Chapter Seventeen
Henry was really beginning to love social media. What a great way to stalk someone you want to kill, he thought. Of course, that was only if they announce every little thing they do, like this Gail Hawes was doing.
Last night when he went to Susan’s rented town house he snuck a look at her address book and got Hawes’s address while Susan was off in the kitchen pouring them both snifters of cognac. She didn’t invite him over just to snift cognac, but to see if he was feeling up to doing the dirty deed, as she liked to call it. It turned out to be a lot more difficult the second time to stay strong and resist the temptation she was offering, and he came within a heartbeat of giving in, but he meant the vows he made to Sheila. As much as his wife might like to claim otherwise, he did truly love her. Besides, what good is a man if he can’t live up to his promises? So after their snifts of cognac (which to Henry tasted no better than lighter fluid) and a few smooches on the sofa while Susan maneuvered his hand so that he copped a feel of one of her plumlike breasts, Henry told her that he didn’t think his heart was strong enough for them to continue down the path they were on, but given a few days to recuperate he was sure he’d be up to it. And so he left with Susan frustrated and unsatisfied, but alive, and himself with Gail Hawes’s address.
After he cleaned, dressed, fed, and put his wife to bed for the night, he investigated Hawes because he decided he wanted her to be his next victim. Even though he’d only met her for a minute, she had rubbed him the wrong way, and it just seemed to make more sense to choose as his victims people who rubbed him the wrong way. As he thought about how that made a world of sense, he was hit by inspiration of how he’d be able to get her alone. His plan was still hatching in his mind and not yet fully formed, but one thing he knew for sure was that, for it to work, he’d have to be able to watch for when she left her apartment building. With that in mind, he performed some virtual spying by entering her West Hollywood address into Google Earth, and the satellite photo that popped up and all the subsequent “street view” photos showed that she lived in an attractive apartment building with extensive landscaping on a street filled with similarly attractive apartment buildings, all with extensive landscaping. Nice location, he had to give her that, but he couldn’t see any good hiding spots to watch her building from, at least not without him sticking out like a sore thumb.
That was unfortunate. He hated the idea of scrapping his plan, because at this point it had become fully hatched, and it was a darn nice plan. But, as he often told himself, there’s more than one way to crack an egg, so he next tried researching spy cameras with the idea of planting a camera so he could watch her building’s entrance from several miles away. Twenty minutes of reading the instructions and trying to make sense of how to use one left his head spinning, and he accepted that figuring out these spy cameras was beyond him.
Henry wasn’t about to quit that easily, and after some more pondering, came up with a new plan. He could dress up as a maintenance person, find a way to gain access to Hawes’s building, and knock on her door late at night, but he quickly saw a number of ways that could blow up in his face. What if she recognized him before he was able to shut her up? She looked like a screamer to him. Someone with a healthy pair of lungs who’d be able to make sure everyone in the building heard her. But heck, even if he could shut her up fast enough, he didn’t even know whether or not she lived alone. That would be all he needed—to shove a sock into her big mouth and knock her to the floor only to have a boyfriend or husband or roommate walk in on them.
First step had to be finding out whether Hawes was living with someone, and for that he searched for her on Facebook. Not only did he find her, but she made everything she posted public. And she posted about everything! At first, as Henry looked at her posts documenting every mundane aspect of her life, he felt a tinge of panic over whether she’d secretly taken a picture of him the other day and put that on Facebook also, but Hawes running into him and Susan seemed to be the only thing she’d done in the last few days that she’d kept to herself. As Henry read all the tidbits of her life that she made public, he learned her relationship status was “it’s complicated,” whatever that meant, and that she presently lived with her three best buddies—Persian cats named Hermione, Ginny, and Professor Snape. He also learned about the waitress with an attitude that she had encountered at lunch yesterday, saw copious pictures of her turkey lasagna that she had ordered, and a number of other annoying details of her life, all of which made him even more glad that she was going to be his next victim. Most important, he read about her plans for today, including what time she was going to be leaving her apartment. Thanks to that, Henry scrapped his idea about masquerading as a maintenance guy and went back to his original plan that he liked so much.
