Page 50 of Zen's Crash

“Oh wow, she must not want anything at all to do with him if she’s not even willing to hold on to his possessions for him.”

“He’s a bad seed, I guess. But look, we’ve already found something related to your case.”

“Oh, that’s great news. What did you find?”

Hesitating for a moment, I tell her, “We found more of those crazy cut-and-paste comic books. Only these had the faces of other women. There was a shitload of them squirreled away in one box. We think this is some kind of bizarre obsession that’s been going on with him for a long time. At least we now know for sure that Terrance Harris and Reggie Murphy are one and the same.”

“I don’t know whether finding out he’s done the same thing with other women makes me feel reassured that I’m not the only one, or worried that something bad happened to them somewhere along the way.”

“We considered that possibility as well but came to the conclusion that his victims were probably chosen at random based on availability.”

“Then why is he stalking me? If it’s like you said and he’s an opportunist killer, then it doesn’t make sense for him to deviate from his usual methods.”

“Anything’s possible at this point,” I tell her. “All we know is the images he created in those comic books were from when he was living in Reno. Based on the dates on the covers it looks like these, date back to when he was a teen. The murdered women were from all over the place. Also, he’s been arrested multiple times, which leads us to believe he’s not a very organized killer. Maybe he just saw your picture and became obsessed with you, which led to the stalking.”

Lexi looks thoughtful for a moment. “I suppose that’s possible. I don’t think we have enough pieces of the puzzle to understand what’s going on at this point. Though you say he’s not an organized killer—by the fact he’s not behind bars I’m assuming the multiple arrests were for minor crimes?”

“He did time for sexual assault and battery,” I say.

Lexi looks horrified, I guess she’s thinking about what might have happened if she’d not locked the door that day he delivered food to her home. “Okay, that’s serious shit. But I still don’t agree with you saying he’s not organized. The fact that he’s never been picked up in relation to any murder tells me that he’s good at covering his tracks when he wants to.”

“I guess so. Anyway, we’re hoping these boxes his mother gave us might have some clue as to his whereabouts—maybe a summer cabin he visited with his father, or a relative who might not be aware of what he’s been up to and would take him in while he’s on the run.”

Lexi gives a shrug. “Shouldn’t we turn this over to the police?”

“Probably, but we’re not going to. The police are totally useless. I say we dig into this ourselves and see what we can find. We might find something that leads us to him. And the sooner we find him, the sooner we can get to the bottom of all this.”

“Alright, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to it,” she agrees.

We glove up and begin breaking open boxes. It’s just a bunch of random shit, about what you’d expect to find from the bedroom someone grew up in. We carefully lay everythingout down the long conference table. Eventually, we run out of room, and I pull out two folding banquet tables to give us more space. Some of the boxes are stuffed to the gills, and others only have a few things inside. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why items were packed together. I’m guessing that after she threw him out for attacking her, his mother just shoved everything away as quick as he could.

In one of the last boxes, I find an old digital camera, a random assortment of computer cords, several floppy disks—the kind you used to save documents and shit on, back in the days when 1.44 megabytes was considered a huge amount of data—and some CDs. This is some real old-school shit. There’s also a stack of papers crudely stuffed in a kid’s school folder with robots on the cover.

We lay it all out and try to decide what, if anything, might lead us to Terrance. Lexi picks up the folder. “I think we should start here. These were the documents he thought important enough to keep. Granted, his filing system was a little haphazard, but it’s worth looking into.”

“I agree. This is likely to give us insight into his actual life, rather than his fantasies.”

We pull up a couple of chairs to Rigs’ desk and open the folder between us. We examine the first document together. “He started acting out young.”

“Yeah, this looks like a court document related to a cruelty-to-animals charge. Looks like he got community service.”

We flip it over and, finding nothing on the back, move on to the next page. “This looks like a letter to his dad,” Lexi notes. “He’s complaining about living with his mother.”

“That must have been a long time ago because his mother said he was raised mostly by his father, who was also a gigantic asshole.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Not surprising. It’s practically written with crayons.”

“I think it’s colored pencils, actually.”

We set it aside and move on to the next piece. We go through disciplinary actions from teachers going back to junior high school, coloring pages of superheroes, drawings of marijuana plants, and a lab report where he tested positive for an STD. The fun times just never end with this guy. Near the bottom of the pile is a will from his paternal grandfather, leaving him a large sum of money and a hunting lodge.

I hold it out for Lexi to see.

Lexi says, “A hunting lodge? Sounds like the perfect hideaway for a serial killer.”

“It’s definitely a possibility. His mother lives about three and a half hours from here. This lodge might be located closer. If it’s right on the other side of the state line in Nevada, that would put him within driving distance of Las Salinas.”

A short silence spins out between us as we think over the probability that this is his hiding place. All I know is if he was careful with his money, the inheritance his grandfather left would have easily funded him to trek across several states over the years. The old man would probably roll over in his grave if he knew his grandson used the money to fund a killing spree. I intentionally left out that part when speaking to his motherbecause finding out your own son is possibly a serial killer is just the kind of thing that could break her entirely.

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