by D. W. Brown
“That’s quite a lot to keep in all these years. What else?”
“My former boss’s son was next, and then an old girlfriend of mine.”
“What happened with your boss’s son?”
“Let’s just say I got tired of the way they gave me all the crap jobs and gave Junior all the good ones. I spent countless hours working my butt off for that insurance company and in walks the boss’s son, and takes everything away from me. Junior received the best sales leads while I got the scraps. I wasn’t able to make quota for my last six months there, until I got rid of the competition. I remember that night just like it was last week. I asked Junior if he wanted to grab a drink down at the bar one Saturday night, and when he accepted, I made sure he didn’t come back to work, ever.”
The perpetrator stopped at that point, and Russell wondered if he’d continue. He appeared to be replaying the events in his head, and he didn’t want to interrupt.
He finally said, “I could tell right away that Junior couldn’t handle his liquor, so I made sure he got plenty of doubles, while I slowly nursed mine. He drank more than his fair share of whiskey that night, and I ended up carrying him to his car. I drove him to the top of Lookout Branch, and then I pulled his liquored up body over to the driver’s seat. Satisfied that I hadn’t left any prints inside the car, I put the gear in neutral, and watched it roll over the cliff into the gulley below.” The man’s tone grew very serious at that point and
he said, “I’ve seen plenty of movies where vehicles immediately catch fire upon impact, but I can assure you that wasn’t the case here. That car flipped numerous times until it hit the bottom of that gulley where it just sat on its side, wheels spinning like a potter creating his latest masterpiece. Just as I turned to leave, the gas tank must’ve ignited, because the thing blew up in a great ball of fire.”
“You mentioned an old girlfriend also. What happened with her?”
“I caught her sleeping with another man. We’d only been dating for about three months, but I couldn’t let her get away with that kind of betrayal. She had to die. Her sins begged it. Besides, her death silenced the humming inside my head.”
“So what did you do to her?” asked Russell, completely dismissing the humming that the nut job kept referring to.
“I found them together at the same restaurant where we’d shared out first meal. I was hiding in the bushes out in front of the joint when I saw them inside. At first, I assumed it was just some friend or co-worker from her job, but it didn’t take long to see they were much more than that. They could barely keep their hands off each other, so I followed them back to her place. Needless to say, the guy spent the night and I camped outside in my car. You’d be amazed at the thoughts that go through ones head during a time like that.”
Russell watched as Kevin drifted off again, lost in his own thoughts. Then he continued, “I didn’t want to waste time by going back to my place and dealing with the whole break up and all that came with it, so I waited for the guy to leave, and then I headed up to her jezebel pad.”
The perpetrator took another short pause, and then said, “As I slipped into the apartment with the key she’d given me when we first got together, I remember thinking that what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn’t make my legs stop. The humming droned on, in rhythm with each step forward. I felt like a soldier, marching in beat with a Drill Sergeant’s cadence. I quietly made my way back to her bedroom and stood over her with a pillow in hand. I’d actually gotten that idea from my brother Wayne, because he’d tried to use it on me once.
I tapped her lightly on the shoulder just to make sure she knew that it was me, and then I smothered her to death. After that I stuck the pillow under my shirt and left the apartment without being seen.”
“Didn’t the police bring you in for questioning?” “They did, but I talked my neighbor into giving me
an alibi; it’s amazing what a little money will buy you nowadays. She was the last one, until last night. The humming started again, so I walked into the Shell Station back there, killed those drug dealers and took their drugs for myself. Now that I’ve confessed everything, can we get out of this place? My mind can only take so much before it snaps.”
“I have one more question. What scared you so much back there?” Russell asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve told you everything you need to know. Please, just put me away for life, and hopefully make it all stop.”
It was obvious that Mr. Black was more than ready to get out of the woods from the way he continually looked back over his shoulder. It was almost as if he expected something to pull him back in at any minute. “Mr. Black, when we turn you over to the Feds,
they’ll want to know what you’re so afraid of.” “No one would believe me if I told them.” “Why don’t you start by telling me?”
“I heard my wife’s dead voice back there in those caverns, and I saw all of the dead bodies of the people that I’d killed down there. Someone dug up my wife and kids, my old boss’s son, my old girlfriend, and the four drug dealers, and placed them at different points inside that cavern. They were all down there, and they kept demanding I go back to Taos.”
The rise in Mr. Black’s voice wasn’t lost on Russell as he weaved his little tale. Russell wondered if it was the drugs talking, because the man appeared to be losing it. All the talk about Taos and this humming that Mr. Black thought he was hearing, made Russell wonder if killing all of these people had finally driven the man insane. Russell feared all the humming and seeing dead people nonsense would get Mr. Black sent to an asylum somewhere, instead of a prison where he belonged.
“What about those men back at the service station?
What happened back there?” Russell finally asked.
“I killed them, too. I needed the money, so I robbed the place. If that stupid back door alarm hadn’t sounded, I might not be here today. If only I would’ve ran to my truck instead of this crazy place. I say that, but now I know something was leading me here; maybe even that tunnel back there. From the minute I exited out that back door, my footsteps were numbered.”
