The Serial Killer

Serial Killer

            Four murders in the past week. This time the Captain was dead; bludgeoned in the head with a purple horseshoe. The Captain’s blood everywhere, the room full of that coppery scent, set off something inside of me. Cool, calm, and collected Investigator Tony was gone, and in his place an animal with the instinct to hunt the Captain’s killer down and tear him apart. It took Sergeant Lucky an hour to talk me into leaving the Captain’s body, and only because he promised to let me take lead on the case did I step off of the Captain’s houseboat.

Back in the squad room, and three cups of coffee later, the sun is setting on a day that will haunt my dreams. The case files I asked for are still sprawled across my desk. I pore over them again. Sergeant Lucky stands close by my desk, tells me to take a break, but something about the Captain’s death keeps me in this cardboard box of a building. Not just the need to find a killer, but a nagging notion in the back of my mind. Four murders in one week. I tune out the shrill ringring of the phones and the high-pitched sound of my partner’s voice as he complains that someone has taken the last of the milk again. Something is not right.

“You’re cuckoo if you think there’s a link, Tony.” This from my partner, Sonny.

I swallow a growl. There had to be a connection, I just wasn’t seeing it. First the twins, Frank and Barry something, bodies chopped into bits and stuffed into the basket of a bright red hot air balloon. The Captain today, the same man I could always count on when I was in a crunch, skull smashed in until his face was barely recognizable. Three days ago, Fred, my lodge mate and bowling buddy, found in a field of green clovers with his throat slashed, no fingerprints, nothing. Maybe Sonny is right. Maybe I am cuckoo.

“How’s it going, Tony?” Sergeant Lucky asks. He is playing with the yellow stars on his uniform, something I know he does when he is upset.

My subconscious wiggles. “I think we may have a serial killer on our hands, Sarge.”

“Really?” The yellow stars twirl faster and faster.

Yellow stars, red balloon, green clover. I pull out the file with the photos from this morning’s crime scene. A purple horseshoe; the Captain was killed with a purple horseshoe. The answer is right in front of me, has been all morning. I look at the sergeant, and he smiles. I see evil in that grin, see that I am right. “But why, Sarge? Why did you do it?”

“I had to kill them, Tony.” Sergeant Lucky shrugs, as if we are discussing the weather or last night’s game. “They were after me lucky charms.”