by Rex Miller
Eichord was nodding, fighting to concentrate, but he felt awful. His head was stuffy, like he was coming down with a cold or about to get a severe sinus headache. His mouth was killing him. His gums were swollen and he needed to get to a dentist. A tooth with a bad cavity was starting to pound away. His sinus cavities hurt. He could feel himself draining as they stood there. A couple of years back and he would have been reaching for the sauce. But that was then. There were no more quick fixes. He pulled his mind back to the jurisdictional intricacies.
“...pretty much had the ball in our court the whole time. And it didn't do a bit of good."
“Yeah. Okay. How's about just running down the whole thing again for me—from when you got the word on the kids being missing? That was the mother, right?"
“Yeah. Juanita Alvarez. Forty-three. Divorced. Model citizen. Hard worker. Bringing up two little girls. Lived here all her life. Father lives up north. Been divorced six years. No boyfriends. Good kids. One day they go out on their bikes. Come back. She's doing housework. Comes out, finds the bikes back in the yard. Kids have left again. She figures they went to the store. Hours go by. She panics. Runs all over the neighborhood. Zip. She calls us.
“Twenty-four hours later it's a missing-persons case going. Angela and Maria Alvarez. Best guess: they were on the bike and the perp sees ‘em—maybe somebody they know. Perpetrator gets ‘em to leave the bikes and get in the car or van or whatever, and"—the chief shook his head—"nobody sees a thing.
“Two days later we got officers cruising the projects in a scout car: Larry Phillips and B.J. Bahn. Four-to-midnight tour. We get the anonymous phone tip. On the tape if you wanna hear it. Dead body in a field off Clearlake.
“Officers respond. Not one d.b. but two. The most awful sight anybody ever saw. Two mutilated torsos. Females. A pair of little headless girls.” Bob Mott took a deep breath.
Eichord's bad tooth throbbed.
“Again. Nobody saw shit. We never nailed down the caller. Probably just a kid going through the field. Next day we found the kill site. An abandoned two-story house near the projects on Clearlake Avenue. Blood like a slaughterhouse, but none of the missing parts of the cadavers."
“No heads?"
“Not so far. So, Juanita Alvarez has to ID the bodies. What a thing that was! We go over the killing room and the dump ground and get all the stuff for the lab, dust and all that, and really do a scavenger hunt for the burial spots.” He shook his head again, squinting like his eyes were tired from looking. “Whatever he did with the missing parts of the kids, we haven't turned anything.
“Way we dope it out is this—he, she, they—pick up the kids on South Utica or nearby. They get in a vehicle. Perp moves them somehow to the old house on Clearlake. They're probably already bound and gagged by the time they're moved inside the abandoned house. We got line. Tape. Blood and gore.
“Inside the old house he has a go at the girls. Sex and torture. Everything you can think of this guy or these guys do to the kids. Then kills ‘em. Cuts off their heads. Drains the torsos, washes them, and takes them out in the field. Why? Nobody can figure that one."
“And not a single witness sees or hears any of this?"
“Not a peep."
“Take me through the gathering of the evidence. Securing the crime scene. The whole schmear."
The chief ran it all down for Eichord. Half an hour later he had five pages of notes. He knew where they kept the barrier tape, who dusts for prints, how the photographs got developed, where the interrogation “routes” were for the nonwitnesses that failed to materialize, what they did with the orifice swabs, hair and fiber samples, nail scrapings, dirt tests, autopsy prep sheets—everything.
The State Crime Lab in Little Rock performed the autopsies on the torsos. The swabs, H & F, scrapings, and all the rest of it went to the lab in D.C.
Eichord had maps, more doodles, and the keys to an unmarked BPD leaner.
Mott drove over to the abandoned house near the projects, Eichord following him, and broke the seal on the crime scene. Electricity had been temporarily restored to the house's interior, and police floodlight illuminating the killing site, they spent an hour or so going over the place again. It was pretty much what Eichord expected, and he told the chief as much.
