Audrey hurried her five-year old into the car. They were going to be so late for school. Her eyes followed the car for as far as she could see it seeing her little girl on her way to the first day of school. Then suddenly her eyes switched to a tall figure dressed all in black. He was her new neighbor. But she didn’t get a chance to introduce herself before even though it had almost been a week since the trucks left his belongings at the house next door.
As to Audrey’s observation he would always leave his house quite early in the morning and return late at night. He always seemed to be by himself. She knew nothing about him other than that that his name was Malcolm.
A noisy ringtone distracted her from her analyzation. It was her colleague Lucas, reminding her that the new lieutenant was coming today. This news had completely slipped off her mind, she hurriedly walked back inside the house to get ready for work. While driving herself to work she noticed Malcolm again. He was wearing a sling across his right arm, which somehow she didn’t notice earlier.
Finally, she reached the precinct, her assigned case for the day was about a serial number of murders occurring within this couple of blocks where she lived. The victim pattern were all parents and they were all choked to death. Audrey and Lucas headed out to the first victim’s neighborhood. The whole process was more time consuming than usual. With not much progress gathered, Lucas headed back to the precinct while Audrey went to the third crime scene. Unexpectedly she saw Malcolm once again but at the crime scene. She walked towards him asking him to leave this restricted area, he replied saying ‘that’s no way to greet your new neighbor.’
They both smiled and introduced themselves, Audrey noticed a bundle of papers in his hands and asked what that was about. He replied with hesitation saying ‘ I know I’m not supposed to be here but I couldn’t help but feel bad for the victims so I thought I’d try to figure out their murders. It may sound silly to you considering that you’re a real detective but I do think that I might be onto something.’ Knowing that no progress had been made in solving the cases Audrey asked if she could take a look at those notes in hopes to find something. It was actually quite good work and his analyzing of the crimes were so good it led up to knew leads. Jokingly she said’ I wouldn’t find it hard to believe if you said you had killed them yourself considering how well you’ve analyzed the crimes.’ Their talk ended with a laugh and both of them went back to day. Malcolm’s impressive work had actually helped take the case forward by a lot.
It was odd of a person to be so curious in bringing peace for the dead while they never even talked to the ones around them. With the help gained form Malcolm, he was requested by Audrey and Lucas to join them on the other crime scenes. From the outside Malcolm was not much of a talker. He would always be by himself in the local library or the bar enjoying it with a book or complete silence sometimes. This was a very kind gesture of him to do especially considering the person he is. As they went on with their days the case saw nothing but progress. After finishing the day’s work all three of them went to ‘‘Harry’s’’, a local bar, to grab a drink and let loose of their worries for a while knowing that tomorrow they would have to be back to the same fast life.
Interestingly Malcolm didn’t seem to have a job at them time, this thought came to Lucas’s mind but he held it back thinking it was a little intruding to ask someone who you knew for a few days only. A couple of days in even though such progress was made Audrey was still trying to match some loose ends.
In that exact moment of frustration, a loud call came from the other room were Lucas and Malcolm had been searching. They had found an national ID of a guy named ‘Robert Willson’ quickly they ran through databases to find a match. He was a 36-year old who had recently been released from rehab, had a few criminal charges pressed against him for assault in his early 20s. It was like they had found the perfect suspect, matching every single cliché aspect of a killer. Lucas had headed out to meet this guy with some backup as he was said to be violent at times.
Only Malcolm and Audrey stayed behind at the crime scene on Malcolm’s persuation that they could find more evidence here. As they both checked the grounds for more clues, Audrey asked how he knew so much about murder and why he willingly helped them solve one. Malcolm responded by saying, ‘‘I wasn’t very social back in school. Books were kind of the only thing that kept me alive, I loved the murder ones especially, during those dreadful high school years. God, I hated high school! You see my favourite book at the time was ‘Chloe’s saw’. It was about a murderer named Chloe who had an interesting way of setting traps and killing people. She would nice things for people making them to think she was so generous for giving so much time. She would appear to be walled up in front of others but would only open up to the ones she decides to kill. Portraying her own life in a way that would keep people noticing her.
At last she would perform the vile act when the victim’s all alone.’’ ‘wow it almost seems like to be you have some role model’ laughingly said Audrey as she turned around to see Malcolm, wearing a smirk on his face and carrying an axe in his left hand saying ‘Don’t worry I won’t choke you. You’ll be a special one.’
