Malicious

by Jacob Stone

  “Thirty-one within two hours of Los Angeles,” Felger interjected. “The FBI will come up with a more complete list, but it was the best I could do under the constraints I had.”

  “I’ve crossed three of the local Bergs off the list, for all the good it will do,” Polk said.

  “We need an FBI field agent to coordinate this with,” Morris said to Doug Gilman.

  “Agreed. I’ll get on it after the meeting.”

  “Okay. We’ve still got a lot more Bergs to look into. Stan, how about you work with Dennis on this?”

  Stan Wolowicz was another of the LAPD detectives who’d been assigned to the investigation. A chunk of a man. Five feet eight, and almost as wide as he was tall. He gave Polk a sideways glance. The two of them had worked together when Polk was on the force, so Wolowicz knew what he was getting himself into. “Nobody ever said this job would be easy,” he said, keeping his expression inscrutable.

  “I feel for you,” Lemmon said.

  “Ah, Freddy, my boy,” Polk said. “Admit it, you missed me the last three weeks while you were living it up in San Diego playing junior executive—”

  “Senior executive. Vice president of corporate compensation, to be exact. And all the perks that came with it, including time with their in-house massage therapist and catered lunches.”

  “In-house massages, huh? I bet your masseuse was a heavyset Russian broad with arms like a gorilla.”

  “Yoshi? Uh uh. Beautiful slender Japanese woman with hands like a dream.”

  “You still missed me,” Polk argued.

  “Like a migraine.”

  Morris held up his hand to stop their squabbling. “That’s enough,” he said. “How about instead you get busy trying to catch this psycho before he cuts up any more women?”

  The meeting ended. Doug Gilman and Gloria Finston stayed behind with Morris, as they still had business to discuss. Once it was just the three of them, Gilman glanced at his stainless-steel Raymond Weil watch and muttered, “Oh Jesus.”

  “What?”

  “It’s already seven thirty-five. We’ve got an eight o’clock press conference scheduled to inform the good citizens about what’s been going on.”

  “You’ll have to do it without me, Doug. I’ve been dragging all day. So has this little guy.” Morris reached down to thump Parker’s stomach. The bull terrier’s eyes were open. He stretched his legs but otherwise remained lying on his side. Morris straightened back up, saying, “As soon as we finish here, I’m heading home to get some sleep. I’ve got an eight-ten appearance tomorrow morning with Margot Denoir. Let’s see if I can get under this psycho’s skin.”

  Denoir hosted a popular and sensationalized Los Angeles morning show called The Hollywood Peeper. Gilman gave Morris a questioning look. “Do you think that’s wise?” he asked.

  “That’s what I’ll be discussing with Gloria.”

  “Whatever you two think is best. If you need anything, let me know.”

  “I might need round-the-clock protection for my wife and daughter.”

  “If it comes to that, call me and I’ll arrange it.” Gilman glanced again at his $1,900 watch. “I need to leave now to make the press conference. What should I say?”

  “Just the bare facts. Names of the two known victims, description of the third, and that we’re seeking the public’s help in identifying her. Don’t go into any of the gory details. That’s what the killer wants. Make sure the two sketches we have of him get plenty of play. The tip line also. What do you think, Gloria?”

  “Exactly how it should be handled.”

  Gilman adjusted his tie. He seemed to brighten over the prospect of soon being in the spotlight. He gave Morris an assured nod, and told him once more to call if he needed anything, and then he was hustling out of the conference room.

  Finston asked Morris, “How do you plan to get under the killer’s skin?”

  Morris smiled guiltily. “I should’ve told you this earlier, but with Hadley in earshot, I thought it would be best to wait.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his smile turning sheepish. “When we discovered the covert camera hidden inside the clothing store, we put on a little show for him.”

  Finston asked, “Did you now?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Morris proceeded to give her a blow-by-blow description of what was said. “If the killer watches this part of the video, how do you think he’ll react?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’ll see it, if he hasn’t already. And I’m sure he’ll be furious.”

