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by J. A. Henderson

  And he wasn’t leaving any clues.

  The absence of leads haunted Detective Ettrick Sinclair. He was new to the Austin Police Department and wanted to prove his worth. He had a dozen theories and not one was heading anywhere concrete, but he clung to the belief that his enthusiasm could make up for the tired cynicism of the dozen experienced detectives now working on the killings.

  Besides, the Cherry Bomb had started off as his case. He had responded to Pepe Pineda’s original call and that made him the primary on the Kim Thackery murder. But his Captain had panicked and replaced Ettrick when department big-wigs realized what they were dealing with. There was no way a rookie would be allowed to head up an investigation this size. Politicians and newspapers would soon be clamouring for results and pointing fingers if they didn’t get them quickly enough. Instead, the Cherry Bomb case was assigned to Grimm and Scharges, the department’s most experienced detectives. Their best detectives.

  Ettrick had fumed for hours at that. He had nothing against Grimm but, in his opinion, Scharges was a corrupt Neanderthal dick. Got where he was by kissing ass and beating convictions out of perps who were probably innocent.

  Well … fuck him.

  Each day and each hour that he had to himself, Ettrick worked on the killings. He assembled every conceivable bite of information about Cherry Bomb he could beg, steal or con. When he took a rare coffee break, the doughnuts reminded him of car tires and the bites were wounded flesh.

  No matter how irrelevant a detail seemed, Ettrick chased it up and wrote it down. He showed up on the doorsteps of traumatized drivers. He ranged for miles questioning the shattered relatives of the dead children. He talked to any onlooker who would talk back. He was everywhere, a wiry powerhouse in denim jeans and white t-shirt. Asking and asking and asking …

  In the locker room Scharges joked snidely that Sinclair would crawl up a guy’s butt crack just to see what he had for lunch.

  Ettrick ignored him. His superiors frowned on this one man crusade, but what could they say? The legitimate investigation wasn’t doing any better and the press and public were now wired to fever pitch. But the other cops were pissed off by his zeal and his wife, Madison, was particularly disgruntled.

  “I’m tired of my life being full of broken appointments and constant interruptions,” she moaned. “I don’t wanna be wakened at three in the morning just so you can go chase a lead. We got no friends and don’t have fun these days. I know more about these dead kids now than you do about your own live one.”

  “You gotta give me time!” Ettrick retorted. “You’re always saying how if you’d worked harder at your old job, we’d be rich by now. Well this is my chance to get somewhere. You should be glad I’m so Goddamned dedicated. It’s gonna take dedication but it’s our ticket to success.”

  “Your ticket.”

  “My ticket. Our ticket. Look, it’s just this one case! After that, I’m established. Hell, I’ll be around so much, you’ll wish I was dead.”

  Madison accepted this. She knew she’d failed in her own vocation. Years ago she’d fled from her boring but promising white collar job and lost herself to the dream of becoming an artist. It was the same kind of nebulous hankering that plunged her into marriage with a poor but handsome, no-frills cop.

  Success had eluded her and the pull of middle-class safety had grown stronger every year. Now she was back in the rat-race, working in advertising, hauling herself grimly up the lower rungs of a corporate ladder she could have ascended years ago.

  Her dream had faded. Lack of commercial reward in both her chosen and necessary endeavours fuelled her frustration until it tainted every plane of her life.

  She couldn’t honestly begrudge Ettrick his chance. Besides, she was mad about him.

  And catching Cherry Bomb might get him promoted to a nice safe desk job.

  -20-

  Ettrick Sinclair’s problem was not his wife, nor the rest of the police force. They’d all come around if he cracked the case. It was the fact that his self-assurance was taking a career-ending nose dive. He didn’t dare show it, but he felt he’d staked everything on a first reckless dash up a slope, slick with easily crushed ambition.

  And he was absolutely stumped.

  The detective was sure he had collected enough information. He just wasn’t doing the right things with it. He needed help. An expert to go over the facts with him. Someone whose brain could spawn the leaps in logic his own mind couldn’t muster. The Austin police, in their desperation, were dabbling in everything from outside profilers to psychics. It wasn’t doing them any good either.

