Yo! I suddenly got inspiration for this piece, which I hope I can publish one day. Hang onto your seats, because this is a totally different genre that I’m not too familiar in, and I’m not sure how it will turn out, but I hope you’ll enjoy it nonetheless.

A Case of Psychopathic Murder

Chapter 1

It was shortly after ten o’clock on a cold winter’s night in the middle of January, 1970. The Town of Cain was a small, prosperous town in Jersey: the kind of town with people who never walked to work; only drove and rushed so they wouldn’t upset their bosses to receive their paycheck to make ends meet. It was the kind of town that, albeit above average than your ordinary town, was neither large nor interesting enough to attract much attention. After all, no one wants to hear about just any old romance story, or fistfight, or nightclub where any miserable cad can drink himself dry while having a good time with pleasurable company. Unfortunately, that’s all that seems to happen that’s worth of notice in this town, and as a result, the population never grew. It simply remained at a meager 2000 or so, half of which lived in apartments, and most of the other half that lived in suburban homes around the outskirts.

The town sat on the water's edge. Evidently, those who could afford the big, luxurious houses near the oceanic waters either worked at the top of their business, or found a great deal on a four bedroom house only to find that the foundation was weak. The town had schools, restaurants, fast-food places, courts, and most of the usual things that made a town a town. But the thing that set apart any town from any other town was its people.

The small families that lived outside served a small purpose, and that was to count towards the census of the town. It was the people in the central apartments that worked within the central area who were the important ones, or ones of interest anyway. Sure, most of them have less than perfect reputations: adulterers, lawyers, drug abusers, and worse. But the rest of them were normal, everyday hard workers; workers that were looked down upon by the rest of society, and could never earn enough to pay for rent, bills, and move out of their disgusting hidey hole.

The ones who had too many problems usually drag their useless masses over to Snoop’s bar near the beach to drink their cares away. Most people even came to shoot the breeze with Snoop, the bartender. Snoop was a tall, gangly man in his forties who wasn’t afraid to converse with a stranger. Snoop also had a reputation for housing some of the lowest scum in all of New Jersey, yet nothing serious happened inside under his watch: he often sends the slightest aroma of trouble out the door. And trouble usually ended behind bars in the county jail, or at the coroner’s office at the water’s edge. Make no mistake; he doesn’t give a damn what your problem is. If you start a fist fight in his bar, he’ll throw you outside with the trash.

On the other hand, Joe’s Parlor was also a favorite among troubled minds. Enticing white floors, a cheery, cool atmosphere, and smooth tunes from the jukebox in the corner attracted all comers between the hours of 8 AM till midnight. Sometimes old friends came to talk over lunch. Other times, criminals visit to sit down and look over their miserable lives, and usually cops also made their presence known, taking their five minute break to munch on their favored jelly doughnut.

The local hairdresser, a sweet woman named Sally Dean, will cut, clean, and dry your hair for five fifty, and she may even give you a discount if you have anything important to say. For this reason, most, if not all of the women in the town paid her a visit not just to get their hair done, but also to hear the latest news. Her favorite hours were around noon when all of the men were off to work, leaving their wives with nothing to do. Most of her friends came around this time, and she enjoyed hearing what they had to say (even though most of it was bullshit, but she wanted to hear a good, exaggerated tale from time to time).

Mr. Silver is an unusual character: he runs a musty antique shop right next to Mrs. Dean’s hair salon, and he doesn’t allow anyone under 21 in it. His most unusual characteristic is the fact that, besides spending six hours in his shop, he almost never comes out of his apartment. Some say that he kept all of his valuables close to him, and rumor was that he slept with one hand under his pillow, and the other cradling a silver urn containing the ashes of his late wife. All of the younger kids fear him, and many of the older kids have fun in pestering him.

Mickey’s convenience store has almost everything anyone would want to buy on their way home from work. He even sold tools, cutlery, and electrical parts, and for fair prices too. Not bad for a shop sandwiched between the butcher shop and the pizza place. Mickey himself was an old-timer who has seen his fair share of stories. If you get to know him, you’ll find that he has a new story every day, usually about the war.

