My Manager Cares About Me

“What can I say? He just cared too much,” said Alisa, shaking her head with somber disbelief. The cigarette was rapidly curling silver-blue smoke up towards the ceiling.

“Take me back to the beginning,” said Detective Langdon, his ballpoint pen pressed against his notepad.

“Well…he worked with my husband. He was his manager.” Alisa took a crackling drag from her cigarette and exhaled with anxiety. She twirled her curly, brown hair with her free hand.

“And? When did it start?”

Alisa took a deep breath. “It started when my husband signed up for some sort of self-betterment course. He told me that it was a regular part of his job. They needed to show that they were constantly staying up to speed with the newest tools…or something like that. I don’t know what he did. Those IT jobs are always — ”

“Confusing?” said Detective Langdon, trying to scribble down a few things. The ballpoint pen was skipping. “Fuck this fucking pen!” he hissed, slamming it against the table. Alisa was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Anyway, what else can I say? He just…cared too much! Before I knew it, he and my husband were going out to company dinners and happy hours.”

“And? What’s the problem with that?” asked Detective Langdon, finally switching to a pen that worked.

“Nothing…if it had stayed that way. His reach got longer by the second. Before I knew it, my husband was inviting him over for dinner. It started off as a short visit, once every two weeks. Then, once a week…until, towards the end, he was coming over every night, and staying the night. He started using our shower in the morning!” Alisa grabbed a tissue and wiped her tears.

Detective Langdon watched as each warm drop of sodium and makeup infused water soaked into the tissue. “He moved in with you? Your husband’s manager?”

“Yes! He was there all night and even ate breakfast with us. Without asking, he helped himself to our morning coffee, our eggs, bacon…our shower…our fucking shower.”

“Did he ever say why?” said Detective Langdon, scratching his brow. He’d never heard of something like this before.

“He kept telling my husband that he was trying to better him…that it was all about ensuring his career growing in the right path…that there was no way of truly leading him, unless he spent every minute of every day with him.” Alisa sniffled and shook her head. She lit another cigarette and took a deep, crackling drag. “My husband was a good man. We were married for over fifteen years, and he was a down-to-earth, logic-driven man. The worst part of it all, was that I lost my husband bit by bit over those long weeks that turned into months. He wouldn’t listen to me anymore, not like he used to. I’d try to talk some sense into him, and he’d just sit there, with a blank stare. I was married to a fucking wall for those last few weeks leading up to…it.” Alisa took another long, crackling drag.

“It…we will get to ‘it’ soon. I want to understand more about a motive leading up to this. You’re telling me that this man, a respectable manager, making more than enough money to be happy, decided to do…it?”

“Yes.” There was no lie in Alisa’s eye. “He kept coming over, more and more frequently, until he became my husband.” Alisa’s lips began to quiver, and the cigarette went tumbling down.

Detective Langdon stood up and ground out the cigarette with his foot. He contemplated whether or not he should give this poor woman a hug. He wanted to, but in today’s day and age, he would be reprimanded for physical assault, or something along those lines; so, he decided to just sit back down, and remain silent, while Alisa cried her eyes out.

“He…he killed my husband. I knew something was wrong when I came home. The back door was wide open, and I distinctly remember the scent of iron and meat in the air. I remember taking my heels off, so that they wouldn’t make any sound, and if I needed to run, I could do so quickly. The living room…” Alisa gagged and coughed. She exhaled and sat back up, wiping the tears from her eyes. “The living room was covered in blood. It was a slaughterhouse in there. I saw a man. He had his back turned to me. He turned around…and…”

“Take your time. Remember, he can’t hurt you anymore. You’re safe here,” said Detective Langdon, handing her a tissue. Nowhere really felt safe anymore for Alisa, since the true hauntings were the twisted memories trapped inside her restless mind.

“He…was…wearing…my husband’s…face. Like a mask,” said Alisa with a shudder. “That’s when I turned around and ran out of there as fast as I could. I didn’t even have time to scream. I just…went.”

“Did he chase after you?”

“No! He was so calm. He called me, ‘honey.’ Like nothing was wrong! I couldn’t believe it! I still can’t…I’m sorry. I need to step out for some fresh air.”

“Of course,” said Detective Langdon, scribbling down the last of his notes. “Actually, miss…”

“Just call me Alisa, please.”

“Okay, Alisa, I think that we have what we need here. I don’t want to take up any more of your time. Get some rest, and good luck. We’ll make sure that this man stays off the streets,” said Detective Langdon with an extended hand.

“Thing, Detective Langdon. Not a man. A thing!” screamed Alisa, as she ran out of the room.

