The Book of 21 (21 page)

John was not sure what motive would be pinned on Shalby, but was sure that it would be something inventive. Perhaps a love triangle between Hallman, Dunglison, and Shalby would be created. That would fit the details in place up until now. It would be easy to pin the whole thing on a cop who might be dumb, but not guilty.

There was only one way to find out if Ben Shalby was the guilty party, and John was more than happy to go there.

The hiss of the water in the shower stopped. He then heard the door to the bathroom open and close. His mind turned back to Amy; he needed to figure out what to do with her.

She could not stay here, she could not go home, and she definitely could not go with him to confront Shalby. She had seen enough ugliness for one night, and there would be a limit to what she could take. John would have to apply enough pressure to be certain Shalby was clean—that would get ugly. Amy did not need to see that, and John did not want her to see that.

The bathroom door opened again, and Amy mewed, “John?”

“I’m in here.”

She appeared in the bedroom doorway, looking soggy and tired. “What’s going on?”

He turned off his cell phone, and since he did not know what to do yet, he changed the subject.

“If there is a cell phone in your purse, you’ll want to turn it off. Those people from last night will be able to track us if you leave it on.”

Amy retrieved her purse from the hall and dug through it to produce a smartphone. After turning it off, she dropped it back in her purse. Her gaze seemed to stay fixed there, as if she was staring into a void and trying to determine what she should do next.

John wanted to keep her mind off what happened to her last night. She seemed to function best when her mind was focused on a good story, and he had one that she wanted to hear. He figured he would share it; the narrative might keep her functional.

“I wanted to help people,” he blurted out.

“What?” she queried, with a furrowed brow and teary eyes.

“It’s why I became a cop. Last night, you asked why I wanted to become a cop. That’s why; I wanted to help people.”

He knew from the blank look on her face that he would need to do better than that.

“I grew up in south Philly. My mother was Italian, and my father Irish. So, according to the holier-than-thou snobs from Society Hill, I was the Mick that lived with the WOPs. Anyway, one day Tony Pinetti is playing out in the street and this rich guy runs him over. The guy doesn’t even stop, because, well, who cares about the plebes, right? I’m sitting there, crying, looking at my best friend whose bleeding on the street, and this cop appears out of nowhere and picks Tony up. He puts Tony in the back of his car and tells me to get in. So we’re riding off to the hospital, the siren wailing, and we drive past the old rich drunk. Another cop had him pulled over and handcuffed to him to the door of Vincenzo’s Market. I was looking at the old drunk when the cop says, ‘that jerk will pay plenty, but right now, we’ve gotta worry about your friend.’”

John took a deep breath to distance himself from the memory.

“Anyway,” he continued, “one cop saves Tony’s life by getting him to a hospital fast, and another gets the bad guy. That was cool. That was a job worth doing. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a cop.”

Her blue eyes were open wide, and she waited for anything else he had to say.

John figured it was time to shut up.

“So, was Tony OK?” she asked.

“Tony, yeah he’s fine. He runs a fish market over on the water front.”

“I’m glad he made a full recovery.”

“I wouldn’t say it was a full recovery. A few years later, when everyone was getting microwaves, Tony’s mom discovered she had to give hers away.”

“Why?”

“Tony passed out every time she turned it on. He still does to this day, whenever someone starts a microwave in the same room. He always blamed it on the accident, but who knows, it wasn’t until years later that anybody had one.”

Amy chuckled. She looked him in the eyes, tilted her head, and smiled. “Well, you saved me,” she sighed. Amy crossed the room, sat on his lap, and hugged him.

He knew it was wrong, but he let himself enjoy the feel of her body as it pressed against him. After a few seconds, his body started to respond, and he patted her on the back to signify that was enough.

Amy started to draw back, but stopped. Their eyes locked. Her warm breath washed over his face. She slowly brought her hand up to the back of his neck. Her mouth opened slightly again, in the same tender way it always did, and she began to move closer.

John wanted to give in but realized it was too dangerous. A childhood full of slasher flicks told him that someone would break into Kim’s apartment and kill them both just as they reached climax. If that played out, Shalby would probably be assigned the case and blame Kim for their murder—cleverly manufacturing the idea that it was a lover’s triangle. They had to get out of here.

