"I'm just glad you're all right," she said.
Assuming he'd disposed of the body properly, the bullet in his car was the last bit of evidence that might have linked him to the killings, but he'd taken care of it admirably. I had to give him credit, he was very good at covering his tracks. All he'd really had to do was pull out the bullet and slam that corner of the car into a wall hard enough to hide the previous damage. Doing it at the hospital had been especially smart—he now had a whole group of witnesses who thought they knew exactly what happened to his car, and if push came to shove, they could also testify that he'd been on the opposite side of town from the murders. He'd buried the evidence and given himself an alibi at the same time.
I turned to look at him with new respect. He was clever, all right—but why now, and not before? If he was so smart, why did he leave the first three bodies out where anyone could find them? It occurred to me that maybe he was new at this, and only just now learning how to do it well. Maybe he hadn't killed that man in Arizona after all—or maybe there had been something different about that killing that hadn't prepared him for these.
"John," said Mrs. Crowley, "I want you to know that we appreciate everything you do for us—we can't turn around these past few weeks without finding you there to help."
"It's nothing," I said.
"Nonsense," she said. "This is one of the worst winters in years, and we're too old to get through it alone—you've seen how Bill's health comes and goes. And now something like this, well, it's good to know our neighbors are watching out for us."
"We don't have any children of our own," said Mr. Crowley, "but you're practically like a grandson to us. Thanks."
I stared at them both, studying the signs of gratitude I'd come to recognize in them—smiles, clasped hands, a few tears in the corners of Mrs. Crowley's eyes. I expected sincerity from her, but even Mr. Crowley seemed touched. I hefted the shovel and started clearing off the stairs.
"It's nothing," I said again.
You’re a sweet boy," said Mrs. Crowley, and they both went inside.
Somehow it felt appropriate that the only person who thought I was sweet was a woman who lived with a demon.
I spent the rest of the morning shoveling their walks and their driveway, and thinking about how to kill Mr. Crowley. My rules kept popping into my mind, unbidden—they were too ingrained to leave without a fight. I thought about different ways of killing him, and immediately found myself saying nice things about him. I ran over his daily schedule in my head, and immediately felt myself straying to other topics. Twice, I actually stopped shoveling and turned to go home, subconsciously trying to distract myself from becoming fixated. My old rules would have told me to ignore Mr. Crowley for a full week, as I had forced myself to ignore Brooke, but things were different now, and the rules had to go. I'd been training myself for years to stay away from people, to root out any attachments that tried to form, but all of those barriers needed to come down; all of those mechanisms needed to be turned off, or stowed away, or destroyed.
It was creepy at first—like sitting very still while a cockroach climbs onto your shoe, up your leg, and under your shirt, and not brushing it away. I imagined myself covered with roaches, spiders, leeches, and more, all wriggling, probing, and tasting, and I had to stay motionless, and let myself become completely accustomed to them. I needed to kill Mr. Crowley (a maggot crawling onto my face), I wanted to kill Mr. Crowley (a maggot crawling into my mouth), I wanted to cut him open (a swarm of maggots crawling all over me, burrowing into me)—
I spit them out and shivered, coming back to reality, standing on the sidewalk and pushing away the snow. This would take a while.
"John, come in and have some chocolate!" It was Mr. Crowley, calling from the open door. I finished the last few feet of sidewalk, and went in to sit at their kitchen table and smile politely and wonder if cutting Mr. Crowley open would even work. I remembered the gash in his belly when he'd stolen the drifter's lungs, sealing itself closed like a Ziploc bag. He could heal himself back from a barrage of gunshots. I smiled again, took another sip of chocolate, and wondered if he could regrow his head.
Dark thoughts filled the rest of my day, and one by one, I tore my rules apart. When I went to school the next morning I felt haggard and terrified—like a new person in an old body that barely fit. People glanced over me, ignoring me just as they always had, but it was a new pair of eyes that looked back, a new mind that watched the world through this alien shell. I walked through the halls, sat through my classes, and stared at the people around me as if seeing them for the first time.
Someone shoved me between classes and I followed him the length of the hall, imagining what it would be like to take my revenge slowly, piece by piece, while he hung from a hook in the basement. I shook my head and sat down on the stairs, breathing heavily. This wasn't right; this was what I'd fought against all my life. Children streamed by like cattle in a slaughterhouse, like blood in a web of arteries. The bell rang loudly and they disappeared like roaches, scattering and swarming into their holes. I closed my eyes and thought about Mr. Crowley,
That's why you're doing this, that's who you want. Leave the rest alone. I took another deep breath and stood up, wiping clammy sweat from my forehead. I had to go to class. I had to be normal.
Halfway through class, the principal summoned all teachers to a special meeting. My English teacher, Ms. Parker, returned fifteen minutes later, paler than I'd ever seen a live body. The room fell silent as she came in, and we watched her walk slowly to her desk, and sit down heavily, as if the weight of the entire world was on her shoulders. It had to have something to do with the killer. I worried for a moment that Crowley had already killed again, and I'd missed it, but no. It was too soon. They must have found the policemen's bodies.
