Cujo III – Reloaded – This Time It's Personal
Chapter 14
Here's the next. Many thanks to those who've stuck with this and have been kind enough to review. I really appreciate hearing from you and have kept your suggestions in mind while writing. You may recognize your ideas incorporated into this story as it unfolds.
Mistakes may abound. Imaginary Beta is tired and annoyed. Ninja cats won't let her use her desk as they insist it's their new summer home. Time for some tough love but don't know if she can pull it off.
Disclaimer: Since we don't get paid for this anyway CBS could save big bucks by letting the lot of us write and direct. Future Emmy or not, I'm afraid there are some in this group who would be far too distracted to get any work done.
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Strange Brew
She wasn't going to get away this time. This time, he was going to make sure the tall female would never spray awful stuff on him again. He was going to keep the sparkly things too. She would never find them.
He watched as the female searched through the box he'd taken the sparkly things from. She looked angry. He knew what angry looked like; he just didn't care.
The tall female was somehow connected to his human but he liked his human. He didn't like the tall female. He is still angry about being made to smell so unlike himself. It wasn't as bad as that time he was sprayed by the strange two-colored animal that sort of looked like a cat but not. That time he was taken to a place with dogs. DOGS!
The water with the bubbles in it actually felt good and afterward he smelled sort of like flowers and had a fluffy toy attached to the thing around his neck. It was nice.
He still had a job to do. He was going to chase the female away. She was going to be sorry she sprayed him. He crouched with muscles bunched; ready to pounce.
…..
Even before Steve entered the house he could hear the familiar yowl. Usually, the terrifying sound was emitted when Danny was in the vicinity but there'd been other times when the frightening sound had wafted on tense air.
There'd been that time Cujo had attacked several armed members of a drug cartel and then helped capture Kono's sleazeball boyfriend, its leader, who had slimed his way into her affections.
Of course, the power wasn't always used for good . . . like now for instance.
"Hey buddy." he greeted the fuzz-tailed animal standing guard outside the hall closet. Cujo didn't react at all to his human's entrance. "Don't you think you're being a little too intense here?"
The only answer was another menacing growl directed at his prisoner.
"Steven!" came a muffled voice, (a really pissed sounding muffled voice), from the other side of the closet door. "Get that little monster away from the door and let me out of here!"
"Yeah mom. Hold on. I've got him."
"Hurry up dammit! It's stuffy in here!"
He knew better than to just try to pick up the angry little wolverine when he was so obviously agitated. It was dangerous to be in the same zip code once the bundle of doom was locked and loaded. Unfortunately, they'd all found that out the hard way.
He'd have to question Doris when he had more time to find out what it was that set Cujo off and made him want to dispatch his mother in a, no doubt, very painful and bloody way. He supposed it had to do with the perfume thing. Cujo had a very long memory for stuff like that. Hell, even the Mafia, didn't have that long a memory for slights and disses. He tried not to smile as he leaned down to address the cat – not too closely mind you.
"Hey buddy, why don't we go see if there's a can of tuna with your name on it huh?"
The cat only continued his growling as he crouched at his post in front of the closet door, dilated pupils making yellow eyes nearly black with menace. He was on a mission. The tall female was going to die!
Frowning at the bristling and unyielding little wolverine, the tall man said, "I don't have time for this crap right now. You and Doris are just gonna have to settle your differences later."
The cat didn't take his eyes off the closet door. She had to come out some time. He'd be ready when she did.
With a huff of frustration the SEAL hustled off to the kitchen. Hopefully, he'd find a can of tuna in the cupboard. As far as Cujo was concerned the stuff was like kitty heroin. Steve was sure the furry little predator wouldn't hesitate to scamper over his dead body to get to a can of Starkist.
Frantically rummaging through the cupboard, there was no tuna to be found but due to Danny's recent visit, if cats liked Pringles and onion dip, he'd have had it covered.
"Dammit!" he muttered, "Now isn't the time to run out." Without having the lure, he'd just have to pick him up and risk being bitten or scratched. The cat showed no mercy when locked on target and would react badly to anyone who tried to deter him from his quest for annihilation of the enemy.
