by Gorman, Ed
"I envy your wife. It must've been a nice marriage."
"It sure was for me. And I think it was for her."
"You shouldn't put your looks down. You're nice-looking."
"But not exactly Robert Redford."
"Do you think he killed those women?"
"I don't think it can be ruled out."
"I love him so much."
"I know."
"And I'm so lonely. That's what's so strange. I'm so afraid for him and he's all I can think of, and yet I feel so lonely, too." She paused. "Would you just lie down with me?"
"Sure."
"I think that's why I came here."
"That's fine. Lying down with you will be a pleasure."
"I don't want to make love."
"That's all right."
"Really?"
"Really," I said.
"I think that's why I came here. I mean, I didn't admit it to myself, but that's why I came here."
"Would you like to lie down first?"
"Now I'm scared."
"Nothing to be scared of."
"And I feel like a slut."
I laughed at her and found her hand in the shadows. Her skin was smooth and her hand surprisingly small, like a girl's. "I don't think you have to worry about being a slut."
"I really don't want to make love."
"I know."
"I just need to be held."
"That sounds nice."
"Would you mind lying down first?"
"No problem."
I got up and went over and took off my nylon jacket and laid down on my side on the bed. The springs squeaked and the wooden headboard banged once against the wall. I stood up again. "Let me pull the bed out from the wall a little."
I pulled it out and laid down again.
"I just feel so self-conscious now."
"Better hurry before I fall asleep."
She laughed. "That was a good one."
Then suddenly she was up and coming across the small space between chair and bed. And lying down on her side facing me.
"Is my breath bad?" she asked.
"Not from here anyway."
"Can I breathe on you and test it out?"
"Sure."
She breathed on me and tested it out.
"It's fine. Now relax."
"Don't try to hold me right away, all right? I mean, I'm still a little nervous."
"So am I."
"Really?"
"Sure. You think I let strange women do stuff like this to me all the time?"
She laughed again. "You're crazy and I really like that."
"Thank you."
Then, "He called me tonight."
"I figured he would sometime."
"I asked him where he was but he wouldn't tell me."
"Oh."
"You know what I'm afraid of?"
"What?"
But before she answered, she took my free arm — my other was propping up my head — and placed it on her hip. Her hip felt very, very nice.
"What I'm afraid of is that I'll help him."
"Without telling Chief Gibbs?"
"Right. And it'll all be over, then. My whole life. I'll lose my job because I helped him. I was one of the first ones from the reservation to go to college. I didn't finish but I went for nearly three years, and—"
"It wouldn't be worth it."
"I know."
"You need to think about it."
"But if he calls—"
"Tell him to turn himself in. Tell him you can't help him."
"I keep seeing him as a little boy. He was the cutest little boy I've ever seen. I always hoped we could have a son of our own and that he'd look just like David. God, I must've had a crush on him when I was four years old."
And then the rain started and we just lay there side by side and listened to it on the roof and smelled it through the open window, two prairie creatures dry and safe from the night.
And then she said, "Would you mind holding me?"
"If you insist."
"I do."
"I'm glad you do."
"But nothing else."
"I know."
"I really appreciate this."
"So do I."
"Your wife was lucky."
"No," I said. "I was the lucky one, believe me."
And then I drew her to me, gently, tenderly there in the darkness, and she smelled and felt of woman, friend and lover and sister, and then she started softly crying and her warm tears on my face were both sad and erotic.
Even in many prisons, the red man was treated as an outcast. He was frequently brutalized by both the guards and other prisoners, and was often sold as cheap labor to private industry by corrupt wardens.
Professor David Cromwell's Indian Journal
Autumn came.
Anna had followed the stout, handsome Douglas Shipman virtually every night. He had his card games at the country club, his business meetings at City Hall, and his carousing nights at three different downtown drinking establishments.
He never once went to Gray House.
One Saturday afternoon, just as the leaves were turning, Anna borrowed Mrs. Goldman's buggy and went out into the countryside. The fall leaves were almost blinding in their beauty. The hills smelled of smoky perfumes.
Gray House was unimaginably lovely.
All Anna could think of were the splendid Victorian homes she'd seen in magazines about London, everyone inside all genteel and elegant.
Gray House was surrounded by a black iron fence.
No signs of life were visible.
She thought of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher and of its powerful opening description of a house that seemed barren of all life.
She pulled the buggy up to the front and checked the black iron gates. Padlocked.
Anna would not see any more of Gray House on this particular day.
One day in the library, Anna came across it by pure accident.
Looking through the London Times, a newspaper she'd read ever since Jack the Ripper had gotten her interested in British society, she saw a headline on page 5. ‘CIRCLE OF SIX' MEMBERS ARRESTED. "Six House of Lords members ‘groom’ young slum girls to give them pleasure," the text read. "A vile and degenerate plot' notes Scotland Yard Inspector.
