Diary of a Serial Killer

by Ed Gaffney

  Because of the recent news about this scary serial killer who was running around all over the place, Andre had been careful lately to make sure that he looked through the peephole in his front door before letting anyone into his house. But he was so distracted today by everything that had to be done on the play that he just pulled open the door, saying, as he did, “I’m so sorry, but I’m really busy right now—”

  And the next thing he knew, he was bound and gagged, lying facedown in his entryway.

  Eighteen terrifying and excruciatingly painful minutes later, he heard a voice say, “Welcome to my world, Mr. Englewood.”

  And then he was gone.

  TWENTY-TWO

  My Dearest Vera,

  Welcome again to my world. I’m so happy you are going to be reading this while I take care of my next victim.

  I am, of course, flattered that you were so kind as to wait in person for me.

  But I must say, with what I hope you understand is the gentle chiding of a close friend, that you did not read my last letter to you carefully.

  Oh, you figured out the name that I hid in my missive, but I expected no less. You are a woman of uncommon intelligence.

  But you failed to recognize why I identified Ms. Cee to you. I only said in my letter that my diary entry would tell you “who I am going to cause to suffer.” I did not say, as you assumed, that I would cause this person to suffer physically.

  And that is why, instead, while you waited for me at Ms. Cee’s house, I killed Ms. Cee’s favorite nephew, Andre Englewood.

  (Englewood Homicide Evidence ID Number 1)

  September 16

  Vera looked up from the letter. Yesterday had been so promising. But in a matter of minutes, everything had turned from triumph to despair. They hadn’t caught the killer. Far from it. Instead, another innocent person had been murdered.

  All the appropriate steps were being followed. Ellis was looking into the delivery service to find out who had hired them to bring her the overnight letter. The body of the latest victim, Ruby Cee’s nephew, Andre Englewood, was being autopsied by the medical examiner.

  And Vera was sitting at her desk, with her hands positively shaking with adrenaline. Or rage.

  I have high hopes for Mr. Englewood, because as you have probably gleaned by now, I go to a great deal of trouble to arrange these little events in order to bring some drama into my life. Happily for me, Mr. Englewood is himself involved in theatre, so I anticipate he will provide me with an excellent show in his final moments here on earth.

  Before I leave you with another diary entry to whet your appetite, I feel compelled to inform you that I will not take another victim until next week at the earliest. Our schedules have been considerably hectic of late, and I would like to be sure that we are both fresh when we next work together.

  That will also give you a good amount of time to sort through the puzzle this next entry will present to you. It is somewhat different than the prior ones, so be careful! I have seen how much you care about your work, and so I know that you are going to want to be very certain next time that you have everything figured out before you make your next plan to stop me.

  Until then, I remain,

  Eternally Yours

  Then Vera turned to the copy of the diary entry. The original, along with the original of the letter, were at the lab for analysis, which, so far, was yielding them nothing they could use.

  September 14. I have come up with a game to play to lead my friend Vera to where she wants to be.

  Here are the clues:

  I am not the spawn of Satan.

  I am not a crook.

  I am not a knight in shining armor.

  I am not a bi-sexual, going on a bi-annual trip to bi-shop at the bi-rite bargain store for bi-centennial memorabilia.

  I am not asking for help.

  Would a hint or two be appropriate? At the risk of breaking the rules, I will share the following: do not forget what you have already learned about playing these little games. And also: keep your focus on the fifth in the first three, and then the twelfth, and finally the fourth.

  Then, when you realize what I have left out, put before it the number of squares on the board less ten.

  Paul had already seen on the monitors from the security cameras at the gate that the visitor was that young attorney, Zack Wilson, but Paul looked through the glass that had been installed in the front door anyway, just to be sure.

  And then he checked Wilson for weapons, before letting him into the house. Because, shit. Just because somebody’s a lawyer doesn’t mean they can’t carry a gun.

