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The Serial Killer at Work

There’s been another murder.

“It was a hundred-foot drop,” Kara-from-Accounts says as she presses the Door Close button at the end of the day.

“One fifty, at least,” says Stanley-from-IT. “It’s a fifteen-story building.”

The elevator lurches as it begins its descent, and everyone goes quiet for a moment, contemplating that fairground feeling of falling, falling.

“Have the police done a press release yet? Do they know for certain it’s connected to the others?” Tiffany-from-Project-Management asks. Her commuting sneakers squeak as she rocks back and forth.

“It only happened yesterday. They haven’t said anything yet.”

“It wasn’t a murder,” Stanley-from-IT says. “He threw himself off.”

Tiffany-from-Project-Management gasps. “How do you know?”

“It’s what I wanted to do when I worked there.” Stanley-from-IT guffaws.

Kara-from-Accounts doesn’t laugh. “Nine falls in five years, each at a different office building downtown,” she muses. “There’s someone behind it all.”

Everyone thinks there’s someone behind it all. The existence of the Paper Pusher has been a topic of speculation at every temp job I’ve had. Every downtown office building I’ve worked at in the past five years.

I know a little more than most.

“Maybe it was an HR exercise. A trust fall gone wrong, eh? Eh?” Stanley-from-IT doesn’t get a laugh from Kara-from-Accounts, so he turns to Tiffany-from-Project-Management. He doesn’t get his dues there, either. He frowns. “It’s just an urban legend,” he says irritably. “You don’t actually believe someone’s going around pushing people off rooftops?”

Kara-from-Accounts sniffs.

The elevator doors open on the fourteenth floor to welcome a newcomer dressed in all black, her red lips a surprising pop of color at the end of this boring, dreary day. She slides in like a shadow, bearing her phone like a talisman that will protect her from small talk, and slinks against one wall of the elevator, the collar of her black trench coat flipped up and her face angled down at the screen. I don’t know her name yet, but I make a point of learning names and departments. I’ll figure her out soon enough.

“It’s a serial killer. I know it,” says Kara-from-Accounts.

The shadow perks her ears.

Stanley-from-IT sticks his hands in his pockets and gazes up at the grille ceiling, shaking his head with a stupid smirk on his face and sighing indulgently. Stanley is a bit of a bully. “Serial killers don’t push their victims off rooftops. They strangle them, or slice them up. They like to watch their victims die.”

Tiffany-from-Project-Management turns green.

“Maybe this serial killer is squeamish,” Kara-from-Accounts persists. “Maybe he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.”

“He? Who says it’s a he? It could be a she,” Stanley-from-IT says indignantly.

“Are you agreeing with me that this person exists?”

I watch the newcomer from across the elevator. Her eyes gleam, and she presses her lips together like she’s heroically restraining herself from joining in the conversation. And normally I wouldn’t join in, either. Generally, I prefer to watch and listen. I stick to the fringes. But…

“What’s the appeal of serial killers?” I ask, and everyone startles. They’d forgotten I was there. Unremarkable, dull, in my gray coat and gray slacks and gray tie, my everyman haircut and glasses. I melt into the walls wherever I work.

“What?” Stanley-from-IT says.

“Why do people enjoy the topic so much?”

There’s an awkward little pause while they sit with my accusation that they’re enjoying this, and the woman in black jumps into the silence.

“Wish fulfillment, obviously.”

“Is there someone you want to kill?” I ask.

She holds my gaze, and her lips quiver in a tiny, vicious smile. A good serial killer would never draw attention to her target.

We reach the ground floor and the public transportation cohort spill out when the doors open, nattering all the while. Normally I’d be with them, but I drove today, the first day of my new temp job. I have an errand after work. The doors sigh shut, and I’m left alone with the shadow bundled stiffly in one corner, her black leather bag clamped under one arm. She glances at me—just a quick lizard-brain reflex to scan her environment—but our eyes catch, and I’m surprised to find myself talking again. Chitchat is not something I do.

“What would your MO be? Would you push someone off a roof?”

She answers immediately, as if she’s been waiting all day for this question. “I’m a straight razor kind of girl. Small, portable, quick. Wouldn’t require much physical exertion. And there’s a certain retro classiness to it, don’t you think?”

“Very Sweeney Todd.”

She frowns and turns to face me properly with dark, inscrutable eyes. One slim hand slides her phone into her pocket.

“I was thinking Black Widow. Kept her first husband’s razor as a trophy.”

“Sounds messy.” I don’t like messes myself.

Her red lips twitch. “Why do you think I’m wearing all black? How would you do it?”

I adjust my cuffs while I contemplate my answer.

“Ah. You have strangler gloves,” she says.

I flex my fingers in my black leather gloves. “Like Stanley said,” I say. “A true serial killer has the good manners to keep it personal. A good firm stranglehold and then eye contact till the end.”

She snorts. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

My insides twist pleasantly and unexpectedly. It’s not unlike that fairground feeling. “What’s your name?”

The amused twist to her lips flattens. She doesn’t need a straight razor. She slits my throat with a scowl and returns her attention to her phone.

A moment later the doors open onto the dim basement parking, and her heels fire a gunshot staccato that echoes in the cavernous space. I follow. She walks to a black car, swings her bag into the front seat, and turns to me.

“You’re following me.”

“No. This is my car.” I lean against the car next to hers.

She considers the sleek car and weighs it against my temp uniform. “That’s definitely not your car.”

“It is.”

“Prove it. Open up the trunk and show me your latest strangle victim.”

I don’t move.

She twists sinuously on the spot and flicks her eyes up and down, from my head to my toes. “You’re a creep,” she says, and I can’t tell if it’s an insult or praise. She hops in her car and I watch as she drives off. She flips me the bird as she vanishes around a cement pillar.

I stare after her, my thoughts twisting this way and that. There was something about how she looked at me and really saw me —the faceless office temp who no one normally sees, who no one is supposed to notice. It feels risky, and exhilarating.

I fish my keys out of my pocket and pop the trunk. There’s a rolled-up rug inside, blond hair spilling out one end.

I could have shown her. Wouldn’t that have been hilarious.