Anna read the entire story in horror and disbelief. Now she knew what Douglas Shipman's "secret society" — which Trace had innocently mentioned one night — really meant.
"I need to say something to you, Anna."
"I think I know what you're going to say, Trace."
"Maybe it's time I started seeing other girls."
"Maybe it is."
"I have needs, Anna."
"I understand, Trace."
"There are several girls over at the soda fountain who seem to like me just fine."
"I'm sure they do."
"And they're cute girls, too."
"I'm sure they are."
"Oh God, Anna, I don't mean any of this. I'm just trying to scare you."
"Can't we just go out and hold hands like we used to?"
"I don't think I can do that, Anna."
"Your needs."
"You don't need to be sarcastic about my needs."
"I'm not being sarcastic, Trace. I know you have needs."
"Maybe we should get married."
"Two minutes ago you were telling me you wanted to go out with these cute girls at the soda fountain."
"I didn't say I wanted to go out with them. I said they wanted to go out with me."
"Oh God, Trace, I can't argue anymore. And that's all we do these days. Argue."
"Well, it's not unreasonable for a modern young man to have certain expectations of a modern young girl in this day and age."
"I don't think I'm all that modern and I think that's the problem."
"Yes," Trace said miserably, "I think that's exactly the problem."
Chapter 20
I spent most of the following morning in Cindy
's office going through the crime-scene data that the Cedar Rapids police had given Chief Gibbs to compare with his data from the first mutilation murder.
The supplemental crime reports showed that the Cedar Rapids people had done a very thorough job.
But for all of it — and the evidence list ran to more than thirty pages — what made me most curious was the fact that on both victims, the sister a week earlier, not only had the nose been mutilated but the arm had been cut off.
I wasn't sure why, but that particular method of operation sounded familiar to me.
I was using Cindy's office so I decided to link up her computer with mine.
The process took fifteen minutes and at the end of it I was able to find material relating to the ritual mutilations by certain Indian tribes during their wars with each other and with white men.
Each Indian tribe had its own way of slashing and thereby "marking" the arms and legs of its victims. Indian warriors followed a practice called "counting coup" touching a live or dead enemy and then crying out, "I claim it" — meaning "I claim this brave's body and soul."
This sometimes led to ritualistic slashing, in addition to the inevitable death.
Some tribes believed that by cutting off the limb of an enemy, you maimed his soul as well as his body . . . leaving him less than whole in the Afterworld.
I then punched up some additional information.
Sex murders are typically stabbings, strangulations or beatings
If the killer used a weapon he brought along, this points to an organized person
If the killer used whatever weapon was available, this points to a disorganized personality
But as I read through several pages of material on post-offense behavior I kept thinking back to the notation that certain Plains Indians had severed the limbs of fallen warriors in order to ensure that the warriors would be maimed in the Afterworld.
For some nagging reason, this sounded familiar.
Had I heard of a case like this before?
A few minutes later, I was talking to a friend of mine in Quantico.
"Say again," he said.
"Cuts off a limb so that in the Afterworld, that person will be maimed. Can you remember a case like that?"
"No."
"How about Native Americans in general?"
"That's where I'll start, Payne, but I'll tell you, I'm so busy right now I can't guarantee when I can get back to you."
"Fine."
"How's Iowa?"
"Iowa's great as always."
"Man, you sure love that state."
"I sure do. The countryside more than the cities but the cities are all right, too."
"I'll do what I can for you on this."
"I appreciate it."
"Ciao."
"Ciao? A Bureau guy saying Ciao?"
He laughed. "I knew I could get you going with that."
Cindy came in ten minutes later with a crisp new khaki uniform and a worn tired face. Not much sleep after leaving my motel room, apparently. She looked pretty and sad in a way that was touching, in a way that made me want to hold her again in the quietly erotic embrace of last night.
"You mind if I close this door?" she said.
"Huh-uh."
She closed the door. "I'm sorry about last night."
"Yes, I guess you did sort of take me against my will."
She didn't smile. "I'm a married woman."
"There's married and there's married, Cindy. You shouldn't feel guilty about it. I needed to be with somebody and so did you."
"I feel like a slut." Her brown eyes were slick with tears.
"It was tender and gentle and fun," I said. "And you're one hell of a decent person. And one hell of a long way from being a slut."
"He's running for his life and I'm sleeping with somebody."
"He didn't worry about you a whole lot when you needed him."
"It shouldn't have happened. And it was my fault as much as yours. I just wanted you to know that."
I decided to change the subject and almost immediately wished I hadn't. "He try to call you last night after you got home?"
"No."
She was lying.
I could see it right there in her beautiful brown gaze. She was a very moral person, Cindy was, and lying, like sleeping around guiltlessly, just wasn't in her.