"Stevie!" called his mother from her closet prison.
"Yeah, yeah. Sit tight mom. I'm getting Cujo squared away." He opened one last cupboard and found something that may actually be of help.
Ahah!" he exclaimed. Danny had left a can of kippers when he'd dropped Gracie off one morning on his way to court when it was his turn to testify on a drug bust. Rather than 'babysitting', the detective had termed it a play date as his partner and his daughter spent all morning swimming and building sandcastles until he returned.
The kippers were explained when Danny told him that Gracie had gotten a taste for them from her mother. Steve just thought they were gross.
Scrabbling in the drawer for a can opener, he quickly found it and rushed back into the room with the now opened tin of fish. Holding it toward the cat, at first he only got a low growl from the focused feline.
"Stevie! It's stuffy in here!"
"Workin' on it Mom, just stay put another minute!"
Cujo had just caught a whiff of the kippers. He now looked torn between pouncing on and slaughtering his sworn enemy or investigating the wonderful new aroma that wafted from the metal thing his human held out to him. Decisions, decisions.
Steve watched fascinated. He could almost see the little wheels turning. Finally, with a small squeak, Cujo gave up his quest to decimate Doris and followed the can held out toward him as Steve backed into the kitchen. Setting the container down onto the floor on the other side of the tile topped island he circled back to the door he carefully closed behind him and quickly stepped back to the hallway to release his mother from her confinement.
"All clear Mom. You can come out now." he called
"Finally!" she muttered as she cautiously opened the door to peer carefully out, her face flushed as she pushed damp bangs off her forehead.
"Why do you even keep that little monster!" she said accusingly to her son who stood arms crossed and with an amused expression on his face.
"You musta caught him in a bad mood."
"Bad mood! The little bastard tried to kill me!"
"Calm down okay. You didn't get bitten." he tried to placate
"Only because I was senior girl's hundred-meter sprint champion at Hamilton High."
"You were?"
"Yeah when I was . . . that's not the point!"
"Well. You're safe. I have to get back to work."
"Where is he?"
"In the kitchen. Just don't go in there right now."
"You really need to get rid of that animal."
"Mom. I'm not getting rid of Cujo. You sound like Danny."
"Well, maybe he and I agree on this one."
"You can both stop your campaign. The cat isn't going anywhere."
"We'll see."
…..
"Why an electronics store this time? What's the connection?" mused Danny aloud as the four of them stood staring up at the map displayed on the big screen.
The red dots scattered on it indicated where murders had occurred and the green dots current or former book store locations. It looked like some sort of demented Christmas display.
"Kono, put up all of the chain's locations and color them in blue. Keep the murder scenes red." directed Steve as the willowy detective's fingers deftly tapped away and several more blue dots magically appeared on screen.
"You want the coffee shops that aren't part of the chain Boss?" she asked
"Yeah, just make them a different color." he answered, brows bunching together as he stared intently at the screen while he leaned his hips against the smart table and bit his lower lip in thought.
A series of orange dots now popped up.
"Now, put in the locations of electronics stores and repair shops." he ordered
Another series of dots appeared, this time colored purple.
The map of Honolulu and vicinity now looked like someone had thrown a random handful of confetti at it.
Eyes narrowing in laser focus, Steve moved to stand in front of the screen and after a moment stabbed a finger toward where the green dots and the blue ones seemed to converge most closely.
"There and there." he announced. "Those are the places we need to stake out." He'd indicated two places where the blue and green dots nearly overlapped one another.
"Why there?" asked Danny, "What's your theory?"
"I think someone has a big issue with bookstores being located so closely to coffee shops for some reason."
The others wore skeptical and/or puzzled expressions as he continued.
"I think there's a connection between them."
"What about Blue Lagoon electronics? It's certainly not a coffee shop." said the now clearly skeptical Jersey detective
"No, but there is a bookstore almost next door. It's a gut feeling I can't yet explain. There's something about the two in juxtaposition that triggers the murders."
"Still don't see it." said Danny as he too scanned the screen carefully but to him they were still just multicolored dots that revealed nothing of motive.
