by H. B. Rae
I arrived at the shop, which was still there. To my luck, it was actually the same shopkeeper who had worked there for over twenty years. I showed him the badge, and he seemed willing to help.
"I know you might find this strange, but I am investigating a cold case killing," I told him.
"Let me guess," said the shopkeeper. "Are you the one investigating the killings that were on television?"
"Yes...how did you know that?" I asked, intrigued.
"Just a guess," said the shopkeeper. "So, what can I do for you?"
"Well," I said, trying not to laugh with embarrassment, "I am investigating a murder that happened over twenty years ago, and I have recently discovered that the killer purchased an axe from this shop before they killed the victim."
The man looked shocked. "You mean he came here?" he said.
"Yes," was the simple reply.
"And I've spoken to him?" he asked, still showing a shocked facial expression.
"Yes. I need to know if there are any records that show purchases in between the years of 1990 and 1991."
"As a matter of fact, there are," the man said, smiling. He went into another room for a minute, and came back out with a box. He then opened the box and asked me what type of axe it was. I told him, and he responded.
"It looks like there are five people who bought this axe: Barry Scott, Melvin Sykes, Daniel Broughway, Harry Thudd and John Hughes."
I was devastated. Ian Green was not mentioned in the records. I checked them myself, but there was still no Ian Green. Without coming up with the possibility that the purchase was not actually recorded, I was more puzzled than ever.
"Is there a chance that the purchase was not recorded?" I asked.
"I swear on my son's life, I did not miss the record. I even had a signup behind here to let them know that they were to receive a receipt, and before I gave them their receipt, I would write their names down on it. There is no possible way that I would miss it."
"Were you off work for one day at all?"
"I was at work every single day. I came here every Monday to Friday without fail."
"Were there any break-ins?" I said, desperate for an explanation to this.
"No. There has never been a break-in here either."
I sighed. "Well, if you think of anything, contact the police, please," I said to him.
"Actually, there is one thing," the man said.
"Oh, go on then," I asked, desperate for more information.
"Well, just this one time, in about 1990, somebody acted a bit strange, and it made me very suspicious...
“He came up to me. He was wearing this sort of cowboy hat and some sunglasses so I couldn't see his face. He was quite mysterious to start off with. Anyway, he put the axe down on the table, and he said, 'how much?'
“'That's $20,' I replied, 'but you can get a cheaper one over there. That's pretty much the same one, but for $12.'
“He ran his fingers down the blade. 'I like this one,' he said. He then pulled out $20 and handed it to me. I then recorded his details and things.
“'You chop a lot of wood?' I asked him.
“'No,' he told me. That's what made me really suspicious. What else could you use an axe for except chopping wood?"
"Did you get a name?" I asked him, hoping and praying that he would say ‘yes’.
"No," he replied. "I'm really sorry. I just can't remember, but it might have been one of these five." He pointed to the record book.
"Did you not think of reporting him to the police?"
"Why would I?" he replied. "I didn't think he was going to go and chop somebody up, did I?"
"Then what did you think?"
"I didn't know what to think, but it wasn't right!"
That shopkeeper gave me some fantastic leads. Was that mysterious man at the shop the killer? It was strange that he wore a sun hat and sunglasses indoors, too. For whatever reason, he did not want to be seen, and perhaps that was because he did not want to be identified until later. This killer is clever, I thought to myself, but hopefully, not as clever as me.
I returned to the station, intending to work on the information given to me, but I was astounded when a relative of another victim approached me. This must be my lucky day, I thought.
This time it was a young woman.
"I need to speak to you about my mother, Irene Ford," she said.
"O.k.," I said, hoping to get more information to make sense out of this whole thing. "We can sit down in the soft interview room."
We sat ourselves down, and drinks were sorted.
"So, what is it you want to tell me?" I asked her.
"Well, I have some information which might or might not help you," she said.
"O.k.," I said, ready as ever with my pen and notebook.
"Well, this one time, when I was nine, a couple of days before my mother died, my mother was driving me along in the car, through the woodsy part of town, and she was pulled over by a police car."
"A police car?"
"Yes. It was a dark night, and a policeman got out. I could hardly see him. I know that he was wearing a sun hat and sunglasses, which was very strange. Well, he said to my mother, 'hello, missy.'
“'What do you want?' my mother said.
“'Well, I think you know the answer to that,' he said.
“'I haven't been speeding, if that was what you're asking,' she said.
“'You have,' the man said, in a sort of cheeky tone of voice.
“'I haven't! I was going thirty miles an hour!'
“'You know that's wrong,' he said. 'So I need you to step out of the car.'
“'You're not even a policeman, are you?' she said.
“He laughed. 'Do you like hunting?' he said to her.
“'What are you talking about?' said my mother.
“'Because I do. Maybe we should go hunting some time.'
“My mother just drove off. She was clearly very distressed about what had happened."
"Did your mother report this man to the police?" I asked, learning more and more information about the potential killer.
