The Confession

by Tom Lowe

  The live image cut to the reporter, a dark-haired woman holding a microphone, New Shepherd Cemetery in the background. She said, “For Al Benson, it was supposed to be a day of digging a grave for a long-time member of New Shepherd Baptist Church. He volunteers to hand-dig graves for members of the old church that’s been here since the Civil War. Benson said when he arrived earlier today, he was driving down the gravel road between the church and the cemetery when he spotted something that he thought was an odd colored limb or plant growing from what appeared to be a new grave—a grave that he had not dug. He then stopped his truck for a closer look.”

  The video cut to gravedigger, Al Benson, who said, “It like scared me half to death. When I walked closer, I could tell it was a human arm coming out of what looked to be a new grave. But I knew no one had recently been buried here since the last grave I dug was a while ago. When I determined it was the arm and hand of a person, on account of a tattoo and painted fingernails, I called the law.”

  The video cut to scenes of deputies and investigators working the area, the forensic techs in blue windbreakers with the letters CSI on the reverse side. The reporter’s voice-over said: “Police have notified the family of the victim. The body found has been identified as that of Wanda Donnelly, who had been reported missing yesterday. Donnelly was thirty-one-years old, married, and the mother of two small children.” A picture of Wanda was on the screen, smiling and standing in a pumpkin patch. The voice-over continued: “Donnelly worked for the last three years as a server at the Front Porch Café in downtown Hattiesburg. She grew up here. Graduated from Forrest Central High and attended St. Patrick’s Catholic Church.”

  Father MacGrath leaned forward in his chair. He took a long sip from his glass of wine and stared at the woman’s face on the screen, his hand slightly trembling. The reporter said, “We spoke with the lead investigator on the case, Detective Mike Bradford, and asked him if he thinks Wanda Donnelly’s murder is tied to the recent killings of the young couple, Olivia Curtis and Brian Woods, who were engaged to be married.”

  The video cut to an interview with Bradford, who said, “As for any correlation between what we found in the national forest and here, we haven’t seen any physical evidence to make a decisive connection. We’re not sure this cemetery is where the victim was killed. It may have been somewhere else, and the body brought here for burial, or at least partial burial.”

  The image cut back to a live shot of the reporter, weathered gravestone in the background. She said, “Although detectives don’t know if the person who killed Wanda Donnelly is the killer responsible for the two deaths in the national forest, one expert, criminal psychologist Doctor Elizabeth Monroe, says ‘the murderer might share a doctrine of hate with other like-minded people, he is a loner who kills because, he thinks he has a license to murder.’” The reporter added that, “If it is the same person … we fear Forrest County has a serial killer in its midst.”

  The video cut to Elizabeth standing next to her car, deputies in the background. “He thinks he’s been ordained by God to take lives of innocent people.”

  “Are you saying he thinks he hears voices?”

  “I don’t know that. But I do know he will continue his killing until he’s caught. He’s made too many amateur mistakes, and that’s going to bring this sick man to his knees.”

  “Can you tell us what you mean by mistakes?”

  “I don’t want to compromise the police investigation. There is the mental evidence, too. In my line of work, we hunt for clues not unlike the detectives, but we’re more hunters of the mind, and a sick mind can’t hide very well … at least not for long.”

  Father MacGrath stared at the screen. He whispered, “Dear God … there is another one. What do you want me to do?”

  • • •

  Brandon Donnelly stared at the television screen in his living room, watching the news, his mind numb. He could hear his children in the kitchen with their grandmother. She was making them macaroni and cheese. “Brandon, come eat,” shouted his mother-in-law.

  He flipped through the channels and stopped on an interview with a woman, the graphic in the lower section of the screen reading: Doctor Elizabeth Monroe, Ph.D. In part of her interview, she said, “In my line of work, we hunt for clues not unlike the detectives, but we’re more hunters of the mind, and a sick mind can’t hide very well … at least not for long.”

