The Crucifix Killer - Chris Carter [141]
Hunter kept silent, his eyes following her as she slowly paced around the room.
‘It didn’t end there.’ Brenda’s voice was now dark and somber. ‘Thirty-five years, Robert. My parents had been married for thirty-five years. After losing his son and his wife in such a short space of time, my father started to succumb to a never-ending sadness.’
Hunter already guessed the end to this story.
‘Twenty-two days after burying my mother. After the real killer was finally caught, his depression got the best of him and my father followed my brother’s way out. I was alone . . . again.’ The anger in her was almost palpable.
‘So you decided to take your revenge on the jury,’ Hunter said, his voice still weak.
‘You finally figured it out,’ she replied calmly. ‘It took you long enough. Maybe the great Robert Hunter isn’t so great after all.’
‘But you didn’t go after the jurors themselves. You killed someone close to them. Someone they loved,’ Hunter continued.
‘Isn’t revenge sweet?’ she said with a frightening comfortable smile. ‘An eye for an eye, Robert. I gave them back what they’d given me. Heartache, loneliness, emptiness, sadness. I wanted them to feel a loss so great that every day would become a struggle.’
Not all the victims had been directly related to one of the jurors from John Spencer’s case, but it was easy to figure out why. Some of them were lovers. Forbidden lovers, illicit affairs, even gay lovers. Hidden relationships that were impossible to trace back to any of the jurors. A loved one nevertheless.
‘I dedicated my life to finding the right person. The one they loved the most. I took my time following them. I studied their routines. I found out everything there was to know about them. Places they liked to hang out. Secrets about their past. I even went to some filthy sex parties just to get closer to one of them. I must admit though, watching the jurors suffer with every new murder was reinvigorating.’
Hunter threw her a worried look.
‘Oh yes, I took the time to observe them after every kill,’ she explained. ‘I wanted to see them suffer. Their pain gave me strength.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Three of the jurors committed suicide, did you know that? They couldn’t take the loss. They couldn’t take the pain, just like my parents couldn’t.’ She laughed an evil laugh that darkened the room. ‘Just to prove how incompetent the police are, I left a clue with every victim, and you still couldn’t catch me,’ she continued.
‘The double-crucifix on the victims’ necks,’ Hunter confirmed.
She gave him a malicious nod.
‘Like the tattoo your brother had on the back of his neck?’
Another surprised look from Brenda.
‘I checked your brother’s records after I found out about the jurors. I remembered that on the arresting report, under identifying marks, the officer in charge had noted down several tattoos, but he never fully described them. I had to check the autopsy report to find out what they were. A double-arm crucifix to the back of the neck was one of them. You were giving every victim your brother’s mark.’
‘Aren’t you clever? I tattooed the double-crucifix on my brother’s neck myself,’ she said proudly. ‘John loved the pain.’
Hunter felt the air inside his living room go cold. As Brenda recalled putting her own brother through pain, the pleasure in her voice was chilling.
‘But why frame Mike Farloe? He had nothing to do with your brother’s case,’ Hunter asked, trying to fill in one of the gaps he still didn’t have an answer to.
‘He’d always been part of the plan,’ she shot back matter-of-factly. ‘Frame someone believable after the last kill and no one would’ve carried on snooping around. The case gets closed and everybody’s happy,’ she said grinning. ‘But unfortunately I ran into a small problem. The framing had to be put forward.’
‘The seventh victim!