Victim

by Gary Kinder

  What Claire hadn’t included in the note was that she and Scott Swift, a second-year medical student at the University of Utah, would soon be announcing their engagement. Claire knew that her excitable and highly organized mother had been planning her only daughter’s wedding from the day Claire was born. In fact, Claire was still in high school when Brett and Diane were married, but her mother had decided then that it was time for Claire to begin planning for her own wedding by selecting patterns for her china, silver, and crystal. For the past six years, at birthdays and Christmas, Claire had received pieces and place settings in her chosen patterns. Now that she would be graduating from college in June, she had collected all of her fine tableware, but her mother had been unable to pry an admission from her that she and Scott were planning to be married. On more than one occasion Carol had complained to Scott’s mother, “I just don’t think I’ll ever see my daughter get married.” But Scott had already purchased the diamond, and they were saving the announcement as a surprise for Carol and Byron, sometime after they returned from their trip. It was hard for Claire not to share the secret with her mother, but for now the excitement would have to wait just a little while longer.

  Even when Claire welcomed her parents home at the airport two weeks later, she had said nothing about her plans with Scott, although the first day they were back, Claire and her mother had attended the wedding of a friend of Claire’s. After the wedding Claire had remained in Ogden over the weekend with Gary and Cortney to hear the stories and see the souvenirs their parents had brought back with them from the Orient. Through a friend the Naisbitts had been permitted a tour of a Hong Kong jewelry factory, where they had bought select pearls and jade. Then, after viewing the Red China border, they had flown to Saigon; but fighting erupted only twenty miles from the capital, and they had flown out the same day. On the return flight to Hong Kong they had landed in Bangkok and purchased yards of shimmering Thai silk. The stories of the trip included the side ventures, the quick impressions of the lands and peoples, the exotic dishes they had sampled. The pictures of the sights they had seen wouldn’t be ready, if at all, until Monday.

  Claire returned to school in Salt Lake City on Sunday afternoon. Monday was a typical day for her, attending classes in the final courses she would need for her medical technology degree from the University of Utah. That night she and her roommate, Jody Hetzel, went out for dinner and returned to their apartment to study until eleven thirty. Then they turned out the lights and went to sleep. In the silence just after midnight the phone rang.

  “Claire, this is Uncle Paul.” His voice was firm and dry. “There’s been an accident,” he explained slowly, “and we want you to come to St. Benedict’s Hospital.”

  Claire sat up in bed. “Who is it?”

  “It’s okay,” said her uncle, “just come on up.”

  “Right now?” she asked. It was thirty-five miles from Salt Lake City to Ogden.

  “Yes, right now. But don’t hurry,” he added. “Be safe.”

  “Sure,” said Claire. “I will.”

  I got up and started getting dressed, and I woke up Jody and I told her what my uncle had said, so she decided she’d better go with me. I felt really anxious. I remember hurrying, getting dressed, and just running out the door and jumping in the car. It was raining a little bit, and I was driving so I would have something to keep my mind occupied. We decided we were going to drive slow, but it didn’t really turn out that way.

  I felt sort of sick. I was trying to figure out who would be out that late at night. The only person that would be was my dad. And then I thought, Well, what could have happened to him? So I figured he had gotten in a car accident on the way to the hospital for a delivery. Right at first I didn’t think it would be that bad. We didn’t talk about it very much. I was wondering out loud why Uncle Paul had called instead of Mother, but then I decided that if something had happened to Dad she would probably be more concerned with him. But then I thought, If it was just a little accident why wouldn’t she be able to call? Maybe Dad really was badly injured. I didn’t think he was dead or anything. I tried not to think about that. I thought, Well, I don’t know, I’ll just have to wait and find out.

