Choke: A Thriller Read online

  23.

  Detective Lori Ponko knocks on the door of Apartment 220. The hallway she is in is nondescript. The door is solid, but cheap looking.

  She waits, then knocks again. Finally, the door opens.

  “Who is it?” a high-pitched male voice asks.

  “My name is Detective Lori Ponko. Are you Curtis May?”

  The man hesitates before answering.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I want to ask you a few questions regarding the death of Vicki Lee.”

  The man unchains the door, then opens it. He is a slim, scholarly looking man with horn-rimmed glasses and a short haircut.

  He is awkward, clearly not used to guests.

  “I was wondering if you'd come out and ask me some questions,” he says.

  Ponko enters the apartment, and looks around, taking everything in carefully.

  “Oh, really, why'd you think that?”

  The man laughs, realizing he shouldn't volunteer anything too quickly to this woman.

  “Do you want anything to drink? I've got some tea boiling.”

  “No, thanks, this shouldn't take too long.”

  May's apartment is drab and sparse, typical of a college student's digs. There is a table in the eating area piled high with books. A couch that sags in the middle.

  “I take it you're a student?”

  “Working on my Ph.D. At UCLA,” he says, anticipating Ponko’s question.

  “What field?”

  “Microbiology. I'm going to Costa Rica to study in the rainforest.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Don't worry, I'll be here for another six months,” he says with a tired smile. “Plenty of time for you to find Vicki's killer. I would hope, anyway.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Hey, this is L.A., what do you want?”

  “So how long did you and Vicki see each other?”

  “Three years. We met when she was an undergrad at UCLA. I was her TA.”

  Ponko takes out a notepad and starts writing.

  “What class would that have been?”

  “Life cycles of the Amazon.”

  “Was she a good student?”

  “Best in the class. Very bright, very articulate.”

  “When did the two of you get romantically involved?”

  “After the semester was over. She took another course and needed help, so she came to me even though I wasn't the TA. It continued to grow from there, until she dumped me about a month ago.”

  Ponko looks up from her notebook.

  “Did she say why?”

  “She said she met someone else,” May answers, for the first time showing some emotion. He sits down in a chair at the kitchen table. The chair’s seat is made of wicker and a few loose strands hang down.

  “Did she say who?” Ponko asks.

  May shakes his head.

  “How did you first learn of her death?” the detective asks.

  “On the news just like everyone else.”

  “You don't seem very upset about it.”

  “I can't say I was. And isn't that interesting?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, we used to, you know. And then suddenly I find out she's murdered. And what do I do? Nothing. I just change the channel.”

  Ponko absorbs this.

  “Human beings are capable of great violence, but worst of all, tremendous indifference,” she finally says.

  May doesn't answer.

  “When's the last time you spoke with her?” Ponko asks.

  “When she told me good-bye.”

  “And that she was leaving you for this other man.”

  “Yeah, it's funny, I'm just about to get my doctorate degree, and my fiancé leaves me for a doctor.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “What?”

  “A doctor? I thought you said she didn't tell you who he was.”

  “She didn't tell me his name.”

  “Did she say what kind of doctor?”

  “She just said he was a doctor. That's all. Believe me, it was enough.”

  24.

  The party has ended, and there are empty bottles of champagne scattered around, as well as the occasional article of clothing. It's apparent that a good time was had by all.

  Hamburger and Hot Dog are sitting on Demetrius's huge, L-shaped leather couch. They are passing a thick joint back and forth as they watch The Discovery Channel on the giant, big-screen television. A pack of hyenas are tearing apart a carcass.

  “Reminds me of your Mom at Thanksgiving,” Hot Dog observes.

  Hamburger takes a deep hit, speaks on the exhale.

  “Reminds me of your sisters fighting over my dick,” he responds.

  A man walks toward the couch where Hamburger and Hot Dog are watching television. The two look up at him.

  The man lifts his arm and in his hand is a pistol with a silencer attached.

  He pumps three rounds into Hamburger's chest, which immediately begins seeping blood.

  Hot Dog jumps up and reaches in his waistband for his gun, but it's too late. The man squeezes off five more shots, all of which turn Hot Dog's white sweat-suit top into a perforated, bloody mess.

  Hot Dog sinks to his knees and The Man fires one more shot that takes Hot Dog in the middle of the forehead. He drops onto his face.

  25.

  A woman's legs are wrapped around Demetrius's muscular back. The rest of his body is covered in a sheet.

  The woman is calling out and moaning.

  Suddenly, the door slams shut behind them, but Demetrius doesn't bother turning to see who it is.

  “Get the fuck outta here, I'm busy,” Demetrius says without turning his head to see who has intruded. “This ain’t the goddamned Playboy Channel.”

  There's no answer.

  Demetrius stops in mid-stroke, and looks back over his shoulder.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he says. He climbs off the woman and faces the man who has entered the bedroom.

  The woman also sits up. Her bare breasts are visible and she makes no attempt to cover herself.

  “Who the fuck are you?” she says, her voice angry.

