An old couple sat on the front porch, rocking in mismatched chairs. His was large, the wood darkened with age. Hers was newer and had originally been white, but was now covered with stains and the dust that covered everything. Even the two cats lying in the sun in their positions at the top of the steps had dust on their hair and clinging to their whiskers. Lazy, longhaired, and fat, they didn’t seem to be capable of catching a mouse, let alone of knowing what to do with one if they did.
The old woman sat disconsolately, holding a bundle that looked like a large wig or shaggy fur pillow. Her face was wet and the expression it wore was one of heartbreak. As Jimmy stepped closer he discerned paws sticking stiffly forward and backward from the tangled mat of hair. It was the corpse of a very fat, incredibly ancient, tabby cat. It was plain that rigor mortis had set in.
Jimmy glanced at the elderly man seated beside her. He was making a somewhat flustered attempt to comfort and was patting her arm with a gnarled, knobby hand. He wore an expression of muddled concern that lifted when he spotted Izzy.
“Well, Abigail! It’s been a long time, girl. How ya been?”
“I’ve had my ups and downs,” she said, smiling. “How are you two doing?”
“Yes, I bet you have,” Winston said thoughtfully, sadly. “We’ve been better, too. When we got up this morning we found Tiger like this. Ruth is taking it kind of hard.” He looked at Izzy beseechingly, begging for help in a situation that was beyond him.
Izzy knelt beside the old woman. “Hi, Ruth,” she said in a gentle voice. “Do you remember me?”
Ruth looked up. Even with the kneeling position Izzy was in, she was taller by an inch. Abruptly, a warm smile brightened the old woman’s face, sunshine beaming through the rain of tears. Jimmy almost swore he could see a rainbow. Her smile was candid, a simple heart evident in the clear, open expression.
“Abby! I haven’t seen you in months.” She looked beyond her hopefully. “Is Grant with you? That boy hasn’t been to see us in a while.”
Izzy looked at Winston, her eyes questioning. Winston shook his head, telling her volumes. Ruth wouldn’t understand. She didn’t remember that her beloved grandson was missing; that he was a wanted man. Winston didn’t want her to go through the pain and embarrassment that the enlightenment would cause. He wanted to protect her.
“No, he’s not,” Izzy said, and added a lie. “He’s busy at work.”
“I need a hug,” Ruth said, struggling to get to her feet. Winston took the cat from her arms without her being aware; she was so intent upon the young woman before her. Then behind her back, Winston made a motion pantomiming a shovel. Izzy nodded almost imperceptibly, as she bent over and wrapped her arms around Ruth, mindless of the cat hair, dust, and tears that wet the old woman’s face.
“Let’s go inside,” Izzy said. We need to wash up, put the coffee on, and have a good visit.”
“Yes, we do,” Ruth agreed, her face even brighter, happy with the unexpected company, completely delighted with the prospect of socializing. For now the cat was forgotten, and, with luck, wouldn’t be missed when she next went out to the porch.
Chapter 11
As Izzy led Ruth away, she flashed Jimmy a smile that stopped him cold, causing his heart to skip a beat. It almost made him forget that Winston and Ruth Mason had called her Abby, just as he’d known Paul to. He hadn’t remembered wrong. But why had she introduced herself, and insisted yet this morning when he’d called her Mrs. Mason, that she wanted to be called Izzy? It was all very strange. Of course, it could be something simple. Maybe Izzy was her middle name. Or maybe she was tired of being called Abby and felt the name associated her with Grant. He didn’t know. He made a note to question her about it on the drive home.
“She’s a looker, isn’t she?” Winston asked, rousing and embarrassing Jimmy. Winston had noticed the way he stared, that he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. Jimmy silently cursed himself. This was not the impression he wanted to give the older man. He wanted to at least give the appearance of being professional. No matter the situation, this woman was still married to the old man’s grandson and he didn’t want to antagonize him.
“Beautiful girl,” he said by way of agreeing and trying to show he wasn’t trying to put a move on her, and that she was too young for him. “Have you known her long?”
