Kenny the Making of a Serial Killer 1

by Patrick Laughy

  Linda had been spending a fair amount of time on the phone with him over the past few months helping him with some of those very glitches. Now, with a home computer for him, she could accomplish that more comfortably, with him sitting beside her in their off time and watching what she was doing.

  Programming and software improvements to the system went much faster that way.

  That aside, Dave was finding himself less and less enamoured about the capabilities of the basic software program they had been using.

  Linda said he was probably right, that it had not been specifically designed to accomplish what he needed it to do. She suggested to him that she have a look at the setup and see if she could use her experience gleaned from having gone through similar problems at the Ministry. Then, perhaps, working together, they could design something better.

  They were in the middle of that exercise now, and although far from confident that any such a thing was even possible, Dave was beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  - September 1995 -

  Having turned sixteen on the first of the month, Kenny had been eager to get his driver’s licence and Walter had taken him in for it. Kenny had already been driving around the property for several years and he had been studying carefully for a couple of months to prepare himself to write the test. He sailed through it with flying colours.

  And as luck would have it, Dave wasn’t the only one who got their own personal computer for their birthday in ‘95. Based on Walter’s recommendation, Granny got Kenny one too.

  He was delighted.

  From this point on he would not have to wait to spend time in the office after Walter had left for the day. Now he could nurse a drink while he accessed his stuff whenever he felt like it, night or day, and in the privacy of his own bedroom.

  On the outside, he appeared to the others as a normal and well-adjusted teenage boy. Hormones were raging rampantly as part of a normal cycle of physical development, but to consider Kenny’s reaction to these hormones in any sense as normal, would be to make a very big mistake.

  There was nothing about Kenny’s sexual urges that could be in any way construed to be within the norm.

  By sixteen, Kenny had reached a full understanding of what, of all the sexual fantasies he could envision, provided him with the most satisfaction. His preferred a fantasy subject, the individual image of a sex partner that provided him with the ultimate stimulation, was that of a teenage boy, someone over whom he could demonstrate complete domination.

  It was that combined representation he now envisioned whenever he fantasized about sex, which was much of any given day. A ‘boy-next-door’ type. Handsome, with longish hair, a reasonably athletic build and surrounded by an aura of innocence. It didn’t have to be real innocence of course, just the appearance of innocence was acceptable.

  The itch to do someone again had not gone away - anything but. However, now having access to his own computer whenever he needed it was making it easier for him to hold it in check.

  With a single exception, day-to-day life in the household was flowing smoothly. The only glitch was the fact that Granny was going downhill. Kenny had his doubts that the remission thing was going to last much longer.

  If Granny kicked the bucket, it wasn’t going to particularly bother him, but according to her will, which she had read to him, if she died before he reached twenty-five, he would again find himself under some adult’s thumb until he reached that age.

  He was actively taking two steps to prevent that.

  Firstly, he had used his computer to look up multiple myeloma. He had read everything he could find about it on the net. Once he was confident that he had a good grasp of the subject he brought the topic up with Granny, one morning over breakfast, which she usually took in her bedroom.

  Kenny waited until the nurse had left the room, leaving him and Granny alone.

  At first the old woman was a little taken aback by the amount of effort he had put into his research. She said little, and just nodded from time to time.

  Kenny began to wonder how the whole thing was going down, but then he noted that her eyes were beginning to tear up. The stupid old woman was obviously filling with emotion, believing that he was seriously concerned about her health.

  A sense of relief filled him.

  He went on to explain to her that his research had indicated that there was a method of extending the life expectancy of people with the disease using stem cell therapy. She responded by saying that her doctor had mentioned that, but had also indicated that such treatment was only available for individuals under fifty years of age.

  Kenny had known that response would be coming and he was prepared for it.

  He told her that was indeed the case under the provincial medical plan but that he had considered it carefully and found out that there was another way to get that type of therapy. It was expensive of course, but if you had enough money, you could get it done at private clinics in the USA, regardless of age.

  Granny’s features softened and she smiled. She told him that she did have more than enough money to undertake such a process, but that would mean that she would have less to leave for him. Besides, at her age she didn’t think it made a great deal of sense.

  Kenny didn’t push it this first time. He left it there and changed the subject. Of course, he had a definite goal to achieve with this approach. He needed her to last a few more years, and he was far from giving up on the idea.

  At breakfast, a couple of days later he proffered his other idea. Didn’t she think that having him unable to inherit from her until he was twenty-five was a little silly. Didn’t she think that he would be able to handle it at nineteen, the Province’s age of majority? Hadn’t he already demonstrated that?

  He now knew the business inside out. He was doing all the daily computer entries for Walter already and had been for some time. He’d been all over on different job sites and knew how the operation ran. Didn’t she think he would be mature enough at nineteen to accept the responsibility?

