Paul Cleave - Collecting Cooper

Things had changed. He found he began to like her, and part of him, there’s no kidding himself here, part of him wanted to be liked by her too. Sometimes, within the moments after using her, he would tell her he was sorry, and tell her everything was going to be okay. In the beginning he thought he meant it. In the end he knew he didn’t.

He kept her alive, he used her over and over, and each time he found himself not caring as much about her as the time before. He wasn’t sure how long he wanted to keep her, but after seven days she just went and died on him. It was okay, because after seven days there was nothing left to be attracted to, nothing he hadn’t done a dozen times to her already that he felt the urge to do again. It had been time to move on anyway. For both of them. It was bound to happen. People drift apart.

It’s common knowledge that killers like to keep souvenirs, and it was no different for him. He had a digital camera in his briefcase. He used it every day with her. He took one photo, then another, and it turned out he enjoyed taking photos. It’s a good thing too, because he liked to spend time looking at those pictures. It was a week’s worth of fun compressed onto a microchip smaller than a fingernail. The irony is he actually thought of bringing her to Grover Hills. He needed an abandoned building, and this one suited his needs perfectly. However there were two others that were the same, two other mental institutions he used to visit to talk to the patients to write his book, both closed down within months of this one. In the end he settled on one of the locations to take the girls, a place called Sunnyview Shelter.

If he gets out of here alive, how much of his life can he return to? The camera has been destroyed, but what of the photographs on the flash drive behind his filing cabinet? There was another one too, hidden in his office at home, surely as melted and ruined as everything else in his house. He knew it was a bad idea hiding them at work, but he needed to be able to look at them any time he pleased.

The day he took Emma Green had been a lousy one. There had been another article in the previous Saturday’s paper about Melissa X, or rather, Natalie Flowers. It was a feature piece that covered three pages and had pictures of her taken from a video recording the police had. The entire weekend he read that article over and over, each time a little more fueled by alcohol. Monday he went to work. The hangover was a bitch and a struggle to hide at work, but thankfully some of his classes were canceled because of the heat wave. There was a girl in his class who reminded him a little of Natalie. She worked at a café he went to sometimes. He went there to see her and nothing more, just to take a look at her and fantasize what it would be like to hurt her, and then that old man assaulted her in the parking lot. He first went toward her to help her, he’s sure of that, because he was never going to harm another of his students because then the police might have questions for him. So he went to her aid and changed his mind. Just like that. His thought process went from helping her to hurting her in under a second and it was a mistake. He knew it then but couldn’t help himself.

He was going to keep her for seven days like Jane Tyrone. He liked the symmetry. Other’s would call that a signature. Taking the pictures was stupid. He knew it was stupid but took them anyway. It went against everything he had learned. There were rules you had to follow if you didn’t want to get caught. He had broken them. Killers always ended up becoming smug enough and arrogant enough to think they won’t get caught and they take bigger risks, and he knew, he absolutely knew that he was better than that. Better than all those smug bastards. It’s unlikely the police have found the photos. They would have no reason to even look. At this point he’s a victim, nothing more. Emma Green being a student of his doesn’t look good for him, but at least the bank teller was a random stranger.

His fingertips are completely black with ink as he continues to stroke the newspaper. He turns it over and looks at the second page. A picture of Nurse Pamela Deans stares out at him from a black-and-white square about the size of his palm. There was no warmth to her, and every time he spoke to her he was sure it took all her energy to remain cordial. However she was extremely useful in his studies and exceptionally efficient. He always imagined her living alone in a house full of straight edges and starched bedsheets, perhaps a few cats, a small TV and a radio tuned only to classical music. Now she is dead, burned in the same way his house was burned.

Burned, no doubt, by Adrian.

This is bad. Really bad. If the police make the connection between the two fires, is it possible they’ll connect everything to Grover Hills? Yesterday he’d have loved it if the police showed up to rescue him. But if they come today they’ll find the girl who helped him, and who he killed in return for that help.

Again, that was stupid. For a man who knows a lot about killers, for a man who knows what their common mistakes are, why can he not stop himself before acting?

There is still blood on him. His clothes are stained, and there’s a murder weapon with his prints on the other side of the door. He begins pacing the cell. The police will make the connection. At some point somebody will drive out here to take a look around. They’re going to find the dead woman and there are going to be some tough questions. He has to get out of here. He has to kill Adrian. He has to make it look like Adrian killed the dead woman. He needs to destroy his clothes. If he escapes he can change and he can set the stage any way he wants to. As long as the camera or the photographs in his office haven’t been found, there’s no reason for the police to suspect him of anything.

He turns the newspaper over and goes to the front page where he saw the sketch earlier when Adrian was holding it. Up close it looks like his brother-in-law, except it’s supposed to be Adrian, only it doesn’t look much like Adrian.

Jesus.

He has to escape.

He has to convince Adrian to let him out of here.

It’s time to try a different tactic.

The study is tidier than I last left it. All the files have been swept up and taken. I move into the hallway and look outside the front door. No sign of anybody. Back in the study it’s only a matter of time before what pages are left in the printer start curling in the heat. The flash drive is still hanging out of the front of the computer. I snatch it out and stuff it into my pocket. I go through the house room by room before heading outside and going around the property. I do a full sweep of the section then head back inside.

I’m still thinking it could have been somebody from Grover Hills who killed Daxter, but now that the Melissa X file has gone, I’m also thinking that it could have been Melissa. I’m not sure which one of those two possibilities scares me the most. What I am sure about is that I’m the world’s biggest idiot for leaving the front door open, but front doors are open all across the city, people desperate for the breeze. I lock the front door now. I plug the flash drive into the computer and print out the rest of the document.

I give Schroder a call and update him.

“Jesus, Tate, how can you have been so careless? That file is confidential! Did they take the DVD too?”

“No, the DVD is still here,” I tell him, and it is-it’s still in the player.

“Well, at least that’s something. If that footage was ever made public. . God, what a nightmare that would be. Still, it’s bad enough you lost the file.”

“You should never have given it to me.”

“Ah, I see, so it’s my fault then.”