Yesterday, upon the stair,
I saw a little man, who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today,
Oh how I wish he'd go away."
-Old Nursery Rhyme

Why is it that whenever you don't want something to happen, it happens? Or, at least, when I don't want something to happen? Of course, I was settling down with my wife for a nice quiet evening, if you know what I mean, when the call came in. It was Christmas Eve, and I still couldn't get one bloody day off.

Actually, the day turned out to be quite bloody, for more reasons than I have presently mentioned. Bloody in the more literal sense of the word.

After trying to weasel my way out of having to go out into the cold, I finally agreed to go take a look at the latest crime scene. There had been a recent string of murders that had us all baffled. Since my partner, Jagori Miller, and I were assigned to the case, I figured this was going to be one of them. We called them the ‘Little Man' murders.

Jag picked me up at my home, where I bid my lovely wife goodnight, because I was fairly certain I wasn't going to see her again that evening.

That was how I ended up in the passenger seat of Jag's beat up old Chevy. It was a dark and frigid night, a bit of snow fell, but not much. The heater in the car was on so we could keep warm.

"Gotta love this weather," said Jag, finally breaking the silence.

"Just beautiful," I replied.

I knew we were nearing the crime scene, I could see the blinking lights of various emergency vehicles in the distance.

"This ‘Little Man' thing is really getting to me," said Jag. "Why couldn't he have at least waited until morning?"

"That's the thing with serial killers. No respect. The least they could do is take into account the feelings of the poor fools who have to go out and take care of their mess."

"Amen partner."

We pulled up beside a run down apartment building. The beat cops had already set up the crowd control barriers and were milling about.

As we emerged from the car, we were greeted by our chief, Patrick O'Leary. If you ever want to meet a man with no sense of humor, talk to O'Leary. I've seen him beat people within an inch of their lives because they told him why the chicken crossed the road. Perhaps that's a little exaggerated, but you get the idea.

"Good of you to show up," said O'Leary, rather curtly.

"Yeah, well, we would have been here sooner, but Miller here wanted to stop for a doughnut."

"I was hungry," said Jag.

"Shut up, both of you. Follow me."

Our commander in chief led us into the apartment building. We followed him to the old elevators, which were littered with graffiti.

"It's on four," he said. It's not enough I had to come out here in the middle of the night, but now I had to play elevator operator. I punched the grimy button which indicated the fourth floor. We rode up in silence, neither Jag, nor I, wishing to speak to O'Leary.

The doors slid open and the three of us stepped out. We could see the open door at the end of the hall. Inside the tiny room, the forensics guys were milling about, dusting for prints, taking photographs, all the cliched things forensics experts do.

"Name?" I asked O'Leary.

"Philip Seymore, age 37, male Caucasian, he's a tax collector for the government."

"Well there you go. No wonder someone killed him."

"Save it Tagert," said O'Leary. I guess I was pushing all the wrong buttons. Or he didn't like me, which was an equally valid possibility.

"MOE?" asked Jag, referring to the Method of Execution.

"Someone slit his throat. We haven't yet recovered the knife. If it was a knife. It's not very clean in there."

Indeed it wasn't. The corpse lay in a veritable sea of blood. It lay sprawled in the middle of the room on the once lovely hardwood floor. A small kitchenette with a tiny, but sturdy looking, table was located directly across from where the body rested. A beat up couch at the stiff's feet had large quantities of blood on it, which suggested, to me at least, that Mr. Seymore had been sitting in it when the attack came.

We entered the apartment, forcing a few other men out so that we could all fit in the confined space. One of the forensic guys informed us they had lifted some prints, but odds are they belonged to Seymore. Other than that, there was nothing to report and they were getting ready to take the body away once we took a quick look.

"I think it's pretty obvious he was on the couch watching TV," said Jag.

"Yeah," I responded. "Is there a catwalk out there?" I gestured to the window, which was partly opened.

Jag stepped around the corpse, careful not to treat in any blood. He made his way to the window and looked out. "Yep," came his reply. "The ladder's at street level."

"Get some guys out and take a look at that thing," I said.

"I'll give the orders around here," said O'Leary. "Get some guys out and take a look at the catwalk." I chose to remain silent.

