by Bobby Nash
As Detective Walker started up the stairs, Jacks moved easily through the house. The Crime Scene Techs buzzed around the room like a swarm of flies and she made sure to stay out of their way. Otherwise, the townhouse was deserted.
“Can we get any light in here?” she asked one of the techs. She couldn’t tell who was who in the darkened room.
“Can’t,” Detective Mitchell Harris answered from the darkness. All of the light bulbs have been busted. We’ve got some portables on the way.”
“All?”
“Yes, Detective. All of them throughout the entire house.”
“Any idea why?”
“Not yet. When I get something, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Alright. Thanks, Mitchell.”
Jacks walked through the living room, examining the photos hanging on the walls with her flashlight. The Washington’s seemed like your nice, normal, everyday, happy family. What kind of enemy could these people possibly make? Inside her brain, the little voice that Jacks listened to when logic failed, was screaming at her. Just one word: Psycho!
All evidence to the contrary, she could not disagree with the notion.
Then she snapped her fingers. In the quite room, it was like a gunshot in the dark.
“Hey, Mitchell?”
“Hmmm?”
“What about the basement lights?”
“No basement,” Detective Harris said, standing up from his fiber search. He’d seen her get this look before, as if a new piece of the puzzle had fallen into place and suddenly the picture started taking shape. He was damned curious what that new piece looked like.
“What are you thinking, Jacks?”
“I’m not sure,” she answered, tapping her forefinger against her chin. When her finger stopped tapping, Mitchell could almost see the light bulb go off above her head.
“Attic?”
Mitchell shrugged.
Jacks turned to the room.
“Is there an attic door or one of those pull-down things anywhere?”
When no definitive answer was forthcoming, she threw her arms wide.
“Well, look!” she said, which spurred them to action.
“Got it!” one of the uniformed officers announced from the top of the stairwell a few seconds later. “Up here.”
Looks like I’m going upstairs after all.
Jacks took the stairs two at a time, Mitchell was right on her heel.
“At the end of the hall,” the officer informed as they reached the landing. Jacks moved forward, easing her gun from its holster and clicking off the safety. As she passed the door to the baby’s bedroom, Jacks whistled for her partner.
She did not look inside.
“Mel.”
Melvin Walker came out of the room, wondering what was up. He asked as much. When he saw guns drawn, he pulled his weapon as well.
“Somebody want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
Jacks pointed toward the dangling rope hanging from the panel in the ceiling at the end of the hallway. She and Mel took up position on either side of the hatch. Mitchell, after tucking his gun back in its cradle, slowly reached for the rope.
Carefully, the other officers in the hallway took a few cautious steps backward. Their weapons and flashlights were drawn and ready, but the last thing they wanted was to get in the way, especially if something or someone came tumbling out of the attic.
Jacks held up three fingers.
Melvin and Mitchell nodded in silent agreement as Jacks curled one of the fingers under.
Then another.
As she reached one, Mitchell tugged down hard on the rope and the hatchway fell open.
Nothing.
Melvin and Jacks had their guns pointed into the opening as Mitchell unfolded the ladder.
Jacks took a tentative step on the ladder’s bottom rung, feeling it creak beneath her.
“You got it?” she asked.
“It’s covered,” Melvin said, even as Mitchell took Jacks’ former position, gun aimed at the darkness above them.
“I got ya.”
The attic was black as coal. And hot. Obviously there were no fans or vents operational up here. Halfway into the opening, Jacks spun around, trying to take in as much of the room as possible with the flashlight. Where the beam pointed so did her gun. The attic was small and empty, but she had suspected as much. She saw the light switch just inside the door.
She flipped the switch and the light came on, pouring sixty watts against the attic gloom.
Jacks climbed down the ladder.
“Nothing.”
There was a collective exhaling of breath at the news. None of them had been looking forward to gunplay.
“What were you hoping to find?” Mitchell asked.
“I’m not sure. You said the killer broke all of the light bulbs.”
“Yeah,” Melvin interjected.
“I was wondering how far he or she took it.”
She looked up at the attic again, a sour look on her face.
“If this were a serial nut job, they’re usually pretty pathological about this sort of thing. My guess is, if that were the case, the light bulb in the attic would have been skragged as well.”
“So, we’re not looking for a pathological nut job?”
“Nope,” Jacks said as she patted Mitchell on the shoulder as she walked past him. “Just your average, garden variety nut job.”
“That really doesn’t make me feel better,” Mel said.
four
Washington DC
Saturday
The Controller spoke with precision timing.
Every word and syllable, exactly on cue. His timbre resonated evenly, showing no emotion, no fear, no hope, giving away nothing that was genuine or true. Even when he talked to himself, as he was at that moment, he never permitted the other him, the one he allowed those around him to see when he wasn’t being The Controller, to shine through.
