by Tim Kizer
“Yes.”
“Did Eric scratch you?”
If Eric had scratched Castor, he might have his DNA under his fingernails.
“No.”
“Let’s get rid of his body.”
Osiris took his knife from the glove compartment, cut the ties from Eric’s wrists and ankles, and felt for a pulse in his neck. There was none.
“Grab his feet,” he told Castor, and gripped Eric under the arms.
They carried Eric about thirty feet into the thicket before dropping him on the ground. The thicket was so dense that the body couldn't be seen from the street; it might be discovered only when it began to stink.
“They had a clever plan,” Castor said when they got back in the van.
“And it almost worked.” Osiris clapped him on the shoulder. “You saved my life, bro.”
They were over twenty miles away from the crime scene now. Osiris’s plan was to go to Interstate 20, which ran from east to west, one hundred and fifty miles north of New Orleans, and he intended to avoid major highways until they reached it. He estimated that the trip would take about six hours.
He was going to get onto I-20 somewhere near Jackson, Mississippi, which was about a thousand miles from McLean (Google Maps said this leg of their journey would take fifteen hours).
“I think we should switch to a U-Haul truck,” Castor said when Osiris told him his plan. “You can’t be too careful.”
Osiris valued Castor’s opinion. After all, they were partners.
He nodded. “Okay. We’ll get a truck in Baton Rouge.”
They would arrive in Baton Rouge around four in the morning and get back on the road around half past seven.
Holly had probably given the police his picture, so Castor would have to rent the truck.
“Let’s get it in Laplace,” Castor said, looking at the map on the tablet.
“How far is it?”
“About fifteen miles.” Castor turned the tablet to Osiris. “I just want to avoid killing cops.”
“What time does their U-Haul open?”
“Nine.”
They could get off the road now and rent a truck in the New Orleans area at a branch that opened at seven a.m.
“We’ll get a truck in New Orleans,” Osiris said. “Want to have some fun with Lucia?”
Castor grinned. “Yeah.”
“We’ll do it now.”
“Great! What are we going to do with her body?”
They usually buried their victims, but Osiris didn’t want to waste time and energy looking for a secluded burial site and digging a grave for Lucia.
“We’ll dump it,” Osiris said.
A few minutes later, they turned onto a side street in the town of Destrehan and parked in front of a vacant lot across from a shabby mobile home about four hundred yards from the corner (Castor had searched the map for an isolated place and had been unable to find any nearby. But he had found a good spot to dump Lucia’s body).
As they spread a plastic sheet on the floor of the van, Osiris said, “You can go first.”
“Thank you.”
Chapter 40
1
Osiris took his knife from the glove compartment, gave it to Castor, and returned to the driver’s seat to keep watch.
Usually they rented a house for a few days and had fun with the women they abducted there, but Castor didn’t mind doing it in the back of a van at all. They didn’t have to worry about Lucia screaming: he had injected her with a heavy dose of sedative two hours ago.
Castor slid out of his dress, pulled down his boxers, and grabbed a condom from his bag. As he cut Lucia’s ties, he fondled her firm breasts and caressed her legs, quivering with anticipation, his penis as hard as a rock. He put the knife in his bag, undressed Lucia completely, then stood up and admired her naked body.
Lucia had a narrow waist, flat stomach, nice tits, and athletic legs. Her crotch was shaved.
Castor ripped open the wrapper, extracted the condom, and rolled it on.
He would strangle this hot bitch after Osiris banged her.
Licking his lips, he spread Lucia’s legs apart, knelt between them, and lifted them onto his shoulders.
He wished they didn’t have to keep Lucia asleep: he loved it when women cried and screamed and wriggled under him while he raped them.
Castor slipped his penis into Lucia and began to thrust, shifting his gaze back and forth from her face to her breasts.
“You’re so tight,” he whispered as he moved inside the woman. “You're a tight little whore, aren’t you? Do you like taking it in the ass? I bet you do, you little slut.”
He let out a loud groan as he climaxed.
After pulling out of Lucia, Castor placed the condom in a plastic bag, put on his boxers and T-shirt, and said to Osiris, “I’m done.”
“Okay.”
“I want to strangle her after you fuck her.”
“Okay.”
Osiris stripped naked, rolled on a condom, and stood between Lucia’s legs. As he looked down at the woman, he remembered fingering his sister’s thirteen-year-old friend—her name had been Alicia—during a sleepover at their house when he had been fourteen. Alicia had been hot, and he had often fantasized about banging her. He had entered his sister’s room in the middle of the night and called the girls’ names in a low voice. No one answered. He lay down on the floor next to Alicia, who was sleeping on an inflatable mattress, fondled her tits for a while, then got bolder and slid his hand into her panties. He began to stroke his penis and fingered the girl until he orgasmed. Alicia remained asleep, or pretended to be, the whole time. A year later she had become his girlfriend, and he had finally banged her.
Osiris got down on his knees, put Lucia’s legs on his shoulders, and buried himself inside her. He thrust his cock hard and fast, hoping to tear Lucia’s vagina.
Did Lucia feel anything? Would she orgasm if he drilled her long enough?
