by Luke Murphy
When she sat in her father’s chair, the irony of only having a chance at his job because of his death washed over her. There was guilt from accepting the promotion, but she deserved it. Sitting there now, she missed her dad and knew that he was looking down on her, watching over her.
She had to get her energy up no matter what. The average rate of murder in Los Angeles was almost double the national average. And Charlene was finally getting her chance.
~ * ~
“Oh!” One last orgasmic scream to the ceiling and full-body shiver.
Charlene let out her breath, dismounted, and rolled over onto her back. She was lathered with sweat, and the booze buzz in her brain sent the room spinning.
She turned to Andy lying beside her, the mounds of hair on his chest rising and lowering as he caught his breath. She got up and pulled a robe over her naked body, her nostrils flaring at the cologne saturated air. She turned on the floor fan.
“I have an early appointment, Andy. I need to get some sleep.”
He lunged across the futon and snagged her hand as she was walking by. “Move in with me, Charlene,” he said.
“Are you crazy, Andy?”
“Why not?” He looked hurt.
She sat down beside him. “Look, Andy, I like the way things are. Why ruin what we have?”
“Because I love you,” he said.
Charlene got up and walked into the kitchen. Behind her, she could hear Andy turn on the bedside lamp, rise from the bed, and pull a pair of torn jeans over a taut body.
“Did you hear what I said?” Andy moved towards her.
She stood at the sink but didn’t turn around. She looked out the window and recognized a man sitting on a motorcycle outside her building. He was holding a helmet in his lap and staring up at her apartment window.
Andy grasped her shoulder and turned her around.
“I heard you, Andy.” She couldn’t look him in the eye.
“What are you so afraid of, Charlene? Why do you keep pushing me away?”
“I’m just not ready. It’s not a good time. I just made detective and I’ll be over my head with a new workload.”
“Not ready? What’s it going to take, Charlene? When we finished school, you weren’t ready because we didn’t yet have jobs. When you were sworn in with the LAPD, it was a bad time because you were starting a new job and trying to get your feet under you. And now this. Well, Charlene, it will never be the perfect time. You’ll always have some excuse. Sometimes you just have to take a chance and trust somebody.” Andy’s face was red and he was gritting his teeth.
“I think you should go, Andy.”
He tried to put his arms around her but she moved away.
Andy finished putting on his clothes and said, “Wow, your dad has really messed you up.”
He slammed the door on the way out. She went to the window and watched him leave, driving away with a squeal of the tires.
That’s when she noticed the man still on his motor bike, staring directly at her. She left the apartment and headed down to the front of the building.
She went through the front door and crossed the street. The man never took his eyes off her, and he grinned from ear to ear. He was cute, lithe, but Charlene could not recall his name.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Who was that? Your boyfriend?” he said sarcastically, motioning towards Andy’s late model BMW sedan that had disappeared.
“None of your business. What do you want?”
The man shrugged his shoulders and said, “You.” He still hadn’t gotten off the motorcycle.
Charlene snickered. “Me?”
“I miss you, Charlene. I thought we had something.”
“Miss me? We were together one night, a long time ago. We were both drunk and needed a release.”
“It meant something to me.”
“Look, we both got something out of the deal. We both needed someone, and we were there to comfort each other.”
“I can’t forget that night,” he insisted, his voice rising. “But I guess it meant nothing to you. You just fuck every guy you meet at a bar?” he sneered.
“Look, what we had was special, but it was one night. I thought we both knew that there were no strings.”
Then she had an image in her mind and remembered seeing his bike somewhere before, but never registering its importance. “Have you been following me?” she asked. Her breath quickened at the thought.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Charlene.” Now his tone had turned callous. The vein in his neck pulsated. He started the engine, slid on his helmet, and closed the eye shield.
Charlene took a step towards him but he opened the bike up, pulled out into the street without signaling, and zipped away.
She turned and watched the chopper vanish, realizing that her hands were curled into tight balls. She wiped the spit from her mouth and noticed that she was shaking. Was it from anger towards her confrontation with two separate men, or fear that what one, or both, had said was closer to the truth than Charlene wanted to believe?
~ * ~
Charlene was jolted awake, blinking several times. Her head throbbed, and it took her a minute to gather her bearings. She rubbed her eyes, noticing that she had fallen asleep in her bathrobe.
All of the lights and the TV were on. Last Call with Carson Daly told Charlene that it was very early morning and still pitch black outside.
What had wakened her? She thought of her confrontation earlier in the evening and made a fist.
She rolled off the futon and moved to the kitchen where she popped a couple of Advil and chased them with a cold glass of water. She was stumbling towards the bathroom when the phone rang.
That’s what had awakened her.
She moved back to the living room, which doubled as a bedroom, pushed aside the empty beer cans from the coffee table, and grabbed the portable phone, checking the caller ID. It indicated private caller.
“Hello,” Charlene answered after three rings.
“Hello, Charlie!” an eerie, scratchy voice said.
