Kill Me Once (11 page)

‘Think we could let her hold a
S-P-A-R-K-L-E-R
when it gets all the way dark out?’ he asked. ‘She’s been bugging me about it for weeks now.’

Sara Whitestone slid her sunglasses down the bridge of her slender nose and raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow in her husband’s direction. ‘Yeah, right, James.
You’re
the one who’s been bugging me about it for weeks now and you know it.’

Her husband grinned at her. He looked absolutely ridiculous in his
Kiss the Chef
apron, which was par for the course for him. James Whitestone was easily the world’s biggest dork – but then again that was
precisely
what Sara loved so much about him.

‘C’mon, honey,’ he whined. ‘Whaddya say? It’ll be a lot of fun. Don’t pretend it won’t.’

Sara let out a soft sigh, knowing she’d lost the argument already. Dana was the apple of her daddy’s eye, and he never denied her anything that wasn’t unsafe for her. Probably the result of his growing up as the youngest of five sons of a strict Presbyterian minister, a stern man who would have been happy if playtime had been classified as the Eighth Deadly Sin. ‘Fine, you big goofball.’ Sara finally relented. ‘But you’re the one taking her to the emergency room when her hair catches fire.’

Her husband’s lopsided grin exploded into a full-blown smile as he easily covered the fifteen feet between the grill and the lawn chair where she was sitting in three long, graceful strides. He leaned down and planted a kiss on the top of her head. ‘That anything like when my mom told me not to come running to her when I broke my leg?’

Sara laughed and punched him on one tree-trunk thigh. ‘Damn straight it is. Moms always know what we’re talking about. It’s hard-wired into our psychology.’

James groaned theatrically as he straightened back up, as though the strain of leaning down to kiss his wife had been enough to throw his back out of alignment.

Sara Whitestone was a remarkably small woman; a trait that Dana would inherit as she herself grew into womanhood. Standing a shade under five feet tall, Sara tipped the scales at just below a hundred pounds, though those she went up against in court as a litigating attorney for the law firm of Smith, Frey and Bogner never seemed to mention anything about her size. Her diminutive stature simply didn’t register with them when she was in front of a jury, more often than not whipping their tails and looking for all the world exactly like what she was – an intellectual giant with a brilliant legal mind. Whenever people asked her if it was nice always being the smartest person in the room, she’d smile politely and reply, ‘Well, no. Actually, it’s hell.’

Sara pouted and punched her husband on the leg again, harder this time. ‘Hey, be nice to me, you oversized gorilla. Be nice to me or no dessert for you tonight.’

James smiled and dropped down to his knees in front of her. His weight dented the soft grass as he wrapped his strong arms around her slender body and leaned forward to press his face into her breasts, which were braless and straining against a tattered Abba-concert T-shirt. ‘Just exactly what kind of dessert are we talking about here, Mrs Whitestone?’ he breathed into her chest.

Sara laughed and pushed his face away. ‘Nip it, lover boy. Nip it right in the bud. There’s a time and place for everything, and this is certainly neither the time nor the place for this little conversation. If you’re a good boy, though, maybe we’ll revisit this subject later on tonight when our little angel is in bed sleeping. Play your cards right and anything’s possible, I suppose.’

Favouring her with a comically lecherous wink, James rose to his feet and returned to the grill by way of the sandbox, stopping just long enough to ask Dana what heinous and unforgivable crime her Holly Hobby doll had committed to warrant the extreme punishment of being buried up to her neck in sand. Sara smiled at them as she watched them talk before turning her attention back to the legal brief she’d brought home from work.

Fifteen minutes later James announced that the food was ready and that Dana needed to go into the house to wash before they could eat.

‘Why do I have to?’ the little girl asked, turning her enormous blue eyes up to meet his.

‘Well, you have to because your hands are all dirty from playing in the sandbox, silly goose.’

Dana stood up with a dramatic sigh. Tiny granules of sand cascaded down from her Barbie T-shirt as she wiped her hands across the butt of her previously clean white shorts and held them up for her father to inspect. ‘There, that should do it. All clean now. See, Daddy?’

James threw his head back and roared with laughter. It was a deep, joyful sound. ‘Sorry, kiddo. Not good enough.’

