“I know you’re watching, Don Juan, so pay special attention now — once the FBI is here, you and I will no longer be able to communicate. These coming hours represent the last chance you have to talk directly to me.”
She returned the already-positioned hedge clippers, opened the blades, and lifted his scrotum and penis over the bottom blade, letting them rest there. Tensing her arm muscles, she took one last look at her lover’s face, then slammed the handles, the blades snipping off the trophy as neatly as if it were the small branch of a sapling.
When she had the trophy bagged, she wiped off the blades of her trimmers with toilet paper and flushed it.
She was tuckered.
Sitting on the lidded stool again, she lit up another Kool and let the thoughts drift in.
The LAPD bringing in the FBI, she liked that. Showing up the likes of the cops had been almost too easy. The so-called “all-star” forensics team of J.C. Harrow had presented no real challenge, either. So far, at least.
She blew smoke toward the exhaust fan.
Raising the stakes like that, they were doing her a favor — she could accelerate the scenario. She had been waiting a long, long time to achieve fame — no reason not to get on the fast track now. Head for the ol’ fast lane. She grinned, standing to drop the cigarette into the toilet.
Though the blood had mostly settled when she took her trophy, plenty of red had still got on the sheets, her tool, and herself.
Soon she was stepping under the shower’s near-scalding spray. Felt wonderful, luxurious. Soaped herself slowly, enjoying the spray on her body, getting lost in a steamy cloud.
No need to shampoo. The alopecia universalis had taken care of that. She had not found any doctor who could figure out how to regrow the hair that had fallen out back when she had turned eighteen; they all said it was an “autoimmune disorder.”
Her body hair had deserted her, just like her mother. Scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes, pussy, it was all gone, leaving her hairless as a baby — hairless-er actually, and never coming back.
What had been a crisis for a young woman had become the perfect gift from God. Being hairless was one of the reasons she could share a bed with her victims. If a crime-scene investigator found a hair, it would be her latest victim’s, or from her latest wig.
Billie smooshed at the fogged-up mirror with a towel, then admired her hairless body in the glass. She was twenty-eight but still looked eighteen, a nice slender shape, like a model’s, if bustier. She liked the way she looked without hair. She wore the fake eyelashes and thin fake eyebrows just so she would blend in with the outside world. At home, she didn’t bother.
She put on the short, coal-black wig, tugging it into perfect place. It was modeled after one she had seen Kate Bosworth wear in a movie. The actress was beautiful, but Billie Shears looked even better in it.
Dressed again, her tools and trophy packed up, she took one last lap around the room. Her ensemble included plastic booties over her shoes — she had rubbed out her bare footprints in the carpeting and used a damp towel to wipe up any footprints on the bathroom’s tile floor.
Her towel, from after the shower, hung from the rod. Knowing she wasn’t in CODIS, the cops’ DNA database, was a plus. That meant she could leave DNA behind and it would only further confound the police — and now the FBI.
What was a naked woman doing in a motel room with a naked gay man? they would wonder.
As she exited, she smiled. The cops, the FBI, J.C. Harrow himself, could ask question after question; but she would still have her secrets.
Chapter Twenty-five
When the call came in early Saturday morning, and Harrow saw AMARI in the caller ID window, he hoped it was personal.
It wasn’t.
He threw on chinos, a tan polo, and a brown sports coat, climbed in his black Equinox, and drove quickly to the address in West Covina, a nondescript non-chain motel, two stories with a courtyard parking area.
Anna was waiting just outside the lobby. She was in dark slacks and a gray silk blouse, big black purse on a strap over her shoulder, her stylish dark hair nicely tousled by the balmy breeze of this overcast morning. He wished he could check in at this motel with her and spend a pleasant day getting to know each other in the Biblical sense. That wasn’t going to happen.
“Billie Shears is pissed at you,” she said, meeting him as he climbed out of the Chevy.
“Is she now?”
“Oh yeah. Appears you spent too much time on Don Juan last night.”
He fell in alongside her as she headed inside a turquoise-and-gold lobby where it was still 1977.
“She left a note for you at the front desk,” she said, “and a body in a room upstairs.” “Lucky me.”
“Oh, there’s more. Somebody’s stopped by who wants to meet you.”
He closed his eyes. “FBI?” “Lucky you is right. He’s waiting upstairs.” Evidence techs behind the front desk were gathering security video. The desk clerk, a young black woman in a light blue blazer, was trying to hold her emotions in check.
As they ascended an open stairway around which the airy lobby was designed, Anna handed Harrow a plastic bag inside of which he could see the note.
JC,
I said I would take your tackle — but now you have to wait your turn.
I will line my trophy case with prize after prize till you can’t ignore me anymore.
Next week you make ME the star of CRIME SEED and maybe I will take a week off. But if you even MENTION Dong Wadd I will step up the fun! Maybe one a day — how would you like that?
It’s what you get for ignoring me last night for that hack Dud Wand — get it? Hack! Ha! ha!
You will just have to wait your turn. But I’m coming and when I take yours, it will be nice and slow. Yumm.
Maybe I could shear you right on your show? Best ratings ever!
BS
“I wish this were B.S.,” Harrow said. “But I don’t think he... she... is kidding.”
“Sick shit,” Anna said.
He handed her back the baggie. “No argument.”
They stopped at the top.
She tucked the note in her purse. “What do you make of this rivalry?”
“Dueling serial killers? Vying for attention on my show? What more could any TV star hope for?”
“Blaming yourself doesn’t get us anywhere. But I bet that network stooge will love it.”
“Dennis? I don’t think so. He’ll love the ratings, but he’ll hate the legal exposure.”
Polk was coming down the hall to meet them. He removed his fedora, ran a hand over his forehead. He looked vaguely ill.
Harrow said, “That bad?”
“Castrated murder victim,” Polk said, “first thing Saturday morning? Not my favorite.”
“Not a great way to start a day,” Harrow admitted. “Any ID on the victim?”
“No wallet or anything.”
Anna was in the lead, Polk and Harrow falling in side by side.
Polk said, “Name on the register is Eric Stanton, but the victim’s name is Kyle Gerut.”
Harrow asked, “How’d we get that?”
“FBI guy has a cool new toy that lets him take a vic’s fingerprints and send them to the National Fingerprint Center. Half an hour later, the guy is made.”
“So Gerut had a record?”
“Yeah — gay dude, got busted during some GLAAD rally a few years back.”
“So is Eric Stanton a phony name just for check-in? Or is he the murderer?”
“The FBI doesn’t seem to have a gizmo that can tell us that.”
They had made it to the uniformed officer at the door. Anna went in first, Harrow following, Polk lingering in the hall.