No one knew he was even aware that it existed, except for the neighbor girl, Cindy. Pardo was certain that Cindy wasn’t The Appointment Killer. After all, she was just a girl.
He claimed the key from the phony rock, opened the door, and stepped inside. There was no alarm, and better yet, the cheating partner always kept the cabin well-stocked with frozen food and liquor. There was also a washer/dryer combo in the utility room that he could use.
Pardo didn’t have to worry about the man and his paramour walking in on him, since he knew that the partner was down in Atlanta on business.
Having missed dinner and tired from the stress, Pardo built himself a drink then went into the kitchen to look for food.
There was a container inside a plastic bag sitting in the refrigerator. The name on the bag was Pardo’s favorite restaurant. When he looked inside, he saw that the foam container held a meal of chicken parmesan, another favorite of his.
What the hell, I can replace the food before anyone else comes here again.
Pardo heated up the food, and gorged on it, while downing three drinks, as the food was saltier than usual. It was nearly an hour later when the first stab of pain passed through him and he felt his gut twist. It was then that the thought occurred to him that he might have been poisoned.
The bastard must have been following me the last time I came here with Cindy. I’m going to die.
The panicked thought left his mind an instant later. Maybe the food had been too old, but he wasn’t poisoned. The date on the card wasn’t for four days, and poison killed quicker than that. And anyway, the serial killer couldn’t have known that he’d tried to hide in the cabin, could he?
In Pardo’s mind, the killer was a shadowy male figure. The idea that a woman could be the murderer never entered his thoughts. For Keith Pardo, women were playthings, amusements, not real people, and certainly not serial killers.
The pain in his gut grew worse and Pardo rushed into the bathroom, dropped his shorts, and sat on the toilet. At that moment, his fate was decided.
The blue toilet seat was the soft padded type. It made a squishing sound and Pardo felt something slimy against his buttocks. He was puzzled by it, but also preoccupied by more abdominal pain and the act of defecating.
Once he’d emptied his bowels and had wiped, Pardo reached back to flush the toilet, to help ease the stink in the room. The bowl emptied, but no new water filled the basin.
When he went to stand up, Keith Pardo discovered that he was welded to the toilet seat by a strong and quick-drying industrial epoxy. Once it was released from its makeshift container and came into contact with the air, it began to harden.
“What the hell?” Pardo murmured.
Some of the thick substance had overflowed and was on the side of the toilet. Pardo reached down with his left index finger to scoop up a portion of it to look at. When it brushed against his middle finger the two digits became stuck to each other. Using toilet paper, Pardo cleaned off the excess, before attempting to separate his fingers. He was unable to do so.
Again, he tried to stand but his ass was now a part of the toilet seat, which was no ordinary toilet seat. Bending over, Pardo studied the porcelain bowl. It looked normal enough. As for the rigged seat, it was glued into the down position. When the epoxy had seeped out the top and onto Pardo, some had leaked from the bottom and welded the seat to the bowl.
“No! No! No!” Pardo screamed as he struggled to rise. He could only use his legs, as he didn’t dare touch the bowl and risk getting a hand stuck to it. When he at last accepted that he was a prisoner to it, he laughed hysterically.
This is crazy! Who the hell would set up a prank like this?
Pardo wondered if the senior partner had discovered that the junior partner was sleeping with his wife and had come up with the sabotaged toilet seat as a way to get back at him. He tried to imagine the senior partner doing such a thing. The man was in his sixties, stodgy, and had no sense of humor.
No, there’s no way the old man came up with something like this. The killer? Could this have been done by the madman who’s sending the day of death envelopes?
Pardo thought about that. Remembered the predicted date of his death, and the fact that the human body didn’t fare well after days without water. This had been the killer’s handiwork, and he had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure Pardo died of thirst.
Pardo could hear the TV playing a commercial, but the sound was muffled. Out of habit, he had closed the bathroom door as he’d entered.
The bathroom contained a sink and a clawfoot tub that had a shower attachment; both were out of reach. While staring at the sink, Pardo noticed that the faucet dripped. There was water less than a yard beyond the reach of his outstretched hand.
Looking down between his legs, he saw that there was no water in the bowl. He leaned over as far as he could and observed that the shut-off valve for the toilet had been turned to the off position and then removed. More epoxy had been applied to the end of the pipe, a big hardened mass. Even if he had a tool, he would have been unable to turn it back on.
Pardo had stopped to pee behind a tree on his hike to the cabin, but he wondered what would have happened had he only stood to pee, and not sat down. He remembered then, the seat had been in the up position when he’d entered the room, so it wouldn’t have mattered much. While he might have thought it strange that the bowl hadn’t refilled with water after flushing, it wouldn’t have kept him from using it again, and he would have sat down anyway. Besides, it was the only toilet in the house.
Pardo had consumed a vodka, then had two bottles of beer with the meal. He shouldn’t be thirsty yet but knowing that he couldn’t drink made his mouth feel dry.
Screw this!
Pardo strained as hard as he could as he fought to free himself from the toilet seat. He had no more luck than he’d had the first two times.
This can’t be happening.