  But all the guy had with him was a legal pad with a list of questions on it, a pen, his wallet, and his keys, so he was good to go.

  “Mr. Heinrich set it up so you two could meet in the kitchen alcove,” Paul said. It was where the old man spent most of his time when he wasn’t in bed.

  The boss wasn’t having a very good day, but as he had told Paul this morning, he didn’t expect there would be that many days left, good or bad. So even when he wasn’t feeling that great, he tried to get downstairs for at least part of the day, just to sit by the window, soak up some sun, and look out toward the woods.

  Wilson noticed the medical equipment that had been recently moved out of the bedroom and temporarily placed in the entry hall, and the special lift chair that had been installed on the stairs.

  “Is Mr. Heinrich sick?” he asked.

  Boy. Was this guy in for a surprise. There was no reason to hide it, though. “Yeah. Mr. Heinrich’s got cancer. Started in his lungs, but it’s spread everywhere. He doesn’t have too much longer.”

  They made their way back to the kitchen. Mr. Heinrich was sitting in his wheelchair, at the end of the table, and turned to face them as they approached. God, it seemed like he looked worse with every passing hour. His face looked almost skeletal, and the skin on his bony hands was like yellow paper. His breathing was shallow, and his eyes were glassy and sunken.

  The boss shook hands with the young lawyer, and Wilson sat down next to him. Paul sat on the other side of the lawyer.

  “Thank you so much for seeing me today, Mr. Heinrich,” Wilson started. “I had no idea you were sick. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

  The boss smiled, and spoke softly. “I have a great deal of respect for your father. Please tell him I said hello.” He moved to take a sip of water, and Paul got up to help him. The old man’s arms were full of liver spots, and badly bruised up from the intravenous needles. Dying really sucked.

  Wilson waited until Paul got seated again, and then answered. “I will, sir. He sends his regards, as well.”

  Mr. Heinrich smiled. “What can I do for you, Attorney Wilson? Unfortunately, we will probably have to keep this short. I don’t have as much strength as I used to.”

  The kid nodded. “Of course. Well, as I mentioned on the phone, I’ve been assigned to represent Alan Lombardo in a motion for a new trial.”

  The boss looked somber. “Yes. Terrible thing about Alan. He did good work for me.”

  The attorney picked up his pen and made a note on his pad, and then looked up. “Before I ask any questions, I do need you to understand that since I’m not your attorney, what we are discussing will not be held in confidence. It’s just…I represent Alan, and, well, given the fact that you were my father’s client, I just didn’t want there to be any confusion—”

  The old man held up his hand. For the first time in days, there was a spark in his eyes. “Attorney Wilson. I know an honest man when I see one. I appreciate what you just said very much. Ask me whatever you want. I have nothing to hide. Please.”

  The young lawyer made another note on the pad. “Okay. I guess I need to start by asking you if you paid my father to represent Alan Lombardo.”

  Mr. Heinrich looked like he was in some distress, but he answered anyway. “Yes. Your father was on retainer to represent me, or anyone that did work for me.” He winced, shifted a little in his seat,
and continued. “I ran several businesses at that time, and I had dozens, sometimes more than a hundred employees. We were always talking to your father about one thing or another.”

  The kid made another note or two, and then asked, “So what exactly did Alan Lombardo do for you?”

  Clearly, Mr. Heinrich was in pain, and he’d had morphine less than an hour ago. Things were really getting bad. He met Paul’s eyes, but turned back to the lawyer. “Alan handled the bookkeeping for our companies,” he said simply. “He was our accountant. He did our taxes, all that stuff.”

  The lawyer went on to the next question on his list. “Sometimes, when one person hires an attorney to represent another, the lawyer is put into an ethical bind, if you know what I mean. The lawyer has to put his client first—”

  The attorney was interrupted by a small cry that came from the old man. He was shaking his head back and forth, and trying to shift in his chair to a more comfortable position, but nothing was working. The pain must have been awful. “I’m sorry,” he interrupted. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears. “But I’m going to have to go upstairs now.”

