Smoke

by Joe Ide

  Ava’s twin sister, Hannah, was twenty-one years old, blond, slim, five-four, 113 pounds. When she left work at six-fifteen, it was dark. She walked home as she usually did and was kidnapped before she got there. Police found an empty lot on her route. The evidence indicated she’d been knocked unconscious and dragged across the ground to a vehicle parked in the alley behind the property.

  Isaiah looked at photos of the drag marks. He noted they were interrupted by frequent stops, as if the victim had been too heavy to drag continuously. Understandable, Isaiah thought. Deadweight is much harder to lift and maneuver. A fifty-pound box of auto parts is manageable. The same parts in a laundry bag is another matter. The man had been walking backward, the body obliterating his shoe prints.

  Isaiah thought of something. Crowe was six foot, 232 pounds. One of the detectives described Crowe as “physically intimidating.” A man of his size could have easily dragged a 113-pound woman across an empty lot, or a football field for that matter. Hell. He could have thrown the girl over his shoulder and carried her. Something you couldn’t do if you were a smaller, weaker man who had to rest a few times before going on. Crowe was not small and weak. Crowe didn’t kill Ava’s sister; someone else did it. Billy was chasing a fantasy and so was Ava. Satisfied and very relieved, Isaiah closed the laptop.

  He went for a run. He took a trail behind the house, jogging through the woods, the air crisp, sunlight piercing the trees, his shadow like a friend. It was invigorating, but it didn’t stop the Demon. The bastard was stepping on his heels and yelling in his ear. “Leave me alone,” Isaiah said. He went to the gym. He lifted weights, practiced his Krav Maga moves and rowed the rowing machine nearly to Long Beach. He discovered you couldn’t sweat the Demon away or even make it breathe hard.

  He went back to the fucking kitchen, sat down at the fucking breakfast table and opened the fucking laptop. There were other ways to explain the drag marks. Maybe Crowe had an injury. Maybe he was all bulk and no brawn. Isaiah knew guys like that. Or maybe there were two killers, like the Hillside Strangler case, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, the cousins who killed ten victims together. In that scenario, Crowe’s partner drags the body to the alley, Crowe waiting in the getaway car. But the question remained. Did Crowe kill Ava’s sister or not? Isaiah was pondering how to approach the data when Billy came in.

  “Excuse me, but are you still using the laptop?” he asked. Isaiah looked at him a moment, considering, Billy intimidated.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Sit down,” Isaiah said. Billy withheld his next question and quickly sat down.

  Isaiah let him sweat a second or two. He said, “How do you know Crowe killed Ava’s sister?”

  In high school, Ava Bouchard was one of the cool kids. She was pretty, popular, always in the mix and seemed always to be having fun. Her crew hung out under the pergola where it was shady, they ate lunch in the cafeteria at their own table, and they were always going to parties. Billy was an anonymous fringe kid who huddled with other anonymous fringe kids in the corner of the library. They ate lunch on a bench behind the gymnasium, listened to bands that nobody ever heard of and watched their teenage years zip past like scenery from a moving car. Billy had two classes and study hall with Ava. He made it a point to sit near her. She hardly seemed to study, too busy being popular and happy. They knew each other to nod hello, but that was it.

  Algebra was Billy’s favorite class because he sat directly behind her. He could smell her soap, see the shine on her hair and the soft fuzz on her earlobes. One day, he overheard her saying she wasn’t prepared for the test. She had to pass or take the class over in summer school.

  A few minutes later, Mr. Fujimoto passed out the tests. Billy tapped Ava on the shoulder and said, “I’ll help you with the answers.”

  “What? How?”

  The test began. Billy used his finger, and with a light touch, drew a 1 on Ava’s back. She flinched but didn’t turn around. Then he drew a C. For question 1, the answer was C. She shook her head slightly; she didn’t understand. He did it again. She hesitated, and nodded. Her elbow moved; she was filling in the little box. They went on to question 2. They did the whole test that way, like some strange version of Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker, a buzz of electricity coursing through Billy every time his finger tripped over her bra strap. Afterward, she turned to him, offered him a brilliant smile and said, “Thanks, Billy. That was very nice of you.” He realized he was holding his breath.

