The Suicide Killer

By M.L. Dantzker

Detective Sergeant J. J. "Cowboy" Manford, a fifteen-year veteran of the Caine City Police Department, is the one called out to investigate unusual deaths. His current case initially looks like a suicide, a jumper. However, the facts surrounding the case just aren't adding up to suicide. The more he seeks an answer, the more disconcerting it becomes. Eventually, a crossover of just a few items, no suicide note, and someone who goes by CT lead to the discovery of nine similar cases over a twenty-year period. This discovery leaves Detective Manford seeking a serial killer who has made his kills look like suicides. The ultimate question is, were they suicides or murders?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891576988

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The Suicide Killer

M.L. Dantzker

Copyright © 2024 M.L. Dantzker

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2024

ISBN 979-8-89157-683-4 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-89157-698-8 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Epilogue

About the Author

Prologue

I never considered myself to be someone who would commit suicide, but the act of suicide has always intrigued me. The idea that someone would think their life was so bad that death was the only answer confounded me. Yet helping someone along with their death worked quite well for me.

During the past twenty years, I have helped ten people to their death. Each death was different, and each looked like a suicide. While each of the ten people had experienced suicidal ideations, some had even attempted suicide, I am sure none of them were ready to die. However, I was ready for them to die.

My first assist was at seventeen when I could no longer tolerate my abusive and drunk father. He died from a drug and alcohol mix I prepared for him one morning before I left for school. When I returned home, he was dead. I felt no sorrow, only joy that he would no longer be a bother to me or my mother. Thanks to his history of suicidal thoughts and attempts, no one bothered to look closely. It was ruled a suicide. That outcome boosted me on my way to many more suicides.

The latest suicide was less than a week ago, a decent enough fellow, but I wasn't thrilled with his interest in me. Nonetheless, I used that interest to eventually get close enough to determine he would be the next victim. Ultimately, he jumped to his death off the top floor of the building at which he worked. The suicidal aspect had always been a good cover for me. To the best of my knowledge, there was never any physical evidence to link anyone else to the death. The only evidence of me may have just been initials, CT.

Rather than ever give anyone my real name, I would use the initials CT., which stood for my real name. However, I had four different aliases, two sources of employment, and worked out at four different facilities, each under a different name. I had no driver's license because I didn't drive, no bank accounts or credit cards, not even a credit history. Any major purchase I may have had to make was with cash.

Despite having turned myself into a good-looking, physically fit person whom many people noticed, I never seemed to be someone whom people immediately remembered. In essence, I was a ghost. Thus, I never worried about getting caught. But I guess all good things must come to an end. I just never dreamed it would end the way it did.

1

The homeless man, only known to locals as Clancy, was asleep in the bus stop shelter. The shelter was relatively new as the city was trying to improve the downtown. It was glassed-in on three sides with a metal roof.

The weather was pleasant, and since buses didn't run after midnight until 7:00 a.m. the following morning, this was Clancy's favorite spot to pass out. Occasionally, he would be rousted by a patrol office. He might have wished that had happened on this night.

Out of an inebriated sleep, Clancy was awakened by a thundering crash on the roof of the bus stop shelter. Initially, he was confused and frightened, not quite sure what had happened. Before he could get off the bench, he noticed something dripping from the roof, a darkish, somewhat thick substance. Clancy took a closer look at the substance only to recognize it as blood.

Timidly, Clancy stepped out from under the shelter to look at the roof. What he saw wasn't immediately recognizable. Initially, he could only determine it was a bleeding mass. When his vision became clearer, he recognized what appeared attached to the mass to be a shoed foot. He turned away and barfed.

Around the same time, a customer leaving the McDonald's across the street, Lilah Kane, who works at the Triton building behind the bus stop, saw Clancy barfing. That was not an unusual sight, especially with Clancy, and she almost decided to ignore him. However, she had come to like Clancy, so decided to check on his well-being.

As she walked closer, Lilah saw the dripping substance. Clancy saw her coming his way and tried to wave her back. Not knowing whether he was waving as a greeting, she continued toward him. She got within a few feet of Clancy when he pointed to the mass. Lilah walked closer to the bus stop. She looked again at the mass. She saw the shoed foot and screamed. Her screaming got the attention of another early morning person heading to work in the Triton building.

Reacting to Lilah's scream, thinking she was being attacked by the apparent homeless man, the person called 911, reporting a possible assault in progress by a homeless man on a woman. Two minutes after the 911 call, two patrol units, with running lights and sirens, pulled up to the bus stop where a small crowd had gathered.

