by Rex Miller
“If it's serial murder when it's four, what is it when it's—"
“A hundred and four?"
“Yeah.” He laughed without humor.
“It's bloody mass murder is what it is. And we're looking for light at the end of the tunnel."
“I hear that. What you need to do is contact Randy Vincent. He's at CMH Sacramento. Let me give you his number. Find my Rolodex here in all these papers—"
“Where is he? What were those letters?"
“CMH, California Mental Hospital. Here it is. Nine-one-six ... three-six-six—Wait. No. This is the one on Stockton. No. Here's the number you want. The administrative offices. Call this number and ask for Doctor Vincent.” He gave him the number. “He worked in the federal system. He was the one they called in when they were testing Gacey at the mental-health facility in Illinois. He goes around to all the lockups where they have the max-security psychos. He's got a deep background in sexually disturbed psychopathia and he's going to know everything there is to know on the phenomenon of twinning That's his primary area of expertise. Tell him we talked. He's a good guy. He'll be perfect to give you some good info on the twins thing, not to mention the criminal psych angle. Okay?"
“I really appreciate it, again."
“Shoot me those tapes too, and I'll get right back to you."
Jack thanked him and hung up, called and requested dubs of four of the surveillance videos, and called the hospital administration out in California.
“Is Doctor Vincent there?"
“Doctor Vincent? Randy Vincent?"
“Randy? We have a Vincent Johnson in Personnel."
“Don't you have a physician there named Dr. Randy Vincent?” A pause and then.
“Hold on, please.” Probably somebody who just started working there. A long ... deadly ... pause.
Minutes slowly ebb and flow. A syrupy tide measured by seconds that echo the heartbeat hammer of a headache briefly dormant, now thrumming below the surface as the seconds drag by on hold, receiver changed to the other ear.
The.... (tick).... long ... (throb).... deadly.... (tick).... pregnant.... (throb).... pause. Christ! He looks up at the clock and after four minutes he clicks the line. Gets a dial tone. Dials the number again. Same woman's voice.
“Yes"—an edge of steel hardens his voice—"this is the same long-distance party that was waiting on hold for Randy Vincent. This call is police business and I was disconnected while I was on hold.” He lies.
“One moment, ple-uhz, sorry we disconnected you.” Click. (Tick) ... (throb).... (tick).... (throb).
“Personnel?"
“Yes."
Good Christ above. “My name is Eichord, I'm with the Major Crimes Task Force and we're involved in an investigation of a Murder case.” Really laying it on. “It is vitally important that I reach Doctor Randy Vincent."
“One moment please.” (throb).... And, mercifully, a click and a woman's voice says, “Hi. Are you trying to reach Doctor Vincent?"
“Yes, I am. Is he there?"
“No. He hasn't been here for over a year. I'm not sure where he can be reached. Would you want me to check to see if we have forwarding information on him?"
“Yes, please. But wouldn't someone there know where he is? I mean, he's a nationally known physician.” Eichord was beyond any compunction. Just get it done somehow.
“It's the fact we're so big. This is a very large facility and so many people are new here. I remembered the name from an old personnel roster. If you'll hang on for half a minute I can check."
“Please. It's quite important.” Half a minute, he thought as the phone banged in his ear. At least she gave him an ETA. That was golden as far as he was concerned.
“Hello."
“Yes,” he said, holding his breath.
“I can't find any forwarding address.” (Siiiiiiiiiggghhhhh.) “But I've got a phone number. Would that help?"
He took the number and hung up, dialing with fingers mentally crossed.
“Hello,” a woman's voice on the seventh ring, a slightly foreign-sounding accent he couldn't place.
“I trying to reach Doctor Vincent. This is long distance.
“I'm berry chorry, he not here."
“May I ask with whom I am speaking?"
“Eh?"
“Who are you, please?"
“Dis is de maid. You call later, okay?"