  “Uh, sure,” he said.

  The next day, they got the test results. She got an 82, he got a 78. He’d intentionally answered a few wrong so they wouldn’t have the same score. When the bell rang, she turned to him again, smiled that smile again and said, “That was the coolest thing ever.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  They continued the routine for the rest of the semester, Ava’s average test score rising to a solid B. After one test, Mr. Fujimoto said, “Quite an improvement, Ava,” and she burst out laughing. They became friends of a sort, waving and grinning whenever they saw each other. They might have been closer, but their cliques were like herds on the Serengeti. Gazelles over here, wildebeest over there. She invited him to her birthday party, but he didn’t go. Her friends were other cool kids, jocks and hipsters. He’d be intimidated, wouldn’t say anything and feel like a dummy.

  At the graduation ceremony, she sought him out, hugged him and said, “You’re so sweet, Billy. I wouldn’t have made it without you.” Billy’s friends stared like he’d been blessed by the pope. After that, they lost touch, but he thought about her all the time. Ava. The dream girl who got away because he was a nerd and a nobody.

  It was three weeks before Billy was committed to the hospital. He’d been following a story about a serial killer the media called AMSAK because he dumped his victims’ bodies near the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers. The article was captioned AMSAK TAKES 17TH VICTIM.

  A young woman named Hannah Bouchard was found drifting in the current, her body snagged in a tangle of low branches. Like the other victims, she’d been raped, tortured and mutilated before a horrifying death. Parts of her body were missing. Bouchard, Billy thought. That was Ava’s last name. Was it possible they were related? He did a search. They were twin sisters. Billy had never met Hannah. According to the newspaper bio, she had attended Sacred Heart Catholic School. Why wasn’t explained. At the time of her death, she worked as a nursing assistant, attending classes at night to become a licensed nutritionist. Of course, the sisters looked very much alike. Billy thought he could tell them apart if they wore the same clothes and their backs were turned.

  He saw a live news clip of Ava. She was walking from her house to her car, a reporter sticking a microphone her face.

  “Is there anything you’d like to say to the public, Miss Bouchard?” he said.

  “Yeah,” she replied, her eyes blistering the camera lens. “If anyone out there has information about that miserable cocksucker—”

  “Miss Bouchard, we’re live on the air.”

  “I don’t give a shit. That motherfucker killed my sister.”

  “Miss Bouchard, please—”

  “Are you listening out there, you fucking cockroach?” she said to the camera. “One day, they’ll catch you and when they do? I hope they burn you at the stake and flush your fucking ashes down the toilet. I wish I could do it myself.” To the reporter she said, “Get away from me, you fucking vulture. You live off dead meat.”

  Billy’s outrage converged with his feelings for Ava. He wanted to get back in her life. He wanted to rescue her from her sorrow. Be a hero. He used a web app and got her email address, but what would he say? Hi. I’m the guy who wrote on your back in algebra class and I want to help? He needed to bring something to the table. Something to get her attention. He read all the articles he could find about AMSAK. At least seventeen murders were committed over a nine-year period. Two more may have been copycats. The killer still
hadn’t been identified. Ava must be incredibly frustrated, Billy thought. If you were her what would you be thinking? The same thing you’d be thinking if someone killed Irene. You’d want to catch the son of a bitch. The police never said anything about ongoing investigations. Billy wanted to know what they knew.

  Billy’s mother, Gretta, was a public defender for Pumas County, which included Coronado Springs. She had use of state law enforcement databases as well as CLETS, the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System. CLETS provided access to national databases maintained by the FBI. Hardly anybody outside law enforcement knew about CLETS, but it was accessed three million times a day. Who would notice Billy logging in, especially when it was coming from his mother’s IP address? To get the password, Billy planted a hidden camera in a row of law books behind Gretta’s desk. It was focused on the monitor and keyboard. She spent long hours there working on cases. It took patience, but Billy got the passwords.

