Hikaru : Prologue

“I am not an evil man.”

“I can’t say I agree with you there, Mr. Gordon. I mean, what you did to those women, that seems pretty fucking evil to me.”

“I know they were considered evil things. What happened to those women is truly horrific, but I am not responsible for these crimes.”

“What do you mean you’re not responsible? Your prints were found at the scene of the crimes. We got a positive ID on those prints and they’re yours. You signed a detailed confession to the crimes that you wrote, completely of your own free will. And you know everything about the crimes in question, even the shit that wasn’t given to the press. And now, after you agreed to a guilty plea, you’re telling me you didn’t do it?”

Five minutes of silence elapse.

“Did you kill Heather Graham at Motel 6 on April 17, 1989?”

“Yes, Officer Johnson, I did.”

“And did you kill Rosie Sheffield on the night of May 20, 1989?”

“That is correct.”

“Then what the fuck are you talking about, you’re not ‘responsible’? Are you tryin’ to go for an insanity plea now?”

“Do you think I’m crazy?”

“I guess that’s for the courts to decide. If you go for an insanity plea, the deal’s off, and you will be tried for all of your crimes.”

“I understand that.”

“So what’s your deal, then? What’re you trying to pull here?”

Two minutes of silence.

“I was curious what the deal is with this Hikaru broad. According to reports, you kept repeating her name over and over again while lying in a fetal position when police apprehended you in Ellen Blaise’s apartment on June 30. She must have some significance.”

Three minutes of silence.

“Did Hikaru make you kill those women? Is that what you think now?”

“Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“Then who is she?”

“She invades my life and rapes my mind. She haunts me and won’t leave me alone. That’s all I’m going to say about her.”

“Okay, fine, we won’t talk about her.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“So tell me, why did you kill those women?”

“I wanted to.”

A long, two-minute pause.

“I didn’t ask for these desires, but they’ve plagued me since puberty and I eventually learned to live with them, to enjoy these fantasies. I couldn’t choose to have them anymore than a homosexual chooses to be a homosexual or a pedophile chooses to lust for children. My passions were mine, so I figured I might as well get the most of them. After a while, I decided to live out my fantasies. It wasn’t a sudden impulse one night, but the culmination of all my desires to make my fantasies come to life. I had nothing to lose, so why the hell not?”

“Sounds lovely.”

“It became a compulsion for me. And once I took that final step, once I had taken a life, I could no longer help myself. It became an addiction for me. I could go a month or so without killing anyone, but after a while, the urge became too strong.”

“So why not put an end to it? Why not turn yourself in and get help?”

“In the end, after I was finished with my victims, I eventually realized that I wasn’t really satisfied. It was nowhere near as erotic as my fantasies and unless I could live out my fantasy exactly as it was in my head, with the same level of quality, I would never be complete.”

Yet another long pause.

“I can’t control my actions anymore than I can control my desires. When I was killing women, I felt like I was in control, but in reality, my desires were in control of me.”

“Is that what you’re planning on telling the courts?”

“No. I’ll give them my guilty plea and take whatever they give me, just like I promised. I’m just explaining a few things to you. You see, the more I think about it, the more I come to realize that none of us are in control of our actions. We might think we are, but in truth, free will is only an illusion. For example, you might think you’re here voluntarily, but in truth, you have no control over the fact that you’re here, asking me all these questions.”

“No offense, Mr. Gordon, but I think you’re full of shit.”

“Am I? Look at all those people with psychological, emotional, and personality disorders. You think they’re in control of themselves? You think they ask for these disorders to control them the way they do? Does a schizophrenic ask for his mind to be skewed, and can he really help that fact? What about someone suffering from depression, bipolar disorder, or any number of other mental illnesses? Why, even kids with ADD, who might struggle to pay attention and concentrate, but really can’t. And why is it that some people are so stable, while others aren’t?”

“People with mental and emotional disorders might not be able to control what they have, but they can still seek out therapy. Get help and take control of their illness so they aren’t a threat to themselves and other people. They have that choice, at least. And you can go on all you want about how you can’t control what your sexual fantasies are, but you never got help, and you never really tried to control it, so don’t give me any fucking excuses.”

One final long pause lasting several minutes.

