Family Ties

Family Ties

Private Investigator Peter Mullgrove found the back door of the one-story house unlocked. He opened it silently and went in. The kitchen was empty and so was the adjacent study room. He quickly searched both rooms for any hints of abnormity.

Then he crossed the hallway into the living room, leaving the front door to his right. This room was empty, too. Again, in the hallway, he shot a nervous look at the door. Neither had there been a car in front, nor was there a garage to hide it. Yet he felt he had to move on, so he decided to check the doors at the end of the house.

But when he noticed a hatch in the ceiling in the middle of the hallway he impulsively grabbed the handle and pulled it down. An attic! Isn’t that where all the little and not-so-little secrets are stored away normally?

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In reaching the top step he felt a little bit disorientated because he couldn’t find a light switch. He ascended anyway.

As soon as his eyes had adjusted to the near-darkness he discovered that a small window at the rear of the attic allowed a little bit of the evening gloom to light up the room. The space was huge; he presumed that this attic covered the whole area of the house.

He had already ventured a few meters, preventing to step on or run into all of the furniture cramming up the place when he heard a silent squeak. Not quite able to discern whether if the noise had been made by him or if it had originated from the attic, he was immediately alarmed. He stopped, drew his gun and held his breath.

When nothing happened for a few minutes, he dared to move on. Suddenly there was another noise behind him, more close this time, like something cutting the air. He turned around quickly, but not in time to prevent the baseball bat coming down at his head in an elegant swing.

For the swiftness of the movement the impact was not as hard as expected but it knocked him out of his feet nevertheless. However, he did not black out immediately. He had time to study the ceiling and the bat, once again raised menacingly, before he fainted.

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When Peter Mullgrove awoke, he was lying on his side. There was more light in the attic now, apparently from an electrical source. As his vision started to clear, he saw a man kneeling in front of him. He was waving some kind of flacon in front of his nose which released a very unpleasant, chemical smell.

The investigator tried to move, found himself unable to do so. For a shockingly long moment he thought he was hurt badly but then realised he was just tied up tightly. His arms were bound behind his back at his wrists as well as at his elbows. His feet must have been bound and shackled together with his hands for he couldn’t stretch out his legs.

When the man in front of him saw his attempts to move he drew back the flacon and sat back in a yoga-posture. He was in his forties and in pretty good shape. He wore black trousers, a light blue shirt and a black jacket. From the description Peter Mullgrove had been given, he recognised him as Dean Faysome. The rather oval face, long but thin nose, brown eyes, prominent chin, dark brown and straight hair cut short.

No doubt about it, this was the owner of the house and the man he was looking for. Dean Faysome held Peter Mullgrove's investigator’s licence in one hand, the other lay in his lap, toying absently with Peter Mullgrove’s gun and aiming in his general direction.

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Peter Mullgrove let out a loud cry for help. His chances of being heard may not be high but he had to act before being silenced. Immediately his gun was pointed at his forehead and Dean Faysome told him to be quiet in an icy voice. He obeyed reluctantly. Dean Faysome withdrew the pistol slowly and rested his right arm on his legs again but he kept the weapon now focused.

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“So, Mr. Mullgrove, private investigator, what exactly are you doing in my house, wandering around with a drawn gun?”, Dean Faysome inquired.

“The police already know where I am, they will be here in no time.” Peter Mullgrove replied hastily.

“You are making no sense, why would the police be interested in you … or in me, to start with?”

“If you kill me, all of my collected evidence goes directly to the prosecuting attorney!”

“What evidence?” asked Dean Faysome, sounding a bit annoyed.

Peter replied accusingly, “Of the five murders - well, at least five that I know of - you committed in the last year.”

“So, I’m a serial killer or what?”

When Peter did not answer that semi-rhetorical question, Dean Faysome suggested, though made it sound like a command, “Why don’t you start your story at the beginning? Who hired you and what for?”

Peter Mullgrove thought that as long as they kept talking, he would stay alive. So he played along, feeling a little silly.

