Sam wasn’t so sure about that. He reminded Roger that Stanley Jenkins was methodical, had a genius IQ and had managed to murder three women before finally getting caught. If anybody was able to do what seemed impossible it was Stanley Jenkins.
Hagstrom’s response was that this sort of crime was not Jenkins’ typical modus operandi. If he wanted to murder Ann, he would have chosen a much more elaborate scheme than a simple hit-and-run. To this, Sam had to agree, but it still didn’t mean Jenkins couldn’t have done it.
Two years had passed since his escape and Jenkins was still a free man despite the massive nation-wide manhunt that had ensued. There hadn’t been so much as a single viable lead in the case in all that time—it was as though Stanley Jenkins had disappeared from the face of the earth. Roger’s guess was that he’d managed to flee the country and was now basking in the sun in the Caribbean. Sam vowed that no matter where he was, he was going to find him.
Much of Sam’s free time in the past year had been spent in search of the man he was certain had murdered his wife. Many were the nights he had scoured the Internet, searching for any indications of Jenkins’ existence. His vacation time had been used up tracking down Jenkins’ former acquaintances in hope he might dig up a clue to his whereabouts. He’d even traveled to the state prison to interview inmates believed to have come in contact with Jenkins. All to no avail. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, Sam was obsessed with finding Jenkins and resentful he had let it consume him this long. But he would not stop his search until he found the murderer. He owed that much to Ann.
As he plopped himself down on the sofa, Sam felt the sudden craving for a cigarette. He had quit a few months ago, thanks to the patch and a lot of self-determination, but he now found himself losing his resolve—not only his resolve to quit smoking but his resolve to cut down on the booze.
He was losing the latter battle miserably. Last night he’d gone out with Roger to the Crafty Mug and gotten totally sloshed. Typical behavior, really. The only good thing was that he’d started early enough to pass out in time to get a decent night’s sleep. The move had been demanding and he now felt fatigued beyond measure.
Tonight he would stay sober, he thought. He would brew a pot of coffee, throw a sandwich together and start unpacking all of this shit.
He went into the kitchen, located the Maxwell House and plugged in the coffee maker. While waiting for it to brew he dug into one of the boxes and started putting the dishes and silverware away. He opened the fridge and realized he’d forgotten to stop off at the grocery and swore under his breath. He started looking for a pencil to start a shopping list when his cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and accepted the call.
“Hey, honey,” he said.
“Hi, Dad. How’s the move going?”
“Okay. I’ve got everything in the house but still need to unpack. How are things up your way?”
“Fine. We just got back from the park. You should’ve seen Hannah! She’s learned how to throw a Frisbee and is awesome at it!”
“Is that right? Of course I’m not surprised. I was pretty good myself back in the old days. She got that from her grandpa.”
“I’m sure she did—you know how bad I am and Mark’s even worse!”
Sam laughed, recalling that Amy’s husband was a little on the klutzy side. “So when are you coming down to see this place?”
“How does next weekend sound? That’ll give you a week to get settled in.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’m taking Monday off so I can get the rest of the utilities hooked up. Don’t have cable or Internet. Can’t live like that for very long.”
“No way. Oh, somebody wants to say hi.”
There was a rustling sound as the phone was being handed over. “Hi, Papa!”
“Hi, Hannah! How was the park, today? I hear you’re quite a Frisbee thrower!”
“Yeah, I guess I’m pretty good. Mommy says we’re going to see your house next week. She says it’s way up on top of a mountain!”
“That’s true. You can see the whole town from up here.”
“I can’t wait to see it. Well, bye, Papa. I love you.”
“I love you, too, sweetie. See you next week!”
“She sure loves her papa,” Amy said.
“And Papa sure loves her. I can’t believe how well she talks on the phone now. She almost sounds like a grown-up.”
“I know—she’s growing up so fast.”
