Glimpse

by Stephen B King

  By the time he finished, I had the knife removed from my sleeve and positioned under his rib cage on his right-hand side. “Are we having fun yet, Mr. Bridges?” I asked, as I pushed it inside him.

  I watched his eyes closely, and noticed he looked down and saw the handle of the knife in my hand sticking out of him. All nine inches of high quality stainless steel were reaching up toward his heart.

  He tried to pull away, but I put my hand around the back of his head so he couldn’t. When he tried to scream, I said, “Shush, Mr. Bridges,” and covered his mouth with mine to give him what I’ve since named the kiss of death. I pulled the knife out, and stuck it back into him over, and over, again.

  It was a lot messier than I would have liked, and all the blood made the handle of the knife slippery. It reminded me again of being five years old as I watched him bleed out.

  ****

  I avidly read the newspapers afterward, as they described what they thought, not too incorrectly, as a homosexual park encounter gone wrong. I had stabbed Mr. Bridges more than forty times, apparently. I wouldn’t have thought it was anywhere near that number, but there is no point denying it, I was having fun so I could have lost count. I controlled his death, and that was awesome.

  After that first kill, I didn’t have any compunction to do it again, for a long time. I had never seen myself as a serial killer. That first one was retribution, and it was justified. He took advantage of an eighteen-year-old, even though he was married with children. Seriously, isn’t the world a better place for him not breathing our oxygen? If he had stayed faithful, he would be alive today.

  For a while I did worry that the police might knock on my door. I had worked out in my head all the answers I would give to any question they would fire at me. Yes, I knew Mr. Bridges, he was very good to me, and he was a nice man blah, blah, blah. But, they never did come calling, and as time went by, I worried less. I realized they thought they were looking for a gay hater, which took the pressure off considering Mr. Bridges’ clients. I supposed getting details of people like me, many of whom could have been underage, would be a complex business, and once they decided it was a gay bashing murderer, it probably wasn’t worth the hassle of gaining a court order. For all I knew, maybe they tried to get a warrant, and had been declined. Whatever the reason, I was never questioned.

  I finished my apprenticeship at age nineteen and was a fully qualified butcher. The shop had been closed for quite a while, when I quit my job at Carousel, and opened it back up again. I’d like to say it was a raging success, but it wasn’t, it was more a dismal failure. It had been closed for too long, and the clientele had gone elsewhere. Besides, I was the son of a murderer, so as you might imagine: people stayed away in droves. I suppose, though they would never admit it, the locals thought the fruit never fell far from the tree, and I could be tarred with the same brush as Dad. Whatever the reason, the shop never made money.

  I wasn’t as good a businessman as my father was either. I didn’t have his flirtatious and self-confident air, so the customers didn’t like me anywhere near as much.

  I struggled on for nine months, trying to make a go of it, and one morning in late May I woke up thinking to myself, I’m not going to bother anymore. And I didn’t. That afternoon I went and bought some whitewash and painted out the front window and glass door. I put a sign up CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE and that was the last time I opened the shop.

  I still had close to two hundred thousand dollars in the bank, as Uncle Phil’s house had sold nicely, and there was no pressing need to work. But, I was bored, so eventually I did get a job, as a butcher, in the Meat section at Dalton’s Homestyle Supermarket in Midland. And that was where I met Carly.

  I fell madly in love with Carly Biddle, very soon after meeting her. She was older than me, but not by enough to matter. She worked in the office doing ordering, accounts receivable, and payroll. Her hair was like the finest silk, long and flowing, and even though she wore reading glasses and was a little bit chubby, she was incredibly pretty with the biggest blue eyes. I was always nervous and mumbled like an idiot whenever she came near me, and soon enough I was the brunt of jokes about her with the other butchers. I didn’t like that they belittled her, she didn’t deserve that.

  Andrew called out one time: “Aye-up Carly, lover boy’s been pining over you. He’s gonna pluck up the courage and ask you for a kiss any day now.”

