by Glenn Trust
On the other side, he pulled the car into the parking lot of one of the filthy motels. The lighted sign said StarLite Motel, but only the ‘S’ and ‘r’ were lit. The other letters sizzled electrically, but their neon, phosphor glow had long since dissipated. It occurred to the driver that he had probably seen a StarLite motel in every town he had ever visited, and he had visited quite a few on his runarounds. It must have been a popular name in the fifties and sixties, dawn of the space age and all.
He had been in places like Roydon before. He had a knack for finding them. Similar communities dotted the American countryside. They were always filled with anonymous people and shady visitors. In places like Roydon, questions were not asked, and names were not recorded.
The StarLite and Pete’s Place were comfortable to him. He could move through the underworld of Roydon without fear of prying questions or watching eyes. Averted gazes and deaf ears were the norm in a place like Roydon.
Reaching down, he checked the tie wraps holding the girl’s wrists together and binding her to the frame under the seat. Her position was awkward and uncomfortable. She was forced to lean over on her side so that her head was not visible to passersby. The pleading eyes peering at him above the duct taped mouth made him smile.
“Just checking us in to the honeymoon suite, dear.”
The grin on his face made her tremble uncontrollably.
The lot of the motel was nearly deserted. Grass and weeds crowded the gravel at the edges and grew up the rear and sides of the old cinder block exterior. Two other cars were parked in front of rooms. One near the small office, and the other midway down the length of the motel. A fast food bag and several beer cans sat on the ground beside the nearest car’s passenger door.
Pushing a plastic button on the metal frame of the office door, he heard an out of place doorbell chime. Through the glass, he could see someone stirring in the small room behind the desk. After a minute, a bleary-eyed man with bedhead stumbled out to the desk pulling an overall strap over his shoulder. He bent slightly and peered through the dirty glass. After several seconds of examination, he decided that it was safe enough and reached down to press a button under the desk. A loud buzz sounded and the office door unlocked.
There was no greeting from either.
“Need a room,” the thin man said.
“How long?”
“For the night.”
“All night?”
He nodded, and motel man clerk said, “Thirty-five.”
He took cash from his front pocket and counted out the bills. Motel man reached behind him for a key on an old peg board.
“At the other end of the building.”
The man shrugged and replaced the key he had started to retrieve and handed over a different one.
Taking the key, he turned and walked through the door into the night. Motel man watched him through the glass. Sitting behind the wheel, he waited. After a minute, the man dimmed the lights and went back to the room behind the desk. It was not unusual for the StarLite’s customers to want their privacy. Best to give the customers what they wanted.
When the motel desk clerk was out of sight, he cranked the engine and drove slowly through the lot to the other end of the building. He backed into the space in front of the room so that the car’s license plate was not visible and so that the passenger door was away from the office and the possibly prying eyes of the night clerk. Parked in this position, he could easily and quickly move the girl from the car to the room.
Walking to the room door, he pulled the large plastic fob with the single key attached from his pocket. The door opened and he did a brief visual check. Taking the small trash can from beside the bed, he propped the door open. He did not turn on the light.
He walked outside to the car and glanced back at the office. The motel clerk was not visible.
With a quick motion, the passenger door was swung open, and he was leaning over the girl. She cringed and trembled but could make no sound. The knife was out and the tie wraps cut with a quick flick of his wrist, hands then feet. Another flick and the duct tape was cut and pulled roughly from her face, strands of her hair clinging to the tape where it had circled her head. He could probably have carried her bound and gagged into the room and no one in Roydon would have noticed, or cared if they had noticed, but years of careful practice had taught him not to take chances. No need to arouse the curiosity of anyone who might have accidentally noticed them.
With strength deceptive for his size, he jerked her up and out of the car. The movements were so quick and the girl in such a state of shock, that there was no time or thought to escape. It would not have mattered anyway. She would not get away.
This was the moment of danger, moving his prey to the killing ground. If she cried out or struggled, the game might take a drastic turn for the worse, for him at least. But he had mastered the art of control, physical and psychological. Instinct, cunning, or skill. Whatever the mechanism, he was in control and he knew it. More importantly, she knew it.
The girl stepped quietly as directed from the car. He was close, whispering in her ear. They might have been lovers, except for the knifepoint pressing deeply under her breast. The parking lot was dark, just the light from the neon sign casting a glow at the other end of the lot.
“Just get through this with me, honey. Help me. Then I will let you go.”
Somehow, she was convinced. She wanted to be convinced. Deep inside, she needed to be convinced, to believe. He just had needs. She could get through it. Despite what she had witnessed earlier, the old man was an accident. She would survive and hide this deep away somewhere and never think about it again. Right now, just survive.
She nodded quietly. He saw the hope in her eyes and couldn’t help a small smile. She smiled back a little. It thrilled and aroused him. Hopeful but helpless.
The whole process had taken less than thirty seconds.
A final glance around the lot and at the office to see if anyone had observed, and he closed the door. This was just an habitual overabundance of caution. In places like Roydon, it was unlikely that anyone would deliberately notice anything that anyone else was doing. Noticing could be unhealthy.
