Swamp Monster

by C. A. Newsome

  “Electrocution?”

  “Don’t be cute. Could be poison, could have drowned in the creek, but I can’t state either conclusively. Could have died from natural causes and been buried there for some reason.”

  “A sentimental attachment to toxic waste?”

  “That does seem unlikely. He’s a bona fide mystery.”

  “So the prime contenders are suffocation, poisoning, drowning, and natural causes. What can you tell me about him?”

  “Best guess on age is sixty to eighty.”

  “And dressed for disco?”

  “Takes all kinds. Caucasian, consistent with the British Isles. Five foot seven. Excellent dental work, that means middle or upper class. Excessive wear in the finger bones we recovered. He played piano or did something else that required hours of manipulation of his hands. With that jumpsuit, maybe he hung around with Liberace.”

  “Guitar? Maybe he really was an Elvis impersonator.”

  “Maybe. Maybe a typist, but that doesn’t feel right. He came from a generation of men that didn’t do their own typing.”

  “Unless he was Ernest Hemingway.”

  “Possibly a writer, I’ll give you that, but he wasn’t famous or we’d know about him. Inconclusive about his general health, the tree sucking on his bones thinned them out in a way that masks osteoporosis, diabetes, and a host of other issues.”

  “So far nothing you’ve said is very helpful.”

  “I saved the best for last.” She moved down the table, nodding at the right leg. “Take a look at that.”

  Peter bent closer. He’d assumed the entire lower leg was missing, but a few inches of the tibia and fibula remained, ending in formations that looked like clumps of petrified angel hair pasta.

  “What is that?”

  “Your man isn’t Elvis. He’s a peg-legged pirate. That happens sometimes with amputated limbs. You get these crazy growths where the bone was sawed.”

  “Our guy is missing a leg.”

  “Diabetes, cancer, frostbite, injury. He might be a veteran. War is a popular cause of lost limbs.”

  Peter did the math. “World War II?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  Peter thought about the figurehead on Terry’s canoe. “I think I know how to identify him.”

  Cardboard boxes filled Terry and Steve’s living room, a thin layer of dust confirming Peter’s suspicion that they hadn’t budged since Peter helped with the move more than a year earlier. He expected the boxes to remain where they were until the glue on the tape failed and any attempt to pick one up resulted in disaster.

  In the middle of this cardboard obstacle course, Terry sat in his favorite chair, leaning over a box situated to function as a footstool. He adjusted his glasses as he examined the cover of the magazine resting on the box.

  “The resolution is excellent,” he said.

  Peter kept his tone mild. “Where do you think it came from?”

  “It’s not Terry’s,” Steve said. “His didn’t turn out this good.”

  Terry shot Steve a look promising revenge. “I took a few snaps for personal use. Not to show anyone. Check my phone.”

  “Who did you let back there?”

  “No one, … exactly.”

  “Who, not exactly?”

  “It was Commodore’s float trip. He had to see why we couldn’t portage around the tree.”

  “He take photos?”

  Terry sent Steve another look. “We left him for a minute to chase off a couple of the young guys. But Commodore wouldn’t do something like this.” Terry flipped to the center spread, pointed at the last paragraph. “It says right here. He refused to talk to them.”

  “That’s just to give him plausible deniability,” Steve said. “He wouldn’t do it for the money.”

  “Why, then?” Peter asked.

  “Commodore spent the last quarter century raising public awareness about regional watershed issues. He’d do it to get Mill Creek in the news. A sizable anonymous donation to the Mill Creek Alliance would just be a bonus.”

  “You can’t accuse Bruce. Nobody was watching the tree when we were getting everyone out. Anyone could have snuck back.”

  Peter sighed. “If you see one of your yacht club buddies in a new car, you need to tell me.”

  Terry raised troubled eyes. “I let you down. I’m sorry.”

  “It was too much to expect it wouldn’t leak. But there’s something else. I need your figurehead.”

  Color flooded Terry’s face. His mouth gaped in horror. “You can’t take Smaug! He had nothing to do with Elvis.”

