Bloody Sunrise: An electrifying psychological thriller

by Gregg Bell

  “Well, the cops are sure I killed her anyway. They arrest me. Their search for the actual killer is over. He stays free. Maybe kills again.”

  His aunt frowned but nodded.

  “So I’ve got to find this guy before it’s too late.”

  “Who are you talking about, Dennis?”

  “Orson.”

  She breathed in deep and seemed to be thinking. “Dennis, it’s all well and good that you want to get Orson, but you have to take care of yourself first. You have to turn yourself in—you can tell the police about Orson then. Resisting arrest is a serious crime. Now, come on. We’ll go right now. I’ll go with you.” She stood and plucked her keys from the desk.

  Gabriela was lingering outside the door.

  Denny turned to her. “Could we have some privacy here?!”

  The young woman hurried to her desk.

  He looked back at his aunt. “I’m not turning myself in.”

  “You don’t understand.” She glowered at him. “Resisting arrest takes things to a whole new level. They could very easily shoot you now!”

  “I’m willing to take that risk.”

  Silence.

  After what seemed an hour, Aunt Elizabeth said, “There’s only one other option.”

  Finally, Denny heard some compassion for him in her voice. “I’m listening.”

  “Wear a wire and somehow get Orson to say that he killed her.”

  Again, Denny felt like he was being thrust into Detective Washington’s role. Only difference was he wasn’t a detective, had no training and didn’t have or know anything about wearing a wire. “I don’t have a wire.”

  “Well, it’s either that or have someone else witness what he says.”

  Yeah right, Denny thought. People were just lining up to help him. “I’ll get it done.”

  His aunt bit her lip. “How? What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” He hurried out of the office.

  “For God’s sake, be careful!” she called after him.

  * * *

  On the way out of his aunt’s office, Denny saw Gabriela hanging up the phone on her desk. The thought flashed through his mind she’d just called the police to turn him in. He’d come on to her. She’d warmed to it. He’d backed off. Now she was angry and retaliating. He walked threateningly close to her. “Who were you just talking to?”

  “What?”

  “Who were you just talking to?!” He grabbed her arm.

  “Hey! Take your hands off me!”

  Aunt Elizabeth ran out from her office. “Dennis! Get out! Now!”

  Denny glared down at the pretty secretary before giving her a hard shake and walking out.

  He ran to his car, panting as he got behind the wheel. He was losing it. But he had to keep moving. Even if Gabriela hadn’t called the cops they’d still be swarming all over looking for him.

  He drove to a Walmart only to discover no Walmarts in the city sold guns, and he would’ve needed to apply and wait for a FOID card even if they had. Whatever. He did, though, buy a micro-cassette recorder, AA batteries and a roll of duct tape. He’d make his own fricking wire, he figured. But damn it, he really needed a gun too. He remembered the big silver pistol at Brig’s and raced back there.

  Something seemed off, though, when he pulled past the car wash and into Brig’s complex’s lot. Even though the car heater was running on high he felt a chill. He dismissed it. He knew from grabbing Gabriela at Aunt Elizabeth’s he was already verging on being paranoid and he couldn’t go there. No, not now.

  He walked up the stairs to Brig’s place. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off and he hesitated before knocking. He had no weapon. Nothing. A tire iron sat in the Camaro’s trunk. That was about it. “Ah.” He shrugged. There was no time. He wasn’t going back for it. He knocked and the door slowly swung open. Oh, this was not good. This was not good at all. But what was he going to do—call the police? He walked into the living room. It was as before—a mess. He tip-toed to the cocktail table and slid open its drawer. The pistol sat there and he lifted it, cold and heavy in his hand. He checked the clip, pushed the safety off and silently as he could chambered a round.

  He was tempted to bolt but something held him there like a magnetic presence. It drew him down the hall and into Brig’s bedroom. Gun drawn, Denny edged into the room. The bed wasn’t made, socks and underwear scattered haphazardly on the floor despite a hamper standing in the corner. Typical Brig mess. Denny turned slowly into the bedroom closet. Nothing.

