Night Mask

by William W. Johnstone

  “Nothing,” Lani said. “I’ve read the whole poem ten dozen times. I’ve memorized the damn thing. Nothing connects. But why, then, would he put the notes on his bedroom wall?”

  Leo reached over and turned on the radio. KSIN. When the announcer came on between records, Leo straightened up, his drink forgotten. “That’s not BJ the DJ.”

  Lani waited until another record was playing and dialed the studio number. “Where’s Jarry?” she asked.

  “Sick,” the DJ told her. “They called me in at the last minute.”

  Thirty seconds later, the four cops had left the house and were running for their cars.

  No one answered the knock on Bill Jarry’s apartment door. Leo took several pieces of wire from his wallet and went to work on the lock.

  “I’m not seeing this,” Ted said. “I can’t believe you’re doing this, Leo! This is against the law. Any evidence we might find won’t be admissible in court.”

  “Doing what?” Leo asked, pushing open the door. “Did you see me do anything, Brenda? Lani?”

  “Not a thing,” Brenda said. “The door was unlocked. We’re just checking out an anonymous cons-plaint that was called in.”

  Ted shook his head and muttered under his breath.

  “No one here,” Lani said, as the cops once more gathered in the hall. “Let’s check the hospitals.”

  Bill Jarry had not checked into nor visited any of the area’s hospitals.

  “Stake it out,” Leo told two uniforms outside the apartment complex. “When Jarry shows up, bring him in and call me.”

  “No matter the time?”

  “No matter the time.”

  Shortly after ten that evening, the uniforms brought in a very angry Bill Jarry and set him down in a chair at Leo’s desk.

  “You don’t look very sick to me,” Leo told him. “Where have you been?”

  “None of your goddamn business,” BJ the DJ said. “If I want to lie to the boss to get a night off, that’s between me and the boss.”

  Since there had been no reports of missing people that evening, and the cops had no evidence of any wrongdoing on Jarry’s part, they could not hold him. But Bill would not tell them where he’d been that evening, or why he called in sick when he was not.

  “I know what this is all about,” Jarry said. “But you can check the logs and the engineers and other personnel at the station. I was on the air at the time the Kress woman was killed. I was right there in the station when Cal got bopped on the head. Hey, I read the papers. Some of what you two did back East has leaked out. Well, I’ve never even been in Indiana, much less in Fort Wayne. I’ve never been in Akron, Ohio. And I damn sure have never been in Buffalo, New York. Check it out.”

  “We have,” Leo told him.

  “And?” Jarry looked at him.

  “You can go.”

  After the door to the interrogation room had closed, Leo and Lani and Brenda and Ted sat at the scarred table and looked at each other. Lani broke the silence.

  “We’ve pretty well established that the Ripper either works at KSIN, or is a good friend of someone who does. That’s firm. There is no other way they could gain access to so many of the commercials. We know for a fact that the Ripper is actually two people. We know for a fact that it is a man and a woman. All right. Try this: could one of the Longwood boys have had a sex-change operation?”

  Leo blinked at that. Brenda’s eyes widened. Ted said, “My word!”

  “And they’re living together as man and wife,” Leo spoke the words slowly. “Yeah. It’s possible. What did that ex-priest say? Both boys were effeminate-looking.”

  “That’s right,” Lani picked it up. “And we know for a fact that both of them are twisted sexually. It fits, people.”

  “This case is beginning to make me physically ill,” Ted said with a grimace.

  “All right,” Leo said wearily. “Tomorrow we start checking out the DJs’ spouses and/or girlfriends.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a DJ,” Brenda said. “It could be someone who works in a different capacity; not necessarily an on-air person.”

  “Not a word of this to anybody,” Brenda said.

  “Right,” Leo agreed. “And we check out Stacy Ryan’s sweetheart, Carla Upton. All the way back. If this is part of a killing club, with more than two people involved, or four—counting the half brother and sister of the Longwood boys—there will be a weak link in the chain. All we have to do is find it, and break it.”

  “Before they kill again,” Ted added.

  “I wish,” Lani said softly.