"The note?" I asked. If this was a Little Man murder, there would be a note. His calling card.

One of the forensic guys tossed me a baggie which contained a piece of white paper.

"‘Number 7. The Little Man Who Wasn't There,'" I read. The Little Man was always nice enough to let us know he was responsible. The number of victims, this being the seventh, had not been released to the media, so the numerals preceding his name were used to separate the actual Little Man murders and any copycats who may turn up. According to newspapers, the Little Man had killed twelve people.

"Well, it's our boy," said Jag.

"Jesus Christ!" The cry came from one of the forensic people working in the kitchenette. The three of us gathered around with the rest of the small crowd. He had been dusting for more prints on the refrigerator and decided to have a look inside.

In the small refrigerator were an assortment of jars. We later found out they were filled with some sort of embalming fluid, the name of it eludes me now. Inside each jar were various organs. All internal. Spleen, liver, heart, pancreas, parts of lungs.

"Shit," muttered Jag. "God dammit. I gotta get some fresh air."

"Right behind you," I said, and followed him outside.

We stuck around for a while longer. The coroner came to remove the body, and we left. There was nothing left for us to do there. We drove in silence down to headquarters. My thought that I wouldn't see my wife again tonight proved correct.

Jag and I had adjoining desks, as all partners do. We sat down and started kicking around ideas. I lit a cigarette and inhaled briefly.

"Here we go, number seven," said Jag. In his left hand he held a snapshot of the latest victim, in his left, a pin. We had set up a cork board near our desk. Jag pinned Mr. Seymore's photo next to the other six.

The first victim, found two and a half weeks ago, was a woman by the name of Rosie Parker. She had been found hanging by her left ankle from the balcony of her second floor bedroom. Her head was missing and a great deal of blood had accumulated on the pavement below.

The second, Mr. Dick Sanchez, was found two days later. His finger and toenails had been methodically removed with what we think was a chisel, before a single gunshot to the temple finally killed him.

The third, Steve Duncan, was found three days later, minus his eyes. Those later turned up in the victim's stomach. He had been killed after he was forced to eat them with blow to the head.

The fourth and fifth were a nice young couple found floating in a public fountain, without their tongues this time. Those never turned up.

The sixth was a Miss. Terry Anne, who had been hacked and slashed with what might have been a machete, or a short sword.

"I don't know if I have the stomach for this," Jag said.

"I know what you mean."

"Well, our boy seems to like variety," said Jag. "I have a feeling the autopsy will show the organs in the fridge are Seymore's."

"The Little Man came up the catwalk, through the window, slit the guys throat and dug out his organs."

"Or, dug out his organs, then slit his throat."

"I don't think so, the surgery itself would have killed him, there would have been no reason to knife him."

"The Little Man doesn't need reason for anything. Maybe he thought there wasn't enough blood already." Jag stared long and hard at the bulletin board, which, in addition to the photos, had all the information we currently had on the murders. Locations, dates, anything we thought was relevant, which wasn't much.

"How the Hell are we ever going to catch this guy?" asked Jag. "He's always one step ahead. No clues, nothing. It's like he knows what we'd look for. Until he fucks up, we have no chance whatsoever of finding him."

"Well, everybody screws up at some point."

"I have a feeling this will end up like Jack the Ripper. One day, it'll all just stop. As if our Little Man wasn't there."

I tossed the report on the desk. I few seconds later, Jag did the same thing with his copy. Neither of us were surprised, really. It was always the same. Nothing. Our suspicions had been confirmed, the organs were removed from Mr. Seymore, then he had been stitched up. There was nothing on the catwalk, but there were footsteps in the snow, too jumbled to really give us any information.

"Well, I have no idea what to do next." Jag cracked his knuckles and leaned back in his chair.

That was the main problem with serial killers. The motive is incredibly hard to find. Sometimes there is none and it's just senseless killing for the sake of killing. It was easier if you had a pattern killer, but in cases like this, the only pattern was each killing was bloodier than the last.

"The note." Jag didn't look at me, but instead he spoke to the ceiling, his eyes focused on a light fixture.

"What?" I asked him.

"The note. That's the only actual evidence our boy's left behind."

"And?" I wasn't to clear exactly where he was heading with this.

"Well, there's gotta be a clue in that."