  “He better bloody not,” she replied, but she was smiling when she said it. I just knew she was kidding. I still blushed and pretended it didn’t bother me, but I’m sure she would have seen how red my face was. I knew in my heart she wanted to kiss me too, but the protocol of being work colleagues stopped her from following her heart.

  Another time I remember walking out of the gent’s toilet, head bowed low as I made sure my hands were clean. Carly happened to be walking out of the ladies and we collided. She jumped back like a startled rabbit, but before she could I had felt her large breasts squashed against my chest. I put out my hands in part to steady myself but also to stop her falling over, and they closed over her hips. It was like a bolt of lightning traveled through my body, and I’m sure she felt the same.

  I wanted her to notice me, but she never did, and I lacked the courage to ask her out on a date. I thought that in time, she would just know how I felt. Sooner or later, she would fall in love with me. I just knew it would happen.

  I began to worry about her all the time, and wanted to make sure she was safe, so I started walking her home after work. She lived quite close to the shopping center and insisted on walking every night, but there were some bad elements living in Midland at the time.

  I had been fretting that I might not be able to protect her for quite a while when I came up with the idea of carrying my boning knife; the one I had killed Mr. Bridges with. But how to do it unobtrusively, I wondered? It came to me one weekend at home, and I made a leather scabbard for it, and two elastic straps to hold it tight and secure against the inside of my left leg, under my trousers. Suddenly I was transformed. I felt confident, and strong, and knew that when we were walking to her home every night, if anyone attacked, I would be able to take care of Carly. I only wanted to keep her from harm.

  It was horrible when she discovered I was following her. I had no idea that she knew.

  It was just like every other night, with me thirty to forty yards behind, using the shadows of the tree lined streets to hide behind if she looked like turning around.

  On the fateful night, she turned the corner into Riddell Street as per usual, which had this huge weeping willow tree on its verge. I hurried to the corner and turned, but she was gone, vanished. I was frantic, looking up and down the road. Suddenly, she stepped out from behind the willow, hands on her beautiful hips, head tilted to one side.

  “What the fuck are you doing following me, Paul?” She sounded so angry, and the use of a swear word shook me from my head to my toes.

  I mumbled: “I wasn’t, I umm was just going this way.” I didn’t know where to look so my head was bent low, as I kicked the dirt, and felt like the sky had caved in on me.

  “You’re fucking sick in the head; you’re a fucking stalker, Paul. I’m going to tell the boss tomorrow at work, and the cops too. I’m going to get you the sack and then they will put in a mental home, you fucking degenerate.”

  Now, dear reader, you must try to understand this was my angel, who had suddenly turned on me, shouting filthy words. It rocked me to my very core. I wanted to shut up her potty-mouth.

  I don’t remember bending and lifting the knife out of its sheath, but the next thing I knew was she was staring down and I had stabbed her in her chest. By the look on her face she was as shocked as I was, and while I hadn’t consciously aimed for her heart, I think I hit it through a gap in her ribs, because she didn’t make a sound other than a kind of ‘ouff.’

  She fell into the gravel and dust on her back, eyes staring blankly upward.

  Just for a moment, and I
know you will find this hard to believe, I thought someone else had done it. It was only when I noticed her blood on my hand, that I realized it had been me; I had killed her, my angel was dead. My next thought was that the foul-mouthed tramp deserved it. Imagine, her abusing me and swearing at me, when all I was trying to do was make sure she was safe. Stupid cow!

  I put my foot on her tummy, so I could get leverage to pull the knife out. Just for a moment, it wouldn’t come. I worried that if I couldn’t get it, the police would know it had been me, because my name was engraved on the blade to stop other butchers stealing it. Luckily it did come out, when I yanked it, and I nearly fell on my backside. That almost made me giggle, I mean, really; it was funny.

