Authors note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Tracking Evil, a Podcast - Part 13B
Chapter One: "...Thou art brave, thou art prudent, thou hast excellent qualities...- Alexander Dumas, The Three Musketeers."
The road hummed beneath the wheels of her car as Erica drove. This had been a great idea. She was already feeling better about herself. She loved Arlene, loved Sondra as well but the constant pressure, the need to keep scrambling in one direction, then the next. Putting their bodies, their lives on the line. It was unending. Arlene had been reared for this, trained for this, and even Erica could see she was struggling. Sondra was like a black female version of Rambo, seeming indestructible to Erica but she knew that tough as she was, the loss of Amos, then Destry had cut her friend deep.
Both those women, to Erica, were far more capable than herself at dealing with all the pressure of the hunt. She wasn't. This had all started out as a means to an end. Get noticed for her investigative journalist skills, get a job, be happy.
Instead, she had found the crime story of the century, released her blog to mixed reviews as many didn't give credence to her claims despite the fact that Gerry Butterman was wanted by authorities on the basis of evidence supplied by Erica. Instead of being feted and offered amazing job opportunities, Erica was trapped hunting serial killers, one of whom was now obsessed with her.
She needed to get back to basics, back to what she was good at. Ferreting out the truth, making the connections to uncover the story. The story now, as it had been from the start was Gerry Butterman, the graffiti killer. Despite Arlene and Sondra working to capture The Hockey Fan as a way of finding Butterman, Erica wanted to try a different track. The killer was obsessed with her, had compared her favourably to his dead wife. The one he had murdered. This wouldn't have seemed a good thing, but Butterman had basically told Erica he wouldn't kill her, yet at least. She needed answers, needed to know why he was obsessed with her.
The man was a creature of habits, it was how they had tracked him down the first time. If that held true then maybe his tastes, his needs were a matter of habit as well. There was one person Erica knew that was familiar with Butterman's dead wife, one person who might shed some light on why Erica was now cat nip for a killer. Randall Tiller, the man who had slept with Butterman's wife, who had inspired the killers calling card of 'BILLIII'. (See Tracking Evil Part Three)
It was most likely a long shot but she didn't have a hell of a lot of other leads and this at least would give her a break from guns and violence.
Randall worked on a road maintenance crew; Erica had met him before. Despite the man now being over sixty, he was very fit and healthy and still in possession of the same rough charm that had obviously worked on Butterman's wife all those years before. It had certainly worked on Erica, the old man managing to bed her that very night. When she had met him, Erica hadn't wanted to identify herself as a reporter, instead she had gone for a role as a college student looking to complete a project on a local murder. She would stick to that story when she met him, tell him she was writing a report or something, victim analysis maybe. From her memory of the man, the details weren't important, he'd been happy enough to talk.
Just a mile outside of town, Erica slowed the car to a crawl. The was a maintenance crew working, filling in some potholes with asphalt. At the edge of the crew, shirtless, smoking and leaning on a shovel doing as little as possible was the man she sought, Randall Tiller. She had to admit, for a liar, a cheat, a homewrecker and the fifty other descriptive adjectives, all negative, that could be laid at this man's feet... he did look fine as fuck for a man his age.
The men working had noticed her slowing down and heads were turning towards her. 'Subtle, real subtle' Erica chided herself. She coasted the car the last few yards, coming to a halt beside Randall and rolling down her window.
"Help you?" He spoke without a trace of recognition in his voice. Erica had changed some since they'd last met, her hair for one, but still.... She supposed that just reinforced the man's nature. All Erica had been was an easy lay, easily forgotten the next day.
"Yes, Hi. Mr Tiller. You might not remember me, but you helped me out some months back. I'm Erica, I was doing a project on a local murder, Kristine Butterman?"
A shadow passed across his face, gone before Erica could recognize what emotion he'd been fighting. Then she saw in his eyes that he remembered her.
"Peaches, 'course I remember you. You back for more of the same, eh?"
Erica coloured, reading his true meaning. "Ah yeah, kinda. I had some follow up questions if you have a little time?"
Randall scratched the back of his neck, checking his fingernails afterwards to see what he'd managed to dig out. He was the same as she remembered, course in nature, lacking in manners. He was of average height and build but with heavy slabs of muscle from years of manual work. His head remained freshly shaven, the moustache which had been a mix of white and grey was now decidedly whiter in color, but that was about it.
"On the clock now. Guess I can make my way over to Weaver's after I finish up."
Weaver's was a bar and grill that Erica had eaten in on her last visit. She nodded in thanks, "That sounds good, after 5pm then?"
Randall grinned and turned back to doing nothing. Faced with the back of his head and the stares of his coworkers, Erica put the car in gear and continued into town.
<<0>>
True to his word, at least where getting a drink was concerned, Randall appeared only twenty minutes later than promised. He was alone and he came straight up to the bar, taking the stool beside Erica. He looked speculatively at the bottle of Coors in front of Erica. She immediately signalled the barmaid, indicating she bring two bottles this time. He ignored the barmaid's frosty glare, twisting off the bottle cap himself and taking a long swallow before finally, properly, acknowledging Erica's presence.
"Shit, this must be some project you doin', back again after this long?"
"Well, my professor wanted, uh, wanted me to flesh out some more details. . . about the victim." Erica mentally kicked herself for her clumsy lie. The hesitation and the use of the word 'flesh' had the old man grinning and she needed to keep him on track.
"Anyway, last time we spoke you gave me a brief outline of Mrs Butterman and your relationship. I was wondering if there was any more you can tell me?"
"Uh-huh. I can tell you I like your hair, nice. 'Cept of course, harder to tug on it now it's all short that way."
She patted her pixie cut bob, a result of trying to hide herself from the killers pursuing her. Erica missed her long hair but she'd had it short now for a while and out of habit had been maintaining it that way. Damn the man but he wasn't going to make this easy.
"About Kristine. Anything you can tell me about her?" Erica made the question more specific this time.
"I done told you all, it was thirty years ago, how's a man to remember?"
"Well okay, yeah you described her physically to me and ummm yeah, sexually too, I guess. You couldn't recall at the time how you had originally met. How about now?"
Randall, just drank, silence his answer.