“I’ll have to remember to buy a Frisbee so Hannah and I can toss some. This place has a huge backyard—she’ll love it. It even has a pool.”
“I’m really looking forward to seeing it. I’ve always wondered what that place looks like. The Maynards didn’t have any kids so I never knew anybody who’d ever been up there. Why don’t you email me some pics when you get a chance?”
“That’s a good idea—I’ll do that.”
“Well, gotta go, Dad. I’ll call you later in the week and let you know what time we’ll be there. Don’t work too hard.”
“I won’t. Thanks for calling, honey. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
A smile crossed his face as he disconnected. At least he had something to look forward to now. The prospect of seeing Amy and Hannah would give him incentive to make this place presentable.
He poured himself a steaming mug of coffee, plugged his iPhone into the tiny portable speakers, cued up a Steely Dan tune and commenced to unpack his belongings. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 3
“So what you in for?” asked the enormous black man who was to be his cellmate.
“Not long, hopefully,” Stanley Jenkins replied offhandedly.
The black man roared with laughter and proffered a high-five. “That’s a good one! Me and you gonna get along just fine, white boy!”
Stanley realized that his mouth had already almost gotten him killed. This was no time or place to play comedian and he was fortunate that this hulk of a man, Darrell, had a sense of humor. He needed to be on his guard and cool it from now on, or he’d be dead meat.
“Murder, actually.”
“Same here. Who’d you waste?” he asked in a street-smart, Southern accent.
“Some bitch, that’s all.”
“I hear ya. Pussy ain’t nothin’ but trouble.”
“For sure. Where’re you from?”
“Birmingham. A real shithole. You?”
“California.”
“And they shipped yore white ass all the way to Ohio? Man, you really got screwed!”
“Well, I got caught here. I’m originally from some shit town in the southern part of the state.”
“I see. You get life?”
“Yeah, without parole. But I’m not gonna serve it.”
“How’s that?”
“I’m gonna get the fuck out of here.”
Darrell guffawed. “Is that right? If so, you gonna be the first that ever done it!”
“First time for everything.”
“And how you plan on ’scapin’ this place? You ain’t been here an hour yet—you don’t even know even what you gettin’ yourself into.”
“Well, it won’t happen overnight—but it will happen. And I probably know more about this place than the fucking warden does.”
“You ain’t short on self-confidence, that’s for sure,” Darrell said. “So tell me about this ho you wasted.”
Stanley balked—here’s some con he just met asking him to play true confessions. The odd thing was, he didn’t really give a shit. And he’d much rather be on the good side of this behemoth than the wrong side, for sure. He looked at Darrell for a moment, who was staring at him expectantly. Then he began.
“Well, it all started back when I was in high school. I knew this babe and fell for her like a lead balloon. I started casing her out—you know, sorta trying to get my nerve up to ask her out some day.”
“What you mean by casing her out? Like, why the hell not just ask her out and s
ee what she says?”
“It wasn’t quite as easy as that. I was a bit of a—nerd you might say. Really shy, butt-ugly, horned-rim glasses, the entire geek package. Girls didn’t like me one iota. In fact, nobody liked me because I was so smart and a big loser. I can thank my fucking parents for that, by the way. They never let me have fun or crawl out of my shell, just wanted me to study so I could get a great paying job some day and become a fine, upstanding citizen. All of that bullshit.
“Anyway, since I wasn’t exactly Prince Charming I wanted to be sure I didn’t blow it with this chick when I finally did get up the nerve to ask her out. So I figured the best way to avoid failure was to observe her—find out what she was all about. You know, what she liked to do, what kind of guys she liked, what her friends were like, shit like that. So I followed her around without her knowing and watched her at night while she was in her bedroom studying and listening to music.”
“So you was a stalker and a peeping Tom,” Darrell offered.
“Not really—this was different. Like, I was only focused on this one chick, not just anybody. At any rate, I did this nearly my entire senior year and learned about everything there was to learn about Ann—that was her name. Then one day I finally asked her out.”