“Mr and Mrs Stetson called me after the brutal murder of their daughter Silvia.”

He watched Dean Faysome’s face expression carefully. It showed no sign of recognition or remorse or even pride. But what had he expected? These psychopaths were known for being emotionless, weren’t they?

He continued, “They had no faith in the police. However, at least the police made the connection to four other murders which had been committed in this area in the last year. Same pattern. Young girl being abducted without any trace. Next day, her body is found somewhere near her home. Every victim has been tied up, raped and finally bled to death from multiple knife wounds.”

He paused here while further studying Dean Faysome’s expression. Still no sign at all. He felt he had already talked too much and fell silent. They engaged in a staring contest.

Eventually Dean Faysome broke the silence. “So what makes you think I’m responsible for this?”

“First of all, you live in this city.”

“So do another ten thousand people.”

“You drive a SUV, so you can transport a corpse easily.”

“Same as before, I’m not exactly an exception here.”

“You’ve got a nice little house, a bit apart from others, with a little privacy when needed.”

“That’s all of your ‘evidence’ ?”

“And you obviously like tying people up!” he smiled, indicating his own bonds with a small tilt of his head.

That at last provoked a reaction in the man. His eyes grew to slits and he stared angrily at Peter Mullgrove. He stood and said furiously while pocketing Peter’s gun in the waistband at his back, “You’re an investigator? From what I’ve heard so far, there’s serious reason to doubt that. For all I know, you’re a presumptuous burglar with a phoney license.”

He tossed Peter’s license to the ground. Then he reached behind him and took a roll of tape off a case. He tore off a bit, told Peter Mullgrove, “hold your mouth shut for a while, will you?”, and placed the tape over his mouth.

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Dean Faysome descended the stairs and entered his study. He booted up the computer and searched the internet for Peter Mullgrove. Soon he found his homepage where the private investigator advertised his ‘special investigative services’. There was a photo, too. “So it’s him, all right”, Dean Faysome muttered.

The front door fell back in place and his son put his head in the room, greeted him, and vanished into the kitchen. Dean Faysome looked at his watch: 10 o’clock. He was a bit surprised that his son came home so early today. Being seventeen, he usually preferred to stay out longer. When Dean Faysome heard his son Brad taking something out of the fridge, presumably a beer, he sighed. It would be futile to forbid his son to drink beer or to force him to come home earlier. During the weeks when he had to fly to Europe on business from Monday to Friday, Brad could do whatever he pleased anyway.

“At least he is keeping the house clean, no wild parties or anything.”, Dean Faysome thought. The house! Suddenly he remembered he had left the hatch to the attic open and the ladder pulled down. No more noise from the kitchen. Shit. What if… he did not finish the thought and started out into the hallway. He caught a glimpse of his son going into his room at the end of the hallway and closing the door behind him.

He sighed with relief and returned to his computer. Dean Faysome surfed a few more minutes through Peter Mullgrove’s pages, then shut the computer down. He opened a drawer of his desk and put the gun in. Before returning to the attic, he passed by the kitchen and chose a small but sharp steak-knife.

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This time he drew up the ladder and closed the door to the attic behind him. The intruder lay where he had left him, with his back to him. Dean Faysome put the knife softly under Peter Mullgrove’s chin and said, “I’m going to remove the tape. Please stay quiet.” After he had done so, he stepped over the investigator and looked at him amused.

“So, brave hero of all our dreams, I’ve seen how you present yourself to the world. Looks like you think you’re some kind of Dick Tracy, aren’t you? But from where I’m looking at it, you don’t look so brave at all.” With a nod of his head he pointed at Peter Mullgrove’s crotch where a dark stain the size of a hand was visible. The investigator’s face turned red and he avoided Dean Faysome’s eyes.

Dean Faysome sat next to him and said, “Don’t be ashamed, this can happen to anyone. So, Mister Investigator, now tell me why you think it’s me you all are looking for. And don’t give me any of that ‘you drive a big car’-crap anymore.”

