This Is How You Die Page 10

  Lester had turned fifty the previous year, five decades of underachievement and misery that had seemed like the good life until a few years ago. His boss, on the other hand, was forty-five and as accomplished as they came. He had worked on the beat and received commendations left, right, and center; as a detective he had been instrumental in bringing down some of the most high-profile criminals of the last generation. Now he was one of the big shots, getting paid a small fortune to sit on his ass and order everyone around.

  He had become Lester’s boss when Lester was a happy-go-lucky forty-five-year-old man with everything going for him, or so he thought. In truth, he was a lackey, a pushover, the one they all took advantage of because they knew he was too feeble and too mild-mannered to stir up the nest. Not long after that, Lester had lost his wife and drifted away from those he called friends. He had his kids, a beautiful girl and a talented boy, but without their mother, they became something that he hated. And in turn, they despised him.

  “How are things going with the Morrison girl?” Atwood asked.

  “She’s still dead,” Lester said blankly.

  “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  “No, sir.”

  “This girl was butchered by a fucking psychopath you’re supposed to be tracking down.”

  “Yes, sir. I know, sir. I’m sorry.”

  He was actually a sociopath, or so Lester gathered, but he knew that correcting his boss at that moment could cost him his job. He had lost interest in everything else in his life, but his job still meant something to him. Even if it wasn’t very much.

  “How did the evidence pan out?” Atwood asked.

  “It didn’t, sir,” Lester said, still standing. There was only one chair in the office and now Atwood was sitting on it. He preferred it that way, as he thought it gave him the power in any argument. Allowing them to sit down would only be offering them comfort, and comfortable was the last thing he wanted any of his officers to be.

  “The partial print?”

  “Old boyfriend.”

  “Possible suspect?”

  Lester shook his head. “Addict and probable dealer. He’s an idiot, not a seasoned killer.

  “What about the blood stain? It didn’t come from the victim, so who was it?”

  “The boyfriend again, sir,” Lester said. “He had a nosebleed, or so he said. The truth is that Morrison probably smacked him, but either way it wasn’t our killer’s blood.”

  Morrison, by all accounts, was a feisty young girl. She was a user, but there were no signs of addiction. She lived alone, having done so for much of her young life. It was clear that she was strong and independent, experienced beyond her twenty-five years. And judging by the contents of her bedroom closet, she was also very kinky. She didn’t have anything heavy in there, but she liked to dress up and she liked her men to do the same. Her boyfriend seemed to be a complete contrast to her. Scum of the earth; a snotty-nosed, self-righteous prick who thought the world owed him a favor despite never contributing to society. He was an addict, a thug. He didn’t deserve her.

  Lester always found himself being drawn to the victims, putting them on pedestals. He never got to see them when they were alive, only as lifeless, helpless, soulless vessels when they were dead. They were like abused animals, their eyes wide and pleading, their minds unable to communicate, unable to speak of their suffering. Everything he knew about the deceased came from the people who knew them, and no one had any bad words to say about the dead. Lester knew deep down that the women probably weren’t as saintly or as innocent as he imagined them to be, but lately his irrational thoughts had been outnumbering the rational ones. He also didn’t want to think for a minute that The Masquerade had a valid reason, that he was justified in killing them. As far as Lester was concerned, everyone had their vices, everyone had something that made others resent them. But no one had the right to use that as an excuse to end another’s life.

  “Is the boyfriend in the cells?”

  “Of course. We’ll let him sit and sweat for a bit.”

  “Good.” Atwood nodded to himself, his attention sweeping lazily across his desk. He was distracted. Lester could see that, but he didn’t want to address it.

  “Is there anything else, sir, because I have some work to get to.”

  Atwood seemed annoyed by the perceived tone of impatience. “What is wrong with you lately, Keats?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean, sir. Everything is fine with me.”

  “Come on, Lester, don’t piss in my pocket and tell me it’s raining. I’m your boss, your friend, you can tell me what’s going on.”

  Lester stared at him for a moment, trying to understand his angle. A perpetual wickedness was still plastered across Atwood’s face. He was also trying to look sympathetic, but he was failing miserably. Atwood played the part of a human being well, but he wasn’t human, certainly not in the typical sense.

  He wasn’t a murderer and he didn’t have a lust for blood, but Atwood displayed all the symptoms common in psychopathy; he just didn’t know it. His work led him to believe that all psychopaths were murderers or rapists, that people like him were just driven and determined to succeed, but the only thing that separated him from them was that he had chosen a different career path. He was nothing like The Masquerade, who was a whole different breed. The Masquerade was so devious, twisted, and intelligent that Lester often found himself admiring him in a way that poisoned his morality. He had never admired his boss.

  “Everything is fine, sir.”

  “I don’t believe you. If you ask me, you’re one step away from fucking up big time. I’ve seen men in your position before and I’ve seen what happens when they finally snap.” He paused to let his words sink in, seeing that they had almost no effect whatsoever. “How’s your home life?”

  “Wife’s still dead, children still hate me.”

  “I’m sure they don’t hate you.”

  “Only because you haven’t met them.”