“What’d she say?”
A flashback of that night at the basketball game fleeted through Stanley’s mind and his blood pressure surged. Clenching his fists, he could see still those two bitches wearing their poker-straight faces, inwardly laughing at him from their seats as he approached Ann on the sidelines.
“She turned me down.”
“You shittin’ me?”
“I shit you not. And the worse part was that a couple of her friends had set me up. They told me that Ann secretly had the hots for me and was hoping I’d ask her to prom. Being the fucking fool I was, I actually believed them.”
“So what’d you do? That had to be tough.”
“After looking at me like I was crazy, she told me she already had a date to prom. I was totally devastated. I think it was that moment I knew I was going to make them pay for it. The seed was planted, you might say.”
“So you killed them all? This chick and her friends?”
“Just her friends,” Stanley replied flatly. “Plus another bitch who just so happened to look like Ann.”
“But that had to been a long time ago. You fifty if you a day. And you just now got caught?”
“Took me a while to take care of them, you might say.”
“So what ever happened to your dream girl?”
“She’s still alive. For now.”
“You sayin’ you gonna kill her ass after you ’scape prison?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“What you mean?”
“Let’s just say it’s a thought.”
“You a fuckin’ trip, man! You crazy-ass but I like your style!”
Stanley managed a smile. “So tell me about yourself, Darrell.”
As he spoke, Stanley’s mind was elsewhere. Things were already beginning to click. He’d already researched the layout of the prison and surrounding area—now it looked as though he’d found an accomplice. All he had to do now was begin devising a plan for his escape.
Life is good.
Chapter 4
Sam’s first waking thought was that he actually felt decent for a change. The reason for that was simple: it was the first Sunday morning he hadn’t been hung-over in what seemed like forever.
The first yellow rays of sunlight were pouring in through his bedroom window and he smiled. His new mountaintop home had a head start with the morning sunrise and the bedroom had southeastern exposure. He was going to love this place.
He got out of bed, slipped on a flannel shirt before heading to the kitchen. It was chilly so he bumped up the thermostat on his way to the coffeemaker. After preparing a pot of coffee he went over to the window and gazed out. Smithtown was still asleep with little traffic at this early hour. Although it was Sunday morning, even the churchgoing folks were yet to emerge from their homes.
There was a thick fog hanging over the river laying just low enough that he could see the hills of Kentucky beyond it. Shafts of morning sun pierced through the fog, creating a picture-perfect scene. Sam went over and picked up his iPhone, threw open one of the bay windows and composed a shot. He shot several frames until he felt he had done the scene justice.
As he set his cell phone down, he thought of how much the world had changed in the last decade. It didn’t seem that long ago he would have reached for his Nikon to take these photos—not a goddamn phone. A cell phone was a luxury back then, with the majority of the population still relying on landlines and payphones to make a call. Now all of that had changed. A cell phone was standard equipment for anyone old enough to hold one.
He poured himself a mug of strong coffee and felt the incredible urge to light up a cigarette as usual. Old habits die hard. He pulled a chair over to the window and sat down in it. Although he’d been a widower for nearly a year now, he still felt an undeniable void not having Ann around. He missed her like crazy. What made it even harder was that he’d already been through this in a sense after their divorce. But this time was different. Ann wasn’t alive—he couldn’t pray to get her back again someday.
A tear came to his eye and he fought back the urge to break down. Many were the times he’d given in to his sorrow and felt like a hopeless weakling. He was stronger than this, or so he’d always thought. But the truth was, he may never be able to get over losing her.
He needed to get out of this funk somehow—the sooner the better. He was useless like this, dwelling on the past and feeling sorry for himself. He needed to lighten up and look at the positive things for a change. Thinks like Amy, Hannah, his writing, and now, this house.
