A while back somebody requested that I put "The Chronicles of Carlo" somewhere in its entirety. Well, here it is so far. As I add more I will link back to here if anybody wants to update or review. Thank you for following this story. The latest chapter has been a while in the making because I just don't have time to sit and develop this story properly.
Thanks for being patient.
Enjoy.
BigMike
"The Chronicles of Carlo"
Detective John Carlo was disturbed.
Ever since the girl was carried into the police station two days ago, blood pouring from where her right hand used to be, he knew that he was in for a wild ride. Her descriptions of what had happened to her, along with the information on the other people in the house were maddening. Her name was Janet Soledad and after she woke up in the hospital bed, this is what she told him.
There is a house out in the country between Syracuse and Onieda where a man lives. His house is unremarkable but in a remote area surrounded by trees and set back from the road. He has converted his basement into a dungeon of sorts with shackles on the wall and tables, beds and chairs all with restraints. He has rooms down there where he houses others specifically for the purpose of torture and human experimentation. At the time that she escaped, there were at least three other people down there, each one of them in different stages of experimentation. She was also pretty sure that she could lead us back there.
She had escaped as the man had left her alone and gone out to do some "shopping" as he had called it. He had cut off her right hand with a hacksaw and hung it from a hook right in front of her so that she could watch it bleed all over the table. All she could do was concentrate on the pain of the burn where he had cauterized her stump of a wrist. She had actually wrenched the stump free from it's bonds after he had left the house. She pawed at the bonds on her left hand with that stump until it was raw and bleeding profusely, but she had succeeded in freeing that hand as well. She used the good hand to free herself from the other bonds around her legs and ankles. She couldn't free the others in the house because they were in locked rooms so she just ran out of the house and didn't stop running until she reached another house. She collapsed on a front porch and woke up in the hospital where detective Carlo was looking down at her.
"Bring guns" she had said. "Lots of guns."
Now, detective Carlo was standing over another hospital bed. As he looked down at the man lying there, he had the distinct urge to spit directly in the mans face. Instead he just stared, taking in the mans features, examining his look, wondering how a man this mild looking could be such an indescribable fiend.
He watched the heart monitor. Blip.......Blip.......Blip......wondering what made this man tick. Wondering what made his heart so cruel. As he did, the doctor in charge came into the room and lifted a chart from the end of the bed. Accompanying the doctor were two uniformed police from the Syracuse police department who were in charge of making sure that no unauthorized visitors were allowed into the room. They were also in charge of making sure that the restraints securing the man to the hospital bed were in proper working order and never removed. The doctor looked at the chart, made a few notes after observing the I.V. and heart monitor and put the chart back.
"Be a miracle if he makes it" the doctor turned and said to the detective. "I've never seen anybody swallow that much ammonia and bleach and live. This guy must really be a piece of work. It must have hurt going down."
"Chloramine? What did he mix it with doctor?" asked detective Carlo.
"Looks like a healthy portion of cherry Kool Aid or some kind of sugar based powdered mix. He was trying to sweeten up the terrible taste of the chemicals. What it really did was dilute them just enough so that they didn't kill him instantly. If you hadn't had paramedics there when you went into his house he wouldn't have survived this long. Pumping his stomach at least gave him a couple of days. I'm still not sure he won't go comatose on us."
"He needs to make it doctor" detective John Carlo remarked. I've got a few questions for him.
Detective Carlo hadn't said a word about what he found inside the house. When he first rushed in and found the man lying face down on the table, he had immediately seen that the man was writing in a journal of some kind. Detective Carlo picked up that journal and quickly put it in his coat. He figured if the man was writing in it at the time of a suicide attempt, then it had to contain some important evidence. He couldn't have had any idea of what it really was. He found out that night when, as he was sitting down to a nice cold beer, he opened the book and started reading.
"The sky is clear tonight.
So clear. Like my mind.
Clear as to what I need to do. I need to do. What I need to do.
The reflection is intense. It shines like a laser, heading off into the sky. It travels from the blade up into nothingness. A life form a million light years away will see the sparkle, a dot in the universe, long after we are all dead, and pay it no heed. It is just a light. A small, insignificant blip in the fabric of time.
To me it is forever.
The blade rushes quickly through the air, striking the intended over and over again. Still it shines like a thousand suns on the horizon, the atmosphere amplifying every ray. Quick to the retina with a small burn before turning away. There is no regret but the pain lingers, sated by a moment in time, but still there waiting to be recharged like a battery that has seen better days.
I am off again."
It was like reading the inner thoughts of a madman. Random thought structured in a way that only made sense to the writer. Detective Carlo found that this wasn't really the mind of this man however. He found much more as he read on.
Yes, he certainly had questions for this "madman" if he ever woke up from his chloramine nap.
Detective Carlo continued to watch the monitor.
Blip.......Blip.......Blip.......Blip.......
Detective John Carlo couldn't watch the heart monitor any longer. He left the hospital and drove to the scene of the crime, the house. As he wheeled his car up the long driveway he was thinking about the man that lived there. They had put a name to the monster that lived in this house and his name was Karl Stallings. This was a name that was going to be in the news very much over the next few months; it was a name that already was sending shivers up and down detective Carlo's spine.
Stallings. Pretty nondescript. Pretty normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. No next of kin, no wife, no children. A loner by all accounts who let his mind run wild. He indulged in all sorts of fantasies, torture being the biggest indulgence.
John Carlo stopped the car and got out. He walked to the front of the car, leaned his butt on the top of the hood, and stared at the house. It had been sealed on his order and he could see the yellow police tape across the railings of the front porch. After they had taken the live victims and any remains from the house, detective Carlo had made sure that nobody was to enter until he was done with his inspection of every square foot. Every corner and every crawlspace. Every nook and cranny.
As he stared at the house, he tried to imagine what the victims felt as they were led up this porch and into oblivion. There were plenty of victims. At last count, the detectives back at squad had tallied up more than fifty. The map alone listed forty five victims and they had picked up another five from the photo albums. Fifty photo albums in all, a documentation of abuse and terror never before seen in the annals of serial murder. Detective Carlo was afraid of what he might find when he investigated the house. He was afraid he would find evidence of fifty more. Fifty more names he would have to read. Fifty more bodies he would have to retrieve. Fifty sets of relatives he would have to track down and inform of their loved one's demise. The stress was wearing on him already and he hadn't even started yet.
He lit up a camel and looked around at the yard. Trees all around the house were blocking any line of sight from the main road. If he had to guess he would say there were about 4 acres of land here with plenty of privacy. The closest neighbors were two miles up the road over a pretty steep hill. They had been interviewed and had known nothing about Karl Stallings. They didn't know who he was or how long he had been there. They were private people themselves. The thing that detective Carlo was coming to realize was that people moved this far out in the country specifically to be left alone. It was something he couldn't quite wrap his mind around because he was born and raised a city boy in Buffalo, New York. His parents used to take him to visit his aunt over by Geneseo when he was a kid. She lived in a very rural setting and he always felt nervous with all that open space. He was more at home falling asleep to traffic noise than he was at walking around the countryside.
Yet, here he was out in the middle of nowhere investigating the biggest multiple murder case of his career, feeling like a fish out of water as he slowly walked up to the front porch of this killer's paradise. Discarding his lit camel, he started up the porch stairs and gently bent under the police tape. At the top of the porch he took some shoe covers out of his pocket, bent over and covered his shoes. He then covered his hands with some rubber gloves. He took his key ring out, chose a key and inserted it into the master padlock that the police had used to secure the front door. He turned the key and the padlock instantly became disengaged. He slipped it out of the hasp and opened the door. He took his flashlight out, turned it on, and walked into the foyer. Finding a light switch on the wall to his right, he flicked the switch up and the foyer came to life. He had marveled at this foyer earlier in the day. Baby blue paint with a border of brightly colored hot air balloons running around the circumference of where wall met ceiling. What the hell kind of killer was this? The foyer was clean as a whistle with hardly and stray dirt. If there was anything in here he couldn't see it.
