James Andrus: The Perfect Scream

He mumbled something three times before Lynn realized he was saying, “What do you got there?”

Her stomach tightened and she took a very deep breath. Her yoga instructor would be very proud of her. The knife was open and seated in her right hand as she looked over at Connor, his head lulled in the opposite direction. His entire neck was exposed and she could see a blue vein running down it like a river marked on a map. She had to wonder if it was a sign. She didn’t much believe in omens, but this seemed awfully obvious.

Her hand tightened on the knife as she built her courage.

Then she heard something that made her pause.

Patty was nearly speechless as she regained her composure and scooted back to Ken. She didn’t want him to feel awkward with people he had never met.

Patty smiled and said, “Ken, this is John Stallings and his-” She wasn’t sure what to say. Then she blurted, “Maria.” She watched as Stallings shook Ken’s hand and looked him in the eye. In that instant, with a feeling of pride blossoming inside, Patty realized how much John’s approval meant to her. He was her authority figure. He was so much more than just a partner. But the look on Maria’s face was harder to read. She looked antsy and uncomfortable, not able to hold Patty’s gaze.

Stallings said, “Where did you two meet?”

Patty sensed something odd about him as well as Maria. He stayed close to Maria, away from Patty. His body language was not the usual confident, busy John Stallings. She wondered if the lull in cases had affected him by throwing off his normal rhythms. Maybe he needed the stress and thrived on the chaos.

Stallings said, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Where did you two meet?”

Patty said, “In the park by my house. Ken’s a runner too.”

Maria now looked like she was appraising the couple. Still she remained silent.

Patty said, “I’m surprised to run into you two out here.”

“We were at a. .” He paused, then said, “gathering. I suggested we take a walk. I’ve only been over here on business. At least in the last ten years. Wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

“Did you eat at the Landing?”

“No, we thought we’d get some dessert or something. The only place we saw was Sal’s Smoothie Shack up the street.”

Patty just said, “Oh.” She knew Stallings was thinking the same thing about Sal’s. They had worked on a homicide where one of the victims, a bright girl named Lexie, was an employee of Sal’s and met her killer there late one Friday night. There were places that gave her the willies like that all over the city.

Patty sensed it was time to move on and let the Stallingses go about their business. John Stallings gave her an abrupt nod good night, never moving from Maria’s side. She wondered what she had interrupted as she took Ken’s hand and led him on down the river walkway.

Lynn lay on the bed next to the long, silent form of Connor Tate. His snoring had caused her to wait before plunging the knife into his exposed neck. It seemed to have worked out well. She had waited patiently until she hadn’t heard another sound for more than five minutes. She’d been comfortable as she lay with the knife still open in her right hand resting across her stomach. If he had showed any signs of consciousness she had been prepared to drive the knife down with tremendous force. But over the past forty-five minutes, Connor had gone from a light snore to a wheeze, to now nothing at all.

Lynn checked his pulse and thought she’d felt a slight beat so she decided to wait a few more minutes. She looked down at Connor’s exposed, muscular legs, his defined abs under his hiked-up shirt, and the childlike expression on his handsome face. It didn’t make her feel guilty. If anything this was fitting, if not very satisfying. After her first murder, Lynn realized she loved the sound of the victim’s scream. Boy, did he scream as he sat trapped in the fire. It was a great, bloodcurdling cry. But not perfect. The sound of the fire and the fact he had pulled a pillow over his face in a useless attempt to save himself made the acoustics questionable and muffled.

Her next victim just talked and cried. It wasn’t until she’d pulled the trigger that she’d realized what she was looking for. It was the absence of a scream that made her understand that was what she was hoping for.

Alan Cole had made a decent yelp, but the impact of the fast-moving Suburban had been too much and cut off any real chance she had at hearing a gruesome scream.

Now big, dopey Connor had simply faded away without a sound.

On the bright side, no one could link four deaths with such different scenarios. Two would certainly be considered accidents. The other two were in different cities and had no connection. Other than her.

A smile slid over her face as she realized how cunning she’d become. Maybe she should do something more in the business world than be a bookkeeper. She’d work in her father’s fading business, but he abhorred aggressive business practices. He just wanted to transport.

Lynn reached down and placed two fingers along the side of Connor’s neck. Nothing. Now she could figure who was next and how he was going to die.

Dennis Switeck hated working Saturdays in the fall. One of his true passions in life was college football, and living in Florida gave him a firsthand look at three of the perpetually best teams in the country. In the last twenty-five years, the University of Florida, Florida State, or the University of Miami had been in the national championship game nineteen times. That was astounding. He loved the fact that people from Texas talked about what a football state Texas was and how they bragged about it constantly. Whereas Florida didn’t have TV shows made about high school football or have to shout to the world how it was a great football state, but went on to dominate college football year in and year out.

Dennis’s job as an assistant medical examiner in Duval County meant that he had to work every third Saturday. He could still catch most of the games on the TV at the office, but it wasn’t the same as partying with his buddies at one of the sports bars or in someone’s party room. Today had been slow football-wise because everyone was gearing up for the annual Florida-Florida State game next Saturday, the weekend after Thanksgiving. It was almost like a state holiday when the two titans of college football met. Even though Dennis had gone to Michigan, he still got fired up for the rivalry game. It wasn’t Michigan-Ohio State, and Floridians would never understand the intensity of that rivalry on every level, academic as well as sports wise. But it was still a great game and a fun weekend. That’s why he had switched with Lisa Kurtz, who didn’t give a shit about college football. Why would a Syracuse graduate care about sports anyway? She was happy to change weekends because she had some big date with the hotshot homicide guy from JSO.

Dennis got a call about 1:30 from a detective saying he was on the scene of what appeared to be an accidental overdose at one of the fraternity apartment houses near the University of North Florida. Now, two hours later, he was about to do the autopsy on the young man who’d been found in his own bed. He was anxious to get started and cleaned up so he could head out to catch the night games, but the detective on the case, Luis Martinez, had been in the bathroom for what seemed like half an hour.

Finally the short, intense detective came into the procedure room, clapped his hands, and said, “Okay, Dennis, let’s get this show on the road.”

Dennis had to chuckle because Martinez was one of the funniest detectives he knew. But he still had a lot of questions. Martinez explained that the young man’s body had been found in the late morning when one of his fraternity brothers had had to enter his apartment to get the key to their clubhouse. It wasn’t unusual for the young man to sleep late, but when they hadn’t been able to find the key they’d had to try and wake him up.