  Only the bathroom was left and Denny could see that the door was shut. He walked slowly toward it, half expecting the door to pop open. As he got nearer he heard the hum of running water. Was Brig showering? So unlikely at this hour. Denny tried the knob, his wrist screaming in pain. It wasn’t locked. He eased the door open an inch and a puff of steam oozed out, dampening his forearm. “Brig,” he called. The shower was indeed running and Denny could see the shower curtain vaguely reflected in the steamed vanity mirror. He strained to see if there was an image behind the curtain. Louder: “Brig.”

  He pushed the door all the way open. A cloud of steam swabbed and then rushed past him into the hall. He wiped his eyes and as the steam dissipated, bit by bit he could see clearer. A pink tile floor. The translucent shower curtain hung over a porcelain tub gripped by webbed feet. Denny stepped in, his foot slipping on the sweaty floor. Now he could see clearly no one was behind the shower curtain. Still he kept the pistol pointed there.

  Only one thing was left to do. He reached for the shower curtain. He eased it open a couple inches. Still he could see nothing. So he yanked it all the way open. The steam rushed full-force over him, hot, wet, blurring his vision again. He desperately wiped his eyes and when he opened them saw Brig lying face-down in the tub, five bullet holes pocking his back, the holes bloodless with the scalding water cleansing them.

  Denny shut the shower handle, dropped to his knees and felt Brig’s carotid artery for a pulse. Nothing. He was gone. Tears welled in Denny’s eyes. He set the pistol on the floor slick with condensation, lugged his friend up and turned him around so he was in a sitting position. Denny swallowed hard and shut his friend’s eyes. Then he leaned on the edge of the tub, lowered his head and cried. Brig was his one real friend. Denny shook his head remembering how he’d accused him earlier. “I’m sorry, man,” he said. He just kept shaking his head, his tears wetting his forearms. “I’m so sorry, Brig.”

  Denny did some deep breathing, his chest heaving. The anger was exploding inside him. Rashida. Now Brig. And whoever killed them was still out there. He clenched his jaw and pushed off the tub. He stood to his feet, gave Brig one last look, grabbed the pistol and hurried out of the bathroom.

  Yeah, whoever killed them was still out there.

  All the while checking for the cops, and even more for Orson, Denny hustled to his car for the stuff he’d bought at Walmart. He carried the plastic bag up to Brig’s. As he shut the door behind him, he was finally starting to think clearer. And there was no one to think about but Orson. Orson, who said he wanted to kill Brig, and now he’d actually done it. Orson, the phony, the liar, the killer.

  Cringing from the pain in his useless left wrist, Denny took off his coat and then his sweatshirt and shirt. He grabbed the micro-cassette from the box and slipped in two batteries. He made sure it recorded. He stretched out the duct tape and wrapped it twice around the micro-cassette, careful to avoid the controls and microphone, and then taped the micro-cassette to his chest, wrapping the duct tape around four times.

  Foregoing his shirt, he slipped on the sweatshirt, which hung bulky and loosely enough to at least decently obscure the micro-cassette. He snatched up his coat and was out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Denny went down to his car from Brig’s apartment and sat for a while. He had to let the whirl of his mind settle. Brig was dead. Orson his killer. Or was he? Denny asked himself what he really knew. Well, at least he k
new Orson killed Rashida. Or did he even know that?

  Denny squirmed in his seat, the duct tape pulling his chest hairs with every least movement, and kept thinking. Orson. Orson. Orson. Okay, if he wasn’t sure Orson killed anybody he would soon find out. But where would Orson be? Would he have run for it? If so, where to? Or maybe he’d resume his everyday routine? He’d gotten away with killing Rashida. He probably figured he could do the same with Brig.

  Denny drove to the YMCA. He trembled walking in with Brig’s big pistol jammed in the back of his jeans, but he had to do what he had to do. But Orson was nowhere to be found. Denny hurried out of there and headed to Orson’s condo.

  As he drove, he kept hearing Aunt Elizabeth’s voice in his mind’s eye, pleading with him to turn himself in. They could very easily shoot you now! But it didn’t matter at this point. Nothing did. His rage forced him on. He drove down the tree-lined drive into Orson’s complex, a small lake, silver-iced, on his right, evergreens heavy with snow surrounding it.

