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Earth and Mars

By Jeffrey M. Manchur

© 2002 Jeffrey M. Manchur

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Part Two

XIII

 

            JULY 20 2001 4:30 P.M. DAUPHIN

 

            Anyone looking into the room, based on the one lying down, would think the moving people were undertakers.  That they could have been.  That they thought they might as well be.  For the two male nurses in the room with the seemingly lifeless body of Ken Slambothi saw little chance that the man they were caring for would ever awake from the coma he had been inflicted with.

            Details surrounding his flight to his current state had been sketchy, although on coffee breaks and after work, many hospital workers gossiped and shared information that they had heard.  They knew who he was, a cop from Gilbert Plains, and anyone in a town surrounding Gilbert Plains (although probably anyone in Canada) knew of the murders that had happened in that small town.  Therefore, one could assume…

            They looked down at the cop, lying under hospital covers, probably wearing hospital pyjamas underneath it.  If it weren’t for the wires and needles attached to his body, and the monitors that surrounded his bed, some showing his slow and miniature heartbeat, then it would be utterly safe to assume he was dead.  But Ken Slambothi was not dead.

            He made waking motions that moment when the male nurses checked on the other patient in the room.

            Slowly, Ken felt himself being pulled away from the coma.  Consequently, he felt himself being pulled away from the dream he had been facing again and again: A man dressed all in black was chasing him, and he couldn’t run, his feet felt to be stuck to the place in the room where he stood as the man dressed all in black wrapped a noose around his neck…wait a minute, what kind of room was he in…Where am I? Were his last words in his dream.

            But just when he thought the dream would continue again from the beginning, it did not begin, although he felt himself being pulled from the dark room he was in, into a room filled with bright sunshine. 

            The first thing he smelt in consciousness was the sweet, yet ugly stench of hospitals.  He tried to rack his mind to find out how he would have ended up in such an institution.  There were two others in the room, talking…

            “But you can’t know that Bob.” One said.  An older man, in his forties.  He had the sound of a naturally born leader.

            “Yes you can.   When else is there shooting in Gilbert Plains?”

            “But you still don’t know it.”

            “No, but I can assume.”

            “Assuming is never safe.”

            “Oh, it isn’t?  Like assuming that this guy won’t get outta a coma so we might-as-well pull the plug?”

            “Hey!” Ken said, although his voice was weak and scratchy.  “I’m alive here!”

            The older man turned toward the bed, which Ken lay in, it was the bed furthest from the door.  Still in the same leader-like tone, the man said, “You see Bob?  You never should assume.”

            “Well how you doing, Mr. Slambothi?  I never thought I’d see you awake here.” The younger one said.

            “How did I get here?” Ken asked.

            “Well I’d like to know that myself, but everyone who’d know keeps it secret.” The supposed Bob said.

            “We’ll get a doctor in to see you right away, Mr. Slambothi.” The older one said. 

            “Thanks, I guess.”

 

_____

 

            A doctor in the Dauphin General Hospital had come to see him soon after that.  With a nurse, they performed a few minor tests and warned Ken that things looked good, although more in-depth tests would be on the way.  Ken felt quite fit, especially when he thought of the fact that his muscles hadn’t been active in such a long time.  Compared to the way he had thought it would feel to come out of a coma.  The mad farmer, as Ken referred to him as, opened up a real comparison between his life and the book The Dead Zone:  In the book, a man came out of a coma after four and a half years.  Thinking of the mad farmer reminded Ken…

            The doctor had informed Ken of the sequence of events that had lead him to the bed he had awoke in.  Neighbours of Ken’s in Gilbert Plains had heard shooting.  They called the police, reporting heavy shooting.  The police, the same police who had taken over the case from Ken, had come and found the house in massacre state.  At first no one thought there would have been a living soul in the house, therefore no ambulance had been called.  They were about to taken what they thought of as Ken’s body out of the house to be further taken to a morgue when one of the cops noticed a pulse.  He had been hit in the head by a bullet, but it had only ricocheted off his brain, sending him into an immediate coma.  An ambulance had been called-not a van ambulance but a helicopter-and they had taken him to the nearest major hospital which was in the city of Brandon.  The doctors had kept him there for two weeks, but after that he had been moved to the Dauphin hospital where he had been for another week.  And then, he had awoke against all odds.

            Before and after that the doctor was sketchy.  Ken, obviously when compared to the situation he was in, had questions beyond belief racking his relatively dead brain.  But the doctor would say nothing of the situation leading to Ken getting shot in the head.  “That is for the police to talk about,” She had said. 

            And only two hours after Ken had achieved consciousness, the police had visited him. 

            It was one of the higher-ranking officers that had taken over the case in Gilbert Plains.  With the Inspector not showing up, Ken got the feeling that this Charles Wallingon was purposefully avoiding any contact with Ken. 

            The officer came into the room and looked down at Ken for a second, pitying him.  And then he said, “Hello Ken, how are you?”

            “I’m here, if that means anything.” Ken said quietly.

            “Well that’s good then!  I’m Officer Carl King.  Seems like we’re missing you on our investigation.”

            “I wonder why?” Ken said. 

            The officer seemed to choose to ignore his sarcasm.  He said, “Yes, well, it was a tragedy.  And that’s why I’m here, I bet you’ve guessed.  I need you to tell me about what lead to you lying in this bed?”

            “I think you should tell me a couple things.  Let me lay down the law.  First, tell me about what’s happened since I was shot at, and tell me…” He paused a moment, feeling such strong hated emotions… “Were my girls really killed?  Or was that just something my mind made up in the coma.”

            “Well yes, Ken, I’m sorry.  You’re daughters were killed.  And then we understand you had a run in with the killer.  Or so we assume.  Tell me about that.”

            Ken chose to ignore his first request of hearing what had happened since the cops from the city had taken over. He thought over what he would say.  “Well, I remember everything leading up to the shooting.  There were a bunch of family in my living room, we were grieving, you know.  And yet, we didn’t talk too much about the girls.  It was hard to do so.  We talked about a bunch of things, and then got on the topic of the mass murders in Winnipeg…” The cop, Carl King, cut him off.

            “Tell me about who did the shooting.”

            “I don’t remember.”

            The cop seemed taken aback.  “What?  How can that be?”

            “I don’t know,” Ken said.  “I remember everything leading up to it, the conversations we had and everyone who was there, but I don’t remember the face or the name of the killer.  Heck, I don’t even remember why he was there, whether he was family or not.  I seem to remember everyone else who was there…”

            “Tell me who was there, that you remember.”

            Ken listed the ones he said he could remember. 

            “From what we’ve found,” The cop said, “All these people were the ones who were killed.  No one survived except you.  So you really don’t remember anything?”

            “No,” Ken said, “Nothing about the killer.”

 

_____

 

            Ken was in his house, his new house, one week later on July the 27^th.  Because of the small time he was in a coma, and the great shape he was in prior to that, there was little need for much physical therapy.  Therefore, he was able to move into the new house in Gilbert Plains, which was supplied to him by his insurance company. 

            His old house was still considered a crime scene; he was told that investigators were still visiting the room where the shooting had occurred daily. Most of the furniture from the old house had been brought to the new one, except for in the living room, ground zero you may say.  It was an even better house then he had had before, bigger atleast.  Ken felt happy although in his life, there was little to be happy about.

            He still had his computer, all of his files that he had personally kept of the case he had once lead against the murderer in Gilbert Plains.  He had photocopied all notes that he had made, all the autopsy reports he had read, and anything else pertaining to it. 

            And so, on his first night in his new house, Ken sat down on his computer and said, “Time to find you, Weston Smiths.”

            Like the man he was seeking, Ken Slambothi had only faked his own amnesia.

 

 

XIV

 

            JULY 27 2001 10:04 P.M. GILBERT PLAINS

 

            The computer, however, would prove to only assist Ken to a certain extent.  However, the information he got from the computer was vital to the rest of his investigation. 

            First, Ken surfed to Canada411.com-a person finder.  He typed in the name ‘West Smiths’ and he received five ‘Smiths’.  Only one from Manitoba.  And only one Weston.  He got Weston’s address and telephone number.  He lived in an apartment.  Ken wondered if his neighbours in the same complex knew the psycho their neighbour was.  He had to be a psycho, Weston just had to be.  He had given himself away to Ken, that was good enough.

            Hesitantly, Ken looked down at the phone number he had gotten, the supposed place Weston lived.  “What the heck.” He picked up the telephone and dialled the number.  There were three rings and them a voice of a man with a light Italian accent picked up.  “Hey, you’ve reached an empty apartment in Uptown Apartment Suites.  If you’re calling for the old tenant, I guess he’s gone.  If that’s the case or whatever your case might be, get outta here.  If you wanna rent this apartment though, call,” The man gave a phone number under the same area code as the one Ken had just called. 

            The man on the phone must have been the owner of the apartment Weston rented.  And Weston had moved out.  Ken was making more progress now then he had in all of the investigation where he had tried to find the killer. 

            Ken dialled the new number he had found. 

            “Len here.  Whatdaya want?” The man said, the same voice as the answering machine.

            “Hello,” And then Ken thought quickly for a moment: what do I want?  Information on Weston, but how do I get it?  A plan quickly came to mind.  “Yes, I’m renting out a house to a man named, uh…” He shuffled papers on his desk to make it sound realistic.  “Weston Smiths.  He listed you as a reference.  You know him?”

            “Weston?  Yeah, yeah he was a good guy.  You say he listed me as a reference?”

            “Yes, is there a problem with that?  Are you family?”

            “No, no, it’s just that he never asked me, you see?  I’m not surprised though, not with him.”

            Ken thought he might be on to something: was Weston a bad tenant?  “Why is that?” 

            “Well Weston Smiths has amnesia.  Can’t remember much, except stuff about music.  He remembers music.  Weird isn’t it?”

            “Yeah, I guess so.” Of course, Ken thought, what you don’t know is that he only fooled with your mind all the time he lived under you.  Have you really ever heard of someone who can remember music but not anything else?  It’s possible, maybe, with the different sides of the brain or something, but Weston didn’t have amnesia.  Not in the least.  But if he faked amnesia with his tenants…he must have been planning for years.

            “Yeah so anyways, he probably just forgot to ask me or something, or thought he did.” The man said.

            “And so is Weston a good person then?  Ever had any problems with him?”

            “Weston?  Nah, he was a good guy.  He’s funny and stuff, good to be around.  He had a bunch of friends who helped him out, so he did pretty good for being an amnesiac.  No problems, either.  Just a plain good guy.  Say, did you say he’s moving to Saskatoon to live in a house you’re renting?”

            “Yeah, why?”

            “Come to think of it, I had heard he had died or something.  Yeah, that’s what his friends said, he had died so they were picking up the loose ends he left.  They never even got to how he died, he just died or something.  So you’re saying he’s mov…” Ken slammed the phone down not willing to pursue it any farther.  He hoped to God that the man did not have call display.  He would have to screen his phone calls from now on.