  It must have taken us about thirty minutes to get to the hospital, and we walked right in the emergency room. I didn’t have to ask any questions; it seemed like as soon as we walked in the door somebody was right there and said, “Come this way,” or “Come with me,” or something. So we walked down the hall, and somebody else met us, that must have been Dr. Wallace … he looked familiar, but I really didn’t know who he was, and at that point I really didn’t care. I just followed him and we ... we went around the corner … and got in the elevator. And … um … while we were in the elevator … he … he put his arm around me … and he told me … he said that my mom had been shot … and that she was dead … and that … um … Cortney had been … shot, but he said that he was … not … he was … critically ill … or serious … or something … and he said that I was going to have to be tougher than anybody else, because my dad needed all the support he could get. It hit so hard … I felt like … somebody … dropped … a ton of bricks right on top of me. I just remember … just grabbing Jody … throwing my arms around her … and just crying. I guess she held me up… . It’s the most horrible feeling … it’s so shocking … you know, just so … so surprising … even if you sort of expect something bad like that. It’s like your worst expectations have come true … that someone is dead, but I couldn’t imagine how my mother had been shot. Maybe a car accident or a heart attack, or something. But how do people get shot? Things like that just didn’t happen to people.

  We got to the third floor and the door opened and we walked a little way down the hall and Uncle Paul was there and he came up and took me down to my dad. Brett was there in the waiting room, sitting on the couch. Dad was sitting in a big chair, and I just climbed up on his lap and hugged him. And I cried… . My dad … my dad said … he always says, “Don’t fret, don’t fret.” And he told me, “Go ahead and cry and don’t fret, and it’ll be okay.” Just what daddies will tell you. He said: “I’ve had my cry, you just go ahead. I’ve already been through it all, now it’s your turn.” He told me, too, that he had had to go down and see Mother. And I said, “Was it awful?” and he said, “Yes, it was awful.” But he was glad that it was over. And I can remember asking him what she looked like. And he said: “Just fine. Don’t worry.” He would never tell me. I guess … I’m sure he thought … I don’t know what she looked like, I really don’t … even though he said, “Just fine.” She may … maybe did and maybe didn’t. He was always telling me, “Don’t worry about that.” He said: “You don’t want to ever see her. You don’t want to see her like that. You want to remember her the way she was. So don’t think about it. Just think about Cortney and getting him well.…”

  He held me for a while, and then I asked him about Cortney, and he took me in to see him. I couldn’t believe it… . I’d been in ICUs before, but it’s different when it’s your own brother. I remember they had him on one of those cold-blankets, and he was shivering … and I remember how long and thin he looked … he wasn’t completely cleaned up … and he didn’t have any clothes on … he just had tubes everywhere … they were going in his arms and his legs, and it seemed like he was pretty yellow. And he had a trache in ... I don’t know why, but that really bothered me. And his eyes were closed and sort of black and blue, kind of sunken in and dark-looking. I remember he had burns around his mouth and kinda down his neck. He looked really tired … just totally exhausted. He just … he just looked … he didn’t look like himself at all. He wasn’t pink, and he wasn’t… I don’t know … he looked kinda… kinda dead. And then everything came crashing down on top of me again. I was nauseated. It’s so weird to see somebody all tubed up. Somebody that you know. It’s really awful. And he was coughing up junk all the time. I was thinking, Who is this? You’re not my brother. I mean, you don’t look like him.
My brother’s jumping up and down, running around.

  I just stared at him right at first, then I talked to him and asked him how he was doing. I don’t know if I dared to touch him. I think maybe I touched his toes, or something like that. Or else … maybe I went over and touched his hand … after Dad did. Yeah. I think I did touch his hand. But I remember I was just so … so shocked, I didn’t … I just felt like I couldn’t touch him. I didn’t know what it would be like, I guess. I guess I was afraid of him.

  They only let us stay in there for a minute, and then Dad walked me back into the waiting room and he went back in with Cortney. And then Gary came, and I saw him walk by the door and into the ICU.

  In the basement of the Hi-Fi Shop, Don Moore and the crime-scene technicians had now heard the full eyewitness story of the murders, relayed by Detective White. It helped them in their search for evidence, but it did little to suggest suspects. For Moore there was nothing to link his single unsolved murder with the murders in the Hi-Fi Shop basement, other than the savagery it took to commit them. To connect the savagery of one with the savagery of the other, Moore would have had to perceive that a man with a soft tiptoe and an indifferent way of crouching to execute his victims could also drive a bayonet through a sleeping man’s face.

