Byron had stopped listening, his attention having been arrested by the name of the elderly victim, Nicholas A. Strohmayer. His finger hung above it like a wasp, hovering and uncertain, unable to move on. He fished the list of names he had taken from Tom’s office out of his jacket pocket and quickly scanned it. N. Strohmayer appeared third down. His eyes flicked back to the newspaper to confirm the spelling; then up to the face of his counterpart.
“Steve,” he began softly, “you said there have been other unexplained murders recently—like Strohmayer?” The Columbus chief nodded his large, bullish head warily. “What were their names?”
Tanner paused for just a moment; then answered, “Robson, Fletcher and Forrester, Claudius…Claude to his friends when he was breathing. Why do you ask?”
Byron’s finger trailed down the list stopping briefly on the two names printed as C. Forrester and F. Robson. He looked back up at Tanner; then said, “I think I may have a list of the victims.” He handed the paper to him.
Tanner studied it for several long moments before saying, “I’ll assign you a liaison officer, but you’ll have to share a desk.”
* * * *
Vanda Tucker did not recognize Byron by either name or appearance and he said nothing to enlighten her. On the other hand, he had recognized her instantly in spite of the many years that had passed since their brief acquaintance. He actually felt himself blushing upon introduction. She was in a gray pants suit that had become a little too snug and sported a detective sergeant’s badge on the leather holder attached to her belt. Byron had to keep biting his lower lip to keep from smiling. As she escorted him into her small, basement office she threw him a suspicious glance as she pushed open a frosted window. The narrow view revealed little but a concrete runway leading to the basement steps at the other end of the building. Several trash cans were lined up opposite, their lids invisible from the acute angle. She fired a cigarette and waved the smoke out the opening. “What’s the grin for, Chief? Something strike your funny-bone this morning?” She took a quick glance in a mirror hung on the brick wall and pushed at her dark hair a little. “Hmmm?”
“No,” he lied; “just the awkwardness of the situation, I guess.”
She didn’t appear to buy that, but went on anyway. “Alright then, the chief says, that is, my chief, that I’m to bring you up to speed on these cases—our little murder spree, so let’s get to it.”
She signaled for him to sit, so Byron obediently eased himself into the ancient wooden school chair that was wedged next to her desk. If someone opened the door suddenly he would be banged in the knees with it. She threw a number of files onto the desk but did not bother to sit herself.
Puffing away at her smoke she narrated in fine detail the apparently senseless murders of three men. The most recent, Strohmayer, he already knew the manner of death, but the previous two bore no resemblance other than the cold-blooded ferocity of their execution and the lack of any appreciable motive. “Oh yeah,” she added. “In all three cases the victims were elderly men, though I’m sure you’ve already noted that.
“Also, she continued, “witnesses have testified that the killers were two heavily tattooed white males. They don’t seem to be making too much of an effort to conceal their identities—the forensic artist is working something up for us and it should be ready soon.”
She flicked her latest cigarette out the window and turned back to face Byron. “I’m sorry about all that,” she said shyly. “I’ve tried to quit a bunch of times, but every time I do I blow up like a balloon. Even now, I can hardly button these pants,” she laughed.
It was not her pants that drew so much of Byron’s unwilling attention, but her fully-packed blouse, whose buttons appeared to be straining with the effort of containing her. The memories of their first and, until now, only meeting, came rushing back to him, flooding his senses; making him as testosterone-charged as an adolescent boy; as the fifteen year old he had once been when they had met that long-ago autumn night.
“Goodness gracious you are easily embarrassed,” she laughed; mistaking Byron’s discomfort to be about her remarks. “Don’t they have any girls up there in New Jersey?” she asked playfully.
“Yeah,” he admitted, as thoughts of Julia rose like snow dervishes; instantly cooling him. “Maybe we should consider re-interviewing the families of the victims,” Byron offered.
Vanda’s smile vanished with Byron’s and she responded flatly, “To what end?”
He told her about Thomas and the list and she asked, “What’s your friend got to do with all this?”
