After The Flesh

by Colin Gallant

  If anyone did notice him, they would have seen a shadow in the predawn gloom and only questioned later why someone would be walking around at such an hour with two garbage bags slung over their shoulder. But this was a university neighborhood. Few if any would be up before the sun. Those who were would know what a midnight move was all about.

  Susan was not missed until she failed to show up for her next shift. She was not found until Cynthia returned home from her vacation to find the house ice cold and the furnace off. She found Susan in the bathtub, frozen in a block of ice. She fainted dead away. Only the police saw the condition of her bedroom.

  -

  Where was Tina? She was giving Freddy his space. She had not gotten over Angie’s death and she was a wreck. She left school on the tenth of December after begging her professors to either let her defer her exams until January or write them early. She wrote four in one day and was given a passing credit in the fifth. She called Freddy, left a message and drove straight to Hanna that same night. She slept for two days in the bed she grew up in.

  Freddy called her just before heading over to wait for Susan and again in the morning after he got home. They were still good. Tina still loved him. She just needed to be a girl for a bit. He let her do her thing. He wrote his exams and did disgustingly well. He was pushing a 4.0 GPA and he didn’t need football anymore. But he played anyway.

  He went home for Christmas two days before Susan was found and the cops never questioned him at all. He waited for the phone call, the knock at the door. It never came. He ate too much. He slept late.

  Freddy went to the movies with his mother and Tim Irwin. He sat in the middle. He was their chaperone. Afterwards they had dinner at the only fancy restaurant in town, the only restaurant in town that didn’t offer an eclectic menu of steak, pizza and Chinese or sold off sales from their bar until two am.

  He helped Tim drop a motor into his Mustang and promised to race him when the weather got better. Maggie disapproved of course. As the new motor was rumbling away, they announced they were finally going to get married – if Freddy was okay with it. Freddy was fine with it. He would be willing to give her away at the ceremony.

  When the news of Susan Emery’s death reached Prince William Falls, Freddy called Tina just to be sure she was safe. That’s what he told her anyway – he wanted to be sure she was safe. He knew she was safe but his mother was watching from the kitchen and it was only normal to be irrationally concerned. A full story was on the evening news but very few details were being released. Some speculation suggested the two murders were related but the police were hesitant to use the term Serial in reference to them. The press liaison claimed there was no call for panic and further details would be released during the course of their investigation.

  “Bollocks,” Tim muttered as the piece finished. “Bullshit.” Maggie was in the kitchen making coffee and he glanced over his shoulder. He never swore in front of her. He said it wasn’t polite.

  Freddy looked over at him. “What’s bullshit?”

  “They’ve got a bloody serial killer on their hands,” he replied in a murmur, “and probably not a very bright one.”

  Freddy might have been offended but he didn’t let it show. “What makes you say that?”

  “These two girls are linked both by time and proximity. Two university girls killed during the school year. The police are likely narrowing down their list as we speak. Top of the list – every new male student to hit the campus this year. They’ll shorten that list by figuring out which of those young men knew the first victim.” Tim muttered to himself and shook his head. “I’ve done some reading – I don’t know much. I do know many serial killers start with a victim they know; someone they are comfortable with.”

  “Freddy knew her,” Maggie said quietly from the doorway. “He knew Angie. Poor girl.” Her voice was different. Restrained. Cautious. A little frightened maybe.

  Tim looked at him, his deep eyes calculating. “I reckon you’d better speak with the police.” His accent slipped westerly when he grew excited.

  Freddy nodded. “I already have. A cop came by to see me a few weeks ago. They don’t suspect me or anything like that.”

  “Are you sure?” Maggie asked. She was not accusing but something in her eyes was close.

  Freddy nodded. “Yeah, mom. I think so. I was with Tina when Angie … when it happened.”

  Tim let out a forced chuckle. “Besides, you’re in your second year.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I guess I hadn’t thought about it.” More for his mother’s sake but speaking to Tim, “besides, he didn’t out and out say it but the gist I got from the cop was they’re looking for a woman.”

  “Did you know the second girl?” Maggie asked. Her tone hadn’t softened.

  “No,” Freddy replied. “I might recognize her from the gym and I do know the coffee shop she worked at.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I ever talked to her more than to order a drink and even then, I can’t be sure.”

  Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “If the cops ask you, tell them you did.”

  “Mom!” Freddy looked up at her. “I can’t exactly lie to the cops.”

  She held out a palm to silence him. “You don’t have to lie. Just say you ‘kinda’ knew her.”

  “Margaret,” Tim tried.

  The palm turned on him next. “No. My son is not going to lose his scholarship over this. My son is going to get his degree!” She started crying. Real, snorting, sobbing, crying.

  Freddy rose from the couch while Tim sat stunned in the La-Z-Boy. He went to her and held her while she cried. When she was done, when her eyes were dry the accusation was gone.

