The Tragedy Man: A Serial Killer Thriller Read online

  Cary sat back and sighed. Yes, that was a good one. Obviously, the idea was working, because Cary had never, ever been quite so gruesomely imaginative before. It was kind of fun, actually!

  Cary trudged through the slush on the sidewalk, his nostrils assailed by the pungent smells of sweat mingled with perfume and cologne as other working men and women passed him. He hated New York. He had grown up in a small Illinois town, but had moved to the "the big city" when he was eighteen to prove to his parents that he could make it as a playwright. Back then, he wanted to be the next Samuel Beckett. A true tragedian. Now, sixteen years later, his parents were dead and he had never written a single play. Waiting for Godot, indeed.

  He had begun life in the city as a bike messenger, weaving through traffic and dodging the winos and junkies sprawled out in the filthy gutters. It was an education, all right. He had never seen so many cars, cabs, hansoms, and people all in one place before! The city was so different from his hometown. But the people were all the same. In the small town they were nice to your face, smiling and friendly, but they really didn't give a shit about you. In New York, they didn't give a shit either. The only difference was, they didn't pretend to.

  One of Cary's major flaws, he realized, was that he was able to suss out the negative aspects in everyone and everything. But to be fair, he did find all the major flaws within himself as well. He was constantly beating himself up for not writing enough, not selling anything, not making enough money, and so on. Philosophically, Cary knew it was because of his upbringing that he felt this way; because his parents were dead, Cary had taken over the job of berating Cary.

  He hunched his shoulders against the cold winter wind and burrowed his head deeper into his coat collar. His almost colorless hair was so fine it offered no protection, and he felt the wind's bite on his scalp. At least I'm not going bald like The Old Creep. It felt good to have someone besides himself to hate. He couldn't wait to get some of that animosity down on paper. Maybe, finally, something good would come from Joshua B. Ryan.

  Cary arrived at his building and searched for his apartment keys, which were buried deep inside his coat pocket. He walked up the cracked steps of the dilapidated cement and stucco monstrosity and stopped before the huge, metal security door to insert his card. Making certain the lock clicked behind him, Cary made his way toward the lift. He shook the melting "acid snow" from his hair and began to remove his gloves and muffler on the ride up.

  The lift came to a stop at the eighth floor and Cary stepped off, his feet dragging with fatigue. Mentally, he was excited about getting started on his new horror idea, but physically he was so very tired; more typing was the last thing he wanted to do. He'd spent his entire day either entering letters, addressing envelopes, or standing in front of the copy machine. He had a headache either from staring at the glowing computer monitor, or from the permeating fumes of the copy machine; he couldn't be sure which. He really hated making copies. His feet got sore, his back ached, and he always got attitude from the damn thing. That machine seemed to have it in for him.

  He had to twist his key in the bent lock and shove the door with his shoulder at the same time; the old building let in lots of damp air in the wintertime, and his door swelled when it was especially wet outside.

  It was nice and warm inside his apartment, because he had to leave the space heater on for Tweetie, his canary. The little dear might freeze to death if he didn't, and he simply could not bear to lose his best friend in the world.

  Little Tweetie chirped happily every evening when Cary lifted the blanket from her cage. She had such a sweet voice, and she loved to sing along with the classical ballet music Cary played as he ate his dinner. Cary had bought her as a Christmas present to himself the year before...there was no one else for him to spend the holiday with. His girlfriend, Diana, had just broken up with him.

  He would never forget that. It was certainly one of the more extreme low points in his life. A couple of weeks before the holiday, Diana, the only woman who had been able to put up with Cary's morose outlook for more than a few months, had met someone else, had a whirlwind affair, and was engaged to be married to the interloper on New Year's Day.

  On Christmas Eve of last year Cary had been wandering the streets, feeling particularly sorry for himself as he watched the happy families and couples strolling, shopping, or ice skating. They all looked so content...they had no idea of the pain he was feeling. No one cared about his misery. No one even looked at him as they passed him by on the street.

