The Smiley Face Killer

by Leroy Clark

  Jerry looked at Slate, raising his eyebrows. “Let’s hope to hell we catch him before the next bingo night.” Slate nodded.

  “What about the other possibility—the man who feels powerless?” Jerry asked.

  Dr. Channing went back into his mode of the wise authority dispensing wisdom to the uninformed. “Children raised with respect and appreciation of who they are as individuals grow up into adults with a sense of acceptance of who they are and with a feeling of having some personal power. Kids brought up in homes where they are treated as invisible or as extensions of their parents often grow up uncertain. They had no influence on their parents. They were often abused. By the time they reach adulthood, they have grave doubts about their self worth, their value as people. They don’t feel they have any influence over their world. They’re swept along by events and don’t have the means to make positive decisions. They don’t challenge others. They don’t object. Other people can run all over them, and they end up with a lot of grief. They feel utterly without any power of their own. Having been treated as a non-person, they’re submissive. Paradoxically, when they’ve given in and done all they can to avoid grief—if it doesn’t work, they’re often finally moved to use force.”

  Slate kept trying to imagine what the relationship Steven had with the killer. Had he forced him to have sex? Was it his talent? Was it jealousy? Could that have made someone else feel powerless?

  Dr. Channing wheeled himself back to his desk and looked through a folder. After a few moments he turned back to the detectives. “I am working with a patient who has no sense of self. She’s a young woman who feels she has no value. Her father was very strict. He wouldn’t let her wear makeup, go out with boys, or even drive. If she defied him in any way, he beat her, locked her in her room for a week. If she stayed as quiet as a mouse and didn’t disturb him in any way, he left her alone. When she got married, she existed only to make her man happy. Her only value was her connection to a man—and particularly his sex organ. Eventually, of course, her complete passivity became boring. He grew to detest her. Pleasing him proved to be impossible and thus she had no value. When he left her, she tried to kill herself. She could just as easily have killed him.”

  For Slate what this meant was that if the killer was powerless as described by Dr. Channing and placed his self worth in the hands of Steven, and Steven had rejected him, that could have caused him to lash out. Slate asked, “Is it possible that one person could be both powerless and dissociative?”

  Channing rocked back and forth in his chair as he reviewed past cases in his mind. His conclusion was, “Yes. Very definitely.”

  Jerry said, “So it could be one or the other or both?”

  “Yes.” Channing checked his watch and stood, indicating that their time was about up. “But realize every individual is very complex. My theories are just theories. If you find out more specifics about a possible suspect, let me know. I’ll be happy to discuss the case more. I think the key is that whoever killed this boy, did so because it was crucial to him emotionally. He had to do it or he couldn’t go on.”

  On their way out while Jerry went to the restroom, Slate impulsively decided to make an appointment to see Dr. Channing himself on a personal level. It scared the hell out of him, but he knew he needed to deal with his demons. He respected Channing, trusted him. He believed that he could be honest and say all those things he’d never before dared tell anyone. A cancelation for the next morning that came in while he was waiting at the desk turned out to be in his favor.

  CHAPTER 12

  SLATE SEES A SHRINK

  Even though he was tired, Slate didn’t sleep well that night. He kept going over in his mind scenarios of his upcoming session with the doctor. The different scenarios showed his inner conflict. He wanted to tell the doctor about his uncle and how the dreams he was having mixed up his own past with the victim in the case he was working on. On the other hand, he didn’t want to reveal all his true feelings.

  At two a.m. he got up and ate a bowl of cereal. It was two-thirty when he went back to bed. The last time he remembered looking at the clock it was a quarter to three. In spite of the short night, Slate woke early. He felt like shit. His mood was reflected in the clothes he wore. After a quick breakfast and a shower, he got dressed without thinking, his mind on the day to come. He grabbed an old pair of dark blue slacks and a gray sports jacket that had seen better days. It was frayed around the edges of the sleeves, but Slate didn’t care. It was comfortable and one of his favorites.