  “Is that good for us?”

  “Yes, I believe so. There’s been a good deal of precision in what he’s been doing. I think of him almost like a demented craftsman working in extremely fine detail, and it’s not a bad idea to knock him off his game. Are you planning tomorrow to publicly call him out as a deviant who sexually abuses the corpses of his victims?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “It’s a good one,” she said. “He believes he’s an artist, and he’s unveiling a great work of art, and that the world will recognize his genius. I’m sure he has already convinced himself that Roger will realize he made a mistake with his medical examination, and it will be devastating for him when you denounce him as little more than a deviant. There’s a good chance he’ll contact the media to attempt to clear up the record. He might even initiate contact with you.”

  “Am I putting my family at risk by doing this?”

  Finston nibbled again on her thumbnail as she considered Morris’s question.

  “I don’t believe so,” she said. “The narrative he’s telling has been carefully constructed so far. He might’ve left room initially for some improvisation to make sure you became involved, but at this point I don’t see him veering from his plans, no matter how much you might enrage him.”

  “And he’s going to be enraged.”

  “Most definitely.”

  Morris’s face weakened as he thought about Natalie and Rachel. “I better call Doug anyways,” he said.

  “It can’t hurt to be prudent.”

  Chapter 24

  “Welcome to my lair,” the killer said.

  He unlocked the steel door and held it open for Faye Riverstone, who appeared unsteady on her four-inch heels as she stepped into the building. She had to be somewhat tipsy. The actress couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, and during the time they were at the Noire Bar, she drank four tequila cocktails while the killer nursed two beers.

  “I’ve been here before,” she said with one of her trademark squinty pouts.

  “No kidding?”

  “Years ago. When I was a teenager. It was a movie studio then. It looks very different now.”

  “Before then it was an airplane hangar,” the killer acknowledged. “They converted it into a movie studio in the sixties and it went belly up about ten years ago. I’ve since renovated it to its current condition.”

  “Very nicely done,” she said, impressed. “So this is where the magic happens?”

  You damn well should be impressed after all the money I’ve poured into the place, the killer thought.

  Faye Riverstone did a slow three-sixty, gazing around the massive room. This was normally the staging area for corporate projects, and one of the machines the killer had been working on lay zigzagged through half of the room. An elaborate machine, but in its current state quite harmless. A few alterations would change that, but that would be for later. A different staging area for his current lethal dream project could be found in a back room of the building, and Faye Riverstone would soon be joining Heather Brandley and others as a key participant.

  “Not really,” the killer said with forced modesty. “It’s all just lining up the dominos.”

  “I don’t see any dominos.”

  “Metaphorically speaking. I used dominos when I was first starting ou
t, but they’ve gotten boring and I now incorporate more clever substitutes.” He fingered his fake mustache. It felt as if it had started slipping, and he didn’t want to give away his disguise quite yet. “I do have real magic brewing in one of my back rooms,” he added. “A pet project I’ve been working on for several years that will be leaving the world in awe. I’ll show you that soon enough. For now, I have a bottle of Krug chilling and a jar of exceptional beluga caviar waiting for us.”

  Riverstone opened her eyes wide, which was unusual for her since she was famous for her trademark squinty look in movies, which for some reason the critics considered sexy. Maybe it was because of the way she’d also purse her lips as if she were on the verge of pouting.

  “That wouldn’t be a bottle of 1998 Clos d’Ambonnay?” she asked.

  The killer had made special note from an interview she had done three years ago in which she gushed about that vintage of champagne and how sublime it was. It damn well should be sublime at $2,200 a bottle. But, as the killer kept reminding himself, the kind of art he was creating didn’t come cheap.

  “That’s exactly what I have,” he said.

  The actress squealed and took a step forward, stumbling awkwardly in her heels. The killer caught her arm to keep her from falling to the floor.

  “You’re trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me,” she said with an exaggerated pout.

  “I’d be a fool not to.”

  That got her laughing, and the killer joined her.

