by Chris Frank
They froze the tape and then found themselves in a similar state of suspended animation, stunned by the sight on the screen. A loaf of bread was protruding angrily from the woman’s mouth and she was covered in white powder. They saw the ‘three’ written in the powder, immediately below her right arm.
“I knew it. I just knew it when I heard the story. It had to be him.” Lisa was very excited. “He certainly isn’t being very subtle this time, is he?”
“No, he’s not.”
“What is that under her left arm?” Lisa asked.
Jim stared at the image.
“It looks like a couple of birds, doesn’t it?”
Lisa agreed.
“Why would he put a ‘three’ under one arm and some birds under the other?”
Jim shrugged.
“I’m sure he’s trying to be clever and at the same time give us a clue, but I don’t get it.”
Lisa sat back in her chair and contemplated the situation.
“This guy likes to play games and he wants us to know that he’s smarter than us.”
“Maybe he’s English. Didn’t they call girls ‘birds’ in England in the ‘60s? Maybe, three dead women?”
Lisa shook her head.
“Look, I don’t like the British any more than the next guy, but I’m not buying into that theory.”
Jim sensed a dilemma growing inside his new lover.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“The way he’s numbering the victims, it’s changing. In the Artridge case, if you didn’t stand at the right angle, you could almost miss the ‘one’ on the tree. The ‘two’ for McDermott was a little more obvious, but initially, just to us.”
Jim chimed in, “Because we were looking for it.”
“Right,” Lisa agreed. “This time, this time, it’s just out there. No one is going to miss that.”
“Especially Captain Jones.”
“Oh, fuck.”
Lisa looked at him. Jim leaned back in his chair.
“It is what it is. I got to figure he’ll call and then I’ll most likely be looking for a new career. How hard is it to use a camera?”
Lisa smiled.
“First, you’re going to have to do something about your motion sickness.”
Jim turned bright red and fixed his stare on the video monitor. He looked at the naked dead body of Audrey La Pense.
“He’s evolving, you know.”
Lisa was confused.
“Who is?”
“Our killer.”
“I don’t know if ‘evolving’ is the right word to describe a homicidal maniac who kills people with bread products. But go on, you must have a thought.”
Jim got up and began to pace, gesticulating with his hands, like a teacher about to explain relativity to a physics class.
“Our guy, most likely, had never taken a life before Artridge. He probably didn’t even know if he could. He pushes the guy along the street and sets off a car alarm. Lucky for him, I was on call. He has some grand plan about numbering his victims, but after he hangs Santa, the best he could muster was the carving on the tree, that can only be seen if the sun hits it right. Like, he wanted us to know, but he wasn’t sure if he could get away with it. He probably sits at home afterward, preparing for the McDermott woman while waiting for the cops to knock on his door. When they don’t, he makes his next move. He is feeling better about his plan, about the incompetence of his pursuers. He wants to tie the first victim to the second, so he makes the ‘two’ larger, but still somewhat obtuse, as if he’s not yet ready to shout, ‘I did it. Catch me.’ And then we have number ‘three’. He writes it in powder directly next to the body. He positions her as he sees himself, standing with his legs apart and his hands above his head, screaming to the world that he has arrived, that he is smarter than us and he will continue to kill at will until someone stops him. Hence, I use the word ‘evolving’.”
He finished his rant and looked at Lisa for a reaction. She didn’t take long to acknowledge Jim’s conclusions. She leapt from her seat and kissed him passionately; a position she held for a good ten seconds. When she finished, she saw that she had drawn blood from his lower lip. She grabbed him by the hair and whispered into his ear.
“Is it sick that this really turns me on,” she asked, knowing the answer already.
“A little, but what the fuck?”
Now it was his turn. He spun her against the door and kissed her deeply. She reached behind her back and locked the door so that no one would enter. Luckily for them, no one saw him rip open her shirt or bend her over a chair and tear off her g-string. No cameras saw him take her from behind while she stared at the picture of Audrey La Pense, covered in sugar, spread like a dead eagle on the high definition screen.
Day 3: 9:25 a.m.
Milt Adams sat at his computer and spliced together some of the images he had procured over the last few days of shooting; it was like a ‘Best of Snuff Shots’ and all his. The stuff was going to sell like hot cakes on the Internet. The hanging Santa Claus was a testament to Lisa’s quick thinking but the French chick was all Milt. And thanks to the fact that the beaner janitor at the zoo called his cousin at Telemundo before he called the cops, Milt also nabbed some footage of the lady with the turtle on her head. This is really good stuff, he thought. He was staring at the second victim when he saw the rocks. Weird. He printed off a picture and rolled the tape forward to the Santa Monica murder. That was definitely a three. He printed that frame as well. Wait, that thing Lisa spotted, on the tree in West Covina. He rewound to the dead Santa and studied the film. He almost missed it but there it was. As print number three came out of the machine, Milt grabbed it and placed it next to the others on his bed. One, two and three; they were connected. Holy fuck! They were connected. Milt tapped out a quick drum roll on the nightstand and then jumped high in the air, yelling in delight at his good fortune. At the apex of his leap, he crashed his head on the bedroom light and opened a gash that would need seven stitches on the parietal portion of his skull. It wouldn’t be the last time he’d question his luck.
