Beauty and the Beast Within Ch. 03

Not nearly done yet, Susan steps out of the shadows to find her next victim.

Having gotten away with murder, with her not even a suspect in her doctor's and/or in her boyfriend's murders, what she thought was the end to her psychotic spree of killing men was only the beginning. With the doctor deemed officially killed by driving his Ferrari too recklessly fast on a mountain road, no one suspected her of tampering with his brakes. Case closed.

Then, with her ex-boyfriend always in a rush and always standing too close to the edge of the platform when the train was coming, it only took a push of her hand through the crowd of people waiting to board the train to end him. Deemed a tragic accident, there were a dozen eye witnesses to his accidental fall or to his suicide. Case closed. Seemingly, she didn't need a gun to seek her revenge, just some thoughtful planning.

Alas, not lasting very long with her on a wildly irresponsible spending extravaganza, thinking that she was going to be caught, charged, tried, convicted, and imprisoned, she spent her boyfriend's money as if there was no tomorrow. Never thinking there'd be today and determined to go to jail broke, she truly believed she'd be spending the rest of her life behind bars in a six by eight foot prison cell. Already imagining her prison walls closing in around her, she never thoughts she'd be free.

Surely being a suspect in her doctor's murder, she definitely thought she'd be a suspect in her boyfriend's murder too. Only, not a suspect in either deaths, she wasn't even questioned. Free to continue living the rest of her life, she got away with not only one murder but with two. Now with her going through all of her boyfriend's money so quickly, she needed more cash. If only she could get enough money, living more cheaply there than she could in the United States, she'd move far way to live in a foreign, third world country under a new identity somewhere that no one would know her and no one would find her.

* * * * *

Being that she had anger issues, a gross understatement, too emotionally distraught to work at a 9-5 job, she could never work at a job again. Being that she's now a psychopathic killer instead of just a crazed woman, with all of her emotional issues of anger and paranoia just a scratch away from the surface, doing better when she's alone, she doesn't do well when with people. At the slightest provocation, she'll fly into a murderous rage. In her chosen line of work as a cold blooded killer, it's better that her victims not see her coming than to be ready to defend themselves against her, a seemingly helpless woman.

With her no longer a typical office worker, she's a murderess and on her way to becoming a serial killer. Now that she's already murdered two men, it's much easier to murder a third one. What others would allow to roll off their backs, she couldn't. If ever her boss crossed the sexual harassment line with her, tried to make a pass, or was unfair to her in denying her raises and promotions, with her having a short fuse, she'd no doubt kill him too.

Only, she didn't want to kill for nothing. She didn't want to kill because she was angry, hurt, and/or feeling abused. She didn't want to kill out of some convoluted justification to give her an excuse to kill. She wanted to kill for a valid reason and presently her reason was money. She needed to kill to get her enough money to flee the country.

Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, busty, and beautiful, no one in their right mind would peg her as a murderess. With her having a killer body as her only crime, those men who'd want to control, use, and abuse her, just want to get her in bed. And if they died in the process of having sex with her then, no doubt, that was many men's perfect way to die.

* * * * *

Now cold, detached, and calculating, instead of anyone suspecting her and seeing her coming, she'd rather kill someone she didn't know. In the way that she justified killing her doctor and her boyfriend to get even with them for all that they did to her, now she'd rather kill for money than for revenge. She pulled out her old list of the names of the men that she was going to kill when she thought she was going to die. Only, getting as far as her doctor and her boyfriend, she had a long list of men who had used and abused her. Going down the list again but looking more at how much her potential victims could more financial enrich her than what they did to her, she viewed her list of men differently now. Assigning those with money a higher priority, she more needed cash than she did revenge.

In the way they used and abused her, it was her turn to use and abuse them. Now it was her turn to put the fear of the Devil in them before they went to their Heaven or to their Hell. In the way that so many men have lied, deceived, and cheated people for money, now it was her turn to murder for money. Only, other than advertising on Craig's List, Murderess for Hire, how would she possibly find her clients?

