The Interloper

by Dave Zeltserman

  While Willis expected the dog to be moping for a while, he was glad to see that he was beginning to accept his situation. When Willis stopped scratching the dog’s belly, the dog flipped himself to his feet and scampered over to his food dish. After a couple of snorts, he began eating his food with only a minor reluctance.

  “I’m going to have to call you something other than dog,” Willis said. He tried to think what name to give the animal. He’d never had any pet before and it always seemed odd to him when pet owners gave their animals human names. “How about Bowser?” Willis asked.

  The dog lifted his bullet-shaped head from the now empty dish and made another of his pig-like grunts, which as far as Willis was concerned settled the matter.

  Willis thought about turning on the computer and seeing who his next target was going to be, but decided that could wait.

  Chapter 9

  Willis felt a sense of unease as he read about his next target, Melanie Hartman. She was thirty-two and pretty, even though from her driver’s license photo she looked like someone who got very uncomfortable in front of a camera. All of Willis’s previous targets had been men, and the idea of killing a woman bothered him. He knew it shouldn’t matter. A traitor’s a traitor regardless of the person’s sex. If a woman joined the insurgency and was actively working to destroy the country, then she should pay the same price as any of her male counterparts. But one of the things about the target that made Willis especially uneasy was that while she was divorced, she lived with her ten-year-old son, and there was nothing about her sharing custody. It was possible the boy’s father was completely out of the picture and that after the assignment was completed the boy would be left orphaned.

  Willis steeled himself as he studied her picture. If the woman was willing to join the insurgency, then her son would be better off orphaned than living with her. So he’d terminate his first female target. Over time he’d get used to the idea just as he’d been able to do with his other targets. He’d better since he doubted that Melanie Hartman would be his only female target. The Factory must do that intentionally. Desensitize male field workers like himself with male targets before giving them a woman. It made sense that there would be an equal number of women in the insurgency. Willis accepted that it was probably bothering him more than it should have thanks to a poor night of sleeping, which left him feeling lousy. He’d already drunk two cups of black coffee loaded with sugar, and it hadn’t done much yet to remove the fuzziness wrapping his brain.

  His poor night of sleeping had nothing to do with feeling any guilt over killing Foley, although Foley was indirectly the cause of it. Willis had let the bull terrier spend the night in his bedroom. He didn’t like the idea of crating the dog as Foley had done; besides, he knew if he did that the dog would’ve been whimpering all night. So instead, every ten minutes or so, the dog got up groaning like an old man before circling the room and plopping down again. It kept up until four in the morning, and it was only after that that Willis was able to fall into a deep sleep. Forty minutes later, he woke up with Bowser’s snout inches from his face, the dog’s eyes fixed on him as he lay next to Willis. Willis decided that that would be it for trying to sleep and he rolled out of bed, slipped on some clothes, and then took Bowser three towns over to the woods for a walk.

  It was now six in the morning and Willis was back home and working on another cup of black coffee as he stared at the driver’s license photo of his next target. Brown eyes, brown hair, a cute slightly upturned nose with freckles dotting it, and an awkwardly shy smile. There were other aspects of the job other than his target’s sex that bothered him. The Factory had marked her for suicide, so either he’d have to get to her when the son wasn’t home or he’d have to do the job quietly. While The Factory had lax rules about collateral damage, Willis wasn’t about to take out a ten-year-old boy.

  If the woman was normal, Willis would be able to break into her place late at night and threaten to hurt her son unless she wrote out a suicide note and swallowed the pills he handed her, but if someone was not only willing but actively working to see the country go down in flames, why would she care about her child? The job would have to be done differently, and even the surveillance options for the job were lousy. She lived in a large apartment building with an underground garage, and no building or apartment vacancies nearby for him to use—at least none reported in The Factory’s one-page dossier. There wasn’t even a nearby diner or coffee shop for him to camp out in.

  Willis had enough of staring at the computer screen. He exited The Factory’s bulletin board, then turned his frown to Bowser, who was lying by his feet.

  “Time to earn the food I’ve been feeding you,” he muttered.

  *

  He had Bowser on a leash as he walked around Melanie Hartman’s neighborhood. He wouldn’t be able to do it for long without drawing attention, but he got lucky and spotted her as she drove an older model Honda Civic out from the underground garage. He pulled out a pair of field glasses and memorized the license plate. The Factory’s dossier had gotten both the car and license plate wrong. They had her in a newer model Saab.

  Hartman had her son in the passenger seat when she left, or at least Willis assumed it was her son since The Factory hadn’t provided a photo of the boy. He had no idea how long she’d be gone. Maybe she was driving her kid to school and would be back shortly afterwards, or maybe she’d be heading off to work after she dropped him off. If she returned back to the apartment, the job could become very easy as Willis would have a chance to be with her alone up there. He took Bowser back to his car and left him in the backseat gnawing on a thick rawhide bone. The dog was adapting quicker than Willis could’ve hoped for. At least one thing was going right.

