“Hello?”
No answer.
“Who’s there?”
Still no answer.
He staggered forward, looking for the shadow. “Hello?”
Something moved in the shadows.
He turned.
But not quick enough.
Reginald C. Cooper fell backward, arms wide, sprawling out on the ground. His vision was blurred. The shadow moved closer.
The arms swung…
But instinct kicked in. He moved, rolling to his right. With the force and power that he once had, he sprang to his feet, moved into position, ready to fight.
“Come on, then. I don’t have anything for you to take, but I’ll fight for it.”
He was unsteady on his feet but ready.
Ready to fight.
Ready to throw down.
But a leg swiftly moved under his knees, too quick to allow time to react.
He fell again.
Defenseless.
The shadow moved quickly, lunging on top of him, hands around his neck.
Breath was suddenly taken from Reginald’s throat.
He couldn’t draw in.
He struggled.
Fought.
But the shadow was strong.
The grip was tight.
It was becoming tighter.
Firmer.
Oxygen was disappearing.
In one last desperate attempt, Reginald swung his heavy arm…
But it missed.
The attacker held strong.
The breath was quickly gone.
He had no fight left.
Nothing.
His time had come.
Chapter 16
The turn into Maple Avenue was sharp, sharper than usual.
There was yellow tape all around the corner, cop cars outside of that. Six patrol cars, at least. A lot, it seemed, for the area around there.
“What happened here?” Nicole Cowan asked the other three occupants of the car.
It made sense to carpool on the way to their jobs. Traffic wasn’t as bad when you had people to share it with… unless those people were your family.
“Another drunk. Killed last night. Done the world some good to get rid of him.”
“Penny!” Valerie Wood snapped. “I’m still in the car!”
“It’s no use, Mom. She doesn’t have an off switch. She just does what she does.” Caleb Wood tried to calm his mother in the back seat. He ran his left hand over his freshly trimmed short brown hair, his right hand gripping the steering wheel tightly. At just over thirty-years-old, he found his first gray hair last week, and promptly cut his hair very short.
Nicole Cowan turned around from the front seat and raised her eyebrows at Penny Pearson, the young woman that she had raised to be strong, loud, and very opinionated. Those opinions had come from her, and she was proud of that fact.
“Please, Penny, keep those sorts of opinions to yourself when I’m in the car,” Valerie said. “You only have to hold your tongue for twenty minutes a day. Surely, even you can do that.”
Valerie Wood was so happy when her son started dating the very beautiful, seemingly caring, Penny Pearson. She thought her macho, heavily muscled, robust son had finally met someone that could keep up with his energy, someone that could steal his heart.
She was so happy with the ideal that Penny appeared to be. She dreamed of the couple’s future together—the marriage, the house, and most importantly, the future grandchildren. Little sweet kids running around, singing, playing, laughing.
That was until the dark side came out.
Late one night, they had just passed a group of drunk men after a pleasant dinner, and one of them wolf whistled at Penny.
Valerie thought they would have to deal with her 5’10 former Marine son, but it was Penny who verbally tore them to shreds. She had never heard such vulgar language, especially coming from the mouth of an angel. Every second word started with F.
Even as the Manager of the Wells Community Center for Mental Health, she had heard a lot of swearing, but nothing came close to the nastiness, venom, and anger in Penny’s words.
It took her a while to understand that hatred, but when Nicole explained that she had raised Penny from eight-years-old, after the horrible incident that happened to her sister, Penny’s mother, she understood that rage.
Nobody could go through what she went through and not be angry.
Valerie just hoped that her son wouldn’t be influenced by such vile opinions.
“I’ve just Googled it,” Penny continued. “The LA Times reports that it was another homeless drunk found dead yesterday. Cops aren’t saying much, but it appears the person was strangled.”
“Not another one. There’s something more to all of this. There have been so many deaths around here in the last twelve months. More than usual. A lot more than usual.” Valerie sighed. “It’s so sad that someone is killing these men.”
“It’s not—” Penny stopped mid-sentence as Valerie glared at her. Her death stare almost cut her in two.
“They must be all connected,” Valerie continued. “Something is happening around here. I just hope the police are able to piece it all together before someone else dies.”
“There’s nothing in the article about it being a serial killer,” Penny said as she scrolled through the online report.
“The cops aren’t saying anything, but people on the streets are starting to talk. There are some people out there that are scared. It’s nine or ten deaths of homeless men around this neighborhood in the past year. People are frightened, and the rumors are getting out of control.”
“Maybe it will scare them enough for them to get clean,” Nicole mumbled from the front seat.
“I think they’re just stumbling out of Wells Community Center drunk, falling into a rope, and choking themselves. No murderers involved. It’s all an innocent accident.”
“That’s it, Caleb.” Valerie rolled her eyes. “Nothing gets past you.”
He laughed. “Hey, I’m just trying to help here. The cops obviously haven’t done anything.”
