Murder A La Carte

by Nancy Skopin

  “You want anything else?” I asked.

  “Apple pie,” he whispered.

  “And an apple pie,” I repeated.

  A disembodied voice repeated my order, told me how much I owed, and asked me to pull up to the window. Buddy leaned forward between the two seats, sniffing the air. He turned his head toward Scott and gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek. Scott wrapped his arms around Buddy’s neck and hugged him. Oh, great. Now I was going to cry.

  I paid the cashier at the window and handed Scott all the food. He promptly fed Buddy a French fry.

  “I ordered him his own burger,” I said, as Scott fed Buddy another fry. “Those are kind of hot. If you feed a dog food that’s too hot it will burn his tongue and temporarily damage his sense of smell. Could you blow on the fries before you feed them to him?”

  Scott took another fry out of the bag and blew on it a couple of times while Buddy leaned against him. When Scott pulled the fry further away, Buddy licked his face again. Scott crumbled into a fit of giggles and surrendered the fry. Canine therapy.

  I found a deserted residential street and parked the car so we could talk and eat in peace. I took the Big Mac Scott handed me, unwrapped it, and peeled back the bun to get at the meat and cheese, which I fed to Buddy in small bites.

  “So?” I said.

  Scott took a bite of his burger and chewed slowly before responding. “Sometimes she pulls my pants down first,” he said. He took another bite. I waited. “She has this yardstick. It’s like a ruler, only bigger. She hits me on the butt with the yardstick.”

  “Hard?”

  He grimaced at the memory. “Yeah,” he said, “pretty hard.”

  “What else does she do?”

  He looked up at me. “Isn’t that enough?”

  I wiped my hands on a napkin. “Is that everything?” I asked.

  He seemed to think about the question. “She yells at me a lot.”

  “What kind of things does she yell?” I asked.

  “You know, the usual stuff. That she wishes I was never born.”

  Apparently this was something both Gloria and her sister had heard growing up.

  “Jesus Christ,” I said before I could stop myself. “Sorry. You know she doesn’t mean that, right?”

  Scott bit into the pie, looking thoughtful. “I’m pretty sure she means it, Hunter.”

  “You can call me Nicoli if you want,” I said. “That’s my first name.”

  “Isn’t that a boy’s name?”

  “Yeah. My dad wanted a son. My friends call me Nikki.”

  “Okay, Nikki.” He smirked.

  “Did your mom used to hit you when she got mad?” I pressed on. He was still grieving for his mother, but I needed to know.

  He nodded and spit up some food into his napkin.

  “Too hot?” I asked, offering him an out other than the obvious fact that he was gagging on the memory. “Buddy would be happy to eat that for you.”

  He turned to the back seat and offered the napkin full of regurgitated burger. Buddy not only ate the burger, he also wolfed down half the napkin.

  “I know these aren’t easy questions, but the answers will help me do my job. How often did your mom hit you?”

  He looked out the window, not wanting to face me. Feeling ashamed for something that was never his fault.

  “She got mad a lot after my dad died.”

  “Like, once a week?”

  “Every couple days I guess. I tried to be good,” he whispered, wiping his nose on his sleeve again, in spite of the pile of napkins in his lap.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “Your mom and your aunt probably hit you because their parents hit them.”

  Scott looked up at me, a timid spark of hope in his eyes. “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “I’ve studied a lot about what makes people do things,” I said, “and all the books I’ve read say that if people get hit by their parents, they’ll probably hit their own kids.”

  “Really?”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to,” I added. “Everything is a choice.” Probably too much for a nine-year old to fathom, but what the hell. Maybe years later he’d look back on this conversation and it would make a difference.

  Buddy pawed at Scott’s forearm, begging for another bite of whatever was being eaten, and the tension was broken. I had what I needed on the tape. It would be enough to convince Bill that the killings might be related.

  At 12:45 I drove Scott back to school. When we were a few blocks away he said, “Did the police tell you anything?”

  This was the question I’d been dreading. I’d tried to think of a way not to tell him until it was over, but he was the client and he had certain rights. Plus, he deserved the same level of honesty he’d shown me today. I pulled to the curb.

  “Three other people who hurt children were killed recently,” I began. “Two of them went to jail for that, but they got out again.” I waited for that to sink in. It took a minute.

  “You’re saying someone killed my mom because she was hurting me?” He looked devastated.

  “I’m not sure yet, but maybe. It’s not your fault, Scott. You didn’t make your mom hit you and you didn’t make her yell at you.”

  I could see the wheels turning as he considered what I was saying. “I hope you’re right,” he said.

  I drove the remaining distance to the school, parking down the street so no one would see him get out of my car.

  As he opened the car door he turned back to me. “Thank you,” he said. Then he reached back and ruffled Buddy’s ears. “See you later, Buddy,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow… Nikki,” and he grinned.

