Stalk Me

by Richard Parker

  The detective was writing something on the yellow page in front of him. Was he making a note of his scepticism?

  “Nothing else to add?” he repeated, and still didn’t look up, as if he were giving her the opportunity to reflect on what she’d told him.

  She shook her head.

  He nodded and met her eye. “Can you give me any more details about the man you were meant to meet in the Oyster Shack? What’s his name?”

  “What for?” She should have known this was coming. Beth hastily attempted to concoct one.

  Cabrini waved one hand mock dismissively. “Just so we can eliminate him. How well do you know him?”

  “As I said, he’s just somebody I’ve been chatting with online. I don’t know his real name.”

  Cabrini raised a bushy eyebrow. “You’ve been communicating with someone anonymous in the States and you agreed to meet them the first night of your vacation? Sounds like you enjoy living dangerously, Beth.”

  “It was why I chose somewhere public.”

  “The waitress there said you almost cancelled.”

  He’d looked into it more than he was letting on. Beth knew she had to tread carefully. “Yes. I did get cold feet. I changed my mind, though.”

  “How long have you been chatting with him?”

  “Not very long. Are you saying he could be the same man?” She thought it best not to play too dumb.

  “It’s a possibility. I’d like his details.”

  “I don’t have them with me.”

  “Just call me with them then.” He handed her a card. “As soon as possible. Now, I appreciate you’ve had quite an ordeal, so I’m assigning an officer to protect you. Your room at the Francisquito is now a crime scene, but there’s a hotel only a block away from here. The Grand. No great shakes, but its homey. Maybe you’d feel more comfortable staying nearby.”

  It sounded like it was Cabrini who wanted her nearby. She clearly didn’t have any choice in the matter.

  Chapter 48

  Mimic found a small square of garden tucked inside the parking lot of a tiny modern Quaker chapel. He seated himself on the wooden bench at its edge. The tall hedgerow around its perimeter effectively silenced the traffic passing by on the freeway, but he didn’t experience the inner calm the surroundings were meant to solicit. He took out his handkerchief and dabbed the corners of his mouth.

  Beth Jordan would be dead soon. Wherever she went, he would find and kill her. She was likely to be in police custody now. They might even offer her protection until she’d safely left the state. It didn’t matter. Only limited time separated her from dispatch at his hands, and he had others to attend to in the meantime. What really vexed him, however, was how she’d disrupted his rigid system.

  As a SEAL, he’d had seventeen confirmed kills as a sniper prior to the Israeli army withdrawal from Beirut in ‘83 and twelve as an officer for SAD. He’d always killed under the auspices of someone else. It was how he removed himself.

  When he’d become unaffiliated, he’d been able to continue by adopting the homicidal regimens of established criminals. Every contract had a local precedent. They set the bar. He’d researched the Beachfront Butcher’s methods before orchestrating his meeting with Beth Jordan, but circumstances had forced him to step outside the killer’s identity.

  He’d dropped the ball at the Oyster Shack and had underestimated Beth Jordan in the hotel. His neck was bruising from where she’d struck him with the tank lid. It was another sign that age was catching up to him.

  His cell rang and he knew who it would be. He looked at the screen to confirm it was his employer and let it go to his answering service.

  He used to analyse the rationale of the people he worked for, took an active interest in the identities, political or otherwise, that dictated his workload. That was when he’d seen the process of extinguishing human lives as something symbolic.

  The reality, however, was that they’d become less and less significant to him. Not only those of his targets, but those of his employers. As the years had passed, they’d come and gone, and the faces in his portfolio had become just a continuous procession of features attached to the same clichéd machinations.

  The designs he’d understood implicitly before, he took less and less interest in. It had become work and nothing more. Mimic had thought only of the real estate it could accrue for him. He’d recognised this was the case with any occupation. Blue collar to exec, the repetition of doing the thing you were good at eroded the spirit, so that eventually the reward was all you thought of. It was how good people ended up fucking over their friends.

  At least he’d never fucked anybody over. He knew it would be only that which would make him lose sleep now. His had been a solitary and easy freelance existence, because he’d developed a rarely found talent. He wasn’t a sociopath but, using his background, he’d been able to adopt their traits. As he’d always done, Mimic used the homicidal ambition of others to entirely excuse himself from considering the implications of killing.

  People had to find a reason for continuing, though. Something that raised them from their bed every morning and made them clamber up the hill again. And when he was far from the trappings his job had earned him, he wasn’t afraid to admit it was the actual moment of taking life.

  It wasn’t a sexual thing. He didn’t even get the adrenaline spike that he used to. It was a kind of peace. Not a feeling of power, but a period of internal silence. Right or wrong, his was an action that couldn’t be undone. It was pure truth. Whatever his kill meant for the people connected to the individual, his existence alone had created it.

  A lanky forty-something woman in jade sweats and a headband interrupted Mimic’s timeout. She was being pulled up the steps and through the open gate by her teacup Chihuahua and seemed surprised to discover his presence. Perhaps this was her special morning place. He smirked reassuringly at her as she allowed the animal to nose at the flower border between the chapel wall and the lawn. She grinned nervously, and it didn’t look like she was going to stay long.

