A Killer Like Me

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Sunday, August 5, 9:25 PM

The killer arrives at the house on Burgundy Street much later than he intended.

It’s Mother’s fault.

She is panicked about the approaching hurricane and tomorrow’s mandatory evacuation. She wants him to drive her to Baton Rouge, where she has booked a hotel room. But he is not evacuating. He needs to stay to finish his work. He told her that he has been designated as one of the city’s essential employees, excluded from storm furlough and exempt from the evacuation order.

“You, essential?” she scoffed. “You must be joking.”

“I’m responsible for maintaining vital records and the integrity of the court system.”

She barked out a short, phlegmatic laugh. “You’re a low-level clerk.”

He jiggled a set of keys in her face. “Essential enough to be entrusted with keys to the office.”

In reality, he is just a low-level courthouse clerk. So low that he does not have his own keys to the office. Several months ago, he simply lifted his boss’s keys and had them copied on his lunch hour. He does most of his “research” at night, when the office is empty.

“How am I supposed to get to Baton Rouge?” his mother whined.

“You have a car, Mother. Drive yourself.”

They argued back and forth for more than an hour, about the hurricane, about the evacuation, about what a failure he was as a son.

Finally, he stalked out of her “side” of the house.

“Where are you going?” she shouted at his back. “Don’t you walk out on me.”

He ignored her.

After leaving his mother, he went to the darkened courthouse and let himself into the office where he worked. The file he was looking for was missing from the storage racks. At the deserted main desk, he checked the police logbook. The file, the divorce record of Edwards vs. Edwards, had been checked out yesterday by Detective Sean Murphy. Last night, the former Mrs. Edwards had been murdered in her home. Coincidence?

I don’t think so.

From the courthouse, the killer had gone back to his apartment to type another letter. Then, as he had earlier that day, he hand-delivered it to its intended recipient.

On Burgundy Street, the killer unlocks the wrought-iron gate at the foot of the driveway. Above him the sky is black. He hears the wind whipping through the trees. The storm is coming. After pulling his Honda into the driveway and relocking the gate, he slips into the dark house. In his hand he carries a plastic shopping bag.

Standing in the foyer, beneath the second-story landing, he eases the door closed behind him. He holds his breath and listens for a moment. Other than the wind swirling through the attic rafters, the house is silent.

He climbs the stairs and pauses on the top landing. His little pet is quiet. That is how he thinks of her, as his prize, his little pet. He never had a pet. Mother wouldn’t allow them. Once, when he was twelve, he tried to bring home a stray cat. He was going to keep it hidden in a small shed in his backyard, feeding it from table scraps, but on the way home the frightened cat had scratched and bitten him. As he strangled the foul beast it had scratched him some more.

The killer creeps down the hallway to the first door on the right. He pushes it open. The room is just as he left it, wooden chair to his right, camera and tripod to his left. Lying on the floor between them, in the dead center of the room, is an antique flattop steamer trunk.

The heavy trunk is four feet long, nearly three feet wide, and stands two feet tall. The wooden-slat exterior is reinforced with iron bands. The lid is fastened with a brass latch and secured by a heavy combination padlock.

The mayor’s daughter is stuffed inside.

The killer flicks on the light switch. The twenty-five-watt bulb throws a dim glow across the room that barely reaches the corners. He walks to the trunk. Drilled into the lid are four airholes, each a quarter inch in diameter.

For a moment, he stands beside the trunk, looking at it, savoring the silence. Then he kneels down and sets the plastic bag on the floor. He dials the combination and opens the padlock. He sets the lock on the floor next to the plastic bag. Still, no sound comes from the trunk. Could she be dead? he wonders. Maybe the airholes weren’t big enough. His fingers fumble with the latch. Then he throws open the lid.

Kiesha Guidry lies on her back, blinking against the light. Compared to the total darkness she has been in for nearly eighteen hours, even the glimmer from the low-watt bulb must seem blindingly harsh. She is clad only in a white T-shirt and her black panties. Last night, after slicing off her evening dress and bra, the killer shoved his undershirt at her. Despite his titillating show for the camera, which had really been for her father, he finds her nakedness mildly disgusting.

Her long brown legs are folded under her. Five feet eight inches of height crammed into four feet of horizontal space. Her wrists are taped together and pressed against her chest.

