The Caller

*Trigger Warning: This story contains physical violence, gore, substance abuse, self-harm, sexual abuse, the mention of pedophilia, and mental health.

“In all the years of chasing the Echo Bay Butcher never did I stop to think it could be butchers, plural,” Detective Marty Byers says as he takes a seat across from the infamous killers, flopping the case file down on the steel table between them all.

Byers has removed his brown blazer and blue tie, flinging them over the back of his chair, which makes a horrid screeching sound that reverberates through the empty room as he scoots up to the table. He looks like a taller Jason Statham with his bald head and stubbled beard but has a scar across his left brow. The wedding ring he still wears despite his wife being murdered three years ago clinks against his mug which contains one part coffee and three parts bourbon. The room rages with bright white light from florescent bulbs reflecting off the white walls and floors of the interrogation room, not to mention the two-way mirror in the middle of the wall. Four criminals in orange jumpsuits are shackled wrist and ankle to their steel chairs and are crowded around the table in the middle of the room. They all sit quietly.

The man on the left is a giant of a man. At six-foot-eight and three-hundred-sixty pounds, he looks like something out of a wrestling magazine. He has wide menacing eyes and a bulbous nose, shaved head and a beard that hangs down to his chest. He leans back casually, not a care in the world. Next to him is a young woman that doesn’t look any older than twenty-five. She’s fair skinned with bright blue eyes, a freckled button nose, and a head full of black dreadlocks. She’s chewing at her nails anxiously. To her left is a clean-shaven, bald, heavy-set man with thick, black rimmed glasses. He’s rather stoic with good posture. At the end of the table is a young man in his late teens, early twenties. He’s wiry and covered with tattoos. His face is tattooed like a skull, has a red mohawk, and is covered in piercings. He scratches and twitches. Byers assumes it’s meth.

“So, what are you guys, like the Legion of Doom or something,” Byers asks, being facetious.

“We’re specialists sent to complete certain tasks,” the man in glasses says, matter-of-factly.

“The one’s without heads, those are me,” the big one says proudly, arms crossed across his chest, his smile missing a couple teeth.

“Sent, sent by who,” Byres asks, realizing that getting these guys off the street might not stop the killings if there is a mastermind at large.

“The guy who calls,” the tattooed one says.

“Yeah, we don’t know who he is. We just know if we don’t do as he says he’ll kill us,” the girl tells him with a flash of fear in her eye.

Brian Anderson, Byers’ partner, walks into the dark observation room behind the mirror. “What’s happenin’ captain,” he asks the senior officer with the thin grey hair parted to the side, coffee mug resting on his plump tummy.

 “Byers says he has the Echo Bay Butchers (plural). Says they turned 'emselves in. He’s questionin’ ‘em now.”

Anderson takes a look in the interrogation room and doesn’t believe what he sees. “There should be a lawyer present.”

“Thirty-seven murders in three-years. No, let’m sing.”

Anderson loosens his tie and takes a seat in the crowded little room. He crosses his legs and cracks his neck. He’s irritated, doesn’t feel right about this. He smooths his mustache and watches on anyway.

“So, you have no way to contact this man, no way to ID him,” Byers asks.

“He just told us to come down here and turn ourselves in to you,” says the man with glasses, emotionlessly.

"You don't find that curious?"

"We just do as we're told," the big one mumbles.

“Have you guys met before today?”

“No,” says the big man and everyone shakes their head in agreement.

Byers knows one of them in this room killed his wife but doesn't want to jump to the big question yet. He wants to narrow it down and work his suspect over.

“Let’s get some names here, starting with you big guy.”

“John Tully,” the large man says with a deep rumbling voice.

“Alright, John, you say you do the heads. Heather McDaniel on July 19, 2021, at 10:39 pm. Why her and why her head?”

“Ms. McDaniel was a high-end escort. She preyed on married rich men, seducing them with her words and her looks. The head is the source of all evil – lust, envy, pride, greed, sloth, gluttony, and wrath, it can all be traced back to the head. During my time tailing Ms. McDaniel, I saw all those sins in her and I understood why the caller called me. So, when she left the Echo Bay Yacht Club alone, it was time to do what I do best. I strangled her, chopped off her head, and bludgeoned her skull into a fine powder. I stomped on her brain until it was like granny’s homemade jam. I popped both her eyeballs in the palms of my hands. I took her tongue home, boiled it, and ate it. I even made sure her teeth were ground to nothing. She wasn’t the first or the last, but you think people would start to get the message,” John says, laughing through his story.

Byers is boiling with rage. “I remember your first, but before we get to that, let’s hear from your associates. You with the glasses, who are you?”

“I go by Sullivan. I do the heart,” he says with a slightly feminine tone.

“So…” Bryers pauses to search through the photos, “tell me about David Johnson on November 29^th, 2022, at 11:47 pm.”

“Ah yes, young Mr. Johnson. He courted a lovely young lady all through high school by the name of Madeline Freeman. He promised that girl the world. Even after he got her pregnant, he made his promises and stood by her throughout the pregnancy. But once that baby was born, he took one look at it and said that baby was not his when he knew good and well it was. To make matters worse he shacked-up with their boss from the Dairy Freeze and played daddy to her kids. That ripped the heart out of sweet Madeline’s chest and broke it into a thousand pieces. So, I was called to repay the favor.”

Byers rubs his temples as the image of his wife’s crime scene pop into his head. Her detached head mutilated and unrecognizable, her heart ripped from her chest laying on the bed beside her, blood everywhere. His head pounds, he feels nauseous and dizzy, discombobulated. That only makes him angry, and he slams his fist on the table as he jerks up out of his seat.

