by Jordan Jones
“Just, c’mon,” he said. “Something crazy happened here, John.” He guided me to the back of the house. A woman was hunched over with a blanket wrapped around her, sobbing as a uniformed officer offered support. The sliding glass door was wide open and I peered inside.
The body of a man lay face up on the floor between the kitchen and living room. I stepped in closer and got a whiff of the smell.
He was likely there a few days, but the cold didn’t do a good enough job in warding off the smell.
“What in the world…” I said, covering my mouth with my handkerchief.
“The blood starts at the doorway and skids all the way back to where he is here,” Benjamin said from behind me. “I take it he was stabbed right here in the doorway and fell straight down.”
“Was he moved?” I asked. “The footprints in the blood suggest a struggle.”
“Those weren’t the killer’s prints. Those were his. He wasn’t moved. He was on the ground and tried scooting back away from the killer.”
The throat was slit wide open; nearly taking the man’s head clean off. I pointed to the neck wound. “Postmortem?”
“Not likely,” Benjamin replied. “The blood rushed out like his heart was still pumping at the time. This man suffered.”
“The wound to his abdomen looked lethal.” The stab wound was likely done with a buck knife, six inches long. I’ve used this type of blade many times hunting with my father in northern Maine during the harshest winters. “Why slice the throat?”
“Because he’s crazy,” Abraham said.
“Or, because the killer wanted him dead…like, fully dead,” Benjamin added, making a snide side-eye to Abraham.
“Are we sure this is a male?” I asked.
“Both sets of shoe prints indicate size elevens, so it’s likely a male.” The forensic team scoured the place and took dozens of pictures while we stood and looked around in bewilderment. We didn’t cross many murders in Lincolnshire. Not since Alvin Dugger went on a killing spree. The idea that a killer was on the loose in town only brought those memories back up.
I needed to clear my head and start objectively again.
“His wallet is here next to the keys,” Abraham said. “I took a look before you got here. William Hensen. Birthdate makes him sixty-four years old.”
A uniformed officer came out of the back room holding up a coat. “Found this in his bedroom. It has his name stitched on the breast. Looks like a custodian or mechanic jacket.”
I studied William’s attire from the kitchen. He was dressed modestly for the day. Groceries were still in bags, rotting and adding to the smell.
“Rowland’s Motors is what it says. He has a name badge for them and everything,” the officer said.
“Ah, I took my lawnmower there last spring for a tune-up,” Abraham said. “I don’t recognize this guy from there. He might’ve just started.”
“This place looks too nice for a small engine repair, single income,” I said. “He has degrees up on his walls. He had a masters in human resources from Purdue University.” The honorary degree was hung in a solid oak frame, the types of frame that was far too large for the contents inside, so a mat was placed to maximize the distinguished look. A license to work as a human resource manager hung directly below it. “Why would someone with these licenses and a prestigious degree work at a small engine repair shop?”
“He’s older,” Welker said, standing in the doorway. “Maybe he’s retired. Wanted a change.”
“Hmm…maybe,” Abraham said, unconvinced. “We’ll have to call around and get some more information on him. Can we get these shoe prints copied?”
Benjamin nodded and sent the rest of his team outside.
I stepped outside where the woman was crouched down. I smiled at the officer and they moved to the side, trying their best to stay involved in the investigation. As a uniform, I always tried to involve myself in the bigger cases to increase my chances of promotion. I had to respect the young cop for doing her part.
“Ma’am, I know you might have already talked to some officers about this situation, but I’m the lead detective on this case now. I need to hear directly from you what you saw. If you want to come down to the station where it’s warmer and maybe you can get your head straight. That might be better.”
She nodded, and an officer escorted her to the police car parked in front of mine. “Make her nice and comfortable.”
Abraham stepped out of the house and said, “Was that the witness?”
“Yeah, we’re going to do an interview at the station. I didn’t feel comfortable asking her questions while he was lying twenty feet away. That way, we can also do some research on him to see if she’s telling the truth.”
“That’s good,” he said. “The neighbors are already telling us he kept mostly to himself. They mentioned a legal history, but didn’t know exactly what.”
The entire house was canvassed several times over and many items were secured in baggies and tagged. After several hours looking over every detail, I sat down in my car and placed my head on the steering wheel. Henson’s body was taken out, covered on a stretcher, and placed in the back of the ambulance to be taken to the morgue for an autopsy.
Was this too much to handle?
After twelve years of detective work, I’ve culminated into someone who has fallen out of love with one of the few things he’s cared about in the past several years: his job.
I can’t do this anymore…
I didn’t know if I was asking the right questions. If those questions led somewhere, then what? Another wall. William Henson died an excruciating death, and it was on me to avenge it somehow.
My instructor at the academy before I joined the Lincolnshire police force once told me that, “You don’t investigate murder because you’re avenging their death; that’s for the movies. You do, however, investigate murder because it’s the morally right thing to do.”