  I figured if he could still smile I hadn’t done too much damage.

  Chapter 8

  Nina’s data entry job allowed her unlimited access to registered sex offender records. She had killed four pedophiles so far. Defending abused children had become her mission.

  Her first kill had been only two months ago. His name was Lawrence Novacek. She had read his file and discovered he was Czech, like her father, so he seemed a natural choice. Novacek had just been released from prison. She knew he’d be hungry.

  Nina had purchased a blonde wig and some oversized sunglasses, and parked outside Novacek’s hotel every morning, following him when he went out, observing his daily routine. He would stroll slowly past the local grade school and then stop outside a daycare center on Middlefield Road, undoubtedly hoping one of the kids would wander into range. He didn’t have a car, but there was a park across the street where the restrooms were unlocked during the day. It was only a matter of time before he swept some unsuspecting toddler into a vacant stall.

  Nina carried a taser, which she planned on using to silence and immobilize Novacek before killing him with the stiletto. She enjoyed the symbolism of killing sexual predators with a knife. Although guns were also phallic, it was the bullets that did the penetrating. That made the act too impersonal. Nina’s reason for killing was very personal. The knife blade was coated with garlic to keep the blood from coagulating, and it was long enough to reach the heart of even the most corpulent pedophile. A Sicilian classmate of Nina’s had written a short story about the Mafia, which was where she had gotten the garlic idea.

  She’d been surprised at how easy it was to kill Novacek. She’d hit him with the taser from behind and he’d dropped to the ground. When he stopped twitching, she’d rolled him over onto his back and forced the stiletto into his heart. A few hours with Gray’s Anatomy had taught her a lot. She’d studied the diagrams of the human body in an effort to determine the most efficient way to take a life.

  After killing him, she had barely made it home before vomiting convulsively. Then she had slept for ten hours and for the first ti
me in three years there had been no dreams.

  Her second kill had been Juan Fernandez, who had served four years at FCI Lompoc for raping his nine-year-old niece. When he got out he had moved into his mother’s house in Sunnyvale. He was registered with the police department and had weekly appointments with his parole officer and a court-appointed shrink.

  Nina drove to Sunnyvale early one morning and waited for Fernandez to come out of his mother’s house, then followed him to a local park. He hovered behind a tree and watched two little girls playing on the swings. When their mother was distracted he’d approached the girls and talked to them briefly, then he went back behind the tree again. Fernandez was wearing a calf-length raincoat. His hands were busy inside the pockets.

  The next morning his mother found him dead. Fernandez had made the mistake of sleeping with his window open. Nina had slipped through the open window, put a pillow over his face, and stabbed him in the throat. It had been messy, but exhilarating. She was wearing disposable gloves, a ski mask, and shoe covers. She’d burned her clothes in the backyard when she got home.

  Her third kill had been Zogg. She’d been doing research online and found an old newspaper article. After reading the journalist’s interview with the molested child’s parents, she had accessed the DMV database and located Zogg in San Mateo. The rest was easy.

  The fourth was a woman shopping at Mervyn’s. That one had been spontaneous and she almost regretted it. Nina had been on her way to housewares when she heard the woman yelling at her young son. Children shouldn’t have to grow up hearing such hateful words directed at them, being abused by the people who were supposed to protect them. Still, verbal abuse wasn’t sexual. She’d begun carrying the garlic-coated knife with her at all times. Hearing the woman shout at her little boy, Nina had been flooded with rage and, for a few moments, as long as it took to kill, she’d lost control.

  Chapter 9

  I watched Bill’s expressionless cop’s face as he listened to the tape of my conversation with Scott Freedman. I knew what he was feeling only because I know what kind of man he is. When the tape ended he reached for the recorder and hit the rewind button.

  “You know this can’t be used in court,” he said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So what do you expect me to do?” He was angry, but not with me.

  “What can anyone do if his aunt is beating him and he has no other family to take him in?” It was a rhetorical question.

  The tape finished rewinding and Bill popped it out of the recorder. “Do you mind if I keep this?” he asked.

  “Of course not. Will it help?”

  “Probably not.” He rose from the settee and went into the galley. “You want a Guinness?”

  I followed him and wrapped my arms around him from behind as he reached into the refrigerator.

  “You’re a good person,” I murmured.

  “Why?” he asked, still angry.

  “Because you care.”

  He turned around and looked at me gravely. “I’ll talk to the Captain. See what he thinks. Maybe play the tape for him.”

  “Will this change the way you look at Scott’s mom’s murder?”

  “Yes. Thank you for that.”

  I smiled, even though this whole case made my heart ache.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Wednesday morning Scott called me collect at 8:15.

  “Hi, Nikki.” He sounded subdued.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, immediately thinking his cousins must have ratted him out to his aunt, who probably used that damn yardstick again. “Are you okay?”

  “I guess,” he said.

