Opening Moves

by Steven James

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The crime scene tape. I’d like to see it,” Ralph said.

  Griffin looked like he might object to that, but then walked into the kitchen and returned with a roll of yellow caution tape. Without a word he handed it to Ralph. “Three hundred fifty dollars. Like it says in the catalog.”

  “‘The Maneater of the Midwest,’” Ralph said. “That a description you came up with?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Helps with sales, does it? Using a name like that?”

  “Actually, yes, it does.” He paused. “Even though it’s only women so far. I’m using ‘Maneater’ in the general sense of the word. You understand.” He gave us a contemptuous grin and I was tempted to smack it off his face.

  Mallory left soundlessly to return Ralph’s empty coffee cup to the kitchen, leaving the three of us alone. After a moment I heard the soft clink of dishes in the sink.

  “What makes you think this killer eats human flesh?” I asked Griffin.

  “The woman’s lungs were gone.”

  “And?”

  He scoffed lightly. “Let’s just say I’ve been in this business long enough to make an educated guess. Certain types of killers have certain types of…well, tastes.”

  “The description says, ‘soon to be a collector’s item.’ Why is that?”

  “Oh, I don’t think he’s done. Not a guy like this. He’s just getting started.”

  Ralph worked his jaw back and forth roughly. “Where did you get this police tape, Mr. Griffin?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s authentic.” He looked from Ralph to me. “I can cut you a deal if you want.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Ralph pocketed the tape and it was clear he wasn’t about to pay three hundred fifty dollars for it, wasn’t about to cut a deal of any kind. “As I was saying, where did you get the crime scene tape?”

  “I have a source.”

  “Who?”

  “I think he would be averse to having me pass along his name.” When he said the phrase “averse to,” it seemed way too literary and refined to be coming from his mouth.

  We waited.

  He said nothing more.

  From my experience, it’s better not to hammer away at the person you’re interviewing. That tends to make him defensive, but circling back around often catches him off guard.

  “How do you know a woman named Colleen Hayes?” I asked Griffin.

  He shook his head. “Hayes?” But then he appeared to piece things together. “You mean from the news? From last night?” Honestly, it didn’t look like he realized this was the same Hayes family he’d done business with.

  That was two months ago, Pat. Would he really remember? Unless—

  “That’s right,” Ralph said. “From last night.”

  A shadow of unease was edging across Griffin’s face. “What is this about, anyway? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Ralph pressed him: “Where were you last night, Timothy? From, say, seven o’clock to midnight?”

  “Here, watching movies.”

  “Were you alone?”

  Griffin called to the kitchen, “Mallory!” His tone was brash and spiteful, and I got the sense that it was the typical way he addressed his live-in girlfriend, the one who was thirty years younger than he was.

  She came around the corner, clutching a damp hand towel, eyes wide.

  “Last night we were here watching movies, weren’t we?” He paused. “Baby?”

  “Yes.” Her gaze never left him, never wandered our way, a sign that she was taking her cues from him.

  Timothy gave us a satisfied smile. “See?”

  “What movies did you watch?” Ralph directed the question at Mallory.

  Griffin spoke up: “The Fugitive and—”

  “I was asking the young lady,” Ralph told him firmly.

  “The Fugitive,” she answered.

  “And?”

  She looked a bit lost. “And…When Harry Met Sally.” She stared at Griffin as if she was looking for approval from him.

  “That’s right, baby.” Then he turned one hand palm up, as if to signify that she’d just cleared up everything, and when he spoke he addressed Ralph and me: “Well, then, there you go.” He wavered the envelopes in the air with his other hand. “Now, if you gentlemen don’t mind. Orders to fill. I’m sure you understand. Keep the tape. It’s the least I can do. My civic duty.”

  I didn’t think we were going to get much more out of him at the moment, but I didn’t want to leave without the name of the person he’d gotten that crime scene tape from.

  Ralph didn’t move. Obviously he wasn’t ready to leave yet either. “How do you do this, anyway?”

  “This?”

  “Sell this crap.” He swept his hand through the air. “Make a living like this?”

  With a slight dramatic flair, Griffin walked to the wall and put his palm against one of the photos, then slowly stroked the face and then the body of the woman in the picture. The hairstyle and clothes made me think it was taken in the late seventies. I didn’t know who she was, but I memorized her face, and wondered what Mallory, who was still in the doorway, thought of the provocative way he let his fingers address the body of the photographed woman.

  “Think about the news, Agent Hawkins. TV networks sell time to advertisers, then air footage of the most sensational crimes they can. You know it’s true: If it bleeds, it leads. Like with Hayes last night. Advertisers buy that airtime, knowing full well what they’re doing—playing off people’s fixation with violence, evil, death. I just pass along my reminders to individuals rather than to the public at large.”

  People have a right to be informed about our world, and it is a brutal one, but it bothered me that Griffin actually had a point. News shows really are packaged to play to their viewers’ morbid fascination with death.

  Ralph said, “Mr. Griffin, what’s the name of the person who sold you the crime scene tape?”