  The apartment building Hartman lived in must’ve been built in the seventies. Seven floors, concrete, kind of an eyesore of a building, although each unit seemed to have its own balcony. The building didn’t have much for security. No surveillance cameras, no concierge or anyone on duty. The back door was easy to break into. Willis moved quickly up the fire stairs and to the third floor where Hartman lived. He didn’t pass anyone on the stairs since if they were going down to the garage they would’ve used the elevator instead.

  The lock on Hartman’s door was a cheap one, and Willis was able to pick it in seconds and get into her apartment without being seen. Willis had hoped that the balcony could be used for her suicide, but as he looked out the blinds he saw that there were large hedges below that would break her fall. If her balcony was on the other side of the building as half of them were, she would have had a concrete landing. It would raise suspicions if Willis broke her neck before throwing her off of it. The apartment just wasn’t high enough, not with the hedges underneath to provide a cushioning. He’d have to check later whether the fire stairs led to the roof. If they did, he could toss her body from there to the concrete side of the building.

  Willis moved quickly to search the apartment. If Hartman returned while he was there, he’d have no choice but to try to make her suicide look like she had slashed her wrists, which would be tricky, at best. He’d have to overpower her without leaving any other marks or bruises on her body. And he’d have to shut her up before she’d be able to scream. Damn Factory and their suicides!

  He started in the kitchen. His stomach seized up as he looked at a photo of her and her son attached by a magnet to the refrigerator. It was a recent photo, and in it she crouched behind her son, her chin almost resting on his shoulder as she held him around his chest and grinned broadly, all the while looking like every other loving and doting mother. He didn’t get why someone like her would join the insurgency. Didn’t she have any clue what she’d be doing to her son? Willis forced himself to memorize that photo. He needed to know what her son looked like. Before leaving the kitchen, he found a pay stub which had her work address on it. He searched the rest of her mail, but found nothing incriminating.

  The apartment was made up of a room that served as both
a living room and dining area, a galley kitchen outfitted with its original appliances and cabinets from the seventies, and two bedrooms, with hers being only a little larger than her son’s. Her bedroom was neat and nothing in it to indicate she was an insurgent or had much of a personal life. In the back of a closet that held a surprisingly small number of clothes and shoes, he found a two-drawer file cabinet. He shuffled through the folders quickly, but found nothing other than typical household papers, and nothing about her ex-husband or about her collecting any child support or alimony.

  Her son’s room was much messier and looked typical for what he’d expect for a ten-year-old’s room with comic books scattered about, and the walls decorated with sports and action-movie posters. He gave it a quick search. He checked his watch and saw that he’d been in the apartment a little over twenty minutes. It was time to get out of there. The one thing he noticed that was missing from the apartment was any sort of computer, but that didn’t mean much. She could have a smart phone for connecting to the Internet and staying connected to the insurgency that way.

  Willis listened by the front door, and when he felt certain that there was no one out in the hallway, he left the apartment and then went quickly to the fire stairs. From there he went up to the top and saw that he’d be able to have access to the roof. The door was locked, but the lock wouldn’t be much of a challenge for him. He then knew how Melanie Hartman would die. He’d wait until three in the morning to sneak back into the building, then get into her apartment, break her neck before she ever woke up, carry her up to the roof, then throw her over so she’d land on the concrete. It wouldn’t be that hard carrying her dead body to the roof. According to her driver’s license, she was only five feet two inches and a hundred and five pounds. He’d be able to put her over his shoulders and climb those four flights easy enough. The police would probably wonder why she committed suicide, but there wouldn’t be any forensic evidence to contradict it.

  Willis made his way down the fire stairs and out of the building without running into anyone. When he got back to his car, Bowser was still gnawing away at his rawhide bone, but he stopped to give Willis an incriminating look.

  “I’m only doing my job,” Willis muttered as a way of apology.

  Chapter 10

  Willis couldn’t leave it alone. He had the job figured out so it would be able to be done with little risk, but a thought nagged at him. When he left Melanie Hartman’s building he took Bowser for a long walk in a woodsy area, but he couldn’t quiet that whisper that was nagging at him. After he brought Bowser back to his house, he drove to the dental office where Melanie Hartman worked as a receptionist. She was sitting up front and as Willis approached her, she smiled cheerfully at him. Up close she was much prettier than she’d been in her photo; her large brown eyes sparkling brightly, her smile anything but awkward, and those freckles dotting her nose gave her a clean-cut, wholesome look like those girls they used to use in those old Ivory Soap commercials. But hell, the former and now deceased porn star, Marilyn Chambers, had once been one of those Ivory Soap girls, so what was the point of putting any importance on that? Willis told her he’d like to make an appointment to get his teeth cleaned, keeping his own voice as friendly and as at ease as if the two of them were long-time acquaintances.

  After a few questions, such as whether he was a new patient and if he was experiencing any pain, Hartman consulted a scheduling book. As she flipped through it, her brow furrowed and she bit her bottom lip in a way that made Willis’s nagging whisper all that much louder. “Dr. Shulman’s schedule is pretty full right now,” she said apologetically. “His first opening isn’t until a week from next Friday. Eleven o’clock. Would that be okay?”

  “I was hoping to get this done sooner.”

