Daddy didn’t care about Jake crying and denying the killing, he just attacked his brother-in-law like a madman, chopping him over and over with the hatchet, until Jake bled all over the porch and died. Then Daddy cut Jake’s head off, and held it by the hair, hollering that he had avenged his only boy. The deputies showed up about that time, and nearly fainted at the sight. They arrested Daddy, who kept saying, “I killed the son of a bitch who took my boy’s life.”
It was an all-around cluster, with the deputies trying to talk sense into Daddy, telling him to put the hatchet down, so they wouldn’t have to shoot him. But the chickens had come home to roost for Daddy, and he knew it. The only thing he hadn’t lost up to then was his girls, and they would surely be taken away. He turned the hatchet around and hit himself across the forehead, opening up a gash four inches long, and two deep, enough that he got to the thinking part of his head. He almost bled to death, but after the doctors worked on him, he lived on with less sense than a carrot. Afterward he went to the small, criminal, crazy-house and stayed there while they were building the big one. Mama was pretty far gone by that time, and took a whole bottle of aspirin one day. They found her down near the water, lying on the same rock where little Marsh was left by the pervert who killed him.
The deputies came by later, the day Mama died, and told them about finding the person who killed the boy. He was a child molester, just got out of prison, and was traveling the creek to get back to his home. When he saw little Marsh, playing in the yard, and no one watching him, he called the boy over, and, real sweet-like, he offered a hug with his arms out. After that it was the terrible thing; the man assaulted the little boy, who started crying, because the man hurt him. The only thing the ex-con could do was shut the kid up, so he hit him with a big rock. A few years later, the man was executed in the electric chair, and it couldn’t have been a nicer ending, Ellen always thought. She just wished her uncle could have lived on, and Daddy wouldn’t have gone at him with the hatchet, determined to cut his head off.
When Ellen grew up, after living with her daddy’s kinfolk for a few years, she got her vocational nurse certification and went to work at the insane asylum, so she could be near her daddy all the time. He had a certain smell about him by that time, the bad smell Ellen grew to recognize, not only on him, but on the others in the criminal ward. She knew to watch them really closely. Later, after Daddy died, Ellen applied with the new Madison-MacArthur Hospital, and went to work in the criminally insane section, and her boss recognized her special ability.
“Fat lot of good that did me,” Ellen was fond of saying. “They never paid me a dime more for it.”
Ask the management staff about her special gift and they’d shake their heads and say, “She’s worked around the hospital too long; now she acts like one of them.”
On Friday evening, the day of the train wreck over at the Madison station, Ellen Goodbody felt a twinge hitting her nose, somewhere close to 73’s cell. She didn’t recall smelling his odor very often, even though she knew about the inmate’s history. He had his own doctor to give medication as it was needed, taking some work off the few nurses on the floor. That day she caught the scent more than once, a revelation she felt she’d best keep to herself. 73 was different from the others—his catatonic condition was not a result of medication, but of trauma, from a bad accident. Ellen had always avoided the cell, afraid for some reason she couldn’t explain, even though he was supposed to be harmless as a butterfly; still, he gave her a big case of the willies.
Inside the cell, behind the protective brick walls of the hospital, where Robert Dawson was kept separate from the rest of the population, he lay in his bunk, enjoying the aftermath of his work. The computer program had been delightful to Ridge, one of Dawson’s alter egos, challenging him to stricter intellectual responses. Doctor Hopkins used a specific retraining program for his patient’s thought processes, titillating his neurons, hoping the result would be a greater jump into reality. Improvement had been phenomenal since the accident, and he was almost back to one hundred percent. Even now, Ridge, the smart one in Dawson’s personality disorder, could outthink the rest of the building’s population, including the new operations manager, who was busy trying to cut costs and line his pockets with a golden glow. Doctor Hopkins warned Dawson against showing any sign of his improved condition to anyone, excluding, of course, his employees. They had to know who was boss in order to maintain security.
