The Cleaner

by Paul Cleave

  “Joe?”

  Joe doesn’t answer, because Joe isn’t home. She closes the door behind her. The cat sits down on the table next to the goldfish bowl. The bowl is empty. Did Joe not feed them? Has he bought a cat to replace them? His clothes are scattered across the floor again, though this time there aren’t any patches of blood on any of them. The pile of latex gloves she had made has become smaller. There are dishes in the sink, exposed food on the table. The bed is unmade, and has possibly been that way since the attack. Would Martin have lived like this?

  Sally starts to walk around the apartment. This isn’t right, being here, but whatever’s happening to Joe isn’t right either.

  Happening to Joe?

  She looks through the folders he has brought home from the police station-there are extra ones now. The photos are disgusting, and she can bear only to look at them for a few seconds. She replaces them. Why would Joe have these here?

  Perhaps a more important question would be what he’d say if he came home and found her looking around his apartment. Yes, it’s best that she goes. She is about to pick up the cat when it races under the bed.

  “Come on, little one, come on. You can’t stay under there.”

  But the cat thinks that it can. When she gets onto her hands and knees and looks under the bed, the cat is right in the middle. Next to it is a small piece of paper. Curious, Sally reaches under and grabs it.

  It’s a ticket from a parking building. The time and date printed across it are several months old. It doesn’t make sense to still have the ticket, because the ticket gets handed back on the way out of the parking building so the guy in the booth knows how much to charge you. She reaches under the bed and puts the ticket back on the floor.

  She clicks her fingers for the cat, which a moment later is purring in her arms. She carries it into the hallway, sets it down, then heads back outside.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I try putting myself into Calhoun’s head. He’s seeing a chance not only to apprehend the Christchurch Carver, but also to eliminate the only person who knows about his secret life. I’m sure he’s also weighing up the fact that he can’t take any credit for it. He wants to be a hero, but if he takes me alive, he knows I’ll talk. So he needs to catch me in a way in which he can have an excuse for killing me. It’ll be difficult to do. Difficult to explain.

  His easiest option is to kill me and hide my body. His glory will be lost, and the file I opened months ago with my first victim will remain open. Nothing will be added to it, but it will never close. There will be no glory to be had. The Christchurch Carver will vanish. While everybody is investigating the case, he can be off somewhere playing golf.

  I slip my jacket on, adjust my gloves, and leave my room. I keep my hands thrust in my pockets, but it doesn’t matter, since I don’t pass anybody. I make my way to the top floor and head along to Calhoun’s room. The number was in his file. Problem is, the only way I can get in is with a key card.

  I get in the elevator. Just as the doors are closing, a maid comes out from a nearby room, almost like fate intended it. I slap at the open door button on the inside panel, and step back into the hallway. The maid smiles at me as we cross paths. She looks in her fifties, has the worn-out look of a mother who has maybe six kids and has to clean up after hundreds of adults forty hours a week. Her black hair is dyed, and she looks so thin that if I picked her up and threw her into the wall, she would land in a thousand pieces. I smile and nod back, then turn and watch as she comes to a stop a few doors down.

  I wait for her to go inside, then, looking around to make sure we are still alone, I go in after her, knowing there has to be something I can say to convince her to give me the key card I need.

  I reach my arm over her shoulder before she even knows I’m there, and pull it tightly across her throat, using my other hand to support the back of her head. I tighten both arms slightly to slow down her breathing. She, of course, is starting to struggle, but quickly stops when I suggest it isn’t in her best interest. She stops fighting, and I’m wondering if she’s gone through this before. Maybe that’s why she’s got six kids.

  I don’t want to do anything to her. Not sexually, anyway, because she’s old enough to be my mother. Here she is, just doing her job-a low-paying, demeaning job like my own-and suddenly it could cost her her life. Well, I’m going to give her a chance to hang on to it. For now.

  I tell her to shut up or she’s going to die. Then I tell her to keep facing ahead, that if she turns, if she tries to see me, she will die. From my voice she knows I’m not bluffing.

