Murder On The Menu: The 1st Nikki Hunter Mystery (Nikki Hunter Mysteries)

by Nancy Skopin

  “Is there anything you’d like to know before you die?” he asked.

  So, Derrick wanted foreplay. Fair enough. I did have questions. Lots of them. I nodded and filled my lungs with smoke.

  “Shoot,” he said, and grinned sardonically.

  “Why are you killing all these people? You have a beautiful wife, a successful career, a great-American-dream life. What the fuck is your problem?”

  Derrick seemed unperturbed by my verbal assault. He tilted his head slightly to one side, perhaps deciding whether or not to respond. Finally he said, “Laura had started going to a therapist, recovering memories from her childhood. She confronted me, and said she was going to tell Kate. She even threatened me with public exposure. It would have ruined my business, and the notoriety would have been extremely unpleasant. So…” He flipped his free hand as though it should be obvious why he’d chosen to kill his own daughter.

  This guy was bat-shit-crazy and a complete sociopath. I shivered involuntarily before repeating my question. “Why the others?”

  “To lead the police to Fred, of course. They should have been onto him weeks ago.”

  “The anonymous phone call,” I blurted out.

  “Very good, Ms. Hunter. Yes, I made that call. I told the police I saw Fred leaving the alley where the librarian was killed. And they did nothing. If you and your little friend hadn’t come along, there’s no telling how long this might have taken.”

  So I wasn’t the only one who had seen Elizabeth in the parking lot.

  “Were you jealous of Fred? Is that what all this is about?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “But I didn’t care for the way he treated Laura.”

  Can anyone spell irony? The man who had abused Laura as a child, violated her innocence, and who had killed her rather than have his guilty secrets exposed, was offended by the way another man had treated her.

  “He likes to have sex in public places,” he continued. “Did you know that?” I shook my head dumbly. “I was following her the night they had sex behind that dumpster. It was dark, but they wouldn’t have noticed me if it had been broad daylight. Afterwards, he just got in his car and left. It was like that with all of them.”

  All of them?

  “I need him to be arrested for these murders, and you’re my insurance. When your body turns up, your redheaded friend will run screaming to the police about what she found in Fred’s trunk, and that cop you had dinner with last night will do whatever it takes to get a conviction. End of story.”

  I felt a lifetime of rage against injustice hit the surface. It felt better than fear, so I let it come. I couldn’t allow Derrick to get away with this. I had to do something to make sure he got caught, even if I didn’t live to see it happen. I took a deep breath and forced myself to continue talking.

  “Why Kurt?” I asked. “And why Barbara and Andrew? How were they connected to Fred?”

  “Kurt described Fred to you perfectly. I thought it would be more incriminating if he was killed before you showed him the pictures.”

  “Wait a minute. How do you know he described Fred to me?”

  “My assistant was getting her hair cut in the next chair. She’s a terrible gossip.”

  “Your assistant is involved in this?”

  “Oh, God, no. That was just a coincidence.”

  I felt my jaw drop. “Unbelievable.” I stubbed out my cigarette and lit another. “You know, the police were watching your house the night Kurt was killed. They saw your bedroom lights go off. How did you manage to slip out of the house without disturbing Kate?”

  “She’s a creature of habit. Takes a Halcion with warm milk every night before bed. She has insomnia. So I just slipped an extra dose into her milk. Once she was asleep, I went out the patio door and walked to Redwood City.”

  “Did you know you were being watched?”

  “No, but it pays to be cautious.”

  “What about Andrew and Barbara? Where do they fit in?”

  He looked puzzled for a moment, like he couldn’t believe I didn’t get it. “Fred was having sex with them too. One night I followed him when he left Laura, and he went and hooked up with the hairdresser. One right after the other.

  “That night he screwed Laura behind the dumpster he put a bag over her head. I could tell she liked it.” His eyes glazed over as he spoke, remembering. “I thought the timing was perfect. After he left I came out from where I was hiding, and she started to scream. I punched her in the face to shut her up, and that knocked her out. I fastened the plastic bag back over her head. When she was dead I stabbed her a few times so I’d have something with her blood on it to put in Fred’s trunk.”

