Head Shot (A Thriller): A Crime and Suspense Thriller (2 page)

Four

The jogger was having chest pains.  His knees ached, his ankles hurt and his lower back was throbbing with pain.  Almost a hundred pounds overweight, he had been forced to see his doctor by his wife who was getting more and more concerned with her husband's growing weight problem and family history of heart disease.

For years, he had struggled with his weight problem.  He'd done it all.  Crash diets.  Metabolic diets.  Fruit diets.  Exercising three or four times a day.  None of it had worked.  In fact, after every valiant effort at shedding the excess baggage, he usually ended up about fifteen pounds heavier than when he started.

And finally, he came to a decision.  Screw the diets and the goddamn exercise.  Who knew when they would die?  He could get hit by an ice cream truck tomorrow.  So he started eating what he wanted when he wanted and how much he wanted.  His exercise had come to a complete halt.

But then his wife had really started to get on his case, and he finally acquiesced, just to stop the constant nagging.

The jogger cursed the day he gave in and went to the doctor's.  The exam went well enough, the doctor was obviously concerned about his patient’s weight, but the blood pressure wasn't too bad, and the heartbeat was strong and solid.

Then he'd been forced to give a blood sample and that's where it all went to hell.

His blood work came back revealing his cholesterol was almost 320, which fell into the category of "lethal and malignant."

Immediately, his doctor put him on some cholesterol lowering medication, his wife started cooking some green shit called leeks, and his life had been a giant pain in the ass ever since.

Decked out in a brand new pair of cross trainers, a flashy black, red and white Nike jogging suit, the jogger was giving all appearances of turning over a new leaf, making a fresh start, and getting his priorities straight.

But the two Snickers candy bars bouncing reassuringly against his thigh told the real story. 

The fact was, the jogger’s two daughters had long since graduated from college and gotten jobs.  They were mothers with their own children, their own families, and since one lived in Portland and one lived in Dallas, he only saw them once or twice a year at the most.

In his mind, there was no fucking way he was going to spend the rest of his life eating brussels sprouts and broccoli.  Life was way too short for that bullshit.

He would eat lobster and baked potatoes with real butter and real sour cream.  None of this fat free fake crap.  Everything his wife made now tasted completely artificial.

At least, on the bright side, he had these morning runs.  It was a time for him to reflect on the day ahead, get a break from his wife, spend some time overlooking the lovely Menomonee River, and scarf down whatever food he could sneak out of the house.  Sometimes it was three or four bagels, a bag of potato chips, one time he'd even grabbed a couple of leftover bratwurst for his morning escape.

It was a gray morning with no hint of the sun, and a very light mist was busily sleepwalking its way across the park.

You'd think she'd figure something was up when I go and work out every morning but still manage to gain weight, he thought to himself.  Maybe she wanted to believe it so much that she had decided to fool herself that everything would be all right.  She was that kind of person.  The jogger had read an article in a psychology magazine that showed people who are optimists have a less accurate view of reality than pessimists and his wife was the granddaddy optimist of all time.

Even though his pace wasn't much faster than a quick walk, he was sweating profusely and, mercifully, could now see his favorite park bench hidden behind a thick stand of elm trees along the banks of the river.

The Menomonee River Parkway was a long, winding park that fringed the small suburb of Wauwatosa, about ten minutes out of downtown Milwaukee.  It was a friendly, middle-class suburb where people still kept an eye on each other's houses and everyone knew everyone else on a first-name basis.  The homes along the river were nicer than the majority of homes in town, lots of old bungalows and some grand Tudor Provincials built in the late twenties.

The jogger waddled past the last of the homes before veering off into the woods of the park and seating himself on the painted bench just a few feet from the brown water of the Menomonee.  His knees and ankles welcomed the relief.  It felt like someone had taken a ball peen hammer to them.

He unwrapped the first of his Snickers and ate it hungrily, not saving the flavor, merely wolfing it down for sustenance and to ease the severe grumbling in his stomach.  The second one he would savor, with his hunger in full retreat he would be able to muster the energy to concentrate on enjoying the sweet treat that was one of the few pleasures left in his life.

A flash of white caught his eye and he saw something he couldn't quite make out, hanging from the middle of a small walking bridge that spanned the narrow river. The river had been so swollen the last day or two, he realized that it had probably been high enough to reach the little bridge.  Something must have gotten trapped in there when the river was high, he thought.

