The Ice Scream Man

by Salmon, J. F.

  Settling into an over-heated office not far from the incident room, Hunt motioned Tony to sit down. A storage box was on the desk, as was a family portrait of a slimmer Hunt with his wife and two teenage daughters. Tony had a similar photograph in his study with the addition of his six-year-old son. A neat pile of paper with a brown A4 manila envelope sat in front of him. The rest of his office was tidy; everything seemed to have a place.

  Hunt got straight to the point. “Right. Where do we begin?”

  “From the beginning. Tell me in detail what you know happened.”

  Hunt recalled the sequence of events in fine detail without the use of his notes or charts. His memory was impressive, even by Tony’s standards.

  Tony began taking notes.

  Helen Dooley, aged 17, left house for run, approx. 6.45 AM. Tony finished at writing the word: Werewolf.

  “I told you none of it makes any sense, a werewolf that takes chunks out of little girls, for Christ’s sake,” Hunt said when he finished his brief.

  Tony pondered the details for a moment. “So it appears that the Crawford’s were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and not the intended victims. Tell me, what was Helen like?”

  Hunt began giving a description of height, weight, hair colour, and complexion.

  “Sorry, that’s not what I mean. What was she like as a person?” Tony interjected. “Did she have a job? Was she passive or aggressive, streetwise or naïve? What were her routines? What relationships did she have? I need to know as much about her as possible.”

  “She was a straight-A girl, by all accounts, attractive, smart, and athletic. She was training for an upcoming marathon and ran the outskirts of Brushy Park almost every morning and at the same time. Her mum, apparently, had had a bad feeling all the morning and did not want her to leave the house. Helen dismissed her concerns and reassured her she would be fine. In answer to your question, I’d say she was a dedicated individual, good in school, plenty of friends and no enemies to speak of.

  “Oh, yes, and it was her seventeenth birthday. She would have been looking forward to getting home and occupying herself with a new phone her parents had bought for her. They were planning a surprise party. There is probably more in the statements. I haven’t managed to get through all of them yet and more will be coming in this evening. Anything considered of any importance gets brought straight to me by my officers, I insist upon it.”

  Tony could tell Hunt failed to see the relevance by the way he ran his hand over his head. He could see Hunt was thinking: What did it matter what sort of person she was. “I will need to go through all the files, but I also need more. I need to know Helen intimately, what she would say, think, and respond to in any given situation. Only when I know her do I move a step closer to knowing who did this.”

  Hunt nodded his okay.

  “Let me put it this way,” Tony continued, “you pass two attractive women on the same street at different times of the day. Both are more or less dressed the same, although the way they dress will play a part, and both look similar in appearance. The first woman sees you looking at her and looks away from you as she approaches. She walks straight past, acting as if you weren’t even there, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention. She may act shy or reserved. Now, the second woman sees you looking at her, but this time the woman gives you a polite smile and might even say hi as she passes, and she makes eye contact.

  “Two different women both look the same but both by their actions make you feel differently about yourself. Different women present different levels of vulnerability, high- and low-risk victims. I need to know which one Helen was. By doing so I can then know how particular he was about choosing her.”

  “Okay, I see, it makes sense,” Hunt said, taking a distinct interest.

  “Send someone back to talk to her family and boyfriend if she had one. Be aware that there will be bias toward her. They will have pushed anything negative to the background but I need to know every detail. That’s what will make the difference.”

  “Okay, I’ll gather everything I have. Tell me what questions you need answering and I’ll get them.” Tony made a lot of sense and the way he explained it left Hunt feeling almost inadequate that he had not seen the relevance for himself. He had never given much thought to a victim, other than the way they were victimised and who their associates were. He realised he could learn a lot from Dr O’Callaghan.

  “This is not pleasant,” Hunt went on to say as he handed Tony three A4 photographs taken from the manila envelope. “Her injuries are so severe, I don’t think there’s much hope she’ll pull through. These were taken on a mobile and blown up so it is slightly pixilated. They are the only ones we have of her as she was found. There is also a smudge on the bottom of the lens but you get the picture.”

  Tony picked his glasses from the top corner pocket of his blazer and put them on before raising the photographs. The first showed a naked girl covered head to toe in what looked like red paint hanging from a tree, her toes barely touching the ground. She was hardly recognisable as a seventeen-year-old girl. In the second photo, Helen was lying naked on her back underneath the tree. The third was a closer shot between her legs.

  “She was tied with interlocking cable ties that near stripped the skin and tissue clean off her wrists, Hunt explained. “It was a male jogger who came across the scene. Luckily, he had the sense to take the photos. The first was taken on approach before freeing her and laying her on the ground. The quality is not bad, considering, it shows us first-hand the state this fucking whatever-it-was left her in. He then called us. A short time later, twenty minutes tops, the paramedics and my people got there. Kitty Crawford’s husband was in shock, as you might expect. He said it was a werewolf that literally scared his wife to death.

