Killer Curriculum

by Douglas Alexander

  Sarah’s face did not seem to be pleased yet. “Ok…?”

  “Do you remember the Puppet Master Murders in Utah a few years ago?”

  “Of course, it was all over the news. And didn’t that FBI super profiler woman write a book about it?”

  Ski began laughing and almost spit out a sip of coffee. “Yeah, it was called King’s Stage, a piece of shit if you ask me.”

  “So you think this could be the same killer?”

  Kara spoke up again. “That’s the thing, it couldn’t be. Samuel King, the serial killer responsible, is dead.”

  “Are we sure he’s dead?” Sarah felt like this could be a quick solution.

  “I shot him myself.” August was back walking around, the tap of the cane forming a cadence as he paced back and forth. “It was my case. That ‘Super Profiler Woman’ as you called her, was my partner, Rebecca Vance.” He continued pacing the room.

  Meanwhile, Max brought up a picture and case file of Samuel King, the Puppet Master Killer. Sarah studied the face of what was considered one of the worst killers of the century. He seemed skinny, and mild-mannered, no one that she would expect trouble from if they passed on the street. He had a cold stare, but mug shots were not known for making people look endearing.

  “Kara, give Detective Rime the rundown on Samuel King.”

  Popping out of her chair, Kara cleared her throat. “Samuel King, known mostly as the Puppet Master, was a serial killer who claimed twelve victims in Utah over the course of two years, beginning in 2011.” She pointed to the screen. “King chose completely unconnected victims, no gender or racial preferences. He would hunt them for weeks and then finding the perfect opportunity, abduct them. All of the victims were found in pieces, dangling like a marionette. Hence the nickname given by the media. Booker and his partner, Rebecca Vance tracked him down outside of… where was it, Booker?”

  “Cedar City. Nice little town.”

  “Yes. Anyway, they caught him trying to abduct a young woman. He resisted and charged Ms. Vance with a hatchet. Booker shot and killed him.” Kara turned to Detective Rime. “So it couldn’t be him.”

  “There’s something else that bothers me about this…” Booker began but was interrupted by the old man in the room.

  “The fingerprints, August?” Ski asked with the confidence of someone who was pretty sure he knew the answer. Booker nodded.

  “What’s wrong with the prints?” Sarah chimed in, trying to keep up with the conversation.

  “Well,” Ski poured another cup of black coffee from his thermos. “There is only one set of prints.” He took a sip. “King used to tie together the limbs of numerous people, usually two or three individuals. But by the prints and looks of the pictures, this is all the same victim.”

  Crossing her arms almost subconsciously, Sarah questioned, “Numerous people?”

  The professor limped over to the desk and leaned on it. “Sam King took as much pride in multiple kills as he did in how he displayed them.” He looked at the pictures in the file again. “This feels wrong.” Then glancing at his students. “Keep this to yourselves. I know you all can be professional, but I don’t want people thinking we have a copycat serial killer on our hands.”

  “Isn’t that exactly what this is?” Sarah took her file back and held it to her chest. “Someone trying to be this so-called ‘Puppet Master Killer’?”

  August stared through the pictures on the screen, looking off at something no one else could see. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The clues always surround the victim. Let’s take a closer look at Mr. Henry Glazer, starting with those closest to him.”

  Chapter 5- The Widow

  The Stockade Park was a cemetery. Monuments to what was once affordable housing for new and lower income families. Sarah’s motorcycle pulled down the gravel road, followed closely by a green SUV with the professor in it.

  The Glazer home was a single-wide mobile home that seemed to be stuck in the eighties, coincidently the same time the light blue stripes down the sides of the trailer began to fade under the sun’s merciless gaze. Sarah knocked on the screen door that rattled as if it had been molded from empty soda cans. The detective stood on the porch with August Booker, waiting for Mrs. Glazer to answer. After a few moments and two more clattering bangs, a thin woman with store-bought blonde hair answered the door. She wore a t-shirt which had stretched so much over time that the collar drooped lazily exposing one of her shoulders. Huh, eighties style for an eighties house, Sarah thought to herself.