The detainees don't even flinch.

“That’s enough. I’m getting a lawyer down here now,” Anderson says, tersely, as he storms out of the observation room.

Byers calms himself and sits down taking a deep breath. He takes a long drink, draining his mug. “You, young lady, what do you do?”

“Male genitalia.”

“Let me guess, cheaters?”

“That and rapist and pedophiles,” the young lady says with a hint of pride as if she believes she is doing a community service.

“And what do I call you?”

“The man that calls, calls me Calypso. I don’t remember anything before working for him, not even my real name.”

“Alright, Calypso,” Byers says as he searches through the photos, selecting one, “tell me about Arty Billingsley on April 7^th, 2022.”

“That’s an easy one. Mr. Billingsley cheated on his wife by raping an eight-year-old boy. Tommy Higgins lived next door to him. The old man promised Tommy he would show him some of his old baseball cards if he would come over. Once he had the boy inside, he forced himself on him, stripping him naked and ripping him as he penetrated him. Then he threatened to do the same to his sister and kill his dog if he ever told anyone about it. So, I strangled the old coot and cut off his genitals. That doesn’t help poor Tommy, but it should send a message to men to keep it in their pants.”

Byers gave a nod and a smirk like he kind of approves, but he can’t escape the image of a man’s penis and testicles soaking in a glass of water on his bedroom nightstand. He shakes away the vision the best he can before selecting another picture. “Okay, Skeletor, what do they call you?”

“Ira Schmalfeld.”

“Seriously? I was expecting something like Demon Eater.”

“Nope, just Ira. I do the hands.”

“I figured. Process of elimination. Okay Ira, Michael Weaver, January 23, 2023, 9:29 pm.”

“It’s an age-old thing with the hands. Don’t touch what’s not yours. Mr. Weaver was getting handsy with one of the waitresses down at The Dawg House Sports Bar and Grill, Helen Thomas. Helen was a married woman, but she worked there because ladies who show some cheek and cleavage get more tips than they do anywhere else, and her husband was laid off, so they really needed the money. Helen tried explaining to Mr. Weaver that she wasn't to be touched, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He kept slapping her behind, grabbing it and pulling her close, fondling her breast. The manager wouldn’t do a thing about it because Michael kept buying rounds. The girl was distraught, told her husband who blamed her, called her a slut and a whore. Poor sweet thing slit her wrists. She lived, but I got the call. Severed the man's hands and broke all the bones, but not in that order.”

“All of you, January 8^th, 2020, 10:02 pm.” Byers pulled out a before picture of the victim. “Amy Byers, 36, head cut off and obliterated, her heart ripped from her chest, her hands cut off, a man’s gentiles left in a glass on my nightstand!”

They all look at the photos and shake their heads no, telling him they have never seen that woman, that none of them have ever received a call for an Amy Byers.

“It’s got your guys’ signatures all over it. You say you never met, but that’s bullshit! You all mutilated my wife!”

“Who is the guy lying beside her? He’s the one with no hands, not her, and that’s probably his penis in the glass,” says Sullivan as Byers takes a closer look at the picture.

“And I wouldn't have put the genitals in a glass,” says Calypso.

Anderson barges in the door with a lawyer in tow. “Marty, don’t say another word.”

The captain storms in behind him with a couple uniformed officers. “Christ, Anderson, you couldn’t let him work through it could you. Byers, look around. The place is empty. You’ve been talking to yourself the whole time.”

Byers looks around and sees no one in the chairs across the table, no criminals in orange jumpers. He is confused and doesn’t understand. He looks to his partner with pleading eyes for an explanation. “It’s going to be alright, Martin. We’ll get through this,” Anderson tells him without much conviction.

“You are under arrest for thirty-seven counts of murder including the murder of Amy Byers and her lover Mark Ingles,” The Captain says as he begins to read him his rights.

“That’s crazy! I wouldn’t kill Amy. I loved her. Brian, tell them. Tell them Brian,” Byers pleads as the uniformed officers place him in cuffs and lead him down the hallway.

“Mr. Byers, as your attorney I must instruct you to say nothing else until we have a chance to talk privately. Captain, I want to talk to my client as soon as he is arraigned, and I want to view any video footage you have recorded from today’s event.”

After the smoke settled, Marty was led to a small meeting room where his lawyer was waiting. “Come on in Mr. Byers, I’m Simon Schuster, your attorney.”

Marty has been in these rooms before, but he always sat on the other side of the table. It was a tight squeeze, but Simon managed to get a TV in there too and requested that he watch the recorded interrogation from earlier. Marty saw that there was no one in the room as he asked questions and answered himself in different voices. He was embarrassed to think his coworkers were just sitting by watching him act like that. He saw in himself all the drama, confusion, hate, and rage he was feeling at the time – it was all so real. “Okay, turn it off. I get it,” he says, his head bent in shame.

Sorrow overcame Byers. He felt black. He felt like he was sinking into a pool of molasses, requiring all his energy to move his arms and legs. The air he breathed tasted sour. He was cold but damp from sweat. The realization that he killed the person dearest to him, and the fact that he continued to kill thirty-six more over the course of three years, was too much to take in.

“Obviously we’re going for an insanity plea. We’ll get a psychologist to work with you, but what I gathered from watching this video is that you went insane when you caught your wife cheating. You did some horrendous things to her and Mark, each act being symbolic of how you felt you were wronged. At that point your personality split around that symbolism."