“We have to line something up for our telephone pals,” she said. “I intend to work on it today. Also, I need to bring Joe and the captain in on the recent happenings. If you have any brilliant ideas today, call me. You know how,” she said, closing the door behind her.
Joe was waiting for her at the apartment, his mug of coffee transferred to a carry cup. Climbing in the car, he commented, “From the looks of your face, you had a good weekend.”
“I did, a really fun weekend with a little work involved.” She relayed the part about the airport, Buzzcut and his game of hide-and-seek, the girl, and, finally, the bug in the phone.
Joe turned serious and said, “I’m not sure what we ought to do next. The profile for killers like Robert Dawson doesn’t fit with tracking you, unless he intends to do something to impress. I saw the expression on his face in the hospital. He was pleased at having his nemesis close by. That by no means should make you think he won’t harm you, even kill you given the opportunity. The man is a bad dude. Oh yeah,” he said offhandedly, “if that was him listening in on your phone call to Bill, he now knows the man is important to you. That makes him a target.”
“It will please me if he tries something. Bill is capable of taking care of himself. Probably the only way we’re going to catch him is if he comes after us. The minute I’m sure he’s playing possum and I can prove it, all his privileges are gone and there’ll be no visitors except by phone. And if he had to do with Eve Devine’s murder, he’s looking at the needle. By the way, Joe,” she said, glancing toward him, “you did good work with the Avery case. As your partner, I appreciate the way you had my back.”
“You’re welcome—besides, that’s what partners do.”
“Indeed it is,” she said, watching the road. So much goodwill and sweet words had gone down during the morning that Maude began to wonder if there was someone else living her life. Even the animal was quiet and still. Still, a bead of worry had lodged itself in her brain. Bill had become very important to her. The further thought of losing him was more than she could consider.
Monday morning started a new week. Whatever was accomplished last week didn’t matter. What counted were the outstanding cases waiting on their desks. Police work was that way; there was no time to wear a crown of laurels from a win. It was always one step forward, and two back in solving crimes. Maude liked the constant busyness of her job. The justice wheels were slogged down by criminal events, waiting for dispensation from juries and judge, but never so overloaded one more couldn’t be added. Being a cop of any kind had its follow-up, with recordkeeping, evidence storage, and witness location. Then there were appearances before judges, where defense lawyers did their best to belittle the evidence and sensibilities of the arresting officers—all in the name of justice and client rights. It was never-ending, but she loved it.
Chapter 17
Ellen Goodbody’s home was her sanctuary. Once she opened and closed the front door after returning from work, seldom was it reopened until forty-five minutes before her shift. A woman living alone had to be very careful; she never knew what might pounce upon her, if the door was accidentally left ajar. Between shifts at the hospital, sleep was possible only if her right hand lay wrapped tightly around what she described her “utmost protection,” and the left was clenched and ready for quick response. She missed her sister, and thought if Deen still lived in the house they could take care of one another. Safety in numbers had always been a good policy. Being around Daddy those years after he went bananas from his own doing was a learning time for Ellen. Besides the smell thing, she had developed a crackerjack response to the heebie-jeebies that followed behind one of the “bad ones.” They could walk across the top of mirrored floor tile, gliding on the balls of rotten-smelling feet, bypassing casual folk, but never past Ellen. Oh no, with her eyeballs glued to their jibbing and jabbing shoulders, she watched for any hostile or aggressive move from the evildoers. Ellen Goodbody intended to live another day.
There were things happening on twenty-two, things that worried Ellen. She wished one of her supervisors gave a darn about her worries, but they didn’t. Too much work, and too few workers, kept the little bosses hopping, helping the nurses with pill call. The dining room was another matter; a riot could easily start there if anyone went off. Doctor Walker Milstein, the director of the whole shebang, believed inmates who were conscious and ambulatory must practice socialization. In other words, they had to be taken to the dining room for meals. The scuzziest, most dangerous people in the hospital had to sit together and play nice. Ellen held her breath each mealtime until the last door slammed shut when it was over. She always said a little prayer of gratitude when the lock turned.
