by Jacob Stone
Stonehedge laughed at that. “Don’t we all?”
That was true for Morris. He needed to drop ten pounds from his waistline, but for someone who enjoyed gourmet food as much as Stonehedge, his friend somehow stayed as lean as a marathon runner. Before he could object, Stonehedge fed Parker another piece of lamb. Morris snared a piece for himself and had to agree it was exceptional. A waitress came over to take his drink order. Stonehedge had a bottle of champagne already at the table. When Morris tried ordering a beer, his friend stopped him.
“You’re not seeing me off with a beer,” he insisted. Then to the waitress, “My buddy will have a le daiquiri.”
Before Morris could say anything, the waitress was rushing away from the table. “Le daiquiri as opposed to a daiquiri?” he asked.
“It’s the le that makes it so special,” the actor said with a straight face. “When you taste it, you’ll be glad I changed your order. If not, you can always have her bring you a beer. Besides, this is the last chance I’ll have in four months to be so obnoxious with you.”
“At least you admit it.”
Stonehedge lifted his champagne glass, his eyes narrowing as he gazed at the slightly rose-colored bubbly. “I’m nothing if not painfully self-aware of my indulgences and faults.” He took a sip of his drink and turned again to Morris, his lips showing a pensive smile. “I’m glad you were able to make it. And I’m glad you were able to bring the little guy along.”
“He never would’ve forgiven me if he knew I’d cost him a mooching opportunity at Luzana’s.”
As if on command, Parker let out a grunt. Stonehedge fed the dog what looked like a blackened piece of meat from another platter. “Truffle-encrusted Wagyu beef,” he said. “It’s even better than the lamb.”
Morris whistled Parker over and ordered the bull terrier to lie down. The dog did as he was commanded, but not without letting out a few unhappy grumbles.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to get him to eat his dog food after this,” Morris complained.
“Eh, if you put it in front of him, he’ll eat it.”
That was mostly true. Parker rarely ever walked away from his dish when there was still food in it. He was also a champion moocher, and Morris himself had proven over the years to be a soft touch, but he was trying to change his ways since Parker’s last visit to the veterinarian. That was three weeks ago, and the veterinarian confirmed what Natalie had been telling him: that Parker needed to lose weight or it could cause health problems later on.
Morris asked, “When are you leaving?”
Stonehedge took another sip of his champagne. “Flying out of LAX eight this evening, and with losing eight hours I won’t be arriving in Dublin until two tomorrow. Then a two-hour drive to Galway.” His expression grew wistful. “My last decent food until then.”
“This time you’re making a romantic comedy?”
Stonehedge had taken what looked like a fancy slider from one of the platters and was munching on that. He waited until he swallowed his food before nodding. “You’ve got to try one of these, Morris. They’re amazing. But yeah, that’s right. Stumbling in the Rain. Not the best title for a rom-com, but the script’s good, and my co-star is the lovely Claire Rose. The film will be a nice change of pace from the thrillers I’ve been making of late.”
Morris took Stonehedge’s advice and tried one of the sliders, and it was every bit as good as his friend had claimed. The filling was a thick slab of bacon coated with a sweet bean garlic glaze. He didn’t have the heart to deprive Parker of bacon that delicious, and he scraped off the garlic glaze and fed the rest of the slider to his dog. Tomorrow would be another day to get back onto Parker’s diet—and his own, for that matter.
Stonehedge watched with an amused grin but held back any comment as their waitress had returned with le daiquiri. Morris took a sip and had to admit it was better than any beer he could’ve ordered.
“A shame Brie isn’t co-starring with you,” Morris said.
Stonehedge made a face at that idea. “They wanted her, but Brie’s tied up for the next two months. Probably better that we’re not acting together. Competition’s not the best thing for actors in a relationship. But we’ll be seeing each other. Next week she’s flying to Munich for a promotional event, and I’ll hop over for a visit and take advantage of the beginning of Oktoberfest. But enough about that. How about yourself? Any interesting cases?”
