Texas Strange

by West, Terry M.

“I see a car pulled over on the shoulder,” she spoke, the microphone strapped to her chest relaying the message to Thomas and Harlson. “Looks like car trouble.”

  “Do you see anyone around the car?” Thomas asked, the message coming in through her earphone.

  Sally drew closer, and she spotted a light-haired young man lingering by the open hood of the car.

  “Yes,” she replied. “It’s a young guy. He doesn’t fit our speculation of the killer. Listen, I don’t want to leave him out here.”

  “Roger,” Thomas replied. “But proceed with caution.”

  “Like always,” Sally muttered, agitated yet again by her lover.

  ***

  Ricky Lee leaned against the front fender of his car as the Mustang pulled up. The fake breakdown worked every time.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Boy, am I glad to see you,” the man said to Sally.

  Sally was instantly attracted to the man, though he wasn’t very well-groomed. His golden locks were wild and he wore a wrinkled shirt and faded jeans. He had crisp, blue eyes and a devilish grin. Though she would guess his age at mid to late twenties, he had a sophisticated air about him. He seemed extremely comfortable with himself. He had a penetrating stare. His eyes absorbed hers, never wavering, seeking out her soul.

  “What’s the problem?” Sally asked, snapping away the admiration. She felt slightly flushed and chastised herself for feeling like a schoolgirl. She had a job to do.

  The man shrugged. “It beats me. I’m not mechanically inclined.” The man presented his hand. “I’m Ricky, and I really appreciate you pulling over. You should be careful, though, in this day and age.”

  “Yes, I know,” Sally said, shifting her handbag from her right hand to her left to meet his grip. “I’m Sally. And, believe it or not, I know a few things about cars. May I?”

  “Certainly,” Ricky said, escorting her to the hood. “If you make this dinosaur run, well, I’ll just have to show you my appreciation.”

  Sally stared at the man in her headlights. Something about him suddenly put her off, and it wasn’t his come-on line. She glanced under the hood.

  “Here,” Ricky said, offering a penlight.

  She looked into the engine and she noticed that the distributor cap was separated from the motor. It registered in her head an instant later. This was a ploy. Apprehension filled her as she looked innocently up to the man.

  “Everything looks okay to me,” she replied, backing away from him and heading to the road. “I passed a police car a few miles back. I’ll flag him down when he comes by and have him call a tow truck.”

  “Hang on, Sally,” Thomas spoke over the wire. “We’re on our way.”

  “Then, we’ll have to make this quick, I suppose,” Ricky muttered. “My charm is obviously wearing thin.”

  Sally diverted her attention away from the anticipated glow of Harlson’s headlights in the distance and she looked back to see Ricky charge her. He brandished a pocket knife. Ricky slashed her under her left eye, the tip of the blade snapping off, embedded in her cheekbone, before Sally could defend herself.

  She gasped and stumbled backward, tripping and landing on the road. Her handbag pitched out of her hand across the pavement. Blood blocked her left field of vision.

  “Sally! Sally! What’s happening!” Thomas shouted over the wire, his voice fading as the earphone came loose.

  She felt the man’s weight as he pounced on her. Through the pain, she instinctively brought up her hand, clasping Ricky’s descending wrist and delaying the killing blow.

  “Be still, sweet Sally!” Ricky exclaimed, his face glowering. “All the young girls love Ricky! You love me, don’t you, bitch? Mommy loves her daddy, doesn’t she? What wicked games do you play, Sally? What ugly secrets do those eyes hide? You can’t hide it from me! I can see it in your eyes, Sally! Those beautiful fucking eyes! What do they see, Sally? What do they see, bitch!”

  “A maniac!” Sally screamed, reaching up with her free hand and clawing at Ricky’s face. He screamed as her nails left wet, red trails in his cheeks and he tried to swat her hand away. Sally arched up, shoving back the psychotic picaro and she scrambled for the handbag.

  She had it within an inch of her reach when she felt Ricky grab her ankle. Harlson’s lights were growing bright now, but Ricky was too consumed with his hatred and psychosis to notice.

