Chapter 26
Griffin watched from the shadows as she left the building. He guessed that the woman was in her early forties. While the parking lot was mostly dark, the light from the building’s vestibule had reflected off her face and had shown a haggardness, which made sense. It was after eleven, and she’d probably spent the last six hours cleaning offices and bathrooms, and no doubt wanted nothing more than to go home and go to bed. Even with how fatigued her face looked, Griffin still found her attractive. Not gorgeous, but certainly attractive. Small-chested, maybe, but with her dark hair and slim, compact body, she brought to mind an older, wearier version of the actress Mila Kunis. He waited until she was opening her car door (the only car in the parking lot) before sneaking up behind her and simultaneously putting her in a choke hold while pushing the point of a very sharp knife against her back. Up close, she smelled heavily of perspiration and disinfectant. She attempted to cry out, but he tightened his hold against her throat, choking her off.
“If you’re a good girl, you’re not going to get hurt tonight,” he said, his voice slightly muffled by the Frankenstein-monster mask he had on. “As long as you behave yourself. Otherwise, I’ll be doing terrible things to you. Do you understand me?”
She nodded. No crying or sobbing. Griffin was impressed, although she could’ve just been too terrified and exhausted to break out sobbing.
“I’m going to let go of you now. Don’t even think about running away. You won’t get far. Instead, you’re going to do what I tell you to do so that later tonight you’ll be going home as if nothing happened. Right?”
Again, she gave a terse nod. Griffin sensed a resignation take over in the way her body went slack. He let go of his choke hold and led her back to the office building. She fumbled for a moment with her keys before she was able to unlock the vestibule door. They then took the fire stairs and walked silently together to the fourth floor, with Griffin making sure to stay right alongside her as if they were attached at the hip. While she never looked directly at his face, she sensed that he was wearing a mask, and she must’ve taken that as a good sign. If someone was wearing a mask, that meant they didn’t want you identifying them later, which further meant they were intending to let you live. Whether or not he wore a mask, he knew this woman (or whoever was cleaning this office building) would never have a chance to identify him, but having her think that was his intention would make her more pliable, and that was one of the reasons he wore a mask. But not his only reason.
When they got to the fourth floor, he had her give him her security key card for the office suite for Morris Brick Investigations, and the code for the keypad.
“If the security code you gave me is an emergency alarm for the police, you’ll be dead before they get here.”
“It’s not,” she said in a defeated tone. “It’s what I use every night.”
The card and the code unlocked the door for the office suite. Griffin had her lead the way into the suite. He next had her sit down in a chair while he took her pocketbook from her. A quick search and he found her driver’s license.
“Elena Kotovksy,” he said, reading her name from her license. “I now know where you live. You’re not going to tell the police about this, right?”
She nodded as she bit down on her lip to keep from crying. Griffin said this only so that she’d continue to be compliant. Her life was over, but it wasn’t a good time yet for her to understand that.
He had brought along his backpack and he dug inside of it for a bottle of orange soda that he had taken from Sheila’s refrigerator. Earlier, he had crushed three of Sheila’s Valiums into the bottle.
“Drink this,” he told Elena as he held the bottle to her. “It will put you to sleep, and when you wake up I’ll be gone and all of this will be over.”
She made a face as if she were fighting hard to keep from crying, but she accepted the orange soda and drank it. Griffin then told her to get on the floor and lie on her stomach.
“But you had me drink that—”
“Didn’t I tell you not to argue with me?”
She did as Griffin ordered, and he used the duct tape he’d brought to bind her wrists together behind her back. Next he bound her ankles. After that he rolled her onto her back. The Valium was beginning to take effect, and she put up no resistance as he gagged her with a rag that he’d brought and wrapped her mouth shut with duct tape.
He took her keys from her and began searching the office suite. While it would’ve been faster to break down each door, he was methodical about it instead, finding the right keys to unlock each door so he wouldn’t leave any sign that he’d been there. Another reason for the mask was in case they had hidden surveillance cameras. If they did—well, that would be unfortunate, but Sheila’s plan should still work, or at least a version of it.
Sheila Proops, bless her soul, had been right all along, even if he hadn’t realized it until she spelled it out for him. The subconscious mind was a funny thing. He didn’t search her out to kill her as he had convinced himself. It wasn’t even because he was looking for a kindred spirit. What he really wanted was a mentor, and somehow he knew that she would be it. He had to admit her plan was a thing of beauty. It would bring him the notoriety that he secretly longed for even if he hadn’t been aware of it until that day, and so they made an arrangement. He’d act as her caregiver; cooking her meals, cleaning and dressing her, doing any other errands she needed, and in exchange she’d continue to mentor him and give him the money that he needed. He had been right about her having a large stash of money hidden in her home, but she told him that he could take whatever he needed; that she had plenty more in the bank. There was one other thing he needed to do for her, and that was record his killings so that he could show them to her later. Not that this would be a hardship in any way. He rather liked the idea of it: Sharing this aspect of himself with Sheila.
He had to admit that he had begun finding Sheila increasingly attractive. Not physically. God no, although he could imagine that she was once beautiful, as she claimed. But it was her mind that he found so alluring. The two of them were just so spiritually aligned. After they had made their arrangement, they next brainstormed together to come up with a sufficiently cruel and devious method for him to use when he murdered his victims, so that the media would latch onto these killings and create a legend that would exist forever in Los Angeles lore.
When he bought the Frankenstein-monster mask at a Hollywood costume store, he didn’t choose it randomly. Given what he’d later be doing, he expected the media to be calling him the Frankenstein Killer. Yeah, he had read Mary Shelley’s novel and knew the scientist was the one named Frankenstein and not his monster, but if he was caught on video wearing this mask it would solidify the nickname that he wanted. Not that he wanted to be caught on video, but just in case he was.
The fourth office he broke into was Morris Brick’s, and he found what he was looking for there. Most of the case files were for corporate accounts and wouldn’t be any good for the plan Sheila had devised, but there were seven files that would work just fine. Griffin made photocopies of these files and returned the originals to Morris Brick’s office. Before he left the office, a framed photo of a very attractive woman and a young girl who had to be her equally very attractive daughter caught his eye. They must’ve been Brick’s wife and daughter. Before this was over he’d be including at least one of them in his plans.
Griffin went through the office suite, double-checking that he had left no clue behind that he’d been in there. Satisfied, he returned to Elena Kotovsky. She wasn’t asleep yet, but she was out of it, her eyes unfocused. Griffin might only weigh a hundred and sixty-five pounds and appear as lean as a Calvin Klein underwear model, but he had always been athletic and was a lot stronger than he looked. Still, as he hefted Kotovsky onto his shoulder, he was glad she only weighed no more than a hundred and ten pounds, especially thinking about how he was going to be carrying her down four flights of stairs.
He was huffing somewhat by the time he got her out of the building and into the trunk of her car. He had parked his own car several miles away in a darkened alley. A few blocks from the alley was a public garage where he planned to dump her car after he moved her to the trunk of his used Honda. That was why he’d needed to get those Valiums into her. He was going to be leaving her alone in his car trunk for no more than twenty minutes, but he didn’t want her awake and trying to make noise while he was gone. As far as her car went, it would probably take a week or longer before someone in the garage realized it had been abandoned there, which should be more than enough time, given his plans.
Or more precisely, Sheila’s plans.