The Killings

   Ten years had passed since the murders, ten years in which captain McCormick had not been able to get proper sleep. She had gotten a divorce and her children preferred to be away from her, although they called her sometimes. She thought that was more out of respect than because they actually cared about what happened to her. They were living their lives far away, with their own families and jobs. Her former husband had remarried and her children seemed to like their stepmother more than they liked her.

Or maybe it was the town. Maybe it was the things that  had happened there and her youngest son had seen some of them with his own eyes. She didn’t blame him for not coming back. Oddly enough, of her three children, he was the only one who called her regularly and not only on the holidays. She knew that he called out of fear of the past, thinking that what had happened may happen again one day.

 Captain McCormick still worked with the county police and she was proud too. After those horrible days, security had been strengthened and her county became an example for many others around the state. Samantha McCormick was proud that her work had done so much good but there’s always a case that hunts a policeman. There’s always that one unsolved case that hunts you to your death.

 It had begun during the state fair, when the bodies of two schoolteachers, both women, were found one morning in the middle of the rodeo ring. The corpses had been left in perfect state except for the eyes, which had been taken out. Besides that, everything seemed to be fine with them: no signs of extreme violence, no signs of rape or torture.

 Samantha looked for the murderer for at least a month until they found three more bodies, in the forest north of town. They were all male, various ages. They appeared to have been hanged but the heavy rain had made the tree branches weak and they had broken due to the weight of the dead men. At the moment, they thought both series of murders were not related but it was very uncommon for such a small county to have two murderers on the loose.

 Besides, because of the media, everyone got scared into thinking the streets were filled with murderers waiting for them to take a wrong step on the street. Some people left town and others barricaded them inside their houses. Some time later, a family was found burned to death inside their home and it was determined someone had initiated the fire by using the gas installation. It was then when Samantha began to think the murders were all related.

 It was impossible that three people were doing so much damage. Specially here, in a community were everyone knew each other and were strange behavior was easy to spot. Samantha had seen that private eye spirit in people before and it had never failed. She had been summoned many times by people thinking that their neighbor was a killer when in reality they were hiding affairs or just happened to be stealing money from their jobs.

 But this was different and, although many of her companions did not believe her, she was sure it was a mass murderer. Then, she was personally attacked. A man had taken her son and two other boys from outside the movie theater. She put every single policeman to work, scouting through the woods and the farmland to the south. Finally, they located tow of the boys still alive.  The third one had been killed with a gun in front of them and they claimed the murderer had told them he was going to eat them.

 Samantha sent all members of her family out of town, with her mother who lived in a big city far away. Only her husband stayed because he thought she was becoming increasingly obsessed with everything around the case and she was: that man had attacked her personally and she wasn’t going to let anyone to that to her. She couldn’t shake out the memory of her son trembling like mad, his eyes filled with tears and the blood covered shack where he and a his friends had been held hostage.

 Weeks after her children left town, police found the body of two elderly women. They had been left on one side of the road leading to some hot springs, which were really popular with tourists around the region. Then, everything stopped. They checked everyone’s house, every inch of the forest and the files, of the hot springs and every single public and private building in the county. Not only they did not found one more body, but also they didn’t found any suspects they could interrogate.

 Samantha got obsessed in the search for the culprits and would often drive all night around town to check on things, believing the murder or murderers might come out late at night to escape or kill again. But nothing happened. The only real change in her life was that her husband got fed up with her obsession and left her alone in town. She didn’t really care, at least not at the moment.

 She interrogated the kid that had been rescued with her son and, although she learned some new details about the kidnapping, she happened to be extremely harsh on the poor boy that kept weeping and was about to pass out by the end of her interview. The kid’s mother chased Samantha out, telling her to look for those mad men instead of harassing the only victims that happened to be alive.

 The head of the state police came to town to check on the mass killings investigation and decided to put someone else on the case and give Samantha a leave of absence to be with her family and get away from it all, at least for a few weeks. But she just couldn’t. She visited her children at her mother’s but it was then when they all realized nothing was going to be the same again.

 Her children were scared of her as she only sat on the living room, checking every single data on the killings on her computer. She did that every single day she stayed with her children and when her mother quarreled with her, telling Samantha she was no real mother if she cared mother about dead people than about her own children. Samantha responded that her job was to see that no one’s children; no one’s relatives will never be killed again. She stated that her job was first.

 This affirmation was hard on her children who decided to stop insisting on getting their mother back. To them, it was like her mother had been one more victim of the killings. They stayed behind when she went back to town and her mother only asked of her the necessary money to take care of the three children. Samantha did not argue and for the next seven years she sent money to her mother, no argument, no questions.

