“And covered or removed her crotch as well,” Carrie said. “And covered or removed her eyes.”
“Took and kept all the goodies,” Carrie said.
“Better call Chief Benson,” Pilgrim said, “tell him he has a crime scene here. The statue isn’t a statue, it’s a body.”
“He’s going to love this,” Carrie said. “To find the killer he has to look for a woman’s nipples and crotch.”
“Might not want to tell him that on the phone,” Pilgrim said.
“Not a chance,” Carrie said, heading for the limo again, picking up the camera along the way.
THREE
Pilgrim did another slow walk about the woman’s body, looking at it with a new perspective. He was convinced that the placement in this park, in that exact position had something to do with all this.
He needed to find out what she was looking at with those blank eyes.
He headed back for the coolness of the limo and crawled into the back just as Carrie hung up. “Detectives and crime scene crew on the way. Benson said he would be here in fifteen minutes and we’re not to move.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Pilgrim said.
“So,” Carrie said, “any idea on The Case of Miss Smallwood’s Goodies?”
Carrie loved to give each of the investigations they did a strange case name that almost always stuck.
“Some,” Pilgrim said. “Search the area databases for a woman of that height and size and age being reported missing in the last month. Might want to go all the way down to San Francisco and up to Seattle as well in the search.”
“Got it,” Carrie said.
She was sitting with her back to the front compartment and a large computer complex of keyboards and screens opened out of the seat beside her, sliding out to almost surround where she was sitting with a keyboard on her lap and a large screen in front of her.
Pilgrim was on the seat near the wet bar. He turned and punched a hidden button on the bar, letting it turn into another computer center with a large screen and two small screens where the drinks had been.
He loved this limo. He felt like a superhero at times. The car was the most sophisticated computer center on wheels that he knew of. He loved it and never once questioned the costs to build it and keep it completely outfitted with any new device that would help him with a case.
In this car he could almost see through walls, hear something whispered two hundred yards away, and tap into any phone line he wanted to. This was a dream car for any private detective.
He immediately typed in the address of the apartment complex the woman statue was looking at.
Then on one screen he pulled up a floor plan of the building and on the other a list of tenants.
The landlord, a man by the name of Steven Frome, lived in a large apartment on the main floor with his wife, Sue. It was the only apartment on the first floor; the rest of the space was filled with a large lobby and entrance area. He had been right, the building had been an old hotel at one time in the past called The Wellington Inn. It had been converted to apartments in 1962 and Frome had bought it in 2001.
There was nothing in the full basement that showed on the floor plan and four apartments per floor from the second floor through the fifth, all fairly large.
Pilgrim couldn’t see anything at all odd about any of the tenants or the building or the landlord.
“No missing person meets her look, size, or shape,” Carrie said, “anywhere in the Pacific Northwest in the last six months.”
“Yeah, that would have been too easy,” Pilgrim said, shaking his head.
“So why would someone do this to a person and put them in this park?” Carrie asked as outside the first police car arrived on the scene.
“Figure that out and I bet we find Miss Smallwood’s goodies,” Pilgrim said. “I’ll go talk to the police. Bring up pictures and background checks of anyone in that building there. I’ll bet anything there is a reason she’s looking in that direction.”
Carrie nodded and went to work as Pilgrim crawled back out in to the heat.
“Where’s the body?” the dark, heavy-set policeman asked. His name on his uniform was Wells.
Pilgrim pointed at the shiny, blue statue that seemed to be glistening in the sunlight as if she was sweating, even with the big cowboy hat and revolver.
“You’re kidding?” Officer Wells asked. “That statue?”
“I wish I was,” Pilgrim said.
Pilgrim went back to staring at the statue for a moment as Officer Wells started to tape off the area. More than likely the hat and gun the woman had were clues as well, but damn if Pilgrim could even figure out how to start on them.
At that moment Chief of Police Benson pulled up and got out into the heat.
“You’re telling me that’s a body?” he asked, as Pilgrim met him halfway across the lawn toward the statue.
“Sealed in resin and disguised, yes,” Pilgrim said.
“You mean like that traveling science exhibit where bodies were frozen in movement in some sort of resin. The one that showed all the body’s muscles and other parts most of us didn’t want to see or even know about?”
“Might be like that,” Pilgrim said, shaking his head. “I didn’t know you were into science, Chief?”
“The kid loves the Omsi Center. That exhibit just grossed me out and I’ve seen a lot of bodies in my day.” Chief Benson stopped a few feet from the statue. “What happened to her nipples and crotch?”
“The killer must have wanted to keep them. Or thought them too private to show,” Pilgrim said.
Suddenly he realized what he had just said. The missing parts were the answer after all.
FOUR
“Hang on, Chief. I’m not so sure this is a crime after all. At least not a murder.”
Pilgrim turned and headed back for the limo with Chief Benson right behind him.
