The Assailant

by James Patrick Hunt

  Tracy regarded the doctor. She said, “But if it’s what the woman wants, where is the harm?”

  “I’ve just explained the harm. Weren’t you listening?”

  He did not make eye contact with her when he answered her. And this did not go unnoticed. It was as if he thought she was not worth regarding.

  •

  On the way home, Tracy said to her date, “I don’t know what I said to offend him.”

  The young man said, “You said, what if the woman wants it?”

  “I said, I didn’t see the harm if the woman wants to do it. You know, so she feels better about herself. And he got, I don’t know, cold. Like I shouldn’t have even opened my mouth. Up till then, I’d thought he was a nice guy. A little strange, but nice.”

  “He’s a doctor,” the young man said. “They’re all assholes.”

  ELEVEN

  Mickey Caldwell didn’t know until lunchtime that his wife was going to Kansas City to visit her sister. As usual, she hadn’t planned too far ahead. She just came back from book club and said, “We’re going to Kansas City.”

  “When?”

  “In about an hour. I want to see my sister.”

  Mickey didn’t ask why. His wife’s behavior had become increasingly erratic in the last year. Ever since their son had been born, she hadn’t been the same. She had put on weight, which shouldn’t have been that unusual. Most of Mickey’s married friends made the same complaint about their wives. They also complained that they were being less frequent with the sex. They talked about going months without action from the wives.

  And Mickey thought, Months? Try years. He remembered making love with his wife sometime before LSU won the BCS championship, and that had been at least two years ago. He remembered it because they had been at that game. Been at the Superdome before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. A long time ago, and he had since stopped wondering what had gone wrong in the marriage.

  Mona had put on weight, yeah. But there was something more than that. She told Mickey she didn’t feel like it. Not tonight, not now . . . not ever saying, Not ever again. But that was the de facto reality. Mickey suspected it had something to do with all the pills she was taking. This one for depression, that one for anxiety, another one for melancholy. All these pills in different colors and sizes . . . he couldn’t compete.

  He believed that he had tried. He really thought he had. He had asked her if there was something he had done wrong, if she wanted to go to a counselor, if there was something he could do or change. She just looked at him blankly or denied that there was anything wrong at all. She’d once said to him, “I don’t miss it.” And that hurt, it really did. Not so much that she said it, but rather the way she said it. Like, if she didn’t miss it, what else should matter? Why should it matter to him?

  He had wanted to say, But I do miss it. I miss you. You’re my wife. I’m your husband.

  But he didn’t consider himself a sophisticated man. He didn’t want to seem indecent or inconsiderate. She was the mother of his child.

  When a friend first suggested he go to an escort service, Mickey was repulsed. He had been raised by good Christian parents. Not just churchgoing, but decent. He knew without ever asking that his father had never even contemplated such a thing. It would have been disrespectful to his wife. His father would never even have looked at another woman. His father had stopped speaking to one of his closest friends because the man had left his wife to marry a mail-order bride from the Philippines. His father had said to Mickey, “He basically bought a second wife because he got tired of the one he had. A good man doesn’t do that.”

  No, sir, he doesn’t. But . . . what if he needs sex? What if his wife is denying him not just a release but intimacy? Denying him warmth and comfort? Wasn’t that part of it too?

  The first time Mickey dialed the number his friend had given him, he hung up when a woman answered. The second time he called, he was standing on the front porch of his home with the cell phone, and his wife pulled into the driveway in her car. He hung up again, even though he knew she couldn’t hear. Later that evening she told him not to sit on the new furniture because he hadn’t taken a shower after exercising. Mickey told her that he had to go the convenience store. He made the call while he was in the car.

  •

  Her name was Estelle and it took her about five minutes to figure him out. Nice Methodist boy of about thirty-five who had never been in the navy, never been in the Philippines, never been in Amsterdam, never been with a prostitute. Estelle knew that at root Mickey Caldwell was kindhearted and decent and was genuinely pained by the absence of sexual intimacy in his marriage. She was younger than he, but she talked him through their first time. She told him afterward that he was not the sort of man who would leave his wife and children. She told him that these sorts of arrangements had always existed and always would. That they were good for marriages. She told him that the five hundred always had to be paid up-front because it was better to get that sort of thing out of the way.

  They met every two weeks on Wednesday nights at the Thunderbird Motel on West Manchester Road. Mickey always paid in cash and never complained.

  •

  Saturday nights, Mickey was usually with his family, either at home or at a friend’s house watching college football, both of them being graduates of Mizzou.

  On this Saturday, his wife’s car was barely out of the driveway when Mickey was on the phone, dialing Estelle. When he reached her, she said she could meet him at the Thunderbird at midnight. It put Mickey in a good mood, something to look forward to as he sat on the couch and took in the game, and when Chase Daniel threw three touchdowns against Iowa State, he felt almost blessed.

