Texas Strange

by West, Terry M.

  “Good point,” Thomas said, obviously impressed with his principal agent, who was more and more proving herself a great addition to behavioral sciences. “And who would you suggest as our decoy?”

  “Well, me, of course. It’s my specialty.”

  “I’ll consider it,” Thomas said, uneasily.

  “Now wait just a minute, Thomas Lubin,” Sally snapped. “You’re not keeping me under your thumb on this. We have an agreement, remember?”

  “I know our arrangement, Sally. I’m your handler on this, and we do things on my say so. Okay?”

  “You’re my handler in more than one way,” Sally said, growing angrier. “If I find out you brought me on this case to keep an eye on me, you’re going to spend some very lonely nights, mister.”

  “Sally,” Thomas said, resignedly. “I brought you on this case because you’re one of the best agents under my supervision. But don’t think our relationship means you can buck my authority. If our peers ever found out about this, it would undermine my ability as a Field Officer. I’m just saying let me call the shots and live with them.”

  “Okay,” Sally gave in. “So, who is our decoy going to be? Are you going to bring Goriot in? Or how about Sanders?”

  “Our decoy will be Special Agent Sally Lane,” Thomas replied, staring straight ahead. “Because I feel she’s the best person for the job.”

  “You’re all heart, Thomas,” Sally said, beaming. “I should know.”

  ***

  “Goddamn rubberneckers,” Harlson grumbled, steering his car onto the shoulder of 45 to bypass the line of motorists inching beyond the murder site. “Should ticket the whole bunch of them.”

  “It’s human nature,” Luke offered, spotting a Highway patrolman several feet ahead directing the spectators around the scene.

  Three Highway department cars were lined on the shoulder. Harlson pulled behind the cars, and the throng of vehicles behind him followed his example.

  Harlson quickly stepped out of the car, frowning at the motorists. “Go on,” he shouted at them. “There’s nothing to see here, you sick mothers.”

  Harlson and Luke were greeted by a Highway patrol man.

  “Detective William Harlson,” Harlson said, producing his shield for the officer to see. “Homicide division. This here’s Lucas Glover, an associate. What’s up?”

  “Right this way,” the young officer replied, looking beyond the pair. “I see the feds are right behind you.”

  Luke turned around. Lubin and Lane were precariously making their way up the soft shoulder of the Interstate.

  The Highway patrolman led Luke and Harlson to a spot twenty feet beyond the squad cars. Two figures were covered with thin ambulance sheets underneath a large maple tree. Luke noticed that Agent Stuart was now also present, and the Highway patrolman waited until the FBI agents were on the spot before giving the details.

  “We have a Caucasian couple. Their licenses were lifted, but we found credit cards on them. George and Dolores Dimitri. We found their bodies here in this clearing, but there’s blood on the road. We figure they were killed on the pavement, then dragged here. See that branch?” the officer asked, pointing up into the maple tree.

  Luke gazed upward. A heavy branch was cracked in half.

  “Now look on the ground below it,” the officer advised.

  A large puddle of blood soaked the ground below the branch.

  “He hung them up,” Agent Stuart realized. “He bled them like they were animals.”

  “I’m going to climb up there and see if there are any fibers lodged in the bark, “ Agent Lane announced, taking a pair of latex gloves out of her handbag and slipping them on. “He must have used rope of some kind.”

  “Good move,” Agent Lubin replied.

  Luke watched Agent Lane quickly ascend the tree. She wedged her small frame between the trunk and a branch and she carefully searched the sagging wood for information. Luke’s eyes trailed back down to see that the sheets had been removed from the corpses. The sight slapped him.

  Shells. That was the only way he could think of to describe the remains.

  Armless, legless, headless, gutless shells that were infested with ants and covered with flies. Luke immediately turned away and he began to retch.

  “Jesus, sport. You okay?” Harlson called.

  Luke raised his arm, but he could not answer Harlson at the moment. He got it all out, and then he straightened back up and he saw Lubin address Stuart.

