Cutting edge s--1

by Robert W. Walker

  Lucas had all day silently thanked Meredyth for allowing him to bow out at this point without pursuing or attacking further, or making further attempts to persuade him. With IAD still investigating the Texaco shoot-out, with Captain Lawrence giving him the watchful evil eye, he had hoped for and had gotten a day without stress or pressure. In large part, this was made possible by the Cold Room.

  One advantage was becoming clear: He could retreat to his “office” and no one would follow. It was as popular a place as a funeral parlor, the city morgue or the cemetery.

  Tonight he had no class to attend, so he found himself here, sitting outside the gated home of Judge Charles Darwin Mootry, the man whose murder had been so sensational no newspaperman in town could ignore it. The police were doing an excellent job of keeping the prying, curious eyes and cameras off the grounds, however, and so it appeared Stonecoat might have a difficult time getting beyond the yellow and black ribbons himself.

  “Do I wanna do this?” he asked himself now in the empty cab of his car while staring down the street at the gates ahead. Police vehicles and a gray van marked CORONER had come and gone, not for the first and perhaps not for the last time in this bizarre case. But for the past hour, the place had fallen into a relative calm, and even the news media had disappeared. For this latter fact, Lucas was grateful. He didn't want anyone videotaping his going up to the gate, didn't want his license number on the eleven o'clock news.

  A guard at the gate seemed both sleepy and bored. With a little Cherokee chutzpah, Lucas believed he could bully his way inside.

  His air conditioner blowing in his face, lifting his long strands of hair, he dropped the car into drive and motored ahead for the gates. The place was palatial. The judge obviously had made wise investments of one sort or another over the years. Maybe he was crooked… Maybe he was into mob business, racketeering, fixing big-ticket items for serious wise guys who played hardball if they felt the least slighted by you. Maybe they arranged for the sensational way in which the judge met his maker. They-the mob-certainly had the talent and the muscle for all of the above, but Lucas didn't want to lock down too soon on any one theory or suspect.

  He had given the judge's case a great deal of thought throughout the day, despite what he'd told Meredyth. While he didn't particularly relish the idea of teaming up with a female police shrink on the case, he did know that cracking such a high-profile case meant promotion through the ranks, and he had asked himself over and again, Why not me, why not now?

  He'd have to run his investigation the way a private eye might, outside police circles, and he couldn't expect this guy, Fred Amelford, or his partner, Jim Pardee, to be especially happy to learn of his interest in their case any more than they were when they no doubt learned from Lawrence about Dr. Sanger's interest. While Amelford and Pardee were working out of the Twenty-second, there seemed little doubt in Stonecoat's mind that the captain of the Thirty-first would not have talked to the captain of the Twenty-second about Meredyth's interest in the case. There was no reason to suspect otherwise.

  So, if he were to pursue this matter, he knew it would be risky and problematic at best. Cops working a case didn't want other cops shadowing their efforts. It was as old as the Texas Rangers, probably older, this unspoken law. It was a white cop's way, a white man's path, which no doubt served Allan Pinkerton and his first secret-servicemen well during the Civil War. No, the two cops working the case would really be pissed off to learn he was here snooping around in their territory, sleuthing their case tonight.

  He knew all this, and he also knew that if he were to pursue this matter, it'd have to be on his own time for the most part; however, given his insomnia problems, his own time meant a lot of time, so he believed if he could get nearer the crime scene and the crime scene evidence, perhaps he might find an angle others had overlooked.

  Only then, when he had something tangible to take to Lawrence, might he tip his hand. The Cherokees hadn't invented poker, but they had invented the poker face.

  And if he had to fall back on someone for help, for inside assistance, for whatever, then and only then would he go crawling back to Dr. Meredyth Sanger.

  Lucas brought the automatic window down, and he slowly allowed his solemn features to be softened by a wide smile, asking the guard what he thought of the Houston Astros' chances this year, all the while flashing his gold shield from Dallas.