  “You see nothing, Sally!” Ricky screamed, trying to pull Sally back across the gravel on the road. Her blouse bunched up to her bra, and she could feel the abrasive road bite into the flesh of her stomach. She tried to flail away from him, but he maintained the hold and continued ranting.

  “None of you see anything! You’re all blind! You’re all fucking blind! You’re a fuck and suck machine and I’ll have no more of it! No more pain! No more treachery! No more memories! You’ll only have eyes for me, now!”

  Sally kicked away from his grasp, pulling her bag close and retrieving her revolver. She flipped over on her back, in time to see Ricky over her, his face bleeding profusely and knife clutched over his head in both hands.

  “Open your eyes and free me!” Ricky shouted.

  Sally extended the .38 upward and she fired. The shot caught Ricky’s shoulder, throwing him back.

  She heard Ricky crumble to the ground. She slowly lowered her arms, gazing to her right as Harlson’s car pulled alongside the shoulder. Sally heard the car doors open and she wiped the blood out of her eye and tried to focus. Lubin’s worried face appeared in front of her. She felt his hands clutch her shoulders.

  “Sally? Are you all right? Sally?” Lubin said, applying a handkerchief to the wound on her cheek.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  Lubin helped her to her feet.

  Through a thin layer of blood, she saw Ricky. He sat on the road and he leaned back against his car. Ricky's face was bloody and his shoulder was bleeding . His eyes looked like they had been crying scarlet mascara and they were only focused on Sally.

  Harlson trained his gun on the killer.

  “Now, you just sit there until we get an ambulance, you hear?” Harlson warned.

  Ricky continued to stare at Sally. He grinned like an idiot and he seemed oblivious to his wounds.

  “What pretty eyes you have, Sally,” he said, dreamily. “The prettiest I’ve ever seen.”

  “We radioed in for an ambulance when we heard your gun,” Lubin said, boldly embracing Sally in front of Harlson. “I’ll radio for another one. I don’t want you to ride with that scum.”

  “I’d like the company,” Ricky sneered.

  “Shut up, you bastard!” Lubin yelled. He advanced on Ricky.

  Harlson wrapped his arms around Lubin and he had difficulty in holding the slender man back.

  “You just sit there and keep your goddamn mouth shut until the paramedics arrive! Open your mouth again and I swear I’ll shove my gun in it!” Lubin warned.

  “Touchy, touchy,” Ricky chastised him. "You must really love her, man."

  "I said shut up!" Lubin repeated, and he looked ready to put his hands on Ricky. But Harlson had not released the special agent. Sally interceded, stepping between the barely restrained Lubin and the wounded suspect.

  “Stop it, Thomas, stop it!” Sally screamed at Lubin. “I told you I’m okay!” Sally shook with anger. The handkerchief she held over her wound dripped with blood. “Leave it alone. I don’t need to ride in the ambulance. The bleeding has stopped, okay? So knock off your macho bullshit and treat me like you would any other agent. I deserve the right to stand up and dust my ass off without this kind of display.”

  Harlson finally released Lubin. The agent approached Sally, shaking his head dumbly. He attempted to say something. Sally’s bloody glare stifled whatever it was he had been intent on uttering. He slumped away, examining his prisoner.

  “Who are you?” Lubin asked, his voice still quivering with anger.

  “Why, I’m the Keepsake Killer, of course,” Ricky said matter-of-factly.
He winced and gazed at his shoulder wound. Blood drenched most of his shirt. “Oh, god,” Ricky muttered, surveying the damage with a weak expression. “Is all of... that coming ...out of ...me?”

  Ricky fainted away, his head slumping back.

  Harlson felt for a pulse. “Still alive,” he reported to the agents.

  "And he is definitely not the Keepsake Killer," Sally said.

  The ambulance arrived a short time later and paramedics administered first aid to the prisoner. Sally sat on the curb as a paramedic tended to her cheek. Lubin stood nearby.

  Harlson approached them both. “He's stable. They’ll probably take him to Ben Taub,” Harlson betted. “The trauma center there is the best in the medical complex. We’ll question him as soon as we can.”

  “Very good,” Lubin replied, his attention still on Sally. “We can try to find out who he is and what possible connection he might have to our killer. If any."