Day 3: 11:08 a.m.
Captain Robert Jones was having a terrible start to the new day. His breakfast meeting with the mayor went horribly wrong. The little midget was up in his grill all morning and no amount of verbal massaging on Jones’ part could placate the bastard. Santa Monica wasn’t even under his command, why the fuck was this his fault? Jones’ secretary, Mary, had put the case files for all three murders on his desk and he was going to go through each one personally and get his head around this mess if it was the last thing he did. He started with La Pense; that murder was fresh and particularly violent. So the guy jammed a loaf of French bread down her throat and covered her with confectionary sugar. He apparently did not like French food. But what was up with the birds and the ‘three’ on the floor? The ‘three’ on the floor, the ‘three’. He grabbed the Artridge file and found Jim’s supplemental report. Son of a bitch. McDermott, McDermott. Don’t tell me that there is a ‘two’ in the turtle cage, please, please. Nothing in the report, where are the photos? They were within easy reach; when he found them, he dropped them, stunned. No, no, no. Son of a bitch. Son of a fucking bitch!
“MARY!” he bellowed through the closed door.
A thin Mediterranean woman of sixty wearing a pair of pince-nez glasses opened the door.
“Captain?”
“Get me Jim Jovian on the phone.”
“Who?”
“Jesus Christ woman, Jim Fucking Jovian, the officer who was here yesterday!” he screamed as he stood from behind his desk. “Get him on the phone. NOW!”
The secretary pushed the glasses higher on her nose and slowly shut the door.
Day 3: 11:13 a.m.
Jim and Lisa had spent the last two hours searching the Web for any articles written about the three victims, looking for anything that might link them together, as the killer had. So far, the only thing they had in common was that each
was successful in his or her chosen field. Paul Artridge was a gay defense attorney who took unwinnable high profile cases and won them. When someone called an attorney a shark they might as well have called him an Artridge. The man was a champion of gay rights and was politically very active. He was a fundraiser yet not a philanthropist, unlike Janette McDermott. Janette had achieved the point of financial independence where giving back not only felt good, it got her headlines. Her work with the Pacific tortoise resulted in them no longer being on the verge of extinction. It earned her the moniker “Turtle Dove” which she proudly displayed as her personalized license plate. She was on the Board of Directors at St. Ignatius Loyola Church in Pasadena. The same St. Ignatius Loyola Church that was rocked by accusations of priestly improprieties with the altar boys in the early nineties but was successfully defended by, who else, Paul Anthony Artridge.
Was that it? Was this guy pissed that he was a molestation victim and Artridge cheated him out of money?
Where did that put La Pense? There was nothing to link the French chef to the others. No record that she was defended by Artridge, no record that she had ever been to St. Ignatius Loyola Church in Pasadena. No record that Janette McDermott had sold her a house.
Was it the fact they were all rich? That really narrowed the field, Jim thought cynically, to probably about 200 million Americans jealous of the well to do.
No, there was nothing specific to string them together, but there had to be. It was probably right under their noses, but it remained out of reach. Jim leaned back in his chair and began gently stroking Lisa’s hair when the cell phone rang.
“Jovian,” he answered. “Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. Yes, I do. Thank you.”
He hung up the phone.
Lisa looked over to Jim.
“Captain Jones?”
Jim wasn’t surprised by anything that Lisa said.
“I told you the first day I met you that you were one sharp cookie, Ms. Klein.”
“Thank you, Officer Jovian. That means a lot.”
“I’ve got to go see the Captain,” Jim said as he stood to make his exit.
“What are you going to do?” asked Lisa.
“Maybe I’ll start by wishing him a good morning.”
Day 3: 12:01 p.m.
He was not a fan of television; he did, however, enjoy the written word. He obtained copies of the L.A. Times and the Daily News to check out the latest reviews of his opus. It gave him great satisfaction. He was a star; his work was everywhere. Adjectives such as brutal, heinous, and horrific flew off the pages at him, like roses thrown at the prima ballerina. No one had connected the clues yet, at least not in the rags. Who knew where the police were and frankly, who cared? When that day came they would see his genius and it would be a race to the finish.
Day 3: 12:15 p.m.
Jim made it to Parker Center in record time. He was prepared for anything the Captain could throw at him. He opened the door to Jones’ outer office and let himself in.
“Yes?” Mary asked.
“Jim Jovian for Captain Jones.”
“Go right in, he’s waiting.”