Charlene hesitated. Only one person called her Charlie and he was six feet in the ground. Was this someone’s idea of a sick joke? The silence was broken before she could speak.
“Do you know who this is, Charlie?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say some loser who had nothing better to do at two in the morning than jerk off in his parents’ basement.”
“Oh, you’re a feisty one. I like that.”
“Alright, perv, thanks for the call.”
She was about to hang up when the voice said, “I saw you at the funeral.”
That gave her pause, and a slight shiver.
He continued. “You looked so sad. I wish I could have consoled you.”
“Who is this?” Charlene demanded.
An evil laugh echoed in the phone. “I’m an admirer.”
“Great. Just what I need.” She laid the sarcasm on thick.
“You’re a lot like your father,” he said in an imperious tone. “The old man should have stayed retired and minded his own business. I really had no choice.”
“What are you talking about? Who is this?”
Charlene’s mind was in overdrive as she quickly brought up a mental image, sorting through the faces at her father’s funeral. The only people she knew to be there were family, friends, cops, and politicians. Had he really been there or just read about it in the papers?
He went on. “I do hope you’ll be more of a challenge. Martin got old and slow.” He spoke softly, not a hint of rage in a voice lacking human emotion.
“You killed my father?”
He laughed again. “Oh, this is fun. Are you having fun yet?”
“Fuck you.”
“That might be fun too. But for now, let’s just be friends. I’m not who they think I am, Charlie.”
“What are you talking about?” Charlene was lost. The room spun, she felt dizzy and out of sorts.
&
nbsp; “I’m going to show them I’m for real. Not just some B-level butcher.”
“The Celebrity Slayer?” She wasn’t sure if she said it aloud or to herself. The phone almost fell to the floor.
He let out a cackle before ending the call.
She sat there for minutes, the phone pressed against the side of her head, a loud dial tone ringing in her ear.
When she finally hung up and set the phone on the table, she moved, in a trance, to the bathroom.
Had that really been the Celebrity Slayer? Had the Celebrity Slayer killed her father? But why? Her dad wasn’t a celebrity. What did he mean her father should have stayed retired?
All of these questions were racing through Charlene’s mind when there was a discreet rap on her apartment door.
A knock on the door at this time of night was a worry on its own, but after receiving that call, she wasn’t taking any chances.
She finished emptying her bladder and grabbed her gun from the closet. She slowly crept towards the door and put her eye to the peephole. After seeing nothing, she pushed the door open a fraction, keeping the chain lock in place. She could see nothing through the narrow slit, so she unchained and opened the door wider, always keeping her gun in the ready position.
She scanned the hallway, checking behind the staircase exit at each end. When she returned to her apartment, she noticed a tiny, gift-wrapped box had been left outside her door. She looked around again.
There was no inscription on the box. Had Andy left this, as a way of apologizing for their earlier dispute?
She picked up the package and entered the apartment. She gently lifted the box to her ear and shook it. It was extremely light and nothing moved when she jiggled it. She removed the bow string, unwrapped the ribbon, and removed the lid.
The box contained only a single sliver of paper with an address written on it. Charlene didn’t recognize the location or its significance.
She was searching her memory, when the faint buzzing of her pager went off. Charlene picked up the phone and dialed the unfamiliar number.
“Detective Baker,” a voice answered.
“It’s Charlene Taylor.”
“We’ve got a homicide at 1100 Lindblade Street.”
As Charlene looked down at the paper in her trembling hands, her heart dropped in her chest.
Chapter 5
Culver City comprises approximately five square miles in western Los Angeles County. It has been a significant center for motion pictures, including Columbia Pictures, situated in the former MGM studio on Washington Boulevard, so it was no surprise to Charlene that the Celebrity Slayer would strike there. If this was, in fact, one of his.
Charlene hadn’t been back to Culver City since her father’s burial, and when she passed the Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery where her father lay, she felt a twinge of guilt.
A patrol officer with the tedious task of brushing back onlookers waved her through at the scene. She watched her colleagues in uniform completing the usual assignments—interviewing neighbors, going through garbage, and taking down plates. Those monotonous jobs weren’t hers anymore.
The trash media were already circling the area like vultures. She saw news vans for ETalk, National Enquirer, and ET, as well as local news stations.
Exiting the car, she popped a breath mint and ran the gauntlet of cameras and hysteria, the flashes stinging her retinas.
A throng had formed behind the crowd-control barriers, some whispering while others snapped pictures from their iPhones. Teenagers took selfies with the crime scene pasted behind them.
She watched the crowd, checking to see if anyone was paying too much attention to her. Was he here? Did he want to see her in action?
She immediately spotted an LA County Sheriff’s vehicle parked in the driveway and wondered if there was any jurisdictional conflict.
As she moved towards the house, Charlene saw her partner make a beeline in her direction. He was shaking his head and mumbling under his breath.
“Not ours, Kid,” he said as he brushed past her.
She stopped and turned. “What do you mean?”
“The captain gave it to another team.”
“That’s bullshit,” Charlene said, and continued for the entrance.