  Aimee Glazer had grown accustomed to her husband being gone for days on end. Often he was taking part in some small racket that he had gotten wind of at the local tavern a few blocks from the mobile home park. So she hadn’t thought it odd when he didn’t show up for a few days. Now she opened the door to see a lady cop in a leather jacket and a man in a spotless three-piece suit standing on her front porch.

  “Mrs. Glazer?” Sarah began.

  “Yes.” Aimee’s eyes were questioning. August studied her. She had opened the door slightly but was still guarding it. While she spoke confidently, August could read her body language: anxious and distrustful.

  “We are here about your husband, Henry.” Sarah was trying to be as empathetic as she could. Yes, Henry was a criminal, but this woman is about to learn that her husband is dead.

  Mrs. Glazer didn’t seem concerned. “What did that stupid piece of shit do now? You know what? I don’t want to know. And I’m not bailing him out this time.” Her anxious demeanor quickly turned to annoyance.

  In contrast, August stood silent, observing not only the reaction of the wife but also of the detective.

  “Oh no Mrs. Glazer, he didn’t do anything.” Sarah tried to soften her stance, but it wasn’t something that came naturally. Instead, her words came out in a very matter-of-a-fact tone, as if she was reading a news report. “Mrs. Glazer, we found your husband’s body last night. I’m sorry to inform you.”

  The usually rigid detective was being as comforting as she knew how. Booker noticed the slight hint of relaxation to her posture as she reached out to hold open the door when Aimee Glazer collapsed into tears and sobs.

  Five minutes later, August and Sarah were standing in the living room of the Glazer house. Superior observation skills are handy in crime solving, but sometimes August wished he could shut them off for a moment. Like this moment exactly…sitting in what appeared to be an inflatable chair with the Grossman’s Beer logo plastered on all visual surfaces. In addition to the tacky décor, there was a pungent odor that August couldn’t quite place.

  The coffee table was at the center of the room, if you could call a wooden door laying across two milk crates a coffee table. And it got worse from there.

  The professor took a wild guess that if the carpet had been cleaned in the last ten years, it would have been a mint green color. It was apparent to August that Henry had not been killed for his money. Sarah’s voice was distant to him right now, still offering words of condolence, trying to calm the grieving widow.

  Emotions can be faked, August thought. He preferred dealing with the facts. There were a number of pictures randomly hung upon the walls. Henry and Aimee drinking beer at a baseball game, the two of them drinking beer at a tractor pull, the two of them drinking beer at a county fair, there was a standard group around them—always seeming to have a good time.

  Cat piss! The thought injected itself to the forefront of his mind. That’s what that smell is.

  Sarah had finally calmed Aimee down enough that the widow agreed to try to answer some questions. She noticed Booker had been rather quiet, but he suddenly popped up out of the chair he was sitting in and began moving around the room.

  Sarah looked back at the widow. “Mrs. Glazer do you know anyone who would want to hurt your husband?” It was, of course, the obvious question to start with. The detective had pulled a small notebook out of her jacket and seemed to be ready to record answers.

  “Henry didn’t have any e
nemies.” Aimee managed out of a few sniffles and blowing her nose. “He just went to work and came home, except sometimes, he’d go down to Shark’s Cove.”

  “Shark’s Cove?” Sarah questioned.

  “It’s a small bar aways up the street.” Still sniffling Aimee continued, “Henry used to stop there sometimes after work, on his way home.”

  “Where was that? His work I mean?”

  “The Lucky Roll. He just started there when it opened a few months ago.” Each of Aimee’s words was coming out clearer than the last, as her tears began to dry up.

  “The casino?” August piped in from a bookshelf behind where Sarah was standing. Both women looked over at the man they had almost forgotten was in the room.

  “Well,” Aimee seemed to be carefully choosing the right words now. “They say it’s not a casino because there really aren’t too many gaming tables, just blackjack and a few poker tables. It’s mostly slot machines. My husband calls it a Game Center.”

