CHAPTER 29

 

The killer was really stoked. This was the one kill he had been looking forward to for a very long time.

The Bitch.

He recalled that evening at the restaurant as if it were only yesterday. There he was, sitting at a table with his wife enjoying a glass of Chardonnay, looking over the menu. They were at a four-star restaurant celebrating her new position and substantial salary increase at the firm. He was so proud of her. Her new gig would mean more money, which in turn would mean less headaches trying to make ends meet in a shaky economy.

Business at the lock shop had all but petered out by then and he spent most of his time anymore wondering where his next dollar would come from. It was depressing.

He’d never been particularly crazy about UrbanGroup. Marcy’s boss was an arrogant bastard who acted like his shit didn’t stink. He recalled the first time he’d met Travis McPherson and the way that everyone—the female employees in particular—seemed to worship the very ground he stood on. Although Marcy didn’t give that big a shit about her boss, he could tell that she seemed willing to do about anything the creep asked her to do—short of screwing him—and that really bothered him.

In fact it had made him paranoid. He didn’t like to think that anybody could have that much control over somebody else. Especially when that somebody was his wife.

Marcy had heard through the office grapevine that McPherson was screwing his personal secretary, Becky Landry. No surprise there, he’d told her. As far as he could tell, McPherson fit the mold of a corporate big shot who thrived on keeping tan and buff and exploiting his underlings at will.

Marcy also told him about the love affair McPherson had with his daughter. Apparently he was forever bringing the girl into the office and showing her off to the staff. He doted on his daughter constantly and spoiled her rotten, according to Marcy.

He personally had no problem with this, nor did Marcy. In fact he was envious of the guy. He and Marcy had tried to have a child together for years but had never had any luck. Had they ever been successful, he would no doubt have spoiled their child rotten, too.

He had just proposed a toast when Marcy spotted a couple of fellow employees entering the dining room. She motioned for the women to come over to their table so she could introduce him to them. One of the women had in fact been the infamous Becky Landry—the very same woman Travis McPherson was shacking up with.

“Hi girls,” Marcy had greeted. “I don’t think you’ve met my husband. Rob, this is Dottie Carling and Becky Landry.”

The older woman, the bitch, hesitated a moment, staring at him as if to size him up.

“A pleasure to meet you, Rob,” Dottie Carling finally said, her smile a transparent joke.

“Nice to meet you,” the gorgeous Becky Landry added.

He had said hi to them, hoping that the women would move on to their table. The restaurant’s greeter was standing by patiently.

“We’re celebrating the new branch,” Marcy told her coworkers.

Dottie Carling replied, “You must be absolutely thrilled, Marcy, to land that managing position. Good for you!”

Her delivery somehow sounded patronizing. Who was this bitch, anyway?

Marcy didn’t catch the cynicism. Or if she had, she didn’t show it.

“Thanks, Dottie. I’m really looking forward to it.”

“And what do you do, uh—Rob?”

“I own a lock shop,” he’d replied.

“Oh, I see. That must be rough, being self-employed with the economy the way it is now and all.”

“It’s challenging,” he admitted.

“Lucky for you that Marcy is doing so well. And that she can include you in the company’s health insurance. Who says marriage doesn’t have its perks?”

Marcy had actually turned red. So had he. He’d felt the sudden urge to paste the bitch, but kept his cool instead.

“Well, we won’t keep you any longer. Nice seeing you, Marcy. Nice meeting you, Rob.”

And away they went.

“Dottie is a good investment broker but a little short on tact,” Marcy said in a lame attempt to defend her obnoxious coworker.

“She’s a bitch.”

“Oh, Rob. She’s really not that bad. You just have to get to know her.”

“No I don’t, thank God.”

And that was the end of that.

For the time being.

But now it was time to get even.

He stood in the darkness, staring down at Dottie Carling’s sumptuous home.

“Paybacks are a bitch,” he hissed. “Bitch.”

The bottom had fallen out of his life early the following year. Marcy had only been managing the new branch a few months when the announcement was made that there would be a sizable layoff in the company effective in two weeks. UrbanGroup said that although they truly regretted the action, it was necessary in order to keep the company afloat in these tough economic times.

Marcy was among those to be laid off.

He had been shell-shocked by the news. What were they to do now?

Equally shocking were the choices of who was laid off and who was allowed to remain. Especially in the case of Becky Landry, who hadn’t even been at the firm a year.

Yet she was allowed to stay.

Duh, wonder why?

This had only added fuel to an already raging fire burning in his head. He was so pissed at the layoff that he could barely contain himself. He wanted to do something about it but was powerless. Marcy had managed to calm him down somewhat, at least for the time being. We’ll get by, she had promised. He wasn’t so sure about that. Bills were piling up and they were forced to dig into their savings to cover the mortgage payments. Even worse, neither of them had health insurance any more.

This has proven to have dire consequences.