“The first victim, Ann Fletcher, was murdered over a year ago. It is known that serial killers often start with someone they know, then move on to strangers.” He waited for a response.

“So what about this schoolbook theory?”

“School, that’s it. Ann went to high-school with your son, they were in the same class.” He paused. When Dean Faysome didn’t react, the investigator continued, “I believe you knew her.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“I don’t think so.”

“Even if I knew her, which I didn’t, there are at least two hundred other people who knew her, I suppose. What makes me stand out of that?”

“I’ll tell you, but first untie the bonds that connect my hands to my feet, please. I can’t feel my legs anymore.”

Dean Faysome looked at him thoughtfully.

“I can’t go anywhere anyhow”, he insisted more confidently.

“All right.”

Dean Faysome stepped around him and cut the bond with his knife. Peter Mullgrove sighed relieved and stretched his legs.

He continued his accusations, “Then there has not been a murder like this for three months or so. But then it started again. The four others were all committed in a small region, one to two hours drive from here. Of course, I do not know of any victims in other states. You do a lot of travelling, there could be more that the police have not yet connected.”

“Yes I do travel a lot, I’m an executive in a big company, so what’d you expect? But that does not make me a murderer.” He stretched the last sentence, as if explaining it to a stubborn child.

“But it’s this thing about your tying-hobby that really got me on your track. And this is the one thing the police don’t know about.”
“Yet”, he added hastily. “As I said, if I don’t return home tonight…”

“Cut it out!”, Dean Faysome interrupted harshly. “What did you ‘find out’?”

“I thought that the killing-pattern was too rigid to come from nowhere. Most serial killers start up with smaller beings, for example animals, before going on to humans. So I concluded that it might be bondage-games you where toying around with before carrying out your first kill.”

“Mr. Marlowe, I’d rather you talked about an anonymous killer in your story and left me out of it!”

“As you wish. So I took a few nightly trips to our lovely downtown and interviewed some prostitutes there. Your name popped up when I asked for a customer who likes tying them up before fucking them.”

“You slimy little…” Dean Faysome jumped up and instead of finishing the sentence, with his left foot he kicked the investigator in his stomach. Peter Mullgrove let out a quiet cry of pain and grabbed for air.

Dean Faysome looked furiously down at him. “If they were so talkative they surely also told you that I never forced anyone of them to do anything that wasn’t previously agreed on!”

He wanted to continue but Peter Mullgrove had found his breath again and cut in, “As I said, these are two different stories. The ladies also told me that you have continued seeing them during the last year. It seems that this alone doesn’t do the trick anymore.”

As he saw that Dean Faysome was lifting his foot again, aiming for another kick, he continued quickly, “It’s also interesting that in killing you specialised in girls, while the prostitutes in contact with you are more, well, mature. What would Freud have to tell about this?”

He showed a weak grin, expecting the blow to hit him any time. But Dean Faysome’s foot remained suspended in mid-air while he got a distant look. Finally he sat it down, focused again on the investigator and muttered: “Shit.”

He took the tape, cut off a stripe with his knife, put the knife in the back-pocket of his trousers, stuck the stripe on Peter Mullgrove’s mouth and told him to stay were he was. Then he quickly opened the trap and let himself down the ladder. The investigator had not even had time to think what this was all about. This was not the reaction he had expected.

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Dean Faysome hurried across the hallway to the end of the corridor. To the last door on the right, his boy’s room. He opened it without knocking. It was empty. As he turned around and faced the hallway again his eye was caught by the door to his right. He opened it and began to climb down the stairs to the cellar.

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Peter Mullgrove drew up his legs and sat up. He expected Dean Faysome to be back in no time, most likely with his gun. Balancing on his bound feet he tried to stand up as quickly as possible. He was just about to decide how to move with this unstable position when he heard steps on the ladder, advancing rapidly. His best hope was to hide behind some furniture. Therefore he hopped in the direction of the nearest piece big enough to cover him, an old cupboard standing in the middle of the room.