After another short pause, he continued. “When I first saw the entrance to that cavern, I was only thinking of a place to hide out. I thought I’d get some rest and maybe even get lucky enough to come out far away from that station.”
“What about the drugs? From the looks of the bag you carried out of that back room, you had quite a bit of cocaine, and I assume aa hefty sum of cash. Where are the drugs and the money now?”
“I left it down there in the tunnel. Look Sheriff, things haven’t been the same for me ever since I killed my wife and kids. The nightmares won’t give me any rest, and it always feels like I’m being watched. Every time I think I’ve moved past it, it happens again. I thought I was finally going to live a pretty normal life until my boss’s son and my ex-girlfriend’s adulterous ways caused the humming to enter into my head, again. It wouldn’t stop until I killed them. I guess once you’ve killed someone, it gets easier each consecutive time.”
“What made you kill you wife and kids in the first
place?”
“If you’ll take me away from this place, I’ll tell you.” Russell pulled the handcuffed Mr. Black to his feet, and began leading him out of the woods and back towards the service station. After a few steps, Mr. Black turned around and yelled, “I’m never going back there. Do you hear me? You can’t get to me in jail! Leave me alone! Please…just leave me alone.”
CHAPTER 11
From the pleading sound in Mr. Black’s voice, Russell knew something or someone had put a fear unlike anything he’d ever witnessed in the man.
Once he was secured in the back of his cruiser, Russell said, “Okay, now tell me why you killed your family.”
“Alright, but it will take a little while.”
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“We’ve got two more hours before daylight, and neither one of us will be sleeping tonight, so we’ve got the time,” replied Russell after looking at his watch by the glow of his flashlight.
Russell listened intently as Mr. Black began, “To tell you the truth, I sometimes wonder how everything got to that point. When I first met Jeannie, she blew my mind. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She stood 5’6”, was well endowed up top, and had the perfect waistline. Add Angelina Jolie lips and brown hair, and you had my bombshell. I was going to college down in Saginaw when I met her at the bookstore there on campus.”
Russell waited as Mr. Black took another one of his short pauses. This time he had a smile on his face as he remembered his wife of long ago.
He continued, “This may sound cheesy to you, but all movement and sound within that bookstore stopped, and I felt my feet propel me forward in her direction. It was like I had to talk to her, had to get close to her. I’d dated many girls prior to Jeannie, but none seduced me like she did. I’d heard the old cliché love at first sight before, but thought it only happened in the movies. I’m here to tell you that was exactly what happened to me.”
“Within minutes of seeing her face, I was introducing myself. Mind you, I’m normally not that forward around girls, but that wasn’t the case with Jeannie. I found myself spouting out anything that came to mind just to get her attention. It must’ve worked, because we went on our first date that same weekend.”
As the man replayed his story, a story of true love gone terribly wrong, Russell could hear the regret in his voice. It was a story Russell had heard before: two young adults with plans for an eternal future of joy, ending in murder. The same old question came to mind: Why not get away from each before you do something you can’t take back? Why couldn’t people just get a divorce and move on?
“When I saw Jeannie walk out the door of her dorm in that red dress, I almost lost my mind. It was more than lust, I tell you; it was like someone had cast a spell on me. Once again I couldn’t hear or see anything else around me, and my heart beat out of my chest. When I took her hand and led her to my car, I momentarily forgot where we were heading. She even had to tell me the name of the restaurant where I’d made reservations for dinner.”
Mr. Black took another short pause and then said, “That night, the movie Independence Day with Will Smith was playing, but I was too mesmerized by Jeannie’s laughter and everything about her to see much of the show. After we had dinner, I gave her a small peck on the check and asked to see her again the following weekend. It was the start of my most incredible year of college ever. We clicked in every way: I liked to play games, she liked to play games, I enjoyed running outside in the early morning hours, she liked to run in the park, I liked to watch movies and so did she.”
Russell watched as tears began flowing from Mr. Black’s dark eyes. The regret of what he’d done finally seeming to hit home.
“We spent the next year and a half together at Saginaw Valley State University in the fog of love. I’m still not sure how I managed to pass my classes, but at the end of my senior year, I had a bachelor’s degree in business management, and Jeannie had one in psychology.”
“I thought you said you were in sales.” Russell said, recalling Kevin’s story about murdering the boss’s son because he got all the good leads.
“Just because I have a degree in business management, doesn’t mean I was able to keep a steady job in the field. Unfortunately, the majority of the country invested in the same four year program as I did.”
“Bummer. You were saying.” Russell urged.
“My parents passed on about a year before I met Jeannie and I inherited the farm, the equipment, and about $25,000 from their checking account. My dad did an excellent job of managing the place. He had Everything paid off, and managed to save quite a bit on the side as well. I took out five grand of that money, and asked Jeannie to marry me.”
“Sounds like your dad was a good man,” Russell interrupted.