  He parked in the circular drive in front of Orson’s building. He thought of the bullet holes in Brig’s back. Brig, a war hero. Brig, his only friend, shot in the back by a coward. He thought of Rashida with a clear plastic bag over her head, fighting for her last breath as Orson looked on and laughed. Rashida, his wife. He bit his lip and tasted blood. He unzipped his coat enough to reach under his sweatshirt and carefully pressed the record button on the micro-cassette. It was time.

  He got out of the car, entered the lobby and rode the elevator to the third floor. He walked down the quiet hallway, noticing the glass-encased fire extinguisher, the methodically spaced ceiling smoke detectors, their red status lights glowing. He swallowed hard and felt for the pistol in the back of his jeans. He looked around and then pulled the gun, pushed off the safety, put the gun in the right front pocket of his coat and kept his finger on the trigger. He grimaced as he, with his left hand, unzipped his coat fully. “This is it,” he said, conscious of the micro-cassette recording. “I’m at Orson’s condo and about to knock on his door.” He tried to steady himself. There was a peephole, a light behind it.

  He checked both ways down the hallway and pulled the gun but kept it well below the level of the peephole. He rapped three times on the door with the butt of the gun. His breathing quickened as he waited. His heart raced. Was he really ready to shoot Orson? Even if he wasn’t one hundred percent sure he’d killed anybody?

  The peephole darkened.

  Denny heard the chain glide slide and then the deadbolt turn. The door opened. Orson stood there in yellow sweatpants and a blue fire department t-shirt. His one eye was still bloodshot but he was clean-shaven, looked fresh and composed as ever. Not like someone who’d just pumped five bullets into Brig’s back. Still the die was cast. Denny walked at him with the pistol. “Back the hell up.”

  Orson smiled wryly but obeyed, mockingly throwing up his arms. “You going to shoot me, Denny? Ha ha.”

  Denny kicked the door shut with his foot and narrowed his eyes at him. “You killed Rashida.”

  “Oh my. So you finally figured that out, did you?”

  Denny thought hard about pulling the trigger right then and there. Images of his wife’s frantic face in the plastic bag as she struggled to breathe flashed through his mind’s eye. But he had to know more. “Why? Why’d you do it?”

  “Why?” Orson raised an eyebrow. “Well, ‘why not?’ might be a better question.”

  Denny leveled the pistol at him. “Tell me or I swear I’ll put a bullet in your forehead.”

  “You know what, Denny, that’s the difference between you and me,” Orson said nodding, relaxed. “You don’t know how to take advantage of an opportunity—and I do.”

  Denny scowled. “What are you talking about?”

  Orson crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay, for instance, you just had your chance to shoot me—I gave it to you—and you didn’t take it.” His face fell. “And forever you’ve had the chance to return my love, and you missed every one of those opportunities too.”

  “What?!”

  Orson seemed to recover. “But yeah, the window for all those has closed, as well, and now you’re on your own.”

  “You’re evil. You killed Brig too.”

  “No,” Orson said, shaking his head with a laugh. “I think you did. And as a matter of fact, I changed my mind—I think you killed Rashida too. At least that’s what I’m going to tell my friend Detective Washington.”

  Denny clenched his jaw. He couldn’t think. “You’re gonna pay for this.”

  “Nope.” Orson walked a few steps to a French table under a mirror. “You’re going to.”

  “Stop right there, Orson, or I swear to God I’ll shoot you!” Denny brandished the pistol.

  Orson opened a drawer in the table and took out a black revolver. He turned it on Denny. “Yeah, that’s how it happened.” He pulled the gun’s hammer back. “You raged at The Wild Bull about killing Rashida. You went to her place and killed her. Then you killed Brig and now you came here to kill me. What was I to do but shoot you in self-defense?”

  Denny thought about being at Brig’s apartment, his fingerprints all over the place. Unreal. “Okay, Orson, you win, but I still want to know why. Why’d you kill my wife?”

