The Smiley Face Killer

by Leroy Clark

  The young man ignored it. “That’s me.”

  “I like your work.” Slate gestured to the paintings on the wall.

  “Thanks.”

  “Are any of these for sale?”

  “Yeah, all of ‘em.”

  “When this case is over, I’d like to come back and buy that one.” Slate pointed to the painting of an abandoned store seen through a window of broken glass. How much you asking?”

  “Two fifty.”

  “Deal?”

  “Sure.”

  “I can’t pay you now. It’s not appropriate since you’re all involved in this case. The chief would have my head on a platter.”

  “I understand.”

  “I really like that.” Slate looked at the painting. It was meticulously done. Realistic, and yet because of the distortion of the broken glass, it created an exaggerated feeling of emptiness, of loss, of a past world now abandoned and in disrepair.

  The young man now seemed somewhat less hostile. He went to the kitchen. Slate could hear him opening the refrigerator and banging around.

  Slate sat on the sofa and spread out some of the photos on the coffee table. “Would you tell me about some of these people?”

  Andrea put down the book and sat beside him. “That’s the cast of Romeo and Juliet. Steven played Romeo. I was the nurse.”

  “Anyone in this show that seemed strange. Anyone that might have a reason…”

  “No, that was a great cast. We all got along well.”

  Slate opened another packet.

  “That was The Crucible. He played John Proctor. I was his wife Elizabeth. That’s Abigail.”

  Andy yelled from the kitchen, “What about that dirtbag you had so much trouble with? The Indian?”

  “Oh, that guy. His name is Robby Lightfoot. He just had a bit part. He’s a strange one.” Andrea looked through the pictures until she came across a photo of a tall man with long black hair. “That’s him. He’s so weird.”

  “In what way?”

  “He mumbles. He doesn’t project. He always seems angry. No touch with reality. I mean, he doesn’t see himself. He thinks he’s Marlon Brando or something, but he sucks.”

  Andy returned from the kitchen eating a sandwich. “He’s a fucking weirdo,” he added, talking with his mouth full.

  “Not a good actor, I take it.”

  “But he doesn’t know that. I did a scene with him once in a class. There’s nothing there. No energy. No reactions. It’s like playing with a stick of wood.”

  “He was like a zombie.” Andy mumbled, still talking with his mouth full.

  “I asked Steven to coach us. He tried to get Robby to show more of what’s in the character’s mind. Nothing. Robby got really pissed.”

  After swallowing, Andy interjected, “He skulks around campus, never says hello or anything. I used to say ‘hi’ when I saw him, but he never even acknowledged I said anything. Ignored me like I didn’t fucking exist. So I stopped. I think he’s a jerk.”

  “Was he in the show they were doing now? Angels?”

  “No, he wasn’t cast. He was only cast when they were desperate for enough men,” Andy snorted, his mouth full.

  Slate went through several more shows before Andrea found anyone else she thought was questionable. “That’s Joe Moss in Lost in Yonkers. He and Steven were playing lovers in Angels in America.

  They started dating in the summer when we did Yonkers. Steven mentioned he wanted to break it off about a week ago. He said Joe was too possessive.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I don’t know. Something about Joe didn’t like it when he talked to other people. They never lived together or anything. Steven sometimes went out with other guys. It wasn’t a steady thing. I guess Joe wanted it to be, but Steven wasn’t sure he could be monogamous.”

  Slate studied the photo of Joe Moss. He was probably close to six feet tall and skinny. He wasn’t really handsome, but he wasn’t ugly either. He had blue eyes, full lips, a prominent nose, clear skin, and close cropped, light brown hair. His high forehead already gave evidence that he would be bald in another ten years.

  “I’m gonna take a photo of each of these guys—if that’s all right.”

  “Sure, they were Steven’s anyway.”

  Slate slipped the photos into his coat pocket and put the others back in the desk in the bedroom. When Slate returned to the living room, he found Andrea again in her chair, tears streaming down her face.

