The young girl was lying on the floor crying.
“Don’t hurt me!!! Please!!!”
“What? Don’t hurt you? I’ve already knocked you on your little butt.”
The man took his right finger and was rubbing the young girl’s cheek. “I bet you’re wondering what I did to your mom?”
“Don’t hurt her,” she screamed!
"I’m afraid that it is already too late. Mommy is dead.”
“No!” The girl screamed but the madman slapped her again and told her to shut up.
“You know, you are a lucky girl. I usually don’t let the people I’m killing make so much noise. I don’t think anyone will hear you though. Go ahead and scream some more.” As he said it, he slapped her again. He put his hands around her throat and began to choke her. She reached up and tried to pull his hands away, but the killer was too strong. After she passed out, he released his grip so she could start breathing again. He loved the ritual of killing; the screams; begging for her life; control. The most potent part was knocking her out, but then he would slowly wake her back up, and she would realize that it wasn’t a bad dream. He did it over and over until she went into shock. Anyone could kill someone. There isn’t anything special about that, but sending a girl into shock was the ultimate power. The blank stare. The wide open mouth that said nothing.
The thought that he was god was satisfying. “You are making me angry,” he was yelling. He slapped the girl a few more times and she began to come to.
“Wake up! We are going to play a little game. Do you understand? Do you understand?”
“Please stop. I want my mom.”
“If you obey me, I’ll let your mommy go. If you don’t, I’ll kill you both.”
“I thought you said you killed her,” the girl said sobbingly, with a glimmer of hope that her mother was still alive.
“I just said that to make you cry. Are you ready to play?”
“Yes,” she barely said. The man held the girl’s wrist and pressed them flat against the floor.
She was in a missionary position.
“Now, I want you to repeat what I say.”
“Say, I am dirty.” He smiled at her with a wicked grin as he said it.
The girl was crying hysterically. Sweat was drenching from every pore.
“Say it,” he said quietly.
“I….I am dirty.”
“This man is corrupting me, and no other man will ever want me,” he said in a mocking tone.
“No,” she cried!
Her refusal infuriated him, and he began to squeeze her wrists so hard and twist her wrist until it broke.
“Ouch!” The pain was overwhelming for the girl and her excruciating cries were music to the killer’s ears.
He began getting aroused.
“I am a dirty! Say it! I am dirty.”
“I……I am dirty.” Words came from dead eyes.
After a minute he was threw.
“Not exactly a virgin anymore.” The killer decided to keep the bloody condom as a souvenir.
She just looked at him with her shocked soul.
“You aren’t one anymore,” he said as he laughed. “Don’t you feel lucky? Being with a stud like me? Now, I want you to do one more thing. I want you to stand up and pee on yourself.”
He picked up the bat to threaten her. As she lay on the floor she said, “Alright I’ll do it.” She cried as she was holding her broken wrist. She clumsily stood up and peed down her leg.
“When I was a boy, I used to come home so angry that my black Labrador retriever would pee on itself when I yelled at it. Do you know why?”
“Why?” She wouldn’t look at him in the eyes.
“It was afraid. It’s the ultimate sign of respect. That is why you are peeing on yourself. You are showing me respect. You are just a girl, who, if it wasn’t for me, would grow up to be another slut of a woman.”
He tightened his fist around the bat while she was looking down. She instantly realized what he was about to do so she lunged at him with a second wind, screaming and kicking. She landed once in his groin area, and then she swung with her arms.
He screamed, “ouch… you bitch.” He gripped his bat and swung it over her head and landed it right on top of her skull. She dropped instantly. “You’re dead.”
He tried to check for a pulse and, he didn’t feel any. Then, he heard a noise outside. He stopped what he was doing, and carefully slid the curtains and glanced out each of the windows. “Shit!” he thought. He knew he had stayed there too long so he gathered up his stuff and left.
---------------------------------
Detectives Mangino and Chanello were in the interrogation room at the police station. Another officer had just brought Donny in from his cell. They let him begin the rotting process for awhile now. Marco and Mr. Massy were still strong leads but Donny was the prime suspect.
“Donny, Donny, Donny. I guess you know you are in a lot of trouble.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You were running from the police. I think that makes you look guilty as hell,” Chanello said.
“I wasn’t running from the police. I didn’t know you were looking for me.”
“You didn’t hear me yell POLICE,” detective Hundler asked sarcastically?
“No!”
