by Erik Carter
“And if we can stop even one more woman from getting chopped into pieces, I hope you can look past how ‘rotten’ you’ve had it for a couple days.”
The psychologist, Dr. Wells, stepped out of the hospital room. He was a tall, thin man, bald on top with a thick mustache.
Dale and Nash stood up.
“Gentlemen, you’re free to enter now.”
“Is she talking?”
“Not to me, I’m afraid. Maybe you’ll have better luck.”
They entered the hospital room. Mira was in bed, sheets to her armpits. Her left forearm was wrapped with bandage. Another bandage started beneath her neck and disappeared under her gown. She had several adhesive bandages all over the other areas of her exposed skin and a few of them concentrated over her right ear.
She watched them as they stepped closer. Her expression was rather blank, but there was uncertainty in her eyes.
There was a pair of chairs by the bed. Dale approached and pulled out a chair while casually, non-threateningly showing his badge as the same time. All one smooth motion. Very measured and purposeful.
“Miss Lyndon, I’m Dale Conley with the Department of Justice. This is my consulting expert, Nash Harbick. I’m very sorry to trouble you at a time like this, but I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Mira didn't respond. She took her eyes off Dale and looked to the ceiling.
“Can you tell us how this happened to you?”
No response.
“Any information you can give us will help us stop this from happening to anyone else. The attacker has been imitating famous serial killers of the past. At least one of those historical killers attacked couples, which means your boyfriend, Clyde Bowen, could be in danger. Do you know where he—”
Mira screamed then, startling Dale. He jumped back in his seat. Mira hyperventilated, still staring at the ceiling.
Dale leaned in closer again.
“Ma’am, if we’re going to help Clyde, any information you can—”
Mira turned on him suddenly, looked him in the eye.
“It was him!”
“What?”
“Clyde! My boyfriend cut me up!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Arancia screeched to a halt in a blacktop parking lot facing a small house—flaking paint, disregarded lawn. There were squad cars outside, red and blue lights.
The weather had been dark and gloomy when Dale and Nash left the motel that morning, and it was still just as dark, but the earlier sprinkle coming from the sky had turned into a true rain.
Dale flashed a badge at a uniformed officer. He, Dale, and Nash met on the porch. The front door dangled by one hinge. The doorframe was splintered.
“Are you Agent Conley?” the cop said. He was about forty-five. A tad short. Incredibly muscular frame that he showed off with a uniform that was a size or two too small. His cropped hair was specked with grays.
“That’s right,” Dale said. “Did we get him?”
The cop shook his head.
“No one home.”
“Shit…” Dale took in a slow, deep breath, let it out. “Where’s Sadler?”
“Across town,” the cop said. He motioned to the house. “We found something you’re gonna want to see, sir.”
The cop led Dale and Nash through the living room to an office. There were another couple cops there, standing beside the desk, and they stepped to the side as Dale and the others approached.
“These were in the desk.”
Two books. Coffee-table style, large and flashy.
Mind of Madness: Serial Killers and American Society
And…
Unidentified American Serial Killers
The latter had strips of paper marking several parts of the book.
Dale grabbed a tissue from the box on the desk and opened Minds of Madness. There was very little text, mostly stock imagery. Lots of colorful charts and graphs, sidebars and special info boxes.
He closed it and opened Unidentified American Serial Killers. He turned to the first marked page.
It was a page dedicated to a single serial killer, the name blazoned across the top of the page. Dale said the name aloud.
“The Atlanta Ripper.”
He flipped to the other marked pages, reading them aloud as well.
“The Axeman of New Orleans. The Cleveland Torso Murderer. The Servant Girl Annihilator.”
Nash leaned in closer, looking down at the last entry. “Servant Girl Annihilator…”
Dale turned to him. “The latest victim. Mira Lyndon.”
Dale scanned over the entry, reading out some of the details. “Austin, Texas. 1884 to 1885. Described by The New York Times as a ‘cunning madman insane on the subject of killing women.’ Seven women and one man murdered. Six of the women had a sharp object inserted into their ears.”
Nash sighed. “Mira Lyndon has wounds on her right ear.”
Dale nodded. “And she’s a maid at one of the hotels. A ‘servant girl.’” He kept reading. “‘As the murders happened three years before the Jack the Ripper slayings in London, some have speculated that the Servant Girl Annihilator and Jack the Ripper were the same man.’”
He closed the book.
“Well, that explains why I haven’t been able to make a historical connection. There isn’t a historical connection. The guy bought a coffee table book and is using unrelated killers as his models. Shit!”
This happened sometimes with Dale’s investigations. Whereas most often he connected the historical dots, drawing a dramatic conclusion that ultimately led to his catching the bad guy—as had been the case during Dale’s first assignment with Nash when he made the connection among the 1871 fires—every now and then the historical facts were so disconnected that it was impossible to use them for his investigation, leaving him feeling helpless. And pissed off.
Nash leaned over and looked at the book.
“Four marked pages, four murders. Looks like he finished what he set out to do.”
Dale shook his head. “Or he’s just getting started, marking the pages as he finishes them.”