  Ettrick needed his own medium.

  What the hell. He’d go get himself one.

  The detective dug out the telephone directory and wrote down a list of analysts in the private sector. He began sending them emails. Then he made telephone calls. Tried to get the masters interested in tinkering with the mechanism of a mind that killed children. And many were fascinated, but not for less than $120 an hour.

  “We would do it for nothing,” they pondered, nibbling their Ralph Lauren wire-rimmed glasses. “But… You take one case like this for free, you’ll always be expected to do it. It’s the principle.”

  “Why should those bastards care?” Ettrick grumped to Madison whenever he managed to get home. “There’s no way any psychopath’s ever gonna bump any of them off. One of those head-shrinkers most likely has the fucking Cherry Bomb as a patient. Probably trying to get him a job as a shower attendant in some children’s home. With a garage next door.”

  The next day he got a call from R.D. Slaither.

  “I hear you need help catching the notorious Cherry Bomb killer,” a happy Scottish voice sang down the telephone. “Overheard some of my acquaintances discussing it over lunch. My name’s R.D. Slaither and I’d like to offer my services.”

  “You’re a psychiatrist?”

  “Psychologist. Got a bunch of initials after my name the length of an alligator sausage, to use one of your fine colloquial phrases. Actually, that’s not true, but I’m awful good. I used to work in partnership with Justin Moore.”

  The detective liked the sound of R.D. Slaither immediately. Ettrick’s grandfather had come from the Scottish borders, hence his own exotic name. R.D.’s down to earth speech smacked pleasantly of an unexplored past.

  “Justin Moore. I would know him?”

  “Probably not.” The disembodied voice sounded unperturbed. “But he was a true innovator in the treatment of clinical depression a few years back, before he... eh… retired. Look him up in an old Who’s Who.”

  Ettrick was suitably impressed. He mentally crossed his fingers and gave R.D. the bad news.

  “This is a private investigation,” he volunteered sadly. “The police won’t pay you and I sure as shit can’t … S'cuse my language.”

  “Not at all. To be honest with you, I’m calling because I’m a wee bit bored. None of my patients are loopy enough. I need a challenge. An Adventure, if you like.”

  His inflection dipped conspiratorially.

  “Cherry Bomb fascinates me. As far as I can see you’re after a very, very clever man. Apart from one serious psychological flaw.”

  “A tendency to kill children?” Ettrick added dryly. “Uh … yeah, funny, that’s what the police shrink said,”

  “If he was any good he wouldn’t be working for the police. You need me. Plus, Detective Sinclair, I happen to have a great aversion to children dying in cars. It’s just a quirk I’ve got.”

  Ettrick stayed mum, holding his breath.

  “I have some ideas I’d like to discuss,” said the voice. “I thought we might meet for a drink tomorrow night.”

  Ettrick pictured them both sipping daiquiris in Les Amis over on the Guadalupe Drag. He pictured a canny silver-haired Scot, a twinkle in his wrinkled old eye and a kilt barely covering his knees.

  “Drink?” Ettrick interrupted. “Shit! You just got yourself a dinner invitation.”

  -21-
<
br />   When the detective arrived home, he found Madison sitting on his study floor, weeping over an island of spiral notebooks. Her polished black fringe dripped mournfully on to the paper. His elation quickly deflating, Ettrick scurried over to her.

  “What’s wrong, honey? What are you crying for?”

  He knelt beside the huddled figure, pushing his fingers awkwardly through her hair, trying to shuffle her emotions back in order. Across the wall, blown up photographs of Cherry Bomb’s five victims leered in eternal frothy joy – a rogue’s gallery of wispy hair and missing teeth.

  “Oh, just the usual,” she sniffed with tearful sarcasm. “Thinking. Thinking how I work in an ad agency and try to fool people into buying my shit. How in my spare time I paint God-awful pictures and try to fool people into buying my shit. Then I think about how you work full time at catching child killers. How in your spare time you work at catching child killers.”