  Donnelly stood, finding a pen and a scrap of paper on a glass table with gardening magazines on top of it. He jotted down the name, Doctor Elizabeth Monroe, writing quickly in bold strokes. He folded the paper and put it in his shirt pocket. He glanced at a framed picture of Wanda and the kids he’d taken last year at the beach. They were at Biloxi Beach, the kids holding sand buckets and plastic shovels, and Wanda with a wide smile and a perfect sand dollar in one hand. He looked at the picture and said, “Baby, I don’t know why God’s allowed this to happen. But I feel, in my heart, He’ll help me to see it through to the finish.”

  He pulled a small laptop from a bookshelf, sat down and keyed in the name: Doctor Elizabeth Monroe. He scanned newspaper articles and her biography. Then he found her office number listed at the university. He made the call. A woman’s recorded voice said, “You’ve reached Doctor Elizabeth Monroe, please leave a message.’

  “Doctor Monroe, my name’s Brandon Donnelly. It was my wife, Wanda, who was killed and buried out there in that old cemetery. I really need to speak with you. My wife told me how much she thought of you, and how you always tipped more than you needed to when she was waiting on your table. She told me on the phone how you’d given her your cell phone number and told her to call … anytime.” He paused, his voice cracking. “I’m all tore up. The kids … well the concept of death, is a little beyond them … I’ll leave my number … ”

  FORTY-THREE

  The following morning, after her shower, Elizabeth got dressed for work and applied mascara and a light touch of lipstick. She opened the drawer of the nightstand beside her bed and picked up her 9mm Smith and Wesson. She looked at Jack lounging at the foot of her bed, his unblinking golden eyes the size of quarters. She smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Jack, you’re safe. But I don’t know if I am. After my Channel Seven interview, I’m not sure what spider might crawl out of his hole and where. But I do know that Molly’s killer is among the living. And one day we shall meet, too.”

  She put the gun in her purse, kissed Jack on the top of his head. “My grandfather taught me how to use a gun when I was sixteen. I wish I’d taught Molly.” She took a deep breath and said, “Let’s go big fella. I’m going to put your breakfast out for you. Are you hungry? Why do I feel like I’m asking you a rhetorical question? I know the answer. Of course, you’re hungry, but you don’t want to show me because you think that displays to me some kind of need. It may be primal, but nevertheless, a need. As in you need me to do something for you.” She smiled. “I know relationships can be complicated, but come on, Jack, show me a pulse, okay?”

  She picked up her purse, leaving the bedroom, Jack slinking to the wooden floor with a solid thump. He followed Elizabeth down the steps to the kitchen.

  • • •

  For the first time since working at the university, Elizabeth wasn’t sure whether she should park in the faculty lot. She didn’t want to be ambushed by any more news reporters on her way to the administration building. Up to this point, she said what she felt she had to say. Anything more would not serve anyone, especially the families of the victims. But she was convinced that if the killer had watched her interview on Channel Seven, he might become bolder in a detrimental way to himself. There would be more anger, letting his guard down, becoming sloppy, making mistakes that could get him caught sooner. Maybe he wouldn’t target innocent people like Wanda Donnelly.

  Maybe he’d come for me.

  Elizabeth made a dry swallow, driving through the parking lot. She couldn’t see any signs of news media lurking nearby. She parked, locked her car, leaving
her purse partially unzipped, the grip of her 9mm just inside the opening. She got out and moved quickly toward the faculty building, entering, then walking across the lobby and down a long hall that lead to the offices of the School of Criminal Justice.

  “Doctor Monroe,” said a receptionist with beehive hair, liquid green eyes and thin lips. She stood from behind her desk in the university’s criminal psychology department. She had three slips of pink paper.

  “Good morning, Claire.”

  “Good morning. I didn’t expect you today since you didn’t have a class to teach. However, now that you’re in, maybe you’ll have time to return these calls.” The receptionist handed the slips of paper to her and added, “They’re from reporters, Channel Three and Channel Seventeen. One’s from the newspaper. You’re pretty popular, Doctor Monroe.”

  Elizabeth sipped coffee from a paper cup with a hole in the plastic top. She said, “I’m not sure popularity is all it’s cracked up to be.” She smiled. “I become sought after when bad things happen, and that’s not a good thing.

