Fritz stared at Ray for a long moment, his hands visibly shaking. Then he turned and went back into his office, slamming the door behind him.
‘Man’s under a lot of pressure,’ said Jim Leavelle.
‘So am I.’
‘Always thought the phrase “he went white as a sheet” was just a saying. Now I’ve seen it for myself.’
‘Cap’n’s got all sorts of experience with sheets and going white from what I hear.’
‘Careful,’ Leavelle cautioned, looking around the room. ‘No way to talk in this place.’
‘Ask me if I really give a shit, Jimmy; one of the benefits of my condition – having absolutely nothing to lose.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Leaving the squad room, Ray turned left down the hall, pushing through a thinning crowd of reporters, and took the regular elevator in the lobby up to the fourth floor and the Records Bureau. Normally the big room would have been full of clerks and stenographers but on a Sunday the only person there was a patrolman manning the front information desk. Slaughter, the captain who ran the bureau, was nowhere to be seen.
The patrolman at the desk was reading a copy of Time. He put the magazine down on the counter as Ray stepped up.
‘Help you?’
‘Maybe. I’d like to know if you have a jacket on a guy named William Cooper.’
‘Probably more than one,’ said the patrolman without moving.
‘DOB maybe around 1918, ’19.’
‘Heps.’ The patrolman turned away and drifted back among the endless rows of filing cabinets. He was a third of the way back before he hit the C’s. He slid open a cabinet, rummaged, checked a file, slid it back in, checked a second, slid it back in and finally came up with a third. He pulled it out and brought it up to the counter. He flipped open the file. ‘One arrest. Public drunkenness and aggravated assault. Charges were dropped when the person bringing the charges discovered that your man had just enlisted with the Citizens’ Military Training Corps at Fort Bragg.’
‘What was the date?’
‘December fifteenth, 1938.’ Escaping into the army where he’d never be noticed.
‘He have a driver’s licence?’
‘Yep.’
‘Registered where?’
‘Dundee. Denton County.’ Less than an hour’s drive.
‘Is there a mug shot?’
‘Sure.’
‘Can I borrow it?’
‘Of course not. Gotta stay with the file, Detective, you know that.’
‘Anybody ask for this file since December 1938?’
The patrolman checked the yellowing log sheet pasted to the front of the file folder. ‘Nope.’
‘They likely to in the near future?’
The patrolman shrugged. ‘You did.’
‘I need the mugshot.’ Ray pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and laid a five-dollar bill on the counter. It vanished into the patrolman’s breast pocket.
‘I’m going for a leak,’ said the patrolman. ‘I piss quick so I won’t be long.’
‘I’ll hold down the fort.’
‘Y’all do that,’ said the patrolman. He pushed the file to one side of the counter, opened the flap and went to the door. He opened it, paused, then turned, frowning slightly.
‘This doesn’t have anything to do with the Kennedy thing, does it?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s one good thing anyway. Don’t want nothing more to do with that shit. Sticks to you like flicked snot. Damn Secret Service and FBI and anyone else with a badge damn near emptied out the O filing cabinet yesterday. Few others too.’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Ray. ‘I swear.’
‘Then that’s okay at least.’
The patrolman sauntered out of the room, letting the door swing shut behind him. Ray took out his notebook and went through the file quickly, jotting down Cooper’s date of birth – March 9, 1919, which would have made him nineteen when the 1938 killings happened. He looked at the mug shot for a second or two. Dark-haired, narrow-faced with a bruise on his left cheek and a line of stitches on his forehead. He tugged the mugshot out from under the paper clip and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket. He closed the file, then left the Records office and headed for the pay phones beside the elevators.
Dundee, it turned out, was not only a duly incorporated town, it had a mayor, a town marshall and a volunteer fire department. Ray managed to track the marshall down at his home and, when Ray mentioned the name William Cooper, Sheriff Andy Grant was only too glad to meet with Ray in his office next to the old Dundee State Bank building on Front Street. Ray said he’d be an hour; in fact, with the very light traffic, it only took him forty minutes.