But it was happening, and it was only the beginning. Keith Pardo drifted off to sleep sometime after two a.m. after having made more attempts to get free. Three long days later, Erica and Owens began their search for him.
Chapter Thirty-One
KINGSTON, NEW YORK, LATE ON DAY THREE, TUESDAY, JULY 16th
The Kingston Police Department was spurred to action once Erica and Owens had explained the situation. Keith Pardo’s friends and work associates were all contacted and questioned. They were asked about the last time they had seen Pardo and if they knew of anyplace he might run off to if he were trying to get away from things.
Erica and Owens had joined with police to question the people in Pardo’s building. As Erica was talking to an overweight man named Burns in the doorway of his apartment, his teenage daughter came up to stand beside him. It was the girl that Pardo was sleeping with. The sixteen-year-old was willowy, with long blonde hair and large brown eyes. She was dressed for bed in a pajama set comprised of a graphic T-shirt and striped shorts. The shirt displayed a drawing of a bear inside a cave, along with the words, You call it sleep, I call it hibernating.
“What’s going on, Dad?”
“That lawyer who lives down the hall, Mr. Pardo, he’s missing. This lady is from the FBI and is looking for him.”
When Erica asked the girl, who was named Cindy, if she had seen Pardo over the last few days, Cindy shook her head no.
“When was the last time either of you saw him?”
Her father couldn’t remember, but Cindy said that it had been eight days.
“Eight days? That’s specific, why do you remember? Did something significant happen at the time?” Erica asked.
Cindy blushed slightly, gave a sideways glance at her father, and said, “No, nothing special.”
Erica studied the girl for a beat, then smiled at her father as she cleared her throat. “Mr. Burns, could I trouble you for a drink of water?”
“We’ve got bottled water, is that all right?”
“Yes, thank you, and while you’re getting tha
t I’d like to ask Cindy about her ring. I have a niece who would love an emerald ring like that.”
Burns had been about to send Cindy off to fetch the bottle of water. Since Erica was interested in the ring, he went off to get it himself.
When he was out of earshot, Erica stared at Cindy. “It’s very important that we find Mr. Pardo. We’ve reason to believe that someone wants to kill him. If you can help in any way call me when you’re alone.”
Cindy said nothing.
Erica shoved one of her cards at her. The girl palmed it as her father returned. Erica thanked Burns for the water and gave him a card too, before telling them to have a pleasant evening.
Owens approached her and asked if she’d learned anything that might help. Erica said no, then looked back at Cindy’s apartment door.
“I’ve a suspicion that Keith Pardo might be involved with a teenage girl who lives in that apartment, but she’s reluctant to talk.”
“And if you pushed her, she definitely wouldn’t say anything. Did you leave her a way to get in touch?”
“I gave her a card. Even if something is going on there, she still might not know where he is.”
“Pardo is the fourth victim in a row to have a predilection for young girls, but so far there’s nothing linking these men to each other.”
“No, there must be something, and when there’s time to give it thought we’ll find it.”
“But first, we have to locate Keith Pardo.”
Erica checked the time on her phone. It was 12:08 a.m. on Tuesday, July 16th.
If Pardo was alive, he might be living his last day on earth.
Chapter Thirty-Two
OUTSIDE KINGSTON, NEW YORK, SUNDAY, JULY 14th
Keith Pardo awoke at 6:42 a.m. to a stiff neck and numb legs. He also had a bad taste in his mouth and needed to pee. In the first few moments, he was confused and wondered why he’d fallen asleep on the toilet.
The details of his predicament came in a rush, and again he tried to stand, to lurch free, but it was no use. The effort woke his legs and they felt as if someone was sticking a thousand needles into them as circulation was regained.
The glob of epoxy that had dripped onto the floor was a hardened mass. Now that he no longer had to fear getting his hands stuck to the bowl, Pardo gripped the sides of the commode and strained to get free. He had no more success than when he could only use his legs.
As he sat there panting from the wasted effort, he let his bladder release the urine he’d been holding in.
Man, but I could go for a cup of coffee, Pardo thought. He could also use a cigarette, but they were in the living room near the remote for the TV. The baseball game he’d been watching had gone off, and in its place was a morning talk show. Pardo couldn’t hear much of it clearly but knew what it was by the fake cheer he heard in the hosts’ voices.
Across the room, water dripped from the faucet in a steady flow of droplets. Pardo watched it for nearly a minute and wondered if the leak were intentional. Perhaps the killer had caused it to make the trap more torturous. The longer he watched the drip, the more Pardo became determined to find a way to access that water. If he could do that, he’d have a chance to survive. Surely someone would find him before he starved to death.
He couldn’t reach the sink but there was a wicker basket on the side of the toilet filled with magazines. Pardo removed them and found that there was other treasure hidden at the bottom of the basket. Six snack-size bags of potato chips and pretzels had been under the magazines. Pardo grinned. Once he figured out a way to get water, he’d also have something to eat.
After staring at the sink again he put his mind to work coming up with a solution. When he had a plan, he went to work putting it together.
Pardo tore pages from the car and fashion magazines, then rolled them into tubes. He estimated that it would take eighteen to twenty tube lengths to achieve what he wanted to do. He was constructing a funnel. By rolling one end of each tube small enough to fit into the top of the one that came before it, he could align them together in a telescoping manner.
