SKA: Serial Killers Anonymous

by William Schlichter

  Smith nods.

  Sheriff Delmont leaves his office, not wanting any more to do with the politically correct FBI.

  “He must be afraid we’re here to take over his investigation,” Thornton says. “Too many people get hung up on jurisdiction.”

  “Smart killers will dump a body where jurisdictions overlap. Agencies spend more time arguing over whose numbers must take the murder hit instead of attempting to solve it.” Smith then wonders, “Is that what you’d do, Thornton?”

  “If I was plotting a murder I’d fuck with the investigation as much as I could. But if I was that smart why would I need to kill?”

  “Glad you’re not that smart,” Agent Smith laughs.

  “You think this is the hunting ground of the one calling himself Kenneth?” Thornton asks.

  “Our two desk riding agents searched for unusual or unexplained deaths by hangings. Would you believe they got a hit on this location quick? Short of some Hanging Trees in the South where many black men were lynched, this was the only location to ping.”

  “With a fresh murder it was all over the wire. Why didn’t Director Lawrence mention it?”

  “It may be why our case is over. He wanted us to confirm they are killing themselves. Give the brass some comfort to pad their pillows when they shut us down.

  The string bean of a deputy with a face too young to shave approaches.

  “Could he be any more Mayberry Barony?” Thornton jokes.

  “Sheriff Delmont says I’m to accompany you FBI agents to the Plantation House grounds and to the home of the teacher. Make sure you don’t touch anything.”

  • • • • •

  Thornton reads the man’s name badge. “Deputy Grenard, is there a graveyard on the property?”

  “Family plot.” He waves haphazardly toward a tree line. “Stones have all worn due to time, part of the problem with identifying who truly owns this place. Like Sheriff Delmont keeps saying, no one wants to pay the thousands of dollars to sort out the property mess.” He rants on, “The deaths every few years renewed interest. People demanded it get torn down then someone says that will cost the city some ungodly tax number. House stays up.”

  “Or be the person who inherits the house of hanged teenagers,” Agent Smith bemuses.

  “Agent, you may have hit the nail on the head. Someone might fear they are liable for not boarding the place up correctly and get sued,” Deputy Grenard says.

  “Have you worked an incident here before?”

  “No. The last one was before I joined the force, but the girl before that, I went to high school with. Coming out to this place was always a big truth or dare situation. I’d bet about a fourth of the class had tramped into the basement and nothing. Then bam!” He slaps his right fist into his left palm for effect. “One of them is found hanging.”

  They reach the tree line.

  “The graveyard’s over in here, but the stones are faded.”

  “You said you attended school with one of the victims?” Smith asks.

  “Do you remember if she was depressed?” Thornton asks.

  “I don’t see how. She was a cheerleader, and smart. She had a full ride scholarship. All the boys wanted to…date her. I don’t see how anybody like her could be depressed.” Deputy Grenard adds.

  “Because, like ninety-five percent of the people, you don’t understand depression,” Thornton says.

  Figuring he’s just been insulted by the big city agents, Grenard points through the trees. “Graveyard’s through there, but I’s too terrified to go into them woods.”

  “No need for that, Deputy,” Thornton says before Smith jumps on the officer for his insulting action. “We get we’re not wanted around here.”

  “Why’s the graveyard important? The only bodies here have been found in the house’s basement. Sheriff Delmont says you aren’t allowed down there, but to take you to the teacher’s home.”

  • • • • •

  Agent Thornton buckles his seatbelt before turning the ignition. “You didn’t tell them about the tunnel.”

  “What tunnel? I didn’t see a tunnel. Did you find a tunnel?” Smith deadpans.

  “I get it. It’s not what you know, but what you can prove.”

  “Sheriff Delmont is a competent investigator. They should tear the basement apart and find it. If we find evidence this teacher is our killer Jesse spoke with in the group, we’ll check on this tunnel later. Besides, we give them the tunnel they may not let us search the teacher’s house.”

  “It would collaborate the kid’s tale. But the graveyard was there. It matches up,” Thornton says.

  “Many homes from before the Civil War and even after had family plots especially on farms. I don’t want to besmirch this teacher’s name until we know. Our suspect may have killed another to throw us off,” Smith says.

  “I just want to leave here with this being our guy. It’d be nice if one of these murders came wrapped in a nice bow and without a shootout.”

  “If he is Kenneth then Director Lawrence will fight to keep the case open. We’d be able to bring down more killers from this group. If not, I think we’re finished with the kid and the investigation,” Smith says.

  Thornton considers, “Kenneth ensured a legacy by being his own final victim.”

  “This was a career making case for both killers and agents. If we don’t collect all the suspects then Shawna died for nothing.”

  “Agent Smith, did the wizard finally give you a heart?”

  “Fuck you, Thornton.”

  • • • • •

  Inside the home of the last victim Deputy Grenard reminds them, “Sheriff Delmont said not tolet you guys mess with nothing.”

