by Deanna King
It was muddy, undeveloped land, and it was out of the way behind an old rundown motel called All Occasions Motel. Poorer, sleazier kinds of tenants lived in the area. Jack knew the neighborhood, and nothing much had changed. The bad places in Houston stayed bad, got worse, or were just a whisper of a ghost, and no one needed any reminders. The parking lot was full of potholes and rubble, filled with beater cars running or not. Behind the old motel sat fifteen acres of semi-wooded and marshy land. It was not fenced off, not exactly. A chain-link fence divided a separate five acres, leased to a local construction company. The padlocked gate touted a sign: POSTED- No Trespassing—Private Property.
The area was littered with trash and debris from the tenants’ trash that had blown around, in, or out of the overfilled steel dumpsters in the back. Empty Miller High Life bottles and crushed cans of either Budweiser or Schlitz beer littered the fence line. Jack conjured up a general picture in his head of the area, and then he moved on to the statements made by the boys who had found the body. He created pictures of the story in his head as he read.
Four boys had discovered the victim’s body in the marshy area; they had been four-wheeling. There were trees and brush covering the entire vehicle. Covered in brush, in a slight ditch, what they thought was a hill turned out to be a car that they bounced off when they saw the taillight sticking out.
Slumped over in the driver’s seat was a woman, seat-belted in and lifeless. The driver-side window was partially down, and rain had entered the car but didn’t soak it. The clothing perhaps had been the one indication it was a female. The hair had begun to fall out, and the corpse was small. All of her fingertips were severed, and someone had put a bullet in the back of her skull, blowing part of her face off. Add in decomposition, and her own mother wouldn’t know her.
The four boys that had found the body had been scared senseless. After Tully Cranston, the motel owner, called the police, mass chaos erupted. A side note said Cranston had paced back and forth muttering under his breath. “This is gonna hurt my business or kill it altogether, no pun intended,” he said to the cops. They didn’t appreciate his attempt at humor. Why that note was on the report was anybody’s guess.
He flipped to the decedent’s ID. One Texas driver’s license issued to Celeste Mason, age 27. Height, five foot three and a half, weight one hundred one pounds, eye color blue, and hair color dark blonde. The green 1973 Ford Pinto registered to Celeste Mason of 1753 Chimney Rock Road, Unit 293, at the Gulf Bay apartment complex. The ownership papers had been in the glove box, the car bought and paid for. The glove box held no real clues. There had been a few receipts and some old registration paperwork, all in her name. Her purse found in the car yielded no advanced info on the deceased, no pictures in a wallet, no telltale information that confirmed or questioned the identity. Her clothing the report stated, yielded no forensic evidence. Her fingertips were cut off, no way to get her prints. In addition, the poor girl evidently had never been to a dentist or at least not one they found a record of. Hell, he thought, that was what, in 1985, modern science had gotten better, he was sure of that. Something niggled at him about the shoddy work done on this investigation and the lack of effort the investigation team had put toward solving it. Who had wanted this poor girl dead and why?
Jack continued to read, but the story had begun way before this.
. . .
Twenty-Five Years Ago
Ian Simpson led the investigation with his partner, Pete Bullard. The body was beyond recognition and her fingertips cut off, but all the identification in the car and her purse led them to the conclusion this was Celeste Mason; they had no doubts about it. There was no murder weapon, no dental records to compare, and no one had ever reported her missing.
“Ain’t any leads, Captain, don’t know where to go with this one,” Bullard told their commanding officer.
“None, whatsoever, is that what you’re telling me?” Captain Horacio Harris eyed them over his black-framed glasses that had slipped a hair and sat at the end of his bulbous nose.
“Yes, sir, that’s what we’re telling you. No one reported her missing. She ain’t got no parents. She had a job in Sharpstown, no real friends, and we questioned everyone we could, but have come up with zilch,” Simpson told the captain.
Bullard leaned back and propped his foot on the empty chair by the captain’s desk.
