OLD DOGS #1 - A Crime Story

Chapter 2 - Facing your Demons

Sammy's car, whether it was the old Ford fiesta she had in the 90s, or the fancy new Mercedes E class she was driving now, they always had the same feel. Exceedingly tidy, tidy to the point of obsession. Landon and Sammy would always clash over Landon need to have a coffee cup in the car always. The smell of lavender was always dominant, Sammy loved lavender scented car air fresheners. It was probably due to Landon smoking nearly 40 cigarettes a day in her car. Now Landon was thinking about it, Sammy put up with a lot of shit on his behalf, made him feel slightly better.

"Where are you?" Sammy asked

Landons trances, Sammy knew them well, a blank vacant look on his face, his body unmoving and frozen in place. She knew he was deep in thought, she probably thought he was pondering the case, rather than reminiscing about their time together as partners in her car.

"Just thinking about you and your OCD level cleanliness" Landon said.

"Any kind of cleanliness looks like OCD to a slob, Landon"

He turned away from her, she was right, but he wasn't going to admit it. As he watched life fly by the window as they drove towards the prison where jack was being held, his mind went back to the crime scene. When you are a detective, especially a detective like Landon, specializing in homicide and the profiling of serial killers, one must try and distance themselves from human emotion. Landon could not allow his own disgust at the crimes to cloud his judgement. Landon, from a very young age learned how to deduce why people would do things. Why a person would turn left rather than right when crossing a street, why person would commit a crime and not feel remorse. Everything a person does, has a cause and can be predicted and intercepted. Jack was the first person who challenged this process. Usually Landon would find and capture these killers in record time, becoming a kind of celebrity for his uncanny knack in finding criminals. To Landon it wasn't uncanny, it was logic. But Jack was illogical. Jack didn't have a bad lifestyle, he didn't have a bad childhood, he didn't know his victims, he didn't want to hurt his victims. It took a very long time, a time which cost the lives of Lyla's parents, for Landon to work out that Jack, was a maniac, who would target people on their perceived ignorance of his greatness. Jack killed 4 people before killing two parts of the Lovecourt family. Alden ran a small newsagent on Kingswood High Street, Jack came in to test what the public thought about his Art, Alden wasn't impressed, so he made a new masterpiece with him and his wife. It took Landon a long time to place Jack in all the victims lives in seemingly irrelevant places. Jack at first killed for Art, but he began killing for a pride, and that's what led him to his capture.

"How long has it been since you have seen or spoke to Jack?" Landon Asked

"Um... About 3 years, why?"

"I just have a feeling, someone like Jack, if he was part of this, would want people to know his exhibition of murder was about to reopen"

They pulled up outside of the main gate for the prison, Sammy handed over her ID and the security guard opened the gate, she drove for a few moments up the main entrance and stopped. Landon and Sammy got out of the car and walked towards the main door for the prison. Most people didn't like coming to the prison for obvious reasons. Landon however, felt quite at ease in a prison. It's the place the bad guys were punished, a lot of them because of him, something he took great pride in back when he could feel pride. They walked down the corridor, escorted by two heavily armed guards. Sammy had clearly rung them ahead of time, so Jack was ready to talk when we got there. Jack loved to talk, especially about his Art. They approached a door labelled visiting room 4, the glass was misty, but Landon could clearly see a man handcuffed to the table inside, it was Jack, he could feel it. The guards patted them down and then opened the door. Jack looked directly at Landon, smiled widely then gestured for them to sit down. They obliged.