Red Hatchet Falls

by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  “All I know is I seen her leave the room about fifteen or twenty minutes after I gave him the key. Maybe nine-thirty at the latest. The man, far as I know, is still inside.”

  “You mean he hasn’t checked out?”

  “Most folks just leave their key in the room. ‘Case you haven’t noticed, this ain’t exactly the Ritz Carlton.”

  “What makes you think he hasn’t already left?”

  “He called the front desk this morning around nine. Sounded wasted. Said he was sick and to charge his credit card for another day. And tell the maids not to bother him. I been at this desk since eight this morning and I can see the room door from here. Unless I was using the john, he’s still in there. Room 108.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Radhauser said. “If he doesn’t open the door, I may have to ask you to unlock it for me.”

  Jesse was right. Room 108 was clearly visible from the office. A moment later, Radhauser stood in front of the door. Through the crack in the window curtain, he saw a small light burning in what was, most likely, the bathroom. A Do Not Disturb sign hung on the doorknob.

  He knocked. “Sherman Parsons. Open up. It’s the police.”

  No sounds from inside the room.

  Radhauser pounded again.

  “Leave me alone. Can’t you read? Go away. I’m sick and I ain’t done nothing.” His voice was slurred and raspy.

  “It’s about your wife, Marsha. And your children, Junior and Jill.”

  Radhauser heard shuffling, a few grunts, and the sound of a security bolt sliding across its metal plate.

  The door opened.

  A big, burly man with dark, bloodshot eyes and a full head of hair that stuck up in cowlicks all over his head stood in the doorway. Sherman Parsons wore only a pair of pale blue boxers. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties. And he showed a lot of wear. He weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of two-hundred pounds and stood over six feet tall. His thick eyebrows nearly met over the bridge of his nose and dark bristles stubbled his cheeks. His muscles were well-defined as if he lifted weights, or, more likely, sides of beef.

  "What about Marsha and the kids?" His eyes were half-closed.

  “May I come in?”

  Even from outside the door, the room smelled musty, like body odor, vomit, and scotch—a bit like a dumpster behind a seedy bar.

  “Suit yourself.” Parsons stumbled away from the door and into one of the chairs at the table in front of the window.

  Radhauser entered and flipped on the light.

  "What about my wife? Has she filed a missing person complaint?" He held his head in his hands, palms against his temples, elbows on the table. Tufts of black hair jutted out from between his thick fingers.

  “I need you to get dressed and come with me.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to my wife…to Marsha. She’s the hysterical type. I just like to let loose a little steam once in a while. Ya know what I mean?” He stood and teetered over to the bed, then fell face-down on top of it. An empty half-gallon bottle of Johnnie Walker Red sat on the nightstand.

  “I jus…jusss need to sleep a little longer.” He spoke into the pillow, his voice muffled.

  He rolled over onto his back, pulled a half-filled quart bottle from under his pillow, sat up and took a long swig. “Hair of the dog. It’s the only cure.” He recapped the bottle and fell back onto the pillow.

  It was then Radhauser noticed Parsons’ right thumb and index finger were stained with something too red to be dried blood. Maybe paint. “If you don’t get dressed right now, I’ll parade you into the medical examiner’s office in your underwear.”

  Parsons sat up again, his upper body weaving. “The medical examiner? What’s this really about?”

  “There’s no easy way to say this, Mr. Parsons. But your wife is dead and we believe she was murdered.”

  “Murdered? Are you crazy? Who’d want to murder Marsha? And where are my kids?”

  "Services to Family and Children came to your house earlier and took them into custody. As far as I know, they're in a foster home now."

  Parsons stiffened; his bloodshot gaze focused on Radhauser’s face. “What the fuck are you talking about? They were all fine when I left for work this morning. I mean yesterday. What the hell have you done with my kids?”

  “We found them locked in their bedroom, both of them covered in urine, the baby in feces. What were we supposed to do?”

  For a long moment, he said nothing, then finally shook his head. “Marsha can’t be dead.”

