THE BUTLER

by Bill WENHAM

  She taped it on the board with her back to all of us, then she turned and with a flourish, said, “Lady and gentlemen, and you too, Petrocelli, may I introduce you to the Butler!”

  Ellie’s little presentation had achieved the same gasps of astonishment I’d hoped to produce earlier as everyone got up to crowd around the board.

  I explained, after a minute or two, how we’d got it and how our photographer had paid with her life for helping us.

  The man listened to the police team discussing the photo and knew he now had to go through the necessary nuisance of disguising himself in future. It wasn’t a difficult thing for him to do, merely inconvenient. He could also change his voice very easily. The old woman at the apartment had thought he was Spicer returning when she’d opened the door to him. Big mistake! He’d also heard Spicer telling his group the dumb cop at the apartment hadn’t known for sure whether he had seen a male or female. Well, there was a coincidence. Winders wouldn’t know whether a male or female was killing him either, but he wouldn’t have long to wait now. The game would soon be down to the quarter finals. Oh, and by the way, Detective Spicer, don’t worry about getting the same reply tomorrow morning, Mr. Winders won’t be there!

  And another thing, detective, the photo you’ve just so proudly shown your team – isn’t the Butler. Sorry, Spicer.

  Chapter Eight

  Newt really should have seen it coming. He should have, but he didn’t. All of his senses, his instincts, should have been on high alert, especially now, but he was very tired.

  He had spent the last couple of hours, at the end of his shift, at the library, researching the damned Wars of the Roses. As far as he was concerned, it had been a total waste of time. He wished now he’d never even mentioned it.

  But at least he’d have a better answer for the boss in the morning, although his research wasn’t going to add one damned thing to the case. The one thing he didn’t enjoy and thoroughly resented, though, was being put down in front of all of the others on the team.

  Just as he was about to put his key into the lock of his apartment door, he heard a soft feminine voice behind him say, “Excuse me, sir.”

  Newt turned, with a smile, only to feel the long blade of a kitchen carving knife rip upwards into his chest, just below his sternum. His shocked eyes opened wide as they took in the features of the figure in front of him. Helplessly, he felt his knees buckle but he was dead long before his body hit the ground.

  The Butler reached down and pulled hard on the knife handle to remove it from Newt’s chest. He also tugged the front of his victim’s shirt out from his pants and wiped the knife carefully on it. Then he put it back into the bag he’d been carrying. Next he rearranged Newt’s body, as he had done with all of the others, feet together, eyes closed and with the hands across the chest. Once he was satisfied with the body’s position, he reached back into the bag and removed a bright red long stemmed silk rose. This he placed between Newt’s hands and then, after removing the surgical gloves he wore, he stood back to admire his handiwork. As he looked down at his latest victim, he said, in his own voice, “Roses are red. My Rosetta is dead, and now, my friend, so are you.”

  Deceit and diversion had once again achieved his objective for him. How stupid some men can be, he thought. Normally so careful, so aware and so prepared, and yet just the mere sound of a woman’s soft voice had caused him to drop his guard completely.

  “It was nothing personal, Mr. Winders,” the Butler said, “You were just one more step up my ladder. Oh, and by the way, the roses or the color of them has absolutely no significance whatsoever! They are merely set dressing. Sorry.”

  Without even a backward glance, the Butler picked up his bag and sauntered away.

  “God, Ellie, I am so damned scared. First Sharon, then that old lady, and now Newt and that just leaves the four of us. And the Lieutenant too, of course, but what the hell are we all going to do? We can’t eat, sleep and live here in the precinct, can we, and it looks like we’ll all die, one by one, if we don’t. Me, I’ve started to see bogeymen’s shadows around almost every corner now, Ellie.”

  Jan stopped talking for a moment to wipe the tears from her eyes.