  She wiped them away as soon as he appeared. “Sorry. It’s just hard dealing with this.”

  Slate nodded sympathetically.

  “You know, they have head shots of everyone in the theatre department. They use them for displays in the lobby. You can check with Heather, the secretary.”

  “Thanks.” Slate moved to toward the door. “Oh, one more question. What about Steven’s job at that video store?”

  Andrea laughed. It was a rich musical laugh. “Oh, he hated that place. Loathed it. He would tell me about some of the creeps that came in. They’d go in the back and jerk off in those booths. He had to clean up after ‘em. He only worked there about two months. It was awful.”

  “He ever have trouble with anyone there?”

  “He had to throw guys out once in a while,” Andy contributed, “You know, ask them to leave.”

  “Did he ever mention any specific incident? Anyone threaten him?”

  Andrea and Andy looked at each other and both shook their heads as if they had communicated telepathically. Andrea noted, “No, he always laughed about it, like it was no big thing. Just somebody who was drunk, or two guys trying to get into the same booth.”

  “He loved it when students came in that he knew.” Andy added with a big grin. “He got a big kick out of seeing the shock on their faces when they saw him behind the counter.”

  Slate thanked them and gave Andrea his card in case she remembered anything else. He shook hands with Andy, again making it clear he was serious about the painting. As he left, Andrea sat back to her chair, feet tucked under her, mumbling the lines and checking the script to see if they were right. Andy went back to the kitchen.

  When he got back to the station, Slate made arrangements to get copies of some of Steven’s photos. When that was taken care of, he called Heather at the university. He gave her a list of names and asked her to copy their files. He particularly wanted their phone numbers, addresses, any other information she had on them. He found out during their conversation that Joe Moss was a transfer student from Washburn University. Following up on that information, he put through a call to the Theatre Department at Washburn University. He was lucky in reaching the Head of the Department, Dr. Walter Broker. Slate explained that he was calling about Joe Moss, a former student. Broker had heard about the murder and was eager to help.

  “Joe was here for his freshman and sophomore years. The first year he was fine. In the spring he got the lead in a production of Twilight for the Golds. He gave a fine performance. No problems. In the fall he was cast in a small role in Chekhov’s The Seagull. He didn’t get along with the director, fought him every step of the way. If the director told him to go right, he’d go left.”

  Slate took notes as the man talked.

  “He was also very testy in classes. He’s very opinionated. If a teacher made a statement he didn’t agree with, he’d question him. Some of the faculty liked the challenge. Joe asked lots of questions. He was very bright. If something was bullshit, he called it bullshit. Well, that didn’t sit well with a couple of the faculty. One kicked him out of her class. She gave him an F and he lost his scholarship.” The man cleared his throat.

  “The next semester he was in a children’s show. He played a jester and that was fine, but he started missing too many classes. I tried to talk to him, but that didn’t help. Finally he got into a huge argument with the professor of his acting class. He started cursing, screaming really foul names at the professor in front of the class, and threw a chair. I had no choice bu
t to suspend him. I called him into the office, and I informed him that he was not allowed to come back until he had seen the school counselor. I also called his parents and explained the situation to them. He dropped out and never came back. I did check back with his parents a week later. They told me that he was seeing a psychiatrist and seemed to be doing okay.”

  Slate appreciated the man’s honesty and told him so. Broker wished him luck on the case. Joe Moss clearly fit the picture of a potentially dangerous young man. He had a history of violent outbursts, a man who didn’t do well under a lot of stress, and a man who had fallen apart in the past. Moreover, he was emotionally and sexually involved with the victim.

  CHAPTER 11

  A PROFILE OF THE KILLER

  Slate was surprised to see Jerry walk in and plop down at his desk. “How’s Karen?” He spoke softly so that others wouldn’t hear.