He paused and grinned down at his daughter. ‘Now, I could be all wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure it’s just about time for
this
plane to take off.’

And with that he ran over and swept her small body up into his strong arms, swinging her out wildly to his side in a horizontal position five feet above the ground. Dana’s eyes lit up brighter than the runway lights at Hopkins airport as he held her suspended in the air. They had played this game many times before and it was one of her all-time favourites.

Winking at Sara again, James began humming loudly to imitate the rumbling of a plane’s engines. The sound came from deep within his chest and Dana could feel the vibrations as they tickled her body. ‘The pilots are ready for take-off in the cockpit!’ James boomed. ‘Are the passengers ready?’

‘Ready!’ Dana giggled. ‘All the passengers are ready for take-off, Daddy!’

Engines rumbling joyfully, the impromptu summertime flight quickly taxied down the runway of the backyard and into the house, where it banked sharply to the right in the foyer before finally touching down at the kitchen sink to complete its vital hand-washing mission with a fresh bar of Ivory soap.

When father and daughter had returned and they were all seated around the wooden picnic table in the middle of their backyard, the young family began eating and fell into an easy conversation centring on Dana’s trio of imaginary friends: Lula, Pano and Mr Sunday.

‘And just what is Mr Sunday up to on this fine Fourth of July?’ Sara asked, dabbing with a paper napkin at a smear of mustard that had found its way onto her daughter’s left cheek.

‘He’s working today. No fireworks for him. And, boy, is he ever sad about that.’

‘That’s too bad.’ James empathised. ‘Seems pretty darn unfair he has to work when everybody else is out there having a good time. What line of work is he in, anyway, sweetheart?’

‘He’s a filthy prostitute,’ Dana mumbled through a mouthful of half-chewed hot dog.

A shocked look flashed across Sara’s delicately pretty face.
‘What
did you say?’

‘I said Mr Sunday’s a filthy prostitute and he’s gotta work today,’ Dana repeated nonchalantly, her attention now squarely focused on the tiny army ant steadily marching its way across the table and toward her plate.

James arched an inquisitive eyebrow at his wife before turning back to his daughter. ‘Where on
earth
did you learn a word like that, honey?’

‘From that movie you were watching last night, Daddy. You know, the one with all the filthy prostitutes in it. Did you forget about it already?’

Sara shot her husband a look that could have frozen water. ‘That’s it, James. That is
it
. No more late-night television for you until this little girl’s been in bed and sawing logs for at least an hour. You ever hear the saying about little pitchers having big ears? Well, there you go. There’s your proof right there, buster.’

‘But, Mom!’ Dana whined.

‘But, Mom!’ James echoed in the same tone.

Sara held up a hand to silence them. ‘Don’t
But, Mom
me, you two. That’s final. I mean it, James. Only PBS until she’s in bed and lost in dream world, you hear me? The only words she needs to be learning are the ones they teach her on
Sesame Street
and
The Electric Company.’

Turning back to Dana and frowning, she added, ‘And I don’t
ever
want to hear that word out of your mouth again, little lady. It’s a bad word and if I ever hear it again you’re getting the soap. You didn’t like it very much the last time, remember?’

Dana rolled her eyes and took a long drink of her Kool-Aid before smacking her red-stained lips once. ‘Fine, Mommy. I heard you the first time, you know.’

It took everything Sara had to hold back the laugh she felt coming on. In some ways her daughter seemed so advanced for her young age that she often had to remind herself that Dana wasn’t even five years old yet. ‘I only said it once, Little Miss Smarty-Pants.’

‘I know you did, and that’s the same time I heard you say it.’

‘Hard to argue with that logic,’ James chimed in helpfully.

Sara shot him another look. ‘You stay out of this, James. Stay out of it or you can consider the dessert menu off-limits to you tonight, if you get my drift.’

James turned back to his daughter with a grin and held up his large hands, shrugging his broad shoulders in good-natured defeat. ‘Hard to argue with
that
logic, too. Sorry, kiddo, but Mom’s definitely got the trump card on this one. Daddy’s not the smartest guy in the whole world but he sure as hell knows when he’s been beat. Only PBS on that television from now on.’

