Accidents Waiting to Happen (23 page)

A police cruiser was parked outside the old woman’s house.
 

The cops won’t save you, Margaret.
 
No one can save you.
 
I told you that.
 
The professional had warned her not to call the police as it wouldn’t do her any good.
 
He’d picked up the police’s involvement on his scanner three days ago when he heard a request for a patrol to visit Margaret Macey.
 
And here they were again and he was certainly surprised to find them when he had something new planned for his target.
 
But, he could wait for the police to go.
 
He had underestimated Margaret.
 
She had more strength of character than he gave her credit for.
 
Her file had stated she was weak in all respects, but no matter, she could do little to hurt him and the police wouldn’t be able to track him.
 
The police were more of a nuisance than a problem.
 
She would still die and it would look like natural causes.
 
He waited.

He cast a quizzical eye over Margaret’s house.
 
The siding had seen better days and looked as if it had been run through the washer one too many times.
 
The moss covered wood shake was curled and hung at curious angles like the teeth of a none too proficient boxer.
 
The small, unkempt yard was ugly, filled with dead plants and overgrown weeds.
 
Margaret’s house was no different than the neighboring homes.
 
A shitty little house on a shitty side of town
, he thought.
 
He mused this was no way for someone to live out their twilight years.
 
In the same position for over twenty minutes, his butt was going to sleep, so he shifted in his seat.

Like a cat watching its prey, he waited for the right time to pounce while he thought of the woman inside the house.
 
A hundred and fifty grand, who’d of thought it?
 
An outsider would have never guessed Margaret Macey was worth a considerable six-figure sum, dead.
 
But how many times had he read about some old bird that lived like a bum with millions in the bank?
 
Sometimes, he failed to comprehend what made people tick.
 
He could get into the lives of those he killed, establishing what they did and when they did things, but the why always eluded him.
 
A horn blared from behind and the professional checked his mirror.
 
One car had cut across another turning into his street and both had narrowly missed each other.

He returned his gaze and his thoughts back to Margaret Macey.
 
What a sad and pointless life she led.
 
Life to her was a malignant disease prolonging her suffering.
 
He wondered if anyone besides Pinnacle Investments wanted to see her dead.
 
He considered that he would be doing her a favor, ending her life, like a considerate owner knowing when to have his beloved pet put out of its misery.
 
The near-miss cars sped past.
 
The force made his car shudder on its wheels.

Josh Michaels’ life was in stark contrast to Margaret’s.
 
He had so much to live for.
 
And if the professional was brutally honest, Michaels was a more challenging target and he couldn’t wait to get back into the thick of that assignment.
 
But to deal with Michaels effectively he had to be totally focused on the younger man and not have the distraction of Margaret Macey on his plate.
 
Anyway, it wouldn’t take much for the professional to rid himself of Mrs. Macey.
 
A couple more phone calls and a personal visit should do it.
 
He would be glad when he had disposed of her.

He remembered his nocturnal visit to Margaret’s house two days after his first phone call from Josh Michaels’ party.
 
His investigation revealed no security systems and poor quality door locks making it easy to get in and out when the time came.
 
The operation had all the hallmarks of a slick operation.
 
It would be like taking candy from a baby—or life from an old lady.
 
The professional smiled smugly.

His smile hardened.
 
A swift disposal of one of his targets would get that prick, Dexter Tyrell, off his back.
 
Tyrell’s attitude annoyed him.
 
The executive knew nothing of the work he did for him and the inventiveness needed to meet Tyrell’s criteria laid out during their initial telephone conversation.
 

“I want the people in the files killed but in a way that does not raise suspicion.
 
It has to look like an accident or a random act of violence.
 
You know, accidents with machine tools, heart attacks, muggings, car accidents, hit and runs.
 
I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you what to do,” Dexter Tyrell had said to him two years ago.
 

It had been easy for him to say, but not as easy for the professional to carry out.
 
With the hassle he was getting from Tyrell these days, it hardly seemed worth the ten grand a head.
 
It might be time to move on to higher paying assignments.
 

The professional was distracted from his thoughts as two police officers came out of Margaret’s house and said something the hit man couldn’t hear before closing the door.
 
They climbed into the squad car and pulled away, the purr of the thudding V8 heavy in the air.
 

Time for some food
, the professional thought.
 
He unfolded a sheet of paper he removed from the car door pocket.
 
He dialed a number listed at the top of the pizza delivery flyer.
 
He gave his order, a name, and an address.
 

“When will it be ready?” he asked.

“Thirty minutes, sir,” the disinterested pizza chain employee replied and said, “Thank you for choosing Supreme Pizza.”

“Perfect,” he said and hung up.
 

He waited for his food to arrive.

***

“Like I said, we have a name to go with the number that called here Saturday night thanks to Pacific Bell,” the police officer summarized.
 
“It was lucky you only had the one call Saturday, it certainly made our job easier.”