Officer Song, only having been a police officer for about a year and a half, exited the first vehicle on the scene. Since he saw no one being attacked, he asked the small crowd where was the assault. No one responded.

Ms. Kane, who was obviously upset, stepped from the crowd, advising the officer to look at the bus stop roof. Officer Song looked where she was pointing. Initially, he had no clue what he saw. As he walked closer for a better look, he too turned and barfed. The other officer on the scene, a seven-year veteran, Officer Lone, moved closer, then immediately radioed for a supervisor.

Patrol Sergeant Weiser, a seventeen-year police veteran, arrived on the scene a few minutes after being called. He was not pleased at this late call as it was close to the end of the shift. Upon exiting his unit, Weiser was waved over to the bus stop by Officer Lone. Expecting questions about the assault, he strolled over to Lone who was standing with the homeless man he recognized as Clancy.

So, Lone, why the hell am I here thirty minutes until end of shift? There better be a dead body, stated Sergeant Weiser.

Lone simply pointed to the bust stop roof.

Weiser had no idea what he was seeing. What is that, Lone?

Before Lone could respond, Weiser walked closer to the mass's location.

Upon closer inspection, he realized that the mass had at least one arm, hand, leg, and shoed foot. It also appeared to be clothed in what appeared to be casual slacks, perhaps khaki-colored, and a long-sleeved shirt so stained in blood he could not tell its color. What he could tell was that it was a body.

Immediately, Sergeant Weiser radioed for further assistance, requesting EMS, a crime scene unit, and two additional patrol units for crowd control. While awaiting the other units, Officers Song and Lone moved the crowd back, placing crime scene tape in a fifty-foot rectangle around the bust stop shelter.

Within ten minutes, a fire rescue truck, ambulance, and crime scene unit arrived on the scene. The two patrol units showed up a minute later. The newest arriving officers were tasked to take over the crowd control while Song and Lone started questioning members of the crowd, gathering any information available as to what had happened.

As the first officer on the scene, Officer Song, spoke with Clancy, Clancy told Officer Song that he had been asleep on the bus stop bench when he was awakened by a loud crash on the roof of the shelter. He hadn't moved from the bench until he saw some liquid-like substance dripping from the roof's edge. Only then did he walk out from under the shelter, see the bloody mass, turn, and barf.

Officer Lone spoke with Lilah Kane. Ms. Kane was in her twenties, petite in height and frame, dressed in today's causal work clothes: black leggings, red tank top under a white long-sleeved button shirt, and red Sketchers. An ID card on a lariat indicated she was employed at Triton Music.

Ms. Kane reported to Officer Lone that she had been in the McDonald's, finishing a quick breakfast of a biscuit and iced tea. Having left McDonald's, she was heading to work at Triton Music where she was one of two administrative assistants for the CEO, Alexandra Summer Triton. She observed Clancy being sick. Since she knew Clancy from his hanging around the building, she started toward him. When he saw her, he waved. She thought it was a wave of greeting. Turned out, he was trying to keep her back. She continued toward him, asking if he was okay. He just pointed at the mass. She looked, then screamed.

Song and Lone compared notes. It was clear neither had anything to do with the mass lying on the roof other than viewing it. Questions to others still gawking at the site revealed no helpful information.

The crowd did not disperse as quickly as desired. The first thing that the crime scene officers did was set up a large white tent, covering the bus shelter. The blocking of the view started the crowd to disperse. One man remained farther away but intensely watching the action. No one seemed to pay him any attention.

The next step was to check the possible body for any sign of life. The fire rescue provided a ladder, which was climbed by one of the EMS attendants. He confirmed that it was a body, and there were no signs of life. A call was made to have a coroner come to the scene. The body would not be touched or moved until the coroner arrived and gave the okay. It would also have to wait until detectives arrived.

Considering the unknown nature of how the body ended up on the bus shelter roof other than somewhere out or off the Triton building, a death investigator would need to make the scene. Sergeant Weiser radioed that a death investigator would need to make the scene. Despite the general request, Weiser knew who would be sent to the scene, Detective Sergeant J. J. Manford, often referred to as The Cowboy.

Lone and Song continued interviewing people on the scene; crime scene techs began taking photographs but would do nothing more until the coroner and detective(s) arrived.

It was nearly 8:30 a.m., almost two hours after the original call came in, when the coroner arrived. A minute later, a dark-green, unmarked Dodge Ram pick-up, covered with mud and dust, pulled onto the scene. Out from the driver's side stepped Detective Sergeant J. J. Manford.

