Killing Room

by Shawn Raiford

Mitch narrowed his eyes. "Were you close to Caitlyn, Dennis?"

  "Yes, she is a friend of mine," he said. "I was the one who told her about these apartment last year when she was looking."

  Henry cleared his throat. "Where do you work?"

  "I work in the marketing department at a construction company. We build new homes."

  "Caitlyn worked for an oil company, correct?" Mitch asked.

  "No, she works at—" He paused, sighed. "She worked for a valve manufacturer in Stafford, in Human Resources."

  Everyone glanced at the front door when someone knocked.

  They stood.

  Dennis let in a bald forty-something-year old Hispanic man. "This is my boyfriend, Carlos Ordaz.”

  It was the man in the picture at the beach.

  "These men are Inspectors with the Houston Police Department."

  Carlos appeared confused. As he shook Henry's hand, he asked, "Investigators? Police?"

  "Yes, sir," Mitch said.

  Carlos took off his jacket, uncurling his white and pink scarf. "What happened?"

  Dennis answered, "Caitlyn was murdered in her apartment."

  Carlos's eyes bulged and his jaw dropped, his hand covering his mouth as if preventing food from falling out. "Hay Dios mio!" He turned to Dennis and hugged him. "I'm so sorry, mijo."

  "We have more questions," Mitch said.

  “Yes, of course,” Dennis said.

  Everyone grabbed a seat in the living room.

  "Did you hear anything earlier? Maybe an argument?"

  "No, I just got home less than an hour ago. I worked late. I have a big meeting in morning," Dennis said.

  "Okay. Did Caitlyn have a cell phone?" Mitch asked. "We did not find it in her apartment."

  “Yes, she had one.”

  "Do you have the number?"

  Dennis pulled out his cell phone from his pocket and gave Mitch Caitlyn's cell number.

  Mitch raised his head. "Did Caitlyn have any other friends?"

  He gave them a weird look; his eyes darted back and forth.

  Henry did not understand.

  Then Mitch stood and asked, "Carlos, could you get me a glass of water?"

  Then Henry got it. Dennis did not want to speak in front of Carlos.

  Carlos smiled at Mitch as if he just asked him out on a date. "Of course." He pointed at Henry. "Would you like something to drink too?"

  "No thank you."

  Carlos left.

  Dennis leaned in and said, "Sorry, but Carlos gets a little jealous when I talk about other men."

  Mitch shrugged. "That's fine. What do you want to say?"

  "You might want to talk to Barry Olsen. He lives here in the apartment complex."

  "Who's Barry Olsen?"

  Dennis rolled his eyes. "The guy who lives in 1D. Caitlyn told me that they went on a few dates, and she was hopeful to go out on another one with him."

  "Oh yeah?" Mitch said.

  "Yeah, Caitlyn, I love her, but she had such horrible taste in men."

  "Why do you say that?" Henry asked.

  "Last weekend, I came home after work and saw Barry in the parking lot and we got to talking."

  "You knew him already or was this the first time you two talk?"

  "No, we've talked a few times before."

  "Okay, please continue, Dennis."

  "Yes, Barry invited me over for a beer. I go to my apartment to drop off my things, then I go over to his place. He had some new beer from some micro brewery here in Houston he wanted to try. It was good beer.

  "For the first few minutes I'm there, he's on his laptop. He even offers to let me use his laptop to check my email when I told him that I wanted to check mine but I had left my phone in my car. But I declined using his laptop, I planned on retrieving my phone after I left his apartment."

  "Then what happened?" Henry asked.

  "One beer turned into two. Which turned into five. He then orders a pizza. Shortly after that, he runs out of beer; that's when he brings out a bottle of whiskey—Jim Beam I think. I'm not a whiskey guy, but I had a decent buzz and wanted to keep drinking, so I had some whiskey. But Barry starts with some shots, a lot of shots. Within an hour or so, he's slurring his words, and eventually passes out on the—"

  Carlos returned with a glass of water and handed it to Mitch. "Here you go."

  "Thank you, very much. Carlos, you mind giving us a minute alone with Dennis?"

  Henry's stomach growled again. He'd have to eat soon.