  * * *

  The four cops quickly hit a dead end on the DJs and their spouses and girlfriends. Everybody checked out to the letter.

  “Shit!” Lani said.

  The foursome began the painstaking task of running everybody who worked at the TV/FM/AM complex. They found where Ed Jones, one of the engineers, had a warrant for his arrest back in North Dakota... five unpaid traffic tickets.

  “Pay your damn tickets, Ed,” Leo told the clearly embarrassed man.

  Linda Price, a copywriter, had written a series of hot checks down in Tampa, Florida. But the statute of limitations had run out, and she was squeaky clean in California. They never mentioned it to her.

  Jim Barrows, a reporter, had served time in South Carolina as a boy. He had gone joy-riding with some others in a stolen car. He had been released when it was proven that he did not know the car was stolen.

  “Dozens of employees, and they all check out,” Ted said. “We’re right back to square one.”

  “Carla Upton is from an old California family,” Leo said. “No evidence that she is a part of that group of weirdos swapping partners—which does include Dick Hale’s estranged wife, June.”

  “And some other rather prominent citizens of La Barca,” Lani added.

  “What they’re doing is bizarre,” Leo said. “But not against the law.”

  “Just kinky,” Brenda said.

  “We have turned over some rocks and uncovered some dark secrets,” Lani summed up. “But nothing that brings us any closer to the Rippers.”

  “Well, at least the Rippers haven’t added anyone else to the list,” Brenda said.

  Wrong.

  * * *

  Mrs. Abigail Minniweather, president of the Hancock County Committee for Unified Nonexistence of Trash (no one in the group of well-intentioned ladies had yet to figure out that spelled CUNT), noticed a rather ugly lump of something that some cretinous individual had dumped in her backyard, right in the middle of her carefully tended and prize-winning flower garden.

  “Come, Ulysses,” she said to her poodle. Abigail marched right out there, back straight and jaw set in anger, Ulysses bouncing right along beside her. Abigail came to an abrupt halt about fifteen feet from the blob. So did Ulysses. Both stared. Abigail let out a squawk and snatched up Ulysses. She ran back to the house, making little mewing sounds as she heaved her bulk along. She managed to call the sheriff’s department before she passed out cold on the recently mopped and waxed kitchen floor. It sounded like a walrus doing a double half-gainer off the high board. Luckily for Ulysses, she did not land on him. The poodle fainted, too.

  “Jesus Christ!” Lani said.

  Ted walked over to the bushes and puked.

  Leo managed to keep his breakfast down.

  Brenda fought back hot bile that threatened to explode from her throat.

  Brownie looked at the half-eaten doughnut he carried in a napkin and gave it to Ulysses. Ulysses buried it among Abigail’s begonias.

  The blob was Dick Hale, Jr. He had been skinned. All but his face. From the expression on his face, frozen forever, the skinning had been done while he was alive and conscious.

  Brownie wiped his sweaty face with a handkerchief. “I’ll go tell Dick.” He turned to a uniform. “For god’s sake, keep the press out of here.”

  Lani knelt down in front of the hideously tortured remains of the young man. She noticed his private
s had been removed; pointed that out to Leo.

  “Yeah,” the older man said. “I see. Lani? Dick is going to blow his stack over this. I’ll bet you he’s going to get on the air and offer a reward ... probably a very substantial reward. Brownie doesn’t realize it, but there is no way—no way—we are going to keep this from the press.”

  “Citizens arming themselves and taking to the streets?” she questioned.

  “Yeah. But would you blame them?”

  She shook her head.

  Detective Bill Bourne of the La Barca city police walked up and took a long look at the body. He turned a tad green around the mouth and fought the sickness back. He pointed to the body. “That’s—” He couldn’t finish it. He turned away and headed for the bushes, returning in a moment, his face pale and sweaty. “Dick Hale’s kid,” Bill said.

  “Yeah,” Leo said, standing up. “What’s left of him. I didn’t know you knew the kid.”

  “Vice had picked him up a couple of times for... well, you know.”

  “No,” Lani said, a weary note to her voice. She stood up and faced the city cop. “Was he hanging with the rough trade?”