Dale crossed his arms, took in a deep breath, looked about the office. On the wall across the room were covered with framed photos, images of Bowen with other people.
He stepped to the wall. There were about a dozen photos, and Bowen was in every one. With fishing buddies. At a dive bar. Standing in front of out-of-state landmarks like the Grand Canyon and the Golden Gate Bridge. In most of the photos, he was with other people, and the men towered over him. Some of the women, too, were taller. And Bowen wasn’t just short. He was slight. Tiny.
Dale thought of both the times he’d seen him, his sweatshirt cinched tight over his face—chasing him through the Promenade and Fordyce and when he’d killed Ern Plunkett. He’d been so small. But so lithe. So fast. So deadly.
Bowen’s dark eyes looked at him from the photo. That smug, almost cold grin.
Among the photos, there were only a couple of him with Mira. He had his arm around her in one of the images, around the curve of her side. A perfect curve. Seeing her in this image—looking healthy and normal again, not like Dale had last seen her at the hospital—Dale felt his earlier attraction return. She was so thin but so perfectly proportional. Her figure was lengthy but not at all stretched. She had such a unique physique, one that was entirely appealing.
Dale looked at the man with the dark eyes, that hand wrapped around the perfect figure.
The hand and the figure.
The hand had gripped a knife that had chopped into the figure.
Dale sighed out his anger.
He turned to another photo, one without Mira. Bowen, wearing his spa uniform, stood in front of one of bathhouses—the Alistaire.
He turned to Nash.
“Let’s check out Bowen’s spa.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The moist, warm air smelled of flowers. Or maybe perfume. Or maybe scented oil. Something sweet-smelling, anyway.
There were sounds of laughter and splashing water in the back room; and there was a beautiful woman looking right at him. For a moment, Dale could almost forget that he was chasing down a serial killer.
He and Nash stood at the counter of the Alistaire bathhouse. Across from them, wearing a tidy uniform, was Camila. She was Hispanic, mid-forties, and had the perfect, glowing skin of somebody who worked at a place like a spa—smooth, supple, and perfect. Her skin was olive, and her hair was dark. Her eyes, too, were dark and perfectly shaped, accented by the tiniest bit of makeup. Very attractive all around.
The Alistaire’s walls were a green color with white accents—the molding and the areas above the rounded archways. Behind the desk where Camila stood was a large window looking out upon the spas. People in their bathing suits were peacefully relaxing in three large, steaming pools of water, their heads leaning back, towels and cups of water nearby.
Dale had started the conversation with some charm but quickly abandoned it. Camila was in no mood for charm. Talking about Clyde Bowen pissed her off royally.
“If you’re looking for Clyde, you might as well just walk right across the street to Sullivan’s. It’s a bar. He practically lives there.”
“He’s not working today?” Dale said.
“Supposed to be. He hasn’t been to work in three days. I’m covering one of his shifts as we speak.”
“Did he give you any indication what he might be doing?”
“Of course not,” she said and grabbed a white personal towel from a large stack on a shelf behind her. She began using it to wipe the counter. Evidently she needed an outlet for her frustration because the counter looked perfectly clean to Dale. “We’ve had so many troubles with this guy. This isn’t the first time he’s missed work. But it’s gonna be the last. Carol told me she’s gonna fire him the next time he comes in. It’s about time. So why are you guys looking into him? Did he do something while he was drunk? Skip out on a debt?”
“The murders—we need to speak to Clyde about them.”
Camila's lips parted. Suddenly her anger left. Shock replaced it.
“Oh my god ... I know he’s a scumbag, but I would have never imagined ... I mean, he’s so shitty to women, but ... to kill them …”
“Shitty to women? How do you mean?”
Camila's eyes darted about, and it took her a moment to compose herself before she responded.
“Well, he’s a masseuse. He has his hands all over them while they’re practically naked. And he’s charming. Very charming. I ... well, honestly, I went out with him a couple times when he first started working here. Anyway, he’d smooth-talk these women—young, old, it didn’t matter as long as they were attractive—and then he’d take them across the street to Sullivan’s.”
“I imagine that’s against the spa’s policies, maybe even illegal, for a masseuse to make social arrangements with clients.”
“Of course. But there’s not much Carol can say if Clyde goes to Sullivan’s and ‘happens’ to meet up with someone he’d seen here. That’s how he does it. Tells them to meet him over there when his shift’s over.”
“But he has a girlfriend. Mira Lyndon.”
Camila laughed hard. “I’ve never met the girl, but she must be blind as a bat. Or deaf. Because everyone knows about Clyde and his girls’.”
Dale and Nash stood at another counter, facing another woman just as they had minutes prior at the Alistaire. Except this was a very different place. And a very different woman.
They were at Sullivan's. A dive bar. Right across Central Avenue from the Alistaire Bathhouse. It was dark, and the overall color of the place was brown, but there were spots of green, red, and blue from an assortment of colored lightbulbs, neon signs, and illuminated black velvet paintings. It was a narrow place—shotgun-style—with the bar running on one side and on the other side a lone booth and two tables. In the back was a bathroom, a door for an office, and another door that led out. Cigarette smoke in the air. The smell of spilled beer. Sticky floors.
