On the east side were a couple who also had two kids, a girl and a boy.
Dave and Linda were at the point of considering having some kids of their own, but not just yet. They were still enjoying the newness of their relationship and now, with both having weekends off, not quite ready to commit to taking on that level of responsibility.
CHAPTER TEN
- September 1992 -
There had been a new addition to Kenny’s household by the time his thirteenth birthday rolled around.
With Bob gone, Granny, who was apparently still in remission and relatively mobile for most of each day but couldn’t overdo things, had decided she needed someone who knew the business to take over the responsibility for the day to day management of the family company.
She had chosen Walter, one of the young truck drivers, to fill this new position.
The guy was only in his mid-twenties but had apparently been with them since graduation from high school and he knew the business inside out. Additionally, according to Granny, he was apparently really into computers and capable of handling all the necessary accounts receivable, payables, and other bookkeeping that was required to do the job.
At the time, Granny had offered Walter the chance to be a live-in employee, and Walter, who had no family, had accepted.
Kenny had moved back into his old bedroom which was just down the hall in the same wing as Granny’s bedroom. The nurse had a bedroom next to the old lady’s, and the cook/housekeeper and Walter were now quartered in the distant wing.
Kenny, who’d not been around strangers a lot over the past few years, initially found this expanded household a little daunting and restrictive. He thought about the fact that he was eventually going to be old enough to leave the property and wanted to do so, to enable him to fulfill his fantasies. When that time came. he would have to be able to do this with confidence. To achieve that, he concluded that he needed to work on developing an ability to manipulate new people who came into his life in a manner that would be to his advantage. That meant he had to work at improving his image in the eyes of others. Resolved to work toward that end, he began to experiment on those currently living within the household, using them as guinea pigs.
As he had no real basic social skills at the start of this experiment to target and successfully manipulate others, he figured that the whole process would have to be a matter of trial and error.
To get an idea of what worked and what didn’t, he decided to take on a single person for a trial run. He intended to concentrate his full focus on that individual over a week, trying out different approaches to see what if any worked at improving his relationship with them. He knew he would have to take great care in his varied approaches to this person and go slowly, evaluating their responses before trying something new. He would use all his senses to read and carefully weigh what reaction each of his actions or words had engendered.
He decided to begin his trials with Granny.
He began by adjusting his schedule to begin making regular visits to her room, starting with a couple a day and then working it up to six or seven a day by the end of the week. Each time he visited, he would find an opportunity to inquire as to how she was feeling and then would commiserate with her whenever she responded that she felt ill.
That seemed to work well and he moved on from there by beginning to share first some, and then all; of his meals with the old woman. Their relationship began to improve and to add icing to the cake, he also began to read to her every night before she went to sleep.
He was amazed to find that just doing these few things made a world of difference in how she was now relating to him.
That confirmed to Kenny that he was on the right track and could indeed learn how to put on a false front for others and present himself in a manner they found pleasing. This would, of course, lead to a much better chance for him to manipulate any relationship in a manner which garnered trust and would serve him admirably in the future.
With things now going very well with Granny, it was time to shift his attention to the others in the household.
He took on the nurse next.
To date the woman had appeared to Kenny as self-absorbed, stiff, and standoffish in her crisply starched uniform. She’d hardly spoken to him unless she’d had to. She kept to herself and made it quite clear to anyone inquiring that her sole concern was the care of the old woman. She had no time for other activities and that included what she termed as idle chit chat.
At first, Kenny didn’t know how he could break through that stiff exterior, but he noticed that his increased attention toward Granny had not only improved that relationship, but it had also caused just the slightest melting of the nurse’s up to now frigid persona.
Using that little chink in her armour Kenny soon picked up on the fact that the woman was starving for praise and recognition. He began to ask her questions about Granny’s condition and often expressed to her his respect for her dedication to the old woman. When that went down well, he took it a step further, telling her that she was probably the most important person in the house and that he was so thankful that someone of her ability and sense of calling had the responsibility of looking after his grandmother.
The change in the woman was almost instantaneous and it astonished Kenny. He excitedly milked it for all it was worth, and within a few weeks she had begun to warm a little and open up, beginning to treat him as a confidant regarding Granny’s condition and starting to share with him her supposed expertise in maintaining the old woman’s remission.
To Kenny, this concept was all important.
He knew full well that the longer Granny lasted the better it would be for him. Once she was gone, the freedom he was now finally enjoying would be restricted due to his age. For sure, he wanted her to last at least long enough that when she went he would be old enough to do his own thing, without further outside interference of any kind.
By the time he was ready to move on to the cook/housekeeper, Kenny was well on his way to perfecting his new assessment methods and using them to gain the good graces of others.