  She turned and walked down the hall to her office, unlocking the door and setting the coffee cup on her desk. She looked at a small framed picture of Molly on the corner of her desk next to an African violet with deep purple blooms. “Good morning, baby,” she whispered. Elizabeth began reading a student paper when the phone inside her purse rang. She unzipped the purse, reached to the left of the gun and picked up her phone. Mike Bradford calling. “Good morning, Mike.”

  “It won’t be too good if you’re this guy’s next victim,” he said sternly.

  “Whoa … slow down—”

  “Elizabeth, I watched that interview you did with the Channel Seven reporter. What was it about her you felt you needed to spill your guts?”

  “Mike, that’s enough. I didn’t do or say anything that would compromise your investigation.”

  “No, but what you said might compromise your life. You’re baiting this guy, Elizabeth. You may be saying it in a subtle way, but it’s enough of an underlying challenge to get his goat. You are the first person to understand how sick this perp is, and I thought you’d be the last to piss off a psychopath. His whole narcissistic need is to satisfy that big, damn ego. You know that. Then, how would you protect yourself if he came after you?”

  “Not that it would ever come to that, but you know I’m licensed to carry a gun, and I have special permission to bring it on campus with me. And, just so you know, it’s not my intent to piss off a psychopath. It’s my goal and hope to further identify him and help you trap him so there will be no more victims. Anything we can get to add to his profile can only help us prevent the next possible killing. This person believes the world and its residents exist for one purpose only … and that is to satisfy his needs, his basic instinct, an overriding impulse that his desires are not to be denied.”

  Bradford sat behind glassed doors in his office. He looked across the homicide division cubicles and offices, investigators on the phones, studying computer screens, tracking down leads, following the incoming tips. He said, “Those overriding impulses might come to an abrupt halt when we pick up Boyd Baxter.”

  “Where is he?”

  “We’re about to find out. I’m taking a team to arrest him. The tire tread molds we did at the crime scene match tires on Baxter’s truck. We’ll bring him in for interrogation, see if we also can get him to admit to the killings in the forest and wrap this thing up.”

  “Mike, if it is Boyd Baxter, when you’re questioning him, please remember that a true psychopathic killer can’t be challenged in the standard ways. He won’t respond to threats of punishment for his actions. He will respond, if cornered with evidence, because he delights in the ego-filling shock and awe he creates, and he wants—if pushed, to take credit for it.”

  “I doubt if Boyd Baxter is the type to sit around watching the news coverage of his carnage, and for you, that’s probably a damn good thing. Elizabeth, I’m the first to appreciate the value you bring to the department in cases like these, not that we get a lot of them. But I don’t want to ever put you in harm’s way dealing with a vengeful psychopath. I want you safe … now, and long after all this is finished.”

  “Thank you, but I can’t get close to a snake without risking a bite. It’s a gamble that comes with my job. When I do mental competency exams, the last thing I can think about is what might happen to me if the accused is found guilty, breaks out of prison, and comes for me. Or he manages to send someone in his place.”

  “I understand. That doesn’t make it less painful for me.”

  “Or for me. You’re in the same boat. Only worse. Please be very careful when arresting Boyd Baxter. If he is the psychopath behind these murders, he might not want to be taken alive.”

  “We’ll find him. I don’t want to give Baxter the option of suicide just like Hitler did in his bunker when American troops were coming for him.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  After returning from a quick lunch with a colleague, Elizabeth spotted the tiny red light on her office phone glowing as she sat down at her desk. She didn’t have time to listen to voice messages if she was going to pick up her dry cleaning today before they closed. Having spent a large amount of time the last few weeks helping the police, she was behind in her university work and needed to catch up. Papers had to be read and graded. She got less than two paragraphs done on a student paper when, between the lines, she saw Wanda’s bluish-rose tattooed wrist. Elizabeth reread the page for the second time, her thoughts drifting from her class to the horror in the cemetery.