“Agree or disagree, Officer Johnson—it’s of no relevance. I’m just explaining where I’m coming from in the hope that I can somehow convince you that I am not an evil man.”

Johnson turned off the tape recorder. “That was about the end of the conversation,” he said now. “Not sure what kind of games he was trying to play with me. Not an evil man my ass. After seeing what he did to those women, I beg to differ.”

I nodded, shuttering uneasily and in revulsion. “I know. You showed me the pics.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t care how graphic the pics were, they don’t do the crimes justice, especially with Heather Graham. Looking at pictures never really gives you the full experience, only the visuals, and those aren’t even three dimensional. Pictures don’t give you the depth of the images. They don’t convey the smells of the place, the vile stench of death and decaying flesh. Or the feel of the hardening flesh as it begins rigor mortis because the corpse had been sitting in the motel room for over twelve hours before maid services discovered the body. Even video footage won’t give you the whole experience of what that bastard’s done. Only being there firsthand gives can give you full appreciation of the carnage.”

I nodded, not sure of what to say, as a cold chill went up my spine.

As jaded as I was, I suppose there were still a few things that disturbed me. Perhaps they bothered me because of the childhood memories that they had triggered. Memories of the emotional, physical, and even sexual abuse I had suffered at the hands of a psychotic and uncaring father, while my mother stood by, completely helpless, a victim of the abuse herself when she was within his feral sight. Memories of Gary Conner, my abusive boyfriend at the age of sweet sixteen, whom I had been forced to kill in self-defense one night when we were alone in his room and he had tried to rape me. These memories came rushing at me once again, leaving me the scared, confused, and vulnerable little girl I had once been all over again.

I suppose that in retrospect it should be somewhat of a relief that even after all the pain I’ve known throughout my twenty-eight years of existence, I am still capable of an emotional response and haven’t completely become a cold, hardened, uncaring bitch. But as a cop, I had to turn the emotional turmoil off just as quickly as it flooded my mind and heart, overwhelming me as it had as a child.

This was my first night as a homicide detective, yet I knew what I was getting myself into and that I would be subjected to the absolute worst that humanity had to offer, just as I had been as a child. The only difference now was that I felt I could fight back and do something about it. It was the degenerate scum that I had hoped to stop from hurting the innocent. This was what I had wanted, the position I had worked hard to attain since getting out of the academy all those years ago.

“You weren’t the one who arrested him?” I asked finally, not knowing what else to say.

I could have told Johnson of the memories that had just now been triggered, of all the old pain and old shame that I experienced even now at my weakest moments, memories and emotions that I hope never to reflect upon ever again. Yet I could have brought it up now to explain that he wasn’t the only one in this small, dimly lit office that knew firsthand of the evils that men were capable of. But of course, I would not say anything, wouldn’t even allude to it because I would rather jam my fingernails into my eye sockets and gouge out my eyes than discuss the sordid details of my past with anyone, especially someone like Johnson, who I had just met that very same day.

Johnson shook his head. “No, I wasn’t there when they apprehended him. But I investigated his murders. And when they took his prints and compared them to the prints of a couple of old crime scenes on a hunch and had gotten a match, I was the first one they told, along with my partner at the time, Officer Howard. And I heard the confession from Gordon’s lips. When he killed, he never taunted the police even once. But when he was captured, that’s when the mind games began. And oddly enough, for whatever reason, I was the only one he’d even talk to.”

“Must’ve liked you.”

Johnson laughed humorlessly. “I guess you could say that. Alex Gordon was one fucked up son of a bitch, though, that’s for damn sure.”

“And now they’re letting him out of jail.” I sighed.

“I don’t care if twenty years have passed and he’s eligible for release, and I don’t care how well behaved he was either. Letting him out of jail was the worst thing those idiots could’ve possibly done!”

“I agree,” I said, and there couldn’t have been more truth to those words. I had joined the police department not because of the authority that wearing a badge provided, or the power rush of being in a uniform. My reasons were more altruistic; the very same reasons that people should want to be cops, and that was to protect people and get the sick bastards off the street and keep them from hurting innocents the way my father had hurt my mother and I for years unopposed. As far as I was concerned, to even think about releasing someone like Alexander Gordon into the populace or to worry about how humanely he was treated after the things he’d done and the people he had hurt and killed was absolutely disgusting and reprehensible. Not only that, but it was dangerous.