  “Look at this,” Lubin said, motioning toward scraps of a blouse still attached to the female remains. “He ripped her clothing. He never rips clothing. He cuts it away. I want her checked for signs of sexual trauma.”

  “I found a few strands,” Agent Lane said, approaching the scene. She clutched a baggy containing three small splinters of twine. “I’ll have the lab run an analysis on these.”

  “Good work, Sally,” Agent Lubin said.

  Agent Stuart covered the corpses as Luke, still green around the gills, lingered behind them all.

  “Would you like a breath mint, Lucas?” Agent Lubin offered, producing a package from his jacket pocket.

  “Three should do it, please,” Luke replied.

  “Are you okay?” Lane asked Luke.

  “Honestly? No. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that horrible in my entire life,” Luke admitted, his bravado lying in a puddle on the dirt. “You people must have ice water running in your veins.”

  “I guess you get sort of desensitized to if after a while,” Lane offered.

  The medical examiner’s wagon pulled up. Luke watched as the remains were scooped into the vehicle and taken away.

  “I’m out of here,” Stuart said to Lubin. “I’m going to oversee the autopsies.”

  “We’ll check in with you later this afternoon,” Lubin replied. He turned to Luke. “Are you ready to try your hand at this?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Luke said, the stress of the day already registering in his hurting head.

  “Sally?” Agent Lubin called out.

  Agent Lane approached the two men with a scrap of the bloody, white blouse in her gloved hand.

  “Will this work?” Agent Lubin asked.

  “Yes, it should, but I am going to have to touch it which means it is going to be contaminated,” Luke said.

  "That's okay. It's a only a small piece clipped from the evidence," Lubin said.

  "Just don't arrest me because my DNA is on it," Luke joked dryly.

  He took the fabric from Sally. The psychic residue on the item would be still be very fresh. Luke noticed that Harlson was watching the scene from a distance. He leaned against the maple tree and smoked a cigarette.

  "What should we do?" Lubin asked.

  "Just give me a little space," Luke advised.

  Lubin nodded and he pulled everyone away from Lucas. He made a bit of a display out of it, which made Lucas very self-conscious.

  Luke walked nearer to the woods, kneading the material with his fingers. He shut his eyes and he tried to close out the bloody circus going on not too far from him. Slowly, reality retreated from his senses.

  He was in a car. It was night. Darkness shrouded the Interstate. He was angry. Angry at George for treating mother like shit. Like a crazy old bird. He glanced over at George, who was steering the car down the lonely road and grinning at himself for the shots he had just taken at Mother. It was bad enough that George had been out of work for so long, back injury or no back injury, but they were so behind on their bills and George was just steering the car, grinning like a fat jester, after saying the most insulting things about Mother.

  He could have killed George for the way he had been acting lately. Sitting around the house like a piece of furniture. Monopolizing the television. Devouring everything in the house, though the budget they had worked out didn’t compensate for his many snacks and beer consumption.

  He was useless, now. A fat mound of useless flesh and he couldn’t even be nice
anymore.

  Luke stared back out at the road and he noticed a form between the lanes. Luke tensed himself for the impact. George stomped on the brakes, the car stopping close to the body.

  “I’ll be,” George muttered, gazing at the fallen man. “Would you look at that.”

  “What do you think happened to him?” Luke asked, in Dolores Dimitri’s voice.

  “Road kill,” George replied, opening his door.

  Luke inched his car door open and he cautiously stepped out of the car, a ball of fear burning in his stomach.

  “Stay back, babe,” George called, approaching the body.

  “Be careful, George,” Luke replied.

  George knelt down close to the body. Luke watched from the car, peering apprehensively at the body. Suddenly, he heard an inhuman scream and saw George’s body tense. An instant later, George fell back across the pavement, his throat ripped out and bulging eyes fixed to the sky.

  The form between the lanes rose. It was a tall, lanky figure. And on its shoulders was the head of the wolf.

