He had devoured everything he could on the subject and about a year later he had captured his first victim and the rest was history.
He often thought about his roots and his beginnings and how far he had come. He watched the video of Holly Janson’s death repeatedly for the next three hours. It was just so amazing to watch and relive it and to remember how he had felt during every single piece of it. She had been such an Angel to him. It had been years since he’d had a victim that was so deserving and so worthy of his blade.
He finished burning the footage to a DVD and then he made two copies on the PC.
Now he could focus more on detective John Anderson. He had to be freaking out a bit after all of the carnage his delicate eyes had seen. But he had not seen anything yet. He didn’t know it yet, but his selfish feelings were going to be the cause of heartache that he could not possibly imagine coming for him.
The bastard thought he was untouchable and above everything. He actually thought that he was a worthy opponent. Please… the boy was still an amateur cop.
And if he survived what was in store for him then he would graduate to be an expert cop or he would be a total babbling basket case. It was going to be amazing no matter what.
The picture on his computer screen was the picture of a beautiful young woman. He finished pulling up all of the pictures he had taken of her at her friend’s house where she was “hiding” and a few shots even had her silly police escorts in them. He laughed so hard every time he saw the bumbling incompetence that the police force around there hired. Was that really the best they had to offer? It was beyond pathetic.
But nevermind them. He was much more focused on the beautiful girl. He had seen her before. He had known her sister very well.
Theresa had put up a pretty good fight, but something told him that Cheryl was going to be extra special.
Chapter 7: “Fatal Error”
John finished scarfing down his burger and fries just as Amy, the head of the forensics department came jogging up to his desk. She sat a folder with several pictures down in front of him.
He picked up the folders and began to look through them. The pictures were of a large man in his mid-fifties. John recognized it as the man that Trevor had pointed out before. And then beyond those pictures were pics of the license plate and very clear pics of the car he was driving.
“We got him!”
“I thought you would be glad to hear the good news,” Amy said.
“I’m super stoked.”
“Great. And by the way, your boy Professor Steven could not have committed that murder. The scum bag attorney was right; the timing was way off between where we have proof he was with his students and when the girl was killed. It happened at approximately the same time.”
“Wow, thank you so much. Did you tell the Chief?”
“I thought I would leave that honor to you good sir,” Amy flirted.
“Well, thank you ma’am.”
John ran down the hall to Michaels’s office. He showed him everything and the look on the Chief’s face was completely priceless. He wished he could just take a picture and keep it in his wallet for when he was feeling down. That picture would have perked his spirits no matter what.
He even seemed ok and happy about the fact that Raymond was right about the damn time not matching.
“Let’s go get his ass,” Michaels said.
John could not believe that they had a name and a face to go with their killer. It had been thirty some odd years in the making. The whole thing was a total mind trip. He could not believe that it was finally going to be over.
The Ripper’s name was Frank Alan Diel. He was a freelance photographer who made most of his money online by selling pictures to websites and stock photography websites. He had been doing this for ten years. He had been an Accountant before that for almost twenty years. He had risen to the top of his firm and become partner. Then just like that he had stepped away from it to just become a hermit and do freelance photography. It was a very odd career choice to anyone looking at it, but it did not really surprise John at all. Nothing about this freak did.
He read the bio information and statistics to the chief as they led an army of patrol cars to Frank Diel’s house. He would never see them coming. That was for sure. They were not sure if he was going to be home, but John was willing to bet that if he wasn’t home then he was going to be somewhere doing something very awful to some poor young woman that they were going to find mutilated in the next couple of days.
“So, apparently this guy’s parents died from mysterious circumstances when he was eighteen and he didn’t really have much other family around him. So he has been on his own since then.”
“You’re breaking my heart, kid. He was never questioned in the death of his parents?”
“He was away from the house at the time on a class trip. He had an airtight alibi; they died from carbon monoxide poisoning. And there were rumors around the neighborhood that his parents were abusive according to the new articles about the deaths of the parents. Odd that the neighbors would just add that out of the blue to something seemingly unrelated.”
Frank Diel lived about ten miles outside of Belpre up towards a small area known as Little Hocking. It was a bit off the beaten path, but John remembered playing little league on some of these fields when he was eight. It was actually the same summer that Frank Diel had killed his beloved sister and had tried to end his young life also.
He was going to make that son of a bitch pay for what he did that was for damn sure.
They pulled up in front of Frank’s house. He lived a bit off the main road down a long dirt road with no close neighbors. This was not at all surprising. He wanted his privacy. He needed it to conduct his clandestine activities. The place was perfect. John found himself wondering if there was some poor person in there right now being tortured. He wanted to run up the steps and kick the door in and shout that they were there for Frank. He wanted to see that son of a bitch piss in his pants.