  Patience was required here. “Where did you get him—I mean it?”

  “He pulled it out of a tree right before we spotted Elvis,” Steve said.

  “Smaug isn’t part of your investigation,” Terry blustered.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “He was upstream! If he belonged to Elvis, he would have been downstream.”

  “That’s not strictly true,” Steve said.

  “Backstabber,” Terry muttered.

  Peter kept his eyes on Steve and said, “Explain.”

  “The Mill Creek barrier dam is in place to keep the creek from flooding when the Ohio River rises. It’s set to close when the water gets to a certain level. Otherwise, the creek backs up and you have flooding miles upstream. That’s how Northsiders wound up rowing boats on Hamilton Avenue in 1937.”

  “And?”

  “There’s a window of time before the dam closes where you get backwash in what Commodore calls the trash free zone.”

  “Trash-free zone? That’s the opposite of what I saw Saturday.”

  “Not trash-free. A free zone for garbage, where the normal rules don’t apply. There’s a spot between the downtown viaducts and the old railroad trestles. Trash collects against the pilings, which makes the channel tighter. The water wants to move faster but it can’t go anywhere. Then it eddies and circles around. Anything that floats can travel upstream when that happens. We might find Elvis' wristwatch hanging from a bridge on our next float.”

  “I can’t believe you told him that,” Terry groused.

  “I can’t believe you want to obstruct a police investigation,” Steve said.

  “But this is Smaug.”

  “So get yourself a fake leg on eBay.”

  “It’s not the same,” Terry grumbled.

  “I’ll buy one and stick it in the rocks so you can find it in the creek. Will that make you happy?”

  “He’s too old.”

  Sometimes you had to let people work things out. “You know this, because?”

  “They started using plastic decades before Elvis wound up under that tree.”

  “I have a skeleton with an amputated right leg. You found a prosthetic leg the same day. Is it right or left?”

  “Right,” Steve said.

  “Some friend you are,” Terry said.

  “Don’t be such a crybaby.”

  Peter continued, “If it has a serial number, it may tell us who our John Doe is.”

  “He’s not John, he’s Elvis. It said so in the paper. And there’s no serial number. I looked.”

  “Technically, he’s Not Elvis. I’ll give you a receipt for the leg. If it turns out it’s not connected with our bones, you can have it back. If your leg belongs to my bones, you can make a case with the next of kin. They may not want it.”

  Terry stared at the opposite wall with a mulish expression on his face.

  “Or I can get a warrant.”

  The sound emerging from Terry’s throat resembled rumbling before an earthquake.

  Steve stood. “It’s in the garage. I wouldn’t let him bring it in the house.” He turned to Terry. “You coming? This is your chance to say goodbye.”

  Peter sat at his computer, rubbing the spot on his neck that always itched after a haircut. Amanda had cooed over the workmanship of the handmade leg but it had no serial number or other identifier. He’d wasted two hours on a
lead that went nowhere. He hoped Parker was right and this week out of his life would contribute to the common good.

  Forty-three minutes to show time. He stared at the seal of Ohio on his monitor, praying for something he could toss Aubrey Morse as he clicked through to the Attorney General’s missing person data base.

  Wonders of the digital age, the site listed cases going back more than fifty years. Unfortunately, the data base had 1001 pages. There was a search option for keywords, but not for date ranges.

  Peter tapped his fingers in rapid hoofbeats while he thought. He doubted plugging “Elvis” into the search bar would net him anything. He noticed his tapping had segued into the theme for The Lone Ranger—he corrected himself—William Tell Overture—and forced himself to stop.

  Entering individual years would take forever. Instead he keyed in 197. The database came up with three pages of results from the seventies, most of them young women.

  He couldn’t resist skimming the listing for a 20-year-old woman who disappeared from a locked law office in Toledo while the partners were away at a meeting. A romance novel lay on her desk, opened to a page detailing an abduction at knifepoint. She’d had an alarm buzzer under her desk but hadn’t pressed it. They found her locked car in the parking lot. That one rang the bell on the weird-meter with Not Elvis.

