“Yeah. Cherry Bomb was probably long gone by the time you turned up.”
“More than likely. And you heard the interview tapes of the people I did talk to. There’s nothing suspicious about any of them. Then again, I obviously couldn’t spot a psycho if he stuck a goddamned axe pole up my butt. That’s why I got you. You’re the nut detector.”
“It’s a long shot, I admit.” R.D. got more comfortable in his chair. “But, just in case, I want you to tell me everything you remember about every person you encountered that morning. Again.”
“Holy shit!” breathed Ettrick. “You better pack a lunch!”
He began to recount all the information he could, and it was considerable. He talked for three solid hours. They came up with nothing.
The next day Cherry Bomb claimed his sixth victim.
-26-
Peachy O’Neil’s rusty Oldsmobile overheated next to the Wal-Mart on 68th and Lamar, spinning it into the store parking lot. The vehicle ground to a halt, trailing clouds of steam like a doomed warplane. Vapour hung in tendrils over the motionless car. Peachy was assistant manager in the men’s clothing department of Sears out on Bee-Cave Road. Forty two and still only assistant manager. And he was late.
Peachy ran to the back of the Oldsmobile to get a water can, heart racing, ignoring the feeling of doom, daring to hope. He threw open the trunk. He began to scream.
He was forty two and still only an assistant manager. He was late.
And he had a dead child in his car.
Ettrick was shopping less than a mile away when he caught the terse police bulletin. He was at the crime scene before the first patrolman.
The psychologist lay on Ettrick’s porch in black t-shirt, black shorts and army boots, a glistening iced tea balanced on his forehead. The detective stared at his outlandish outfit.
“What?” R.D. protested. “The Bedouins in Africa wear black to deflect the heat.”
“It doesn’t make them look like a soccer referee.”
“Scotsmen aren’t designed to look good in shorts.” R.D. looked down at his legs. “See how pale my knees are? Christ, they look like a couple of Faberge eggs.”
“Do you want me to tell you about the latest killing or not?”
R.D. waved his hand and listened intently while Ettrick faithfully recounted the incident.
“O.K.” he sighed, once the detective had finished. “Let’s go over this one again.” Did you check the car?”
“No. I let one of the grocery clerks do it.”
R.D. was accustomed to Ettrick’s sarcasm and ignored the comment. He removed the dewy glass from his brow and sat up to take a sip.
“O’Neil didn’t even look under the hood, he just went and opened the trunk.” Ettrick read from his notes. “Same as always, no prints, no nothing. I questioned him at the crime scene. Handsome guy. Gay. Real name was Peter. No alibi for the time that Gina Windsor, that’s the dead kid, was kidnapped. That don’t mean anything, though. Few of the drivers do.”
“Yes. I noticed that.”
“Not surprising really. Most of these guys are quiet and single or divorced. Mostly middle-aged. They stay home nights, do paperwork, and watch TV.” He glanced up from his notes. “I imagine it’s a pretty dispiriting life, huh?”
“Don’t look at me.” R.D. swilled his drink scornfully. “I don’t expect to live twice the age I am now. And I’ve got a girlfriend.”
He paused.
“Those drivers, though. White. Middle-aged. Solitary. The similarities between them could be more than coincidence.”
“Well, duh!” Ettrick looked scornful. “It’s gonna be a lot harder for Cherry Bomb to hide a dead kid in a car belonging to some suburban mom with a couple of teenagers sneakin out at night and a husband who might come home from the bar at any minute.”
“Point taken. The guys he picked are the type to be tucked up in bed by eleven, with no chance of unexpected visitors.”
“Mind you, driver number four was a woman,” the detective reminded him. “Driver number one was Mexican with four or five children.”
“Aye, but you said yourself the first murder was different, like a try-out. The woman might have been a mistake.” R.D. grabbed file number four and held it up. “See… She looks like a man. Or maybe Cherry Bomb’s trying to throw us off the trail.”
“What fucking trail?”
