Death Fits Like A Glove
Page 4
Racing Cap to tire of the game. When he eventually
reached the end of the parking lot, I opened the door
and pulled him out by his shirt collar. The surprised
thief fell to the asphalt and the car crashed into a light
post. I was about to slap a pair of handcuffs on his
wrists when I noticed movement from the corner of
my eye.
“Look out!” Angel shouted.
I turned in time to see a shovel coming at my
head. In the split second, I wondered why everyone
wanted to hit me with shovels. The blade struck my
elbow with a jolt and I turned away yelping in pain.
When I recovered, the shovel lay on the ground along
with the lady wearing the straw hat. Angel sat on her
with a small 25-caliber Ladysmith pointed at her
head.
“One false move and they’ll be using your skull
for a spaghetti strainer,” Angel said. With her free
hand, she took a puff from her imaginary cigarette.
Racing cap leapt to his feet, apparently torn on
whether to run or help his girlfriend. I snapped the
cuffs on him before he could decide and marched him
to the girl. Dirt smeared her face where Angel
pushed it into the parking lot. She had spidery tattoos
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on both arms and needle tracks interwoven between
them.
“You bitch,” she said. “How did you find us?”
“Tell me where the Yorkshire is, and I’ll show
you.”
She glanced toward the store and I saw a bicycle
parked in a rack next to a display of shovels and
rakes. Lindy was still in the bicycle basket. I got the
dog and lifted a tuft of hair from her neck, revealing a
miniature GPS tracking device I ordered from
Amazon—expedited shipping.
“I tracked you with this,” I said. “Isn’t
technology great?”
The Vancouver police found Mr. Higgins and
fourteen other dogs in Racing Cap’s apartment in
Washington. He and his girlfriend waved their rights
in anticipation of getting a plea deal. Angel and I
were allowed to attend the raid. Curiously, there were
no cats in the apartment. Also puzzling, Racing Cap
insisted he never took cats.
“Have you ever tried to steal a cat?” he said.
“They have claws and they scratch like hell when you
try to get them to do something they don’t want to do.
Besides, you can get more money for dogs.”
I didn’t know whether to believe him. Could be,
he just didn’t want to add another charge to his legal
problems. I took Mr. Higgins to Louise, who thanked
me profusely, said good night to Angel, and brought
Lindy home with me. It was after nine and Lindy and
I were both hungry. We shared some leftover lasagna
and crawled into bed to watch the news, but the big
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Death Fits Like A Glove
pet ring capture wasn’t featured. The missing joggers
at Forest Park took most of the headlines. The latest
missing woman disappeared seventy-two hours ago
and it didn’t look good for her.
“At least I could help you,” I told Lindy.
She licked my face and cuddled next to me as I
switched off the television and table lamp.
The next day, after school let out, I waited for
Randy. When he didn’t show, I decided to take Lindy
to his house so I could update him on the arrests, and
we could take the little terrier back to the pet shop. I
knocked at the front door and, like last time, there
was no answer. I rang the doorbell and waited to give
Randy time to finish whatever level he was on with
his video game.
Still no answer.
“Come on, Lindy,” I said.
We walked to the side of the house where I found
a wooden gate. It was ajar so I pushed it open and
stepped into the back yard. Randy knelt in the grass at
the edge of a huge garden of perennials. Lindy yipped
when she spotted him and his startled little face
turned toward us. He fumbled with something in front
of him and stood up with a shoe box in his hands.
“Hi Billie,” he said.
“Hi, yourself. How come you didn’t come by my
office to find out what happened?”
“Dad said I shouldn’t bother you anymore,” he
said.
“You aren’t bothering me.”
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“I told him you wanted me to help, but he said
I should stay away from you.”
There was a tear in his eye and he wiped it
quickly, holding the box with one hand. A surge of
alarm welled up in my chest. A bruise ringed the
boy’s wrist. On the inside of his arms were more
bruises.
“How did you get these?” I pointed to his arm.
“Wrestling with Ray,” he said. “He’s always
beating me up.”
I decided to let it go for the moment and told him
of the capture of Racing Cap and Straw Hat. He
nodded and his eyes got big, and towards the end of
my recap he displayed a large grin as I gave him
credit for his part in their arrest.
“Both had so many alias’s we’re still not sure of
their real names,” I said.
“That’s so cool,” he said. “I wish I could have
been there.”
