Reverse Metamorphosis book one of the Irrevocable Change trilogy

by R. E. Schobernd

  Leaving the warehouse at six o’clock, he drove to Rocco’s apartment, found a parking space behind the building three cars down from garage number 2306 and backed into it,. Looking in the rearview mirror he applied a shaggy fake moustache to his upper lip, and pulled the hood of his jacket up and tied it loosely below his chin. A pair of clear glass non-prescription safety glasses without side shields completed his disguise. In less than thirty minutes a car pulled in to park and he exited the car. Following an elderly lady he hurried to enter the apartment building close behind her and went to Rocco’s door where he rang the bell three times. When no one answered the door he removed a set of lock picks from his pants pocket and worked on both of the door locks.

  Inside the apartment he turned on lights as he began a search for photographs of Lizzy. His plan called for finding them in an hour or less and then exiting the apartment. In less than ten minutes he found two eight inch square containers of pictures of young women being subjected to the same type of sexual abuse Lizzy had endured. Taking a plastic bag from his pocket he loaded the containers into it. Continuing his search he found nine more containers and a spiral bound notebook with personal information on thirteen women. Lizzy was the last entry. Checking through each of the nine containers, he learned Lizzy’s pictures still had not been located. In most of these pictures Rocco was the lone male assailant. As he sorted through the pictures before him he was amazed Rocco had been able to gain the confidence of so many beautiful young women to take advantage of them. He would like to spend a night with several of them, but not in the way Rocco had used them. The notebook and all of the pictures were placed in the bag with the others. Checking his watch, he noted his allotted time was running out.

  In a night stand beside a king sized bed in the larger bedroom, he found what he was looking for; two more plastic containers, one of them full of pictures of Lizzy. On a shelf in the clothes closet, he found a box with packages of negatives labeled with each woman’s name, along with a 35mm camera. After collecting the remaining containers of pictures, negatives and the camera he finished checking out the other rooms. After stepping into the kitchen he removed two cans of Coke from the refrigerator and put them in his pockets. Turning off lights as he went he made his way toward the front door, making sure nothing was out of place.

  Out in the hallway he again used the picks to set the dead bolt, left the building with the bag over his shoulder and put it in the car trunk. While there he picked up a small bag containing Weaver’s badge and service revolver. Since this was Friday night he had no idea how long he might have to wait for Rocco to come home. The fake moustache and the plastic rimmed safety glasses were put in the glove box for temporary safe keeping. One Coke was opened and the other was placed under the car on the asphalt to keep it cool. From the sack in the seat he removed two brass knuckles, one for each hand. Being as it was close to Halloween he had one other prop to remove from the bag; a full face rubber mask. The only other items he needed were the gun used to kill Weaver and his own gun, both of which he placed in his pants pockets.

  By ten o’clock he had finished the first Coke. At midnight he had finished the second Coke. At one a.m. the temperature was twenty seven degrees and he was standing behind the Firebird getting rid of both Cokes. Five cars had entered the lot, two parked in garages and three in open stalls.

  A Mercedes sedan entered the lot a few minutes past two o’clock and parked in an open stall. The man and woman, who were dressed formally, staggered unsteadily yelling and laughing loudly as they entered the building through the far entrance.

  At three thirteen the red Eldorado carefully rounded the driveway entrance. The door on garage 2306 began to open as the car swung wide to line up with the opening. Rocco had arrived home, and he was alone. Clay pulled the Halloween mask on, stepped out of the car, looked both ways and hustled over to the line of garages to the open doorway. Standing against the siding separating the two adjacent garages he waited. The car engine had been shut off and the lights turned off. The driver’s door opened and he heard cursing interspersed with other muted conversation. “God damn bitch. Feed her drinks all fucking night and then she decides she doesn’t FEEEEL like fucking. If a fucking police car hadn’t been outside the bar I’d have fucked her ass right there in the parking lot.”

  Rocco stepped up to the doorway and Clay threw a hard right into his mid section. Rocco had caught sight of Richard Nixon as the figure stepped in front of the opening and started his punch. There was a look of startled amusement when he saw the rubber mask, but the expression quickly changed as he saw the arm moving and then felt the blow. He exhaled strongly as the wind was knocked out of him and couldn’t make a sound, except for a raspy, gasping attempt at breathing.

  By then Clay’s left hand had landed on his right jaw and he heard the jaw bone shatter under the impact of the brass knuckle. Rocco went down on his back and Clay continued to land blow after blow to his head and mid section, until the man lay still on the concrete floor between the wall and the car. The door opener light was still on; Clay straightened up, stepped past Rocco to the doorway, glanced outside and couldn’t see anything to alarm him. He tugged on the rope attached to the release mechanism on the door traveler unit. With a tug he moved the garage door downward until it was two inches from being closed.

  Taking the 9mm bullets and magazine from his pocket he put each bullet between Rocco’s right forefinger and thumb. The loaded magazine got prints on it next and then it was inserted back into the Italian automatic pistol. The gun and silencer was placed in Rocco’s right hand for prints and they were put in the Caddy’s glove box. Weaver’s badge and Smith & Wesson service revolver got his prints and were placed into Rocco’s right jacket pocket.