“I don’t know,” Byron answered honestly; “I really don’t.” But even so, he felt a darkness gather in his heart like a murder of crows, shrieking and restless, merciless and full of hunger.
* * * *
The widow Robson greeted them from her front porch swing. The early sun had yet to reach her and she was wrapped in a hand-knitted shawl in shades of orange and green that were last popular in the 1970’s. Byron thought her thin white hair resembled a halo as it floated above her tiny, fragile skull. She pointed to two rusty metal rockers that faced the street and asked pleasantly, “Could I get ya’ll some coffee?”
“No ma’am,” he declined; ‘we’ve had our coffee, thank you.” He could hear his drawl seeping back into his speech with every word—It was like a first language that returned when back in the land of one’s birth, smoothly; without conscious thought, and ever since he had landed in Atlanta it had crept steadily forth.
“We just wondered if we could ask you a few questions about your husband?” he continued. Vanda smiled at the old woman and took a seat, while Byron half-sat and half-leaned on the porch railing.
Mrs. Robson’s smile vanished and she snugged the caftan around her narrow shoulders as if she had just felt a chill. “More questions, then? I don’t much see the point, I must say. The harms all been done; nothing we say here’s gonna change any of that.”
Vanda said, “Harm, ma’am…you mean your husband’s murder?”
The old woman looked down at her lap and her large-jointed fingers that she restlessly knit together. “Yes,” she answered after a moment; “That’s harm too, isn’t it?”
Byron threw a puzzled glance at his partner and answered, “Of course it is. It’s a grievous harm that’s still out there—men are still being murdered, Mrs. Robson, and we’d like to put a stop to it; that’s why we’re here.”
She looked back up at him; her eyes misty and frightened. “I don’t really know anything,” she pleaded.
“Maybe you do, ma’am,” Vanda intervened; reaching over and patting one her veined hands. “Sometimes we know more than we realize.”
“Did you, or your husband, know a man named Thomas Llewellyn?” Byron asked.
The old woman shook her head. “No, I’m afraid that doesn’t ring any bells. I’m sorry.” Byron thought she seemed relieved. He thrust the list at her.
“How about any of the names on this list? Take your time, Mrs. Robson and be sure.” He watched her carefully peruse the roster from the top down. The paper began to vibrate in her fingers and she went to hand it back to him. “Which ones do you recognize,” he asked abruptly; refusing to take it; “Point at them.”
She looked up at him with pleading, yellow eyes. “Do it, ma’am; right this minute.” He felt Vanda’s gaze on him. The old woman unfurled a talon-like finger and tapped a name on the list; then another and another. Byron watched closely. One name had been that of fellow victim, Claudius Forrester; the second, however, still lived…at least for now.
“How about the name, Virgil Curtsie…does that do anything for you?” She kept her face pointed down at the quaking paper clutched in her spiderish hands. “That name isn’t on the list, so why don’t you look up at me and answer?”
Vanda had risen to her feet and appeared on the verge of intervening. “Hey now,” she began, but Byron cut her off.
“Look at me and answer,” he nearly shouted; snatching the l
ist from her.
Mrs. Robson raised her pale, ghostly face; her mouth parted; tears trembling in her eyes. “How did you know?” she asked. “How could you know?”
“What’s going on?” he heard Vanda ask from somewhere far away; “Chief?”
Byron ignored her and pressed on. “Did your husband keep an address book…where is it, Mrs. Robson?”
She pointed at the screen door. “Just inside by the telephone…I don’t know why you’re shouting at me,” she sobbed; “I didn’t do anything!”
“Get it,” he barked at Det. Sgt. Tucker.
“Yes sir!” she barked back, throwing open the door and letting it slam behind her. When she returned moments later with the book, it was to witness Byron stalking away toward the car. She hastened to catch up. “We’ll return this after we’re done with it,” she promised the old woman over her shoulder.
“I don’t want it,” she cried in return as she scurried into her house.
