[INCLUDES SEXUAL VIOLENCE]
The station received a call from an elderly woman. She said that she heard a girl scream from a little wooded area behind her house. Her husband went to investigate but as soon as he stepped outside, they heard a man scream and then just silence. Her husband ran back inside the house and they locked the door. The dispatcher who received the call sent me to investigate the area. I arrived at the place only 5 minutes later. I got out of my car and with a hand on my holster, I slowly and quietly walked up to the trees. We had areas like this all over the town. They are like a circular area with a radius of about 650 feet covered in trees and bushes. Homes to rats, squirrels, birds, and all kinds of other little critters that made problems for the people who lived around.
The thick canopies blocked the light from the moon or the stars and forced me to use my flashlight. As I took it out and turned it on, it lit up almost the entire thing. I pointed it towards the floor in a way that wouldn’t blind me, but would still allow me to see the surrounding area. I took a step below the canopies and expected someone to jump at me any second. I felt my heart beat so hard and seconds felt like hours. As I took a few more steps, I started to hear something. A soft and quiet voice. I carefully got closer to the voice. It started to sound like crying and yelping the closer I got.
Suddenly, a pair of shoes appeared in the light of my flashlight. Pair of shoes still worn on someone’s feet. Someone who was laying on the floor with their stomach on the ground. I moved my flashlight a bit and could see the entire person. It was a bit older man and he had his head pointed to what you would call his left. His left arm was spread out right next to his body while his right arm extended above his head. I noticed drops of blood on the leaves next to his head, but it wasn’t the only thing I noticed. This happened at the beginning of Autumn, just when the leaves started to fall, but canopies were still thick. There was a… ‘trail’… leading from underneath the man towards the nearest tree.
I lifted my flashlight and pointed at the tree with it. I expected to see a wild animal, a deranged man. All the while, I could hear the soft and quiet sobbing. After the light from my flashlight hit her, she squinted. The light blinded her but allowed me to see. She looked very young. At the time, I thought she was 17 or 18. Tears ran down her face and took her makeup with them. She hugged her legs and held them close to her chest. She had a bruise on her cheek and her pants were pulled down all the way to her feet. She was leaning onto the tree closest to the body and I noticed a bloody rock next to her legs.
“P… please,” she sobbed.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” I tried to calm her down. “What happened?”
“I… I wanted to… go through the… eh… this trail. And… and when I…” she sniffed and cried. “I was attacked.”
“By this man here?” I asked her.
“Yes. This man attacked me,” she sobbed.
“That’s okay, shh, shh,” I said slowly approaching and taking my hand away from the holster. “Can you be more detailed? How did he attack you? What happened after.”
“I… I was just walking when I felt… someone pulled my sh… shoulder. I turned around and… and… the man hit me with his fist. He then pushed me onto the f… floor and then he… he started pulling my pants off. He unzipped his pants and bent down above me. He… he… he fucking covered my mouth with his hand.”
“God,” I whispered to myself. “What happened then?”
“I… I tried to reach for something and… and I managed to grab the rock. I hit him with my full force and he fell onto me. I pushed him away… and… then I… I got to this tree.”
I took a few steps closer while lowering my flashlight so that I wouldn’t blind the girl. She had her eyes pointed at me and I kept her on the edge of my sight. I still had no way of knowing whether she was dangerous or not. I slowly walked up to the man’s body and crouched down to see who he was. It was Cameron Waynewood. He was a well-known local rich guy. From a perspective of the town, he was actually a really good guy. He invested a lot of money into it and usually funded most of the festivals. However, since I was a cop, I knew about his dark side. Every cop knew about it but there wasn’t proper evidence we could use against him. Someone took him to court once, but he won without trouble even though the evidence given against him was enough to lock him up. The amount of evidence was just not enough and he was a well-liked individual.
As soon as I recognized the body, I looked toward the girl. She hugged her legs more intensely and whimpered.
“Please don’t lock me up,” she begged.
“No one’s locking you up,” I tried to calm her down.
I turned my head back towards the body. Cameron wasn’t paying his taxes, mistreated his employees, and partook in sexual assault often. Classical rich scumbag stuff. Honestly, I was happy that the fucker was dead. His family is going to continue doing everything in the same way he did it, but at least he won’t do shit. And at that moment, it hit me. The girl’s going to lose the case. Even though there is evidence that she was the victim. The old couple who heard the screaming and her bruise from how hard Cameron grabbed her shoulder won’t mean anything. Cameron’s wife would bribe the judge and they would have the support of the people. This girl would just be locked up for almost getting raped.
“Girl, what’s your name?” I asked her.
“Clara Sullivan,” she shakily replied.
“How old are you?”
“17.”
That made me feel even more disgusted.
“What were you doing here?”
“I was going back home. I,” she sniffed. “I live in a house nearby.”
“Do you know what he was doing here?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I was just walking and he attacked me.”
“Do you have anyone at home at the moment?”
“My mom and my dad… and my brother.”
“Can you trust them?”
“What?” she asked confused.
“Can you trust them?”
