I fell down the steps yesterday. It was a strangely familiar feeling. Losing control of oneself is always disconcerting. As I laid at the bottom of the steps, staring up at the place where I had left my ability to control my balance, I got the sense of realization. Although I had not taken a fall like that in a very long time, the sensation was familiar. I was in pain, but I did laugh at my clumsiness. But, something about the feeling of sameness didn’t seem so funny to me. It took me until tonight to start to see where that nagging feeling of déjà vu was coming from.
While leading with my heart, I have put myself on a collision course with a apparent crash. It seems, that unlike my flight down a handful of steps, this falling was based on clumsiness or anything else I had done to upset my own apple cart. I spent a good part of the day in the silence that a day off tends to bring me trying to find the tripwire. I had to break it down in my head to start to see the whole picture. And some of the realization was painful. Other parts were enlightening. And still, other parts, were just frustrating.
The way my mind works finds me making analogies out of things to understand life. The first thing I found myself seeing was myself sitting at a poker table. The game was being played normally, but for one critical exception. It seems my hand was laid out, face up, exposed for everyone to see. I would place my ante in the pot, cover wagers around the table, and place bets on the power of my own cards. I would discard those cards I saw as unhelpful and receive my draw cards, laying them out the same way as the others…face up and exposed. The problem here is obvious. Everyone can see your hand. They know where you are coming from, what you think you see, and they can play their hands with that knowledge having an advantage that goes beyond luck. Because, even with a winning hand, with all your cards exposed, you winnings will be nothing more than the ante because no one is going to bet against and shown winner. They will wait to see you with just enough to keep you in, holding hands that will beat you. And they will raise the stakes. Not because they want to hurt you. But, because they want to win as badly as you do. But, their advantage has removed all sense of fair.
Leading my life with an exposed hand has found me at a disadvantage. It has had me sensing that I may not be getting back all that I have been willing to give. Although there are moments that tell me that things are on the same page, there are the unexplained quiet moments that leave me feeling that I have been given a cold shoulder. If there was something that I had done to explain it, it would be easier to take. But, for the life of me, I have no idea what that could be. Not only have I shown my heart, but I have done it as honestly as I possibly could. And I have hidden nothing. So, to think that there may be something that I am not really aware of…I find hard to believe.
Realizing this, I see the start of the fall.
After some time of distraction, I return to the subject reluctantly. I have tried very hard to accept what I have been given lately with very little concern. I have tried to be understanding and patient. For these things, I have received amazing acts of love. But, as quickly as they come, they seem to disappear into thin air. It’s like being drenched with a hose, feeling the cooling sense and the pleasure in it, and suddenly the pressure reduces to drops that you are scrambling to have land on you just to get the feeling back. At some point, you start to realize that it’s just not enough. It’s not what you need. And it’s not what you deserve.
I am not sure where all this leaves me. That seems to be another problem for me. There is no sense of certainty. At some point, with effort and commitment, some surety should become the steadying piece that keeps you from falling. Without it, when the step turns treacherous, the loss of balance is inevitable. And when you lose control, you flail and twist trying desperately to regain your footing. Try as you might, you just can’t find it alone.
Repeated trips can have two effects. One would be an immediate turning away from the situation just to make sure that it never happens to you again. The other would be some kind of getting used to the falls coming. After a while, you stop realizing that it isn’t something that is supposed to happen to you. You take it for granted that this is the way things are supposed to be. Nothing can be further from the truth.
All any one of us want in these situations is the feeling that you are getting as good as you give. That you feel the return of all that you have turned over. When that isn’t occurring, there has to be a point that you realize it. There has to be a point that you see the truth.
As the day wound down today, I started to realize the most painful part of this lesson of falling. There is a point where the bumps, bruises, and scrapes start to take their toll on your ability to fight for what you so desperately want. What these falls can start to tell you is that you may being fighting harder than anyone else. And the battle of what the heart possesses can not be a battle fought alone. That kind of fight becomes tiring. It becomes depressing. And it becomes endless.
I have not given up. But, the repeated losses of balance have caused a moment of pause within me. I realize that it’s time to plant my fight in the ground, stand firm, and not settle for less than I think I deserve. If that can’t be worked out, than there really can not be anything to fight for.
So, I have dusted myself off…once again. I have treated the wounds. And I will stand and fight one more time. But, this time with the knowledge that this path has to be clear. It has to be level. And it has to be done hand in hand. If not, there really is no point in taking any more steps.
And that would be the saddest thing of all.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Rebuilding
Sitting at the chair again, he knows that there is nothing in his eyes. He could never force it. It had to be there waiting for him or he simply couldn’t use it. The only avenue left to him is the one that takes him back to the places that scare him most. Knowing what he must do, he begins the process once again. It’s not that there is nothing new, but that something old is screaming to get I\out. Until he allows that escape, creating isn’t an option.
Sitting still, he takes a breath and closes his eyes. Without moving in his seat, he turns inside his mind to see what is within. Trepidation is his guide, knowing what he may find there. He wonders what it is that so desperately is crying for release.
The adjustment complete, he approaches the hallway in his mind that leads to the chamber of his memories. The path is dark, well hidden from those who may search his eyes for a vision he just can’t let them see. He covers it with laughter, smiles, and tries with all he has to keep these things just where they are. Safe. Until moments like this one, where the choice is made.
He finds the open area. Sitting in the lighted room is a strongbox. He approaches and pulls up the lid, looking inside for a clue to his peace. Inside are the keepsakes, the keys to the memories that only visit him in his dreams and at times like these. These moments when the sound is too much to ignore. The cry of exposure is always so deafening. Mementos of things gone by are what he finds. Like dog-eared pages of a book, reminders of places left behind. The box seems so small to carry so much. But, then again, how much space does one man’s mysteries need?
The smell of fear, anger, and disappointment rises from the box. He knows that this will not be a pleasant excursion. Sometimes, the calling to this place is for the release of some pleasant memory that has been forgotten, but needed at the time to remind him of what he is capable of. Those moments bring him joy. They tell him that not all of the bricks in his life are as misshaped and ill-fitting as others. Those trips to this place tell him, when he needs it most, that the foundation that he has built his life on is strong, that it’s true, and that it comes from the better part of what he carries inside. It is what he tries so very hard to rely on in moments of indecision and doubt. Those pieces that tell him that he knows what happiness is and he can enjoy it, if only he will allow himself the opportunity.
But, within that foundation are the bricks that aren’t so perfect. The chipped and damaged. He is wary of them. Some buried so deep within the construction of his life that he hasn’t been able to recognize them, not quite forgotten them, but turned away from them. They rest inside the mortar, causing imperfections that allow the cracks that try so hard to cause his collapse. He knows that in creating this place in his mind, that he has placed those building blocks as perfectly as he could. He has put them together, with strenuous effort, like a jigsaw puzzle, each nook fitting into the cutout of the next. Doing his best to make it all seem seamless. Knowing that without care, the edges will show. And the bricks will begin to show wear.
As always, the calling piece sits right on top. What is below is waiting for their day, not ready to come to light. Not ready for even he to see them completely. They will have their day. Their moment of need. This is not that time. The image that is calling is one of hands, holding on at the wrists, just hands. Many hands. And in the center is the word “trust”.
A basic foundation to any relationship is trust. Without it, there is no counting on anyone for anything. Without it, everything crumbles. He would like to believe that the issue of trust is an individual one. It is not. As he looks at the image, one of the hands slowly raises a finger, then two. Something is happening to the circle. This sign of trust broken is causing a ripple effect within the order of things. The word in the center, the printing, fades just a bit. He notices that other hands, along the perimeter of the first, are now doing similar things. They are pulling away from the center, ever so slightly. And the word, it fades more.
He realizes that the movements are not only times where the trust in him by someone has failed, but also the reverse. He is seeing the effect that one moment of mistrust can have on every relationship within the circle he has created. And it saddens him. He knows that these movements are not deliberate. They are subtle, noticeable only by those closest to the situation. And even then, they can be so soft to only cause a stir. The damage will come later, as the movement increases that the grips begin to let go.
Trust is a lot like love. The hardest to survive are those times of trust that have been built over time. Parents to child is a good example. As a child, he trusted blindly to those he believed would never do anything to harm him. That trust made him blind, having him believe that moments of pain were of his own doing, he was the cause. Looking back, he knows this not to be the case. But, the inability to question the trust makes it hard, even now, to accept the truth. And in this, he sees the beginning of the imperfections. The first unsteady pieces to the foundation. They surround his core. They are the first pieces that he sees when, in his mind’s eye, he stares out through the cracks. Like filters on a camera lens, it is what colors all that he sees.
He realizes that these initial imperfections in his structure are what orchestrated the creation of all the others. He knows that if not for these moments of heartbreak realization, those others may never have held such a prominent place in who he has become. The bricks that have been laid since, right up to this very day, have all been born of the original promise broken. The promise of unconditional love from parent to child. The bond that, God said, should and could never be broken. Although he never can believe that God would lie to him, he knows in his heart that He may have been mistaken.
As he studies the picture again, there is something happening that he isn’t sure what to make of. Although the inner connections of hands seem to have created a clean and broken beyond repair situation, those hands that follow outward seem to be reaching back. As if to try and regain, or even prove themselves. Is it possible that the influence of the early separation has caused him to see mistrust when it was never really there? And more importantly, is this image trying to tell him that it is repairable?
Something vibrates within the box. He lowers the image and looks back into the gathering of his life and sees, resting just on top, where it wasn’t before, a perfectly formed brick, a hammer, and a trowel. The tool used to smooth out the mortar is sitting in a mortar pan. The message is clear. It’s time to rebuild the foundation. What seemed to be an impossible task, suddenly seems like the only answer.
This will be careful work. Not to be done with reckless abandon. There are good brick there. Relationships that have held the test of time, no matter how long or short the time may be. Those are the keepers. Those are the new starting points for the rebuilding of his core. He pulls away the cracked and broken bricks and throws them into the vortex of time. No use risking them mixing in and hiding within the good group to try and re-infect the structure. They not only need to be thrown away, they need to disappear. He reaches the core and sees himself exposed for the first time in a very long time. He senses the fear within himself. The uncertainty. He tries so very hard to give himself the sense that all will be okay, if they can only trust each other…one in the same…enough to put it all back together again.
But, a change is needed. There was something missing from the creation that was here before. He needs to figure out what that is before he continues. He sits with himself for a very long time. Trying very hard to dig deep within the frightened id that looks back at him from inside the framing. It’s the eyes that tell him.
As he starts again, to rebuild, the plans have changed. He follows the plans as they should be laid out, but as he reaches a certain point, a gap is made. He spaces it out just big enough to allow others inside. He places it in just the right place that the part of him that resides in the core can see out. If you can see what is coming, there is no reason to be unprepared. And if you are prepared, it doesn’t seem so scary. As he gets to the last of the bricks, he realizes the strength that this is creating. He glances back at the image of the hands, to see those that were on the outer edges have now reached over and taken the place of the ones that have let go. The word is not only fully visible, but it seems to vibrate with life. He turns back to see a few more bricks have dropped since he last look. The process is showing that not only is it good, but it is growing. It is feeding itself.
With the last brick laid, the mortar still drying, he places the image back into the strongbox. He closes the lid and pushes the box back into the corner. Safe and sound, hidden for another day…another enlightening. For now, this trip has finished it’s journey and the lesson has been learned.
Just has he steps to find his way back, he looks one last time at what he has created. A few bricks have fallen. New trusts are being made or recognized. And, what occurs fills his heart with hope.
The locked away part of himself reaches out the door with an unsteady hand and grasps the first brick. The tools await. He is building on his own. And this time, he can see the places these bricks are coming from and he can see their true nature. His selections will be better. And, with this his foundation will continue to get stronger.
Returning back to the place of now, he sits for a moment and wipes the tears from his face. The tingling in the back of his neck tells him what he needs to do now. It’s time to express. The veil has been lifted from his eyes and he can see the message.
Faith and trust is the building blocks to every part of are life. Without them, we are building with faulty materials that will eventually collapse on us, leaving us bruised, broken and exposed. Although the inability to trust may not be something we created within ourselves, to let that poison continue to hurt us is our own fault. We have to take the trowel in one hand and the hammer in the other and rebuild the foundation upon which we rest the very heart of who we are. Most importantly, understand that there should never be a roof. We should always be able to see towards heaven. Because that is the only place for blind trust. The doorway we have created will keep us aware and remove the fear of the unknown. And, by doing that, we will do our best to make sure that the imperfect materials are never used again. Because, we are too important for imperfect. We are too precious for the damaged and the chipped.
And now, my daily mission of discovery is done. I will be back when the box calls again.
Sitting still, he takes a breath and closes his eyes. Without moving in his seat, he turns inside his mind to see what is within. Trepidation is his guide, knowing what he may find there. He wonders what it is that so desperately is crying for release.
The adjustment complete, he approaches the hallway in his mind that leads to the chamber of his memories. The path is dark, well hidden from those who may search his eyes for a vision he just can’t let them see. He covers it with laughter, smiles, and tries with all he has to keep these things just where they are. Safe. Until moments like this one, where the choice is made.
He finds the open area. Sitting in the lighted room is a strongbox. He approaches and pulls up the lid, looking inside for a clue to his peace. Inside are the keepsakes, the keys to the memories that only visit him in his dreams and at times like these. These moments when the sound is too much to ignore. The cry of exposure is always so deafening. Mementos of things gone by are what he finds. Like dog-eared pages of a book, reminders of places left behind. The box seems so small to carry so much. But, then again, how much space does one man’s mysteries need?
The smell of fear, anger, and disappointment rises from the box. He knows that this will not be a pleasant excursion. Sometimes, the calling to this place is for the release of some pleasant memory that has been forgotten, but needed at the time to remind him of what he is capable of. Those moments bring him joy. They tell him that not all of the bricks in his life are as misshaped and ill-fitting as others. Those trips to this place tell him, when he needs it most, that the foundation that he has built his life on is strong, that it’s true, and that it comes from the better part of what he carries inside. It is what he tries so very hard to rely on in moments of indecision and doubt. Those pieces that tell him that he knows what happiness is and he can enjoy it, if only he will allow himself the opportunity.
But, within that foundation are the bricks that aren’t so perfect. The chipped and damaged. He is wary of them. Some buried so deep within the construction of his life that he hasn’t been able to recognize them, not quite forgotten them, but turned away from them. They rest inside the mortar, causing imperfections that allow the cracks that try so hard to cause his collapse. He knows that in creating this place in his mind, that he has placed those building blocks as perfectly as he could. He has put them together, with strenuous effort, like a jigsaw puzzle, each nook fitting into the cutout of the next. Doing his best to make it all seem seamless. Knowing that without care, the edges will show. And the bricks will begin to show wear.
As always, the calling piece sits right on top. What is below is waiting for their day, not ready to come to light. Not ready for even he to see them completely. They will have their day. Their moment of need. This is not that time. The image that is calling is one of hands, holding on at the wrists, just hands. Many hands. And in the center is the word “trust”.
