Daddy Long Legs

by Vernon W. Baumann

  Kyle depressed a button on his steering wheel and the driver-side window slid down soundlessly. He aimed carefully and spat out the worn chewing gum in his mouth. Normally Kyle would never allow himself the luxury of spitting out his window. But right now he didn’t care. While keeping his left hand on the wheel, he foraged in his pocket and extracted a packet of Beechies spearmint gum and flicked a pellet in his mouth. He relished the sharp taste of the mint in his mouth. And inhaled slowly.

  He had been sober for two days now. And it felt good. Surprisingly good. He was feeling focused and clear. And proud of himself. The call – and the strange news from Hope – should have been the final straw. It should have sent him hopelessly careening off the edge. Forever into the abyss that he had lately seen as the only possible outcome to his life. And why not? Everyone around him had warned – and prophesied – that he was headed for certain disaster. He was a train wreck, waiting to happen. It wasn’t a rumour anymore. It was a fact, certified by the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

  Train wreck /treIn rek/ n, Poor, pathetic Kyle Devlin, drunk and heading for certain disaster. See also self-pitying bastard.

  Kyle thought back to that moment he had received the news. Yes it was true. Upon hearing the news, something within him had changed. He hadn’t snapped. No. He had clicked. In place. And suddenly – just as suddenly as it had begun – it was over.

  He had gone home. And taken a cold shower. And just like that. With the cold water seeping into the drain, the last vestiges of the self-pitying, self-deprecating, self-destroying Kyle Devlin had drained from him. Two espressos and five Myprodol capsules later he was almost as good as new.

  Strange. That a telephone call that signalled death would result in a new birth. A phoenix rising from the ashes of his mother’s death.

  Kyle thought back to that moment, standing in the hallway leading to the executive wing of Davis Corke. Poor Lindsey with her face contorted with pity and compassion for her delinquent boss. And the news. That should have reduced any normal person to tears. If not, at the very least, a kind of numb shock. And yet ...

  Kyle searched himself, as he did that evening after the phone call, for something. Anything that looked – or felt – like grief. And yet there was nothing. He wished he could profess mourning. Or sorrow. But he knew that would be dishonest. His mother was dead. And all he felt was a kind of mute resignation. On some level, his mother had been dead to him for a very long time. On some level, where Kyle was truly honest with himself, he knew that this had happened even before he left Hope as an aspirant eighteen-year old kid ... dreaming of a new life in the big city. On a much deeper level – where even his own honesty feared to tread – he knew that he had been dead to his mother even longer than that.

  He tried to remember the last time he spoke to her. It was hard. Almost impossible. All their conversations, since he left Hope, tended to merge into one. They spoke only once a year. Once a year only. On her birthday. Every year. On her birthday only. It was always an unpleasant affair. The phone calls. Every year, on the date of her birth, he dreaded the inevitable call. He suspected his mother felt the same way. Every year. It was the same thing. Strained and tense. The mono-syllabic conversation. Where he pretended he phoned her out of love and not a begrudging sense of duty. And where she pretended that she cared. Either which way. Whenever he put the phone down, it was always with a bad taste in his mouth. And a dull tension in his chest. For days afterwards he would feel an unfocused anger. And a gnawing resentment. It was always the same. The script never varied.

  In a sudden flash of anger, Kyle gunned the SLK’s powerful engine and sped past a slow-moving Corsa. He deliberately cut it close, nearly clipping the smaller car’s side-view mirror. As he passed the Corsa he aggressively thumped the horn and shouted at the dumb-struck driver. For no real reason. The Corsa was simply keeping to the speed limit. Once Kyle moved back into the left lane he kicked the accelerator all the way down, taking the SLK past the 260 km/h mark. Suddenly a lifetime of rage and resentment were aflame in his heart. With a brow furrowed by fury he bit down on his lower lip. Snarling. ‘Shit!’ He howled mad frothing fury and slammed his fist repeatedly into the ceiling of his German luxury car. And then. Like a child, who had just taken a tumble in the playground, he broke into a hysterical fit of crying. Sobbing. And bawling. And howling. Kyle jerked the wheel to the left and came to a shuddering stop on the shoulder of South Africa’s main highway. A few seconds later the surprised Corsa driver came speeding past, ensuring a more than adequate space between him and the stationery madman’s car.

