by Bill Bernico
“So just how do you manage to keep all this Beatle information in that head of yours?” Dean said.
“I know,” I said. “It’s sometimes difficult for even a Beatle nut like me to keep it all straight. But there it is, plain as the nose on Ringo’s face staring up at you. And I’ll bet I know what you’re thinking about all this right now.”
“And what would that be?” Dean said.
“You’re probably wondering what comes next in the album lineup,” I said. “If you knew that, you might be able to get one step ahead of this guy. Isn’t that what you were thinking?”
“You read my mind,” Dean said. “So, what does come next?”
“The next Capitol album was called Beatles ‘65,” I said.
“And that was from 1965,” Dean said.
“Sorry,” I said. “It also came out in 1964.”
Dean sighed and said, “I guess Capitol Records thought ‘65 sounded futuristic and hip.”
“Actually,” I explained, “the album came out in December of 1964 and they must have figured that by the time most people bought it, it would already be 1965 and they didn’t want it to sound like last year’s material, so to speak.”
“Gees,” Dean said. “When did those guys get a chance to eat or sleep or take a piss during 1964?”
“I know,” I said. “And let’s not forget that during this time they were constantly writing new songs. And, as far as what comes next, well, starting in 1965 they released four more albums and another movie. But I have to clarify that a bit since Capitol released The Early Beatles as a kind of filler, and all it had on it were tunes from that first Vee-Jay album. Anyway, the 1965 albums were Beatles VI, Help! and Rubber Soul.” So that’s where I’d start looking for the clues to the next murder.”
Dean ran his hands through his hair and sighed heavily. “I’m in over my head on this one,” he said. “Clay, how’d you like to…?”
“Count me in,” I said. “When something like this comes along that lets me use all this seemingly useless Beatle trivia, I’m your man. Clint Eastwood will just have to wait. For now, give me your yellow legal pad and a pencil and I’ll write down the songs that are on the next four albums. Maybe the song titles or lyrics will point you in the right direction.”
Dean gave me what I needed and I set about writing the albums’ contents down from memory. When I’d finished a few minutes later, I handed the pad and pencil back to Dean and smiled.
Dean looked at the list and then at me. “You knew all this from memory?” he said, obviously impressed.
I nodded and added, “Would you like me to list the contents of the next nine albums as well?”
“Okay,” Dean said. “I get it. You know The Beatles. I think the information about these next four albums will hold me for now. Thanks.”
“You might want to know about one more album,” I said. “The one after Rubber Soul.”
Dean looked up from the legal pad and said, “Why’s that?”
“Because,” I said, “in the summer of 1966 The Beatles released an album called Yesterday…And Today.”
“And that’s significant, how?” Dean said.
“Short version,” I said, “is that The Beatles were getting tired of Capitol Records chopping up their British albums in order to make more U.S. albums. The British albums usually had fourteen songs each, while the U.S. albums typically had eleven or twelve. That meant that after a couple of British albums, Capitol Records had enough leftover tracks to issue another album of these leftover tracks. There is no British equivalent to Yesterday…And Today. It’s made up of tracks from other British Beatle albums.”
“So what?” Dean said. “Isn’t that the American way? To make more albums and more money?”
“But that’s what angered The Beatles,” I said. “They didn’t like the way Capitol was butchering up their original creations and they protested by making an offensive album cover for Yesterday…And Today. They posed themselves in butcher smocks and had cuts of meat on their laps and shoulders and they even had dismembered doll parts strewn about as well. That album unofficially became known as The Butcher Album.”
“And this album is still out there for sale?” Dean said.
“The album is,” I said, “but the cover had to be changed when people complained, so they took a new picture and just pasted it over existing copies that were recalled. Some of these albums can bring thousands of dollars to the right collector.”
“Are you trying to tell me that this guy could graduate from strangling to butchering his victims?” Dean said.
“All I can do is give you the facts,” I said. “I can’t predict what this guy will do, but if he’s following the albums chronologically, sooner or later he’s gonna get to The Butcher Album and, who knows?”
“Can you keep your calendar open for a while?” Dean said. “I have a feeling I’m going to need your expertise on this case for quite a while.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “Any idea what your next move is?”
Dean scratched his head and I knew that it pained him to have to say this, but he said to me, “Clay, I know I said I have enough material to digest for now, but, um, I…”
“That’s okay,” I said. “You can say it.”
“What would you do next?” Dean blurted out. “I mean, now that we know there’s a pattern to his madness, where would you start looking?”
I looked at the sheets on Dean’s desk and then at the yellow legal pad. “Personally, I’d go back to the first five albums and start with a list of the songs on them. Then I’d check the lyrics of each song to see if they held any clues. I’d check things like the length of each song, minutes and seconds. I’d check the composer and the music publisher. I’d probably also check the back-story of each song, you know, why they wrote what they did and when—that sort of thing. But then again, that’s just me. I eat all that information up with a spoon. It may lead nowhere, but if this killer thinks like me, I’d want to get inside his head and see if he’s tipped his hand at all.”
