In Cold Blonde (4 page)

“I thought you’d be happier.”

“It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around,” Ryan said.  “I mean,
all that money…” 

They were driving south on Sunset in Ryan’s Mustang.  The sun was
up, and so was the temperature.  They drove with the top down but the
heater was off. 

Syd turned to Ryan.  “You’ve just been handed the keys to the
kingdom.  Money means freedom.  You can do
anything
you
want.  Be
anything
you want.  Go
anywhere
you
want.  Live anywhere, drive anything, eat anything, fuck anything… ”

“I like fucking you.”

“Good answer.  You definitely deserve the money.”

Ryan laughed.  He wanted to tell Syd about the Lotto ticket. 
How he got it, his guilt, his confusion.  But something held him
back.  What?  He tried to put his finger on it.  Was he ashamed
that he lied to her when he told her he’d bought it?  Was he afraid she’d
be disappointed in him?  Judge him?  Would she stop trusting
him?  Or was he afraid she would tell him he shouldn’t keep the ticket, that
he had to be honest with the Lotto people and help them find the righteous
winner?

Well, all of them actually.  And he was very confused about his
relationship with her in the first place.  He’d only known her for eight
weeks.  Knew he was crazy about her.  But was it lust or love? 

Syd told him she loved him a week after they slept together.  And she
had said it practically every day since then.  And the subtle plea was there;
tell me you love me, too. 

Then, just a week ago, walking out of a movie, hand in hand, in a great
mood after a Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy, Ryan said it.  “I love
you, Syd.”  Just like that.  It popped out spontaneously. 

But was it really heartfelt or the result of Syd’s subtle pressure? 
Or was it just the afterglow of the stupid movie?    

Ryan hadn’t loved anyone since Anne, hadn’t really committed himself
since Anne, and Lord knows how badly that turned out.  Did he really want
to risk it again? 

Fuck, he thought.  Life was so simple when he woke up this
morning.  How’d it get so confusing so fast?

“There,” Syd said, pointing.  “That’s his house on the left.”

Colin Wood lived in a small, one story Spanish style stucco.  Two
small palm trees sprouted out of a well-tended lawn.  Ryan picked the
morning paper up off the sidewalk, carried it to the front door.  They
could hear noise inside, a TV.   Ryan rang the bell.

“Hold on, I’m coming,” a male voice called.  The door was pulled
open and revealed a barefoot man wearing a USC tee shirt and gym shorts. 
He was a little goofy looking, Ryan thought, and he looked familiar. 
Tall, somewhere between six foot two or three, he was rail thin, blonde but
balding, with a horse face.  He looked like someone out of a Norman
Rockwell painting.  Then Ryan realized, he was a character actor. 
Ryan had seen him on TV.

“Can I help you?” the man asked.

Ryan handed him the newspaper, then badged him.  “I’m Detective Magee,
this is Detective Curtis.  May we come in?”

“Sure,” the man said warily, stepping aside.  “What’s this about?”

“Colin Wood,” Ryan said.  “Is he a friend of yours?”

The man nodded.  “We’re roommates.”  Then it dawned on
him.  “Oh, my God, something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

“He’s been the victim of a crime.  A murder.”  Ryan watched the
man carefully looking for a sign of genuine surprise.  At this point,
everyone was a suspect.

The reaction had two parts.  The first was concern about Colin being
involved in a crime, then the word,
murder,
settled in and shock filled
the long face.  “He’s dead?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Who?  Why?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Syd said.  “Could we ask you
some questions, Mr…”

“Dodd.  Sorry, I’m Reggie Dodd.”  He shook their hands, led
them into the kitchen.  The house was cluttered and looked like two men
lived it in, two men with an aversion to cleaning up. 

“You’re an actor, aren’t you?” Ryan asked.  “You look familiar.”

Dodd nodded.  “That’s how Colin and I met, on a movie.”

“He was an actor, too?” Syd asked.

“Yeah.”  Dodd dug something out of a pile on the kitchen counter and
handed it Syd.  It was what was called a Head Shot, a picture of Colin
Wood on the front and a list of his credits on the back.  “We did that
George Clooney picture last year.  I was just splitting from my wife, Colin’s
girlfriend had just moved out, so he asked if I needed a place to crash. 
I’ve been here about six months.”

Ryan studied the picture, recognized the face.  He might have
recognized him in the car, but all he was focused on then was the penis in his
mouth. 

“Can you tell me what happened?” Dodd asked.

Hanrahan had instructed everyone to keep the amputated appendage a secret,
not so much as a courtesy to the victim, but holding back key evidence often
helps separate real suspects from the nut jobs.