From a distance, the town looks almost peaceful. In truth, the crime rate is higher than one would hope. On the other hand, it was mostly just small time robberies, trespassers, stalkers and the like. In spite of all this, nothing serious usually happened in town. Oh sure, there was your basic car accident that may have killed a man, and some nobody ends up in an alleyway in a pool of his own blood with a gun in his hand, but serial killers never plagued the town. And that was mostly due to the fact that the local police force had the best detectives and response teams in the state, or at least in the town’s opinion. The people never complained about the current law enforcement for fear of reinforcement anyway.

Speaking of people, most of them lived in cheap, affordable condominiums. The condominiums sat alongside each other, confining the sight of those on the street. Four stories high, they towered over the parked cars, fire hydrants, and the Scottish terriers that used those fire hydrants for whatever purpose. Made from red brick, they were each decent enough to house 12 families and senile, retired seniors. Many chose to live in these apartments because they were closer to their places of business than the houses on the outskirts. Apartments are furthermore places where the one drug dealer can do his business with his nearby borders, just to keep the landlord content enough to let him stay another night. Unfortunately for them, nosey housewives also liked to live in apartments, and report them to the police for a hefty sum (unless they bribed their victims for greenbacks slipped under their apartment door). Many of them were caught within a month.

However, killers were the much harder ones to track down, and when one came into town, they would suck the life out of Cain like leeches, ever feasting on its flesh and blood. Fortunately, the detective agency of Cain was one of the best around. It was so superior in fact that the last time a murder occurred in town was seven years ago. It wasn’t that murders never occurred within the area; it’s just that Cain was a well guarded town that didn’t tolerate murderers within their streets, and so killers usually did their business outside of town.

The streets of Cain usually had no problems. Dawson Avenue seemed to be one of the safest streets in town. This was mostly because it contained apartment 713, home to Detective Frank Case, one of the best crime solvers Cain has to offer.

Frank was known to have spent long, hard hours in his study, solving the mysteries of local kidnappings, drug busts, solicitors, thieves, and what-nots. Like most of the people in Cain, he drove to work in his 1969 Ford early in the day, except on Sundays, and drove back, receiving paychecks every Friday. Unlike most people however, he liked hard challenges that tested his intellect, and taking a job as a detective was his saving grace.

His past was filled with hard times, and he used to be a frequent visitor to Snoop’s bar, ordering drink after alluring drink until the sweet bliss of inebriation overtook him. That was before he managed to receive a position in the detective agency. Nowadays, if you saw him in Snoop’s bar, you knew something had happened there that was definitely worth of notice, and would fight over the dozens of onlookers that were only satisfied with the unlucky victim’s comeuppance, or interested in checking the pockets after the investigation. He was the gem of the detective agency, and he desired to have Cain become a town void of unrest. It was a very demanding goal that would never completely be reached, and only a few moments’ peace was all one could hope for.

His department continuously fed him information from all kinds of sources from street gossip, to rumors, even from reformed convicts that happened to stroll into town. He spent all day in his small office with a dim lamp, trying to connect the ‘who’s to the ‘what’s in the pieces of the puzzle. Sometimes he’d even work nights trying to find that one link to the crime. Of course, at this hour, he is usually asleep, dreaming of new challenges or solutions to the old cases he had yet to solve.

The town was indeed safe to walk in, yet the evening twilight seemed to differ. The moonless night was darker than black, and the only light came from the very few lamp posts that the minimal budget can give. These lights were dimmer than that homeless bum in the alley next to Mrs. Johnson’s floral shop. But nothing would happen in this town of Cain. No one thought that anyone would dare try and murder someone when it was practically right under the agency’s nose.

Nevertheless, tonight seemed especially dark, even for the dubious town of Cain. The cold night air had a chill that could freeze a heart, and a musty fragrance that would alert a rat. The town was asleep, blind to the potential threats that hid within the moving shadows. Silence is an uncomforting reassurance, and darkness is a tool used by those with evil intentions. Their purpose seemed more noticeable on this particular evening. It settled upon apartment 717 in the form of a dark figure: a villainous creature. The dagger was indistinguishable against the night sky.

An ear-piercing scream penetrated the night. A coat of blood splashed against the opaque middle window on the fourth floor.

A new killer was in the town of Cain.