The Cleopatra Murders

by Mic Palmer

  “Ok, ok,” rasped Bundy. “But let’s not pretend. It wasn’t just me. You all wanted her gone.”

  “What did you do, strangle her?”

  “No,” he emphatically responded, as if that would have been wrong. “Rat poison; you’re the one who bought the stuff.”

  “For rats!”

  “What the hell’s the difference?”

  “What about Ringo over there. Is he different?”

  “Damn right.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Ringo would die for me!”

  “He just may.”

  “What is it you want? If you’re gonna kill me get it over with. Ya think I give a shit? I got nothing to live for.”

  “You think you’re going to make me feel sorry for you?”

  “Can people like you feel?”

  Jack had grown weary by this point. Putting the knife back into his pocket, he sat down. “You’re gonna play this game right to the end, aren’t you?”

  “Have you ever been married?”

  “You know I haven’t.”

  “Of course not. Well let me tell you something. Even when it’s not that good, it becomes a part of you – a part of your habits, your thinking, everything you know. So much so that when it ends, every decision is a chore, every movement is an ordeal, every thought is a struggle…”

  Not buying a word of it, Jack allowed him to feel momentarily secure. “Alright, alright, forget about your wife. Let’s talk about the woman from the internet.”

  “The one you killed?”

  “The one I went out with.”

  Bundy let out a snort.

  “You knew exactly where I’d be that night.”

  “So did Gomez.”

  “On top of that, you looked at my high school yearbook.”

  “High school yearbook? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “That time you were at my apartment…”

  A look of recognition came over his face. “Ok, So what?”

  “You made a nasty comment about Janet Callenback!”

  “Who?”

  Jack grabbed Bundy’s knife. “Say good bye to Ringo.”

  “Leave him alone!”

  Jack reached for the door to the back room.

  “What the hell do you want me to say!”

  “Have it your way.”

  “The animal lover!”

  Having stepped onto the porch, Jack closed the door and sized up his prey which weakly growling got up and then collapsed back onto it haunches.

  “You got two seconds,” he yelled to Bundy.

  “Fuck you!”

  After waiting a few seconds, Jack returned to the kitchen. “Ya mind if I have a glass of water?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Taking a sip, he leaned against the sink and took a look around. “Nice clock.”

  Bundy rolled his eyes.

  Does it work?”

  “Not in years.”

  “Did the man put the beer to his mouth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did the waitress do?”

  “She went back and forth.”

  Jack seemed to be imagining what this might look like. “I’m going to have a look around.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Walking down the steps to the cellar, he braced himself for some kind of dungeon, but all he saw was cheap paneling, a poorly stocked bar, and a broken exercise bike.

  “This isn’t good,” he said out loud.

  As a matter of fact the most disturbing thing he saw was what was hanging from the cloth’s line.

  “I can’t believe it,” Jack thought to himself. “He’s a brief man,” but aside from this nothing really made an impression, which likewise was the case on the floor above.

  There wasn’t a speck of blood, strand of hair, torn piece of clothing, newspaper clipping, letter, or manifesto to be found anywhere.

  What Jack really found odd though was the lack of any form of smut. There were no DVDs, no magazines, not even a deck of naked lady playing cards.

  “Was this really possible?” he wondered. Bundy was a living breathing tribute to vice, the complete absence of which made him suspicious. “Maybe upstairs,” he thought, but again he was disappointed.

  Except for a couple of piles of neatly folded clothing and a clock radio which lay on the floor next to a rather torturous looking cot, the bedroom appeared completely empty.

  Flinging the closet open, he found several worn out pairs of loafers, half a rack of white, pink, yellow, and brown pinpoint oxfords, and the same three nearly translucent green, blue, and beige polyester suits Bundy had alternated between over the last five years.

  “Fuck,” Jack shouted, tearing the clothes from the hangers, but then he saw something tucked away in back which again sparked his interest.

  Even if it only was a stack of magazines, they’d at least give him some insight into this sick bastard’s mind.

  Fully expecting to come across graphic depictions of sadomasochism, bondage, and maybe even pedophilia, what he actually found left him perplexed.

  “Gossip rags?”

  Yes, they were embarrassing, but who was he expecting to see them in his bedroom? A prostitute maybe?

  Dropping the stack on the floor next to Bundy’s cot, Jack quickly flicked through the pages, finding story after story about cheating spouses, potlatch weddings, vicious divorces, and unbelievable mansions. Actors, athletes, musicians, and tycoons were shown crashing cars, checking into rehab, and cursing out reporters, but Bundy seemed to love it. For he highlighted the sections that seemed most laudable to him.

  By way of example there was an Oscar winner who left his family for his nanny, a pop music idol who got high in front of her children, and an athlete charged with beating his wife, but what they all had in common was the fact that they apologized for what they ridiculously claimed were one time errors in judgment after which they went about their lives as if nothing much happened.

  In effect, they were giving an big “FU” to everyone who believed in them, which Bundy no doubt found hilarious, but could he really believe he operated in the same rarefied air as millionaires and celebrities?

