Her Silent Shadow: A Gripping Psychological Suspense Collection

by Edwin Dasso

  Max took a video of the table scene with Ben’s phone, then he took a short sequence of frames showing Ben’s eyes darting incoherently and foam gushing from his mouth. He then looked up four contacts on Ben’s phone and sent the video. He then placed the phone in Ben’s hand.

  He secured the lock on the patio door, then left by the front door, locking the knob as he left. It was dark and he was nearly invisible in the dark plastic suit and dark nitrile gloves. He walked quickly toward the blue sedan and drove away without the lights on.

  10

  Wednesday, August 21, 12:30 PM

  Frank, John, and Betty stood outside the locked basement door of the church. A moment later, a black Hyundai sedan entered the parking lot, parked, and a man exited and came up to the small group.

  “Hello,” he said,” I am Father Rangan. Ben won’t be joining you today, so I am here in his place.”

  “We know all about it,” Betty said. “We all got the text from him showing what happened. I guess it was his suicide note!”

  “Let’s go inside, OK,” Father Rangan said. “Sounds like you know more than I do.”

  The group descended the steps quietly. Each one got a chair and Frank got two – one for himself and one for Max. He hoped Max showed up as he was feeling that Max was a man of action and would bring some energy to the group and make them confront what happened rather than run from it.

  “Thanks for coming,” Father Rangan said. “I know things have been difficult lately, and you already know the bad news I was going to give you. I am a trained grief counselor, so I am here to help you deal with Ben’s death.”

  “Oh my God,” Betty wailed, “he looked so good in that tux.”

  “If you’re gonna go, might as well wear your finest. Not like you are going to need it after you are dead,” John replied.

  “Who called it in?” Father Rangan asked.

  All three group members raised their hands.

  “Just as soon as I got the text,” Betty said.

  “By the time the rescue squad got there, it was too late,” John said. “And another thing - my nephew on the squad said the candle by the mask was leaning and would have fallen and set the place on fire in another couple of minutes. And listen to this – you wanna know something wild? Supposedly Ben called the Canton Police Department.”

  “A dead body,” Frank said. “Must have been germs all over the place. How do those clean up guys do it?”

  “Please, Frank!” Betty commanded. “For once can you just stop thinking about yourself. What else did your nephew see?” she asked with a lurid gleam in her eye.

  “Not much. We all saw the end of the text where Ben was foaming at the mouth and looking wild-eyed like he had seen a ghost. Maybe he was seeing the ghost of his dead wife? He looked so – horrified!”

  “What?” John yelled without a hint of hesitation. “Of course, he was confronting his fears like we talked about in group last week. Gees, I wish Max was here – he said it so well. He made us all feel like we could triumph over our fears.”

  “Yeah, he was good,” Betty added. “It was like he got to know all of us so quickly. Gosh, I hope he comes back.”

  “Me too,” Frank said. “You know, I went out in public for the first time on Monday without my gloves. I didn’t touch anything, of course, but I went out. I was afraid, but I kept remembering what Max said in group.”

  11

  Monday, August 26th, 11:00 AM

  The blue sedan headed west on US Route 30. The sandy-haired driver took a sip from a 16-ounce bottle of Diet Coke, then screwed the cap back on. He looked at a sign then mouthed the words, “Valley Cheese House.” He veered hard left off the highway onto Kidron Road, then made an immediate right into the empty parking lot of the cheese house.

  He checked his look in the mirror, straightened his blue and green striped red tie, and brushed a few donut crumbs from his chin. He felt inside his left jacket pocket for the leather folder that held the badge, then put on a pair of plain glass black horn-rimmed glasses and walked up the three wooden steps to the front door.

  “Hello,” he said as he entered. He pulled the leather folder out of his breast pocket and opened it to show the badge. “I’m inspector Angelo from the Ohio Department of Agriculture. I’m here to do a spot inspection.”

