Killing Kirshner (A Psychological Suspense Thriller)
Page 14
No longer able to wait, the reporters blurted out their questions. There must have been at least five or six at a time, but the only question Petty responded to was, “Are you sure you got the right guy this time?”
“There is no question – Isaiah Kirshner was the Miami Mangler. We have unquestionable evidence that will be discussed at a later time. Now, I would like to introduce Captain Alvarez.”
“Thank you Agent Petty, this has been a long time coming, and it’s finally over. People of Miami can breathe a little easier tonight knowing that this monster is no longer on the streets. And, we can all thank two men, Detective Shazhad Ahmed and Detective Harry Pitman.”
The crowd rose to their feet, applauding; Shazhad and Pitman stood close together at the podium. This was the moment Shazhad had been waiting his whole life for, but it was not exactly what he thought it would be. He and Pitman agreed to keep the law students’ secret.
Pitman did not regret what they did for a moment; he felt justice was served. Maybe the four law students should be punished in some way; maybe they already had just being exposed to Kirshner. Pitman did not worry about this. After all, this was not the first time Pitman had concealed evidence in the name of justice.
Chapter 91
Will and Amanda sat on the couch in her dorm room watching the news coverage about Kirshner. They watched for a few minutes and both decided they did not want to hear another word about him. “I think I’m going to take a shower,” Amanda said as she stood up. “Meet you back here on the couch,” she said with a big smile.
Will changed the channels quickly on the television, but could not find anything except stories about Kirshner, the Miami Mangler. He finally found a rerun of Seinfeld, one of his favorites. He needed to take his mind off what had happened over the last few days and sat back and laughed a few times at the show. Amanda’s phone rang and as she was already in the shower, he decided to answer it for her; it was her mother.
“Hi, Mrs. Martin, I’m Will, a friend of Amanda’s,” he said.
“Nice to finally talk to you, Will, I’ve heard a lot about you. I was just checking on my Amanda, making sure she was okay. I was worried with all the news about Kirshner.” Her southern accent was even stronger than Amanda’s.
“She’s doing as well as can be expected. It’s been a crazy day for all of us,” Will said.
“I was so against her going to that school because of him, but she wanted to be a litigator like her mom and no one has a better program than Miami University. I still tried to discourage her, but you know how stubborn she can be.”
“I’m sure she would’ve never stepped foot in our school if she knew Kirshner defended her dad’s killer,” Will said.
“Of course she knew that. I was always open with her about what happened with her dad’s trial and everyone involved. It was a horrible time for us; the things Kirshner made the jury think about her daddy. It was just awful.”
“Wait, Amanda always knew that Kirshner got her father’s killer off?”
“Oh yeah, I never hide the truth from her – us Martins don’t believe in hiding things.”
“Apparently, they do. I’ll tell her you called, Mrs. Martin.” Will quickly dismissed her and hung up the phone.
His head was spinning. Why would she lie? he thought. “Amanda acted like her mom just told her about Kirshner the night we finally decided to kill Kirshner.”
He rummaged through her desk drawers looking for something to explain what was happening. He came across a letter from Miami University approving Amanda’s request to transfer from Section 3 to Section 5. “Why the hell would she want to be in his class if she knew?” Will mumbled to himself.
He continued to look around her room while she was still in the shower. He looked through her dresser drawers for anything that made sense – just clothes neatly folded in each drawer.
Amanda stood in the doorway in only a towel. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What the fuck is this?” Will yelled, holding up the transfer approval.
“Why are you going through my stuff? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“You weren’t even supposed to be in our section with Kirshner – you requested it. You knew about Kirshner the whole time, you pretended like you just found out that night.”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“I just got off the phone with your mother; she called because she was worried about you. She told me that you always knew that Kirshner got your dad’s killer off. You lied to me; you wanted me to think that you didn’t want to kill him, that you didn’t want any part of it. That was bullshit,” he yelled.
“Shit, Mom always did have a big mouth,” Amanda said.
This was the first time he heard her curse.
“Just calm the fuck down, Will. He turned out to be a serial killer, for God’s sake.”
“But you didn’t know that. At the time, he was just our horrible law professor. He was not the Miami Mangler. But that didn’t matter to you. You …”
“Apparently, it didn’t matter to you either. You were ready to kill him and chop him up into pieces because he threatened your fucking law career; at least I had a good reason.”
“I don’t understand what the hell is going on,” Will shouted, with his hands raised in the air.
“Just like you said, I made sure I was in his class. I saw how he picked on you the first day, and I knew you were the one. You were the one that could help me. I studied him for years, Will; I knew everything about that monster. I knew he would continue to target you because he had done this with all the students he called on first; it was a ritual for him. I saw how deeply it was hurting you – the dreams, the Xanax to try and deal with the stress. So, I formed the study group with you and the others. You were all the perfect guys to help me get rid of him – Jack was an avid hunter, Abrams was ex-military, and Sean had a major chip on his shoulder. For God’s sake, you started talking about how you would kill him within the first few weeks of knowing the scumbag. It couldn’t have been easier, but that wasn’t enough for you guys. The fact that he made a fool of us every chance he got, wasn’t enough. I needed something to put you over the top, so I gave Kirshner an anonymous tip that we cheated on the exam.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? How could you do that to us?” Will asked.
“We needed something real at stake – what better thing than our legal careers? So, I sent him the note and the asshole followed through like I knew he would. But, then we needed the perfect plan; it couldn’t be me that suggested it. I knew it was going to come from you; you’re the smartest. So, every day after I was done with my paper, I would give it to you – remember the highlighted sections I did for you about the Mangler. It took you a few days, but you finally came up with the perfect plan. We make it look like the Mangler killed Kirshner – he would just be another victim of the Mangler.”
“Jesus, Amanda! Who the hell are you?”
“Maybe I’m not a good person, Will. I guess I never have been. I was just a little girl when my daddy was taken away from me forever. Do you know how hard that is to understand when you are only eight years old – that Daddy won’t be coming home ever again? And then the man who tortured and killed your father gets off completely free.”
“Why not go after your dad’s killer?” Will asked trying to understand her.
She looked down at the floor and did not an answer him. Will knew by the expression on her face that she had already taken care of her dad’s killer.
“So, it wasn’t enough; you wanted Kirshner to pay for it, as well.”
“You’re damn right; you have no idea what this did to me and my mom. It changed me forever. I lost more than my daddy on that day – I lost my childhood, my innocence. I lost it all again when the trial began, and Kirshner said all those horrible lies about my dad. Kirshner was a monster – an evil demon that needed to be put down, and we did that. Think how many lives we saved. Regardless of how thi
s all started, it was the right ending for that piece of shit.”
Will stood up, and Amanda moved toward him.
Amanda grabbed both of his hands. “I never lied to you about by feelings for you. I know you may not believe anything I say anymore, but that is the truth. I do care a lot about you.”
Will knocked her hands away and stepped back. A red pillow that lay on her bed caught his eye; the pillow Amanda’s mother gave her when she was a little girl to remind her not to lie. Inscribed on the pillow was the phrase: “Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice to Deceive.”
“How appropriate,” Will thought to himself as he walked out of Amanda’s room for the last time.
Table of Contents
Killing Kirshner