by phuc
“I've known there was something weird about him from the moment I laid eyes on him.
You know that feeling you get from people who seem bad to you? Like you feel your flesh crawl every time you look at them? That's the feeling I got from Charley. Every time he came in here, every time I saw him and his mother at church on Sundays, every time I happened to see him in that tan pickup truck driving down—"
“What church do you go to, Mr. Ramirez?"
“Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church,” Hector had said.
A finger of ice ran down Rachael's spine upon hearing that. She had tried to suppress the chill with a forced smile. “I've heard it's a lovely church."
“It is,” Hector had said, rising from his seat. “Well, Miss Pearce, I hope I have been of some help to you. If you ever trade information with the police in your search for Carmen, I hope you pass on what I told you. They've stopped taking my phone calls. They think I'm crazy."
“Oh, you're not crazy, Mr. Sanchez,” Rachael had said. “Trust me."
Now with the phone call home to Daryl out of the way, she could concentrate on following up on this lead. Her heart pounded with a rush of adrenaline as she started her Camaro and headed out of Top's Burger's and onto Highland Park Avenue. According to the address Hector Sanchez had given her, and a consultation with a Thomas Brothers Guide, this Charley character lived about five miles away. She drove to the house slowly, Rachael's mind formulating her plan of action. Her experience in conducting similar interviews with people suspected in crimes had given her plenty of experience and she decided on a simple plan of action: knock on his door, introduce herself as a private investigator hired by Carmen's family, and tell him she had gotten his name from an employee at Top's. Her mind focused on the young man who had waited on her at the fast food establishment, and she plucked the name off his badge effortlessly. Tell Charley that she had gone to the church to question some of the people Carmen had gone to church with and had somehow been given Charley's address and she was trying to speak to as many people as she could who had known Carmen. Carmen Aguirre had been a sporadic parishioner at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church as well. That should do the trick.
She made a left on Euclid Avenue and then a right on Van Buren, making a series of lefts and rights per the directions she had jotted down from the Thomas Brothers Guide. A moment later she parked behind a battered Plymouth and looked across the street at the small, but tidy, house tucked in the cozy neighborhood. She checked the address. She had the right house.
Parked in the driveway was a tan Toyota hatchback pickup truck with a camper shell attached to the bed. Charley's truck. He was home.
Plan firmly in place, Rachael took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. She closed the door to the Camaro, walked across the street to the house and mounted the small concrete front porch, noting that the house seemed silent and quiet. Then straightening herself up before she lost her nerve, she knocked on the front door.
Chapter 26
Rachael was just about to knock on the front door for the third time when she heard the unmistakable sound of shuffling footsteps approach the door and then pause.
She stepped back so whoever was approaching could see her through the peephole. The sound of the lock disengaging came and then the door swung open, revealing a man who appeared to be in his late thirties with curly brown hair, rapidly thinning along the top. He peered at her curiously through thick glasses. He had an annoyed look on his face that suggested he had been interrupted at something. “Yes?"
“Excuse me, sir, but I wasn't given a last name and I was told I could find a man named Charley here?” Rachael asked, putting on the charm with a big smile.
The man appeared to flinch, his eyes moving up and down her body, sizing her up.
He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a blue T-shirt with white tennis shoes. He was at least eighty pounds overweight, pear-shaped and corpulent. She could see what Mr.
Sanchez meant by how he described Charley as a fairy. Charley looked like the kind of bespectacled, physically unattractive shy geeks she knew in school; the kind of boys who were outsiders, not because they were mean or deserved to be friendless, but because something about them drew the bullies to pick on them, thus making them social misfits.
Through no fault of their own they had no friends, and others had seen them as simply weird or ignored them altogether. Charley reminded her of those boys in junior high and high school that she always felt sorry for.
And although it was very faint, there was something familiar about him that she couldn't place.
“Y-yes, I'm Charley,” he said, hesitantly. He was still blocking the doorway with his body, still eyeing her figure nervously, and it was hard to see in the darkened interior of the house. “What can I do for you?"
