Head Shot (A Thriller): A Crime and Suspense Thriller (6 page)

Ray highlighted the name and asked the computer to bring up his record.

Ray got the processing signal again and leaned back, his heart beating quickly.  He tried not to get excited, trespassing was a far cry from serial murder.

The computer beeped and Ray sat forward.

Joe Ferkovich.  A long rap sheet as a minor including petty burglary, drug use, and disturbing the peace, but it was the second to the last entry that caught Ray's eye.  Attempted rape.  Ray clicked on that entry and the computer processed for several minutes, then beeped.

Ray punched the keys and Ferkovich's mug shot slowly filled the screen.

His left eye lolled crookedly to one side.

Seventeen

On the way to Chief Trimble's office, Ray's mind went back to his conversation with Carrie DeMarinis. 

Although fiercely proud of it, Ray rarely talked about his heritage, as it was something he had come to terms with a long time ago.  As a child in Portage, Wisconsin, he had learned to despise games with the other neighborhood kids.  In a game of cowboys and Indians, it was no surprise who was always being cast as the Indian.  Same for playing war, Ray was always picked to be the enemy. 

Because he was different.

He didn't know for sure, but it could have been some of those childhood memories that pointed him in the direction of becoming one of the good guys.

Now, on his way to the Chief's office to ask permission to get a warrant, Ray looked down at the rap sheet in his hands.

Joseph P. Ferkovich, present address 229 North Baxter Drive, Glendale.  A long list of offenses, both in Michigan and Wisconsin, followed.

Chief Trimble and Lieutenant Soergel were waiting for him.

Trimble was a barrel of a man with a thick head of gray hair, perfectly coiffed.  Soergel was tall and slim, with dark hair and a high Roman nose.

"This better be good news, Ray," said Soergel.  Bernie Soergel didn't like Ray.  Then again, the man didn’t really care for anyone on the force other than himself.

Ray ignored Soergel and focused on the Chief.

"Here's what we've got," he said.

He outlined all the information he had, Ferkovich's history, the eyewitness accounts, and the evidence from Kellen and his team.

"You're going to need backup," said Soergel, after Trimble told Ray to go to Judge Cho, a friend of the police force who nearly always granted warrants upon request.

"That's taken care of,” Ray snapped.

“Get the warrant, and then get this nut job,” Trimble said.

"Fuck this one up, Mitchell, and we'll all get staked out on an anthill by the press,” Soergel said.

Ray didn't stop, but he could feel his face redden with anger.  Soergel constantly made veiled Native American references to him, references that weren't quite obvious enough to be used as evidence of racial harassment in a lawsuit.

Forget it Ray, the detective thought to himself, you've got bigger fish to fry. 

It was early evening and just beginning to get dark when Ray arrived at Judge Benjamin Cho's house in Whitefish Bay.  Judge Cho and Ray knew each other well, Ray had testified in many cases in the judge's court and quickly learned that the Judge was a fair man who, when in doubt, tended to favor law enforcement.  Because of that, he was also a favorite for cops who needed a warrant in a hurry.

"Hello, Ray," the Judge said as he let the detective inside the impressive Victorian on Lake Drive, "what do you have for me?"

Ray brought out all the necessary paperwork which the judge perused and then he signed the many forms.

"Do you think you'll catch him, Ray?" Cho asked.

Just like when Carrie DeMarinis posed the same question, Ray did not hesitate.

"Yes."

Ray left Judge Cho's house in Whitefish Bay with a warrant in his hand, two additional homicide detectives, and three squad cars filled with two cops each. 

His foot tromped the accelerator to the floor and the big sedan shot onto Silver Spring, up I-43, then onto Good Hope Road before turning again, this time onto Baxter Drive. 

Ray could feel the adrenaline start to flow.  There was a lot of pressure and attention building on this case, and he wanted a fast, clean solution.

Minutes later, they were parked in front of 229 and Ray took over.

"Let's go, Patrick," he said.

Patrick Krahn was a muscular, no-nonsense homicide detective, who had been friends and on-again off-again partners with Ray for the last three years.  They tended to rely on each other during those rare instances when either of them needed help.