  Agent Thornton pulls on a pair of latex gloves. “We’ll make sure you get credit for anything we find.”

  “I don’t know what evidence you guys would search for. We combed through the house for a note. Found nothing. This guy was a clean, upstanding citizen and teacher.”

  Agent Smith sits down before the computer. “We should have brought Agent Nanami. She’s quite the whiz with these things.”

  “I’m sure he wiped anything useful.” Thornton sifts through a shelf of books. “Deputy do you have the teacher’s cell phone?”

  “Sheriff has it.”

  “Both of them?” Thornton asks.

  “Only one.”

  Without touching, Thornton kneels and points to an outlet with two different gauged chargers plugged in. “He had a second electronic device.”

  “Is that important?” Deputy Grenard knows people keep dozens of chargers even when the device is gone.

  Thornton some days never questions why he and the other members of the group were never tracked down. “Maybe he left a note on his iPad.”

  “I’ll tell the sheriff.”

  Like that redneck knows how to use anything other than a rotary phone. As a millennia Grenard should have thought of that. And Kenneth was a teacher. They are expected to use current tech.

  Thornton inspects a bookshelf, the top row filled with high school yearbooks. He follows the dates. There is a four-year gap from what Thornton guesses was Kenneth’s junior and senior year editions, followed by seventeen consecutive years’ worth of books. “Grenard, what year was the death when you were in school?”

  The deputy rattles off the year.

  Thornton pulls out the corresponding book. While flipping through the pages a browned newspaper clipping floats to the floor.

  “What did you find?” Grenard asks.

  Thornton unfolds the clipping. “It’s an article about the murder.”

  “Trophy.” Smith didn’t ask.

  “Arguably, but being a teacher at the school he could have just saved a clipping due to it being the loss of a student. Not a smoking gun,” Thornton adds.

  Grenard’s confused gaze presents a dumb question.

  “Smart. If they are a trophy collection even a shitty defense attorney could convince a jury they weren’
t a way for him to relive the event. Not without other corroborating evidence.” Thornton opens the first yearbook. Another clipping rests inside.

  “We should have Agent Nanami check out this computer. Are those newspaper clippings enough for a warrant?”

  “Along with what the kid has told you, yes.” Thornton makes a call on his cell.

  III

  AGENT THORNTON AND Smith once again sit before their current boss.

  Director Lawrence hangs up the landline phone. “Sheriff Delmont wants to file a complaint about you, Thornton. Says you should have told him about the underground tunnel. He feels you kept vital information from his investigation.”

  “Just me?”

  “This is just my interpretation, but the good sheriff didn’t want a race card to be played by pointing a finger at Smith,” Lawrence says.

  “We equally withheld the information. We felt if we revealed the tunnel they wouldn’t let us check the teacher’s home,” Smith says.

  Thornton changes to the we vernacular. “We had a reason for a warrant. We wanted access to the teacher’s computer first.”

  “The tunnel would have confirmed Jesse’s story better than the yearbooks, but the clippings were his trophies.”

  “Sheriff Delmont didn’t want our assistance and told us not to muck up his investigation. I was merely respecting his jurisdiction,” Smith says.

  “Until it wasn’t.”

  “Correct, sir.”

  “You’ll get no commendations for closing the book on this one. I’ll bat it back to the locals, but it doesn’t mean you’ll have another run at the kid. This is over.”

  “We still have a missing girl,” Smith protests.

  “We’re done. Unless you have some evidence, I’m forced to close this case.”

  I

  “MYSTERY/THRILLER AUTHOR P.A. Edgars was killed today in a shootout with the FBI. Edgars has been implicated in nine deaths where he brutally tortured and murdered his victims in the manner characters would later die in his books. The number is expected to climb as more evidence is uncovered.”

  Jane chucks the remote at the television. It bounces off with no damage to the screen, but when the flicker strikes the floor the battery cover splinters off and the twin AAA Duracells roll across the floor.

  “Now you’re being paranoid. The kid doesn’t have enough to lead them to you.”

  “But Edgars,” Jane protests.

  “Edgars was a dumbass for using his pen name in the group. He was a braggart. He wanted us to know who he was. Male vanity. I doubt he was in the group to heal, he wanted another novel.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “They will come for you next.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Finish it.”

  “It means killing again.”

  “You have no other options. They’ll come for you and it all means nothing. You clear up one girl and a few of her worthless boyfriends and society receives no benefit, but this. This will change society.”

  “There’s no coming back from this.”

  “You don’t want to come back. If you did you would never have planned it. You hated the way insurance companies raped families—keeping loved ones alive, stringing them along. They will recover. No, they had terminal illnesses and all medicine did was keep them alive longer. And not for a better quality of life. All those you ended were bedridden. How many of them couldn’t even speak or write a note to say goodbye to their loved ones?”

  “I know. I only ended early those who were going to die.”

