The May Day Murders

by Scott Wittenburg

  It wasn’t very easy to do.

  CHAPTER 18

  Six weeks earlier, Stanley Jenkins stood beside a tree and gazed down at Cindy Fuller’s sprawling split-level home. The hillside afforded an excellent vantage point-a virtually unobstructed view of the entire southeast area of her house including the two-car garage, which was perhaps only seventy-five yards away from where Stanley was standing now. The nearest neighbor’s house was dangerously close by-not over fifty feet to the east-but the house was all but obscured from view by the dense stand of Douglas fir running along the boundary between the two homes.

  He checked his watch again. It was 8:06. In another ten minutes Cindy would pull into her driveway, engage the garage door opener and pull inside. Then she would get out of her car and head for the door that led into her kitchen, pausing only long enough to press the garage door button mounted on the wall beside the door before entering her impressive home.

  Once inside, she would head straight for the kitchen pantry where she kept her copious stock of liquor and take out a brand new bottle of Johnny Walker Red. (She’d just finished off the rest of the old bottle the night before.) Then she would proceed to fix herself her usual drink: two ice cubes, a few ounces of scotch and a splash of soda water. Next, she would take the drink along with her into the den, turn on the television and sit down on the sofa while she nursed her drink, thinking much of the time of how relieved she was that her mother had taken the kids for the night. It was Wednesday again, and that meant another romp in the hay with the mayor, whom she would be meeting at his rented chateau on Buena Vista Lane in another hour.

  Tonight, however, Cindy was going to miss her appointment with the mayor. And it was a downright sacrilege that the mayor’s wife would most likely never find out that he had been having a torrid affair with the city prosecutor for God only knew how long.

  A smug grin came to Stanley’s face as he stared down at the dimly lit oval-shaped pool in the back of Cindy’s home. He could still picture her on that hot sticky August night, swimming laps, naked, and totally unaware that she was being observed. He remembered thinking to himself how well Cindy’s body had held up over the last twenty years. Back in college, he’d only seen her naked once, and that had been one hell of a major undertaking in itself. He had managed to shimmy up a tree outside of her dorm in the wee hours of the morning and caught her (by sheer luck, really) when she’d gotten out of bed to take a piss. He had a hunch that she always slept in the raw (she just seemed like the type) and he knew for a fact that she almost always had to get up some time in the middle of the night to relieve herself. This he had learned by watching her dorm room for the past week or two and seeing a light go on for a couple of minutes on any given night and then go off. Fortunately for Stanley, not only had he been right about her sleeping in the buff, he’d even had a halfway decent vantage point at the critical moment and been able to get a pretty good look at her.

  God, had he ever been stiff and sore after waiting in that awkward position thirty feet above the ground for nearly three hours! And just to get a glimpse of Cindy Fuller nude! But it had been well worth it, really, even if it had been for only a fleeting moment…

  He’d come a long way since those days, in more ways than one. One of his greatest accomplishments had been the simple realization that people were predictable as hell. They were all creatures of habit to a degree and had their little routines that they performed day in and day out. The challenging part was getting close enough to them without getting caught so that you could observe those routines. And that took more than mere stealth, he’d eventually learned. It took brains, too. Intelligence, patience and careful planning: that was the key to success. And once you had all of these elements working together there wasn’t a thing you couldn’t achieve.

  Locating Cindy Fuller’s whereabouts had been a fucking cinch, for example. All he’d needed was a computer, internet access and knowing all the ropes of using search engines to the max. The abundance of information one could acquire about someone was staggering. Hell, you could practically access their entire life history as long as you knew what to input and where to input it! In a matter of a few minutes he had learned, among other things, that Cindy Fuller presently lived in Portnoy, Colorado, that she was recently divorced from Gregory Martin, was mother to two kids, made over 95K a year, and was leasing a red Mercedes coupe.

  Stanley shook his head slowly from side to side, wondering how far he could have possibly gotten in this life if it weren’t for computers. How else could he have become the man he was now if it weren’t for those little beige boxes of power? It was truly mind-blowing!

  If only his mother could see him now, he thought. She would be proud of him. And she would realize that he had been right all along-that getting good grades and studying all the time just wasn’t enough to get by in this world. How many times had he told her that girls don’t want to go out with a fucking egghead-that they want to be with someone who is fucking cool-one who wears the right clothes, knows the words to all the latest hits on the radio and knows all the right things to say at the right time.

  Jesus! he thought. She wouldn’t even let him ditch those ugly horn-rimmed glasses that he’d hated so much! Why couldn’t she ever get it through her thick skull that it was bad enough to be intelligent and on the straight-A honor roll all the time but to be ugly in the process made it fucking impossible to get any chicks! It was almost as if she’d wanted him to strike out all the time by making him wear those hideous dorky clothes she kept buying for him, always insisting that he keep his hair short and neatly parted on the left side by slapping a ton of Brylcreem on it! And where in the holy horse fuck was the old man all this time? Why, he was sitting there in his Lazy Boy recliner, smoking his pipe and reading his fucking newspaper and telling him to mind his mother-that’s where. Thanks for coming to my defense, Pop, you pussy-whipped, hen-tied shitfuck!

