The Coldest Fear Page 6

  “Kooky’s guarding the kitchen,” Timmons advised.

  Jack remembered Officer John “Kooky” Kuhlenschmidt, and he really didn’t want to think about it.

  “Oh boy. I hope he hasn’t thrown up all over the body,” Liddell muttered as the two detectives made their way inside.

  The apartment building was built in the early 1940s to house the influx of returning World War II soldiers. Each building held eight two-story apartments with only a few inches of drywalled space to separate them. Each apartment had a front and rear entrance. The front door entered the living room, the other entered the kitchen. There were three of these developments inside the city limits of Evansville and each had its own special name. This one was called the Sweetser Projects.

  Jack and Liddell entered the living room.

  “Give the kid a chance,” Jack said, although he was thinking the same thing as his partner. The last time Kooky had found a dead body he had hurled all over the place, including on Jack’s shoes.

  One of the crime scene techs met them in the living room and indicated they should follow him to the kitchen. From the kitchen doorway, Jack could see Sergeant Walker kneeling a few feet from a prone figure on the floor. Officer Kooky Kuhlenschmidt was out cold.

  Jack and Liddell stood in the kitchen and watched the two white-clad techs who had helped remove Kooky from the floor and were now gathered closely around another prone figure, this one the body of the victim, Louise Brigham.

  Jack noticed several things immediately. The victim was lying on her back with both arms folded across her chest. Unless you are planning on being dead, you probably won’t lie in this position. So it followed that the killer positioned her like this after death. Her face and both eyes had been removed by the killer as well. She was African American, and a hand from a Caucasian female was propped against the side of her head.

  The killer must have thought he was were being cute because he had used children’s Band-Aids, the kind with pictures of Sesame Street characters, to hold the fingers of the severed hand down, except the middle finger. A one-finger salute, Jack thought. A comedian.

  On the other side of the victim’s head was a water-filled glass tumbler in which something was floating. “Is that an eye?” Jack asked. Walker nodded.

  The victim was on her back, her head lying in a pool of blood. A darkish smear of blood spread across the floor for a foot or so and ended at another smaller pool right above her head. Someone had written two letters in blood next to her face. J M.

  “What’s going on, Jack?” Walker asked.

  “Looks like Jack has a fan,” Liddell said.

  “She was moved,” Jack said.

  Walker nodded. “It looks like her skull was struck with something really sharp. Just look at that! It looks like her head was almost split in two from behind.”

  “Do you have photos of that?” Jack asked, pointing to the smaller pool of blood where the victim must have been lying facedown at one point.

  Walker asked one of the techs, who said they had plenty of shots.

  “Let me have one of those long Q-tips,” Jack said.

  Walker handed him one and Jack using the wooden end of the swab to feel around inside the bloody mess. He was scraping it back and forth until he felt it stick on something.

  “There’s something under the blood,” Jack said.

  Walker saw what he was doing and took some paper towels and began wiping at the pool of blood. When it was wiped away there was a line about four inches long and very narrow cut into the linoleum tile.

  He looked at Jack and Liddell. “You think this is where he did it?” Walker asked.

  Jack shook his head in disgust.

  “Just like at the Marriott,” Liddell said. “He chopped her face off right here.”

  “Got something in the sink, Sergeant,” one of the techs said.

  “He didn’t take one of the victim’s hands this time,” Jack said.

  Walker pointed to the skeletal face. “Didn’t take the tongue, either.”

  They all walked over to see what the tech had found in the sink.

  There were no dirty dishes, but in the bottom of the stainless steel sink was a large kitchen knife with a serrated blade. The edges and the wooden handle were still crusted with blood.

  “You think he used the knife to take her eyes out?” Liddell asked.

  Walker looked around the room. On the cigarette-burned countertop next to the sink was a small plate with pieces of bread crust on it. A skillet with a glass lid sat on a burner of the stove. Something thick coated the bottom of the skillet and the room still smelled like fried bacon.

  “She was making something to eat when the killer came in,” the tech suggested.

  Or maybe the killer made something for himself after he killed her, Jack thought. He remembered talking to a detective from Jamestown, North Carolina, a few years back who had worked a crime scene where the killer had butchered a woman—cut her into ten pieces—and then made himself a meal and sat at the victim’s table and ate. The detective had later asked the killer why he would do that. The killer had calmly responded, “Cuttin’ her up was hard work.”

  “You’ll collect all this stuff ?” Jack said.

  Walker nodded, saying, “Maybe we’ll get some DNA.”

  “Who found her?” Jack asked.

  “A neighbor named Simmons, sir.” This came from the crime scene tech who had found the knife and spoon in the sink.

  “Go on,” Jack said. She was the same tech who had searched the first victim’s car at the Marriott, but for the life of him, Jack couldn’t remember her name.

  She noticed him struggling for a name. “Officer Lucy Martin,” she said.

  “Go ahead, Officer Martin.”