  Then he saw the pet shop. "Love for Sale!" the banner proclaimed. "A pet is a gift of love that will bring boundless joy for years to come," said the fancy script beneath. It was worth a look.

  The puppies squirmed and whined when they saw him and licked at his fingers through the bars of their cages. They were a little too overbearing for his taste. Besides, a dog was a very dependent pet and he wouldn't feel right about leaving one locked up in his apartment all day while he was at work. The cats and kittens were cute, but Cary wouldn't trust the animal not to claw his furniture when we was out. Besides, he had to admit, he was a little afraid of cats. The way they stared so unflinchingly with those knowing, glowing eyes always sent shivers down Cary's spine. He moved on. Rodents and reptiles were definitely out. They reminded him too much of Diana, he thought with a bitter chuckle.

  He stopped at the bird aviary. There was a vast selection of parakeets, but they didn't appeal to him. The cockatiels were too expensive. Finally, he saw a pretty little yellow bird in a cage all by herself. She was looking directly at him, then she began to sing. She was so precious, and she was all alone. Just like he was. Cary bought her on the spot along with a cage, toys and food. He had never had a pet before, and he was as happy as a little boy.

  "That was a good day for both of us wasn't it, Tweetie?" Cary crooned as he meticulously folded her cage cover and laid it beneath the end table. "Are you hungry?" He filled her little plastic dish, then walked over to the refrigerator to see what TV dinner he would be microwaving tonight. It was a tossup between Fancy Escargot in Crème Sauce or He-Man Fried Chicken, but the latter finally won out. Cary decided that if he was going to be barbaric in his writing tonight, he'd best avoid the mollusks with quiche on the side.

  He listened to his old radio as he ate and thought about how he would spend this Christmas. Probably just him and Tweetie again. But that was okay. He really didn't care. He wondered what Mr. Ryan would be doing. He probably had a big tree, at least seven feet tall. And he would light a fire in that magnificent marble fireplace of his. His family would gather around him like something out of the Donna Reed Show and tell them how much they loved him as they grabbed their presents with both hands.

  Cary had been to the penthouse apartment before, as Joshua B. Ryan always had his employees over for Christmas feast a few days before the actual holiday. It was almost as if he were saying, "Look at what I have. You'll never have this." The elderly man and his new, young trophy wife lived in a very fine view apartment. One entire wall was a window that overlooked the city lights, and rest of the place was wood paneled, even the cathedral ceilings. The place was bigger than most full-sized houses. Cary looked around his dumpy, two room flat and sneered. He wasn't sure if he would go to Mr. Ryan's little Christmas party this year. It made him feel decidedly un-jolly.

  He finished the last of his grub and washed his dishes. He dried them and put them away before he went to the closet and took out his typewriter. He'd tried a couple of used laptops, but this typewriter was the only thing he really liked; it made him feel old-school and like he was really committing to every word.

  Still, he wished he could afford a brand-new computer. He also wished he could afford a nice big apartment like Mr. Ryan's to go around the computer. But someday he would have those things. And they wouldn't be inherited like Mr. Ryan's fortune. Oh, no, Cary would work for his.

  Cary loosened his tie and sat down to work. So far, he had about four chapters of his ghost
story written.

  The story was about the tortured spirit of a young wife who was trying to recover the child she had murdered in the throes of post-partum depression. Cary had set the time of her death in 18th century England, a time when the syndrome hadn't even been diagnosed. Depressed mothers of infants were simply "hysterical." He had atmosphere to work with: misty moors, howling wolves, the darkest of dark country nights...but how could he make a ghost story bloody? Everyone knew ghosts couldn't really do any physical damage.

  He thought for a while. Rather than scrap all his hard-won typewritten pages, he would simply take the story in a new direction. Sure, what was wrong with a few plot twists?

  Then he had it: the ghostly visitations would actually be the work of an American developer who had heard about the legend and come to England posing as a tourist, hoping to scare the old proprietor into selling her home cheap. The big, bad American would rattle chains at night, moan, shake doors and the like.