“And let’s hope they don’t,” Nicole whispered under her breath, not loud enough to earn the wrath of Valerie.
“I don’t know why you still work out here, Mom? You could work anywhere; you don’t have to work out here. It’s too dangerous. You know how bad it’s getting. You know how dangerous this place is.”
“This is where people need my help the most, Caleb. Some people in this city may have forgotten that this part of society exists, but not me. I won’t abandon them, no matter how dangerous it becomes.”
“Just know that I’ve always got you back, Mom,” Caleb said defensively. “If you ever need me, just call. If you ever feel threatened, I’ll sort these people out.”
Caleb pulled his truck to the side of the curb outside the Wells Community Center for Mental Health, allowing his mother to exit the back seat.
“Bye, Mom.” He waved, and she blew him a kiss. “Six o’clock fine for pick up?”
“That’s good,” she replied. “I’ll let you know if it’s any different. I think there might be another busy day, so I’ll let you know with a text.”
As Caleb drove away, Penny giggled. “I thought she was going to strangle me.”
“Just be careful with her, babe,” Caleb replied. “You know that she lives her life to help those people. She has for a year. That’s her life passion; working with drunks. That’s what she wants to do.”
“I don’t know why. They’re all scum.”
“My father was an alcoholic, you know that. She doesn’t want people to follow that same path. Her life’s work is to rescue families from the pain that my father put us through, and the best way she can do that is to help people beat their addictions. It’s honorable work.”
“She should hate them,” Nicole joined the conversation. “After what your father did to you and her, she should hate them. I know I would.”
“I guess people just see
the world differently.”
Caleb leaned across the dash and turned up the radio, the country music song blaring, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to get his point of view across.
These were two very opinionated women, and he could never win an argument against either of them.
Or a fight.
Chapter 17
Leaning back in his office chair, Bill Harvey considered his thoughts for a long time.
After spending a restless night thinking about Gerard, stressing about Jonathon, and contemplating Harry Jones’ life, he went to his office early, looking for a distraction from the pain of losing another person he once knew.
Gerard West and Harry Jones were lost souls who needed guidance.
Their lives shouldn’t have ended yet.
They needed a chance, someone to give them hope, someone to give them support. A helping hand.
Instead, they had someone take it all away.
If Harvey’s brother was a serial killer at work, then he could never forgive himself for letting Jonathon back out onto the streets with the chance to taste blood again. As a defense lawyer, he was bound to do his best for Jonathon, but the feeling of justice held a stronger pull.
Murderers shouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets—no matter how little evidence was available.
The lost souls of the world needed justice just as much as the rich.
And Bill Harvey intended to deliver it.
“Good morning, Penny,” Harvey called to his assistant as she walked in the door.
“You’re here early, boss.” She popped her head into the office. “As it’s my first day without Kate, I thought that I would come in an hour early and tidy up some paperwork for you, get a head start, but here you are, already working. Do you ever sleep?”
“Don’t call me boss. It makes me sound old.”
“Ok bo—I mean sir.”
“Come in and sit down for a moment, Penny.” Harvey opened his hand, gesturing towards the seat on the other side of the desk. “I want to know more about you.”
Cautiously, she walked into the room, her gentle hair flowing over her shoulders. “Ok…”
“Tell me something about yourself, Penny.”
“Like what?”
“Anything. Tell me something about you.” Harvey deliberately left the request open, without suggestion, to give Penny the opportunity to reveal herself. As he was sitting in a position of power in the relationship, her answer would reveal what she thought he would be impressed by.
“Um…” She took time to think. “I guess there are a lot of things about me that you wouldn’t know, like how I love martial arts. I’m a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.”
“Does your handsome boyfriend Caleb do that as well?”
“He’s one of the trainers—he’s the guy that got me back into it. I met him just over a year ago, and he said that I should come along to the classes. I used to do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with Aunt Nicole, but I hadn’t done it for years. After we went on a couple of dates, Caleb dragged me along, and I fell in love with it again. And him.” She giggled.
“And what does he do for a living now that he is no longer in the Marines?”
“He’s studying to be a geologist. Goes to UCLA, in his third year. He’s a bit older than me, almost thirty-two, so he’s a mature age student. But he’s working as a security guard at a nightclub near Pershing Square. It’s a rough area, and he doesn’t really enjoy it, but he gets paid well to do it.”
“So he would see a lot of drunks in his job?”
“He would.”
“And what does he think of those drunks? The ones he has to work with.”
“He hates them. Drives him wild. It all gets him really angry. I’ll be glad when he gives this job away and finds another one.”
“Are you wild, Penny?”
“I think we’re all just a little bit wild.” She smiled. “We all push the boundaries of what is acceptable, don’t we? I’ve been known to lose control every now and again.”
“What about partying? Do you do a lot of that?”
“Not really. I used to go to parties a bit, but not anymore.” Penny frowned. “Life used to be all roses, peaches, and parties—but I’ve grown out of that now.”
“But you don’t drink at all?”
