Red Hatchet Falls

by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  Though he was disappointed in Cooper, Radhauser decided not to confront the lie about Julliard. The young man had endured more than enough for one night. Radhauser said goodnight then headed up the drive.

  Gracie was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea when Radhauser entered. He described what had happened in the barn. “And our golden-haired boy lied to us.”

  She winced as though absorbing a blow. “What do you mean?”

  He told her about Julliard.

  She caught his gaze and held it for a moment, as if searching for something in his eyes. “Why don’t you sit and have a cup of tea with me? There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk with you about. And I think this is a perfect time.”

  He pulled out the chair across from her.

  Once she poured him a cup of tea, she said, “You expect too much. Because Lucas died, you’ve idealized him into a perfect son. He was only thirteen. The difficult and rebellious years were still ahead of him.”

  Whenever he heard Lucas’ name, it was as if someone was pummeling him with rocks. Both syllables rained down fresh hurt. “This isn’t about Cooper, is it? What exactly are you trying to say?”

  “I’m afraid it will be hard for Jonathan to live up to that ideal. It’s a rare person who doesn’t lie about the things they’re ashamed of. Especially to someone they want to love and respect them.”

  Without conscious effort, he was back at the lake where he and Laura had spent their last vacation. Once again, he heard Lucas’ shriek of delight as he cannonballed off the wooden dock, his knees pressed up against his chest. Saw the slightly crooked smile just before the splash that left droplets on the paperbacks he and Laura were reading.

  One blink later, that image disappeared. But Radhauser would always remember that beautiful boy’s smile and the way the shriek and splash rippled the surface of the lake and spread out into the woods surrounding it. And he hoped that somewhere in those dense conifer trees Lucas’ euphoric squeals still resonated.

  “I trust you’ll point it out to me if I ever make our son believe I expect more of him than he’s able to give.”

  She reached out and touched his arm. “I hope what I said didn’t hurt you.”

  “No. I think it needed to be said and I needed to hear it. There is no necessity for me to confront Cooper about the lie. He’ll tell me when and if he’s ready. And out of nowhere, you triggered a happy memory.”

  She smiled. “You care to share it with me?”

  He told her about that day at the lake. “It’s the good memories that hurt most.”

  Gracie stood. When she walked around the table, he pushed his chair back.

  She sat on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her head in his shoulder. “Marrying you was the best thing I’ve ever done.”

  * * *

  May turned into June, and still no leads. Radhauser was beginning to fear the Parsons and Baker murders would never be solved. He did find out Evelyn Baker was the beneficiary of a $250,000 life insurance policy. But she had an alibi for the night Brad was killed. She’d gone to a movie at the Varsity Theater with a girlfriend. The Importance of Being Earnest.

  On Saturday morning, June first, while Cooper was giving Lizzie a piano lesson, Radhauser’s cell phone rang. It was nine o’clock. He hurried into the kitchen to answer.

  “He’s struck again,” Captain Murphy said. “A cleaning lady named Gloria Grayson found two more hands. I’ve called McBride and Corbin. They’ll meet you at the scene.”

  “Where?”

  “In that piano bar, Picasso’s. Over on the Plaza. Just across from the station.”

  Did this mean they had two more victims? Or had the killer changed his MO and cut off both hands? “I’ll call Heron and be on my way.”

  Ten minutes later, Radhauser parked and hurried across the Plaza to Picasso’s Piano Bar. He took the stairs two at a time. It was a large room about fifty feet square with exposed brick walls, and a long mahogany bar on the backside. The planked floors were old and warped in places.

  A dozen or more small, round tables were scattered across the room with chairs set upside down on top of them. The front walls, facing the Plaza, had ceiling to floor windows made from beveled glass. An older, mahogany upright piano sat on a raised platform about twelve feet square. The place was empty except for the cleaning lady. It smelled like spilled beer and lemon furniture polish. Radhauser introduced himself. "Are you the person who found the hands?"