“Not a clue as to why someone wanted her dead. She did do some waitressing at the Crystal Barrel and the Silver Moon. People claimed she wasn’t close to anyone. She was a loner, I guess.” He cleared his throat nervously then straightened up once Captain Harris glared first at him, then his foot on the chair.
“Someone wanted her dead, and I suggest you dig deeper, find out more, do something, damn it it, for a freaking change. That double homicide on Richmond last year ain’t solved either, even though you had a prostitute that says she witnessed the entire hit. Detectives, I want you both to get your sorry asses out there and detect.” Horacio Harris’s face went beet red.
“Yes, sir, we will, we’ll do what we can.” Bullard knew that was a lie.
When news hit around the clubs that Celeste Mason was dead, everyone felt the need to be on high alert.
CHAPTER SIX
Jack leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It was a long read. He built a story as he read, filling in the blanks as best he could. He would make a rolling movie in his head, thinking he was telling a story that needed fillers to make it complete. Not that it was all fact, not by any means, but it was how he did it. He had been on the job long enough to take some facts, add a few calculated guesses and some fiction that was oddly stranger than the truth, and see a picture in his head.
Celeste Mason, a poor girl on the wrong side of the tracks. Had she been a working girl who had a pimp that got carried away and lost control? It was sad that no one knew she was gone, and no one had reported her missing. She had been missing for at least a week. At least that was what the police report stated. The M.E. report stated that she had been dead longer than a week. It was sad, if those four boys had not come upon her, she might still be out there and no one would have been the wiser.
He continued to read. Why her, and why did no one miss her? The proprietor of the motel, Tully Cranston, hadn’t known the woman. He wasn’t missing any tenants, and he wasn’t missing any rent payments. Since Mr. Cranston didn’t know the woman or have any information on her, he was determined to be a dead end witness.
There weren’t any witness reports. No one that had been staying at the motel had seen nor heard a thing. He found that odd, but considering the type of establishment this was—one that rented rooms by the hour—most of the clientele would prefer to stay out of a police report. He had heard about the dicks that worked the case, Bullard and Simpson, but he didn’t know either of the detectives as they had retired years ago. A business card for a Bella’s Boutique had been the only lead that had been useful, but not too promising. When they questioned the manager who owned the boutique, she told them she had worked for her.
He read about her job at Bella’s Boutique. A no call, no-show after three days, and that constituted her termination, the report stated. It was not their policy to check on staff; therefore, they never reported anything to the police. One of the girls reported that she was a bit of a loner and quiet.
Angie Wilcox told the detectives that she did not associate with her coworkers. Her reasons were that she was too busy working at her part-time job.
The next statement he read was from another coworker, Wanda Forsythe.
“She was always secretive. She worked part-time at nights in a club called the Silver Moon, a country-dance bar, off and on, and she had worked at another bar called the Crystal Barrel. It was one of those scummy places. There was a topless bar, but she never worked at
that one,” Bullard noted in her statement.
He read the other employees’ statements and they had not talked to her much. They did not work the same shifts or even run with the same crowds. Then he read the manager-slash-owner’s statement. She stated that Celeste was a quiet worker and she never had any trouble with her. She was the assistant supervisor and closed up three nights a week. She kept to herself and was shy with the customers, but had begun to come out of her shell more. She attributed that to her work at the bars. The no-call, no-show was a huge surprise because she knew that poor girl needed the hours. She never missed work and was grateful for the overtime.
“Poor thing I think lived payday to payday. It was a shame that the unfortunate girl had not gotten a real chance in life,” Bella reported to the detectives.
He researched Bella’s Boutique. It had closed its doors eight years ago. Well, that was a bust. There were five names associated with the store. Four employees, including the victim and one manager-slash-owner. She had to have known more than four people. A needle in a haystack, he pressed his lips together.
