With Cruel Intent (17 page)

stood before the map on the wall. He

pinned Blanche’s picture carefully to the

side of the map and took a small ribbon of

very fine thread, wound it around the head

of the pin holding the picture and attached

it to another pin stuck in the map precisely

at the address of Ms. Carmichael’s Bed

and Breakfast. He smiled and enjoyed

thinking about how clever he was.

“This gig is turning out to be more

fun than I’d expected,” he thought.

A third and a fourth image were

prominently displayed on the wall as

well, both held in place by pins as the

others, with thread leading to a location

on the map, 412 Big Buck Circle. The first

of the images was that of a bungalow set

on a lot with large, mature trees shielding

the entrance, and a driveway that ran

along the side of the house leading to a

small garage in the back. The home

appeared to be fairly new with no toys

strewn across the yard and no signs of a

pet. The newly, self-discovered voyeur

had studied the pictures carefully.

Each photo that had been included

in the packet, delivered under the cover of

night, had bits of information that would

be crucial for his success, and he had

committed them to memory along with the

floor plan and layout of the home. The

other picture was that of an attractive

middle-aged woman dressed in jeans and

t-shirt, with short-cropped brown hair,

tinted with streaks of gold. It had been

taken while the woman was shopping,

without her having a clue that she was

under surveillance.

Her name was Katherine Criddle

but she preferred to be called Katie. The

50ish woman had been widowed over ten

years ago and lived on her own in the

pictured home, and drove a vintage

mustang that she had purchased with some

of the insurance money that had come her

way after the death of her husband. At the

time, the car had brought her some degree

of solace, but she had been criticized for

what some perceived as giving in to her

midlife crisis. Katie dated little but

worked full time at the local Piggly

Wiggly as a cashier and counted her co-

workers as her closest friends. She had

one grown child that lived in Jacksonville,

Florida, and worked as a manager of a

restaurant. Her son was married but had

no children and did not visit his mother

often and generally only on holidays.

The home in question was at the

end of a cul-de-sac and would offer

access from the rear over a fence that

backed onto a green belt, with no houses

within distance to see him either coming

or going. The thief reviewed the items he

would be taking with him again, checked

to make sure the camera had fresh

batteries, and that all else was ready for

the outing.

Earlier in the day he had taken a

rasping file to the bottom of his athletic

shoes to wear away any possible

identifying marks that could be used to

trace what type of shoe he was wearing.

Tomorrow

he

would

be

burning

everything in a 50-gallon drum at the back

of his property for good measure anyway.

Knowing that it was going to be a very

long night he took one final look at the

board and the faces looking back at him.

He blew a kiss intended for all three

ladies pictured there and left the hiding

place, closed the wall unit to secure the

room and laid down on the couch for a

quick nap before having to head out once

it was dark.

He pulled the van quietly, without

trying to draw attention to himself, into a

parking spot near the dumpster at the back

of Saints and Sinners, a bar located about

two miles from the Criddle home. It was

the closest place he had scouted that

would keep the vehicle under wraps, until

he could return after the outing, without it

appearing to be out of place. The bar

would be open till almost morning and the

old van would blend in with the other

customer’s cars parked around the area.

He arrived at 11:30 p.m. and waited for a

biker couple to park their Harley and enter

the bar before he exited the van and

started the walk to Big Buck Circle.

He stayed off the main roads and

tried his best to look like any other

hitchhiker or homeless person getting from

point A to point B with a backpack, a

bandana around his head and nothing else

that would distinguish him from the

normal late night crowd. Traffic was light

and he worked his way through some

fields, in and out of a few dimly lit

neighborhoods, until he arrived at the

fence dividing the yard of Katie’s home

and the green space behind.

A train track was approximately

100 yards from the home that had not been

included in the information provided by

the anonymous supplier. He quickly and

easily scaled the fence, once on the other

side, he could see that the lights in the

home appeared to be off with no back

porch light, and no street light to brighten

the backyard space. Pulling the sleeve up

on his black shirt he could see the

illuminated dial of his watch, 12:15 a.m.,

he’d made good time and was earlier than

he dared enter the home. The professional

burglar felt in the front pocket of his dark

jeans and secured the key deposited there.

It wouldn’t hurt to at least try the

lock to be sure that his entry would be

unencumbered, so he purposefully took the

backpack from around his shoulder and

laid it down on the porch. Painstakingly he

eased the screen door open just enough to

allow access to the locked handle of the

wooden inner door. The screen squeaked

ever so slightly, just enough to cause him

some concern. Reaching into the pack he

removed a small can of WD-40 and

applied a quick blast to the hinges. The

door now glided open without a whisper

and he placed the door against his back as

he inserted the key into the lock.