  None of the men fit.

  He clicked the search bar again, entered 198. Three pages of results. Two-thirds down the first page, the photo of a cherub-faced older man stared out at him. He clicked the link for the report.

  ___________

  Andrew Heenan, Missing Adult

  Missing from: Cincinnati, Ohio

  Missing since: 5/16/1987

  Missing age: 68

  Current age: 98

  Gender: Male

  Race/Ethnicity: White

  Height: 5’7”

  Weight: 140

  Hair color: White

  Eye color: Blue

  * * *

  Details

  Clifton resident Andrew Heenan was last seen wearing a black jumpsuit while performing magic tricks at a birthday party for a neighborhood child. He was scheduled to leave the following day for a trip to Europe. His car was found at the Cincinnati Airport and he was listed on the flight manifest for Delta flight 238 for New York City on 5/17/1987. A neighbor reported him missing four weeks later when he failed to return. Andrew’s right leg has been amputated below the knee.

  ___________

  Peter picked up his phone, buzzed Parker’s office. “Our bones have a name, and it’s not Elvis.”

  “Love the sidewalls,” Brent said, slapping a hand on Peter’s shoulder as he leaned forward to peer out the featureless glass door fronting District Five.

  Four in the afternoon, and Brent still looked like he stepped off the cover of GQ.

  “If I pay seventy bucks for a haircut, it better blow dry itself in the morning.”

  “I pay beautiful women to run their fingers through my hair. The cut is only a side benefit.”

  Three hours earlier, a fat, bald guy named Ernie ran clippers over Peter’s head like a lawn mower. Unwilling to concede the point, Peter grunted and continued to stare across the sea of patrol cars between the station and Family Dollar. Months before, his view had been a wooded hillside and the occasional deer. Now he faced littered sidewalks and display windows full of cheap goods. He wasn’t sure the extra room was worth the tradeoff.

  “Any sign of Channel 7?” Brent asked.

  “Nope. What do you suppose the locals think of having us here?”

  “I suspect the resident shoplifters have stepped up activity to meet the challenge we present. They score points if they shove a second bag of potato chips in their pants when one of us stops in to pick up a candy bar. You, my man, do not look appropriately gratified about your up close and personal with the lovely Aubrey Morse.”

  Peter tugged the tie he saved for court, giving himself a quarter inch more breathing space. “Plenty of bodies pop up on Mill Creek and they barely rate a paragraph below the fold in the metro section. I’d murder the low-life who sold those photos, if I could figure out who it was.”

  “The Enquirer won’t give him up.”

  “I love running an unsolvable murder while the entire country is watching.”

  “Who can resist an Elvis sighting?”

  “You’re only here to watch me make an ass out of myself.”

  “Like any right-thinking, red-blooded male, I am here to check out the slide of Aubrey’s skirt when she gets out of her van.”

  “You’re a true gentleman.”

  “That I am. I also have eyes, and I bless every day for them. But why are you so cranky?”

  “I’m cranky because thirty minutes after this airs, crackpot calls will flood the lines. It’s my job to investigate every tip, doesn’t matter how questionable. Why aren’t you out chasing down Jamal? Parker handed him to you on a platter.”

  “You haven’t briefed me yet.”

  Peter turned narrowed eyes on his best friend. “You can read a file. You just want to give Aubrey a chance to seduce information out of you.”

  Brent grinned, unrepentant. “True that. The seducing part, not the information part. Ah, milady approaches.”

  A van equipped with a satellite dish and telescoping antenna passed the main parking lot entrance on Hamilton Avenue, disappearing behind the row of storefronts on the street.

  “Think she’s lost?” Peter asked.

  “Nope. Circling to stage an entrance. … And here she comes.”

  The van entered from a side street, parking across three spaces and positioning the passenger door directly opposite the entrance to District Five.