  The actress kicked off her heels, deciding it would be better to go barefoot. “Lead the way, sire,” she said, giggling.

  As he led her to the kitchen area, she wrapped a slender arm around his waist, and her slight, toned body bumped against his. The killer smiled inwardly as he thought how easy these Hollywood actresses were because of their vanity and sense of entitlement. As long as you were willing to put in the work, as he had done, they were little more than putty.

  “Madame, you’re sending me certain signals,” he said, exaggerating a note of shock in his voice.

  “I should hope so!”

  Once they were in the kitchen area, she admired the Nespresso machine while he got the champagne and caviar from the refrigerator. While Faye Riverstone busied herself with the caviar, the killer popped the cork off the champagne bottle and poured glasses for both of them, handing one to her.

  “Grazie,” she said.

  “Cheers,” the killer returned.

  He watched as Riverstone took the smallest possible sip imaginable. She barely wet her lips with the champagne.

  “Drink up,” he said. “We’ve got this whole bottle to finish.”

  “My dear sir, this is nectar of the gods,” she explained. “It must be savored.”

  “In that case, spoils go to the victor.”

  The killer guzzled down his champagne. He smiled thinly as he refilled his glass.

  “Bastard,” she said, laughing. She took a healthier swallow of her cherished nectar. The killer waited until she emptied her flute also, and then refilled her glass. Of course, he kept his back turned to her as he did so.

  “Are you going to let me see your magic?” Her eyes sparkled mischievously as she sipped her champagne and then slowly licked her famously pouty lips. “After all, there’s so little of it in the world.”

  “That’s the plan. A small taste of it, anyway.”

  The killer brought along the rest of the champagne as he took the actress to the back room. That was where he had the modeling area for his masterpiece. He switched on the light for the two-foot-tall replica of the Hipster Dipster clothing store. If someone were to bend down to look through the front window, he would see a broken-apart miniaturized mannequin lying on the store floor. If that same person studied it closely enough, he’d also see what looked like a small pool of blood collecting under this busted mannequin. Faye Riverstone didn’t bother doing this, but her face still scrunched up into a look of confusion as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

  “I don’t get it,” she said.

  “Conceptually it’s similar to my other machines,” the killer said. “The ones you’ve seen on YouTube and the ones I build for corporate events. Each event triggering the next. Like dominos falling. Although in this case, the triggering doesn’t happen right away. It might take hours. In some cases, even days.”

  “I still don’t follow what you’re trying to do here.”

  “Quite understandable since I’ve got most of the modeling blacked out, and you haven’t seen the news yet to understand the significance of what’s been lighted up.”

  “You’re not making any sense at all,” Riverstone said, her lips twisting downward, forming something between a pout and a frown.

  The killer laughed. “Probably not,” he agreed. “Let me show you an animation that shows all the events playing out in sequence. It will make sense then.”

  “You promised there would be magic.”

  “There will be,” the killer promised.

  The killer directed the actress to take a seat on a plush sofa facing a large-screen TV. He remained standing so he could better watch her. The animation was created with computer software and was detailed and realistic. It started when the killer replaced the Ginger Rogers wax figure at the Star Wax museum with Heather Brandley’s corpse. Faye Riverstone’s confusion became revulsion, and by the time the animation showed what would be happening to her, her skin had become a sickly white and her face was rigid with terror.

  “This isn’t funny,” she said.

  The killer smiled hearing how slurred her voice had become. The Rohypnol he had slipped into her champagne was doing its job.

  “No, it’s not funny,” he said. “I told you before, it’s magical. You should be honored that I chose you to play a starring role.”

  That was a lie, of course. She was only going to be a supporting player, but why not at least make her feel more important than that? After all, the killer didn’t consider himself a sadist. He didn’t show her the terrible things that were going to be done to her as a way to torture her, or to cause her distress. He did it because he wanted to fully share his vision with at least one other person. The world would be seeing the entirety of it soon enough, but he’d been dying to have someone, really anyone, bear witness to the full magnitude of his genius. But this had gone on long enough. She wasn’t appreciating what she was seeing. No doubt because of the Rohypnol.

