Part 3

I was two blocks from the house and there were no other cars in sight. No one was following me so I began to think that maybe it wasn't John Parker that had visited Charlie that morning. Maybe it was a cop and Tony just didn't know about it.

I was waiting at the light to make a left onto the Charleston Boulevard when I saw a silver Ford Explorer turning right off Charleston on to Desert Foot Hills Drive. I took a quick look at the SUV and although I couldn't see the driver through the tinted windows I saw that the vehicle had California plates on it. Seeing California plates on a car in Nevada is no surprise but seeing a car with California plates turning on to the street where I had been staying was just too much of a coincidence for me.

As I traveled east on Charleston I was trying to decide which hotel I should go to when I came upon the I-15 interchange. I made my decision in that instant. I turned right onto the ramp for I-15 South. If John Parker was in Las Vegas looking for me I was going back to LA.

The ten year-old Honda performed admirably, easily maintaining speeds between seventy-five and eighty miles per hour all the way back to the 10. Things slowed down a little there but I was back in Burbank at 2:30 AM were I checked into a small hotel near the Burbank airport.

I wasn't sure if it would be safe to go home because I still wasn't sure that John Parker was in Vegas looking for me. He might be watching my house. Then again he could be on his way to Mexico. I really didn't have a fucking clue as to what was going on.

I sat down on the bed in my dingy hotel room and once again began to ask myself questions trying to make sense of things. Why would John Parker want to kill me? Did he want me out of the way so he could have Nicky? That was a possibility but it didn't seem to make sense. If he wanted Nicky and she wanted to be with him they sure as hell didn't need to kill me. Divorce would have been much easier. It wasn't like I had a lot of money that Nicky would inherit. Financially she would have made out just as well in a divorce. There had to be something else going on.

I was beginning to wish that I had confronted Nicky with what I knew before I brought in Tony and Jim. Maybe she would have told me what this was all about. My body was aching, my head was beginning to hurt and I needed sleep.

In the morning I called Tony and told him where I was. I also told him about the car I saw with California plates the night before.

"What kind of car was it?" Tony asked.

"It was a silver Ford Explorer," I said.

"That was probably his Explorer," Tony said. "We found out late last night that Mr. Parker had parked his Ford Explorer at LAX when he flew out to Denver. We managed to get a security camera picture of him as he drove out of the parking lot Sunday evening. Where are you now?"

"I am at the hotel. Room 254," I said.

Forty-five minutes later Tony was at my door. When he came in he was carrying a brief case, which he set on the only table in the small room. Tony opened the brief case and took out a photograph and handed it to me.

"Do you recognize him?" he asked.

It was a black and white picture taken from a high angle looking down through the windshield of a car. The man in the drivers seat had dark hair and a rather ordinary face. He appeared to be rather large but it was difficult to tell from the photo. I didn't recognize him.

I looked at Tony and asked, "Is this John Parker?"

"That's him. Have you seen him before?" he asked.

"No. He doesn't look at all familiar to me," I said.

"I notified the Las Vegas Police and the Nevada State Police to be on the lookout for his car. They will arrest him if they find him and hold him for us," Tony said. "I think you'll want to watch this."

Then Tony pulled videotape out of his briefcase and set the video on the table. "I'm not supposed to let anyone see this yet but I thought you should. You can't tell anyone I gave this to you."

"I won't, but what is it?"

"You'll just have to wait and see," Tony said. "I have to get back to the station. As you can imagine things are a little crazy since Mr. Parker disappeared." Tony was at the door ready to leave and said, "I'll call you later and we can talk."

When the door closed behind Tony I looked that the television sitting on the dresser. I knew there wouldn't be a VCR there but I looked anyway. I called the front desk and asked if they had a VCR that I could rent. The guy that answered the phone said that they did have VCRs and if I wanted one he would have it sent up to my room. I was actually surprised when the VCR was delivered five minutes later. I didn't expect that level of service in that hotel.

