Termination Man: a novel (56 page)

They had not seen him come up behind them as they unlocked their door. Shawn believed that the girls had been buzzed, but certainly not falling down drunk. In all likelihood, the two of them were simply not paying attention to their surroundings. They might have saved themselves if they had immediately closed their door behind them. Shawn doubted that he would have risked breaking down the door of their apartment; that would have resulted in too much noise. And by the following day his anger would have dissipated. Carla Marsh and Jill Johnson would have lived.

But the two young women did not take these simple steps that could have saved their lives. Instead they lingered just inside their front doorway, laughing about something inconsequential—the last bit of laughter for either one of them, as it turned out. When they opened their front door and stepped inside, Shawn was able to slip in behind them. 

He did not believe that either of them had even seen his face—had even known that there was a connection between their impending demise and their bitchy behavior earlier in the evening. For some reason, this minor detail had always bothered him. By failing to identify their killer, the girls had somehow escaped knowing the full gravity of their offense.

He struck the first one—Carla, he believed—in the back of the head with the crowbar, and she fell forward into the apartment’s living room. As she collapsed, Carla nearly knocked down the one named Jill. Remarkably, Jill Johnson was not even shocked when her friend fell: she likely assumed that she had merely stumbled on the rug.

Until she turned and saw Shawn in the doorway. But in the minimal light (neither girl had had time to turn on a light before Shawn struck) she would have seen only a silhouette against the blackness of the night and the glare of the streetlights outside.

Jill had looked down at the bloody gash on the back of Carla’s head, and then back at Shawn. She opened her mouth to scream—

And then Shawn had struck her in the face with the crowbar.

With both of his victims down, Shawn had been given the time and the space to fully vent his rage. He took the crowbar to each of them, pounding first their heads and faces, then pummeling each of their bodies multiple times more for good measure. Finally he had reached the point where there was no more satisfaction to be gained from it. Both of them were now dead—long past dead—and their faces and heads were unrecognizable.

Neither of them would ever laugh at him—or anyone—ever again.

Shawn didn't linger after that. He walked out of the apartment and closed the front door, leaving the two dead young women behind him. He carried the bloody crowbar in one hand. (Luckily he had possessed the good sense to take it with him.)

As he walked across the parking lot of the young women’s apartment building, he had looked in all directions for possible witnesses. He had been so full of adrenalin in that moment that he was prepared to bludgeon any witnesses as well. He had felt superhuman in the swell of the aftermath—like Thor or Conan the Barbarian. But there had been no witnesses. No witnesses that he had seen, at least, and apparently none who had seen him enter or depart, either. 

Shawn was never questioned, or even remotely connected in any way with the murders of the two young women. He had been lucky that no one had seen him. Moreover, his presence had been limited to the foyer of the apartment. This meant that he did not leave behind any hair fibers or fingerprints. Nor had he touched the doorknob, pulling the door closed (once again he had been on the ball) only after pulling his hand up into his jacket, turning its sleeve into a makeshift glove. 

He had gotten away with murder. Yes, that statement was something of a cliché; but it was true, nonetheless.

Some months later, during February of the next year, there had been the incident with Tina Shields. But that had been a small-time issue compared to the crime that had gone undetected and unpunished.

His father, displaying his typically uncanny insight into people and situations, had sensed even then that there was something else—that Shawn had not told him everything. The old man had cornered him:
“
Tell me, Shawn: Is there anything else that I need to know abou
t? Don’t lie to me, goddamn you!”

And Shawn had insisted that no, there was nothing else—just this troublesome incident with the young woman named Tina Shields, who was actually nothing more than a barfly—a woman who was attempting to frame the son of a high-level corporate executive.
She had smelled his deep pockets from a mile away.
But no, there was nothing else that he was hiding, he insisted. He had been walking the straight and narrow in Columbus. He had learned his lesson after flunking out of Arizona State, he assured his father.

This had seemed like a reasonable course of action at the time. More than three months had gone by since he had bludgeoned the young women to death—and no one had even summoned him for questioning. They were never going to connect him to those murders, he had believed. He could focus on extricating himself from the consequences of what he did to Tina Shields. He had raped and beaten her—but thankfully he had not murdered her. 

Also, he had wisely donned a condom before plunging himself into Tina Shields as she lay on the pavement of the alleyway. That had diminished his pleasure, of course; but the condom had protected him from the DNA tests that were by then a standard part of rape investigations.

His father had not been happy about having to mobilize resources to clean up the Tina Shields affair. He had been furious, in fact; and for years the matter had left a major rift between them. This rift had been partially bridged of late, as he had been making headway in the company—superficially, at least. He found the automotive industry to be mind-numbingly boring, the minutiae of corporate management insufferable. Nor did he like the meetings, the constant obligation to smile at people he despised, to act as if he was interested in the “professional development” of his dimwitted, bovine subordinates.

It was a dull life—but he knew that his father was paving the way for him. And if appearances could be trusted, he had finally acquired the grudging respect of his father. The old man no longer looked at him with palpable distrust. The elder Myers rarely spoke of the dark days in Columbus anymore. Shawn knew that his father would never forget about that bleak episode; but he seemed, finally, to be willing to leave it behind them. 

Until Alyssa Chalmers had first teased him, and then provoked him with her attitude
. She was, at her core, no better than Tina Shields, Jill Johnson, or Carla Marsh. She hid behind her age and assumed innocence.

Perhaps he would yet find a way to make the girl pay—but first he needed to neutralize the threat from her meddling mother.

