Deadly Messengers (5 page)

Already O’Grady’s thoughts were focused on Toby Benson. Something didn’t sit right. Something itched in that place in his mind where the bullshit net was positioned; a mild flaring he just couldn’t settle.

CSI had done their preliminary sweep of Benson’s apartment. They discovered nothing. Hard to believe. Nothing, no evidence, was wrong. Unexpected
.
When someone commits a crime, even less savage than this, there are always indicators in his or her life pointing to issues that spun out of control. Big red, flashing signs blinking: “This person is dynamite just waiting for a match.”

So far, this Benson seemed like just an average guy. Had a girlfriend; several smiling pictures of her and him dotted his apartment, CSI had informed. Had a stable job at a bank—a check of the website LinkedIn told them he’d been employed there five years. He’d lived in Danbridge all his life. Plenty of friends. From Facebook they’d gleaned his interactions and attitudes appeared normal.

Yet on a cool early-winter Sunday evening, he left his home prepared with a weapon, drove into the city, targeted a restaurant—for what reason, they were yet to ascertain—and had a swing-the-axe party.

As much as O’Grady wanted this to be a suicide-by-cop show, his itch told him it might turn out to be something quite different. He didn’t know what, and he didn’t know why. That bothered him.

O’Grady climbed into the front passenger seat next to Trip, who had launched into a dissection of a recent baseball game where his home team—according to him—was robbed by the umpire. Things like this mass killing didn’t seem to invade his head. He treated the job like a
job
.

Not O’Grady. He needed to solve the crimes. In doing so it temporarily filled something missing in him, which no amount of women—whom he soon forgot—or phone calls home could satisfy. The emotional impact of the scene last night had left him drained. He looked ahead to when he could clock off, hit the sack, and get some dearly needed shut-eye. Hopefully, today would end better than it started.

But this damn itch in his gut still bothered him. Maybe sleep might reveal the answer. He hoped the answer would be simple and obvious and happen soon. One thing about Lance O’Grady, he didn’t like loose ends.

KENDALL SHOWERED AND CHANGED INTO her work gear—tracksuit pants, a t-shirt, and fleecy sweater. The chilly winter wind seeped inside, and the heater couldn’t compete, even on full blast. The dilapidated thing, on its last legs, only warmed the air within a few feet.

After filling her bowl with her usual cereal, Raisin Bran topped with Cheerios, she nestled into the chair at her desk. Kendall surveyed the mess piled there: scraps of paper, books, and an assortment of dirty coffee cups ranging from one to four days old. She vowed to work on mustering the energy to tidy up. Once she’d booked a few jobs and removed the money stress, she’d attack it. The time had better be soon, though, or she’d be drinking coffee out of jars.

Tomorrow.

Right now, she needed to check her email again, and Twitter and Facebook. She’d found social media a handy way to gauge public mood. Beyond short on filling her twelve-story quota for the week, besides sending out queries, she would need to write pieces on spec in the hope an editor might have last-minute space to fill.

Slurping her coffee from the very last clean cup, she scanned the home page of
The Western
. Horrific pictures of the Amaretto Café massacre, complete with upturned tables and a blood-streaked floor, were spread across and down the page. Three victims’ pictures were front and center, with the names of other casualties still to be released.

Looking at devastating photos of a place she’d visited often made her skin prickle. She looked over the main article again, which proclaimed it the worst mass murder in the city’s history. A picture of the killer Toby Benson was front and center. He looked like an average guy. Dark, short-cropped hair and the type of smile that said
I’m friendly and I’m kind to my grandma
.

Kendall hypothesized he’d lost it because either his mother had neglected him or his girlfriend had just dumped him. Or box number three: he’d forgotten to take his meds.

The news article gave no information about him, except that he worked at a bank and his family and girlfriend were in shock, finding it impossible to believe he could kill anyone or anything.

Kendall noticed an email subject header flash at the bottom of her screen. The message was from Stef, the editor of
Healthy, Wealthy & Wisdom
magazine. She’d built a good relationship with Stef over the past few years by always turning work in on schedule and never, ever saying “no” to a commission, no matter how much she had on her plate. The articles were sometimes internationally syndicated into several small newspapers, the syndication payments being a nice little cash-flow bump when they came.

She flicked from the news page to Outlook, after glancing again at the photo of Toby Benson’s smiling face.
You sure couldn’t judge a book by its cover.

The email was short and to the point.

Kendall,

Need urgent 1,000-word rush piece on survivor guilt. Work to fit this lead: “How to live with not dying.” Mass killing from last night already covered by majors. This angle, good. Get interviews with any witnesses who’ll talk. Morning papers quoted a survivor. Beverly Sanderson. Get her and quotes from a psychologist. Will need within 24 hours to make deadline.

Stef

Kendall replied with a, “Yes, I’m on it” message. As she hit send, her mood lifted. Rush jobs rarely meant rush payments, but a thousand words with this mag would cover a chunk of the month’s rent if it scored syndication.

What didn’t thrill her, though, was possibly hearing the terrible details of the murders first hand from witnesses. Violence made her squeamish. Even those slasher-horror films made her feel sick. Usually, she would close her eyes while sticking her fingers in her ears; the sound of the viciousness and the screams almost too much. The only reason she even watched them was her brother; Marcus was a big Quentin Tarantino over-the-top-violent film fan. He kept telling her if she watched enough of them, she would “toughen up.” She still awaited that occurrence.

If Marcus actually took the time to read some of her articles, he’d see she was tough enough to write real horror—terrible heartbreaking articles. She’d covered everything from teen suicide to a baby boy killed by a drunk driver plowing through his bedroom wall. True life terror.