Detective Langdon sighed. He decided to go talk to the murderer himself. He was intrigued as to why a seemingly normal man with no criminal record would do something so severe.

“Hello, detective. What can I do for you?” asked Steven Williams, a blonde man with grasping blue eyes. He seemed very well-groomed for having spent the last week in a holding cell.

Detective Langdon sat down across from him. He studied his focused yet blank gaze. He had the looks of a psychopath; unable to be deciphered, except for some lingering hunger ever-present in those piercing blue eyes. If Detective Langdon had to describe him in one word, it would have to be, famine. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you do it? Why risk it all? You’re still young, hard worker, studied hard to get to where you are, just to throw it all away. Why?”

“Which ‘why’ would you like me to answer first?” said Steven Williams, interlocking his fingers. His handcuffs rattled with an eerie tone.

“You’re lucky that you killed a man, and not a woman, or worse…a child. But the manner in which you killed and wore him…that might still come to haunt you.”

“He wouldn’t change, not fully. If only he’d wanted to accept the change, exactly as I had planned it for him, he would have been alive. I can’t even blame that bitch wife of his. He didn’t fully commit to bettering himself…to being the best version of himself. So, I did that for him.”

“By butchering him?”

Steven looked at Detective Langdon with an ever-growing grin that turned into an ear-to-ear smile. “By changing him. By wearing his body, so that my mind could do what his could not.” Steven laughed. “Don’t you see? No, I suppose you don’t. You’re just like him…stuck in tunnel vision. It’s the wrong tunnel. He would have wasted it all away, wandering through life, doing something he doesn’t want to do. Ever since I was a little boy, I had dreamt of helping people, to find their true potential. I became a manager in order to do that. Tell me, did you always want to be a detective?”

Detective Langdon shifted in his chair, thinking about it. “No. I wanted to be a race-car driver. Then, when I realized how the world works, and the thrill of driving a car at incredible speeds faded away, I found another thrill.”

“Which is?”

“Locking up nut jobs like you. Life doesn’t have one tunnel. There are many tunnels and people have the right and capacity of switching between those tunnels. What makes you think that the man you killed would have remained static? What if he was going to invent the next cure for a disease?”

“He wasn’t. We both know that.”

“No, we don’t. That’s not for you or for anyone to decide.” Detective Langdon sighed and stood up, shaking his head.

“You’re disappointed,” said Steven. The look in his eyes had been extinguished, and the famine had turned into defeat. Defeat quickly turned into anger, and he tried to stand up. The table wobbled and creaked as it disallowed him from fully getting up. He was cuffed to the table.

“Williams! Sit down!” yelled one of the guards, walking towards him with his hand ready on his baton.

“I’ll tell you the truth, since that’s why you really came here. You don’t care about what I did. You care about the story behind it. You are America. Why do you think people get so excited when there is a murder story on the news, or a serial killer on the loose? It’s a story. It’s exciting. It’s a real-life mystery. Everyone suddenly becomes a detective and offers their views on who did it, or what kind of profile the suspect has. I’ll tell you my story…the real story. All I ask, is that you sit back down.”

Detective Langdon thought about it and turned around. “Have a good day,” he said with his back turned.

Steven scoffed. “Are you fucking serious! That’s right, run away down that soulless tunnel! Run away from yourself! I loved killing that spineless fuck and removing his expressionless face! I gave it more expression in the mere minutes I wore it than he ever did his whole life! I’m happy with my decision! I have no regrets!”

Detective Langdon closed the door behind him, drowning out the maniac’s rantings. Multiple guards flooded the room and had their way with Steven, whose face had turned bright red with hatred. Detective Langdon walked over to his car and put the key into the ignition. He felt proud. Proud that he hadn’t given into this maniac’s demands, playing into his ego. He was proud that he could now go back to Alisa, and tell her that the man who murdered her husband was a narcissistic psychopath, and that it was through no fault of her own that her husband had died. Hopefully, over time, this would give her some comfort, knowing that this monster was behind bars.

At that moment, Detective Langdon received a phone call. “Hello?”

“Hey sweetie, it’s me.”

“Hey hun,” replied Detective Langdon to his wife.

“I’ll be home soon. I wanted to give you a heads up that I won’t be alone. My manager wants to come over for dinner. Just wanted to let you know that we’re having a guest over. Is that okay?”

Detective Langdon didn’t say anything. He felt his anxiety rising.

“Hun? Are you there?”

“Y-Yes…that’s fine. I’ll see you soon. Love you.”

“Love you!”

Detective Langdon gripped the steering wheel as his foot grew heavier on the gas pedal. “Her manager,” he said to himself. “Her manager cares about her.”