The Tragedy Man: A Serial Killer Thriller Page 3

  Cary considered for a moment before answering. Let's see...the wife could've done it for the insurance money. Mr. Ryan also had his share of ruthless business rivals, disgruntled ex-employees, pissed-off ex-wives and mistresses--why even Cary himself had hated Joshua B. Ryan. But it was best not to share that last little tidbit with the detective. He opted for the business angle.

  "Mr. Ryan was being prosecuted in several different lawsuits that I am peripherally aware of, sir." He cleared his throat and continued, "But Mr. Ryan said it was just the cost of doing business and didn't seem overly concerned about any of the actions."

  Detective Myles Jorgensen leaned forward and obviously noted Cary's wrung-out appearance. "Can you give me a brief rundown?"

  "Well," Cary said slowly, feigning a struggle to remember details, "I know of at least two clients who were suing because they found out that Mr. Ryan was charging them for the time of research assistants and purchasing managers who were no longer with the company." The greedy bastard! Cary thought to himself. Always trying to fill his coffers. "And there was one guy who was suing for what he says was unlawful termination of his employment, and some other company that says JBR Art Associates didn't meet its contractual obligations or something like that. Honestly, I really wasn't too involved with the legal aspect of things around here. You should talk to the Controller." Cary gave him the person's name.

  "Okay," said Detective Jorgensen as he jotted the name into his memo pad. He made as if to get up, then said, "By the way, Mr. Bouchard, where were you last night and early this morning?"

  "Why, home alone of course!" Cary said. Damn. He cursed himself. Don't sound so flustered! You were home alone.

  By the unprepossessing looks of Cary Bouchard, Jorgensen could believe that. "Okay, well, we'll contact you if we have any more questions," he said, getting up for real this time. "I assume the company employee address and home phone records are up to date?"

  "Mine are," Cary replied. "I haven't moved since I began working here." Because I can't afford to move on my lousy salary.

  Cary sat at the table in the lobby for some time as people milled about, looking confused and out of sorts. Just because someone had been murdered didn't mean the phones stopped ringing or the faxes stopped rolling in. Male secretaries bustled about in a shocked daze, continuing with their work day, but not quite sure if it was proper. After all the policemen left, the office manager announced that everyone should go home while she and some of the principals met with the firm's lawyers to figure out how they should continue in Mr. Ryan's absence.

  As Cary walked home, the thought suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he would not be called back to work the next morning. After all, he had been Mr. Ryan's personal secretary. What would he do with no job?

  Finish his book, that's what! There was nothing like the prospect of homelessness to get his butt into gear--now he had to write a bestseller. And if what he'd written the night before was any indication of what he could do, then he knew he'd have nothing to worry about. Bernard, his agent, would love it.

  He tore through his dinner and sat down to write, feeling great anticipation. He sat there like that for some time, then began to feel discouraged. He thought maybe the previous night had been a fluke...could that be possible? He stretched out on the couch and wondered why he felt so tired. Fatigue could do that, he supposed. After all, he had seen a real, live dead body that very morning. His eyes closed as he drifted off to dream land thinking about the suddenly sinister silver slitter protruding from the still-open eye of his hated, but thankfully dead, boss.

  It was morning when Cary awoke. He sat up and cast a disdainful look at the typewriter, as though it was the machine's fault he'd been unable to write anything the night before. But wait...were those papers stacked beside the typewriter?

  Cautiously, he stepped up to the kitchen table and looked at the neatly stacked, typewritten pages. He'd heard of sleep walking, but never sleep typing. He picked up the sheets of off-white recycled paper and began to read.

  There was more to the ghost story. One of the servants had found the old woman, and now a chain-reaction of murders had begun. One of them struck Cary as most ironic.

  The barrister, Sir Robert Windmere, was studiously poring over Mrs. Banks' will. Terrible thing, he thought, that poor woman dying from horror. The medical reports had said it was simply a heart attack due to old age, but her butler had told Windmere he would never forget that face: a frozen, grimacing mask of terror. Then the butler had begun to shake and had to sit down to compose himself. Windmere wondered what the old woman had seen...but then he set his mind back to the task at hand. After all, he would be receiving a hefty fee for his work from the decedent's relatives.

