He sips his drink and reads the police report again. He has forgotten what it had meant to mean something. So he just sits alone in his room just reading the file. Newspaper articles cover the walls, arrows pointing out meaningless connections between two, those connected to four and so on. He read the murderer’s description again as if he missed something th e past seven times he had read it; still trying to get a clue to who this masochist may be. “Black hair, hazel eyes, and a unique scar under his left eye,” he sighed realizing that every word was still there. No picture just the same old police description from thirty or so reports. The part that really made him cringe was how he killed his victims. First he’d cut off their lips leaving nothing but a bloody, screaming hole. Next he’d cut off their hands and feet, and nail them to the wall as if being crucified without a body. Finally he’d film them dying. All the police ever found were gruesome bodies with a tape sewn tightly to their chest.
He gets up from his desk and throws his body down on his raggedy couch. He lights a joint, takes a deep drag, and lets the smoke settle in his lungs. He could taste the cocaine laced in it. An advocate addict he knew he’d be out for a while from this so he let himself drift into nothing, into sleep.
A sharp light woke him with its razor edge slicing at his face. He turned and looked at his clock. 10:49 a.m. He awoke exactly when he wanted to; today he just happened to want to wake at 10:49. He had just enough time to down the last of his vodka before attempting to move more. He reached for a copy one of the police reports on his nightstand. He read it once more with hope that a grain of dust in between words had somehow formed a letter to change it all, but nothing.
With his vision still blurry he forced his body up and out of his bed to grab his little black and white, handheld television and found that there had been another murder over the night. Two victims this time; two girls somewhere in their mid twenties, left as gory as the others.
He picked up his badge and almost ran to his car. The drive to the police station seemed longer than usual. Maybe it was something in the air. He needed that police report; he needed to read those words just one more time. Maybe this time it would be different. He burst through the front doors and immediately yanked the papers out of the chiefs hands; ignoring his remarks as he rushed away. He found nothing in those already memorized paragraphs. Still, every word was still there. He watches the paper, almost in hopes that the ink will slide off the page like rain on a windshield, but they held their places. He set the page down on an eternal stack of papers next to his badge and gun.
He didn’t notice the drive back to his apartment, only the rain on his windshield. He pushed his door open slowly and crept into his living room. Stumbling recklessly he fumbled his way into his bathroom feeling sick from the disappointment. But he stopped mid way there shocked by the mirror he’d forgotten he’d hung on the bathroom wall. He hadn’t changed much in the past few years without seeing himself because he was so wrapped up in trying to figure out who the murderer was. His back hair had grown patches of gray due to the stress, his hazel eyes had faded from forgetting his life, but the scar he’d gotten as a child still glared back at him under is left eye…
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