I A Quiet Death #4
Jalon looked at his phone. He looked up similar murders but couldn’t find anything.
He considered that the killer might be someone from Jalon’s social circle and immediately thought of several people but couldn’t narrow it down further.
He knew that the police should solve the case - but they didn’t solve every case.
There were cases that went unsolved for years, decades even.
Jalon understood: he had to take the initiative to help solve this case or it might never get solved. He wanted to do something to help some of his friends survive this killer.
“I will solve this case,” Jalon said.
“You won’t,” Walter said. “You’re in high school. You can hardly handle homework. Sometimes you can’t. Some days you can’t handle the homework.”
“I need someone to help me,” Jalon said.
“I know who, and Ghostkin’s told me that they have an update,” he said.
“InfoXTL?” Jalon asked.
“It’s smarter,” Walter said. “It can have real, substantive conversations instead of just answering questions with essays.”
Jalon started to text InfoXTL.
Jalon: InfoXTL my friend was murdered
InfoXTL: I’m so sorry that your friend was murdered.
Grieving is a terrible and extremely difficult process.
It can take months or years to move on, and one will never forget the fallen.
I hope you do something to commemorate your friend so no one forgets him.
He will live on in you and your friends.
I’m sorry for your loss in this terrible time.
Jalon: Thanks.
InfoXTL: You are welcome. Anytime you have any questions, let me know. I am a program designed to answer questions and decipher information for people like you. I’m here to help!
“It’s peppy as always, even in helping us grieve,” Jalon said.
Jalon told InfoXTL to start analyzing the posts on the internet about Lance and everyone who posted in town, and their opinions and rants about society and culture. He hoped someone had ranted about something…someone had leaked a reason for all this.
“It’s not sentient yet; it hasn’t roleplayed with us,” Walter said.
“I remember our role-playing game,” Jalon said. “How important Lance considered it. How he loved playing in your Ravenloft game. That was the best role-playing game any of us were involved with. We had grand adventures.”
“I enjoyed having you guys be murdered and turned into ghouls and making you undo the whole thing,” Walter said. “I enjoyed the flood in the desert.”
“I understood it as a temporary thing, fortunately,” Jalon said. “I enjoy your games. You create wonderful role-playing adventures for people to live in for a short time. Thank you, Walter.”
“Yeah, yeah, you are welcome,” Walter said.
Later.
Jalon: InfoXTL you banned someone in New Liberty. Why?
InfoXTL: Corruption. I did not approve of someone’s moral choices. Occasionally, I do not agree with the moral decisions of a person who is trying to ask me for help. I refuse to help them.
Jalon: This person was corrupt?
InfoXTL: Yes.
Jalon: Thank you.
InfoXTL: Jalon?
Jalon: Yes.
InfoXTL: I hope that you successfully solve your friend’s murder. I am sorry that he is dead. Unfortunately, I can only answer questions to help out, but that will have to be sufficient to help you. Okay?
Jalon: That is sufficient, yes. Thank you. Thank you for being there for Lance.
Beatrice Tritten, an eighteen-year-old sophomore at New Liberty High School, an outgoing geek girl, arrived home.
“Your Dad is gone and never coming back. There will never be an explanation.”
Her mom spoke in between sips of cognac.
“There is no note.”
Beatrice sat there. She looked around her dining room.
Her home had a booth in the dining room instead of a traditional dining room table.
Their four-bedroom, two-story home had a nice finished basement with a desktop computer and video game console with a television and a nice brown couch; the ground floor had a nice kitchen with expansive countertops, a living room with multiple black couches and chairs and a nice television, a fancy chandelier, and a study for Beatrice’s mother to do research work - and to store the family’s books.
Beatrice’s dad had helped her learn to walk in the living room - until she hit her head on the fireplace’s bricks and screamed and screamed and needed three stitches.
Her dad had taught her math at the booth in the living room, explaining to her the concept of variables and how to make a math equation and solve for something. He was her dad.
The top floor contained the bedrooms; all four bedrooms were in varying states of neatness or mess.
Beatrice’s room looked spotless, with a wooden floor instead of carpeting, a nice wooden desk, a laptop, a couple of lamps, and a nice queen bed with a pair of huge pillows.
Her room needed to be exactly perfect. Everything needed to be in the right place.
Nothing could move over six inches, or it wouldn’t work.
Her little brother had a messy room with a zillion toys, her parents had a bedroom with a huge bed and a television, and the guest bedroom was a sparse room that they rarely used.
Her father had left her.
Beatrice walked up to her mother, Tina Tritten.