  He got to the hotel at eleven o’clock and quickly realized that he should’ve taken a nap. For he was not a night person. His usual bedtime was nine thirty, ten at the latest. He lay in the hotel bed, fully clothed, blinking his eyes at the ceiling and trying to stay awake, but by eleven fifteen he was asleep.

  When Estelle came knocking, he did not answer. Not even when she called out his name.

  So there was Adele Sayers—working name “Estelle”—standing alone outside a third-rate motel in West St. Louis. She muttered, “Shit.” Five hundred bucks gone and she had driven all the way out here. The boy had backed out, his wife having come home early or some shit. After all the time she had spent sweet-talking him, making him feel comfortable paying for it, a phone call would have been nice.

  She walked back to her car, a used Camaro, but it didn’t look it, and got in behind the wheel. After turning the ignition, she settled back against the seat and felt the tickle at her neck. Then she was jerked back, the cord pulled tight against her throat. She never got a chance to scream.

  TWELVE

  Raymond Sheffield held the electrical extension cord tight for a full minute after the woman stopped struggling. Held it taut and then released it. He checked her pulse. None.

  He had been in the car for only about a minute when she came back. He had jimmied open the passenger door and had just climbed into the backseat when he heard her walking back to the car. He’d thought she would be gone for at least an hour. An hour with whatever stooge she was lined up with.

  But she came back and it had been a near thing. He had ducked down in the backseat and was unwinding the extension cord as he heard her get in, felt her weight press back against the driver’s seat. When she started the car, he pounced. And soon it was over.

  Well. It had turned out okay after all. She had surprised him, coming back out sooner than he had expected. But he had reacted well under pressure. And that was a good sign.

  Raymond got out of the Camaro on the passenger side. Hmmm. The car was still running. Raymond looked about the motel parking lot. Three or four cars but no one around. He ducked back into the Camaro and turned off the ignition. The engine cut.

  He remained in the front passenger seat. He regarded the woman. He looked out at the parking lot, put it in conte
xt. He was hesitating . . . aware of the danger of being caught, but getting a kick out of it too. If he left now, without a memento, without a trinket, he knew that he would feel cheated. He was entitled to a prize. He took another look at the woman. Then he reached over and pulled one of her earrings off. It took a piece of her ear with it. He would wash the flesh and blood off when he got home.

  Raymond closed the door and walked back to his Ford. He left the extension cord in the Camaro.

  Two miles away from the Thunderbird Motel, he began to feel a certain pride. The unexpected had happened. She had come back to the car within a couple of minutes of leaving it. But he had still been ready. He had reacted not with panic but with cool professionalism. Any butcher could handle the predictable. Make an incision, remove the appendix, close, and suture. Who couldn’t do that? Take a mediocrity from a med school in the West Indies, he could do it. But something more was required of the professional. A cool head. A finesse.

  Raymond drove the Ford on Manchester to Interstate 270. He took that south to Interstate 44, past the Chrysler plant, and then south on a winding road into the hills. No one knew about the Ford except him. He had bought it with cash from some clodhopper in Arnold, and he had not told the seller his real name. The car was “unlisted,” so to speak. A phantom’s car.

  Raymond Sheffield owned a small barn on a defunct horse farm. He had purchased the property with cash. He parked the Ford in the barn next to his Mercedes E350. The Mercedes was black. It was his “doctor’s” car. Raymond backed it out of the barn, left it running while he got out and locked the barn doors. Then he got back into the Mercedes and drove back to his house in Sunset Hills.

  It was almost two in the morning when he turned on his living-room light. He didn’t feel tired. He went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. While the kettle boiled, he cut pieces of sharp cheddar cheese on a wooden cutting board. Then he transferred the cheese slices to a dish and placed wheat crackers next to them.

  He felt better after having a snack and tea. When it was done, he set the dish into the sink. Then he removed Adele Sayers’s earring from his coat pocket, washed it in the bathroom sink, and dried it with a towel.

  He sat in his reclining chair in the living room and examined the earring. A cheap piece of costume jewelry. She had not been high-class at all. Raymond felt a disappointment. Maybe it was because the earring was no longer attached to the girl. He would know what it was. Whenever he looked at it, he would know. But now that it was clean, it seemed inanimate. Not the prize he had thought it was. You hit a squirrel with your car, you don’t mount its head above your fireplace. It’s just a squirrel, for heaven’s sake.

  He sighed and set the earring on an end table. Maybe he would feel better about it tomorrow. Maybe he would see it and know what it should’ve meant; maybe the memento would come to have meaning in time.

  Raymond sipped his tea and thought back to the party.

  Helen Krans had not been there.

