Deranged

by Jacob Stone

  “I had a thought when this case went down that SCK could’ve done it,” Crasmore said.

  Bogle scanned the report. “She was thirty-five. That puts her older than the girls SCK likes to kill,” he said. “Also, she’d be out of sequence. SCK was supposed to have killed a forty-something, balding, overweight guy next.”

  “There’s that,” Crasmore agreed. “But about her being older, it was dark where she was attacked, and if you look at her photo she could’ve passed for twenty-five.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but he didn’t crack her skull open and dig out her brains.”

  “True. But whoever attacked her hurt her pretty badly.”

  Bogle nodded without much enthusiasm and tossed the file aside. The victim, Sheila Jones, might’ve fit the twenty-something blonde-girl profile, but that wouldn’t have been the type of victim SCK would’ve been searching for then. Forty minutes later the case file Bogle had grabbed made him sit straight up. Crasmore noticed his reaction.

  “What?” she asked.

  Bogle maintained a perfect poker face as he finished reading through the file and handed it to Crasmore. It was an open case about a man in Queens who was found in his home decapitated and his head missing. His driver’s license photo was included in the file. He was forty-four, and he resembled someone SCK might’ve targeted.

  “Look at the date of when he was last seen,” Bogle said.

  The victim, Tim Black, was discovered in his home four days after Sheila Jones had been attacked, but the last time anyone had seen him alive was at a bar in Queens earlier that same night Jones was found on a Central Park West street.

  “SCK could’ve been responsible for both of them,” Bogle said. “There could be a thin, forty-something-year-old woman also killed that night whose body was never found.”

  Crasmore had finished reading the file, her face tense as her lips tightened into a hard grin. “That sonofabitch left Sheila Jones alive,” she said.

  “At least she was alive five years ago.”

  Bogle searched through his pile of discarded files for Sheila Jones’s.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Los Angeles, the present

  Earlier Henry had picked up a pair of binoculars at a sporting goods store, and he used them to get a better look at a woman who had wheeled a grocery cart loaded with bags out of the discount supermarket and had stopped in front of the building so that she could fiddle with her purse. She was blonde and looked like she was the right age. She wasn’t as full-figured as Sheila wanted. Actually on the skinny side, but if he was careful with how he positioned her body before he recorded cracking open her skull he’d be able to fool his wife. When he saw that she had taken a cellphone from her purse and was fiddling with that, he drove out of the parking lot across the street from the discount supermarket. Before leaving the house that morning, he had replaced his Oregon plates with stolen ones, so he didn’t much care if the market had an outdoor surveillance camera that might capture his license-plate number.

  It took him all of thirty seconds to pull his car up in front of the supermarket. Up close he could see she was as young as she had looked through the binoculars. She also turned out to be skinnier; her jacket had made her look rounder. It was going to take some sleight of hand on his part to fool his wife, but he’d figure out a way. He rolled down his window and waved her over.

  “Miss, you haven’t seen this lady around here?”

  Henry held out his iPhone showing a picture of a random middle-aged woman that he’d gotten from a dating website. The blonde girl, trying to be helpful, came over to his car and gave the picture a look before shaking her head.

  “There was nobody else standing here when I came out of the market,” she said with an apologetic smile. She was actually very pretty, especially when she smiled. Even with her skinnier body.

  “Drat. I was sent to this location to pick her up, but I got stuck in traffic. She must’ve gotten a ride from someone else.” Henry let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. “I’d hate to make this a wasted trip. You’re not looking for a ride, are you?”

  She hesitated before telling him that she was, but that she’d already requested a pickup from Uber. Henry smiled at her, partly for show, and partly because he found it endearing that she was just too nice to walk away from him and appear rude.

  “If your driver gets stuck in the same traffic I did, it’s going to be a while before he gets here. You don’t want your groceries to spoil in this heat. How far do you need to go?”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  Henry brought up on his iPhone his fake Pooled profile, and flashed it to her, making sure to do it fast enough so she wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t a driver. “I drive for Pooled,” he said. “We’re cheaper than Uber, and in my opinion, nicer and better. Since I don’t want to leave empty-handed, I’ll give you a discount like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Somewhat reluctantly, she said, “About ten miles.”

  “Five dollars then. How’s that sound?”

  Again reluctantly, she admitted that it sounded good.

  Henry flashed her his most disarming smile, “Deal?”

  That coaxed a smile out of her. “Deal,” she agreed.

  “Good. Why don’t you take a load off and get in back, and I’ll move your groceries to the trunk.”

  She did as Henry suggested, and he left the car to take care of her groceries. There was some risk in him doing that, but with her in the car it was doubtful a bystander would remember seeing the two of them together. He moved quickly anyway to load up the trunk, and was huffing a bit by the time he got back into the car. She gave him her address, and he was quite proud of his ingenuity as he drove out of the supermarket parking lot.

