The Other Side of the Mirror

by Lex H Jones

  “You shouldn’t be listening in on my work conversations, Jimmy.”

  “I wasn’t, but when I overheard that, I just—”

  “Alright, come on, let’s talk about this,” Carl surrendered, taking a seat on the couch whilst Jimmy took the armchair opposite. “I’m going to tell you about a case I’ve been working on, but I don’t want you to worry, okay? I’m only telling you so that you get the real deal and don’t panic when you hear whatever bullshit the press might come out with.”

  “So, is there a serial killer?”

  “I don’t know,” Carl admitted. “Trent thinks so, but I’m not convinced just yet. Making that kind of conclusion based on just two deaths... well, at this point, it’s as likely to be unrelated as it is to be the same guy.”

  “But both the victims were gay guys, right?”

  “Yes, but that might not be what links them,” Carl pointed out. “Might be the fact that they’re both tall, or slim, or had blue eyes. You’d be surprised what shit can attract a killer.”

  “But what if it is some crazy homophobe? Should I be scared to go outside?” Jimmy rubbed his hands one over the other in an effort to fight off the imaginary chill that had evidently descended over him.

  “No, look...” Carl sighed. “This is what I was trying to avoid, and now I’m kinda making it worse. Whoever this guy is, he picked up his first victim at a queer club and even had sex with him. Some crazy redneck homophobe wouldn’t go that far, it’d be a simple ‘beat him to death in the street’ kind of job.”

  “Comforting,” Jimmy remarked.

  “The guy took his victim home, fucked him, then killed him. He was invited to the victim’s home, who had no idea what was going to happen until it was too late. I don’t know the details from the new crime scene yet, but if they’re similar to the first, and it is the same guy, then we’re not dealing with the kind of killer who grabs people off the street or breaks into your home. He meets you, talks to you, gets you to trust him, then does his thing when your guard is down.”

  “So as long as I don’t invite anyone home, or go home with them, I should be okay?”

  “Yes,” Carl assured him.

  “Thanks for explaining that. I know you’re not supposed to tell me, but—”

  “It’s fine. You’re here alone a lot of the time, I don’t want you worrying about it. But if you’re really concerned, I keep a spare gun in the second drawer next to my bed. It’s an old revolver, the first I had given to me on the force. Kind of legendary, actually, as this guy named Pope wants to buy it from me.”

  “Why would someone want to buy an old gun?”

  “Long story,” Carl smiled. “But the gun’s there if it makes you feel any better. You do know how to fire one, right?”

  “Pull the trigger and point it at the bad person?” Jimmy asked sarcastically.

  “Bingo.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine;

  Serial

  C arl found a cup of cold coffee and his pill bottle waiting for him on his bedside table as his alarm clock greeted him once more. He hadn’t remembered putting either of them there, so he could only assume that Jimmy had preempted his usual difficulty in waking up. The thought was nice enough, but Carl would still rather be getting a good night’s sleep. Once more he didn’t remember stirring in the night, but his body told him otherwise. Forget it, take the pills, down the coffee. Let the caffeine hit your system, force your eyes to focus and splash some cold water on your face. One more night in the city.

  Yet again Carl was forced to enjoy even less sleep than usual, having been sent over the documents relating to the most recent murder. He wanted to take the time to look over the details of the crime scene before heading out to speak with the friends and neighbours. If he managed to get both done tonight, then it would all be in time for Glass to contact him with the findings of the autopsy. All of which sounded great on paper, but it meant further exhaustion for Carl. He’d been running on coffee and adrenaline for days now and wasn’t sure how much longer he could manage it. Carl thought that maybe he should go and see a doctor, get some sleeping pills prescribed. With that thought Carl checked the side of his own pill bottle to make sure they were compatible, then gave it up as a bad job when his eyes refused to focus on printed words so soon after their first opening.

  After taking a shower and getting dressed, Carl ventured into the living room and opened the envelope that had been delivered to him earlier in the day. He was grateful for the fact that he’d caught the courier as he arrived back home from his shift, otherwise the poor guy would have met a torrent of verbal abuse for daring to wake Carl from his sleep. The envelope was heavy, containing a plastic file inside of which were photographs and crime scene notes from the CSI's who had been on the case. Carl looked down the list of names of the officers present and was pleased to note the name of CSI Reeve. One testimony he could trust, at least.

  The first thing the detective took from the file was a colour photograph of the victim, and the relevant notes attached. The guy was lying face down on his bed with a bullet wound to the back of his head. Just like the first guy. No sign of struggle, no evidence of forced entry. Not even any bruising on the guy’s wrists. He wasn’t held down against his will, he had no idea that this freak was about to pull a gun on him. Just like the first guy.

  “Dammit,” Carl muttered to himself.

  As he read on, Carl was finding his instincts leaning further and further towards Trent’s ‘Serial Killer’ theory. He didn’t want it to be that, of course. The City had enough dead bodies turning up as it was, without a maniac taking more at his leisure. Still, Carl wasn’t stupid enough to think that blindly hoping against something would actually make any difference. Whatever God it was that answered prayers of hope had long since died as far as the City was concerned. The only monument left to him was a desolate shell attended only by a devout man who killed for money.

