Killing Kirshner (A Psychological Suspense Thriller)

by Mason Black

  Chapter 50

  Sean Jackson stood tall as he walked up the stairs to the library. His grandmother always told him, “No matter what, stand tall and be proud.” So, Sean followed his grandmother’s advice. By now, it was obvious that the police were focusing on the five of them. They had only questioned one other person, Todd, who used to be a member of their study group. The question is, what did the police know?

  “It was just talk,” Sean thought to himself. “We had nothing to do with his disappearance,” he mumbled.

  Both Pitman and Shazhad stood as Sean entered the room. Sean’s shoulders slumped immediately as he entered the tiny study room; he was no longer standing tall.

  “Mr. Jackson, you’re in a study group with Jack, Will, Abrams and Amanda Martin. Correct?” Pitman asked.

  “Yes. We have been studying together since the beginning,” Sean responded.

  “So, you guys have a good study group, right? I mean, you wouldn’t study with a bunch of dummies. I figure that you all thought well of each other, correct?” Pitman asked.

  “Yes, it’s a very good group of people. We really help each other understand the material,” Sean said.

  “What did you think about Professor Kirshner?” Shazhad asked.

  “Honestly, I know the guy’s missing and all, but he was a major creep. He was so mean to us in class. At times, it was unbearable; he put us down, called us stupid, and insulted our accents. There was nothing sacred to him, and Will probably got it the worst of all of us. For some reason, Kirshner loved to pick on him. Although, recently he had let up on him and moved on to some other students.” Sean was amazed at how much he just told them.

  “What do you think happened to Kirshner?” Shazhad asked.

  “Who knows? The guy was like a millionaire. Maybe he just decided to skip out of town. Who knows? To be honest, I am glad he’s gone, and I really hope he never comes back. I am sure every student you talk to today will say the same thing.”

  Pitman scratched his head and closed his notepad. It was not often that you would run into someone that was as hated as Kirshner. This made things much harder from a police standpoint because the suspects were endless. But, his few minutes with the students may have given him some prime suspects. He hoped that Amanda Martin would confirm his suspicion. The question for Pitman and Shazhad was, did they hate him enough to kill him?

  Chapter 51

  “Ms. Martin, come in and join us,” Pitman said with a sweet smile.

  Amanda was a tall, attractive girl with very long legs – Pitman noticed her long legs immediately. He had always been a leg man. That’s one of the things he first noticed about Jill. Her long legs peeking out of her lab coat.

  Amanda’s heart was racing, and her hands were trembling. She could feel them shaking and purposely hid them under the table. She did her best to compose herself.

  “Did something happen to Professor Kirshner?” she asked in her southern accent.

  “We’re not sure at this point. Right now, he’s just missing,” Shazhad answered.

  “I hope he’s alright. I’ve been praying for him since we heard he was missing.”

  “Did you like him?” Pitman quickly asked.

  “What do you mean? Like a crush?”

  “No, I mean as a professor. Did you like him as a teacher?”

  “He was extremely challenging, and I am always up for a challenge. I wouldn’t say I liked the guy because he was unnecessarily rude in class. He even made fun of my accent a few times. Said I sounded dumb with my horrible Charleston accent.”

  “Is that where you are from? Charleston, South Carolina?” Shazhad asked.

  “Born and raised. This is the first time I’ve been away from home. So, it has been a big transition for me,” Amanda explained.

  “Have Jack, Abrams, Will, and Sean helped you with that transition?” Pitman asked.

  Amanda realized that the police associated the five of them together.

  “Yes, they have been great friends and awesome study partners,” she answered.

  “So, you are all very close.”

  “We have gotten close over the semester,” Amanda responded.

  “How did the rest of your group feel about Kirshner?”

  “They weren’t crazy about him, either. He was horrible to all of us.”

  “But, you didn’t hate him?” Pitman curiously asked.

  “I don’t hate. I was raised not to hate by my ma. My faith does not allow me to hate,” Amanda smiled.

