Collecting Cooper: A Thriller

by Paul Cleave

  Cooper says nothing. He can feel his mouth hanging open. The room still smells of vomit, and he is sure he’s going to be sick again. He takes a deep breath and thinks about what he’s just listened to. “You went back to the houses to gloat?” he asks, knowing it’s extremely common for serial killers to visit graves of their victims. The original theory had killers doing this out of guilt or remorse, but they learned serial killers were doing it to relive the excitement, to gloat. But not when the victims were animals.

  “No. Not go gloat,” Adrian says.

  “You felt bad?”

  “No.”

  Cooper doesn’t understand. It’s always one of those two reasons. “Then what?”

  “I used to dig them up.”

  “What?”

  “It wouldn’t take long because the earth was always loose. I’d dig them up and hang them outside the front door. The people stepping out in the morning would always scream, and I’d be standing a few doors down to watch. There was a lot of waiting involved, but the payoff . . . the payoff was always worth it. I loved seeing their faces. I wanted to kill every pet those kids had. I got caught jumping on the fifth cat. The police came and then everybody thought it would be best if I got sent away, not just for their safety but for mine. So I got sent here, to the Grove.”

  “The Grove?”

  “It’s what we called it.”

  It’s unlike anything Cooper has ever heard or read about, and it’s one of those rare moments in his life where Cooper just doesn’t know what to say next. He gets the idea there may be many of these moments over the next day. Adrian’s behavior back then is certainly outside the scope of the textbooks.

  Even under the circumstances, part of him is thinking there has to be a paper in this. Maybe even a book. He just has to get out of here.

  “Can I ask you something else, Adrian?”

  “It’s my turn to ask you questions,” Adrian answers. “How do you feel when you kill somebody?”

  Like you don’t already know.

  He can tell Adrian that he feels nothing, no ecstasy or remorse, but he takes the other path instead. “I like to hear them beg for their lives. Is that why I’m here?” he asks. “Because you want to be like me?”

  “You wouldn’t want to be like me,” Adrian says. “I’m too average for anybody to want to be like me.”

  Adrian is right. Being like him is the last thing Cooper wants. “I doubt you’re average, Adrian. None of this seems average.”

  Adrian doesn’t answer. Just shrugs the way an average man would when he can’t make a decision.

  “What do you do for a living? Do you have a job?” he asks, wishing he could take notes.

  “You think you already know, don’t you,” Adrian says, and he shuffles the books around so they’re no longer straight. “You’ve already built up a profile of me.”

  It’s true, and part of the profile Cooper has come up with has Adrian sorting out colored buttons from other colored buttons, or sweeping floors, or he receives disability benefits. Does he drive? Yes, because he brought Cooper here. Does he have friends? No. Does he live here alone? Yes.

  “No, I haven’t built up any profile,” Cooper answers. “Only thing I’ve been thinking about is how my friends and family are going to miss me. My mother relies on me, Adrian, to look after her.”

  “You hate your mother.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because all serial killers hate their mothers.”

  True. Most serial killers do hate their mothers. Cooper loves his. “You’re right, Adrian, I hate my mother,” he says, the words sitting uncomfortably. He can’t stomach the idea of her finding out he’s missing. “But she still relies on me, and I’m worried about what she’ll do if I’m not there to help her. I’m scared of her.”

  “It’s all going to be okay. I promise.”

  “And the police? They’re going to be looking for me. Have you thought about that?”

  Adrian smiles, and Cooper can tell that he has. “I’ve taken care of that. For you. You don’t want them finding out you’re a serial killer, I mean, you don’t want them knowing, right?”

  “How have you taken care of it?”

  “I’m tired,” Adrian says. “I’m not used to staying up late. We can talk again tomorrow if you like. I know I want to. I hope you want to too.”

  “Of course I do, buddy,” he says, and Adrian winces and Cooper knows he’s pushed too far.

  “I’m not your buddy,” Adrian says. “You’re trying to trick me.”

  Shit. Now what? Own up? Or jump further in? “It’s true,” he says. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s already a connection between us. Come on, Adrian, you must feel it too, right?”

  “You think I’m a fool,” Adrian answers, and with that, he turns away and runs up the stairs, leaving Cooper alone in the dark, angry and disappointed with himself.

  chapter fifteen

  It’s my first day waking up as a free man. I put my phone on charge and refuel on a bowl of cereal before heading out into the heat to find Emma Green alive and well. That’s the goal. That’s the frame of mind I’m going to keep. Yesterday was hot and today is even hotter. There are no clouds in the sky and if there were they’d probably catch fire. Mother Nature is holding her breath because there isn’t the slightest hint of any breeze. Smoke hangs to the south over the Port Hills, blazing scrub fires turning the sky out there gray. Last night I left the rental in the driveway and I suffer for that now, the steering wheel hot to touch and my sunglasses, which I left on the dashboard, burn the bridge of my nose. I leave the doors open and let things cool before hitting the road. It’s nearly ten o’clock and the traffic is much thinner than it would have been an hour ago. Everybody looks tired. Everybody looks like they want to take the day off from whatever it is they’re doing and spend it inside sleeping. It’s no different when I reach Canterbury University. The parking lot is a quarter full and the silver birches lining it are less tree than they are kindling. The people climbing out of their cars are all in a daze.