Dundee was a flyspeck on 377 North near the old Texas and Pacific tracks about forty miles out of Dallas. A sign on the outskirts proudly touted the town’s incorporation the year before and gave the population as 125. It looked as though Dundee had about ten businesses, including a hairdresser, a bar and a hardware store. At the far end of Front Street there was a large brick building that might have been a small factory sometime in the past but which had long since been abandoned. The old window frames were blackened and charred, the roof had collapsed and there were weeds everywhere.
The marshall’s office was right where he said it would be, a small wood-frame building huddled beside a much more imposing brick-and-stone edifice that had clearly once been a bank but which now seemed to be doing business as an office block. One of the upstairs windows advertised a lawyer in gold leaf, while the one across from it offered accounting services in plain black lettering. A sign over the marshall’s door said TOWN MARSHALL and the two windows facing the street had bars on them. The only thing missing was wooden sidewalks and women in hoopskirts. Ray parked and climbed out of the Bel Air, looking for a hitching post to tie up his nag to. Any second Gary Cooper was going to show up, the clock was going to strike twelve and a train’s steam whistle would shriek in the distance.
Ray stepped into the one-room office. Andrew Jackson Grant, a very lean man with thinning, nicotine-blond hair, was sitting behind a desk filling out forms. He was wearing blue jeans and a faded denim shirt with his marshall’s badge pinned to the left pocket. On the wall beside him was a gun rack with three good-sized deer rifles and a shotgun padlocked into a safety frame and behind the man’s desk was a metal-strapped door that had the word CELLS stencilled on it. As Ray entered the office a little bell tinkled, just like the one in Pop Mercier’s candy store. The lean man looked up.
‘Ray Duval?’
‘Marshall Grant?’
‘That’s me.’ He smiled. His face was seamed and split by a lifetime of sun and cigarettes. He looked very much like an ageing cowboy. He popped a pack of Marlboros out of his right shirt pocket and lit up with one of the kitchen matches he kept in a little tin tray at the head of his desk. He pointed to a wooden armchair on the opposite side of his desk. ‘Take a load off.’ Ray sat down. ‘Terrible thing about this Oswald killing.’
‘Pretty embarrassing,’ Ray agreed.
‘You see it?’
‘I was there.’
‘I’ll be damned. I was doing the vacuuming in my living room and I saw Ruby just step up and shoot. Amazing thing. Doesn’t look good for Texas. Kind of shoddy, if you know what I mean.’
‘Shouldn’t have happened.’
‘No, sir, it should not, and if you don’t mind me saying it’s going to bring out all the little ghosts and goblins for about the next thousand or so years.’
‘That’s what I’ve been thinking.’
‘So how’d you come up with a ghost and a goblin out of my past?’
‘William Cooper?’
‘Billy Boy. Charming Billy. That’s what he was called around here.’
‘He get into trouble?’
‘Right from the start.’
‘How?’
‘Used to hunt people’s animals.’
‘Animals?’
&nbs
p; ‘Cats and dogs. Occasional Four-H pig. Catch ’em in this net thing he invented so he wouldn’t harm them. Then he’d kill them and stuff them. Found a whole lot of them after he left town. Buried in his daddy’s basement.’
‘That’s the extent of it?’
‘I could never prove anything but a couple of kids disappeared. Found them a long time later weighted down to the pond at Graveyard Knob.’
‘Negroes?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Girls. Ten, eleven?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Anything else?’
‘His daddy.’
‘What about him?’
‘Billy’s momma was no good – everyone knew that.’
‘Everyone knew it?’
‘This is a small town, Detective. It’s not built of bricks and boards. It’s built of rumour and hearsay. Some people even said Billy was servicing the woman from a young age.’
‘Incest?’
Grant smiled. ‘Some of my friends have a more expressive description of it, but yes, that’s what people thought.’