The killer reaches into the trunk and lays a hand on her arm to help her sit up. She jerks away. Angered at her rebuff, he grabs a handful of her hair and jerks her into a sitting position. A few seconds later, she screams.

He basks in her pain as he imagines blood rushing back into the cramped, oxygen-starved muscles of her legs that have been twisted like pretzels for hours.

She begins to sob. Her face is streaked with tears and saliva, and her nose and lips are crusted with snot. She looks half-dead, except for her eyes. They are wide open and filled with abject terror.

The killer picks up the plastic shopping bag. “I brought food and something to drink.” He pulls out a sandwich wrapped in wax paper and a bottle of water. He tries to hand them to her, but she won’t take them.

“I… I don’t want anything from you,” she says through her sobs. “Please, just let me go home. I want to go home.”

He continues to hold the sandwich and water out to her.

“Will you just let me go home?” she begs. “Please, just let me go home.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

In his mind he sees her father, His Honor, the mayor, at that press conference, arrogantly dismissing him as some kind of sexually dysfunctional freak. “Because of your father.”

She stops crying. “My father?” Her voice is a dry rasp. “What’s my father got to do with this?”

“Everything.”

With her taped hands she starts massaging the muscles of her thighs.

The killer drops the sandwich and the water bottle into the trunk. She can eat them later, or not at all. The choice is hers.

His gaze falls to her hands as she squeezes the front of her left thigh. Her knuckles are covered with cuts and dried blood. After he locked her in the trunk, she kicked and pounded against the lid, screaming. He thought she would tire quickly, but after an hour she had not weakened. So he poured a thin stream of ether into one of the airholes. Within minutes, she was still.

How long she remained unconscious, he has no idea. He left the house as soon as she got quiet. Eventually, she must have woken up and been terrified by the dark confined space in which she found herself, perhaps thinking he had buried her alive. That probably triggered more kicking and screaming. He is glad he was not here for that.

The trunk held up well, as expected. He selected it carefully. It was circa 1890s, built to carry heavy loads over long distances, built to withstand being dropped from stagecoaches and thrown into ships’ holds. Eventually, she must have exhausted herself and fallen asleep.

“Tell me why you’re doing this,” she says.

“I told you, it’s your father’s fault.”

She was massaging her right leg now. “Are you the serial killer everybody’s been talking about?”

“Your father insulted me.”

She nods. “He does that sometimes.” Her eyes seem less terrified.

“Your father is going to find out that I don’t easily suffer the sins of fools like him.”

“Are you the killer?” she asks again as she moves her legs around inside the tight space of the trunk.

“I am the Lamb of God.”

She locks eyes with him. “Are you going to kill me?”

The killer opens his mouth to answer, intending to be honest with her. Yes, I am going to kill you. But he doesn’t get the chance. Before the first word leaves his mouth, she springs from the trunk and launches herself at him, the fingers of her bound hands curved like talons and clawing at his eyes.

Still kneeling beside the steamer trunk, the killer recoils. He throws his hands in front of his face in a pathetic attempt to ward off her attack, but he is too late. She is already on him. Her nails rake his face. Then she wraps her hands around his throat.

The killer falls backward onto the floor. She is on top of him, her fingers attempting to crush his trachea. He sees her open mouth reaching for him, like the start of a crazed kiss. A second later he feels an explosion of pain below his left eye.

She is biting my face!

Her knee pounds his testicles.

He screams.

The scream triggers something in his brain. He must fight back. This little tart cannot stop him. He grabs a handful of her hair and wrenches her head away. He feels a chunk of flesh tear loose from his cheek. The pain nearly paralyzes him. Somehow, he manages to roll to his right. He scrambles on top of her, then straddles her. But her hands are still locked on to his throat. The light is fading. His world is going dim.

He sweeps an arm across his body and knocks her hands away. Air pours into his starving lungs. It tastes sweet, like victory. He drives his forearm into her throat and presses his weight behind it. She tries to dig her fingers into his eyes, but he clinches them shut.

Rolling forward with his forearm still pressed against her windpipe, the killer slams his other elbow down onto her face. Her eyes bulge from their sockets. Her arms sag. With the tenacity of a cage fighter, he pounds her head with his elbow again and again until she goes limp. Then, like a spent lover, he takes a deep breath and collapses on top of her.