A Passing Curse (2011)

by C R Trolson

  “There’s no proof.”

  “You know.”

  “If I knew, I’d have pulled the trigger. And I’d be in jail.” Amos shook his head and poured himself another drink. The bottle was nearly empty. “Being in a cell again….”

  He couldn’t blame Rupert Amos, no more than he could blame Rusty. They did not know what he knew, and it was a huge step from suspecting Ajax to killing him. “You won’t do anything until Ajax comes out into the open and by then it will be too late.”

  “Maybe.” Amos took a drink. His eyes watered. He pointed to the Lahti. “I’ve already loaded the magazine,” he said defensively, as if just pointing a rifle at Ajax would stop him. “AP and then incendiary. Just charge the bolt, safety off, and it’s ready to fire.”

  “That’s a big step, Rupert. Conspiring to commit murder.”

  “I’m not committed to anything. I’ve just got a big-assed rifle pointing out my window.” Rupert Amos looked at him. Focus in his eyes. “Don’t wait too long. I heard from a friend of mine, a guy at the gun shows, that down in Long Beach Ajax bought a flamethrower from a Bulgarian who handles surplus from the Soviets.”

  “Flamethrower? What’s he want with a flamethrower?” Reese asked. Finnish anti-tank rifle versus flamethrower? It sounded like an arms war.

  “Throw flame on somebody, be my guess.”

  Downstairs he checked his answering machine, hoping for a message from Rusty but finding nothing. He called the Sheraton: nothing. They had not seen her. He waited for an hour, hoping she’d call. He drank, wondering who was crazier, Ajax or Rupert. Arresting Ajax for jaywalking, much less murder, would be impossible. He ignored Thomkins’ files on the kitchen counter.

  He hammered out a quick plan: first, get Rusty out of town; second, come back and kill Ajax. Or, wait for Rupert to do it. He felt that his landlord was on the verge of killing the billionaire. Right on the edge. Proof or not. Officer and a gentleman, or not. And who did Ajax want to throw flame at?

  He opened beer four and picked up the top folder. He saw Dean Everett’s name, Hannah’s husband, missing for almost a year. He went through the stack. There was a three-week gap between Everett and the next case, a homeless guy named Jake. Hadn’t the Chief said all of the missing persons, except for Dean, were girls? Lies or sloppiness? Probably a little of both.

  He went through the folders quickly. A few more homeless. A few that looked like husbands getting away. Several teenage, female runaways. At least he hoped they were runaways.

  A brief description of one runaway, Joni Bluerock, caught his eye. He touched her photograph, probably from her senior yearbook, a pretty girl, strength in those eyes. She’d gone her own way, a singer in a Gothic rock band. She’d been a Chumash Indian, raised on the reservation outside of town. Under the heading of “Distinguishable Characteristics” he read she had fangs, a prop for her act, implanted by an orthodontist in Ensenada, according to a statement by her sister. Her last known employment was as maid for Ajax. Now that rang a bell.

  He put her photograph in his wallet.

  He studied the remaining two folders. They were both girls, both Chumash, both working as maids for Ajax when they went missing at the exact same time as Miss Bluerock. All three girls had graduated from Refugio High in 2009, which meant they were probably friends. He finished the beer and headed for his car.

  25

  It was dusk by the time he parked at the police station. The lights were ablaze. Shadows dodged past windows. Double shifts, he guessed. The wagons were circling.

  He walked inside the station, cornered Smith, and asked him if he knew that three girls, now missing a year, had last been seen working as maids for Ajax Rasmussen. Smith admitted that he was not sure and looked around nervously.

  He ignored Smith’s discomfort and casually flipped through a stack of crime scene photos on Smith’s desk - Thomkins sprawled, a new-age Mohican on black ice. The photos were black and white, Perry’s work, haunting, stark, and coldly beautiful, nothing like modern forensics photos taken in full color with grainy digital cameras or Polaroids.

  “You’re not sure?” He turned the pictures face down. “Three girls go to work for Ajax and the next day they’re missing and you’re not sure? That was a year ago, Smith. You done any follow up? Like questioning Ajax? Tell me you looked into it? I don’t give a shit how much money Ajax has, tell me you questioned him. Tell me you’re not completely fucking incompetent.”