"Why were you running through your neighbor’s back yards?”
“Just to get a rise out of them. Nothing else. When I saw that chick with a gun I stopped.”
“I don’t enjoy being called a chick. You stopped because you knew if you hadn’t, I would have blown you away,” said Mangino.
“Donny, we know you were listening to the police scanner. That’s why you packed your shoes and ran. You knew we were coming to look for your shoes and your bat.”
“I don’t own any bat.”
“You got rid of it because it had blood on it.”
“You are wrong brilliant detective. I have never had a bat.”
“You never had a bat when you were a kid. Maybe you used to play a sport called baseball. Or were dolls good enough for you?”
“Kiss my ass”
“You kiss mine, you sorry punk,” Hundler responded back!
“Alright. Alright,” Chanello interjected. “I just want to get this clear. You have never had a bat?”
“No. I always liked football,” he said sarcastically.
Hundler spoke up, “Yeah, you look like some football player.”
“That’s enough,” yelled Chanello! “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Do you want anything?”
“No.”
Detective Chanello and Hundler left the room. They weren’t getting any confession out of him so they would trade places with Kate. “I think it’s your turn, but I don’t want you pissing him off. We’ve done a good job since he hasn’t demanded an attorney yet because you know what will happen when he does.”
He looked at Hundler, “You almost screwed it up. You have to be assertive but not aggressive.
We’re playing bad cop good cop, not jerk of a cop. You stay out there from here on out.”
“I will,” he said.
At that time Detective Morrison walked up to the officer’s in the hallway.
“What do you want,” asked Chanello, still pissed off at his stupidity.
“We have Melanie’s parents here to listen to the tape.”
Mangino looked at Chanello, “We shouldn’t keep them waiting since they’ve been through so much.”
“You’re right. Detective Morrison, I want you to take our television out of the conference room and let Donny watch it. Tell him we will be back in about an hour or so. Why don’t you order a pizza and ask Donny what he wants on it. After that stay out of the room and guard the door. We don’t want him to call an attorney. He’ll stop talking after he does that.”
“Got it,” he said as he walked to get the television.
“Hello Mr. and Mrs. Matheson. I am very sorry about your loss,” detective Chanello said to them as he shook their hands in turn. I want you to know we are working night and day to solve your daughter’s murder. We have a lead we are following up on and we need you to tell us if it is Melanie’s voice on a recording we have.”
“What’s the lead,” asked Mr. Matheson
“Who killed my daughter,” asked Mrs. Matheson?
“It looks like it was Donny, but we are following up on other leads. It will probably not pan out, but....”
“Who do you think it is now,” she asked angrily and doubtfully that the police knew what they were doing.
“We are not going to say now. We would like to separate you two and ask you both to listen to this tape. Mrs. Matheson, please step outside with Detective Mangino and we’ll start with Mr. Matheson.
“Mr. Matheson, we have five versions of the tape where each girl is saying the same thing. We’ll tell you four of them are police officers. Another one may or may not be your daughter. You’ll have to tell us. The reason we have four other tapes is so we haven’t pushed you into thinking one is definitely her. It’s kind of like a police lineup. We don’t just put the one we think is guilty out there for the person to pick.”
“I understand. You don’t have to talk down on me like I’m a child.”
Chanello began playing the tapes for Melanie’s father when a commotion broke out outside the office.
“You ass,” said Mrs. Matheson to Donny. She had the look of an avenger in her eyes. “How could you do this to Melanie?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Liar!”
Detective Chanello rushed out of the office. “Detective Mangino, take Mrs. Matheson back in there with her husband.”
After they went inside his office, he asked Detective Morrison why he let Donny out of the interrogation room.
“I was taking him to watch the television while he waited for his pizza.”
“I told you to bring the television into the interrogation room.”
“Man, that tv is too heavy to carry.”
Donny was tired of this crap when he spoke up, “I want my attorney. I want you to let me out of here. I am sick of this.”
Chanello just shook his head in disbelief for another mistake by Morrison. First there was the cb radio incident where Donny almost escaped and now this. “Get him to a phone so he can call his lawyer!”
“Do you want me to still give him access to a tv and a pizza?”
“Hell no! Now get him out of here and throw him in a cell.”
“I’m sorry Mr. and Mrs. Matheson.”
“You were going to get him a pizza? Maybe I should remind you that man killed my daughter Detective.”