  “Ms. Dorothy Simmons lives two apartments down—turn right and it’s on the left, sir. She was coming over to borrow some coffee and saw Ms. Brigham’s door standing open. She came in and called for Ms. Brigham but didn’t get an answer straightaway, sir. She came into the kitchen to help herself to some ground coffee because she didn’t think Ms. Brigham would mind. That’s when she almost tripped over the body. She was understandably upset and Officer Lynn is talking to her in her apartment. I didn’t overhear the exact address. Sorry, sir.”

  Walker had turned his back and was suppressing a smile.

  Jack smiled, slightly surprised at this thorough account. “Well, you are very observant, Officer Martin,” Jack said, and then to Liddell, “Why didn’t you know all that, Bigfoot ?”

  Walker showed the two detectives back to the entrance. “One eye missing, and one left behind,” Walker said. “This time a knife was used to excise the eye. The killer uses whatever tool is handy to take the eyes, but always the same weapon to kill.”

  “He brings it with him. It has significance,” Jack said.

  “The first body was missing a hand, and that may be the one we have here. Both eyes were taken from both victims. The one that was left behind here is from a blue-eyed person,” Liddell said.

  “Couldn’t be from this victim,” Jack said.

  Liddell shook his head.

  “What is it, Bigfoot?” Jack asked.

  “This guy is targeting you, pod’na,” Liddell said. “He left that newspaper article about you in that hotel room with an eye from a blue-eyed person on it. And now your initials turn up next to the body of this victim. Not to mention the way the hand was left behind.”

  “Maybe it’s because of my bubbly personality,” Jack said, but he had been thinking exactly the same thing and could feel a twinge in the scar running down his jaw.

  Tony looked at Jack and Liddell. “Think the killer’s trying to tell you something?”

  “I’d be happy to talk to him,” Jack said.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Arnold Byrum had dreamed of becoming a cop since as far back as he could remember. He ate, breathed, and lived the Evansville Police Department. But his doctor had discovered he had a heart murmur a
few years ago, and there was no way the police department would ever hire him. At age twenty-one his dream was over.

  Of course, his mother was pleased because Arnold had never been away from her for more than a few hours at a time his whole life. If he had been able to pass the police physical he might have moved out on his own, and away from her. Mother would never have accepted that.

  Being a policeman was out, and the only other thing in life that gave him pleasure was writing. It was the drive to write that brought him to his current job as a reporter for the local newspaper. When he’d won a local writing contest sponsored by the newspaper, he was given a chance at some real writing.

  Now, after four years of running “copy” and covering meaningless bits of news, twenty-three-year-old Arnold Byrum had wrangled an assignment to the police beat. How he had ever accomplished that was a surprise to everyone, but not to Arnold. It was as close as he could get to doing police work. It was in his blood.

  His editor, Bob Robertson, had broken a lot of newspaper traditions by taking a chance on him. Police reporters were traditionally tough, gruff, cigar-smoking, cheap-whiskey-swilling, womanizing, bar-room-brawling types. Arnold stood well over six foot tall, and weighed a solid two hundred-fifty pounds, with wispy brown hair that was already deserting his freckled crown. His ears were large and stuck straight out from his head as if they were air brakes. His eyes were overlarge, bright blue, and he had a bad ticker. But if you cut him he would still bleed cop.

  There is an idiom in news work, If it bleeds it leads. Arnold had learned early in his assignment to the cop beat that if he wanted to keep this position he would have to cover the sensational stories that the public fed on for entertainment. The more blood and mayhem, the more ink his editor would throw at it.

  But this morning he wanted nothing to do with the newspaper, nor with the police department. Something besides police work had captured his attention, and her name was Bernice.

  She was almost as tall as Arnold, but where he was solid she was shapely, where his hair was thinning hers was long and brown and luxurious. She was his age. His dream girl. And if Mother ever found out that Arnold was looking at this woman in the way that he most definitely was looking, she would scald his hide from his bones.

  He knew what he had been doing for the last week was wrong. He knew he was going to Hell, just as Mother had predicted for him so many times in his life. But he couldn’t help himself. He would spend the day in his cubicle, which just happened to look directly across to Bernice’s desk, and he could see under her desk. See her perfectly tanned long legs under the desk. Sometimes he imagined that he could see more than just her legs.

  Work today had been a nightmare, and all he wanted to do was lie across his bed and shove it all out of his mind. All of it except pretty Bernice. He thought about how she had caught him looking at her legs today and had smiled at him. He could feel himself becoming aroused at that thought. What did that mean? he wondered.

  He lay back and closed his eyes and placed his hand down the front of his khaki pants. Bernice was so beautiful. More than any other woman he had ever seen. He was aching all over. Just wanted to stay under the covers with his eyes closed and think about Bernice.

  “Arnold? Are you up? Arnold? I need my medicine!” his mother’s shrill voice cut into his thoughts. It was early still. His day off. And she was bleating out demands. She knew she didn’t get her medicine until noon. She just wanted company. Well, he wasn’t going to answer. He would get her medicine when he was damn good and ready.

  “Arnold? I know you’re awake. I heard your bed creaking. I need to be turned, Arnold,” came the voice again. “Why won’t you answer your mother, Arnold? What are you doing down there? Are you defiling yourself ?”