James Jarrold J. J. Manford, PhD was a thirteen-year veteran of the Caine City Police Department, the last three years of which he had been a detective sergeant, an investigator who specialized in unusual deaths. He earned a PhD in abnormal psychology by age twenty-four, joining the police department within six months of graduating.

In the academy, he was nicknamed Cowboy. He received this moniker because his street clothes included Wranglers, a Western pearl-buttoned long-sleeved shirt, burgundy ropers, and black Western hat. He had no Western twang in his speech, and no one ever asked why he dressed as he did. As a detective sergeant, he still wore the same type of clothing, only now he had added a denim sport coat.

Weiser watched Manford stride from his truck toward the scene. He was only about six-feet tall and medium-build, but his stature was increased by his boots and Stetson. As he reached Weiser, he held his hand out to greet him, simply asking, What do we have, Sarge?

Weiser turned, pointed at the mass, and advised, It looks like a dead body, Cowboy. How it got there or how it died isn't obvious. That's why I asked for an investigator. I figured it'd be you.

Manford asked, What do we know about it?

Only that it made a loud enough noise when it hit the roof to wake poor Clancy out of a deep, inebriated sleep, Weiser responded.

Nothing has been done except the erecting of the tent and checking for any signs of life by EMS. Been waiting for you and the coroner, before anything more was done, Weiser added.

Manford nodded and headed further into the tent where he greeted the coroner Jennifer Yu, the newest member of the medical examiner's office. She was just finishing donning her light-gray coroner's jumpsuit, preparing to climb the ladder for a closer inspection of the body. He watched her climb the ladder to the roof. She was worth watching whatever it was she was doing.

On the roof, Dr. Yu, with a PhD in anatomy and physiology and an MD, carefully circled the mass, noting her observations. She then called out to Manford to come up the ladder but not climb onto the roof as she feared it was not sturdy enough for both their weight and the mass.

When Manford reached the step where he could get a good look at the mass, Dr. Yu reported that it was a human body, most likely a male, but could tell nothing more until she had him back at the office for autopsy.

Any chance there is an obviously available identification source? Manford inquired.

Yu checked around the neck where she saw what appeared to be a lariat with a card attached. She cut the lariat, removing the card and handing it over to Manford.

The card was an employee ID in the name of Allan T. Garrett, an associate song producer at Triton Music. Unfortunately, there was so much damage to the face a positive ID could not be made at that time.

Manford thanked Dr. Yu, advising her he would be in touch about the autopsy. He climbed down the ladder. The crime scene officers and the coroner went on with their jobs of documenting the scene, collecting any evidence, then moving the body to the morgue.

Manford exited the tent and looked up at the Triton Music building. Not having a great angle, he stepped out into the street and observed that there was some type of clear wall surrounding the roof's edge.

Weiser approached Manford. What are you thinking? Jumper?

That or someone helped him off the roof, quipped Manford.

Manford added, Will need to talk with the employees of Triton and check out the roof.

Have a crime scene officer meet me inside, Manford requested from Weiser. Not waiting for a response, he headed for the glass revolving doors that would gain him entry to Triton Music.

The Triton Music building was a thirty-story glass building, named after the initial CEO of Triton Music, Zachary G. Triton, who died before he was able to see the final product.

According to the building's organizational chart, which hung on the wall behind a four-stationed desk, where four individuals sat answering and directing calls, Triton was now led by the eldest granddaughter, Alexandra Summer Triton, a forty-seven-year-old singer-songwriter who never quite made it big time as a performer. However, she had written several songs that were hits for many of the current singers in country and soul. The company employed over two hundred people whose jobs were divided among four executive producers. Each executive producer had two assistant producers. The possible victim, believed to be Allan Garrett, appeared to have been working directly for Ms. Triton.

Manford approached the only person not on the phone at the time, identified himself, and asked to see Ms. Triton.

What is the nature of your need to speak with Ms. Triton? the big doe-eyed gal, whose name tag indicated she was Vanessa, asked.

It's about personnel, particularly one who, according to the chart, worked directly under Ms. Triton, he advised.

Just a minute, please.

Vanessa dialed an unseen number and spoke to a person she called Gem, advising there was a police officer, a detective Manford, requesting to speak directly with Ms. Triton about an employee who reported directly to her. She listened and disconnected the call.

"Ms. Triton's administrative assistant, Gem, said you could come straight up to the office, the twenty-fifth floor. Take the last