by Rachel Ford
I texted Detective Clark. Did you see the video Wagley put out? I think he got it from the Thompson’s.
She didn’t respond. I gave it five minutes. Then I added, Might be worth following up to see if there’s more.
Then I headed back to the hotel, at a more leisurely pace. These were my normal waking hours anyway. I didn’t mind being up at night.
But it was more than that. I was tired. I’d shifted back to a daytime schedule unwillingly, and I’d missed a lot of sleep these past days. I needed to lay down when I got back.
I was afraid to do that, though. Afraid to be in the dark, with nothing else to focus on. Afraid of the nightmares that would follow. That always followed memories of that video.
They didn’t come, though. Maybe because I returned to a different kind of nightmare, the dealing of which put off sleep for some time.
Jason was in my suite. Specifically, he was in my hot tub, eyes glazed over as he sipped beer.
He didn’t hear me come in over the whir and rush of the jets and bubbles. “What the hell are you doing?”
He heard that. He started, threw a frantic glance around, spotted me, and sank back into the bubbles laughing. “Jesus man.”
“What are you doing?” I asked again.
He gestured toward the tub. “Using the jacuzzi.”
I frowned at him.
“You don’t mind, do you? My room doesn’t have one. And you weren’t using it, so I figured you wouldn’t care.”
It didn’t really affect me. I hadn’t been planning to use the thing anyway. Still, the idea bothered me. This was my room, not his. My jacuzzi, not his.
But another thought, more to the point, crossed my mind. “Wait a minute. How did you even get in? I locked up after I left.”
He gestured to the overstuffed chair beside the hot tub. Or, more probably, to the packet of keycards sitting on it. “Key.”
I frowned, pulling out my own packet of cards. “How? I’ve got both…” Then, I remembered the trouble I’d had earlier, when I first tried to open my door. “Did you swap cards?”
“What?”
“Take one of my cards?”
“Of course. I gave you mine.”
I stared at him. “Why?”
He shrugged. “In case you needed to get into the room. Or in case I needed to get in here.”
“You don’t need to get in here. This is my room.”
“Sure. But what if Tiny shows up again?”
“He’s not going to.”
“What if he does?”
I frowned at him. “What? You think you’ll hide out in the hot tub?”
He laughed but gestured to the fridge. “There’s beer in there. I brought some in case you wanted any.”
“I don’t. I need sleep.”
He nodded. “Alright.”
Nodding, though, was the only move he made. He did not, for instance, move to get out of the tub. “I need you to leave, so I can get some sleep.”
He seemed disappointed but didn’t argue. He stepped out – he’d had the good sense to wear shorts at least – and toweled off.
“I’m going to grab another beer, if you don’t mind.”
“Take ‘em all,” I said, adding, “with you.”
He nodded. “I tried calling Meg earlier. She didn’t pick up.”
I guess that explained why he looked so high. He’d been self-medicating since. “Maybe she just needs some time to cool down.”
“Yeah.” Then, he glanced up, a mixture of morbid excitement and chagrinned belatedness on his face. “Oh. I forgot to tell you. There’s been another one. Another killing.”
I froze. “What?”
He nodded, too eagerly, holding up his phone. “I just saw it, like ten minutes ago.”
I pulled out my own phone. And my heart sank. There was another breaking news alert.
Nursery Rhyme Killer strikes fifth time.
Chapter Nineteen
As with the fire at Judge Dandridge’s place, details proved elusive. There had been a killing at a rental property in the low-income end of town. Anonymous sources said there had been a nursery rhyme left at the scene. Anonymous sources reported conflicting details about the victim. Some said a woman, others a man, and some a man and woman: the couple who had been renting the place.
No names were listed. But the article had a picture of the house, lit up by red and blue flashing lights. It was a small place: a squat one story, with fat wooden siding painted a peeling off-white. There was a big picture window in the central area, and a few half-attempts at landscaping.
I repeated the steps I’d used to figure out who had leaked the fire video to Wagley: I pulled up the street view and scrutinized the houses in the area one by one.
The app showed me the streets in daylight, not at night, and not illuminated by emergency lights. And there was a lot of old siding and peeling paint in the area. A lot of small houses and bad landscaping.
But only one that matched the home in the article. I got the address and searched for it. Quite a few names showed up. There was the property manager, who worked for an out of state LLC; a slew of court filings for unpaid rent and bills listing former tenants; and a court document dated three weeks ago, for a small claims settlement between one of the local hospitals and a Bret Myslinski over unpaid bills.
It was possible that Bret had moved in three weeks. It was possible that someone else had moved into the place after him. It was also possible that someone had just dumped a body there.
But the neighborhood seemed too congested to make it a good spot to dump anything, much less a person. And details like a recently arrived neighbor would have been interesting enough for those anonymous sources to divulge.
So my money was on the vic being Bret Myslinski, or whoever lived with him. Or maybe both of them.
Jason – who was still there, still drinking beer – seemed impressed. “You should have been a detective, man.”
I shooed him and his beer out of my apartment. Then I bolted the door and sent Clark a single question. What was Myslinski’s rhyme?