  He downloaded all the AMSAK police and FBI files into the cloud. They were voluminous. Ten phone books’ worth of incident reports, autopsy reports, chrono reports, DNA tests, evidence analysis, marks analysis, witness statements, victim backgrounds, crime scene photos and on and on. There was too much data. What would be of the most interest to Ava? he wondered. It was terrible to think this way, using her sister’s death to make contact. And the plan could backfire. The massive files of information might only serve to confuse and overwhelm her, make her grief all the more painful.

  Billy had a moment of conscience, but it didn’t stop him. He knew his ploys pissed people off, even Irene, but he couldn’t help it. Dr. Schaeffer said he had Narcissistic Personality Disorder; grandiosity, a lack of empathy, and an obsessive need for admiration that outstripped his moral imperatives and anything beyond his own self-interests. If that were true, Billy mused, lots of rich people had the same condition. Yeah, yeah, he knew Schaeffer was right, but it hardly mattered. It was like being an alcoholic and somebody tells you not to drink. Yawn. I’ve heard it all before.

  His immediate problem was establishing his bona fides with Ava. He’d send her something from Hannah’s file, something official. The autopsy report was horrifying, even in the spare, bureaucratic language. Strangulation, sexual assault, severe hemorrhaging, sharp force injuries, fifty-eight puncture wounds, bones severed, six teeth removed, the murder weapon was a large knife, possibly a Bowie knife. The crime scene photos were obscene, repulsive, as if all the evil in the world had gathered in Sacramento to tear Hannah apart. Whatever happened, Billy thought, Ava would not see her sister’s file.

  Okay, something else then. A suspect file. Less horrifying and more intriguing. There was a list of three that hadn’t been cleared. Billy selected one at random. Charles Lantana. A grim-looking man with Elvis Presley sideburns and an ear that was half torn off. Billy wrote Ava an email. The subject line: URGENT. THIS IS NOT A HOAX.

  Dear Ava,

  My name is Billy Sorensen. We were classmates at Windemere High. I was the kid who helped you with algebra. I read about your terrible loss. It must be extremely frustrating, not knowing what’s going on or whether the police are making progress. Don’t ask me how, but I have access to the AMSAK case files. This is not a prank or a hoax. I wouldn’t do that to you or anybody else. I have attached one of the files. Look it over. If you think it’s legit, give me a call. I want to help.

  Sincerely.

  Billy

  Forty-five minutes after sending the email, Ava called. “Billy, is that you?” He was flustered a moment.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he rasped.

  “Oh, my God, I can’t believe it.”

  “Me neither.”

  “The file, you got it from your mother, didn’t you?”

  “How do you know?”

  “She’s an attorney for the county and I know she didn’t give it to you.”

  Nonsensically, Billy said, “I’d rather not say.” Ava’s voice sounded the same but different. Deeper, throatier, slightly hoarse, simmering emotions beneath.

  “Billy, I appreciate this very much, but you’re taking a big risk. You could go to jail for this.”

  “I know and I don’t care,” he replied. He liked saying that. He wondered if she could hear the longing in his voice.

  “Do you have all the suspect files?”

  “Yes, and I’ll send them to you.” There was a lengthy pause. “Ava? Are you still there?”

  “Why are you doing this, Billy?” she said, an edge to her voice. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing for myself. I want what you want.”

  “Well, I want to catch the fucker.”

  “Then so do I.” Billy smiled, greatly relieved. For once, he hadn’t humiliated himself.

  “Billy, do you have Hannah’s case file?” Ava asked.

  “Yes, but I won’t send it to you.”

  “Why?” she said in a flash of anger. “She’s my sister.”

  “Because you don’t want to see it. I swear, Ava, you really, really don’t. If things were turned around, you wouldn’t send it to me.” She thought a few moments.

  “Okay,” she said quietly. There was a pause. He thought she might be crying. “Where do we start?” she said.