  He watched me for a reaction. I didn’t give him one.

  “Were you wearing gloves that night?” I asked.

  “I got in the habit. Started keeping surgical gloves and condoms in my car.”

  He seemed to enjoy talking about his crimes, almost as though he was proud of himself, and he hadn’t been able to share his obscene little discourse with anyone else. I’d read about this. Psychopathic killers have an overwhelming need to take credit for what they’ve done. They want to brag about it. Telling someone, anyone, makes them feel god-like. At least it was giving me time to think of a way to disarm him. Also, I have to admit to more than a little morbid curiosity.

  “Why did you rape Kurt before you killed him?”

  “To keep the pattern consistent. I’d never done that before. Fred seems to like it, so I thought why not? It was interesting. You know what else he does? He brings a plastic bag with him on his little adventures, and when he’s done, he puts the used condom in the baggie and takes it with him. He has sex in public, but he doesn’t want to litter.”

  I glanced at the gun he held in his lap and noticed that Derrick had an erection. I felt a wave of nausea, but determined to forge ahead rather than surrender to panic. I swallowed a couple of times before speaking.

  “There was no foreign pubic hair found on any of the victims, even though they’d all recently had sex.”

  “He shaves everything.” He stood up, adjusted himself, and began pacing. “So I started shaving too.”

  “There were no defensive wounds found on Andrew. No sign of a struggle.”

  “You’d be surprised how docile people become after sex. Or maybe you wouldn’t.” He winked at me.

  The man who was planning to rape and kill me was flirting with me?

  “As soon as Fred left I moved in and finished the hairdresser off. It was so fast he never even knew what was happening.”

  Jesus.

  Derrick abruptly stopped pacing and turned to face me. “It’s time to go,” he said. He gestured with the gun, indicating that I should stand. “We’ll stop at your office first.”

  I stayed where I was. “Derrick, your daughter is dead. You killed her, and four other people to cover it up. I’m assuming Hearn was trying to blackmail you, so you had to get rid of him?”

  Derrick nodded curtly and motioned with the gun again.

  “The police will find some evidence linking you to one or all of those victims,” I continued. “You are going to get caught.”

  “Don’t underestimate me, Ms. Hunter. I’ve been very careful. Now get up.”

  I put out my cigarette, stood, and moved slowly toward the companionway, wondering if an elbow to the solar plexus or a heel-stomp on the instep would cause his trigger finger to convulse.

  He must have read my thoughts. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Just get your ass up those stairs.”

  “Wait,” I said over my shoulder. I turned toward the stateroom. “I’ll need my keys to get into the office.”

  Keys make an excellent weapon when gripped firmly and directed at the eyes. Plus I had a canister of pepper spray
in my bag.

  “I already have your keys,” he said, grabbing me by the hair again. He jerked me back against him and gave me a shove toward the steps. When he released me I spun around, coming up under his gun arm and grabbing his wrist with both hands. I pushed upward, trying to loosen his grip on the Glock, but he was a lot stronger than I was, even with the adrenaline rushing through my system. He wrenched free and slammed the gun into my forehead. I staggered backwards, dizzy from the blow, and fell to my knees.

  I wiped the blood from my forehead and glared up at my captor. If he wouldn’t let me near my purse and the pepper spray, maybe I could get close enough to scratch his face. Get some DNA under my fingernails for the forensics people to discover after I was dead, and leave some marks he wouldn’t easily be able to cover. Of course I was feeling reluctant to piss him off just now. One more push and he might kill me first and search my office for the fictitious flash drive later. I was in no hurry to die.

  He pointed the gun at me and took a step back. “Let’s go.”

  I leaned against the steps and pulled myself up. My forehead was throbbing and my legs felt like they wouldn’t support me. I climbed up into the pilothouse with Derrick close behind me.