A basic foundation to any relationship is trust. Without it, there is no counting on anyone for anything. Without it, everything crumbles. He would like to believe that the issue of trust is an individual one. It is not. As he looks at the image, one of the hands slowly raises a finger, then two. Something is happening to the circle. This sign of trust broken is causing a ripple effect within the order of things. The word in the center, the printing, fades just a bit. He notices that other hands, along the perimeter of the first, are now doing similar things. They are pulling away from the center, ever so slightly. And the word, it fades more.
He realizes that the movements are not only times where the trust in him by someone has failed, but also the reverse. He is seeing the effect that one moment of mistrust can have on every relationship within the circle he has created. And it saddens him. He knows that these movements are not deliberate. They are subtle, noticeable only by those closest to the situation. And even then, they can be so soft to only cause a stir. The damage will come later, as the movement increases that the grips begin to let go.
Trust is a lot like love. The hardest to survive are those times of trust that have been built over time. Parents to child is a good example. As a child, he trusted blindly to those he believed would never do anything to harm him. That trust made him blind, having him believe that moments of pain were of his own doing, he was the cause. Looking back, he knows this not to be the case. But, the inability to question the trust makes it hard, even now, to accept the truth. And in this, he sees the beginning of the imperfections. The first unsteady pieces to the foundation. They surround his core. They are the first pieces that he sees when, in his mind’s eye, he stares out through the cracks. Like filters on a camera lens, it is what colors all that he sees.
He realizes that these initial imperfections in his structure are what orchestrated the creation of all the others. He knows that if not for these moments of heartbreak realization, those others may never have held such a prominent place in who he has become. The bricks that have been laid since, right up to this very day, have all been born of the original promise broken. The promise of unconditional love from parent to child. The bond that, God said, should and could never be broken. Although he never can believe that God would lie to him, he knows in his heart that He may have been mistaken.
As he studies the picture again, there is something happening that he isn’t sure what to make of. Although the inner connections of hands seem to have created a clean and broken beyond repair situation, those hands that follow outward seem to be reaching back. As if to try and regain, or even prove themselves. Is it possible that the influence of the early separation has caused him to see mistrust when it was never really there? And more importantly, is this image trying to tell him that it is repairable?
Something vibrates within the box. He lowers the image and looks back into the gathering of his life and sees, resting just on top, where it wasn’t before, a perfectly formed brick, a hammer, and a trowel. The tool used to smooth out the mortar is sitting in a mortar pan. The message is clear. It’s time to rebuild the foundation. What seemed to be an impossible task, suddenly seems like the only answer.
This will be careful work. Not to be done with reckless abandon. There are good brick there. Relationships that have held the test of time, no matter how long or short the time may be. Those are the keepers. Those are the new starting points for the rebuilding of his core. He pulls away the cracked and broken bricks and throws them into the vortex of time. No use risking them mixing in and hiding within the good group to try and re-infect the structure. They not only need to be thrown away, they need to disappear. He reaches the core and sees himself exposed for the first time in a very long time. He senses the fear within himself. The uncertainty. He tries so very hard to give himself the sense that all will be okay, if they can only trust each other…one in the same…enough to put it all back together again.
But, a change is needed. There was something missing from the creation that was here before. He needs to figure out what that is before he continues. He sits with himself for a very long time. Trying very hard to dig deep within the frightened id that looks back at him from inside the framing. It’s the eyes that tell him.
As he starts again, to rebuild, the plans have changed. He follows the plans as they should be laid out, but as he reaches a certain point, a gap is made. He spaces it out just big enough to allow others inside. He places it in just the right place that the part of him that resides in the core can see out. If you can see what is coming, there is no reason to be unprepared. And if you are prepared, it doesn’t seem so scary. As he gets to the last of the bricks, he realizes the strength that this is creating. He glances back at the image of the hands, to see those that were on the outer edges have now reached over and taken the place of the ones that have let go. The word is not only fully visible, but it seems to vibrate with life. He turns back to see a few more bricks have dropped since he last look. The process is showing that not only is it good, but it is growing. It is feeding itself.
With the last brick laid, the mortar still drying, he places the image back into the strongbox. He closes the lid and pushes the box back into the corner. Safe and sound, hidden for another day…another enlightening. For now, this trip has finished it’s journey and the lesson has been learned.
Just has he steps to find his way back, he looks one last time at what he has created. A few bricks have fallen. New trusts are being made or recognized. And, what occurs fills his heart with hope.
The locked away part of himself reaches out the door with an unsteady hand and grasps the first brick. The tools await. He is building on his own. And this time, he can see the places these bricks are coming from and he can see their true nature. His selections will be better. And, with this his foundation will continue to get stronger.
Returning back to the place of now, he sits for a moment and wipes the tears from his face. The tingling in the back of his neck tells him what he needs to do now. It’s time to express. The veil has been lifted from his eyes and he can see the message.
Faith and trust is the building blocks to every part of are life. Without them, we are building with faulty materials that will eventually collapse on us, leaving us bruised, broken and exposed. Although the inability to trust may not be something we created within ourselves, to let that poison continue to hurt us is our own fault. We have to take the trowel in one hand and the hammer in the other and rebuild the foundation upon which we rest the very heart of who we are. Most importantly, understand that there should never be a roof. We should always be able to see towards heaven. Because that is the only place for blind trust. The doorway we have created will keep us aware and remove the fear of the unknown. And, by doing that, we will do our best to make sure that the imperfect materials are never used again. Because, we are too important for imperfect. We are too precious for the damaged and the chipped.
And now, my daily mission of discovery is done. I will be back when the box calls again.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Cutting the crime scene tape off the door, Kevin steps through the door of Diane Crowley’s darkened living room. The stale smell of blood still hangs in the air. There is a moment that hangs over crime scenes. It is that moment just before the violence begins. The tension fills the space and seems to take a lifetime to dissipate. He stands in the doorway cradling the sense, embracing it. Trying desperately to pull it to himself. If only to get a feel for the one he hunts. And that is what this is now. A hunt. The person who did this is an animal. And he deserves no better treatment than that of a dangerous prey. He steps across the floor to the couch and sits down without turning on the lights. Rolling up his sleeves, he sits back into the well worn furniture and tries to reach out with his mind’s eye. Tries to see what only time has removed from sight.
He closes his eyes and begins to feel.
Reaching back in time he begins to get a sense of what brought the chaos into this tiny dwelling. Opening his eyes, he slowly scans the room in the dark. The images begin to creep in slowly. And the sensations still his inner tremor, as he begins to see the unseen. He has always had the ability to feel these things. He isn’t sure what caused this ability. He sees it as a curse at times. Other times, a blessing. Could it be that after the darkness visited his home so many years ago, it left a piece of itself within him?
Thoughts begin to run through his mind. The intruder was already in the apartment when she brought her sleepy children up from the downstairs apartment of her sitter. It was a cool, rainy night. But, he left no clue that he was here. He had to enter without leaving a sense that he had disturbed. So careful in the entrance, yet no concern for leaving the clean up to be left all over the kitchen sink. Why? Not concerned with being caught? A serious sense of self and his importance. He was only concerned with it not happening, not what happened after. Why?
He opens his eyes to scan the room. How did the animal get in? Being on the second floor, with no balcony, excludes the windows which were found sealed shut. No, he came in the door. No marks left behind. He had to have a key. But, how? What gave him access to it or a copy of it? He made sure that his appearance could not be seen before he was ready for his act to begin.
Looking around again, he sees a shadow in the corner. Turning on the lamp on the end table to the left of the couch, he sees a small strong box in the corner. It has a small, inexpensive pad lock on a hatch on the front. No pry marks. The box is now unlocked, tagged with a evidence location number. He pulls his small, black notebook from his back pocket and jots down the note to review the log for the contents of the box. Why wouldn’t he search it? Why wasn’t he concerned with the one piece of secured furniture in the apartment? Robbery was not the motive. He didn’t want for anything other than the act.
He crosses the room to a small closet in the far corner of the room. Opening the door, he finds shelves storing board games and some extra linens. On the floor, a small cardboard box sits filled to the brim with winter boots, gloves, and scarves. No room to hide here.
So, where did he hide?
He had to hide. As Kevin crosses the room, walking towards the kitchen area, he realizes that he must have waited. He waited patiently for Diane to put her daughters to bed and to settle in herself. Self control. Patience. Hiding, coiled and ready to strike, but he waited. He took his time. Through all of it. He researched her. Her comings and goings. He probably sat at Lou’s allowing her to serve him, leaving a tip for a woman that he condemned to death. Cold plotting.
Entering the kitchen, he turns on the overhead light and stands in the doorway taking in all he sees. Blood still splattered across the sink, small areas blotted by crime scene techs who blotted for evidence. Fingerprint dust over all the cabinets and counter tops. The refrigerator door is also covered. On the counter, a bag of bread sits open.
You ate. You cleaned your weapon, your hands, and arms…and then you sat and ate.
Kevin opens the fridge and finds a compartment filled with the necessities. Milk, eggs, a small bag of mixed fruit on the bottom shelf, and half a bottle of wine on the door along with condiments. In the crisper he finds cheeses and lunchmeats. Bologna. Unsealed.
No woman on a fixed budget, working two jobs would leave bread to harden and lunchmeat to spoil by leaving it open, air exposed. Pinching pennies, taking care of these small things would be too important. And, the time of night and the hours worked would suggest that eating would have waited for breakfast. He walks to the counter and finds a small plastic box. Inside are index cards.
Recipes.
Cut from magazines, money saving recipes that a single mother would collect to assist in food budget management. Flipping through the index cards, he feels something strange. A different texture. Going through the cards slowly, he finds a small piece of torn notebook paper. Written in neat handwriting is an address:
129 E. Trotter Ave
Apt. 3
Pulling his phone from his waistband, Kevin calls the station and asks to have the address traced and all LUDS from any phone attached to the address pulled. It’s late, so he knows he won’t see anything until morning.
Continuing his search he steps into the dining area and, again, sees fingerprint dust covering the table and all the chairs. He sits down and looks around the small space. Pictures of apples and oranges decorate the far wall. The side of the fridge is covered with childhood art projects made just for mom. There is a love in this room, but it’s been soiled. The transverse collision of auras slams the room with confusion. He feels him sitting here. He senses the anger dissipating with each bite of the sandwich. And he senses the power.
Leaving the kitchenette, he turns left down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He pauses outside the bathroom door and turns on the light. Nothing out of place, it seems, for a chaotic bathroom that must have been a very busy place each morning. He can visualize Diane and her daughters, Jennette and Colleen, brushing their teeth as their mother finishes her make-up. Why didn’t he clean up here? Why not use the one room made for what he needed? Germ issues? Afraid of what he may leave behind if he took his cleaning to this level?
He enters the master bedroom and sits down on the edge of the bed in the dark. A small nightlight reflects off the wall sending a stream of light up the wall. There is madness in this room. This was the target area. The children were just collateral damage. What had she done to deserve this? Or is it that she had done nothing but be herself? What about her sent him into this madness?
After sitting for about twenty minutes, he rises from the bed and reaches for the wall light. The overhead comes on bringing the room to view. He makes his way to the double door closet and opens it. Clothes are hung neatly on the right side. The left has them pushed to the far side of the closet. He hid here. He waited here. He stood in this closet waiting for everyone to get where they needed to be. And when all was right, when all were defenseless, he sprang.
He’s a coward.
He’s not a big man. Strong, yes. But, not a big man. And he knows it. He was afraid of a confrontation with her standing. He waited for her to be comfortable, to doze.
He was on her before she knew it. Awaken with the shock of sudden contact, fear poured from her eyes. And he began. Subdue. Silence with threat. And then, as if breaking a promise, he starts his mission. Although no tool was found, ligature marks on her neck show that she had been choked. Just enough to cause her to pass out. Then he revived her. He wanted to see the fear. He mistook it for respect.
The pose is not out of the ordinary. Cliché as anything. But, the wrists. The pain involved with breaking a wrist so cleanly that you can rotate it in it’s crushed socket is more than Kevin can imagine. Once she was completely in his control, he began cutting. His cuts were precise, no hesitation marks indicated. He never thought twice about what he was doing. He thinks of his wife. He closes his eyes and the crime scene images shift back and forth between the two. So similar. Yet so different.
Similar is easy to understand. Different is harder. Although there was no personal catch for Kevin at this scene, the vision of the massacre hit so close to home, as if to be a mirror image. But, wouldn’t he make them different somehow?
Kevin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. The smells in the room bring memories flooding back. He sees both beds in side by side images in his mind’s eye. And he brings them into focus. Like a child’s game of “What’s Different?”, he scans each memory looking for what may have been missed.
Patricia was wearing a wedding band. Diane had a bare hand.
Each had their heads turned to the left, with the chin resting just on the shoulder.
Both sets of hands were twisted and broken grotesquely back.
Each night stand held a lamp and a clock. He could see the clocks. Their faces cleanly in his mind. Both were stopped at 3:32 am. In his mind, a flash went off. Time of death. It doesn’t match. The numbers mean something. Why change the time on the clocks? Why make them the same?
He turns from the bed and begins to study the walls. What is it he can’t see? There has to be a reason for the careful placement of blood on all the walls. He walks the walls from the corner nearest the window, around the room past the closets, over an old thrift store bureau and back again over the bed. He notices the drips that cascade in spots around the room, down the wall, almost to the molding near the floor. Each ends with a pooled residual amount of blood. He turns back over the headboard and sees a single line of a drip going down the wall. He looks at it. Sensing something he is not seeing.
He goes to the foot of the bed and pulls the bed away from the wall. He walks behind the headboard and follows the blood trail down the wall. And there, just before it reaches it’s final resting place, he sees it.
There is a cross line of blood cutting throw the drip. The line is drawn near the bottom. What is it? Why only here, behind the headboard, would this happen? It had to be intentional. There is a reason.
And then his mind’s eye sees.
Near the bottom, with a short top…it appears to be….an upside down cross.
He looks back at the nightstand. The clock.
3:32.
He gets up from behind the bed and scans the room. He can’t find what he is looking for here. There has to be one. He walks around the room, back into the hall, and into the living room. He finds what he is looking for on a shelf above the tv.
The Holy Bible.
Going from book to book, he searches out his idea. Finding meaningless passages, until he gets to Mark Chapter 3, Verse 32:
“And the teachers of law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”
Are the demons that are being driven out from his victims? Or do the demons live within him?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The randomness of his purpose it what keeps him save. The inability for those who would stop him from becoming can’t see the reasoning for his mission. He does nothing to give himself away. He plays their game to keep from standing out. Goes to work, does his job, pays his bills, and then stays out of sight. Causes no waves. Attracts no attention. He wears the mask of the daytime to hide the true nature of his becoming. If they could see, they would understand. But, their ignorance and his cunning keep them blind.
He sits in the parking lot of the Food Lion parking lot. He has loaded the small amount of groceries into his ten year old Jeep. Through the mud splattered windows, the keeps his eye on the cashier who has just gotten out of work and is heading to her car, parked on the east side of the building.
She is heading home to her daughter and her quiet home in the downtown area, across from the police station. How fitting, that he will put this next specimen right in his face. This one closer to home than the last…not just by distance, but because of the connection. She was special to the target of this attack. A little trip into his past. Kevin will feel more in this one.