“The one he’s successfully throwing us off.” The psychologist got up stiffly and leant on the porch rail, idly watching his narrow black suit shift like a rebellious chess piece on Madison’s wash line. He made his next move.
“Let’s hear the tapes you made of Peachy and any onlookers when his car broke down,” he declared. “And I’ll need a bag of Pork Scratchings to help me concentrate.”
-27-
The duo listened to five eye-witness accounts in a row, all of them excitable and conflicting. Ettrick went inside and made more iced tea. The tapes were putting him to sleep. Finally he settled back into his deck chair and surreptitiously closed his eyes. Petals of light danced like shaman under his lids and the detective began to sink pleasantly into mental fluff.
R.D. nudged his arm.
“I’m playing this one again.”
“You spot something?” Ettrick was instantly awake.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Who is it?”
The detective swiped tea droplets from the discarded file and muddled through the pages.
“Here he is. He was just a bum… Sean Matula. Yeah, a hobo sunning himself at the edge of the parking lot.”
“Listen,” said R.D.
He played the tape.
“Ah wuz sittin here and… jus’ sittin is all…” The voice had a broken, cigarette-stained timbre. “An… People comin out o’ them stores n’all the time ah wait for them to drawp-in things. I can pick ‘em up once they’re gone an’ that aint stealing…see? I aint ne’er stole. Not ever. See? I wuz brung up right, me… Then a car comes past over there…Big brown car… Big… An dirty.
There’s a bang or something an’… it stops right over there… kinda swerves, y’know? The father gets out, all annoyed, n’ walks to the back of the car… I seen this. Then ah start to watch other stuff…like this big fat, black lady shopping n’sweating, maybe gonna drawp something… then all this com-motion… screamin and people runnin an shit… I don’ know whut…”
“Father.” R.D. switched the tape player off. “That guy didn’t say the driver. He said the father.”
“So what?” Ettrick was dismissive. “He was a tramp and he was rambling.”
“Actually, he’s perfectly lucid,” R.D. corrected. “He’s mumbling but what he’s conveying is coherent enough. Except… he called the driver the father. It’s just an odd thing to say. Everyone in this city, bum or not, knows about these killings. And even if they didn’t there’s no reason for any witness to think the driver and the dead child are related.”
“You’re giving me the fucking creeps, R.D.” Ettrick said. “What’re you getting at?”
“It’s a pure guess but I’m taking this tape to a voice expert. I’m fairly good with accents; you should hear my Jimmy Stewart. Listen.”
He sat back and put on an aw shucks expression.
“Well I says to Jim Bridges, I says… to thish day I never did get a good look at the Rocky Mountainsh!”
“That’s Jimmy Stewart?” The impersonation was eerily accurate, but Ettrick wasn’t going to give his companion the satisfaction of sounding impressed.
“Aye. From How the West was Won.”
“I thought it was Sean Connery.”
“I’m even better at him.”
“Will you get on with it?”
“He made a connection he shouldn’t have,” R.D. continued huffily. “And the way he enunciates doesn’t quite ring true.”
He held up the spool.
“I wonder if this might actually be your killer.”
-28-
Two days later R.D. arrived at
Ettrick’s house along with the paper boy. The detective opened the door, furry mouthed, sporting a stained blue cotton robe.
“You look like shite,” the psychologist said, munching a tamale.
“Oh, I can’t figure why!” Ettrick’s pink eyes fastened malevolently on his peppy breakfast companion. “It aint like there’s anything on my mind disturbin my sleep.”
“Like this, you mean.” R.D. dangled the tape between his fingers.
“Tell me!”
“I got it analysed by Matt Wadell, head of linguistics at U.T.”
“And?” Ettrick hopped around his friend like a curious rabbit.
“He doesn’t believe the guy on this recording is a bum. He thinks your tramp is putting on the gutter accent. Told you.”
“Holy, fucking fuck!”
“Don’t get too excited,” R.D. said sombrely. “Wadell wasn’t 100% certain. He certainly won’t swear to it in court.”
The detective digested this while he fetched two glasses of orange juice from the fridge. He pushed one into R.D.’s oily hand and sat down glumly.
