Killing Kirshner (A Psychological Suspense Thriller)

by Mason Black

  Kirshner looked up at Abrams holding the gun to the back of his head, and saw he was looking across the room at Amanda. He launched himself from his knees and threw Abrams back off his feet. The gun fell out of Abrams’ hands and slid across the tile floor; Jack ran as fast as he could toward Kirshner, realizing he was attempting to get the gun. Jack landed into Kirshner’s side throwing both of them into a glass coffee table that sat in front of the couch. They both crashed through the table breaking the glass into hundreds of tiny pieces. Kirshner pushed Jack off him into the pile of glass. Amanda ran into the kitchen, as Kirshner fumbled to get the gun that was now just out of his reach.

  Kirshner grabbed the gun and swung it around to face Will and Abrams; they both stopped moving toward him. Kirshner stood up and brushed the pieces of glass from his body. “Back up into the hallway,” Kirshner mumbled as he moved to them. The door to the secret room was wide open; Kirshner motioned for them to get into the room.

  Will and Abrams entered the strange hospital room. “What the hell?” Abrams mumbled, looking at the room.

  “Holy shit! He’s the Mangler,” Will said.

  “I told you; you have no idea who you are dealing with or what I am capable of. Now put these on,” Kirshner said, throwing them handcuffs he got out of a drawer. “Lock yourself to that table.”

  “It was you this whole time – torturing, killing all those people.” Will clamped the handcuff onto one of the table bars.

  “You know what I read, Will. They said the Mangler was an insecure, little wimp who was probably impotent and had mommy issues. You know the type; we used to pick on them in high school. Hey, Kirshner, how many times did you get your head flushed in a toilet in high school?”

  “I was going to wait to do this, but your mouth has convinced me otherwise.” Kirshner aimed the gun at Abrams.

  Chapter 82

  As Kirshner pulled back on the hammer, Amanda came blasting into the room with a large serrated knife swinging in her hand. Kirshner spotted her out of the corner of his eye; he tried to get out of the way but the knife plunged deep into his arm.

  The gun fell to the floor with Kirshner soon following, grasping his arm in pain. Amanda jumped on top of him and pounded on his chest and head with her fists. Although Amanda was a thin woman, she was very strong. She pulled the knife out of his arm and raised it high in the air to plunge into his chest.

  Jack grabbed Amanda’s hands, preventing her from stabbing Kirshner. “Amanda, stop,” Jack screamed.

  “It’s him, Jack, he’s the Mangler,” Amanda shouted back.

  “I know, Amanda. Let’s just calm down and figure things out.”

  Jack grabbed more handcuffs from the open drawer and cuffed Kirshner to a pole that Kirshner must have used for his victims. Amanda sat on the floor trying to calm down, but the adrenalin was still flowing through her veins. Jack uncuffed Will and Abrams.

  They all slumped down to the floor in a circle around Amanda. “Obviously, our plan is not going to work now. We need to figure this out.” Will spoke first.

  “Are you freakin’ crazy, Will? He’s the Mangler. Kirshner is the Mangler. We need to call the police. We can even do it anonymously,” Jack argued.

  “No, it won’t work, Kirshner will tell them everything. What we tried to do tonight. How in the world are we going to explain that to the police?” Abrams responded.

  “But he’s the Mangler. The police won’t care about us,” Amanda said.

  “Abrams’ right, the only way the story of catching the most wanted serial killer in America could get more sensational would be if he was caught because four of his own students tried to kill him – unknowingly finding out that he’s the Mangler. That’s attempted murder no matter who he was,” Will interrupted.

  They could not just call the police – it was much more complicated. They decided they would lock Kirshner in his own prison and figure out what to do later. For now, they all agreed that they had to clean up the place so no one knew they were there.

  Amanda showed them what was in the next room – a library of personal DVDs lined the wall, each labeled with a different victim’s name. There were more than 60 DVDs stacked neatly on several wood shelves and three large LCD televisions hanging on the wall. In the corner of the room, there were two prison cells with chains and cuffs lying on the floor.

  “He must have kept them in those cages and made them watch the DVDs of his other victims before he killed them,” Abrams guessed.