  The door opened. Aubrey swung her legs around, showing more thigh than a professional hemline normally offered, the arched pumps she extended anything but demure. She tossed her head, sending her carefully coifed blond mane swinging as she emerged, smiling at the world with sculpted red lips. Her body-hugging purple suit made a bold statement compared to the navy favored by her sister reporters.

  “She’s doing that for our benefit,” Peter said.

  “And I do bless her for it.”

  Brent followed as Peter exited the building. They met Aubrey and her cameraman on the sidewalk.

  “Detective Dourson, good to see you. Brent, am I interviewing you, too?”

  “I’m just here to keep my man out of trouble.”

  Aubrey winked. “He’s safe with me.” She scanned the parking lot. “I guess there’s no good place to do this. I miss the steps at the old station. They made such a nice visual with the flag.” She tapped her foot, then pointed to a spot several feet away. “What do you think, Duff? Will that do?”

  While Aubrey played the slick, sexy professional, Duff was pure counter-culture man candy, with rust-colored dreadlocks falling to the middle of his back and Celtic tattoos on both well-muscled arms. He shrugged, the camera tilting on a beefy shoulder.

  “Brick walls all look the same.”

  Aubrey shot her last District Five story in the middle of a gravel parking lot. Since she’d been confronting detectives about irregularities in an investigation, Peter suspected it had been a deliberate choice to present a seedier impression of the department. CPD was currently in her good graces. Otherwise, she’d shoot their interview in front of the ugly yellow bollards sunk into the pavement to prevent drunks and criminals from driving through the door.

  Once in place, she put on her I’m-serious-as-well-as-beautiful face and signaled Duff to start filming.

  “This is Aubrey Morse, coming to you from District Five. Nine days ago, members of the Mill Creek Yacht Club discovered a human skeleton while on their annual float trip. Detective Peter Dourson, lead investigator in the case, is here to talk with us. Detective Dourson, have you identified the remains?”

  Peter silently blessed Parker’s efficiency. She’d raised hell in the archives until Heenan’s file, never digitized, was unearthed. A har
ried clerk read critical details over Parker’s speakerphone minutes before Morse arrived. With no next of kin listed, Parker okayed the release of Heenan’s name. God willing, the Elvis business would die whimpering in the dark.

  “We believe the remains are those of Andrew Heenan, a sixty-eight-year-old Clifton resident who went missing in 1987, after performing magic at a birthday party. Neighbors reported he had departed for a vacation. His car was found at Cincinnati Airport after he failed to return. The discovery of his remains by Mill Creek suggests he never left town.”

  Audrey’s eye twitched, a tell. He’d taken the juice out of her story and she knew it. Too damn bad.

  “How did you identify him so quickly?”

  “The identification still needs to be confirmed, but the remains were clothed in a jumpsuit fitting the description of the costume Heenan wore for his last performance.”

  “This is the same jumpsuit that spawned viral Elvis conspiracy theories on the internet. Do you have any comment?”

  “This is not Elvis Presley. Andrew Heenan was an older and much shorter man who needs justice. He had no known family at the time of his disappearance. We’re hoping anyone who remembers Andrew will come forward to help us reconstruct his final days. It’s the only way we’ll learn what happened to him.”

  “There you have it, Cincinnati’s own unsolved mystery. If you have any information regarding this case, please contact …”

  A white Caddy crawled down the parking lot behind Duff’s back, same color, same model he’d seen outside the house hours earlier. It took every bit of Peter’s training to maintain his cop face as Susan parked beside the Channel 7 van.

  Brent must have noticed the stiffening in his cheeks, because he sent Peter a quizzical glance. There hadn’t been time to tell Brent about Susan’s stunt that morning. That morning? It felt like weeks since he left her with Cal.

  Aubrey wrapped up the interview. “Nicely done. I think we can air all of it. You’re a natural on camera. You could go into media relations.”

  Peter paused to frame a polite version of “I’d rather barbecue my own liver and eat it.” Brent ambled up, mouth opening to issue some compliment or other. Aubrey’s eyes narrowed, a predator preparing to take a bite out of the rival predator invading her territory.