On The Edge

by Daniel Cleaver

  “Whatever it takes.”

  “You’ll confess on camera to the world. Your reputation will be in tatters. Your precious word will mean nothing. The world will finally know you’re a lying, cheating murderer.”

  “I ain’t killed –”

  “Liar!” he screamed.

  “Let me finish – I ain’t killed anyone that didn’t deserve it.”

  “Enough! You’ll confess all before the world and then I will slaughter you.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “It won’t be pleasant. For you, it’s going to be a spectacular, the full works. You will endure each torture the others suffered. I’ve practiced my art and know how to keep you alive – just – so you will feel every pain-filled moment.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I’ll flail your skin.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “I’ll hang, draw and quarter you.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  “Not before cutting off your balls and feeding them to you.”

  “Yummy!”

  “Oh, I am going to enjoy torturing you.”

  “Listen, I’m kinda busy,” I smirked as I could visualize the Hangman staring at the phone in disbelief.

  Bruce Matherson signaled to me frantically: he really was in a hurry to shoot himself. I held up a finger to say I wouldn’t be too much longer and made a gesture to show my caller was talking too much and mouthed ‘sorry’.

  I said into the phone, “I’m kinda busy, can ya call me back?” and I clicked off my phone. I turned to Bruce for him to continue.

  He placed the gun under his chin, trembling slightly, screwed his eyes shut waiting for the inevitable when I did my party piece and snatched the gun from his hand.

  He blinked a few times, wondering why he wasn’t dead, then saw his gun in my hand. He glowered at me with hatred in his eyes. “I’m not going to hang myself, it’s undignified,” he said with newfound bluster. “I’ll brazen this out. It’ll all blow over. You have nothing.”

  I nodded at his computer which played videos showing the years of abuse. “Those tapes?” He sneered, “I told you, they are inadmissible. You found them illegally. They won’t make it to court.”

  “Huh, ya think so?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Maybe not a court of law, but that’s not right, is it?” I smiled. “But maybe a court of your peers will think differently.” I turned his laptop around. “That’s been uploading to your website since I arrived. I can’t imagine what your loyal fan base will make of ya raping children.” His face went through an entire range: panic, fear, rage, panic again and then acceptance. I tapped on my iPhone. “And should be hitting the news networks any moment now. Yah, here we go. Channel 5.” I showed him the screen and he could see the news anchor with a head shot of his face blown up behind her, with a caption over it declaring, ‘Pedophile’.

  He aged fifty years as he realized it was all over. He strolled to his drinks cabinet, made a ‘may I?’ gesture. I nodded ‘go ahead’. He glared at me, lit a Cohiba Espléndido Cuban cigar, over thirty bucks each, took a slug of Glenfiddich whiskey, and offered the bottle to me.

  “Nah, don’t wanna leave my DNA.”

  He nodded that this made sense. I walked him in a trance out into the main foyer and I threw the rope up over the chandelier and tied it off. “Might as well make use of that ugly monstrosity.”

  He gazed up at the crystal beads. “Ugly monstrosity?! That cost me over forty thousand dollars,” he said quietly and sighed heavily. He stubbed out his cigar on the hardwood floor, knocked back the whiskey, stood up on the chair I’d placed under the rope, and put his head in the noose. “Does it hurt?” he asked, pointing at my neck, reminding me of my own failed suicide attempt.

  “Not if ya do it right.”

  “I take it you didn’t?” he said, pointing at the ugly scar around my neck.

  “Hell, no. I slowly strangled. It really goddamn hurt.”

  He nodded again and made a ‘well?’ gesture.

  “Leave it loose and that’ll break your neck instantly.”

  “Thank you,” he said quietly and, resigned to the fact, he jumped. He swung back and forth with the momentum.

  “No, wait, it’s pull the noose tight. Maaan, I always get that wrong.” His eyes widened as he slowly choked and he contemplated my deception. “I still think you’re getting off lightly when I think of all those poor kids whose lives ya ruined.”