“No, wait, DON'T HANG UP YET,” he yelled before he could catch himself. “Listen. This is very urgent. WHERE ... IS ... THE ... DOCTOR? WHAT HOSPITAL IS HE AT?"’ Throb.
“I teek he at the BA."
The VA hospital. Ah-ha. “What city is this I'm calling?"
“Eh?"
“This is long distance. I called area code six—” Click. “Oh, don't hang up, goddammit,” he swore at a dead phone. There was a long period of dialing, the woman again, United Nations-style translation ... tick ... throb ... Finally he had the city. Bonita, California. He dialed directory assistance. Got the offices of the VA hospital.
“Hello—Veteran's Administration.” They'd given him the wrong number. Back through the operators, obbing, ticking, the romance and excitement of policework, throb, tick, another switchboard, a VA hospital in California and a woman telling him, “No, I'm sorry, there's no Doctor Randy Vincent here to the best of my knowledge. Wait a second. Just, uh, hold on a second,” she promised him one second and she kept it quick, clicking back on crisply, saying, “Here's someone who can help you. I'm connecting you."
“Thanks.” THROB....
“Yes?"
“I'm trying to find a doctor named Randy Vincent. An idea where I can lo—?"
“Oh!” The woman laughed into the phone. “He has his own consultancy now, I believe. I think you can reach him this week at—you want to write this number down?"
“Yes, go ahead please."
“Country Code Forty-one. City Code Twenty-one.” She gave him a long and strange-sounding number which included an extension.
“Do you happen to know what this is?"
“I believe it's a clinic."
“No. I mean what country this is, what city?"
“That's Lausanne, Switzerland."
Fucking wonderful. He dialed direct. At least he wouldn't have it on his motel bill and have to use one of those cards he was always misplacing. The line rang fifteen times. He had the operator place it again.
“What time is it there, miss?” It finally occurred to him that it was after office hours.
“It is seven-forty-six there, now."
“Thanks. Cancel please. I'll replace the call tomorrow."
T H R O B.... T I C K. Lunchtime: 12:46. He'd have a little lunch and be all n’ lit in no time. This afternoon, one more call—Donna Scannapieco. Line her up for the house. He wasn't particularly looking forward to having to drag her through the experience but you never knew what it might shake loose from the trees.
Come back. Make one more call. Shuffle a few papers around. Go back to the motel and play with his mangy mutt. Or something.
Highland Park
The session had begun at one in the afternoon in the Jones-Seleska law offices in Garland. They had left about three-thirty at Noel's request (No, you won't be imposing) so that she could get this hunk out to her house again. How she managed to keep her hands off him she'd never understand, but so far it had been all business. Still. She could read his desire in those beautiful eyes.
Out in her house in North Dallas she kept up the questions for a while and kept it strictly business, and he kept the answers short and sweet, taking Ukie through the stages of his young life.
Noel wanted all kinds of documentation. She told him what she'd been able to obtain from the cops and from prosecution under “discovery” and what was missing. How it could help Bill if she could find even something—some vestige of the orphanage records.
“They were lost in the big fire, as Bill told you, I guess,” he said, softly.
“Yes. How about the fost
er parents who raised you? When did they pass away?"
And he took her step by step through all of that again, patiently, the when and how and who of it, and the fact of no neighbors, no next of kin, no relatives of the foster family surviving, and then the odd coincidence that all of the personnel at the now-defunct social-service agency in Branson were either deceased or they could not be located by trace. It was, as Noel told him, quite unfortunate.
“It's almost as if your personal histories had vanished off the face of the earth."
“I know,” he commiserated. “I don't know if you can understand the loneliness and feeling of alienation you suffer when you lose all your roots the way we have. I know it's just a series of coincidences, but even though we didn't have this big circle of close kinfolk the way most people do, you sure do get a sense of loss. A sense of losing whatever ties to a family you might have had. And I guess if you lost a real close relative, you know you'll never see that loved one again and..."
