After patronizing her with a lengthy diatribe about how law enforcement worked in the county of Buena Vista, and what real police officers did to get the job done, he never offered her a seat all the time that he was insulting her. He never shook her outstretched hand. Maude finally had enough and smiled sweetly, turning to go.
Sheriff Biden remarked then that he held jurisdiction over the finding at the cave. He went on that since their medical examiner was laid up, and couldn’t work right now, Lieutenant Patterson, from her department, who seemed like a fine man, had called and made an offering to remove the body and return it to Madison for autopsy. Biden then began to bluster about his own expectations from Madison PD, and how he would like to meet a real officer from her department. It was just too much for Maude’s taste.
”You know,” she said, turning back, staring into the man’s eyes, “You’ve got a real fine fellow working for you. I don’t I know how he can put up with a mean-spirited son of Satan such as yourself. I was on my best behavior when I came in here, to thank you for allowing us to borrow that fine man, and to inform you of the events in your county. Your deputy was very helpful in the discovery of that young woman’s body this morning, and I might add, you slept right on, while this old woman neglected her bed to get the job done.”
“If you have a problem with me,” she continued, “because of my gender, then mister, I don’t much care, but I had hoped for a little respect, and professional courtesy from you, because of your office. And one more thing, if you were to pull that hoe handle out where someone shoved it up your butt, you might find your constitution would be in considerably better shape, thereby making you a much nicer person.”
Sheriff Biden’s face began purpling, and Maude was afraid he was going to have a seizure. She went out the door, shaking her head at the small minds in the world, knowing she had just had occasion to hear from one, and could expect no help from that place.
The air outside was muggy after a light rain that had fallen while she was inside. The heat had escalated. Remembering the motel located just at the beginning of town, Maude headed her car that way, hoping there was food and cigarettes available in or near the place. The damp weather caused her arthritis to settle in around both hips and knees and the tiredness she felt from all the mental anguish had her falling asleep at the wheel. Thankfully, only a short distance had to be covered before she pulled into the parking lot of the motel. She unrolled her long body from the front seat, walked to the motel office, and paid in advance for a room.
A small cafe was a block down from the motel, close enough for Maude to walk, but the afternoon sun beating down on her back made her wish she had driven the short distance. She sat down at a booth, stretched her long legs under the table, and waited on a server to appear. A boy of about fifteen came to the booth and took her order for a burger, fries, and a beer. She asked about cigarettes.
“Si Senora,” the boy told her. “We have the cigarettes.” After the meal was over, Maude used the facilities, stepped outside and looked around a bit, then went to her car. Being prepared for travel was one of her strong points. She always kept a suitcase with spare clothes and cosmetics available in her closet.
Last night she had retrieved it just in case, bringing the supplies along on the last minute trip. Besides her few articles of clothing, there was a small flask of decent gin, and an extra pack of cigarettes that she had forgotten. Some ibuprofen lay near the bottom of the suitcase, and she popped two of those with a small amount of water. The proprietor of the motel was peering out his window in the evening light, watching her, probably wondering if she was shooting up.
“Sorry to disappoint you buddy,” she said aloud, “I am not nearly that interesting.”
The sun was still high, but Maude was so tired that she went straight to bed, dropping the suitcase as she fell into the pillows. The bed sagged a little in the middle, but she was so tired it didn’t matter for the first four hours. After that, her back started hurting from lying on the worn-out mattress.
When no manner of movements made the difference in the comfort of the bed, a big hit from the gin flask helped to settle her down. Of course she knew about mixing over the counter pain pills with alcohol, but her need was greater than the fear. Memories of the morning and that poor girl’s face were on instant recall, the hollow eyes and the large knife in her back. Maude was quite certain that the knife was the one used in the East Avenue killings. The effect of stabbing Mary Ellen with the same weapon must been planned for in advance.
The bed creaked loudly when she rolled over during the night awakened from a restless toss and turn sleep. The motel window flashed a neon vacancy sign through the drapes, the darkness beyond mysterious and somehow dreadful in its silence.
Lighting a cigarette, she sat at the small desk provided by the motel, staring outside searching for answers to the questions she had been avoiding. The fixation of a serial killer upon a particular police investigator was well-documented, but in those cases, behaviorists usually pinpointed a connection between the two individuals. She had been through it all before, the letters he wrote her in Chicago voicing his desire for her approval and participation in the cruel game he played. It was no more confusing now than it had been back then.
A half pack of unfiltereds later and nothing had changed. Maude was perplexed, tired, and needing rest. She wished she could cry for Mary Ellen, but that would come later, after her murderer was brought to justice. She leaned against the desk and finally fell asleep, her head braced against the wall. It was no less comfortable than the mattress.
In the light of day when she roused from the chair and surveyed the room, its dinginess appeared worse than it had in the half-light of evening. Morning sunlight shone through stained venetian blinds, highlighting the dust particles that covering everything. The few shoddy pieces of furniture were water-stained and peeling, the rickety bedpost’s instability the obvious source of the night’s creaking. Maude didn’t recall turning the light on in the room the night before. For a moment she froze, unable to process some information that was banging in her head. The gin bottle had taken its revenge, clouding her brain after a restless night. Then she had it. The coverlet on the bed, it was the same red with white flowers as the ones in the murder-rooms on East Avenue!
