The Devil's Menagerie

by Louis Charbonneau

  “You seem pretty sure.”

  “If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be here. Believe me, Braden, you have a serial killer on the loose here.”

  “Why’d they send you?”

  “Because I was there when this guy got his start. I was in Germany. It was my first year out of the FBI Academy, acting as a liaison with German authorities.”

  “You don’t look old enough.”

  She didn’t, he thought. When she first walked into the police station that morning he had thought someone’s daughter was visiting. Now, in the fluorescent glare of the diner, she appeared definitely older, but still no more than thirty. There was also something in her face he hadn’t seen at first, a toughness she neither affected nor tried to hide. Her gaze was direct, unflinching. She wouldn’t give away anything to Captain Hummel in a staring contest, Braden thought.

  “I still think it’s a reach. What’s the connection? Where’s the link? Just because two women were beaten to death in similar ways, and a knife was used on each of them—”

  “Do you really think I’d be here if that was all there was? Come on, Braden.”

  He felt heat at the back of his neck, irritated by the scolding tone. “Okay, spell it out for me. This better be good.”

  “Both women were beaten to death. In the first case the victim, Lisl Moeller, was cut up badly because he used his bare fists and he wears a wedding ring. He’s had time to think about blood matching and tissue samples since then, so he wore gloves when he killed Edith Foster. But if the coroner is right, this time he had something hard under his gloves.”

  “Could’ve been holding a roll of quarters,” Braden said.

  “Whatever. He doesn’t care what kind of damage he does. When he gets going he’s a very angry man—also very strong. He handled these women easily, along with Moeller’s soldier boyfriend. There were no defensive wounds in either case, and no blood or tissue under the women’s fingernails to indicate they were able to scratch or hit back.”

  “He hits ’em like Foreman hit Moorer,” Braden said thoughtfully. “One punch, the fight’s over.”

  “I expect so, Detective.”

  “These defensive wounds—”

  “Bruising or abrasions where she might have tried to ward off an attack. As you know, they usually show on the hands or arms. Lisl Moeller’s wrists showed circular bruising, indicating he might have grabbed her wrists while she struggled, before he hit her. Edith Foster didn’t even have that much of a chance.”

  “Go on.”

  “He rapes his women, probably both before and after. In Germany he left semen. Here in San Carlos he practiced safe sex—and denied us any blood or semen to match.” Karen Younger’s tone had become detached, clinical. “He uses a knife with a short, fairly dull blade, probably a pocketknife or Swiss Army knife. He probably carries it all the time. At least we can hope so.”

  “Our ME didn’t specify a pocketknife—”

  “He described a short, straight, dull-edged blade. The killer doesn’t use it like a surgeon because it tears as much as it cuts. Moeller’s cuts were postmortem; Foster’s either perimortem or later. She might have been alive. He likes to hurt women, Braden. He’s getting even.”

  Braden was beginning to feel uneasy as the index of similarities in the two murders lengthened. But the FBI agent’s theory was still too farfetched, the incidents too far removed from each other in time and place, for him to give it credence.

  “He cuts the woman’s initial across her abdomen,” Younger continued in the same remote tone. “A single large letter—block, not script, because that kind of lettering is easier with a dull knife. Cutting into flesh isn’t as easy as some people think.” She paused again briefly. “He’s right-handed. The horizontal strokes for the letters are made from left to right, which is natural for a right-hander.”

  In spite of himself Braden was listening closely now, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. Christ, eight years! Was it possible? If the agent was right, what would the creep have been doing for the past eight years? And why would his anger erupt again at this time? Why San Carlos?

  “Then the killer has left a final message for us, in case we had any doubt. In each case he used the knife to make one more cut, extending an opening. She’s only a cunt, he’s telling us.”

  Braden stared in silence out of the streaked window of the Bright Spot. The day had turned bleaker. Why didn’t it rain? At least that would lessen the fire hazard in the hills. After several moments he said, “Shit.”

