Affair with Murder The Complete Box Set

by Brian Spangler

  “You bet,” I said, settling onto the couch, moving as close to him as he’d allow. “Team Deathmatch?”

  He scoffed, but then smiled. “It’s just us two, ya know.” His fingers rattled over the buttons some more, clicking through the list of opposing teams. “We’ll be outnumbered three to one.”

  “Does it matter?” I asked with a playful, menacing laugh. I nudged his shoulder. “Does it, really?”

  “Never has before,” he answered, but the boastful tone I’d expected wasn’t there. He clicked farther down, selecting a map, and the screen flashed at the beginning of the game. We stood in a wintry war zone, our virtual characters facing off against a collection of opponents who were spread across a snowy setting filled with deserted railcars.

  “Shi—,” he started to say, catching himself before finishing. “I mean, darn . . . Mom, this is the toughest map.”

  “What? This one?” I asked, knowing the map was not a particular favorite of his. An opponent appeared from the corner of a tipped railcar and lunged toward Michael. I reacted, pressing the controller’s joystick up to block and fire with a pull of my trigger. But I was too far away and hadn’t reacted fast enough. “Turn! Turn around—”

  Michael’s character pitched back when the bullets found him, and his body tumbled and collapsed into a mess of snowy blood.

  “You missed him,” he scolded, disappointed. “Should’ve had my back.”

  But I hadn’t missed. I never even had a shot. Another opponent’s footfalls clopped over the screen’s speakers, warning me. I sprang into battle mode, killing two. Michael’s character stayed still when he should have gone to my back so that we could turn and shoot, guarding each other—it was a move we loved. Instead, his character did nothing.

  Michael put his controller down and lifted his hands. For a second, I thought he might have to sneeze or run to the bathroom. I circled his character, protecting him from the onslaught of gunfire and a knife-wielding melee, but it was a futile effort and soon a swarm of opponents were upon us. We died lying next to each other on the screen. It was a rare defeat for our mother-and-son team.

  “Well that ended kinda quick,” I said, lifting my voice, trying to sound funny. But Michael said nothing. He just stared blankly at the screen. “Come on, Michael. What’s going on? We can try another map if you want.”

  He closed his eyes. I put my controller down, catching his vibe. I could tell he was bothered.

  “Mom, I think I have to show you something,” he mumbled. He gave me a look suggesting he was about to tell on himself, but in my heart, I knew it wasn’t about him. I rubbed the back of my neck. My heart sank while a lump rose in my throat.

  “Okay,” I began, reminding myself to listen and not to overreact. “Did you do something?”

  “Not me,” he answered. And as he lifted his face, I saw the dampness under his eyes. My mouth went dry the way only a parent’s can when imagining the worst. “Mom, it’s Snacks.”

  “What is?” I asked, but felt almost reluctant to hear more. “What is it?”

  Michael motioned me over to his old Thomas the Train table that we’d repurposed for Snacks as an arts-and-crafts center. Low to the ground and with raised edges, it was perfect for her. Michael joined me at the table and knelt down. I surveyed the mess that was her “creative place” and expected to find a disturbing drawing. Clumps of dried Elmer’s glue with glitter bombs and shiny gold stars littered the green surface. From corner to corner, the laminate surface was hidden by paper and ribbons and scabby, dried puddles of glue.

  A collection of recycled papers from Steve’s office fell over it like dominoes. Snacks had already drawn on some of the sheets. I saw typical drawings: a smiling sun, a waving tree, a boy playing fetch with his dog, and even her attempts at a drawing a jungle gym. Next to the stack of spent paper was the variety box of five hundred crayons I’d bought a month before. The carton was turned on its side, and the crayons spilled out into a rainbow jumble, the paper wrappers spelling out delicious-sounding names like “Tangerine” and “Vanilla” and “Espresso.” I shuffled through some of her projects—pulled apart sticky arts and crafts—but found nothing.