"She did, but nothing was done about it. About four days later, my mother went missing."
This was extraordinary. I now had people who had seen the killer. I assumed it was the killer, anyway, and it might have been the same man. It also might have been Ian Green. I hoped that I could work from there, but I did not know where to go from here. I decided to go home, as usual, and see what tomorrow brought me.
Chapter 10
As a matter of fact, I received yet more information about the killer. This time, it was better and bigger than any previous information I had received. When I entered the station that day, a woman of about forty came up to me.
"Are you the one working on the serial killings case?" she said.
"I am," I replied, "and what can I do for you?"
"My name is Sally Juxton," she said, "and I have some information that might help you. Is there anywhere we can go?"
We sat down, and I eagerly asked Sally what she wanted to tell me about the killer.
"Well," Sally begun, "I was once kidnapped by a person who I think was the killer."
"What?!" I cried, expressing my shock and excitement at the same time. I had never thought there could be a survivor of this.
"This was in 1995. I remember it so clearly," she added.
"Please, tell me everything," I said, still in shock about what I’d been told.
"Well, I was out one night, and I was quite drunk, so I got in one of those taxi things. You know, the ones that wait outside of clubs acting as taxis?"
I nodded, knowing how dangerous the people who drove them were.
"Anyway, I got in and asked the driver to take me home. I was still quite drunk at the time. He started talking to me, asking me things like, 'do you like hunting?' and 'have you ever seen any horror films?' I thought it was strange but I didn't really think much of it. Anyway, half an hour later, I was beginning to get wor
ried, because it only took around twenty minutes to get home. By now, I was pretty much sobered up. I asked him where we were and he just said, 'you'll see'. He then laughed. He then told me I was going to die tonight. I was in shock. I tried to open the doors but they were child-locked. I tried to scratch away at his face, but it didn't stop him. Suddenly, we were out in the middle of nowhere, and he dragged me out of the car. He told me to stay where I was or he was gonna shoot me there and then. I couldn't see anyone. I don't think we were even on a road. There were no cars, or no buildings. He then told me we were going to play a little game. It was called ‘run away from the killer’ or something like that. Anyway, he got a chainsaw out of his trunk, and turned it on. I was terrified. I started to run. He started to run, laughing like a maniac. He chased me through the fields. I eventually got into the woods without him catching me. I decided to hide in a bush somewhere for the time being. After about five minutes, I heard his footsteps again, and he was whispering, 'I'm coming to get you, Alison. Oh, Alison? You're not going to get away.' It all went quiet, I tried not to breathe. Then, he revved up his chainsaw again and I just ran for it. I ran and ran. It must have been longer than an hour. I eventually got into the field again where I started. I was shocked when I saw a hole in the ground. I was beginning to think he'd dug a grave for me or something. I somehow managed to get onto a road without him finding me. It must have took two hours before I found help. By then, he was gone."
I just sat back, astonished by the horrific encounter that Sally had just recalled to me. I felt so sorry for her.
"Do you think it's the same killer?" she said.
"It looks that way," I replied.
"Could you do one thing for me?" Sally asked.
"What's that?"
"If you ever do find this person, could you come and tell me about him? I just want closure."
"I will," I replied, "but there are a couple of questions I need to ask you. Did you actually see what he looked like?"
The inevitable answer was no, and I knew that she was going to say that anyway. He had covered his face up with a hat and glasses. She told me she remembered him as quite broad, but that was it.
"Did you note what car it was? Did you get the license plate?" I asked her, knowing what the answer to those questions would be too.
"I wish I did," replied Sally, "and we could have nailed him."
"Don't worry," I said. "I won't give up until I find out who it is!"
"Do you have an idea?"
"We have somebody in custody, but I now think it might not be him."
I was so confused. At the time, Sally would have been a young girl, so the killer had imagined her as Alison Green, Ian's sister. That was the evidence I needed. I now had proof that the killer was imagining killing somebody named "Alison," and probably did the same for the rest. I knew it was probably Ian Green, but there was still one other person I had in mind.
Shortly after Sally left, the boss told me that he’d found out about a person who lived near the field where the bodies were found. He had telephoned the man, who said he would be willing to speak to me, so my next stop was that house.
The house was actually half a mile away from the field where the bodies were dug up, but it was the nearest building to it. The inhabitant of the house. Thomas Baker, had lived there for nearly all of his life, so he might, just might have seen something all of those years ago.
I knocked on the door, and he invited me in. I went straight to the question. To my pleasant surprise, Thomas had actually seen something. He described one night in the late 1980s when he saw a mysterious figure, presumably a man, walking through the back fields of his house wielding a sharp knife. He was wearing very large goggles and a gun shield. He also wore a helmet. Earlier in the night, Thomas thought he heard a scream, but he could not be certain. He asked him what he was doing, all dressed like that, but the man just looked at him and moved on.