  I was about to run off, back into the shadows, when I had a sudden thought: I had been wondering for ages what she looked like without her clothes, and now I could find out. I wasn’t in the mood to manhandle her; that would have been sick, but surely, I thought, a look couldn’t hurt. So, I took the knife, slipped it under her uniform, and slit it all the way up her front. Her titties were big and floppy, even though she wore a bra, which was a cheap and nasty type, hardly sexy. Her under pants too were an ugly shade of purple and looked like something a grandma would wear. Whatever did I see in her?

  She most definitely had not lived up to my fantasies. I wiped the knife on her clothes, put it back in its scabbard, turned, and walked away quickly, without running. I had a handkerchief in my pocket, and I used it to clean the blood off my hand.

  I walked back to my car, feeling liberated. I had bought myself a car by then: a pale-cream sedan. I reveled in knowing that I had found my true vocation in life. I had killed two people and not batted an eyelid or worked up a sweat doing it. Maybe I could do that for a living, as a contract killer. Then I did have a laugh to myself.

  Over the next few months, I began making serious plans for using the cool room as a torture chamber. It was time for me to have some fun. That night, when I arrived home with a bag of goodies from the hamburger place, I had quite a few ideas of how I would go about it.

  Now, it didn’t happen overnight. I had to first make sure I was going to get away with Carly’s killing, accidental as it was; I knew the police wouldn’t see it that way. I set myself a three-month time limit. I mean, if the idiots hadn’t arrested me by then, clearly they were never going to.

  The following day I turned up at work, smiling as if nothing had happened and by mid-morning the police detectives were there in the manager’s office. Only I knew why. Word hadn’t filtered through, so I had to be careful I didn’t give myself away.

  I waited for the page over the speaker system for me to attend, or cops to come to my work area, knowing that someone would be only too quick to say the weirdo in the meat packing department had the hots for her. Yes, dear reader, I knew what other people thought of me, morons that they were. But, I had had all night to plan how I would handle being questioned, and I wasn’t concerned. I had studied numerous books on psychology, and police procedure, and had a good understanding of what they would ask me.

  First, the department managers were called one at a time to the lunch room and two hours later, I heard my name come through the speakers. Mick, the senior butcher said as I left: “Been nice knowing you, Paul.” Then he snorted as if he had made the joke of the century.

  I stopped in my tracks. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Cops have come to arrest you, man. They know all about what a freak you are.” He laughed again, and the others in the area joined in. I kept my dignity, shook my head to show them I thought they were being stupid, and walked out. After all, officially I still didn’t know what the cops were doing there, though the rumor mill was saying they had been brought in because of stolen cigarettes.

  I didn’t knock, I just walked straight in, wiping the drying pigs blood off my hands with a cheesecloth cleaning rag as I went. The store manager stood to one side and made the introduction: “Paul this is Detectives Barlow and Millicent, they want a few words with you.”

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  Two big guys, I mean one was really big, stared up at me from behind the Formica table they were sitting behind. I don’t think they liked what they saw. One screwed up his face and shook his head while the other nodded in my general direction.

  “Sit down, Mr. Rankin, and tell us what you know about Carly Biddle.”

  I theatrically stopped halfway between standing and sitting for a moment and stared between one and the other. “What do you mean, tell you what I know about Carly?”

  “It’s a simple request.”

  “Is she sick or something? I haven’t seen her around today. She works in the office, I see her around the place, and she is nice. I don’t understand what you mean. I know about as much about her as I do Mr. Potts, the manager.”

  “That’s not what we’ve been told.”

  He didn’t say another word, just stared at me, obviously thinking I would get nervous and open my mouth and make their job easy for them, so I just stared back. I was determined that he would be the one to speak next, not me. Eventually, he weakened, as I knew he would.

  “You seem like a smart-arse to me, Mr. Rankin.”

  I shook my head and allowed a certain amount of indignation to enter my voice. “I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about, but you say you’ve been told something else about me and Carly. But I still have no idea what you are on about. So, I was waiting for you to elaborate. I work in the meat area; she works in the office. What do you want me to say?”