  “Your wife.” Orson scoffed. “You fool. Can’t you see that’s why I killed her? Because I got so sick and tired of listening to you go on and on about her. Oh my God. The endless blather. Your wife this. Your wife that. How could you not see that there was no room in your heart for me while she was still alive?”

  A headache throbbed over Denny’s right eye. “So before you killed her, you drugged me and followed me and Brig from The Wild Bull.”

  “Oh, very good, Denny.” He smiled. “I must say I’m impressed.”

  “Then you followed me when I left Jammer’s.”

  Another smile. “Huh. You’re not as thick as I thought you were.”

  “And then what?”

  Orson laughed. He seemed to be into it. “Oh, that Rohypnol is so good, isn’t it? I’ve used it many times and people can never remember a thing afterward. You, with the booze in your system on top of the drug, were a sure thing.”

  “But I don’t get it. Why drug me?”

  “Why?” He shrugged. “Because it was a glorious opportunity to finally get to touch you.”

  Denny narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re disgusting.”

  Orson waved his arm. “But little did I know that an even better opportunity would soon be presenting itself.”

  Denny was going to shoot him but something, something he didn’t quite understand, pressed him to keep asking questions. “So then you followed me from Jammer’s?”

  “Yes, I caught up with you when you left Jammer’s. You were still ranting about Powell forcing bondage sex on your poor wife, and you were going to walk to her place because you were sure Powell was there doing something despicable to her.” Another smile. “I was nice enough to give you a ride there.”

  Now, Denny figured, it was time. He was certain Orson killed Rashida and Brig. But again something kept him from pulling the trigger. He gagged on asking—he didn’t need to know any more, he didn’t want to know any more—but he blurted out the words, “And then what?”

  “Well, then you went up to Rashida’s door and surprise surprise—no Powell! And a surprise to me—Rashida let your drunk self in. Maybe she had pity on you because you were so out of it, I don’t know, but it sure made things easy for me.” Orson guffawed.

  “What did you do?”

  “Remember what I said earlier about being good at taking advantage of opportunities?”

  Denny felt the pressure on his trigger finger increase. He couldn’t handle hearing any more.

  “I circled around the back of the house.” Orson smiled broadly. “And jumped the sliding glass door off the track—those things are so easy to break into—and I was in. Oh, it was a regular old domestic altercation between you two. You were yel
ling at her for sleeping with Powell. She was yelling back that she wasn’t sleeping with anybody and that you were drunk.” Orson stopped talking, his smile faded, and his face went stone cold. “But what I hated most about it was that despite all the yelling, I sensed that there was still a lot of love between you two.” He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I hated the most.”

  Denny closed his eyes for a second and exhaled. He would cry later but for now he bit his lip and managed, “What else?”

  “Well, remember what I told you about the difference between you and me?”

  Denny wanted to empty the gun into his face, but he forced himself to say, “The opportunities.”

  “Exactly. And all I had to do was wait for you to take a leak, and then the gold standard of opportunities presented itself.”

  Denny became aware again of the micro-cassette recording everything. If he didn’t shoot Orson, Orson would almost certainly get life in prison with no possibility of parole. But even so, that wouldn’t be punishment enough.

  “You know, I always carry sex aids in my trunk,” Orson continued, “so I had handcuffs (I have duct tape, rope and plastic bags too) handy. So when you were off taking your leak I walked into the room, calmly identified myself as a police officer—flashing my fire department badge, no one ever checks it—said I’d been called to stop a domestic disturbance and cuffed her.”

  Yeah, Denny thought. Life in prison would be too good for this scumbag. He’d shoot him. And even that would be too good for him, but it would have to do.

  “Oh, let me tell you, she was not happy about it, Denny. Oh, not at all. I even had to give her a little Rohypnol. And you were even unhappier about it when you came out of the bathroom and saw her cuffed and me standing next to her. That’s when—and I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was because really I was doing us both a favor—you attacked me. That’s where you got those scratches on your arms and neck because yeah, I had a hard time fighting you off. It took a good whack on the back of the head from old faithful here...” He held up the pistol. “...to finally put you down.”