by Rick Reed
Penelope had looked like any other healthy baby girl when she was delivered but over the ensuing years Shaunda noticed something was wrong with the girl’s development. Her head was slightly large for her frame but back then she’d thought the rest of her would eventually catch up. The rest didn’t.
After many trips and many hours in hospital waiting rooms she was told Pen was born with a condition called spina bifida. It literally means “split spine”. The doctor explained that Pen’s backbone hadn’t closed completely and this allowed a sac of fluid to protrude. The surgery was simple, the ensuing years of complications were anything but simple.
Although she’d lost some use of her lower extremities, Pen had become a beautiful young lady. She could get in and out of her wheelchair, bathe herself, and perform most of the functions of an able bodied sixteen-year-old, but with spina bifida there was always a risk of seizures. Pen hadn’t had an episode since they’d moved to Dugger. The chance was small, but still there.
It hadn’t been easy raising Pen on her own, but men were, for the most part, useless. Her father was cold hearted and miserable and her mother turned to the Bible and Baptism by wine for comfort, leaving Shaunda to raise herself. When Shaunda became pregnant at sixteen her father called her a whore and her mother disowned her. She’d had to make the choice of aborting the baby or leaving on her own.
The choice was easy. She’d lived for a short time with an aunt. It was long enough to find that her aunt’s son, her cousin, wanted it to be more. She’d had to move again. She was living in an abandoned house in St. Louis, begging at intersections, doing whatever it took to feed herself when a policeman found her—arrested her for shoplifting—and instead of taking her to jail he took her to a battered women’s shelter. A volunteer doctor at the shelter delivered her baby in the small bedroom she shared with another pregnant teen. She still had vivid memories of those horrid days.
Now Pen was asking her if she was okay. Shaunda felt horrible for having left Pen by herself overnight but she didn’t want Pen to think of herself as an invalid. Attitude and confidence needed constant positive feeding to slow the progress of her condition. She’d given Penelope a cell phone, but still, she hated being away from Pen for more than a few hours at a time. Some mother I am.
“I’m just fine baby girl,” Shaunda said. She went to her daughter, knelt down and hugged her. “Anything happen while I was out catting around town last night? How did you sleep?”
Pen said, “Don’t worry about me, Mom. You’re the one that needs to sleep. I’ll answer the phone and if Claire calls again I’ll tell her to go to hell.”
Shaunda laughed and wiped at her eyes. “You’re getting to be just like me, Tootsie Roll.”
“I’m not a baby, and I’m not a Tootsie Roll.”
When Penelope was about five years old she had discovered she liked candy. Especially Tootsie Rolls. They didn’t have much money for Halloween, or Christmas or birthdays, but Tootsie Rolls were the gift of choice every time.
“I know, Pen. I know. You’re growing into an old hag. Getting more wrinkled every day.”
Pen slapped at Shaunda’s hand playfully. “You are. Not me.”
Shaunda kissed the top of Pen’s head. “I need a couple of hours of sleep, Pen. You can run interference for me. Don’t tell anyone to go to hell. Hear me?”
“Give me the phone mom and go to bed.” Penelope held her hand out for Shaunda’s cell phone and it rang as if on cue.
Shaunda answered, “Chief Lynch.”
* * * *
Chief Constable Shaunda Lynch watched as her young officer, Joey Trantino, waded out of the waist-deep water of the stripper pit lake, hauling a mostly naked body toward the embankment. The body was that of a young, white male and the head was covered in white material that even from the bank looked like men’s underwear. Joey’s cheap waders leaked and he was soaked as he wrestled the body face down onto the embankment and dropped beside it, panting. Muddy water gushed out of the tops of the waders.
“Thanks for coming so quickly Joey. I could have done that, but I needed a witness.”
“I understand ma’am.”
“You know I can’t swim worth a shit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How’s the baby?” Shaunda asked.