Having his back to the trap, he turned his head around to see if Dean Faysome was already in the room. Discovering with relief that he still had a chance he faced forward again but not in time to alter the course of his last hop. When his feet touched the ground one foot landed on some debris lying there; he lost balance and fell.

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Two flight of stairs and Dean Faysome entered the huge cellar which undermined the house. He put on a light and shot a glance at the first room.

Nothing unusual here. He crossed it and moved on to the next one. He was looking for the door in the right corner. It led to a small room he had not entered for years. And it was secured with a padlock. Dean Faysome looked around nervously for any kind of lever to break the dammed thing open.

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Blocking out the pain in his knees and rips which had taken the fall Peter Mullgrove turned around. The face which emerged in the hatch had a strong resemblance to that of Dean Faysome but it was younger, fresher. It was oval, too, but the chin was far less prominent, the eyes were of an steel-blue and the hair was curled and of a lighter brown than his fathers’.

The boy whom the face belonged to would have made a nice overall expression if it were not for the sardonic smile and the pistol in his hand, which the investigator recognised as being his own. He advanced further into the room, letting the arm with the gun hang down. When he reached Peter Mullgrove he freed him of his gag.

“You’re Faysome’s son, right?”

The investigator did not give the boy time to answer his question and continued hastily, “You’ve got to release me. Your dad’s a serial killer and when he finds us up there, he’ll kill us both!”

“My dad?”, Brad laughed, “He couldn’t hurt a fly!”

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As soon as Dean Faysome had broken the lock and opened the door, the stench hit him hard. The light from behind him was not sufficient to light up the small room. He hesitated before switching on the light in this room. When he did it he saw what he had feared to find. The right wall was sprayed with dried blood. Four rings of metal were fixed to it. Remains of ropes where dangling from them, soaked with blood. Dean Faysome resisted the strong urge to vomit and turned rapidly to leave this chamber of horror.

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“Boy, I don’t think you understand…”

“No, it’s you who doesn’t understand anything here. You’re sure you are an investigator?” Brad interrupted sarcastically. “When I came home and saw my father studying a page of an P.I., I thought he suspected me and wanted to hire someone to find out. But when I returned later and recalled your homepage I knew that wasn’t the story. Even he would never hire a loser like you.”

Peter Mullgrove opened his mouth but couldn’t bring himself to find an adequate response.

“He left one drawer half open and look what I’ve found!”, he waved the gun in front of the investigator’s nose. “Very nice, this will be an interesting experience” and to Peter Mullgrove’s horror he pressed the muzzle of the gun at the investigator’s nasal bone.

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“Brad!”

Annoyed, the boy turned around and saw his father stepping out of the hatch.

“Stop right there!”, he commanded, stepped back and aimed the gun at him while trying to watch the investigator over his right shoulder.

“What the f…. you think you’re doing?”, Dean Faysome inquired breathless.

“I’m killing the son of a bitch who discovered my little secret.”, Brad replied calmly.

“Your little secret?”, his father spat out. “You’re insane!”

“I’m a little bit disappointed by your hypocrisy. I thought you of all people ought to understand me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you’ve got secrets of your own, don’t you?”

Dean Faysome hesitated, then he said dryly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, don’t tell me you don’t know that I know. That I’ve known for a long time.”

When his father didn’t reply Brad continued, “When I was five some night I walked right into it.” Still no response. “Mom had been out. I awoke after having a bad dream. I went into the bedroom. Where you were toying around with this whore. Having her tied up and all this. I went out, closed the door, went to bed again. Couldn’t sleep all night. Next morning I told mom. At first she comforted me, telling me that it had been nothing but another bad dream. But when I woke up the day after that she was gone. When she didn’t return I knew that this has been a nightmare all right, but a very real one.”