“Since she and Grant married. That was in 2004, I believe. He introduced us just before they eloped. We’ve only seen her a few times; that was back in the early years. Grant hasn’t brought her around in the last four or five. Don’t know why. We always enjoyed her company. Especially the Missus. We don’t get much company out here. Not enough for most women, anyway. But pardon me,” Winston said, lowering his voice and moving quickly toward the steps. “I’ve got to get this dang cat buried before she comes back and discovers he’s dead all over again. I can try to save her a repeat of the pain. Ruth has dementia. She doesn’t remember what happened ten minutes ago, let alone in the last four or five years. With the cat out of sight I’m hopin’ she’ll forget.”
“I’ll come with you. I’d like to help. We can get my questions over with at the same time, out of Ruth’s earshot. She doesn’t need to hear them.”
“Good, Bub. I’ll let you do the digging, my old back isn’t what it used to be.”
The men walked companionably around the house toward a shed that had to have lived a previous life as an outhouse. The door had black wrought-iron hardware and a half-moon cutout in the gray, rough-sawn lumber. Bushes growing tightly up against the building showed many seasons of being missed by the lawn mower and deep cracks and weathering in the boards showed the little building had been sitting in its current position for many years without even the feeble protection of paint. Black streaks on the aged lumber had a comfortable mellowing effect that made the lumber look smooth and soft, without a splinter in sight.
Winston handed Jimmy the dead cat, opened the shed, and began rummaging through dozens of rusty antique hand tools propped leaning against each other in every corner. If there had been a seat at the back with its necessary hole, there wasn’t one now. The building was only used for storage. The lingering odor was merely dirt and rust.
“Huh? Doesn’t this pop your bubble?” Winston asked, the question meant for himself and not for an answer from Jimmy. “Where did that old shovel go? I don’t understand it. I always keep it right here in the front where it’s handy.”
After a few seconds of searching and a choice word or two, Winston exclaimed, “Ah ha! Here it is!”
He pulled out a long handled shovel that still had black dirt caked to the bottom.
“Now, what’s this?” Winston said in disgust. “The blasted thing is cracked! I don’t remember splitting the handle. You’d think I’d remember that, wouldn’t you?” He began to scrape away the dirt with his hand. “And I never leave my tools in this condition. I don’t know what I was thinking!”
“Stop!” Jimmy ordered.
Winston scowled at him in irritated confusion. “What?” he asked.
“Don’t touch the dirt.”
“What are you talking about? This dirt has to come off, so we can get the blasted cat buried.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’ve got a shovel in the back of my car. I’ll get it. Just set your shovel down right there and don’t touch it again. I’m sorry, but it’s police evidence. I hate to tell you this, but there’s a good possibility Grant buried the Hilton girl somewhere on your property. This shovel could prove it.”
Winston let his breath out, deflating his body, making him appear several inches smaller. He had been irritated with the younger man at first, but his posture now showed only defeat. He knew his grandson was guilty, had known since he was first accused. But to be hit between the eyes with what could be the proof, and that he had been the one to uncover it was a terrible thing. He didn’t want to face the fact that Grant would bu
ry the girl here, near where his grandparents’ ate and slept, trying to peacefully live out the rest of their lives. Grant simply couldn’t have. No one was that cruel.
“The dirt’s black,” Jimmy noticed, as he squatted, studying the shovel’s metal point. “Is that the usual color of soil here?”
“No, mostly it’s stony and brown. A sand and gravel mix. The only dirt like that is in that ridge over there where the pines are planted.”
With careful consideration, it all made sense to Jimmy. Thinking back to the time Janet Hilton went missing, he remembered the ground had been hard, still frozen in most spots. The soil under the pines would have been the only place soft enough to dig, if you could manage to find a spot between the pines’ roots. Tough, maybe, but certainly not impossible. Especially if you were motivated.
“Did they bring a cadaver dog out here five years ago?” Jimmy asked. “I can’t recall.” This wasn’t honest. He had been on his way to Miami by then, but the old man didn’t need to know this.
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, they’ll be bringing one out now. I’m sorry, I know it’s not fair to you and your wife, but we’ll have to bother you again. There’s just no way around it. It has to be done. You understand?”
