The judge tiredly slammed his gavel down, again and again, his eyes cast down to the bar, kneading his forehead with his other hand. Anyone could see how badly he wanted this to be over. It had been a long ordeal, and presiding over such a case is a dubious honor for a judge. His biggest responsibility is to ensure there is not a mistrial, which is no mean feat in itself. During the Manson Family trial, the antics of Charlie and his followers threatened to derail the whole thing, even going so far as to make an attempt on the judge’s life, in open court. If a mistrial is declared, the whole thing starts over with a new judge, new jury, new prosecution, less cooperative witnesses and possibly tainted evidence. Nothing could stop it now though. The verdict was in, and all that was left to the public’s imagination was the sentence.
He rose to his feet, gathered himself up and bellowed “QUIET!” The effect was instant. “I will not hesitate to clear this courtroom and have you all charged with contempt of court.”
“Believe me,” he uttered with grave force, settling back into his chair, “this court has plenty of contempt for anyone disrupting these proceedings further.”
His honor had been faced with a difficult decision, more so than usual even for a murder case. Didn’t seem either of the possible sentences were suitable for the killer, considering how far off the map these killings were, and the motive behind them.
The defense asked to approach the bench, and a frenzied exchange of whispers and gestures occurred. He pointed to the little man that had the defendant all flustered, and again, the monster visibly shrunk down in his chair.
In the next few moments, my mind raced through the facts of the case one more time.
~
The police took their sweet time finding the guy, partially because they were too dense to even consider the killings linked. For one thing, the only common theme any of these killings had was that they were brutal. Each crime scene was a frigging tableau, Jackson Pollack but with brains and guts instead of paint. No discernible m.o., just death and destruction. They figure, a guy’s a shooter, he’s a burner, he’s a stabber, a strangler, but he’s not usually all of them. They insist that serial killings are rigidly ordered. Me, I figure no serial killer really has what you’d call an orderly mind in the first place. But the jakes, they look for patterns and they rule out anything that don’t fit.
Serial killers also like to take trophies or leave a calling card, and there was none of that either. No ears cut off, no esoteric symbols left at the crime scene. Sometimes they leave notes or write a letter to the paper, taunting the cops, playing cat-and-mouse, like they’re daring the cops to catch them, thinking they’re too smart to get caught, but again there was none of that.
Probably the biggest reason they didn’t get hip was because he scattered the murders over so many jurisdictions. The Zodiac killer had done the exact same thing, and at first the different police departments would have dick-measuring contests over the bodies, jockeying for the collar, the bragging rights and commendations should they be the one to find the guy. Even after they begrudgingly cooperated, this was when fax machines were just coming into use, and certainly way before cell phones, the internet and ubiquitous surveillance cameras. Guess what? He was never caught.
Sometimes they catch the guy because the bodies start to pile up and his house smells like shit so the neighbors complain and somebody comes over, and they find out that the guy they thought was just another birthday party clown has bodies stacked up under the house in the crawlspace. Not this guy. Most of the time he left the bodies right there, although not every time, because he really didn’t have a pattern.
His first victim, he burned to death. She was a junkie whore, and she burned up on a mattress in a drug den, so at first it didn’t even look like a murder, more like she passed out riding the white horse. Absolutely no investigation whatsoever, and not really much chance for an autopsy, there wasn’t much left of her. The fire was small and didn’t spread to the rest of the building, so it was a little while before they found her, and what the fire hadn’t consumed, the rats took care of. They close the case, and I write my little blurb and it’s over.
His next victim, he shot point blank range under the chin, only the stiff was found holding the gun, and his hands tested positive for gun powder residue, so at first it was considered self-inflicted. They dig just a little bit and find out the guy’s life was a wash, he was totally fucked up and as far as they could tell, had every reason to off himself. Again, they wrap it up, I write an inch or so on page fifteen and move on, and none of us have a clue.
The third, he hanged, and again it looked like another suicide at first glance. It happened a couple hundred miles away from the other two, the stiff swinging from a barn rafter. Maybe, just maybe, if they had been looking really hard for it, they might have found a footprint, but it still wouldn’t have helped, because believe it or not, he never wore the same pair of shoes, or even the same clothes, on any two kills. He was homeless, he’d been living on the streets for years and wore whatever clothes and shoes he could get from churches, the salvation army, whatever. So even when they really started investigating, they weren’t finding fibers from clothing that matched, because he simply didn’t leave any. He didn’t plan it out that way, he just lucked out by way of being a fucking vagrant.
It wasn’t until he started stabbing, strangling and bludgeoning his victims that the only discernible link was found. A very small thing indeed, but it was too glaring to ignore.
A disproportionate number of the bodies turned out to be killed by somebody left-handed.
