The Value of a Life

Even Susan knew something was different. It didn’t seem to be a bad thing, but it certainly made her wonder. She knew his promotion to Detective Lieutenant was something he took pride in, but only when no one was looking. He seemed to take the Jigsaw case very seriously, and she half-wondered if maybe that was what was affecting him. She wished he would talk to her, but the few times she had brought it up, he had dismissed it immediately, citing it as confidential and too gruesome, that even if he could tell her about it, he wouldn’t. She supposed something like this could incite a change in someone over time, and he had been on the case practically since the beginning. But he had never showed any real change before. She supposed it was just the stress of being on it for so long though. Almost every agent and detective on the case had died by now.
She worried about him greatly, wondering if he was really okay, if she would get the phone call or the knock on their door in the middle of the night one night and find out he had been the next victim. But he seemed very certain of his safety and assured her that he knew how to do his job and do it well.
One night, as he was away late working, she’d had a few glasses of wine. Feeling particularly curious about what he was hiding in his office, she crept upstairs and opened the door. She knew she was being bad, but the alcohol was erasing her sense of good judgment and she didn’t care. She wanted to know what had him so tied up and occupied these last few years. What kind of a monster is he really after? she wondered.
Once inside, she walked over to his desk and sat down behind it. So many times had she peeked in on him at this very desk, pouring over files and pictures, trying so desperately to catch Jigsaw. When she finally came out of her depression, she watched him try relentlessly to figure it out, to study and learn and try to understand. She thought that he thought that by solving the Jigsaw case that he would redeem himself for allowing his little girl to be taken by another monster. Susan would never speak her thoughts on the subject to him, it would only upset him.
When she scooted in the chair, her foot hit something underneath the desk. She pulled back out and reached down. It was a safe. She touched the lock. Even in her intoxication, she knew she had stumbled across something. She took a pin from her hair and began to pick the lock carefully. One might wonder where she had picked up the skill, and they only had to look as far as her infamous reign as Assistant District Attorney. It was another thing she prided herself on, getting to the truth at all costs. She heard the small metallic click and knew she had been successful. She pulled the safe a little ways out and opened it. She jumped when she saw what was inside. A strange, pig-faced mask with long dark hair. It turned her stomach with how realistic it looked. She put it on the floor and looked at the other contents. Pulling out papers and files, she discovered several pictures of Jigsaw’s victims, each one she had seen in the newspaper after their horrifyingly abused corpses were found. She flipped through, recognizing almost all of them until she reached the bottom of the stack, where abruptly, she came across a dozen or so pictures of people she had never seen in the papers. Well that’s strange, she thought. She followed the Jigsaw case closely in the papers, especially since Mark was one of the lead detectives on it. She was sure she had read of each victim, and yet, the last twelve or so photos didn’t look at all familiar. She dismissed it momentarily in order to look at what else was in the safe. The second manila folder she picked up was full of detailed diagrams of Jigsaw’s death traps. Not surprising, since her husband had seen everyone after the fact. What startled her were the notes in the margins of the papers of the traps. Notes about how effective the traps were, improvements, etc. She didn’t realize it then, but in a few hours, she would come to realize that the handwriting in the margins of the papers was her husbands. She moved on, putting the folder of papers down and reached down further. She then found a set of tapes, presumably collected from the crime scenes, each one label with the victim’s name and the name Jigsaw. All accept the last two. Those had names of people she didn’t recognize from the victims she had read about. And on the reverse side, where it should have read Jigsaw, it read Hoffman. Her heart stopped beating for a moment. She read it several times, trying to comprehend why her husband’s name was on those tapes. She found a small, silver tape recorder and put the tape in, and pressed play. What came next startled her.
The tape started out hissing, then a dark, raspy voice began speaking to someone named Mike. She was barely hearing the words. What she was hearing was her husband’s voice. Ran through a mild voice distortion, but Mark’s voice all the same. Tears came to her eyes, and she began shaking. When the voice stopped speaking, and the small machine clicked as it turned itself off, she jumped, frightened. No, he couldn’t…
“Susan?” a voice came behind her and she dropped the tape recorder. She didn’t turn around, just stayed still. “Susan?”
It was Mark. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep from shaking. She turned slowly to face him. She didn’t look at him, just kept her eyes on the floor. He knew she had found out. He had been standing there long enough for her to make the realization that the voice on the tape was his. He had seen the revelation hit her, seen it in the way her body tensed, the way her breathing came labored in frightened little gasps.
He stepped forward to her, and she stepped back. The alcohol’s effects were gone from her system, leaving her completely alert and aware of what was happening. She had sobered instantly and was wishing that she had just stayed downstairs. He took another step, reaching out to grab her, and she bolted. He took off after her, catching her just before she got to the stairs. He grabbed her around her waist, binding her arms to her body. She kicked and flailed, trying to get away. Mark raised his hand and brought the heal of his palm down against the point on the back of her skull that made her instantly pass out. She fell limp in his arms. He then ran back to his office, taking the vial of morphine from his desk drawer. John and he had decided how they would handle this situation long ago, Mark hoping he would never have to use it. He returned to her body, laying on the carpet, unconscious, and pulled her cardigan sweater off. He found a large enough vein in her left arm and injected the morphine into her. John had carefully measured out enough to subdue her for a while with out killing her. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed John’s number.
“Mark?” came his dark, raspy voice.
“It happened, she found out,” Mark said breathless and frightened.
“Bring her,” he replied, then hung up.