Bogeyman by Steve Jackson Read Free Book Online

recalled them step-by-step for Sweet.
    Giles also explained why the bloodhound had followed his trail from the young, black woman’s home to his great-grandmother’s after the second attack. He said that even before he started living in the house, he liked to go back and climb up on the roof, where he would sit in the moonlight and relive the murder in his mind. Then after attacking the young woman, he’d returned to Johnson’s roof and fantasized about his acts.
    Throughout the interview, Giles broke into chants praising Satan, and he kept mentioning a specific time, “2:13,” which Sweet found odd. But of all the twisted, demented things the killer said, one of the oddest was that he had loved his great-grandmother.
    “Then why did you do it?” Sweet asked.
    Giles shrugged. “I wanted to know what it was like to have sex with a dead person.”
    Sweet scowled. He was so familiar with the evidence in the case that he’d known every detail before Giles described them. So he was aware that Smiley had been tested for sexual assault during her autopsy and that the results were negative. “Now I know you’re lying to me, Michael,” he said.
    For the first time, Giles’ face flushed in anger. “I damn sure did,” he snarled. “I raped her through one of her stab wounds. I even licked her intestines that were sticking out!”
    Nauseated but trying not to react, Sweet was sure at that moment that he was in the presence of true evil; not just a killer, but some wicked monster that prowled beyond the circle of humanity. Giles had no remorse for his actions. He’d wanted to know what it was like to have sex with a dead body, so he’d attacked his great-grandmother, a woman he professed to love. Then he’d stabbed the young black woman for no particular reason, other than a lust for blood, the pleasure of inflicting pain, and the deviant sexual gratification he derived from it.
    Sweet was disgusted, listening to the vicious, evil creature that was Michael Giles, as the teen willingly and with a great deal of satisfaction recounted the horrors he’d inflicted on other human beings. But the detective needed to know as much about the suspect as he could, so he controlled his anger and revulsion and acted as if the vile admissions were the sorts of trivial events he heard every day as a law officer.
    Even after the confession, Sweet continued trying to understand what made Giles tick. The teen’s mother supplied some of that, even though, as she told the detective, she still loved her son. She brought Sweet her boy’s music collection, most of it from two bands: Cannibal Corpse , a “death metal band” self-described as “the reigning kings of brutality;” and Slayer , a “thrash metal” band.
    Sweet brought the recordings home to see if there was anything in the music that would give him some insight into Giles. Just one look at the CD covers and his wife wouldn’t let him bring them into the house. He understood her feelings, especially after he’d already played the audiotape of his interview with Giles for her. She didn’t want any more of Giles’ evil invading her home.
    Returning the CD’s to the office, Sweet began studying them to see if there was anything that would explain Giles’ behavior. He was looking at the song list on one Slayer CD, when he noticed a song called “2:13.” He’d suspected at the time of the first interview that Giles was quoting from a song; now he knew which one.
    Sweet looked up the lyrics for the song on the internet and discovered that “2:13” was a song about necrophilia.
    “Erotic sensations tingle my spine
A dead body lying next to mine
Smooth blue black lips
I start salivating as we kiss.”
    Sweet had no idea this was the sort of “music” teens were listening to. He got off the internet, sickened by the thought that music might influence an evil person such as Michael Giles to act out his fantasies.
    Inwardly, the detective could not begin to fathom the