            “Now where?” He looked at the computer screen, which glowed in the dark room.  There were four other Smiths in Canada.  Maybe one of them would be family.  That would be the best place to start because there was little else to do.  He got the number to a Smiths in Waterloo, Ontario, and was ready to call it when he stopped himself.  This time he needed to have a reason for calling before he actually did it.  What could he do?

            Weston had set up a plan to say that he had died, obviously hoping that he would be able to elope.  And only his friends seemed to take care of Weston after he had ‘died’.  Therefore, it was safe to assume that his family didn’t know much about him.  He could pretend to be the owner of the apartment complex that Weston had lived in, and hopefully, they wouldn’t know. 

            The first ‘Smiths’ that Ken tried brought him to a four-year old kid who said that she didn’t know any Weston, no her parents weren’t home and she’d have to go now because the babysitter said she shouldn’t be talking to strangers.  If he turned out nothing he’d call that number again, but only if he needed to.  He tried another number and hit the jackpot. 

            “Yes, Weston Smiths was our nephew, me and my husband’s,” An elderly woman of, maybe, seventy said in a loving tone.  Ken wondered if she thought her nephew was capable of murdering a woman her age. 

            “Weston Smiths of Winnipeg?”

            “Yes, and what relation do you have to him?”

            “Well, I am the owner of the apartment complex that Weston used to live in.  I never got to know Weston well enough and I’m regretting it somewhat.  I’ve been looking for his family to, well, get to know him better.”

            Ken anxiously waited to see if she was suspicious.  Obviously not, for she kept on talking.  “Well he was a great man, working hard through the disability that life had given him.  And when you saw it you’d never be able to tell that he wouldn’t remember you fifteen minutes after he left.  He was strong and talented.  He was in a band, did you know that?”

            “Yes, I had heard a little about that.”

            “Yes, well he was good at that.  He had worked on the railroad at various jobs all through his life.  Mostly in and around Winnipeg.  He seemed to do well at that, be able to keep up with most everything he did.  But he had retired three years ago-he would be about fifty-nine now.  Since then I think he just sat and read, did his music and walked a lot.  He was a good man.”

            Ken was bored simply from hearing the woman talk, as valuable as her information was.  “Yes, well thank-you Mrs. Smiths it’s been great talking to you.”

            He heard the woman say, “Well would you like to talk to my…” As he put the phone down. 

            He looked down at it and said, “No I don’t want to talk to your husband.” He’d probably give the same useless information as his wife.  Nonetheless, Ken jotted down a few things, railroad and the few hobbies he had been given. 

But Ken thought over what the woman had told him.  ‘…he just sat and read’.  If Ken wasn’t mistaken, which he wasn’t, then the amnesiac Weston had never been able to remember anything other then music, meaning he never would have had the attention span to read books.  Interesting.  Could any of his friends or family have picked up on that?

Character was done, now.  Ken gave up on that. 

            Next, he decided to connect Weston to the murders in Gilbert Plains.  First, what kind of person had he thought was killing in the town.  A random serial killer, psychological problems and something driving him to carry out gruesome murders in a small town.  Weston seemed to be none of these things.  But he was guilty, he had to be guilty of something.  He had faked amnesia, and who does that?  And Ken was sure that Weston had faked amnesia; he had said when he went on his shooting rampage in Ken’s old home that he thought he had killed in Winnipeg.  Based on self-incrimination, Ken could assume that there was something deranged in that man’s mind, he had proven it by conducting mass murders.  Now if there was something to tie him to Gilbert, as Ken suspected…

            He flipped through the notes and newspapers clippings he now kept in a scrapbook.  ‘Homicide by hanging marks seventh homicide in Winnipeg,’ said one article.  Ken then flipped through notes he had made on the Gilbert case-they covered everything from the scene at the water treatment center, the autopsies, the Sheraton suite and then the notes were interrupted by the first reports of the mass murder in Winnipeg.  Then there was the scene of the two teenagers in the school’s basement and everything he had researched about the victim’s backgrounds.  More clips about mass murder, then everything that Ken had learnt in Winnipeg, meeting with the police there.  There was more about the Voukons, and then all of the newspaper clippings about anything pertaining to the murders in Gilbert.  The scrapbook ended there.

            Ken searched it for something that would resemble similarities to Weston.  Nothing.  Anything to connect him to the murders in Gilbert… nothing.  Anything to connect him to the mass murders in Winnipeg… nothing.  Ken was baffled, there had to be something.  But then he remembered something he had heard a university professor say when he was taking criminology: ‘Ninety-five percent of crimes are solved because the criminal made a mistake.’  It was severely true.  Weston hadn’t seemed to have made a mistake.  Yet.  He had killed eight times in Gilbert by hanging, countless times in Winnipeg by cutthroat…and then Ken went to the very beginning of his scrapbook.

            ‘Homicide by hanging marks seventh homicide in Winnipeg’, the headline said. 

            “Now this doesn’t fit in,” Ken said to himself.  Unless he had somehow subconsciously forced himself to keep it, because while skimming over it…

            ‘Winnipeg psychiatrist Mark Tode was found murdered in his office yesterday morning, says Winnipeg police.  His wife found him hanging in their basement in a noose.  Asphyxiation was the cause of death.  The death, first thought to be suicide, was brought to the attention of homicide investigators and is now being examined more thoroughly.  Tode died on a regular night where he was working in his office with his family upstairs.  None of them reported hearing any intruders; lengthwise, no basement windows showed any signs of forced entry.  His secretary at his private psychiatric clinic reported him to have been edgy and stressed out in the days previous to his death.  Winnipeg Police are looking farther into the case.’

            The article was dated June the fifth, the day before the barbecue in his home when he had first met Weston Smiths.  Had the man been using the noose before Gilbert Plains? 

 

_____

 

            JULY 28 2001 10 A.M. WINNIPEG

 

            Ken stood on the doorstep of a moderately large bungalow in the suburbs or Winnipeg.  He had raced into the city the previous night, sure that he would have to see the family of the deceased psychiatrist, Mark Tote.  He would-like when he was visiting the mass murder scene-pretend to be a Winnipeg cop, retrieving a file that the Investigators had requested but didn’t have the time to get it.  He had found the address for the family in the phone book, for that he was thankful. 

            He knocked and in a matter of moments, a woman of around fifty with brown hair opened it.  “I’m sorry, officer,” She said somewhat embarrassed.  “For answering so abruptly.  I’ve been on the edge, since…you know.”

            “That’s alright, ma’am.  No problem.” Ken said, taken aback himself.

            She looked into Ken’s face.  “I’m afraid I don’t know you.”

            Ken thought quickly, and stuck to the truth.  “Officer Slambothi.” Well, almost the truth.  “Of the police here in Winnipeg.  The investigators looking into your husband’s…death have sent me here.  They needed me to look around his office for something.”

            “Well I thought everyone has had their fair share of time looking into his office but I guess that’s alright.” She opened the door wider and allowed Ken to step in.  “It’s the first door to the left down the stairs.  I don’t like to go down there much, if I don’t have to.” She smiled weakly.

            “That’s no problem ma’am.  You just go on ahead with whatever you were doing and I’ll be gone in a minute.” She turned and walked away, as Ken went down the stairs.

            The office was small, although nicer then his own office in Gilbert Plains.  It had moderately advanced technology with simple paint on the walls.  There was a filing cabinet in the corner.  Ken’s plan was to see if Weston Smiths was a patient of the psychiatrist. 

            He flipped to the ‘s’ section, passed a number of ‘Smith’ patients but then the files went on to a ‘Sole’.  Ken cursed under his breath.  He flipped to the ‘w’ patients, just in case the file had gotten misplaced.  ‘Wallace’, ‘Wendell’, and then on to ‘Williams’.  No ‘Smiths’ or ‘Weston’. 

            Ken was about to leave in admitted defeat when he glanced over the desk.  Ontop of it lay a file with the name ‘X, Mr.’ Ken thought the name suspicious and took it and left.

            He didn’t even yell a goodbye to the woman as he left.

XV

 

            JULY 28 2001 9:30 P.M. GILBERT PLAINS

 

            Ken Slambothi grew up on a small remote farm.  He was into many things, music included.  Whenever he heard of one of his favorite singers releasing a new album, he would be dying to get into the city to get it.  But he would often have to wait; the trip to the city-which was where the nearest music store was located-took two and a half-hours.  Therefore, trips into the city were far to come by for the Slambothi family and Ken was often left with an immense feeling of want.

            That was how he had felt since he left the house of the deceased psychiatrist.

            More then anything in the world, Ken now wanted to see justice done to Weston Smiths.  There was now no doubt in Ken’s mind who was killing in Winnipeg and most likely Gilbert Plains.  And since the same man had killed his daughters, there was hate in Ken, hate that the police forces would not satisfy.  He would have to satisfy them himself.  As long as he kept his own investigation secret from the police. 

            And so with the thick file in his hands, Ken had left the Tote residence, eager to open it. But he was in the city and felt it would be best to wait until he got home to divulge himself in the file that could be Weston Smiths’.  The reason?  There was little doubt in Ken’s mind that the man was insane.  He could have seen a psychiatrist under a code name, Mr. X, and then killed the man.  It fit.  The psychiatrist’s murder was just before the murders of the Sheraton’s.  But if Weston had wanted his identity to be secret, he would have had to have seen the man in his office.  That didn’t make much sense, yet…

            Ken had gone to a cheap motel to catch a few hours of sleep.  At four o’clock that afternoon, he left the city.  In and out of Winnipeg in a day, not the most fun thing to do, but it would be worth it if the file from the psychiatrist turned anything up. 

            Ken now sat at his desk, the closed file infront of him.  It was thick, and now he would see why.  He opened it and found three basic things.  First were a number of notes written in simple blue pen on loose-leaf.  Then there were printouts of transcripts of some kind of conversation.  Ken was in a frenzy and only briefly looked at each pile of paper he pulled out.  Finally, he came to a few plastic bags, which held two cassette tapes.  “If I’m not mistaken…” Ken said to himself.  He popped one tape, marked ‘Session #1’ in a brief scrawl, into a cassette player on his stereo system.  And he was right.  What he heard was a conversation between a man who sounded like he would be Mark Tote, based on what he had read in the papers about the man, and the disguised voice of what was probably a man.  Ken had recently seen a movie where the criminal-even though the police knew who he was-had put a special mouthpiece on the receiver of the phone to disguise his voice.  The voice that came out of the phone was similar to the disguised voice coming from Ken’s speakers. 

            Ken listened to the hour-long session on the first side of the tape.  A lot of it was first-time business that had happened between the patient and the psychiatrist.  They discussed business details of the exchanges, and got to know each other.

            Ken quickly flipped the tape but thought better of it.  He looked at the transcripts.  Sure enough, the first thirty double-sided pages seemed to be what he had just heard.  Instead of listening, he read the next three sessions-probably all an hour each. 

