June 18, 1974 & June 19, 1974—Two witnesses (Betty-Lou Panders & Andrea Reinhardt)
• Both claim H.S.’s work truck parked along roadside where vic 9 found.
Leah left a note to herself after circling these two witnesses’ names: Interview again?
June 19, 1974—H.S. Interviewed: Denies involvement
June 20, 1974—Bodie Applewhite (witness from vic 8) interviewed again
• Shown photo of H.S. and states he could be suspect he saw @ scene
June 20, 1974—Noah Stork Reports B&E: Nothing stolen or missing
June 24, 1974—Police Issued Warrant to Search H.S. House
• H.S. not home when police arrive.
• Police find S&W Model 10 .38 Special revolver. Matches 2 rounds in evidence. Gun unregistered.
June 25, 1974—H.S. Disappears: Fowler issues statewide manhunt
• Fowler’s Task Force grows to its biggest size: 16 detectives and officers
June 26, 1974—TKB Comes Forward Again
• TKB claims he is Stickman for third and final time. Police dismiss him again. He is sent home.
Jul 2, 1974—H.S.’s truck is found in Cornflower Lake
• Searching the truck turns up nothing
Jul 22, 1974—H.S. Shot Dead after Police Receive Note
• Note contains address along with initials H.S. Forensics report all notes except this one written in the same hand.
• 4 officers arrive at shotgun shack with H.S. inside. Police force entry after H.S. refuses to come out. H.S. flees through back door.
• Fowler shoots H.S. dead after H.S. refuses to relinquish gun—unloaded 9 mm Beretta 92. H.S.’s last words claim he was set up as a patsy. Nothing found in files regarding what was meant by this statement.
Leah circled the last fact and wrote herself a note: Was H.S. the wrong guy? Then, looking at her point about this note being written by someone else, she realized one of the two remaining cops on Ethan’s “trusted list” had to work in forensics as a handwriting analyst.
Aug 31, 1978—TOMMY STORK MOVES TO BIRMINGHAM SUBURB
• Noah Stork claims T.S. spent much of his time in Birmingham before move. Unable to offer clue as to why.
Jan 1, 1989—TOMMY STORK MOVES BACK TO ALVIN
* * *
Leah circled this fact and the one before it and wrote a question in the margin pertaining to both: Why? Then she pulled the file folders regarding the two recent Stickman murders and added that information to the timeline.
* * *
June 13, 1989—Victim #10: Abilene Williams
• Black woman, receptionist, body found on the banks of Leeland Swamp, Alvin, first victim in 15 years
• Partial fingerprint and boot impression found at the scene. Forensics determine boot likely a “jump boot” used by paratroopers in WWII.
Jul 4, 1989—Victim #11: Samantha Hughes
• White female, unemployed mechanic, body found south side of the Anikawa in front of Garner’s Ranch
• Marks in the dirt indicate victim was dragged from assailant’s car.
Leah went back to the report she’d made and remembered what Chris had said when he read it through. “You found drag marks?” he’d asked. She had just nodded.
“This is too weird. First it appears the Stickman can’t carry a hundred-and-ten-pound woman down a short trail and would rather push through a clutch of thorny brambles to get closer, and now he can’t even carry her thirty feet from his car to the riverbank? Is there anything like this in the reports from seventy-three and seventy-four?”
“Not that I could find,” Leah had answered.
Now she wondered about that again. Why was the Stickman suddenly appearing to be so weak? Obviously he had no problem hammering them stakes through his victims’ chests.
For now, she let that question go and looked back over the timeline. Leah figured that was about all she had. The timeline spanned three sheets of paper. She took them over to the Xerox machine and made two copies. Then she took her originals and Scotch-taped them together so it was one long piece of paper. She hung this on the wall between the door and the window so she could see it from her desk.
Right away, she did notice something about those four asterisked jobs in Harry’s maintenance record. For each one, within two to six days following a victim was killed who worked at that hospital. So, the stars obviously were made by Leah’s pa, even though, to her, they looked a bit different from the asterisks he’d made earlier when he flagged the relevant hospitals in Harry’s major contract list.