  I ask for her key card. She lowers her hand to her waist and unclips it from her waist, and hands it to me. She knows it isn’t worth dying for. She’s thinking I can steal all the towels and free soap I want from any room I want. With my arm still around her throat, I tuck the key card into my pocket, lead her forward, and push her onto the bed. When I straddle her back, she doesn’t complain, doesn’t cry out. She’s a quick learner. Then again, I also threatened to kill her husband and her kids.

  I use a sheet to bind her arms and legs, another to cover her eyes.

  I tell her to keep still for twenty minutes, because I’m going to be back. Perhaps even sooner. If she’s gone, I’ll find her and kill her. If she’s still here, I’ll let her go. I don’t want to create a crime scene. I can’t afford any attention coming this way. Satisfied she isn’t going anywhere in a hurry, I head into the corridor, wheel the cart into the bedroom so nobody will see it, then close the door.

  I put the key card into the lock of Detective Robert Calhoun’s room. He’ll be waiting for me, probably getting pretty impatient by now. I figure he’ll give me maybe another ten minutes. Even if he’s leaving now, he still has to drive into town. I’ve plenty of time to go through his room.

  I close the door behind me, shutting myself into complete darkness, then reach into my pocket and pull out the small flashlight I’ve brought along, then realize there’s no point in sneaking around, and turn on the lights. The kitchen’s bigger than mine, and Calhoun has a larger range of utensils, pots, and cutlery. I see he made himself a sandwich before leaving for work.

  In order for the police to get cheap rates, they need to do their own housecleaning, which includes dishes. Calhoun is a man in his fifties away from his wife, which means the dishes at the moment are stacked high and haven’t been washed in about a week. He’ll probably live off junk food for a few days before he’ll wash them.

  I pull out my knife and set it on the bench next to its twin, making sure they’re indeed identical. Satisfied, I wrap them into separate plastic bags, careful not to smudge Calhoun’s fingerprints. I slide the bags into my pockets-mine in the left, Calhoun’s in the right.

  Perfect.

  I look through his drawers, his suitcases. Even though he’s been here more than a month, he’s hardly unpacked. I find a collection of pornographic magazines, a pair of handcuffs (standard issue-though not for police), and a leather gag with a rubber ball in the center to keep people quiet. I consider taking it with me, but it’s probably not wise. Anyway, I’m happy with my own technique. There are other sex toys, many of which I’ve never seen. The man’s a real deviant, and I begin to admire him.

  The door automatically locks behind me when I leave.

  It looks like the maid has struggled to escape from her bindings, but has failed. Pretty much what I expected. I move into the kitchen and find a third identical knife, which I put into a different plastic bag.

  Back in the bedroom, I tell the maid to shut up and to keep facing away from me. Then I untie the sheets, put my arm over her shoulder, and hand her a thousand dollars. This will definitely buy her silence, and I still consider myself up a grand after not paying Becky the other night. Plus it’s good not to make another crime scene. I feel her eyes scanning over the money, her mind already spending it. I can see her thinking what she has to do to earn more. I tell her to stay where she is for another five minutes. If she understand
s, she’s to nod. She nods vigorously while still looking at the money. I toss her key card onto the bed (a hard decision because I could have a fun time going from room to room), turn my back, and walk away, closing the door behind me. She’s probably thinking that unless there’s a report of a crime, there’s no reason for her to tell anybody what happened. The knife from Calhoun’s room feels heavier than the one I took there, even though it’s identical. His fingerprints are weighing it down.

  Sometimes it’s embarrassing to be so competent. Back in my room, I put my knife back in the kitchen, then clean the one I got from the room with the maid, slipping it back into a bag.

  There is still plenty to do. Life would be easier if I could go back to the car I parked with the dead woman in the back. Sure, I could throw the murder weapon in the trunk, then call the police, but I never actually stabbed her, and by stabbing her now, well, any pathologist with enough knowledge to identify an arm from a leg will realize the wounds are postmortem. Especially after all this time. No, I need somebody new. Somebody fresh.