Hands shaking, I started up the car. Heart racing in my chest, I pressed the pedal down and sped down the road. The pressure built in my ears as the houses seemed to blend into one another, not caring to mix contrasting colors, allowing them to bleed door to door.
I was losing control and not only of my car. The car crept to a standstill in a convenience store parking lot as the hyperventilating subsided momentarily.
William was a man lying dead on a floor. That’s all he was. He didn’t have to mean more than that. If he meant an ounce more, he would mean something, and I couldn’t have that. Too much pressure was already popping my ears, making me think a concrete block sat on top of my head.
I was missing something at the scene and I needed to find it.
Finding it would give it meaning, you idiot.
The car turned around and drove back towards the residence of the deceased, though he wasn’t there any longer. All that remained were the stains of a struggle.
The stains of a struggle and there was a mailbox with the flag up.
I saw it when I pulled off and didn’t think much of it, but thought I’d give it a shot. Maybe something inside could give us a clue about this man’s life, something that we have yet to find.
I pulled up next to the mailbox and opened it up, grabbed a handful of mail, and rolled up the window. There were three bills for various utilities, then a letter from the state of Maine.
Without thinking, I opened it and read through the first page of many while sitting in my car in front of his house.
He was on the sex offender registry and it was time to register for the year. They informed him that if no change of address was necessary, just fill out parts 1A and 1B and send it in. Also, if he’s had any employment changes, to please fill out boxes 6 and 7, respectfully.
That answers the job situation.
It might answer more than that.
The last piece of paper was folded neatly by itself; no envelope needed. It was simple notebook paper placed inside the mailbox with everything else. No address, return a
ddress, or designation…just words on a paper.
I opened it up and it read:
Hello, Little Sparrow,
My illness is mine and mine alone. I want you to know that it has nothing to do with you. It was an inevitable part of nature, much like you. It’s like tiny pieces of glass, cutting indiscriminately at my organs, joyously shattering all of my hopes and dreams. Watching you from the kitchen window cascading down your favorite slide, gracefully dancing across the yard, and picking dandelions makes me wonder one thing: how many more times will I be able to see you outside my window, carefree and flying about? Catching insects and playing make believe. I know the storm is brewing, and it is much more than the microbes that are eating me from the inside out. I long for you to read this, but only when you are old enough to understand that I did try to stop it. But, to reason with a monster is to grab the blade-end of a knife. I swear to you, Little Sparrow, I tried to plead and beg. Though I found danger in nearly every corner of our old house, I found solace in simply watching you. Here…from my kitchen window.
I sat there for several minutes after reading it again and again before I realized that it could somehow be connected to Henson’s death. I gently placed the paper with the others in the passenger seat and sat back and sighed. My first instinct was to return to the precinct, but I needed a clear mind before I added anything of use to the investigation.
Madison’s death, however tragic it was, paled in comparison to today’s developments. A twelve-year-old girl jumping to her death soon before her father was to be released from prison.
A father who was proven to be a pervert at least once.
Now, a killer is on the loose and another pervert is dead.
It was making no sense, but it was also the only thing making sense. I couldn’t drop everything now and make the jump like I had planned to. The desire to perform at the best of my duties started to creep back into my veins as I started down the road. Something still held my shoulders back into my seat as I drove, but I pressed on toward the station.
I had the instinct back, but it was still rusty. Anxiety and curiousness boiled back in my blood; it was a feeling I hadn’t felt in many years.
I was ready to find this killer.
Chapter Nine
Benjamin met me at the precinct after I told him I had something he’d be interested in. His initial reaction was surprising: he didn’t have one. He studied the paper several times over, glasses still on the end of his nose and lap coat draped over him.
Without looking away from the paper, he asked, “And this came from his mailbox?”
“Yes,” I answered. He placed his hand back up next to his face.
“Did you touch this with your fingers, or any part of your hands?”
“Yes. I didn’t know what I had.”
“Well, this definitely seems like something a killer would leave.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s his calling card,” he said, flipping it back and forth. “Every serial killer has one. Some of them leave items at the scene. Some take something. This one leaves something.”
“Whoa…wait a minute,” I said. Abraham walked in the precinct lab and saw the looks on our faces. He didn’t say a word. “What makes you think this is a serial killer?”
“Well, I don’t,” Benjamin said. “At least not yet.”
Abraham furrowed his brows. “What’s going on here?”
“I think Torrey has a point here, Abe.” Benjamin hated when I used his first name, but I had to break the tension between us. The past several cases, we’ve been catty, even passive aggressive. I found being at each other’s throats so much only bogs down a case.
“That’s right,” he said, giving me a disapproving look.
“Well?” Abraham asked, annoyed.
“I found a note in Henson’s mailbox — probably left by the killer. It’s mostly just ramblings, but Benji here thinks it could be the calling card of a serial killer. Just that, this guy hasn’t killed multiple people…yet.”
Abraham put on some gloves and took the letter and read it over thoroughly. “Sparrow…”
“What does that mean, Trotter?” Benjamin asked.