  Canterbury University is a mismatch of old and modern buildings—many how you’d imagine a Soviet university to look at the peak of the cold war, the rest how you’d imagine a university to look if it were built on the moon. There are older, Gothic-style buildings of the same era as Jack the Ripper, gray stone covered in soot and bird shit and dirt picked up and dumped on them from the nor’west winds. Mixed among them are modern buildings with big steel beams and long glass frontages covered in fingerprints and streaks from whoever cleaned them last. None of the buildings have much in the way of curves, any extra shape outside of a square being a cost the university wasn’t prepared to spend. Most of the students are in T-shirts and shorts, but there are still those in black trench coats from thrift shops with black or white shirts and black jeans, badges on their jackets, both men and women with eyeliner, defying the hot weather to show off their angst. At least half of the students are walking along with their faces down, their eyes locked on their cell phones as their thumbs dance across the keys sending out texts, just the occasional glance upward so as not to walk into a wall or another cell phone user. Even more of them have white wires leading from their ears to a pocket somewhere. I ask for directions and to these people it’s like helping the elderly.

  I reach the lecture hall where Emma Green’s next class is. Outside is a sculpture painted bright colors and made from wooden beams that looks more like bad carpentry than good art. I’m not sure what it’s meant to represent, or whether Superman just came along and meshed together all the bus stop benches he could find. There’s a group of students hanging about outside in the shade, sitting on the lawn. They tell me their lecturer hasn’t shown up yet. I ask them about Emma and most of them remember seeing her in the class but never really knew her. Some have been questioned by the police, and those who did know a little something about Emma are eager to go over what they told them. I spend a productive hour waiting with th
em; their psychology professor never shows up. It turns out their professor also teaches criminology but only to students who have taken psychology for three years. The fact it’s a psychology class means everybody offers an insight into Emma’s disappearance, some of them likely hoping an accurate assessment of the situation will get them an A. I figure that’s the norm. I figure about two weeks into studying psychology you start self-diagnosing yourself, and then everybody else. As helpful as they all are, I’m saddened by them too, there’s an excited atmosphere surrounding them, brought on by the knowledge that one of their own is about to hit the headlines in the worst way possible, and some relief too that it isn’t any of them.

  “This lecturer that didn’t show up today,” I say, speaking to a girl with a dozen earrings in her left ear and hair not much longer than her nails. She’s wearing a skin-tight T-shirt with the words Underage Sperm Bank across it. “I’d like to talk to him as well. What’s his name?”

  “He’s actually a professor,” she says, “and he doesn’t really like it if you make that mistake,” she says, summing him up in one sentence. “You got a cigarette I can have?”

  “I don’t smoke. The professor’s name?” I ask because she appears to have forgotten I asked.

  “Oh yeah, Cooper Riley,” she answers, “but I can’t tell you where you can find him. This is the second day he hasn’t shown up. It’s like, totally random, you know? Looking at him you’d kind of think he had never been late for anything in his life. Maybe the heat got him.”

  “Maybe,” I answer, thinking about the timeline, about Emma being missing for two and a half days and Cooper Riley not showing up for two. Riley wasn’t mentioned in the file—no reason he would have been questioned because it was only yesterday Emma was officially considered missing. I get directions to the faculty lounge and thank the students for their time. I phone Schroder on the way.

  “The name Cooper Riley mean anything to you?” I ask.

  “Nothing. I don’t even know who he is.”

  “He was one of Emma’s professors.”

  “Come on, Tate, I’ve told you already, it’s not my case.”

  “And he didn’t show up for work yesterday or today.”

  “Shit. So now you’re jumping to conclusions, right?”

  “I think he knows something.”

  “Tate, he may be sick, or was called away because somebody else is sick.”

  “Either way I still want to talk to him.”

  “Doesn’t matter what you want. We’ll be the ones to talk to him.”

  “Damn it, Carl, I’m coming to you with this, just like you asked, remember? I’m not holding back. Don’t cut me out of the loop.”

  “I’ll call you back,” he says and hangs up.

  The psychology department has its own faculty lounge. In fact the psychology department is actually one of the largest departments in the entire university, and I think that sums up Christchurch pretty well. All the corridors are like hospital wings, linoleum floors and pastel colors. I learn the same thing from another professor that I did from the students—that Cooper Riley hasn’t shown up for work in two days. I ask if I can see Riley’s office and the woman I’m talking to tells me I’d have to ask Cooper.

  “How can I get hold of him?”

  “You could ring him, I suppose,” she says, “or you could try. His phone has been switched off.”

  She gives me his cell phone number and landline and I try calling the cell on the way back to my car and get a message saying the phone is off or out of range. The landline goes through to an answering machine and a promise of a returned call.

