by Tyler Porter
After making sure that she had calmed down from the incident, I found my way back to the Jeep and started toward the house. I really was loving the peace and quiet of my new lifestyle, but the temporary excitement was appreciated. It truly was odd going from having my gun drawn more days than not, to my beer at Vern’s being the highlight of the action in my day. I pulled into the driveway and stopped at the mailbox on the porch before walking inside. From the mailbox, I pulled out a single envelope addressed to me with the name and address hand written on the envelope. There was no return address.
I slid it into my back pocket and walked inside. I dropped my keys, wallet and phone on the credenza in the entryway and went to the kitchen. I preheated the oven to 425 degrees and set the now not-so-frozen pizza on the pan. While I waited, I sat down to open the envelope. Inside, there was a letter, it was from Shelby.
Casey,
I am sorry to have ended things the way that I did. I know that it was unexpected and that I have not returned any of your calls or texts, but it was too hard. It was too hard for me to face that there was no future. Not for me and not for us. This was always the way it was going to end, and I think we both knew that.
I am doing fine now, and can truly say that I am happy. I have moved on to a new phase in my life. Much more controlled, less left up to fate. I have no more fear, no more stress. I have found my paradise and it is unlike any other. I can only hope that you have found the same in your new home and new life.
Please do not continue attempting to contact me. I am different now, in a different place and of different mind. You are not meant for my life, or any life. You have been built by false successes and false praise. Your counterfeit career is a myth, a fairytale and you have never been truly tested. You may be able to continue to live a lie, but I cannot. I wish you the best, and you can rest easy knowing that I am living the life God wanted for me. The life God planned.
Love,
Shelby
Reading it, surprisingly, hurt more than I thought it would. After all, I knew I wasn’t enough for her, but I never expected her to go out of her way to put it so bluntly. Slowly though, I started analyzing the letter. Shelby didn’t talk that way. She didn’t know much of anything about my career or past successes so she wouldn’t have had such a strong feeling toward it as described in the letter.
She also wasn’t highly religious, in fact, I would have been surprised if she’d read as much as a single verse from the bible, and she was referencing God in her letter? Then, as I moved down the page, it made sense. The reason that the letter from Shelby seemed so out of character, was because the letter was not from Shelby, and the sender made sure I knew it at the bottom of the letter.
P.S. Are you feeling overwhelmed, Casey? That is alright. I have a technique to help with that, and I am teaching it to Shelby right now.
Chapter 9: Attention Getter
It would be a lie to say I was not disappointed. I had taken the voluptuous, blue-eyed, blondie weeks ago and even sent a letter. The dumb bastard did nothing. I watched him, day in and day out, sitting on his porch, sipping his coffee. Every day I watched him go to Vern’s, go to the grocery and go home. Every day the same thing. I knew he had received the letter. I’d witnessed him read it from the living room window.
After he finished it, he set it back down on the table and put his pizza in the oven. That was three days ago and it was still sitting there. Did he think this was some kind of joke? Was this case not lucrative enough for the infamous Casey Norris? No problem, I would just have to kick things up a notch. If he wouldn’t respond to words, maybe he would respond to action. I was very simply going to have to go the extra mile to get his attention.
Shelby would have to die. There was no question about that. The question was what could I learn from her before she died? Maybe she had interior knowledge of what made Norris tick. After all, I had personally witnessed him cut his time short at the bar to go home to her. That must count for something. I would conduct a little interrogation later. As I sat in my watching spot, observing the house and watching my clock run knowing it would be mere moments before he emerged for his daily bar run, I thought about my childhood of all things.
I didn’t realize it when I was young, and maybe my parents didn’t either, but I had always had the killer instinct. My father had been so proud of my hunting accolades. Youngest in town to bag my first deer, always the first to bring in whatever beast the town was hunting for during every hunting season and always supplied the plumpest turkey for Thanksgiving. I could recall him touting to his friends at the Lodge about my abilities. He would subtly use me to gain some sort of edge over them and their inferior sons.
He and my mother were so busy singing my praises; I don’t think they ever saw the signs. My coming of age was, regrettably, no different than most other serial killers. It started with a sort of obsession with fire. First, it was playing with matches, and then setting a bush on fire in a public park causing no major damage. Then the arson somehow got mixed in with animal cruelty when I set the neighbor’s dog on fire. To be fair, the stupid thing ran up and grabbed an ice cream cone right out of my hand. I was only twelve at the time.
I did a little more experimenting with animals as I got older, generally dogs. Dogs are stupid. They will come right into the lion’s den if they think it will earn them a treat. Then I hit driving age and things ramped up. My first kill, Melanie Green, should have been my second, but I was sloppy in my youth. When I was seventeen, the urges really began to get to me. I could vividly remember sitting in class one day, and Veronica Hill walked in. She was gorgeous. Tall, developed, rich, and easy.
