The Killing League

53.

The Butcher

Despite the claims that his expert analysis could be bought, Dr. Frank Mueller lived in a modest home in an inexpensive suburb of Kansas City. The area was known as Soccer Mom Central. Good schools, neat lawns and not much crime.

It was also an area with gentle rolling hills that were perfect for runners who were big believers in interval training.

This morning, Dr. Mueller laced up his Brooks Beast running shoes and hit the road. He did the same 4.5 mile loop every other day. It was his second passion, taking a backseat to his fascination with the criminal mind.

The fact was, Dr. Frank Mueller had never sold his expert testimony. Not once. He’d been offered plenty of payments under the table. He’d even been threatened if he didn’t take the money. But he always refused.

The real reason for the accusations stemmed from his firm and inflexible belief that nearly all criminals knew the difference between right and wrong. That there were very few individuals who could legitimately be labeled “criminally insane.” Yes, he believed there were plenty of insane people in the world. And he knew from nearly thirty years of clinical work that there were even more criminals. The number of people with severe criminal intent was impossible to determine, but he suspected the actual number was higher than most people wanted to believe.

He also felt that the combination of the two, the person who was a dyed in the wood criminal, and who also happened to be totally insane, was a very rare species.

That entrenched opinion often landed him in the prosecutor’s corner when it came to charging killers with their crimes.

Defense attorneys hated him with a passion. The insanity defense rarely worked when Dr. Mueller testified.

He had never paid any attention to his detractors. He did his job, he did it well, and he did it with a relentless consistency that that made him loved by many, and hated by a few.

As he climbed the first hill and felt his heart rate immediately begin to climb as well, he thought not of his career, but of his children. He had a daughter and son, both adults themselves now. They were all planning to get together for a family reunion in the summer, kind of a loose tradition. They sometimes found a cottage to rent on a lake and would spend a long weekend eating, drinking and laughing.

He checked his Ironman watch and noted the distance as well as his pace. He was moving quite well this morning.

He didn’t hear the car that came bearing down on him nearly thirty miles per hour over the speed limit. He briefly heard the roar of an engine before he felt himself lifted into the air and thrown forward.

Dr. Mueller landed awkwardly, his hip twisted nearly all the way around, shock and pain racketing through his brain. A man approached him. Dr. Mueller tried to explain what the man needed to do, that he was a doctor, but there was something about the man’s face that stopped him.

The man was smiling.

He had dark hair, slicked back, and large hands with bulging knuckles. In those hands was a large butcher’s knife.

The man put his hand on Dr. Mueller’s head, pushed it backward, and raised the large, gleaming knife.

Dr. Mueller thought he got the definite smell of freshly butchered meat.