Bolting the door, he turned and gazed with a thrill into the pleading, terrified eyes. A long, deep sigh escaped his chest and hissed through his teeth.
19. Driving Miss Lyn
There, snug between the two brothers in the pick-up, Lyn felt the fatigue set in. Not just the fatigue of the day, it was the bone weary numbness of a life of empty horizons and desperation.
Accepting the moment, and feeling warm and somewhat safe between the two young men, strangers though they were, she felt about as secure as she ever had. Her knees were close together, and she sat as upright as she could to avoid physical contact, but that was impossible in the closeness of the truck cab.
The wind rushing by the window reminded her of the wind blowing against her bedroom window earlier and the confrontation with her father, the hulking man who filled their lives with misery. She shook her head trying to drive the memory away and the picture of her tearful mother firmly pushing her out of the house.
“You warm enough?”
She turned her head slightly. The young man’s voice brought her back to the here and now. It was the one called Clay.
“What?” she said softly.
“You warm enough? You shuddered. Thought maybe you were getting cold. We can turn the heat up some if you want.”
“No, I’m fine,” she replied staring out the window into the pre-sunrise dark. Headlights approached and passed on the southbound side of the interstate in a streaming blur. It was hypnotic.
Lyn closed her eyes. She was tired.
The two brothers exchanged looks over her head as Lyn leaned unknowingly, on Clay’s shoulder. Small breathing sounds escaped her partially open mouth as she drifted off.
“She sleeping?” Cy, the older brother and driver whispered.
“Reckon so,” Clay whispered back with an ey
ebrow shrug.
“Gonna be a long day for her.”
“Yeah. Looks like it’s been a long night too.”
The pickup rushed on in the dark. The brothers sat quietly, staring up the highway and listening to the girl’s soft snores.
20. Crime Scene
Pungent diesel fumes from the generator on the county’s fire department light truck hung heavily in the damp night air. The garish white light seemed to turn all color into shades of gray. Even the blood pooled around the shriveled, lifeless form of Harold Sims was just a darker charcoal gray seeping into the gravel.
The noisy hum of the generator drowned out the night sounds. The light and droning white noise gave the little churchyard an isolated, surreal feel.
Two firefighters stood by the light truck drinking coffee and talking, watching what was going on. Every now and then, one would adjust the throttle on the light generator.
George Mackey stood beside his pickup ‘preserving the crime scene’. The assignment left him little to do in reality. Sandy Davies was the primary on the call and would handle all county follow-up. Of course, there were the Georgia State Patrol troopers who had gathered at the scene when the call went out. Standing, huddled around one of their high-speed pursuit cars, they talked quietly. A couple of them smoked. Their voices were hushed, almost reverent as if they were in church, or at a funeral. They also had no real function here, but what the hell, you didn’t find an old man dead in a churchyard every night, at least not in this part of Georgia, not in Pickham County. Mr. Sims’ lonely, painful demise in the dark parking lot would be a remembered thing in these parts. Deputies and troopers on duty would spend a lot of time talking about the crime scene and their presence that night, even if they had no part in the subsequent investigation. They weren’t happy about Harold Sims’ death, but he was dead and being there was definitely something.
A deputy or state trooper in Pickham County might go years, even his whole career, without handling one murder. Accidental hunting shootings, sawmill accidents, traffic deaths, bar fights, yes, but a for real, stabbed through the kidney, bled to death in the dust, whodunit murder? Those didn’t come around often, maybe never again. The death of Mr. Harold Sims, black male, five feet-eight, thin build, seventy-nine years of age would be remembered.
An investigator from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation stood with Sandy asking him questions. Occasionally, he would gesture at the body, the crime scene, or the woods, and Sandy would respond in short, direct sentences. It was clear that Sandy didn’t care for the intervention from the GBI, but it was policy with the sheriff’s department in Pickham County that all homicides were referred to the GBI. It was that way in many rural counties, and it made sense. They handled these cases routinely.
The GBI man gave a nod at something Sandy said and walked towards George.
“How you doing, deputy?”
“Had better nights,” George replied, still leaning against his pickup. “Don’t get many of these out here.” He nodded towards Mr. Sims’ form still lying in the dust.
The GBI man turned his head slightly and followed George’s gaze. “Yeah, me too.” He turned back to George and put his hand out.
“Bob Shaklee, GBI.”
“George Mackey.” George returned the quick handshake.
“This one’s a puzzle. No apparent reason for someone to take out Mr. Sims. He and his wife heard noises, he comes through the woods to check it out, and then he’s dead. She never sees or hears anything from him again. No scream, no shouts, nothing. The church is locked up tight, and there’s no sign of forced entry anywhere. But he stumbled on something out here in the dark. Something bad, but no sign of what. No damage to the building. No way to make out tire tracks in the gravel. Nothing.”
“Except Mr. Sims,” George said nodding again toward the body.
Shaklee looked over at the body. “Yeah, that’s going to be a tough situation. Mr. Sims, what’s left of him, is the only evidence we have. Family’s not gonna get the body back for a while. We’ll have to take it to Savannah and have the medical examiner do the autopsy. There may be some evidence on the body. Fibers, hairs, something. The wound will tell us something about the weapon at least.”
