Noted

December 19th, 1997:

“Come in, Killian,” I said after he knocked on my office door. Four knocks. Always four slow knocks, so I know it's him.

  “Hello, ma’am!” he said, smirking while he opened the heavy wooden door. I watched him pull his chair from the corner of the office in front of my desk. It’s a nice desk. Large, solid oak. It was a gift from my grandfather, a renowned author in his prime. I remember my family telling me how I was going to follow in his footsteps. I was going to be the next bestselling author; I was supposed to carry on that name. What a fucking joke. It’s like I needed to carry on a name to somehow become successful. My own name would do just fine, thank you. At least, that’s what I thought after graduating. I hadn’t been as successful as I deserved.

I did, however, have one hope to salvage what left I had of this career: him.

I brushed my scattered notebooks, pens, and planners off of my desk. I placed these around me before he came in to make him think I had been busy. I had faking a career down to a science at this point with my scribbled parchment and broken pens tossed about my office on the daily. In reality, I hadn’t written a word in three days; I couldn’t anymore without him around. Plus, out of anticipation for that day, I didn’t sleep a wink the night before. That was to be expected at this point now. It happened every time. I’d be damned if he ever found that out though.

He sat down, and I nervously got to asking my list of questions.

“Man or woman?”
        "Man,” he replied. “And guess who called me up? His own brother. His brother. The man he’d grown up with. I genuinely couldn't believe it. I mean, I have a brother. I could never imagine. No matter the issue or whatever family trauma. His own damn brother wanted to fucking kill him. Made me sick. You can’t trust anyone.”

He never quite knew when to shut up. That was his one downfall. I wasn’t here to listen to him complain about his victims or their families or how this random display of brotherly hatred upset him. His added commentary lessened the impact of his stories, and they made my writing less compelling. What hitman cares about whether two brothers worked out their issues?

“Okay, um what did he do?” I asked next.

“This one is saucy, I think.”

He rubbed his hands together and smiled. He looked like a kid that just heard the newest sixth grade gossip. It gave me the chills, how giddy I truly was to hear this story.

He went on to tell a tale of adultery. A tale of love and lust and revenge and blood. A perfect chapter for my book. I scribbled down every word that spilled out of his mouth, and when he was finished, he sat back in his chair and gave a huge sigh of relief.

“Well, that’s it. He’s happily asleep at the bottom of the river now. No more backstabbing brothers or unfaithful wives to worry about. Time for my afternoon coffee! Same time next month then?”

“Yeah. Great, thanks Killian,” I said, and he walked happily out my door leaving me partially disgusted and partially riveted by the thought of my next novel.

April 24th, 1998:

  I never really welcomed him in much anymore (at least not in a normal kind of way). He knew our agreement well, so I didn’t have to put on a fake, perky persona as I did for the rest of the brainless, simple interviews I did. I swear people get dumber each second, and most of my job consisted of working with those idiots. He’s not quite as stupid, at least. We’ve been together for a while now, so I don't feel the need to put the kettle on every time he comes in. Together how? I’m not quite sure. We most certainly are not together, together. Working together? I guess that is a better way to put it, but not satisfying enough. Friends? Perhaps. Therapist and patient? Better.

"You seem chipper,” I said. “Looks like it’s been a successful month, yeah?”

He smirked. He adjusted his tie and sank a little lower into his chair. “I’m always successful. Am I not? You must know that at this point,” he replied.

That was the thing about him. Cocky as all get out, but honestly, rightfully so. I had never seen him make a mistake. Not once. He knew exactly what he had to do in every situation. That’s why he was so good at his job, and he let me in on every single one of his secrets. That’s what intrigued me most about him: closed-off with everyone else but open with me. Open with his mind and his secrets. Far more willing to talk than I had ever been. While I tried to make it clear I was simply working with him, he couldn't help but try to learn more about me, but every question he asked about my personal life had been sufficiently dodged so far. I had my response down to a science.

“Sorry, are you writing a book about me? Right. Now back to my questions,” I would say.