  Atwood shook his head and looked solemn for a moment, a major feat for a man who struggled to understand the basics of human emotion. “Just watch yourself, Lester.”

  “Yes, sir. Can I leave now?”

  Atwood waved his hand at the door and Lester wasted no time walking out of it. He returned to his desk and turned on his computer. He was immediately greeted by a barrage of open documents and pictures that he kept either on display or minimized to remind him of his job and his purpose. He pulled up an image of Herman on his computer and studied it. He was a plain looking kid and he’d led a sorrowful life.

  He had lost his mother when he was young and, not long before the murders, he had also lost his father. He had no friends that anyone knew of and no social interaction other than regular run-ins with the school bullies.

  Lester almost felt sorry for him. Lester himself hadn’t been very popular at school either, although he had always tried his best to fit in. He hadn’t been bullied quite to the extent that Herman had, nor had he ever contemplated doing what Herman did, but there were dark times in his youth when he had wished the worst on the people who made him feel bad. He had always taken things with a grain of salt, part of the experience of growing up, but he was starting to wonder if the bullying in childhood wasn’t just a preparation for something much worse in adulthood.

  Lester spent the day learning more about Herman, digging through the few scraps of information he hadn’t already read. He read and reread the reports given by Irene Henderson—the one survivor from that night—even though he knew them word for word. He watched the CCTV footage a few more times, trying to make sense of what he saw. What struck him as odd, and had always struck him as so, was how premeditated it had been. This was a boy who had clearly practiced and prepared for what he did, a boy who had probably suffered further bullying and tormenting as he prepared. To have the patience and the restraint to hold back, to not let his anger get the better of him and to wait for the right time to strike, was a virtue not man
y people possessed, let alone many teenage boys.

  Lester had listened to the opinions of a number of colleagues and friends throughout the years, the case having acquired an almost cult status in police departments up and down the country. The ones who believed Herman was still out there were often treated with the same disbelief and contempt as conspiracy theorists, even though the evidence was on their side.

  “He probably topped himself, he seems the sort.” That was how many of them saw it, because that was how many murder sprees ended. They were moments of violence, premeditated to some extent, that were precipitated by anger, mental illness, or religious extremism. School shootings often ended that way, as did other acts of explosive violence in public places, but Lester had never believed Herman to be a spree killer. Yes, he killed eight people in one night, but what happened after he disappeared? What if he had been preparing for that moment all along? What if he continued to kill and to hone his craft before transforming into The Masquerade? It was all speculation and Lester had nothing to go on, but if it was true, then Herman would be one of the most prolific serial killers in the country’s history.

  Another possibility was that Herman had links to The Butcher, whose activity ceased around the time of those first murders. The way he treated Darren Henderson was somewhat reminiscent of The Butcher’s murders, but was Herman a copycat and a crazed fanatic, as the media had believed, or did he actually know the killer? Something told Lester the story ran deep, that it had to be more than a coincidence that The Butcher, The Masquerade, and Herman, one of the most notorious spree killers in recent history, all resided within a hundred miles of each other.

  Lester had a headache just thinking about it, but what pained him even more was that there was very little he could do. He didn’t want to tell his boss his theory for fear of being laughed at. “Good detectives don’t work on gut feeling,” Atwood had once told Lester and the others. “Gut feeling gets you fuck all in a court of law. Stick to the facts and if there are none there, then find them. That’s your job.”

  Lester knew as well as anyone that he wasn’t special. He didn’t have any talents that half the world didn’t possess; he didn’t even have the ingenuity, the knowledge, or the gut instinct that half of the police officers in his division had. If there was a link and it could be found, Lester knew that the chances of him finding it were very slim. That didn’t sway him, though, because while the destination was unlikely, he knew the journey itself was what his life needed right now.

  ——

  Lester’s mobile phone rang in his pocket and he jumped at the muffled sound. It was late, well into the night shift, and although the office wasn’t empty, it was dead. The men and women on duty were slumped over their desks, tediously tapping away at computers, mumbling sedately into mobile phones.

  “Where are you!?” a familiar voice bellowed at him as he pressed the phone to his ear.

  “I’m in the—” he paused and opted for a lie. “I’m in bed.”

  “Bollocks!” his daughter spat. “I’m at your fucking front door!”

  Lester sighed and moved the phone away from his ear as his daughter assaulted him with a barrage of obscenities. A few people in the office looked up at him, able to hear her screams on the other side of the phone. They tuned out when they realized that whatever it was, it wasn’t interesting enough to keep them from pretending they had to work.

  “—back here and open the door, now!”

  He hung up without saying anything, knowing she wouldn’t listen even if he had. She was an eighteen-year-old with a mind of her own and a mouth straight out of an eighties dockyard. He blamed her mother, a selfish cow who had gotten herself run over by a drugged-up driver. Lester had been on his own since then, and considering he hadn’t been a very good father when she was alive, he didn’t have much hope when she died. He had always cared for his kids, he bought them presents and he gave them love when he felt like it, but he was usually working too much to ever feel like it. They had always gotten their love from their mother, and even though he tried to be more like her when she passed on, they hadn’t been interested.