  The next page of notes was titled ‘witness statements’, which caused Carl to swear out loud and bang his fist against the coffee table. Another officer had already spoken to the witnesses, had got their first-hand recollection of what they might have seen. Carl wasn’t one to brag about his skills, but it was safe to assume that whoever spoke to them did a half-assed job compared to Carl’s methods. They wouldn’t have cared, for one thing. One more dead guy to stuff in the morgue, one more load of paperwork to do. Other cops didn’t see the victims as people, not like he did. Trent still tried, but now and again Carl would see the way his attention would drop. He’d think about how late he’d be getting home tonight, how he might miss the big steak that was waiting for him, and how the latest dead guy was one more queer off the streets. If Trent didn’t retire soon he’d become one more zombie with a badge, Carl just knew it.

  The witness statements would be far from what Carl had hoped for, but they still had their use. Carl also knew that talking to the witnesses a second time was pointless, as the best information always came when the events were fresh in their minds. Others, ‘experts’ mostly, would say that time to think on the events and get them clear in the mind was a better approach. Carl knew better than any of those educated pricks. An adult life spent patrolling the streets would teach you that the longer people thought about what they’d seen, the more diluted it would become. Other’s people’s comments on the same subject, the fluidity of memory, and even additions of stuff they’d seen on the news would all screw up what they’d actually been party to. Best to get in there early, before any of that crap set in. With that in mind, the documents in Carl’s hand were the best he was going to get as far as the latest victim was concerned.

  Carl didn’t recognise the names of the officers who’d taken the statements, which could either be a good thing or a bad thing. If the officers were rookies, new to the City, then there’s a chance that the corruption hadn’t set in yet and they actually did a good job of taking an interest in the case. On the other hand, they might be officers who weren’t good enough to
work in a different precinct so transferred somewhere that no one gave a crap. Somewhere like the City was a welcoming ground for such officers, and Carl had seen more than his fair share of them.

  The notes on the pages in front of him were written in longhand, which was a source of relief as trying to understand another man’s code was a nightmare. The first person spoken to, was an old lady who lived in the apartment opposite the victim’s. She saw him coming home in the evening with a gentleman, but it wasn’t someone she recognised. The lady knew that the victim was gay, so wasn’t surprised to see him with another man in an obviously familiar fashion. She even said hello to them and gained a response. What she did note as being odd was the fact that the man accompanying the victim was wearing a dark red opera mask.

  “Goddamn it,” Carl grunted again, banging his fist down on the table for a second time.

  It was the same guy. The story hadn’t hit the papers yet, no way this could be a copycat. Unless it was a gang thing, like Taylor and his pirates. Maybe the opera masks were a new thing, their calling card. Carl read on, clinging on to that fragile hope, the one last desperate belief that this might not be a serial killer. The old lady’s description of the man tore through it like a knife through tissue paper; the man was quite tall, broad, and wearing a denim jacket. Carl sighed heavily and resigned himself to the fact that the same killer had now clocked up two victims. Same description, same M.O. Could still be a gang but it was seeming unlikely. There had been no evidence that the victims had been robbed, either, so what would be the gang motivation? Taylor’s crew were the only ones who killed for the hell of it, the reason for that being the simple reality that every one of them had more money than God to begin with. Carl allowed himself a small smile at the fact that the Jolly Rogers would probably dwindle into nothing given what had just happened to the majority of their number. Good riddance.

  The second witness was the janitor who saw the red-masked guy leaving later in the evening. He commented in his statement that he saw lots of people coming and going and it wasn’t even unusual for them to come home dressed up in some weird way. What caught his attention this way was the fact that the guy was leaving the same night, and that he was still wearing the mask. The janitor didn’t say anything to the guy, of course, why would he? But he did consider it so strange that he neglected to mop up the guy’s footprints, in the event that the crime lab could use them. Carl smiled as he read this, endearing to this guy without even having met him. Reeve had taken images of the footprints, but there was no tread left on the tyre. Whoever was wearing the boots had been wearing them so long that matching the pattern to anything was impossible. You could get the size of the shoe, but that was next to useless.

  The final witness statement was from a street vendor selling glow sticks on a small cart. Glow sticks, Carl thought. How the ell could a guy make a living selling glow sticks? Must be selling crack on the side, at least. Anyhow, Glow sthick Man... who refused to give his name... couldn’t be because his name was already in the system, could it? Claimed that he saw this burly guy walking down the street towards him. Saw the opera mask, thought the guy must be heading to the club, and was invariably the perfect mug to buy his crap. So the vendor did what vendors always did, he followed the guy down the street waving his crap in the masked man’s face. Until he got a punch to the stomach that doubled him over. Guy had a bruise like a sledgehammer had hit him, or so he claimed. Addicts tend to bruise easily, but they’re also prone to exaggerate.