  “I know this kind of news can be shocking, but I need you to come with me to the ME’s office and make a positive ID.”

  * * *

  Heron had Marsha Parsons’ body prepared for viewing by the time Radhauser arrived with her husband.

  Sherman was still pretty drunk, but a little more coherent after the thirty-two-ounce cup of black coffee Radhauser had forced on him. He wore a pair of jeans and a very wrinkled pale blue, short-sleeve shirt. His black Reeboks were untied and he wore no socks.

  They stood side by side in the hallway while Heron opened the curtain on the viewing window. Marsha lay on the steel gurney, covered with a sheet.

  “Are you ready?”

  Parsons nodded.

  Knots tightened in the nape of Radhauser’s neck. Times like this always took him back to the night he had to identify his first wife and their thirteen-year-old son.

  Heron pulled the sheet away from her face.

  “Jesus Christ.” Parsons rocked back and forth on his heels. He looked as if he was wrestling with the contents of his stomach.

  “Is that your wife, Mr. Parsons?”

  “That’s Marsha.” Parsons stumbled back a step. “That’s her.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Radhauser said, though he’d come to hate that standard statement.

  “I don’t understand what happened. I want to see the rest of her.”

  "That might not be a good idea, Mr. Parsons. It might be best for you to remember her the way she used to be."

  “She used to be a crazy bitch, spouting off about some prophet and praying five times a day,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “But I want to see what happened to her. How she died.”

  Radhauser warned Parsons that his wife’s hand had been cut off and she’d bled to death. That what he was about to see wouldn’t be pretty.

  “I don’t care.”

  Radhauser gave the signal for Heron to pull the sheet back.

  When Parsons spotted the stump where her right hand had once been, he became even woozier. Before Radhauser could stop him, his legs seemed to buckle and he dropped to his knees and vomited on the linoleum floor.

  After grabbing Parsons’ elbow and encouraging him to stand, Radhauser, fighting his gag reflex, led him to a chair in the hallway.

  Radhauser got a wet paper towel and a glass of water from the restroom, then handed them to Parsons.

  He felt sorry for the cleaning crew, but knew it wasn't the first time they'd been faced with this kind of mess in the morgue's viewing hallway.

  “I can’t believe she’s dead. Who’s gonna raise the kids now?” Then, as if he’d forgotten what Radhauser told him earlier, “Where are my kids? Are Junior and Jill all right?”

  “I told you earlier they’re fine and have been taken into child protective custody.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I think you were too drunk to hear me.”

  Parsons held up his hands like a bank teller being robbed. “Guilty as charged. Ain’t you ever tied one on, Detective Radford, or whatever your name is?”

  Radhauser thought about all the scotch he’d drunk during the weeks and months after the death of his first wife and son. All the nights he’d sat alone, drunk and playing For the Good Times on the piano. He didn’t respond.

  “Okay, so you’re mister goody-two-shoes and I ain’t. But where are my kids? Are they in an orphanage or something?”

  The man was too drunk to retain
anything Radhauser told him. "More likely with a foster family."

  “Do they…I mean…do they know about their mother?”

  “We protected them from seeing her body. I’m uncertain if the social worker told them about her death.”

  “Will I get them back?”

  “That depends.”

  “They’re my kids. What’s it gotta depend on?”

  “Whether or not the system thinks they’ll be safe with you.”

  He laughed bitterly. "Oh, so now you're accusing me of abusing my kids. I can tell you one damn thing, that wildcat Marsha hit both of them. That woman could be hard on them, especially Junior. I might yell and scream. But I never laid a hand on neither one of them, not once. Doesn't quite fit with the woman who prayed five times a day now, does it?"

  Radhauser thought about Junior’s face, his blackened eye, the scratched cheek and multi-colored bruises on his legs. “Those children were inside a bedroom locked from the outside. They were hungry and covered in filth. Where were you when they were screaming for help and needed their father?”

  Parsons hung his head and said nothing.