With guns drawn, and a small army of police officers behind them, the detectives rapped on the door, but there was no answer.  It was a flimsy door with oak veneer over old particleboard and posed no problem for Pat Krahn, whose steel-toed size 13EE shoe easily smashed in the lock.

The door swung open and Ray entered slowly, gun drawn.

"Police!" he yelled.  “Joe, come out now!”

There was no answer.

Slowly, room by room, the officers made their way through the apartment.

It was dark now and no lights were on inside the house, shadows danced across the walls.  The hum of the refrigerator echoed around the empty rooms as the cops searched the entire house. 

No one was there.

A card table and steel folding chair sat in the middle of the living room, a phone, some paper, and a pile of magazines sat on top of the table.

Facing the table was a small television on top of a cardboard box.  A sunken love seat took up the opposite end of the room.

Soon, however, the officers all ended up in the bedroom.

There, plastered wall to wall, floor to ceiling, were photographs of men and women engaged in sex.  Most of it oral in nature.

"Oh, man," said Krahn.

The twin bed sat in the middle of the room, and a stench of stale body odor lingered in the air.  The dresser beneath the window had been left with its drawers open, a sock was hanging over its front and the closet door was open, exposing empty hangers that hung silently from their perch.  Yellow drapes cast the room and its contents in an eerie glow.

After the officers confirmed the place was vacant, Ray holstered his weapon.

His adrenaline was down to normal levels and his mouth tasted metallic, he had prepared for a battle in which the enemy had already retreated.

"Get Casey in here," he said. 

Paul Casey would dust the scene down and get prints, fibers, hairs, anything that could be used as physical evidence.

"He ran right away, didn't he Ray?" Krahn asked, looking at the photos on the wall.

Ray nodded.  "Well, at least we know that he's got half a brain, he put it together that we'd come to him eventually." 

"Well, he's consistent, you can say that about him," offered Krahn.  "I've heard of oral fixations before, but this takes the cake."

Images of Joe Ferkovich's mug shot flashed across Ray's mind, Lisa Young's body in the river, Harriet Bednarski's mouth ripped to shreds.

"We'll see what Casey finds, but there's no doubt now that this sick bastard is our guy."

Paul Casey entered the room wearing surgical gloves, carrying a small case.

"Hello, boys," he said, taking in the pictures on the wall.  “I didn’t know our boy was an interior decorator.”

Krahn snorted a short laugh.

Ray left the room and walked outside, punched in a number on his cell. He felt like Ferkovich was somewhere watching, laughing at him, planning his next attack.

Ray wanted to hit something, he wanted to find this guy, put his knee in his back and slap the cuffs on him, lock the bastard away for eternity.

He got through to the office and began sending people to find out everything they could about Joe Ferkovich.  Where he was from, where he grew up, relatives, living and dead, where he might go.  Ray also considered calling the FBI to see if they could put together a profile of Ferkovich.

He was pulling out all the stops on this one.

Ray decided he might even try to get Ferkovich's case on that television show that does re-creations of crimes and then asks the public to help look for fugitives.  What was the name of that show, again? Ray asked himself.  He thought for a minute and then snapped his fingers.  That's right.

Nation’s Most Wanted.

Hopefully, they'd take this case.  He'd look into that right away.  In the meantime, he had to find out all he could about Joe Ferkovich.

Eighteen

Joe Ferkovich's fingers tightened on the steering wheel as a State Trooper, his siren blaring, flew down the other side of the freeway in the opposite direction.

Joe looked in his rearview mirror and, feeling confident he was safe, worked to loosen his grip on the wheel.  He leaned his head back, then to the side, and finally shrugged his shoulders.  The drive so far had been a tense one, and he knew it was still far from over.

The truck he was driving was stolen.  His former employer, the Capitol Cookie Company, would notice it was gone the next day.  For Joe, it had been an easy decision to steal the truck.  He had the keys to the building, and he knew that they kept the inside door to the garage unlocked, so it was just a matter of going in and digging out the keys from the small desk in the corner of the garage.  It had been a no-brainer to run.  Joe knew once that bitch got away that she'd go right to the cops, and they'd find out he'd been a client of Harriet Bednarski's and that would be all she wrote.