  -

  Another girl died that winter. Late February, I think. Early March maybe. It was still cold. Freddy did that one as well. He only waited so long because he didn’t know what to do about Tina. Nearly every night he was at her place or she was at ours. They were together nearly constantly and an absence coinciding with another murder might be too obvious.

  He found his third victim shortly after the winter semester started and he talked about her constantly. When we were alone, she was just about all he wanted to talk about. He said he wanted to savor this one like slow-roasted meat or a perfectly aged wine.

  It ended up being Maggie who gave him his window – Maggie and her soon-to-be husband Tim. Their wedding was scheduled for spring break so Freddy and Tina could attend. Freddy had a fairly light semester with only four classes and no labs or tutorial sessions to worry about. He had Fridays off and he was out of classes by noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He offered to shuttle samples back and forth every weekend and promised to help with the wedding as much as he could. Football was done for the year and he had nothing but time on his hands.

  Tina had classes on Fridays and she couldn’t always come. For Freddy this became convenient. He made his plan and again it was perfect. He would not have a full night with his victim but he could have two or three hours and that was more than enough.

  Freddy called home from his new cell phone and informed his mother he was having car trouble. He told her not to worry. He was fine and the car was safe and off the road. He told her not to send Tim out. He would have the damned thing fixed before Tim could get there.

  He phoned from the side of the highway an hour south of Calgary and then turned his cell off. He pulled the battery out just to be extra cautious and put the phone and the battery in the glove box. He phoned from there because he knew the call might be traced back to the nearest cell tower. If it was, he would be nowhere near Ashlynn McCormack’s townhouse when she died. That was the plan.

  Freddy knew the RCMP almost never patrolled that stretch of highway on weeknights. He pushed the Impala hard, doing something close to two hundred kilometers an hour until he reached town. On the way back he would have to be more cautious. Almost never was more than never period. If he was pegged speeding while she was just starting to grow cold, he would put his own head in a noose.
Before Ashlynn died, a speeding ticket would just cause him to abort. But every inch of pedal he gave the car would free up just a few more minutes he could spend with her.

  Ashlynn was found on Sunday morning by her parents who drove into town to pick her up for church. Her niece, the daughter of her eldest brother, was to be baptized. She was in the bathtub and the apartment was frigidly cold. Her mother suffered a heart attack and was rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead. Her father never made it to church to see his granddaughter’s baptism. Two weeks later he drank a bottle of Johnny Red and chased it with a bullet.

  I credit Freddy with all three deaths. He just shrugged. For him it was quality, not quantity. Only the sacrifice counted.

  -

  Two major events happened in the summer of 1996. I say they were major because they would forever cement his path. For good or ill –I could see both possibilities as time went on. The first major event – Freddy and Tina broke up. His mother’s marriage to Tim Irwin altered how she perceived their relationship. Tina started thinking about weddings and she was none too subtle about it. Freddy didn’t want to get married. He wanted his freedom and he knew with Tina that freedom would slip through his fingers.

  Freddy figured he had three more years of killing before he was forced to alter his tactics. Three more years would mesh with Tim’s new-student theory. More than just the marriage thing, Tina was increasingly in his way and his sacrifices had come to mean more to him than she did. He told her to be safe. He told her there was still a psycho out there somewhere and he did care about her. He told her he would keep in touch and he told her to call him for anything.

  Tina took the break-up well. For all her talk about marriage I think she was starting to get a little restless. She told him they could still hang out sometimes. She said they always had ‘highly productive sex’ and there was no reason to completely stop that just because they weren’t dating anymore. Freddy agreed whole-heartedly but he gave me his blessing to pursue her. I never did. I never quite trusted that blessing. It might have been the making of another one of his lessons. Despite their agreement to still get together I don’t think they ever did – at least not alone. But in the years to follow there came a series of very exclusive parties at which both Tina and Freddy were regulars. I’ll get there soon enough.

  The second major event that summer involved Maybelline. Freddy sold her. Mind you by this time it was just the car. The name Maybelline died with John Cartwright. Freddy didn’t sell the car because it cost a fortune to run. He didn’t sell it because he was bored with it or it was falling apart. He sold it because it was conspicuous. It was a car that turned heads even if the people looking had no idea what they were looking at.

  Freddy listed the Impala on July eighth for $14,999 Canadian in local classifieds and in several specialty magazines in the States. It was appraised at closer to nineteen thousand. By the fifteenth he had three bidders meeting his asking price. The car sold on the twentieth for eighteen thousand dollars even. I know the details. I know the dates. I know it all because he would tell me again and again over the next few years.

  The buyer was a middle-aged man from Texas named Alice. Yes, Alice – just like the singer. But unlike Alice Cooper, Alice Guthry was born with it and he was left to live with it. And he said, yes, his favorite song was A boy Named Sue. With a grin on his wide, tanned face, he asked Freddy how she ran.

  Freddy grinned back. Alice’s grin was infectious. “Hard,” he said, immediately understanding the man, “and strong. My dad named her Maybelline. If you treat her nice, she’ll purr. But don’t forget to give ‘er the occasional spanking.”