  “If this creep can take out a big, strong and experienced cop like Newt just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers, “What the hell chance do you think you and I have. He must have even been face to face with Newt when he stabbed him. He must have been and Newt must have seen him. Why didn’t he do something? It just shows you this guy can obviously pick us off however and whenever he likes, can’t he? Oh, shit, Ellie.”

  Ellie didn’t answer her as Jan burst into tears again. But she personally thought, regardless of the obvious danger, she and Jan were extremely fortunate to have a couple of really tough guys like Wayne and Sandy partnering them. And, yes, dammit, protecting them too!

  She actually felt more concern for Petrocelli now though. She knew he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, and he’d proved that numerous times, but now he had no partner, no immediate backup. He was operating completely on his own.

  Ellie also felt, deep down, that the Butler was using some sort of a process of elimination with all of these homicides, especially with the actual cop murders, until he finally ended up with the person at the top of his list. And then, suddenly, the truth of it all hit her! Sandy! He was in charge. He was at the top of the list. What on earth was it Sandy had done, and who was it he’d done it to?

  The Butler was actually thinking along exactly the same lines as Ellie. He reasoned it would be far easier and a lot safer for him to take out the other member of the Winders-Petrocelli team before Petrocelli was assigned another partner. He would do it soon, he decided, but he needed to pick the right moment, the moment when it would hit Spicer the hardest.

  Ellie and I have been dating pretty regularly ever since I made her my temporary partner. We’ve been out for meals and to shows and she seems to enjoy my company. Recently, though, I’ve caught her giving me some rather odd, quizzical kind of looks, as though she was trying to reach a decision about me. I’ve been wondering if things weren’t progressing quite fast enough for her.

  After all it was she who’d said that the next move was up to me. By that, I’d thought she meant just dating, but now I was wondering if she was expecting more than that, but what if I was wrong? I’m basically a very shy guy around the ladies, at least on a personal level. I certainly didn’t want to screw things up between us by coming on too strong either.

  Finally, after a lot of mental dithering, I decided to ask her if she’d like to come up to the lake for the weekend.

  “Who else is coming?” she asked immediately.

  “Er, no one,” I said, flustered, “Just us, you and me.”

  And then I waited, holding my breath, waiting for the bomb to explode.

  “Uh, huh, just us, you say?”

  “Yeah, just us,” I said again, a little weakly.

  “Well, then, just let me say this to you, Lieutenant, and let me put it to you very, very clearly, so there will be absolutely no misunderstanding whatsoever later on…”

  She paused and looked at me severely, as I felt my heart drop down to my boots. This was it, dumping time.

  Then she started to grin.

  “It’s about bloody time, you silly great oaf. Of course I’d love to come. I even like fishing, if you think we’ll be able to find any time for it. I know I shouldn’t be calling my Boss a silly great oaf, but Good God, Sandy, I thought you were never going to make a move on me. I think I’m going to drag you off and have ‘Faint heart never won fair lady’ tattooed right across your forehead, just to remind you.”

  Once again, I stood there in front of her with the silliest of grins on my face. My day had just improved by at least a thousand per cent, if such a thing was possible.

  Early on Saturday morning, we set out together for the lake. In the interest of equality, I suggested Ellie should drive and I would navigate.
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  We were both looking forward to what we hoped would be an idyllic weekend in my little corner of heaven on earth. But this was the first time that I’d ever taken my own personal and private angel along with me.

  You could say our relationship blossomed dramatically during that weekend. You could also say we didn’t get around to doing a hell of lot of fishing either. It seems we were too busy doing other things. Come to think of it, I don’t recall doing any fishing at all, but Ellie didn’t seem to mind or to be too disappointed!

  I do recall sitting out there on my favorite rock, in the moonlight, gazing up at the stars and holding hands with my favorite cop.

  Before we left to go back to the City, I asked her if she’d like to move in with me. My suggestion was greeted with a long silence. Finally she said. “I have mixed feelings about that, Sandy, because if I do, it’ll be for more than one reason. The second reason is a very selfish one and it goes against everything I’ve said so far.”