“I'll poke around here a little more,” he said, “but it's just the way you painted it.” He meant both figuratively, alluding to the written and narrative précis, and literally, since much of the blood-stained crime scene wore a coat of the red dye the techs had used in their search for latent prints.
“Jack, I hope you will find something we've missed. It feels like a bloody hopeless mess so far."
“I know the feeling. And I promise you I've seen too many just like it."
“Like I said,” Bob Mott replied, “I just want to hang in a few more months and—ping! I'm letting the spoon fly."
“You got something lined up or are you just gonna kick back?"
“I got a buddy saving something for me at Fed-Ex. Nice money. Great benefits. And the customers never shoot at you."
“I'll admit, that doesn't sound too bad."
“We'll have the girl for you in the morning. Nine o'clock?” He referred to the fourteen-year-old girl who was the closest thing they had to a live lead.
“That's fine."
“Like I told ya, she's got an ax to grind against their neighbor there in the mobile-home park. We checked it all out and he's clean as a whistle—but at least you'll have a starting point."
“Right. And I'll call Mrs. Alvarez and see if I can catch her on the way to work. In fact, if you don't mind, you might give her a call and let her know I'll be around in the morning?"
“No problem. I'll go set it up. Tell her you'll give her a ring or you just want to drop by?"
“Tell her I'll drop by early. I'll phone first and see what time's good. Seven, seven-thirty."
“I'll do ‘er."
“And then I'll go see the girl and our friend, the neighbor who doesn't like dogs. Probably drop in and see you around midmorning if that's all right?"
“That'll be great. We'll sit down and see if we can brainstorm something new. Right now it's a dead end."
“Oh. You mentioned the fourteen-year-old—were you going to bring her in or what?"
“Either way. Whichever. You wanna just have her brought to the station early?"
“Yeah, I think so. I mean since the man"—he glanced at his scrawls—"Mr. Hillman or whatever his name is, lives next door to her. Let's see if we can get her in without any fuss, either have her folks drive her or pick her up in an unmarked car. I'll be there by nine or so."
“Sounds good, and thanks again, Jack.” They shook hands. “See you in the morning."
“See you then."
“Okay. Bob, appreciate all your help. Catch you in the morning.” The door closed and Eichord was left alone with emptiness, distant traffic noise, night sounds, and silent screams.
He tried to put himself in the killer's mind and walked through “scenario number one,” with the children bound and gagged and in a vehicle parked as close to the back door as it could get.
Carrying them in. Dragging the bodies. Rolling them. Trying to transport the kids’ weight every way he could think of. Looking for sign and finding none.
Thinking about the torture that had come before the killing and the mutilation. Letting himself sink down into it. Watching the agony in their eyes. Hearing their muffled screams as the blood flew. This part would be very close to the way it went down up until the end: the autopsies and the kill site yielded up most of that gruesome story.
Now the killer or killers have had their fun. The kids are corpses. Eichord stood, mentally covered in the children's blood. These sickos wanted more. Something takes place. A ritual, let's assume. The heads come off. Why? To impede identification of the victims? If that was the case, why not bury the torsos? And then, why wash off the parts? And the biggest why of all, why move the bodies?
That was the craziest part. The fun and games were over. But these maniacs took another big chance—loading the headless cadavers, the severed parts, unloading the bodies in a field where the vehicle or the perps might be spotted by an unseen watcher—and then go do whatever with the heads? Madness!
Buckhead Station
When the drought finally broke, it did so with a vengeance. It was one of those drippy-looking Mondays that all but the incurably cheerful abominate, and the two huge salt-and-pepper cops were decidedly not of such temperament. Fat Dana Tuny and his new partner, tough, ace-black Monroe Tucker, stood at the top of the steps leading to the squad bay arguing about whose turn it was to drive the Dodge, bickering like two little boys choosing up to see who gets the bat.
“I'll drive,” Dana insisted. The massive black detective just stared at him like he'd enjoy throwing him down the stairs.
“Whatever, just do it.” Dumb fuck, they each thought simultaneously. And just as they started out the side door to the parking lot, the clouds unzipped a dark fly and relieved themselves in a sudden, wet, splashing pisser of a rainstorm.
