Chasing the Boogeyman

by Richard Chizmar

  Thunder growled overhead. Lightning speared the horizon. Gazing around the dying light enveloping Hanson Road, I blinked, and the whispers of memory faded away. I was no longer a child. It was the final day of July 1988. And I felt it singing deep in my bones: there’s a storm coming.

  Fourth of July parade (Photo courtesy of Deborah Lynn)

  Winning (9-to-10-year-old division) squad of the Fourth of July tournament (Photo courtesy of The Aegis)

  The long gravel driveway leading to the Meyers House (Photo courtesy of Alex Baliko)

  The Edgewood Marching Band (Photo courtesy of Bernard L. Wehage)

  six The House of Mannequins

  “Their heads had been shaved, and their hair replaced by cheap wigs.”

  1

  Within minutes of sitting inside Detective Lyle Harper’s unmarked brown sedan, I realized who he reminded me of: Danny Glover. Same deep, gravelly voice; same boisterous laugh; same sad puppy-dog eyes. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t made the connection earlier when I first met with him in my living room—nerves, probably—but the similarities made me instantly like him. Glover had always been one of my favorite actors.

  To say that I’d been surprised a day earlier when the detective called to not only approve my request for a ride-along, but to offer to take me himself, would be an immense understatement. Initially puzzled as to why he’d extend such a privilege, I decided to keep my big mouth shut and enjoy the ride, maybe learn something in the process.

  Thus far—thirty minutes into what was estimated to be a four-hour shift—I was definitely doing both of those things. Detective Harper was not only a wealth of information and a true professional, but also funny as hell. He’d already covered his three children—two older girls and a boy my age—and his frequent misadventures in single parenting when they’d been younger. Clearly, dating the teenage daughter of a homicide detective was not for the faint of heart. I was suddenly very grateful that Kara’s father sold insurance. Despite the rigors of his career, Harper had recently remarried and seemed to have a good life. And his children still adored him, which he claimed was a small miracle.

  I think I reminded Harper of his son, Benjamin, who was a professional musician. During the day, he taught private lessons on the piano, guitar, and saxophone. At night, he played with a pair of well-respected bands—jazz and contemporary—in various clubs and restaurants throughout the D.C. area. So far, it’d been a struggle financially, but the detective claimed he’d never seen his son happier or more dedicated, so as a father, he was hanging on to that and being as supportive as he could.

  Once the small talk was out of the way, Harper got down to business, explaining that he’d spent the majority of the afternoon going over written statements from family and friends and neighbors of the victims, searching for anything of interest that might’ve been missed earlier. I asked him how many times he’d already read each statement, and he gave me a look that said, You don’t even want to know. Once he finished reading, he’d made follow-up phone calls to a handful of interviewees to ask additional questions.

  Now the plan for the rest of the evening was to patrol the streets of Edgewood—starting on the outskirts along Route 40 and slowly circling our way into the heart of downtown, and then turning around and working our way back out again—investigating anyone and anything Detective Harper deemed of interest.

  2

  It was strange seeing the streets of my hometown from inside a police car. It didn’t feel quite real, almost like the windshield was a television screen and I was sitting in the basement with my father watching one of his cop shows. Speaking of my father, he was back at home sulking because he hadn’t been invited to come along. Like I had any say in the matter. I stared out the passenger window and once again, that sense of expectation swelled within me, as if some important event was lurking just beyond the horizon. There’s a storm coming.

  Without being asked, Detective Harper spent the first part of our drive teaching me what the various call-signals meant each time a new one was transmitted over the police scanner. I told him I’d purchased my own scanner to listen to while writing at night, and he didn’t seem even a little bit surprised. Later, I realized why: I’d already told him about buying a scanner when he’d come to the house for our initial interview. Which probably explained why he was going to so much trouble to fill me in on all the call-signals. It was a nice thing for him to do.

  Harper had another surprise in store for me, too. He’d actually dug up and read my article about Earl Weaver in the Baltimore Sun. I didn’t know whether to be nervous about that or flattered. When I asked him why he’d done it, he smiled and said, “I’m a detective. I do my homework.”

  As we crossed over the Route 24 bridge, we spotted a man and young boy with fishing rods, standing on the bank of Winters Run. A small campfire burned in a clearing behind them.

  “What do you think they’re going for down there?” he asked, tapping the brake pedal.

  “Sunnies. Yellow perch. Cat. Maybe largemouth or crappie if they’re using live minnows.”

  He looked over at me, impressed. “You’re a fisherman.”

  “Almost every day growing up.”

  “And now?”

  “Not really. We used to sneak onto the University of Maryland golf course once in a while and fish the ponds. Caught a couple of keepers in the bay over Fourth of July. But that’s about it.”

  “I’m strictly a freshwater guy,” he said. “Like to get out two or three times a week when I can.” He looked at me. “Haven’t been out much lately.”

  He switched on the turn signal and swung a left onto Edgewood Road. I watched the houses blur by as we made our way up the long, winding hill into town. Summoning my courage, I asked, “So… on a night like this, you’re driving around and looking for what exactly?”

  “To be honest, I’m doing as much thinking as I am looking. If that makes any sense.”

