by Jeff Rice
Copyright
Digital edition 2012
First MOONSTONE edition 2007
The Kolchak Papers: The Original Novels
© 2007 by Jeff Rice
All Rights Reserved
“Kolchak the Night Stalker” © 2007 by Jeff Rice
All Rights Reserved
Cover painting by Douglas Klauba
Without limiting the rights of the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form,or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,or otherwise), without the prior express written consent of the publisher and copyright holder.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by Moonstone
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Letter to the Author
Dear Mr. Rice:
This letter is a follow-up to our recent meeting at the recording studio. If, after reading this, you are interested in hearing my story, call on me.
I no longer work for the Las Vegas Daily News “for reasons of personal health,” to put it delicately. The real reason for my cleaning out of my desk in midsummer this year was because of the “mystery killings.” That and frustration.
So now I am here prostituting my God-given talents as a flack for actors. That’s what I do when I’m not lined up at the unemployment office, or Department of Human Resources
Development or whatever nonsensical name the State of California chooses to call the place where you get your dole.
I’m still not completely settled in and I brood a lot. If you were in my place you’d brood a lot, too. You would sit and wonder how in the goddamned hell you could have been so completely surrounded with well-meaning idiots who couldn’t see past their noses to the evidence–or who wouldn’t get out and look for it. You would sit and think of the queer set of “thefts,” and of the incredible murders–seven by my count, five by the district attorney’s. The same D.A. who is now running for re-election on the “anti-drug, anti-youth” ticket. The same D.A. who publicly claims a 95% conviction rate and more than 2,500 crimes solved in 1969-1970. The same D.A. who has the reason answer to six of those seven murders but who will always keep the file closed and hidden.
Let there be no doubt–the D.A.’s office did conduct an investigation. So did the Las Vegas Police Department, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI. The Daily News conducted a very half-hearted follow up. My own, very much off-the-record inquiries led to my “disassociation” with the Daily News by mutual agreement.
While I can remain sober, I am going to try to get it all down on tape and in print. If you don’t believe it–OK. If no one else does–also OK. It’s no skin off my nose.
But whether or not you do believe it, don’t bother me about it–don’t mention it in my presence once you’ve finished with my notes. As far as everyone is concerned the matter is–if you’ll pardon the expression–dead and buried. And that’s OK with me.
I’m stuck here lying awake nights and wondering what the survivors --- the relatives of those poor souls–what they think about and how they feel when they are told the coroner’s “theory” about how they died; when they are told what finally happened to the murderer.
But, also, I still have a living to earn. It’s not my problem anymore.
However, in the short time I had to talk with you, and in a bit of checking I did later (to find out how much money you’re worth) I feel certain you are the man to either solve this mystery or go nuts from trying.
So, come on, Mr. Rice. Give me a call. You have my card. Don’t let the greatest crime story of the decade–of the century–go untold. Get out of your gray-flannel suit and do something really useful in the world. Expose the bastards that have the secret.
I just can’t fight it alone, anymore.
This is the story behind the greatest manhunt in the history of Las Vegas.
For the first time, the facts behind the incredible police “cover-up” designed to save certain political careers from disaster, and law enforcement officials from embarrassment are revealed.
Between April 25 and May 15, 1970 a cold-blooded fiend murdered five unsuspecting victims. Each of the victims was apparently unknown to the other. None knew their executioner. Robbery was ruled out. So was vengeance. And, there was no evidence of sexual assault.
The only clues to the killer’s motive and his “weapon” were so unbelievable, that to this day the facts have been suppressed in a massive snow-job by mutual consent of the law enforcement agencies involved and the local press.
By the end of the summer of 1970, two more people had died, and “expert witnesses” had either left Las Vegas or were “unavailable for comment.”
One man, an irascible second-rate journalist named Carl Kolchak, dared to print the truth. Each time, however, his reports were censored or suppressed altogether.
In his attempts to reveal the truth, he was laughed at as a drunk and a lunatic. Read and discover for yourself why the findings of the coroner’s inquests remained hidden from the public.
Learn why Kolchak suddenly left Las Vegas for “personal reasons.” And, when you have finished this bizarre account, try… try to remind yourself, wherever you live:
“It couldn’t happen here!”
PROLOGUE
I first met Carl Kolchak in August of 1979 at a recording studio in Hollywood where my associate and I had been making some radio commercials for one of our larger accounts. Kolchak was there as a press representative for one of the actors we were using and I disliked him almost on sight. He was seedy, gross, aggressive, slightly drunk, and a general hindrance to all of us. But, he was also extremely persuasive in his later attempts to get me up to his shabby one-room apartment on the pretext of letting me in on “one of the biggest crime stories of the decade.”
In the course of the several meetings that followed in that depressing place, as he slowly revealed exactly what it was he had stumbled onto during his final days as a reporter for the Las Vegas Daily News, it occurred to me that his story would make a highly interesting (and possibly profitable) book. Besides being the copy director of a leading Los Angeles advertising agency, I was also something of a crime buff.