            At eleven that night, he had finished the first three sessions-one more to go.  He had heard a great deal of things.  The patient, Mr. X, was definitely a strange character.  And while Ken didn’t know the man very well, he thought Weston could be Mr. X.  The patient was definitely a psycho.  Ken had looked at the psychiatrist’s notes for each session, and saw that both he and Mark Tote seemed to have the same ideas: the man was impenetrable.  He revealed little to nothing about himself, although still hoped, almost dared the psychiatrist to figure him out.  A pure psychopath if there ever was one.

            Ken looked at the clock and considered going to sleep, saving the last session for the morning.  But he was wired.  He had been sipping coffee all evening and although he had had to go to the bathroom a couple times, he felt relatively awake.  “I’ll listen to it.  Then I can relax.” He said.  And so he pressed play.  He was in for a short, exciting session.

            The patient and psychiatrist exchanged ‘hellos’ and Tote tried to convince X to tell him his real name and come to his office for a session.  The madman declined.  They discussed defense mechanisms for a time; the psychiatrist stating that Mr. X used them often, although the man did not say agree.  They discussed why he went to sessions with the psychiatrist even though they never saw each other.  And then Mr. X made an interesting statement:

            ‘Who needs emotions, Mr. Psychiatrist?  Are they not only a way for journalists and the government to make a profit off ordinary citizens?’  He said.  Ken gave himself time to think about that line by pausing the cassette.  That was true, really, the government got tax money off people because they performed a job they enjoyed.  That much was true atleast.  Although the psychiatrist disagreed, as Ken kept listening.   

            They discussed why Mr. X would be seeing Tote.  Tote thought it must have been because Mr. X had a mental problem of some sort, and so to save himself from embarrassment, he did not personally come to the office.  That led to more talk about defense mechanisms.

            And then Mr. X said something extremely interesting. 

‘I lost my hair naturally at 16.  Don’t you think I would have felt two feet tall?  Of course.  I was a public disgrace.  My parents locked me inside.  So I pretended I couldn’t remember my hereditary disability.  That worked well.’

            “If only I’d seen this before…,” Ken said out-loud.  Two pieces of evidence towards Weston; Weston was bald, although he had joked about it at Ken’s place; and he had faked amnesia.  Obviously this faking was not a recent development of the man. 

            ‘Fliers.’ Mr. X was saying. 

            ‘I look at them.’  He said after the psychiatrist questioned what he meant.

            ‘In my spare time, I look at fliers.  Fliers that people hang on hydro-poles, bulletin boards, other posts which have no name.’ Mr. X was soon saying.

            ‘And this gives you pleasure?’ The psychiatrist asked.

            ‘In a way.  Indirectly, it did.  But remember, I don’t show emotions all too much.  And I don’t just hold them in, just letting them well up inside, as I know psychiatrists like to say.  I don’t show many emotions.  But the fliers, indirectly, do give me pleasure.’

            But Mr. X-Weston?-would not tell how they gave him pleasure. 

            Ken added to the conversation on himself.  “You walked and saw fliers, didn’t you West-boy?” He thought what that could mean.  “Fliers, on street posts…They advertise parties on fliers on posts don’t they?  Damn you, you chose you mass murder sites by advertisements!” Ken almost thought highly of he man, but not for long.  His hatred soon returned.  He was now completely sure Weston Smiths was the mass murderer in Winnipeg.

            They discussed Mr. X for a little while-something about two characters in the man’s mind.  Ken thought more and more about the likelihood of Weston being a madman. 

            And then Ken sat frozen.  For the madman, Weston most likely, was on an emotional tirade of sorts.

            ‘And you want to know something else, psychiatrist?  I have devoted my life to my country.  If it is necessary for the happiness of my country that should cease to live, I leave it to the Providence of my God.’ What the hell did that mean?  Ken thought.

            The psychiatrist thought it may be a suicide for Mr. X but X just continued.  ‘I’ve prayed.  People have suffered at the hands of a government’s inactivity.  I maintain with dignity that I am not insane.  I will not be given up upon for reasons of insanity.  I’ve been in a mental hospital, but doctors certified that I was cured.  My visions, prophecies, and my missions do not signify insanity.  I have made a sacrifice; I ask for justice.’ And then Mr. X repeated what he had just said.  And then he added more, showing an extraordinary range of emotional tones.  ‘And I’d give up my hard-earned status as fabulous freak of nature.  I too thought that when proved wrong I lost somehow.  And I too once thought that life was cruel.  I too once that I was owed something.  Heaven forbid I be ignored.’

There was a pause and Ken sat transfixed, as if he was watching a suspenseful movie.  What’s gonna happen next? 

‘You want to know one more thing?  This is a set up.  It’s to my knowledge that you receive mail on this day, at about this time.  I’ve been waiting three years to get this time slot.  Give us a few moment.’

Ken heard a few moments of silence, hearing silence, although it sounded like Mark Tote may have been on the edge into blubbering. 

‘It’s time.’ Mr. X said.

Ken almost jumped out of his seat at the same time.

There was a distant knock-he assumed it was a door.  There were a few muffled noises and Ken heard the psychiatrist say something in the distant.  And then Mr. X was speaking again. 

 ‘Open the one in the old brown envelope.  You see the poor photo?  That’s me, and my people.’ Mr. X was now screaming into the phone. 

There was a click and Ken knew Mr. X had hung up.  There was another click and the recording ended.  “What was in the envelope?” Ken yelled into the empty space of his house.  “What the hell was it?” He had to know, he had to…

He jumped again.  The phone was ringing.  The phone that few people knew the number for and if they did, they wouldn’t have been phoning him at this hour of the night. 

Hesitantly, Ken picked it up. 

“Hello?” He said very quietly, almost like a frightened pre-adolescent. 

There was a pause, as if for suspense.  And then a voice from Ken’s past-a little over a month-came back to him. 

“Well hello, Ken.” It was the voice of Weston Smiths, calm, cool, and more evil then he remembered it. 

He tried to sound defiant.  “What do you want?”

“Oh nothing too much, Ken.  Just a few moments of your time, this won’t take long.  Frankly, I’m a little disappointed with you.  From what I hear, you’re investigating into me.  Are you trying to kill me?”

“How do you know that?” How did he know that?  He might have been in contact with his family, but they shouldn’t know who Ken was…no, Weston couldn’t have called them.  He was dead in their eyes.

But Weston ignored that question.  Instead, he continued.  “Are you really trying to kill me Ken?  Why?  I thought we had a good thing going.  A good relationship.  After the first time we met, didn’t I say that I thought we had a special bond and I’d try to remember you as we left town?  Didn’t you say you’d take that as a compliment?  You did.  Why would you be trying to kill me then, Ken?  I won’t remember this conversation twenty minutes from now, and yet you want to kill me.  That’s cruel.”

“You’ll remember it.  That’s not cruel.” Ken said angrily. 

“I’m dragging you into this Ken, whether you like it or not.  You didn’t have to get yourself into it but now that you’re trying to find me…”

“What the hell do you mean?” Ken yelled.  “You killed my daughters…”

And in the same style of speech and rhythm that Ken had heard in the last tape, Mr. X, Weston continued.  “The ‘X’ is just a cover-up although it does symbolise the target.  I’ve been planning all this for a long time now Ken, I want you to know that. 

“I’m becoming a frontiersman now, Ken and I want you to go with me.  I’m going out on the range, out on a journey.  You’ll follow.  I’m going to be in Calgary soon.  Be in that city in two days.  I’ll contact you then.”

“HOW THE HELL HAVE YOU CONTACTED ME NOW?” Ken asked, quite befuddled.  But there was a dial tone in his ear.  He placed it down.  Just as he did, it started ringing again. 

“What?” He said, only slightly more calm. 

West said, “Oh and by the way, look under your door.” He hung up again.  Ken questioned what that could mean again.  He soon knew and ran to his front door.  A brown envelope had been slipped underneath it.  He pulled the door open to see if anyone was there.  The street was empty, in the midst of a calm and cool summer night in Gilbert Plains. 

Ken stepped back inside and opened the envelope.  A picture of a hideous creature stared back up at him.  He was startled for a moment, but threw it into the trash.

He had more important things to do now then play Weston’s mind-games. 

 

 

XVI

JULY 29 2001 12:04 A.M. GILBERT PLAINS

 

            Hurriedly, Ken made his decision.  He would go to Calgary.  It was his best chance of catching Weston, assuming that the man was telling the truth.  He would play into whatever plans the killer was planning.

            And so Ken packed his bags.  He took only two suitcases, there was no time or room for anything else.  In addition to that, he took only the bare essentials: a few changes of clothes for a few days, his scrapbook, the newly acquired Mr. X file, and his laptop computer.  Finally, at the end of a state of rush, he placed his two suitcases by his front door and stopped to think.

            “What’s the plan?” He asked himself outloud.  Things were sure quieter without the girls around…

            He hadn’t slept in eight hours and before that he hadn’t slept for a long time as well.  But he seemed to be running on a rush of adrenaline, never getting tired.  If he had coffee, he could get to…

            “Yorkton,” He said outloud.  Yorkton was a small city about two hours away, into Saskatchewan.  He could drive there and then check into another cheap motel for a few hours sleep.  There would have had to be something cheap there.  And then he could keep going for a while longer, maybe even as far as Calgary.  No, going from Yorkton to Calgary would mean around nine hours and at Ken’s state, he didn’t want to rush anything.  Fatigue could easily set in at any moment.  He would go only as far as Saskatoon and get his days and nights back on track, whenever that would be.  From Saskatoon, a city even bigger then Yorkton, he could take the final six hours to Calgary and be there on time. 

            “Let’s go, then.” He picked up his bags and went to his Ford truck.  Leaving, he thought of the lonely town he was leaving.  There didn’t seem to be any more murders-Ken was sure the murderer was out abroad now.  But they didn’t know that, they were only in the grip of a bunch of city cops who didn’t care a damn about them.  Ken cared about them.  It wasn’t his case now, but he was giving the town justice.  They could be scared if they heard a big truck rumbling the empty streets in the middle of the night, but they would get justice.  Ken would see to it personally…

 

_____

 

            Ken had arrived in Yorkton around two thirty in the morning.  He searched the streets in the main commercial area and quickly found a small hotel that was still open.  It was a little more expensive then he would have liked-forty-five bucks for the ‘night’-but he was tired already and needed to sleep. 

            Sleep he did, infact he slept in later then he had expected to.  At nine o’clock that morning he awoke.  He had set the alarm for seven thirty.  When he was manually pulled back to consciousness, he felt eerily rested.  Eerie because he hadn’t had a good rest for a good many days.  Even in the hospital hadn’t provided a restful place to sleep.  But Ken almost shouted in surprise at the time.  The alarm-clock was still set, as well.  When he flipped a few switches to check the time the alarm was set to, he found it set to seven thirty PM.  “Great, just great,” Ken said as he stood up and pulled off his clothes, which he hadn’t taken off when he went to sleep.  He definitely had been tired when going to sleep. 

