To Catch A Killer

To Catch A Killer (12) Lewis and Waters (Watty Awards 2012)

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It took almost ten minutes for Peters, Turlock and I to calm Sanders down and drag him from the foyer. Carter easily persuaded Mr Mortimer to leave and escorted him to the nearby Hill Crest Hospital to patch himself up. Good thing that he wasn’t going to press charges though, a lot less paperwork on our part. As it was, we were already swamped with work with the current case. We still had to place Sanders into temporary custody because the scuffle had taken place in a police station. But that was definitely better than a court hearing over a broken nose and a count of grievous bodily harm on Sander's otherwise clean police record.

Shaking off the minor distraction, I returned to the office and surveyed my team. It didn’t look good. The atmosphere in the office was low and I hadn’t seen this many disheartened faces in many years. The sheer hopelessness of our situation was evident. I knew somehow I had to do something to turn this situation around fast. We needed more evidence, and fast. In this state, my team was almost good for nothing.

I walked up to the incident board and stood there in silence for a moment before yelling, “Can I have everyone’s attention please!” And the room went quiet and I knew that I had all their eyes on me. “I know that this past week has been hard on all of you," I began, "but we need to look at the facts. We know the killer's MO and we have a description, no matter how vague, of what he looks like. Now, we just have to look at the evidence and find this sick bastard. We have to stop him before he kills again! But we aren’t going to do it looking like a hoard of zombies so get home and have an early night. If any of you are still here in five minutes time I’ll be throwing you out the door, do you understand?”

 There was a small ripple of laughter as everyone in the room began to grab their things and file out the door in the direction of home, shooting me grateful looks as they passed me. A few of them murmured their thanks before leaving.

I watched quietly as Peters left. He had a look of relief on his face but I didn’t think that it was from the opportunity of having an early night. The almost wary look he gave me as he passed me before making his way out the door only confirmed my suspicions. As he walked past me, looking into my eyes, I could almost see in his eyes, a fear of what, I of course, had no idea. But it was there all the same. It was obvious that he was keeping something from me, and only time would reveal the secret.

Killer's POV

As I drove out of the station, I decided to go and pay my next victim the last visit she would ever have in her life. I got into my car and began to drive to her house. In my mind’s eye I could see everything that was going to happen. I was going for double or nothing tonight. I wanted to put the police force on a sharper edge than what they had been operating on. And nothing else accomplished the job like an unpredictable serial killer.

It would be a good few months before I could kill again, if the last time I used this method was anything to go by. I had been forced to change everything, from my MO to my selection process. I would go into an almost hibernating state where I would no longer be in control.

After I had killed Mary it had been the same way. Mary had been so special, she was the very first. She had set off the chain by showing me my true purpose in life; retribution. Like yin and yang, dark and light, my other half was justice. If you really think about it, retribution is actually very similar to justice. My other half liked justice, all legal and tame. While I approved of it to some extent, retribution still triumphed over it any time. My retribution was cold, hard and ruthless; just how I liked it.

The first on tonight's agenda was Barbara Lewis. Whilst her husband was dying in a private hospital miles away, she was sleeping with every man who made a pass at her. As if that wasn't enough, when she couldn’t find a willing man for the night, she would arrange for an “escort” to join her in the bed that she and her husband shared before he had become ill. It was sickening.