‘Mr Young ain’t gonna be happy with you for this.’ There is bravado in his voice but fear in his eyes.
‘How happy do you think he’d be if I got a friend of mine to tap into his website and identify all the people who have ever hired one of his courtesans? How happy do you think he’d be if my friend was to send an email in Mr Young’s name blackmailing all those clients?’ I’m making this up as I go but pricking his bubble is too much fun to pass up. ‘How happy do you think Mr Young would be if my friend was to send a full list of his clients to every journalist, blogger and radio station in the country?’
He doesn’t answer.
‘Here’s what is going to happen. I’m going to go back into my apartment for a shower. When I come back out, which will be in approximately ten minutes, you and anyone you brought with you are going to be gone.’
I turn to see Orangutan trying to rise from his knees; Tattoos is sitting up attempting to clear his head by shaking his brain some more and Goatee is still lying where I’d left him.
My second shower of the day sees me turn the water as hot as I can stand it. Now the adrenaline has left my body, the pain from Goatee’s punches and the yank he gave my arm is kicking in.
A check out of my kitchen window shows Mr Steroids and his friends have left.
The chief calls as I’m locking the apartment door. I’m half expecting this call, but being right doesn’t make the news any easier to accept.
49
The Watcher enters his kitchen and takes a mouthful of pills. He has two hours to spare before he’s due at work. As a rule, he should have started by now, but he’s lied about a visit to the dentist as a way to buy himself a late start.
He’s pleased with today’s finder. She was a good friend of Melanie’s and as such he knows a few things about her family.
Never caring for the woman himself, he’d tolerated her non-stop chatter because she and Melanie had been friends since childhood, the two of them inseparable until marriage and careers had forced them apart. Still, there had been the obligatory dinner once a month where he’d have to listen to the woman’s husband bitch about taxes and how supermarket chains were destroying small local stores.
His career in the Marines had spared him from these get-togethers but once delisted he’d endured them for Melanie’s sake. Putting up with a chatterbox and a bore for a few hours, twelve times a year was a tiny sacrifice he was happy to make for his wife.
Now the woman’s gabbling has proven useful. He knows about her family. Where they work. Their passions.
Her father seems to be the easiest target. He has spent time in his company at one or two social occasions.
Getting close to him won’t be hard. His place of work is an ideal location to dump a body and remain unseen.
He lifts his bowl and stirs the scraps of paper before selecting one. Opening the scrap of paper, he finds a single word. ‘Seppuku’.
He laughs. Using the Samurai’s method of self-disembowelling as a way to kill is something he’s been waiting for. He’s even managed to get his hands on the correct type of short sword for the ritualised death: the Tanto.
He remembers what he’s learned about Seppuku – the various rituals, the way Samurai warriors used it to avoid shame or falling into the torturous hands of a victorious enemy. For a time it was also used as a form of capital punishment.
Laughing again, he looks forward to plunging his Tanto into the engorged belly of the chatterbox’s father and moving the blade across and then up. Setting the scene will be important on this one too. He’s keen to observe the ritual as closely as possible.
He will act as the father’s Kaishakunin. It will be an honour to deliver the death stroke.
With a glance at his watch, he gathers what he needs and sets off to hunt his next victim.
The kill won’t take place this morning. He’ll do that later when he can watch the corpse without being missed by anyone.
He knows his cover of being at work won’t last much longer, but he needs to eke out every last scrap of benefit it can afford him. With so many homicides in such a short time, it can only be a matter of days before the authorities start to close in on him.
Yet the pattern must not alter. It and the tally are the points that matter, the staging of the bodies nothing more than a delaying tactic designed to confuse those investigating the murders.
50
The chief ushers me towards his office. Where the reception was awash with a throng of people earlier, it’s now littered by a scant few members of a different family. The smell of stale bodies and nervous tension lingers on, infecting the new arrivals with its all-pervading tentacles of fear.
In his position I’d do the same. After rousing two families from their beds, he’d kept them at the station all night, until he had to deliver the news none of them wanted to hear.
‘So tell me about the bodies that were found.’ I take a seat by his desk.
‘Kelly Oberton was out for an early morning run when she saw a car with bloodstains on the window. She went forward to get a closer look, hurled her guts up, then she ran home to call us.’ He scratches at the white stubble on his chin. ‘As soon as I heard, I sent the boys out to round up her family.’ His voice holds strength and conviction in his decisions, but there is a hint of resigned fatality seeping in at the back.
‘Have you got them all?’
‘No. Her brother left town to go to a conference in Vegas and her father refused to come into custody. Said he’s got too much to do at work without the police jumping at shadows.’
‘So what have you done with the father then?’
He raises his hands from the desk. ‘What can I do, arrest him? He doesn’t want our help and we’re already getting slaughtered by public opinion. I haven’t read it myself, but apparently that Ms Rosenberg took more than a few potshots at us in yesterday’s Gazette.’
‘I trust you’ve got someone on him?’
‘I wish I had the manpower. If I start providing detectives or even patrolmen as bodyguards for every family member who doesn’t do what I ask of them, there’s no way I’ll be able to look after the ones who do. Let alone the rest of the town.’ His scowl lifts for the briefest moment. ‘At least that’s what I told his daughter.’
I smile at the chief’s cunning. He’s using the father as a tethered goat. By not assigning an obvious bodyguard or shadow, he’s creating an opportunity to catch the killer before his selection process becomes public knowledge.
Once that news breaks, the killer may change his methods, move on to a different system or leave town and start all over again in a different town, city or state.
A thought comes to me. ‘Have you tried the FBI again? Got them to check their records for anything similar in other states?’
‘No. The thought occurred to me, but I haven’t had time to follow it up yet.’
‘You said their bodies were found in a car. What have you learned from the scene itself?’
‘To be honest, I’ve never given it a thought. At this moment in time, I’m more concerned with protecting the Oberton family than chasing after the killer.’ He shrugs. ‘If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to keep them safe until an arrest is made.’
‘Your best chance is that he targets the father and whoever you’ve got on surveillance duty catches him before he strikes.’
‘Right now it’s the only chance we’ve got of catching this guy.’
It’s a rare admission from the chief and it makes me understand just how much the strain is affecting him. Not only are the words semi-defeatist, his tone is riddled with the cancer of utter dejection.
‘Do you mind if I go and have a look at the scene?’
The gratitude in his face makes me feel as if I’m the one doing him a favour.
‘Not at all.’ He lifts the phone on his desk and presses a button. ‘Boulder is coming out there. I want you to make sure he gets treated the way I would. If I hear any different, you can leave your gun and your badge on my desk.’
As I reach for the folder he’s handing me, he notices the bruises on my neck and the swollen redness of my knuckles.
‘Have you been fighting, Boulder?’
‘I got jumped by three bozos connected with the strip joint near Salt Lake City.’ I wave a dismissive hand. ‘They attacked me. I defended myself. They learned not to attack me.’
I leave the room before he gets too far into it. There’s nothing to be gained from telling the chief of police how I beat up three men on a public street at eight o’clock in the morning.