The potential inside him knows that this makes this mission more dangerous. The great son of Carlton will come stronger after this. He will fully realize that no part of his life is safe.
Just thinking this has him excited. He struggles to control his breathing. Must relax. It’s not time yet. He has to be ready to receive the power. And to be there he needs more knowledge of his offering. He has to know her completely. And when the time is right, he will know. The potential is breathing life into it self within his soul. And it will trigger the time.
Patience is his. Because, timing is just as important as preparation. And he will always be prepared, so when the signal arrives, he will be ready.
As he pulls out of the parking lot, he follows her closely. He needs to continue to know her routine. She will drive down Park Street to Main and make a left. Two blocks, right. She will stop at the Sheetz station on Trotter Ave and pick up a fountain soda and a pack of Salem Lights. Back in her car she will travel the two blocks to her apartment. Sending her babysitter home, she will check on her sleeping daughter, make herself a microwaveable meal of some horrible tasting prepackaged food and settle in front of her television to watch some late night television.
Routines are just that, the norm. And the norm can kill you.
And so can the becoming.
He thinks, just for a moment, that he feels a deep sigh come from his soul.
The power is close.
It’s almost time to play again.
Cutting the crime scene tape off the door, Kevin steps through the door of Diane Crowley’s darkened living room. The stale smell of blood still hangs in the air. There is a moment that hangs over crime scenes. It is that moment just before the violence begins. The tension fills the space and seems to take a lifetime to dissipate. He stands in the doorway cradling the sense, embracing it. Trying desperately to pull it to himself. If only to get a feel for the one he hunts. And that is what this is now. A hunt. The person who did this is an animal. And he deserves no better treatment than that of a dangerous prey. He steps across the floor to the couch and sits down without turning on the lights. Rolling up his sleeves, he sits back into the well worn furniture and tries to reach out with his mind’s eye. Tries to see what only time has removed from sight.
He closes his eyes and begins to feel.
Reaching back in time he begins to get a sense of what brought the chaos into this tiny dwelling. Opening his eyes, he slowly scans the room in the dark. The images begin to creep in slowly. And the sensations still his inner tremor, as he begins to see the unseen. He has always had the ability to feel these things. He isn’t sure what caused this ability. He sees it as a curse at times. Other times, a blessing. Could it be that after the darkness visited his home so many years ago, it left a piece of itself within him?
Thoughts begin to run through his mind. The intruder was already in the apartment when she brought her sleepy children up from the downstairs apartment of her sitter. It was a cool, rainy night. But, he left no clue that he was here. He had to enter without leaving a sense that he had disturbed. So careful in the entrance, yet no concern for leaving the clean up to be left all over the kitchen sink. Why? Not concerned with being caught? A serious sense of self and his importance. He was only concerned with it not happening, not what happened after. Why?
He opens his eyes to scan the room. How did the animal get in? Being on the second floor, with no balcony, excludes the windows which were found sealed shut. No, he came in the door. No marks left behind. He had to have a key. But, how? What gave him access to it or a copy of it? He made sure that his appearance could not be seen before he was ready for his act to begin.
Looking around again, he sees a shadow in the corner. Turning on the lamp on the end table to the left of the couch, he sees a small strong box in the corner. It has a small, inexpensive pad lock on a hatch on the front. No pry marks. The box is now unlocked, tagged with a evidence location number. He pulls his small, black notebook from his back pocket and jots down the note to review the log for the contents of the box. Why wouldn’t he search it? Why wasn’t he concerned with the one piece of secured furniture in the apartment? Robbery was not the motive. He didn’t want for anything other than the act.
He crosses the room to a small closet in the far corner of the room. Opening the door, he finds shelves storing board games and some extra linens. On the floor, a small cardboard box sits filled to the brim with winter boots, gloves, and scarves. No room to hide here.
So, where did he hide?
He had to hide. As Kevin crosses the room, walking towards the kitchen area, he realizes that he must have waited. He waited patiently for Diane to put her daughters to bed and to settle in herself. Self control. Patience. Hiding, coiled and ready to strike, but he waited. He took his time. Through all of it. He researched her. Her comings and goings. He probably sat at Lou’s allowing her to serve him, leaving a tip for a woman that he condemned to death. Cold plotting.
Entering the kitchen, he turns on the overhead light and stands in the doorway taking in all he sees. Blood still splattered across the sink, small areas blotted by crime scene techs who blotted for evidence. Fingerprint dust over all the cabinets and counter tops. The refrigerator door is also covered. On the counter, a bag of bread sits open.
You ate. You cleaned your weapon, your hands, and arms…and then you sat and ate.
Kevin opens the fridge and finds a compartment filled with the necessities. Milk, eggs, a small bag of mixed fruit on the bottom shelf, and half a bottle of wine on the door along with condiments. In the crisper he finds cheeses and lunchmeats. Bologna. Unsealed.
No woman on a fixed budget, working two jobs would leave bread to harden and lunchmeat to spoil by leaving it open, air exposed. Pinching pennies, taking care of these small things would be too important. And, the time of night and the hours worked would suggest that eating would have waited for breakfast. He walks to the counter and finds a small plastic box. Inside are index cards.
Recipes.
Cut from magazines, money saving recipes that a single mother would collect to assist in food budget management. Flipping through the index cards, he feels something strange. A different texture. Going through the cards slowly, he finds a small piece of torn notebook paper. Written in neat handwriting is an address:
129 E. Trotter Ave
Apt. 3
Pulling his phone from his waistband, Kevin calls the station and asks to have the address traced and all LUDS from any phone attached to the address pulled. It’s late, so he knows he won’t see anything until morning.
Continuing his search he steps into the dining area and, again, sees fingerprint dust covering the table and all the chairs. He sits down and looks around the small space. Pictures of apples and oranges decorate the far wall. The side of the fridge is covered with childhood art projects made just for mom. There is a love in this room, but it’s been soiled. The transverse collision of auras slams the room with confusion. He feels him sitting here. He senses the anger dissipating with each bite of the sandwich. And he senses the power.
Leaving the kitchenette, he turns left down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He pauses outside the bathroom door and turns on the light. Nothing out of place, it seems, for a chaotic bathroom that must have been a very busy place each morning. He can visualize Diane and her daughters, Jennette and Colleen, brushing their teeth as their mother finishes her make-up. Why didn’t he clean up here? Why not use the one room made for what he needed? Germ issues? Afraid of what he may leave behind if he took his cleaning to this level?
He enters the master bedroom and sits down on the edge of the bed in the dark. A small nightlight reflects off the wall sending a stream of light up the wall. There is madness in this room. This was the target area. The children were just collateral damage. What had she done to deserve this? Or is it that she had done nothing but be herself? What about her sent him into this madness?
After sitting for about twenty minutes, he rises from the bed and reaches for the wall light. The overhead comes on bringing the room to view. He makes his way to the double door closet and opens it. Clothes are hung neatly on the right side. The left has them pushed to the far side of the closet. He hid here. He waited here. He stood in this closet waiting for everyone to get where they needed to be. And when all was right, when all were defenseless, he sprang.
He’s a coward.
He’s not a big man. Strong, yes. But, not a big man. And he knows it. He was afraid of a confrontation with her standing. He waited for her to be comfortable, to doze.
He was on her before she knew it. Awaken with the shock of sudden contact, fear poured from her eyes. And he began. Subdue. Silence with threat. And then, as if breaking a promise, he starts his mission. Although no tool was found, ligature marks on her neck show that she had been choked. Just enough to cause her to pass out. Then he revived her. He wanted to see the fear. He mistook it for respect.
The pose is not out of the ordinary. Cliché as anything. But, the wrists. The pain involved with breaking a wrist so cleanly that you can rotate it in it’s crushed socket is more than Kevin can imagine. Once she was completely in his control, he began cutting. His cuts were precise, no hesitation marks indicated. He never thought twice about what he was doing. He thinks of his wife. He closes his eyes and the crime scene images shift back and forth between the two. So similar. Yet so different.
Similar is easy to understand. Different is harder. Although there was no personal catch for Kevin at this scene, the vision of the massacre hit so close to home, as if to be a mirror image. But, wouldn’t he make them different somehow?
Kevin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. The smells in the room bring memories flooding back. He sees both beds in side by side images in his mind’s eye. And he brings them into focus. Like a child’s game of “What’s Different?”, he scans each memory looking for what may have been missed.
Patricia was wearing a wedding band. Diane had a bare hand.
Each had their heads turned to the left, with the chin resting just on the shoulder.
Both sets of hands were twisted and broken grotesquely back.
Each night stand held a lamp and a clock. He could see the clocks. Their faces cleanly in his mind. Both were stopped at 3:32 am. In his mind, a flash went off. Time of death. It doesn’t match. The numbers mean something. Why change the time on the clocks? Why make them the same?
He turns from the bed and begins to study the walls. What is it he can’t see? There has to be a reason for the careful placement of blood on all the walls. He walks the walls from the corner nearest the window, around the room past the closets, over an old thrift store bureau and back again over the bed. He notices the drips that cascade in spots around the room, down the wall, almost to the molding near the floor. Each ends with a pooled residual amount of blood. He turns back over the headboard and sees a single line of a drip going down the wall. He looks at it. Sensing something he is not seeing.
He goes to the foot of the bed and pulls the bed away from the wall. He walks behind the headboard and follows the blood trail down the wall. And there, just before it reaches it’s final resting place, he sees it.
There is a cross line of blood cutting throw the drip. The line is drawn near the bottom. What is it? Why only here, behind the headboard, would this happen? It had to be intentional. There is a reason.
And then his mind’s eye sees.
Near the bottom, with a short top…it appears to be….an upside down cross.
He looks back at the nightstand. The clock.
3:32.
He gets up from behind the bed and scans the room. He can’t find what he is looking for here. There has to be one. He walks around the room, back into the hall, and into the living room. He finds what he is looking for on a shelf above the tv.
The Holy Bible.
Going from book to book, he searches out his idea. Finding meaningless passages, until he gets to Mark Chapter 3, Verse 32:
“And the teachers of law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”
Are the demons that are being driven out from his victims? Or do the demons live within him?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The randomness of his purpose it what keeps him save. The inability for those who would stop him from becoming can’t see the reasoning for his mission. He does nothing to give himself away. He plays their game to keep from standing out. Goes to work, does his job, pays his bills, and then stays out of sight. Causes no waves. Attracts no attention. He wears the mask of the daytime to hide the true nature of his becoming. If they could see, they would understand. But, their ignorance and his cunning keep them blind.
He sits in the parking lot of the Food Lion parking lot. He has loaded the small amount of groceries into his ten year old Jeep. Through the mud splattered windows, the keeps his eye on the cashier who has just gotten out of work and is heading to her car, parked on the east side of the building.
She is heading home to her daughter and her quiet home in the downtown area, across from the police station. How fitting, that he will put this next specimen right in his face. This one closer to home than the last…not just by distance, but because of the connection. She was special to the target of this attack. A little trip into his past. Kevin will feel more in this one.
The potential inside him knows that this makes this mission more dangerous. The great son of Carlton will come stronger after this. He will fully realize that no part of his life is safe.
Just thinking this has him excited. He struggles to control his breathing. Must relax. It’s not time yet. He has to be ready to receive the power. And to be there he needs more knowledge of his offering. He has to know her completely. And when the time is right, he will know. The potential is breathing life into it self within his soul. And it will trigger the time.
Patience is his. Because, timing is just as important as preparation. And he will always be prepared, so when the signal arrives, he will be ready.
As he pulls out of the parking lot, he follows her closely. He needs to continue to know her routine. She will drive down Park Street to Main and make a left. Two blocks, right. She will stop at the Sheetz station on Trotter Ave and pick up a fountain soda and a pack of Salem Lights. Back in her car she will travel the two blocks to her apartment. Sending her babysitter home, she will check on her sleeping daughter, make herself a microwaveable meal of some horrible tasting prepackaged food and settle in front of her television to watch some late night television.
Routines are just that, the norm. And the norm can kill you.
And so can the becoming.
He thinks, just for a moment, that he feels a deep sigh come from his soul.
The power is close.
It’s almost time to play again.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Let's Play (Chapter Four)
Chapter Four
Sitting down on the bench, Kevin took a moment to say hello to his parents. Buried side by side in a small cemetery next to the church where he had spent every Sunday of his youth. He visited at least once a week. He couldn’t bare to enter the building. God’s house. The fact that it was referred to as a house would make entering it seem like a visit. And a visit would suggest a relationship of some comfort. It was not the relationship that he felt he had with the owner. Life had stripped away his desire for the relationship.
The air was still crisp and the clouds suggested that rain was to return. He sat there in the silence of the dark afternoon and tried to allow the voices of is parents come to him. He craved their instruction. He wanted so much to hear them tell him what he needed to do. He could sit here and admit his fears, when he couldn’t do it anywhere else. If for no other reason, he came here for a sense of peace.
He could see his father sitting at the breakfast table, carefully listening to him describe the situation that had caused him pause. He spent many a morning telling his father about anything and everything in his life looking for the answers that all sons search for from their fathers. But, for some reason, in this moment, he thought of his mother. He could see her sitting there with that look of love on her face, complete understanding and unconditional care, listening to her son share his fears. He could almost hear her telling him to lead with the better part of himself. To never be afraid of what he could not do, only be afraid of what he thought he couldn’t do. He could hear her words telling him that there was nothing for him to fear, he was on the side of right. He just needed to stop and look at all that he can see. The picture would become clear.
For the first time, he doubted his mother’s words.
A snap of a twig got his attention.
Father Taylor had been the priest of St. Michael’s Church for as long as Kevin could remember. He had pictures that showed Father Taylor presiding over his christening. He was there for his confirmation into the church. And he also led the service for his parents.
“Kevin Orton, as I live and breath. How are you, son?”
“It’s been a day, Father…it’s been a day.”
“I heard about the situation over on Deacon. You are aware that Mrs. Crowley was a member of this church?”
“No, did you know her well, Father?”
“Actually, she had only been a parishioner for a year or so. I know that she was a divorced woman, a single mother with two small girls. She did come to services every Sunday and she volunteered for distribution of food to the needy on Wednesdays. I can tell you that she was troubled over her divorce, mostly the situation with her ex-husband.”
“What situation is that, Father?”
“Well, it seems that he was a man that enjoyed his drink. And under those conditions, he was known to use his fists instead of his words to communicate his frustration.”
“We looked into that this morning and couldn’t find any incident where a patrol car was called to her place.”
“I think she may have kept that to herself outside the confessional. I told her of the shelters and the help that she could receive from people like yourself. She didn’t want to air her dirty laundry. But, I know that she was a woman who lived in fear. Have you spoken to her ex-husband yet, Kevin?
“No, Father, we haven’t been able to find him. A patrol car went to his place of work, but he didn’t show up for work today. He is not at home. Is there anywhere that you may know him to be?”
“No, son, I don’t know the man. He is not a member of this church. I just know of him.”