  I’ll go out tonight and do some window-shopping. There won’t be any homework involved, because I can’t base spontaneity on homework.

  Tonight should be fun.

  Tonight should bring a smile to my face.

  After all, I haven’t been shopping in ages.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The biggest crime in Christchurch-apart from fashion and Old English architecture, glue-sniffing, too much greenery, bad driving, bad parking, lack of parking, wandering pedestrians, expensive shops, the winter smog, the summer smog, kids riding skateboards on sidewalks, kids riding bikes on sidewalks, old guys yelling Bible passages at anybody passing by, stupid policemen, stupid laws, too many drunks, too few shops, barking dogs, loud music, puddles of urine in shop doorways in the morning, puddles of vomit in the gutters, and the gray décor-is burglary. Burglaries occur every few minutes. Mostly thanks to teenagers who will grow up to become armed offenders who shoot people to get enough money to buy their daily prescription of drugs. Up there with burglary is car theft. Cars are stolen almost as often as homes are broken into. Therefore, you’d think more people would have car alarms. But they don’t. They prefer to spend their money on expensive car stereos, which end up in cheap pawnshops. Therefore, stealing another car is not difficult. Not when you know how. Not when you’re as good at it as I am.

  I’m driving around the outskirts of town in my new car, a Ford something or other, browsing for merchandise, looking for somebody who’ll take my liking, or perhaps a house that looks reasonably unsecured, when it comes to me. An idea. As I know from experience, spontaneous ones are sometimes the best. I have to remind myself that sometimes they’re not.

  My briefcase sits on the passenger seat, loaded with knives, scissors, and a pair of pliers. The briefcase is the toolbox for the modern serial killer.

  I head toward one of the nearby movie-theater complexes, which seem to be springing up all over the city at the rate of about one a year. I park this car among the many others. Here I wait, idly scratching at my crotch, flicking the window wipers every thirty seconds or so to clear the view. The flow of people is interrupted by the sessions starting and stopping and by the slow, the gossiping, and the disabled taking the longest to make their way to their cars. Finally, I spot the perfect victim. In her thirties, I guess. Long blond hair, high cheekbones, shiny wheelchair. I figure a person like this has nothing to lose, so killing her won’t really be a crime-hell, she won’t even feel half the things I’m planning to do to her.

  I watch as the breathing corpse courageously makes her way into her car, using her arms to transfer her weight from the chair to the driver’s seat. Then, with a skill only cripples can acquire, she swings the chair onto the roof of her car and clips it down. Amazing. It will be the last time she ever does it.

  I follow her home. The Ford is a late model and handles nicely. I turn on the air-conditioning and listen to the stereo. Quite the relaxing drive. I pull up outside a house a few down from hers, and give her twenty minutes to get inside and get herself settled. I’m guessing she lives alone. First, she’s a cripple and nobody would want to love her; second, if she has a partner, then he would have been with her at the movies. Until now I never considered there was a use for the disabled, the retarded, and the crippled.

  The house has a single story-can’t expect more for somebody in her condition. The garden is poorly looked after. The wheelchair ramp leading to the front door has a welcome mat at the bottom of it. I walk up just after eleven o’clock. Fumble with the lock. For somebody who lives inside a wheelchair, she has poor security. Life’s like that. Those most prone to being attacked-the old, the weak, the beautiful-generally have maybe a chain across their door and a safety lock. Not much. Not much at all to somebody like me.

  The first port of call is the kitchen, where the appliances are all at waist level. I open her fridge and examine the contents. I do this not because I’m hungry, or thirsty, but because I’ve done it at many of the other victims’ houses. The fridge offers nothing exciting to choose from. It appears she’s a vegetarian. I don’t get vegetarians.

  I select a carton of milk, drink directly from it, and set it down in the middle of the table. I wipe my arm across my mouth to get rid of the milk mustache, then make my way down the wide, uncarpeted hallway to her bedroom.

  No time for mucking around. Don’t want to risk having her scream. So it’ll have to be straight in there, and straight into it.