  “I called her doctor. He changed her medication back to what she was taking before. Zoloft and Buspar.”

  “What happened?”

  “She just freaked out. Said she felt like she was losing it, you know, like cracking up. She was shaking all over.”

  “What caused it? I mean, did something happen that scared her?”

  “No, it was the fucking Prozac she was taking. It just made her panic. The doctor said the side effects could be a number of things, but he didn’t tell us some people just can’t take it. Their system won’t tolerate it. Instead of calming them down, it has the opposite effect.”

  “Why did he change her meds?”

  “Who knows? I think Karen probably wanted to try it. She’s always looking for a miracle drug. Something that’ll take away all her troubles.”

  “Did she take too much? Some people think if one pill is supposed to good, two should be even better.”

  “No, I think it just builds up in your system over a period of time.”

  “She gonna be all right?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m just sick of it, and I’m sick of her. Jesus, one minute she’s fine and the next she’s a screaming banshee.”

  Slate patted Jerry on shoulder. He didn’t know what else to say or do. He gave Jerry an update on Steven’s roommates, Andrea and Andy. They filled the next hour updating their reports and making phone calls. Although it took a half a dozen different calls, they learned that Lightfoot was a member of the Seminole Indian Nation and raised on a reservation in Oklahoma. His family had moved to Blackwell when he was a teenager. His mother was now dead. His father was a drunk who lived in a trailer and didn’t have a phone. Jerry called some of the students he had already interviewed. They all knew who Lightfoot was but didn’t know much about him.

  The picture Jerry got portrayed him as withdrawn. “He didn’t socialize much. He seemed sullen most of the time. The only thing he got really excited about was talking about the prejudice and injustice which had been inflicted upon his race.”

  The afternoon also brought a call from Elizabeth Robinson of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay organization with headquarters in Washington, DC. She wanted to set up a meeting to discuss the investigation to determine if the murder was indeed a hate crime. Slate reassured her that the investigation was exploring all angles but agreed to a meeting the following week.

  That call was soon followed by one from the newspaper wanting Slate’s opinion of the murder as a hate crime. He told the reporter that the investigation was ongoing, but no evidence so far supported the hate crime theory. At four-thirty they left for the doctor’s office at the Charter Clinic on Kellogg.

  Jerry, in his usual manner, drove like a bat out of hell, zigzagging from 21st Street to Oliver to Central to Rock and finally to Kellogg. Slate gripped the safety handle on the door, making the mistake of yelling out, “Watch it,” when Jerry just missed hitting a truck on Oliver. Jerry launched into a diatribe. Haven’t you ever heard of defensive driving? I‘ve taken every kind of driving lessons ever invented. I drive fast but I know what the fuck I’m doing. My fucking father was a race car driver, stock cars, the Indianapolis 500, Daytona. I even drove when I was younger. I never did it professionally, but I drove twelve goddamn races. So don’t question my goddamn fucking abilities. The fact is I’ve never had an accident. Never. And I’m sick of hearing your shit!

  “Okay,” Slate grinned. “Just remember, there’s always a first time.”

  “Fuck you!”

  Once they arrived at the Charter Clinic, they only had to wait about five minutes. Channing shared Suite D with three other doctors. The waiting room was tastefully decorated with comfortable chairs, prints on the walls, and two large fig trees. The only other occupants were a tired mother and an overactive little boy of about nine.

  At one minute before five Dr. Channing stepped into the waiting room. They introduced themselves and Dr. Channing ushered Slate and Jerry down the hall to his corner office. The office was large and bright with a beautiful mahogany desk matched by a plush leather chair. Attractive watercolors of sailboats, matted and framed, hung on the walls. Two comfortable armchairs with a table between them were evidently intended for the consultations.

  Channing was dressed in light gray slacks and a dark blue blazer, a pale blue shirt, a gray tie with designs crisscrossing it in red and blue. Slate noted that the clothes were not new, neither were the brown leather shoes. They had been lived in and were comfortable. Channing gestured for them to sit in the two armchairs and he rolled his desk chair toward them and sat down facing them.