Kevin stared off into the distance. The thought that this seemed like more than a domestic situation crossed his mind again, but every angle needed to be pursued.
“Father, in talking to Mrs. Crowley, did she ever mention living in Michigan? Or her ex-husband ever living there?”
Father Taylor sat back on the bench and took the question deep into thought. After a moment, he responded.
“No, Kevin, I don’t remember hearing that. I believe they were from the Philadelphia area…maybe Allentown. It seems to me that he was some kind of lawyer at one time, but that his habits had caused him to be dismissed from those duties. But, I am sure that Michigan was never mentioned. May I ask why you asked?”
“Just an angle, Father.” Standing up from the bench, Kevin turned back to the headstones that marked the final resting places for his parents. “I really need to go, Father. Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it.”
“Son, may I ask you a question? When you come here, do you ever find your answers?”
“No, Father…but, sometimes I find direction.”
“I hope someday, that direction brings you back to us, Kevin.”
“We will see, Father. But, your boss and I have some things to work out first.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Darryl Crowley is a weak little man. He sat in interrogation room two as Kevin returned to the station. He had been picked up from a diner on the west side of town having breakfast, trying to soak up the acid from whatever it was that he poured into himself the night before.
Tully was standing with the patrolman who brought in Mr. Crowley in the observation area outside the interrogation room. Kevin walked up in time to hear that Mr. Crowley had no idea why he had been brought in, only being told that his name had come up in an investigation and that the detectives had questions for him. Kevin picked up the brand new case file and nodded to Tully, as if to let him know that it was time.
They both entered the room together. Kevin sat across from Mr. Crowley, while Tully sat next to him. An old trick. One close, almost friendly. The other across, confrontational. Kevin stared at the closed folder getting his thoughts together. The room was silent for a couple minutes. The only sound being the breath quickly escaping from Mr. Crowley. Kevin began.
“Mr. Crowley, can you tell us where you were at about 2 am this morning until you were picked up by the officer at the diner, please?”
Darryl Crowley looked up and appeared to realize that this was more serious than he may have initially thought.
“Can you tell me exactly why I am here?”
“Mr. Crowley, can you please answer the question?”
“Detective, I would like to know why I was dragged down here. I want to know now.”
“Orders? You are giving me orders?” Kevin stood up from his chair and slammed a fist down on the table. Crowley nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Mr. Crowley, I will tell you that there was an incident at the home of your ex-wife this morning. I need to know exactly where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing early this morning. I need to know now, sir.”
Darryl Crowley sank back in his chair and smirked. “What did that bitch say I did now? I can tell you that I haven’t been there in months. She told me that since I couldn’t pay my child support, I didn’t deserve to see my girls. Not sure who the hell she thinks she is, but I haven’t seen her to find out.”
“Can you prove that, Mr. Crowley?”
“Yes, sir, I can. Last night I spent the night sitting in on an all night poker game in the backroom of Dagastino’s Meats. There is a game there every Thursday night. I lost a yard playing Texas Hold’em. There were at least nine other people there to watch me do it. I didn’t leave until a hour before your guy picked me up. Now what is this about? What did she accuse me of this time?”
Kevin and Tully looked at each other and silently passed a thought to each other.
Tully put his arm around the back of Crowley’s chair and leaned in.
“Mr. Crowley, you can give us names for these people, right? We really need them.”
“Sure, I know all those guys. I owe most of them money, so there is no way they are going to forget I was there.”
“That’s good. I am going to give you a piece of paper and you are going to write down those names for me so we can check this out. The sooner we can do that, the quicker you will be getting out of here today.”
Kevin sat back down and opened the folder. Crime scene photos were covered by copies of the reports that had been compiled from all officers at the scene, the current evidence log, and a list of responding personnel.
“Mr. Crowley, this is going to be difficult to hear. Officers responded to the home of your ex-wife and children to find that they had been murdered.”
All of the air that was keeping Crowley’s body upright seemed to escape all at the same time. His entire body began to shake. He slid sideways out of the chair and fell to the floor. Tully ran from the room to have someone call for an ambulance. Kevin rose from his chair, removed his jacket and placed it under Crowley’s head.
“One thing is for sure, partner.” Kevin said, as he turned Crowley onto his back, “He didn’t do this.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
He sits alone in his cabin in the mountains. He stares into the fireplace that is burning the clothing that he wore for the ritual. His hands can still feel the blood seeping through them If he were honest with himself, he would admit that this one wasn’t as special as the first. The first was more personal. Closer to the target. This one was just to get his attention. To see the fear in his eyes again. He couldn’t wait to get a look into those eyes. He wanted to see the past seeping back in. Just when he thought he was safe from any further wrath.
Mr. Perfect isn’t feeling too perfect right now.
And he can feel his power growing. He gets up from the chair, standing naked in front of the open doorway. No one around for miles, he had no need for modesty. He needed to be naked to receive the power. He needed to be exposed to receive the gift. He knew so many years ago that he was special. But, this man had taken the light from him. He had stolen all he wanted. So, he took from him. And now with his attention focused on the return, he will take from him again. And again. Taking his family wasn’t enough. It took all this time to be ready again. The power grows daily. But, it’s not where it needs to be to finish the job.
He stands in the doorway with the razor in his hand. He runs the razor up and down his chest. He does this everyday now. Need to remove it all. Can’t leave anything behind. After he is done, he will scrub with the aluminum pad that lays in the sink. All pieces of dead skin needs to come off. They can find you in so many ways. But, he is too smart for them. He is always prepared.
The end will come without him having to raise a knife. He will be there to see it. But, the act will not come from him.
But, he will be the cause.
And when it comes, he will achieve the place he always knew he deserved. He will arrive.
And then, they will all see.
Sitting down on the bench, Kevin took a moment to say hello to his parents. Buried side by side in a small cemetery next to the church where he had spent every Sunday of his youth. He visited at least once a week. He couldn’t bare to enter the building. God’s house. The fact that it was referred to as a house would make entering it seem like a visit. And a visit would suggest a relationship of some comfort. It was not the relationship that he felt he had with the owner. Life had stripped away his desire for the relationship.
The air was still crisp and the clouds suggested that rain was to return. He sat there in the silence of the dark afternoon and tried to allow the voices of is parents come to him. He craved their instruction. He wanted so much to hear them tell him what he needed to do. He could sit here and admit his fears, when he couldn’t do it anywhere else. If for no other reason, he came here for a sense of peace.
He could see his father sitting at the breakfast table, carefully listening to him describe the situation that had caused him pause. He spent many a morning telling his father about anything and everything in his life looking for the answers that all sons search for from their fathers. But, for some reason, in this moment, he thought of his mother. He could see her sitting there with that look of love on her face, complete understanding and unconditional care, listening to her son share his fears. He could almost hear her telling him to lead with the better part of himself. To never be afraid of what he could not do, only be afraid of what he thought he couldn’t do. He could hear her words telling him that there was nothing for him to fear, he was on the side of right. He just needed to stop and look at all that he can see. The picture would become clear.
For the first time, he doubted his mother’s words.
A snap of a twig got his attention.
Father Taylor had been the priest of St. Michael’s Church for as long as Kevin could remember. He had pictures that showed Father Taylor presiding over his christening. He was there for his confirmation into the church. And he also led the service for his parents.
“Kevin Orton, as I live and breath. How are you, son?”
“It’s been a day, Father…it’s been a day.”
“I heard about the situation over on Deacon. You are aware that Mrs. Crowley was a member of this church?”
“No, did you know her well, Father?”
“Actually, she had only been a parishioner for a year or so. I know that she was a divorced woman, a single mother with two small girls. She did come to services every Sunday and she volunteered for distribution of food to the needy on Wednesdays. I can tell you that she was troubled over her divorce, mostly the situation with her ex-husband.”
“What situation is that, Father?”
“Well, it seems that he was a man that enjoyed his drink. And under those conditions, he was known to use his fists instead of his words to communicate his frustration.”
“We looked into that this morning and couldn’t find any incident where a patrol car was called to her place.”
“I think she may have kept that to herself outside the confessional. I told her of the shelters and the help that she could receive from people like yourself. She didn’t want to air her dirty laundry. But, I know that she was a woman who lived in fear. Have you spoken to her ex-husband yet, Kevin?
“No, Father, we haven’t been able to find him. A patrol car went to his place of work, but he didn’t show up for work today. He is not at home. Is there anywhere that you may know him to be?”
“No, son, I don’t know the man. He is not a member of this church. I just know of him.”
Kevin stared off into the distance. The thought that this seemed like more than a domestic situation crossed his mind again, but every angle needed to be pursued.
“Father, in talking to Mrs. Crowley, did she ever mention living in Michigan? Or her ex-husband ever living there?”
Father Taylor sat back on the bench and took the question deep into thought. After a moment, he responded.
“No, Kevin, I don’t remember hearing that. I believe they were from the Philadelphia area…maybe Allentown. It seems to me that he was some kind of lawyer at one time, but that his habits had caused him to be dismissed from those duties. But, I am sure that Michigan was never mentioned. May I ask why you asked?”
“Just an angle, Father.” Standing up from the bench, Kevin turned back to the headstones that marked the final resting places for his parents. “I really need to go, Father. Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it.”
“Son, may I ask you a question? When you come here, do you ever find your answers?”
“No, Father…but, sometimes I find direction.”
“I hope someday, that direction brings you back to us, Kevin.”
“We will see, Father. But, your boss and I have some things to work out first.”
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Darryl Crowley is a weak little man. He sat in interrogation room two as Kevin returned to the station. He had been picked up from a diner on the west side of town having breakfast, trying to soak up the acid from whatever it was that he poured into himself the night before.
Tully was standing with the patrolman who brought in Mr. Crowley in the observation area outside the interrogation room. Kevin walked up in time to hear that Mr. Crowley had no idea why he had been brought in, only being told that his name had come up in an investigation and that the detectives had questions for him. Kevin picked up the brand new case file and nodded to Tully, as if to let him know that it was time.
They both entered the room together. Kevin sat across from Mr. Crowley, while Tully sat next to him. An old trick. One close, almost friendly. The other across, confrontational. Kevin stared at the closed folder getting his thoughts together. The room was silent for a couple minutes. The only sound being the breath quickly escaping from Mr. Crowley. Kevin began.
“Mr. Crowley, can you tell us where you were at about 2 am this morning until you were picked up by the officer at the diner, please?”
Darryl Crowley looked up and appeared to realize that this was more serious than he may have initially thought.
“Can you tell me exactly why I am here?”
“Mr. Crowley, can you please answer the question?”
“Detective, I would like to know why I was dragged down here. I want to know now.”
“Orders? You are giving me orders?” Kevin stood up from his chair and slammed a fist down on the table. Crowley nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Mr. Crowley, I will tell you that there was an incident at the home of your ex-wife this morning. I need to know exactly where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing early this morning. I need to know now, sir.”
Darryl Crowley sank back in his chair and smirked. “What did that bitch say I did now? I can tell you that I haven’t been there in months. She told me that since I couldn’t pay my child support, I didn’t deserve to see my girls. Not sure who the hell she thinks she is, but I haven’t seen her to find out.”
“Can you prove that, Mr. Crowley?”
“Yes, sir, I can. Last night I spent the night sitting in on an all night poker game in the backroom of Dagastino’s Meats. There is a game there every Thursday night. I lost a yard playing Texas Hold’em. There were at least nine other people there to watch me do it. I didn’t leave until a hour before your guy picked me up. Now what is this about? What did she accuse me of this time?”
Kevin and Tully looked at each other and silently passed a thought to each other.
Tully put his arm around the back of Crowley’s chair and leaned in.
“Mr. Crowley, you can give us names for these people, right? We really need them.”
“Sure, I know all those guys. I owe most of them money, so there is no way they are going to forget I was there.”
“That’s good. I am going to give you a piece of paper and you are going to write down those names for me so we can check this out. The sooner we can do that, the quicker you will be getting out of here today.”
Kevin sat back down and opened the folder. Crime scene photos were covered by copies of the reports that had been compiled from all officers at the scene, the current evidence log, and a list of responding personnel.
“Mr. Crowley, this is going to be difficult to hear. Officers responded to the home of your ex-wife and children to find that they had been murdered.”
All of the air that was keeping Crowley’s body upright seemed to escape all at the same time. His entire body began to shake. He slid sideways out of the chair and fell to the floor. Tully ran from the room to have someone call for an ambulance. Kevin rose from his chair, removed his jacket and placed it under Crowley’s head.
“One thing is for sure, partner.” Kevin said, as he turned Crowley onto his back, “He didn’t do this.”
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He sits alone in his cabin in the mountains. He stares into the fireplace that is burning the clothing that he wore for the ritual. His hands can still feel the blood seeping through them If he were honest with himself, he would admit that this one wasn’t as special as the first. The first was more personal. Closer to the target. This one was just to get his attention. To see the fear in his eyes again. He couldn’t wait to get a look into those eyes. He wanted to see the past seeping back in. Just when he thought he was safe from any further wrath.
Mr. Perfect isn’t feeling too perfect right now.
And he can feel his power growing. He gets up from the chair, standing naked in front of the open doorway. No one around for miles, he had no need for modesty. He needed to be naked to receive the power. He needed to be exposed to receive the gift. He knew so many years ago that he was special. But, this man had taken the light from him. He had stolen all he wanted. So, he took from him. And now with his attention focused on the return, he will take from him again. And again. Taking his family wasn’t enough. It took all this time to be ready again. The power grows daily. But, it’s not where it needs to be to finish the job.
He stands in the doorway with the razor in his hand. He runs the razor up and down his chest. He does this everyday now. Need to remove it all. Can’t leave anything behind. After he is done, he will scrub with the aluminum pad that lays in the sink. All pieces of dead skin needs to come off. They can find you in so many ways. But, he is too smart for them. He is always prepared.
The end will come without him having to raise a knife. He will be there to see it. But, the act will not come from him.
But, he will be the cause.
And when it comes, he will achieve the place he always knew he deserved. He will arrive.
And then, they will all see.
I hope I never do!
“Do you think you will ever be able to get used to this?”
It was a question that caught me off guard. Spoken quietly, only meant for me. I looked back at the questioner and quickly agreed that I would. But, the question wouldn’t leave me alone. I spent the next hour or so rolling this question over in my mind, along with my answer. It just didn’t seem right. Something made me think I should have thought longer about my answer. It was later that I realized my mistake and corrected it.
In my thought process of working through all this, I realized all the things that I had taken for granted in my life. Some of them negative and some not so. The negative things aren’t important here other than to say that they are things that may explain why I knew I had to change my answer to this question. It is those things that have made me believe the worst of myself to be true that have led me to a situation where the simple things mean so much to me. I am sometimes embarrassed by my reactions to these things. I seem not to be able to hide my emotions when I stop and think about the meaning of the action that caused me to pause. After living a life that was as shutdown emotionally as anything could be, the mental floodgates that we all use to hold back these reactions seem to be wide open for me at times like this. I don’t apologize for this. I am becoming open to the idea that this is who I really am and I am fine with it. Others may not be, but I am…and that is really all that matters.
