James Conway - In Cold Blonde

Alice dressed to kill, in red, of course. She watched his eyes as she walked into the office. They flicked from her blonde hair, to her face, to her tits, to her legs, to her Manolo Blahnik’s then back to her tits. She had him.

He indicated for her to sit on the couch, asked if her husband would be joining them. She said, no, the son of a bitch had fled the country. She was scared, confused and now alone. Would he help her?

Stone sat across from her, took her hands in his and said, “Absolutely, you can count on me.”

She spun a sad story, a modified version of the ponzi scam Bernie Madoff used to rip off billions. In Alice’s version she was the innocent victim of an evil husband who bilked millions and left her holding the bag.

She touched his arm, as she told her story, then a leg, for emphasis. Finally she started crying which prompted an embrace from Stone. She hugged him tightly, making sure he got a chest load of her tits and a nose full of her Chanel.

“For the first time in a long time,” she said as they separated, “I feel that someone finally cares about me.” She looked deeply, gratefully into his eyes then suddenly leaned forward and kissed him. It was practically platonic. Closed mouth, tender, sweet, but promising oh so much more. “I’m sorry,” she said pulling back. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Stone’s face was flushed, and she was sure blood rushed to another part of his body as well. “It’s all right,” he said. “I understand. These are stressful times for you. Look, there’s a wonderful restaurant just down the street, Gerard’s. You know it?”

She did. When she researched Zachary Stone, the L.A. Times interview was actually conducted from what the interviewer described as Stone’s favorite restaurant, Gerard’s. The food was great, Stone said, but what he liked most was it was walking distance from his office. She was hoping he’d ask her to dinner there. “Yes,” she said. “They make a wicked martini.”

“I’d love to buy you that martini, and dinner. We can talk some more about the case. Get to know each other a little better,” he said, serving up a sexual innuendo.

Her eyes met his, message received. “That would be wonderful.”

“I need some time to finish up here. Can you meet me there in say, an hour?”

She gave him her most promising smile. “See you then.”

Walking distance. Gerard’s was just a quarter of a mile from Stone’s office. You simply walk down West Balboa Boulevard, turn right on 41 stthen cut through the alley which brings you to River Avenue and the restaurant.

And that’s where Alice was waiting, hidden in the alley. When she saw Stone cross 41 st, she crouched behind a dumpster, the Colt .25 in her right hand. Her ears did the work now. Just like her dad taught her when they went deer hunting. You’ll hear them first, in the brush. A few steps, nibble, a few more steps.

At first she just heard the muted sounds of the city: the hum of traffic, the beeping of a truck backing up somewhere, a far off siren. Then she heard his footsteps. The crisp click of an expensive leather heel, then the click of another. The footfalls grew louder, the gait even, confident.

Then Stone passed the dumpster. Alice stepped out, said, “Zachary.”

He stopped, turned, surprised to see her. “Hi.”

She raised the Colt and shot him in the face.

POP.

The bullet went through his forehead, plowed through his frontal lobe, tumbled a bit taking out the septum pellucidum, thalmus and hypothalamus before coming to rest in the middle of his spinal cord. Catastrophic injuries and death was instantaneous. He hit the ground as a corpse.

Alice stood there, waiting to see if she’d feel any regret, any remorse. She’d killed before: birds, deer, an elk on a Colorado vacation when she was twelve. But this was her first human being.

Nope, she felt fine. Better than fine, actually, she felt great. Endorphins were released and did a waltz with the adrenaline coursing through her veins. It felt better than sex.

She slipped on a pair of surgical gloves, searched the alley for the spent cartridge, found it and slipped it in her pocket. Next she bent over the body, and slipped the wallet out of his Armani jacket. It was filled with hundreds, eleven of them, plus three twenties, a five and two ones. Good, she thought. She took eight of the hundreds; she needed some working capital, but left enough cash in the wallet so cops wouldn’t think it was a robbery. He had all the major credit cards and her eyes settled on his Platinum American Express card. She slipped it out, not to use it, but as a souvenir, something to remember him by. Then she plucked a one dollar bill out of the wallet, and stuffed it into his right hand.

These murders were going to be Alice’s legacy. And she wanted the story to be a colorful one. So she planned to leave a few subtle clues along the way to be deciphered later, clever nuggets that in hindsight would let everyone know how carefully she planned her revenge.

But she had to be careful. Because Alice wasn’t afraid of getting caught, she was afraid of getting caught too soon. She needed time to kill all four.

Back in her apartment, Alice stared at the picture of Zachary Stone, at the circle and slash across his face. Then at Colin Wood’s photo also marred with the red circle and slash.

Two down and two to go.

Her eyes drifted to the next picture, an old high school yearbook picture of a handsome blonde man in a Speedo. He had a lean, muscled body and an easy smile. Adam Devlin.

She had a wild crush on him in high school. Everyone knew because she’d stare at him like a lovesick puppy whenever she saw him. Adam was just nice enough to her to give her hope. Just nice enough to trick her into going over to Colin’s house that night eleven years ago. That horrible night that changed everything.

Alice had no trouble locating Adam. He was all over the Internet; pictures of him at the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals and Wimbledon. There was even a picture of Adam in front of his office building in Santa Monica.

That’s where she planned to meet him. That’s where she planned to kill him.

“Oh, I absolutely recognize him now,” Syd said, staring down at Colin Wood’s body. Ryan and Liz stood next to her in the morgue examination room. “He did this great guest shot on Grey’s Anatomy. Gave head to Ellen Pompeo in a Starbuck’s bathroom.”

“Did he take his shirt off in the episode?” Liz asked.

“Actually, yes.”

“Did he have this 2 carved into it?”

“Not so much.”

“Then let’s stay focused, shall we?”

“I’ve got Higgins searching VICAP for any recent victims with numbers carved on their corpses,” Ryan said. “I know we’ve got no open LAPD files that match. You determine the cause of death?”

“There are two gunshot entrance wounds beneath the scrotum, the bullets ripped through just about every internal organ; one was imbedded in his spinal cord, the other in his heart. Death was probably instantaneous. The slugs were small, looked like .25’s. I sent them to Forensics.”

Ryan and Syd exchanged a confused look, tried to picture the murder. Ryan asked, “Did you find any evidence of fabric in the wounds?”

Liz smiled, the game was on. “No. The gun was pressed against bare skin.”

“Bare skin,” Syd said, the possibilities swirling in her brain. Something stuck. She asked, “Did you autopsy the penis?”

“Yes,” Liz said, thinking, she’s got it.

Realization dawned on Ryan. “Did you find any seminal fluid?”

“The vans deferens was swimming in it.” Liz said, thinking, they made a pretty good