“Fuckin’ great,” Tucker mumbled with disgust.
“You won't melt,” Tuny said, flinging open the door and breaking for the unmarked Dodge in a fast, waddling run. The two huge men flung themselves into the rump-sprung bench seat, the springs moaning in protest at the hundreds of pounds of abuse, and Dana Tuny ground the ignition and they wheeled out into traffic.
“What's invisible ... and stinks like CARROTS?” the fat, white cop asked in a sneering voice, switching on the wipers.
“How the fuck would I know?"
“Bunny farts,” he said, loosing a loud and vile explosion of flatulence into the car's already malodorous interior.
“OH, JEEZUS! YOU FUCKIN’ MORON!” Tucker fought to get the window down, fat Dana giggling like a schoolgirl.
“Sorry about that,” he said, “I hadda make poo-poo in my pants."
Monroe thought how he'd like to smash a big fist into this giggling blubbergut and watch him fold up like a goddamned accordion. Water streamed onto the arm of his new sportscoat.
“Hey, you know,” he said, his voice taking on a cold and dangerous edge, “I wanna ax you something.” He was trying not to inhale any of the poisonous air in the car, and rain was hitting him in the face. “How the hell you ever get hold of a detective's shield?"
“Just lucky,” the incredible, corpulent hulk riding beside him said. “I was the fourth caller on Name It and Claim It."
“Uh huh. But for real, man. How the fuck did you get a detective's shield, as fuckin’ STUPID as you are?"
“I'm glad you axed me that, Monroe. I stole it off a dead nigger."
Vega, 1955
The boy-child was slipping off the mountain. Even though he was still a child in years, with a child's absence of morality, he was already possessed of a burning intelligence that told him how different he was.
And inside his mind he could see himself going off the deep end, over the high side, down the cliff. See himself caught in the throes of something dark and tenacious and deliciously forbidden and all-consuming. But the human mind is such that it will attempt to block out the imputations of anything remotely resembling encroaching insanity.
So he went with it. Gave himself over to its pull. And in that mind he created fantasy hideouts and magical escape routes. Great, safe havens in which he could hide from the laughter and cruelty downstairs. Safe hideouts from the overpowering urges that came and held lit matches to his groin and then made him do the bad things to his sister, to the child down the block, to himself.
And the boy-man constructed wonderful secret rooms inside his strange and frightening mind where he could go, always late at night, tuning in the faint signals of security as you tune in the sound of a distant station over late-evening radio. And in fact he would huddle into a fetal ball with total concentration, straining to hear the voices of escapism from the old Fada's tinny speaker.
Late in the night, when the last mysteries and horror tales were over, he'd switch from the network stations to the local stations in nearby Amarillo. And he'd lie there for hours with the midnight dance bands soothing him, playing lullabies in the darkness, as his imagination would concoct complex fantasies of revenge, release, and escape. And they nurtured and comforted him, these evil and dark thoughts, rendering him invisible and all-powerful, a man-child going all the way over the edge into a kind of controlled madness.
South Blytheville, Arkansas
Mrs. Alvarez, distraught and shaking, proved to be totally worthless. They had ended up meeting at the cop shop at eight a.m., and she sat in a small interview room, hugging herself and always appearing to be on the verge of shivering, as she numbly took Eichord over the ground she'd trod a dozen times in the past seventy-two hours. She was not going to go back to work until she found the kids.
Angela and María were, by all evidence, sweet, adorable kids without enemies. She never let either of them go out alone on the streets, even in the neighborhood, “so they'd never get into trouble.” Why couldn't the police find them? Juanita Alvarez kept asking. It was a question nobody could answer.
He tried to take her down fresh avenues, doing what he always did, watching as much as listening. Because this was not about the kids, this interview. It was about Juanita Alvarez. And as he probed about school, church, and other affiliations, subtly moving the questions into more intimate areas, Eichord's sensors were picking up the mother's vibes. Unless she was one of those rare types of total sociopaths, or an extremely capable actress, this was a worried mother who didn't know where her missing children were.