  Bill nodded his head. “You better believe it, Lani. That kid was into it all.”

  Lani and Leo exchanged glances. “Might be a way to go, kid,” Leo said.

  “You read my mind.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Brenda asked.

  “We start checking out gay bars,” Leo told her.

  “Sounds like fun to me,” the Chinese girl said with a smile.

  Ted was decidedly less enthusiastic.

  Chapter 15

  “You’re not going to believe what he has in his jacket pocket,” Brenda said, then doubled over in a fit of giggling.

  “It’s not funny, damnit!” Ted said.

  Lani and Leo cut their eyes to each other. Brenda jammed a hand into Ted’s pocket and came out dangling a surgical mask. Ted was beet-red and flustered.

  Lani said, “You weren’t really going to wear that, were you, Ted?”

  “We’re going to a bar called the Golden Tushie, aren’t we?”

  “Well ... yes.”

  “I will definitely wear it for any close-up interrogation.”

  Brenda was giggling so hard she had to sit down on Lani’s couch. She pointed to his other pocket. “He has rubber gloves in that one. I asked him if he was going to conduct body searches.”

  She fell over on the couch and exploded in laughter.

  “Now, damnit, Brenda!” Ted said. “I don’t find this amusing. What if one of those ... people come on to me!”

  Brenda’s giggling was highly infectious, and soon Lani and Leo were laughing at the expression on Ted’s face.

  “I’ll wait in the car,” Ted said stiffly, and left the apartment.

  When Lani could again speak, she said, “Ted has this thing about gays, huh?”

  Brenda wiped her eyes. “Ted is deeply religious. He’s used more cuss words on this case than I’ve heard him use in all the time I’ve worked with him. And he’s scared to death of catching AIDS.”

  “Well,” Leo said, rising from the chair into which he had fallen while laughing. “We’ll assure him that he doesn’t have to date any of the people at the Golden Tushie. Just talk to them,” he added with a serious expression.

  That set Lani and Brenda off again. Leo looked at the hysterically giggling females and went outside to sit with Ted.

  * * *

  The bar was tastefully done and other than men dancing with men and women dancing with women, it was just like any other expensive watering hole.

  “If any of them start kissing other members of the same sex, I’m gone,” Ted said. “And I mean that.”

  Brenda had to stick one small fist into her mouth to stifle another burst of laughter, and Lani covered her mouth with a handkerchief.

  “Just relax, Ted,” Leo said. “And order us a Coke, or something.”

  “I will not drink or eat anything in this place!”

  “Sit with him, Brenda,” Leo said. “Just keep him quiet.” He moved toward the bar and asked for the manager. A man was pointed out to him. Lani was talking with several women.

  Leo ID’d himself and the man nodded his head. “I know what it’s about, Sergeant. I heard the news. Believe me when I say those of us in the gay community want this creep, or creeps, caught just as badly as straights. Maybe, for most of us, more so. Do I have to tell you why that is?”

  “No. I know why. Can you help us catch them?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t allow kinks and S & M types in here. Most of the people you see here are nine-to-five professionals. Hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding people. We’re just gay, and that’s all the difference between you and me.”

  Leo most definitely had a retort to that, but kept it to himself. He said, “These people we’re looking for are twisted. Real twisted. Where would I go to find those types you don’t allow in here?”

  The manager of the place, whose name was Hardy Stern (Leo had wondered about that), put serious eyes on Leo. “Why should any member of the gay community help the cops, Sergeant? You people roust us whenever you think you can get away with it. You don’t dislike us, you hate us. We’re not rated as high as second-class citizens; we’re at the bottom of the ladder in your eyes. The gay-bashing has already started in the streets, Sergeant. And many of the cops stand around and smirk about it, while some gay is getting the shit kicked out of him, or her, and wait until the gay is down and bloody before doing anything about it. Don’t deny it. You know it’s true.”

  Leo said nothing. What Hardy was saying did hold some truth. Not even close to a hundred percent truth, but true to some degree. But if he thought gay-bashing was bad now, Hardy was in for a bad shock if the Rippers turned out to be gay.