 She went back to solve the case, or so she thought, but she never got really far with it. Some of the evidence suddenly pointed towards a cult, a satanic group that had decided to settle in town and kill randomly and then leave, leaving no trace. It was the theory she backed after so many years, but the killings became a cold case, and unsolvable one.

 Every year Samantha attended a remembrance of the victims of the killings and many of the family members thanked her for never letting go of it all. They knew it had all been very hard on her too but they appreciated the fact that she was still looking for the person or persons that had committed such awful crimes.

 After ten years of the killings, people had begun to forget about it all. The county had become one of the safest places in the whole country and tourists poured in often to check out the hot springs, the food and the hospitality. She knew that some small groups came to visit the places were the murders took place but she didn’t mind, although she always suspected the murder could come back.

 But if he or they did, it never became obvious. People came and went and Samantha stood there for many more years. Even after her retirement, she would still try to solve the puzzle but she was never able to. She often cried, alone in her house. Not only because she felt so frustrated, not being able to go any far into the case. She also cried because the killer had not only killed those people but because he (or they) had destroyed many families, the spirit of a place and their hopes for the future. Samantha knew this to be a fact, from personal experience.

On The Queen Victoria

All the guests and hosts in the Queen Victoria sat down to eat, just past sunset. The yacht was so big it had a decent sized dining room, enough for all twelve guests. As people sat down, they greeted Johann Ronson, the owner and part-time captain of the vessel. He was the magnate that had bought the boat and had invited his closest friends to wander the Egean Sea with him for a week.

The main course, served after a shrimp cocktail and a couple of glasses of champagne, was king crab. It was fresh and only served with a butter sauce and a special fork to eat it. Everyone enjoyed thoroughly. A lot of crab, of wine and champagne and a lot of conversation. Even millionaires would start talking a little bit too much after such a meal.

It was a certain English lady that spilled the fact that her husband had made many stupid investments over the years and now they had absolutely nothing. Those who weren’t as drunk as her had heard it perfectly and had made a mental note never to deal with the woman or her family again.

Late at night, everyone went to bed. They were all full and tired. Only the captain stayed behind in the dining room, drinking and coursing the day he had bought the boat. The reality was that he needed somewhere to go, to escape from all the responsibilities he had with his family and numerous investors in his company. He felt so much money didn’t gave him as much privilege as he would have wanted.

He felt asleep right there and, for a good time, the ship was silent, anchored near a rock formation were a large amount of seagulls nested. It wasn’t until the next day, early, when a scream woke everyone up.

It came from one of the rooms in the stern. As people got near, they could distinguish that the voice that screamed was the one of a woman. Actually, everyone knew who was screaming. They found her on the bed, looking at her side. The scene was simply too much for anyone.

The lady that had no inheritance finally fainted, just besides her husband who was covered in blood from legs to neck, where he had been cut with a knife or something.

A couple of woman, helped by the staff of the boat, took Lady Emerson, the now poor and widowed woman, out of the room and into another one, until she woke up. When she did, she looked as if she had lost her mind, babbling nonsense and trembling uncontrollably.
The men passengers check Lord Emerson’s body, as the crew had been ordered by the captain to call the police but not to move the boat from its current location. He told them that if a crime, and that seemed to be the case, had been committed on board, they should call the police and wait right there to avoid the killer to escape.

But what was done had no way to be undone. They covered the body with a large blanket and waited for the police, who had been called on the radio. Lunch was served, as normal, but no one was really in the mood for sea bass. A dead body was only rooms away and it may prove insensitive to eat, as a murder had been committed.

The police finally arrived late in the afternoon. They had sent a translator with them and the inspector that had been sent with them was half American, so he had a way to talk to everyone in the boat.

The first thing they did was to get the body out of the yacht, as the smell was beginning to take a toll on the people in the nearest rooms. A young girl had already vomited profusely overboard, leaving the Greek waters a little bit more polluted than they were before.

The room were the crime was committing was closed and checked thoroughly all night. When it got too late, two officers were left there to protect the place from been contaminated. Before leaving, the inspector said he was sure he would find the murderer as he or she was still on the boat.

When he said that, everyone realized it was true. It was silly, but everyone had treated the murder as a natural death or something of sorts. But no, Lord Emerson had been killed when one of the passengers had slit his throat from behind, assuring he would not yell and no one would hear anything.

At breakfast, the next day, the Captain had to order the kitchen staff to serve everyone in their rooms, which was exceptionally annoying as breakfast was a buffet. So now, they had to go room by room to ask what people wanted and then bring it to them. In the kitchens there was also the discussion: “What if were serving the murderer”? To answer that, a boy who cleaned the bathroom only said “We’re all working for a killer right now”. Everyone laughed but it was certainly not funny.

