KILLER ADDICTION: When Murder Becomes A Habit

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

THE GAMBLER KILLING created a sensation. The prominent police scene made a splash, and the media picked up the story and ran with it on an otherwise slow day, so it gained serious traction in the news cycle.

I saw the headlines and knew immediately that the Addict Killer had struck again. I contacted Melissa straight away and told her there had been another addict murdered. Now that it looked like my theory was right, she agreed to help me; we would approach Frank Delaney together.

Melissa had instructed at police academy training before the FBI, so knew a lot of the local cops, including Delaney. She put in a friendly word for me, and thankfully I looked a lot better than the last time I saw Frank. I was almost unrecognisable now with tanned skin, clean-shaven face, tidy hair, bright eyes, and straight back, along with the fifty pounds I had regained since I last saw him. I also had on my now-usual long-sleeved shirt covering up my horrendous tattoos.

We met with Frank and I ran him through my theory on the Addict Killer. I laid out all my research notes and ran through my logic and reasoning. A series of three killings might not have been enough, but this fourth one pushed it over the edge. After much deliberation, Frank nodded and said, ‘I think you’ve got a point, kid. Sorry I didn’t listen to you before, and sorry about your girlfriend.’

‘That’s fine, Frank, I totally understand. I probably wouldn’t have listened to a strung-out junkie like me either,’ I said with a wry smile.

‘So, what’s your story, Winter? How did you come up with all this when the city’s finest didn’t put it together?’ asked Frank.

Melissa interjected before I could reply. ‘Simon was my brightest student. He spent nearly five months in training at Quantico, but unfortunately imploded just before graduation. So, he’s basically an agent without the badge.’

‘So what happened? Why didn’t you graduate?’ asked Delaney.

I responded, ‘The short story is I was playing college football and was the unfortunate quarterback who got sacked by a couple of three hundred-pound gorillas and my knee exploded. I got shipped off to hospital and ended up hooked on opioid pain meds. Fast forward to Quantico and then I blew my knee again, but this time graduated from oxy to h****n, which kind of messed up my graduation from the academy. And that’s all she wrote.’

Melissa said, ‘Frank, we’d both like to help on this case. Simon knows it intimately and you know I’ve got the profiling experience that could really help here. If I organise clearance from HQ, can we join your team? As you know, we’ve got the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime over at the academy at Quantico, including the Behavioral Analysis Unit, who could help us out on this. We’re in the neighbourhood, so we might as well help your local boys.’

Frank pondered for a moment, then nodded and said, ‘Fine by me, I’ll just have to clear it with the Chief.’ Frank stepped out of the office and Melissa rang Quantico. She had her clearance by the time Frank came back into the office with a smile and a thumbs-up.

‘Let’s go check out the latest work of your Addict Killer,’ said Frank. ‘But Winter, you’re on notice here, Boy. You have no authority and no jurisdiction; you’re just an observer with no official capacity. So, keep your head down and your mouth shut, or you’ll be off this case in a heartbeat. Got it?’

‘Got it, Delaney. Understood,’ I replied with a nod.

We took off in Frank’s unmarked cruiser and drove over to the murder scene of The Gambler. The press were everywhere; the grisly nature of the murder scene and the helpless old lady victim was an irresistible combination, so the ghouls were circling. We made our way through the police cordon and entered the old bar. There was no body at the scene; it was already lying on a slab over at the morgue, ready for the autopsy.

The gruesome murder scene triggered an eerie sense of deja vu, although I must admit I was much more aware during this crime scene investigation than I had been for Sally’s.

The building was a derelict bar, the last customers long gone. The floor and room surfaces were grimy with dust and the room had long fallen into disrepair. The current central feature in the middle of the room was a large slot machine, one of the old-fashioned mechanical kind with a long pull handle adorned with a big bright red knob on top. A rusty red-brown stain of dried blood ran over the knob and the entire length of the handle. Intense blood spatter was visible all over the slot machine and the floor, and the wooden bar stool had a pool of congealed blood on the seat, dripping down the legs to the floor where it had overflowed.

Frank had photos of the body before they’d removed it. He spread them out on the bar for us, so we could get a sense of what it looked like. It was horrific. The poor woman looked to be in her seventies, with the classic blue rinse that seemed so inexplicably popular with women of her vintage. But blood now matted and stained the blue hair. Someone had bashed her with the proverbial blunt instrument, which judging by the scene was the rock-hard big red ball on the end of the long handle. There was some serious leverage on that thing.

After viewing the photos of the body, we continued scanning the room, looking for anything that stood out. Of obvious importance was the lighting and the slot machine, which the killer appeared to have brought, as it didn’t seem to fit the original bar decor. The murderer had gone to a lot of trouble to set the scene; it looked like he had tried to recreate his own little casino scene for the victim.

‘Shall we power up this thing and see what happens?’ said Delaney as he went around behind the machine and flicked the switch on the power board connecting the lights and the slot machine. Instantly a maniacal banging and crashing came from the slot machine as the handle jerked into life and smashed down into the bar stool, then sprang back up into position and then smashed back down again. The lights above the slot machine had glared into life, flashing the scene with light and colour. Frank quickly flicked the switch off again, not wanting to demolish the arm of the slot machine or damage the scene any further.

The scene stunned all three of us; this was some seriously messed-up s**t. Someone sure had gone to an awful lot of effort to make a point about this gambling addict. A fatal point.

The old lady’s number had come up last night.