Scott Wittenburg - The May Day Murders

She let out a bloodcurdling screech as Stanley Jenkins pulled the lamp cord taut, causing it to cut into the soft flesh of her neck. Cindy started choking and gasping for breath as he pulled tighter and tighter until she became totally motionless. He let go and watched as her body slumped down to the floor.

Stanley stood up and checked the time-it was almost 9:00. He ran over and quickly removed the camera from the tripod and carried it back over to where Cindy’s body lay. Switching off the self-timer, he aimed and took a quick shot of her. Then he laid the camera aside and stood over Cindy for a moment, staring at her as an interior decorator would while assessing a room’s decor for the first time. Then he began rearranging her body position meticulously until it finally suited him. After retrieving the camera, he experimented with a few angles before snapping three or four shots of Cindy laying flat on her back, her legs spread eagle.

After putting on his sweat pants and coat, Stanley broke down the tripod and placed it into the nylon bag along with the camera and the lamp cord. He scoured the room for any evidence of his ever being there then carried Cindy’s glass into the kitchen and placed it in the sink. He didn’t disturb the bottle of scotch or anything else there, knowing full well that Cindy wouldn’t have bothered with any of it until the next morning.

Just as he was about to return to the den, the phone rang and he felt his heart skip a beat. Stanley stood frozen in his tracks and listened as it rang a total of five times, then ceased. The mayor, he thought to himself with a grin. Most likely checking to see if Cindy had left yet to make their secret rendezvous.

Stanley hastily returned to the den and began putting Cindy’s clothing back on her body. This undertaking proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated and nearly ten minutes passed before he had everything back in place. He picked up Cindy’s body and cradled it in his arms as he made his way out of the den.

When he reached the door leading to the garage, he stopped long enough to catch his breath then opened the door and carried Cindy’s limp body over to where the Mercedes was parked. Stanley swore under his breath when he realized that the passenger door was locked, so he carried her around to the driver’s side and managed to open the door far enough to heave her increasingly cumbersome body onto the seat. With a huff, Stanley turned and went back inside to the kitchen where he found Cindy’s purse and car keys laying on the counter. Returning to the garage, he unlocked the passenger door and opened it, then transferred Cindy’s body over from the driver’s side. He pulled her lower body down as far as he could toward the floorboard until she was out of view from the outside. Sweating profusely from the exertion, Stanley went back inside, made a final look over of the den, turned off the lamp beside the sofa, grabbed up the nylon bag and returned to the garage.

He got into the Mercedes, inserted the key and fired up the engine. Stanley stared at the tachometer. The idle speed, even with the choke engaged, was only about 800 rpm. That certainly won’t do, he thought. After fishing a screwdriver out of the nylon bag, Stanley pulled the hood release button and got out of the car. After raising the hood and locating the idle adjustment screw, he turned it clockwise until the engine was purring along at cruising speed. He then closed the hood and returned to the driver’s seat. He estimated that the rpms would be somewhere around three grand once the car was all warmed up. That should do it.

He depressed the button on the remote garage door opener and waited until the door was fully open before shifting into reverse. The car lurched back with a reverberating squeal and he contemplated lowering the idle a bit but thought against it. Better safe than sorry, he thought; and who gave a tinker’s dam if he had just all but trashed the transmission? It wouldn’t make any difference in a few minutes, anyway.

Halfway down the lengthy driveway, Stanley pressed the garage door button again, just as Cindy would have done. A moment later he pulled away from the house, hoping no one heard the squeal of the patch he’d just laid at the foot of her driveway.

Stanley had learned through his extensive internet research that Portnoy was a small but sprawling Colorado suburb inhabited mostly by affluent residents who conducted most of their business in nearby Denver. The chateau that the mayor used for his liaisons with Cindy was less than a two-mile drive from her home. To get there, she would have merely driven down her street to Ridgemont Road, taken a left hand turn, then descended the steep, winding two lane road until it intersected with Pinecrest Lane. There she would get onto Pinecrest and drive back up the mountain for a half mile or so then pull onto a little unmarked road which was all but obscured from view by the lush, towering pines growing on either side of it. Once on this road, she would drive another quarter of a mile or so until she reached the chateau that was tucked away in the middle of nowhere. The view of the majestic Rockies at their obscure little love nest, Stanley had to admit, was absolutely breathtaking.

Located just before the intersection of Ridgemont and Pinecrest was a sharp, hairpin curve that couldn’t be safely negotiated at any speed in excess of fifteen miles per hour. Along this perilous curve was a short strip of grassy roadside, about thirty feet wide, and beyond that a cliff with a sudden drop-off of perhaps 1500 feet or so. The only barrier standing between the roadside and the cliff was, amazingly, a pathetic guardrail constructed only of treated pine posts and a pair of wooden beams. Stanley had been elated the first time he’d laid eyes on this engineering faux pas as he noted that this would be a primo site for some less-than-responsible motorist to lose control of his car and go plummeting over a cliff with a vertical drop-off of nearly half a mile.

And tonight Cindy Fuller, he thought with relish, was going to be that luckless motorist.

It was a chilly night and the air smelled of an impending snowstorm. He turned on the car’s heater and zipped quickly along the steep mountain road just as Cindy would have done en route to her rendezvous with the mayor. He’d discovered in the last couple of weeks that she was a reckless and incompetent driver to say the least, often exceeding the speed limit and rarely wearing a seat belt. She had been quite a wild lady in general, as a matter of fact, considering her age and her lofty position in the community.

Stanley would never forget the night he had first followed her to the road that led to the mayor’s private getaway, clueless as to what she could possibly be up to. He recalled getting out of his car and following her on foot from that point on, knowing that she couldn’t be going much further, considering the geography of the area. He had followed her for about fifty yards or so before he came upon a steel gate that blocked the entire breadth of the road. It was secured by a thick chain and a heavy padlock that Cindy evidently had a key to. He had scaled the six-foot fence adjacent to the gate and proceeded along the road until he’d finally reached the edge of the grounds surrounding a small stone house that reminded him of a miniature French manor.

The grounds had been well lit by floodlights and it was no small feat circling the grounds in the thick foliage until he found an area where he could approach the chateau unnoticed. Once he’d made it however, the rest of his mission had been easy. The place was like a fish bowl-more windows than anything else-particularly in the rear of the structure where the patio and hot tub were located as well as a spectacular view of the Rockies.