  His legs kicked in the Tyburn jig and I watched as he soiled himself as he slowly choked to death.

  Homicide Special Section, 100 W 1st St 5th, Los Angeles, CA 90012 – 22:15.

  As I left Tara Mansion for the last time when the captain rang and summoned me back to the squad room immediately. When I arrived Dekes’s crew were mingling with mine and they’d opened a bottle of champagne.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We’ve caught the sonofabitch,” said Dekes with a toothy grin.

  “Who?”

  “Who else? – the Hangman.”

  My mouth dropped open. “When?” I asked.

  “An hour ago, while you were out dicking around,” said Dekes.

  “That ain’t right. I was talking to him not half an hour ago.”

  The captain raised an eyebrow. “The Hangman called you?” he said doubtfully.

  “Yah.”

  “On your cellphone?”

  “Yah. He had Mia’s cellphone. My number was programmed in. We all know that.”

  Dekes leered in my face. “Someone was yanking your chain. We have him. He confessed.”

  “How did ya catch him?” I asked.

  “We didn’t. He walked in and confessed.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Dekes offered in the way of evidence.

  “He ain’t gonna do that after all this meticulous planning.”

  “Well, he did. We’ve got him and you don’t like it.”

  “Screw you, Dekes.”

  “It’s taken the wind out of your sails. The big serial killer-catcher let this one slip through his fingers.”

  I felt a roaring in my ears and tried to control my temper. “What do ya mean?”

  “It’s Lyndon Johnson who you let go earlier in the week to kill again, how does that feel?”

  “It ain’t him.”

  “You’re just a sore loser.”

  “Right on,” said one of his pals, slapping him on the back; others clapped and whistled.

  I thought about it for a moment. Maybe I’ve been too close to the case what with Mia’s involvement. Had it clouded my judgment? Dekes opened another bottle and they continued with their celebration. I thought through the evidence. I’d had the call that was undoubtedly a fact, I’d had a live, two-way conversation, not a recording. He didn’t have time to suddenly have a massive change of heart and an overwhelming desire to confess. He’d have had to come straight here.

  “Did he have her phone?” I asked quietly.

  “What’s that?” Dekes said.

  “Did he have Mia’s cellphone on him?”

  “No, but –”

  “Did he tell ya where she is?”

  “No, but –”

  “Did you even ask him about Mia?” I asked and his face flushed red. “Did ya ask him if she’s still alive?”

  Dekes was embarrassed. “We were busy. Anyhow, he confessed to all the homicides.”

  I marched out of the squad room and down to the interrogation room.

  Interrogation room 2, H.S.S., 100 W 1st St 5th, Los Angeles, 90012 – 22:20.

  I burst through the door and Johnson looked up sharply. “Oh no,” he muttered.

  “Damn right, ‘oh no.’” I locked the door behind me and placed a chair against the door. Within moments I heard banging as my colleagues demanded to be let in. “As of now, I’m your worst nightmare. Where did ya snatch Officer Rage from?”

  “W
ho?”

  “The police officer.” He looked blankly at me. He twitched a shoulder. I turned to the two-way mirror. “He don’t even know who she is.”

  The intercom buzzed. “Open the door, Spooky, you’re in enough trouble.”

  “Oh, you mean the cop chick. I raped the bitch, including mouth, ass, every which way, and she fought me at first but then she got into it.”

  I ignored his baiting. I turned from the suspect, yanked open the door, and Dekes fell into the room. “Well done, Dekes, ya got the wrong guy.”

  As I marched back down the corridor the captain caught up with me and said, “I need to see you in my office. Five minutes.”

  Dekes shouted, “He might not know about Mia, but he’s definitely the Hangman, he admitted to raping those young girls!”

  “Impossible.”

  The captain’s eyebrow shot up. “How so?”

  “If any of you had bothered yourselves to read the case notes from the last time he was arrested, you would know that he’s been castrated.”

