by Donald Wells
“Of course not, we’ve plenty of room for another building, and that way you’ll still be home.”
He headed towards the front door.
“I need a shower and something to eat. What’s for dinner?”
“Oh, ah, I’ve made your favorites, Lasagna and shrimp scampi, with strawberry shortcake for dessert.”
He stopped walking and stared at her.
“What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“The last time you made that for me it was because your father was staying with us for a month.”
“Daddy’s not coming here; I just thought it would be nice, that’s all.”
He kept staring.
“Jessica?”
She sighed.
“Alright, yes, we do have company, but he really had nowhere else to go.”
“Your father?”
“No.”
“Your brother? What trouble has he gotten into now?”
“No, it’s not Jimmy either... let’s go inside and you’ll see.”
They entered the house and he found him in the living room, lying on the sofa as if he lived there.
He glared at him.
“Why is he here?”
“Like I said, he had nowhere else to go, and they were going to kill him.”
“Kill him?”
“No one else would take him, and they couldn’t house him indefinitely.”
“He tried to kill me, have you forgotten that?”
Jessica walked over and sat beside their guest.
“Oh, he didn’t mean it, and he’s such a sweetie, aren’t you baby?”
The pit bull rolled over onto its back and let Jessica rub his belly, as his tongue hung out of his mouth. It was the dog that he had encountered in Bel Rey, California, the same one that bit him in the arm and caused him to take a dangerous fall.
“I see that he's healed. How much did that cost us?”
Jessica made a face.
“You don’t want to know, plus there was the expense of having him flown here.”
He walked over and stood beside her. The dog jumped up, sniffed him, and licked his hand, before lying back down for more stomach rubbing.
“We can’t keep him.”
“Why not? He’s not really dangerous. It was his owner’s fault that he attacked you.”
“You really want to keep him?”
“He’s got nowhere else to go.”
“Maybe not, I know a man that works out at the same dojo that I use. He loves pit bulls, I think he has three of them, but one of his older dogs just died. Let me speak to him and see if he wants him.”
“Oh, well maybe that’s best, he’ll be around other dogs.”
“In the meantime, we’ll have to take care of him. I’ll go out and get dog food.”
“I already did that. I also got him a bed and some dog toys.”
“Dog toys?”
“Dogs like to play; didn’t you have a dog when you were little?”
“No,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation, and Jessica sensed something more.
“There’s a story there, isn’t there? Would you like to talk about it?”
“Someday, but not now,”
“You can tell me anything, baby, you know that, right?”
“Yes, Dr. White.”
Jessica laughed and stood up.
“Dr. White is not here, only your wife. Now, didn’t you say something about taking a shower?”
“Yes I did.”
“Would you like a hand with that?”
“Yes I would.”
They both laughed and headed for the stairs. As the dog followed, he turned around and spoke to him.
“Sit, stay,”
The pit bull seemed to understand the commands, as he sat down and didn’t move.
“Hmm, I think he’s had some training.”
“See, I told you he’s a good dog.”
“He’ll be even better when he’s someone else’s dog.”
***
The following morning, he went out for bagels. The store was busy and so he waited in line at the counter. Along the right side were a set of four tables. Two older men sat at one of the tables, they were talking about sports while sipping on coffee. At another table was a group of middle-aged women wearing jogging outfits and eating pastry.
As he was placing his order, a girl walked in and began yelling at him. She was about sixteen, with dyed blond hair and an attractive face. She was wearing a short skirt and her tight sweater accentuated her breasts.
“Why are you here? Are you following me again?”
He gave her a careful look before answering, and realized that she didn’t look familiar.
“I haven’t been following you. I’ve never seen you before.”
“Liar! You’ve been following me for weeks, and if you don’t stop I’ll call the police. Stop stalking me!”
And with those words, the girl wheeled about and hurried from the shop.
The women at the counter and the other customers were eyeing him suspiciously. He answered their stares with a shrug and paid for his bagels.
***
When he arrived home, he told Jessica about the incident.
She was quiet as he talked, but when he finished, she asked a question.
“Are you certain you’ve never followed her?”
“I never saw her before.”
“You’ve... you’ve followed other girls, not too long ago you followed one home from that very shop.”
“I know. I remember, but I haven’t done it since.”
She stared at him from a troubled face.
“I said this last night and I meant it. You can tell me anything. Have you been following this girl? Are you having difficulty controlling your... impulses? If you are, please tell me before things get... before...”
He reached over and took her hand.
“I’m not out of control and I swear to you that I’ve never laid eyes on that girl before. I have no idea why she said those things.”
She studied his face.
“I believe you.”
“Thank you.”
“I wonder why she said what she did.”
“So do I, but I suppose it was just a case of mistaken identity.”
***
In the parking lot of a nearby mall, the girl in question climbed into the back of a van and sat on the floor with her legs crossed, in the front, sat a man and a woman, both were wearing gloves.