Marcy had already been told by her cardiologist that she had chronic a-fib, a heart condition that was treatable but needed to be closely monitored. After the layoff, she had quit seeing the doctor altogether since neither of them had any insurance coverage. The woman was as stubborn as a bull. One day she had complained of heart palpitations and he’d tried to talk her into letting him take her to the emergency room but she refused. She insisted that she was fine and that it would pass just as it always had before. Besides that, they couldn’t afford it.

Less than two months later she had died of a massive stroke.

He immediately blamed UrbanGroup for his wife’s death. Had she never been laid off, she would have been insured and continued having her heart condition monitored and treated. His contempt for UrbanGroup festered incrementally the longer he thought about it. He personally blamed Travis McPherson, the arrogant bastard, for letting his wife go. And keeping his mistress aboard was like rubbing salt in the wound.

He wanted revenge.

He devised the plan to kill McPherson’s beloved daughter after a night of heavy binge drinking and feeling sorry for himself. He wanted to punish McPherson where it really hurt and taking away his daughter would be just the ticket.

After he had carried out his plan to murder McPherson’s child, he formulated what he referred to as his “(S)hit List.” This list was comprised of everybody he felt had been either directly or indirectly responsible for his wife’s layoff and subsequent death (not to mention his own coup de grâce.) Each member of the list was assigned a barcode in memory of the hard-working folks who had been reduced to expendable fluff in UrbanGroup’s hierarchical rationale, becoming nothing more than numerical references. Generating and printing out the barcodes using the software he’d purchased online had been an unbelievably cathartic experience in and of itself.

At the top of the list was Becky “the slut” Landry. The woman certainly didn’t deserve to remain on UrbanGroup’s payroll while his wife had been forced to stand in an unemployment line.

But by the time he’d designed a plan for eliminating Ms. Landry, she had quit UrbanGroup and disappeared before he was able to carry it out. He had just begun tracking her down when the shit really hit the fan.

He’d been an avid bicycler since his discharge from the army. He liked keeping in shape and enjoyed the feeling of freedom and solitude that came with cycling. One day he’d been riding on High Street and suddenly hit a patch of loose gravel. He had wiped out and then been struck by a passing motorist before he could get out of the way.

The accident had totally shattered his kneecap. He’d been rushed to the hospital and admitted, despite the fact that he had no health insurance. The injury was major and he’d had to endure several surgeries and months of physical therapy before he could finally walk again.

The tab for all of this had wiped out his life savings and put him in debt for the rest of his life. Between the surgeries and physical therapy sessions, the injury had also robbed him of six months of his life.

After all was said and done, he had found himself virtually homeless, broke and in debt up to his eyeballs. He had been forced to quit his business, sell the house and move into a cheap, disgusting apartment on Chittenden near the OSU campus. His only source of income was an unemployment check that barely kept his rent paid and food in his stomach.

His luck had finally changed for the better. His mother had passed away earlier that year and he was at last able to collect the inheritance, which had been substantial. This windfall had basically enabled him to rebuild his life somewhat and get his finances under control.

Suddenly there was nothing standing in his way.

It had taken him longer than expected to find out where Becky Landry had run off to. As it turned out, during the time he’d been out of commission she had been busy moving in with her new boyfriend in Philadelphia, getting knocked up and subsequently married.

He then had second doubts about his original plan to kill Landry. He ultimately decided that simply murdering her was too easy and in fact insufficient punishment. Killing her new husband instead had been much more effective and made a lot more sense.

He had enjoyed every moment of it.

He had wanted the cops to find his signature left at the crime scene. It had been his way of showing the world how one day you could be happy and top of your game and the next day lose it all in a split second by some horrible unknown entity. Becky Landry now had a pretty good idea of what he felt like after he had lost his beloved wife to this entity. Like Marcy, she had been targeted to make a sudden lifestyle change.

Becky Landry/Wielding was expendable after all.

His only regret was the lack of press regarding his worldly message. He was certain that the investigators had found the little gift he had left behind in the bushes but it had remained suppressed evidence so far. The only reason he could think of for the police not to release the discovery of the barcoded shell casing with was to avoid panic. They didn’t want the public to think there might be some crazy serial killer on the prowl if they didn’t have to.

Blowing up UrbanGroup’s CEO’s house should have changed all of that, but it hadn’t. He had thought surely somebody in law enforcement would have made the connection between the two crimes. But no dice.

He had clearly overestimated the ability of the police to put two plus two together.

Tonight all of that would change—he was certain of it. After he was through dealing with The Bitch, he would make sure they “get it” by sticking several dozen barcodes all over the bitch’s dead body and see how that floats. If that didn’t make them scratch their heads and think, gee it looks like we just may have ourselves a serial killer here, nothing would.

It wasn’t like he wanted to get caught or anything like that—hell no. All he wanted was a little recognition for sharing a message that he felt was very important. Surely that wasn’t asking too much.

He suddenly saw headlights approaching. This would most likely be The Bitch’s date arriving to pick her up. He looked at his watch. Right on time. After they left for their dinner engagement he would be making preparations for their return.

He could hardly wait.