NEITHER THE INVESTIGATORS nor the journalists could find any kind of link connecting these latest victims to one another. Judging by their life histories, one could easily assume that the killings had a political motivation; yet, since the murders appeared to be the work of a psychopath or a serial killer, the focus of the investigation fell on the psychiatrist’s files, with a secondary focus on patients with possibly radical political affiliations.
The detectives estimated that, out of hundreds of bureaucrats and government employees who had been the doctor’s patients, seventy-five percent were on antidepressants and anti-psychotic medicines. Many at police headquarters began to joke that the country was being run by drugged-up zombies and potential mass murderers masquerading as bureaucrats. A chief investigator, discussing the case with his superiors, lit a cigar and said, What happened to going to a bar and getting drunk, getting a prostitute and waking up to go to work in the morning? No one can handle a drink anymore. Pills are the easy way out, and that is why this country is going down the tubes.
The head of the Episcopalian Church demanded the abolishment of the Carnival, stating that its pagan origins were an incitement to debauchery and violence. The Catholic Church was in a precarious position: carnivals had a long history in Church functions and, through the ages, these festivities had never been suppressed or condemned. In an eloquent act of defence, the spokesman for the Catholic Church invoked Francis of Assisi, who had spoken of “spiritual joy” and been known to call himself and his companions “God’s jugglers.” The spokesman blamed a few decadent elements for transforming the Carnival from a community affair into a drug-infested gay pride parade that was taking over the decent essence of the celebration.
When a task force was formed, ultimately recommending that the city shut down the Carnival, a counter-committee of local merchants, large corporations, and sponsors threatened to withhold their financial support for the mayor during the upcoming election, should the task force’s recommendations be followed.
THE LINK BETWEEN the killing of the taxi drivers and the murders of the psychiatrist, the professor, and the CEO continued to baffle the investigators. Ultimately, they came to suspect that two separate serial killers were at work. While the gruesome Corporate Murders, as they became known, had a clear psychotic element to them, the taxi murders were of a different nature. Those killings were not as spectacular and deranged as their corporate counterparts.
Yet both cases remained very puzzling to the police. In the case of the Corporate Murders, though, one breakthrough came from the fact that the killers had been sloppy and reckless. Security cameras had captured images of two men driving the CEO’s car out of the gym parking lot. Detectives were able to match a set of fingerprints in the car to those of a minor who had previously committed a felony.
TWO SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOYS by the name of Tammer Gonzalez Othman and Billy Bloom (known as Skippy the Bug) were identified as murder suspects in the corporate cases. They were caught and dragged to police headquarters for questioning.
“Skippy,” to the officers’ surprise, admitted to all three murders without hesitation, reciting the names and addresses of each of the victims, accurately describing the killings in precise detail, and even mimicking the victims’ reactions. He identified Tammer as his partner. When asked why they had chosen those people, he said that they had followed a list. When asked where they got the list, he said they found it at the house of a man named Otto.
The kid was incapable of lying or of feeling remorse, the police psychologist reported. During his questioning he had asked for a hamburger and a Coke. His statement was punctuated throughout with chuckles and even laughs.
Tammer was interrogated separately.
When the investigators asked him why they had gone to Otto’s house, Tammer said that it was to get some special suitcase for Otto.
Where is the suitcase now?
Under the bridge.
What was in the suitcase?
Papers.
What kind of papers?
Just papers.
What was written on them? the inspector asked.
Names of rich people, Tammer said.
How did you know that they were rich?
Tammer said that Otto had noted down the income of all the people on the list.
When asked if Skippy had looked at the list, Tammer answered, Skippy can’t read.
When questioned about the last time he’d seen Otto, he said Otto had shown up in a clown outfit under the bridge.
When they asked him to list the people he had killed, he named the three men that Skippy had described, and also added a fourth victim, Fredao Mwalila. He said that they’d used Fredao’s gun on the CEO.
Meanwhile, in the other interrogation room, Skippy asked if he could go to the bathroom. His feet were shackled and he was escorted by two officers. In the bathroom, he took off his shirt and started to wash his hair and face over the sink. There were still traces of blood on his undershirt. On the way out he stole the soap. Soap, he mumbled to himself, and smiled.
When Tammer and Skippy were brought together in the same room and asked if they had affiliations to any political group, they said no.
Do you go by any other name? the inspector asked, and Skippy said, The Savage Capitalists, and the boys looked at each other and laughed.
When asked if Otto had ordered the killings, they said no, they’d thought of them on their own.
When asked if they’d killed any taxi drivers, they said no as well.
Who, then, was responsible for the killing of the taxi drivers? an inspector asked.
God knows, Skippy said, and chuckled.
MUD
I STOPPED BY Café Bolero. All the spiders had their newspapers spread out on the tables like a pageant of butterflies in a collector’s attic. They murmured and showed each other the photos of the Killer Kids.
I recognized Tammer and Skippy and I ran across the street and bought as many of the day’s papers as I could carry. I sat at the counter and I read. Their photographs were on the front page of every single newspaper and tabloid. Inside were stories about Skippy’s history inside juvenile detention centres and psychiatric institutions, and articles on the effects of prostitute mothers on kids’ lives. All of it was paraded in the local, national, and even international news. Otto’s picture was in many of the papers too. A prime suspect in the killing of the French journalist, he was mentioned as a foster parent to one of the Killer Kids. The link between the two raised multiple speculations and made for a convoluted story that left many unresolved ends. It was reported that Otto was on the run and was being actively pursued by the police. He was labelled a dangerous ideologue and extreme left terrorist with ties to anarchist organizations.
Once again, experts, this time on the history of anarchism, found their way into the news. The story of the Serbian Gavrilo Princip and his band of anarchists, which, one expert stressed with evident spite and delight, included a mysterious Arab who was later hanged — and their assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, consequently triggering the First World War, was trotted out for the public like a history lesson explained to kids in an elementary school class. The life of the famous anarchist Emma Goldman was cited as a lesson in the failure of the movement and its practices of sexual liberation, which, they said, led only to promiscuity and debauchery. Clichés and misconceptions about the movement were revived and repeated. “Anarchist on the Run,” read the photo captions, and “The Resurgence of the Anarchist in the West” and “Why a Good Citizen Was Killed by an Anarchist” and all those words made me go to my car, leave the lantern off, and drive aimlessly.