  A tall blonde young woman in a blue and white checked cotton dress, white athletic shoes, and a white bonnet rushed around the counter to meet the Inspector. “I wasn’t expecting anybody, today. Maybe I should call…”

  “Don’t worry,” the man said. “You have nothing to worry about. This store has always received high marks for cleanliness. I would ask that you lock the door, though, and put up the closed sign. Things will go much more quickly if you don’t have to deal with customers.”

  “I can call my aunt and have her come down…”

  “It will be over long before she would even get here,” the Inspector replied. “Now go lock the door and put up the closed sign and I will meet you in back. And don’t call anybody – this is an off-the-record surprise inspection. Between us, OK? You know, I don’t even know your name?”

  “It’s Naomi,” she said as she headed toward the door. As ordered, she locked the door and turned the white plastic sign over to show closed from the outside.

  “Close the blinds, also,” the man ordered. “We don’t want people to see us and think we are ignoring them. Join me in the back room when you are finished.”

  Naomi did as she was told and when she entered the cheese storage and packaging room, she was surprised to see that the Inspector had on a blue surgeon’s cap and matching blue gloves. He had borrowed an apron from a hook on the wall. “Wow,” she said.

  “So I don’t contaminate anything in here. I don’t want to introduce hairs that might negatively impact my inspection.”

  Naomi nodded and watched as the inspector opened the heavy wooden door of the walk in cooler and entered. “Aren’t you supposed to be wearing protective footwear so lots of germs don’t get on the floor?”

  “Good, Naomi, I was just testing you and you passed.” He wrote something in the notebook and Naomi smiled. He went further back and then said, “what is that horrible smell. Smells like somebody died in here!”

  Naomi grabbed the special plastic shoes from a hook beside the cooler and walked in and stood beside the Inspector. She laughed and said, “That is our most expensive Limburger cheese you are smelling. We ship that all over Ohio. I am surprised you thought that was rotten!”

  “I’m going to need to bag this and take it back to the office.” The inspector pulled a clear heavy-duty plastic bag out of his jacket pocket.

  “I don’t think you know what you are doing. I’m going to go call my aunt!” Naomi turned to leave the cooler, but before she had taken one step forward, the plastic bag descended over her head. She screamed, but the bag and the cooler deadened the sound. Soon her breaths were coming faster as she began to panic. The man held the bag with his left hand while he pulled a thin-bladed knife from his pocket with his right hand and plunged it into Naomi’s chest. The blade was razor sharp on both sides and he moved the handle expertly to slice her heart and arteries to ribbons. The blade was so small that scarcely any blood exited the wound. Deprived of oxygen, Naomi’s muscle cells lost the ability to support her and he eased her to the cement floor of the cooler.

  The man left the knife in the wound to plug it. He hadn’t thought this through clearly, and he had reacted to the passion of the moment. The kill was exhilarating, but he wasn’t a killer – he was a stager of suicides. What to do?

  Just then there was a knock on the front door. He looked out from the packaging room and saw a middle-aged man in shorts and red t-shirt standing there. The Inspector thought for a few seconds, then went out the back door of the shop and walked around to where the man was standing. “Oh, hello there. I was just closing up the place. There was a sudden death in the family and Naomi had to leave quickly. Since she is Amish and
doesn’t drive, I gave her a ride home. Her heart was beating so fast, I could almost feel it. I’m a family friend and I came back to put the cheese away and close the place up for a few days.”

  “So sorry to hear this,” the man said as he wiped the long dark hair out of his eyes. “Listen, I was just visiting my sister over in Canton and I am driving back to Staunton, Virginia. I always stop and get a whole bunch of cheese to take back with me. Any way you could let me get some? I’ll make it worth your while.” He opened his wallet and pulled out two one hundred-dollar bills.

  The man studied the money as if he were interested in it, then he said, “Sure, we always take care of our repeat customers. Come around to the back door.”

  The man in the t-shirt followed him around to the back entrance and through the wood framed screen door.

  “What do you like?” the man asked as he put on a pair of blue nitrile gloves.

