Monster: The Story Of A Maniac

by Peter Cry

  Alfred wasn’t about to let himself become a whipping boy. He kept his cool and absorbed the rudeness without saying a word. He wanted to come across as a good, calm, person.

  At last, he replied.

  “Each of us has our own opinion and theories about who abducted the children from North West Central School and why. So, before getting into close contact with my colleagues, I wanted to work out my own version.”

  “I do not like your detachment, agent, and your disobedience I dislike even more.”

  “I can imagine how annoying it could seem,” Alfred nodded slyly.

  Rita grinned sarcastically.

  “And who’s next, Andrew Mitchell’s parents?”

  “You’re a good guesser,” the subordinate taunted her.

  Turning pale, Director Coleman leaned forward again and looked at Alfred as if he were a fool.

  “Are you serious now?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I order you, Hope, to leave the parents alone! Mrs. Stevens called me and began to praise you. She wondered how the investigation was progressing. After I told her that I couldn’t tell them anything new, she made my day by letting me know that she would call me soon, maybe even drop by. I’ve warned you. Don’t give hope to people who are gradually forgetting about the worst grief in their whole life. In the end, it will make them even more unhappy.”

  Listening to his boss, Alfred alternately glanced at her tense cheekbones, or somewhere to the side.

  “No,” he said softly.

  “No, what?”

  “No, I will not listen to you, and I will speak to the Mitchells.”

  Rita did not believe what she was hearing.

  “Are you nuts, Agent Hope?! I order you, which means you do as I say!”

  “No,” he repeated as quietly and calmly as before.

  “Are you stupid?” Rita hissed through her teeth, boiling.

  Alfred thumped her desk with his fist. “Now you listen to me! You – death on high heels!”

  Director Coleman sank into her chair and with her frightened eyes fixed on her furious subordinate.

  “I’m fed up with your voice, your arrogance, the way you speak to people, not just to me! I am fucking fed up with the same show-off attitude of your employees! I did not come to you!” Alfred pointed at himself, and then at Rita, “I did not ask for your help! It was you who came to me and tearfully sold me your rotting, dead, case. So, consider me doing you a huge favor. That is why you will no longer tell me what to do, and how I should do it, and you will let me calmly solve it. Are we clear?”

  Rita did not understand what part she was playing in that act. Was she the prey or the predator? No one had ever spoken to her like that. Realizing that she would become a big boss, and wishing to please her, everyone put up with her domineering behavior.

  “I’ve asked you a question! Are we clear?” Alfred growled like a wolf. “If we are not, I’m happy to go back to Seattle, and you can fuck with all this shit on your own.”

  Frightened and surprised, Rita nodded her head slightly.

  Leaving the boss’s office, Alfred slammed the door.

  “What the fuck was that?” Rita asked herself, emerging from shock.

  She grabbed the phone. At that moment, she wanted revenge, and one call would be enough for that. Hearing the dry and deep voice of his assistant complaining about a new non-professional employee, Benjamin would immediately dismiss the newcomer, deprive him of the badge and the shining fantasyland associated with it. But...

  Rita was in enormous pain, and she could not figure out why. There was a lump in her throat and tears in her eyes. Yes, she knew that she brought personalities into it, but she’d done it before, and she always got away with that. It was the first time someone had let her know she was a bitch. Apparently, something inside of her, was ready to agree with that.

  ***

  Locking herself in, Rita Coleman sat all day long in her office not talking to anyone. She looked at the roofs of the neighboring buildings and the gray, huge, heavy clouds sweeping over them. Rain tapped on her window, calming her dismayed heart, leaving embers in the place of the angry flame. Rita had not cried for a long time and, despite the scandal, even that day she did not cry. She was probably not able to cry anymore because her work and ambitions sucked everything out from her soul. She really wanted to shed at least a few tears which would indicate that her heart was not all stone.

  Standing by the window, looking at the evening city, covered with bright rain-washed lights, she felt like a little girl who understood that she was wrong and simply had to apologize, but at the same time, she felt hurt and self-pity. It was almost half-past eight in the evening. She wanted to go home, not even to her real home in Washington. In her apartment in Indianapolis, she would surely feel better among some of her favorite things.

  Rita stayed late because she did not want to accidentally run into that bat out of hell, Agent Hope. When it seemed it was safe enough, she put on her maroon coat, tying it at the waist with a belt with a large sparkling buckle. After switching off the light she locked the door behind her.

  Leaving the building, she realized that she had forgotten her umbrella in the office and that it was still raining. She did not feel like going back and therefore decided she would let herself get a bit wet. With her heels clattering on the asphalt, she hurried to the back entrance, which led to the back yard where her car was parked.

  “Shit,” Rita uttered with displeasure as she stepped into a shallow puddle.

  On the outskirts of the city, the streets were not very well lit. Because of that, on the way to her car, she stepped into three more puddles. Turning around the corner, she stopped about fifty feet from the car and opened her small brown briefcase to get her keys. Finding them, she took half a step towards the car and immediately stopped.

  Under a high yellow lamp, in a circle of light, Alfred was standing beside her SUV. Wrapped in his jacket, with wet hair, he was waiting for the owner of the car. Hearing the clang of the keys, he turned his head, and their eyes met.

