Two Bare Arms

by Blake Banner

  I looked at it. It was a David’s star with an inscription on the back. It said, “To Carmen Dehan, from Mom and Daddy, on her first birthday, May 9, 1991.”

  We had an awkward moment as I slipped it around her neck. Then I did it up, and she dropped her hair over my hands. I wiped them dry on my pants, and we walked the short distance across the parking lot in silence. She gave me a sudden, mischievous grin and said, “You know? This is the closest I ever get to going on a date.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her and smiled. It was the closest I ever got too, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead I said, “Yeah? Why?”

  She shrugged. “I hate people. People hate me.”

  “I don’t think people hate you, Dehan. You’re actually a…” I hesitated. “A really nice person. But people are terrified of your attitude. If you just toned down the attitude a bit…”

  She was still smiling, but she looked curious. As I pulled open the door, she said, “Does it bother you?”

  I followed her in and surprised myself by saying, “No, I kind of like it.”

  A gleaming waitress with gleaming teeth and hair smiled at us and said, “Table for two?”

  She led us to a table for two, and we ordered two beers and two steaks. As we sat, I said, “You’re attractive, you’re intelligent, you’re funny—there must be lots of men out there who’d…”

  She cut across me with, “I’m good.”

  “You’re good?”

  “I’m good.”

  I grinned. “Okay…” And we both laughed for no particular reason. We followed the laugh with an awkward silence, and Dehan said suddenly, “So what’s next?”

  “You mean after our date?”

  “Cut it out.” But she was still smiling.

  I shrugged. “I guess we call David in and have a chat with him. Ask him how come he’s been lying to his uncle for the last twelve years. I’d also like to talk to his shrink, but that won’t be easy.”

  She was quiet for a bit, turning the salt cellar around in circles.

  “If he thinks you and he have this special connection, you could play on that. He probably couldn’t resist the temptation to engage in some kind of heroes’ repartee with you.”

  I watched her but didn’t say anything. After a moment, she raised her eyes to mine, narrowed them, and sat back.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  I smiled.

  “You don’t think he did it.”

  I made a face like brain constipation and said, “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m just not satisfied yet.”

  “Come on, Stone. This is just being contrary. What more do you want? He fits the bill in every respect. He was there, for crying out loud.”

  “So were one and a half million other people.”

  “Come on!”

  “Okay, here’s my problem. He was going to brothels. Everything else rings true, but that strikes a false note. This murder, or murders, is all about frustration, about pent-up rage that the killer can’t release. He should be sitting at home watching porn, not spending two hundred dollars a night getting laid in a brothel.”

  “Since when are you a psychologist?”

  “Fair point, but still, it feels wrong.”

  The steaks came and the gleaming waitress instructed us to enjoy them. Dehan cut into hers and put the first slice into her mouth. She gave a gentle sigh and waved her fork at me, raising an eyebrow.

  “I am going to tell you what you would tell me. You are making assumptions.” She was right, and I said so. “For starters, you are assuming that he is going to these whorehouses and shagging his brains out every night, but I am going to put two scenarios to you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Scenario one…” She cut another piece of steak and stuck it in her mouth, talking with her mouth full. “He spends all day living out his fantasy as some legendary, barbarian superhero or supervillain. He builds up in his mind this unrealizable image of himself. And by the evening he is ready to go, not whoring, but wenching. But when he gets to the whorehouse, what happens? He can’t get it up. Because he can’t get it up with real, hot, flesh-and-blood women. He can only get it up with a two-dimensional virtual woman who doesn’t threaten him. And every time that happens, his rage builds a little more, until on the fourth day he can’t take it anymore and he goes out, finds a suitable victim, probably a street whore, and kills her in a manner befitting a wild barbarian but chopping her into pieces.”

  I sipped my beer. “That is a very credible scenario.”