There was also a closet in this foyer. Detective Carlo gently eased the closet door open and found nothing. It was empty except for one lone "Members Only" brand windbreaker. No shoes, nothing stored on the three shelves, absolutely nothing. He turned and headed for the doorway that would lead him into the rest of the house. He reached out, turned the doorknob and opened the door. Immediately in front of him was a hallway that went straight for about six feet. At the end of this hallway was the most immaculately clean bathroom that he had ever seen. To the left of the bathroom was a bedroom. To the right was another four feet stretch of hallway that opened up into a living area. The walls in the hallway and in the living area were painted a dark green. You could see the outlines of squares where pictures had hung for quite some time. The police had examined these pictures and found them not to be pictures at all. They were human remains. Tattoo's of various shapes and sizes, tanned somehow and hung in frames all around the room. Actually they had found these kinds of things all over the house. Tattoo's in picture frames. Never in his career had detective Carlo come up against something like that. It had made him sick and he had to run outside to puke in the bushes. They had found lampshades and picture frames and pillow covers. They had found drink holders and vases and coasters. All of these things were covered with human skin decorated with tattoo's. It was gruesome to behold.
In the living room they found an ashtray full of teeth sitting on one of the end tables. Teeth of all shapes and sizes. They found a chair with legs made of human bones. Human leg bones. They had found couch pillows with stuffing that consisted of all types of human hair. As John Carlo looked around this room he had one very clear thought keep running through his mind.
"I'm going to find out about you Karl Stallings. I'm going to find out what makes you tick. I'm going to find out what you saw through those eyes. When you wake up I'm going to know you better than you know yourself".
With that thought firmly implanted in his head, detective John Carlo looked at his watch. It was blinking three thirty A.M. He then sat down on the killers living room floor, leaned back and closed his eyes. He would attempt to feel what this house had to say. He would imagine the victims that had been here. He would try to hear their screams.
He would try to hear Karl Stallings laughter.
He would try to get a sense of what being Karl Stallings was all about.
Detective Carlo could hear the chainsaw humming faintly as he pulled into the driveway. He had shut off the car lights so as not to alert anybody in the house of his arrival. He got out of the car and gently closed the door so as to not make a sound. As he approached the house, he pulled out his sidearm. He wanted to be ready for anything. The house had a surreal glow to it. It was almost as if it had its own aura, deep crimson around the outside edge splattered with misty black wisps. It looked strange to him. It looked ominous.
He quietly ascended the front porch stairs and checked the door. It was unlocked and he pushed it open slowly, entering the foyer on pins and needles. As he closed the door behind him he heard the chainsaw hum turn into a roar. He also heard screams.
Opening the inside foyer door, he crept inside the house, being careful not to take anything for granted. The chainsaw was loud and the screams were louder, but he knew that houses told their own tales with creaks and bumps. He didn't want to alert Stallings that he was there. He came around the hall corner and peered down the stairs.
"NO! PLEASE NO! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The voice was of a young woman in an incredible amount of pain. She was pleading with him not to continue. The only reply was the sound of the saw as it cut into something a little harder than wood. He started down the stairs cautiously, gun at the ready, not knowing exactly what he would encounter.
He got to the bottom of the stairs and surveyed the basement. Starkly furnished and dimly lit, this part of the house seemed to be unattended for the most part. There were thick cobwebs forming in the corners and on the walls. The stone foundation was showing signs of water seepage and there were various tools hanging on the walls and stacked on the floor.
The chainsaw was still biting, the screams had stopped.
Detective Carlo was more anxious now. The feeling of dread that he hoped would not surface had come rushing into his brain. As he tiptoed through the basement he was reluctant to go through the door that led to the next room, the room where the action was taking place. He slowly snuck up to the doorway and peeked around the corner. He could see the back of a man and the legs of somebody else splayed around each side of the mans body. He crept in a little further and his stomach did a somersault.
The man had his head buried in the woman's stomach, the chainsaw sound was incredibly loud now and he could also hear the crunch of bone; the splash of wet flesh and blood seemed to fill the air. The woman, still alive, looked up at him with eyes pleading for rescue. The chainsaw sound went to a dull hum.
Stallings took his head from the woman's stomach and straightened his back. Detective Carlo could see him cock his head slightly as if he were listening for something. Then Stallings turned his head quickly and stared right at detective Carlo. His eyes were fire and his face and bald head were completely covered with blood and gore. There were bits of flesh hanging from his closed mouth. Detective Carlo couldn't hold it in any longer and a gush of vomit projected from his mouth onto the floor in front of him.
Stallings considered detective Carlo for a moment with those evil eyes. He then lurched towards Carlo, opening his mouth as he did. When his mouth opened, the chainsaw sound roared and Carlo briefly thought he saw Stallings' teeth moving incredibly fast in an up and down movement. Stallings buried his face into detective Carlo's side and started to eat. As he did, the chainsaw became louder and louder and louder. Carlo screamed.
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Detective Carlo woke up screaming and jumped up from the floor.
"Holy shit!" was the first thought that he had. He looked around frantically, not knowing where he was. His heart was racing a mile a minute. His eyes became focused and it was then that he realized he was in the living room of Karl Stallings house. He felt a whirring at the side of his body and remembered that his cell phone was at his belt. It was set on vibrate and had been ringing.
"God Damn!" he said to himself as he reached down and plucked the cell phone from it's holder opened it and raised it to his lips. His hand was shaking and as he spoke into the phone, he checked where the cell phone had been to make sure that there was no wound.
"Carlo." He said into it.
"Hi John, its Jerry."
Jerry Rankford was another detective in Syracuse. He and John had quite a bit of history and John had picked Jerry to help him with this case.
"What's up Jerry" John said into the phone.
"He's moving John. Doc says he might come out of the coma. You'd better get down to the hospital."
"I'll be there in a flash." John told him.
"You allright?" Jerry asked.
"Yea, why?"
"You sound a little out of sorts."
"Just trying to get a handle on how Stallings thinks." John replied. "Trying to get into his head a little. See you at the hospital."
He closed the phone and surveyed the room. A cold shudder went through his body.
Detective Carlo made his way out of the house, looking over his shoulder the entire time. He looked at his watch It blinked at him, Five fifteen A.M. He was looking at a long day.
It took him halfway to the hospital for the shaking to stop.
Detective Carlo pulled into the hospital parking lot at six twenty five A.M. He had stopped for a cup of coffee at the McDonalds drive thru to help steady his nerves and now he was ready to see what Karl Stallings was up to. He didn't find Jerry Rankin waiting for him at intensive care, but he did find Doctor Eileen Spencer.
Doctor Spencer was all of five feet two inches tall. She looked rather like a munchkin from the "Wizard of Oz" dressed up as a doctor. She didn't act like a munchkin though, she acted like the world was her asshole and she was the suppository.
"Hello Detective." She said unemotionally.
"Good morning doctor, how's our favorite killer doing today?"
"He moved early this morning. One of the nurses wrote down exactly what happened in his chart. You may find it interesting."
She handed Carlo the chart and he started reading.
"I went in to check on the patient at four forty five A.M. and found him to be very animated. His arms were pulling at the restraints and his head was moving very quickly side to side. I immediately restrained his head and checked both heart rate and respiration. Heart rate was very advanced to 150 bpm. Respiration was heavy and labored. Checked tracheotomy tube and found no complications. Animated activity continued for a period of four minutes, fifty two seconds. Patient then returned to previous comatose state with no responses to normal testing. Total time of episode, approximately seven minutes."
"Is this normal behavior, Doctor?" was Carlo's next question.
