by Jacob Stone
They were overlooking a ravine as they sat together on a blanket that Susan had brought. Henry finally made his decision then.
“A little lightheaded,” he lied. “And a tad peaked too. Ah, I’m sorry honey lips (a pet name he had given her during their second date), but this hike might’ve been too much for me. Or maybe it was the cheeseburger I ate for lunch. Whichever it is, I’m not feeling quite up to snuff.”
“Oh no!”
He found it endearing that she seemed so genuinely concerned about his well-being. But that wasn’t why he decided not to kill her. Once he was finally willing to face reality (because it was getting awfully tiring swimming aimlessly in the river de-Nile), he accepted that he couldn’t kill Susan unless he also got rid of Gail that same day. How could he reasonably plan on doing that when he didn’t even know where she lived? Yeah, he could’ve tied up Susan like he did Freeman and forced her to divulge her friend’s address, but even if he did that how could he trust what she told him? There’d be nothing to stop her from intentionally lying to him, or simply babbling out a wrong address in her fear, and whatever she told him he’d have no way of verifying whether it was true. And even if it were true, this Gail Hawes might be married or living with someone or have roommates, which would complicate things. It very well might not be that easy to kill her—it might be something that he’d have to plan out over days to do it safely, possibly even weeks. All of which meant Susan was going to stay alive for now.
He found it a relief to finally arrive at a decision, but also incredibly disappointing, since this was such a missed opportunity. He had picked the trail because it was so little used these days, and as expected they came across no other hikers that afternoon. Up until the moment they left the restaurant everything had gone exactly to plan, and then they had to run into that busybody. That loud, grinning, meddling woman. Not only would he have to skip killing Susan, but he wouldn’t be able to bring anyone else to this perfect spot for murdering, at least as long as Susan remained alive. A heavy sigh rumbled out of him as he accepted all this, and his sigh caused Susan to look at him with even more alarm.
“Nothing to worry about,” Henry assured her. “I’ll be fine with some rest, although I’m afraid I won’t be up to being intimate this afternoon, at least not without risking my heart giving out. Sadly, we’ll have to wait until another time.”
Now not only did Susan look alarmed, but also frustrated, which further endeared her to him, although he still would’ve killed her if he didn’t have to worry about Gail ruining his plans. But still, Susan might be the only person alive who would sincerely be disappointed over not having sex with him. It was doubtful the same could ever have been said about Sheila, and Henry had had no sexually intimate experiences before his wife.
“Should I call for help?” Susan asked.
Henry smiled and shook his head. “It wouldn’t do any good. There’s no cell phone coverage up here. Besides, I’ll be as good as new with a little rest now and a good night’s sleep later. I promise.”
“But what about the hike back to the car?”
“It’s all downhill. I’ll manage.”
She didn’t seem to like his answer, her concern for him wrecking her face more than her wrinkles. But what could she do? Carry him down the trail?
“Why don’t you lie down? We can snuggle at least.”
Henry lowered himself so that he lay on his back, and Susan nestled against him with her head on his shoulder and her knees bent and resting on his thigh. Before too long, Henry draped his arm around her. Once he decided not to kill her, he almost weakened and went along with their plans to become intimate. He hadn’t had sex since Sheila’s accident, and it wasn’t as if the two of them were all that sexually active before then. Once every two weeks if he was lucky. So the thought more than crossed his mind to just go ahead with it, but what kind of monster would that make him? To have sex with a woman that moments earlier he’d been planning to murder in a gruesomely horrific fashion? How sick would that be?
Susan pretended it was an accident when her hand brushed against the stiff bulge that had been growing in Henry’s pants, even though her hand had lingered far longer than it should’ve for that to be the case. Her voice sultry, she asked, “Are you sure you’re not up to us getting naked and doing the dirty deed? All you have to do is lay back, and I’ll do all the work.”
