“What do you intend to do when you retire, partner, move to Philly?” Joe asked with a straight face. “I know you made a new friend out there.”
“You want to get that cute nose pulled off from sticking it in my business; you’re on the right track,” Maude retorted. She turned to gaze out the window as she extinguished the butt in an empty soda bottle left on the floor by a previous driver. “Besides,” she said, “I kind of liked Philly.”
“Uh-huh,” Joe agreed. “I could tell.”
They traveled in silence for the next few minutes, each thinking about the ordeal to come. Maude had difficulty believing her nemesis from Chicago had been identified, and he was on the way to being caught. Joe was thinking about his kids and hoping his trip out of town wasn’t at the same time as Sheila’s arrival in Madison. If so, he might miss the visit with the boys.
“Say Maude,” Joe ventured. “Why do you think Dawson kills women? You know, like the ones on East Avenue.”
“I think he likes controlling them,” she said after a moment of reflection. “I think he loves them, loves watching them beg him for their lives. I don’t think he intends for them to die, but the damage he inflicts when he removes their body parts causes death. The mutilation of their breasts must have some significance, but we may never know what it is. Maybe a love-hate thing, or bad memories.
“When he was a kid, Bobby Dawson was abused. I’m convinced of it, and I believe it was his mother who did it. All this psyche stuff has to be explained by someone smarter than me. I don’t understand why he fixated on me, and why he wants to impress me. Maybe he wants my approval,” she said with a shrug. “Three months, that’s all I spent with him. Maybe he loved me as kids do, just because. Or maybe he hated me because I didn’t stop his mother from hurting him. Who knows, maybe he’s confused and thinks I’m his mother.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon if any of that’s true,” Joe remarked.
James Patterson was on a roll. His two detectives, Eberhart and Wheeler, had busted a dope ring downtown while they were looking for a witness to another crime. The bust came by accident when the two detectives opened the door to an empty warehouse and surprised four Mexican nationals busy sorting packages of marijuana.
The four guys ran, but Eberhart caught up with one of the slow ones and got the story out of him. The guy said he didn’t speak English, but Eberhart knew some Spanish words and managed to figure out that the dope had come in the night before. Some local dealers had paid up front and were waiting for the shipment.
Detectives Eberhart phoned the state’s drug enforcement cops, and through the agencies’ combined efforts, a big group of local dealers were now in the slammer. Patterson received high praise from the captain for his detective’s lucky find. He was definitely riding high. The business with the pawn shop owner and his wife was about to get closed out, so maybe Patterson might go to the head of the line for a captain’s position down the road. Never hurt to move up in the police department.
The lieutenant’s office was quiet, people out taking care of business. Detective Rogers was due in soon and so was her partner, Joe Allen. Patterson had a fair streak in him even though sometimes all the political horse hockey, as he thought of it, put undue pressure on him to look the other way when one of his detectives was being set up by the brass.
Patterson didn’t know what had caused Rogers to be at the top of Captain Power’s hit list, but it was getting old, the crap they did to her. Like the beater car she had to drive, and the latest thing, giving her a partner who had no experience in homicide. Powers wanted her to quit and leave his department, but there were too many laws against overt firings of minority officers. So the captain was subtle, insisting that Patterson give her the worst details whenever he could.
Most of the time Patterson could avoid helping Powers vendetta against Maude, but the woman had plenty of grounds for a harassment suit against them if she wanted to go that path. The business with the warrant-serve on East Avenue; now, that was a pure case of it. The address was a drug place as bad as it gets. Just so happens, she found bodies there. Patterson knew that Maude was a darn good detective, but no amount of talking convinced the captain. He seemed dead set against her.
Looking up from the desk, Patterson saw the two detectives coming in the door. He couldn’t help but admire Maude Rogers. She was a class act, never afraid to say what was on her mind, but no whiner. She also worked smarter than anyone he knew.
“Detectives,” the lieutenant said, “what have you got for me?”
