Innocent Until Proven Guilty
The rain came down hard on the top of the car as they waited in the
line at the drive through at Jack n’ the Box. It was April in Manhattan
and the rain had been solid for a week.
“Isn’t this supposed to be fast food? Asked Paul. “I mean, we came
here because it was gonna be quick.”
“Yeah sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t,” replied Jack. “At this
time at night you get all the potheads on their “highride’s” to feed
their fuckin’ munchies.”
“Totally, look at this guy. He can barely read the sign,” said Paul
mocking the driver of the car in front of them. “Hurry the fuck up!” He
yelled, even though the windows were closed and nobody but Jack could
hear him.”
Jack lit a cigarette and opened the window enough to let some of the
smoke out. He used to smoke lights but after about a year, figured that
if he was going to smoke he might as well get the full taste of the
cigarette.
“You gotta quit, Jack. It’s fuckin’ gross,” said Paul.
“Yeah, thanks, mom,” piped Jack as a voice came from the transistor
radio on the dashboard.
*Car 19, we have a reported homicide on the corner of Madison and
Clark, crime scene has been secured-over*
“Copy that-we’re on our way,” said Jack as he quickly rolled down
the window and placed a flasher on top of the car.
Paul pulled the car out of the drive through and on to Terrace St. as
he floored the gas pedal.
* * *
Jack and Paul could see about five cop cars at the scene as they
pulled up, and a motorcycle cop sped by them and turned the corner to
circle the block. They walked toward the corner where the majority of
the officer we standing around a phone both, writing their reports. As
they got closer, a bulky cop with a crew cut walked up to them with his
hands on his belt.
“What do we got? Paul asked the cop.
“Someone reported a murder about fifteen minutes ago and when we got
here this is what we found,” said the cop, motioning them over to the
phone booth located on the corner.
“Any witnesses?” asked Jack as they walked over.
“No, just calls reporting gunfire.”
“And who reported the murder”
“We don’t know, he didn’t give us any info, he just told us about the
murder and hung up. We weren’t able to trace the call.”
It was hard for Jack to see what was in the booth because the side
facing them as they walked closer was covered in blood. But as they
walked around it Jack was able to see a blonde woman, probably in her
twenties, covered in blood and awkwardly bent at the bottom of the
phone booth. The phone was off the hook and dangled in front of her
face, which was blank and tilted back atop her back that leaned against
the most bloodied wall of the booth. Her legs were curled on the floor
of the booth and were split in opposite directions with her arms
dangling between each foot and her bottom. Jack counted five bullet
holes in the glass of the door of the booth and one in the opposite
side of the booth that the girl was pressed against. There was also
five bullet wounds on the girl. She had been hit twice in her stomach,
once in her chest, once in her thigh, and once in her neck.
“Jesus Christ! Said Paul, covering his mouth and looking away.
“He definitely made sure she was dead,” said Jack. “Did you see
anything else that we should know, Officer…”
“Blanch, Officer Blanch. Yeah, one more thing, the son of bitch who
did this left a note. I got it bagged already, I’ll go get it. Don’t
worry I didn’t get any prints on it.”
Blanch walked back to his car and pulled out a bag with a typed letter
in it. He handed it to Jack who read it out loud.
I kill because it is fun. It is who I am.
I kill because no one deserves
to live. You may think she was innocent,
but innocence is the lie that is behind
every persons soul. It is the lie that has
allowed our society to become the most disgusting
creature to ever walk this earth. Innocence has
killed me, and it has killed her. Innocence will
keep on killing the liars until everyone is true.
“Jesus,” said Jack.
“This crackpot thinks he’s God or something, and has taken it upon
himself to start punishing people who he thinks are “untrue”-what ever
that means,” said Blanch.
“Sounds like he’s pretty fucking serious too,” said Paul.
“Well I’m gonna finish my report and get on outa here, is there
anything else you fella’s need?
“Yeah, just call somebody to get this body outa here,” said Paul.
Blanch nodded and headed back to his car. Jack went back to their car
and pulled out a brief case that they used for crime scene evidence. He
walked back, putting on a pair of rubber gloves from the case, and
tossed a pair to Paul.
“This guys sick, man,” said Jack.
“Yeah, and he didn’t leave us much to go by either”, said Paul. “ I
guess just pick up the shell casings and we’ll let them take care of
the rest.”
Jack took some tweezers out of the brief case and began to pick up the
bullet shells outside the phone booth.
“These are 9mm, Paul. Brand Super X.”
“Alright well let’s get out of here, we’ll worry about the rest
tomorrow. It’s 2 o’clock and I gotta get some fucking sleep.”
They packed up their stuff and headed back to the car. Jack put the
brief case back in the trunk and got in the car.
“Too bad, she was a nice looking broad too,” Said Jack.
“You disgust me,” said Paul, as he started the car and looked behind
him as he backed away from the crime scene.
* * *
*1 MONTH LATER*
The phone next to Jack’s bed rang loudly, waking Jack from his deep
slumber. Jack moaned and swung his arm at the phone, knocking off the
handle.
“Shit!” hissed Jack, fumbling at the dangling phone. “Hello?” answered
Jack.
“Jack, it’s Paul. We got another victim.”
“Same guy?” asked Jack.
“Same guy”
***
Jack’s tire hit the curb as he pulled up behind the gaggle of cop cars
around the site. He took his brief case out of the trunk and headed
over to where Paul was standing.
“Where’s the victim?” asked Jack.