As he often did, The Controller talked out his plans, running them back and forth until everything was perfect. He had learned long ago that things that look good on paper don’t always sound so good when spoken aloud. After years of hard work, his plans were finally coming to fruition. After all this time, after all the setbacks and failures, and after listening to the excuses of tiny men who thought they lived above their station, his machinations were finally coming to a head. His revenge was at hand.
As was his glory.
To that end, all that was missing was someone special to share the moment with him.
He wanted… No. Not wanted. Wanted was the wrong word. Needed. That was it. He needed a new playmate. The game was so much more enjoyable when there was someone there who could appreciate his triumph, share the moment wit him. To be a true winner, there had to be a loser, someone for him to lord his victory over… right before he put a bullet between their eyes.
The Controller had done well for himself up to this point, but his successes so far were not enough to satisfy him.
He craved more.
Monetarily, he was a wealthy man. His suit cost more than many Americans made in an average work week, two weeks for most of them. His teeth were white, sparkling, and undoubtedly minty fresh. His hair was likewise perfect, not a strand out of place atop his freshly groomed head. He looked like he belonged in the boardroom, on the television, or behind a podium. In the world of today, that made him the perfect actor, the perfect anchorman, or more sickeningly, the perfect politician, though none of those things remotely interested him. He was content to remain behind the scenes, even though his desire for recognition was at odds to the anonymity of working outside of the limelight. It was a contradiction, but nothing he worried about.
He was in control and he could give a damn what the world of today thought about him… or anything else for that matter. Even the world of yesterday was little more than an afterthought to him. He had his eye on the prize that was the future. To The Controller, they were all just little more than
targets just waiting their turn, more victims for the gristmill and he would get around to all of them eventually.
Surrounded by computer monitors and television sets of varying sizes and shapes, The Controller watched. If it was out there, The Controller saw it. If it moved, it was captured for posterity on a digital landscape ripe for the picking. At a single, simple command from The Controller, a new target would be selected from the pool of potential candidates.
A new test.
With each new scenario the system surpassed even the wildest imaginings of its creators. The technology was leaps and bounds ahead of where it should have been. The Controller knew that this was not due to the brilliance of those few men and women who had toiled in relative obscurity to perfect their device. No, even they would have to admit that the success of their project was due to pure and simple dumb luck.
They had stumbled onto the answer purely by chance, but he was the one who took it to its greatest heights. If The Controller believed in a higher power, a prayer would have been in order. Since no such belief existed, however, the prayer became irrelevant.
Only the game mattered.
It was time to take it to the next level. The Controller knew this, but wanted to stop and savor the victories already accomplished, to savor the moment of triumph instead of simply moving on like some automaton on a manufacturing line. He had worked hard to get to this moment and he was going to enjoy each triumph because there were so few in one’s lifetime… though he’d had more than most. Therefore, a person must enjoy every little morsel while it lasted. A simple philosophy he ascribed to, enjoying the little victories as well as the major ones.
For all his waxing philosophical, The Controller was no fool. Moving carefully, planning each move with the utmost precision until the time came to strike was a challenge very much like playing an elaborate game of Chess, and like a master of the game, The Controller needed a good challenge to prove his point. Like victories, true and proper challenges in life were few and far between.
For The Controller, it was frustrating because there was no opposition to stand between him and the prize. To keep the Chess analogy going, The Controller was a master of the game playing against a novice who had never played the game before. Once before there was an FBI Agent who got close, but never close enough. He pursued the clues like a man possessed until he had all of the evidence he needed, but even that was not enough for him to cross the finish line. He saw through The Controller’s manipulations and knew that the clues pointed to the wrong person.
The Controller had left a red herring for his FBI Agent nemesis, but the arrogant bastard refused to play along. This frustrated The Controller no end, so the game was taken in a new direction, to a new level. The Controller pulled the Agent’s family into the game, which got the Agent’s attention.
It got him back into the game.
At least for a time.
Once the game was no longer challenging and fun, The Controller decided that it was time to cut his losses and move on. One bullet to the brain at close range was enough to end the FBI Agent’s investigation.
Along with his wretched, boring life.
The sad part was the confusion in the Agent’s eyes when he learned who had done this to him. Surely, the last thought in his tiny pea-brain must have been, How could I not have seen this? He’d had not a clue, The Controller noted while watching the one and only real adversary he had ever had to play the game against die. Perhaps all of the Agent’s moves to that point had been dumb luck.
Or maybe his prey was slipping.
He needed an adversary worthy of him.
Sadly, prospective opponents were in short supply.
The Controller needed time to reflect on that thought. Were the clues too difficult? Was he being too subtle? What if the game was no longer interesting because, as the villain of the piece, he could no longer keep the quarry entertained. This troubling notion required a great deal of thought.
