Hard Case VI: The Killer Inside (John Harding Book 6) (28 page)

“I know I shouldn’t ask this,” Sam said. “What do we do about it?”

“You don’t do shit, Snow White,” Lynn said. “You’re getting a progress report at our discretion. Baby Huey will not be auditing Kelly’s psych lecture. He will be telling us all about his nasty adventures during the last decade. You and Janie may or may not be in on taking him into custody. Take solace in the fact the ‘Riverbank Strangler’ will no longer be anyone of interest in any murders from tonight on into eternity. This is a Monster matter right now. If it becomes a Snow White matter, we’ll call you.”

Janie tugged Sam’s jacket sleeve as he prepared to say something else. “That would be fine. Thanks, Clint. That is one incredible elimination process you worked to get him. We know you’ll confirm him as the bad guy. If you can hand him to us with a plausible story of how Sam and I got onto him, that would be pie in the sky good. If not, no big deal. Dead is dead.”

“Well said, girlfriend,” Lynn replied. “We’ll put him in your custody if possible. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll talk at you in a day or two.”

They said their goodbyes and left without any hard feelings about being dismissed. Lynn then turned to us. “We’re collecting Huey early from his home near the corner of El Dorado Dr. and West Street in Woodland. I’m having a little fun with this. I need one MIB driver. Any volunteers? Not you, Cheese. You’re in. Don’t make me have to choose girls.”

“I have plans, Psycho,” Tommy said. “I’ll be waiting for you all on the Sea Wolf. I expect that’s where you’ll be bringing him.”

“Correcto,” Lynn answered.

“I’ll drive,” Dev volunteered. “Jess can get our fishing gear aboard the Wolf. Are we bringing Huey back to port with us?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Lynn admitted. “If he does make it back to port, he won’t be the same old murderous arrogant toad he was before the voyage. We’ll be conducting experiments out there on the wild blue ocean in addition to necessary payback on the Cheese for an earlier never to be repeated incident on the boat during training. Are you sure you want to go with us, Jess?”

“I’m good. I have my special Dre headset, Crue. Dev and I have two sets for fishing off the opposite part of the boat, complete with really dark Ray-Bans. We will see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. We may laugh like hell if you hit the drink again though.”

“Oh… you so funny… I’m thinking of conducting an old school swim class aboard the Wolf. Keep talkin’ smack and there’s going to be mandatory sign ups.”

Jess shrugged. “Just sayin’, Crue. If Brother John puts you in the ocean, I may have to take a peek over the side. Maybe you better let Tommy handle the pole, and you do what you do best. None of us want to see you get wet again, Crue. Right Guys?”

“Oh certainly not,” I backed Jess’s play.

“Oh never,” Tommy said.

“Perish the thought,” Dev added, with Clint getting smacked in the head for trying to stifle himself.

Lynn gave up trying to smack her mate into solemnity and pointed at us. “Of course you know… this means war. There will be blood!”

“Al’s out of school, so let me know when you’d like to collect Huey.”

Lynn settled down. “Like I said. I’m having some fun with this. Clint’s been ordering satellite checks on this guy because we can. It’s nice when Monsters save Western Civilization as many times as we do. No one questions our use of all the tech tools in the box. Denny’s made sure of that.”

“Huey lives alone and likes to stay in shape,” Clint said. “Every morning for the last few days, he’s been jogging around his beautiful block. I’m assuming he’s been doing it for quite a while. Lynn has a rather intricate plan for taking him into custody. I, on the other hand, like the idea of simply picking the lock after Huey leaves. We’ll be waiting for him when he comes back. He owns his own real estate firm, so when he messes around at the college he always has an excuse for being there auditing classes. Plus, he has the money to do what he wishes. We can make this into a simple snatch and grab, which is what we should be doing, after he gets back from his jog.”

“Boring…” Lynn pretended to fall asleep for a second. “Agent Tonto likes my intricate plans. He gets to go on a field trip with his nose out the window. Okay… I understand the point of not alarming the entire neighborhood. We can still work my plan to take him on the jog. We’ll go get him early when there isn’t much foot traffic.”

“We’ll keep it inside, babe, just as we planned. We can still take Tonto, but the three of us with Tonto, waiting inside for him to come home is the way to go in this.”

