The Hanging Man
It was the last day of June when his friends found out what he was. Massachusetts forensics team had just arrived for work, all of them wearing the usual stressed faces of people who were trying and failing to catch a murderer who's killed list had reached over two dozen and would continue to rise if they didn't catch him soon. Then Lieutenant Katie Weaver, the head of the forensics team noticed that a member was missing. “Where's Ethan?” she asked the room.
“Dunno, he didn't show up for drinks last night” Detective Kyle Markles answered with a shrug.
“And no one though to check on him?” she demanded, feeling her temper beginning to boil to the surface. “Yeah I tried calling him but there was no answer. Anyway you know Ethan, he likes shutting himself off from the world sometimes” Kyle replied. Detective Laurie Bush chuckled “feel like doing that myself right now.”
“Yeah” Agent Enrico Guitirezz agreed.
“Except we've got work to do. Kyle, call Ethan, if he doesn't answer go to his house. We need all hands on deck to stop this guy before anyone else ends up dead.” Weaver commanded. Kyle nodded in assent and grabbed his phone while Laurie and Enrico got to work analysing the latest crumb of evidence. “Hey Ethan, it's Kyle, uh...I guess your not available but I hope your at home otherwise your a dead man pal. Just....just hurry up and get here will you. Weaver wants all hands on deck and she's pretty mad at you for not turning up. Okay I guess I'll see you soon.” He turned his phone off and shook his head mournfully at Weaver who felt like she was two seconds from exploding. “Kyle with me now” she barked “we're going looking for him.”
“What if he's at the hospital for something?” Enrico suggested as he examined something under a microscope. “Then someone would have called it in” Weaver replied irritably, “oh what's the matter Laurie? “she barked at the youngest agent. Laurie turned away from the glass windows the other side of the room, tears welling in her black eyes “Ethan” she breathed “he's in hand cuff's”.
“What?!” the rest of the team yelped. They hurried outside into the main corridor and saw that Laurie was right. Ethan was sitting in an interrogation room hands in cuffs and a slight smile on his tanned face. His normally immaculate clothes were covered in dirt and what look unpleasantly like blood and there was a nasty bruise forming on the left side of his face. “Hey” Weaver called to grim faced Inspector Emile who was marching past them “why is Ethan in the interrogation room?”
“Why do you think”? Emile snarled “we've found our Hanging Man”.
“No! Your wrong” Laurie protested “Ethan would never.....he'd never kill someone.” Inspector Emile smiled cruelly “oh really”, she thrust several bag of evidence into Laurie and said “analyse these and we'll see if you've changed your mind. Now if you'll excuse me I have a homicidal psychopath to interrogate”. Reeling the team trooped back inside their work space, all of them feeling as if they were about to throw up. “This can't be true. Laurie's right, they've got the wrong guy.” Enrico said as he wheeled his chair towards his work station.
“Analyse the evidence first. Draw conclusions later” Weaver told him, trying to cover up her own distress “we're out best chance of proving Ethan's innocence. Laurie, Enrico, divide the evidence that Emile gave us between you, Kyle come with me ,we're going to take a look at the crime scenes and Ethan's place, they may be some evidence there.”
“Wait a sec doesn't that mean breaking Massachuesett CSI's number one rule?”
“Got a problem with that cowboy?”
“No Ma'am” Kyle grinned.
“Good, grab your taser and lets go”. They hurried off, determined to prove their friend and colleague's innocence. But unfortunately for them they had barely left the building before they were confronted by Dectective's Toth and Lenner, former top marines and Inspector Emile's lackey’s. “Going somewhere” Agent Toth smirked.
“Just getting some air” Weaver replied nonchalantly. Toth and Lenner raised their eyebrows.
“The both of you. My my it looks like the rumours were right about you two” Lenner smirked. Kyle seized the back of Weaver's jacket in an attempt to stop her from attacking the two slime balls and bit out “is there any reason why your standing in our way?”
“Yes there is actually” Toth replied with a sardonic smile “you see Emile wanted us to make sure that none of Mr Ford's team decided to fight for a lost cause, in other words try to prove the innocence of a murderer”.
“What proof do you have”? Kyle demanded of the taller man. Toth laughed.
“well if you mean proof other than the evidence that what's left of your soon to be defunct team are scouring through, we have footage of Ford hanging his last victim. Here” he handed them his phone and clicked on a video link. The screen went fuzzy for a moment then burst into colour. The footage showed a empty wheat field with a single dead tree in the middle. Then muffled screaming could be heard, coming closer and closer to the camera until to figures could be discerned, one of them a man by the looks of it, walking upright the other being dragged across the ground by her hair. “Oh no” Weaver moaned and Kyle groaned, they recognized that wild mess of red curly hair belonging to the man, it was Ethan. He ambled through the field still pulling the gagged young woman by her hair until they got to the tree then delivered a brutal kick to the girl's side that had her screaming even louder than before. “Jesus Christ!” Weaver swore “why the hell didn't you intervene then?!”
“Order's from Emile. We couldn't make a move until he'd hung her.” They turned back to the phone and saw that Ethan had tied a rope to the highest branch of the tree and wrapped a length of rope around the girl's neck. “Don't worry” he crooned as he forced her to stand on one of the lower branches “it'll be quick. Much quicker than the death that you and your friends gave Andrew May. Oh what was that”? He asked as the girl attempted to say something around her gag. He yanked it out of her mouth and she screeched “I'm sorry!”
“SORRY'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!” he roared in her face “you murdered my friend!” he took a deep breath, trying to calm himself “fortunately for you, you had the least involvement so I'm giving you an easy death. Hold still” and he shoved her off the branch. There was a sickening crack that made Kyle retch and that was when Ethan spotted the agents. “Shit.”
“CSI Massachusetts, freeze” Lenner roared from somewhere behind the camera, Ethan ran but the two CSI agents were quick to catch up and tackle him to the ground. Toth jumped up and ran to the girl, quickly cutting her down while Lenner hand cuffed the struggling murderer. “There you have it” Toth said, looking at Weaver and Kyle who were both very shaken. “Now I advise you send this video to the rest of your team and make them watch it. It'll make things easier for you all, trust me”. Mindlessly Weaver took the phone off Toth and re-entered the building, a shaking Kyle behind her, her mind reeling. Enrico and Laurie would be devastated. And their jobs, they would be fired for this, they might never be able to find work again, not work that was worth doing anyway. Ford had fooled them, a monster wearing the disguise of a friend.
Published 30th of September 2016