If what Kolchak told me and showed me in his papers turned out to be factual (as, indeed, it seems to have been), he truly had some spectacular information on one of the great police “cover-ups” of the decade… perhaps of the century.
Kolchak, who later lost his clients due to his alcoholic excesses, had in his possession several small cassettes of recording tapes, and a bulky sheaf of notes, some typed and others only crudely scrawled. The story they related was so fantastic that I was at first inclined to conclude they were the ravings of a drunk. However, as you can see, I was finally persuaded to take him seriously and when you read the letter he wrote me (which precedes his incredible tale) you will see why I allowed myself to get involved in his efforts to expose the whole story.
I felt then that there was something unbalanced about Mr. Kolchak. But aside from anything else one can say about him, he knew how to “read” people. Not only did he correctly ascertain that I would be persuaded to help him publish his account, but I am sure I eventually exceeded his greatest hopes as I actually made several trips to Las Vegas to i
nterview many of the persons involved.
At the time I began my research in Las Vegas, I went with the idea still firm in my mind that I would discover his story to be a wild exaggeration at the very least. The truth became readily apparent when those named in his notes either flatly refused to comment on his assertions, or had left town since the incidents and could not be located.
I was sufficiently intrigued to press my inquiries and, toward the end of this year, they finally bore fruit. After sending out more than a dozen letters across the country I was contacted by Mr. Bernard Fain, a retired law enforcement officer residing in a private retreat in the Thousand Islands. At the time the incidents took place, Mr. Fain was the special agent-in-charge of the Las Vegas office, Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was most cooperative and I consider it a great stroke of luck that he was willing to corroborate much of Kolchak’s story.
I was also most fortunate in contacting Amanda Staley, a retired registered nurse who had moved to Glendale, California. She was one of Kolchak’s “eyewitnesses” who saw the suspect long before his true identity was revealed.
I feel an acknowledgment of their cooperation is doubly necessary here because of their willingness to come forward when no one else would, and in view of what has occurred in the past few weeks as I was finishing this work. (An explanation of this statement appears in the Epilogue.)
I am also deeply indebted to Dr. Kirsten Helms, a former humanities instructor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and a specialist in ancient myths and legends. She not only showed me the books she loaned Kolchak in his initial research, but gave me an important insight into his character.
I received absolutely no cooperation from the local law enforcement agencies or from the Clark County District Attorney’s office. The Las Vegas FBI office informed me they had “no available records” of Mr. Fain’s alleged part in the investigation. In Washington, D.C., I was told the United States Department of Justice had “no file numbered 17-447-B3” nor, in face, “any alien registration forms” listing the suspect under neither his true name nor any of his alleged aliases.
At the time I agreed to help Kolchak, I intended solely to aid him in reorganizing his notes into a compact, cohesive report by eliminating his endless digressions into unrelated subjects, his endless comments on fellow workers, and dissertations on various mundane aspects of Las Vegas not absolutely pertinent to the facts. However, those recent events which I have already alluded to convinced me that I should leave as much of his work intact as possible–just the way he first set it down in his notes and on tape. This, at the very least, not only gives the reader some idea of Kolchak’s style–which is irregular at best --- but also an insight into the man and his thought process. It now seems the least I can do in view of the fact he may no longer be able to do so for himself. Only where necessary (and where indicated by my initials and comments) have I taken the liberty of piecing together reported incidents in an attempt to clarify his account. Also, where necessary, I have taken the liberty of cleaning up Kolchak’s language, much of which consisted of four-letter words.
I am sorely afraid that many will discount this entire tale as rubbish. There is no longer any way for me to prove Kolchak’s claims. As Kolchak warned me in his letter, the story, my subsequent investigations, and the further recent “incidents” have made such a deep impression on me, that I may never have another night’s peaceful sleep for years. It is up to you, the reader, to judge for yourself the accuracy and believability of this book. As for me, I am now of much the same frame of mind as Kolchak was in his introductory letter.
I will not discuss these events ever again, with anyone. The book is finished. And I intend to continue with my present career as best I can.
Jeff Rice
Hollywood, Calif.
January, 1971
CHAPTER 1
On Saturday, April 25, at about 2:30 A.M., Cheryl Ann Hughes was tapping her foot angrily as she waited at the corner of Second and Fremont streets. She glanced repeatedly at her watch. The young man she was currently living with, Robert Lee Harmer, was supposed to be picking her up for “breakfast:” and then a ride home. Harmer was nowhere in sight. He was at that moment quietly puffing away at a joint with some members of a local rock group, oblivious to the time.
Cheryl Ann Hughes: twenty-three, five feet five and a half inches tall, one hundred and eighteen shapely pounds, Clairol blond hair and light-brown eyes. Swing-shift change-girl at the classic Gold Dust Saloon, a gaudy western-styled casino built when Vegas was younger, smaller, and–some say–friendlier.
Cheryl Ann Hughes: Tired. Hungry. Disgusted at having waited twenty-give minutes for a ride, was now mad enough to walk the eight blocks to the small frame house she shared with Harmer just off the corner of Ninth and Bridger.
