SKA: Serial Killers Anonymous

by William Schlichter

“God was a vengeful, spiteful God long before he sent his Son to redeem us. And his Son was one way to ask people to forgive all the ills he wrought upon them,” Kenneth says.

  “That was the devil,” Jesse says.

  “No. There was no devil in the Old Testament. It’s a common misconception made by those who don’t read the text. It was all God,” Al says.

  “But the snake—” Jesse protests.

  “Later, Christians claimed the snake was the devil. It’s not written like that. Knowledge was the devil.”

  “Enough with the fucking Sunday school lesson. I want to hunt,” Robert says, “The way God intended,”

  “Then I say hunt. If you are not ready for a cure, hunt,” The Plagiarist encourages.

  “No. We can’t go back and kill.” Jane chews her lip to prevent a scream. You’d like someone to relapse, Plagiarist, so you could keep killing. We must not stray from the path. We were doing so well.

  “There are bound to be relapses,” Ed chimes in.

  “Killing won’t be the same for him. We’ve been working on understanding our victims are people. Robert may have been at the hotel, he may have picked out a couple to hunt, but Ed speaking to him reminded him they were persons. He’ll have trouble hunting the next couple with a clear conscience,” Edgars says.

  Writers must have a functioning understanding of the human condition to create believable characters, but she hates how Edgars grasps the killing mind better than she does. So much for all her time in a text book. “Fine. Leave the group.”

  Robert stands.

  “Now, wait. Unlike an alcoholic, who polishes off a bottle and must start over counting days, if you kidnap someone and then can’t go through with your hunt what do you do with them?” Edgars asks.

  “He’s right. They’ll have seen your face, or have valuable information to give to the cops which will lead to your capture,” Kenneth says.

  “And who’s to say you won’t give us up to lighten your sentence or at least earn yourself a ticket into a country club prison where they send the rich white-collar criminals?” Jesse chimes in, his chance to spill his plans and project them onto Robert.

  “In this case a relapse would be bad if you can’t complete the killing. And if you finish, you defeat the purpose of joining this group.”

  “We keep forgetting Al has a woman locked in his closet.” Robert deflects the attention away from him.

  “We’ll deal with Al and his girl soon. We started this meeting by swearing we haven’t killed,” Jane seeks confirmation. “Is she alive, Al?”

  “Yes.” His answer has no hesitation.

  No idea how to release the girl in his possession—alive, and not put the whole group at risk for prison. Jane adds to her rules for the group—Before you’re invited to attend you must not have a current subject in your possession.

  Maybe he should bring her to a meeting prepared to release her, allow her to meet the group. Inform her if she speaks of her captivity someone in the group will find her. It was a bluff and a strong one.

  “Does she know where you live? The city, I mean,” Jesse fumbles desperate for a clue.

  “I didn’t swipe her from the same town as where I keep her,” Al says.

  “Smart man. Since you use her in your sex game, she has seen your face.” Not a question, The Plagiarist seeks confirmation.

  “Even a bad sketch artist could do a proper rendering from the time we’ve spent together,” Al confesses.

  “Then we scare her into not ever speaking about her captivity,” Robert says.

  “Send a typed letter with lots of spelling mistakes to her family warning if she returns never to ask.”

  “After you clean her of all your DNA,” Ed adds.

  “How would you scare her, Robert?” Jane asks.

  “He’s got his hidey-hole in his car. He could drive her states away, maybe drug her so she doesn’t know she was driven for hours. Then tell her if she talks to anyone you’ll find her again.”

  “Plenty of people rot in prison because of people who promised not to tell,” Kenneth says.

  “Personally, I’d dump her in some neighborhood where someone else might end her,” The Plagiarist says.

  “I won’t stand for that.” Jack demands, “She gets to live, and Robert stays in the group.”

  They all detect the rest of his sentence, the ‘or else I turn myself and all of us in’.