  “How horrible.” Amanda clenched Will’s hand as hard as she could; Will squeezed her hand back. They all stepped out of the room in horror; Kirshner sat on the ground staring at the four of them as they reentered the room. He smiled, almost as if to say, “Pretty impressive work.”

  “Go get the Taser gun and we’ll get him into one of the cells,” Abrams said to Jack. Amanda and Will left the room and started cleaning up the living room.

  Chapter 83

  Five days later …

  Will sat back in his uncomfortable chair as Shazhad leaned forward, hanging on every word Will was speaking.

  “You’re telling me that you have Kirshner – the Miami Mangler – locked in a cage in his very own house,” Shazhad whispered.

  “Yes, I am telling you that Isaiah Kirshner is the Miami Mangler, and we locked him in his house of horrors. We cleaned the house from top to bottom.”

  Shazhad brushed his hair back with his hands – his mind was racing. “The glass table, we found a piece of glass under the couch,” Shazhad remembered.

  “Yeah, Jack fell into that when he was fighting with Kirshner. I guess we didn’t get it all.”

  “And Detective Pitman found a bloody piece of clothing in the yard.”

  “Abrams tore his shirt; it must have fallen after we ran out of the house.”

  Will’s story was making sense to Shazhad. The few clues he had all seemed to line up with Will’s story.

  “So, here’s the deal, detective. You go to the house, catch the most notorious serial killer of our time and be the big hero. You say nothing about me, Amanda, Jack or Abrams. You don’t tell a soul what we planned to do that night,” Will explained.

  “Why would I do that? Besides, Kirshner knows, he’s not going to just sit back and forget that the four of you tried to kill him – let alone help finally expose him for who he really is,” Shazhad argued.

  “That’s why you can’t let him walk out of that house alive. It’s the only way this all works. You have to be the one that figures him out – seek justice for all his victims and the poor families that were left behind. You’ll be a national hero,” Will said, playing on Shazhad’s vanity.

  It went against the entire legal system that he was an integral part of. He was a police officer, sworn to protect – but, he was protecting. He was protecting every law-biding citizen in Miami from a monster. He would be world famous – the man who finally caught the Miami Mangler. His wife would be so proud.

  “Well, will you do it, detective? Do the world a favor and rid it of this horrible man.”

  Without even responding to Will’s desperate plea, Shazhad asked, “How do I get into the secret room?”

  Chapter 84

  Shazhad raced down I-95 to Will’s dorm room where Will hid the remote for Kirshner’s secret room. Shazhad knew that a CSI team might be searching through Will’s room, and he needed to get to the remote before the team bagged it and it went into the chain of custody of the Miami-Dade Police Department.

  “Dammit,” Shazhad said when he saw the police van outside of the dormitory. There were a few news crews still hanging around covering the arrest of the four law students, one of whom may be the Miami Mangler.

  He marched up the stairs searching for room # 213 – Will’s room. The room was at the end of the hallway, and the door was wide open. He thought he might be too late when he saw a woman wearing a CSI vest already in the room collecting possible evidence. Shazhad told the woman he was the detective on this case and was t
rying to verify his suspect’s story.

  Shazhad immediately went to a storage tub that Will kept under his bed, which was mostly filled with clothes, and wrapped up in an old T-shirt was the remote. Shazhad shoved the remote into his pocket and threw the shirt back into the storage tub. He thanked the woman for her time and glided out the front door. As he was about to walk down the stairs, he heard a woman calling his name. “Detective Ahmed, Detective Ahmed,” the woman shouted as she chased after him.

  “Detective, I’m Jill Carlin, Harry Pitman’s girlfriend,” she said smiling. “I just wanted to introduce myself since we hadn’t met yet.”

  Shazhad was relieved. “Great to finally meet you, Harry’s a great guy. We’ll all have to have dinner some time,” he suggested.

  “Sounds great. So, how’s the case coming along? Do you really think you have the Mangler?”

  “It looks like it. The FBI is very confident, but we are still being very cautious because we don’t want to arrest the wrong man again.”

  “I hope it is him, and this is all over. I hope they give the death penalty. That bastard deserves to die.”

  As Shazhad was walking away, he remembered that Jill’s sister was one of the Mangler’s victims. Shazhad thought how Kirshner had affected so many people’s lives. “She was right, he does deserve to die,” he thought.

