by Rich Foster
Paula sashayed past. Harry made a grab for the hip string on her bikini briefs but missed as she swung her hips beyond his reach. She went into the house. He turned back to watching the lake and attempted to think about nothing, but thoughts snuck in, thoughts about young men doing stupid things and spending the next twenty years covertly suspecting their friend of murder. He had thoughts of young women murdered, presumably because they looked alike, their lives taken because of an unknown psychotic’s pathology. He thought about middle-aged men who coveted young girls, whose obsessions led them toward their own destruction as they answered the Siren’s call. Finally, he thought about how quickly time passes and all he could see was Alison’s rictor of death.
Paula came out and took the flat beer from his hand. She handed him a highball glass half full of amber liquid and ice.
“What’s this?”
“A Three Wise Men.”
“And who are they?”
“The Scotchman is Johnnie Walker, The man from Tennessee is Jack Daniels and the Kentuckian is Jim Beam.”
Harry sipped appreciatively. “Now that is a drink!”
Paula gave him a seductive smile, “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”
“I’m easy.”
“I know,” she said and kissed his lips.
Chapter 25
It had been a troubled night for Gavin Gaines. The thought of a serial killer prowling his streets worried him; it also brought out an avuncular impulse to protect all the young women in town. What do you do, tell the blond ones to dye their hair? He tossed and turned. Sleep eluded him as ugly images of future crime scenes roiled his imagination. When dawn showed in the eastern sky he gave up and got out of bed as quietly as age permitted, while trying not to waken his wife.
Gavin paused to watch her. Jane breathed gently, her side of the bed neat, whereas his was a twisted mass of bedding. There came to him a montage of small events mentally captured during forty years of marriage. He found the years left him loving her more, not less.
He padded around the kitchen in well-worn slippers and the striped terry robe Jane bought him for his birthday which, almost miraculously, was still free of coffee stains. As he measured out the coffee he mentally made a list of things to do when he got to the office. He was up to number four when he realized he’d forgotten the first one, so while the coffee perked he rummaged in the kitchen junk drawer for a pen and tablet of paper.
Send inquiries to:
NIBRS
UCR
SCAD
Gavin sat puzzled as to the fourth item, but halfway through his first cup of coffee he remembered and penned: Check files for unmatched body fluids
The sun rose and flooded the kitchen with sunlight as he fried four strips of bacon, two eggs, and toasted one slice of wheat bread, the later being a small concession to Jane’s efforts to keep him healthy and fit.
He watched the early morning news show broadcast from Beaumont as he ate. Nothing caught his interest except the Canaan County Board of Supervisors was looking at more budget cuts.
Nothing new in that.
Jane awoke as he put on his uniform. She straightened his tie as she was wont to do over the years and kissed him on the cheek. By seven o’clock he was on his way to the station.
Armed with more coffee than his system needed, he began a systematic reading of the forty-year-old crime reports.
Not sure if they could get admissible DNA after all these years. Some young lawyer would probably get it dismissed due to possible contamination after four decades.
But, his hopes for body fluid samples came to naught. None of the victims were raped.
Gaines checked the old records. For reasons unknown, the murders from the late sixties were never reported to the FBI for entry into the Uniform Crime Reports database. It might be due to sloth, manpower shortages, or simple embarrassment that people killed each other in small towns, but the data was never entered. Even then, they might not enter the system because crime reports to the UCR required hand entry on Washington’s end and they often suffered budgetary restraints of their own.
As for the newer killings, if a twenty-year old case might be called that, Judy Stanton was never missed by anyone and Alison Albright was only a missing person until a couple weeks ago. Only the Jane Doe was posted to UCR, but without an ID, she was only a case file number.
And as for Keri Kershaw, in that she escaped unharmed, Gaines' department reported her as a kidnapping assault, but no other agency would match her with a murder case.