  At first it had been harder to find women to pull this scheme on than he would’ve thought. This was when he was driving around shopping areas in Hollywood and Beverly Hills. It took him three hours to find two women loaded with packages who matched Sheila’s requirements and who he caught using their cellphones to request rides (or at least that’s what he assumed they were using them for), and neither of them wanted anything to do with him. In fact, he could tell one of them was a heartbeat away from calling the police. He almost gave up after that, especially after seeing the flaw in his idea. For his plan to work, he needed the woman he picked up to want him to take her home, but there was no telling where any of these pickups would want to go. It was very possible that they would want to do more shopping. Then inspiration hit and he had the idea of staking out supermarkets. Anyone leaving a supermarket would want to just head home so they could put away their groceries. Once Henry adjusted his scheme, he more easily found potential victims. The first three women he approached turned him down, but he could tell that two of them almost accepted his offer. The fourth did accept, but the building she lived in had a doorman who got a good look at Henry when he helped carry her groceries to her apartment. That was when he realized he needed to adjust his scheme once more and stake out discount supermarkets instead of the higher end, ritzier ones. It didn’t take him long after that to get this lady he now had in his backseat.

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  Henry had been so lost in his thoughts that he almost didn’t hear her. “Not long,” he said. “I’m retired, but this seemed like a good way to meet people. So here I am.”

  “That must be nice,” she said. “Being retired and doing what you want.”

  “Eh, too much time on my hands sometimes. Let me guess, you’re an actress.”

  He gave a quick peek in the rearview mirror and caught her blushing.

  “Hopeful actress,” she said. “Part-time waitress.”

  “You’ll make it. You got the looks. Not that I’m trying to hit on you or anything. Jeeze Louise, you’re young enough to be my daughter, and besides I’m married and there’s no more faithful guy in the world than me. But the moment I saw you, I thought what a looker, she’s got to be an actress.”

&
nbsp; “Thanks, but I haven’t had much luck yet. Not sure I ever will.”

  “It’s a tough business,” Henry acknowledged. “But trust me, someday soon your name will be in the papers.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  The address she had given him was for a small three-story brick apartment building that looked like it had been built in the sixties. The front showed six units, each with a small balcony and a cheap air conditioner sticking out of the wall. There were probably six more apartments in the back of the building. Certainly not the type of place that would have a doorman. Or where anyone would notice Henry walking in and out.

  He was able to park on the street in front, and he left the car quickly so he could grab the bags from the trunk. The blonde followed him out of the car, and she told him he could just leave them on the sidewalk and she’d take care of them.

  “Uh uh,” Henry said. “No way I’m leaving these for you to carry by yourself. That’s not the way I was brought up. Besides, this neighborhood looks sketchy to me. You leave any of these down here so you can carry these up one at a time, and the odds are the others will be gone by the time you get back down.”

  She relented. Henry could tell she didn’t feel comfortable doing so, but still she relented. She was probably too nice a person to do anything else.

  “At least let me take one of them,” she said.

  Henry let her take one while he carried the other three. Of course, she had to have a third-floor apartment, and there was no elevator. He was breathing heavily by the time they reached her door. Later, after he had her subdued, he’d return back to his car for his gym bag.

  She opened the door for them, and he was disappointed to see that there was a young girl sitting on the sofa watching TV. This girl couldn’t have been much older than eighteen. She had dark, black hair, looked Hispanic, and was much skinnier than the blonde. When she saw Henry carrying the three bags loaded with groceries, she jumped off the sofa and took one of them from him. As he followed her to the kitchen, he played out in his mind how he’d subdue both of them, and decided he could do it without either of them being able to scream out for help. But then as he put the bags down on the kitchen countertop, he saw the little boy. Not having any kids himself, or ever spending any time with children, he wasn’t great at judging their ages, but he had to think this pint-sized runt couldn’t be any older than three. Now he had to decide how much of a monster he truly was, because he’d have to be a darn insidious one to also kill a three-year-old boy, and if he was going to kill these two dames, he’d have to kill the boy also, given the way the kid was staring at him and memorizing his features. With a heavy sigh easing out of him, he decided he wasn’t enough of a monster to do that.

  “Shrek,” the boy said.

  “What was that?” Henry asked.

  “You’re Shrek!” The boy pointed at Henry and started laughing as if he’d just told the funniest joke ever. “Shrek! Shrek!” he screamed, repeating the punchline.

  “Connor, you apologize to this man right now!” the blonde woman ordered.

  Connor started giggling. He yelled Shrek one more time before running out of the room.

  “I’m so sorry for that,” the blonde told Henry.

  “Boys will be boys,” Henry said.

  She kissed him on the cheek and handed him twenty dollars. “You’re a nice man,” she said.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Henry said.

  He put the twenty-dollar bill on the kitchen counter and left the apartment.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Morris and Stonehedge had tracked Rudy the bartender to a private pool party in Brentwood where he was working, but he insisted that he didn’t see Susan Twilitter’s lunch date.

  “Things don’t pick up at the bar until after five, and that day was slower than most. If he came in through the front door instead of the back, he probably slipped in while I was catching Laker highlights on ESPN. I wish I could help you, but I didn’t see the guy.”