  “Did your aunt find out you left school at lunch yesterday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she hit you again?” I can’t help it. I’m nosy.

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Do you have any other family you can stay with, Scott?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I can call Child Welfare. They could put you in a foster home with people who won’t hurt you. It would be better than going through this every day.”

  He was silent for so long that I thought he might have hung up.

  “Scott? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here. I don’t know if I want to do that.”

  The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.

  “Okay,” I said. “But will you think about it? I want to help, if you’ll let me.”

  “Did you find out anything new?”

  This kid would make a good cop. He was already an expert at compartmentalizing his feelings and changing the subject.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Sorry. Sometimes it’s a slow process. Will you call me tomorrow?”

  “Okay. How’s Buddy?”

  I looked down at Buddy, who was lying at my feet. His chin was on the floor, but his eyes were on me and his brows were raised.

  “Buddy’s good. You wanna say hi?”

  “On the phone?”

  “Sure. He won’t answer, but I can hold the phone out so he can hear you.”

  “Okay.”

  I held the phone near Buddy’s face. While Scott was talking, he appeared to listen intently, cocking his head to one side and then the other, occasionally licking the receiver. After a few minutes I wiped the phone on my jeans and raised it to my ear.

  “I love you, Buddy,” Scott whispered.

  I waited a beat then held the phone away from me and said, “Okay, Buddy, that’s enough.” Into the phone I said, “He licked the receiver a lot. Could you hear?”

  “I could hear him breathing. He’s a good dog.”

  “Is your aunt picking you up from school again today?”

  “No.”

  “You want a ride home? Buddy and I could come get you.”

  I wanted to see where Scott was living, and I wanted to get a look at the aunt.

  “That’d be great!”

  “Okay. What time?”

  “I have detention today, so four o’clock?”

  “The same place we picked you up before?”

  “Yeah.”

  When we ended the call I looked down at Buddy. “Satisfied?”

  He nudged my leg with his nose. I guessed that meant yes. Either that or he was ready for a walk. I hooked his leash to his collar and we went outside.

  It was cold, but the sun was shining and the marina landscape was beautiful, even in the winter. Since moving aboard I’ve learned to appreciate things that grow in the ground. I kind of miss having a garden. Some of my neighbors have planter boxes on their decks, but for me that would negate the freedom of being able to untie my home and sail off to the next place I might want to live.

  As we walked around the marina grounds I thought about Scott and what his life must have been like. His dad was dead, his mom used to hit him and now she was dead, and he was living with two cousins who didn’t like him and an aunt who resented him enough to hit him with a yardstick. I would have to do something about that. No matter what happened with the case, I wouldn’t be able to walk away knowing Scott was being abused.

  At lunchtime Buddy and I drove to San Mateo and I did a restaurant survey for one of my regular clients. I brought Buddy a diced chicken breast in a to-go box as a reward for waiting in the car.

  After lunch I did some grocery shopping, picking up rice cakes, salad ingredients, and a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting—Bill’s favorite. I dropped everything off on the boat, then went to the office and typed up the survey.

  At 3:00 Buddy and I took another walk around the marina and then drove to Millbrae. We parked in front of the school at 3:47. I got a paperback out of my gym bag and sat in the front seat reading until Scott came out
. I looked up when Buddy started chuffing.

  Scott jumped in the front seat and turned around to say hi to Buddy, who washed his face, eliciting a cascade of giggles.

  I started the engine. “Buckle up,” I said.

  Scott gave Buddy one last pet, then turned around to put on his seatbelt. I pulled away from the curb.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  For some reason I felt nervous waiting for his response. Maybe I was crossing a line. I was conducting an investigation for a nine-year-old orphan, I was chauffeuring him around, he was falling in love with my dog, and I was about to find out where he lived with his abusive aunt.

  “Make a left up here,” he pointed.

  Being a typical male, Scott was not going to give me the directions all at once. He was going to tell me where to go moments before each turn was required. I hate that. I bit my lip and tried to let him direct me in his own way. This took a lot of self-control, but I didn’t want to be one more adult giving him a hard time.

  We drove two blocks and made another left, then drove five blocks and made a right. By now we were up in the hills, almost to Highway 280. I didn’t bother to look at the street names. I’d make a note of the address when we got there.

  After the last right turn I had driven about a block when Scott shouted, “Stop!” He sounded alarmed, so I slammed on the breaks and pulled to the curb. He put up his hands trying to hide his face. “Shit!”

  “What?” I asked.

  Scott slid down as far as his seatbelt would allow, but his head was still visible above the dash. He pointed with a trembling index finger and said, “That’s my aunt.”

  I looked up and saw a large, angry-looking woman barreling across the street toward my car. I opened my door to get out, then turned back and said, “Buddy, stay.” I closed the car door behind me, but my window was open, a concession to the dog in my life.