Amid the carefully laid out treasures were several California license plates, the Hendersons’ missing sign, some drivers’ licenses, a wallet and a yearbook photo of a girl whom I recognized as having disappeared earlier that summer. She’d been assumed to be a runaway at the time, but seeing her photo next to the other items, I doubted she was still alive.
The objects seemed to be grouped, but not in any pattern I could recognize. Here and there were not one but several jars of formaldehyde, one with the lid off, which was probably why I had smelled it. The first jar held something the size of my fist, and when I drew closer, I nearly heaved. Bobbing just beneath the surface was the perfectly preserved head of a blue point Siamese. Thinking of my own cats, I noticed that a number of the jars were still empty, awaiting their own sick treasures, and I felt the knot in my stomach tighten. As repulsed as I was, I could not help examining the other jars, some containing unrecognizable blobs of what looked like flesh. When I came upon the final jar, I drew no pleasure from the realization that I had been right about the last remains of Walter Trinidad. There, suspended in clear liquid, was the small, shriveled appendage that Betty Beechcomb had disdained. The gagging sensation I’d been fighting for some time had finally surfaced, and I feared if I didn’t get fresh air immediately, I might pass out right there.
“Find what you’re looking for?” I turned to face the sneering blue eyes of Alan Pinkerton, his large frame blocking the doorway. He held a large cardboard box in his arms. Without any hesitation, I raised the .38 and aimed it at a point just between those devilish eyes. His response was not what I expected. He giggled.
Chapter Nineteen
“You’ve been a busy boy, Alan,” I said, trying to keep my hand from shaking. I noted with little satisfaction that his jacket had a small tear in the sleeve. “Put your hands in the air, now.”
Instead, he took several steps toward me, his smile even more frightening than his eyes. “Just a sec.” He set the large box down, removed the lid and reached into it, which caused a chorus of piteous mews. My heart lurched as he stood up holding Panic in one beefy hand, Gammon in the other. His thick fingers circled their fragile necks and he held them out at arm’s length, so that their wildly flailing claws batted the air. He laughed again, and tightened his grip around their necks, which caused them to quit meowing, their eyes open wide in terror.
My hand shook as I tightened my finger on the trigger.
“Now, Alan. It doesn’t make much difference to me whether I shoot you here and then wait for the sheriff, or whether I let you live until he gets here. It’s your choice. Put the cats down and get your fucking hands in the air!”
He raised both arms, closing his hands around the cats’ necks even tighter and twirled them in the air, sashaying his hips, imitating a pompom girl. He inched toward me and I lowered my gun, aiming below the waist. I had never wanted to hurt anyone before, let alone kill. But at that moment I knew I was capable of murder.
“Put the gun down, bitch, nice and slow,” came a voice from the doorway. Jess’s son, Doug, stood in the entrance, his right hand holding a gun which he pressed against Erica’s temple, his left hand roughly cupping her breast.
“Now!” he screamed. “Drop it!” I leaned over and laid my gun on the floor, kicking it away from me. It skidded across the wooden floor and came to rest against the boxes of liquor.
“Dougie,” I said. “Let her go. She’s not part of this. She hasn’t seen anything. She doesn’t even live here. She’s leaving town today.” It was hard to keep the trembling out of my voice.
“Gonna be kinda hard to do, on account of she’s missing her fancy little car,” Pinkerton said, laughing. Gammon and Panic had begun to pant. Erica shot him a dangerous look but I could tell she was terrified. So was I.
“Dougie, don’t get in any more trouble than you’re already in,” I said, grasping at straws. “The sheriff knows Pinkerton’s behind all this. Let him take the fall. Right now, you’re merely an accessory. You’re not even eighteen yet. They’ll go easy on you.”
Doug’s laugh was harsh, ugly. More of a snort than a laugh. “Pinkerton’s in charge, is he? Since when? Is that what you think? Shit, you’re dumber than he is.”
I looked back and forth between Doug and Alan, realizing too late that Jess’s son was the ringleader of this little group. Alan was staring at him with something akin to awe. He’d just been called dumb and he was gazing at his accuser like a loyal dog.