“We located him, and need to go get him.” Maude said, plopping down in one of the office chairs.
“What, another trip? The city manager is going to cut my privates off when he gets the bills for all this.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Maude said gloomily. “But we got no choice Boss. He’s hiding out in Phoenix, and we have to get him before he kills someone else.”
“Tell me why we don’t turn this over to the Feds?” Patterson knew Maude’s reasons, but wanted to hear it from her.
“They would be grateful to take the case from us now that we have identified the perp. Forget that we have time and city money invested in this, you’ll get nothing from them, except a big kiss-off when they say,
“We’ll take it from here”. They won’t even keep us in the loop, just feed our glorious captain some crumbs to make him feel important, and snub their noses at our department.”
“Can we get this done in-house?” Patterson asked quietly.
About that time Joe spoke up, “Lieutenant, my partner is a key player in this maniac’s plans. If we give this case away, the perp may go underground, and we’ll be seeing his work next month, or next year. Fact is, from what I know of this type of killer, he won’t stop on his own. He must be stopped. I know I’m a rookie, compared to you and to Maude, but some of my time in CID was spent studying his kind of criminal. One of the places I hung out was in the FAB, Forensics of Aberrant Behavior. I learned a few things. And Boss, from what I have seen of this guy’s work, he’s just getting started.”
Patterson chewed his lip for a minute. “Okay,” he said, “but you need help. I’ll see if I can pull some strings with Phoenix PD and get some of their people lined up. We helped them a few months back when some cons escaped from their jail. Our guys did a lot of the work, getting the inmates behind bars.” Patterson considered the angles and continued, “We have some jurisdiction issues already with this guy. He’s going to wear his tail out if we catch him, going back and forth to court in all the cities where he committed crimes.”
“With any luck, he won’t ever make it to court.” Maude said briefly.
“Detective,” the lieutenant said, “I didn’t hear you say that, and I don’t want to not hear you say that again. Get my meaning?”
“Yeah,” she said, “I got it. We’ll bring him in if it’s at all possible.”
“Okay, now get going. Catch this peckerwood,” Patterson said, dismissing the two detectives before he changed his mind. “But if you can’t do the job,” he added, “we are calling the Feds.”
Watching Maude and Joe make the arrangements to fly to Phoenix, James Patterson thought about Captain Powers and the stuff he had forced on Maude. This was her chance to prove that she was better than all the men who wanted her badge, and her lieutenant wasn’t going to stand in the way.
Before leaving town, Maude had a duty to perform which involved a trip across town to the jail. She needed to interview the drug dealer, Boy Parker. He was being held in lock-up on charges of Aggravated Assault on a Police Officer and Possession of Illegal Drugs. Maude wanted to talk to him, hoping to get information about what he had seen in the East Avenue building. She believed he might have witnessed something that could be used as evidence against Robert Dawson. There was also the kid Maurice and his family. She needed to know what happened to them.
The long, jail corridor where the more dangerous criminals were kept was in a three-tiered, brown building w
ith a few bullet-proof windows covered with bars. Prisoners had to have a certain amount of sunlight every day and the windows allowed natural light inside the building. Because Boy was charged with assaulting two police officers, he got the cook’s tour of the brown building.
Maude had prior knowledge of Parker from three different times she had busted him with a dime’s worth of rock cocaine. Minor charges, but given enough time, he would rack up the bitch, or an automatic twenty-five years in state prison. Skinny drug pushers didn’t like going to state because they weren’t treated well by those hulks who spent most hours of their day building muscle mass that made them king of the yard. Boy would become Girl in state prison.
“Boy, what the heck did you think you were doing, hitting me with a sap? You cockroach. You owe me plenty for that. Whatever they do to you is not enough,” Maude said, sitting across the table from the long-legged man that Maurice must have seen. “Do you own a brown hat?”
