“Are you okay today, John?” I asked him, taking a soft approach to this.
“I’m fine. I just want to know, why do you keep wanting to talk to me? I’ve confessed to the murders.”
“There are still things that need wrapping up,” I replied, using a soft tone of voice.
“But I am the Minot Hacker! There is nobody else involved! Why don’t you just leave it like that?” John said, in an argumentative manner.
“I don’t believe you,” I told him, “and I think there is someone else involved. I don’t know who yet, but I will definitely find out, no matter what!”
“What do you want to ask me today, then?” said John, sighing again.
“Do you remember your aunt and uncle, Joseph and Monica?” I asked him.
John shook his head.
“Perhaps you know them as Uncle and Aunt Doe, or something like that?”
“Well, there was an auntie and uncle I used to visit, in that farm house, but that was years ago,” he replied.
“Okay, and who did you go with?” I said, with my notebook and pen ready.
“My mother used to take me. My father was rarely there. He used to work in distribution.”
“Right, and what were these people like?” I asked him.
“I only went every so often, so I didn’t really know them,” he replied. John looked very uncomfortable when he said that.
“John, is there something you’re not telling me?” I said, detecting his lie.
“No,” said a very defensive John.
“There is. I know there is,” I said. “Come on, John. You can talk to me.”
“Well, there was this one time...”
“Go on,” I said, eager for some sort of response.
“It doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with the murders,” he said.
“I think it does,” I said, getting more and more desperate for him to say something useful.
“Well, one time, my auntie took my mother in the garden for a drink and a chat. I asked my uncle if I could have a drink, and because I didn’t say please, he grabbed my neck and forced me into the cupboard.”
“That’s horrible!” I cried, determined not to let my emotions get the better of me.
“I know. That went on for a few minutes. There were other times when the pair of them hit me.”
“Did your mother find out about this?”
“I think she did, because after that, I stopped seeing them.”
“Right, and how old were you when they used to abuse you?” I asked him.
“I was only around five or six.”
I paused for a moment and thought of how evil and horrible these people must have been. I knew they were now dead, but they had not really had justice brought to them. Although they spent four long years in prison, they deserved more than that.
“There is one more thing I need to go over with you, John,” I said.
“I think I know what’s coming,” John said, almost laughing.
“Well, what was that bad thing you did in that house?”
“I’m telling you, I don’t remember!”
I decided to leave it at that. Then John spoke again, which surprised me, because he did not usually speak until he was spoken to.
“Can I tell you something?” he said.
“What is it?” I asked, hoping and praying this had something to do with the case.
“Every time I killed one of those boys, I thought of them. I imagined I was killing them.”
“What makes you say that to me?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. I just wanted to get it off my chest,” he replied.
I did not reply to that. I left the interview room and sat down at my desk. Nobody else was around at the time, because they were off working on the gang shooting cases. Suddenly, I started to cry, just a little whimper. It was probably because of the stress and the emotions associated with the case. The whole thing was so sad. After five minutes, I gathered my head together and carried on with my work.
Chapter 11
The next day, I went through each of the four case files once more, feeling as if I had missed or completely overlooked something important. I reviewed the case files as if I was restarting the investigation and none of this had happened. Therefore, I was able to look at all the facts separately. I picked out the main points from each file and went through them in my head.
‘Josh Davis was seen at a friend’s birthday party. After dancing, he apparently went outside for a cigarette and no one ever saw him again. There were thirty witnesses who say they have little memory of the night before. His body was been found in the middle of Minot forest, and he had been stabbed seven times. There were no witnesses, and no DNA evidence was collected.’
I thought to myself, it’s typical that nobody could hardly remember anything, because they were probably all drunk!
I then did the same with the next case file.
‘Steven Burck went out for a walk in Minot forest with his dog. His mother said that he always loved going on walks, so it was not unusual for him to go into the forest. His mother was alerted to Steven’s disappearance when the dog arrived home. After she telephoned the police, Steven’s body was soon discovered in the woods. He had been stabbed six times. Again, there were no witnesses and no DNA evidence.’
I then went on to the third case.
Daniel Gibson was seen leaving school at 4:00 pm. His body, along with his school bag and PE kit, was found on Jackson Street in Minot. However, it was not until around 6:00 pm that his body was discovered by a resident of the street. No witnesses came forward, and no DNA evidence was found. He had been stabbed four times.
And finally, the fourth and final case file.
Richard Cold was seen leaving school at 4:00 pm. His body, along with his school bag, was found in Minot forest. He had been stabbed seven times. There were no witnesses and no DNA evidence was found.
The fourth one was very empty. No more information was given to the parents. That was very sad, I thought.
While I was thinking away, my brain locked in detective mode; a feeling suddenly came over me and I recalled something that had been said earlier. Then, everything began coming to me. I looked at one of the case files again and realized something. Everything now fit, or almost everything. I had to make one more visit to make sure I was right, but I thought I was very close to solving the murder!
