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"Must've been killed somewhere else and then dumped here."
"Yeah." Just like last night.
Amburgy munched a BLT and chugged coffee right out of the thermos. "I didn't have too close a look, didn't want to risk messin' up the crime scene." Amburgy pronounced crime as cram. "Peerce told me to radio the state and wait for 'em. Pretty pissant job of body-dumpin' though. Just dumped her flat out in the middle of the field."
Yeah. Just like...
Cummings carefully hunkered down, aimed his flash beam right on top of the decedent's head, which was a mess of caked blood. With a pencil end, he pushed aside some of the clotted tresses, to reveal the insult.
"Yeah, someone cracked her good in the head." Amburgy postulated.
"Not cracked. Drilled."
"Huh?"
Cummings let it pass. A perfect circle had been cut out of the top of her skull, exposing the keenly slit brain. More macabre words came back to haunt Cummings... a peculiar aspiration of human seminal fluid.
And, again. Peerce. A fuckin' header...
"You check the perimeter for tire tracks?"
"Naw, not much. Dirt trail right there at the treeline. Must've been where he drove in. But the trail's dry."
Cummings cast his light. No. there'd be no impressions left there. He'd leave it for the state to look at. At least the semen in the head could be typed, for all the good that would do, and they could run a g/p scan too, and their toolmarks lab could try to make the brand of the hole-saw, but Cummings doubted that the state police criminal evidence section would bother. This was just a cracker murder to them, a fly-by-night.
"What the hell is that?" Cummings asked when he stood up and roved his Streamlight again. A yard off from the victim's feet something glistened.
"Looks like..." Amburgy leaned, his checks stuffed as he chewed his sandwich. His nose twitched. "Looks like a pile'a dogshit or maybe a horse-flop. Looks like it's been—"
Cummings nodded. There, satcheled amid weeds, clearly lay a deposit of some kind of animal excrement, and said deposit just as clearly had been—
"Damn right, Chad." Cummings observed. His Streamlight glared down. "And it's been stepped in."
........
Peerce glanced up, glanced at his watch, then glanced up again from behind his desk at the FO. As discreetly as possible, which wasn't very discreet at all, he slipped this month's issue of Babes With Big Boobs under his desk blotter.
"Ain't like you ta be three hours late ta work. Stew."
"Didn't you look on the op log?" Cummings sniped back. "I was 10-6 to Millersville."
"State Sub HQ? What'cha doin there all morning?'
Some Special Agent in Charge. Cummings complained. Doesn't even read his own operating report. "It's right there in the log, J.L. I was 10-6 to Millersville, on an evidence check. That 64 Amburgy stumbled on last night? Identical m.ο. to the Reid girl the night before. Only this time the perp left a footprint."
"Oh yeah?" Peerce replied without much interest.
"Stepped in a pile of dogshit, left a perfect impression of the bottom of his right boot."
"Some hayseed steps in dogshit and you take it to state police CES?"
"I photographed it. Showed it to their tech and got a pattern layout. Was hoping they'd be able to match the pattern to a manufacturer's solescheme in their computer."
"What the hell fer?" Peerce asked, more absurdly now.
Cummings rolled his eyes. "Finding out the manufacturer of the boots would give us a list of local outlets. Might be able to narrow down the stores in the area, check invoices, get a clerk who remembers, that sort of thing. If we have a list of the stores that sell the boots, we have a list of areas the perp might live in."
"Wastin' yer time, Stew."
"Oh? They'd already run an electrophoresis test on the semen in both heads," Cummings challenged. "The perp's bloodtype is A pos, subtype Mn. But there's A pos and Β pos in the second head, the one from last night. What's that tell you?"
"Nothin' of importance." Peerce was barely listening now. He even retrieved his copy of Babes With Big Boobs. "You tell me. city boy."