Gaines pulled out a ballpoint pen and a pad of paper. He preferred writing notes manually, believing there was some connection in the process that was missed by laser printers.
He made a list of the commonalities in victims.
Caucasian
Female
Blonde
5’2 to 5’5
Thin
Blue eyes
Attractive.
The last entry was subjective, but Gaines thought it accurate.
The second listed the killers modus operandi.
Bound wrists or signs of restraint on the wrists.
Rope tied in a thief’s knot. (Tails on opposite sides of the knot)
After five minutes those were his only entries. Jane Stanton was found in a car, Jane Doe in a ditch, and Alison was hidden behind a wall. He ran back through the other files. Cheryl Williams was found in a sleeping bag at Cold Creek campgrounds.
Lucy Reese was found in her apartment’s bedroom closet, and Connie Colfax was found beneath a summer cabin after the winter frosts ended and the body began to rot.
It seemed in most instances, the assailant wanted the body found. Otherwise why not dump it down a mineshaft in the hills?
Feeling foolish, Gaines realized he omitted the obvious and added, Cause of death: manual strangulation. The bruising by fingertips were obvious in two photos, and the coroner or pathologists determined strangulation in the other intact remains.
Egan arrived at the front door moments before eight. Gaines waved him into his office, “Take this list and enter it into the National Incident Based Reporting System. File an inquiry for any similar cases. Then you can enter the same information into the State Crime Automated Database.”
Egan rolled his eyes.
“You have a problem with this job?” Gaines asked.
“No, but the SCAD system stinks!”
The sheriff grinned, “I can’t say it’s user friendly.”
Egan was leaving with the list when Gaines called after him, “Add, as a possible vehicle, a white van.”
“Forty years is a long time to be rolling in the same car.”
“You know what I mean, if there is a recently reported incident it may involve the vehicle from the Kershaw case.”
“Do I have to enter all the cases?”
“We probably should, but let's wait and see what comes back. I sense that we are hunting for someone close to home. But I don’t want the guy walking from another jurisdiction because we didn’t post the case info. If we go with it, we will notify NIBRS with Offense Code Segment 2’s.”
*
Harry fought the largemouth bass. It broke the surface in an arcing leap scattering shards of shiny water and then disappeared with a splash. The act of working the fish took little conscious thought, mere muscle memory. From years fishing he anticipated the fish’s actions, sometimes he was right, at others the fish threw him a curve and slipped the hook.
Pleasure filled him when he fished. Being out on the water with a rod in his hand was how he preferred to spend his days. Detection was his answer to the question, ‘How do I feed myself? Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow could deter him if the fish were biting.
The water exploded as the 18” fish broke the surface again. He worked the reel, steadily drawing the fish closer to the boat.
Drop the bait, wait for the strike, set the hook, and don’t let them get away, A lot like my work, but more pleasurable.
&nb
sp; He landed the bass and pulled the hook with a pair of needle nose pliers. This one was a fighter. He deserves a chance at another day. Harry leaned over the gunwale to slip the fish back into the water. He let it rest in his curled hands, the fish making the gill equivalent of panting, and after ten seconds, with a flick of its tail, the fish darted away.
While boating north he passed his houseboat tucked into a protected cove not far from Amber Wood, but he didn’t stop. Nobody was on deck but the aft sliding door was open to the summer air. He hoped Barton was enjoying himself.
That morning, before dawn, he had checked his office and found no calls, no mail, and no prospects. It was just as well; he often felt ennui after finishing an investigation, and this one was particularly unsatisfying in that it remained unresolved. Tracking down a serial killer is a job for the police, he told himself.. Their resources are wider and the databases available to them more formidable.
However, thoughts about the case niggled at the periphery of his thoughts while he fished, and to some degree poisoned the waters of his mind. By mid-morning the fish took to deep water. Harry relented. He fired up the engine, put the helm over and headed for home.