  If Moore had sensed that he had once tracked a murderer as cold and detached as the one described by Mr. Walker, it would have keyed vivid memories, taking him back in time a little over six months, to October 5, 1973. About noon that day, a Friday, he had been called in to investigate the death of a young black Air Force sergeant stationed at Hill Air Force Base, just south of Ogden. Sergeant Edward Jefferson was found in his Ogden apartment, reposed on a couch, murdered in his sleep. He was wearing only a set of white thermal underwear, and his hands were still folded peacefully across his chest. Tracking down leads, Moore had worked through the weekend and by Monday had focused his investigation on a rather mysterious figure whose full name no one seemed to know—just Dale from the West Indies. Agents from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, OSI, working with Moore on the case, had finally identified him as another young black airman, a twenty-year-old Trinidadian named Dale Pierre.

  From records and witnesses Moore had pieced together the following story on Pierre: Pierre had been at Jefferson’s apartment the previous Sunday afternoon, taping some music, when Jefferson’s key ring, including the keys to his apartment and his 1971 Grand Prix, had suddenly disappeared. Though the apartment was searched thoroughly, the keys were not found until Pierre returned the following day and brazenly suggested they search again. During this second search the key ring had miraculously reappeared. Jefferson became suspicious, investigated the matter, and discovered that Pierre had stolen his key ring, gone to the base locksmith, forged the name Curtis Alexander, and duplicated the keys to his apartment and his car. Jefferson changed the ignition on his car and had his landlord install new locks in his apartment. He then confronted Pierre about the incident, and a third airman, a friend of Jefferson’s, overheard the two arguing, but was not close enough to hear what was said. Two days later Jefferson’s body was discovered on the couch in his living room, a pillow over his face and a light coverlet pulled up over the pillow. His face was puffed and bruised, with bits of brain mired in a thick pus oozing from his nose and eye sockets. A bayonet had been driven repeatedly through his face, the first blow killing him instantly. The murderer had used such power and the weapon had been driven so deeply, that the blade had gone all the way through Jefferson’s brain, the hilt itself fracturing the man’s skull.

  Moore had viewed the Jefferson murder as particularly cold and unfeeling, a matter of expediency rather than passion. He saw the present murders similarly, but here there was a new dimension he had not been aware of in the Jefferson case: after hearing the eyewitness’s story, Moore surmised that the killer had actually enjoyed seeing the people suffer, that he had calculated the damage that would be done each time he fed them the caustic or pulled the trigger. It was this aspect of the new murders that prevented Moore from imagining Pierre as a suspect. Though Pierre may have enjoyed murdering Jefferson, Moore had had no witness to attest to it.

  Three days after Jefferson’s body was discovered, the OSI agents working with Moore located Pierre and had him brought to their office, where Moore saw the elusive airman for the first time. He was short, about five five, and thick-limbed, well-muscled from lifting weights, but rather oddly put together. As thick as his body was, his head was still too large, and his forehead sloped too steeply and ran too high to meet the back of it. His back was slightly arced, ending in a large, protruding ass that would have suggested a waddle if it hadn’t been for the strut he affected. There was nothing menacing in Pierre’s physical presence; to the contrary, his nonchalance made him appear unusually docile. But there was something haughty in his demeanor, an air that suggested he was far too busy to have his time wasted. He strolled into the office and nodded casually at Moore, then setded easily into a chair and with his finger massaged the bridge of his nose, a gesture slow and calm and innocent. Moore felt that Pierre, being interrogated for first-degree murder, was little more than annoyed at the inconvenience.

  Prior to joining the Ogden Police in 1969, when he was twenty-four, Moore had taught hand-to-hand combat for the Army Special Forces. He stood six six and weighed 225. Everything about him, including his silence, was large and intimidating. He had large hands and large fingers, a massive head, and huge eyes covered by thick, dark eyebrows that seemed to weigh heavily on his eyes, slanting them out toward his temples. His eyes were a medium blue, and when he glared at a suspect, they actually bulged out and seemed to flash a lighter, hotter blue.

