The next morning, I headed out for Johnny’s place. On the way, I picked up a newspaper and stopped at the coffee shop again. I ordered an espresso and sat down at a small table in the far corner of the shop, as far out of the way of the other customers as I could get. I unfolded the newspaper and began to search for the account of the incident in Hocking Hills. I didn’t need to look very far. It had made the front page. “Serial killer?” it questioned. Well, the press jumped to that assumption pretty quickly. At least now they were being realistic and not attempting to blame these atrocities on wild animals. Maybe the detectives thought that they could get further in their investigation if they were honest with the public.
I scanned through the article. There was not much to go on at that point except for conjecture. I finished my espresso and dropped the newspaper onto an empty table on my way out of the shop. It was time to head to Johnny’s and face the music.
I let myself in at Johnny’s flat. He was seated at his desk, working on his latest novel. I could see that he still used a pencil, shunning the practice of using the laptop computer placed alongside him. My friend is a fantastic writer. “Have a seat dude. I’ll be with you in a sec,” he said without turning around. I cleared some well-worn composition pads from a chair and sat down.
When Johnny finally turned around after what seemed like forever, he had a concerned and sober look on his face. I related the story of the mysterious girl that I had met on the trail the day before and then steeled myself for what I would tell him next.
“There’s something else, Johnny.”
“You didn’t do it, man,” he responded before I could even finish. “I heard it on the news this morning, and I’ll tell you right now that you didn’t do it.”
I was incredulous. “Surely I’m in a better position to speculate about this than you are.”
“No. You’re too close to the subject. I know you better than you know yourself. Take it from an outsider and a good friend. I am confident that you didn’t kill that woman. I’m pretty sure that you weren’t involved with any of the other murders, either.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, first of all – and perhaps the most important – is that I know you. I know what you are like; what you have been like ever since I met you. Even in a blackout, you wouldn’t be capable of killing an innocent. Think back to what happened in Indy. You couldn’t even bring yourself to stop that guy who tried to mug you, and he was far from innocent.”
I took a moment to process that. “But…”
“…and if that’s not enough to convince you,” Johnny continued, “then consider this: I’ve been doing some research on the dillio. You know, the “inter web thingy.” These murders started long before you first noticed them. In the past year there have been eleven others, each instance coming closer and closer to where you’ve been. And since the incident in Indy, they have been coinciding with wherever you go.”
“But why?”
“That I do not know, my friend. But I get the feeling that it’s very important that we find out. The sooner the better – before someone puts two and two together and starts jumping to the wrong conclusion. I mean, you’re already starting to question yourself. Just think about the consequences if the authorities were to catch wind of the coincidences.”
I did think about it, and he was right. There was a trail of credit card receipts putting me in close proximity to the last three murder scenes within a short period of time. It wouldn’t take a genius to identify a pattern.
I snapped back into the present. “So what do I do?”
“Well,” Johnny said, “ordinarily I would be tempted to tell you to put as much distance as you can between these crime scenes and yourself. But my gut feeling tells me that’s not going to be possible. I think that somehow, you’ve picked up an admirer.”
