Fight for your life, p.1
Fight For Your Life, page 1
Fight for Your Life
by
C. M. Sutter
Copyright © 2022
All Rights Reserved
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction by C. M. Sutter. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used solely for entertainment. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C. M. Sutter is a crime fiction author who resides in Tampa, Florida.
With more than thirty books published in the thriller and crime fiction genres, she can often be found with a laptop in hand and writing at every opportunity.
She is an art enthusiast and loves to create gourd birdhouses, pebble art, and handmade soaps. Gardening, bicycling, fishing, playing with her dog, and traveling the world are a few of her favorite pastimes.
C. M. Sutter
http://cmsutter.com/
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Fight for Your Life
Detective Mitch Cannon-Savannah Heat Thriller Series, Book 2
The local newspaper receives a letter threatening the city’s female citizens. That’s disturbing enough, but when the author reveals himself, the news is what nightmares are made of. His moniker alone will paralyze Savannah if word gets out.
Detective Mitch Cannon and the entire police force take over and try to learn more. Is the letter authentic or a hoax? Is the author truly who they think he is or a copycat, and if his murderous threats are real, how will they know without a body?
As the news leaks, the media jumps on board and creates a firestorm of fear throughout Chatham County.
Has an infamous killer who’s never been caught resurfaced after a thirty-year nap? Detective Cannon’s worst fear may be coming true—the Savannah Slasher is finally waking up.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 1
Assembling the letter took more time than composing it. Michael knew what to say and who to send it to, but cutting out the words and gluing them to paper took forever. His process was as old-school as the killers he most admired. None of today’s killers had the celebrity status of serial killers of old, and they no longer instilled fear throughout entire cities, counties, and states. He wanted to be as famous as the Green River Killer, the BTK Killer, Son of Sam, and the Night Stalker. His favorite was Zodiac, the killer who’d terrorized California for years but had never been caught. Michael idolized those men.
Killers these days don’t have the balls to really put a death grip on a city, or is it that the cops have gotten better at their jobs? Nah, it’s probably the technology, and I don’t want to give cops too much credit, so going back to old-school ways will make it harder than ever to catch me.
Michael’s curiosity had gotten the better of him days ago when he first decided to devise a plan. He wondered who was smarter, trickier, better at their job, and could do it without fail—the cops or him?
He was fascinated with murder and knew everything about every notable serial killer, the number of people who’d died at their hands, the locations of the murders, and the killer’s methodology. Michael had dabbled in murder twice before with throwaway women who lived on the streets and had gone unnoticed. He needed to know whether he was capable of killing before he got too deeply invested in such a crime—and he was.
If I do this, I have to go all-in and live up to the real celebrities, the ones who were on every news channel and the front page of every newspaper.
He would commit to killing women between twenty and forty since that was the demographic most active. They were the fun-loving Savannah women who frequented coffee shops with friends during the week and hot spot nightclubs on weekends. They were always out, day or night, and he could count on that. Terrorizing and murdering them would create a frenzy of fear in the city like no one had seen in years, plus it would get far more media attention than killing men.
The people of Savannah won’t stand for it. Not only will the police have to appease the public and the media, but they’ll also have to actually catch and convict me. It’s time to put them to the test to see just how good the Savannah PD really is.
Born and raised in Savannah, Michael Ray Boone had seen how the homicide division handled cases over the years. Sometimes they were up to the task, other times they failed miserably, and that was exactly what he was counting on. He would bring back Savannah’s most notorious killer, the one who’d never been caught, just like Zodiac. He might not have had the nationwide notoriety of Zodiac—simply because Georgia wasn’t California—yet he’d been able to paralyze the city and all of Chatham County from 1992 to 1995. For three years, he had outsmarted, outwitted, and outplayed the police force, the sheriff’s office, and the FBI at every turn then suddenly disappeared. At the time, he was what nightmares and scary movies were made of. He caused frightened children to sleep together in the same bed, and women never ventured out alone. Dead bolts, security locks, and guns flew off the shelves, yet he managed to slip in, do his horrible deeds, and slip out undetected right under law enforcement’s noses.
Yep, it’s time to resurrect the Savannah Slasher.
