by D P Lyle
We climbed the stairs, and T-Tommy rapped his knuckles on the door. I heard voices and movement inside, and when the door swung open, the unmistakable odor of marijuana flowed out. From Scotty’s earlier description, I immediately recognized the hulk in the doorway as Billy Holcomb. Big, burly, barefoot, ragged jeans, and a cap, turned backward. His bare chest and abdomen rippled with muscles, tattoos, and thick black stubble that I recognized as regrowth from a not-so-recent body shave. Behind him stood a smaller man who looked a great deal like Skip Allison. Didn’t take Billy long to find a new friend.
“What the fuck do you want?” Billy glared at T-Tommy.
“HPD,” T-Tommy said.
“I know who you are. I remember the last time you came around, giving me shit. What do you want?”
“Just need to take a quick look around,” I said. “Only need a couple of minutes.”
He gave me a passing glance and then looked back to T-Tommy. “I’m tired of this shit. When are you assholes going to get out of my life?”
“Don’t mean to bother you, Billy,” T-Tommy said. “Mr. Walker just needs a peek at the crime scene.”
“It’s not a crime scene. It’s my apartment.” Billy rotated his neck. “I know my rights. I don’t have to let you do jack shit.”
T-Tommy smiled and shoved his hands in his pockets. I suspected it was to keep from busting Billy in the face. He never took the word no well. T-Tommy might look soft to those who didn’t know him. He carried an extra two dozen pounds, much of it lapping over his belt, but beneath the pasta he loved so much lay the same thick muscles that made him an all-state linebacker. Who pancaked blockers and smacked down running backs on a regular basis. That would’ve gotten him a full ride to play for the Crimson Tide had it not been for a knee injury in the final quarter of his final game at Huntsville High School. Any guy who ever played the game knows that football breeds a level of toughness that doesn’t fade. Not ever. T-Tommy was living proof.
When he was a street cop, before getting his homicide investigator shield, he had the reputation of being the first through the door. Usually taking the door, the lock, the door frame, whatever blocked his way with him. Every cop in the department asked for T-Tommy when a drug bust, or any other hard takedown, was needed.
Yet, he was one of the kindest and gentlest men I ever knew. Shirt-off-his-back sort of guy. Until some jerk … like Billy … tried to jump in his chili. Then, more often than not, it got real ugly, real quick.
“That’s right,” T-Tommy said. “You don’t have to do nothing. That’s your constitutional right. ‘Course, I got the constitutional right to get a warrant. Take about a New York minute. Then we can toss this place to hell and back. Maybe drag the narcotics guys over for a look-see. I assume you have a prescription for the herb I smell? Glaucoma, is it?”
“Just fucking great. The goddamn AC’s broken. We’re dying in here, and you assholes come along and fuck with me.”
The heat of July frays folks’ nerves. Makes them a shade less hospitable. Especially someone like Billy, who probably wasn’t very hospitable on a good day. And who just might have a wad of steroids and growth hormone running through his system, sparking his wiring.
“Give us ten minutes,” I said. “Then we’ll be on our way.”
“Who are you?”
T-Tommy took that one. “He’s a crime scene expert. Helping us find whoever killed Skip. You do want us to find him, don’t you?”
“A little late for that, isn’t it? Skip’s gone.”
I saw T-Tommy glance toward the smaller man, who looked past Billy at us. “I know this is a tough time for you, Billy. I can tell you’re all broke up. Just let us do our job.”
Billy hesitated for a minute and then stepped aside. “Don’t look like I got much choice.”
When I entered the living room, the marijuana aroma mixed with several others: fresh paint, new carpeting, and a chlorine cleaner of some type. The place had been overhauled. I walked to the bedroom. It was nothing like the photos I had seen. The bed was new, the carpet fresh, and the walls now a spotless gray. Still, a faint odor of blood and death bubbled its way up. Probably my imagination.
I tried to mentally overlay the room before me with the photographic images that hung on the task force room walls. Skip Allison’s body floating on a bloodstained bed, impact spatters on the wall, a void pattern to the right side. No cast-off stains on the ceiling. Rolling pins didn’t throw around as much blood as baseball bats.
I moved through the apartment and examined each room. Billy’s friend had camped out on the living room sofa, but Billy shadowed my moves. Not so much to keep an eye on me, but rather he seemed to be curious about what I was doing.
