Closure

There are times in life when justice has its day in the sun;  when inadvertent circumstances align to deliver a just end; when the unexplained and ironic converge to close an evil chapter.  This is one of those tales…   

The lunch crowd buzzed, and Robert once again found himself in the awkward situation of having to make small talk with his obnoxious co-workers.  Why do I keep doing this? he mused as he offered up obligatory laughter over a crass joke.  As the new guy at the tech firm, the need for acceptance was strong, but so too was the realization that he had nothing in common with these classless skirt chasers. 

“Hey Rob, I think our waitress likes you,” Mike from Sales chided him, slapping his cohorts in satisfaction. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Robert conceded.  “Hey, let’s get going guys.”

“Whoa, not before we read our fortune cookies, dude,” Dan from Finance announced, loud enough to make their server roll her eyes.

Oh yes, how could they forget the ritual of the fortune cookies?  After all, the sage advice and prophecy from these little treats had led Bob to discover Beth from Accounting, and pushed Seth to invest in a killer mutual fund.  The group outwardly ridiculed the fortunes, but the way they carried on about them long after lunch convinced Robert that they did believe in them at some level. 

“OK, let’s make this quick,” Robert sighed as he cracked open the cookie.

The roundtable of revelation produced the usual bland insight:  AN OLD POT IS BEST AROUND THE KITCHEN, YOU WILL ENCOUNTER A FORGOTTEN FRIEND, and YOU WILL GAIN ADMIRATION FROM YOUR FRIENDS were among the samplings.  But Robert didn’t hear the readings from his co-workers as he sat in silent shock, staring at the crumpled little paper in his hand:

A NEW KILL WILL GET YOU FAR

With his peers prodding him to share his fortune, Robert shook himself from his momentary paralysis and quickly shoved the slip in his pocket, announcing “It’s bullshit, let’s go.”

The walk back to the office seemed an eternity.  The towering buildings and hurried streets faded into a surreal backdrop as Robert contemplated the scrap of paper tucked in his pocket.  Trailing silently behind his lunch group, he pleaded with himself -- Not again, please not again.

Days turned into weeks, and changes in Robert were becoming obvious.  He refused to join others for lunch, showed up late for work, and looked more disheveled with each passing day.  Any attempts to ask him how he was doing were met with an indifferent look and a change of subject.  And now that his work was suffering, his boss, Tim, was forced to address the issue head on.  The meeting between the two started out calmly enough, but for those outside of the glass-walled conference room, it was clear to see the discussion was escalating into a volatile confrontation.  With a wild swing of the glass door, Robert was out of the conference room and bolting for his cubicle.  Papers flying across his desk, he snatched his jacket and keys and pushed through the mahogany doors to the elevator bank.  A stunned Tim could only shrug his shoulders at the sea of employees staring at him.

The sad little one-bedroom house was worlds away from the opulent buildings and offices of downtown, yet in reality, only five miles away.  Brown shutters hung crooked on their rusted hinges, trying desperately to be a quaint accent on a house that now had more chipped paint than good.  Weeds dominated a yard whose only landscaping consisted of a creepy garden gnome with a chipped nose.  This was the place Robert called home.  Nobody he worked with would have imagined it, since he always told them he lived in a townhouse near the marina.  Just one of the many stories he fabricated in order to fit in – a continuation of lies that permeated his life. 

He had done so well maintaining a facade of normalcy, and now with one little slip of paper, the demons were back.  Forgetting all about work, he spent the next two days fighting those demons.  Why was this happening?  I don’t want to do this anymore!  You can’t make me kill again! were the messages swirling in his fragile mind.  Calls from his office went unanswered, and his voicemail system eventually filled to capacity. 

Darkness fell on his third night of seclusion, and his madness was reaching its crescendo.  Rocking back and forth with his tortured head in his hands, he reached for the phone.  He punched the numbers that would eventually bring him peace – 9-1-1. 

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”

“I’m going to kill her, do you hear me, I’m going to kill her!”

“Sir, who is –“

“Do you understand what’s going to happen?  I’m going to kill her right now!”

Click.  Robert felt a sense of relief he hadn’t felt in fifteen years.  It would soon be over, he told himself.  All the lies, all the pretending, all the pressure to be perfect.  It would soon be over.  His eyes adjusting to the dark kitchen, he reached for the .38 pistol.  Far away the sirens could be heard.  Then again, he heard sirens all the time in this neighborhood.  For one lucid moment he thought about those sirens going to a domestic violence call, or a hold up at the liquor store.  But he knew they were meant for him.

Squad cars and police converged on and circled the broken down house at 323 Locust Street.  Robert staggered to his feet, his senses heightened like never before.  The pistol felt clean and smooth in this hand.  The smell of the neighbor’s barbeque wafted in, giving him a flashback to 4th of July block parties.  The flashing 12:00 beamed from the alarm clock radio he had won in a drawing at work, providing him a pathway to the sink. 

“Robert Mills, we have the house surrounded,” the sergeant began.  “Do we have phone contact yet?” he asked his partner.

But before phone contact or another bullhorn statement could be made, a single shot shattered the night air.  It was over.

The crime scene was still being worked when morning broke.  Detectives and forensic personnel scoured the house. 

“Seems pretty straight forward, huh detective?”

“Well, not really.  Get a load of these.” 

Stacked neatly in the corner of the bedroom were photo albums of newspaper clippings from 15 years earlier.  The headlines told the story:  LOCAL GIRL FOUND STRANGLED, KILLER STRIKES AGAIN – POLICE BAFFLED, THIRD TEEN FOUND NEAR QUARRY. 

“He never had a hostage.  Looks like he just wanted to die, be found out, and end it,” the sergeant said.

“Get Lucas on the line, tell him we’ve got some murder cases to close,” the detective added.

Back at the office word had spread that the new manager they thought they knew had ended his life.  With no known family members to contact, detectives reached out to acquaintances to piece the Robert Mills puzzle together.

“What can you tell us about Mr. Mills?” the detective asked Tim, who was packing Robert’s personal items in boxes.

“Not much.  He’s only been working here a short time.  He started acting odd a few weeks ago, but I’m not sure what triggered any of this,” Tim stated, the altercation with Robert still fresh in his mind.  “I met with him to let him know I was concerned about his performance, and he stormed out of here.  Didn’t hear from him again.”  Tim tossed an autographed baseball in the box and began to close it.

“Just one more question and we’ll be out of your hair.  We can’t seem to locate any family members, so do you know if he had any medical conditions?” the detective continued.

“None that I know of. Oh wait, hey Dan, what was that that Rob had?  Yeah, yeah, right.  He was a little dyslexic, that’s it.”

Grabbing the boxes of Robert’s office trinkets, neither Tim nor the detective noticed the little scrap of paper fluttering to the floor.

A NEW SKILL WILL GET YOU FAR