  “Scenario two.” She leveled her knife at me. “What I just described happened twelve and thirteen years ago. But he’s been seeing his shrink. And the shrink has encouraged him to live out his fantasies and try to make them real, keep it secret from his mom and his uncle so that they will not judge him, and have as many whores as he can manage. And he says to him, ‘Don’t worry about not getting it up, pal, because I will give you some tablets that, when you take them, will give you a hard-on worthy of a titan. And you will be the hero of the night. You will give those wenches the ride of their lives!’ And what happens?” She spread her hands. “You were right. It works. He stops killing.”

  I made a face of deep respect. “That is a very compelling argument, Detective Dehan.”

  “For twelve years. Until you come along and upset the apple cart.”

  We ate in silence for a bit. Finally, I said, “You know what? We dug into Dave, and look what we found. We’ll pull him in, and we’ll interrogate him. But for the sake of completeness, let’s dig into Peter too and see what we find. If it’s one or the other of them, it will become clear.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “I guess.”

  She finished her steak and signaled the waitress, who came gleaming back to us with her teeth and her hair. Dehan smiled at her and said, “This is what I am going to do now. I am going to have an espresso coffee and a glass of Irish whiskey, which you are going to serve to me with no ice and in a cognac glass.”

  The waitress smiled and blinked a lot and said, “Okay!”

  It seemed like a good idea, so I said I would do the same. When she had gone away to fetch the goods, Dehan said, “So how about you, Stone, why don’t you date?”

  “Who says I don’t?”

  She made a face like a chipmunk and went, “Pffff!”

  I shrugged. “I don’t hate people. But I guess I don’t really trust people. Maybe people sense that and they steer clear of me. I don’t know. Either way, people and I—we don’t really jibe.”

  The coffees and the whiskeys came, and I smiled. “I guess that makes us like Statler and Waldorf. You are Statler, I’m Waldorf.”

  We chinked glasses.

  “Here’s to that.”

  We set out early, before the dawn, and drove all day, taking it in turns to sleep and drive. It was a tedious journey, mostly just a straight line along the I-90, through rain and drizzle, as far as Wisconsin. At Lake Erie, we stopped at a motel outside Toledo and had four hours sleep, then continued on up. We got to Danbury at midnight, booked in to a motel, and went straight to bed. The next morning, after an early breakfast at seven, we drove out to Holmes, found Camp Road, and wound our way through woodlands to the lake at Camp Kaufmann.

  We got there at shortly after eight. Most of the trees were tall and spindly, naked against the frozen gray sky. The water looked black and icy, and the ground was muddy from the relentless rain and drizzle. There was a patch of grass surrounded by huts, with a few canoes scattered here and there, and a long, wooden jetty reaching out into the water. The whole thing was enclosed by trees. I could see why Zak would have favored a place like this.

  Dehan walked out onto the jetty and stood staring at the trees and the obsidian water. I watched her from the shore. Now that we were here, I wasn’t sure what to do. After a moment I joined her, and we both turned to look back at the collection of huts. Dehan wiped the drizzle from her eyes and said, “She’s here, isn’t she?”

  I could
visualize the bikes. How many? Maybe thirty, forty, fifty of them. And a hundred Angels with their ladies. There would have been crates of beer, whiskey, tequila. There would have been music, mainly old music, evocative of the golden age, Van Morrison, Zeppelin, The Eagles. And there would have been a lot of weed and coke. And once Hank left, there would have been Lynda, sentenced to death and not knowing it. I said, “Probably.”

  “Where did he do it? Right here? Or did he take her away, into the woods?”

  I pointed to a long spit that curled out into the lake and opened up into a patch of grass maybe thirty or forty feet across. “He did it right there, while they all watched.”

  We walked back and followed the long tongue of land out into the black water. There would have been a big fire burning on the bank. They would all have followed him down, a hundred black silhouettes against the flames, standing, watching, laughing, probably not knowing yet how it was going to end. And Zak would have performed his rough and ready ritual, as he had with Hank. I pointed to the left.

