by Luis Samways
“Good-quality monitor. Nice contrast,” he finally said after another eighteen minutes of mindless spying.
“Shame about the content,” I replied.
“Isn’t it always the case? You have cable at home?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Don’t watch TV. Bad for the brain.” I laughed as I sipped on my latte.
“You must have watched a ton of TV in the past, then,” he said, smiling at me and giving me a forceful wink.
“Yeah, hence my ill-minded state,” I concurred.
We sat through two more hours of CCTV. I refused to fast-forward the tape. I didn’t want to miss anything. Most detectives would fast-forward to the time of the crime, but I liked to get the whole picture. Sure, there were people who did this for a living, the people who spent days on the CCTV after a detective gave it a first run-through, but I wasn’t into that. I might as well look at it all and not risk chasing up on leads down the line. My time is precious, after all. So many donuts and coffee, so little time for chasing leads!
After another hour, we finally hit pay dirt. I saw our victim drinking more shots. From behind him, a guy in a red hat started to whisper things into his ear. It looked as if both guys knew each other.
“We have our killer on tape, talking to the victim,” I said aloud. I liked to make my notes heard. That way there was no confusion as to who came up with the goods.
“I’ll be dammed,” Santiago gasped as he smoked on his cigarette while eyeing the monitor.
“Motherfucker was working with the killer, you can tell,” I said.
There was more silence as we watched the killer chat away with the victim. Unfortunately, the CCTV didn’t have any sound, so we couldn’t hear what was being said. But we had people in the field who knew lip reading and knew it well. Once we got the tape back to the station, maybe some secrets would come tumbling out. We only had a clear shot of both our victims’ lips. The camera pointing at him over the bar was of a lower resolution, but the unmistakable guy in the shadows behind our victim was nonetheless our killer.
“What do you think they are talking about?” Santiago asked.
“I don’t know. But it looks covert. With any luck, these two were conspiring about something. Maybe the guy got greedy or the two of them fell out. Who knows what this is about. But it’s our only lead to the killer. Maybe our victim has some dirt on the killer. Maybe it’s a damn coincidence and the two of them don’t know each other, but either way, we have something,” I said.
The conversation between the two men at the bar didn’t last long. The guy with the hat had walked away, and the victim had turned around as if he was displeased with the conversation. In all that time, neither the victim, the killer, nor the soon-to-be-dead bartender made any signs of their impending fates. It all seemed under control, as if the plan was something different. At no point in the tape did either man look in fear of his life. It was as if the only person who knew the real plan was the man in the hat. That made me feel uneasy. The son of a bitch had no fear. It looked as if the guy we were after was cold-hearted and ruthless. In the CCTV, it looked as if the victim trusted the man with the hat. He didn’t even flinch when the man came up from behind him. He didn’t look nervous, just discontented.
“What the hell was up with those two?” I asked myself.
“I don’t know, but looks like we have a ton more CCTV to get through before any questions are to be answered. Another coffee, Frank?”
“Yeah, get some pizza as well. My stomach is churning.”
I was left by myself for the time being as Santiago went off for the pizza. My mind was racing at full speed. I felt sick. I got up and stretched. All that time sitting down in the chair and staring at phantoms in the CCTV was playing havoc with my mind. I needed another pill. I needed to get on an even keel. I needed my mind at a base level I could contend with. Nothing was going to stop me from performing my duties, not even the devil himself…even if the devil was in my head, mimicking my feelings, mocking my tone, killing me silently. He wouldn’t get the last laugh. I would. I always get the last laugh.
Twenty-Seven
The Mexican had finished wrapping up the burnt corpse of Jesse Foster in plastic wrap when he decided it was time to take out the trash. He was adamant that the time had come to show himself to the public. It was the beginning of his reign of terror; he knew it was the right time. He knew that he had already waited long enough. Far too long, in his humble opinion.
“Time to show ourselves, masterpiece. Time to get the press talking. Time to show them why we are doing this…why you had to die,” he said as he patted the lifeless corpse playfully.