  “Not there,” Michael whispered in a grave voice. I shrugged at him, confused. “Underneath. I found them by accident when I was looking for my—”

  “Underneath,” I interrupted, shoving my hands beneath the low table, anxious to reveal what I already knew about my baby girl. I blindly poked around until my finger jabbed a wood staple. The sting made me flinch, but in moving my hand away rapidly it hit upon a roll of papers that had been tucked into a crevice. I yanked down. Michael shuffled back as if they were dangerous. I unfurled my baby girl’s drawings while I listened to the patter of her feet above me—she was playing with her father.

  I let out a gasp, but was careful not to alarm Michael. The drawings were far more elaborate than what my mother had showed me. These were unmistakable in meaning, left nothing to question. Snacks had drawn a collection of her own Killing Katie designs. I sat back—fell back—onto my heels, tracing the tip of my finger over a line of blackish-brown crayon that curved into the edge of a knife. Apple red had been used to draw the outlines of blood drops and crimson pools. A mix of cherry-red and tangerine-orange crayons were used to fill in the outlines, aging the blood. It was almost impressive.

  “What are these?” Michael asked. His voice shook, and in his face I saw that he was afraid. “I mean . . . aren’t these like murder scenes or something?”

  “I’m not sure what to make of them,” I said, lying. I knew I’d have to show Steve, I’d have to discuss them with my husband. My stomach rolled. “Don’t say anything to your father. I’ll talk to him.”

  “But Mom!” Michael objected, raising his voice and tugging on one of the designs, freeing it from the others. “Look at this one! Who’s that supposed to be?”

  He pointed to a stick figure drawn on a bed. Crayoned strawberry blood covered the body. Below the bed was another crudely angled knife, dripping more candy-apple red. On one side of the paper there was a bookcase, and a dresser faced it on the other. I could tell by the stick-figure trophies lining the shelves that she’d drawn Michael’s bedroom. My chest felt like it had been caught in a vise when I saw the door leading to his closet and saw slanted arrows with smudgy symbols to indicate her hiding place. In the upper left corner, there was a circle drawn in Snacks’s unsteady hand. Steve had been teaching her how to tell time, and inside the circle, she’d scratched in the hour and minute hands. She’d set her crayon-time to nine thirty, and beside the clock she’d drawn what I guessed to be a crescent moon in the middle of a rectangle.

  “A window,” I mumbled, understanding her design.

  It was a design for killing her brother. She’d hide in his closet until he went to bed, then kill him while he slept. I cupped my hand over my mouth, but not because I was afraid she’d go through with it—she’d never act on it. She adored her brother. I was surprised because she’d started to use her brother in the same way I’d used Katie. A kind of sick affection—but normal to my mother and me.

  You’d have to be a murderer to understand.

  “Mom, that’s me, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice shaking again as he broke down and cried. “Mom, why would she draw that?”

  I shook my head, unsure of how to explain the drawing. “You don’t have to worry,” I quietly told him, but I knew my voice wasn’t convincing. “She’d never, ever hurt you.”

  “Are you sure!?” he snapped. “I’m afraid!”

  His sharp tone cleared my mind like a slap across my face. I put the designs down and pulled Michael into my arms, comforting him. “She’s just a baby . . . a little confused is all.”

  “Is she going to be like your mother?” he asked, lifting his head. His eyes had become red and puffy. He wiped his nose and asked again. “Is she going kill people too? Kill me?”

  I shook my head. “Michael, your sister is not going to be like my mother
.”

  I lied, knowing nothing for certain. I hugged him and encouraged him to stop his crying. “Maybe she saw the news about your grandmother. Maybe she’s acting out because she loved her so much and misses her.”

  “I hate your mother,” he said in a low, cold voice. “Why would she do that? How could she do that?”

  I rocked my boy as if he were little again—to the rattle of sobs rising in his chest.

  “People get sick,” I began to tell him, trying to sound adult. A sickness seemed a better explanation than telling him my mother was just a born killer. “My mom was sick, Michael. Sometimes people get sick in their bodies, and other times they get sick in their minds.”

