The Bullet Theory

by Sonya Jesus

  True-crime-tubers reported on this extensively within the last year. Coralee personally reached out to them and asked for their help in keeping her daughter’s name alive. Coralee and I met at one of the grief sessions I led over a year ago. A friend of hers worked for the university and mentioned my services.

  She’s no longer one of my patients, but she occasionally attends a grief session, allowing me some contact.

  Three months ago, I got a call from her. A hysterical mother who had just received the news about her daughter turning up in pieces. An arm first, then a decomposing headless torso. She conveyed the autopsy reports with grotesque detail.

  This one didn’t have a bullet, which complicated things for me.

  But I was determined to find out.

  Through criminal connections, more specifically intel from a loopy guy in federal prison, I found out the Mitchell girl had been ‘high-gliding’ in ‘basement number five,’ and her last ‘flight’ was with some guy from ‘baggage claim.’ The intel pointed me in the direction of other ‘passengers.’ It didn’t take long to buy the information I needed.

  Today, I give Coralee the closure she deserves.

  The pixie-haired girl exits out through the front door, the bellhop eyeing her rear as she descends the stairs. I wait until she gets to the end of the second block before pulling the car out and following her. She is to deliver the box to a floral shop, any flower store, and have flowers sent over as soon as possible. Pink roses, the Mitchell girl’s favorite flower.

  I follow the floral van around until they knock on the front door of Coralee Mitchell’s expensive house. The maid answers and signs for the pink gardenias and peonies.

  Immediately, I send payment to the couriers before deleting my account.

  Coralee, I theorize, will kill the son of a bitch who took her baby girl in a short amount of time. In doing so, the Feds will realize the girl was not connected to the trafficking ring and be forced to leave.

  Me? I have to go back to work and wait, assess my next steps and revisit the recipients of my messages. Coralee had been triggered when a body surfaced, perhaps I should broaden my reach not just to solving the crimes, but also finding the bodies. This would broaden the sample pool, and perhaps add a new level to my investigation—offer insight on emotional behavior of cold cases.

  Would that be manipulating my own study? I ask myself on the drive back to the office. The answer, however, requires a bit of pondering and research. Plenty of social experiments have eluded to effects and biases. However, if I don’t influence the outcome, which is the behavior, and include the parameters within my research plan, it’s an approachable term. Though my reach may be limited unless I gain access, I can work around this.

  Because I’m starving, I stop by the drive-thru for a burger and scarf it down before reaching the office. Cara thinks I took my flavor of the week out for a long lunch.

  As soon as I step foot inside, Cara shoots up from her chair, shoving the big bite into her mouth with her fingers. She chews quickly, covering her mouth. “You’re back early, Doctor.”

  “Please,” I say, checking my schedule. “Feel free to eat. Our next patient is at two.”

  She smirks as she rewraps her lunch. “I know.”

  “You know you don’t have to stay here for lunch every day, Cara. You’re more than welcome to join me.”

  She blushes coyly and plays with the cuff of her sweater. “I’ll take you up on that some time, Doctor.” She sighs, and as if just remembering, asks, “Where did you take your g-g-friend today?”

  Friend. No one fits the description. Cara is the closest living thing to me… perhaps I should get a dog. Making friends out of named bullets is not the most balanced lifestyle. As entertaining as metal shaving is, they don’t offer much conversation.

  Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to feel connected to someone on an emotional level. My extra job on the Brain Team doesn’t give me much time to meet people who don’t require my assistance. Neither do my extracurricular areas of study.

  Then again, I don’t have time for such nonsense as love and sex, but perhaps a non-amorous companion.

  “Doctor?” Cara interrupts my thought process, reminding me that external conversing is a chore.

  “To her favorite place,” I lie comfortably and open my office door. “Do I have any calls?”

  “The police called about a progress report on Eleanor Devero.”

  “It’s too early for results. Call the captain back and tell him I need some more time to evaluate, but I’ll shoot him an email when I make my decision.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  I nod curtly and shut the door behind me. Eleanor, my newest subject.

  I admit, I haven’t been this excited to see a patient in a long time.

  Excited may be a stretch; I simply look forward to our sessions together.

  “So how was your day today?” I ask, with a ledger and pen in hand.

  Eleanor has her legs bent at the knee, back resting against the couch's armrest, a pillow tucked behind it. Her shoes are off, after she insisted on not scuffing my leather. “It was…” She pivots her head in my direction. “… like it used to be.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Return to normalcy seems a bit advanced for the few sessions we’ve had. I’m curious about the implications it will have on my theory. Death is not my ultimate goal, but I confess: I feel a whole lot better when blood is spilled, metaphorically speaking, of course. Not all of them spill blood.

  “Kace kissed me again.”

  “Is that something not usual in your day?”

  “It hasn’t been usual in three months. In the beginning, I didn’t have the strength to push him away, but over time, he stopped trying to kiss me.”

  “You don’t seem bothered by the fact.”

  “Because I didn’t want him to try … then.”