"Chin, didn't you say that two nights ago there'd been a report of a suspicious vehicle being seen in a location overlooking one of the coffee shops?"
"Yeah, a newspaper delivery guy spotted a light colored Prius with someone sitting in it on a rise over one of the locations but he didn't have time to get the plates before it drove off. It happened about half past four in the morning when he was on his way to drop off bundles of the morning rags to various locations – most of them coffee places."
"Might mean something. He thought it suspicious enough to report." said Chin
"It was a Prius? What the hell kind of pussy-pants murderer drives a Prius? It's probably a false alarm." voiced Danny
"What do you have against Prius drivers?" asked Steve in mild bewilderment.
"I've always been suspicious of drivers of cars that make almost no sound. Seems kind of stealthy to me. Like they're just gonna sneak up on you and run over your ass because you can't hear them but they don't have the balls to just confront you."
"Are you kidding? At this point, if Mother Theresa was spotted wandering around before seven a.m., eco-friendly car or not, she'd be reported as suspicious." said Steve looking annoyed
"Yeah, the town's a little jumpy right now to say the least." said Kono as she concentrated on the colored dots, "Murderers behind every palm tree so to speak. It's really starting to affect tourism since it made the national news a few days ago."
"Well, at least we haven't heard from Denning for at least the last . . . oh . . . twenty minutes?" observed Danny
"Which location was it?" asked the SEAL, ignoring the chatter as he continued to stare at the dots.
"The one at the corner of Makakilo and Kinohi." supplied Chin
Without disturbing the map already displayed, the sinewy Hawaiian used the smart table to pull up the location and then overlaid it on the big screen.
"I'll be damned." he exclaimed, "It's only about a block away from Blue Lagoon Electronics."
Danny, Chin and Kono looked as though the pattern had suddenly become clear as day as three sets of eyebrows hoisted toward hairlines.
"I'll be damned." the three muttered as one
….
Exiting the grim building to blink into the bright sunset, she took an appreciative breath of air that didn't smell like the place she'd spent most of her day.
She was humiliated. Honolulu City Jail was worse than she could have imagined. There was the order to strip and then after the body search there was the shower and delousing stuff. Then the icing on the cake was having to don the hideous uniform worn by the inmates of said institution. She'd been locked up like a common criminal! Many of her 'sisters' had been picked up for soliciting, a few for theft and one for setting fire to her boyfriend. (Her co-workers would have thought she fit right in).
If she ever gets the chance to get her hands around that prick McGarrett's neck . . . !
It had taken them almost eight hours to bail her out. She was unaware that no one at the station had broken any land-speed records to do so. She also wasn't aware that nearly the entire news staff had high-fived one another and laughed giddily upon re-watching the video of her arrest . . . several times.
The station manager had frowned at his staff, intending to censure their behavior before finally bursting into laughter himself at the vision of their enraged star reporter as she mouthed curses at someone off camera while being escorted from the scene and ultimately stuffed into an HPD squad car.
"Alright.", he said, "Who wants to volunteer to fetch Kiki from the pokey?" Not a hand was raised or a peep heard.
…
Despite having to endure Kiki's tirade, life wasn't all bad for the little camerawoman. She'd had a friendly conversation with that cute blonde Five-0 detective. The one she'd warned not to take Kiki up on her offer. Actually, she'd given him her phone number along with the invitation to give her a call sometime next week. Things looked promising.
….
"Hi baby. Just had to tell you what a good job you're doing. People are really paying attention now."
"It's so good to hear your voice Kiki. I was getting worried. Mrs. Quong, my neighbor, said that she'd seen you being arrested on television. You know I don't have a TV and I didn't see it but are you okay?
"I'm fine." She answered, annoyed even having to think about the incident. At least she got some publicity out of it. If she can spin it right, she may even come off as the heroine in it all. "Sometimes the police are a little too enthusiastic is all." she soothed.
"Don't mean to sound hysterical or anything but that close call at the last coffee shop kind of rattled me."
"Well, it all worked out didn't it? There's certainly been a lot of coverage of this last one. You did well baby. It was just perfect."
