by Rodd Clark
Bennett never issued a decree, or commanded any punishment, without watching the outcome. The day of the gutters, he had pulled out a lawn chair to watch his boy, and more importantly, to ensure the satisfactory completion of the task. Gabe remembered it well. It had been an aluminum chair with blue nylon webbing; the kind they first sold in the fifties and still sold to this day. Bennett sat drinking a beer and lounging in that familiar old blue lawn chair, and the boy could almost catch a sneer in a corner of each eye. He was too young to understand that look at the time, but given his later experience, he might recognize it today as sadism.
There were twisted mechanics in Bennett’s logic. Gabe and his sister, as well as his mother, had been the recipients of that logic, and the ensuing punishments for failure in adhering to Bennett’s strict codes. Not all moments held Bennett’s wrath, some days he was simply quiet and even tempered, but for Gabe it was like watching a hungry dog that wouldn’t eat . . . it was only then that you needed to worry.
Bennett would turn out to be a case study of psychosis; his son would study the man with an obsessive duality, equally afraid and utterly fascinated. Bennett’s wife and daughter would not have such a keen understanding of the man. They just wanted to be gone. It would take years before Sissy Church would leave her husband and file for divorce from the sanctity of her sister’s home in upstate New York, but it did happen. It shouldn’t have taken so long; the damage was engrained into her children’s psyches, and the fabric of sanity had been stretched too thin across the loom. Gabe and his sister would never have anything, other than their own upbringings to gauge against. And the question would linger for years in Sissy’s mind: “What if I’d left sooner?”
CHRISTIAN WAS an educated man. He understood as Church recounted his childhood and the influences that had shaped him. It would never be a single item that made him a killer, and it couldn’t be. There would be too many stimuli and far too many weighty pressures that created a sociopath like Church, but he’d taken notice of how the killer began his tale with the story of his father.
The downtown streets of Seattle began to bustle with evening crowds. The patrons at the Cherry Street Grinder were finishing their coffees and liquors, and the mood transformed from afternoon leisure to the excitement of Seattle nightlife. Church had finished three glasses of wine in the hour or so they sat at a table as Christian scribbled frantically on his notepad, desperate to capture every shade of the man he claimed as his subject. And it was only the beginning. He couldn’t chain the man to a table and hold him prisoner. But there was going to be a great deal he needed to hear before he could begin his draft. Seeing the brooding irritation building in the killer meant he had to keep him entertained without overstepping his role.
“So . . . when will you be ready to discuss your first murder?” The words fell like stones from his lips. He could see Church was caught off guard—apparently recalling painful memories pissed him off—because when he turned toward his spellbound audience, Christian caught the killer’s expression and another shudder crept down his spine. Someone dropped a utensil somewhere off in the direction of the kitchen, and the sound shattered the indelicate moment. Christian was thankful for the noise, which startled the café dwellers and pulled focus from his question. He caught the lingering scent of freshly ground coffee, and noting the lateness of the day, he had to remember he was in Seattle. Caffeine-swilling, healthy looking people—the type who thought wearing cargo shorts to a wedding was damned appropriate. But he loved it here. There didn’t seem to be any other city that better suited his relaxed and laid-back attitude. What else could one expect in a town founded by whores and flannel-wearing loggers?
Church had settled back into his chair and re-crossed his arms. His pale, gray eyes sliced a countenance that Christian could not fathom—it was cold and unreadable. His look could have said a dozen different things, but their emotional void made any understanding a challenge. Watching him, Christian began to see what a powerful hold he might have exercised over more than a few of his many victims. Had he enticed his quarry with his strong features or white smile? Or was it something sinister for him, like stalking a wounded gazelle from the shadows he hid inside? There were questions that Christian needed answering, and he could only hope that Gabriel Church would allow him another meeting under that great pretense of him writing the life story of a soon-to-be-famous serial killer.
It was as if Church had picked up on the writer’s brooding contemplations and attempted to ease his concerns. “S’all good, little buddy . . .”
Christian’s thoughts and any explanation for his arbitrary statement trailed off and became absorbed in the sounds of people brushing past in mid-conversation holding coffee cups and wine glasses, like the oblivious sheep they were.
“We can jump ahead if you’re so inclined . . . but trust the Sherpa, and know we will be traveling back around to the beginning before it’s all said and done.” Church gazed off at some distant horizon and placed a finger on his lips in abstract reflection, as if remembering his first victim was something he had to pull from his memory, but actually he remembered it all too well. Christian sat mesmerized, hanging impatiently for every detail of the story to come.
“My first kill came when I was quite young. My temper was worse back then, and I stumbled around without focus or direction. I have gained a maturity and wisdom to the things I do now, but the first time had been rash and unplanned. I would say it ended badly, but every foal that’d ever fallen from its mama’s womb had to struggle to stand. I guess I wasn’t any different.”
“I was twenty-one and feeling smug and certain back then. I’d been drinking a lot in those days, and my inexperience always led me down the wrong paths. I’d been headed to Fresno. A friend told me about a guy who was hiring, and I needed work. But the drive cross-country didn’t really do me much good. It took longer than it should, and I became distracted along the way. Originally I had told my well-meaning friend I’d meet up with him in Fresno—he was gonna put in a good word for me with the owner. It was some shitty dispatch job at a freight company, but like I said, I was only twenty-one and didn’t have a lot of appreciable skills . . . unlike now.”