She imagined herself being a female equalizer, definitely, she could do that. With her righting the wrongs of defenseless women, only there was no money in that for her. Most women didn't have the money she needed to pay her for her vengeful acts of self-righteousness. All the women she knew were victims themselves and were still dependent on men to support them, and were still taking the abuse from men. Done with that, done with a man bossing her around and telling what to do and when to do it, now it was her turn to make men pay. It was then that she realized, one in the same, that her clients were also her victims.

Only, she needed a target. Her preferred target, a man who had a lot of money. As much as she'd like to, targeting the man who raped her when she was younger, she couldn't kill a Mafia boss. With him surrounded by the members of his extended crime family, killing a mob boss would, no doubt, get her killed rather than her killing her intended target. Besides, unless she caught him with a briefcase full of one hundred dollar bills, other that the few thousand dollars he'd have in his pocket, the gold jewelry he wore, and the fancy car he drove, unbelievingly and frustratingly, there was no money in killing a mob boss, only revenge.

The same thing was true with a drug dealer. As much as she wanted to target a drug dealer for getting her hooked on drugs, she couldn't. Now clean, now not as emotional in her thinking and in her revenge, she saw things more clearly now. With her a pasty white Caucasian woman, albeit a very beautiful woman and wickedly sexy, she wouldn't make it 100 yards near the drug dealer's domain. Moreover, with drug dealers armed to the teeth in the way of ISIS rebels, and with her not even owning a gun, she'd be no match for them.

She'd have to do some research on who to kill first. She'd have to identify the bad men, the men that no one would miss and that no one would care were dead. One by one, she'd take them out and in the way that she took her boyfriend's money, she'd take their money too, so that she could not only survive but also thrive. Only, the men that had the money also had power and influence, three things she didn't have. The men with money, power, and influence could take her out before she could take them out.

Her secret weapon was her big brain and the element of surprise. Never let them see you coming was her motto. In the way that she was smart about murdering her doctor and murdering her boyfriend, she had to be smart about murdering men who not only used and abused her but also who took physical, emotional, and sexual advantage of women and/or children. If she only killed powerful men who abused and took physical, emotional, and sexual advantage of women and/or children, then she could justify killing them in her mind. Surely, no one but for the pedophile, would care if she murdered a pedophile. A pedophile playground, there were lots of pedophiles in the Catholic Church, even some with money, a lot of money.

* * * * *

She had to find a man with money who could replenish her pocketbook. She had to find a man in the community that no one would really care if he was dead. She had to find a man who'd be easy to kill. She had to find a man who'd never suspect that he was being targeted. She had to find a man who'd never see her coming. Self-righteous to himself, she had to find a man who was so smugly arrogant in his safety, in his imagined goodness, and secure in his self-perceived honor that he didn't even bother with security. She found such a man in Bishop Timothy O'Brien.

With him handling the weekly collections from those churches under his authority, as if he was a mobster who owned a casino, he'd skim from the top before depositing the rest of the money in the Corporate Vatican account. Oxymoronic that a charity such as a church would have a corporate account but the Catholic Churches had not only one corporate account, they had dozens of corporate accounts all over the country and all over the world that funneled their weekly collections to Rome. Suspected of stealing money from those neighborhood church's weekly collections that were in his control, the deposits from bags of collection coins and cash were all funneled through him.

Then, if that wasn't enough, there were the larger and sometimes anonymous public donations given to the Catholic charities from which he could skim. Taking from the very poor who needed the money more than he did, she knew Bishop O'Brien had money, a lot of money. Always talking about retiring to Ireland or to live out his life as one of the elder Bishops in Vatican City in Rome, Italy, he seemingly was an easy victim and her next target.

She knew he had money hidden somewhere, but where? He couldn't hide his ill-gotten gains in a bank unless he kept his cash in a safety deposit box. Moreover, there'd be no way that she could get him to open his safety deposit box and empty the contents, unless she came up with a plan. The Devil reincarnate, the only way to get to someone like him unhinged was to put the fear of God in him. The only way to get his money was to deliver the Devil to his doorstep. With him above the law and afraid of no man, only God or the Devil could rattle his cage.