  Gloria Grayson, a plump, middle-aged Hispanic woman stared at him, her dark eyes wide, as if the discovery had rendered her speechless. Her mouth opened, lips trembling, but she didn't make a sound. She wore loose-fitting slacks, an oversized T-shirt and a pair of cheap white sneakers. A cleaning cart had been pushed against the wall.

  Radhauser took her arm, led her to a table and removed two chairs. He lowered her into the seat, then sat across from her. “Tell me what happened.”

  A storm cloud of emotion darkened her face and her breath quickened.

  “It’s okay,” Radhauser said. “Take your time.”

  A drop of sweat rolled down the side of her face, just in front of her ear. "I come at eight a.m. every Saturday. I put chairs on tables so I can mop floor. When I dust piano keys, they make a funny noise and some don't work. I think this is strange, so I open top and look inside and that is when I see the hands and the blood. I scream and then I call nine-one-one. They say I should wait until you get here. But I know nothing more.”

  “Do you have any idea whose hands they might be?”

  “No. I not work here. I only clean. Same today like I always do. Polish all surfaces, especially wooden ones, and mop floors.”

  “Did you polish the piano before you found the hands?”

  She nodded.

  That probably meant there wouldn’t be any usable prints on the piano, but they’d check for them anyway.

  By the time he took down Gloria’s contact information and her statement, McBride and Corbin had arrived. Radhauser told Gloria that she could leave, but he might have more questions for her later.

  He used his wide-angle lens to photograph the room, then turned to McBride. “Cordon off the area around the piano. Heron is on his way.”

  McBride grabbed the crime scene tape, then slipped on a pair of latex gloves and shoe protectors.

  “Corbin, I want you to guard the front door. No one comes up here except for Heron and his forensics boys.”

  McBride cordoned off an area about twenty feet square around the piano.

  Heron and two white-suited forensics men wearing surgical masks and latex gloves arrived. They waited while Radhauser slipped under the tape and took close-ups of the piano and the two hands nestled on top of the strings in the soundboard. The hands were placed palm-side down. Neither hand held the line drawing of the parent and child that had been drawn on the other two victims’ hands. The one detail that was never released to the press. Was this a copycat?

  With Radhauser standing beside him, Heron removed the hands one at a time and studied them. The nails were manicured and painted bright red.

  Again, Radhauser photographed the hands from both sides. They certainly appeared to belong to one victim—a woman. As soon as he spotted the huge diamond on her right hand, he suspected the hands belonged to Cooper’s mother—Julia Drake. Radhauser pressed his fists against the sides of his head. His pulse raced. Didn’t Cooper mention something about Julia performing at a piano bar on the Plaza on weekends? How was Radhauser going to tell him his mother was dead? Oh my God, Cooper.

  Could he have done this?

  Could he have finally grown tired of her abuse?

  He fit the profile of an abused child. And he'd certainly grown up isolated and lonely. But Cooper showed no anger toward his mother. And he was always so gentle with Lizzie and Jonathan—with all the kids on his Little League team. When Radhauser asked about the whip marks on his back, Cooper denied his mother had beaten him. But Radhauser go
t the strong idea he was lying. Her demands for daily six-hour practice sessions would certainly constitute psychological abuse.

  Radhauser pushed the thoughts from his mind and returned his attention to Heron.

  While forensics scanned the room for any usable evidence, the ME slipped the hands into evidence bags.

  Radhauser labeled them and entered the information in the evidence log.

  “From the lack of bruising,” Heron said, “I suspect these hands were severed postmortem, just like in the Baker murder.”

  “I think I know who they belong to. Give me a minute and I’ll have an address.” Radhauser raced across the Plaza to his office and retrieved Julia Drake’s Ashland address. A townhouse off Tolman Creek Road.

  Heron followed in the van with his forensics team.

  Radhauser parked in the driveway in front of the garage door and hurried up the walkway. Two deer nibbled on some rhododendron leaves in the wooded area on the east side of the house. They stopped, looked at him, saw he meant no harm, then went back to nibbling.

