The Suicide Killer

by Zach Lamb

  Morgan stared at the wall when she spoke, like she didn’t know or care who she was talking to in the room. Greg turned his head and looked at her sideways.

  “It’d piss me off too if you tried to kill me.”

  She looked at him through squinted eyes, and he threw his hands up in surrender and moved out of her way.

  “How did you know you were talking to the real killer and not somebody looking to make a name for themselves?”

  “I didn’t.”

  An over-exaggerated sigh escaped his lips.

  “Then why did you write an article telling people to lock their doors because The Suicide Killer is watching them? It could have been anybody. Even somebody you know.”

  Morgan’s head jerked toward him. He had her full attention now.

  “If I had to write it, I wanted people to be safe. He said he only went in houses with the doors left unlocked. I didn’t want anybody else to get hurt.”

  Greg felt like the air had been kicked from his lungs. The killer told him on the phone if the doors had been locked he would have gone somewhere else, but he couldn’t share that information with anybody. The man who told Morgan that he would kill her mother if she didn’t run the story was actually the killer. Greg sat down in a soft armchair and pulled out his notebook.

  “Okay. I need you to tell me everything you remember about that night.”

  “Oh, now you believe it was him?”

  “I have to be thorough, just in case.”

  Greg paused. He had to be careful. Morgan was in a state of shock and not herself, but she was smart. He couldn’t underestimate her current ability to see through his bullshit. One wrong word and she’d turn it around on him.

  “How did you find him?”

  “I didn’t track him down for an interview. That’s your job. He broke into my house in the middle of the night and woke me up.”

  She was getting aggravated with him. That was not his intention. Some of it came from their history together and the rest was because it’s awkward interviewing somebody you know. He knew all of her pressure points and what would set her off, but he also needed some answers so he could catch the guy. It caused a bigger problem when the interviewer didn’t want to upset the interviewee. Greg had seen too many of Morgan’s tears from her sister’s death, through the investigation and then not being able to solve the case.

  “Okay, okay. Don’t get upset. Did he do or say anything that might make you think that you knew who he was?”

  “I’m not getting upset. A serial killer broke into my house and threatened to kill who’s left of my family and me if I didn’t write something to inflate his ego and make the city afraid of him, because the cops weren’t doing a good enough job of keeping the citizens informed. I haven’t slept since he left. Every time I close my eyes, I hear noises around the house, and I think it’s him again. And no, he didn’t act or say anything familiar to me.”

  “I’m sorry, Morgan. I’m doing my best to catch him. Did you leave your door unlocked that night?”

  “No. He cut the screen on one of my back windows and broke the glass.”

  Greg walked through the kitchen and into the room the killer crawled through. Morgan used the room as an office. Pictures of her with various local celebrities lined one wall. He looked closely at a picture of her and Heath Clement, a homegrown kid from Crystal Valley who was out in Colorado playing Major League Baseball. Morgan looked younger, and Heath was wearing his college uniform. Morgan was more casual in this picture than the others. They looked like they were dating. Greg wondered if he left her behind when he made it to the majors or if she wanted to stay close to home. Greg’s phone rang.

  “This is Burns.”

  “Have you talked to her yet?”

  It was Don calling to check on him. The only caller that could have been worse at this point was the killer.

  “Yeah, Don. I’m with her now.”

  A diploma hung on the wall behind her desk beside a large bay window. The desk had normal paperwork scattered across it. The only picture on her desk was of her and her sister taken when they graduated from college. Both girls wore their cap and gowns and smiled like they were ready to take on the whole world. The sisters in the picture did not know two years later one would be dead and the other one destroyed by it.

  “Did you tell her about the shit storm she has created?”

  “Yeah, she knows. She hasn’t been to work because she’s scared to death of this guy.”

  There was a blank spot in the middle of the desk where her computer usually sat. He turned to the window, and the drapes were pulled tight, not letting any light or prying eyes into the room. The window had a cardboard vodka box taped across the broken area.

  “Then why in the hell did she interview him? Why didn’t she call us?”

  Greg looked through the doorway to make sure Morgan had not walked up on his conversation.

  “She didn’t have a choice, Don. He broke into her house in the middle of the night and forced her to do it. Threatened to kill her family if she didn’t. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of her family history to explain why she would believe him, do I?”

  An irritated breath blew directly into the speaker. Don did it on purpose. It was his way of letting Greg know he wasn’t happy, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it anymore.

  “No, I know. Can she at least give you anything we can use to catch him?”

  “Not yet. But I’m not finished talking to her.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted,” Don said, and hung up the phone.

  Greg shook his head and walked back into the kitchen. Morgan’s computer sat on the table positioned so her back would be to the wall. She could see the entrance to her office and have a good view of the front door. He didn’t blame her for setting up shop in here. There’s no way he would have sat with his back to that window, waiting for somebody to reach in and grab him when he wasn’t expecting it either. She would never use her office desk again. He walked back into the living room, and Morgan sat in the same spot he left her. She didn’t stir when he walked into the room.