“It was a knife, a big one. Not too hard to figure that one out, and tough as this might be for you, it’s a hell of a lot tougher for old man Sims, I’d say.” George looked at the ground and spit a stream of tobacco juice to the side.
Shaklee stood quietly, letting the acid in George’s comment fade away into the night.
“Sorry,” George said looking up. “A little edgy I guess. Like I said, don’t get many of these around here. Shit, we don’t get any of these around here.”
“I understand,” Shaklee said, nodding somberly. “Guess we have our work cut out for us.”
“George. Call me George.”
“Okay, George. I’m Bob. Let’s get to it then. Deputy Davies said you know the county as well as anyone.”
“Probably true. Been here all my life.”
“Any ideas? Who might do something like this? Got some bad folks in the area? Drug dealers? Bad kids? Anything or anyplace we can start looking.”
George thought of the Gantry boys out and about that night, but no, they weren’t this mean. Whoever did this was just mean. Really bad, not just teenage drinkers.
“We have our share of bad folks, and there are some druggies in the county. Same as everywhere I expect. This doesn’t seem to fit them though.”
“Why’s that?” Shaklee asked letting George think it through until he was ready to say his piece.
“Seems too professional,” George continued slowly pondering the scene. “If they’d beat him, hit him with a tire iron, even shot him, might make more sense. But that knife wound, from the back, through the kidney. Seems like he was ambushed and then executed. Just one wound, least that’s all I saw. If it was a local knifing, I’d expect it to be real sloppy, multiple wounds, a lot of them, some defensive wounds too, but non-lethal. Maybe one final death wound once he had weakened. But messy. Know what I mean?” George looked over at Shaklee.
The GBI man examined George with a bit more respect.
““That’s pretty observant, George. Yeah, one well placed knife thrust. Seems pretty professional.”
“One more thing,” George added.
“What’s that?”
“Professional but not military. I think the perp intended to cause maximum pain under the circumstances,” George let that sink in for a moment. “Large knife, through the kidney. He didn’t cut the throat and trachea to kill and prevent Mr. Sims from making noise at the same time. One thrust, right through the kidney, back to front. The shock and the pain must have been terrible. I think that’s what he wanted. He’s a mean asshole.”
“Maybe they struggled and that was the only angle he had. Maybe he panicked and took the first opening he had with the knife.”
“Maybe,” George said slowly, “but I don’t think so. Seems to me this was an ambush. Mr. Sims never saw his killer until the attack, maybe never saw him then. The knife was big. The single wound was large, extremely painful and deadly, but not immediately. The perp would have been able to watch Sims die, see his pain. I think he enjoyed it.”
“Really,” Shaklee said, looking thoughtfully back over at the body. “That’s a pretty advanced theory from just one body with a knife wound.”
George shrugged. “Maybe.”
Gravel crunched behind them and a large white SUV with ‘GBI Crime Scene Unit’ stenciled on the side pulled up. Two crime scene techs got out and gathered up large briefcases that resembled a salesman’s sample cases and a couple of camera bags. They walked up to Bob Shaklee.
“Hey, Bob,” one said. “Sorry it took so long.” He nodded over at George and George nodded back. “What you got?”
“I’ll walk you through it,” Shaklee replied, and then turned to George pulling a small plastic case from his pocket. “Here’s my card, George. G
ive me a call if you think of anything else. I appreciate your insight on this,” he said indicating Mr. Sims’ body with a tilt of his head. “Anything at all, give me a call.”
“Sure. If I think of something.”
“Thanks,” Shaklee said, leading the crime scene techs away. “Can I get hold of you through the sheriff’s office?”
“Yeah, they can find me pretty much any time.”
Shaklee lifted a hand in acknowledgement and walked away with the techs, pointing at the area and indicating where he wanted them to start processing the scene. Unlike the crime scene tech television shows where the techs run the investigation, in real life they work for the investigator, not the other way around. Agent Shaklee would lead them through the scene, explaining what was necessary and the kinds of evidence they should look for in order to build a prosecutable case in the event that the investigators should find the perpetrator.
More gravel crunched and another county car, this one a large, new SUV, ground into the church lot, braking hard and spraying gravel. Sheriff Klineman stepped out in the midst of the dust cloud he had created.
Seeing George, he walked briskly to him. The aroma of aftershave filled the night air as the sheriff approached. He looked freshly showered and groomed. Clearly, the sheriff had considered the possibility that there might be some cameras or reporters at the scene and wanted to put on his best face for the voters who would catch this on the morning news out of Savannah. This was a big deal in Pickham County. Unfortunately, the media had not yet had time to arrive, and the sheriff was all gussied up for nothing.
“What happened Deputy?” The sheriff’s tone was short and curt. He didn’t care for George. It was a mutual feeling, and they both knew it.
“Came in as a missing person call. Husband had gone through the woods to check out sounds at the church here. He never came back. Sandy and I checked the area and found Mr. Sims there.” George nodded over at the body on the ground by the woods. “He was stabbed from behind. Large knife.”
“That it?”