“He was found dead in his car.”

“Where?”

“Outside a nightclub, the Havoc parking lot.”

“Colin loved that place,” Dodd said.  “We both did.  Great
place to meet chicks.”  Dodd suddenly remembered Syd.  “Sorry, I mean
women.  Meet women.”

Syd  smiled.  “Chicks works, don’t sweat it.  You
mentioned Colin broke up with a girlfriend.  Tell us about her.”

“Abby, Abigail something or other; I don’t remember her last name. 
I only met her once, when she stopped by to pick up some stuff she’d left
behind.”

“Pretty girl?” Ryan asked.

“Beautiful.  Blonde, great body.  She’s a wannabe actress. 
Colin said it was the perfect job for her; she’s a total drama queen.”

Syd leaned forward.  “So she had a temper.”

“Did she ever.  Colin said she caught him cheating on her and went
ballistic.”

“She got violent?”

“Colin said she practically trashed the place.  Hit him in the head
with a frying pan.”  Then it dawned on him.  “Wait, you don’t think
Abby did this?”

“Just trying to narrow down the suspect list,” Ryan said.  “What
about other people who might have wanted to hurt him; were there other women, maybe
someone with a grudge?”

“There were plenty of other women, Colin was a total slut and proud of
it.  But lately they’ve all been happy hookups, if you know what I
mean.  He never mentioned any trouble.”

Syd asked, “No threatening phone calls, letters, anything like that?”

“Not that I know of; Colin was a great guy.  Everybody loved him.”

“Not quite everybody,” Ryan said.  “Let me ask you something, did
Colin have an American Express card?”

“Sure, a Platinum card.  He loved to flash it, thought it impressed
his dates.”

“Is it here?” Syd asked.  “Or had he mentioned losing it recently?”

“No, we went out to Flemings for dinner the other night and Colin used it
to pay the check.  I mean, I think I remember him putting it back in his
wallet.  Why, is it missing?”

“Yes,” Ryan said.  “Look, we need to go through Colin’s things:
computer, phone book, bills.  We could get a warrant, but…”

“No, no problem.  It’s all right here.”

“And next of kin,” Syd said.  “Who should we notify?”

“His mom’s dead, but his dad is still alive, lives in Orange County.”

Syd asked, “Do you have his number?”

Dodd shook his head.  “But it’ll be on his cell.  Did you find
that?”

“It was in the car,” Syd said.

“He kept everything on his iPhone,” Dodd said.  “But he’s got a
phone book, too; I’ll get it.”  Dodd got up to fetch it.  Ryan’s
phone rang.

“Ryan.”

“The plot thickens,” Liz said from her examining room.  “I’m looking
down at the remains of Colin Wood, and you’ll never guess what I found when I
took his shirt off.”

“Another penis?”

Liz snorted a laugh.  “Funny.  No, I found something carved
into his chest.  The number 2.  My guess, it was probably the same
blade that Benihana’d his penis.”

Syd saw the shock on Ryan’s face.  “What?  What is it?”

“The number 2 was carved into Colin Wood’s chest,” Ryan said checking to
make sure Dodd was out of earshot.   

“No shit,” Syd said, the implication clear.  “Which means the
killer’s done it before.”

“And will probably do it again,” Ryan said.

Syd’s eyes lit up.  “We’ve got ourselves a serial killer,
Ryan.  How cool is that!”

She stood naked in the shower.  The make-up washed off.  The
nail and toe polish removed. The green contacts taken out.  The Lady in
Red was stripped bare, restored to her natural state.   

 Her name was Alice Waterman.  She was pretty in a fresh-scrubbed,
studious sort of way.  But Alice never thought of herself as pretty. 
She thought of herself as smart.   It had been beaten into her head
ever since she was a little girl growing up in Santa Ana, California.  Her
brains were going to get her into a great college, good career and, one day, a
solid marriage. 

 Her dad worked at the nearby Knotts Berry Farm theme park; he did
maintenance on the thrill rides.  Her mom worked at Sears in ladies
apparel.  A typical hard working blue collar family barely getting by, but
they had a dream, a dream that one day their smart, gifted daughter would join
the corporate culture as an executive and be able to live a life of privilege
and luxury.  And to succeed in a world run by men, her father told her she
had to be able to compete with men out of the office, too.  So while her
friends took dance lessons, Dad taught her golf.  He took her hunting; she
even learned to box.  

Alice wasn’t popular in high school.  She was heavy; judged a little
plump if you were kind, fat if you were the typical high school kid.  And
the extra weight hid the simple beauty of the face that would one day emerge. 