  Slate’s appointment with the therapist was for eight o’clock. He arrived ten minutes early with a cup of coffee so that he could fill out the necessary medical forms. He decided to pay cash and not include his medical insurance. He didn’t want anyone at work to know he was there.

  Channing seemed pleased to see him again as he motioned for Slate to sit in one armchair and he took the other. “So tell me about yourself.”

  Slate felt uncomfortable and agitated. It was hard for him to sit still. He didn’t know where to begin. He decided a bit of background would help. “I grew up in Hutchinson. My father was a mechanic who had his own garage on the outskirts of town. I don’t really like to think about the past. My father was a mean drunk. My mother worked as a waitress. She tried to protect me from my father as much as she could, but she wasn’t around much. Her approach to my dad was pretty much passive. Her method of living was avoidance and she encouraged me to avoid doing anything that would upset my father.” He shifted his position in the chair and crossed his legs.

  “Which you did, right?”

  “Well, most of the time. If I did piss him off, he was always an asshole. He didn’t hit me that much, but verbally I’d say he was pretty abusive.”

  “Are they still alive?”

  “Yeah, barely. They’re both dying slowly or slowly dying, I’m not sure which. My dad’s had two heart attacks and two strokes. He can’t walk by himself or talk much. He gets words confused. My mom has Wegener’s Granulomatosis disease. It has something to do with the blood vessels. She has chemo once a month. Every day is a struggle.”

  “We’ll talk more about that, but right now back to you. What was it like growing up?” Slate was surprised to see the more animated down-to-earth version of the doctor. The day before he had been intellectual, pleasant but more like a teacher. Today he seemed like a friend who was really interested in him.

  “I was an only child—grew up in my own world, I guess; I read a lot of books and I loved movies; I used to live in my own imagination as much as possible. Reality wasn’t much fun.” Slate’s mind flashed to visions of his world as a child playing by himself.

  “How? How did you live in your imagination?”

  “Well, I remember pretending I was a French count, like the Count of Monte Christo, and I’d drink grape juice and pretend it was wine. I’d wear a cape and sword fight with imaginary villains. I built some teepees way out in a back field and pretended I was an Indian. Stuff like that.”

  “And what about reality?”

  My family lived in three rooms behind my dad’s garage. There was a well but no running water in the house. It was one of my chores to always pump two pails of water each day and set them on the sideboard in the house. I took a bath once a week in the kitchen. This was okay most of the time, but sometimes I wet the bed, and the other kids teased me because I stunk.” As he relived these experiences, the pain brought tears to his eyes. “When I was twelve, my father built another house just a half a mile away. To live in a real house with a real bathroom was a major milestone in my life.” He laughed.

  “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

  “I have one sister. She was born after we moved into the new house, so she’s like thirteen years younger.”

  “Friends?”

  “Sure. I mean, we are, we like each other but we’re not close. I went off to school when she was about three.” Slate went on to explain that he considered himself a loner. His family had no
social skills. As a small child, when he had drawn a picture or asked a question, he was told to shut up and go play. He grew up not knowing how to interact with other kids. He excelled in school, was a whiz in math and English, but outside on the playground, he just stood and watched. As a teenager, he had worked for his father in the garage, but his father was never happy with his work and ridiculed him in front of others. When he saw the movie Rocky, it changed his life. He decided to work to develop his body so that he’d be strong enough to beat the shit out of anyone who touched him. Because his schoolwork had been exceptional, as a senior he also got a scholarship to go to a private academy in Massachusetts—away from his family and particularly away from his father.

  Dr. Channing occasionally took notes as Slate talked, but most of the time he looked directly at him and murmured “m’hm” after each bit of information. He wasn’t judgmental. Just seemed open and interested. Slate appreciated that.

  “After that I went to college here for a couple of years, then the Police Academy.” Slate continued. “I got married and have two daughters. My wife and I got divorced last year.”

  “So what brings you here?”

