The Murder of Janessa Hennley Read online

  The nearer Mickey got to the house, the faster his heartbeat. By the time he pulled over in front of the home, his palms were sweating and he felt short of breath. It wasn’t just the situation causing him stress. A disease was eating him from the inside out. He tried to open the door but couldn’t muster the strength to move. Instead, he sat quietly and stared at the house.

  After a good half hour, the streetlights turned on. Mickey staggered out of the car. He looked down both sides of the street but didn’t see anyone. His muscles felt weak and loose. The four beers he’d had before coming didn’t help, either.

  He turned on his cell phone’s recorder and stuck it in his breast pocket. He sauntered to the door and tried the knob. The door clicked open.

  The house was quiet and dark. Mickey flipped on the light in the living room. Nothing looked disturbed since the last time he’d been there. The kitchen was empty as well. He climbed the stairs to the second floor. At the top, he stood silent and listened.

  Breathing came from one of the bedrooms down the hallway. Mickey withdrew his sidearm and held it low. He walked down the hallway and checked one of the rooms. Empty. The second was empty as well.

  He stood against the wall and opened the last room’s door from the side. He poked his head in and saw Angela on her knees, her hands tied. Behind her on a nightstand was a blue birthday cake with a feeding tube on top of it.

  Harold Ricks sat on the bed. He smiled as Mickey walked into the room.

  “You actually came alone. I appreciate you taking me at my word. If I’d-a seen cops outside, I would have blown her head off.”

  “I don’t doubt you would have.” Angela glanced up at him but didn’t say anything. “I’m here, Harold. What do you want?”

  “I told you what I want. I want you to blow my brains out. It has to be accurate. I don’t wanna live as some vegetable. I would do the back of the head. That’s the quickest way to kill somebody.”

  “I don’t want to kill you, Harold. You don’t need to die.”

  “Really? I kill innocent girls. You said so yourself. You don’t think I need to die?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  Mickey stared at Angela. “Because all life is precious and worth fighting for.”

  He laughed. “Where’d you hear that shit? I’d say the opposite is probably closer to the truth. Anyway, that’s the deal. You gotta do it.”

  Mickey eyed the birthday cake.

  “Something I could never figure out. Why the cake? It would have been easier to shoot them.”

  Harold’s grin went away. “None’a your business, now is it? But since we doin’ favors for each other today, I’ll tell ya. When I was back in that fucking jungle, I spent some time with them slopes in one of their camps. I was captured at night along with a buddy a mine, Chuck. They used to… Anyway, I don’t need to tell you what they done to us. But the cake, that’s how they killed Chuck. I watched him die, man. Watched his guts explode. They thought it was the funniest thing in the world…” Harold drifted off, and then came back. “Now you gotta do it, man.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or that bomb I planted in the bedroom next door is gonna detonate when I press this button here.” He pulled out a device that looked like a remote control. “I die, or all three of us die. Up to you.”

  “I thought you said you couldn’t kill yourself?”

  “Do you wanna risk that? This is just pushing a button, it ain’t pulling a trigger. Never even thought of this ’til couple nights ago.”

  Mickey cautiously walked over to him. “I died a little in Vietnam, too. It took me a long time to try to feel normal. With help, you can start feeling normal, too.”

  “You don’t feel normal. None of us do. The shit we did, the shit we saw. There’s no help for that, Mickey.” He stood up. “Shoot me.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Ain’t got nothing to do with want.” He lifted the device in his hand. “I’m gonna count to three, and then I’m pushing this button and blowing us all to hell.”

  “Don’t do it, Harold.”

  “One.”

  Mickey lifted his sidearm, the muzzle pointed at Ricks’ face. “Don’t, Harold. You can live and help other people. You don’t need to die.”

  “Pass. Two…”

  “Don’t, I will kill you.”

  “I’m counting on it… Three.”

  Mickey fired.

  15

  Mickey stood outside the home, his arm around Angela as the sheriff’s deputies stormed inside. An ambulance screeched to a stop in front of the house, but the paramedics had to wait for a clearance from the detective on scene.

  Toby Miller strutted out of the house and over to Mickey. “He’s dead,” Miller said.

  “I know.”

  “Blew his damn brains out over the wall. Didn’t expect to see that right now.” He spit on the pavement. “You shoulda told me.”

