Opening Moves

by Steven James

  Ralph stood beside me, scrutinizing the area. The wind caught hold of his jacket and pressed it against his hulking chest, making it look like a dark, rippling second skin.

  “How do you want to do this?” he asked me.

  “How about I take the south side, you take the north?”

  “So,” he said, “besides Hendrich, what exactly are we looking for again?”

  “Bad guys. Bodies. Clues.”

  “The usual.”

  “Right.”

  I dug through the contents of the sedan’s trunk and came up with a hefty, heavy-duty Maglite flashlight. If I needed to take a closer look inside any of the train cars, this puppy would definitely do the trick.

  Ralph eyed it. “You think that thing’s big enough?”

  I passed it from hand to hand, gauged the weight. “It can double as a club if I need it to.”

  “It could double as a baseball bat,” he muttered, “if you cut a few inches off the end.”

  Actually, I kind of liked it. “It’s not that bad.”

  He showed me his Mini Maglite, not much larger than a Magic Marker. “You gotta get one of these Bad Boys.”

  “That’s not exactly what I would call a ‘Bad Boy.’”

  He grunted slightly, then studied the razor wire fence that enclosed the train yard. “So how do we get in?”

  When I took a closer look at the formidable security fence, I realized that was actually a pretty good question.

  We could walk along the fence that skirted a field on the side of the yard and eventually get to the parking area, but it was likely that the gate was locked and there wasn’t any less razor wire there than there was on the rest of the fence. It wasn’t going to be easy to climb over that no matter where we went.

  It seemed that, with all the graffiti on the train cars, there must be an easier way in, somewhere local gang members would use to access the yard to mark their territory.

  Quickly, I evaluated what I knew of the neighborhood, then pointed. “The woods. It’s relatively close to the Crips’ territory.” I was about to tell him who the Crips were but then realized he’d already be familiar with the gang from his NCAVC work. “Sections of it wouldn’t be visible from the road.”

  “It’d help hide the access point.”

  “Right. If there’s a hole in the fence, I’m guessing it would be over there somewhere. That’s where they’d come through. The kids who spray-paint all the train cars.”

  He nodded and, flashlights in hand, we crossed the road to look for a way in.

  Carl arrived at Main Street.

  Plainfield hadn’t grown much since the 1950s when Ed Gein lived here—it still had fewer than a thousand residents, and the street still consisted of only a small family-owned diner, an antique shop, two taverns, a church, and, of course, the hardware store. It was like an idyllic little midwestern Mayberry with a nightmare hiding in its closet.

  Carl parked his van just down the street from Magnus’s Hardware Store.

  Even though he wanted to get that body out of his van, he still had a little time before he needed to make the call to the kidnapper and he wanted to stick as close as he could to the time frame the note had laid out for him.

  Down the block, a few people stepped out of Schroeder’s Diner. He recognized them all and he wondered what they would think of him if they knew what he’d just done, what he had in the back of his van.

  But in the end, truthfully, none of that really mattered. He would be linked to all of this anyway and his friends would think what they would think. He had no control over that. Maybe they’d understand, maybe not, but what mattered right now was making sure his fiancée was safe.

  Go. Get this over with. Drop off Miriam’s body, call the number, get Adele back home, deal with the consequences later.

  After one more moment of consideration, he drove to the tiny parking lot behind the hardware store, exited the van, walked around back, and removed his grandmother’s skinless remains.

  31

  Adele was almost awake.

  Joshua adjusted the light he’d attached to the wall so that it shone directly at her face. Of course she was still blindfolded, but this way it would give him the light he needed.

  The temperature was dropping, sending waves of shivers through his body. But the touch of the crisp air, along with his adrenaline and the tightening expectancy turned the shivers into rivers of secret, deep thrills. He’d never used drugs, but he felt like he was experiencing some sort of high right now.

  It was still a little while before he expected the call from Carl that the skinned corpse had been left at the hardware store in Plainfield, but, just as with Colleen last night, Joshua had something in mind for the woman in front of him that had nothing to do with the message he’d written in the note he left behind.

  No, with both Carl and Vincent, Joshua hadn’t been entirely forthright and honest about his intentions regarding the women they loved. But he justified the slight misrepresentation, the deceit, if you will, as necessary. Yesterday his goal had been to get the police and the news media thinking about Dahmer.

  Today, Gein.

  Tomorrow he would let the news sink in, and then on Wednesday, build to the final climax with the Oswalds.

  Within forty-eight hours he would have the attention of everyone who mattered, and once that happened, he would finally take his place alongside the man he’d grown to so ardently admire.

  Griffin would be the key to all of this. He’d be able to get him in touch with the Maneater—when the time was right. After all, he got the police tape from the homicide in Illinois. He had a source close to the crime.

  Adele moaned weakly and Joshua’s heartbeat quickened. This was really what it was all about, wasn’t it? This feeling, this urge, this anticipation of the moment before it all begins.

  Before.

  It all.

  Begins.