“Any problems?” the man asked.
“Nope, and I did just what you said. You should have seen the look on his face.”
The woman turned in her seat and talked to her.
“It caused a scene, didn’t it? Other people noticed?”
“Oh yeah, there were plenty of customers and the chicks behind the counter, so, when do I get the rest of the money?”
“In a minute,” the man said. “We just need to make certain that you didn’t tell anyone about the joke we wanted you to play on our friend, it would ruin the surprise.”
The girl shook her head emphatically, while opening her purse to remove a pack of gum.
“I didn’t tell nobody, but...”
“Yes?”
“Why’d you take my blood just before I went in there? I can’t figure out why you did that.”
The woman held up a bloody syringe.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No, and hell they take my blood all the time at the free clinic, testing for AIDS and stuff, but why did you need it?”
The man answered her.
“While you were in the bagel shop, Hanna here walked over to our friend’s car and injected your blood into his trunk.”
The girl’s face screwed up in confusion.
“That’s gross, why would you do that?”
“We were planting evidence.”
“Evidence?”
“Evidence of your murder,” Jeffrey Mitchell said. An
instant later, he was in the back of the van attempting to stab the girl to death, as Hanna watched without the slightest trace of empathy.
Bang!
The sound of the shot in the closed van startled Jeffrey and halted his attack. He yanked the girl’s right hand from her purse and saw that she was holding a small gun. It was barely five inches long with a stubby barrel. He knocked it from her hand, before punching her into unconsciousness.
He turned his head and looked at Hanna.
“Were you hit?”
“No, but what was she doing with a gun?”
“I’m sure she thought it would protect... pro...pro—oh no,”
“What’s wrong?” Hanna asked.
In answer, Jeffrey lifted his right arm and felt beneath it with his left hand. When he took his hand away, it was wet with blood.
“The little bitch shot me,” he said, a moment before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell atop the injured girl.
“Jeffrey!” Hanna shouted, as she clambered into the back of the van.
She lifted his shirt up and studied the wound.
The .22 bullet had entered just beneath his armpit and was still inside.
Hanna laid him down beside the girl and started for the driver’s seat.
“I’ve got to get you to a doctor.”
As she stood, Jeffrey grabbed her ankle.
“The girl, she still needs to be...” Jeffrey began, but passed out before he could finish, however, Hanna understood what needed to be done.
She searched the floor and found Jeffrey’s knife. After but a moment’s hesitation, she grabbed the knife from the floor and stabbed the girl twice beneath her breastbone. The girl made a mewing sound as her eyes fluttered open, but an instant more and her eyes closed forever.
Hanna dropped the knife and scrambled into the driver’s seat.
She was three blocks along a residential street and doing seventy before she reminded herself that the last thing they needed was to be pulled over by a cop.
She forced herself to slow to the speed limit, an agonizing twenty-five miles an hour, and as she did, she caught a red light. Two blocks later, she reached the highway and risked doing eighty, as a glance over her shoulder revealed Jeffrey’s pale face.
The girl!
She had to dump the girl’s body or all their patience and planning would be for nothing.
Hanna made a squealing right turn onto a back road, and a quarter mile later made a left down a dirt trail so narrow that the bordering trees scraped the sides of the van.
A little farther on, the trail expanded and revealed an abandoned construction sight. Steel girders sat unclothed, save for the rust that clung to them.
Hanna made a tight U-turn and, after parking, she got out of the van and opened the back doors.
Jeffrey was still unconscious, but a check of his pulse revealed it to be steady.
Hanna grabbed the dead girl by her arms and pulled her out of the van and unto the ground. As she was about to drop the girl’s purse beside the body, she noticed the bullet hole at the bottom of the bag. She reached inside, grabbed the girl’s wallet, and tossed it on top of her.
Six minutes later, she was at the hospital and wondering how she was going to get Jeffrey help without getting them both arrested. She continued past the front entrance and made her way around to the loading dock.
A string of cameras followed her as she drove along, but it couldn’t be helped as Jeffrey was running out of time. She backed the van in beside a tractor-trailer and searched her phone for info.
The hospital switchboard operator answered with a nasal voice.
“Mercy General, how may I help you?”
“There’s a wounded man at your loading dock in need of urgent care. Send a doctor down now.”
“I beg your pardon, but what did you say?”
“There’s a wounded man at your loading dock. Send someone down here now you stupid bitch!”
“Bitch? Who the hell do you think you are, ma’am?”
The dock manager, a balding man with a potbelly, grew curious about the van and walked out to see who was in it. As he walked up to her window, Hanna grabbed the dead girl’s gun, lowered her window, and shot him in the stomach.
The man grabbed his middle and fell to the ground, moaning.
“Did you hear that, bitch?”
“Oh my God, was that a shot?”