  “She was murdered last night walking home from work, you both signed out about the same time and we know you were fixated on her.”

  I put my hand over my mouth, hoping I looked suitably shocked. “She’s dead? Oh, my God that’s terrible. Hang on, what do you mean I was fixated on her? I thought she was married or had a boyfriend. I finish work at six o’clock every night, so did she. Why do you think I killed her? Why would I do that?”

  “Maybe you followed her home, told her of your undying love, and she laughed at you, how about that?”

  That was scarily true, but he couldn’t possibly know that for a fact. He was trying to bluff me. If he had any sort of idea what had happened, he would have arrested me. “Are you mad? Seriously, do I look like a murderer? You think I killed her because I liked her and she didn’t like me? That’s insane.”

  “Maybe you are insane.”

  As I theatrically shook my head, I found that I was enjoying myself. This dunderhead wasn’t worthy to clean my shoes, let alone trip me up intellectually. “Detective, I think we have thirty male staff here, including night fill, and every one of them fancied Carly. If that’s your motive, I hope you brought lots of handcuffs.”

  “You think this is funny?”

  “In a way, yeah. But it’s more worrying if you think I’m your best suspect. I didn’t even know she was dead till you told me.”

  “So you say.”

  “I liked her, she is, sorry was, a nice girl, but only from afar. I finished work at six, went to my car, and went home. I don’t know what more you want from me. This is all very upsetting If you think I’m so unhinged I would murder a work colleague just because I liked her, I suppose you had better arrest me.”

  “We will, of that you can be sure. We need a DNA sample from you, the killer left a trace behind, once we match it to you, I will personally make the arrest; I don’t like smart-arses.”

  He was lying, obviously. “Happy to help, honestly, I didn’t kill her, and I hope you catch who did.”

  The cop that had remained silent stood up and took from his case a glass type tube which housed a long stick with a cotton swab inside it. “Open your mouth wide, please,” he said. I did and he ran it around the inside of my lips before screwing it back inside the tube and then labelled it with a felt tip pen.

  ****

  I watched the TV news and read the papers for a few weeks. I was never questioned again by the police other t
han once, very briefly when I stopped and asked him how the investigation was going during my lunchbreak when I saw them in the center. He stared at me for a few seconds, trying to remember me, I thought. “Mr. Rankin, isn’t it?”

  I nodded and took a bite from the sausage roll I was eating.

  His gaze seemed to bore right through me. “We’re getting very close to arresting our suspect.”

  “Good. A person like that doesn’t deserve to be walking the streets.”

  I turned and walked away; feeling him staring at my back.

  The media consensus seemed to be that it was a sex attack gone wrong, because her uniform was slashed open. Had I been the investigator I would have known that couldn’t be true. She had been stabbed through the dress, and then it was cut open afterward. But, who was I to correct them?

  Slowly, the Midland Murder, as the papers had dubbed it, became yesterday’s news until I realized, the three months had passed that I had set myself as a period of watching and waiting. I began thinking about the next stage of my life.

  I had made a conscious effort to be ‘normal’ at work, and not show that I was grieving for Carly. But then I realized I wasn’t feeling much anyway. Did that mean I hadn’t felt anything real in the first place, or was it the result of her disgraceful behavior which tarnished my ideals for her? I no longer gave a damn about her either way. In trying to protect her she had ridiculed me. Not just called me names but said she would try to get me the sack and in trouble with police. Surely, you can see how I could feel nothing toward her after that debacle?

  For a few days, I acted a bit sad, that would be expected of me. After her death, some of the women did look at me sideways, like they were being wary, but again, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. As per normal, I just kept myself to myself, turned up on time, did my job, and spoke pleasantly to others when I needed to. I have always been so much smarter than everyone else, but I practiced hard to hide my disdain for the people I worked with.