by Jacob Stone
Even if Jason hadn’t seen the anxious look on Noah’s face, he knew better than to get into one of the school vans with him. While Noah wouldn’t be stupid enough to intentionally talk about their plan so he could be overheard, when he got overly excited like this he tended to be louder than he realized. Anyway, it was a sunny early spring day, and Jason was feeling absolutely wonderful, so he didn’t mind the idea of walking home. Noah realized that Jason wasn’t planning to take one of the vans, and he started jogging to catch up to him. By the time he got alongside Jason, he was wheezing like he’d just run a mile instead of a hundred feet.
“The cops must’ve found the drugs in Simon the Twit’s locker?” Noah asked as he struggled to catch his breath.
“I didn’t do it yet.”
“But that was the plan!”
Jason shot him a look because Noah had said this too loudly. There wasn’t anyone within earshot, but if there were they would’ve heard him. That wasn’t the real plan, only what Noah believed it to be—that they were framing Witt, making it look as if he was the one selling Adderall at the school. This was why Noah had spied on Simon Witt for him so he could get him Witt’s locker combination. It wasn’t a hard thing to do since Witt had a neighboring locker, and Jason had worked with him, showing him how he could use a small hand mirror to get the combination. The trick was not to be too greedy. Just try to get one number at a time so that Witt wouldn’t catch him in the act.
Jason said, “I heard that Anthony Lepke was dunking Witt’s face in the toilet each morning, and I didn’t want to do anything to interfere with that.”
Noah’s face wrinkled with confusion. “Then why did Rector pull him out of class? And why did they shut down the school?”
Jason shrugged as if he didn’t have a clue, but he knew that the police must’ve searched Witt’s locker and found the magazine that he had hidden there. It was the type of magazine that had ads for guns and knives and other weapons, and if you send cash to a PO box, they mail you the weapon, no questions asked. If the police found the magazine, they would’ve seen an ad circled for a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade. After they pulled Witt from the classroom, they would then find that same knife in his backpack, which was the knife Jason used to kill Anthony Lepke. He had wiped the blade clean after pushing it deep into Lepke’s back, but he knew that forensics would find traces of Lepke’s blood and determine that the knife was the murder weapon.
He was quite pleased with how all the dominos had fallen exactly as he arranged them. While it was easy to hide the magazine in Witt’s locker—he was able to do it before school started and nobody was around—he didn’t think he’d have a chance to hide the knife there. But after killing Lepke during their one-hour lunch break, nobody was in the hallway when he got to Witt’s locker. Even better, when he opened the locker, he found Witt’s backpack. Well, that was just too perfect. If anyone had been near the locker, he would have ditched the knife somewhere else that would still implicate Witt, but hiding it in the backpack was beyond perfect.
Even without the knife, the police would’ve eventually arrested Witt. Jason had ordered the knife the day after he heard about Witt’s toilet bowl baptism, and had it mailed to an address three houses away from Witt’s. He knew that an elderly lady lived there, and that her mail piled up each week before someone would bring it into the house. Yeah, it was a gamble that the old lady or someone she knew would get to the knife before he did, but the gamble paid off, and the police would be convinced that Witt had the knife mailed to her house. There was also a good chance that the police would find one or more witnesses who saw Witt during their lunch break either heading to the facilities building or walking away from it. Jason had left Witt an anonymous note sending him behind the facilities building to talk about how they could deal with a mutual enemy, Lepke. Witt would of course be showing this note to the police, but they’d believe he wrote it himself in a clumsy attempt to provide an alibi. Nobody, though, saw Jason walking to or from the facilities building. Avery Academy was over a hundred and sixty years old, but as prestigious as the school was it badly needed modernization. The school still used a network of tunnels from the facilities building to the rest of the campus to provide heating, and Jason used one of the tunnels from the gymnasium’s basement to get to and from the facilities building without being seen.
While he had nothing against Lepke, and killed him because it was a necessary part of his plan to destroy Simon Witt’s life, Jason had also wondered for a long time how he would feel murdering someone. What he discovered was that he didn’t feel much of anything. He didn’t get any pleasure from it, but the act also didn’t bother him, and he knew he wasn’t going to be tortured by it. In the end Lepke turned out to be nothing more than one of the dominos that needed to fall so that his Rube Goldberg–like machine would run without a hitch. If anything, Jason felt a sense of pride that he’d gotten the job done with only a single hard shove of the knife. While he had studied anatomical drawings so he’d know where to stick Lepke, it was still quite a feat.
As they walked together and Noah acted increasingly hyper about the mystery of why Witt was removed from the classroom, Jason wondered whether he was going to become a problem. He’d already worked out a way to get rid of Noah if needed. His plan involved a bottle of Canadian whiskey, a half dozen of Vivian’s Valiums, and making it look as if a drunken Noah had fallen asleep on the train tracks.
He still wasn’t even sure whether Noah was a friend or simply a lackey. What he did know was that if he had to kill Noah, it wouldn’t bother him a bit.
Chapter 52
Los Angeles, the present
Morris was surprised to find Adam Felger in the office.