  “You're not going to kill me, are you?” cocking her ears, Rita asked.

  She seemed to be saying that in all seriousness. But he was clearly not there out aggression.

  “Of course, not. I'm here to apologize.”

  Rita sighed, and proudly straightening her back, went to her car.

  “Go ahead, Hope.”

  “I don't know what came over me. Apparently, this is the accumulated tension caused by my relocation and the fact that the case hasn’t moved. I’m sorry. I really feel very awkward.”

  Rita stood three feet away from Agent Hope. To her horror, she suddenly discovered that she was not angry at all and even wanted to apologize in response, and that called for a smile. God damn that Monday! The absolute collapse of everything that had been indestructible for so many years.

  “Well, I won’t really change anything”, she thought.

  “You have to excuse me, too,” Rita smiled gently. “The hierarchy in the agency is a complicated thing. When no one says ‘stop’, you get used to communicating with people in a way that’s not always correct, especially when sometimes this is the only language they understand. So, don’t hold it against me, please.”

  “Of course not!” Alfred nodded. “Immediately after I jumped out of the office, I regretted everything I said.”

  “And about the ‘death on high heels’ too?” jokingly, Rita mocked her subordinate.

  Agent Hope hit his forehead with his palm.

  “Oh my God... How could I... It’s all caused by my weakness, believe me. You look wonderful. You are a very elegant and attractive young woman.”

  “Lady,” Rita insisted.

  “Yes, but you look like a young woman,” Alfred said awkwardly, gradually shutting up, afraid to accidentally say something wrong again. “Excuse me, I’m coming out with all sorts of nonsense.”

  Strangely, Director Coleman, listening to the young man apolo
gizing, wanted to smile, not like when someone has joked, but very kindly, and gently looking into his eyes.

  There was a pause between the two colleagues standing in the parking lot. Prolonged and genuine, it was saturated with a dense energy, of the sort that been forgotten, one lost long-ago, like longing for a first kiss.

  Alfred suddenly dissolved in the features of his strict and yet so beautiful boss, in her strong, impregnable, and at the same time very vulnerable image. Catching himself thinking that he might be doing something wrong, he suddenly came to his senses.

  “I should probably go,” he muttered quietly.

  It was the last thing Rita wanted to hear at that moment. A smile and a handshake, yes. A ten-minute conversation, maybe. An invitation to dinner – she would sell her soul for that. But not a goodbye!

  Rita politely nodded her head and, bypassing the companion, opened the driver's door.

  Agent Hope walked a few feet, and mercilessly scolded himself for his cowardice.

  “And I don’t even know if I had a relationship with anybody before,” he said, stopping and turning around.

  “What?” Rita looked at her colleague after she had thrown her bag on the front passenger seat.

  “I don’t even know if there was someone in my life before I lost my memory,” he timidly stepped towards her. “For the last two years I was wildly afraid of people and alone. Only children did not freak me out, and now you.”

  Alfred stopped near Rita, who was still standing by the car. He looked into her eyes, trying to make clear what he was feeling, how hard it was for him, and how much he liked her.

  “With you I don’t feel that pervasive need to keep my distance. I don’t know why, and it’s not a problem. I like that there’s at least one adult who interests me.”

  Rita smiled with deep sympathy, studying the stranger from Seattle who had recently been so fluctuating with her. Strong, scared, angry, confused, tough, yet always so sincere and truthful.

  “This is the weirdest and most incomprehensible thing I’ve been told,” she answered quietly. “But it seems damn romantic to me.”

  “I don’t know how it’s done, or I have simply forgotten.”

  “What exactly?”

  “How to invite a lady like you for dinner.”

  Not knowing what to say, Rita thought for a moment. To have a relationship with a subordinate, or even trying to have one, was more than inappropriate for an agent in her position. Many men and even women, who worked with her during her years of service but whom she did not really like, had tried to hint at a desire to develop their relationship beyond a working one, but she always refused masking it as indifference. Rita had been unhappy for many years, as no one could conquer and tame her strong temper, and for the first time, before her stood someone, who with his softness, and at the same time, strength, was able to make her heart beat faster.

  “Alfred, I’m looking at you and wondering who’s making the moves on whom here?” Rita joked sadly. “We can’t have a relationship, and there are two reasons. First – our characters. We will constantly fight as a couple. Second, I am still your boss, which could cause us big problems, and neither of us needs them.”

  “Err...” Agent Hope looked down, and then responded. “I guess, that was my first rejection.”

  Rita gently touched his shoulder.

  “No, it was not. I really like you. Even more than that, I have not experienced anything similar with anyone else for a long time, and if not for work and our status, everything would surely be different.”

  Smiling, Alfred turned his back to the car and leaned against it.

  “It was a really bad idea to agree to all of this. Then I would have had a chance with you.”

  “Then we would not have met,” Rita reminded him.

  Biting her lip, she thought for a moment.

  “You know what,” she continued, “I won’t forbid you anything. Talk to the parents, to anyone you want, as much as you need. Do what you think is necessary to help us solve the case faster.”

