Maude pulled herself as far down the bed as she could go, trying to reach the chair and pull it to the bed. She leaned outward, grabbing at the edge with her fingertips, but found it to be too far away. Frustration with the helplessness of her situation had her swearing to herself, renaming the chair and the entire hospital with less than respectable epithets. When she was about to scream ‘uncle’, and forget the whole thing, she heard a small laugh, and turned to see her Joe standing beside the bed.
“I thought you’d try something like this so I came back. Figured I could help,” he said, going for the wheelchair. “Let’s go before they come back.”
Loading Maude into the chair with ease, Joe released the two hand brakes, placed a coverlet on Maude’s lap, and handed off control of the machine holding the intravenous solution to her before starting down the corridor.
“Room 326,” he said. “That’s Dawson’s room. Let’s go.”
The stand with the bottle, clips, and tubes reeled a bit as they made the first corner of the corridor, but after a little time, Maude grew accustomed to holding the tall pole loosely so it could turn easier without careening off to the side or threatening to fall and pull the lines out of her body. Several staff members of the hospital gave Joe the eye as he raced past them, but his friendly face belied the illicit purpose of his patient’s outing.
The ‘B’ elevators, listing critical care rooms as well as surgical recovery rooms as destinations, rose upward for the necessary three stories to the floor where Dawson lay in his room in a waking coma. The two fleeing fugitives of hospital nursing care entered and then departed the lift, treading the tiles of the corridor beginning with room 310.
Sixteen doors away lay Dawson, the machinery connected to his body. It was twice what had held Maude down, confined to her bed, before her unlikely escape. The sound of footsteps coming quickly down the corridor permeated Dawson’s sleep, reminding him that he had previously been running from some old woman. Using a force greater than mere willpower, the man in the hospital bed tried to rise, only to find himself imprisoned in double casts on his arms and one on his left leg, each held high in the air by pulleys connected to the ceiling. The accident two nights before had left him in a helpless state, with the solid weight of plaster encasing three limbs and a portion of his lower anatomy, while the smaller, uninjured portion of his body lay supine upon the hospital bed.
Try as he might, Dawson couldn’t move from the bed, but was forced to lie there, listening to the labored breath of a man pushing a wheelchair down the corridor.
The guard outside the hospital room nodded as Detective Allen arrived, winded but resolute.
“We’re going in. Write your report if you need to, but we’re going. My partner here chased this man all the way across Kingdom Come, and she isn’t about to give up now,” Joe said, after catching his breath.
Stepping back from the door, the officer allowed them to enter the room where Dawson lay, attached to the hospital bed. The killer appeared to be sleeping, his body still except for the gentle motion of his breathing.
Maude wheeled herself to the side of the bed, staring at the murderer, hoping to see something that made this man different from all the other perverts and killers that she had known. He looked perfectly normal, except for the deep road rash on his face where the car had pushed him down the street on the bicycle. Dawson is lucky to be alive, she thought. Of the two bullets she had fired at him, one had connected with his shoulder, barely missing his heart; the other had singed his right buttock.
Maude felt nothing for the man who lay there, even though her young friend, Mary Ellen, had lost her life to him. The anger and grief had been put aside for a while. Now she must feel gratified that the madman was constrained and under guard, his murdering days curtailed.
“One question, Dawson,” she said, not expecting a reply. “Why me? What did you want? Was it my approval, or were you hoping that I would kill you?”
The man lay still, apparently still in a coma. She started to turn away, to give it up.
“Bobby.” A whisper came from the man’s mouth. “Kid loved you. He saved your miserable life, wouldn’t let me use the rifle. You were lucky. Bobby’s gone now, gone forever.” The man on the bed suddenly lost his animation and then lay still.