Joey struggled to his feet and rubbed his palms together to remove the grit from them. “It’s a boy,” he said, beaming, and then remembering what he had just been doing. “Laynie thinks he looks just like me. We haven’t picked a name yet.”
Shaunda reminded herself that Joey was barely twenty-three. He had one year of experience as a cop. This was the second body he’d pulled out of the water in a week. She worried that he might have had enough. If he quit she’d be out of luck getting another constable for quite some time.
“You had a boy. That’s great,” Shaunda said. This wasn’t exactly the right place or time for good news but it was welcome distraction for them both. “Laynie wants to name him Joey after you, am I right?”
Joey was staring at the body beside him and didn’t answer.
“Joey, I’m sorry to do this but I need you to focus and help me for a bit.”
She could see a cloud cross his features. “Whatever you need Chief.”
“Go to your truck and put on some dry clothes.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Do you still have that video camera in your truck?” she asked.
“Sure do, ma’am. I mean Chief. I had it with me at the hospital.” He smiled and said proudly, “Got the whole thing on film, too. I got one of the new high definition digital ones just for this. I mean for the baby. Not this.”
“I’m sure Laynie will appreciate the sentiment,” Shaunda said. She might not appreciate the embarrassment of having everyone hear her screaming profanities while she pushed a big square peg through a little round hole.
A pile of wet clothing—blue jeans, tennis shoes, blue sweatshirt—lay on the ground near the edge of the lake.
“Are those his clothes?” she asked.
“Looks like a guy’s stuff. I didn’t go through any of it yet. I was waiting for you.”
“Have you got some dry clothes with you?” she asked and got a nod.
“Go change and get your camera,” Shaunda said.
Shaunda had driven down the narrow path to the lake and parked beside Joey’s newer Silverado truck. Joey had parked less than ten yards from the body and almost on top of the discarded clothing.
Joey went to the far side of the Silverado and quickly stripped out of his wet pants and shirt, pulling on dry clothes. He came back wearing wet boots and carrying a compact Sony digital video camera. He flipped the side of the camera open and started taking video as he approached the body and from every angle.
“Get some good footage of his head,” Shaunda instructed.
Joey zoomed in and out, moving deftly around the head. He turned the camera off and slung the strap over his neck. “This thing works great.”
“Well, I’m glad this guy posed for you, Joey,” Shaunda said a little crankier that she’d meant to. “Sorry, Joey. Help me turn him over.”
It was mid-March and the temperature was bipolar; sunny and warm part of the day, the next you could see your breath. Joey had to run to his truck for a jacket and came back slipping his arms into it.
“Chief Lynch, ma’am, if Doc Bonner’s the one coming I’ll have to transport the body in the back of my truck again.”
“The county still hasn’t got a vehicle for him,” she said. The previous coroner had used his own beat up truck. The new one refused.
“I transported Chief Jerrell’s son for Doc Bonner last week. If I’ve got to take this one, I will, but you have to promise to never mention it to Laynie,” Joey said. “She’d never get in my truck again.”
“I’ve got room in the back of the Tahoe,” Shaunda sai
d. “One day you’ll get your own police vehicle.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Shaunda looked the body over for signs of injuries and saw none. “You see any wounds?” she asked.
“Maybe something on the head. Should we get that off of him?”
“Let’s roll him over first.”
They put on latex gloves, squatted and rolled the body over onto its back.
Joey unslung the camera and filmed the front of the victim. “Ma’am,” Joey stopped filming. “That looks like tighty whiteys on his head. Just like the last one.”
She knelt by the body. “You’re right. That’s underwear. It’s been knotted under his chin. I don’t see any wounds on the front of the victim.”
“You think this is an accidental drowning like Doc Bonner thought last time?”
“I don’t know, Joey, but he didn’t go swimming with underwear over his face.”
“He hasn’t been in the water long. What the fudge was he doing swimming like that?”
