Stone Shadow dje-3

by Rex Miller

  Dallas

  Eichord had a bad night. He was staying at a place way out the expressway from downtown, nice enough as motels go but the people next door were partying it sounded like, and he lay there half-clothed, listening to the noisy voices through the wall in back of the headboard, finally switching on his own TV to drown it out. He had not had a drink in two days. Not abstaining consciously, just busy. Now he became aware of it.

  The noise was still bothersome and he turned up the volume on the battered RCA set, some mindless talk show blathering away, and suddenly there's no noise next door so he figures it must have been a television set or somebody left, but door slams sound like howitzers usually and he hadn't heard anything. Whatever. At least the noise abated. He went over and turned his own set off and killed the lights. Threw his pants over the back of a chair and crashed. He was tired but he still couldn't sleep. The case was bothering him a lot. It was rife with inconsistencies and craziness. He had no handle on Ukie Hackabee whatsoever.

  It seemed like two hours before he finally dropped off. Lying there with those eyes open in the darkness, trying to reach back through all of the gobbledegook and the posing and the mind-fucking, reaching for kernels of fact, nuggets of insight, little fragments of ore glittering in the cow plop. He didn't buy it and that was too bad because the facts were incontrovertible. William Hackabee had told a woman whom he'd abducted where lots of bodies had been buried. Freshly buried. It looked like old Ukie was it. But with the exception of a moment or two, the “pulverizing” bit had been so real he was beginning to think he'd hallucinated Ukie saying it, Ukie was just jerking everybody's chain.

  He'd seen a hundred guys like Hackabee over the years. They seemed to be hothouse flowers that only grew in certain types of soil. The dirty funky ground of sex perversion was fertile for them. Sprinkle that with the moisture of attention and celebrity and their tales of bizarre sex crimes would suddenly grow into larger-than-life comic-strip adventures. They were rather pathetic and Mittyesque under-achievers, mostly, who would confess to almost anything to get attention. One more way to say, “Hey—look at me!"

  Then there was the nature of these killings. They weren't the crimes of a sex offender. These were the crimes of an extreme sociopathic persona who was flipping the bird with one hand and waving for help with the other. The lack of apparent connectives, the absence of motive, the diversity of kill modes, and the unlikeliness of the would-be perpetrator were more than Eichord could reconcile.

  So two hours later, two long Dallas hours of staring into the empty and unrewarding darkness of his room, “the pulverizing stage” taking on the rhythm of a personal mantra, exhausted and disturbed and alone, Jack Eichord gave himself over to sleep. And approximately nine minutes later a horrible hammering jerked him awake, propelling him onto his feet, reaching for his pants and untangling blankets as he shouted through his cotton-filled mouth, “Just a minute,” and lurched over to open the door and find nobody there. No movement outside. All the rooms quiet and dark. He took a last look up and down the row of accommodations, let out a lungful of air, and closed the door on it. Some nightmare.

  He was almost back inside the folds of sleep when the banging hit again—a loud hammering, wham wham wham three times on the door—and this time he was there quicker but still not quickly enough because the gremlin was gone. I mean, nobody. He slipped on his shoes, no socks, eased his Smith out, and shut the door, standing quietly and waiting.

  The guy had a neat sense of timing. It was all of ten minutes before he came back. Two minutes more and even Jack would have given up and gone back to bed but he had hung in there and he was there with his hand on the door by the second bang and the door was open in a half second and SHIT missed him again what the hell but then he just caught the door to the left closing silently and he kept the Smith in his pocket and walked over and banged on the door with a back fist like a sledgehammer, and he kept it up until the door finally opened.

  It was a pitiful, wimpy little dude of approximately Eichord's age. About five-foot-seven. Balding. A gut on him. Watery eyes and a big red proboscis.

  “Hi,” the man said sweetly. “Want to come to a party?” He was holding a nearly empty water glass of booze. “Care for one?"

  “I think I'll pass, but thanks. Question, though. How did you get back inside your room so fast?"

