by Gary Ruffin
Neal said, “You’re right: there are more questions than answers at this point. I have another question to add to the mix: Why do you think the killer just doesn’t try to get to Cherry in a more conventional way, like just shooting her? Not that I want her to get hurt, but why bring all these others into it?”
“Who knows with these sickos? Maybe it’s just a case of trying to get Cherry Page to take notice. Maybe she means something to him that we haven’t been able to perceive yet.”
“Hmmm,” said Neal.
“Right. It gets curiouser and curiouser,” Carver said, staring into space.
Noticing a pack of cigarettes in Carver’s pocket, Neal said, “I usually don’t allow smoking in here, but since you made a special trip, go ahead and light up if you want to.”
“That’s okay. I need to cut back anyway. These cinnamon rolls are hitting the spot.”
“They’re the best, if you don’t mind me bragging on my wife. So, I guess you’ve considered that the stalker might be an acquaintance of Cherry’s. Possibly a coworker, someone here for the filming?”
Carver said, “Yeah, we’ve been looking into that, but so far, nothing. It makes sense, seeing as how Cherry’s being contacted through her personal computer.”
Neal reached down to try and scratch under his ankle cast, and said, “You know, John, I’ve been wonderin’ if there might be more than one person involved. I mean, if this cult thing pans out, why couldn’t there be two or more people involved? It seems to me that it would be difficult to move a body from a house to a theater without help. Do the profilers have anything to say about that?”
Smiling weakly, Carver said, “That’s the main problem we have here. Too many questions and opinions, and not one particular answer that covers all those bases.”
Neal took a cinnamon roll, and asked, “Do you think it could be a woman?”
Carver paused, and said, “Well, if we were just talking about normal stalking, it could easily be a woman. But female serial killers are rare.” He sipped his coffee, and continued, “Only about one or two percent of stalkers actually kill. Mostly they just drive their victims crazy.”
When Neal took a bite of his roll without elaborating, Carver asked, “What made you ask about a woman?”
Neal finished chewing, swallowed, and said, “Just a thought, no real reason. When I worked homicide in New Orleans, we tried to look under every rock.”
Carver replied, “Personally, and off the record, I think you may be right about a group possibly being involved. And even though, like I said, it’s rare, there’s always a possibility that the killer is a woman. I guess just about anything is possible these days. But until we find something physical, evidence-wise, at a scene, it’s all speculation. I know that the profilers can be amazingly accurate at times, but they need more hard data to be effective. And our killer, or killers, just aren’t cooperating.”
Neal said, “Maybe we should add that to the list of attributes our stalker has.”
“Add what?”
“Our stalker is completely uncooperative.”
19
I WOKE UP IN CHERRY’S BED ABOUT THIRTY SECONDS BEFORE THE DESK clerk rang the room with our wake-up call. I answered in midring, thanked the clerk for calling, and lay back on my pillow. I was alone in the big bed, and I could hear the shower running. Cherry was up and at ’em early again.
The bathroom door was slightly open, and steam was coming into the room along with the light. Again, I thought of how many men would love to be in my position, less than twenty feet away from a wet, naked Cherry Page.
To keep from becoming too stimulated by my surroundings, I thought about anything else: baseball, World War II, fishing, et cetera. But the thought that really cooled me off was an image of Penny aiming her Glock at my boxers.
Just as I was feeling proud of my self-control, the shower stopped, and I heard the sound of Cherry humming as she toweled off. A few moments later, she came out in just a bra and panties, and headed into the outer room, unaware that I was awake. She was unaware that I was awake because I had my eyes almost closed. With the room only slightly lit, I must have appeared to be asleep when she glanced at the bed before moving to the other room.
After that display, I had to visualize Penny in triplicate, with each of the fuming Pennys aiming shotguns at my fun zone. It seemed to be working, until Cherry reappeared in the bedroom, reached behind her back to take off her bra, and replaced it with another one. She turned away from me to do it, but the sight of her naked back in the dim light was too much. I kept my eyes shut—well, almost—and watched through the slits as she went back into the bathroom. The shotguns were no longer working at that moment.