He cursed under his breath.

He never should've gone after the hippie lawyer, but he'd found nothing in Cedarburg, just a little girl he followed for a couple of blocks but then the kid had gone into a house.  Joe had waited around his favorite hunting ground but nothing materialized.

It was at that moment that he had suddenly remembered Harriet Bednarski, the hippie lawyer who defended him when he got busted for peeping.

Joe had remembered that he still had the lawyer’s business card with the phone number and address.

He smiled in the darkness of the night, the flash of his teeth reflected back at him from the windshield.  He'd always liked the young lawyer and her very luscious mouth.

It had been so easy.  A little tap on the kitchen window at the back of the house to knock out a small glass fragment, reach in, unlock it and crawl through. 

The rest had been sweet.

The lawyer was a stupid fuck, Joe thought to himself.  So weak and so stupid. 

The truck rolled on, pointed toward the U.P.  He would pass Manitowoc, Green Bay, Marinette and Peshtigo, then turn onto Highway 141 toward Rodgers Bay.

He would make a stop first, though, to see a friend who lived on the road north.  He would get rid of the truck, and hopefully borrow a vehicle, then he planned to see his sister Mary.  He checked his watch.  Traveling at night was the only way to go.  He would have to speed up a bit to make sure he could get everything done he needed to do by sunrise, when people would be looking for him.

He rubbed his head.  The headache was coming back.

And it felt like it was getting worse.

Nineteen

"Michael," Beta said over the phone.

"How's my favorite peddler of flesh?" Mike Sharpe asked.

"Peddlin' away, baby," she said.

Mike was sitting at his little dining room table eating some leftover spinach pie Laurie had made.  It was delicious.  She had more ways to make shitty food taste good than anyone he had ever known.  Her lentil soup was out of this world. 

He pushed the plate away and leaned back in his chair.

"Have you seen the spot?" he asked, knowing what the answer would be before he even uttered the question.

"I thought it was great, you looked good."

He laughed inwardly, well aware of the fact that she probably hadn't seen the commercial and would make little effort to do so.  Not because she was a bad person, but agents were busy.  It was more time efficient to lie than to cater to every client’s needs.

"Anyway," she said, "on to bigger and better things."

Mike took a drink from his bottle of mineral water and listened.

"I got a call from the producers of the
Nation’s Most Wanted
, have you seen the show?"

"Sure."  He and Laurie had watched the show from time to time, whenever they felt like they needed to be reminded of just how violent the world can be, and how badly people tend to treat each other. 

In Laurie's opinion, it was the kind of show, along with the true crime programs like
Cops
, that was making everyone paranoid, and was a big reason so many people were carrying guns.

Mike was of the impression that this was exactly what the programs called themselves:  reality programming.  What you saw on the screen had actually happened, this kind of stuff went on day and night in every city in America and if you weren't prepared to accept that, then you were in complete denial. 

Still, Mike agreed with Laurie that it was still no excuse to arm yourself to the teeth, especially when you consider that most people who buy guns end up accidentally shooting their own children or their spouse.

"How'd you like to be on it?" Beta broke in, bringing Mike back to the topic at hand.

"What makes you think I haven’t already?" he asked.

His agent, always pressed for time, ignored the joke.  “Apparently there's a serial killer in Milwaukee who is on the loose, and the Milwaukee police department want the killer to be profiled on the show."

"How did this all get around to me?"

"Apparently the d.p. on your toll booth spot is a grip for the show, and he saw a picture of the killer who's going to be profiled and told the producers that he just worked with an actor who looks exactly like the serial killer.  They tracked me down and that's why I'm on the phone now," her voice took on a lightly sarcastic tone, "giving you the quality time you deserve."

Mike was intrigued but tried not to show it.

"So, Beta, is this a good thing?"

He heard her hesitate just the slightest.

"Of course it is,” she said.  “You actually get to play a bad guy, unlike all of your spokesman commercials, plus, the show is broadcast across the country, and it's work."

Mike thought for a minute.