  Paul got up to wheel him to the stairs, but the old man stopped him. “Wait, Paul. Just a minute.” Mr. Heinrich took a few breaths, and seemed to calm down a little. Maybe the pain had passed, or maybe the boss’s toughness just beat it back. “Attorney Wilson, I’m afraid that I’m so sick that I won’t be able to speak with you anymore.” The old man gestured to Paul. “This is Paul Merrone. He started with me back before I knew your father. Paul knows everything that was going on back then with Alan and the business.” At that point, he squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to move again in the chair. Again, a cry of pain slipped out. Then he seemed to relax, and his eyes opened. “You can get in touch with Paul the same way you reached me. He will tell you anything you need to know about Alan and his work.” Then the old man closed his eyes again. “I’m sorry, but I must leave now.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  September 17

  What a difference a couple of days could make.

  Terry had been really looking forward to seeing Vera the day after their first night together, but she had to work well into the evening, and it hadn’t been a good day anyway, so they decided it would be best to meet after work the following day.

  So here they were, having dinner together, at Vera’s favorite place this time—a little family-owned Greek diner with kick-ass spinach pie—but talk about a different vibe. Tonight, the energy and passion flowing from Vera was as strong as it was two nights ago, but this time, instead of a little black dress with heels, she was wearing a gray sweater, black pants, and boots. Tonight, Vera was much less about sex, and much more about intense concentration.

  The serial killer had fooled them all, and Vera was taking it very personally.

  “We had a real chance,” she told Terry. “We figured out the clues, but we got too cocky. We didn’t pay close enough attention to the words in his message.” Her beautiful blue eyes were like laser beams as they locked onto his. “I’ll tell you one thing for sure. That’s not going to happen again.”

  Oh, she was still sexy as hell. She just wasn’t trying tonight.

  “I brought a copy of the jerk’s latest message. He says nothing’s going to happen until next week, but this time we’re not taking anything for granted.”

  Terry looked at the message. “Man. Not exactly the most obvious hidden message I’ve ever seen.”

  Vera took a sip of her diet soda. “I’ve got the feeling this one isn’t as hard as it looks. It’s got an awful lot already in there. I’m just trying to follow the hints.”

  Terry had another bite of his spanakopita. It was awesome. Then he checked the note again. “So, okay. What have you learned about this guy’s sick games so far?”

  Vera ate a forkful of salad and then reached into a shoulder bag she was carrying. She withdrew a pad, and put it on the table beside her. “I started making a list,” she said. “Number One. Read everything carefully.”

  “Right,” Terry agreed. “Got that one already.”

  “Number Two. The puzzles have more than one step. In the first puzzle, the first step was figuring out that we needed the full name of the school, and then the next step was to figure out the name of the victim. In the second puzzle, the first step was to unscramble the quotation in the postscript, then we had to rearrange the words from the other quotations, recognize that they were actually letters, not words, and then, take the step we didn’t take—realize that we had spelled out the name of the victim’s relative, not the victim himself.” She shook her head, and her face got flushed. “Damn it. I can’t believe we were that close and we didn’t get him.”

  One thing was for sure. When this monster got caught, Vera was going to be front and center. How in the world had Terry ended up being so attracted to a person who did such an incredibly risky job? “Just remember when you get him that you don’t have to do it all by yourself,” he told her. “I’m all for nailing this clown, but if you get hurt doing it, there is going to be one oversized Scottish Jew wandering around, looking for somebody’s ass to kick.”

  Vera’s expression changed from fierce to frisky in a heartbeat. “I didn’t know your dad was in town,” she said mischievously.

  But Terry was serious. “My dad isn’t Jewish. And you know exactly what I mean, Ms. I’ll-Just-Dress-Up-Likean-Old-Lady-and-Hope-the-Bad-Guy-Attacks-Me.”