  “We won’t have to work too hard,” Harlson responded, handing Lubin a dog-eared scrapbook. “He’s got everything we need in here. I found it in his car. And you guys will never guess who this character really is.”

  CHAPTER 28

  “Seventy-two women slain within a five-year period,” Lubin announced to the assembled investigative team in the conference room. He tossed Ricky Lee Charney’s scrapbook onto the conference table. “The first entry in this journal was his own mother.”

  Harlson sat closest to Lubin, and the homicide detective was damn proud of their collar. Fowler sat across the table, along with Whittley, Perez and Stuart. Sally Lane was at her home, recuperating from her injury, and Harlson was relieved that she and Lubin weren’t in the same room. He had seen more than he had wished to between them.

  Lubin picked up a manila envelope and pulled out a thick, white document. “Ricky Lee Charney,” he read, relaying the prisoner’s statistics. “Twenty-eight years old. He hails from Jupiter, Florida. At age sixteen, Ricky tried to kill himself. He was diagnosed as a manic depressive and institutionalized until he was eighteen. He lived with his mother until five years ago, when he disappeared after her grizzly murder. An APB was issued for Ricky, but he was never picked up on it.” Lubin pitched the file onto the table. “Until now. And though he claimed to be the Keepsake Killer, we know that is in no way possible.”

  It was three a.m. Everyone that was assembled in the conference room had been roused from sleep with the exception of Harlson and Lubin. Dr. Perez raised her hand.

  “Yes, Evelyn?” Lubin said.

  “But, there is a possibility that Charney is associated with our killer. I have read cases where serials kept in touch with one another. It's rare, but it has happened. Maybe these guys were pen pals or something.”

  “I didn’t find anything that would indicate that in his car,” Harlson spoke up. “And it is going to be hours before we can interrogate Charney.”

  “So, now we come to the big question,” Lubin announced. “Where do we go from here? According to past reports, the Keepsake Killer will be moving on soon. As much as I hate to admit it, we may have missed our window to catch him this time. We have a body count of nine, possibly ten victims, from our boy. He seldom surpasses that mark in one place. Unless Charney knows something, I sincerely doubt we will be able to come up with enough to corner him. He will migrate soon. The reams of previous reports point to that. In another week or two, he’ll move on. Unless he pulls something really sloppy, which I doubt he would at this point, I would say he’ll move to a new hunting ground.”

  “My department has a more optimistic view of events,” Fowler chimed in. “Now, before I get to that, I have to tell you that I was a little taken aback by your performance tonight. I thought you were going to keep me updated on this case.”

  “Keeping you posted would have been a courtesy, but it most certainly wasn’t a necessity, Captain Fowler,” Lubin said with a superior air. “The Bureau is free to act of its own. Please don’t take your exclusion personally. It was a spur of the moment decision and we had reasonable belief that the less outside influence over our mission tonight, the better.”

  “Still,” Captain Fowler said, evidently disgruntled, “I’ve spoken to the commissioner and I have the department’s stance on this turn of events. We are to tell the media that we have apprehended a man claiming to be the Keepsake Killer. We will neither deny nor support that claim. When we have more information from Charney, we’ll release our findings. If Charney knows something, maybe we’ll catch the killer. If he doesn’t, then we caught the Optometrist, a pretty impressive catch in itself, and the public will forget about the Keepsake Killer for now, taking the heat off of all of us until next time.”

  “I see,” Lubin replied, nodding thoughtfully. “I’m not too fond of meddling in public relations, but that sounds fine to me. As I said before, the killer will most likely be moving on soon, and we have a lot of work ahead of us with Charney’s bloody trail. There are a lot of rivers to be dragged.”

  Lubin stared at his watch, then he turned his eyes back to the room. “Anyone else?”

  The sleepy-eyed group was silent.

  Officer Whittley glanced around the room, and he looked ready to waylay the next person that raised a hand.

  “Then, that concludes this meeting. Let’s get some rest. We all have a very busy schedule tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Tammy pushed Luke's wheelchair out of the hospital. Luke could tell that she was elated by his clean bill of health.