  “He’s here, Braden. The same man. He’s starting again.”

  “Even supposing you’re right, what set him off again? What brought him into my backyard?”

  “I guess that’s what we have to find out.”

  Seventeen

  IT WAS WEDNESDAY before Glenda found the courage to talk to Dave at length about Ralph Beringer. By then he had given her even more reason.

  Dave had come home that evening in a foul mood. For the second time in three days his car had been vandalized in the faculty parking lot. Monday the Nomex coat had been stolen from the back seat; today someone had slashed one of his tires. Senseless vandalism annoyed the hell out of him, he complained, and he couldn’t imagine how young men or women, on the verge of adulthood, could think there was anything clever or amusing about slashing someone’s tires.

  Glenda had felt a chill, listening to him.

  Dave had grumbled irritably through half their delayed meal before he realized that she was hardly paying attention. He waited until they were alone in the den after dinner before asking what was troubling her.

  “He called again today.”

  “You talked to him? What did he—?”

  “He hung up on me.”

  She knew instantly what Dave was thinking, that it was a wrong number. But the pinched frustration and anger in Glenda’s face stopped him from saying it.

  “That’s the third call since last Friday. He’s also been following me, spying on me and the kids.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “One of Elli’s teachers called me this afternoon. She wanted to know if we knew anyone with a large, dark blue sedan. It was parked near the school, and one of the children said the driver of the car was asking her questions about Elli.”

  The shock in Dave’s eyes pleased her irrationally.

  “Hey, I’ve seen that car.” Richie stood in the doorway of the den. Glenda wondered how long he had been listening. “It’s cool … a 1993 Buick LeSabre.”

  “You’ve seen it? Where?”

  “It was parked up the street yesterday when I got off the bus.” The boy’s eyes were openly curious.

  “You’re sure about that?” Dave asked sharply.

  Richie was not above dramatizing things. But the boy was crazy about cars. When he was younger he had built up a vast collection of small plastic copies of just about every make and model automobile. He still had most of them in a box in his closet. If he had seen the car, Glenda knew, and he said it was a ‘93 LeSabre, that’s what it was.

  “Sure I’m sure. I saw it again this morning. I think it was following my bus.”

  When Dave sent Richie up to his room to finish his homework, Glenda retreated into silence.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions, honey,” Dave said. “We don’t know for sure—”

  “It’s him,” she said bitterly. “He’s doing it openly. He wants us to know. Why else would he ask that other girl about Elli? Why would he park where Richie was able to see his car?”

  “Okay, but—”

  “And who do you think stole your coat? Or slashed your tire?”

  “Student pranksters—”

  “When was the last time student pranksters sneaked into the faculty lot and slashed a faculty member’s tires? They could get tossed out of school.”

  “But that’s such a childish thing for Beringer to do, so …” He fumbled for an explanation that would be less bizarre than hers.

  �
��Malicious,” Glenda said shortly.

  “I can hardly believe he’d waste his time that way.”

  “Later, Dave.” Glenda cocked her head, alerted to a small sound in the hallway.

  “But—”

  “Not now, Dave.”

  “IT STARTED ON our honeymoon,” Glenda said.

  She and Dave were in their upstairs bedroom, the kids both asleep now, or at least in their beds, the night silent beyond the windows. No sounds along the empty street. In the distance a siren pealed, so far away it didn’t seem part of San Carlos, it belonged to that great troubled megalopolis to the north.

  Glenda sat up in bed, pillows propped behind her against the headboard, as she talked quietly, her gaze avoiding his. “I thought he became very tired of me very quickly,” she said. “I felt … inadequate. He’d make fun of me … my breasts, my hips, my butt—no, don’t interrupt, I have to do this. When the abuse began to be physical, at first he acted as if it was all in fun. Things like twisting my nipples between his thumb and forefinger hard, or pinching the inside of my thighs—not playfully, but trying to hurt.