"You think so?"
"Oh, you bet. Maybe one or two more and then you can post that statement you want. I think people will really be willing to listen then."
"One or two more?"
"Yeah, that's all. You can do it."
"They're still not listening to each other. I mean they still sit there and ignore the people sitting right next to them; fooling with their cell phones or tapping away at their computers. Sometimes they even do it on the bus. I've seen them!"
"They will baby. They'll listen. Just a couple more and they'll listen to whatever you have to say."
She was hoping to avoid the long rants he could launch into. This is so boring. Why can't he just do what she tells him to do and shut up about it?
"How can people communicate if they don't listen? Myra and I used to talk to each other all the time. We actually talked to each other and heard each other. People are so busy with all that electronic stuff: cell phones, laptops, notebooks, those little music players . . . "
"I know baby. We'll make them listen. We'll make them all sorry they didn't listen to you sooner." she soothed and then sighed inwardly hoping he was done with his retelling of the issue that launched his career as a serial killer. It could get so boring.
"Kiki, I don't know what I would have done without your help. I couldn't have gotten anyone to realize that all this electronic stuff is killing us! It killed Myra! She trusted those doctors and look what happened! Look what happened . . . "he sobbed "Look what happened."
This time she only rolled her eyes. The guy is a pathetic little whack-job. She was just lucky she could put that lunacy to good use.
The man on the other end of the line sobbed on. Every once in a while she murmured something she thought would sound empathetic. She knew how to work it.
"Kiki, you're the only one who understands. You're the only one I can trust."
There was more sobbing as she once again withdrew the brush from the small glass bottle and stroked it across one long nail; applying another coat of the blood red lacquer. With the phone tucked between her shoulder and ear, she almost swore aloud as the awkward posture caused her to drip a bit of the viscous glossy liquid onto the top of her dressing table. It was a small perfectly symmetric drop. She stared entranced as it sat glowing wetly against the snowy landscape of the lace table runner. Such a beautiful color. So like what was on the floor at those crime scenes.
"God, I miss her so much, Kiki. I miss her every minute of every day."
She was barely listening to him as he babbled on. When he paused, she said, "I know baby. Soon you'll be able to be with her. Soon you can leave this all behind; all this pain. Just a couple more and this time, I even have your target all picked out for you."
….
"You have to pull that little lever there. Don't burn yourself." instructed the little brunette as she gave Steve a last minute lesson on making espresso.
She was dizzy with lack of sleep as she wasn't scheduled to open this morning and hadn't even gone to bed until it was almost time to get up. Plus, she had to come in an hour earlier than the usual start of the morning shift to give the cops espresso making lessons but, hey, she was getting time and a half plus a bonus for this and the tall guy was cute even if he was hopeless at making a latte. Things could be worse. The murderer could make an appearance, she thought then shrugged, Whatever.
"This is so not a good idea." muttered Kono as she heard Steve mutter a curse when he burned himself.
"You guys in position?" she asked as she took up her post behind the counter, tugging at her green apron to get its straps to settle more comfortably on her spare shoulders.
"Yeah, we're ready. Just make sure Steve doesn't shoot a customer." answered Danny's voice in her earpiece.
"Right now, I think he's more in danger of scalding himself to death." she whispered as she heard both Danny and Chin snicker into their mics.
"Dammit!" she heard the muttered oath as Steve struggled to conquer the espresso machine.
"No, you have to release this lever last or the steam will shoot out at you." she heard the little barista say, now with a slight edge to her voice. This has got to be getting on Steve's nerves. She hopes he doesn't have to actually wait on too many caffeine adicts today or the Macchiato Murders won't be the only thing losing the chain its customers.
For someone who could field strip an M14 in the dark this should be easy. She knew Steve even had some sort of engineering degree. This should be a snap for him.
Guess again.
She smiled to herself as there was a hiss of steam and another curse. This one in a language she didn't understand.
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Things to come in future chapters: a date with Dave, Gracie's show-and-tell, Mickey getting what he deserves, a Doris/Cujo smackdown, the leash thing and lest I forget - catching the killers.
Anything you'd like to add? Let me know.