  On the surface, perhaps, but deep down? Not a chance. Somewhere inside of him he saw himself as he really was, and that’s what caused him to lash out, the proof being that all traces of Bundy’s wife had vanished, but even if she was still alive, it wouldn’t change a thing.

  Just because you’re a serial killer doesn’t mean you have to kill everybody. At the very least she had taken off right about the time the killings had begun, and if ever there was a trigger, this was it, but what really resonated with Jack was the fact that Bundy had admitted to killing the kitten without a shred of remorse. Based on this one rather salient detail, he was certain that he was dealing with a psychopath.

  Beyond the gossip magazines, however, he would have liked some hard physical evidence. Thus, he searched the rest of the second floor, the crawl space, and even garage, but just as before couldn’t find anything even remotely out of place.

  “Son of a bitch,” he shouted.

  Enraged at the prospect of having this thing continue to hang over his head, when he knew full well that he had his man, he raced back to the kitchen and kicked Bundy onto the floor. “I’ve watched you for years and in all that time I’ve never heard you say a good thing about a woman.”

  “And what about you?” spit Bundy.

  Having located a phone book, Jack stuck it under his neck. “This isn’t about me.”

  “What are you doing?” he rasped, with his head tilting backwards.

  “Every word out of your mouth has to do with humiliation, violence, sex.”

  “That’s how men talk.”

  “Bend her over, smack her ass, let her know whose boss. You’re like a broken record.”

  “So what?”

  “And then your wife leaves, because you can’t get it up.”

  “I never said
that.”

  “Why don’t you just admit it? You’ll feel better.”

  Owing to its positioning, Bundy’s head turned as red as a beat. “I’m not going to admit it cause it’s not true.”

  “She emasculated you, humiliated you…”

  “Fuck you.”

  “So you decided to get your revenge, not just against her but all women.”

  The quest for answers somehow made Bundy feel more secure, as if he had a bargaining chip. “You’re insane.”

  Grabbing the glass he had previously used, Jack filled it with water. “Have you ever come close to drowning; let me tell you it isn’t pleasant.”

  With his head swollen with blood, Bundy’s eyes bugged out. Darting to and fro, they were frantic, desperate, bewildered.

  Using the phone book as a pivot, Jack forced his head backwards, while at the same time dumping water over his face.

  Bundy writhed as though on fire.

  “Are you ready to tell me?”

  Bundy at this point seemed truly flabbergasted. “Tell you what?”

  “That you killed those women!”

  “You’re out of your mind!”

  “What about the magazines?”

  Even after all this, Bundy seemed embarrassed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The tabloids in the back of your closet. I saw the way you marked them up.”

  “They were my wife’s.”

  “Now I know you’re lying. You bought at least three in the last week alone.”

  “Alright, alright. So what?”

  “So your obsessed with them?”

  “You’re screwy.”

  “The wealth, the power, you couldn’t get enough of it, and after a while you began thinking you were one of them.”

  “One of who?”

  “A celebrity, a star.”

  “Have you seen where I live, do you know where I work?”

  “That’s exactly the point. You couldn’t stand it; you couldn’t stand your life.”

  “Who the hell likes their life?”

  “I hope you’re thirsty.”

  Bundy looked panicked. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Why the magazines, why the highlights?”

  Jack’s hostage was quiet for a moment. “That’s all my wife read. It’s stupid, but I thought if I went through them, really studied them, I could figure out why she left.”

  Bundy’s comments had the ring of truth about them, and Jack was terrified.

  Not only did they remind him of how bad he was at drawing inferences, but of just how far he really was from proving his innocence, and yet his sense of this was all subconscious, all visceral, causing him to feel wound up, desperate, enraged.

  Instinctively, he pulled Bundy’s head back, but then he spotted a man skulking down the hallway. It was Gomez.

  Without even realizing it, Jack began to chuckle. “Could it look any worse?” he thought to himself.

  Gomez, however, wasn’t amused. With massive quantities of adrenaline already pulsing through his veins, he waived around the andiron he had taken from the fireplace. “Let him go,” he demanded.

  Jack grabbed Bundy’s hunting knife. “This is not what it looks like.”

  Switching the rod from one hand to the other, Gomez wiped the sweat from his palm onto his green flannel shirt. His pupils were dilated and his limbs shaking with nervous energy. “It’s gonna be all right. Just put down the knife; we’ll talk. I know you don’t want to do this.”

  “Do what? Do you really think I’m a goddamn serial killer?”

  “I think you need help.”

  “Look,” confided Jack, as calmly as possible. “I know how it appears, but I wasn’t going to hurt him. I just wanted him to confess.”

  “Confess?”

  “I’m being framed, and the only one who could have done it is Bundy. Trust me. I’ve looked at this thing from every possible angle.”

  “He’s a fuck’n maniac,” shouted the older fellow, still lying on the floor.

  Again shifting the andiron to his right hand Gomez slowly moved in. “Put down the knife; we’ll talk about it.”

  Jack grabbed Bundy’s hair and put the blade to his neck. “Tell him what you did.”

  Gomez stopped for a moment. “Take it easy.”