  “The jogger took a bad hit too when reality kicked in and looked at himself bathed in her blood. He informed one of my people that he had to press part of her intestine back into her stomach from the time he laid her on the ground. He couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead.”

  Tony’s eyes drifted away from Hunt and back to the photos. He immediately felt for the jogger and Mr. Crawford, who were both suffering from post-traumatic shock, more victims of an awful crime. The likelihood was that these poor people, just going about their business, were going to have recurring nightmares of their own personal ordeal. Mr. Crawford would need the full support of his remaining family. The jogger’s relationship with his girlfriend or wife might suffer, depending on how mentally strong the man was, and it would take many sessions of therapy to give these people back some semblance of normality. Even then, the experience would never leave them. Tony knew that all too well. Now, so did Hunt.

  Tony’s eyes reverted to Hunt. “They’re going to need help.”

  “They’ll get it, along with two of my officers who are also shaken up,” Hunt said with assurance. “Everyone thought she was dead at the scene but the paramedics somehow managed to keep her alive. She must have been one fit girl. The doctors have pumped her full of steroids and the next seventy-two hours are crucial. Even if she does make it, there’s no telling how she’ll come out the other side. It will be several weeks before she can talk to any of us, God willing, but the doctors still don’t hold much hope of her being able to remember much, if anything. Her injuries are some of the most despicable I have ever come across. Tony, we need to catch this bastard as quick as we can.”

  Tony’s glanced at the photo of Hunt’s family. “I have a child the same age myself. And I will help in every way I can but I need a few days with what you’ve got and these questions answered before I can give you answers.” He began to write a list.

  “One more thing,” Hunt said, almost apologetically. “You see that there in the last photo, between her legs?”

  Tony looked again at the photograph. The smudge had blurred the image to wher
e Hunt was referring but there was something brown between her legs. It looked like she was lying on a branch.

  “What is it?” Tony asked, bracing for the answer.

  Hunt produced a large zip lock plastic bag from the box on his desk and handed it to Tony. “It has been checked; we found nothing except what you’ll see.”

  Tony opened the bag and delicately held up a carving made from one piece of wood. It was red-brown in colour with light streaks, about a foot in length. The smooth stem approximated two thirds of its length and about an inch in diameter. The final third resembled the head of a bullet or mushroom. Its thickest part at the base approximated two and a half inches in diameter and hollowed underneath to give it its mushroom shape.

  Tony rotated the object in his hands and noticed the engravings. Delicately carved on one side of the stem was the single word, “Lollypop,” on the other side the words “Raspberry Ripple.”

  “The wood is cedar. This twisted fuck inserted it up her rectum. The doctors had to operate to remove it. Raspberry-Ripple-Lollypop, guy has some fucking sense of humour, hey. Is he fucking for real or what?”

  Tony tried to shake the image from his head and focus on the next step. “Jesus. Can you send me this along with the rest of the files? And before you talk to the media, I need you to walk me through the scene.”

  “We’ll go out the back way and take my car,” Hunt said.

  Two uniformed police officers patrolled the sealed-off area beside the bridge when O’Callaghan and Hunt arrived. They weren’t the only ones there, a group of bystanders had gathered to pay their respects, bringing with them cards, flowers, and soft toys for both Helen and Kitty. More people trickled over the bridge. Tony wondered how the dynamics would change when word of a werewolf went to print. Both men acknowledged the officers as they made their way underneath the tape and along the path. Forensic experts were still at work when the two men stopped over a dark stain on the path.

  “This is the spot where she was first attacked.” Hunt pointed at the bloodstain. “It would appear he waited behind that gate there as she came around the corner and surprised her from behind. The padlock was forced. It’s normally locked to keep kids from smuggling drink and other substances into the park. We found half a dozen of her teeth among the blood. He must have slammed her head into the concrete with some force. We also found more than a few yellow feathers scattered around. Some of them were stuck to the blood, but we’re not sure if this has any relevance. We haven’t found the bird but we think they belong to a budgie or canary. Then he took her through here.”

  The men went through the gate and the woods to the clearing. More of the forensics team were at work. A white tent had been set up on the outskirts of the clearing. Hunt pointed out the positions with rough approximation where the dog and Kitty’s body was found and where Helen’s clothes lay.

  “He stripped her naked and tossed her clothes indiscriminately around this area before stringing her up on that branch over there, like a piece of dirty laundry.”

  Tony studied the scene for a few minutes, walking the area. The woodland was leafy. The clearing was private and secluded. It would only take seconds for a person to hide and get lost among the trees.

  “It looks like an amphitheatre, as if he were preforming on a stage. What did he use to cut her?”

  “We think it was either a scalpel or a carpet knife,” Hunt said.

  “Do you know what direction he left?”

  “Mr. Crawford said he disappeared behind the same trunk of the tree from where he first appeared and doesn’t know what direction he went after that.”