  Smith backed up, trying to come up with an excuse. The pony wall surrounding his cubicle kept him from escaping. “Now, I remember,” he said, putting a leg over the low wall. “The Chief talked to Ajax about the girls, I think, but I wouldn’t worry about it. We have a suspect. We have the guy.”

  He was about to neck-tie Smith and ask him what kind of fucked-up department this was when the Chief’s voice boomed down the hall, “I’ve got a suspect locked up is what I have.” The Chief, who must have been listening, stepped out of his office and into the hall, looking awfully proud of himself. “William Rawlings is who. AKA Lung Butter Bill. He killed Officer Thomkins. He killed him cold blooded as hell and then mutilated the body.”

  “The wino?”

  “You know him?”

  “He found Cheevy’s body behind the store. You don’t remember? I interviewed him in the backseat of your car that night. Don’t tell me he’s your suspect - ”

  “That’s right, I’d forgotten.”

  “Forgotten? It was two days ago.”

  “That just goes to prove my point,” The Chief replied. “Rawlings was at the first murder scene. Well, Well. Another connection. More wood on the fire.”

  Reese could not believe what he was hearing. “You’re saying Rawlings killed Cheevy? Did he kill Father Ramon, too?” He shook his head, more in amazement than disgust. Still, he was disgusted by the Chief’s half-ass reasoning. Or was the Chief just acting stupid? “Rawlings can barely stand half the time. He’s a piss-drunk winehead.”

  The Chief ignored him. He’d set his course. A man of rare determination. “Rawlings, poor, helpless wino that he is, is also a convicted armed robber,” he explained slowly, like Reese was the moron here. “A convicted felon. 1973. Armed robbery Mom and Pop grocery in Salinas. Served two years in Soledad. Tried to pistol-whip the Pop.”

  “Really? Well, now, unless you didn’t notice, he’s also a drunk. He wouldn’t have trouble killing a bottle of wine, but whoever killed Thomkins and Father Ramon was strong and quick. You’re saying he was able to hang Ramon? Whoever killed Cheevy had medical training, able to stick a vein. Has he been shot?”

  “Has who been shot?”

  “Your killer, Rawlings. I told you to check the hospitals. Thomkins put three bullets in the man who killed him. He shot seven times and I found four slugs in the room.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I can count, big deal,” the Chief said. “But that doesn’t mean anything because one thing for sure is, how do you know that Thomkins had a full clip?”

  Reese was starting to wonder if the Chief had a full clip. “Because I did a little police work. I got down on my knees and counted his brass, seven.”

  The Chief shrugged. “Anyway, Rawlings is not wounded. Not that it matters. He’s the one that killed my officer. He’s the one that killed Thomkins.”

  “Don’t you give a shit who really killed Thomkins?” They were in the hall, alone. Everyone had ducked out. He wanted to deck the Chief. Knock some sense into him.

  The Chief swelled up, turning red. “I care. You’re goddamned right I care. Who says I don’t?”

  “He was your responsibility. He was your man.”

  “Is that right?” the Chief sneered. “I wasn’t at a cockfight last night - Yeah, I heard all about it - and Thomkins done up like a chicken. And I wasn’t meeting him in the room where he was killed.”

  The Chief glowered, pointing a finger at him. Reese brought his arm up slowly, shuffled his left foot forward, a second from landing a right.

  The Chie
f stepped back, steadied himself on the balls of his feet, still sneering. “You ever ask yourself why Thomkins was in Ramon’s room last night while you and Miss Mummy-Road-Show were getting all cozy? He was trying to break the case, trying to impress you. You were his idol. The big shot. The great homicide detective from LA. You should have heard him talking. He wanted to go to LA and be a detective just like you. Just like his hero. Told me that you thought he had real potential. Kept asking me if Mr. Ajax Rasmussen was the killer.”

  He felt his face getting hot. He’d used Thomkins against the Chief, true. It hadn’t worked and, now, it hardly mattered. He’d warned Thomkins about going to the mission by himself. He lowered his hands. “Thomkins would be alive if you’d taken care of Rasmussen.”

  “Taken care of Ajax Rasmussen? Me take care of the richest man in the world?” The Chief laughed. “You’ve got Ajax on the brain, son. Anyway, I’ve got the man who killed Thomkins. I’ve got Rawlings.”

