The Killer in Me is the Killer in You

The light coming through the tall, narrow sash windows carried the pale, hard clarity of a Vermont morning. It fell across a desk of dull cherry wood that held nothing it didn’t strictly need: a single yellow legal pad lined with tight, black cursive, an unornamented brass lamp switched off against the day, and a closed manila file squared precisely to the blotter’s corner. No family snapshots crowded the edges; no desk toys, paperweights, or plaques broke the clean expanse.

Behind it, Chief Hoyt sat as unyielding as the granite foothills outside his town. He was a man made of straight seams and lean muscle, his uniform pressed so sharply the creases looked capable of drawing blood. His hands rested flat against the wood, broad and scrubbed pink, motionless except for the slow rhythm of breath in his chest. Silver showed at his temples, cut close to the scalp, matching the cool, gray scrutiny behind his eyes as he looked out across the room.

The office mirrored the man with quiet, functional severity. Two straight-backed guest chairs of dark wood and dark leather sat opposite him, their legs flush with the floorboards. The pine floor was stripped bare of rugs, scrubbed clean until the grain showed pale, smelling faintly of linseed oil and white pine. Behind him hung a single framed map of the county—topographical lines tracing deep valleys, dense timber, and the winding cut of the creek—pinned only where property boundaries ended and state forest began. To his left, a dark steel filing cabinet stood silent and locked; on the wall beside the coat rack hung a simple calendar turned to the current month, entirely unmarked.

Nothing inside this room invited a lingering stay, and nothing gave away what the chief already knew. Out in the spruce woods, something violent and strange had broken the mountain’s long quiet, but within these four walls, Hoyt kept the air cold, level, and deliberately restrained. The heavy oak door swung open, breaking the room’s hermetic quiet as Deputy Miller stepped over the threshold, bringing with him the sharp, cold scent of crushed fern and wet loam. He didn’t dare sit in either of the immaculate leather chairs, instead shifting his weight in muddy boots just inside the doorframe, a stark intrusion of the wilderness into Hoyt’s ordered sanctuary.

“What do you have for me.” Chief Hoyt’s eyes left the desk and met Deputy Miller.

“So.” The deputy looked down at his clipboard and flipped through several pages. “Her son was locked up about six months ago. Vermont’s state hospital is in Berlin. That’s when the neighbors stopped seeing him on the property. He walked off a supervised outing a couple of weeks back. Nobody’s had eyes on him since. Long history of mental and behavioral problems. We pulled medical records. In and out of group homes. Substance abuse. Bipolar. No criminal record. No car. No driver’s license. No insurance.”

The chief sat at the desk with a deadpan expression, eyes shifting slightly. A grimace came over his face. “The son is the only real suspect in the case besides the gay guy who has the house close to the scene. We will investigate both. I want the son found.”

“A lot of homeless people wandering around, Chief. They run in small groups. They sleep and camp out in the woods around Wilmington. I will send officers out to try and talk to some. See if they know the kid.”

“Make it so.”

The deputy cracked a smile. “You are such a nerd. Ok, Captain Picard. I’ll send the away team.”

The chief leaned back into his chair. He didn’t react to Deputy Miller’s joke. He was a man whose joy had been stolen from him a long time ago.