  “Agreed, she lives,” Jane’s tone remains firm. “But the scaring her part must be effective. Bring her to a meeting. We allow her to know we’re all killers and now we know about her. If she ever speaks of anything one of us will find her.”

  “I thought we were done with killing?” Kenneth seeks confirmation.

  “She doesn’t have to know why we meet, just that we know about her and we are all killers,” Edgars says.

  “What if she talks?” Ed asks. “One of us going to follow through with the threat?”

  Why did he have to ask? The group was unifying, Jane thinks.

  “They will place her in protective custody. I doubt any of us are good enough to get to her. Her threat would remain towards Al, but he would be the threat to the group,” Edgars says. “And no telling what we might think when some of us are facing the chair.”

  “No state electrocutes anymore,” Jesse says.

  “Still, kid, someone in the room will squeal for a PC life in prison over a needle.”

  I

  “ARE THE CUFFS necessary?” asks Professor Arnett, as he peers through the two-way mirror at Jesse alone in the Agency interrogation room.

  “In what way is the boy not a criminal? Obstructing Justice. Knowingly consorting with admitted felons. Tampering with evidence. Maybe they are all misdemeanors, but there are enough to put him away for the next five years.” Agent Smith clinches his fist, forgoing his urge to poke a finger at Arnett. “You’re lucky I don’t clamp you in irons along with him.

  Arnett ignores the action movie bravado. “The kid has got himself invited to these meetings. He’s a valuable asset to a case, Agent Smith, that you, and Agent Sutherland didn’t even know you had. Busting six confessed serial killers would make your careers.”

  “Let’s start back at the beginning.” Agent Sutherland, playing the good cop, asks, “How are you involved, Professor Arnett?”

  “The kid was in my class. He sought information about a family death. His sister was killed when he was four. Somehow he got it into his head she was murdered by a serial killer.” Arnett holds out a sealed manila envelope. “I retrieved the file on his sister. Before you ask, an old friend owed me a favor. I get cold case files all the time to use in class. He did swipe a different case file I requested, but I don’t think he’s been able to open it or he would know it wasn’t her.”

  “And he explored the dark web where this group meets in chat rooms?” Smith asks. “Why doesn’t something like this show up?”

  Agent Sutherland answers, “Because it’s not a Homeland Security issue, and the FBI agents surfing the dark web are hunting pedophiles. Besides, I’d bet these people are smart enough to use the free WIFI at a Burger King. I’ll spare you the technical explanation. Anyone can hook on and not be traced.”

  “This kid has an idea who some of these people are? He is for real?”

  “He’s gotten some good intel,” Arnett says.

  “He turns out to be some attention seeking, spoiled millennial and I’m jailing you both.” Agent Smith flashes a smile.

  • • • • •

  “My older sister was murdered when I was four,” Jesse explains, without having been read his rights. He wasn’t under arrest—yet. If they do arrest him, he might have to lawyer up, and if he did he’d never get back to the group. Cooperate, and maybe the FBI will allow him to keep attending the meetings.

  “My parents had the information kept from me. The investigation into her murder is a cold case, which means no one will be solving it. I’ve been unable to obtain anything from the lo
cal cops, but I’ve been able to determine it was performed by a serial murderer, or least not a onetime banger.”

  “And you just found a group of killers trying to gain information?” Agent Smith demands from across the metal table.

  “I get the interrogation techniques, I was studying criminal justice. I used my knowledge to find the group. It wasn’t easy,” Jesse admits.

  “How did you do find them?” Agent Sutherland asks. She leans against the back wall as if this is a waste of her time.

  “Lots of hours on the internet. While researching killers, I uncovered several chat rooms. Mostly cranks claiming they had been a killer or knew who they thought Son of Sam was. But you find a few conversations with strange choices of words that at first you think may be typos or autocorrect. But then I discovered I had learned the code they used to speak to each other. The ones who might be killers or trolling for victims. And that lead to other chat rooms. Those conversations opened the Dark Web to me, along with deeper conversations about death. I found several who like to brag about their killings without admitting to them. One describes the skinning of animals, but there was something deeper. As I trolled those chat rooms I discovered one asking for means to prevent specialized addictions.”