The man the old woman detective called Buzzcut was a distant cousin, a quiet, intelligent young man who knew which side of the bread had the butter on it. Ridge had to laugh at the words as he thought them. They were leftovers from Dawson’s parents. Tomorrow was the big day, the day Ridge would begin realizing some benefit from his last two years of hard work.
Even the doc was amazed at his recovery, saying, “I never would have believed you could come back from the trauma.” Ridge smiled a little more, his impatience getting closer to the edge, wondering what the good doctor would do if he really knew his patient’s mind.
Buzzcut would be reporting in after regular hours, with Doctor Hopkins making the allowance for the late-night visit. Ridge wanted to see his cousin, or, that is, Dawson’s cousin, and savor the information he would bring. Funny how things had turned out: Ridge had so much money that anything he wanted done or started could be brought to fruition from inside a mental hospital for the criminally insane.
“Old man,” he said to himself and the empty room, “what do you think of your loser son now? Here’s hoping there’s a hell and you’re burning every day.” Robert Dawson had been an abused child, neglected by the father and punished physically and emotionally by the mother. There were three personalities in the man: a boy, Bobby; Ridge Roberts, the ego without a conscience; and Robert, the porcelain salesman who tried to make peace among the three. Some time back, Dawson was sentenced, after being found guilty of several murders. He was labeled “the Heartless Killer” by the press, a villain who murdered young women and removed their hearts.
Chapter 4
Maude finally went home, undressed down to her underwear then sat in the rocking chair on the back porch. A call to dispatch informed the on duty officer that she was out of service A tall wooden fence stood between her and the neighbor’s back door, lending privacy to the porch, and the yard with its five oak trees. Off to the right was the storage shed on the lot with the rent house, a few peach trees in the yard, and a garden spot in the open area, where some watermelons and tomatoes were growing. She sat outside as usual, enjoying the day with a gin and tonic, the first of the day.. The booze filled some cracks recently opened by the coroner’s off-the-record information.
Tempted to smoke the vital fourth cigarette, Maude held off in favor of a handful of salted pretzels. Definitely salt helped get her through the need for nicotine, she thought, popping another curly one in her mouth. Anything she could think of, or figure on, was better than the place her thoughts wanted to go. She had to stay away from there, had to figure another angle. Robert Dawson was not the murderer of Eve Devine. She had called immediately, only to find out from the hospital that Dawson’s condition hadn’t been upgraded.
She had a copycat, a hero worshiper, taking his trip down murderer’s row, intent on making a name for himself. The media would grab it, mold it, and make a new terror for the men and women of Madison. God she hated that. Hated the way vile, evil men played to the press, hoping to gain eternal life in print. Write a book, she thought, if you want to become famous. Kill all the fictional people you want, but lay off the murder business. How she wished it could be that easy.
Joe, she missed Joe, her partner. He would be able to put a spin on the story that might make her laugh, or at least take away some of the dread. She picked up the phone twice, and put it down, hating to disturb his weekend, but the third time she punched in the number programmed for him.
“Hello, Maude, is that you? Something wrong? Are you okay?” His questions started coming, just as
she knew they would. “Give me a minute, let me throw this blonde out of my house. Be right back.”
She held on to the connection, hoping there was nothing serious she was breaking up, just needing to run some of the information by him. “Joe, are you back? You’re not taking a dump, are you, with me waiting around?”
“Hey, Maude, no, but you were close. I had some clothes in the washer and needed to turn on the machine so I have clean clothes for next week. What’s up? It’s not like you to call at night.”
“I know,” she said. “Tried not to, but thought you might shed some light on what’s happening.”
“What do you mean, what’s happening? Did you get a call-out?” Joe sounded concerned. “Let me get my beer then tell me about it.”
He was back in a minute, giving Maude time to cover herself with a robe, thinking she had already given the neighborhood peepers a good show.
“So tell me everything,” Joe said.
She began telling it with the phone call from the kid, then the scene at the empty house. The incident with the train followed right behind, and Joe was speechless.