  “You know where the Cock ‘n’ Balls is, Sergeant?”

  “Yeah,” Leo said, unable to keep the disgust from his reply. “I know where it is.”

  Hardy laughed softly in the dim light of the saloon. “Disgusting and revolting, isn’t it, Sergeant?”

  “Yeah. It damn sure is.”

  “Might surprise you, but I agree with you. All right, Sergeant, here’s what I know ...”

  Ted sat stiffly at the table, Brenda by his side. She was really concerned as to what Ted might do if approached by any of the men in the watering hole. Ted did not hate homosexuals, but he disliked their lifestyle intensely. What they practiced went against every religious and moral belief he had been taught since birth ... and they were set in concrete.

  Lani and Leo approached the table, and Ted stood up quickly. He’s wound tight, Leo thought. Too tight. “Let’s get out of here,” Leo told the group.

  On the sidewalk in front of the Golden Tushie, Leo faced Ted Murray. “You’re out of this, Ted. You’re wound up tight as a mainspring. You’re liable to go off half-cocked”—Brenda giggled at Leo’s choice of words, and Lani bit at her lip and suddenly had a desire to inspect the stars overhead.

  “ ... and do something stupid,” Leo finished with a patient sigh.

  “I am in control, Leo,” Ted said defensively.

  “Barely,” the county deputy said. “You ever seen two men jacking each other off, Ted?”

  “Hell, no!”

  “Well, you’re gonna see it if you stay with us tonight. And a hell of a lot more. That is, providing we can even get in this private club without a search warrant... and I have my doubts about that. I can’t give you orders, Ted, but I’ll suggest that you go on back to the motel and take a shower and go to bed. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  Some of the tension went out of Ted. He nodded his head. “Perhaps you’re right, Leo.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I know you’re right. You’ll ride with them, Brenda?” She nodded. “Then I’ll see you all in the morning.”

  In the car, Lani said, “The women I spoke with said we’ll probably get nothing out of the patrons who frequent the Cock ‘n’ Balls, but
if there is anyone who knows anything about the killings, that’s where we’ll find them.”

  Leo signaled for a left turn. “Yeah. That’s what Hardy Stern said, too.”

  “Hardy Stern?” Brenda shouted from the backseat.

  The women giggled all the way to the private club.

  Leo sighed. A lot.

  * * *

  Dick Hale had gone into a wild, shouting rage at the news of his son’s mutilation. He had very nearly lost it when he insisted upon seeing his son’s body. June Hale had completely flipped out, and had to be sedated and hospitalized. Dick had begun drinking early that afternoon, and by evening, he was out of control. Dick arrived at the Cock ‘n’ Balls just as Leo, Lani, and Brenda were pulling out of the parking lot of the Golden Tushie. He was armed with two pistols, a Colt Commander, .38 caliber, and a Colt .45 autoloader. He had two spare clips for each pistol. He also had a 12-gauge shotgun, chambered for three-inch magnum loads. He had pulled the plug and loaded it full with double ought buckshot. Dick had stuffed his jacket pocket full of shells. He pulled around to the rear of the private club and parked.

  A minor fender bender, no injuries or fatalities, held Leo up for several minutes, until the uniforms could get traffic moving again. Just after the rain begins is the most dangerous time to drive, because of the mixture of road oil and water, and a light mist had slicked the streets.

  Dick got out of his car and shucked a round into the slot of the 12-gauge. He shoved in a shell to replace the one he’d chambered. Thunder rumbled just as the back door opened and a man walked out to dump a sack of beer cans. Just as lightning flickered across the sky and thunder crashed, Dick leveled the shotgun and very nearly blew the man in two. Leo pulled around the minor traffic jam-up and turned down the lane leading to the Cock ‘n’ Balls, several miles away.

  Dick stepped into the storeroom of the private club. The rock and roll music was so loud, he could have been firing a cannon and it would not have been heard over the wild crash and thump of music. Dick shoved in a round to fill up the tube.

  “Goddamn queers,” Dick muttered. His eyes were wild and his face hard. Dick Hale had stepped over the line, and it was a passageway he would never cross again. Not in this life.