12 Days (7 page)

Lisa vanished, leaving Jim to sit alone as he had on all too many occasions, finishing his meal, craving a toothpick and thinking of the future. Yesterday, he had no girl, but at least he had the job. Now, he had neither. Or did he? Maybe she would call later. Maybe he would get a chance to pick up the next meal.

Who knew?

Day 2: 10:28 a.m.

Alice Edwards stood in her living room and stared out the window upon the green lawn that welcomed visitors to her home. She had been born in Bloomington, Minnesota but had lived in West Covina most of her adult life, having settled in southern California after her husband Mark returned home from Korea. Alice sent their three kids, all boys, to West Covina High School, sat on the school board at West Covina Community College, and buried her husband in the West Covina Memorial Cemetery when he lost his long battle with colon cancer six years earlier. The boys were all married now and scattered throughout the southwestern states. Alice lived alone in the house on Peach Street that she and her husband bought in 1953. She was very protective of her home and her property. She was not mean by nature, but when someone infringed upon her space, which was all too often to suit her, she had no tolerance for it. If the neighborhood kids were playing their radios too loud, Alice would call the police and complain. If one of the local canines left a fecal calling card on her lawn, Alice would call the police and demand action. When a drunken Santa fell against her Honda Civic and set off the alarm, Alice got on the horn and let the officers know about it. Maybe she called too often, she sometimes thought, maybe that’s why the police rarely responded to her requests. They had come by yesterday, yes indeed, after they found that man hanging from that tree.

They should have come that night when I called
, Alice thought.
Lazy, they are, sitting in the warm station house, eating their donuts.

She told them everything she could remember, but there was something about the man who stood next to the Santa that was familiar; something she could not quite put her finger on.

Something about the way he walked.

Alice’s thoughts were broken when she saw Fluffy, the Doberman Pinscher from across the street, make his way onto the middle of her lawn and prepare to empty his bowels dangerously close to her favorite yard gnome. Alice Edwards grabbed her phone, hit speed dial 911, and raced to the front door.

Day 2: 1:07 p.m.

A crime committed inside a reptile exhibit, which is buried deep within the confines of a zoo, gives the police a natural barrier to the prying eyes of the media. Forensics had been able to process the scene and remove the body without giving the press a photo opportunity that the police would most likely deem inappropriate. Lisa sat in her car, waiting for Milt to return with the footage. The press was allowed into the reptile house only after the police had cleared out. Milt was to grab some stock stuff, the pond, and the tortoise, whatever the hell else was in there. She hated the zoo; she wanted to get her shots and leave. She wanted to grab Milt and find this Alice Edwards, see what the woman had to say. No one would have that angle.

She saw Milt come running to the van, open the passenger side door and jump in.

“You got enough?” she asked.

“I think so. Some dude I went to school with, works for Telemundo, got me in before the cops. Apparently, he’s the janitor’s cousin; the janitor calls his cousin before the police, cousin calls me, I give him fifty, yada, yada, yada. I know it sounds crazy, but I think every person in Mexico is related to each other. It’s unbelievable, he’s my cousin, she’s my cousin, everybody’s my cousin…”

“Milt, please.”

Milt continued.

“Anyway, my friend says that his cousin found the lady dead, underneath a 200 year-old turtle. That’s fucked up. Couldn’t see her face, but her hair framed the turtle nicely.”

Day 2: 1:37 p.m.

He stepped gingerly out of the shower like always, careful not to put too much weight on his right leg. His hip had been a problem all his life and all the braces and expensive operations that tapped most of his parents’ financial resources had, in the end, been futile. Just as there was no helping his crooked soul, he still had the horrible limp and, after the strain of lifting the queer into that tree, excruciating pain.

He had stopped taking his psychotropic meds long ago, but he could not go two hours at this point without the narcotics. He looked at his twisted body, naked and wet from the shower, and cursed. He grabbed the bottle of oxycontin and shook some into his mouth. The pain in the hip was dwarfed by the pounding in his head, which never really went away with the pills; they could only dull the severity for a few hours before it came thundering back with a vengeance. But the pills were essential to his dream and gave him an outside chance at completing his mission. He needed to get the day started; that French cunt was as flighty as a kite in a cyclone and he did not want to allow number ‘three’ to slip away.

Day 2: 3:40 p.m.

Audrey La Pense was a rising star in the world of food. She had received her formal training in the culinary arts at the Sorbonne in Paris, France and although she was adept at most dishes, her specialty was dessert. She had won many awards and platitudes from the food cognoscenti and had parlayed her skills into ownership of the Michelin two-diamond restaurant in downtown Los Angeles that bore her name. La Pense had a two-month waiting list for dinner and if you preferred one of her signature confectionary masterpieces after your meal, you needed to request it at least a week beforehand. Audrey’s creations and her reputation for excellence were second to none, which left her in the most unenviable of positions. As a result of her extraordinary cooking skills in combination with the air of effortless natural condescension that she inherited from her French heritage, Chef La Pense had become arrogance personified. Nature and nurture melded into a perfect storm that tsunamied the wizardress of food into a first class bitch. She had no friends and, quite frankly, she did not want any. The only living creature that she ever loved was her poodle, Franck.