“I didn’t even get a proper look at the bastard!” he moaned. “He was all hair and rags and wearing a big floppy hat.” He pushed fingers through his hair. “We got nothing!”
“We know he’s pretty damned good at disguises and voices,” R.D. contradicted. “Which is going to make him even harder to catch.”
“Well, thanks for that morale boost.”
“Don’t mention it.” The psychologist lifted his glass hesitantly. His eyes narrowed and he lifted a preparatory finger. Ettrick could almost see butterflies of thought chasing each other round inside his companion’s head.
“But I think we’ve just found Cherry Bomb’s self-destruct button.” R.D. sipped his drink slyly. “And we thought he didn’t have one.”
“That is?”
“He wants to be more involved with the discovery of the body. First murder, I bet he was there watching, like we suspected. Sixth murder, he’s there again. He has to see his handiwork discovered.”
“How can he possibly know when a doctored car will break down?”
“I imagine he’ll have studied the route each driver takes to work. And, like you say, he’s awful good with cars. I bet he can figure out approximately where his sabotage will best take effect. Rush hour traffic with lots of starts and stops. Bumps on the road. Whatever. So he waits. This guy’s a vehicle expert. He guesses. Sometimes he gets it right, sometimes not. Twice at least, he’s been close enough.”
“But that random element still stops us paying attention to the onlookers!” Ettrick thumped the table. “Clever fucker! I still don’t have a clue what he looks like, R.D. Not with that big ole hat on. His face was covered in shit!”
“If you scrubbed the dirt off you’d probably find a solitary, middle-aged, white male underneath.” R.D. put down his juice.
“Spill the beans, buddy.”
“This man isn’t happy just to kill.” R.D. picked his way slowly. “He tries to see the discovery of the body. But now we know being an observer isn’t enough. This murder? He didn’t leave when the police arrived. He wanted you to question him.”
“Why? Why risk everything?”
“I don’t know,” R.D. conceded. “A subconscious desire to be punished? An inferiority complex? Or maybe to prove how smart he is. Outwit the dumb cops.”
“Thanks,” muttered Ettrick, but the psychologist wasn’t listening. His mouth was working silently, birthing a thought too sinister to be wrong. He gripped Ettrick’s robe. The detective clutched it back, glowering at him.
“Listen,” R.D. hissed. “The first killing, he watches the results. But by the sixth he has to say his piece. Be in to the centre of the action.” He clenched tighter. “He’s not going to stop there! He’s going to try and get as close as he can.”
“How much closer can he get?” the detective fumed. “He’d have to jump in the fucking trunk with the body.”
“He could get nearer than that, Ettrick.” R.D. smoothed out the crumpled bathrobe triumphantly. “He could be the driver of one of the cars.”
The detective’s mouth fell open.
“He’s not driver one or four. They’re a Mexican baby machine and a woman,” R.D. continued calmly. “He can’t be two, three or five either.”
“Why not?”
“His risk taking is obviously escalating. He wouldn’t go from being a driver back to observing again.” R.D. sipped his orange juice thoughtfully. “Let’s rule out Peachy O Neil, because Cherry Bomb is probably the bum you interviewed in the parking lot and let walk away.”
“Will you stop harping on about that?”
“OK.” R.D. put his hands casually behind his head and stretched. “But any drivers from now on? I would seriously check them out.”
Ettrick gawped at him. “You’re a goddamned genius.”
“It all fits,” said R.D. admiringly. “He gets to kill children. Triumphs over the police department. The media makes him famous and he gets sympathy as a victim. I’d say he was the goddamned genius.”
“I’ll be over the next killing like a rash,” Ettrick grunted.
“Go cover your arse.” R.D. winced. “I’ll get us a beer. After all, we’ve got to clear some room in your fridge for champagne.”