"Depends on what you consider normal" was the doctors reply. "Many patients that suffer a trauma such as this have residual episodes during recovery. In the case of Mr. Stallings, I am not sure if this is one of those cases, or if it is something altogether different. His condition did not seem to change from pre-episode to post-episode. It was like he had a little blip and then went back. I reviewed the ekg and only noticed a sharp spike for the time that the nurse said he was agitated. Everything went back to pre-episode levels as soon as the agitation stopped."
Carlo was intrigued now. "A dream perhaps?"
At this point, Detective Jerry Rankin entered the room. He and Carlo exchanged glances and head nods as the conversation continued.
"Perhaps" the doctor replied. "From what we know of patients who go into these states, it certainly could have been something of that nature. It's really hard to tell though. We can't rule out anything at this point."
"Tell me about his physical condition, doctor."
Dr. Spencer couldn't wait to answer this question.
"Mr. Stallings is in a very hazardous place right now detective. His esophagus and trachea are almost totally corroded by the chemicals he ingested. The tracheotomy was an emergency procedure, but if he survives, he will almost certainly rely on it for the rest of his life. You see, At the back of the mouth and nose the air passages form the pharynx. This continues into the voice box or larynx. The trachea is the tube that runs from the bottom of the larynx into the chest, where it divides into the tubes that go to each of the lungs or the bronchi."
Is that what is affected when you have bronchitis?" Carlo asked.
"In a manner of speaking, detective. Please let me finish."
Carlo felt like a little boy being scolded by his mother.
"When they pumped his stomach, they aspirated him as well which led to the introduction of the Chloramine into his airway. This is what caused the corrosion to the trachea and the damage to his lungs.
Now, the esophagus, or food pipe, lies behind the trachea. His esophagus was completely damaged with major corrosion along its entire length. His stomach was equally affected and we are continuing to monitor the bleeding along the entire pathway of the esophagus into the stomach.
It seems that our Mr. Stallings is in worse shape than even we thought at the beginning. If he's lucky, he'll die tonight. If he's unlucky, he'll hold on for a couple of weeks and suffer an amount of pain that you or I could hardly imagine."
Carlo just stared at the doctor, waiting for any good news to come of this. As he processed the information he had been given, he sadly came to the realization that Karl Stallings would likely never come out of the state that he was in right now.
Carlo spoke up, "Is there nothing you can do medically to repair any of the damage and stabilize his condition? I just need to talk to him for a few moments."
"Likely not" Doctor Spencer replied. "Even if he did come out of it, his brain is most assuredly damaged to a certain degree. He might wake up a vegetable not even able to recognize his own name. He's lucky to be where he is now. Imagine somebody taking a very sharp fork to your throat detective. Imagine them scraping and scraping until your throat was a mass of mangled bloody meat. Think of the damage. Mr. Stallings throat is almost in that kind of shape. I hold no hope for this patient whatsoever."
Carlo hung his head for a moment visualizing what the doctor just told him. It was discouraging that his questions for Stallings would never be answered. It would seem that justice was being served after all though because Stallings was in an incredible amount of pain as he lay on the hospital bed dying. He was sure the families of the people Stallings killed would be happy in that respect.
Detective Carlo looked at Jerry Rankin. "C'mon Jerry, lets go get a cup of coffee."
"Right on" Rankin replied.
Detective Carlo was exhausted. He thanked Doctor Spencer and left the room in search of a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. He and Jerry made their way down to the hospital cafeteria where they both purchased a coffee and a danish.
"Where the hell were you when I got here?" Carlo asked Rankin.
"Hell John, I was in the can. Can't a guy go to the can every once in awhile? Chill man, chill."
"Right, right. Sorry about that Jerry. I'm a little tired is all."
"Have you seen the newspaper yet?" Jerry asked him.
Carlo just looked up at him and shook his head no. Jerry reached into his back pocket and retrieved a folded up newspaper which he promptly handed to Detective Carlo.
"SERIAL KILLER ATTEMPTS SUICIDE" was the front page headline.
"Holy shit" Carlo said as he continued reading.
"Syracuse Post Standard
Friday A.M. Edition
By Timothy Kraussmann
Staff Writer
A serial killer who, by all accounts may have as many as one hundred victims, attempted suicide upon his capture by local detectives late Wednesday afternoon. Detective John Carlo, along with an elite squad of police SWAT forcibly entered the house of Karl Stallings and found the makings of the most incredible serial murder case in history."
Detective Carlo stopped reading at that point. It seemed that it was time for a press conference.
Carlo and Rankin left the hospital and headed for his office. As they did, both their cell phones started to ring at once.
The press conference had been hastily put together at two that afternoon. As John Carlo lay in his bed that evening, he rehashed the major points of the conference and wondered if he had said the right things. There was so much evidence to filter through and they really didn't have all of the victims accounted for yet. There were police crews working around the clock on that damn map and they were only a quarter of the way through it. Some of the bodies weren't where they were supposed to be, or the map, which wasn't to scale by any stretch of the imagination, left distances from landmarks unaccounted for. In any event, he was optimistic that most of the victims families would have answers soon enough.
He had done and said all he could at the moment. He briefly flashed back to the dream he had while laying on the floor at Stallings' house and a shudder ran up his spine. With his nightstand light on, and his reading glasses in place, he pulled the diary from under the bed.
It was a standard diary by all accounts. Hardbound and thick, it had many pages on which to write one's deepest, darkest secrets. Stallings had taken advantage of the thickness of the book by filling up many pages with his awkward, uneven script.
Some pages were phrases repeated over and over again. Some passages were five or more pages long and included descriptions of torture so maniacal and fantastic that he could hardly believe them. The more he read, the more contempt he felt for the man. But he had to read, he had to try to understand. Carlo felt that if he could get a glimpse into this man's mind, if he could understand why Stallings did some of the things that he did, it would help him catch other criminals before they could do as much damage as Stallings did.
He opened the diary and began to read.
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I walked into the room and sat down in the chair opposite the bed. I always enjoyed this time of the evening because Randy was my favorite of favorites. I sat there staring at him for the longest time waiting for him to move or flinch in one way or another. I did this every day. This is day seventy five.
After a couple of minutes I checked his IV. It was flowing steadily enough with just enough mixture to keep him alive. I wanted him alive, I needed him alive. I would sit there for an hour repeating alive, alive, alive, alive. The whole time I did, he would watch me. Maybe he would pass out for awhile, but when he woke up I would still be there, chanting to him, preaching to him, taunting him.
He was a real spectacle. I would pull the blankets back to clean him up and see that he was wasting away to nothing. Each day was an incredible new experience of discovery. I'll never forget the first time I discovered blood in his urine bag. He never did like the catheter much, but it beat cleaning up soiled sheets. I don't think he liked the diapers either but after awhile there was really nothing solid to change.
I could see his whole collarbone and the way it connects to the rest of his body. I could count the ribs, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Twelve little indians on each side. I could pluck them each, one by one, down one side and up the other. I could see the skin in his chest move up and down with each heartbeat. I could see it, sometimes I think I could hear it.
His pelvic bone, so big and imposing was sticking out like it wanted attention. I would take a magic marker and draw designs n the curve of it, sometimes I would make faces on it, sometimes I would write "Help Me!" on it. I would laugh the next day to discover that his pelvis was actually asking me for redemption.
His fingers break so easily now.
There is really no need to look at a skeleton to tell how bones are connected. A persons body will tell you all you need to know if you deprive it of food. It will tell you where all the little lumps and growths are. It will tell you where it hurts and where it doesn't. After awhile I think all of Randy hurt. All of him. One can only hope.
I had to adjust the straps periodically. He would get thinner and thinner and the straps would get tighter and tighter. At this point I think I no longer need straps. There is no strength left in those muscles, no life left in those bones. He couldn't get up even if he wanted to. I think it's a chore just for him to breathe now. His breathing sounds shallow and almost nonexistant. He is a hollow shell of what he used to be, I have almost succeeded in my goal of whittling him down to the least common denominator. His eyes plead to me for death. They beg me for a release that I will not yet give.
Looking at him is pure joy.
