Reel to Real (21 page)

“Right,” Jason exhaled. Shane had definitely not caught on to his lightheartedness. They sat in awkward silence.

“Hey, I got an espresso machine yesterday that I wanted to try out,” Shane said, breaking the quiet. “You want to try a cup? It’s supposed to make some bitchin’ coffee.”

Jason tipped his head back. “Yeah sure, let me have some of your espresso,” he said. “I could use a jolt right now anyway. I’m way tired.”

Shane nodded sympathetically and opened the box his mother had given him. Jason watched while Shane read the instructions on how to use the machine. Shane told him it should only take a few minutes to brew. He returned to the couch.

“Hey, you know that Hollywood Video store on San Mateo?” Shane asked.

“Yeah, I know it. I’ve never been there but I know it. I go to Girard.”

“Right. Well, did you hear about what happened last night?”

“No-oo?” Jason said, turning his head towards Shane. “What happened?”

“I guess it got robbed or something.” Shane paused. “And the people that worked there got killed.”

Jason bit down on his index finger. “What? You’re kidding, right?”

Shane shook his head.

“Well, that’s fucked up,” Jason said.

“I know. And you know what’s really fucked up? One of the girls that got killed used to work at the Girard store. The one you go to.”

“It’s someone I know? Oh, man, that’s even worse. That’s terrible. Who is it?”

“It was Jowanda. You know the cute one with the dark hair? I really liked her. I was even thinking of asking her out. But, you know what? I never did,” Shane said solemnly. “And now I can’t.”

“The measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crises.”

G
ENERAL
D
OUGLAS
M
ACARTHUR

4:30 PM

Dr. Patricia McFeeley, from the Office of the Medical Investigator, went to the Hollywood Video murder scene to examine the bodies. She walked through the front area of the store and saw a tremendous amount of dark dust, which she knew from experience was fingerprinting material used by the police.

When she got to the back, she saw three bodies in a very small room.

“Oh, dear,” she said, taking it all in.

She removed the bodies from the back room to better conduct her investigation. She used a portable x-ray machine to take a few x-rays while she was there. She was trying to figure out how many “missiles” (bullets) she was looking for, and how many times each person had been shot. As an expert, she knew it could be difficult to distinguish entry wounds from exit wounds.

When she finished, she sealed the bodies in new plastic bags and made them available for transport to OMI. The bodies were taken by a private ambulance company late the night of March 3rd. The actual autopsies were performed the next day.

5:30 PM

“Open up,” a man’s voice yelled. He banged on her front door with both hands.

“No,” Esther yelled back. It sounded like Shane, an out of control, sick-in-the-head Shane.

The two-handed knocking continued. “Right now!”

“No.”

“I have to talk to you.”

“I’m not letting you in and I don’t want to talk to you.” Esther pushed her body against the door for reinforcement.

“You better open this fucker up or I’m gonna break your fucking window and get myself in.” His voice elevated to a psychotic scream.

Esther peeked through the drapes. It was Shane all right, but he looked different from the guy she had gotten to know. He had changed. His usual affable slouch was gone, replaced by an uptight stiffness. Where his neck had once been there were now thick cords throbbing like an overheated radiator and his face had mutated into a raging tree-knot.

She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to let him in but if he continued howling at that volume, the cops would be showing up shortly. That couldn’t happen. So, knowing it was a bad idea, she let him in anyway.

He immediately pushed past her, then turned and put his face next hers. “I need to talk to you,” he said, breathing heavily.

“I don’t want to talk,” she said, stepping backwards.

Shane leaned his shoulder into her body and pulled her down on the couch with a thud. He sat down too, almost dropping on top of her.

“Sorry bitch, but it’s not optional. I
must
talk to you.”

Esther tried to slide away but he slid with her. His body leaned hard into hers as he spoke.

“Don’t ya wanna know what happened in there?” he asked, upper teeth bared.

She turned away. “No.”