  Chapter 52

  Later that afternoon, the group of five went back to Amanda’s room. “What do you think they know?” Jack asked.

  “How could they know anything? We didn’t really do anything anyway; we just talked about it. We never went through with it,” Sean said.

  “We were on the way to the house; we planned the whole thing – that’s at least conspiracy to commit murder. Even if we didn’t do it,” Abrams said.

  “Fuck, I can’t believe this; it had to be Todd. They were going in alphabetical order until him, and then they went straight for us,” Will said.

  “Just calm down, they don’t have anything on us. So what, Todd said that we hated the guy – everyone hated him. The whole class and every class that he has ever taught,” Jack argued.

  “What if Todd overheard us?” Amanda asked.

  “When? We never talked about this in front of him. How could he know what we planned?” Will responded.

  “He must have overheard something. That must be it, y’all,” Amanda said.

  “Okay, I know we’re all thinking it. What the hell happened to him? It seems too much of a coincidence that on the night we plan to … you know. He disappears the next day,” Sean asked.

  The room was silent. “Did anyone do anything after we got back here?” Sean asked.

  “Sean, come on. You know the plan was awash. We all came back to the dorms together,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, but we went our separate ways; one of us could have gone back to the house and carried out the plan,” Sean argued.

  “Yeah, but our plan was ruined. We thought they caught the Miami Mangler that night; we all agreed to forget it,” Will responded.

  “I know, but we were all desperate. Maybe one of us was so desperate that they went back to the house and did what we intended to do,” Sean yelled.

  “Enough Sean, this is not the time to flip out. We need to stick together,” Amanda yelled back.

  “Let’s settle this right now; did anyone in this room kill Kirshner?” Will asked.

  They all, in unison, said, “No.”

  “We have to trust each other, and the only thing we have to worry about now is Todd. If Amanda is right, then he must have overheard us at the library. So, we need to figure out exactly what he said.” Will tried to calm down the group and get them focused.

  “How do we do that?” Jack asked.

  Will shrugged his shoulders.

  “Let me take care of Todd. I know exactly what to do with a weasel like that,” Abrams said.

  Chapter 53

  “Shazhad! Did you see the newspaper? That guy wasn’t the Mangler,” Aamilah shouted from the kitchen. She held a copy of the Miami Herald in her hands. Shazhad came running in from the bathroom in his underwear. “Let me see that,” he yelled, grabbing the paper from her.

  Shazhad scanned the article that described in detail that the man who confessed to being the Miami Mangler a few days earlier was unable to verify certain key details of the Mangler’s techniques.

  “So, you still have a chance now,” Aamilah encouraged.

  “Guess so; I figured this was coming. He didn’t seem right to me, and he didn’t even match the FBI’s profile,” Shazhad told her.

  “Well, I hope you are the one that catches him; I’ll keep praying for that,” she smiled.

  He patted her on the head. She knew that Shazhad’s faith was not nearly as strong as hers, but that would not keep her from praying every day for him. S
he knew he wanted this more than anything in life – to be the detective that caught the most notorious serial killer in the last twenty years.

  Shazhad had a new purpose; he quickly got dressed and scoffed down an English muffin that Aamilah had made for him. He secretly hoped that Professor Kirshner was another victim of the Miami Mangler. That would be his way in. Of course, he did not even have a body yet. For all he knew, Kirshner could show up for class any day. Nonetheless, he could still have his secret, dark wishes.

  Chapter 54

  Morgan Petty, the head of the FBI Miami Mangler task force, was holding a meeting with the entire precinct. Shazhad grabbed a notepad off someone’s desk and rushed into the room; he had been waiting for this moment since he had first thought about moving to Miami. His heart pounded as he entered the room and stood next to Pitman in the back of the room.

  Special Agent Petty had been with the FBI for twenty years, most of that time spent trying to capture serial killers. With a background in criminology and psychology, Petty had a strange understanding of how serial killers thought, until the Mangler. This was the first time he could not get his head around a serial killer because the Miami Mangler made no sense to him.