  He settled back into his chair and noticed that he was quite constricted. He tried to move again and found that he was being held in his chair by some unseen force.

  The Covington Ghost?

  Suddenly his heart began to beat faster and his eyes bulged when he saw the unmistakable form of a woman materialize in his office. She was a hideous being, partially mist, partially mold. The stench of rotting flesh permeated his pine panel walled office. Windmere began to shriek like a terrified girl as the ghostly apparition flew at his face, silver talon-like fingernails extended and aiming for his eyes.

  Hearing the screams, Sir Windmere's secretary ran into the room. His mouth gaped as he saw his employer sitting in his high-backed chair, stabbing himself repeatedly in the eye with a pair of antique silver scissors.

  Hey, Cary thought, this is the kind of stuff Bernard will really get behind. But why did it have to be so similar to Joshua B. Ryan's hideous death? Cary pushed the question aside and told himself that writers always write what they know, simple as that.

  As he began to read on, the phone rang.

  Cary picked it up, wondering who would be calling so early. He'd have to be leaving for work soon. "Cary Bouchard," he said as he brought the receiver to his ear.

  "Cary. Regina." It was the office manager at Joshua B. Ryan Art Associates. When Cary did not respond, the woman went on. "Cary, I know you must be pretty upset over Mr. Ryan's death. Why don't you take the rest of the week off?"

  Cary immediately knew where this was leading. "Are you firing me?"

  "No, Cary. No, of course not. We just thought you might like to have some time off. Officially, of course, it would be a lay-off but you are definitely not being fired." Regina sounded hurt that Cary would even dream that the company wouldn't be there for him.

  They were probably already moving another principal into Mr. Ryan's office and putting his secretary in Cary's window seat. Laid-off, huh? Cary smiled to himself. He knew he would get the ax eventually.

  It was like that old joke about the cat being on the roof: A man goes on vacation and he asks his brother to watch his pet cat. He calls in each and every day to check and see how his cat is doing. Everything is fine until the third day, when the brother tells him the cat was run over by a car and killed. The man on vacation is totally shocked and says, "Gosh, couldn't you have broken it to me gently? I mean, today you could have told me that cat is on the roof and you couldn't get her down. Tomorrow you could have said the cat fell off the roof and you had to take her to the vet. The next day you could say the vet had to put her to sleep. But to be so abrupt like that, it's just not very considerate!" The brother apologizes profusely and tells him that at least everything else is okay and that their aged mother is doing well. The next day when the man on vacation calls his brother he asks how Mother is doing, the brother replies, "Well, Mom is on the roof and I can't get her to come down..."

  Cary knew his job was gone, and that the sooner he cut those ties and got on with the novel, the better. "I'll make it easy for you, Regina," he said. "I quit."

  There was obvious relief in Regina's voice when she told Cary that the company wished him the best of luck and that his final paycheck would be put into the mail immediately.

  No sooner had Cary repl
aced the receiver on the handset then the phone rang again. He let it ring a couple of times, wondering if Regina had changed her mind already. "Cary Bouchard," he announced as he brought the receiver to his ear.

  "Cary, babe." It was Bernard Krattenbokbower.

  Bernard was like a stereotypical Hollywood agent straight out of Central Casting--he wore a dark, curly toupee, called everyone "babe" or "sweetheart", wore four gold chains around his neck, and smoked cigars like a Cuban chimney--only he was a New York literary agent. Cary felt extremely lucky to have him, though. He knew that an unpublished writer simply didn't get such breaks. He'd won second prize in a writing contest put on by a small literary webzine a few years before, and that was how Bernard had discovered him.

  Bernard usually called with bad news, but this time Cary was glad to hear from him. Finally, he'd made some real progress on his novel and had all the time in the world to complete it! "Bernard," Cary said, his voice lilting with excitement, "I've been working on my ghost story, and I've really done some fantastic scary parts. I think you'll be impressed."

