Taxed

    The brakes on the blue sedan squealed as it came to a stop on the damp street of an upscale neighborhood in Houston, Texas.  A slim stream of smoke wafted out the cracked driver's side window as the man behind the wheel puffed on his cigarette.  He had driven by here several times over the last few months with a head full of ideas, but had yet to stop; the timing hadn't been right; now it was.
    David Haywood had been a big time Tax Attorney for a large Real Estate Company for over 15 years.  Over the course of those years he had laundered and stashed some rather large sums of money for both himself and the less than honest owners.  To show their gratitude the owners treated David very well and paid him even better for his discreet and flawless services, but things had begun changing around the office some months back. 
    It was time for the third-quarter taxes to be filed and the owners had demanded that he increase the amount of money that he had been hiding.  David knew that the owners were getting too ballsy and overly confident in both themselves and him, and that was never good.  David knew that he was good, but nobody was that good and the last thing that any of them could afford was for the good old IRS to catch wind of their extracurricular activities and send them all to one of those wonderful little hide-a-ways called Federal Prison.
    A person could only hide so much money before the government caught on and ended all the fun.  He knew that even a one percent increase in the amount of funds that he was moving around were to be implemented all kinds of red flags would go up with bells and whistles attached and a bright red blinking sign over his head that said “GUILTY”, and his life would be ruined.  David tried to explain this to the owners, but their greed blinded them and they insisted that he do what he was told  or they would replace him and expose him in a manner that made it appear as though he were stealing from both them and their clients.  This was not something that he was willing to risk, however, he didn’t feel as though he could risk cooperating with them either.  He had a family to think about.  Not only did they rely on him as their sole support, his daughter looked up to him and an arrest would devastate the way that she viewed him.  To him, this was a fate worse than death.
As he clutched the steering wheel in his hands a single drop of sweat fell from the tip of his nose and splashed on the chrome blade of the knife that lay in his lap.  He had to silence the owners and give himself a way out of this precarious situation.  He knew that with today’s Forensic Technology he ran a serious risk of being tagged for murder, so he had spent every free moment that he had over the last few months planning this evening’s events thoroughly.
    He had planned on creating the most gruesome murder scene the country had ever seen.  He wasn’t stupid, he knew that if he were to be arrested his family would be able to survive in the manner that they were used to on the rights to his story alone.  The blood lust of the general public was something that could always be counted on.  People were naturally drawn to the darker side of things, whether they wanted to admit it or not.  Nervously, he put the glowing cigarette that had been smoldering between his gloved fingers between his lips for a final drag.  As he sucked the smoke from its filter he glanced over at the glowing green number on the digital screen of the radio, 11:15, it was time to go.
    David stepped out of his car, carefully pocketing the cigarette butt so as to not leave any DNA behind anywhere near here, and then he ran across the street and hopped the fence into the owner’s backyard.  From there he kicked in the glass French doors that led to their fancy assed patio and went to work…
    At around 12:30AM a middle aged man had been out walking his wife’s annoying poodle when he saw a man dressed in black and wearing a mask coming running out the front door of one of the houses, leaving the door open and jumping into a blue two door sedan and speeding away.  This set off all kinds of alarms in the man’s head and he went rushing over to the house.  He stepped up to the front door and looked around as he called out.
    “Is everyone okay?  Is any body home?”  He cried out, but received no reply.
    He continued looking around and didn’t notice anything that seemed to be out of place until he looked down to step up into the house.  It was then that he saw the bloody foot prints leading from deep inside the home and traveling out the front door.  The man had long forgotten about the dog and let loose its leash when he approached the house.  He snatched his cellular phone from his pocket and dialed 911.  He gave the information to the dispatcher as he walked slowly into the house, in spite of the dispatcher’s warnings to stay away from the house and wait for the police.  The gentleman told himself that he was doing this to see that everyone was alright, but deep in his gut he knew that they weren’t.  A person doesn’t leave a house in that manner, leaving bloody footprints in their wake and everything be okay.