"It tells us that two guys ejaculated in the second head." Cummings caught himself there, realizing exactly what he'd just said. Ejaculated in the second head. I've got two perps out there, somewhere who've cut holes in the skulls of two women, and then they...
He didn't finish the thought.
"It ain't squat. Stew," Peerce insisted. "What good's knowing the perp's bloodtype?"
"I can run a records sweep now, check out any A pos Mn ex-cons or psych-ward releases in the area. It's something."
"It's squat, Stew. Yer pissin' in the wind. And what about the footprint?"
"The state evidence tech ran a digitalization of the print pattern in their comparison computer. They've got every tread scheme of every shoe or boot ever made in the country. She knew it was a boot due to the sole-depth. But there was no match."
"See? Squat."
"Which tells me that the boot was handmade, which'll be even easier to check out. Get a line on any local shoemakers, and I got a line on the killer"
Peerce looked up again, trying now to play Boss Man. "Ain't you got more important things ta do? Like stake out McKully's land fer more stills? That's yer job, ya know, not playin' Dick Fuckin' Tracy on a coupl'a no- account cracker murders."
"I'm a fuckin' cop." Cummings profaned in reply. "My job is to investigate criminal activity."
"Yer job. Stew, is ta bust stills—"
"And that leads me to my next question." Cummings sat down, took a breath. Peerce, low IQ notwithstanding, was his superior. He couldn't get too shitty.
"You're not leveling with me. J.L" he said.
"How's that?" Peerce asked without looking up from the tit mag.
Cummings caught a glimpse of the mag. A blonde was spraying milk into a redhead's wide-open mouth. He blinked away the image, cleared his throat. "What's a 'header'?"
Peerce slapped the mag closed again. "Aw. shit, man! Just leave it, will ya!"
"No. I want to know. That's what you said under your breath after the state sent the fax on the Reid girl. A 'header,' you called it. What the hell's going on?"
Peerce spat tobacco juice into his obligatory cup. then pinched the bridge of his nose as if attempting to tamp a migraine. "Cain't you just leave shit be?"
"No. What's a header?"
Peerce opened his hands on the desk, leaned back, sighed. "It's just somethin' that goes on, is all. somethin' folks don't talk much about. It's nothin'."
Cummings looked aghast. "J.L., we've got at least two men in our juris who are cutting women's heads open with a hole-saw and fucking their brains. That's nothing?"
Peerce faltered further, grimacing like stomach gas. "If you was from around these parts, you'd know what I meant. It's feuds, boy."
"Feuds?"
"Yeah. Feuds." Peerce spat out his lump and loaded up another chaw of Red Man. "You wants ta know, city boy. then I'll'se tell ya. Cultures're different, see? Everwhere ya go. The Serbs hate the Bosnerians, the Jews hate the Ay-rabs, the Japs hate us."
Cummings' frown blistered on his face. "What's that got—"
"And 'round here." Peerce drawled on. "everbody hates ever-one else, fer all kinds'a reasons, from way on back. Don't matter why, just is."
"All right." Cummings gave him. "Feuds. Fine. The Hatfields and the McCoys."
"Right, Stew, only in these parts it's the Crolls and the Walters, the Lees and the Ketchums, the Kleggs and the McCroncs, like that. It's unervensal, Stew, just different in different places. Someone shits on ya. ya shit back twice as hard, see? Gets ta the point when ya cain't one-up each other. Understand?"
"No," Cummings responded. "Answer the question. What's a header?"
Another spit, another sigh, then Peerce came clean. "A header's the worst thing these rubes out here could think of. It's like the law of the hill
s. Someone does ya wrong bad enough, then yer justified ta do the worse thing imaginable fer yer revenge. That's what a header is. Folks don't talk about it much, it's just somethin' that's understood. Yer gettin' all whipped up 'bout somethin' that's been going on fer generations."