  Moore knew little about Pierre, and seeing him now gave him no reason to think that Pierre would be any different than other subjects he had interrogated. They frequently acted cocky at the beginning. Sitting sideways on top of a desk, Moore opened by advising Pierre of his rights, then explained to him that he was a suspect in the Jefferson murder. Pierre sat still and said nothing. As always, Moore was firm and direct, never taking his eyes off Pierre’s face. A few feet from Moore, in a chair against the wall, Pierre struck a similar pose, never taking his narrow, flinty eyes off Moore’s. Though Pierre spoke an English of confusing rhythms and inflection, Moore could understand him, and the two men conversed stiffly but affably about Trinidad and Pierre’s job in the Air Force. When Pierre had answered a question, he would close his mouth and sit quietly, waiting for the next one. He volunteered nothing, never became animated or smiled, and never looked away from Moore’s face.

  Pierre admitted knowing Jefferson and being at his apartment a few days before the murder, but he denied stealing the keys or having them duplicated. Toward the end of their first meeting Moore asked Pierre where he had been the night Jefferson was killed. Pierre pensively tapped his index finger at the groove between his nose and his thick upper lip, a habit he had when he was thinking. After a moment he said that he had borrowed a car belonging to his roommate, who was away on leave, and gone to Salt Lake City by himself to shop around for a used car on the used car lots. Then he had returned to his barracks and remained there till the next day when he had gone to work on the flight line. Finished with his explanation, Pierre dropped his hand away from his face and continued staring at Moore. Although his alibi couldn’t be substantiated, Pierre’s expression betrayed not even a hint of concern. In Moore’s experience, this was unique.

  “When you interrogate somebody that’s involved in a crime,” Moore explained later, “they try and bluff their way out, they try to tell stories, they tell lies, they look off into space, they fidget with something, they concentrate on the telephone. Whatever. But Pierre wouldn’t. He could look you right in the eye for fifteen minutes and never take his eyes off you.”

  During their second meeting a few days later Moore covered the same ground they had been over during their first session, and Pierre gave the same answers, still denying a
ny involvement. When they had finished and Pierre was leaving the office, Moore asked him to sign the name Curtis Alexander four times, which Pierre did willingly and in a clear, exquisite hand. It was like Pierre to be cunning and careless at the same time, to show off his penmanship at the risk of facing a murder charge. After handwriting samples were taken from a number of the victim’s friends, each was compared to the signature left at the locksmith’s, and Pierre was positively identified as the author of “Curtis Alexander.”

  But Moore needed something stronger than the signatures to arrest the man for murder. He needed witnesses, someone who had seen Pierre near the apartment on the night Jefferson was killed, or who had heard an altercation between the two men. Searching for those witnesses, Moore discovered that Pierre was a loner, that he had no friends, that little was known about him because he rarely associated with anyone. When he wasn’t on the flight line, he was either at the movies or shooting pool. Perhaps stirred by his reticence and his origins in the West Indies, rumors even circulated that Pierre, a baptized Protestant, practiced voodoo. Most of the airmen avoided him. Those who knew anything about him were afraid to talk. One man, who knew Pierre and Jefferson and had been cleared of suspicion with a polygraph, would visibly shake every time Moore talked with him. He told Moore he was afraid that the same person who got Jefferson would get him, too. Another airman, when told about the bayonet driven through Jefferson’s face, told Moore: “Pierre is a crazy dude, man. It sounds like some of the crazy things he would do without even flinching.” The impression Moore got of Pierre, that he was a tough guy, a loner, somebody capable of Jefferson’s murder, derived not so much from what the few people said about Pierre, as it did from how they said it; always tight-lipped, in a whisper, as though no matter where they were Pierre could easily hear them. But impressions would not hold up in court. Lacking witnesses and a murder weapon, Moore would somehow have to draw a confession from the man.