Heart of a Killer

Hi Litsters,

The inspiration for this story struck me out of the blue. This is my second go at Erotic Horror and I hope it does far better than the first effort. As always, leave your votes and comments on the way out.

DISCLAIMER -- This story is in the Erotic Horror category for good reason. What happens ahead is dark, twisted and will probably leave you a little bit queasy.

Thanks to my editor, NaokoSmith, whose hints that I may have gone soft with my silly humour stories have forced me to produce this and prove her wrong. She does some seriously amazing work with my terrible raw drafts. Also thanks to my beta reader KatieTay.

"And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted -- nevermore! "

- The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe

* *

Agent Michael Kirkland stood unusually still. His grey eyes looked through the one-way pane of glass, minutely observing the man seated inside the interrogation room. Kirkland was one of the best profilers in the FBI, an expert at detecting emotions, mental states and facial expression.

The person inside the room was unnaturally calm. Far too calm for someone who was surely going to get the needle to the arm. He sat patting the table in a regular rhythm. His darting eyes looked around the room curiously, like those of a child in an amusement park.

Psychopaths rarely display deep emotion.

Kirkland stood still, thinking back to the events of the past several hours. The day had taken a heavy toll on him. This was the culmination of years of searching for an elusive killer. Finally, he had his man, but his victory was Pyrrhic. It was as empty as the killer's gaze. He had paid a steep price for chasing this man down.

"You sure you want to question him?" said the Assistant Director, his voice fraught with concern.

"Yes, sir."

There was a sigh and his superior spoke up again. He placed a comforting palm on his shoulder.

"Mike, I am truly sorry for your loss," he said gravely. "I'm not sure whether you should be in the same room as that man. You did your job. We have him in cuffs. Now go home and rest."

Kirkland stood still, not listening. His eyes were riveted on the glass, looking at the face of pure evil on the other side.

"My home is gone, sir," he said softly. "He took it from me."

"You caught one of the most infamous serial killers of all time. Take as many days off as you want," his boss said sympathetically.

"I intend to. Right after I finish this interrogation."

"If you insist," his superior sighed with resignation. Michael checked the case file and went inside. The video recorder and microphone were in place.

"You two," said the Assistant Director urgently, pointing at two junior agents. "Stand here and watch what happens. Make sure Agent Kirkland doesn't attack the suspect. Intervene the second anything goes wrong."

Given what Mike had been through, no one had any idea how he would keep his composure and conduct the interrogation. No one except Michael Kirkland himself.

* *

Kirkland entered the interrogation room with purpose in his stride and on his face. He knew how to dissociate personal issues from his work. This separation kept him sane. Profilers retire early. The inhuman things they see in their jobs leave lasting scars.

Not so for him. He internalized and moved on. His ability to do so was going to be severely tested today.

The man on the other side of the table watched him, grinning. Kirkland sat down opposite and focussed on his cold, blue eyes. For a monster, he looked surprisingly human. His brown hair was short and well combed. He looked nothing like a man capable of one murder, let alone so many.

Kirkland switched on the video recorder and opened his file. He was the consummate professional, suppressing his true desires. The man across the table chuckled.

"Bernard Hawthorne," Kirkland began his interrogation. "We hold you as a suspect in twenty seven murders over the past ten years. Would you like a lawyer?"

"No lawyers needed for our chat," Bernard smiled. "I've looked forward to meeting you, Agent Kirkland. You've been looking for me for a long time and here I am."

"Do you want to confess?"

"I do," he said with a genial smile. "But I'm disappointed you could only confirm twenty seven victims. It's an insult to me."

Kirkland reviewed the file.

"Missing persons reports filed in the states where you did your work around the same time indicate there could have been many more. Would you like to shed some light there? I could tell the DA to have your sentence commuted to life without parole if you say something helpful."

Bernard laughed heartily. It was a truly unsettling sight for the rookies watching on from outside, but the grizzled veteran, Kirkland, remained unruffled.

"After what I did to you, you still want to help me get a deal?" he chuckled. "You are a saint. No, I'd rather take the needle. It sounds like a fun way to go out."

Kirkland opened the file to a certain page and asked Bernard. "Tell me about your life. In your own words."

"I'm sure you know it as well as I do," was the reply. "Why don't you say it?"

He glanced at the camera and shot a wink at the lens. Kirkland took a deep breath and began.

"You were born in a small town in Delaware. Your father was a Reverend. His views were conservative to the point of fundamentalist. ER records show that he beat you frequently, causing fractures and internal bleeding. Once he shoved the Bible down your throat. Literally. Every little thing you did was a sin to him. He went on preaching tours for weeks at a time, leaving you alone with your mother. She was worse."

Kirkland paused to study any reaction from Bernard at the recollection of his traumatic childhood. He didn't get so much as a flicker.

"She invited men over and had sex with them on her marital bed. The sex was loud and you could hear it through the thin walls. It drove you crazy. She was committing the sin of infidelity and you had to hear it. You struggled to reconcile her actions with the firebrand Christian teachings your father burnt into your psyche. On all those nights, your mother took those strange men's penises in her mouth and then came to your bed to tuck you in and kiss you with the same lips. It made you feel dirty. You cried at night, but no one heard you."

