Night Terrors

by Dennis Palumbo

  After a hundred yards or so, I turned again, this time onto a narrow gravel driveway. Passing slowly through a tree-ribbed tunnel of icy branches and window-high snow banks, I approached a modest though well-kept ranch house. Front walk and porch recently shoveled clear, it was a brick and redwood structure boasting an impressively peaked, snow-collared roof. A Ford SUV I took to be the chief’s was parked in an attached covered car port.

  I’d just pulled next to it when I heard the gunshot. Then its echo, fluting off the surrounding woods.

  About to bolt out of the car, I thought better of it and carefully opened the door. Looked left and right. And listened. Hard.

  It took me a moment to get a fix on where the shot had come from. Then I had it. Behind the house. Before I could decide my next move, there was a second shot. Again, its booming echo, this time accompanied by the outraged cry of a crow.

  Followed by the harsh, throaty growl of a man, hurling a volley of curses into the trees.

  A voice I recognized. Chief Avery Block.

  My senses tightened like coiled wire, I hazarded a slow, careful walk around the near side of the house.

  Rounding the corner, I came upon a broad, snow-dotted yard, overhung with thin black branches that reached down like gnarled fingers.

  Chief Block stood in the middle of the yard, beside a picnic table incongrously buried inches up its legs in snow. Though the table itself had been swept clean in curved swatches, as though by a gloved palm. Two empty beer cans lay crumpled atop it.

  The Chief turned and peered with open irritation at my approach. He was bareheaded, and his winter coat was un-buttoned. In his left hand was another beer can, from which he casually took a swig.

  In his right hand was a gun.

  A Taurus 44M Tracker. It was easy to recognize, since I’d seen one fairly recently. In an evidence bag at the Federal Building in Pittsburgh.

  “Chief Block. Sorry to drop in uninvited, but—”

  Block threw back the rest of his beer, crumpled the can, and tossed it on the tabletop with its breathren.

  “How’d you know where I live, Doc?”

  “Sergeant Randall gave me your address.”

  “Figures.”

  “Look, it was my fault. I pressed him for it.”

  He tugged at his red-veined nose. “Goddam, I can’t catch any kinda break. Ever since I became chief, I can’t grab me a moment’s peace. A moment to myself.”

  By now, I’d crossed the distance between us. Without making too much of it, I glanced at the gun in his hand.

  “I heard a couple shots.”

  A crooked, self-satisfied grin.

  “That was me. Target practice.”

  He pointed the revolver’s muzzle out toward a clutch of leafless trees. From one sturdy branch hung a broad sheet of tin, pockmarked with bullet holes. A crude target had been painted in red on its battered skin.

  “Wanna give it a try?” Block swiveled the gun around and, with a puzzled look at my hands, offered its butt to me. “If you can still work your fingers, that is.”

  “No thanks. But I did want to speak with you. I’ll just need a minute of your time.”

  “That’s what people always say. Next thing I know, my whole fuckin’ life’s gone by.”

  I paused. “Could we sit somewhere and talk, Chief?”

  He considered this. Then, without answering, he turned and headed toward the rear of the house. I followed.

  We approached an oak-framed back door, flanked on either side by weathered Adirondack chairs. They too had been hand-swept of recent snow, and looked damp and uncomfortable. Turned out I was right on both counts.

  Chief Block sank heavily into the other chair. “I’d invite you inside, but the place is a mess. Besides, like you say, you ain’t stayin’ long.”

  Grunting, he lay the revolver on his lap and reached into his coat pocket for some beef jerky. Offered me a stick. I shook my head.

  “Suit yourself.” He took a sizeable bite, chewing noisily. “It’s this shit or that goddam nicotine gum. But I always gotta have somethin’ in my mouth. Guess that’s what you people call bein’ oral, right, Doc?”

  I didn’t reply, keeping my eyes trained on the gun.

  Again, that easy, challenging smile. “I know you’re dyin’ to ask me about this revolver, ain’tcha?”