‘What happened?’
‘She disappeared, just like the little girls and all those pets. Never could lay it at anybody’s doorstep. Billy’s father said she just left him and good riddance.’
‘How old would he have been?’
‘Fifteen or so. Little younger maybe.’
‘What happened to the father?’
‘Took Billy out of school. Apprenticed him at the bindery.’
‘Book bindery?’
‘That’s right. This is the biggest school district in Denton County and there’s seventy-one others. It was a good business here. Employed a bunch of people, even through most of the Depression. Billy’s old man had bigger plans though. He wanted Billy to learn the old-fashioned stuff, hand binding for rare books, special editions and such. Then there was the accident.’
‘The burnt-out building I saw?’
‘That’s the bindery, all right, but it’s not the accident I mean. Accident was Billy’s old man trying to fix one of the wire pullers and the foreman switching on the machine to check it before Billy’s old man was completely out. Cut him to pieces and right in front of Billy too.’
‘Christ.’
‘On a crutch, uh-huh. Old Doc Wagner stitched him back together like a jigsaw puzzle just to get him into his coffin.’
‘And Billy?’
‘Went to the funeral and that’s the last anyone ever saw of him. Bindery burned down two nights after they put his daddy into the ground.’
‘You think Billy torched it?’
‘He had good reason, I guess, and it was arson. Smell gasoline all over the place, especially on what was left of the foreman.’
‘There was someone in the building at the time?’
‘Tied to a chair with wire. Didn’t stand a chance.’
‘Figure Billy did it?’
‘’Course he did it, Detective. But we both know motive isn’t enough. No evidence at all. And no Billy.’ He shrugged. ‘We went through the house, found all sorts of bookbinding tools, some beautiful books and a bunch of stuffed animals buried in the basement. Didn’t find his mother. Didn’t find the bones of the little girls who disappeared for years after that. Had people spooked for a long time, just like that Hitchcock movie a while back.’
‘Psycho.’
‘That’s the one. Billy down to his toes. Even looked a little like that Norman Bates character. Real soft talker.’
Ray took the mugshot out of his pocket and pushed it across the desk towards the sheriff. ‘That him?’
‘A little older, a little banged up, but yup, that’s him.’ He looked a little closer, reading the date on the card around Cooper’s neck. ‘Nineteen thirty-eight. What’d he do to get his snapshot taken back then?’
‘Drunk and disorderly. Assault. Before that I think he was killing little girls all over the northern counties.’
‘Sounds like our Billy.’
‘Surprised you didn’t hear about it, put two and two together.’
‘What year?’
‘Nineteen thirty-eight, spring and summer.’
‘March ’thirty-eight the unincorporated town of Dundee took a vote and decided they couldn’t afford a sheriff that year. Went to live with my brother in California. Guess I missed it all. Called up in ’forty-one, spent the war as a drill sergeant at Fort Rod. Got out in ’forty-five with everyone else. Good people of Dundee wrote me a letter and told me they needed someone to stop all the beer fights so they re-elected me and gave me a raise. Also gave me the old Cooper house since no one else wanted it.’ He shrugged. ‘Suits me fine.’ He squashed out his cigarette into a tin ashtray. ‘Even got a pension now.’
‘Headed in that direction myself,’ said Ray. ‘Just wrapping up a few loose ends before I go.’
‘Billy’s a loose end for you? How?’
‘I think he’s in Dallas and he’s killing little girls again.’
‘Shit.’
‘Yeah. I think he takes them and he holds them for a few days, then he kills them.’
‘He’s got one now?’
‘Yes. But not for long. I want to find him before he kills her.’
‘He thinks you’re close, he’s going to run. Sensitive boy, Billy was. He knew I’d been watching him for a while. He’s not one to hang around.’
‘You ever get the sense that he was gay?’
‘I suppose he could have been. Didn’t pay much attention to that stuff back then.’
‘He was fifteen or so. I remember those days.’
