The police interview Martin Kane, martin_s_kane@yahoo.co.uk A violent killer, finally in custody. --- Author's note: First the standard blub on copyright, which is mine. I'd be flattered if anyone wanted to use this tale elsewhere, but please seek permission before copying, altering, posting etc. Secondly, I invite anyone to send their comments, suggestions, thoughts or suspicions should they care to. Needless to say this story is purely a fiction and all characters merely the products of an overwrought imagination I'll abstain from the adult content warning, if you've got this far, you're certain to know what kind of thing to expect anyway. --- The single glass eye of the security camera watched the room impassively. Nothing escaped its cold, professional gaze. In the room sat two people, either side of the desk. Detective Norris read through the file, deliberately paying no attention to the woman who sat opposite. The woman was handcuffed, the steel bracelets looking like a toy compared to her massive forearms. She was still wearing the workout clothes they had arrested her in, a black sports bra and training shorts. It disguised none of her awesome physique, bulging muscles and massive development. Two policemen had brought her in, each leading her by one arm, having to wrap both hands around those enormous biceps. She had dwarfed them, though each was six-foot and as broad as a horse. Another cop walked behind them. He watched her carefully, the batten already in his hand. Despite the precautions, looking at this powerful woman, it seemed woefully inadequate. Irrespective of the fear evident from all these hardened men, she was calm and passive, going where they led her like a subservient little victim. They sat her down and retreated, grateful for the ease of the task. The door had slammed behind her and she was alone with the detective. He still hadn’t looked up, too engrossed in the file he was reading. She sat and patiently waited, her hands resting in her lap. "So, Bethany," he said eventually. "We finally meet." Only then did he look up, cool eyes masking a contempt that was fuelled by genuine passion for his job. She met his gaze with a blank expression. She offered nothing. Her face was pure stone. "I’ve been following your exploits for a while now," he told her, flipping casually through his file. "You’ve been getting lazy. Sloppy. You know it was only a matter of time before we caught up with you?" Bethany didn’t speak, didn’t flinch. She sat there, staring down her captor. Norris coughed, cleared his throat in a slightly theatrical manner and began to read from the file. "Dean Cribb was discovered with every bone in his body broken," he announced. Looking up at to see if this provoked any reaction. It did not. "Every bone," he repeated for emphasis. "Each one, singularly and systematically broken. Someone took their time to carefully and meticulously carry out this torture. He finally died when the killer wrapped her hands about his skull, squeezing until the bone cracked, his scalp splitting and his head collapsed like a squashed fruit. And the strength requisite to inflict that kind of damage..." He left the silence hanging. Still hoping for some response from the large woman sitting opposite him. She was as stony as ever. He shrugged and turned the page. "OK, how about James Lewson? His chest was ripped clean open. Fingers prised through the breastbone to tear the ribcage apart." "Don’t you have anything to say?" Norris asked, his voice barely containing his hate. He bit back the bile and stayed professional. "No defence? No denials?" "What would denial help," Bethany finally answered. Her voice was as cold and indifferent as her demeanour suggested. This appeared to mean nothing to her at all. "You admit that you’re responsible?" Norris clarified. "My admission or denial is irrelevant," she told him. "You’ve got all the evidence you require. As you said, you would have caught up with me eventually." Norris shook his head utterly incredulous at her attitude. "Why?" he insisted. "What reason could you have? What is wrong with you?" She simply shrugged. "Seventeen men are dead. That means nothing to you?" "Is it seventeen?" she asked carelessly. "I don’t keep track. I did think it was more than that but I’ve never actually counted." "Gary Vanch," Norris said. "You ripped him apart. You pulled his limbs off of his body like a kid with a fly. What possible motive would make you do that?" She shrugged again. "What is it a game? Sick thrills?" "More of a habit," she told him, her face crawling into a sardonic grin. "Steroid rage?" "I’m clean," she insisted. Her arms twitched as she said this, flexing her mighty biceps. The muscles hardened momentarily, swelling like a bubble in molten steel. She was bigger than any of the steroided freaks he had ever arrested. Her muscles were more built and obvious than every PCP thug he’d ever needed the assistance of colleagues to take down. That she could develop such a huge physique without chemical assistance was beyond his belief. "You look like a mutant cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Godzilla. Do you expect me to believe you got that big on egg-whites and chicken?" "Lifting weights helped too," she told him with a wry smile. "You’d be amazed at what a woman is capable of if she simply sets her mind to do such. I often surprise myself." "Really, in what way are you surprised by your actions, Bethany?" "That it’s so easy," she told him. "Do you get a sense of remorse when you squash an ant that walks across your tabletop? That’s what it feels like to kill a man. And that’s how easy it is for me to do, both physically and emotionally." Norris nodded, thinking this over. "But that doesn’t give you a motivation," he insisted. She shrugged again. "Because I can," she said. "Isn’t that enough? Hell, I’ve killed a man just to watch his expression change." "Steven Smith," Norris said. "Remind me." "He was picked up and thrown against a wall. Then picked up and thrown against the wall again. Then again. Shattered bones, ruptured internal organs - he was battered to a pulp. In fact, some of the injuries were post-mortem. You didn’t even stop after he was already dead." She didn’t comment on this, merely shrugging again. "Get carried away, did we?" Still, she didn’t answer him. Norris let the silence hang before turning his