Back in the bedroom, I leaned against the doorjamb and, as at Petersen’s, attempted to visualize the killer’s movements. The unlocked front door offered easy entry. Allison asleep and unaware. Here the killer wasted no time. Simply leveled the gun near Allison’s temple and squeezed the trigger. The blood spatter pattern showed that Allison’s head was still on his pillow when he was shot. Meant the killer didn’t want to give Allison a chance to fight for his life. Meant he had planned to use the gun from jump street, not a spur-of-the-moment decision. Made sense after the fiasco at Petersen’s.
The three crime scenes didn’t make sense. They wormed around in my gut. A feeling I often got when the facts didn’t mesh. The usual pigeonholes didn’t fit this killer. His approach and entry were carefully planned. Maybe even rehearsed. He didn’t simply walk in and start wailing as a psychotic, disorganized killer would. Yet, the brutality of the beatings suggested just that. The work of someone totally out of control. I couldn’t get my mind around these two profiles. Not yet, anyway.
Did the killer only plan the actual murders and not what came after? Did the dead bodies before him ignite some suppressed rage and compel him to batter the corpses? A hundred or more blows to Skip Allison. Who knows how many to Mike? Did that quench his rage or simply push his madness into some dark corner where it coiled and waited? Sure looked that way. How much control did he have over his demons?
I thanked Billy. Got a grunt in return. T-Tommy and I left.
CHAPTER 10
MONDAY 12:01 P.M.
FURY. ANGER. RAGE. THE NEED TO STRIKE OUT. TO HURT. TO harm. To kill.
Brian knew he had to get away from Wanda, from the morons who sat around him, buzzing away into their headsets like a swarm of irritating insects. He stood at his desk, fists clenched, jaws crushing his teeth until they ached. The sudden heat of the room thickened the air. A trickle of sweat slipped down his cheek. Over the top of his cubicle wall, he saw several of his coworkers staring at him.
What the fuck are you looking at?
He gripped the back of his chair, knuckles white. He wanted to hurl it at … what was her name? The one next to him. The big girl with wide eyes, circled by iridescent blue eye shadow. With nauseating red-orange hair, razor cut on one side, piled in unruly curls on the top of her head. With that ridiculous string of multicolored, marble-sized beads that dangled behind her left ear. Glenda something. Riordan found its way through the static in his head. That was it … Glenda Riordan. She looked like an obese cockatoo. A terrified obese cockatoo. He could almost taste her fear. He wondered what she would look like if he …
Get out. Get out, now.
He slung his backpack over his shoulder and stormed out the door. Shielding the sun’s harsh glare from his eyes, he climbed down the three wooden steps and walked along the walkway that led to the parking area. Two Mexican gardeners worked among a blanket of flowers to his right. One of them gave him a quick nod and then returned to pulling weeds. As Brian reached the asphalt lot, a man stepped from behind the gardener’s truck. Pockmarks cratered his face, and his teeth, one upper missing, were deeply yellowed.
“Hey, buddy.” His voice was raspy and diseased. He extended a dirt-stained hand toward Brian. “How about a dollar for some food?”
Brian was i
n no mood for street trash. “Why don’t you get a job, asshole?” He brushed past the bum.
“Fuck you.”
Brian whirled toward the man and through clenched teeth said, “Get out of here before something bad happens.”
“Give me your wallet.”
The knife appeared from nowhere. The blade lashed across Brian’s forearm. Blood raced down his arm and drizzled onto the hot asphalt.
The angry white heat inside erupted. Brian screamed and swung his backpack in a wide arc, catching the man on the shoulder. He staggered. The knife flew from his hand and clattered across the lot.
A second swing struck the side of the man’s head. He wavered, but managed to stay upright. Brian’s fist put him down. Hard. The man’s head cracked against the pavement.
Brian leapt on the stunned vagrant. Right, left, right again. Rage drove his fists into the face of the now-unconscious man. Blood flowed from his mouth and misshapen nose. The gardeners grabbed Brian’s arms and pulled him away, but he muscled from their grasp. He snatched a hoe from the back of their truck.
Two women exited Noreen’s Flowers and screamed a duet. Brian’s head snapped in their direction. One of the women dropped a large floral arrangement. It tumbled down the stairs, spewing flowers. “Call the police,” the other yelled. Both retreated into the flower shop.
