AHMM, October 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  But despite that, I said, “I saw you."

  She dropped the bucket in her hand and grabbed the child, pulling her close to her side as I stared at her in my empty kitchen.

  "The day you cleaned the Stevens place on Briarwood Road. I saw you out on the beach.” I blinked hard and looked away and I could hear her breathing fast, frantic, afraid. I looked back at her. “You were arguing with some guy."

  "No, no...” The woman was shaking her head. “I do not know what it is you talk about.” She had an accent, but it wasn't Mexican or Puerto Rican. I couldn't place it.

  "Damn,” I muttered.

  "Please, can we go? I do not think anyone wants this house cleaned,” she said in a trembling voice.

  "And you...” I directed my attention to the little girl. She was about five, and was looking up at me with a fierce, but unfrightened intensity. “You asked me to get your doll. You asked—” I looked at the woman again. She was drawing back, shaking her head, trembling. “—But I didn't.” I swallowed hard and saw myself pulling up my hood while music rolled against my neck. Then I had turned and walked off up the beach.

  "You didn't get my doll, mister,” the child said to me as the woman tried to draw her away from me. “You told me no."

  "But she...” I said, but the child was right; I had told her no and walked off up the beach that day. It suddenly became all too clear what had happened, to me, to her, to the other child, the one I'd taken out of the bay. “She tried to get it, didn't she?” I stepped forward and the mother shrank back on quivering legs. I stooped down and looked into the girl's bright, dark eyes. “What is her name?"

  "Cora,” the child told me. “Cora went to get my doll."

  The woman was barely able to stand and fell back against the small kitchen table.

  I raised my head to look at her as I asked the child, “And who is Cora?"

  "My little sister,” the child said.

  * * * *

  "Jed Porter wants to know what the hell is wrong with people,” Jake said to me. He was lighting a cigarette, but since I had my own vices, I didn't feel it necessary to criticize his. I walked down to the sea wall, stood on its edge, facing Old South Jetty. Farther up, Long Jetty was just barely visible in the distance. The fog had never really lifted today. In the distance we could hear the bells of St. John's announcing eleven o'clock mass.

  "What did you tell him?” I asked.

  "I'm trying to figure out what to tell Meg and Bob Stevens when they show up to claim the things you say were ‘robbed’ from their summer house."

  "Tell them they're in trouble for hiring illegal aliens to clean their house."

  He frowned at me, and for a moment I wasn't sure how angry he was.

  "They didn't tell you about Rosa Carera, did they?” Jake didn't reply, so I went on, “Oh, they're going to say they didn't know Rosa was illegal; they didn't know she brought her two small children on jobs, and that the guy they hired her through has a racket going where he brings women into the country to work as maids, housekeepers, and other jobs for below minimum wage. Say all that and they won't give a damn that some unidentified person—” I pulled a handful of loose gravel out of the crumbling sea wall. “—told them they'd been robbed."

  "Yeah, they're going to need a lawyer,” Jake said, but with effort. There was no humor in his words, his face. Quite simply, none of this was funny. “Rosa Carera worked at their place on Wednesday and Thursday, April fifteenth and sixteenth. But how, Herbie? How did you ... ?"

  "The only person who won't report a missing child is someone who has everything to lose by doing so. Rosa Carera risked being sent back to Colombia, and with this guy's operation in jeopardy, even worse from him if she went to the police. That argument I saw, she was just asking the guy to go out in the skiff to look for the doll. But he had no intention of doing that.” I looked out to the bay. “That was on Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon. The next day Rosa returned to finish the job, and at some point she put both girls down for a nap. But while she was washing windows and polishing floors, little Cora got up and went out on her own to look for her older sister's doll. She fell off the jetty. That was on Thursday, probably early afternoon."

  "But things still don't fit,” Jake said as he came to stand next to me on the seawall. I could feel his anger—at a woman whose fear kept her from reporting her missing daughter to the police, at the affluent couple reluctant to admit they hired an illegal alien to clean their house, and even, at me. “You saw those people arguing last Saturday, and the kid, the little girl asked you to get her doll on—"

  I cut him off, “No, Jake. I didn't see them on Saturday."

