The Catcher in the Eye (America's Next Top Assistant Mystery Book 1) (4 page)

“The inner
elegance? Seriously?” As I was indulging myself in my favorite superficial memory,
Michael Archangel was laughing his as…I mean, his
head
off. “Kelly, why
do you keep hiding your cultivated elegance? I absolutely appreciate if you
show me some, if any.”

“I’m full of
elegance from the head to toe. If you can’t see that, it’s your problem. You
must be elegance-blind.” I retorted in a very unladylike manner.

“Switzerland is overrated.”

“Says a guy who’s
never been there.”

“Actually, I had to
spend several summers there when I was a kid.” He snorted.

Henderson, totally
blasé with our little feud, cast an expectant glance at my plate of barely touched
breakfast. “Are you finished?”

“Oh yes, I don’t
have much appetite this morning.” I said, contemplating about adding “
thanks
to both of you.
”

“That’s too bad. Do
you mind if I finish it up for you?”

“Not at all, help
yourself.”

“Thank you, Kelly.”

“Wait a minute, Henderson,”
Archangel blocked the feds agent’s fork reaching my plate with his knife.

“What the hell?”
Henderson raised one eyebrow.

“Don’t even think
you can have both pieces of eggs benedict. The one with prosciutto is so mine.”
Archangel declared.

“What a shame,
Archangel,” quietly replied Henderson, pushing Archangel’s knife away. “I also
happen to like the one with prosciutto very much.”

“Challenge me,”
Archangel said boldly. “All’s fair in love and war. And it’s a war.”

I watched them
open-mouthed as those supposedly grown-up men fought over the breakfast
leftover. So my employer was fond of my cooking even though he failed to see
the elegance in yours truly. I was flattered.  

“How about
splitting everything in halves and sharing with each other?” I chimed in.
Generally, these two men behaved like grownups, but I had read so many online
articles about mayhems that rooted in adults fighting over food. I’ve also read
somewhere that green has calming effects, so repainting the dining room green
from pink had actually crossed my mind. Still, I realized the obvious fact that
encouraging them to share took less time and effort than the re-painting job.

“Just like they
taught us to do back in kindergarten?” Henderson arched one eyebrow.

“I believe so.” I rolled
my eyes. I was having a hard time visualizing them in little smocks.

“Deal!”

After a moment’s
thought, they hooted in unison and did a high five. They happily started cutting
everything in two pieces.

I felt a familiar
throb in my temples. The day has just begun.

“That’s a murder, not an accident.
The victim’s wife did it.”

At the office, Michael
Archangel declared to the person at the other end of the phone.

I was sitting at my
desk, tête-à-tête with my employer’s long legs that went up to join the
derriere that was temporarily parked on top of my desk. I found myself
pretending that I wasn’t bothered at all to see his short skirt moving up and
down as he crossed and uncrossed the long legs.

I could have just shoved
his derriere off the desk just like Provenza did to Flynn in
The Closer
episodes,
or stood up to rearrange the bouquet of flowers in the vase that sat on the
coffee table needed no rearrangement (thanks to Jeremy the florist’s fab job,)
but I stayed. As an assistant, I couldn’t just push him away and meddle his
work, and to tell the truth, I was having a tad bit of a hard time ripping my
eyes off of his lower body. As much as I wanted to push him out of my sight, I
wanted to keep ogling at him. It’s pretty much complicated, but if you take a
moment to recall the last time you saw the movie trailer of
Fifty Shades of
Grey
, you’d grasp what I mean. Even if you had least interest in Mommy Porn
and all those kinky stuffs, you found yourself gaping at it anyway. Except that
I was looking at a giant transvestite, not naked Jamie Dornan. Anyway, he’s got
very nice legs—long, tanned, flawless with toned muscles in all the right
places.

“It’s impossible? ‘Coz
the wife, an astronaut, was in the outer space and giving a lecture about life
without gravity at the moment the explosion occurred? Uh-huh, so your point is
that the kids and teachers who attended the lecture are the witnesses to prove
her solid alibi. C’mon!
That
is the critical part of her little scheme;
committing a murder while having a solid alibi. Also, don’t forget that the
woman had made it clear that the hubby works in that fireworks factory to
create a special firework to welcome back herself. Check out her
communications; phone, emails, SNS, Craigslist, and her financial transactions.
You’ll find out that she had somehow arranged to call the victim’s cell at the
time of explosion; which was caused by a minor change in static electricity
when the phone rang, igniting a little portion of floating ammunition particle
and then
Kaboom!
That’s about it.”

Archangel told the
client (a captain of a European police force) on the other end of the line. Then
he stood up, handed me the telephone receiver to return it to the cradle on my
desk, and walked back to his desk in the far corner of the office. The office,
which originally was a large lounge room, featured floor to ceiling windows
that lead to the garden, and had plenty of sun, however Archangel’s desk occupied
the corner surrounded by two walls with floor to ceiling book shelves. Just
like a vampire avoiding the sun.  