  “Concentrate,” she mumbled, forcing herself to focus. After ten minutes, she leaned back in the chair and thought about her conversation with Bradford. Boyd Baxter had some of the traits of the killer. There was physical evidence from the cemetery—the truck caught on camera and the matching tire tracks.

  But three sentences kept working back into her thoughts.

  She closed her eyes and could hear Wanda’s frightened voice. “I spotted a car parked about fifty yards from our farmhouse. It was just sittin’ on the shoulder of the road. When lightning flashed, I could see a man inside, and I could tell he was watchin’ my house.”

  Elizabeth glanced at her watch, picked up the student papers and locked her office door. She walked out into the hallway near the main entrance when a man approached. He seemed to step from the shadows like a hotel bellhop magically appearing.

  “Elizabeth Monroe?” he asked, face lean, unshaven, denim jacket, jeans and scuffed work boots. The whites of his hazel eyes red and bloodshot.

  “Who are you?”

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you, ma’am. I’m Brandon Donnelly, Wanda’s husband. I’d left a message for you. After a while I decided to take my chances and come to the college to speak in person with you.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am for you and your family. There are no words. I was fortunate to know Wanda. She was a remarkable woman with a beautiful heart. I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Donnelly. My office is just around the corner—we can talk in there.”

  “Ma’am, call me Brandon. I see I caught you on the way out, so I hope I’m not delaying you. What I got to say won’t take more than thirty seconds. I saw you on the TV news. Heard what you had to say about the man who killed my wife. Detective Bradford also said you were at the cemetery when they found Wanda’s body—that must have been hard for you since you did know her. Online, I looked you up and saw how you’ve helped other folks find some kind of closure when an insane person took the life of their loved one. And I found out that your own daughter was murdered. So, if anybody tells me they’re sorry for my loss, and that they know how it feels, you’d be that person.”

  “I do understand, Brandon. I know how it hurts … and I am sorry.”

  “Doctor Monroe, Wanda told me how special you always made her feel when you came into the restaurant. I don’t ask anything from anybody. But I want to make an exception with you. Will you do ever
ything in your power to help the police find this man? I got to bury my wife. I got to stand by a hole in the ground with my two little children and tell them why their mama’s body is goin’ in that hole … forever. Will you help us … find the person responsible?”

  Elizabeth looked over his shoulder to the parking lot, two male students on longboards zipping by near a sidewalk, a blonde coed on her bike, the afternoon sun reflecting from her hair, storm clouds forming in the distance. Elizabeth looked into Brandon Donnelly’s hopeful eyes and said, “Yes, I will do whatever I can. I can’t make any promises … but I will help you and your family the very best I can.”

  • • •

  From the top of a massive oak tree, Boyd Baxter could see them coming for about a mile down Old Highway 11. “Looks like a posse,” he mumbled to himself near the peak of the tree. Four men were on the ground below him, picking up limbs and feeding them into the chipper, the smell of tree sap and woodchips in the air. Baxter was the climber and the cutter. He had no fear of heights, could handle a chainsaw while standing on the fork of a limb ninety feet in the air. He liked it up in the treetops. Up with the birds and the squirrels, closer to the heavens.

  He sawed through a large limb, let it fall to the men waiting below, and shut off the chainsaw engine. He lifted the plastic safety glasses from his eyes, wiped the sawdust from his face. He stared at the procession coming down the highway. There were two unmarked sedans, two county sheriff’s cars, and what appeared, from the distance, like some kind of tactical vehicle—a Jeep on steroids, olive green, muscles molded into the armor plating.

  He moved the chainsaw from his right hand to his left, watching the convoy turn off the highway and follow a side road to the driveway of the homeowner who hired the tree trimming company. Baxter spit a sliver of wood from the tip of his tongue and whispered, “All that just for me? I’m damn honored.”

  A few seconds later, the law enforcement vehicles formed a half circle around the two pickup trucks owned by the tree trimming company. The men stopped their work, standing there, not sure what to do or say. A large, unshaven man with wide shoulders, construction hard hat on, walked from one of the trucks to greet the two sheriff’s investigators.