  But then B&B patrons would actually be found dead. They would look like suicides at first, then Scotland Yard would begin to investigate the American developer. But it wasn't the American who was doing the killings. It would be the angry ghost after all! Yes, that sounded very good.

  Cary's fingers fairly flew over the keys of his old Corona, and he had finished several pages before dragging himself onto his bed and falling into an exhausted sleep fully clothed and on top of the covers.

  When the gray sunlight found his eyelids the next morning, Cary's first thought was to read what he had written the night before. He was very excited. He got out of bed, brushed his teeth, flossed meticulously, fed Tweetie, switched on his auto-drip tea pot, then sat down at the kitchen table to read what he had written.

  The old woman stood at the window, terrified, yet drawn to the ghostly figure that floated through the gardens below. She had never been frightened of the ghost, never in all the years she had lived in the old bed and breakfast. The ghost always seemed serene, and somehow pretty. Of course, she couldn't let any of the guests, and especially not the local historians and journalists, know how she truly felt about the gentle spirit. The legend of the murderous mum was what brought so many guests to her charming little establishment, and the old woman wasn't about to see any of that change. She smiled down into the gardens, as though sharing a private giggle with her harmless ghost. Suddenly, the wispy vapors took horrible shape and zoomed through the air right at the window.

  Hey, that wasn't right. He didn't remember writing that. Cary's eyes bulged as he read more.

  The many-paned window shattered as the ghost entered, the shards flying inward. The woman screamed. She barely felt the glass as it cut through her delicate, tissue-like skin.

  The ghost stared at her with opaque, yellow eyes. They were yellowed from the pus that filled them and oozed at the crusty corners. The ghost had the semblance of a face, but really it was so rotted that one only saw the mold and maggots that clung to it. It wore pieces of a garment that had long since decomposed in the grave, and its moldering breasts were nearly all eaten away from whatever bugs or mice had crawled into its final resting place.

  It stretched its needy hands toward the old woman, and perhaps that is what finished her off. Those long, crusty fingernails twisted outward, nearly grazing the old woman's face. The stench was incredible. It held the slightly sweet, musty odor of dry rot. And yet, there was something more. Something familiar to the old woman...it smelled like the rats that had become trapped in the attic and died one winter. The old woman had had to call an exterminator to take the putrid bodies away. Funny she should think about that now. Who would take her body away? she wondered.

  She simply could not bear the thought of actually being touched by such an abomination. She felt a searing pain as her heart burst and choked as her life's blood shot up through the tunnel of her throat. The last thing she thought was how metallic and warm her blood tasted as it flooded her mouth.

  Cary threw the pages down and ran to the sink. He retched, but his stomach was empty. Could he really have written that? He remembered having been so tired last night that the words had begun to swim before his eyes, but surely he would have remembered something like that! He was shaking, and his face felt clammy.

  He read on and realized with horror that he did not remember writing any of what was on the neatly typewritten pages. What happened to the parts he did remember writing? He recognized nothing, and yet knew that no one else could possibly have written it. Surely no one would break into his place simply to play a joke like this on him. Besides, he noted, who else's typewriter double strikes the e? He was losing it. Jesus H. Christ, he was losing his goddamned mind!

  Flipped or not, he simply didn't have time to think about it. He had to get to work or Mr. Ryan would have his head. He tossed the pages down and marched directly into his bedroom. He undressed, then rummaged through his rickety old plywood wardrobe for new clothes. Cary really didn't notice what he put on, but he knew he was pretty safe because his clothes were all gray or white.

  He ran down the street, the cold winter wind whipping his cheeks. He was glad for the discomfort, as it kept his mind from wondering.

  He went through the gallery on the lower floor and rode the elevator up to the administrative floor and stepped off, already glancing at his watch and hoping there would be few words of recrimination from his boss. As he burst through the door, he stopped short and stared.