  “He acted very jealous. I don’t think he really cared what I did, but he would act as if he did. If I went to the store to pick up some groceries, he would question me afterward. ‘You’ve been all this time picking out cereal? I’m supposed to believe that? Who were you talkin’ to in there?’

  “The verbal abuse never stopped. He just kept after me. Nothing I did was right. The apartment was never clean enough, even if I scrubbed on hands and knees. The baby—Richie—was spoiled. I didn’t know how to raise him. I was letting myself go, he was ashamed to take me anywhere, ashamed to admit I was his wife.” She broke off, trembling. “I know this sounds petty, whining—”

  “No, no—”

  “—but that was only the beginning, the first six months or so. I really believe he thought he was being supertolerant. He’d compare me to his mother, how her home was always spotless, how she couldn’t stand a slovenly housewife … but it’s funny, that’s the only time he ever mentioned his mother. I don’t even know if she was dead or alive. He didn’t have any pictures of her, any keepsakes from his childhood, anything to remember her by. If she was alive he never wrote her or called her on the phone or heard from her. It was as if he didn’t have any family, no mother or father, no brothers or sisters or uncles or cousins. It was like he sprang into the world by himself.”

  “Maybe he was an orphan.”

  “No, I don’t believe so. He grew up with his mother. I’m sure of it. If you want to know the truth, I think he hated her. He compared me to her unfavorably all the time, but I believe that was a lie. He was only building her up to tear me down.”

  “It sounds like a rotten marriage, honey. You’re lucky you got out of it when you did.”

  She looked at him for a long moment in silence. “You don’t understand yet, Dave. I haven’t even started.”

  He seemed puzzled, and for a moment anger flashed in her. She took a deep breath. She folded her hands in her lap to hide the tremors. “I was an abused wife. Do you know what that means?”

  “He hit you?”

  “My God, you haven’t been listening to anything I’ve said!”

  “Of course I’ve been listening. He sounds like a real jerk, but—”

  “He’s not a jerk, Dave! Do you hear me? He’s a monster!”

  Dave looked as if she had slapped him. “You don’t really mean that.”

  “Yes, I mean exactly that. He hurt me any way he wanted. At first it was the cruel pinching, the gripping and twisting. He loved to show how strong he was, how he could do anything at all he wanted with me and it was no use resisting. Then he started to slap me around …”

  “Honey, you don’t have to go on with this.”

  “Yes, I do. I’ve waited too long. I never should have hid it from you. I didn’t want you to think less of me.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought less of you. I don’t …”

  Hot tears stung her cheeks and she brushed at them with one hand. Her words rushed on. She couldn’t have stopped the outpouring now if she had wanted to. “He drank a lot. Most military men do, it’s part of their macho thing. When Ralph drank he became meaner, more abusive. He’d come home late, drunk, and he’d start accusing me of things, beating me for what I didn’t do and beating me for denying doing them. He’d hit me or pinch me where it wouldn’t show, but after a while he got careless about that. Our neighbors, friends, they started looking at me strangely, and I had to come up with a lot of excuses for running into doors or tripping on the stairs, to explain a black eye or why I was limping or couldn’t lift my arm. I found out later Ralph told them I was drinking and hurting myself.”

  By this time Dave was pale, tight-lipped with anger. “Why didn’t you leave him?”

  “Why doesn’t every woman leave a man like that? Don’t you think I wanted to? I was afraid of him! He made it clear he’d find me if I tried to leave. He threatened to take Richie from me and I’d never see him again. I really believe if I’d tried to leave him then, he would’ve killed me.”

  “You can’t really mean that.”

  “You don’t know him. You don’t believe there is real evil in this world. You don’t want to see it, so you pretend it’s not there.”

  “I’m not blind—”

  “But you don’t want to see the ugly side of things. You don’t even like the graphic violence in the new movies. It sickens you.”