Number 55 was an old man of about eighty, who had been already been incarcerated for twenty years, after handcuffing his wife to their marriage bed, and setting fire to her new sheets. A retired fireman, he had obtained a set of cuffs and an accelerant capable of remote ignition. Some sex toys said to belong to his wife, Mabel, were found on the bed, melted together, with one of them showing a loose connection in the tiny wiring system. A strong spark had burned through the plastic, and spread to fine Egyptian cotton. It was her favorite pink cylinder as the culprit. The handcuffs were assigned to a law enforcement officer formerly of Colorado, whom 55 had intended to accuse of an affair with his wife. All would have surely gone smoothly, and the wrong man sent into the oblivion of prison, had not 55 gone nutso and returned early to the scene, where he began dancing around the house in the manner of wild Indians in cowboy movies. He whooped and hollered, lost in the world of arson, and abandonment of senses.
Each night 55 was escorted to dinner with others from his floor. He had difficulty walking with ankle chains attached, but rules were rules, even for an inmate who had passed his eightieth birthday. The sight of even the tiniest spark sent the octogenarian into spasms.
“It’s guilt,” a nurse once said, “guilt and fear of hellfire, where the old man is headed for burning his wife to death.”
That Tuesday night—spaghetti night in the dining room—Doctor Ponder, who was strictly in charge of 73, but new to the facility, and unaware of 55’s affectation, reached in his pocket and removed a small flashlight he often used to stare into the eyes of his patients. One end was a standard flashlight, but on the other was a tiny red beam used by educators to highlight certain items on a whiteboard. As bad luck would have it, Doctor Ponder shined the red light into the eyes of a noisy patient, and accidentally flashed the red dot on 55’s arm. The table shimmied and shook as the startled pyromaniac moaned and rose from his chair, pushing away from the table as he slapped at the red light playing across his skin. A full-scale inmate happening began then. Previously docile men, old and young, began attacking the table, believing it to be the nemesis of their dreams. Plastic plates and cutlery were sent to the floor, with scattered green beans and spaghetti washing the shining tile. Two nurses slipped and fell, staining white uniforms with red tomato sauce. The other inmates, who up until that moment had remained calm, went into convulsions at the sight of what they believed to be blood on their caretakers.
Nurse Goodbody was on duty at the time, removing soiled linen from a recently vacated bed. The wing where she was located sprang off the main dining room a few yards away. She heard the commotion, and immediately began running toward the groping group in the left quadrant of the serving area, nearest the kitchen. When she arrived, there was a mess of red sauce on most of the screaming crazies (as she described it later), and poor number 55 lay unconscious after being hit by a falling chair. The melee was difficult to bring under a calm umbrella, but Ellen was experienced in chaos control, and soon had everyone in their places.
Doctor Ponder observed from afar the efficiency of the nurse, and determined that whatever sorry mess came out of the dining room incident, he wanted Nurse Goodbody assigned to him, and his practice in the hospital. Later, after the floor was shining again and all traces of the disruption gone, Ellen’s nurse supervisor called
her to the office and grumblingly explained Ellen’s assignment was changing immediately to day shift as specialty nurse.
Lucky Ellen, as she began thinking of herself, didn’t realize that in the group she was assigned to care for was Number 73, Robert Dawson, the murderer who knew she knew. Had she been aware of Doctor Ponder’s patient log at the moment of assignment, her dance card might have been lessened by one. Even so, the news was exciting, and long in coming. Ellen Goodbody had finally achieved status.
The next morning when she arrived at work, congratulations circled around the nurses’ section, and all the licensed vocational nurses were happy for her. But the registered nurses, the ones who had gone the long way through college, were not at all happy at Ellen’s promotion. For that’s what it amounted to—more money, and better days off—when you received stardom as a doctor’s assistant. From that moment on, she began to feel her years as a grunt hadn’t been wasted. It was only later, after walking the floor with Doctor Ponder, that Ellen grew uneasy. Inmate 73 lay in catatonic state as they approached the cell, never acknowledging her presence, except for a slight movement above his right eye. The doctor sent her to the pharmacy to retrieve medications, just as he had done with the previous nurse. Number 73 didn’t allow anyone except the doctor to attend to his needs. Of course, no one but his doctor knew the level of consciousness in Dawson. That knowledge provided the Porsche Carrera in the parking lot outside the building. Doctor Ponder was bought and paid for.