Brian returned his attention to the object of his anger. He slammed the hoe handle across the man’s chest and face. Two more gardeners appeared, and the four men wrestled Brian to the ground.
“Get off me,” he screamed.
“Senor. Por favor, no se mueva. Don’t move,” one of the gardeners said.
“Let me go.” He strained against them, but couldn’t get free. “Okay. Okay. I won’t hurt him anymore.”
Still they held him.
“Look. I’m bleeding. Let me go.”
“Okay, señor,” one of the gardeners replied. “We let you go. No more fight. Okay? No more fight?”
“I promise.”
They loosened their grip. Brian rose to his feet. One of the gardeners handed him a dirty rag. He pressed it to his arm to stanch the blood flow.
A police car, tires squealing and lights flashing, sped into the parking lot and slid to a stop near them. Two deputies jumped from the car, batons in hand.
“What’s going on here?” the older of the two asked. He was tall, muscular, and possessed a don’t-fuck-with-me demeanor. His dark eyes and hair and bronze skin bespoke his Hispanic heritage.
“That son of a bitch attacked me.” Brian removed the dirty, blood-soaked rag, revealing the bleeding wound. “Tried to rob me.”
The officer knelt beside the unconscious man, felt his neck, and then placed his hand on the man’s chest. “He’s alive. Jesus, what a mess. Hal, get the paramedics rolling.” Still squatting, he twisted to face Brian. “What the hell did you do to him?”
“I told you. He came at me with that knife.” He pointed to the weapon, lying several feet away. “I defended myself.”
“With what? A truck?” The officer stood. “I’m Deputy Paul Rodriguez. That’s Deputy Hal Oakley. What’s your name?”
“Brian Kurtz. I work here.” He nodded toward Gulf Coast’s door.
“What exactly happened?” Rodriguez asked.
“This guy came at me with a knife. Demanded my wallet. I refused. He cut me.”
“Hal, toss me the first-aid kit.”
In the distance, an ambulance siren grew louder.
“I can’t do much for this guy,” Rodriguez said. “He needs to get to a hospital. Let me look at your arm.”
Brian held out his arm while Rodriguez placed several gauze squares on the wound, securing them with two strips of tape. “That should hold until we get you to the hospital.” He led Brian to the patrol car and seated him in the backseat. “You sure did a number on that guy.”
“I thought he was going to kill me. That’s the biggest knife I’ve ever seen.”
“Did you know him?”
“Never seen him before.”
“You wait here while I talk with these guys.” He closed the car door and approached the gardeners, speaking in Spanish.
Brian felt his anger ease to a low simmer. An ambulance sped into the lot and disgorged two paramedics. They knelt by the mugger. From the backseat, Brian watched the entire show unfold before him: the medics dealing with the mugger, Rodriguez and Oakley talking with the gardeners.
Twenty minutes later the medics had finished placing an oxygen mask, an IV, and a neck collar on the vagrant, and chatted back and forth with the hospital on the radio, telling them their ETA was ten minutes. They strapped the mugger to a stretcher and loaded him into the ambulance. One medic jumped into the back and closed the rear doors behind him. The other climbed into the cab, and they sped away, siren blaring.
When Rodriguez finished with the gardeners, he used a pen to push the knife into a plastic evidence bag. He sealed it and handed it to his partner. He then walked down to the flower shop and spoke with the two women. Brian couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the women were wide-eyed and animated, speaking rapidly with waving arms. He smiled. How pathetic. They would talk of this day for years to come with their perfect little families and at their mundane dinner parties. They would never return here without a feeling of dread and would look carefully around the parking lot before leaving their cars.
Finally, the two deputies returned to the car, Oakley driving, Rodriguez riding shotgun. They sped out of the lot.
Rodriguez flipped on his handheld radio. “This is Rodriguez, unit 671. En route to Memorial Medical Center with one male suspect for medical treatment.”
“Roger. Do you need backup?”
“That’s a negative.” He clicked off the radio.
“Suspect?” Brian said. “I’m not a suspect. I’m the victim.”
“The other guy looked like the victim,” Oakley said over his shoulder.
“He started it. I was minding my own business, and he tried to rob me.”