  With a gentle hand on Dennis's shoulder, and peck on the his cheek, Carlos said, "I'll be in the bedroom."

  Mitch waited until he left before he asked, ”Please continue."

  "Well, Barry passed out! I tried to wake him by shaking his leg, but he was out. I know it was a dick move, but before I left, I got on his laptop to check my email. I'm mean, why not? He was out."

  "I don't blame you," Mitch said. "He'd already offered, right?"

  Agreeing with people urged them to keep talking.

  "Yeah, so I open up his laptop and there's no password request to get on the laptop, it's just open. I check my Google mail and then I notice a video program called Final Cut Pro, a video editing program. I've used it before for my work, I have an interest in video for social media marketing for my work. I'm too curious to see what he's working on, so I click on it. What I saw horrified me!"

  "How so?" Mitch asked.

  "It was a video of a man hurting a woman who was secured to a metal table! Literally cutting and peeling her skin from her body! It was grotesque; I wanted to throw up!"

  "Was the guy hurting the woman, Barry?" Mitch asked.

  "Oh, no! The guy in the video was much bigger. Definitely had bigger shoulders."

  "Okay, thanks," Mitch said, writing in his notepad. "Please continue."

  "I fast forward through the video, and the man just tortures the poor woman throughout the entire video. In the end, he kills her by stabbing her in the neck." Dennis swallowed, leaning forward.

  "How do you know it wasn't just a horror movie?" Mitch asked.

  "Look, I guess it could've been, you know. And I'm not an expert in video, but I'm not a novice either. It didn't seem like special effects were used at all in the video. If it were, it was really high end, which would only mean very expensive. And—" Shaking his head, he stopped talked.

  "And if it were expensive special effects why use them for such a video?" Mitch asked.

  Dennis looked up. "Yes, exactly! On that fucking video? So that's why it appeared to be real to me."

  Henry didn't like it. They couldn't unhear that. There might be a real snuff film out there. They had to check it out.

  All three men sat silent for several seconds.

  "Look, Caitlyn's dead. I'm not saying Barry did anything wrong. I just don't want to get him in trouble for having a stupid video that he might have downloaded from the dark web or something. I just thought I needed to mention it to you, that's all."

  "Okay, Dennis. Thank you. You did the right thing. You said Barry lives in 1D, right?" Mitch asked.

  "Yes."

  "We'll go talk to him," Henry said.

  "Anything else you want to add?" Mitch asked.

  "Yes. Maybe talk to Janice. I don't know her last name. She's lives in 1G, a few apartments down from Barry's. I met Caitlyn there once when I brought home dinner for us, some Chick-Fil-A. We ate there at Janice's, and they seemed like friends. I think they met in college or something, not sure. Janice might know some of her other friends."

  Henry wrote it all down in his notepad. ”Alright, anyone else?"

  "No, Caitlyn and I mostly talked about reality TV shows and fashion. I didn't know any of her friends besides Barry and Janice."

  "That's fine. At the moment, I don't have any more questions, Dennis. You have any partner?”

  Still writing in his notepad, Mitch looked up. "No."

  “Then that’s it for now. We will call you if we have any more questions, cool?”

>   “Yes, of course. I want to help catch Caitlyn's killer,” Dennis said, giving them his phone number. "Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help!"

  “Thanks Dennis, you've been a huge help.” They shook his hand and left.

  Once they were outside in the hallway, Mitch pointed at the door and said, "This guy, Dennis, did not kill Caitlyn, but this piece of shit, Barry, I'd like to talk to him next. What do you say partner?"

  Henry agreed. Dennis seemed genuine. But Barry. Probably just some sleazebag trying to impress people, but failing miserably. "Yes, I agree. Dennis didn't kill her. We need to talk to this Barry guy."

  "Yep," Mitch said.

  Henry pulled out his phone, he wanted to text his sister.

  Chapter Five

  Beef burritos, no onions

  CHLOE CREED WAS MY real name—my birth name.

