J. Kerley - The Death File - A gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist

He screamed and kicked one of the cheap lawn chairs on the balcony, causing it to fold and fall to the floor. Seconds later the glass door slid open and Zoe’s head poked out. He knew she didn’t come all the way out because she slept naked.

“Jesus, Adam, what’s going on?”

“I’m thinking. That’s all.”

Her eyes found the tumbled chair. “You’re thinking about Cottrell, right? And your father?”

“Damn right, the scumbags, both of them. Hashtag: SCREWADAM!”

“Relax, Adam. Calm down.”

“I don’t want to calm down. I want my $20,000,000.”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll get dressed and we’ll go to that little coffee shop down the street. Get a couple of muffins. Watch the robots going to work. You like that, right?”

He thought a moment. “I guess. Hurry up.”

She pulled her head back inside and disappeared. Adam set the chair upright, hearing Zoe bustling around inside. He and Zoe had only been together about two weeks but it seemed a lot longer; they got along so good.

It had been that way from the beginning, when she’d noticed him at his favorite tacqueria on Indian School Road. He’d been sitting in a booth in the rear, playing Clash of Clans against some chick in Finland. She’d been pretty good but Adam had won easily. He’d returned to his beef torta and Cola when Zoe had just walked up and slid into the booth opposite him.

She’d said, “Whatcha doing?” like she’d known him for years.

“Do I know you?” he’d said.

“No,” she had said. “But that’s not set in stone, right?” Her shy smile seemed as wide as her face.

“S-set in stone ? ” Don’t fucking stutter! Whatever you do, don’t stutter. Relax, Adam , he’d heard Dr Meridien say in his head . Think first, then speak .

The woman clarified: “Not set in stone means, ‘Doesn’t have to stay that way’.” She was still smiling, but like she was happy, not making fun of him.

“Oh, sure. No, I guess not.”

“I was at that table over there.” Nodding her head toward the corner. “You looked like you were having fun, laughing while you played with your phone.”

“I was gaming against someone in Finland. She was good, but I won. I almost always win.”

“I don’t know anything about gaming. I’ve always wanted to learn, but there’s no one I know that can teach me.”

Adam’s heart had leapt to his throat, and he heard himself say: “I can teach you. I’d be happy to teach you.”

“Would you? You’re not just saying that? That would be too cool.”

He had affected nonchalance, almost yawning. “Yeah. It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it. It just takes some time to learn. We can start now, if you want.”

She had slid out of the booth and slid back in on his side. Close enough that they were touching!

“OK, then,” she had said tapping the phone in his hand. “Show me how this game stuff works.”

The sliding door reopened. Zoe stepped out wearing black tights, ankle-high black boots with two-inch heels, and a crimson top that left her right shoulder bare.

“Let’s go get coffee,” she said.

“Let’s take my car,” Adam said.

“But it’s just four blocks. We always walk.”

“Let’s go to that coffee shop over by Scottsdale, Higher Grounds?”

“Why there?”

“We’ll be in the area.”

Looking quizzical but saying nothing, Zoe followed Adam to his white 2011 Subaru Outback, a dent in the front right wheel panel, another in the hatchback. It needed a wash.

They got in and Adam started driving. He drove a few blocks to Van Buren and headed west to Highway 17, where he went north several miles, then turned east on the Pima Highway.

“Where are we going, Adam,” Zoe asked, after fifteen minutes of watching Phoenix go past.

“It doesn’t concern you, Zoe.”

She went back to looking out the window. Adam drove for another ten minutes, then took an off-ramp into a residential neighborhood of tidy middle-class homes. He zigged and zagged a few times, finally pulling under a stone arch. Beside the arch a sign proclaimed, “Eastwood Memorial Gardens.”

“Adam …?”

“Shhh.”

He drove what seemed a memorized route, left then right and another right, past a fountain spraying water twenty feet into the air. He pulled off to the side of the slender asphalt road, parked. He looked all directions. They seemed the only living people in the cemetery.

“We’re all alone,” Adam said. “Good.” He got out and Zoe started to follow.

“No, Zo. You have to stay here. This is for me and me alone.”

She nodded, somehow knowing, and pulled the door shut.

The gravestones were all set at ground level, simple. Elijah Kubiac, perhaps planning on living to be one hundred, had died without making funeral and burial plans. Adam had left that up to some whispery asshole at a funeral home, after picking out the cheapest coffin possible. He’d first thought about cremation, but the idea of the old bastard slowly rotting away underground sounded better. He’d picked Eastwood as the cemetery simply because he’d driven by several times and remembered the name.

He continued past two large palo verde trees and turned down a row of black granite headstones, some with small bouquets of flowers stuck into the ground beside them. He stopped. Looked down at a headstone. Stared for a long minute.

Then pulled out his penis and began urinating.

The dark headstone below, its engraving quickly filling with urine, proclaimed simply, Elijah T Kubiac, 1959–2017.

Adam zipped up and walked away, whistling.

* * *

Tasha Novarro had awakened at eight in the morning; Mountain Time, creeping softly into the living room to find her brother snoring gently, the covers kicked off. As predicted, he’d missed the bucket.

After cleaning the floor and spraying the room with half a can of air freshener, Novarro went to work, returning to Dr Meridien’s house and office and spending fifteen minutes searching closets and drawers until finding what she’d hoped for: Two albums of printed photos. Meridien was a chronicler: the back of each picture noted with date and place and others in the setting.

“ Sedona, August 24 2007, me and Taylor Combs and Lanie Buchwald. Hot day, 89. Just finished Pink Jeep tour. Now lunch at Taco Rancho !”

They were standard travel shots. But eight of forty-seven photos of Meridien showed her wearing the same brooch, a stylized owl’s head of silver half-orbs of turquoise forming the eyes and obviously a favored piece. Novarro also noted other pieces of jewelry and accessories in the photos. She marked them with corners of sticky notes and took the shots to tech services.

Twenty minutes later a tech handed Novarro close-ups of three different earring styles, two necklaces, a silver-and-turquoise bracelet, and two angles of the owl adornment.

“Nice brooch,” the tech said. “Looks expensive.”

Novarro started driving from pawnshop to pawnshop across the Phoenix basin, hoping killer or killers – perhaps aching for dope – had tried to sell the jewelry for fast cash: a long shot. Novarro wished she had a partner to handle half the work, but dual detective teams had been cut back with the economic downturn, now only assembled when entering a dangerous situation. Even that was discouraged, the suggestion being to take along a uniform when danger loomed.

When she was on the seventh pawnshop, her phone rang. The screen said CASTLE. She sighed and answered while bending low to inspect a jewelry case. In every shop it was the same, row after row of pawned wedding rings, probably not a good social indicator. “I’m kinda busy at the moment, Merle,” she said, knowing to hold the phone two inches from her ear, Castle incapable of talking softly.