The May Day Murders (30 page)

“
Slowly,” Stanley
commanded.

Cindy shot him a pained glance and with
trembling hands mechanically undid her blouse, allowing it to fall
off her shoulders to the floor. After pulling down her skirt and
removing her pantyhose, she stopped and stared at him with pleading
eyes.

“
The rest, Cindy. Take off
the rest,” he insisted, his voice guttural as he continued to peer
through the viewfinder.

Cindy sighed in helpless exasperation
and undid her bra. She tossed it aside, and with tears streaming
out of her eyes, removed her panties.

“
Excellent!” Stanley
exclaimed. “Say ‘cheese!’”

An instant later, the camera
fired—causing Cindy to flinch from the glare of the flash. The
camera promptly coughed out a print with a whirring whine and
Stanley pulled it the rest of the way out and stuck it into his
pocket.

“
How about a smile, Cindy?”
he coaxed. “And take your hands away from your tits!”

He gaped at her as she hesitantly
withdrew her hands from her breasts and let her arms fall limply to
her sides. She was sobbing in fear and humiliation as she forced a
weak smile that lasted only a second.

“
Come on, Cindy, look alive!
You know you’re enjoying this just as much as I am. Here I am,
admiring that gorgeous bod of yours and it’s making me a very happy
camper … You’re fucking pleasing me, Cindy! So give me a
show—let’s see your stuff!”

At that moment, Cindy Fuller totally
broke down. She started crying hysterically and slumped to the
floor, no longer able to deny the pent up terror inside of
her.

“
Fuck!” Stanley shouted,
running over to where Cindy lay writhing on the floor. He thrust
his hands in under her arms and tried to force her up to her feet
but she was like a dead weight. He let go of her and smacked her
face hard with the back of his hand.

“
Okay, Cindy. No more Mister
Nice Guy. Get up on your feet or I’m going to kick the living shit
out of you!”

Cindy remained motionless.

“
Last chance!”

Cindy didn’t move.

Stanley brought his arm in under her
chin and applied pressure, causing Cindy to choke violently. He
held her in a vise-like grip for several moments, then relaxed his
hold. Cindy coughed agonizingly and struggled to catch her
breath.

“
Are you ready to cooperate,
Cindy? Or would you like me to finish you off now?”

She shook her head dismally. Stanley
lifted her up to her feet and held her until she finished coughing.
Then he said, “You’ve really pissed me off Cindy, you know, and I’m
beginning to wonder just how much you care about your precious
kids. Are you going to start playing ball with me or are you
conceding the game?”

She forced herself to say in a broken
hoarseness, “Okay, you win.”

Stanley Jenkins grinned victoriously.
“Wait here. I’ll be back.”

He returned to the camera and looked
through the viewfinder. “Turn around, Cindy. I want your sweet ass
to face the camera.”

Cindy turned around.

“
Now stay there and don’t
move a muscle.”

He stood back and flipped the switch
for the self-timer, removed his coat, his eyes never for a moment
leaving Cindy’s backside. Then he quickly pulled off his sweat
pants, pressed the shutter release button, and ran over to where
she was standing.

“
Bend over, bitch!” he
commanded, then shoved himself into her just as the timer beeped
out the final seconds and the camera fired.

Cindy let out an agonizing scream and
struggled to break away just as Stanley grabbed her hips in his
hands and forced her down onto her knees, continuing to thrust
himself into her. Moments later, he withdrew and spun Cindy around,
pinning her down flat on her back. He plunged himself into her as
Cindy tried desperately to push him off. But she was no match for
him as she kicked her feet wildly and clawed him in the back with
her fingernails.

“
You’re not being a very
willing participant,” he panted, staring at her with insatiable
lust and malice. “I’m beginning to think that you truly don’t like
me one iota!”

He suddenly grasped her breasts in both
hands and squeezed them as if checking cantaloupes for
ripeness.