-29-
Driver number seven turned out to be Billy Wise, a site engineer for the La Renne Petroleum Company over in Henderson. On Martin Luther King Boulevard, a sharp crack butted in on his morning radio. Wise’s white hard hat tumbled like a brittle baby from the rear window and the greasy smell of burnt oil filled his stalled car. In the trunk of the hissing Ford he found the body of six-year-old David Hunter.
Ettrick made some discreet inquiries. Mr. Wise’s hobby was scuba diving. He went to Galveston on weekly trips to lose himself in silent translucent water. He was allergic to cats and separated from a younger wife, who had taken their son and moved to Portland. He had one conviction for drunk driving. Didn’t look like much of a suspect.
Three weeks later, driver eight was much the same story. Des Roberts drove a Lincoln convertible and taught history at Bennett High. On a sunny Monday morning his car gave up the ghost outside the gates of the school. Roberts opened the trunk and discovered Sarah Gere, wrapped in tarpaulin and baking in her own blood. Passing pupils picked up the incoherent teacher and carried him to the school medical office.
This time it took Ettrick longer to gather information. The department were getting more and more disgruntled by the detective’s private investigation. It was starting to interfere with his other cases.
Again, there seemed nothing unusual about the man. Credit, work history and college records were all unblemished. Roberts, like Billy Wise, was one of the grey quiet men. His students neither liked nor disliked him. He had a few friends at a local bar. Played slide guitar with a band at weddings.
“Neither of these guys is exactly serial killer material.” Ettrick told R.D. over the telephone. “You sure about this?”
“Email the new stuff to me,” his partner said. “We’ll talk about it tonight. Get me some Habaneras from the Farmers Market if you go past. I want to make my infamous Apollo Chili.”
“You reckon that’ll shake loose the cobwebs, huh?”
“Oh aye... it’ll burn them right off.”
“We sure as hell need some kind of shock treatment... Jeez.” The detective perked up. “You never can tell. Ole Cherry Bomb might just strike again and give us another suspect.”
“Always look on the bright side,” agreed R.D. as he hung up.
The psychologist was rummaging through Ettrick’s fridge when he heard the front door slam. He grabbed the turkey, Jack-cheese and taco sauce hoagie he was building and hid it behind the bread-bin. Seconds later the detective stole into the kitchen.
“You home already?” R.D. tried to look innocent.
“I’m going out again,” Ettrick said quietly. “He’s murdered another kid.”
The detective returned at 2 A.M. R.D. was sitting silently in the gloomy lounge, drinking Genesee Pale and watching The Wild Bunch on video. Ettrick looked exhausted, close to tears.
“That bastard Scharges put in an official complaint about us,” he said. “So, I got a final warning from the department tonight. Stick to my own cases or get the fuck off the force.”
He threw a brown canvas bag the length of the room. It missed the table and landed on the floor, lying on its side like a weighty rodent.
“Here,” he spat. “Another stack of fucking tapes.”
“Don’t worry about it.” R.D. didn’t take his eyes from the television. “The Cherry Bomb is Des Roberts.”
“What? What you talkin about?”
The psychologist hit the pause button and switched on the little desk lamp by his head. His face soaked up light until it kindled his eyes.
“I was going over the notes you sent me. Roberts drives a convertible.”
“So?” Ettrick was too beaten down to try and understand.
“When his car stalled, the top was down. 110 degrees in the shade and the top was down. Rush hour traffic in the blazing heat and he’s driving an air-conditioned car. But the top was down.”
“So what? Roberts is a Texan, not some wimp-assed Scotsman that can’t stand a bit of sun.”
“Oh really? Well, I phoned the principal of the school where the guy teaches and I pretended to be you.”
“You did what?”
“Like I said, that’s one of my many fucking talents,” R.D. drawled proudly, staging a fair parody of Ettrick’s languid tones. “I can do all sorts of accents, imitate voices. When I was a student I used to have an act with a university theatre company where I...”
“Would you get to the damned point?”
R.D. returned to earth.
“I asked the principle if Roberts ever put the top of his convertible up. He said no. Never. Not even when it rained.”
“I may be up for the moron of the year award,” the detective seethed. “But I don’t see exactly where all this is getting us.”
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