He entered using tactics that he had seen on police shows and the like, being careful to try not to disturb the crime scene or alert anyone to the fact that he had gone inside as opposed to leaving.  He cautiously peered around corners, looking for anyone that maybe lurking as he followed the bloody footprints into the house.  The footprints continued towards the dining room area, off in the back right corner of the house.  As he drew closer to that room he could light.  He made sure that he stayed quiet as he crept into the room and what he found shook him to the core.  He forgot all about trying not to disturb anything and went running from the house, slipping on one of the bloody footprints as he ran.
    As he ran from the house he heard sirens nearing and as he collapsed on the front lawn a brown four door Crown Victoria pulled into the driveway and two men with weapons drawn jumped out hollering at him to lye flat and not to move.  Before he knew what exactly was happening he was being slapped into handcuffs and drug off to the backseat of an awaiting police car.
    A uniformed officer questioned him as several other cars arrived at the scene, and before long he was released and allowed to return home.  As he was walking away a black Crown Victoria arrived with a single red strobe light flashing on its dashboard.  From inside a grey haired man wearing a hideous blue suit stepped out.  The man’s name was Detective James Kendall, one of the most experienced Homicide Detectives in Texas.  He had solved over three-hundred cases during his twenty-two year career and he had seen things that would have turned the average man into a sniveling ball of snot, but nothing could prepare him for what lay inside the house.
    The street in front of the house was in a state of frenzied commotion as news vans descended and uniformed officers attempted to coral the news crews as well as cordon off the area around the house so that none of the evidence could be disturbed.  The blinding strobes from the flash cameras and the spot lights from the video cameras made it extremely difficult for the young officers guarding the perimeter to see who was approaching them, so they did as they had been told and challenged the man as he drew closer.
    “Stop right there Sir, this is a crime scene.”  One of them demanded.
    “No shit junior!”  Answered the Detective as he flashed his badge.  “I’m Detective Kendall, care to get the hell out of my way?”
    “Sorry Sir, I didn’t recognize you with all of these lights in my eyes.  Everyone is in the back of the house.”
    “Everyone?  How many people are in there son?”
    I’m not sure exactly, Sir.”  The young Officer’s voice was a little shaky.  “There are a few photographers, the Forensic crew and a couple of uniforms.”
Irritated at the stupidity of these officers Kendall barked his final orders.  “Fine, but no one and I do mean no one is to get past you without my permission.  Do you understand me?”
    “Yes Sir, not a problem.”
    Detective Kendall ducked under the yellow “Crime Scene” tape and walked into the house.  He could hear the commotion of the other officers in the back, so he followed their voices as he looked around, taking mental notes of everything that he saw.  When he entered the dining room he saw a blood spotted sheet draped over a body that was on the table.  On the floor next to the table was a fairly large kitchen knife that had blood smears on it and they were still wet from what he could see and at different points around the table were small puddles of blood that had formed from the blood draining from the body under the sheet.
    A Police Photographer by the name of J. D. snapped off a few shots of the area and then turned to Detective Kendall.
    “What’s going on James?  Looks like you’re gonna have your hands full with this one, I’ve never seen anything like it; damn near made me loose my dinner.”
    “What do you mean?  Granted, I just got here, but it looks pretty normal to me.”
    “Yeah, well, you haven’t seen the other body yet, he’s in the laundry room.”
Kendall wasn’t in a hurry to get to that second body.  He had learned early on in his career that you must slowly and deliberately work your way through a scene and then repeat those same steps on your way out, that way you have double checked yourself and been as thorough as humanly possible.
    He walked over to the first body, being careful not to disturb the puddles of blood on the floor.  Nothing seemed to be disturbed in the room, save for the body on the table everything appeared organized with no signs of struggle.  After taking a few notes about the room he lifted the sheet with the help of one of the Forensic kids and began inspecting the body. 