  “Is there—?” Greg started, but the doorbell cut him off. “Are you expecting anybody?”

  “It’s either somebody to fix the window, or he’s being polite and ringing the bell before he kills me. He said if I did a good job with the article, he’d send somebody to fix the window. If I did a bad job, he would fix me.”

  Greg drew his gun and walked to the front door. Through the peephole he saw a man wearing a Valley Glass uniform. He cracked the door but kept his gun at his side.

  “Good afternoon. I’m Roy with Valley Glass. We got a call about a broken window.”

  Greg leaned back inside.

  “Looks like he liked your article. It’s the glass guy. Do you want me to let him in?”

  “Might as well,” she said.

  He moved out of the way and showed Roy to the office with the broken window.

  “Hey, Roy. My name is Greg Burns. I’m a detective with the Crystal Valley Police Department,” he said, showing him his badge.

  “Oh. It was a break-in.”

  “Yeah, something like that. But let me ask you, did you talk to the person who ordered the repair?”

  Roy paused. People didn’t like being questioned by the police, even if they didn’t have anything to do with the situation. Greg always attributed it to an innate issue with authority. But it might be self-preservation. There had been enough shows with dirty cops to scare anybody into thinking they were being hemmed up for something they didn’t know anything about. The actual dirty cops in the news didn’t do anything to help matters either.

  “No, sir. They do all of that in the office. They give me the work order, and then I do the job and return it to them. I only deal with the customers at the residence or their business, whichever the case may be.”

  “Do you mind if I look at that work order?”

  “Not at all. Somebody has to sign
it when I’m finished anyway,” Roy said, handing over the clipboard.

  Roy started removing the packing tape from the vodka box while Greg looked over the carbon copy. An S. Killer placed the order yesterday afternoon and paid in cash this morning. Mr. Killer left the money in an envelope in the mailbox, paid in full. Great, that meant there would be nobody to question at the office. But they did have a phone number to call when the job was complete. Greg wrote the number down, hoping it wasn’t fake. He also hoped it wasn’t the number of another victim.

  “I guess the window is one less thing you have to worry about,” Greg said, returning to the living room.

  “Yeah, unless he wants another article from me. What’s he going to do next time?”

  “I don’t know,” was all Greg could say. He sat watching her. She wasn’t going to be okay until he caught the guy. And the sooner the better, for her sake and for the city. Crystal Valley’s two hundred thousand residents woke up to find out they weren’t as safe as they thought. It was one thing to know that faceless crime happened and they should be vigilant, but it was a whole different feeling when crime formally introduced itself. The gravity of the situation weighed on him. He typically dealt with the aftermath of a killer’s work, not the present fear they instilled. He almost forgot he was there to question her and not stand guard in case he came back.

  “Is there anything you can tell me about the man who broke in here? Anything could help me to catch him, like what he looked like or if he had any visible scars or tattoos.”

  Morgan readjusted herself on the couch.

  “Not really. He wore all black with long sleeves and had a black ski mask on. The only thing I could tell was that he was white and had dark eyes. They looked black but were probably brown. That’s all I could tell.”

  Morgan’s description wouldn’t help much. But it was a good sign for her that the killer didn’t want to hurt her. If he planned to kill her, he wouldn’t have bothered covering anything. Still, he needed to have surveillance around the clock set up for her.

  “What about the way he walked? Did he have a limp or anything like that?”

  “No. He moved and spoke like a normal person. No limp or lisp or anything. He was normal, besides the psycho killer part.”

  “Naturally.”

  The phone number was burning a hole in Greg’s pocket. He wanted to get outside so he could call it. Maybe the killer would answer. Sitting back and waiting for the killer to contact him was tiresome. The number was more information that he knew he should tell everybody. They could find out whose number it was, but that was a crapshoot. The system would only give them a name and address if the phone was connected to a utility bill and the phone company would more than likely want a warrant for the information, and that could take a few days. Greg didn’t have a few days. With this stunt, the killer was escalating. If Greg didn’t find him now, it would be too late for another young woman.

  It was probably a burner phone if the number was even real in the first place. Unless the killer already found his next victim. Greg could call the number, and if it was bogus or somebody else picked up the phone, he could send it in for evidence and let them track down the dead end. But if it was his number, maybe Greg could throw him off because he called him and catch him off guard. Greg could have an arrest by the end of the day, and his family could come home, and the rule of three would be off his back, and he could move on. Maybe solve a cold case or two.

  “I guess I’ll be going now if you think you’ll be okay with ole Roy in the house with you. If not, I can hang around until he’s finished.”

  “No, I’ll be fine, but thank you anyway.”

  “Okay. I’m going to call and have a car outside your house until we catch this guy. If you think of anything out of the blue, give me a call whenever. I haven’t been sleeping much either. You still have my number, right?”

  Morgan seemed to relax enough to breathe. Hopefully having a cop car outside the house would allow her to get a little sleep.

  “Thank you. And yes, I have your number.”

