Paimon [Part 3]

To James, the drive to Headquarters seemed to take forever. They both were silent, brooding upon the morning’s case. Neither wanted to think of anything else really, they couldn’t even if they wanted to. Neither one could remove the image of the dead little boy from their memory. Keri could tell that James was on edge. She needed to calm him down before they went into the interrogation room with the mother. They had to handle this by the book, and not let their personal feelings get in the way, or else it could ruin the whole case. She knew James had felt some strange kinship with the little boy, she hadn't been working with him for long, but she noticed something had changed in her partner.
She pulled the car over into an abandoned parking lot, of some long forgotten convenience store.

“What are we stopping for?” James asked, looking around confused. Keri put the car in park and said sternly, “We need to talk before we get to HQ.”

“Talk about what?” He asked defensively

“You know what we need to talk about James… what happened back there?”

“Nothing happened,” he said looking into her eyes. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and that was a hard sight to see, that’s all, nothing else.”

“James, you’re my partner, which means we gotta stay connected with each other, and if you don’t want to talk right now that’s fine. But eventually you’re gonna have to tell me about it, it’s not good to keep stuff like this bottled up, so I mea-” James cut her off. “Why do you even care?” he asked rudely,

“I’m an adult, I can handle my own shit.”

Keri stared at him with a cold gaze, and snapped back, “I care because, dumb-shit rookies like you, let your feelings distract you from what's at hand, and one distraction can cost us this fucking case! Now grow the fuck up and let’s play this by the book, and don’t do anything else, understood?”  And with that she turned and started the car and pulled away.

James knew he had lashed out at her needlessly, he immediately regretted it.

“I…I’m sorry, Keri I didn’t mean what I said.” He said quietly, “I appreciate you looking out for me.”

“Its fine,” She replied, “you just can’t go in there and take all your anger out on the mother, all right? If you want to avenge that kid, lets lock her ass in a hole and make damn sure that she never see’s the light of day again!”

They arrived at their headquarters a half-hour later. Keri was still quiet, where as James seemed to be much too anxious. They went walked through the big oak doors of the police station. Immediately the quiet morning was interrupted by the bustling sound of one-hundred-and-fifty working detectives. Each engaged, each obsessed, entangled in their own cases. Keri led the way, as James followed. She led them down a long corridor where all the sounds died down. They went through a door that led to a dark room with two doors in opposing corners, one was labeled ‘restroom’, and the other led into a room with a two-way-mirror. A tall, husky man was standing, in front of the mirror, staring at the oblivious woman on the other side, as he took a long deep pull on the cigarette he was smoking, when Keri and James entered.

“…Chief?” Keri sounded surprised as she stared up at the big man. Even James had to arch his neck upwards, and James was not a small man. James had only met him twice, this being the second, on account that the Chief of Police’s wife, was in a coma due to a strange new blood virus that there was no cure for.

“What are you, doin’ here? Shouldn’t you be at the hospital, with Ellen?” Keri asked with genuine concern in her voice.

“Ah, she’ll be fine for a little bit without me by her side, besides, no way I was gonna miss seein’ this treacherous cow, go down. I saw the photos of what she done to that boy. I don’t see how a woman could do that to her own kin, crazy or not he was jus’ a child. A boy that young ain’t never done nobody no harm. It’s a goddamn shame.” He said as he puffed on his cigarette.
Chief Rey Murray was born and raised in Georgia and had grew up in a rough neighborhood, joined a gang and got shot five times all before he was twenty. He had come to this small city for a new start and had surprisingly took an interest in criminal justice, he finished school and worked his way, from being in a patrol car to being chief-of-police. He had seen his fair share of murders and dead bodies and beaten children. He had even seen things close to this before. But for some reason, this one had gotten to him like none had in a great while. He was forty-eight years old, and this one bothered him just as much as when he saw his first dead body.

 “Well alright then, what has she been doing? She ask for a lawyer yet?” Keri asked as she got her business tone back in her voice.

“Nope. I doubt she got one to be honest, where she’s from not too many of ‘em do. All she keep askin’ fo’ is a glass of water, and we’ve already given her four!”

“What’s her name?”

“Marie Evans.”

