It was winter when Victor Jackson’s head was found stuffed in the dumpster behind the diner. A waitress, a young co-ed who only had the job to pay for her student fees (she found this point to be important, and thus repeated it to every officer in sight), had been taking out the night’s garbage when she lifted the lid and found Victor staring back out at her, eyes open wide, tongue poking out from behind the twisted smile that his lips were contorted into. She had screamed, of course, which had prompted her boss, a miserly old woman who demanded that everyone, including her family, call her Mrs. Brackley, to come running out of the diner screaming about how the waitress spent all her time lollygagging instead of working and that she better get back to work before she was fired. That is, she screamed that until she saw the horrified pointing of her employee, and then her screams were for an entirely different reason.

The rest of Victor Jackson was not found until early March, when an elderly man walking his Dachshund was led by the dog to an isolated bush off of the side of the trail. Fluffers had deemed the spot to be a perfect toilet. The smell from behind the bush was rather atrocious, but the old man’s sense of smell had been burned away from his days dodging napalm in Vietnam. If he had been able to smell, then Fluffers never would have been allowed to urinate there, but the elderly man found no problem with his dog’s choice of bathroom until he saw Fluffers nipping on the fingers poking out of the ground.

We had been called out to investigate the murder when Jackson’s head had been discovered, but since our only evidence was a head, there wasn’t much we could do. Our medical examiner had done a thorough inspection and mock autopsy on Victor’s cranium, but the only thing that was revealed from that was that some sort of serrated edge had been used to detach his skull from his neck. They didn’t think it was a saw, but perhaps something smaller. We basically let the matter sit cold until we received word that the rest of the body had been found. It really wasn’t our top priority, anyway. The city was full of crime, so what was just another murder?

We dug up Jackson, and thanked the old man for his tip. Fluffers bounced around happily, yipping and yapping. For a dog that had just consumed a bit of a dead man’s hand, he was quite a happy pup. Our forensic specialist told us that we should probably wait for Fluffers to excrete the remains of what he had eaten, but none of us were all too excited to bag and tag doggie doo, so we decided to let the matter go.

The body was fairly decomposed by the time that we had found it, so most of the external evidence had disappeared. The autopsy revealed next to nothing. We went around and interviewed the same people again, asked his crying fiancé if she knew anything new, and found nothing once again. The case went cold. We had better things to do then search for a murderer of a man who was only loved by a few people. It wasn’t like he was a high profile citizen or anything. He was a nobody, and no one would really care if we just pushed his case under the rug.

The second body was found in late June. This time it was a woman, a pretty young thing by the name of Ashley Walters. This time, the body was found first. It was fairly hard to miss the remains this time, since they had been strung up by the ankles outside of the University’s dining hall. Ms. Walter’s head had been sawed off of her body, so the only identifier that we had was her student ID that was pinned to her chest.

The security cameras around the dining hall had been disabled for the week leading up to the discovery, so there was no video evidence of who decided to murder Walters, and it must have been late at night, because everyone we interviewed vowed that they had seen and heard nothing. Normally, we would have been suspicious that no one had seen anything, and we did pull some people as potential suspects, but we all knew that they knew nothing. They were obviously not lying, and willingly offered up anything we needed to clear their names. We struck out.
There was an art gallery a few blocks away from the university, and the exhibiting artist specialized in busts. His artistic ability was superb, and the faces he created were incredibly realistic. A visitor to the gallery studied each and every bust, trying to absorb any artistic ability that may have lingered around the pieces. He could practically smell the talent in the air as he leaned in close to a particular piece, a glorious bust of a young woman. In fact, he could smell something, but he really thought that talent would smell more like flowers and less like the dead rabbits that his dog used to drag into the house. It was then that he noticed just how lifelike the bust was. Every detail was perfect, and it certainly looked real. The artist had even gotten the hair right, and everyone knew just how hard that was!

Curiosity killed the cat. The visitor couldn’t help himself as he reached out and stroked the cheek of the bust. He expected plaster, but plaster certainly wasn’t that soft. In fact, it felt quite a lot like skin.

It was then that he noticed that there was no placard for the piece, nor was it encased by a glass box like the other busts. A quick inquiry to the artist, and it was discovered that it wasn’t a piece belonging to the gallery.

It had only been a week.