  “It’s bad art,” Dave retorted. “And it’s self-defeating. Once you start down that road it’s never enough—”

  “No lectures, Dave, please. Not now.”

  He stopped, baffled. When he tried to take hold of her to comfort her she flinched involuntarily. After a moment he said, “You’re still scared of him.”

  “He’s angry and he’s dangerous. He’s bottled up the rage all these years, and now he’s come after me. What do you think?”

  “I think … I think maybe it’s time to go to the police. Sign a complaint about harassment, threats. Maybe you can get a restraining order.”

  “What good will that do? We don’t even know where he is! We can’t even prove he’s the one who’s been making these phone calls, stealing your slicker, cutting your tire.”

  “If he did that—”

  “Of course he did it! And that means he’s been following you around, spying on you just the way he’s been watching Elli and Richie and me. But if I told the police all that, they’d only brush me off. You know what they’d say? Even if it’s Ralph doing this, he hasn’t committed any crime. Calling up and wanting to talk to his son isn’t a crime.”

  “Malicious mischief is.”

  “We can’t prove he did any of it. Nobody saw him. He’s too smart for that.”

  He wanted to take her in his arms, to comfort and reassure her, and this time when he put his arm around her she didn’t pull away. Dave held her quietly, kissing the salty tears on her cheeks. Her body remained rigid, her eyes tense. She seemed fragile and vulnerable, as if the slightest touch might cause her to shatter like fine porcelain. He was more disturbed by her state of mind than by the threat of Ralph Beringer’s escalating harassment.

  “Feeling the way you did, how did you ever find the courage to leave him?”

  “I didn’t.” Her expression shaded into something bleak and remote. “I waited until he was overseas. I was in therapy with a support group for battered army wives—there were quite a few of us. I was only able to get help after Ralph was gone. I didn’t have the guts to leave him until he was far enough away that I could do it by mail.” The words were harsh with self-disgust.

  “You can’t blame yourself for that—don’t let him do that to you.”

  “He already did, Dave … a long time ago.” She rolled away from him and swung her legs off the bed. “You want to know how he answered my letter? I’ll show you.”

  She left the room. Dave heard her bare feet pad along the hallway to
the spare room they used as an occasional guestroom and also for storage. Some dull thumps told him she was getting a box down from the stack in the closet. Waiting, he had the feeling of having stumbled into a nightmare, like someone in a fantasy film.

  The kind of things Glenda described happened to other people, not to anyone he knew—certainly not to his family. But her experience with her first husband explained many things to Dave about their own relationship and the way he thought she had flowered during their six years together. He had taken pride in seeing the timid, hesitant, agonizingly self-critical young woman he had first met grow into someone mature and confident and open. He had never known what was behind her nervousness, her lack of self-esteem, her sudden tension when a car door would slam during the night somewhere up the street. A great deal was now clearer, and he wondered how he could have been so obtuse, so slow to comprehend a pattern that now seemed obvious.

  Glenda returned carrying an ordinary letter-size envelope. The paper was old, somewhat yellowed. He could not read the faded cancellation stamp, but the stamps on the envelope were German. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “I received this about three months after I wrote Ralph in Germany to tell him I was leaving him.”

  Dave Lindstrom read the brief note. He glanced up at her. Then he read the message a second time. Its callous bluntness offended and angered him. He could readily understand why, under the circumstances, Glenda had been frightened by it. But that was, after all, a long time ago. Tempers cooled, wounds healed. Eight years was a long time.

  “What are you trying to tell me, honey?”

  “Ralph sent me that note as a warning. He likes to play those kinds of mind games, Dave. He likes to shake you up—scare you. Just like these phone calls we’ve been getting. He wanted to give me something to think about. And he was telling me in no uncertain terms that someday he would be back, and he wasn’t finished with me.”

  “You’re reading a lot into this note.”

  “No! I’m not exaggerating! I know him, Dave. He’s something you don’t even believe in outside of a movie screen. And he’s come back for me … and for Richie.”