             He took a shower, which soothed the minor aches and pains that he had gained in his sleep. 

            Ken left Yorkton at ten o’clock on Sunday the twenty-ninth. 

 

_____

 

            When Ken arrived in the city of Saskatoon, it was five after one in the afternoon.  There was nothing wrong with the time he arrived, and he wondered why he had fretted about it in the first place.  Regardless, he checked into a Super Eight hotel around two o’clock, and went down to the pool to swim off a bit of stress.

            He wasn’t much of a swimmer, and he didn’t even own a bathing suit.  So he went out and bought one and went to the virtually empty pool to swim with the ragged strokes he had been taught years back in his childhood.  One thing that Ken learnt in his years as a cop was that the best way to ward off pressure was to get in water, cool preferably.  Since he had already taken a shower earlier that day, divulging himself to the small pool was the logical choice of refreshment. 

            When Ken got back to his hotel room-reasonably nice since he felt he deserved a break for once-he had a clear head, ready for thinking. 

            At the moment, there were a few things to think about.  First and foremost was his plan for the next day.  He had come to Saskatoon to get his days and nights back on track.  Weston had called late on the twenty-eighth and it was currently the twenty-ninth.  Since Ken was instructed to be in Calgary in two days, logic said that he was due to be in the city by the thirtieth.  Late on the thirtieth if it came to that.  From the city he was in now, he had six hours until he reached Calgary.  Meaning he had the chance to spend the entire night in the hotel and leave in the morning.  “Early in the morning,” Ken corrected his thought outloud.  He would have to leave early just to make sure he got to the big city in time-in case Weston made any sudden moves of any kind.

            Next on Ken’s mind’s agenda was Calgary.  What was going to happen there?  Was Weston set to lure Ken into a trap to kill him?  Quite possibly, now that Ken knew who Weston was, he would certainly have the ability to turn the man over to police.  Of course, Ken did not want to do that.  What else could happen?  Will I go on a wild goose chase?  “What the hell does Weston want?” Ken thought quickly to his funds.  He should have enough money in various accounts for a while. 

            Ken’s thoughts were slightly uneasy, however he had garnered enough bravery to go into Calgary.  For whatever Weston’s plans may be. 

 

_____

 

            Ken was an hour away from Calgary and still unsure of what he would do when he got there when his cell-phone rang.  It was an older model, the kind that could not have a battery, therefore had to always be in the truck plugged into the cigarette lighter.  It was a case of déja vú.  Just like at his home, few people knew this number.  Most of them-his friends and family-had been killed.  And their killer was on the phone. 

            Ken listened to the voice of Weston Smiths and felt immediate hatred.  The loss of just about everyone you love does that to you. 

            “Hello Ken and thank-you for coming.  I feel a greater sense of gratitude towards you.  Maybe you don’t want to kill me anymore?” Weston said in an entirely innocent tone.

            “That’ll be the day,” Ken said, seething into the cell-phone.  He pulled over to give the full extent of anger that he felt into his voice.  “You know I want to kill you.  That’s the only reason I’d come here.”

            “Well I’m afraid you may be gravely disappointed, Ken.  It’s not in the plans.  Not these plans for the next few days, anyways.  The god of above didn’t want it.  But I’ll tell you, Ken, you have some work to do tomorrow.”

            “Oh yeah?  What kind of work would that be Weston?”

            “Secret, Ken, that’s a secret now and it will stay secret until it’s time to get you to do it.  I want you to be surprised by everything that happens in the coming days.  It’s all part of a big plan for you to understand me.  You’ll see what’s in store for you soon.  You’ll see.  But in the meantime…here’s what I want you to do today.  You are to go into the city and find a hotel.  That’s all for today, Ken.  And a word of wisdom from the wise one: get a cheap one.  You’re gonna be in a lot of hotels these days.”

            “Wait!  You just wait Weston!” Ken yelled into the cell-phone.  “You can’t phone me and just tell me what to do!  You can’t…” But Ken knew it was hopeless.  He was talking to himself, again. 

            The thing was that he knew Weston could.  Ken had such an extreme want of the man that he would do anything to do it.  If going on a chase across the country, supposedly to understand him was what Weston wanted for Ken, then Ken would follow.

            And so Ken put the truck into drive, put the turn signal on, mirror and shoulder checked, and drove onto the highway towards Calgary. 

 

 

XVII

 

JULY 30 2001 2:30 P.M. CALGARY

 

            When Ken finally came to a hotel he wanted to stay in, and arrived in his hotel room and was able to lay down in it and sleep, it was mid-afternoon.  He had arrived in Calgary with time to spare, in his books.  The hotel he now resided in was not a cheap one as Weston had wanted but was not expensive either.  It was a small hotel with little for services, but he didn’t need a pool now and felt the air conditioning he could live without.  What he needed for now was a place to wait and sleep while he waited for Weston. 

            He tried to lay down and sleep when he got to the room.  There was only one bed and so he plopped down onto it.  He was tired; there was no doubt about that.  But he wasn’t relaxed.  How could he be when he was chasing the greatest-if not the only-serial killer in Manitoba history?  Weston now controlled not only what Ken did, but his thoughts too.  Still, he tried to put his nemesis off his mind for the time being.  That proved to be impossible.  Ken couldn’t sleep and when he tried, he couldn’t pay attention to watching television either.  It seemed like he really was an amnesiac; he only found the commercials interesting because he couldn’t pay attention to the actual shows since Weston crept back into his mind time and time again.  And since there was little else to do, Ken sat and waited for something to happen.

            And then the phone rang. 

            When Ken picked it up, slammed it away from its cradle, he didn’t start with any preliminaries; ‘hello’ or even ‘who is this?’ Instead, he said, “How do you keep finding me?”

            It was, of course, Weston and he said, “Would you judge me by the colour of my skin or by the way I talked.  If I talked with a Native American often seems to do would you despise me for it?  I think you’re just like the rest of society Ken, you would do that to me, wouldn’t you?  Yes, I think you would.  So many people have taken so many steps and sacrifices to stop it but you would still judge me if I was coloured or talked differently.  Think about gays.  There hasn’t been a serial killer who is a fanatic about homosexuality yet but there will be someday, Ken.  And just because you think I killed a bunch of people in your town and Winnipeg you think I’m insane.  Why Ken?  Why do you automatically jump to conclusions and judge me?”

            “What are you talking about?” Ken asked.  He definitely did think Weston was insane.  Had to be.  “Why do you keep selectively choosing what questions you answer?”

            “It’s time for you to continue your mission to find out about me, Ken.  Go to House Street and go to number three-fifteen.  Three hundred and fifteen if you want to be correct.  Unfortunately for you, you chose the wrong side of town to get a hotel in.  Go now.” And then Weston hung up.  Before it flew form his mind, Ken wrote down the address and then flew into a rage. 

            But he ended up going. 

 

_____

 

            When Ken got to the new and attractively shaped two-storey house, he didn’t know what he was to suspect.  This very well could be the climax of Weston’s plans to kill him.  He didn’t know whether he was to go straight in or knock. 

            It was a quiet residential street that the house was on.  Little for traffic for the mid-afternoon.  It was hot outside.  Hot but quiet.  Ken parked parallel to the curb and slowly stepped out of his truck.  He looked briefly up and down the street but did not see anyone looking at him, or anything suspicious.  He was set to keep an eye out for anything. 

            He walked up the thin walkway, which spanned across a green lawn.  As far as he could tell, no one was home at the house.  He couldn’t see any lights on, any radio or television in the distance.  But that was only as he could tell.  He walked up to the door and rang the doorbell.  Ken slowly counted to twenty and when no one arrived he rang again.  Thirty seconds now, just to be sure, but he got nothing.  Finally, Ken checked up and down the street one last time and opened the door.  It was unlocked.  As if someone had meant for him to be able to come straight in. 

            Ken walked into a room which looked as rich as the rest of the house did.  There was a closet standing slightly open with coat-hangers and coats visible.  There was a doorway up ahead and a little to the right that looked to be a kitchen.  Up ahead there was a stairway and a large opening to what looked to be a dining room.  A little ahead and to the left was a doorway but Ken couldn’t see what it led to.  It was a richly furnished house, something Ken probably wouldn’t afford if he worked hard until he was seventy. 

            To be safe rather then sorry, Ken took off his runners.  He walked into the house.  His first stop was small table on the right side of the hallway with a reading lamp on it; probably just a place to put mail or notes to the family.  It was basically clear, now save for one folded piece of paper in its center.  It read in a neat and curved scrawl ‘Ken Slambothi’.  Ken backtracked to the closet and opened it up with his coat covering his hands.  He found a pair of leather gloves and although he was sure they might be women’s, he donned them.  He went back to the table and opened up the letter.

            ‘I killed these people, Ken,’ the letter read.  ‘I didn’t know them but I killed them.  It’s all a part of this little thing we’re doing to help you understand me.  I want you to research them a bit. Find out about their lives a bit…you know the procedure.  You’re a cop.  Everything you need to find about them is in this house.  And a warning: You have two hours form the time you read this until I call the cops.  Be careful.’  How polite of Weston to warn Ken.  He felt like Clarice Starling with Hannibal Lecter hanging overhead, protecting him.  Except Hannibal Lecter was replaced by Weston Smiths.  It occurred to Ken that the real life serial killer might be trying to emulate perhaps the best fictional madman there ever was. 

            Ken walked deeper into the house and turned left into the room he couldn’t at first identify.  One brief glance into it told him it was a living room.  Or a sitting room.  Whatever these people chose to call it.  He looked at the floor: a rich, deep green.  An odd colour for a floor.  His eyes started to scan upwards and he suddenly knew he would soon see an amazing horror.  The corners of his eyes saw lay-z-boy chairs, the bottoms of couches, the foot of a television.  And then he saw real feet, the small feet of a boy no more then three years old, dangling five feet from the floor; it was an unusually high room.  He saw the blue face of the boy, still wearing the play-clothes he wore when he set out on the last day of his life.  Around his neck was the murder weapon, a thick noose that nearly engulfed his entire head.  Next to the boy was a girl only a few years older, killed the same way.  And then a woman, greatly beautiful making Ken wonder if Weston had done anything else to her before he killed her.  The final body was the tallest of the group, the grand finale, Ken thought.  The one who was surely the main money-maker in the house because he wore a formal suit was not killed in the same way.  Instead, his throat was cut in addition to the noose holding just a few inches off the ground.  Blood had pored over the man, his face was caked with it and there was a trickle all the way down one pant-leg; a puddle drying slowly on the floor.

            Ken left that room quickly.  He had seen gruesome enough scenes in Gilbert Plains.  He had no desire to see any more here.  He went up the stairs, instead. 