As he spoke to her she felt herself being drawn to him again. Falling under some wonderful spell created by his sensitivity and soft tones, that warm and gentle voice, that sexy voice of his lulling her, promising so much tenderness and loving, and she had to work to keep her mind on business.
She found him acutely interested in the way she'd be handling his brother's case, not just superficially but in the legal intricacies, and at one point she jokingly asked him if he'd read for the law at one time. He had a way of coming around the corner and blind-siding her with these very pointed questions that made her glad she knew her stuff as a lawyer. Joseph was a bright and well-read man. He began probing into the possibilities related to an insanity plea, to which she responded:
“This is an area where even the police have a lot of misinformation. It's quite complex as an issue with respect to Ukie. It's not necessarily true, you see, that a person adjudged insane is legally without culpability or responsibility. When you try a case like this one—just to look at one avenue of the thing, the jury is going to be asked to make a decision based on criminal INTENT. Did that individual entertain a criminal intent at the time of the alleged offenses? You, the defense, you get your psychiatric depositions and your witnesses lined up in a row, and you have to prove to those men and women of the jury that your defendant's insanity is the LEGAL definition of insanity, not the MEDICAL one. They aren't the same, and most people don't..."
And he was touching her. She flinched. If he'd been slow to make a move, when he finally got around to it there was no preamble at all. He made his move without need of flirtation, without a look into hot eyes, without so much as a word or gesture, just the way she dipped her head, averted her eyes suddenly, turned a little into profile, and made herself so openly ready and vulnerable, and he let the vulnerability excite him as he concentrated on the things that pleased him as he moved over beside her and it seemed to her the most natural thing in the world to have this warm and lovely stranger slowly slide his hand up her leg inching it up exposing the golden tan sleekness of the long and perfect legs, now flirting a little when she looked into his serious hot eyes and she can feel him doing something and her twin spheres are exposed and the nipples want to feel his warm caress and they wait, erect, but he cups her breasts instead and without even a first kiss he lowers his head to her and kisses down her chest, the hot tip of his long tongue flicking out and searing her nipples, around them and down to the small, tantalizingly sculpted downiness between her gently curving Y and she says something but neither of them is sure what and he takes the thing out of his pants and as he kisses his way back up her, lets go and wets himself and lubricates her moistness with his hand, and then she feels the large maleness of him fill her and his handsome face is against hers and he is in the hollow of her throat and they are moving and oh my God she tells him she wants him deeper and there is a rock hard chorus and an implosion in the hot tight wetness of their relentless, wild passion.
That voice all the while that has the resonance of some thrilling church organ my God ORGAN oh yes rumbling and whispering and telling her the things he wants them to do, the sweetness of his compliments, she catches a phrase about her “egalitarian elegance” and he tells her he could hardly stand not touching her the last time they were together, the way the slippery sliding slickness of those beautiful long endless legs and kissable curvaceous thighs blowing him kisses as she walked near him, the communication breakthrough he called it, a hearing and sensory innovation, for the first time, he said, “a woman's legs spoke aloud,” and he translated the word to her. The word spoken in leg. She knows the word. It is common in English-language usage. An invitation to dine. Her legs whispered EAT, he says. And because she is his regal queen bestowing a favor on her court jester, he must do as she commands.
And this is the way Noel and Joseph spent the afternoon. On the living-room floor of the Collier home. Pure, raw, funky, wonderful, animal sex. And then he takes her in his arms and kisses her and then this breathtakingly good-looking man enters her again and the both of them give themselves to it with equal abandon. And afterward spent and wasted, flat on his back with the once-tumescent and blue-veined pink engine of destruction flaccid and flopped over dead atop his right leg, the woman beside him snuggled close breathing slowly and with her mouth open, a pair of horses after a long run, sweat drying on them, satisfied, content beyond description, unashamed and together, they cuddled for a moment and decided what to do about it all. They wrestled with the weighty problem for a good four or perhaps five seconds before each of them fell asleep. Asleep with their arms around each other, cuddled together in the gathering darkness in exhausted dreamless slumber.