“Well, you’re gonna hear it, bitch. You’re gonna hear all about it, you fucking whore. And you’re not gonna forget it. I do not want you to forget it.”

She tried to get up but he pulled her back down, his mouth next to her ear.

“Listen up, you stupid cock-sucking cunt. You are gonna fucking know what happened to those kids. All of it. Every fucking bloody detail. That way, if you even fucking think about telling anyone, you’re gonna know — ” He grabbed her upper arm and squeezed. “— You’re gonna fucking know —that what happened to them — is gonna happen to you.”

With hellfire burning in his eyes, he proceeded to tell her what had happened inside the video store. He told her the order the employees were killed in, how much blood was involved and every last, unseemly detail.

Esther covered her ears. He forced her hands away. She hid her head under a couch pillow. He yanked her back up. There was nothing else she could do but just sit there and listen. She bit her lip to keep from screaming.

The details were horrific. Much, much worse than she let herself imagine. She slumped as he talked, shivering, head down, shell-shocked, listening.

When he finished he stood up and walked around to the couch, behind her.

“Now, tell me. Tell me what’re you gonna say when I hold a gun to
your
head?”

She did not turn. She did not answer.

The next sound she heard was the hard smack of his hand. He walloped the back of the couch. She hunched forward, trying to shield her head with her arms.

“I said, what are you gonna say?” he yelled.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

He returned to the front of the couch and faced her. From somewhere, he had produced the TEC-9, and pointed it at her face. She sucked in a volume of air and stiffened.

“Don’t know, eh?” he said. “Well, for starters, you might tell me you’re gonna keep your fucking mouth shut.” He pushed the gun’s barrel against her pulsing temple. She gulped and gripped the edges of the cushion she sat on to keep from falling sideways. Her heart was beating a mile a minute.

“Tell you what,” he said, his voice leveling out. “I’m gonna help you. I’m gonna give you a tip that’s gonna be very helpful for you. I’m doing that because I’m such a nice guy. I’m doing it because I don’t want you to have to think too much and strain your very small brain.” He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out an ammo clip, and pushed it into the gun, glaring at her.

“Here’s my tip.” he said. “If you tell anyone, and I mean anyone, including your boyfriend — and I mean your boyfriend John Lausell who’s coming here tonight — if you tell anyone about what happened, I’m gonna fucking blow your motherfucking brains out and then pass out what's left for the pigeons to eat.” His face contorted into a hideous smirk, and then he added, “And I’m gonna be laughing my goddamn ass off the whole fucking time I’m doing it.”

6 PM

Heather and Holly appeared on television to make a direct plea to the public for the return of their grandparents. Pictures of the McDougalls were displayed on the screen as Holly spoke.

“Please! Whoever has our grandparents, let them go. We love them, we care about them, our family loves and cares about them and we would do anything to get them back. My grandfather needs to take his heart medicine every day. We need to get our grandparents back safely.”

8:15 PM

Ryan Spicher, the last customer at Hollywood Video on the night of the murders, was contacted by police and questioned. His name had come up on a computer invoice processed at 2:11 AM. He was asked to come down to the station to describe what had transpired in the minutes prior to closing time.

Spicher was able to help the police produce a composite drawing of the people he'd seen at the video store. It took the artist several hours to complete a picture that Spicher felt accurately represented his memory of the two people. He saw them only briefly and only from the side, so the composite was done in profile.

Spicher felt confident he could easily identify the male if he were to see either a photograph of the man or if he were to view him in a physical lineup. By contrast, he told the police he didn’t think he could pick out the woman at all.

9 PM

Traffic was light and there were no working accidents. This was good because Shane was running late. Originally, he wanted to arrive around 8:30 but ended up making a side-trip to the East Mountains. He made the trip in order to stash a couple of items he owned in a safe place: underground. A guy he knew named Harry the Hammer went with him. Harry was a big guy who was good with a shovel and bad at cooperating with authorities.

