Fifteen Times a Killer Read online

  It was a beautiful house, all white marble and mahogany furniture.

  “Please, come through.” Doreen showed them into the living room, a huge space with a grand piano in one corner and photographs on every available surface. Most were of a young girl.

  Jennifer Madden.

  “What can I do for you?” Doreen asked, her voice shaking.

  She knows, Corrina thought.

  “Who is it, darling?”

  A man appeared in a doorway. Same age as Doreen, he was dressed for the golf course.

  “It’s the police,” Doreen told him.

  Corrina introduced herself and McCrae, and she could see the husband trembling almost imperceptibly. “I think you’d better take a seat.”

  The Maddens slowly eased themselves onto a plush sofa, as if their slow movements would delay the inevitable.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Corrina said. “We’ve been investigating a series of murders committed over the last ten years. Today we discovered what appears to be the body of your daughter, Jennifer.”

  Doreen let out a gasp, while Craig went pale. He clasped his wife’s hand. “Are you sure?”

  “Not yet,” Corrina said, “but we want you to be prepared for the worst.”

  “Then maybe it isn’t her,” Doreen said to Craig. She looked at Corrina. “What makes you think it’s Jennifer?”

  “Have you seen the news today? The serial killer Fifteen-X?”

  Both nodded slowly.

  “He sent us his fourth chapter and the location of the grave this morning. I’m sorry.”

  Doreen let out a howl and buried her head in her husband’s chest. Craig patted her head, a tear escaping from his eye.

  “How did she…?” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

  “We don’t have all the details, but I’m afraid it wasn’t quick. I wish I could tell you otherwise.”

  Doreen’s head snapped around to face Corrina. “Why!?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Why did he kill her? Why my Jenny?”

  “We’re hoping you could help us with that,” McCrae jumped in. “Did you have any contact with any…criminal elements just before Jennifer disappeared?”

  “Certainly not!” Craig Madden said sternly. “What are you implying?”

  “We just want to rule out retribution,” Corrina said, trying to smooth the waters a little. “Did anyone threaten you or demand money prior to her going missing?”

  “No, nothing like that. I would have told the police when they came to question me.”

  Corrina believed him. He didn’t seem to be hiding anything. “Do you know Anthony Swanson?” she asked.

  Craig mulled the name over, then shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

  “How about Vincent Perry? Or Miriam Crane?”

  Again, he shook his head.

  “Mrs. Madden?” Corrina said.

  Doreen looked at her through red eyes. “No, I don’t know those people.”

  Corrina realized she wasn’t going to get anything useful out of them. She handed Craig her card. “If you think of anything regarding Jennifer’s disappearance, please contact me, day or night. Would you like me to send someone to speak to you? A grief counsellor, perhaps?”

  “No, we’ll be okay.” Corrina could tell he was holding back tears. “We kinda knew, to be honest. I mean, after all this time. It’s just…when it’s finally confirmed...”

  “I know,” Corrina said, though she could only imagine what was going through their minds. She didn’t know and hoped she never would. “I’m afraid the story is going to be all over the news in the coming days, and it’s not going to be easy for you.”

  “If we need someone, I’ll arrange it,” Craig said.

  “We’ll let ourselves out,” McCrae told him. “Again, if you think of anything that might help us…”

  Craig nodded one last time, then hugged his wife as the dam broke.

  Outside, McCrae asked Corrina what she thought.

  “They seemed genuine,” she said. “I don’t think they were being squeezed.”

  “Same here.” He got behind the wheel and waited for Corrina to join him in the car. “So what’s the connection?”

  Before she could answer, Corrina’s cell rang. It was the reporter.

  “Hello, Jess,” she said when she answered. “Sorry, but there’s not much—”

  “I just got chapter five.”

  Chapter 18

  Chapter Five

  The boys are back in town!

  Well, one boy, and his name was Dane Lewis. You probably remember him. It was all over the papers at the time. Dane was a simple boy, what I like to call fecally challenged; he didn’t know shit. That’s not to say he was a retard. Oh, no. He just didn’t know how the world worked. You see, all his parents taught him was the bible, but I’ll get on to that later.

  One thing he liked was camping, and that’s how I got him. You see, Dane wasn’t the most popular boy at school. He didn’t like the horseplay that regular kids engage in, and he wasn’t attractive by any stretch of the imagination, so the girls weren’t interested in him. No, he was your typical loner. A prime candidate for showing up at school one day with an assault rifle and blasting his fellow students to hell. Heck, maybe I prevented another mass shooting, who knows?

  Anyway, every two weeks, he’d head up to the hills to spend two nights under the stars, just a 16-year-old and his bible. I followed him a couple of times, just to see if he spent his weekends in the same place, or if he moved around. It was the same place, always. A spot by Cogswell Reservoir, a long way from known tracks, where he’d fish and swim and read the good book.

  Alone.

  It wasn’t a place I could drive to. Dane’s father would drive him to the lake and drop him off. Dane would hike about half a mile through the woods until he came to his favorite spot opposite Lobo Canyon, then pitch his tent, say a prayer and get out his fishing rod. He’d set it in the water, then start building a fire pit. Can’t be burning down God’s forest, can we?