He had been accused of molesting altar boys when he was a priest thirty years ago. Instead of the church doing something about his crime, they transferred him to another church. Instead of the church taking action against him, they promoted him from Priest to Bishop. He had been transferred six times and continued his abuse against children in each one of his parishes. Then, when he became bishop, being that the hierarchy ignored his bad behavior, he ignored the bad behavior of his parish priests.

Instead of defrocking his priests and turning them over to the police for prostitution, he transferred them in the same way that the church transferred him. This was all the justification she needed to murder him. That was all the justification she needed to steal his money. Now, it was time she put the fear of God and/or the Devil in him, enough for him to want to leave town and perhaps retire to his beloved Ireland or to accept a position with the Vatican in Italy. If she could make his life miserable enough here, then he'd want to take his money out of his safety deposit box and flee.

* * * * *

He lived in a safe community on the best parcel of land in the city. Bordering on lavishly opulent, his house was splendid and worth millions of dollars. For a Bishop, a man of God, and a man of the people, he lived like a King and all at the expense of the Catholic Church. With him ruling the roost in the name of God and making rules and decisions uncontested, he lived like a demi-God more than he did a man of religion, or a man of the Catholic practitioners, or a man of God.

Unlike the Nuns who must take a vow of poverty, Catholic Priests don't take such a vow. That's worth repeating. Even though Catholic Nuns must take a vow of poverty, Catholic Priests don't take such a vow. Whatever earnings Nuns receive they give over to their congregation. Whatever earning priests receive they keep.

"Wow! That's not right. That's not fair."

Priests are paid salaries and are able to buy and own things whereas Nuns are not. A man's world that even stretches to fit religion, it doesn't seem fair that a supposedly holy man should be allowed to accumulate wealth and live in such a fancy house when definitely more holy, Nuns live in a convent. It doesn't seem fair that a Bishop should have a housekeeper and a cook and dine in private while eating the best foods and drinking the best wines when the Nuns must all eat together while not having the best of anything. Just as it's not fair, especially when many religious women are more devotedly holier than many of the supposedly religious men, it's not right that a woman cannot hold a prominent position within the Catholic Church.

At least the women don't abuse children. At least the women don't embarrass the church. At least the women don't cost the church millions of dollars in unnecessary lawsuits to settle crimes committed by priests against children. At least the women don't steal the church's money. Even if he wasn't a thief, with everything that he needed supplied by the Catholic Church, she imagined that he was wealthy. A man who didn't have to support a wife, have to pay healthcare, who didn't have children to feed, clothe, and pay college tuitions, and who didn't have to pay rent for where he lived, or pay for the car that he drove must definitely be rich.

Without a doubt, Bishop O'Brien was a wealthy man. As rich as a Mafia boss and/or a drug dealer, Bishop O'Brien didn't advertise his wealth with grotesque displays of gold jewelry, and expensive cars. He didn't proclaim that he was someone he wasn't when indeed he was. Yet, in reality, he was just as big a criminal as any Mafia boss and/or drug dealer.

* * * * *

Rattling his cage, she knew it wouldn't take much for him to take action. She started with writing him letters with all of the names of the boys that he was accused of sexually abusing. With her writing and him receiving a letter every day, she wrote more letters of all names of the boys and all the names of the priests that his transferred priests were accused of sexually abusing. Then, putting him on notice, she threw a brick through his bedroom window with a note attached that read:

"God is not happy with you. Repent or die. You must confess your sins. You must answer for what you did to the innocent. The Devil is coming for you for what you did to the children. Repent or die. Repent or die. Repent or die."

