Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

“Hi there, Joe.”

“Morning, Detective Schroder.”

I start looking at him as a suspect, trying to picture him killing Walker. It’s easy to do. Of course it’s easy to picture any of these people killing her, from the photographer to the pathologist. The first thing I need to do is get a list of these people, then begin eliminating them. As suspects, that is.

“How’s the in. . inv. . invest. .” I stop. Just long enough for him to think I’m in that small percentile of the population with an extra chromosome. “How’s the case going, Detective Schroder? Found the killer yet?”

He shakes his head slowly, as if he’s trying to line up a few thoughts in there, but not too hard in case some of them get broken.

“Not yet, Joe. Getting there.”

“Any suspects, Detective Schroder?”

“A few. And Joe, you can call me Carl.”

I’m not going to call him Carl. He’s asked me before. Anyway, I’ve already shortened detective inspector to just detective. And as for there being a few suspects-he’s lying.

He stares at the photographs, grimacing, like he does every morning now. Almost as though he’s expecting to come in and find one of the victims has reached out from her portrait and written an answer up there for him. In reality he has nothing. He knows it. I know it. Everybody knows it. Especially the media.

“Are you sure they’ve all been killed by the same person, Detective Schroder?”

He turns and stares at me, and I regret my question. “Why’s that, Joe? Have you been listening in on our conversations?”

I shake my head. “No, never,” I say. “I would never do that.”

He doesn’t look convinced.

“I just thought that maybe seven different people killed them because nobody can be that mean, can they?” I ask.

His expression softens, and slowly he shakes his head. “People can be that mean, Joe, and it’s probably best you stop trying to think like Sherlock Holmes.”

I look down. “Umm. . I was just, you know, curious.”

“Life is curious, Joe, and to answer your question, all of these murders all related.”

I lift my head up fast and look over at him, widening my eyes in what hopefully looks like surprise. “They’re all sisters, Detective Schroder?”

I ought to get a Goddamn Emmy for this performance.

“Not related that way, Joe,” he sighs, and after a pause of a few seconds he carries on. “I mean they were all killed by the same person.”

“Oh. But that’s good, right? Better to have one killer out there than seven?”

He nods. “It doesn’t make any difference to them,” he says, pointing at the photographs. “But in this case,” he says, then pauses, “you’re not going to repeat any of this to anybody, are you, Joe? You don’t have friends in the media?”

I shake my head, trying to keep a similar pace to Schroder’s shake a few minutes ago. He thinks I have no friends. He doesn’t know about Pickle and Jehovah. “You guys are the only friends I have, Detective Schroder.”

“Have you ever heard of a copycat killer, Joe?”

I stop shaking my head before whiplash sets in. “Why would somebody kill cats?” There’s another long sigh from Schroder, and I realize I might be laying it on a bit thick.

“Not quite, Joe. A copycat killer is somebody who kills to imitate a serial killer.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because they can. Because they want to. Because they’re insane.”

“Oh. Then why are these people out there, Detective Schroder? Why don’t they get put in jail?”

“That’s a good question,” he says, and I smile at his praise. “And it comes with a simple answer. The world is screwed up. You know when you turn on the news and some bastard has gone and shot his family and a few of his neighbors?”

I start nodding. Stab thy neighbor. I’m familiar with it.

“The family, the other neighbors, they all say what a quiet guy he was. He had a collection of gun magazines and problems. Then we use hindsight as a preventative, even though it’s too late by then. There’s nothing to prevent, because everybody’s already dead. . I’m sorry, Joe,” he says, sighing. “I’m rambling on a bit. And venting. I shouldn’t be burdening you with any of this.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I just wish we could do more. I mean, we see these guys every day, but can we do anything about it? No. Because they have rights. Just like the rest of us. And until they finally kill somebody-and they often try to-those rights make them untouchable. Do you know what I mean, Joe?”

“Kind of, Detective Schroder.”

He waves his hand at the wall. “A hundred to one we’ve spoken to this guy at some point in the past. We know he’s got either a drug or a mental problem, but we could never do anything about it. Right now he’s watching us, mocking us, laughing at us. I guarantee we’ve wanted to lock this guy up before, but weren’t allowed. I guarantee we’ve had this guy in this building before.”

He’s right and wrong, but I can’t point this out to him. Can’t take a bet on his odds. With all his sermonizing I quickly lose faith in Schroder as an appropriate suspect.

“I understand, Detective Schroder.”

“You’d be one of the few if you do, Joe. You want to know something funny?”

“Sure.”

“Serial killers like to stay ahead of the game, and you know how they do that?”

Fact is, I do know. They hang around the edges of the investigation. They might come into the station and say they saw something going on. They come in and try to get a feel for the investigation. Some even hang around in cop bars, listening to idle chitchat, even participating in conversation. Or hang out with reporters looking for an inside scoop.

“No. How?”

He shrugs again. “Sorry, Joe, I shouldn’t be chewing your ear off like this.”

“So what about the cat killer?” I ask.

“Some other time,” he sighs, and he says it in a way to indicate the conversation is over. I leave him staring silently at the wall of the dead.

I reach up and run my finger across the nameplate on my office door. To the sides of it are four small screw holes. There never used to be anything on it until Sally showed up one day with a small sign with my name on it. Inside I swap my thoughts for a mop and bucket, and then go about cleaning the toilets. Before lunch I carry the vacuum cleaner into Detective Superintendent Stevens’s office just as he is leaving. Stevens is the guy everybody answers to, even though he doesn’t do any of the footwork, groundwork, or thought work that goes into solving this case. Stevens has been flown down from Wellington, and is one of the highest-ranking detectives in the country, though I can’t see why. All he does is sit in his appointed office, ordering people about while demanding answers. Occasionally he walks back and forth, grabbing a pile of papers or a folder, just trying to look as though he has something to do or someplace to be. Most of the time he’s a pretty pissed-off guy. I don’t like him, but can’t do anything about it. Murdering a police superintendent would be like playing with fire.

Stevens is in his late fifties, has thinning black hair, and looks like the sort of policeman you wouldn’t approach for help. He is just over six feet and solidly built, but has these black eyes that any author would associate with crazed serial killers. He has a long face with wrinkles that run its entire length, like shallow knife wounds. His tanned skin is pitted with old acne scars around his neck. When he talks, he has a deep voice and an accent that sounds Caribbean, but that’s probably because of the cigars he’s always smoking. He’s one of those useless bastards who wear sports jackets with elbow patches sewn into them.