  The front door was unlocked.

  "Anybody home?" He stood on the tile floor in the entryway and looked around. The living room was spacious and spotless, with white leather furniture and a beautiful Rosewood Steinway grand piano in what was originally meant to be the dining room. It was the largest one Radhauser had ever seen. Definitely concert quality. The wood gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the bay window. Most likely the gift from Cooper's grandparents. Radhauser slipped a pair of shoe protectors over his boots, then snapped on the latex gloves.

  Hard silence fell, echoing and thick.

  Radhauser did a quick search of the house. It was a three-bedroom, all opening off a hallway—along with a linen closet and bathroom. One of the small bedrooms was set up as a den, with a television set, a loveseat, and a platform rocker and ottoman.

  If the other small bedroom had been Cooper’s, it was hard to tell from the contents. A twin bed, neatly made with a brown cord spread. A maple desk under the window. A matching six-drawer chest. There was nothing on any of the walls to indicate a boy had ever lived there.

  Without wanting to, Radhauser thought about Lucas' bedroom—its walls covered with rodeo posters. His desk piled with books about famous rodeo riders, cattle ropers, and horse trainers. On a rack at the foot of his bed, Lucas' favorite saddle and breastplate set, silver polished and gleaming. Colorful ribbons he'd won at junior rodeos hung from the mirror above his dresser.

  Thinking about his dead son hurt and all the unanswered questions and all the might-have-been moments he and Lucas had missed came rushing in. One thing Radhauser knew for certain, few things in life were as devastating as those might have beens. They brought back all the guilt, no matter how misplaced, that if he’d been a better man, if he’d put his wife and son before his job, he might have saved them both.

  When he opened the final door at the end of the hallway—the master bedroom—he smelled the blood an instant before he saw it. Two small puddles of shocking red on the blue tarp covering the white carpet. Some spatter on the nightstand that had been moved next to the body. Julia Drake was tied to what looked like a desk chair, her mouth covered with duct tape, the edge of a handkerchief visible beneath the tape. Her ankles were also duct-taped together and tied to the crossbar between the chair legs. She wore a long-sleeved, pale yellow nightgown, floor length with a high neck edged in lace. Her hair was loose and fell to her shoulders. Her face was washed clean of makeup.

  Adrenaline burned its path through Radhauser’s gut.

  Even before he pressed his index finger to her carotid, he knew she was dead. Her skin was slightly cool to the touch, her eyes open and glazed.

  Radhauser snapped photographs of the scene and the victim from every angle.

  At the sound of footsteps in the hallway, he spun around to see Heron who'd also put on shoe protectors and latex gloves. He did a double-take when he spotted the victim, then hurried over and knelt in front of her. "Good grief, love, what has he done to you?"

  “Place is cleared,” Radhauser said. “Killer must have taken her from her bed. I doubt she’s been dead more than four or five hours.”

  Forensics dusted the nightstand and chair for prints but found none. There were two three-inch gashes on the top surface of the nightstand. But this time there were no shoe protectors or plastic raincoat left at the scene. Were those missing items more evidence that this was a copycat?

  While Heron examined the body, Radhauser moved around the room. One pale blue wall was filled with framed photographs of Cooper in various stages of growing up, many of which were taken at the piano in the dining room. In some of the earlier ones, Cooper was wearing short black pants, a white shirt, black bowtie, and red suspenders. In others, he wore a tuxedo with tails. Photographs of a young Cooper and his heart-splitting smile.

  Heron gently removed the duct tape from the victim’s mouth and sniffed the handkerchief. “Chloroform. I suspect, just like with Baker, she died before the hands were amputated and that’s a blessing.”

  With Radhauser's help, Heron released her from the ropes and duct tape around her ankles and got her into a body bag for transport to his morgue. "Stop by my office in a couple of hours and I'll see if I can get you a TOD. We'll have to wait on toxicology for the chloroform levels."