The bartender’s name was Kathy, and she was likely ten years younger than Camila back at the Alistaire, but her skin had a lot more ‘character.’ And wrinkles. She looked like the kind of lady bartender who’d put up with too much shit for too many years. She wore a black tank top, faded, and her white bra straps showed on either side.
There was a group of people in the booth, a couple more at a table, and two guys at the bar—one fairly average-looking man, and the other was the requisite barfly drunk. Gray, greasy hair, both hands on his beer, hunched over.
Dale and Nash had positioned themselves close to the bar, squeezed in between the well-worn stools, and Kathy was giving them her time but not her full attention, as she kept looking back cautiously at the other people in the bar.
“Yeah, Clyde brings his girls over here,” she said. “The jerk.”
“Between the spa and here, Clyde doesn’t seem too popular.”
“Oh, no. He’s popular around here, all right. Just not with me. Take a look.”
Kathy pointed to the front wall, beside the entrance, which was covered in small photos in cheap frames.
As Dale and Nash headed to the wall, Dale saw that the old drunk was looking his way. When Dale’s gaze caught his, the man quickly looked away, snickering.
It was a typical assortment of bar pictures, with a lot more photos than had been on Bowen’s office wall. Dozens in dusty frames. People hanging on each other, beers in hand, doing nothing but … well, drinking.
There were lots of photos of Bowen, several of which featured him with attractive women. Some with one lady. Others with two or three. One showed Bowen—the only male—with a group of eight women in bikini tops and denim shorts. As Dale’s eyes scanned over the images of Bowen, he noticed again his short height when standing next to other people in the photos, both men and women.
On the far right side of the photo wall was a sectioned-off area with letters at the top that spelled out: SULLIVAN’S SUPPORTS COPS & FIREFIGHTERS. Bill Sadler was in several of these photos. Of the images with Sadler, four of them featured him and Bowen together: one showing the pair standing among a larger group of people; two of them featuring just Sadler and Bowen, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders; and a final one showing the two of them with the same group of bikini-top-clad women. Sadler’s short stature was on par with Bowen’s—almost the exact height—and since many of the bikini girls were in heels, they almost all towered over the two men.
Dale and Nash returned to the bar.
“I didn’t see any photos of Clyde with his girlfriend,” Dale said.
The drunk snickered. “Which one?”
The drunk and others around him laughed.
Kathy scowled at the drunk and turned back to Dale.
“Mira doesn’t come in here. She doesn’t like it. I don’t blame her. She’s not stupid. She knows what Clyde does. He’s an asshole.”
“Hey!” the drunk shouted. “You watch ... and ... I ... You watch your mouth, Kathy. Clyde, he gets ... he... he gets all that pussy. And you’re just jealous.”
The other men around him laughed again.
Kathy planted her hands on the bar and shouted at the men.
“Shut up! All of you!”
This just made them laugh louder.
Dale gave her a look that let her know he sympathized with her situation.
“Thank you for your time.”
Dale stepped back toward the photo wall. His eyes scanned over the images again.
“What do you think?” Nash said behind him.
“I think I’m starting to formulate an idea…”
“You mind letting me in on it?”
Dale grinned at him. “Not just yet.”
“But—”
A voice cut Nash off.
“Excuse me.”
A neat man—cleaner in appearance than most of the others in the bar, with parted hair, a yellow polo shirt, and pressed corduroy pants—stepped up to them.
There was a concerned look on his face.
“You’re looking for Clyde Bowen?”
“That’s right,” Dale said.
“I have something I think you’ll want to see.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The neat man opened up the door at the back of the bar, revealing Exchange Street beyond, the quasi-alley. He held it open for Dale and Nash, letting them pass.
And a burlap sack fell over Dale’s head.
Someone grabbed Dale from behind, getting him into a full Nelson.
Then there was a punch to his ribs.
Dale bent over grunting.
“Like that, huh?” a man’s voice said.
Dale heard a punch landing behind him—a fist thumping into flesh—and then Nash yelling out in pain.
Dale took another blow, this one to the stomach. He doubled over again.
Another punch, across the face, burlap scratching into his cheek.
Another ugly voice spoke to him. “You just watch how close you follow Clyde Bowen, now.”
And a third man’s voice. “And you ain’t never finding their place!”
Dale listened intently, sensed someone coming at him, and used it to his advantage.
He pulled to the side suddenly, and the blow that was intended for him hit the man holding him in a full Nelson from behind. The man yelled out, and his grip loosened.
Dale threw his head back, cracking the man’s forehead. He released Dale, and Dale instantly reached for the sack on his head.
Just before he could grab it, there was a whoosh sound of something being swung through the air followed by an incredibly sharp pain on the back of his thighs, sending him to the ground. Dale knew it was some sort of board or pipe that struck him across the back of the legs.
There was the clatter of the object landing on the ground, followed by footsteps at a run, going away down Exchange Street.
Dale tore the sack off his head. Raindrops hit his cheeks, cold against the flush of his new wounds.
