The Smiley Face Killer
Page 17
“Jesus, I couldn’t deal with that either,” he acknowledged.
“It’s a fucking impossible situation. I don’t think I can put up with it anymore.” Jerry said.
Slate remained silent for a few moments. Finally he said, “What are you gonna do?”
“I’m moving out. I have to for my own sanity.” The intensity in Jerry’s voice made it clear that was a terrible struggle for him. “I can’t take it. She has to get help, professional help. I’ve called her parents. I’ve talked to them. They’re on their way here now. We want her to voluntarily commit herself to a hospital for a while.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
Jerry looked straight at Slate and said. “Then it’s her problem. I’m packing tonight. Fuck, I’m not a psychiatrist. I don’t know what to say or what not to say to her. She’s not rational. She screams at me, throws shit, totally off the wall half the time. It’s no life.”
“I’m sorry,” Slate said.
“It’s life.” Jerry shrugged. “Thanks, I mean that, but you know, shit happens. We all have to deal with it one way or another. But I look at it this way. Right now I’m not helping her. Staying with her isn’t helping her. She’s like a drunk; she’s gotta decide to help herself.”
Slate thought it was a good point. “You’re probably right.”
“Well that’s what the doctor says. This crap with the pills. It’s just another ploy to get me to play her game. She wants me to be constantly attentive. She wants me to hold her hand in the car. She wants to always be in the same room with me. Christ, I can’t even take a shit without her wanting to be in the bathroom with me.” Jerry said with an attempt at a little laugh.
“You seem to look at it all so objectively. How do you do that? Slate questioned.
“Well, after it happens enough times and you talk to all the shrinks and therapists, you begin to see it for what it is. See her. In the beginning I used to get all upset and think it was my fault. But hell after a while I just disconnected with all that. It’s not my problem. It’s hers.” Jerry said emphatically. He finished the conversation with a harsh, intense final comment. “And she can just shove it up her ass for all I care.”
After that they drove in silence.
CHAPTER 20
WAS IT LIGHTFOOT IN KECHI?
Kechi was a small town known for its antique shops about ten miles north of Wichita. The drive took Slate only about fifteen minutes. The address was easy to find, particularly with the patrol car sitting in front of the small stucco house. Slate and Jerry knocked at the front door and were greeted by the officer, who ushered them into the living room. His nametag read Bishop. Slate introduced himself as did Jerry. Officer Bishop told them the couple’s name was Hollis and Rosemary Garrison. The couple were sitting on the sofa, the husband comforting his wife. Both were dressed casually. She wore jeans and a pink blouse with a white collar. He had on dark gray slacks, a polo shit, and sneakers.
“How are you feeling, Mrs. Garrison,” Slate asked, sitting in the chair closest to her. Jerry stood silently just inside the door.
The woman with the tear-stained face seemed to rally a bit. “I’m okay, just scared I guess.”
“What did the man say?” Slate asked. “Can you tell me about it?”
The woman shifted her position slightly, sitting up a bit more. “He was hiding around the corner of the house. I didn’t see him when I drove up. I got out of the car and came to the front door and unlocked it. He came around the house. I mean, it was all just a flash. He grabbed me from behind and had a knife; he pointed it at my neck. He said ‘I just need some cash, lady. Shut up and you won’t get hurt.’ He told me to open the door. I did. I told him not to hurt me. He pushed me inside.”
Mrs. Garrison got a bit teary-eyed at that point. Her husband put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “It’s all right, honey. It’s okay now.”
“It all happened so quick. He had some rags in his pocket—pieces of a tee shirt he’d ripped up. He used it to tie me up. ”
“Sounds like he came prepared,” Slate said to Jerry.
Officer Bishop walked to an end table where he had put the white rags in the plastic bag which he now held up to show Slate.
Mrs. Garrison continued. “He covered his face like an outlaw in them western movies, but I could see his eyes. He had brown eyes and long black hair. Kind of bushy eye brows.”