  I’m in her room and subduing her before she’s even aware of what’s happening. I stop hitting her when a sudden searing pain appears in my hand. It feels like my little finger has been broken. I pray it hasn’t, figuring that since God didn’t help me out with my testicle, He owes me one. I just hope He’s in a good mood.

  I won’t need to worry about binding the woman’s legs. No point. Just her hands. I use the cord from her phone next to the bed. She isn’t going to be needing it. When I have her secure, I start massaging my finger. Feeling begins to seep back into it, and I breathe a sigh of relief. God loves me after all.

  The padding on my testicle will stop me from doing what I’d normally do, but at least I can do us both a favor and save us some time. Careful not to get my hands too bloody, I use the knife I cleaned last night and, when I’m done, I pack it away and take out the one with Calhoun’s fingerprints on it. The risk of smudging the prints now that the victim is dead is minimal. Even so, I’m careful when I slip the blade into one of the already open wounds.

  When I’m finished, I go through her cupboards and drawers, and end up borrowing some gear that she won’t be needing anymore. I’m about to leave when I hear a humming coming from her living room. It’s a fish tank. I stand silently and watch perhaps two dozen fish moving back and forth in the blue light. Immediately I think of Pickle and Jehovah. Immediately I wish I had picked another woman to have killed and not a fellow fish lover. The temptation to select two fish from this tank to keep is powerful, but I know I can never replace the two I’ve lost. No. The emptiness in my life must remain-at least until I’ve had the chance to mourn. The joy of having two new fish will only taste like ashes.

  I stay feeling pretty bad for killing Little Miss Cripple as I’m leaving her house. She loved fish, and I loved fish. We lived alone with them. They were our friends. We were their gods. Before she was just a person I didn’t know, but now she’s somebody I can relate to. In another life, maybe we could have been friends. Or even more. I leave the front door open, figuring her body will be found quicker that way by a concerned neighbor or late-night burglar. The best I can do for her now is to hope she has a nice funeral. Before walking to my car, I check if I’ve got any blood on me. A few dark spots have flicked onto me, but they’re close to impossible to see on my dark overalls.

  I drive directly to the hotel, make sure no policemen are around, then go to my room. Safely inside, I clean down the actual murder weapon, soak it in some bleach for ten minutes
that I took from work, then roll it back into the plastic bag. Ideally I’d like to put it back where I got it, but this isn’t an ideal world. I’ll dump it elsewhere.

  I remove the pad from my testicle, knowing that I’ll have to replace it soon. I sit on the edge of the bed first and examine my genitals in the mirror. I’m expecting to see this black, infected thing that will probably see me either in the hospital or in a morgue. What I see is wrinkled skin covered in dry blood and talcum powder, and as I dab it away with a damp corner of the towel, I see that Melissa’s work has been effective. The area is inflamed from all the scratching, and on closer examination, I see why it has been so itchy. The stitches are overdue for removal.

  I don’t want Melissa making another visit to help me out, so I head into the bathroom and grab the small sewing kit that’s wrapped up in a matchbook-size box next to the soaps. With a towel beneath me on the bed, ever so slowly I use the needle to tug at the stitches, loosening them enough to then use one of my smaller knives to cut them. My whole groin, the base of my stomach, and the tops of my thighs start to hurt, but the pain is tolerable-the hardest part is knowing what will happen if I slip. But I don’t slip, and each thread vibrates through my body as I draw it through and away from the skin. I wonder if this wouldn’t be a better procedure if I were drunk, but decide that it probably wouldn’t be-not at the prices I’d have to pay to access the minibar. My sac begins to bleed, but only lightly.

  I clean up and take a long shower. The nozzle is directional and I can control the pressure of the spray. It’s wonderful. My groin feels better, and I wonder why I didn’t become a surgeon instead of a cleaner. After half an hour, I climb out and towel myself down. All the blood is gone-both the cripple’s and mine. The throbbing has gone too and, better still, so has the itching. I’m recovering. I will never be the same, but I’m recovering nonetheless. I collapse between the cool sheets and close my eyes.