  “I can tell you exactly where you were. In some motel, drunk out of your mind.”

  Parsons started to cry then. “I never meant to hurt nobody. I love my kids. And I used to love my wife, before that Azami bitch put all those crazy ideas in her head. Where are my kids?”

  “As soon as you’re ready, I’ll take you into the police station for questioning.”

  “What the fuck you need to ask more questions for? My wife is dead. Why don’t you ask your damn questions of somebody who might have killed her? My kids are gone. My wife is dead. And I wasn’t around when neither of them things happened.”

  Chapter Eight

  It was after six p.m. when Radhauser left a very silent Sherman Parsons in the interrogation room with a pitcher of ice-water, two aspirin, and a photograph of his dead wife on a steel gurney in the ME's office, missing her right hand. It was hard to know if this was an elaborate act, a drunken stupor, or if he was genuinely shocked by his wife's death. But some time alone in that claustrophobic, windowless room would give him time to think and hopefully sober up a little more. McBride had purposely set the thermostat to ninety degrees. The last thing they wanted was for Parsons to be comfortable.

  Sherman Parsons told them he was still feeling the aftereffects of his binge and night at the motel. He claimed to have no memory of the woman he was with both when he’d left the bar, and when he’d checked into the motel.

  Radhauser had read accounts of alcoholics in a blackout who’d traveled across the country on a plane and awakened in a strange hotel room, completely unaware of how they’d gotten there. Could Sherman Parsons have murdered his wife, installed the bolt on his children’s door and then buried the severed hand in the leaves at Lithia Park? Had he gone back to the motel and drunk those bottles of scotch Radhauser had seen on the bedside table? He made a note to check the liquor stores within walking distance of both the Nut House Bar and the Siskiyou Motel.

  McBride filled Radhauser in on what she'd learned from canvassing the Parsons' neighbors. For the most part, the couple stayed to themselves, argued a fair amount, and the next-door neighbor, a woman named Sylvia Saunders, reported she'd called Services to Children and Families to notify them she'd heard the children screaming for extended periods and suspected abuse, especially of the older boy. There were the usual petty complaints from neighbors who kept their grass cut, weeded their flowerbeds, and edged their yards.

  Radhauser jotted down the name of the woman who’d called the Services to Children and Families. He’d talk to her tomorrow.

  No one in the neighborhood reported having seen anything suspicious last night. No sounds coming from the house. And no one spotted anyone coming or going between ten and midnight. Several reported hearing the children crying early that morning. The Parsons’ dining room window looked out on the backyard, so even if the curtains had been left open, it was unlikely anyone witnessed the amputation.

  An hour later, Radhauser reentered the interrogation room and pulled out the chair directly across from Parsons. The big man sat, just like he had in the motel room, with his head in his hands. He’d polished off the entire pitcher of ice-water. “Are you going to tell me why I’m here when I had nothing to do with my wife’s death?” His expression was that of a man bracing for trouble.

  When McBride came in, she placed another pitcher of water, a small tape recorder, a legal pad, and some pens on the table. She turned on the recorder, stated the date, the time, and identified everyone present. "State your full name and spell the last name."

  “Sherman Roger Parsons. P A R S O N S.” His head wobbled, seemingly without any effort on his part.

  She read off the Miranda rights, then asked Parsons if he understood.

  “Are you arresting me?”

  “At this point, we’re merely questioning you,” Radhauser said. “Do you understand your rights?”

  He nodded, then laid his arms on the table and lowered his head into them, like he was about to take a nap.

  “I need you to say it for the record.” There was a command in McBride’s voice.

  “I understand my rights,” he mumbled.

  She had him sign an affidavit that he’d been read his Miranda rights, then established his occupation and the fact that he was employed as a butcher at the Medford Costco. Parsons had been married to his wife, Marsha, for seven years and they had two children, Sherman Junior and Jill.