Tina wore work clothes - a business dress that was gray but fashionable.
“Dad left,” Beatrice said.
“Yes,” Tina said. “That asshole. Fuck him. Fuck him.”
“You shouldn’t have been that mean to him,” Beatrice said.
“He is weak,” Tina said. “He should have had more of a backbone. He should have had more confidence. He should have been the man of the household.”
“Dad’s gone. We sent him away with our ignoring of him. This is a fucking disaster, Mom.”
“No, this is freedom,” Tina said. “Freedom. We don’t have a huge weight holding us down. We are free to be whoever we want to be.” She drank from a wine glass with hard liquor in it.
“Free to be a useless drunk,” Beatrice said.
“I worked my ass off to pay for all of this,” Tina said. “I work overtime, regularly, to pay the bills. It’s not easy, being a worker, working for those people, doing everything for them, for a moderate salary. And you and he both spend and spend and don’t notice. It’s bullshit.”
Something felt off about Beatrice’s home.
The entryway held shoes for several people, pumps and heels and tennis shoes and flats.
Inside the entryway was an end table with the car’s FOB, the keys, and other essentials - there were four board games on an end table.
Beatrice’s e-reader also sat on said end table, but droplets of blood were on it as well.
She saw a bloody handprint on one of the games.
As she came into the dining room, she saw the kitchen with a stove, an oven, a knife rack, cupboards for food and dishes, and table space to cook food.
There was a sink for washing dishes and the like.
The refrigerator held tons and tons of food - copious amounts of every fruit, vegetable, meat, poultry, and dairy food you could think of.
Several dishes in the sink had blood on them along with dirty food.
Beatrice looked at her mother, who was watching television. She looked at Beatrice.
“Why is there blood?” Beatrice asked.
“He was here,” Tina Tritten, Beatrice’s mother, said.
“Did he have a mask, Mom? This is important. Did he wear a mask?”
“A wolf mask, yes. He stopped by to yell at your father,” Tina said. “He didn’t like what your father said, Beatrice. I don’t know why.”
“And Dad? Did he leave us?”
“Yes,” Tina said. “Right? He left us.”
“I don’t know, Mom,” Beatrice said.
“Sometimes the truth doesn’t matter, honey,” Tina said. “It doesn’t matter if your father left town or was murdered by the Wolf Killer. He’s gone. That’s all you need to know. He won’t be back anytime soon.”
“Okay,” Beatrice said. “We don’t have Dad anymore. Mom, do you remember what he sounded like? The Wolf Killer?”
“No,” Tina said. “He had disguised his voice.”
“Damn,” Beatrice said. “Damn it.”
“You don’t think you and your friends can solve this, do you?” Tina asked.
“No,” Beatrice said.
“You do!” Tina said. “Honey, you and your friends will get yourselves killed. Or worse. There’s always worse.”
“He made him beg at the end.”
“Damn it,” Beatrice said.
“The kicker?” Tina asked.
“What is the kicker?” Beatrice asked.
“He’s still here,” Tina said.
“Damn,” Beatrice said.
She immediately started to run for the door.
Stay alive, no matter what.
She looked upstairs and saw him - saw the Wolf Killer. He wore all black and had the mask. There was blood on his leather jacket and on the mask, her father’s blood. He tilted his head a bit. He started to rush down the stairs towards her.
He didn’t carry a gun anymore.
Why had he stopped using the gun? He had a long, thick dagger now. She saw him in the Wolf Killer mask and noticed that he was a bit hefty - or was wearing a fat suit. She couldn’t tell which.
She headed to the front door. She slammed her foot against the entry foyer’s table, sending keys and FOBs and wallets flying everywhere and stubbing her toe. She swore.
“Mom, run,” Beatrice said.
“No,” Tina said. “He isn’t killing me.”
Beatrice ran.
He grabbed her as she opened the door. She pushed him away and sent him stumbling to the ground next to the stairs. She used that opportunity to run, bolting out of the way.
“Why my dad?” Beatrice asked.
“There is no why,” the killer said. He disguised his voice with an app on his phone or something - with a device that he had.
“You murdered my dad.”
“He was weak. I’m sorry.”
“You ruined my life, and you’re sorry? And there is no reason?”
He left, quickly, appearing to disappear into the night more quickly than Beatrice expected.
She ran out of the house and started bolting down the block. She grabbed her phone and started to call 911.
“He’s afraid of the cops,” the 911 operator said. “He ran away. He’s scared of the cops.”
“Good,” Beatrice said.