  Every serial killer that Petty had encountered had a victim type, whether it was female prostitutes with blonde hair, or middle-aged black men – there was always a type. So far, his known seventeen victims had included teenagers, the elderly, black, white, Hispanic, women and men, which made catching him extremely difficult. Even his method of killing was not normal; he did everything from strangling to shooting his victims.

  “I wanted to thank all of you for coming on such short notice. As you know, Colin Lakin was unable to describe how the Mangler killed his first four victims. He also didn’t know the one thing we are keeping from the press, the reversing of the severed limbs. He basically knew what the press has been reporting – that the Mangler removes the limbs of his victims. Unfortunately, from my experience, there are always a few losers that will come forward claiming to be a serial killer. This is a given in every case I have dealt with. Luckily, we didn’t waste much time with him. But, the reason why I brought all of you together is because I need your help; the task force has very few leads. Let me go over what we do know about the Mangler.”

  Shazhad put his pen to the pad and prepared to write as fast as he could; he did not want to miss one word Agent Petty said. Pitman also had his small notepad out. After all, his girlfriend’s sister was a victim of the Mangler, and it was his duty to do everything he could to find the monster.

  “The FBI profile describes the Mangler as a white man in his thirties. He is highly educated and most likely resides at a house. He would need a lot of room and privacy for the amount of time he is taking with his victims. He most likely drives a mini-van or an SUV. He would need access to some kind of medical facility or pharmacy, judging from the drugs we found in the victims’ systems. He might have some medical knowledge because we know he is keeping the victims alive for several days after inflicting pretty serious injuries on them. He is a patient man. He chooses his victims very wisely, and there is no pattern to his choice that we have been able to detect. He is by far the most difficult killer I have hunted. The only possible solid evidence we have is that he might have a very rare blood type: AB negative. That was the blood type that was found on the last victim, which means he may be getting sloppy.” Petty paused to take a sip of water. “The only ritual that the Mangler engages in is the removal of the arms and legs and then switching them – so the left arm is placed on the right side and vice versa. He then sews them back on the body – we still haven’t figured out why he does it. Some of the psychs are suggesting he has some kind of disfigurement of his own – not sure I buy that, but it’s a theory.” Petty took another sip of water. “He kills his victims in a number of fashions after torturing them for several days, and the arms and legs are removed postmortem. At this point, I’m ashamed to admit I’m at a complete loss. We have 17 victims that we have tied the Mangler to, and we are not any closer to finding him than when I first started this task force. I am here today in front of all of you asking for your help, hoping maybe a new set of eyes will help. I am asking each one of you to spend a day with the task force. There’s a roster you can sign up for different days – tell us your ideas and thoughts. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to working with all of you. Let’s get this maniac,” Agent Petty said.

  Pitman watched as Shazhad scribbled Petty’s last words and jumped up to sign the roster. Pitman knew that his new partner was not focused on finding Professor Kirshner. He knew if Kirshner was to be found, he would probably have to do it alone, which was fine with Pitman. He was used to working alone.

  Chapter 55

  Todd Garner sat in his dorm room reading over some materials for his next Torts class. He flipped on his desk lamp so he could see a little better. Suddenly, he was startled by a heavy pounding on his door. He looked through the peep hole, but could not tell who it was knocking at his door.

  “Open up, Garner. I know you’re in there,” the voice shouted.

  Todd did not recognize the voice, but he decided to open the door to see who was interrupting his studying.

  To his surprise, it was Abrams. “What the hell do you want?” Todd mumbled.

  “What the hell did you tell those detectives, Garner?” an irate Abrams shouted.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Todd responded, pretending not to know what Abrams was referring to.

  “You told them something, Todd. Now, what was it?” Abrams shouted as he moved closer to Todd.

  “Get the hell out of my face. Who do you think you are? You can’t come to my place and scream and yell at me,” Todd shouted back.