“I can’t,” John sighed. “Not until this is over. Besides that, the longer we stay her, the more dangerous it is. We need to move.”

She let out a heavy sigh, rolled her eyes, and whispered, “You’re killing me with this duty shit.” She stood and took a deep breath. “Well, let’s at least see what’s in the kitchen before we go. I’m starving.”

John raised an eyebrow and said, “I have a better idea.”

Chapter 25:
Monkeyshines

Even though the sun had not yet begun to break over the horizon, Marco Vinzetti already knew that he was having a bad day. Kim’s small Sentra was less than comfortable for a man of his size. He had to hold his leg at an odd angle to fit it under the steering wheel and still be able to reach the accelerator. That angle was now beginning to cause cramps in his calf. The seat felt as if there was no padding between his back and the coiled metal springs that were digging into his lumbar region. He was also mildly nauseous because the car smelled somewhat like a gym locker; Marco surmised this was due to the slightly moldy t-shirt lying on the back seat. On top of the physical pain and nausea inflicted by the less than stylish automobile, he suspected he would need to go to the bathroom soon.

On top of all of his discomforts, Marco was also extremely annoyed by the fact that he was running late. First, he lost almost an hour washing the plunger residue from his face and hair. Next, there was the issue of waiting for the street to clear enough to allow him to slip out of the building with Kim’s anesthetized carcass, and stow her in the trunk. He then lost time packing a few bags for her, and making sure he had her purse, which was important if he wanted to make it look like she was actually going home to Madison.

What slowed him down the most was the lack of toll-free highways that ran from Philadelphia to Wisconsin. Kim’s car lacked a toll-paying RF transponder, which most modern Pennsylvanians used at tollbooths. This meant Marco would need to stop to pay the tolls if he went that route.

Stopping at tollbooths was a bad idea for someone carrying a kidnap victim in their car. If he did so, he would run the risk that Kim might make noise and attract the attention of one of the toll-takers. At the same time that happened, a camera would probably record his face. To avoid the dangers associated with lugging his kidnap victim through a tollbooth, Marco used his handy smartphone GPS to select a route that avoided tolls altogether.

While the path he took might have been the safest choice, it was far from the fastest. Instead of humming steadily west along the Pennsylvania Turnpike from Philadelphia, he had to wind north along back roads and smaller highways. While US 422 moved quickly enough, he slowed down along US 222, and crawled along PA 61. He wound along these roads for hours until he finally picked up Interstate 81, which he then had to follow northeast to get to Interstate 80.

Now that he had finally hit I-80 and was starting to make headway, it was becoming increasingly evident that he would need to stop to ease that last aspect of his discomfort. For the last fifteen minutes, he had been straining to hold the contents of his bladder, and the pain was becoming sharp. He saw the sign for the Danville exit and took it.

At the bottom of the ramp, he saw several shops. These shops included a few restaurants that seemed to be open. One of them,
Dutch Kitchen
, seemed too far removed from Pennsylvania Dutch Country to be legitimate.

Even though the open restaurants would have a bathroom, Marco knew that leaving Kim in the parking lot would be risky; any noise she made was likely to get the attention of some do-good trucker that strolled through the parking lot. He turned right and headed up over a ridge. After a few minutes, he turned onto a dirt road and followed it into a cornfield.

When the road dipped down into a hollow, Marco pulled over and hurriedly jumped out of the little Nissan. He danced to the side of the road and exposed his member without even noticing the cold morning air. He heaved a sigh as he felt the pain slowly drain out of his pelvis.

The weakening of his urine stream brought some clarity back to his mind, and he took the time to run over his plan one more time. He knew he would have between six to eight hours of driving before he reached Indiana. That was the place he had chosen to leave Kim; it was far removed from Philadelphia, and rural. It would accentuate the dramatic point of a girl being killed during her flight from the city. However, because he needed to loop up over southern Michigan to continue avoiding toll roads, he knew that his ETA of six to eight hours might be optimistic.

