Spree

by Michael Morley

  “Let me stay until the end of the day.”

  “That’s not going to happen. We have to think about the integrity of the inquiry and we have a duty of care toward you, too. Doctor Janner and I have discussed this and we’re both of the mind that it’s best if you’re not here.”

  “I don’t believe this.” Angie looked lost.

  Chips put a hand reassuringly on her arm. “Let me sort out your computer while you get together whatever you have to.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll drive you home,” offered Suzie Janner.

  “No need. I drove myself in. I can drive myself out.”

  “Then I’ll come back with you and we can chat.”

  Angie was too annoyed to argue. She pulled a carrier bag out of a bottom drawer of her desk.

  “Not files, I hope?” said McDonald.

  “Personal books and photographs,” Angie lied. She held out the bag. “You want to check?”

  “No need.” Her boss fixed her with a steely gaze. “I’m hoping I can trust you, so don’t let me down.”

  Chips clacked away at her keyboard. The monitor fizzed to black and he stepped away. “All done.”

  Angie grabbed her cardigan from around the back of the desk chair.

  Chips hugged her warmly, tried to squeeze some strength into her. “I’ll call you later.”

  Ruis opened the door. “You need me for anything, I’m right here for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  The mob walked her out of the room. Janner and McDonald lagged behind, talking in hushed voices that Angie could still hear. They were discussing her mental state. The strain on the baby. Whether she really would stay out of the case. All good questions. Ones she’d been asking herself.

  Angie thought about the copy of her checklist that she’d given to Chips. He’d already been around to SKU and emptied Jake’s office drawers; the contents were in her carrier bag. Copies had been made of his computer files, and later Chips would mail them from his private PC to her private Mac.

  The mob turned the corner with her and waited by the elevators. There was a ding and a car opened.

  Danielle Goodman stepped out.

  She froze.

  Angie saw horror fill the woman’s eyes. She knew. That waste of space knew exactly what her stupidity had resulted in.

  “You’re one lucky bitch.” Anger took over. Pulled Angie’s arm back. Delivered a hard sharp punch to Danielle’s nose.

  Blood bubbled from Danielle’s nostrils and she cried in horror.

  Angie shook the tingle out of her knuckles. “Don’t be around when my good arm’s fixed, I might really hurt you.”

  She walked into the lift and turned around. The last thing she saw before the doors closed was Goodman kneeling on the floor, blood pouring like spilled tomato soup down the front of her ridiculous white dress.

  14

  He stood and looked at the body for what seemed an eternity. The printed paper in one hand was of the human skeleton—a guide to where to cut. In the other hung the tools for the job—hammer, chisel, saw, knife.

  But Shooter couldn’t do it.

  He could kill with a pistol, with a rifle, even with his hands. But he couldn’t dismember another human being. A few feet away stood buckets, water, sponges and cloths. Everything to clean up the mess that would inevitably be made.

  But he couldn’t do it.

  Mutilating a dead body was crossing a line he’d never even considered going anywhere near.

  But Januk was problematically big.

  Severing his head wouldn’t be enough.

  Even taking off his legs would leave a mass too heavy to lift and easily conceal.

  Shooter looked again at the anatomical drawings he’d printed off.

  There would have to be five cuts. Neck. Both legs. Both arms.

  He slumped to his knees and began.

  15

  Douglas Park, Santa Monica

  Angie drove in a daze. The emotions of the day had tired her out, and the incident with Danielle Goodman was a warning sign that she couldn’t take much more. She didn’t normally give in to anger like that. Not since her troubled teens had she lashed out when the pressure had gotten too much.

  She parked and waited at the curb outside her apartment block for Suzie Janner.

  The medic arrived about fifteen minutes later.

  “How is Danielle?” Angie asked as they walked together to her front door.

  “She’ll live. I’ve sent her for an X-ray. I’m fairly sure you broke her nose.”

