by Crime Noir
on our current victimology: stories
Pablo D’Stair
Copyright © 2012 Pablo D’Stair
NOTE: This collection was previously released anonymously as part of the Out of Bullets, Throw the Gun: Round One competition.
Scary Story to Tell in the Dark no. 684
Ermelinda, who’d technically only been asleep an hour but had passed out hard, realized her cellphone was vibrating where she’d left it on the floor beside her bed.
She drifted.
Gradually, she realized the phone was being called repeatedly, so fumbled her arm over the bedside, backs of fingernails raking the carpet, brought the thing blearily to the side of her head.
“I’m standing right at the foot of your bed,” a voice said, half whispered.
This didn’t register heavily or with shock due to her grogginess, so she propped herself up, coughing in puffs out her dry throat. “Who’s this?”
“I’m standing right at the foot of your bed.”
The bedroom was kept very dark, but just the illumination from her phone was enough to show it was only her in the room. She hung up, feet to the carpet, turned on a lamp.
Nobody.
Her phone vibrated where she’d left it on the mattress, half buried in the corner of the sheet which had come loose as it always did.
“I’m right outside your bedroom door.”
“I’m calling the police,” she said, even started a motion as though to end the call but the other voice got in too quickly with “If you call the police I’ll come in there and kill you.”
She could taste the thick of her breath, had difficulty swallowing a moment.
“I’m standing right outside your bedroom door.”
The door was closed, no lights on out in the apartment to help her tell was someone really there.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, eyes clicking around the room, searching out something she could brandish in defense of an attack, settled on the bedside lamp which she unpluged, the room going black expect a singe of sick green floating in her vision.
“If you call the police, I’ll come in there and kill you.”
When she moved to stand, she realized how unsteady she was on her feet. “Please,” she said and hated herself for it.
“I’m standing right outside your bedroom door.”
“Then knock. I don’t believe you. Then knock.”
“No. If you open the door, I will kill you.”
An offbeat rising and falling of her chest all the way into her throat, each breath lifting her chin which then clamped down, Ermelinda ended the call, dropped the phone, lunged to the door, turning the knob and backpedaling as she did, hitting against the wall, her hip upsetting the bedside table. Her breathing, a high pitched tone to it out her nose, seemed out of her control, like it was being squeezed up from her stomach, nothing at all to do with her.
The telephone on the floor vibrated. Vibrated. Stopped.
The telephone on the floor vibrated. Vibrated. Stopped.
The telephone on the floor vibrated and she quickly picked it up, returning to her position against the wall.
“I’m standing in your kitchen.”
She crossed the bedroom into the hall, flapped up a light switch and then another as she rounded the corner, a view of the kitchen even before she entered saying “I’m calling the police.”
“I’m standing right outside your apartment door, do not call the police or—“
Ermelinda snapped the telephone shut, tossed it to the counter, drew a knife from the holder beside the toaster, set the lamp down, drew a second knife, set it down, took the phone back up, opened it.
She stared at the number pad of the phone, then turned her eyes up in the direction of her apartment door.
The telephone vibrated, she opened it, “The police are on their way,” she said, snapped it shut.
Opened it, stared at the numbers, pressed the nine.
Stared at the door.
Pressed One One.
Almost immediately a dispatcher came on the line and without leaving the kitchen, keeping her voice even as best she could, Ermelinda explained that someone was threatening to break into her apartment, gave her address, the dispatcher telling her to stay on the line and even as she agreed there were two dull beeps indicating another call was coming through.
Without thinking she shut the phone, cursed, waited a moment and it started vibrating.
“The police are on their way.”
“You shouldn’t have called the police, I told you not to call the police.”
Ermelinda trained her eyes on the door, tensed with the knife gripped so hard the blade shuddered.
“I’m right outside the building lobby.”
“Fuck you.”
“If you ever come out, Ermelinda, I will kill you.”
the last thing Desmond said Brandon said
Brandon Drab’s actual last words had been “I love you Darla, I love you and this isn’t your fault.” They has been spoken to Desmond Pale before Desmond moved a knife across Brandon’s throat. They’d not been spoken to Brandon, just spoken, eyes unfocused—probably spoken to Darla, Desmond imagined, though she wasn’t anywhere around.
***
The police apprehended Desmond after he called Darla to tell her where Brandon could be found. He made no fight, went easily, quietly.
***
During his taped confession, Desmond said that Brandon’s last words had been “Fuck you,” said as a his, like spitting in his face. And to Desmond, this wasn’t entirely untrue, or at the very least what Brandon had said amounted to much the same thing, as far as he was concerned.
Six Questions for Ezekiel Caske, who killed children
Why did you ask me to come here, to be the one to do this, ask you questions?
I was coming home just from cigarettes, the three men outside the door recognizing me from the end of the hall.
Told me “Are you Dennis Fowl?”