Even if they had known the first three killings were murders, nobody would have been wise to the real skinny on that. There is no way in the world to tell a fire was lit by someone’s left hand. Everything burns, including fingerprints. His second kill was quick, impersonal and effective. Better still, there was no way to identify the shooter as right handed or left, since the trajectory was from the victim’s own hand, all he did was squeeze. With the hanging, who can really say which hand yanked the chair out from under him?
Now that I had a hunch that something deeper was going on, I started pulling all the info on every murder, suicide, accidental death and anything I found the least bit fishy, and once I had it all in front of me, it was too glaring to ignore.
Without a trail of bread crumbs to lead them to it, a lot of these cops couldn’t find their own dick, plus there’s usually a decade or so worth of donuts hanging off the front end, blocking the view. So occasionally a concerned citizen such as myself volunteers some information. This is my beat, after all. I’m the crime writer, I’m supposed to know this stuff. Usually I don’t give a shit, but I knew I had to do something this time, because it looked like I was the only one to notice what was really going on.
They tried to write off a few of them as gang related, but that didn’t smell right to me. The average gang-banger doesn’t bother to make a work of art out of a dead body just to prove a point, he just caps the guy and gets the hell out of there. He wants to make a point, he shoots up the funeral.
Then they tried to say a few of the victims, which were prostitutes, were killed either by their clients or their pimps. The former was more believable than the latter, as no pimp is going to bother killing one of his bitches. She causes him trouble, he slaps the shit out of her, maybe cuts up her face so she can’t work for the competition, but he don’t risk the heat that a body will bring down on him. The second option didn’t seem likely either. It’s happened many times, believe me, but the guy feeds her to the gators or something, he don’t go all Jack The Ripper on her. Plus, there was no evidence of a sexual assault found on these particular girls, and to me that was the real proof. What john is gonna kill a whore he hasn’t done the deed with?
Now, the cops all know me, and most of them don’t like me. The feeling would be mutual if I had any feelings left. Pretty sure I’ve sanitized them all away by now, between the whiskey and the masochistic career choice. Anyway, I knew they’d be indignant and ignore me if I actually tried to point this out to them, so I just did an end around and hit them where it hurts: the front page.
I went to my editor and said I’ve got a story that is pretty hot, but it’s no good if it doesn’t go on the front page. Our town ain’t Manhattan, but it ain’t Mayberry either. I really had to compete for a couple inches of real estate on 1A, and I had to wait for a slow news day to run it, and still I ended up below the fold but the effect was immediate and forceful.
I nicknamed the killer “Southpaw,” and ran a story that pretty much accused the cops of ignoring the fact that there was a serial killer on the loose. I wasn’t even totally sure if it was true, but that’s the beauty of my job, it doesn’t have to be.
Surprised? Maybe you’re caught up in words like “accuracy” and “unbiased.” Where people ever got that idea, I will never know. The paper I write for is a business, and we sell what people want to buy.
There’s no law that says newspapers have to print the truth, thanks to the 1st Amendment. All we have to do is not print anything that will get us sued, so we use words like “alleged,” “supposed” and “suspected.” It’s a loophole that’s so gigantic you could drive an eighteen-wheeler through it. Whenever we print something that’s not a fact, we just have to admit it in print. If we’re making an assumption, we just call it that.
Anyway, it worked. The public clamored for something to be done, and the local politicos made a big show of urging them to act swiftly. The cops were pissed but they had to bust ass to make it look like they were on the trail. Meanwhile I had to start riding the bus for a while, because any time I got in my car I was pulled over for something.
“Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?” Yeah, because you’re a prick but you can get away with it because you’ve got your prick license pinned to your chest, and another one on your hip with 15 bullets in it.
Once they were hip to something more going on than your usual insanity, they started finding other links to the crimes, mostly in the identities of the victims. None of them was a saint, if you know what I mean. One was a junkie, the next a hooker, another was a drug dealer, one was a sleazy lawyer with a taste for Italian suits (wink wink, nudge nudge), another was a doctor that performed abortions… you get the drift. Turns out, the real link was the motive, not the methods.
~
Finally the slime-ball attorney defending the guy threw up his hands and stormed off back to his table. He’d tried every hail-mary in his playbook, and he was out of options. This sentencing hearing was the last of his obligations to his client, and he didn’t seem relieved at all. In fact, he seemed downright disturbed by what he figured was about to happen. The judge began,
“It is the opinion of this Court that neither of the possible sentences for the crimes for which the defendant has been convicted will be suitable punishment. Therefor, the Court must now entertain… alternatives.” He gestured to the State’s table. “Counselor, proceed.”
“Your honor,” the prosector said with a smug little grin, “the People call Dr. Stiller.”
I’ll be damned, the guy's not a lawyer after all, he's a shrink.
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