Cummings closed his eyes, took a deep breath himself now. "J.L.. you're telling me that that's what this is all about? Hill people feuding? Cutting holes in women's heads and—"
"That's right, boy, so don't'cha gripe 'cos you was the one who asked. It's one-uppin', like I said. Someone slashes yer tires, you burn down his barn, then he rapes yer sister, and you kill his son. When there ain't nothin' left ta out-do the other... ya have a header, ya throw a head-humpin'. Ya snatch the other guy's wife 'er daughter, get the boys together, an' then ya hump 'er head. Like that. I growed up in these parts, so I oughta know. 'Round here, there ain't nothin' worse ya can do ta someone than pull a header on one of his kin."
Cummings stared. His mouth attempted to form words but failed "That, Stew," Peerce finally verified, "is what a header is. 'Round here, folks take care of their own, so that's why there ain't no need fer you ta be blowin' tax dollars at state CES tryin' ta run down bloodtypes an' fuckin" bootprints. Just a bit un-yoo-sheral that the perp'd leave the bodies where anyone could see 'em. Yoo-sherally they'll leave 'em on the properly of the fucker that done 'em wrong in the first place."
But Cummings was still staring. Was this madness or what? Headers, he thought baldly. Head-humping. My... God...
........
And head-humping it would be.
Over the next seven weeks, no less than a dozen more 64s were reported, same m.o., same autopsy findings. Some of the victims were identified, some were not. It didn't matter. But what did matter was that on all occasions, the brains of the corpus delecti were found to contain liberal amounts of A Positive and Β Positive semen, and on two more such occasions. bootprints were found with an identical tread-pattern.
Ever the dutiful law-enforcement officer, Cummings pursued the crimes.
He also pursued the ill-gotten gains of driving point for Dutch the Drug Dealer.
This divide in Cummings' sense of human purpose didn't obscure him. The continuous head-humping murders amounted to something whose evil he could scarcely comprehend, and he fell it was his professional obligation to stay on the case. And as far as Dutch went. well... that was different. Once a week. Spaz beeped him on his Motorola pager, and Cummings was there. He had a sick wife to think of, after all, and the drugs—namely PCP, marijuana, and cocaine, mostly cocaine—would be sold and distributed anyway. BATF Special Agent Stewart Cummings could not possibly hope to stem the flow of illegal drugs.
But he could solve the head-humping murders, couldn't he? It was his duty.
He'd put in for countless evidence scans and records checks with the state police. He knew it would take time, but Stewart Cummings was a patient man, and, they said, patience was a virtue. So, he'd wait. And in the meantime, he'd drive his unmarked federal police car, with Spaz as his guide, to various "points." his trunk loaded with controlled, dangerous substances, mainly of the white powder variety. He'd unload his shit, in other words, and take his grease, to keep afloat in a rocky world and provide his wife the necessary monies for her innumerable medications. And on the side, he would vigorously investigate what he now thought of as The Russell County Head-Humping Murders.
Slow but sure, leads were made, but a bit more quickly, Kath's maladies worsened. She couldn't even attempt to get out of bed before noon, whereupon she'll drive to the doctor's, then drive to the local pharmacist's, procure her meds, and just get sicker and sicker. Acute Temporal Pneumonia, the doctor's diagnosis continued to affirm, with symptoms of related seasonal affect disorder and acute hypoglycemia. Kath's love for Cummings, though, never waned. He could see it in her eyes, he could sense it in her aura, and Cummings knew that one day soon, she would be better and their lives together would resume as they'd dreamed. They dreamed the same dreams most couples did. These, after all, were Cummings' promises to her. A crew of children, a white picket fence and a two-car garage, a collie in the yard. He would give her all of these things, once she was recovered.
And until then—
I'm doing okay, he realized. I'm covered.
Though Kath's doctor and pharmaceutical bills went up, so did Cummings' pad. Soon he was pulling $1500 a month for driving Dutch's points, not to mention the continued peanuts for covering the transport routes for Spaz's hooch supplier. Cummings was paying for all of Kath's meds, plus the everyday bills, plus putting a little away into savings. And there was one thing he avowed to himself.
