Unleashed

by Jacob Stone

  He asked, “Anything else you can tell me?”

  Shelby’s smile turned more genuine as he realized that Bogle was going to give him a break. Then his eyes went distant as he gave the question deep consideration.

  His eyes shifted back to meet Bogle’s. “There was something,” he said. “I hadn’t even thought about it until just now. He called me champ a few times. That’s a funny thing to call someone.”

  Bogle asked Shelby to call him if he thought of anything else. He left the apartment and waited until he was in his car before he called Morris.

  “There are some stark differences, but this might be the same guy,” he said. “There was a ski mask and the same level of violence, although he left the woman’s clothes on and he didn’t cut off her nipples or mutilate her like he did our two victims. The motivation here was also different: a kilo of cocaine, and he stopped the torture after the coke was given up. But this was a year and a half ago. Maybe the perp found that he liked using a knife on a helpless woman while the boyfriend was forced to watch. Maybe after thinking about it for eighteen months, he decided to start killing again, but this time for fun and so he could do all the things he wished he had done with the first victim.”

  “Christ,” Morris swore under his breath. “Did this guy have a wrist tattoo?”

  “The perp kept himself covered up, so if there was one, Shelby wouldn’t have seen it. I didn’t get much of a physical description, but also nothing that eliminates our perp. One thing: He liked to call Shelby champ. You could give that to Felger and see if that helps with his computer searches. Do you know if the perp called either Frey or Campbell that?”

  Morris said, “I’ll ask about Frey. It’s too late to find out about George Campbell. I got a call an hour ago that he died without regaining consciousness.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Chapter 42

  Los Angeles, the present

  Stevie from the boarding house was following him. Ten minutes ago, Duncan had caught a glimpse of the meth head skulking behind him. Something caused him to look back, and that was when he spotted Stevie half a block away. The raggedy-looking meth head stepped into a doorway to keep from being seen, but just a fraction too late.

  This time Duncan stopped to tie his shoelaces, or at least make it look like he was tying his shoelaces. He had turned sideways, his foot on a door stoop, and he surreptitiously caught the meth head darting behind a parked van. Duncan gave no indication that he had seen him and after finishing his shoelace act, continued on his path. At the end of the block, he turned right, acting casual about it, and then sprinted to an alleyway. He took several steps into it and flattened himself against the building so that he was mostly hidden in shadows.

  He wondered if Stevie had followed him yesterday when he walked to the garage where he kept his car. If he did, then Stevie would’ve learned that he had a Caddy, and Duncan would’ve preferred that nobody at the boarding house knew about that. Even if Stevie didn’t know about the Caddy, he had to be convinced that Duncan had something of value in his backpack, and was determined to get his hands on it. Stevie was right, of course. There was quite a bit of cash stuffed inside it, as well as enough evidence to convict Duncan several times over for the recent gruesome murders he committed. Which meant that Stevie needed to breathe his last breath…or at the very least, be dissuaded from this reckless course he was on. Duncan hadn’t yet decided which it was going to be. While he had no problem philosophically with ending Stevie’s miserable life, he also didn’t want to bring any police heat to the boarding house. So if he killed him here, the body would have to be close to impossible to identify, and that would be both a tricky and messy thing to do in this alleyway. Not impossible, though, at least not with the dumpster that could provide some cover.

  Stevie came huffing past the alleyway entrance, looking wild-eyed and bewildered as he searched for Duncan. The idea must’ve popped into his head that Duncan had stepped into the alley, because he backtracked and took a tentative step into it. Duncan stepped out of the shadows and punched Stevie in the proverbial breadbasket. An oomph escaped from Stevie’s mouth and his rail-thin body bent almost in half and sagged at the same time. Even before the punch, Stevie’s complexion was something awful with his pockmarked cheeks and cystic acne, and the blow left his skin the same grayish-white as a three-day-old corpse. The man was over six feet tall, but he couldn’t have weighed more than 130 pounds, and Duncan grabbed him by his long, greasy hair and dragged him behind the dumpster. If the blow to the stomach hadn’t left the meth head desperately sucking in air, he would’ve screamed.

  Duncan didn’t give him a chance to recover. He pushed him face-first into the side of the dumpster and punched him twice in the kidneys. There was a brick lying nearby that he could’ve used to turn that face into a bloody mess that nobody would be able to recognize, but instead he whispered into Stevie’s ear.

  “All the meth you’re smoking turn your brain to goo? If I ever see you again, it will be for the last time, capisce?”

  Duncan didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he threw another hard jab, this one landing smack in the middle of Stevie’s back, and then he grabbed him around the knees and hoisted him up so that the man tumbled headfirst into the dumpster. Duncan looked to see whether anyone had witnessed this, and as far as he could tell, nobody had. He brushed some dirt off his clothes, left the alley, and continued on his way.

  He walked another mile before picking up a newspaper. There was a front-page story with the headline Cupid Killer Strikes Again. Cupid Killer, huh, he thought. He guessed the name fit, even though he wasn’t killing anyone named Cupid. But he was being too literal and he had to admit it was a clever name. The truth was, he didn’t much care what they called him.

