Dead Bodies and Top Hats

Deceased.

What a weird word. Deceased. Deceased.

It made no sense. When someone died, they ceased. De- was a prefix that made something—what was the word? Anti-something. The opposite of what it was.

Seeing dead bodies always made Emaline pensive, but it also always made thinking hard. Bizarre combination.

The body before her was grotesque in its form of perfection. The Top Hat Killer always left victims perfectly posed, and always wearing a top hat. They died in various ways—poison was the choice method, but how it was administered changed constantly.

Ugh. She needed to be able to think clearly, and she couldn’t do that here. Not in the presence of a dead man. A ceased man. Another victim of a serial killer the papers had been writing about for months now.

Somehow, in the mental fog always created when she viewed a dead body, her brain latched on to the word “serial,” changed its spelling, and told her she was hungry. Maybe if she went home for breakfast, she could sort things out better there. She had enough photographs now, anyway, for further study. She could run through it while she ate—amazing how hardened one could become to such things, while still being unable to think around the bodies themselves—and try to make some sense of this.

She pondered it over her bowl of Life. The thing throwing everyone off was the inconsistency. It’s what confused the journalists, it’s what confused and terrified the general public, and it’s what confused her. They were all men, but there had to be a better reason than just their gender. She looked through the photos one by one.

Victim number one. Hispanic. Five feet three inches. Fifty years old. Orange picker.

Victim number two. White. Six feet even. Twenty-three. Recent college graduate.

Victim number three. Black. Five feet ten inches. Forty-two. Lawyer.

Victim number four. Mixed white and Asian. Five feet six inches. Thirty-one. Stock broker.

And now this last one, victim number five. White. Five feet nine inches. Seventy years old. Retired teacher.

As she looked from picture to picture, she wondered why. Why these five? Why did they need to die? Why did they need to be left in pristine condition, perfectly posed, wearing whatever they had happened to have on, with the simple addition of a top hat?

She glanced down into her empty bowl and remembered that had been the last of both the cereal and the milk. With a sigh, she put her file away, rinsed her bowl in the sink, and headed out to the store. After such a long night, she really should be headed to bed, but she felt that she was on the verge of making a little more sense of this. She couldn’t turn her brain off now.

“Morning, Mr. Gregor.” She tossed her greeting lightly to the doorman as she passed, as though her night had been spent getting rested and refreshed in bed rather than dealing with dead bodies and top hats.

“Good morning, Miss Emaline,” he replied, in his characteristically stately way. Mr. Gregor had a way of addressing everyone, from the woman in the penthouse to the homeless man who slept in their alley, as though all were royalty and he but their humble servant.

She turned left from the door. As she passed the alley, she glanced briefly at the homeless man. She always noticed him, but today something stood out to her about him. She wasn’t sure why, but his image lingered in her brain longer than usual, as though there was something significant—

Ah, well. She would tackle that problem later. Right now she needed to make a mental list of necessary groceries. She never wrote her grocery list down, but always had one in mind when she arrived at the store and never deviated from it.

It was on her way out of the store that it hit her. While the bagger was helping her balance her paper bags—she always used paper—for her block’s walk home, she suddenly realized what the connection was. Every man had been broad. Not fat, not muscular, just . . . broad. Stocky was a word that came to mind, but that had too many different meanings. No, they had been broad, like pit bulls or . . . something. She didn’t know how to describe it, she just knew it was the one thing besides gender they all had in common.

Well, that was one more piece to the puzzle, one step closer. It still didn’t answer why. Why did broad men have to die and be posed to perfection with a top hat on?

On the return trip past the alley by her apartment building, she took another glance at the homeless man. He wasn’t always there during the day, but today he had slept late. Hadn’t he? A glance up at the city hall clock, visible above the buildings across the street, showed that, in fact, her night’s adventures had led to an earlier-than-usual breakfast, which was followed by an earlier-than-usual trip to the store. It was 8:30—not so late after all.

Though her pace barely slackened as she passed, time seemed to slow around her. She started noticing things about him that she had never noticed before. His even breathing beneath the newspapers. His stubby fingers poking out of the gloves. And she noticed that he was . . . broad. Not fat, but broad.

And she knew. She didn’t know how, she never knew how. But all at once, she knew.

He had to be the next victim.

It would be a few weeks, of course. It always took a few weeks of planning. Sometimes longer, but for him? A few weeks should suffice.

But it had to be. He had to die.

“Hello again, Mr. Gregor,” she said lightly as she passed through the door.

“Good morning, Miss Emaline,” he said in his stately way.

With well-honed skill, she used her elbow to hit the elevator button while keeping her bags balanced in her arms. Her brain was riveted on the mental image of the homeless man. So much to do.  She thought he might look nice in a white hat. Didn’t she have one with a plaid band somewhere? How nicely that would accent the patches on his jacket—she hadn’t seen them today past the newspapers, but had noticed them before.

And maybe after this one she would understand why.