He started to wrap the corpse up with masking tape. He was securing the plastic wrap tightly. It was now impossible to see that a body lay in the middle of all that plastic. He knew a body was there, but an unsuspecting person might expect some carpeting, or a big role of a sheeting.
His plan was starting to come together. He knew how brilliant it was. He marvelled in anticipation of what they would say about him. What the newspapers would call him. What the general public would fear about him. It was all too much for him. He needed to calm down. The sheer thought of his long-contrived plan finally morphing into a bloody reality was his ideal present to himself. An ideal gift. A gift that was best wrapped tight.
So he continued to warp the body tightly. He needed it to be nearly rock hard. He needed it to withstand the weather. For the plan was to make a public spectacle of Jesse Foster. A spectacle that couldn’t be ruined by unforeseen issues such as snow or rain. He needed Jesse looking his best. He needed Jesse to preserve well.
After the masking tape was completely dispensed, The Mexican started to coat Jesse Foster’s burnt-out corpse in a liquid solution that hardened the mummified corpse. He was gleefully smiling as he painted on the liquid all over the corpse. By the time he was finished with his masterpiece, it resembled a timeless statue of horror. Jesse’s features were not present; only the undisputable look of terror was evident in the now half-finished masterpiece. The Mexican sighed as he took in his splendid work.
A lifeless statue of excellence stood in front of him. He hoisted it upright and marveled at its beauty. All that remained was the painting of the face. He started to animate the statue with a smile. He added some rosy cheeks and a big red round nose. It looked like a clown. He started to laugh.
“Good one, Ronald,” he said.
With that he stood up straight and dropped his paintbrush. He was nearly done. Nearly finished. All that was left was the finishing touch. He bent down and picked up a small red sombrero. He placed it on the statue’s head. He had fastened a string around the hat so it stayed on, clasping onto the dead statue’s chin.
“Perfect. Now for the unveiling,” he said as he walked over to the warehouse shutters and pulled them open. Parked outside was a white van. Its back doors were open.
“Chop chop, time is of the essence,” he said to himself as he started to load his masterpiece into the van.
Twenty-Eight
Olivia Cormack had just arrived at the late meeting that she was placed in by her boss. She wasn’t in the best of moods, considering the state of affairs that her company found itself in. It was dark days. Dark days, indeed. Her boss, Jesse Foster, was a decent man. Well, in her mind she usually thought of him as a decent man. She had always respected his opinion. No matter how lackluster his authority might have seemed on many an occasion, she knew his heart was always in the right place.
He had sent her to this meeting. It had been planned for two weeks. She’d known about it for the duration of the past week. It was long enough for her to question her boss’s decision on moving Foster Industries to Mexico. Just long enough for her to try to get into his ear, bend it a little in her favor.
It was no use, really. Jesse Foster had always been a stubborn man. Her words of wisdom were not going to change anything. After all, she had been trying to contact Jesse Foster for a few
days. He was MIA. She thought that maybe he was taking a breather. Either way, the meeting had to take place, even if the king of the hill wasn’t present.
She looked at the sea of faces that were staring at her. All of them were male faces. Faces full of male pride and general disdain for anything with breasts and a vagina in the meeting room.
“Hello, everyone,” she found herself saying, her voice sounding a little hoarse.
A murmur of silence dropped across the room. The twenty or so men sitting around the desk looked on with blank expressions painted on their tired faces. Olivia Cormack decided that maybe she should have waited for her boss. It was obvious that Mr. Foster was the person these men wanted to see. Not some rise-to the-top female. No matter how qualified she thought she was.
“Mr. Foster?” a man’s voice said from afar. She couldn’t tell who’d said her boss’s name, but she didn’t need to know. She could tell the whole table was thinking the same thing.