  As anxious as he was to dig into the paper and see what they wrote about George and Meagan Campbell, he exercised some restraint and found a diner on the next block, walked in, and took a seat at the counter. He had been planning to sit at a booth so he’d have a little more privacy, but a TV was playing and it was showing a clip from last night’s Hollywood Peeper, which had an FBI profiler talking to the host about the Cupid Killer murders. Duncan had no idea that show had been on last night. The boarding house didn’t have a communal TV, and he’d been busy yesterday—first hunting for possible victims, then taking a trip to Pasadena. It was six o’clock before he’d got back to LA, and he was feeling kind of beat, so he bought some food at a market and stayed holed up for the rest of the night in his room.

  The woman hosting the show looked like an aging Barbie doll. She also had a pretentious-sounding name that must’ve been fake. The FBI profiler was a very different type. A small, dark-haired woman in her forties who reminded Duncan of a sparrow—not just in the way she looked, but in her quick, flitting movements. She also looked intelligent, which was why her pronouncement that the killer was doing what he was because of mommy issues was so surprising. She couldn’t have been further from the truth, although when he thought about it some more, he realized she might’ve been right. Not about him, but about what really was behind all of this.

  Anyway, he didn’t much care what reason she gave. What he did care about, though, was that she didn’t mention the snarling wolf’s-face tattoo. What was wrong with these people?

  The clip ended and the newscaster came back on to talk about new updates in the Cupid Killer murders, and Duncan soon understood why there was no mention of the tattoo. He had put Campbell in a coma after he hit him that second time, and Campbell died this morning without ever waking up. Shit. The first one, Alex Frey, should’ve been able to tell the cops about the tattoo, but either he didn’t see it, or for some unexplainable reason the cops were holding back on telling the public about it.

  Shit.

  He had another attack planned for later that night, and he’d make damn sure the guy got a good look at the tat
too. This time he’d also make sure not to kill him.

  A grandmotherly-looking waitress who reminded him of Ella Hubble from long ago stepped in front of him holding a coffeepot.

  “Hon, what can I get you?”

  Duncan blinked several times, his thoughts so jumbled up with what he had just learned from the TV and his plans for the next two days that he had forgotten he was sitting in a diner.

  “How about I start you up with some coffee?” she said sweetly enough that he again thought of Ella. She even had the same red apple cheeks as Ella. It had been years since he had thought of her and eighteen years since he’d last seen her. By now she’d be dead or rotting away in a nursing home.

  “Sure thing,” he said.

  She filled up a coffee mug for him, then suggested he get their lumberjack special, their most popular breakfast and their best value. “You could use to put some meat on your bones.”

  “That sounds great.”

  She winked at him. “I’ll have them make the eggs scrambled.”

  “Perfect.”

  She topped off his coffee and walked off, and Duncan sat lost in a jumble of nostalgic thoughts. These faded and he was left with a steely resolve to finish what he had started.

  Which meant he needed to find more victims. Not that he much minded the idea of finding more privileged, oh-so-happy people to hurt.

  Chapter 43

  The cashier at the tacky Hollywood gift shop told Morris he had one cool dog.

  Parker grunted. His tail wagged slowly.

  Morris told her, “You’re going to give him a swelled head.”

  Detective Annie Walsh looked exasperated. “How about we get back to the matter at hand? Were you working here last Saturday?”

  The cashier, a blonde in her twenties who wore dark-purple lipstick and had a raccoonish look because of the thick mascara around her eyes, admitted that she worked then. “My shift ran from nine to six, but I took a half hour off at twelve-thirty for lunch.” She winked at Parker and smiled at Morris. “That’s always when I take my lunch break.”

  Walsh showed her the cheesy coffee mug for the “world’s cutest couple.”

  “Those are so adorable,” the cashier said. She wasn’t chewing gum, but she looked like she could’ve been. One could imagine her blowing a bubble.

  “They’re something,” Morris agreed.

  Parker grunted out his opinion.

  “The store manager already confirmed that a pair were sold here at four-eighteen Saturday afternoon,” Walsh said, her cheeks beet-red from her growing exasperation. She took from a bag the small, empty box and gift-wrap paper that was found in the Marina del Rey apartment that Frey and Kincade had shared, and placed them on the counter. “The mugs were wrapped in that.”

  “It looks like the type we use,” the cashier said, her brow wrinkling as she studied the box. “Although I think they’re standard, like every shop around here uses. Is it okay if I pick up the paper so I can get a closer look?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  The cashier opened a cabinet behind the counter and took out rolls of gift-wrap paper and tried matching them to the muted silver paper. None of them seemed an exact match.

  “We’re always replacing the wrapping paper with different types,” the cashier explained. “You’d have to ask Edwin if we were using that type last Saturday. Although I don’t think he pays much attention to the paper he orders for the store.”

  Edwin McGill was the store manager. Morris had called him earlier from a list Felger had put together of the stores in LA that sold the “world’s cutest couple” mug. The store’s single cash register was computerized, and it automatically updated the inventory records when purchases were rung up. Because of that, McGill was able to tell Morris the exact time two of the mugs were sold last Saturday.