  “I'll quit after this happens,” Alfred said. As he left the parking lot, he turned around and added “And then I’ll have a chance with you.”

  Uttering the last words, his sad smile moved Rita so much that she herself thought for a second about quitting the FBI. The strange tragic smile was the best she had seen in her life. She probably should have said something nice after that, but her spirit had been broken and subdued by a sudden miracle.

  Alfred disappeared in the dusk, and an exhilarated Rita got behind the wheel of her car.

  Slowly moving along the highway to the downtown, she kept trying to get her phone out of her bag to call Alfred. However, either stupidity or fear did not allow her to do that.

  “You are absolutely fucked up, Rita,” she quietly cursed herself.

  Chapter 18

  Not far from North West Central School, in northern Indianapolis, there was a sleeping district – faceless blocks pierced by endless intersections, and with a bad reputation. The townspeople who lived there could not afford anything better. It lacked the touch of the better-kept suburbs and the prosperity of the middle class. Pale brick three and four-story houses, occasional eight or ten-story dormitories with no vacancies, shops selling alcohol around the clock, pharmacies, and pawnshops. Such places are often shown in the movies, when there is a need to show the dream of a young kid trying to break out of poverty and go to college. Depression, not dependent on financial crises or racial tensions, took hold here a long time ago.

  When Alfred drove his car along the road between the houses in the northern suburbs, he noticed neglect and hatred in the eyes of the tough guys standing in small groups at the intersections. His slow speed and the car he was driving gave away that he was either a policeman or a drug control officer. In other words, he worked for Uncle Sam, who did not like what was happening on the outskirts of cities throughout America.

  The GPS led Agent Hope's car to a tall eight-story building whose exterior walls were made out of fine reddish-brown bricks. It belonged to a company that had long dreamed of demolishing the dilapidated building and erecting something more worthy, capable of generating bigger profit. Filled primarily with low-income families, who could just about afford the rent for their standard apartments. Of course, they did not always pay on time. However, the social, and municipal services had protected the building for the poorer segments of the population.

  Alfred went inside. Walking through the hall, not noticing the guard, he hurried to the elevator. “OUT OF ORDER” a sign read. Realizing he would have to climb to the seventh floor himself, he grimaced and accepted his fate.

  Ascending the stairwell, on each floor, he heard from the spacious corridors, that the residents had managed to move part of their lives outside their apartments, having reclaimed the neighboring space for those purposes. Small children rushed along the corridors, someone was splashing water, someone riding a bicycle, watching TV with the neighbors, vividly discussing what was happening on the screen, not to mention playing chess with a neighbor, with the board placed on a low stool. Their lives were more interesting outside of the apartments than inside of them.

  Alfred found the wanted door-708. Before knocking on it, he looked around. At the end of the corridor, he noticed a young black woman. She stood in the doorway, holding a baby in her arms. She observed him. Alfred smiled.

  Agent Hope knocked four times on the old pale blue door. There was no response. Knocking again, Alfred looked at a curious girl who continued to stare at him

  “I'm coming,” he heard from behind the door.

  A short, plump, ebony woman in loose clothes hiding her form unlocked the door.

  “Mrs. O’Neal?” he smiled.

  “That’s me,” the woman answered wearily. “Come in. You can leave your shoes on.”

  Alfred entered the apartment, closing the door behind him.

  “In fact, I recently got divorced, so I'm not really a Mrs.,” she informed
him, sitting down on a soft brown sofa. “I said I don’t want to give birth anymore, and he wanted more children. So, I told him he’d better find someone else for that.”

  Skipping the necessary courtesies and delicacy, Alfred, finding himself in a poorly furnished living room connected to a small kitchen, sat down in a flimsy chair opposite Ms. O’Neal. She turned off the sound on the noisy TV and took out a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her wide summer pants. She crossed her legs and looked at Agent Hope.

  “You seem too handsome for an FBI agent,” she said knowingly.

  “I’m a newcomer,” Alfred explained.

  “Which means you still have everything ahead.”

  Agent Hope nodded in agreement.

  “Now tell me, why you’ve come?” Ms. O’Neal asked, then crushed the ashes into a transparent amber ashtray full of cigarette butts.

  “I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

  “Well, God gave us an email for that, didn’t he?”

  “Sure, it was an option, but I wanted to meet and to talk to all the parents personally.”

  Ms. O’Neal took a drag and exhaled the gray fragrant smoke in a translucent stream, and said, “Then you’d better hurry up, I have to get ready for work. I have the night shift today.”

  Agent Hope pulled his smartphone from the inside pocket of his black jacket and opened his notes. He had prepared three questions he wanted to ask.

  “Could one of the parents be involved in the abduction of the children?”

  Ms. O’Neal dropped the cigarette from her fingers. It fell on a coarse knit golden carpet and immediately began to burn the synthetic material. Quickly picking up her cigarette, she looked at the guest with a surprise, even with shock.

  “For God’s sake,” she nervously crushed her cigarette in the ashtray. “I know each one of them. They have all worried and cried with me. During the first months after the kidnapping, we were together almost all the time, as a big family. Suspecting one of us is the worst thing the FBI could do.”