by Bill Bernico
I turned to Eric. “Can your men handle things from here?” I said. “We really need to get moving on this thing, right now.”
Lieutenant Anderson found Sergeant Mark Rydell talking with Andy Reynolds, the county medical examiner. “Sergeant,” Eric said, “take over here. I need to be someplace else right away.”
“Yes, sir,” Rydell said.
Eric was about to walk back to his car when he turned back to Sergeant Rydell. “Sergeant,” he said, “do you still have that GPS unit in your patrol car?”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. “Would you like me to get it?”
“Please,” Eric said. “I’ll return it when I’m finished with it a little later today.”
The three of us got back into Eric’s cruiser and headed west toward the Silver Lake Reservoir, fully expecting to find the possible sixth murder location. I hoped we would get there in time to prevent any other senseless deaths at the hands of this maniac. We pulled up to the corner of Landa and Castle Streets and looked around us. This was a totally residential area. If anyone was going to get killed here, it would have to be in one of their homes, or right here on the street.
Eric turned to me. “Show me the exact spot where those coordinates should intersect,” he said, handing me Sergeant Rydell’s GPS unit.
I switched it on and punched in the coordinates from the paper Eric had given me earlier. The display on the screen directed me nearly thirty feet to the east and twelve feet to the north. I stopped and pointed to the ground at my feet. “If this guy is using exact coordinates,” I said. “This is where he’ll strike his next victim down.”
Eric and Dean joined me on the exact location. We looked at our surroundings. We were standing on the grassy area between the street and the sidewalk, somewhere between two houses. Eric turned to me. “We’d better find cover nearby in case he shows up soon,” he said.
“Do you think we should alert the residents in this immediate area?” Dean said.
“Let’s hold off on that for now,” Eric said. “Don’t want to spook anyone into doing something they might not otherwise. That might drive someone directly into the killer’s path. Let’s just wait a while and see if he shows.”
“You don’t think he’s going to come around with us here, do you?” I said.
“We won’t be in plain sight,” Eric said, and then remembered that I had recently purchased some pretty cool surveillance toys. “Clay, do you still have that mini helicopter with the video camera attached to it?”
I immediately smiled. “I see where you’re going with this,” I said. “Yeah, it’s still in Elliott’s van, but that’s parked behind our building.”
Eric turned to Dean. “How’d you like to stay here and keep an eye out for our boy?” he said. “I’m going to drive Clay back to Hollywood to get the surveillance van. I think we can use that spy copter to our advantage on this one.”
Dean nodded. “Sure, go on,” he said. “I’ll stay out of sight and let you know if anything happens. You two keep your cell phones on.”
On our way back to the parking lot behind our building Eric and I got a chance to talk about surveillance methods. He asked out the new equipment Elliott had bought for a factory surveillance job.
“Let me give Elliott a quick call,” I said. “I want to make sure he doesn’t take off in his van before we get back.”
I called the office and Elliott answered. “Cooper Investigations, Elliott speaking.”
“Elliott,” I said. “Were you planning on using the van soon?” I said.
“No,” Elliott said, “why?”
“I’m headed back to the office with Eric,” I said. “He has an idea that might help us nab a killer, but it involves the mini helicopter and the monitor in the van. Can I borrow the rig for a while? I’ll leave you my car in case you have to leave.”
“Yeah,” Elliott said. “I guess that would work. When are you coming over?”
“We’re over on Western Avenue now,” I said. “We should be there in just a few minutes.”
“See you then,” Elliott said, and hung up.
Five minutes later Eric and I pulled into the parking lot to find Elliott standing next to his van, dangling the keys between his fingers. I slid out of Eric’s cruiser and walked over to where Elliott was standing. “You didn’t have to come all the way down here,” I said. “I’d have come up for the keys.”
“Dad,” Elliott said, “Do you even know how to operate the copter and aim the camera?”
I looked at Eric and then back at Elliott. “You’ve got a point there,” I said. “So what are you saying, that I can’t borrow it?”
“Not at all,” Elliott said. “But how about if we team up on this? You drive the van and I’ll operate the copter. Either way it takes two people to do it up right, and I don’t think Eric knows any more about operating the copter than you do.” I turned to Eric. “Nothing personal, you understand, but I’ve got a lot of money invested in this new copter and it would be pretty awkward for me to have to ask you to pay for it if you crashed it. You understand.”
“New copter?” I said. “What happened to the old one?”
“I still have it,” Elliott said. “I just bought another one with more bells and whistles on it. This new one does a whole lot more than the first one.”
“Like what?” I said.
“This new model has the option to use GPS coordinates to find a particular location,” Elliott said. “And once it find the location, it can hover unattended for as long as the battery holds out, which is around eight hours.”
I turned to Eric. “Do you still have the coordinates of the supposed sixth murder location on you?” I said.
“No,” Eric said. “You have it. I think you stuck it in your shirt pocket.”
I plucked the slip of paper from my pocket. “Got it,” I said to Eric. “Why don’t you head back over and find Dean? Elliott and I will be right behind you. He wants to test the automatic coordinate location device on the new copter. It’ll probably be there hovering overhead by the time you get back. We won’t be far behind, either.”