“
Don’t tell me this doesn’t
feel good, bitch. Now are you beginning to see what you missed when
you turned down Stanley Jenkins all those years ago? All I ever
wanted was this—to fuck your brains out. But you were too good for
me, weren’t you, Cindy? Didn’t think I’d be able to give you so
much damn pleasure. Thought I was a fucking loser! But now you
know. And now I know that you’re a fucking slut, just like all the
rest. Big fucking teasing sluts who think they’re shit doesn’t
stink. And to think that the only reason I was ever interested in
you was because you resembled her so much. But you’re nothing like
her—she has class. You are just a cheap imitation of the real
thing, you bitch!”

In a sudden fit of uncontrollable rage,
Stanley hammered her in the jaw with his fist, sending Cindy’s head
reeling to the side. An instant later, he struck her again, this
time nearly knocking her unconscious. Cindy moaned incoherently as
Stanley sprung up onto his feet and ran over to where the nylon bag
was lying on the floor. He reached inside and took out a three-foot
length of lamp cord and raced back over to where Cindy lay half
conscious on the floor. Her eyes were frozen in terror as he walked
around her, forced her up into a sitting position, then drew the
lamp cord around her neck from behind.

“
Sorry it had to end this
way, Cindy,” he declared as he tightened the cord around her neck.
“But in spite of the great time I’ve had on our little date, I’m
afraid that I’m still going to have to kill you.”

She let out a bloodcurdling screech as
Stanley Jenkins pulled the lamp cord taut, causing it to cut into
the soft flesh of her neck. Cindy started choking and gasping for
breath as he pulled tighter and tighter until she became totally
motionless. He let go and watched as her body slumped down to the
floor.

Stanley stood up and checked the
time—it was almost 9:00. He ran over and quickly removed the camera
from the tripod and carried it back over to where Cindy’s body lay.
Switching off the self-timer, he aimed and took a quick shot of
her. Then he laid the camera aside and stood over Cindy for a
moment, staring at her as an interior decorator would while
assessing a room’s decor for the first time. Then he began
rearranging her body position meticulously until it finally suited
him. After retrieving the camera, he experimented with a few angles
before snapping three or four shots of Cindy laying flat on her
back, her legs spread eagle.

After putting on his sweat pants and
coat, Stanley broke down the tripod and placed it into the nylon
bag along with the camera and the lamp cord. He scoured the room
for any evidence of his ever being there then carried Cindy’s glass
into the kitchen and placed it in the sink. He didn’t disturb the
bottle of scotch or anything else there, knowing full well that
Cindy wouldn’t have bothered with any of it until the next
morning.

Just as he was about to return to the
den, the phone rang and he felt his heart skip a beat. Stanley
stood frozen in his tracks and listened as it rang a total of five
times, then ceased. The mayor, he thought to himself with a grin.
Most likely checking to see if Cindy had left yet to make their
secret rendezvous.

Stanley hastily returned to the den and
began putting Cindy’s clothing back on her body. This undertaking
proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated and nearly ten
minutes passed before he had everything back in place. He picked up
Cindy’s body and cradled it in his arms as he made his way out of
the den.

When he reached the door leading to the
garage, he stopped long enough to catch his breath then opened the
door and carried Cindy’s limp body over to where the Mercedes was
parked. Stanley swore under his breath when he realized that the
passenger door was locked, so he carried her around to the driver’s
side and managed to open the door far enough to heave her
increasingly cumbersome body onto the seat. With a huff, Stanley
turned and went back inside to the kitchen where he found Cindy’s
purse and car keys laying on the counter. Returning to the garage,
he unlocked the passenger door and opened it, then transferred
Cindy’s body over from the driver’s side. He pulled her lower body
down as far as he could toward the floorboard until she was out of
view from the outside. Sweating profusely from the exertion,
Stanley went back inside, made a final look over of the den, turned
off the lamp beside the sofa, grabbed up the nylon bag and returned
to the garage.