Another autopsy, and another investigation that led to nothing. The forensics team declared that there was no useable evidence. The police chief was getting worried. Two bodies with the same MO in just a few months. We kept the press quiet, but it didn’t really matter. Everyone had the same assumption that we did.

We had a serial killer on our hands. And the police had no leads.

There were no discernable similarities between the victims. One was a man with a fiancé and no money. The other was a sorority girl with tons of friends. Opposite genders. Vastly different ages. As far as we knew, they had never even met each other. All these differences destroyed any chance we had of constructing a pattern we could use to pinpoint a killer.

The third body was found in July, only two weeks after Ashley Walters’ head had been found in the gallery. It was another man this time, a middle-age good-for-nothing. His body was found propped up against the wall of the most popular grocery around, arms and ankles crossed. The head was not found for a few more days, when little Jimmy Brown saw something shiny in the gutters. He had reached in to grab what he had thought was money. Instead, he found an earring that was still attached to an ear, which in turn was still attached to a head, which happened to be attached to nothing.

The police department jumped into action, this time refusing to push the case under the rug. Three people were dead, and all had been murdered by, supposedly, the same person. Mistakes couldn’t be made. The forensics division was working non-stop, around the clock, searching for microscopic clues that could help us figure out who was killing these people. We amassed plenty of evidence, but none of it was useable. We were grasping at straws.

The fourth body came three weeks later, an elderly woman whose only living connections were her cats that hissed and spit at us when we opened her door. Her body had been found floating in the water treatment vat outside of a high-rise apartment building. Her head was discovered the same day just a few blocks away, stuffed into a cardboard box, which had then been stuffed into the mail-drop outside of city hall.

We couldn’t keep the press quiet any longer. Soon, the newspapers were emblazoned with headlines that screamed “Serial Killer at Large!”, and “Nobody is safe from the Guillotine!”. Guillotine. That was the name that the media had given the murderer, a play on the fact that all the victims were decapitated. A bit crude, but it caused the city to go into a frenzy, which was exactly what they had wanted.

A few months passed, bringing with them victims numbers five, six, and seven. It was now November, and the people of the city were practically knocking down our door. There was a tip line set up, and we got close to a thousand calls a day. None of the tips were valid. They were just paranoid citizens who felt that everyone was a suspect. And they weren’t completely wrong. The police had no real suspects, so in reality, anyone could be guilty. But the city was calling for blood, and if we didn’t give them results soon, they would rip us to shreds.

The eighth victim brought a clue. Another college student had been found, a young woman by the name of Mary Snyder, and during the external investigation, a single black hair had been found grasped between her fingers. This wouldn’t have been so odd if Mary Snyder hadn’t been a strawberry blonde.

And thus, we had our first, and only, lead. Forensics immediately jumped on the hair, and set to work on extracting DNA from the root of the strand. Once they did, they started to search for a match in our databases.

It’s been a few days since they discovered the hair, and as I sit at home tonight, I await by my phone for the call from the chief that will order me into action. I know that they’ll find a match soon, and I’m ready to go catch our suspect.

Not that I really have to wait for the call, since I know exactly who the hair belongs to, but it’s better to do my waiting. I wouldn’t want to seem suspicious, now, would I?

I doubt that Mr. Hartlet even realizes that I plucked a hair from his head the other night. He was sleeping far too deeply to have felt anything, much less know that I had crept into his room. He also will not have found the knife I hid in his kitchen. The police will, though. We tend to be rather thorough. And the blood on the blade will certainly match that of Mary Snyder.
Hartlet will deny his involvement, but that won’t matter. The killers always deny that they have killed, and with such a high-profile case, he will certainly be found guilty. Besides, the police are desperate. As long as they can give the public a warm body, then they are in the clear.

The phone rings. I answer, listening to the excited voice of my chief on the other end. The name he gives me is Raymond Hartlet, an ex-con residing in an apartment a mile away from my residence. The DNA is an exact match. There are no doubts.

I hang up after confirming that I will be there in a few minutes.

I stand up, and grab my gun off of my table. I prefer my hunting knife as my weapon, but the pistol will do. It may not have the ferocity I desire, but this is not a night for savagery. This is a night for endings.

I smile, since that is what one is supposed to do when something good happens. The sensation is unfamiliar, but not altogether unpleasant.
I open my door, and exit my house, walking to my squad car. My badge is pinned to my uniform, heavy against my chest.

The killer will be caught tonight, but the Guillotine will live on. I am sure of it.