  “That's a secret,” he hissed with a smile. “I'll tell you if you come over and have a drink with me.” He had a slight lisp.

  “Yes. And you'll tell me if I don't come over and have a drink with you, too"—Jack showed him a glimpse of gold shield—"or the night will end badly for you."

  Then the man got all blubbery, he thought he was about to fall on a vice bust again, and Jack had to straighten that out, and then he was so pitiful Eichord decided what the hell and he did go over and they had a drink, two old drunks in a lonely Dallas motel, and even the man's whiskey was pitiful.

  His name was Phil Something from a state that began with a vowel, some tale about being in aches, Eichord thought he'd said, finally figured out he'd told him, “I'm in eggs,” and was in the wholesale food business, nowhere guy with a bad marriage, a job that hated him, a boss that hated him, a wife that hated him, not really gay just a sad and lonely old coot. How depressing.

  But when you're in the murder business every nasty cloud may have a revealing lining. He'd banged on the door with a long stick. So simple. Right under Eichord's nose, so to speak. And it reminded him of one of the forgotten basics: the easiest way to hide something is to leave it right out in the open. Sometimes nobody thinks to look there. He wasn't sure if it applied to the Hackabee thing but it was worth filing away. He finally got some sleep about three in the morning. He went to sleep thinking how he and old Phil next door had a lot in common. Both of them in aches, that was for sure.

  There was screaming coming from the plush conference room on the richly appointed second floor of the building that Fidelity Mutual shared with Jones, Seleska, Foy, Biegelman, and Guthrie, known in the Texas legal profession as Jones-Seleska. The screaming was coming from a breathtakingly beautiful woman who was bent over a very expensive conference table. She was finally able to stop screaming with laughter and when she came up for air the somber-looking man sitting across the table from her, the one who had been responsible for her current agonies, said, “You gotta learn to lighten up a little, you take things too seriously,” at which she doubled over again.

  “Not again with screaming. They'll think you're raping me in here,” he told her and she pounded on the table.

  “Please ... no...” She gasped. “Please ... stop."

  “You knucklehead. Get outta here,” he said, which sent her off again. Finally when she composed herself enough—the laughter diminished to the point where she could hear him—he said, “Do you know the official Jewish stand on abortion?"

  “Ohhhh,” she groaned as she held herself in mock pain.

  “It's still a fetus until it graduates from Harvard Law.” She giggled, grateful that it hadn't been another killer.

  Her secretary opened the door. “It's that policeman again, Miss Collier. Second time he's called. Mister"—she glanced at the pink slip—"Icort, about the Hackabee case, I believe."

  Still chuckling, the beautiful woman gestured no with her hand. “I'm not in.” And let herself slide back in the chair with a groan.

  Dallas

  “—and I'd gone in to buy some things, like I said, South Oak Cliff Shopping Center,” she said with a sigh, for maybe the hundredth time, “and no I don't believe I'd been followed, and I was on my way in to go shopping, Sanger Harris, various stops I wanted to make, and I pulled in to the mall and just barely tapped the car in back of me on the bumper, but, you know, you always feel scared if that happens, and I was relieved when I looked up in the rearview mirror and didn't see anybody in the car because, you know, you're embarrassed when that happens. And I guess that's why it scared me so much when this man sticks his head in
the window and pokes a gun at me—"

  Eichord was listening and watching carefully, “Excuse me. Don't lose your train of thought but you said, ‘sticks his head in the window.’ Was your window rolled down?"

  “Huh?"

  “How did he stick his head in the window of the car if the window was up?"

  “Sure, the window was up. I meant he came over and suddenly there's this face in my window and I go, OH, and about jumped out of my skin. I was so surprised. And he was talking and I thought it was the guy's car that I'd tapped on the bumper and like I rolled the window down. Oh, I remember. I had to turn the motor off or on, I mean to roll it down—power window deals, and—"

  “Tell me everything you remember about that moment. How did you feel when you saw him? What was the weather like that day? What did you have on? What—"

  “Did you know the intelligence people had me act all that out? Don Duncan went out there and had me dress in the exact clothing I had on that day and he followed me all the way from the house. I mean, it isn't that far, six-seven minutes or whatever, but he had me go through all the motions when they were trying to find where he took me."