She hung with the nerds, and the boys liked her because she was
promiscuous.  She started giving hand jobs in eighth grade, blow jobs
freshman year and was sleeping with a variety of boys by her sophomore
year.   But she dreamt of running with the cool kids, and even though
word had spread that she was easy, there were plenty of prettier girls willing
to put out. Alice was sentenced to high school Siberia and was miserable.

Alice turned off the water, pulled back the shower curtain and stepped out
of the tub.  The bathroom was tiny and smelled of mildew.  The wallpaper
was peeling away and the bowl of the once-white toilet bowl was stained a
disgusting yellow.  The sink was cracked and the counter was barely big
enough to hold her prescription bottles.  She even had to open the
bathroom door so she’d have room to dry herself with the coarse towel. 

But it was her bathroom and hers alone.  She didn’t have to share it
with anyone, a definite improvement over her circumstances for the last few
years.  The dingy studio apartment, one of eight units above an army surplus
store on Vine Street in Hollywood, smelled too, courtesy of the Thai fast food
joint next door.  But the apartment was hers alone.  She didn’t have
a roommate.  She could eat whenever she wanted.  She could come and
go as she pleased because the door locked from the inside, not the outside.

So much better than the fucking Institute.

Her parents had visited the apartment when she first moved in a month
ago, and were disgusted.  Her dad offered her money to get a nicer
place.  But she didn’t want any more of his money.  His money was
their
money and she wanted nothing to do with it.

Her mom had noticed the bottles of pills and Alice told her they were
antidepressants prescribed at the Institute.  No reason to freak her out
with the truth; Stage IV breast cancer metastasized to the liver, lungs, bone
and brain.   The doctors told her she had six months to live, maybe a
little longer with luck.

So, little girl, what did you do with the last six months of your
life?  Why I got even with the dirty bastards who ruined my life. 

Two more men had to die.  Two more souls rendered to balance the
scales of justice.   

Alice walked into the cramped living room/dining
room/kitchen/bedroom.  Her war room.  Four pictures were pinned to
the dingy white walls.  The late Colin Wood was picture number two. 
She picked up a red magic marker, drew a circle around his face, then a slash
through the middle.    

The picture to the immediate left of Colin also had a circle and slash
scrawled across his face.  Victim number one, Zachary Stone.  He had
been as easy to seduce as Colin.  Not surprising, he was another horn dog
asshole.

Stone was a lawyer. 

The
lawyer. 

The cocksucker who orchestrated the Great Escape.  

That’s why he had to die first. 

Stone lived in Newport Beach.  He had a fancy suite of offices, drove
a Silver Cloud convertible, wore three-thousand-dollar suits, got two-hundred-dollar
haircuts, lived on the beach in an eight-million-dollar home and dated Southern
California’s most beautiful woman.  He was slick, handsome and rich with
the three most important ingredients for success: intelligence, charisma and
ambition. 

Stone had a powerful voice and an infectious personality that won over
clients, jurors and judges; it was a wonderful asset for a criminal defense
attorney who represented the rich, the very rich and ultra rich of Orange
County from charges of bribery, fraud, embezzlement, assault, rape or murder.  He’d
even stoop to a DUI defense if the client was wealthy enough. 

Alice had called his office, told the assistant she was referred by her
close family friend, the Governor, and she’d like an appointment.  She
explained that she and her husband had been accused of stealing eighty million dollars
from his investors and she needed a good lawyer.  She wanted to be the
last appointment of the day, so she asked if he could see her at 6:00 p.m. 
The assistant checked and told her that would be fine.

Alice dressed to kill, in red, of course.  She watched his eyes as
she walked into the office.  They flicked from her blonde hair, to her face,
to her tits, to her legs, to her Manolo Blahnik’s then back to her tits.  She
had him.

He indicated for her to sit on the couch, asked if her husband would be
joining them.  She said, no, the son of a bitch had fled the
country.  She was scared, confused and now alone.  Would he help her?

Stone sat across from her, took her hands in his and said, “Absolutely,
you can count on me.” 

She spun a sad story, a modified version of the ponzi scam Bernie Madoff
used to rip off billions.  In Alice’s version she was the innocent victim
of an evil husband who bilked millions and left her holding the bag.

She touched his arm, as she told her story, then a leg, for emphasis. 
Finally she started crying which prompted an embrace from Stone.  She
hugged him tightly, making sure he got a chest load of her tits and a nose full
of her Chanel. 

“For the first time in a long time,” she said as they separated, “I feel
that someone finally cares about me.” She looked deeply, gratefully into his
eyes then suddenly leaned forward and kissed him.  It was practically
platonic.  Closed mouth, tender, sweet, but promising oh so much
more.  “I’m sorry,” she said pulling back.  “I shouldn’t have done
that.”