“Mr. Foster has been delayed. I’m so sorry to keep everyone waiting, but I’ll be tasked with briefing you on the transition of Foster Industries stock and assets. Please bear with me while I review the notes and get down to business,” she said, bending down and sifting through the notes she had on the table.
She heard a collective moan break out through the room. She knew that she was in for a long night of briefings and bureaucracy. It was a shame her boss wasn’t there to support her. God knows she needed it.
Twenty-Nine
The Mexican pulled up in his white van. He came to a crawling stop and gently placed the gear into park. He turned the ignition and breathed in a sigh of relief. He could hear the engine tick down as he waited in the van. He could hear the leather seats underneath his buttocks flex in anticipation of him getting out of the van. He could feel his heartbeat in his neck. He twitched a little as he surveyed the sight sprawled out in front of him. Dense trees dropped their leaves as they freefell all the way down to the ground. He watched the beautiful sight of fall doing its magic. He smiled as he saw a yellow leaf glide onto his hood.
A few people littered the park. It was late, borderline early morning. He knew there would be a few people walking their dogs, catching the time they had off before the hectic day began. He admired people like that. People who got up early and sorted out all of the day’s chores before it even hit twelve o’clock in the afternoon.
He stayed in the van for a while longer. He was wolfing down some chips when he saw the last dog walker escape through the trees and out of the park. Finally it was safe to do his job. He quickly threw the half-eaten bag of chips onto the dash and undid his seatbelt. He bolted out of the van and shut the driver’s door. It echoed off the early morning wind as he strolled to the back of the van. He was dressed in maintenance gear. It was as if he worked at the park as a gardener. He had planned on having some sort of reason for being there. For the average passerby, he was just the friendly illegal immigrant working the trees and plants of Boston’s recreational areas.
It made sense to him, gathering that the minorities found in parks across the country were usually either gangbanging or gardening. The thought of such a world made him smile as he undid the lock on the back of the van and opened the big windowless doors. He found ignorance to be something of an annoyance. For too long he felt people saw certain races in the country as only fit for certain jobs. It made him ever so angry. That was partly the decision for him to dress up as one of those stereotypes. He liked the idea of people passing him and thinking there goes your run-of-the-mill spic doing the chores around Boston.
Oh, how he enjoyed irony.
He immediately got down to business. He grabbed his homemade masterpiece out of the back of the white van. He didn’t even bother to hide his presence. He was blissfully unaware of his whistling. He was too engrossed in his plan to notice anything but his statue. He placed the statue on the ground, feet up. He marveled at its décor and laughed a little to himself.
“Wow, I am creative. Maybe I should have become a gardener.” He laughed again as he took out a few more props.
He placed a shopping cart down on the ground. He wheeled it back and forth a few times. He was making sure it worked correctly. There was one thing that annoyed The Mexican more than racism, and that was bent-out trolley wheels. Nothing worse than nearly careering off to the milk aisle in a supermarket and taking out all the produce. Now, that was something he had nearly done on several occasions, back in his civilian life. Back before he was enlightened.
“Works like a treat,” he said to himself.
He then lifted the statue up and placed it on the shopping cart. He marveled at it once more. He certainly was enjoying his escapade in the park. He brushed the statue off a little. He wanted to make sure it was absolutely spotless. Absolutely perfect.
He closed his fist and knocked on the statue’s chest. “Anyone in there?” he said. He started to cackle uncontrollably. “Man, I need to get a grip,” he said, wiping the tears of joy away from his face.
He’d just gone to close the van door when he spotted something.
“Shit, nearly forgot.”
He grabbed a baseball bat from the depths of the back of the van. He placed it in the cart along with the statue and closed the doors shut. He clicked his clicker and bolted all the locks to the vehicle at once.
“Time to get this party started,” he said. “Come on, Ronald.”
He carted the statue off to its destination. Destination Fun!
Thirty
Santiago and I had nearly fallen asleep when the CCTV finally gave us what we had been waiting for.
“Fuck,” Santiago said as he squinted his eyes a few times.
I nodded.