“I'm sorry to bother you,” Rachael said, putting on her best smile and trying to sound very much like a professional to put him at ease, “but I'm a private investigator.”
She quickly introduced herself, presenting her fake investigator credentials. “I've been hired by the family of Carmen Aguirre to investigate her disappearance and it's come to my attention that you knew her casually. Do you have time to talk to me?"
Charley opened his mouth as if to say no; his eyes had widened slightly in surprise at the sound of Carmen's name and she thought she detected a slight tightening up of his body posture, as if he had just weathered a shock. Rachael smiled reassuringly and Charley closed his mouth, glanced back into the house, then looked back out at Rachael.
He looked nervous. “I suppose I can. You're not a cop or anything, are you?"
“Nope. Just a private investigator.” She smiled and held up her hand, her first two fingers extended up. “Scout's honor."
Charley licked his lips and nodded. “Okay. That asshole at Top's where Carmen worked at called the cops on me when she disappeared. He thinks I had something to do with her disappearance and I don't."
“Okay. Why don't you tell me what you know, Mr..."
“Glowacz,” Charley said. “Charley Glowacz."
Rachael smiled. “Okay, Mr. Glowacz. Can I have a minute of your time then so I can ask you a few questions?"
Charley took another glance behind him, then turned back to Rachael, nodding.
He still looked a nervous but he opened the front door and stepped aside. “Sure. Come on in. We can talk in my room."
Rachael stepped inside the darkened house.
As Charley Glowacz led her through to the back of the house, Rachael paused and motioned toward the darkened living room. “Mr. Glowacz, we can talk here in the living room—"
“It's better if we talk back here,” Charley said, opening the door to his room at the beginning of the hallway. He turned toward her, smiling. “My mother's been sick and she's in the bathroom right now. She's been resting in the living room and we wouldn't have any privacy. Come on, I won't bite."
Rachael showed only slight hesitation; she gave a nervous smile and entered Charley's bedroom, purse slung over her shoulder. Charley closed the door behind him and deftly locked it with a push of his thumb.
His heart raced madly in his chest. His skin felt warm, flushed. She was here. In his room. With him.
From the moment he first saw her, Charley had been captivated by her. He had been fantasizing about her ever since he had first laid eyes on her, and now she was here in the house for the first time, speaking to him, looking at him. She was everything he had ever wanted in a woman; her skin was a creamy mocha color—not too dark, not too light—and her eyes were big and deep brown. Her hair was black and thick. She was wearing a pair of black, loose fitting slacks, and a cream-colored blouse. Her body looked beautiful beneath the clothes, but what really captivated Charley about her was her face. It was simply angelic. Her lips were red and the way they turned up in a smile when she looked at him melted his heart. She was simply beautiful.
He had to have her.
She had to help him ... ?<
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“Have a seat,” Charley said, motioning to the sofa. “Can I get you anything to drink?"
“No, I'm fine.” Rachael sat down on the couch and Charley sat on the opposite end, his undivided attention turned to her.
Charley's skin was tingling as he sat down beside her. Another rush went through him as she smiled at him. Those deep, dark eyes locked on his. She's attracted to me, Charley thought, looking away toward the entertainment center. Nobody's ever looked at me like that before.
“So what do you want to ask me?” Charley asked, turning back to her and trying to keep his excitement down.
“Just a few things.” Rachael extracted a pen and pad of paper from her purse. She leaned forward from her spot on the couch, looking at him as she talked. “I got your name and address from Mr. Sanchez, the owner of Tops. He...” She tried to look sympathetic.
“...didn't have very nice things to say about you, Mr. Glowacz."
“Yeah, I bet,” Charley said. “That bastard's been giving me the evil eye ever since Carmen disappeared."
“Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with Carmen Aguirre?"