            The first thing he came to was a computer room.  Ken didn’t know much about computers, but he knew when they were top of the market.  This one was.  He turned it on and it cranked to power.  While he waited, Ken looked at the walls.  There were two framed diplomas on the wall; one for a woman named Treena Eden and one for a man named Walter Rankin.  Treena Eden must have become Treena Rankin after she had graduated.  Both diplomas were for General Accountants, thus explaining the richness of the family. 

            Ken looked at the computer screen.  It was asking him to log in.  There were three options: Walter, Treena, and family.  Ken tried each of them.  The first two asked for passwords.  The third didn’t.  Ken sighed in relief.  The computer seemed to be the easiest, safest way to find something out about the family. 

            Ken went through the Start menu and went to documents.  There were links to documents such as ‘Reason for Canada’s Problems-Asians’, ‘Why Indians are so poor’, and ‘We’d be better if we were all straight Caucasians’.  Ken opened the last document.  It looked like some sort of letter to a newspaper. 

            Ken was sure where Weston was going with the killing of the family, but wanted to check one thing out.  He opened Internet Explorer, which seemed to be the Internet browser of choice for the family.  He went to bookmarks.  What he found spanned a number of different topics, Ku Klux Klan, Nazis, United Klans of America and other groups of the sort.  Ken started to get of feeling of why Weston had come here to murder.  It had only been during their last phone conversation that he had told Ken about judging based on racial prejudice.  Still, that was no reason to kill…

            Ken left that place with time to spare in his two hours, but with a sure understanding that he knew why he was sent here.  As he left, he stepped over a pile of rocks creating five intertwined rings.  He noted them but did not recognise them as anything.

            He still did not have a clear picture of Weston’s mind.

 

_____

 

            Ken was sitting in his hotel room at seven in the evening, his mind more slightly at ease.  He sat on his bed, watching the news when a local station interrupted for breaking news.

            The anchor-woman said, “Police were anonymously called to a residence in South-eastern Calgary earlier this evening.  What they found was the murdered bodies of the family who resided in the home.  One source called it the most gruesome sight he had ever seen in his years on the force.  This is the worst case of murder since 1964.  We now go live to…”

            Ken had left there with time to spare, but Weston must have called the police as soon as he left.  That was the way Weston worked, Ken thought as he remembered coming to the city with extra time.  Just kept you working…

            The phone rang.

            When Ken picked it up, he heard the voice of Weston as he expected.  Although he still hated the voice, he did not feel as strong of hatred as before.  That would surge up soon.  “Good work Ken.  I’m going to make this short and sweet for you.  The next part of your mission is in Churchill.  Be there in three days.” Weston hung up before Ken could say anything. 

 

 

 

XVIII

 

JULY 31 2001 2:34 PM OVER SASKATCHEWAN/MANITOBA BORDER

 

            Ken sat in the airplane’s seats, a little more then an hour after takeoff.  It wasn’t comfortable by any means.  If Ken had had a choice, which he never, he would not have travelled by these means.

            Ken had quickly contemplated about his plans after he had received his second set of instructions.  He was tired, the entire trip thus far had been tiring.  Therefore, Ken felt he could drive only one day.  He had driven straight to Saskatoon-a place he had been only that morning-and gotten a hotel.  For once he would actually stay the night.  The next morning he inquired about any means of air-travel whatsoever that would be travelling to Churchill that day.  He struck lucky and soon found himself in this small, mainly cargo plane.    It wasn’t too expensive, but it was expensive enough to make Ken check his bank account.  He had money for a while, yet.

            And so Ken had sat back during the bumpy ride, trying to enjoy its time while he thought about his time in Calgary.  If his time in Churchill was anything like it was in Calgary, then he wasn’t in for much.  Just practising his investigative skills, which had not been needed in the past while.  But Churchill was somewhat different of a place…

            It was in Manitoba, the same province that Ken lived in.  But it was up north, much more northern then Gilbert Plains; leaves or needles only on the side where the wind never blew.  It wasn’t past the tree line, yet, but the trees one found there were not top quality.  There wasn’t all too much to do in Churchill then, since the ground was full of permafrost, there wasn’t anything for agriculture, or mining.  Ken supposed there might be fishing in Hudson’s Bay.  The main economy in the city was importing and exporting.  Trains brought all kinds of things too and from Churchill, although grain was probably the top product.  From there, ships took the train’s goods out via Hudson’s Bay to sea.  Churchill wasn’t exactly a tourist attraction either.  The last Ken had heard, you couldn’t even drive there; train and plane were the only modes of transportation.  But that was only the last that Ken had heard.

            Uneventful, secluded, Ken thought, the perfect place for Weston to strike next.

 

_____

 

            Ken arrived in his motel at six o’clock.  It was a cheap one.  Ken was terribly tired.  He hadn’t bothered with finding if there were any shuttle services with the airport or a taxi services in the city.  He walked until he found the motel.  And so he lay down and thought he would sleep.  He was extremely early.  But he should have known Weston Smiths better.

            The phone rang as soon as Ken felt moderately relaxed. 

            Weston must have had him bugged. 

            Severely bugged. 

            “Hello Weston,” Ken said.  As much as he hated the man, he felt some sort of respect towards him.  However his voice did not show it.  He was a cop and cops didn’t change strategies so drastically only because he showed a little respect to the criminal. 

            “You don’t get any rest from me, Ken.  One thirty-two Prince Charles’ Place.  You have one hour.  Be careful.” Weston left the phone.

            “Thanks.” Ken said, anyways. 

            He grabbed his coat-it was cold in Churchill, even though it was summer-and left. 

 

_____

 

            When Ken arrived at the residence that Weston directed him to, he had only twenty minutes left.  He had to walk and he was sure Weston knew that for the house seemed to be on the other side of town.  It still never came to Ken to think about a taxi.  And so he walked and arrived infront of a small trailer amongst other trailers.  It sat a few feet on the ground and looked to be in dire need of paint and…dire need of being destroyed for its poorness. 

            Ken walked onto the porch and knocked for good measure.  Nothing came and so he forced the door.  Unlike Calgary, the door was locked but Ken fixed that with a swift kick.  He went inside and in the inside porch he was immediately greeted by the horror Weston had left for him. 

            Hanging, all with bulging faces, were three native-Americans, a woman a man and then a small boy.  “What is it with you killing little kids Weston?” Ken asked the empty trailer.  He was sure Weston was, somehow, able to hear him anyways. 

            Ken closed the door behind him and walked past the bodies into the remainder of the trailer.  He walked past a small kitchen, which was surprisingly neat compared, to the outside.  Then there was a living room, which was in more disarray.  Children’s toys were strewn around what floor wasn’t covered by cheap and dumpy couches, television and desk.  Ken looked in the three bedrooms, which were on the other end of the trailer, and the bathroom, but found nothing that seemed worthwhile.  Assuming he was to find out about the family, he went back to the desk. 

There were a few papers on it, a few bills and newspapers.  Ken looked through both and found nothing of interest.  Why would Weston send him here?  It wouldn’t seem logical that the people were racist so why would Weston kill them?  Lengthwise, why would Weston want to kill a racist family anyways?  He didn’t look to be anything…not even métis…

Ken looked through a drawer at the front of the desk.  In it were only pens, papers and other writing utensils that everyone keeps.  There was a side cupboard and so Ken opened it with his time running out.  There was mail, a few more bills…nothing to tie them to Weston in any way.  Nothing special about this family, they were poor they were Native American, what else was there about them?  Ken came upon a family tree.  It started with a woman named ‘Jarri Maxwall’.  It went down from there to this Jarri’s ancestors. Ken scanned it and recognised only one name: ‘Louis Riel’.  Louis Riel…the famous métis leader who lead his people into revolt against the Canadian government in the 1870s, as Ken remembered from history class.  The man who led to the initiation of two provinces into the Confederation of Canada-Manitoba and Saskatchewan.  The man who had been hung by the government for treason against Canada…That meant very little other then possibly meaning that the family hanging in the doorway were métis. 

Ken checked his watch, he had only two minutes left.  He ran to the front door and was about to open it when he saw a note taped onto it.  It read ‘Ken Slambothi’ on the front part.  The actual note was on the backside of the paper.  Being short on time and not wanting to stay in the room with three dead people any longer, Ken left the trailer and ran from the neighbourhood. 

 

_____

 

Back at his hotel, still huffing and puffing from the exercise he had put himself through, Ken opened the letter.

It read in a neatly-typed font: Dear Ken, Killing is not always easy, you know?  Sometimes in this career I now have even you will be unable to not doubt your former beliefs of me being insane.  It’s all part of a plan, Ken and sometimes these kinds of plans required drastic measures.  This was my stepmother and the husband she married after my father died and their adopted son.  I killed them, although it was hard.  I didn’t want to kill them. Weston Smiths.

Ken thought over the letter, still extremely sure Weston was insane.  Who killed their stepmothers for a plan?  Even if he hated her?  The respect for Weston that Ken had had only a few moments ago dwindled away.  There was something severely wrong with Weston Smiths…but what was it? 

Ken was about to throw away the letter when he glanced something he hadn’t when he first read it.  ‘He’s alive again’ it said at the very bottom of the page along with five intertwined circles. 

The phone rang.

Ken was entranced by his thoughts of the madman, so much so that he jumped.  Nonetheless he picked it up but said nothing.

“Close one,” Weston said.  “But go home now.  Go home until further notice.”

 

 

XIX

DECEMBER 22 2001 8:34 P.M. GILBERT PLAINS

 

The air was cold and frosty, not like the last time Ken Slambothi had had an interesting day in his life.  That day had been up in Churchill where even though it was cold and cool, not nearly as cold as it was in Gilbert Plains in the beginning of the winter.  Since then, Ken hadn’t heard anything from Weston, leaving him wondering…

He had left Churchill that same day that he had arrived and gotten a flight to Saskatoon on another bumpy cargo-plane.  He took his truck from a parking lot whose attendant still recognised him and drove back to Gilbert Plains in a sort of semi-daze where little seemed to matter.  Weston had left him like that, dazed but confused.  Ken had explained his absence by saying he suddenly felt he needed some time away from the town where some of the worst drama in his already poor life had occurred.  He had said he only went to Saskatoon and Calgary for the few days he was away, but no one had found out he had also gone to Churchill.  No one seemed to care and so believed his story. 

Ken had started back to work on the tenth of September doing the duties he had performed before all the murders had started way back in June.  Back to the same day of patrolling and boredom.  Other then that his life went on without his girls.  He had gone through that once with his fiancé Sharon had died and now he had to go through it again.  It had seemed that the time he had gotten out of a coma to the time he started working again was all about Weston, so much so that he didn’t feel the intense sadness about his loss that he felt while he drove around town and the municipality.  That had started to wear away to, slowly, meaning that absolutely nothing happened in his life. 

