by A. E. Howe
“Actually, that makes some sense,” I agreed.
Jamie pulled up in Dad’s van. He got out and, after attaching the leash to Mauser’s harness, brought him out of the van. Mauser dragged Jamie over to Dad and me. The big goof could just barely be contained from jumping on us. I’m embarrassed to admit that I indulged him in some ear rubs, baby talk and side pats.
“I guess you deserve a little special attention after that death ride in the van the other night,” I told the dog, who leaned into me as he ate up the sympathy.
Jamie took him for a walk while I went back and helped Pete carry out the boxes and supplies that we’d brought. After we got the car loaded, Dad came over to say goodbye. As a parting gift, he handed me a doggie pickup bag.
“Would you mind throwing this away?” he said and turned away before I could say no.
“Damn,” I grumbled.
“What?” Pete asked. “Oh. Never mind. I’ll wait here,” he said and got in the car.
“I’m going around back to throw this in a dumpster,” I told Pete. I don’t know if he heard me. His face was illuminated by his phone as he texted away with someone.
I walked around the to the back of the restaurant, giving a quick wave to Mary as she walked out to her car. The streetlights shown brightly on the back of the building. There wasn’t a lot of noise. Calhoun shuts down after about ten on weeknights, especially on a cold winter’s night.
Behind the building was an unloading area for the produce, meat and kitchen supplies they ordered. A panel van was parked near the back door, with prominent signs reading Winston’s Grill, Only the best! on either side. The restaurant door opened and Winston came out, carrying a couple bags of garbage.
“Hey!” I said and he turned and looked my way. I’d surprised him, but he managed to give me a smile.
I held up the bag with Mauser’s deposit in it. “I need to drop this in your dumpster. Dad walked Mauser before he went home.”
Winston, like just about everyone in town, was familiar with Mauser, so he chuckled. “No problem. I appreciate your dad picking it up. Dumpster’s over here,” he said, pointing.
I went around the back of the van while Winston crossed between the van and the building. We met at the dumpster and I held it open so he could throw the two garbage bags in and then I tossed Mauser’s bag after them.
“See ya. Thanks again,” I told Winston.
“Hey, take care,” he said, heading back toward the gap between the front of the van and the wall. He wasn’t walking very fast and I could sympathize. It must have been hard on the joints of a man his age—late fifties?—standing at a stove all day.
I started to go around the back of the van when something caught my eye. There was something off on one corner of the sign on that side of the van. I detoured over to have a look. Odd, I thought. When I was about a foot from it I realized that the sign was actually magnetic and could be put on and taken off at will. I reached out to touch the corner that was sticking up a little and then the van started moving rapidly toward my face.
Then it became clear that it was me that was moving, not the van, as my head slammed into the side of the vehicle, hard. Winston grabbed my back and slammed me against the van again, my side taking the impact this time. I fell to the ground, reaching for my Glock 17 handgun, but I landed on that same side and needed to roll over before I could draw the gun.
As I rolled, Winston dropped his full weight down on top of me, focused on preventing me from getting the gun. He had one knee on my left arm and the other on my thigh, but I still managed to get my hand to my holster. In desperation, Winston bent forward and bit into my arm, seemingly intent on taking out a chunk of my flesh.
Only the fact that I was wearing a jacket saved me from losing half a pound of meat. The pain was excruciating and, despite my determination, my right hand let go of the grip enough that he was able to pull my hand away from the gun. The Glock fell out of my holster onto the ground beside me. I saw Winston look at it and start to go for it. The only recourse I had was to roll on top of the handgun. As soon as I did that, he began punching me mercilessly in the ribs and head.
I know that I was screaming for help, but I honestly didn’t hear myself. Later I’d realize that I’d been counting on a man sitting in a car and texting to save me. If I had thought about it at that moment, I probably would have just given up.
Some small functioning part of my brain suggested that it would be a good idea to try to crawl under the van. Slowly, between punches, I inched my way under the vehicle. If Winston had stopped to think for a moment, he could have just slammed my head into the pavement or stomped on it and it would have been all over. Luckily for me, rational sense had already left the battlefield.
At last I managed to maneuver most of the way under the van, but the gun hadn’t moved with me, leaving it exposed between us. Winston and I both grabbed for the gun at the same time. I was able to get my hands on it first, but before I could get it pointed in a useful direction, Winston tried to use his strong hands and arms to drag me back out from under the van.
Then I saw an image that has come back to haunt me in my nightmares. Unable to pull me out or to pry the gun out of my grasp, Winston laid down on the pavement, pulled at my hands and tried to get his face down close enough to bite me. Bathed in the streetlights, his gnashing teeth were a mere inch from my hands. The scene was surreal, as if I’d fallen straight into a zombie movie.
I tried to resist, but he kept pulling, my bare hands getting a little closer to his teeth with every second. I felt myself weakening and I swear that I could feel his hot breath on my hand. Then my ears rang with a noise that sounded like an air horn had been blasted under the van.
