by Peter Bowen
Why?
CHAPTER 3
“RIGHT HERE,” SAID SUSAN Klein. She was pale and angry. She shook her head. She rubbed the bartop with a towel. The Toussaint Saloon was packed with people who were all talking at once in little groups. They were drinking but not much. They ordered drinks and then forgot them. The telephone was tied up with people who were checking on their families and friends. They did this over and over.
“It’s something that happens somewhere else,” said Susan Klein. “In the cities. It doesn’t happen here.”
Madelaine reached across the bar and she put her hand on top of Susan’s. Madelaine looked down at the scarred wood.
Bart Fascelli was sucking down his second soda. His left arm was in a sling. Once again, he had hurt himself working on his gigantic diesel shovel. It did not come naturally to him.
“Bad man like that don’t leave those girls nothin’,” said Madelaine. “Kill them, dump them like old guts in the brush for the coyotes to eat.”
Du Pré was standing on the other side of Bart, sipping a whiskey. He kept looking off somewhere else. Far away. A far country.
“I don’t suppose it would do any good to post a reward?” said Bart, looking from Susan and Madelaine to Du Pré. Bart was rich. Very rich. He had money, at least, to offer.
Du Pré shrugged.
“I didn’t think so,” said Bart.
“It is maybe a good idea,” said Du Pré. “Except this guy is not a thief or a guy does things with other people, you know. He just does this alone, you know. People now will be watching all the time, you bet, I hope they don’t just shoot every stranger. This is not funny.”
Benny Klein came in, looking tired and worn and sick.
He came up to his wife and he leaned up against the bar. He didn’t say anything. After a moment, Susan reached over and touched his face.
“Benny,” she said softly, “calm down. Have a beer. Come on, now.”
Du Pré looked in the mirror. The four of them, the two women near poor Benny, who liked evil even less than he liked violence. Bart looking off and far away.
I hope he don’t say he is afraid of me again, Du Pré thought. I hope this bastard gets caught today. But I don’t think that he will.
Du Pré’s thoughts flicked back and forth like a hunter’s eyes on a landscape. He sighed and sipped his whiskey.
Susan Klein was pulling beers and mixing drinks, her face sad.
I been here plenty, thought Du Pré, playing my fiddle. Happy times with my friends and neighbors, drinking and laughing and dancing. Maybe we get to do that. But we have to wait on someone with a dead heart to let us.
“Gabriel,” said Bart. He had come up behind Du Pré.
“Unh,” said Du Pré.
“What do you think, now?” said Bart. He was looking levelly into Du Pré’s eyes.
Du Pré shrugged.
He rolled a cigarette. He lit it.
“Plenty bad, what I think,” said Du Pré. “Maybe I call that Harvey Wallace, you remember?”
“Oh, yes,” said Bart.
“He is with them FBI,” Du Pré went on. “Maybe he have something he can tell us.”
“Good,” said Bart.
“I also try to find Benetsee,” said Du Pré. “But he is gone. He tell me he is going to Canada, see some of his people. But I don’t know what he meant, how long he is gone, you know.”
“I’m trying to think of something I can do,” said Bart.
“You are doing it,” said Du Pré. “You can spend your money later.”
Bart laughed.
“It’s the first thing that I think of,” he said, “you know how I am.”
Du Pré looked up at the tin ceiling. Yes, Bart, I know how you are and you got more money than most countries got. It almost killed you all that money. But it did not.
You are my friend.
My father kill your brother, long time ago.
Life, it is very strange.
Du Pré stubbed his smoke out in the ashtray. Light flashed against the ceiling, someone had opened the door.
Clouds moved, Du Pré thought. He glanced over to see who had come in.
A middle-aged couple in new heavy jackets and the sort of shoes that city people buy to go to the country in were standing inside the door, and they looked uncomfortable.
The man took the woman’s arm and led her toward the bar, he bent over and was speaking softly close to her ear. She looked at the floor and she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
Susan Klein had seen the couple and she had come out from the bar, moving very quickly.