“I hated the man! He worked us to death as kids, and he blamed Wayne’s early demise on me. Even though the coroner’s report stated heart attack as the cause of death, he seemed to know it was me. He always loved Wayne more than me. Wayne was the stronger one, the harder worker, an all around natural when it came to learning new things. I was just average, and average didn’t cut it with my old man.”
“Sorry to interrupt. You were saying that you asked Jeannie to marry you right after graduating college?” Russell said, hoping to keep Mr. Black on track with his current confession.
“Oh yes. Jeannie lit up like the footage I saw on the television of the bombing in Baghdad, Iraq. She immediately said “yes”, and went on a three month long wedding planning spree. The crazy part was that I was all in on this thing. I did whatever she wanted and made sure she had everything she needed.”
“When fall came—the same time of the year that we’d met the year prior—our friends and mainly her family packed out Jeannie’s small church. She looked stunning in her wedding gown, and I found myself thinking I was the luckiest man alive. I even thanked God for bringing us together. This was a major deal in itself, because after such a rough upbringing, the man upstairs and I weren’t exactly on talking terms.”
After pausing to reflect, Kevin said, “You know, for the longest time I really didn’t even think God existed, but after what I’ve seen in that tunnel out there, it’s obvious that good and evil are among us here on earth.”
“So, you left off at the wedding,” said Russell, not wanting Kevin to get off track. He’d seen where the whole religious debate could lead, and he didn’t have the time or the patience to take that drive.
“When I lifted that veil and kissed those incredible lips, I thought I’d explode. I guess I lingered a little longer than normal, because I heard the yells and screams of encouragement from the guests, and then I saw the embarrassment on Jeannie’s face. She turned beet red in an instant. Still, I didn’t care, because the woman in front of me at the time was really the only one in the room.”
“We spent that night in a hotel next to the shopping mall, walked around endlessly for hours, and took in room service from the in-house cafe. I’d swear to seeing fireworks explode inside my head as we consummated our relationship for the first time. After numerous dates, she was the first one that I’d actual waited until it was official. It was the best night of my life.”
Russell watched as Mr. Black wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and temporarily lost his train of thought. The man looked like he’d been run over by a train. Whatever he’d seen had shaken him so badly that he’d rather spend the rest of his life in prison than ever face it again.
Regaining his composure, Mr. Black continued, “I used to lie awake at night after Jeannie had fallen asleep and just look at her. I couldn’t get enough of that woman. I took a job as the business development manager for the Costco Club in Ann Arbor—the one and only position I held in my field of study—and I still don’t know why they didn’t fire me after that first month. Jeannie was all I could think about. I made love to her before I went in to work, took extended lunch breaks throughout the day with her, and I made it a point to call her a couple of times a day, just to hear her voice.”
The parallels in Kevin’s relationship and his own left Russell a little on edge. Most of his days were spent thinking about Sam, and he phoned her every time the opportunity arose.
“She worked as a psychologist for Washtenaw County, and I’d regularly leave my job early just so I could be home when she got there. I’d even stop by her office and stare at her through her office door, on occasion. I’m sure her co-workers thought I was some sort of freak, but I didn’t care. I had to see her every minute of the day, and the feeling was mutual. We were so into each other.”
Russell waited patiently as Mr. Black appeared to be enj
oying the recollections of his past. He wanted to get the confession and ship the man off to prison for the rest of his life, but he could see this was something that the man needed to get off his chest. “Jeannie ate up all the attention I gave her. After two years in the marriage, we had our first child. Rosie, a tiny little girl with the biggest, bluest eyes you ever saw. She was something else.”
The question that kept running through Russell’s mind was: What on earth could cause a man who loved his family so much, to suddenly snap and kill them in cold blood? The love this man described was the same he felt for his own wife, and it unnerved him a bit to think that it could all fall apart like this. He couldn’t help but wonder if we were all just one wrong turn away from losing everything we held dear. To make matters worse, Mr. Black’s now deceased wife was also a psychologist, just like Sam. Too many similarities for Russell.
“My little Rosie was the sweetest girl, with a heart twice as big as the country of Russia. I couldn’t believe what an incredible gift I’d been given. Sure, it was hard with the sleepless nights and mounds of dirty diapers, but that look of adoration on her face made it all worth it. I took her to the park from the time she was nine months old. We’d play on the swings, the merry-go-round, and we even took a run or two at the monkey bars—with me holding her up while she touched each bar with her tiny hands, of course. She was one cute sucker.”
After wiping more tears from his eyes, Kevin continued, “I even remember sitting on a blanket and watching the dog owners walk their pets around the park while my Rosie tried to pet every animal that came within ten feet of our location. The fact that I hated dogs alone should give testament to how much she meant to me.
“That girl was a little ball of energy. She loved to draw and create anything that came to her little mind. At the age of two, she was already putting things together that most kids wouldn’t even think of. She was constantly making something out of all of the little crafts we’d buy her from Hobby Lobby and Wal-Mart in downtown Saginaw.”