by Nick Keller
“Good evening, gentlemen. Table for two?”
“No,” Bernie said, limping up to the podium. “We’re with L.A.P.D.,” flashing his badge and making the girl’s eyes widen, “and we need Ingmar Cantrell, right now.”
“Oh, uh—she got cut already.”
“Cut?” Bernie said with a flinch.
“She left, I mean.”
“When.”
“Earlier.”
“I said when.” Bernie seemed to grow in stature as he leaned over the girl.
The girl started to shrink. “Hour ago?”
William and Bernie looked at each other, darkly. “She would have made it home by now,” William said.
“Martinez would have radioed us. Dammit. Come on.” Bernie hobbled back out the door followed by William.
When they got back to the car and woke his laptop up, he saw he’d gotten another email—Celebrity Pop Mag.
He ignored again, bringing Ingmar’s information back up. He checked her financials. Studying it, Will said, “She’s had several charges go to a MasterCard in her name from… The Hot Spot. Goes there on Thursdays a lot. Lady’s night, maybe? Looks like a club.”
“Where.”
“Go toward the city. I’m bringing it up.”
THE HOT SPOT WAS DOWNTOWN, just a few blocks from Alameda Street. The damn place was packed, everyone wanting to get in on Thursday lady’s night, with a line outside a block long, mostly dudes. Lights and the thump of house music sprayed the curb area every time somebody went in or out giving the street a glimpse of the world within. It made Bernie huff.
Still tender on his feet he made his way to the doorman who stopped them both. Bernie flashed his badge, said, “Don’t ask.” It was like the city key. The doorman waved them both in.
William was submerged in sensory overload once they got past the entry. It was dark and exceedingly loud. Lights like a star flashed intermittently showering half-processed visuals over the place. Silhouettes fused together, all moving independently but with a strange, frenzied unison, bumping and shouting over the electronic master mix thudding like impact blasts to a hammer beat. Everything shook—the floor, the air, even his innards.
Bernie shouted something in William’s ear which sounded like, “Move around, I’m going to the bar!”
Finding a blond bombshell in this place was going to be impossible. Everyone was a bombshell, even the dudes. William nodded and burrowed his way deeper into the crowd. Forget the dance floor; he’d have to move around. People sat en masse bopping along to electronica and sipping their beers and cocktails. William scoped around frantically. He could identify nothing. Everyone looked the same. No faces, just shadow and light.
Dammit!
Way to the other side of the club, Bernie thrust his way to the bar. The crowd was still too compacted together to make any movement easy. His size and approach tended to spread them out. When they bumped him, spears of hurt throbbed up and down his flanks triggering his anger impulses. He had to wrestle it down. Patrons were three deep waiting to order drinks at the bar. He knew who he was looking for. He’d seen her picture. It wasn’t much to go on. He started scoping.
William was submerged in people. His hopeless gaze continued scanning until a fulmination of strobe lights showered the area, and he saw her. A blonde head with long, coiled hair moving away from him. He froze, eyes wide placing her location. Darkness dropped over the crowd again. He started swimming frantically through people—can’t let her get too far. Can’t lose her.
He neared her. She had a drink in her hand sipping it through a straw. Who was she with, friends, a new beau, Starlet Killer? He couldn’t tell. Maybe she was alone. He reached for a shoulder, but got cut off by the crowd. She continued moving away.
“Ingmar! Ingmar Cantrell!”
She couldn’t hear him. Hell, he couldn’t hear himself.
Meanwhile, Bernie stared at one of the girls across the bar area. He couldn’t tell exactly if it was Ingmar, but the similarities were convincing. He had to find out.
He shouldered his way through the immediate crowd spinning a few guys around angrily. His eye contact said—try it. They backed away.
He made it to the bar. Amidst the commotion, he went unnoticed. He sidled up next to her catching her gaze. She looked up at him with a weary look.
The face. The eyes. The little grin. “Ingmar Cantrell!” he screamed. She made an insulted, disinterested look at him and faded away into the crowd, her girlfriends quick on her heels.