“He’ll kill again,” Johnson said grimly. “I know he will. Just you wait and see.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I know I’m right. Hillary Almeida, he may very well be your first murder case.” Johnson paused, sighing. “Shit, I was gonna retire next month, too, but now I can’t leave the force, not as long as he’s out there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike.”

“He’d be fifty by now. Maybe he lost the desire. Twenty years is a long time,” I said, but I didn’t believe it. In fact, I knew it to be complete bullshit. Sick fucks like Alex Gordon never lose their desires, no matter how old they get and no matter how long you lock them up. Like pedophiles, people like Alex Gordon can’t be rehabilitated. Nothing works. The best thing to do is put the worthless motherfuckers down; put them out of our misery.

But I didn’t want Johnson to feel as though the whole world rested on his shoulders. He had been on the force for thirty years, serving and protecting the people to the best of his ability and was one of the few honest and dedicated cops that I had ever known in the precinct. While I might not have fully trusted him (it was nothing personal and had nothing do to with him—I just have a very hard time trusting anybody), I respected him greatly and knew he had earned his retirement.

Besides, I wanted to believe that whatever Alex Gordon threw at society, I could handle it, along with whoever my partner might be after Johnson was gone.

“He’ll kill again,” Johnson declared once more. “He said so himself.”

“He said so to the prison staff?”

“Of course not. He said so to me, personally.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.

Johnson pulled a large envelop from one of his drawers in the desk and placed it over the desk surface as he leaned back in his swivel chair. “I received this in my mail this morning. Alex Gordon wrote it to me the night before he was released.”

“What is it?”

Johnson pulled out a piece of paper from the envelope and handed it to me. It was a letter addressed to Officer Nick Johnson and dated October 15, 2009:

Hey, Officer Johnson,

How have you been?

I’ve been quite well, myself. I’m getting out soon, and by the time you read this, I’ll already be out on the streets. I must say I’m really looking forward to it. For now I’m just sitting here, behaving myself as always, biding my time. Twenty years is a long time to spend behind bars, but soon I’ll be a free man and couldn’t be happier.

I haven’t forgotten my desires. I’m a lot older now. Fifty, to be precise. My hair has turned completely gray; I’ve lost a few teeth and have gained some weight as well in the time I’ve been here. My sex drive isn’t what it used to be either, but a little Viagra will surely fix that and give me the sex drive of someone half my age.

I haven’t forgotten my quest. And once I’m free, satisfaction will soon be mine!

I’ve attached something to this letter, something I wrote last night. I hope you read it, so maybe you’ll get a better understanding of who I am, and finally come to realize that I am not the evil man everyone makes me out to be.

Hope to see you soon.

Sincerely,
Alexander Gordon

“What does he mean by ‘satisfaction’?” I asked, looking up at Johnson after having read through the letter three times.

“I’m not entirely sure myself,” he replied. “Something to do with the way he killed his victims and how in the end, he wasn’t really happy with how it turned out, which seems to be the reason he kept at it. I don’t know what, exactly, he was looking for.”

Johnson fished through the envelope again and this time brought out a dark red spiral notebook, handing it to me. It was only forty pages, but each page was filled with writing, on both sides of each sheet of paper, with no margins. “What is it?” I asked, flipping through the pages and quickly scanning over the handwritten text.

“The Life Story of Alexander Gordon, apparently,” He answered. “It mainly focuses on the two-month period in 1989 when he killed his two victims and had achieved limited notoriety. It goes into great detail of the murders, as well as what was going through his mind at the time. In the first chapter, it also describes his childhood and what that was like.”

“Why would he write it and send it to you now and not twenty years ago?”

Johnson shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“And this is what he expects will change your view of him, make him appear in a new golden light?”

“Yes,” Johnson replied, rolling his eyes. “But after reading his diatribe—while it might make for interesting bedtime reading—I still think he’s a whacked out, evil, sociopathic monster, just as I did before.”

I nodded in agreement. I didn’t expect to become compassionate toward Alex Gordon’s plight either, and knew even before reading that I would never be converted to one of his sympathizers. But curiosity beckoned me forward, and so I pulled up a chair in front of Johnson’s desk, opened to the first page of the spiral notebook, and began reading The Life of Alexander Gordon.

 

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