The police came back during breakfast to commence the sweeping of the place of the crime and they found the sheets full of blood, the seal of a bottle of wine that had slipped beneath the bed and a stain near the back side of the bed, where there was a window.

When they finished, the captain was told his ship would be escorted back to Rhodes, where they had the equipment to do a full search on the yacht. Mr. Ronson was sad and even depressed but he had to accept if he wanted all of it to end soon. So by sunset, they were already in the island. To ensure the investigation, they were all put under “house arrest” in a hotel by the police station.

All the passengers were rich and had more interesting things to do than waiting for a murder investigation to finish. They had only reserved a week to travel to Greece to spend some time with old Ronson, because he was wealthier than any of them could ever be. If they ever ran into financial distress, it would be him who could be able to save them from it.

Ronson was known worldwide because of helping people that needed him: saving companies from bankruptcy, hiring the best lawyers, paying mortgages… The man was the savior of the rich, or so he was called in many economic magazines that praised and despised him, all at the same time.

The police told Mr. Ronson, that his boat was not going to be dismantled as the crime didn’t seemed planed or that structured but that they did need to search every single inch of it, as the be sure of what the investigation was pointing to.

So all the crew and passengers had to spend one more week in Rhodes, trapped in a fancy hotel, waiting for the results of the probe. The crew was especially happy as they didn’t have to work any more and they were the ones being treated to beautiful restaurants, an elegant swimming pool and all the drinks they could handle.

The wealthier guests almost always remained in their room, already trying to book flights or boats out of the damn island for the day they had been promised to be released. To be honest, they were looking forward more holidays and sunny locations, but away from all the fuss and annoying aspect of a murder.

The truth was none of them really cared about someone being killed just doors away from their rooms. They didn’t mind at all. What made them grind their gears, was the fact they couldn’t keep behaving as they always did and as what they were: rich spoiled brats who needed to be able to do whatever they wanted, even if they had no intention of doing anything.

Happily for them, not as much for the members of the crew, the boat was released on the promised date. However, they were all summoned to be present in the press conference were the murderer would be announced, as the evidence against that person was irrefutable.

The police babbled even more than most of the rich passenger of the yacht but, when it finally got to it, it was revealed Lady Emerson had been found guilty of the crime.

According to the police, it was found that only her could have been able to enter the room and kill him, as there were no traces of anyone else doing so, not the day of the murder or before. The stain found by the bed, was left there by Lady Emerson, as she opened the window to throw the murder weapon to the ocean. Of course, the weapon was nowhere to be found.

As for the seal of the bottle of wine, the police claimed they had found the bottle on a trashcan on the kitchens. Apparently, Lady Emerson had gotten her husband drunk before killing him with a knife and then, she went insane because of what she had done.

The inspector announced Lady Emerson would pay for her crime in the Attica prison for women, near Athens, and that she would do so in the psychiatric ward of the prison, for the next twenty years. He declared they had gotten a psychiatrist to run some tests to her, all of which certified she was beyond insane, losing all grasp of reality.

The yacht went back to the sea, with only Mr. Ronson inside and a few crewmen. The rest of the passengers left for Athens or London, or other destinations in the Mediterranean.

The actual murder? He left for Cyprus and then for Israel. As it happened, an old lover of Lady Emerson had been the real killer. She thought he had married another woman to spite her but he had married her to get close to her and to his husband, who he hated for having put her through so many bad times. So he killed her with a knife and she went mad when she woke up to see his lover, arms covered in plastic, killing her husband.

Lady Emerson died, insane and in pain, in the Attica prison. She had no children or real family. Her former lover lived in Eilat for several years, until one of the many wars in the region, in which he died.

The past never forgets

His eyes opened, not so much at once. The light was too strong, blinding him, making him feel sick. He vomited on the side and then, noticed he was on a chair and he was tied to it, by hands and legs. As he couldn't turn so good, he had vomit stains on his new trousers, the ones he had bought for his first days as general manager of the bank.

 - Awake? - said someone behind him.

A young boy appeared in front of him. He was using a hoodie and jeans. The boy grabbed a metallic folding chair that rested against the farthest wall. He opened the chair in front of the tied man, sat down and smiled at him.

 - How do you like it?

 His voice was soft, to the point of being annoying. Somehow, the guy in the chair knew he had heard the voice before but couldn't put all the thoughts together. He felt his head pounding and an urgent urge to vomit again. But he didn't.