  Rose Rose was my alias. When you did what I did for a living you made sure you used an alias. And Rose is the owner of a flowershop and two homes, three cars, and a sizable retirement fund. Under Chloe Creed I rented several storage units all over Houston. Which held money, guns, gadgets, disguises, and other tools that help me in my contract killing. At one time, I worked mostly for a local mob guy, Lukas Zimmerman, getting rid of other mob guys, thugs, or all-around bad guys for him. But not anymore. Lukas went after my brother so he's no longer among the breathing.

  Since his passing, I've been busy with other things. Like killing monsters.

  A couple of years ago I hunted down Norman White, a psychopath who rented children out to pedophiles. As a peace offering, for me not to kill him, he gave me a photo album. A special photo album. It was his Polaroid collection. It contained hundreds of Polaroids. Chalk full of pedophiles (or monsters) and children—their victims. In the past, perhaps even still today, Polaroids were traded like baseball cards among the pedophile community. I call the photo album my Monster Book. And my mission: kill every single monster inside the book.

  With my new mission I don't have much time for many new contracts.

  Polaroids of me and other kids—and monsters—went as far back as twenty-five-years were in the album. With Uncle, the name us kids called Norman White, my foster parents, Kenneth and Miranda Parnell, rented me to strange men. Twenty years ago, I was just a kid, twelve years old.

  Just a few weeks ago I found a monster. Paul Johnson and I were in a Polaroid together. Tucked in the back of my Monster Book. All I needed, these days, was really a full name, and I could find you.

  With a red wig that time, brown contacts, and latex gloves, I entered Paul's house. The security system was easy to bypass. He lived in a quaint but stylish two-thousand square foot Victorian in Sugarland. It set him back a few hundred grand minimum. Paul, fifty-nine-years old, was in relatively good health. Lived alone and owned a used car lot.

  I entered his house and found him, still asleep. Turning on a bedside lamp, I slapped him awake. Before he spoke, his face caused a twenty-year-old memory to surface. Although he was old, his face hadn't changed much. Just more wrinkles now. I remembered what he did to me.

  "Who are you? What are you doing in my house?"

  "You don't recognize me, Paul?"

  He frowned. "No, who are you?"

  Then my Taser rendered him unconscious.

  Before I got started, I pulled out a rose and placed it on his dresser. All of my marks received a rose. Something I liked doing. Roses were one of my favorite things in the world. My foster mother, Miranda Parnell, showed me how to grow them. It was the only good thing she did in her miserable life before I killed her.

  With silk ties I found in the closet, I tied Paul up. There were a number of goodies, namely a screwdriver and a cordless Milwaukee reciprocating saw in his garage.

  When he woke I used the screwdriver on his thighs. It got messy real quick.

  "Stop!" he begged.

  I did, momentarily.

  He tried sitting up on the bed, but couldn't. "Why are you doing this?"

  "Because you rape children."

  "What? No I don't!"

  "You raped me twenty years ago. I was just a kid."

  "No, not me! I wouldn't do that," he said.

  His face was crystal clear in my mind. "Paul, you did. I remember you raping me. I remember! " Next, I used the screwdriver on his calves.

  He yelled and cried.

  "You like to force young girls to have sex with you."

  It took him a couple of minutes to stop crying. "I have no idea of what you're talking about?"

  Reaching around to my back pocket, I pulled out a Polaroid of us, and held it up. "Do you recognize me, now?"

  Paul squinted through the pain. "I can't see, I need my glasses."

  After I sat him upright, I grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and put them on his face. Then I held up the photo again. "How about now?"

  He frowned. "That looks like me, but I don't know who that girl is?"

  I pointed at myself in the photo. "That's me, Chloe Creed."

  Ever so faintly, something passed behind Paul's eyes. He remembers me.

  "So what? I don't know you. You need to let me go and leave my house, right now!"

  "Paul, it's useless in denying what you did to me. I remember you." From the hamper, I grabbed one of his dirty socks and stuffed his mouth. Immense pain was in his immediate future.

  When I used the reciprocating saw on his right foot, his toes fell off onto the floor. Never had a body wriggle so much. He did not last long before passing out.

  Nothing seemed appetizing when I checked inside at the fully-stocked fridge. Off in a side hallway, I found a locked door. Wanting to know what was on the other side, I went to the garage again and found a crow bar.