Gawd, it was tempting. Even with her barely ripe plums and skinny ass, it was tempting. But the idea of Susan seeing him naked made his hard bulge as soft as a blob of pudding. It was one thing for her to imagine what he might look like without clothing, but it would be another entirely for her to see him that way. It was difficult enough the first time he allowed Sheila to see him naked, and they were in love! He had no doubt that Susan would be utterly disgusted. That his flabby, pudgy body would look far worse than whatever she might’ve been imagining. Besides, he had made vows to Sheila. For better or for worse. He was going to remain faithful, even with what had happened to her.
“Better for us to just lie like this,” he said. “But another day. I promise.”
She didn’t argue. Her hand had lingered long enough to have felt the bulge in his pants soften. So they lay together, occasionally smooching, until the shadows from a nearby sycamore had crept over them. Henry didn’t consider the smooching betraying his wife since he had no choice about the matter, at least not if he wanted to keep alive the possibility of breaking apart Susan’s skull on a future date. He also didn’t want to raise any suspicions, so the smooching was necessary to maintain the role he was playing.
When they decided to head back down the trail, Susan at first insisted that she carry Henry’s backpack, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
“No way, sugar lips! I’ll be dead and buried before I’d let a beautiful sweetheart like you haul my backpack down this rolling hill that they have the audacity to call a mountain.”
She blushed at that. “But Howard, dear, you’re not feeling well!”
“I’m feeling well enough,” he claimed. “Besides, it’s just a stroll back to the car. Nothing to worry your head about.”
Susan wanted to argue further, reminding him that it would be a two-hour hike down occasionally steep inclines, but she saw the futility of doing so. Henry had no intention of letting her get anywhere near his backpack, let alone carry it. The hammer and chisel were wrapped in cloth so she wouldn’t hear any metal clinking, but the weight of the backpack would make her curious, maybe even curious enough to peek inside, which would leave Henry no choice but to drag her off the trail and break open her skull, even if it meant having Gail calling the police later that night and sending them on a hunt for his alias, Howard Donner. Possibly the police wouldn’t take Gail’s call seriously, at least not at first, but they certainly would after they found Susan’s remains. Then their hunt would be for the Skull Cracker Killer, and they could very well have a police sketch to help them with their hunt. Or maybe even a photo. It wouldn’t surprise Henry if Gail turned out to be as sneaky as she was meddlesome, and for all he knew she might’ve clicked a shot of him with her phone when he wasn’t looking. But Susan never touched his backpack, so none of that was necessary.
Even though they were going down instead of up, it took the same amount of time to make their way to his car as it did when they’d traveled up the mountain to the spot Henry had chosen. He figured that Susan was intentionally slowing down their pace for his benefit, and he played along, exaggerating the way he huffed and puffed at times. While any small amount of physical activity tended to make him perspire like he was melting away in a sauna, he was actually in remarkably good shape even given his squat, pudgy body, and as his dad liked to say, he was as strong as an ox.
Since it was expected (and again, he didn’t want to raise any suspicions), he took Susan to a casual but nice restaurant in Santa Monica where they were seated in a private booth and the waiter barely paid them any attention, although Henry still made sure to bury his face
in the menu, or to turn toward Susan whenever the waiter was nearby. Afterward he took her home. When she invited him in to have a snifter of cognac (her idea, Henry preferred beer) and to see the inside of the town house that she rented, he relented. It was dark, and no one was hanging around outside, so he felt confident he could do so without anyone seeing him there.
It was late, a couple of minutes after ten o ’clock, before he arrived back at his modest ranch-style home in Simi Valley. Sheila was of course where he had left her. One sniff was all he needed to know that she had soiled herself, which was what he had expected to find. He avoided her stare, and channel surfed through the stations until he found what he was looking for. When he was driving home, he’d heard a news report over the radio about a realtor being murdered in Venice. While the report didn’t provide any significant details, it did say that the police would be holding a press conference at ten o’clock, and Henry wanted to hear what they had to say.