“At last we have a piece of evidence. You slipped up boy. You let me in your head for a while.”
Maude realized that the coverlets were probably a standard issue in small motels around Texas, but now she knew that the killer was moving around from one place to another. What kind of person would do that? A truck driver would, so might an airplane pilot, or a salesman. A salesman who stayed in seedy motels might try to save money. But this killer was sophisticated and possibly wealthy. She considered the expensive photographic equipment in the cave. He bought those to keep from renting them, to avoid a trail back to him. So, okay, maybe he’s a salesman; but maybe not. Still, it was a connection she could follow to its end.
The housekeeping staff of the small motel consisted of one Mexican lady who spoke no English at all. She smiled a lot, but even when Maude began to speak loudly, the woman still did not understand English. Holding her hand out, she pointed to the office and nodded.
“Yeah, I know. Go ask him. I’ll bet that gets me a lot.”
The motel proprietor was a dingy little man not unlike the property, old and falling apart. He introduced himself as, “Fred Williams, but no, I don’t own the place.” He said his boss was a man who lived in town and owned two such establishments, both the same size. The coverlets were often stolen since they were the best items in the rooms. He had to replace two of them this year. “People seem to like them.”
Maude got the address of the owner and made a decision to go and visit him before she left town. She also borrowed the office phone book and searched through the business section, a task that took no more than three minutes. There was only one photography equipment store in the county, and it was located in the square
around the courthouse.
The store’s name was Camera and Equipment Shop, and it turned out to be a tiny building, stocked with anything a person needed for photography. Maude sat in the car in front of the store, smoking a cigarette with the window partially down, the curls of smoke drifting outside the vehicle. The the heat of the day and lack of sleep caused her to feel sluggish. Finally she dumped the butt, and got out of the car, into the heat.
The owner of the store was helpful as Maude began asking questions about lighting equipment he had sold recently. She described the brand name and the size of each piece, including the hookup at the sight with the generator.
“It would take a very skilled person to figure out the logistics and technology, to know where to place an antenna outside, and yes, I sold some of the same pieces within the last three weeks. A fellow about six feet tall, with dark brown hair hanging out of a baseball cap, and sunglasses covering the top half of his face, came into the store, found what he wanted and paid cash. He loaded it all inside a white van and hasn’t returned since.”
The store owner remembered the white van because it had a mark on the back of it. A company logo that was unknown to the store owner. He drew a picture of the logo and Maude thanked him and left the store. The information was enough to cause some excitement.
“That makes twice you slipped,” she said to the killer. “Twice you’ve left yourself open. Let’s see what we can make of it.”
Technology was a wonderful thing, but most of the people in her age group didn’t know beans about fiber optics or how a computer worked. When she needed to type on the keyboard, she punched a button and the screen turned on, and if it worked then lucky Maude. After that, give her a good document program where she could practice her sophomore typing class finger placement on the keys. That was about the extent of her knowledge.
Around the block from the Camera and Equipment Shop a print shop took up about two hundred square feet, the kind of place where the employees took to technology like ducks to water. The kid behind the counter was overweight and acned. He wore smeared glasses on the end of his nose, and belted pants so low on his hips that two pennies added to the pockets would cause them to drop to the linoleum floor. Maude introduced herself to the young man who looked up for a minute from his preoccupation with a handheld game, and then continued to punch buttons with the speed of a digital stopwatch.
“Excuse me, young man,” she said. “I need some help from someone and since you are the only someone in the store, I guess you’re going to have to do.”
“Umm, just a minute,” the clerk responded and continued punching the buttons on the game, fiercely intent on finishing what he was doing.
Maude waited a minute more before reaching across the counter and pulling the gadget from the clerk. She held it against her chest and said, “If you want this back, you can have it after my questions are answered, otherwise, I will take it outside and use it for target practice.”
The kid looked embarrassed. “Please don’t tell my boss. He’ll fire me for sure. It just gets boring in here most of the time.”
“That’s fine,” Maude replied. “Now listen, I have this picture of a logo that someone saw on a white van. I need for you to get on that computer and find out what you can about it. Think you can do that? If you do, I’ll pay for your time, give you back this piece of plastic, and no, I won’t tell your boss. Deal?” She asked.
‘Deal,” the kid said, picking up the paper Maude had lain down. “Give me a few minutes. I have to do some searches; may have to get in touch with some friends of mine. You want to come back?”
“Sure. Any place to get a sandwich around here?”
“Two doors down, Buena Vista Café; they have good tacos.”
Maude started out the door and the kid yelled, “Hey, leave my game, I won’t play while you’re gone.”
“See that you don’t,” she warned, handing over the equipment.