“Sounds like a big job,” Dean said.
“It would be for someone like you,” I said, and then added, “I don’t mean you in particular. I just mean you, as in the type of people who aren’t into the details of The Beatles’ music. For someone like me, it would be a walk in the park, since I wouldn’t have to look most of this information up. I already know most of it by heart.”
“Well,” Dean said, exhaling deeply. “Since I have nowhere else to start, would you take care of that end for me and let me know if anything pops out at you?”
“Sure thing, Dean,” I said. “I suppose you know that when this is all over, you’re gonna owe me big time.”
“Anything,” Dean said. “Name it, and if I can swing it, it’s yours.”
I thought for a moment and said, “You pay for our movies for a month.”
Dean didn’t even hesitate. “Done,” he said.
“And popcorn,” I added.
Dean hesitated for only a second and said, “Done.”
“And…” I started to say.
“Don’t push it,” Dean said.
“All right,” I said. “Movies and popcorn for a month. I’m going back to my office and compile some lists for you. If I’m not back before you leave today, I’ll be back in the morning with them.”
“Are you still here?” Dean said and then gave me a smirk.
I saluted and let myself out of his office.
Dean pressed the button on his intercom and said, “Officer Bronson, would you bring me everything you have on the Jane Doe from Thursday night?”
“The Jane Doe, sir?” Bronson said.
“Oh, that’s right,” Dean said. “They identified her. “Bring me the file on Sharon Draper, would you?”
“Right away, sir,” Bronson said.
A few moments later Officer Bronson entered Hollister’s office and laid a file folder on Dean’s desk. He looked up at Dean and said, “I know, it’s not much
, but this suspect didn’t give us much to work with. He seems very organized and methodical, Sergeant.”
Officer Bronson,” Dean said. “Would you send Delaney in here?”
“Scott Delaney? The handwriting expert?” Bronson said.
“That’s right,” Dean said. “Tell him I’d like to see him right away.”
“Yes, sir,” Bronson said and closed the door as he left Hollister’s office.
Officer Scott Delaney showed up four minutes later with a large magnifying glass in his hand. He stood in Dean’s doorway and looked down at the papers on Dean’s desk. “These the papers you want analyzed?”
“Yes, these five,” Dean said, pointing them out to Scott.
“Looking for anything in particular?” Scott said.
“Nothing specific yet,” Dean said. “I just want your opinions and reactions to what you see there.”
“Fair enough,” Scott said.
Dean stepped out from behind his desk and gestured with his upturned palm. “Here, sit at my desk if that helps.”
“Thank you, sir,” Scott said, sitting in Dean’s chair and poising his magnifying glass above the first document. He studied the words and the individual letters on the first note before moving on to the second note. When he’d finished with the second, he looked up at Dean. “The first two were definitely written by the same person. Let me take a look at the others.” When he’d finished with all five he confirmed that the same person had written all of the notes.
“I suspected as much,” Dean said. “I just didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Does anything about any of the notes strike you as odd or unusual? I mean, can you tell me anything about the writer from looking at his handwriting?”
Scott took another look at the notes. “This isn’t something I can analyze in a few minutes, Sergeant,” Scott said. “There are at least three hundred different features I could look for in each sample. Granted, no handwriting sample will contain all three hundred features and no single feature will tell me anything absolute about the writer. However, if I find a combination of several features in the same note, well, then I can start to analyze the script and see if there’s a pattern.”
“And I thought you could just look at the sample and tell me the writer’s name, address, phone number and what he had for breakfast,” Dean said, smiling.
“I know you’re just joking,” Scott said. “But in some cases I actually could tell you what the writer had for breakfast—providing he spilled some of that breakfast on the paper.” This time it was Scott who got a laugh at Dean’s expense. “But seriously,” Scott said. “A person’s brain tells the muscles in his hand how to move. I find that a particular combination of handwriting features could, in some cases, point me in the right direction as far as the writer’s personality and how he thinks. This isn’t some hit-or-miss science. This handwriting analysis study started with the Chinese more than three thousand years ago and has developed into an exact science.”
“Really?” Dean said. “Give me an example.”
“Okay,” Scott said. “Well, let me start with handwriting that slants, for example. Slanted samples could indicate friendliness, intrusiveness, and the need to control, among others. Upright script indicates independence. And then there’s size. And yes, size does matter in these cases. Typical script size is nine millimeters high. Anything more than nine millimeters is considered large. Anything less is considered small.”
“Which is a serial killer’s size?” Dean said.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Scott said. Large script can mean the writer is outgoing even if he doesn’t show it to strangers. Small script could indicate a thinker, an intellect, if you will. Another thing to consider is the pressure the writer exerted when writing. People who are quick to react and are the kind of people who might react first and ask question later generally exert heavier pressure when they write.”