  "Herbie? Look, we've got your statement—"

  Again I interrupted, “I got everything mixed up. I saw the man and woman arguing on the fifteenth, Wednesday afternoon. It was a clear, bright day, and then when I was out on the jetty last Saturday...” Now it was my turn to tremble, like Rosa Carera had done when I confronted her with the awful truth in my kitchen. “I was confused. I thought I saw them then, but I was remembering them from a few days earlier."

  "How is that possible?” he asked.

  I just stared at him, my eyes unblinking, then said, “I don't know."

  But I did ... "It's perfectly safe; it just makes things better."

  Only it didn't, not at all. It only makes things seem better.

  I turned away from Jake as he said, “You're on something, aren't you? Pills?” But strangely so, there was no roughness or condemnation in his tone.

  "No,” I answered very evenly. “Just got a lot on my mind lately.” I swallowed and turned back to him. There was gravel running out of both my hands.

  "So, the mother, Rosa, she was just asking the guy to go out and look around the jetty for the doll,” I heard myself saying. “Same thing the older girl asked me to do a little while later. But I looked at her, and I said no.” My voice got softer. “That was on Wednesday, Jake, not Saturday."

  "Herbie, this is not your fault,” Jake said.

  But it was as though his voice came from a million miles away. I was already headed for the beach below, muttering as I did, “I said no."

  Copyright (c) 2008 D. A. McGuire

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  Department: REEL CRIME by J. Rentilly

  There's murder, sure—usually crimes of passion, impulsive slaughter, typically directed at someone you know. And then there's serial killing, which experts suggest is more meticulous, calculated, usually a ghoulish acting-out of childhood trauma. According to government statistics, the United States boasts nearly four hundred serial killers in the past hundred and fifty years, claiming nearly four thousand victims, the vast majority of which were total strangers. (Of those serial killers, it may be worth noting—even if it's not easily explained—that eighty percent of them have cropped—er, chopped—up in the last twenty-five years).

  The last quarter century has also produced a glut of serial killer films as well, including two of the newest: TheMidnight Meat Train and Righteous Kill.

  * * * *

  The Midnight Meat Train. Photo by Saeed Adyani, courtesy Lion's Gate.

  * * * *

  From horror fiction maestro Clive Barker (Hellraiser) comes a new take on serial killers, The Midnight Meat Train. Expect plenty of slicing and dicing, but a fair amount of psychological terror, too, in this story of a New York City photographer hunting a serial killer who strikes subway travelers. Starring Bradley Cooper (Alias), Leslie Bibb (Iron Man), and Vinnie Jones (X-Men: The Last Stand).

  In Righteous Kill, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino team up again on the big screen. Directed by Jon Avnet, Righteous Kill is a thriller about a pair of cops investigating a spate of serial killings in a big city, with a major twist: one of the cops may actually be the killer.

  "The term ‘serial killer’ only entered into popular usage in the mid 1980s,” says Peter Vronsky, historian and author of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, a definitive hi
story of serial homicide, “yet American cinema has always been fascinated with serial killing long before we gave it a name and a concept.” Herein, with the assistance of Vronsky, we survey the notorious killers now out on DVD.

  * * * *

  John Doe in Seven. With a shaved scalp and a bowed head that oozes menace and categorically refuses contrition, Kevin Spacey's John Doe is, for our money, the spookiest serial killer ever committed to celluloid. He's a devious, diabolical, methodical, and calm slaughtering machine, plying his craft with inspiration from the Bible's list of seven deadly sins. Trivia: Both REM lead singer Michael Stipe and Full Metal Jacket's sadistic drill sergeant R. Lee Ermey were considered for the role of John Doe.

  * * * *

  Henry in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. If imposing, gravel-voiced actor Michael Rooker hadn't made such a compelling psycho killer in this horrifying—and sometimes horrifyingly real—film, then he might be working a whole lot more today. Loosely based on real-life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, this film's release was delayed three years while its makers appealed the X rating it had been given. Nearly twenty years later, it's still scary and shocking as hell. “Its portrayal of the brutal rape murders (committed by Henry) earned the film an X rating at the time,” says Vronsky. “Its non-Hollywood production values and X rating prevented the film from any significant distribution when it was released in 1990, but it's a good one."