  Kyle jumped out and screamed at the sky in absolute rage. He threw his arms into the air and howled until his strength ebbed from him. Drained, he sank onto his knees. Sobbing into the arm of his Armani jacket. More than a few drivers slowed down as they passed him. Rubbernecking. And enthralled by the sight of a grown man crying next to the N1 highway. Eventually Kyle got wearily to his feet. He rubbed the salty tears from his eyes and tried to compose himself. He glanced at the speeding cars, feeling a blushing embarrassment as two little girls waved to him from the back of a passing SUV.

  And then. From nowhere. For the first time in such a long time. He thought of his brother. Without thinking he reached into the interior of the SLK and grabbed his phone. The screen indicated 27 missed calls. He selected a name from his contact list and dialled. The phone rang a few times and then was picked up.

  ‘Hello,’ the voiced said on the other side.

  Kyle paused. Uncertain.

  ‘Hello?’ The voice was more insistent this time.

  Kyle paused. For a moment he considered killing the call. But then. ‘Lindsey.’

  ‘Kyle? Is that you?’

  Kyle wavered. Hesitated.

  ‘Kyle? Is that you? Are you alright, honey?’ Lindsey emitted what sounded – for a brief moment – like a sob. ‘Kyle, please. Please talk to me.’

  ‘Lindsey.’

  ‘Kyle, please tell me you’re okay. Please.’

  Silence. ‘I’m okay.’

  This time Lindsey openly sobbed. In the background he heard someone talk. ‘Is that Kyle?’ It was Thabo. ‘Lemme speak to him.’

  ‘Wait,’ Lindsey said. ‘Kyle, how are you doing, baby?’ She tried to get her emotions under control. ‘You’re ... you’re not ... doing something stupid are you, Kyle? Please don’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘Lemme speak to him.’ There was a sound of fumbling as Thabo grabbed the phone from Lindsey. ‘Kyle! Don’t be an idiot.’ Kyle heard something in Thabo’s voice he had never observed before. Fear. ‘Tell me where you are. I’ll get the ambulance there in no time at all. Just hang on. For God’s sake, just hang on.’

  Despite the tears that ran across his face, Kyle found himself laughing. ‘Jesus, Thabo. What are you guys on about?’ He shifted the phone in his hand. ‘I’m standing next to the N1. I just pulled off for a moment. What the hell did you guys think I was doing?’

  Thabo sighed laboriously. ‘Nevermind. Just as long as you’re okay.’ He paused. ‘Lindsey wants to speak to you.’ There was a momentary clatter as Lindsey came back onto the phone.

  ‘Kyle?’

  ‘Yes, Linds.’

  ‘You’re okay, right? Really okay. You’re not just saying that?’

  Kyle paused. ‘Lindsey.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I want to tell you something.’

  ‘Of course. You know you can tell me anything. Anything in the whole world.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’ Kyle sat down on the SLK’s driver seat, facing towards the highway. ‘You know ... I ...’

  ‘What is it, baby?’

  ‘I haven’t told this to anybody. Ever.’

  ‘Yes?’ Lindsey sounded confused.

  ‘I mean ... nobody, Lindsey. Ever.’ Kyle wiped remaining tears from his cheeks. ‘Not even Angelique. I didn’t even tell her, you understand.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lindsey said uncertainly.

  Kyle waited as a huge eighteen-wh
eeler thundered past. ‘I mean, I don’t know why ... why I never told her. If anybody should have known ... it should have been her. I just never did. Tell her. Now I know why.’

  ‘Okay. You know you can talk to me, honey.’

  ‘Something happened, Lindsey ... something happened when I was young. In the little town that I grew up in. Remember, I told you about it often. The little town, I mean.’ Suddenly Kyle felt like a drink again. ‘There was a killer, in my hometown, when I was young. Not just any killer. He was a serial killer.’