To let her know I wasn’t sleeping, I fake-yawned loudly, and turned away towards the wall. She stuck her head out and asked, “Are you awake, Cooper?”
“Mmmph,” I said. Trying to yawn, and failing, I said, “Are you already up and about? Boy, I was sleeping like a teenager in study hall. I dozed off after the front desk called.”
“Study hall? I suppose that translates to ‘you were sleeping soundly,’ yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be out in just a few.”
“Great,” I said. I needed a few.
A knock at the door signaled Sally’s arrival with breakfast, and I went to answer it, closing the bedroom door behind me. Had to keep up appearances. “Just a minute,” I said, as I pulled on my jeans and opened the door to the suite.
Sally said cheerily, “Good morning, Coop. How’s the boy? Did you sleep well?”
“The boy is doin’ just fine. I slept very well. Come in and make yourself at home. Cherry should be out in a minute, and I’m gonna shower and be right with y’all.”
“Splendid. I’ll have the table set and ready for you.”
“Thanks. Be right back.”
I grabbed a tee shirt from my suitcase, and walked towards the bedroom. I knocked, and entered when Cherry said, “Come in.” Cherry was in her robe, combing her wet hair in front of the dresser mirror.
She said, “Shower’s all yours, Cooper. Hurry so you can have your breakfast hot.”
“Yes, ma’am, be right there.”
The first minute of my shower was under cold water.
As Cherry and I cruised in the Bentley to rehearsal, I asked, “Why are you guys filming in Atlanta? Why not Hollywood?”
“Okay, first things first. You’re aware that the studio in charge of this film is called Stonestreet?”
“Yes,” I said. “They flew me here.”
“Right. Well, Stonestreet is the studio that I most often work for in Britain, and they have used Atlanta before on a picture that was set in America. And this film happens to be set in a small town in America, at a college. The interesting thing is—depending on how and where you shoot—Atlanta can be made to look like many places, which makes it quite nice as a location. Or so I’ve been told. Also, there is rather a lot of rural area nearby, and that can be a plus as well. And, it’s closer than Hollywood. Add to all that the beauty of the city itself, and you have quite a few reasons to film here.”
“Are many movies shot in Atlanta?” I asked.
“I’m not sure where the city ranks in film production, but it’s certainly not unheard of to be filming here. The main location for us is a college that was used in a very successful horror film several years back.”
“How ’bout that. I had no idea that movies were made here. Of course, my knowledge of moviemaking is almost nonexistent. What’s your movie about?”
“Didn’t you listen at rehearsal yesterday?” she asked with a smile.
“Um, to be honest, my mind was elsewhere.”
“I hope so. You’re not being paid to listen to a bunch of hacks reading lines.”
“I’ll try again,” I said. “What’s your hack movie about?”
She giggled and said, “I play a first-year college professor from England who falls in love with the dean’s son.”
“Well, I can definitely see you playing an English chick, but I don’t know about that ‘professor’ stuff.”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, ma’am. Continue, please?”
“Anyway, the dean doesn’t approve of the match, because, you see, it turns out he was engaged to my character’s mother years before, when he was a student at Oxford. Had they actually gotten married, he could’ve been my father, so he feels the whole thing to be a bit unseemly, me marrying his son, and all. He’s a widower now, and my mother is a widow, so she comes to America to straighten him out, and they too become involved. And then, naturally, the hilarity ensues. It’s a romantic comedy. At least I hope that’s what it turns out to be.”
“What’s it called?”
“Teaching English. It’s based on the best seller by the same name.”
“Not a bad title. Anyway, I’m sure with you as the star, it’ll be a big hit, and I know Penny will drag me kickin’ and screamin’ to see it, so you better be good.”
Frowning, she said, “‘Kicking and screaming?’ Haven’t you seen every one of my films?”