“It sounds like a pet name, like something a mother calls a child or something. I don’t think the killer wrote this, but maybe a relative, or mother-like figure. The cursive is extremely neat. Probably a woman’s hand-writing and our killer is most likely a man.”
“What if it’s not a serial killer but a scorned lover?” Abraham said.
“Well, this other bit of info will only complicate things…” I handed over the registry form to Abraham, then to Benjamin.
Benjamin placed both pieces of paper in a Ziploc bag, and took it further into the lab. “I’ll get ahold of you two when we’ve found something. I’ll email you digital copies of both.”
Harlow was at her desk typing furiously when Abraham and I arrived. She barely looked up as I sat down, but made a casual head nod in my general direction.
“I heard you were assigned the homicide in Pinewood,” she said.
“Yes, we both are.”
“Like usual,” Abraham chimed in. He was upset we were tied up in multiple cases at once, when Harlow and Welker are rarely on any tough assignments. They are glorified uniforms, he told me a few years back.
“What’s the scoop?” She asked, spinning her spoon in her coffee. It was late in the evening, but coffee was always on the menu.
“Elderly man stabbed in his kitchen, throat slit in his living room where he bled out. No signs of forced entry. Not much physical evidence in the home other than a size eleven shoe. I found an obscure letter in his mailbox and he’s a registered sex offender.”
“All that in one day, huh?” she sniped.
“Something like that.”
LT Anderson came out of his office and waved for Abraham and me to come over. His five o’clock shadow was poking through, and his eyes appeared that of a much older man with much less to lose. His grey mustache was unkempt.
He was stressed.
“I need to know that this Maise case is going to be closed soon,” his rugged voice boomed at us. “People are freaking out in the community about this murder. I want all your focus on that.”
“Her father is getting out of prison and I have reason — “
“John,” he started. “It’s a twelve year old girl that was depressed. She had the meds to prove it. Now close it out and let her soul rest.”
“Her father might’ve been abusing her, sir.”
“Her father spent time in prison,” he continued. “It’s over. Let the family move on. He’s getting out before long. Let the man live his life.” He pushed past me, swung his coat over his shoulder, and headed through the double doors.
“He looks stressed,” Abraham said.
“He is the one that has to work with the commissioner to give updates to the public,” I said. “People don’t care so much about suicides anymore. They only want info on the homicides.”
“Couple that with the fact this type of thing doesn’t happen around here anymore,” added Welker. He walked by on his way to his desk. It was obvious he was already a product of LT’s rage today.
I grabbed my coat and headed back home. Abraham and I both agreed we needed sleep if we were going to tackle the first homicide perpetrated by a potential serial killer in the past twelve years. Lincolnshire was commendably safe all year around. Alvin Dugger was the only bad apple to grace the community with his sociopathic hatred.
He was also the reason I was promoted to detective twelve years earlier. It felt strange owing my progression to a serial killer, but I had no other merits other than an advanced degree in criminology. Rising to sergeant quickly as a uniform was the product of nepotism. My father was the police captain at the time, and I passed boards without having to sit on them.
No one else got that treatment.
Ever since Dad was placed in Lincolnshire Psychiatric, I felt lo
st. I had no direction within the department, let alone life. Seeing him doped up on heavy doses of lithium and other psychotropics made me want to drag him out of there, though the last time he was out, he nearly took his own life by falling off his roof.
I pulled into my spot at home and climbed up the fifteen flights of stairs to my apartment. Cigarette smoke seemed to be the new norm.
The balcony didn’t look so appealing anymore, as I found my place in this world, albeit temporarily. Who knows, maybe I’ll step out again once the killer was caught?
The beer went down colder than expected and tasted even better when I plopped down on the couch. My head stretched back and my eyes shut…but I wasn’t tired.
I couldn’t fall asleep like that. Buzzed and fully clothed on the couch. That’s how I used to fall asleep. In this trek to find some meaning for my life, I wasn’t going to resort back to the old ways of living…or not living. Feelings of dread and despair came over me once again. My feet became cinder blocks, keeping me from moving an inch in any direction. The piercing screech of all my failures came crashing into me, filling me with something unexplainable.
It couldn’t be, could it? I found my calling, my direction. I had a new case and a new love for the job. Being a detective is all I ever wanted to be. The clues presented themselves for me to find and decipher.
No one else.
Then, why did I feel so unfulfilled?
Why did it look like the doors to the balcony slid open freely, inviting me to take a stroll two hundred feet down onto the pavement?
“This is nonsense,” I said out loud. I knew no one was around, but I didn’t care who heard it.
Finally, nearly three years after suffering through tragedy of losing my father’s mind, have I found my calling, and it was swept away from me after just one beer. I strove to find something, quickly, to call my direction, but nothing came to mind.
Normal men my age would point to their loving family, but all Katherine wanted was my money. I freely gave it to her without restraint, because I was terrified of what would happen if I didn’t. Vivian only wanted me to stay away, which I’ve done a pretty good job of lately. Her real-estate business was booming in California, and I didn’t need to get in her way.