  Darkness stared at me once I got the door opened. Stairs led down to a room. A basement? (Not many basements in the Houston area) With both hands in front of me, I walked down and found a light switch on the wall and flipped it on.

  A room appeared, but not in its entirety. Another narrow door a few feet directly in front of the stairs. When I opened it, I saw a small bathroom. Standard stuff, a toilet, sink and mirror, and a full-sized tub and shower. Sponge Bob Square Pants shampoo and a unicorn on the towel. Flower stencils adorned the walls and the room had a fruity scent. My stomach felt a little queasy. This was a little girl's bathroom. I did not have a good feeling about this.

  Upon exiting, I spotted a dresser. Butted up against the wall, outside the bathroom, it was a nice shade of pink. Another light switch on the wall, I flicked it up. Soft track-lighting on the ceiling lit the far part of the room.

  A few feet from my position, a stationary bike was with a jump-rope hanging from the handle bars. Also, a TV stand with a thirty-two inch TV with a Playstation. Ten feet by ten feet, a pink rug occupied the middle of the floor. A mural had been painted on the far wall. A little blonde girl character held a flower and a puppy, with two more puppies following behind her on a yellow brick road.

  A pink and purple Hello Kitty bedspread covered a bed in the corner. "No," I uttered softly. My chest tightened, and my left eye twitched. I swallowed and moved towards the bed. I peeked under the covers and found a girl, sleeping. She had light brown hair and wore princess pajamas. My first impulse had been to embrace her and just run, but I was not finished with the monster upstairs. Him first.

  An opened package of ZzzQuil was next to the lamp on the nightstand. Good.

  Because I wanted to make sure she didn't witness what I was about to do to Paul, I used a dinning chair to block the basement door.

  Before heading back to the bedroom, I located a pair of pliers in a toolbox in the garage.

  The monster lay on his side in his bed. Next to the bed, the dirty sock lay. As I entered, he and said, "Whatever your name is, you need to stop this. I promise I won't talk to the cops. I swear it."

  "You're right."

  "About what?"

  "You won't tell the cops anything, because dead people don't talk."
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br />   In the closet, I found and grabbed several of his ties. I walked around to the other side of the bed to face him.

  "Please stop this."

  The fear on his face did very little for me.

  "How many children felt the same way you feel right now after you snatched them away from their parents and had your way with them?”

  "I don't know what you're talking about!"

  "What about the little girl down in your basement?"

  His eyes became glassy, but said nothing.

  When I tied his wrists and ankles to the bed posts, he did not fight back. "What are you doing?" he asked.

  The dirty sock went back into his mouth. Not bothering to answer him, I turned on the reciprocating saw again.

  While I hurt him, all I could think of was that little girl's face. I did not stop hurting him until he was dead. When a person kidnapped a child and raped that child, that person is not allowed to die from old age.

  I left Paul's remains on his bed.

  After I cleaned myself up, I checked on the girl; she was still asleep. When my arms snaked under her body, she stirred a little. For two-seconds, I wanted to take her home and protect her from the outside. Members of—if not all—my species (women) got weak in the knees when we saw a child in need of rescue. But, I knew, her parents were worried sick about their daughter.

  It took me ten minutes to make it to a hospital and find a nurse. She gladly took the girl and told me to wait, but I didn't.

  Last week, I checked on her, the girl had been reunited with her family. I even discovered her address and drove by. Once I watched her play with her dad and a small dog.

  At the moment I was playing TitanFall 2. Awesome game. My phone vibrated in my pocket. For a second, I thought it was Sawyer, my boyfriend. He was a writer and out of town, at some stupid writing convention in New York City. He'd be back in a couple of days.

  My phone's screen indicted Henry texted me. "Sup, hermana?"

  I couldn't play and text so I just called him and put it on speaker. And turned down the TV.

  "Hey," he said. "Sup?"

  "I'm here at home, watching TV. Sup with you little brother?"

  "Nothing, I'm on a case. A young woman, murdered in her apartment. I had a minute and thought I'd call you, check to see how you were doing? We hadn't talked in a few days. Hascal asked about you earlier today. Said he wanted to go eat some tacos with his Aunt Chloe."