12 Days

by Chris Frank

  Lisa blushed.

  “Thank you, but we both know you don’t get out much.”

  “I’m going to ignore that.”

  “So you said that you were going to give me some details on the case. I don’t produce news any more and I promise not to tell anyone. Please, please.”

  “All right.”

  Jim told Lisa about the events of the day, the murder of Gordon Ring, Bobby Santoro, Marty Lord, and The Twelve Days of Christmas. Jim noticed that the more he talked about the case, the closer Lisa would get to him and the more she would touch his leg.

  “You must admit,” she said, “it is a clever concept for a movie.”

  “I guess,” Jim agreed. “A sick one.”

  “Come on now. A guy picks his victims according to some aspect of their lives that fit into a song. Without someone like Bobby Santoro telling you guys what the song was, Marty Lord could have gone the whole twelve days without anyone knowing what he was doing. You were busy looking for similarities in the victim’s backgrounds while he’s just looking through the phone book finding people who fit.”

  “Thanks, you really have put things in perspective for me,” Jim said sarcastically.

  “Stop it. You know that I think you’re really smart and a good cop.”

  “Detective.”

  “Oh yes, Detective.”

  Jim shook his head.

  “It doesn’t make me any less frustrated but it’s nice to have a fan.”

  Lisa raised her arms as if she was a cheerleader and shook imaginary pom-poms.

  “Go, Jim, go!”

  “It’s so fucked up. We know who he is, we know what he’s going to do next, but we have no way of stopping him.”

  Jim took a swig from his beer.

  “Well, what’s next in the song?”

  Jim took the printout from his trouser pocket and read.

  “On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, six geese a laying.”

  Lisa sang the next line.

  “Five, Gordon Ring.”

  Jim frowned at her.

  “I really don’t like this Marty Lord.”

  “I know, but let’s look at our next potential victim. Geese a laying. Geese a laying. The next victim could work at a poultry farm.”

  “Or be a porno star whose last name is Geese.”

  Lisa left the couch and went in search of a telephone book. She found one in the top drawer by the kitchen sink and came back to sit near Jim. She looked up ‘G’.

  “Geer, Geering, Geesham, Geester. No Geese.”

  “Check out the businesses, maybe there is something there,” Jim suggested.

  Lisa complied and started to rifle through the yellow pages. Jim turned on KVTM News and raised the volume in time to hear Stacy Davenport start the broadcast.

  “Good evening. This is Stacy Davenport and here’s what is happening in our world tonight. A heinous murder is our lead story tonight for the fifth terrifying day in a row. The so–called ‘Birdman of West Covina’ has claimed another victim. Gordon Ring, 26, an aspiring actor, was found dead today on the roof of a building in the warehouse district on North Figueroa. His mutilated body was found by two local residents. Michelle Cuomo has the story. Michelle…”

  “Thank you, Stacy. Los Angeles once again has been shaken at its core by the horrific murder of one of its citizens. Gordon Ring, a recent transplant from Illinois, was working at Pecca Restaurant on La Brea, trying to get his foot in the movie industry door. According to his boss, he left for an audition early this afternoon and never came back. He was found on the roof of this building, chained to a spotlight, having been hacked to death with what police are saying was a very large knife. We spoke to Captain Robert Jones.”

  Captain Jones: “Mr. Ring was found by local police around five o’clock this afternoon. He was the victim of a knife wound to his chest and abdomen and was pronounced dead at the scene by the coroner’s office. I want to assure the good people of Los Angeles that the Police Department is doing everything in its power to bring an end to this recent wave of murders. It is important that everyone stay calm and allow us to do our job.”

  Back to Michelle Cuomo: “As this is an ongoing investigation, Captain Jones would not comment whether Mr. Ring is the fifth victim of the serial killer known as the Birdman. But Stacy, whether this is the work of one man or many, these killings have paralyzed Los Angeles like no other event in recent memory and there does not appear to be any end in sight. Reporting from Los Angeles, I’m Michelle Cuomo, KVTM News. Stacy, back to you.”

  “Thank you, Michelle, in a related story…”

  Jim and Lisa watched the rest of the news through the weather report. Jim would occasionally interject a piece of information that only the police would know. Poring through the yellow pages, Lisa would report that the commercial section of the phone book contained information on businesses that did everything from stuffing your goose to cooking it. There were at least fifteen companies that could fit the twisted mind of Marty Lord. She dog-eared the pages and put the book down.

  “I’m getting tired”, she said.

  “We can go to bed in a second. I just want to see the sports.”

  As they watched the former USC cornerback read the scores, Lisa looked quizzically at the screen.

  “That’s weird,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “Where was Gisele?”

  “Gisele?”

  “Gisele An, our lead reporter in the field. We have five murders to report on and she doesn’t do any of them? That’s not like her.”

  “Maybe she had the night off.”

  Lisa looked at him with an odd expression on her face.

  “You don’t know Gisele. There is no story that she won’t cover if she gets face time. She’s a rising star; there was talk about having her co-anchor with Stacy, but you can’t have two blondes reading the news, corporate would not go for it.”