  His kids blamed him for her death, for the same reasons he blamed his wife. The person who was really to blame, a middle-aged man who saw speedballs as a way to get him through the tedium of a twenty-hour shift, had also died in the crash. The fact that there was no one to get angry at, no one to direct those feelings of loss and rage at, made things worse. If her killer were in prison, Lester would feel better, as he could at least visit him and let the kids write to him. If he were a free man, then they could vent their anger at the courts for being so inept and forgiving. But he was dead, and the dead didn’t give a shit about your anger.

  “Who’s this?”

  Lester arrived home to see his daughter, Annabelle, leaning against a motorcycle. The rusted machine was straddled by a pimple-faced kid with a mustache made entirely of wispy-ass hair.

  “This is Sparky.”

  “Of course it is.”

  Annabelle rolled her eyes. “Are you going to open up and let us in?”

  “Where’s your brother?” Lester wanted to know.

  “He’s out.”

  “Where?”

  She shrugged nonchalantly and turned away, indicating that she did know.

  He took a lot of shit from his daughter, but there were a few things he couldn’t stand for and this was one of them. She was the older child. He had tasked her with looking after her younger brother, Damian, but she was often too busy getting high to pay attention to him. She had gone off the rails when she was fourteen, the same age as Damian was now, and although he hadn’t exactly stood by and let her, all of his attempts to stop her had failed. There was little hope left to save their relationship, and he didn’t know if there was any hope left to save her, but what he did know was that he didn’t want Damian to go down the same road.

  “Tell me where he is or you’re not getting in.”

  She released a long and exaggerated sigh. “Fine!” she snapped. “He’s at Richard Mass’s house. Are you happy now!?”

  “Mass? The drug dealer?”

  Annabelle waved her hand dismissively. “He ain’t a drug dealer, stop being so dramatic. It’s just pot.”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with pot, Mr. Keats,” Sparky chimed in.

  Lester looked at him like an unexplained smudge of blood in his stool before turning back to his daughter. She was pretty and smart. She could do better. But she either didn’t know that or she simply wanted to date the lowest of the low, a man for whom evolution had been one step too far, to get at him. “It’s—” he checked his watch. “One in the morning and you’ve left your brother with a known criminal?”

  Annabelle just stared at him. “Are you going to let me in or not?”

  “What about Fonzi here?” Lester nodded to Sparky.

  “It’s Sparky, Mr.—”

  “I know what your fucking name is!” Lester spat.

  “Dad!”

  “Annabelle! Get in the house.” He tossed her the keys and then turned to Sparky. He knew the neighbors would be watching; this was usually a quiet cul-de-sac and he would be waking a lot of them up, but they were used to it. His kids were always causing trouble and making noise. The only difference was that this time Lester was getting in on the act.

  “You shouldn’t shout at your daughter like that,” Sparky butted in after Annabelle disappeared into the house. He had lost his confidence, his edge, but was trying his best to maintain an air of ego.

  Lester stood over him, pushing his face close. “Do you know what I do for a living?” he asked.

  “Of course I know,” Sparky said, sensing what was coming but refusing to back down.

  “Do you know what I can do to you?”

  “You can’t arrest me if I don’t do anything wrong, pig.”

  Lester threw his hand around Sparky’s throat. The reaction took the teenager by surprise and a yelp escaped his lips as Lester’s grip
tightened. He felt the youngster try and fail to swallow, saw his eyes bulge in terror as he feared for his life.

  “I never said anything about arresting you,” Lester said, pressing his forehead against the youngster’s. “Prick.”

  “Get off me. This is police brutality.”

  Lester squeezed harder. “Actually, I’m off duty. This is nothing more than a pissed-off dad trying to stop some perverted little tit from fucking his daughter.”

  Sparky mumbled something, but his words struggled to leave his mouth, blocked by Lester’s tightening grip. His face turned red, more through fear and disbelief than anything else. His air supply hadn’t been cut off long enough to cause such a transformation.

  “Now you listen to me,” Lester ordered. “As soon as I let you go, you’re going to drive this bike of yours away from my house and my daughter, and you’re never going to come back, do you understand?”

  Sparky did his best to nod, but Lester wasn’t convinced.

  “You may be younger and stronger than me, but I know what I’m doing. I have friends in high places and my job allows for a number of perks. I can do things to you that you didn’t even think possible, and afterward, regardless of how much blood I spill, how much damage I do, I can walk away as a free man.” Lester paused to let that sink in. It was nonsense, of course; he didn’t have any friends and he certainly had none in high places. His job didn’t allow for any leniency either. If anything, he would suffer more, with the press and the public keen to make an example out of every cop that stepped out of line.

  “Do you understand?” he said once Sparky’s face had turned a deeper shade of red, his minuscule brain deprived of the oxygen that it needed to shit, wank, and daydream about underage girls.

  Sparky nodded and Lester let him go. There was a moment of utter relief in his young eyes, followed by an explosion of anger. Spit frothed on his lips when he was finally able to breathe again and his face turned to a brighter shade of scarlet. “You’re out of your fucking mind,” he said as he revved up his bike and Lester stepped back.

  “Exactly. And don’t you forget it.”