Free A Killer Like Me by Chuck Hustmyre Page A

luck.
    His eyes glide down the text until he finds another definition.
    3. wild mammals or birds hunted for food or sport.
    That’s it. The game. The most dangerous game. He has read Robert Graysmith’s books about the Zodiac Killer, who was allegedly obsessed with Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game.” In that story a crazy Russian aristocrat stalks an American big-game hunter on a private island. In the title, and in the story, the word
game
has two meanings: a form of play or sport, for certainly the hunt itself is a sport; and a mammal hunted for sport . . . or food, because the American hunter is himself the prey.
    What a wonderfully delicious plot twist it would have been had General Zaroff intended to hunt Sanger Rainsford down like an animal and eat him.
    The killer looks at his antique typewriter, bought from a pawnshop for twenty-five dollars cash, and untraceable back to him. He tries to force his mind to focus on the task at hand. He needs his medication to keep him focused. Something dragged his mind here, to the word
game
, to the short fiction story, to the Zodiac. What was it?
    The codes. That was it. Those unfathomable, indecipherable Zodiac ciphers. The Zodiac Killer included long passages of code in several of his hand-printed letters that he said contained clues to his identity. The ciphers were combinations of letters, many printed backward, and arcane symbols. Only the first one or two coded passages were ever deciphered. The rest remain unbroken to this day.
    The killer knows nothing about codes. He wants to type a letter to the newspaper, not invent a cipher. But the police and the paper don’t have to know that. Thinking about the hours they will waste poring over every letter makes him laugh. He imagines the police bringing in the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency—all for nothing. His code will be meaningless, just babel. But it will stymie them.
    He will also send them a little gift, something to establish his bona fides right away.
    The killer’s hands hover again over the type keys. Carefully, he begins to peck at them.
    DEAR EDITOR:
    THIS IS . . .

C HAPTER E LEVEN
    Saturday, July 28, 8:10 AM
    “If I had the authority, I’d fire you right now!” Captain Donovan said. “Unfortunately, there is a procedure that must be followed first.”
    Murphy stood rigid in front of Donovan’s desk. Beside the captain, standing arrow straight like a wooden Indian, was Assistant Chief Larry DeMarco, commander of the Detective Bureau. Neither one normally worked weekends.
    DeMarco had not said a word during the ten minutes Donovan had been shouting at Murphy. He didn’t need to. He just stood there in his starched uniform, the three gold stars of his rank shining on each sharply pressed epaulet.
    The captain backhanded a stack of papers off his desk. “According to civil-service rules, an immediate suspension has to be
with
pay until the chief jumps through all the administrative hoops to change it to a disciplinary suspension
without
pay,” Donovan said. “You’d end up, for a while at least, getting paid to do nothing. So I’m not going to order an immediate suspension in your case, Murphy. I’m going to transfer you—with full pay—and let the chief decide how to handle your termination.”
    DeMarco cleared his throat. “What the captain means, Detective, is that the chief is not going to make a decision until he gets the results of a complete PIB investigation. You will be entitled to a hearing, of course, and an appeal.”
    Donovan kept his eyes fixed on Murphy but addressed the assistant chief. “He’s familiar with the process.”
    “After the appeal,” DeMarco continued, “you can take the matter to district court, but the law says a district judge’s decision on civil-service matters is final. You can’t appeal the decision.”
    Murphy tried to stare down DeMarco but couldn’t. The assistant chief’s eyes were like black ice and they froze