Page 9 of The Butterfly Killer

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Marcus slappedthe files down onto the large printer. He typed in the number of copies and pressed start. He slammed the now cold cup of coffee on the bench beside the copier. The contents sloshed over the side and splattered over the bench.

He was such an idiot for thinking the FBI wanted anything to do with him. Even if they wanted his help, Blevins would laugh him off the case in a heart beat. It would only take a couple minutes for Blevins to make Marcus out to be the stick in the mud.

Maybe it was better to be on the outside of the case anyway. While the detectives and the feds were nose deep in the evidence, he could be looking at the big picture. He knew this killer better than anyone else. He was the only person who was dedicating their life to the murders. His uneventful weekends were a show for that.

He glanced down at the papers flying out of the copying machine. He had to take a double look to realize the copies he was making was of the case file made on the recent murder.

He chuckled out of disbelief. He wondered if Agent Mercer had…

He didn’t let that thought go on any further. He’d rather say it was a strike of luck than Mercer throwing him a bone.

He picked up one of the copies and started rifling through.

The pictures were nauseating. He glanced over them. He didn’t need to see most of them so he skipped them. The other things pertaining to the case was what he wanted.

The forensics lab had come up with no fingerprints.

There were however traces of the substance pepsin in the victim’s eyes.

Marcus stared at the information.

“Pepsin?” He’d never heard of it and none of the previous cases had it. He looked it up on his phone and found that it wasn’t deathly toxic to humans so it wouldn’t have been used to try and kill her.

He read further into the report. The medical examiner revealed that the victim had red and irritated eyes. That might be the pepsin since it could cause that. It was strange it was found at all.

They also found borax. It was toxic. He knew that.

There was little trace amounts found on the floor beside her but not on her. Again, it didn’t seem like it was meant to kill her. Why would someone have these two things on them? And why hadn’t they been found at the other scenes?

The copies finished. He stood there for a moment, pondering what all the information meant. But he was running out of time. He gathered the papers and walked out of the small closet space reserved for the photo copier. He flipped through the documents until he neared the room where the agents were in. He knocked on the door.

Blevins answered it. He looked Marcus up and down. “What?”

Marcus held the files up. He couldn’t speak as his throat tightened. Leave it to Blevins to take all the wind out of his sails.

Blevins snatched the files and shut the door in his face.

Marcus slowly turned to go back to his desk. He still had those papers to fill out for tomorrow. Maybe he would be able to get out of here in the next hour or so.

He left three hours later—a quarter after nine. He was dead on his feet when he arrived to his small studio apartment. He didn’t bother turning on the lights. He threw his keys onto the small coffee table with only had three legs. He tossed his coat and bag onto the couch with more holes in it than the grunge jeans he used to wear in high school.

He fought with his uniform to get it off. He chucked that into the top drawer of his dresser by his bed. He didn’t bother to take the belt out of the loops, knowing it would be easier to slip the whole thing on in the morning when he was half-asleep. He’d do laundry on the weekend when he wasn’t fried to a crisp.

The moonlight drifted through the one window above his bed that also lead out to the fire escape. He would sit out there when the cramped room became too much even though the fire escape was a flimsy piece of metal that could give way at any second. He was too tired to sit out there right now, but he thought about it.

In nothing but his underwear—his socks somewhere with his shoes but he couldn’t tell where—he laid on the tops of his thin sheets. He stared at his ceiling, his racing thoughts quiet for a second as he watched the passing car lights dance across the popcorn textured ceiling.

He slowly closed his eyes.

A moment of peace passed. That was how long it lasted.

The day, starting from the very beginning when he opened his eyes, replayed in his head. The morning was top speed untilhe was arriving on the scene of the murder. He was walking through the front door and he was smelling death again.

He couldn’t get that out of his head. The smell. There was something different. No, it wasn’t even just the smell that had made him think about this murder differently. It was everything combined. Something about it was off—so different from the other murders that it would be laughable to think they were the same.

He laid there in silence for a few minutes. His thoughts wouldn’t leave him alone. And when he stopped thinking about the recent murder, his mom’s face, when he found her laying on the kitchen floor, haunted him next.

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