 - Alex Winston. You even have the perfect name for what you are.

Then he felt it: something liquid sliding down his forehead and falling on his pants. It was blood. He started to breath fast, finally realizing he was in danger.

 - You sure are slow. I'm afraid that's what a baseball bat does.

He wanted to talk but couldn't. The boy smiled when he noticed these attempts. His mouth stretched so big. Or maybe he was imagining it? He closed his eyes but the pain remained.

 - Trying to remember? Take your time honey. Meanwhile, let me help you.

The boy stood up and the tied man trembled. The boy smiled again and walked past the man. He tried to gather all his strength to free himself but it was useless. His arms and legs felt like noodles and his head wasn't exactly up for the task of walking. The small amount of consciousness he had told him that maybe he had been drugged too.

The boy came back with a cellphone on one hand and the bat in the other, drag it on the floor. The guy in the chair then trembled again and found it difficult to breath.

 - So, Alex... You're 32, right? General manager of the FN Bank... Sweet, huh?

The man stood still and only breathed heavily.

 - What? Something to say before I begin?

But Alex said nothing. His body couldn't help him do nothing.

 - Ok then. Let's start. You're a naughty boy, aren't you? You like boys and girls, metrosexual, a player. But do you remember? Do you have the capacity to feel? Both really great questions.

He then got near and Alex shivered. The boy laughed out loud. He raised the cellphone on his hand and showed the displayed image to Alex. It was the picture of a girl, maybe twenty years old.

 - Remember her, Alex? Do you ?

Alex didn't remembered. And his attacker saw that on his face: he punched him in the stomach so hard, he started vomiting again.

 - While you do that... - He browsed to more pictures. - ... do you know him?

He grabbed Alex by the ear and made him watch: the picture was now even more grim. It was the one of a dead boy, probably the age of the mad young men that held him there. But Alex did not remember.

 - You fucking piece of shit.

Alex thought he was going to be hit again but, instead, the boy went back to his seat. His way of moving, his expressions, everything about that guy was disturbing.

 - I have three others but first I want you to speak. Tell me your father's name. Now.

He had to gather all his energy. It wasn't much. But he managed to say one thing: "Robert". The boy was evidently pleased. He stood up and got near the chair. Alex shivered again but the guy only grabbed something from below the chair: a bottle filled with water. He opened and told Alex to be still: he poured some liquid into his mouth and watched as he drank.

The water made him feel better but, suddenly, memories came rushing to his head and, in return, the headache was bigger.

 - "Always watch behind you". Isn't that a great lesson? I sure learned it.

He watched Alex to the eyes and Alex new he had to do the same, or he would stand no chance. The guy smiled again but this time hatred could be felt, as if it had a temperature, a very low one.

 - Water makes miracles... Now, do you remember them? Or... do you remember me?

Yes. He did. But when he realized who the boy was, they both kept silent as, in the distance, sirens could be heard.

 - Well, that's my cue to get the fuck out. And please, never forget my face.

He stood up and left the cellphone on the chair. He then walk towards Alex and kissed him in the mouth. He didn't close his eyes as he did it. It only lasted a few seconds. After that, the boy disappeared behind him.

As he felt a bit stronger, he began trying to release himself and only managed to burn his wrists. Then, just minutes after his captor had left, a team of policeman and special forces agents stormed the building he was in.

The first they did was take the phone from the seat. They only released him from the ropes when they had checked what it apparently contained.

He told them he didn't remembered anything and that the guy that had kept him there, a young man, had hit him with a bat and punched him too.

 - You could catch him. He left only minutes ago.

Then, a police woman entered the premises. As she checked the cellphone, she asked for Alex's father and apparently browsed through images and documents. She finally looked at Alex and walked to him.

 - I'm Sheriff Janice Jones. It is my duty to inform you that were putting you under arrest for the rape  and murder of, at least, four people.

Alex didn't hear the rest. He was being handcuffed when he realized what was on the cellphone. It was the one thing he had dreaded for years and that guy, that young man...

They had met years ago in a party and bonded over drinks. He was an innocent, idealist guy. But Alex wasn't. And he did what he had always done and that was his downfall.

Austerlitz

Chef Michel Jacquet was the best in his craft and there was overwhelming evidence of this all over his prized restaurant, the Austerlitz. Medals, cups, plaques and ribbons were displayed all over the dining hall, for every client to see.

This, of course, had not happened out of miracle. No. Michel was born a chef. From age five, he enjoyed staying at home with his mother and grandmother and see them planning breakfast, lunch and dinner. He was particularly fond of grand feasts that his family held every once in a while to celebrate important days as July 14th, every family member birthday or a town gathering which his family was always asked to cater.