  She had asked him at the end of their shift if he was going, and he had said that he probably was. She said that she had plans and couldn’t go. Her disappointment appeared genuine. Raymond did not ask her what her plans were. But he knew she was going out with Harry Tassett. Raymond showed no hostility or displeasure at this. Indeed, he hadn’t really felt any at that time. He believed that her relationship with Tassett—if you could call it that—would be short-lived. Tassett was an oaf. And though that probably wouldn’t matter to someone like Helen Krans, she would come to see that Tassett was going to continue to chase other women and that she was just part of that collection. Raymond could recognize another predator when he saw one. Tassett was that. He was the sort that would take a certain pleasure in seducing a nice girl like Helen. But she would figure him out. Tassett made little attempt to hide what he was about, considering his lifestyle for the most part harmless. There would be a breakup, an undramatic one at that.

  And Raymond Sheffield would be there when it happened.

  He was being patient. For he knew how to be patient. He knew how to wait when waiting was necessary. Not that he planned to add Helen Krans to his collection. That would not be her role.

  He planned to marry her.

  He knew that in time she would come to trust him. Confide in him and be drawn to him. She was already seeing the Raymond that he wanted her to see. The decent, compassionate, thoughtful physician. She would round him out. She would be part of his daytime persona. The Dr. Sheffield persona. She would make a good wife. For who would suspect a physician? Particularly a physician who was married to such a nice, guileless girl like Helen Krans?

  Raymond rubbed his eyes. He was coming down off the high now, and he found that, in spite of the tea, he was tired. He retreated to bed. He tried to read a chapter of an Anthony Trollope novel but gave up after a page. He turned off the light and went straight to sleep.

  THIRTEEN

  Hastings was in a convenience store buying a Sunday newspaper and a coffee when he got the call.

  “Hastings.”

  “Lieutenant? This is Deputy Ernie Hill, County PD. We got a body here on West Manchester Road, death by strangulation.”

  Hastings said, “A woman?”

  “Yeah. A young lady named Adele Sayers. We’re reasonably sure she’s a hooker. Dispatch says you investigated a strangulation yesterday down by the river. Maybe it’s the same guy.”

  “Okay. You giving me an invite?”

  “We’d welcome you.”

  Hastings said, “I could be there in about thirty minutes. Listen, Deputy, you got reporters there?”

  “No, I don’t see any yet.”

  “Can I ask you a favor? Tell your people not to give out any statements. Not yet.”

  “I understand.”

  Hastings got off the phone. Two prostitutes strangled in two days. Technically, it could be called a serial killing. The press got hold of that and there could be panic. Maybe they would need the cooperation of the press, but if it got out at the wrong time, the upper brass would get upset and would want someone to blame for it if the killer wasn’t apprehended. Panic, fear, despair. You could tell people the facts. Tell them that out of about two hundred thousand murders committed across the nation, at most two hundred could be attributed to serial killers. Tell them that they were in far greater danger from fucked-up ex-boyfriends or estranged husbands, the everyday, commonplace monsters. Tell them, but it wouldn’t matter.

  Hastings hoped the murders weren’t related. He hoped they weren’t because if they were, they were dealing with something illogical and raw. Something unnatural. And it was this that Hastings believed people feared. Not the dumb-ass loser who drinks too much and bashes a neighbor’s head against the sidewalk; not the pathetic asshole who would rather see his woman dead than free of him. Those things were common. The mass murderer was not common.

  He hoped they weren’t related, but he suspected they were.

  •

  The Thunderbird Motel was a three-quarters rectangle of rooms with red doors set against an off-white exterior. There were three county police cars and an unmarked felony car. It was early and there was no yellow tape up.

  The county detectives had gotten there before Hastings. Introductions were made. The heavyset detective, whose name was Escobar, pointed through the window of the Camaro and said, “You see that? Extension cord.”

  “Yeah,” Hastings said.

  “We believe that was the murder weapon.”

  The girl was flopped forward onto the steering wheel.

  Hastings said, “Who found her?”

  “The morning cleaning woman. She told the manager and the manager called us,” Escobar said. “The M.E. and the technicals are on their way.”

  “You’ve spoken with the manager?”

  Escobar looked to Deputy Hill, the ranking patrol officer. Hill caught the questioning glance and said, “I did. He’s waiting in the office, if you want to follow up with him.”

  The detectives
hesitated.

  Technically, it was outside the city’s jurisdiction. But there was less friction between city and county on such things than there would be between city and federal. For his part, Hastings had always held St. Louis County in fairly high regard. They were a professional outfit, and that could not be said of every law enforcement agency. Good leadership and a culture that did not foster or tolerate corruption kept them clean.

  Escobar was a county detective and Hastings was a municipal lieutenant. But they answered to different supervisors. Hastings held no rank over Escobar and they were both aware of this.

  Escobar said, “Well, George, I know it’s premature, but do you think this girl was killed by your guy?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Hastings said. “I’ll tell you what we’ve got downtown: a young call girl, probably high dollar, strangled by someone she seems to have willingly gotten into a car with. I don’t really have any suspects. My leads are . . . well, she’s got a long list of clients and we have yet to go through all of them.”