  * * * *

  Norman Bates in Psycho. Cinematically speaking, Norman Bates—brought to the screen by Alfred Hitchcock—is the quintessential serial killer—an effete, mother-obsessed ornithologist and hotel manager with a proclivity for voyeurism and a certain skill for disguise and cutlery. Played to perfection by Anthony Perkins, and then played to death in three sequels, Norman Bates is an icon of American cinema, perhaps its most famous serial killer. Trivia: Robert Bloch's source novel was itself inspired by real life serial killer Ed Gein, who was also a starting point for serial killers in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs, and Deranged. “This is the classic breakthrough serial killer film. Norman Bates popularized the mother/son conflict lurking behind the childhood of so many serial killers,” says Vronsky.

  * * * *

  Jigsaw in Saw. Directed by James Wan and reportedly shot in a record eighteen days for loose change, Saw unleashed puppet-loving, contraption-obsessed “Jigaw” (Tobin Bell) on the collective consciousness. Three sequels followed, with a fifth installment due next Halloween. Driven by an Old Testament urge to torture victims into good behavior, Jigsaw is a merciless, vengeful creature. The film barely squeaked out of an NC-17 rating and it still haunts our dreams, to be sure.

  * * * *

  Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. This character was merely evil, a cold, clinical, brilliant mind—a detached, deranged, but collected psychiatrist/mass murderer with a taste for human flesh and devious psychological warfare. Hannibal Lecter, as played to Oscar-winning perfection by Anthony Hopkins, has no special power; he does not come from a comic book. He is a human being, and that's the scariest thing of all. Trivia: Anthony Hopkins, who has played the role three times, says his portrayal of Lecter is “a combination of Truman Capote and Katharine Hepburn.” “This was a huge Hollywood hit,” says Vronsky. “[It] introduced the notion of the ‘profiler’ as a serial killer's investigative nemesis."

  * * * *

  Aileen Wournos in Monster. Wournos may be the world's best-known female serial killer. According to FBI stats, only sixteen percent of serial killers in history have been women. Patty Jenkins's indie film about Wournos is most famous for uglying up South African beauty Charlize Theron, a hat trick that earned the actress an Academy Award. Viewed together with Nick Broomfield's illuminating documentary, Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, you get a one-two punch about what happens when the, uh, weaker sex goes homicidal. Trivia: Notoriously tempestuous, Wournos nevertheless uncorked thousands of letters and diary entries for filmmaker Jenkins, no doubt adding to the film's authenticity.

  * * * *

  Catherine Trammel in Basic Instinct. Sharon Stone plays a beautiful female serial killer in this slick ‘90s thriller, which feverishly mixes hot-blooded sexuality with graphic violence. It's a Freudian romp through male paranoia, insecurity, and impotence, brought to you by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, Hollow Man) and gazillion-dollar screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. Stone's icy, aloof, and hyper-sexualized serial killer is every man's dream come true in the bedroom—until the ice pick comes out, that is. (The sequel, released in 2006, is equally deadly).

  * * * *

  Ted Bundy in The Deliberate Stranger. Mark Harmon hits all the right notes of charming, handsome, and deadly in this cinematic take on the hunt for charming, handsome, and deadly serial killer Ted Bundy, whose reign of terror—and trail of female bodies—stretched across three state lines in the mid seventies. Despite being a made for TV film, The Deliberate Stranger is provocative, intelligent, and occasionally terrifying, due in large part to Harmon's against-type performance as Bundy, ostensibly a law student and rising local politician. (The film was initially broadcast in 1986, the same year People magazine dubbed nice-guy Harmon its “sexiest man alive.") “For more on Bundy, you've got to read Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, the definitive true-crime account of Ted Bundy,” says Vronsky. “It never actually uses the term ‘serial killer,’ despite the fact that her book quintessentially defines the postmodern serial killer."