  Lindsey gasped audibly. ‘Oh my God. Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes. So ... there was this serial killer. Some twisted sicko, I don’t know. The local kids gave him this ... stupid name ... Daddy Long Legs.’

  ‘Oh my God, Kyle. I’ve heard of him. That guy in the 80’s.’

  ‘Yes, that’s him.’ Kyle swallowed hard a few times, wishing for a bottle of bourbon in his hand. ‘He killed ... and did terrible things ... he killed ... a couple of boys in this little town. I can’t remember, I think about nine boys or something like that.’ Kyle paused, unable to continue.

  ‘I don’t understand, baby. What does this ...’

  ‘He killed my brother, Lindsey.’

  Lindsey began sobbing. When she spoke, Kyle could hear her hand over mouth. ‘No, Kyle. No ...’

  ‘He took my brother. And he killed him. And I never saw him again. And ... and ...’

  ‘Oh my God, baby, I am so sorry.’

  ‘He took my brother and killed him ... and then the killer disappeared. Forever. And nobody solved the murders ... and he just disappeared. And my brother was his last victim.’

  Lindsey was sobbing uncontrollably. ‘Please come home. Please. I mean, after the funeral and everything. Please come home. When everything’s done. Please come home. I will take care of you. You know I will. I will take care of you and never let anyone or anything hurt you ever again.’

  In the background Kyle heard Thabo shouting. ‘What’s wrong? What the hell is wrong?’

  ‘Please come home, baby. I will never hurt you. Not like that bitch.’ Lindsey gasped sharply at her own outburst. Kyle realised he had never heard her swear before. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry,’ Lindsey said with genuine contrition. ‘I’m sorry, Kyle, I didn’t mean that. She’s not a – ’

  ‘She is. She is a bitch. You’re right ... she is.’

  ‘She hurt you,’ Lindsey said. ‘You gave her the world and she hurt you.’

  Kyle stood up and wiped dust from his pants. ‘Yes.’ The phone was beeping in his ear. When he looked he saw the battery was failing.

  ‘Kyle, please tell me that you’ll come back ... and let me look after you.’

  ‘You’re a good woman, Lindsey. One of the best I have ever known. Ever.’

  ‘Kyle?’

  ‘Yes, Lindsey.’

  ‘I love you.’

  And then the phone died. And Kyle was standing next to the N1 highway, heading for the town that took the life of his brother all those years ago. The town that now also claimed the strange inexplicable life of the woman that was his mother.

  Nine

  In the autumn of 1988, Daddy Long Legs took his last victim.

  In time ... he would pass from history into infamy.

  In his wake, he left a town forever altered by his disease. He left a community shaken to its very core. And left nine children, dead and mangled. Their loved ones broken and bitter.

  After the disappearance of Benny Boonzaayer, there would be two more victims. Hannes Croucamp and of course, Ryan Devlin – brother to Kyle ... and apple of his mother’s eye.

  No-one could, at the time, guess that Daddy Long Legs had taken his last life. As with each of the murders, panic and hysteria erupted in the little town. And the weeks and months that followed the disappearance of Ryan Devlin were marked with the usual paranoia, fear and obsessive vigilance. Strangers were treated with open hostility. And neighbours were eyed with suspicion. The police and the detective squad in particular, were assaulted with the usual accusations of incompetence and indolence. Weeks snowballed into months and eventually a whole year followed the murder of Ryan Devlin. Only then, in the spring of the following year, did the beleaguered people of the little Northern Cape town start nurturing a guarded optimism. It was a weary and fragile hope at best. And no-one dared utter the words aloud. But could it be? Could it actually be? That the curse – that was Daddy Long Legs – may actually have lifted? Could it be that the murders had finally ceased?

  As the spring of that year passed into the inevitable summer, autumn and winter, the nascent hope in the hearts of this community blossomed into something that began to resemble certainty. Yes. The curse had been lifted. For whatever reason, the murders had stopped. And Daddy Long Legs was no more. No-one dared question their blessing, lest the hubris of human smugness somehow reverse this grace. But in time, the people of Hope accepted that it was true. And finally they began to speak of it. To share, openly, their conviction that Daddy Longs Legs was no more. It was a joyful time indeed. Even the failed crops of the preceding years could not dampen the sense of relief. In time, they also began to forgive the police for their failure to bring the killer to justice. Instead of demanding that the psychopath be apprehended, the people of Hope were just too damn glad that he had ceased his reign of terror.