I rather like to watch him like this. I need to know what the depths of human suffering are, what it does to the body, what it does to the mind. I showed him to one of the others yesterday. She screamed for an hour. Screamed through the duct tape, screamed through the wooden box, screamed through the darkness. Screamed with madness. When she stopped screaming I checked on her and she had almost died, choking on her own vomit. She is grateful now, grateful that she no longer has to be in the box. Grateful that it is only chains that keep her here. She doesn't want to be in the box again, she told me so. I told her if she was good that I would make it fast. Not like Randy. She didn't say much after that.
He is my trophy. He is my conquest. He is my project. He is my one true love and he will last as long as I choose to feed him his liquid.
And that's damn fine with me."
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Carlo closed the book and pondered what he had read. They had found Randy Withers still lying in that bed on the day they had raided Stallings house. They had found him still alive, most of his legs below the knee had rotted away to nothing and you could see the bone and where it led to still living flesh. His hands were gnarled with fingers bent and broken at different angles. He was alive though, barely. The smell was incredible. It was a mix of rotting meat and Lysol.
He died the minute the paramedics tried to move him. As they lifted him off the bed it was as if every single bone in his body broke at once. You could hear the last dying breath ooze out of him. He fell into three or four pieces right in front of them, eyes locked onto them pleading for death.
He weighed no more than fifty pounds.
The criminalists had found dried semen stains all around where he was laying.
Carlo couldn't read anymore. He put the book back under his bed and thought about this man. He was fascinated with Karl Stallings. It was fascination that bordered on obsession.
Jerry Rankin was amazed at the list of evidence that had been compiled in the case of Karl Stallings. While the criminalists were sorting through most of what they had confiscated from the house, Jerry was reviewing the list that had been partially completed.
Fifteen human skin tattoos in picture frames.
One human skin tattoo lampshade.
One chain saw.
Fourteen different hunting knives with traces of every known blood type.
Twelve five gallon buckets, some partially filled with blood and/or assorted body parts. Others partially filled with human waste.
Ten sets of shackles.
One wood lathe.
One table saw.
Three Black and Decker cordless drills.
Two complete sets of drill bits. Four bits with blood and brain matter on them.
A full set of surgical instruments.
Sixty two kodak disposable cameras, film currently in the development stage.
One professional makeup kit.
Eight stuffed animals.
Two video recorders.
One hundred and fifty two video cassettes.
Six audio cassettes
One Ak47 assault rifle.
One .38 revolver.
One .380 handgun.
Ammunition for rifle and handguns, 15000 rounds total.
One pair night vision goggles.
One pair field glasses.
One police uniform complete with badge.
One firefighters uniform.
Twelve gallons Clorox bleach.
Ten bottles Windex.
Undetermined amounts of both Nitric and Sulphuric acid.
Four tubes Calcium Gluconate 2.5% Topical Gel.
One gas grill.
Sixty five knitting needles.
Eighty seven shoes, assorted sizes and colors.
Fifty eight photo albums.
Three tubes k-y jelly.
One in-sinkerator food disposal unit.
One steam cleaner.
One industrial meat slicer.
Two hacksaws.
Four magnifying glasses.
One gas torch.
Jerry looked at this list and couldn't help but shake his head. He wondered what kind of psycho would use all this stuff for the sole purpose of killing. Knitting needles? He didn't even want to know what they were used for. Gas grill? They had found bits of charred meat at the bottom of the gas grill. He was pretty sure that Stallings was the cannibal type of killer. Stuffed animals? Magnifying glasses? Jerry had no idea what specific purposes those things would be used for.
The thing that made Rankin's stomach turn the most was the shoes.
The pile of shoes had been found in the back of Stallings house. There was a little room off the back porch, sort of what his mom would call a "sun room". When the officers had gone through the house, they had come upon a pile of shoes in this room.
There were ladies pumps and men's oxfords. There were athletic shoes of all sizes and types. There was a pair of Nike sneakers with the feet still in them. There were children's shoes. Way too many children's shoes. The little girls sneakers had made Jerry physically ill. When he had picked them up, there was a little note written on the side in red marker.
"Jenny, happy birthday. I'll always love you. Mom."
Rankin was sickened at the thought of a little girls birthday gift tossed aside in the back room of a killers house. He wondered what the mom was thinking right now as he looked at the list. He thought about all the victims and their families.
He didn't know how John Carlo could keep his sanity, but he was glad John was the lead on this case.
John had opened and gone through some of the photo albums. John had viewed some of the video cassettes. They had both listened together to one of the audio cassettes. It was a recording of Stallings as he performed a surgical exercise on a still living patient. Jerry was chilled to the bone by that recording. He had to shut it off a couple of times because he was so disgusted with it.
Jerry kept turning it back on though. Every time he did, he looked at Jerry and said "You have to be able to deal with this stuff Jerry. It has to become routine for you. If it doesn't, you'll never get to know your criminals. You'll never be able to get inside their heads."
Jerry wondered why it was so important to "get inside their heads." he asked John this and all John said was, "You want to be able to catch them, don't you. You want to be able to save lives by catching them before they commit the next act. That's why it's so important Jerry." John also added, "...and because it's so interesting a study Jerry, don't you think?"
Jerry thought it was interesting alright. Interesting like a science book is interesting to a scientist. Jerry sometimes thought that it was interesting to John like porno was interesting to a teenager. More fascinating, really.
Carlo had other serial murder cases like this that he told Jerry about. He told Jerry that he had once gone to Seattle to observe the workings of the detectives that were involved with the Green River cases. They had actually discovered a body while he was there and he got to review the evidence and see the direction the case was going in.
He had also gone to Atlanta once to observe a case. Jerry couldn't think of that case now, but he knew, or thought that he knew about it involving some teenage victims or something. Anyway, Jerry didn't quite have the experience that John did. He thought maybe that's why John handled all this as if it were run of the mill stuff.
Jerry didn't think that he would ever get to that point. He had twenty three years in on the job as detective and he had yet to see anything this heinous and disgusting. He looked at his watch and found that it was six thirty A.M. He picked up the phone to dial John Carlo's cell number. He didn't care if John was sleeping or not, he had to ask him some questions.
Some questions about the evidence.
Before he got a chance to open it and dial, the phone rang in his hand. It scared him so much that he jumped slightly up off his chair.
He opened it and only had to see the last four numbers to know it was Carlo.
Jerry wasn't the only one losing sleep over this case.
Jerry answered the phone.
"Rankin here."
"Jerry, its John. Where are you?"
"I'm in a Jacuzzi getting jacked off by two teenage Asian chicks that don't speak any English. It's very exciting. Where the hell do you think I am? I'm working on this goddamned case."
Rankin looked down at the top of his desk. There were papers scattered everywhere and his coffee cup was teetering on the edge, just about ready to fall to the floor and smash into a hundred bits. Jerry casually pushed the cup back towards the middle of the table so it wouldn't fall.
"Look, whatever you're doing can wait. Meet me at the house."
Jerry was surprised. "You mean Stallings' house?"
"Yeah," Carlo replied. "It's important."
"Ok, gimme a few minutes to tie up some loose ends here and I'll be on my way." Jerry was beginning to wonder if Carlo got any sleep at all. He was also wondering what the emergency was. "What the fuck is so important that I have to meet you out there so early John?"
"I'll explain when you get out here. See you in a few." "CLICK"
As Jerry looked down at the evidence list in front of him, he realized that Carlo had said "here" as in "I'm already here." Carlo was at the house already and Jerry was picturing him standing outside the house, facing the front porch. Jerry could see him standing there, challenging the house, daring it to try and hold back evidence.
As this thought ran through his mind, he stood up, adjusted his pants, and began to shuffle the evidence lists together in a neat pile. He picked them up and slid them into the manila folder that they had come in. He then picked up his jacket off the back of the chair and crowded himself into it. Twenty five years as a detective hadn't been so good on his waistline, but he still managed to get into his favorite jacket. He looked down at his coffee cup, picked it up, and inspected the contents.