  “And how was the new job going?” Sarah jumped back in.

  The widow pulled a soft pack of cigarettes out from under some magazines on the coffee table. Digging her finger into the hole at the top, she retrieved one and quickly lit it and took a long drag. “I’ll tell you, it was nice to have steady money coming in. I work at the Metro Gas Station on the corner, but I don’t get great hours, and the pay is lousy.”

  “How often did your husband strike you, Mrs. Glazer?” August interjected. Both women seemed shocked, either by the question or the lack of tact with which he asked it. August, quite frankly, didn’t care.

  “What my associate means,” Sarah stammered, trying to recover from the two-ton elephant that had just plundered into the room, “is that your husband had a history…”

  “I mean precisely what I say, Ms. Rime. Now, Mrs. Glazer, just how often did Henry hit you?” August had no intentions of sugar coating anything. Sarah gave up and just waited for the answer.

  Aimee took another drag off her cigarette and then exhaled through her nostrils. “Well, Henry and I had our problems in the past, but that was history. I’m sure your files say we haven’t had cops to our house in a few years.”

  “Thank you...” Sarah started.

  “But he was still hitting you,” August replied. “You just stopped reporting it.”

  Sarah gave the professor the most intense shut the hell up look she could manage, but he didn’t seem to get the hint. Or, if he did, he didn’t care.

  Instead, Booker stepped closer, leaning on his cane. “You see, Mrs. Glazer, those pictures on the wall appear to be quite recent, and in all of them, despite being taken in the summertime, you are wearing long-sleeved shirts. Not unlike the long-sleeved t-shirt you have on today.”

  He motioned to her outfit. “The temperature is in the mid-eighties today. And, there is no air conditioning in your home, yet you are in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. No doubt you chose the ensemble to cover bruises left on your arms and body.”

  Aimee just stared for a moment, then she flicked the ash from her cigarette and said coldly, “You should leave.”

  “Okay, then. We know where to find you if we have more questions.” August spun on his cane and headed for the door.

  Sarah handed her a card, “Someone from the medical examiner will be contacting you about the remains.”

  “Remains? You mean the body?”

  Sarah paused, not knowing quite how to continue. Should she tell this widow that there was no body, or was that the medical examiner’s job? Would they cremate what was left of Henry Glazer before contacting his wife? Did the department have a grief counselor for situations like this? She wasn’t sure and decided to ignore Aimee’s question. They’d done enough damage for the day.

  “They’ll contact you,” Sarah repeated. With that, she followed August out the door.

  Sarah rushed outside and caught August just as he opened the door to his vehicle. “What the hell was that back there?” she demanded.

  The professor stood still for a few seconds then closed the door and took a few steps toward her. “That was a relatively successful questioning, I thought.” His matter-of-fact tone, and the slight grin that accompanied it, just angered Sarah more.

  “It was obvious she was still being abused by Henry. I was trying to ascertain if it had anything to do with his murder.”

  “How about using a little tact? Police have to be subtle.”

  “I’m not the police.” August tapped his cane against the ground. “Oh, by the way, the abuse didn’t have anything to do with his death.”

  “How do you know that?” Sarah growled.

  “Deductive reasoning… and, perhaps, a dash of intuition, though intuition is usually the result of subconscious deductive reasoning. In any event, I’m positive Aimee Glazer did not kill her husband.” He scratched his handsome jawline. “Abused wives do kill their husbands. Battered Woman Syndrome has been a known diagnosis since the 1990s.”

  “Exactly,” Sarah said.

  “Aimee Glazer wore those shirts to protect her husband. No one who covers up the bruises of a man she loves is going to dismember him later. Shoot, maybe. Stab, perhaps… But I’ve never seen a case of Battered Woman Syndrome where the wife or partner disposed of the body in such a horrific manner.”

  Sarah shook her head, annoyed that he was probably right. “That’s true,” she admitted.