Audrey La Pense was a creature of habit; she explored the fresh produce market near her home in Santa Monica each morning, concocting the evening’s menu as she shopped. This was followed by a roll, a latte, and Le Monde at the Quotidian Bakery on Santa Monica Boulevard, where she would sit with Franck in the corner, laughing to herself. From noon to one, she would walk the poodle along the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, then complete an hour of yoga at a local spa before preparing for the journey to her downtown atelier. She never really liked Los Angeles but she was able to tolerate Santa Monica, with the sole exception of the bums. Santa Monica has no vagrancy laws per se, so the combination of warm weather and California liberalism had essentially transformed “the People’s Republic of Santa Monica” into the playground of the homeless. She found them to be filthy and disgusting; sleeping on the sidewalks on Montana Avenue or begging for a handout.

That night, after she kissed Franck good night and closed her back door, she was appalled to see one of these bums picking apart the trashcan in her driveway. She ran at the vagrant, cursing at him rapidly in French. The bum stood frozen in his place, inches away from her new Quattroporte. She stood before him nose to nose, berating him wildly in her native tongue. Had she been less angry, she might have noticed that although his clothes were shabby, his face was clean-shaven and he had the smell of strawberry in his longish but not unkempt black hair. She also might have noticed the chloroform-drenched rag in his right hand. But she did not, so she was unable to prevent the cloth from reaching her nose, causing her to choke, then faint, and finally fall limp into the unknown attacker’s arms.

He smiled at his captured prey, with one thought on his mind.
Gotcha, bitch
. The word was the same, in English or French.

Chapter Four: The Squawking Continues

Day 2: 6:42 p.m.

They had the goods and it made the work easy. Lisa and Milt pieced together a compelling story for the late night telecast, excited at their exclusive interview. Thanks to Jim, she had stumbled onto the only witness in the Artridge case and would be airing the comments of one Alice Edwards on the Ten O’clock News. No one else had this, she was sure of it. She loved having the power over the other stations, if this story continued it could get her into the big leagues, CNN, prime time. She did feel sorry for Jim - the poor bastard was in danger of losing his job - but she had already compromised enough with her material and there was no way anyone could trace the leak back to her… new friend.

Apparently, Alice Edwards liked to call the police a lot. If asked, Lisa would say that after the murder, Alice grew frustrated with her calls falling on deaf ears, so she changed her tactics and called the press, too. That would be Lisa’s story and she would stick with it.

They had finished the Artridge piece and could now turn their attention to the zoo footage. This one was another beauty, but certainly not as sexy as the dangling Santa. The police had released the name of local real estate agent, Janette McDermott, who left her family on Christmas day to show a house. Yeah, right. She was probably going to see her boy toy, Lisa figured, and they got into an argument, sex got a little kinky and voila, one dead cheating mommy at the zoo. It was a cynical dismissal, but short-lived. Milt got as much as he could from the reptile cage and was showing it to Lisa when she saw the rocks. She played with the zoom and focus, but there it was as clear as day, proudly displayed in the water. She fumbled for her phone and punched in a few numbers, waited a second and then moved away from Milt.

When Jim answered, Lisa whispered urgently.

“Jim, it’s Lisa. Where are you? Can you get down to the studio? Yes, right now. If you want to see our killer’s second victim.”

Day 2: 7:05 p.m.

He couldn’t stomach rude people. Catching a bitch of Audrey La Pense’s caliber was like throwing a raw strip of steak to a starving tiger; he could not help but want to rip her fucking throat out. But he had to remain calm. No mistakes. His first two victims were chosen because they fit his needs so perfectly. He could have picked any number of people for number three, but after he saw La Pense on a local cooking show, he knew it had to be her. He wasn’t going to merely enjoy this; he actually believed that he was doing everyone who knew the woman a favor. The hardest obstacle he would need to overcome would be waiting another five hours to kill her. At least, he would have a nice meal for a change; her refrigerator was packed with food. Plenty of delicious chicken, in fact. She was resting quietly in the pantry; he could hear hardly a peep from her. That poodle had been a nightmare, what with the incessant barking and all those fucking bows on its collar and on its ears. It was a male dog damn it, enough with the nail polish and all the frilly shit! He put the dog out of its misery quickly and humanely. He would not extend La Pense the same courtesy.

Day 2: 7:18 p.m.

It took Jim thirty minutes to get from his house to the KVTM studios in Hollywood, a remarkable feat considering late rush hour traffic in L.A. He parked his car and immediately spotted Lisa pacing at the front door of the studio with a cigarette in her mouth. For a moment he stopped thinking about the serial killer on the loose in L.A., who numbered his victims for all to see. Jim Jovian’s first thought was surprise - at learning that his crush, Lisa, was a smoker.

Jim did not fail to notice the bustle surrounding the set of the KVTM newsroom, nor the striking blue eyes of the blond anchorwoman who was getting her hair done in the makeup room that he passed. More importantly, Jim noticed that Lisa did not let go of his hand until they were in the editing room. She explained that she had dismissed Milt earlier to do some research on the latest victim, so they had the room alone. She sat him down at the desk and began reviewing the edit and she described what they had.

“Janette McDermott is a top end real estate broker in Pasadena. She and her husband, Bill, made a fortune during the recent housing boom. She told her husband that she was meeting a big player on Christmas day who wanted to see her best stuff. She left the family after mass that day and never returned. Her husband got worried when he could not reach her by phone after two hours and called the police. The police said that there was nothing they could do without a ransom note, or until 24 hours had passed.”