Nurse Goodbody was reluctant to go, but even more reluctant to stay in the same room with the maniac she and the detective had talked about. His overpowering odor that morning was strong, coming through the doorway as the guard let the doctor enter. Not that anyone else would have noticed it, but Ellen certainly did. She shivered then, headed for the pharmacy, determined to do her duties, as was expected.
Chapter 18
Maude kissed Bill on the cheek, glad to see him when she returned home from work.
“Find anything interesting today?” she asked, removing the badge from her pocket. A quick trip to the bathroom and she was done. Meanwhile, Bill was at the table, going through the want ads of the paper.
“Not much—a security job, but it was a little too far to drive today,” he said with a smile. “Good to see my favorite girl.”
“If you’re talking to me, I would remind you it’s been many a day since I was a girl.”
“Maude, you’re my girl. I think you always will be.”
She blushed, a habit of hers around Bill, and headed to the coffeepot. “Think I’ll brew a few cups. How about it? Want to sit on the porch and spoon?”
Looking up again from the newspaper, Bill nodded slowly. He was not accustomed to so much free time. Maude’s cell phone rang as she was about to say something about her day.
“Hello, how can I help you?” she said, not recognizing the number.
“Detective, this is Ellen Goodbody. You told me to call if anything at the hospital changed. Well, it has, and I thought you should know.”
“What’s happened, Ellen?” she said, measuring the coffee, half decaffeinated and half regular.
“As of this morning, I’m assisting Doctor Ponder. That means I’ll be seeing more of 73. He recognized me this morning, even though I was outside the bars. Doctor Ponder sent me to the pharmacy, took me away from the room, for which I was glad. I think he’ll try to fix me up someday, 73, that is. Just letting you know.”
Stopping in the middle of measuring a spoonful, Maude said, “Can you get out of the assignment?”
“Not without losing my job. If I tell the doctor an inmate gives me the willies, he might not want me. I need the work, so can’t do that. I’ll have to take precautions, somewhat like wearing gloves around infections.”
“That’s fine, Ellen, but don’t do anything foolish. Your life is worth more than that scumbag.”
Ellen giggled. The sound was strange; she seldom laughed at anything. She liked the detective who spoke straight and didn’t beat around any bushes.
“I’ll take no chances, detective. My word is my bond. I know his type. Goodbye now.” Ellen disconnected the phone, as Maude stood wondering what the nurse had in mind.
“Bill,” Maude said as she turned on the coffeemaker. “We’ll have coffee in three minutes. That okay?”
“Uh-huh, be fine. You doing all right? You seemed worried on the phone.”
“Yeah, maybe I am.” She began to tell him Ellen Goodbody’s story, both what Ellen had told her and what the archives of police cases told her. The family had had a black cloud around them, and Ellen was smack in the middle of the darkness. “I don’t know that much about her, but she seems stable. Hard to tell. That much grief had to have affected her. Maybe working in the hospital with her father helped her to live with it.”
“Best check in with her every now and then. If your buddy has her number, it can’t be good. Got any ideas yet about how to catch a phone spy?”
“Working on it, but nothing solid yet. I called Lilly Ann and warned her to call only on my work phone. She wanted to know why, so I told her. I worry that she might want to get involved because of Buzzcut. She wants to spit in his face. Something like that. When we catch him, he’ll do time for kidnapping her, but it might not be enough for my niece.”
Bill laughed, putting his feet up in the shade of the porch. “Sounds like her Aunt Maude.”
“She does resemble me in some ways.”
“Lucky girl if she looks like you.”
Maude could feel the heat rising again in her face. Bill’s compliments were sweet music to a deprived soul. “Thank you, Bill, but don’t get too sugary. You’ll catch flies.”