  He bristled, glared at Dekes and stomped off.

  George beckoned me over to his cubicle. “Castrated,” he shuddered.

  “Chemically?” asked Milo squirming.

  “Self-inflicted, with a box cutter.” I turned my attention back to George. “What have ya got?”

  He had a glint in his eye as if he had a secret. “I got something on Mia . . . but you’re not going to like it.”

  “What?”

  “Y’know I kept saying I knew her and I just couldn’t put my finger on it, well, it came back to me.”

  I nodded for him to continue, as I felt the hairs on my neck stand up. “Go on,” I urged.

  He was in two minds. “Perhaps it’s better if you watch.” He pressed a button on his keyboard and a dated porn movie played on the screen. He fast-forwarded, then paused, and pointed at the screen. “There!” he said in triumph. “I knew I’d seen her before.”

  It was undeniable. Mia was the star: she was servicing three men at once. I felt bile rising in my throat. “It don’t mean anything,” I managed to croak. “We’ve all made mistakes in our past.”

  “I told you I’d seen her somewhere before. Dirty Little Whore.”

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Show some respect!” I launched myself at him, held him around his throat and squeezed. The captain and Milo dragged me off him.

  “Cool it, Spooky, for Christ’s sake,” the captain ordered. “You’re out of control.”

  George choked and spluttered. “It’s the name of the movie.” He held up the DVD to show me. “Dirty Little Whore. Congratulations, Spooky. Your girlfriend’s a porn star.”

  “It’d explain the expensive house in the Hills,” Milo said nervously.

  “It makes no difference what she did in the past. She’s still our colleague and she’s in trouble and she needs our help.”

  “Not yours,” said the captain.

  “Come again?”

  “Your five minutes are up.” He beckoned me into his office. I could see something was on his mind, and that George and Milo wouldn’t look me in the eye. A novice in body language could read this as bad. Something was wrong. Ferdy caught my attention and nodded to the coffee machine. I held a finger up to the captain, joined Ferdy at the machine and poured myself a strong one. I had a feeling that I’d need it.

  “They’re on to you,” he whispered conspiratorially.

  “Who is?”

  “They are.” He jerked his head at the others.

  “On to what?”

  “Your vigilantism.”

  “Who said I –”

  “Save it, I’m on your side.”

  “Spooky, here, now!” yelled the captain.

  “Too late,” said Ferdy as he scurried away.

  I sauntered over to the captain and tried to keep my expression as normal as possible. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “You are.”

  “Come again?”

  “You’re up, you and your brand of justice.”

  “I don’t know what –”

  He silenced me with his hand as if he was pushing my lies back in my mouth. “I’ve always cut you a lot of slack over the years because you get results, but I’ve always protected you but I can’t help you any longer.”

  “Captain, I don’t know what you’ve heard but –”

  “There’s evidence to prove –”

  “Ah, well, then it can’t be me, I don’t leave evidence.”

  “This is no time for fooling, Spooky.”

  “I’m serious, just suppose, for a moment that I was doing this, do ya think I’d be stupid enough to leave evidence?”

  “Nevertheless, there is proof.”

  “Who are we talking about?”

  “Donnie Deathstar.”

  “He drove his Harley into the canyon.”

  “There’s evidence to suggest you were behind it.”

  I scoffed as if this was ludicrous, hoping that it was convincing. “What else?”

  “The hillbilly in his trailer?”

  “He hanged himself.”

  The captain leaned over and whispered, “Your fingerprints were on the rope,” he said flatly.

  “Anything else?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “The schoolteacher.”

  “He drowned.”

  “And you were at the school only moments before. You are also on the security cameras at Marcus Eglin’s gallery moments before he fled home only to be murdered in the botched robbery.”

  “Coincidence.”

  George McGinty broke the tension by saying, “Jesus!” He was staring at his computer monitor.

  The captain snarled. “What have I told you about blaspheming?”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Milo.