  Chapter 85

  Shazhad breathed heavily as he sat in his car parked in Kirshner’s driveway. It was a quiet day in Kirshner’s neighborhood; Shazhad did not notice a soul, except for some lawn workers mowing the grass a few houses down. He gripped his gun tightly in his hands as a newspaper article displaying pictures of the Miami Mangler’s seventeen known victims laid on his lap.

  “My God,” he mumbled to himself in disbelief at all the lives Kirshner ended – their horrible, painful deaths. He would never get the images of the crime scene photos out of his head – they would stay with him for the rest of his life.

  He suddenly was overwhelmed by a feeling of rage. His heart began to pound and the adrenalin started to pump in his body as he leaped out of the car and ran to the front door. He was ready to end this.

  He ripped the door open and quickly stepped inside, slamming the door behind him. The house was fairly dark even though it was sunny outside; Kirshner had very dark blinds and drapes over every window – for obvious reasons.

  Shazhad pulled the remote out of his pocket and pressed the button.

  Chapter 86

  Abrams sat uncomfortably with his hand shackled to a hook in the table. Agent Petty sat across from him, as the rest of the FBI team and many of the Miami/Dade Police Department watched through the double-sided mirror.

  “How in the world did you get those poor kids to go along with killing Kirshner?

  I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been impressed with you from the start, but you really outdid yourself on this one – getting three other people to do the killing with you. It’s brilliant. Did they ever suspect that you were the Mangler?”

  “I told you, I am not saying anything until my lawyer gets here. So, just leave me alone,” Abrams yelled.

  “You’re a pretty angry guy, Abrams. A lot of rage in you, isn’t there? Is that where this all comes from – a rage inside of you?”

  “For God’s sake, I’m not the Mangler, you moron,” Abrams shouted.

  “Well, then, there must be one hell of an explanation for that little hidden room you have in your garage,” Petty smirked.

  Petty finally got Abrams’ attention. “Oh yeah, we found that about an hour ago. There are blood stains, gloves, medical supplies …”

  “Boy, are you guys way off. That’s my blood stains; I’m in a fight club. It was hidden because I did not want my wife to know. It was my thing, and, yes, I do have a lot of rage in me, but I don’t deal with it by murdering innocent people. I do it in the ring.”

  Agent Petty stood up from his chair and walked around the room. Something did not seem right to him. Did he have the wrong man, again?

  Chapter 87

  Shazhad moved slowly down the hallway as the door to the secret room opened. He was about to be face to face with the most notorious serial killer in the country. His eyes lit up as he saw the hospital room that Will had spoken about.

  His heart sank thinking about the torture and pain that Kirshner’s victims experienced in this room. The room was just as Will described – stark white with silver cabinets and instruments displayed throughout. Shazhad then saw the door in the corner of the room.

  He crept around the frame of the door and saw several large LCD televisions attached to the wall; right next to the televisions were the shelves of DVDs. Each case had large writing on the spine – names. Shazhad pulled himself back to the hospital room, and took a very deep breath.

  He flew back into the room with his gun pointed directly in front of him, and that’s when he saw the body in the cage. “Don’t you move,” Shazhad shouted.

  There was no movement. He inched closer to the cage to see if it really was Kirshner in there. Kirshner was curled in a ball in the center of the cage. “Hey,” Shazhad yelled, stepping back a few paces – still nothing. Shazhad crouched down and looked at the man’s face; it was Kirshner.

  Shazhad pushed Kirshner’s arm, but he still did not move. He saw a pool of blood in the bottom of the cage. “Maybe he bled out from the knife wound,” Shazhad thought to himself.

  If Kirshner was already dead, then the plan would not work. Shazhad stood back up and walked over to the shelves with the DVDs. He quickly counted them – sixty DVD cases, each with a different name. “That’s forty-three more than we knew about,” he mumbled to himself. He pulled one of the DVDs out and stuck it into the player; he had to make sure there was absolute proof that Kirshner was the Mangler.

