To Catch A Killer

To Catch A Killer (17) Emma's Epilogue (Watty Awards 2012)

This is it, the end of my story. I'd like to thank you for reasing and thank you again if youcommented and if you voted you get a big cyber hug! Enjoy!

The trial was awful. It was blatantly obvious within a few minutes of the start of the trial that the jury were completely against him, regardless of the circumstantial evidence proving otherwise. Half judged him insane, while the other half thought that he was pleading insanity to get a more lenient sentence.

It wasn’t true though. If he really wanted a more lenient sentence, he would not plea mental illness, because even in a high security prison, he would at least be treated with a shred of humanity. But in a mental institution, he would be seen as nothing more than an animal. His lawyer wanted to make a deal, but Tommy didn’t want any sort of deal. He wanted to be punished for the atrocities his alter ego had committed.

They brought forward the twenty cases of murder that he had admitted to in the last decade. There was even a single case almost forty-five years old where he had bludgeoned his therapist to death and set fire to the office. He was only nine years old at the time.

He pleaded guilty on all charges saying he wanted the full force of the law to come down on him and the harshest sentence they could give him. It was in the middle of the final trial when Nemesis finally reared his ugly head.

Nemesis was the name we had given to my ex-boss’ other deadly half, although we didn’t call it that at the time. It was a shock when he stood up in the middle of the judge's verdict and loudly ordered his attorney to ‘leave’, only that he said it with unnecessary malice and far more rudely than Tommy would ever have done. The judge stopped talking. Frowning as he narrowed his eyes, he ordered Tommy to sit down.

“Go to hell you stupid old man!” Nemesis sneered. “I thought you wanted proof that I was real and that he wasn’t lying to you plebeians.”

Without warning, he spun around and attacked the guards that were stationed with him. He knocked one out and was about to turn on the other when he was tasered. When he hit the floor, murmurs broke out among the people present. As of then, the trial was stopped, effective immediately. It didn’t recommence for almost two weeks.

In that time, Tommy was confirmed to be suffering from DID, Dissociated Personality Disorder. It was believed that he had developed this when he had watched his cousin being killed in a hit and run, in which the unidentified female driver of the car had deliberately reversed over the young boy to make sure he was definitely dead.  It was only made worse when his parents sent him to see a psychiatrist, who only succeeded in making the young Smith more reserved and fixated on solving mysteries like his cousin.

At the time of the trial, I had no idea what DID was and was quite shocked when Dr Setwell explained it to me. During the testing period between the verdicts the doctor had pulled a few strings and called in many favours to pay the ex-detective a visit. She said he had been very quiet and kept apologising for everything he had done even though he had no recollection of having done them. All he knew was that Nemesis had done things, things that he was not proud of, and that it was better to keep him locked up and away if it meant that Nemesis would not get to harm any more innocent people.

He was officially ruled mentally unstable and was sent to an institute for the criminally insane. We were unable to see him or contact him in any way for five whole years.

In that time, a lot changed for the people he had left behind. His eldest son, James, lost his girlfriend because of his father’s trial but soon found another. She was American and didn’t know about his association with the case. As soon as they got married they moved back to her home town in North Carolina, mutually deciding never to return to England. Tommy never saw his grandchildren because to his eldest son, Tommy Smith, his father, was dead the moment he admitted to murder. James didn’t even come to his funeral.