Du Pré looked at her, standing in front of them, her face grave.
They talked in low tones. Susan glanced over at Du Pré.
She said one more thing to them and then she led them over to where Du Pré was sitting. Du Pré got up.
“This is Mr. and Mrs. Kamp,” said Susan Klein to Du Pré. “They are the parents … of a missing girl. They wanted to talk … to you …”
Missing girl, Du Pré thought. Oh, yes, they are missing, they just up and left for hell.
The woman looked up at Du Pré. She was a tiny creature, her eyes huge in her sad face.
“Shannon was …” she began.
“Our daughter,” the man cut in. “She ran away a year ago … we never heard from her again.”
“We just want to know …” the woman said.
Du Pré nodded. “The police, they call you?”
“No,” said the man. “They haven’t … they said they haven’t been able to identify any of the victims …”
The woman had pulled a photograph from the pocket of her coat. It was an ordinary yearbook photograph, the kind kids in high school pass around.
“She looked like this,” said the woman. “Isn’t she pretty?”
Du Pré took the photograph. He stared at it.
If one of them was your daughter, I would not know it, he thought, their faces had been chewed almost off, they had rotted, there was nothing there that looked like a pretty girl, like this picture.
“The police won’t let us look at the bodies,” said the woman.
No shit, thought Du Pré, you look at what we are finding out there you will not sleep again, this lifetime.
“She was so pretty …” the woman said, again.
“Could you tell us anything?” said the man. “She had a birthmark on her back.’
Du Pré thought of the green-brown bloated mess lying in the sagebrush, the birds pecking at it.
“I don’t know,” said Du Pré, lamely. “I wish I could help, you know, but you will have to wait for the police.”
“But you found them,” said the man. He was getting angry.
Du Pré nodded.
“Why can’t you tell us about Shannon?” said the woman.
Du Pré felt his temper rise. Then it cooled. Crazy question, these are people crazy with grief, he thought, they are mad.
“It’s a conspiracy,” said the man.
Yes, Du Pré thought, it is.
“Do you know what it is like, to lose a child and not even really know what happened to her?” said the woman.
Du Pré nodded.
“Why won’t you help us?” said the man.
“He is helping you,” said Susan Klein.
“Bastards,” said the woman.
Susan narrowed her eyes. She stalked out the front door of the bar. She was gone only a couple of minutes. When she came back, she had a manila envelope in her hand.
“Oh, God, Susan,” said Benny.
“My husband is trying to find this animal,” said Susan Klein to the couple. “So is Gabriel, and about five hundred other cops. Cops are people. Pretty good people.”
She pulled a big glossy black-and-white photo from the envelope.
“Is this your daughter?” said Susan, eyes blazing.
The couple looked at the photo.
“What is it?” said the woman.
“It’s what Gab
riel found,” said Susan. “They don’t look like what you see in a funeral parlor when the cops find them. They look like this.”
“Oh my God,” said the man. “That’s a body.”
“People aren’t good keepers,” said Susan Klein.
“I don’t understand,” said the woman.
“Good,” said Susan Klein, slipping the photo back in the envelope. “Now, mister, I suggest that you take your wife and get the hell out of my bar and don’t come back for a while.”
“Why?” said the woman.
“Come on, Grace,” said the man, pulling on his wife’s arm.
She went with him, shaking her head.
They went out.
Susan Klein went back behind the bar.
Du Pré looked at her.
She was lighting a cigarette with a butane lighter.
It took her four tries. Her hands were shaking. Badly.
CHAPTER 4
“THEY HAVE TO DO it that way,” said Harvey Wallace, whose Indian name was Weasel Fat. He was Blackfeet, and FBI.
“Shit,” said Du Pré. “It was some surprising, you know, they come here and they want to question me, you know. Then this guy of yours, he says, Mr. Du Pré, we know you are killing these girls, we want to help you.”
“Yeah,” said Harvey Wallace/Weasel Fat. “Well, that is the way that they do things.”
“They ever catch anybody,” said Du Pré into the telephone. He was so mad he was shouting.