He was thrilled that his last novel was being received so well. Although sales hadn’t been nearly as brisk as he’d hoped for, the critics had given it great reviews. His agent was trying to get a book tour organized to help promote the thing but since the publishing industry was undergoing so many changes with the advent of eBooks and so on, it was beginning to tighten up the purse strings. Book tours were becoming few and far between except for the super popular established authors.
Book tour or not, Sam had always dreamt of being a successful author and at last it was happening. The icing on the cake was that his first book had been a mystery primarily based on the real life experiences he had lived through while Stanley Jenkins was on his killing spree. It was the story of a ruthless serial killer preying on the women of Foxburg, Ohio, a small Midwestern town not unlike Smithtown. Sam had felt somewhat vindicated that he’d been able to turn such a horrific experience into a positive one when the book had become an Edgar Award nominee. All he could think of was how he had in some way gotten back at Stanley for all of the pain and suffering he’d caused his family. It was like, fuck you, Stanley—
The mere thought of Stanley Jenkins soured his mood. What he wouldn’t give to see the monster back in prison where he belonged. Or better yet, put to death. He should have gotten the death penalty but his lawyer had managed to work out a plea deal. Jenkins also should have stood trial for the other two women he’d murdered, Sara Hunt and Cindy Fuller, but had manage to dodge another bullet. For reasons Sam never understood neither New York nor Colorado prosecutors chose to take the cases to trial.
Enough, he thought. Time to move forward and forget that piece of shit. He suddenly decided to do something he’d wanted to do the moment he’d first laid eyes on this place. He marched into the bedroom, slipped into his jeans, a pair of sneakers and grabbed an Ohio State hoodie from the closet. After stopping off at the kitchen to fill his travel mug with hot coffee he headed out the front door.
Off to his right he spotted the path that ran up to the top of his mountain. He broke into a run. As he entered the woods he could already feel pain in his stiff joints and some shortness of breath. He slowed down his pace. He was so out of shape
it was laughable—too many smokes, too much booze and a sedentary lifestyle. At that moment he vowed to start jogging again. Regularly. He had no excuse for putting it off now—especially since he had the best jogging path in town literally in his backyard.
The main path was wide enough to accommodate the road crew and equipment that had originally cut down the trees to create it. He wondered how long it had been in existence and decided he would look up the history of Three-Mile Hill. The only thing he knew for certain was that this place was absolutely beautiful. Towering stands of oak, maple, beech and chestnut trees as far as the eye could see. The only sounds were the chirping of birds and the occasional rustling of leaves by scurrying squirrels.
Sam had probably jogged close to half a mile before slowing down to a walk. The sun had fully risen and the woods were bathed in golden sunlight. The air felt brisk and Sam wondered how long it would be before the mercury hit freezing for the first time—winter was only weeks away.
He spotted a fallen tree trunk just off the path and sat down on it. Surveying his surroundings, he took a sip of coffee and let out a long sigh. This is it. As good as it gets. A smile came to his face as it dawned on him that things could certainly be worse in his life. Although he’d lost his wife, he was not about to spend the rest of his days feeling sorry for himself. He somehow had to forge ahead. Ann would want that, he realized. The tough part was leaving the past behind. There were constant reminders of how it used to be everywhere he turned. How can you avoid that? It seemed impossible.
He only knew that being here this very moment at one with nature wasn’t hurting any. He felt at peace here. Nothing to distract him from the beauty of it all. The air was fresh, the sky was blue and no one around but himself and the animals of the forest. How much better does it get?
He took a few more sips of coffee and stood up. Feeling refreshed, he continued along the path at a fairly brisk gait, neither a walk nor a run. He wasn’t sure how much longer his knees could take the shock of running so he maintained his pace and began planning out the day. The first thing he’d do was run to a supermarket and get some groceries. Then he’d fix a light breakfast and resume unpacking, arranging the furniture and setting up his office. Then he would get back to his latest manuscript.
The May Day Murders Sequel Page 2