A financial statement disclosed that the poor girl was just that—poor. Her bank records didn’t raise a red flag. She had been at Bella’s for over five years, but not always a full forty hours, the owner reported. That had to be why she needed the part-time work. Something bothered him about this. Waitressing was a lucrative job for a girl who was young and pretty. Was she too shy or inept, what? He knew a few waitresses and they always claimed you’d make money if you put your ass in gear and made it work for you, and it was fun.
He would have to check into these part-time jobs, not expecting to get much, but one never knew what small detail might come out. The people who went bar-hopping back then were in their fifties or sixties at least, and how would he find any patrons from that far back? Again, a needle in several haystacks. Anyone he found that worked there when she did would be better than finding no one. He never second-guessed any minor clue; Jack would turn over the tiniest pebble if he thought it would solve the case, and tie it up in a nice neat bow.
He focused on the bars. The best place to meet the wrong person at the wrong time. Did someone stalk her and then kill her? His initial thought was that she had an ardent admirer, and she had not felt the same. However, the M.E. report said no sexual assault had occurred. Not that all murders involving women were sexual in nature, but he figured ninety-nine percent were. Why hadn’t they at least done a rape kit? It wasn’t as if rape kits didn’t exist, and who had made the call to forgo the rape kit?
Back then, there had been no malls, no chain stores, just underdeveloped land. The road crews had nothing but that small bar to hang out in and drink. The Crystal Barrel had always been dive. He moved on to the other bar she worked at, owned apparently by the same person. This one was a bit more upscale. The Silver Moon, a nightclub that invited the local cowboy in for a beer and a dance with the cowgirl of his choosing. Someone had bought it though, and renamed it The Station. It was still a well-oiled business, booming with every wannabe cowboy, and the place to meet that next one-night stand love of your life.
Her job at the Silver Moon had been waitressing. He surmised that she did the same at the other bar. The girl, Wanda Forsythe, mentioned that there was a topless bar, but she apparently never worked there. She might have met her murderer at one of the bars. That created a list of suspects a mile long, one that would be more than impossible to find. He was not even going to attempt to chase a list of old bar patrons, it would be virtually impossible. This was another frigging needle in yet another haystack, on top the half dozen he already had. Jack groaned at the thought.
The poor girl’s life was bland. She was not flamboyant and she did not have a list of friends a mile long. She had no other extracurricular activities that would create any other avenue for Jack to explore. What was he missing, and why hadn’t anyone cared if this poor woman, with no money and apparently no life, lived or died?
He was going to have to dig into this woman’s past harder now, harder than the detectives had done in the beginning. Damn it, a needle in a stack of needles, this might prove to be impossible, but he was no stranger to impossible because it happened in Houston, Texas, every day.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Hey, Lucky, I drew a case that is going to take some digging. How is your own read going?”
“My case is about a missing hooker, JoAnn Cutter. But get this, her street name is Princess Lay-Ya, spelled L-A-Y-Y-A,” he guffawed. “Missing this long with a name like that, I’m sure I need to be looking for bones, not a breather. Says here she had something to do with another case, a material wit, and then she disappeared.”
“What case was she a wit on?”
“A couple of guys were shot at point blank range, and she’d been at the bus stop across the street.” Dawson was being a bit vague, but Jack figured he was reading and was preoccupied as he read. Besides, he had his own cold case filling his head.
“I’m going to go see Ben Gay. I want to see the M.E. report on the men who were shot, you gonna be around?”
“Not sure, I’m thinking I might go and do some canvassing, see if I can talk to some of the people that knew my vic, see if anything new shakes out. Tell Bennie howdy for me.”
“Sure thing,” Luck called back as he reached the side door. “Off to see Ben Gay.” He waved at Jack over his shoulder.