Nope. Not her.
He grimaced and looked up at the bar tender who ignored him, moving onto the next pretty girl at the bar. He nodded. These were bar rules at the club: serve the hotties, let the males wait.
Over at William’s position, he had moved all the way around the dance floor in his pursuit of the girl, bumping and slipping through the crowd. He was getting close to her, now. He reached for her shoulder again and brushed it.
His touch got lost in a sea of tactile overload. Ingmar ignored it. He snarled and reached again, this time stopping her abruptly. Her drink sloshed out and she spun around. Her lips moved as if to form the word, “Asshole!” but he couldn’t hear. He did, however, get a good look.
The right complexion. Right hair. Wrong eyes. Not her. Dammit! He sank away.
William met Bernie at the bar and shoved his way in. “Nothing?” Bernie yelled.
“We’re not going to find her in this place!”
“What?”
“We’re not going to…”
Bernie flashed a hand at him shutting him up as the bartender approached again. Bernie waved him down, but he ignored again moving by. Angrily, Bernie thrust a hand at him and snatched him by the arm. The bartender gave him an entitled look, pissed off and untouchable. Bernie flashed his badge at him, and he melted. Leaning over the bar Bernie screamed, “Cantrell! Is there a tab on Cantrell?”
“You want a drink?”
Bernie took him around the scruff pulling him closer. “Cantrell! Go find out!”
He moved away. Bernie screamed, “Who comes to these fucking places—Jesus!”
“What?” William yelled. Bernie just shook his head.
The bartender came back. “No Cantrell, dude!”
It was probably a stage name anyway. The girl’s tab was probably under Smith or Jones or Russel or some perfectly common Midwestern white girl’s name. Bernie screamed at William, “We’re not going to find her in this goddamn place!”
“That’s what I said.”
“What? Never mind. Let’s just go.”
BACK AT THE car Bernie snatched up the radio, enormously happy to be out of the club. “Martinez, what’s the situation over there?”
“Detective, there you are. She’s home. Been here about ten minutes. I called, sir.”
Bernie gave William an angry look. That figures. “She alone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t do anything. Keep an eye on her apartment unit. If anyone shows up, intervene. We’ll be there in twenty.”
They pulled up to the Palm Harbor Apartments just after midnight. The squad car was parked off to the side, in the back. At least Martinez had the senses to stay covert.
Bernie chucked it into park and sat, just looking for a moment. He finally muttered, “I’m going to go check. Stay here and listen for police reports.” He got out of the car before William could rebut. The door slammed.
William could only watch as Bernie moved to the squad car sitting halfway across the lot. The big man stood over the passenger’s door pointing up to the girl’s apartment. The Blues got out following Bernie to the stairs.
William nodded to himself. They were going up, and Bernie had his hand clutched over his gun’s grip in his breast holster. The other guys followed coolly, their feet clicking on the pavement.
Half frustrated, William settled into the seat. He gathered his laptop and opened it. No more emails. In a few pokes, he brought up his inbox and scanned to the most recent.
He looked up through the windshield. Bernie was at the top landing moving toward door 216. He stopped, motioning the cops to stay a few paces back. Then he knocked on the door. They were too far for William to hear anything so he looked down at his computer.
Bringing up the most recent message the email screen opened. A loading bar began cycling. William flinched. Celebrity Pop Mag had sent a large file, perhaps a .pdf. It’d take a few seconds to open, so he looked back up at his partner.
Door 216 opened, but only a few inches. It was on a chain bolt. William could detect Bernie talking to the occupant, then the door closed back, unlocked, and re-opened wide. The occupant was a young woman, early twenties, bright blond hair showing under her door’s porch light. William sighed in relief. It was Ingmar Cantrell—
Alive.
William watched as Bernie stepped into her apartment and disappeared followed by the two cops. The door shut behind them.
