Straw Man: Playing House.

Thanks to the years of Hollywood education, people expect serial killers to fall neatly into one of two categories. The first being a highly educated, cold calculated bastard that blueprints and analyzes every possible minutia of potential targets, from the time they leave their apartments in the morning all the way down which scummy bars they prefer to hang out on a weekend or even insane details .One memorable example involved a man so familiar with his victims abode from endless surveillance, neighbors testified to him feeding the cat and watering houseplants and he slowly defiled the victim over the course of several weeks. They had assumed he was simply a house sitting due to his cheery demeanor.

The other flavor in the baskin robbins dairy case of pleasure killers is a simple terminally violent psychotic. With no discernible plan or real justification for any action, they are motivated by a cornucopia of perceived demons, disembodied voices , ghosts of relatives, obscure deities, omniscient cups of store bought gelatin and occasionally good old fashioned pure unadulterated primal instinct. Generally speaking such perpetrators never say at large for very long as they take huge risks and eventually leave witness behind after committing unspeakable acts in the public eye. A gentlemen running naked at full tilt through the Kansas City mall wielding a machete upon command from the Norse King Aun manifested by various homeless gentlemen he came across being the prime example of such.

This one, Arthur thought to himself, didn't fit into either of the movie theater archetypes. A nomadic nature suggested little or no forethought in the choice of victim, the wary detective had been airport hopping in the wake of debauchery for quite time now. Little Rock, Baltimore, West Orange, Fort Wayne, Portland, Santa Monica, New York, Helena, Tucson, Flint, even a Military Barracks in Corpus Cristi Texas. The only real linking factor (due to a chronic lack of physical evidence) was improvisation and a flair for the obscene.


Unlike previous acts that only involved the enjoyment and disposal of a single victim, Arthur was horrified to discover that our mystery scumbag had graduated to group homicide, albeit clearly accidentally. Detective Arthur Flemming had seen what he had thought he had a grasp on the entire library of this killer's activity (a grim "best of" reel played in his head) but this new sequel and its new characters and exciting dialogs of motivation, dismemberment and disregard for nearly all things sent a stiff arctic wind down the back of his collar.

The smattering of information discerned from forensics had made for a police report that read like some kind of blood thirsty Woody Allen venture. What had started out as theoretically a simply single abduction and murder had escalated quite considerably with the discovery of a child interrupting the in progress festivities as times of death were found to be within minutes of each other. After dispatching the housewife by means of blunt force trauma (a nearby miniature concrete replica of Wagner left discernible imprints ) and the offspring by means of embowelment (again improvisation took the day with use of readily available set of salad tongs and strangulation with the small intestine.)

Judging by the slug-like trails of various bodily fluid impregnating the carpets, our boy began to drag the still leaking mother and child through the house towards the kitchen to facilitate easier employ by proximity to utensils. At this time its speculated that he made discovery of yet another unintended set of victims. Testimony given by neighbors given to canvassing police officers indicated that the sounds of the multi-homicide were effectively covered by the sounds of noisy copulation between what was later discovered as the babysitter hired for the night and a gentlemen caller. God knows what kind of strange acts they perceived to be going on in the bedroom given the added soundtrack of Aztec-style sacrifice going on in the next room.

Analysis of DNA left behind suggests the now potentially exhausted perpetrator then fell unconscious upon mattress bodies in various states of butchering, nakedness and drainage. Here he remained until being abruptly awakened by the arrival of the family patriarch, who had casually walked into his abode after a late shift and stumbled upon the still unconscious gentleman reclining on a barcalounger composed largely of his nuclear family. Various defensive wounds reveled a quick struggle and defeat of the bringer of bacon by the deft use of a heavy wooden door (as testified by neighbors complaining of repeated thudding noises perceived to be more frantic relations and the pieces of hair and skull later removed from the door jam)


Entering the living room of the apartment, the genuinely curious constable came up the five victims had been planted in various poses depicting idyllic domestic life adsorbing the worst in mindless network TV sitcoms through their now vacant and expressionless eyes.

There was never any plan here, no rhyme or reason. The entire scene was something more akin to a horridly twisted and visceral Saturday night live sketch done in a single take than a carefully planned installment of destruction. However, the family commentary, effort to remove physical evidence and long history suggested something more complex than a garden variety chemical imbalance run amok.

How much longer could such diametrically opposed characteristics survive in the world. Such risks and brazen disregard for capture couldn't possibly keep a lead indefinitely. Looking down at the list of credit cards and valuables missing from the domicile, Detective Flemming began to try to piece together exactly who this lead actor was.