  Practically shaking at this point, Jack could barely get the words out. “He killed those women and I’m going to prove it.”

  “What if I proved to you he didn’t, would you let him go?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “On the night of those first two murders, he was with me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We were working.”

  Jack nearly dropped the knife. “There were no jobs that weekend.”

  “It was a rush,” chimed in Bundy. “Some asshole cheating on his wife on the day before the wedding.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “Would it have made a difference?”

  Jack was lost. Staring into space, he suddenly felt a cold throbbing sensation to the side his skull. “What the hell are you doing? You know I’d never hurt you.”

  “I can see that,” said Gomez, knocking the knife from his hand.

  Although dizzy, Jack managed to get to the other side of the table. “You think I’d bother to Guantanamo this prick if I really wanted to kill him.”

  “He nearly ruptured my gut,” interjected Bundy.

  Gomez had started to swing again, but before he could gain any momentum, Jack grabbed hold of his arm.

  Just then the faint sound of a siren could be heard.

  Banging off the walls of the kitchen, Jack was nearly spent. “You called the police?”

  “You bet your sick ass.”

  All at once Jack considered the prospect of being arrested, and it struck him like a box of smelling salts. Grasping hold of Gomez’s throat, he managed to not only drive him backwards, but to shove him over the table.

  “Go after him,” yelled Bundy.

  Gomez, however, had struck his head against the floor, and by the time he was able to get up, it was too late.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Having made his way back to his car, Jack felt that he had dodged a bullet. Had he been captured no jury in the world would have failed to convict him.

  In addition to all of the other evidence the police had against him, they could now add to the list the fact that he had bound and tortured a former colleague, which again forced him to consider the notion that in many ways he was acting just as the killer would.

  There was, however, one important difference. He hadn’t seriously injured anyone.

  Then again, what if Gomez hadn’t arrived? He was all wound up. Who knows what he might have done?

  “Enough!” he grumbled. There would be plenty of time to torture himself. For now he had to deal with the fact that both Bundy and Gomez were aware of his appearance.

  Espying a beauty shop on a side street just outside of the city, he purchased a set of black eyelashes and pencil thin eyebrows. Upon getting back into his car he immediately applied them to his sandy lids and naked brows, making him appear sad and effeminate.

  “What a weirdo,” he thought to himself.

  Quickly, he repositioned the eyebrows so that they pointed a bit more downwards – but the effect was even worse. Now he looked angry and effeminate.

  “Oh brother,” he grumbled, having leveled them off. Had there been a production of Cabaret in the area, he would have fit right in.

  Nevertheless, he had achieved the effect he was after. With the addition of a dark blue ski cap, he was virtually unrecognizable.

  The only problem was the laceration. Just above the left ear, it soon managed to saturate not only the bandage he had applied but the cap he was wearing. After about a half hour the blood had made its way to his neck. Dabbing it with a paper towel, he thought it best to get out of the city and find a place where he didn’t
have to pass through a lobby. So he headed out to Long Island, where after several hours of near catatonic driving, he finally settled on a place in the Rockaways.

  “This’ll have to do,” he thought to himself, exhausted to the point of numbness.

  Except for a couple of hookers smoking by the desiccated pink concrete swimming pool, the place appeared for the most part quiet.

  As for his room, it was rather small, with a lopsided bed and stained sheets. Detecting the unpleasant aroma of body odor and massage oil, he cracked the window and took off his clothes. All he could think of was taking a nice hot shower, after which he felt like a different person.

  “Damn dog,” he whispered. Checking himself out, he noted two coagulated puncture wounds on the back of his right calf and a large purple lump on the left side of his head. Fortunately, the swelling had slowed the bleeding. So he taped it down and turned on the television.

  It had been a rough day and he could use some sleep; then again he feared being alone with himself, for what he might think.

  Pulling a chair up to the TV, he scanned the channels for something light, eventually settling on a cooking program.

  The chef, a rather portly man with a face like a prizefighter, had just diced up a skirt steak and was about to toss the cubes into a hot pan of popping oil and garlic.

  The fumes entered Jack’s nostrils and burned his eyes. Watching as the heat of the pan drew blood from the meat, he felt heavy and sluggish.

  Irresistibly, he was drawn to the bed which, although hard and lumpy, felt like a little piece of heaven, and before long he was asleep.

  “No,” Jack groaned, reaching for the pulsing mound on the side of his head. Gorged like a ripe boil, it felt unstable, hot, seismic, ready to explode. While still asleep he imagined himself squeezing it between his thumb and forefinger, the result of which was absolutely volcanic. Covered in a red viscous substance, he was again transported to that night in his parent’s kitchen.

  “Ahhhh!” he jumped.

  Now awake, he scoured his mind for an explanation. Where had the blood come from? What had caused it?

  Again he considered an animal and for the first time in nearly thirty years recalled his pet parakeet Winston. In his memories it was there and then not there, without any period of transition. Was it possible that he had killed it?

  Images of Dr. Jekyll and Larry Talbot flashed through his mind. “What am I?” he deliriously mumbled.