I will not say what caused this question. I will only say that it was a simple, yet amazing act. It was a sensitive and caring gesture that stirred my heart and caused me to smile so naturally that I couldn’t control it…over and over again. I think it may have a repeated showing of this reaction that caused the question,.
It was later, on a porch that I had to stop and re-answer the question. I explained that I had lied. My answer had been incorrect. It was not that I didn’t think I could ever get used to what we had been referring to. It was that I realized that the truth was, I never wanted to get used to it. I wanted to smile at my surprise to it every time it happened. Every day. I never wanted to take for granted the absolute miracle of it. I wanted to appreciate it every day. Like a sunrise. Or a rain storm. A rainbow. Or the opening of rose petals on a spring morning. These things happen everyday. But, their frequency does not diminish my wonder in them…my absolute awe in the work of God. Although what the question was referring to may not seem to be something that was directed by God, I believe that He has played a big part in the courage, faith, strength, and emotion that has allowed these things to occur.
So, for all of us I say…the simple acts….a hug when you need one and even when you don’t…the smile that lets you know that you are important to someone…the touch of a hand in yours…or the light stroke of fingers on your wrist when you are as comfortable as you could ever find yourself to be….these are the things that we should never get used to. These are the things that we should always appreciate. And these are the things that will make me smile…everyday.
It was a question that caught me off guard. Spoken quietly, only meant for me. I looked back at the questioner and quickly agreed that I would. But, the question wouldn’t leave me alone. I spent the next hour or so rolling this question over in my mind, along with my answer. It just didn’t seem right. Something made me think I should have thought longer about my answer. It was later that I realized my mistake and corrected it.
In my thought process of working through all this, I realized all the things that I had taken for granted in my life. Some of them negative and some not so. The negative things aren’t important here other than to say that they are things that may explain why I knew I had to change my answer to this question. It is those things that have made me believe the worst of myself to be true that have led me to a situation where the simple things mean so much to me. I am sometimes embarrassed by my reactions to these things. I seem not to be able to hide my emotions when I stop and think about the meaning of the action that caused me to pause. After living a life that was as shutdown emotionally as anything could be, the mental floodgates that we all use to hold back these reactions seem to be wide open for me at times like this. I don’t apologize for this. I am becoming open to the idea that this is who I really am and I am fine with it. Others may not be, but I am…and that is really all that matters.
I will not say what caused this question. I will only say that it was a simple, yet amazing act. It was a sensitive and caring gesture that stirred my heart and caused me to smile so naturally that I couldn’t control it…over and over again. I think it may have a repeated showing of this reaction that caused the question,.
It was later, on a porch that I had to stop and re-answer the question. I explained that I had lied. My answer had been incorrect. It was not that I didn’t think I could ever get used to what we had been referring to. It was that I realized that the truth was, I never wanted to get used to it. I wanted to smile at my surprise to it every time it happened. Every day. I never wanted to take for granted the absolute miracle of it. I wanted to appreciate it every day. Like a sunrise. Or a rain storm. A rainbow. Or the opening of rose petals on a spring morning. These things happen everyday. But, their frequency does not diminish my wonder in them…my absolute awe in the work of God. Although what the question was referring to may not seem to be something that was directed by God, I believe that He has played a big part in the courage, faith, strength, and emotion that has allowed these things to occur.
So, for all of us I say…the simple acts….a hug when you need one and even when you don’t…the smile that lets you know that you are important to someone…the touch of a hand in yours…or the light stroke of fingers on your wrist when you are as comfortable as you could ever find yourself to be….these are the things that we should never get used to. These are the things that we should always appreciate. And these are the things that will make me smile…everyday.
Let's Play (Chapter Three)
Chapter Three
Lou’s Pub had been a Carlton establishment for almost 75 years. Kevin entered in front of Tully to a strong smell of stale beer and even staler cigarette smoke. The bar lined the right side of the room, stretching back twenty feet. Sitting at the end of the bar was an old man who may have been sitting in that spot since the day the bar opened for business with every drink he ever took etched into his face. For a moment, a shudder crosses through Kevin’s body with a feeling of looking into his future.
Lou DePano was working the bar. He bought the old tavern in the mid-nineties, taking over for a family who had owned the place for thirties years. It didn’t appear that he had spent one dime on improvements over the years except for a new dart board and a relatively clean pool table.
“Hey Lou, can we have a word?”; said Tully as they approached the far end of the bar.
Lou told them that Diane had worked the closing shift the night before, coming in at six pm and staying until just after two am. With the discovery of the crime scene at just after six am, that left about a four hour window of time for the crime to have occurred.
“It was a really quiet night for a Thursday, guys. At about two, we had about ten regulars in here that we had to chase out after last call. Nothing unusual at all.”
Kevin had kept his head on a swivel since he walked into the bar. He had been to Lou’s many times, but never with his mind in this mode, investigator mode. He was trying to visualize closing time. Diane would be cleaning glasses and the scarred top of the bar, patiently waiting for those hangers on to decide to finish their last drinks and find their way home. She would be thinking about having to get up in five hours to get he girls ready for the sitter and preparing for her long shift at the paper mill. She would have been tired. Maybe not as careful as usual.
“Lou, anything unusual when you came in this morning? Anything that seemed out of place or just not normal?”
“Nah, Kevin. I always come back in at eleven to help the night crew shut down. I made sure Diane got home. I walked her to the parking lot of her building and watched her go in. Didn’t see anyone hanging around out there, if that is what you are thinking.”
“What did you do after you saw her go into her building?”
“I went to my car and went home. You don’t think I had anything to do what whatever went on over there, do you?”
“What went on over there, Lou?”
“How the hell should I know? I walked outside after starting the grill and saw every damn cop in town in the street. Someone came in and said something happened to Diane. She is one of my dependable people. I don’t know what I am going to do without her.”
“Past tense, Lou? Who told you she was dead?”
Lou paused. His mind was slowly turning to the fact that he just revealed he knew more than he possibly could. And he didn’t like it.
“Kevin, honestly have no idea what happened over there, but with all you here, I know it has to be bad. Some guy came in as I was coming back in myself. He told me that Diane and her daughters had been butchered in their apartment. That’s all I know.”
“He said, ‘butchered’?”
“Yeah, the word he used. I never seen the guy before. He came in and had a cup of coffee with me while I watched the Sportscenter. He finished his cup and left. We didn’t say much of anything to each other after he came in.”
Kevin stared at Lou for a couple minutes. There was a question here, he just had to sort through what he heard to find it. Looking over his note pad, he found it.
“He said, ‘Diane and her daughters..’?”
“Yeah, like he knew her by name. Figured he had to be a evening customer that I just didn’t recognize.”
They had a few more questions for Lou, but he had very little more information. What he did give them was a suspect. They instructed him to make his way to the station as soon as he could to get with a sketch artist. They had to find this man who seemed to know way too much so soon after this crime.
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Kevin Orton’s college football career lasted exactly three games. In a mop up roll in a game that became a blow out by half time, Kevin went in to gain a little experience running the first team offense. Michigan State was down by four touchdowns by half time against Ohio State and the offense had sputtered all day. By the middle of the fourth quarter, he had helped to bring the score to within a single touchdown. With the offense holding on to the ball a little longer, the defense was allowed to rest more, fresh legs helping to shutdown the Buckeye attack. With just over a minute left, Kevin strolled to the huddle from the sidelines after a timeout to converse with his coach about no huddle offense play calling.
He could hear the hometown crowd cheering his name. It didn’t seem to effect him much. He could only think of what had to be done now. He knew that he was facing his future right in the face. He bent into the huddle and looked into each face. He had seen the trust in him grow over the course of the last two quarters. They were starting to believe in this freshman general and he started to believe in them.
“Look, we have a minute and thirty. We have forty five yards to make this a game. Throws to the outside and get out of bounds. You get open, I will find you. Line, just need you to hold your blocks a little longer. Just give me a couple of extra seconds to find the place to put the ball and we can tie this thing up and take it into overtime. Believe. Okay, gentleman…Let’s play.”
Taking the snap in the shotgun set, Kevin stepped back two steps and scanned the secondary. One receiver went down the line on the left and turned, looking back at his quarterback. Kevin scanned across the field to the other side and saw his tight end shake a linebacker and head for the ten yard line. He pulled back his right arm and started to let the ball go. Just as the ball left his fingers, he realized he was looking at the dirt through his facemask. And there was pain in his right leg.
The left tackle had done his best the with All-American defensive end that he was working against. A spin move to the inside brought the Ohio State lineman into the pocket, baring down on Kevin’s blind side. The left tackle reached out with one hand and caught the hip of the potential threat to their win. It was just enough to throw him off balance. That attempt to protect cost Kevin his football career, as the three hundred pound defender crashed into his right knee, shredding it and sending him to the turf.
He met Patricia on his third day in the hospital. She was working as a volunteer doing those jobs that freed up nurses for other more important duties. One of those duties being bathing patients who were immobile.
“So, you are a student at the college?”
“Yeah. A football player.”
“What are going to school for?”
“I am a football player.”
She laughed. He couldn’t figure out what was so funny.
“Well, it doesn’t appear that you are a football player right now and by the looks of that leg, you aren’t going to be one for a while. So, maybe you should have another reason to be sitting in those classes you take, don’t you think?”
He wasn’t sure how to take this. He had always made good grades, but never really focused on what it was he was studying. He didn’t mind class, he just looked at it as something he had to do until he could go to practice. It was actually the first time he thought they he may have to find something else to do with his life. Her honesty and bluntness was refreshing to him. After years of people wanting to take care of him and give him whatever they thought he wanted, here was someone unafraid to give him just what he needed…the truth.
“Is there something other than football that you are interested in?”
His mind swirled. He wasn’t sure if it was the question or the beauty of her smile that was doing it to him, but he felt a bit confused. His next thought went to his parents. They way they had died. The unanswered questions.
“I have always been interested in being a cop.”
“Really? So, you will trade in your leather ball for a steel firearm? There has to be some Freudian conjecture there.”
He didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t sure what she meant. He sat quietly while she gave him his sponge bath, trying desperately to keep his body from reacting to her touch. His brain, which had spent the last three days under a dark cloud of uncertainty and disappointment, found itself completely overtaken by this woman in sensible shoes and her white uniform. Her touch was soft, careful. And it was over much too soon.
“So, I assume you will be here for a while. I am sure I will be back. When I do, I hope you can tell me what you think your future holds.”
“Why is that?”
“Because, it’s my job to get you out of here…physically and mentally healthy as possible. And living in the past or in what you no longer have is not living healthy. So, until then, I won’t let you leave.”
“They give candy strippers that much power?”
“They no longer call us that. We are nursing assistants.”
“Oh, my apology. So, they give nursing assistants that much power?”
“You will find out, won’t you?”
She visited him every day for the week and a half that he spent in the hospital. By the last couple of days, she was making sure that she was in his room when his lunch and dinner would arrive so that she could sit and talk to him with the excuse that she was monitoring his food intake.
She told him that she was working her way through a local community college near the hospital. She wanted to be a nurse, but mostly she just wanted to get married and have a family. She said that her parents had both worked and had lived virtually separate lives and she knew that is not what she wanted for her life. She said that she looked at being a stay at home mother just as she did being a nurse. It was the job of caregiver. To be there to do those things that no one else wanted to do, and that she would never regret doing. When he asked her if there was a man selected for the role as husband and father, she told him that the search was still on. But, she said, she thought the search was narrowing.
Those last days seemed to fly by. He found himself searching for her every morning as soon as he woke up and regretting the passing hours as it came time for to leave for the day. She was there when the doctors had told him that his football career was probably over. The damage in his knee would never fully heal and he would always have some discomfort, especially when it rained. Early arthritis was in his future. She held his hand when he broke down after the doctors left the room. His future had just been rearranged for him by someone he didn’t know existed two weeks ago.
She stayed with him that night until he fell asleep. She had gone back to her apartment and got her books so that she could study for the next day. She told him that she would stay as long as he wanted her to. And he knew that he would never be able to tell her to leave. The disappointment in the day was only surpassed by the pain in her face for him. And he felt that he, for the first time since his parents died, needed someone near him. So, she stayed. And he stared. While she studied. And she smiled.
He knew he was in love with her before he left the hospital.
So did she.
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Kevin wasn’t in the station two minutes before was being called to his Captain’s office. He stopped by his desk, unlocked the bottom left hand drawer of his desk and reached into the back. Laying flat behind all the other hanging files was one file. “Property of Davison City Police Department” was stenciled across the front.
Captain Donald Baker is a short pug shaped man with a scruff of five o’clock shadow at nine am. He carried around an unlit cigarette twenty-four hours a day. He would tell you, if you asked, that he was trying to quit and this was his only way of feeling as if he could do it. He hadn’t lit one in the twelve years that Kevin had worked for the department.
“Kevin, you want to give me some idea what the hell I am supposed to tell the press and the mayor about that damn message on the door? Is that directed at you and if so, why? Did you know this woman? You piss off her ex?”
“No, Capt…I didn’t know her. Never met the woman that I am aware of. Was the message for me? Not sure, but it’s possible.”
“And what the hell makes it possible.”
“Capt., there is something I have to show you.”
Kevin handed the battered, well worn file to his captain. It was the very first time that he had done anything to share the horror of his past with anyone. The department knew that he was a widower due to a violent crime. He had been cleared by the interviewing shrinks when he applied to the department as patrolman twelve years ago. It was determined that he suffered “No ill effects from the incident in his past.” He isn’t sure just how he fooled them.
He sat quietly and watched as his Captain went through the file. He knew when he got the photo that would add the wrinkle to the Crowley case.
“Kevin, you have something to tell me?”
Kevin sat there for what seemed like an eternity. There was nothing he wanted more than to tell him that he knew exactly who did this and just where to find him. He wanted to tell him that he knew why it happened and that he was going to get to the bottom of it all.
“Captain, I wish I did. I know that I see what you see. I know that I have spent twelve and a half years running away from that first message. And now it’s back. I can’t believe it’s coincidence. There is something here that has me firmly in the middle of it. And I understand if you want to pull me off this. But, I hope you don’t. Because, if I can figure this out, I can figure out the past. And I really need the chance to do that, Captain. So, I am asking you to trust me. To give me a chance to try. Because, I have a feeling that he isn’t going to wait another decade to continue to play.”
“Why do you think he waited so long? Why do you think he picked this woman and her children? What the hell am I supposed to do with all this, Kevin? It’s going to get out. You are going to have the spotlight directly on you and if you misstep, we are both going to be looking for work. Tell me what I should do about this?”
Kevin studied his hands. The tremor just below the surface was really only known to him and right now it felt like the full blown shakes. He was always sure of himself. Always sure of what he was doing. And now, his world had been twisted just a bit. And he knew that some hidden scars were going to show. But, he couldn’t let them take this chance away.
“Captain, let me do my job. Let me catch this asshole.”
Captain Baker twisted in his desk chair for a few moments. He tossed the file back to Kevin and stood up.