  Angie said nothing. She wasn’t going to fake remorse or apologize when she didn’t really mean it. She opened her front door and ushered her friend into the two-bedroom rental.

  “I should just warn you,” added Suzie, “she was talking lawsuits when I left her.”

  “Funny you should say that. I’m thinking of suing her—for professional negligence resulting in murder. I reckon there’s no end of attorneys who’d like to handle that case and go for punitive damages.”

  Suzie looked shocked. This was so unlike the smart, cultured psychologist that she was used to.

  “Listen,” protested Angie, “I get that she didn’t kill Jake, but what she made him say resulted in him being killed. The least she deserves is a broken nose.” She headed to the kitchen. “You drink tea, not coffee, right?”

  “Black with no sugar, please.” Suzie settled at the dining table adjacent to the kitchen area and two soft cotton sofas. They’d been arranged for a couple to sit close. There were matching cushions and stacked car and house magazines, two books on two small side tables and a thin, neat flat-screen hung on the wall like a picture frame.

  Angie set water boiling and looked for clean crockery in the dishwasher.

  Jake’s Dodgers mug gleamed at her.

  It was only one among many cups, plates and glasses, but it was all she could see.

  His lucky mug.

  On game days he’d insist on all his drinks being made in it.

  She snagged two plain mugs from a top rack and filled one with instant coffee and the other with tea.

  “There are so many reminders of him lying around.” She placed the drinks on coasters on the table. “Part of me wishes they weren’t here. Some of me wishes there were more.”

  “That’s understandable. Balance will come.”

  “I know. I’m mentally mapping myself through the grief process—first there’s the shock, then the anger, then sadness and finally a fresh focus. I know the route.”

  Suzie picked up her tea. “Judging from the punch you threw, I’d say you were stalled at stage two, anger.”

  “Yeah, and I’m probably going to stay there until I find Jake’s killer and fix him a nice cell on Death Row.”

  The tea was too hot and Suzie put it back down. “This is where I remind you that your boss sent you home so you wouldn’t work the case.” The tone indicated she knew that wasn’t likely.

  “Reminder duly noted.”

  “Seriously, though, your head is going to be everywhere for the next few days. Grief fills you with doubt. It makes you question everything you believe in. You’ll sleep badly, dream horribly, maybe even hallucinate. Have you got anyone who can come and stay with you for a few days?”

  “I’m not big on girlfriends. I’ll do just fine on my own.” She picked up her coffee but like her friend’s tea it was too hot. “Suzie, I really appreciate you coming over, but honestly, I don’t need my hand held through this. Please don’t go mentioning grief counselors you can recommend or homeopathic antidepressants you think I should take.”

  Suzie laughed. “I won’t. But if you need some help making arrangements or you just want to chat, then let me know.”

  “That’s kind of you.”

  “Not at all. How are you feeling about the baby?”

  “Mainly good. I think Jake and I had found a way through things.” She struggled for a moment. An involuntary image hit her—an imaginary one of Jake a
t her bedside, holding the baby just after birth. She tried to block it out. She knew she had to throw Suzie off track, otherwise she’d go probing her emotional state, and that would be more than she could take. “The fight I got into, not the one with Danielle”—she raised her still bandaged elbow—“the one with the rapist, it scared me.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “I know, but I was scared for the baby, not me. Even after I was checked out and told everything was okay, I still felt worried.”

  “Maternal instinct.”

  “You think?”

  “I know. Being at home for the moment is better for both you and the baby. Your condition is the child’s condition. When you’re strung out or in danger, so is the fetus.”

  “I get the message.”

  “Good, but don’t go underestimating the ordeal you’re going through. Bereavement and a first birth aren’t supposed to happen together. Carrying a new life does strange things to you physiologically. Losing someone you love does odd things to you mentally.”

  “I know.”

  “I know you know. As a psychologist, you must realize both carry risks of depression; they pressure your identity and personality and they can leave you imagining things, hallucinating and feeling desperate.”