  “You might have Rawlings, but I don’t see one piece of evidence.”

  “I’ll give you more than one,” the Chief said and waved Reese into his office. The Chief shook a field report at him. “Rawlings attacked the garbage man today. Rawlings had one of those short-handled weed rakes, the kind with the three prongs.”

  Reese looked over the report, but could not concentrate. He kept seeing Thomkins. He dropped the report on the desk. It was all bullshit, anyway. The Chief had his man and his evidence. “Did Rawlings hurt the garbage man?”

  “Nope. Before he got a chance, the garbage truck driver, a woman, threw Rawlings down and stood on him while the victim called the police.”

  Reese inhaled slowly. “Other than emptying his pistol and putting three bullets into his attacker, which didn’t help, Thomkins made no kind of defense. No blood under his fingernails, no swollen knuckles. The assault was that fast. Once he emptied his clip, he was overwhelmed. Same with Ramon. Ramon was strung up, hoisted, three hundred pounds, that takes strength. Yet a woman threw Rawlings down and stood on him until the police came? This is evidence?”

  “She’s huge. A big woman. One of those high school shot putters. Hefting garbage all her life. Probably on steroids.” The Chief grinned bitterly like he didn’t believe it himself, but daring Reese to prove otherwise. He marveled at how far the Chief would go to protect Ajax. Or was the Chief putting on a show, distracting everyone, opening the door for him to do what the Chief could not? If that was the case, then the Chief ought to speak up, tell him he wanted his dirty work done for him. Tell him to kill Ajax.

  “That’s all you have?”

  “I’ve got Rawlings.” The Chief walked around him. “Look at Rawlings, then decide. He’s gotten worse. Not the same man you spoke with yesterday. He’s not even the same man we arrested.” To underscore his point, the Chief added, “Now, even that garbage lady couldn’t hold him.”

  They walked out the back door of the station and along the dark flagstone path to the jail. They walked through the Spanish gardens that dripped bougainvillea and rhododendrons. Colored lights set into the grass shot rainbows through the plants, shadowing the adobe walls, a modernistic spider web.

  Above the tranquility of the garden, came the screams of someone being skinned alive.

  The same jailer who’d released Rusty opened the door. Today, his hair stood in three different directions. He put his hands together, forming a megaphone, and yelled over the keening, “He’s worse!”

  Reese followed the Chief down the yellow and green linoleum corridor, the jailer yelling at them to be careful, hanging back.

  The walls rattled from the screaming. The corridor got smaller. Time slowed. He fought for breath.

  The Chief cupped his hands, shouting, a man in a wind tunnel. “Really something, ain’t he? Don’t tell me that thing couldn’t have taken down a fully armed officer!”

  They stopped in front of the same metal door and meshed window that Rusty had looked out of yesterday.

  Today, William Rawlings, aka Lung Butter Bill, crouched in the corner of the padded room, wearing the same nasty sport coat, gulping in air and howling like a steam whistle. The Chief was right about one thing: Rawlings was nothing like the drunk he’d questioned behind Cheevy’s store.

  He turned to the Chief. “How long has he been like this?” Before the Chief could answer, Rawlings quit screaming. The jail went eerily quiet except for their breathing and a ragged huffing inside the cell.

  The jailer broke in, his voice loud, “Twenty minutes. He started twenty minutes ago. He goes on for twenty minutes, catches his breath for twenty minutes, then starts again.”

  “What do you think about it now?” the Chief asked, challenging him.

  Rawlings turned away from them, as if ashamed.

  Reese said, “The killer had discipline. Rawlings is a maniac. The killer has a plan. Rawlings is - ” He stopped, unsure what Rawlings was.

  “He had this in his pocket.” The Chief held up a wickedly curved gaff, a miniature scimitar.

  Reese turned the gaff over in his hands, similar to those Thomkins had used last night at the cockfight, similar to those stuck in his heels. Anyone could buy a cock-spur. “Fingerprints?”

  “Nothing,” the Chief said and took the gaff back. “Wiped clean. Perry checked it.”

  Before he could reply, a violent rush, breaking glass, and Rawlings’ head popping through the viewing port.

  Reese backed against the wall. Glass showering his chest. Rawlings’ face, blood vessels pulsing, two feet in front of him, smiling, now, in recognition. Spears of glass in his skull. Blood welts crisscrossed, the steel mesh cutting a diamond pattern.

