Malicious

by Jacob Stone

  The killer smiled as he backed up and the body pitched forward so that the man landed on what was left of his face.

  He gave one last look to make sure no one was watching, and then drove off.

  Chapter 38

  “You’ll be paying me ten grand, right?”

  Todd Hurley had asked Pettibone this four times already, and Pettibone was getting sick of the question.

  “If Reuben shows up and you do your job, you’ll get paid.”

  Hurley, a thick-bodied construction worker whom Pettibone had met months ago when the two of them were drinking cheap beer in a dive bar, screwed up his face as if he were going to ask another dumb question, but the look Pettibone gave him shut him up.

  Pettibone turned away from Hurley so he could watch for Reuben’s arrival. They had gotten to the oil well thirty minutes early and from his vantage point he’d be able to see Reuben driving up the dirt road. When that happened, he’d turn the SUV’s high beams on and stand in front of it while Hurley stayed hidden behind the SUV with a baseball bat.

  Capturing Reuben and handing him over to the police for the hundred-grand reward they were now offering wouldn’t be enough. If Pettibone did that, Reuben would tell them about him planting the bombs. But the police would pay for Reuben’s dead body as well as they would for him alive, and Pettibone would collect the reward money and disappear into Vietnam before anyone discovered the bombs hidden inside the oil wells. It was a shame the wells weren’t going to be blown up, but you couldn’t have everything, and getting the money was what mattered most to him. He didn’t think Reuben was going to bring any money, let alone a hundred and fifty grand, but if he did Pettibone would score that as well.

  He pulled out his cell phone so he could check the time. Three minutes to midnight. He had the unnerving thought that Reuben might’ve decided to call his bluff and not show up. If that happened, he would have to follow through with his threat. He’d have no choice. He had to be out of the country before those wells blew, and since he’d no longer be able to count on Reuben transferring another fifty thousand to his offshore account, he would have to flee that night to Mexico. Once he was there, he’d screw Reuben over by calling the authorities and letting them know where the bombs were.

  Pettibone ducked as a loud buzzing whirled past his head. Whatever the thing was, it sounded like the loudest, angriest hornet that ever lived. The buzzing noise circled overhead, and he searched the pitch-black night’s sky for its source.

  “What the hell is that?” Hurley yelled out.

  A narrow but startlingly bright search light turned on overhead, first illuminating Pettibone, then encircling the SUV and shining on Hurley’s face. Pettibone’s throat tightened as he realized what it was. A drone. That meant Reuben must’ve gotten here before they had. It also meant they’d lost their element of surprise. There had to be a camera attached to the drone, and Reuben now knew about Pettibone bringing muscle along.

  The drone remained hovering over Hurley, its spotlight zeroing in on his face. Hurley, for his part, shielded his eyes as he squinted at it and tried to make sense of what it was. Pettibone watched as a red laser-like pinpoint dotted the middle of Hurley’s forehead, and then as his accomplice’s head exploded. Pettibone stood staring at Hurley’s crumpled corpse, too dazed at first to make sense of what had happened. Then as if a lightning bolt struck him, he realized Reuben had outfitted the drone with not only a spotlight, but also a gun and a laser sight. When the spotlight turned back onto him, Pettibone started running.

  A blind panic took over. Each time the drone buzzed his head or the spotlight turned on him, he would turn and keep running. If he was thinking clearly, he would’ve tried to make his way back to the SUV. Or maybe he would’ve realized he was being herded by the drone. But his lizard brain had taken over, and neither of these thoughts could penetrate it. What stopped him was when he ran straight into the path of a swinging tire iron. The blow struck him across the chest and broke his sternum, shattered several ribs, and sent him hard on his ass.

  The pain was so intense he had difficulty breathing. Or maybe one of the broken ribs had punctured a lung. He couldn’t move if his life depended on it, and he watched as Reuben stepped into view and kneeled down beside him. He looked different, especially his nose, but it was the same person.

