Cause of Death (Det. Annie Avants Book 1) (2 page)

Two Days Later

Gabby tried to open her eyes.  Her whole body screamed with pain and she could barely move.  She realized her wrists and ankles were bound and some type of tape covered her mouth.

Through the haze of her pain, she tried to remember what happened, but she couldn't think straight.  She finally forced her swollen eyes open.  All she could see was pitch black, no light whatsoever.  She closed her eyes and sank back into unconsciousness.

Three Days Later

The next time Gabby opened her eyes there was light and more pain.  She turned her head to the side slowly and saw the man who gave her the ride sitting at a table writing in a notebook.

"Ah, our guest has decided to join us once again," he said, as he approached the cot where she lay.

"I'm going to remove the tape from your mouth, but if you make a sound, I'll hurt you bad.  Do you understand?"

She could barely nod yes.

When he reached over and pulled off the tape, she gasped.

"Shhh," he said.  "You have to drink some water.  I read somewhere that a person can only live three days without water.  I don't know if that's true or not, but we certainly don't want to take any chances, do we?"

Gabby looked down at her body and realized she was nude.  "Why," she whispered.

He smiled as he lifted her head and put a bottle of water to her mouth, forcing her to swallow.

"Didn't someone once say, 'Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die'?  Hmmm?  Are you familiar with Alfred Lord Tennyson?  Probably not."

He let go of her head and it fell back onto the cot.  Nasty odors assaulted her nose.  Pee and poop?  Was that from her?  How long had she been here?

"Tell me, on a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?  It has only been 48 hours since the first treatment, and 24 hours since the second, so it shouldn't be much more than a five.  What do you say?"

"Yes, five," she muttered.  She could tell that arguing with him wasn't an option. 
What treatment was he talking about?
  She couldn't remember a thing.

He taped her mouth with some fresh duct tape.

"Can't take any chances of someone wandering by and hearing you complain.   Now, are you ready for the next step?  My pets are ready."

He got up and walked over to a shelf along the wall.  She turned her head and followed him with her eyes.  She could see that the shelves held row after row of pint-size canning jars.

He seemed to contemplate the contents of the jars.

"Ahh, this one looks perfect.  A little bigger than the other two," he said, as he walked back over to her cot carrying a jar.

Her eyes opened wide in terror.  Inside the jar she saw a huge black widow spider.

"This really won't hurt much tonight."

He opened the jar and dumped the spider on her lower stomach.

"Quit squirming and thrashing around or I'll have to tie you more firmly to the cot.  You'll only make her mad."

He picked up a long stick and started toying with the spider.  He kept up his agitation until the spider bit Gabby.  Then, he knocked it to the floor and squished it.

"Three down, hundreds to go.  That's number three, my dear.  The pain should be much more exquisite by tomorrow.

"I'll leave you now.  I have to get some sleep as tomorrow is a workday.  A man has to make a living, you know?"

Gabby could only lay there and moan.  She saw no way out of her prison - no way to escape.  She wanted her mama.

* * *

Slowly, the venom entered her system.  The man found the third day interesting but, by the fourth day, her pain became intense.  Even when he spoke to her now, she didn't respond.  Therefore, he started letting the spiders bite her one or two at a time.

By the seventh day, she was in terrible pain and her breathing was labored.  She would sweat and shiver at the same time.

On the afternoon of the ninth day, he introduced the 13th ("lucky thirteen") spider and, when he went to wake her up a couple of hours later to force some more water down her throat, he found her dead.  At first, he thought she was just unconscious again, but that wasn't the case.

"Well," he said to no one in particular, "I don't know why she died, but that's the ultimate goal, I guess."

He wanted the Hispanic bitch to suffer and experience extreme fear from the spiders as he did as a child.  Now, it was time to move on.  He would get rid of Gabby's body and find a new playmate for his pets.

Sunday, 12 August 2012, 11:00 PM

At 11:00 PM on the ninth day after he abducted Gabby, the man found a good place to dump her body.  Vineyards grew all along South Fairfax Road towards Lamont and he knew they were full of black widow spiders.

"With all the 'widows' in these vineyards, maybe they'll just think she wandered in here, naked, and got bit."  He giggled at the absurdity of that picture.  "They're dumb, but they aren't that dumb.  At least I don't think so," he said.

He glanced at the body wrapped in a rug in the back of the SUV.  "What do you think sweetums?" he said, laughing even more.  "I guess you're not speaking to me anymore."

He got out of his SUV and looked around.  There wasn't any traffic on the road as far as he could see in either direction.  The only sound was the soft rustle of the leaves and the crickets chirping among the vines.  He took a deep breath, savoring the dusty, musky smell of the vineyard.

"Damn, I wish I was carrying some empty jars with me," he said aloud.  "This is a great place to get more pets for my collection.  Maybe I'll come back some other time."

Before he left the basement with Gabby's body, he cut the ties on her wrists and ankles and removed the yellow rope.  He also peeled the duct tape off her mouth.

"You can't yell for help now, can you,
chica
," he said.

He carried her up the stairs to the SUV and gently placed her rolled up body in the back.

When he picked a good spot, he pulled over, took her body out of his SUV and carried it onto the dirt between the rows of vines.  He laid her carefully on her back and left, taking the rug with him.

Soft dirt bordered the edges of the vineyard, but turned to nothing more than dust during the hot, dry weather of August.  The man figured the slight breeze would easily obliterate any tracks from his tires and boots.

However, earlier this night an irrigation water main broke and a small section along the edges of South Fairfax Road flooded before maintenance could come and shut off the valve.