It only took me a few minutes to hook up the VCR. I loaded the videocassette into the player but waited for another minute before I hit the play button. I was a little afraid of what I was going to see. I was just ready to hit the play button when I remembered something from when I was in the hospital. I remembered waking up and hearing Nicky talking to a man as they stood by the door. She had called him John. Could it have been Parker? I thought about it for another minute and remembered what they were talking about.

Nicky said, "John, you really shouldn't be here."

"Does he remember what happened?"

Nicky responded, "I don't know. Detective Trenca tried to question him about it yesterday but Eric was too doped up from the painkillers to give any answers."

"As soon as he is able to talk to the police I want to know what he tells them."

"John, please leave before he wakes up and sees you. Beside, Detective Trenca could come back at any time."

John said, "Okay, I'm going, but just remember what I said."

"I will. Now please leave. I just can't deal with you right now." Nicky said.

"She had him in my fucking hospital room," I said out loud.

I would have to be sure and tell Tony about that. Finally I took a deep breath and hit the play button.

The television screen was all snow for a few seconds then the picture flipped a few times and settled down. On the screen I could see Nicky and Jim sitting at a table facing toward the camera. The room was painted a drab gray color and the tabletop was an equally drab gray. Nicky was wearing the clothes she had been wearing when she left the house with Jim a week earlier. I assumed then that the video was from that night.

Jim was talking quietly to Nicky and she had her hands on the table in front of her palms down and she was staring straight ahead with no expression on her face. After a minute a door on the left side of the room opened and a man dressed in gray pants and wearing a white shirt sans tie entered the room.

"Good evening, Mrs. Anderson, I am Detective Harris and I will be conducting this interview. Before we get started would you like a glass of water or do you need a bathroom break," he asked.

"No, I don't need anything right now," Nicky answered in a weak monotone voice.

"Fine, then let's get started." Detective Harris said.

From what I could tell the video camera must have been hidden behind a two- way mirror. I got that impression because no one in the room paid any attention to the camera. I would expect that if the camera were in the room it would draw Nicky and Jim's attention.

"Mrs. Anderson, I would like to start with the events that took place in your home on Friday August eighth. So if you will just answer the questions truthfully and with as much detail as possible I think we can clear this up quickly," Detective Harris said.

Nicky said, "Okay."

"Now Mrs. Anderson, were you in the house when your husband was shot?" Detective Harris asked.

Nicky's head dropped to her chest. "Yes."

"Who shot your husband?" Detective Harris asked.

"It was an accident," Nicky said.

"Mrs. Anderson, who shot your husband?" Detective Harris asked again.

"John Parker," Nicky said in a voice just barely above a whisper.

"Who is John Parker?"

"He's a phys Ed teacher at my school."

"Where were you when your husband was shot?" Detective Harris asked.

"I was hiding in my closet."

"If you were hiding in your closet, how do you know the shooting was an accident?" Detective Harris asked.

"John told me what happened," Nicky said.

"Okay, Mrs. Anderson, why don't you tell me what happened that afternoon."

"John and I were upstairs in my bedroom when we heard the front door open," Nicky said. "I knew Eric wasn't due home because I was supposed to pick him up at the airport that evening so I was scared. I picked up the phone to call 911 but John signaled me to be quiet and he stepped out of the room to the top of the stairs and looked down. He came back into the bedroom a few seconds later and whispered that someone was snooping around downstairs and then he told me to hide in my closet until he came to get me."

"How long were you in the closet?"

"I don't know, a minute maybe two." Nicky said.

"Then what happened?"

"I heard the gun shots. I was terrified. I thought someone had shot John and I was sure they were going to find me too," Nicky said in a shaky voice. "I sat on the floor in my closet listening for any sound that might tell me what was going to happen next and then the closet door opened and John was standing there. His face was ashen. I asked him what happen as I got up off the floor. He started mumbling, 'It was an accident... It was an accident.'