Other than that, nothing really popped off the page and, for the next hour, she stared at the timeline, trying to find a clue as to what she was looking at. Other than Harry Stork, two names seemed to come up again and again on the list: Thomas Kennedy Bradshaw and Tommy Stork. Two Toms.
That thought brought with it the question Dan had posed on the phone a couple of weeks back: What if there were two serial killers, working together as the Stickman? She wondered if Stork and Bradshaw’s paths had ever met. How could she find out? Going through her stack of files, she extracted their folders and flipped through everything, unable to find anything to support that the two ever knew each other.
CHAPTER 39
After loading up my duffel bag with all the supplies I thought we’d need, I zipped it closed and bungeed it to my bike. Most of the stuff I shoved inside came from the My First Forensics Lab kit, but there were other things that the book recommended without supplying it in the box. Stuff like airtight containers to store any kind of evidence that doesn’t fit in the small envelopes, marker pens to label evidence with, and pencils to sketch out the crime scene. Also, I needed a proper pen and paper to make a report of all the details.
“You sure you know where we’re goin’?” Dewey asked as we rode into the sunny morning on our bikes. My stomach let out a little complaint about missing breakfast this morning, but when I woke up I was still full from the three hamburgers I’d eaten yesterday at Willet Park.
The day was bright and a light mist clung to the ground, making everything appear magical. I was glad the sun was back. Now it actually felt like summer.
“Yep, I know exactly where we’re goin’,” I answered. “Way up to Leeland Swamp.”
“Ain’t that goin’ to take us right past Preacher Eli’s?”
I found that question a bit strange. We had both been scared of Preacher Eli a year or so ago when he came back here after being in prison, but my mother assured me he was nothing to be scared of. “Now, why do you care ’bout that?” I asked Dewey. “My mom said he’s done his time and now we should treat him just like anybody else. She told me he’s harmless.”
“I don’t think he’s harmless, Abe. I find him scary. ’Sides, he killed that kid, remember?”
“ ’Course I remember. But now he’s fixed up his relationship with God or something. My mom tried explainin’ it to me once, but I didn’t quite understand all of what she said. ’Sides, he’s too busy buildin’ that new Baptist school to take any interest in us. You seen it?”
“The school?”
“Yeah.”
“Nope. When did you?”
“About a month after my mom solved the Maniac Tailor case, back when she first met Dan.”
“How come your ma’s cases always have funny names, like the Stickman or the Cornstalk Killer?” Dewey laughed. “Or the Maniac Tailor? That one’s the funniest.”
“She don’t name them. I asked her ’bout it once, and she said mostly they come from some clever newspaper writer. But ‘the Maniac Tailor’ didn’t. You remember that psychic Carry saw?”
“Sure do.” Dewey grinned. “Madame Crystalle—she said I was ‘gifted’.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you’re the kind of gift that people take back. Anyhow, the Examiner found out she helped my mom solve the case and interviewed her. She came up with the ‘Maniac Tailor’ name.”
“Oh,” Dewey said. “Still sounds kinda funny.�
��
We turned up the big hill of Hunter Road, the road Preacher Eli’s house was on. It was tough pedaling, but when you’re riding with someone else you don’t dare get off and push your bike unless he does first. It makes you a weenie. And since Dewey lives by the same rule, neither of us gave in to the hill and we pushed our pedals hard as we could to make it up.
“Nothin’ much funny ’bout serial killers, Dewey. Anyway, I was tellin’ you ’bout Preacher Eli’s Baptist School. A month or two after my mom met Dan, she took me and Carry to lunch with her and him. My mom drove to some little diner in a town halfway between his house and ours. The road we took out of Alvin was Fairview Drive— that’s where the new school’s bein’ built. Looked like it was goin’ to be big.”
“When’s it meant to be done?”