  'Those bums?” replied the officer in blue, frowning sourly over the mention of the baseball team. “What can I do for you?”

  “We got a call about some of the particulars in the Mootry case, how they might match a similar crime up in Dallas-Fort Worth area, you know?”

  “Oh, yeah? Really? I hadn't heard…”

  “Just speculation for the moment.”

  The uniformed cop nodded as he took it all in. “I see.” Stonecoat quickly added, “They asked me to come have a look.”

  “Who asked you?”

  Lucas saw it as his password. “Some guy on the case named Amelford, another one named Hardy-no, Pardee; you know, the guys whose case it is?” The guard eased his stance, a good sign. “All right, and you'd be?”

  “Detective Plumber, Dallas PD.”

  “All right, go on through. But I don't know what you expect to find.”

  “How's that?”

  “Coroner and his sister and everybody else have been through the scene twice already.”

  “Well, let's just say I want to get a general feel for the place, where it happened, exactly how, so I can compare it to what happened up in-”

  “All right, save me the details. Go on through…”

  “Thanks.”

  He was invited in, but he expected to be challenged again at the door. Rounding the large, circular drive, he parked some distance from the house. He didn't want anyone reading his tags, and later, on exiting, it might be wise to be as discreet as possible. To his right, some bushes protected windows on the ground floor. He noted their proximity to his car before walking back toward the main entrance, where as expected there stood another uniformed cop, who asked, “Can I help you, sir?” in a tone that revealed his weariness.

  There were only a few lights on inside the mansion, and the guard was munching on a sandwich he'd likely put together for himself from what he could find on the inside, using whatever mayonnaise, mustard and cold cuts he could locate in the deceased's refrigerator. Here on the porch, the light subdued by a moonless night, Lucas's skin tone went unnoticed by the guard.

  For the occasion, Lucas had found one of his old sports coats and a tie, and now he once again flashed his huge Dallas gold shield. But not to belabor this formality, he quickly began playing with a pair of latex gloves, cursing as he tried to pull them over his large, hairy hands-the show entirely for the guard. Still, the guard radioed his companion at the gate, asking, “This guy check out?”

  He got an affirmative reply. “Amelford sent 'im over.”

  Now the uniformed man simply nodded and gestured for him to go on through. Lucas wasted no time. Now he was really inside.

  He had read enough about the case to know that forensics investigators with the HPD crime lab had thoroughly gone over the bedroom where the body was discovered, but he still felt a need to see the area just the same.

  Bed sheets had been removed, leaving only the mattress and the gaping hole that would have been aligned perfectly with the old man's heart.

  It was a remarkable sight. No doubt about it. The killer leaned in over the victim where he lay motionless, asleep or helplessly tied down-his eyes wide open perhaps? God forbid-and when the killer placed the crossbow directly against the chest, he or she fired, sending the arrow clean through the heart, out the back, and through mattress and box spring, the shaft being driven into the floor below the bed where it had been recovered by Houston detectives, the body staked to the bed.

  Not much detection necessary to know what killed Mootry, but plenty of detection required to learn why and by whose hand he was
murdered.

  The tunnel or bore created through the mattress was neat, like a bullet hole, the weapon cutting a prim and straight-arrow incision through the material. A wedge of the surface had been dug out, most certainly by the medical examiner or one of his people. Talk about care and overkill in evidence collection. They would examine the blood in the fibers of the mattress to be certain it was Mootry's, even though he obviously bled out his back here where the arrow opened up a hole through him and his heart.

  Why the heart? Lucas wondered. Was there a great significance placed on destroying the heart in the mind of the killer? Like a deer hunter, the killer wanted an instant kill, instant results. If the M.E. found no marks on the wrists or ankles to indicate Mootry had been bound and had fought against his restraints, then this would further prove out the fact his killer was not interested in any sort of sadistic torture of the victim. Then what was to be made of the attack on the body after death? The insane mutilation and the missing body parts?