  “Well, I’m a detective. You know that. The job is pretty stressful. I like it, but sometimes—once in a while it gets to me.”

  “Gets to you. What do you mean? How?”

  “I get overloaded, you know, I mean there are images, things I see that I can’t forget. Some kid who’s been abused. A women whose husband kicked her face in. It’s hard to forget those things. Most of the time I don’t take it personally. I’m okay with it, but—” Slate’s mind provided him with flashing images of dead bodies, rape victims, people variously maimed.

  “What do you do when you’re not okay with it?”

  “I try to read, go to a movie, watch TV. I really like the old movies, you know, on American Movie Classics or Turner. Humphrey Bogart, Mitchum, Spencer Tracy, and Brando—those guys—and DiNero and Pacino. I really like those B movies from the 40’s and 50’s. The Maltese Falcon, you know.

  “You drink?”

  “Yeah, some. I mean, a couple of drinks is all.” There had been a time right after his divorce when he had hit the booze pretty hard, but he had conquered that. He went on, “The thing that gets me is I keep feeling like I have to have my father’s approval. I know I don’t. I’m an adult. And my father’s beyond caring.”

  “But it’s been important to you to have his approval?”

  “Yeah, I think it’s influenced my whole life. My wife, the kind of cars I bought, all of it—I always had my eye on him to check his reaction. That’s why I went to the Police Academy. I wanted to become the kind of man he’d approve of.

  “And did he?”

  “Well, sorta. He never had anything good to say about cops, but when I got promoted, he seemed to acknowledge that maybe I was okay.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “I’m just now discovering who I am. Since my wife left me last year, I’ve had a lot of time to think. I got two kids. We have joint custody. One just finished college and the other is a senior in high school. So anyway I’m alone now most of the time. It’s like, all of a sudden I can be me—whoever that is. I don’t have to listen to my father or my wife. I can do what I want.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “It is, but it’s also scary. I mean—I’m not what I’ve tried to be all these years. You know, whatever the image is—it’s just an image I created—it’s not me.”

  “But now you’re feeling that it’s okay to be yourself—to not pretend—”

  “Yeah, I don’t have to pretend to be rough and tough. I don’t have to pretend to be anything I’m not.”

  “That’s right. It’s okay to be you—whoever that is. I’m not sure yet who that is.”

  “I’m not either.”

  “What is it you’re not telling me?”

  “The reason I’m here is—well, there’s a lot of things. The nightmares for one.”

  “What else? I can prescribe some medication to help you sleep, but not until I know what else is going on with you. What are you afraid of?”

  “Nothing. I mean—“

  “I think you are. Now, look, you’ve got to trust me. I can’t help you if you don’t level with me.” Dr. Channing smiled and leaned back in the chair. He seemed self-assured, but genuine and kind.

  “Yeah. Okay. So there’s a few holes in my story, eh?” Channing nodded. Slate was sweating. He couldn’t say what he was afraid of. Deep down he knew, but he couldn’t yet articulate it. “I guess if I don’t live up to the image, I’m afraid people won’t like me, won’t respect me. That’s what I used to think. I still think that, but I—I don’t really give a damn anymore.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, yeah, well, let’s say I don’t care as much. I don’t worry about it like I used to.”

  At that moment Slate’s cell phone went off. He was glad for the interruption. It was Chief Norm Williams. He had just gotten word that three witnesses had materialized who had seen a man in the street near Duncan the night of the murder.

  Williams made it clear that Slate was to get to the station pronto.

  Dr. Channing scheduled another appointment for the following Friday. “Listen, before our next session, I want you to get a book called Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns. Read the first two chapters. Okay?” Slate nodded. Channing wrote down the information and gave it to him.

  Slate left the office already feeling better. He stopped at the theatre office on his way to work and picked up the head shots of Joe Moss, Robin Lightfoot, Aaron Biggs, Tim Wheeler and Derek Colson. Heather told him he could have a photo of her too if he wanted. She said it in a breathy voice like that of Kathleen Turner and burst into raucous laughter. Slate imitated her suggestive manner and told her he wanted more than a head shot. She laughed again and said she’d have to ask her husband.

