Chuck Hustmyre - A Killer Like Me

It was only after he got inside his apartment that he noticed he was still wearing the bloody latex gloves. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized he should wipe down the inside of his car and his apartment doorknob with bleach and burn the gloves, but he didn’t care. He was going to be dead soon.

Sitting on his sofa, Murphy raised his gun again. He opened his mouth and clamped his teeth down on the muzzle. He wrapped his index finger around the trigger and squeezed, watching his middle knuckle draw farther away. It stopped at what he guessed was only a few ounces of pressure away from tripping the firing pin.

He took a deep breath and held the gun steady. One tiny pull, a millimeter perhaps, and it would be over. One tug on the trigger and he could silence the raging guilt feeding on his insides. His finger tightened.

He let the breath out slowly, forcing himself to relax. This time had been the closest so far. Next time he would do it.

Murphy polished off the second beer and opened a third.

For him, the serial-killer case was over. Gaudet, along with those two numskulls, Doggs and Calumet, would have to handle it. Murphy wondered about the afterlife. Was all that Catholic crap his mother and the priests and the nuns had rammed down his throat for all those years really true? If so, he would certainly be in hell before the sun came up.

Or maybe death was like an old friend had once said, just a bunch of nothing, absolute unconsciousness. He was hoping for that. That sounded painless-no guilt, no remorse, no regrets.

By the time Murphy finished his third beer, his eyelids were so heavy he couldn’t keep them open for more than a few seconds at a stretch. His pistol lay in his lap. It wasn’t going anywhere. Just a few more minutes of life. He would allow himself one more mortal pleasure before condemning himself to eternal damnation. He put his head down on the arm of the sofa. A five-minute nap. Then he would kill himself.

Surely, the devil could wait five minutes.

The killer hits the enter key on his laptop keyboard, the final step to uploading his new video to the Devil’s Den Web site. In the bottom right-hand corner of his screen, the digital clock reads 3:35 AM. Within two hours, the video will be viewable on the Web site, and within three or four hours, tens of thousands of e-mail addresses will receive a link to the video file stored on servers in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

He rubs his hands together in anticipation. Everything is coming together. Even the unexpected developments-the sodomite bar and Kiesha-have been godsends.

Police officers are two-dimensional thinkers, trained to look for simple patterns. Several of his recent cleansings fit a pattern. That was how Murphy stumbled upon his work. That was good. He wanted the publicity. But he didn’t want to make things too easy for them.

Nothing ruins a pattern like randomness. Patterns represent order. Randomness represents chaos. His sudden deviation from his plan has injected randomness into whatever patterns the oafish police thought they uncovered.

Only one thing disturbs him, a literal dark cloud on the horizon. The coming hurricane.

Driving back home from the house on Burgundy, he heard a radio announcer say that the storm was bearing down on the Florida Keys. Forecasters are predicting that Catherine, now a category-three hurricane, could plow into the Gulf of Mexico as early as this evening. The warm waters of the gulf, the forecasters say, could strengthen the already-powerful storm to a category four by late tonight. Computer projections of the storm’s path, what the weather people call the cone of uncertainty, are centered on New Orleans.

Unfortunately, the dire storm warnings have already pulled some of the media’s attention away from the beheading of Sandra Jackson. But even a deadly hurricane won’t be able to compete with the killer’s newest video.

He shuts down his computer and turns away from his small desk. Exhaustion has overtaken him. He kicks off his shoes, pants, and shirt and dives into bed. With the covers pulled over his head, he stares into the darkness and thinks about tomorrow… today, really. After a few hours’ sleep, he will get up and watch the Sunday talk shows. His work, the Lord’s work-one and the same-will be on every channel.

The killer closes his eyes and smiles.

A hard knock rattled Murphy’s door. He came awake slowly and painfully as the pounding on the door increased in tempo, miraculously matching the pounding inside his skull. When he pried his eyes open, the daylight stabbed his brain. Someone’s cat had taken a shit in his mouth.

He sat up and realized he was still dressed. His first try at standing was a failure. A wave of dizziness and nausea forced him back down onto the sofa. The knocking continued. He recognized it as police knocking. They must have found the body, he thought. Somehow they had already linked him to the murder.

He struggled to his feet again and managed to stay upright. “I’m coming.”

The knocking stopped. The cable box on the TV showed 8:05 AM.

Murphy lurched toward the door. When he got there he looked through the peephole. On the other side stood two uniformed policemen. Murphy glanced over his shoulder toward the kitchen. The trash can, filled to the top, was clearly visible. On top of the garbage lay the bloody surgical gloves. He glanced down. His pants were dark, but there were darker stains on his knees-bloodstains.

He peeped again through the hole. He saw one of the officers rap on the door. “Detective Murphy,” the cop called out.

There was no time and nowhere to run. Murphy’s apartment didn’t even have a back way out. He took a deep breath and pulled open the door.

There was just the two of them. One in his midforties, the other in his early twenties. Probably a field-training officer with a rookie partner. The older cop looked familiar, but Murphy couldn’t place him. He stared at Murphy with unfiltered disgust. The rookie just looked embarrassed.

Relief flooded through Murphy. If they were here to arrest him, there would be more of them.

“You Murphy?” the older cop asked.

Murphy tried to speak but the cat shit was clogging his throat. So he just nodded.

“The command desk sent us. Homicide has been trying to raise you on the radio and on your cell phone for a couple of hours.”

Murphy swallowed hard. The lump of cat shit went down. “The battery died.”

The cop shrugged. “None of my business. All I know is we were ordered to tell you to call in right away.” He lifted his portable radio from his belt holder. “You can use my radio if you want.”

Murphy waved it off. “That won’t be necessary.” He leaned on the doorjamb. His head was spinning. “Did they say why they want me?”

The cop shook his head. “Nobody tells me shit. And that’s the way I like it.”

“Okay, thanks for coming by.” Murphy tried to push the door closed, but the older cop jammed it with his foot.

“Piece of advice?” the cop said.

Murphy didn’t answer.

“I’ll give it to you anyway.” He took his foot out of the door. “Take a fucking shower before you go in. You smell like shit… shit and booze.”

“I will. Thanks again.” Murphy shut the door.

He sprinted into the kitchen and puked in the sink.

When he finished heaving, he stumbled into his bedroom, stripped off his pants and threw them into a corner. He found his suit coat hanging on the bedroom doorknob and tossed it into the corner too. Next, he dropped his shirt, tie, undershirt, and boxers on top of his suit. He found his shoes and slung them into the corner.

Murphy stared at the pile of clothes.

His suit pants had Marcy Edwards’s blood staining the knees. There was probably more of her blood on his shirt and tie and on his shoes. He had probably left bloody footprints inside her house that the crime lab could match to his shoes. Then there were the bloody gloves in his kitchen.