  “I usually get baby Swiss, Havarti, sharp cheddar and some Limburger if you have it. Triple bag that as I don’t want it stinking up my car!” he said with a laugh.

  “We keep the Limburger in the cooler over there,” the man said. “Put on some gloves and go on in.” The man stared at the back of the customer’s red t-shirt as he opened the door. The customer took two steps, then saw the body on the floor. The customer turned to run out, and as he did, the man an ice pick into his left carotid artery. As his mouth opened in shock, the man plunged the ice pick into the right side of the customer’s neck. The man assumed that Naomi was right-handed, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He help-walked the dying man over to where Naomi lay face up, then he dropped the body face down on Naomi. He quickly placed the man’s right hand on the thin-bladed knife he had left in the chest wound. He then took the ice pick and put it in Naomi’s right hand, closed her fingers around the handle, and plunged the knife again into the man’s neck. Perfect.

  On his way out the back, he double checked to see that things were in order, then he exited the back door, staying close to the building in case somebody else was in the parking lot. Seeing nobody, he got in the blue sedan and quickly headed back to route 30. He didn’t think he had been seen, but just in case, he stopped at a rest area a few miles west and changed the license plates to some Colorado ones he kept in the trunk.

  He had spent most of the previous night at a truck stop diner deciding whether to abduct a cute blonde waitress, and even with the adrenaline rush at the cheese house, he was finding it hard to keep his eyes open. He stopped at a sleazy motel in Wooster where they didn’t ask for ID and paid the bill for two nights with a one-hundred-dollar bill. He took a shower, then fell into a well-deserved sleep.

  12

  Tuesday, August 27th, 9:15 AM

  “Those newspapers for the customers?” the sandy haired man asked as he eyed the stack on the counter at March’s House of Breakfast on the east side of the square in Wooster, Ohio, directly across the street from the Rubbermaid outlet.”

  “Customers that got a quarter,” the brunette waitress said with a smile. “Boss usually wants it up front, but you look like a guy I can trust. Tell you what – just take one. Always a pile left at the end of the day anyhow. You new in town or just passing through?” She hoped he would say new.

  “Not sure at this point. Depends what I find here.” He winked his right eye and the waitress blushed a bit over a smile. “I’m a casting director looking for some new Midwestern talent. If I see something I think my boss would like, we shoot a short video, send it off to Hollywood, and if all goes well, the lucky person gets a contract to sign electronically. They do have Internet in this town, don’t they?”

  The waitress burst out laughing. “We’re small town, but we’re not backwoods.”

  The man held up his fingers in the shape of a rectangle and said, “Say that again, as if there’s a camera pointed right at you.”

  “We’re small town, but we’re NOT backwoods!”

  “Beautiful. What time do you get off? I’m scheduling the videos for later this afternoon. I hope you don’t mind, but the movie is set in a sleazy motel, so I rented a room in the El Rancho Rankin on the east side of town. It’s a slasher film.”

  “I hope you brought your own sheets,” the waitress said with a laugh. “Which room?”

  “Room 14 at 5:00 PM. I think you may be the one, but I want to have some others come in first so I get used to the equipment. I want to make sure your screen test is perfect.”

  “I will do my best, and I hope it’s good enough. I have spent way too much time in this town.”

  “And one other thing – don’t tell anybody about this. If you do, the motel will be mobbed by every other girl in town, pretty or not. Not that they would get the part, but they would make it hard for me to give it to you.”

  “Mum’s the word! Oh my God, that’s such a cliché.”

  The man smiled at her, then walked over and helped himself to a copy of the Wooster Examiner. He took the paper back to his table and stared at the front page.

  TWO PEOPLE DEAD IN CHEESE HOUSE MASSACRE

  Naomi Grinwold, an employee at Valley Cheese House north of Kidron, was brutally murdered Monday by Aaron Lewis who was traveling to Staunton, Virginia after visiting his sister in Canton.

  Lewis’ family is in shock as he was a youth minister at Holy Waters Baptist Church in Mint Spring south of Staunton.