As he pounded past the cove he could make out Barton lounging on the aft deck and someone he assumed was Shawna swimming near the stern as the boat swung on its anchor. The boat passed behind a headland. Harry watched the shore. Soon he was abeam of the boathouse at Amber Wood. The great estate house was hidden among the leaves of the lofty elm trees. He eased back on the throttle and let the boat come off a plane. The helm grew sluggish as the hull settled into the water and then came to a stop. The only sound was the slosh of the discharged cooling water as the boat rocked gently on the wind chop.
Alison Albright was the one body that was secreted in a manner to keep it from being found. Why was that? What made it significant? Or was it? What did it mean
Harry popped the tab on a beer to aid his thoughts. Whoever hid her body may have been working on the house. After all, the killer needed to know of the space under the stairs and that the house was vacant due to construction giving opportunity for access.
Harry sucked down more beer. He felt the rush he got when he was getting close to something. The killer has to be sixty. Dave Barnes lived next door in '92, but during the killings in the 1960’s he wasn’t even born. Harry would have given even odds the killer was dead if not for the kidnapping of Keri Kershaw.
Coincidences happen, but two kidnappers who both tie a thief’s knot? It stretches beyond belief.
Harry turned over possible scenarios between sips of beer. If the killer struck close to home, might he not choose to hide the body nearby? Perhaps from convenience or to just to know that it was close by? Some killers took trophies, hair, ears, or a personal possession. Might not a killer want to keep one body where he would always know where it was? Anything's possible with a psychotic.
Harry's boat rocked on the wake of a passing boat. Kids in the stern of the other craft waved at him. Harry absentmindedly gave the boys a nautical salute, as he thought, The killer must have lived nearby.
A man came out from the boathouse at Amber Wood. He looked in Harry’s direction. It may have been Barnes, but he was too far offshore to be sure. The engine rumbled as he put the transmission into gear and he steered toward Amber Wood’s dock.. He kept it at an idle inside the No Wake buoys. The man walked briskly out toward the end of the dock. Harry recognized Dave Barnes, but it wasn’t mutual.
“This is a private dock!” Barnes called out.
“It's Harry Grim! I’d like to speak to you.”
Barnes did not look pleased but he spread his hands as if to say, why not.
Harry coasted alongside the dock. Unlike most lake docks this was not a floating one, instead it was set into rock cribs on the bottom. It took a crane mounted on a barge to put the dock in the water each season. Barnes stooped down and took the bowline and looped it over a nearby dock post.
“Some people might call this harassment, Mr. Grim.”
“Well I’m not interested in you, at least as far as Alison Albright is concerned.”
“Then why are you here?”
“You lived nearby in '92. The Sheriff is convinced the killer was someone older. I think he may have lived around Amber Wood back then.”
“Why?”
“Accessibility, opportunity, and knowledge of the house.”
“How so?”
“Someone opened the wall to stash the body. I assume it was new drywall or the killer would need to rock, mud, tape, prime and paint the wall. So, I’m guessing he pulled off one piece of drywall, slid the body in, cut a new piece and nailed it off. The next day the dry wall man taped the joints, and that was it for twenty-years.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Do you remember who lived around here back then?”
“Not really. Most of my friends lived in town. The houses here are separated by groves of trees, we never saw much of the neighbors.
“Thanks, anyways.”
Harry engaged the transmission and idled away from the dock. When he glanced back, Barnes was retreating up the dock and into his vast wealth. At the swim buoy he thrust the throttle forward and enjoyed the way the craft leaped forward. He listened to the even roar of the engine, pleased that the noise in the valves was gone. A thought popped into his head,
I can check the assessor’s map and then daisy chain the property owner records back to '92.
Harry despised records check and intellectually groaned. His boat bounded over the wake of a crossing speedboat. He waved at the other helmsman. A girl whose long dark hair flogged in the wind smiled and waved back from the passenger seat.
A smile that had nothing to do with the other boat lit up his face. I’ll get Paula to do the records check while I canvass the neighborhood! Harry felt much as he did in the Army when he evaded K.P. duty.