“How old would you say he was? Rough guess?” Slate prodded her.
“He was young, but not a teenager. I’d say mid-twenties. He tied my hands and my feet. I watched him go through my purse. Took the cash and credit cards and my keys. I heard him drive off in my car. I tried to slip my hands out but I couldn’t. He tied my hands and feet real tight with them rags. When I tried to get them off, the knots just got tighter.”
“It was just after noon when I come home and found her,” Hollis Garrison said, his eyes widening. “Scared me to death. Ain’t nothing like that ever happened around here before. Not that I know of.”
“I was never so glad to see somebody in my life,” the woman cried, holding fiercely to her husband’s arm.
“The car was a 2009 Grand Am, right?”
Hollis Garrison nodded.
“Color?”
Officer Bishop interjected at that point. “Blue-gray. I already called in the license number, gave ‘em all the details. Guy could be anywhere though. He’s had five hours.”
Slate nodded and took out the photos of the five students from the theatre department. He spread them out on the coffee table in front of her. “You recognize anyone from these pictures?” he asked.
Mrs. Garrison peered carefully at the photos. She dismissed the first two quickly. The third one caused her to give a little gasp. “I think that’s him. He was Indian I’m sure. Jet black hair. Straight. That’s him right there.” She pointed to the photo of Lightfoot.
Slate and Jerry thanked her, shook hands with the husband and the officer, and left. Slate almost felt like jumping for joy as he walked quickly to the car, but he knew Jerry’s mind was elsewhere. He hadn’t asked a single question during the interview. Once in the car Slate called back to the station with the news of the positive ID of Lightfoot. He and Jerry arrived back at their desks thirteen minutes later.
Both Remy and Tiffany had good news as well. Remy had spent the last two hours with CATCH, Computer Assisted Terminal Criminal Hunt. Tiffany had contacted a friend with the Blackwell Police who had formerly been with Juvenile Justice. She remembered Robin Lightfoot as a teenager who had spit in her face when he was arrested for assault. “He was a bad seed,” Tiffany said. “Born to kill.” She handed Slate a brief report that had been faxed to her.
Slate read it quickly. “Blackwell man terrorized on Seminole Indian Reservation. Although he was driving on a public road, Paul Rogers of 1855 Main Street, Blackwell, Oklahoma, was attacked by a gang in a white Oldsmobile with no license plates. His car was shot at and chased off the Reservation. Identified as the driver, fifteen-year-old Robin Lightfoot was released in his parents’ custody and received a suspended sentence.”
“There’s more.” Tiffany grabbed another fax from her desk and handed it to Slate. “The little fucker was arrested for grand theft auto the next year.”
Slate read the fax to himself and Jerry read it, looking over his shoulder, while Remy and Tiffany waited expectantly. “Indian reservation resident arrested in connection with wave of car thefts. The crime task force organized to stop the rash of car thefts from the northern Oklahoma area, most traced to the Seminole Indian Reservation, arrested sixteen-year-old Robin Lightfoot of 9135 Chew Road. He was charged in connection with the theft of a pickup truck from an Oklahoma home in October. Authorities say two juveniles were also involved with Lightfoot in using the pickup to steal two motorcycles from another off-reservation residence.”
Tiffany couldn’t wait for them to read the whole thing. She had to give the version she had gotten from her friend. “They found mo
re than a dozen cars hidden on the reservation, stripped and obviously set on fire. And get this. Charges against Lightfoot were dropped in a plea bargain agreement. Lightfoot gave police the names of three adult ring leaders involved in the heists. So he got off.”
“That’s not all,” Remy interjected, eager to have the spotlight. “What I found is really interesting. One day before his high school graduation—Lightfoot beat his father to death with a baseball bat.”
“There was no piece of pipe around. That’s why he used the bat.” Tiffany interjected sarcastically.
“A lawyer got him out in just eighteen months on that one,” Remy continued, “because the kid had suffered abuse from his father for years.”