He squinted his eyes but the mist was falling a bit harder now and he couldn't tell what it was, but it looked vaguely familiar and was intriguing enough to make the tired jogger stand up and walk around the small clump of bushes immediately to his left.

With sore joints and stiff back screaming in protest, the overweight investment banker made his way down to the small bridge.  As he came closer, he could see that it was a big object, bigger than he could make out from the bench and when he rounded a thick tree, it emerged for what it was.

It looked like a woman.  Her head was jammed between the wooden stiles of the bridge's safety railings and her body hung beneath it, her legs and feet trailing in the water below.

Pale, lifeless eyes stared up at him as the jogger looked at the first dead person he'd ever seen.  He'd never even been to a funeral.  He looked in disbelief at the woman, whose eyes were bulging and whose face looked to be literally torn apart, her body covered with bruises and scratches.  Her arms stuck out at improbable angles, like a mangled bird still struggling to fly.

The failed dieter felt the candy bar rise in his stomach like a surfer hanging onto a big wave, and then with eyes watering and drool spilling out of his lips, he vomited milk chocolate, peanuts and nougat all over his one hundred and fifteen dollar running shoes.

Five

The phone rang and Ray Mitchell's eyes snapped open.  The senior homicide detective threw the comforter off his body and reached over for his cell phone.  His body struggled to adjust to the sudden motion, his muscles still sluggish with sleep.

Ray's urgency to get to the phone did not represent any kind of enthusiasm for who the caller might be. The reason for his fatigue was simply that Ray's nine-month-old daughter had awakened twice during the night and his wife got the worst shift, which lasted close to two hours before the child finally fell back asleep.  Ray wanted both his wife and his daughter to get some sleep and if the phone woke them up, there would be hell to pay.  If his daughter, Jennifer, woke up, she would be extremely crabby the next day.  And if Jennifer was a terror, then his wife, Michelle, would be equally unpleasant.

In the nine months since their daughter had been born, Ray and Michelle had made a simple observation:  If marital difficulty were a fire, then exhaustion was like gasoline thrown directly into the flames. 

Still struggling to clear his head and rubbing his dry, bloodshot eyes, Ray listened to the voice on the other end, the duty officer who got right down to business.

Ray listened closely, mumbled something in the affirmative, then thumbed the disconnect button on the phone.  He walked back into the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine.    

Ray went to the bathroom, looked at himself in the mirror, and wasn't entirely displeased with what he saw.  A strong jaw and high cheekbones, dark eyes with not-too-noticeable circles under them peered back at him, his thick, jet-black hair looked neat and presentable even if he just ran his fingers through it.

The coffee pot was full now and Ray heard the telltale percolating come to an end and he felt disappointed with himself.  As he filled up his travel mug, he wondered for the hundredth time how a supposedly intelligent man like himself had ever managed to get addicted to coffee, again.  Perhaps, he rationalized, it could be considered an occupational hazard.  One of many. 

He would have preferred another to sit down at the kitchen table and enjoy his coffee, but there just wasn't time.

The body of a young woman had been found early this morning by a jogger.  And since the place it had been found was only a few minutes' drive from Ray's house, the duty officer thought Ray could get right on it.

Ray gulped as much of the coffee as he could, then went into the bathroom, started the shower and then turned the fan on to try to soften the noise.  There was a good chance the sound of the water running through the pipes would wake up his daughter, but he had no choice.

Duty called.

Six

Flat on her back in the bathtub with her legs raised and feet planted firmly on the wall above the fixtures, Nancy Bishop felt the surge of warm water from the tub's faucet pulsate against her.  She visualized the face of her current lover, his warm tongue swirling inside her, circling, teasing.

Her back arched and she succumbed to the sweet sensation, moaning softly as she felt a burst of warmth blossom out from her center, enveloping her.  The orgasm was building in strength, extending out to the rest of body, her lover could always do that to her, when suddenly her cell phone rang.

She exhaled deeply, felt the pangs of pleasure rapidly recede from her body, the tingling working its way down her legs before fading entirely from her toes. 

What was the world coming to? she asked herself. Now there wasn't even time for self-pleasuring.

She sat up, turned off the water and quickly toweled herself off before reaching for the phone.

Nancy Bishop had gotten to be the top investigative reporter in Milwaukee by always putting her job ahead of everything else.  It was a career choice that had her out working the mean streets at ungodly hours and when she finally did make it home, it was almost always alone and there was never anyone there waiting for her.  Of course, the fact that she had taken a married man as her lover didn’t help matters that much.  Unless he divorced his wife, something they had talked about, Nancy would be looking at a lot of lonely nights.  She didn’t think she could do the Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy thing, either.

