Too Pretty For The Hills Page 19

  Then, coming to the end of the hall, one finally opened. Stepping inside, they found themselves in a small apartment, the owner of which the sheriff promptly shot as he looked up in shock, a fork full of food in his mouth. Then he tackled Dora and pinned her down.

  ''I’ve been waiting for this pussy too long ...'' he panted, kicking the door closed with his foot. He tore the bottom of her pajamas off and tossed the gun across the floor.

  ''No, God no! Please, no! Someone help!''

  For Dora, this was the final culmination of what had been a nightmare from the beginning. The only thing still remaining was death, but the thought of dying was no longer terrifying. Indeed, it became increasingly attractive with every thrust of the sheriff’s broken midsection.

  ''Damn that feels good, yes, yes, yes ...'' he muttered in the rythm of his movement, his previously chalk-white face suddenly red, his bloody saliva dripping from his mouth on Dora’s face.

  She resisted and tried to punch him, squirming ever stronger as her outrage grew, and at some point Felix had had enough of it. He grabbed her head and bashed it down on the carpeted floor. Then he did it again. And again.

  ''You fucking little cunt, look at how hard ... I fucking deserve this, I ... Stop wiggling, I’m gonna come ...''

  All at once a burst of pure, unbridled loathing came over Dora. She screamed, extended as far as she could, grabbed the gun and held it to the sheriff’s chest.

  ''Die, you fucking motherfucker!'' she shouted, squeezing the trigger with all her strength.

  But all she heard was the click of the hammer. The gun was empty.

  ''Yeah? Is that what you want?’’ Felix railed. ‘‘Are you ready to die?''

  He grabbed Dora’s throat and squeezed. Still thrusting, he continued squeezing until her desperate expression went numb, her face turned slightly purple, and her hands stopped scratching at his eyes.

  He came inside her with a loud moan and dropped his head on hers, wheezing deeply.

  33

  Three men in uniform burst into the room.

  ''Freeze! Hands on your head!''

  It was the routine order given upon forcible entry into a residence, but this time the only people present couldn’t follow it.

  One of the officers crouched down to examine the girl on the floor, while the other two quickly swept through the rest of the apartment.

  ''Clear!''

  ''Window!''

  As they returned, one of them held his fingers to the throat of the motionless man hunched over the table, while the other was growling into his walkie-talkie.

  ''Fire escape, five minutes ...'' he radioed in. Then he turned to his colleagues. ‘‘Ambulance?’’

  Both officers shook their heads. There would be no need for an ambulance at this crime scene; only the coroner, forensics and two body bags.

  34

  Deputy Director Mallek issued an APB for Sheriff Felix’s right hand man, but he was not found in all of Graufirst.

  Even so, the search for Deputy Katzer was only a part of the aftermath, the main priority being a widespread search for the sheriff himself. By nightfall, Kleineohren was overrun with police. The investigation was immediate and there were patrols going through the residential areas, surveying passers-by, and stopping vehicles at strategic points.

  It was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. And yet one needle managed to slip through without arousing suspicion.

  Deputy Katzer was wearing a long-haired wig and thick, coke-bottle glasses, a disguise which, together with a fake ID, allowed him to drive nonchalantly through the checkpoint where he was stopped. No-one expected him to make an appearance in Kleineohren to begin with, of course, but he also had other favorable circumstances going his way.

  After receiving a call from a very distressed Sheriff Felix about two hours earlier, he immediately dug the wig and glasses out of his desk, got into an old car he had parked at a garage near the station for just this scenario, and left Graufirst before anyone else had gotten organized.

  ‘‘Fortune favors the brave,’’ he told himself when he picked up a middle-aged female hitchhiker who was heading to Kleineohren on foot. The chatty passenger made him seem even less suspicious, and they reached the city around dusk, passing easily through the checkpoint. Then he dropped the unsuspecting woman off and continued on his way.

  For a young fellow who rarely left the hills, less for a lack of ambition than because of a certain weird magnetism that held him to the mountains, he blended into the city night life with ease.

  Stopping at the traffic lights, waiting for the pedestrians to cross, the headlights of passing cars, the lamp posts along the sidewalks, the illuminated store fronts and the strobing police lights all reflected in his rapturous eyes as he contemplated what their next move would be. It was the thrill of a lifetime, the highest peak yet. Whatever fear he may have felt was entirely eclipsed by the intoxicating rush of adrenaline.

  It wasn’t easy locating the back alley where he’d been instructed to pick up his accomplice, but he poked around the area for a while and finally found it. It was dank and dark and smelled like the place dumpsters went to die. Even the police avoided it, apparently.

  Walking down the alley, Katzer quickly spotted the sheriff’s hideout — an abandoned mechanical shop now being used as an ad-hoc shelter for junkies and street cats.

  He opened the dusty glass door and went inside, but in under a minute he was back out the door — alone. He paused in front of the store front and lit a cigarette, staring vacuously into the space in font of him. Had anyone happened by, they would have seen nothing on his face to indicate anything unusual, but a keen observer might have noticed the slight wobble in his knees.

  Reaching his car, he leaned on it and fired up another cigarette, listening with cold indifference to the heartbeat of Kleineohren and the police sirens wailing in the distance. They would be the town’s anthem for quite some time, he thought to himself.

  As the fire in the cigarette was approaching the filter, a couple of drunk kids in their late teens came stumbling down the alley, talking loudly and laughing. Katzer had no idea if they’d heard about the events of the day, but if they had they certainly didn’t seem to be overly alarmed.

  ''No you won’t!''

  ''... Did you see how he looked at us?''

  ''I could have taken that bouncer head on ...''

  ''Jasmine, cut it out!''

  One of the girls giggled, then proceeded to crouch down in the middle of the alley, pull her underwear down to her knees and relieve herself.

  ''What a little slut!'' one of the other girls chuckled.

  ''Look who’s talking!''

  The group carried on walking, guffawing as they went, and the girl quickly pulled her panties up and rejoined them.

  By this time it was dark enough that they barely noticed Katzer as they passed him, but he couldn’t avoid noticing them. The air around them reeked of booze.

  He followed them with his eyes as they walked away, then he flicked his cigarette into a puddle, got behind the wheel, closed the door and turned on the ignition, his headlights illuminating the end of the street he’d come from. But he didn’t drive off.

  His gaze was rivetted to the rear view mirror. It seemed a second girl had also felt compelled to heed nature’s call there in the alley and was taking longer than the first one to wrap things up.

  Katzer waited for a few seconds, then he got out of the car again, leaving the engine on, and started walking.

  The girl, still peeing, heard his footsteps, and as he reached her she turned around, looked at him with woozy eyes, and gave him a wide, drunken smile.

  He responded in kind.

  The end

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