Basket of Thoughts

“You’re like a cross between Macguyver and Mad Max.” said Detective Briggs to the alleged killer.

“I really have to admire the work. You take a Tesla and modify it into a multi purpose death machine. You have some real skills in fabrication and car mechanics obviously. My big question though, is why? You have no prior history until the last 6 months which you accumulated over 20 deaths. Do you feel remorse? I need to hear the story.”

Lester Kane looked up at the detective from his seat. His hands cuffed behind his back.

“It’s a bit of a tale, detective. Ya might wanna get comftable.” He said in his distinct Maine accent.

Detective Briggs slid out the chair from under the table and sat down across from Lester.

“I’m all ears.” He said.

“Ya evah notice how many shitty drivahs thyeah ah round these pahts in the summah? All them Massholes and otha outta stateahs”

“Yeah, of course. Tourism is huge for the state of Maine.”

“Well, I do fine nuff without it, Detective. That’s the main reason I finally snapped. You see, I tried to prevent it. I sweah I did. I took therapy almost daily after my little girl died. You evah see a 3 yeah old practly evaporate in red mist right befoah youah eyes, sir?”

“No. No, I can’t say I have.” Briggs replied.

“Well, that’s what happened. My baby girl ran down the driveway and I couldn’t get ta her. I, I-“

Lester started to choke up as he reminisced about the worst day of his life.

It was a beautiful Maine summer day. Bright blue skies, a bright shining sun and in the lower 80’s. Lester was working in his shop trying to finish up a job. He glanced up from the hood of the car and saw Lily, his little 3 year old girl waddling towards the end of the driveway. She had gotten out of her play pen and kids being kids took off running. Lester was in a panic and ran as fast as he could down that long driveway. It was slow motion as he watched. The sound of screeching brakes, a loud thud, and an explosion of red transpired in front of Lester. His legs kept pumping, his heart pounding, trying everything to get there in time to try to save his baby girl.

All he was greeted by was a grisly mess of flesh, bone, and blood. Down the street 50 feet was a Tesla that had been going well over the speed limit. The horn blasting as the driver’s head was resting on it after being killed by the impact. In shock and in disbelief of what happened, all Lester could do was sit in the road. Rocking back and forth, sobbing, while gathering up what ever pieces he could of his baby girl. It was his wiring. He could fix just about anything and in his shock, he thought he could fix this too, but there are no miracles, just odds that are beaten.

The cops arrived to assess the scene. Lester was taken into custody not as a suspect but out of protection for himself. He was released several weeks later after psychiatric evaluations proved him to no longer be a risk of suicide.

Once Lester was back home he had tracked down the junkyard where the Tesla that had killed his girl was. He picked it up on his tow bed and brought it back home to fix it up. He was hell bent on creating a road rage death machine. No longer would speeding tourists get away with their reckless driving. Never again would they hit one of his dogs. Never again would they T-bone his wife at the Sebec four corners intersection killing her on impact. Never again would his little girl evaporate into mist. Never again was his mantra each day as he worked on his new toy.

Detective Briggs was amazed at the details of Lester’s motivation. It made sense to him. He sympathized with Lester as he couldn’t bear thinking of the loss of his girl. She was 3 as well so it hit particularly close to home. Lester explained detail after detail of each of the people he murdered in the sake of his daughter. All of the victims had been tourists and had all been violating the rules of the road whether it be speeding, reckless driving, or tailgating. Briggs even found himself admiring some of the things Lester had done. They were simple things like throwing out a spike strip that blew out the tires making the murder look like a simple car wreck due to speed and the tires blowing out. If Lester had done that with all of them he probably never would have been caught. It wasn’t until he started to use his Deathla. The speed and handling was second to none and Lester’s familiarity of the roads made him inescapable. He was also able to use the auto driving abilities of the tesla by creating a remote control so he could drive the car without being in it. It wasn’t the same as driving it though. This was how he had gotten caught.

Lester was sitting in his driveway as he usually did in wait of the latest poor individual to go blowing down the street.

Here he came, a bright red lamborghini with Mass plates. Lester watched the red blur and pulled out instantly in pursuit. The torque of the Deathla is the key to it’s acceleration going from 0-60 in under 3 seconds and within moments Lester was right on the lambo’s tail. Lester didn’t anticipate what happened next. The lambo’s brake lights lit up and Lester didn’t have time to react. The front end of the Deathla had been fabricated like a V pointing outwards and it sliced the lambo nearly in two. The impact knocked out Lester and killed the driver in the lambo.

The police officers had found a note in the glove compartment of the lambo. It was a simple statement directed at Lester. The note read: GOT YOU FUCKER!! in permanent black marker. Police didn’t really think much of it but Lester knew it was directed at him.

The driver of the lambo was the brother of a girl that Lester had killed. She was on the phone with him panicked as Lester chased her. When he found out she had died in a car accident he knew better and set out to track him down, if not to kill but draw attention to the Mad Man of Sebec. That was what she referred to him as. She lived up in Sebec in the summers working at a camp on the lake. Lester had yelled at her multiple times in the past for going too fast by his driveway. All those times had been before he had lost his daughter though. She knew it was Lester because the headlights popped up behind her right after she passed his driveway. She didn’t think that he was this crazy. She frantically called her brother as she drove trying to get away from him. The last thing he ever heard were her screams. The police reported it as a car crash death which it partially was, but Lester also stepped on her throat as she laid on the ground after being ejected. The coroner never even bothered to look for another reason for the cause of death. It was baffling that the authorities never thought twice about the sudden increase in car accident deaths. If everyone had been doing their jobs properly they should have seen the signs that all of them had some tell tale signs of foul play.

Lester had admitted to his crimes when he had caught wind of the note in the glove box. He confessed out of his guilty conscience. He heard in his head his baby girl’s voice say “Dada, He’s a bad boy.” She used to say that when one of the dogs would chew up one of her socks. Only this time he knew he was the bad boy and this was much worse than chewed socks.

Detective Briggs stared at Lester awestruck of the details of the confession. As crazy as it was he wanted to set Lester free. If the cops had been doing their jobs right perhaps Lester may not have suffered his losses. There surely would have been less victims of Lester’s because they could have caught him sooner. Briggs stood up and paced around the room rubbing his chin.

“Well, Mr. Kane, we have your taped confession so there’s not much I can do… Unless of course something happened to the tapes…”

“I’m not shore I follow you.” Lester replied.

“I’m just saying something could happen to the tapes if, oh you know I may happen to have… a Deathla.”

“Ah, take it. I’ve no use foah it no moah.”

“It’s settled then, we are just gonna say this conversation never happened.”

Lester was freed and never convicted of any murders and Detective Briggs became the owner of Lester’s Deathla.

Gordon Hart loved his new convertible BMW. He loved cruising down the back roads at breakneck speed. A loud siren blared. Gordon looked in his rear view mirror. Detective Briggs was right on his tail.