“Fairly often,” said Harvey. “We catch bad guys pretty often. You’d be surprised. I know I look like a dickhead, but even I have caught bad guys. Jury even agreed.”
“I am sorry,” said Du Pré. “I am pret’ mad, say things.”
“Don’t blame you,” said Harvey, “now, he’ll probably come on back and want you to take a polygraph.”
“Lie detector?” said Du Pré. “Jesus Christ.”
“Yeah,” said Harvey. “Please take it.”
“Why the fuck I take that?” said Du Pré.
“Well,” said Harvey. “If you pass it, then you’re out of it altogether.”
“Harvey,” said Du Pré, “I am out of it now.”
“No,” said Harvey. “You aren’t. Tell you a story. Ten years ago, we had a case, guy was killing little girls, you know, like five years old. Cops are stumped. We come in. We don’t get squat. Couple more little girls get found. There’s no thread.”
Du Pré rolled a cigarette with one hand. He’d taken two years off when he was sixteen and he had done nothing much but try to roll cigarettes with one hand. Like his Papa, Catfoot, did. Got so he could do it pretty good. Two years.
“I come in on it and I look over all the reports. Nothin’ I can’t see anything. Case drags on a year. Three more little girls. The people in this city are ready to lynch all the incompetent bastards in the FBI.”
Du Pré struck a match with his thumbnail. Some of the match’s phosphorous stuck under his thumbnail, burning. It hurt like hell. Du Pré glared at the pain.
“I can’t see a fucking thing. Hundreds of leads followed, a few suspects but nothing worth spit, they all got good alibis, nothing, not one fucking thing. So I send all the reports to Statistical Analysis. They put the data into the computer. The computer notices that there is this one cop who is around more than he should be, it’s not his case but he’s around it a lot.”
“You give him the pollywog, whatever,” said Du Pré, “And it’s him?”
“Not quite,” said Harvey. “I have him take the polygraph and he’s lying about something. But he didn’t kill the little girls. Polygraph says so, so does a bunch of other things.”
Du Pré sucked on his burnt thumb.
“I am curious,” said Harvey. “So I grill this poor bastard over a nice hot flame, woulda put burning toothpicks under his fingernails, skinned him slowly, it is the way of my people.”
Them Blackfeet, mean fuckers, thought Du Pré, looking at his thumb.
“Well,” said Harvey, “after working his kidneys over with a rubber hose and threatening to fry up his pet guppies for lunch, he finally breaks and tells me about the report he didn’t file. Seems he was working and a call got routed to him, the dicks on the case were all out. Some little old lady had seen something suspicious. Ho-hum, little old ladies drive us nuts.”
Du Pré clenched his teeth. His thumb hurt like hell.
“Well, this poor cop was going through a bad divorce and he’d gobbled too many Valiums and he was kinda addled, and he scrambled everything he jotted down and then he went home and slept it off and when he came back the next day he couldn’t make fuck-all out of his notes so he trashed them.”
Du Pré farted.
“Case goes on, the cop is obsessed with this little old lady who called in when he was all fucked up, but he can’t find her. It’s the one time he’s ever done this. He’s ashamed. The little old lady had given him the license plate number of a car.”
Du Pré waited.
“Finally I say, look, here’s what you do. Go back and work out from the places where the little girls were found. See if any little old ladies croaked after the day you were too fucked up to take the call.”
“By midafternoon the cop’s got a name of an old lady who stroked out three days after one of the bodies was discovered. He goes to look at the house. House has a clear view though it’s pretty far off. Goes up to the house. It’s sealed, pending probate. He gets a court order and gets in. What do you think he finds?”
“This old lady,” said Du Pré, “she has this telescope, she looks out the window with. She writes things down. There is a note by the telephone, got description of a guy, a car, the license plate number, the time, and everything.”
“Exactly,” said Harvey. “How’d you guess that?”
“I never heard you speak more than fifty words at once, all the time I know you,” said Du Pré. “So I figure it has to be a real story and so that is how a real story would work out.”