  Most of his co-workers were sitting at the table in the conference room, and police officers and detectives swarmed all over the place. A yellow police tape stretched across the doorway to Mr. Ryan's office. The receptionist, Claudette, was crying--sobbing, really--trying to speak to a stoic detective who sat opposite her, patiently writing down every garbled word she said.

  Cary could only pick up bits and pieces. "It was horrible...never seen anything like that...oh, God, who would do something like that? ...who?"

  What in the world could have happened? Cary stood in the doorway like that for some minutes, listening, watching, and wondering. It never did occur to him to ask someone what was going on.

  His eyes narrowed as he detected movement beyond Mr. Ryan's open office door. One of the policemen lowered a portion of the tape that barred the entrance and stepped inside. A second later, two men wheeled out a gurney with a white sheet covering something lumpy.

  Mr. Ryan's body.

  It finally hit Cary that this was what all the commotion was about. Everything was white: the stretcher, the sheet, the uniforms of the men...except...except the scarlet splash of blood at the head of the covered corpse, and the red blaze of color at the backs of the uniforms that read: CORONER.

  Cary couldn't take his eyes off the gurney as it came towards him. There was something about the shape of the shrouded figure...something not quite right. There was a strange protrusion at the head. The men kept pushing toward the doorway where Cary stood, shaking in his shoes.

  "Move it!" snapped the man at the body's head as they tried to get by. Cary shied sideways, and just as he did so, a gust of wind from the open stairwell door lifted a portion of the sheet from Mr. Ryan's corpse. Cary took one look at that face, its austere, stony eyes seemingly fixed right on him, and he fainted.

  It wasn't the cold, accusing eyes that gave him such a fright: It was the silver letter opener protruding from The Old Creep's frontal lobe that did it.

  Cary awoke to a series of impatient little slaps on his cheeks. He opened his eyes and blinked, the faces above him swimming into focus. Who were these people? Where was he? On the floor...oh, yes. He had fainted after seeing the letter opener in Mr. Ryan's eye. It was more of an eye-opener at that point, Cary thought perversely.

  "He's awake."

  Cary heard the voice as if from a great distance.

  Mr. Ryan had a silver letter opener in his eye. Just like in Cary's fantasy. Cary then remembered the lost time the night before...but no, he had been writing his story. The typed pages from his Corona proved t
hat! Got to think here. How could I have known the way Mr. Ryan would die before he died? But no, it couldn't be that The Old Man's implements of work had just killed him all by themselves. Could someone in the office be a mind reader and killed Mr. Ryan to frame Cary? He knew it was ridiculous and yet, he stole a furtive glance at the employees gathered around the conference room table. They were all looking at him. Well, of course they were; he'd just fainted after all! Don't be paranoid, he told himself. No one could possibly know what you were thinking yesterday if you don't tell them. Get a grip.

  Cary pushed himself up into a sitting position and focused on the faces of the three men kneeling beside him. Two wore police uniforms, while the other, probably a detective, wore a tan suit.

  "Feeling better now?" one of the officers asked.

  "Yes, I'm sorry." Cary managed a weak smile, "I just can't stand the sight of blood." Actually, there had been very little blood. It had just bloomed when it wicked through the sheet. The letter opener had punctured Mr. Ryan's eye, causing an internal cerebral hemorrhage.

  "That's perfectly understandable, Mr. Bouchard," said the detective-looking man.

  How does he know my name? Cary wondered. Don't be paranoid. Someone probably told him, that's all.

  "I'm Detective Jorgensen," said the older man as he took Cary's right hand, partially to shake it and partially to lift Cary to his feet. The detective looked tired. The irises of his periwinkle blue eyes were washed out, and there were dark circles beneath them.

  "Hi," Cary mumbled. "What happened?"

  "It appears that your boss, Mr. Joshua Ryan, was murdered," said Jorgensen with a weary sigh. "And I'm told you're his personal secretary." There was no ridicule in his voice, Cary noted with mild surprise. Perhaps the detective was just too tired to make the effort. "Did the deceased have any enemies that you know of?"