She looked eerily like her. That was the first thought that came to his mind when he saw her that day. The resemblance was so apparent that at first, it almost knocked him off his feet. He even found himself going towards her, arms out stretched, ready to pull her into himself like he used to pull the love of his life for long affectionate embraces. But luckily he stopped himself from doing that. For no matter how alike they looked, she didn’t fool him. Not completely anyway.

Such a shame, he thought to himself. She was an attractive girl, he would have loved to go out with her if only she didn’t look so much like her. She could have saved herself from the terrible fate that he had planned for her if only she looked different and beautiful in her own way, instead of trying to imitate his wife!
________

“Baby I’m sorry”, she whispered into his ear and then left, walking out through the front door. Right in front of his eyes! While all he could do was stare dumbfounded at her, the bouquet of roses that he had brought for her earlier today, lay in the corner, forgotten.
________

“Why did you do it?”, the doctor asked him in a very passive voice like she had been taught to. She was a very patient woman, something that went very well along her profession. She had to talk to psychopaths and freaks all day long and patience was the key.

“I… I.. She left me!”

“I know that”, the cool voice said, “but why did you kill all of them?”

“Don’t you get it?” the man said, his voice trembling, “they all looked exactly like her! If only they looked different…. If only they didn’t copy her..”

“Who copied whom?” she had to get him on the tape. That too clearly or else his lawyers might be able to twist his words and defend him somehow.

“The women I killed! I killed them because they all looked identical to that bitch! She left me! I loved her so much…. I gave her everything and SHE LEFT ME!”

That’s it. The confession was made.
________

“Please…. I won’t tell anyone….. please…" the woman whimpered as she lay on his table, her hands and feet tied firmly to the edges of the table. She was attractive. Very attractive. Her skin was creamy in color and very smooth to touch. And that’s what the problem was.

“If only you didn’t look like her….” He whispered, running his hands through her hair gently “We could have really hit it off, you know?” 

“Look like who!? Please let me go… please… I don’t know what you’re talking about…. Please I won’t tell anyone… please..”

“She left me, you know?”, he said completely lost in his thoughts and ignoring the woman’s pleads. “

“Please…. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Please… I don’t know who you are talking about..  ple…

“LIAR!” he roared as he brought the dagger down into her chest. Not once, not twice, but fifteen times, one for each year they were together.
_______

She had the confession but she kept going.

“Why do you think they looked like your wife?” the doctor asked.

“I … I .. they must know each other”! 

“Did your wife ever mention them?”

He was getting irritated and angry but she didn’t care. They had put huge restraints on him and a couple of policemen also stood beside them. But the thing that was really assuring her was the fact that he only killed his wife’s lookalikes. And she didn’t look like her. She had seen the photos of the poor woman.

“I… I don’t know… don’t remember. But believe me! I didn’t want to… If only they didn’t look like… I….”

Something was wrong here. She knew she was missing something. They had found one body in the house, the wife’s. And that man didn’t appear to be be smart enough to find a good hiding spot for the rest.

“Where are they, Andrew? Where are the bodies?”

He had started shaking and was repeating the same thing over and over again.

“If only they didn’t look like her…. If only….”

“Andrew! Andrew!

“If only.. I didn’t want to… If only….”

“Get him out of here.” She said to the  guards. “We are done for today.”
_______

“The body wass stabbed sixty times.” the forensic specialist announced as he entered the doctor’s office.

“What? Sixty?!”The doctor looked at him wide eyed.

“Oh ho.. My lady. Calm yourself. I still haven’t given you the strangest news.” 

“And what’s that?”

“Most of the wounds are postmortem. And not just that. They were inflicted days apart! How about that? He kept stabbing the body days after he had killed her. The wounds that she died of are only..”

“Fifteen?” The doctor said before he could finish his sentence. In reply the forensic guy gave her a funny look, affirming her thoughts.

“You’re shitting me! They really were fifteen, weren’t they?!” , she asked him again as she stood up excitedly.

“Yeah but how do you….”

“Never mind Greg”, she replied, picking up her purse and making a dash for the door. “I think I know where the rest of the bodies are.”
_______

“Hello, 911. What’s your emergency?”

“I killed them. All four of them….. If only they didn’t look like my wife… I….”

“Sir, can you repeat that?” the puzzled operator asked as he tried to pinpoint the caller’s address using tracking service.

“Why did they look like her…. I…” The caller hung up.
________

“Hold on a second. You saying he only killed his wife? One victim? He confessed to killing all four of them!” The detective was completely confused by what the doctor was saying.

“I know he did. But you can’t really find the bodies, can you?”

“Hey! We are working on it.” The detective said defensively.

“You won’t find them. There aren’t any. The wife was stabbed sixty times!”

“So?”

“We know he said he killed four women, right? And it was the eve of their fifteenth anniversary when he killed the wife, right?”

“Yeah.. so?” the detective still had no idea where this was going.

“So here's what I think happened. He killed her. Stabbed her fifteen times. Forensics confirmed that. And then killed her again and again imagining her to be someone else every time in his own mind. Her body had sixty stab wounds, right? Fifteen for each woman he imagined killing.”

“So… what you are saying is…. He killed his wife. And then thought her body to be a different woman that looked like her wife and stabbed it again, fifteen times, thinking he was killing that different woman. And he did that three times?!.... Wow.. doc.. I mean…”

“I know it sounds crazy. But why else did he hide all the other bodies and left the wife’s in plain sight?  And he confessed too. He says all the bodies are there… at his home where we found the wife. Why would he say that if he went to all the trouble of hiding his victims in the first place? Besides, you’ve seen the guy too. Does he look to be intelligent enough to hide the bodies so well that we still haven’t been able to locate them? I mean… that guy?

In reply the detective just sat down, unable to say anything. If all of it were true, then this surely was the craziest and the weirdest case he had ever worked on in the twenty years he has been on the force.
_______

“Baby I’m sorry”, she whispered into his ear and then left, walking out through the front door. Right in front of his eyes! While all he could do was stare dumbfounded at her, the bouquet of roses that he had brought for her earlier today, lay in the corner, forgotten.

He couldn’t let that happen. He shook himself out of his stupor. He couldn’t just let her walk out. She just could not do that, not to him! He went after her, picking up a knife from the kitchen on the way.
_______