"Good to the last drop," he thought as he raised the cup to his lips. As the lukewarm fluid slid down his throat, he couldn't help but think about the house. As he started to walk away from his desk, his hand instinctively went to his sidearm, as it did every time he went to a murder scene. "I hope we don't find any more shoes," was all he could think.
John Carlo was, in fact, staring at the house, but it was from inside his car. Beside him were a few case-related papers. On the dash was a fresh cup of steaming hot coffee, little bit of cream coloring it just right. Jerry had once asked him how he liked his coffee and he said, "A little cream please, like the color of Halle Berry's skin. If you make it the color of Halle Berry's skin, then it's perfect." He picked up his cup and looked at the creamy brown fluid inside. As he raised it to his lips for a sip, all he could think about was Jerry and how whenever he went for coffee, he looked at John and said, "Halle Berry, right?"
Sitting in his lap was the diary. The diary of the madman that lived in this house. He was reading a passage the previous night and had gotten to thinking about something that they may have overlooked. He put the coffee back on the dashboard amidst the other papers and sunglasses and such, looked down and opened the book to the page he had marked. He began to read it once again.
"Silky goodness. I can feel it to my very soul and it feels great.
How many times have I thought of this, longed for this? My skin was tingling in anticipation. I lie here naked and feel how it feels......wondering if my elation is only part of the fear that will ultimately be felt.
The silk runs up the back of my legs, soft, smooth and dry as a snakeskin. It emanates the energy that is implied by a glance towards it's well made exterior. Made of the finest materials, the most impeccable craftsmanship, the best that money can buy. It shines with threat and delivers on its promise."
John had run across his share of deranged lunatics before, but Karl Stallings was just full of surprises. Reading his diary was like peeking out from behind the curtains to see your parents fucking doggy style on the bed. Exciting because you know you shouldn't be doing it, but horrifying because of what you find. A diary is traditionally the most secretive thoughts a person can have. It is a collection of the most private fears and emotions that come from somebody. Stallings didn't disappoint.
"The silk continues up against my buttocks. Smooth and soft, it gently massages areas that can really appreciate it, and look upon it with favor. I slide to and fro, feeling the texture, knowing what is to come for occupants who will spend the rest of their lives here. The sensational fabric moves its way up my back to the nape of my neck and I consider what it will be like for them as I lay my head down on the pillow of death.
How long will they last? A day? A week? A month? Oh, I will have joy finding out. I will inhale the fear and pain. I will revel in the horror revealed in their masks of death. I snuggle up to the sensation, to the thought."
This was the passage that intrigued Carlo. "How long will they last?" He kept repeating it to himself over and over. "How long will they last?"
"Will they struggle? Will there be signs of panic? The fun is in the finding."
The whole idea of this being a fun exercise escaped the mind of John Carlo. Right now, sitting in his car, Carlo looked out over the expanse that was Stallings yard. There were about three acres here. Some in front, but most on the side of the house and around back. John was afraid that they had missed something important. As he was reading this passage, he understood what it was that he was missing.
John skips to the last part of the passage. He is amazed at the intensity of this man, this killer. He is also sickened by the depths of his depravity. John could feel the emotion of this passage. He could feel Stallings' excitement. It was the excitement of a child on Christmas morning looking at the pile of presents under the tree. It was the excitement of that child opening up a long awaited gift to find it was exactly what they wanted. It was the exuberance of knowing the gift was perfect.
"As my breathing increases, I can feel the fabric against my chest. I can feel it against my shaft. The tortured souls, the restless spirits, they surround me in a dance and begin to wail unmercifully. I join them.
My body is writhing and my thoughts are of love and death. Love and death. Death and love. My body jumps......releasing the pent up energy inside. I cry out in agony, in joy, in hate, in rage. My climax is complete. I spill my living seed upon the doorway of death. The dancing winds down. The souls go back to rest. My body is spent.
I bury my face into the softness of eternal sleep and inhale deeply. The scent of roses assaults me and I finally know everlasting life and immortal peace. My joy is immense.
It is anointed. My journey begins."
Carlo was wondering about this. He was wondering about the coffin in particular. He was going over the evidence in this case piece by piece in his mind and he realized something. They had never found a coffin in the house. It hit him a little while after he had read the passage in the diary. Stallings was so excited to have this coffin. So excited that he ejaculated into it, and yet there was no coffin to be found.
Carlo wondered about this as he scanned the grass along the side of the house. He wondered about this as he looked at the trees and bushes in the front yard. He wondered if there was a possibility, a very small possibility that beneath the grass there were some coffins. He also wondered about the extremely miniscule possibility that those coffins housed live people.
As he was thinking about this very fact, Jerry pulled his car up behind him in the driveway. As Jerry got out of the car, John was watching him in the rear view mirror.
Jerry was carrying two cups of coffee. John pictured Halle Berry. Halle berry alive and in a coffin, six feet under the surface of the grass in Karl Stallings side yard.
Carlo put the diary down next to him in the passenger seat. He took another look in his rear view, but Rankin was already up to the side of his car. He looked at his watch. It was seven twenty five A.M. Jerry had made pretty good time.
"Open the goddamn window, John," he said.
"Hold on. Step back," Carlo replied, and as Rankin took a few steps back, Carlo opened the door and got out of the car, closing the door behind him. Rankin reached out to him with a cup of coffee and Carlo took it, leaning his back up against the car as he did so. He blew softly onto the opening in the lid of the cup and steam moved furiously around, trying to escape his attempt to cool down the coffee. John then put the lid opening against his lips and sipped a portion of the hot liquid into his mouth. After he swallowed, an audible "aaaaah" came out of his mouth. Jerry sipped his coffee at the same time, but no sound came from his lips. Carlo really enjoyed his coffee.
"Halle Barry, right?" said Jerry.
As Jerry spoke, Carlo was looking over the grass in the front of Stallings' house.
"I hope not," was Johns reply.
"Huh?"
"Nevermind," Carlo said.
"So, what's up John?"
Jerry had a look on his face that was priceless. He really couldn't tell what his partner was up to. He just knew that Carlo had been obsessing just a little bit too much about this Stallings character. Jerry didn't like the way John was looking at the house and the yard. It made him uneasy in a "what's he gonna spring on me now?" kind of way.
"Jerry, I've been thinking about the evidence. I think we missed something."
Jerry looked at him even funnier now.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," John replied. "What did the criminal evidence log say was confiscated from the house? Did you go over it?"
"As a matter of fact John, I was looking at it precisely when you called me. I was going over what they gave me so I could figure out if we got it all."
Carlo looked at him seriously now. He was glad Jerry was going over the evidence. It saved him some very important time and let him do other things while keeping abreast of the entire case.
"What did the evidence list tell you, Jerry? What did your keen detective mind find out?" John couldn't help but smile now. Jerry's face was all scrunched up like a first grader trying to remember the answer to one plus one.
Jerry started. "Well, the evidence looks like this John. Power tools, a bunch of guns, some household stuff, some chemicals for doing god knows what, a bunch of restaurant supplies, those creepy tattoo things, all those shoes, some knitting needles, and a bunch of other stuff. Let me ask you a question John, if you were a killer, what would you use knitting needles for?"
Carlo cocked his head as if he were thinking and then abruptly smiled.
"I don't know," he said. "Shish kebab maybe?"
"Ugh. Very funny," Jerry replied.
"What else did the evidence list say to you Jerry. C'mon, help me out here."
Rankin really was trying now. He wasn't sure what Carlo was getting at.
"Hell, I don't know John. I've got the list on my desk. If you had told me, I would have brought it. What are you looking for?"
Carlo looked out over the yard almost as if he were daydreaming. He took another hit of the coffee and then looked at Jerry.
"A coffin. Maybe more than one."
Carlo then turned around and opened the car door. He set his coffee on the roof of the car and bent down, sticking half his body into the car.
