A Predator and a Psychopath

by Jay Kerk

  I was dozing off, on the couch watching comedy reruns, and the guy’s dead eyes flashed in my mind. I drifted off but didn’t fall asleep, in between sleep and wakefulness, I suddenly remembered where I’d encountered the stranger before. The guy who had attacked me in my home said, and in the motel, he’d pronounced the same sharp S when saying worthless shit!

  It is him!

  Who the fuck is this guy?

  I jumped to my feet and grabbed the whiteboard from the other room. I erased the upper part and wrote a few words:

  Worthless shit — assailant = Garbage man?

  CHAPTER 2:

  SERENDIPITY

  I stayed up all night replaying what happened after the SAA meeting, during the attacks and planning my next move. I tried to see the situation through impartial eyes, I wanted to know whether I was making sense or not. I didn’t have anyone else in my surroundings to help me check, no friends, and heartless family. I thought only of Kelly so I called her, but her number had been disconnected, I decided to try again later.

  I erased what was written on the whiteboard. Cynthia would be coming over for lunch soon. I decided to stake out the anonymous meetings for the next two days and at least try to take a photo of the guy on my phone. Worst case scenario, I’d volunteer to clean up and hand the keys over at the end of my session, and I would wait for him to come like last time.

  The stakeout was a failure, totally different groups were there. I had to wait for the following day. That night, I confided in Cynthia, and asked her about the possibility this was the same man. She said the probability was low, and being a control freak, she asked me a hundred questions.

  In my session the following day, I wasn’t listening and got called out as if it mattered. The group that would come after us took all my concentration. Volunteering to handover the key made another member happy, so at least the plan resulted in something good.

  The thirty minutes seemed like a day. I gave the key to someone, not my guy, and waited for all the members of the group to join. Five minutes, then ten minutes, and almost everyone had arrived except him. I waited a bit longer outside the room, then decided to leave. The place didn’t have a CCTV I could look at, and they didn’t keep a log sheet or anything of that kind, besides he wouldn’t write down his real name.

  I walked to the car, uncertain about what to do next. I noticed that all the cars in the lot were clean, or at least not very dirty, except for a sedan with dark windows. Dirt covered it completely. I thought to myself that when left for such a long time, dirt might damage the paint. Then I looked at it again, and I thought I saw a man with binoculars inside. Once I sat in the passenger’s seat, he disappeared, either he ducked down, or I’d imagined I saw him.

  I turned on the car, adjusted the way I parked for a better view of the building, and then turned it off. I looked closely, but there wasn’t anything visible inside the car. I could have imagined it. I hadn’t slept more than an hour, and I was on edge.

  I don’t know. I couldn’t be certain.

  I lit a cigarette and rolled down the window. I didn’t know what I waited for. I thought that maybe there was another entrance to the building, and I’d better go back in and check again whether or not he had come.

  I could just walk up to the fucking car, he couldn’t attack me here. I encouraged myself - assuming I hadn’t imagined all of this, and assuming someone hid in the car.

  I had covered half the distance to the sedan when I saw its lights come on, and then I heard the car’s engine start. He peeled out of the parking lot in a reckless manner, but I recorded his plate number.

  I didn’t need more evidence to know something was wrong, other people needed more evidence, but not me. Many times, intuition proved accurate about such things. I circled around the block, got a coffee to go, and returned to the parking lot. Unfortunately, the car hadn’t returned. I drove around for an hour, but kept returning to the parking lot, without any sighting.

  I called Danny to request that she find a sketch artist who could see me within the hour. I admired that she had the professionalism not to ask me why or what for. The artist came to my place, and we worked on the sketch together. After he finished, he said, “Sir, I have to warn you before others do that there is a resemblance between you and the sketch.”

  I told him I agreed and smiled.

  I called Danny again, and she agreed to put surveillance people on a large radius around where anonymous groups assembled, without limiting the search to the NA. I also asked her if she could run a check on the plate numbers through one of her old friends.

  I knew he would disappear. As the week passed, I went to three meetings, and he was nowhere to be seen. Danny reported that the license plate had been stolen. It couldn’t get any fishier than this.

  I decided to tell Luke and Cynthia everything. I prepared my whiteboard, hiding the written information with sticky white cardboard. The order in which I planned to deliver the information was the attack, the SAA weird guy questions, the sketch, and the encounter at the parking lot.

  Before I started, I decided to put emphasis on the phrase the man had used, “worthless shit,” because of how peculiar it was. If they were receptive, I’d test the possibility whether this mysterious man AKA garbage man was the criminal who infiltrated our lives, possibly through befriending Lea.

  Once Cynthia and Luke were seated, I poured them each a glass of wine. I didn’t pour one for myself.

  “I beg you to keep an open mind. This is a casual discussion, and there’s no need for anyone to get worked up,” I said.

  They agreed.

  “And please do not interrupt me. I’m only going to talk for five minutes, and then we can discuss.” As a joke, I added, “And the event will be followed by dinner.”

  As I went through the presentation, I noticed them giving each other ambiguous looks, and I knew they didn’t buy the story.