“So, are you going to tell me what’s in the box?”
I asked.
“Just a Robin. I’m going to bury it.”
“Can I see it?”
He shrugged and handed me the box. I opened it
and was repelled by the sight. A medium-sized red-
breasted bird, decapitated, eyes plucked out, beak
surgically removed, sans legs and feet, with little
organs strewn out of its body, lay otherwise mangled
inside.
“What happened to the poor thing,” I said.
“Ray happened to it,” Randy said.
“Ray did this?”
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Death Fits Like A Glove
“In his office.” Randy turned toward a tool shed
on the opposite corner of the yard.
“How did you get it?” I asked.
“Oh he hides the little animals in a compost heap
in the back alley.”
“The little animals? Randy, how did you come
to bury Marmalade, the cat?”
“With my shovel.” He bent over and picked up a
hand shovel from the ground. “Dad won’t let me use
a big shovel. I have to use this.”
“Marmalade was buried deep,” I said. “At least
two feet. You couldn’t do that with your small
shovel.”
His face reddened. “Ray buried Spunky. I hid
and watched him when he did it. He said if I told
anyone he’d do the same thing to me that he did to
Spunky.”
“What did he do to Spunky, I mean Marmalade?”
He shrugged. “You seen what he’s done to the
Robin. He does that stuff to all the animals.”
“So why are you telling me this?”
He shrugged again. “Maybe you can protect
me?”
I walked over to the shed with a padlock on the
front door, and peeked through a small window.
There was a small bench-like table in the middle. It
was too dark inside to see anything else.
“Do you have a key?”
“Not even Dad has a key. It’s Ray’s private
office.”
I thought to myself. The older brother still wets
the bed, tortures animals, and has a private workshop.
He’s like a serial killer in training. But I only had an
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eight-year-old’s word for what might be. I needed to
get inside and find some physical evidence.
“How about a flashlight?” I asked.
“There’s one in the house.”
I left Lindy in the backyard and we went inside
the house from the back, through a kitchen, and down
some stairs to a basement.
“The door is locked,” Randy said. There’s a key
on top of the door frame. I can’t reach it.”
I felt along the top of the trim and located the
key. When I switched on the light switch, fluorescent
tubes flickered half on. The lights were old,
blackened, and in need of replacement. I searched in
the dim lighting for a flashlight.
“Do you know where it is?” I said.
“Oh, me and Ray never come in here. This is
dad’s private office. I just seen Dad come down and
get it sometimes. It’s a strong one and he keeps it here
where we won’t play with it.”
The room was spacious and organized. Tools
arranged neatly on peg hooks. Labeled boxes stacked
neatly in an organizer, garden products in one corner,
laundry detergents in another. In a third corner sat a
50-gallon metal drum and various cleaning supplies.
Several rolls of duct tape on wooden shelves and four
coils of nylon rope hung from large hooks screwed
into the sheetrock. I retrieved a heavy-duty nine-volt
battery-operated flashlight from its resting place on
one of the shelves.
I pointed the flashlight at the 50-gallon drum.
The label on the side said bleach. A gut-wrenching
feeling roiled inside me. I flashed the light around the
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Death Fits Like A Glove
room and noticed Randy was gone. I wanted to get
out too.
I pointed the light at a four-foot tall metal tool
cabinet and tugged at one of the drawers. They were
all locked tight. However, a flip-top lid on the top
opened freely. Inside were half a dozen freakish
looking surgical instruments. I shuddered and shut the
lid. The light flashed on a side door. Half a dozen
steps led up to a private driveway, where an old non-
descript brown van sat.
My last stop was the oversized freezer. There
was a lock on it too, but it wasn’t in use. I took a deep
breath and cracked it open. To my relief it held only
frozen vegetables, store packaged meat and a few
cartons of ice cream. I was about to shut the freezer
when I noticed something.
One of the ice cream carton’s lids didn’t match
the container. The two lids were on mismatched
cartons. I leaned over the freezer and picked up a
carton and stared at it. It was light, almost empty. I
lifted the lid and peered inside. It held half a dozen
women’s rings. Now, I sure as hell wasn’t going to
look inside the other carton.
But some primal urge forced me to pick it up. It
felt a bit heavier, but not much. The lid stuck frozen
when I tried to force it. My fingers traced the rim
looking for a weak point. I pried at it with my thumb.