  “Can I get my hands on a map of the area?”

  “Yeah, sure. We have one back at the station.”

  “Okay, I think I have seen enough. Let’s get back and I’ll finish off that list.”

  Both men approached the gate and were about to pass through when Tony stopped and began to examine the grass.

  “Look here,” he said, “this area of grass is flattened. You said the gate was always locked but the grass is flattened here just behind the wall. Why? The clearing is in the opposite direction. I think he spent some time with her here. The grass is sufficiently flattened to suggest he lay her down. My guess is that he sexually assaulted her here; he couldn’t wait. It would have taken considerable weight to press the grass flat. But if he lay on top of her?”

  “Jesus,” Hunt said just as his mobile rang from inside his jacket pocket. Hunt quickly reached for it and listened quietly for a moment. Then he said, “Fuck,” as he hung up. “They found traces of semen on her vagina. No match; this fucker’s not in the database.”

  As they walked back down the path, Tony asked, “And what about this jogger, how did he come across all of this? Could he tell you anything else about what happened?”

  “He told us he’s been running the area quite frequently just to keep fit, nothing serious. He noticed that the gate was open and thought it would make a nice change to run a different route and planned to make his way to the far side of the park before turning back. He heard someone shouting for help. The poor fucker didn’t know what hit him when he saw Mr. Crawford sobbing over his wife and Helen strung up over the branch.

  “When my officers got here he was in tears and shaking; it was difficult to get much out of him in the beginning. He said he asked Crawford to help him get Helen down but that Crawford appeared incoherent and remained with his wife, so he had to do it himself. He couldn’t bear to look at her and not do something about it, although he was sure she was dead.

  “What’s worse is that he thought he knew her. Once he had taken her down he said he thought he recognised her running pants and the distinctive running shoes. As it turned out, he was right and that’s how we found out who she was. He just so happens to be her dentist, Jesus, it’s true what they say, it is a small world. His name is Eamon, Eamon Masterson.”

  The light was beginning to fade by the time they got back to the station. Tony finished off the list of requirements and handed it to Hunt.

  “I’ll walk you out and have these sent up to you by tomorrow afternoon, latest, and we can meet up again on Wednesday. I’ll come up to you this time,” Hunt said, as he looked over the list.

  “One last thing,” Tony said, “when you talk to the press tell them nothing that only the killer would know. He may try to get in contact. And be careful; they’ll exploit the situation to the full without your help.”

  “I’ll keep it brief. They’re like a pack of wolves out there, excuse the pun. See you Wednesday.”

  23:

  “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with—”

  Three storage boxes full to the brim arrived at the house by eleven o’clock the next morning. Tony wasted no time securing them in his study. God forbid one of the kids, or even Jacky for that matter, should happen to see its contents.

  Two days was not a lot of time, given the amount of paper sent up from Farnham. Ordinarily, Tony would spend several nights looking over the details but this time the clock was ticking. The pressure for results was enormous. Tony decided to stay home and work from his study, with less interruption and a comfortable setting in which to concentrate.

  After a light lunch, he locked himself away in that brightly lit room and sat down at his desk. With a cup of coffee for company and three boxes of evidence for vexation, he got down to work. He spread out the statements, photographs, forensic reports for Kitty Crawford, medical reports for Helen Dooley, and maps, across the desk. The trail of paper eventually spread out and onto the floor with holiday photographs and the specific statements based on Tony’s questions. He placed the wood carving on the desk. A television and video recorder was set up in the corner of the room to view a home video of Helen taken from her home.

  Taking a sip of coffee, Tony had four questions he needed to answer.
He began by writing them down on an A4 hardback pad.

  What actually happened? How did it happen? Who is the victim? What motivated the killer?

  Only when he had the answers to these questions could he report to Hunt.

  Tony sifted through the piles of information, looked at holiday snaps and watched the video of Helen preforming cartwheels in her back garden. Other captions showed her interaction with family and friends at a relative’s birthday gathering. He watched her chased by her dog, in what looked like Brushy Park because of the treeline in the background. She held a Frisbee high above her head and laughed at the camera as the dog circled and jumped for it in vain. Kids ran around in the wide-open space, playing catch-me-if-you-can. Others kicked a ball around, while their parents sat on blankets laid out on the short grass with flasks and plastic containers holding the contents of a picnic. It was hard to imagine that such a tranquil setting could harbour unimaginable horror.

  Helen loved to run long distance, liked tennis, and was a good hockey player like her mother. She had more medals and trophies than an average child her age. She was fit, slim, and was very attractive. The camera liked her and she flirted with the lens but not overtly. She was not a provocative person and that would make her all-the-more desirable.

  She almost certainly received special attention from both sexes for her many non-threatening smiles. She would have had plenty of “Don’t worry about it” if she fell short of the bill at the local newsagent or café. People would hold a door open for her if they saw her coming and greet her with pleasant interaction.