Paul Cleave - Collecting Cooper

Damage control.

The newspaper article is bad, but it could be worse. There could have been a big headline, nice dark letters saying Serial Killer’s House Is Burned Down . Ten years ago there were rules, ten years ago if it wasn’t fact, the papers would be reluctant to print it. Things have changed since then. Most of the media is online, news channels are on twenty-four hours a day, the business is more cutthroat than ever, and the journalists don’t have time for fact-checking anymore. News isn’t about letting the people know what’s happening, it’s about shaping agendas and making money, and money is more important than what’s right or wrong. Rumors are now fact. A guy selling hotdogs outside the police department is now a confirmed inside source. The boundaries of ethics moved, then moved some more, then were eroded away. So if there had been any suspicion at all that Cooper was a killer, it would have made it into print.

The article is about his disappearance. Cooper Riley, fifty-two years old, professor at Canterbury University, abducted from his own house, his car left in the driveway, no indication as to where he’s been taken, his house razed the following day. There’s a photo of the fire and there’s a photo of Cooper standing in front of a class of students pointing up to a screen. The photo was taken years ago, it was a publicity shot that was bundled into a magazine to promote the university. His hair was a little thicker around the sides back then, a little blacker and there was still some on top too. He wasn’t going through the stress of a divorce. Five years on this side of the photo and he’s ten kilograms heavier and locked in a goddamn basement.

How much do the police know?

If they suspected more, somebody would have leaked it to the press. And nothing could have survived that fire. The photo is taken from the street, he can see his car engulfed by the flames, even half of the front yard is burning. The camera only needed to be anywhere on the property and it would have melted, the memory card useless. So he’s sitting good on that level. Both victims were in the trunk of his car at one point, and each time he had them on a tarpaulin. He knows there was no trace evidence in his car, but even if there was, the fire took care of it.

His house.

He loved his house.

He loved his collection.

Jesus-if he ever gets out of here, there’s no way he’s going to collect anything ever again. It would give him something in common with Adrian, and he’s sick at the thought that even breathing is something they have in common-though soon he’ll make sure that’s no longer the case.

He sits on the edge of the bed and rests the newspaper on his lap. He runs his fingers over the photograph of his house, an ink stain growing thicker on the pads of his fingertips. He thinks about the first girl he killed. It was last year. He starts rubbing the newspaper a little harder. Her name was Jane Tyrone and she was twenty-four years old, almost half his age, and at the time he thought nothing in the world felt better than a twenty-four-year-old. Five months later he would learn he was wrong-nothing felt better than a seventeen-year-old.

Of course it didn’t start with her. It started three years ago with another student. Natalie Flowers. That was her name back then. He doesn’t like to think about her much, and Adrian having a file on her is bringing back a whole lot of bad memories. He wonders if her real name is mentioned at all in that, and doubts it. The police don’t know. If they did, they’d have let the media know. He’d love to take a look at it. In fact he needs to-there could be something in there that relates to him.

Natalie Flowers.

She came into his life and brought along a change in him that he allowed to happen. His marriage was falling apart. Had been for some time, but he’d been too obsessed with his job and with his book to notice. Then his wife walked out. She told him she was leaving. He begged her to stay. She was seeing somebody else, she told him. No, he didn’t know the man she was seeing, and no, she wasn’t going to tell Cooper his name, only that she loved her new man and she was happy with her new man and that Cooper now owed her half of the house and half of everything he had ever owned. He bought a bottle of whiskey the same day and drank half of it, and then started on her half too. He drank it at his office after work. He didn’t want to go home. Didn’t want to face the empty house. He just wanted to drink, surrounded by his files and his work, his classes over for the day, the students gone home.

He’s always thought about how his life would be these days if his next decision had been different. He was drunk enough to think that driving was a good idea. That’s what the booze did to you-you can make a thousand right decisions when you’re sober, and when you’re sober you know you would never drink and drive, but the booze changes things. It gets into your blood and tells you everything is going to turn out okay. So he made it out to the parking lot. There were only six cars in it, one of them his, spaces for a few hundred more. The night was cold, the ground covered in leaves, daylight savings was over and it was dark even though it was only seven-thirty, each day darker than the last now until the downslope to spring.

His keys were on the ground before he even realized what had happened. His hand was still by his car door, going through the motions of trying to unlock it. It was a few seconds before he realized what was happening, then a few seconds more to crouch down and pick them up. He should have called a taxi. Should have done more to stop his wife from leaving. Should have realized what was going on. Jesus, he felt so stupid, being cheated on like that and never knowing.

The girl had appeared from nowhere. Sometimes in his nightmares, he imagines her clawing her way out from Hell only meters away from him, or floating just above the ground with her feet never touching it, this beautiful demon who would change his life.

“Are you okay, Professor?” she asked, and no, he wasn’t okay, his wife was a cheating whore and was going to take half of his life, and where the hell did the years go, his twenties and thirties drifting by like they were nothing, the years steamrolling on, he would be fifty the following year and he hated that, really fucking hated that.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” he answered, dropping his keys again.

“I’m one of your students,” she said, and God, she was beautiful.

“Well, thanks for your time,” he said, unsure exactly what he meant by that. He got his door unlocked.

“Listen,” she said, “can I give you a lift home?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, but the truth was he was sure. He’d love to be taken back to her house. They could have a few drinks and. . and shit, that’s not what she meant. She meant she would give him a lift to his house. “I really need my car, I have something early in the morning I have to deal with,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

“It’s no problem,” she said. “We’ll take your car and you can pay for my taxi to get back.”

And so the scene was set and on the car ride there he spoke little, thinking about his wife, about his job, about men taking what it was they wanted, and honesty being the best policy, he wanted this girl, wanted her more than anything, wanted her to make him feel young again.

“Want to come inside for a drink?” he asked, when she had pulled his car into his garage.

“I should be getting back.”

“Just the one,” he said. “I promise not to keep you. I’m a criminology professor,” he said, “and I can tell you it’s a crime to let a man about to turn fifty drink alone.”