  “She was mentally ill?” he asked, holding his breath as he waited for an answer. I knew he didn’t understand the full meaning of that phrase, but I decided to go with it.

  “I think she was,” I answered.

  “But how does that happen?”

  I considered his question, not believing it was an illness myself. What we had was as much a part of us as the color of hair or eyes, or what made us laugh and cry—it was part of us. I decided to stick with the lie.

  “Think of it like any other sickness . . . like cancer. But in this case the ‘cancer’ is in the brain, and it makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do.”

  “Your mom had cancer?”

  “Not exactly, but she was sick.”

  “You’re gonna show Dad?” he asked, tiring of the questions as he tugged again at the drawings. “I’m still going to check my closet tonight. And lock my door.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said, trying to reassure him. His body stiffened, and he broke our embrace to face me. “I’d never let anyone hurt you.”

  “I’m going to lock my door anyway,” he repeated. Then he brushed his lips over my cheek as he shot up and went back to his video games.

  I pushed the Killing Michael designs from my lap, dropping them onto the floor. And although I knew the designs to be harmless, the tears came anyway. A flood of sadness numbed every part of me. I stifled my cries, hiding them, not wanting Michael to hear me.

  My baby girl is going to grow up to be just like me. She is going to be a killer.

  THIRTY-THREE

  I LIKE THE WET air in the summertime. The sky spitting rain, the occasional hot breeze, electricity hidden in the clouds like a secret. The city’s subway trains reminded me of that too—racing east and west, burrowing through humid tunnels that smelled of charged air and carrying an untold number of secrets. And between the stops, there were long stretches completely devoid of light but teeming with life. I wondered how many had disappeared beneath the city. If I ever needed somewhere to go, if everything went to shit, could I disappear there too? Not that I’d ever expect to need to do that. Nerd was a miracle worker, but I think we both knew that I was the biggest liability to our team.

  While I liked the subways’ mysteries, I liked the elevated trains even more. Running above the ground—north to south—arms stretching and long fingers brushing the edges of suburbia. Every morning the trains fed the hungry city, and at night they bled it dry like arteries from an emptying heart.

  Our latest case rode the trains every day. I started my day in her shoes, leaving my office on foot, catching a shuttle to the closest line, riding to the train platform destined for the city. I checked my burner phone for any messages, waiting for an update from Nerd, one that would give me more details about the case’s history. No messages. I watched the outskirts of the city pass by, the big windows and the elevation giving me the sense of flying. I loved that.

  We were two stops from where she lived, from where she walked to and from the train stop Monday through Friday—and every other Saturday. If the train were on time, she’d already be waiting. But I had taken an earlier train, wanting to arrive before she did. And if I was early enough, I’d have time to watch her at the platform, to confirm my design. It was the train platform that had me concerned. My designs were nearly complete, but I was missing a critical component: how to perform the actual murder. My mind was as empty of ideas as a midmorning train. I spun Needle, wishing I could use her, but her chamber was empty. Nerd had cleaned my ring after Messenger, doing so without realizing he’d poured the last of our poison down the drain. There was no more to be had either. Shopping online by browsing the Deep Web markets had come to a stop. All the stores were closed, leaving us to come up with another plan on our own.

  My body lurched forward as the train car slowed to a stop to the sound of metal screeching and the pungent odor of brakes tickling my nose. New faces stepped onboard, bringing with them the smell of the wet air. I tucked my feet beneath my seat, hiding them from a stampede as some found a place to sit while others stood and propped themselves against ceiling-high poles. The train lurched once, sending us backward, then glided forward, picking up speed on the way to the next stop.

  A young woman sat across from me, studying a collection of ruffled papers. Her hands gripped the pages just enough to tell me she was nervous. But her attention wandered and strayed, much like mine, and she stared at the empty faces and the blur of passing rooftops. She found my eyes once but quickly looked away, bashful. A moment later I caught her looking again, her expression restless but searching for a friendly connection with someone, anyone. I gave her a slow smile, and without a word told her she’d be fine. Some of her shyness lifted with a grin, and she went back to studying her papers, pleased to have been noticed. I loved seeing the young faces—fresh out of school, away from the safe bubble of their parents’ homes. They were innocent and naive, ignorant of the dangers that lurked just a few seats away from them.