She was tired. Her feet hurt and she felt bone weary. The man under the hospital sheets was just another case, another captured lunatic who thought he could rule the world by taking lives. She had plenty of other questions, for sure. Right then, the most important fact was that Dawson wouldn’t be hurting anyone else. A tiny tic stirred the memory of a little boy, sitting in her lap, his tears wetting her hands. Maude shook her head impatiently at the memory, casting it off quickly as finished business, content to let the laws of the land determine the fate of the man.
“I’ll see you in court, Robert Dawson, or whoever you are,” she said, turning her chair and wheeling herself down the hallway, hoping to see Bill Page once again.
Epilogue
The tall rock surface of the building seemed to go on and on, the floors ascending higher and higher. The guards said that the ‘crazier they were, the higher they were sent’. The twenty-second floor was only for the really bad ones, the ones who killed for pleasure, or because they had been told by voices to get it done. In the middle of the floor, in one of the many rooms enclosed by bars running vertically from floor to ceiling was one of the settled residents, number 73. He was formerly known as Robert Dawson, but on floor Twenty-Two, each resident had a number instead of a name. Number 73 was not only insane; he was catatonic as well.
In the state of Texas, an insanity plea may be called a prettier name, but it means the same as it does in other states. The end result of the court’s decision was that Robert Dawson would be locked away forever, with no hope for release.
Number 73’s traumatized mental condition following his encounter with the automobile was credited to a wallop to the brain during his head over heels slide on the pavement. A large part of his cerebellum had swollen against the skull, causing irreparable damage, or so the experts said. A jury had heard the evidence against him and labeled him an insane killer, sentencing him to life in the Madison-MacArthur Prison for the Criminally Insane.
Dawson’s son and daughter were represented at the trial by the children’s grandmother and paternal uncle. They raised no pleas for mercy for the defendant- both children had lost their mother in the killing spree of their father. Dawson sat still during the proceedings, not comprehending his fate, a vacant look in his eyes, saying nothing and acknowledging no one, the light in his mind extinguished.
The killer made no sound during the trial except once, when he cried for his mother as Detective Maude Rogers testified concerning the list of horrendous incidents, including murder, uncovered in her investigation of Robert Dawson. Detective Rogers was an effective witness, relating both the findings of the bodies of Dawson’s victims, and later, the retrieval of a cache of ‘treasures’, located in the floor of Dawson’s airplane. The cache contained pieces of body parts from many different people. Forensics was still trying to identify the enormous amount of victims represented there.
On a Friday night, a year from the day that Robert Dawson was sentenced to life in prison, a new, young male inmate was introduced to floor Twenty-Two. The inmate, Number 90, was a bully to the other residents, and during an unguarded, social gathering, he proceeded to make his presence known to the mentally deranged and highly sedated before being stopped. He had begun by punching Number 73 in the lower stomach, an area on the inmate that was particularly sensitive to pain.
The next morning the same young man was found dead in his bunk, his throat torn open, his body exsanguinated. Number 73 was questioned briefly, along with the others, but only as a matter of procedure. The absence of verbal response from the Number 73 was in keeping with the fixed, blank canvas of his face and the line of drool that dripped from the corner of his mouth. It was a presentation devoid of emoti
on and comprehension.
No blood trails led away from the brutalized inmate’s bunk, nor was any blood found on any of the persons of floor Twenty-Two. Number 73 had been dismissed as a suspect; his mental condition only one reason. All violent criminals were locked in their rooms on the night of the murder as well as on every other night. The list included Number 73.
Chance would have it that the idea of an early dinner that night was very tempting to the investigator who searched number 73’s room after the murder. His reservation at a local Italian restaurant had been hard to get, and he had no intention of missing it because of a dead, crazy inmate. After a cursory look-see of the room, the investigator hesitated momentarily, seeing, but not comprehending something amiss. Then without a backward glance, he shrugged, and gave the all-clear sign as he left the cell.