“I know. I am trying to get a confession out of him so we can avoid a trial. Now, we will have to prove our case. We do have some good evidence, but we need the murder weapon or a confession to make it airtight for a guilty verdict.”
“Are you saying he is going to get off?”
“No, but I do need you to listen to these tapes. We have two other possible suspect who might have had a motive to.”
“I thought it was Donny. It sounds to me like you don’t know what you are doing.”
“Like I said we don’t have a murder weapon. We know Donny had a motive, but it’s not clear cut yet.”
“You mean to tell me that more people might have wanted Melanie dead? I don’t believe it,” said Mr. Matheson.
“I want to know who the others were,” asked Mrs. Matheson?
“I can’t tell you yet. I know you are hurting but we need a couple more days. Give us that much before you get angry. If you will listen to these tapes you will certainly be helping to speed up the process.”
After thirty minutes the parents had easily identified Melanie’s voice.
“Alright. I have identified my daughter’s voice. Now tell me why she was calling Child Protective Services?”
Jim knew he shouldn’t tell them too much so he gave them a little information so they would know they were working hard on this case. He didn’t need them going to the media and lambasting the police. “It may have been over someone’s child.”
“I understand that much” Then she remembered her conversation with Melanie about what Jay and Mr. Massey had said about wanting to see Melanie naked.
“When are you going to arrest this killer,” she continued?
“We are not ready to make an arrest yet.”
“This may be my daughter’s murderer, and this is all the help I can get from you?” She was slowly starting to cry. Kate handed her a tissue. Mrs. Matheson was disgusted, shocked, and hurt by their refusal.
“The newspaper is making some ordeal that you went to Mr. Massey’s house to question him about her murder. Is he the one? I want to know? Is he?”
“You can’t make assumptions. We have had to talk to a lot of people about this. We talked to everyone she had some contact with the last few days before it occurred.”
“You know I’ll be able to find out. I am sure there are lots of people who know, and I’ll do whatever it takes to find out. Maybe I’ll go to Mr. Massey’s house and ask him directly.”
They were shocked and admitted they were already investigating him, but they wouldn’t tell her too much.
“I will go and ask him his involvement in her murder then,” Mrs. Matheson said.
“That would not be a good idea.” Chanello looked at Mr. Matheson for help. “Mr. Massey is a powerful man. You can’t go snooping around. If we feel we need to question him further, we’ll do so, but you have to leave it to us. I am telling you that you could be in danger if you go around Mr. Massey. I am telling you not to do it."
“We get the point that we should be afraid of him,” said Mr. Matheson. “I just hope you aren’t afraid of the man.”
“If we have evidence that leads to him, we will follow it.”
Mangino spoke up, “Ma’am we want to tell you what we know, but it would be unethical and premature for us to do so at this point. Can I be honest with you?”
“Of course, you can, detective.” Mrs. Matheson just wanted answers.
“I don’t think this lead is going anywhere. We have a lot of evidence against Donny. There are things you don’t know about, and you won’t find out about until the trial. I just ask that you give us a few more days and we will be able to make formal charges. Then you’ll know who it is and at the trial you’ll see all that we have. Please. A few more days should be all that we need.
“Alright detective. I’ll stay out of your business.”
“Thank you. I promise we are working night and day to solve this crime and we are close.”
Melanie’s parents walked out of the police station.
Mr. Matheson asked his wife, “Do you think they were being truthful with us?”
“I don’t know. They seemed like they were, so we’ll give them a few more days. If I don’t get an answer within a week, I’m coming back here and raising hell.”
“Whatever you do, promise me you won’t go and confront Mr. Massey?”
“I won’t make any such promise. I am not scared of that man. If he killed my daughter, he might as well take his best shot at me.”
Mr. Matheson spoke up, “If he killed Melanie, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind killing you, and if he didn’t, and you were embarrassing him, he might send some boys over to rough me up. I want you to promise me you won’t confront him.”
She said nothing as they got into their car.
Mrs. Matheson began to cry on the drive home. She remembered a sweet and kind, young lady who would help anyone in need. She remembered reading about a young Anne Frank. And how she just started sobbing. It wasn’t just because of the terror she had gone through, but also how she never would want her daughter Melanie to experience something that horrible. She had vowed to never let Melanie experience a crime so brutal. Now she has failed. She wasn’t a good mother. She hadn’t protected Melanie from this bad world. She looked up towards the sky as the tears fell and whispered, “Why God? Why?”