“Have you got a spare ten minutes?” I asked Graham.
“Well, yeah. Why?” he asked me.
“Because I’ve had a Eureka moment,” I told him. He did not reply. Instead, he looked at me, very confused.
“I’ll come with you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Yes. I want you to come.”
“Alright,” he agreed.
I was getting very excited now, and I knew that something good was coming. The house I was going to visit belonged to the mother and father of Steven Burck, the second victim who went for a walk with his dog and never came back. Pretty much everything was riding on the answer that this woman gave me, because it was the final piece of the puzzle. Everything else fit perfectly. I just needed some more facts to back up my explanation.
We arrived at the house, and a woman in her sixties answered.
“Are you the police?” she asked immediately.
“Hello, and yes, we are,” I said. “Are you Mrs. Burck?”
“Yes, I am,” she replied, allowing us inside.
“What’s it about this time?” she asked, her manner remarkably kind, considering.
I didn’t know how to break it to her, so I just said things spontaneously.
“I have one question about your son’s death,” I said.
“You look so grim, what is going on? Something serious?” Mrs. Burck asked.
“I’m afraid it is,” I replied.
“What is the question, then?” the old woman asked, clearly trying no
t to let herself get too anxious.
“Your son, was he a keen dog walker?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “He loved that dog. He went out with her every day.”
“Where did he go?”
“He went to a variety of places. Everywhere in and around Minot, and he was always scouting new routes. He always used to tell me how much he loved to explore.”
That was the answer I was looking for.
“Mrs. Burck,” I said, getting very excited, “I would like you to come with us to the police station.”
“Why?” she asked, very puzzled by now.
“I will explain everything when I get there, but I can tell you that I have solved your son’s murder!”
“What?!” she cried. She then called her husband in from the garden. This woman was ecstatic. I would be, too, because she had been waiting for this day for over twenty years.
“Graham,” I said, “I need you to get both Monica and Laura over here. Tell them I need them to verify a few things,” I said.
“Monica and Laura who?” he asked me.
“Here’s my phone,” I said, escorting the woman to the car.
This was it now. I now knew without a doubt who the murderer was, and I was ready to denounce them in front of the parents of the victims and a group of other people.
Chapter 12
We arrived back at the police station, and waited for everyone to arrive. I did not say anything to Graham yet, though I knew he was eager to know. When we entered the police station, we waited. The first to arrive was John Doe. On the way back, Graham had phoned the station and asked that John be brought into one of the large interview rooms, where I was going to explain everything to all concerned. The next people to arrive were Monica and Laura.
“What is this about?” asked Laura. “I have things to do.”
“Sit tight, all will be revealed in due time,” I told her.
Then, two by two, the parents of the three other victims arrived. Finally, Miranda, Patricia and D.I. Mitchell stood in the background as well. Now that everyone was here, I was ready to begin.
“Thank you all for coming. We are here today because for once and for all, I want to reveal the identity of the Minot Hacker. You might not have guessed it, but the murderer is in this very room!”
Many of the parents looked around.
“And let me say right up front to the rest of you that John Doe is not the Minot Hacker!”
This instantly created a minor uproar of gasps and whispers.
“In a minute, you will know who the real serial killer is. But I just want to point out a few things. First, all of us, including myself, made two assumptions that cost us a lot of time, and threw me in the wrong direction completely. To see what I am talking about, I need to take you all back to a day when John and Monica were walking together in the woods. They approached a house. John told Monica that he did a very bad thing there. Those were his exact words. I naturally assumed that the place he was referring to was the house. Well, actually, he did not refer to the house at all. In fact, I now know that Joseph and Maria Doe were not involved in the murders in any way, nor was the house.”
“So, what was John referring to?” Monica said, interrupting me.
“If you listen, you will know,” I replied. “Now, when I went to the house for the first time, I tripped over something. It was a metal stump in the ground. It was of circular shape. Now, just before I visited the house, I saw a sign pointing to the river. I noted that this sign was very modern-looking. If you think about it, there must have been a sign somewhere before that one, as it clearly was not twenty years of age. I now know that the sign pointing to the river used to be just outside the farm house.”
“What have signs got to do with my son’s murder?” asked the father of Richard Cold.
“I’ll explain everything,” I replied. “And anyway, it’s not the sign, but it’s what it pointed to that is important. And what did the sign point to?” I asked Monica.
“The river,” she replied.
“Exactly!” I cried. “And that was where John did the ‘bad thing.’ This takes us to my second wrong assumption. This is the important one. Monica, you told me that you saw John come running home one day, dripping wet. Is that true?”
“Yes,” replied Monica.
“And what exactly did he say?”
