Secretary to a Serial
Killer
Robert Jeschonek
Carefully, I arrange the strips of bloody
flesh to form letters on the hardwood floor of the victim's home. It has to
be done just so, set up in a neat
semi-circle that spells out a single word:
Parasol.
Next come the fingers, severed at the
second knuckle. I place all ten of them
in the bronze bowl behind the word "Parasol" and squirt lighter fluid
on them.
Then, I light a match and toss it into
the bowl. Flames dance, lighting up the
rest of tonight's work for review.
Clumps of hair from other victims
encircle the bowl, alternating in color.
Beyond that, bones from a rib cage—some bleached, some painted black—are
laid out in two parallel rows. Next,
splotches of soft-boiled egg and little piles of cooked spaghetti that look
completely random—but aren't. Nothing
here is random.
Not even the way the dead man's 87 stab
wounds are situated on his body.
Everything has to be just so.
Suddenly, a camera flash goes off behind
me. I shiver, because I know he's
back there—my captor, my boss.
"Very nice, Lydia. I knew
I made the right choice when I hired you."
My name isn't Lydia, and he didn't hire
me, but none of that matters. "Merci,
Monsieur Le Grande." It also
doesn't matter that I don't know more than a few words of French. He insists
I speak it the best I can.
His footfalls are heavy as he steps up
beside me, blood-soaked butcher's apron and all, snapping more photos with his
phone. "You've done me proud, my
dear. I am truly blessed to have you on
staff."
My heart pounds so hard it hurts because
he could kill me at any second. Also
because of what he might see in those photos when he takes a close look.
"You're just what every great
artist needs," says Le Grande.
"An assistant. A fellow sick
mind by his side."
There's
a case of the psychopath calling the
kettle black. The disorder I've
got doesn't compare to his bloodlust.
Though it's true, I wouldn't be here
right now if not for my extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder—my OCD.
#
The whole way home through the West
Virginia moonlight, I can't stop thinking about tonight's photo shoot. The pictures
he took—the proof of my betrayal—are right there on his phone, waiting for him
to see.
All because I took a chance and broke
the rules, planting the subtlest of clues within his own twisted cypher in the hope
that someone out there will see what I did and understand. Someone who can help
me get free.
"We'll take a little downtime
tomorrow, yes?" Keeping one hand on
the wheel of the van, he pats my knee with the other. "We'll make breakfast,
take care of the
mail, and catch up on social media.
Sound good?"
"Oui, Monsieur Le Grande." By "taking care of
the mail," he
means sending the crime scene photos to the cops via some distant, random
mailbox...and by "social media," he means picking his next victim
online.
"We're allowed to have a little
downtime now and then, right?" Le Grande
chuckles. "A day off never killed
anyone, did it?"
"Non, Monsieur Le Grande." It's been a long time
since I last had a day
off. My life hasn't stopped being a
nightmare in the last three months.
Not since Le Grande showed up at my home
office in Wheeling and asked about hiring my company, OCD Diva, Inc., for some so-called
consulting work…then came back later that night, broke in, and hauled me away.
From that moment on, my new life began…my new
life of being the prisoner of a serial killer.
And being his crime scene decorator,
too. Who better than an OCD expert to
make sure his intricate masterpieces are perfectly presented for the police,
without a detail out of place?
And what better motivation than the
promise of death to keep that expert cooperating?
#
When we get home—to his house in the woods
outside Parkersburg—he puts me to work cleaning his implements. As always,
I'm repulsed...and also forced by
my OCD to scrub them like crazy.
The three bloody knives, I wash with
bleach-based cleanser in the laundry sink in the basement. I wear yellow rubber
gloves up to my elbows
and scrub every surface until my hands hurt.
The bone saw takes longer. So do some of the torture
implements, like
the pliers and razor wire. But I get it
done; I always do.
"Just printed out the photos from
tonight, Lydia." Le Grande swoops
downstairs with a handful of color prints.
"There's just one...problem."
Every drop of blood in my body turns to
ice.
"Here." He swings over beside me and holds up the prints. "I'll bet you thought I wouldn't catch
this, huh?"
He sees it. His eye for detail is too fanatically sharp. He
zeroed right in on the clues I so
carefully concealed.
"Look." He pulls out a scalpel and jabs the tip at
the top print in the stack. "It's
right there in plain sight."
Can he see me trembling? Can he smell the terror
in my heart as
death draws near?
My voice sounds faint when I finally
find it. "I was just...just trying
to..."
"I know exactly what you
were trying to do!" He shakes the scalpel
at my face.
Tears streaming down my cheeks, I brace
myself for the end.
Then, he plunges the scalpel at the
photo, sticking its point in the image of the bronze bowl with the charred remains
of the fingers smoldering within.
"You were trying to make me look
bad," snaps Le Grande.
"How dare you turn the bowl so the number of pentagrams
engraved on the rim is not equal on either side of the Eye of Horus as
it is centered over the word 'Parasol' on the floor?"
I draw in a deep breath, fighting to
steady myself. After all this, all my fear,
he was looking at something else the whole time.
"You have failed
me." He sneers.
"I apologize." I bow my head. "It will never happen again, Monsieur."
He stares at me for a long moment, and I
worry he may yet see through me. But
then he sighs, and his expression softens.
"You are only human,
yes?" He presses the prints into my
sweaty hands. "And we do
have PhotoChop on the laptop, hm?
Editing is possible."
"Yes...I mean oui."
"Then I suggest you get busy. We simply must have
these in the mail
to the gendarmerie first thing tomorrow."
I straighten the prints as he winks and strolls
away, slicing at the air with the scalpel.
My relief is almost more than I can bear.
Today, I live. I survive.
But tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow is another letter
of the alphabet
painstakingly mapped in minute variations of soft-boiled egg splotches
corresponding with Morse code.
One letter, one victim at a time,
purchased at terrible cost. Even then,
will anyone see it? Will anyone
understand the full message when it's done?
Will they come for me? All I can
do is pray for someone with as much OCD as I have to be on the receiving end.
And, God help me, for Le Grande to keep
the victims coming until I am done.