Inside the cool interior, the Chief sighed as he closed the door. “I sure wish the city would spring for one of these for me.”
“More than the city budget for a year,” Carrie said, not looking up from the computer screen in front of her.
“Carrie,” Pilgrim said, “can you do a search of death notices in the last year. Pictures of woman the age of the statue out there.”
“Sure,” Carrie said, frowning.
While she was doing that, Pilgrim looked up the occupations of all the tenants in the building, including the landlord.
He found exactly as he figured he would find. Steven Frome, the owner of the building, owned three of the area funeral homes.
“Look for a death notice for Sue Frome,” Pilgrim said to Carrie.
“Already found her,” Carrie said, swinging around he computer screen showing a picture of Sue Frome. “Maiden name Smallwood.”
There was no doubt it was the woman in the statue.
“She died three months ago of terminal brain cancer,” Carrie said. “She went very quickly. In fact, this park is named after her since her husband donated a ton of money in her memory to upgrade it and put in new kid’s swings and such.”
“He made her into a statue and stuck her here?” Benson asked. “Creepy.”
“Death makes people do strange things at times,” Pilgrim said.
“She liked to spend time in the park her last weeks,” Carrie said. “And she was a top shot and loved to ride horses. All in the obituary.”
“That explains the gun and the hat,” Pilgrim said, nodding.
‘Oh, shit, now what am I supposed to do?” Benson asked. “I’m fairly certain there’s a rule against this somewhere.”
“I’d go talk to Steven Frome, get him to remove her to a more appropriate place and then put a real statue in her place.”
“Yeah, makes sense,” Benson said. “Better than the press getting wind of this. Can you imagine the news?”
“Ask him what he did with her goodies,” Carrie said as the Chief started to climb out.
“Her what?”
Pilgrim shook his he
ad. “Never mind. Just Carrie’s name for this case is all.”
“You two are weird,” Benson said, smiling. “But thanks.”
After Benson got out and the computers were back into their hiding places, Carrie said, “Don’t you want to know what happened to the woman’s goodies?”
“Not even in the slightest,” Pilgrim said, shaking his head. “Curiosity about another man’s wife’s private parts can only lead to problems.”
“And you know this how?” Carrie asked, smiling.
Pilgrim dug out a Diet Coke for himself and handed Carrie a regular Coke. “How about we just let your imagination and memory work on that one while you drive us back to the office.”
“You are no fun at all, boss,” Carrie said, smiling as she took the offered can and started to climb out of the limo to move up to the front seat.
“That’s not what she said,” Pilgrim said, smiling.
All Carrie did was groan and then slam the door.
In the third of four parts, Poker Boy and his team must confront the worst enemy they ever faced. The dreaded Slots of Saturn once again.
But the Slots of Saturn died years before. How could they be back?
The sequel to the novel The Slots of Saturn, this short novel appeared first in Fiction River.
THEY’RE BACK
A Poker Boy Short Novel
Part 3 of 4
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A Second Time Through a Nightmare
We told Madge what we were planning and she cleaned off the table and brought us all pads of paper and pens and some fresh glasses of water.
While she was doing that, Sherri and Screamer jumped to her mother to tell her the plan and I called to Stan to come back and I explained the plan to him.
Lady Luck and Stan both thought it was a good idea.
While we were getting set up, Stan got in the list from the Bookkeeper of the names and location his computers told him were the ones from the future we stranded in the past.
I wouldn’t let Stan show it to us, since I didn’t want what we were about to try to be contaminated in any way.
Stan thought that very smart and agreed. He jumped away to continue to get help from the police on the overall list of names.
So as we all slipped into the booth, we put Screamer in the middle in the back. Sherri was on one side of him and Ben beside her.
Patty was on the other side of Screamer and I was beside her.
Patty and I and Screamer had had our minds together a lot over the years, but this was the first time we had tried it with both Sherri and Ben also in the mix.
“Stay focused on the memory,” I said and everyone agreed.
“We start from the first one and go through?” Screamer asked.
“From the first one,” I said and he nodded.
Why he had asked about the first one was because the first person out of the machine had been Geneva, a reporter from the Las Vegas Sun who we had sent in so that we could communicate with someone inside. She and her boyfriend, a cop friend of mine named Johnny, had developed a very tight mental connection that we used.
I wanted to make sure we didn’t get confused in the order and miss anyone.
“Ready for a ride back to hell?” Screamer asked.
Patty and I both nodded.
Sherri took Ben’s hand on top of the table and touched Screamer’s leg with the other.
Patty touched my leg and then took Screamer’s hand on top of the table.
Instantly there were four other people in my head.
I tried to only focus on my memory of that hot day in that graveyard of slot machines.
Patty and Screamer did the same and Sherri sent some waves of calming energy as we were again back in front of those monster machines ten years before.
Ben just felt like a shadow in the distance, watching.
