“The man’s claustrophobic.” R.D. tilted his head like a hawk. “Not in his home or in his classroom. I checked. Just in his car.”
“And?”
“Phobias are usually caused by childhood trauma, Ettrick. It might be a long shot, but I assume Mr. Roberts had an unhappy upbringing. I’ll bet as punishment someone used to lock him in the trunk of a vehicle. His father would be my guess.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Think about it.” The psychologist sat up excitedly. “Just suppose Des Roberts’ dad was a really nasty nook... eh? Had a habit of locking his son in the boot every time the boy misbehaved. In the heat of Texas, remember. Can you imagine what that would do to a child?”
“He’d go crazy.”
“Aye... of course he would. Roberts probably grew up all warped inside. One day he snapped. Maybe his life got stuck in a rut. Maybe his car got stuck in a traffic jam. Could’ve been any number of things that set him off.”
He sat back and put both hands behind his head.
“So, he starts to kill children. He hides them in the trunk of cars owned by white middle aged men. Men that remind him of his father...see? When the symbolic driver-cum-father opens the trunk he doesn’t find a repentant child, he finds a dead one. It’s every punished kid’s dream. I’ll die and you’ll be sorry!”
“Shit!” Ettrick slammed his hand on the table. “It’s right! It’s gotta be right!”
Sinking onto the arm of the chair he gave his friend an admiring but lifeless pat on the arm.
“You’re not pleased?” R.D. looked puzzled.
“It aint that.” Ettrick’s shoulders sank. “It’s just we need hard evidence to back your theory, even if we know who the killer is. And we haven’t got any. But if we sit on this we’ll be holding back the official investigation. From now on Roberts is gonna have to be monitored round the clock.”
“Aye. Why can’t we do that?”
Ettrick sat down heavily in front of the television, its lustrous glimmer casting phantoms across his misery.
“I’ve been warned, R.D. Anyone catches us casing Roberts, I’ll get thrown off the force and you’ll likely get tossed in jail for stalking. We have to share this info with the rest of the department before anyone else dies. Then it won’t be my collar. It’ll belong to Grimm and Scharges. After all this fucking work.”
R.D. switched off the TV. altogether, always a sign he was deadly serious. Shadows leaped forward to conspire with him.
“What if we got a confession? Would that do?”
“That’d be swell,” the detective sneered. “I’ll just run on over to his house and beat one out of him.”
“Aw, you Texans. So quick to use blunt force.” R.D. pointed the remote at his sullen partner then swung it slowly back to the TV.
“You find me all the information you can on Des Roberts’ father.”
He pressed a button and the TV winked on again.
“I’ll get you that confession.”
-30-
On a muggy Sunday evening, a few days later, Des Roberts arrived home to find Ettrick sweating on his doorstep. A thin, pale man with white hair and large, square glasses, Roberts politely asked if the detective wished to come in. Ettrick declined, equally courteous, insisting that it would be better if the teacher accompanied him to the police station and answered a few routine questions.
Des Roberts obliged.
“I’m sorry about the lateness of the hour.” Ettrick apologized as they sped downtown. Roberts didn’t seem to notice that the detective was driving a squad car rather than an unmarked vehicle. “We crime fighters are just snowed under these days. What with a serial killer on the loose an all.” He glanced sideways.
Roberts had rolled down the window.
“I can switch on the air conditioning if you like.”
His passenger held up a pasty hand. “S’all right... I like the breeze.”
The south-side station was quiet on a Sunday night, only a skeleton crew staunching the flow of sin. Ettrick hurried Roberts, unchallenged, past the front desk and up the stairs. There they talked for an hour in a windowless interview room.
The detective fished, always civil, pulling his verbal punches. As expected Roberts gave nothing away. Eventually Ettrick drained the last of his coffee and looked at his watch.
“Thank you for your help,” he said politely. “I’ll drive you home.”
The detective, still careful not to attract attention, nodded to a few beat cops - who couldn’t care less what he was up to - and ushered Roberts out the back door. The men stepped into a moonless walkway, leaves hanging like dried bats on the deserted, tree lined avenue. Buttery pats of streetlight blobbed on the ruffled surfaces.
“I’m afraid I’m off duty now, so we’ve gotta take my own car. It’s in an underground lot a couple of blocks from here.”
“Sure. No problem.”
The men strolled silently down the star speckled sidewalk then turned onto a deserted concrete parking grid. Ettrick stole a glimpse at Roberts as they descended the stairs to the lower level. The man gave him a nervous smile.
They headed for the farthest corner, sidling past a subterranean landscape of discarded cartons and crushed beer cans. It was hard to tell what ground underfoot for most of the light fixtures seemed to have been shattered and the floor had turned to ink. Ettrick tisked as he walked.
“I don’t know how in hell these things get smashed,” he tisked. “It’s all reserved parking down here – with the police station round the corner, no less.”
They rounded the last pillar and the detective heard a gasp from man beside him.
In front of them a leviathan slumbered in the gloom, a ‘66 Packard, blunt and shark like. It was too dark to make out the colour or the license number of the car but the shape appeared unmistakable to Des Roberts.