  Reuben looked at him with something close to pity. “I warned you that it would be best for us to stick to our original deal,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” Pettibone forced out, his voice a faint whisper.

  “Did you plant all the bombs yet?”

  “No.”

  “How many still need to be planted?”

  “Three.”

  “Which ones?”

  “I’ll tell you if you help me to a hospital.”

  Reuben stared sadly at him. “You’re in no position to bargain.”

  He tapped Pettibone across the chest with the tire iron. It probably wasn’t a hard blow, but the pain that exploded inside of him was something awful and his consciousness ebbed in and out for several moments. He never wanted to experience pain like that again. When he was capable of speech, he told Reuben in the same faint whisper as earlier which oil wells still needed bombs. Reuben must’ve had a map of the wells on his cell phone, because he consulted it for several minutes before turning back to Pettibone.

  “I know why you felt emboldened to extort me,” he said. “You believed those stories they’re saying about me. They’re lies. I mean, I did kill Heather Brandley and Drea Kane, but there was nothing perverse or sexual about it. Their deaths are tied together with everything else I’m doing.”

  Pettibone stared up at Reuben with glazed eyes. “I believe you,” he forced out, his voice now barely a scratchy whisper. “If you help me, I can still plant those other bombs.”

  Reuben, appearing calm and reflective, seemed to be considering the offer. Then a sudden savageness twisted his features. Pettibone tried to scream before the tire iron struck him again in the chest. Not much more than a gurgling noise escaped from him.

  The killer knew the man was unconscious, but he struck him several more times across the chest before he used the tire iron to demolish Pettibone’s skull. By the time he was done he felt as if he’d had a good workout. He also felt more relaxed. While he still badly wanted to make Brick suffer, killing Pettibone in such a brutal way had helped him release more of his anger.

  He searched Pettibone’s pockets until he found his car keys. The killer walked back to Pettibone’s SUV and moved Hurley’s body into the back of it. Lifting all that dead weight wasn’t easy, and the killer had to do it in stages. After he was done he retrieved the drone, and then drove back to where he had left Pettibone. As with the other corpse, it was hard work getting Pettibone and all of his dead weight into the back of the SUV, but the killer persisted until the task was completed.

  The killer had had a busy night, and he stood to catch his breath, his neck and chest damp with perspiration. He still had a lot to do, including burying the two bodies and making sure Pettibone’s SUV disappeared for good. But at least he had planned this out carefully. He had brought a pair of towing straps in the trunk of his car, which he had left four miles down the dirt road, so he could use the SUV to tow his car to a place where it would be easy to retrieve. Once he was done taking care of the bodies and the SUV, he hoped he would have time to change the note he had left with his latest domino. He had a new one in mind that would cause Brick some pain, and while it would be a lot of additional work, it would be worth it.

  With everything that was piling up on his plate, he’d be lucky if he finished by dawn. It was true what they said. Real artists suffer for their work.

  The thought occurred to him that no artist had ever worked in a more honest medium. Or created anything as pure as what he was crafting. After all, his canvas was life and death itself. Well, really mostly death.<
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  The killer stood stunned by the magnitude of it all. He knew in his heart the world would be in awe also. There was nothing Brick could do to change that.

  He shook himself out of his stupor and got into Pettibone’s SUV.

  So much to do, and so little time.

  Chapter 39

  Jan Hornicek was very much enjoying his Los Angeles adventure. What was not to enjoy with all the sun, food, celebrities, beaches, and glamour? Maybe the beer. With the seemingly endless variety they had, he couldn’t find his favorite, Kozel Premium, anywhere. While disappointing, not the end of the world. Pilsner Urquell was plentiful here, and that would suffice until he and Anna returned to Prague.