Stone’s face was flushed, and she was sure blood rushed to another part
of his body as well.  “It’s all right,” he said.  “I
understand.  These are stressful times for you.  Look, there’s a
wonderful restaurant just down the street, Gerard’s.  You know it?”

She did.  When she researched Zachary Stone, the
L.A. Times
interview was actually conducted from what the interviewer described as Stone’s
favorite restaurant, Gerard’s.  The food was great, Stone said, but what
he liked most was it was walking distance from his office.  She was hoping
he’d ask her to dinner there.    “Yes,” she said.  “They
make a wicked martini.” 

“I’d love to buy you that martini, and dinner.  We can talk some
more about the case.  Get to know each other a little better,” he said,
serving up a sexual innuendo.

Her eyes met his, message received.  “That would be wonderful.”

“I need some time to finish up here.  Can you meet me there in say,
an hour?”

She gave him her most promising smile.  “See you then.”

Walking distance.  Gerard’s was just a quarter of a mile from Stone’s
office.  You simply walk down West Balboa Boulevard, turn right on 41
^st
then cut through the alley which brings you to River Avenue and the restaurant. 

And that’s where Alice was waiting, hidden in the alley.  When she
saw Stone cross 41
^st
, she crouched behind a dumpster, the Colt .25
in her right hand.   Her ears did the work now.  Just like her
dad taught her when they went deer hunting. 
You’ll hear them first, in
the brush.  A few steps, nibble, a few more steps. 

At first she just heard the muted sounds of the city: the hum of traffic,
the beeping of a truck backing up somewhere, a far off siren.  Then she
heard his footsteps.  The crisp click of an expensive leather heel, then
the click of another.  The footfalls grew louder, the gait even,
confident. 

Then Stone passed the dumpster.  Alice stepped out, said, “Zachary.” 

He stopped, turned, surprised to see her.  “Hi.”

She raised the Colt and shot him in the face. 

POP.

The bullet went through his forehead, plowed through his frontal lobe,
tumbled a bit taking out the septum pellucidum, thalmus and hypothalamus before
coming to rest in the middle of his spinal cord.  Catastrophic injuries
and death was instantaneous.  He hit the ground as a corpse.    

Alice stood there, waiting to see if she’d feel any regret, any remorse. 
She’d killed before: birds, deer, an elk on a Colorado vacation when she was
twelve.  But this was her first human being. 

Nope, she felt fine.  Better than fine, actually, she felt
great.  Endorphins were released and did a waltz with the adrenaline
coursing through her veins.  It felt better than sex.

She slipped on a pair of surgical gloves, searched the alley for the
spent cartridge, found it and slipped it in her pocket.  Next she bent
over the body, and slipped the wallet out of his Armani jacket.  It was
filled with hundreds, eleven of them, plus three twenties, a five and two
ones.  Good, she thought.  She took eight of the hundreds; she needed
some working capital, but left enough cash in the wallet so cops wouldn’t think
it was a robbery.  He had all the major credit cards and her eyes settled
on his Platinum American Express card.  She slipped it out, not to use it,
but as a souvenir, something to remember him by.  Then she plucked a one
dollar bill out of the wallet, and stuffed it into his right hand. 

These murders were going to be Alice’s legacy.  And she wanted the
story to be a colorful one.  So she planned to leave a few subtle clues
along the way to be deciphered later, clever nuggets that in hindsight would
let everyone know how carefully she planned her revenge.

But she had to be careful.  Because Alice wasn’t afraid of getting
caught, she was afraid of getting caught too soon.  She needed time to
kill all four.

Back in her apartment, Alice stared at the picture of Zachary Stone, at
the circle and slash across his face.  Then at Colin Wood’s photo also
marred with the red circle and slash. 

Two down and two to go.

Her eyes drifted to the next picture, an old high school yearbook picture
of a handsome blonde man in a Speedo.  He had a lean, muscled body and an
easy smile.  Adam Devlin.

She had a wild crush on him in high school.  Everyone knew because
she’d stare at him like a lovesick puppy whenever she saw him.  Adam was
just nice enough to her to give her hope.  Just nice enough to trick her
into going over to Colin’s house that night eleven years ago.  That
horrible night that changed everything.      

Alice had no trouble locating Adam.  He was all over the Internet;
pictures of him at the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals and
Wimbledon.  There was even a picture of Adam in front of his office
building in Santa Monica. 

That’s where she planned to meet him.  That’s where she planned to
kill him.