“Why do you want to know?” The convict asked suspiciously
“Just answer my question before I put a knot on your head. You stinking slime. What if you’d have given me a concussion? By the way, I have my phone’s recorder going so you better not lie.” Maude was acting a whole lot madder than she really felt. “I’m going to testify against you and see that you get the max sentence. Piece of no good human flesh, hitting an old lady when she wasn’t looking.”
“I’m sorry Detective Rogers. I wasn’t thinking. Didn’t mean to hurt you,” Boy said, hanging his head.
“Bull corn, you meant to knock me out. And you did. I bled for a week from behind my ear,” Maude said, the lie coming easy. “Anyway, answer my question. Do you have a brown hat?”
“Yeah. Makes me look cool,” he said.
“What made you hole up there on East Avenue. Didn’t you notice anything smelling bad?” Maude asked.
“Yeah, you know, I’m homeless. Some of the rooms in that old building were empty sometimes. I had to climb in and out the crawl space so no one would see me, but it wasn’t that bad. I ain’t got much meat on me, and I could hide in there when it wasn’t so hot outside. When it got to smelling bad later on, I went out on the roof.” Boy was talking fast, trying to make points.
“What did you see?” Maude asked. “Don’t lie to me.”
The drug dealer was quiet for a minute and Maude could tell he didn’t want to answer. Finally he took a shaky breath and started talking again. “All I wanted was a place to get high, to sleep. But I saw him. I saw the Devil. He scared me so bad I pissed my pants.”
“Dang it Boy, I don’t have all day, WHAT DID YOU SEE?” she yelled. Maude knew the terror that the man was feeling; she had glimpsed the evil in Dawson that night in her rent house.
“I saw him drag two girls into those rooms. It was night, and I was sitting on the top of the stairs, trying to get cool. I saw the door open downstairs, and the Devil walked in. The light was poor, but there was enough to see. He had on a long black raincoat and a baseball cap, but… I knew. I knew he was bad because it wasn’t raining. He propped the door open, real quiet like, and pulled the first girl in, but she didn’t want to come. He had her gagged even though she seemed high on something. I could tell when her head kind of fell to her shoulders. The Devil looked around, and I crawled away from the stoop while I could, and hid in the room down at the end of the hall. It was empty, and I had been sleeping there. I left the door cracked open and watched what he did. That girl sounded like my dog used to when he howled, and I could hear her even though he had her mouth covered. He hit her then, I guess to shut her up.”
“Keep going Boy, you’re doing fine,” Maude reassured him.
“The Devil carried her to the room and closed the door, and then he started laughing and singing real loud. The girl was still moaning, but every now and then she would get a scream out.”
“Did anyone else see that happen, Boy?” Maude asked,
“Sure. There were two people on the second floor saw it. They left though. Ran out of the building. I would have too, but I knew if I did, he would hear me. The Devil can hear your heartbeat!”
“You know Almondera, lived in 507 of that building?” Maude asked, hoping to get a connection to the fugitive.
“Sure, but he left. Told me he was going to Mexico, and I could stay in his room. I never saw him again.” Boy was eager now to please Maude.
“When did you see Almondera?” The pieces of the puzzle were coming together with Boy’s revelations. Maude was already thinking of her next question.
“He left about three days before the Devil got there with the girl, probably why he took her to Frank’s room.” Parker was scared. His hands were shaking badly and his voice quavered.
“You had a conversation with Almondera?” She asked him.
“Yeah, I gave him some blow because I owed him. Frank said he was leaving on the bus that night. Asked me to go along, but I was broke and besides, my mama lives here.”
“What happened next with the man and the girl?” Maude asked, taking him back to that night.
“Well, I was lying on the floor, praying he wouldn’t see me, knowing that the Devil can see everywhere. I heard the door opening out of Frank’s apartment and I heard steps. That’s when I pissed my pants. I knew he could smell it. He walked to the stairs, and then he stopped. I was praying he would just go on and leave me alone. In a minute I heard him coming up the stairs again. I was glad I had stayed still. Later, when I knew he was gone, I climbed up in the tunnel and hid until I felt safe to get out of the building.”