  Morris had tried some additional questioning, but it became clear that Rudy had nothing to give them. Since it was almost three o’clock then, they picked up several sandwiches from a nearby shop (a meatloaf on sourdough for Parker), and they ate these as they headed back to the MBI offices.

  “What next?” Stonehedge asked in between bites of his prosciutto and mozzarella panini.

  Morris shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not putting out the description we got. It’s not reliable enough yet. Maybe a new lead will come in through the hotline.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “I need to run an errand. It’s my wife’s birthday Saturday, and I’d like to stop off at a jewelry store and pick her up something. Mind coming in with me and giving me your opinion?”

  As if he were insulted, Stonehedge said, “You’re figuring I must know jewelry since I’m an actor?”

  “Exactly.”

  Stonehedge dropped his insulted act and smiled broadly. He winked at Morris. “You’re right, I do. My favorite gift to give a lady after hooking up. Let’s go to a place I know on North Canon Drive in Beverly Hills.”

  “I don’t want to spend more than three hundred.”

  “You won’t have to. I’ll get you something nice there well below cost.” Another wink. “It’s part of the deal I have with them for all the mentions I give them in interviews.”

  “Will they recognize you in that getup?”

  “They’ve seen me in it before.”

  “Okay, then.”

  Stonehedge smiled thinly. “Another perk of having me tag along.”

  “They’re beginning to add up,” Morris admitted.

  Traffic was light to Beverly Hills. The jewelry store turned out to be one of those where you either need an appointment or you need to be a favorite customer to get buzzed in. When Stonehedge pressed the buzzer, he announced himself to a woman named Carol and told her that he would be bringing a friend in with him. “He’s got a well-behaved bull terrier. A beautiful dog. Would it be okay if he brings his pet in also?”

  “Of course, Mr. Stonehedge.”

  The door buzzed open.

  Morris whispered to Stonehedge, “Are you sure they’re going to have something in my price range?”

  The actor gave Morris another wink and pushed through the door. Carol was waiting for them inside the shop. A sleek and absolutely gorgeous brunette. She made no mention of Stonehedge’s disguise and instead took his hand warmly as she greeted him. Her greeting to Morris was friendly, but more professional, and she gave Parker a quick pat on the head.

  “Can I get any of you Prosecco, coffee, tea?” She gave Parker a slight smile. “Sparkling water?”

  “I’ll have a cappuccino with whole milk,” Stonehedge said.

  “Black coffee, sugar,” Morris said.

  “And for the dog?”

  “A biscuit if you have one,” Morris said as a joke.

  “Certainly, I’ll be right back.”

  Outside of Carol, there were two other customers in the store, both being waited on by salesclerks. One of the clerks was a fit man in his sixties with well-groomed salt and pepper hair, the other a similar looking man, but with a goatee and about thirty years younger. Both were dressed in expensive-looking dark gray suits that had to be custom tailored. The older man smiled at Stonehedge before returning his attention back to his customer.

  “That’s Antoine, the owner,” Stonehedge said in a reserved whisper to Morris. “Great guy. The other guy working is his son Jules.”

  Morris was studying one of the display cases. “I’ve never been in a shop like this before,” he said.

  Carol returned with refreshments, which included three butter cookies for Parker. “The closest I could find to a dog biscuit,” she said with a dazzling smile to let Morris know she was in on the joke. Then to Stonehedge, “What can I show you?”

  “My friend is looking for a gift for his wife.”

  “Earrings,” Morris said.

  “Som
ething deeply discounted as a favor to me,” Stonehedge said. “No more than three hundred dollars.”

  “I’m sure we can find something,” Carol said with another dazzling smile.

  She took them to one of the display cases and pulled out a tray loaded with what looked like very expensive earrings.

  “What color are your wife’s eyes and hair?” she asked Morris.

  “Green. Natalie’s a dark brunette. Very slender woman.”

  The door buzzed as she picked up a pair with emeralds and diamonds that looked like they cost a fortune.

  “Normally these would be eighteen hundred dollars, but I think we can arrange a price of three hundred dollars for one of Mr. Stonehedge’s friends. What do you think?”

  The door was buzzed open. Quickly, Parker was on his feet, growling and tugging at his leash. Morris looked over at the door as a middle-aged woman came tumbling through it and fell onto the floor, and was followed by two men brandishing large handguns with silencers attached, their faces hidden by ski masks. One of them came rushing toward Morris, his gun trained on Parker. The other dragged the woman who had fallen to the floor with him as he made his way to the other end of the showroom.

  “You hold that leash tight, pal, or your dog takes one in the head, then you take one right afterwards.”

  Morris pushed hard on Parker’s back, ordering the dog to lay down. Parker reluctantly complied, but continued to growl.

  “You won’t have any trouble from us,” Morris promised.

  The other robber had made the owner and son put their hands flat on the glass case. “I’ll make this simple,” he announced. “You got one minute to hand over three of those million-dollar Roger Dubuis watches. It takes you longer than that, I shoot this lady in the face.”