Kurt Myers, Shawn Myers, Bernie Chapman, and Beth Fisk were gathered around a table in the executive boardroom of UP&S. They had told their administrative assistants to hold all calls. Nothing short of an explosion in the factory was to be considered grounds for interrupting this meeting.

By this time—nine a.m. in the morning—they had all seen the interview between Janet Porter and the Channel 11 reporter. Thanks to the techno-magic of the Internet, they had been able to view it multiple times.

“This is a real shit storm,” Kurt said. “Exactly what we don’t need right now, while we’re trying to turn this factory into a profitable operation.” 

He turned to Beth, who would be tuned into the collective mood and reaction of UP&S’s employees. “I don’t suppose we got lucky, and no one but us caught the local evening news last night.” 

“I’m sorry, Kurt,” Beth said. “All of the employees are asking about it. Those who didn’t catch the original broadcast on television have watched the video on the Channel 11 website. I figured that we needed to confront this head-on. So I issued instructions for all line supervisors to gather their team members and announce that we know about the news story; and that we categorically deny that there is any
truth
in the allegations.”

“That's exactly what we have to do.” Bernie Chapman nodded. “A situation like this tends to encourage copycat claims. If we don't proactively nip this in the bud, we will have a dozen frivolous and spurious lawsuits by the end of the week.”

“I suppose we should also contact our outside counsel,” Kurt said.

“I'm already on it,” Bernie answered. “This morning I spoke with Michael Freeman at Baxter, Smith, and Harrison.”

“That's good,” Kurt said. Michael Freeman was one of the partners at Baxter, Smith, and Harrison. TP Automotive had relied on the Detroit-based law firm for more than a decade. If there was a way to successfully run interference against the troublemakers from Citizens for Corporate Truth, then Michael Freeman would find it.
But how much damage would be done in the meantime?
How long would it be before Janet Porter’s insinuations appeared in the national media and the industry press?

“Should we make a preemptive statement to
The
Detroit Automotive Gazette
?” Beth wondered aloud.
The
Detroit Automotive Gazette
was read by everyone who had any serious connection to the automotive industry. It consisted of a weekly glossy paper and a website that received heavy traffic.

“I asked Michael Freeman about that,” Bernie said. “In his opinion, we first need to assess whether or not this mess can be contained. If we can choke this off while it's still nothing but a vague set of undefined allegations, then the story may never spread beyond central Ohio. But if this Porter woman goes public with something more concrete, then we will have no choice but to issue a statement to the
Gazette
. At that point, we will also need to contact the mainstream national media as well. I'm talking CNN and Fox News––media outlets like that.”

Kurt nodded grimly. “I understand.”

Kurt paused to let out a long sigh. Bernie began to compulsively twist the gold ring on his finger. Beth pursed her lips. Shawn stared down at the tabletop. He had said nothing so far.

“Beth,” Kurt said. “Would you mind giving us a few minutes?”

“Me?” Beth pointed to herself, as if there were multiple people in the room who answered to the name of Beth.

“Please,” Kurt said. “Bernie and Shawn and I need to talk for a while.”

“Well,” Beth looked around the table at the three men and finally said, “Okay.” She was obviously offended, and just as obviously unwilling to voice a word of protest. She stood and gathered her papers, her pen, and her coffee cup. “I’ll be at my desk if you want me to rejoin the meeting.” 

“Thanks, Beth,” Kurt said solicitously. “I appreciate it.”

Kurt waited until Beth had left the room. She no doubt interpreted the request to leave as blatant sexism—a nasty remnant of the old boys network that had dominated the automotive industry for decades, before the winds of political correctness had changed things in the late 1980s.

Kurt regretted this inevitable misinterpretation, as he legitimately valued Beth Fisk’s contributions. She was one of his more reliable lieutenants. However, he would have to repair relations with Beth at a later date. Far more pressing issues were weighing down on him now. With Beth out of the room, the meeting participants were limited to the three men who had been involved in Shawn’s troubles at Ohio State a decade and a half ago.

“Shawn,” Kurt began. “Is there anything more to this situation that you would like to add, now that it’s only you and me and Bernie here in the room?”

“You know everything that there is to know,” Shawn said quickly, and more than a trifle defensively. “I had an argument with that silly little bitch from the cleaning company. Her mother showed up, accused me of something sexual, and assaulted me with a mop handle.”

“So you say,” Kurt said. “Shawn, I’m actually glad that I don’t know the full details of what happened in the office that night. That enables me to give you the benefit of the doubt. But something tells me that this Porter woman has something else up her sleeve. Did you hear the last part of that exchange on the news? They were talking about murder.”

“What are you asking, Dad? Are you asking me if I murdered someone?”

“Well,
did you?
Or is there something else that I should know about?
Anything
else?”

“No, Dad.”

Bernie looked like he was about to intervene. The lawyer raised his hands in a gesture that urged both of the Myers to remain calm. Bernie was on the verge of opening his mouth when Kurt thundered at his son.

“
Don’t give me that shit!
I haven’t forgotten about that little incident at OSU!
How Bernie and I had to bail you out!
You promised me—promised your mother—that you would never do anything like that again! You swore that you would walk the straight and narrow and keep your nose clean!”

“I have, Dad
!
I have! They’re making this shit up! Completely!”

Kurt went on as if his son had not spoken. “That stupid stunt you pulled with the girl, that was bad enough. You got off lucky there—at least nobody can prove that.
But if we’re talking about murder, then that doesn’t go away!”