Henry caught the press conference from the beginning. They didn’t say much about the murder, only that they suspected the realtor had been lured to the murder site by someone posing as a potential home buyer. They certainly didn’t say anything about this being the work of the Skull Cracker Killer. Maybe they hadn’t made that connection yet. It would make sense if that were so. For the past five years Henry had been impressed at how the New York police had kept what had been done to the victims mostly bottled up. Word might’ve leaked out early on about their skulls being cracked open, but it was what was done to the victims’ brains that would give people their real shivers. Heck, if the press had ever gotten wind of that part of it, they would’ve had a field day with it. So yeah, these Los Angeles police had no clue yet what they were dealing with. They would eventually. Some smart guy in the FBI would make the connection. Henry’s lips tightened into a hard grin as he imagined what would happen then.
The rest of the press conference pretty much followed along the lines of what Henry expected. They gave the address of the house where the murder took place and showed photos of the outside of the home, and asked the public to call a special number if anyone had seen a suspicious person near that address that day. They didn’t narrow down the time that they were interested in, which meant they didn’t know when Freeman had arranged to show Henry (really Leslie Gorman) the house. The police all but confirmed that when they also asked for anyone knowing Corey Freeman’s plans that day to call the special number.
The only curveball the police threw was at the end when they introduced a private consultant who was going to be handling the investigation. That seemed odd to Henry, although from what they were saying about this man, he was supposed to be a hotshot ex-cop. Henry would’ve known this guy Brick was an ex-cop even if they hadn’t mentioned it from his cheap suit and the way his hair was cut short making it look like a bristle brush. Not very physically imposing, although he had that hard-nosed cop look about him. It was his eyes that gave Henry pause to worry. Tough, slate-gray eyes shining with intelligence. Those eyes made Henry especially glad he’d decided what he had about Susan. As much as he needed to kill again, Henry accepted that he was going to have to be extra smart about it and not take any chances.
That ex-cop Brick didn’t say much at the press conference, only that people needed to take precautions, and if they spotted any suspicious activity they should call the police. No kidding. Nothing but a bunch of hooey, Henry thought after the press conference had concluded and he had a few moments to digest what was said.
Sheila hadn’t spoken a word to him since he’d returned home. Without looking at her, he could picture in his mind the way she sat twisted and crippled in her chair, her eyes harsh and accusatory. He squeezed his eyes shut to get rid of that image, and without saying a word he connected his iPhone to the TV and played back the recording he had made of what he had done to Corey Freeman. Only after his wife had watched the murder, did he pick her up and carry her to the bathroom so he could clean her up and dress her in fresh pajamas. While he had used a sponge on her body, he had been gentle enough so that he could’ve been cleaning dust off a dragonfly’s wing.
Chapter Eleven
Long Island, 1979
Henry could not pay attention to a single word Mr. Shapiro was saying. He wasn’t very good at math, and algebra with all of its x’s and y’s and z’s only confused him, but that wasn’t why Mr. Shapiro’s voice had become only a soft drone that he barely noticed. No, the reason for his inability to focus on anything his math teacher was saying was that Sally Klosky took the desk directly in front of his!
Normally, it was hard enough in class to concentrate knowing Sally was in the same room as him, but before today she always sat on the other side of the room so he couldn’t see her unless he craned his neck so that he was looking behind his shoulder. He would never dare do that and risk having Sally catch him sneaking a peek at her. While it would be torture knowing she was nearby, he was still able to function, at least sort of. But now she was so close to him that he could reach forward and touch her. And he could smell her! He breathed in deeply an aroma of apple blossoms from her shampoo mixed with a whiff of the spearmint gum she was chewing, as well as a hint of her musty body odor. On any other girl maybe that smell wouldn’t be so wonderful, but coming from Sally it was the most intoxicating odor he could imagine.