  Then, without warning, she started to cry and once again, I thought I’d ruined everything so I held her tightly and stroked her hair.

  “I’m sorry, Ellie,” I said, “I shouldn’t have suggested it. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She pushed herself away from me, saying, “This isn’t about you, Sandy. This is about me.”

  She came into my arms again and said softly, “I thought I could be so tough, Boss, the macho female cop, but the truth is I can’t. I am so scared of being killed by that monster I get sick to my stomach.”

  I held her away at arms length and tipped her chin up towards me. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

  “I want to move in with you, Sandy, but I have to tell you the main reason is that I want you to protect me, to save me. I like you an awful lot but, dammit, Sandy, I don’t want to die.”

  I held her tightly again, kissed her gently and said, “Ellie, I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to protect you. Not only from this creep but from anything else life wants to throw at us. I’m not much with words, Ellie, and I never thought I’d be saying this to a woman at all, but I think I love you. I fact I know I do.”

  She turned her tear streaked face up to me and said, “And I’m sure I love you too. So if you want an absolutely terrified female cop to move in with you, then I guess I’d better volunteer before Jan does. She’s just as bloody scared as I am.”

  I laughed and so did she. A couple of seconds later she’d dried her eyes and the moment had passed, but we both realized our relationship had now reached yet another level. I also think we were both very satisfied with the outcome.

  As we drove back together on Sunday evening we both felt on top of the world. But, while we had been away, the Butler had struck once again.

  Chapter Nine

  “Sandy, lover, we have to talk,” Ellie said somberly as she walked into my office.

  Grim as the morning had been so far, I had to allow myself a little smile. It had been a long hard haul to get her from ‘Lieutenant’ to a somewhat reluctant ‘Sandy’, and now, just about overnight it seemed, I was ‘Sandy, lover’!

  I could live with it just fine, just as long as the rest of the Precinct didn’t call me that. It would tend to undermine my authority just a little. And in any case, ‘Sandy, lover’ was for Ellie only.

  I feel very fortunate to have her, if you’ll excuse the term, but you know what I mean. Unlike me, she is a tall, dark haired, blue eyed, slim and beautiful woman. The more I got to know her, the more like Michelle Fiefer I thought she looked. I can’t believe it took me so long to realize it. And of course, she is unlike me! What I meant to say whereas Ellie is dark, I am fair skinned and blonde. Dirty blonde, they call it, sort of that Nick Nolte kind of blonde. I am also fairly tall, above average I guess, at six foot two to Ellie’s five nine and I am thirty to Ellie’s twenty six. I work out regularly to keep myself in shape and I’m not unique in this either, since we all have to keep fit. The job demands it and our lives may just depend on it.

  I know what it is Ellie wants to talk to me about and what has happened has merely accelerated it.

  We lost Ray Petrocelli last night!

  While Ellie and I were busy holding hands and gazing up at the moon and stars, the Butler was also busy - murdering Petrocelli.

  A young guy out jogging in the park found him. Isn’t it always some poor bastard out jogging who trips over someone’s dead body? If I was a jogger, I think I’d do it around my own back yard where there are likely to be less bodies lying around!

  Petrocelli had been found, much the same as the others, flat on his back, eyes closed and with his hands clasping a red silk rose. Actually, his murder wasn’t the same as the others at all. There were a couple of major differences compared with all of the others. There were three, really, since Petrocelli had been both murdered and also found, out in the open. The second difference was that his body had been covered with a white sheet from a single bed.

  The final difference had been arranged by Petrocelli’s killer strictly for effect. Underneath the sheet, the shirt had been removed from the body.

  When the sheet was lifted off from the body, we could see why it had been placed there.

  Officer Ray Petrocelli’s chest, shoulders, abdomen and arms had been deliberately pierced with numerous long thin shards of glass. Post mortem, after death, thank God, the M.E. assured us.