Back then, law enforcement had profiled the killer as being a man between twenty-five and forty-five, a wide age range, but what they’d really wanted was to make the killer fit the crime. He had to be someone stealthy, fit, and mentally capable enough to commit the thirteen murders he’d claimed. Since he hadn’t been captured, his actual number of victims was never known. If he was on the younger end of that age guesstimate, he would be only in his mid-fifties and capable of carrying out the same crimes again.
Michael was only forty-one, and the police knew nothing about him or that he even existed. He was sure he could bring the Savannah Slasher back to life. Even though he was just a kid at the time, his father, a prolific crime writer, had obsessed over the killings that took place during those few years. He’d saved every newspaper clipping and VHS tape about the Slasher and stored them in a suitcase. Michael had everything he needed to replicate the killer and bring him back to the Hostess City of the South.
Michael looked at the dog sleeping under the table. “I’ve got my work cut out for me, Dalia. I’ve got to do this right, and I don’t have a lot of time. My whole life has been a waste, I’ve done nothing extraordinary, and nobody knows me from Adam. For once, I’m going to make headlines in this city, and it’ll be spectacular.”
He returned to cutting and pasting the note that sat alongside him. Hand writing it on scratch paper first, he had revised it several times until it was exactly the way he wanted it. Even though he had no idea whether the real Savannah Slasher was still among the living or had died anonymously years earlier, he had no plans of going out that way. After he left his mark on the city, the nickname Savannah Slasher would be remembered for decades to come. The best part—and the part that made him chuckle—was that if he ever was caught, the cops would realize they didn’t have the real Slasher. Michael had been a young teen in the 1990s when those murders took place.
He reached down and scratched Dalia, the rescue mixed breed, behind the ears. She opened her eyes, yawned, and fell back asleep.
“I hope I’m looking the cops straight in t he eyes when they realize they’ve just chased a ghost and the real Savannah Slasher is still at large. What a great day that’ll be.”
Michael rolled his wrist and checked the time—11:07. It was late, and he needed a clear mind to do everything exactly the way the Slasher had. He polished off his bottle of iced tea, closed the suitcase, and put away his supplies. He planned to finish the letter in the morning then slip the sealed envelope into a blue street corner mailbox. He couldn’t wait to see the reaction.
Chapter 2
It was Monday morning, the beginning of the workweek for most Savannah residents. Michael heard the city bus pass his bedroom window at daybreak, and the brakes hissed as the bus came to a stop at the shelter a half block away. The buses had an important role in the city and dropped off workers at the bus stop nearest their place of employment.
It was time to rise, eat a hearty breakfast, and down two cups of freshly ground coffee. He knew the pickup time at the corner mailbox on West Park and Barnard, and if the letter wasn’t dropped in before one o’clock that afternoon, it wouldn’t be postmarked until the next day.
After breakfast and wearing a new pair of thin latex gloves, Michael finished the letter and proofread it, and as the glue dried, he showered. He worked part-time at Wheel and Sprocket, the bicycle shop on Whitaker near Forsyth Park, from nine o’clock until noon from Monday through Thursday and every other Friday through Sunday. Sales and repairs kept him busy, and during tourist season, rentals were brisk. He met dozens of people every day, yet once that bicycle was in their hands, he was brushed aside as quickly as crumbs on a table. He was completely invisible, but that would end soon enough.
Several times a week after his shift ended, Michael frequented the Daily Grind, a coffee shop near the park, during the lunch hour just to glimpse the women who came and went—and there were plenty of them. There was no shortage of potential victims in his foreseeable future. Weekend nights brought hundreds of women out to the bars, where dancing and live music were plentiful. The touristy historic district had the highest number of clubs, and many of the women were tourists—which wasn’t a bad thing—but the number of people in that area at night made it difficult to drag anyone into a back alley and slit their throat without being seen.
For the last month, Michael had walked to and from work every day depending on the weather—it was only five blocks. On rainy days or when he needed to go somewhere after work, he took his car instead. Following the Slasher’s example, he tried never to leave a personal trail that led to his home. Michael even changed up his route to work so he wouldn’t pass the same houses or people every day. He wanted fame and notoriety from a distance. He wanted to instill fear in the city like the Slasher did yet be able to walk among the crowds without being known. Doing that and having the ability—and choice—to end someone’s life at any second would be even more empowering. After a month of practice and almost becoming one with the Slasher, Michael was ready to take over the infamous identity and wreak havoc on Savannah.