The little cafe was old. She could see it in the window shade faded to pale at the bottom, still dark at the roll. The tablecloth was red and white checked oilcloth, brittle at the folds, pieces of the red gone; the white stained from continuous use. The plastic rose in the vase on the table drooped from its long life. Linoleum squares with broken corners formed a path to the kitchen, but they were clean, giving Maude hope for the food and its preparation. She ordered the beef tacos because the kid recommended them and then laughed to herself, wondering why she would trust her food choice to someone with so little concern for his appearance.
Figuring the tacos for the grease that caused the kid’s acne, she had a moment of reconsideration before settling on her order. “What of it?” She said aloud. “A little grease won’t kill me.”
Actually the food was quite good, the grease minimal. It had been a while since her breakfast of black coffee and she was hungry. She had heard about certain kinds of beef from animals treated with growth hormones, and how it was a cancer-causing agent. For just a minute, the idea of stomach cancer from tacos lingered in her mind, but she shook it off.
The unfiltered cigarette sparked with a match, released its tars into her bloodstream, and gave her addiction a nicotine boost. Once in the car she started the motor and turned on the air conditioner, content to sit a minute and clear her head, the smoke from the cigarette creating a haze in the enclosed cold air.
Her watch said an hour had passed since she left the print shop, enough time for the clerk to get a bead on the logo, or so she hoped. When she opened the door to the shop, the kid greeted her with a smirk, playing his game. He had no idea of her capabilities.
“You were gone long enough,” the kid said. “Bring me a taco?”
Maude gave him the look that asked, “Are you being a wise-ass or are you really stupid?”
“Your logo was like a lot of others,” the clerk began, “but they all had something making it too fancy. Finally found yours in a section that serves plumbing and construction. A company called Porcelain Worx, strictly wholesale, no retail. How’d I do boss?”
Maude gave the clerk a high-five, appreciating the young man for his work. She reached in her pocket and withdrew a twenty.
“Here,” she said. “Cops don’t make any real money. Thanks kid. You did good. Get me a phone number for this place?” She asked.
“Better than that, got you a website,” he said, pocketing the money. “Here, use that computer on the desk.”
The keyboard kept sticking but finally she managed to press enter, going to the right screen. The name of the company, Porcelain Worx, was located in Oklahoma, California and Pennsylvania, and had been a business for over forty years. With the clerk’s help, Maude managed to go to the home screen and locate the CEO of the company and the phone number of the main office located in Philadelphia. She also went onto the product page and saw the list of items that were sold to wholesalers. Scrolling down the page of various porcelain bathroom fixtures, Maude saw a grouping of pictures, one of which was the new high-sided bathtub with plastic over porcelain bottom.
“There’s the bathtub in my rent house! And that no-good shower head in my bathroom. How many connections does he have to me?” She asked of the lighted screen.
The phone rang several times before an automated voice came on line, asking Maude to “leave a message for Porcelain Worx. We do not want to miss your call!” Because she didn’t know what position the killer served in the company, Maude was hesitant to give any clue as to her identity. She lied instead, and left a false name of a bogus construction company where she could be reached. Using her cell phone as the destination, she told the machine that it was important she be reached as soon as possible. Next was the phone call to her partner back in Madison, informing him of her finds.
Chapter 15
The sounds of running water were soothing, recalling a childhood memory. The creek had been cold then, and clear, with a few rocks on the bottom here and there, but mostly sand that felt good between his toes. The small fish that
swam away when he picked up his feet to take a step were shiny, their scales reflecting the sunlight that shone in streaks through the leaves of the trees.
“Bobby,” his nanny had called, “Come here, get out of that water, you will catch your danged death.”
The bubbling water sounds with their constant rhythm always got his attention, even back then.
His mama and daddy had been arguing that morning, using fierce words that even an almost-three year old knew meant terrible things to come. Daddy had told Mama, “Don’t want you, don’t want him.”
Mama had cried, but then she got real mad. “Not my fault!” The words from Mama’s mouth rang in his ears, resounding now, shutting out the sound of the water. “You take him, Elridge! Don’t want him.”
Daddy got in the car. Bobby could see from the window in the nursery. He raised his small hand to wave at Daddy who didn’t look back. Gone. Mama was in her bedroom, crying really loud.
“Heartless man, kill you. Don’t want him. So heartless, come back. Don’t want him.”
Mama was sad, and Bobby opened the door to go to her, tears on his cheeks like Mama. He lifted his small arms to her. Words sprang from him as she drew back her right hand again and again.
“Ooh. Don’t hit, Mama! No, hurts. Ooh, Mama. Head hurts. Mama, no, hurts. Tummy hurts, no, Mama. Daddy! Daddy!” Mama hugged him then, sorry for so much.
The nanny came when Mama called and took him away to his favorite place, to the creek behind the family home. She washed his face in cold water and removed the tears, sat him down on the ground, and checked his body for injury, hugging him against her. She soothed him, wiping away new tears. It was not the first time the nanny had comforted him after one of his accidents. That time there was nothing broken or bleeding.
The Maude Rogers Murder Collection Page 13