When Kath gets better, I stop.
Cummings actually believed this, and maybe it was even true. But he remembered his priorities, as well as his golden rule: Cops On The Take- Always Get Caught. Which was why, as he'd previously planned, he would seize any "special" opportunity, and maybe have the chance to put enough in CDs to cover Kath's medical expenses just in interest. Then he'd be clean and wouldn't have to worry. And there was another thing: whenever he and Spaz delivered product to a point, they carried back a bag full of cash. Ten thousand, fifteen, one time thirty-five. Cummings wasn't stupid. Eventually, he knew, he'd sufficiently gain enough of Dutch's trust to drop point on a really big score. Then—
I'm made in the fuckin' shade, brother...
But the headers carried on. A dozen became two dozen, then three. They were finding the bodies on the shoulder of Route 154. for God's sake, and in culverts and ravines, in wide open fields, all over the place. Same m.o. each time. Same perps.
Cummings' judicial curiosity smoldered. This was his sideline, all right. He was going to solve the head-humping murders if it took everything he had.
And then, one day, he got a break...
........
"Hump that head, boy. Hump it!"
Travis pumped away, this time on Betty Sue Morgan, whose pappy had once sniped sheep from Travis' own Dad. She was sweet an' young, with flowin' clean red hair and a nice set of milkers on her. Purdy cooze too, but Travis, by now, weren't interested much in cooze. Best pussy in the land weren't nearly as good as a nice hot brain.
"Aw, shee-it. Grandpap!" Travis postulated. "My bone's so hard it feels like it's gonna bust!”
"Then let it bust, son! Bust a nut right'n'side 'er head!"
And this Travis did, almost as if on command, squirtin' a good-sized pecker-loogie right inta the soft pulp'a Betty Sue Morgan's warm gray matter. It was a fine nut, it was, an' a generous one. 'Fact, Travis' jizz felt like a coupla big worms beltin' out his peckerhole.
"Your turn, Grandpap." he said, and, as were the case ever-time now, he picked his grandpappy up under the arms and held him up. Grandpap humped away, he did, railin' an' rejoicin' as his bone were shuckin' hilt-deep in an' outa Betty's purdy head. And when Grandpap gave her his squirt, he cried, as he yoo-sherally did now, heaped with gratitude fer what his one an' only grandson were doin' fer him. Helpin' ta retrieve his younger days, he were. And what greater gift could a grandson give his grandpappy, huh?
An' once that final load'a dickjuice were fired straight up inta Betty Sue's head. Travis, sated as a tom cat after etin' a mouse, hauled her purdy dead ass out the truck, and droved oft' ta dump her. A'corse, purdy as she were, Travis' bone was hard agin 'fore he ever made it out ta the Route, so's he hadda pull over, an' thought he'd give her poon a last shot'a the salt fer good measure. Humped her dead pussy hard, he did, and fer a long time, but it were nothin', so's then he took a good hock 'tween her buttcheeks and humped her cornhole—but still... nothin‘. Just weren't nearly as good, 'n fact, as humpin' her head, no sir. So' that's what Travis did next, lay her flat out on the hood'a the truck, an' stuck his root right back inner head. Humped her so hard, 'n fact, there's was milk spurtin' out her big creamy tits, on account of she just dropped a li'l white trash crumb-snatcher a few months back, he'd heard, and once Travis were done pourin' his
last nut inta her head, he'd worked up quite a thirst, he did, so's he shook the last drops outa his cock, then he leant over and took a good long suck off those great rib melons'a hers, and had hisself a fine drink'a milk. Tasted kinda sweet and still warm, it did, and it were probably a full quart he sucked out of 'em by the time he were done. Her tits looked smaller, comes ta think of it. once he were through, 'bout plain-ass sucked 'em dry. Then he dumped her dead ass off by a big pin oak tree offa Tick Neck Road.