An hour and a half later he'd also had just about all he could take of one Pam Bailey, the fourteen-year-old who'd popped off to a pair of investigating officers about “that mean old coot who lives next door, bragging about getting even with rowdy brats.” She was a sullen, olive-skinned couch potato of a kid in an Elvis Is Still Alive sweatshirt. The neighbor, Mr. Hillfloen, had apparently complained to the manager about her dog, which they let run, and this was the girl's idea of payback.
It turned out that the Bailey girl hadn't really seen anything—it was clearly a kid trying to run a shuck on the cops. By nine-thirty Eichord had cut her loose, and was going through the motions of finding 1458 1/2 South Utica.
Eichord found the trailer court with some difficulty, tucked away off a low-rent side street in South Blytheville. It would be a long time before he ceased to be haunted by the image of his first impression, each time he saw a yellow dead end sign peppered with good ole country-boy buckshot.
Each yard was filled with cultural castaways: cars on blocks; a three-wheeler with For Sale sign; a trio of plaster leprechauns, one headless, peering out over a domain of plastic herbicide buckets and empty milk jugs strung together with wire; a rusting import towed into someone's yard, now put to work as a rubiginous garbage can.
The last driveway on the left of the field with its ventilated Dead End sign, a gravel slope running up between two rows of sad tin boxes, announced the presence of The Sunshine Trailer Court.
Eichord was reminded of the obligatory trailer-park TV-news shot, the one you saw after every major tornado, cyclone, hurricane, or earthquake. He doubted if even acts of God could tip these rustbuckets over. Rip the roofs off? Sure. But the aged, rectangular, and bullet-shaped living quarters that squatted here appeared to be growing out of the earth. Surely not even a force majeure could make these mobile homes.
He got out of the car and was moving toward what appeared to be the manager's office, according to a mailbox adorned with the peeling decal OFFI E, but he saw the old man and changed direction.
“How-doo,” the man said, his voice loud and startling.
“Howdy,” Eichord said. “Would you know where I might find Mr. Hillfloen?"
“If you're seeking Owen Hillfloen, I might."
“He's the one.” Eichord smiled.
“I be he.�
�� The old guy smiled back, friendly as all get-out. He could have been anywhere from forty-eight to seventy-eight, with one of those weather-whipped, windburnt country faces you can never picture in your mind when they're out of sight.
When Eichord thought of the man's image, later, his memory would conjure up the sign, then the head first, as he scanned—top to bottom—for something that set him apart.
The hair: wind-touseled, midlength. Mr. Hillfloen looked like the kind of man who awoke, plunged his face under icy water, pushed his wet hair back with his hands in a single push, and left it that way. No brush or comb had touched it. He would not indulge his vanities in a mirror.
The face: wrinkle city. But the hard work and toughness wasn't all that was there. Something else showed. A gaunt, indefinable harshness that one could see on the faces of derelicts, on some of the elderly forgotten in nursing homes, and—sometimes—in the faces of the insane. Eyes deep-set in the outdoor face. A couple of teeth missing in the easy smile. The look all the more unsettling for its inexplicability.
The body: slim and sinewy in an old-fashioned barber's work shirt buttoned at the throat.
“And I know you."
“Is that so?” Eichord had his ID case in hand but hadn't flashed it yet.
“Dollars to donuts."
“Hmm?” The oddity of his words, the loud, booming voice, and his appearance gave off disconcerting vibes, and it was this image that would stay with him. That was the instant Eichord thought the man Owen Hillfloen might not be sane.
“Dollars to donuts either you are the tax man or you are the law. Which is it, pray tell?"
“Yes, sir,” Eichord said, showing his identification. “We're investigating the death of two children.” He pulled the police circular out and handed it to the man. “Do you recognize them?"
“Lordy. Well...” He took the photo circular and made a show of getting glasses out of his shirt pocket and putting them on the tip of his nose, holding his head back a little and studying the pictures and descriptions. “Mmmm."