  “We’ll talk to Edwin,” Morris said. “For now, can you remember who bought these?”

  The cashier showed a constipated look as she tried to remember. A woman in her thirties walked around Walsh so she could place a ceramic Marilyn Monroe cookie jar on the counter. “Miss, I’d like to buy this,” the woman said, her tone curt, strongly implying she didn’t plan to wait around for the cashier to remember anything.

  The cashier smiled apologetically at Morris. “I need to take care of this,” she said. Morris stepped back from the counter and nudged Walsh to do the same, which she did after she collected the box and gift-wrap paper. While he waited, he scratched Parker behind the ear as a reward for being so well-behaved that morning. Walsh stood, seething.

  “Take a deep breath,” Morris said. He spoke softly so only Walsh could hear him.

  “What I’d like to do is arrest this ditz for impeding an investigation,” Walsh said angrily under her breath. “Or at the very least, for annoying the hell out of me.”

  “It won’t help any if you rattle her.”

  Walsh knew that as well as Morris, but it didn’t help her temper. She must’ve also known, as Morris did, that since the store didn’t have surveillance cameras they weren’t going to get anything useful here. In real life, you seldom came across a witness with a photographic memory who could describe someone they saw four days ago unless they had a damn good reason for paying attention to the person—and even then, any description would be suspect. A roomful of people could witness a robbery and if each of them were interviewed an hour later, you’d end up with vastly different descriptions of the robber. One or two of them might be accurate, but most would be worthless. If you brought them in for a lineup with the perp or showed photos, some would have their memory jarred enough to pick out the right person, but not all of them.

  The cashier finished up with the woman buying the Marilyn Monroe cookie jar. Morris waited until the customer walked away before stepping back to the counter. Walsh stood where she was and continued to seethe.

  “I’m sorry,” the cashier told him. “I’ve been trying to think back to Saturday, but I can’t remember who bought the coffee mugs.” She leaned toward him and confidentially added, “I had plans to go clubbing with my girls, and that’s where my head was at.”

  “Can you tell me the hair color of the woman you just waited on?”

  The cashier stared blankly at Morris before a look of chagrin came over her.

  “I can’t,” she admitted. “Is that awful of me?”

  “Human nature,” Morris said. He dug a business card out of his wallet and handed it to her. “If you remember anything, give me a call, okay?”

  The cashier promised she would. She wiggled her fingers in a wave-type motion to Parker, and the bull terrier responded by grunting and wagging his tail at a slightly faster beat.

  The coffee mugs were looking like a dead end, but maybe not. There was a chance that a nearby store’s surveillance camera captured the killer when he walked past it to the gift shop. The next step would be to check the businesses on the block, and maybe they’d get lucky. At least they knew the time the mugs were bought. If they found video that captured pedestrians walking on the sidewalk around that time, they could print out photos of possible suspects and one of them might jar the cashier’s memory. They could also show the photos to everyone who attended the engagement party. If they crapped out with that, they still had other avenues they were working on. Bogle was kicking around in Oakland to see if the Oakland Police Department could give him anything useful, and the rest of the team was busy interviewing the engagement party attendees and collecting photos. It was a shame that Frey and Kincade hadn’t hired a photographer for the occasion, but there would be other photos taken on guests’ phones, and maybe one of them captured their killer.

  Walsh had wandered to the front of the store, no doubt thinking Morris would have better luck with the cashier by himself. He made an empty-handed gesture, letting her know that he had gotten nothing from the cashier, which had to be wha
t she was expecting.

  Anger flashed in her eyes, but otherwise she controlled herself and withheld any comments about the uselessness of the cashier. She asked, “Should we talk to the store manager and see if he recognizes the gift-wrap paper?”

  “A waste of time,” Morris said. “This is where our killer bought the mugs.”

  “So we check the other businesses on the block for surveillance video?”

  “We might get lucky,” Morris said.

  “And I just might start crapping out gold bricks,” Walsh grumbled with disgust.

  “Annie, this killer’s making mistakes. Big ones. Maybe we’ll have a photo of him from the engagement party. We’re going to catch him.”

  “Before he tortures and kills another woman?”

  That was the million-dollar question. Morris wished he had an answer for her, or more specifically, he wished he had a different answer than what he knew in his gut.

  Chapter 44

  Lemmon swore he spent 70 percent of his time on the job at stakeouts, but at least technology was making it easier. Or at the very least, more comfortable. As an example of this, he had earlier followed Hardacher to his office, watched him park his leased Audi, and now Lemmon was sitting in a coffee shop two blocks away, eating a lemon raspberry scone, sipping a latte, and waiting for his target to get back in his car. He could do this because he had Hardacher’s car and home office bugged. He could also track the car’s location on his cell phone, thanks to the GPS tracker planted on the car’s undercarriage, and as soon as the car moved, Lemmon would know it.

  Yesterday he had met with the client and showed her the photos of her husband warmly greeting Lauren Estleman at the motel.