  “You understood specialized to mean murder?” Agent Smith asks.

  “I learned real fast everything was code in these dark chatrooms. You stay away from those offering Snow White or any other Disney princesses, unless your desires involve being a convicted sex offender. It took a lot of hours to even find a person with coded communication about their murders.”

  Agent Smith stands. “Just hold your thought.” He stomps out of the room.

  Jesse knows he is requesting a search warrant for all his electronic devices. They will keep him at the office until they get it. They will find his murder board with his guesses on who each killer is.

  Agent Sutherland remains a statue. “How did you know your sister’s killer was among the group’s participants?”

  “I poked around, inferring that I was having issues with my addiction. I said I could get no help. It was months of subtle hints to obtain an invite, take a test and pass, then receive an invitation to the meeting. I sought Professor Arnett’s help to concoct my cover. He would not help me. He didn’t believe my sister’s killer would be in such a group.” Jesse knows he just shifted some of the attention from him to his mentor.

  “We’ve spoken to the professor,” Agent Sutherland says, “He reported what you were doing.”

  Agent Smith returns to his seat, joining the conversation as if he never left the room. “He doesn’t want a case against him. Former cops don’t fare well in prison.”

  “Neither do young pretty college boys,” Agent Sutherland adds.

  Jesses ignores the prison rape threat.

  “You’re in live contact with these killers. You need to share all you know with us.” Agent Smith leans over the table. “I’m putting you up on obstruction. So spill it.”

  “I know nothing.” Jesse holds a card to play or they will place him under arrest. His information, vital to tracking down eight killers, would give a lawyer a great deal of leverage.

  Agent Smith leans back. “You going to play this way? You sit in a room with six killers and say you know nothing.”

  “Eight. Two more joined. I know nothing because after three meetings I had listened to confessions about killings with no details to even lead me to guess where they occurred or in what state these people operate. I was collecting evidence. But not a damn one of them said I did this murder, in this town, on this date. Most of them tell the tales of early murders which were trial killings. They don’t even match later MOs.”

  Agent Smith leans back, drumming his fingers on the table. The tattoo of each tip demanding information.

  Agent Sutherland asks, “Did any of these killers mention they like to hack up pregnant women?”

  “No. After three meetings not a single one said anything about pregnant women. Miss Jane, maybe, when she was a nurse, but she used medications, not a hatchet.”

  “No. We know it was a man.” Agent Sutherland says.

  “Love to get ahold of him. He murdered two FBI agents tracking him and escaped as if he never existed,” Agent Smith says. “Anyone in the meeting ever mention Springwells, Missouri?”

  “They have all been careful to not use names or locations,” Jesse holds back his one ace. They could find P.A. Edgars through his publisher. He left him out of his notes. He doesn’t want to turn anything cutting him from the loop and figuring out what happened to his sister.

  “If we were able to catch that guy I might be willing to overlook your minor infractions.”

  “I won’t make shit up. Those people have killed enough,” Jesse says. “One guy calls himself The Plagiarist, he copies other murders. The dead pregnant women would be an easy one to copy. He likes those.”

  “Even if he did, I want this paramedic killer,” Agent Smith says.

  “Most of them kept their locations vague. They focused on their reasons for killing, not an address.”

  “Where did you go to high school, kid?” Agent Sutherland asks.

  The question breaks Jesse’s attention and disrupts his attempt to control the room. “Uh, Southwood High.”

  “Did you play sports?” she asks.

  “Basketball. I wasn’t much for crunching into guys bigger than me.”

  “Took you for the quarterback,” Agent Smith says.

  “I know what this is. You get me to tell the truth and then ask me questions to catch me in a lie. Then twist it all up and offer to help me. Fuck you.”