Joey was right. He hadn’t been in the water very long. Death has its own essence, or more accurately the absence of essence. She’d seen enough dead bodies to ‘feel’ the absence without requiring a touch. The skin loses it aura of life, as if every molecule that made up a living organism stopped, waiting for the inevitable decay, leaving behind a husk, a skin stuffed with meat and bones.
“Let’s see who we’ve got,” she said, undid the twisted knot at his throat and slipped the cloth up over the face.
“Oh my God!” Joey said. “Is that...?”
“Brandon Dillingham,” Shaunda said.
“Shit fire and save the matches!” This was as close as Joey Trantino came to cursing.
“Mind your mouth Joey.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Shaunda pulled her phone out and called Sullivan County Dispatch. They answered and she said, “What can you tell me about the call you sent me a little bit ago?”
Chapter 6
Jack drove north on Highway 41 and took the exit for State Road 57.
Liddell sat in the passenger seat watching a travel route on his cell phone. “Siri said you should have taken Interstate 69. This route is thirty-seven minutes longer.”
“Screw Siri. She’s not the boss of me,” Jack grumped. It was the first thing he’d said since leaving Evansville.
“If you’re nice to her she’ll be nice to you, pod’na.”
“My mom always said “be nice and carry a big stick”, Bigfoot.”
“You have a love-hate relationship with your phone. I think you’re conflicted about your emotions and don’t know where to put the bad feelings,” Liddell countered.
“You’re right. It is a love-hate thing,” Jack said. “I love to hate her. Do I need to remind you that thing tried to give me directions to Kansas when I was rushing down to Louisiana to get your butt out of jail?” Jack was referring to Liddell’s trip last year to see a friend, a detective on the Iberville Sherriff’s Department, but instead was arrested for murdering said friend.
“It’s because Siri can tell you don’t like her, pod’na. I think the new phones are becoming self-aware. Artificial intelligence.”
“Sending me two states out of my way is intelligent?” Jack asked.
“Point taken.” Liddell put the phone away and flipped through the pages of the file Angelina had given him. Neither man spoke. They were in their own heads as they often were when going into the uncharted waters of a killer’s mind.
Jack knew Liddell was right about I-69 being faster but he needed time to think and he hated traffic. Foremost in his thoughts were the elaborate wedding plans Katie and her sister, Moira, were making and their assumption that he was onboard. They were making plans far more complicated than the murder cases he and Liddell were on their way to investigate.
This was the second time around for he and Katie. They’d done all the wedding cake cutting and smearing it on each other’s faces; dancing, getting drunk and making fools of themselves—well he had anyway. This time should just be for them. They could just tell each other, “I marry thee,” three times. Like a biblical divorce, just in reverse. They could have a big party and invite everyone later. He loved Katie with all that he was, and he knew she felt the same. When the fluff was blown away that’s what marriage was about.
He cleared his mind of the wedding and turned his thoughts to the meeting ahead with the Linton Chief of Police plus posse. Jack had worked on a couple of local task forces before. These were generally like Jerrell’s. Made up of various city and county police departments. All it seemed to do was create chaos and tension and jealousy and competitiveness. He could understand. He wasn’t a team player himself, or rather he had his own team that consisted of people he would trust with his life. Liddell, his partner in crime, Tony Walker in Crime Scene, Captain Franklin his immediate boss, Dr. John the forensic pathologist, Angelina the brains, and some others outside of the department. He hadn’t even been told what police departments would be on Chief Jerrell’s task force.
He would go to the meeting. If they were fighting over jurisdiction it would be the shortest meeting ever. He and Liddell had been ordered to take control and their authority overrode any state and local jurisdiction but that didn’t mean the local agencies would agree to be their puppets.
“Five murders in seven years,” Jack mused. “One seven years ago, two more at five years, one at three years, and one that just happened. All in March.”
“March is important to the killer,” Liddell said.
“Something got this guy started killing. Whatever it was must have happened at least seven years ago in March. Most of the serial killers we’ve dealt with needed symbolism. Sometimes they were sending us a message, sometimes they were sending it to other possible victims.”
