Ana Maria Villarreal puts on her most serious look as floodlights cast a halo around her darkly beautiful face. Unblinking, she stares into the camera and begins the first broadcast of her special, live from the steps of the Cheyenne Police Department.
“As if I don’t have anything else to do but watch her.” Now I’m talking to myself, like a crazy person.
But I stop short of turning off the television. I wonder just what she hopes to accomplish.
“It was ten years ago,” she explains. “Three officers dead—all from the same agency, all investigating the Five Point Killer—has to be more than coincidental.” I laugh because it was more than coincidental when I planned those deaths back in the day. It had all seemed so exciting. Selecting my victims like wolves select their prey, based on certain parameters known only to them. Researching the places where I would kill them. Carefully leaving only those clues that I wished law enforcement officers to discover on their own. It was exciting then to get the best of the cops. Back in the day …
“We need the help of the public,” Ana Maria concludes. She gives a number for a tip line and my head pounds. Why can’t she just let it drop? Even though the men I killed deserved it, what I did a decade ago was a mistake. And I’ve been pure as the driven snow ever since.
It’s said that a murderer never sleeps well after he kills; that his conscience prevents him from ever letting his mind rest. But years ago I came to grips with my crimes. I told myself that what I did, I did because they deserved their deaths. And I’ve slept quite well since.
But since the TV station began promoting Ana Maria’s investigative report, I’ve begun to sleep fitfully. Not from fear of getting caught—I planned things too well back in the day to ever get caught. And certainly not from anything that retired Denver cop or Ana Maria could uncover. But every few hours I snap awake shuddering, shaking my sweat-drenched hair, reliving those orgiastic feelings that overcame me back then. The newspaper said Butch was killed in cold blood. And possibly the other officers as well. I liked to think of it more like in cool blood. Watching the life ooze out of them. Enjoying their deaths from different angles. Coolly watching.
I reach over to turn the television off, but my hand trembles. I haven’t felt this way since then. I fantasize about once again setting the murder scenes up so that every police officer investigating will look in the opposite direction. And I’ll stand on the sidelines watching as they stumble by. Just like back in the day.
Ana Maria Villarreal says good night. To me, in her special way, and promises another airing tomorrow night. “And with your help, we will learn who killed these men. Starting with Butch Spangler.” I take deep, calming breaths, and at last I can turn off the television set.
Will I watch tomorrow? Of course. I cannot not watch. For every time she goes over the facts in the Five Point Killings, excitement shoots through me like I’m pissing on an electric fence. Excitement that I tossed aside when I—and only because I chose to—stopped killing. Now I am afraid the only way to keep the urges in check is to have knowledge of where the investigation is headed. Ana Maria will give me that knowledge, every night at seven o’clock.
I hope it works. Because I still tremble with anticipation.