“Okay,” I said, trying to appease him. “I can see now that you’re the boss. That’s all the more reason for you to quit now, before somebody else gets hurt.”
“Somebody else gets hurt,” Pinkerton mimicked in a high falsetto, twirling the cats near my face. From the pained expression on their faces, I knew Pinkerton was close to choking them to death.
“Put those damn things down,” Doug ordered. “Let’s take these bitches out and do ’em, right now.”
Alan carefully, almost lovingly placed the cats back in the cardboard box. I noticed he had a sheathed knife on his belt. “Good little pussy cats,” he murmured, closing the lid. “You wait right here. Later, we have a fun little game we’re going to play. You like fireworks, don’t you?” He stood up and walked to the exposed shelves, placing the box next to the Hendersons’ sign and one of the license plates. It suddenly dawned on me how they had organized the objects. The license plate and the Hendersons’ sign were Alan’s. These were his crimes and his trophies. I looked at the box and shuddered to think that Gammon and Panic would be his next victims.
I looked quickly at the largest pile which held the photo of the missing girl, several more license plates, the jar holding Trinidad’s penis and something nailed to a board that looked dismayingly like a severed nipple. I walked over, hoping they couldn’t tell how badly my knees were shaking, and picked up the glass jar.
“This must be your work, eh, Dougie? The biggest pile of all. I guess you have to set an example for the others. Looks like Dunk is falling behind.”
“Put that down,” Doug said, shoving Erica into the room, the gun muzzle still pressed against her head.
I shook the jar, feigning interest in the swirling motion of the severed penis. “Why him?” I asked. “Was he just a random victim like the others?”
“I told you to put it down,” he said. He had obviously bonded with this particular treasure. I detected definite emotion in his voice.
“I’ll put it down,” I said, “just as soon as you tell me why. You owe us that much, anyway. After all, he was Erica’s uncle.”
“The bastard was a prick!” Doug said, his voice rising.
“And now that’s all that’s left of him! One itsy bitsy prick,” Alan said, giggling again. This was an interesting side of Alan Pinkerton. He was almost giddy with excitement. His close-set eyes sparkled. I liked him better the other way, surly and mean. This way, he seemed crazier than hell.
“What’d he do to make you so mad, Dougie. Mad enough to stab him. Mad enough to cut off his penis?”
“Go ahead, Dougie, tell her,” Pinkerton said.
“I told you not to call me that,” Doug said, threateningly. “My name is Doug. Not Dougie. Doug. You got it?” Alan nodded, his good mood somewhat diminished. “Anyway,” Dougie went on, “I guess it doesn’t matter now. The asshole called us a bunch of faggots. That’s all. He pissed me off. He shouldn’t have done that. People who piss me off can get hurt. Like you, for example. You’re starting to piss me off a lot. Now put the fucking jar back down, right now!”
I gently placed the obscene container back in Dougie’s pile.
“Okay, so he made you mad,” I said. “But Trinidad was a big man. No offense, Dougie, but you’re kind of on the short side. How’d you do it?”
Doug puffed his chest out, his face reddening at the insult. “I used my brain, that’s how. I ripped off the asshole’s wallet. Then I called him up, told him I’d found his wallet and wanted to return it. I had him meet us out on Cedar Poi
nt. He pulled up in his putrid turquoise boat and got out to meet me on the fishing dock. I handed him his wallet and the first thing he did was check to see if his money was there. What a jerk! Like I’m going to call him and return his wallet after stealing his money! Anyway, he had the fucking nerve to hand me a one-dollar bill as a reward! I played it perfect though. I acted all grateful and when he turned to go, that’s when I stabbed him. You shoulda seen the look on his face when he turned around. Only took me two stabs, too. Of course, it would have been better if he’d still been alive when I took his prick. Even so, it was pretty awesome.”
I tried to keep my composure. He wouldn’t be confessing if he believed we’d still be alive to tell the sheriff all this. Even so, I wanted to keep him talking. “What about the boat, Dougie. Why’d you return it?”