She didn’t answer. I waited five minutes, and then ten. At fifteen, I turned in.
And slept soundly until just after eight in the morning. That’s when I heard hammering on my door: urgent, relentless hammering.
I dragged myself out of bed and glanced through the peephole. It was Jason.
I growled and unbolted and unlocked the door. “What the hell –”
He burst in, grabbing me by the shoulders. “They got him. They got him, dude. NRK. They got him, last night. They arrested him.”
I stared at the other man. If this was some kind of joke, I wasn’t amused. But he didn’t look like he was joking.
“Are you serious?”
“Of course.” He flashed his phone in front of my face, moving it too quickly for me to see anything. “It’s all over the news.”
Which it was. I’d gotten another breaking news alert, though I’d slept through the accompanying ding: Arrest made in Nursery Rhyme Killing case.
And this time, the articles had some level of detail. An unnamed man had been arrested in connection with the Saturday evening murder of a woman – the fifth Nursery Rhyme Killing.
The victim had been identified as a twenty-two year old Breelyn Thayne, who lived at the residence. She’d died of apparent blunt force trauma. Official word from the police was that they had taken a person of interest into custody, but anonymous sources within the force suggested they’d found the killer.
There were overnight interviews with the same media crews who had shown up at Megan’s place, with the boyfriend. Bret Myslinski, the other tenant; the one with the unpaid bills.
They looked like they’d been given in front of the house, while the emergency personnel were still there. It was dark, and flashing lights lit the area up.
He was a youngish guy, close to thirty I figured. He talked about being lucky. “If I’d come home a little earlier, it could ha
ve been me too.” He talked about missing Breelyn. “She was the best girlfriend a guy could have. I was going to marry her, you know?” He talked about justice. “The cops, they got to find this guy. It ain’t right, to let this keep happening.”
There was the nursery rhyme, a photo of which had apparently been supplied by the boyfriend. It was hand-written, like the first two, in a quick, messy scrawl. It read:
3 blind mice, 3 blind mice
See how they run, she how they run
They all run after the farmer’s wife
Who cut off their tails with a knife
Jason watched over my shoulder as I went through all of these articles and interviews. “Do they say who it is?”
“No,” I said. “But my money’s on Myslinski.”
“The boyfriend?” Jason seemed almost disappointed. “He’s the Nursery Rhyme Killer?”
“Yeah. Only, he’s not the killer. He killed Breelyn, but not the others. Not Andy.”
He frowned at me. “How do you know that?”
I tabbed to the article that had a picture of the note. “This.”
“What about it?”
“The last two murder notes haven’t been handwritten.”
“So? The first two were, right? The girl and the junkie?”
“Martinez and Anderson. Mary Ann Cotton and Humpty Dumpty. Yeah. But that was before. That was when no one knew what happened after you wrote the note out.”
“Maybe Breelyn didn’t have a choice. Maybe he had a gun or something.”
“And the rhyme’s wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“They all ran after the farmer’s wife. Not run. Past tense, something that already happened.” He squinted at the screen. I went on. “And she used a carving knife. This guy didn’t say what kind of knife.”
Jason glanced up at me dubiously. “I mean, does it matter?”
“In four of the five killings, he’s been fastidious. And now he’s dropping words, and mixing words up? Oh, and using digits instead of words?”
“Maybe he was in a hurry.”
“It’s not the same guy,” I said again. “Anyway, the articles mention blunt force trauma. Not a knife.”
That gave him pause. “Mary Ann Cotton…tied up with a string. She was strangled.”
“And Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and was in pieces.”
“And Andy –”
I nodded. Neither of us elaborated more. “And Judge Dandridge’s house burned down.”
“‘Your house is on fire, Your children shall burn!’” he said.
I nodded again. “The Nursery Rhyme Killer picks his method of killing to coincide with the rhyme. This guy isn’t NRK. He’s a copycat. Or he’s covering his ass, trying to pass off his own killing as the work of a serial killer.
“Either way, it’s not him.”
Which I texted Detective Clark. Myslinski isn’t NRK.
She didn’t respond. Not that I expected her too. I figured she was probably busy interviewing her suspect. And I figured she’d probably got there on her own already. If I could figure it out, so could she.
But if not, I wanted to nudge her in the right direction.
Then I decided to check out the house. I had the hotel for another night, but I wanted to start airing my place out if possible. Plus I’d need to check with the fire investigator, to find out when I could get rid of the wreck.
Jason tagged along, complaining about the smell. “We got to get this thing cleaned up. It’s gross, dude.”
“Yeah.”
We traveled in silence until we were almost out of town. Then he asked, “Can I ask you a question?”
“You just did.”
“A personal one, I mean.”
“Probably not.”
He asked anyway. “What did you and Megan fight about? The first time, I mean.”
“I told you: I don’t remember.”
“Yeah, but we both know that’s bullshit.”
It was bullshit. But it also wasn’t any of his business, either. So I said nothing.
“I know it’s not my business,” he said, like he’d been reading my thoughts.
“Nope,” I said.
“Meg said you had some kind of problem with drugs. You know, from your time over there. She said that’s why they discharged you.”
I snorted out a half-laugh. “She what?”
