“So how did you, Miss thrift-store-underwear, get in contact with him!?”
“I am so glad you asked; I have been looking for an excuse to talk about it. Ok, so have you heard about the ‘Jeopardy Killer?’ He would leave trivia clues at the crime scene. Handwritten, too. Really weird clues that had no relation to the gruesome crime scenes. The killer put an old lady’s head in the oven — prepared like a Thanksgiving turkey — and left irrelevant clues, such as when the washing machine was invented. Immensely disturbing. The guys down at work were at a loss; they had been chasing the guy for over eighteen months, and he had just ramped up to leaving bombs. The guy thought he was Ted Kaczynski or something, I guess. Remember how Central Park was shut down two months ago? He had left a suspicious backpack, which thankfully, someone called in. Had it gone off, it would have sent shards of metal and glass through the whole park and — importantly for my work — exposed a welded question on the bomb’s interior: ‘This type of cat is only ever female.’ Fuck if I know.
Anyway, everyone was pissed because we had spent nearly $50K trying to catch the guy with no luck. The NYPD’s padded budget was running thin, and this guy wasn’t about to buy us military grade riot gear. He had to be apprehended. Last week, while sitting in the morning briefing, I had this genius idea. What if we put on a fake Jeopardy show to catch the guy?! I excitedly raised my hand and shared my idea, only to get nearly laughed out of the meeting, if not my job. Thank goodness the Chief had a moment of pause. Or more likely pure desperation. She asked me how, exactly, this would even work.
My proposal was simple: hold an open casting call for Jeopardy and slowly ask about pieces of the crimes that only the killer would know. I figured that not only would normal people be turned off and weeded out by asking true crime questions, but also that any killer who left those types of taunts at crime scenes almost always wanted the attention; wanted to talk about their crimes at length. Real sickos, Brenda.
The Chief had a hard sell to the city for the funds to do a production worthy of TV quality. The standards set by Alex Trebek are sky high. Of course, we had a professional profile drawn up. He’d likely frequented bars for trivia nights and probably cafes too. He was likely going to be younger and middle class to afford the copious number of drinks purchased at these places to keep up appearances, and his blood sugar. He would have a group of tight guy friends, all high-achieving, who would make him feel small. He would need to prove himself. A hunger for recognition, whether through murder or knowledge, was palpable.
The set was built, and the flyers, smartly distributed so that we wouldn’t get too many auditions to handle. We all got dressed up like crew members. Darrel excitedly shared that he worked on costumes for the community theater; the Chief was excited to finally give Daryl a task suited to his skills. Let me tell you: the day we spent two hours deciding who was worthy to hold the boom mic versus pretending to be a PA doing coffee runs was the most heated and entertaining day we have had down at the station in a while.
The stage was set; the IT guys had spent maybe twenty minutes making the board on a Jeopardy generator website. We couldn’t get Ken Jennings, and we didn’t even try that Zionist woman. Thankfully, C-list celebrities on Cameo are more than excited to be asking trivia questions they think will appear on Jeopardy.
Since I pitched it, I got to show up after the rookies sorted out those who didn’t fit our profile or who had ‘insufficient knowledge to qualify.’ We ended up with two suspects — both white guys in their early thirties — and one apparently true crime-obsessed twenty-something black girl. She had a limited edition Doc Martens; a purveyor of the unique with a grunge spirit.”
“Hey! Are you going to answer my question?”
“Sorry, I forget this stuff isn’t morbidly interesting to those not in law. Ok, we get everyone set up at their podiums, handwritten names displayed just like the real deal. We had a handwriting expert on set to try and match the script to the notes left at the scene, but that work isn’t fast, so we doubled team it by continuing the game. The girl, Jackie, was positioned closer to the end of the stage in case we needed to extract her quickly. Jeff, who had a crew cut and glasses, was in the middle, and Lewis was on the end. Lewis had the aura of a man who doesn’t trust deodorant, vaccines, or mass-produced kombucha. He was tall, but stood with a subtle rightward lean, as if contemplating his deli order.
Our categories were: serial killers, current events, celebrity mashup, general knowledge, and trains. Dave really likes trains. We’re playing the Cameos and going through this whole play; Broadway-level production. The lights are making Lewis sweat. Heavily. It is a good thing we weren’t going to be on TV because his sweat stains spread like the Milky Way. Our body language expert couldn’t get a read, though, as he said the environment wasn’t conducive to normal behavior.
We had gotten to the first ‘commercial break,’ and normally, when you return from commercials, the host asks personal questions or shares a small story about the contestants. When our fake PA announced we wouldn’t be doing that, Jeff got weirdly offended. He was asking if his episode was going to be ‘cheap’ and ‘low bar.’ This got all of us detectives on our toes. The snipers edged closer to his podium from the rafters. No one had touched the last three questions in the current events category. This is where we hid our gold; the serial killers category mainly acted as a decoy. Brody’s thinking seemed flawed to me. Everything about the NYPD is fucking flawed, but the government healthcare is the best.
Regardless, Jackie picked the 600-question. ‘This item was recently the cause of a major shutdown of Central Park.’ Jackie knew that one, but Jeff was smashing his receiver. Like, aggressively. Lewis looked nervous, like he was going to pass out. The body expert said he could be getting faint because we were broadcasting his crime to a wider audience and more police precincts, or he could be dehydrated from his fire hydrant arms. Real help that guy was.
On 800, we hid a daily double. To get him really excited. To get him to slip up on 1000. ‘This Batman villain is being used as a comparison to the culprit of a recent spree of killings.’ Jeff swooped in like a hawk. ‘The Riddler,’ he nearly shouted. Jackie started to look nervous as Jeff mindlessly recited ‘1000, 1000, 1000, 1000,’ like a seance. A chant to the trivia gods to get to the final question.
The SWAT team, like the Iron Giant in ballet slippers, moved stage left behind the set. The medics were walkied in case a struggle erupted, but I suspected Lewis may have needed them more. The final question was read by Paulie, you know, from Jersey Shore. That one was my idea. Like his questions, Paulie was my stamp on this project. ‘What’s good, Jeopardy world?’ Paulie characteristically shouted, ‘This is how the trivia killer signs off his clues.’
Lewis nearly jumped over the podium and tried to run. The back wall of the set we made broke away, and the SWAT team burst through to tackle him in a sticky ball of perspiration. Those SWAT guys smelled like a bag of onions by the end of the day with all that gear and lighting.
Jeff, the crew cut guy we all suspected was ex-military, was actually the one to faint at all of this commotion. The medics treated Jackie for shock—poor girl. Lewis squirmed and shouted; his head repeatedly slammed into the stage. The growing pool of blood from his mouth was illuminated by the glowing blue stage, looking almost purple.”
“Debbie…. I asked how you talked to Jack Black…”
ABOUT
Allie Ailis (she/they) is an aspiring creative with work featured in Heroica and Culture Vulture. When not staring at a screen, she can be found journaling, crafting, and hiking with her dog, Luna.
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