Henry was convinced Sally Klosky was the most beautiful thirteen-year-old girl who ever lived, and anyone trying to argue otherwise just didn’t know what they were talking about. That would be like saying that Star Wars wasn’t the greatest movie ever made. Or Spider-man comic books weren’t the best. It just wasn’t something open for debate. Everything about her was perfect. Her golden, curvy hair that rolled past her shoulders like finely spun silk, her adorable button nose, her peaches-and-cream complexion, the tiny dimple in her chin, that slight overbite that would show when she’d chew on the end of her pen. And her dreamlike body. He would blush deep red whenever he thought of the way she looked in her tight T-shirt and shorts during gym class.
Sally Klosky had Henry’s heart and soul and was the only girl he could ever truly love, no question about it, even if he could only do so from afar. Except now it wasn’t from afar! She was at most two feet away from him. A mere twenty-four inches, maybe less! At first that knowledge had caused a feverish hotness to flush his face and for his heart to pound away so hard that it left him dizzy. Then he realized the opportunity that he’d been presented with, and he moved his desk and chair just enough so he could see her in profile, and then he went about sketching her. Henry might not have been very good at math, but he’d always been a wiz at drawing. People, animals, inanimate objects like cars and spaceships, it didn’t matter. He could draw anything. His art teacher liked to say he was a natural.
Henry had already finished four sketches of Sally, and was starting his fifth, and he had to admit they were pretty good if he did say so himself. It would’ve been impossible for him to fully capture her immense beauty—not even Rembrandt or any of those other old-time dead painters would be skilled enough to do that, but he was pleased with his results so far. He had plans for what he was going to do with them. Later that night he’d start working on a new comic book, and he’d make Sally his superhero. Maybe when he was done with it he’d summon up the nerve to show her his work, and maybe if he did a good-enough job, it would help him win her heart.
Henry was adding the finishing touches to his fifth sketch of Sally when his notebook was lifted away from him. He stared in horror as Mr. Shapiro held his notebook and looked over the sketches he had drawn. As his horror grew, he silently pleaded for Mr. Shapiro not to tell Sally what he had done. It would be worse than death for him if that happened.
Mr. Shapiro shifted his eyes away from the notebook to give Henry a severe stone-faced look, and Henry felt his heart just about stop as he tried to will himself to die, not thinking he could survive what was coming.
Mr. Shapiro, in an exceedingly dry voice, said, “Mr. Polla
rd, I was curious what you were so assiduously scribbling in your notebook, and you can only imagine my surprise to see that you were in fact taking copious notes from my lecture. It is always rewarding for a teacher to find a student so attentive.”
Henry blinked several times, not quite believing what he had heard. Mr. Shapiro handed him back his notebook.
Raising an eyebrow, Mr. Shapiro said, “I will assume that moving forward you will continue to pay rapt attention on the classwork. Isn’t that true, Mr. Pollard?”
At first Henry couldn’t make sense of what had happened, and then he understood the mercy Mr. Shapiro had shown him, and he nodded his head furiously.
Mr. Shapiro gave Henry one last severe look before continuing with his explanation of how x could be derived from y and z given the two equations. Henry felt like a condemned man who’d miraculously been given a last-minute reprieve, and he forced himself for the rest of the class to ignore Sally’s presence, not even allowing himself a whiff of her fragrance. When the class ended, Mr. Shapiro asked Henry to stay behind so they could speak for a few minutes. Once the rest of the students had filed out of the classroom, Mr. Shapiro signaled for Henry to sit in a chair across from his desk.
“You do realize this is a math class and not art?”
Henry gulped as he fought to keep from crying.
Mr. Shapiro let out a sigh, his stern expression softening. “You are talented, I’ll give you that,” he said. “But I can’t have you spending class time drawing your fellow students, no matter how pretty they are. If I were forced to flunk you, it would not only reflect poorly on you, but on myself also. Do we understand each other?”
Henry felt tears leaking from his eyes and worming their way down his cheeks. “I will try harder, Mr. Shapiro, I promise.” He choked down a sob before blurting out, “Thank you so much for not telling Sally. I might’ve died if you had.”