He fucked the woman for about four minutes before he came.
After Osiris got dressed and climbed back behind the wheel, Castor put on a pair of latex gloves (it was a necessary precaution because sometimes fingerprints stayed on a victim’s neck long enough for the police to lift them) and then straddled Lucia and wrapped his hands around her beautiful neck. He watched the young woman’s face as he choked her. It felt wonderful, but he would have enjoyed it much more if she were awake.
Lucia was wheezing, but her eyes remained shut and her face blank. Was she feeling any pain?
Castor had a raging erection again. Maybe he should choke her to death with his cock? He had never done that before, for fear that the woman would bite his dick off.
He tightened his grip and the wheezing ceased.
A few minutes later Lucia began to convulse. When she stopped moving, Castor released his grip, checked for a pulse in her neck, and found none. The woman was dead. A wave of ecstasy swept over him, and he closed his eyes, savoring it.
“I’m done.” Castor stood up, took off his gloves, and got back into his seat.
Osiris put on shoe covers, pulled a seven-inch butcher knife from Castor’s bag, and knelt beside Lucia.
“Hello, baby,” he said in a low voice, leaning over the woman.
He ran a hand over Lucia’s stomach, kissed her on the lips, and rammed the knife into her vagina. He pulled out the knife and stuck it into the woman’s vagina again. After stabbing Lucia a third time in the vagina, he plunged the knife into her navel. He watched the blood flow from Lucia’s wounds for a few moments, thinking: Just five minutes ago she was alive and now she’s a still pile of flesh and bone, and it absolutely cannot be reversed. Death’s forever. Even the most powerful people in the world can’t rise from the dead.
And he was an angel of death.
He clasped Lucia’s right breast, slowly sliced it off, and placed it on her stomach just above her navel. Then he cut off the woman’s left nipple, shoved it between her lips, and stood up.
A naked
woman with a boob on her belly and a nipple in her mouth. What a grotesque sight! She looked like a character from a Salvador Dali painting.
Osiris bent down, removed the severed breast, and slit Lucia’s stomach open. If her heart were still beating, he would have ripped it out and watched it pulse in his hand, as he’d done many times before.
He admired Lucia’s mutilated body as he wiped the knife with a paper towel.
Lucia was lucky he hadn’t cut her while she was alive.
He put the knife back in Castor’s bag, took out a spray bottle of bleach, and generously sprayed it on Lucia’s abdomen, thighs, groin, and vagina, destroying any DNA they might have left on the woman.
He saw no blood on his clothes or shoe covers.
“I’m done,” Osiris announced.
“What's blue and has a hundred nipples?” Castor said as he looked Lucia over.
Osiris slipped off the shoe covers. “What?”
“The dumpster at the cancer clinic.” Castor laughed and so did Osiris.
Osiris asked, “She never scratched you, did she?”
“Nope.”
2
They wrapped Lucia in the plastic sheet she lay on and headed to the body dumping site Castor had found earlier, which was three miles away. They drove east on River Road, turned north on Gordon Street, then pulled onto a narrow gravel road that ran along railroad tracks and stopped about forty yards later. They were going to dump Lucia in the forest on the other side of the tracks. There were houses nearby, but the people inside them couldn’t see the van because it was hidden from view by the patch of woods on the south side of the road that occupied half the block. Osiris figured they would remain out of sight until they reached the tracks; he was glad the road had no lights.
Osiris stepped out of the van and looked up and down the road. No cars. No trains approaching.
Has anyone ever dumped a body in these woods before? Osiris wondered as he went to the rear of the van. Are there any bodies buried there?
He opened the rear doors and said, “The coast is clear.”
They pulled Lucia out of the van, quietly shut the doors, and carried the body across the tracks, gravel crunching under their shoes. Osiris kept scanning the road in both directions; he had a silencer-equipped gun in his belt and he was ready to kill anyone passing by. They walked about twenty yards into the forest, dropped the body, and unwrapped it: the plastic sheet was covered with their fingerprints and they couldn’t leave it here. They folded the bloody sheet, took a last look at Lucia’s bloody body, and went back to the van, thinking of the fun they’d had with the woman.
They parked for the night on a residential side street in the New Orleans suburb of Saint Rose two miles from where they had dumped Lucia’s corpse.
Castor gave Veronica another sedative injection, then undressed her down to her panties and masturbated while fondling and fingering her.
“Jerking off helps me fall asleep,” he told Osiris after wiping off his ejaculate.
“Me, too.”
From Castor’s bag Osiris took a plastic box containing twelve disposable phones, pulled out two of them, and gave one to his partner. When they switched on the cells, they saved each other’s new numbers to their respective contact lists, and then Osiris made a test call to Castor.
The nearest U-Haul office that opened at seven a.m. was located in Kenner, ten miles away. They decided that Castor would take a taxi there.
Osiris set the alarm on his watch for 6:30 a.m. They went to sleep on the floor, head to toe. The space was a little tight, but that didn’t bother them.
Chapter 41
1
Holly prayed for a miracle, but it didn't happen: the paramedics came and pronounced Ralph dead. Herrera took Holly to New Orleans Police Headquarters, where she was interviewed by Detective Otis Vick.