“Maude, are you kidding me? You’re just now calling?” He seemed upset, but surely he understood her reasons for not calling.
“Well, Joe, it was my weekend in the barrel. I didn’t want to spoil the time for both of us.”
“Yeah, but heck, Maude, this is a really bad case. You should have trusted me to make the decision, whether I wanted to get involved or not.”
“Well, no one is sorrier than I am for not calling, but you know how it goes. The department only pays one of us to be on call. The best they would do for you would be to give you some extra days off.”
“Okay,” he said, “tell me all of it. The part you’ve left out.”
“What makes you think there’s more? Isn’t it bad enough yet?” she asked him, trying to stall.
“I can hear it in your voice. There’s more.” Joe was a hard man to fool.
“Well, it’s like this. I talked to Holly, off record. He thinks the woman bled to death before the train ran her over.”
“Yeah, well, you already had that one figured out. Why is that so bad?”
Dang it, he just won’t stop, she thought. “Because the murderer cut her heart out, that’s what caused her to bleed to death.”
The line went dead. No sound at all except maybe some soft music in the background.
“Joe, you still there?” She hoped he hadn’t pissed himself with the news.
“Yeah, Maude. I’m here. Catching my breath. Jeez, that’s a bad deal, a sicko.”
“You know what I thought first? That he had somehow got out, but he’s still there. Condition not upgraded. Same report as the last time. A copycat is my take.” She let out her breath, feeling better with her partner’s input. Two heads were always better than one in murder situations. It was easy for a lone detective to put too much emphasis on the wrong thing.
“Monday I’m headed to Bisbey. I guess if the lieutenant is okay with it, you and me both will go. Depends on what comes in tonight and tomorrow.” She was hoping there wouldn’t be anything happening for a week, but that was a joke. Something always happened. Just didn’t come to light for a few days sometimes.
“Want me to help you tomorrow?” Joe asked.
“Nah. Not as is. If I need you though, I’ll call. A promise. Chew on this situation and let me know what you think. Meanwhile, goodnight. Hope I didn’t disturb your sleep.”
“Sleep? Who sleeps on his day off?” He was trying to make a joke, but he wasn’t into it. The seriousness of what had happened lay heavy. He would be up for a while, putting it together.
“Goodnight, Joe. I’ll see you Monday.”
“Okay, but if you need to call, I’m here,” he said seriously.
The next day was quiet, with no call-outs or disturbances requiring a homicide detective. As far as the death of Eve Devine, there was nothing Maude could do until Monday when the workweek started. Until that time, Maude had a couple of drinks while cleaning her house and visiting the dry cleaner to get her uniform ready for the next week. Lightweight blazers and thin blouses along with tailored slacks were her summer wear. Winter was about the same, with heavier-weight clothing. Maude preferred to dress for getting on the ground, as she often had to do at a murder scene. When all the mundane duties were done, she sat at the table with her notebook, sorting through what evidence was found, as well as what witnesses had told her. She still needed to interview some of the people who were passengers that day. The manifest from the stationmaster showed twenty-five people boarded the cars that Friday morning, all headed to different places, but some returned to the station in the evening. Five people were commuters, leaving and returning the same day. Out of those five, someone must have seen something odd about Eve Devine. Fifty people got off the train at the Madison station. Ten of those had boarded at some other site then detrained at 6:10, jumping off into the grass and siding when the doors were opened by the conductor. Jeez, it was a mess.
The gin bottle was making its distress call, feeling the loss of Maude’s daytime attention over the call weekend. Sunday night she comforted the bottle until they both fell down from exhaustion. Monday morning came with a shock. Awakened as always by the sound of the six o’clock alarm, she made a bleary-eyed trip to the bathroom, greeting her ravaged face in the mirror. Blue eyes shot through with redness gave evidence of the amount of alcohol she’d consumed the night before, and the lines in her face seemed deeper than they were yesterday. She looked her long frame over and tried unsuccessfully to recall getting ready for bed, but the inside-out pajamas gave proof she had performed the task in her drunken state.