  Having been spotted by the O’Doole household, he’d decided to use the time he had to dump the Corolla and pick up a different ride. They might have taken note of the plates, and he wasn’t sure if they’d returned home during his detour. His vehicles changed constantly throughout the year, depending on his itinerary. He opened his iPhone and did a quick search for the nearest rent-a-car. He’d choose another pedestrian model, something that would meld with the run-of-the-mill traffic. Mimic squinted at the small screen and wished he had his iPad with him.

  The lanky woman stood patiently and examined the middle distance while her dog defecated over the border flowers.

  His finger paused on the screen as he awaited the outcome of the episode. The woman appeared as if she was frozen in her own time zone while an event that was clearly nothing to do with her came to its trembling finale. Would she?

  Whether it was because of his presence or that she was a conscientious dog owner, the woman produced a small green plastic bag from the pocket of her sweats and pulled it over her hand. She looked in any direction other than down at her feet while she scooped it up and quickly pulled the bag back over her knuckles so the animal’s hot package was trapped inside.

  “Come on, Anthony,” she said to the creature, and pulled him back towards the gate they’d entered by, his little legs scampering to keep up with her long strides.

  What a fucking strange name to give a dog. He was about to return to his iPhone screen when he watched the woman knot and dump the little package. Not only that, but she dropped it in front of the trashcan by the gate. It came to rest against the base of it.

  “Excuse me, Miss?”

  She ignored him.

  Mimic was already on his feet. “You dropped something.”

  She started to descend as he crossed the lawn.

  “Miss!”

  The volume in his voice made her halt.

  As he caught up with them, she looked bac
k at him, a mask of lethargy on her face. The teacup Chihuahua regarded Mimic with its head cocked to one side.

  “You dropped this. Mh?” He picked the bag up in his hand and weighed its warm contents.

  The woman turned her back on him and walked down the steps.

  Mimic still had his SIG Sauer P226 in the holster. He put his fingertips on the clip. Having failed in his attempts with Beth Jordan, he could certainly do with the low-key harmony he should have experienced at the Oyster Shack or the Francisquito.

  Instead, he satisfied himself with exerting some self-control. It would be so easy for him to drill the back of her head and push the bag of shit inside the hole he made. Maybe leave the dog witness tied to the hedge. It was his last tour of duty, but not pulling the trigger, even though the rich homicide tapestry of LA would effortlessly absorb her death, meant he was respecting the system and was firmly back on track. And that was where he was most comfortable.

  He watched the woman drag the dog down the street.

  Chapter 49

  Beth was lying against the propped-up pillows of her bed in the Grand, swallowing repeatedly but convinced the migraine pills she’d taken were no longer on their way back up. Dislocated morning sickness and jet lag had decided to get together with the trauma of the last hours, and her feet hung over the side of the mattress, ready to make a dash for the bathroom. It came in waves and she’d just ridden the last one out.

  Her suitcase was part of a crime scene and she’d been informed she would only get it back when forensics was satisfied. She’d used the phone in her room to call her bank and been told she could use her credit card account number to withdraw cash. At least she could buy some new clothes.

  Her hotel was indeed only a block away from the precinct, and there was a young uniformed police officer perched on a seat outside the door of her frowzy new room. Cabrini had promised to keep her posted, but she’d already been in the Grand for two hours and was getting increasingly nervous about providing specific details of the man she was meant to have met at the Oyster Shack.

  She’d already attempted to buy the pills and a mineral water herself, but the officer had sent down for them. She may as well be in a cell. Beth guessed it was better than being held at the station but knew it was because they wanted her to be easily accessible.

  She was just surfing the news channels again, looking for reports of the shooting on the boulevard, when her iPhone rang. Jody? It wasn’t his number and not one she recognised. Nausea briefly halted. Could it be the gunman trying to make contact? Should she even pick up? Surely he wouldn’t try anything under the nose of the police? Beth locked the door.

  To her relief, it was Sauveterre. His voice exhibited an aloof mistrust, but he gave her the thirteen names of the witnesses on the coach. She quickly scribbled them down, immediately recognising Ferrand Paquet (the driver/Cigarillo Man), Trip Stillman and two others.

  Spike Freeman and Kelcie Brooks.

  Not only was it the same Spike who had been shot in the property in Kalispell, but it looked as if the woman who had defended her home had been on the coach as well. What the hell had gone on in that house? She found Kelcie Brooks’ Facebook page. Lots of photos of drunken college kids displayed there. Beth looked back through her old posts until she came to a blank square with a familiar name in the link below it.

  If you still haven’t watched this crazy bitch yet please do so and make your contribution to the Kelcie Brooks retirement fund. Ker-ching!

  To double-check Beth clicked the link and was taken to the empty YouTube page. Kelcie Brooks was smilingassassin.

  Kelcie, Spike Freeman and Trip Stillman had all been murdered. That left her with another nine witnesses on the coach, bar Cigarillo Man. None of the names matched the other two intruders Kelcie had shot that had been mentioned in the online news story. Out of the five clips, it meant two people remaining had uploaded them. She had to warn them and find out why they might be being systematically hunted down, but which two were they?