I shrugged. “No idea. I’m wonderin’ if maybe we’ll be able to go there instead of bussing all the way to Satsuma every day. Sure would be nice.”
“I don’t know,” Dewey said.
“What don’t you know?”
“’Bout attendin’ school at a place owned by Preacher Eli. He still creeps me out.”
I knew what Dewey meant. I somewhat even agreed with him, but I didn’t tell him that. We just rode in silence awhile.
We got to the bridge going over Blackberry Springs, and I pulled to a stop.
“Why you stoppin’?” Dewey asked. “Too tired to ride anymore?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Listen.”
“I don’t hear nothin’,” Dewey said.
“Listen harder.”
“All I hear is the sound of the water rushin’ over the rocks,” he said.
“That’s what we’re listenin’ to. Isn’t it relaxin’?”
“You’re full of bull crap. You stopped because you is tired.”
“Think whatever you want, Dewey. I stopped to listen to the river. Sounds like it’s singin’ to me.” A cardinal flew out of the poplar trees lining the creek. Its red- and orange-painted feathers soared majestic across a blue canvas of sky.
“It don’t sound like no singin’,” Dewey said. “Let’s get goin’. I want to get past Preacher Eli’s place as quick as we can.”
He awkwardly started back up the hill. I joined him. When we’d pedaled past Preacher Eli’s small house, neither of us said a word about it. I gave the place a quick glance, but I noticed Dewey purposely kept his eyes straight ahead. I really didn’t blame him. There were as many rumors around town about Preacher Eli as there were about Newt Parker, and unlike Newt’s rumors, the ones about Preacher Eli always involved him killing folk.
About fifteen minutes later, we reached the top of Hunter Drive and knew we could coast the rest of the way down to Leeland Swamp. We were only about five minutes away.
“Whereabouts at Leeland Swamp is the crime scene?” Dewey asked.
“You remember that cypress in the marsh that some kid carved a happy face into?”
“No.”
“Sure you do. It’s a big happy face. At least this big.” I let go of my handlebars and held my palms a good two feet apart.
“I ain’t never seen a happy face tree in my life, Abe. Especially one that big.”
“Well, I have. And I saw it again in the photos from my mom’s files ’bout the Stickman murder that happened a few weeks ago.”
“Someone was killed by the smiling tree?”
I shook my head. “Nobody knows where she was killed, but her body was found in the swamp near the tree.”
“How come no one knows where she was killed?”
I told him what I’d learned about primary crime scenes and how, according to my grandpa Joe’s notes, he was never able to find the primary scene and that always worried him. It was like he figured there was some evidence he needed that could only be found at the primary scene. Some of his notes about it were written weeks after Harry Stork died, almost as though my grandpa was still investigating the case. It made me wonder more about the question my mother made in her notes asking if my grandpa might have shot the wrong guy.
“What if there’s more than one tree with a happy face, Abe? That swamp’s huge. We’ll never find two happy trees.”
I sighed. Sometimes dealing with Dewey was just too much work. “I know the tree, Dewey. Don’t worry ’bout it. I know pretty near exactly where the police found Abilene Williams’s body.”
“Who?”
“The woman the Stickman killed and left on the edge of the swamp.” I purposely didn’t say anything to him regarding the way she was tied and how the wooden stake had been hammered through her. Dewey didn’t need those kinds of things in his head. He wasn’t like me. Even though our birthdays were days apart, he was, as my mother once put it, emotionally much younger than me.
“How do you know all ’bout this woman and where she turned up?” he asked.
Damn, I hadn’t meant to tell him about my mother’s files. “I . . . um, I accidentally kind of read my mom’s reports ’bout it.”
“How do you ‘accidentally’ read somethin’?”
“They were on the counter in the kitchen and, before I realized what my eyes were doin’, they’d already gone through all the information.”
Dewey smiled. “I hate accidentally readin’ stuff.”
What Dewey meant was that he just hated reading stuff whether on accident or on purpose.
“I have a pretty good idea from the description in my mom’s report I accidentally read of where it is.” Accidentally sounded so much better to me than purposefully.