  He fingered the four plastic ties and waited anxiously, anxiously, anxiously for her to be aware enough for the evening’s proceedings to get under way.

  I found what I was looking for beside one of the metal posts supporting the chain-link fence.

  A small section of the flexible fence material had been pulled loose. A drainage ditch ran alongside the fence here, and Ralph and I needed to scramble down to get to the makeshift opening, but after we did, I bent the loose section of fencing back to provide enough room for him to squeeze through.

  It was a tight fit, but after he made it, I knew I could too. I lay on my back, he tugged the edge of the fence up from his side, and I squirmed through to join him.

  Ralph motioned toward his radio. “I’ll keep this on. Talk to me if you find anything.”

  “Ditto.”

  We split up. He lumbered north toward the coal cars, I headed in the direction of the parking lot.

  Considering the location of Hendrich’s residence, he wouldn’t have walked here from home. And taking into account the sparse public transportation routes in this part of town, I figured that if Bruce were here, he would have driven.

  I hadn’t seen any vehicles in the parking lot, but there might be one hidden here in the yard, behind some train cars. Given the orientation of the tracks, the best place for someone to hide one was near a string of tanker cars not far from the parking lot.

  Keeping an eye out for anyone else already in the yard, I made my way toward the tankers to see if Hendrich’s car might just be here.

  32

  Other than the low hum of late-afternoon traffic on I-94 and the crunch of the gravel underfoot, the train yard was quiet.

  I saw no tire tracks or sole impressions on the uneven scrubbing of snow, although some stretches of the yard had only enough snow to fill in the space between the gravel, so it wouldn’t have been possible to track prints very far anyway.

  I was nearly to the tankers. I still hadn’t seen a vehicle.

  When I looked beneath the train cars, hoping to catch sight of a car’s tires somew
here beyond them, the view was too obscured by a stretch of tall leaning grass on the other side to see much of anything.

  Just as I was starting to think that this search for a vehicle might be a waste of time, I glimpsed what I was looking for. Only the hood at first, but as I proceeded, the rest of the sedan came into view.

  A Ford Taurus.

  I hustled toward it, felt the hood.

  Still warm.

  In this weather, that meant that whoever had driven it here had to have arrived recently and the engine must have been running for quite a while to get the hood that warm.

  I didn’t know if it was Hendrich’s car or not, but in either case, unless there was a way out of the yard that Ralph and I didn’t know about, someone else was in here with us.

  I radioed in the plates as I jogged over and inspected the gate. The keyed padlock and chain were shiny and new.

  Scrutinizing the train yard, I still saw no movement.

  Even though a dusting of snow was kicked up around the car, there wasn’t enough for me to determine which direction the driver might have gone after exiting the vehicle.

  Mainly it was the snow behind the car that was trampled.

  Last night Colleen’s abductor transported her in the trunk of a sedan.

  My heartbeat quickened.

  He has someone, Pat. He’s here.

  I radioed Ralph and told him what I’d found.

  Anticipating that whoever had left the car wouldn’t have walked back toward the parking lot, but would’ve likely headed toward a boxcar or freight car where he could work unseen, I followed the path toward the string of boxcars, then kept going past the place where Ralph and I had entered beneath the fence.

  Just to my left were the hulking, abandoned freight and boxcars. To my right, the ditch sloped down toward the perimeter fence and the darkening woods that spread out of sight.

  Glancing around, I could tell that I’d been correct earlier when I guessed that this area was well hidden from view.

  Yeah, this would definitely be the place to bring someone.

  I knelt and scanned the tracks again, looking for movement, for signs of anyone walking on the other side of the rusted and long-abandoned boxcars beside me.

  Still nothing.

  If someone exchanged that lock at the main gate, he might have exchanged others as well. Especially the one to the train car he’s using. Look for new locks, Pat. New chains.

  There were a lot of cars to check and I needed to inspect the sliding doors on both sides, but new locks narrowed things down. It was a place to start.

  Ralph’s voice came through my radio again: “Anything?”

  “No. You?”

  “Not yet. Where are you?”

  “Near the fence,” I told him, “a hundred meters east of the parking lot. I’m checking the boxcars.”

  “Roger that. Keep me posted.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Then I went back to work looking for bad guys. Bodies. Clues. The usual.

  Or in this case, anything that might be unusual.

  Like new locks on old boxcar doors.

  33

  Carl entered his friend Rennie Stillwells’s tavern just down the street from the hardware store. Rennie wouldn’t officially open until five, but all the guys from the Wednesday-night poker crew knew he was always there by three.

  “Hey, Rennie.”

  Rennie looked up from the bar. He was the only one in the room. “Carl. Hey, how ya doin’?”

  “Good. How ’bout you?”

  He shrugged. “Could be worse.”

  “Listen, do you mind if I use your phone, there?”

  Without a word, Rennie set it on the bar. Slid it toward Carl.

  “Um…you know…It’s a bit personal…Has to do with Adele.”

  “Gotcha.” Rennie winked as if he understood completely. “Help yourself. I gotta use the john anyway.”