Winston nodded, his face pale in the morning sun. The circus was going to begin again. It had just calmed down. Only lately, the neighbors had stopped mentioning it whenever they saw him. Was it ever going to end? Resentment toward his grandson flared, but waned away quickly. The young man was the only family he and Ruth had, since their son and daughter-in-law had died in a car wreck many years ago when Grant was only a child. It was funny, but Winston had known there was something wrong with the boy even then, but hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. Winston didn’t blame himself; he had done his best to try and raise Grant right. Whatever it was that was off inside the boy was something that wasn’t in Winston’s power to fix.
There was nothing he could do about the trouble Grant had gotten himself into. Ruth was the only thing that mattered. She was his everything. And he didn’t want her hurt. That left a cat that still needed to be buried. Winston was nothing if not practical.
He wiped old, tired eyes and straightened his shoulders. There was work that needed to be done.
“You said you’ve got a shovel in your trunk?”
Chapter 12
Jimmy used his cell phone to ring up the Cincinnati post, only to be told that Det. Lewinski was out of town at a conference and wouldn’t be back until Monday. Jimmy pondered his options but in the end left word that he wanted to be called immediately when Lewinski came in. That it was urgent. He could have told another detective about the hunch he had, but decided against it. It would be better for all concerned if Paul got the information first. It was his case. And Jimmy had no desire to ruffle feathers. Between wanting his old job back and the complication of his attraction to Izzy, he was already walking on eggshells. The woman had been missing for five years. A few more days wouldn’t matter.
After obtaining Winston’s promise not to touch the shovel (which Jimmy taped up in plastic) and that he would also not poke around the pines, the men had gone inside. There they had spent a few minutes in small talk before he and Izzy took their leave.
Barely a mile down the road Izzy asked, “Well?” Did you find anything?”
“Might have. The handle to Winston’s shovel is cracked, and he doesn’t remember doing it. It might mean nothing, but you never know.”
Izzy nodded solemnly. She didn’t know whether to be elated or depressed. After all these years, the possibility of having Janet’s disappearance solved was enough to throw her completely off-kilter. She sat quietly thinking it out, trying to appreciate how finding Janet’s remains could change her life.
With her face a study in contradictions, Jimmy felt it wise not to distract her. He had given victims’ families and friends life altering news before. In his experience, everyone needed time to work such things out for him or her selves. So he kept quiet and pointed the car’s nose toward the freeway.
He waited until they were on Ohio Hwy. 27 headed south toward Cincinnati to broach his question. And that was who the woman seated beside him really was. And why she had asked to be called Izzy.
“Have you got two names?” Jimmy began, knowing it sounded stupid. “I don’t understand why you tell me your name is Izzy, but everyone else calls you Abby.”
Izzy blinked, struggling to come back from her tangled thoughts. She was surprised at the question. But on second thought, of course Jimmy would ask. It probably did sound weird to him. She struggled; searching for an answer, knowing there was no way he would understand. This would be difficult to explain.
“Yes. There are two names. I don’t want to be called Abby, because I’m not her.”
Jimmy didn’t understand and his expression showed it. She would have to explain better than that, if she hoped to make it clear to him.
“Abby left, or has been in the process of leaving, since Grant disappeared,” she continued, grasping for the right words. “The man was a total jerk. He was abusive and controlling. Since he’s been gone, life’s good and things are changing for the better.” She stared straight ahead through the windshield at the highway in front of them.
Jimmy suddenly felt as if he’d bumbled into something he had no right to intrude upon. He had obviously made her uncomfortable and that hadn’t been his intention. It was really none of his business, but a detective’s mind is always full of questions. And he had been a good detective. The young woman had a strange way of wording things, but he thought he was beginning to understand better. The mystery of her name(s)was connected with what she’d gone through; the abuse she’d suffered at Grant’s hands.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Men can be such asses at times. And that includes me. I’ve no right to pry.”
“That’s all right. I want you to understand.”