“Well, you see—the thing is—I haven’t seen even one of your movies. Does that mean I hafta give back the Bentley and my suite at the Ritz?”
Cherry looked at me coolly and said, “Of course it does. If you haven’t seen even one of my films, I shan’t pay you for services rendered.”
“Oh, but you shan,” I said.
“I shan’t!”
“Shan!”
Laughing, she said, “Oh, all right, you blithering idiot, I shall keep you on the payroll for the time being. But cross me even once, and you’ll never work in this business again.”
“Whew. That’s a huge relief. I don’t know what I’d do if I could no longer act. It’s in my blood now.”
“Oh, shut up and drive, Jeeves.”
“Yes, mum. Whatever you say, mum.”
Cherry threw her perfect nose in the air, and said, “That’s more like it.”
I was enjoying my job way too much. I needed to call Penny.
20
ACTING POLICE CHIEF PENNY PREVOST WAS BOILING MAD AT COOP, BUT she was determined not to call and check up on him. She’d seen the endless news reports on CNN and all the entertainment news programs about Cherry, and she’d also seen Coop in his tux walking from the museum with her, looking a little too happy. His hair looked better than she’d ever seen it, and she wondered who had cut it for him. She knew who had talked him into having it done, but it wasn’t Cherry who was making her so angry.
The freshly shorn son-of-a-bee should’ve called her five or six times by now, but she could just hear him if she called and asked what the hell was going on: “Oh, that was nobody, Cherry. Just one of my officers needing me to straighten out a mess they made.”
If he were with anybody else in the entire world, Penny would have called and blistered his eardrum over the phone the first day, but she would rather die than have her heroine think of her as a shrew. Cherry Page and Penny Prevost were going to be the best of friends: of that she was certain. Having her revenge with Coop would have to wait.
As soon as Coop brought Cherry to Gulf Front, she and Cherry would become bosom buddies, forming a lifelong bond that could never be broken. They would stay in touch constantly by instant messenger—well, maybe not at first, considering the circumstances—and the two of them would become closer than sisters, promising to stay in touch after Cherry had to leave Gulf Front and go back to—
Penny’s daydream was rudely interrupted when officer Adam Ingmire called on the patrol-car radio to tell her that there was trouble at the barbershop. Two of the elderly gents who hung around there were squaring off out in front on the sidewalk, and it looked like fisticuffs were inevitable.
Penny told Adam she was on her way, and sighed deeply as she turned Coop’s patrol car around and headed back to town. She checked her watch, and made a mental note of the time: 10:12 A.M.
When she arrived at the scene, there was no one in front of the barbershop other than Adam and Bum, Coop’s big German Shepherd. Adam was leaning on his patrol car, cleaning his fingernails with a pocketknife, and Bum was sticking his nose through the partially opened window of Adam’s car.
Penny slowed to a stop in the street, waved at Bum, and asked, “Where’d everybody go? Anybody get hurt?”
Adam walked over to her window, and said, “Naw, the show’s over. Mr. Hinckley and Mr. Nicks were about to go at it, when Miz Hinckley came up and grabbed Mr. Hinckley by his ear, and pulled him down the block to Doc’s office. She was in the waiting room when somebody told her about the fight that was brewin’. It was pretty much all over after that.”
“Did you write out any citations?”
“Naw, didn’t seem to be any need. If one of ’em had actually thrown a punch, I was ready to put a stop to it, but old guys like them two wouldn’t have caused much damage, anyway.” He smiled, and said, “Hey, listen, I got an idea. Maybe you should deputize Miz Hinckley while Coop’s away.”
Penny thought, Maybe I should deputize Miz Hinckley and send her to Atlanta.
21
SPECIAL AGENT JOHN CARVER WAS AT HIS DESK GOING OVER THE PROFILERS’ latest report for the third time, when his desk phone rang. He picked up, said hello, and listened as Sergeant Traylor of the APD task force told him he was needed at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead immediately. A maid had discovered a dead female body in one of the rooms at 11 A.M.