I found out later that Pete had started to wonder where I was and came looking for me. Being a pretty quick thinker, he sized up the situation and landed a full-footed kick to Winston’s crotch. It was Winston’s scream that had almost busted my eardrums. Pete pulled him away from the van, cuffing him easily as Winston was already on his stomach and no longer in a fighting frame of mind.
I just lay under the van, trying to recover, until Pete came over and peered down at me. “You okay?” he asked, sounding worried.
“Not sure yet. Just give me a minute,” I told him. Pete kept looking at me. “Okay.” I put out my arms and Pete took them, pulling me out as I stifled a grunt of pain.
I sat on the ground, holding my sides and looking at Winston, who was breathing hard and occasionally moaning. I wanted nothing more than to go over to him and give him some swift kicks in the ribs, but I just sat there. It hurt to breathe.
“What the hell?” Pete asked. I pointed up at the sign on the van. Pete stared at it, then all of a sudden he turned, moved away from me and threw up.
“Are you okay?” I asked him, puzzled. I thought he was over the flu.
“No! No, I’m not okay.” Pete dry-heaved onto the pavement some more. “I’ve eaten food that was delivered in that van. That… that…” He was pointing back at Winston. “That monster fed me meals.”
“I see your point. Damn, I hope he didn’t use the same cleaver,” I said, letting my morbid sense of humor get the best of me. That thought sent Pete into a whole other round of dry-heaves.
Recovered somewhat, Pete came back over to me. I struggled to get to my feet and managed it with his help.
“I’ll call for cars and our crime scene techs… and an ambulance,” Pete said, looking at me.
“No, not yet,” I told him and he gave me a funny look.
“Surely we can’t kill him?” he asked with an expression that harbored hope.
“No, we aren’t going to kill him. But we aren’t going to arrest him either.” Now I really had Pete’s attention. I pulled out my phone. “I’m calling Dad. You call Tolland.” Pete’s face broke into a broad smile.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Forty-five minutes later Tolland and Dad were standing over Winston, who had recovered enough that he was sputter
ing about his rights and police abuse.
“I’ll be damned,” Tolland said for the third time.
“I got lucky,” I said.
“Hell, I’d rather have luck than skill any day of the week,” Tolland said, patting me on the back. I tried hard not to wince.
“Yeah, but after all of those interviews and boxes of evidence, it came down to me walking back here to throw Mauser’s bag in the dumpster.” I was shaking my head in wonder.
Dad reached out and gripped my upper arm. When I turned to him all he said was, “Thank you.”
Dad and Tolland called in the crime scene techs from both Adams and Leon Counties, as well as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. They were not going to cut any corners with this one.
After a short while Marcus came out of the restaurant carrying the baseball bat that Winston had kept under the front counter.
“Years ago he told me he kept a bat by the cash register in case someone tried to rob him. I never even thought about it,” Dad said, shaking his head. We were all doing a lot of head shaking that night.
Pete came over to us, looking concerned. “What’re you thinking?” I asked him.
“Mary. She couldn’t have known, could she?” His expression made it clear that he didn’t know whether to feel sorry for her or to consider her in the same dark light as her father.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“We’ll have to bring her in for questioning. The sooner, the better. If she is involved, we don’t want to give her time to destroy evidence at his house,” Dad said.
“I’ll go pick her up,” Pete said solemnly.
At that point I finally let the ambulance take me to Tallahassee for X-rays. On the way I called Cara; I was actually looking forward to telling her about this little adventure.
Shantel surprised me by showing up at the hospital. She really wanted to give me a hug, but I waved her off with a small grimace.
“Pain, and a lot of it,” I told her.
“I haven’t told Tonya yet, but she’ll be thrilled. She hasn’t been saying much, but I know that guy still being on the loose was freaking her out.”
“Understandable.” I was waiting to be wheeled down to X-ray. “Did you make a special trip over here?”
“I heard it all on the scanner. And then Marcus called me. I can’t be at the scene, of course.” She held up her hand. “I know your dad is just thinking of the case, I got no problem with that. But I wanted to tell you personally how grateful Tonya and I are. Now you’re coming back to work full time. I won’t hear of anything else.” Shantel pinned me down with her eyes, hard as steel.
“Okay,” my mouth said before my brain had a chance to stop it.
“Least that’s settled. Now that I know about Winston, I got to thinking. You know Tonya went to the Grill looking for a job.”
“I remember,” I said.
“When you all were questioning her the other day, she remembered a familiar smell right before he clubbed her. I bet you anything she smelled that grill on him.”
“You’re probably right. Smell is one of our most resilient senses. It was another clue that would have helped us find him sooner if we’d understood what it meant.”
“You want a Coke or something?” Shantel asked. She spent the rest of the night babysitting me and finally drove me back to my car at four in the morning. Nothing was broken, just very bruised. I was grateful that my coat had kept him from breaking the skin on my arm when he bit me. Still, there was a bruise in the shape of his mouth. The faster that went away, the happier I’d be.
I got a couple of hours’ sleep before deciding that I needed to go into the office and help wrap things up. I called Cara on my way into town. She was just getting ready to take her lunch break, so I swung by the vet’s office and picked her up.