Jim nodded an acknowledgment and opened the door to the inner sanctum. The office looked like a gale storm had hit it, with files, loose papers, and photos scattered everywhere. He could not believe that this was the same office that he had been in the day before, which had been immaculate.
“Captain.”
“Sit down.”
Jim looked around but for the life of him could not find a place to sit.
Captain Jones was not in the mood for games.
“Clear off a chair and sit the fuck down.”
Jim did as he was told.
“There’s some bad shit going down right now, Jovian, bad shit.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That thing you found carved on the tree…’
“The ‘one’?”
“Yes, the goddamn ‘one’. Well, it meant something.”
“I thought so, sir.”
“You don’t look surprised.”
“No, sir. Not after the killer put the ‘two’ in the turtle cage and the ‘three’ in the powdered sugar.”
Captain Jones sat back in his chair and touched the five fingers of his right hand to their equivalents on his left and brought the assembly to his lips. He sat in silence for a brief moment, then opened the top right drawer of his hand-carved desk and pulled out Jim’s badge and gun. He slid them across the table and Jim picked them up.
“As of right now, you are reinstated.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have any fucking idea why?”
“I don’t think it’s because of my dry sense of humor, sir.”
“Tell me what you think, because frankly I don’t know whether to reinstate you or put you in jail.”
“I’m a good cop, Captain. If I could find out so much about the killer when I don’t even have a badge then, as a citizen, I may be a problem for the police force. You want to reinstate me, so that you can watch me, so that, as a police officer, I do not leak to the media anything to jeopardize this investigation or put the department in a bad light. I would also like to believe that you think that I can help catch this asshole. Am I right, sir?”
Captain Jones neither agreed nor disagreed, but he chuckled a little.
“I’m moving you downtown to homicide. Mary will give you all the information about your new assignment and pay schedule.”
Jim wasn’t quite sure what he was hearing.
“Pay schedule, sir?”
“I’m promoting you to detective. Now get the fuck out of my office.”
“Yes, sir.”
Officer Jim Jovian of the West Covina Police department stood, left his boss and stepped into a whole new world.
Day 3: 4:17 p.m.
He thought there was a certain amount of poetic justice in making Target the site of his purchase. There seemed to be no limit to the variety of wares offered at this one-stop shopping superstore. He passed the children’s clothes, the microwave ovens, and garden supplies before reaching the pet section. He weighed his various options before settling on the bamboo cage; it was light and would be very easy to use. Alice would love it. If he was going to improvise, he was going to do so with style.
Day 3: 5:12 p.m.
Gordon Ring loved to gamble. Living in Los Angeles made quick getaways to Las Vegas all the easier. Not much planning had to go into a trip, just the urge to make some cash, or in Gordon’s case, lose it. His Southwest flight returned to Los Angeles International Airport eight minutes late, dispersing its passengers at Gate 3A. Gordon was one of the last to exit, as he had forgotten to print his boarding pass early. As a consequence of the Southwest open seating policy, Gordon found himself in the rear of the airplane, wedged between a balding man with fat shoulders and someone who looked like a retired biker. Gordon did not feel much like complaining; while growing up in Chicago, he had never dreamed of doing Christmas in Vegas. It had been a blast. A buddy he waited tables with at Pecca, the hot new Italian place on La Brea, knew a guy who comped them some rooms at the Venetian. Gordon had moved to L.A. less than a year before, looking for his big break. He had been to Vegas many times, but never like this, as a high roller. This trip was different; they met chicks, ate great food, got laid and cleaned up at the tables; Gordon pocketed a cool $2270 from the roulette wheel. He wished that he could have stayed longer, but work called and he was not about to compromise his job. A couple of grand was good but certainly not enough to change his lifestyle. He also had an audition lined up for a horror flick the day after tomorrow and he wanted to practice his frightened look in the mirror. Gordon Ring did not know that he had already landed the role.
Day 3: 10:00 p.m.
There was much to admire about the new lady newscaster; it added some extra spice to his delight at seeing himself mentioned on TV.
“I’m Stacy Davenport and here’s what’s happening in our world tonight. The culinary wo
rld was shocked today with the death of one of its rising stars. Audrey La Pense, the chef owner of La Pense restaurant in Los Angeles, was found murdered this morning at her home in Santa Monica. This is the third brutal murder in three days in Southern California; our own Gisele An is in Santa Monica. Gisele…”
The lady reporter was standing outside the La Pense home.
“Thank you, Stacy. Another day and another gruesome death has occurred in Los Angeles. Top French chef Audrey La Pense was found dead in her home in Santa Monica early this morning, according to the police, the victim of foul play…”
The anchor lady was pretty, but the reporter transfixed him. He watched her tell the story with rapt attention; the way she moved her mouth, the way she held her head and kept her composure. She really was the most beautiful creature that he had ever seen. He was dying to meet her; perhaps she would return the favor.