  Billy had thought about this. “I think we should start with the short list of suspects.”

  “What if AMSAK isn’t one of them?”

  “The police have had nine years to catch him. Nine years of intense investigating by dozens, even hundreds of detectives and FBI agents. They’ve collected thousands of pages of evidence, and they’ve gone back over that evidence again and again. They must have some idea of who he is by now. There might not be enough evidence to make an arrest, but one of those guys could be AMSAK.”

  “You sound really sure,” Ava said.

  “I could be wrong, I probably am, but we’ve got to start somewhere.” Ava agreed. Billy would send her the files of the suspects. They would read them and talk. That was the plan until they changed it.

  “Thanks for this, Billy,” Ava said. “I really mean that.” The call ended. He sent her the files. The suspects who hadn’t been cleared were Charles Lantana, a fifty-four-year-old plumber who had replaced the garbage disposal in Hannah’s apartment. Frank Saltair, a thirty-nine-year-old welder, part of a crew that put up an apartment building right across the street. And William Crowe, forty-five years old. He worked at the garage where Hannah had her car repaired. All had lengthy criminal records. Only Saltair had an alibi that could be verified. Billy had just started reading the files in depth when Ava called, excited, breathless.

  “I’ve seen one of the suspects before!” she said. Billy was bowled over.

  “Who?”

  “William Crowe.”

  “You saw him where?”

  “I can’t remember,” Ava said, exasperated. “It was a while ago, before Hannah was…it was for like two seconds, but I know I saw him.”

  “When was this?”

  “I don’t know, it was a while ago.”

  “What makes you think it was Crowe?”

  “Did you look at his photos?” she said. There was an assortment of mugshots, surveillance photos and video freeze frames in the file. “If you see a face like that you remember it,” Ava said. Billy was overjoyed. Maybe they could actually nail this bastard, and he could be a hero.

  William Jeffrey Crowe’s criminal record started when he was a teenager. He was one of those kids Sacramento police officers knew by name. Vandalism, breaking and entering, drugs, cruelty to animals and arson. He set fire to some brush in an empty lot and a house burned down. He was still a minor so he got off with a stint in a juvenile detention center. His mother and father were mentally unstable and abusive. Crowe grew up in an atmosphere of violence, drug abuse and neglect. As an adult, Crowe’s crimes got more serious. Voyeurism, selling stolen property, indecent exposure, assault, assault and battery and spousal abuse. His last arrest was for a bar fight.

  Hannah had disappear
ed somewhere between work and home. On the same night, Crowe was picked up by a store camera two blocks from Hannah’s apartment. Crowe’s house was searched. They found a box of latex gloves and a roll of duct tape, suggestive but that was all. They also found a cheap pair of handcuffs still in their bubble packing. When asked about them Crowe said, “I like to play cops and robbers.” No handcuff marks had been found on any of the victims. There was nothing in Crowe’s car.

  The police interviewed him several times but got nothing. He didn’t ask for a lawyer. He taunted them. You think I’m going to answer that? You guys are a joke. You have no idea what you’re doing, do you? You’ve got no evidence or I’d be in lockup. You’re full of shit, you know that? Interest in him was keen, but while he was in prison on the bar fight charges, there were two more killings. The MOs were close. Whether it was AMSAK or a copycat was never resolved. Police interest in Crowe waned, the surveillance ended. There were still a lot of questions so he hadn’t been cleared.

  “He’s gotta be the guy,” Ava said. “The arson, cruelty to animals, the history of mental illness, all early warning signs of a serial killer. Plus, the other things. Contact with Hannah at the garage, the duct tape, gloves, store video, the fucking handcuffs. It’s him, I know it’s him.”

  Billy was argumentative by nature. Even if someone’s views coincided with his own, there were still objections to be made. “Are you sure that you saw him?”

  “Yes, I’m sure, of course I’m sure.”

  “This was in Sacramento?”

  “Yes, Billy. He’s from Sacramento and so am I.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “I don’t remember, but it doesn’t matter. If I saw him, I saw him.”