Part 13:
I’m Going to Have to Kill You
The story hit the evening
news, complete with bold commentary and flashing colors that swept the viewer
into the strange saga that could easily be a TV movie of the week.
As the pictures flashed
across the screen of Brian, Nick, and Howie, and even a few pictures from the
police files of the alleged shooter, Gus Monroe, the calls and eyewitness
accounts began pouring in to the police station.
There was the call from
the salesman at a trendy Beverly Hills shoe store who remembered Brian and Nick
in his store the afternoon before the murders, purchasing two pairs of
expensive boots.
There was the cashier from
a convenience store who had in-store surveillance tapes of Brian buying some
items in the late afternoon, a few hours after the Beverly Hills shopping trip.
And there was the taxi cab
driver that called to say that he remembered picking Brian up at the
convenience store in the late afternoon/early evening before the murders. He said Brian was annoyed and had mentioned
that “someone” had taken his car. The
driver said he dropped Brian off at his home in Beverly Hills and that he was
sure it was Brian because he could never forget a man who would leave him such
a generous tip.
And last but not least,
there was the foul-mouthed motel clerk, who had called in to the station to
report that she had spoken to the “dead kid in all the news reports” in the
early morning hours before the murder. She
said he had come into the motel looking for directions, but she thought he was
some “wasted little son of a bitch looking to score some weed.” If she would have known the little “ass had
some cash,” she would have paid more attention to him.
Before she hung up, she
asked if she was going to get some money as a reward for her information.
***
Sergeant Cox worked late
into the night with the officers and detectives, detailing each eyewitness
account, the most difficult being the interview with Brian’s wife, Leighanne
Littrell.
“When was the last time
you spoke to your husband?” Sergeant Cox
sat beside Leighanne at a table in the interview room at the station house.
He had been the one to
contact her after Kevin’s ID of her husband’s body. When he had finally gotten a hold of her on
her cell phone with the news, she was on a plane bound for Los Angeles. She was coming to console the family members
of Howie and Nick, whom she believed to be dead, as well as to find out
information on Brian’s whereabouts.
When Sergeant Cox told
Leighanne that Brian had been shot and killed, she paused for the longest time
before tearfully replying, “Deep down in my heart… I guess I knew he was dead.”
He told her he would have
a police escort meet her at the airport to bring her to the station house,
where he had a few important questions he needed answered.
“Leighanne?”
“I hadn’t talked to Brian
in awhile,” she said, kneading her hands in her lap as she slowly shook her
head. “We were having some… problems.”
“What kinds of
problems?” Sergeant Cox reached for a
box of tissues on the other side of the table, pushing them towards her, as she
began to cry.
“We were going to get
divorced.”
“When I spoke to you on
your cell phone, you told me that in your heart you knew he was dead.”
She nodded, the visions of
Brian telling her goodbye playing over and over in her head.
“I had to make a choice,
Leighanne.”
“If you hadn’t spoken to
your husband in awhile, then how did you know that he might have been in some
sort of trouble, Mrs. Littrell?”
Sergeant Cox pressed on, despite the tears pouring down her face. It was the part of the job he enjoyed the
least, but it had to be done.
“He called and left this
message on my voicemail. He said that he
and Nick were in trouble, and he couldn’t call the police.” She slid her cell phone across the table,
rattling off the number to her voice messaging system, along with her access
code. “When I heard the message, I
didn’t know if it was joke.”
Sergeant Cox wrote the
info for her cell phone down on a notepad in front of him, his eyes never
leaving her.
“But, I-I… I guess I knew that something wasn’t
right, though, because I called Howie.”
“What did you and Howie
talk about, Leighanne?”
Leighanne’s eyes were
glazed over and unblinking, as tears continued to spill down her cheeks. Cox knew the signs of shock when he saw
them. Placing a hand on her arm, he
leaned down and spoke in almost a whisper.
“Leighanne, we need to
know what you and Howie talked about. He’s missing, and we need to find him. I’m not so sure that the dead man at the
scene with your husband was the only man involved.”
“I gave Howie the address.”
Her voice was flat, like a robot. “He told me Nick was dying and needed help,
but he never said anything about Brian.” Grasping onto Sergeant Cox’s shirtsleeve, she
locked her eyes on his. “Howie promised
he would find them, he promised everything would be okay, and now he’s probably
dead, too, because I gave him the address.”
“Leighanne, it’s not your
fault. None of this is your fault.”
“But I gave him the
address… I gave him the address.” She
just kept saying the words over and over, until nothing made sense anymore.
***
The interview with
Leighanne filled in many gaps from the story Collette Revi, Howie Dorough’s
girlfriend, had given them.
Collette had come to the
station house earlier in the afternoon, alone and afraid, asking to speak to
whomever was in charge of the case. She
told them that Howie had stormed out of their hotel room in the early morning
hours of the murders, in search of Nick Carter.
She wasn’t able to tell them much about what had prompted Howie to
believe Nick was in need of help because she had been sleeping up until he
entered the room in a panic, asking her to help him find a slip of paper.
She admitted she had been
drinking the night before, but she clearly remembered Howie talking to someone
on the phone and telling them that Nick was dying and he had to get him help. Then there was the heated argument with police
dispatch, Howie telling her to not open the door to anybody…
And then he was gone.
***
Sergeant Cox sat alone in
his office, going over the details of the case and trying to put the pieces of
the puzzle together and make them fit. So many things were still gnawing at him, like
where was Howie Dorough? And why would
Gus Monroe, a career criminal whose biggest claim to fame was a few carjackings
and a couple of convenience store robberies in the early 90s, shoot two kids in
the middle of nowhere and then shoot himself?