“Chapman said that Beyoncé has a house in New Orleans and suggested that we go see it,” Holly told the detective. “We took a cab and got out here.” She pointed out the intersection of Memorial Park Drive and Kansas Street on the map on Vick’s tablet. “We were somewhere here,” she indicated the approximate location where Ralph was murdered, “when Chapman suddenly pulled out a knife and threw it at Ralph. I ran right away. I thought he was going to kill me, too.”
Had Chapman taken Ralph’s phone? What would the cops think when they read the messages Ralph and Chapman had sent each other?
“Was Chapman provoked in any way?”
“No. I think he wanted to rape and kill me and he killed Ralph so he couldn’t defend me.”
“You told Officer Herrera that Chapman kidnapped your friend Eric McCormick. When did it happen?”
“Chapman has a partner. His partner kidnapped Eric. I think he took him about fifteen minutes before Chapman killed Ralph.”
“You didn’t see Chapman’s partner kidnap Eric?”
“No.”
“How do you know Chapman?”
“I first heard about him last April, after he was accused of killing a friend of mine. I first met him yesterday on the bus to Houston.”
“You told Officer Herrera that Chapman was arrested by the Plano Police Department for the murder you mentioned.”
“Yes.”
“We contacted the Plano Police Department. They have no record of Chapman’s arrest. Are you sure he was arrested in Plano?”
“Yes. I don’t know why they have no record of his arrest. Did you tell your people to look for a white van?”
Why was there no record of Chapman’s arrest? Had Chapman’s powerful friends made the Plano PD expunge it?
“Yes.”
“Did you tell the police in Mississippi about it? They might go to Mississippi.”
“Every cop within two hundred miles is on the lookout for them.”
“Are you tracking Chapman’s and Eric’s phones? I gave Officer Herrera their phone numbers.”
“Chapman’s and both of your friends’ phones have been off since about twelve-forty-five.”
Chapman had taken Ralph’s phone.
But the police can get Chapman’s and Ralph’s text messages from their phone companies.
“Chapman has more than one phone. You need to track the phones of everyone named Michael Chapman who lives in the Dallas area.”
This isn't going to help, Holly. Chapman was smart enough to use only disposable phones.
“Are you going back to Dallas?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have any friends or family here?”
“No.”
“You believe that Chapman’s going to try to kill you, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll call the Dallas PD and ask them to put you under police protection.”
“Thank you.”
2
When Holly left the interview room, she called a cab and waited for it outside the police headquarters building.
‘Every cop within two hundred miles is on the lookout for them.’
That sounded great, but they would not stop and search every white panel van, would they?
So what’s the plan?
Most of the car rental offices at New Orleans International Airport were open 24/7. She would go to the airport, rent a car, then get a motel room and wait for information about the whereabouts of Chapman and his partner.
She would not go back to Dallas until they found Eric or his body.
Holly’s eyes welled with tears. She had lost Ralph, would she lose Eric, too?
Would Chapman and his partner torture Eric?
They should have shot Chapman in Baton Rouge.
It’s my fault we didn’t kill him in Baton Rouge. It’s my fault Ralph’s dead and Eric was kidnapped.
In the morning, she would go to a FedEx office and watch the video Ralph had filmed with the camera inside his cross.
A yellow cab pulled up to the curb on Gravier Street and Holly got in.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“The airport.”
A minute after they pulled onto the highway, Holly saw a white windowless van ahead of them.
It might be Chapman’s partner’s van.
“Follow that white van,” Holly told the driver.
“Why?”
“I’ll explain later.”
The van got off the highway at Causeway Boulevard and headed south. Holly wondered if the driver of the van had noticed the tail.
The van turned right onto Metairie Avenue, then right again onto Madison Street, drove two blocks, and parked in front of a modest one-story house.
“Pull over,” Holly said.
The cab pulled over to the curb behind a gray Toyota, about forty yards from the van.
Chapman’s partner might come over here and kill me. Chapman’s probably showed him my picture.
The driver climbed out of the van. It was a tall man wearing a dark T-shirt and black pants. Was he Chapman’s partner?
The driver went into the house. No one else got out of the van.
“Drive up to the van,” Holly said.
The taxi pulled up to the white van, and she saw that its cab was empty. She rolled down the right window and called, “Eric? Veronica?”
No answer. No sound.
“Eric? Veronica?”
Still no answer and no sound.
If Chapman was in the van, he would have gotten out right away, wouldn’t he?
Chapman wasn’t in the van; it wasn’t his partner’s van.
“Let’s go to the airport,” Holly said.
The cab dropped Holly off at the rental car garage next to the airport terminal. She went into the Hertz office and told the clerk she wanted to rent a car.
“Sure,” the clerk said. “What kind of car would you like?”
Holly took out her driver’s license and put it on the counter. “I want a car with good gas mileage.”
The clerk looked at the computer screen. “We have a Toyota Camry. It’s a very fuel-efficient car.”
“How far can it go on one tank?”
“Up to six hundred miles.”