Since her day started early and ended late, there was usually just enough time to take a shower or get a few minutes' pleasure before hitting the sack for three or four hours.  It was a schedule to which her mind, and body, had eventually become accustomed.

She pressed the connect button on her phone, listened to the voice on the other end of the line while simultaneously toweling her short brown hair, and walked through the narrow hallway into the dining room.

She paused while listening and caught her reflection in the glass picture frame above the small dining room table.

In her younger years, she had worked to be pretty, spending countless hours on the makeup, the lipstick, the tight clothing.  And for a brief time, she had attracted her fair share of men.  But the woman looking back at her looked haggard, even unpleasant, a woman who had no time to be concerned with appearances.   

Although her colleagues saw a tough, no-nonsense reporter who could belt down booze and curse like a sailor, Nancy Bishop had once been a romantic.  As her career took off, though, that part of her was sublimated.  Now she wore professional but nondescript clothing.  Her piercing gray eyes never saw eyeliner and although her smile rarely saw the light of day, when it did, it couldn't quite shake the spirit of its tired, somewhat hostile owner. 

Nancy wrapped a towel around her long, lean body.  At least that hadn't gone to hell, she thought.  She listened intently to one of the many sources she had spent years cultivating and who now had access to information no one else could get.

Her sources were her secret.  She couldn't remember how many times other reporters had asked, "How do you do it?  How do you always get the story first?"  It was so obvious she laughed inwardly at the question.  While other reporters were home with their families or snuggled up in bed getting their solid eight hours, she was out drinking with cops, giving money to snitches, whatever she had to do.

It had been fun at first, she'd even gone to bed with several of the cops, but the thrill had quickly worn off, playing nursemaid to men who were either in the midst of divorce, depression or both wasn't exactly a barrel of fun.  Now it had become an elaborate act, nothing more than showing important clients a good time.

It was this practice that also put her at odds with the station's management. 

When word got back that she had been drinking and carousing with cops, the old men in the corner offices had called her in and chastised her for being unprofessional.  They had argued it wasn't right for a female reporter to be taking men, mostly cops, out on the town, buying them drinks. 

But Nancy Bishop didn't back down for one reason; she didn't know how.  It seemed to her that when male reporters worked the cop bars, they were seen as industrious, but when a woman tried the same thing, it was deemed "inappropriate behavior." And that's exactly what she told the old men to whom she had to answer.

It was a stalemate. 

The old men continued to disapprove of her methods, she continued to wine and dine her sources, and her stories were the most widely followed reports in the city  

When a scandal involving the mayor erupted shortly after his election, Nancy scooped everyone, including her colleagues, and it was a resounding victory for Channel 6.  Suddenly the same stuffy bureaucrats who had chastised her before now began literally throwing expense checks and petty cash at her, encouraging her to do whatever she had to do to cover the angles of the story that were rapidly radiating like the arms of an octopus.

That scandal and Nancy Bishop's reporting boosted the station's image dramatically and made her the hottest reporter in town.  Soon the sentiment was that if you really wanted to know what was going on in the city, you looked for Nancy Bishop's stories.   

She bent her head, listening carefully and scribbling notes on the yellow legal pad that always sat on her kitchen table.  Her handwriting was a nasty scrawl, like graffiti no one but the author could understand.  She asked several short, pointed questions, hurriedly wrote down some notes and promised the caller a night on Milwaukee's skin tour, cop slang for making the rounds of the city's strip clubs, then hung up the phone.

For Nancy Bishop, hanging out with cops in strip clubs or neighborhood bars wasn't a problem.

It was like her childhood all over again.

Nancy Bishop quickly dressed, throwing on jeans and an old sweatshirt. 

She turned off the lights to the apartment and locked the door behind her.  She shrugged on a light windbreaker and headed for her car.  It was still very early in the morning and it would be chilly down by the Menomonee River Parkway where the body had been discovered.  She had jogged there before and knew it would be cold at this time of day.

On her way out she had grabbed her microrecorder, notebook and paper, as well as a small camera.  She checked her watch.  It had been less than seven minutes since she'd gotten the call from her source.  That wasn't bad, but just a year or two ago, it would've taken her five minutes or less.

Nancy Bishop told herself she needed to start working out more often and to eat better, more balanced meals.  At the age of thirty-eight, she felt her greatest fear may be coming true.

She was slowing down.