t broke, she told herself every time the urge to broach the subject popped into her mind. She decided she would wait until he wanted to talk about it. She hoped that day was far, far away.
Billy’s mother was wasting away in a rehab clinic somewhere in the wilds of Montana. Sherri was Marnie’s only daughter and she had begged her parents to adopt Billy and to take care of him while she tried to get her life back together. Sherri wanted her son to grow up and become a better person than she was and knew he had a better chance of succeeding with his grandparents than with her. Marnie had no doubt her daughter loved her son as she loved her own daughter.
She also knew Sherri would never come back for the boy.
Marnie and Frank were only happy to agree to her wishes so they could keep their only grandchild within the family and out of the hands of Children’s Services. The very thought of her grandchild being traded around like some kind of baseball card or comic book from one foster family to another was anathema to her. No way was it going to happen as long as there was a breath in her body.
That was then.
Now, Billy was a teenager.
They got along all right, the two of them. There were the usual familial clashes about homework, what friends Billy hung out with, that sort of thing. Most often they clashed over his choice of appearance, which of late included baggy clothes five sizes too large, long and unkempt hair, and hooded sweatshirts which were always on. Sometimes all she could see from beneath the hoodie was that nappy hair trying to escape.
She wondered if the world would end if the boy wore anything other than black.
But these were minor issues. He was a good kid and she doted on him.
And why not?
Was that not the job description of Grandmother?
Billy did his chores, made decent grades, and for the most part steered clear of trouble. If it weren’t for his excessive pestering in regards to getting a tattoo, of which there was no chance in hell of happening except over her dead body, he would be the perfect child.
Scooping up her loose pile of the offensive weeds that had become her mortal enemy over the past couple of weeks of blissful freedom, Marnie headed up the three stairs to her front door.
Leaving her dirty garden shoes by the door, she plodded down the hallway and across the kitchen in stocking feet. She disposed of the enemy weeds in the nearest garbage can then moved to the sink to wash away the dirt and grime from her hands and arms.
“Billy?” she called as her hands lathered up.
No response.
Again, this was not so unusual. He probably had his ear buds in and the music cracked up way too high.
“Billy!”
Letting out a deep breath as she dried her hands on the rose patterned dishtowel she’d grabbed from over the sink, Marnie marched down the hallway toward her grandson’s room.
All seemed quiet as she reached the closed door.
She knew it would be locked. This wasn’t any big revelation as it was always locked. After the incident a few months earlier when she had walked in on Billy with the pornographic website on his computer and ew... she just wanted to forget she’d ever seen that. They’d had a good long chat after that. She knew that as a teenage boy he was going to be curious, but what she saw that supposed teenage girl doing to that man on the computer screen was something she’d never even considered doing with her husband after many years of marriage. She wasn’t even sure she knew how to do what that girl on the screen was doing.
She was sort of grateful he was taking precautions nowadays and locked the door. If nothing else, it put an end to any more such embarrassing moments.
Trying to set a good example about respecting the privacy of others, she knocked gingerly on the door. “Billy? Honey, I need you to do the trimming for me,” she said.
No answer.
Marnie could hear music playing from inside, so maybe he hadn’t heard her so she knocked again, a little more forcibly this time.
After a rustling from inside the boy’s fortress of solitude, the door opened just a crack and Billy’s pale blue eyes peeked out at her from behind the hair that constantly fell in front of them. He looked tired.
“Yeah, Grandma?”
“I need you to do the trimming, Billy.”
“Can it wait awhile?”
&
nbsp; “No. Let’s go ahead and get it done early. We’re supposed to go out to eat with the Carruthers’ today at lunch, then I thought we’d go by the Mall of Georgia for a little shopping. Maybe we can even catch a movie if you want.”
Billy groaned in that specific way that only teenagers knew how to do. One might think she was asking him to take up a sword and go slay the biggest dragon in the land instead of whacking a few measly weeds.
“It’ll only take you ten minutes if you’d just go out there and do it before it gets too hot. Come on, you know I don’t ask for much.”
Billy let out a deep breath reminiscent of the one his grandmother had only moments before. Had she noticed the similarities in their behavior, she might have thought it funny. As it was, she found it only slightly less annoying than he did when she was the guilty party.
“I’ll be right out, Grandma,” he replied, caving into the guilt she wielded against him. “You know I don't ask for much, indeed,” he muttered as he pulled on his shoes. He knew better than to get into an extended debate with his grandmother because she always --ALWAYS-- won.
There’s no sense arguing with that woman, Billy’s grandfather had told him a long time ago. She’s as stubborn as a mule. Just don’t tell her I said that, he had said with a smile.
Billy remembered that particular lesson above all of the others that his grandfather had taught him before he died.
Marnie went back to the kitchen and set a pot of water on the stove to boil. She wanted to make tea so it would be nice and chilled by the time they returned from the movies in the afternoon.
A minute later, Billy addled passed, mumbling to himself, which she found odd, but no more so than the music he listened to or the fact that he would only wear clothes four sizes too large. And black, naturally. He only black clothes these days, usually with a picture of some band she had never heard of on it.
She smiled in that grandmotherly way when she heard the weed trimmer rumble to life a minute later. She began unloading the dishwasher as the sound of the whirling blades on the trimmer quickly faded into the background and were finally tuned out. So engrossed was she in her own chores that she began to hum to herself, tuning out the rest of the world.
It startled her when she heard the back door, which was just off the kitchen, slam shut.
It was really odd, because she could still hear Billy working on the lawn now that she was listening for it, although the sound was surprisingly loud.
She turned around to check the door, because that is what people do when they hear an unexplained noise; they naturally turn to see what caused it. It was nothing more than simple human nature on its most base level.