The key fit perfectly and he felt

somewhat guilty about entering this way,

after all he was a pro and didn’t need the

extra help to gain entrance, but the

‘employers’ had insisted that he use the

means they provided to leave minimal

clues and shake up the public even further.

He placed his ear very close to the glass

insert in the rear door to confirm no one

was still moving about inside before he

tried to turn the key. His heart raced as his

adrenalin began to kick in and his senses

were heightened to the level of a world-

class athlete. No sounds reverberated

through the glass and he felt it safe to try

the lock. He turned his wrist but the key

did not budge.

“What the hell,” he thought, and he

exerted more pressure on the lock without

success.

The key was pulled free of the

lock and he inspected it the best he could

in the non-existent light. He ran his fingers

over the ridges of the key, feeling for burs

or irregularities, nothing. Once again the

key was inserted into the lock making sure

that it hit bottom and he turned, still

nothing, and he dared not force the key any

more to prevent it from breaking off in the

lock.

Somewhere in his memory he

recalled his father complaining about a

new house key he’d had cut that wouldn’t

work. They had returned to the True Value

store and the clerk had instructed them to

wiggle the key up and down while turning.

Apparently, it was not uncommon for new

keys to take a few weeks of use before

they wore down slightly and worked more

efficiently, especially in older locks.

It was still too early to try such an

experiment with this particular key and he

opted to wait until 1:00 a.m. before trying

again. He picked up his bag and moved to

a shadowed corner of the yard and sat in

the dark, waiting for the next few minutes

to pass. While waiting, he removed the

camera from the bag and tested the image

quality by taking a picture of the back of

the house. Not bad, but not great either and

he dared not use the flash, at least not

outside where it could be seen for miles.

Instead he changed the setting for shooting

night scenes, opened up the aperture and

took a picture of the house again with his

face smiling into the camera, taking up a

third of the image.

“Good start,” he thought, before

returning the camera to the bag.

At exactly 1:00 a.m. he brought the

key back to the lock and gently jiggled it

up and down while applying some

rotational force. Click! It moved and the

sound of the lock giving way brought a

sigh of relief to his lips. He very carefully

and slowly opened the door, feeling for

any obstruction that may bang against the

back of the door that he had not

anticipated. Nothing. It opened enough for

him to slide in, including his bag, leaving

his shoes on the porch.

He wore latex gloves without the

powder, a hair net under the bandana

wrapped firmly around his head. Black

makeup had been smeared over the

surface of his face while he had sat in the

corner of the yard, not so much to assist

while in the house but just in case he

needed to make a quick getaway, he’d be

harder to see moving outdoors. The first

thing he needed to do was secure the

location and make sure Katie was in the

bedroom asleep.

He had looked over the pictures

and schematic of the interior enough that

he felt like he had been there before, but

of course he had not. He left the kitchen,

turned down a narrow hallway, passed a

bathroom and laundry room on his right

and a spare bedroom on his left. Katie’s

room was directly at the end of the hall.

There were no lights on and the door was

open about ten inches.

At the door, he stood holding his

breath and listened. He could just make

out the rhythmic breathing of someone

sleeping so he pushed the door open just

enough to poke his head around to get a

look at the widow. The room was not

entirely dark; an en suite bathroom

positioned toward the front of the house

had the door slightly ajar and the light on.

He didn’t find this unusual, as his parents

had done the same thing for years when

they’d gotten older, made it so much

easier to get to the toilet in the middle of

the night without breaking one’s neck.

He could make out Katherine’s

form in the bed. She was lying on her right

side, head on a pillow with a sheet

covering her, except for her left leg

extending from underneath the sheet, lying

atop another pillow in the middle of the

bed. Her left arm wrapped tightly around

the top of the same pillow pulling it close

to her chest. The in and out of her

breathing was almost hypnotic and helped

him relax as he surveyed the room. The

foot of the bed faced the door and the

lighting from the bathroom would provide

better pictures when he was ready.

He pulled the door closed, not

letting the latch catch but having the jam

provide enough friction that the door was

almost shut, and he returned to the kitchen.

On the table he removed the camera from

the bag, along with a can of red spray

paint and four flat pieces of plastic, which

he would soon use to help him move the

heavier pieces of furniture. First off he

needed something to eat.

Opening the fridge with his gloved

hand, he looked for something that struck

his fancy. Orange juice and milk made him

think of breakfast so he removed the two