  Her mouth crumpled.

  “At least you’re doing something meaningful. Even if you’re failing.”

  “We’ll both succeed in the end,” Ettrick protested, trying to project the correct amount of sympathy. He knew better than to try turning Madison’s mountains into molehills or to attempt cheering her up by pointing out the good things she had. Like a husband who loved her to pieces.

  Instead the detective suffered miserably by her side, an ineffectual scarecrow for her fears.

  “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” Madison gestured at the walls. “It seems sometimes the whole world is turning to crap out there, but only we’ve got a little fucking showroom displaying it in our house.”

  “What are you doing in here, anyhow?”

  “I was cleaning.”

  “You were being morbid. You never clean this room.”

  The tears vanished.

  “I do so!” she barked. “Maybe if you were around to notice.”

  Ettrick felt his temper rise. That wasn’t what he meant. She knew that wasn’t what he meant. How come she never took the time to map the good intentions behind his words? The temptation to snap at her hung like a sour green apple. He let it drop this time.

  “Look,” he took her in his arms. “I don’t give a flying fuck how often you vacuum the damned study. I don’t like to see you upset, is all.”

  Madison glowered at him from the depths of her dark, dark eyes. The balance swung. Ettrick fell deeply in love again, as he always did and always would.

  “I’m sorry.” He hugged her tight, forcing a gasp from her pouting lips. To his surprise, Madison laughed.

  “At least you don’t have a picture of your own son in here.”

  “That would be tasteless, honey,” Ettrick smiled.

  But he knew one more harsh phrase now echoed in the canyon. Another drop of water pushed against the dam. He’d better solve this fucking case soon.

  “I’m sorry too,” said Madison. “I’m just feeling low.”

  “In that case I got pretty good news.” Ettrick grinned wider. “We have an analyst coming to dinner. A real, live looney-link fixer.”

  “Really?”

  “Says he’s the best.”

  Madison wrinkled her nose doubtfully. Ettrick eyed the dozens of folders, files and notes jigsawed into every corner of the room.

  “If he’s right,” he coaxed, slyly. “All this will go.”

  “He’s got a truck?”

  “Make him something nice. Huh?”

  Ettrick turned from the window and lit a Marlboro. The incoming light bled him of colour, a living bookend to a string of sun faded photographs dealing in death.

  He didn’t remember much about his own childhood. Nothing too terrible had ever happened to him, not that he could recall. His parents had died when he was a teenager and weren’t around to administer familial warnings. Not there to talk him out of doing anything stupid or dangerous, like becoming a cop in Texas.

  Ettrick exhaled a worm of smoke. He could hear the soft sighs of his own infant son over the intercom system connecting the rooms.

  “When’s this guy coming?” In her mind Madison was already opening cookbooks and culling after dinner topics, enthused at the prospect of proper intellectual conversation. She’d quickly abandoned attempted cultural forays with Ettrick’s colleagues when one referred to modern art as “whut wimmin and fags were into.”

  “What do psychologists like to eat anyhow?”

  “Food for thought, hopefully.”

  Ettrick absently stubbed out his cigarette and pulled down the blind.

  -22-

  The detective was a thorough, methodical man. He tried to be spontaneous for Madison, but common sense pretty much ruled his life. He figured he was just a normal guy doing a captivating job. Exciting things happening to him, not because of him.

  He liked the sound of R.D. Slaither but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to snoop a little.

  Robert Duncan Slaither had a PhD in Psychology from Edinburgh University in Scotland. That was promising. He advertised himself as a therapist but he wasn’t a member of the Texas Medical Association. That wasn’t so hot. Maybe it was because he was Scottish. Maybe it was because he wasn’t very good, after all.

  Ettrick went to scope out his potential ally’s place of business. Slaither rented an office on 5th Street up near the river. It wasn’t the most up market locale in town, but it was no slum either.

  He remembered R.D.’s reference to an ex-partner, Justin Moore. A direction shaper on the field of clinical depression. That’s what the psychologist had called him.

  He picked up the telephone and dialled. Madison answered.