An hour later, the
phone rang again. This time, the same client had called him to notify that his
deduction was correct. He greatly appreciated Archangel’s advice. That they had
found out the astronaut had indeed prearranged the phone call to the victim’s
cell at the exact time of explosion, by hiring a contract killer. And the
contract killer was a college student in Philippines. This diligent and
punctual student made that particular phone call believing she was just making
a wakeup call for some lazy guy in Europe.

I managed to
transfer the call to the phone on Archangel’s desk before he decided to walk
back and sit on top of my desk again. Due to the generous size of the room and
location of my desk, the distance between our desks far exceeded an arm’s
length. Other than that little inconvenience, I was pretty much satisfied with
my desk’s location in the office. It was by the doorway that led to the foyer,
which made each of my trip to the foyer shorter. As the assistant, I was the
one responsible for greeting the clients. Did I mention my employer had no
flowers in the foyer or the office before I started working here?

“Wow, that was
really quick,” I said, amazed.

“Good,” Archangel nodded
absently.

He didn’t look so
happy, or satisfied. I assumed it was because he had yet to nail whoever killed
two women by poking their eyes out.

Three days (nearing
four, it was 4PM) had passed since the second eyeless body was discovered. It
was a rare occasion for Archangel to take longer than a day to finger point at
the killer. Also, it was the first case of psychopathic serial killing since I
had started working for him.

So far, just about
everything about these cases was vague at best. The mode of killing (or M.O.—modus
operandi—I like to use jargons that helps me seem more professional, don’t you?)
was hazily determined as
multifactorial
; one of the victim’s name,
address, and occupation were yet to be identified; and the whereabouts of the
eyeballs taken out of the victims (while the victims were still alive and
breathing!) were unknown. Not to mention the killer didn’t leave much evidence.

“I think whoever
killed those poor women by strangulating, poking the eyeballs out, and
abandoned in the woods, is a monstrous animal.” I said.

“Oh yeah?” He
said. “I’m really skeptical about it.”

“Are you saying
such actions are not monstrous?”

“No, I’m not
saying that. The point is that animals are not necessarily monsters. First of
all, they do not hunt and kill the prey just for fun, they only kill when necessary.
Only the humankind is known to lie, deceive, steal, commit unnecessary killings
and inflict pain and sufferings for others, purely out of pleasure.”

“Thanks for a
soothing opinion toward the human race.” 

“My pleasure,” he said
matter-of-factly. Totally missing my sarcasm.

“Mr. Archangel,” I
said, “Do you think the other victim was involved in the same business as
Leonie Ganong?”

The victim we saw
at the morgue was identified as Leonie Ganong. She had lost her regular office
job during the recession, juggled four odd jobs for a while, and then she started
a new job as a burlesque dancer at a gentlemen’s club. According to her
colleagues, her attitude towards her new job was positive, maybe a tad bit too
positive. She started taking “clients” after her shifts to provide her “services”
for extra cash. She was heard saying she wanted to make the maximum profit out
of her current situation in order to enjoy an early retirement.

“It’s possible,”
Archangel said.

“That’s horrible.”

“It is. Falling victim
to violence is one of the major risks of working in that line of job. Not
everyone ends up like her, but it’s still risky. Another risk is being exposed
to a smorgasbord of infections including but not limited to sexually
transmitted diseases.” He shrugged. “Still, many people choose to engage
themselves in that profession and they do so on their own will.”

“That’s horrible,
cruel, and just… just so
unjust
.” I muttered. I knew that I was not
making much sense, but I couldn’t help it.

“I know. In general,
murders are everything you’ve just mentioned.”

“That’s sad.” I
muttered.

Suddenly, I got
this heavy, depressing feeling in the pit of my stomach. There were times I was
called a bitch, slut, whore, and prostitute. It happened as soon as I became a
not-so-happy-divorcee. Not that I was engaged in sex industry but back in the
UK, I was called a bloody bitch. Media, including all tabloids and national TV
networks were busy running hate-Kelly campaign. It didn’t take long until total
strangers to start openly dissing me on TV and in comment sections of news and
gossip websites. Seriously, that was a total disaster.

Recalling my past,
I realized that I was taking a series of brutal murders by this brutal killer whom
the media now calls
Eyeball Snatcher
more personal than other cases.

I now knew it was
only by a mere luck that I was working in law enforcement-ish field now. I just
couldn’t stop thinking about
what-if
s.
What if
Mom was ashamed of
the notoriety of her only child, rather than standing up for me?
What if
Archangel didn’t offer me my current job?