“Relax,” Rodriguez said. “The witnesses tell the story just like you said. They saw the whole thing.”
Rodriguez picked up the plastic bag and inspected the knife inside. Brian could see that frayed black electrical tape secured a cracked wooden handle. Its rusted six-inch blade possessed a finely honed edge and remnants of blood. His blood.
“Looks like that thing’s got a few miles on it,” Oakley said.
Rodriguez dropped the bag in the car seat and twisted to face Brian. “This guy fits the description of a suspect we’ve been looking for in several similar robberies. Same MO. Same general description. We have prints from a couple of the other scenes, so we’ll know if this is the guy.” His dark eyes locked on Brian. “What I can’t figure is, why did you beat him like that?”
That was nothing. He deserved worse and would have gotten it if those Mexican fucks hadn’t been there. I should have killed the son of a bitch. “I was scared,” Brian said. “I was afraid he’d get up and attack me again. I guess that made me sort of … overreact.”
“That’s an understatement. The gardeners said they were afraid of you. Took the four of them to pull you off, and you fought them all the way.”
Brian knew they had been afraid. He saw it in their eyes. “I don’t remember,” he said quietly. “It all happened so fast. All I remember is the knife and fighting him off with whatever I could get my hands on.”
CHAPTER 11
MONDAY 12:21 P.M.
AFTER LEAVING BILLY HOLCOMB TO HIS NEW BOY TOY, T-TOMMY and I swung by Mullins Restaurant. The lot was full, as usual, but we got lucky and found a slot right beneath the restaurant’s bright blue and yellow checkerboard sign. We snagged one of the yellow Formica-topped tables along the far wall. Beneath a collection of photos of old Huntsville.
T-Tommy slid a menu from between the napkin holder and the glass sugar canister that sat in the middle of the table. I don’t know why. He knew what he would order. I knew, too.
Best burgers in town. I had a cheeseburger, T-Tommy two—with fries and a chocolate shake. I splashed mine with a generous dose of Tabasco from the bottle I always carried in my jacket pocket. I waved it toward T-Tommy, knowing he’d decline. Always did. And he responded as always: a raised eyebrow, a grunt, and “It’s your chitlins.”
Tabasco. The juice of life. Constant. Reliable. The McIlhenny clan. Avery Island, Louisiana. Peppers, salt, and vinegar. That’s it.
Aged three years in oak barrels. Same way it’s been done since old man Edmund McIlhenny cooked up his first batch in 1869. Made ordinary food good, good food great, and a Mullins’s burger a thing of beauty.
After we ate we paid the bill and headed over to see Dr. Lou Drummond.
The Alabama Department of Forensic Science sat just north of town on Arcadia Circle. It shared a long, low tan brick and concrete building with the Department of Public Safety and the Sheriff’s Investigative and Patrol Offices. I had worked there for nearly six years as a lab tech. After I ditched med school. After I almost ditched everything. After Claire pulled me out of my funk and we played out our thing. After a two-year stint as an MP with the US Marines. Long story.
While there, my interests gravitated toward blood spatter and trace evidence analysis. I got pretty good at it, too. Lou Drummond, my boss and mentor, saw that I had a knack for reading evidence and for reconstructing crimes both physically and psychologically. Not sure where that gift came from. Most likely the big dose of common sense I got from my dad. Lou encouraged me to expand my horizons and helped me gain a position in Quantico with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.
After that, I consulted on difficult crimes around the country, wrote a few books—the best way to become an expert in the public’s eye—and lectured frequently. From time to time I even returned to Quantico to teach a class or two. I had also consulted on several local cases, the most famous being the charming Billy Wayne Packwood.
We found Lou in his office, phone to his ear. He wore his usual gray surgical scrubs and white lab coat. A thin, ferretlike man, with sparse hair and thick, wild eyebrows, Lou had been a medical examiner for Madison County more years than anyone could remember. A workaholic, he never seemed to go home. A fidgeter. Always on the move. Like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. When he spoke, his arms conducted an invisible orchestra. I had once said that the only way to keep Lou quiet was to handcuff him. Even when sitting, one leg or the other was in motion, as if he would get up and sprint out of the room at any moment. But his blue eyes never wavered. When his gaze grabbed you, it held fast. As if he were dissecting your every word.