‘So do I, barely.’ The sheriff laughed. ‘I don’t think he had any girlfriends. Like I said, he was too spooky. Not ugly or anything, just kind of… strange.’ The sheriff lit another cigarette. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘It seems to be part of this whole thing. A lot of homosexual connections.’
‘How long do you think you’ve got?’
‘Twenty-four hours. Maybe less.’
‘Good luck to you.’
‘I need more than luck. I need a miracle.’
‘Precious few of those in our business, I’m afraid.’
‘Maybe none,’ Ray answered.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ray made it back into Dallas by four o’clock in the afternoon according to the big Hertz billboard on top of the School Book Depository. He went across Dealey Plaza, through the triple underpass and headed for home. By the time he reached it he was pretty sure he’d put most of it together, with the exception of a few details and one or two things that only hung together on a flimsy theory that would be hard to prove in a courtroom.
He parked the car just before it started spitting rain again and went into the house. He mixed himself a drink of half Jax and half V8 juice. According to the Old Man it was the only way Ronald Reagan would endorse it back in the forties. He drank it down standing at the sink, mixed a second one and drank it down as well, then headed for the telephone. He made two fast phone calls, the first one to Valentine’s shop. The man picked it up on the third ring.
‘Duval.’
‘Detective.’
‘A question.’
‘For you, anything.’
He listed off the measurements he’d jotted in his notebook. ‘Mean anything?’
‘Of course. They’re paper sizes. Old ones. Foolscap Folio, Duke and Large Post Quarto. Also applies to the book sizes themselves.’
‘Second question,’ said Ray, feeling the bile rise up into his throat, burning at his chest. ‘Is any paper made out of animal skin?’
‘Two,’ answered Valentine. ‘Parchment and vellum. They have paper versions now but originally parchment was made out of goat or sheepskin. Vellum was a finer paper and was made from young animals, goat kids, lambs, very young calves.’
‘Covers?’
‘Same thing,’ Valentine responded. ‘The younger the animal, the finer the leather for the binding.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ray, his voi
ce choking. He hung up the phone and stumbled towards the bathroom, remembering the buttery feel of the dark brown leather book he’d picked up at Schwager’s love nest. The rich look of the vellum letter from Davy Crockett. He dropped down in front of the toilet and emptied his belly into the bowl.
When he was finished he got up on unsteady feet, rinsed out his mouth, brushed his teeth, then brushed them a second time. He made it halfway back down the hall to the telephone, then paused, using one splayed hand to support himself while he caught his breath, fighting to keep the terrible images out of his mind.
He eased his way along the hall and dropped down into the kitchen chair that stood beside the telephone table. He picked up his notebook and called Futrelle’s house in Kessler Park. Once again it was Andrews the ‘personal assistant’ who answered. This time he fetched Paul Futrelle without question.
‘Why are you calling me at home?’ His voice was brittle, with an edge of fear behind it. In the background, distantly, Ray could hear the sound of laughter and clinking glasses.
‘Party time?’
‘A few friends.’
‘Celebrating Mr Oswald’s demise?’
‘My anniversary, as a matter of fact.’
‘I won’t keep you long.’
‘All right.’
‘It seems likely that you were the last one to see Jennings Price alive.’
‘A supposition.’
‘Who left the apartment first, you or him?’
‘I did.’
‘And went where?’
‘Home. Andrews and my wife can both confirm the time.’
‘When we talked before you said you didn’t know where Price was going.’
‘That’s right. I still don’t.’
‘You’re sure he said nothing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You also told me he had several old-looking books with him as well as the letter from the Army Records Center.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘You mentioned as well that he was having a book rebound for you.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Do you have any idea who he used to do his binding and repairs?’
‘No.’ There was a pause. ‘He did mention it once. Someone Schwager had just discovered. Someone new in town. The name started with a G, I think. Gregson, Grillson. Something like that.’ The school supervisor paused again. ‘Anything else?’
Wisdom of the Bones Page 29