  All I had to do was think of a way to get him to my van. I couldn’t carry him all the way back to the road, and I didn’t want to kill him by the lake. No, I needed time with him. Time and solitude.

  In the end I chose to exploit his weakness: the bible. I picked Hebrews 13:2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

  So I played the lost traveler, knowing he wouldn’t refuse to help me. I thought it best to do it at night as there wouldn’t be so many people wandering the forest. I stumbled into his camp at about ten at night. I knew he was still up because I’d been watching him for hours.

  “Oh, thank the Lord,” I said as I hobbled toward him. “I’ve been wandering out here for about ten hours. I keep getting turned around. Can you tell me how to get back to the road? I left my car up by Twomile Point.”

  Dane couldn’t have been more accommodating. He offered me a choice of drink, hot or cold, and something to eat. I took water and some baked fish, because that’s what someone who’d been stuck in the woods for ten hours would do. Dane asked me what I was doing out here, and I said I was just trying to get back to nature. I said I’d been stuck in the city for so long and just needed some peace, some tranquility. Dane just nodded, as if he knew exactly what I was talking about.

  He told me how to get back to the road, but I told him I’d been walking around in that area for so long that I didn’t want to get lost again. Then, like a true good Samaritan, he offered to walk me back to Twomile Point.

  He got a flashlight, put out the fire, closed his tent and we set off. I asked him what a boy so young was doing in the woods all alone. He said he had no real friends, and his father didn’t like camping. Daddy Lewis liked his luxuries, but Dane liked it out here because he was closer to God.

  When we got back to the road my van was waiting. I told Dane I had some batteries in the back, ones that would
fit his flashlight. He’d had it on for some time, and the glow was beginning to fade. He thanked me and followed me to my vehicle. When we got alongside I unlocked it and had a quick glance around. There was no-one.

  I slid the side door open, then jabbed the stun gun in his ribs. You should have seen the look on his face! Shock didn’t even begin to describe it. I gave him about ten seconds, then jabbed him with the ketamine. He didn’t even struggle, just looked at me confused. He must have been thinking something like, “how could someone do this to me?”

  I bundled him inside and gave him another blast of the stun gun, just for the hell of it, then closed the door and sat on him until he went under. I strapped him in nice and secure, then drove to his death bed.

  I was tired by the time I got him secured, so tired I had a whiskey or two and went to bed.

  In the morning, Dane was awake. He didn’t scream when I walked into the basement, which was a surprise. Two more surprises were that he’d shit himself, and he was praying. I couldn’t hear the words because he was mumbling. Maybe he was praying for the smell to go away.

  I got a bucket of cold water, put some bleach in it and washed him down. Luckily the table has a drain built in to catch the blood, and it worked on shit, too. The stink lingered, though, so I left him alone with an air freshener for a couple of hours.

  It was lunchtime when I went back down. Dane was still praying. I don’t know if it was the same one, but the smell had gone. A goddamn miracle!

  “Who are you talking to?” I asked him.

  He looked at me, no malice or anger in his stare. “God,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because…”

  “Because he’ll save you?” I said. “Sorry to break the bad news, buster, but God doesn’t exist. Trust me, I know.”

  “He does,” Dane told me. “You just need to have faith.”

  This was going to be an interesting conversation.

  “So tell me. How many gods are there?”

  “There’s only one true God,” he said.

  “But what about the god I worship? What about Poseidon?”

  “Poseidon?”

  “Yeah, the god of horses, storms, earthquakes and the sea. What about him?”

  “He’s not real. He’s just a myth.”

  “Ah,” I said, “but if he’s a myth, why do we have earthquakes? Isn’t it because someone has angered Poseidon?”

  He managed a laugh. Strapped to my killing table, naked, and he laughed. Strange little bastard. “Earthquakes are caused by tectonic plates rubbing together.”

  “Are you telling me that science can prove that my god doesn’t exist?”

  “I am.”

  “Okay,” I said, “then your bible says the earth is about 6000 years old. Explain 65 million-year-old dinosaur remains.”

  “God put them there to test our faith.”

  “I see. Science can be used to explain why my god doesn’t exist, but when it’s your god, science is wrong. Okay, let me ask you another one. Is incest good?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “The bible says it’s not good?”

  “Yes, it does. Leviticus 18:9 The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or the daughter of thy mother, whether born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.”

  “Wow! You know your bible. That’s impressive. So explain this to me. Adam and Eve had...how many children?”

  “Six.”

  “And Adam and Eve were the first humans, and everyone descended from them. Is that right.”

  He looked kindly at me. “Yes.”

  “So that pair had kids, and those six kids had more kids. But who did they have kids with if they were the only people on the planet? Did Cain fuck his mother? Did Abel screw his sister? Whichever combination it was, it had to be incest, right? And the children they bore, they must have been related, too. So wasn’t every generation born out of incest? Isn’t the whole thing hypocritical? We’re not allowed to commit incest, but we’re only here because of an incestuous relationship?”