Every boy in the class was staring at her while she worked her way to her seat. I was staring right along with them, but I have to imagine that I was having very different thoughts about her. They were imagining sliding up her black, tight-fitting dress. They probably considered bending her over Mrs. Allen’s desk. Maybe they pondered what she smelled or tasted like. I also imagined taking her dress off, but only because I wanted to watch the steel of a blade puncture her bare skin without the interruption from the cloth.
I thought about choking her without mercy, forcing her eyes halfway out of socket. I thought about dragging her lifeless body out into the woods where I liked to hunt. Burying her where she could never be found. I wondered what her lifeless corpse would feel like. I wondered what her fresh blood would smell like. I thought about all of it, but the thing that aroused me the most, was thinking about how her high-level social status would do nothing to save her. She had never given me so much as a single glance. To her, I was just part of everyone else, nothing special.
I wanted to force her to see me. I wanted to force her to watch me dominate her and shred every ounce of decency from her filthy, spoon-fed life. Hell, I half considered leaving her body out in the open so that everyone would see what I did. They would all have to look at me then. They would have to take me seriously. They wouldn’t have been able to overlook me anymore. I plotted and I waited patiently. I planned out every last detail, or at least I thought.
The stage could not have been more perfectly set, if God had done it himself. Veronica Hill always took the same way home. She lived about three-quarters of a mile from school and the most direct path was through the woods. Kids had stomped out a trail over the years, and for weeks, I watched from a distance as she came and went. Always all alone. The night before I was going to take her, I dug out our winter gear from the attic and borrowed dad’s old, black ski mask and a pair of gloves.
I skipped out of school before the last period, and concealed myself, perfectly, on the side of the trail. 3:45pm, there she came, right on schedule. The little bitch hummed while she walked, and why shouldn’t she? In her mind, she was queen of the school. Daughter of the town’s richest parents. Not to mention every boy who was even part way through puberty wanted her desperately. What did she have to wo
rry about?
I had tied a thin, black rope to a tree directly across from where I was waiting. It was loose on the ground and surrounded by leaves. Completely hidden until she went to take the last step and I pulled it tight. She had been speed walking, so the trip sent her flying to the ground where she hit her head. The fall knocked her out cold, again, couldn’t have been much more perfect. I quickly dragged her off the path and deeper into the thick of the trees and brush. I had never forgotten the terror in her eyes when she woke up.
Her hands were tied above her head to a tree, her clothes had been removed, and someone wearing a black ski mask stood over her with a hunting knife in their hand. She didn’t scream. I truly believed that she wanted to, but maybe she just couldn’t. I wanted that moment to last. Her eyes wide with fear. She was seeing me now. I had her complete, undivided attention and her whole world revolved around me in that moment. My mistake was waiting. I wanted to stretch those few minutes forever.
I had actually been so stupid as to leave her tied up there to go home for dinner, planning to return afterwards for the main event, but the time would never come. I had never felt more rage than in the moment when I went back to the spot I had left her in the woods to discover that her place had been taken by several police officers with flashlights and yellow caution tape. She had escaped, and now the local police were searching for clues on her abductor.
They didn’t know it at the time, but they weren’t going to find anything. I still had the knife with me at that very moment and had disposed of the rope, mask and gloves in a nearby creek. I was so angry. Angry at her, angry at the police, and mostly, angry with myself. I had her. I was so close and I had blown it. I was so mad that I had deeply considered storming into the group of policemen and taking out as many as possible before they could draw their guns and kill me.
Even being as angry as I had been, it was way too close. The key to success in the killing game is to do it brutally for all to see, but never get caught. I had been so very close to brutalizing Veronica Hill, but I had also been way too close to getting caught. I learned from that and I had all the intention in the world in plotting my next opportunity, but the urges faded. Either that, or I had been able to redirect that energy in a different way. I had managed to exist in society without raising the slightest awareness to my true nature, and that, in my eyes, was art.
The urges didn’t stay away forever though. I thought they might for a long time, but along came Detective Casey Norris. Something about him brought back the old feelings, but in a different way. I didn’t just want to kill him. I wanted to destroy him. I wanted to use him to create my spectacle, a spectacle so bright that the world would have to see me and I was getting impatient. I had spent my entire life being overlooked and even now when I had three, going on four, kills under my belt, I was still being lumped in with the crowd. Nothing special.
I waited for Norris to leave for his daily trip to Vern’s, started up the Camry, and pulled away from the curb. I gripped the steering wheel hard, my knuckles turned white from the pressure. I was generally very aware of the speed limits, but today I couldn’t care less. I wanted to be home in my basement. I wanted the blood to me dripping from my face and staining my clothes. I wanted to hear her scream as I cut the life out of her. Then he would have to see me. He would have to take me seriously then.
I sped into the driveway and slammed on the brakes causing the Camry to slide to a halt mere inches from the garage door. I got out and slammed the door hard behind me. I wanted her to hear me coming. I wanted the fear and adrenaline to start pulsing through her veins while she waited for her final fate to arrive. I walked into the house, threw my keys onto the kitchen island and started down the stairs to the basement. I heard her let out a small yelp of fear as my boots stomped on each wooden stair.
