by Platt, Sean
But Jock yanked Sammy back.
Evie tugged at her friend and yelled, “We’ve got to go home!”
“What the fuck?” Jock blurted, throwing his arms out like he was about to brawl with a dude who spilled beer on him. “We’re having fun. Why you wanna ruin it?”
“Because fun time is over, Brad. We’ve gotta go.”
She started to walk, but Dealer blocked her.
She tried to lead Sammy around him, but he only slid over, further clogging her passage.
She stopped. “Please, let us go.”
Mal couldn’t hear what Dealer said this time, but it must’ve been bad. Evie yelled, “Help!”
Jock hit her in the back of the head and sent her to the ground.
Mal ran toward them with balled fists.
Sammy screamed, probably not understanding that Mal was there to protect them. Evie was on the ground, trying to stand.
Jock turned around, eyes wide.
Mal kicked his crotch and sent the asshole to his knees.
“Stay down!” Mal yelled.
Dealer was already running. Mal gave chase but surrendered a half-block away after realizing that she couldn’t catch him in pumps, and that she’d left Jock alone with the girls.
She returned to the girls but didn’t see Jock.
“Where’d he go?” Mal asked.
Evie looked dazed.
Sammy was bent over puking her guts out.
Mal looked up and down the street, pissed that she’d left Jock to chase Dealer.
Suddenly, footsteps behind her.
He must’ve been hiding behind a parked car.
He charged her, sending Mal back into a van, hard.
She tried to bring her knee up into his groin, or his gut, but Jock quickly backed away. Then he swung, hitting Mal in the jaw and sending her down to the ground.
Mal’s purse fell beside her, gun spilling onto the street.
He didn’t notice. His wide, crazy eyes were all over her.
He screamed, punching her in her forehead.
Mal cried out, then socked him in the knee cap.
Jock screamed as he doubled over, “You cunt!”
He was hurt, but she didn’t break a thing.
He started toward her, his meaty hands open.
Mal ducked, grabbed her gun from the ground, and screamed, “Down on the ground, fucker!”
Jock’s eyes went wide.
He stared as if deciding whether he should fight or listen.
Mal prayed that he listened. She would enjoy beating the shit out of him, but she didn’t want to explain a shooting.
A siren blurted behind her, flashing blue and red.
A man’s voice shouted, “Drop the gun!”
The perfect shitty ending to a perfectly shitty evening.
**
Mal was sitting in the back of the Butler City police car, as the three officers on duty spoke to the two girls and Jock.
Why she was in the back of a car while Jock still wasn’t cuffed was beyond her. Didn’t the girls tell the cop what was happening?
Mal stared daggers into the backs of the police officers, all men whom she didn’t know. Butler’s police department paid shit, so the department had constant churn. The good ones went on to Creek County Sheriff’s Office, while the bad ones either burned out or rose through the Butler ranks.
She told the questioning officer that she was a former sheriff’s deputy, but he more or less ignored her, as if she were the trouble maker.
Granted, she’d been involved in three fights this year at the bar: one time when a guy got too grabby, another when two men assaulted a server, and a third when some asshole biker’s girlfriend thought Mal was hitting on her guy, which she wasn’t.
Mal had somehow avoided getting into too much trouble or being sued out of her millions. Mostly thanks to her lawyer, Art Spaulding. But she did have to pay almost two hundred grand to the grabby guy, just to keep the shit storm away.
She probably had a reputation, and that was likely why she was in the back of a patrol car instead of the fucker on the verge of date raping a drunk girl.
Mal watched as the officer cuffed Jock and led him to the back of the other car. She clapped, and yelled, “About damned time!” so loudly that Jock looked over at her, pure rage still claiming his face.
She flipped him off, hoping he’d try and rush her. Give the cops a reason to taze his stupid ass.
The door next to her opened, and a familiar figure stepped forward.
“Mikey!” Mal said, “Tell these fuckers I’m not the bad guy.”
Mike made a face, waving at her alcohol-laced breath. “Wow, Mad Dog, how much did you drink tonight?”
She smiled, then slurred, “Not enough to find you attractive, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Mike was like a brother. And if you couldn’t be a drunken ass in front of your brother, who could you be a drunken ass in front of?
“Come on. I’m gonna take you home.”
“Oh, am I free to go?” Mal said, glaring at the cop who had put her in the back seat in the first place.
Mike grabbed her elbow. “They were putting you back here so you didn’t attract attention.”
He nodded down the street toward a growing horde of onlookers, cell phones in hand, recording the show to post on social media later.
Mal stumbled on her way out of the car.
Mike caught her — she would’ve fallen face first onto the road if he hadn’t.
“Come on,” he said, looping an arm around Mal and leading her toward his car. “Don’t give these clowns anything they can sell to the media.”
Mal wanted to turn around and flip off the looky-loos.
Thankfully, better sense prevailed.
* * * *
CHAPTER 8 - JASPER PARISH
Standing just inside the entrance, Jasper could hardly believe his eyes.