The housekeeper was a simple woman and in the end, all it took for Kenny to win her over was what appeared to be his supposedly sincere interest in her work and especially his complimenting of her cooking ability, something she was very proud of.
He soon had her eating out of his hand.
Kenny had saved the person he felt would probably be the most important of the householders he needed to have onside, if he was to be able to satisfy his future needs, till last.
He’d realized that he had to learn how to run the business if he intended to have the wherewithal to make it later his own. He knew that when Granny went he would be inheriting everything.
That was assuming, of course, that she lasted long enough for him to be legally old enough to assume control of the business, investments, and money without restriction. Therefore, a full understanding on his part of how to run the business would be paramount.
Walter would be the key to accomplishing that end.
It took a few days to figure out how to approach the guy. Kenny carefully studied him to isolate his strong and weak points before he began to work on him.
In the end, Kenny decided that what was most important to Walter now was his new position and that he would probably respond positively to an appreciation of his accomplishments when it came to his computer ability.
That decision made, he began to hang around the office during the day when Walter was sitting at the keyboard and solicitously ask the odd question about how to operate the computer. When that produced a positive response, he moved on to periodic enquires of how the business was run.
Walter was pleased to respond to Kenny’s attention, happy to have the kid’s companionship and to demonstrate his expertise with the computer. Soon the questions became more complicated and shortly thereafter Kenny began to help Walter with some of the business entries.
Within a month, Kenny was doing
most the entries under Walter’s mentoring.
With a better understanding of how computers worked, Kenny suggested that perhaps Walter should have a password to protect the system. He also asked if he could become a second user on the machine so he could use it for other stuff.
Walter thought the password was a good idea. He showed Kenny how to do it and then he set Kenny up as a second user and allowed Kenny to put in his own password, so that he could use the computer without somehow screwing up the business stuff.
Kenny was very pleased with this development. When he was alone, he could now look at what he wanted, with the knowledge that nobody else, including Walter, would be able to figure out what he’d been looking at.
Walter had various other responsibilities in the household. He picked up groceries, made bank deposits and did spot checks on the jobsites from time to time. When Kenny asked if he could tag along on these trips, providing of course his tutor had finished with him for the day, Walter cleared the idea with Granny. After that, the time the two spent together began to expand exponentially.
During the month of September, Kenny figured he had come a long way toward effectively manipulating everyone around him. From his perspective, it appeared that for them, he was turning into the golden child. And all it took from him was a little effort to provide each member of the household what they individually seemed to require emotionally.
For the most part, his daily routine was now his to control.
The maintenance of his new persona required a minimum of time. His evenings were his to do whatever he wanted.
There was plenty of time to make use of the computer after the work day had ended. He’d convinced Walter to have a new lock put on the office door as a security measure and only he and Walter now had keys.
Once Walter, who had a regular girlfriend, had packed it in for the day, Kenny was free to indulge himself on the computer.
Earlier in the month, he'd also come across Bob’s very substantial stash of booze in a cabinet in the garage, and begun to partake of this bonanza when he was alone in his room or safely locked in the office.
Fortified with alcohol, he became lost in his fantasy world for hours each night. On these occasions, he would inevitably enjoy what was on offer on the ‘net’s’ darkest of sites; preferably snuff films.
It had taken three months for Dave to complete and edit the two manuals to his satisfaction. The Chief and his deputies had offered up a few minor changes to be made to the contents and inserting those additions and changes had taken another week to accomplish.
Twenty copies of each document were produced and then, based on the material, Dave was assigned to set up instructional courses for all the members of Major Crime. Each of the classes had to be small, as the workload of the section was heavy and only a small number of officers could be taken out of the normal workday routine at any given time.
When September rolled around Dave had finished with the courses and had been reassigned to duties as a supervisor in the homicide section of Major Crime.
His duties consisted primarily of assigning new cases to the various detective teams and keeping tabs on their individual progress. Most were straight forward, with an obvious perpetrator and sufficient evidence, often including a confession, to secure convictions.
When that was not the case, he would involve himself more, spending time regularly with the team assigned to those investigations.
The teams were, for the most part, well-seasoned and good at their jobs. He rarely found it necessary to advise them to try a new line of enquiry but acted primarily as a sounding board, providing specific direction only when he thought it was needed.
Dave found that he missed the street work a little but was buoyed by the fact that since his involvement with the section, clearances were up and the Chief had personally congratulated him on several occasions regarding specific cases he had actively helped put to bed.
Linda was garnering a great deal of satisfaction in fulfilling the duties of her new position.