Church quickly grabbed his crotch surprising Christian. “Ya see, I had a twenty-one year old cock and a love of beer. Who’d ever thought I would’ve made it across country for some fucked up interview before I found trouble . . . and trouble I did find.”
As Christian scrawled notes, the speed of his writing almost made the words indecipherable. The excitement had prickled the hairs on the back of his neck, and he mentally tried to race ahead during Church’s tale, anticipating the outcome.
“I had stumbled into a bar at some midpoint in my journey. I found myself in some rundown city just out of Dallas. The drive left me tired and parched, and that shithole was the first place I came to. I think my intention was to get a motel room, have a bite and shower, and rest up for another long day on the road, but that didn’t work out as planned.”
The younger man looked up from his writing. It dawned on him, at that moment, how deep and resonant the killer’s voice was. He had an unmistakable timbre, which seemed pleasing to his ear, and even though the words were flat and without range, he never had that drone of a long-blowing horn. All in all it was a pleasant sound. Church seemed to choose his words carefully, like he was practicing them in his mind before they escaped his tongue.
“I never made the motel, rather choosing to stop in for a cold one at some rustic pool bar, and when I did I spied a group of men playing poker at one of the tables in the back. Musta been a regular game, cuz they all seemed to know each pretty well. Now, I’m not a great card player, and I don’t know why, but I asked to join in, and they all agreed. Too heartily, I see that now, but I guess I had money in my pocket I was itchin’ to lose, or it was the cold Budweiser hitting me fast, or that old familiar devil crooking his finger at me, imploring me to sit and play.”
“And so you stayed,” Chr
istian offered as some lame crest to his story, and to illustrate just how enthralled he was.
“Yeah, I stayed, but after a few rounds of cards and beers, one of them saw I was winning . . . and that by God was just sheer luck! Cuz like I said, I wasn’t good at cards. But this asshole starts suggesting I was cheating. Looking back, I’m sure none of the guys at the table really thought I was cheating. I suppose it was just backslapping bullshit by drunk fuckers who were used to ribbing each other too much. But I was a stranger at their table, and being cocky and twenty-one didn’t take too kindly to the accusation. There were words, harsher I suppose than they shoulda been. Then I decided it was time to head out, but only after I raked in my winnings and pocketed the cash. Dammit I didn’t cheat anyone! I was just a lucky sonofabitch.”
Church looked down at his empty glass then up at Christian. There was a clear understanding that on the next lull in the conversation the writer was expected to scurry his ass up to the bar for more drinks. Gabe’s look seemed to say: “I’m not your sister, and I don’t give it up for free!”
“Of course, I didn’t do the wise thing and drive my beat-up Chevelle to the nearest motor lodge, leaving the distasteful incident behind. No. I sat outside the bar and waited for two more hours, just watching the door. When the big man who’d sullied my character walked out and got into his pickup then drove down the highway—presumably headed home—he had someone following him.” Church leaned closer to Christian and whispered so others might not hear his story.
“It didn’t take much. It had been barren out there on those no-name rural roads. Running his truck off the road was just good driving on my part. Didn’t give a shit what it mighta done to my car, I was too pissed to care. I tried one of those pit maneuvers the cops are so proud of. His truck barreled off the road and into a tree line, upending nearly a quarter mile of barbwire fence. I’m about as good at driving as I was at cards, just lucky, thoroughly lucky that night, but he was probably three-sheets to the wind by then anyways. His head must’ve hit the steering wheel cuz when I came up behind him, he seemed dazed. I slammed my own car into park and ran to his driver’s side door and flung it open. He was a big man, outweighed me real good. But he was either too drunk or too dazed to comprehend what was happening. I pulled him to the ground and kicked him square in the head. My boots had steel toes, and the blood splattered, like when we used to shoot up watermelons when I was a kid. I had already grabbed my hunting knife from the glove box and drove it all the way to the hilt, right there into the side of that fat fucker’s neck. If the kick hadn’t done it . . . the blade did. He wallowed like a sick cat in the grass and weeds on that dark, deserted stretch of road. Eventually he bled out, but not before he received a few choice kicks to the stomach and even one in his nuts.”
Christian stopped writing long enough to look up. “Looking back now, after all that’s gone down . . . do you regret killing him?”
“Regret’s a powerful word. I don’t regret it because I don’t have any feelings for it either way. I think it was stupid and rash, I could’ve got caught, but as it stands I have no regrets. I drove out of the shithole town right after I pulled the knife out of his neck and didn’t stop until I was almost in Arizona. Either the rural county police were too stupid or too lazy, but no one ever tried hunting me down for it. In fact, no one’s ever even known about it . . . at least not until now.”