South Dallas
Donna Scannapieco met Eichord downtown at the prearranged time and he tried to break the ice with her as they walked to the car.
“It's been rough, hasn't it?"
“Yeah.” She nodded, bitterly.
“I've got to tell you, you've been wonderful through all of the questioning."
“Thanks. You guys have your job to do. It can't be pleasant. Dealing with dirt like him."
“Well. The work is like anything else. It has its rewards just like it has a downside. The job has a way of sort of taking over your life, Donna."
“I can see how it would be hard not to take it home with you if you were conscientious. Sort of like, what do they call those welfare people—case-workers? You'd see thing you'd want to do something about."
“Yes. There are some parallels between our work and persons in the social services.” He sounded like he'd been stuffing cotton in his cheeks, pedantic, stupid almost. He had a rather benign hangover this morning—it was more of a. lethargy, mental doldrums that had taken over. Why did he have so much trouble relating to this gal?
Donna was quite presentable today. French jeans, high-heeled boots, a silk warm-up jacket with the number 34 (closest she could find to half of 69?) which he put her down for, then instantly chastized himself for his unfairness. Perfect, appropriate attire for visiting the horrible site of your abduction, torment, and repeated rape at the hands of Spookie Ukie. All the way to the house location they talked. It felt like a somewhat stilted exchange of dialogue, unnatural, artificial, as if each party was thrust into an uncomfortable closeness and talking to lighten the tension. Not the most conducive atmosphere for a meaningful conversation, but they both hung in there.
Donna asked him a lot of questions about the job, and he was getting that feeling you get when the questions become too one-sided, an off-key thing that creates the impression you're being interviewed rather than talked to. He supposed it was the combination of her wanting Ukie nailed so badly, a thing of making sure the cops with whom she had contact were capable of prosecuting and maximizing the leads she was supplying, and then there was the old bugaboo of his dubious celebrity.
He had no great problem with the need for the way in which his own people used him. The brass all the way up the ladder had made it patently clear that it was as import
ant in the execution of his job as the expertise he brought to bear on a given murder case. A lesser man or a shakier ego, or it could be argued, a more resolutely ethical soldier would have rebelled. But he had the magic that works for media. He could get ink like a bandit Never mind that the numbers-oriented “journalists” tended to see his accomplishments in the acceptable and understandable molds of Sherlock, or Rocky Balboa, or some larger-than-life battler of evil.
Eichord knew that the Demented and Hearts cases had been flukes. Media didn't want to know about all the ones where he had no vibes at all. Nobody would be doing any monographs on the ones he missed, the serial killings in his own home town that he'd never got to first base with, the missed calls, the times he'd shot blanks. The hierarchy didn't publicize those. And they made sure his personal methodology was kept secret. He worked like any other ordinary cop. It was all long, boring, often-wasted hours of drudgery. Ninety-nine-percent perspiration and one-half of one percent inspiration mixed with a soupcan of luck.
But one-on-one with no spotlight on the conversation he would invariably tell it as it was he was no brilliantly gifted crime-crusher sent by the gods to stalk serial murderers.
“The publicity is just a way we keep media contained, Donna. It's not a question of my being humble or pawing the ground with my shoe and going, Oh, shucks,” when she'd asked him about “all the murder cases he'd solved."
“I've had to learn to handle media myself,” she told him, “or at least take a beginner's course in the subject. I've got a lot to learn. So far my way is just say, No comment, and try to get away from them or hang up the telephone or don't answer the mail. But a few of the reporters have really been obnoxious."
“Some of them look at it differently than others. Vulture journalism. The microphone in the face of the lady whose husband was just shot ‘how do you feel'—that kind of thing. And a case like this one that has national attention, you got all the locals vying with the stringers for the big slick magazines and papers, you have all the television crews, it can be a mess if it gets out of hand.