  “I understand. I could call you if we have a cancellation, or I could call one of our other recommended dentists and see if they can fit you in sooner.” She winked at him as her smile grew into something sly. “Don’t worry, we really do recommend these others dentists. We’re not getting kickbacks or anything.”

  “I don’t want to put you out.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m happy to do it.” She proceeded to busy herself looking through her desk drawers. “Now if I can only find where that list is.” She explained to Willis how she’d only been working there for four weeks and she still sometimes forgot where things were.

  Willis leaned in, smiled sympathetically. “How do you like it here?”

  “Oh, I love it.” Hartman looked around the waiting room. A middle-aged woman was reading a fashion magazine while her teenage daughter was plugged into an iPod and skimming through the latest issue of People. The mother was eavesdropping, but trying not to show it. The daughter was oblivious. Hartman lowered her voice to a soft whisper and added, “This job was a lifesaver. I was out of work for four months before Dr. Shulman gave me this opportunity. I am so grateful to him, especially with the job environment we have these days.”

  “I hear you,” Willis said and in equally low voice. “I was out of work for eleven months and it was brutal.”

  Empathy flooded her eyes and she lay a delicate hand on Willis’s arm. The gesture was mostly out of sympathy, and maybe at a subconscious level, some flirting. “You were able to find something too, then?” she asked.

  Willis nodded.

  Hartman gave a what-a-dope smile as if she remembered where the list was kept, and sure enough, dug it out of a file cabinet. She was about to start making calls, but Willis stopped her. “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “How about making a copy for me instead? I’ll make the calls later.”

  She nodded okay and went to the copy machine. She was dressed conservatively for the office in a skirt and blouse. A petite and slender build, but very attractive. All Willis could think about as he looked at her was what it would be like with her dead weight on his shoulders as he carried her up four flights of stairs to the roof. The moment before she turned back to him, he was again smiling at her. He pointed out the framed photo on her desk and asked whether that was her son, knowing already that it was.

  “The love of my life,” she said, her smile turning into something very genuine. “That’s my son, Jack. I know I was only out of work for four months and a lot of people out there have had it a lot worse, but he’s still what kept me going.”

  Willis nodded as he took the list from her and as he left the office those whispers gnawing at him only grew louder.

  *

  Willis didn’t kill Melanie Hartman that night. Instead, he decided to put her under surveillance and look for any evidence that could convince him that she was an insurgent. Most of the time, he brought the bull terrier with him. The dog provided good cover, especially since there was no empty location near her apartment for him to camp out in. When he was outside trailing her, all eyes of any passerby would go to the dog instead of him. On the fifth day of trailing her, he found a story in the newspaper about Foley’s body being found in the trunk of his car. The police spokesman speculated that the murder was most likely the result of a road rage incident, which was what Willis had expected. There was nothing mentioned about a dog taken from Foley’s house. It was also somewhat surprising to Willis how little space had been given to the murder. Or maybe not so surprising given how the murder rate had been creeping up in Boston over the last two years, which left Foley competing against a number of other equally violent deaths.

  Barry also called him during his fifth day of surveillance to ask why the assignment hadn’t been completed yet. Willis explained that it was because The Factory had to mark the death as suicide. “That complicates the matter,” he said. “She’s got a ten-year-old son living with her so it’s got to be done quietly. If her balcony was on the other side of the building, it would be easy. I could toss her off and she’d land on concrete. But with the shrubs underneath her balcony to provide a soft landing, I don’t think the medical examiner would buy that her neck was broken by the fall.”

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nbsp; Willis was able to go into the details that he did because he knew he was talking over a secured line, and with the level of encryption being used no one would’ve been able to eavesdrop. When Barry responded, it was only with a minimal effort to hide his exasperation.

  “It’s precisely because of her ten-year-old son that I thought this would be a trivial assignment for you,” he said with a voice that bordered on becoming a whine. “I would have to think that with the right persuasion you’d have her willingly swallowing a handful of pills.”

  “And what persuasion would that be?”

  “Must I be this blunt? That if she doesn’t do as you’re demanding, you’ll cripple her son, or worse.”

  “That wouldn’t work,” Willis said. “I thought of that also, but if she’s an insurgent hell-bent on seeing this country go down in flames, why would she care one bit about what I might do to her son?”

  There was a pause from Barry before he admitted in a stilted voice that that might be true. “A pity that you won’t be earning your bonus. That makes three assignments in a row now. Twelve thousand dollars.” Another pause, then, “You will be taking care of this by your deadline?”

  “Yeah.”

  Barry ended the call. Over the next week, Willis maintained his surveillance and saw no evidence that Melanie Hartman was anything other than what she appeared to be, which was a very pretty thirty-two-year-old woman whose life revolved around work and her son. During that week, several new violent home invasion murders seemed to occupy the media’s attention and there was very little else in the newspapers about Foley, and nothing about him on the TV news. Also, no mention about a stolen dog. Either the police were keeping that to themselves or they just didn’t know about it.

  On the last day of Willis’s deadline, Barry called again to find out why the target hadn’t been dealt with yet. There was no exasperation in his voice, only a polite iciness. Willis hesitated before telling Barry that he didn’t believe Melanie Hartman was an insurgent.