Eric waved and nodded before he pulled out of the parking lot and drove away. Elliott tossed me the keys to his van and slid in beside me. He was already making his way into the back compartment of the van by the time I pulled out onto the boulevard. He slid back into the front seat, the new mini copter in his lap. He had a wide smile on his face as he held his new toy.
“So,” Elliott said. “You want to fill me in on what you and Eric and Dean are working on before we get there?”
I told him about the first five murders and how they looked when pinpointed on a map. I explained how the location we were heading toward right now fit precisely into the pattern on the map, right down to the exact GPS coordinates.
“The killer, whoever he is,” Elliott said, “doesn’t seem too bright. He has to know that any cop keeping track of the killings on a map is going to see a pattern.”
“I thought of that,” I said, “and I think he wants them to see the pattern. In fact, on the way home from the bar the other night, Dean and I spotted a billboard with a big yellow smiley face on it. We checked with the advertising company that owns the billboard and it’s the only one like it in the entire area.”
“Did you find out who rented that billboard and had the smiley face put on it?” Elliott said.
“We’re still waiting for that last bit of information,” I said. “There could be a connection to the killer, or it could just be the thing that inspired the killer. We’ll know soon.”
As we got closer to the Silver Lake neighborhood where Dean was waiting, Elliott asked me to pull over to the curb so he could launch the spy copter. I handed him the slip of paper with the coordinates on it and he entered them into the copter’s controller and then powered it up. The four bladed rotated really fast before he held his hand out the window and launched the aircraft. He stuck his head out the window and watched as it cleared the power lines a
nd rose to a hundred feet before leveling off.
“Let’s go,” Elliott said.
I pulled back out into traffic and took the shortest route back to the Silver Lake neighborhood. Sure enough, by the time we parked the van and got out, the copter was hovering overhead, almost out of sight. If you weren’t looking for it and if you didn’t know it was there, you’d never notice it. The electric motor purred almost silently while the video camera zoomed in on the exact location Elliott had entered.
Eric came over to the van and leaned in at the driver’s window. “I’m going to park the cruiser a block away, out of sight,” he said. “Pick me up with the van.”
“Sure thing,” I said.
Dean stayed where he was, out of sight but promised to keep in touch with his cell phone. I pulled away and drove to where Eric had parked his car. I parked the van directly behind him and killed the engine. Through the windshield I could still see most of the chosen location but it was really nice to be able to see the entire area in the surveillance monitors as well.
Elliott and Eric both sat in the back of the van, each one studying their own monitor. Elliott had hooked three monitors together so they could each watch one without crowding around the same monitor. I slid out of the front seat and joined them, but not before slipping a sun shade up onto the dash to cover the windshield. Now no one from the outside could see in. I took up my position in front of the third monitor, got comfortable and we all waited.
“Why didn’t Dean join us?” I said. “This has to be a lot more comfortable than that place he’s crouched at.”
“He said he wanted to be right there if anything happened,” Eric explained. “If he gets bored or stiff, I’m sure he’ll join us in here later on.”
We waited another forty-five minutes and still noticed nothing out of the ordinary on the monitors. My legs were beginning to cramp up so I laid out on the floor and stretched them, wiggling my toes. Eric stretched his arms overhead and cracked his knuckles.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea,” Eric said. “We don’t even know if this guy’s considering another killing today. He could hold off until tomorrow or next week for all we know.”
Elliott looked at his wristwatch. It was quarter to six. “Let’s give it until six o’clock and then we can talk about what we want to do.”
Eric glanced at his own watch. “Six,” he said. “After that I may have to think about a conventional stakeout on this location.”
“Let me try something,” Elliott said. “We still have fifteen minutes and I have an idea I’d like to try.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“I want to take the copter off auto-hover and fan out a little around the neighborhood,” Elliott said. “Maybe we’ll see something out of the ordinary.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Eric said. “Go for it.”
Elliott flipped a mini toggle switch on the controller and then watched the monitor as the view from the copter changed from a static view to a mobile scan of the neighborhood. He flew the copter in an ever-widening circle over the designated location, all the while scanning the ground for anything unusual. After fifteen minutes and no results, he flew the copter back to the van. Elliott got out of the van and stood on the curb as the copter gently descended right into the palm of his hand. He killed the power and stashed the copter in the back of the van.
“I guess that’s it for today,” Eric said. “I’ll get a couple of patrol cars over here to take over for a while.” He turned to me. “You want to call Dean’s cell and tell him we’re picking him up and shutting down the van stakeout?”
“Sure,” I said, and dialed Dean’s cell phone. I held it to my ear and listened as it rang more than a dozen times. I closed my phone and looked at Eric. “I wonder if he shut his phone off or if the batter went dead. He’s not answering. I’m going to drive over there and pick him up. What about you?”
Eric sighed. “I’m going back to the precinct,” he said. “I’ll let you know if anything turns up. Thanks for your help today and be sure to thank Dean for me, too.”