    There were numerous stab wounds to the chest and right arm, the hands had a few puncture wounds that appeared to be defensive lending to the fact that there had been at least some form of a struggle.  The victim had her hands up while she was being attacked in an attempt to block the knife.  The woman had been eviscerated, her stomach slit from left to right, allowing her innards to pour out of her abdomen and slip down to the table top.  A one-hundred dollar bill had been inserted into this massive wound about three inches.  The body had been displayed on the table, meaning that who ever killed her placed her on the table.  Her clothes had been removed and the body positioned spread eagle in a manner that suggested a sexual sadist showing their superiority over the opposite sex.  Contradicting this was the fact that the woman’s arms had been crossed over her bare breasts, hiding them and a wash cloth had been draped over her genitals.
    This immediately placed Kendall in the mind set of a staged scene.  He already knew that this was the killer’s first and that they had placed a lot of effort into making it look differently and to the untrained eye it would have.
    From here the Detective moved onto the knife that was on the floor.  It was pointing in the direction of the laundry room.  Given that there weren’t any dents or scratches on the floor around it Kendall could only assume that it had been placed intentionally, meaning that the killer wanted the second body to be found.  More remorse by the killer?  Cockiness?  Why would this be done?  Kendall stood and pondered this for a moment, and then he clicked.  The killer wasn’t trying to hide or brag about any part of the crime.  The killer was trying to throw cops off, mislead them and force themselves out of the pool of possible suspects.
    “Smart little Bastard.”  Kendall said aloud.
    Kendall walked through the kitchen and examined the two knife racks that sat on the counter.  Neither of them was missing a knife and there weren’t any strays in the drawers that matched it.  He expected as much since the knife was a very nice piece of cutlery.  It wasn’t the type of knife that would be tossed into a drawer, this knife had a proud owner that liked quality and had the money to afford it.  It came from some where outside the home, the killer brought it in and left it on purpose.
    Kendall left the kitchen and walked into the laundry room.  This is where things stopped adding up and took a turn towards irregular.  This is where he found the body of the slain woman’s husband.  There was a large amount of blood on the floor.  The white washer and dryer were smeared with blood and the spatter on the wall told him that this man was killed in this room.  The smell that filled the room turned even his veteran stomach.  He clapped his arm over his nose and mouth and gave himself a moment to adjust to the foul odor. 
    In the blood pool before him was the dismembered torso of a man.  The arms and legs had been severed along with the head and placed into both the washer and the dryer.  The limbs hadn’t been tossed in randomly though, they had been carefully selected and placed in the washer and washed, then moved to the dryer and dried on high heat, causing the blood to dry and the skin to bake, destroying any forensic evidence that might have been left behind.  This is also what caused the foul odor.  This was puzzling all by itself.  Why would a killer that took so much care covering up his female victim be so brutal to the man, unless it was personal?  That was it, this wasn’t a random attack of opportunity, it was planned.
    Kendall left the laundry room and went outside to smoke and think.  There were several reasons that a killer might do this.  The most likely of which was his first instinct, and that was that it had been done to throw the cops off their trail.  Unfortunately for the killer this rarely worked for more than a few minutes or hours.  Forensic science and profiling had come so far that it was becoming almost impossible to fool the police for long.  Something was always left behind that pointed them in the right direction.  It was at this point that Detective Kendall jotted down a series of notes into his little note pad that had been in his breast pocket since he could remember.  He turned around and told the Coroners that they could go in and clean up once the Forensic team and the Photographers were done, and then he returned to his car and returned to the office to mull over everything that he had seen. 
    In order to solve a case like this he had to get into the lives of the victim, think like them, talk like them, at least in his mind, see what it was like to be them on a daily basis.  In order to do this he went to their business and sat in their offices, looked through their drawers and files.  He mulled over bank statements and diaries.  He spoke with employees and clients alike.  This crime had been committed by someone that knew the victims well, and it had personal written all over it.  He didn’t see anything in the house that indicated a burglary and it sure wasn’t the type of murder that went along with that type of crime.  There was something deeper here, and he was going to find it, he just might have to dig a little to find it.
    Within a week Detective Kendall had all of the forensic results back, the photos and a list of employees and other friends and business associates of the victims.  He began working his way down the list, interviewing everyone and after all was said and done everything pointed at a young man named David Haywood, a prominent tax attorney.  Kendall learned that he had been having numerous meeting with the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Croslow, over the past few months and that many of those meeting were very heated.  That afternoon Kendall decided to go to Mr. Haywood’s home.  He needed to speak with this guy; he was the only piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit.