I thought I might need a knife or something to force it
open when it popped off like a jack-in the box and
landed on the floor.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the little trophies
inside the ice cream carton. They were small—pinky
size--human fingers. And they belonged to women. I
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almost shrieked, but the noise couldn’t climb above
the fear and the best I could manage was a whimper.
I wasn’t the only person to utter this sound. I
heard it again and told myself I must get control. But
the whimpering continued and it took me a minute to
realize the whimpering came from another source.
I followed the muted pleas to a wall. At the
bottom was a cutout. It was wide and low to the
ground about a foot high. It appeared to be a drawer
of some kind. The muted noise came from the drawer.
There was a padlock hinge over the upper seam held
tight by a cheap combination lock.
I found a hammer and returned to the lock. Four
blows sprung the lock. I tugged on a sturdy handle.
The drawer was heavy and it only opened about three
inches. I stepped back, spread my legs, and tugged
with all my weight.
It swooshed open and I stared dumbfounded at a
half-naked woman. Her hands and feet bound by
nylon lock cord and her mouth covered with layers of
duct tape. Her wrists red and frayed where she
struggled to get free. Her eyes black and purple from
beatings.
But those eyes also displayed hope and urgency.
She was still alive.
“I’ll get you out of here,” I said. “Randy? Come
here. I need you!”
The house was quiet. Randy wasn’t coming. I
went to the tool cabinet, lifted the top drawer, and
found one of the less scary surgical tools. The
yipping of a dog sounded just outside. Lindy! She ran
back and forth, yipping with all the force her little
lungs could muster. Warning me!
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Death Fits Like A Glove
“I know, I know,” I said. “We’ve got to get out
of here.”
I returned to the woman, upright now and trying
to roll out of the makeshift bed.
“Hold still,” I said. “We’re going to get the hell
out of here.”
Her eyes pleaded and her mouth tried to tell me
something. I sawed off the cord binding her wrists
and went to work on her ankles. She ripped the duct
tape from her mouth and cried in a child’s voice.
“Can you walk?” I dropped the gruesome tool
inside the makeshift bed and wiped my hands on my
jeans.
“My name is Melissa.” She nodded and put her
hands on the drawer’s sides to sturdy herself. But her
arms shook, and I had to help her onto her feet. The
only clothes she wore consisted of a red bra and black
lace panties. I found a skirt inside the drawer bed and
helped her put it on.
I looked into her eyes and now the hope seemed
gone. I gazed over my shoulder, hoping it was Randy.
It wasn’t.
“What are you doing down here?”
The words came from the mouth of a crazed
man, his secret revealed. Yet, he seemed calm and in
control.
“I was looking for a flashlight,” I said. “Randy
; said you kept one down here.”
Samuel Miller smiled his slightly crooked grin.
“It seems you found something entirely
different.” He stared at the ice cream container on the
floor.
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I followed his gaze to the container I’d dropped
when I heard Melissa’s cries and to another object a
few inches from it. A small human finger. My
stomach churned.
“I’m afraid you know too much to leave,” he
said. “This will be something new. Two of you at one
of my little sleepovers.”
He turned and closed the entry door, securing an
inside latch with a padlock. I searched for another
way out. Two windows were grated and the outside
door padlocked shut. Samuel stood between me and
the only logical way out.
I backed away and he grinned. The crooked
charming smile added sinister to its repertoire. His
brown eyes nearly filled by the black of his pupils. He
was on an adrenaline high he got from killing people.
“I noticed your beauty the first day we met,” he
said. “I fantasized about us getting together, but
because of your profession, I decided against it.
Funny how fate throws two people together.”
Melissa hid behind me, her hands squeezing my
arms. “Now he’s got you too,” she said. “Oh my God.
Now we’re both going to die.”
“You aren’t my type,” I told him.
“What is your type?” he asked.
“Anyone with a heartbeat who isn’t a maniacal
serial killer.”
“So you have me all figured out. That will make
this easier.”
“Not for me,” I said. “I know all about you,
Samuel.”
He laughed. “What do you know?”
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I tried to stall for time. I’d left my purse with my
gun and my phone, in the back yard when we were
trying to get into Ray’s shed. While he talked, I
scanned the basement for something I could use for a
weapon. I dropped the damn knife I used to free
Melissa somewhere inside the slide-out bed. All of