“Fine! If we keep getting so upset we have to make everything into a boring project we may as well stop mentioning ourselves as Monsters, and call ourselves the Pussies. I’ll have to settle for getting my entertainment and a few laughs when I show Cheese a few new ‘hook’ tricks.”

“Wait a minute. What do you mean ‘hook’ tricks?” I didn’t like the sound of that. “This is supposed to be training in the Bay, not death in the Bay.”

“You proved to be a wily opponent in the water. One session with my hook drill has me thinking you need to be challenged more.”

“Challenged how?”

“I’ll show you when we get on board. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

“I’m not letting you electrocute him, Psycho!” Tommy was reading my mind.

“You stay out of this, White Sands! It won’t have anything to do with zapping him, although that was under consideration. I talked to Silvio. He reluctantly agreed when I gave him the option of taking Cheese’s place, but ‘the man from nowhere’ told me I couldn’t do it.”

“Thanks, Clint.” I knew he wouldn’t let her kill me.

“If you put her in the water again, she’ll need an intervention,” Clint replied, receiving the death ray eyes from Lynn, which he promptly waved off. “After I vetoed the electronic hook, I didn’t hear about what else she has planned for you, so be careful, brother.”

“I’m beginning to think we should switch training to sparing only and mat work,” Tommy said. “I believe the Bay training is getting too dangerous.”

“I need the Bay for the Viking, T. Besides, I’m sure a nice chilling dip for Crue tomorrow morning will be just the thing to brighten everyone’s day.”

Lynn had to wait patiently for enjoyment of my morning’s promised plunge to quiet before replying. She delivered her rejoinder with Mistress of the Unimaginable face. “Oh… it is so on, Cheese. I have just the warmup for you tonight. Let’s get the needles out and play.”

“Uh… no… I’m good, but thank you though.”

* * *

Huey Novenco checked his watch. He knew he would have to hurry once his appointments at the real estate office ended. The lecture hall would be his last dry run before he collected Kelly Garner. She was a sweet piece, always sneering at him like he was a dirty old man. He spoke to her regularly so she knew his face. He had cloned her phone already at a lecture. Huey knew exactly where she was and who she planned to meet at every moment. Just like all the other airheads, they revealed everything through their phones.

Huey took a deep breath as he neared his walkway. The police were never going to get close to him. He could kill at will on this campus for another couple months. They hadn’t even questioned him. Although loving the ‘Riverbank Strangler’ tag the media gave him, he knew it would be incredibly stupid to dump another body near the river. Huey figured he would have to leave Kelly so far from his usual dump site, the cops would be too stupid to realize it was his work. Since he would probably have to sign his work to get credit, taking chances on the same site would truly be overconfident.

He opened the door into his entryway, kicking it shut behind him, only to find a big growling dog in front of him. As he slowly backed toward the door, a two toned whistle sounded. The dog yanked him off his feet, and dragged Huey toward his living room. When he started to scream, the dog leaped from his foot to his throat. He gulped as the dog held him snugly at the neck, a low pitched growl emanating from his throat. Huey shut his mouth tightly, eyes distended. The dog leaped to his ankle and began dragging him again.

* * *

Now this was entertainment with Agent Tonto at his best. The moment Huey cried out, he grew a Tonto necklace while we laughed. Quickly quieted burden no longer an issue, Tonto with tail wagging expertise, deposited our serial killer in front of Lynn. Agent Tonto sat down next to our thoroughly confused killer, who began to sit straight, only to be snarled into a fetal position.

“Oh my,” Lynn exclaimed, giving Tonto a beef jerky. “Aren’t you just the most helpful FBI agent ever?”

On cue, Tonto nodded his head to much amusement. It seems Lynn has other talents besides torturing, killing, and making my life miserable. Tonto eyed our killer for a moment before lying down next to him with his treat. Lynn stood, her arms folded across chest with a big sigh of disappointment.

“I thought he’d at least try and kick or something.”

“Then we’d have blood to clean,” Clint reminded her.

“I would have made Cheese mop it up with Huey. Didn’t you tell me you were close to finding out what his real name is?”

“I forgot all about telling you, baby. His name’s Vladimir Slager.”