  “Don’t help us, kid, and you’ll never catch your sister’s killer from a prison cell.”

  “I want to be a part of this. In the loop,” Jesse says.

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Agent Smith says.

  “If we examine all the details of the killings we could match them in the database,” Agent Sutherland suggests.

  “Give us one with the most distinction in their killing.”

  “I want to be a part of this.”

  “Then you must cooperate,” Agent Sutherland says.

  Edgars. Again, they’ll track the group through him. Jack? No. I might need Jack’s help. He detests the group. Of all the killers, they wouldn’t catch Ed. Lots of dead roadside prostitutes. Robert? The fucking homemade arrows? No, not yet. I give them too much and they cut me out. Jesse explains the information he has displayed on his note board. If they haven’t searched his apartment they will.

  After an hour Smith never loses his bad cop method and demands, “Kid how old are some of these people? No DNA. Lack of cell phones. ‘Hippies.’ Fuck me. These people aren’t that old. The problem is their stories have major time inconsistencies.”

  “Unless you’re lying,” Agent Sutherland adds.

  Jesse realizes he might have lost Sutherland as an ally. “I don’t agree. It would be their memories, and people didn’t have cell phones in the Midwest, not at first. There are still rural areas today lacking coverage. Many people still have dial up Internet because it’s all that is offered. I read there are still a million AOL users because it’s all they’ve got where they live.”

  “And we know memory is shady,” Agent Sutherland says. “They are telling their own stories the way they recall the events. The way they have relived them in their minds over and over to fulfill whatever drives them to kill.”

  “Even if their stories are embellished they are still evidence,” Jesse says.

  “Not enough, kid. You ain’t got nothin’.” Agent Smith draws his handcuffs from the pouch on his belt. “I think we’ll just...”

  “One of them called himself the Bowhunter Killer. His nom de plume was Robert after Robert Hanson. The original killer escorted people to the Alaskan wilderness by plane, dropping them off to hunt them.”

  Agent Smith snaps his fingers, signaling to whoever is behind the mirrored glass to confirm the informa
tion.

  “The guy at the meeting used homemade arrows to hunt people. He would kidnap them, take them into the woods, release them with an option to escape. He told one story of a woman, Gabby. She escaped to her car with three arrows in her. He killed her male companion. There must be police reports on her attack, along with the arrows in evidence. Death by arrow can’t be common.”

  “Tell us everything this Robert said.” Agent Sutherland moves from the wall.

  “From his first account, and other evidence, we might be able determine his home base,” Agent Smith says.

  “He says he changes hunting grounds. These people are not typical, you will have to write a new textbook for them. All of them are smart and they think cops are dumb.”

  “Underestimating us will be how we bring them down.”

  “I want my sister’s killer,” Jesse says.

  “Did you read the file on her death?” Agent Sutherland asks.

  “The pictures. I couldn’t,” Jesse admits.

  II

  PROFESSOR ARNETT PLACES a Styrofoam cup, steaming hot, before Jesse before he takes the seat across the table.

  “Professor, I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Day two. Non-stop interrogation. I need sleep, and not in the holding cell.”

  “They let you out of the handcuffs.”

  “I don’t see how I am the criminal here.” Jesse grips the cup with both hands, soaking in the warmth.

  “I’ll speak to the agents. You’ve been cooperating.” Arnett asks, “You have been?” He flashes an accusatory eye. “You haven’t left anything out?”

  “Professor, there was so much. But I’ve said everything I can think of. I want these guys. I want my sister’s killer.”

  “I know, kid. You didn’t read the file you swiped from my office mail box?”

  “I opened it. There were glossy prints and I couldn’t.” Shameful, Jesse drops his head.

  “You’re going to have to go through everything about Robert with the agents again and then you must read the file you borrowed. We need to discuss it. If you’d read the document on your sister I don’t think you’d be in this mess.”