Church smiled a sickly grin, as if they were somehow linked with those furtive secrets, like clandestine lovers meeting under the cover of night. Christian could only smile back and wonder what he was smiling about. He had become connected to a murder in some backwoods town in East Texas—one that might be recorded in some dusty banker’s box, sitting forgotten on a metal rack and slapped with a big label, the words COLD CASE FILES stamped on the side.
It was an odd sensation sitting across the table from someone who freely admits to murder, knowing that single homicide would start a chain of events that would remain miraculously unbroken by his arrest or conviction. It was equally strange carrying the knowledge that Church and he were the only living souls who knew what truly happened that night, and how that ill-fated poker player had actually died.
Christian would at the first opportunity research unsolved stabbings in cities near Dallas during those years when Church could have been in the vicinity. But he failed to reason what he would do if he found a case fitting Gabriel’s details. Would he inform the police? There hadn’t ever been anything more than a gentleman’s understanding between the two men that Christian would record the life story of Gabriel Lee Church. The killer had not asked for his complicity in any crimes, nor had he ever asked for his silence.
This should have alarmed him, because there were always questions hovering in the ether between them: What was his endgame? Why did he want his story told? Did he have some nefarious plan for his biographer? And why had he granted him such unfettered access into his very personal horror movie?
Outside the Cherry Street Grinder, the typical mist of rain began to splatter on the sidewalks and windows. One thing Christian enjoyed most about the city was how often it rained, yet how few actually carried umbrellas. It was a very Seattle trait to be unconcerned with the minor inconvenience of rain. It was like an overnight guest who had overstayed their welcome and had little intention of vacating anytime soon. Every Seattle native just understood to accept the rain with that wisdom of experience—rain and Seattle just went together. But everyone could always distinguish tourists by the sight of their umbrellas and heavy winter slickers. Still, Christian couldn’t help but wonder if after meeting his killer it wouldn’t be his body turning up in some rain-soaked back-alley downtown. As he headed away from the café, he smiled through his darkly twisted thoughts, a reminder that he had yet to begin his novel. Who knew, police might find his remains before the book could gain a voice and its direction, long before an editor’s red pen notes could be scrawled amid the margins.
Chapter Two
CHRISTIAN HAD BEEN raised in an established family with old-money connections. Even with his family’s history and wealth, he stood out from his peers in high school. It didn’t bother him his peers made jokes about his infamy in clock towers and grassy-knolled vantage points. He knew such locations were highly guarded by schools and universities these days; they’d learned their lessons after years of tragic shootings. So gaining entry into those sites, so loved by the disgruntled student snipers, had become practically impossible. And that was what he took away from those cruel taunts. It was that train of reasoning that kept him slightly unpopular and uninvited to lake parties and clubhouse raves. The only reason he wasn’t completely ostracized were his good looks. They got young people further along in social circles than most would care to admit.
Most students would recall the image of Christian Maxwell carrying an armload of books through the common areas, occasionally dropping one and having to stop and reposition his stack before hurrying off to wherever students like him traveled to. People would tell the stories later, and as each one did, they became infinitely closer to Christian socially than the actual truth allowed. Everyone wanted to be famous, if only by affiliation. No one understood the full distance of miles between Christian and the usual crowds. If they did they wouldn’t say, or they hoped anyone hearing their tale wouldn’t make the connection.
He was bookish at times, although he considered it scholarly. He appeared morose by his silence and still demeanor, but to him, it was just observation. His grandfather, who’d been more like him than any other member in his family, always offered the best advice, ultimately becoming the strongest influence over how the boy would turn out. Christian remembered him saying once that it was more important to watch others for a long while before you approached them. When you did that, you learned their personal strengths and flaws and were better informed of their character before you were formally introduced. Although he’d only been a boy when he heard that, he took it to heart, foolishly believing it ga
ve him a social advantage, when in reality it just made him seem a little creepy to those who didn’t know him.
One might assume high school was a tougher road for such a socially awkward boy, but it was actually his time spent at the university. Cruelty comes in many forms, and for Christian being considered odd hit closer to home as he ventured into his own maturity. Sitting in his dorm room, staring out to the quad, he used to watch couples cross mowed emerald lawns, hand in hand, and he would hate them for being in love and for having someone so close to walk with.
Nothing much had changed since then, although right now, even though he was alone, excitement coursed through him at the thought of seeing Church again. By the time Christian had left the Cherry Street Grinder, he’d already arranged for his next sit-down visit with Church. It was decided. The next meeting would be in two days’ time and at a downtown hotel that Christian would rent for just that sole purpose. The writer was never to ask his subject what he did between their sessions, a key fact that Church seemed adamant about, and for Christian it was a little unnerving. It was Church who had set the conditions for their meeting, and he had suggested it with a sly twinkle in his eyes. For Christian it sounded dangerous and sinful, like arranging some adulterous, clandestine affair. The prospect of having unrestricted access to the killer was rousing. Without interruptions and outside distractions, there was no telling what secrets the man would divulge?
Brushing past the quirky tourists and the closed farmers’ market booths, Christian maneuvered his way along busy streets. He could barely contain his excitement as he headed home. He wanted to race home and jot down some questions. He would have to be subtle as he interjected them into Church’s stories; he couldn’t risk unsettling the narrator and possibly losing the interview.