The going was slow and impeded by the fingers fused together on his left hand. Whatever was used to secure him to the toilet also caused his buttocks to itch madly, and the itch couldn’t be scratched.
It took hours until he had the crude funnel just right and was able to keep the individual tubes from separating. When his creation was completed, he eased the wide end toward the sink. As he was about to lower it so that it would catch the drops of water, a tube in the middle bent from the weight it was supporting.
“Damn it, no!” Pardo cried. He pulled back quickly, and the front tube came loose and fell into the sink.
An hour later and he was ready to try again, as he still felt that his design was workable. By placing more of the slick pages in the center portion of the long funnel he had strengthened it. Slowly, and with great care, Pardo sent the funnel toward the sink again. Once he had its front end near the faucet, he was able to rest it on the cabinet’s edge.
A drop fell from the faucet, headed toward the drain beneath it, but was intercepted by and contained within the funnel.
“Yeah, baby, that’s it. Collect that water for Daddy.”
After several minutes, Pardo’s arms began to ache from the effort of holding out the funnel made from the coated magazine pages. When he realized that it was getting heavier, he was sure his ingenuity was going to save his life.
When he felt the first drops of liquid trickle against his thigh, Pardo lowered his mouth and caught precious drops of water on his tongue. As his mouth grew moist, tears of joy leaked from his eyes. It was short-lived happiness.
Although coated with an ultra-thin layer of varnish, the magazine pages still absorbed water, along with its resultant weight. The funnel collapsed once more, with its wettest sections hitting the floor beyond Pardo’s reach.
“That’s okay, it’s okay; I’ll just do it again.”
By the time it was getting dark, and he had used up every page, more sections of funnel had fallen into the sink, and more of the pages soaked with water had dropped to the floor. There was also success, as Pardo had taken in two ounces of water.
He was sweating out more water than he’d taken in. When he had arrived at the cabin it had been late, and the temperature had dropped. The weather had changed, grown warmer, and the sun was beating down on the cabin, with the central air turned off. Worse yet, Pardo was in a small room with the door closed. There was no window, only an exhaust fan, and he couldn’t reach the switch. Had he taken in three times the amount of water he’d managed to gather, the effort to do so was causing him to sweat out even more. He would have been better off to have sat still all day.
I’ll think of something else, or I’ll be rescued, but I won’t die here. I’m not going to die like this, God, not like this.
Although he’d had a modicum of water, Pardo hadn’t eaten anything since consuming the tainted meal that had compelled him to the toilet. After checking the expiration date to see if the snacks he’d found were too old to eat, he tore open a bag. The scent of the potato chips heightened his appetite; he shoved a handful into his mouth and began chewing. They were the type with the barbecue flavor. After not having eaten anything for a full day, the salty snack tasted better than some steaks he’d had. The small bag emptied quickly, and he tore open a new one. He filled his mouth again an instant before a revelation struck him—the chips were loaded with salt, and salt made you thirsty.
Pardo spat out the potato chips, or rather, the chips from the second bag, as he’d already eaten one. He then stared at the bag in his hand.
Why were these in here in the first place? I don’t remember seeing these or the magazines before.
Pardo cursed vehemently as he tossed the bags of salty snacks into the bath tub. This serial killer was a devious and sadistic bastard. Either that, or he was someone who had it in for Pardo personally.
As he went back over his life and thought abo
ut the people who might want him to suffer, it shocked Pardo to realize how long the list was. And although he didn’t give any weight to the idea that she might be responsible, the name Heather Gray passed through Pardo’s mind.
Chapter Thirty-Three
OUTSIDE KINGSTON, NEW YORK, DAY TWO, MONDAY, JULY 15th
Keith Pardo awoke after only a few hours of sleep to realize that he’d been awakened by a leg cramp. After he’d stretched and massaged his calf muscle, he became aware of how thirsty he was, as a few feet away the faucet continued its drip, drip, dripping.
The bathroom was stuffy from the heat of the day that had passed, as the temperature outside still hovered in the low seventies. The forecast for the next day was for the mid-eighties amid bright sun. Pardo’s stomach growled from hunger and he wanted a cigarette more than he could ever remember. On top of everything else, he had a headache, while sitting for so long had his back in knots. If his condition was this bad after only twenty-eight hours, he dreaded what was to come.
The muffled sounds of the TV seemed louder than before. Pardo listened and thought that it sounded as if an infomercial was on.
He really wished he had left the bathroom door open. The room wouldn’t be so stuffy, and he could at least hear the TV. The scent of his own urine was rich in the air, as it sat at the bottom of the unflushed bowl.
He looked down at himself, at his bare thighs. He had stripped off the shorts, his socks and sneakers, and removed his shirt, so as to feel cooler. He sat naked atop the toilet in a cabin and was forced to smell his own stale body odor. He was hungry, thirsty, and felt hot. If he were able to rise from the seat, he would drink a gallon of water, eat a feast, and shower, after turning on the air-conditioner to full blast.
The Appointment Killer Page 14