Cheryl Ann Hughes: now walking East on Fremont Street, past Schwartz Brothers’ Men’s Shop, determined to make It home in time for the 3 A.M. movie and a bowl of chili, but still keeping an eye out for Harmer.
Cheryl Ann Hughes: alone with her irritation, now crossing Las Vegas Boulevard having just passed the white-plastic dazzle of the latest Orange Julius stand, its three male customers giving her a brief appraising glance.
Cheryl Ann Hughes: a girl with less than fifteen minutes to live.
While the Hughes girl was headed to her doom, the Las Vegas Police Department, ever vigilant, conducted a narcotics raid on the apartment her boyfriend was grooving in along with his six companions. Thus, handcuffed, fingerprinted, booked and incarcerated by 3:30 that A.M., Harmer was never on the list of suspects. In due course, this being his first local “bust,” Harmer was politely “invited” to leave town and the charges were quietly dropped. He has since disappeared.
It was just about 3:00 A.M. when Cheryl Ann turned down Bridger at Seventh across from the northeast side of Las Vegas High School’s Main Hall. She went into a dogtrot at Eighth Street which T-ends into Bridger. If she had been a little faster, she might have reached Ninth Street. She slowed just pass the alley entrance to search her purse for her key and was neatly and silently lifted off her feet from behind and dragged kicking into the alley.
Her initial panic passed as she was pulled into the gloom and she remembered her karate lessons. Not overly enthusiastic about what she thought was impending rape, she lifted her right foot and brought it down sharply on her assailant’s right instep, raking his shinbone on the way down as she’d been taught. At the same time, she twisted slightly to the right and slammed her right elbow into her attacker’s middle. The effects were not what they should have been. The grip across her throat tightened like a vise and in seconds she was unconscious.
Not a sound was heard and her body wasn’t found until almost four hours later when two hefty minions of the Sagebrush State Disposal Service found it half-wedged into a garbage can thirty feet down the alley.
The Police Department was duly notified. They arrived and inspected the can’s contents and, in turn, notified the coroner’s office and sent for an ambulance. Since, in the cursory police examination “at the scene” there were no marks of violence save the bruise across the girl’s throat, it was assumed she had died “routinely” of strangulation. So the body was carted off to County General Hospital’s Pathology Theatre “D.”
By the time the coroner, Dr. Oscar Regenhaus, arrived to perform the autopsy, Dr. John McManus, the county general staff pathologist, was already pulling on his white coat. Netski, the diener (clean-up man), had already swabbed down the enameled metal table and wrestled the corpse of Cheryl Ann Hughes onto it. He finished preparing it, arranging the arms and slipping the wooden block under Cheryl Ann’s head as Regenhaus began to note the condition of the body, including each small scar, callus and mole.
He checked the dilation of the eyes and was about to open the jaw when his fingers felt the two holes. Now here was something odd. They were approximately three-eighths of an inch across and two and three-quarter inches apart in line with the l
eft carotid artery. Had Regenhaus not decided to check the woman’s teeth he might not have discovered the marks until he did the skill examination.
The holes should not have been there. They looked vaguely like the bite marks of some large dog but that seemed impossible to the two men as there was virtually no sign of bleeding. The wounds were dry. “Damned odd,” was Regenhaus’ comment to no one in particular. However, considering that the girl had been found neatly folded in a garbage can, and that was his job to determine the exact cause of death (and weapon used, if possible), Regenhaus continued with the work. In swift motions his scalpel incised a long Y from the edge of each shoulder to the bottom of the sternum with the Y’s tail going all the way to the pubic bone. The very pale flesh parted as the blade was drawn across her abdomen revealing the yellowish underlayer of fat. In most normal autopsies there would by now have been a considerable spillage of blood. But here, there was no bleeding at all. The thought passed through Regenhaus’ mind that there should have been evidence of “dependent lividity,” a settling of blood to the lowest points of a body when the heart stops pumping.
Regenhaus checked with McManus and Netski but neither had found any sign of “dependent lividity”–no purple skin around the buttocks or feet or, now that they thought of it, anywhere, even though the body had been found roughly in a fetal position.
Regenhaus then peeled back the chest flap, cut away at the flesh with another instrument and then pried up the ribcage with a “spreader” to expose the pericardium and lungs. Still no blood. Normally, he would now be siphoning off the pints that should have settled in the abdominal area. He glanced at McManus who just looked back at him.
Next came the head: the hairline incision of the scalp; the peeling of it and the skin of the forehead down to a bunched fleshy mass over the eyes; then the grinding whine of the power saw which crunched into the skull itself. “This should give us plenty,” he muttered as he sliced open the superior sagital sinus–the large vein running along the membrane at the top of the brain. The vein was collapsed. It did not bleed. Not a drop. He paused, regarded this thing that should not be, then severed the brain from its spinal cord and dropped it into a glass jar of formalin which Netski held.