After a minute of deathly silence, no one daring to speak,
Ms. Parker looked up.
"Let's get back to work."
"Wait," said Rachel, one of Marci's best friends. "Aren't you going to tell us what's going on?"
"I'm sorry," said Ms. Parker, "it's just that I got some very bad news. It's nothing." She squinted as soon as she said it, her eyes red, and I wondered if she would start crying.
"It sounds like all the teachers got very bad news," said Marci. "I think we deserve to know what it was."
Ms. Parker rubbed her eyes and shook her head. "I should be handling this better. That's why they told the teachers first—so we could make it easier for the rest of you. I'm obviously not doing a very good job." She dried her eyes and looked up.
"Principal Layton just informed us that two more bodies have been found." There was a collective gasp from the students.
"The bodies of two policemen were found in the trunk of a car downtown."
Brooke wasn't in my class this period, and I wondered if her teacher was sharing the same news. How would Brooke react to it?
"Is it the same guy?" asked a kid named Ryan, two rows behind me.
"They think it is," said Ms. Parker. "The . .. wounds... on the victims seem like the first three. And it had the same . . . stuff, the black stuff."
"Do they know the policemen's names?" asked Marci. She was white as a sheet. Her dad was a cop.
"It wasn't your dad, honey. He's the one who found the car and called in the report."
Marci burst into tears, and Rachel got up to hug her.
"Did the killer take anything from the bodies?" asked Max.
"I really don't think that's appropriate, Maxwell," said the teacher.
"I bet he did," grumbled Max.
"I know this is hard," said Ms. Parker. "Believe me, I . . . well, I'm as shaken up as you are. We only have one school counselor, and anyone is free to go talk to her if you want, but if you want to talk to me, or go to the restroom, or sit quietly . . . or we can talk about it as a class. .." She hid her face in her hands. "They said that we shouldn't worry—that the pattern is consistent, or something—I don't know how that's su
pposed to comfort you, and I'm so sorry. I wish I knew what to say."
"It means that his methods haven't changed," I said.
"They're worried that we'll think he's getting worse, because two bodies were found this time instead of one."
"Thank you, John," said Ms. Parker, "but we don't need to dwell on the ... criminal's methods."
"I'm just explaining what the cops meant," I said. "They obviously thought it would make us feel better."
"Thank you," she said, nodding.
"But he did kill two this time," said Brad. He and I used to be friends, when we were little, but it had been years since we'd done anything together. "How can they say his methods haven't changed?"
Ms. Parker thought for a moment about what to say, but stared back blankly. After a moment she turned to me. I was the expert.
"The point they're trying to make," I said, "is that the killer still has himself under control. If he were killing a different type of victim, or if he were killing more viciously, or more frequently, it would mean that something has changed." All eyes were on me, and for once they weren't scowling or sneering— they were listening. I liked it. "See, serial killers don't attack randomly, they have specific needs and mental problems that shape everything they do. For whatever reason, this guy needs to kill adult males, and that need builds up and up until he can't control it, and he lets loose. That process takes about a month, in his case, which is why we've had one victim per month." It was all lies—he was killing more frequently, and he wasn't a regular serial killer, and his need was physical instead of mental—but it was what the police were thinking, and it was what the class wanted to hear, "The good news is, this means he won't kill anyone in this room." Until he gets desperate and you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"But there were two victims," said Brad again. "That's twice as many people this time—that seems like a pretty big difference to me."
"He didn't kill two people because he's getting worse," I said, "he killed two because he was stupid." I didn't want to stop talking—I was still too delighted that people were actually listening. I was talking about what I loved, and nobody shut me up, or said I was a freak; they wanted to hear it. It was a rush of power. "You've seen the way he just leaves his bodies there for anyone to find—he probably just jumps them at random, grabbing the first guy to pass by, killing him, and running off. This time that guy happened to be a cop, and cops have partners, and he realized too late that he couldn't kill one without killing them both, if he wanted to get away with it."
"Shut up!" yelled Marci, standing up. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" She threw a book at me, but it went wide and clattered against the wall. Ms. Parker leapt up to stop her.
"Everybody calm down," said Ms. Parker. "Marci, come with me—get her bag, Rachel. That's right, let's go." She put her arms around Marci, and led her carefully to the door. "The rest of you stay here, and stay quiet. I'll be back as soon as I can." They left the room and we sat there for several minutes, first in silence, then in low murmurs of private conversation.
Someone kicked my chair and told me to stop being a jerk, but Brad leaned close to ask me question.
"Do you really think his methods are staying the same?" asked Brad.
"Of course not," I said. With Ms. Parker gone I could get a little more vivid in my discussion. "He used to kill one defenseless person in each attack, and this time he killed two armed policemen. That's escalation, whether they want to tell us it is or not,"
"Crap, man," he said. The guys around him shook their heads.
"This happens all the time with serial killers," I said. "Whatever his need is, one kill a month isn't satisfying it anymore. It's like an addiction—after a while, one cigarette isn't enough, so you need two, then three, then a whole pack, or whatever. He's losing control, and he's going to start killing a lot more often."