“Is that it?” Dean said.
“I won’t bore you with all the other details,” Scott said. “Just know that there are other considerations, such as upper case and lower case letters, word spacing, line spacing, page margins, and so on. So, I’d suggest if you have some other work you need to have done, that you go and do it and come back in an hour or so. I may have something for you by then.”
Dean sighed. “I guess I could find something to keep me occupied for an hour,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s almost ten-thirty. How about if I come back at eleven-thirty? Think you could have something for me by then?”
“It may not be the definitive identification you’re looking for,” Scott said. “But you’ll know a lot more about this guy than you do now. I’ll see you in an hour.”
“Thanks, Scott,” Dean said, leaving his office and closing the door behind him.
*****
I unlocked my office door, hung my coat on the hook and locked the door behind me again. I didn’t want to be disturbed while I sifted through more than two hundred Beatle song titles and lyrics. I opened the folder on the first victim, Sharon Draper. I drew columns on the yellow paper and jotted down her height, weight, eye color, hair color, birthday, date of her death and one last column for comments. Right away I noticed that she’d been born on July tenth and had died on July eleventh. That caught my attention. This meant that she was JUST seventeen and that rang a bell.
I made a second list with columns for the songs themselves. The headings included title, composer, singer, time, publisher and comments. This could be a real stretch if what I was looking for was included in this obscure information, but I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned.
On the first Beatle album, Introducing The Beatles, there was a song called ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and the very first line included the words, ‘Well, she was just seventeen’. Part of this victim’s story was told in a single line of that song. I made a note of it in the comments column and continued scanning the song list for that album. One of the last songs on the album was a cover tune not written by Lennon and McCartney. It was called ‘A Taste Of Honey’ and it made me wonder if any traces of honey would be found on the body. I made a note in the comments column and kept searching.
I noticed that the album from this era had not included one of The Beatles big hit singles, ‘From Me To You’ and hand wrote that title in along with a note to myself to check further. After all, the notes and the victims seemed to be coming from him to us, if you will.
I moved on to the next album, Meet The Beatles. There were so many song titles that could have double meaning, but did they, or was my active imagination just running wild? ‘This Boy’ could be the killer referring to himself. ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ could be something the killer said to his victims, or at least thought as he was abducting them. Was I getting paranoid about the Beatle connection or is it possible that every song could have a hidden meaning? I’d hate to pass by a song simply because I didn’t think there was a connection when there actually might be. Did this mean there might be a future note that started with the words, ‘Don’t Pass Me By’, a song title from the White Album, as it had come to be known?
Again, there were several titles on the next album whose meaning could be misconstrued, but the song that really jumped out at me from The Beatles’ Second Album was titled, ‘I’ll Get You’. It was almost too obvious and I made a note to check the lyrics when I was done checking titles.
Two songs from the Hard Day’s Night album seemed to me like they could be something that the victims had thought or felt or said. These were ‘I’ll Cry Instead’ and ‘I Should Have Known Better’. I could almost imagine the victims tied up and forced to look at the backs of the album covers. They might have focused on these two titles and realized how much they applied to them in their present situation. It might be a stretch, I thought, but we were dealing with an unstable person in this killer.
The Something New album didn’t inspire me with any other thoughts aside from the one title on the note, ‘When I Get Home’ and t
he killer had already expanded on that idea. I set the first victim’s stats aside and went back over my list using the second victim’s stats. The same thoughts had occurred to me as they did with the first victim. I checked all three victims’ stats against the possible connections with the titles and came up with the same thoughts for all of them. There must be more victims, still alive or dead but not yet found and they might hold more clues, but for now this was all I had to go on. I made myself a note to dig further into the song statistics later.
I figured I might be able to help Dean get a jump on things if I looked into the next three albums from 1965 and their contents. Right away ‘I’ll Be Back’ from Beatles ‘65 jumped out at me. We expected that he would be back with more victims, but the big question was when would he resurface and how do we stop him?
The Beatles VI album yielded a few possibilities right away. ‘Tell Me What You See’ could be aimed at the police who scour the bodies for clues. And ‘What You’re Doing’ could apply to either side of this twisted game. But the song that grabbed me most of all was a Larry Williams composition called, ‘Bad Boy’. There was no doubt about it. This killer was one bad boy, all right—the worst.
*****
Shortly before eleven-thirty Dean Hollister returned to his office to find Scott Delaney still going over each of the five handwritten notes on his desk. He stepped in, closed his door and looked down at Scott.
“Well, Scott,” Dean said. “What’s your professional opinion?”
Scott picked up his notepad, which contained several paragraphs that he’d written as he examined each note. He held the notepad out and said, “I think I have enough here to make a professional judgment on the man who wrote these notes.”
Dean came around to the other side of the desk and looked over Scott’s shoulder as Scott pointed out his findings.