Jimmy didn’t fully, but he had no intention of pursuing the subject further. What he’d managed to get out of what she’d said was that Abby was an abused woman and now, as Izzy, she wasn’t. If the name change helped solidify that to her and helped to give her some dignity, then that was fine. Women shouldn’t have to put up with the Grant Masons of the world. He was a firm believer in using whatever worked, and if a name change made her feel better about herself, then so be it.
After dropping Izzy off at home, Jimmy drove straight to the office. He planned to record the day’s findings in the ledger he kept for the case. After that he planned to tackle some unfinished business waiting for him there.
***
Paul’s first class that morning was ‘Inside the Mind of the Killer’. It was about the art of profiling and concentrated on the skills law enforcement must employ to catch serial killers. The subject fascinated him. He sat on the edge of his seat, soaking in every word, no matter how trivial. There was almost enough enjoyment involved for him right here in this room to consider the whole weekend memorable. But not really.
“Serial killers primarily stick to their own unique MO,” the instructor said, a man who barely looked twenty-five. Paul wondered how such a young man, younger than he was by several years, could be in a position to teach the class. He couldn’t have had much experience. Paul was disappointed over that, and debated whether he would get much more out of the class, when the instructor continued, “Their victims will fall into a precise, specific category. They will choose a certain age bracket, race, some even a certain color of hair for their target.”
Paul’s radar began to boot up. The young man was making sense. Maybe he was one of those geniuses that television liked to portray? Young and with a freakishly high IQ.
“He will leave his bodies in similar locations, whatever has worked for him in the past. Sometimes he positions them the same way, or dresses them to suit his own twisted
fantasies. And that, gentlemen and ladies, is how we’ll get him. Repetition. His perverted urges will not allow him to change. He must follow a precise pattern and then he will slip up. Because he has no choice but to follow those specific compulsions, he leaves himself open for mistakes. And then we will get him. It’s only a matter of time.”
Now Paul’s antennae were really twitching. He had done that himself! He, who should have known better, had left behind signs that a good profiler could read. Not that there were many of them in Cincinnati, certainly not Bernard Bartholomew, the man the FBI had assigned to the case. And, not one of the detectives he worked with, no matter how adept at profiling they fancied themselves to be, could accurately be called good. But, he had left a documented signature. This young man teaching the class would, most probably, read it correctly. The brief profile that Agent Bartholomew had come up with had been more concerned with the suspect’s age and body strength than anything else, something that should have been apparent to anyone with half a brain. The women had been carried to bathtubs and placed down gently, showing strength on the killer’s part. There had been very little bruising. These facts Bartholomew had noted in his report, not from great insight, but simply because they weren’t typical. Most serial killers are engulfed by rage and the victim’s bodies show this, by vicious assault or a degrading positioning. Bartholomew’s report was certainly short of enlightening. Which was just the way Paul wanted it, although he’d had to hide his contempt for the man, pretending that the profile was helpful.
Truthfully, Paul had never been what someone would call typical. His compulsion, the one that gave him the most pleasure, was to see the light go out in his victims’ eyes. For his ultimate enjoyment, he had to face them and watch it happen. The women’s death was unavoidable and for Paul could only be described as a calling. He wasn’t out to cause more pain than necessary, unlike some of the twisted killers he himself had caught.
His thoughts went to Grant Mason, the man accused of the murders of the Bathtub Girls. Paul had seen the chance to frame him by planting two beloved souvenirs at the man’s home. It had worked well. Mason was now a wanted man, with an APB covering the whole country, and Paul had not allowed himself to indulge since that time. But he would this night, if all went according to plan. He now realized he would have to choose a different type of woman for his fun. Thoughts of the pretty African-American girl he’d seen the night before entered his head. As he thought back, he was surprised to note that his previous selections had all been white. He hadn’t thought of himself as racist, but maybe he was. No, he pushed that idea away. Race really wasn’t important to him. In fact, in high school he’d dated a black girl and after that a sweet little oriental. The black girl, he remembered her name was Alicia, had been on the debate team and was smart in addition to being pretty. Both girls had been smart, for that matter. Brains, for his current purpose, weren’t a requirement.
A Cincinnati Cold Case Page 7