Paul pointed up. Jack looked to see a body dangling from the tree
branch above them.
“Holy shit!”
Jack dropped his brief case in shock and put his hand over his mouth.
“FUCK!” screamed Jack, kicking something on the ground. “You can’t
scare me like that!”
“Sorry,” said Paul as he lit a cigarette.
Paul bent down to get a flashlight from the briefcase.
“I thought you said smoking was disgusting,” piped Jack.
“Yeah, well…”
Paul shined the flashlight up at the teenage boy hanging feet up from
the tree. His face was badly beaten and his nose looked to be broken
from someone kicking his face. His hands were tied behind his back and
a typed note with streaks of blood on it covered his mouth. He had
black hair that was dampened from the blood that dripped down his body
from the multiple knife wounds in his back.
“We were waiting for you to cut him down,” said a police officer.
“Officer Pat Dawson,” he said, extending a hand out to Jack.
“Nice to meet you, Pat,” said Jack shaking his hand. “Lets get him
down.”
Pat motioned to another officer who leaned against a police van. The
officer nodded, opened the back of the van and pulled out a ladder. He
brought the ladder over to where the tree was, placed it against the
branch and began to climb up. Once he was at the top of the ladder, the
officer pulled out a flashlight from the back of his belt and began to
examine the rope.
“He left a lot of loose rope up here so we could get this guy down
without dropping him,” called the officer on the ladder. “He’s got the
rope wrapped around a knot of the tree so the kid wouldn’t fall.”
“Well get it off the knot,” called Pat.
The officer on the ladder put on a heavy leather glove, so that he
wouldn’t get rope burn, and began tugging at the rope. The rope finally
came of the knot and the officer let the boy down slowly.
“Easy now,” said Pat.
The boys head finally touched the ground where his blood had been
draining for the past hour, and his body began to curve as more and
more of it was placed on the ground. As Jack looked closer, he made out
a pair of angel wings that had been carved into the boys back,
hopefully after the many stabbings directly under them. Jack put on his
rubber gloves and Paul followed. They both moved toward the body and
Jack moved the boys head enough so that Paul could remove the note from
his mouth. Paul slowly peeled the note off and read it aloud.
I kill because it is fun. It is who I am.
I kill because no one deserves to live.
You may have thought he was doing everything
right and that he never hurt anyone, but he
hurt countless people every day. People that he didn’t
know, people that he had never met. I used to hurt
before I died. Now that he’s dead maybe he can finally
be the angel everyone always thought he was.
“God damnit!” shouted Paul. “Always the notes, but nothing we can use!
No fingerprints no nothing! He taunts us with nothing!”
“Wait!” called Jack, pointing at the corner of the note.
They both looked closer at the dark mark on the corner and realized
that it was an arrow. Paul quickly flipped the note. On the other side
of the note was a poorly drawn school bus, everything drawn in black
ink except for the windows of the bus, which had splatters of red ink
on them. Under the bus were the words “one a day until we all go away,
stop the buses and more will pay”, which was also written in red ink.
Also below the bus was the date 5/20/2006 with an arrow pointing to a
one. Jack quickly turned to Paul.
“5/20 is tomorrow,” he said.
“Pat!” Called Paul. “Get the word out that we need a police car escort
to every school bus in Manhattan tomorrow. I don’t think there’s much
else we can do. Notify the press in order to try and get the word out,
but we can’t stop the busses or he’ll kill even more.”
Paul nodded and jogged back to his car to radio the station
“Jesus,” sighed Jack. “Looks like we got trouble.”
* * *
The next day Jack and Paul drove to the school to look for any unusual
behavior as the busses pulled up one by one to the school. They had to
entrust each bus’s journey to the other police even though it was their
case because they could not follow every bus on its way to school. They
waited there watching and waiting. Each bus that pulled up let the
children off and drove off with no problem, and each cop that had
followed the busses reported no problems along the way. It was the same
on the way home. There were no problems. Nothing had happened.
“Nothing,” said Paul. “He taunts us with nothing.”
“I thought he was going to do it, I mean-why wouldn’t he?” Replied
Jack.
“Fuck,” said Paul. “Let’s call it a day.”
“Wanna get a drink?” asked Jack.
“Hell yes I do.”
They headed to the bar and parked out front. As they walked in to the
bar, the jukebox played “Magic Bus” by the Who and Jack and Paul turned
to each other and laughed. They sat down at the bar and Jack ordered
for them.
“Two Whiskey’s, please.”
The bar tender nodded and pulled out two glasses, filling them with
ice and whiskey. He set the drink down and turned back up to the TV.
Jack looked down the bar and saw that most everyone else was also
looking up at the TV at the channel seven news.
Tom, I’m standing outside of the apartment of Robert C. Harnam,
belovedpastor at the local Baptist church on Twenty Fourth Street. The
police responded to gunshots fired in the apartment to find his body on
the floor after apparently shooting himself in the head. They reported
that the apartment was virtually empty except for a typewriter with a
pack of paper, 9mm gun with ammunition, and an army knife. Inside the
typewriter was a note that read:
“I killed because it was fun, it was who I was. I killed because
nobody deserved to live. You may have thought I was telling the truth,
but I was tricked to believe that I had finally become true-true to his
word. But it was a lie, it is all a lie. No creation is true. “
“This is John Hartnip, channel seven news.”
Jack turned to Paul, jaw dropped.
“Well I’ll be damned,” he said with a smile.