Small wonder. A ‘66 Packard was the vehicle his father used to drive.
“I know, I know!” Ettrick sighed wearily. “It looks like a pile of shit but I got the thing for next to nothing. Last owner couldn’t wait to get rid of it, for some reason. I’ll let you in the back.”
He opened the front door with a vicious pull. Roberts stiffened.
“Would it be all right if I sat in the passenger seat?” His nervousness was apparent.
“Shoot... Can’t let you, I’m afraid,” the detective replied cheerfully. “Some dumb police rule... Oh, the back doors don’t work.”
Roberts stopped tugging on the handle.
“You’ll have to climb in from the front.”
“The light doesn’t work either,” whispered Roberts as he wormed timidly into the rear. “The interior light isn’t working.”
Ettrick jumped into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition key. The engine spluttered and died. He tried again, with the same result.
“Why haven’t you turned the headlights on?” asked Roberts, in a small voice.
“In this car!” Ettrick twisted the key once more. “I don’t dare switch them on ‘till we’re up and rolling properly. Battery goes flat every ten minutes, I swear. Doesn’t even start half the time.”
“No. Engines don’t work that way...” Roberts began. The vehicle gave a throaty roar and cut him off.
“I’ll put the lights on when we reach the street.” Ettrick comforted as the car crawled through the void. “I always have to do this.”
The Packard crept around the corner. Before them lay the big, filthy mouth of a car elevator.
“Aint this thing great?” the detective winked. The Packard jolted over the grated surface and lurched to a halt. “They took all the vehicle elevators out of Austin garages about ten years back cause of health and safety issues, or some shit like that. I reckon this is the only one left in Texas.”
He looked round.
“Everything fine back there, Mr. Roberts?”
There was silence. Eventually Des Robert’s voice skulked, trembling and muted, from the midnight hole of the back s
eat.
“I don’t much like closed spaces,” he croaked.
Ettrick got out of the car and hauled the iron gate shut. Echoes collided around them and the whole elevator shuddered. He pressed the ‘up’ button, his teeth gleaming in the darkness, then squeezed back in the car. The elevator began to ascend, a mass of groans and strained metal murmurs. Occasionally the whole edifice quivered as its flanks ground against the encasing brick shaft.
Suddenly it stopped.
“What the hell?” The detective said. “It’s never done that before.”
The monstrous structure - car elevator, car and passengers, dangled motionless in utter blackness. There were no lights in the lift or the shaft. Only searing heat, stored in the bricks all day and now released. It felt like a hot towel over Ettrick’s face.
“What the fuck is going on!” Robert’s voice rasped, betraying barely-contained panic.
“No need to use bad language, sir.” Ettrick opened the door again. “The elevator has broken down, is all. Just stay in the car.”
He heard an invisible sob from the interior of the vehicle. The detective stretched his arm out and stepped into the blackness, lost as soon as he let go the Packard’s handle.
He stood stock-still, listening.
There. A barely perceived sibilance to his right. It was R.D. crawling from his hiding place under a stack of rags, where he had been well placed to push the stop button. Eyes accustomed to the dark, the psychologist pinched Ettrick’s butt and the detective had to stifle a snigger. He crouched quickly as the shape slid past and dragged open the Packard’s door.
“Can you fix it? Is it fixable?” Robert’s voice was ruptured and hoarse. His fingers began to drum a frantic pattern on the cracked leather of the seat. Then a deeper sound. His fists.
“Please let me out,” he whimpered. “I can’t stand it in here. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
R.D. rose up over the seat. The terrified Roberts was just able to make out the murky contours of a face that wasn’t Ettrick’s. An outline, horribly familiar, of a moustache and battered fedora.
They were the same style as his long dead father used to sport.
“Stop! Stop!” Roberts shrieked. “Oh fuck! Oh fuck!”
“Don’t you sweer at me boy,” R.D. snarled in a perfect Irish accent. “Yer know what oi’ll do to yer.”
Des Roberts’ father had been Irish.
Ettrick heard a shuddering intake of breath from the rear seat.
“Ye’ve been bad son,” the psychologist hissed. “Ye’ll have to be punished.”
Roberts suddenly began to scream. Ettrick scrambled away from the car, hackles standing on end. He slammed both hands over his ears, totally unprepared for the teacher’s soul-shredding cries.
The screeching stopped as immediately as it began. Ettrick held his breath. In its place a came a childlike whimper, thin and utterly forlorn.
“Take me out of the dark, Poppy,” Des Roberts pleaded. “Please, please, please.... I won’t ever be bad again.”
“I will boy, I will.” Ettrick heard the click of R.D.’s tape recorder. “You just tell yer Poppy what you did. Oil forgive you. We’ll get out of this place together.”
R.D.’s voice was gentler than the detective had ever heard it.
He might have been talking to his own son.
-31-
New Braunfells State Facility, Texas 2003
“I should have stayed in touch after Cherry Bomb.” Ettrick rubbed his stubbled chin, embarrassed. “But suddenly I was hot stuff. Even scored a promotion. Work just got on top of me.”
He gave a half-hearted grin.