A bit of patience, and a touch more perseverance might have delivered a hearty ‘Eureka!’ from the restaurant-bound fellow as his observant eye spied the piece of shiny metal reflecting the room’s garishly bright light. A shifting of pillow and sheet this way, or that, would have revealed a crude key made in the hospital’s machine shop, a key that slipped perfectly into, and out of, the lock on number 73’s door.
It was only a small treasure trove that lay hidden beneath the mattress--a nest of pink and white, long-bodied capsules used specifically for the control of personality crossover. But a savvy investigator immune to the growl of his stomach might also have listened well and heard the brief, soft sounds of a small boy crying for his mother. Chance again had it that the monster Robert Dawson, aka Ridge Roberts, shushed the child and pushed him aside as the cell’s iron door closed on greased hinges.
The End
Edwards Bay
Chapter 1
Monday November 23
The early morning hours had been disappointing. Sodden skies and a cold easterly wind brought dampness that chilled the two lovers who walked along the beach near Edwards Paradise, the resort on Edwards Bay. At about eleven o’clock the skies began clearing, leaving thin white clouds, blue sky, and the warmth of the sun to dry the moisture from the air.
The old timers at the resort told the couple, “Don’t get too comfortable. A cold front’s due in soon.”
After the gloomy weather had come and gone, the two decided a small rowboat, a bottle of wine, and a picnic from the resort kitchen would be heavenly out on the bay. According to people who knew her, Jenny had hoped to finally fulfill a long-time dream of dragging her toes in the water while lying in a slow moving boat. A city girl who seldom got anywhere near the water could still fantasize.
The man who owned the rowboat recalled, “The girl had seemed really happy, eager to try her hand at rowing, and her partner was friendly, nodding and winking.” He also said that Aaron had paid the daily rate with his credit card, but didn’t know how long he would keep the boat.
At five in the afternoon, Elmore Gandy, the owner of Gandy’s Boat Rentals had begun to get anxious. The couple hadn’t returned from their rowing journey on the bay, and the sun was going to be setting in less than an hour. He was anxious for two reasons. He wanted his boat back, and he wanted to go home. It never crossed his mind that something had gone wrong, he figured the two lovers had beached the boat for a little privacy and lost track of time.
Elmore, called Sandy because of his hair color, had lived around the bay in one place or another for forty years, and the boat business belonged to him and his daddy.
Old man Gandy had started renting boats as far back as 1925; in fact, some of the boats were just that old, because Sandy and his dad both took good care of them, with regular inside-outside cleanings, and patching holes that the rocks and oyster shells knocked in them. Of course all the boats weren’t that old, but a couple of them went really far back. Usually during November, Sandy would bring all the boats in out of the bay for the winter, scraping and painting, getting ready for the spring when people went out to enjoy the water. A twist of fate had changed his schedule making the boat still available to the young couple.
Gandy’s place was the only one around for renting a boat. Located next to the public boat docks on Edwards Bay, the business stocked bottled water and snacks and sold decent grilled sandwiches and French fried potatoes from the small store kitchen. The young couple had chosen a red boat fading to red-brown, with oarlocks, two oars, and a small gas motor good for fishing or other forms of recreation requiring location changes on the lake.
Aaron Dennis and Jenny Marx hadn’t returned by six o’clock and daylight was waning. There was no sign of a boat on the lake’s horizon, forcing Sandy to call the sheriff to come with the county rescue boat and spot light. The sheriff and one of his deputies showed up, and after Sandy pointed out the direction the young people had gone, he went inside his house to supper. His wife had just about given up on him by that time, so he figured he’d best hurry, or make her even unhappier. He left his store and the docks for an hour while Sheriff Jack was out searching the deep-water bay.
1:00 PM Monday November 23
The rowboat was easy to control in the cool breeze that blew across the bay. The small motor could be used later when it was time to get serious about returning to the resort, but in the meantime, both Aaron and Jenny tried their hands at rowing. True to her wish, at one time Jenny had both feet over the side of the boat, her toes ruffling the surface of the water. A local man fishing for catfish with cut bait had anchored his boat close to the north shore and saw the young couple idling away the afternoon. Later when that same fellow heard some woman detective was asking questions he came forward and told what he had seen.