“I want to meet with you three times a day. I want phone updates on the hour for the first week, if this takes that long. I want to know where you are twenty-four hours a day. If I had another detective I trusted more than you on this damn small town force, I would replace you. But, if we don’t put our best people on it, the state boys are going to take this from us. And I don’t want that. I don’t want it said I can’t protect our town. So, it’s yours…for now. But, the first crack I see…the first time I think you aren’t telling me everything…the first cowboy, bullshit move…and you out off this. You understand me?”
Kevin stood up and started for the door. He carried the file like it was the family Bible. He stared at the cover of the file and finally looked up at his captain.
“Yes, sir. I understand. And expect nothing less. I need to run out, got a stop to make. But, I will be back before the press conference.”
Kevin walked through the squad room and headed for his car. The press had already started to arrive and some who recognized him tried to stop him with questions about the Deacon Street crime scene. He just lowered his head and kept walking. Pulling out of the parking lot he headed to the one place he knew he could find just a moment of peace.
Lou’s Pub had been a Carlton establishment for almost 75 years. Kevin entered in front of Tully to a strong smell of stale beer and even staler cigarette smoke. The bar lined the right side of the room, stretching back twenty feet. Sitting at the end of the bar was an old man who may have been sitting in that spot since the day the bar opened for business with every drink he ever took etched into his face. For a moment, a shudder crosses through Kevin’s body with a feeling of looking into his future.
Lou DePano was working the bar. He bought the old tavern in the mid-nineties, taking over for a family who had owned the place for thirties years. It didn’t appear that he had spent one dime on improvements over the years except for a new dart board and a relatively clean pool table.
“Hey Lou, can we have a word?”; said Tully as they approached the far end of the bar.
Lou told them that Diane had worked the closing shift the night before, coming in at six pm and staying until just after two am. With the discovery of the crime scene at just after six am, that left about a four hour window of time for the crime to have occurred.
“It was a really quiet night for a Thursday, guys. At about two, we had about ten regulars in here that we had to chase out after last call. Nothing unusual at all.”
Kevin had kept his head on a swivel since he walked into the bar. He had been to Lou’s many times, but never with his mind in this mode, investigator mode. He was trying to visualize closing time. Diane would be cleaning glasses and the scarred top of the bar, patiently waiting for those hangers on to decide to finish their last drinks and find their way home. She would be thinking about having to get up in five hours to get he girls ready for the sitter and preparing for her long shift at the paper mill. She would have been tired. Maybe not as careful as usual.
“Lou, anything unusual when you came in this morning? Anything that seemed out of place or just not normal?”
“Nah, Kevin. I always come back in at eleven to help the night crew shut down. I made sure Diane got home. I walked her to the parking lot of her building and watched her go in. Didn’t see anyone hanging around out there, if that is what you are thinking.”
“What did you do after you saw her go into her building?”
“I went to my car and went home. You don’t think I had anything to do what whatever went on over there, do you?”
“What went on over there, Lou?”
“How the hell should I know? I walked outside after starting the grill and saw every damn cop in town in the street. Someone came in and said something happened to Diane. She is one of my dependable people. I don’t know what I am going to do without her.”
“Past tense, Lou? Who told you she was dead?”
Lou paused. His mind was slowly turning to the fact that he just revealed he knew more than he possibly could. And he didn’t like it.
“Kevin, honestly have no idea what happened over there, but with all you here, I know it has to be bad. Some guy came in as I was coming back in myself. He told me that Diane and her daughters had been butchered in their apartment. That’s all I know.”
“He said, ‘butchered’?”
“Yeah, the word he used. I never seen the guy before. He came in and had a cup of coffee with me while I watched the Sportscenter. He finished his cup and left. We didn’t say much of anything to each other after he came in.”
Kevin stared at Lou for a couple minutes. There was a question here, he just had to sort through what he heard to find it. Looking over his note pad, he found it.
“He said, ‘Diane and her daughters..’?”
“Yeah, like he knew her by name. Figured he had to be a evening customer that I just didn’t recognize.”
They had a few more questions for Lou, but he had very little more information. What he did give them was a suspect. They instructed him to make his way to the station as soon as he could to get with a sketch artist. They had to find this man who seemed to know way too much so soon after this crime.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Kevin Orton’s college football career lasted exactly three games. In a mop up roll in a game that became a blow out by half time, Kevin went in to gain a little experience running the first team offense. Michigan State was down by four touchdowns by half time against Ohio State and the offense had sputtered all day. By the middle of the fourth quarter, he had helped to bring the score to within a single touchdown. With the offense holding on to the ball a little longer, the defense was allowed to rest more, fresh legs helping to shutdown the Buckeye attack. With just over a minute left, Kevin strolled to the huddle from the sidelines after a timeout to converse with his coach about no huddle offense play calling.
He could hear the hometown crowd cheering his name. It didn’t seem to effect him much. He could only think of what had to be done now. He knew that he was facing his future right in the face. He bent into the huddle and looked into each face. He had seen the trust in him grow over the course of the last two quarters. They were starting to believe in this freshman general and he started to believe in them.
“Look, we have a minute and thirty. We have forty five yards to make this a game. Throws to the outside and get out of bounds. You get open, I will find you. Line, just need you to hold your blocks a little longer. Just give me a couple of extra seconds to find the place to put the ball and we can tie this thing up and take it into overtime. Believe. Okay, gentleman…Let’s play.”
Taking the snap in the shotgun set, Kevin stepped back two steps and scanned the secondary. One receiver went down the line on the left and turned, looking back at his quarterback. Kevin scanned across the field to the other side and saw his tight end shake a linebacker and head for the ten yard line. He pulled back his right arm and started to let the ball go. Just as the ball left his fingers, he realized he was looking at the dirt through his facemask. And there was pain in his right leg.
The left tackle had done his best the with All-American defensive end that he was working against. A spin move to the inside brought the Ohio State lineman into the pocket, baring down on Kevin’s blind side. The left tackle reached out with one hand and caught the hip of the potential threat to their win. It was just enough to throw him off balance. That attempt to protect cost Kevin his football career, as the three hundred pound defender crashed into his right knee, shredding it and sending him to the turf.
He met Patricia on his third day in the hospital. She was working as a volunteer doing those jobs that freed up nurses for other more important duties. One of those duties being bathing patients who were immobile.
“So, you are a student at the college?”
“Yeah. A football player.”
“What are going to school for?”
“I am a football player.”
She laughed. He couldn’t figure out what was so funny.
“Well, it doesn’t appear that you are a football player right now and by the looks of that leg, you aren’t going to be one for a while. So, maybe you should have another reason to be sitting in those classes you take, don’t you think?”
He wasn’t sure how to take this. He had always made good grades, but never really focused on what it was he was studying. He didn’t mind class, he just looked at it as something he had to do until he could go to practice. It was actually the first time he thought they he may have to find something else to do with his life. Her honesty and bluntness was refreshing to him. After years of people wanting to take care of him and give him whatever they thought he wanted, here was someone unafraid to give him just what he needed…the truth.
“Is there something other than football that you are interested in?”
His mind swirled. He wasn’t sure if it was the question or the beauty of her smile that was doing it to him, but he felt a bit confused. His next thought went to his parents. They way they had died. The unanswered questions.
“I have always been interested in being a cop.”
“Really? So, you will trade in your leather ball for a steel firearm? There has to be some Freudian conjecture there.”
He didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t sure what she meant. He sat quietly while she gave him his sponge bath, trying desperately to keep his body from reacting to her touch. His brain, which had spent the last three days under a dark cloud of uncertainty and disappointment, found itself completely overtaken by this woman in sensible shoes and her white uniform. Her touch was soft, careful. And it was over much too soon.
“So, I assume you will be here for a while. I am sure I will be back. When I do, I hope you can tell me what you think your future holds.”
“Why is that?”
“Because, it’s my job to get you out of here…physically and mentally healthy as possible. And living in the past or in what you no longer have is not living healthy. So, until then, I won’t let you leave.”
“They give candy strippers that much power?”
“They no longer call us that. We are nursing assistants.”
“Oh, my apology. So, they give nursing assistants that much power?”
“You will find out, won’t you?”
She visited him every day for the week and a half that he spent in the hospital. By the last couple of days, she was making sure that she was in his room when his lunch and dinner would arrive so that she could sit and talk to him with the excuse that she was monitoring his food intake.
She told him that she was working her way through a local community college near the hospital. She wanted to be a nurse, but mostly she just wanted to get married and have a family. She said that her parents had both worked and had lived virtually separate lives and she knew that is not what she wanted for her life. She said that she looked at being a stay at home mother just as she did being a nurse. It was the job of caregiver. To be there to do those things that no one else wanted to do, and that she would never regret doing. When he asked her if there was a man selected for the role as husband and father, she told him that the search was still on. But, she said, she thought the search was narrowing.
Those last days seemed to fly by. He found himself searching for her every morning as soon as he woke up and regretting the passing hours as it came time for to leave for the day. She was there when the doctors had told him that his football career was probably over. The damage in his knee would never fully heal and he would always have some discomfort, especially when it rained. Early arthritis was in his future. She held his hand when he broke down after the doctors left the room. His future had just been rearranged for him by someone he didn’t know existed two weeks ago.
She stayed with him that night until he fell asleep. She had gone back to her apartment and got her books so that she could study for the next day. She told him that she would stay as long as he wanted her to. And he knew that he would never be able to tell her to leave. The disappointment in the day was only surpassed by the pain in her face for him. And he felt that he, for the first time since his parents died, needed someone near him. So, she stayed. And he stared. While she studied. And she smiled.
He knew he was in love with her before he left the hospital.
So did she.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Kevin wasn’t in the station two minutes before was being called to his Captain’s office. He stopped by his desk, unlocked the bottom left hand drawer of his desk and reached into the back. Laying flat behind all the other hanging files was one file. “Property of Davison City Police Department” was stenciled across the front.
Captain Donald Baker is a short pug shaped man with a scruff of five o’clock shadow at nine am. He carried around an unlit cigarette twenty-four hours a day. He would tell you, if you asked, that he was trying to quit and this was his only way of feeling as if he could do it. He hadn’t lit one in the twelve years that Kevin had worked for the department.
“Kevin, you want to give me some idea what the hell I am supposed to tell the press and the mayor about that damn message on the door? Is that directed at you and if so, why? Did you know this woman? You piss off her ex?”
“No, Capt…I didn’t know her. Never met the woman that I am aware of. Was the message for me? Not sure, but it’s possible.”
“And what the hell makes it possible.”
“Capt., there is something I have to show you.”
Kevin handed the battered, well worn file to his captain. It was the very first time that he had done anything to share the horror of his past with anyone. The department knew that he was a widower due to a violent crime. He had been cleared by the interviewing shrinks when he applied to the department as patrolman twelve years ago. It was determined that he suffered “No ill effects from the incident in his past.” He isn’t sure just how he fooled them.
He sat quietly and watched as his Captain went through the file. He knew when he got the photo that would add the wrinkle to the Crowley case.
“Kevin, you have something to tell me?”
Kevin sat there for what seemed like an eternity. There was nothing he wanted more than to tell him that he knew exactly who did this and just where to find him. He wanted to tell him that he knew why it happened and that he was going to get to the bottom of it all.
“Captain, I wish I did. I know that I see what you see. I know that I have spent twelve and a half years running away from that first message. And now it’s back. I can’t believe it’s coincidence. There is something here that has me firmly in the middle of it. And I understand if you want to pull me off this. But, I hope you don’t. Because, if I can figure this out, I can figure out the past. And I really need the chance to do that, Captain. So, I am asking you to trust me. To give me a chance to try. Because, I have a feeling that he isn’t going to wait another decade to continue to play.”
“Why do you think he waited so long? Why do you think he picked this woman and her children? What the hell am I supposed to do with all this, Kevin? It’s going to get out. You are going to have the spotlight directly on you and if you misstep, we are both going to be looking for work. Tell me what I should do about this?”
Kevin studied his hands. The tremor just below the surface was really only known to him and right now it felt like the full blown shakes. He was always sure of himself. Always sure of what he was doing. And now, his world had been twisted just a bit. And he knew that some hidden scars were going to show. But, he couldn’t let them take this chance away.
“Captain, let me do my job. Let me catch this asshole.”
Captain Baker twisted in his desk chair for a few moments. He tossed the file back to Kevin and stood up.
“I want to meet with you three times a day. I want phone updates on the hour for the first week, if this takes that long. I want to know where you are twenty-four hours a day. If I had another detective I trusted more than you on this damn small town force, I would replace you. But, if we don’t put our best people on it, the state boys are going to take this from us. And I don’t want that. I don’t want it said I can’t protect our town. So, it’s yours…for now. But, the first crack I see…the first time I think you aren’t telling me everything…the first cowboy, bullshit move…and you out off this. You understand me?”
Kevin stood up and started for the door. He carried the file like it was the family Bible. He stared at the cover of the file and finally looked up at his captain.
“Yes, sir. I understand. And expect nothing less. I need to run out, got a stop to make. But, I will be back before the press conference.”
Kevin walked through the squad room and headed for his car. The press had already started to arrive and some who recognized him tried to stop him with questions about the Deacon Street crime scene. He just lowered his head and kept walking. Pulling out of the parking lot he headed to the one place he knew he could find just a moment of peace.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Let's Play (Chapter Two)
Chapter Two
Diane Crowley had lived at 1410 Deacon Street for just over three years. She had moved in with her two daughters when she left her husband after he decided that gambling and drinking were more important than feeding his family. She worked at Teller’s, a local paper mill on the south side of town. She also bartended part time at Lou’s Pub, next door to her apartment. Her downstairs neighbor told Kevin that she had sat with the girls while Diane worked nights and after school while they waited for her to get home from her day job. She said that Diane was a very quiet woman, no visitors, and rarely a sound from the apartment. The children where well mannered and always cared for. She was just a good woman trying desperately to take care of her family all on her own. She said she had met the ex-husband on a couple of occasions. Always seemed to be an angry man, who didn’t have much time to spend with his girls. The last time had been about six months before.
Kevin and Tully walked the area around the parking lot not speaking. Tully understood that his partner needed some space, no matter the circumstances of a crime scene. He had a thousand questions, but knew they could wait, if only for a little while. Tully knew that he just needed to be quiet. Let his partner do his thing. He had relied on him to do that for their entire partnership, knowing that the true detective in this pairing was not himself.
They discovered the victim’s car parked near the rear of the lot. The doors were not locked and nothing of value was found inside. There were a few toys in the backseat, to keep the girls occupied during trips to the market and such. There was a map of the area and the normal vehicle identification papers in the glove compartment. It wasn’t until Kevin sat in the driver’s seat and reached under the seat that he discovered something of interest.
“Tully,” Kevin said, as he raised up out of the car; “What would a woman like this need with a gun?”
Kevin held a shiny twenty-two caliber revolver in his hand. Not a gun that will normally kill in one shot, but it will stop a man long enough for the shooter to get distance and get away. What was this woman scared of?
Carlton was a normal small town in central Pennsylvania. A population of about thirty-five thousand people, mostly low to middle class, hard working people. Most of the crime in the area involved petty theft, domestic disturbances, and the normal weekend bar incidents. This was the first murder in over a year. The first multiple murder in almost ten years. Things like this just didn’t happen here. It’s the reason that Kevin came back here at all. To get away from this kind of crime.