  “Who knows? Let’s go to bed.”

  Lisa shrugged.

  “Okay.”

  Jim shut off the lights in the living room, checked the door locks and met Lisa in the bedroom after she had finished brushing her teeth. Jim did his part for oral hygiene, turned off the remaining lights, and met Lisa under the covers. They briefly kissed goodnight and had just assumed the spoon position when Lisa bolted upright. She turned on her dresser light.

  Jim sat up, alarmed.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I got it.”

  “Got what?”

  Lisa looked horrified.

  “I know who his next victim is.”

  Day 5: 10:50 p.m.

  Captain Jones sat at one of the desks in Conference Room 1 with the late night shift of his task force; he was going over everything they had on Gisele An. Gisele An, mother fucking Marty Lord. It was phonetic. Gis-ele-A-N, geese a laying. Jovian had done it again; he figured it out. Maybe Jones had underestimated Jim Jovian as a detective; maybe Jovian did have what it takes. Jones had originally promoted Jovian to temporarily keep him under wraps, knowing full well that he would get rid of Jovian when the case was over. But Jovian kept stepping up to the plate; Jones decided he might turn out to be too good of a cop to let go. Jones would consider Detective Jovian’s career arc tomorrow; right now he had a bigger concern. Should he inform the public as to how Marty Lord was picking his victims? It was probably in the best interest of everyone named Swan that on December 31st, they should avoid contact with frustrated limping screenwriters. The flip side was that you didn’t want to cause a panic. Jones decided that the best compromise would be to not release the “Twelve Days of Christmas” information to the press and thereby the general public, but to keep the information limited to only potential victims. The task force could search through the local census data and call in for questioning anyone who could possibly fit into Lord’s demented plan to see if they had encountered anyone strange recently. Since they were working under the assumption that Gisele An’s de
ath was right with the pattern, the task force could start working on “Swan” tonight and for once get ahead of Marty Lord. Thinking of what his new detective had figured out, the Captain shook his head in disbelief. Jim Jovian was beginning to seem unbelievably believable.

  Day 6: 12:04 a.m.

  Hermosa Beach was a quiet beach community located about 40 miles from the heart of L.A. just south of the Los Angeles International Airport. Originally a home to surfers and volleyball players, Hermosa had in the past few years undergone a gentrification wave that caused property values to soar. The surfers and volleyballers were leaving and the Iranians were moving in, buying all the prize locations along the concrete beach walkway called The Strand. There were few streetlights along that part of The Strand, so no one saw the man with the limp carrying the obviously drugged blonde girl on his back, past the expensive homes and out onto the sand. No one saw him sit her up in front of the lifeguard stand and put the beautiful Hermes scarf around her neck and pull on it tight enough to stop the blonde girl from ever breathing again. No one saw the man with the limp kneel in front of the dead blonde girl, put his head in his hands and cry.

  Day 6: 3:35 a.m.

  Officer Frank Moreno graduated from the Police Academy in June of 2007 and was assigned to the Glendale precinct. Glendale was home to Los Angeles’s largest concentration of Armenian Americans. They were a people that loved to drink, fuck, and fight, in no particular order. It was not unusual for Officer Moreno to arrest 10 to 15 drunk and bloodied Armenians on a given Saturday night and tonight had proven to be no exception. Moreno and several other cars had responded to a disturbance by the Hyperion Bridge; some Mexicans and Armenians had decided to rumble and it was up to the police to quiet the potential melee. Officer Moreno was walking a pugilist named Aspet along an alley when a flatbed truck nearly knocked both the cop and his quarry to the ground. Officer Moreno got a partial on the license plate, rose to his feet and led Aspet out of the alley onto the main thoroughfare. He had closed the police van door on Aspet when he noticed a new, very expensive BMW parked in front of the squad car that had not been there ten minutes ago. Officer Moreno unholstered his gun and approached the car, which he found empty. He returned to the driver’s seat of his vehicle and was calling in the details when he saw the faxed report about the missing Gisele An and her BMW. Son of a bitch, he thought, this is her car. But it wasn’t here… Oh fuck, the truck, the flatbed! Officer Moreno realized that, most likely the Birdman had nearly run him down.

  Day 6: 4:17 a.m.

  Captain Jones had listened to the report given by Officer Frank Moreno of the Glendale Police. He’d watched forensics search the BMW for fingerprints in vain. They’d found the car but no Giselle An. Apparently, Lord must have left his pickup at the Hyperion Bridge and driven Giselle’s car to wherever he went with victims and then returned when he was done. They had a make on the vehicle, a dark brown or dark gray Ford flatbed and a partial license plate, which was something to go on, but really not very much at all. They were always behind Marty Lord; they were always playing catch up and it was becoming very frustrating. Captain Jones walked back to his car and sat behind the wheel. In thinking about the events of the past hour, he had come to one very sobering realization. If Marty Lord had switched cars with Giselle An and had driven away in his flatbed then they were too late; Giselle An was dead and the police would now be able to do no more than wait for the phone call from the person who found her body.