In addition,
what
if
I have ended up working in a dark, vulgar, dirty place that involves bed
sheets with suspicious stains, instead of Archangel’s deceptively stylish ivory
and beige office with expensive furniture?

Without a doubt, my
current lifestyle was a paradise compared to the depressing scenario that could
have happened to me.

I could have ended
up as one of
them—
a hard working girl desperate to get out of the unfortunate
situation.

Or worse, it could
have been me who was choked, deprived of sight, and left in the woods suffering
painful and slow death.

I thanked my
guardian angel and muttered a silent ‘Thank you’ to Archangel. I knew it was
better to voice my appreciation directly to him, however, he tended to take
advantage of it and come up with
extra
errands such as fetching his Halloween
costume from drycleaner’s when I went way too soft and fluffy.

“By the way, there’s
something that doesn’t make sense.”

Archangel’s words
grabbed me back to the real world.

“What’s that?” I
asked my employer, who was at his mahogany desk with leather upholstered swivel
chair.

“If you killed a
person and you want to get rid of the body so that you don’t get caught, what
would you do?”

“For your
information, killing is not my favorite pastime. Especially when it involves killing
humans.”

“It’s just a
hypothesis, what would you do?”

“Dump the body somewhere
people wouldn’t come and find, if I intend to get away from getting arrested, prosecuted
and such.” I replied. “Or else, I’d push the victim into an active volcanic
crater like Kilauea and let the hot lava do the job. Though this option is kind
of risky on the account that I might end up melting in the magma as the
victim.”

Then I added. “Oh,
suppose I was a real psychopath and I had no fear or remorse for doing just
about anything, then dumping the body into a fish farm would be just as good, I
guess. I’ve heard the eels are especially aggressive and they’d eat up
everything including the bones of moderate to large mammals. In that case, the
fishes would devour the body, which is the most important evidence of the
murder, then they would be sold and probably served at restaurants all over the
nation, or the world for the better, to be eaten by unsuspecting patrons. That
makes it even harder to track down the corpse.”

Open-mouthed, Michael
Archangel gave me a blank stare.

Then he shook his
head and said. “Sometimes, you scare the hell out of me, Kelly.”

“You know what, Mr.
Archangel, I was just talking hypothetically.”  

“Okay. Suppose you
see a lake at the site where you came to dump the body, which makes you more
comfortable, dumping the body on the ground with a quick cover with the leaves,
or sinking it into the water, at least temporarily?”

“Dump the body
into the water?” I said, not quite sure where we were headed for. “If I want to
conceal it, or get rid of it forever, that seems like a better idea.”

“Except the body
ripens, gas accumulates in the body cavities, and bloated body may be found
floating. Still, there are basses and gills in those lakes that would fasten
breaking down the corpse by eating. It’s worth the effort, like you have
mentioned previously, seeking help from aquatic nature may even conceal taking
away the eyeballs part. Not to mention in the water, it’s more likely that any
residual incriminating evidence sticking to the body dissolves into the water.
If you get lucky, the body might disappear for a long while.”

“Then, why didn’t
he dump the body into the water?” I grimaced as I said. With his words describing
the disgusting outcomes awaiting the abandoned bodies, I couldn’t help having
disturbing images in my mind.

“That’s the tricky
part. In general, killers try their best to conceal the corpse in an attempt to
get away with the crime.” Archangel crossed his arms.

“Maybe, with all
the damages he’s caused, he was confident that the victims won’t be identified.”
I suggested. “Maybe he was too tired to carry her to the lake and dump into the
water. Maybe he wasn’t a macho, strong kind of a man. Or maybe, he’s water
phobic.” I knew many people manifest irrational fear for many things that are
not particularly dangerous. My former employer Estella was phobic to sea
urchins, sea cucumbers, and sands, however she lived in a private island in the
Caribbean.

“Oh yeah, maybe
that may indicate a little something about the killer’s behavioral pattern.”

“Still, this
particular behavior of him with just leaving the body with an imperfect cover
and so on might have occurred just spontaneously, like out of the blue. In that
case, does this behavioral pattern thing apply?”

“Theoretically
speaking, the possibility is literally infinite. Then again, it’s hard for
anyone to change a person’s behavioral pattern so the killer should be moving
according to the behavioral pattern.” Archangel remarked. “By the way, Kelly,
why do you keep on referring the killer as a man, not a woman?”

“Because at least
one of the victims was in a profession that served to fulfill men’s sexual
fantasy. Doesn’t it imply that the killer is a man?”

“That’s shallow,
not to mention judgmental,” he snorted. “So far, no sperm or male cell was
found from the crime scene, the possibility of the killer being a woman cannot
be ruled out yet.”

“Hmm...” I
thought. “Then, it’s still possible that a man with an erectile dysfunction or
a transsexual who used to be a man but had a sexual adjustment surgery has committed
the murders.”