The R.C.M.P. who had taken over the homicide cases hadn’t progressed much.  Little else was found with the high-tech minds that they were supposed to have, nothing apart from what Ken had found himself.  That gave him a little laugh every now and then.  Eventually more and more of the officers had slowly started to leave to go back to their old jobs in Ottawa, until the top cop who was taking over the investigation, Charles Wallingon left the town for good.  Ken had a meeting booked with the man for Monday.  As close to Christmas as it may be, the man seemed cold and heartless and acted as if he absolutely had to see if Ken had seen anything pertaining to the murders recently.  The case was still officially open but any of the investigation was done from the big city.  Generally, it was Ken’s town again.  A weeping town who was still getting over the tragedy, but Ken’s all the same. 

And so he was free to think about Weston often.  It pained him that he couldn’t bring himself to give the identity of the killer up, but he needed to bring the man down himself.  Then he could make up a cover story as to why he was revealing it only now and make the name public.  The town wanted justice bad, as much as Ken did, but that would have to wait.

Ken often thought about Weston Smiths.  The man still troubled him.  He still didn’t know anything about motives.  Weston had said numerous times about a plan, but Ken couldn’t think of what kind of plan it would be.  The information about the murdered people in Calgary and Churchill did not seem to add any ideas to what the plan could be.  And so Ken had to wait.  Over time, as the days went on and got even more boring, Ken’s thoughts about Weston faded, ever so slowly.  But Ken still thought about the man, wicked, bloodthirsty, evil came to mind to describe him…But why was he all those things? 

“Hey Ken get moving!” Someone yelled to him, jousting his thoughts.  He was outside with a number of other people, right near the high school.  It seemed that no one remembered that earlier that year four out of eighty-four of the students-about five percent of its population-had been murdered.  But Ken didn’t blame them for that.  This was to be a time of party and good times. 

It was the Christmas party for the town.   The same one that he had been ‘booked early’ for by the mayor, the day after he had first met Weston Smiths at the barbecue held at his house.  There were numerous people there, the mayor, town council, the reeve and the people who sat on whatever board governed the rural municipality with him, the people who worked on the volunteer fire and ambulance services as well.  The mayor was the one who had told Ken to get moving.

“Sorry,” Ken yelled cheerfully back, “Just daydreaming.”

“Well sit down and enjoy the show!” The mayor yelled back, equally happy.  There were bales of straw ontop of the snow, and everyone else was taking seats.  It was a fireworks show they were to be watching, although it wasn’t much of a fireworks show.  Some kids who watched from a distance got a kick out of it, but it was generally just tradition held over from the early years of the town.  Every Christmas party at the town of Gilbert Plains had to have fireworks.  And so after the dinner and games at the mayor’s house, they had all pulled on parkas, ski-pants, toques and gloves and walked across town to the school, which had the biggest empty space in the town. 

The show was full of nothing of interest, just a few big bangs of different coloured crackers at a time, nothing special like you’d see in a real fire-works show.  It was over soon enough, and everyone was getting up to leave.  The remainder of the tradition was for everyone to walk back to the mayor’s house where their cars were to be parked, thus leaving them free to go home.  The crowd started walking, everyone generally in small groups, talking amongst each other. 

They were halfway across town, nearly at Main Street when Ken saw something dart out of the shadows between two buildings, a little ways ahead of Ken.  It was a human, and while he couldn’t tell much other then that, he saw what looked like a shine off the person’s head…a bald head…

Ken started to break away the group he was talking with, trying not to look conspicuous but trying to be ready at the same time. He started to walk quickly through other groups of people.  And then the head fireman started to talk to him, asking him what his hurry was.  Ken tried to peacefully ward him off while still keeping an eye on the man who could be Weston.  He got away from the fireman and started walking ahead again, he could still see a hulking figure in dark clothes, but it was dark outside and the town wasn’t exactly well lit.  Then the mayor stopped him and Weston-if it really was Weston-disappeared. 

“Problems, Ken?” The mayor asked just as Ken scanned the crowds ahead and realised he could no longer see the figure with the bald head. 

“Oh, no, just trying to warm up my feet, and talk with different people.” Ken said quickly. 

The mayor, not seeming to be suspicious, said.  “Yes, it’s been a great day, hasn’t it?”
            “Yes,” Ken said, his heart still racing from his momentary scare.  “Yes it has been.” But his mind wondered: Is Weston Smiths back in Gilbert Plains? 

 

_____

 

Ken got back home and immediately turned the heat on his thermostat up and started heating water in the microwave at the same time heating a Magic Bag to bring heat to his feat.  He needed more heat in his body then hot air in his furnace could provide. 

And then the phone rang.

With the suddenness and seeming precisely-timed accuracy of the call, Ken was caught off guard.  Mix that with his suspicion of seeing Weston again, he felt scared, atleast in suspense as to whom was on the other line.

He picked it up and said quietly, “Hello?”

There was a moment of silence and then a voice which seemed to come back to him from his past said quietly and controllably, “Hello, Ken.  How are you today?”

“Cold,” He said.  It was the first thing that came to mind.  With the suddenness of Weston coming back into Ken’s life, he felt momentarily frightened.

Weston laughed, “Good Ken, very good.  But I’m sure there’s more in your life happening right now then just being cold.  There’s no time for that now however.”

“What is there time for, Weston, just whatever you want, huh?”

“Of course, Ken, that’s exactly how it goes.  You want me plain and simple but I want you to go certain places and do certain things.  So to get what you want, you’ll do what I want from you.  It’s easy, really.”

Ken knew it was true, he had always known it was true but he had felt like arguing anyways.

Weston continued, “Another simple task for you, Ken.  Maybe we’ll meet face to face, you’ll see the real me face to face.  Be in Winnipeg by Monday and stay in the Holiday Inn Airport West.  See you there.”

As Weston hung up the phone, wherever he was, Ken started to get ready, forgetting about his appointment with the cop from the city, Charles Wallingon, at the same time. 

XX

 

DECEMBER 23 2001 2:47 A.M. WINNIPEG

 

Ken arrived in the early morning of that Sunday morning in the hotel that Weston had instructed him to.  With all the fresh air and the time spent driving, he was exhausted.  And so he fell asleep.  And Weston Smiths did not interrupt him…

 

_____

 

DECEMBER 23 2001 7:03 P.M. DAUPHIN

 

Inspector Charles Wallingon sat on the bed of the Super 8 Hotel in the somewhat moderately sized city of Dauphin.  He had just arrived at the Dauphin airport, where very few if any flights for human transportation were made, fifteen minutes ago.  A taxi, which did not meet his standards of cleanliness at all, had picked him up and driven him to the hotel where he would stay for the night.  The next day he would attend his scheduled meeting with Ken Slambothi and then return to the Dauphin Airport where he would fly the R.C.M.P. plane back Ottawa. 

That atleast was the plan.

He took out his cell-phone with the intentions of calling Ken Slambothi to confirm their meeting.  If he was lucky, he could get out of the city immediately after he had arrived into it.  He didn’t want to use the hotel phone and so to avoid any further cost, used the cell-phone that his employers gave him for work use.  Charles phoned the number that he had been directed to contact Ken at. 

The phone on the other end rang eight times until Charles ended his call.  He thought about it for a moment and then redialled the number.  Ten rings later no one had picked up. 

“He’s run away again,” Charles Wallingon said. 

Being the man that he was, he had already been suspicious of Ken’s vacation earlier that year.

 

_____

 

At the same time that the phone in his office was ringing without being answered, Ken Slambothi was sitting on the bed in his hotel room. 

The seven hours of sleep had done him well and he had awakened peacefully rested, fulfilled.  Finally, he was somewhat able to rest and relax.  He had gone for breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant, went swimming at the pool in the hotel, done fifty laps and then returned to his hotel room, to have a nap, wake up and go for lunch at a nearby Tim Hortons and finally returned to his hotel for rest and relaxation.  But as soon as the television was turned on, his thoughts turned back to Weston and the reason he was chasing him…The man had taken too many people, all of them victims of a random serial killer. 

As soon as Ken had those thoughts, he knew there was little point to watching television anymore.  His mind was elsewhere, far off to a place where he would never be able to return from for a long time.

Atleast until the phone rang, which it did soon after. 

Unlike many times before, Ken was not given a chance to give opening greetings.  Weston, sounding to be in quite the hurry, said, “I’ll be there to visit you in twenty minutes.  Be ready.”

The call ended and Ken was left wondering, if only slightly, where Weston really was.

 

_____

 

Charles Wallingon was on his cell-phone again although this time he had no intentions of calling anyone in relation to Ken Slambothi.  However, the subject of his current inquiries was Ken Slambothi.

Charles was proud of his life.  He may have done things that would be unpopular, maybe even illegal, but he had done things to improve his situation in life.  All he did was an attempt to outdo himself.  Whether taking action himself or against others.

A woman was on the other line.  He knew her number by heart, as she was often a help to Charles in many of his cases.  She knew him as well and so there were few preliminaries to go through until he could get the information he wanted.  “Okay Rwanda look up the name Ken Slambothi, spelt k-e-n s-l-a-m-b-o-t-h-i.” Rwanda was a woman who worked with access to account information of all the credit card holders in her company.  In all the major credit card companies in North America, Charles had contacts.  This was the first person he contacted.

“I have a Ken Slambothi under our company,” Rwanda said.  “Would you like to see his account information.”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Everything?”

Charles thought hard for a moment.  As an Inspector, he was able to do that.  “No, let’s say every purchase in the last year over a thousand.”

“Alright Mr. Wallingon.  Mr. Slambothi has spent over a thousand dollars on a laptop computer from Powerland Computers in Winnipeg in February, and then…Nothing until July where he bought plane tickets from Saskatoon to Churchill and then back again.”

“Churchill, you say?  Were there any other purchases there?”

“Yes, he rented a hotel room for forty-eight dollars in Churchill but other then that…”

“And what are his most recent purchases?”

“In the early morning he rented a hotel room in Winnipeg at the Holiday Inn, Airport West.”

“Thank you, Rwanda, you’ve been a great help.” Charles hung up and phoned the people at the airport in Dauphin to get his plane ready for him to fly.

He would have to take it to Winnipeg.

 

_____

 

Twenty minutes later, Ken sat at his hotel room.  Over the time since Weston had last phoned him, he had become increasingly edgy and nervous.  Now, he was more nervous then he had been in his life and sweat was trickling from his armpits down his sides.  There seemed to be something humorous in the situation: the last time he and Weston had met face to face, Weston had shot him.  But Ken didn’t laugh; he couldn’t. 

Weston Smiths had never seemed to be the kind of person who would be late, but he was.  It was twenty minutes since he called…where was he?  Ken walked towards the door to look out the peephole.

Instead of looking out of the hallway he was forced to look straight at the door because his face had been plastered to it from a hit from behind.  Ken’s back was thrown up against the closed bathroom door, so he could see the situation.  Weston Smiths was pushing him-showing amazing strength-standing infront of an open closet door. 

“What the hell-?” Ken asked absently.  Was it humanly possible for that man to have been hiding in the closet ever since Ken got there? 

Weston didn’t answer Ken in any way.  Instead, he pulled off the cop’s belt that Ken must have absently put on in his waiting containing his mace and gun among other protective things.  Weston threw it behind him into the closet. 