  “I told you he—”

  But Ralph strode toward him, invaded his personal space big-time. The air in the room seemed to tighten. “The name, Mr. Griffin.” I thought Ralph might growl the words menacingly in order to be more intimidating, but he didn’t. He just said them calmly, resolutely, and that seemed to be more effective because Griffin gulped almost imperceptibly, then tapped his tongue to the side of his lips.

  “His name is Hendrich. Okay? Bruce Hendrich. I don’t know if that’s his real name or not. That’s the one he gave me. In this business people aren’t always as forthcoming and honest as they should be. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

  Ralph reached over and straightened Griffin’s collar. “How do you reach him? This Mr. Hendrich?”

  Having Ralph’s huge hands so close to his throat seemed to make Griffin even more willing to share information, because he rather promptly told us a phone number and address from memory. The address was in Milwaukee, not Fort Atkinson.

  “I just ship stuff there. I’ve never been there.”

  Ralph patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you, Timothy.” Then he handed him one of his business cards. “If anyone tries to buy or sell any Dahmer items, let us know. And we’re going to want the name of anyone who goes after that police tape.”

  “My records are confidential.”

  “Of course they are. But your address isn’t. Wait till we notify the family members of victims about your little business venture here. I wonder how many of them might want to pay you a visit. Express how excited they are about you passing along your little ‘reminders.’”

  He turned to me. “We could give ’em some privacy, couldn’t we, Detective? Make arrangements to make sure no officers interfere with the little block party?”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.” Since Griffin’s business was run out of a post office box, releasing his residential address really might cause a bit of a stir with the neighbors and victims’ family members.

  When Griffin didn’t reply, Ralph ref
lectively patted the top of one of the overstuffed chairs. “I may show up too. Bring the mini-weenies. I always like a good party.”

  “Okay,” Timothy grumbled. “Alright. I’ll call you if I hear anything.”

  “I appreciate that very much, Mr. Griffin.”

  Ralph nodded toward Mallory. “Good day, ma’am.”

  Once we were back in the car I said to Ralph, “Mini-weenies?”

  “They’re good with mustard and ranch dressing. What did you see in the hall?”

  “The Albert Fish letter, but it’s what I found in the bedroom that really caught my attention.”

  “And that was?”

  I started the car. “Griffin sold Hayes the handcuffs. Colleen Hayes.”

  “Colleen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Interesting. And how do we know that?”

  I told him about the receipts. Ralph wasn’t familiar with the Oswald case. I filled him in on what I knew.

  Then, since there wasn’t a car phone in this vehicle, I radioed the local dispatcher and asked her to put a call through to my adviser at Marquette and let him know I wouldn’t be at the lecture this afternoon and to see if he could request that Dr. Werjonic leave a photocopy of his lecture notes in the Criminology and Law Studies graduate office. I could pick them up later this evening and hopefully carve out some time to review them before tomorrow’s class. I gave her the number.

  When I got off the radio I had an idea. “Ralph, the Waukesha County Sheriff Department is just a couple miles off the interstate. What do you say we swing by and see who the arresting officers were in the Oswald case?”

  “Yeah, and maybe check the chain of custody for the evidence. Whoever had access to the Oswald evidence might have had access to the cuffs.”

  I aimed the car for the highway. “I like the way you think, Agent Hawkins. For a fed, that is.”

  “You’re doing alright yourself, for a detective. At least so far.”

  “So far?”

  “Yeah, but just don’t get in my way.”

  It sounded like he was joking, I knew he was joking, but when I glanced at him, I realized I couldn’t quite tell. Not for sure.

  25

  Plainfield, Wisconsin

  It wasn’t even a choice for Carl Kowalski. Not after finding that note in his kitchen. Not after seeing the horrible, horrible thing that Adele’s kidnapper had left for him in the refrigerator.

  At first when he walked through the front door and saw the note on the table, he’d thought it might be some kind of sick joke from one of his poker buddies.

  But then he’d done what the note told him to do and looked in the refrigerator’s meat/cheese drawer and found Adele’s ring finger with the engagement ring he’d given her four months earlier still encircling the base of it. No. This was not a joke. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

  Now he carefully positioned his van on the cemetery’s access road to hide his activity from people who might happen to drive past on the nearby but infrequently used county highway. Then, shielded from view, he removed the shovel from the back of the vehicle.

  It wasn’t a large graveyard and wasn’t visited often. He knew this since he was the one who mowed it on weekends. There was really very little chance that he would be interrupted, but if someone did happen to visit, he figured that since he worked the grounds, he’d at least be able to come up with an explanation for why he had the shovel.

  But why he was digging up the grave of Miriam Flandry, that was another story entirely. No reasonable explanation for that came to mind.

  Well, just get it over with quickly and you won’t have to worry about it.

  Carl walked to the fresh grave.

  The note had been clear: Dig up Miriam’s corpse. Skin it. Then leave it outside the hardware store where Gein had killed Bernice Worden back in 1957. Even though Carl hadn’t been born at the time, he knew the story, knew what had happened there. Everyone in Plainfield knew the story.