  By then Rocco was stirring and starting to moan softly. Clay put a brass knuckle back on his right hand and hit his victim again, knocking him unconscious again. Spotting a five gallon bucket against the wall, he moved it over near Rocco and placed the man’s right foot up on it. Then he stomped on the extended leg and heard the resulting crack as the leg broke. Rocco whimpered at the sudden additional pain, but failed to regain consciousness.

  “I bet you don’t wander away from here now Lover Boy” Clay said to his inert victim. As he put the bucket back where he had found it the light bulb went out. Feeling his way over to the door in the darkness he raised the door, stepped outside and closed the door softly, so as not to engage the automatic track mechanism.

  Back at the Firebird he removed the blood covered jacket. After removing the sweaty mask he put the bloodied gloves inside it and wrapped the mask in the jacket. He was breathing heavily from the exertion and the excitement of the attack. Inside the car a new pair of gloves was removed from the paper bag, and the rolled up jacket was placed inside the empty bag. Clay started the car, pulled out of the parking space and left the apartment complex. At an all night gas station three blocks away he used the pay phone at the edge of the lot to call the local police dispatcher. Anonymously he reported seeing a man being beaten in garage 2306 behind building 2300 in the Woodlands Apartment Complex.

  At the warehouse Clay took everything out of the trunk including the explosives Joey had provided. The small bomb was placed on the rear floor and two five gallon cans of diesel fuel were set in the back seat. The car was driven six blocks from the warehouse and parked under an elevated highway exchange. Both side windows were lowered and the timer on the bomb was set for five minutes. Clay started away from the car at a fast jog and was two blocks away when he heard the explosion. The fire behind him was reflected in the window glass of an office building across the street as he continued jogging back to the warehouse.

  Once again inside the building he changed his clothing and put his work clothes, shoes, and the mask and gloves in a pile, and then sat down with the pictures and negatives. After separating Lizzy’s images from the rest he picked up the clothing and walked outside to build a fire in a burning barrel at the back of the building. Slowly h
e fed the pictures and negatives of his sister and her abusers into the flames, except for one photo in which the faces of both of Rocco’s friends was clear. The camera body was opened and it and the film inside were fed to the flames. Then the bloody clothing, gloves, and mask were put in the barrel. When the flames receded he used a narrow piece of a board to stir the ashes, so no visible evidence remained to speak of the episode.

  Back inside the building he sorted through the remaining pictures and found one of each nude woman where she had been posed alone, standing, kneeling or laying on a bed in suggestive poses. He wrote the name of the girl in the photo on each picture and those, along with the notebook, were placed in his car under the floor mat. The remaining photographs and negatives were placed in a large gym bag and put in the trunk. By then it was after six in the morning. Stopping at the first pay phone he saw, he dialed the number of the girl he had been seeing and woke her up.

  “Hi Carol, this is Clay. Are you alone? I’m lonely; I’d like to come over.”

  “Yeah, now.”

  “Yes, I know what time it is; but I’d like to be close to you this morning.”

  “No, I haven’t been drinking.”

  “Good, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  At two the next afternoon, after Carol had fed him a late breakfast, Clay found a payphone where he could make calls from his car. He started down the names of the women listed in the notebook calling each one. His plan was to let them know he had the photographs and negatives in his possession. He promised them the pictures would be destroyed if they did as they were instructed. They were to deny any involvement with John Rocco and deny the existence of the photographs taken of them. To conceal his identity from Lizzy he put five marbles in his mouth and talked around them. Luckily he only swallowed one and had a short choking coughing fit while on the phone. He was able to reach four of the twelve women listed besides Lizzy.

  By then the evening newspapers were on the stands and he read an article under the headline “Suspected Cop Killer in Custody”. The police had John Allen Rocco in protective custody at the intensive care unit of SAINT MARY’S HOSPITAL. He had been stabilized in critical condition due to a severe beating he had received by an unknown assailant. An anonymous source had reported the attack. Several pieces of incriminating evidence had been discovered when Rocco was taken into custody and the District Attorneys office was waiting for the results of ballistics test currently being run.

  Stopping at the bus station, he took the gym bag inside and placed it in a rental storage locker. It would be safe there until he was ready to destroy the remaining photographs.

  Chapter 18

  The next stop was at St. Mary’s Hospital. After waiting almost fifteen minutes, he got a parking space near the front of the parking lot and close to the main entrance. Getting directions to the intensive care unit was easy, even before he spotted a guard sitting outside the main doors leading into it. Taking a seat in the waiting area assigned to the I. C. U. he settled in and read magazines until five thirty when he recognized Rocco’s friends approaching the nurses station. The tall one asked what room John Rocco was in and the nurse on duty told them Mr. Rocco was not allowed to have visitors. He then inquired about the patients condition and was told “Mr. Rocco is stabilized and resting, but still in very critical condition.”

  As the men walked away and toward the hallway leading back to the main entrance, the short one said, “What should we do now Greg?”