His intent on getting to know me on a personal level continually got under my skin. He was a weird motherfucker too. He wore a different suit every time I saw him. He looked extremely put together all the time when in fact, I knew how messed up he was to commit the acts he did. He fooled everyone else by parading around as a bank teller during the day, and he had a kind disposition to him if you didn’t know him as well as I did. No, we weren't friends. Yes, I admired him. Yes, I loathed him.

“Alright, let’s get into it then. I’ve got a meeting with my editor at 2:00 for lunch, so you’ve got until then,” I told him.

“Okay, miss. What’s your first question then?”

“Quit it with that ‘miss’ shit. You just say it to aggravate me. Now, man or woman?” I asked.

“Man. Mayor of Johnston, actually.”

“No shit. That was you?”

“Big on the political scene, I guess? I didn’t know. Were you a fan?”

“Of that prick? Absolutely fucking not. I had met him once, actually. With my wife at my book signing tour last year. She about lost her mind when she met him, but she gets excited when she sees a golden retriever on the street. It’s something that I used to find endearing, honestly. But her excitement now just tires me.”

He smiled, listening to me talk. No response came from his lips. I could tell he enjoyed hearing about my home life, and I let personal details slip for the first time. I quickly backtracked. He was the one that needed to talk. Not me.

July 24th, 1998:

“My wife wrecked our car last week, “ I told him. “Oh shit! Is she okay?” he responded.

“Why is that the first question people ask when you talk about a car wreck? Every damn time. Yeah, she’s fucking fine. She shouldn’t be with how frequently she steps in the driver’s seat drunk as shit. She should have been thrown through the goddamn window, but she’s fine. And now I’m left without a car and still stuck in bed with a drunk.”

Through our past monthly meetings, I opened up more. I found that discussing my personal life with Killian made him more comfortable with me, if that was even possible. He began giving me more details about his victims which in turn supplied me with much more content.

I learned the consistency of each victim's blood, the color their skin turned when they stopped breathing, the pitch of their screams when they saw him emerge from the darkness. I told his stories with more and more detail. Right down to the parts even he cringed about. My readers wanted the struggle. They wanted the dirty backstory and private details of fucked up family disturbances. My stories dripped in blood and sex, tears and vomit. I never questioned my audience for their thoughts and their desires. What got them off was no matter to me. I merely gave them what they asked for.

“Wow. I’m so sorry,” he said. Genuine concern flooded his eyes. 

I had always felt Killian was in over his head. He seemed too genuinely emotional for his job. He wasn’t mentally strong enough to not care about half the disgusting things he did, and he made it apparent by consistently asking about my life. I’m pretty sure he felt relieved when he first came into my office. He was begging for someone to see him. For someone to hear him. I knew he used our sessions as some sort of therapy every month, and while that freaked me the fuck out, it gave me stories. Call it immoral. Call it exploitation. Call it what you want. He had me to cry to. I had him to cure my writer's block. I had him to give me ideas. I call it genius. I call it what it is.

September 25th, 1998:

Four knocks on my door.

“Come in, Killian.”

“Good morning, miss,” he said while placing  a paper coffee cup in front of me.

"No,” I said, rolling my eyes. I reached out for my coffee and took a sip. Perfect. If only I could have seen this day two years ago. A serial killer knows how many creams I take in my coffee, and I’ve got a novel in every bookstore window display on the east coast. Shit, maybe I’ve got it made now.

“How was your trip to Nashville? You and your wife have yourself a nice little getaway?” he asked.

“Honestly, it was fine. She’s barely got any idea what’s going on half the time, so it was easiest to just leave her in the room half the time. You know Evan, right? He came with us.”

“Oh, Evan. Yeah, you’ve talked about him. So you don’t hate him anymore, I take it?”

“Now that he’s finally off my back about getting a good story into him every six seconds, he’s alright. It’s a weird thing though, your boss coming on a trip with your wife.”

“Yeah, especially when you’re fucking him.”
I choked on my coffee. He handed me a napkin.

“That’s none of your fucking business, Killian.”

“Yeah, it’s your fucking business.”