  Anna had wanted to shop for clothes that morning, so he was on his own, but he didn’t mind. He had found the perfect spot for people watching: a window seat at a coffee shop right across the street from the Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And so he sat enjoying a bacon and egg sandwich on a toasted brioche and a white chocolate and coffee concoction while he watched a parade of sightseers like himself pointing out the different Hollywood stars embedded in the sidewalk and gawking at the impressive theatre.

  That’s odd, Jan thought as he spotted a small box that had been left on the sidewalk. It hadn’t been there even a minute ago, he was sure of that. A fellow sightseer must’ve left it as a tribute. He looked around to see who might’ve done it, but there were just too many people. Interesting also that none of the people milling about had stopped to examine the box. As Jan watched this, he found himself more and more curious, not only wondering about the box’s content, but also which star it had been left on. He also couldn’t understand why people were walking past it as if it didn’t exist. All very curious.

  He finished up the last bite of his yummy sandwich, and drank the last sip of his even yummier drink, all the while trying to maintain a watch over the box. At times either cars or people blocked his view, but when they passed he saw that the box had remained undisturbed. Amazingly nobody else seemed to pay any attention to it. Jan had had enough. He wiped his lips clean with a napkin, and then hustled out of the shop. It would be dangerous to jaywalk across the four lanes of traffic, so he sprinted to the crosswalk at the end of the block. As he waited for the light to change, he felt his heart beating rapidly in his chest. It wasn’t because of the sprinting he had done, but because he would be sorely disappointed if he got back to the Chinese Theatre and found the box missing.

  The light changed, and he stutter-stepped past a young teenage girl, narrowly avoiding running into her when she stepped into his path, the girl too absorbed in whatever was on her cell phone screen to pay attention to where she was walking. Jan smiled, thinking of how the same could’ve happened back in Prague. Teenage girls were no different here than they were back home. Once again, Jan sprinted the half block to get back to the theater.

  The box was still there. As he got closer to it, he could see that it was gift-wrapped with a red bow on top. He tried guessing which star it had been left on, and he felt a sense of satisfaction to see that it was Faye Riverstone’s. She was one of his favorites. In fact, when they saw A Winter’s Home last year, Anna accused him of having a crush on the actress. Jan denied it, of course, but he did find her squinty, pouty look quite fetching.

  Jan wondered what could be inside the box. A love letter? A knickknack of some sort? Perhaps even a piece of jewelry, such as a broach? Or perhaps a sentimental object to signify the fan’s affection for Faye Riverstone? As tempting as it might be to keep the contents as a souvenir, Jan accepted it wouldn’t be right to do so. He would open the box to satisfy his curiosity, but otherwise leave it undisturbed.

  The box wasn’t cardboard like he had thought, but was solid wood. He carefully peeled off the wrapping paper, revealing a finely crafted box that Jan guessed was made of mahogany.

  Very nice, he thought as he undid the latch.

  When he opened the box, he stared confused at what was inside, because it appeared to be a severed hand. Not just any hand, but a slender hand from a woman, one that had its nails manicured and painted bright red. A look of horror formed over Jan’s face as he accepted that the hand was real, and not some sort of movie prop.

  “This is simply terrible,” he murmured to no one in particular.

  A woman next to him screamed.

  * * * *

  Annie Walsh called Morris a little after eleven to tell him about the box left on Riverstone’s Hollywood star. When she got to the part about the witness not seeing who left it, Morris stopped her.

  “Of course he didn’t,” he growled. “Not that it would’ve mattered if he did. The psycho would’ve disguised himself. But even if he left fingerprints, a DNA sample, and a copy of his birth certificate, we’d still be blindly chasing after our own tails.”

  “Morris, hon, you’re in rare form today.”

  “It’s this damn investigation.”

  “I hear you. He left another card in the box. It might cheer you up to hear what he wrote you. The message reads: ‘Brick, one would think this is your first rodeo.’”

  “That’s supposed to cheer me up?”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Mission accomplished. I bet this joker thinks he’s being clever.”