  “He would have killed her.”

  “Don’t know that yet for sure. We’re having the bomb squad from Polk County come down to scan the house, but we didn’t see nothin’. I think he was bullshittin’ you. Which means you shot an unarmed man. I hope the Bureau’s cool with shit like that.”

  “They’ll do what they have to do.”

  “You take care of yourself, Special Agent Parsons.”

  Angela looked queasy. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  Mickey looked up to the house one more time and then turned away. “Let’s go home.”

  16

  Mickey Parsons sat on the hood of his car in the parking lot of Quantico, surrounded by lush, green trees. He held a chicken parm sandwich, and the grease dripped down onto the car. He wiped it with a napkin before taking a sip of his soda.

  Angela Listz walked by. She was in a group of other special agents taking one of his seminars on the latest developments on Fourth Amendment law. She smiled to him, and he smiled back. She said something to her friends and then separated from them.

  “I like your class,” she said.

  “Pay special attention to the section on no-knock warrants and exigent circumstances for entering a home.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

  “I heard you’re being transferred to the Seattle office. That’s a great place. The SAC is an old academy buddy of mine. I think you’ll really like him.”

  “I never said thank you, Mickey.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  She glanced back at the building. “So, what for you now? More running around the country?”

  “Actually, they’re taking me out of the field. I’m going to be placed in screening.”

  “What? They can’t do that. That was a justified shoot.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Justified, unjustified, they’re just words. Ricks’ mother filed a complaint against me, and there’s supposedly a lawsuit pending. The Bureau is just covering themselves. I don’t hold it against them. Besides, I could use the slower pace of screening. I’m not far from retirement.”

  After a moment, she leaned in and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see ya around.”

  Mickey watched her walk away and grinned. She would be all right. Probably have a great career, as long as she kept her emotions in check.

  He put the sandwich down and hopped off the car. He retrieved three amber bottles from the glovebox. He took out one pill from each bottle then swallowed them with his soda. He hadn’t lied to Angela; he was looking forward to the calm pace of screening. He’d been in the field so long that he hadn’t had any time to build a life. Once his wife passed, he spent his days and nights either working the job or thinking about it. It had burned him out.

  Ricks was the first person he had ever killed in the line of duty with the Bureau. He’d shot people before, but never killed. Not since the war. And it left a bad taste in his mouth.

  Hopefully, he would never have to go out into the field again.

  AUTHOR’S REQUEST

  If
you enjoyed this book, please leave a review on Amazon at the link provided below. Good reviews not only encourage authors to write more, they improve our writing. Shakespeare rewrote sections of his plays based on audience reaction and modern authors should take a note from the Bard.

  So please leave a review and know that this author appreciates each and every one of you!

  United States Store

  United Kingdom Store

  If you haven’t left a review before, simply scroll down to the end of the reviews and find the “Write a customer review” button.

  BY VICTOR METHOS

  Jon Stanton Thrillers

  The White Angel Murder

  Walk in Darkness

  Sin City Homicide

  Arsonist

  The Porn Star Murders

  Sociopath

  Science Fiction & Fantasy

  Empire of War: An Epic Fantasy

  Clone Hunter

  Star Dreamer: The Early Science Fiction of Victor Methos

  Superhero Thrillers

  Superhero (An Action Thriller)

  Black Onyx

  Black Onyx Reloaded

  Plague Trilogy

  Plague (A Medical Thriller)

  Pestilence

  Scourge (Coming February 2014)

  Thrillers

  Diary of an Assassin

  Black Sky (A Mystery-Thriller)

  Murder Corporation (A Crime Thriller)

  Creature-Feature Novels

  The Extinct

  Sea Creature

  Paranormal Thrillers

  Dracula (A Modern Telling)

  Savage: A Novel

  Humor

  Earl Lindquist: Accountant and Zombie Killer

  Philosophical Fiction

  Existentialism and Death on a Paris Afternoon

  To contact the author, learn about his latest adventures, get tips on starting your own adventures, or learn about upcoming releases, please visit the author’s blog at http://methosreview.blogspot.com/

  Copyright 2013 Victor Methos

  Kindle Edition

  License Statement

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy.

  Please note that this is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All events in this work are purely from the imagination of the author and are not intended to signify, represent, or reenact any event in actual fact.