“How you doing with the gin?” he asked softly. “Think you can hold out?”
She thought about it a minute then answered truthfully: “I’m trying. Sometimes it calls me when I’m sound asleep. I’ll wake up and want a drink so bad it hurts. But it gets better every day. Some days are better than others. The meetings help a lot.”
The next morning, the job started busily. Reports were back from the lab on Eve Devine’s body parts. The picture was complete. Cause of death was trauma from the removal of her heart. There were also traces of morphine found in her arteries.
“Evidently,” Joe told Maude, “the perpetrator put her out of her misery before the…surgery. Most of the liquid on the floor of the house was blood, her blood, some was…um…other body liquids. ‘Technicians found strands of cotton rope attached to a kitchen chair. The victim’s blood was on the rope.’” Joe hesitantly read the last part, saddened by the brutalization of the woman, and said, “Don’t they ever stop? Why the torture? Why not just kill her and get it over with?”
“This is your field, Joe. If you can’t understand it, there’s no way I could ever convince you the truth of it,” Maude replied, looking over the report. “But fact is, I don’t believe there’s a shred of conscience in this killer. Which is why I can’t stop thinking it’s Dawson. I should have killed him when I had the chance. Maybe one more woman would be alive.”
Joe looked around the office and then nodded. “Careful, partner—I know you don’t mean it, but maybe some don’t.”
“Yeah, Joe, this job is no more or less than cleaning up behind the worst scum in the world. If I knocked off every one I found, there’d be two to take their places. Besides, no one made me a judge of mankind. I’ll do my job. By the way, any news on that jackhammer? Do we know where it came from?”
“Uh-huh, but you aren’t going to like this part. Brady’s Hardware sold it about three months ago to a construction crew working on the I-59 overpass. Company said it and some shovels went missing. Been about two weeks. They put it down to someone inside, because it was locked up at night with the other stuff. The worker who had the keys quit the same day. They haven’t seen him since.”
“Yes, and I’ll bet his description fits the man who got into my house. Any prints on the machine?”
“Here
’s where we get lucky,” Joe said. “One palm print was near the bottom. Looks like it got overlooked when it was wiped.”
Maude put down the report and exhaled. “About time.”
“Don’t know,” Joe said, reading, “maybe. Guy’s name is Sammy Green. Five ten, shaved head, brown eyes. Pink scar on his chin all the way across the jaw. Been in and out of jail since he turned seventeen. Texas Department of Criminal Justice for assault, deadly weapon. Beat the crap out of his girlfriend with a piece of PVC pipe. Got the scar recently in prison, but no added extra charges. Spent three years, paroled for three. His mother is next of kin, Lois Martinez, 2329 Cardinal, east side of town. Sounds like Mama married out of the Green family.”
“I hope Mama is better than the kid she raised,” Maude said, standing. “Let’s go see her. I’ll drive. Give me something to do with my hands.”
Joe chuckled, admiring the way his partner was holding to her decision to stay off the gin. Since she had given it up, he had been looking at his own drinking habits and had already cut back. “Pay me now or pay me later” meant he could save himself a bucket of hurt if he never got into the place where Maude had found herself. She had to change habits grown old along with her. He only hoped it was soon enough to extend her life. God, he’d hate to hear of anything bad happening to her. Funny, he thought, who would have believed he could become so fond of Maude Rogers. She was more than a partner—she was a friend.
Cardinal Street backed up to a dry creek bed used as a dump ground for people lower than white trash. Wrecked out refrigerators, air conditioners stripped of copper wiring and usable parts, recliners no longer sitting upright, and all manner of refuse clogged the shallow bottom of Boca Creek. The residents of Cardinal Street made it their business to stay away from that half-mile of overgrown creek bottom, where members of a skuzzy teenage gang often hid from the cops. The Rajas were young and upwardly motivated toward big jail, and the Texas penal system. Maude had been introduced to the youngsters several times as the lead players changed, and made their mark committing petty crimes. She had made an acquaintance or two who were still out of jail, thanks to her influence in the county attorney’s office.
The Maude Rogers Murder Collection Page 72