  “And the girls at the halfway home. No matter what you did to help them they all ended up back in prison. That is $40,000 a year, average, per inmate. A crappy amount, but a salary for another teacher to make classroom sizes smaller. Once they are in the corrections system they never leave. You studied. Recidivist rate is in the ninetieth percentile.”

  “People with addictive personalities never truly get over their addiction. The only way is to never start. But people don’t know they‘ll become addicted until they are.”

  “Society wastes money on those who will never benefit from it. You recycle, but you alone will never stop the climate change. This. This you do, and it will make society better for a little while. The cost in savings will resonate on some chart and someone will ask why. Then they go oh, well, maybe we should have eliminated these social burdens. And in the end, no matter what. you will make America better for people.”

  “Everything I have done was to make the world better. People just don’t see it.” Jane opens a box of rat poison, dumping it into a mixing bowl. She crunches the green pellets to a fine powder with a pistol.

  “Is that going to be enough?”

  “I think so. I want the brownies to taste like brownies.”

  “Just tell those junkies you supervise that they are special brownies.”

  “No. They might suspect something. I finish them then precede to step two.”

  “You’ll have to be quick. Once you enter they will send security to prevent you from completing your task.”

  “I will complete it. I have no intention of leaving until I do.” Jane flips the oven knob to four-hundred-twenty-five degrees. “Maybe I should eat a few of these before I enter the ward, Just in case.”

  “If they cramp your stomach you may not be able to finish your task. If you pass out they may revive you.”

  “You’re correct.” Jane removes the baking ingredients from the cabinet. “You know, I never thought I would end this way.”

  “You’ve considered it for years.”

  “I know. But the group was a driving goal not to finish as I had planned.”

  “Exit strategies are always good when you do what you’ve done.”

  “End game more than an exit.” Jane coats her brownie pan with non-stick spray. When done she places the can back in the proper cabinet.

  “You’re never coming back, must you clean the place one last time?”

  “I must be insane to not only be speaking to myself and answering, but to nag myself about clearing away my mess.”

  II

  JANE STROLLS THROUGH a side wing door of the St. Mary’s Medical Facility. Even if the main entrance has security and a mandatory sign in station, in the seven years since she worked here, they still don’t bar the side doors to the grounds. She wonders if, after this, they will increase the security, spend more money on those who will remain a burden on society.

  In her handbag she carries all the guns she recovered from the boyfriends of the women she attempted to guide back toward being productive. Sometimes what is best for people is not what they should be allowed to do. They send those women back to the halfway houses close to their homes and the people they know, in most cases the people that got them sent to prison in the first place. Maybe they should do an exchange and send them to the other side of the country where they are forced to start fresh and not mix with those people who ruined their lives.

  Too late now. After my stop at the halfway house I’m committed.

  Once in the hospital corridors no one bothers to ask about her presence. One arm in her bag, hand around a gun with a finger on the trigger, Jane marvels if the families will ever appreciate the burden she releases them from. Maybe not in this first ward. Many of these people keep the state money gifted to them for the brain dead, those unable to feed themselves. They send these children to school where they have a nurse and a personal staff member to basically watch them vegetate. Most aren’t people trapped in a body that doesn’t work. They have no brain functions, either, the kind of children in the Old Testament that would have been left outside to God’s will. Or in Athens, chucked off a cliff. But none of them would be allowed to burden society. Why is she the only one who sees this?

  Staff members dive for cover. No matter how much they pretend to care for these individuals they won’t take a bullet for them.

  Jane keeps a running total in her head of her bullet expenditures. Three
directly in the chest at close range, four more at a distance, with one getting a second shot since as she did not strike the heart. Eight rounds.

  Screams in this room. Not much commotion elsewhere. She grips an extra clip in her left hand. As people rush toward the noise, none notice the smoking gun in her right. Scream filter behind her as she passes into the next wing.

  More special needs. A nice polite way of speaking because no one wants to be the one to do what she does. She has a fresh clip in the gun before the empty one pings on the ground.

  Two emboldened male staff members charge her. Two in the wall above their heads send them to the floor, scrambling to get behind tables for cover.

  Some of these residents are so oblivious to their surroundings they never even bother to cease eating their pudding as bullets end them. Jane tosses the gun, pulling a second from her bag. A few wild shots keep the staff on the ground.

  Now panic ensues as the corridors. People race past. most seeking exits, abandoning the patients, to whom they swore an oath—do no harm. Jane needs past them. She fires into the air.

  They all drop, none in this corridor brave enough to grab at her feet. They don’t know she won’t shoot them.

  The next ward she has to reach keep those in comas alive by machine. Most here are in long term care. Not a few days or there is still a chance, but will never wake up. Marching down the corridor, firing into each room as she passes, she drops the gun to draw a third.

  Two security guards order her to freeze, drop her weapon and lay on the ground.

  Jane spins to face them, stepping so she has a shot into a room she hasn’t fired into yet. She raises the gun.

  She ignores security’s repeated warnings.

  She fires.

  They fire.

  Jane only detects the burning fire from each impact for a second. Her organs fail before she hits the ground.