  * * * *

  Freddy vs. Jason. Photo courtesy New Line.

  Freddy Krueger. By the time Freddy Krueger was hatched from the sick, fertile brain of filmmaker Wes Craven in 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street, the cardinal rule of slasher films was well established: If you have sex or smoke or do drugs or enjoy yourself in any way at all, you will perish at the hands of a faceless, mute killing machine. Ah, but Krueger—played with sassy, perverted wit by Robert Englund—kicks it up a notch. This is a monster with a purpose, with soul, with a backstory, and he's a deadly, virtually unstoppable villain who can infiltrate your dreams and kill you while you sleep. The killing machines in Friday the 13th (Jason Voorhees), Halloween (Michael Myers), and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Leatherface) follow the same game plan—occasionally, if you're Leatherface, throwing in a little cannibalism as a side dish. Technically speaking, they're not serial killers, but the body counts—and entertainment value, if this happens to be your cup of tea—are high.

  * * * *

  The Zodiac Killer in Zodiac. David Fincher's claustrophobic, intellectual look at the hunt for the Bay Area's still-uncaught serial killer is an instant classic. According to screenwriter James Vanderbilt, Fincher wasn't interested in making another serial killer film: “He was interested in making the last serial killer film.” Though a new round of serial killers are always headed for the multiplex, Fincher may have made the best of the lot, ever. Trivia: In Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry, Harry Callahan hunts the Scorpio Killer, an echo of the real Zodiac killer. So convincing was actor Andrew Robinson's portrayal of the film's serial killer, that he received several death threats after the its release and had to change his telephone number.

  Copyright (c) 2008 J. Rentilly

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  Fiction: THE QUICK BROWN FOX by Robert S. Levinson

  * * * *

  Kate Forman

  * * * *

  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

  The quick brown dog jumps over the lazy fox.

  The lazy brown dog—

  As far as Gus Ebersole got before deleting the most words he had put on the computer screen in the fifteen, no, now sixteen months he'd been fighting the good fight against writer's block.

  Writer's block, hell.

  He was suffering a doomsday bomb that had exploded in his head while he slept, taking out those parts of the brain responsible for creativity. The right side. No, the left side. One of the sides. He'd know which if it were still functioning, instead of the side he
was stuck with now, the side forcing him to consider abandoning his writing career, check Craigslist for work more suited to his current mental status.

  He thought about McDonald's, maybe the kitchen assembly line, squirting on the mustard and the ketchup, layering the beef patties with tomatoes and lettuce; or maybe manning the deep fry, pumping out those devilishly delicious, blood-congealing Frenchies, and—

  Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

  Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of Gus Ebersole.

  Now is the time for all brown dogs—

  The cell phone sang out, interrupting his train of thought.

  He punched on hungrily, happy for the distraction.

  Nobody he knew.

  A Commander Dennis Foley of the Los Angeles County Sher-iff's Correctional Services Division apologizing for his call at what might be an inconvenient time, in a nicotine-damaged voice that reeked of authority.

  "I am in the middle of something,” Ebersole said, “but I'm never too busy for those who protect and serve."

  "A new story in your Inspector Phogg series, I hope."

  "Possibly the greatest adventure of the inspector's life,” Ebersole said, flattered by this proof he hadn't been entirely forgotten or forsaken since the creative well turned drier than the Mojave.

  "Wonderful, he's my favorite, even more than grand old Mrs. Marlowe, although it's hard for me to imagine how you'll ever be able to top the last Phogg, Strangers on a Plane. Been what, two or three years since I read it in Crime & Punishment Magazine? Or anything, not even another Bogey Brothers, L.L.C."

  Ebersole muttered something about interrupting the flow of short stories to focus on a novel and pushed the commander to explain the reason for his call.

  "Over to our Men's Central Jail, got a classroom full of wannabe writers looking for a pro to steer them in the right direction—no pun intended—and my first thought naturally was you, Mr. Ebersole. An hour or two at one of the Tuesday or Thursday meetings would sure do the trick."