Jeff Stone’s home looked like something out of an episode of Hoarders, packed from floor to ceiling with shit. The crap most people had the common sense to toss — old newspapers, magazines, used food containers, a metric ton of grocery bags filled with God only knew what, boxes upon boxes, many not even open.
There were also several plastic totes, the kind people usually used to clean a mess, standing five high in several stacks with no particular order. The place reeked of sorrow, insanity, and urine.
“What the hell?” Jasper was afraid to take another step into the monster’s place. “Please tell me you know where his collection is.”
Jordyn lowered her headband to cover her nose and shrugged.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me. How the hell can we find anything in this mess?”
“Maybe we skip the whole ‘proving the guy is guilty’ phase of our investigation, and get right to the punishment?”
They’d done this dance before. Jasper glared at his daughter. “Nice try. You take the living room. I’ll take the bedroom.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Jasper didn’t know if it was Jordyn’s laziness that prevented her due diligence, or if she was just that cocksure of her visions’ veracity, but she was always trying to skip the first part of their process.
She would ask why they needed evidence, and he’d argue that they weren’t cold blooded murderers. They had a burden of proof before dispensing justice.
“Come on, Dad. You can tell he’s guilty. No innocent person keeps a house like this. This is Crazy Town!”
“He’s guilty of being a crazy slob. It’s our job to see if he’s guilty of anything else.”
Jordyn sniggered.
Jasper ignored her, heading to the bedroom.
He turned the knob, bracing himself for whatever he might find behind the door. Would there be dead animals? Or literal shit?
The door opened, just barely, caught on a pile of clothes.
“How’s the bedroom?” Jordyn called from her search near the couch.
“I
mmaculate.”
She stood, eyebrows arched, and looked over, “Really?”
“No, more of the same.” He sighed.
She frowned and returned to her search.
Jasper entered the bedroom, eyes probing, searching for the stash.
Serial killers like Jeff Stone almost always kept a keepsake from their victim. Even if that something could be evidence linking them to the crime, bagged then presented during a trial to lock them up. But they couldn’t help themselves.
Of the three serial killers that Jasper had taken down, each had kept trophies. One kept locks of hair. Another, photos. Yet another kept jewelry. The stash was never in plain sight, nor in a big red box marked Trophies.
Stone’s five victims shared three similarities: they were all brunettes, they were all prostitutes, and they were all found missing their left ring finger. The third item never made the news. The cops kept some things to themselves as a way to weed out the solid tips from the crackpots.
But Jordyn had seen it in her vision, along with where Jeff lived.
Jasper wished her visions were more useful, but it wasn’t like she had any control over her gift — or curse.
He stepped over more clothes, wondering how many were dirty versus clean. How many had ever been worn? Some were still on the hanger.
Oh, who am I kidding? They’re all dirty, by virtue of being in this hellhole.
“Holy shit!” Jordyn shouted.
Jasper's hand found the pistol in his pocket.
He ran, hoping that Jeff hadn’t come home early. He wasn’t due from work until after six, which gave them at least another four hours.
But Jeff wasn’t home.
Jordyn was standing in front of two of the five-high stacks of plastic totes, lids removed from the top of each one.
Jasper moved closer to see what she was staring at.
One of the boxes was lined with old VHS tapes with violently sexual titles, most handwritten on the spine. The other box was full of DVDs in plastic cases.
“Swear jar,” Jasper said.
Jordyn rolled her eyes, then looked back at the collection of recorded media. “Maybe there’s evidence here?”
“Even if there is, I don’t have the stomach to pop any of these in for a look.”
“I will.”
“No,” Jasper said sharply.
“You’ll let me help you do this thing we do, but you don’t want me to watch porn? Sheesh, hypocritical much, Dad? I’m nineteen. I’ve seen things, you know.”
“You haven’t seen anything like this. And trust me, dear, some things you can’t unsee.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, snapping the lids back into place, then unstacking the other boxes to investigate their contents.
Jasper looked to the left and noticed that the kitchen wasn’t nearly as messy as the rest of the place. It wasn’t immaculate, or sanitary enough to prepare food without the risk of illness, but it was relatively clean.
Maybe too clean.
He stepped into the kitchen, scanning for anything that looked like it might make a good hiding spot. The pantry was orderly, like the cupboards. Even the kitchen sink was only half-filled with dirty dishes, rather than overflowing.
Well, at least we found something our guy cares about more than murder.
Jasper couldn’t shake how oddly unsullied the kitchen was compared to the horror show in the rest of the house. He’d never seen anything like it. Granted, he hadn’t seen many hoarders’ homes up close and personal, but it was usually all or nothing. Once you let most of the house go, you let all of it go.
Why the kitchen?
It was the one room in the house that wasn’t just clean; it had a sense of style. A few small paintings on the wall gave the kitchen some color. There was a doily on the table with a bowl of relatively fresh fruit. There was also a vase filled with flowers on the window sill over the sink, looking out onto the front yard.
Jasper’s eyes zeroed in on the fridge and photos of a brunette that looked like they were taken maybe a decade earlier, with a younger version of Jeff in a few of the pics.
A girlfriend?
The first victim?
Jasper wondered if she was the reason behind the clean kitchen, some sort of homage? Or was this kitchen a part of his post-killing ritual?