Thank God…
William put his eyes back to the computer screen. At first the image didn’t make any sense, but once he understood what he looked at, his eyes widened in sudden terror. A gasp slipped out from his lips. The image—
It was Iva. She stood on a pier at the Shell Shack Restaurant. She smoked a cigarette with another woman. A blond. William recognized her. That actress. Sara Hunter. She smoked a cigarette, too. It was a candid shot taken from a long distance. Some underground paparazzi had spied them smoking together on the pier and snapped the shot. It had been weeks ago. The story had finally made its way onto the Celebrity Pop Mag online rack. Both of them were giggling, getting along.
William scrolled down. There was an article attached to the picture for Celebrity Pop Mag, an online eZine. A news blog. The article headline read:
Is Sara Hunter breaking guild rules again with a new hands-on personal assistant?
William shot a panicked look to the radio. The Better Letter Lotto had called the letters I and C.
He heard himself choke out, “Iva?”
But it didn’t make sense. What did the C mean?
“Oh, God!” he said.
Corrington. Susan Corrington…
Iva.
Iva Corrington!
He threw the door open, stepped out and screamed, “Bernie!”
42
IVA
Bernie tore the steering wheel to the left when they hit Cantor Street, slewing the Chrysler into a ninety-degree skid. Rubber slid across wet pavement. He stomped on the pedal emitting an engine roar which made the blood in William’s veins freeze up. They were eight miles from home, and it seemed like a world away.
Bernie had his radio clutched in his hand, the other ripping the wheel left and right. “Martinez, five-oh-eight Remar, Hacienda Heights. Get dispatch. Call in backup. Get every available unit. There’s going to be a—” the word got caught in his throat. He swallowed hard, like forcing a rock down his gullet and screamed, “Jesus, just go, go, goddammit go!”
“Copy!”
Bernie screamed to William, “Call her, call her!”
William had already dialed her number. The phone rang once, twice, three times. William’s eyes went to Bernie. The big man was hunched over the wheel, ripping left, right, licking his lips. It rang a fourth time, then the answering service picked up. “You reached Bernie’s house. That’s me. Leave a…”
William thumbed off the phone and groaned, “No answer, Bernie.”
The car jammed over a curb taking a severe skid onto the adjoining thoroughfare where Bernie put the pedal down. Within seconds they heard the dispatch call over the police scanner radio.
Terrifying words.
“All available units, depart to five-oh-eight Remar for possible one-eighty-seven. Repeat, all available units…”
One-eighty-seven. The code for a dead body.
Bernie barked the Chrysler up an onramp and went screaming onto the empty highway leaving the squad car behind, their sirens fading away and away in the night.
BERNIE LOCKED all four tires on the street sliding to a long, screaming stop. Before the Chrysler was at rest, he was out leaving his door open and hauling ass up to the front door.
“Iva! Iva!” he bellowed.
William jumped out into the night feeling his pulse spike, his blood turn cold. The scene inside—God only knew what they’d find.
“Bernie, wait!”
Bernie keyed open the door and barreled inside throwing on the light switch. He was already storming through the living room, into the kitchen, screaming, “Iva baby! Iva!” William entered the house and stopped.
Iva wasn’t returning his cries. She either wasn’t here, or…
There was blood. It was in the hallway, on the wall. Bernie hadn’t noticed in his haste.
William stutter-stepped toward it, his own blood running still inside him. Distantly, he heard police sirens approaching. From the kitchen, Bernie threw open the garage door with a bang. “Iva, baby, you here?”
William threw a glance back over his shoulder, then toward the blood slathered across the wall. Looking down, there was more on the floor. A trail. Someone had left that blood, either coming or going.
Oh Jesus…
He rounded the corner peeking around. The blood led into the master suite at the end of the hallway. He took a step forward.
The Celebrity Pop mag e-zine headline—A New Hands-On Personal Assistant…
What did it mean?
He heard Bernie bang through the backdoor across the house still calling for her.
The sirens were getting closer.
William pushed open the bedroom door. It swung open slow and quiet. There was something on the bed, visible in the low light.
A noise. A breath.
“Iva?” William whispered sliding a hand across the wall searching for a light switch.