“Of course,” she answered. “Of course, I can trust them.”
“Good. You’ll go home and tell them everything that happened. Ask them not to sue the Waynewood family and to leave the case behind because it’ll just make the situation worse.”
Clara just sat there and listened to me with tears still rolling down her face.
“You should get up,” I said as I turned around to give her privacy.
I heard the leaves rustle as she stood up and pulled up her pants.
“Thank you,” she told me and started to leave.
“Wait,” I told her. “Do you want my number? You’ll need to talk to someone about this and apart from your family, I’ll be the only one who knows about it.”
She nodded and handed me her phone. I put in my number but didn’t call myself to show her that I’ll only help her if she wants me to help. She gave me a sad little smile and started walking to her house. I kept my flashlight pointed away from her and watched as she disappeared into the darkness. I took another look at the body.
“You deserved even worse.”
Only then I remembered that I should check for the pulse. Since he was laying on his chest, I couldn’t see if he was breathing. He could have been unconscious, and that was exactly what he was. As I felt the blood pulse through his veins, my heart stopped. The impact of the rock only knocked him out. He was much bigger than Clara so it wasn’t so bizarre. At the moment I didn’t know what to do. He would definitely sue Clara if he woke up and he would win without a doubt. So, I did the first thing I could think of…
I turned his face towards his right arm and picked up the bloody rock. I walked up to him and stood there. I was contemplating doing what I was about to do. Was it right? The guy is one of the biggest pieces of shit I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting… but killing another human… that’s something else. I stood there for a minute when I noticed some movement on Cameron’s face. I waited a bit more and saw more movement. Then I saw his right hand grab some leaves on the floor as his eyes slowly opened and he took in a deep breath of pain. He immediately noticed me and I decided to do it right there and then. I kneel down and with all my strength I hit his head with the rock three times. I was careful to wear gloves while killing him.
After the deed was done, I stood up and dropped the rock onto the ground. I broke into Cameron’s skull and left a mess of bone, brain, and other tissue. The right side of his face was completely unrecognizable and I honestly couldn’t believe what I have done. I looked at my hands and saw Cameron’s blood on the gloves. I was terrified of myself. The fear I felt at that moment was much worse than anything I felt before that moment. And even then, it was nothing compared to the fear I felt 7 years later. At that moment, I started to feel dizzy and I blacked out. It wasn’t like I fell unconscious; it was like when you get too drunk. Your body is still able to function but you are not able to recollect what happened.
When I regained my consciousness, I was standing next to the body and heard police sirens. I looked to my left and saw the flashing lights and realized that I didn’t cover up Clara’s footprints. I took a look where they were supposed to be, and they were gone. An officer walked up to me and greeted me with his gun pulled out.
“You’ll have no need for that,” I told him.
“Are you sure?” he replied.
“If anyone was here, they could have attacked me by now.”
He put the gun into his holster and took a look at the body.
“Holy shit. They got him good? Who is it?”
I softly clenched my fist and realized that my gloves were missing. I quickly checked my hands and the gloves really weren’t there. It felt like a good excuse.
“No gloves,” I said lifting my arms and showing my gloveless hands. “Didn’t want to mess with the evidence.”
“Where are your gloves?”
“I forgot them.”
“You’re still young. You’ll remember to carry them after this.”
I nodded and the cop approached the body. He crouched down and flipped the body over. As soon as the other part of the face turned upside, the cop quickly stood up and stepped backward.
“JESUS CHRIST!” he shouted. “Who the hell would want to kill him?”
While most of the cops believed that Cameron was a terrible person, some still didn’t. Some were still as blind as other citizens.
There was an investigation but nothing was found. Not a single piece of evidence that could point out who the killer was. I don’t know what the hell I did to cover everything up but I was satisfied with how competent I was. Clara called me 2 months later. We met in a park and had a walk. We talked about the situation and she said that her parents want to meet with me. She told them that she doesn’t want that and they got angry so we needed to be sneakier. We started to meet in public places like diners, parks, theaters, and stuff like that but on the other side of the town. No one would recognize us so we didn’t have to avoid people. For the past seven years, we’ve been talking at least once in two months and she became something like a little sister to me. She and I were the only ones who know what happened that night, and even she doesn’t know the whole story. She doesn’t know what I did after she left.
I phased out thinking of the incident while holding the pictures in my hands. They slipped out of my fingers and fell onto the table. I sat there reminiscing about the horror I have committed that night and I assumed that whoever sent this, knew everything. Every single detail about what I did. I continued drinking since I wanted to forget, but I could not. I tried sleeping that night but I couldn’t. My mind just kept creating mental images of Cameron’s body. But it wasn’t that because of what I couldn’t sleep. It was the dream. No matter how scarring murdering someone in such a brutal way is, it’s nothing compared to that fucking dream.
Just before the morning, I fell asleep for 2 hours. I was woken up by a phone call. It was Kaley.
“We found a new body,” Kaley said. “It’s Emily Waynewood,” she stopped for a second. “Cameron’s wife.”