"Purge the Evil" - a novel

by Bill Dunn

(Note: this is a work-in-progress attempt at writing a novel. Feedback, critiques, plot suggestions are more than welcomed.)
 

CHAPTER 17

Friday, November 12th, 10:45 a.m.

            Victor Strasser sat in the dimly lit living room of his sister’s home. All the blinds were closed tightly so it was impossible to tell if it was night or day outside. Victor gazed lustfully at flickering images on a computer screen. If the authorities knew what he was doing at that moment, he would be back in the state prison by nightfall. Victor was well aware if this, but he didn’t care. He could not help himself. He was drawn to child pornography websites like a moth to a flame.

            Victor often wondered why so many people hated him so much. Yes, he had done something very bad many years ago, when he got carried away one night and molested a 10-year-old girl. But he had pled guilty to that crime and spent 22 years behind bars. He paid his price to society. Since then the only so-called “nasty” behavior he engaged in occurred mostly in his mind or in solitude behind closed doors. Why couldn’t everyone just leave him alone, he often thought.

            When Victor finished serving out his sentence about a year ago, he was amazed at the uproar. His sister had reluctantly agreed to let him live with her in an upscale neighborhood off Mountain Road in West Hartford. Marlene Strasser was divorced and lived alone, so she had plenty of room in her large home. Besides, where else would a 53-year-old convicted child molester live? Victor had no job skills, and even if he did, who would hire him? His sister realized if she did not take him in, he would surely end up living on the streets or in homeless shelters. In those seedy circumstances, as soon as his past history became known, Victor’s life expectancy would have been rather short.

            When neighbors discovered that a convicted child molester was about to take up residence in their quiet suburban setting, all hell broke loose. Protest marches and candlelight vigils were organized. Some of Marlene’s closest and oldest friends no longer spoke to her. Even the state Governor got involved, publicly declaring it was an outrage and vowing to keep Victor behind bars for life. But when it was determined that Victor had fulfilled his legally administered sentence and the state could not impose further punishment, a compromise was reached: Victor was required to wear a GPS ankle bracelet, which would be monitored 24 hours a day, and if he stepped so much as one foot off his sister’s property he would be thrown back into prison for good.

            Most of the time, Victor was bored out of his mind. He felt more imprisoned in his sister’s house than in the state pen. All he did each day was eat, sleep, and surf the Internet. He had gained weight over the years in prison, but since coming to his sister’s home he must have added another 40 pounds.

            Before Marlene arrived home from work at 6 p.m. each day, Victor would make sure to erase the cache of website addresses and image files stored in the computer. His sister was not very computer savvy and therefore was unable to tell what he had been viewing—not that she ever bothered to check. Marlene often felt just as trapped as Victor by the probation arrangement, and as her resentment grew, she had as little interaction as possible with her pariah brother.

            Although Victor’s secret was safe from his sister, he knew a computer expert could examine the computer’s hard drive and easily uncover his activity. However, he decided it was worth the risk, and hoped that he never gave law enforcement officials any reason to become suspicious and seize the computer.

            As Victor clicked from image to image, trying to find something that would arouse him, his train of thought was interrupted by a loud knock on the kitchen door at the back of the house. Flustered, Victor scrambled to turn off the computer’s monitor. He sat still in the dark room hoping the visitor would go away. But the knocking continued. Finally, Victor got up, closed up the front of his dingy bathrobe around his ample belly, and went to answer the door. As he walked into the kitchen, the daylight made him squint. He moved a small curtain with his hand and peered through one of the window panes in the top half of the kitchen door. Standing on the doorstep was a man wearing a blue jumpsuit with a “Comcast” patch on the left breast. A photo I.D. was clipped sideways to the pocket below the patch. The man had a baseball cap on his head, a small tool box in one hand, and a clipboard in the other.

            Victor unlocked the kitchen door and pulled it open about six inches, leaving the screen door closed and locked. “What do you want?” he said nervously.

            “I’m with the cable company, sir,” Tom Wilkins said. “I’m here to do the upgrade. Is Ms. Strasser in?”

            “No, she’s at work,” Victor replied. “What upgrade are you talking about?”

            “Ms. Strasser ordered our special upgrade package, on sale this month,” Wilkins said, easily slipping into his salesman tone and cadence. “We offer cable, phones, and high-speed Internet, all for one low price. I have an eleven o’clock appointment.”