  “The lake provides the water in the west.”

  I walked up to the northernmost point. It was still there. I hunkered down and Dehan came and joined me. It was a crude circle of rocks that had been filled in with earth. As I gently moved away the sand, the remains of a yellow candle appeared, burned down and melted into the earth for the last twelve years. “Earth in the north.”

  I turned and Dehan stood. “In that case,” she said, “there should be something back there, in the south. Red, fire, right?”

  I followed her back. There was another circle of rocks, three or four feet across, blackened by fire, neglected for over a decade.

  “And in the east?”

  “The air. And probably a blue candle.”

  “It must have been cold!”

  I shrugged. “Part of the ordeal? Too drunk and stoned to notice? Who knows? But he had sex with her right there, in the center, and then probably stabbed her in the heart. What would he do then?”

  We both stared at the lake. She pushed her wet hair out of her face. “Weighted down with rocks? They couldn’t have got her very deep—the water would have been icy. It would have made more sense to bury her.”

  “Maybe they did both. What’s that?” I walked to the center of the area where Zak had made his temple. “The pentagram represents the head of a goat. The two horns would be there and there.” I pointed northeast and northwest. “Its beard would be behind me in the south. That rock is dead center, between the horns, and if I’m not mistaken, there is something painted on it.”

  The rock was half in the water, balanced on a slope where the bank dipped down to the lake. It was about three feet across and roughly spherical. As we approached, we saw that it had, indeed, a faded cross painted on it. But the cross was upside-down. I felt a sudden rush of irrational urgency, like I needed to get Lynda out of that place, that it was somehow important. I dropped on my knees and began to dig. Dehan ran, but I ignored her.

  After a couple of minutes she came back, carrying two canoe paddles. Between us, we levered away the rock, wiping the water from our eyes, until suddenly it gave and rolled into the lake with a big splash. Then we used the paddles as spades and began to dig. It wasn’t a deep grave. They were too drunk, cold, and probably wet to make the effort. She was only about two feet down. The damp earth had not preserved her. It had encouraged the bacteria and she was now just a skeleton, curled into the fetal position. She was unrecognizable, but I had no doubt in my mind it was her. And she was in possession of both her arms.

  FIFTEEN

  We spent the rest of the morning with the sheriff. He didn’t seem very amused that we’d been pursuing an investigation on his patch without his knowledge. When I explained that we were just passing through, decided to have a look at the place, and noticed the stone, he was somewhat placated, but not much.

  “Passing through? You’re a hundred and fifty miles off course, Detective. That may be passing through in New York, but not here. Next time you want to go digging up bodies in Duchess County, you call me first. Are we clear?”

  “We are clear, Sheriff.”

  Jurisdiction was an issue, but I was happy to let it slide, and by midday Dehan and I were in the Jag and headed back toward New York.

  “Whether it’s Boston PD, Connecticut, or New York, that case will end up at the bureau. I am satisfied that our arms do not belong to Lynda, and if Zak was at the rally killing Lynda, he could not have been somewhere else killing our victim—wherever she was killed. So we can, finally, eliminate Zak from our list.”

  “Which brings us back to Peter and Dave.”

  She reached in her pocket and pulled out her cell. She scrolled through her address book, selected a number, and dialed. She put it on speaker and put it on the dash. It rang a couple of times, and then a man’s voice said, “Canadian American Chemicals, good afternoon, how may I help you?”

  “This is Detective Dehan of the NYPD, 43rd Precinct. I would like to speak to Mr. Richard Chambers, head of sales.”

  “Speaking. How can I help you, Detective?”

  “We are making some routine inquiries, sir, into an old case, and we are just tying up some loose ends and eliminating people from our investigation. I wonder if you could give me some information about an employee of yours, back in 2005.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then he said, “I doubt we would have records that old readily available. Who is the employee, and what do you want to know?”

  “The employee is Peter Smith…”

  “Peter?”