“For fun,” he said. “To throw people off. I didn’t really figure he’d be found so soon.”
“Then why did you go back into his house?” I asked, doing anything to stall for time. I refrained from letting my eyes slide to the gun rack or the ground where my .38 lay, but I was acutely aware of both.
“Oh, that. If I’d have known then that this one here”—he patted Erica’s breast almost lovingly—“was in the house, I’d have done her too. Actually, we were looking for money. The bastard was always waving it around in people’s faces, I figured he’d have some stashed somewhere. But we never found shit. I was real careful to leave things nice and neat. Anything else you want to know?” His smirk told me he didn’t care how long I stalled. In the end, he’d do as he pleased. Inside their box high on the shelf, my kitties had begun to meow again and my heart ached in agony.
“I understand about the Hendersons’ place,” I said, hiding my fear. “Alan was mad at Mary for not going out with him. But why the old man in the Cadillac? What could he have done to hurt you?”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” he asked, sneering. “Californians are fair game.”
“You ran him off the road because he was a Californian?” I asked, incredulous.
“He was driving too slow. Me and Alan had just borrowed your girlfriend’s car. It wasn’t like it was locked or anything. Thought we’d take it for a little spin then dump it somewhere, let her know she wasn’t that welcome in town. But then that fat fucker wouldn’t pull over and let us pass, and so we got him good. It was actually Alan’s idea to dump the Miata up the road. Who knows? Maybe they’d think she’d done the whole thing. It doesn’t really matter, though, does it?”
“If he’d been from some other state, would you have driven him off the road?” I asked, still having trouble with the concept.
“I could have. But would I have? Who knows? But only Californians count. Like poor Leslie there.” He pointed to the photo of the missing girl. “I got no points for that one. She just pissed me off. Still, I like to look at her picture. She’s pretty, like your friend here. Of course, she wasn’t so pretty once I got through with her. That’s her little titty there up on my shelf.” Saying this, he squeezed so hard on Erica’s breast that she gasped. Then he laughed. “Come on, Alan, you lead the way. Let’s take these girls to the fire ring, do ’em there. Oh, and here. I brought you your candy.” Doug tossed Alan a small, clear plastic baggie, and I watched with interest as Alan eagerly dipped the long nail of his pinky into the white powder, scooping it into first one nostril and then the other, snorting deeply. I wondered what kind of drug Dougie had Alan on. Cocaine, most likely, but it could have been any number of things. Whatever it was, I was sure it helped keep Alan in Doug’s control.
Newly recharged, Pinkerton squared his shoulders, obviously taking seriously the job of leading the way. Doug motioned for me to follow, and he brought up the rear with his gun still pressed firmly against Erica’s temple.
“One wrong move and this one’s history,” he said to me, catching my glance at the gun rack. I nodded, and turned to follow Alan who was impatiently waiting to lead our little parade. As I did so, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Pretending to stretch the muscles in my neck, I tried to get a glimpse of whatever it was I’d seen, but it had vanished from sight.
Alan led us away from the fort, through thick underbrush, to a clearing in the woods. There, perched on a mound, was a large fire pit surrounded by stones.
“Undress,” Doug ordered, taking the gun away from Erica’s temple long enough to wave it at me. “Both of you.”
Erica and I looked at each other and slowly began unbuttoning our blouses. Her eyes smoldered with anger, and I feared she would do something stupid. As best I could, I tried to calm her down with my own eyes, but her anger was palpable.
“I heard my dad say you were a dyke,” Doug said. He turned and spit on the ground. “Guess you just been waiting for the right man to come along, huh?”
“I can’t imagine your father using that word,” I replied.
“Actually, you’re right about Dear ol’ Daddy. He said something like ‘She’s of the lesbian persuasion.’ As far as I’m concerned, you’re a cunt-fucking dyke. Take off your pants.”
As I undid my shoelaces, I caught a movement in the bushes behind Doug, and this time I saw the briefest glint of metal before the shape disappeared again. Someone was out there with a gun, that much I was sure of. Was it Dunk? My heart skipped a beat thinking maybe, just maybe it was Sheriff Booker, or better yet, Martha. But the figure was too tall for either of them, I thought, my hopes sinking. And besides, no one else even knew this fort existed, let alone that we were out here.