Chapter 5
For everything we do there is a reckoning, a time to face our fears and sins, and decide if we are indeed worth saving. That Monday morning, Maude stared at herself in the mirror and hated what she saw. It wasn’t the person in the mirror that disgusted her; it was the power of the gin bottle reflected in the light of morning. Years and years of heavy drinking was not much to show for a lifetime, and Maude knew that worse yet, she was headed for the morning when she couldn’t get out of bed without an infusion of the clear alcohol. Her body craved a drink, a long-lasting pull on the bottle to give her synapses reason to pop. She was frightened of what she had become and where she was headed.
The tall ladder-back chair near the bathroom supported her weight as she sat down, overcome by the realization that there was nowhere to go to get away from herself. Over twenty-three years ago, Maude had dived into gin, its mild odor usually undetectable on the breath. The smooth liquid helped her forget about Grace, lying in the hospital about to die.
Surprisingly, the booze had never interfered with the job, but how much longer before she started sneaking sips while sitting at the desk? Sometimes she wanted to do just that, but all her training and work ethic forbade such actions. Still, the need was there. Drinking had made her late for meetings, late for work, sometimes gave her a crappy attitude. In that mood people avoided her, not wanting to be the object of her derision.
A bad way to start a busy day, she thought, her head the size of a Halloween pumpkin, and eyes the color of red Kool-Aid. She stopped at a large convenience store and gas station and bought a tall black coffee, needing the caffeine. Her first cigarette of the day was behind her, but the second one was motioning her toward the pack, looking for a light. She obliged, and stood outside the store slurping coffee and smoking, hoping to find the human behind the red eyeballs. There was so much to do for the day: she had to report the death of Eve Devine to Lieutenant Patterson, fill out a time sheet for the overtime, and get permission to leave the area to interview the woman in Bisbey. So far there was no information about her name, age, or physical condition. A trip to see the store manager where Eve worked might help her there. Holly had said the report would be out on Monday; she hoped it would be early in the day when it reached her desk.
Driving to work was a
fast trip; there was little between the store and the Cop Shop. She pulled into the employee parking lot and saw all the spaces were filled. That’s just peachy, she thought. I get to drive around and find a place to park the city vehicle; meanwhile my head is killing me. Finally, a clerk working the night shift pulled out of a spot, intent on getting home after a long night. Maude quickly pulled into the lot before the car behind her had a chance to grab the space. A uniformed cop was sitting in the driver seat of the other car and began to honk at her, trying to get her attention that he needed to park his car worse than she did. Usually those kinds of happenings went by her like chaff blowing on the wind, but that Monday morning, she had beaten herself up already, and refused to take guff from a rookie who didn’t know his ass from his elbow. She stopped the car quickly, jumped out of the seat as fast as her arthritic knees would allow, and projected herself toward the car behind her. She beat on the closed window of the by now regretful driver, and demanded he run down the glass.
“Excuse me,” she said, her reddened eyes flashing fire, “who do you think you are, honking at me to move my car? Young man, I’ve a mind to pull you from that seat, turn you over my knee, and give you a paddling for your rudeness.”
“Uh, yes, ma’am,” the officer said, ducking his head. “I was in a hurry and thought you might be a clerk who could wait for a few minutes. See, this is my first day and I didn’t want to be late.”
“And you already have a city car?” she asked him incredulously.
“Yes, ma’am. Issued yesterday. Working patrol with my FTO.”
“You suppose your field training officer would approve of this kind of rudeness?” she asked him, fury making her tremble.
“No, ma’am. I reckon he wouldn’t. Probably fail me for it.”
Maude was cooling off from the effects of the soured gin in her throat, her embarrassment at reprimanding the young officer beginning to take the place of the fury. “Watch your behavior, officer, if you want to survive in this old woman’s world.”
The Maude Rogers Murder Collection Page 56