“Making a list and checking it twice,” Liddell said. “Gonna find out who’s naughty and dead.”
“The two years between killings might mean something, but what?” Jack asked. “What other event happens every two years?”
“You get laid?”
“Shut up Bigfoot. I’m being serious.”
“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,” Liddell suggested.
“Whoever this is, man or woman, they don’t seem to be in a hurry,” Jack said.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold,” Liddell said thoughtfully. “And speaking of a dish being served, I’m really hungry.”
“You’re worse than a kid sometimes, Bigfoot.”
“Hey, remember that long haul trucker?” Liddell asked.
“Bruce Mendenhall. Serial killer with at least half a dozen victims. All of them women, mostly truck stop clerks,” Jack said.
“The point I’m making is he was killing people along his travel route. Our killer might regularly travel State Road 54. I checked the map Angelina gave us and all of the murders are along State Highway 54. The victims this time are all males. Maybe we have a female serial killer. Like Eileen Wournos.”
They rode in silence for a few miles before Jack said, “This killer is concentrating on male victims but this last one, Troy Jerrell Junior, was a big guy. Even if he was unconscious, moving him would take a lot of strength. I just don’t see a woman doing that. The killings must be taking place in or right next to the water.”
Liddell said, “On a different topic, if we were at home you’d be helping with the wedding plans.”
Jack said nothing.
“Yeah. You’d be picking out napkins, and signing invitations, and…”
“Try a new topic,” Jack interrupted him.
“Okay. I heard there’s a new Denny’s along here somewhere so we won’t have to detour. I know how much you hate detours. I’m starving.”
“Didn’t Marcie feed you this morning?” Jack asked. He guessed that Liddell had found the new Denny’s before they even lef
t headquarters.
“Marcie has me on a low carb diet, pod’na. I had two eggs and one piece of toast, half a glass of milk and two pieces of bacon.”
“Are you hiding food around the house?” Jack quipped. Liddell ate that much for a light snack between snacks.
“I can’t. Marcie’s like a bloodhound.”
“Okay, we’ll stop at Denny’s. It’ll give us a chance to read Angelina’s stuff more closely,” Jack said.
Liddell said into his phone, “Siri, find Lumberjack Slam.”
Siri’s voice came back with “There are three restaurants near you with Lumberjack Slams. The nearest is Denny’s in Oakland City. Is that the one you want?”
Liddell said, “Hell yeah, Siri!” and the disembodied voice of Siri began giving driving directions.
“For crying out loud. The Denny’s is just down the road, Bigfoot. Shut her up or I’ll keep driving straight on to Linton.”
They found the Denny’s with no problem and Liddell demolished two platters of food while Jack had coffee. They then drove north on Highway 57, Jack at the wheel again and Liddell on his cell phone. Liddell was looking up the histories of Dugger and Linton, the police departments, and the restaurants.
“Dugger’s population in 2010 was nine hundred and fifty,” Liddell said. “Linton’s was fifty-five hundred.”
“About the size of Boonville,” Jack remarked.
They made a left onto State Highway 58, followed by a right turn onto State Highway 59 where they entered Greene County. At the Linton city limits they passed over a double set of railroad tracks where a wooden banner stretched over the road announcing: “You’ll Like Linton.”
“Let’s take the Interstate home, pod’na,” Liddell said. “All those turns were confusing for a country boy like me.”
“You drive, you can pick the route.”
“Thanks Dad,” Liddell said.
Linton’s Main Street looked like all small towns that are trying to revitalize their businesses and attract residents. Most of the storefronts had been recently remodeled but maintained their small-town charm. The streets and sidewalks were extraordinarily clean compared to the little towns around Evansville. Couples strolled arm in arm, kids played and teased each other behind their parents back, and every head turned and stared at the unfamiliar car. Jack waved, they waved back and traffic was light and flowed steadily. It was like Pleasantville. Hard to imagine a serial killer at work in this little town.