The chief motioned for some of the officers to go around back and wait in case he tried to run and then he instructed the officer with the door breaching tool to ram the door. The door popped open and they all entered with guns drawn screaming at the top of their lungs.
“Police! Come out with your hands up! We have you surrounded!”
John tried to slow his pace down a bit so he didn’t end up just running hog wild through the house until he found the man. He wanted to get him so badly and slam his balls in a vise until they popped. He had never wanted a perp so badly in all of his career. He could taste this sick asshole on his tongue. That was how badly he needed this victory.
The house was nice and excessively neat in contrast to the pit of crap that had been the last house that Frank Diel had worked in. John was thinking what he had originally feared and that was the house they were at was just his normal day to day house he lived in. There was probably nothing in the place that could tie him to any wrong doing. Just like in his playhouse there would be nothing that would tie his identity to anything in that house. Never had John seen a subject who was so damn organized and so good at compartmentalization. He was able to be two completely different people and flip from one to the other faster than most people could change a T shirt. It was uncanny and John had seen some stuff in his time.
They did a complete sweep of the house and found nothing. There was no one there and there was nothing there out of the ordinary. They were going to have to just wait for him to come back. There was no way to tie him to another place. John could just imagine what Frank Diel was doing to some girl right then and they were powerless to stop it. They knew who he was and what he did. They had him and they were going to nail him forever, but for right now they just had to sit tight and wait. It was so damn frustrating.
“Well, this sucks,” Michaels said.
The sentiment was shared by the entire group.
John’s phone began to bu
zz right then. He cursed himself for not turning it off and he tried to ignore the rolling eyes of Michaels.
“Really detective? You forgot to turn your phone off when we are doing an ambush?”
“Sorry. I got too caught up in the moment,” John said. He ignored the stares and the anger bursting from the chief’s face right then.
He started to turn the phone off. But as he did so he received a text message with a picture attachment.
His heart almost stopped completely in his chest right then. It was a picture of Cheryl. She was tied to a pole above her head. She was naked and her feet were a few feet off of the floor. The panicked and painful look on her face was the stuff that nightmares were made of. John dropped his phone as he put his hands up to grab his head that felt like it was splitting wide open. Sharp bursts of pain followed by horrible flashes of light bursting through his eyes.
“John? What is it?” Michaels asked.
He saw the screen of John’s phone just then and he knew. He picked up the phone slowly and handed it back to John.
Just then the call came through again from a private number.
“Answer it,” Michaels said. “Go ahead, son. You have to.”
John took a deep breath and swallowed hard.
“Hello?”
“John! What a pleasant surprise. I hope you are well today,” Frank Diel said.
John wanted to shout at him and tell him exactly where he was. Michaels put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head no. His eyes told John everything that he already knew to do, but had temporarily forgotten due to his momentary lapse of judgment caused by the torture pictures of his girlfriend.
“I’m good. How are you?” John said with false cheer.
Frank laughed. “That is good John. Real good. It’s best to keep things light hearted and fun isn’t it?”
“I guess so. What do you want?”
“I want what I’ve always wanted since I met you that day thirty years ago; I want to watch you die a slow, painful death caused by my hand.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we carry that flavor,” John said through gritted teeth.
“Oh, come now John. You don’t want to be rude to me. I have something very valuable of yours.”
“I’m sorry, Mr…”
“Oh, we don’t need to go with labels today do we John?”
“Well, you know my name. It seems fitting that I should know yours so we can keep everything nice and friendly.”
Frank laughed. His laughter was mechanical and a bit creepy. It had no warmth or compassion in it. It didn’t even sound human. It was like something mechanical and artificial. John wondered if Frank was even using a voice disguiser.
“Let’s cut through the shenanigans here. I want you to meet me at a certain address and you are to come alone. If I even smell another cop within twenty miles of us I will kill the girl without a seconds notice and you will never find me. You will not see me until I kill you. You got that?”
“Sure. Where and when?”
“That’s more like it. I’ll text you the address. I want you there in one hour. And again if you tell anybody about this I will know and I will be very angry. And trust me John; you don’t want to see me get angry. It isn’t a pretty sight.”
Frank hung up then.
“I’ve got to go,” John said.
“Wait a second. We have to come up with a plan.”
“I’m not risking her life! I have to do what he says.”
“I’d like to think we can outsmart one man. We are an entire police force, after all.”
“No, sir. This guy has beaten us for over thirty years. I am not giving you the address and if I see anyone following me I will lose them. Do you understand? I have to do this.”
The Chief relented. He knew that there was no stopping him.