  The reply was straight forward, “Now we get the hell out of here and wait for Johnny to get better before we talk to him.”

  “How long do you think it will take?” the short one asked of his friend.

  “How the fuck should I know, Charlie? I ain’t no God Damn doctor.”

  Charlie ignored his foul tempered friend and continued talking, “I can’t believe Johnny killed a cop. He ain’t no killer. There’s got to be a mistake about him being involved.”

  Clay followed the two men out of the building wondering what intelligence level their friend Johnny must be on. Or, maybe he couldn’t find anyone with a brain to go along with his scheme so he settled for these two.

  The men left the hospital and walked back five rows, toward the center of the parking lot before both got into a four year old green Dodge pick up truck. Clay had been watching the two men from the hospital entrance area before heading for his car. When they drove out of the parking area, he was behind them at a discrete distance.

  Several miles from the hospital the pick up entered a residential neighborhood and pulled into the driveway of a small, older frame bungalow. Clay drove past and continued into the next block where he backed into the driveway of a house with a for sale sign in the overgrown yard. He recorded the number of the house the two men had stopped at, and the street name on a pad of paper and turned on the radio, preparing for a wait. Instead, the pickup backed out of the driveway and headed back the way it had come. Clay followed slowly until he saw Charlie enter the house, and then sped up to catch his prey. Less than a mile away, the pickup parked at the curb in front of an old two story house. Clay was following far enough behind to be able to pull into the driveway of a house on the other side of the street and watch as the man entered the building through a side entrance. After backing out into the street he drove past the man’s pickup and circled the block on his left, parking at the corner where he could see the green pickup at the curb. The house had two address numbers on the front porch and one at the side door Greg had entered.

  He must rent either the basement or a converted attic apartment, Clay thought as he wrote down the address and the truck’s license number. At eleven the pickup had not moved, so Clay headed for home to get a few hours sleep before returning.

  At five thirty the next morning he was parked down the street from Greg’s truck, sipping on a large cup of coffee and eating the first of three donuts.

  He sat hunched down in the seat, questioning himself about what he was planning for the two men who had taken part in raping his sister. He had used Carol the previous morning for his own personal needs. He had no deep and tender feelings for her. She was just one more available and pleasant person to spend time with and use for a sexual outlet until he tired of her; or she of him. But she had the opportunity to say NO. If each of the three men he was plotting against had allowed Lizzy a choice he would have no quarrel with them. It would have been a shared copulation where each party benefited in there own way, not necessarily equal, but beneficial to each. Both individuals could have shared some level of feeling for the other and would have the option of breaking off the relationship simply by saying NO. Instead they chose to take her by force, under a stupor of drugs, knowing she would object to what they intended to do to her. The acts they perpetrated on her body were to exhibit their power; their control over her will and body. And, worse than the initial physical molestation they had attempted to coerce additional participation through emotional blackmail. They had no intention of a shared experience where they might possibly touch the soul of a partner and contribute to the person’s happiness. Or, at the very least, might fill a basic even short lived emotional or sexual need with and for a person. He personally knew, O.K., suspected very strongly, Lizzy had previous one night stands with several men on the fringe of his circle of friends. Oh, what the hell, he was certain some of his close friends had each banged her several times too. But those choices didn’t make her a slut and sure as hell didn’t give anyone the right to set her up for an all night gang bang.

  The door at the side of the house opened, Greg stepped out into the early morning coolness, closed and locked the door, and headed for his truck. Clay followed him in the pre-rush hour traffic for nine miles to a small manufacturing plant where he parked on the street instead of in the small employee’s parking lot. The time was six forty five and the lot was filled with cars from the night shift and the day shift early birds who had previously arrived.

  He still had time to attend yard
sales and visit several antique stores, pursuing his new legitimate business, small as it was. Twice in a single month he had picked up older automatic pistols, two of foreign manufacture. He seldom bought pistols smaller than 9mm, but did have two in the .22 long rifle caliber and a .32 caliber pistol. He was beginning to appreciate the .32 caliber for up close work.

  Before three thirty he was back at the factory where he timed Greg’s walk from the tan metal building to the perimeter fence and on to his truck.

  Clay followed Greg for three more days until his day shift ended and he had two days off. Greg consistently took between twenty eight and thirty two seconds to reach his ride, depending on the location of his parking spot.

  Wednesday morning at five thirty Clay was parked down the street from Charlie’s house eating what was becoming his routine breakfast. At six forty Charlie moved a small tricycle out of the driveway and backed his copper colored Fairlane sedan out of the single car garage. He drove seven miles to an auto parts store where he parked in an asphalt area across the alley behind the store. There were four other cars in the lot besides Charlie’s. Shortly after seven he carried several packages out the back door and got in a delivery truck. Clay followed him from the store to various auto repair garages until noon and then called it quits for the day.

  After lunch he again started calling the remaining women who had been assaulted by the Three Lover Boys as he had begun thinking of them. At six fifteen the following two mornings he parked in a fast food restaurant parking lot along Charlie’s way to work, followed Charlie to the store, and then watched his deliveries for the morning.