  She had never been able to give them the house where she'd been held prisoner. It had just been blocked out completely. She couldn't remember anything about how she got from the room in the house to the police station. Not even the part where the wino found her in the refrigerator box, hiding behind a discarded stove in back of a store downtown. Nude. Bloody. Out of it.

  “Donna. What I'm wanting to hear is your description as much as the facts themselves. You may give me something that will help without meaning to, just in the way you tell about it all. Understand?” As always speaking so softly.

  “Aaaaaaahhhhhh,” sighing, looking not at all fresh as a daisy today.

  Jack getting her after a rigorous bit of playacting with intelligence and then, last night, a brain-battering session in which Donna Scannapieco had allowed herself to be put in a deep trance by a clinical hypnotist. Still, there'd been nothing forthcoming about the location of her makeshift prison.

  “Okay,” she said with a shrug. “Let's see. I was wearing the jeans, stacked heels, blouse under the grape sweater, earrings, purse, no extra jewelry, had makeup on, wearing my hair long like I have it today, it was an ordinary day, cool, I just don't remember anything about it all that I haven't said a million times. And he stuck his head in the window and said, ‘If you'll look in my hand you'll see I'm holding a pistol.’ I was scared but mainly I was like, you know, sort of in shock. I didn't want to get shot. I did what he said, and—"

  “Donna, did it ever strike you as odd that when he threatened you there in the shopping center that was the only time in the four weeks he had you that he'd ever made any kind of specific threat with a weapon?"

  “I don't get what you mean."

  “Even when he was telling you about all the people he had buried around the state. Did you once ever hear him say anything about I shot this one with a pistol? Or I stabbed this one with a knife? Or I hit this one over the head with a club?” She shook her head no. “See what I'm saying here? He threatened you with a gun in the mall when he took you. But how come he never waved a gun around or talked about any specific act of violence all the time he had you?"

  “He talked about acts of violence all the time,” she said, making a face at the stupidity of what he'd said. “He was always going to kick my ass for this or whip the shit out of me for that. And what do you call the fact that he claimed to have killed HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE. Is that enough violence for you?"

  “No. You're not getting my point. If he threatened to beat you or hurt you physically, sure, I agree that is definitely violence. But did he ever pull a knife or gun on you? A blackjack? Anything?"

  “Well—"

  “When he was talking about the crimes he'd committed, was he ever specific with respect to using a weapon? How did he get those people dead? Run over them in a car? Drop a bomb on them? Poison them? Strangle them? What?"

  “I don't know.” She shrugged. “He just talked about killing different ones and I don't recall anything about whether he said he shot ‘em or stabbed ‘em and I don't see what the hell difference it could possibly make. Also, you say did he threaten me with a gun? I was CHAINED by a leather thing this big"—she gestured impatiently—"all he had to do was grab me or slap me or kick me or whatever he wanted I didn't threaten him in any way. Why would he need a knife or gun? I was chained to the wall."

  “Good point. Tell me about the trip to the place he took you. What kinds of noises did you hear? How many times did he stop? How long did it take?” And on and on over the same stuff, listening to the different way she'd describe the same experiences, looking for the telltale elephant footprints in the cottage cheese. It occurred to him as he listened, watching her, it wasn't just the eyes. The sexual statements were transmitted by the clothing.

  There was something about the clothing she wore. It wasn't all tight sweaters and low-cut dresses or the obvious things like that. It was that her clothing was just ... He couldn't quite describe it or categorize it even to himself. Somehow Donna's clothing never quite seemed to be appropriate. Ridiculous, but there it is. Take today. She'd been drug over the coals by a therapist or whatever, the intel and homicide boys had been at her, Eichord again, and what does she show up in that morning? Some kind of strange, great, voluminous and flowery dress and big, gold hoop earrings, playing the Gypsy Queen today. What was it with this woman?