  “Hello Possum-Pig,” Ettrick smooched, glancing around the squalid, heavily populated squad room. Someday a detective like Grimm or Scharges would overhear the way he talked to his wife, take him out back and shoot him.

  “Hi baby,” Madison answered cheerfully.

  “Listen, you got a big old book store next to your agency, don’t you? Could you do me a favour? Could you drop in during your lunch hour and get me something?”

  The next day was Sunday. Ettrick surprised Madison eating Frito pie and strudel in the early afternoon. He solidified in the sun-speckled kitchen door and rambled between the hanging plants. Their big black cat, Boo, swiped at him lazily from the top of the fridge. Ettrick left his baseball cap tangled in the hairy paws and continued on to the sink.

  Madison sat at the back of the room holding a coffee and admiring the copper wiriness of her husband’s small body, insulated from her stare by his usual tight white t-shirt and faded 501’s. Ettrick made himself a fruit tea, unaware of the attention, watching the steam blebbing on wet Yucca leaves.

  “What’s on your mind, shorty?” Madison asked.

  “This R.D. Slaither. Gave me a man called Justin Moore as a reference. Said he was once a big deal in the medical field.”

  “And.”

  “I called some of those psychiatrists back. Y’know?” Ettrick sauntered over to the table. “The ones I talked to earlier?”

  “The shitheads?”

  “Yeah,” he grinned. “Anyhow, only three of them would speak to me without getting my fucking credit card number first. I asked them if they’d ever heard of a scientist called Justin Moore. Or a guy called R.D. Slaither.”

  “Had they?”

  “Sort of, but…” Ettrick rubbed his hat-head. “They were so vague. Can I have a piece of that strudel?”

  “Sure, porky,” said Madison sliding the plate across. Ettrick took the pastry, but not the bait.

  “Two of them said they remembered a scientist named Moore. He did neurological research a few years back, for the Daler Corporation? They’ve no idea where he is now.”

  “Swell. And the third?”

  “Said that Slaither and Moore left the company under a bit of a cloud. Their work was ‘all smoke and no fire’ according to this guy.”

  “Professional jealousy?”

  “Could be. Apparently their research was cancelled aft
er there was some scandal surrounding their team, but I couldn’t get any more details. You know how these types stick together.” Ettrick pushed a hunk of strudel into his mouth and wiped crumbs from the corners of a frown.

  “I want a criminal psychologist, sure. But not a criminal psychologist. I can’t even find a mention of him or Justin Moore on the web.”

  Madison put down her piece of pie and gave a big brown grin.

  “Guess I’ll have to save your old sleuthy butt,” she beamed

  “Sleuthy butt?”

  His wife dipped into the shoulder bag below the table and pulled out a thick, paper-backed volume.

  “I asked the woman in the book store. She said this was what you were looking for.” Madison handed it to him with a stern look. “It cost me $25. In paperback!”

  “An ‘American Medical Compendium’ from 1991. They had one of these?”

  “Who was gonna buy it?”

  Ettrick attacked the book, scattering morsels and bending pages. “Matthews. Mellick. Mitusch…” His eyes thumbed down the page. “Here he is … Justin Moore.”

  Madison scuffled round the table so she could read. Ettrick could almost feel the softness of her face, even from feet away. He smiled, despite himself, simply because she was there.

  He began to read.

  “Moore. Justin Fenton. Got his M.D. at Johns Hopkins. Resident at Walter Reid. At the time this book was compiled he was with the Daler Corporation doing neurological research. Working on a system to combat clinical depression and psychosis using an experimental system of retroviral drugs intended to stimulate dendritic growth in the brain.” Ettrick shook his head. “Means nothing to me.”

  “Keep going,” his wife urged.

  “Moore’s ‘Cocktail’ produced extremely positive results when tested on animals. How can you tell if an animal is depressed?”

  Madison nudged him and he carried on.

  “Moore was short-listed for the B.R. Clanton prize for advances in the field of Biology… Shit!” Ettrick slammed the book shut. “Don’t sound like all smoke and no fire to me. I wonder what the hell happened to him?”