Marnie’s weathered face should have registered fear, but she could not equate the image before her with that emotion.
In the doorway stood Billy.
Or something that seemed to be wearing her grandson’s body.
He was covered in blood, presumably his own. It matted down the hair on the left side of his face. Upon initial glance, it looked like he had been cut on the shoulder and forehead, just above the left eye. Plus, blood flowed freely from his nose. The blood splattered the floor and was pooling around his bare feet.
But didn’t he have on shoes when he went out?
She was sure he had, but now she really couldn’t recall.
“Billy?” she asked incredulously. She really was having a hard time putting this together in her mind. Maybe it was shock.
Or maybe…
That was when Marnie Jameson, age 66, realized that the plastic blades on the weed trimmer were still spinning. Billy was grasping the trigger with all his strength, his trembling knuckles transformed into an ugly shade of white as they gripped the handle and trigger tight. With the blades whirling in her general direction, she couldn’t get close enough to her boy to check his wounds.
“Billy, honey, are you hurt?”
Okay, now that was a stupid question.
“Who did this to you?”
That’s a little better.
“What happened?”
He said nothing, which only notched up the level of panic that was quickly rising in his grandmother. Billy’s mouth twitched at the edge, almost as if he were fighting for control of his body or was in intense pain, which seemed understandable considering that he was bleeding all over the linoleum. The boy’s body shook, partly from the whirring motor of the weed eater, but also as if he were trying to fight some unknown urge.
“Billy,” she said again, this timer holding one hand toward him, palm outward, and the other toward the long handle of the trimmer. Her voice and mannerisms were soft and non-threatening.
“I’m going to help you, honey. Just be careful with…”
She was going to say “that” but didn’t get that far before Billy swung the whirring blades toward her face. While not the fastest creature on Earth, Marnie Jameson tried to sidestep the blow, but he was too fast for her. Plus, never in a million years would she think Billy would ever, ever hurt her.
It was just too unfathomable to comprehend.
Even as she fell to the floor, clutching her bleeding cheek, Marnie could not believe he could ever strike her, much less intend to do her bodily harm. Her grandson was not a violent kid. This didn’t make any sense. Why was he doing this?
And, as absurd as it might sound, all she could think about was how tough it was going to be to get the bloodstains off of the light blue linoleum floor.
In fact, that was the final thought going through her mind the instant Billy delivered the fatal blow.
six
Washington DC
Saturday
Catherine Jackson was exhausted.
By the time she finally returned home, Saturday was all but gone.
Another fine weekend shot to hell, she thought as she fell into the sofa and propped her tired bare feet on the coffee table, her shoes abandoned next to her bedroom door.
The worst part of her job wasn’t dealing with the dead bodies. It wasn’t the viciousness of the attacks or the smells that made her stomach do cartwheels. Sure, she didn’t enjoy those, but she had learned how to cope. It wasn’t even having to be in the same room with the scum of the earth who committed cold blooded murder and other depraved acts too cruel for the average person to believe. These people were little more than cockroaches, but they were not the worst part of her job. No, the worst part of her job, and Jacks knew she would be hard pressed to find another cop who disagreed, was the paperwork. For every one form or file she had to fill out, there were a half dozen others just waiting in the wings for her signature.
Police work was a never-ending string of forms, files, and unique procedures on how to handle each one.
After leaving the crime scene, she and Mel went by the office to work up the case file. She started working on the murder board while he typed up their statements and started putting together the murder book. They documented all of the evidence collected at the scene, listed the victims by name and where the bodies were found, did complete write ups on each victim. A floor plan for the Washington’s home was also procured and was tacked up on the board as well. Jacks diagramed a copy of the map with the location of the bodies and the collected evidence.
Until they marked this file closed, the board and book would be the center of the investigation.
There were few clues. The C.S.U. techs would not have their final reports for a few days and they still had to wait for the medical examiner to do the autopsies and for someone to go through the family computer so Jacks and her partner only had part of the facts at the moment.
For all that they had, they really didn’t have much that explained things to their satisfaction, but there was enough to form a loose theory or two.
The most logical, initial guess was home invasion. Someone got inside the house and it was over before either adult could do anything. The daughter obviously watched as her mother was killed right before her eyes. The consensus was that Janine Washingto
n had died first. The consistency of the dried blood supported that supposition, which they were fairly certain would be substantiated by the M.E’s report.
The only part that didn’t add up was the father’s whereabouts during the killings. Both female victims were sitting at the kitchen table, presumably eating dinner when the attack happened. They had not been there long. The food on the plates had barely been touched. Dad’s plate looked to have been eaten off of as well, yet he was killed in the den down the hall. Perhaps they were looking for more than one suspect. C.S.U. would be able to give them a more definitive answer when the tests came back.
The other theory posited was murder/suicide. The father snapped and killed his family, then did himself in after he realized what he had done. It wasn’t the theory they liked, but there it was nonetheless.
So, with a couple of theories in place, Jacks and Melvin worked up a game plan for attacking the evidence, briefed their captain, and after eleven hours, called it a day. Technically, it was still their day off. They would pick back up with the case once the lab reports came in. The captain had assigned another detective, Pat Hunley, the task of tracking down any family members and handling the notifications, which the detectives appreciated. Hunley was a veteran detective. He would brief them on the family, but Jacks had no reason to suspect them.
Jacks appreciated the fact that someone else would handle it because she was running on nothing but adrenaline and caffeine, which made for a lousy bedside manner. Talking to a victim’s family was the last thing she needed to be doing in her present state.
After talking to the captain, she scooped up the mail off her desk and headed for the door before anyone could ask her just one more thing.
What she really needed was some sleep.
###
Jacks had never been so happy to go home.