“The damn red-hatted motherfucker came back to the bar and killed both our victims. Looks like it was unprovoked.”
“But why?”
I shook my head.
“Don’t know. But I tell you what, it was pretty pointless waiting all this time for that. The video doesn’t show anything else. We know it was our guy because of the hat, but he hides his face from any visible cameras. It’s unbelievable, if you ask me,” I said.
Santiago got up from his chair and started to frantically pace the room.
“You all right, San?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s just bothering me,” he said.
“What’s bothering you?”
“This whole damn case. It just doesn’t make sense. Why kill these two men? Why kidnap the other guy? What’s the link?”
I started to tap my finger on the desk. It was a nervous tic of mine. A tic that a lot of people would pick up. It wasn’t like I hid my tic. It was damn near impossible not to hear my tapping.
“The link? I don’t know. But whatever it is, I’m sure we will crack it.”
“What makes you so sure, Frank?”
“History. We always do, my friend.”
We stopped talking as I sped through the CCTV and started to look at the crime at different speeds. It didn’t change the facts of the crime. The murders still seemed unprovoked. The killer knew one of the victims. Both victims got the same amount of violence dealt to them. Both victims were equally dead. It was a mind-boggling case. We had three men, dead, all shot, all innocent. Well, maybe two of them were innocent, but I wasn’t too sure whether the killer’s choice of victims mattered that much. He didn’t seem to follow a pattern. Not a pattern that I recognized, anyway.
“So we have one businessman dead. We have one bartender dead. We have one acquaintance of the killer dead. All three men were shot. All three men were positioned in a way that the killer wanted them to be found. The killer turns up in CCTV on both cases. Do we have a showman at work? The red hat, the spectacle of the kill. The mysterious killer in the shadows playing with us, entertaining us?” I asked aloud.
Santiago didn’t respond. He was too preoccupied with the case. He just couldn’t figure it out. Neither could I. All I had was best guesses. And my guesses weren’t at thei
r best.
“Businessmen…the bartender owned the bar. The man in the suit at the café looked as if he was important. He was kidnapped. Maybe for money? Then we have the girl at the café. The one behind the counter. I say she was not an intended victim. I say she was just unlucky. The killer’s associate turned victim was at the bar, too, drinking his sorrows away pretty hard. Maybe he, too, was in some sort of business. Maybe this is business-related,” Santiago said as he sat back down and joined me at the table.
“We have nothing on these victims. We don’t even know two of their names. None of them had ID aside from the barman. We need to wait until we get an ID on one of these men. Maybe then we can get a lead. Maybe then we will know what we are dealing with. After all, this could all be just a random spree. A killer with no path. A spree with no end in sight.”
We both sat there for the remainder of the morning. We rushed through the CCTV again. I was adamant that we would find something, but unfortunately I was mistaken. Nothing but loose ends. Nothing but disappointment.
Thirty-One
When the white van pulled away, all that was left in the park was a timeless divide of anticipation and carnage. The Mexican had driven off at a great speed. He was racing to his vantage point. It was only a minute or so drive from the park. He had rented a property overlooking the beautiful recreational hot-spot a few weeks ago. He needed the place if he was going to be able to watch his masterpiece unfold. It would be stupid of him to hang around the park when it all went down. It would be mighty silly of him to take such an unnecessary risk. A schoolboy error, if you will.
The Mexican wasn’t any schoolboy. He was all man. He was a graduate of killers. He had a degree in murder. He knew the game. He knew it well. He excelled in taking another person’s life. He had had a lot of practice, after all. For years The Mexican would strike random people. It was his bag. It was his deal. He liked the sense of urgency that came with taking someone’s life. But now he had a wider stage to play up to. A wider audience to witness his greatness. The Mexican wasn’t going to waste that opportunity. No, he was going to use it to the best of his abilities. He wasn’t going to let anything overshadow his masterpiece. It was just starting off, after all. He had plenty of time to reel his public in and make them aware of his greatness.