“We need to talk, Kevin. The message on the door, it’s for you, right? But, how the hell…?”
Kevin took a plastic evidence bag from his pocket and placed the now unloaded weapon in the bag. He pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote the location, time, and description of the find on the tag and sealed the bag. All this without saying a word, as if he never heard a question.
“Kevin, man…come on. You have to talk to me. What the hell is going on? What does ‘I’m back.” mean?”
“I’m not sure, Tully.”
“Are you saying that message wasn’t for you? Her ex is named Carl. It wasn’t for him. It sure as hell wasn’t for me. Your face went white as a sheet when you saw it. Come on, tell me…you have seen this before, right?”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
He stayed in a motel for the six months that he stayed in Flint after the murder of his family. He papered the walls with every report, every crime scene photo, and every piece of the medical examiner’s evaluation on the walls. He spent all his free time studying every word. After two months, the trail went cold. No leads came in. No suspects could be identified.
He had left no fingerprints. There was no DNA left behind, not even a hair. The case went cold in month three. But, he couldn’t stop looking. Couldn’t stop searching every inch of the file to find something that had to have been missed. The only thing he couldn’t do was go back in that house.
His wife, Patricia, had been found in her bed. There was no sign of sexual trauma. The medical examiner’s report showed that she was probably already dead before the cutting started. She had been found posed on the bed they had shared, where they had created life. Laid out with her feet together, her arms spread out at her sides, and her hands bent backward, broken at the wrist. There were ligature marks around her neck, at least three different lines of pressure, which suggested that she was choked to the point of passing out and then revived. The cuts came later. Over one hundred stab wounds to her torso, legs and arms. The only part of her body left untouched was her face.
His son, Brandon, was found in his bed. He was wrapped in a bloody bed sheet. His throat had been cut and the examiner said that he died within seconds. No other wounds were found on his small body. His suffering had been minimal. At least, that is what Kevin had to believe.
The walls in both rooms were covered in blood. The pattern of the stains suggested an almost mosaic pattern. This, with the positioning of the body suggested a religious overtone to the investigators that worked the case. A ritual killing. Kevin couldn’t put his finger on it, but that never seemed right to him.
And the message that was left on the closet door confirmed it for him.
“Hi, Kevin. Wanna play?”
- - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Carlton police station was the oldest building in town. Built as a civil war armory, it had been reconditioned and renovated twenty years ago to become the station and local jail The history of the building always intrigued Kevin, even when he was a kid growing up in this small town. His chance to work here always seemed special to him. And the building just made it feel like coming home.
He had grown up about four blocks from the station. His parents had lived here their entire lives, high school sweethearts that never wanted to leave the town where they had found their true soul mates. His father, Edwin, had worked in city government as the parks commissioner and as deputy mayor. His mother was a stay at home mom that spent her time at charity events, church raffles, and taking care of her family. Kevin was an only child, but a handful. By the time he was ten, his talent for sports was obvious. He excelled at everything that he tried on any field, but his passion was football.
He stood at 6’ 2” by the time he was a sophomore. Perfect size for a quarterback. The fact that he had a gun for an arm only made it easier for him to become the varsity starter that year. His ability to run made him an almost unstoppable weapon. His team went to state championships every year, winning in his junior and senior years. He shattered school records and was the hands down leader of the team.
His parents attended every game, no matter whether they were home or away, no matter the distance. Always sitting just high enough in the stands so that he could find them, easily seen with their team jackets and large foam fingers. His biggest fans.
The Homecoming Game in his senior year was to be his coming out party. College scouts had been in the area for the last two weeks looking over the seniors that would be graduating the following spring and to get a look at the juniors who would soon follow. Kevin had already been approached by many schools, but had not decided where he wanted to go. He wanted to stay close to home. He hadn’t spent one night away from his parents since he could remember. Not only his biggest fans, but his best friends. He sought them out for every decision, every life question. And he just never could imagine living without them.
The locker room before the Homecoming Game was quiet. Coach Reynolds was never known for his stirring pre-game pep talks, a dour man who just grunted plays and let the boys play. Kevin had started early in his high school career being the leader of the team. He would hold the team back at the doors leading to the field just as the coaches had left the room. He would give them everything he could to pump them up, to get them ready for the battles that seemed so important to them. On this night, it was different. On this night, the world was watching.
“Okay, we all know what’s coming. Tate is a tough school…a tough team. But, we have beaten them before and we can beat them now. We just need to be on the same page all the time. Work as a team. Forget who’s out there. Forget the crowd all together. Just think, this is the game that we have tonight. No other game is important now. No stat is important except the score. Let’s just work together. If we do that, no one can beat us. No one.”
He stood there staring at his teammates. He saw the look in their eyes. They were ready. So, he raised his head, and like every time before, said the words that signaled it was time to kick ass and take names.
“Gentleman, lets play!”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Article from the Carlton Blotter, Nov, 1988
Carlton: An auto accident claimed the lives of Edwin and Tammy Orton sometime around 10 pm on Friday night. Sheriffs on the scene could not determine the cause of the one car accident. Emergency crews at the scene discovered the couple still belted into their seats and no apparent skid marks were found on the roadway. Ambulance personnel transported the Orton’s to Carlton Memorial Hospital, where they were pronounced dead on arrival from apparent head trauma.
Edwin Orton had served his community as Parks Commissioner during the seventies and currently held the position of Deputy Mayor of Carlton. They are survived by their son, Kevin.
Foul play has been currently ruled out.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The funeral was held a week after the Homecoming Game. Kevin, being 18 years old, was allowed to stay in the home and finish school. Both of his parents, being only children themselves, had no siblings to come to care for him and he didn’t really want anyone around anyway.
He signed with Michigan State before the end of his senior season. He felt he just needed to get away. He needed a fresh start to leave the ghosts of his life behind. Most of the town was crushed that he hadn’t chosen Penn State or Pitt, somewhere close where they could still go see him do what he did so well. But, he was angry. He felt his father had given his whole life to the town, he owed them nothing. So, in the summer of 1989, he got in his car, U-Haul trailer attached to the bumper, and headed northwest…to a new life. To starting over.
And he thought he would never look back.
Diane Crowley had lived at 1410 Deacon Street for just over three years. She had moved in with her two daughters when she left her husband after he decided that gambling and drinking were more important than feeding his family. She worked at Teller’s, a local paper mill on the south side of town. She also bartended part time at Lou’s Pub, next door to her apartment. Her downstairs neighbor told Kevin that she had sat with the girls while Diane worked nights and after school while they waited for her to get home from her day job. She said that Diane was a very quiet woman, no visitors, and rarely a sound from the apartment. The children where well mannered and always cared for. She was just a good woman trying desperately to take care of her family all on her own. She said she had met the ex-husband on a couple of occasions. Always seemed to be an angry man, who didn’t have much time to spend with his girls. The last time had been about six months before.
Kevin and Tully walked the area around the parking lot not speaking. Tully understood that his partner needed some space, no matter the circumstances of a crime scene. He had a thousand questions, but knew they could wait, if only for a little while. Tully knew that he just needed to be quiet. Let his partner do his thing. He had relied on him to do that for their entire partnership, knowing that the true detective in this pairing was not himself.
They discovered the victim’s car parked near the rear of the lot. The doors were not locked and nothing of value was found inside. There were a few toys in the backseat, to keep the girls occupied during trips to the market and such. There was a map of the area and the normal vehicle identification papers in the glove compartment. It wasn’t until Kevin sat in the driver’s seat and reached under the seat that he discovered something of interest.
“Tully,” Kevin said, as he raised up out of the car; “What would a woman like this need with a gun?”
Kevin held a shiny twenty-two caliber revolver in his hand. Not a gun that will normally kill in one shot, but it will stop a man long enough for the shooter to get distance and get away. What was this woman scared of?
Carlton was a normal small town in central Pennsylvania. A population of about thirty-five thousand people, mostly low to middle class, hard working people. Most of the crime in the area involved petty theft, domestic disturbances, and the normal weekend bar incidents. This was the first murder in over a year. The first multiple murder in almost ten years. Things like this just didn’t happen here. It’s the reason that Kevin came back here at all. To get away from this kind of crime.
“We need to talk, Kevin. The message on the door, it’s for you, right? But, how the hell…?”
Kevin took a plastic evidence bag from his pocket and placed the now unloaded weapon in the bag. He pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote the location, time, and description of the find on the tag and sealed the bag. All this without saying a word, as if he never heard a question.
“Kevin, man…come on. You have to talk to me. What the hell is going on? What does ‘I’m back.” mean?”
“I’m not sure, Tully.”
“Are you saying that message wasn’t for you? Her ex is named Carl. It wasn’t for him. It sure as hell wasn’t for me. Your face went white as a sheet when you saw it. Come on, tell me…you have seen this before, right?”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
He stayed in a motel for the six months that he stayed in Flint after the murder of his family. He papered the walls with every report, every crime scene photo, and every piece of the medical examiner’s evaluation on the walls. He spent all his free time studying every word. After two months, the trail went cold. No leads came in. No suspects could be identified.
He had left no fingerprints. There was no DNA left behind, not even a hair. The case went cold in month three. But, he couldn’t stop looking. Couldn’t stop searching every inch of the file to find something that had to have been missed. The only thing he couldn’t do was go back in that house.
His wife, Patricia, had been found in her bed. There was no sign of sexual trauma. The medical examiner’s report showed that she was probably already dead before the cutting started. She had been found posed on the bed they had shared, where they had created life. Laid out with her feet together, her arms spread out at her sides, and her hands bent backward, broken at the wrist. There were ligature marks around her neck, at least three different lines of pressure, which suggested that she was choked to the point of passing out and then revived. The cuts came later. Over one hundred stab wounds to her torso, legs and arms. The only part of her body left untouched was her face.
His son, Brandon, was found in his bed. He was wrapped in a bloody bed sheet. His throat had been cut and the examiner said that he died within seconds. No other wounds were found on his small body. His suffering had been minimal. At least, that is what Kevin had to believe.
The walls in both rooms were covered in blood. The pattern of the stains suggested an almost mosaic pattern. This, with the positioning of the body suggested a religious overtone to the investigators that worked the case. A ritual killing. Kevin couldn’t put his finger on it, but that never seemed right to him.
And the message that was left on the closet door confirmed it for him.
“Hi, Kevin. Wanna play?”
- - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Carlton police station was the oldest building in town. Built as a civil war armory, it had been reconditioned and renovated twenty years ago to become the station and local jail The history of the building always intrigued Kevin, even when he was a kid growing up in this small town. His chance to work here always seemed special to him. And the building just made it feel like coming home.
He had grown up about four blocks from the station. His parents had lived here their entire lives, high school sweethearts that never wanted to leave the town where they had found their true soul mates. His father, Edwin, had worked in city government as the parks commissioner and as deputy mayor. His mother was a stay at home mom that spent her time at charity events, church raffles, and taking care of her family. Kevin was an only child, but a handful. By the time he was ten, his talent for sports was obvious. He excelled at everything that he tried on any field, but his passion was football.
He stood at 6’ 2” by the time he was a sophomore. Perfect size for a quarterback. The fact that he had a gun for an arm only made it easier for him to become the varsity starter that year. His ability to run made him an almost unstoppable weapon. His team went to state championships every year, winning in his junior and senior years. He shattered school records and was the hands down leader of the team.
His parents attended every game, no matter whether they were home or away, no matter the distance. Always sitting just high enough in the stands so that he could find them, easily seen with their team jackets and large foam fingers. His biggest fans.
The Homecoming Game in his senior year was to be his coming out party. College scouts had been in the area for the last two weeks looking over the seniors that would be graduating the following spring and to get a look at the juniors who would soon follow. Kevin had already been approached by many schools, but had not decided where he wanted to go. He wanted to stay close to home. He hadn’t spent one night away from his parents since he could remember. Not only his biggest fans, but his best friends. He sought them out for every decision, every life question. And he just never could imagine living without them.
The locker room before the Homecoming Game was quiet. Coach Reynolds was never known for his stirring pre-game pep talks, a dour man who just grunted plays and let the boys play. Kevin had started early in his high school career being the leader of the team. He would hold the team back at the doors leading to the field just as the coaches had left the room. He would give them everything he could to pump them up, to get them ready for the battles that seemed so important to them. On this night, it was different. On this night, the world was watching.
“Okay, we all know what’s coming. Tate is a tough school…a tough team. But, we have beaten them before and we can beat them now. We just need to be on the same page all the time. Work as a team. Forget who’s out there. Forget the crowd all together. Just think, this is the game that we have tonight. No other game is important now. No stat is important except the score. Let’s just work together. If we do that, no one can beat us. No one.”
He stood there staring at his teammates. He saw the look in their eyes. They were ready. So, he raised his head, and like every time before, said the words that signaled it was time to kick ass and take names.
“Gentleman, lets play!”
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Article from the Carlton Blotter, Nov, 1988
Carlton: An auto accident claimed the lives of Edwin and Tammy Orton sometime around 10 pm on Friday night. Sheriffs on the scene could not determine the cause of the one car accident. Emergency crews at the scene discovered the couple still belted into their seats and no apparent skid marks were found on the roadway. Ambulance personnel transported the Orton’s to Carlton Memorial Hospital, where they were pronounced dead on arrival from apparent head trauma.
Edwin Orton had served his community as Parks Commissioner during the seventies and currently held the position of Deputy Mayor of Carlton. They are survived by their son, Kevin.
Foul play has been currently ruled out.
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The funeral was held a week after the Homecoming Game. Kevin, being 18 years old, was allowed to stay in the home and finish school. Both of his parents, being only children themselves, had no siblings to come to care for him and he didn’t really want anyone around anyway.
He signed with Michigan State before the end of his senior season. He felt he just needed to get away. He needed a fresh start to leave the ghosts of his life behind. Most of the town was crushed that he hadn’t chosen Penn State or Pitt, somewhere close where they could still go see him do what he did so well. But, he was angry. He felt his father had given his whole life to the town, he owed them nothing. So, in the summer of 1989, he got in his car, U-Haul trailer attached to the bumper, and headed northwest…to a new life. To starting over.
And he thought he would never look back.
Let's Play (A Novel)
Chapter One
The rain pounding against his window acts as a backdrop to the shrill of his phone awakening him from sleep. He pulls himself out of bed and reaches for the call that will drag him out of his nightmares on this damp fall day and just knows that, at this hour, it’s not good news.
“Hey, Orton…it’s Tully. We have a situation over on Deacon Street. You want me to pick you up or can you meet me there?”
In the nine years since he had become a detective, and in the same time that he and Tully had been partners, Kevin had never heard him describe a scene as a “situation”. There was something he wasn’t telling him.
“Tully, what the hell is it? What’s happened?”
“Man, it’s bad. It’s really bad. I have heard the reports from the first arriving and it’s pretty sick. You may want to beg off on this one.”
There are only two reasons that one cop would tell another that he may to avoid a case. One is that it involves a family member. The other is that it would be too painful due to a similar situation being in that officer’s past.
“Damn it, Tully…spit it out.”