  He reached down with the thought of scooping her under the legs with one arm and slipping the other behind her back so he could carry her to his private workshop, but her hand clenched into a tiny fist and struck him in the throat. Her quickness surprised him, and the blow immobilized him, sending him collapsing to the floor unable to breathe. It shouldn’t have been possible for her to have moved that fast given the Rohypnol he had slipped her.

  In the killer’s mind’s eye, he imagined his face becoming as purple as a grape. He needed to breathe, and as he struggled to do so, he also fought to get back to his feet.

  Oomph.

  The noise was forced out of him by a hard blow that struck him in the ribs, the force of which knocked him back to the floor. She must’ve kicked him hard enough to break a wood plank. It hurt like hell, but the blow also unlocked whatever it was that had kept him from breathing, and he greedily sucked air back into his lungs. Tears welled up in his eyes as he realized that she had saved his life. It was unintentional on her part, but if she hadn’t kicked him he would’ve died of asphyxiation.

  He worked himself back to his hands and knees, and then to his feet. He gingerly felt his ribs as he staggered off in search of Faye Riverstone. It was remarkable how hard she had both punched and kicked him. She must’ve studied some form of martial arts, although the killer hadn’t found any references to that in his research.

  The killer moved through the b
uilding as quickly as his injured ribs allowed. An icy panic squeezed his chest as he worried that he’d been sold a bogus batch of Rohypnol, because it would be the end of everything if Faye Riverstone escaped. He should’ve used the pentobarbital on her like he had with the others, but he had to be cute about it.

  The killer found her outside the building. She had fallen three feet away from the killer’s Mercedes, his car keys still clutched in her hand. The Rohypnol had worked after all. His ribs hurt as he picked her up and carried her back inside so he could prepare her for what would be happening next.

  As he carried her to his private workshop, she made soft mewling noises, but otherwise the sedative left her helpless.

  Chapter 25

  Almost every night Brad Pettibone would heat up a can of beef stew or baked beans and a chopped-up hotdog for dinner, all of which he bought cheap at the local Costco. The divorce had left him so financially strapped that he could barely afford his squalid three-hundred-and-sixty-square-foot studio apartment, let alone any decent food, so he had to watch every penny, or at least he did before he made arrangements with “Reuben.” Tonight was different. He had splurged on takeout from his long-ago favorite Italian restaurant. Lasagna with a side of meatballs, and another side of sausage. Also, a big slice of their chocolate cake that he used to like so much. And instead of drinking his usual swill, he had splurged there as well, picking up a six-pack of Heineken. Why not live it up a little during his last few days in the States? He would be flying to Thailand on Sunday, never to return…that is unless the authorities caught up to him, which he didn’t think was likely, at least not with the fake passport he’d be using, and not with him disappearing into a small Vietnamese coastal village. He’d read about others doing it. He was pretty sure he’d be safe where he was going. He also doubted he’d be able to get Italian food there. Maybe not Heineken either.

  Pettibone chewed slowly as he savored a bite of sausage, and then took a long pull on the Heineken and savored that as well. If he was still married to that nag Janice, she would’ve made him drink it from a glass. He stared absently at nothing in particular, and reflected on the thought that if he’d had the money to spare these last three years, he wouldn’t have eaten much differently. He had never learned to cook, at least not much more than making toast and heating up a can of food. Cooking was Janice’s job, not that he ever cared for the crud she’d put on the table each night. But the last year of their marriage…he shivered just thinking about it. That was when she had gotten on her health kick and started making dinners with kale and quinoa. Jesus, he hated her. He didn’t much care for his bratty kids either. If it was up to him they wouldn’t have gotten a dime of alimony or child support, but the bitch had surprised him by going to court and garnishing his wages. That just wasn’t right. This was America, goddamn it! The thought of Janice and his kids burning with the rest of LA didn’t bother him at all. In fact, he liked the idea of it.