"Why the hell would you be looking for a coffin?" Jerry said. "There was no evidence of coffins in the house. There is no evidence of his victims being buried in coffins. The fifteen victims they found so far were all about three feet down and wrapped in plastic. There are no coffins."
Carlo Grabbed the diary off the passenger seat, stepped back out of the car, straightened up and closed the door. He turned towards Rankin, held out the book in his left hand and said, "Because of this. This is why I think there are coffins somewhere."
Jerry looked at John and then looked at the book. It was hardbound and thick. The cover was a deep navy blue and felt like fabric to his touch as he took it from John. He also noticed that there was a bookmark sticking out of the middle of the pages. It was the kind that had a little piece of yarn or something sticking out of the top.
"What the fuck is this?"
"Open it," was all John said.
Jerry opened the book and looked at the first page. Written there, in a fine bold printed calligraphy, it said "My Life".
"Open it to the bookmark and read it," John instructed.
Jerry did as he was told. He ran his finger up to the top of the bookmark and gently eased his fingertips down between the pages. As he did so, he moved his body over to the hood of the car and sat down squarely on it. John Carlo took a camel out of his pack and lit it up. He dragged deeply as if his entire life's substance were inside of the smoke. it seemed to calm him. He grabbed the coffee off the roof of the car and took a sip. He watched Rankin read in silence.
Halfway through the passage Jerry stopped reading and looked up at John.
"What kind of sick shit is this, John?" he said.
"When Stallings wakes up, why don't we ask him?" was Johns reply.
"Holy fuck this is twisted. Is the whole book like this?"
"Haven't got to it all yet," John said.
Jerry handed the book back to John like it was covered in slime. He actually subconsciously wiped his hands on his coat. Then Jerry looked up at John, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Where did you get that John?"
"From the house the day of the raid. I was the first one in and actually found Stallings hunched over the table. The smell of chloramine was in the air and I knew he had tried to poison himself. The book was on the table and it looked like he had been writing in it. I shoved it under my coat thinking it would be important. It is. Now I can't stop reading it. It's got clues and insight into his mind, Jerry. I've got to know how this bastard thinks."
John took another hit off the cigarette and than flicked it down the driveway. He turned his back to Jerry so he could face the expanse of yard in front of him.
"We need to find that coffin, Jerry. I'm afraid of what might be in it. I think he may have buried some people alive."
Jerry looked at Johns back. He thought that John looked troubled, but he also looked like a man on a mission.
"You want me to call Callahan, John? You want me to get some cops up here to help us look, you know, with metal detectors and that sonar shit? The morning shift probably hasn't left yet. I could have them bring some extra stuff to help search the grounds."
Dave Callahan was the detective in charge of evidence procurement at the crime scene. His crew usually got to the house around nine A.M.
"Yes," Carlo replied. Call Dave and see if he can get twenty or so cops to come up here with some equipment. We'll search every last inch of this yard and forest. I need to know what he did with the coffin, and who or what is in it."
Jerry reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his cell phone. As he dialed up the precinct, he heard Carlo's cell phone ring. As Carlo was answering his own cell phone and lighting a camel at the same time, Jerry spoke to the operator at the precinct. "Detective Callahan please."
The person on the other end of the phone explained to Jerry that Detective Callahan was on another line right now and that he was indisposed. Jerry said, "Who the hell is he on the phone with? This is important." At that instant, Jerry could see Carlo speaking into his own phone.
"He's on the phone with Detective Carlo," the voice on the other end of the line said.
At that same instant, Jerry heard Carlo say, "How the fuck did THAT happen?!?" Jerry looked at his watch. It was eight fifteen A.M.
Jerry hung up instantly, awaiting the news that Carlo had just heard. From the look on his face, it wasn't good.
Paula Taylor sat at her kitchen table, her head resting on top of folded arms. the half empty bottle of bourbon sat just beyond her hair, an empty glass next to it. In between the glass and the bottle was a hypodermic needle filled entirely with morphine.
She was an alcoholic. she was also a drug addict. Percodan was her favorite, but hydrocodone would do in a pinch. Vicodin was always particularly helpful, but it made her feel like someone hit her in the head with a sledghammer most of the time. It didn't really matter to her right now, what the label on the bottle said. She needed to forget.
Ever since she lost her son Timmy, she had given up hope on life. When Timmy first disappeared she was certain that he would be found safe and sound. She called the police and they had done an extensive search which had come up with nothing. There weren't any witnesses to the kidnapping so they had little to go on. They were waiting for some kind of break, some information to help them figure out what had happened. At first they were hopeful that they would find Timmy alive and well. As time went on, that hope had dwindled.
Then the letter came.
That awful, terrifying letter from the person that had Timmy. The terrifying descriptions of how Timmy was going to be cut up; butchered like some kind of animal. As soon as she had received that letter, she had sent her daughter Amanda to her grandmothers house in Houston. Amanda would be safe there. She also had all the locks in the house changed and had a security system installed. Her house was like a fortress now, and she was living in fear. She nearly had a nervous breakdown. Thank god for a well stocked hospital pharmacy.
Paula was at work one day when she went to her locker to get a change of scrubs. When she opened her locker, a little envelope fell out. Written neatly on the front in a nice, palmer method type script was her name. When she opened the envelope she found another letter. This one very succinct and to the point.
"Nurse Taylor,
Karl Stallings is in the hospital. He is a serial murderer. He took Timmy."
That was it. Nothing else. No signature, no clue as to who could have sent it. She had tucked this letter away in her pocket and changed her scrubs. For the rest of her shift she thought about it. She knew that Karl Stallings was in the hospital and that he had done some very bad things. Police were all over the place lately, but nobody could seem to get all the details on what he had done. The newspapers said that he was a mass murderer that could have killed hundreds, but none of that had been verified.
When she got home from work that day she had called her uncle Vito. He told her not to worry, everything would be taken care of. After he read the original letter, he was even more bent on helping Paula. He arranged for everything.
The more she thought about it, the more she drank. The more she drank, the more she cried. The more she cried, the more she looked at the hypodermic needle that was sitting on the kitchen table. She thought that maybe it would be just as fitting, just as sweet to stick that needle in her own arm and just forget that her entire life ever happened. She couldn't do that though. She was a drug addict, but she wasn't suicidal. What she really needed was some closure as far as Timmy was concerned. What she needed to do was stick that needle into Karl Stallings and press the plunger down violently.
She lifted her head up off of her arms and looked at the needle. Then she grabbed the bottle, unscrewed the top, and poured herself another drink. She stood up, picked up the glass, and headed into the living room. As she entered the room, she stood in the doorway for a moment. The room was almost completely dark and the pupils of her eyes needed to adjust to the change of light. There were a few candles lit and positioned at random around the room on end tables. She looked in at the hospital bed that was set up in the corner of the room. She could hear the beep, beep of the heart monitor, but she could see no movement from the body lying on the bed.
She lifted the glass to her lips, drained the bourbon, and sat down on the couch next to her very large cousin Leo. Leo was Vito's oldest son and "manager" of his various business interests. Leo had helped Paula take care of the business of procuring Karl Stallings. Now he was in charge of making sure that nothing went wrong and that Paula got what she wanted. It had been rather easy and nobody had discovered Stallings missing until well after he was gone.
"He's never going to come out of it," she said to Leo.
"Pity."
Paula Taylor awoke with a start. She lifted her head up quickly off of the table and immediately heard the beating of a thousand bass drums in her head. "Ugh," she remarked aloud as she looked around the kitchen. As she glanced at the table she saw a three-quarters empty bottle of Jim Beam, a half full bottle of Percodan, and a hypodermic needle filled in it's entirety with a clear, slightly yellowish fluid. Panic set in at that moment and she quickly got up and rushed into the living room.