  Slate began. “We’re hoping you can give us a profile or at least a few ideas of the killer of Steven Davis. “His head was bashed in with a pipe. After that he was strung up and beaten some more. His face was bashed, lots of bruising on his back and legs.”

  Jerry moved his right hand horizontally, holding his fingers and thumb about two inches apart. “They were long and about a couple inches wide as though the killer was swinging a baseball bat or a pipe. Hands were duct taped together in front.”

  “The worst part,” Slate broke in, “at least for me,” he shook his head, trying to get rid of the image of the dried blood on Steven’s legs, “he was sodomized with the pipe as well.”

  There was a moment of silence. Slate broke it by noting, “We feel pretty sure it was someone he knew.”

  Channing leaned back in his chair to think for a few moments. Finally he leaned forward a bit and began in a very authoritative voice, “From what you’ve told me, the killer was full of rage. He definitely knew the victim. It’s difficult to offer any kind of certainty, but I’d say there are at least two strong possibilities in this particular case. The first is someone who is dissociative and the other is a person who feels he has no power. Each of us at some point in our lives is bound to experience situations exceeding our coping ability and bringing us great conflict, anxiety and emotional pain. That’s the price of being human.”

  From his facial expression Slate could sense that Channing had experienced his own personal pain.

  “When that price becomes intolerable, though,” Channing went on, “some people may be triggered into a dissociative state. In other words, they can’t deal with the situation, so their mind unconsciously splits psychologically in a way that allows them to defend themselves from the emotional distress and the threatening situation.”

  When he talked, Channing glasses slipped down his nose, and he continually pushed them back up. In his obvious zeal to discuss the personality disorder, he was oblivious to his own behavior.

  “So during this dissociative phase,” he went on, “we see a segregation and isolation of the different parts of the personality. This person who usually has well-integrated patterns of perception, thought, feeling and behavior, suddenly loses that integration. An ordinary rational person suddenly fails to recognize the obvious and acts in a way that seems totally at odds with his typical behavior and beliefs. This why a person may have amnesia and not remember unwanted memories or why a multiple personality splits off entire unacce
ptable parts of himself.”

  Jerry, his interest sparked by his own familiarity with his wife’s psychological problems, interrupted with his own questions. “Whoever this guy is, he may not remember the actual murder?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And his usual behavior is such that no one would really expect it. Murder would be totally inconsistent with his usual personality.”

  Slate watched Jerry as he conversed with the doctor. There was a rough edge to his speech and manner, but a keen intelligent mind behind it.

  “Right.” Channing replied. “The same kind of thing is very common in the medical world. For example, a clearly terminal cancer patient who has gotten worse and worse after a series of operations, may continue to ignore the pain or weight loss and the pessimism of his doctor. Instead he talks cheerfully about plans for next year’s vacation. You know, refuses to prepare a will.”

  Slate wanted to get back to the specifics of the case. “Why would this guy kill a fellow student. I don’t see how another student could have such power to cause this guy to flip out.”

  Jerry interrupted with his own view. “It doesn’t have to be actual power. It’s what he perceives.”

  “True.” Channing agreed, and went on with his answer. “You have to find the common denominator. The defense mechanisms eliminate the anxiety, but they don’t eliminate the causes. Your killer is still suffering the underlying conflicts, and so there’s the possibility of aberrant behavior continuing.”

  “He may kill again.” Slate said it as a statement, but looking for an acknowledgement.

  Dr. Channing nodded. “Right. Under similar stressful circumstances, he would very likely deal with it in the same way.”

  Slate shifted in his chair. He wanted to make sure he understood. “Whatever the stress is, if it becomes too strong, bingo!”

  “Yes, in disassociation, the conscious mind goes blank. The unconscious acts instead. It could happen again.”