“Mostly run-of-the-mill insurance fraud work.” Morris had grabbed another piece of wood-grilled lamb and fed it to a grateful Parker. “The most interesting of which was a stolen coin collection I closed last week. The collection was appraised six months ago at one point two million and was supposedly stolen three months later in a home burglary. It turned out that the owner had sold off the collection to several private buyers and then staged the burglary. What he really bought for himself was a grand larceny charge.”
“You’re right. Sounds pretty run-of-the-mill.”
“You can say what you’re really thinking. Boring.”
“Well, yeah, compared to hunting serial killers.”
“After that psycho Jason Dorsage, I’m fine with boring.”
“You say that now, but just wait until you’re chasing after your next serial killer. Knowing my luck, it will be while I’m in Ireland, and I’ll miss all the fun. And—” The actor abruptly stopped talking and snapped his fingers to get Morris’s attention. “Hello? Are you still there? Morris, buddy, you faded on me, like you went away somewhere deep in your head.”
“What?” A hard grimace tightened Morris’s lips into a thin line. “Just a random thought. Nothing worth mentioning.”
Stonehedge had been right, and Morris was lying now. It was more than just a random thought that had distracted him. In fact, he was so distracted that he had fed Parker another piece of lamb without realizing he had done so, and the bull terrier didn’t mind this absentminded lapse.
He hadn’t thought about the Nightmare Man murders in years, but something caused a disturbing fact about those killings to resurface in his mind. Maybe it was because of what Stonehedge had been talking about, or maybe something else had triggered it, but whatever it was, it occurred to him that October second would be the seventeen-year anniversary of when the last killings started.
The Nightmare Man had never been caught. When the first set of killings happened thirty-four years ago, a witness had described the killer as a man in his late forties. Even if the Nightmare Man was still alive, he’d be close to eighty now, if not older.
Still, Morris couldn’t help feeling a sense of dread knowing what might be coming in only a week.
Chapter 3
Culver City, 1984
The killer known as the Nightmare Man entered the bedroom and saw that Mary Beth Williamson was sleeping on her stomach. He got a pair of socks from a dresser drawer and forced them into her mouth so she wouldn’t be able to scream. Before she could sputter awake and realize what was happening, he flipped her on her back and tied her wrists and ankles with nylon rope. He then used a razor-sharp hunting knife to cut off her cotton pajamas.
As she lay naked in the semidarkness of the room, her eyes met his, and he could see first fear and then defiance flooding her eyes. That would change soon enough. Once he started pulling off her fingernails there would only be a desperate pleading for him to stop. Later, she’d be lost completely in her pain. He sorted out the contents of his gym bag, picked up the needle-nose pliers, and went to work.
The other night he had watched Live and Let Die on video with his wife and sons. For his money, Sean Connery was the only true Bond, but the movie’s title song had stuck in his head, and as he used the hunting knife to carve away thick pieces of Mary Beth’s flesh, he found himself absently singing the line “When you got a job to do you got to do it well.” So true.
Later, when he was using a cigarette lighter
to heat up the end of the thin metal rod that he used to brand his victims’ wounds, he caught the look in her eyes. She was no longer pleading for him to stop but instead was desperately trying to ask him a question. Why her?
It was a good question, because he could’ve picked thousands of other women in LA. So why her? Opportunity was one of the reasons. Her husband was an intern at Cedars-Sinai, and when the killer had gotten into their house three weeks ago using the spare key that they kept hidden in a fake rock, he found the husband’s work schedule and knew the husband wouldn’t be getting off work until eight in the morning. The killer had also used the opportunity to break the latch on one of the windows in the spare bedroom, so even if the wife started using the chain door locks while her husband was gone because of the Nightmare Man, the killer would be able to enter the house without making any noise. But the truth was, he’d have little trouble getting into any house or apartment, and it wouldn’t much matter if he found a husband or boyfriend in bed with his victim.