  “If they only knew,” I mumbled.

  A job interview. I thought. And in the city.

  From the elevated train, she’d likely take the subway east, toward the river, and then get lost once she emerged onto the streets. That was where the real challenge faced her: the people. The gray skies hadn’t opened up entirely, not yet, but they never stopped downtown’s onslaught of midday foot traffic. As if the young woman heard my thoughts, she began to fidget with her shoes. They looked new, and the heels were higher than what I would’ve picked out for a job interview. But that wasn’t the problem. She fidgeted with the straps because they were cutting into the back of her foot.

  I almost laughed then, thinking about gullibility, unworldliness. But then I thought of Michael and Snacks and how one day they’d be just like the young woman sitting across from me.

  Would they be prepared? But isn’t this how it’s supposed to be anyway? Parents raise children to join the world, all the while hoping to have instilled a sense of awareness about the dangers around them. Dangers like me.

  A broken voice called out through the train’s speaker, forcing me to focus on the task at hand. I heard the name of the upcoming stop and shifted in my seat, getting ready to study our mark: Lady Death. That’s what the newspapers called her, anyway—I just called her Lady. She’d been the giver and taker of life, playing God at a retirement community for the better part of a decade. It was technology that finally caught up to her. Nerd had laughed when he explained the case, laughed at what was had been considered “technology” for the time. Lady’s specialty was torturing the elderly—those with dementia—meaning she could do it again and again without anyone knowing.

  I remembered hearing the news report one morning while cleaning in the kitchen. A forensic scientist explained how varied the deaths were, how that might make it difficult to reach any conviction. Most of the victims died of heart failure thought to have been brought on by the excessive stresses of torture. There was one case that was different from the others, though: a man with the broken ribs and a lacerated spleen.

  “The body can present new bruising at necropsy . . . after death and autopsy,” the scientist exclaimed. “In the case of Mr. Jacobs, since his death was considered natural, he’d been prepared for burial before the injuries to his torso surfac
ed.” The forensic scientist went on to explain how Mr. Jacobs had been hit with enough force to produce an imprint on his skin. It appeared later like an inscription with the lettering reversed. The number nineteen and two words beginning with the letters “Ex” and “Ge” were identified. It wasn’t long before an orderly came forward. He’d been attending night school and immediately recognized the imprint.

  “Those books were my Google,” he’d told the news cameras with a quick wink. “And I ain’t never gonna forget volume nineteen. I’d just passed that class with a B.” And when the orderly finished talking, the detective next to him held up the murder weapon. Volume 19: Excretion Geometry.

  “So why is she free?” I’d asked Nerd. He shook his head, and I suspected the victim’s families had done the same upon hearing the news about her release.

  “Good behavior and time served,” he’d guessed.

  The world won’t miss her.

  And while the world wouldn’t miss Lady, Nerd was adamant about our taking on the case.

  The first contract posts showed up within a day of her release. Glaring red, Nerd’s software pushed the case to the top of the list. It was still a short list, and my eyes were drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

  The railcar leaned as it turned into a curve, then straightened. I watched as the young girl’s body swayed with the turn. She fidgeted some more, anxious to get to wherever it was she was going, anxious to start what she’d been preparing for. I wasn’t going to kill Lady today. While I’d filled our office whiteboard with every train stop and every route she traveled, I still needed to lock down my design.

  “I’m getting close,” I said to nobody. “I’m getting so close, I can feel it.” And I could too. From the pit of my stomach, the urge to finish nagged at me like the fickleness of an artist’s last brushstroke. I’d see my masterpiece complete soon enough. When it was ready. I only needed to take this trip and to have Nerd finish hacking the rail system’s computers.