Charley took a breath, wondering where to start first. He didn't want to tell her the truth; that would make him sound really pathetic. He decided to embellish a little of the truth. “I didn't know her all that well,” he started. “I just knew her from Top's. I go in there every other day for lunch, and we started talking right away. She's a very nice girl."
“That's what I've been told,” Rachael said, smiling at him.
“Yeah, well she was. And that's really all I knew about her. I'd go in and order lunch, we'd make small talk, that sort of thing. I really didn't know her that well at all."
“Mr. Sanchez said that a few weeks before she disappeared that you asked her out,” Rachael said, writing something down in her note pad. She looked up at Charley.
“Can you tell me a little about that?"
Charley felt himself turning red at the mention of the incident. “I guess I did,” he managed, smiling stupidly. Think! Explain that to her. Give her something more satisfactory than I guess I did, you idiot! “It was nothing, really,” he said, stammering over his words. “It's just that ... I ... I ... well, we were talking about movies and...” he cast his eyes down at the floor, feeling nervous. “...just got so into talking about the kinds of....
well, the kind of.... of movies we liked that I ... I ... asked her if she wanted to someday go to the movies together.” He looked back up at her, as if seeking approval from a parent.
“That's really all it was."
Rachael was nodding, writing down some more notes. He watched her write in her notepad, noting her pursed lips lightly touched with lipstick. How he would love to kiss those lips, feel them kissing him all over his body. His breath rose as the image centered on his mind. He shifted his weight on the couch.
When she looked back at him she looked different. She smiled at him again, but it seemed false. It wasn't the same as before. “So you never went out with her then?"
“No,” Charley heard himself answering. His voice sounded like it was coming from another dimension. “I never asked her again."
“How did you feel after that?” Rachael asked, and now he felt his limbs tighten because she was really looking at him differently now. Her gaze was scrutinizing.
“How do you think I felt?” he heard himself answer. “I was crushed."
Rachael's smile dimmed. She looked at him funny. “Are you okay, Mr. Glowacz?"
“I'm fine.” Charley smiled. His heart was beating so hard in his chest that it felt like it was going to burst out of it. “I'm really a nice guy."
Now Rachael frowned. “I didn't say that you weren't a nice guy, Mr. Glowacz.
What made you feel I would think otherwise?"
He was nervous and he could feel his throat tighten up. His hands were shaking as he scooted closer to her on the couch. He tried to act casual, tried to make it seem like he was just being normal and friendly. He laid his hand on her knee; he felt her flinch at his touch. “Listen,” he began, “there's nothing to be afraid of."
Rachael's demeanor did an about-face. She moved off the couch, eyes on him, expression changed from one of friendliness to one of revulsion and fear. “Please, Mr.
Glowacz—"
Charley was up in an instant, moving toward her. “It's okay, you don't have to be afraid—” He put his hands on her shoulders. She threw her arm up, knocking his hand off her shoulder. Her eyes were wide with fright, nostrils flared like that of a wild animal.
She tried to retreat, but her back hit the wall. He was on her in an instant, trying to talk to her, tell her there was nothing to be afraid of and she began fighting him. He leaned his body weight against her and as she began to scream he clamped a hand over her mouth.
He locked his left hand on her throat and squeezed and this time she went ballistic. Pain exploded in his crotch as her knee met his balls, and the force of the blow collapsed him to the floor; but because his grip was on her throat he took her down with a loud thud.
Stars danced in his vision, and white-hot bolts of pain stabbed through his groin. It was the worst pain he had ever felt. For a moment he felt paralyzed.
He tried to move, the pain immobilizing him. Through the blurriness of his vision, he could dimly make out Rachael lying on the floor on her side, coughing hard, her hands at her throat. He closed his eyes and willed the pain away and it seemed to work. He moved his leg and a bolt of pain stabbed up through his belly. Through the din of his agony he could make out Rachael gagging, coughing, trying to speak, her voice guttural and deep. His vision cleared and now he could see that she was struggling to her knees.