I’m Dennis Fowl.
Told me “Dennis Fowl, you grew up in Thorton Mills, in Colorado?”
Sure, it was me, nodded, yeah yeah, they didn’t seem to be trouble, couldn’t tell what they seemed. Went into my apartment, I didn’t mind them not exactly waiting to be invited, I had another smoke by my open window and they told me “Do you know what connection you might have to Ezekiel Caske?”
Didn’t even know who it was, let alone about a connection.
Did you always know you were going to kill people—or—after you killed someone, did you like right away know you’d go and kill someone else?
They gave me the general thing about Caske, how it was he’d killed some dozen children, little children, little girls—they’d got him on some dozen little girls, he’d killed them for years in different places, Wisconsin, outside Washington D.C. in Pheonix, places. He’d been caught for years and now was saying there were boys he’d killed, too, and just as many as little girls. He’d proved it well enough, telling them all where two or three were, but then he’d said he’d tell them about the rest only if I sat down with him, asked him six questions.
“Like I’m supposed to, what, interrogate him, get him to tell me?”
No, it wasn’t that kind of thing, they said, in fact Caske said I could ask him anything. He just wanted to answer six questions. Said it had to be me who asked—ask anything that came to my mind.
They told me it was some girls first, they didn’t even know about some boys—did you know that, then, that they were hunting you just over the girls and not the boys?
Was put up in a hotel, told ov
er and over yeah yeah I didn’t have to do it, but I didn’t see why not. I let them ask me things about me, all about them trying to find out where it was Caske might’ve known about me, why my name, why my questions he’d want to answer. We hadn’t grown up near each other, didn’t have anyone in common, not from as best as these men could tell and me too, didn’t seem even there really could’ve been a time we crossed path.
But there was something, who knows.
“I could ask him,” I said, meant it as a joke, didn’t get a reaction.
“It’s all a little bit like a movie,” I said to one guy when I was left alone for the night—agents or whatever had a room next door, like guards or something. “I always wanted to be a movie star, right, like who wouldn’t?”
I’d just been nervous saying that, didn’t know anything about wanting to be some movie star.
You put a sock, your sock, balled it up, put it that one girl’s mouth, but only that one—why’d you do something like that, why to that one, like it was something worse, something better?
It was odd, not sleeping good, wanted to sleep to be in a good head for the morning but just couldn’t. A lot of smoking, a lot of television nothing on, a lot of looking at myself in the mirror the only light on in the room the bright one up above it.
I thought up this and that question. Since I was allowed anything, I’d just ask things I was curious about, about him, about the things the men had told me about him, those little girls, all of it.
Couldn’t see myself just asking him “Hey, do you wanna piece of gum?” or “Don’t you hate it in some movies where the woman’s getting undressed for the tub, she drops her robe, the angle changes to it’s just her calves or whatever?”
How did you choose them—the boys, I mean, did you match the up with girls, what was it?
There was a lot of stuff to sign—I’d already signed a lot of other things—there was a breakfast where I didn’t want anything, some coffee, had a crust of toast, and then the drive out to the prison facility was an hour-and-a-half—it was a prison, they called it a Facility.
Wanted to joke they could’ve gotten a hotel in closer, something, but didn’t bother. Watched high grass out the windows, gravel pit out the window, orchard out the window.
You don’t care you’re in here, I can’t see how you’d care—is it worse, do you wish they’d killed you?
Like they’d said, the guy Caske was all shackled good to a chair, easy to tell he couldn’t get out. I looked at him a few minutes through a window—I’d be alone in with him, but they’d be watching through the window all the while.
Even though, yeah, it must’ve been a long time ago I’d ever seen him if we had ever seen each other, he didn’t look like anyone I knew, looked tight and thin, looked like a cigarette with a stick shoved up in it, ugly but not, interesting but not pretty.
I opened the door, was to enter alone, saw him shift a little bit, squint at me, figured like he was seeing had they pulled some trick.
“Who’re you?”
His voice was like a sick old woman, not right for him at all.
“I’m Dennis Fowl.”
His head pricked, not like he didn’t believe me, like something else.
“From Thorton Mills?” he asked, some kind of decrepit singsong.
“Right.”
I took a seat the chair they had set for me, but just when I did, feeling sweat on my back, nervous like before a school play, Caske said to the window behind me “This isn’t who I thought it was.”
He stammered a bit.
“This isn’t Dennis Fowl.”
I looked at him, but he was still addressing the window behind me.
“I’m not telling you where any more of them are.”
Avid
Fredric, stepping out a cigarette, shyly approached a young couple—cute cute girl but beside the point—gave an entreating little wave. Guy was just finishing a coffee, tossing it in some trash, girl gave the sort of smile where she gently bites her lower lip.
“Sorry to bother you—I was wondering if you could do me a favor. My friend, he’s a painter, just around the corner he’s selling his work, paints on the street and sells it. Anyway, he’s not been doing so well with it and I want to give him a boost.”