  Granny said she would think about it.

  That had satisfied Kenny for the moment, but he fully intended to work at her until he succeeded in having the will adjusted to reflect this change.

  For the next month, every couple of days he raised both issues with her. He didn’t want to get her back up by harping on them, but he was determined to wear her down.

  By the end of the month Granny had been down to the States to take her first stem cell treatment and a representative of the legal firm who looked after her needs had attended at the house. Her will had been changed to specify that his inheritance would now take place on the Province’s majority age of nineteen.

  Now all Kenny had to do was to see to it that she lived until he turned nineteen. After that he wouldn’t have to give a damn about what happened to her. In fact, over the past few weeks, on more than one occasion, it had occurred to him that if and when that time arrived, he might just be prepared to personally assist her in making that final jump into the next world.

  The new schedules adopted by Dave and Linda were working out well for them. They still had their weekends off and because of their past experiences of working various shifts, the change over from working days to nights was no big shock. If anything, both seemed happier on nights.

  Murphy, on other hand, had initially found the switch in routine a little unsettling. However, after a couple of weeks the cat had adjusted to it.

  Both Dave and Linda had supervisory responsibilities that occasionally dragged one or the other away on their off time, but each was used to dealing with that kind of thing and rarely found it a problem.

  Linda was making good money now and her little old Dodge was beginning to show its age. She’d always wanted a red sports car, so the two of them had been shopping around for a replacement and had recently settled on a new ‘96, fire-engine-red, Audi Cabriolet.

  Working the same shifts, they could
go to and from work together. When the weather was good they took the Audi and when it wasn’t, they used Dave’s pickup. They only had a one-car garage and as Linda’s Audi had dibs on that, the pickup had been relegated to the driveway.

  Over the past four months, Dave and Linda had been working together steadily during their free time to create a software program that was specifically tailored to meet the needs of his unit. Dave laboured to determine the requirements he wanted the system to fulfill, and Linda used her programming experience to work toward producing an end-product that would accomplish the job.

  The process was going well and by this point Dave was no longer a doubter. He really had little idea of what Linda was up to when she was tapping away at the keyboard, but he’d quickly realized that the idea of building effective software to assist in his profiling was now a genuine probability.

  They worked well together and the project, which was in its final stages, seemed to be bringing them even closer together.

  Everything was good on the domestic front.

  Linda’s new position carried a much higher level of responsibility than her last. Running the after-hours emergency services program meant that she was no longer solely supervising the needs of street kids, although that was a major part of it. She was now also overseeing the handling of all the after hours domestic violence and family problems as well.

  She found the basic family stuff a bit frustrating, at least in the cases where just adults were involved, as it seemed that any intervention she had available rarely seemed to provide a lasting improvement. But most cases, included kids and kids were her thing, so she gave each case everything she had.

  She and Dave often discussed each other’s workload and when Dave heard about how desperate some of her so called ‘client’ situations were, he would just shake his head in wonderment that she didn’t simply burn out from the disappointment and hopelessness of it all.

  When he’d expressed this opinion to her the first time, saying that it must be like banging your head repeatedly against a brick wall, she’d just laughed and told him that his was a strange comment, coming from a guy who spent most of his time trying to identify and convict the purveyors of serious crime.

  Dave had smiled and agreed.

  When they’d first become engaged, everyone who knew them had wondered just how well a marriage between a dedicated social worker and a cynical cop would work out, and to be honest, at the time, each of them had also had some concerns about the concept.

  Interestingly, having to share their different experiences and perspectives on life was working out surprisingly well for both.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  - September 1996 -

  Over the past year, Kenny had been relatively satisfied to ride out the status quo. He had matured both mentally and physically. Realizing that he was now playing a waiting game until he reached nineteen, he had taken great pains to learn to control his growing inner urges to branch out and begin to sample some of his now well-developed fantasy scenarios for real.

  Surprisingly, the twelve months had passed relatively rapidly and uneventfully for him. He had been careful to maintain the effective routines he’d set up in the household to ensure his ability to manipulate everyone.

  That still gave him plenty of time in his bedroom, where he could enjoy a few drinks and surf his preferred sites. He could indulge more heavily in alcohol, because he was just going to go to bed later and would not be having to interact with anyone before he did so.

  When he went out with Walter now for site checks and errands, he did the driving. He also went out on his own occasionally in the little red pickup, but only in the daytime, as Granny didn’t want him driving at night yet.

  The internet gave him a good deal of satisfaction and for now that, coupled with the intermittent success of the snares, was enough to keep his needs in check.

  Well, with one minor exception.

  When he and Walter had gone ‘chipper’ hunting, Kenny had been determined that they would get the biggest one they could find. As time went on, Walter had been a little surprised at how much resolve he had about it and had initially tried to get him to go for what was available at the dealership, but he was also impressed by Kenny’s commitment to get the best.