  As the DVD began to play, Shazhad collapsed into the chair. He saw a young girl chained to the hospital table in the other room, screaming for help and struggling to get free. Then Kirshner entered the room, dressed in a surgeon’s outfit. Without saying a word, he pulled the instrument table close to his side. He looked up at the camera and began his “work.” Shazhad stopped the DVD. “You piece of shit,” he yelled.

  He unlocked the cage and pulled Kirshner’s body out. He kicked Kirshner as hard as he could, over and over. He held the gun to Kirshner’s throat as he checked for a pulse. He felt a very faint pulse – Kirshner was alive. This was perfect. He could position Kirshner any way he wanted to make it look like a battle between them ensued.

  Shazhad decided he would go to the other room to get a weapon to place on Kirshner. As Shazhad turned away, Kirshner lifted himself up from the ground and charged toward Shazhad.

  Chapter 88

  Amanda and Will sat in a private waiting room. The FBI was still talking with Jack and Sean. Will assured Amanda that everything was going to be okay. “I took care of it,” he whispered.

  “What are you talking about? How did you take care of it?” she angrily asked.

  Will told her how Detective Ahmed agreed to his plan, and Kirshner would be revealed as the real Miami Mangler in the next few hours. Amanda was panicked. “What if something goes wrong? He doesn’t even have any back up.” Will tried to calm her down but he was taken by Agent Petty for further questioning.

  Detective Pitman walked in with a cup of coffee. “Been trying to quit, my doc keeps telling me I have too much caffeine in my diet, but what can I say? I’m addicted,” Pitman told her, pointing to his coffee.

  “Detective, can we go somewhere to talk in private? I have something I need to tell you,” Amanda whispered to him.

  Chapter 89

  Shazhad tried to focus his eyes, but he was in a daze; he felt something cold and hard underneath him. A bright light blasted down on him as his vision returned. His hands and feet were tied down to the hospital table, and his clothes were stripped off him and tossed in the corner of the room. “Oh my God,” he mumbled.

  Kirshner appeared out of the small room, fully dres
sed in his surgeon outfit. “I’m a cop. You think you can get away with this?”

  “I saw your ID in your wallet. My question is, how come you came alone? Where is the SWAT team? The FBI? It just doesn’t make sense. So, I’m thinking you are here on your own and no one else is coming. Isn’t that right, Detective Ahmed?”

  Kirshner moved his instrument table closer to his side. “You’ll be my first Middle Easterner.” Kirshner smiled.

  “Why do you do this? Please, tell me. Why?” Shazhad begged.

  “The newspapers love to paint me as some maniac man running around the city. I‘m not a maniac; I’m not crazy, and I’m not insane. I know what I am doing. I understand the consequences of my actions. If you loved to dance, and someone asked you, why? What would you tell them? There’s no real reason for it. We all like what we like. This is what I do. This is my dancing,” Kirshner answered.

  Kirshner lifted up an electric saw and tested it in the air. Shazhad closed his eyes tightly as three loud bangs echoed in the room. Kirshner fell to the ground with the saw running in his hand. Shazhad opened his eyes to see Pitman standing in the doorway with his gun drawn.

  Pitman stood over Kirshner and fired two more shots into his chest. He placed his gun back into his holster and took a deep breath. “Let’s get you off that table,” Pitman said.

  Pitman released all the straps and handed Shazhad his clothes. “How did you know?” Shazhad asked.

  “The girl – Amanda – told me everything. Now, put your clothes on and then we’ll figure out what to do with all this.”

  Chapter 90

  Several hours later, Agent Petty stood behind a small podium on the steps of the Miami/Dade Police Department. A large crowd of local and national reporters crouched along the steps in anticipation of Petty’s press conference. Captain Alvarez, Detective Ahmed and Detective Pitman stood next to Petty.

  “Thank you all for coming on such short notice. On behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Miami Police Department, I am relieved to announce that the Miami Mangler has been apprehended. Earlier today, two detectives from the Miami/Dade Police Department captured the Mangler in his home. During the apprehension, the Mangler was shot and killed in defense. The Mangler has been identified as Professor Isaiah Kirshner. This is the very same Isaiah Kirshner who was missing and believed to be a possible victim of the Mangler. Apparently, Kirshner went into hiding when he thought we were close to catching him. Luckily, these two fine detectives stumbled onto some evidence which led to his capture.”