Still no change in expression. Bernard listened to the familiar saga of his life with an unnerving calm.

"One day, your father returned unexpectedly and saw your mother in bed with another man. He shot them both in the bedroom itself. He made you watch, so you could learn about the sin of infidelity and its consequences. Then he beat you till you were unconscious and almost dead. He went to jail and you were put in a foster home in Wilmington. Your foster mother used you as a meal-ticket, keeping you locked in a room and beating you mercilessly when you cried. The next foster home was better. One day you came back early from school, you saw your mother with the neighbour. The memories and indoctrinations still burnt strong.

Bernard was shocked. Through a sliver of a gap in the wooden window pane, he saw his adopted mother on her knees, holding Mr Resnick's thick cock in her hand. She cupped his balls and wrapped her lips around the shaft. Her mouth moved back and forth, slurping at the turgid organ.

Mr Resnick closed his eyes and gave in to the pleasure. His fingers clutched her hair and he fucked her face at his leisure. After several minutes, she rose and playfully pushed him onto the couch. His erection pointed skywards. She straddled his hips and impaled herself on it. Her moans became louder as she bounced on his hardness. His hands were around her hips, supporting her.

Bernard felt sick. He got on his knees and felt his palms go cold. Blood pounded in his ears. Suddenly, he seemed to hear his father's voice berating him and his mother screaming in the throes of orgasm. Both sounds mixed and formed a terrifying track in his head. He clutched his hair, but the sounds continued in a repeating loop. They were growing louder by the second.

He stood up, resolute in his purpose. His father had shown him how to punish the sinners. He knew where his foster family kept the keys to their gun cupboard and he also knew the yard door could be opened silently. He felt a pang of regret, but it passed in the relentless swirl of words and screams spiralling around his head. Those voices would not release him until he fulfilled his task.

When the police found the bodies, Mr Resnick still had his penis inside the married woman. Both had been shot during intercourse and neither had seen it coming. One of the Dawson family's guns was missing and so was Bernard.

Kirkland stopped again and gauged the response from the other side of the table. Bernard seemed to be reminiscing on this memory and the rush of adrenaline it gave him. His first two murders.

"You entered New York under a false identity and became a bouncer at a nightclub. You had a deep hatred for married women who cheated on their husbands. You found them out, followed them to confirm their cheating for days, even weeks, at a time. You then kidnapped them and brought them back to an abandoned warehouse where you repeatedly raped them before finally killing them with multiple stabs. Every body was wrapped in a tarpaulin and left in an alley with a copy of the Bible beside them. You thought it was their repentance, didn't you?"

"Maybe," Bernard sighed. "You seem to have me all figured out then."

"Would I be talking to you if I did?"

Bernard smirked. He crossed his arms and leaned over the table.

"You went to great lengths to be completely anonymous, Bernard. You used disguises, dropped your bodies in the middle of the night and never used the same park twice. You made my job tough."

"That's why Uncle Sam pays you," Bernard drawled.

"What did you do in your free time?"

"My day job, bar hopping and trolling infidelity stories in the Loving Wives section of Literotica," Bernard shrugged. "My days were usually slow before I decided on a cheating broad to teach a lesson. The week after that was usually more interesting."

Kirkland diligently took notes.

"Can I ask a question or two now?"

Kirkland paused to consider it. DNA evidence had proven this man's guilt conclusively. Nothing he could say could save him. He nodded.

"What were you hoping to achieve with your TV appearance the other day?" Bernard asked.

"I was giving your profile to the general public," Kirkland said, swallowing his emotion.

"Really?" came the incensed reply. "You said I was an impotent loser who takes out his anger against women on unsuspecting housewives. You said I was probably cuckolded and now feel the need to project that anger on married women as surrogates for my wife."

"I knew it would get a reaction from you," Kirkland said. "You made your one mistake when you decided to get back at me for what I said. That was all I needed."

"And how did that work out for you?" sneered Bernard.

Kirkland looked down at the desk. He clenched his eyes shut and the spectral vision of the last night floated in front of his eyes. The body, the laughing man with maniacal smile, the blood... so much blood. His fists curled into balls.

Bernard sensed a weakness and pressed on.

"How did it feel when you saw what I did to your wife? Was I an impotent cuckold then?"

Holly Kirkland, married for ten years to the best profiler in the FBI, had died a slow and agonizingly painful death. Bernard Hawthorne proved beyond a shadow of a doubt he was not the weak, impotent cuckold Michael Kirkland made him out to be to the media.

"Tell me, Agent Kirkland, how did it feel?" Bernard pressed on. "How did it feel knowing you provoked me to kill your wife? I took my sweet time with her. She was begging for that last stab wound through the heart."

A lesser man would have lunged across the table and done serious damage. Agent Kirkland was made of stronger stuff. He calmly uncrossed his arms.