“My god, Brad, she has never told me it was you who…”

“You know what’s funny? I forgot all about this. Some shrink would probably say I repressed it because otherwise I’d felt guilty or crap like that. But I just didn’t think about it anymore till last year. The day Ann made a scene. When she told me she’d leave me it all popped up like a TV show. I was furious, I reached out and held her back and…”

“Stop it, I don’t want to hear about it!” his father shouted.

“I see. You’re the big dominator in bed but when it comes down to the real world you’re just a little coward.”

Dean Faysome’s head had turned red. His jaw locked and his hands clenched to fists. He advanced slowly two steps.

“Freeze!”, Brad cried out nervously. He took the gun in both hands and assumed a shooting stance. Then he suddenly heard a noise right behind him.

From the corner of his eye he saw that Peter Mullgrove tried to get up. He swung around and intended to shoot him when his father rammed him with his right shoulder in Brad’s left side.

At the same time Dean Faysome took hold of the boy’s arms and swung them up. They lost balance with the power of the impact and came down together next to the investigator. Brad let go of the gun with his left hand, freed it of his father’s grip and let his elbow come down hard on Dean’s jaw.

The pain took enough strength of his father’s arm to allow Brad to move his fixed arm with the gun slowly to face Dean again. His father struggled hard to resist but the boy’s aim was only fifteen centimetres from his head now. Suddenly Brad felt a sharp pain in his left side. Surprised, he looked down and saw his father’s right hand holding the hilt of a knife whose blade had to be in his body. As the pain grew stronger he blinked disbelievingly in his dad’s eyes and the pistol slipped out of his hand.

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Dean Faysome took off his jacket and put it around the stuck knife.

“Hold on to that so that the blood can’t flow as easily.”, he told his shocked son. “And don’t pull the knife out.”

Brad’s face had turned pale and he stared at his father who got up.

“I’ll be back in a minute.” He hurried away, ignoring Peter Mullgrove’s calls.

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When he returned, the blank expression of his son had not changed. Dean stroked Brad’s head gently and told him that the ambulance would arrive soon. He sat back next to his son and took over pressing his jacket to the wound from Brad’s weak hands.

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The ambulance men arrived and entered through the front door, which was open as they had been told. They hurried up the ladder to the attic where they knew to find the victim.

When they arrived at the scene they had to rely on Peter Mullgrove’s explanations though because Dean Faysome did not respond to any questions. He just sat back and let them do their work, watching them absently. Someone called the police but even as they arrived he had not come out of his trance.

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Three days later the investigator visited Dean Faysome in the neurological ward of the St. Dominicus hospital. He had been treated for his shock and watched closely for the last days. As it seemed that all his post-stress symptoms had subsided he had been told that he would be released soon. He informed Peter Mullgrove when asked about his well-being.

“And how’s your son?”

“He's been moved from the intensive care unit yesterday. He’ll be fine”, he paused. “At least until he’s well enough to be transferred to prison.”

“I’m so sorry about all of this”, Peter Mullgrove said remorsefully.

“What for? If anyone should be sorry, it’s me for nearly killing my son.”

“But it was in self-defense!”

“Obviously that’s also what the police think. They let me go. It’s not fair. I’m the one who should be imprisoned for ruining the life of Brad and that of the poor girls’.”

“That’s ridiculous! He’s the one responsible for his crimes, not you.”

“But I raised him to be a murderer. He’s not even eighteen yet! Not that that’ll prevent him from being tried like an adult.”
He added with a sigh of relief, “At least our state has abolished the death penalty years ago.”

“You shouldn’t punish yourself for it.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Peter Mullgrove hesitated. Then he started, “I’m thinking about changing profession.”

“Why?”

“After this… mess I began asking myself if I’m really that good at being a P.I. If I had at least checked your business trips I’d seen that all murders but the first one had been committed while you were out of town.” He paused, then went on, “By the way, thanks for not pressing charges for my trespassing.”

“Don’t mention it. And hey, I think your nose is quite good, after all. You figured out something the police haven’t, and you went off to the right house – just after the wrong man.”

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