  Angie grabbed her coffee for comfort. It was cool enough to sip. Talking about the baby and her need to care for it had momentarily distracted her from the agony of losing Jake. But now the grief was back. Welling up like a sickness in her stomach. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d really like to be alone.”

  Suzie ignored the hint to leave. “You’re in shock and your anger is making you internalize. Don’t lock people out and bottle things up. It’s not healthy; you know that. You’re going to create problems for yourself.”

  Angie stood up. “Thanks. I’ll take the advice, but right now I need to crash and get some rest.”

  Suzie let out a sigh and gathered her stuff. “Okay. But I’m going to call you and pester you. And you ring me night or day.”

  “I promise.” She walked to the front door and opened up. “Thanks for coming by.”

  “You know you’re welcome. I’m a friend, and I’m only trying to look after you.”

  Angie nodded.

  Suzie took one last shot at making her see sense. “Think on this—you’re in your first trimester. Your baby is growing fast. Little fingers and toes are forming. Eyelids are almost fully developed. Nerve cells in the brain are branching out and connecting. Lungs are shaping and developing. The miracle of life is in full flow. Please don’t let Jake’s death distract and damage you. Focus on the new, on the future, not the poison of the past.”

  “I will.”

  They briefly hugged and Suzie left.

  Angie closed the apartment door and felt the last of her energy go. She was empty. Depleted. Beaten.

  Tears started to flow and she tried to fight them. She told herself she was not going to fall apart. She needed to be strong.

  But the tears still came.

  She took a long, slow breath and shut her eyes.

  Anger was building. Unstoppable rage. Coming to the boil beneath the salted tears.

  Angie opened her eyes and smashed her left fist into the door. She hit it once, twice, three times. Not until she saw blood and split skin did she stop what she was doing. Not until her heart and body hurt as much physically as they did emotionally did she let her hand hang by her side.

  Then she wept. No holding back. No slow seeping tears. She cried her heart out and slid down the door. Curled up on the floor like she’d done as a child. Made sure no more hurt could get in.

  16

  The dismemberment took Shooter most of the day. If he hadn’t vomited and lost his nerve several times, he’d have finished much earlier. But the emotional trauma stopped him repeatedly.

  Five cuts. Six pieces. It had sounded so easy. Now, with the torso hacked into bloody chunks, there was one final problem.

  Where to get rid of the pieces.

  A plan was forming in his troubled mind, but for it to succeed, he needed to work carefully. Make sure there were no mistakes. No more unexpected setbacks—like the dismemberment.

  Shooter washed each ragged limb under a shower hose, bagged it, bound it with tape, put it in a second bag and taped it again. He rammed stacks of newspapers into the open wounds and holes of the torso and bound the great hunks of meat in multiple garbage bags.

  When he was finished, he was confident he could handle all the pieces without telltale splits or leakage. His intention was to load Januk’s station wagon with the body parts and drive to a dump. Puente Hills, America’s biggest landfill, lay less than twenty miles and under half an hour away. If he could get over there under cover of darkness, then he had around a thousand acres of waste to hide the limbs in. He’d read that the site was so full they’d stopped taking new garbage for a while, maybe forever, but there were still dozers there and staff burying and shaping millions of tons of waste into something that one day might not be so much of an eyesore.

  The way Shooter figured things, he’d go in to work as normal. There’d be chaos when everyone realized the supervisor wasn’t around. It would take senior management at headquarters hours to find out Januk had gone AWOL. He would call them and offer to keep an eye on things until they got a new face over to run the show. Around midnight, he’d take one of the work vans and come back to the Polack’s station wagon. He’d drive home, load it with the big fat Januk jigsaw and take the Pomona freeway out to Puente. The site was fenced but there were sure to be security holes that locals got through to drop their own trash. He’d cruise the terraced trash hills until he found one. Most probably down near the Rio Hondo bookstore or off Workman Mill Road.