  His parents had never been able to understand him. That was because they’d been too nearsighted to see past his 165+ I.Q. Their son was a genius, they figured, so let’s push him to excel in school so he can leave the rest of the students in the rear of the class eating his dust. It was all they had ever cared about: straight A’s and scholarships. They had no idea what it was like to be walking down the hall and having everyone laughing at you behind your back. Or to be in class and have the teacher always calling on you to give him the right answer to a question that no one else could answer. Or to have all the guys in gym class flip you on the ass with a wet towel and facetiously ask how many girls you’d screwed over the past weekend.

  But the girls were the worst by far. There they were, in their mini skirts hiked up to their crotches and those skin tight sweaters with their tits screaming to get out and not a fucking one of the halfway decent ones would even give him the time of day. They all looked down their noses at him as if he were a fucking leper or something! How many times did he get shot down, all tolled, anyway? A hundred? A fucking thousand? And how many girls had ever gone out with him in all the time he’d been in high school? One. One fucking girl, and he was using the word loosely. Loretta Hodges: the ugliest fucking hag in the entire school.

  And what had happened on his one and only date with the ugliest girl in school? He’d taken her to a movie and had dared to put a hand on her breast. And what had she done? She had fucking decked him, that’s what she’d done. And if that weren’t enough, she’d started screaming bloody murder in the theatre as she stormed out, accusing him of being a pervert!

  That had been the last straw. He had figured from there on out that if he was to ever score with a chick, it was going to be a fucking beauty next time-none of this lowering himself to the likes of Loretta Hodges’ abysmal level.

  He had decided to focus on one babe in particular instead of spreading himself thin. She was to become his main focus of attention-the one who was finally going to give him what he wanted. And in the meantime, whenever he was alone in his bedroom, he would think
of her while he was jerking off instead of pulling out one of those dog-eared Playboys from under the mattress yet again. No more bullshit-she was going to be the one he ate, drank and slept with in his dreams. He would follow her home after school, find out all of her likes and dislikes, and basically view her from afar until he finally felt it was time to make his move. Then one day, when the time was just right, he would approach this beauty and tell her how many things he knew about her and she would be so impressed that he knew all of those intimate details that she wouldn’t be able to resist letting him take her out on a date. She would be the one to suddenly realize that Stanley Jenkins wasn’t the nerd everyone thought him to be but instead a pretty damn suave and cool guy, after all-sort of like a young James Bond.

  But he had never followed through with his plan. He’d chosen the beautiful chick, all right, but when he had finally approached her, he hadn’t had the nerve to tell her that he’d been following her all over creation for the past several months or that he knew, for example, that she liked to take long hot baths and never failed to soak in the tub for a good twenty minutes before she ever got around to actually washing herself.

  Nope, he had choked instead, in fact. And had made a complete fool of himself. All because he’d made the mistake of not being patient instead of letting someone con him into thinking that he was ready to make the big score. That fucking bitch had ruined nearly a whole year of intense sleuthing!

  She was going to pay for it, though-they both were. Just as Cindy Fuller was going to pay for being such a total disappointment and getting him shut up in the nut house.

  And once he had Cindy all squared away he was going to track down the other ones and make them regret that they had ever made Stanley Jenkins the laughing stock at school. Then he was at last going to get his second chance in life. He would finally be free to play it by the book and find out what he’d been missing out on all his fucking life.

  He suddenly saw a car’s headlights out of the corner of his eye. He turned and peered at Cindy Fuller’s red Mercedes as it approached the house and pulled into the driveway. It was too dark to see inside the car but he could visualize her groping for the garage door opener lying on the console and pressing the button. Stanley saw the door open as Cindy slowed down her speed somewhat until she was in the garage. A moment later, he heard the slam of a car door and in another, the electric clatter of the garage door closing.

  He saw the kitchen light come on and waited another five minutes before making his way down the hill to the fringe of the side yard. As expected, Cindy hadn’t turned on the outdoor flood lights which would have lit up the grounds surrounding her house like a Christmas tree-he had since learned that she only turned them on whenever she planned on being out of town for more than a day at a time. Stanley began slinking diagonally across the lawn in the direction of the back door situated at the far corner of the house near the spacious patio, just beyond the swimming pool. As he passed furtively by the kitchen window, Stanley peered inside just long enough to spot the freshly opened bottle of Johnny Walker Red sitting on the counter near the sink, then resumed moving nimbly around the pool, onto the patio and up the steps leading to the back door.

  Stanley reached inside his coat pocket and took out a key, then silently stuck it into the keyhole and turned. The dead bolt slid free with a crisp click that he knew would be inaudible in the den. He took out a pair of latex examination gloves from his pocket and pulled them on before turning the brass doorknob, silently pushing the door open with his other hand. Once inside, he inched the door closed, locked it, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the weak light in the room before advancing any further.

  Jenkins strode across the room to the hallway and turned right, passing the study and a spare bedroom along the way. When he reached the dining room, he crept slowly through it and around the corner to the doorway leading into the den. He froze for a moment just outside the den and could hear the television set-it sounded like Cindy was watching a rerun of Roseanne. In another moment he could hear the clinking of ice cubes in a glass as Cindy Fuller took a long sip from her drink. Little did she know, he thought, that it was to be her last.

