Murder For Hire

by Theo Baxter

  "I mean, it could be her," I said slowly, looking at those eyes, that smile.

  There was no way of knowing for sure. In this photo was a young girl, and Melissa had a few plastic surgeries under her belt. I had to take that into account. It was possible those surgeries as well as age had altered her look.

  And then it hit me, was that the real reason she'd had surgeries to begin with, to alter her look because she was a killer? I gave the photo to my lawyer so he, too, could look at it and draw his own conclusions.

  "What are you going to do now?" I asked.

  She straightened up before replying, "Well, I was hoping you would help me with that."

  "Me?" I asked, stunned. Why would she need my help? She was the detective, after all, and I was accused in a murder case.

  "Yes," she replied, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

  And although I didn't want to ask, since I was sure I wouldn't like the answer, I said, "How?"

  Mr. Branson listened with intent as well.

  "As you know, Melissa is completely uncooperative, and I was hoping you would give it a go."

  "Excuse me?"

  "You do share a specific relationship with her."

  I laughed humorlessly. "Specific relationship, you could say that. She only used me, then tried to blackmail me. Not to mention, she was the first one who pointed her finger at me and told the world how I killed my father."

  "Probably to throw suspicion off herself," Mr. Branson theorized.

  "She fucking hates me." I couldn't believe the detective even thought of suggesting something like this to me. "I'm sorry, Detective. I'm of no use to you."

  "I wouldn't be so sure, besides, isn't this worth trying?" she pleaded. "If there is the smallest chance that she could be a serial killer, then isn't it our duty to do all that is in our power to prove it?"

  It's your duty, I thought and bit my tongue not to say that out loud. I was a mere psychologist who wanted to be left alone to try rebuilding his ruined life yet again. For that to happen, though, I needed to prove my innocence.

  I looked at my lawyer who simply shrugged in return. His meaning was clear. It was up to me.

  "I don't know if I can accomplish anything," I said eventually.

  "If you cooperate, Mr. Andros, if you help me determine whether Melissa Andros is the killer I seek, then I will do everything in my power to help you clear your name."

  When you put it that way . . .

  "I'll do it. Frankly, you had me from Melissa is a killer," I joked.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  As it turned out, I was back on a mission. I was once again trying to solve the mystery called Melissa Andros, or whatever her real name was, yet this time, for a whole other reason. There was no telling if I would even be successful. Like I told the detective, Melissa hated me, and I saw no reason, no way how something like that could change.

  More to the point, I had no idea what cooperating meant to Detective Michaels. What did she want from me, anyway? Not that I was in a hurry to find out. If Melissa truly was this serial killer, I didn't want to be anywhere near her. I was slightly nervous at the prospect of helping the police in this regard, although there were benefits from it for me as well.

  If Melissa was a serial killer like I believed, then getting close to her all over again would be a terrible idea. Which was precisely why I needed to do it. I had my own sins to atone for, although it was dangerous, and on and on, my mind went in circles.

  While I understood the detective's reasoning, I told her I needed some time for myself. I had no intent to chase ghosts or vanished people when I had to prepare myself for the murder trial. At the same time, that could help me prove my innocence.

  For now, I put everything on hold and went to have a follow-up with my doctor. Not Dr. Blake, who was in charge of my mental health, but Dr. Greywood, who was in charge of my physical health. He'd taken care of me since I was a teenager. At times, I believed he knew more about my illness, my seizures, than I did.

  Dr. Greywood was an old, grumpy man in his sixties who had this peculiar habit of always eating hard candies, no matter the flavor.

  "All that sugar is going to kill you, Doc," I commented as he stuffed another piece into his mouth.

  He grumbled something unintelligible, putting his gloves on. "Sit on the table," he commanded.

  Dr. Greywood gave me a quick physical while asking all the standard questions. How was I feeling, was I sleeping regularly, have I had more seizures after being discharged from the hospital? Of course, he knew I had been arrested, yet he never mentioned that, out of respect or because it was not relevant for his job, I couldn't say.

  Afterward, we sat in his small office to have a little chat. I didn't like the look on his face while he looked over my file. And it was a big file, not that I was bragging.

  "What's up, Doc?" I asked after he sighed for the second time, which was a sign he wasn't pleased with something. "Why do you look like I'm dying?"

  The way the universe kept fucking with me, that was the next logical block on the road. I was certain he was about to tell me I had cancer.

  He looked at me utterly unimpressed. "I never understood that humor of yours, Andros," he said with a sigh.

  That was because the old man had no sense of humor, never did. I tried for years to crack a smile from him, and so far, I'd been unsuccessful. But he was one of the kindest, bravest men I had ever met in my entire life.

  He was a combat medic in his youth. Underneath that grumpy exterior was a big heart. It went without saying that he was the complete opposite of my father.

  "It's okay, Doc, I get it for the both of us," I reassured.

  In return, I received a stern expression that meant I needed to stop goofing around since he had something serious to share with me. It was a pretty demanding look, but I spent so much time with this man that I knew it by heart.