But I wasn't going to say anything.
It wasn't my place.
She nodded to the front of the station. "They brought the tracking dogs back this morning."
"You going with them?"
"I'm going to look a few places on my own."
"I see."
"Chief Gibbs said it was all right to do it so I thought why not. Right?"
"Right."
Obviously she knew just where he was hiding and was going out there the moment she got a chance.
"You want me to go with you?" I asked.
"Better not. In case I run into him."
"I see."
She touched her hand to the doorknob.
"You remember what you said last night about not blowing your whole life — everything you've worked so hard for — to help David?"
"Yeah, I guess I remember that."
"Keep that in mind."
"Are you implying that I know where he's hiding?"
"I'm not implying anything, Cindy. I just don't want you to get into trouble."
She surprised me by walking three steps over to my chair and kissing me tenderly on the mouth.
"You were nice and gentle, and I appreciate that," she said.
"I should be the appreciative one, Cindy. You're a fine woman. Being with you was an honor. I don't think you know just how fine a person you really are."
I'd embarrassed her. She went back to the door. "Maybe I'll check in on you tonight. See how things are going. Just to have dinner or something."
"I'd like that."
She stared at me a long moment then, and was gone.
Chapter 21
"She didn't want to tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"She's wearing diapers."
"Ah."
"She's afraid all the excitement will get to her so she asked me if she could have one of mine."
"That was nice of you."
"You be safe now."
"I will. I promise."
"That little gal is my whole life. Always has been. I took care of her all through the Depression — she was always a sick little girl — but ever since, she's been taking care of me."
The kind of love he was expressing was something we don't see enough of on this weary old planet — pure, gracious, selfless. He'd given me a glimpse of them as children — I could see them in their Indian attire — and then as adults surviving one marriage each (neither had had any children) and then having a kind of pseudo-marriage together as sister and brother.
She sat in the rear cockpit of the plane now in her Snoopy helmet and goggles, all ready to go.
"We'll be fine, Iron Crow."
"Can I go say goodbye to her one more time?"
I made a face. "I'm sorry. No more visits permitted."
He looked horrified.
"I'm kidding, Iron Crow. Of course you can say goodbye to her."
He raised a beautiful Red Indian blanket he had laid across his right arm.
We walked through the buffalo grass. You could smell autumn again on the late-morning air. The sky was almost cloudless and in the hills to the west an ancient red Ford tractor was plying the cornfields.
"How're you doing, Sis?" Iron Crow said.
"I'm not as scared as I was all night." She turned her Snoopy helmet and dusky goggles in my direction. "I couldn't sleep at all. I kept thinking that I was going to fall out of the plane."
"Silver Moon, you really don't have to go, you know," Iron Crow said. "Payne here won't mind."
"I sure won't, Silver Moon. You just do what makes you comfortable."
"I want to be able to talk about it at dinn
er tonight," she said. And then grinned with her gleaming store-boughts.
"And at a lot of dinners the rest of my life."
I smiled. "That seems reasonable."
"You eat dinner with the same people night after night," Iron Crow said, "it's nice to have something new to talk about once in a while."
"But if I start screaming," Silver Moon said.
"Yes?" I said.
"Will you take me down right away?"
"That's a deal. You start screaming, we come down right away."
"Maybe I'll enjoy myself," she said, utter terror narrowing her eyes and freezing her lips.
"I sure enjoyed myself," Iron Crow said, "and I didn't wet myself until after we came down."
She shot him a warning glance that I was sure had to do with the diapers I wasn't supposed to know about.
"Well, you ready?"
She glanced, horrified, at her brother.
He took the blanket and spread it over her legs and knees and then he leaned in and kissed her.
"You'll like it, Sis."
"I hope so."
"Just think of how jealous Running Deer will be when you tell her."
"That's true."
"So just relax."
"I'll try."
"And just keep your eyes squinched closed till you're up there. Going up and coming down are the scary parts, Sis. The rest is a lot of fun."
"I'm squinching my eyes shut right now," she said. But you couldn't see anything behind her smoky goggles.
"She's all yours, Payne," Iron Crow said. I wasn't sure if he meant his sister or the plane. Or both.
The gods of the air decided to give Silver Moon a little scare. They do stuff like that sometimes, like mischievous children who want to remind you of their existence.
We bucked some rough headwinds before we found some nice smooth going up over the piney hills.
I noted that she hadn't screamed yet, not even when we'd been fighting the headwinds.
"How're you doing?" I shouted back to her.
"This is the most wonderful experience of my life!"
This happens sometimes. People who hate to fly actually get up there and they don't want to come down. Of course, just as often, it happens the other way, too. People who hate to fly start begging you to take them down after only a few minutes.