The room was dark and her pupils, which had just been assaulted by the bright kitchen light had to take a few seconds to adjust. She stumbled past the couch and gazed intently to the corner of the room. No bed. No medical equipment. No Leo on the couch. "Was it a dream?" she thought as the haze started to momentarily clear and she reached for the phone. She picked up the receiver and dialed a number very quickly. She listened hard as the line began to ring. Once....twice.....three times. A man suddenly picked up the phone.
"This better be good, it's early," said the man on the other end of the line.
"Uncle Vito?" said Paula.
"Paula, is that you? Why on earth would you be calling me at five in the morning? I haven't heard from you in ages. Everything ok honey?"
Paula stopped and thought for a moment. Here she was, in the middle of a massive hangover, calling her uncle Vito out of the blue for some verification of a whacked out dream. She tried to imagine what he would think of her. She tried to imagine how pitiful he would think she was if she explained to him that she was calling him because for that very reason.
"Um...everything's just fine Uncle Vito. I just needed to hear a friendly voice is all. I woke up thinking about you and I thought I would call. I really didn't know what time it was. I'm sorry."
"Paula, honey, have you been drinking again?"
The accusation hurt her, but he knew her habits and he wasn't afraid to call a spade a spade, so to speak.
"I might have been drinking a little last night uncle. I'm sorry if I disturbed you. Have a nice morning."
"You too Paula," Vito said gruffly. "And lay off the sauce, will you?"
Vito hung up in her ear. She gently laid the receiver back in its cradle and walked back into the kitchen. She walked over to the sink and opened a cupboard directly above, where she found a bottle of aspirin. She opened the bottle, shook four tablets into the palm of her hand and popped them into her mouth. She closed and returned the bottle to the cupboard, closed the cupboard door and walked over to the table where she saw what was left of the bourbon. She grabbed that bottle, lifted it to her mouth and took a huge gulp, washing the aspirin down her throat in the process. She put the bottle down, eyed the hypodermic needle, and then proceeded to start a pot of coffee.
"I'm gonna need some of this if I'm gonna make it through the day," she thought as she turned the coffeemaker on and then went upstairs to take a shower.
************************************************************************
After a brief shower, Paula felt better. She put her work uniform on, fixed her hair, applied makeup, and went downstairs to the kitchen. She poured herself a hot cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. She looked up at the clock and saw that it read twenty minutes past six. She had just enough time to drink her coffee and get to the hospital for her seven o'clock shift.
She turned her attention back to the table, in particular the hypodermic needle. She wondered if she could go through with it without being caught. It's one thing to dream about killing a human being, but it's another to actually go through with that dream. She sipped at her cup, eyeing the needle through the steam rising from the surface of the hot liquid and thinking about how she would do it. She would have a clipboard in one hand and a bunch of towels in the other. As far as the officers at the door, well she would just tell them that it was time for the patients bath. They would either believe her and let her in, or they would turn her away and she would have to wait for another opportunity. She saw the cops that were guarding him though. They really didn't look all that bright. They had let her in one time before under a similar ruse so she could get a look at him.
This time it would be no dream. Today would be the day she had been waiting for. Today would be the end of Mr. Karl Stallings.
She emptied the contents of the coffee cup into her mouth, swallowed, and got up to go. As she did, she casually slipped the hypodermic needle into her right uniform pocket for safekeeping.
Paula arrived at the hospital at six fifty and made her way in to the emergency room. She was filling in there today, and when she got there she was relieved to see that nobody was waiting for care. She took care of a few small things that needed her attention and then she sought out the head nurse on duty.
Maria Rodriguez had been working all night and was in her office when Paula knocked discreetly on her door.
"Come in," Maria said in her slightly mexican accent. Paula opened the door and walked into the room to see Maria sitting at a desk, typing something into a computer.
"Hi Maria," Paula said.
"Paula! Come in honey. Thank you so much for filling in today. With Sarah out I just didn't know what we were going to do."
"You're welcome Maria. Look, can I ask a favor of you?"
"Anything Paula, you just name it."
This was going better than she expected. Maria was so happy to have the help here in emergency that she would be willing to give her the time needed to do what she had to do.
"Look, I have a little female problem Maria. I need to go to the locker room for a few minutes. Would you cover for me just until I can make it back. I shouldn't be too long."
"Sure, honey," Maria said. "I understand these things. You take your time. Just be back before eight, I've been working all night and I need to go make breakfast for my man."
No problem, Maria. Thanks." Paula said and then turned quickly, closing the door behind her as she left.
Paula headed immediately to the nurses station where she grabbed an empty clipboard. She looked at the desk and quickly aquired a checklist for patient maintenance. This was a list of things that needed to be done for patients while they were staying at the hospital. She wrote Stallings name on the top and then went to get the towels she would need to make the ruse complete. She made quick work of the towels, hung them nicely over her right arm, and proceeded to the elevator. Once there, she pressed the arrow button for up and waited patiently for the elevator to arrive. While she was waiting, she put her hand into the right pocket of her smock and nervously fingered the morphine filled hypodermic needle. The elevator arrived, the doors opened up, and she went to step inside. She stopped for a moment as two men dressed in suits had to step out. "I don't think Carlo is handling this the way it ought to be, Steve," she overheard one man say to the other. She didn't wait for the other man's reply as she stepped into the elevator. She knew those men were police officers. They were too engrossed in their own conversation to notice just another nurse getting into an elevator.
She hit the button for floor four, and the doors closed. She looked at her watch. It read seven forty. Floor Four was where they had transferred Stallings. He was in a remote room at the end of a very long, seldom used corridor. Four was the old maternity wing. After they built the new wing last year, they shut four down and made it mostly storage. Storage except for the lone room that now housed Karl Stallings. She watched the numbers light up on the panel above the door. Two......three.........four. There was the sound of a bell as the elevator reached the fourth floor and the doors slid open quietly.
Paula stepped out of the elevator and quickly turned right. She made her way down the hallway which was littered with pieces of hospital machinery that was no longer used. There were gurneys and IV stands. There were file cabinets and fold up beds. She slowly and deliberately walked down the hall until it came to an end and then turned left. She could see the police officer down at the end of the hallway. She took a deep breath and continued towards him.
As she got to the room, she looked at the officer, smiled and said "bath time." The officer looked at her curiously, which made her heart jump a little. After a second he shrugged his shoulders and waved her into the room. She opened the door, stepped into the room, and closed the door behind her.
Her heart started to pick up the pace immediately.
It was dark inside the room except for the soft glow of a table lamp that illuminated the green curtain surrounding the bed where the murderer lay. Paula could see the light of the lamp emanating from a table on the door side of Stallings' bed. There was a little opening at the bottom of the door side of the bed through which Paula could see the bottom of the bed. She set the clipboard and the towels down on a chair next to the door and reached into her pocket to retrieve the hypodermic needle. Once she had it out of her pocket, she used her left hand to remove the needle cover, which she dropped casually to the floor. She adjusted the needle in her right hand so that it was in her fist, needle pointing down, plunger just under her thumb. She started towards the bed slowly, every step accompanied by a sharp breath. As she got closer to the bed, her heart started to race more quickly. One step closer. Another step closer. After four steps, her concentration solely on the opening in the curtain, she was nearly there. The sound of the heart monitor that Stallings was hooked up to was echoing in her head. It felt like the sound of an orchestra gong. As she reached the curtain, an image of her son Timmy popped into her head. She thought "FINALLY!" as she raised her right hand above her head, lunged towards the curtain, flung it open with her left hand and stabbed the needle downward forcefully, aiming for his legs.