“Can you tell me his name?” Margaret asked.

“Not until we’ve had the chance to speak to him ourselves.”

“Are you sure he hasn’t called since?” the other officer asked.

Margaret hesitated.
 
There’d been the first call—the one where the caller changed from an insurance agent into a monster hell-bent on her destruction.
 
Since then it had been a series of calls, at all hours of the day and night, but he’d hung up before she could answer.
 
She didn’t know if it was him, her monster, but she thought it was.
 
She’d learned to live in fear without ever seeing her intruder.
 
But it hadn’t stopped with just the calls, there’d also been the noises.
 
She was sure he’d been outside her home—footsteps on the deck, fingertips drawn down windows and the laughter, that evil laughter.
 
No one without evil on their mind could laugh like that.
 
She wanted to tell the officers, but she couldn’t.
 
She’d made two allegations to the police last year about trespassers at night and they hadn’t believed her then and she didn’t think they believed her now.
 
They didn’t need to know more, they had a name.
 
It didn’t matter whether it had been one call or a hundred, as long as they ended his reign of terror.

“Mrs. Macey,” the officer prompted.

“No,” she said, “there haven’t been any other calls.”

The officer looked unconvinced and frowned.
 
“Anyway, we’ll let you know what happens in due course.
 
But it looks like we’ve got our man.
 
I’m just glad you called.
 
But you shouldn’t have left it so long.”

Three days had gone by before she called them.
 
Three days of peering through the drapes at the slightest disturbance.
 
Three days of receiving telephone hang-ups and the visit to her door.
 
Three days was a long time to live in fear.
 

How could she venture outside when he could be there waiting for her, just waiting to pounce?
 
But confined to her home, her supplies ran out, supplies she needed.
 
Toilet paper ran out on the third day.
 
Lacking the courage to buy more, she forced herself to use torn up strips of newspaper.
 
Had it really come down to this, wiping her ass on scraps of paper like a common tramp?
 
It had been a humiliating experience.
 
Afterwards, she’d cried for a long time.
 
That demeaning act had made her mind up for her.
 
Margaret called the police.

She was fully aware of the punishment if she was caught calling the police.
 
He’d said he would know if she went to the cops.
 
She had little choice.
 
She was dead if she did and dead if she didn’t.
 
Deciding it was better to die trying, Margaret called them willingly.

With no more to be said, the police officers saw themselves out.
 
Margaret had done it.
 
She’d made a stand against her assailant.
 
And now the police had a name to go with the threatening caller’s voice.
 
It was over.
 
She sighed with relief.

Although she was relieved, explaining herself to the police had overexcited her heart.
 
She felt it pounding like a rock on a piece of elastic forever crashing inside her chest.
 
Her breathing became strained as if she were breathing through a sock jammed down her throat.
 
Although her exertions were brief, she was sweating and her wet clothes clung to her old flesh.
 
She staggered into the bathroom to take her medication.
 

Snatching her pills from the medicine chest, she swallowed down another two capsules with the help of some water.
 
In an effort to calm her excited heart over the last few days, she no longer adhered to the prescribed dosages of her medication, instead taking the pills as and when she needed them.
 
She surmised it couldn’t be any worse than not taking them.
 
Wiping her mouth on a towel, Margaret returned to the living room.
 

Instead of her symptoms abating after taking her drugs, they were getting worse.
 
Her heart worked harder, her throat constricted and perspiration broke out at every pore like she had been running for a bus.
 
But she wasn’t running.
 
She wasn’t exerting herself.
 
She stood rock solid still.
 
The telephone was ringing.

The phone rang again, for the third time.
 
Subconsciously, she knew it was
him
, her evil caller calling again.
 
She could always tell when it was him.
 
Somehow the tone of the phone changed when he called.
 

Margaret answered the phone.

“Ah, Margaret, you’re there.”
 

It was him.
 
He sounded so congenial, but he always started out that way.
 
She clutched the phone with both hands, one hand held the handset normally and the other cradled the base of the receiver like it was a baby.

“It’s been such a long time since we spoke.”

“I’ve called the police, you know.
 
They were here a minute ago.
 
They’re on to you.
 
It won’t be long before they pick you up,” Margaret said triumphantly.
 
He wouldn’t be frightening her for very much longer.

“Oh, I know that, but I don’t think they’ll find me.
 
And what did I say?”
 
He paused.
 
“I said don’t call the police, didn’t I, Margaret?”

“I’m going to put the phone down.
 
I don’t have to listen to you.”
 
She tried to sound strong, but her voice cracked.

“I don’t hear that phone being put down,” the oily voice said, a cruel smile hidden inside it.

“I will.”

“Go on then, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Margaret had been standing but the warning sapped the last of her energy and she fell into the chair next to the phone.
 
What did he have in store this time?
 
What torture would the caller inflict if she didn’t comply with his demands?
 
Terror became a serpent encircled around her chest and it squeezed.
 
“Why?”