  Then. Something has definitively changed between them. “Why is that?”

  “Because it makes me softer, and happy.” She doesn’t allow me to follow up. “I don’t want to be happy. It’s only been three months.”

  “You’re allowed to continue to live without punishing yourself for surviving.”

  She completely evades my comment, and I’m not even sure it registers in her mind. “We returned to the hospital.”

  “Have you not been there since you left?”

  “I haven’t, but Kace has. Sometimes work leads there, and he’s—it doesn’t affect him as much.” She looks away, no doubt ashamed by whatever thought just surfaced in her head.

  “What did you just think?”

  She grabs one of the small pillows and tucks it tight against her. “Something stupid.”

  “No stupid thoughts here,” I urge her to continue, genuinely curious of this woman’s life and progress.

  She blows the air out of her puffed cheeks. “I love him, but I resent him for being able to keep it together.”

  “You’re still standing.” I pause and smile, then immediately assess the action. Not forced. Interesting. “Well, sitting at the moment, but I wouldn’t underestimate your own strength.”

  “I’m a mess. I’m lost. There are so many emotions; I can’t even breathe without one escaping.” She returns a sad smile with a quick glance in my direction and sighs. “It’s not strength.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s determination, and if he finds out what I’m doing, he’s going to hate me forever.” A fact she has voiced multiple times.

  “Is ‘what you’re doing’ worth his eternal hate?” Though I don’t believe in unmeasurable times, my patients seem to think once an emotion hits, it lasts forever, so I play along. “Is it so unforgivable?”

  She shrugs and lowers her lids to stare at the coffee table, lowering her gaze away from me and hiding the effect of her thoughts. “It depends on the day.”

  “For this session, let’s talk about today, at this moment.”

  She exhales and softly answers, “To
day, it doesn’t feel worth it. Today … I want to love myself, just a little.”

  “Love yourself or love your fiancé?”

  “It doesn’t matter because love isn’t enough to sway what I’m determined to do. I want to find the person who did this and kill them.”

  Again, repeating what she already said. “Kill them in the literal sense?”

  She drops the pillow and turns cold eyes on me. “Like put a bullet through their brain and end their fucking life, kind of kill them.” She sits up and readjusts into a fleeing position: her feet are firmly planted on the ground, toes pointed toward the door, and her legs are slightly spread, ready to take off. “Are you going to put that in your report?”

  I drop my pen down on my lap and angle my shoulders toward her. “Do you feel as if I shouldn’t put it on the record? Because it’s evidence?”

  “I don’t care if you testify against me after I shoot the fucker, but only after I …”

  In my experience, when people often revolve back to the same fragments of thought, it means they are working on coming to terms with their completion. “After what exactly?”

  She smashes her lips together and looks out the window.

  Okay, she doesn’t want to divulge her plan just yet. I can respect that. I have ways around it. “Tell me about your childhood. What was it like?”

  “Again?” She looks startled by my change in subject but willingly refers to her memories for a report. “It was normal. Mom and Dad, family vacations for Christmas and the summer, dinners every night at six, church on Sundays. They were ritual with family things.” She smiles, fondly. “They still are.”

  “Do you currently attend church?” I ask, picking up my pen.

  “Not since the shooting.”

  “Do you think it’s affected your belief in God?”

  She leans back on the couch and stretches her legs out, once again making herself comfortable while she works through the question. “I don’t think so. I still believe.”

  “Then why haven’t you gone to church?”

  “Because I don’t think He’d welcome the thoughts I have.”

  Ah, here we go. “Which thoughts?”

  “Murder, suicide, revenge. Lying to Kace to try and…” Her hand flies up to her mouth and drops to her necklace as she continues, “I don’t feel comfortable walking into a holy place, knowing I’ve been plotting someone’s death. Not exactly ‘turn the cheek’ material.”

  She’s aware of her slip, which means if I press and directly ask what she’s been plotting, she’ll shut down. I gently wade the waters around the topic. “Have you been to confession?”

  “No,” she affirms adamantly. “I don’t want someone to talk me out of it.”

  “Interesting,” I note a four for conscientious of right and wrong. “Would Kace talk you out of it?”

  “More than likely... Sometimes words aren’t even necessary.”

  “Did you have a partner when you worked at the precinct? You haven’t mentioned it.”

  “No, I worked exclusively in the interrogation room or during investigations. Like I said before, being a behaviorist gave me a good set of skills. Micro-expressions and body language tell a lot about a person.”

  “This is true.” I was not an expert, but it was apparent she had not been engaging in it for a while. She barely even looks people in the eye.

  “Don’t you want to go back to work?”

  She rolls her head to me and flinches the right side of her face. “I don’t know how good I’d be.”

  “Why? You’ve had six years of training, plus or minus some undergrad work. I would think that would make you pretty good at what you do.”

  She shakes her head and purses her lips. “We questioned someone the other day, and I messed up.”

  “Messed up how?”