  Of course, the homicides came up for review each year following that autumn of ‘88. Homicide is after all, homicide. However, although no-one said it openly, none of the local detectives believed that the case would ever really be solved. Every now and then, young detectives from Kimberley or one of the other surrounding towns would come to the little Northern Cape town, hoping to win fame and glory by finally being the one to crack the case. But it was not to be.

  As subsequent studies would prove, serial killers only stop killing when one of three things happens : they die; they’re imprisoned or they re-locate. Whatever the case, any of these three immediately made it someone else’s problem. And so eventually, the Daddy Long Legs case was put on permanent back-burner.

  But there were also other, larger forces at work. And unfortunately, the serial murders in Hope became an unintended victim of history.

  Less than two years after the murder of Ryan Devlin, on the 2nd of February, 1990, F.W. de Klerk would make his historic speech declaring the unbanning of the ANC, the release of Nelson Mandela and the commencement of negotiations with the resistance movements. Mr Jaco van der Merwe, the bittereinder who had been one of only two people to notice the first twisted poem in the Hope Gazette all those years ago, immediately began making plans to emigrate to Australia.

  Two years later, on the 17th of March, 1992, the oft-forgotten whites-only referendum was held. It was to be the last whites-only election ever. After more than forty years of National Party Apartheid rule, the white people of South Africa declared their intention to negotiate the end of their own minority rule. It was the last bastion of European rule in Africa. It was indeed an unprecedented event. Never before, in the history of mankind, had a ruling class thus abandoned their own hegemony, their exclusive grip on power. It was as singular as it was epic. Of course, South Africa’s reputation for unprecedented historical events was only further cemented when Nelson Mandela, soon to be the new democracy’s president, advocated forgiveness and clemency, choosing re-conciliation over retribution and vengeance. With the understandable exception of a few, his people duly followed his example. Once again, history had no precedent to offer to this moral and political singularity.

  In a few short years, South Africa had changed from political embarrassment and international pariah to a stellar example of political settlement, unmatched in history. Unmatched in the world today. Soon the events in South Africa would inspire similar settlements elsewhere. But none would have the impact and lasting legacy of the amazing events in a country at the southern tip of Africa.

  Almost six years after the disappearance of Ryan Devlin, South Africa’s first trul
y democratic elections were held on the 27th of April, 1994. These were historic times indeed. And we cannot blame anybody that a series of atrocities at the hand of a lone killer would somehow get lost in all the grand historical currents that swept South Africa in those years.

  But for some, of course, Daddy Long Legs would never be forgotten. People like Roedolf Coetzee, father of the killer’s second victim, and husband of the late Yvette Coetzee who had committed suicide soon after the discovery of her boy’s violated body. Roedolf never remarried and is the last remaining member of his family. On hot summer evenings, he would sit on the stoep of his deserted house and dream of a time before a merciless killer took his loved ones. Yes. For some, like Johannes Boonzaayer, the cost of Daddy Long Legs is an ever mounting account. Even now, almost twenty years after the death of his son, the erstwhile doctor can still be found outside the dens and hovels of Steynbrug, begging loose change. And of course, although he never speaks of it, the events of an afternoon in ‘88 will forever remain with Kyle Devlin. The world had forgotten. But for some there could never be amnesia.

  A mere two weeks before South Africa’s historic first genuine democratic elections in 1994, detective James Burke was killed in a head-on collision on a dark stretch of the N2 highway. With his death, the person with the most intimate grasp of the killer – and the person most likely ever to solve the murders – passed into the next world. It seemed as if the Daddy Long Legs murders would never be solved.

  Meanwhile, at the exact same time as detective Burke’s death, a young boy in the southern Johannesburg suburb of Turffontein was experiencing his first painful and embarrassing sexual encounter. His name was Wayne Human.