  I give Schroder another call but his line is busy. I borrow a phonebook and match up the home number I was given with Riley’s name to get his address, wondering, wondering, was Cooper Riley the last person to see Emma Green alive?

  chapter sixteen

  It’s a brand-new day. His second mother used to tell him anything can happen on a brand new day, that a fresh start each morning gave you a chance to redeem yourself for the things that angered you the day before. That never helped much when he was locked in the Scream Room and didn’t have the chance to prove himself, but it certainly helps now.

  He’s noticed Cooper using his name as often as he can. Part of him likes it, he likes the connection forming between them and hearing his name makes him genuinely hope that connection is real. His mother hardly ever used his name, only when he was in trouble, the kind of trouble that got him locked downstairs.

  Ultimately he isn’t sure whether Cooper is trying to bond with him or fool him. Reading about all this kind of stuff, he learned if you’re ever attacked by a serial killer, you should use their name as much as you can if you know it. That’s why Cooper is using it. He doesn’t know this for sure—and he doesn’t like the confusion that comes with not knowing. It actually makes him angry. He tries to think of an adage his mother would use, but can only come up with “A frown is a foe that certainly must go.” Cooper is hoping to humanize himself so Adrian won’t hurt him—but of course there is no chance of that. He hasn’t gone to all this effort to hurt the one thing he cherishes the most.

  Today he will give Cooper his gift, and from there any bonding between them will be genuine. The gift will reset the mistakes from yesterday. The gift is his redemption. He learned years ago that you can feel better giving rather than receiving. It will be like that today. He is sure of it. He also learned years ago he felt good taking things. Like the lives of those cats.

  The sun is pouring through the eastern windows as it makes its way around to the north. He fell asleep last night after listening to his conversation with Cooper, and then listening to classical music. The radio is still on, and the news is on, the announcer is talking about the temperature. People have been dying in the heat and Adrian doesn’t fully understand why. People should just stay inside if they’re getting too hot, or drink more water. He turns the radio off and a few minutes later he sits outside and drinks an orange juice. He likes the heat. He’s spent too many days locked in cold rooms to want to hang out in the shade. The trees forming a barrier between him and the neighboring paddock and the road are absolutely still, no breeze or birds to create any movement. There’s a forest about a kilometer away covering a shallow hill, the trees in there thick and old, the branches gnarled and twisted. The air is sticky. A persistent fly keeps landing on him and he keeps swatting it away until it falls into his orange juice. He starts to wonder what will happen if Cooper doesn’t like his gift, and that makes him sad. “Depression is a sad man’s joy,” his mother used to say. This is one she said to him many times, but he never really understood. He picks the fly out with his finger, studies it for a few seconds, then gently sits it on the porch. Its wings are stuck together. He moves it into the shade so it won’t burn.

  He walks inside where the temperature drops a little. There are flies on the walls and ceiling and he’s never known how they do that without falling off. There isn’t much in the way of furniture to land on. He rinses his glass in the kitchen and makes his way upstairs to the bedroom next to his own. The girl is awake. He enters the room and holds up the pitcher of water and helps her tilt her head forward and she sucks it in greedily through the straw. He gives her ten seconds and then pulls it away. She makes sounds inside her mouth; he thinks she’s trying to form some words but he has no idea what and doesn’t want to know. He holds the water back up and she takes another drink then slumps her head down. Her arms and legs are flushed the most, her face and stomach a close second, and he doesn’t know how attracted to her Cooper needs to be to do what it is he does best. He could try to put some makeup on her once he’s cleaned her up, but he doesn’t know how. It can’t be difficult.

  When he goes down to the basement Cooper is standing at the cell door, looking out the small window as Adrian walks down the steps. The sun is still low outside, coming in through the windows and hitting the basement door, and for the next hour or so, as long as that door’s
open, it’s almost as good as it used to be when this place had electricity.

  “Good morning, Adrian,” Cooper says. “Did you have a good sleep?”

  “Not really,” Adrian says, suspicious at how friendly Cooper sounds. Suspicious . . . and happy.

  “That’s a real shame. So what are we going to do today?”

  “Today you get your surprise. In fact I have two of them. One will have to wait until tonight. It’s a nighttime kind of surprise.”

  “And the other one?”

  “You haven’t made the news yet,” Adrian says. “When the police go looking for you, they’re going to find out you’ve done bad things.”

  “True,” Cooper says. “That’s good thinking, Adrian. Excellent thinking. And we need to do something about that, because they’ll come looking for me and eventually they’ll come here.”

  Adrian frowns. “Why would they come here?”

  “Because they’re the police. They’ll look for me. They’ll figure out who took me, and they’ll figure out where you have me.”

  “No they won’t,” Adrian says, and he’s confident of that. “And that’s one of the surprises. See, I don’t want them to figure out you’re a serial killer because then they’ll look even harder for you. That’s why I’m going to burn it down.”

  “Burn what down?”

  “With your house gone the police won’t be able to learn as much about you.”