  “Because I got the feeling he lied about something, but I didn’t know what. Turns out he was dealing drugs, or delivering them, probably for the same guy who killed my baby.”

  “I thought the shooter was never found.”

  “It’s too much of a coincidence to be undercover at the Pregnancy Center one hour, and then shot a couple hours later. The distributor, disguised as a medical doctor, has something to do with it. I know it in my gut.”

  “Did you ever interview him and use your skills?”

  “No. Since the shooting, I’m not focused. Like with this kid from the hotel, I got distracted by his hand movements, and I was looking for truths instead of lies, so I let myself get caught up in the narrative of the story. It was the worst interview I’ve ever conducted.”

  “What did Kace say?” I record a one for job function, giving she’s currently on unpaid leave and only working on a case due to courtesy.

  “He didn’t even notice.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him?” I glance at the number I had jotted down for social score. Two.

  She sighs and shuts her eyes. “I’m already fucking up on everything else. I don’t want to fuck up on doing my job too.”

  “Do you think Kace would think less of you, or it would affect your relationship if you were not good at your job?”

  “We met with me doing my job. The reason why we talk is because we have something in common now. It’s easier to talk about couriers and dead people, than it is to talk about the real shit between us, but he manages to squeeze it in all the time, catching me off guard.”

  And it all comes full circle. I had given Kace his own homework assignment: to keep her talking, but not to push too hard if she shut down. He had been afraid of her self-imposed isolation and how dark it got in her head. He worried for her life while he was at work. “You’re afraid he’ll discover you’re contemplating murder and talk you out of it? That’s why you settled for the less communicative state.”

  She sighs loudly and rubs at the center of her forehead.

  I get the sense she’s not particularly happy about me voicing her fear, but both of us know there’s more to it.

  “I need to find the person Kace is looking for.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think he can help me.”

  “He who?” The numbers on my scorecard float, showing me an average of 2.4 and marking her as an ideal candidate.

  “The killer … The Bullet Man.”

  Her words cut through my thought process like a knife. They are working on my case? “How do you think the Bullet Man can help you?”

  “He solves cases no one else can.” She holds my gaze, as if she knows it’s me.

  I freeze, moving only to jot something down and hide my face from her. Attentive or not, detectors always perceive, they just don’t process when they don’t want to. “I’m not sure how to respond to that,” I say to distract her. “It’s not every day one of my patients comes in here, seeking out a serial killer.”

  “He’s not a serial killer,” she corrects me. “He’s a proxy killer. He convinces other people to murder, but doesn’t show any evidence of interfering himself, which may mean he’s not after the kill.”

  “Still dangerous,” I point out. Though I didn’t exactly consider myself dangerous and I most certainly do not convince my subjects. Part of being an ideal candidate is being a client, or one of the anonymous people at one of the free sessions at the university. I need access to their well-being so I can track each case study. My primary goal is to help them and deliver the name of the killer at the opportune time—at a crucial, pivotal moment in their life.

  “I don’t care if he kills me. He brings justice to their families.”

  I do not murder people. “Then why does he not help the police?” I pretend like the Bullet Man and I are two distinct entities.

  “Because sometimes the police can’t do shit.”

  She’s right. “Are you close to finding him?”

  “No,” she says sadly. “I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about this but fuck it. He’s careful, and we don’t know how he solves the cases.”

  I
lean forward and rest my elbows on my thighs. “I work with a lot of people on the force. I’m usually referred when they want to keep cops on the roster and not have them on permanent leave.”

  Her nostrils flare at the thought of being fired.

  “Rest assured, I will not betray your trust and divulge personal information. If and when they ask for an update, which they already have, I’ll simply state whether or not you are ready to go back to work in an official capacity and my reasoning behind it. No specific details, especially since most of these vengeful thoughts are part of working through a process.”

  The gleam in her eye tells me it is definitely not part of her grieving process, but I pretend not to notice.

  “Maybe I can help you with that.” Or I can throw them off a little.

  Her whole body is at attention. “You can?”

  “I came across someone who received a bullet from the Bullet Man. His wife’s case had been cold for eight years.”

  “Which case was that? I’ve studied all of them.”

  “Perhaps you only studied the ones which provided a body. It seems to me this is more about the replies than the actual messages.”

  “How so?”

  “When you don’t want to talk about something, what do you do?” Evasion through redirection and ignoring.

  She smashes her lips together, exactly as I expected. I wait for her to realize the silence between us is the answer, but she switches to the next thought. “What would be the purpose of giving messages to someone if not for the goal of killing?”

  “See. You ignore what you don’t want to talk about. Maybe others do as well.”

  She flares her nostrils and blinks rapidly, forcing out a smile as acknowledgment. Whatever thoughts are running in her head are swallowed and dissolved.

  “To answer your question, perhaps the object is not the kill, but the closure.”

  “Hmm … I remember there being talk about a bullet or two being turned in. This man, was it three years ago?”

  “I don’t know the specific dates, but I remember hearing—not in the confidence of this room—that he turned it into the police.”