attention back to his file. "And Paul Gradey?" he said. His tone betrayed nothing. He deliberately held his gaze away from her, letting the name sink in, have the effect he was hoping it would provoke. Then he looked up, slowly meeting her eyes. This time they had a glint of rage within them. Her face was still equivocal but that hint could not be suppressed. "Because he was the first, wasn’t he." "As I said, I don’t keep track," Bethany said. Her voice was a low hiss despite her attempts to reign in control. "Oh, he wasn’t the first man you killed, but he was you first victim." Norris looked at her, his eyes scouring her blank expression, looking for cracks in the visage. "Yes you killed him, just like you did the others. You broke his body like clay pot. He was crushed and ground as though he’d been pulled out of a car-wreck - utterly pulverised. But that doesn’t make him stand out from your other victims. He was hardly the first man you’ve mangled like a compressor. "But he’d been assaulted previous to that. It took us a while to discover, seeing as, despite the extent of damage, he never reported the attack." Bethany sat in silence, still blank faced, but the glimmer of hate had magnified. It was only the subtlest of clues but that’s what Norris was trained to pick up upon. This was something she clearly wasn’t happy about discussing. With calculated precision, he pushed. "This was a few years earlier. About the time you first began to build up. Why was it you started bodybuilding? Anyway, you would have been fairly strong at this point. Not the size you achieved since of course, but given your height, certainly strong enough to take on the average guy. "Added to that, the fact that Gradey was assaulted with a baseball bat. You ever used a weapon, Bethany? "He was beaten repeatedly with the bat and then stripped. And then, what did you do with the bat?" She didn’t speak, didn’t flinch, didn’t breathe. "Our witness tells us that the handle was barely visible, it had been shoved up so far inside him. But even so he didn’t go to the police." "This is irrelevant," she told him. "I’m guilty of multiple murders, you know I am, and you have all the evidence you need." Her voice was cruel and cold, but Norris could detect the slightest edge to it, a desperation and viciousness. He knew he was close. "And when we checked all our files. Backtracking and cross- referencing. We see that even this wasn’t the first assault between the two of you." "Don’t," she warned, no longer able to hold his gaze. Instead she stared down, looking at her hands, cuffed and in her lap. "It seems there was an assault prior to your taking up bodybuilding. Back then, you weren’t strong enough to take your attacker. Why did you begin bodybuilding, Bethany?" She didn’t answer, didn’t look up. "There’s almost a poetic irony to the whole situation, wouldn’t you say? And eye for an eye - a tooth for a tooth - a sexual assault for a sexual assault." Silence stretched between them. "But then why did you take to murder? Did it feel so good to hurt him like that? Or did you just want more and more revenge - the beast become insatiable?" She said nothing, trying to blank him out, not wanting to hear any of this. "Bethany. What are you?" "You want to know about me?" she asked, her voice a harsh grate, each syllable a drop of bile in her throat. "Let me show you." And she stood, her blank expression gone and replaced with a murderous intent. "Sit down," Norris commanded, his voice suddenly a lot weaker than it had been moments earlier. Suddenly those handcuffs looked a lot weaker than he’d have like. And well they should, for when she eased her thick arms apart, the chain snapped like a thread of cotton. Norris leapt backwards, reaching for the alarm button. Bethany didn’t charge at him however, contrary to his fears. Instead she jumped to the door. He felt a moment of pure joy, believing her to be attempting an escape. His joy was short lived. As the alarm went off, he saw her throw the bolt, locking them in together. Bethany turned slowly, her smile the most hideous thing he had ever seen. And ever would see, for he knew there was no way to survive this situation. "How long do you think it’ll take them to break in here?" she asked. "How long do we have together? Five minutes?" "You don’t have to do this," Norris tried, though he knew it was hopeless and his voice betrayed his defeat. "No," she agreed. "But I’m going to. There’s nothing more I can do which will my sentence harsher. I’m already damned and killing you makes no difference to the punishment. This is actually a consequence free crime for me. It’s a pity you can’t observe this situation from the outside, I think you’d have appreciated that irony." "Please," Norris whimpered. It was all he had left and had no effect upon her. He grasped the table, an absurd attempt to hold it between them. She tossed it aside as though it was made of card. Then she punched him. His ribs shattered at the impact and he was flattened against the far wall. Then her hands clawed into his shoulders. They splintered as she squeezed. Then he was on the floor, on his back. And the shadow of death was above him, blotting out the light. She sat astride him. Bethany smiled and flexed her muscles for him. Biceps like cannonballs burst from arms as thick as drainpipes. "I’m going to show you your heart," she promised him. "You’ll have just enough time to see its final beat before your brain seizes." He began to weep and she laughed at his horror, running her hands over his fractured chest. "Smile for the camera," she told him. "For posterity." As pain replaced fear, he began to drift away. Pain and blood-loss combined with the adrenaline until it almost seemed like his scream was that of another, like the tearing flesh was ripped from another’s body. He heard the thumping as they tried to break in, heard their shouts and screams, though muffled by the strong security door. He knew he would be dead by the time they finally broke through, and knew that death would be a mercy. He focused on the woman above him, a blood-soaked demon revelling in her own sadism. She caught his eyes and seemed to acknowledge the recognition within them, smiling at him so sweetly, ready to fulfil her promise. And the camera watched and she descended upon him. It watched with a single glass eyes - cold and professionally indifferent.