Something clicked.
The freezer!
Body parts are meat, and where do you keep meat?
Jasper opened the freezer.
It was relatively in order, though most of the food was crusted with a mound of frost that would take a jackhammer to get through.
In the back of the freezer, behind a box of Eggos, Jasper found a sealed plastic purple bowl — the only thing not covered in frost.
He opened the bowl.
“Got it!”
Jordyn rushed into the kitchen, eager to see the trophies.
Jasper showed her the bowl of frozen gray fingers and her eyes lit like she was opening a box full of puppies.
“You are really weird.”
“Well, I am your daughter.”
“Fair enough.” He closed the bowl and returned it to the freezer.
“Well, you’ve got your proof, Detective Parish. So, what’s the punishment gonna be?”
**
Jasper paced in front of the large man tied to his kitchen chair, waiting for him to open his eyes. The minute Jeff had walked through his front door, Jasper had knocked him out with a chloroform rag.
Now he walked circles, waiting for the chloroform to wear off.
Jordyn was sitting on a kitchen chair opposite the man, tapping her boot on the ground as she waited.
“Sheesh, can’t you just get started?”
“No, I want him awake, so he knows why it’s happening.”
Jordyn had only been on a few of Jasper’s kills, and this was the first one she came inside for. He still wasn’t sure he wanted her to watch him murder a man. That wasn’t the sort of thing your kids should see you do, even if they knew about it.
Jeff woke, murmuring confusion through the rag.
He looked up and saw Jasper, now without his mask, and Jordyn, still in hers. His eyes went wide.
He mumbled something, probably wanting to know who they were and why the hell they were in his house.
But Jasper didn’t give a shit about what Jeff had to say. And he wouldn’t be talking much longer.
Jasper grabbed a chair and sat in it backward next to Jeff, just inches away.
“So, Jeff, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to punish you.”
He muttered some more, shaking in his chair, trying to break free. The duct tape was thick. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“At first I thought I ought to cut your fingers off. That seemed fitting. But then—” Jasper stood, went to the living room, dragged a plastic tote into the kitchen, then popped off the top. “—Well, then I found these.”
Jeff’s eyes were wider than ever, sweat dripping off his fat face.
“Tell me, Jeffrey, what sorts of stuff do you have on these tapes? Were you a big X-Files fan? I remember taping episodes back in the day. But that seems like a lot of tape for one show. Maybe you had a bunch of favorites, but little time to watch them, what with your hectic cleaning schedule?”
Jasper waved his hand around the dump. “That it?”
Jeff murmured something. Jasper still didn’t care.
“Then I had another thought. I bet this is some real nasty shit. The kinda crap they don’t show on TV. The kind that perverts trade. I mean why else would you still have boxes of video tapes, Jeffrey? You know you can go to Walgreens and get this shit on DVD, right? Oh, wait, you can’t, because those employees would take one look at what’s on these tapes and call the cops, wouldn’t they? Even minimum wage workers know a monster when they see one.”
Jeff squirmed, screaming into his gag.
If he wasn’t careful, he’d choke on his spit.
“So, what kinda shit are you in
to, Jeffrey? Scat? Women squishing animals? Oh, wait, I got it. You’re into snuff, aren’t you?”
Tears streamed from his Jeff’s eyes as he looked helplessly around the room. Jasper snapped in front of his face.
“Eyes over here, man. There’s no escape. And she’s not gonna help you. She thinks you’re disgusting.”
Jeff looked over to where Jordyn was sitting, then back at Jasper, saying something inaudible, lost in the gag.
He picked up a cassette and smacked Jeff in the face. “So, am I right? Is it snuff on these tapes?”
Jeff nodded.
“Jesus. I was hoping it was just a bit of sick porn, not actual snuff.”
Jeff tried to say something, but still, Jasper couldn’t hear him.
“So, I got to thinking, what would be the ideal punishment for a man who goes around killing prostitutes? I considered hiring someone to kill you. Fair play, right? But then I’d have to worry about accidentally hiring a cop. Why is it that so many people hiring hitmen wind up asking an undercover officer? You’d think people would wise up by now.”
Jeff yelled, likely begging for mercy.
Jasper still didn’t care.
“Then I had another idea. Since these videos seem to be such a hobby of yours, why not use them for your punishment?”
Jasper grabbed a cassette from the box, broke the end off, and began to unspool the long black tape.
“Did you know this stuff is toxic? Not only are there a bunch of chemicals coating the tape that can get into your lungs and stuff, but the tape itself is flammable.”
Jasper unspooled the tape faster, then stood to wrap Jeff like a mummy.
The man shook violently in his chair, but he was no match for the binding.
Jasper grabbed another tape and unspooled that around Jeff, too.
Then, because he didn’t have all night, he picked up the entire box and dumped the contents on Jeff. Tapes clanged as they hit him, then bounced off of his body to crack on the kitchen floor.
Jasper pulled out a lighter, flipped the lid, and turned the metal wheel.
A flame shot up. Jasper smiled, holding it in front of Jeff.
Jeff screamed, shaking his head violently back and forth.