“Nice one,” I said, unamused.

I did not need him thinking about me in that way. I didn’t need anyone thinking about my sex life. Or about my relationship with my wife. I composed myself and tried to begin our session as normal, even though I felt my face burst into hot hives.

“Man or woman?” I began.

“Man,” he replied with resisted compliance.

With my face down, I continued to ask my list of questions. I had the bones of these meetings down pat for two years, and in my frustration, I reverted back to asking the standard list of questions.

“What did he do?”

“Drug dealer. This guy called me last week in major panic, definitely still rolling, and usually I won’t stay on the phone with someone that fucked up. They usually have no idea what they’re talking about and end up calling off the job when they finally come to. But there was something about this guy. He was a kid, 21 tops, and god, his voice. The crack in his voice when he started crying on the phone, I couldn’t look past it. Owen, his name was, owed his boss 50k. Poor kid was fucking hyperventilating on the phone. ‘Where am I gonna get that? I can’t get that. I need help. Please. God, please. Help.’ So I helped.”

“So Owen called you to kill his dealer because he owed him money? Fair enough, then. Kid’s got balls for wanting to kill someone just for that.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I felt bad for him. I felt really bad for him.”

Killian got quiet. He looked down in his lap and started fidgeting with his hands. When he looked back up at me, his eyes were filled with tears, and I could tell he was looking for me to say something of comfort. I’ve never been good at making anyone feel better. Shit, I never even acknowledged when I cried.

“He’s just a kid. I can’t believe he got himself caught up in this shit already,” he said.

He felt my uneasiness, wiped his eyes with his hands, and inhaled.

“Sorry, I just. It’s just helpful to talk about it with you. I can’t talk about it with anyone else. You’re the only one who gets me now.”

That was it for me. That was the reason he was here. His mind. He was here because he gave me his mind, and his mind helped us both. I had wondered why he continued to meet me every month. It crossed my mind frequently. Why didn't he just kill me to get out of it? He easily could have, and I wouldn't have been bothered by that. But he needed me. And I needed him. God, I needed him.

He told me more that one day than he ever had before. He told me about the way his hands trembled after he sliced that man’s neck last month. He told me how after he stabbed a mailman in the stomach on Thursday, he washed his hands fourteen times afterwards because he swore he could still feel the blood on them in his dreams. He told me how he had begun slipping strychnine into his victims’ tea because witnessing the blood was starting to affect him.

I was struck that night when he left, I couldn’t stop writing. I could never have wrapped my head around his emotions without him sitting in front of me like he does. That’s the stuff you can’t make up. That’s the thing my readers needed. Yeah, I’m a storyteller, but I don’t know shit about the depths of a professional murderer’s mind.

The things I did know, though, made me chuckle a bit. It amused me that someone so put together and who succeeded so well at his job could be so layered, so strong, so weak.

October 23rd, 1988:

“Then I shoved him into the bag as quickly as I could because I knew the police would be swarming in about 3 minutes. They’re a whole lot harder to carry when they’re dead and wobbling all over the place too. Almost threw my back out that night, and what a mess that would’ve been.”

He stood up, walking around my office, acting out the way the body slipped around in his arms. He had me howling with laughter during that lively reenactment. He really was a funny man, and I loved the way he told his stories to me now. I only laughed that much with him, and he never ran out of jokes. His job supplied endless punchlines, and he supplied endless joy.

When I caught my breath, I asked, “Okay, okay, so tell me about this past month. Have you still been using strychnine? Has that worked consistently?”

“Yeah, actually. I think it’s really helping me with everything lately. I’ve been sleeping a lot better and taking on more clients because of it. Not having to slit throats anymore is a blessing. A few times, I had to wait longer than intended for the poison to hit their systems. That’s the only downfall. I stay hidden around the house usually, keeping an eye on them until they pass out for good.

"That must waste the better part of your evenings then, no?” I asked.

   “Well, yeah. But I don’t really look at it that way. If I’m getting the job done, getting paid, and am not constantly plagued by visions of blood seeping out of a guy’s torso, it’s a win.”