Jack let out a ha-ha-ha. Ben Gay. Bennie Guay. Chief Medical Examiner for HPD for eleven years and it’s clear to see how he earned his nickname. A short Italian with very dark features, not the usual handsome Italian, he was average. His brain, though, was way above average. Dynamite comes in small packages, and he was a whole case of dynamite packaged in a five foot five, 130-pound body. The entire precinct had howled in merriment when they all found out that he had to stand on a small step stool to do an autopsy. The decedent had been a rather large man with a chest and stomach that had protruded out so far, that it had been hard for him to dig into the man’s insides. Bennie had cursed all of them; of course, it was in fun. However, he did remind everybody that Genghis Khan was five foot three, Picasso was five foot four, and Beethoven was five foot three.
“Therefore, you bozos, I am in an exceptional class of short, famous men.”
Bennie had been a child prodigy, graduating high school at age fourteen. His IQ was off the charts, and his dream was to be a neurosurgeon. While in medical school at age eighteen, he had the chance to do some intern work with the HPD in the coroner’s office and fell in love with death. Forensic science intrigued him. Saving lives was important, but he knew there were plenty of smart doctors graduating in large numbers from Johns Hopkins and Stanford Medical Universities. He was fascinated with the puzzles of death, natural or not. This type of “doctoring” challenged him and stimulated his brain cells. Besides, he had always loved mysteries.
Jack went back to his case and then thought about Lucky’s case. His missing girl was dead. If she was a material wit for a shooting, someone might have “made” her disappear. He figured that Luck’s case was a no-win situation. No body, no murder; the case might be an unsolved missing person. Numerous missing person cases went unsolved. With the unreported missing people, Jack knew there was only one way to spin their stories: kidnapped, killed, and missing forever.
His thoughts went back to his own cold case as he turned the pages wondering if the detectives that had worked the case, Bullard and Simpson, were alive. He decided to check with Personnel to see if they were breathing and had an address or phone number on file. He did not know what their status might be since they had both chucked it in for retirement. He picked up the phone and dialed Personnel.
“Yvette Rogers, Personnel, can I help you?”
“Yvette, Jack West. Hey, do you have time to look up a co
uple of old retired dicks for me?”
“Now Jack, if I had time for old dicks, then I’d…” she barked aloud. Yvette was a bit raunchy, but that was what endeared her to over ninety percent of the men on the force.
Hell, they were all on the perverted side, and they attributed it to the job. Jack knew that fifty percent of them were still dirty-minded teenagers. It stands to reason; they were men. Yvette was a good egg though. He liked her, she was good-humored, and she thought everything was funny. She was a young black woman who was as spunky as they came, and smart. He guessed working with male cops all day was like working with a passel of foul-mouthed truck drivers. Jack knew most of the men didn’t have the proper filters when talking to the women that worked in the office. The women either accepted it or went along with it, and Yvette was one of the few that accepted it good-naturedly.
He snickered like Snidely Whiplash at her almost-joke. “Bullard and Simpson would’ve been on the force some twenty years ago.”
“Uh-huh, I heard of the Bull. Rumor was he was tough, and sometimes mean. Let me do some checking and get back with you, okay, Jackrabbit doll?”
“Call my cell if you don’t reach me at my desk, Yvette.”
“Yes, sir, give me a few minutes, I’ll see what I can dig up for you.”
She hung up, and he flipped back to the crime scene photos.
It was never a pretty scene. Pictures did not always capture the small things your eyes did at the original scene. All he had was pictures. He could not turn back the clock, so he would make the best of it.
He flipped to the body dump since it had not been determined where the murder had taken place. That was a total mystery. They had gone to her apartment but had found no evidence that a crime had occurred. Yellow crime scene tape roped off the area; he saw in the background a thick brushy marsh area with lots of trees. Her body lay dead, left in that car to rot away, and no one would find her—at least that is what her killer hoped. Debris scattered all over the large vacant lot, all kinds of trash and garbage. If not for those boys, it might have been years before someone found her remains. Her bare-bones then would have been harder to identify. There had been an extraordinary amount of rainfall days before those boys had stumbled on her dead body, and unfortunately, footprints, tire tracks, or other traces of evidence washed away.