We came to a dirt road that veered off left of Hunter Drive and followed it, plunging into a mess of a forest that grew thick and tight on either side of us. Some of the branches hung over the road, and plants and shrubs bunched close up in front of them. The forest blocked the sun, making the road dark. Goose bumps ran up my arms. The darkness felt scary and exciting, like we were entering a whole different world.
“How long are we gonna be at the swamp?” Dewey asked, riding up beside me.
“I dunno. However long it takes for us to find all the clues.”
“Didn’t your mother already get all the clues?”
This was a hard question for me to answer on account of when I went through the file concerning victim number ten, which was Abilene Williams, I found practically nothing either reported by or noted by my mother. It was almost as though she hadn’t been there. But I didn’t say that to Dewey. Instead, I answered, “We’ll look for things they might’ve missed. But there is one thing . . .”
“What’s that?”
“The scene will probably be delineated”—a word I’d learned a few days ago when I had to look it up in my dictionary—“with police tape. We shouldn’t go inside there. We could corrupt the scene.” As it was, I hoped we wouldn’t have to tell my mother we even visited the outside of the scene. I doubted highly she’d be happy to hear about it.
“What does delineated mean?”
I let out a breath. “Doesn’t matter, Dewey, just don’t go past the tape.” We came to the opening of the trail I recognized from the description Officer Chris put in his notes. I skidded to a stop. Dewey did the same.
“This it?” he asked.
I nodded. “Should lead us right to the area with that tree.”
“How come you know this trail?”
He was so frustrating. “You know it, too, Dewey. We’ve been down it at least twice I can remember.”
“I don’t recall ever bein’ here before. And I know I ain’t never seen no happy face tree.”
“You have a memory like a goldfish,” I said. “It was a while back. Before Preacher Eli returned to Alvin.”
“Oh. You sure ’bout this?”
“What part?”
“’Bout going to find some happy face tree on the edge of Leeland Swamp. I’m kinda scared. It’s so dark in here. That trail looks even darker. What if the Stickman’s around?”
“Dewey, the Stickman’s already been and left. That’s why there�
��s a crime scene here. He wouldn’t come back, that would just be dumb. The police might be lookin’ through the swamp for more evidence or somethin’. If he came back, it would just make it more dangerous for him that he might get caught.” I thought about that guy from my mother’s files, Thomas Kennedy Bradshaw, the one who kept going to the police saying that he was the Stickman. He actually did seem to want to get caught, even though the police decided he wasn’t the killer. So, I supposed, someone like Thomas Kennedy Bradshaw very well might go back to his crime scenes, hoping to get arrested.
I decided telling Dewey this would only scare him more. Instead, I started for the trail and said, “Come on. It’s just a swamp. You’ll be fine.”
Reluctantly, he followed me. “Okay. What ’bout gators?” he asked.
“What ’bout ’em?”
“They give me the jeebies.”
My brow furrowed. “There ain’t no gators in Leeland Swamp, Dewey.”
“All swamps have gators,” he said.
“No, they don’t.”
“Yes, Abe, they do.”
“I ain’t arguin’ this with you. And we’re not goin’ into the swamp, anyway. So I don’t see why you’re so concerned ’bout ’em.”
He didn’t reply, so I assumed I won that round.
We rode through the soft dirt, each of us on either side of the “wheelbarrow track” I had expected to find from Officer Chris’s notes. Then we came to the place where the trail narrowed. This was where Officer Chris decided the Stickman had been forced to leave the wheelbarrow behind and carry Abilene Williams the rest of the way. A thought came into my mind then. It had something to do with the small-trunked trees, brambles, and bushes to the left of the tight path. They reminded me of something, only I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Dewey didn’t seem to notice as he got off his bike just as I had.
“We gonna dump our bikes here?” he asked.
I thought this over. “I reckon we should bring ’em to the swamp with us. We leave ’em here, they might get stolen.”
Sticks and Stones Page 31