  “Do you have a boyfriend or steady, uh, relationship?” he heard himself asking her.

  “I had somebody I was seeing a lot before this but...” She trailed off and shook her head. “It was hard for him to deal with and it looks like it has ended. Why?"

  Why, indeed. “I was wondering if this had harmed you in your personal life. Very often a terrible thing like this reaches out and hurts those close to the victim. Family, friends, a husband or boyfriend. They have their own feelings of confusion, and anger, and the utter helplessness of thinking about someone they care for put in the kind of a situation you were subjected to ... and it's tough to handle."

  “Yeah,” she said wryly, “that's life, eh?” He nodded as she said, “Has this hurt me in my personal life? What personal life? Between the press and you cops and a shrink—that's it."

  “When you were first chained up, you told earlier that you'd had a blindfold on, and when you felt the thing being fastened to you and then when he removed the blindfold and you first saw the room, what did you think? Try to remember your reactions to what you saw and what he said to you at that time."

  “Horror. Incredible horror. I knew from the pictures he hadn't brought me there for a Sunday picnic. All I could think of was I wished I had screamed back when I had the chance or just fallen down on the floor of the car and hoped he couldn't shoot through the windshield, a dozen different things I thought of after it was too late. And there was just the awful horror of it. I figured I was in deep trouble. And he didn't say much. I started pleading with him to please let me go, that I wouldn't say anything about it and stuff and he just said, ‘Shut up’ and called me a name. And he said I had one chance. Put out when he wanted some, do what he said and be a good sex slave, and he wouldn't kill me."

  He could feel he was not getting through to Donna Scannapieco the way he often was able to. Eichord was usually good with people. His innate kindness and caring would communicate itself. Everything was screwed up lately. Even his ability to convey a sense of understanding to a crime victim. He knew just how much this barrier between himself and the woman could hinder the progress of the investigation, yet he felt himself powerless to remove it. He could sense, or thought he could sense in her the intuitive ability to pick up on his bad vibes and it was absurd that he couldn't do anything about it.

  Inside the swamp of Donna Scannapieco's head there was only icy resolve. She thought nothing of Jack Eichord the cop. Just another face in the crowd. Her inner being was too ful
l of cold, unyielding hatred for the dirty, no good son of a bitch who had taken her and ruined her life, and for the unfairness of a world in which an awful thing like this could happen. She hadn't done anything to deserve such a fate. And now she wanted only vengeance, and the bitter taste of it was filling her with alienation and lonely isolation and it was draining her of the warmth and softness and femininity and decency that had given her life meaning and value. And, like Eichord, she felt herself powerless in the awesome ebb and flow of forces much stronger than her own sense of self.

  Eichord tried to phone the lawyer again. Wally Michaels had told him there were some negotiations going on between a prestigious Texas law firm and Mr. Hackabee. There was something off-key about it. Hackabee was apparently being offered representation by the famous Noel Collier, arguably the most famous woman defense counsel in the country and second only to Racehorse in the ranks of famed Texas criminal lawyers. Jack had been trying to get hold of her for two days and she hadn't returned his calls. He finally got her on the line and made an appointment to come see her. One of Eichord's techniques involved catering to egos, and clearly Ms. Collier would be a formidable challenge in that department. He hoped to do a little homework on her today with Hackabee. What would anybody that big hope to gain from defending a dead-bang murder one headed for death row? It would be different if she'd been some court-appointed pee-dee, but this was THE Noel Collier of Jones-Seleska. Why would they touch a loser like Ukie?

  There was a lot of ink flowing over this, on the other hand. Every paper had Grave-digger headlines. Was a movie deal in the works? Had Swifty called with a book offer? There had to be something sweet and Jack would check it out. Meanwhile he'd go around with Ukie again. He took a couple of aspirin and wished for something to wash them down but he decided he'd better settle for that clear stuff that you get out of a water fountain. He took another deep breath, tried to shake the cobwebs loose, and opened the door that led to interrogation.