  Time staggered. The Chief, the jailer running. Feeling for the butt of his gun, slapping at his side, slightly panicked as Rawlings’ lips moved, closer, trying to speak, the bottom of his jaw now moving sideways, followed by the heat and roar of a shotgun blast.

  He turned. The Chief coming down the hallway, light on his feet, jacking another shell in the riot gun.

  He tried to duck, tried to get away from the next shot, but slipped in all the blood. He sprawled on the floor. His ears rang. Shotgun wadding floated in the air like gray snow.

  He crawled down the corridor. The Chief ten feet away. “Hold that fire!” Reese yelled and pulled himself up. He felt his face, surprised he wasn’t shot. He stared at the Chief.

  The Chief just stood there, holding the riot gun as if storming a beach. “I got him.” The jailer, standing directly behind the Chief, was now armed with a taser gun.

  He jerked the shotgun out of the Chief’s hands. He angled the stock to strike his jaw. The jailer moved up and aimed the taser at his chest. “Easy now,” he warned. “I’ll have to shock you a little.”

  Reese stepped back. He worked the shotgun’s slide, chucking shells until the gun was empty, the cartridges sounding like bowling balls on the linoleum. “You killed him,” he said. “He was trying to talk.” He shoved the gun back into the Chief hands. “The fuck you’re doing?”

  The Chief said, “Look.” Rawlings’ head was still poking through the door, but he was far from dead. With a look of determination, Rawlings worked the door back and forth. The door jamb crumbled, grating against the concrete wall. Blood ran down the door from the gaping wound where his chin had been. His upper lips flared over toothless blackened gums. Wild, flashing eyes popped from the skull. With trembling strength Rawlings slowly pushed the door into the hall.

  “Saving your life is what,” the Chief said as the door broke free and crashed into the opposite wall where he’d been standing seconds earlier.

  Rawlings, amazingly, turned to his right, facing them, grinning after a fashion, bottom jaw gone, the door still hanging from his neck. He then forced the door over his head, peeling off both ears in the process. He threw the door down like cardboard, turned, and strode down the hall. He kicked the exit door twice, snapping the bolt, and was gone, his wide back disappearing into the night.

  Then a burst of
CO2, a loud snap, and the taser darts, hooked to thin wires, spiraled after him. But they snagged only air and dropped to the floor, jumping and sparking until the jailer released the trigger.

  The Chief aimed the shotgun at the door, dropping the hammer on an empty chamber. Reese ran down the hall, slipped on the bloody door, recovered, and picked up a vial that had jumped from Rawlings’ jacket. He put the vial in his jacket and ran after the wino.

  Under the first streetlight, Reese caught a glimpse of Rawlings running hunched over.

  Rawlings ran out of sight. He followed the blood track. Sometimes only drops. Sometimes great brush strokes. He ran with his pistol out. His shadow dancing ahead of him. He saw the blinding white teeth of frightened people, gesturing from passing cars, honking and pointing down the road where the wino had ran.

  Around the next corner he saw Rawlings fifty yards off, barely moving. He was tempted to kneel and cap him from a distance. But he needed him alive. He had a few questions for Lung Butter Bill. What kept Rawlings going, he did not know.

  He was nearly on him when Rawlings jerked right and disappeared into a dark thicket that skewered up a hill. Tall eucalyptus trees rose against the dark sky. Brush broke loudly as Rawlings ran up the hill and then silence except for ragged breathing. Passing fog softened light from the rising moon.

  He followed Rawlings into the thicket. The ground felt spongy. He kept going, kicking through cans, tangled weeds, balled newspaper. He made noise, hoping to drive Rawlings into the open.

  The brush was dry and crackly. A bad place to be. Rawlings could be anywhere. He forgot about keeping Rawlings alive. A shadow slipped by and he fired. The shot scoured the brush bright orange. The short blast popped his ears. Parts of a junked car - a front seat, a steering wheel, tires - threw abstract shadows.

  He crouched, both feet planted a little past shoulder width, all black in front of him. His vision still bubbling from the muzzle blast. He held steady, ears open, ready to fire at the first sound. He smelled blood and a cat-piss smell from the eucalyptus. He forced his feet into the soft ground, rooting himself.