  I keep a machete next to the door in case there’s an earthquake and I need to cut the dock lines in a hurry. I looked down at it as I passed through the small room. I was afraid I wouldn’t be fast enough.

  The fear was paralyzing me, keeping me from taking any action that might save my life. Like a deer caught in the headlights, I could see my own doom coming and was too frightened to get out of the way. I’d never been in a life and death situation before, and I was disappointed by my reaction, but that did little to change the panic I was feeling.

  I walked out the pilothouse door. The night air was bracing. I took a deep breath and thought about jumping in the water. I felt lightheaded, I’m a poor swimmer, and the Bay water is icy, even in the summer. Besides, I didn’t have a clear shot at the water from where I was standing. Instead I pushed off hard from the deck, jumping over the steps onto the dock and hoping to throw Derrick off balance with the motion of the boat. He was behind me, his forearm around my neck, before I could take two steps.

  “Behave yourself,” he muttered in my ear.

  He held the gun in his left hand, the muzzle pressed against my jaw, as we walked down the dock. His other hand gripped the waistband of my jeans. The gun I could handle, but the feel of his gloved fingers on my lower back was intolerable. Held at this angle, the gun was likely obscured by my hair. In the dark, the matte black Glock wouldn’t be visible from more than a few feet away.

  I remembered the loaded Ruger I keep in the office under my lap drawer. He’d have to give me my keys to get into the office, or risk the time it would take to try each one. The same thing would be true with the desk. Surely he’d trust me to unlock a drawer. After all, he had my gun.

  I tried dragging my feet to slow things down.

  “Keep moving,” he whispered. “I’d hate to have to kill any of your neighbors.”

  I walked on, periodically wiping the blood from my head wound to keep it out of my eyes.

  When we reached the end of the dock and turned left I felt rather than saw the black streak in front of my face. It was like a hot gust of wind and it landed, teeth first, on Derrick’s left wrist. Everything dropped into slow motion while a dozen things seemed to happen at once.

  D’Artagnon’s body slammed into Derrick and the impact knocked me aside. The Glock went off with a deafening crack and a flash of light, and I felt the burn on my temple. I sat down hard on the concrete dock as the gun flew out of Derrick’s hand and skidded away. Derrick hit the dock next to me full force. I scrambled on hands and knees after the gun. D’Artagnon released his grip on Derrick’s wrist and was leaning toward his throat when Derrick backhanded the pup hard enough to knock him into the water just as I retrieved the Glock.

  I pulled myself up into a shooting crouch and pointed the gun at Derrick. Assuming I wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man, he lunged at me. This time I was ready for the attack, I was pissed, and I had a weapon. I sidestepped to my right and slammed the Glock into his left cheek as he turned. He covered his face with his hands and I kicked him in the balls as hard as I could. When he bent at the waist clutching his injured package I clobbered him on the back of the head with the Glock again. Good thing I didn’t have my finger on the trigger.

  With Derrick temporarily incapacitated I reached over the side of the dock, grabbed D’Artagnon’s collar, and helped him climb out of the water. He shook himself nose to tail, spraying salt water all over me, licked my left hand once, and then promptly clamped his jaws around Derrick’s exposed throat.

  D’Artagnon’s people, Kirk and Jonathan, had appeared on deck, wondering what the hell was going on. I told them briefly how he’d saved my life, shouting to compensate for my inability to hear due to the proximity of the gunshot, and asked if I could borrow a cell phone. Kirk fished his out of his pocket and leaned over the rail to hand it to me.

  I felt the dock vibrate rhythmically behind me and turned, expecting to see another neighbor awakened by the commotion. Elizabeth came running down the dock in a short cotton nightgown and bunny slippers. She looked back and forth between me with the Glock in my hand and Derrick with D’Artagnon at his throat. She was speechless. Elizabeth is rarely speechless.