After dropping Harry off at a pool hall on Central, Shane hit the road to pick up John at the Santa Fe Greyhound bus depot as they had agreed. Shane had sent for John because he felt he needed some dependable muscle close by. He told John that a guy from prison named Sal was out to get him. The good and bad news about that was that it was true. But Shane also wanted someone to babysit Esther and keep her settled down. Someone to distract her, which he hoped, would keep her mouth shut.

***

On the ride back from Santa Fe, Shane was super talkative. He talked about the weather, he talked about his time in the penitentiary, and he talked about a recent crime he had committed.

“I boosted this restaurant, man,” Shane told John with a slight smile, referring to the Mac’s robbery. “It was cool. It went real smooth,”

“Back to your old tricks, huh?” John said, toothpick stuck in his back teeth.

“I got no choice, man. I can’t get no job that’s any good. I’m
not
working in no fucking laundry again. That’s for chumps. That’s just like being back at the joint. I gotta do what I gotta do. Fucking A, man, I gotta eat. What the fuck else am I supposed to do?”

“I hear you, bro.” John put the toothpick on the other side of his mouth. “So how’d it go down? At the restaurant?  Did you use a piece? Did you get out clean?

“Oh yeah, everything was clean. I made sure. I only had a toy gun on this one. It was all I needed. But yeah, it went good. I cased the place a couple of times, even followed the dude home. I told him I did, too. Made him more cooperative. I had him tell me where
all
the money was so I got paid twice. Once from the register and once from the safe. Then after, when I was leaving, I duct taped him up good. Wrapped his ass up like a present. I duct taped dude’s mouth, face, hands, feet, everything. He couldn’t move.”

“You wrapped him like a present, huh?” John laughed a long, deep laugh. “That’s a good one.”

“Yup, practically hog-tied him. But besides the tape, I was cool with him. When I left I put ten bucks in his pocket and told him no hard feelings. Ha.”

“No shit?”

“No, no fucking shit. I put it right in his damn pocket. Then he made some kinda crazy ass noise cause he couldn’t talk cause of the tape and it sounded like he was saying thank you, so I says to him, ’you’re welcome.’”

“You’re fucking crazy, you know that?” John said with a chuckle.

“I might be crazy but I got more’n nine hundred bucks from that fucking shithole. That’s where I got the money I sent you.”

John nodded. “Yeah, that was cool. I really needed that. Thanks man.”

Shane continued talking. He talked about various money-making ideas. He told John again about the credit card idea. Said he had acquired credit card receipts that he would soon be exploiting. John reminded him he had already heard about the credit card scam thing and had as of yet seen no results.

Shane said he realized that but he was still working out the kinks. He told John that if he did it right, if he was really discreet and didn’t take too much money at any one time from any one card, he might be able to keep milking that same card forever. He explained he had done a test on one card but it didn’t go through. He said he still had high hopes but didn’t want to go big time with it until he knew it worked correctly.

He also discussed his idea of robbing the Denver Mint. Said he knew someone that worked there and had inside information. He predicted they might be able to make six figures from that one. They would, however, need to get a few more people involved and would have to accumulate a bunch more guns to successfully pull it off.

John listened.

Shane gave him numerous details about several different jobs, past and future, as they drove to Albuquerque that night, but never once did he mention Esther as a player in any one of them. He knew that if he did, John would most certainly kill him.

“If you don't want anyone to know, don't do it.”

C
HINESE
P
ROVERB

Esther gathered up her clothes and put them in a bright red duffle bag. John was coming to town for a couple of days and Shane had told her to be ready. She expected them any minute.

Esther had decided that instead of waiting in her apartment, she would be proactive and carry everything down ahead of time, storing the items in her car. Then she would be ready for them no matter what time they showed up.

Despite everything that had happened on this very long day, Esther was excited to see John. Naturally, this new development put her trip to Ohio on the back burner. Nothing else mattered now, as long as she was with John. It seemed like forever since she had seen him. They were going to stay at a motel down the street from where she lived because he did not want to be seen at her apartment.