  “I bet so too.”

  “We might have to do a door-to-door search of Rodeo Drive.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking the same.”

  “But maybe not. Hold on.”

  Morris got up from his desk, and left Parker snoozing as he walked to Adam Felger’s office. MBI’s computer and hacking specialist was huddled with Charlie Bogle as they searched for more movie producers to investigate.

  Morris said, “Adam, put that on hold for now. I need you to search for any connections between the name R. G. Berg and properties on Rodeo Drive.”

  “Will do.”

  “A solid lead?” Bogle asked.

  Morris sighed. “Only what this psycho is pointing me to look into.”

  He left Felger to do his search, then got back on the phone with Walsh. “How long was the box sitting there?”

  “The witness claims it was about fifteen minutes from when he spotted it to when he unwrapped and opened the box. He was shook up pretty bad when I talked to him. I have no doubt he was trying to be truthful, but I’m not sure how much of what he said we can trust.”

  Morris whistled softly. “Fifteen minutes sitting there and no one else bothers to grab or open it. What a bunch of jaded people we got here in LA.”

  “These were tourists walking past it. Not native Angelenos.”

  “True.” Morris checked his watch. “I’ll give Adam a half hour to find something. Otherwise we’ll start knocking on some Rodeo Drive doors.”

  There was nothing else to do then but wait.

  Chapter 40

  Walsh and Malevich were up front with the SWAT team. Morris and Parker hung back twenty feet from the boarded-up storefront. They were there because Felger was able to find out that the seemingly vacant store, which was two blocks from the heart of Rodeo Drive, had been rented out five months earlier to an R. G. Berg.

  One of the SWAT team members held a steel tubular battering ram, and when he was given the signal he swung it back and struck the door, breaching it on the first attempt. Chaos ensued as officers ran into the building and then seconds later ran out after one of them yelled bomb. There was no explosion, but Morris watched as a one-foot section of the front wall slid open and a toy car shot out of it.

  The toy car zipped past him before he could react, but Parker pounced on it, knocking the car onto its side. Morris picked it up and studied it as its wheels continued to spin rapidly. It wasn’t cheap, that was for sure, and it had a good deal of heft to it. He guessed it weighed at least ten pounds. Some sort of remote control device was taped onto the top, maybe a garage door opener. H
e pulled the tape off and removed the device and saw that his first guess was right.

  “What are you holding?”

  Morris looked up. The question came from the SWAT team leader.

  “A toy car,” he said. “The damn thing shot out of the building when you broke open the door. What’s going on? I thought there was a bomb?”

  The SWAT team leader was scowling. “I thought so too. A whole bunch of pulleys and levers started activating.”

  The bomb squad was called in, and while they waited Walsh joined Morris and studied the toy car as its wheels continued to spin.

  “What do you think’s the point of that?” she asked.

  Morris made a who knows gesture, although he had a pretty good idea.

  * * * *

  The bomb squad arrived with a bomb-sniffing dog from the K9 unit. Parker paid rapt attention to the Belgian Malinois that was brought to the scene, while the dog was all business and ignored the bull terrier. It didn’t take long for the bomb squad to determine there were no explosives inside the boarded-up store.

  One of the bomb squad members explained to Morris that the purpose of the pulleys and levers was to open the side panel in the wall and unleash the toy car. “It could’ve been done a lot easier,” he said. “Whoever put it together made it far more complicated than it needed to be.”

  “You guys should stick around,” Morris said. “We’re going to be needing you again soon.”

  The officer raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

  “Because of the car.”

  Morris had earlier put the car down, flipping it over so he wouldn’t have to hold it. The officer gave the toy car a puzzled look as it lay on its top, its wheels still spinning furiously.

  “There’s no bomb in that thing,” he insisted.

  “True, but we need to see where it would’ve gone if my dog hadn’t pounced on it.” Morris showed the officer the garage door opener. “This was taped to its top.”