            “Well, she’s not here,” Victor said. “Come back some other time.”

            “Are you sure?” Wilkins asked. “When she called the other day to make the appointment, she sounded in a hurry.”

            That’s Marlene all right, Victor thought. Always wants everything right now. He hesitated, then said, “I dunno. I mean, she didn’t say anything to me about it. I don’t know if I can let you in.”

            “OK, but if I can’t do it now, we won’t be able to reschedule the appointment for at least another two weeks. I don’t know if she’ll be very happy about that.”

            “No, she sure won’t,” Victor mumbled under his breath. “She’s never happy.” He slowly pulled the wooden door open and reached out and unlocked the screen door. “How long will this take?” he asked.

            “Oh, it’ll be quick. Just a few minutes,” Wilkins said as he entered the house. “Thanks for letting me in. So where is the main cable box?”

            “In the living room. This way,” Victor said. He walked through the kitchen toward the hallway, and then into the living room. Wilkins followed. Entering the dark living room, Victor fumbled with a lamp on an end table, and finally turned it on. Wilkins glanced around the room and noted approvingly that all the blinds were shut.

            Victor motioned toward a large flat-screen television sitting on top of a low book shelf. “The cable stuff should be right behind it, I think,” he said.

            “OK, good,” Wilkins said. He placed the clipboard on the shelf next to the TV and then put the tool box down on top of the clipboard. He flipped the latch on the tool box. “I just need my Philips screwdriver,” he said as he reached in with his right hand.

            A moment later, Tom Wilkins pulled his hand out of the tool box and pivoted his entire body to the right, facing Victor. He raised his arm and pointed a blue steel .38 caliber, short-barrel revolver directly at the bridge of Victor’s nose. Victor stood motionless, his mind unable to comprehend the unexpected image before him. His surprised eyes were slightly crossed, trying to focus on the gun barrel no more than six inches away. The last thought Victor Strasser had on earth was, That’s not a Philips screwdriver…

            A deafening roar spewed from the gun as Wilkins pulled the trigger. The slug tore a perfectly round hole in Victor’s pudgy forehead, slightly above eyebrow level. He fell backward onto the carpeted floor with a thump. His eyes remained surprised and slightly crossed, and now pointed up at the ceiling.

            Wilkins lowered his right arm and took a deep breath. “Whoa,” he said softly as the boom of the gun echoed in his ears. After a momentary pause, he turned back toward the tool box and set the revolver inside. He pulled two rubber gloves out of the box and quickly put them on. Then he took a small hammer and a razor knife out of the box and hurried into the kitchen. At the back door, Wilkins opened the wooden door and swung it out of the way. He exposed the blade of the razor knife and sliced a hole in the screen near the door latch. Then he reached in the pocket of his blue jumpsuit and pulled out a small rag. He opened the screen door, reached around, and used the rag to wipe down the handle, the only surface on which he might have left a fingerprint.

            Wilkins stepped back into the kitchen and turned toward the open wooden door. He used the hammer to smash a hole in one of the small panes of glass. He closed the door and used his foot to slide the broken pieces of glass closer to the door, where they presumably would’ve landed if the glass had been smashed from the back steps.

            Wilkins hurried back into the living room and placed the hammer and razor knife into the tool box. In a matter of a few minutes, he scampered from room to room throughout the house, yanking out bureau drawers and generally making a mess of things. He stuffed a handful of costume jewelry and spare change into his pocket.

            Satisfied the house now appeared as if it had been targeted by robbers, Tom Wilkins gathered up the tool box and clipboard, took one last look at Victor—whose surprised eyes still were fixed upward, looking out between rivulets of blood trickling down his face—turned off the lamp on the end table, and silently slipped out the back door.

Wilkins walked around to the side of the house. He paused to see if any people or cars were in the area. The wooded, secluded street was as silent as it had been when he arrived 20 minutes earlier. He continued walking and turned right when he reached the end of the driveway. A Comcast van was parked about 200 feet down the road, in front of a neighboring house, a house which Capt. Bradford knew was unoccupied. Wilkins opened the sliding door on the right side of the van and climbed in. He quickly peeled off the blue jumpsuit and shoved it into a black trash bag. He slid the door closed from the inside, then squeezed into the driver’s seat. Firing up the engine, he carefully drove away and headed back toward his car dealership.

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