  “Honey, I’m so proud of you for doing this,” Cynthia said afterward. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen this kind of energy. You’re a natural leader and a persuasive presenter.”

  I didn’t like her comment, which was patronizing and condescending. I felt like a sick person who had received praise. There are no losers, we’re all winners. Here’s a trophy for your effort.

  She could have at least acknowledged that I had tried telling her about it all a few days earlier. She thought of her image in every situation, pragmatic to an annoying extent, I never thought of her as a genuine person.

  Luke stood up and said, “I’ll play the devil’s advocate, so bear with me. So, you’re saying that a guy who attended NA is no longer going to meetings. That is not big news. Also, someone who might be getting a blowjob in the parking lot fled the scene when you approached the car. And…”

  “What do you mean? Are we going to blame it all on my imagination? Huh?” I tried to be as calm as possible,

  “No. not at all,” he said. “I mean the devil’s advocate would look at these events as separate ones and not connected. However, the fact that your attacker and the man at the meeting used the same phrase, with the same intonation, is a strong point in your favor.”

  A brief win! I knew it would work. I enjoyed it, but it faded away quickly.

  “It’s a common phrase, but when you consider the unusual pronunciation, then it seems more likely that the two men are the same person.”

  “But,” he continued, “we can estimate that 5% of the population uses this phrase. Do you agree?” I nodded. “Combined with the sharp S, that number drops by a quarter or a half. So, we’re speaking about a small percentage, but numerically a very large number of people, even if we just count the people living in this city. Right?”

  “Yes, agreed, but not every one of this population attacked me and claimed to be an CCB agent, wired my place, and then tried to look me in the eye again. In fact, thinking about it now, the incident in the meeting might be part of the stalking. Perhaps he wasn’t even part of the meeting aft
er mine—he said alcoholics and not narcotics.” I pointed to the chart. “That’s not a coincidence. That’s targeting.”

  “I agree,” Cynthia jumped in.

  “That is good,” Luke added, “but not good enough. This could just be a sick person who’s interested in your life or wanted a story, or maybe just a nosy person. Even if we assume there’s a connection, that it’s the same person, that doesn’t mean he is the killer of Lisa and Lea, does it?”

  We fell silent for a while. They drank, and I topped them up. I brought myself a glass from the kitchen, and I heard them whispering, but I couldn’t make it out.

  “Jason,” Luke sighed, “I love hanging out with you. You’re a brilliant person.”

  Uh oh.

  “But bro, what you presented today won’t make sense outside this room. Yet. I don’t know, later on it might yield something. Although for now, it’s only speculation.”

  He looked at Cynthia as if asking her to jump in, but she didn’t, I thought she would leave all the dirty work to him.

  He continued. “Our focus right now is to getting you in better health, and searching for Mathew outside the country, and of course inside as well. Keep doing what you’re doing for your recovery, and pass your orders to Danny. She can take care of it all.”

  Cynthia was nodding more quickly now.

  “Let’s make a plan,” she said.

  “Okay,” Luke said. “First, Danny will continue working on what you asked her for, and we’ll add to that a couple of people who can surveil the meetings and centers. Second, let’s get you some security, someone who can look out for you, at least from a distance.”

  When I sat, Cynthia hugged me under the arm, and she put all her weight on me. She whispered that she was sorry, and I knew she was sorry for discouraging Luke from being enthusiastic about my theory. She asked me to cheer up, and she said she’d make it up to me. I was pissed because I didn’t have a next step. I had focused so much on the storytelling that I’d forgotten the planning part. At least I could look forward to her I’m-sorry sex, she probably had something astonishing in mind.

  It still surprised me how my days had changed from before my family died to now. Previously, I’d had two operating moods: a busy one with an ultra-productive schedule that started with the morning news, followed by breathing, stretching, and sometimes yoga. Then, to the gym or a heavy cardio sessions, followed by more breathing sessions and meditations. Then, either work or leisure, and whichever of those I chose was well-planned and executed to perfection. I’d thought this regimen brought out the best in me.

  The second mode had gone into operation when the discipline, the busy mode, broke down on its own, without a warning or a signal. Amid a yoga session or while finishing breakfast, I would get the idea to not go to work. Today I’ll retreat to my cave where I think, but there wasn’t much thinking going on. It was mostly sitting, not feeling interested in anything. Anhedonia, they called it, lack of excitability... nothing could move me.

  Now, I lived in a totally different mode. I didn’t care much about what was going on unless it involved finding Mathew. I couldn’t accept that he was gone. I had accepted most of what had happened, but I couldn’t live with myself knowing that there had been a time when I didn’t remember him or couldn’t acknowledge his presence. Correction: his disappearance.

  I choked on the thought that he wasn’t with me. Every few minutes a tide of sadness overwhelmed me. I missed him a lot, and I was helpless. It’s all my fault.

  I remembered his tiny hands. I used to put them in my mouth and say “I can eat you up!” He’d be frightened for a second and then laugh so hard... I would steal his nose, and he would say, “It’s ooookaaaaaayyyyyy. You need it because your nose is…” He would giggle.

  “It’s what? Confess,” I would say.