  He stepped away and Carl turned the phone so the numbers faced him, then he pulled out the note that Adele’s kidnapper had left for him, and spread it across the counter. The number: 888-359-5392.

  He’d done as the note directed and the body was there at the hardware store. In a sense, the ransom had been paid.

  Call the number, Carl. So what if it’s a few minutes early.

  Thinking about Adele being with this man was just too terrifying for him to wait.

  Sweating, his hand shaking noticeably as he tapped in the number, he held the receiver to his ear and waited while it rang.

  No one picked up.

  With each passing second he became more and more nervous, more afraid.

  The note said to call this number, that she would be okay if you did!

  But another voice: No, you called early! You didn’t wait!

  Still no one answered.

  Then Carl heard police sirens and realized that someone must have already found Miriam Flandry’s corpse and called the station, which was less than a mile away.

  And all he could think of was why the man who’d taken Adele, who’d already severed off at least one of her fingers, wasn’t answering.

  And what he might be doing to her instead.

  34

  Joshua drew the heavy-duty zip tie taut around Adele’s left wrist. She was awake now, still blindfolded, but she could obviously tell that she was restrained to the chair and that he was putting something around her wrist. She tried valiantly to pull free. “What are you doing?” Her voice was constricted and tight with concern, and Joshua had to admit to himself that he kind of liked that.

  He thought that maybe it would be more frightening to her if he remained quiet. So instead of replying, he just cinched the second tie around her right wrist, tugging it tight enough to cut off the circulation to her hand.

  “Ouch!” She winced. “Who are you! Stop it!”

  When he still said nothing, she cried out louder, squirming to get free, and it reminded him of the way Colleen had acted the night before. It even reminded him of his first trip into the special place beneath the barn with his father, when that man named Kenneth who was shackled to the boards holding up the cellar’s earthen walls, had tried so desperately but in the end, futilely, to escape.

  “What do you want!” Adele screamed. The words thrummed for a moment inside the boxcar then the mattresses swallowed the sounds, leaving a soft, hollow silence in their wake.

  Joshua bent to do her right ankle but realized it might be best to talk to her after all, to keep her preoccupied until he got started with the Gemrig saw. “I just want you to be still.”

  When he actually did reply to her this time, she was quiet, and he wondered if maybe she’d become hopeful that she could negotiate with him. He didn’t like that his words might be leading her on, might be making her think he was going to have compassion on her. It just didn’t feel right to do that to her.

  She stopped struggling for the moment, then shifted her weight in the chair. “Please let me—oh my God!” She was rubbing the fingers of her left hand together and it was clear she’d just discovered that her ring finger was missing. The first aid tape Joshua had wrapped around the nub kept it from bleeding too much, and the adrenaline, fear, and the lingering effects of the drugs must have distracted her from the pain. “What did you do to me!”

  “I’ve asked Carl to do a job for me. That was to let him know how important it is.”

  She took a handful of heavy breaths. “Okay. It’s okay. It doesn’t matter, but can you let me go? I’ll make sure he does what you want.”

  It was clear that she was just trying to conciliate him. Of course it mattered that someone had snipped off her ring finger, and even though he could understand why she was acting this way, saying these things, Joshua wasn’t sure he liked her downplaying the severity of what had happened, all in a vain attempt to try to make him release her.

  “I won’t tell,” she gasped, and it sounded like she was trying to hold back tears. “I’ll make Carl do what you want. He will.
I promise.”

  Joshua enjoyed the screaming, but this begging made him uncomfortable. He finished with her right ankle. Turned to the left one, trying to tune out her pleading, but she kept on, kept promising that she would do whatever he wanted if he would just stop, just please, please, stop and let her go.

  He retrieved the saw. That would change things. Once he actually got started.

  The November air bristled across his bare skin, tiny needles that somehow brought him closer to the moment, more in tune with what he was doing. He closed his eyes, shivered deeply. Embraced the chill of the coming night.

  Last evening he’d left Colleen conscious as he amputated her hands, and that’d been satisfying. Now, with Adele, since he was doing both her hands and feet, it would last that much longer.

  Yes, getting started would make things better, would stop all her talking.

  He decided to begin with her feet.

  Joshua knelt and carefully positioned the blade of the amputation saw against the skin just above Adele’s left foot, about half an inch below the plastic tie.

  “Listen to me!” she cried, and started in again, wriggling frantically. “Whatever you’re thinking about doing, you don’t need to do this!” She’d obviously pieced two and two together, probably taking into account what had happened to her finger along with the fact that something was constricting her wrists and ankles. “Okay? Whatever you want, I’ll make sure—”

  “If you keep moving, this is going to hurt a lot worse and it’ll take longer, and I’m guessing you wouldn’t want either of those things to happen.” He tugged on the end of the plastic tie again, cinching it deeper into her skin to make sure it was as snug as it needed to be, then he grasped her foot and held it firmly against the ground to keep it in position.

  “No!”

  He realigned the saw…

  “Please stop!”