I wonder what would happen if the real Slasher came out of the woodwork because of my actions. Would he join in or come after me for impersonating him?
That was something Michael didn’t know but was willing to find out. Meeting the real Slasher face-to-face, even if he was taken by surprise and killed, would be worth it.
The morning was cool and clear as he left his two-story brown-clapboard home on East Duffy, just east of Drayton Street. He would walk to work that day, as he often did, and take a different route than he’d taken on Saturday. His backpack, containing a midmorning snack and the letter, was slung over his shoulder. As soon as his shift was done, he would drop the envelope into the blue mailbox on the corner before going home. Later that day, it should be in the hands of the nearest police station, but what they decided to do with it remained to be seen. If an article didn’t show up in the Daily Sentinel, on a local news broadcast, or on the internet within a day or two, he planned to up the ante. The next letter to the paper would give directions to the location of a dead woman. He hadn’t chosen her yet or even decided where to kill her, but he would do whatever he needed to get the attention and respect of the media and law enforcement.
Chapter 3
Monday, 4:09 p.m.
The wheels squeaked as the mail clerk pushed the cart down the aisle in the newsroom of the Daily Sentinel. Only a handful of newspapers remained in Chatham County, and the Sentinel was one of the oldest surviving newspapers in the area. The mail, if addressed to a particular journalist, was delivered to their desk every day between three and four o’clock. Anything of interest that arrived in the mail would be vetted by the editor, and with his permission, an article would be written, go to press, and show up in the next day’s morning edition.
“Afternoon, Caroline. Looks like you’ve got mail today.”
She glanced up dismissively at Robert and reached for her mail. “Thanks.”
He continued down the aisle with the cart making its annoying squeak.
She called to him before he was out of earshot. “Hey, Robert. Why don’t you oil that damn thing?”
Just as dismissive as she’d been to him, Robert swatted the air without looking back. “Talk to maintenance. That isn’t my department.”
Caroline grumbled and continued writing her article. It wasn’t until an hour later, when her piece was complete, that she picked up the mail, pulled out the garbage can from under her desk, and ripped open the first envelope.
“Typical trash.” She tossed that one, a plug for an editorial seminar coming to Savannah. She reached for the next piece, a curious computer-addressed manila envelope with no return address. She looked at the postmark—stamped locally three hours earlier. “What the heck is this, and why is it addressed to me?”
She pinched the tabs together then ran her finger under the seal to tear it open. Inside, she found a sheet of paper clipped between two other sheets of paper. “What the hell?” Caroline slipped off the paper clips, removed the front sheet, and saw what was behind it—a note, several paragraphs long, spelled out in individually cut-and-pasted letters. It warned of imminent murders in Savannah in the coming days, weeks, and months, and said nobody, not even the police, would capture the killer. It was time to resurface and let Chatham County know that the Savannah Slasher was back. “Oh my God.”
Dan Kendall snapped his head toward her. “What’s wrong?”
“Come here and take a look! Do you think this is real?” She waited as Dan read the note twice.
“I’m not sure, and I have no idea who the Savannah Slasher is, but you need to show it to Chip right away.”
Caroline pushed back her chair, gingerly picked up the note, placed it on top of the envelope, and marched down the hall to the editor’s office. Dan was on her heels. Two raps on the closed door and a loud “Come in” from the other side confirmed that Chip Matthews, the editor, was at his desk.
Creating a foot-wide gap, Caroline peeked around the door. “Boss, I’ve got something serious to show you.”
He waved her in, and Dan followed. Chip pulled back with a frown. “It takes both of you to show me something?”
“Just take a look, sir. I don’t know if this is some kind of hoax or not, but I thought you should have a look before I tossed it in the trash.”
Caroline slid the note with the envelope beneath it across the editor’s desk.
“What is this?”
“Just read it and tell us what it means.”
They watched as Chip read the note. His expression told them he was genuinely concerned.
“Who is the Savannah Slasher? Is this for real or some sick joke?” Caroline asked.
“I don’t know. It could be someone who has too much time on their hands and wants their fifteen minutes of fame.”
Dan spoke up. “Without a real name, they’d never get that fame anyway.”