  According to the note, if he didn’t do as requested, the person who’d taken Adele was going to skin her alive and leave her corpse on Carl’s porch. Whoever was doing this—or why anyone would dream up something so gruesome—was a mystery to Carl. A dark, blank, terrible mystery.

  But he could try to figure that out later. Right now he had to get to work.

  He drove the shovel into the loose soil, dumped it to the side.

  If only it didn’t have to be Miriam. But that’s what the note said—it had to be her.

  She’d been eighty-one years old when she passed away two days ago. Carl, of course, had been at the funeral. And yes, he knew that now he was desecrating her final resting place, but he told himself that the dead were dead, that you couldn’t really desecrate them, not really. Their souls had gone on to another place. Bones and hair and decaying meat were all that was left.

  It sounded crass and unsympathetic, but skinning a corpse was essentially no different than skinning a squirrel, gutting a deer, or carving a turkey. Embalmers and medical examiners did that kind of work on human cadavers all the time.

  That’s what Carl told himself.

  But still, the thought of peeling the skin off a body that used to be a living, breathing human being with dreams and hopes and heartaches just like him was gut-wrenching. Especially considering who Miriam was, what she had meant to him over the years.

  However, the thought of someone doing that to Adele while she was alive was even more horrifying and Carl vowed he was not going to let that happen.

  The shoveling was going quickly, faster than he would’ve ever expected, which was good because according to the note, he had until five o’clock—exactly—to dig up the corpse, remove its skin, deliver it to the hardware store and call the kidnapper.

  That didn’t give him a lot of time, but the dirt wasn’t packed down yet and, after working on a construction crew for the last ten years, he was used to hard physical labor. He would work as furiously as he had to in order to save Adele.

  He threw another shovelful of dirt aside.

  Then another.

  It shouldn’t be too long before he had her, and after he did, it wasn’t far to the hardware store, so the only thing that might really slow him down was the skinning part. He needed to come up with a way to do that quickly.

  So that’s what he thought about as he dug up his recently deceased grandmother’s body.

  26

  Ralph and I entered the Waukesha County Sheriff Department, which was located in an imposing, interconnected set of buildings that also housed the county courthouse and jail.

  We were directed to a graying, portly detective in his early fifties who had a noticeable crescent-shaped birthmark on the right side of his neck. The photos on his desk showed him serving in several different police departments around Wisconsin over the years.

  After taking a seat in front of his desk, we told him what we were looking for and why.

  “So you think one of our deputies stole those cuffs and then sold them to Griffin?” Detective Browning said to me coolly.

  “No, I don’t. We’re just trying to investigate how the cuffs, if they are legitimate, ended up in the hands of a man who sells memorabilia of serial killers.”

  “Uh-huh.” But Browning still seemed antagonistic. It took Ralph’s telling him that we would get the information one way or another, with his help or without it, before he grudgingly produced the paperwork showing who was involved in the Oswalds’ arrest.

  When I thanked him, he made it clear once again that he thought we were being out of line.

  His hostile attitude surprised me. In the end I chalked it up to the fact that I had an FBI agent with me. To say there can be tension over interagency information requests is, unfortunately, a gross understatement.

  Before Ralph and I left the building, we also picked up a copy of the chain of custody forms and evidence room visitation records for the Oswald case. There was so much evidence gathered against the father and son team
—including parts of the van they were driving when they tried to flee, the cache of rifles they’d collected, thousands of rounds of ammunition, reams of paperwork and James’s voluminous journals—that the number of items listed on the forms was substantial.

  Material in hand, we cruised back to the interstate and headed for HQ.

  Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  Joshua parked in the overgrown, empty lot just west of the deserted train yard.

  Milwaukee used to be a major industrial railway shipping hub. To some extent it still was, but times change and trains weren’t being used nearly as much as they had been twenty or thirty years ago.

  A metal chain-link fence with wickedly sharp razor wire curling across the top of it ran along the entire perimeter of the train yard. However, there was a swinging gate here in the parking lot that was large enough for a car to pass through. Two sets of railroad tracks also entered beneath the fence, and then branched off in the yard into the nineteen dead-end tracks that held the abandoned cars.

  Apart from a small crawl-hole in the fence that bordered the woods, this gate was the only way to access the yard.

  Two days ago Joshua had cut through the chain that held the gate shut, then padlocked it closed again with his own lock and chain. His lock was still there, so obviously, no one had noticed, and that hadn’t surprised him. This was not exactly a tourist hotspot.

  The tracks that terminated in the yard were rusted and overgrown with scraggly weeds that broke through the thin, sporadic layer of snow. Dozens of boxcars, coal cars, tankers, and a few engines and cabooses that’d been retired from service sat languishing in the yard. With the rails in such disrepair, these cars weren’t going anywhere any time soon.

  Apparently, when a train car gets retired, there aren’t a whole lot of places to leave it, and over the last twenty years, more and more cars from the Milwaukee Road, Wisconsin Central, and Soo Line railways had been abandoned here and left to the mercy of weather and time.

  Wearing gloves so that he wouldn’t leave any fingerprints, Joshua unlocked the gate, swung it open, drove toward the tracks containing the abandoned boxcars, then closed and padlocked the gate behind him.