  “We all know it was you. It was right after you that they started questioning all of us.”

  “They questioned me, too. I got nothing to hide. Do you, Abrams? Do you have something to hide?” Todd yelled.

  Abrams grabbed Todd by his shirt and threw him up against the door. “You better shut your fucking mouth, and stop saying shit about me and my friends.”

  “Get your hands off of me. I bet you killed Professor Kirshner. You and your fucked up friends. I know it was you guys. You and that bitch,” Todd shouted.

  Abrams pulled back his fist and smashed it into the door. “Next time it’s going to be your face.”

  “Just try it. I’m calling the police on your ass,” Todd shouted as Abrams walked down the hallway.

  Chapter 56

  Shazhad and Pitman arrived at Kirshner’s house early the next morning. Even though Pitman had already made a trip to the luxurious home, Shazhad wanted to learn a little more about the missing professor.

  Shazhad was impressed with Kirshner’s house; he obviously invested a lot of money into the home. He had read on-line about Kirshner’s history of defending the worst of the worst – murderers, rapists, child molesters. It appeared that Kirshner had no moral compass – at least, with what clients he chose to defend. As a criminal lawyer, Kirshner was considered to be one of the best during his heyday. Shazhad imagined that Kirshner had a lot of enemies out in the world. “You can’t represent those types of people and not make a lot of enemies – surviving victims, family members of the victims – they had to be numerous,” Shazhad thought. After all, Kirshner had been practicing for more than twenty years when he finally decided to teach.

  Shazhad and Pitman walked through the house slowly, looking for any signs of a struggle, but there was nothing. Pitman showed Shazhad where he found the small piece of cloth with the blood on it. As they were about to leave, Shazhad looked back at the family room where Kirshner had his couch; something looked out of place to him.

  “Hey, take a look over there. Does anything look strange to you?” Shazhad asked.

  “What, you mean the couch? Not really,” Pitman responded.

  “Where’s the coffee table? There’s nothing there. It is completely bare
in front of that couch. No end tables, no coffee tables – seems odd.” Shazhad began to walk over toward the couch.

  “It does seem strange. Where did he put his beer when he watched football games?” Pitman asked.

  “Exactly; something is missing.” Shazhad walked over to the other side of the couch. “Give me a hand, let’s move this.”

  Pitman and Shazhad lifted the couch and moved it a few feet forward. It was amazingly clean underneath the couch, like the rest of the house. Kirshner was obviously obsessed with keeping a very clean house. Pitman turned on a light in the corner of the room. There was a glistening in the grout of the tile. Pitman bent over and picked up a tiny piece of glass, and Shazhad found another tiny piece of glass a few inches away.

  “I’m thinking a glass coffee table,” Shazhad said.

  “A glass table shattered into a million pieces. Someone did their best to clean it up, but you know how hard glass is to clean up. I think our professor might really be in trouble,” Pitman sighed.

  Chapter 57

  Pitman grabbed his radio and called for a crime scene investigator to inspect Kirshner’s house. Shazhad went out to their car and called one of the duty officers. He asked the officer to check if Kirshner had made any recent reports of any intruders or stalkers.

  Within a few minutes, the duty officer told Shazhad that Kirshner did not report any intruders or stalkers. However, a few weeks ago, his neighbor reported seeing an older man with a gun in his hand chasing a bunch of people down the street. The neighbor said there were five of them – one of which was a woman.

  Shazhad walked back into the house, as Pitman was looking through the kitchen. “You’re not going to believe this. A few weeks before Kirshner went missing, his neighbor reported that someone carrying a gun was chasing a group of people down the street. Five of them – one was a girl. Sound familiar?”

  “Sounds like our five favorite law students. Let’s bring them all in for questioning – they’re hiding something. I can feel it. Let’s also check and see if Kirshner had a gun registered to him. But, before we leave, let’s go talk to this neighbor,” Pitman said.