"I followed him to the bedroom door and he said, 'I thought I saw a gun in his hand. I panicked and shot him.' I didn't know what he was going on about until I looked down the stairs and saw Eric laying there. I ran down the stairs and screamed for John to call 911 but John was right behind me on the stairs and he said it was already too late. He said that if Eric wasn't dead yet he would be before help could arrive.

"By then I was sitting at the bottom of the stairs trying to see if Eric was breathing. While I was doing that, John said, 'We have to make this look like a burglary.'

"It was then that I noticed that Eric was still breathing and I told John that I was going to call 911. John grabbed my arm and told me to wait a few minutes while he tried to make this look like a burglary and then he went into the family room. I heard him throwing stuff around the room but I knew I couldn't wait any longer so I dialed 911. I was immediately put on hold. John came back into the foyer while I was still waiting for the 911 operator to answer. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was calling 911.

"John took my face in his hand and pulled it toward his face and said, 'When the police get here tell then you came home and found Eric laying there and don't tell them anything else.'

"I asked him why and he said, 'The police will never believe this was an accident. They will think we killed him on purpose.'

"I was so scared and confused that when the 911 operator finally came on the line I told her that I had come home for lunch and found Eric on the floor at the bottom of the stairs and that it appeared that he had been shot."

"What did Mr. Parker do while you were on the phone?" Detective Harris asked.

"He stood and watched me until I finished the call and then he said, 'remember to stick to the story. If you don't and the police come after me you will go down with me.'"

"What did Mr. Parker do after he warned you to stick to the story?"

"John did something strange. He bent down close to Eric and I thought he was checking to see if he was still alive. Then he whispered something in Eric's ear and then he left," Nicky said.

"He said something to your husband? Did you hear what he said to him?" Detective Harris asked.

"I am not sure but part of it sounded like 'That's for Sarah, ' but I can't be sure. I could just barely hear him.

"What did you think that meant?" Detective Harris asked.

"I have no idea?" Nicky said.

"Who do you think Sarah is?" Detective Harris asked.

"I am not sure. He might have been talking about a girl Eric dated in college before we met. Sarah Bowden."

"Why do you think he was referring to Sarah Bowden?"

"John asked me once if Eric knew Sarah Bowden?"

I could see Detective Harris writing Sarah Bowden's name on his pad and he underlined it. "We'll come back to her later," he said. "Now I would like to know about your relationship with John Parker."

"What do you mean by my relationship with John Parker?" Nicky asked defensively.

"Just exactly that. What was the nature of you relationship with Mr. Parker?"

"John is my boss. He is a teacher at my high school."

"That's your only relationship with him?" Detective Harris asked.

Nicky tensed up and I saw Jim put his hand to top of hers to comfort her.

"Just what are you trying to imply?" Nicky said.

"I am just wondering why Mr. Parker was in your bedroom with you," he said. "Would you care to explain that?

"He followed me up stairs." Nicky said.

"Why was Mr. Parker at your house?" Detective Harris asked.

"He went there with me after lunch."

"So you had lunch together?"

"Yes, with a few of the other teachers."

"I will want the names of the others that had lunch with you that day," Detective Harris said. "After lunch, why did you and Mr. Parker go to your house?"

"I spilled tomato sauce on my blouse so I went home to change my blouse," Nicky said.

"Who drove?"

"I drove."

"Mr. Parker was riding with you?"

"Yes."

"So, when you got to your house you both went in and Mr. Parker followed you upstairs to change your blouse?" Detective Harris asked.

"He didn't follow me up stairs."

"You just said he followed you upstairs." Detective Harris said.

"When we walked into the house John went into the family room while I went upstairs to change."

"But then he came upstairs?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He was carrying the beer stein he bought for me in Germany," Nicky said.

I couldn't believe what I had just heard. Parker had bought that stein for Nicky. Then she had the nerve to give it to me like it was such a special gift. The acid in my stomach was beginning to churn. "That bitch."