Fredric took out the six hundred dollars.
“Could you swing round, act interested, and buy one of his large pieces? You don’t need to keep it, I’ll take it and make sure it’s alright, I just think it’d pick up his spirits.”
The girl—very cute this close in, the freckles on her shoulders, Christ—seemed enchanted and the guy, at least, nodded like it’d be fine.
***
Fredric got out of the car, trudging with the painting to the same spot as always, tossed it down into the gravel. Had a long smoke, liberally dousing the canvas with lighter fluid—he’d need a new can, soon, but this would be fine for just now—making hob-nobbish chatter noises and gruffing things like “Oh, how splendid…magnifico…oh, if only he would paint me…oh oh what a talent.”
He tossed the stub of his cigarette at the painting—as usual this not enough to light it—then struck a match, lit the booklet, dropped this down and the flames stood up.
***
Fredric finished his espresso, wished he had some medicine to help out the headache—this rain had the stink of ozone everywhere, it pinched him awfully. A young woman—overweight, but looked like she worked out, anyway, maybe a fitness routine that’d just gotten going, she just had that air about her—came out of the office building, leaned to the wall, lit a cigarette.
A bashful nod, Fredric approached—obviously had her attention, she wasn’t getting in shape for her health after all—asked to borrow her lighter, got his own smoke going.
“Sorry to bother you—I was wondering if you could do me a favor. My friend, he’s a painter, just up the street he’s selling his work, paints on the street and sells it. Anyway, he’s not doing so well with it and I want to give him a boost.”
Fredric took out the six hundred dollars.
eighty-six dollar dead man
Not his usual train, Herman Gitane just sat, figured to ride out to the end of the line, ride back, he’d work out something about his job, how to tell Carla it was done, three weeks early the whole lot of them let go. Not his fault, at least. At least.
Guy wearing a suit and rather decent coat kept to his corner seat until the end of the line, too, didn’t get up, was still sitting when Herman came back in from having a cigarette, waiting out the driver’s break.
“End of the line, guy, you might’ve missed where you were going.”
Not usually his business, waking someone up, moved in a little closer to say it again, heard the splish of his shoe toe touching into something liquid, distinct heavy scent of piss.
“Fuck man, hey.”
Touched the guys shoulder, straight away knew it was a dead man, not from ever having seen one, like just from his gut he knew.
Chime sounded the door was closing, Herman didn’t register till the train had already been moving nearly two minutes. Quick look around, no one else, no one out this way probably took the train this hour, this’d be one last trip back into the city for the late workers to get taken home.
Sat down, hands to lips, whispered Fuck and Fuck shit and What the fuck, stood up looking for some button to push, talk to the conductor, tell him stop the train. But bullshit—tell them “Hey, some dead guy here”? it was nothing to do with him, just some headache after the ones he had piled on from all day, already.
But hit a call button, crackle of voice came on.
“There’s someone dead back here, man, someone dead the back of the train.”
No response for more than half a minute. He hit the button again. Crackle. Voice.
“There’s someone fucking dead back here, the back of the train, alright? I’d like to fucking get off this train, alright
?”
Crackle voice told him please stay calm, voice said it’d called ahead, they’d stop at the next station, five or six minutes out.
He took out a cigarette, rocked heel to toe with it to his mouth, away, figured he ought to light it, considering things. Lit it. Dragged in, out.
Then—it was strange, even to him—he reached in, just like to see, moved the guy’s coat open a little and there was a billfold, he slipped it out, tucked it down into his own coat pocket.
Dragged form the cigarette, jittering. Shaking his head, jittered, breathed out hard.
Train pulled into the station there were men waiting, like they knew just where the compartment would stop, door opening to let them in and Herman off, right away, lighting another cigarette.
“He was just dead, don’t know when—went to tap him maybe he missed his stop like me and he reeked all of piss.”
No one much paid attention to Herman, other passengers got off the train, kept a distance, looked over, looked away. Herman stayed around, even to give a statement, left a bit after the police finished talking to him, left feeling sweat, feeling nerves—he’d given his name, his address, eventually just walked off, no one especially stopping him, but he figured they could find him later as he’d given his right name and all, where he lived.
Eighty-six dollars in the billfold, some credit card, some photos and things, cards and receipts and a ring. He’d have to ditch it, but he’d do that way later, otherwise it’d be clear to anyone why the body didn’t have a wallet it showed up in a trash can down the block—probably it’d be clear anyway.
But who cares? was how Herman saw it—even if he felt bad a little bit that was all it was, feeling a little bit bad.
Figured out about a bus, when he was nearer home bought some new cigarettes. Down to eighty dollars. Figured he could always get Carla something, help her take the news that it would be just her paycheck, again, until he got something else sorted.
Thought about what to get her.