  “It’s a Taurus 44M Tracker, Chief. You know that’s the same make as the shooter used.”

  “Of course I know. It was on the tri-state interface, before the feds shut it down. Now I don’t know what the fuck’s goin’ on with their investigation. Not that I’m real interested. Not my case. More like professional curiosity. Hell, I got enough on my plate.”

  “Maybe. But I have to wonder what you’re doing with the same kind of gun. Using it for target practice.”

  “I happen to like the Tracker, not that it’s any o’ your goddam concern. Though not this one. Not as much as I liked the other one.”

  “What other one?”

  “The other Taurus revolver. I have a pair of ’em. Or at least I did, until the mate to this one was stolen.”

  “Stolen? When?”

  “Beats me. Musta been a while back. I hadn’t taken ’em out of the gun cabinet for the longest time. But then I went to get ’em, use ’em for some shootin’ out back here, and I saw that one of the pair was missin’.”

  I sat forward in my chair.

  “Who has access to your gun cabinet? Where is it?”

  “In the house, where else? In the den. Since my wife left me, I can keep stuff wherever I want to. In the den, in the crapper. Wherever the fuck I want.”

  “Do you keep the cabinet locked?”

  He was enjoying my look of consternation.

  “What can I say? Now and again, I forget to lock it. And I got all kinda people comin’ in and outta here. Like the mayor, my squad. My weekly poker game. And then there’s the gun club. We rotate meetings, now that the Moose Hall’s burned down, and I’ve had the boys here a bunch o’ times. I guess just ‘bout anyone coulda taken the damn gun.”

  “But that missing revolver…Don’t you see? It could be the murder weapon. I happen to know the FBI has the shooter’s gun. If it still has its serial number, and we can match it to the one that was stolen—”

  He held up a rough, nail-bitten forefinger.

  “Whoa, sonny. First of all, there are thousands of Taurus 44M’s out there. Second, both this baby and its twin got their serial numbers filed off.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s ’cause you ain’t on the job. My two revolvers were recovered in a raid at a meth lab years ago, along with a dozen others. After the trials, they weren’t needed as evidence no more. So me and a couple o’ other cops sorta kept them. As souvenirs. I always hate to see a fine piece o’ armament go to waste.”

  I was probably staring at him, for he started to laugh, a sound laced with years of casual disregard for the finer points of the law. A small-town cop with an equally small-town view of how the world worked. Or, rather, with only too clear a view of how his particular world worked.

  Keeping the revolver on his lap, Block bent and withdrew another beer from a small cooler at his feet.

  “All this yakkin’ is makin’ me thirsty. Ya want one?”

  “Bit early in the day for me.”

  “Spoken like a true city boy. Hell, beer’s like mother’s milk to me.”

  As if for emphasis, he took a healthy swig.

  I was still uneasy about his gun, and whether or not it might be the mate of the shooter’s. Though, as Block pointed out, it was unlikely. On the other hand, maybe I ought to alert the FBI about it anyway. Let them come down and look into it.

  Regardless, I figured I’d better get to what I’d actually come to see Chief Block about.

&nb
sp; “I did want to talk to you about Maggie Currim. I just spoke to her in lockup.”

  “Good. I appreciate you comin’ down. She okay now?”

  “I think so. She told me she’s sorry for the way she acted in your office.”

  “Stupid cow should be sorry. So now you’re here to ask me to let her outta her cage, right?”

  “She’s no danger to anyone, Chief. Not really. She’s just worried about Wes.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Another swallow of beer. “I guess she learned her lesson. When you get back to town, you can tell Sergeant Randall I said to let Mrs. Currim go home.”

  “Randall’s not at the precinct. At least, I doubt it. He drove off right before I came up here to see you.”

  Block grimaced. “Again? Damn, the guy asks me for some personal time, and ’cause I’m soft in the head I give it to him.” He grew thoughtful. “No, wait a minute…today’s Saturday, ain’t it? He’s got that class.”