Because of what was in the note, not wanting to expose his crimes to the police, to have them suspect him guilty, and to have his good name besmirched all over the daily news, she knew that he wouldn't go to the police. Being that he was guilty of such crimes, keeping it quiet and keeping it to himself, she knew that he wouldn't report the incidents of terroristic harassment to anyone. Just as he squashed all of the other crimes that those he directly supervised committed, all of his crimes were squashed too. The Catholic Church was good at keeping things quietly buried, especially when it came to one of their own. Dante Alighieri didn't write his Inferno for no reason. With them deemed the worst of the worst, there was a reason why the Popes were all damned to the Ninth Circle of Hell, the lowest circle of Hell and of the Devil's damnation.

Below are direct quotes from Dante's (real name surname Durante) Alighieri's Inferno that Susan mailed to The Most Reverend, Bishop O'Brien.

"There is no greater sorrow than to recall our time of joy in wretchedness."

"Ye who enter, abandon all hope."

"One ought to be afraid of nothing when things possessed of power to do us harm, but things innocuous need not be feared."

"Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice."

"Here pity only lives when it is dead -- Virgil!"

"At grief so deep that the tongue must wag in vain; the language of a sense and memory lacks the vocabulary of such pain."

"That which had pleased me once, troubled my spirit."

"For pride and avarice and envy are the three fierce sparks that set all hearts ablaze."

"These dwell among the blackest souls, loaded down deep by sin of differing types. If you sink far enough, you'll see them all."

"You've built yourself a God from silver and gold. How does that differ from idol worship, except those people worship one God and you worship one hundred."

Her next step was calling in a phony bomb threat in the middle of the night. Rousting him from his sleep, she watched him leaving his house when the police and fire department asked him to leave. After inspecting and sweeping the premises with bomb sniffing dogs, robots, and mechanical devices for two hours, the Bishop returned to bed. Now with angry letters arriving in the mail, bricks thrown through his bedroom window, and a bomb threat, not a stupid man, she knew he'd take his money and run.

* * * * *

With an antenna innocuously positioned atop of his car trunk, she knew a man who could hack anyone's e-mail account just by positioning his car outside of their house. Figuring that the Bishop wouldn't have sophisticated firewall protection, she paid her friend to hack the bishops e-mail account. With that information, she read his e-mails where, instead of going home to Ireland, he contacted the Vatican for a position in Italy.

A man with his power, influence, and connections wouldn't have to wait a year to be transferred. Being that he was close friends with many of the Cardinals, his friends in high positions would give him whatever he wanted. To insure that he received what he wanted, he lied. He wrote the Cardinal that he wasn't in good health and wanted to finish out his career in Rome. With that lie, his transfer to Rome was eminent.

She read the e-mail he wrote to order his plane ticket. From there, it was watching and waiting for him to go to the bank. The day before he was scheduled to leave, he visited the bank and with her standing in the lobby, she watched him disappear behind the gate where they kept the safety deposit boxes. Not even walking to the teller to exchange his cash for a bank check, he carried his cash in a briefcase.

Good luck with him getting through customs and getting that amount of money on a plane. Maybe because he was a Bishop, they wouldn't check his bag. Maybe because he was a rich Bishop, he'd hire a private plane, one that would otherwise avoid the close scrutiny of the TSA and Homeland Security. Maybe he'd ship the money ahead by special courier, under the guise of official church business. Whatever he planned on doing, she was getting a hold of that money first. Whatever he was planning on doing, she'd never allow him to leave the country with her money.

With him leaving early the next morning, he gave his cook and housekeeper the next two weeks off with pay for them to take a break before transitioning to care for the new Bishop, his replacement. Certainly, with him suddenly leaving, it would take some weeks before the church found his replacement. With the church attendances and collections declining, and with the church closing more and more churches, they'd be in no hurry to put another costly Bishop in position.

She tailed him back to his house where she had a surprise waiting for him. Being that he was such a public figure and with him giving so very many interviews, everything she needed to know about him was right there online. She paid a man $20 to deliver a tray of extra-large, juicy shrimp, the Bishop's favorite food, and a bottle of superior vintage, fine French wine. Easy to poison the shrimp, she injected poison through the wine bottle cork with a syringe. She flatted down the tiny needle hole in the cork to show that the wine wasn't opened and/or tampered with and that would soon be covered by the hole created by the corkscrew.