  I nodded. “I think it does.”

  “I don’t usually do a wide canvass like this. That’s left up to the uniforms.” He pulled into the bank parking lot and stopped no more than fifteen feet away from where Jimmy and I had parked a week earlier. I suddenly had a sinking feeling in my stomach. “But sometimes it helps to get out from behind the desk, away from the phone and all that paperwork.”

  “So, while you’re driving… you’re thinking about all the details of the case? Trying to make things fit?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Also thinking about what we might’ve missed. What’s sitting right there in front of our noses that we haven’t yet noticed for one reason or another.”

  “Does that happen a lot? You guys missing something and then coming back and finding it later?”

  “Huh, all the time,” he said, shaking his head. “People think detective work is exciting and glamorous, full of gun battles and car chases. The truth is it’s rarely any of those things.” He reached over and turned down the volume on the scanner. “It’s drudgery—sifting through hundreds, sometimes thousands of pages of reports and photographs, watching hours of security footage, knocking on doors and making phone calls and talking to people who are either too eager to talk, but have nothing to say, or have crucial information, but refuse to talk at all.”

  “That doesn’t sound very exciting.”

  “Trust me, it’s not.”

  “How long have you been doing it?”

  He answered right away. “This October will be nineteen years.”

  I whistled. “Almost as long as I’ve been alive.”

  “Let me ask you something,” he said, pointing across the street at the gravel driveway leading up to the Meyers House. Shit, here it comes, I thought. “I saw a bunch of kids walking up there the other day. Where do you think they were going?”

  Instant relief flooded over me. “Um… it depends,” I said, suddenly thinking about the man we’d seen creeping around in the dark. “It’s either a shortcut to Cherry or Tupelo. If you walk about t
hree-quarters of the way up and cut through one of the backyards on the left, you get to Cherry. If you walk all the way up and cut across the big house’s backyard and keep going through the Pattersons’ backyard, you get to Tupelo. Five or six houses up the street from my parents’.”

  “And everyone who lives around here knows about it?”

  I shrugged. “All the kids do. That’s part of living here.”

  The detective seemed to think about that for a moment, and then he backed out of the parking space and merged onto Edgewood Road. Reaching the intersection by the Texaco station, he made a right turn onto Hanson. When he slowed the car a half mile later, I knew where he was taking us.

  “What can you tell me about this area?” he asked, hanging a left onto the loop that circled Cedar Drive.

  I glanced at Kacey Robinson’s memorial at the bottom of the sliding board. It’d finally stopped multiplying in size. Almost dusk now, there were only two people—a mom and daughter, it appeared—playing on the swings. A large dog was leashed to the base of the jungle gym maybe ten yards away from them. The rest of the playground was deserted and lost in shadow.

  “Let’s see,” I said, looking around and pointing out the landmarks. “We used to sled over there when we were kids. The big baseball field and playground hadn’t been built yet. Played football right over there by the military apartments. If you cut through that field,” I said, gesturing to the opposite side of the road, “then through the Goodes’ backyard, you’ll end up in Tupelo Court, right across the street from my house.”

  “How about the Boys and Girls Club—was that open back then?”

  “Nope. It was just a big empty parking lot. We used to hang out there when we were older and drink beer or take girls up there.”

  As we approached the elementary school on our left, I pointed at the tree line directly across the street from where the buses were parked. A narrow path had been carved into the woods. It opened into deep pools of darkness. “There’s another shortcut right through there. Comes out behind the new office building across from 7-Eleven.”

  “The one at the corner of Edgewood and Willoughby Beach?”

  “That’s right. Seven-Eleven was the first place around here with a Space Invaders machine. When I was nine, I used to take off at a sprint after dinner with a single quarter in my pocket. Down Hanson, cut across Cedar Drive, through those woods, and up the hill. I’d play my one game and book it home as fast as I could in the dark so my parents wouldn’t know I was gone.”

  “That’s a long-ass haul for a game of Space Invaders.”

  I laughed. “Tell me about it. Especially when you get killed all three times in the first minute or two. What can I say—I was a little obsessed.”

  As we reached the stop sign at the far end of Cedar Drive, Detective Harper braked to a stop and sat motionless behind the wheel. There was no traffic on the road ahead, but still we didn’t budge. I studied the cluster of bushes across the street in case the detective was tracking movement I wasn’t aware of—but there was nothing. Finally, he hit the gas, turning right, and headed in the direction of the high school. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and cautious.

  “So I know, in order to come along tonight, you had to agree not to ask me anything specific about the case,” he said. “But I’d like to ask you a question or two if you’d be willing to answer.”

  “Okay,” I said, a nervous cramp blooming in the pit of my stomach.

  He looked over at me and smiled, but it never quite reached his eyes. “Relax, Rich. It’s not a big deal. I’m just looking for a… different perspective.”

  “Okay,” I said again.

  “Are you aware of any racial tensions here in Edgewood?”

  “Not really.” I shrugged. “I mean, nothing out of the ordinary. We’re a pretty diverse community and always have been.”

  “Yet both victims have been young White girls.”

  “Well, yeah.” I looked at him. “Do you think that’s strange?”