  Once he got there, he’d dispose of the body parts, drive back to Skid, pick up the van and return to work. If he caught a break, he’d do it all within a ninety-minute stretch. If he was unlucky and got caught, everything he’d devoted his life to up until now would be ruined.

  17

  Douglas Park, Santa Monica

  Angie filled a sandwich bag with ice and held her smashed-up hand inside it to take down the swelling. She used to feel guilty after a violent outbreak. Even dirty. Not today. The explosion had been all that had kept her sane.

  Her phone rang all afternoon with calls from well-wishers who’d seen Jake’s death on the news. Somehow their sympathies just added to the strain.

  Crawford Dixon called and wanted to come by, but she managed to put him off for at least a day.

  Angie wandered around the apartment like a dazed and dangerous animal in a cage. Around 5:00 p.m. she plumped up cushions on the sofa and fell asleep through exhaustion. She woke an hour later and found she was holding a shirt of Jake’s that she’d been taking from the bedroom to the washing machine and had decided she couldn’t let go of. Maybe this was the craziness that Suzie Janner had warned her about. She held the white cotton to her face and felt hopelessly close to her dead fiancé.

  Her door buzzer went. At first she ignored it. After the second buzz she wearily went to the intercom screen on the wall and was relieved to see it was Chips outside and not anyone else.

  She clicked him through and left the door open while she hid Jake’s shirt in the bedroom.

  The young assistant came in breathless. He was hauling a suitcase, a laptop and a bag of groceries.

  “What’s that?” she asked, reappearing from the bedroom, her eyes on his clutter.

  “More files, my laptop, food and an overnight case.” He put them down. “I’m not going to take no for an answer. You can kick me out in the morning if you want, but I’d like to be here for you tonight.”

  “There’s really no need.”

  “There’s every need. And if you send me home, then I’m only going to stay up all night worrying about you.”

  She gave in. “Thanks. That’s very considerate of you.”

  “That’s the kind of guy I am.”

/>   “I’ve got to warn you, I’m a bit temperamental.” She lifted her swollen hand.

  He went over to comfort her. “God, was that from hitting Danielle?”

  Angie looked ashamed. “No. The door.”

  He looked surprised, then followed Angie’s eye-line to where he’d just come in. The back of the MDF door had multiple holes in it.

  “Sweet baby Jesus, remind me never to upset you.” He picked up the brown bag of groceries he’d brought and headed to the kitchen. “While I make something to eat—because I’m sure you haven’t had anything since yesterday—you need to call Lieutenant O’Brien.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s been made lead officer on Jake’s case.”

  “That’s good news. O’Brien is human enough to share a little off-the-record information.” She picked up her cellphone and called straightaway.

  “Cal, it’s Angie Holmes.”

  “Hello, Doc.”

  She could tell from his tone that he was surprised to hear from her and thrown by how focused she sounded. “I just heard you’re running Jake’s case.”

  “Angie, I’m really very sorry for your loss. We’re busting our asses to find whoever did this.”

  “I’m sure you are. I’m glad you’re the OIC.”

  O’Brien knew why she’d called and where this conversation was headed. “Before you say anything else, I should tell you that I’ve already had your boss on the line, asking me to make sure that you don’t try to co-investigate this case. Now, that’s not why you’re calling me, is it?”

  “I need to go to Jake’s apartment but wanted to make sure you had finished with the scene before I drove over.”

  “CSIs wrapped there about an hour ago.” He thought for a moment and then added, “When are you planning to go over?”

  “Within the next half hour.”

  “Then I’ll be there for you.”

  18

  Mar Vista, LA

  Halfway down an all-too-familiar street, Angie saw Jake’s face staring out from an LAPD poster nailed to a tree. It was an appeal for information in relation to last night’s shooting. The picture was one she hadn’t seen before, and it hurt to see something new about him made public. It was as though she’d already lost her unique closeness to him.