  "I found something confounding in your records."

  That made me sober up. When he was concerned, I was concerned.

  "What did you find?"

  Suddenly, that joke about me dying didn't seem so funny. Don't overreact.

  "These are your blood tests results from the day of your admission to the hospital." He showed me the results, that honestly meant nothing to me.

  "Which admission?" I needed clarification. I visited hospitals a lot.

  "When they drove you from the police station, you were in the middle of pretty severe seizures," he explained.

  "Okay, so?" I still failed to understand where this was going.

  "They did full bloodwork since they didn't have a clue what was wrong with you."

  "Isn't that standard procedure, anyway?"

  "Of course, it is. But the issue isn't what they managed to find but what they couldn't."

  "You lost me, Doc."

  "There were no epilepsy medications in your system," he said while his eyes were accusing me of being irresponsible.

  No traces of my meds? "That's not possible," I replied instantly. "I take my medications daily."

  It wasn't like it was optional for me to take them. I could die. It was rare, yet it was known to happen. For that precise reason, I had an alarm reminding me to take them regularly, so what the doctor was saying wasn't possible. I said as much.

  "I believe you, Dean. That is why this is so troubling. The tests don't lie." He remained adamant.

  "Look at this." He pointed. "They drew blood upon your admission, and two more times afterward." He spread the sheets in front of me.

  "And you can see the medications are present in your system only in the last one after they were administrated by the doctor assigned to you." In other words, once they realized what the hell was wrong with me.

  That didn't make any sense. It was true I was on my last bottle. I'd grabbed the last one from my desk a couple of days before my father was killed. That didn't mean I’d started to ration them. I planned on getting a refill as soon as possible. Through all this musing, somethi
ng else came to mind.

  "You know, Doc, come to think of it, I did experience a spike in seizures before being admitted to the hospital." I shared my concern. Could those two things be related? I couldn't see how.

  "That's odd. You should have informed me and come for a check-up. Perhaps you need a different dosage."

  "I take the same meds now, the same dosage too, and I feel fine."

  "Are you absolutely sure you took the right medications?" he asked.

  "Positive. And I still had a major seizure on the night of my father's murder and one even greater shortly after."

  He shook his head. "I would like you to come as soon as possible so I can do I a full-body exam."

  I groaned inwardly. "They already did that in the hospital."

  "They did it, but now I want to do it," he replied sternly.

  I knew better than to contradict him when he was acting like this. "Yes, Doctor." After some more talk, setting the date for my full physical, I excused myself.

  During this conversation, I got hung about something yet needed help to prove it. And I knew the right person to call. I dialed Detective Michaels.

  "Mr. Andros," she greeted.

  "Detective Michaels," I greeted. "I have a quick question for you."

  "Okay."

  "Have you, by any chance, found my epilepsy medications?"

  "Why do you ask?" she asked in return.

  "I'm following this crazy theory, so please bear with me," I said with a slight shake of the head although she couldn't see me.

  "Let me check," she replied without further discussion.

  I could hear her typing, and I hummed to myself as I waited.

  Shortly after, she continued speaking. "Yes, one bottle was taken into evidence."

  "Hmm."

  "What's on your mind?"

  That I'm probably insane and paranoid without reason. At the same time, better safe than sorry.

  "I was just at my doctor's office."

  "Are you all right?"

  Was she worried about me?

  "Yes, but he was apparently concerned because I haven't been taking my medications since before my father's murder." Anticipating her next question, I added, "But the thing is, I most definitely did take it."

  "From this bottle?"

  "Yes."

  The detective came to the same conclusion I did. "I will check with our lab, see if they can discover how something like that is possible."

  I was relieved. "Thank you."

  I decided not to share this piece of information with anyone else until I heard back from Detective Michaels. At this point, it was only a theory that something was wrong with my meds and nothing else.

  Dr. Blake noticed something was off, that I was moodier than usual, but I brushed it off to pretrial jitters. It wasn't every day that I was on trial for murdering my father.

  Luckily, I didn't have to wait long for the results, only twenty-four hours. I was about to jump out of my skin when the detective finally called me back.

  "I have the report from the lab," she said, and I could hear by the sound of her voice that it was bad news.

  "What did they find?" I asked, mentally preparing myself for the worst. Was she trying to poison me? If so, how was it possible that I was still alive? Perhaps she screwed up the dosage. As my mind spiraled, the detective started speaking.

  "I have two pieces of information for you."

  "Go on, I'm listening," I said, sitting down on my bed just in case.

  "The pills inside the bottle were normal aspirin."

  "What? That's not possible."

  Yet I knew how ridiculous that sounded because this was an official report from a crime lab.

  "Someone switched my meds." That was the only explanation.

  "It looks like it."

  "And the second?"

  "The forensic team once again found a smeared second set of fingerprints on the bottle. It looked like who handled it tried to wipe them off."

  "So, we don't know who they belong to." That wasn't good.