  The remaining paperwork consisted of photographs of the crime scene from different angles and general information about the victim. Twenty-eight years old, worked for a coffee shop, came out of a long-term relationship some months ago, or so the old lady had assumed when the boyfriend had stopped coming round. Were if not for the mask and the description, the boyfriend would have been a suspect. Carl wouldn’t rule it out, he never did until something was resolved, but it was doubtful given everything else. The victim had been coming home from work when he met his murderer. He’d texted a friend to say he’d be going out to the clubs later and had never shown. That was when one of them came looking for him and found him dead. Carl felt for whoever had found him that way. Try as they might to forget it, that would be their last memory of a friend. Whenever his name was mentioned, even at his funeral, the image of him laying dead and naked with a hole in the back of his head would force its way into the mind.

  “Alright,” Carl sighed to himself as he concluded his perusal of the paperwork. “We got a serial killer.”

  Chapter Thirty;

  Big Money

  T he second cup of coffee went down as well as the first, Carl’s energy stores eagerly taking what the caffeine had to offer. Deciding that he might still need to pick up a third beverage from Stu the coffee vendor, Carl checked the contents of his wallet and satisfied himself that he had enough loose change on him. He tossed his jacket on and reached for his keys when he felt his cell phone vibrating against his pocket.

  “Duggan,” he answered.

  “Good evening, Detective,” came Pope’s eternally-calm voice.

  “You got something for me, Pope?”

  “Everything you asked for, as much as was possible.”

  “What do you mean, exactly?” Carl enquired, resting against the kitchen counter as he eagerly hung on the hit-man’s every word.

  “Taylor wasn’t aware of too many details, but what he did know he was very willing to tell me.”

  “I’ll bet he was,” Carl chuckled. “How many of his own teeth did you make him swallow?”

  “Only two. He’s not quite as resilient as you might think.”

  “Shame, I was hoping he’d suffer,” Carl admitted.

  “I assure you that he did,” Pope replied. “So are you interested in the answers to your questions, or did you just want to satisfy yourself that he’d met as horrible an ending as that young girl?”

  “You’re telling me Taylor’s dead?”

  “I’m not a man to leave things unfinished, Duggan,” Pope reminded him.

  “So what did you get out of him first?”

  “He and his crew had been sent after Felicity and yourself by their current employer. I’m aware that it was unusual for them to work for anyone, which is why I made a point of enquiring about it. Apparently one of Taylor’s largest clients in his more legitimate enterprise... such as it is... requested his services with regard to killing both of you.”

  “He was an investment banker, right? So one of the guys on his books has a beef with me and Felicity. Why did Taylor say yes to that? It’s really not like him.”

  “Apparently this particular investor was not a man that Taylor was likely to say ‘no’ to. A Mr. Carlito Petroni, it would seem.”

  “Petroni? The US Senator-slash-big Mafia player? You serious?” asked Carl.

  “My reaction was the same, but Taylor was in no position to be lying at the moment he screamed that name to me.”

  “Petroni hasn’t done any business outside of Washington D.C in years, what’s he doing back in the City?”

  “Evidently he found a lucrative operation here and thought it worthy of his attention. Whatever it was, you and Felicity were somehow in the way of it, as was Fei Ling White. She wasn’t a random killing either, but part of the same ‘clean-up’ operation.”

  “So are you saying that Taylor didn’t know what Petroni was actually doing?”

  “Apparently not. If he knew, he’d have told me. Men rarely lie with an eye-socket full of battery acid.”

  “I’ll remember to get that on an inspirational poster,” Carl commented, involuntarily wincing his own left eye. “He tell you anything else?”

  “He told me the name of someone else involved with the operation. He wasn’t sure how the man was involved, but he’d been informed that part of the scheme was wrapped around him. The name was Kenny Smedley, it didn’t mean anything to me.”

  “Kenny Smedley? He runs the pharmacy in Limbo. Only decent
one in the whole damn city, since the others attached to the hospitals are constantly stolen from either internally or externally.”

  “Does he have a record?” Pope enquired.

  “Hell no, he’s just a pharmacist. Hands out prescriptions, pills and over-the-counter meds. This is making less sense the more I hear,” Carl sighed with a weary rubbing of his sinuses. “Anything else from Taylor? Anything at all?”

  “Just that he’d leave the City and was sorry about the girl and any number of things that he thought would get him out of that nightclub alive. Nothing useful, to me or to him.”

  “I appreciate your help in all this, Pope.”

  “I’d be lying if I said that it was just for your benefit, but for what it’s worth you’re welcome.”

  “You need to leave, Pope. I said it to Felicity and now I’m saying it to you. Get out of the City.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Firstly, the two of you got some connection and no-one has that kinda thing here. You need to take it and run with it whilst is lasts. Secondly, this shit with Taylor and Petroni is gonna have a price. I’m willing to pay it, but you shouldn’t have to.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Duggan, but I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m intimately aware of that fact, but we’re talking Big Money here. Taylor had friends, Petroni has more of ‘em. If they get to me then I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, but I don’t want Felicity dying any more than you do. Take her and get out of here. Lots of places need a hit-man, Pope.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement, Detective,” Pope conceded. “Look after yourself, especially now. However bad it’s been out there, I have a feeling it will get worse soon.”

  “Sweet Dreams to you too, Pope.”

  Chapter Thirty-One;

  Over the Counter