When I arrived at the bottom, and looked over at her, her hands were shaking while they covered her face. The chains rattled as her body shook. The rage in my sternum began turning to excitement. It was almost time. Time for my next release. I rushed to the work bench and began opening drawers rapidly looking for my hunting knife. I opened the last drawer on the left and found it, secured in its sheath. I picked it up, slowly pulled it from the leather holster and turned toward Shelby.
“No! Please! Please don’t!” she yelled.
“Aww Shelby, Shelby, Shelby. It has to be done,” I said.
I took a few steps slowly toward her when I noticed the lack in the chain. It was too loose, but I had noticed too late. She swung the chain with her left hand and it struck me on the right side of my face knocking me to the ground. I laid still for a moment, waiting for it, and slowly it came. The warm, metallic taste of blood. I listened and she desperately pulled on the chains hoping to break free, but no such miracle would present itself. I took my time getting to my feet and then turned to her with the knife still in my hands.
I walked unhurriedly back to the workbench and gently set the knife down on the top. I placed both hands on the bench and leaned forward letting my head hang for a moment. The blood dripped off my face and onto the wood. I studied it. It was interesting to me. With all of the blood that I had spilled, I had rarely seen my own. I turned back toward Shelby, let a grin appear on my bloodied face and, leaving the knife on the counter, I walked toward her as I giggled to myself.
Chapter 10: Ready or Not
I woke up to the sound of my cell phone vibrating on my bedside table. I could tell before I even opened my eyes that it was the middle of the night and well ahead of when I usually got up. I forced my eyes open just far enough to look at the time on my alarm clock, 3:27am. I reached over and felt around until my hand finally clasped around my cell. I brought it up to my face and read the caller ID. I knew this was not going to be good. The name on the phone read, James Hunt.
“Three thirty in the morning, this better be fuckin good Hunt,” I answered in a groggy, gravely early-morning voice.
“Casey, I just texted you an address, you need to get dressed and get here as quick as you can,” he replied.
“I swear to God, if you are getting me out of bed in the middle of the damn night just because you miss me, I’m gonna whoop your ass,” I began to joke.
He stopped me before I could continue. “Norris! This isn’t a joke, and it’s not good. Get dressed and get over here.” His tone was flat and direct. Something had happened.
“I’m on my way,” I finished my sentence, hung up the phone, and pulled on my clothes from the night before.
I figured I was being summoned to a crime scene of some sort, although I didn’t know why. That didn’t matter though. Something had happened that was serious enough that Hunt called me. I had to go. If it was an active crime scene, they wouldn’t let a civilian in, but the street cops roping it off wouldn’t know the difference between an active badge and a retired badge. I grabbed mine out from my sock drawer and looped the chain it was attached to around my neck. I opened the small gun safe in the corner of my bedroom and tucked my Glock 19 into my waistband before heading out the door.
I clicked the address that Hunt had texted to me and it pulled up on Google maps. I quickly existed out of the app after reviewing the surrounding area. It was one that I knew well and I felt sick after realizing where I was headed. I had never considered the actual address although I had been there more times than I could count. I just knew the way; I never had to know the exact address, which was why I didn’t notice it right away.
My heart rate grew fast and furiously as I ripped down the country road toward the city. The drive would typically take an hour and I did it in forty minutes. Mostly, I was just hoping I was wrong. I was hoping that what I thought I was going to find was all in my head. I slammed on the brakes and slid to a stop next to the curb in front of the building. The news vans and media had already arrived. They were all grouped together, but were boxed out of the building by a team of officers from Helena
PD.
The block that the building sat on was lit up with blue and red lights from the five police cruisers that were parked out front with their lights on blocking off the street. All of the residents had been evacuated and they watched me as I slowly approached the entrance. To my left, I noticed the two unmarked vehicles parked next to the cruisers. My team was here. I walked solemnly into the apartment building, climbed the stairs to the third floor and stopped ten feet from the door to apartment 314. The door to Shelby’s apartment was roped off with yellow police crime tape.
I stood outside for several minutes trying to catch my breath and get ahold of myself. My heartbeat had not slowed since I got in the car and it was only getting faster now. I had started to notice the beads of sweat rolling down my back and dampening my shirt. I took a deep breath and held it in for three seconds before releasing it. That calmed me down some. At least enough to look composed in front of my team. I took another quick breath and walked into the apartment.
I didn’t see anything out of place at first, but the smell left no doubt. I walked through the hallway that led from the small walk-in area to the living room. To the far side of the room, I could see people moving in and out of the master bedroom down the hallway. I would get to that soon enough. In the living room I found my team and when they noticed me, none of them knew exactly how to respond. I approached them and, not wanting them to have to decide how to confront the conversation, I took the lead, deliberately taking the conversation away from Shelby.