  “It was necessary to begin the human race. Once there were enough people to allow non-incestuous relationships, it was banned by God.”

  “As I say, hypocritical. He made Adam and Eve. Why not make hundreds of unrelated people and avoid all this…sin?” He looked ready to answer, but I stopped him. “And if you’re going to say that God moves in mysterious ways, I’m going to cut your pecker off. That’s the default stance whenever you Christians can’t win an argument, and it really yanks my chain.”

  He thought long and hard about an answer, but couldn’t come up with one. I changed tack.

  “So you’re a Christian, are you?”

  Dane nodded. “Obviously.”

  “How long?” I asked him.

  He looked confused, as if the answer was clear. “All my life.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “All your life? You were born a Christian?”

  Another nod.

  “So what do you have to do to be a Christian?”

  “Worship God,” he told me. I tell you, he was so cool, it was almost unnerving.

  “Okay, so you’ve worshipped God all your life.”

  “I have,” he said.

  “Since the day you were born?”

  “Yes.”

  “So let me get this straight. Before you could speak, before you could really open your eyes and focus, before you could control your bowels and your bladder, you were singing God’s praises, is that right?”

  “Well, no…”

  “I thought not. And do you know why? It’s because you weren’t born a Christian, you were born to Christian parents. If your parents were called Mohammed and Aisha, you’d be begging me to point you toward Mecca right now. You’d be a Muslim. The only thing you were born into was a cult, one that’s been going for two thousand years. They indoctrinate you at an early age with tales of hell and damnation if you’re bad, but heavenly rewards if you’re good, but I’ve got news for you, Dane. It’s all bullshit. Your parents lied to you, your priest lied to you, they all lied. There is no God.”

  “I pity you,” Dane said.

  Jesus, this kid was spooky!

  “I’m telling you the truth, Dane. I’m trying to set you free. Religion has to be the biggest con ever perpetrated, and it’s still going on. Churches rake in the money, but they pay no taxes. They call themselves charities, but it’s the men at the top who get all the money. How many of those televangelists are poor, huh? None. They’re rolling in it. They need a new jet because God wants them to fly in style, and their congregations pull out their credit cards and buy them one! What a bunch of stupid fuckers!”

  “They are doing God’s work.”

  “Oh, boy, you really are gullible, aren’t you? Think about it. They claim they can cast out demons and heal the afflicted, but I saw one on TV the other day. He was wearing glasses. What kind of healer can cure others but can’t correct his own eyesight? Surely he could lay hands on himself and his eyesight would be 20/20, but no, he can’t, and you know why? Because. It’s. All. A. Con!

  “Let’s take Africa as an example. Why does he let so many innocent children starve to death? Why does he create insects that burrow into the ankles of children who’ve just walked miles to fetch clean drinking water, worms that grow inside them and cripple them? What kind of God does that? Why would he let evil men kill? Why would he allow a God-fearing woman to die of cancer, to spend her final days in agony as the disease slowly ate at her bladder? And don’t give me that bullshit about God working in mysterious ways. The only mystery is how so many people have fallen for the lies.

  “Here’s another question for you: how many times does the bible say that rich men are sinners, eh? I’ll tell you, it’s a shitload. And gay sex? Mentioned a handful of times. Yet who do Christians hate? Is it the CEO who makes three hundred times the salary of the people who actually do the work, the people who have to work two jobs ju
st to make rent on a shithole apartment, or gay men? It’s the gays, Dane, and that makes every Christian a hypocrite.”

  I realized I’d lost him. Dane was no longer listening. He was back to praying.

  “I’ll let you into a little secret,” I said, slapping his face to get his attention. “I used to believe in Him, but not anymore. I saw the light. I saw that He couldn’t exist. You want me to prove it to you?”

  He just looked at me as if I was a simpleton, so I went and fetched the saw.

  “Let’s consider God’s divine attributes,” I said. I counted off on my fingers. “One, his omnibenevolence. He’s all good. Agree?”

  Dane nodded.

  “Two, his omniscience. He knows everything.”

  “That’s right,” Dane said.

  “Three, his omnipotence. He can do anything he wants. And four, his omnipresence.” I gesture around the basement. “He’s everywhere.”

  “Yes,” Dane smiled.

  “And if I was to saw off your foot—not the whole thing, just half of it, so you can’t pull your leg out of that hole—that would be an act of evil, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would,” he said. The smile had finally slipped.

  So I did it. I cut the top of his foot off. He screamed like an animal.

  “Here’s something an ancient Greek said a few hundred years before Jesus walked the earth. He said, is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? If God was real, he either wanted to stop me doing that, but couldn’t, or he could have stopped me but didn’t want to. You’re one of his flock, but he just sat back and watched as I took your foot off. And that, my friend, is proof that God doesn’t exist.”

  Dane was crying now, snot running into his mouth as he tried to speak to the Almighty and beg for help, and then…suddenly…a bright light in the corner! It grew and morphed into the shape of a winged man, and it said to me…

  Nah, I’m just fucking with you. Nothing happened. No light, no angel, just me, Dane and an assortment of tools that I used on him for the next nine hours.