"Why did he bring the beer stein upstairs?" the detective asked.

"He wanted to reminded me of our night out in Germany," Nicky said.

"Why do you think he came upstairs with the stein instead of waiting until you came downstairs?"

The tears were streaming down Nicky's face as she answered. "I guess he wanted me to have sex with him," Nicky said.

I could feel a tingling in my spine when Nicky said that Parker followed her up stairs to have sex with her. I felt like my body was going to explode.

"So then, would you describe your relationship with Mr. Parker as a sexual relationship?" Detective Harris asked.

"No. I didn't have sex with him."

"Was that because your husband came home and interrupted you?"

Detective Harris was beginning to take on the characteristics of a pit bull. He could smell blood and he was ready to go in for the kill. Part of me wanted him to break Nicky down but part of me wanted him to go easier on her.

"I was not going to have sex with John." Nicky was becoming very agitated and was having trouble controlling her temper. Jim kept whispering to her, trying to calm her down.

"You said that Mr. Parker followed you upstairs to have sex with you but now you say you weren't going to have sex with him. Which is it, Mrs. Anderson?" Detective Harris asked.

"He came upstairs with that damn beer stein and was trying to talk me into having sex with him but I was not going to have sex with him," Nicky said.

"He was trying to talk you into having sex with him? You mean he was trying to seduce you?"

"Yes... I guess so," Nicky said.

"Did he have any reason to believe that you would be willing to have sex with him?" Detective Harris asked.

"He kept talking about what happened in Germany and how we should..."

Before I could hear the rest of Nicky's answer, the hotel room started to move. It took me less than two seconds to realize that we were having an earthquake. I quickly moved to the doorway into the bathroom to wait it out. It felt like a fairly strong quake, maybe a six. The room's large picture window cracked and then fell out of the frame and dropped into the parking lot below. A moment later the power went off. The whole event lasted less that thirty seconds but I could already hear sirens all over the city along with every car alarm in Los Angeles County.

I sat down on the bed and waited for the power to come back on but it didn't. I waited more than an hour for the power to come back on but when it started to get dark I disconnected the VCR and took it down to the front desk to ask if I could take the VCR with me and return it the next day because my tape was stuck inside it. When I got to the hotel lobby I noticed that they had lights. I asked the clerk about that and he said they had an emergency generator. I asked him about taking the VCR with me and he said that he couldn't allow me to do that then he suggested that we plug the VCR into one of the outlets serviced by the generator and then I could eject the tape.

Five minutes later I was in the Honda with the tape and headed to my house. I just hoped that I would have power when I got there. I called Tony and told him where I was going and why. He said that he needed to talk to me and he would meet me at the house in about a half hour.

By the time I got to the house it was extremely dark outside. There was no moon that night and the power was out all over the city. Without the streetlights I could barely see my house from the driveway when I shut off the cars headlights. I picked up the videotape from the front seat of the car and headed around to the front door.

It was so dark that I kept stepping off the edge of my sidewalk, nearly spraining my ankle a couple of times. At the front door I had to get down on my hands and knees to try to get the key into the lock. It was so dark that I felt that I would have an easier time getting the key into the lock if I closed my eyes and it worked. When I got the door opened and stepped inside I found that it was even darker inside. I held my hand up in front of my face but I couldn't see it.

I knew that there was a powerful flashlight in the kitchen pantry. All I had to do was work my way through the foyer and along the hallway into the kitchen, a distance of about fifteen feet and then go to the right another six feet and I would be at the pantry door. Normally it would take me five or six seconds to cover that distance but in the darkness I was moving very slowly.

As a child I had never been afraid of the dark but I had never encountered a blackness so profound as I found myself in that night. After thirty seconds of shuffling my feet along the floor and keeping my shoulder against the wall I reached the doorway into the kitchen. I am still not sure why I stopped there but when I did I sensed something that made the hair on the back of my neck bristle followed by the hair on my arms. It took me a few seconds to understand what had generated this increased level of fear. It was something I smelled. It hit me as soon as I got to the kitchen doorway. It was the strong sour smell of body odor and something else. For a moment I thought it might be me that smelled bad but then I recognized the other odor. It was whiskey breath.

