Illusion of Luck 7

“That’ll be $9.87.”

Rebecca Ranghorn flipped up the top of the box, pulled out a glazed donut, and took bite.

The young secretary behind her looked on in disbelief. She was so ready for the weekend. But first she had to get to the office and put in her lousy eight hours. Why couldn’t this woman just pay and get out of the way?

Rebecca tossed the box at the clerk. A couple of donuts flew out and fell on the floor behind the counter.

“Those are yesterday’s donuts. I told you to give me the fresh ones.”

“But, ma’am, these are the fresh—.” The look in her eyes stopped him cold. He dumped the box in the trash and picked out a fresher dozen.

“Now, that’ll be $9.87, please.”

“Keep your drawers on, Jack.” She sampled the new batch. “That’s more like it.” She threw a ten dollar bill on the counter and walked out with her donuts and large bottle of orange juice.

Her enormous black 1979 Lincoln Continental Town Car was four feet longer and twice the weight of the young secre­tary’s Toyota Corolla parked next to it. It was costing her a for­tune to drive her dad’s old car. But it made her feel close to him—even though he had been dead for eleven years. She rarely had an occasion to drive out of town—and it was not a big town. Sherman, Texas has about 36,000 residents.

She pulled into the old strip mall parking lot. Most of the stores and other businesses were barely hanging on. The place hadn’t seen decent shopping traffic since the 1980s. But it was the perfect location for Rebecca and her partner. They didn’t need shoppers. All they needed was cheap office space. Theirs was narrow, but deep, with a reception area, two offices and a bathroom.

Wendy saw her coming with the donuts and orange juice. So, she got up and unlocked the glass door and let her in. The 19 year-old worked her butt off for the ten bucks an hour they were paying her. She wished she made more, but right now she was just happy to have a steady job so she could support her baby, and help her mom with the bills.

“Have some breakfast.” Rebecca put the donuts and orange juice on Wendy’s desk, and headed for the coffee pot. “Any messages?”

“Not for you. But Mrs. Davis called for Melanie. She had an appointment this morning at 10:00, and wanted to know whether she could reschedule for 9:00. I checked Melanie’s calendar and told her that would be fine.”

“Good.” Rebecca picked up a donut, took a huge bite and gulped it down.

“But the problem is: I can’t get Melanie on the phone and it’s 8:40.”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah—because she always answers unless she’s in court.”

Rebecca took a sip from her coffee cup. “Better call Mrs. Davis back and cancel.”

“What do you think happened to Melanie?”

“Uh…maybe her phone died.”

Rebecca went to Melanie’s office. She was afraid she knew exactly what had happened to her partner. She hoped she was wrong.

She found an extra memory card in Melanie’s desk and put it in her pocket. Then she walked back into the reception area and refilled her cup. “Wendy, cancel my appointments for this morn­ing.” She was out the door before Wendy could ask her where she was going and when to expect her back.

Rebecca drove to the motel Melanie had told her about. As she walked into the office, she smelled forty years’ worth of stink, oozing from a dozen layers of tobacco-stained wall paint.

“Can I help you?”

The leather-faced old man didn’t look like he had spent even one day indoors his entire life. Maybe this was his first one, she thought. “Yes. I believe my friend is staying here and I wanted to surprise her. It’s her birthday. So, I was hoping you could tell me which room she’s in. Her name is Melanie, but she goes by a different name sometimes. She might have registered as ‘Candy.’”

“Oh, yeah. Candy.”

She was glad the man knew her partner, but also a little sickened. She didn’t want to have any friends in common with this carnie-looking greaser. “Good. So, can you tell me if she stayed here last night?”

He flipped through the register and started coughing. Then he stepped back a couple feet, pressed a finger on the side of his nose, and blew a wad of snot into the trash can. “Yeah. Room 97. But I can’t give you a key. Only got one per room.”

“That’s okay. Thanks.” She bolted out the door.

She located the room on the back side and knocked.

No answer.

The old motel had not upgraded to a key card entry system, so she was about to reach into her purse for her lock picking tool. Then she remembered what her dad had taught her: Always try the easy way first. So, she tried the doorknob and was surprised to find it unlocked.

She opened the door and saw Melanie naked on the bed. She stepped in, closed the door and rushed to her friend’s side.

“Oh, Sweetie, you told me you weren’t going to do this anymore.” It was easy to see that Melanie had been dead for hours.

She reached into her purse for the latex gloves and put them on. Then she took out her little screwdriver, turned Melanie’s purse on its back to remove the four screws, and detached the bottom section. She removed the memory card from the thin video camera that was mounted inside, and replaced it with the blank card she had taken from Melanie’s desk. She was careful not to exert too much strain on the small wire that ran from the cam­era to the lens, which was located in the center of the flower on the front of the purse.

Rebecca reassembled it, picked up the used memory card, and studied her friend’s body. So beautiful. Such a sweet girl. She shouldn’t have come here. But she didn’t deserve to die for it.

“I know—I’m tampering with the crime scene,” she said to her friend. “But I can’t stand the thought of the police seeing this video. They’d be laughing and getting their jollies watching the creep abuse you and murder you. And I’m just not gonna allow that.

“But don’t you worry about your case falling through the cracks, Honey. ‘Cause I’m all over it. He’s a dead man. I promise you—I don’t care where I have to go, I’m gonna track down the slimy snake and chop his ugly head off.

“Wait. Correction: I’m gonna chop off both of his heads. The little one first.”

She tried to imagine a smile on Melanie’s face.

**********

Larry awoke to birds chirping outside his cabin windows. He had slept like a baby after pulling off the perfect murder, followed up by a near-perfect murder.

After leaving the motel he had walked to a pay phone and called a taxi. He had told the driver to drop him off at a certain apartment complex in Denison to make it look like he lived there. Then he had walked nearly two miles to his cabin.

It had taken longer than he thought it would, because he had to hide every time a car drove by. The last thing he wanted was to hitch a ride or to later be remembered as the guy out walking the roads in a trench coat at 12:30 AM.

Surely he would have some reader feedback by now, he thought. It was 11:30 AM. He had stayed up until 2:30 writing the next chapter.

He went to his laptop and logged into his author account. Wow! He already had thirteen comments.

Very exciting—can’t wait for the next chapter.

Cool, he thought.

I stayed up late reading this chapter and IT WAS WORTH EVERY MINUTE!

Yes, it was.

Your murder scenes are so real and detailed that I nearly vomited.

Excellent, he thought. After all these years with no recog­ni­tion of his considerable talent, finally the public had come to its senses. Soon he would be laughing at those idiot agents who had rejected him.

With his first six books, he couldn’t even give them away.

Now, he was writing a masterpiece—a best-seller!

You’re my new favorite author.

That’s right—I’m the best.

Your characters and your scenes sound so real, it made me wonder… Is this fiction, or did some lunatic really kill these women?

What if somebody in Denison or Sherman were to discover his online book? His story was being inspired by his real crimes. And even though he was using the pseudonym, Barry Under­mine, for this book, he knew it could be traced back to him.

He was living a very dangerous life, especially after killing that lady lawyer. But he could not stop—he had quickly become a fame junkie. The reader raves were his heroin.

And nothing would stand between him and his next fix.