“It’s a family. Mom and two dead kids. Looks like a domestic, but we are not sure yet. Can’t find the ex-husband. Are you sure you are up for this?”
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It was second year as a beat cop in Flint, Michigan. He was working the 11 pm to 7 am shift in the business district on the west side of town. Sitting in the parking lot of an electronics store at midnight, clocking speeders as they drove down Miller Road. It had been a quiet night and all he wanted to do was get home to his family.
“Patrol Delta 610, what is your twenty?”
The radio caused him to jump.
“Miller Road, Best Buy parking lot.”
“Delta 610, please proceed to your residence for an emergency situation.”
His heart stopped. His wife of three years was home with their two year old son and expecting in just another eight weeks. It had to be the baby. Something has gone very wrong.
He tore out of the parking lot and headed to Davison. He drove on auto pilot, lights on, siren screaming parting the traffic like Moses and the Red Sea. He just needed to know they were okay. He just had to get there.
As he pulled into the street where he lived, his car was bathed in the radiance of red and blue lights flashing everywhere. His mind just locked on the front door. Yellow crime scene tape was being strung up all around his yard. He barely had the car in park when he jumped out and started running. He was stopped at the edge of his driveway by a Davison city patrol officer.
“Hey, patrolman, where do you think you are going? Out of you area of protection, aren’t you?’
“This is my house, asshole. Let me by. What the hell is going on?”
The Davison patrol man held him back and turned over his shoulder to call one of the detectives over. Kevin struggled in his arms, trying desperately to get away. He pulled back his right arm, hand clenched tightly in a fist ready to drop this officer and get past him to his house.
“You don’t want to do that, Officer Orton. Come with me, let me talk to you for a moment.”
Kevin stared at the detective with fear and anger in his eyes. He had to get to his wife. He needed to make sure she was okay, that his son was okay.
“Sir, what the hell is going on? Why are all these people here? What has happened to my family?”
“There is no easy way to say this. They are gone, son. Something horrible has happened here and you don’t need to see inside that house. You don’t want what has happened in there to be the memory you carry around for the rest of your life. You need to tell me who to call. You need someone here for you.”
“There is no one. My whole life was in that house.”
In the weeks that followed, he read the reports. He saw the crime scene photos. He was interviewed as a suspect and was cleared. He spent the next six months doing his very best to destroy himself with alcohol just to get the images out of his head. Just to find a place of numbness, where the pain would let go of him just for a little while. He never found that place. He quit the Flint Police force and moved away, unable to look at the daily reminders of his life that was now completely gone. He knew that he had to survive. His memory of them would keep them alive. And he owed them that. But, he knew that he couldn’t do it here. He had to go. He had to disappear.
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After a quick shower, he dressed and jumped in his car and headed to Deacon Street. This wasn’t the first case he had with a child involved. But, something in Tully’s voice told him it was going to be different. Putting the bubble light on his roof, he made his way down the streets of Carlton, Pa, heading to the North side of town. As he maneuvered through traffic, he reached into his glove box and pulled out his flask. His best friend, next to his gun. He stared at it for a moment and then through it back and closed the box. Not this time. Not for this one.
He pulled into the parking lot of a low cost apartment complex that sat behind a bar on Deacon Street. Tully was standing in the doorway of the vestibule that acted as an entrance way to the two downstairs apartments and the stairwell to the two upstairs units.
“Kev, it’s the unit upstairs. On the left. CSU is up there now processing. They are expecting you.”
Orton had become famous for his initial crime scene investigations. He would walk a scene like he was planning to recreate it on canvas later, studying every nuance. He soaked in every piece of information that he could process. He was known as “The Machine”, for the way it seemed he could turn off his emotions and just look at a crime scene as if it were just another moment in time.
He walked up the stairs and crossed the landing to the open doorway. The first thing that hit him was the bitter, copper smell of blood in the air. He knew at that moment this wasn’t a normal domestic. Spousal homicides were usually crimes of passion, quick..a knife or a gun…used in a heat of the moment. Overkill was rarely a consideration. His experience told him this was something else.
The living room was small, sparsely furnished. A couch lined one wall, across from that sat a small tube television set with a VCR attached. Both sat on wooden milk crates being used as a makeshift entertainment center. The floor in front was strewn with children’s videos. Other than a turned over ashtray on the coffee table, there seemed to be no disturbance in this room at all. The windows were covered with bed sheets, taped at the top of the window sill to keep them in place. There was no sign of violence at all in this area.
He made his way into the kitchen and dining area. One medium sized room that acted as both. There was an old wooden dining table with three unmatched chairs around it. The kitchen was clean and well kept, except for the blood in the sink. Someone had cleaned up after themselves here, but made no effort to hide that it was done. He was careful to open drawers and cabinets without leaving a print. There didn’t seem to be any fingerprint dust in the room, it had not been processed yet.
The crime scene techs, walking around in white paper suits, were processing the hallway that led to the rear of the apartment. There was blood all over the walls of the hallway, decorating it. It didn’t appear to be arterial spray, more like intentional flows of blood…like the start of a graffiti tag…intentional in their placement. It was in this moment that his chest began to tighten. His breath became quick. And his mind started to fray at the edges. This was too familiar.
He walked to the first bedroom door, the master bedroom, and carefully stepped over the blood drops on the carpet in the doorway. The body of a woman, Caucasian, in her mid-thirties, still laid on the middle of the bed. Nude, accept for a pair of old woolen socks, she was laid out…posed as if she were Jesus on the cross. Both her hands were bent at strange angles, the wrists appeared broken, the palms turned in a direction they were never meant to go. This woman suffered before death. Again, the familiar scene struck him like ice water through his veins. He struggled with his composure.
A call from outside the room got his attention and shook him from his frozen moment of anxiety.
“Hey, one of you officers want to come in here? You need to see this, now!”
Kevin walked quickly into the hall to find Tully standing in the doorway of the second bedroom. He turned to face Kevin and his face was ashen.
“Jesus Christ, man. What the hell is going on?”
“What are you talking about? What is it?”
“Just stay there. Don’t come in here. Trust me. I got this.”
“What the hell is it?”
Kevin pushed his way past a crime scene tech and made his way to the door way. Inside the room he could see nothing but blood. Blood seemed to be in every corner of the room. A small lamp in the shape of Sponge Bob was sitting on a old and battered night stand. The bodies of the children were covered with blood soaked sheets, waiting to the medical examiner to come and tell everyone what they already knew, that they were dead.
Everyone’s attention, strange to him, seemed to be somewhere else in the room. Somewhere, that at this angle, he could not see. He stepped past Tully slowly, sensing something that was going to change everything that he thought about this case…about what he saw.
The closet that stored the clothes of these small children was fronted by two double doors, wooden and painted yellow. The outside had carefully drawn and painted representations of the same character that was displayed by the lamp. But, it was the inside of the doors that had everyone’s attention. White backs made the red of the blood used to spell out the message very stark and almost threatening. The words took a few moments for him to process. As the anger and fear welled in his chest, he began to lose control and allow the past to come rushing in. Spelled out, in the blood of the poor little children left like garbage on their beds, the place they should have felt the most safe and secure was the message.
“Hello, Kevin. I am back! Lets play.”
The rain pounding against his window acts as a backdrop to the shrill of his phone awakening him from sleep. He pulls himself out of bed and reaches for the call that will drag him out of his nightmares on this damp fall day and just knows that, at this hour, it’s not good news.
“Hey, Orton…it’s Tully. We have a situation over on Deacon Street. You want me to pick you up or can you meet me there?”
In the nine years since he had become a detective, and in the same time that he and Tully had been partners, Kevin had never heard him describe a scene as a “situation”. There was something he wasn’t telling him.
“Tully, what the hell is it? What’s happened?”
“Man, it’s bad. It’s really bad. I have heard the reports from the first arriving and it’s pretty sick. You may want to beg off on this one.”
There are only two reasons that one cop would tell another that he may to avoid a case. One is that it involves a family member. The other is that it would be too painful due to a similar situation being in that officer’s past.
“Damn it, Tully…spit it out.”
“It’s a family. Mom and two dead kids. Looks like a domestic, but we are not sure yet. Can’t find the ex-husband. Are you sure you are up for this?”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It was second year as a beat cop in Flint, Michigan. He was working the 11 pm to 7 am shift in the business district on the west side of town. Sitting in the parking lot of an electronics store at midnight, clocking speeders as they drove down Miller Road. It had been a quiet night and all he wanted to do was get home to his family.
“Patrol Delta 610, what is your twenty?”
The radio caused him to jump.
“Miller Road, Best Buy parking lot.”
“Delta 610, please proceed to your residence for an emergency situation.”
His heart stopped. His wife of three years was home with their two year old son and expecting in just another eight weeks. It had to be the baby. Something has gone very wrong.
He tore out of the parking lot and headed to Davison. He drove on auto pilot, lights on, siren screaming parting the traffic like Moses and the Red Sea. He just needed to know they were okay. He just had to get there.
As he pulled into the street where he lived, his car was bathed in the radiance of red and blue lights flashing everywhere. His mind just locked on the front door. Yellow crime scene tape was being strung up all around his yard. He barely had the car in park when he jumped out and started running. He was stopped at the edge of his driveway by a Davison city patrol officer.
“Hey, patrolman, where do you think you are going? Out of you area of protection, aren’t you?’
“This is my house, asshole. Let me by. What the hell is going on?”
The Davison patrol man held him back and turned over his shoulder to call one of the detectives over. Kevin struggled in his arms, trying desperately to get away. He pulled back his right arm, hand clenched tightly in a fist ready to drop this officer and get past him to his house.
“You don’t want to do that, Officer Orton. Come with me, let me talk to you for a moment.”
Kevin stared at the detective with fear and anger in his eyes. He had to get to his wife. He needed to make sure she was okay, that his son was okay.
“Sir, what the hell is going on? Why are all these people here? What has happened to my family?”
“There is no easy way to say this. They are gone, son. Something horrible has happened here and you don’t need to see inside that house. You don’t want what has happened in there to be the memory you carry around for the rest of your life. You need to tell me who to call. You need someone here for you.”
“There is no one. My whole life was in that house.”
In the weeks that followed, he read the reports. He saw the crime scene photos. He was interviewed as a suspect and was cleared. He spent the next six months doing his very best to destroy himself with alcohol just to get the images out of his head. Just to find a place of numbness, where the pain would let go of him just for a little while. He never found that place. He quit the Flint Police force and moved away, unable to look at the daily reminders of his life that was now completely gone. He knew that he had to survive. His memory of them would keep them alive. And he owed them that. But, he knew that he couldn’t do it here. He had to go. He had to disappear.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
After a quick shower, he dressed and jumped in his car and headed to Deacon Street. This wasn’t the first case he had with a child involved. But, something in Tully’s voice told him it was going to be different. Putting the bubble light on his roof, he made his way down the streets of Carlton, Pa, heading to the North side of town. As he maneuvered through traffic, he reached into his glove box and pulled out his flask. His best friend, next to his gun. He stared at it for a moment and then through it back and closed the box. Not this time. Not for this one.
He pulled into the parking lot of a low cost apartment complex that sat behind a bar on Deacon Street. Tully was standing in the doorway of the vestibule that acted as an entrance way to the two downstairs apartments and the stairwell to the two upstairs units.
“Kev, it’s the unit upstairs. On the left. CSU is up there now processing. They are expecting you.”
Orton had become famous for his initial crime scene investigations. He would walk a scene like he was planning to recreate it on canvas later, studying every nuance. He soaked in every piece of information that he could process. He was known as “The Machine”, for the way it seemed he could turn off his emotions and just look at a crime scene as if it were just another moment in time.
He walked up the stairs and crossed the landing to the open doorway. The first thing that hit him was the bitter, copper smell of blood in the air. He knew at that moment this wasn’t a normal domestic. Spousal homicides were usually crimes of passion, quick..a knife or a gun…used in a heat of the moment. Overkill was rarely a consideration. His experience told him this was something else.
The living room was small, sparsely furnished. A couch lined one wall, across from that sat a small tube television set with a VCR attached. Both sat on wooden milk crates being used as a makeshift entertainment center. The floor in front was strewn with children’s videos. Other than a turned over ashtray on the coffee table, there seemed to be no disturbance in this room at all. The windows were covered with bed sheets, taped at the top of the window sill to keep them in place. There was no sign of violence at all in this area.
He made his way into the kitchen and dining area. One medium sized room that acted as both. There was an old wooden dining table with three unmatched chairs around it. The kitchen was clean and well kept, except for the blood in the sink. Someone had cleaned up after themselves here, but made no effort to hide that it was done. He was careful to open drawers and cabinets without leaving a print. There didn’t seem to be any fingerprint dust in the room, it had not been processed yet.
The crime scene techs, walking around in white paper suits, were processing the hallway that led to the rear of the apartment. There was blood all over the walls of the hallway, decorating it. It didn’t appear to be arterial spray, more like intentional flows of blood…like the start of a graffiti tag…intentional in their placement. It was in this moment that his chest began to tighten. His breath became quick. And his mind started to fray at the edges. This was too familiar.
He walked to the first bedroom door, the master bedroom, and carefully stepped over the blood drops on the carpet in the doorway. The body of a woman, Caucasian, in her mid-thirties, still laid on the middle of the bed. Nude, accept for a pair of old woolen socks, she was laid out…posed as if she were Jesus on the cross. Both her hands were bent at strange angles, the wrists appeared broken, the palms turned in a direction they were never meant to go. This woman suffered before death. Again, the familiar scene struck him like ice water through his veins. He struggled with his composure.
A call from outside the room got his attention and shook him from his frozen moment of anxiety.
“Hey, one of you officers want to come in here? You need to see this, now!”
Kevin walked quickly into the hall to find Tully standing in the doorway of the second bedroom. He turned to face Kevin and his face was ashen.
“Jesus Christ, man. What the hell is going on?”
“What are you talking about? What is it?”
“Just stay there. Don’t come in here. Trust me. I got this.”
“What the hell is it?”
Kevin pushed his way past a crime scene tech and made his way to the door way. Inside the room he could see nothing but blood. Blood seemed to be in every corner of the room. A small lamp in the shape of Sponge Bob was sitting on a old and battered night stand. The bodies of the children were covered with blood soaked sheets, waiting to the medical examiner to come and tell everyone what they already knew, that they were dead.
Everyone’s attention, strange to him, seemed to be somewhere else in the room. Somewhere, that at this angle, he could not see. He stepped past Tully slowly, sensing something that was going to change everything that he thought about this case…about what he saw.
The closet that stored the clothes of these small children was fronted by two double doors, wooden and painted yellow. The outside had carefully drawn and painted representations of the same character that was displayed by the lamp. But, it was the inside of the doors that had everyone’s attention. White backs made the red of the blood used to spell out the message very stark and almost threatening. The words took a few moments for him to process. As the anger and fear welled in his chest, he began to lose control and allow the past to come rushing in. Spelled out, in the blood of the poor little children left like garbage on their beds, the place they should have felt the most safe and secure was the message.
“Hello, Kevin. I am back! Lets play.”
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