Surely they were aware by now, he assumed. But just in case they really were as inept as The Controller believed, it might be time to take this version game to the next level. The time for subtlety was over.
It was time to get their attention.
It was time to turn up the heat.
The whir of the computers scattered about the room was hardly even noticed anymore. The sound was simply background noise that he barely noticed anymore. All part of the process that The Controller had tuned out long ago. Several monitors showed websites under construction as well as a few in process of downloading something or another and open social media accounts.
The Controller, however, was paying them no attention at the moment.
His eyes were drawn to the television set. The Controller watched the Washington D.C. Police Department file in and out of the townhouse of Malcolm Washington, potentially trampling over evidence, had there been any such evidence to link The Controller with Malcolm Washington, which, of course, there was not.
The Controller was too smart for that.
Not once had he stepped foot inside the Washington’s home. There would be no fibers, no hair samples for DNA comparison, no fingerprints, and no trace of him in the computer’s memory. The Controller was a ghost.
The Police were out of their league on this and The Controller reveled in it.
“Now, to find a likely candidate,” The Controller whispered, watching detectives come and go, waiting... waiting... waiting for the one who would make the game entertaining again. The Controller would recognize the perfect opponent immediately. Would that opponent be part of this investigation? Only time would tell. So far, he was disappointed in the options open to him. The lead detective was a chubby schlub using a cane. Not exactly an opponent in his prime. Only those who exhibited a strong enough aura of strength, brains, and power would be worthy of his time and attention and that wasn’t him. The Controller was waiting for the one who would make the life of a lifelong game master whole again.
To make…
“Hold it!” The Controller gasped in excitement. “Yes!” he shouted.
Pausing the playback, The Controller ran a rubber gloved hand over the television image of a woman entering the crime scene. She was not only beautiful, but had a regal air about her that he found instantly fascinating. He felt a stirring inside. Not only did she arouse him sexually, something so few women could manage these days, but there was something in her movements, her body language, a strength of will that called out to him. There was just something about her. She was, in a word, perfect.
He smiled. Perfection indeed.
“I so look forward to making your acquaintance, my dear officer,” The Controller whispered as if afraid the detective, frozen in time on the monitor, might hear. He would have to do his due diligence, of course, but sometimes you have to take a leap of faith, and right now he knew that this woman would be his new adversary.
“Time to take it to the next level, I’d say,” The Controller whispered, running a gloved finger across the television screen. Tracing the lines of the next adversary’s pretty cheekbone with one hand while the other massaged his growing erection though his trousers.
“A pleasure to meet you, Detective…” he let his voice trail off as his finger slid down to the name on the bottom of the screen. How nice of the local television new media to save him the trouble of a Google search for his adversary’s name. Sometimes, things just fell perfectly into place.
This was one of those times.
Leaving the video image frozen on his monitor screen, the Controller turned to one of his many computers and opened a search program. By the time he was finished, he would know his new adversary frontward and backward. Like most people these days, she had an on-line presence. She did not have a personal website, but was active on social media. He checked her Facebook page and sent her a friend request using one of the many on-line aliases he had created for himself for just such a purpose.
He performed a similar task on her less used I
nstagram account, using yet another alias. Her social media pages were rather plain, but they held a decent amount of information to get him started. There were photos of her family, her prim and proper parents who came from old money, two sisters, one older and one younger, as well as their names in the captions. Her sisters both had Facebook accounts of their own and he book marked the site to check their profiles as well. Most people seemed to forget that social media sites were not private. Without intentionally doing so, people sent out more information than they should to the world at large.
The detective had a few other accounts that were not quite as active. She had set up a Twitter account, but posted infrequently despite having over six hundred followers. Of the ones that were not spam bots, several of them had clicked the follow button based off her profile picture alone, he wagered. The detective was a rather beautiful woman who seemed incapable of taking a bad photograph based on the images he had seen on her various pages. He had to wonder what had happened that sent this woman on a career trajectory to being a homicide detective instead of a model, which she certainly had the features to pull off. He would have to make sure to ask her that very question before the game was finished.
The remainder of the search was from various news sites that had run stories about the detective’s cases and a few where she had been the focus of a character piece. There were also several sites where her family was mentioned. Her mother was well known among the upper crust elite for her charity fundraising efforts while her father was a world-renowned businessman who owned several successful enterprises. They were old money, like he was. She was part of a wealthy bloodline that went back at least three generations. He wondered why the detective had shied away from her family wealthy in favor of staring at dead bodies for a living. Was there a rift between her and her parents? He made a mental note to dig into it and find out.
After a couple hours of research, The Controller was ready to introduce himself to his new adversary. He opened a writing program of his own design and began typing a letter with practiced ease. He looked forward to getting to know this new opponent. There was indeed something special about her. Sometimes, The Controller believed there were more thrills to be found in the competition than anything else, but that didn’t stop him from seeking his prize.