Scott Wittenburg - The May Day Murders

“There you go. Is everything all right, honey?”

Ann shrugged her shoulders and continued applying her lip gloss. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Nervous?”

“A little.”

“Are you over the little episode that just happened?”

Amy paused a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. I take it you called Larry’s parents?”

Ann nodded. “Yes, and his mother wasn’t pleased with him at all. Larry has now gone home to face the music.”

“Thanks, Mom, for not calling the cops,” she said sincerely.

“You’re welcome, sweetie. I just want you to go out and have a great time tonight, okay?”

“I will, Mom.”

Amy stood up and fiddled with her hair a little then turned around and faced her mother. “What do you think?”

“You look simply wonderful, honey. Jason is very lucky to be taking the most beautiful girl at Woodcrest High to the dance!”

“Right, Mom,” Amy replied, rolling her eyes.

“Mr. Rankin would like to take some pictures, if that’s all right with you.”

Amy cast her mother a pained look. “Oh, I guess so. As long as he makes it really quick.”

Just then the doorbell rang and Amy’s face lit up.

“He’s here!” My God, I hope I look all right! Oh, look at this hair-Mom, go down and stall Jason for a few minutes, okay?”

“Your hair looks fine, Amy. Relax!” Ann chuckled.

“Please, Mom!”

“All right. I’ll go stall him for you.”

Ann went back downstairs and opened the door. Jason Walborn stood there with a sheepish grin on his face.

“Hello, you must be Jason,” Ann smiled, holding the door for him to enter.

“Yes. How are you Mrs. Middleton?”

“Just fine.” Ann shook his hand and glanced at Jerry. “This is Mr. Rankin, Jason. A, er, friend of mine.”

“Nice to meet you, Jason,” Jerry said as he shook his hand.

Jason Walborn was as tall if not taller than Jerry Rankin with sandy hair cropped short, angular jawbones, and deep set blue eyes. He was dressed semi-formally in a sport jacket, shirt and tie, and a pair of khaki Dockers.

Ann led the two men into the living room. “Would you like to sit down, Jason? Amy should be down shortly.”

“Sure,” he replied, sitting down on the sofa.

“Amy tells me that you’re a soccer player.”

Jason nodded. “Yeah, we won the division championship last year.”

“I didn’t know that. That’s wonderful!”

“Yeah, we had a really awesome team last year.”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, then Jerry said, “What kind of car are you driving?”

“A Honda Prelude.”

“You must have a job then, I assume.”

“Nah. My parents bought the car for me.”

“I see,” Jerry replied, his sudden distaste for the obviously spoiled young man apparent on his face.

Moments later, Amy came down the stairs and entered the room. “Hi, Jason!”

Jason stood up and strode over to her. “Hi. You look totally awesome!”

Amy blushed. “And so do you! Will you go get the flowers, Mom?”

“Sure, honey,” Ann replied.

Ann went into the kitchen to fetch Jason’s boutonniere and Amy’s corsage from the fridge. The two kids managed to attach their flowers to one another as Jerry looked on, brandishing his camera.

“Just a couple of shots?” he said.

Both Amy and Jason sighed and allowed Jerry to pose them in front of the mantle.

“Here we go,” he said encouragingly to the young couple. “Let’s see a smile!”

Amy and her date grinned nervously as Jerry Rankin snapped a shot.

“That was great! Just one more! Get a little closer,” he commanded.

Jason and Amy stared at one another and smirked. Jason put his arm around Amy and smiled confidently. Jerry snapped the shot and placed both prints on the coffee table.

“These are looking great,” he said as the images began to appear. “Take a look at how cute you two look together.”

Amy and Jason joined Ann and glanced at the photos.

“Yeah, we really look cool, Mr. Rankin,” Amy commented less than enthusiastically, “Can we go now?”

“I’ll go get your jacket for you,” Ann told Amy. She fetched Amy’s coat and helped her on with it, kissing her daughter’s cheek afterwards. “Have a wonderful time, honey!”

“Thanks Mom.”

“And drive carefully,” she added to Jason.

“I will, Mrs. Middleton,” he assured her.

Amy stepped out on the porch, Jason following behind.

“Bye mom,” she said as she led her date away from the house.

“Don’t be late!” Ann called after the departing couple.

Ann and Jerry stood inside the doorway and watched as the two got into Jason’s Prelude. After they had backed out of the driveway, Ann closed the door and sighed.

“I hope Amy watches out for herself. That Jason boy is much too old for her.”

“She’ll be all right, Ann. Amy seems to have a pretty good head on her shoulders from what I’ve seen.”

Ann said, “Yes, I suppose you’re right. That is, as long as she stays sober. Come to think of it, I could stand a drink about right now. Do we have enough time?”

Jerry smiled. “Of course. The lanes are open until midnight.”

“Let’s have a drink, then. I really need one after all of this!” Ann exclaimed.

“Lead the way-I’m right behind you,” Jerry said cheerfully.

One month earlier, Stanley Jenkins quietly swung the door open, stepped onto the roof and closed the door behind him. It was even darker on top of the ten-story apartment building than he thought it would be and for a moment he considered using a flashlight before abruptly dismissing the idea. He waited a couple of minutes for his eyes to adjust before making his way toward the corner of the roof.

There was just enough available light for him to see where he was going without being seen by any of the tenants in the neighboring apartment buildings. It hadn’t been particularly easy locating a building with both easy access to its roof plus an unobstructed view of Sara Hunt’s apartment. But as usual, Stanley’s patience and perseverance had paid off. He thought of how much easier it had been entering her apartment unnoticed the other night and the irony in it that made him grin. New York City, in spite of its immense population, wasn’t any safer from Stanley Jenkins that Bum-Fuck, Iowa.

Had he known before that Sara Hunt’s apartment was going to be so laughably accessible, Stanley would have devised a much simpler game plan for this mission and thereby made things much easier on himself. He would have simply chosen a night when Sara’s roommate wasn’t there with her, unlocked her apartment door with the copy of the key he’d made, then gone in and taken care of business. But that would have been too easy (and not nearly as much fun) so he’d opted to stick with his original plan of getting to know Sara a bit better before murdering her. He always enjoyed a challenge and what secret agent worth his oats didn’t? Bond had never once done things the easy way and that’s what made 007 the legend that he was.

Stanley’s eyes were trained on Sara’s apartment building as he silently approached the corner of the roof. When he stopped at the two-foot ceramic masonry wall skirting the roof, he leaned over and peered down at the view below. He could see the traffic moving south toward Spring Street and hear the occasional horn honking echoing up off the walls of the surrounding buildings. His eyes returned to Sara’s building-an ancient, ugly brownstone flanked in the foreground by two other nondescript buildings standing directly across the street from where he now stood. Sara’s apartment was on the seventh floor-two windows to the right-and even at this distance Stanley could see the lone figure of someone moving about inside the apartment. That figure, he already knew, would be Sara Hunt and Sara would be alone tonight until at least midnight since her roommate would be waiting tables at the Stardust Diner until 11:30.