“I’m not judging, dude. I don’t have a problem, not anymore. But I’ve been there. Believe me.”
“I didn’t have a ‘problem’ with drugs. She had a problem with drugs. With me taking them, anyway. Prescription drugs.” Then, I figured I’d better add, “Legally acquired prescription drugs.”
He nodded slowly. “PTSD?”
“That’s not your business.”
“Sorry.”
“But yeah. For a while, I was pretty fucked up. My doctor said I needed medication. She thought I needed Jesus. I listened to my doctor. She didn’t like that.”
“She said you swore at her.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I told her to go fuck herself, in fact.”
He watched me, as if waiting for some kind of explanation.
“Something…something happened, before I got out. Something bad. A lot of people died.”
“That’s what messed you up?”
“Yeah. And it was a medical discharge. Because the army figured I was too fucked up to fix. At least, too fucked up to fix and put back on active duty.”
“She went through a phase where she was against pharmaceuticals,” he said. “‘Big Pharma’ and all that. I remember.”
I nodded. “She told me God was testing me. That – the incident – was his way of humbling me. Laying me low, ‘like he did Job.’ Testing my faith.”
“Job? He was a prophet, right?”
I glanced sideways at him, assuming at first that had been some kind of poorly timed attempt at humor. But he looked sincere. So I said, “No. He was a guy who Satan put through hell to get him to curse God. Killed his wife and kids, gave him boils and stuff. But in the end, Job’s faith holds, and God rewards him. Old Testament.”
“Oh.” He looked blank, but then shrugged. “Yeah, I probably would have said the same thing. Probably worse, actually.”
“Believe me, I thought about it. Probably a good thing I didn’t. We probably still wouldn’t be talking. Not that we are anymore anyway, I guess.”
“Meg doesn’t like to hear that she’s wrong.”
“You think?”
“I still haven’t heard from her,” he said in a moment.
“I think you’re going to have to look into alternative living situations, Jason.”
“I know. But…I need a job for rent. And I need a vehicle to get to a job. And money to get a vehicle.”
“Don’t you have any friends you could hit up for a bit? A couch you can crash on?”
“No man. I burned those bridges a long time ago. You’re not the only one who was fucked up for a while. A long while, in my case.”
“There’s programs,” I said. “Homeless shelters. Andy was working on them.”
“You ever been homeless?” he asked.
“No,” I admitted.
“I have. It’s not that easy, dude. There’s limited space. They don’t open them to able-bodied young people.”
I didn’t know what to tell him. He should have found a job sooner, so that he wasn’t in this spot. But no amount of should have would help now. And I didn’t want to sound like Megan, ten years ago: smug and self-righteous with my unsolicited feedback.
So I said nothing. He said nothing either. He just pulled out his phone and started tapping away on it.
Driving in silence suited me just fine. The city made way for country, and soon we were surrounded by the marshy public fields and forests.
I started thinking about the case, wondering when I’d hear from Clark.
“Hey,” he said in a minute. “You know how you said you don’t think this last kill
ing was the Nursery Rhyme Killer?”
“Yeah.”
He held his phone up, apparently expecting me to look at the screen. I went on looking at the road.
“You know who else thinks that?” he prodded.
“Who?”
“Wyatt Wagley. You know, the true crimes guy?”
I grimaced. “I know.”
“He’s got a video up. You mind if I play it?”
I shook my head. As a rule, I would have minded. I didn’t like noise as I drove, and I especially didn’t like Wyatt Wagley. But right now, I wanted to know what the little weasel had to say.
Jason tapped a few buttons, and in a moment the weasel’s voice projected through the interior speakers.
He led with his usual intro, and a spiel about getting to the truth. Then, he laid out the new facts of the case: the fifth killing, the handwritten note with its misspellings, and the sudden disappearance of Bret Myslinski.
“This guy was on every station that would talk to him last night. And now where is he? Vanished. Gone. Nowhere to be seen. So where is he?”
“What, he run out of synonyms or something?”
Jason ignored me.
Wagley went on, stating and restating the supposed obviousness of the reason for Bret’s disappearance. Which seemed to belie his point: as a rule, the obvious didn’t need to be reiterated.
Jason ignored me when I pointed that out, too.
Then Wagley got to his overall point: he ran through the differences between the fifth killing and the previous four. Several times in a row, in fact, concluding with, “So, let’s summarize.
“First, we’ve got a body found in a busy, residential part of town. Easy to be spotted coming in and out. Nothing our killer’s done so far.
“Second, we’ve got mistakes in the nursery rhyme. We’ve got numerals in place of words.”
“Just like you said,” Jason observed.
“Third, we’ve got blunt force trauma with a rhyme about a knife.
“No. No, no, no! That’s not his modus operandi. With every single victim so far, the rhyme is about the victim and how they die? Rope, strangulation. Mason Anderson? Dismemberment. Andrew Welch? Cut throat. Dandridge’s kids? Arson.
“And now, all of a sudden, we’re supposed to believe he picked a poem about a knife, and decided to bludgeon someone to death? No. That’s the act of a lunatic. A stupid criminal. An imposter.