"I think I have all I need," he said quietly, turning off the camera and recorder. He began settling his files for the deposition while the junior agents went to inform the Assistant Director that the interview was over.

"The cameras aren't rolling anymore, Agent," said a smiling Bernard. "You can tell me how you feel now."

Kirkland put his files on his desk and looked into Bernard's eyes. There was a familiar coldness and lack of remorse. He wanted to torment Kirkland with that question.

But Kirkland had an answer. He sat down and began.

"This case took away everything I had," he started evenly. "I chased you for months on end. I spent most of the last few years in hotel rooms and police stations trying to make a connection between the murders. You took away my life. Last week, I returned home for the first time in six months and then I found out that you took away my marriage as well."

Michael Kirkland allowed his mind the luxury of drifting away. It was tired after being stretched to its limit for so long. This case had drained him of his reserves. Thankfully, there were no new bodies over the past month, meaning he could catch a small break before diving head-first into the mountain of surveillance tapes, phone records and net histories again. Somewhere in there, a lead which would point to a seriously disturbed killer lurked. All he needed were fresh eyes.

His car turned a couple of corners into Astoria. Even his weary face forced a smile when he thought about how Holly would be surprised when she saw him. The picture in his wallet did no justice to her shapely eyes and breathtaking smile. Each time he saw her, he found the courage to return to his job.

Kirkland's car drew up to his house, but something was amiss. There was an unknown car in his driveway. As good as Holly's job was as a copywriter, she could not afford the sleek Cadillac adorning the gravelled approach to the garage. He parked on the street and walked to the door, with an ominous feeling welling up within him. He unlocked the door with his own key. The ground floor and main living room were empty.

He walked up the stairs, feeling a rising trepidation with every stride. Every cell in his body warned him about what he would most likely see up ahead, but his foolish heart hoped on, fighting the rising feeling of dread welling up within him. Kirkland wiped the sweat off his forehead and loosened his tie. His hands were trembling on the railing. He stopped to compose himself and took a deep breath. The door to the bedroom was slightly ajar.

His eyes immediately travelled to the mirror on the wall opposite his bed. It was aligned so he could see it from outside. His jaw dropped when he saw his wife and an older man on his marital bed. Finally, the stark reality in front of his eyes forced his brain to snap out of denial.

Holly's legs were splayed apart and the mystery man's face was between them, lapping away at her pussy. Her head rested against the wall and her eyes were closed. The man's head moved to her inner thighs and back to her pussy, making her groan.

Kirkland felt his whole world upturned. In the blink of an eye, the ground gave way under him, leaving him staring at the abyss of his broken marriage. The one thing which kept him sane in the midst of the horrors of his work was someone else's now.

He looked at the mirror again, desperate to prove to himself it was a bad dream. He saw instead the visual of the older man positioning his thick erection against her orifice. Her outer lips were slick and glistened with the fluids of her arousal.

He looked away at the first stroke into her which elicited a guttural moan from his wife. Inconspicuously, he ghosted out of the house and back to his car. Kirkland needed to get away from his house as fast as possible.

The thoughts of the inevitable divorce were far removed from his mind. He felt betrayed. Anger built up within him like a cloud. He pressed his accelerator down and sped away to the waterfront in search of solitude. He closed his eyes and pictured the scene once more and something just gave way inside him. The last imaginary thread holding his sanity together snapped.

In that moment, he hatched a devious idea to get justice for his wounded pride. It was something which the old Michael Kirkland would never have imagined.

Michael Kirkland was dead for all practical purposes. What remained was something infinitely more dangerous.

Bernard gaped at his interrogator. Kirkland smiled as he finished his recollection. He leaned in closer to his wife's killer.

"I know how you think," he smiled. "So I knew that if I pushed you over the edge by humiliating you on live TV..."

"...I would kill your wife for revenge and be a sitting duck when the cops got there," completed Bernard softly, with a low chuckle. "Well played, Agent."

"Under different circumstances we would have been friends," said Kirkland, clutching his paperwork.

The Assistant Director and some junior agents entered the interrogation room just as Kirkland rose. His boss gave him a sympathetic smile and patted his shoulder.

"Take a nice long vacation, Mike," he said. "You really need it."

"I'll think on it."

* *

"Hey, this is Judy Lynch from ABC. How are you?"

"Fine," said Kirkland into his phone.

"I'm so sorry for what happened after the press conference," she replied hesitantly, "I can't help but feel it was my fault."

"There's no way you could have known what was going to happen," he sighed softly. "You were just doing your job."

There was silence over the line, then Judy spoke again.

"Agent Kirkland, I know this is a very inappropriate time to ask, but can we meet for dinner and talk? I want to take your mind off the inhuman tragedy you suffered."

"Dinner sounds nice," he said. "But the rest will have to wait until after Holly's funeral. It would feel wrong otherwise."

"I understand, Agent Kirkland. Holly was truly lucky to have such a devoted husband."

"She was," he said with a sickly half-smile playing on his lips as he shut the phone. "But she didn't know it."

* *