He pulled out a few tiny plastic baggies filled with strychnine powder to show me. I had never seen it up close, so I wanted to make sure I understood its contents fully. So I could write about it, of course. He explained the dosage and the side effects in great detail to me.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine.”

“It’s just, you haven't written anything down.”

“Oh right, right.”

I picked up my pen and motioned for him to continue. Getting really into his story, he stood up to pace the room. When his back turned to me, I knocked one of the bags into my purse. I don’t know why I did it. I guess I was overly curious. Perhaps I wanted to look at it more in-depth without him hovering over me. Perhaps I found a rush of adrenaline knowing it was in my possession.

I documented everything he told me about that little plastic bag.

November 18th, 1988:

I arrived at work that day in a horrendous mood. I wanted his story quick, and I wanted to leave my office. I had decided to stay at my sister’s house that night because I couldn’t go back to my house.

Four knocks. He picked up on my mood and sat down quietly.

I started, “How did you kill him?”

“That’s not the question you start with,” he said.

“Don’t get on my fucking nerves today, Killian. I’m really not up for it today.”

“Okay, then I’ll start at the beginning if you won’t. It was a woman.”

I immediately looked up. I was stunned. He could sense my energy shift with this response. That was the first time he gave me that answer, and I couldn’t help but feel a rush. Part of my lip quivered up into a smirk. A woman, I thought, wow.

“Oh shit,” I responded.

“Don’t smile like that. It makes me uncomfortable,” he said, basically scolding me.

My eyes rolled to the back of my head and my cheeks flushed as I defended myself, “Oh shut up. I’m not smiling. I’m just surprised.”

For as long as I had known him, he had never mentioned killing a woman, and I had lost hope that one day he would. And no, it wasn’t that I was sick, or prayed upon the deaths of women. Quite the opposite. I felt like my books would never be complete without a female death. There was something feminist about killing a woman in the same manner as a man. Perhaps the fact that Killian told me before it was immoral to kill a woman frustrated me, but now? Had his opinion magically changed? Had he had a weird, malevolent, inclusive change of heart?

No. No, I didn’t think so. I think he had always been just as twisted as everyone else. He knew some women deserved to die just as much as the men did. Some women were worse.

“Alright, so what did she do? Disloyal? A threat to someone’s marriage? Come on, Killian! Give me something,” I pleaded.

“You’re far more intrigued with her story than anyone else’s. Why is that?”

Slightly embarrassed, I sat back in my seat. I hadn’t meant to let my enthusiasm get the better of me, and he knew I was getting worked up. I quieted. 

A few hours passed as he told the story, start to finish. This particular job seemed quite basic. There were no apparent issues, nothing too out of the ordinary. Plain. Simple. Boring even. But I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, scribbling down every word. The only problem was the guilt Killian carried for murdering a woman.

Trying to ease his mind, I reminded him that this death was just as deserving as each man he killed. It was the same as every other crime he committed.

“Thank you. I truly appreciate what you’ve done for me. I’m grateful everyday that you’re here with me,” he said before he left my office.

“I’m always going to be here for you, Killian. Now get out.

He smiled and waved.

Walking out the door he said, “See you next month.”

I stepped out of my office that day with a clear mind, a calm soul, and a lighter heart. Being the last one to leave my building after giddily writing for hours, I turned the lights off. I locked the door behind me and walked down the stairs out into the crisp air. The streets were quiet. Some might say they were too quiet for a big city like this on a Friday night, but it felt right for that day. Everything about that day felt right. 

I got home that night overjoyed to finally feel at peace. I knew my struggle was over, and my life was on its way to settling on track again. I felt the most intense understanding of serenity and utter joy sweep over me. Once I had made my decision that afternoon, I had no other worries. 

“Oh baby, you’re back!” My wife placed her teacup down on the counter, squealed, and ran over to hug me.

I held her close, smiling. One of my hands wrapped around her torso tightly, and the other, deep in the pocket of my jeans, wrapped around a little plastic bag.

Peace. Finally.

Spring 2023