  The Texan laughed. “I like you, son,” he drawled. “I’m gonna give you a piece a’ advice – you take that money and you invest it. Do what I did. Be careful with most and be daring with some and you’ll thank me for it.” He winked, shook Freddy’s hand and was gone.

  Freddy listened to Alice Guthry and took his advice. But he did need a car and he bought a seven-year-old Chevy Blazer with tinted windows. At least ten grand of that money he put into mutual funds bought just on the lower lip of the upswing, saving money and already earning with every passing day. He used the remainder – something like three thousand dollars – to invest in a small, Calgary-based mining company that was just starting to make headlines.

  He missed the initial penny per share buy-in but in July of ’96 Bre-X shares were still a deal. By the end of that summer after skimming from his savings account and juggling some other investments Freddy had nearly two thousand shares. His total investment was less than seven thousand dollars and he sat on them through the fall. He talked to me about doubling and splitting, about press-releases and core samples every morning while I sat at the kitchen table and he was at the computer. Bre-X held the rights to a lode in Indonesia containing an estimated seventy million ounces. It was not long before reports pegged the value at closer to two hundred million ounces. At five hundred dollars U.S an ounce the math was both simple and staggering.

  It was that simplicity that made Freddy wealthy. He smelled a rat. Seventy million was trickier. Seventy million is not a round number – not as round as two hundred million. Seven times five is fourteen but two times five is a nice even ten. Just s one and some zeros – a whole lot of zeros. The cynics were beginning to tote the phrase ‘too good to be true’ but the geology still seemed sound enough.

  Freddy went home for Christmas but never strayed far from the latest news or Tim’s computer. He had picked up the last few shares to give himself a nice even two thousand – he liked simple math – and he held them until February tenth. But those shares had split twice and he had closer to four thousand when he dumped them. He sold at something like $275 a share. His average buying price was less than five bucks each. Do the math. When the bubble burst less than a month later he was grinning all the way to the bank.

  He never told anyone else how many shares he had bought. He admitted to his mother that he had a few dollars invested but never anything near to the true ballpark. Freddy re-invested his new wealth into various stable companies. He paid his taxes - a lot of taxes. He bought dividend-paying shares in everything from Shell to Arm & Hammer, DuPont to Coca-Cola. In 1997 those dividends amounted to about forty grand a year. He was able to buy a house in Northwest Calgary within walking distance of the university. Real estate was just rising again and he managed to sneak under that wire as well.

  During the fall of 1996 Freddy was too busy watching his stocks to kill. The police claimed to be following up on several leads but it was speculated the killer had moved on. Freddy had not moved on. He just didn’t have time to kill. For four months he barely even thought about it. I was amazed he even made his classes. He skipped football practices and he was benched. It didn’t matter to him because he didn’t need football for the money. His grades were near perfect and other things were far more important to him. He stuck with it however even as he came nearer and nearer to being kicked off the team. He still wanted to play but both of us knew football could wait.

  The growing sense of relief on campus was a tenuous thing. No one died that fall. Christmas break came and went. Two more months went by. As the country and many others were watching the Bre-X scandal unravel Freddy returned to the night.

  Two women died in less than a week. Both were students no older than twenty. Anna Warwick was found in her tub on March 28th by her sister who came by to pick her up for spring break in Mexico. On the second of April Kelly Hunt’s landlady called the police after she failed to pay her rent. Kelly was one to have it paid two or three days early and her landlady was a consummate worrier. The police went in the front door of her ground floor apartment, guns drawn and discovered Kelly’s petite body wedged into the kitchen’s old-fashioned porcelain sink. The patio doors were wide open because the old building’s heat was centrally controlled. She was in the sink because the bathroom only had a shower stall.

  Freddy took something of a break after th
at to settle out his financial windfall. Those two murders were for show. They were to let everyone know he was still there. He didn’t want the city to grow too relaxed. They weren’t sacrifices. They were only murders. He bought the house in early May and set about hiring contractors to renovate it. It would sit for the summer.

  The next fall, Freddy’s senior year, he went on a killing spree that left the police stunned and the city terrified. That fall winter came early with record lows starting mid-September and carrying right through to Christmas. Most would not have longed for the cold. But Freddy did. He needed the cold to work. Five more girls died between September twentieth and December fifth. He came to be known in the media as Jack Frost. It was a name that he said embarrassed him but he could think of nothing better.

  He had the house now. It came with a double attached garage. The garage was vital and not just for turning wrenches. He could change his M.O. if he wanted to but he wouldn’t. He had to stick with the four-year plan. The police would be hunting someone a year younger than him who would seem to have left school while he was still there doing his master’s.

  -

  I could not live with him anymore. He didn’t want me and I didn’t want him. I was working full time nights and my wages had more than doubled. I rented a one-bedroom shithole in the basement of a fifties-era building in the beltline. It was cheap. I was a half hour from work and fifteen minutes from Freddy’s place and that was close enough. My free time was still spent tailing him as best I could.