James looked through the two way mirror at her. She was wearing a blood-stained, Christmas-knitted sweater with green reindeer print, on a dirty white background. Her hair was a snarly mess, and she had a wild look in her blood-shot eyes, she fidgeted constantly. Lighting a cigarette, taking a puff and putting it out in the ash tray that was melded down into the metal table, then she repeated it over again. James couldn’t help but hate her as he stared at her. He could see right through her fake façade. ‘She isn’t crazy. She knows what she had done. She was too obsessed with her own feelings to think of any one else’s. She blamed her son for ruining her life, as many of mothers have done in this generation, but she took it one step farther than most. Most would beat them or mistreat them, but they were too scared of the law to do anything more. She didn’t fear the law. She got into her head that she could play us.’ He thought with hate and disgust. When he looked into her eyes, he saw the little boy’s dead mutilated corpse. He could feel his hands trembling.

“Has anybody been in to see her yet?” James asked as he gazed through the mirror.

“No.” Chief Rey Murray replied slowly, as he took another long drag from his cigarette. Keri looked at the woman, then back at James.

“You ready, Detective Kimble?” she asked with one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah,” he said as he cleared his throat. “Let’s get this done.”

 Marie jumped as Dt. Keri Lockwood and Dt. James Kimble entered the interrogation room. Both of their eyes were locked on to her, she met their eyes for a second before they darted all over the room until they stopped on her half-smoked-cigarette. She quickly scooped it out of the ash tray, with a claw like hand. She stuffed it in her mouth, and lit it dramatically. Keri sat in the chair across the table from Marie, while James stood of to the side, leaning against the wall with his arms firmly crossed over his chest. Keri sat there for a minute, studying the way Marie responded to the attention. She was obviously anxious, she wouldn’t stop moving, but she wouldn’t meet the eyes of either detective. She tried her hardest to pretend that they weren’t there at all.

“Marie Evans?” when Keri said her name, Marie’s eyes jumped up to meet Keri’s, and a huge demented smile spread over her face, displaying a row of dirty brown teeth.

“Yes? Whom may I ask is asking?” she said far too readily, like she had rehearsed it.

“My name is Detective Keri Lockwood, and this is my partner Detective James Kimble, we’re investigating the murder of your son, and we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Oh, well, go right ahead! I’m an open book.” She said with a giggle, which she must of thought seemed cute, but came off more as troubling.

“Ok, Ms. Evans, I am obligated to inform you that it would be a good idea to have an attorney present at this time, would you like to contact one?” Keri asked

 “I don’t have no money for a lawyer.”

“We could appoint one to you if you’d like?”

“Oh no, honey, I wouldn’t dream of it!”

“All right, then.” Keri removed a portable tape recorder from her pocket. She pushed down on the record button, and set it down on the table.

“Marie Evans, please state for the record that you have chosen to waive your right to have an attorney present, and wish to proceed with the questioning.”
Marie put on a ridiculous show, she scrunched up her face and put her hand over her heart and grunted in a deep voice.

“Yes sir, I don’t want any lawyers and I want to do these questions!”
Keri and James exchanged glances before they continued. “Where were you yesterday between 4:30 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. this morning?”

“Oh I know exactly where I was! Yes I do!” she said as she nodded her head up and down. There was a silence between the three as Marie stared at the two blankly.

“Well let’s hear it!”  James raised his voice slightly

“Oh, of course!” she exclaimed, as she reached for her stub of a cigarette, and brought it to her lips. Keri couldn’t help but to notice the blood underneath her finger nails.
She lit her cigarette and blew a puff of smoke in the air and said with a whimsical smile across her face and a faraway look in her eye. “I was at home.” She took another drag of her cigarette. “I was playin’ with my baby!” She grinned insanely at the two. “We was havin’ us a good time.” She said as she cackled, and took a swift pull on her cigarette.

Keri turned and gave James a quick glance. He was barely holding it together, he had begun to clench his fists till the knuckles went white; he was sweating and grinding his teeth slowly.
Keri turned and looked back at Marie.

“Playing? You do understand that your son is dead?” Keri asked while staring at Marie trying to keep her composure.

“Oh yes, I know he’s dead. I killed him! I had to… but it was a game we had to play. I had to play… he told me to and I have to obey… no matter what I gotta obey his command…… That boy got what he deserved any way! He was always acting a fool! Never listened…never listened… I’d always tell him, one day he was gonna push me too far. I don’t have any patience for naughty children.”
The room grew quiet; James had stopped grinding his teeth and was staring at Marie profoundly. He had not expected things to go like this. He thought they would have to push her until she broke; he hadn’t prepared himself for her blunt honesty.