So why her? Mary Beth Williamson was twenty-eight. On the plump side, but pleasingly so, as the killer’s mother might’ve said. Medium-length brown hair, pleasant enough face, a curvy and attractive body even with the added thirty pounds she carried. The killer had spent time watching her. He knew she worked as a nurse and that she appeared to be a pleasant and friendly woman. The killer had to admit there was really no particular reason why he chose her. It was just bad luck on her part, plain and simple. But what would’ve been the point of telling her that?
Chapter 4
Los Angeles, the present
Lori couldn’t help smiling when she realized why her new dog—a male—had been named Lucy. It had to be short for Lucifer.
“That wasn’t a nice thing to do to you,” she told the dog. “How can anyone expect you not to live up to a name like that? But we’re changing things. Brian at the shelter had a most excellent idea, and so I’m changing your name from this point on to Lucky. How do you like them apples?”
The dog cocked his head and looked at her as if she were crazy. He was a scary-looking animal. Ugly, too, with his thick, blocky head and the whites of his eyes a yellowish-red color as if they were oozing blood and pus. None of that mattered to her. Quite the opposite, she was beginning to find a certain beauty in his scary ugliness, and after a somewhat standoffish first hour together, they’d been getting along just fine. The bacon-flavored treats she gave him helped, as did the two hot dogs she bought him at the Santa Monica pier. But what really sealed the deal was that the dog sensed she felt safe with him. Even more so, that she needed him. If the unknown boogeyman that she believed existed broke into her apartment while she slept, Lucky would protect her. She knew in her heart that was true, and because of that she already felt a deep affection toward the dog, even though he’d been in her life less than three hours. She stopped to hug him tightly around his thick neck. Lucky groaned as she did this, but otherwise tolerated it, and she broke out laughing when she saw what could only be described as a look of embarrassment contorting his face.
They’d been walking along a pathway on the cliff that overlooked Santa Monica State Beach. She had wanted to tire the dog out before she brought him to her apartment, and the mission seemed to have been accomplished. Lucky had been moving more sluggishly the last few minutes and began using a stalling tactic of sniffing each bush and tree they came across for what seemed like an excessive amount of time. She took him to a bench shaded by a palm tree, poured water into a paper cup, and held it for dog. After Lucky had his drink, he lay on the ground, his thick body heavy against her legs. Lori felt mostly content as she looked out onto the ocean, although one thought nagged at her: How was she going to sneak Lucky into her apartment? And how could she possibly keep his presence a secret? She sat worrying about that for several minutes until finally making a decision, resolve hardening her features.
She got off the bench and tugged on Lucky’s leash, coaxing him to his feet.
“Come on, big guy,” she said. “Time to take you home.”
* * * *
Nathan caught her before she was able to sneak Lucky into the elevator. He was the live-in superintendent for Lori’s building. A short, squat man in his fifties who always seemed to wear the same dirty undershirt badly yellowed with age and perspiration and even dirtier khakis, and whose body odor was pungent enough that Lori needed to breathe through her mouth when he was around. Nathan also had a habit of barely moving his lips when he talked, as if he were always practicing a ventriloquism act.
“Dogs aren’t allowed,” he said.
Once again his lips showed less movement than someone shivering from the cold. It was disorienting to Lori watching him talk, like trying to watch a foreign movie that had been poorly dubbed so that the mouths and sound were out of sync. Nathan also seemed to have a way of sneaking up on her when she least wanted to see him, and because of that she was ready for him and had her game plan figured out.
She argued, “Mrs. Weinstein has a Pomeranian!”
He made a face as if he had tasted something unpleasant. “That’s what you call that thing? It’s always yapping. Gives me a headache.”
“I’ve been with Lucky for hours now and he hasn’t barked once.”
“It don’t matter. Weinstein got permission to have that yappy thing. You don’t have permission. You need to write a letter to the landlord and get permission.”