  It approached him, its black eyes glowing from the car headlights. It walked to him upright, dressed in dirty gray clothes. Luke was frozen, his mind blank at the image. The wolf was inches from him, blocking the sight of George’s body. Its filthy gray fur stank and its breath made him want to gag.

  Its hand probed him, and Luke leapt away from the image as the wolf turned him around and shoved him over the hood of the car.

  Suddenly, another image burst into Luke’s head. At first he was grateful. He was sitting by his quiet pond and the lush forest that always focused and calmed him. But then the blue skies above his head darkened and the clouds grew together and bellowed thunderously. Luke saw the head of a giant wolf form in those clouds. The image spread across the entire sky. It howled and the universe shook. Luke tried but he couldn't flee from this place. Reality was only a thought away, but something was blocking the door. So he decided to project his will. After all, the tranquil pond was his own construct. He ruled this particular foyer of the psychic plane.

  He staggered, unable to establish control over this vision. The wolf descended earthward and its enormous white fangs lashed out at Lucas. Tearing, rending. Luke could feel the monster ripping at his flesh. He was being consumed.

  ***

  “What’s wrong, Luke?” Harlson called out, pitching his cigarette aside and quickly approaching the psychic.

  Lucas was staring into space. His arms were up in the air and he was fending off something that no one else could see.

  Luke fell to the ground, and Harlson watched in horror as Luke’s eyes rolled up into his head. Luke began to wheeze sharply. His head began hammering the hard dirt. Luke's gnarled hands clutched at his invisible enemy and his legs twisted, his heels digging into the earth

  “Christ!” Harlson shouted, squatting down and pulling Luke’s head onto his lap. Lubin and Lane rushed over. Luke was having a grand mal seizure.

  Spittle flew from his mouth and his arms flailed madly.

  Just like Bertha Hobbs, Harlson thought. He, Lane and Lubin struggled to hold the psychic down.

  “Call for a goddamn ambulance!” Harlson ordered a uniformed officer.

  CHAPTER 22

  Mission accomplished, Tammy thought, resting on the sofa with a glass of iced tea and a worn paperback mystery. Her chores were done. The house was immaculate and pine scented furniture spray hung heavy in the air.

  Spic and span, Tammy mused proudly, setting her tall glass on a cork coaster. She had the rest of the day to herself, and she was going to indulge in fiction.

  She opened the paperback to a folded page and she began to immerse herself into the plight of a hard-boiled private eye. Something suddenly got a hold of her, though, hauling her back into reality.

  Tammy refolded the page and she put the book on the coffee table. She stretched out on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.

  There’s got to be more to life than this, she thought. Her spells of depression were thickening, and she was finally beginning to understand why.

  She had to go way back to get to the root of the problem. Her mind drifted to her rearing in Fort Worth.

  Her father, a striking man by the name of Nathan Larson, had taught her to be strong and self-sufficient. She recalled a time that Nathan had taken her to Eagle Mountain Lake. They stood on a pier, staring out at the water.

  “I seen girls can’t even balance a checkbook,” her father had told her. “If a man really loved his girl and he wanted to do right by her, he would teach her to take care of herself. A girl’s got no right sitting on a pretty pink throne, without a notion of reality or a lick of sense, waiting for a prince to whisk her off her feet. It don’t happen, Sassy. Daddy’s going to teach you to fend for yourself.”

  And with that, Nathan Larson picked his pride and joy up in his arms.

  Tammy flailed and screamed. She wore a gray, one-piece bathing suit. She was eight years old and she barely knew how to wade.

  “No, Daddy, no!” Tammy pleaded.

  Nathan pitched the girl into the warm, Eagle Mountain Lake water. Tammy bobbed back out of the murky water, trying not to succumb to its depth, which she had never tested.

  Nathan calmly lit a cigarette and he watched his daughter strike at the water, her panic-stricken face reddening as she wailed for help. Nathan smiled softly and he watched with a gleam in his eyes.

