I’ve rambled on long enough. There’s a movie on soon I’d like to watch. I won’t tell you what it is, because you’ll laugh at me. Suffice it to say I’ll rewrite my own endings.

KOK. Over!

Wednesday, March 7

Mes amis,

They’ve got her!

The delay was my fault. I chose the site poorly. I didn’t realize that there was a short detour on the outside of town that rerouted incoming traffic to Route 41, dropping visitors to the city downtown instead. No matter. She is found now.

The outrage has made my blood simmer with a yearning I’ve never felt before. The fifth treasure is certainly affording me new experiences, and that’s what Elvis54 always says is the most important aspect of our careers.

I TiVo’d all three newscasts. (That second TiVo box certainly comes in handy—ha!) The investigation is in its beginning stages, but as you all know, this is my favorite moment, the second most exciting part of the process. Will they trace her back to me? NEVER! Long Live the Serial Maniac!

KOK. Over!

Monday, March 12

Mes Amis,

Just back from work and heard some very bad news. Smail466 has been taken.

It would behoove all of you to delve deep into your operating systems and remove his correspondence. I’ll be deleting any trace of him from this site immediately. I know it is difficult to do; Smail466 has been the harbinger of many excellent tips and stories since the inception of this blog. But it cannot be helped. He must be exorcised. Such a shame. That moniker, THE BUTCHER OF MONS, was just so lovely. I doubt the Belgian authorities ever realized the double entendre when they bestowed the name.

But let that be a lesson to all you newcomers. Smail466 made a tactical error and broke one of the RULES. He left that print behind in New York fifteen years ago. Always wear gloves, on your hands and on your pricks, mes amis. Why does something so simple become the downfall for so many of us?

Keep On Killin’, and be careful! Over!

KILLING CAROL ANN

Spinetingler Magazine Fall 2006; First Thrills: High-Octane Stories from the Hottest Thriller Authors, edited by Lee Child, Forge Books 2010

I’ve just killed Carol Ann. Sweet, innocent Carol Ann. Her blond hair flows down her back and trails in the spreading pool of blood. What have I done?

***

I’ve known Carol Ann for nearly my whole life. Every memory from my childhood is permeated by the blond angel who moved in across the street when I was five or so. Skipping up the street after the ice cream truck, getting lost in the shadows during a game of hide and seek, watching her sit in the window of her pink room, brushing that glorious hair. We were two peas in a pod, two sides of the same coin. Best friends forever. Forever just turned out to be an awful long time.

Our relationship started as benignly as you’d expect. I’d seen the moving truck leave, knew that a family had taken the Estes’ house. Mrs. Estes died, left her son with bills and a dozen cats. I missed the cats. I’d wondered about the family, then went back to my own world.

Carol Ann spied me sitting on our front step, twirling my fingers through the dandelions in the flowerbeds. Mama had sent me out to pluck the poor, insignificant weeds from the ground, worried they’d ruin her prized flowers. Mama’s flowerbeds were local legend. The best in three states. At least that’s what the members of the garden club said about them. Full to the brim with the heady blooms of gardenias, azaleas, jasmine, roses, sweet peas, hydrangea, daylilies, iris, rhododendrons, ferns, fertile clumps of monkey grass, a smattering of black-eyed Susans… the list went on and on. A green thumb, Mama had. She could make any flower grow and peak under her watchful gaze. All but me, that is. Her Lily.

I was crying about something that day, I don’t remember what. It was past 90 degrees, a sweltering summer afternoon. A shadow cast darkness across my right foot. The sudden shade caused a momentary cooling, so I looked up to see what had caused it. A strange girl stood on the sidewalk in front of the A-frame house I grew up in. A yellow haired goddess. When she spoke, I felt a rush of love.

“Hey girl,” she said. “Would you like to play?”

“Do I wanna play?” I answered, suddenly numb with fright. I’d never had a playmate before. Most folks’ kids steered clear of me. Mama’s garden club friends didn’t bring their spawn to visit with me while they played canasta under the billowing tent in the backyard. The nearest child my age was a bed-ridden boy who smelled funny and coughed constantly. Mama made me go over there once, but after I screamed as loud as I could and pulled his hair, she didn’t make me go back. There was no one else.

“Are you simple or something?” the girl asked.

“Simple?”

“Oh, never mind.” She turned her back and started away toward the river, skipping every third step. She wore a white dress with a pink ribbon tied in the back in a big bow—the kind I’d only ever wear on Easter, to go to church with Mama. Even from behind, she was perfect.

“Wait!”

My voice rang as true and strong as it ever had, deep as a church bell. She stopped, dead in her tracks, and turned to me slowly. Her eyes were wide, bluer than Mama’s china teapot. Then she smiled.

“Well. Who knew you’d sound like that? I’m Carol Ann. It’s nice to meet you.”

She strode to me, her hand raised. I’d never shaken hands with a girl my age before. It struck me as awfully romantic. She grasped my hand in hers.

“How do,” I mumbled.

“Now, is that any way to greet your dearest friend?” Her voice had a lilt to it, southern definitely, but something foreign too. She squeezed my hand a little harder, her little fingers pinching mine.

“That hurts. Stop it.” I tried to shake loose, but she was like a barnacle I’d seen on a Tappy’s boat once. Tappy took care of the rest of the yard for us. He wasn’t allowed to touch the flowerbeds, but someone had to mow and weed and prune. Mama could grow grass like nobody’s business too.

“Not until you do it right. My God, am I going to have to teach you manners as well as how to bathe?”

She wrinkled her nose at me and I realized how sweet she smelled. Just like Mama’s flowers. I was lost. I looked her straight in those china blue eyes, my dull brown irises meeting hers. I cleared my throat, but I didn’t smile.

“It’s nice to meet you as well.”

She dropped my hand then and laughed, a tinkling, musical sound like wind chimes on a breezy afternoon. She had me enthralled in a moment.

“Let’s go skip rocks in the river.”

“I’m not allowed. Mama says—”

“Oh, you’re one of those.” She dragged the last word out, gave it an extra syllable and emphasis.

“One of what?” My hackles rose. Two minutes and we were having our first fight. It should have been a warning. Instead it made my blood boil.

She smiled coyly. “A Mama’s girl.”

Back then, I thought it was an insult. I reached out to smack her one good, but she pranced away, closer to the river with each skip.

“Mama’s girl, Mama’s girl.” She sing-songed and danced and I followed, my chin set, incensed. Before I knew it, we were in front on the river, a whole block away from Mama’s house. I wasn’t allowed to go to the river. A boy drowned the summer past, no one I really knew, but all the grown-ups decided it wasn’t safe for us to play down there. This girl was new, she wouldn’t know any better. But if I told her that we couldn’t be here, she’d start that ridiculous chant again. I didn’t want to be a Mama’s Girl anymore.