  “It’s just come through, breaking news, Bruce Matherson is dead.”

  “What? Never,” Milo said, utterly shocked. “How?”

  “Suicide, apparently.”

  I felt the captain’s eyes boring into me and I thought better than meeting his eyes for the moment. “You don’t seem surprised,” he said to me accusingly.

  “How?” asked Milo.

  George McGinty scanned through the report until he found the answer. “He hanged himself.”

  “Not another one?” Milo said in amazement. “What’s with all the hangings? It’s like an epidemic.”

  I felt my face turn red. I turned to the captain, with an excuse ready when his telephone rang and he held up his hand as he answered it. “Captain . . . really? Thank you, sir, thank you, Commander.” He replaced the receiver and stared at me for the longest time. His lips curled into what could almost be described as a smile. “I want your badge and gun.”

  “Huh, why?”

  “You are suspended – as of now.”

  The others turned and stared at me in surprise.

  “But –”

  “You’re lucky I’m not arresting you.”

  “For what?”

  “The series of vigilante killings.”

  “They all committed suicide.”

  “Save it for the judge, go home and get yourself a good lawyer, Spooky. I have enough here to arrest you. The commander asked me to detain you, but I thought I’d give you a chance to get your stuff together. You were good in the past, but now you’re taking the law into your own hands you’ve overstepped the mark.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I glared at him. I went to speak, but he shushed me with his hand again. “Want to guess who’s on the security cameras leaving just before Bruce Matherson was found hanged?”

  All eyes spun towards me.

  CHAPTER 41

  My duplex, Driftwood Street, Venice Beach, CA 90292 – 22:45.

  Suspended! Again! What was going on? I didn’t leave evidence because I didn’t commit a crime. I merely showed some scumbags the error of their ways and offered them a way out of their obvious misery.

  Was that a crime?

  Probably.

&nbs
p; I downshifted a gear and joined the traffic on the 405. I’d rung Perry and asked him to meet at my place. I needed weapons and fast: I was fairly sure that he was the sorta guy that could lay his hands on said weapons and quickly. The captain had confiscated mine and although I keep a spare compact Glock 22 at my home, I had a feeling I would need more firepower than that.

  I thought about Ferdy who’d rung and confided in me that Dekes was building a case against me. I had laughed at the absurdity of it, but he said it was shaping up. Not only for the vigilante suicides, but also pointing at me as a prime suspect in the Hangman homicides. It was laughable. I was the lead detective, but he had his team trying to match up my whereabouts at the times of the murders: using the time delay on the videos he could put me at every murder scene at the approximate times of death. It was a joke. Because of the time delay, it made everyone a possible suspect. He was also winning people around to his way of thinking regarding the fact that I hear voices. The general public has no idea what that entails and instantly thought I should be locked up for that alone. They equated hearing voices with being a serial killer. I tried to think it through like an impartial detective. I thought I’d better examine the facts. Could it be that I was a killer and didn’t know it? Could I function as a normal citizen and then kidnap a victim, hold her prisoner for several days, then rip her open and have no recollection of it? Not a chance. It was over too long a period. I could possibly accept that a person with an acute form of schizophrenia and that had stopped taking their medication could kill someone and not remember, but that would only be short term, a matter of hours not the best part of a week.

  I let out a sigh. I knew it couldn’t be me, but wondered how strong a case Dekes was building. He would have the backing of Snyder and the Internal Affairs Department. I knew that people had been arrested on far flimsier evidence at times and I did not want to be one of those people.

  I parked behind Snyder in his Impala. He hadn’t spotted me yet again. Some detective. He thinks I’m still inside my apartment. I hadn’t been there since lunchtime yesterday. Idiot. He was drinking from a Big Slurpee and I banged on his window as I passed, making him spill it down himself. I chuckled: what a jerk.

  I hadn’t been home long when I heard the rope ladder crash against my French doors and the surfer dude, who looked like Bingo, scrambled down and was banging on my French doors before I had reached them.