New York University, NY

June 19th 2013

15:13

Langston stood with one hand resting on her desk and the other on her glasses as she watched her students. A young girl in the front row caught her gaze as she looked up from her notes towards Langston.

“What would be your first thought when considering a man like Luther Hamish-Philips?” she asked. The girl shifted in her seat and took the end of her pen out of her mouth.

“He’s obviously deeply disturbed and his interest in women suggests he was ostracised in school,” she replied.

Langston smiled and turned to the screen hanging above the white board behind her upon which was the face of Luther Hamish-Philips, who loomed large in the lecture hall, catching the gaze of everyone.

“Normally, you’d be right,” began Langston, “but Philips was an exception. He was very popular at school, particularly with women.”

“Maybe his popularity led him to believe he could always have what he wanted and when that didn’t turn out to be true later in life, he became violent” replied the girl.

Langston flicked her eyes up towards the face of Philips whose own blue eyes burned into the back of her head as she taught her class. She admired the cut of his jaw and the light brown hair that framed his face, she wasn’t the only one to think he was handsome.

“That was my thinking,” replied Langston.

“How did you catch him?” asked the girl.

“When you know the kind of person you’re looking for it becomes easier to find them,” she began, brushing her hair behind her ear, “we knew he was desperate for the same female attention he had in his high school years and so we decided to visit any strip clubs in the area to find anyone who might have seen someone acting strange and sure enough, after what felt like a thousand clubs we found a dancer who said that a man came in regularly and paid for a dance. She went on to tell us that the man had been different lately, he had described meeting with various women for sex and she became uncomfortable with him and how forceful he had become. From there we were able to identify Philips and eventually bring him in.”

Langston walked around behind her desk and took a board pen from her draw before writing, in block capitals, the word “simple” across the white board with an arrow pointing towards Philips.

“When you remember that serial killers are simple people, it becomes easier to catch them. Whatever the killer, whatever their motives, whatever their MO, if you remember that they are, at their core, simply searching for something in their crimes, then it becomes much easier to find them.”

A hand raised in a row near the back where a young boy sat, leaning back in his chair and with his head tilted to the side.

“Yes,” said Langston, gesturing towards the boy.

“What about someone like John Wayne Gacy who kills for decades without being caught?” he asked.

“He was caught. Multiple times, just for different crimes. They all form a pattern of behaviour, all it takes is someone whose able to lean back and recognise the pattern. Eventually someone did and they connected him, and his behaviour, to the murders and he was caught.”

The bell rang and the students began to pack their notebooks away in their bags and file out of the lecture hall through one of two doors in the back row. Langston turned back to the white board and began to wipe it clean.

“Remember, your papers are due in two weeks, my office hours are on my door, come see me if you have questions,” she said.

“I have a question,” began a voice from behind Langston, “what about when things aren’t simple?”

Langston turned and saw him standing at the bottom of the steps, looking back at her. Carver smiled and for a split second, so did she.

“Then you call in someone to simplify things for you,” she replied.

“That’s usually when people call you right?”

She put the board rubber back onto her desk and took off her glasses.

“Why are you here Jim?” she asked.

“I always preferred it when you wore your glasses,” he replied.

She brushed her red hair behind her ear again and closed her eyes for a moment.

“I told you, I need your help.”

“And I told you, I can’t help you,” she replied.

“Em, he’s back and you know they won’t listen to me. I need you to help me convince them,” he added, walking in closer to her.

Carver ran his hand through his stubble and coughed into his palm.

“What makes you think they’d listen to me?” she asked.

“Because you’re the one they call when they need things simplified.”

He placed his hand on hers before she withdrew.

“I’m sure they’re investigating it, they don’t need us,” she said.

“They don’t know the new case is connected,” he began, “they haven’t even mentioned the cases in Philippa.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I’ve read the police report,” he replied.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“You’ve been talking to Axel again haven’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, I have, and he got me the report, that doesn’t change the fact that the cases are connected. Look, I didn’t want this either you know. Nothing would make me feel better than closing the door on all of this but I can’t. Another girl just lost everything just like Emily did twenty years ago. You know they won’t listen to me Em.”

“Why should I listen to you?” she asked.

He smiled.

“Because you know me. You used to love me if you remember.”

He took the ring box out of his pocket and placed it on the desk, open, revealing a small white diamond ring inside.

“Em, you know me, or knew me, either way, what they said about me was bullshit, the only thing I’m guilty of is not wanting this bastard to get away with murder.”

Langston looked down at the ring, transfixed for a moment as if looking a photo of what might have been, before looking back up at Carver and closing the box and pushing it towards him.

“Jim, what they said about you, how I felt about you twenty years ago will never change but I can’t get back into this now. I just can’t.”

He took the ring box off the desk and placed it in his pocket.

“Right,” he began before taking the police report out of his pocket and setting it down on the desk, “I know you care as much I do, you just need to be reminded.”

He smiled before walking back up the stairs and leaving the lecture hall. Langston watched him take every step and watch the door when he had left as if it held the image of him for seconds after he had passed through it. She looked down at the crumpled brown file on her desk and opened it revealing the photo of Emily from the newspaper sitting on top of the police report. Without a moment’s hesitation she slammed the file shut and pinched the bridge of her nose as she began to cry. She turned to the white board and looked at the word in the centre, floating in the white and then turned back to the file on her desk opening it once more. She moved past the picture of Emily and began to read the police report.

Brooklyn, NY

June 19th

18:34

Carver took the chewing gum out of his mouth and rolled it up into a ball in his palm before flicking it towards a small trash can on the other side of the room where it hit the wall and pinged off the rim before falling just to the left. He took another stick of gum out of a packet and began chewing it looking at the various balls that rested in and around the trash can. He began to spit the gum out when he there was a knock at his door. He shot out of bed and took the latch off the door, opening it to reveal Langston.

“I’ll help you talk to them,” she began, “I’ll help you find him but after that, I’m out.”

“Me too.”

He gestured for her to come in and she brushed past him in the doorway before he closed the door.

“It’s not exactly the Hilton but it’s home,” he said.

“It’s very, dark,” she replied.

He smiled.

“Did you read the report?”

“I did,” she replied.

“What did you think?”

“I think we’ve got to go back,” she began, “if there are going to be answers I think we’ll find them in Philippa.”

“Right” he replied, letting out a long, drawn out breath.

“We’re really getting back into this aren’t we?” she asked.

“I don’t think we were ever out.”

Next Chapter: Chapter Three - "Tree"