She was really into kids. She was a realist however. She knew that the chances of saving very many of the sad cases that came to her attention were very slim. Kids that had lived through the deplorable early life experiences these ones had were usually far too damaged to hope for a chance at ever participating in a normal life. While the failures saddened her, and she was never satisfied that enough was being done, she didn’t beat herself up personally because of those realities.
Their relationship was such that both felt free to bring their work home with them and each encouraged the other to share and discuss their problem cases. With weekends and evenings off together now, they often spent a good deal of their free time advising each other in relation to difficult cases occurring at work.
Murphy had, by this point completely forgiven them for the vet visit and in his altered state, seemed happiest lazing around home, rather than venturing outside and taking his chances with the ladies. He had become a lump.
Over the past few weeks, Dave and Linda had been discussing introducing a more restrictive diet for him. Had Murphy been capable of understanding what they were talking about, he’d probably have offered some negative put down of the idea, but as he didn’t, the cat found life was currently pretty good around the Richard’s household.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
- September 1994 –
The newly created guise Kenny had formulated to hide his inability to feel empathy toward others in a normal fashion was working like a charm.
He was convinced that in the eyes of the other members of the household, he now appeared to be nothing more than a typical, well-adjusted and caring fifteen-year-old.
His daily regimen had changed considerably as part of this façade and the new routine had become second nature to him.
He shared all his meals with Granny each day.
Monday to Friday he took has classes until noon. After lunch, he went directly to the office where he and Walter would make the required business entries. Walter let him do most of them now and rarely needed to correct anything or offer advice anymore.
Pretty well each weekday, Kenny would accompany Walter out to run whatever errands needed doing and to check on a jobsite or two.
During these site checks, Kenny would often watch the big commercial chippers chewing up the large tree branches being fed into them, while Walter was talking to the crew chief. He was amazed at how fast and efficient they were. Within seconds of being fed into the machines, the shredded remains of a thick branch would came blowing out of the exhaust hose in thousands of small chips and settle into the back of the attached truck.
Kenny being Kenny, it was not surprising that on these occasions it hadn’t taken him long to slip into his fantasy world as he watched the machines work.
He was soon imagining what it would be like to feed a body into one of them.
He loved the roaring and rending sound of a chipper as it worked and imagined what those whirling blades would do to human flesh.
He reckoned that you’d have to cut the body up into several pieces first, but that wouldn’t be a problem. After awhile he got a full-blown erection just thinking about what a segmented body would look like coming out the other end.
There would be nothing left but a bloody pulp, maybe a few bone chips and teeth.
It would be awesome to watch.
Later in the week, Kenny was with Walter on a site check - in response to the crew-chief complaining about a chipper that had broken down. To deal with the problem, he and Walter had picked up a backup chipper from the yard on the property and towed it out to the site.
They hauled it there behind the truck that Bob had bought himself earlier. The one in which the rotten bastard had eventually died.
Kenny had fond feelings about that truck. He loved riding in it.
After they had delivered the replacement machine, Walter hooked up the non-performing chipper and they then brought it back to the storage yard. He and Wal
ter pressure-washed the old machine before seeing if they could figure out what was wrong with it.
In the end, Walter concluded that it was simply worn out, and needed to be replaced.
When they got up to the house he and Walter told Granny what had happened and she authorized the purchase of a new chipper. During the discussion between the three of them, Kenny suggested that the new one should be one that could handle larger capacity chunks of wood, as the old one had often taken too much time to shred the volume of material fed into it.
Walter had agreed with the boy and had then asked him if he wanted to come along when he went to select the new one. Kenny readily agreed to that idea. The two of them wandered into the office as they discussed it and once inside, Walter set Kenny to the task of surfing the web for prospective chipper dealers.
When he went to bed that night Kenny was pleased with himself. Life was getting better for him. His routine was set and working out well for him. He really did feel that he was at least beginning to pretty much run his own show.
These days, he and Walter would be back at the house from their running around by five and Kenny would then join the old lady for dinner. Once that ordeal was over with, weather permitting, he would head out to check his snares and work with the excavator for a few hours before coming back inside and reading to Granny before she went to sleep.
Then it was into the office for Kenny and an enjoyable session on the internet before he went to bed.
On the weekends Kenny would spend most of each day working outside and then, after reading to the old lady, he’d eagerly lock himself in the office for several hours of undisturbed pleasure at the keyboard. He was getting very accomplished with the computer and was amazed at what stuff he could find on it.
For his birthday that year, among other presents, he’d received an eight-week old German Shepherd puppy from Walter. Granny had given her support for the gift, believing that all boys should have a dog as a companion while they grew up. She thought it would be a good company for him when he was out in the bush and that caring for the animal would give him a new sense of responsibility.
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