“Sir,” Vanda called out to Byron’s back; hurrying to catch him, “sir…chief or no chief, you’ve got some explaining to do! What was that back there?”
Byron had already reached the car and started it. He began to pull away from the curb before she could even close her door. The acceleration threw her back into her seat. “Damnit, Chief! You mind not killing us…at least not before you’ve explained what’s going on.” She snapped her seatbelt and took a moment to situate it comfortably between her breasts before turning to study Byron’s hardened profile. She lit a cigarette and didn’t bother to open the window. “It’s not fair to sit down at our table with cards up your sleeve—it’s just not polite; especially when you’re a guest. So how about it, Chiefie? You about ready to spill your guts, or do I have to smoke you out?” She laughed at her own joke in a way that made Byron feel both warm and challenged.
“Yeah,” he answered, glancing over at her; noting the sparkle in her green eyes. “I’m about ready…just open that damn window.”
He aimed the car for downtown and the Rankin Bar.
* * * *
Byron knocked back his second bourbon and set the glass down next to his cooling cup of coffee. Vanda sat across the small table from him sipping at a steaming cup of chicory; the Rankin Bar being one of the very few places in town where they served the ‘Old South’ coffee substitute. The Detective Sergeant studied her charge with some amusement.
“Hey there,” she said softly, “let’s not forget it’s only eleven—that’s AM, by the way.” She glanced around the coolly dark room nearly devoid of customers. “Ain’t it a shame you can’t even smoke in bars anymore? Good Lord…this used to be a place of sin and iniquity…now look at it, all dolled up for church.”
Byron took in his surroundings for the first time. It was true…this bar, like most of downtown, had become so gentrified since he had last lived in Columbus that it was almost unrecognizable. What had once been a decaying business district in a dying mill town had been transformed. Gone were the sleazy hole-in-the-wall, drink-standing-up or go-outside-to-fall-down bars where textile workers used to donate their hard-earned paychecks. Even the gritty, massive brick buildings that had once ground and roared twenty-four hours a day and housed thousands of workers had fallen silent, their operations spirited away to exotic lands like Mexico and Indonesia. Now, those that remained had been converted into high-end lofts with views of the river that had once powered their turbines; the rest had been plowed under for strip malls or preserved as seldom visited museums. Like elsewhere, Byron thought through the calming haze of ‘Makers Mark’, Columbus had surrendered its blue collar soul for a place in the land of cubicles; replacing its mills and foundries with insurance companies and credit card corporations. As if conjured up by his ruminations, an old tramp made his unsteady way past their window, blinking and uncertain in the new day—a working-class Rip Van Winkle awakened to a future that has no place for him. Byron raised a finger to the bar tender.
“Hold that thought,” Vanda commanded both Byron and the mixologist; stopping the latter with his hand on the neck of the preferred bottle. Receiving no encouragement from Byron he drifted away into the shadows. “Still waiting on you, professor,” Vanda smiled across the table at her new partner; “Let’s have it, shall we; before you render yourself incapable. Tell me about that list.”
“When I realized that some of the names on Tom’s list were also ‘your’ victims, I knew that I…we,” he corrected himself and received an encouraging nod from Vanda; “had to find the connection—that there had to be something that tied them all together. So, when I saw the old woman, Mrs. Robson, I decided to take a chance and show her the list. She knew the other names, and more importantly, her husband had known them, as well…she also knew Virgil Curtsie.”
“Who the hell is he when he’s at home?” Vanda quipped. “His name wasn’t on that paper.”
“No,” Byron conceded, “but she knew him, which meant her husband knew him, and my friend Tom Llewellyn knew them all…or at least their names.”
“Why?” Vanda asked simply.
“I’m not sure,” Byron replied.
Vanda took a breath, “Do you think it could be your friend is behind these murders?”
Byron took a moment before answering. “I don’t know anymore, but it’s something I have to consider.”
Vanda reached over and patted his hand before asking, “How did you know to show the old lady the list, Byron? What significance do those names hold for you? Cause if you don’t mind my saying, that scene on the porch came across as a little personal to me.”