“Indeed it did,” said Harvey. “Picked the guy up, grilled him, sent in Come-to-Jesus Wilkins, and the guy confessed just like that.”
“Come-to-Jesus?” said Du Pré.
“FBI agent who, so help me, can go into a room with a raving sociopath and convince the motherfucker that he ought to do the best thing. Come-to-Jesus, get it off his chest and straight with the Lord. I saw him do it once with a wacko who ate everyone he killed.”
Du Pré snorted.
“So,” said Harvey Wallace/Weasel Fat, “I’d appreciate it if as a personal favor to me you would take the polygraph.”
“Fuck,” said Du Pré.
“Fine,” said Harvey. “Just after you take the polygraph. Now, after you take the polygraph I can be more helpful than I can before.”
“Shit,” said Du Pré.
“Du Pré,” said Harvey, “humor me. This is almost the twenty-first century and gadgets rule us.”
“You think I maybe done this?” said Du Pré.
“Don’t be an asshole,” said Harvey. “Of course not. But once you take it then all the guys in the agency who live and die by the damn things are stalemated and they cause less trouble. I won’t be assigned to that case. Wish I could be. I keep telling them they are fools and they keep promoting me.”
“OK,” said Du Pré. “You gonna have Benny take it? He is so upset he probably flunk it.”
“You don’t worry about that,” said Harvey. “Benny’s the Sheriff and he’s not the problem. You are. You have no official status.”
“Oh,” said Du Pré.
“Which means I can’t talk to you much,” said Harvey.
“I am going, this murderer, I am going to find him,” said Du Pré.
“Probably,” said Harvey. “Benny won’t. You might.”
“OK,” said Du Pré, “I get him to deputize me?”
“Yup,” said Harvey.
“Then what?” said Du Pré.
“I send Agent Pidgeon to see you.”
“Wh
y?” said Du Pré.
“She’s a specialist in serial killers,” said Harvey.
“She?” said Du Pré.
“Yeah,” said Harvey. “We quit binding their feet, taught ‘em how to read, write, things like that. Nothing to be done about it now, we got ‘em.”
“How long she been doing this?” said Du Pré.
“Couple years,” said Harvey. “She got her doctorate in psychology and then she joined the FBI. Nice young woman. Beautiful, too. Ambitious. Great knockers. Smart. If she heard me tell you she had great knockers, I’d be jailed for sexual harassment. Lose my job.”
“Why she pick serial killers?” said Du Pré.
“You’d have to ask her,” said Harvey. “I’d be afraid to, myself.”
“OK,” said Du Pré. “I go to this polygraph.”
“It makes things simpler,” said Harvey.
“Who do I call?” said Du Pré.
“Oh,” said Harvey, “I already did.”
“Prick,” said Du Pré. “You know I say yes, huh?”
“Yup,” said Harvey. “I need you on this one, we do anyway.”
“OK,” said Du Pré.
“Bodies are dumped out in the sagebrush,” said Harvey. “Very few FBI guys know much about sagebrush.”
“Yah,” said Du Pré. “I am trying to find Benetsee.”
“That would have been my next question,” said Harvey.
“He is in Canada,” said Du Pré.
“I’ll send you some money,” said Harvey. “You buy him some wine and tobacco and meat.”
“Oh,” said Du Pré, “I take care of it.” “Thanks,” said Harvey. “Yeah,” said Du Pré.
CHAPTER 5
“DU PRÉ!” SAID MADELAINE. “You ask him to ask you them question I give you.”
“Yah,” said Du Pré. “He ask me I am fucking twelve women, like you keep telling me I am, I say no, the machine, it says I am lying.”
“OK,” said Madelaine. “I thought so.”
“It is fourteen, anyway,” said Du Pré. “My dick, it is huge and it is very hungry. Twelve women, they do not quite do it for me, you know.”
“OK,” said Madelaine. “I fix that. You don’t be telling me, you have a headache, you hear.”
Du Pré nodded and grinned at her.