“Well, he said, ‘they made me go in the river,’ those were his words,” she replied.
“Which is exactly what they did,” I replied.
“Wait a minute!” said Daniel Gibson’s mother. “You’re telling me that our sons threw John into the river?”
“No, I am not saying that at all,” I replied. “Now, I am going to reveal who the murderer is, before I go any further.”
All eyes were on me, and no distraction could have changed it at that moment.
“The murderer... is... Laura!”
Everyone turned their heads and stared right at her. Laura looked as shocked as everyone else did.
“Me?” she said in a timid voice.
“Don’t try to hide it. I know it was you!” I said.
“I’m sorry, but you’re wrong!” she laughed.
“You know I am not wrong,” I said, “and I would like you to keep quiet while I explain it all to everyone. You see, the four murder victims played a small part in the river incident. The person who was thrown in the river was actually Laura. And, from what I just said about the signs and the bad thing, who threw her in?”
“John did,” said some of the parents.
“Right, and John dived in right after her, because he realized that she was in danger. You see, these young boys, being teenagers, did not see the danger of throwing somebody into a river. I am guessing that it was quite high, and Laura did not like water. So, because of the continued bickering, the boys decided they would try to taunt John into throwing Laura into the river, little realizing that he would actually do it. And instead of helping Laura, they got scared and ran off, leaving John to save her. Laura hated the boys for doing what they did, but she hated John even more for actually throwing her in.
“So, she made a plan to kill the four boys and thought she would get away with the murders, because nobody would suspect her, as those six were the only ones who knew about the river incident, so none of those would say anything, so there would be no reason to her. She would then manipulate John into telling the police that he was the killer. She did this by dressing up as his mother and pretending to be her. She then developed a mother-son relationship, knowing that John would fall for it. She would then eventually tell him that she was the murderer, so John would think that it was his mother who did it. I am guessing that Laura told him that the police were closing in on her, so John was desperate to defend her, so he confessed, and you all know the rest of the story. It took twenty years, but in Laura’s eyes, it was worth every minute.”
I paused for a moment to let everyone process what I had just said.
“So, it was Laura pretending to be John’s mother?” asked Monica.
“Yes. This fits in with everything. Such as when I went to John’s house. I knocked on the door. I think that Laura was actually in the house at the time, waiting for a phone call. The knock on the door alerted her, so she sneaked out the back and came to talk to me. She was able to observe Monica going out every day, because she lived just round the corner from her, so she would be able to look from one bedroom window and watch her going out of the house. Whenever Monica left, Laura would dress up as the old woman and go to the house.”
“This is extraordinary!” Patricia said.
“There is more,” I said. “When I asked Laura if she knew that John was schizophrenic, or that he had any mental health disorder, she denied it, even though it was blatantly obvious. This was to convince me that she was not trying to manipulate him, or show that he was an easy target.”
“What about the murders of our boys?” asked
the mother of Daniel Gibson.
“Well, for the first murder, Laura was working in the club at the time of the party. The records clearly show that. Anyway, since she was working a job that night, Laura was easily able to slip a drug into everyone’s drinks. This meant that nobody would be able to remember anything that happened the night before, except for minor details. Furthermore, nobody would suspect a thing because they were all drunk anyway. After the dance, Laura killed him and put his body into the back of her car. She then waited for people to leave, and drove his body to the forest.”
“And the second murder?” said Steven’s mother.
“The details of the second murder helped me out a great deal,” I said, “because of one thing. I now know that every day, Steven took a new route when he walked his dog, because there was a lot of the town to explore. If Steven took his dog out for a new walk every day, would the dog be able to remember everything?”
There were a few shakes of heads.
“A dog’s brain is not adapted enough to be that clever, so it would not remember its exact route home. So, how did it get home? The answer is that somebody must have taken it home. Obviously, this person was Laura. After killing Steven, she noticed the dog, and since she cares for animals so much, she drove it near to home, where she left it to find its own way back.”
“And the third?” said Daniel’s mother.
“The third murder was quite puzzling, but the answer was very simple. There were no witnesses at the time, were there?”
“No,” some people said.
“So, why did Laura take the risk and kill him in an open street? The answer is simple—because she knew that nobody was there. She knew that everyone on Jackson Street was out for a 100th birthday party or somebody’s anniversary. This lasted for the whole night from the afternoon until late at night, because a 100-year old would prefer to have their party in the afternoon than at night time. Knowing this, Laura was able to kill Daniel without anyone seeing at all.”
I then moved on to the fourth murder.
“The fourth murder was very puzzling indeed, but I now know that it was Laura who wrote the note to Richard, because she knew that Monica and Richard were dating, so Richard would naturally assume that it was Monica who wrote the note. That’s all there is to it. I’m finished now, so does anybody have any questions?”
Promised Box Set Page 116