  The man raises his pistol and shoots the woman in the face. Her body is thrown backward and then she slumps off the side of the bed, leaving a streak of blood that marks her fall.

  The man lowers his pistol.

  “What do you want?” Demetrius says, his voice calm and contrite. “Everything's cool. There's cash in my wallet. Take my car. The Ferrari. Keys are on the table.”

  “Shut up,” the man with the gun says. “Put on your pants. You're coming with me.”

  Demetrius hesitates and the man smoothly raises the pistol again and fires a shot that knocks a hole in the wall right next to Demetrius's head.

  “Okay, okay.”

  Demetrius climbs off the bed and starts putting on his pants. He looks down at the dead woman on the floor.

  “Shit,” he says.

  26.

  Vincent is counseling Paul Giesen, a stockbroker. Giesen is dressed in a power suit, Armani, and black leather Allen-Edmonds shoes. He's short, stocky, and highly strung.

  As Giesen talks, Vincent writes on a legal pad.

  “I just don't know, I was so in the fucking zone, until everything started seeming less, less crystalline, you know what I mean?” Giesen shakes his head and looks at Vincent with an expression that implores understanding.

  On his notepad, Vincent writes: “Vicki.” And then, in columns next to her name, “Friends. Family. Enemies.”

  “Doc, you know what I mean?” Giesen repeats himself.

  Vincent tears himself away from his notepad and looks at the stockbroker.

  “What do you think happened?” he manages to ask.

  “I don't know. I was focused, it's like my brain wasn't calculating as fast as it should've been. Like my processor was malfunctioning.”

  “Was any
thing else bothering you, distracting you?” Vincent asks, but continues making notes on his notepad under Vicki's name: Who benefits from her death?

  “I got a date with Michelle,” Giesen says and he pauses, waiting for Vincent's response.

  “The other stock analyst?”

  Giesen nods. “The one I've been trying to bag for a month.”

  “What goes through your mind when you think of her?”

  On his notepad, Vincent writes: Who benefits from my failure?

  “A challenge. A beauty.”

  “Is she a better financial analyst than you?”

  “Of course not. No one is.”

  “Is she good?”

  “She will be. She's younger, less experienced, but she's got all the right tools.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Does that scare you?”

  “Nothing scares me.”

  “Now...”

  “What do you mean now?”

  “What I mean is, champions all agree that getting to the top was challenging, but staying there was even harder.”

  “And...” Giesen’s face is turning red. He clearly doesn’t like this line of reasoning.

  “And, you've got a date with Michelle, and suddenly, you start wondering if you’ll see her less as competition,” Vincent points out. “And that might give her an edge. Maybe you start doubting the wisdom of pursuing her and maybe that's why you don't process the calculations as quickly.”

  “Some form of performance anxiety?”

  “Anxiety can be awfully distracting...”

  On his notepad, Vincent has written “revenge” and proceeds to underline it twice.

  27.

  The same notepad is in Vincent's hands but he’s now home. He is still looking at the word “revenge.” He places the notepad on the bed and stares at the ceiling.

  Vincent had decided to tell Ponko about the mystery call, even though he figured she wouldn’t believe him. He left a message for her, detailing the call, but he hadn’t heard back.

  He paces his living room, the notepad in one hand, cell phone in the other.

  His mind goes back to that night so many years ago. To Kristin.

  It was late, they were both half-drunk, and it was raining. Vincent remembers the steering wheel spinning in his hands, the sound so loud it seemed like an explosion, and then...after.

  He looks back at his notepad.

  But this can’t possibly have anything to do with what happened back then. Kristin was dead, and so were her parents. She had no siblings.

  No, it’s about something else.

  But what?

  Suddenly, from somewhere else in the house comes a noise. Vincent rushes to his home office, opens a drawer in his desk, and pulls out a gun.

  He passes through the living room silently, the gun in his hand. There is no one else in the room.

  Vincent passes through the kitchen to the back door and stands half in the doorway, half out, looking into the darkness of the backyard.

  There is nothing there.

  Vincent goes to his bedroom, places the gun on the table next to the bed. The clock reads 11:14.

  28.

  Vincent is snoring softly into the pillow. Next to the bed, on his nightstand, is his cell phone.

  At the back door of Vincent’s house, a skeleton key made of wax, the same kind used to unlock Vincent's Mercedes, is inserted into the door’s lock. With a deft twist of the wrist, the lock slides back and the door opens.

  Vincent’s house alarm does not go off.

  Demetrius Carr, with duct tape over his mouth and eyes is led into the center of the room. His arms are behind him, fastened together at the wrists with a plastic zip tie.

  A man is behind him, with the muzzle of a gun pressed directly into the back of Demetrius’s head.

  The man leads Demetrius to the dining room table where he grabs a chair with his free hand, and brings it into the middle of the living room.

  Demetrius is seated in the chair. The man places an additional zip tie on Demetrius’s left arm before freeing the basketball player’s right arm. The man then places Demetrius’s arm along the arm of the chair, and duct tapes it into place.

  He then repeats the process with the other arm.

  The man steps back.

  Demetrius Carr is now sitting in the chair, both of his arms next to him as if he’s sitting in church and forced to have good posture.