  They were wheeling the body out to the coroner’s van when Rollins pulled into the driveway in the Lincoln. He leaped out of the car and ran toward them. He was impeccably groomed—gelled hair, folded silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, black and gray striped tie knotted with supernatural precision. “What’s going on here? Where is my sister?” When the realization hit him, he stuck a fist in his mouth as if trying to smother a scream. Tears filled his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. He made no effort to wipe them away.

  More than anything, Radhauser hated this part of his job. “I’m sorry to be the one who has to tell you this, but your sister, Julia, is dead.”

  “D…Dead. How—” He bit off the word, his blue eyes zeroing in on Radhauser. “That’s simply not possible. Julia was fine when I picked her up from work last night.”

  “Would you mind stepping inside for a few minutes so I can ask you some questions?”

  Rollins stood on the concrete walkway, his gaze never leaving the gurney and the body bag that held his sister. The two forensics men loaded the stretcher into the van and closed the back doors. Rollins watched until the van turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

  Radhauser repeated the question.

  The two men stepped inside. They sat on the sofa.

  “What time did you drive her home last night?”

  “The bar closes at one a.m. I picked her up and drove her home. I waited in the car until she flipped the porch light on and off a couple times to let me know she was safe inside.”

  “Does Julia have a key to the bar?”

  “Yes. She sometimes locks up for the owner.”

  “Do you know the owner’s name?”

  “Preston Simmons. He’s a nice man. And he’s very fond of Julia’s playing. She brings in a lot of customers.”

  Radhauser jotted down the name.

  Rollins' face was streaked with tears. "Please, you have to tell me what happened. Was it a heart attack?"

  “No. We believe she was murdered. Her hands were amputated and placed in the piano at Picasso’s Piano Bar.”

  “Murdered? Who would do something like that?” He squeezed his eyes shut.

  “It’s my job to find out. Would you mind telling me where you live?”

  Rollins opened his eyes. “I have a townhouse here in the same development. Two streets over. We bought them at the same time.”

  Radhauser jotted down the address and telephone number. “Why did you drive over here now? Did you see the coroner’s van?”

  "No. Julia has a standing hairdresser's appointment on Saturday mornings at ten a.m. I always drive her and we go out to lunch afterward."

>   “Where were you all morning?”

  “I was home. You can’t possibly think I had anything to do with this. I loved my sister. Ask anyone. I was devoted to her.”

  “Did you talk to anyone? Can anyone corroborate your alibi?”

  “Alibi? Why do I need an alibi? I would never hurt my sister. Are you saying I’m a suspect in her murder?”

  “At this early stage of an investigation, anyone who knew your sister is a person of interest. Does she have any enemies? Anyone who’d like to see her hurt?”

  “No. She kept to herself. Cooper’s career was her life. She played the piano on Friday and Saturday nights to keep up her skills. But other than that, she didn’t go out very much.”

  "I need to secure the scene. Do you have a key to this place? Or do you know where your sister kept hers?"

  Rollins stepped into the kitchen where a leather purse sat on the granite counter. He searched through it but didn't find them. Frustrated, he dumped the contents onto the counter. "That's strange. She always keeps her keys in her purse." He hurried outside to the Lincoln. When he returned a moment later, he took a key from his ring and handed it to Radhauser.

  The killer had taken Julia's keys to plant the hands inside the piano. Who would know she had the key to the bar on her ring?

  “Two more questions before I go. Have you ever seen Julia behave in a violent manner toward Cooper?”

  For a moment, Rollins’ gaze dropped to his shoes and he said nothing. “Discipline is part of being a mother.” He looked straight into Radhauser’s eyes. “So what’s your other question?”

  “Have you ever seen Cooper behave violently toward his mother?”

  “Never. He’s an artist. That boy doesn’t have a violent bone in his body.”

  Radhauser decided not to mention it, but the most famous serial killer of all time, Adolf Hitler, was an artist.

  Chapter Thirty-Two