  “It’s… It’s ugly!” He would break into laughter, and I would tickle him, and he’d laugh harder. That laugh was the purest and most fascinating sound in life.

  A week went by, and there was no sign of our person of interest.

  I asked Danny to place ten additional people on all meetings, venues, and centers, and they were given the locations of the centers and copies of the sketch we’d made. We also agreed to make a special schedule for each team member so that they would visit the same center a few times a week and hang around during peak times.

  She asked how long this would go on, and I said one month. The decision was arbitrary, I could decide as I went along. I asked her not to tell Luke, and she said she wouldn’t inform him, but he’d know from the billing statements. I agreed to pay for the additional force with cash. Luke would see the withdrawal but wouldn’t know for what it was used.

  I didn’t have a rationale for our plan, just a hunch. Despite what I’d said to Luke and Cynthia, I didn’t think the guy came to the meeting venue to see me. It was probably a coincidence—I could tell from his reaction when he recognized me. He had another motive for being there, and I wanted to mess it up. Basically, that was the plan.

  It didn’t take long. A few days after the men were deployed, someone knocked on my door. I woke up and waited; the knocking persisted, so I went down and opened the door. It was a courier, the kind you paid to deliver things by hand.

  I received a yellow folder, the type you put a few papers inside. I thought, What a cliché. Why not text me? I opened the folder and saw a small paragraph typed on printer paper.

  I didn’t hurt your family, and I don’t know where your boy is. I told you this before.

  Leave me alone before I hurt you. I’m a private person who doesn’t want anyone interfering in their life.

  We have no business together. Pull the men off my trail before someone gets hurt.

  Note: You’re very trusting of the people around you. I wouldn’t be.

  CHAPTER 3:

  LAUGH

  The following afternoon, I went to a nearby hardware store and printed on a small metallic plate: I’ll find you, I promise. I hung it on the front door. Luke and Cynthia thought I was referring to Mathew. But I was communicating with the person who sent the folder, who for me had become the number one suspect. My theory was that if I could provoke him enough, if I could get him to attack me, this time I would subdue him. I was sure he’d seen me hanging it; he had tabs on me at all times. I also suspected that he’d bugged my place, and that was why he had sent the letter.

  I gathered the only people in my life in one room: Danny, Cynthia, and Luke. I showed them the folder and read the letter to them. I didn’t suspect any of them would have cheated me or stabbed me in the back. We had been through thick and thin, but there was no harm in seeing their reactions. Gladly, nothing stood out. I briefed Danny not to mention anything about our deployment of a total of fifteen men roaming the city. It seemed aimless, but I was following my hunch.

  I planned to call him names in front of the group and suggest the potential motives of such a person. If he fit the profile, and if he was listening, then surely, he would act.

  “I know what kind of person this is. This is a monster, some coward who works in the shadows, someone who leeches on the weak, on children.”

  They looked at each other. I spoke loudly and paced the room as if I were Sherlock Holmes, I wanted to make sure he could hear me wherever the bug was placed. “I’m not saying he’s the one who killed my family, but I’m declaring to you, and the world, that this guy is a pedophile who might have taken my boy. I have this intense feeling that Mathew is being held captive by this sick person. For me, it’s intense, for you it’s not, but we can agree that even if there’s a slim chance, we have to do what we can with full force.”

  Cynthia and Luke looked down at the floor. They weren’t entertained. They probably thought this exaggerated confidence was the first sign of a breakdown. I saw a sincere worry in their faces. However, Danny listened intently. She was remarkable—you could ask her for flying unicorns, and she would take you seriously with no judgment.

 
“This letter was written by someone very weak. Potentially a psychopath. Someone who lacks empathy, who doesn’t feel the pain and sadness of others. Look how he accused you of being unfaithful. I bet you this is someone who suffered in their childhood, abused, or maybe was locked up like an animal.”

  There was some back and forth within the group, but I achieved the intended objective. We agreed to continue with the plan, but to be vigilant.

  I asked them if I should call the police and tell them about what was going on. They looked at each other in dismay, and we ended up deciding against it. After they left, I asked Danny about it, and she said the police would say I fabricated the letter for attention or blame it on my other personality, which from their point of view was a reasonable possibility. I hated the fact that this motherfucker got to listen to this part.

  “We don’t need them. We can have our own law enforcement, or even better,” I said and winked at her, “buy your people that new equipment from your special ex-Army contacts, you know, the stuff that lets them listen through walls.”

  She seemed to understand that I thought someone might be listening. “Also, hire a few strongmen and make sure they always patrol in a pair. If they spot him, I want them to follow him to his house and capture him.”

  I took out a new phone and texted her: “The house is probably bugged.”

  She said, “Understood, sir. We’ll have fifty men working the streets, and we’ll pay them upfront for a few month?”

  “Yes. Can I recommend a reward of $250,000 for the person or persons who capture this man? Alive.”

  She said such bounty hunting would not be possible.

  I texted Cynthia to say that I needed a couple of days to myself. I also told her that she meant a great deal to me, and I couldn’t have improved without her.

  I wrote: “We should move in together. I’ll ask you properly when we meet. Kisses.”

  A final text to her.

  I was excited. This could lead me to Mathew. It truly could.