  He entered the den and stood for a moment, staring at her. She was sitting on the sofa directly across the room from him. She was still wearing the same outfit he had seen her put on that morning-a matching navy blue skirt and jacket and white blouse: standard fare for the professional woman of the nineties. Cindy’s eyes were glued to the T.V. screen and she held her drink lovingly in both hands with her feet propped up on the coffee table. She suddenly started laughing at one of Darlene Connor’s one-liners and in the process happened to see Stanley standing there. At first she merely froze and her jaw dropped, unable to utter a word. Then he saw all the color drain out of her face as he started walking slowly and methodically toward her.

  “Hello, Cindy-long time no see,” he said cheerfully as he strode across the room.

  Cindy instinctively bolted up from the sofa, spilling her drink. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my house?” she sputtered, terrified.

  Stanley continued pacing steadily toward her. He was only a dozen feet away from her now. “Why Cindy, I’m disappointed in you. Don’t you recognize me?”

  “No, I don’t!” she uttered. Stanley watched the drink that was swashing back and forth in her violently trembling hand with delight as she spoke.

  He continued his steady gait across the room until he was directly across the coffee table from her.

  “Let me give you a few clues,” he said, the crooked smile never leaving his face. “The last time you saw me was about twenty years ago at Fountainhead Tech. I was the guy you absolutely refused to go out with because you thought you were too good for me. I got angry with you since you rebuffed me, so I set fire to your dorm room, hoping to put an end to your unyielding existence. But unfortunately for me, you weren’t in your room at the time like you were supposed to be and I ended up bungling the whole mission. But, my dear, sweet Cindy, it was in a way unfortunate for you as well. Because I think you would have much rather exited this world that way than the way I have planned for you now.”

  Cindy Fuller was by now absolutely mortified with fear as she stood there frozen like a statue, an expression of incredulous horror on her face. Stanley continued standing where he was, only the breadth of the coffee table between the two, his smile never waning for a moment.

  “No!” she cried as she tried to make a run for it. In an instant, Stanley turned to his left, grabbed her arm and threw her onto the sofa.

  “I see now that your memory has returned,” he said in calm, controlled voice as he stared down at her. “And if you try to pull another stunt like that, I’m not going to be responsible for what I might do to you. Am I making myself clear?”

  Cindy nodded slowly, tears welling up in her eyes.

  “That’s better.” He leaned down and stroked her blonde hair. “Please don’t cry, Cindy-you’re messing up your makeup,”

  Stanley sat down on the edge of the coffee table and stared into her eyes as he ran his gloved fingers through her shoulder-length hair. His expression was pensive.

  “You still look wonderful, Cindy, if you don’t mind my saying so. You’ve aged quite nicely, in fact. Same thick, golden hair, same gorgeous blue eyes, and from what I’ve seen-practically the same sweet body you had back in the old college days. It almost seems like a shame to let such a lovely creature go to waste.”

  He paused a moment, then said, “So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you another chance. That’s right, Cindy, I’m going to afford you the opportunity of deciding once again if you’re too good for me. In other words, are you going to be a willing participant or am I going to have to beat you into absolute submission to have my way with you? The decision is yours.”

  Cindy began convulsing violently as Stanley sat there, continually stroking her hair. She literally could not find her voice. He then placed both of his h
ands on her shoulders as a token gesture of comfort and stared expectantly into her eyes.

  “Well Cindy, what’s it going to be?”

  She looked away a moment then back at him. “What are you going to do to me, Stanley?”

  He smiled at her, his eyes cold as steel. “It’s what I may not do to you that you should be concerned with, darling.”

  Cindy Fuller’s expression became imploring.

  “Please don’t kill me! I have two small children! I’ll do anything you ask-but please don’t kill me!” she cried.

  Stanley chuckled triumphantly. “That’s both a very prudent and inviting offer, Cindy, but you haven’t yet answered my question. Do you still think that you’re too good for Stanley Jenkins? Or are you beginning to see him in a different light? Tell me Cindy. Are you impressed with what you see now?”

  She nodded slowly. “Yes, Stanley. I am.”

  “Say it, Cindy! Tell me you regret ever being such a bitch to me back at Fountainhead! That you now realize what a stupid mistake you made!”

  Cindy was hysterical. “I’m sorry, Stanley!” she cried desperately. “I should have gone out with you but I didn’t because I’m a bitch and I’m really sorry that I didn’t do it now!”

  A huge smirk came to Stanley’s face. “Excellent! You know, Cindy, I almost believe you actually mean what you just said, but my better judgment tells me that you’re only speaking out of fear and desperation. I need to be convinced that you’re really sincere. I want you to show me that you’ve truly learned your lesson.”

  His hand went to her breast for a moment, then he withdrew it. Cindy flinched and a look of dread and revulsion showed in her eyes.

  Stanley chuckled, “I’m beginning to sense that your heart isn’t really in this, Cindy. Perhaps I should just kill you instead of wasting my time.”

  She grabbed his sleeve. “No, Stanley, please!”