By the time they’d finished eating, cleared the table and brought the leftovers inside to the kitchen, the sun had set fully and the moonless sky above had sufficiently darkened for the Whitestone family festivities to begin at last. Off in the distance they could hear the booming of the fireworks downtown as they streaked deep into the night to the accompaniment of the Cleveland Orchestra.

With an air of ceremony that made both Sara and Dana giggle, James switched off the back porch light and lit a sparkler from a box of ten with a cheap plastic lighter before solemnly handing it over to his daughter. Taking his wife’s hand in his own, they watched Dana gleefully run through the yard waving it around in figure-eight patterns. Little sparks of fire jumped off the stick in all directions, illuminating both a small circle of the night and the unadulterated joy on their only child’s smiling face.

‘I’m a fairy princess!’ Dana squealed with delight. ‘I’m a fairy princess and this here’s my magic wand!’

Sara smiled and slipped an arm around her husband’s waist, gently rubbing the small of his back. ‘You know what?’ she said softly. ‘This is as good as it gets. I really think it’s moments like this we’ve worked so hard for all these years.’

A single tear formed silently in the corner of her right eye, wavered there a moment as though unsure what to do next, then slowly spilled out onto her smooth cheek.

‘You know what?’ James answered, pulling his wife closer and gently kissing the tear away. ‘I think you’re absolutely right.’

Sara Whitestone’s slender shoulders started to shake as she began to cry harder, once again asking herself how she could continue keeping such a huge secret from this man who so obviously loved her more than he loved life itself.

But James Whitestone just held his wife tighter and kissed her again.

Even softer this time.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Blanton Inn – Los Angeles – 7:12 a.m
.

On the morning following Mary Ellen Orton’s vicious murder, Nathan Stiedowe bought a copy of the
Los Angeles Times
in the motel lobby and brought it back up to his room before searching for the account of his previous night’s escapades.

He scanned the front page quickly. The lead story was about Obama’s timetable for pulling US troops out of Afghanistan. The right-hand two columns were devoted to an article about H1N1 vaccinations, a story that jumped to A3. The centrepiece feature, complete with a four-column colour photograph above the fold, showcased an area depicting Brownie troops’ efforts to collect canned goods for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. A story about the rising cost of school lunches was stripped across the bottom of the page.

Nothing about him.
Fucking idiots wouldn’t know a good story if it bit their goddamn noses off
.

He didn’t make the front of the local section, either. Finally, he found the story buried on the bottom of page B5, cleverly positioned right next to an ad for a funeral home.
Hardy-har-har. Copy editors and their hilarious fucking jokes
.

The short account was accompanied by a minuscule twenty-point headline. Light-faced, of course.

WOMAN MURDERED OVERNIGHT IN SOUTH CENTRAL

Nathan quickly read through the reporter’s woefully amateurish work. Probably a cub still wet behind the ears considering the overnight crime-beat shift he’d pulled. After a moment, he thought he understood the reason why. The idiot hadn’t even gotten the victim’s name right, calling her ‘Mary
Ann
Orton’ instead of ‘Mary Ellen’.

Nathan clenched his teeth. When he’d been a crime reporter this shit wouldn’t have flown. Not by a long shot. The managing editor would have kicked his ass up and down the newsroom while the other reporters busted a gut laughing at him with the
Schadenfreude
so inextricably linked with those engaged in the journalism profession. Nobody ever wanted to get called out on sloppy work, and if somebody else was in trouble it only meant their own jobs were safe enough for the time being in an industry that was rapidly dying with each passing day. But come on. With the Internet and today’s 24/7 news cycle on cable television, the
least
you could do in print was get the victim’s goddamn
name
right.

He balled the paper up and hurled it across the room in disgust before taking a deep breath and forcing himself to calm down.
Fuck it
. The important part was that he’d meticulously recreated Richard Ramirez’s unforgettable crime, and now the time had come to take his bloody red pen to the second infamous serial killer on his hit list.

He thought he remembered reading somewhere before that Dennis Rader – the infamous BTK who’d gotten his nickname by binding and torturing his victims before finally killing them in and around Wichita, Kansas – had always enjoyed steak and eggs for his morning repast. Sadly, Nathan was a vegetarian, so that simply wasn’t going to work. After all, there were certain principles even
he
refused to compromise.