  Slate drove to the station and poured himself another cup of coffee. The station was pretty quiet except for his partner Jerry who was arguing with the admitting officer about the Kentucky Derby.

  The first witnesses turned out to be two college girls, June Booher and Sandra McDowell. June was a heavy set girl with long very dark hair. Sandra was short with a round little body and short blond hair. Slate and Jerry met with them in one of the interrogation rooms.

  “Why’d it take you so long to come forward?” Jerry asked as he leaned against the wall.

  Sandra spoke first. “Well, at first we didn’t think about it. We heard about the guy getting murdered, but it didn’t mean anything. Later as we found out more details, that’s when it hit us that we probably saw the guy who did it.”

  “So what did you see exactly?” Slate sat down at the table with the two girls.

  Sandra continued. “Well, we were driving home about one o’clock. We’d been to a party. One of our friends is getting married.”

  Jerry came forward and leaned on the table. “Were you drinking? Cause if you were, it’s not gonna be easy to…”

  At that moment June piped up cutting him off. “She was, I wasn’t. But she only had one or two drinks the whole evening. It’s not like she was smashed or anything.”

  Jerry relaxed and moved back to the wall. Slate urged them to continue.

  “We came down 17th Street, and just as we came over the top of the hill by the entrance to the University this man was just crossing the street. He came from where that theatre is across the street in front of us. We were feeling good.” Sandra giggled. “So I blew the horn just to get his attention.”

  “He just kept walking, and turned left on to Hillside,” June added. We had to stop at the light. When we turned left on to Hillside, we blew the horn again, but he ignored us, kept walking with his head down.”

  “We didn’t see his face, but he was wearing black Levis and a black leather jacket. “ Sandra gushed.

  “How do you know it was leather?” Slate tried to push them for details.r />
  “It had that shiny look. And silver buttons. I know leather. I have three leather jackets.”

  “What about his shoes?”

  “Sneakers, I think. Black.” Said June.

  “I think he had on boots,” Sandra noted.

  “What about his hair?”

  “I think it was dark”

  “It was dark brown or black. Either that or he had a hat on. I think he wore a hat.”

  “You couldn’t tell?” Jerry interjected.

  “We weren’t looking at his face.” She grinned. “He had on tight jeans. We were looking at his ass.” June said boldly to clarify the situation. Both girls giggled.

  Jerry wasn’t particularly amused. “How tall do you think he was?”

  “I’d say he was about six feet,” said June.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Sandra agreed. “He wasn’t real short or real tall. He was just right if you know what I mean. I notice those things.”

  “Could you recognize him if you saw him again?”

  Both said “no” at the same time.

  “I’d like you to look at these photos.” Slate pulled the photos out of the envelope. “See if anything rings a bell.”

  The girls looked at the five photos and again shook their heads. “We just didn’t get a good look at his face,” June said.

  “I’d like you to talk to our graphic artist. Maybe she can come up with a sketch. Any details you can think of, okay? His walk. His shoulders.” The girls nodded, and Jerry took them off to work with Officer Amy Cochran, a woman who could transform verbal descriptions into concrete images on the computer.

  Slate checked in with the other witness, waiting in the next room. He got him a cup of black coffee and poured one for himself as well. The man was about fifty, dressed in a white shirt with a tie and tan chinos. He wore brown laced up shoes. As soon as Jerry returned, they introduced themselves to Fred Kromer. He worked in the produce department at Dillons Super Store on the corner of Central and Rock Road. He lived on Hydraulic between 13th and 17th. He had been driving home from work on 13th street. When he got to Hillside the light was green, but as he started through the intersection, a man stepped off the sidewalk right in front of him. He had to slam on the brakes and swerve around him. It was late; he was tired. All he could say was that the man was young, dressed in dark clothes, and maybe drunk. He also didn’t recognize anyone in the photos.