“Holy Shit,” Slate whistled. “You guys get a big A for effort. We should be able to get a warrant now. Let’s get a team over to his apartment as soon as we can. Have ‘em go over it with a fine tooth comb.”
“You guys go get a beer. We’ll see about the warrant.” Remy offered.
Slate looked at Jerry. “You wanna?”
“Hell, yes.” Jerry replied. Slate could see in his eyes that he wasn’t ready to go home yet.
Tiffany grabbed Slate by the arm before he could leave. “I talked to the Chief about that little phone message. I wanted to make sure he put a patrol on your house keeping a special lookout.”
“What? You didn’t believe me?” Slate grinned, pinching her cheek.
Tiffany slapped his hand away. “No, I didn’t believe you. Most of you men are so damn stupid—“
“But not me, right?”
“Not this time.”
“Hey, you’re wonderful. Thanks for pushing me.” Slate truly felt grateful as he remembered the voice and his paranoia kicked in.
Slate thanked both Tiffany and Remy again for their good work and called Jeanne to tell her he’d be late. As he walked out with Jerry, he slapped him on the back. “You wanna meet at that place on 13th?”
Jerry nodded. “Of course. Our favorite place.”
The Silver Spur was halfway between Hillside and Oliver streets on top of a hill. It was dark inside with deep comfortable booths, usually not too busy or too loud, and they served great sandwiches. Slate and Jerry stayed there until after seven o’clock, drinking, eating, and talking. Slate filled Jerry in on what had occurred while he was gone, and they spent the next two hours speculating about each of the suspects. Much of their discussion centered on the threat: “I know where you live. Don’t make me come there.”
“Someone wants to scare you off,” was Jerry’s opinion.
“But why would someone leave the same message for Lightfoot?”
“To scare him, too.”
“That means that Lightfoot isn’t the killer then,” Slate concluded.
“Maybe Lightfoot called and the left the message on his own phone to throw us off,” Jerry suggested.
Slate didn’t think that plausible and offered his own view. “And maybe Lightfoot knows who the killer is. Maybe he’s on the run because he’s afraid. Maybe the killer’s even kidnapped him.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of ‘maybes’,” Jerry laughed sardonically. “With his past, particularly killing his father with a baseball bat, Lightfoot still seems the most likely candidate,” Jerry added.
“Yeah, but it still could be Moss or Biggs or Wheeler—or any of those guys. Like Dr. Channing told us—a dissociative personality.”
The phone message complicated things and raised questions they couldn’t answer—at least not until they found Lightfoot.
While they were at the bar, Remy called Slate on his cell phone to give him an update. The Grand Am was spotted by an Oklahoma State Police helicopter on the Seminole Indian Reservation. Teams of police with dogs converged on the Reservation shortly thereafter, but Lightfoot had disappeared. No one saw him, or at least no one admitted seeing him. As Slate and Jerry soon realized, they were back to square one.
Slate drove home. His head—his brain felt so dense—so heavy—that he had a hard time even focusing on driving. Once he arrived at the house, he mixed himself a drink and took two Excedrin. Jeanne was watching TV, a rerun of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Slate threw himself down on the sofa, feeling defeated. Cain jumped up on the arm of the sofa, made his way to Slate’s chest, and plopped down for a dose of love and affection. Slate rubbed his ears and petted him.
The movie had just started and Tippi Hedren had just purchased the turtledoves. He had seen it before at least two or three times. Soon he was engrossed in it again. Slate thought the movie was a good metaphor for the world he dealt with, the world of the criminals. They were like the birds, unknowable—attacking for unknown, mysterious reasons and all the more frightening because of that. He thought of Mrs. Garrison. Until today she had lived a normal life, followed her usual routines without fear. Even though she had not been physically injured, she would never have that luxury of being free from fear again.
Slate and Jeanne chatted during commercials. Slate learned that she had gotten an A on her term paper, had lunch at school with Brent, and had fallen in love with Joanna Lindsey’s novels.