  “Who’s going to save poor Sassy?” he called, shoving his free hand into his trouser pocket and leaning against a pier post. “Looks like poor Sassy might drown, lest someone save her. Oh, now who’s going to save my poor Sassy?”

  Tammy eventually tired, and her legs sagged toward the seeming abyss below her. To her shock, her feet almost immediately felt muck below them. The water rose only to her chest.

  Nathan pulled his cap over his eyes, titled back his head and he laughed heartily. He extended a hand to his daughter, pulling her up on the pier.

  “Bet you think your Pa is a mean cuss, huh?” he said, as Tammy stared at him with stupid eyes, her small frame still shuddering from the fright.

  “You’ll thank me one day, girl,” Nathan promised, shrugging a towel over her shoulders.

  They went home, where Lila Larson, Tammy’s mother, immediately laced into Nathan for his cruelty. She insisted that Nathan did such things to Tammy because Tammy was an only child and Nathan had no son to torture with chauvinistic rituals.

  As the years rolled on, Tammy understood what her father had done for her. He had prepared her for a world where women were looked at as objects, ripe for victimizing. He had made her strong, hard, ready for a society that perched like a vulture on a cactus, waiting for her to falter, stumble, show any frailty or vulnerability that would allow it to feast upon her.

  She had been a radical student and feminist to be reckoned with during college. Tammy was and always had been a person who believed in peace, but she would go blow for blow over any right anyone dared try to take away from her.

  She had been a young woman with fire and goals.

  And what am I now, for God’s sake?

  Some years ago when she had given up her career in the realty business to be Luke’s manager and agent, it had seemed like the right thing to do. She submitted his manuscripts for him. She booked him on local talk shows. She set up appearances for him at book stores. But it had been two years since Luke’s last book had hit the stands, and his next volume wasn’t even in the works yet.

  Her husband had a drawer full of notes, and he needed to get his ass back behind his computer and produce something for Tammy to promote.

  Her favorite part of handling Luke’s work was editing his material for him. How such an intelligent man made so many atrocious mistakes was beyond her.

  Now, see- that stuff made her life meaningful and interesting. She had never wanted to be a common housewife, and when Luke's creativity was dry and she was consigned to an apron, it always drove her a little batshit.

&nb
sp; But the hell of it was, lately, she seemed to enjoy the idle time. Tammy thought back to her younger self, who would have rebelled against such complacency.

  I’ve gone soft, she thought.

  She resented Luke sometimes. She resented him for leading such an interesting life while she kept the home fires burning. Her work with the local literacy campaign and the meals on wheels program fed that deep part of her that wanted to save the world.

  But she needed to change her programming. After Luke’s retirement, maybe she would start her own business.

  Luke would support it. She couldn’t fault him there. He had never stood in the way of her desires. Tammy's inactivity was her own fault, not Luke’s. He would stand behind any decision she made.

  The phone rang.

  Tammy rose from the sofa and she walked to the breakfast bar. She picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?” she said, pleasantly.

  “Mrs. Glover?” A man’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Detective William Harlson. Listen, your husband had some kind of seizure. He’s here at Herman Hospital.”

  ”I’ll be right there,” Tammy said hurriedly, hanging up the phone as she

  glanced around wildly for her car keys.

  CHAPTER 23

  Darkness. Light. Darkness. Light.

  Luke’s eyes fluttered open and his mind emerged from the shroud that had fallen over it after the wolf had attacked him. His eyes squinted, adjusting to the brightness of the hospital room. He was immediately drawn to Dr. Spencer’s worried face, hovering over him.

  “Luke?” Dr. Spencer spoke, shining a penlight in Luke’s eyes. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” Luke replied in a cracked voice. He cleared his throat. God, he was parched. “I hear you…water, please? Thirsty.”

  "Of course,” Dr. Spencer replied, filling a plastic cup with water from a pitcher. He extended the cup to Luke. “Can you manage?”

  Luke nodded, grasping the cup with both hands and sipping the water.