  Vera was silent for a second—it was like she was taking a quick trip into the failed past. Then she blinked, glanced at Terry, and returned her attention to her pad. “The last thing I wrote was that the puzzles have all been about what was left out. The correct letters in the misspelled words, the full name of the high school—”

  “And those words from the Shakespeare quotes,” Terry added. He sure hoped the cheesecake was as good as it looked. “So what’s left out of this last letter? It doesn’t look like there are any misspelled words. Are any of these clues famous quotations?”

  Vera still had a ways to go before her salad was done. She didn’t seem too hungry. “It doesn’t look like it. At least that’s what Ellis said before I left today. He’s been all over the Internet and so far, nothing. But I keep coming back to that sentence about the focus. What’s the fifth in the first three, the twelfth and the fourth?”

  Normally, Steph loved going to the movies. And normally, she really enjoyed a good old-fashioned thriller.

  Tonight, however, was going to be an exception.

  She stood in the line that had formed down the block from the box office in front of the BigView 8 Cinema. It was the opening night for The Suspect’s Daughter. And it looked like it was going to be a success. The movie was showing on three of the theatre’s eight screens. And from the bits of conversation she was picking up from the crowds of people around her in line, it was the movie everyone was here to see.

  Steph wasn’t surprised. A gigantic Hollywood marketing machine had gotten behind Russell Crane’s latest effort with all the power and money you’d expect for a blockbuster, and advertisements promoting the release of The Suspect’s Daughter were everywhere. The stars of the movie were on the cover of every magazine, and Steph had even seen the actress playing the lead role appear three nights in a row on three different television talk shows. The story about the insanely cute actress’s pet monkey was getting pretty old.

  But the more Steph heard about the movie, the more she dreaded it. She knew that she was too close to the situation to be objective about it, but everything she’d seen and heard about the plot of the film made her think that Russell Crane was exploiting her father’s horrific experience of being wrongly accused as the Springfield Shooter.

  Her cell phone rang, startling her. She answered it without checking the caller ID. “Hello.”

  “Stephanie, how are you? It’s Russell. Russell Crane. Have you seen it yet?”

  Unbelievable. “No. As a matter of fact I’m in line to see it right now. I thought I
made it pretty clear the last time you called that I had no interest in seeing it with you.”

  The woman in front of Steph turned around with an interested expression on her face. The woman’s husband continued to face forward, but it was clear that he was listening, too.

  “Ouch,” Crane murmured. “Message re-received, loud and clear. I wasn’t calling to ask you to go with me. I just got out of the Boston premiere a few minutes ago, and before I head into the after party, I thought I’d call to get your feedback, since you’ve been going through a lot of what the heroine of this movie—”

  “You know what, Mr. Crane?” Steph was trying to whisper, but she was so angry that she was sure the energy in her voice was broadcasting it at least two blocks away. “I’m not going to this movie because I have any intention of giving you my feedback.” She leaned on the word, hoping to transmit the scorn that was flowing through her body like hot lava. “I’m going so that I can prepare to protect myself and my father if some irresponsible person suddenly begins to imply that the movie is really about my father and me.”

  Crane exhaled loudly. “C’mon, Stephanie. You know that would never happen.”

  “Just like my father getting accused of being the Springfield Shooter never happened. Good-bye, Mr. Crane.” And with that, she shut off the phone, and paid for her ticket.

  Steph left the theatre and began walking to her car feeling better than she thought she would. Not great. But better than terrible. The night was clear, and there was a light breeze. She was happy she’d worn her warm sweater, instead of the one that looked good.

  First, the movie was really entertaining. The pacing was relentless and the acting was excellent.

  Of course, that didn’t excuse what Crane did to create his characters.

  He didn’t need to make the murder suspect a high school teacher. He didn’t need to make the daughter of the suspect a nurse.