  When he lifted his meaty arms from the table, they left two damp spots. “I don’t know why I’m here. I didn’t do anything. Where are my kids? And why is it so damned hot in here? Can’t the city of Ashland afford an air conditioner?”

  A muscle twitched in Radhauser’s jaw. He reviewed what they knew so far. That Marsha was murdered in their dining room and the kids were locked in their bedroom. “You claim to have spent the night at a motel. Something must have been going on between you and your wife. At this stage in an investigation, anyone who was close to the victim is a person of interest. This is routine. Interrogation is the process by which we eliminate suspects.”

  “Who found Marsha?”

  “Detective McBride and myself.”

  “I don’t understand. Who’d want to kill Marsha? And what made you…how come you came to our house in the first place? Did that nosey Mrs. Sau…Sau…Saunders call you?”

  Neither Radhauser nor McBride responded.

  “Well, did she?”

  "We're the ones asking the questions," Radhauser said. "Where were you between the time you left work and midnight last night?"

  Parsons said nothing.

  Radhauser slapped his hand down on the tabletop. "Answer the question, Mr. Parsons."

  The big man jumped in his chair, then looked at McBride. “Marsha ain’t too happy about my drinkin’. Last night, I had a few too many, so I walked over to the motel to sleep it off.” His words, though audible, were slurred.

  McBride couldn’t hide her disgust. Having once been married to one, she had no patience for philandering husbands, and had told Radhauser so on several occasions. “Where’s your car?”

  “In the garage at home. I sup…suppose you already know all about this. You cops, you’re all alike, always trying to trick someone. I got a DUI. So what? I paid my fine.”

  “How are you getting back and forth to work at Costco?” McBride asked.

  “Either my wife drives me or I take a cab or a bus. What’s it to you?”

  McBride poured herself a glass of water. “Can anyone corroborate your alibi last night?”

  "Alibi? Are you crazy? You think I killed my wife. Then locked up my kids and left them alone all night? What kind of m…m…man do you think I am?"

  They sat in silence while Radhauser considered answering his question. “I don’t know what kind of man you are, Mr. Parsons. At least not yet. But I do intend to find out. Tell me what you did last night
after work.”

  “I came home and me and Marsha had a big fight like usual. I changed my clothes, then headed over to the bar. Being a butcher is messy business.”

  “Did you toss your bloody apron into the hamper?”

  “That’s generally where I put them.”

  “Do you have any idea how Marsha’s blood got on it?”

  Parsons’ mouth fell open. “How would I know? She has a lot of nosebleeds.”

  “Can anyone verify you were at the bar last night?” Radhauser asked.

  “I suspect Sean over at the Nut House Bar could tell you I was there and when I left the bar.”

  “He already has,” Radhauser said. “And you left plenty early enough to get home in time to kill your wife.”

  “What’s wrong with your ears? Don’t you understand anything? I didn’t kill my wife. We’re having some problems, I’ll admit to that. But I never came back to my house last night.”

  Radhauser stood and paced across the narrow room for a moment, lowered the temperature on the thermostat, then stopped in front of Parsons. “Sean also mentioned you weren’t alone when you left the bar last night.”

  “I wasn’t?” He cocked his head and gave them a puzzled look. “Then who was I with?”

  "You tell me," Radhauser said.

  "Far as I remember, I was alone, goddamnit. And that guy in the office at the motel maybe remembers me checking in."

  "He does. Your condition made you hard to forget. But Jesse claims there was a woman with you."

  Parsons pondered that for a moment, then looked up at Radhauser. “That’s good, isn’t it?” His face lit with hope for a moment. “Means I got myself an alibi.”

  Radhauser sat. “Problem is, Jesse says the woman who was with you left at nine-thirty. That gives you a lot of hours to account for.”

  Parsons said nothing. It was as if he realized the road was narrowing for him. As if he’d come to that place where he could no longer believe good fortune or luck would intervene on his behalf—something that would bring his wife back and return his children. “I need some coffee.”

  McBride slid out her chair. “I’ll get some for you.” She stood and left the room.