“Looks like you’re good at following orders,” Weston said.  “I’ve seen that since I told you to come to Calgary.  That’s good, I like that.  I also like that you’ve never called my crimes and me a game.  In every mystery book or movie one can ever read, there’s almost always something along the lines of ‘he’s turning it into a game.’ I don’t want to be called a game, Ken, I’m much more then that.  And yes, I’ll admit that what I did was crimes, maybe even ruthless murders for all I know.  But I’m not a ruthless man, Ken, nothing of the sort.  I’m no ghoul or madman or psychopath.  My murders were and will be about revenge and prospects and desires.  And remember my plan that I keep telling you about.  Do you understand that yet?”

Ken shook his head from side to side.  Weston’s hand moved up to Ken’s throat.

The killer continued.  “Well whatever.  There’s a reason to every one of my crimes.  It was hard to kill your friends and family, Ken.  Remember that.  But look at it this way: I had originally wanted and planned to kill you too.  Yeah, but then I thought since I’ll never be caught, I’ll need someone to remember my dreams, my plans, my ideas, my…Well you get the picture I’m sure.

“You will remember me, Ken.  You’ll remember that I don’t make mistakes.  You’ll remember that I’m brilliant, but not ruthless.  And that I don’t kill in cold blood but I kill for reasons.  And you’ll remember that my reasons are great.  I’m not a psycho, Ken.  But I have devoted my life to my country.  If it is necessary for the happiness of my country that should cease to live, I leave it to the Providence of my God. 

“I’ve prayed.  People have suffered at the hands of a government’s inactivity.  I maintain with dignity that I am not insane.  I will not be given up upon for reasons of insanity.  I’ve been in a mental hospital, but doctors certified that I was cured.  My visions, prophecies, and my missions do not signify insanity.  I have made a sacrifice; I ask for justice.  I ask for justice, Ken, for justice.” Weston stopped suddenly when his voice was on the rise.

It settled now.  “We’ll see your brilliance now, Ken.”

Ken started to feel weak.  His head felt like it was enlarging.  Weston’s hand, the one on Ken’s throat had been tightening during the end of his speech, cutting air off from Ken’s head-suffocation.  Weston seemed to know this for he dropped Ken from holding him against the wall.  He was gone a second and then returned to Ken with ropes in his hand.  He pushed him onto the floor and grasped his hands behind his back and tied them together.  And then Weston was dragging Ken further into the room, to the bed.  The rope already holding his hands together was now fastened to the rope.

With that done, Weston straightened up and looked at Ken’s body, which was lying limp at his feet, only starting to recover from the quick ordeal it had faced.  Weston said, “Yeah, we’ll see your brilliance now.” He stepped back and pulled something out of his coat and Ken was sure that this was the end of his life.  He watched as Weston’s hand came out of his coat and it held…a portable CD player.  The killer placed it on the table and plugged it into an electrical outlet. 

Weston stopped and turned towards Ken.  “We’ll see your brilliance now,” He repeated for a third time.  “You’re tied up now, quite well actually.  See you tomorrow, maybe, maybe at the…”

Weston reached down and hit a button and an acoustic guitar started playing.  He walked out of the room leaving Ken sitting on the floor his hands tied behind him.  About ten seconds later, Weston closed the door and a young man’s voice started to sing, “I work at the big star on old 405, I make six bucks an hour and I work steady nights…”

“You’re getting screwed kid,” Ken said as he started to work his hands tying him to the post back and forth…

 

 

 

XXI

 

DECEMBER 24 2001 2:07 A.M. WINNIPEG

 

Ken was finally freed from his restraints, the song that Weston had put on the CD player still endlessly playing. 

The major challenge had been freeing his hands from the bed.  Right from the beginning he knew that was what he must do.  And so he had continued working his arms back and forth, slowly wearing away the rope.  It wasn’t thick-thank God-but it was rope nonetheless and the bedpost had little friction to make the rope wear easily away.  He had also tried to wear it against one of the sharper poles that was right under the mattress, but that was a challenge to get to.  And so slowly but surely, growing more tired as time went by, he was able to wear one strand of rope at a time until finally the rope holding his hands to the bed was freed.  He was so exhausted he had fallen asleep moments later.

That sleep did not last very long, as his hands were still clasped together thus making him quite uncomfortable.  And so a maximum of ten minutes later he was crawling towards the closet where Weston had thrown his police-belt.  There should have been a small knife there with which he could cut the rest of himself free.  The knife was there not to attack but in case someone was in need of freeing from restraints; like Ken was now. 

The knife was there and he started to work away at the ropes.  That step was tricky as well.  He had to hold the knife so that the blade was towards him, meaning that if it happened to slip, the knife could go straight into his gut.  Another drawback of that position was that he could get very little strength into the cutting.  But that was the only option with his hands tied together, the only way to get out and so he slowly started to work at it.  This process was much shorter then the first step in releasing himself and he was soon free. 

Ken stopped, not knowing what to do right then.  He knew of nothing he wanted more and so he plopped down on the bed and slept, the song Weston had left still playing.

 

_____

 

DECEMBER 24 2001 7:36 A.M. GILBERT PLAINS

 

Ken soon awoke with a start.  The song was still playing, and Ken did not feel fully rested.  He had slept too long already, most likely, and so he needed to get to work on the clues that Weston had left for him.  He sat down at the table where the portable CD player still sat.  He had heard this song before on his long days in the police cruiser while he patrolled Gilbert Plains.  It was…a young Canadian named Adam Gregory, he was sure…the song called ‘Big Star’.  It was a stupid song he thought.  It was the singer (who was sixteen or so) telling a story about how he worked his life at a gas station.  He had a girl once but her father wouldn’t let her marry him and so he wrote songs.  Quite unrealistic.  So what would that have to do with Weston Smiths?

Couples.  The song was about couples and Weston had killed couples. 

“Great start Sherlock,” Ken said to himself.  “Now why would Weston send you to Winnipeg to tie you up and play a song about couples?  Broken up couples?” It still did not seem to have any significance.  All of the couples in Gilbert Plains-as well as in Calgary and Churchill-for that matter had been together.  The exception if there were one would be Ethan and Sandy Voukon who had been having marital problems..  So that didn’t seem to work.

Ken was frustrated, and he did not want to anger himself any more.  He stopped focussing on the song for a moment and stepped outside the hotel room.  The hotel provided free complementary newspapers to every room each morning.  He picked his up and took it inside.  He opened it up and flipped through the first couple sections. 

When he saw the headline of section D he had to stop and reread it.  It read ‘Cindy Lawson Concert Tonight.’ He read the first line of the article.  ‘Possibly the biggest star in popular dance music visits Winnipeg tonight.’ Big star.  If that wasn’t a clue then Ken didn’t know what was.

He thought for a moment.  Weston had always said he had had plans.  Big plans.  Could his big plans include murdering-or maybe you could call it assassinating-a famous singer?  That would make him famous for sure, if that was what he wanted. 

Ken had to stop it immediately.  He scanned the article just to find anything else that could be helpful.  The concert was at the Winnipeg Arena.  Cindy Lawson’s career was covered and then it talked about her rituals before concert-to be in the venue eleven hours before show time, no matter what, and spend nine of those hours secluded from everyone else in her dressing room.  Only two hours to show time would a few lucky press members and her manager, agent, band and whoever else would get to see her.  That would mean, since the concert started at seven, that she would be there at eight o’clock.  Less then twenty minutes.  If Ken hurried he could get to the arena by ten or twenty minutes after eight. 

He hurried, leaving the newspaper open to the article on Cindy Lawson as he left.

 

_____

 

Charles Wallingon walked into Ken’s hotel room on the fourth floor of the Holiday Inn hotel, seething with anger.  Still.  He had only gotten into the city forty minutes ago.  There was a delay in getting his plane ready in Dauphin-it wouldn’t start.  After a few minor mechanical adjustments, the plane was running and soon ready to fly.  Fly it did but when Charles reached Winnipeg about an hour later, he did not have clearance to land anywhere.  He had had to circle the city for seven hours before he was given clearance to land.  By then, other radar had picked him up and became suspicious of him, so much so that he had needed to radio down a number of codes and other information to prove the security of the plane and him, the driver.  Finally he had landed, parked the plane in storage and rushed down to the hotel. 

It was just before eight o’clock, now and he had gotten a key to the room from a woman at the front desk.  He had shown his police badge to influence her.  She was dumb enough to not ask to see a search warrant or even ask her manager.  Instead she just believed his story that he had tracked Ken here, that he and the rest of the police were suspicious of him and he needed to search his room.  The first and last parts of that story were true; he was suspicious of Ken and did (atleast in his mind) need to search the room.  The police had not been told of Charles’ suspicions of Ken yet but he thought if he got enough evidence to start real suspicions then he would bring it forward.  He supposed the R.C.M.P. would hear soon enough once they learnt that he was flying their plane to places he hadn’t been scheduled to.

And so Charles Wallingon was now standing just inside of the room, the closed door right behind him.  The first thing he saw was a pile of cut and severed ropes.  Ken could have been playing some kind of weird kinky-sex game with himself, he supposed.  Charles wanted no part of whatever he had used the ropes for even if there had been another person-a whore most likely-to play with him.  There was a knife there as well, but nothing else. 

Throughout the rest of the room there was little to speak of.  A suitcase full of only clothes Charles saw as he looked through it.  In the bathroom there was nothing of interest.  Even the complimentary toiletries-soap, shampoo and the like-were not touched. He may be sick-minded as well as unsanitary, Charles thought.

Charles thought about leaving it at that and just going back to Ottawa, but he was not going to let the past sleepless night be wasted.  He looked across the room again and saw the table.  There was an open newspaper on it, and a portable CD player.  He went to the table and looked down at the paper.  It was an article about that one diva everyone seemed to be talking about-Cindy Lawson.  There were sweaty, oily fingerprints on the paper.  “He must have been fantasising about this woman and it somehow involved a rope,” Charles said outloud.  His mind came up with many possibilities of what Ken was doing and he shuddered.  With the CD player, it made him believe, no, made him sure that Ken had something in mind for the singer. 

Charles fled after Ken to the Winnipeg Arena, only fifteen minutes behind him.

 

_____

 

DECEMBER 24 2001 8:33 A.M. WINNIPEG

 

Ken Slambothi was at the back gates of the Winnipeg Arena just out of heavy traffic, and security stopping him.  “I’m a cop,” Ken said, and flashed his badge quickly, just like he did when he was coming upon the mass murder scene in the same city.  He did look like a cop this time too.  He was wearing his police uniform and belt as well.

Go ahead,” The big beefy man said.  “Park beside that bus there and go about your business.” He said it as if he wanted to know what Ken’s business was.

Ken thought quickly and came up with a story.  “I’m looking into something with the murders…” He let the thought trail off, hoping the man wouldn’t pursue it.

“Still?  And here?” The man said.