Marco turned from his steaming puddle and looked at the trunk of the small Nissan; he wondered if Kim had to urinate as desperately as he did. Should a cop find her clothes soaked in her own urine, it would bring up the question of abduction from Philadelphia, rather than broadcast a sad case of bad luck in a remote place. In addition, he simply held no desire to rape her after she had been lying in a puddle of her own waste.

Marco decided it would be best to pull her out of the trunk and give her the chance to make water. He inserted the key into the lock and opened up the trunk.

From inside the trunk, Kim looked up at him and blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the dim morning twilight.

“Time for you to pee. I don’t want you going on yourself.”

Marco knew that, with her hands still tied behind her back, he would need to extract her from the trunk. He leaned down, grabbed her shoulders, and sat her up. He then took the coil of rope that Kim had been staring at earlier, and fashioned a noose around her neck. When that task was complete, he reached around her torso and lifted her out of the trunk.

As he dragged her roughly over the rim of the trunk, Kim let out a muffled moan of protest. She waited for him to drop her.

Instead, he lowered her gently, used the noose to pull her close, and whispered, “If you run, I’ll jerk on this rope and snap your neck like a twig. Do you understand?”

Kim nodded slowly and watched him back away.

She saw he was leaving just enough slack in the rope to keep her from jerking the line from his hands with a quick motion. The slack would also let her run a bit, build up some speed, and thereby make it easier to break her neck if he should need to.

“If you try anything, I’ll kill you right here,” Marco reminded her. He pointed at her panties. “Now stay still, I’m going to take those down so you can go.”

Leaning forward, he pulled her underpants down to her knees and let them fall to her calves. While bent over, he took a good look at the neatly pruned landing strip of pubic hair that sat just under the nightshirt. After lingering a second or two more than he had to, he slowly stood up and took a step back.

“OK. Go ahead.”

Kim frowned at him. Through the tape on her mouth, came the words, “M mmmm mm mmmm.”

“What do you mean? Squat down and go; hurry up.”

Again, Kim frowned and echoed her earlier statement. “M mmmm mm mmmm.”

“Do you have to go or not?”

Kim nodded.

“Well, go.”

Kim repeated he plea, “M mmmm mm
mmmm
.”

“Oh Jesus, you stupid bitch.”

Marco ripped the tape off her mouth, causing her to wince.

“What is it?” he roared.

Kim cocked her head and growled back, “I have to shit!”

Marco looked shocked, which was exactly what she wanted. She maintained her frown and stared at him. He took a step forward and slapped her across the face, causing a sharp pain to dart into her head. She shifted her weight and was able to remain standing.

He stuck a finger in her face, and snarled, “That is for talking like a pig.”

Kim thought to herself, “That slap wasn’t for vulgar language, jackass.” She knew the idea of feces disgusted him. She turned back to Marco and, in a quiet tone, replied, “I’m sorry. I have to… well, you know.”

He walked past her and tugged on the rope, forcing her to follow him to the open driver’s door. As she trailed him, she let her underwear slide down to her ankles and stepped out of them.

He sat down in the driver’s seat, reached across to the glove compartment, and asked, “Do you have anything in here, or will you use leaves to clean yourself?”

Kim looked into the car and caught a glimpse of her purse next to him on the passenger seat. “There’s a travel pack of tissues in my purse.”

He grabbed the tissues, got back out of the car, and said, “Over here—keep away from my door when you do this.” He led her about twenty feet away from the car, taking at least two opportunities to jerk sharply on the rope around her neck. After turning toward her, he held out the travel pack, and snapped, “Here.”

She looked at the tissues blankly and returned, “I can’t take them.”

“What do you mean? Take them.”

“My hands are tied; you’ll have to do it.”

In the dim blue twilight of the morning, Kim thought she saw Marco’s face become just a shade paler. He then looked at the tissues as if he were in a huge dilemma. She knew he was weighing the options.

Marco felt ill. He could make her just get back in the trunk, but she would eventually lose control of her bowels. He could let her defecate and make her get back in the trunk without cleaning up, but that would be just about as bad. He could wipe her himself, but there was no place out here where he could wash up. He could kill her now, but then she would lose control of her bowels, and he would face the same problem. There was only one solution.