  "Cary, babe," Bernard's voice had a heavily resigned tone to it--one that he'd obviously been working on. "I gotta tell you, it's just not happening. I gave you three years, sweetheart. That's more than I've given anyone, and you know our contract is up tonight at midnight."

  Cary simply couldn't believe it. This couldn't be happening now, not when he needed his agent most of all! "Bernard, listen to me. I've broke the bank on this one. I promise. At least just read what I've written in the last few days and agree to reconsider, please?"

  Bernard's voice lost all of its sorrowful tone. "Ain't gonna happen, Cary sweetheart. I've wasted three years already. I was with you through your high-brow literary phase, your contemporary romance phase, your mystery phase, and now your horror phase. Trust me, babe: you are not a writer. You may write, but that doesn't mean you can call yourself a writer."

  Cary knew that. He'd never been published (except in the "letters" section of a magazine or two, and the contest issue of the 'zine) and he knew the axiom, "You can't call yourself a writer until other people call you a writer." But damn it, he felt like a writer. If only he could get the chance! He considered pleading with Bernard, but knew it was no use. How could he possibly get anywhere with an agent who didn't believe in him?

  Cary hung up the phone without saying good-bye and immediately left his apartment in search of the Publisher's Trade paper. I'll find myself another agent, that's all.

  When he arrived at the newsstand on the corner, Cary hesitated. Should he call Bernard back and try to patch things up? He decided he would get the paper and then if things didn't look promising, he would try and crawl back to Krattenbokbower & Partners.

  Chapter 2

  It had begun to rain again by the time Cary reentered his apartment building; an ugly gray drizzle that did nothing but get a person damp and cold. Tweetie sang cheerily at his arrival, and Cary smiled as he turned on his teapot thinking some hot oolong would go nicely. He spread the paper out on his kitchen table and began flipping through it.

  A small eighth-page ad toward the back immediately seemed to jump out at him: "New Publishing Company Needs Writers!" screamed the bold red print. Cary read on. There wasn't much more: "New blood wanted for horror publishing house. Send complete manuscripts on paper only to: Old Scratch Press, P.O. Box 2013, New York, NY 00066."

  It was perfect! Absolutely perfect. But they would only look at complete manuscripts.

  Cary sighed. That meant a lot of time, work and effort spent on a project that was likely to be rejected. But, he had to finish it anyway, even if Old Scratch Press did not accept it. As Bernard had told him, publishers were wary these days and rarely took a chance on a novel just on the basis of its outline and first three chapters from an unpublished writer. It was tougher on the writers, some of whom had to spend a year or two just writing the novel before it could even be considered for acceptance, but they had to play by the publishers' rules or be automatically tossed into the circular file.

  Cary sighed. His kettle whistled and as the tea was steeping he set up his typewriter.

  "No time like the present," he said in Tweetie's general direction. Tweetie trilled in response.

  At least he was writing more quickly of late. He had reworked the first three chapters in four days and wrote chapters four and five in those two nights he had no memory of.

  As he began to type on a new sheet, the words seemed to blur for a moment. He shook his head and forced himself to continue. Soon he was typing at demon speed and had ten pages done before he knew it. He realized that he had been typing of course--no blacking out this time, but he could not remember what he'd just written. He wondered if other writers ever did that. Perhaps it was supposed to be this way, and he'd just finally fallen into the rhythm after years of working at it. He knew that for a lot of activities which took a great deal of mental concentration--such as psychic predictions--a trance-like state was often required. He caught a few words of what he'd just written and shivered. Scary to think that such things lurked in his subconscious mind.

  The Covington Ghost had claimed yet another victim.

  The maze was situated behind the old hotel and the hedges were trimmed weekly by a master groundskeeper. The guests of the B&B enjoyed the maze and Mrs. Marks was no exception. "Come along, Punkin," she said as she tugged on the leash. Punkin, a tiny poodle with a silly haircut and a pink bow on her tail, stood her ground and snarled, exposing rows of sharp white teeth and spiny fangs.