  The dispatcher advised us the record tapes showed Petrocelli had responded to was what a 911 caller had said was a minor disturbance, but one which could easily get out of hand. Two teenaged boys were beating up on each other in the park, the woman calling in had said, and needed to be separated.

  The caller also said they looked to be about fourteen years old, they both had knives and that someone should hurry over here before the stupid kids killed each other.

  Petrocelli had hurried over there, and it was he that had been killed for his trouble!

  So our little group was now down to four. It was no good saying, in hindsight; he should have been immediately assigned another partner. It was too late now and it wasn’t the time to throw recriminations around anyway. But it was also very obvious to me what Ellie wanted to talk about.

  I asked her to sit down in my office and called Wayne and Jan in as well. Jan was in a bad shape, in tears, and was shaking like a leaf. Wayne helped her gently into a chair.

  “I can’t take any more of this, Lieutenant,” she said. “We know one of the four of us is next, don’t we, but which one? I want off the team, Boss, before it’s too late.” She snuffled into a tissue for a moment and then said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to end up like Petrocelli. Sharon and Newt were bad enough but what that guy did to Ray was sick, Boss, really goddamned sick.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I agreed with her. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I’d seen something like this before. I didn’t think it was recent and I don’t think it could have been a deliberate homicide, as this had been either. I tried to remember what it was and where it was, but my mind wasn’t performing at its best this morning.

  To break the obvious tension in the room that Jan’s comments had generated, I said to Ellie, “You wanted to talk, Ellie?”

  She frowned at me.

  “Yeah, I do, but part of it is private. Sorry, guys, but it will keep, Lieutenant.”

  I had suddenly been downgraded from ‘Sandy, lover’ back to ‘Lieutenant’. It wasn’t a good feeling.

  “How about the other part, the non private bit?” I prompted her.

  She looked around at the three of us without replying and then zeroed in on Jan.

  “I don’t think you’re going to like what I’m about to say, Jan, but it was something you said that got me thinking.”

  Jan looked back at her with tear filled, red rimmed and frightened eyes.

  “Something I said?” she said, with a tremor in her voice.

  “Yes, partly, Jan. You said, in that research you did, you found that everyone who has been kill
ed was either a cop or related to one, didn’t you?”

  Jan nodded but didn’t answer. Ellie continued.

  “I just figured if he is targeting cops, he’s doing it for a particular reason. He seems to me to be using some kind of a deliberate process of elimination as well.”

  Jan shuddered as Ellie said the word ‘elimination’.

  “Sorry, Jan, I don’t want to upset you, but I figure he’ll continue to eliminate us, one at a time, until he ends up with the person he really wants. The person at the top of his list, the person all this is about. Someone, one of us, who has done something really terrible to him, something bad enough to make him this crazy. I think he wants revenge and he wants it from the person at the top.”

  As she stopped speaking, all three of them looked at me.

  “That’s right, Sandy, he wants you! That’s why he contacted you in the first place. All these messages have been directed at you, taunting you. I’m certain of what I’m saying and I’m equally sure he’ll continue to goad you by eliminating the rest of us until he’s left with just you. Then it will be showdown time between the two of you just like a pair of cowboys in the Old West.”

  “So you’re saying the three of us will be lying in the morgue, probably mutilated, just like the others?” Jan said, bursting into tears again.

  Ellie ignored her outburst, trying to be all business. She said, turning back to me, “I can’t imagine it, Sandy, but can you think of anything, any situation, where you did something so terrible to cause this guy to do these horrible killings in revenge or retaliation?”

  I started to shake my head no, and then stopped as the image of a young girl on a morgue slab, her young body pierced with glass, just as Petrocelli’s was, pushed itself into my mind.

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “You’re completely right, Ellie. It was something I did, years ago. It wasn’t done intentionally, but that doesn’t change a damned thing, does it?”