Chapter 8: “The Final Showdown”
John pulled up to the address that he was given. The house was similar to Frank’s regular house, actually. It was a bit bigger, but much nicer than the house that he had used previously. John found the contrast to be totally different and unsettling. Even this guy’s disordered personality had no rhyme or reason to it. It was almost as if he was just being weird for sport. It was that strange to him.
He entered the house and walked down the long hallway as he had been instructed to do by the text message. He knew that this was stupid as could be and he was basically walking into his own suicide here, but if there was a chance that he could save Cheryl then he had to do it.
He wondered about Cheryl’s friend she was staying with and about the officers who had been guarding them. Were they all dead? Was this guy that good that he could simply take out two police officers and a woman without being seen or heard by Cheryl. Or was he just that sneaky that he had been able to abduct Cheryl from out under their noses. He hoped it was the latter.
The air in the house felt chilly and moist somehow, which was a stark contrast to the muggy atmosphere that resided outside. John felt a pain in the pit of his stomach that was clenching tight and making it hard for him to breathe. He had never felt more fear than he was feeling at that moment.
As he turned the corner into the kitchen he saw another door that led to the basement. That was where he had been instructed to go. He saw an empty pizza box sitting on the counter. The man had ordered pizza in the middle of a kidnap and torture fest when he was getting ready to kill one, possibly two people. What kind of a sick mind got hungry during any of that?
This guy was living on a parallel plain of existence that the normal human mind could not even conceive of. It was insane how turned off from anything resembling normal human emotions Frank Diel was. It made the whole experience that much more terrifying.
He arrived at the bottom of the stairs and walked down another hallway into another room. There was a light in this room and he could hear breathing. John knew that was where they were and he was about to come face to face with the man who had killed his sister and filled his nightmares since he was eight years old. This man was the pinnacle of evil itself and he had to be destroyed by any means possible.
There he was. Frank Diel—the Valley Ripper. He looked like an English teacher or a retired accountant, which he was. He was tall and well built, but somewhat nerdy looking. He was clean cut and nicely dressed in well-fitting jeans and a flannel shirt. He looked just like anyone else walking down the street. For some reason John was expecting him to look like some sort of new age Charles Manson. The man was very normal looking. John had seen a lot of sick people in his time and a lot of them looked fairly normal, but Frank Diel took the cake on that. He could have been your son’s little league coach or your neighbor who invited you over for barbecue on Saturdays to watch the game.
“Well, hello there John.”
His voice was deep but non-threatening. He seemed to be very friendly and genuine. Except he was standing beside Cheryl who was naked and tied to a large beam above her head by the wrists and he was holding a loaded gun on her.
“Let her go. She isn’t a part of this.”
“Wow, you are jumping to negotiations already, John. I expected a bit better of you. I invite you to my home and try to be hospitable and polite and you just want to get down to brass tacks don’t you?”
“Let her go. Then we can talk. She has no reason to be here.”
“Well, that is where you are wrong John. You see, she has to be here because she is my leverage. She is my guarantee that you will behave and you won’t do anything stupid. Now so far you have followed my orders and I know that no one is following you and no one else knows that you are here. So I appreciate your cooperation thus far.”
“You are welcome,” John said.
He could not believe that he was actually responding to this. The man was so polite that his creepiness was polite and charming. What the hell had he gotten himself into here? John felt like he was losing control and like all of his years of training had n
ot prepared him for this. It was not supposed to go down this way. He was supposed to be able to talk the scumbag out of keeping the weapon. He was supposed to be good at rapport building. So far he was not showing any of this. It was pathetic and Cheryl’s life was hanging in the balance.
“Well, I’m glad we are getting along so well. Now I am going to tell you why I’ve brought you here, but you can probably guess the outcome.”
“You want me dead?”
“Yes! Very good, John. I do want you dead, but I am not sure you appreciate the why behind the reason I want you dead.”
“Well, it has something to do with interrupting you and almost getting you caught. I’m sorry, I was eight years old. I went to retrieve a football and watched my twin sister get her throat slit by some sick, degenerate, psycho.”
“Watch your mouth John!”
The anger flashed in Frank’s face and he held the gun to Cheryl’s temple, pressing hard. She began to sob loudly through her gag.
“Please don’t!” John yelled.
Frank smiled at John wickedly and then back handed Cheryl across the face with the butt of the gun. The impact echoed off the walls of the small room.
“No! Dammit! Why did you do that?” John yelled.
“Lower your voice in my house John. I can’t stand people not being civil with each other. It angers me like nothing else. Everyone should learn how to act and how to treat each other with the proper amount of respect. If people would do that then there would not be any senseless violence in this world, would there?”
Darker Still Page 9