Carjack them, maybe. Steal their money, probably. But drag two strong and healthy young men to
that warehouse and kill them and then kill himself? Never.
The detectives were
speculating that Gus knew that Brian and Nick were famous and worth a lot of
money, but Gus Monroe barely knew his alphabet, let alone the members of some
boyband singing group.
There had to be more to
the story than meets the eye.
***
Mo rolled over, squinting
into a streak of sun that made its way through the parted blinds.
“What the fuck time is it?”
he mumbled to himself as he rolled over to grab for Brian’s Rolex on the
nightstand.
7:00 a.m.
Son of a bitch, he had
overslept. Pushing himself up, he
strapped the watch onto his wrist and ran his hands through his hair.
The plan had been to drive
for a few hours and then get a hotel room for a few hours to sleep and then hit
the road again. Now he was behind
schedule. Forced to drive in broad
daylight, when any fool who had just killed three people, kidnapped one, and
stolen money, as well as property and cars, knew that slipping in and out of
the shadows of night was far more intelligent then doing it during the day.
Walking to the bathroom,
he kicked open the door.
“Rise and shine, sleepy
head!” he barked, making Howie jump. Before
Mo had gone to sleep, he had tied Howie to the pipes in the bathroom with rope,
securing the knots so tight, Howie’s hands had turned a faint shade of blue.
Mo had learned his lesson
with Nick and Brian and knew not to trust a stupid face when he saw one, so
this time, he made sure there would be no clever escapes.
“Did you get a good night
sleep, Howard?”
“Go to hell, psycho!” Howie
shot back.
Stooping down, Mo pulled a
straight razor from his back pocket to cut the ties, slicing Howie’s flesh in
the process, making drops of blood splatter onto the moldy tile.
“Sorry about that, Howard,”
Mo said, “but my fad always said you needed at least five good scars on you
before you die, so I just gave you number one. That means we have to give you at least four
more in the next day or so, right?” He
smiled.
“Fuck you,” Howie replied,
never breaking eye contact. “I already
have three scars, so you only need to take care of one more for me, you son of
a bitch.”
Mo gave Howie a towel to
wipe off his arm and then led him outside into the bright morning sunlight. The two walked across the parking lot and into
the piece of shit diner that was connected to the equally shitty motel.
Mo explained to Howie, in
whispered tones before they entered the diner, that if he made any kind of
scene, Mo would shoot him in the head in front of everybody and never bat an
eye, so Howie had better not give him any trouble.
The two men walked down
the aisle to a booth in the back, Mo grabbing a newspaper off of the front
counter on the way, as he motioned to a nasty-looking waitress that he wanted a
cup of coffee.
Howie slumped down in the
seat, staring blankly out the window at nothing in particular. He wondered why he didn’t run or yell for
help or just stand up and walk out of the place, telling Mo to go ahead and
shoot him, since it looked like he was going to anyway.
But Howie knew that there
was a part of him that hoped if he cooperated and did what he was told, the sick
son of a bitch would let him go, sparing his family the agony of burying
another child.
The waitress walked up,
slumped-shouldered and bored with the world, as she slapped down a mug of
coffee, spilling it everywhere, and some dirty silverware, before walking away.
“Fucking bitch. See if she gets any fucking tip,” Mo growled,
wiping the coffee spill from the newspaper with his hand “She better not have fucked up the sports
section.”
Unfolding the paper, he
planned to flip right to the sports section and skip all the boring news of the
world shit, when the headline in screaming bold, black letters caught his eye….
BACKSTREET BOY BRIAN
LITTRELL DEAD - FELLOW BANDMATE NICK CARTER IN COMA – AND THIRD BACKSTREET BOY
HOWIE DOROUGH MISSING AFTER BIZARRE SHOOTINGS IN LOS ANGELES
His eyes widened as he
shoved his coffee cup to the side and skimmed over the lengthy article,
complete with pictures of Brian, Nick, and the man now sitting across from him,
referred to in the article as Howie.
Slamming his fist into the
table, the silverware jumped along with Howie, who was still staring out the
window. Howie looked at Mo and then down
to the newspaper spread out before him, just as Mo grabbed the paper, folded it
up, and tucked it under his arm before standing up.
“Get up,” he said through
clenched teeth. Howie just sat staring
at him. “I SAID GET UP!” he screamed,
grabbing at Howie’s flannel-clad arm.
Howie pulled away as Mo
sunk his fingers into Howie’s flesh, dragging him across the booth, where he
lost his balance as he tumbled to the floor.
Mo squatted beside him,
cupping his hand around Howie’s mouth, as he whispered the words, “I’m going to
have to kill you, Howie.”
Nobody in the diner batted
an eye as Mo dragged Howie down the aisle and out the door, newspaper still
tucked beneath his arm.
Once at the car, Mo led
Howie roughly around to the passenger side, opened the back door, and shoved
him in from behind. Howie’s head caught
the top of the door as he wound up sprawled out facedown on the leather seats,
the newspaper hitting him in the back of the head, before Mo slammed the door
shut and walked around to the driver’s side.
Climbing in, he slammed
the driver’s side door shut and jammed the key in the ignition.
“I couldn’t have just stumbled
on some boys stealing daddy’s fancy car for a joyride, could I? Noooooo, I had to
get involved with a couple of assholes that the world gives a shit about.” He pushed on the gas, peeling out of the
parking lot, while Howie raised himself to a sitting position and glanced down
at the newspaper headline.
“Your fucking friend Nick
didn’t know when to die, did he, Howie?
So I guess I’ll just have to make sure he learns his lesson the second
time around.”
***