  “We wanted to know if his work back in 2005 would have taken him to California at all?”

  “Why yes, indeed. I don’t need to check the files for that. Peter was instrumental in opening up the west for us, from Los Angeles down to San Diego. 2004, 2005, and 2006 he was there for at least a week every month. He was a tireless worker, highly ambitious. He is a good friend of mine. What is this about, Detective?”

  “I wonder if you could send me that information by email. I would be very grateful, Mr. Chambers.” She gave him her email address, and he repeated his question. “As I said, sir, we are just tying up loose ends.”

  She hung up and was silent for a while, then exploded, “Son of a bitch! What were they, Stone, accomplices?”

  I thought about that. It was one of the questions I had been asking myself. “I think our killer selected his venues with the same care he devoted to everything else. He chose highly populous places where there was plenty of prostitution. There is another possibility.”

  “What?”

  “That one of them is trying to deflect suspicion onto the other.”

  “If that is true, only one of them was going to San Diego and Los Angeles because he had to, and that was Peter. Whereas Dave chose to go, and he continued going after the killings stopped. Plus, the arms could be seen as having been planted in Peter’s unit. Stone, you have to admit, the evidence is just piling up against Dave.”

  “Yes, yes it is, Dehan. And I am not opposed to Dave as our prime suspect. I just want to be sure. As of right now, all we have is circumstantial, and I would like some real evidence. I’ll tell you what we are going to do. We are going to visit Peter’s wife, while Peter is out.”

  We got back to the station at almost three. When we got out of the car, Dehan said, “Stone, you going to see the captain about Zak?”

  “Yeah, why? You want to do something else?”

  “I need to do some shopping. It’s just four or five things. I will be less than half an hour. Can I borrow your car?”

  I smiled. “Of course.” I threw her the key.

  “Thanks, Sensei.”

  She climbed back in, and I watched her drive away.

  I went to my desk, collected everything in the file that related to Zak, and went to see the captain. I knocked.

  A big sigh and then, “Come.”

  He was an agreeable guy. He smiled and stood as I stepped in. He shook my hand
and invited me to sit. He was in his fifties, with graying temples and an intelligent face. He was a welcome change from Jennifer.

  “Stone, of Stone and Dehan. The dynamic duo. Your reputation precedes you both.” He chuckled as though he’d made a joke, then asked, “What can I do for you?”

  First I told him about Zak. I put the file on his desk and said, “This all has nothing to do with the cold case we’re conducting, Captain. The crimes involved span at least three states. This belongs to the Feds, and I believe the sheriff of Duchess County is contacting them himself.”

  He leafed through it. He had what you could only describe as a twinkle in his eye. “So you cracked this one in your spare time while you were working on mission impossible, huh?”

  I was about to explain, but instead I said, “Yes, sir.”

  Newman chuckled. “And what about the arms? Do you think you’re close to cracking that?”

  “We have two suspects, but all the evidence is circumstantial at this stage.” I outlined how the case stood and said, “I would really like to talk to Mrs. Smith while Peter is out. I’d like to call him to come to the station for an interview and have him wait here for half an hour while we talk to his wife. I want to rattle his cage and also see if she breaks down when he’s not around.”

  He thought about it for a moment. “Well, it’s not illegal, as long as she invites you in. And if you think it’s the right way to go, I have great confidence in your abilities.” He glanced at me. “I don’t share Captain Cuevas’s opinion of you, Stone. You may as well know that. But I am keen to see some of these cold cases resolved, and I can’t think of anyone better for the job.” He paused, then glanced at me again. “As you have seen in both of these cases, some of them are not quite as cold as they seem to be.”

  I thanked him and left, wondering if he had been hinting at something. I got back to my desk, dropped into my chair, and dialed Peter Smith’s number. It rang a couple of times before he answered.

  “Peter Smith speaking.”

  “Mr. Smith, Detective John Stone here.”

  A small sigh. “Detective Stone, how can I help you now?”