  He let out a sigh and threw the covers onto the floor. He would have to get up. He would have to go upstairs. All so that he could patiently explain for the millionth time that she couldn’t have her medicine for another two hours. He was just putting his feet down to locate his slippers when the phone rang in the living room.

  “Arnold, the phone,” mother said, unnecessarily.

  He sat still, letting the phone continue to ring. Maybe if he didn’t answer it would stop? Maybe Mother would shut up as well? And then a thought struck him.

  “Arnold?” his mother yelled, startling him out of his thoughts, and he thought he could hear her trying to get out of bed. He jumped up, and forgetting his slippers he ran from his bedroom at the back of the house, down the hallway to the living room, yelling, “I’ve got it, Mother.”

  He picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

  “Arnie?” the voice said.

  He cleared his throat nervously before saying, “Detective Jansen. You’ve woken Mother.”

  Jansen was used to hearing about Arnold Byrum’s eccentric mother. He could commiserate with the guy for the task of taking care of an invalid for years on end. His own situation wasn’t so different. “Sorry about your mom, buddy, but I’ve got something hot for you.”

  “Oh, goody,” he said with feigned enthusiasm.

  Jansen filled him in on the early-morning murder at the Marriott hotel, and then told him that there was a second murder, this one in the south-side projects. When Jansen finished, Arnold let out a sigh.

  “So, we seem to have another spate of murders in Evansville,” Arnold remarked. Evansville was a pretty quiet town normally, although they had their share of murders over the last couple of years. But, then, two murders in one day aren’t necessarily a crime spree.

  “Are they connected?” he asked Jansen.

  The line was quiet. Then Jansen said, “Well . . . we’re not really sure yet.” In truth, he didn’t know much of anything about the second murder except that the hand from the Marriott murder had been found there. But he wanted to put as much pressure on Murphy and Blanchard as he could. And there was nothing better to pile the pressure on than the news media stirred into a frenzy.

  He’d been careful building his news-media contacts, and he only fed them things that they could have gotten from any number of sources. The thought of this new girl, Claudine Setera, caused him to get a lump in his throat. She was definitely hot. But so far she had not been interested in what Detective Larry Jansen might be able to do for her career. She seemed to think she could make it on her own. Apparently she didn’t know how things worked in Evansville.

  If he could make the public think there was another serial killer on the loose it would do several things for Larry Jansen. He could zing the politicians again, make himself more desirable to Claudine, and shove the news media right up Murphy’s ass. And all the while, he could remain outside the nuclear-blast zone. This was Larry’s specialty. It was why he was the king, and had been untouchable.

  Nobody screws with Larry Jansen, he thought, and smiled.

  Arnold was confused when he hung up the phone. What did Jansen mean, “They’re trying to keep it quiet.” Jansen wouldn’t say who was keeping it quiet, but he hinted broadly that the orders to shut the news media out had come all the way from the top. And how could “they” keep serial killings quiet?

  According to Jansen, the first victim was the lady at the Marriott whose body was found early this morning by the desk clerk. Arnold had been unaware of the announcement of the killing on Channel Six news this morning because he had been . . . preoccupied. According to Jansen the woman had been hacked to death and then one of her hands had been cut off. That hand was found six hours later at the scene of the second murder. And that woman had also been hacked to death.

  Arnold switched on the small television set in his bedroom, tuned to Channel Six, and watched until the recap of the day’s events. A glowering Jack Murphy could be seen crossing under the yellow crime scene tape, heading for the door to an apartment, while a crowd of onlookers clamored nearby.

  Arnold felt a twinge of envy. That should have been him taking charge of a murder scene. Should have been Arnold talking to the news media. D
etective Byrum, what can you tell us? that cute reporter would say to him. And Arnold would say, No comment at this time, Claudine.

  And speak of the devil, he thought, just as Claudine Setera’s sweet face filled the television screen. Arnold reached over and turned up the volume.

  SETERA: Once again, Blake, we’ve just seen Detective Jack Murphy enter the newest crime scene—the second one since we reported from the Marriott hotel this morning—and take over the murder investigation of a woman who lived here in the Sweetser Housing Development. The police are not releasing the name of the victim as of yet, but sources close to the investigation say that she was murdered in a very similar fashion to the victim who was murdered this morning at the Marriott hotel near the airport.

  BLAKE JAMES: Claudine, can you tell us if the name of the first victim has been released by police yet? SETERA: Blake, the police are being very tight-lipped about any of the facts surrounding these two murders.

  I have it on good authority that orders have come from high in the ranks of the police department, telling the officers not to release any information as of yet.

  BLAKE: Do the police suspect a serial killer,

  Claudine?

  SETERA: Too early to say, Blake. Once again, the police are releasing no information, but we will continue to try and find what we can to warn the public.

  Arnold winced at that last remark. Claudine Setera was not playing fair. She knew that the police couldn’t release the name of a victim until they had notified the victim’s family and made a positive identification. But she was making it sound like the police were holding back information that the public needed to be safe from this killer. He would never write an article like that. Never slam the police unnecessarily.