  Greg opened the door and started to walk out.

  “Greg, there was one thing that just came to me that was kind of strange.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “At one point he started sneezing. He sneezed like five or six times in a row. It probably won’t help, but I thought it was weird at the time.”

  “Yeah, that’s a weird one. I’ll be on the look-out for a serial sneezer as well,” he said with a laugh that said he knew it was an inappropriate joke at the time, but he couldn’t help himself and walked out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Greg sat in Morgan’s driveway with his phone in his hand. He wanted to see the situation as a moment of crisis, and he couldn’t figure out what to do, but he had already made up his mind, he just needed to force himself to dial the number. He put the car in reverse and left Morgan behind with Roy. He would call her later tonight and make sure she was doing okay and not still sitting on the couch, jumping at every sound she heard.

  A car behind him at the stop sign honked its horn. He waved his hand out the window and drove off. Huge moths bounced off the walls of his stomach and threatened to flutter up his esophagus in search of light. It had been a long time since he’d been this rattled about making a phone call. It was like the first time he called a girl in middle school, praying that her dad wouldn’t pick up. He dialed the number and hit the call button before he had time to back out. It wasn’t a little girl’s father who answered the phone on the second ring.

  “Hello, Detective. I must say I am surprised to hear from you. It usually doesn’t work this way.”

  “I got your number from a mutual friend.”

  “Ah. I see the repairman got to Ms. Cramer’s house. I was going to use a fake number, but decided that I wanted to know when the repairs were complete.”

  Greg second-guessed himself about leaving Morgan alone. He should have waited for a patrol car to get to her house before he left, but he was in too big a hurry to leave that he hadn’t even called in for the car yet. She was with a stranger who, for all Greg knew, could be working with the killer. He turned into a subdivision, preparing to turn around.

  “Detective, are you there? I sense you are thinking about Morgan’s wellbeing. I can assure you that I have no ill intentions toward her. She is perfectly safe. I think she and I had a real connection the other night.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t believe a murderer who broke into her house, held her hostage, and then beat her before he left.”

  Greg turned back onto the main road and headed back to Morgan’s house.

  “Now that is an entirely false accusation.”

  Greg could hear the anger in his voice. Somehow, he convinced himself he did nothing wrong.

  “You broke her window and climbed in and would not let her leave until you were finished with her. Her face is swollen and black and blue. Sounds dead on to me.”

  “Okay, yes, I did technically break in. But I am having the window replaced. She wasn’t a hostage. She could have left or refused, but if she had, then her family would have paid the price. She wasn’t a hostage, but she would have had to deal with the consequences of her actions. That is everyday life. And as far as beating her, I did no such thing. She attacked me with a knife, and I defended myself. I never went there with the intention of hurting her.”

  Greg turned back onto Morgan’s street and rolled to a stop in front of her neighbor’s house. Roy was still working. Everything looked the same as he left it moments ago, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling the rest of the killer’s plan was about to drop.

  “That’s a pretty twisted way of looking at things,” Greg said.

  “Twisted in all the right ways, Detective. I’m quite found of her now. So you haven’t told me. How did you like the article about me? I thought she did a lovely job. I have been all over town today, and people are talking about The Suicide Killer everywhere.”


  “She definitely nailed you as the sick, insane bastard you are.”

  Greg was trying to get him to lose his temper again.

  “I’m not that bad. I have friends who believe I’m sane. Even you like me to a certain extent. There are always going to be people who don’t understand, no matter what you’re doing. The main reason I wanted the piece written is because the cops have failed to warn the public about me. And by cops, namely, I mean you. They didn’t even know that I existed, and that hurts. But now they all know who I am. Some will be frightened, but others will be asking for my help to alleviate their pain.”

  “Leaving the door unlocked is not an invitation to come in.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  Roy walked out of Morgan’s house and loaded his tools into the back of his truck. Morgan appeared in the doorway and signed the work order on his clipboard. With a tip of his hat, Roy got in his truck and drove away. She watched as his truck passed Greg’s car. At some point, she had changed clothes since he left. She waved to Greg and closed the door. A few moments later, she opened her blinds. Greg assumed she was trying to act a little normal again or wanted to see anything coming after her. He put his car in gear and drove off. He would still be checking in on her later. The banter with the killer was going nowhere, but he didn’t believe he was anywhere near Morgan. Greg probably caught him on a smoke break or something.

  “Sounds like you’re driving again. Did the repairman finish up? Oh, hold on, Detective. I have a beep,” he said, and clicked to the other call.

  Greg was getting irritated. The killer was playing games with him, and he didn’t have the time for it anymore. He needed to find the guy instead of having a phone conversation with him like they were friends. If he wasn’t afraid it would set him off and make him hurt somebody, Greg would hang up the phone and worry with another way to catch him.

  “Are you there? Sorry about that. It was Roy from Crystal Valley Glass. He wanted to let me know that he completed the job. Very nice guy. If their work is anything like their customer service, I highly recommended them, Detective.”