Later, when the man drove the SUV over the wet spot, one of the tires of his vehicle left a clear track in the mud.

As he pulled away from the vineyard, he felt elated by the way things had turned out.  Vindication arose in his chest and his face was flushed with excitement.

I need to stay in control
, he thought. 
The last thing I want is to draw attention to myself and have some bored deputy wired on donuts and coffee pull me over.

During the nine days Gabby was his guest, he searched the news each day.  Nothing turned up about a missing person who fit her description.

He mused about what kind of clues the crime scene people would find.  He couldn't think of anything that would lead them to him.

The only 'evidence' I left on the body are the 13 spider bites
, he thought, as giggling overtook his body. 
I think that will keep them guessing for a while.

He parked his SUV at the side of the house and entered the kitchen.  He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and went back outside to the patio.  After a while, he descended the stairs to the basement to see how it looked.

"Hmmm," he said out loud as he looked around and took a healthy chug of his beer.  "She didn't leave much of a mess.  I can hose down the feces and pee and we'll be open for business."

He cleaned up and checked his stock of black widow spiders. He collected them periodically from the fence that surrounded his property.  Many bushes and trees housed all sorts of creepy crawlies.  Nevertheless, his luck at finding black widows worked out the best around the many faucets that dotted the property.  Rarely did he fail to find at least one good-sized black widow.  They stayed alive for a long time when he put them in pint-sized Mason jars with holes punched in the lid.  They loved the flies and beetles he fed them and rarely did one die.

Another close-by source was the chain link fence that surrounded the grocery store within walking distance of his front yard.  They always had a lot of trash stacked along the fence line and the garbage bins were seldom emptied before they overflowed onto the ground.  Spiders loved all that wet, gooey trash.

For many years, he had collected black widow spiders and photographed them.  At first, he hated any kind of spiders, and they truly frightened him.  However, as long as he didn't touch them, he didn't have a problem.

He liked to line an old beer flat with a piece of light colored foam rubber, put two black widows inside, and cover the flat with a clear piece of glass.  Then, he set the box on his table, straddled it with his tripod, and took macro photos of the two spiders as they fought one another.  He always rooted for one or the other, and seldom did his 'champion' lose.

Sometimes his friends came over and they would have 'widow fights', just like cockfights, and everyone would bet on their champion.  Whenever he collected a good selection of large, healthy 'widows', he would put out the word.  He never failed to have a crowd, but it was a select group and they all knew to keep their mouths shut.

He chose spiders that he could tell apart and let each person take a good look at them while they were still in their jars.  Then, he put them in the same set up he used for his photograph sessions, and let them fight it out.  Eventually, one would triumph, money would change hands, the beer would flow, and everyone would enjoy his famous barbecue.  After his guests left, he crunched the winner to smithereens.  Five fights became the standard for an evening's entertainment.

Now, of course, he had a better use for his pets.

Tomorrow night, after dark, he would go looking for another guest to keep him, and his pets, company.

Monday, 13 August 2012, 5:43 AM

The luscious piece of Pecan Pie floated just inches away from Annie's mouth.  She could smell the sugar-sweet goodness of the warm pie mingled with the contrasting aroma of ice-cold pure vanilla ice cream.

She groaned as an irritating noise kept distracting her, skewing her aim.  Finally, the dream was completely ruined and reality returned.  She realized there was no pie, no ice cream, just the insistent ringing of her telephone.

She glanced at the clock on her nightstand as she switched on the bedside lamp.  5:43 AM.  The sun wasn't even up yet.

It certainly isn't someone calling to invite me to breakfast, not at this hour
, she thought.  She reached over and picked up the handset.

"Avants."

"Detective, this is Sgt. Collins.  Sorry to wake you.  There's a body in the middle of a vineyard out close to Lamont.  It's now your case."

"That's OK.  I didn't need the calories anyway."

She sat up, now fully awake.

"What's that?"

"Nothing.  Can you repeat what you said?"

Annie knew the phone call wouldn't be good news when her boss called her this early and her fears were justified when Sarge repeated her message.

"What do you know at this point?" Annie said.

"As they walked to work, two farm workers spotted what looked like a body between the rows of grape vines.  They were on South Fairfax Road, between DiGiorgio Road and Buena Vista Road.  It's an area where a lot of young and mature vineyards are planted.  They walked far enough off the road to see it was a body.  They say they didn't touch anything, just immediately went back to South Fairfax Road and flagged down a passing pick-up truck.  The driver called 911 from his cell phone."

"Who's en route?"

"Deputies Hermosillo and Baker took the 911 call and are the first responders.  Deputy Hermosillo checked the body and determined it was deceased.  He then called it in.  Deputies Jones and Kamaguchi, Laine DelMonte and the forensics team, and a Deputy Coroner are all on their way.  Dispatch called the DA's office and they are sending someone, but I'm not sure whom.

"Deputy Baker established the crime scene perimeter and started her log.  The deputies are now talking to the two witnesses and the truck driver.

"OK, I'll call Tom and be en route shortly."

"Good gracious," Annie murmured to herself as she hung up the phone, jumped out of bed, and dressed as fast as she could.  Her Glock 9mm went into the holster at the middle of her back, covered by a lightweight linen jacket.  She tucked her back-up piece, a .32 Beretta, into her messenger bag.

She tied her long, curly auburn hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and hurried out her front door.  It wouldn't take her long to get from East Bakersfield to the Lamont area.  She had a murder to solve.