“I did recommend the department keep you on as a consultant but Scharges kicked up holy hell about it. He still hates your guts for helping me crack the biggest case of the decade. Reckons it stopped his own career dead.”
“I understand entirely.” R.D. sounded sympathetic enough. “I was quite in demand myself. My appointment book was fuller than it had been in years.”
He picked up the last picture. Tired eyes sought and held Ettrick’s briefly, before shifting back to what had been written.
“Question three. We used to go drinking at a bar called ‘Les Amis’. What was on the wall of our regular booth?”
Ettrick cast his mind back to happier times. “A flag. An American flag. And a couple of cases with butterflies pinned on a board.”
“Insects pinned on a board,” R.D. read.
He began to blink rapidly, his mouth tightening at the corners.
Holy shit, thought Ettrick. He’s going to cry.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to cry.” The psychologist wiped the corner of his eye with a grubby sleeve. “Obviously I’ve been under a lot of mental stress. It leads to all kinds of... delusions.”
He smiled his first genuine smile since the detective had entered the interview room.
“It sounds stupid but... I was just making sure it was really you.”
Ettrick exploded.
“No, I’m Inspector Clouseau!” he fumed. “Of course it’s me, you crazy…!” He stopped suddenly. “I...eh... didn’t mean crazy, like you think.”
R.D. chuckled. Again, it seemed genuine.
Ettrick suddenly realised what his old friend was up to.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it open. “I told you there’s no wire and no hidden mikes in the room. That’s illegal. Now cut the nutty act. I know you only pleaded insanity to avoid the electric chair. What sane man wouldn’t?”
R.D. looked at him suspiciously, indecision written over his face.
“You saved my bacon once.” The detective spread his hands wide to indicate his openness. “I might finally have a chance to return the favour. But I gotta know the truth.”
There was a pregnant pause. R.D. looked like he was contemplating the offer seriously for the first time.
“You really did kill Justin Moore?” Ettrick pressed home his advantage.
The reply was instant.
“Yes. I killed him.”
“But you don’t remember why?”
This time R.D. waited before answering.
“No,” he replied eventually. “I know exactly why I did it.”
Heart sinking, the detective plunged on.
“Do you know why you murdered Clancy Moore?”
“Oh. That wasn’t my doing.”
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t start the fire, Ettrick.”
“And I guess you didn’t stab Beck Murray in the neck and lock her in the trunk of your car? Even though your fingerprints were on the murder weapon.”
“Why wouldn’t they be? It was a letter opener from my office.” R.D. looked hurt. “And the spare key for my BMW was always in the glove compartment. Anyone who knew that could have put Beck in the boot.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell the police?”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference.” This time the look of pain was more pronounced. Came from deeper inside. “Pleading innocent to any of the murders would have made it look like I had some notion of what actually went on.”
He tapped the side of his nose.
“My best bet for being certified insane was to pretend I was completely clueless.” He gave a wry grin. “And I’ve had plenty of experience in doing that.”
“Well… now’s your only chance to come clean.” Ettrick said. “Nobody else is gonna try and help you.”
“I suppose I’ve got nothing to lose.”
R.D. closed waterlogged eyes.
“But telling the truth is going to make me seem even more of a crackpot than ever.”
-Part 3-
THE A.I.D.
I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling for freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught.
R.L. Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
-32-
R.D. Slaither sat chewing a pen, trying unsuccessfully to design an advertising poster for his business using Photoshop. Times were harder than they used to be. He liked to think he had some artistic flair, but the graphics package was proving well beyond his capabilities. He could do with a new computer too. The internet connection sucked and his PC could crash simply by discovering a file named Very Important Document – Do not Lose.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he was fond of saying. “Windows are things that get washed once a year in Glasgow and a mouse has hairy knees.”
He did like his office, however. He had moved there after the Cherry Bomb case granted his practice a new lease of life. Lots of black leather upholstery and shiny prehistoric plants. You could’ve seen the Colorado River from his window if another office block hadn’t been in the way.
R.D. was idly putting a Lord Kitchener moustache on an image of himself when the intercom buzzed. Circling daydreams settled back into the furniture like sleepy blowflies and the psychologist jabbed at the reply button.
“Nutcracker Suite,” he trilled. “Want to know what you’ve got? It’s however much we’ll charge… har, har.”
There was silence at the other end. R.D. tapped the device cautiously – gripped, as usual, by the irrational fear that some freak of technology had transmitted his voice to every office in the building.
The small box crackled angrily and he snatched back his hand. The voice of his secretary, Beck Murray, fizzled into his face.
“What did you say?” she yelled. “Did you want tea? We don’t have any.”
Beck Murray was a tiny, shiny blonde from Quesnel, British Columbia. A narcotic vacuum cleaner with a teenage zeal that entertained and depressed R.D. in turn, she used to wait tables at Potter’s Restaurant where he ate lunch with his few colleagues. She had eventually asked him out as a reward for being the only suit who didn’t interrogate her over whether their coffee was fair trade or the beans organic.
The evening of their first date they’d sat on the drainage pipe in Shipe Park, drinking beer from brown bottles and watching the sun set over Burger King.
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