  In the end, they had agreed to do it Kenny’s way.

  Unfortunately, the model that Kenny wanted was not only very expensive, but also had a huge capacity and was therefore not much in demand. It was not only unavailable at the dealership, but would have to be a purchased by way of a special order and that order would have to be sent to the head office of the manufacturer and from there to the factory, where the unit would be built from scratch.

  The salesmen told them that the model Kenny had chosen was nicknamed the ‘Behemoth’ and that it would take anywhere from six months to a year before it would be completed and shipped to the dealership for them to pick up.

  Kenny didn’t particularity like the idea of having to wait so long for the machine but that was balanced out by just how much he relished the sound of the chipper’s nickname.

  It had arrived four months ago. That led to his only possible misstep in judgement over the year - something which could have caused him to fail to keep everything sufficiently under control until he reached nineteen and his inheritance.

  It was sort of a spontaneous thing.

  Both Walter and Kenny were left speechless when they first saw the chipper. It was massive. At first sight, Walter had taken a deep breath, and then mumbled something about the fact that they were going to have to buy a bigger truck to pull the damn thing.

  That proved to be an exaggeration of course, but at the time had certainly been within the realm of possibility.

  Kenny was very excited as they towed the chipper back to the property. He kept turning in his seat to look behind at it and was grinning like an idiot.

  Walter wasn’t much better. Guys and their toys.

  When they got it back to the yard, the two of then couldn’t wait to test it out.

  For a month or so, they had been piling up some deadfalls gathered from around the property and within minutes of getting the new machine into the yard they had it hooked up to one of the bigger trucks, one of the ones used for holding and transporting the chipped product, and were feeding a procession of large branches into the yawning opening that led to the whirling blades.

  Walter was impressed by the amount the machine could handle in one feed. Kenny was exuberant beyond belief, not only for the capacity it could take, but by the real possibility that the ‘Behemoth’ was probably quite capable of doing exactly what he had fantasized it doing.

  He couldn’t wait to find out, even if doing so might be somewhat risky.

  When they were running low on stuff to feed in, Kenny asked Walter to take the small truck and go pick up some more material for the chipper so they could keep at it for a little longer.

  Walter agreed, telling Kenny not to operate the machine until he got back. Kenny replied saying that he would only carefully feed what was left on the pile while Walter was gone.

  Satisfied by that, Walter grinned and nodded. Kenny had been operating chippers since he was twelve and knew all about the rules for using them. Nevertheless, he reminded Kenny to be sure to let go as soon as the blades grabbed, because otherwise the chipper was powerful enough to pull him in with the branch.

  That done, Walter hopped into the little red Ford and drove out of the yard to collect what he could find.

  Kenny waited until the pickup had left the yard and then immediately walked over to the shed. He went behind it and quickly uncovered three rabbits that he’d hidden under a pile of leaves earlier in the week. At the time, he had not really admitted to himself why he had not mutilated and buried these animals, as he normally would have. It wasn’t until now that he understood that he’d saved them for the specific purpose of conducting this experiment.

  He hurried back to the chipper with them and quickly fed a
large branch into the machine, then threw the three rabbit carcasses into the yawning hole on top of the tail end of the branch.

  The machine didn’t even hiccup when the rabbits hit the blades.

  There was a wonderful red misting of the air coming out of the exhaust blower and into the trailer hooked up to the machine. That quickly disappeared and when he looked inside the trailer after feeding in a couple more branches, he couldn’t even see any sign of bunny remains.

  It was awesome.

  Of course, the bunnies were small. He would have to try bigger bodies to see how it would handle them to be sure. But so far so good.

  Oh, and then there was also the antifreeze thing too.

  Early the next week, when he and Walter were in the yard, one of the drivers had been unloading containers and putting them into one of the garages. As he was moving the last one out of the pickup, it caught on something and tumbled out of the back of the truck. The plastic cap cracked and burst open, spilling some of its greenish contents onto the pavement.

  Walter yelled at the guy and then, leaving Kenny behind, charged across to the man.

  Although some distance away, Kenny overheard Walter telling the driver to be more careful and that antifreeze was poisonous to animals. That they liked the taste of it and if they drank it, it could kill them.

  At the time, Kenny had filed that little tidbit of information away into the back of his mind. That night he got on his computer and did some checking. Sure enough, Walter was right.

  There were lots of warnings about dogs loving the stuff and dying after they lapped it up.

  Kenny was delighted.

  The very thought of something the size of ‘Vicious’ hitting the blades of the new chipper gave him an erection.

  But he had already taken a big chance with the bunnies. That had been risky. He wasn’t ready to blow his image with the householders at this crucial point in time. If anybody were to clue into something like that, his positive image would instantly shatter.