“What time did you get in?” he asked.
Felger looked up from his computer, bleary-eyed and seemingly startled by Morris’s presence.
“I never left last night,” he admitted with a lopsided grin. “After all, you did give me that assignment yesterday.”
“I thought you finished it last night?”
“I did. Sort of.” His grin turned more lopsided. “You never really feel like that kind of list is ever done. That if you keep searching you’ll be able to add another name to it.”
Morris said, “Dedication, then.”
“Really just stubbornness.” Felger leaned back in his chair as he rubbed his eyes and stretched, then gave Morris another bleary-eyed look. “I spent part of the night trying to find more names for the list, but I was also looking into another angle. There has to be something connecting Heather Brandley, Drea Kane, and Faye Riverstone, but I can’t find it. They didn’t act together in any movies or TV shows, or date the same guy, or get nominated for the same award, or anything else I’ve tried thinking of, but my gut’s telling me if I keep digging I’ll find a link.”
Morris had done his share of Internet searches since these killings started and likewise had come up blank. “It could just be they remind him of someone from his past that he’s been obsessing about,” he said. “Or maybe they’re actresses he’s had crushes on. Or his reason might be something that only makes sense within his twisted mind.”
“Maybe,” Felger conceded. “But unless you ask me to do something else, I’d like to keep looking.”
Morris wasn’t going to discourage this kind of initiative. Besides, it was six-thirty Sunday morning, and as far as he was concerned Felger could spend it any way he wanted.
“Add Brie Evans to your list,” he said. “The psycho tried to abduct her last night, but his plan didn’t work.”
“Is she okay?”
“Mostly. She’s at Encino Medical Center now, but she’s expected to fully recover.” Morris checked his watch, and tried to remember what time Katz’s Bagels opened. “I’ll be making a run for bagels and cream cheese in an hour. Anything special you’d like me to pick up?”
Felger said, “Whatever you
get will be fine with me.”
Morris left MBI’s hacking specialist and headed to the kitchen area expecting to find the coffee pot empty since Felger was more of a Red Bull drinker, and he had seen a small collection of empty cans piling up in Felger’s office. The pot was empty as he had expected, and he started brewing a fresh one. As he waited, he heard MBI’s outer door open, and he left the kitchen area to see Charlie Bogle walking in holding a large bag from Katz’s Bagels. Morris glanced at his watch and saw it was twenty minutes to seven.
“I didn’t think they opened until seven,” he said.
Bogle shrugged. “For most of their customers. For me, they make an exception.”
He handed over the bag. Morris opened it and breathed in the smell of freshly baked bagels. “There’s got to be at least two dozen,” he said.
“Three dozen,” Bogle corrected. “And a two-pound tub of cream cheese.”
“That’s a lot of bagels since it’s just you, me, and Adam right now.”
“Computer boy’s in this early?” he asked. “What for?”
“He’s being stubborn.”
Bogle nodded as if that made sense to him. “I figured with all the agencies now involved we might get a big crowd dropping in. And if Polk shows up, half the bagels will be gone.”
“No one on the federal payroll will be dropping by on a Sunday morning. But you’ve got a good point about Polk. So why are you here before seven on a Sunday?”
Another shrug from Bogle. “I wasn’t sleeping well, so I figured I’d just as well be here as anywhere else. But if I was married to someone like Natalie, there’s no chance I would’ve gotten my ass out of bed this early.”
“I wasn’t planning to either,” Morris admitted. “But we had some excitement last night.” He told Bogle about the killer breaking into Philip Stonehedge’s home, and what he’d been doing since then.
“This joker was able to run away after jumping off a thirty-five-foot cliff?” Bogle asked incredulously.
“At least limped away.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Area emergency rooms will be looking for him.”
“Not much chance he’ll go to any of them.”
“Probably not,” Morris agreed. “But you never know. He might think he’s disguised well enough to try it. Especially if he has a broken wrist, or busted leg.”
“We got his DNA now?”
“Quite a bit of it.”
Bogle thought about what had happened and chuckled to himself. “Your actor friend and his main squeeze live charmed lives.”
“What are you talking about? They had a psycho trying to kill them last night.”
“But they survived with nary a scratch, which is more than you can say for those other actresses. And if I ever ended up naked at a neighbor’s door at three in the morning, pounding on it like a crazy man, I’d probably get shot a half dozen times before I’d be able to tell my side of the story.”
“You need new neighbors. I’m going to let Adam grab some bagels, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen. A fresh pot of coffee should be ready.”
“Okay. And I’ll tell you about the vans.”
Morris wasn’t surprised that Bogle had already discovered where the killer got the vans that had been left on Rodeo Drive with the machine gun contraptions. When he offered Felger his choice of bagels, his hacking specialist searched through the bag and grabbed two of the everything bagels, and while they didn’t have raisins, they had just about everything else: salt, garlic, onion, poppy, caraway, and sesame seeds. Felger bypassed the cream cheese, and nodded thanks as he nibbled absently on one of the bagels. The intense look burning in his eyes made Morris wonder whether his employee’s stubbornness had paid off, but he didn’t ask Felger about it, figuring Felger would tell him if he found something.
