The Master

"So...any progress?"

She sighed. "None. He's still sticking."

"I don't believe this. I--I think we need to go higher with this."

"--No!", she said. "Mark! We can't do that!"

"We...why?"

"Because, Mark! The evidence! Remember? No warrant?"

Mark uttered a swear. "Yeah...yeah..." He sighed as well. "I just don't know..."

**********

Mark Jablonski and Joyce Caruthers had been on the case for six months. Rick Rubin was in prison, having confessed to the murder of Ashley Manto, but Mark and Joyce found the whole circumstances fishy. Rick confessed out of the blue, despite the fact that no one Ashley or Rick knew had said in interviews that they ever had anything to do with each other. Rick claimed it was vengeance over a bad relationship. Joyce got a sinking feeling in her gut in the jail that day. He sat at that desk in that room, dark hair spiked back, one missing tooth in the front of his mouth, chains around his neck, rings on his fingers, shirt half-buttoned with a white tank top underneath, admitting to the murder of Ashley Manto. Dick Crutt interviewed him, He asked him how it happened. He said he and her started talking online, got close, but everything went sour, and they never ended up meeting personally. He couldn't stop stewing over it all. He said he sat in his apartment all day, quit his job, smoked pot all day, made a modest living slinging crack cocaine and meth, and just sat around all day, fantasizing over how he would end her life. He said he thought of decapitating her with that thin wire they have in the mobster movies, but he realized that would be too quick. He changed his fantasy to a handkerchief to subdue her and knock her out. He'd then tie her to a chair in a dark basement, wait for her to wake up, and tell her every hurtful thing she did, each ending with a blow to the head with a seven-wood. It'd finally culminate in her death by ball-peen hammer. But he said he didn't act out his fantasy that way. He said he ended up having to be much more meticulous about it, covering an entire room in plastic, lying her on a table underneath it, taking an exact-o knife across her neck, and watching her die. He then burned her, wrapped in the plastic, in the woods of northern Illinois.

Dick stared intently into his eyes. He leaned forward and said, "Why did you decide that she had to die?"

Rick sat silent for a few seconds. He finally said, "She did too much. I--I had to stop her from hurting another person. I mean, I know I'm done for, but at least she can never hurt another person again."

Joyce was not convinced.

"There's--there's just too many holes. I mean, how do you explain the relationship? Chatting? Where's the transcripts? He didn't have any screen names with the big companies--He didn't even own a computer!--"

"Joyce, listen! We've got a confession! Do you have any idea what Channel 7 has been saying about us? Huh? We're incompetent, we're lazy! Don't you get it? This is our way out!"

"But--" She realized there was no winning in this argument. She sighed. "Fine. Whatever." She leaned closer to him and started to whisper through gritted teeth. "But when the real guy strikes again, my conscience will be clear, Dick."

*****

The reporters buzzed around the stage, just like they knew they would. The podium was in place. The mic was on. Police Chief Joe Szyztak emerged stage right.

He cleared his throat. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to announce that we have in custody the confessed murder of Ashley Manto. At 2:14 this afternoon, Richard Rubin, while in our custody, admitted to her tragic murder. The town of Montalvo Bay can now have some peace, knowing that this murderer is safely in our custody.

"Members of the Manto family, I would like to say to you that I know that nothing can bring back Ashley or take away the void that this heartless criminal has left in your lives. But please, please know that we will be prosecuting Mister Rubin to the fullest extent of the law. No one takes one of our own without paying the utmost price. God bless you, Manto family, God bless Montalvo Bay, and God bless America. Thank you."

He did not take any questions.

*****

Joyce woke up at 2:30 that morning in a cold sweat, heart pounding, gasping. She fumbled for her inhaler.

She kept having the same dream. Every night, if she could sleep that night, she would have a vision of a man who looked an awful lot like Rick Rubin on a wooden stage, black background, and red curtains drawn open, and from his limbs and head were tied ropes, and these ropes, as she followed them to their other end in her dream, led to a marionette apparatus operated by noted fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter. Rubin's lifeless body would dance and swing from the ropes as Lecter cackled from above. Inevitably a lightning strike illuminating the blackness behind Lecter would finally stir her from her restless slumber.

She tossed back and forth about an hour and a half. After squeezing her eyes shut so hard colored patterns appeared, she finally gave in and put on a pot of coffee.

*****

"Boy, you don't look so good today."

Joyce cracked a smile, finally. "Now I see why all the ladies are climbing over each other for you."

Mark forced a laugh, looked down at his mug. "I know this is hard on you, Joyce. Believe me...I know."

She looked to the left, then the right. "Ca--Can I tell you something?" she whispered so low he almost didn't hear.

"Well...I mean, yeah...I...Sorry; you just kind of took me by sur--"

"I'm having dreams, Mark."

He paused. "Uh...We all do, Joyce..." he stammered, bewildered.

"Just listen, Mark! Come here," she beckoned with two quick strokes of her arm. He sat at her cubicle with her.

"Do you believe that dreams are your brain's way of making sense of things that our conscious mind can't?"

"Uh...Honestly, I hadn't really thought about--"

"--Just say yes."

"Right. Yes." Very affirmative.

"Well, I think I might have a hunch on who the real killer is. See, in these dreams I'm having, Rick's hanging from ropes tied to his limbs, he's on a stage, and pulling the ropes with a gigantic--marionette...type thing--is..." She sighed.

"Who?"

"Promise not to laugh?"

"No."

She sighed again. "It's...Hannibal Lecter."

Mark's jaw dropped. "Whoa...Now wait ju--You--You think the killer is...Anthony Hopkins!?" he said before laughter broke through.

"Shut up, Mark!" She started to chuckle a bit too. "No, but I really think this guy is being put up to it by someone. Someone we don't have the resources for."

not finished