  “Do you?”

  “I guess not. I just figured that means the killer himself is White. Most serial killers don’t cross racial lines when selecting their victims.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I see I’m not the only one who’s done his homework. Where did you learn that?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. Probably one of the books I’ve read.”

  He hung a left onto Willoughby Beach Road. “Okay, next question… if you were a bad guy from out of town and were looking to steal a young girl off the streets of Edgewood, where would you do it? First place that comes to mind.”

  I lowered my head and closed my eyes. Putting on my writer’s cap, I thought about what he was asking me. “Somewhere without a lot of people. A park, early in the morning or at dusk. One of the back roads or down by the water. Closing time at one of the bars or restaurants.” I opened my eyes. “Sorry, that was more than one.”

  “No, that’s good,” he said. “Real good. I just didn’t want you to overthink it.” He pulled into the parking lot in front of the middle school and turned off the sedan’s headlights. It was full dark now, fireflies speckling the night sky. Warm yellow light spilled from the windows of the houses across the street, and you could just make out the dim, flickering glow of television screens in living rooms and dens. “Now, tell me this… if you’re an out-of-towner, an outsider, where’s the very last place you’d go to abduct a young girl in Edgewood?”

  “A neighborhood,” I replied without hesitation.

  He nodded his head but didn’t say anything, just kept staring out into the darkness. For a moment I thought I’d said something wrong, but then it occurred to me what he was doing. “You really believe the killer’s a local, don’t you?”

  “I think he’s probably lived here his entire life.” Harper looked at me. “You’re not convinced?”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” I said, looking away. Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe it.

  3

  Have you ever been scared while doing your job? Not the someone-might-shoot-me or I’m-in-danger kind of scared. I’m talking about chills-running-down-your-spine-because-this-is-spooky-as-hell scared.”

  We were on our way back to the station when it occurred to me that this ride-along had probably been more for Detective Harper’s benefit than my own. Not that I really minded. We’d covered the town, front to back, three times. I’d seen parts of Edgewood I hadn’t visited since I was a kid. We’d even gotten out and walked the riverbank for a while. I’d definitely learned a lot and enjoyed the detective’s company, but somehow he’d managed to pump me for more information than I’d been able to get out of him. With the night almost over, I figured I might as well try to squeeze in a last-minute question or two of my own.

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ve had some moments like that.”

  “What was the worst one?”

  He was quiet for a moment, thinking, then: “The House of Mannequins.”

  “Oooo, that does sound creepy. What happened?”

  The traffic light turned green and we accelerated through the intersection.

  “It was late one night, back when I was working in the city. My partner and I answered a call from a lady concerned about her neighbor. She lived right down the street from old Memorial Stadium, and for the last day or so, she’d been hearing these weird voices and banging noises coming from inside the row house next door. She’d tried ringing the bell and knocking a bunch of times, but no one answered. Her neighbor’s name was Thomas McGuire. She said he was in his sixties and nice enough, but also kind of strange. He talked to himself a lot, and believed in UFOs and crystals and stuff like that.

  “Anyway, we checked it out. I took the front, and my partner went around back. Sure enough, no one came to the door. I tried to peek inside the window, but there were heavy curtains blocking the view. Right about then my radio squawked, and it was my partner, telling me to get my ass around back.

  “I found him
standing at a half-open window, peering through a gap he’d made in the curtains. Even in the dark, I could see that his face had gone pale and he had his service revolver in his hand. He stepped aside and I took a look.

  “Candles were burning inside the house. Hundreds of them, everywhere, including all over the floor. Spread out among the candles were dozens of naked bodies, all of them propped up in various poses. Sitting at the dining room table. Leaning against the kitchen counter. Standing with their backs against the wall. Their mouths had been smeared with red lipstick and their glassy eyes sparkled in the candlelight.

  “ ‘What the hell is this shit?’ I said, backing away from the window.

  “ ‘You smell it?’ my partner whispered. ‘You smell the blood?’

  “I unholstered my sidearm. ‘You call it in?’

  “ ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  “A sound came from inside the house then. Someone crying. My partner didn’t wait. He kicked in the door. ‘Police!’ he shouted, pointing his weapon. ‘Mr. McGuire! Are you here?!’

  “We took one step into the kitchen and froze. The stench of fresh blood was overwhelming. Flickering shadows surrounded us. Up close, it only took a second for us to realize that the bodies weren’t human—they were mannequins. But mannequins didn’t bleed. So then where was the smell coming from? There were dozens of those things scattered throughout the house. Four sitting on the living room sofa, two with their legs crossed. Three more huddled as if in conversation next to the TV. I poked my head into the downstairs bathroom and goddamn there was a mannequin sitting on the toilet, another primping in front of the mirror. We moved into the living room and they were all around us, watching our approach with those dead, shiny eyes, and then even more lining the stairway leading upstairs. The bedrooms were filled with them. A couple spooning on the bed in one room, a half dozen engaged in an orgy in another, a child-sized mannequin standing alone in the shower with the water running, two more sitting cross-legged on the floor at the end of the hallway. And, everywhere we looked, candles burning on every available surface.