“No way. I’ve never wanted to touch a drop in my life. Not after what happened.” She looked away with a moment of sadness. “I just… I just couldn’t do that to myself after having seen what happens when people drink. I hate the stuff. I think I’d vomit if a drop of alcohol touched my mouth. It’s just… what happened…”
“It’s alright, Penny. You don’t need to talk about it. I know your past. You don’t need to go into it.”
She nodded. “I have never wanted to even try a drink. I don’t mind when people have a couple of drinks and get happy at a party, but it’s the heavy drunks that really get on my nerves. You know the ones. The addicts. The ones that can’t stop even when they want to. I hate those people.”
“If you want to work on this case, you’re going to have to leave those ideas behind, Penny. I can’t have you bringing those ideas to this table.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I need better than that.”
“Yes, sir,” she responded.
Harvey tapped his fingers on his desk, thinking over the possibilities. He hated coincidences, but some were just too big to ignore.
He had always kept his enemies close. Pushed them. Forced them to make a mistake.
“Penny, I need you to find any cases that have been tried and convicted within L.A. in the last two years and have been death by strangling. I need that done before you do anything else.”
“Why’s that?”
“You don’t need to know why, Penny. You just need to get the job done.”
“But this stuff gets me excited,” Penny stated with youthful enthusiasm. “Nicole said I should get really involved in the details of the case, just to get some real experience in this field of work. I really like to be involved in these cases and know what is going on. It’s like a real-life drama.”
“This is a real-life drama, Penny,” Harvey corrected her. “People’s lives and futures are at stake. That’s why we try to keep a distance from the cases. We don’t want our personal attachments to a case to cloud our judgments. If we start to think about the people in these cases, then we might miss the smallest detail. And all we need is the smallest detail to blow a case apart.”
“I’m not used to something so exciting. Being a temporary worker, I’ve been sent everywhere. And I usually work in boring offices doing boring work with boring people. You know the type—the ones who say that they are ‘crazy’ because they wear a Daffy Duck tie to work. That’s not crazy. Take your clothes off and dance on the lunchroom table, then I’ll call you crazy.”
“Are you crazy, Penny?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Maybe just a little.”
Chapter 18
Within two hours, Penny returned to Harvey’s door. “Boss, this is what I’ve found.”
“That was quick, Penny.” Harvey raised his eyebrows as he looked up from the file in front of him. “And stop calling me boss. This is not a sitcom from the 1980s.”
“Sorry, sir.” She smirked. “I knew where to look for the information on these cases. I suppose I got lucky. And there weren’t too many people charged with strangling deaths in the last two years in the L.A. area.”
“So what have we got?”
“We’ve got a man murdered by strangulation twelve months ago. A person named Lachlan Shaw was charged with the murder. He got seven years and is doing time in Twin Towers Correctional. He always maintained his innocence though. Throughout the whole trial, he declared he didn’t do it. Very vocal about his innocence, but the jury found him guilty. He was going to appeal but then withdrew his application. The write-up in the media says that it took the jury three days to reach a verdict and the evidence wasn’t
convincing. A borderline decision.”
“Who were the prosecutor and the defense attorneys?”
“The prosecutor was Shannon Chettle, and the defense attorney was, um…” She flicked over a piece of paper. “Mr. Timothy Greene and—”
“Ahhh…”
“What’s wrong with Mr. Greene?”
“He had a nervous breakdown only six months ago and hasn’t returned to work. One of his previous cases is getting retried because he failed his duty of defending the client. That happens in our line of work. You’re either one hundred percent in—or things get questioned. That can put a lot of pressure on a man, and when things aren’t right, some people crumble under that pressure. It means that Mr. Shaw might not have received the best possible defense.”
“What about you? Ever crumbled under pressure?”
“Me? No. Not yet anyway. I’m sure we’re all just one bad month away from falling apart, but luckily that hasn’t happened to me yet.” Harvey paused. “Tell me more about Mr. Shaw. Who did he murder?”
“A homeless teen who had been walking in Skid Row that night. Apparently, they had no connection to each other, but Mr. Shaw was charged when video footage placed him near the scene of the crime. I used to know a Lachlan Shaw, briefly. The name rings a bell, I think.”
“Anything else?”
“There was a witness who placed him at the scene, and Mr. Shaw was also drunk at the time. He said he couldn’t remember most of the night but might have had a run-in with the teenager on the walk home. The deceased also had Mr. Shaw’s wallet on him, so the prosecution stated that the teen tried to mug him and Mr. Shaw got angry and strangled the teen.”
“But why kill a man who tried to mug you, and not take your wallet back?”
“Sounds questionable, doesn’t it?”
“Certainly does.” Harvey closed the folder on his desk. “And it sounds very similar to Jonathon’s case too. Find out more information about Mr. Shaw and call the prison to set up an appointment for me this afternoon. Looks like I am going to have a chat with Mr. Shaw.”
Bill Harvey Collection Page 22