"I assume there's a quick turnaround on this?" he guessed.

"The producers are waiting for you to do a quick read this afternoon, and then they'll call me before end of day to let me know if it's a go."

"All right," he sighed, "what's the address?"

She gave it to him, along with a condensed version of her usual pep talk.

"So I guess crime really does pay,” he said.

"Let’s hope so,” she responded and then Mike heard a dial tone.

Mike set his cell phone on the table, changed clothes, hopped in the Camry and headed over to the address in Studio City, which looked familiar to him and then he remembered that he'd read for a pilot once, quite awhile ago, at the same address.

The receptionist showed Mike to the appropriate office and a man dressed in jeans, a blue jean shirt and a baseball cap rose from a deep, black leather chair as Mike entered.  He was tall and lanky with tufts of gray hair sprouting out from underneath his baseball cap, and his gray beard was neatly trimmed.

"Hi, Mike, Dean Harwell, nice to meet you," he said, offering his hand.

Mike shook it.

"Hi, Dean, nice to meet you."

Dean Harwell was a well-traveled director whose claim to fame had been a popular television show in the seventies called,
Chicken Feed
, a sitcom based around the antics of employees at a fried chicken restaurant.

"Hi, Mike.  Curtis Bentley, good to see you," said a short, fat, balding man in an Armani suit with suspenders and a bright red tie.

"Hi, Curtis, thanks for giving me the chance to read for you."

Bentley gave a wave of his hand as if to say "ah, forget about it," and gestured Mike to a chair next to Harwell, across from his glass desk.

The office was filled with Hollywood memorabilia as well as pictures of young children who Mike assumed the show had helped ‘discover.’ Bentley was a well-known producer in town who often ventured back and forth between television projects and feature films, not a feat every producer in Hollywood could pull off.

"There you are, Cynthia," said Bentley as a tall, casually dressed woman entered the office.  She had red hair piled high on her head and was carrying a large bottled water.

"Mike, Cynthia Broggins, our casting director."

Mike shook hands with the woman then they got down to business.

"Did Beta tell you what we had in mind?" asked Harwell.

Mike nodded.  "She said you were considering me for the part of a serial killer in one of the re-enactments?"

Bentley answered.

"Yeah, there's an amazing likeness," he said, nodding toward Cynthia, who then handed Mike a mug shot photo.

The attached form gave the name of Joseph P. Ferkovich.

Mike looked at the photo.

"I guess I look a little bit like him," he said.  "His nose is thicker and I think my face is wider, but yeah, I can see the resemblance.  Except for that fucked-up eye."

"We'll take care of that with a contact lens, no problem," said Cynthia.

Mike looked again at the picture of the killer.

"You're both from Wisconsin," said Harwell, a small smile on his face.

"Small world," Mike said.

"Let's go over the script, guys," Bentley interrupted, adopting a let's-get-down-to-business tone.

For the next ten minutes they had Mike act out the action of the scene in which Joe Ferkovich breaks into Harriet Bednarski's apartment and kills her.

Mike had to improvise some of the dialogue, and he felt silly saying "I'm going to kill you!"

When they were done, the men thanked Mike and Cynthia turned him over to a production assistant who took him to a small studio where she took pictures of him and had him fill out some forms.

Mike made the drive back to his apartment, stopping briefly to pick up some beer and a pizza for dinner with Laurie.  When he got home, the red light was blinking on his answering machine and it was Beta's voice, telling him he got the part and that he should be back at the studio the following afternoon.

Mike crossed the kitchen and turned the oven to four hundred degrees, pulled the pizza out of its box, and popped it in.

He set the table, lit a candle and placed it in the center of the table, then grabbed a bottle of beer and sat on the couch.

Well, he thought, it couldn't be any worse than playing a toll booth attendant.  Mike wasn't nuts about contributing to society's paranoia, but it would be a good paycheck, good exposure, and give he and Laurie some spending money when they went on vacation next week.

He heard Laurie pull her car into the driveway and he met her at the door.

Before she could say anything, he adopted a menacing stare.

"Stop me before I kill again," he said, and she came into his arms, both of them laughing as they stumbled toward the bedroom.