Face it, Cassidy, I told myself, there’s no one here to save you, and there’s not a damn thing you can do as long as Dougie has that gun on Erica. If only I could think of a way to distract him, and somehow get the gun away from him, I thought. I’d just have to bide my time and wait for a chance to act.
“Hurry up!” Pinkerton said, coming up behind me and kicking me in the back. The force of it knocked me over and when I looked up at him, his hand was down his pants, kneading himself into erection.
“Go ahead,” Doug said. “You do that one first. I’ll save this one for last. Then we. can switch.” He grabbed Erica’s exposed breast, squeezing hard, and when she slapped his hand away, he struck her across the face with the butt of his gun, drawing blood from her nose and knocking her to the ground.
Alan’s eyes narrowed in excitement and he unzipped his jeans, exposing an abnormally large erection. He stood over me, waving it above me. A thin thread of spittle hung from his open mouth.
“Drop it right there!” a deep, angry voice bellowed. We all looked up to see Jess Martin step from behind a tree. He was pointing a hunting rifle at his son. Despite his obvious anger, his voice trembled and his legs shook, and I knew exactly how he felt.
“Doug!” I yelled. “It’s all over. Put down your gun!”
“Shut up,” he snarled at me. “Go ahead and turn around, Dad. Run, just like you did in Vietnam. I know all about your dishonorable discharge. How you refused to shoot the fucking commie gooks. You were a coward then and you’re a fucking coward now!”
“That’s enough, son,” Jess said, his voice steely, his gun leveled at Dougie’s head.
Dougie’s voice was sarcastic. “Son? What a joke! I’m not your son. No father of mine woulda wimped out on his country like you did. I don’t know who my real father is, but I sure as shit know he’s not a faggot like you!”
“I said that’s enough, Doug. Put down the gun.” Jess’s voice began to waver.
“Or what?” Dougie sneered, turning the gun away from Erica to aim it at his father. The two stood, not twenty feet apart, their guns pointed at each other. Jess’s hands shook, and Dougie laughed cruelly.
“I’ll give you to the count of three, Daddy-o. You can turn and walk out, or you can shoot. But on the count of three, if you’re still here, you’re a dead man. One!”
“Don’t do it, Doug,” I pleaded. I noticed with some horror that Pinkerton was continuing to massage himself during this enti
re exchange.
“Two!” Doug yelled, steadying the gun with both hands.
“For God’s sake!” I shouted. “He’s your father! Don’t do this!” Doug didn’t so much as flinch, but his thick lips curled into a hideous smile.
“Three!” he said. The roar of simultaneous blasts split the air, throwing debris in all directions. Blood erupted, gushing upward like a geyser, spewing brain matter and tissue skyward. Doug’s body was thrown backward, landing in a heap in the fire pit. Across from him, Jess stood, still poised to shoot, his mouth open in shock as he watched his son torn apart by someone else’s bullet.
Little Jessie stepped out from behind a bush, my revolver clutched tightly in her small, trembling fists. Her eyes were wide with terror as she walked slowly toward the fire pit, the gun still pointed at her brother’s body. When she’d made absolute certain that he wouldn’t be getting up again, she placed the gun on the ground, looked up at me with a bewildered frown and fainted.
I sensed more than saw Pinkerton make his move. The shimmer of metal caught my eye as he lunged, a butcher knife extended in his right hand, his massive body lurching toward the gun. I kicked out sideways, catching him squarely in the crotch. He hadn’t had time to pull his pants up and the damage of the contact was both immediate and apparent. He doubled over, cupping himself, his right hand still clutching the knife. His pale, watering eyes were livid, the tiny pupils nearly invisible. Before he could lunge again, I grabbed my gun and aimed it at his midsection.
“Put that away,” I said, barely suppressing a rage that welled inside me. Pinkerton must have read my face because he tossed the knife aside and, whimpering like a child, gingerly tucked his limp penis back inside his pants.
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