"You mean like, handwriting analysis? That would make sense, if the note weren't typed," I said. I assumed this was obvious to him.

"No, not the handwriting. Why would he leave a calling card?"

"I don't know. Recognition. The Zodiac Killer always left his crossed circle, and called or wrote letters bragging about his murders. He wanted the publicity."

"And he was never caught."

"Yeah."

"But, why would you want recognition for something like that? The next step is pretty much to start killing in public and leave your real name. Killers usually want to be discrete."

"‘Here is the story of the strangler, yet untold   The man who claims he murdered thirteen women, young and old.
  The elusive Strangler, there he goes,
  Where his wanderlust sends him, no one knows
  He struck within the light of day,
  Leaving not one clue astray.
  Young and old, their lips are sealed,
  Their secret of death never revealed.
  Even though he is sick in mind,
  He's much too clever for the police to find.
  To reveal his secret will bring him fame,
  But burden his family with unwanted shame.
  Today he sits in a prison cell,
  Deep inside only a secret he can tell.
  People everywhere are still in doubt,
  Is the Strangler in prison or roaming about?'"

Jag looked at me for a moment. "What the hell was that?"

"Poem by Albert DeSalvo. The guy who was said to know the identity of the Boston Strangler."

"I see."

"The Night Stalker always left Satanic symbols at his scenes," I said, trying to help Jag out with his theory.

"Religious though. He was nuts and swore allegiance to the devil. This Little Man thing is different though. It's like he's laughing at us."

"Maybe he is. He's so confident we'll never catch him, he can do whatever he wants."

"He's confident, yeah. But the fact that he's so careful about not leaving behind any clues shows that he knows we could catch him if he screws up."

"We find only what he wants us to find," I said, rather grimly.

"Exactly."

"This guy doesn't seem to fit the general serial killer profile though. Usually the killings are sexual in nature, or done for revenge. Sometimes there is a motive, some psychological scarring form childhood. This Little Man just seems to kill for the hell of it."

"That's what scares me." Jag stood up and paced around the room. We were alone in our office. The reception at the front was manned by a few cops, some were out on patrol. We were the only detectives working. Even O'Leary had gone home.

Jag rubbed his eyes and went over to the coffee machine. He took a sip of the sludge that passed for caffeine in our department and almost retched.

"Well, we can stay here and speculate all night, but it won't do any good." I looked at Jag as I said the words. He seemed distant. I assumed he was still thinking about the notes.

I stood and stretched as well. I walked over to where he stood.

"Jag?" He looked at me, his eyes sunken and tired.

"Yeah Sam?" he asked.

I looked again at the bulletin board, the weak profile of the worst serial killer I had personally witnessed.

"You gonna drive me home?" I asked. "There's nothing more we can do tonight."

"Yeah, you're right." He tossed his Styrofoam cup into the garbage can.

We walked outside, saying goodbye to Jack, the desk clerk. It was still dark out, though sunrise was in a couple of hours. I hated late nights.

Jagori seemed to be acting a little odd, uneasy. Our boots crunched on the new fallen snow as we made our way to the darkened parking lot at the rear of the building. Our breath left icy clouds in the night air.

There was no one in the parking lot, hardly any cars. We walked in silence.

Suddenly, Jag spun around to face me.

"Sam, I-"

I didn't let him finish. I drew the blade out of my pocket and plunged it into his ear. His body began to shake and I lowered him slowly to the snowy ground.

I heard him gurgle my name. I twisted the knife in his ear. His eyes rolled up in his head. I put my left, gloved, hand around his neck. Finally, he stopped moving.

I removed the knife from his ear and inserted it into his throat. I half-sawed my way through the tender flesh, watching as the blood poured out in little rivulets onto the red snow.

I kept glancing behind me, but no one came. This was the first time in such a public place. What a thrill. Jag was right, I was laughing at the police, just as I was laughing at him now.

I took the keys to Jag's car. I'd tell anyone who asked he wanted to go to the bar across the street for a drink or two but I wanted to go home. He gave me his car, said he'd take a cab because he'd probably be drunk anyway. Simple as that.

Before I got into the car, I placed a small white paper near Jagori Miller's severed head.

‘Number 8. The Little Man Who Wasn't There.'