Somebody else was in the house, but who. Was someone taking advantage of the power outage by breaking into my house or was it something even more sinister. I thought over the possibilities and decided that I didn't like coincidence. I decided that it was not a looter, it had to be Parker.

I was frozen in place as I listened for any sound that might give away his position. He could be right in front of me or even directly behind me. I was just hoping that Parker's night vision wasn't any better than mine and that the lights would stay off until I could figure out how to get out of the house without running into him.

After debating my few options I decided that my best hope was to try and get to the pantry. If I could get the flashlight I could shine it in Parker's eyes to blind him temporarily and then I could use it as a weapon. I was sure that Parker had a gun otherwise I don't think he would have come to the house. I just couldn't understand why he would take the chance to come after me.

I let all of the air out of my lungs slowly and then inhaled deeply just as slowly so that I wouldn't make any noise. Then I stepped into the kitchen keeping my back against the wall and proceeded to move, using small side steps, toward the pantry door. I stopped moving about every foot to listen. I couldn't hear him but I could feel his presence in the room with me.

After what seemed like an eternity I reached the pantry door. Now I was going to have to step away from the wall so that I could open the door. I felt the beginning of a panic attack. I had been taking very small breaths so I wouldn't make noise and now I felt like I couldn't get enough air. I wanted to suck in a deep breath but I didn't dare do that. This just added to my panic. I had an overwhelming urge to scream and run from the house but I couldn't.

I stood still for a moment longer and then reached my right foot forward about a foot and then followed that with my left. I was about to repeat that process when I felt him. We hadn't actually touched each other but I could feel his body heat. I didn't know what to do. Did Parker know I was that close to him? I could smell his breath and his body odor was strong enough to make my eyes water.

I wondered if I should step back quickly or should I take a wild swing at him and hope to connect hard enough that it would allow me time to get out of the house. Before I could make up my mind I felt his hand brush along the side of my face.

"Hello, Eric." Parker said in the most malevolent voice I had ever heard.

I knew instinctively that Parker had only touched me to get a better idea of where I was standing so that he could shoot me. I immediately reached out my hands and pushed him as hard as I could as I took a step to the right. I must have caught him completely off guard because he stumbled backward just as he fired the gun. The muzzle flash blinded me and the noise deafened me but the bullet missed me. I spun around quickly and found the door to the pantry and opened it. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. I searched for the flashlight while in the kitchen Parker fired two more wild shots.

I found the large heavy-duty flashlight on the top shelf of the pantry and picked it up. Then I squeezed myself as far into the corner as I could so that if Parker found the pantry door and opened it I would be out of his line of fire. As I leaned my back against the wall I kept my left hand against the edge of the door just for orientation. I thought that if Parker found the pantry door and opened it I would use the flashlight as a club and try and hit him with it.

It was quiet for a few seconds than then Parker began to speak to me.

"Eric, why are you making this so difficult. I have been waiting a long time for this night. Why don't you just give up and come meet your fate like a man," he said.

The temptation was to call out and ask him what this was all about but I didn't think he wanted to talk, he wanted to kill me.

"Come on, Eric, one bullet in the head and it's all over. Then I can go get Nicole and she and I can celebrate your death by fucking each other's brains out," he said. "You know, I have been banging that sweet pussy of hers for more than a year now."

I knew what Parker was trying to do. He want to make me angry enough that I would say or do something that would let him know where I was hiding. It was working. I was having trouble controlling the rage that was building within me. Just then I felt the pantry door move. It wasn't opening it was bowed in. Apparently he was leaning against the door.