He got into the Mercedes, inserted the
key and fired up the engine. Stanley stared at the tachometer. The
idle speed, even with the choke engaged, was only about 800 rpm.
That certainly won’t do, he thought. After fishing a screwdriver
out of the nylon bag, Stanley pulled the hood release button and
got out of the car. After raising the hood and locating the idle
adjustment screw, he turned it clockwise until the engine was
purring along at cruising speed. He then closed the hood and
returned to the driver’s seat. He estimated that the rpms would be
somewhere around three grand once the car was all warmed up. That
should do it.

He depressed the button on the remote
garage door opener and waited until the door was fully open before
shifting into reverse. The car lurched back with a reverberating
squeal and he contemplated lowering the idle a bit but thought
against it. Better safe than sorry, he thought; and who gave a
tinker’s dam if he had just all but trashed the transmission? It
wouldn’t make any difference in a few minutes, anyway.

Halfway down the lengthy driveway,
Stanley pressed the garage door button again, just as Cindy would
have done. A moment later he pulled away from the house, hoping no
one heard the squeal of the patch he’d just laid at the foot of her
driveway.

Stanley had learned through his
extensive internet research that Portnoy was a small but sprawling
Colorado suburb inhabited mostly by affluent residents who
conducted most of their business in nearby Denver. The chateau that
the mayor used for his liaisons with Cindy was less than a two-mile
drive from her home. To get there, she would have merely driven
down her street to Ridgemont Road, taken a left hand turn, then
descended the steep, winding two lane road until it intersected
with Pinecrest Lane. There she would get onto Pinecrest and drive
back up the mountain for a half mile or so then pull onto a little
unmarked road which was all but obscured from view by the lush,
towering pines growing on either side of it. Once on this road, she
would drive another quarter of a mile or so until she reached the
chateau that was tucked away in the middle of nowhere. The view of
the majestic Rockies at their obscure little love nest, Stanley had
to admit, was absolutely breathtaking.

Located just before the intersection of
Ridgemont and Pinecrest was a sharp, hairpin curve that couldn’t be
safely negotiated at any speed in excess of fifteen miles per hour.
Along this perilous curve was a short strip of grassy roadside,
about thirty feet wide, and beyond that a cliff with a sudden
drop-off of perhaps 1500 feet or so. The only barrier standing
between the roadside and the cliff was, amazingly, a pathetic
guardrail constructed only of treated pine posts and a pair of
wooden beams. Stanley had been elated the first time he’d laid eyes
on this engineering faux pas as he noted that this would be a primo
site for some less-than-responsible motorist to lose control of his
car and go plummeting over a cliff with a vertical drop-off of
nearly half a mile.

And tonight Cindy Fuller, he thought
with relish, was going to be that luckless motorist.

It was a chilly night and the air
smelled of an impending snowstorm. He turned on the car’s heater
and zipped quickly along the steep mountain road just as Cindy
would have done en route to her rendezvous with the mayor. He’d
discovered in the last couple of weeks that she was a reckless and
incompetent driver to say the least, often exceeding the speed
limit and rarely wearing a seat belt. She had been quite a wild
lady in general, as a matter of fact, considering her age and her
lofty position in the community.

Stanley would never forget the night he
had first followed her to the road that led to the mayor’s private
getaway, clueless as to what she could possibly be up to. He
recalled getting out of his car and following her on foot from that
point on, knowing that she couldn’t be going much further,
considering the geography of the area. He had followed her for
about fifty yards or so before he came upon a steel gate that
blocked the entire breadth of the road. It was secured by a thick
chain and a heavy padlock that Cindy evidently had a key to. He had
scaled the six-foot fence adjacent to the gate and proceeded along
the road until he’d finally reached the edge of the grounds
surrounding a small stone house that reminded him of a miniature
French manor.

The grounds had been well lit by
floodlights and it was no small feat circling the grounds in the
thick foliage until he found an area where he could approach the
chateau unnoticed. Once he’d made it however, the rest of his
mission had been easy. The place was like a fish bowl—more windows
than anything else—particularly in the rear of the structure where
the patio and hot tub were located as well as a spectacular view of
the Rockies.