“But you went back. What made you go back?” Maude was pretty sure that Danny Boy Parker was not afraid of many things. He was streetwise and knew how to get around. She had heard he came to Madison from Houston, hoping to make the big score selling crack cocaine, but he had a habit himself, and used up his store’s supply, pissing off his suppliers.
“I was hoping the Devil was gone so I waited for two days, but I had left my stash there in the tunnel when I got in a hurry to leave. I went back and at first, I didn’t hear anything so I thought he was gone. But I was wrong. The noise was going on in 507 and that room across the hall.”
“Apartment 509, is that the one you mean?” She clarified.
“Yeah. That one.” Boy shuddered at the memory of the violence. “There was a lot of crying, and I could tell the girls were trying to talk, but it sounded like they were gagged. For one whole day I stayed in that hot tunnel, not leaving. I could hear him talking to them. Sometimes he would cry, and then he would start laughing real high. It was too spooky. I stayed there till I felt safe enough to leave the building. I went to the soup kitchen meaning to sneak back later. I used to see that girl there sometimes.” Boy seemed drained, as though he had been going through all of it again.
“Which girl?”
“The one he brought in first. Maria was her name.”
“Did you see the other girl that night?”
“Yeah. He brought her in like a sack of dog food. Over his shoulder.”
“When was that?”
“Right after he locked up the first one. When I heard him on the stairs he carried her into that other room, but he didn’t make any noise. I didn’t hear the girl either.”
“When did you go back the last time?” Maude quietly asked.
“The day you were there, I was sleeping in one of the empty rooms. When you came up the stairs, I hid out, and then I hit you. I’m real sorry, but I kept my stuff in the tunnel, and I needed to get it so I could make a few bucks. Your partner got to my blow before I did, and I kind of went crazy and sliced his head a little, even thought about dumping him off the roof. A couple of days later they found me at the soup kitchen and brought me here. I dream about him-the Devil,” Parker sighed as he thought about what he had said. “I guess I’m in real trouble this time.”
“Fraid so, Boy. But I will need you to identify the man you saw. I have a picture. If you help me, I’ll help you. Here’s five different shots
. Is the man you saw carrying those girls one of these?”
Boy sat still for a minute, a look of terror on his face. “That’s him.” He said, pointing to the younger Robert Dawson. “That’s the Devil.”
“You’re sure?” She asked.
“If you ever see the Devil you don’t forget his face,” Boy whispered, a shiver taking him down a lonely road.
Maude saw no reason to continue questioning him and left the jail. Danny Parker’s life had undergone a series of changes, none of them good.
Chapter 26
Maude went home and washed a load of laundry, knowing she needed to pack a suitcase for the trip to Phoenix. Mundane duties kept her mind off Mary Ellen, and the tragedy of her murder and mutilation. The loss of the young woman had left a big hole in the private world of Maude Rogers, but it didn’t pay to cry for her losses. It was tough thinking about the times that sweet girl had shown up on Maude’s doorstep asking for advice. And Chris Cole, another innocent, whose crime had been that he cared for Mary Ellen, and by luck of circumstance got in the way of a crazed madman. God alone knew the suffering of that young man before he died; one more reason in a list of others to find Dawson and put him away.
The trip to the airport was tense, both detectives aware of the capabilities of the man they hunted. A more devious and intelligent criminal Maude had yet to come across. Robert Dawson had gone from being an abused child to a killer. He was dangerous and she was concerned for her partner, a young man who had not yet lived a full life. Joe’s instincts were good, his training was up to date, and so far Maude had a healthy respect for his abilities. But could he fire a weapon and kill another human being? She hoped he could, for the time might come when his response would determine whether he lived or the perp lived. Life as a cop was really that simple. Sometimes it was kill or be killed.
The Maude Rogers Murder Collection Page 22