Lori didn’t quite bat her eyes at him, but she came close. “Nathan, I’m a twenty-five-year-old woman living alone in the city. I don’t feel safe. I need Lucky here to feel safe.”
“The building’s safe,” he argued.
“That might be true, but I don’t feel safe walking alone outside.”
“Neighborhood’s safe also.”
“I don’t only walk in this neighborhood.”
He shifted his eyes so that he was looking past her right shoulder, and a blush reddened his cheeks. “You’re very pretty,” he said. “You could get married if you want.”
“Thank you, but even if that were true, I’m not dating anyone right now, so that solution won’t help me today. You don’t want to be responsible for me being hurt or worse, do you?”
His face reddened more. “Nothing I can do,” he insisted. “Rules are rules.”
Lori had half a pound of roast beef in her oversized handbag, which was the main reason Lucky had been behaving himself—his attention focused solely on her bag. While she was talking with the super, she had unzipped her bag and pulled out a slice, which she held to Nathan. He gave it and then her a baffled look, as if he thought she was trying to bribe him with cold cuts.
“Why don’t you feed this to Lucky?”
It took him a moment to make sense of what she was suggesting. His eyes instantly dulled, as if he were going to flatly refuse, but he just as quickly weakened and accepted the meat, which he held out to Lucky. The dog snatched it out of his hand without taking off any fingers, but he also wagged his tail slightly as if he was still trying to decide whether the squat super was friend or foe. Lori gave the super another slice of roast beef to feed Lucky, and this time the dog made up his mind and let out an appreciative grunt. He even pushed his thick head closer to the super so the man could pet him.
Nathan looked perturbed by all this as he struggled to make a decision, but Lori saw something melt in his eyes. She knew the man liked her and found her attractive. She also knew he was harmless, and his feelings for her might very well have been along the lines of a brother toward a much younger sister (even though there was a good twenty-five years separating them) rather than any romantic longings. She also had no doubt that he was a loner and had guessed he would warm up to Lucky if given a chance. It looked like she was right.
“If he bothers other tenants or makes a nuisance of himself—”
“He won’t! I promise. And I won’t be leaving him alone in my apartment.
I’ll be taking him to work with me each day.”
The super’s mouth pinched as if he were suffering indigestion. But this was just for show. A decision had already been made. He cautiously began rubbing Lucky behind his ear, and a contented noise rumbled out of the dog’s throat. Kindred spirits.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” he confided. “When a letter goes to the landlord, he calls me to make the decision. You can keep him as long as he don’t cause any trouble.”
Lori could’ve kissed him, except it would’ve confused the situation. “Thank you so much, Nathan. And he won’t cause any trouble. I’ll make sure of it.”
The super shifted his gaze from the dog to Lori. He smiled, revealing cracked and chipped teeth stained worse than his undershirt. It might’ve been the first time she had ever seen his teeth.
He said, “If you want to let him eat Weinstein’s yappy little dog, that will be okay with me. The thing gives me a headache. But make sure he don’t cause no other trouble.”
Chapter 5
Three years ago, Morris Brick was a star within the LAPD after solving three high-profile serial killer cases in a span of seven years. His last investigation as a homicide detective had him chasing down the Hillside Cannibal Killer, which not only made him a national celebrity but also almost made him the Cannibal’s last victim. When he decided to quit the department and start MBI, Police Commissioner Martin Hadley made only a perfunctory effort at best to talk him out of it. While that might’ve surprised others, Morris pretty much expected it from Hadley—after all, the two of them strongly disliked each other and had been butting heads since he made detective. Hadley, however, went ballistic when he found out Morris had arranged for three other LAPD homicide detectives—Charlie Bogle, Fred Lemmon, and Dennis Polk—to join him in his new venture. The police commissioner would’ve blown a gasket entirely if he’d known Morris also took copies of his cold cases with him on his way out the door.