  "Behave yourself!" snapped Mrs. Marks as she gave a sharp jerk on the line. Punkin was pulled off her feet for a moment, then reluctantly followed, growling softly but menacingly under her breath. Mrs. Marks strolled along, light on her feet despite her thick ankles and bulky frame. She took each blind turn in the hedge maze without hesitation and seldom did she come to a dead end. About halfway through, she stopped to sit down on one of the quaint cobblestone benches which had been thoughtfully placed at regular intervals throughout. Punkin huddled beneath her mistress's legs and trembled.

  "What's with you, Punky?" cooed Mrs. Marks with concern. She'd spent two hundred quid on this little ball of fluff and seriously hoped the animal wasn't about to catch cold and die on her.

  Punkin growled deep in her throat, then whimpered and whined.

  Mrs. Marks heard a rustle in the bushes and turned toward the sound, a big smile on her fat face. She sincerely hoped it was the widower who had the room down the hall from hers...

  It wasn't. Mrs. Marks screamed in mortal terror as the ghostly apparition shot forward and snatched up her little dog. Punkin screamed, too, a high, warbling sound like a bird in a vise, then was silenced as she exploded from within. Steaming, sticky blood, fragments of intestine and white hairs matted with fat sprayed Mrs. Marks from head to toe. A faint laughter seemed to come from everywhere, and yet it had no source.

  Mrs. Marks ran for her life.

  Cary felt sick. He liked animals; why would he think to kill one in his novel? He shivered, wondering if perhaps he possessed a subcutaneous streak of sadism.

  He sat down and began to write more--filler stuff, mostly. As his story began to flesh out he felt more and more confident that Old Scratch Press would snap his book right up. He didn't need an agent--any agent--after all. His talent would speak for itself, he decided.

  Cary holed himself up in his apartment for four days, not even going out to pick up his final paycheck or to buy food. He slept seldom, perhaps two hours a night. The tic-tic of the typewriter keys got on Tweetie's nerves and she sang incessantly, probably to block out the noise.

  When the four days had come to an end, so, too, had Ghost of the Misty Moor. Cary sighed with satisfaction as he gathered up his neatly stacked pile of 385 typewritten sheets and put them directly into a manila envelope. He addressed it by hand, then stamped it and took it to the corner mailbox. He was loath to take a chance on the U.S. Postal System with his precious package, but wi
th a P.O. box and no phone number listed in the ad, he didn't have any choice.

  As soon as he got back home, Cary fell across his bed and slept like the dead.

  The next day he awoke to the sound of his ringing telephone. He rubbed his eyes and yawned, thinking he would let the machine pick it up. Wonderful invention, the answering machine.

  But the phone kept ringing, and the ringing seemed to become louder and more insistent with each "br-r-r-ring!" When he could stand it no longer Cary stood up and stumbled into the living room. He squinted at the late afternoon sun coming through his unadorned windows.

  "Cary Bouchard" he said into the receiver, his voice still dull with sleep, and yet with a rapier edge of annoyance to it.

  "Mister Bouchard, my friend," said the warm, friendly voice at the other end. Salesman, Cary thought instantly and waited for the pitch. In the meantime, he was trying to figure out where his machine had gone wrong. It was still set on three rings. One day, he'd get a cell phone.

  When Cary didn't reply, the voice continued. "This is Cyrus Winesapp, the attorney for Old Scratch Press."

  Cary's ears instantly pricked like a dog who has just heard the rustle of his Gravy Train sack. "Well, good afternoon, Mr. Winesapp! How are you?"

  "Top of the line," replied the attorney. "Top of the line indeed. Now let's get down to brass tacks. The reason I've called is to inform you that Old Scratch Press wants Ghost of the Misty Moor. The boss man has been holed up in his office all day reading it. He thinks you have a special way with words, Mr. Bouchard, and that is why I'm calling. I'm sending a messenger over with the contract this morning."

  "Okay," Cary breathed. He couldn't believe it! Un-fucking-believable, that's what this was.

  "Good afternoon," said Winesapp, and he rang off.

  Cary hung up the phone and sat down. Then he jumped up again, did a silly little jig, and sat back down. He was smiling and laughing...then a frown crept in when he realized how unprofessional he had sounded.