“Let me guess where we aren’t going for lunch,” she said.
“Don’t even joke about that. Poor Pete’s going to be lost without that place.”
“How are you doing?” She gently touched my side and I winced. “I would have come to the hospital.”
“It was bad enough that I woke you up.”
“I’d have been pretty pissed if you hadn’t called.”
“Shantel shepherded me through all the hospital hoops. I’ve got some pills for the pain, but I’m not going to take them unless I can’t sleep.” I hesitated, wondering how to tell her the next part. Finally I just blurted it out: “I’ve decided to go back to work at the sheriff’s office full time.”
She looked at me for a moment, then smiled. “Just as well. You were awful at looking for a job.”
“Where do you want to go for lunch?”
“Since our choices are somewhat limited, I think I’ll stick with the yogurt I have back at the vet’s. I really just wanted to see you.” She leaned against me, but a sharp pain caused me to gasp. “Sorry, sorry!” she said, sitting back up and taking my hand in hers instead.
After dropping her off, I headed to the sheriff’s office. I was moving slowly, but the pats on the back and smiles from everyone helped. I found Pete sitting at his desk, typing up reports.
He looked up. “Finally decided to crawl into work?” he asked, smiling.
“If you’d gotten there a little earlier I’d be in much better shape. Besides, the only reason you’re here so early is because Winston’s is closed,” I shot back.
Pete shook his head sadly. “Who would have thought that we had a killer serving us food? Hell, giving us free coffee.”
“Winston liked being close to law enforcement. Close to the investigation. He probably would have given us more free meals to keep us coming in.”
“Makes me sick to think about him chopping up food the same way he chopped up his victims.” Pete shuddered. “I knew we were looking for a psychopath, but to find out that the psychopath was someone I considered a friend…”
“It’s more convenient when the bad guy acts like a bad guy. And to be fair, most murderous psychopaths don’t blend in as well as someone like Bundy or Winston did. They are the exception,” I told him, trying to convince myself as much as Pete that serial killers weren’t hiding around every corner.
“And he stopped killing for years.”
“Did he give you any explanation when you processed him last night?”
“Gave it all up. We were there for four hours while he rattled on about how he’d carried out all of the killings. Funny though, he got a little touchy when we started asking about his childhood and first assaults. He admitted that he’d been picked up as a juvenile for clubbing some other kid in elementary school, and for starting a fire when he was a little older. Said he loved animals, though. Swore he’d never hurt an animal. Seemed to be point of pride.”
“Our neighborhood killer was pet-friendly. Guess we should be grateful for small favors.” I shook my head.
“Where Winston really got touchy was when Lt. Johnson asked him about why he targeted the people he did.”
Pete paused.
“And?” I prodded him.
“I was just thinking of what it was like when I was in high school. You aren’t going to believe this, but women weren’t exactly fighting over me. Rejection is painful, but normal people can get over it. Being without normal empathy, Winston was furious at the women that rejected him and saw them as less than human. He harbored that anger for a long time, even after he finally found someone to love and started a family with her.
“He said the original murders happened during a rough patch in their marriage. He blamed the stress of running a business and having a young daughter. He needed an outlet for his anger, but he loved his wife too much to hurt her. So he took his frustrations out on people that reminded him of the women that had scorned him… Some had similar facial features, one of them was wearing a coat that triggered him, that sort of thing. Oddly, this helped to stabilize him and he was able to work through his issues with his wife. He really put her up on a pedestal. ”
&nb
sp; “And everything was fine until their marriage fell apart for good. She’s lucky he didn’t kill her.”
“Winston still holds her up as a good woman. But when she left him, he felt rejected again. He projected his anger at her onto those old images of rejection and his ego demanded that he kill again to restore his confidence.”
“Thank God he’s locked up. Now comes the paperwork.”
“We found Jillian’s car. It was in a shed on Winston’s property. He drove it home instead of his car Tuesday night. Turns out, Jillian had stopped by the restaurant to see if Winston would be interested in buying his produce from Homegrown. He kills her, dumps her body, gets chased by us, then realizes that he can’t leave the car near the restaurant so he drives it home.”
“How did he get to work the next day?”
“He told Mary that he’d had some drinks after work and a friend drove him home. She didn’t think too much of it because he’d done it before. In fact, after her mom left, he got to drinking a lot, and she’d encouraged him to get rides home if he was drunk. So she drove him in on Wednesday.”
“Do you think she knew anything about the murders?”
“She knew something was wrong, but he’d been weird and moody before. Depressed. Bouts of drinking. He’d actually seemed better and more stable since the killings started back up, so she says she wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.”
“What do you think?”
He sighed. “We didn’t find any evidence in plain sight at the house. Maybe she suspected. But I’m pretty sure she didn’t know that he was the killer. We turned her loose after a couple of hours.”
Pete’s phone dinged with a message. He looked at it. “This is not funny!” he shouted to the room. There was some laughter from the other end. Pete turned the phone so I could see an animated gif of a man throwing up. “Deputy Barf,” it said.