I returned to the station, thinking about what Thomas had told me. It was fairly clear that the person Thomas described was the killer. However, why would he be wearing large goggles and a gun shield? I ran those two things through my head several times. Goggles. Gun shield. Goggles. Gun shield. Suddenly, it came to me. I did not solve the case completely yet, but I knew that I was way farther forward. Something that somebody had said to me earlier just came to me, and it strongly linked in with one of the items described. Could this solve the case? I wondered.
Chapter 11
The thing I realized was that Eve Roberts, the first victim, carried pepper spray due to her attack. So, before killing Eve Roberts, the killer wore goggles to protect himself from the pepper spray attack, leaving Eve defenseless. However, that did not answer the question of how the killer knew that she carried pepper spray, nor did it answer why the killer wore a gun shield. I decided to look further to see if someone who was murdered by this maniac had been convicted of carrying a gun. As a matter of fact, one of the male victims, John Crawford, was convicted of accidentally shooting someone hunting in the woods! This showed that he carried a gun around, which explained why the killer wore a gun shield, but how did he know?
Suddenly, it came to me. The only possible explanation for this was that the killer had read the police reports – it was the only possible way of finding out. I was beginning to get excited now, because I had realized that the only people who could have access to those files were the people working in this station. I was so excited that I told the boss.
"Oh my God!" he cried, as if he were mortified at the sight of a ghost.
"What is it?" I asked, surprised at his reaction to the fantastic news.
"The only person who had access to those files...the only person who handled those files back then was Barry Scott."
"Who was he?" I asked.
"He's still here. He's a police officer now, but he used to handle files here years ago. I used to be acquainted with him, but now we don't really speak since we're in different parts of the station." The boss was still in shock. "Do you think it could be true?" he said to me.
"It looks that way," I said, "because how else could the killer know what to wear for each person?"
"I know," said Mitchell, putting his hands on his head. "Don't arrest him yet, though, because there is not enough evidence. It's only assumptions."
"I know," I said, trying not to get overexcited.
Just then, I remembered something else: in the list of people who bought an axe in between the years of 1990 and 1991, Barry Scott was on that list! Could this be really happening? Did we finally have him?
Obviously, that meant that the killer was not Ian Green if it turned out to be this man, but there was another possibility: Evan Green. Since he was not called that any more, I did some research into Barry's background to see if he was born Barry. Mitchell gave me all of the details, and I typed them up into the computer for a birth record. Could Evan be the real killer?
After a couple of minutes, that theory was disproven, since I found a valid birth record for Barry Scott, so Barry Scott was not born Evan Green. Evan simply was untraceable.
"So, we still can't make an arrest?" I asked Mitchell, trying to think of a reason why this random police officer would kill random people.
"No," Mitchell replied, "there is still not enough evidence. There is no DNA to link him to the murders, so we... or you need to get a confession out of him."
I knew there was a lot on the line here. If I did not manage to get a confession out of him, that would mean justice would not be brought to eight families (or at least eight, there could have been more we did not know about). I was frightened.
When I saw this man, however, I was astounded that I had seen him before during this investigation: he was the police officer who brought Ian Green in, claiming that he had found him in the field. I was now convinced it was him, and that I had seen the full story now.
Barry, who lived near the Green family, obviously liked to kill people, for whatever reason (perhaps he was psy
chologically damaged himself due to physical or sexual abuse). He was also a very intelligent man, since when he started killing, he chose a deserted spot so that nobody would hear him. However, he deliberately left clues in order to frame Ian Green: every murder victim looked like one family member except for Ian; the survivor claimed that the killer was saying 'Alison' (Ian's big sister), and Ian was apparently lurking around the field where the bodies were found. He only said the name of Ian's big sister so that in the future, it would point to Ian Green, should the bodies ever be found. However, he was not as smart as he thought, because there were gaps – gaps that led us to him, and now, he was about to get caught out, at least I hoped he was.
Mitchell sat him down in a room and tried to keep him calm by suggesting it was only a talk, and he was free to leave the room at any time. Meanwhile, I was staring through the glass at him, and Miranda approached me and said, “It’s definitely him. One hundred percent."
"I know," I replied, satisfied now that this man was indeed the killer I was searching for.
Mitchell left the room, leaving Barry on his own to wait. He then lifted his head, and looked at the mirror, knowing fine well that we were behind it, watching him. He grinned slightly, as he gave me a psychotic look. I was very apprehensive now as I knew that I was dealing with a complete and utter psychopath.
Chapter 12
I really had no idea how to approach this "talk". This man was clearly very intelligent, so it would take a lot to make him confess. He must have known that we were on to him, and that was what made me scared. I just took a deep breath, and entered the room.
"Hello, Tammy," he said, in a plain tone of voice.
"Hello, Barry," I replied, echoing his tone.
"Before we proceed," Barry began, "I just want to remind you that I can leave this room any time I want. This is just a talk, right?"
"Right," I replied, trying not to stress him out.
"So, what do you want to talk about?" he said, sitting back, with his arms over the chair.