    Kendall expected that either Haywood wouldn’t be there or that he would be reluctant to speak with him, but when he knocked on Haywood’s door that theory was blown completely out of the water.  Mr. Haywood jumped at the opportunity to give his statement.
    Haywood started into this whole song and dance of how the owners were dirty.  How they had taken advantage of their clients and ripped them off for thousands of dollars at a time and how his problems with the owners began on the day that Mr. Croslow had approached him and asked him to launder some money for them.  He told the Detective that he had refused to help them and had threatened to turn in his resignation as well as report them.  As he told Detective Kendall all of this he handed him a copy of his resignation letter, dated four days prior to the murders.
    “Well, I assume that you have been keeping up with the media coverage regarding the killings.”  Asked Detective Kendall.
    “Yes, of course.  This is a terrible tragedy and I would love to see the bastard that did it hang!”
    “Well, then you know what evidence was found at the scene and that we are completely out of leads.  If you could help us out in any way, we would really appreciate it.”
    “Well, I would love to, but I am not sure that I can be of any more help.  I have told you everything that I know.”
    “Okay, we do have one final lead that we need to follow up on, but it is most likely going to be a dead end as well.  Unfortunately we may never find out who did this.”
    “That would be a shame.  Some body out there knows what happened.”  Haywood responded, shaking his head.  “What lead do you still have to follow up on?”
    “Well, it’s the murder weapon.”
    “The knife”
    “Yes, the knife.  It might be the only break that we get in this thing.”
    “That has to be rough.  Did you ever find the set that it went with?” Haywood asked cautiously.
    “What do you mean?”  answered Kendall.
    “Well, according to the news it didn’t match anything found in the house.”
    “No, not yet, but we are still looking.  The only problem is that there were thousands of those knives made an trying to trace a single one is quite impossible.”
    “Well, I am sorry that I couldn’t have been of more help.  Good luck with the case and if I can do anything more, please, don’t hesitate to ask.”
    “Thanks Mr. Haywood.  You can count on it.”  With that, the interview was over and Kendall left Haywood’s house.
    Kendall had Haywood right where he wanted him.  He knew that there was no mention of the knife in the news because the police had never released information on what type of murder weapon was used.  That was all that Kendall needed to gain a search warrant and arrest Haywood on a double murder charge.  As many guilty individuals do, Haywood injected himself into the investigation as soon as the opportunity arose, and I doing so gave up the one piece of information that the police needed to implicate him.
    Kendall had a signed warrant by the close of business that day and the following morning he and a small group of officers were knocking on Haywood’s door again, only this time for a different reason.  They took David Haywood into custody and searched his home from top to bottom.  In the kitchen they found the matching set of knives and there was one missing.  In the closet of one of the guest bedrooms in a box a little larger than a shoe box they found the clothes that he wore on the night of the murders and they were covered in dried blood.  The only thing that didn’t add up was the old blue sedan that he ha been driving the night of the murders.
    Mr. Haywood’s alibi was that on the night of the murders he had been at a friend’s house playing poker and that he was being set up.  The police went to check his story and upon arriving at his friend’s house they found the sedan sitting in the driveway.
    A few weeks later David Haywood was indicted by the Grand Jury and officially charged with Capital Murder and Money Laundering.  During his trial he never even tried to use an insanity plea.  This was also part of his plan.  He knew that a plea such as that would ruin his chances of selling his story or writing it himself and allowing his family to draw the royalties of it.
    David pled guilty and after a short trial he was sentenced death by lethal injection.  While he sat in prison on Death Row he sold his story to a young author trying to break into the business.  He sold himself for exclusive interviews and even got the royalties for a made for T.V. movie that set his family up for the rest of their grandchildren’s lives.
    David had gotten himself into serious trouble.  He learned quickly that his job could be gone in the blink of an eye and that he couldn’t count on his friends for anything, but just as he predicted the blood lust of the people of the world was the one constant that could be counted on.  People and their morbid curiosity would always be there to take care of idiots like him and their families.