  The killer was skilled, practiced, most assuredly a hunter of one sort or another. The killer was quite capable of getting within inches of his prey. The killer might be a trusted person, someone close to Mootry.

  Lucas lay down on the bed, placing his heart over the position of the hole created by the killer's arrow. He stared around the room, taking it in from this unusual vantage point. The walls were covered with expensive paintings, etchings, prints of all sort, mostly of historical themes relating to Texas and her birth. None of the old etchings and paintings lining the walls were disturbed, not so much as by a hair. Forensics investigators obviously found no blood on the framed pictures.

  Everything was in its place as if nothing bad had ever happened here. Family photos still stood on the bureau top. Prized collectibles-again the prizes of one deeply interested in his roots and those of his community-littered the mantel over the fireplace, where an ancient flintlock musket hung.

  There was much of value remaining on the property worth stealing, and neither the two uniformed guards nor the killer seemed the least interested in these valuable collectibles. There were some areas around the bed where the carpet had been cut away, where bloodstains-perhaps bloody shoe stains-had been collected by the evidence techs, but not a single indication that any of the walls were smeared with blood, that any large artery was spurting a trajectory of blood that might hit and trail down the walls. As mutilated as the body had been, it had been a controlled mutilation, each cut done by someone knowledgeable in applying the right tool to the right joint and in the right manner, in a clearly surgical manner-a doctor, a butcher? From what he could see of the room, Lucas guessed that this had to be what the coroner and the lead detectives on the case must be thinking. They no doubt had evidence that the killer knew precisely where to make the cuts to disjoint Mootry's arms and legs as one might a roasting chicken, with the least effort and the most efficiency. The killer may even have used an electric saw as his carving knife.

  Lucas sat up now and reached for his large knife, examining the gleaming long blade. He stood up and once again leaned in over the hole in the mattress, which to him looked like a winking eye.

  By using his Bowie knife, which he carried in a holster below his coat at the small of the back, Lucas could see where brown bloodstains trailed through the matted material and clung to the springs below, as if in search of a life force. But he had to dig about the hole to see this. It was as if mattress and material had closed ranks over the wound and what remained of the blood the coroner's people had left behind.

  Lucas next moved the large four-poster bed aside just enough to get at the spot below where the arrow had embedded into the plush and expensively carpeted floor. Here, too, the M.E. had been at work, cutting out a swath of the warm brown-and-beige-flecked carpet. Lucas stared down at the hole cut through the carpeting, finding it impossible to tell how large the hole had been before the coroner had gotten at it. Fortunately, no one had actually ripped up the floor beneath, and it was here, using the tip of his own knife, that Lucas investigated the hole in the masonry floor. Again, the force of the arrow was evident, in that it had penetrated concrete. The M.E. must have had photos taken of the hole. Lucas now made a quick guesstimate of the size of the arrow tip. It was as wide as two and a half, possibly three centimeters, plenty wide enough to cause great damage, large enough to bring down a moose in the wild.

  “One hundred fifty pounds of pressure on the bow,” he said aloud now, more for the benefit of the man standing behind him in the doorway than for himself. He didn't know whether it was the guard who had followed him in or someone else. He only knew-sensed, rather-there was someone at his back.

  “Heard you movin' things around. We were told everything… that is, nothing's to be touched. The ET's mayn't be completely through in here.”

  “Oh, sorry. Want to help me put this bed back, then?” Lucas remained calm.

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Just wanted a look at the results…”

  “You all done in here now, Detective-Ahh? What'd you say your name was?”

  “Plumber, Jack Plumber.”

  “Plumber, huh?” The uniformed officer helped replace the bed and seemed appeased when Lucas said that he was through in the bedroom.

  “But I'd like to look around the rest of the house, get a feel for the way Mootry lived, you know.”

  “He lived damned well.”

  “I can see that… but he also died damned badly.”

  There was the unspoken reply lingering on the officer's lips: Then why in hell do you need to stomp around here any more if you know all that? But all he said was, “Do what you gotta do, Detective. You come all the way from Dallas, you sure don't want to have to make a second trip down here.”