Keri held up her front. “Who is ‘He’ Marie?”
She smashed her cigarette into the ash tray again and clasped her hands together. “HE… is my man… no one else can see him though, I don’t hardly see him myself!” She exclaimed as she wrapped her arms around herself.

“He would whisper, what he wanted me to do in my ear… and I couldn’t stop myself even if I wanted to! My body did whatever he wanted me to do…” she started to laugh hysterically. “And I loved it! Oh I loved every second of it! He even told me his name! He said he never told anyone his name before, I was his special girl… he said his true name… Paimon!” She began laughing again; she threw her head back and howled with laughter. And just as suddenly, her head flew down onto the table, colliding with hard metal. Her head stayed there, her body slumped onto the table.
Both detectives began to approach her when blood started pouring from under her hair, spreading violently across the table. The two detectives rushed around the table. The door burst open as Rey Murray came crashing into the room. James carefully lifted the head of the body to reveal a giant crack that ran up her entire face and half of her skull. Blood poured out like water from a faucet, he could hardly decipher that it was once a face at all. He didn’t need to check for a pulse it was obvious that she wasn’t getting up anymore.

“Jesus-mother-fuckin’-Christ” Rey exclaimed, “What the fuck just fuckin’ happened here?”
James looked up at him, “I think she just fucking killed herself.” He couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Goddamnit, Evans right now is not the fuckin’ time to be damn comedian, this woman’s head just cracked like a fuckin’ egg! And guess what? Now we ain’t got no damn suspect!”

“We don’t need a suspect!” James exclaimed, “she already confessed we got it on tape, case closed!”

“How in the hell did she even do that?” Keri finally spoke up. “I mean… I don’t think that’s physically possible.”

There was a long silence as the three contemplated the impossible.
Finally Rey broke the silence. “I’ll get forensics up here to take a look at her, why don’t you two take the rest of the day off…. If I need you I’ll call.”

“No,” Keri interrupted, “I think I’ll stay, I want to know what the hell just happened here. James will go and try to get a lead on whoever this ‘Paimon’ is.”

“Yes, Chief.” Rey said sarcastically “Kimble go get to it. I want everything you can get on this fella, who he is, who his mama his, everything, understood?”

“Yes, Chief.” James answered as he got up to leave. He left through the door with one last glance over his shoulder at the bloody corpse of Marie Evans. ‘She got what she deserved’ he thought as he walked down the hallways and corridors leading to his desk. For the first time since he had begun this job he felt happy. Keri watched as James left the room, she was surprised at how easily he had taken what just happened. He usually didn’t cope with the dead bodies very well, truth be told, she was beginning to wonder if he could cut it in this line of work. ‘Maybe there’s hope for him after all’ she thought as the forensic team and paramedics came in.

James sat down at his desk with a smile upon his face. He couldn’t stop thinking about Marie Evans getting the justice she deserved. No matter how Keri felt, he knew the only real justice for her crime would be death. An eye for eye. Maybe Marie reminded James of his own mother, who was also abusive with him. But if you were to ask him, he would deny knowing anything about what was being said.

Even though James thought Marie Evans  got what she deserved, he still was intrigued with how she was able to kill herself in such a fashion, and who this Paimon was.
He knew that it could’ve been the ramblings of a demented, murderous, woman. But that name, it sounded strangely familiar to him. It was swimming around in the back of his mind, like a fish just about to surface, but can’t quite get all the way up.
He pushed the power button on his monitor and it came to life with a flash. He typed the name into the search bar; the screen immediately began scanning through mug shots eliminating negative results.
It took a full five minutes before it was finished. It stopped with a blinking red banner that simply said, “NO MATCH”.

He sat puzzled, he was almost certain something would’ve come up, the name sounded so familiar. He wracked his brain trying to think of who he could know by that name, or even trying to place what kind of name it was. There was no part of the world that he knew of that has ever used that name. So why was it so familiar to him? There had rarely been something worldly that he wasn’t aware of. He prided himself on being socially aware; he obtained a rare and, unique taste for politics and history something very few of his peers had. He stared blankly at the screen, when he heard a sort of rustling behind him. He quickly glanced over his shoulder to discover no one there, he lingered for a while scanning the area. He turned back to his computer screen, and once again stared blankly for a few more seconds, trying desperately to figure out some sort of solution to his problem.

That’s when he heard something. Something so faint it was nigh impossible to hear. Yet he did, it was a voice.