  Naomi’s aunt, Sarah Varhees of Kidron, praised her niece for killing the intruder with several thrusts of an ice pick to the man’s neck. Others in the Amish community were just as quick to condemn the young woman for resorting to violence and said that their religion only allowed God to play Judge and executioner. Sheriff Donald King said he was glad she killed the monster before he killed again. Authorities said they were looking to tie Mr. Lewis to other murders along Route 30.

  The waitress saw the man reading the newspaper and called over to him, “Crazy bout that cheese house killing, ain’t it? I mean I’m glad that Amish girl was able to kill the guy what killed her. If not, that killer would still be on the loose, and I would be reluctant to come to a motel room at the request of a stranger.” She smiled coyly at the man, then let out a chuckle. “You know I’m just teasin, don’t you? You’re too damn cute to be a killer.”

  The man hid a smile and a chuckle. He finished his two eggs over easy and a slice of whole wheat toast slathered with Smucker’s blackberry jelly. He checked the bill on the table, then left a ten-dollar bill on the table. He waved and smiled at the waitress on his way out and held up his watch arm and spread out five fingers. He held a finger to his lips and the waitress repeated the gesture.

  He felt his anticipation rising as he walked across the street to the Rubbermaid outlet.

  “Where do you keep the heavy rubber gloves?” he asked a young male clerk after walking through the door.

  “Do you want them chemical resistant? If so, that would be with our specialty cleaning on the second floor. They are next to the respirators and face shields.”

  The man said, “thank you,” and took the steps to the second floor. This was going to be a fun shopping trip and ideas began racing through his head.

  He came back down to the first floor with a basket full of gloves and walked up to the young man. “I didn’t introduce myself, I’m Ben Angelo. I need you to keep this quiet, but I am a casting director from Hollywood looking for new talent for my horror film. When you spoke to me earlier, I was struck by how perfect your voice would be for the killer in the movie. And, please don’t take offense, but your look is perfect too. Nobody would suspect you until it was too late. I am doing screen tests over at the El Rancho Rankin Motel, Room 14. I would like you to try out, unless of course you plan on making a career of Rubbermaid?”

  “You kidding?” the young man said. “I can’t wait to get out of here. I was a theater major, you know, down at Ohio State…”

  “Really, the man said. “I could tell you had some voice training. Anyhow, come to the motel at 5:00 this
evening. And another thing and this is the most important – don’t tell anybody where you are going or what you are doing. If you do, the place will be mobbed with half the town trying to get parts. That would ruin it for all of us. Understand?”

  “Yep. Not a word. You can count on me!”

  “I am counting on you,” the man said to the clerk. “More than you can imagine, but I think you are up to the part. I think there is a killer hiding somewhere inside of you. We just need to bring him out and let the world see what he is capable of. You leave that to me – I have lots of experience in these things.”

  The End

  About the Author

  Eric Blumensen is an author whose work spans many different genres but always yanks readers out of comfortable armchairs and plops them down somewhere foreign and unsettling. George Manos, one of Mr. Blumensen’s characters, sums it up best: “A hundred roads in front of me, and I always manage to pick the one that leads to another dimension.“ Eric loves to think of clever ways to bend reality to his will and see how life would be under that scenario. Mr. Blumensen has a background in biological and computational sciences and enjoys tinkering with both fields to see what might happen. Then, to quote Emeril, he “kicks it up a notch” until madness and mayhem arrive.

  Mr. Blumensen got the writing bug in seventh grade when he wrote a parody of “Jack and the Beanstalk” which was performed as a puppet play for the entire school and raised a decent sum of money. Unfortunately, it has not been performed since, so he was not able to retire on royalties.

  Mr. Blumensen is the author of the children’s books “The Magic Rock” which introduces the reader to the concept of the power of suggestion and wonder, and “Francisco Frederico Frog and his Sungreen” which tells the tale of a boastful frog and the trouble his hubris brings him.