  “There is something she’s holding back from us, though.” August opened his driver side door once again. “Next stop, casino?” As Sarah straddled her bike Booker made a mental note of the three more bikers sitting across from the park entrance.

  Chapter 6- Fieldtrip

  Kara clung to her iced coffee as she slowly descended the steep embankment. There was a worn trail, but the angle of the hill still made it difficult to keep her feet from sliding out from under her. Behind her, Max was complaining about the lack of speed with which she was taking the hill.

  “Come on! Even the old man made it down faster than you, and he’s like 90 years old!” Max had a laptop bag slung over his shoulder and was trying to pass Kara at every possible spot. She was smaller but blocked him partially trying to keep her balance, and partially to aggravate him further.

  “I’m 80, asshole,” Ski corrected as he looked around at the open space at the foot of the drop.

  The other two soon found their way to the bottom as well. All three began scoping out the area that had been the crime scene. It was roughly a thirty-foot round clearing, surrounded by knee-high grass, and in the distance, a thick tree line. Pines. The unofficial mascot of Upstate New York. In the center of the clearing was a brown spot, what was left of the blood-stained crime scene.

  Max began. “Well, the killer definitely wanted the body to be found. You can see the well-used hiking trails that pass by here.” He pointed his finger out about a hundred yards, where paths could be seen. “I’ll check and see how often they are used.” He opened up his laptop and started typing furiously. “I think the DEC tracks the trail use.”

  “If he wanted the body found, why not leave it right up by the road?” Ski’s scratchy voice interrupted. “Seems a lot easier than dragging the body all the way down here.”

  “Unless they made Glazer walk down and then killed him.” Max had missed the obvious.

  “Not enough blood.” Kara pointed out. “I mean I’m sure some of it soaked into the ground, but there is not nearly enough blood stain here to account for killing and dismembering a body.” She looked around.

  “If it happened here, we’d see arterial spray on the bushes and these close trees,” Kara said. They all looked closer, but saw nothing. “Nope,” she concluded. “This was a dump site.”

  “Or a staging,” Ski added, taking a special interest in one tree in particular. It had a large branch that arched over where the body had been found by about ten feet. “Hey monkey, up for some climbing?” He looked over at Kara.

  Placing her iced coffee on the ground nearby, she ga
ve him a quick smile. “Give me a boost? Or are you too old?”

  “Not that old! You weigh all of about 85lbs.” I’ve trained hunting dogs bigger than you.” The old man laced his fingers and gave her a boost up into the tree. She scrambled around until she was over the crime scene.

  Reaching into her pocket, Kara pulled out her cellphone and began snapping pictures of what she saw. “You were on to something Old Man, there are definite marks up here where the body had been hung by wire.”

  She took a few more shots. “Just like the Puppet Master Killer.” She sat up on the branch and with what looked to the other two like supernatural grace, she let herself fall backward, doing a tight backflip and landing perfectly on her feet. She ended it with a mock Olympic bow.

  “While the two of you were screwing around, I found the login for the local trail system.” Max swung his laptop around to make the screen visible as if the streams of data would have meant something to Kara and Ski anyway.

  Realizing their confusion, Max rolled his eyes and continued, “The trails are used, but only by a few people a month. Not the most popular, they really only lead from a pull off just East of here to a small frog pond about a ten-minute walk South through the woods.”

  “So the killer wanted the body to be found, just not right away?” Kara shrugged.

  Ski adjusted his wool cap and took a swig of coffee out of the pale green thermos. Slowly he nodded in agreement as he stood and gazed over the entire scene again. Kara emailed her pictures to Max, who was making a digital rendering of the scene.

  ***

  Kara’s little red pickup truck pulled up the gravel driveway to her parents’ house. It’s good to be home, she thought. As she stepped down from the cab, she stretched the muscles in her calves and let the tensing and relaxing flow up through her thighs, stomach muscles, and into her shoulder and arms. Her petite feet touched down on the driveway and she grabbed her gym bag, book bag, and coffee travel mug, before heading into the house looking like a circus balancing act.