Bogle had two cups of coffee ready, and while they prepared several bagels with cream cheese to bring back to Morris’s office, Bogle told him that he had spent the previous evening going through police reports for stolen vehicles and found that Wyman Cable reported three of their vans missing four months ago. “Six days later one of their security guards was found shot to death in his Buena Park apartment. Quite a sorry pattern with this guy. You make a deal with him, and he rewards you by shooting you dead after you deliver. The Buena Park PD is requesting ballistic reports from the Kansas shooting. I would bet a week’s pay they’re going to match.”
“Unless he dumped the gun after the Kansas shooting and used a second one for the security guard.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Bogle said. “He’d want us to be able to connect the two crimes. He’s just so damn full of himself for it to be any other way.”
Morris had to agree with the investigator’s assessment. Even though it seemed like a dead end, they needed to show the police sketches of the killer to the other security guards working at Wyman Cable in case the killer had tried approaching any of them. He’d give it to one of the LAPD detectives, maybe Ray Vestra.
He and Bogle brought the coffee and bagels to his office and started going through the hotline calls that were received after his TV appearance. Franklin Strong had manned the hotline until midnight, and left a report saying most of the eighty-seven calls that came in were either from shut-ins or mentally unstable individuals, but he circled seven calls that he thought were worth investigating further. Overnight twenty-nine more calls were logged by the LAPD. Morris particularly wanted to know whether there was overlap between the hotline calls and the list Felger put together. He and Bogle were checking on that when Natalie called him.
“Think of my surprise when I woke up and found you gone,” she said. “I could’ve sworn we went to bed together last night, unless I was only dreaming that part of it.”
“I know. I’m sorry I pulled my Houdini act, but I got a call at a quarter to four and didn’t want to wake you. This maniac went after Philip and Brie last night. They’re both okay, but the maniac escaped and I’ve been tracing loose ends since then.”
“Wow,” she said.
“I know.”
“Are you any closer to catching him?”
“I think so. He’s probably injured. Maybe severely. And when we catch him, we’ll be able to convict him. Philip bloodied his nose pretty good so we now have plenty of DNA.”
“I don’t think you’re going to be able to catch him,” she said, her tone worried. “He’ll make you kill him if it comes to that.”
“He might try, but it doesn’t mean he’ll succeed.”
“Promise me you’ll be careful and won’t take any chances. If he can take you down with him, he will.”
Morris said, “I’m not going to let him do that.”
“Promise me!”
“You’ve got it.”
Natalie asked, “Where are you now?”
“The office. I’m not alone. Charlie and Adam are keeping me company.”
“And Parker?”
“I wouldn’t have been able to drag him out of Rachel’s room at a quarter to four in the morning, so he’ll be with you gals today. I made sure before I left that there was an unmarked car half a block away watching the house. Just try to stay inside. And try to keep Rachel home. I’ve got a feeling it won’t be much longer.”
Natalie said she’d try her best to keep their daughter corralled one more day, and expressed her concern again about Morris’s safety before ending the call. After Morris tucked his cell phone back in his pants pocket, Bogle commented that it sounded like Natalie was worried about him.
“She is,” Morris admitted, but otherwise didn’t discuss the matter further. They were going through more of the hotline calls when Felger walked into Morris’s office with a hard grin etched on his face.
“You’re not paying me enough,” he said.
“That’s probably true,” Morris agreed. “Talk
to me, boychik.”
“They were in a movie together. All four of them. A cheesy, low-budget flick called The Satan Plan.”
Bogle asked, “A horror film?”
“It’s supposed to be a suspense thriller. The title is because this evil genius is planning to bring hell to LA.”
Morris felt a catch in this throat when he asked Felger to describe the movie’s plot.
“I found a copy on the Internet and fast-forwarded through most of it. The evil genius plants bombs in forty oil wells encircling LA, and when they explode they trigger a massive earthquake that leaves the city looking like a nuclear bomb had exploded. It’s pretty bad. The reason I missed it earlier in my searches is that Drea Kane and Faye Riverstone didn’t use their real names in the credits. But when I saw that Brandley and Brie Evans were in it, I decided to watch it. The movie was made fourteen years ago, and Brie, Kane, and Riverstone were only teenagers, but I recognized all of them. Something else. A geology professor at UCLA by the name of Andrew Hastings consulted on it.”
Morris asked, “You think he could be our guy?”
“No. He’d be sixty-three now. But he’s still a professor at UCLA, and I figured you might want to talk to him.”
“In case this is how the psycho plans to use the six hundred pounds of stolen C-4.”
Morris didn’t say this as a question, but Felger told him that was exactly what he was thinking. Morris noticed that Bogle was giving a thousand-yard stare. He asked his investigator what had him so deep in thought.
“I was just wondering,” Bogle muttered under his breath before his eyes shifted to meet Morris’s. “This could be connected to Karl Crawford’s murder four months ago.”