  "No, they were small though."

  "Like on the knife?" That gave me hope.

  "Exactly like on the knife."

  I cursed. This was getting complicated. "So, it's the same person?" I guessed.

  "It certainly looks like that."

  Son of a bitch. So, the same person who killed my father switched my meds. The aspirin that did jack shit for my illness resulted in my being at risk of seizing up every time I got upset. That was especially applicable to the night of my big fight with dear old Dad when he learned about the affair.

  But why would someone tamper with my medications in the first place? The answer was pretty obvious—so I would have a seizure, so I could be framed for my father's murder. Or kill him in a fit of rage.

  I felt sick to my stomach.

  "It had to be Melissa," I said eventually, still trying to process this information.

  I suspected something like this from the moment Dr. Greywood told me of my blood tests, and now I had proof. Melissa replaced my meds with aspirins so she could kill my father during my seizures. That was completely diabolical.

  "We need more proof than this," Detective Michaels pointed out.

  "I know." And I was determined to find it.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  "We're in agreement, then?" I asked the detective, needing to make sure.

  "Yes, I believe Melissa set you up."

  That was music to my ears. I cheered inside my head, fireworks and all. I had a true ally on my side. That was great news.

  "The way I see it, she intentionally replaced your medications hoping you would have a seizure. At the same time, she made sure your father would be riled up when you got home that day," she continued.

  "Wait, do you think it was Melissa who left the sex tapes for my father to find?"

  Up to that point, I believed my father did that on his own. He was a possessive, jealous man, after all, so it made sense that he would check up on his wife every once in a while. Besides, it didn't make sense that Melissa would do that. She had a lot to lose, the same as I did.

  "I believe so."

  "Why?" I asked, still unsure. Why would Melissa put herself in danger as well?

  "Based on everything you told me of your father, it was obvious that Melissa hoped he would become violent enough so you would intervene and kill him for her."

  I was stunned by how she’d managed to piece it all together solely based on what all of us told her.

  "Or if that plan failed," like it probably did, "she would kill him herself during your seizure, and you would take the blame," Detective Michaels concluded.

  It all fit, but I had trouble believing this actually happened in real life, to me and my father, that we let some women use us in such a bloody way to achieve her own greedy desires. It was tragic as much as it was terrifying.

  "That's quite the narrative," I said after a small pause.

  "I know," she replied, clearly realizing this was too much for me to take in. "Sadly, there's nothing concrete, no evidence to support my theory, at least nothing I could take to my bosses."

  That made me panic. We couldn't let Melissa get away with this. There had to be something we could do.

  "What do you suggest we do, Detective?"

  Detective Michaels took her time answering. I even started worrying if our line broke when she finally started speaking again. "Since Mrs. Andros made sure all the evidence points at you, our only chance is to find enough connections with the old murder cases and cause suspicion."

  Could something like that really work? This plan sounded good in theory. There was only one problem with it. If the detectives working on the cases back then weren't able to solve them, find the killer wives while the leads were still fresh, what chances did she and I have now?

  I was betting slim to none. At the same time, I was desperate enough to try anything. And I was sure Detective Michaels was properly motivated as well, for whateve
r reasons.

  "How are we to do that?" I heard myself asking. There had to be something seriously wrong with me when I was contemplating teaming up with this detective to try and bring my stepmother down.

  Would you prefer life in prison? part of me pointed out.

  Of course, I didn't want to end up in jail for something I didn't do. For that precise reason, I needed to do everything in my power to shine some light on the right killer, even if by doing so I had to step out of my comfort zone. Like, all the way out of it.

  "Well," the detective replied, snapping me from my reverie, "getting a confession out of Melissa would be the best option."

  Yeah, she'll confess when pigs fly. "And if we don't have that option?" I questioned.

  If Melissa were truly going around killing husbands for their money, then I would say there was a slim to none chance, emphasis on none, that she would admit it. The way I saw it, she was clearly on a roll, and why stop? Especially why stop now and confess anything when she had the perfect scapegoat, me?

  "Our second option is to try to find more evidence regarding these prior killings," she said to me.

  I couldn't believe I was really contemplating this or that I preferred the first option, to make Melissa confess everything.

  It finally happened, Dean. You've lost your mind. I banished that. It was true, something like that wouldn't be easy. Easy? Try impossible, I argued with myself. All the same, it was still a better option. I couldn't imagine myself reviewing old crime cases, trying to follow up some leads. I was no Sherlock Holmes, for crying out loud. What could I possibly know about gathering evidence? Only what I saw on television, which meant nothing.

  On the other hand, getting under people's skin was something I had mastered. And I just now realized that was probably why Detective Michaels asked for my help in the first place. That little minx is full of surprises.

  "How about we divide and conquer?" I suggested. "You dig into old cases, and I'll see if I can do something with Melissa."

  "You would do that?"

  "Isn't that the reason you asked me to help in the first place?" I challenged. "Because you wanted me to try and get close to her again?"