Carver asked, “Did you find anything helpful in the way of evidence this time?”
Traylor said, “You need to come see this for yourself, Agent Carver. This is, well, bizarre is the word I might use. There’s a lot of—you just really need to see this for yourself.”
“I’m on my way.”
Carver glanced at his desk clock, saw that it was 11:25, and told his secretary where he was headed. He hustled to the elevator and took it down to the parking lot.
At 12:05, he parked in the loading dock area of the Ritz and flashed his badge to the security guard as he entered the hotel. A uniformed officer was there to meet him, and they took the stairs to the fifth floor.
Sergeant Traylor was standing outside the open door of Room 506 talking to a crime scene investigator, both of them wearing plastic shoe covers. After the introductions were made, Carver put covers on over his shoes and entered the room. Whatever hopes he had for finding evidence quickly faded as he surveyed the space.
Almost the entire room, including the body, was covered in fire extinguisher foam. There were five extinguishers just inside the door, and they were small enough to all fit easily inside a large suitcase. Judging by the amount of foam, it was likely that they had all been emptied in the room. The foam had subsided somewhat, but still covered every inch of the room and its contents, except for one thing: the victim’s laptop, which was sitting on the dresser.
Carver stepped gingerly over to the laptop, and saw that there was an instant message from not_so_shy_guy3 to the username he recognized as Cherry Page’s. It read: Baal calls to you through me… . You are The One … I am your Deliverer. Come home … the time for Sacrifice draws nigh.
The message box wasn’t the only thing on the screen; a website devoted to Baal worship was visible behind the box. The image of a weird three-headed creature stared out from the screen. One of the heads was an ugly man wearing a crown; the second head was a cat; the third head, a toad. The chest was that of a human, while the legs were those of a spider. Carver shook his head at the disturbing sight, and turned his attention to the corpse.
Even more disturbing was the sight of the victim’s foam-slimed body. Her throat had been cut, and blood had mixed with the foam to make a sickly pink. She had been sliced open from her pubis to her breastbone, and a sixth extinguisher had been left lying on her exposed entrails. The killer had also violated Lois Langley with one final insult, and had left the police a final taunt.
Carver sighed deeply, and said, “This f
reak is one sick sonofabitch, but surely isn’t stupid enough to forget to wear gloves or to wipe everything clean. Do we know where the victim was last night?”
Traylor said, “Not yet, but my guys are questioning the hotel staff. If you’ve seen enough, we need to move so the crime scene team can get to work.”
Carver said, “I’ve seen more than enough. They’re obviously not gonna find much in the way of evidence. I’ll be interested to see if they can estimate how long it’s been since the killer left the scene. My guess is he waited until almost checkout time, so the maid and the manager would find the body covered in foam. This guy likes to live dangerously.”
When they were in the hall, Traylor asked, “You ever see anything like this?”
Carver ran his hand through his hair, and said, “Nope, can’t say that I have. One thing’s for sure, whoever’s doing this is getting bolder by the day. We’d better focus on the guests, as well as the hotel staff. It’s possible whoever’s doing this works here, or is staying here.”
Sergeant Traylor nodded and made notes on his pad as Carver closed the conversation. “Thanks for your help, Sergeant. I need to call my contact, and bring him up to speed. With this happening just a few doors down from her room, Ms. Page needs to know this whack job is closing in on her.”
22
WHEN CHERRY AND I ARRIVED AT THE THEATER, THERE WERE SEVERAL news vans and camera crews set up near the entrance, but there were also enough police officers on duty to get us into the lot, into a parking space, and inside the building without too much trouble. The reporters were yelling questions at Cherry about the stalker, and how she felt about the murders, and who was I, and anything else their little pointed heads could think of to shout. The paparazzi were back with a vengeance, and a couple were knocked to the ground in the battle to get a good angle. Cherry smiled at them all, and I scowled at them all.