When it came to deliberate violence against others, she drew the line. Accidents she could handle, but it seemed too much like a slippery slope, flooding her mind with memories of ten years ago and her mom. Every time she thought about that night, her heart hardened against allowing herself to feel for anyone the love she felt for her mom. She felt empathy for people, but she didn’t desire closeness. She didn’t want to love someone and suffer having them torn away. She began to think about that night; she could smell the night air, hear the sounds in the darkness, feel the fear, the despair; her heart quickened.

No, she wouldn’t think about it now.
Maybe one day, if the right person came along, she might trust herself to feel something again.
Allow
herself to feel something again. Right now she had bills to pay and a job to do.

Most of her work
was
puff pieces. Marcus was right about that. She wondered if his occasional nagging about them was his way of testing her, see if she had grown stronger without having to come right out and ask the question.

What was wrong with writing about banal things like how to get your start in business; ten things airline hostesses don’t want you to know; and interviews with best-selling novelists and comedy film stars? People enjoyed reading them or she wouldn’t keep winning the commissions. These articles were magazines’ bread and butter, and they always seemed to be the ones she was working on when Marcus asked what she was doing. The Pulitzer Prize-winning articles were never given to freelancers like her. She was fine with that, too. From the first few articles she wrote twelve years ago for
Seventeen
,
Family Fun
, and
Entertainment Weekly
, her career had pretty much travelled down the fluff-piece path.

Kendall opened up a fresh browser and Googled Toby Benson. He was on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a website called ListenFM (the last being just someone with the same name as his).

When she clicked through to his Facebook account, she found he had 232 “friends.” Over the past twenty-four hours, dozens of posts had been left on his page. Most were from real friends, sharing an outpouring of shock and horror, all messages of condolence, the presiding sentiment being there must be some mistake, that Toby Benson was no killer.

“Good buddy, tell me this is a mistake. This can’t be true.”

“Toby, you will be loved and missed.”

“God bless you and condolences to the Benson family.”

Toby’s account settings must have allowed anyone to post to his page. Comments from people who clearly weren’t his friends shared the feed.

“You fu*&!@# lunatic. Shooting was too good for you.”

“You should have been hacked to pieces or hung.”

“Hope hell is hell!”

Many more continued in that vein. Arguments had sprung up between his friends and these posters. His friends continued to defend the impossibility they knew someone who’d become a cold-blooded killer. Twitter had a similar mix of sentiment among Toby’s 332 followers. When Kendall read back over Toby’s comments and tweets of the previous few days, there did appear no indication he harbored any thoughts of randomly venturing out hell-bent on murder. In fact, he seemed very normal, sharing snippets of weekend activities: a party, a lunch, and an evening watching Netflix. Just like everyone else, he was gorge-viewing
Breaking Bad
.

Somewhere, at this moment, a freelancer was probably writing a story on violent TV shows inciting murder.

Another twenty minutes of checking the first few pages of Google results for Toby Benson, and Kendall began to feel as surprised at Benson’s actions as his friends. She’d found no comments about him hating the world or being unhappy; no pictures of him holding a rifle,
à la
Lee Harvey Oswald before he assassinated President Kennedy; not even an Instagram account picture of him holding as much as a bread knife, let alone an axe.

It was weird that a guy who looked
so
normal could do something
so
abnormal. Kendall was no investigative journalist, but surely there should be
something
. Maybe it was drugs or a broken relationship? Or was there a
crazy switch
in people’s heads? And Toby Benson’s crazy switch simply got flicked?

Now there was an article title: “
The Crazy Switch: How to keep yours turned off?”

She made a note on the ‘pitch’ pad by her computer. It was stuffed full of ideas and thoughts with potential to become stories.

Really, though, she was procrastinating, delaying getting out there and talking to someone who’d experienced
crazy
. She was truly a wuss. Hearing the gory details, and asking the questions surrounding death and violence was probably her worst nightmare.

“How does it feel to know you came this close to death?”

“Does this make you appreciate your loved ones?”

Even thinking about it, the back of her neck suddenly felt clammy.

Kendall navigated back to
The Western’s News
page, to find it updated with further information. Now they had a quote from Toby Benson’s sister.

“My brother was the sweetest, kindest man you would ever meet. Our family is shocked and devastated.”

This new article contained pictures of survivors. Beverley Sanderson—mid-forties, shaggy blonde hair, well-groomed eyebrows, and over-pink lipstick—was one of three people whose photo was subtitled “survivor.” Kendall read the entire article, but found no quotes from any of the witnesses.

Something about the smiling persona of the polished looking Mrs. Sanderson made Kendall think she might be the person to approach, that she might be willing to talk. After years of interviewing people, Kendall had a feel for who was a talker and who wasn’t. Time was the issue. In order to get to these witnesses before a big media outlet pulled out an equally big checkbook, she needed to move.

Searching through the online phone directory, Kendall immediately found Beverley Sanderson. The listing read
B & R. Sanderson
. “R,” no doubt being the husband, Roy, who was, also, mentioned below the photo. If this was the same woman—and Kendall was pretty certain it was—she lived only a few blocks away.

Kendall scribbled down the address, quickly changed her clothes—tracksuit and slippers just didn’t give her the right air—and headed out the door. The address was close enough to walk. She decided not to call first and give the Sandersons a chance to say “no” to an interview. Most interviewees found Kendall’s enthusiastic and easy style relatable. Complete strangers found themselves opening up to her about the most intimate and personal experiences.