  “What do you mean, personal time?”

  “Last couple weeks, he’s been takin’ time off—without pay—to visit his mother. Sometimes days, sometimes nights. Looks like she’s dyin’.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Must be hard on Randall…”

  Block squinted in the noon light. “If it is, it makes a nice change. ‘Cause Harve’s hated her guts his whole life. When she took sick a couple years back, she got put in the county hospital for the indigent. Real shithole. This whole time, he’s never even visited her. Not till recently. I guess I nagged him about it so much he figured it’d be easier to go check in on the old bag. At least a couple times before she croaks.”

  “Why’d he hate her so much?”

  “Hey, I don’t blame the guy. I’d hate her, too.”

  He finished his beer in one long, noisy gulp. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Crumpling the empty can, he looked awkwardly about for a place to put it.

  Finally he tossed it, underhanded, toward the picnic table. It missed. At the same time, the sudden movement made the revolver slip from his lap and fall to the ground. Luckily, it didn’t go off.

  I scooped it up and handed it over to Block, who checked the safety and pocketed it. Then shook his head.

  “Christ, listen to me airin’ out poor Harve’s dirty laundry. I probably shouldn’t be tellin’ you all this.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything, Chief.”

  “Damned right, I don’t. If Harve wants to tell ya the story of his life, that’s his business…”

  “I agree.”

  But I made a point of edging my chair a bit closer to his. I had no idea what was on the chief’s mind, but I could tell he wanted to get it out.

  “Not that there’s any big secret. Most folks in town know about Harve. How ‘Randall’ ain’t even his real name. He just picked it outta the phone book when he was a kid.”

  Block scratched his chin stubble.

  “And let me tell you, given where he came from, he’s done real well for himself. Worked his way up to detective sergeant. Yessir, real goddam well.”

  “Given where he came from..?”

  “Poor bastard grew up in low rent foster care, all kinds of abuse, neglect, that shit. Abandoned by his no-good mother, Doreen Somethin’, when he was just a baby. Real piece o’ work, that broad. Drugs. Livin’ on the street. The whole nine yards.”

  “What about his father?”

  “He never even knew who the hell his father was. The lousy prick abandoned Harve, too. Just knocked up his mother and took off. No big surprise there, I guess.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what did the bitch expect? He was one of her johns and she got careless. It was her own stupid fault.”

  My stomach twisted. “Her johns?”

  Block’s eyes narrowed.

  “That’s why Harve hated her so much. All his life. His mother was a goddam whore.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  After getting Chief Block’s promise to call the precinct and order Maggie Currim’s release, I climbed in my car and sped back along those same treacherous roads toward town. Unmindful of the deep ruts and patches of frozen mud.

  Driving with one hand, I used the other to smooth out the map on the passenger seat. Glancing at it as much as I dared. Looking for the address I’d also been given by the chief.

  The county hospital for the indigent.

  My mind was a jumble of thoughts, a tangle of ideas being pulled into a pattern. One that I was beginning to comprehend. Or, at least, believed I did.

  I hadn’t shared my suspicions with Chief Block, nor was I ready to call Agent Alcott or Pittsburgh PD. After all, I had no proof. Not one shred of solid evidence.

  But I knew. My every instinct told me I was right.

  Sergeant Harve Randall was the shooter.

  The way I saw it, he’d spent his whole life marinating in shame and self-loathing. His mother was a prostitute who’d been impregnated by one of her johns. Instead of raising Harve, she’d abandoned him to his fate, drifting back into her drug-addled life on the streets.

  Growing up in a series of abusive foster homes, shuttled from one horrific environment to another, I believed Harve developed an obsessive, murderous hatred for his mother. But from a distance. Never seeking her out.

  Because though he nursed an overwhelming, psychotic desire to kill her, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d probably fantasized about doing it since childhood, and certainly even more so as he became an adult.