He gutted the stringer of fish, those he chose to keep, in the outdoor sink at the end of his dock, letting the blood and juices sluice down the drain and into the lake where the chum would bring other fish to the floats under his dock. He expertly filleted the fish. When he reached the house he slipped the fillets into the refrigerator.
After a quick shower he called Paula. Unlike Harry, she was at the office.
“What's happening?”
“I'm busy applying a fresh coat of pearl opalescent polish to my nails.
“That busy, huh?”
“No calls. Two bills in the mail and the new health club on Dawson Street wants to give you one month free.” Paula passed on this news as she blew on her fingers.
“When your pinkies are dry, drive over to the County Records Office. I want to know who lived around Amber Wood in the 1990's. Check the Assessor’s maps and the County Clerk’s title records.”
“And what will you be doing, fishing?”
“You wound me with your suspicions! I'll be walking door to door.”
Harry drove up the shore road toward Amber Wood. It was summer season. Most of the lake houses had someone in residence. He passed by the stone gatepost of the estate and pulled to the shoulder just beyond.
The houses he passed south of Amber Wood were on large parcels. Those to the north were narrow flag lots like his own. On the east side of the road a number of dirt roads led up hill into the woods. He hoped the trees did not hide dense tracts of houses
As if intent on discouraging himself, he thought, Even if the killer lived here, perhaps he only rented?
Feeling less enthusiasm for the task than his work usually brought, Harry slid out of his car and began walking door to door. As he did the wind began backing as a low pressure front moved in. Dark thunderclouds capped the Lazarus Mountains. The air gradually turned cold. He was at the third residence when the first raindrops smacked his face. Soon he was slogging along soaked by the rain.
*
Egan came after lunch. A gust of wind and rain chased him in. His uniform spotted by rain dur
ing his brief run for the front door.
“You look outside?” he asked of Carey who was on desk duty. “Twenty minutes ago it was beautiful, and now the radio says to expect the temperature to drop twenty degrees!”
“Afraid you’ll melt?”she asked to his back.
In his office, Egan wiped his face with a paper towel, then made sure his service revolver was dry. Without conscious thought, he bent over and ran a rag across his shoes to bring up the shine. Realizing what he was doing, he thought, Old habits die hard, recalling his days as an Army M.P.
He entered his password on his computer. When his e-mail opened he found a half dozen responses to his inquiries. He read them one at a time, noting the jurisdiction and the years on a notepad.
Three murder reports were filed from parts of Arizona during the previous twenty years that matched all parameters in his request. One was from the Tucson Police, another from the Pima County Sheriff, and the last occurred in Gila County outside the small town of Globe.
One case came from California. The Riverside Sheriff’s Regional Office in Blythe filed the case five years past.
The other two hits were further afield. One from the Sheriff’s office in Muskogee County, Georgia from 1988, and the last one occurred in Bell County, Texas in 1983 and was investigated by the Sheriff’s Department.
Egan went to Google maps and entered Pima County. Globe was eighty miles north of Tucson. He looked at the file notes for the Pima County killing. It occurred in an area called Green Valley, twenty miles to the south of Tucson.
When he measured the distance, he found Blythe, to be two hundred and thirty miles from Tucson, less than a four hours drive and on the way from the west coast to Tucson. It seemed likely their killer lived in that area for part of the previous two decades. As for the other two, he would need to wait and see if more matches came in from law enforcement agencies that had not posted to the NIBRS.
Detective Egan began to download the case files. They consumed the remainder of his day.
*
Harry plodded through the rain for two hours. During the first onslaught of rain moved he found shelter on the front porch of a vacant house. After ten minutes the rain abated to a steady drizzle and he went out, again. But he found, a sodden stranger at the door did not inspire confidence. The neighbor’s were inclined to be hostile or at least suspicious of his knock.