At that same time, while standing on the side of the bed opposite where nurse Paula Taylor was approaching from, nurse Candace Oberling was adjusting Karl Stallings blankets. She was also thinking about the end of her shift so she could drive home and see her three young children. Nurse Oberling thanked God every day for her job. It kept her family safe, warm, and well fed. She had checked all of Stallings' vitals and made sure that he had clean linen. As she was reaching across the bed to turn down his blanket and smooth it out, she heard the curtain slide open rather forcefully. This startled her and she didn't have enough time to react as Paula buried the needle into her left arm. She watched as Paula pushed the plunger all the way to its finish. She saw the surprised look on Paula's face as she realized that someone else was in the room. She saw the look on Paula's face as she realized that she had just emptied a hypodermic needle full of morphine into her arm. She had just enough time to yell "Hey!" before she lost her wits and her knees. That "Hey!" was enough to bring the officer out in the hallway running into the room where he found a stunned nurse Taylor standing over a not quite dead yet nurse Oberling. The clock on the wall read seven fifty.
The officer had Paula in cuffs when he radioed Detective Steve Stalls, who was enjoying a nice hot cup of almost Halle Berry colored coffee in the hospital cafeteria. Stalls was up to the room in a flash to see what was going on. He found the officer standing over Paula Taylor. At the same time, hospital staff arrived to try to revive nurse Oberling. He dragged Paula out into the corridor and to the room adjacent to Stallings room. He attempted to ask her questions, but Paula wasn't cooperating. It was as if she were in shock. She was silent and staring at the wall opposite her.
He stepped out of the room and dialed up Detective Dave Callahan at the precinct. He told Dave everything that had happened and asked him what to do. Dave told him to wait there, that he would be along quickly. He just had to phone Carlo first. After hanging up on Stalls, Callahan quickly dialed John Carlo's cell phone. Carlo picked up on the first ring.
"Carlo," John said.
"Hi John, it's Dave Callahan."
"What's up Dave?"
Detective Callahan saw that he was being signaled by the precinct operator. He put his hand up in the air, forefinger raised in the universal "in a minute" gesture, and turned his attention back to Carlo.
"Someone tried to kill Stallings this morning," Callahan said very clearly and unemotionally into the phone.
"How the fuck did THAT happen?!?" Carlo asked, clearly excited.
"I'll tell you about it when you get here. He looked at his watch. Eight fifteen. Meet me here in an hour."
"Great. Hey Dave, could you do me a favor?"
"Yes John?"
"Could you get ten or so cops out to the Stallings place with metal detectors and some underground search equipment? I think might be some stuff buried in the yard here. Jerry's here and he can supervise them."
Detective Callahan began to wonder if Carlo actually slept at the Stallings house.
"Sure John. See you in a few."
Callahan hung up the phone and got up to go to the hospital. He would investigate the scene and then bring the nurse back to talk to Carlo. It was going to be a long day. As he walked, he dialed up the desk sergeant to tell him to get a bunch of uniforms up to Stallings house with a shitload of equipment.
Carlo hung up his cell phone and thought about what Detective Callahan had just told him. He looked over at Jerry and saw the questioning look on his face. He knew that Jerry was wondering about what Callahan had just told him. He wondered to himself if he should tell Jerry everything that had happened or if he should just dismiss himself to the precinct without giving out a ton of information. He felt that Jerry wouldn't stand for that.
"Someone just tried to kill Stallings," Carlo told Jerry. He could see Jerry's jaw drop about three feet. "How the fuck......" was all he got out. "Callahan is sending you a bunch of cops to do the search here, Jerry. Keep them busy and find those coffins," Carlo said as he crossed to his car, got in and fired up the engine.
"I'll tell you more when I get it," was all he said as he pulled out of Stallings driveway.
The drive to the precinct wasn't a long one, and Carlo had time to stop for a fresh cup of coffee. He pulled into a convenience store and got out of his car. As he was walking into the store, he noticed a post office across the street. He paused, contemplated for a minute, and then walked into the store. As the pimply faced teenager behind the counter rang up his coffee and donuts, Carlo was busy calculating time in his head. "I think I'll make it just in time," he thought as he walked out of the store and got in his car. He headed over to the post office to make his copies.
Dave Callahan arrived at the hospital to find Detective Steve Stalls watching over Paula Taylor. He quickly ushered Paula to his car, and drove back to the precinct. The drive was about twenty minutes and the whole time Paula just sat in the backseat of the car, staring at her handcuffs, and not saying a word. Callahan had tried to talk to her, had tried to get some information out of her, but to no avail. Paula wasn't talking and the cops were left in the dark as to why she had attempted to kill the most controversial killer the area had ever seen.
It took John Carlo about thirteen minutes to make the copies he needed, and as soon as he was done he headed for the precinct house. He had put the copies in a manila folder and had tucked them neatly under the drivers side seat of his car. He didn't actually know why he was making the copies, but he knew that he needed them. He knew that someday they would come in handy.
He arrived at the precinct house at nine thirty A.M. and immediately asked for Detective Callahan. He was told that Callahan was in Interrogation room one and that he was to meet him there upon his arrival. Carlo walked down the hall and took a quick left into the room adjoining Interrogation one. As he closed the door behind him and entered the darkened room, he found himself looking through the backside of a large, one way mirror. On the other side of the mirror was Detective Callahan, and sitting across a table from him was a haggard, tired looking woman. Detective Callahan was asking this woman questions but was receiving no answers. He then saw another detective enter the room and and ask Callahan to come out. This was the detectives way of announcing Carlo's arrival. Carlo watched as Callahan got up and exited the room. A moment later he was opening the door to the room Carlo was in.
"Hi John," Callahan said as he crossed the room, his hand held out. Carlo took his hand and shook it briskly. "What do we have here?" Carlo asked.
"Mrs. Paula Taylor," was Callahans reply. "Nurse at the hospital and attempted murderess of one Karl Stallings."
Carlo peered through the one way mirror a little more intently, trying to determine what he was dealing with. Maybe five feet five, disheveled brown hair, defeated posture. And that name, Paula Taylor. Where had he heard that before? It was nagging at him because he just couldn't remember if he knew her or had met her before. He looked at Callahan and said, "This is our killer to be? She looks more like a drunk with a bad hangover. Have any priors?"
"None that we know of. She's squeaky clean John. That's what bothers me. What makes a woman who has no previous record do something like this. Hell, she hasn't even had a parking ticket."
Carlo couldn't believe that this was a random act of violence. He always subscribed to the theory that there was always a motive, one just had to dig deep to find what it was. Interrogating a suspect was alot like putting a puzzle together for him. He would ask seemingly random questions and, in the end he would always get the answers that he was looking for. It just took some time.
"Mind if I go talk with her?" Carlo asked.
"Be my guest, John. Don't expect much though, she hasn't said a word to anybody since we collared her."
Carlo walked to the door, opened it, and proceeded to the room next door. He entered the room, paused for a moment to look at Paula waiting to see if she would look at him. When she didn't he walked over to the side of the table opposite of her and sat dowm. He didn't say anything for a full five minutes because he was thinking. "Paula Taylor, Paula Taylor, where have I heard that name before?"
He almost jumped out of his seat when he remembered. He could see the page of the diary in his mind as if it were in front of him that very second.
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"This is a copy of a letter I wrote today. It's the most fun I've had in a long time.
Dear Mrs. Paula Taylor,
On the floor of my basement there is a sack. It is a nice, sturdy, cloth sack similar to the kind the Navy issues to their sailors. It has a nice dark blue color to it so it goes well with the decor of my home. It also has a nice thick drawstring so that it can be tied nice and tight. There are even a few holes in the top that I can run a master lock through in case it needs to be locked.
The sack is fairly new as I have purchased it for one purpose and only one purpose. Right now, as I look at it from my vantage point at the table I am currently writing you, the bag is still. It hasn't moved in awhile actually.
There is a living, breathing person residing in that sack right now. He is ten years old, blonde hair, blue eyes, about four foot three I would say. He would be your son, Timmy."
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It was the letter Stallings had written. This was the woman who had a son named Timmy that was supposedly dismembered by Stallings. Carlo opened his mouth and asked one question.
"This is about Timmy isn't it?"
Paula Taylor looked up at him and started screaming.
Copyright 2005 Bigmike.