  One of the names on the list was Tyler O’Doole. A YouTube clip had been uploaded by ThatTODdude. She located seven Tyler O’Doole Facebook pages, but only one of them lived in Kalispell. He hadn’t posted since 2013. She noted one of his friends was Kevin O’Doole. It had to be his brother. She clicked to his page and saw that he’d posted that day. She requested friendship.

  Should she be doing this on her iPhone? Maybe she was getting paranoid, but she could be showing the gunman exactly what she knew. He did have the number. She was surprised the Grand even had WiFi, but there was no computer in her room and she needed anonymous access. That was another reason to get out of the hotel.

  What was the gunman doing in the meantime? Was Beth prepared to wait until he arrived? She thought of the receptionist with the hole in her chest and considered the young sentry outside her room. If he did come looking for Beth, did she really want to put anyone else in his sights?

  She was still dizzy but climbed off the bed and let the room adjust before walking into the bathroom and looking around for inspiration. Her gaze halted on the sink. She turned the cold tap on and kept rotating until it started to unscrew. She twisted the metal grip all the way off and slid it into her sweats pocket. Beth tried to turn the metal pin of the tap but it was rigid. A pair of pliers would be required.

  She walked to her door, unlocked and opened it. The gangly sentry using his Blackberry on a low padded stool outside immediately stood up, turned and smiled. He looked to be seven feet tall to Beth and his hat seemed too small for his head. His long eyelashes were fine filaments that matched his wispy blonde moustache.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I’m sorry. I would call room service but as you’re so handy...”

  He raised his feint eyebrows.

  “Bit of an emergency, the cold tap’s broken. D’you think you could have a look?”

  The officer seemed relieved it was something he could handle and nodded emphatically.

  Beth led him to the bathroom door and stood back. Hopefully, the gushing water would misdirect him from asking how the tap got turned on in the first place. He entered and tried gripping the pin of the tap firmly between his fingers and turning it. His face contorted and he grunted. No luck. He grabbed a towel from the rail to give him some more purchase and tried again. Beth hoped he didn’t have too much strength in his wrist.

  “I’ll see if there’s anything in the desk we can use.” She walked away from the bathroom and strode faster as she left his line of vision. Beth kept padding through the door out into the corridor and headed for the elevator.

  Chapter 50

  Beth walked a couple of blocks, ducked into a busy Internet café and seated herself at one of the stools away from the window. She decided to keep her iPhone switched off as long as possible. Logging into Facebook, she left the gunman a message on Eileen Froley’s wall.

  When’s your next performance?

  She waited, but there was no response. Beth found Allegro’s page and posted there as well.

  I want to talk. I promise not to involve the police.

  No dialogue box opened. Was he already searching for her? He could easily be in the neighbourhood. Could he have been watching when she was escorted to the hotel? Beth looked back to the window and the human conveyor belt passing by.

  She didn’t want to wait for him to find her. Where would she feel safe? Even though she’d found her passport in the pocket of her robe, Beth couldn’t go home. She would probably be stopped before she got on any flight out of LA.

  Beth found Kevin O’Doole’s Facebook page again and examined the recent posts there more closely.

  Short work of ribs in Elkhorns!

  Above the comment was an image of stripped, sauce-covered bones in a bowl. The photo below it was a little more arresting.

  Tyler slapping Mom with dead raccoon! Shame Dad is not around to protect her. We are officially on vacation in West Glacier!

  So that’s what Mom looked like. Throug
h the window behind her was an expanse of grubby blue water. Beth studied the mock horror on her face as a hand held the decomposed animal out to her.

  West Glacier? Where was that? Beth Wiki’d it. It was a small, unincorporated village community in Flathead County, Montana, and the west entrance to the Glacier National Park. It had a small population that relied on tourism. Surely the O’Doole family wouldn’t be that difficult to find if they were staying there. But if she’d seen the photo, so had the gunman.

  Beth opened Google Maps. It was 1,349 miles away from her. She was in no fit state to get on a plane again. By road, it would take her nearly a day. That was madness. Drive all that way to track down two young boys and their mother. What would she say, even if she found them?

  Her friendship request hadn’t been accepted. Why would it be? Beth had only posted it twenty minutes ago. She had to warn them. But, even if they had time to notice it, what would she post? “You don’t know me but just thought I’d let you know there might be an assassin stalking you.”

  She found three commercial sites that rented out lodges in West Glacier and a handful of others that were privately owned. Beth cut and pasted the same message to all of them.

  This is an emergency. I desperately need to contact the O’Doole family who may be staying in your lodge in West Glacier Village. If this is the case, or you know of their whereabouts, please reply to this email as soon as possible.

  Beth355@hotmail.co.uk

  She reread the words underneath the stripped bowl of rib bones that had been photographed.

  Short work of ribs in Elkhorns!

  It had been posted today. She put “Elkhorns, West Glacier” in a search and found a basic site for “Elkhorns Smokery, Beer & Bar-B-Q Pit”. Beth borrowed a pen and scribbled down the phone number. She also found a number for the West Glacier general store and took both to the payphone outside the bathroom.