The intense terror I felt overwhelmed me and I could feel Patty’s and Screamer’s fear as well.
We were standing right in front of the pulsating machines. I was touching Screamer and Patty was holding my hand.
I got the distinct smell of raspberry shampoo, but pushed that thought away and focused on what was about to happen.
Patty had slowed down time and then, slowly, in the chair in front of the right-side slot machine, a woman’s body started to materialize seated in the wooden chair.
Screamer reached out when she was complete and shoved her hard out of the way.
I focused on her mind, what was in it, and caught a lot about her and her new relationship with Johnny. More than I thought I could get, actually.
The next person, a woman, started to materialize and I remember thinking how close that was and how fast that was happening, even with Patty slowing time.
Scary fast, Patty thought at me. I had my eyes closed and hadn’t realized it was that close. No wonder you and Screamer have nightmares of people materializing together.
More than you want to know, Screamer thought at her.
As the woman finished materializing, Screamer pushed her hard out of the way and onto the mat beside the chair. She landed in slow motion on top of Geneva.
The woman’s mind seemed open to me. I scanned as much as I could in the fraction of a second Screamer was in contact with her. I could see in her memory that when she was taken by the slots, there was a 2004 Mercedes spinning slowly on some progressive slot machine display to her right. And she was thinking she would really love to win that new car.
Casinos didn’t give away old cars, so she was from that time, not today.
The next one out was Ben, the man Patty and I had seen taken from Binion’s.
We knew he was fine as well.
Back then we had taken two minutes rests between every group of three, but we didn’t need to do that in memory, so we jumped over the two minutes and went through the next three people out of the machine, then did that again with three more.
Then both Patty and Sherri broke their connection with Screamer as we planned.
“Wow, you three were terrified,” Sherri said. “I’m impressed you managed to save all those people under that kind of stress and fear. And working with untested superpowers as well. Amazing.”
“Thanks for keeping us calm this time through,” Screamer said and leaned over and kissed her. “That was a lot better than the first time we had to live that.”
I had to agree with him. Sherri was managing to keep the fear in all of us that we felt back then pushed back.
I turned to Ben. “Did you get it all?”
“Every detail,” he said. “We start from the first person.”
We all grabbed our papers and pens and Ben gave us the first person’s full name and when she was born and how she had gotten taken.
We all agreed on the first one, that what he said matched what we saw as well.
He went on to the second woman, then on to Ben, detailing all three out.
Then he went to the next three, and again all three were taken in 2004. That much was clear, without a doubt.
On each person who it was clear was from 2004, I drew a line through their name on my pad.
It wasn’t until we got to number eight out of the machine that we found our first person from this present time.
There was no doubt at all with him.
His name was Willie (William) Jamison. He had been taken as the last one from this time period. He had been twenty-one when taken.
“Oh, no,” Patty said as Ben described him.
“What? I asked.
“Remember his face,” Patty said. “Do you recognize it?”
“Oh, bloody hell,” Screamer said, shaking his head.
I could picture the guy’s face and it did look familiar, but darned if I could remember from where.
“He took on the name Ben Williams,” Patty said, “back in 2004.”
And then it flooded over me. Ben Williams had killed a middle-aged couple in a very brutal and angry fashion in what was called a home invasion
. He was found covered in the couple’s blood holding their twelve-year-old son. He was sentenced to life in prison and the press said he never showed remorse.
“He was an abused child,” Ben said softly. “When he found himself stuck in the past, he had to save his younger self from his own parents.”
“And that’s why we have alternate realities,” Lady Luck said, appearing in front of the booth. “Kronos didn’t notice that one forming because it made so little impact, since his parents did nothing and in the main timeline will die not many years from now anyway.”
“And the young Willie?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“He killed himself in foster care at the age of sixteen.”
“Keep up the good work,” she said, nodding to the silence in the room and then vanishing.
We had one.
We had gone through only nine of over a hundred.
This really was hell. We just had to make sure we didn’t miss anyone from this time so that we didn’t repeat this hell into eternity.
No pressure.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Swamp of People’s Lives
We made it through the next nine without finding anyone from our time. Of that I was 100 percent sure. With Patty slowing down even more the moment that Screamer had touched each person, we were all digging into each person’s life.
And there was a lot of it I flat didn’t want to dig into.
One was a child molester that when we went over it with our pens and paper, both Screamer and I made a note to look up to see if he was still alive.
Others had strange sexual habits that were not illegal, but made me look away. Others were buried in loneliness, others still were using gambling as a way to escape one ugly thing or another in their life. Of the nine, not a one of them was a happy person.
I’m not sure if that was a comment on slot players or just the luck of the draw.
As we finished with the third nine and came back to the present, Madge brought us all milkshakes and big baskets of hot fries. The vanilla milkshake tasted wonderful and the fries were perfect.
Smith's Monthly #16 Page 3