Lynn spun toward her husband with a happy dance. “Oh honey, thank you. That is just the nicest addition for a rather tame putdown like this. Vlad? Oh my, boys, Agent Tonto has captured the dread Vlad the Impaler. To tell the truth, he doesn’t look like much. I don’t think we’ll need garlic or stakes for this Betty. Hey… guess what, Vlad? You won’t be keeping your date with Kelly Garner.”

“Who?” Vlad cringed as he got a warning growl from Agent Tonto for opening his mouth before asked.

“It’s okay, Tonto. You can let Betty speak. Gee, Vlad, you don’t think we arrived here on a whim do you? We know who you are, what you’ve done, and who you’ve killed. It doesn’t look good for you, Betty.”

“May I sit up?”

“Oh sorry. Sure, go ahead and sit up. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. We don’t want that. Do we, boys?”

“No Mistress of the Unimaginable.” Clint and I did it in chorus for our own amusement, earning the Mistress of the Unimaginable death stare.

“Very funny. You’re a funny boy, Cheese. We’re going to have some fun later.” Lynn turned to Vlad again, who was sitting with a wonderfully sincere look of complete innocence. Yeah, Lynn loves that. “Ah look, Vlad thinks we have the wrong guy, don’t you, Vlad?”

“Look, I don’t know who this Vlad guy is. My name’s Huey Novenco, and I haven’t done anything wrong. I own a real estate business. Let me get my business card for you.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Lynn’s voice dropped an octave. “You’re going to play tough guy so we may as well get started. Go ahead and call Dev, Clint. Cheese can open Vlad’s garage door. I hope you don’t have a bunch of crap in the garage.”

“It’s a double, Lynn, and one is empty,” I called out from the house door leading to the garage. I thought about loading him into his car, but depending on whether Lynn’s experiment works or not, we didn’t know if this would be an FBI handover or not.

“Dev will be here in a few minutes,” Clint said.

“Wait! Where are you taking me? You have no right to arrest me.” Vlad was outraged. It just never gets old.

Lynn was already giggling. I know what she was waiting for – our old favorite.

“I want to call my lawyer!”

“Get up, Vlad,” Lynn told him. “We’re going on a little boat trip where we’ll explain everything to you. I’m certain once I get done helping you to see our side of it, you’ll want to help us in the worst way. In fact I think you’ll beg me to let you help.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you! Get the police!”

“Okay, we’ve played out the whole string. Agent Tonto? Would you please help Vlad to his feet?” Lynn made a lifting gesture, and Tonto went to work on Vlad. He virtually shot off the floor to his feet once Tonto grabbed his crotch and gave it a yank.

I put the restraints on him and added a gag. I guided Vlad to the trunk Clint opened. “Make some noise, killer.”

When he looked confused, I had Agent Tonto join us as a teaching tool. He screamed behind the gag. It seemed muffled enough. “Get in the trunk.”

I gave him three seconds, and then I deposited him in the trunk. We had already confiscated all his computer gear. I went into the bedroom, and fetched it. Once we had that, I took a quick look around before shrugging at Lynn. “It looks good, Lynn.”

“Are you ready for a little fun in the Bay, Sharky?”

“Yep. The Viking ain’t going to beat himself. I plan on giving him all he ever dreamed of. He hasn’t had to make it out of the early rounds yet. I’m going to correct that unless of course I get that damn arm-bar on him.”

“What do you mean if? By the time we go to Vegas, you’ll be able to get an arm-bar on Godzilla. C’mon. Time is wasting. I have experiments to do. Not everything can be about you, Cheese. I don’t like Vlad. I’m almost wishing I was still doing the real impaling just for him.”

“Those nerve needles of yours are the worst. I’ve never seen anything like it. We really do have all our nerve endings running through our feet. It’s as if they can’t focus on anything else other than the pain when you hook them into Silvio’s device.”

“Let’s get to it.”

I locked Vlad’s place. I listened all the way to the Wolf about what fun Lynn planned for me in the Bay. Lynn underestimated my new Zen pole poke and hook powers. I had no doubt during one of her attacks she would be in for a surprise. My surprise depended on being able to belittle her into holding onto the pole too long as she did the last cruise. I had a plan though, but it was going to hurt because I was sure Lynn would have a bad surprise for me too.