La Chinga Muerte Ch. 03

I waited in the interrogation room for another half an hour or so when a handful of officers came into the room. Expecting them to be elated, I was surprised by the sour look on all their faces. Not sure if this was a tactic or something, I tried to break the ice by asking, "Well, did you get anything else on the security video?" When no one said a word I began feeling a bit nervous, wondering if perhaps I might be in trouble or something. Finally an older detective stepped into the room and the detective who set me up in the interrogation room scooted his chair closer to me.

"Look, are you sure you have told us everything you know about what happened that night?" he asked looking very serious.

"Well, everything that has to do with the woman."

"Did you have any other contacts, anything beyond serving the food?"

"No, it was just a normal Christmas party, I'm not sure of what company it was, the hotel could tell you that. But as far as serving the food, I mean it went slow for a while and then it got busy and then eased off, just like you'd expect."

"And nothing out of the ordinary happened?"

"No, I mean just as we opened up there were a few people with no lines. Sometimes it gets real busy, usually about an hour into the party. This one took a little longer, which was probably good cause I had one lady who seemed pretty looped..."

The detective interrupted me there, "Tell me about the lady."

"Well, you get these middle age women who don't drink a lot, well they get out and have a few and then get a little strange," I said, remembering a few things about her.

"What was she doing that was odd?"

"She came up and I sliced a piece of meat, but she didn't have a plate, just a fork. We were using some of our finer utensils at this party, so in the lights it kind of sparkled. Moving it back and forth, she had it tilted so the light was flashing in my eyes. Her lips here moving, but I couldn't really hear her, just a murmur. Anyway, after she did that for a while, she wandered off..."

Interrupting again, the detective asked, "She didn't get any food?"

"No, she didn't have a plate, she just wandered off with the fork," I said.

"Can you describe her?"

"Well, she was short, maybe five foot or so, with dark black hair that kind of spiked oddly up, kind of reminding me of a very old Yoko Ono. Her face had a lot of wrinkles and her make up was on pretty thick."

He held up a grainy photograph and asked, "Did she look anything like this?"

I looked at it closely and said, "Yeah, that's her, I wouldn't miss that hair anywhere."

"That's the lady we got on video walking with you past the restrooms."

"You mean..."

"You didn't walk back there more than once during the evening?" he asked me.

"No, just the woman with auburn hair."

"Have you ever been hypnotized?"

"No," I answered.

"Never went to a hypnotist, either for a show or maybe a therapist or something?"

"I may have seen something silly on TV, but never went to a live show. Why do you ask?"

"What would you say if I told you I thought you'd been hypnotized?"

"You mean... could that be why I couldn't make myself stop? And the auburn hair?"

"Perhaps something she put there in your mind."

"I guess that might explain a lot of things, I mean I was beginning to wonder if I was going crazy."

"I don't think you are going crazy, I think this woman may be a professional hypnotist who put you under a hypnotic spell."

"By why didn't she kill me like all the other men?"

"She hasn't killed all the other men," he said.

"She hasn't?"

"No there have been two men with similar stories who were not killed. They both gave me the same description as you did, down to the 'auburn' hair. These two men also didn't have an orgasm with the woman. All the men who were killed did climax, we think they did so before she was satisfied and she just killed them. Would you agree to be hypnotized?"

"I am a little uneasy about that," I said.

"We think under hypnosis we can help you remember what really happened. If that is the case, we can be pretty sure of who did this to you."

"I better call my wife," I said, ready to let myself be hypnotized for apparently the second time in my life.