"Okay, Eric, where are you?" he said in a sing song voice. "I'll bet that you didn't know that Nicole came to my hotel room while we were in Germany last year and told me that she wanted me to make love to her. She sucked my cock so well that I bought her a nice beer stein the next day. I must have tapped that juicy cunt of hers at least ten times during that trip."

His words were having a definite effect on me. The only good thing was that his talking made it clear that he was leaning with his back against the pantry door.

"While I was fucking Nicole the day before you were supposed to come home from Dallas, she ask me to kill you so we could be together," he said. "I was planning on doing it when she picked you up at the airport that night but you had to come home early. Oh well, the best laid plans of mice and men... I guess Nicole and I will have to skip the country tonight after I kill you."

At that point my rage took over. I prepared myself by taking a deep breath and then charged into the door with all my strength. The door flew open throwing Parker forward and I ran into him from behind. Our momentum carried us into the dinette set and Parker lost his balance and fell over one of the chairs with me hanging on his back. We hit the floor hard and I thought that I heard the gun slide across the floor but in the dark, I couldn't be sure. All I knew was that I was going to have to subdue this bastard somehow. I hadn't realized how big he was until I was on top of him.

The fall had knocked the wind out of Parker, which gave me a moment to try and gain an advantage over him. I switched the flashlight over to my left hand and then put my arm under his right armpit and got my hand behind his head. This immobilized his right arm. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that he was left-handed. I was leaning to the left as I tightened my hold on his right arm when he shot his left elbow up hard into the side of my head. For a moment I thought I might lose consciousness. Instinctively I knew if I passed out I would never wake up.

While I was waiting for my head to clear I felt his body tensing and I figured he was going to try and hit me with his elbow again. I raised the flashlight up and brought it down as hard as I could hoping that it would hit him somewhere on the arm. There was a loud crack and Parker let out a scream when the flashlight made contact. I had no idea how much damage I might have done and I wasn't taking any chances. I lifted the flashlight and brought it down hard again. This time when I made contact the flashlight flew out of my hand and skidded across the floor. Parker let out another painful scream and then he lay still.

I could feel his breathing as it went from ragged to even. I began to wonder if somehow I had caused him to lose consciousness but then he spoke.

"You are going to pay for that Eric," he said. "I am going to cut your balls off before I kill you and then I am going to give your balls to Nicole as a gift. When she sees them she will know you are dead. That will make her very happy."

I could feel the rage building inside me but it was sapping all of my strength. Things were beginning to come into focus for me. I knew that if I didn't remain calm I wouldn't be ready when Parker made his next move. Taking advantage of the fact that Parker seemed to be taking a break from his struggles to regain some of his strength I unclipped my cell phone from my belt and opened it. The light from the display allowed me to see that Parker was laying with his face turned to the right. His left arm was flat on the floor. I couldn't tell if his arm had been injured or if he was just waiting for the right moment to go on the offensive again.

It took me only a couple of seconds to find Tony's number and hit speed dial. Tony picked up on the third ring.

"Tony, Parker is here in the house with me. Hurry." I said and didn't wait for Tony to respond.

"Help won't get her in time to save you," Parker said. "By this time tomorrow Nicole and I will be on the beach in Rio sipping cocktails and laughing about how weak you were. I am going to make you cry before you die so I can tell Nicole what a baby you were."

At that moment a thought struck me. I knew what he was trying to do and I wondered if maybe I could turn the tables on him. It was a gamble but I had to try it.

I leaned down close to his ear and said, "You know, John, Sarah told me that she didn't want to be with you because she heard that you were inadequate in bed. She said she had no use for a wimp and that was why she liked me."

That hit a nerve. "You shut the fuck up about Sarah," he said.

"Sarah told me that girls that knew you called you jingle bells because you balls were so tiny," I said.

"You're dead, you son of a bitch," he said. "You're dead, do you hear me, dead."

In the light from the phone I could see that Parker was practically foaming at the mouth as he made that last threat. Suddenly I began to wonder if my last tactic had been such a good idea.