Henry used his iPhone to once more check her tweets and Facebook posts to see if she had changed her plans, but no, she was still on schedule. He was parked five miles away at a strip mall parking lot sipping on a mocha latte. Timing was still going to be tricky, but he decided to give it two more minutes, and then he pulled his car back onto the street and headed toward Gail Hawes’s address.
He found a parking space two blocks from her apartment building. Earlier, he’d attached stolen license plates to his car, and later when he was done he planned to put back his Oregon plates. Henry had dressed in a suit and tie for the occasion, the first time he had done so in years. Before leaving his car, he checked once more whether Hawes had tweeted or posted anything new, saw that she hadn’t, and hustled out of his car carrying with him a briefcase that had everything he required inside of it. He moved at a fast clip, almost jogging. Thanks to Hawes’s need to tell the world where she was going to be eating lunch, he knew what direction she’d be walking, and sure enough he intercepted her less than a third of a block from her building.
“I know you, don’t I?” Henry asked, his eyes squinting as if he were trying to place her.
She turned to him with a plastic smile etched on her face, but then she recognized him and her smile melted into more of an amused one.
“You’re Susan’s new friend,” she said.
Henry smacked his forehead with his palm. “That’s right,” he said. “We ran into you just yesterday. You were pretty crafty the way you put two and two together.”
She laughed at that. “A woman’s intuition.”
Henry held out his hand. “Howard Donner,” he said.
“I remember,” she said. “Gail Hawes.”
“I remember,” Henry said with a thin smile.
Mischief sparkled in her eyes as she asked, “How was your secret rendezvous with Susan?”
“If I told you I’d have to kill you.”
She laughed at that. “A man of discretion. So what are you doing in my neck of the woods?”
“Your neck of the woods?”
“Yep. I live in that building right over there.”
She pointed to her apartment building. Henry squinted in the direction where she pointed.
“Nice place,” Henry said. “That’s one of the buildings I’ve had my eye on.”
“What do you mean?”
“I buy and manage apartment buildings. That’s why I’m here.”
Her interest in him perked up. As she appraised the suit he was wearing, which was an expensive one, and the briefcase he was carrying, also expensive, Henry could just about read her thoughts. That’s why Susan is interested in this ugly turd. He’s loaded! All at once, she started twirling her hair in a flirtatious manner. She even batted her eyes at him.
“Which building are you thinking of buying?” she asked.
“A twenty-unit one three blocks over on North Orange Grove. I got there a half hour early and thought I’d walk around the neighborhood and see what other buildings might strike my fancy.” He gave her an embarrassed smile and added, “To be honest, I was also hoping to find a restaurant or bar with a restroom. My bladder’s about to burst. Since you live right over there, any chance . . . ?”
“It could be arranged,” Hawes said as she twirled her hair into a tight twist. Then she got sly. “But there’s a price. You have to tell me all the juicy bits about your rendezvous with Susan.”
“You’ve got me over a barrel,” Henry conceded. “Deal.”
So far no cars had passed them, and they didn’t encounter any of the other apartment residents as Hawes led Henry to her apartment. Thanks to the large mocha latte he had drunk earlier, he really did need to relieve himself, and after he was done he lived up to his end of the bargain and told Hawes the full story of what had happened between him and Susan the other day. While he could see her disappointment over not hearing any particularly salacious details, he noted a calculating look in her eyes as she tried to figure out whether he was wealthy enough to bother seducing.
“How many buildings do you have in your portfolio?” she asked,
“Quite a few.” He gave her the impression that he was adding them up. “Thirteen,” he said. “With number fourteen to be added very shortly.” He showed a surprised look and pointed behind Hawes. “What the heck is that?”
Startled, she turned around to see what it was that had alarmed him, and Henry used the opportunity to bop her on the back of her head with the iron pipe that he had taken from his briefcase when he used her bathroom, and had since kept hidden in his suit jacket. He didn’t hit her hard enough to kill her or even to knock her out, but hard enough to leave her dizzy so she couldn’t shout out for help while he shoved a sock into her mouth. The blow also left her unable to put up much of a fight as he bound her wrists together behind her back with duct tape. Once that was done he took his time moving her to the right spot on the floor, and then setting up his iPhone stand so that he could record what was going to be happening. Then he used the chisel and hammer he’d brought so he could keep the promise he’d made to her about what he’d have to do if he told her about himself and Susan.