  “Now, you’re going to have to take it easy,” she reminded him, echoing Dr. Spencer. She stopped at the curb and she put sunglasses on him. “Stay here,” she said. “I’ll go get the car.”

  “Really, Tammy,” Luke said, “I think I can make it to the parking lot.”

  “Stay,” Tammy warned.

  “Okay,” Luke said, holding up his hands resignedly. “Bring the car around, Jarvis.”

  Tammy smiled and she jogged toward the parking lot.

  Boy, is she geared up, Luke thought. The pain had subsided, but it was still much stronger than the discomfort he was accustomed to. It could be worse though, he reminded himself. I could have ended up a drooling vegetable like Bertha Hobbs.

  Tammy’s beige Mercury pulled in front of him. He stood, walked a few feet and then he extended his hand to the door handle.

  “Uh-uh,” Tammy said, suddenly appearing in front of him.

  She opened the door and she ushered him into the car. She jumped back behind the wheel and she coasted off of the hospital grounds, driving slowly through the medical complex.

  “I have a big surprise for you,” Tammy said, beaming. “I heard it on the radio this morning. They caught the Keepsake Killer.”

  “You’re joking?” Luke said, his spirit rising above the pain.

  “Come on, I wouldn’t joke about something like that.”

  “Well, who is he? Where did they catch him? Tell me everything,” Luke prompted her.

  “It was real sketchy,” Tammy replied. “The newsman said that a man attacked an undercover officer last night and he was shot and taken to Ben Taub. They said that he claimed to be the Keepsake Killer. Of course, no one has come forward to confirm it, but you know how the force is.”

  “Yeah,” Luke said. He turned on the radio, tuning in the news station. “I should call Harlson and-”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Tammy said sternly, turning off the radio. “You’re retired, remember? I talked to Dr. Spencer while you were getting dressed and he said I could drive you to Dallas. So, as soon as we get home, we’re going to get ready for a nice trip. You’ll rest while I make arrangements and pack. We’ll head up there tonight, so the heat won’t aggravate your condition.”

  “But Tammy I-”

  “No buts,” Tammy interjected. “I don’t want you to even think about this anymore. You can find out all about it in two weeks when we come back home.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Glover,” Luke sighed, resignedly. “You’re t
he boss.”

  “And don’t you forget it, mister,” Tammy said, pulling out of the vast medical complex and into the throng of lunch traffic.

  CHAPTER 30

  “So, how are you feeling, Ricky Lee?” Harlson asked, standing at the foot of the killer’s bed.

  “I’ve been better, I’ve been worse,” Ricky Lee replied indifferently. He smiled stupidly from the drugs that were being pumped into him. They cut the pain, of course, but they also kept him in a mentally arrested state to prevent any notion of escape. His left arm was in a sling and his shoulder was bandaged. He had deep raw scratches on his cheeks. Ricky's good arm was cuffed to the bed rail.

  “I am here to ask you a few questions,” Harlson informed him.

  "Who are you?" Ricky asked.

  "Detective Harlson. Homicide. HPD," Harlson said, pulling a chair to Ricky's bedside.

  "Where's the other asshole?" Ricky Lee asked. "Sally's boyfriend."

  "That would be Special Agent Thomas Lubin and he had to recuse himself from this little chat."

  "He looked a little old and square for Sally," Ricky Lee said.

  "Hey, I'm not here to discuss office romances with you, sport," Harlson said.

  "Why are you here," Ricky Lee said, groggily. "Do I need a lawyer for this?"

  "Nah, I'm off the clock. This is a friendly meeting," Harlson lied. "I just wanted to see if you had any information that might help me out. You're going to get a lot of official visits very soon from many different departments. And I would suggest you arrange a lawyer for those talks."

  "What do you want?" Ricky Lee said.

  “You claim to be the Keepsake Killer. We both know that's bullshit. You are the Optometrist. You’ve killed seventy-two women. I would like to know about your connection to the Keepsake Killer, if there is one.”

  “How’s Sally?” Ricky Lee asked, ignoring the question.

  “Sally is doing just fine.”

  "Can you tell her something for me?" Ricky Lee inquired, staring into space.