There was another breath, broken and haggard.
He found the switch and clicked. Light blasted into the room. He gasped. Everything ran cold. The whole world seemed to stop.
It was Iva—she lay on her back forcing each breath, her mouth opening and shutting like a fish pulled from water. Red had pooled on the bed, down the sides, dripping to the floor. She was naked, skin as white as snow, colorless, like porcelain. But her arms…
“Oh no…” William shuttered.
Each arm ended in a stark red stump just below the elbows, bright against her flanks. They were gone. They just weren’t there.
Hands-On Personal Assistant.
William felt his legs go to jelly and fold out from beneath him. He had to fight to regain his footing. He braced himself against the wall and went to her. The blood had drained from her. The heart struggled to pump the few tiny ounces left in her body. She had minutes left. Maybe seconds.
Looking back over his shoulder William sensed for Bernie’s presence. He was still at the far end of the house, maybe out in the backyard. He couldn’t see her this way. Iva’s final minutes would become Bernie’s everlasting memories. He’d watch her struggle to live, but in the end she’d only die. And he would have to face that each day, each morning, each minute.
William had to kill her. He knew it. There was no other way.
This was his chance.
His pulse spiked. It made him dizzy and he swooned for a second, exhilarated. He licked his lips looking around. A weapon—need a weapon. There, on the desk protruding handle-first from its faux plastic holder…
… an ornamental chrome letter opener, as broad as a knife with a wooden handle.
William jumped to the desk, snagged the stabber in a sweaty palm and went back to Iva. Leaning over her, he stroked her hair looking into her. Her eyes were dying. They were glassy, marbled. Everything was in shock, life slipping away. He wasn’t sure she even saw him, or knew he was there.
He pressed his fingers to her chest. She was already cold. Her skin was bloodless. He felt the tiny tapper-wheel of a heart inside, no more than a struggling pulse. He held the knife over her heart seeing only
his dreams. The spider. The screaming. The beautiful, beautiful death. He pursed his lips, heard his own heart begin to throb inside his ears, felt his breath go shallow, nervous. It was about to happen. It was truly going to happen this time. His father had been right. The pattern changed. He was going to take what life she had left. It was the only humane thing to do now.
“Please be beautiful…” he whispered, and plunged it into her heart.
She made no sound. She hardly reacted at all. Her body hesitated, then fell into peace. William found it incredible. It made him breathless. He’d killed her.
The backdoor slammed again at the far end of the house and he heard Bernie scream in a high, desperate voice, “Iva, honey, where are you?”
Then footsteps were in the hall behind William, coming fast and heavy. William jerked the letter opener out contracting blood all over his palms and turned to Bernie with a tight, terror-bloated look. Presenting the stabber to him he whispered, “Bernie, I—I couldn’t leave it in her like that.”
Bernie froze at the bedroom door, his face turning into a combination of horror and anguish. He blasted a wail from somewhere deeper than his own soul and collapsed toward the bed rolling Iva’s body into his arms and screaming no baby no baby no! over and over and over and over.
THEY HAD to wheel Bernie out on a stretcher. Half way through destroying his house, he’d collapsed comatose. The taser weapon the cops used against him to subdue him hardly had any effect. An eventual and inevitable emotional overload seemed the only sedative to his conniption fit.
Within minutes a number of squad cars, an ambulance, coroner’s van, and a fire truck showed up. They cordoned off his yard with police tape showering the night with stark red and blue flash bulbs. Investigators were rounding up the neighbors. Cops were controlling what little traffic there was.
They found Iva’s arms hanging off the bedposts by identical scarves. She’d been tied up—or tied down. It was as clear as the blood now staining Bernie’s bedroom—this was the Starlet Killer. Iva had had a taste of celebrity; her likeness being attached to Sara Hunter. She wasn’t as young or beautiful as the usual starlet, but perhaps the killer was prone to shifting his M.O. to appease his kill. Iva was no exception. Grimly, William wondered how the FBI would answer to her murder.