  The man steps behind Demetrius and withdraws a hatchet, sharpened to the extreme.

  He steps in front of Demetrius and raises the hatchet.

  Suddenly, it whistles through the air, followed by a loud thunk.

  In his bedroom, Vincent's eyes snap open.

  The hatchet whistles through the air again, followed by another thunk.

  Vincent swings his legs out of bed and grabs the gun on the table next to the bed.

  He races from his bedroom into the living room and sees Demetrius’s giant form sitting in the chair, his head slumped forward.

  Vincent rushes to him, his mind nearly unable to register the sight of the basketball player’s huge hands separated from the man’s body, now on the carpeted floor, surrounded in blood.

  More blood is pouring from the stumps at the end of Demetrius’s arms.

  Tears are pouring out from beneath the duct tape around the star player’s eyes. He is screaming, but it is muffled by the gag in his mouth secured also with duct tape.

  Vincent’s hands are shaking uncontrollably as he tries to get the duct tape off of Demetrius's arms. It is futile, as they are wrapped several times around.

  Blood continues to pump from the stumps of the basketball player's arms.

  Vincent races into the kitchen and comes back with some dishtowels. As quickly as possible, his hands still shaking, Vincent ties makeshift tourniquets on Demetrius's arms, then races for the phone.

  “I need an ambulance at 4328 Kingston Court. Hurry! A man's bleeding to death!”

  Vincent runs back to Demetrius who has now slumped forward in his chair, unconscious.

  Vincent scoops up the big man's hands and races to the kitchen.

  Vincent gets a large bowl from a cupboard and goes to the refrigerator's ice-making dispenser. His hands continue to shake, and now his face is dripping with sweat.

  He hits the button and ice cubes start popping out; he fills the bowl. Vincent scoops up the hands and places them inside the bowl, then piles ice cubes over the tops of them.

  Inside the bowl, black fingertips poke through the mound of ice.

  29.

  Detective Lori Ponko is facing Vincent and his attorney, Ken Lamm.

  “Now, if you were sleeping with Demetrius Carr, too, you're more of a man than I've been giving you credit for,” Ponko says.

  “Come on,” Lamm says.

  Vincent, with Lamm’s blessing, has decided to hint that there might have been more to the relationship with Vicki than he had admitted, but without actually saying so.

  “Really going for the gold with her, huh, Doctor?” Ponko persists.

  “We don't have to stay and listen to this,” Lamm says.

  “Okay, okay,” she says.

  Vincent shakes his head.

  “Detective, may I remind you that my client has posted his bond and is free to go,” Lamm points out. “He is here to cooperate with the authorities any way he can. I don't believe he deserves to be insulted and ridiculed.”

  “Fine. Fine.”

  “Is there anything else?” Lamm asks.

  “Just to make sure I got it straight, Doc. You were sleeping, and when you woke up, there was Demetrius sitting in the middle of your living room with his hands chopped off.”

  “And the front door was open.”

  “The front door was open.”

  “Right.”

  “But you didn't hear any car drive off, didn't see anyone else?”

  “No.”

 
“All right, tell me again about the phone call.”

  “It was a guy, saying he was going to help me perform under pressure.”

  Ponko jots something down.

  “You're a smart guy, right? Doctorate degree, all that stuff from big important colleges?”

  “And your point would be?”

  “You'd have to be pretty stupid to kill a guy in your living room. Especially after another one of your patients was hung from an I-beam a few days ago.”

  “Again, your point would be?”

  “We're workin' on it, Doc. But so far, we don't have shit. Not a fingerprint, an eyewitness, a strand of hair, nothing. From the physical evidence, it appears that you were the only person present at the crime scenes, other than the victims. Anyone from your past that would like to hurt you?”

  Vincent considers something, but keeps it to himself. He shrugs. “Everyone has enemies. But you know I didn't do this.”

  “I think that's a somewhat safe assumption, but, just to play devil's advocate, if you had enough balls, you could do these murders and make it look like you'd never be stupid enough to do them in this way, right?”

  “No, you’re not right.”

  Ponko smirks at Vincent.

  “Why don’t you two get out of here. I’ve got work to do.”

  30.

  Bonnie is in the kitchen, making breakfast. She pours some pancake batter on a griddle and it starts bubbling quickly. On the stove is a frying pan with sausage links browning.

  Annabel is lying on her stomach, watching a Winnie the Pooh video.

  The skit she is watching is the one where Rabbit, Piglet, and Pooh try to lure Tigger out into the woods so he'll get lost.

  “Quick, let's hide in this log, and be quiet!” Pooh says.

  “It sure is a dark place for a small animal like me.” Piglet says.

  “Sshhhh!” Rabbit urges.

  “A smackerel of honey right now would make me feel a whole lot better,” Pooh says.

  “Ssshhh!” Rabbit says again.

  “Annabel, your pancakes are ready,” Bonnie calls out.

  “Okay, Mom!” Annabel responds.

  Suddenly, there's a barely audible noise, as if someone bumped something in one of the back bedrooms.