“Yeah, and don’t make that public, alright?  Don’t even tell anyone.  No one’s really supposed to know, but since you’re security…” Ken let that trail off. 

“Sure thing sir, just go on and park beside that bus there.” Finally the man backed away and Ken drove up beside a big tour buss, no doubt that of Cindy Lawson for it had her picture on the side, and parked.  He walked into an entrance that appeared to be one everyone coming from and going into the building was using.  His heart was beating fast.  He was nervous.  Somewhere inside that old building that had once housed Ken’s most favorite hockey team was his nemesis.  He walked in.

There was little else to do, but start looking.

Ken had never been in the arena before but one could tell just from the name that it wasn’t very creative.  It was an old building, made out of lots of wood with no fanciness that you see in the more modern in cities that have more use for them. 

And so Ken started walking through the dreary-grey winding corridors looking for the Big Star’s dressing room, trying to remain unnoticed at the same time.

 

_____

 

Charles Wallingon used the same method as Ken to get into the backstage parking lot to the Winnipeg Arena.

“You too?” The security man asked.

Charles looked at the man, “Pardon me?”

“Well, another cop just came through here saying he was investigating the murders too.”

“Yes, well, we have reason to look here.  What’s your name?”

“Mario Nerima.”

“Okay Mario, you just don’t say anything about this, two cops being here.  It’s strictly police business at the moment.  Alright?”

“Sure thing sir, nothing to worry about.”

“Good.” Charles drove off.  He parked beside a truck that he immediately recognised from his time in Gilbert Plains as Ken Slambothi’s.  He smiled and pulled out his cell-phone.  He made a call to an assassin he often kept in contact with from North Dakota to take care of business that he either didn’t want to have to handle or didn’t have the time to.  This situation, killing this Mario Nerima fit both situations.  That done, he got out of his car and walked into the arena.

He immediately started looking out for Ken.  Keeping his eyes peeled for anything unusual seemed like a good plan.  With what Charles had seen, Ken looked to be quite the untrustworthy type.  He was sure that Ken was insane.  The likelihood that Ken had killed in Gilbert Plains was about a hundred percent-that situation was just like a book Charles had read many years ago about a crazy psychic who went around solving things, one of them a murderer in a small town.  There were likely chances that Ken had been the mass murderer in Winnipeg too.  For all Charles knew, he could be that killer out in Algant that he started hearing about that year.  Just a few days ago something big had happened there…

After I capture him, Charles thought as he walked the halls, I’m going to see if there were any unsolved murders in Saskatoon, Calgary and Churchill when Ken was there.  But small murders like that just weren’t enough for Ken Slambothi.  He thought of himself as above little nobodies.  He now planned to kill, although more like assassinate a big diva. 

That made Charles hurry all the more. 

 

_____

 

Ken was now in the depths of the Winnipeg Arena.  If he ever needed to run out of the building he was sure he would never be able to backtrack.  He had tried to remember each turn or curve he took but it was no longer possible. 

He turned a corner and suddenly stopped.  Standing on either side of a doorway were two big, buff bodyguards, surveying the hallway.  Ken peeked around the corner and saw a bright gold star on the door.  Two signals of that being the dressing room of the singer right now in the midst of her secluded ritual. 

Ken thought quickly.  He needed a diversion now, as fast as he could to get into the dressing room.  What could he do…what could he do?  Nothing came to mind except to just take out his gun and shoot it into the wall.  He peaked around the corner again.  The hallway looked to circle around, meaning that the dressing room the singer was in was square.  Which meant he could so back to the ‘intersection’ of hallways behind him, shoot up ahead and then dart around to the room from the opposite hallway he was in right now. 

Ken backed up and pulled out his gun. 

Just then, Charles Wallingon turned a corner to face Ken where he was planning to shoot.

 

_____

 

Charles Wallingon turned the corner and saw Ken Slambothi standing in a shooter’s stance, his gun out.  “This is Ken Slambothi and he’s crazy,” He yelled to anyone who could hear, although no one was around.  He started making a move towards the man.

 

_____

 

Ken panicked when Charles started yelling, and add that to the fact that he was already startled by the big cop’s presence, he was deep into panic-mode.

He shot the big cop in the chest.

 

_____

 

Charles fell down in a flash of pain and blood.  He may have cried out, and that with the gunshot, people came.

 

_____

 

Ken’s training as a cop took effect immediately and he continued his original plan.  He had made a shot.  He put the gun away and darted around the corner, taking the long way around to his destination.  People were running and to cover for his going the other way, Ken told them he was getting an ambulance.  His heart was pounding ever more so, so much that he was sure it would stop soon.  He had never shot anyone who was defenceless in his life until now.  But he had a mission to complete and that was to get into the diva’s dressing room. 

He got to it, the bodyguards now gone, and he used a credit card to unlock it.  Ken got in easily. 

He settled down, if only slightly, when he got inside to the peacefulness.  There was that Solitude music that’s always sold in clothing stores playing in the background.  It was quiet, silent.  Cindy Lawson lay on a bed-almost like a dentist’s chair-pale; dead.  Now his heart really did seem to stop.  His whole intentions had been to get here to stop Weston from killing the singer but he had failed.  In the least he had hoped to find Weston but the dressing room seemed to be empty, except a door to what looked like a shower-room was on one wall.  Ken saw it was a shower-room because the door was being opened and Weston Smiths was entering from it.

“I’ve been with her all the time she’s been left alone,” Weston said sombrely as looked down at the singer’s body.  He looked up to Ken and said more happily, “Frankly, she was kinda a bitch.  She deserved this.”

Ken was seething with anger but he couldn’t hold it in.  “She didn’t deserve this,” He said.  “No one would deserve this you monster, you psychopath, you…”

“Ken, settle down.” If the singer’s body wasn’t between them, Ken would have attacked Weston at that moment but since he would have to go around the body, he would loose the element of surprise.  “You’re brilliant, I’d say.” Weston continued.  “Not only did you get out of those restraints I left you in but you also figured out the song.  You’re not as brilliant as me, oh no, but you’re up there.  Now let me tell you about my day.

“I held her captive and explained my murders to her.  She was horrified, much like you’d be I’m sure, about all the detail I put into them.  But she was also mystified in a way too.  I helped her understand everything and she was actually amazed by my brilliance.  If you’d take the time to figure it out, Ken, you’d be amazed by my brilliance as well. 

“And once I was done with that, I toned down my killing methods by not using the noose or a knife, only strangling her with my hands.  I had gloves on of course; I don’t want to incriminate myself just yet.  Then I admired her body and her accomplishments, she is a work of art you know.  I did some art of my own too.  And then you came.” There was a pause and then the killer continued.  “I know what you’re thinking about me right now, Ken.  And I don’t hate you for it.  I’m tired already, tired of what I tried to do.  I’m done killing now.  I’m done crime.  My plan didn’t work, it didn’t succeed.  It failed.  I’m going to start a new life somewhere far away, now.  You should think about the same thing.  Or,” He paused for a long time.  “Will you make us fight for our freedom?  Only let one of us have it.”

There was no decision for Ken to make.

“Fight,” Ken yelled.  He reached across the body and grabbed Weston.  Showing strength he never knew he had, Ken pulled Weston overtop the singer, not with high velocity but pulled him all the same.  The killer flopped hard on the cement floor but was on his knees in a flash. From the floor, Weston tried to pound Ken’s groin but only succeeded in hitting his thigh.  The punch was hard nonetheless and Ken had to double back before he could make another offense.

In that time, Weston got to his feet and was in a fighting stance.  He threw a quick punch, which hit Ken in the face but still left them both standing.  He reached back again, looking for an even higher rate in his punch and threw it.  This time, Ken was ready and even though there was pain in his cheek, he stepped out of Weston’s attack and watched as the man’s momentum took him into the wall.  Ken grabbed the killer’s head and slammed it into the wall with all the strength he could muster, then again into the floor.  He stopped because his opponent was not making any moves.  Ken turned him over and saw a huge bruise forming on Weston’s forehead.  No blood, just a bruise.  However he was unconscious. 

Ken dropped him and looked at the singer’s body.  It was not in its peaceful position on the table but on the floor, probably knocked off when Ken picked up and thrown Weston.  There were two sheets of paper, one with five different-coloured intertwined rings, the other of a Christmas tree filled with decorations and presents sprawling under it, both drawn in pencil on plain white eight-and-a-half by eleven inch paper.  Something twinged in Ken’s mind, an idea, but he had to put it off momentarily.  There were voices outside the room, yelling about why the singer was left alone.  As the voices were debating whether to go in to check on her or not, Ken dragged Weston’s body into the adjoining shower room and closed the door.  As the door of the other room was barged open and people went crazy over Lawson’s death, Ken carried Weston outside the arena to his truck.  Somehow, he was able to do it.

 

_____

 

DECEMBER 24 2001 4:03 P.M. MINNEAPOLIS

 

With just a little less then an hour to closing time, Alicia Sumack, a mental-health nurse, was looking forward to the evening.  Since she was new on the staff of the Minneapolis Private Mental Health Hospital, she worked the shifts that no one else wanted to work.  Thankfully atleast, she did not have to work that night or the next day.  She had a date with her fiancé that night, and if she was lucky she would get lucky with him.  For the first time.  She felt it in the air.  She was a young blond twenty-five year old and had been waiting for the right man who had finally come along.

Alicia was walking through the large, rich grand hospital (she never could find enough words to describe the workplace that she loved) when a man slightly older then her walked in carrying an even older man in his arms.  She thought briefly this was some gay couple looking for a hotel, but saw that the one being carried was unconscious. 

“I’d like to sign this man in to your hospital,” The younger man said. 

Alicia smiled happily and said, “No problem, let me lead you to the checkin counter and they will take care of you there.”

 

_____

 

Now that Ken knew what Weston’s plans were, he was executing a plan of his own.  It seemed to be the best one he could do.  The lady led him to a small lobby area where a woman behind glass took care of them.  He deposited Weston on a chair and started signing out forms for the man.  He gave the woman behind the checkout a credit card number that Weston had had with him.  He hoped it would be enough. 

A man walked into the room and said, “Hello, I’m Doctor Michael Kelly.  Alicia called for me because you have a new patient?”

Ken shook the doctor’s hand and started backing away to where he had come.  He said, “Yeah, signed him up for full treatment.  Schizophrenic, he is.” Ken was out the door and walked quickly away from it.

“But that’s not my,” Michael Kelly yelled, but when he saw that the man was gone, he said more quietly, “field.  I’m criminally insane.” He turned to look to his patient.

He looked into the grinning, evil eyes of an awakening Weston Smiths and thought, maybe it is…

 

_____

 

Ken walked to his truck, calm, cool and relaxed.  His plan was through.  Now all that was left to do was get out of the place.  As he sat in his truck he thought about what he had just done. 

He checked the pictures one last to be sure he was right. 

He was. 

 

 Continued...

© 2002 Jeffrey M. Manchur