  Obviously, the cop at the gate had told this man that Plumber was with the Dallas PD. There was a detective with DPD named Jack Plumber. A phone call to the right precinct, and they could check up on Lucas's alias.

  Lucas thanked the other man and started out across the great expanses of the palatial home. He doubted he'd dare take time to get to the second floor, much less the third or the fourth. “No one was staying with the judge when he was killed?” he asked the cop, who was heading back to his post.

  “Not a soul. Didn't have any family, but when he threw a party, word is everybody stayed over. He got his kicks that way, they say.”

  “Great Gatsby, huh?”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind…”

  “Whatever you say. Detective.”

  “One question, officer.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Have you or your partner at the gate used any of the facilities inside here?”

  “Facilities, sir?”

  “Bathroom toilet, telephone, fridge?”

  His slight hesitation gave him away. “No, no, sir.”

  “No drinks from the icebox, nothing? It's important. Save me a lot of time if you'll be honest with me. Besides, I'm sure the coroner took your prints to rule out any they find on the inside.”

  “Well, we got a little hungry earlier,” he confessed. “Well, I noticed the sandwich. Any drinks?”

  “Just a Pepsi, two, we pulled from one of the 'frigerators.”

  “One of the refrigerators?”

  “There's two in the kitchen.”

  Stonecoat nodded. “I see. Did you and your partner use glasses?”

  “No. we just took the cans and that's all we touched.”

  “And you disposed of the cans?”

  “In the trash, yeah.”

  “In the trash inside or outside the house?”

  'Tossed 'em into our vehicle, so's nothing would be disturbed, ahh, sir.”

  Both the men were relatively young, likely no more than a year or two out of the academy. “Okay, good, and thanks for your honesty. We'll keep it between us.”

  This seemed to appease the guard, who quickly returned to the front entrance. Lucas's questions had gone a long way toward keeping the
other man at bay. Lucas knew he was walking a tightrope; he knew he hadn't much time alone here before someone close to the investigation might waltz in. Either one of the two guards could at this moment be checking up on him. A single call to Fred Amelford, chief investigator on the case, could send squad cars squealing in from all directions to end this night with his arrest. Maybe he ought to get out of here while the getting was good, he cautioned himself. But then, what risk was there in that?

  He instead began to look over the living room area, where he found a pair of coasters on a marble table-one of those tables held up on the back of a jade elephant that must weigh a ton. Other than the two elegant coasters, there was nothing else out of place in the room. He wondered if the cop had lied to him, if he and his partner hadn't had a drink of some sort here amid the splendor of the old man's estate, using the marble table and coasters.

  He went through an enormous ballroom, which was “put up” in neat order. From there he found a lavatory large enough to put his entire apartment into, with room to spare.

  He moved on to a relatively small and cozy dining room, which was still large enough for a football squad to practice plays in. Nothing un toward here.

  Another door off this area led him into the spacious kitchen area, large enough to accommodate twelve chefs, if you could keep them from cutting one another's throats.

  The kitchen was also home to an enormous walk-in freezer, as well as two jumbo refrigerators, all stocked to bulging; there were large stainless steel cabinets with a huge chopping block running down the center, below which were additional cabinets and not two but three dishwashers.

  Apparently, the judge enjoyed lavishing his wealth about on others who came here for gala events and parties. Lucas recalled something in the news accounts about his employing his home as a place for fund-raising events on a grand scale, with such guests as Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Merle Haggard as his draws. One paper called him the most beloved benefactor in all of Houston, an altruistic horn-blower and enthusiastic supporter of the human spirit. People high up in such organizations as the March of Dimes, the American Diabetes Association, Al-Anon, Alzheimer's Research, AIDS Research, Cancer Research, Farm Aid, the Red Cross, Disaster Relief Fund of Greater Houston, Advocates for the Homeless-”You name it,” said one official.