"No he's not," said Brad, leaning in further. "They found these bodies in a car, which means they can find this bastard by tracking his plates. And then I'm going to go to his house and kill him myself." The other guys nodded grimly. The witch hunt had begun.
Brad wasn't the only one who wanted revenge. The cops didn't release the name of the car's owner, but a neighbor recognized it on the six o' clock news and by the ten o'clock news, there was a mob outside the guy's house, throwing rocks and shouting for blood. Carrie Walsh was still stuck with this story, and the camera showed her crouched next to the news van while a crowd behind her shouted angry slogans at the house.
"This is Carrie Walsh with Five Live News, coming to you live from Clayton County, where tempers, as you can see, are flaring dangerously."
I recognized Max's dad in the mob, shouting and shaking his fist. He still wore his hair very short, infantry style, from his time in Iraq, and his face was red with anger.
"The police are here," said Carrie, "and have been since before the mob formed. This is the home of Greg and Susan Olson, and their two-year-old son. Mr. Olson is a construction worker and the owner of the car in which two police officers were found dead earlier today. Mr. Olson's whereabouts are still unknown, but the police are looking for him in connection with the murders. They are here today both to question his family, and to protect them."
At that moment the mob started shouting more loudly, and the camera swung around and focused on a man—the same FBI agent from before, Agent Forman—leading a woman and child out of the house. A local cop followed them out with a suitcase, and several more worked to keep the crowd back. Carrie and her cameraman pushed forward through the mob, and she called out questions to the police. The cops helped Mrs. Olson and her son into the back of a squad car, and Agent Forman approached the camera. On every side, angry people shouted and chanted, "married to a murderer."
"Excuse me," said Carrie, "can you tell us what's going on here?
"Susan Olson is being placed in protective custody, for her own safety and for that of her child." The man spoke quickly, as if he'd prepared the statement before leaving the house. "At this time, we do not know if Mr. Greg Olson is a suspect or a victim, but he is certainly a person of interest in this case, and we are working around the clock to find him. Thank you."
Agent Forman got into the car and it drove away, leaving several police behind to quell the mob and restore order.
Carrie looked as if she wanted to stay as close to the police as possible, and her hands were shaking, but she found a member of the mob and started to interview him—with shock, I realized that it was Mr. Layton, my principal.
"Excuse me sir, may I ask you a few questions?"
Mr. Layton was not ranting like many in the crowd, and looked embarrassed to be suddenly on camera; I imagined he'd get a good talking-to from the school board the next morning.
"Um, sure," he said, squinting into the camera light.
"What can you tell us about the feelings in your town today?"
"Well, look around you," he said. "People are angry—they're very angry. People are getting carried away. Mobs are always stupid, I know, except for that brief moment where you're in one, and they make perfect sense. I already feel stupid just for being here," he said, glancing up at the camera again.
"Do you feel that this kind of thing will happen again with the next death?"
"It could happen again tomorrow," said Mr. Layton, throwing up his hands. "It could happen again whenever something gets the people riled up. Clayton is a very small community— probably everyone in town knew one of the victims, or lived in one of their neighborhoods. This killer, whoever it is, is not killing strangers—he's killing us; he's killing people with faces and names and families. I honestly don't know how long this community can contain that kind of violence without exploding."
He squinted into the camera again, and the image cut away.
Around them the mob was dispersing, but for how long?
It only took a few days for new DNA evidence to come through, all but exonerating Greg Olson, and the police plastered it acro
ss the news in an attempt to give Mrs. Olson and her child a bit of their life back. The police had, of course, cleared away the snow at the scene of the attack and found the sidewalk covered with blood, much of it almost certainly from Olson himself, in quantities that made him almost certainly another victim. Rumors started to spread about a third set of tire tracks, phantom bullets that had been fired but not found, and, most telling of all, a DNA signature that matched the mysterious black substance—only this time the DNA hadn't come from the sludge, but from a bloody smear inside the police car. This meant that there were four people at the scene of the killings, not three, and FBI forensic people were sure that the fourth, not Greg Olson, was the murderer.
Of course, some people began to suspect there was a fifth.
"You seem different today," said Dr. Neblin at our weekly Thursday session. I'd been tearing down my system of rules for five days now.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You're just. . . different," he said. "Anything new?"
"You always ask that right after somebody dies," I said.
"You're always a little different after somebody dies," said Neblin. "What did you think of it this time?"
"I try not to," I said. "You know, rules and all. What did you think of it?"
Neblin paused only a moment before responding.
"Your rules have never stopped you from thinking about the killings before," he said. "We've talked about them quite a bit."
That was a stupid mistake. I was trying to act as if I were still following my rules, but apparently I wasn't very good a I it. "I know, I just . . . it seems different now, don't you think?"
"It certainly does," said Dr. Neblin. He waited for me to say something, but I couldn't think of anything that didn't sound suspicious. I'd never tried to hide anything from Neblin before—it was hard.
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