“Will do,” I said and pulled away from the curb. A little more than a block from where we’d been parked, I pulled over and got out. I walked a short way up the sloping sidewalk and found the spot where Dean had perched himself. He wasn’t there. I called out to him. “Dean,” I yelled. “Where’d you go? Dean.” No answer.
Elliott met me coming back down the sloping sidewalk. “Where’s Dean?” he said.
I shrugged. “Beats me. He was right there,” I said, pointing to the place where Dean had crouched in the underbrush.
The two of us turned and walked back down the sidewalk toward the stakeout location. We were almost back at the van when I stopped dead in my tracks, holding an arm across Elliott’s chest.
“What is it, Dad,” Elliott said.
I pointed to a large bush that was growing next to the edge of the sidewalk. My heart sank when I saw the leg sticking out from behind the bush. “Oh no,” I said. “Please, no.”
I knelt next to the body and pressed two fingers into Dean’s neck. I quickly looked back at Elliott. “He’s still alive,” I said. “Call an ambulance and then call Eric.”
I turned back to Dean and rolled him over onto his back. His eyes fluttered briefly and then closed again. He was still breathing, but they were shallow breaths and his pulse was weak. I patted his cheek. “Hang in there, buddy,” I said. “Help is on the way. Just hang in there.”
In less than two minutes I could hear the scream of sirens coming closer. Eric was the first to reach us. He hurried out of the cruiser and over to where I knelt next to Dean. “What happened?” Eric said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “After you left, we came back to pick him up and he wasn’t where we’d left him. I found him right here.”
“Is he?” Eric said.
“He’s still alive,” I said, “but just barely. Where the hell is that ambulance?”
Before Eric could answer, I heard another siren getting closer. Thirty seconds later the ambulance pulled up to the curb and two attendants leapt out. They hurried to Dean’s side and immediately began administering whatever aid they could to him. The second attendant rolled the gurney up next to Dean and the two of them lifted him onto it. In no time they had him in the back of the ambulance and were about to close the doors when I stopped them.
“I’m riding in the back with him,” I said. Before the driver closed the rear doors, I yelled back to Elliott. “Meet me at the hospital.” The rear doors closed and the ambulance sped away, its siren tearing holes in the quite neighborhood. I flipped open my cell phone and dialed Dean’s house. His wife, Helen answered.
“Clay,” she said cheerfully. “How nice to hear from you. And thanks again for keeping Dean entertained. It’s been nice having the house to myself today.”
“Listen, Helen,” I said somberly. “There’s been some trouble. Dean’s been hurt. He’s in the hospital. You need to get over here right away.”
“Is he all right?” Helen asked, her voice sounding a bit hysterical now.
“He’s alive,” I said. “He’s in the emergency room and the doctor is working on him. Don’t worry, he’s in good hands. Just get over here as quickly as you can.” I closed my phone and turned my attention back to Dean.
Elliott drove the van to the hospital. He got there in record time, following Eric’s cruiser, which had its lights and siren on. I sat next to Dean in the ambulance, holding his hand and talking to him while the attendant attached an intravenous needle to Dean’s arm. Solution from an overhead bottle dripped into Dean’s arm while the attendant monitors his vital signs.
When we arrived at the hospital’s emergency entrance more medical staff was waiting to take over for the attendants. They wheeled Dean into the emergency room and called for the doctor. I held onto Dean’s hand as long as I could. I had to let go when the doctor stepped up and pressed his stethoscope to Dean’s chest and then began barking orders at
his staff. Everyone worked feverously and it only took a few seconds for some nurse to shoo me out of the room.
I waited in the waiting room with Eric and Elliott. Less than ten minutes later Helen Hollister came running in. I stood and she ran right into my arms.
“Where is he?” she said.
“He’s still in surgery,” I explained.
“What happened?” Helen said. “How’d he get hurt? Is he going to be all right? What did the doctor say?”
“Whoa,” I said. “Slow down. I don’t know anything more at this point other than it looks like he’s been shot.”
“Shot?” Helen almost screamed. “Where? Who?”
“We were on a stakeout,” Eric said, stepping up to us. “We were just wrapping it up and I’d already left.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I went back to where Dean was watching and he wasn’t there. I found him lying on the ground and we called the ambulance. That’s about all I know right now. The doctor will let us know when he assesses the damage. It shouldn’t be too long now.”
Half an hour later the doctor emerged from behind two swing doors and walked up to where we were waiting. Helen jumped to her feet, wringing her hands.
“How is he, doctor?” Helen said.
“We’ve got him stabilized,” the doctor said. “It was touch and go there for a while. If that bullet had struck half an inch to the right he’d have bled out on the spot. But I think he’s going to make it. He’s asking for you. That’s a good sign.”
“Can I see him?” Helen said, tears streaking down her cheeks.
“Only for a minute,” the doctor said.
Eric Elliott and I took a few steps closer before the doctor held up his hand. “Just his wife,” he said. “I don’t want him getting too excited. You can see him tomorrow. There’s nothing more you can do tonight. Why don’t you all go home and get some rest?” He walked Helen down the hall and disappeared behind the swing doors again.