For a man with no experience with rowing a real boat, Aaron had the small craft skimming the water each time he dipped his shoulder, its speed increasing as the curve of the bay placed the south wind against the back of the boat. The fisherman said that the boat fairly flew across the water.
Along the rocky shoreline ahead of them Aaron looked for places to dock the boat for a picnic and probably regretted his rowing choice of the north side of the bay. The shore ahead of him was barren with low cliffs jutting out into rough salt water at the end, leaving few if any places for landing. He had looked over his shoulder toward the south shore, saw the convenience of the beach near the resort, but refused to cross the bay again, back the way they had come. Instead he turned the boat around and rowed in a westward direction, scanning the north shoreline again for a water approach to land.
He spotted it then. A small winding waterway wide enough for the boat lay just ahead. That was fine with Aaron. A little privacy was what he had wanted; he and Jenny were going to have a picnic.
Abandoning his rowing, Aaron used the pull start on the boat motor to fire the engine, the propeller turning easily in the deep blue of the bay. As he entered the low water of the inlet he saw that it was muddy and shallow, just deep enough for the motor to propel the boat forward. The faster movement helped to shoo away the mosquitoes that swarmed from the marsh grass along the bank. It was easier to navigate the narrow water way before the tide came in and filled it to overflowing. Several hundred yards further down there was no longer any rear sighting of the bay once the boat was docked against the bank.
The boat easily docked there, pushing oysters deeper into the mud, the grinding noise of wood on shell an unmistakable sound in the oyster gatherer’s hidey hole. At low tide, Aaron jumped out of the boat, up to the marshy bank, digging his feet in, looking for places to step, his water shoes making impressions that the tide would later wash away. The landing was three feet higher than the water in the inlet but nothing he couldn’t manage. Jenny had grabbed hold of the boat’s tie rope, searched the bank for an appropriate clump of tall weeds, and placed the loop around a group of saltwater reeds near the edge.
The coverlet they had used to wrap the picnic basket in the boat made a fine resting spot under the tree. Jenny pulled off her shoes again, enjoying the sun on her bare feet while resting her head on Aaron’s arm. A smile of h
appiness crossed her face. A boat motor on the bay whined in the background as she dozed on the pallet under the tree, alee of the wind. The sound of wood against shell should have alerted the couple that another boat was docking near them, but they were oblivious to danger and it went unnoticed.
The grass was still crisp from drying in the heat of the Gulf summer and their footsteps crunched with each step as the occupants of the new boat made their way quickly to Aaron and Jenny. Their faces uncovered in the afternoon sun, the two approached the man first, appreciating that he was napping and therefore less difficult to overpower. The girl was easy, her strength no concern to the men. They knew the couple’s body sizes, knew that Aaron went to the gym every day, and had planned for the contingency; he might be difficult to contain.
Aaron awoke, startled by a hand over his nose and mouth, his breath coming in gasps through compressed nostrils.
“You, I know you! What are you doing? What do you want?” he spoke against the hand, his words garbled. The man held him against the ground, the pressure of his bodyweight an immense anchor keeping him from Jenny. The pistol in the man’s hand was leveled at Aaron’s head.
“Keep still, lover boy. Enjoy the time you have left. A man like you should have known to be careful, to watch what was behind him.”
The hand released his nose and mouth allowing Aaron to take a deep breath. The shock was dissipating as the horror of truth began to take over. Panic from fear started low in his abdomen and climbed to his brain.
“Jenny? Where is Jenny? Please don’t hurt her.”
The guttural laughter that came from the opposite side of the pallet was chilling, “Whoa now, little girl! Hold still, papa’s going to ride you.”
The Maude Rogers Murder Collection Page 27