  Day 6: 6:22 a.m.

  If it were possible to have a jackhammer inside your head, pounding away at your brain, that wouldn’t even be close to what Marty Lord was feeling. His headache was exceptionally debilitating this morning and the handful of pills was not doing jack shit. Like a fish out of water gulping at the air, he lay on the bathroom floor clutching his head in sheer agony. The doctors had told him that the headaches would get worse and that there was no cure, but this was torture. The doctors told him he had a glioblastoma multiforme, a big nasty aggressive fucker which luck would have it was also completely inoperable. They had suggested hospice care but he wasn’t going to have some minority person wipe his ass and spoon him tapioca. They also suggested a laundry list of completely vegetative drug treatments, but he passed. He wished his head would just explode and it would all go away, into a numb nothingness. That was the one thing he envied about his victims. After the initial shock of death took hold, there was no more pain, just the darkness.

  But somehow he had to endure. He had a plan, a dream, a destiny to fulfill. And no motherfucking gliob-multi-whatever the fuck was going to get in the way. If he only had a short time left; he would live it on his terms. Then suddenly, the pills kicked in and the hammering in his head dulled down to a pitter-patter. He could focus again!

  He pulled himself to his feet. They almost got me last night, he thought, the cop in that alley. I don’t know how much more I have left. I could let them catch me, what difference would it make? The doctor says I have a maybe a month. I’ll try one more and see how I feel. He leaned against the wall, exhausted from fighting the pain. He closed his eyes and prayed for sleep or death, whichever came first.

  Day 6: 7:11 a.m.

  It was a little after 6:00 a.m. when the call came from Hermosa Beach. Some guy walking his dog found the poor beautiful girl under the lifeguard stand. Less than an hour later, Jim Jovian was standing over the dead body of Giselle An. Lisa had been right about the next victim but there was nothing the police could do to prevent the tragedy. Crouching down, he looked at the scene, the beach, the lapping waves, and was struck by the tranquility of it all. The previous murders had been significant for the elevating levels of rage and mutilation but Giselle An looked peaceful as if she were asleep; her scarf was neatly tied around her neck, covering the bruises beneath. Jim stood up and found Captain Jones by his side.

  “What a shame. She was really quite beautiful,” Captain Jones remarked.

  “Yes, she was,” Jim agreed.

  “It was a good call, Jovian, you know, about the identity of the victim. It at least gave us a chance.”

  Jim looked at him.

  “Not enough of a chance. What a fucking waste.”

  Captain Jones looked around the crime scene.

  “He didn’t number this victim, unless he marked it in the sand and the tide washed it away.”

  “Actually, he did.” Jim pointed to the lifeguard stand. There, emblazoned on the side of the wood booth in red spray paint, was the number ‘six’.

  “Son of a bitch,” complained Jones, “I hate this guy.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  Jim started to walk away but stopped and turned back.

  “Captain?”

  “Yes.”

  “I really think that we need to change our approach as to how we get this murdering bastard.”

  “All right. What do you have in mind?”

  “Look, we know this guy’s name, what kind of vehicle he drives, a partial license plate, and why he’s doing it. And with all that, we can’t stop him. We have only six days remaining; we need to go after the potential victims. We need to use every officer on the task force to find every swan, every milking maid, anyone who could fit the song and warn them.”

  “Jim, there are a lot of people who could fit the song.”

  “I know, but nothing else is working. He’s picking them off one at a time; he’s making us look like idiots.”

  Captain Jones felt Jim’s frustration and reluctantly he agreed.

  “Get back to Parker and organize the search. Let’s see how many people there are named Swan in Southern California.”

  Jim smiled.

  “Yes sir, Captain. I’m on it.”

  Day 6: 8:23 a.m.

  It was hard to believe that in a day and age of high tech and instant gratification, throwbacks to a simpler time still existed, like the home delivery of dairy products by Milk Maids. Phyllis Crenshaw was happy her job had not gone away in the steamrolling world of pro
gress, because she loved it. She had been working for Dairy Farm delivering milk and milk products to the people of West Covina for ten years. When she was a little girl, she loved when the milk truck would pull up to her door and replace her family’s empty bottles with fresh creamy fare. Many girls her age would dream of becoming actresses or nurses or models, but Phyllis from an early age knew that she wanted to deliver milk. The owners at Dairy Farm did not want to let go of the milk delivery dream either, and Phyllis Crenshaw was glad that they didn’t. The people of the ‘Fruit’ streets were her neighbors, friends and, for the last several years, her customers as well. The people at Dairy Farm were smart, offering many products other than just organic milk products, so the type of clientele that shopped at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s stores loved the idea of having certain things delivered on order.

  Phyllis had liked Alice Edwards very much and was saddened by her death. This was a good, clean neighborhood full of hard-working families and she did not like what was happening around her. Hopefully this would be the last of the tragedies to take place on the Fruit streets. Other than the latest round of tragedies everyone had to endure via the media. Phyllis was very content with her life and wanted it back to normal.