  I quickly dialed 911 holding the phone tight against my ear with one hand, still holding the gun on Derrick with the other. I got a recording. A moment later a California Highway Patrol operator came on. I asked to be connected to the Redwood City emergency dispatchers.

  I explained the situation to the dispatcher and asked her to page Detective Bill Anderson. She assured me that help was on the way.

  Finally Elizabeth spoke. “D’Artagnon must be getting tired. Should we call him off?”

  After a moment’s consideration I decided she was right. He’d probably need a tetanus shot too.

  “Good boy, D’Artagnon,” I said. “You can let go now.”

  He wagged his tail, but did not release Derrick.

  Kirk told him to drop it, but he maintained his grip. It finally took both Jonathan and Kirk to drag the snarling, slobbering beast from Derrick’s throat. Remarkably, the skin on his neck was barely broken. What a good dog.

  Bill arrived a few minutes later, followed by four uniformed officers. After they’d heard my story a still dazed Derrick was cuffed, Mirandized, and taken away in a patrol car with lights flashing. Bill stayed behind to take my full statement, and to make sure I was okay.

  Once Derrick had been removed and I’d given a full report of events to Bill, I started shaking badly. In spite of the balmy weather my teeth were chattering and I began to feel the head wound. I sat down on the dock and wrapped my arms around D’Artagnon, who licked my face causing me to dissolve into tears.

  I waited until the uniforms gave me a receipt for the Glock, which was being taken as evidence, so I could reclaim the gun when the case was resolved. Then I allowed Elizabeth to drive me to the emergency room. Bill had gone to the station to handle the paperwork.

  My forehead didn’t need stitches, but the doctor used a butterfly bandage to hold the split flesh together. He cleaned and bandaged the gunpowder burn on my temple, and suggested I have the stippling removed by a plastic surgeon as soon as possible. He examined my eyes, telling me how lucky I was, and said the ringing in my ears would probably dissipate in a few hours.

  When we got home from the hospital, Elizabeth walked me to my boat. The emergency room doctor had given me a couple of Norco for the pain, and I was feeling a little bit wobbly. She helped me get out of my clothes and gently tucked me into the bunk.

  “You want me to stay, honey?”

  “I’m fine. But thanks for asking.” I glanced at the bedside clock. “
Is it really two a.m.?”

  “Yes. I’m taking tomorrow off. I’ll check on you in the morning. Get some sleep.”

  She kissed my bandaged forehead, and let herself out.

  I dozed for a while, but when my cell phone sounded from my purse I nearly jumped out of my skin. Who would be calling at this ungodly hour?

  I dug the phone out of my bag, and looked at the number on the screen.

  “Elizabeth?”

  “Hi, honey. I just wanted you to know I let Detective Hottie in the gate. He’s on his way.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “No problem. Sweet dreams,” she said, and giggled before hanging up.

  I grabbed a short terry cloth robe off the floor and covered myself before climbing up the companionway and sticking my head out the pilothouse door. Standing on the dock next to my slip was Detective Bill Anderson, illuminated only by the light shining through my port holes.

  “You coming aboard?” I asked.

  “If you’re not too tired for company.” He looked pretty ragged himself.

  “Come on in,” I said. “I’ll make coffee.”

  Bill smiled at that. Probably remembering the Kona I’d served him when he came to my office. He followed me down the companionway, mirroring my actions by backing down the steps. I enjoyed the view as he descended. Bill Anderson has an exceptionally fine ass. My face flushed as I busied myself with the coffee maker.

  Bill seated himself at the galley table, watching me in my little terry cloth robe as I fussed with the filter. When I’d finished the set up and switched on the machine I turned to face him. He scooted over a little and patted the settee. I eased down beside him.

  He stroked my forehead gently with his fingertips, sending little jolts of electricity all the way to my toes. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I said. “But ask me again in the morning.”

  He gave me a slow smile and tilted his head. I licked my lips self-consciously. His eyes lowered to watch the motion, and then he leaned in and kissed me.