She could hear Larry panting as he tried to catch up. “Where are you going?”
“To buy our tickets inside.”
Even with their backs turned, Charlene recognized the captain and two homicide investigators standing at the doorway sipping Starbucks coffee and talking. They were smoking energetically and laughing, and she could smell the stench of testosterone waft in the air.
She could overhear the conversation. The taller of the two investigators was reading from a notepad.
“Looks like one of his. The victim is Vanessa Jackson. Female, Caucasian, twenty-three years old, single and living alone. Same MO—butchered in the bedroom, major facial disfigurement. We’re not yet sure just how many stab wounds and cuts, and we don’t even know which ones were made post-mortem. We’ll have to wait until we get her cleaned up.”
“Post-mortem? What are you, a fuckin’ medical examiner, Harris? Talk like a cop for Christ’s sake.”
Detective Harris’s face reddened slightly, but he continued. “At first glance, the ME says it looks like the same routine, low pressure bleed out, lots of pain. He wanted it to last long so she’d suffer. A mirror was set up so the victim could see what he was doing to her. Sick bastard! It’s like he just kept going. She’s another former child star with blonde hair, blue eyes, and fake breasts. She was the lead in an eighties sitcom, but hasn’t done anything meaningful since, basically bit-acting in B movies. She was…” The detective noticed Charlene standing behind the captain and stopped.
The captain turned around.
“Captain,” Charlene said and nodded.
“Taylor. I’ve decided to put Berkley and Harris on this one.”
Charlene looked at her captain, then at her two colleagues who refused to make eye contact. She turned to Larry who shrugged his shoulders, a disgusted sneer on his lips.
Charlene found it odd that the captain would put two detectives, relatively new to the department with minimal experience, on the case when her partner, with thirty years of experience, was already working the Slayer case. The Captain must have seen the questioning look in her eyes.
“You haven’t been cleared for duty yet.”
“I’m already involved, Sir.”
Charlene removed a Ziploc baggy from her pocket and handed it to the captain.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked, reading the contents.
The other detectives strained their necks to see.
“It was left in my apartment this evening.”
“By who?”
“I’m not sure. It could be the Celebrity Slayer.”
“Oh, you know him personally, do you?” The captain handed the bag to one of the detectives. “Get this to Forensics.”
Charlene shook her head. “I think he called me tonight. Someone who claims to be him, anyway. Then this was left at my door. He invited me over.”
“Oh really.” Her captain didn’t look impressed. “Why would he target you?”
“I don’t know. He also told me that he killed my father.”
The captain looked confused. “Your father? Your father was shot and killed in his car.”
“I’m aware of that, Sir.”
“The MO isn’t even remotely the same. Your father was a cop, not an actor. He was shot. The Slayer uses knives, aggressively, on all of his victims. Someone’s yanking your chain, Taylor.”
Charlene nodded. “Then why the phone call, Sir?”
“That could have been anyone. Maybe some punk trying to get his jollies by teasing a cop. Who knows?”
Charlene decided it was time to shut her mouth.
“You’re dismissed, Taylor,” her captain said, turning back to his detectives.
But Charlene still didn’t move.
Detective Harris spoke. “But the question is, why here in West LA? All the previous murders were in Hollywood, now he all of a sudden changes venues. Geographically, it’s a throw-off.”
Berkley chimed in. “I agree that it’s not Hollywood, but it is a center for movies. Normally I’d say he is trying to throw us off geographically, but he didn’t change his MO. It’s now officially a serial case.”
Charlene was aware that with correct protocol, cases weren’t deemed serial until four bodies were discovered and connected. California had the highest number of serial homicide cases in America.
“He’s taunting us,” Charlene said. “He killed my father and now he wants our department to start investigating the murders. He wants me to be a part of this.”
The captain turned back around. “Taylor, are you still here? I thought I told you to—”
“Captain!” A uniformed cop came running up to the group at the house. “We’ve got a problem.”
The group turned and saw that two cameramen had broken the barricade and were sprinting towards the house.
The captain blew air through his closed lips. “Jesus Christ. Goddamn paparazzi. Taylor, go home.” Then the captain quickly moved towards where the commotion had broken loose.
The LAPD SID team was busy hustling around.
With the captain gone and the detectives inside processing the scene, Charlene faced the first decisive moment of her career. She grabbed Larry by the wrist. “Let’s go.”
“What?”
“I want to get a look inside.”
Larry reluctantly followed, ducking under the yellow crime scene tape and into the house.
Chewing on her lip, Charlene moved straight to the bedroom, which was packed tight with techs and SIDs. A team member was working the adhesive specimen mount to lift powders from surfaces for spectroscopy analysis back at the lab. Another was working the Luma-Lite, checking for bodily fluids such as blood and semen that would become luminescent upon detection. A videographer was taping the scene.
She could smell the blood before reaching the top of the stairs. When she entered the room, Charlene’s stomach lurched.
“You okay, Kid?” Larry asked, grabbing her shoulder to hold her up.