  But he couldn’t make himself kill her, no matter how virulent his hatred. No matter how fervently, desperately he wanted her dead.

  She was his mother.

  So Harve Randall satisfied himself with the murders of other prostitutes. Women who were surrogate victims of his homicidal rage. Whose brutal deaths he could read about, over and over. And whose killers he could idolize. Experiencing their crimes vicariously…

  By now, I’d reached the main highway. Making the turn toward downtown Wheeling, I found myself weaving in and out of weekend traffic. And speeding. Exhaling deeply, I made the conscious effort to slow down. Drive more cautiously. Follow the train of my thoughts in a calmer fashion.

  Not an easy task, given the adrenaline surging through my system. But I had to try. There was still so much I didn’t know or understand.

  I assumed, once Randall had become a cop, he was able to use the network of law enforcement databases to learn about any new murders of prostitutes. To recognize patterns that indicated a serial killer might be on the prowl. Someone whose exploits he could follow. Whose horrific actions provided him the excitement and gratification of the kill, and then the catharsis of release.

  But what I didn’t know was what first prompted him to write fan letters to Gary Squires. Then, after Squires died, to John Jessup. Moreover, after Jessup was killed in prison, what triggered Randall’s desire to avenge his death? To methodically work his way down a hitlist of those whom he held responsible? Maybe I’d never know.

  However, other pieces of the puzzle were easier to fit together. For one thing, all the “personal time” Randall took—ostensibly to visit his dying mother—gave him plenty of opportunity to make the short trips across state lines necessary to attack his victims.

  Just as important, once the joint FBI-police task force was up and running, Harve Randall—as a member of the Wheeling PD—would have access to the tri-state interface. Which meant access to all case intel: Knowledge of the investigation’s progress, the whereabouts and movements of potential targets on the hitlist, advanced word when a suspect or witness was to be interviewed. That’s how he knew about Harry Polk’s trip to Steubenville to question Vincent Beck. How he knew where Claire Cobb was being hidden, and when she was being transferred out of town.

  Until the task force brass shut down the Internet grid, and Ra
ndall lost his window into the investigation. Now, in the words of Lyle Barnes, he was working blind.

  I could just imagine Randall’s growing frustration and outrage. My guess was, with the remaining potential victims sequestered in some unknown FBI safehouse, the only option that occurred to him was to frame Barnes. At least it was one way to punish the man who’d initially identified and tracked down Randall’s hero, John Jessup. And the easiest way to do that was to plant the revolver he’d used, the Taurus 44M, in Barnes’ Franklin Park home. A revolver that Randall had undoubtably stolen some time ago from Chief Block’s gun cabinet.

  Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted by the sight of the hospital turnoff the chief had described. I made a sharp left and found myself on a cracked asphalt road that curved around some kind of deserted, long-abandoned park. A sad array of rusting playground equipment. Broad swaths of broken earth, tufts of unruly grass glistening with ice.

  I followed the road past a row of apartment complexes that had seen better days, until I came to a small, paved driveway. This led me to the front gates of the Marshall County Public Hospital. Five stories of government-funded, lowest-bidder construction. A forlorn, ugly building of chipped red bricks and barred, cracked windows. Heavy steel doors and a weather-beaten, black-shingled roof.

  After I parked in the gravel lot, I sat thinking about what I was doing here. And why I was doing it. Despite the fact that all my theories about Harve Randall were just that—theories—maybe I ought to just call the authorities and step away. Leave things to the real detectives.

  But I knew I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Because there was one thing left I needed to know. One question to which I had to have the answer.

  And only one person who could give it to me.

  ***

  The ward nurse was a small, middle-aged woman with a placid, almost serene face. Filipino, I guessed, with the merest trace of an accent. As she led me down the dreary, paint-flecked corridor, past a row of rooms whose bedridden occupants looked more like cadavers than patients, she made a point of smiling brightly into each opened door.