Jeanne went to bed at ten. Slate watched the local news for the next hour. During commercials he flipped from one channel to the next. Nothing caught his interest. Cain demanded his attention again, and Slate brushed him, refilled his water dish and gave him some dry cat food. He finally went to bed, but it was another hour before he could sleep. He tossed and turned, his mind constantly drifting to images of Lightfoot, the Lightfoot who had stolen cars and killed his father with a baseball bat. He had nightmares all night long.
CHAPTER 21
MEETING WITH TARA FERGUSON
The next morning Slate was happy to see nothing in the newspaper about the case as he ate his breakfast and flipped though the news section. There was a small article about Mrs. Garrison and the robbery, but the reporter had not connected it to the suspect Lightfoot.
In the Entertainment Section he saw the ad for Angels in America. He ripped it out and shoved it in his pocket so he could call later and reserve tickets.
After breakfast he replenished the cat’s food and water and took five minutes to drape about thirty rubber bands over the rungs of the stool in the kitchen. It was Cain’s job to knock off each of the elastics, bat them around and play with them for a while. Eventually he would carry each one to his bowl and stop for a little snack. Slate got a kick out of seeing him carry a big rubber band around in his mouth as though it were a mouse.
At the station house he assigned Tiffany to find out the names and addresses of Lightfoot’s sister and brother. Jerry took the morning off to visit his wife and talk to her parents. Remy and Slate made follow-up calls to the list of students, trying to find anyone who had more knowledge of Robin Lightfoot. At ten Slate called the Fine Arts Box Office at the university and purchased tickets for the play opening that night. Shortly after, he finally remembered the student Tara Ferguson, who had acted with Lightfoot in a play and had spent some time with him. Slate called the school and with the help of the secretary was able to get her on the phone. He arranged to meet with her in the Duncan Lounge at noon. “Look for the redhead,” she had told him.
When Slate walked into the lounge, he thought back to his first visit on the day of the murder, meeting the Dean and the President and seeing all the long faces. Today it was full of students talking and smiling. Tara was chatting at a table with two other girls. He was immediately struck by her flaming red hair. It was long and very curly. She had deep green eyes and a deep throaty laugh. Seeing her up close, Slate realized she wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense. She was thin, her nose wasn’t quite straight, and her chin was a tiny bit small. Nevertheless, there was a radiance about her that made everyone else around her fade by comparison.
“Miss Ferguson,” he said as he walked up to the table.
“You found me,” she flashed him a bright smile.
“Could we go somewhere more private?”
“Be careful,” one of them said.
“And have fun,” the other one giggled.
Tara led him to the Teacher’s Lounge, the conference room off the main lounge area. “We can go in here.”
The room had a sideboard with a microwave and coffee. There was a table and a half dozens chairs. She sat at the table. “You can have some coffee if you’d like.”
“Good, I could use it.” Slate said as he took one of the Styrofoam cups and poured the dark brew into it. “So tell me about Robin Lightfoot,” he said quietly, his pulse quickening.
“Do you know the play Fool for Love?” she asked.
Slate shook his head and took out his notebook. “Never heard of it.”
“Robin and I played brother and sister in the play, but we—the characters—had also been lovers, so I felt that he and I should get to know each other and be comfortable with each other,” she hesitated, laughing uncomfortably. “We had some pretty intimate scenes in the play. He was very quiet at first, reserved. I had to push him to get him to show more emotion.”
Slate sipped his coffee and nodded while he made notes.
“It’s by Sam Shepard—the play—a dark piece, very emotional, violent even in places, about an incestuous relationship.”
Slate remembered the name Sam Shepard, but he couldn’t recall where he’d heard it.
“Tell me more about Lightfoot.”
“Robin was different. He didn’t open up much at first. I’d try to get him to talk, ask him questions before rehearsals, ask him what he thought about our characters—stuff like that. At first I did most of the talking, then after a while he talked a lot about the play, what it meant to him. He’s very serious.”