He rolled over on his stomach and another bolt of pain stabbed through his gut, but this one was easier to fight off. He focused his mind past it and struggled to his knees.
When they came together again it was with a locking struggle as each one fought to gain the upper hand. Charley had the heel of us hand pressed up against her throat.
Christ, she's strong, he thought. Jesus, she's—
He drove his fist into her solar plexus and felt her hold on him crumple a little bit, and then time became a blur as they fought an almost silent dance of survival His hands shook as he took her out of the freezer, piece by piece. He laid her out gently on the floor until she was all there, and then he started rooting around in the workroom for that old patchwork quilt he had picked up the other day. He would bundle her up in that; it would keep her nice and cozy.
Trembling with anticipation, he picked up Carmen's torso and cradled it lovingly to his chest. He closed his eyes tightly, taking deep breaths that threatened to spill out into sobs. He held it in. He couldn't cry now. There was no room for crying. He had to be strong and face these next few steps like a man. He had to get through this if he ever wanted to attempt to try to get help. But first he had to deal with Carmen and the young man that he had gotten around Christmas—what was his name? Miguel something kept coming to his mind. Another young gang member. This one a drug dealer as well as a pimp, but also a man who had a more sophisticated sense of criminal sensibilities. Miguel Something had been one of the higher ups in the Eighteenth Street gang, a young man in his mid-twenties who called the shots to the younger street thugs who routinely shot each other up on L.A.'s streets. Miguel Something had been befriended quite easily. After all, Latino gang members, even from warring gangs, all had one thing in common.
Once he had gotten control of his emotions, he held Carmen's torso out from his body, admiring his handiwork. Unlike the others, he'd kept her torso more or less intact; he had only separated the limbs and head from her body. The portions he hadn't sampled he had kept in the freezer for future use and she had kept quite fresh, unlike Miguel who just seemed to rot no matter what he did to retard decomposition. He ran his left hand along Carmen's frozen, hard body, his thumb tracing around one full breast. He brought the torso up to his f
ace and kissed each breast, pausing to suckle the cold, frozen meat of the nipples, before he set the torso down on the patchwork quilt. He held the tears in as he rapidly worked, wrapping the torso quickly and expertly in the patchwork quilt. The urge to fuck her one last time came and he pushed the thought to the back of his mind. If he fucked her one last time he would keep her, and he couldn't keep her anymore so he continued wrapping her up in the quilt. When he was finished the patchwork quilt covered Carmen completely. Now for the rest of her.
He turned his attention to the arms and legs, which he had left on the floor. Taking a large piece of butcher's paper, which he had gotten from the house, he put a limb in each section of paper and wrapped it up expertly, fastening it with rubber bands that he got from a coffee can on the workbench. He wrapped each limb this way, and when he was done he placed them in a makeshift cardboard box he had constructed from two smaller boxes, the small box fitting into the larger one to create one awkward container.
He put the limbs inside the box and pushed the two together, closing their contents up. He picked up the now one awkward box and shook the contents. Carmen's arms and legs jumbled around inside.
Picking up the patchwork quilt, he carried it outside to the truck and put it in the front seat.
Now it was Miguel Something's turn. The wet smell of decay and rotting flesh rose up to him and he breathed it in, reveling in the smell. He had lost himself in Miguel for awhile, but now it was time to get rid of him, too. He wrapped what was left of Miguel's arms and legs in pieces of newspaper. Then he turned his attention to what remained of his still intact vertebrae, pelvis and ribcage. He had gotten some good mileage out of Miguel.
The only thing that had disappointed him was when Miguel ran out of edible parts. He had been rather tasty.
He put Miguel in the car then checked his watch. There was an empty field five blocks from here. It would take less than two minutes to drive over, dump Carmen and Miguel, and drive back. He considered leaving them in the freezer, but he really had to get rid of them. For one, he couldn't be caught red-handed. And two, dumping them would go along with his plans; it would only serve to confuse the police even more.