“You now have two wounded men at the loading dock. Send someone down here now.”
“Oh God, oh God yes, yes, yes, I’ll do that, I’ll do that, just please don’t hurt anyone el—”
Hanna ended the call, wiped the phone clean, and tossed it away. Afterwards, she walked around the man she wounded, to ease Jeffrey out of the van and onto the ground.
With the sound of police sirens in her ears, she finally forced herself from Jeffrey’s side and drove the van away through a back entrance, as tears threatened to blind her and dread clutched at her heart.
***
He walked Jessica out to her car as the dog followed along. She was spending the day with her sister, Gabriella.
“I won’t be back until late. Heat up the leftover lasagna for dinner and there’s fried chicken and salad in the fridge for lunch.”
“That sounds good, and tell Gabby I said hi.”
“I will. Oh, and don’t forget to feed the dog.”
“I won’t.”
She climbed into the car, started the engine, and just sat there.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Maybe I should postpone this, Gabby will understand. It’s not fair to leave you alone with the dog.”
He leaned down and spoke to her through the open window.
“I never saw that girl before. I swear it on your life.”
She opened her mouth to deny that she was still worried, but then thought better of it.
Instead, she gave him a lingering kiss and a smile.
“Don’t forget to let the dog out after you feed him.”
“I won’t,”
“I love you.”
“I love you too; now go have a good time.”
She drove off with a wave and he watched her until the car disappeared from sight.
At his feet, the dog made a whining sound.
He looked down at him.
“I know, I miss her already too,”
***
Chief of Police, Jack Dent, heard the news about the shooting at the hospital while he was in his office talking to Officer Traci Vargas. He could be found talking to Vargas often, as the two of them had fallen in love the moment they met.
Dent was forty-two, a former big city cop, divorced, and the father of two girls, ages seventeen and eighteen. While he wasn’t a very big man, he still knew how to handle himself and had done so often while on the Chicago Police Force.
He’d taken the job of Police Chief because he thought the work would be easy and the town quiet. So far, both assumptions had proven wrong.
Although the town itself was quiet enough, the college that sat on the edge of it had been nothing but trouble. Had he known that the college was party central for the surrounding area, he never would have taken the job, but then, he also would have never met Vargas.
Traci Vargas was twenty-four, never married, and childless. She was of Portuguese descent and as sultry looking as she was shapely. It shocked her to no end when she met the middle-aged Dent and fell head over heels in love with him. That was six months ago, and they still had yet to even kiss.
She knew he was interested in her; however, most men paid her attention. At times, she even believed that Dent had feelings for her, but then he’d go all business on her and he never called her anything other than Officer Vargas.
She used any excuse to come and talk to him in his office and he always seemed happy to see her, while being sure to leave his door wide open. When the dispatcher relayed the news about the hospital shooting, she was in the midst of a fantasy involving Den
t and a pair of handcuffs.
Dent looked over at Vargas as he grabbed his jacket.
“Officer Vargas, round up Callaway and meet me at the hospital.”
“Alright, Chief, but be careful, the suspect may not have left the area.”
“You be careful too,” Dent said, and stared at her a bit too long. He forced himself to walk away from her while shaking his head slightly.
Good God, Jack, she’s young enough to be your daughter. Get a grip. Why would a girl like that want a guy like you?
***
On his way to the hospital, Dent learned that there were two shooting victims, but that one of them had arrived with the shooter. When Vargas appeared with Officer Callaway, who was an eight-year veteran of the force and its best shot, he was in the middle of gathering the clothes and effects of the mystery man the shooter had left him.
He handed the package to Callaway.
“Take these to the State lab. Tell them to test for DNA and blood type, and here’s a copy of his prints and his photo, ask them to run those too.”
After Callaway left, Dent looked over at Vargas and found her smiling at him. If he had been a weaker man, he’d have walked over and kissed her.
“Officer Vargas.”
“Yes, Chief?”
“Follow me.”
“Anywhere Chief,”
Dent studied her, while wondering if there was a deeper meaning to her words. A moment more and he began walking towards the hospital security office, which was run by a man named Joe Simmons, a former cop.
Simmons turned to look at them when they entered. He spent considerably more time looking at Vargas than he did at the chief.
“I have that footage for you. I also sent a copy to your office.”
“Let’s see it, Joe.”
Simmons ran the security video of the loading dock on a twenty-four inch monitor. The images were in color and fairly sharp. They watched as Hanna arrived, shot the loading dock manager, and Dent had Simmons replay the part where Hanna removed Jeffrey from the back of the van.
“Whoever she is, this man means something to her. Not only did she risk herself by bringing him here, but she took considerable care in removing him from that van. I’d say she’s in love with him.”
Vargas frowned, while wondering how Dent could discern loving feelings from a few seconds of video, but not detect it when it was standing right beside him.