He looked across at Vanda while weighing his words, even as the alcohol and her touch loosened the tight collar with which he always girded himself. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”
Vanda tucked her chin in and pursed her lips as if she had been considering this very thing; then tapped the table top with a long, lacquered nail before answering, “There is something about you that is so familiar.” Her eyes narrowed in concentration. “High School?” she asked
“Pacelli,” he answered, just as he had done in Tanner’s interview.
Vanda shook her head, “Nope…Baker.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “A Catholic boy, huh; they can be awful sweet,” she observed dreamily.
“Please, Lord above,” she continued, “do not tell me that I should remember you, if you know what I mean, and I pray you don’t.” She shook a cigarette out of her package, then not finding an ashtray, managed to break it in half while trying to get it back in. “There was a time there…a short period, mind you, after my husband left me, when I’m afraid I kinda went off the deep end a little…did a little too much partying…woke up in a few too many strange places with a few too many strange…well, I don’t have to tell you; you’re a mature man, after all.” She took a deep breath. “You are not one of those men, are you? Please say no.
“You can’t be,” she hastily answered herself, “you’ve been living up north all this time! Oh my God, that’s a relief! Only why in the world do I run my mouth so, besides you’re the one that’s supposed to be talking! You did that on purpose!” she accused Byron.
He laughed gently. “I’m sorry,” he offered; “I do have the advantage, as I remember you explicitly.”
Vanda propped her chin in her hand and said, “Explicitly…oh dear…well do tell, get it over with.”
“It was at Baker High School,” Byron began; his voice becoming soft and smoky with the memories of a long-ago evening. “Some classmates and I crashed one of those famous teen dances at your school gym. One of the coaches that guarded the entrance was the older brother of one of my school buddies and he let us in. We hardly knew what to do once we had breached your battlements, so we just stood around in a knot trying not to look conspicuous and achieving the exact opposite, I’m sure. That’s when I saw you. You were dancing away and the center of attention; at least my attention, and I made up my mind right then and there to ask you to dance. I couldn’t stop looking at you
.”
“Oh how you do go on!” Vanda said in her best tidewater drawl. Then, “Pray continue, please, I’m all ears.”
Byron chuckled hoarsely. “Well, I asked…I asked you to dance and you did. I think my legs were shaking, I was so nervous. Then, at some point, the band switched to something slow and I’ll never forget the sensation of holding you close. Remember, I’d been attending a Catholic school, and it was the seventies you know, so I hadn’t had a lot of experience with girls yet. Then I did something that I’ve never forgiven myself for.” He glanced guiltily at Vanda whose hand had drifted to her cheek as if she were checking for a temperature.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“I let my hand brush up against your left breast, I distinctly remember which one, and said, quite romantically I’m sure; “I’d really like to do it with you.”
Vanda’s mouth fell open. “You!” she managed to say. “That was you?”
“So you do remember me?” Byron laughed.
“I do now, you naughty boy! I was so disappointed that you didn’t stick around for an answer; you took off from there like the devil was on your heels.”
“No,” Byron smiled ruefully. “I lost my nerve and so also the lady fair…but, I never forgot her.”
Vanda blushed in spite of herself but drawled, “How you do talk, suh, I declare!”
“So now you know my deep, dark secret.”
“Darlin’, if that’s the worst of it you’ve got to keep trying.”
Byron glanced down at his empty tumbler and Vanda followed his gaze. “But that’s not all, is it? Maybe I should buy you another after all; it appears firewater puts you in a confessional mood.”
He glanced up guiltily just as her cell phone began to ring. She dug around in her voluminous bag for several moments before locating it. Flipping it open she answered, “Detective Sergeant Tucker,” then went silent. After a moment more she said, “Five minutes, we’re just around the corner from the station.” She snapped the phone shut and announced, “We’ve got to roll…it seems a package arrived at the station that’s causing quite a stir…and it’s for you.”
The Detective Megapack Page 10