He lived all of his childhood and teenage years in the small town of Vaite, relatively close to Germany and Switzerland. And during all those years he watched his mother do hundreds of dishes, as well as his grandmother and the baker, Monsieur Grand.

From Mr. Grand, he learned the art of pastries and by the age of fifteen he did the best éclairs Vaite could offer its few visitors and residents.

Encouraged by his mother, he left Vaite for Paris at age seventeen, to live with an uncle and learn the craft of the best teachers he could get. They were a middle class family but Michel had the advantage of being an only child so there was some money to spare on his education.

It was his dream to be on the Cordon Bleu school but the tuition was prohibitive and they only selected the best in all fields and Michel was only a skilled pastry maker. He had no idea of meat or fish or how to cook grandiose meals as his mother used to do.

The solution? Learn by himself. His uncle was a postman and left early and got in late. This time was used by Michel to watch all kinds of cooking shows on TV. He would also look for high cuisine books in a nearby library and would even come in the butcher's store to ask him to teach Michel how to cut pork, veal and lamb.

Believing to be ready, he went through the hard test in the Cordon Bleu. He was denied entrance and that put him in a severe depression that lasted for a couple of months. It was a hot summer but he wouldn't come out of bed. His uncle begged him to go out, meet girls and go dancing but Michel wasn't interested.

In order to stretch our of his misery, he looked for more schools and found Mrs. Villette school for cooking. True, it was a modest place to learn but according to many older students, Juliette Villette was among the best cooks in France but some bad reviews of her restaurant brought the place down and she decide to teach instead of fighting and ever demanding crowd.

Be that as it may, Michel excelled in all classes and soon got his diploma with the highest honors. Then, again, he applied for Cordon Bleu and failed once more. This time, however, he wasn't sad or disappointed. He had decided to be the best french cook to have ever lived and nothing would be able to stop him.

That was his turning point. He became obsessed with success and recognition. He went from loving cooking and food to just use them to surprise people and be loved as he had always wanted to be loved.

Although no one ever knew it, Michel had never really been physically attracted to anyone. He had never had the need for romantic love or sexual intercourse. But he was obsessed with people knowing who he was. This was likely to be a result of people never really believing in him, except his mother. He did not trusted people and had a passive aggressive behavior, that rarely bursted out.

He visited her only after he got his first restaurant job. He was sous-chef for Gaston Bisset, a respected chef in the city of Lyon. The man had seen Michel's talent and decided to hire him for his restaurante, the Licorne. When Michel told his mother the news, she just hugged him and kissed his cheek. It was all she wanted. After all, the father had died when Michel was very young and she had always regretted not giving him a sister or brother to share with.

In the Licorne, Michel excelled. He was fast, thorough and clean. His cuts were precise and his deserts found a place in the restaurant's menu. Everyone in Lyon knew of this young man that made the most delicious deserts.

Bisset soon became annoyed because everyone came to eat Michel's deserts and not his more recent creations such as lamb in tangerine sauce or his version of the popular ratatouille. No, everyone wanted an éclair or millefeuille from Michel.

The situation became tense. People saw them quarreling, yelling at each other and not talking to one another for days. It all ended one day when Bisset didn't show up and Michel had to take care of everything. Bisset was said to be very sick and Michel took this to his advantage: the Licorne was his. In one week, he created the most splendid dishes: salmon in lychee sauce, passion fruit chicken and macadamia nut ice cream on chia seed cake.

Bisset died. Officially it was a stroke. Some wanted Michel to stay in the Licorne but he decided to leave as he needed to create his own place and did so in the city of Quimper.

Not really known for its cuisine, Michel made the city renowned with the creation of Austerlitz, his restaurant. And that was how he got all the prizes and awards and how France and the world fell in love with his creations, in special his pastries.

Bu then, when all was great, Justine Bisset arrived went to Paris. She had seen her father in his last days and believed in her heart the stroke was just the final part of his death. She proceeded to sue Michel of killing her father.

Soon, the necessary evidence was gathered and, sure enough, the Austerlitz was lost, as Napoleon did many years ago. Justine cried in the court and explained how Michel poisoned her father in a moment of weakness and then proceeded to take over the Licorne. Michel always denied it all but the evidence was hard to overlook.

But he wasn't surrendering. In a stroke of genius, he escaped the police and the country. He grew a beard, started to exercise and opened a small pub in Scotland. Every now and again he made his amazing pastries for the townsfolk. And when someone was too disrespectful or didn't like his creations, he simply added a thin extra layer cream on his sweet works of art.