A Bleak Prospect

by Wayne Zurl

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. It’s nothing new, but still a pretty good machine.”

  “The whole shebang is password protected. I’d like to see her documents and emails and whatever.”

  “Understood. Can you fill me in on what you’d like to find?”

  I gave him a basic rundown on Rosanna’s murder, the Riverside Strangler’s history and how I’d love to find a name and address and photo ID for the client she met who might have killed her.

  “Hell,” he said, “that ain’t much.”

  “I love confidence.”

  “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Okay. You going out to your car to get a tool chest or something?”

  “Tool chest?” He started laughing and almost split a gut. “This is the only tool I need.”

  He came out of his jacket pocket with a ring of a dozen keys and a single portable flash drive.

  “Hmmm. I stand corrected. Take off your jacket. Make yourself comfortable. Want coffee?”

  “Is it fresh?”

  I frowned. “Of course.”

  “Okay. Light and sweet. Got any doughnuts?”

  “This is a police station. You think you’re dealing with amateurs?”

  “Not me, boss.” A little Willie Best crept into his voice. “Wouldn’t mind havin’ me a doughnut.”

  “You got it.”

  I stuck my head out of the office door. “John! Bring in today’s selection of pastries.”

  “Comin’ up, Boss.”

  I fixed a cup of coffee for Lonnie Ray, and John showed up carrying a box with three doughnuts left.

  Lonnie Ray looked at the proffered snacks. “Oh, man. Looks like Richie Creamie stuff. I love jelly doughnuts.”

  I didn’t get to watch Lonnie Ray crack the case of the troublesome password. My cyber investigator was only half way through his first doughnut when John Gallagher interrupted.

  “Hey, Boss, Lenny Alcock called in on the phone. Says a couple o’ kids flagged him down and showed him a body laying in one of the branches of the Little River—place they call Crooked Creek.”

  Chapter Five

  Lonnie Ray stopped hacking and looked up at me. “A body? I guess you’re taking off.”

  “Yeah. Keep working. If you need something or find anything, tell Sergeant Lambert. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

  “Okay. This girl was no Bill Gates, but she was clever. I’ll be a while before I get in here. But don’t worry. I’ll have something for you soon.”

  I let out a deep breath. “I’ll be back.”

  John and I found Lenny Alcock sitting in his police car on a gravel road not far from the Prospect Air Park. He led us down a short dirt path surrounded by woods, to the banks of Crooked Creek. The shallow water was flowing rapidly over a rocky creek bed. Within sight of the gravel, the body of a young man lay half in the rivulet, almost fifty yards downstream from a series of three-foot tall steps forming a cataract where the clear water fell off the rocks and created strips of white foam which disappeared within a dozen feet.

  “Lenny, have you looked around?”

  “Not much, boss. I didn’t want to contaminate the scene. But since the two kids who found the body walked in here, I figgered one more set of footprints wouldn’t matter none. Did find somethin’ interestin’ though. I’m guessin’ whoever dropped the body used a branch o’ leaves ta try’n cover their tracks.”

  “You find the branch?” John asked.

  “Yep. Jest off the path, ‘bout ten, twelve feet from where the dirt meets the gravel.”

  “Where are the kids now?” I asked.

  “One lives only a half mile away. I called his mother. She picked up the pair, and says she’ll keep ’em handy. Here’s their names and addresses.”

  He tore a page from his memo book and handed it to me.

  “John and I have waders in the car. We’ll look at the body. Use your phone to call for crime scene and the ME. Call direct and bypass the county duty officer. Let’s limit the need to know here. Stay off the radio as much as possible.”

  “Gotcha, boss.”

  I didn’t want anyone from the media, or the task force for that matter, interrupting our investigation. After we donned our fishermen’s disguises and entered the stream, John checked the man’s pockets. The corpse looked as if it might have been dropped twelve hours ago. It was still in rigor, and the lividity suggested that soon after death, it had been pulled down the path and turned face down into the water.

  “Still got his wallet, Boss.”

  “Check it later. Let’s flip him over.”

  John helped turn the body.

  “Holy shit, Boss. This one is shot.”

  A long gray unlined raincoat was unbuttoned and showed a white silky shirt. Three holes were scattered around the torso.

  “Lousy group,” I said. “Not much of a shooter.”

  John nodded. “Even I could do better than that.”

  “He looks pretty young.”

  “Yeah, and look at his haircut.”

  “Not exactly mainstream.”

  Both sides of the young man’s head were buzz cut—what we in the Army of the 1960s called whitewalls. But there was a pelt of long hair on top, and he wore a diamond-like stud in his right ear.

  “Doesn’t an earring on the right side mean he’s gay?” John asked.

  “Used to, but I’m not sure anymore. Lotsa guys wear earrings now.”

  “How about this weird haircut? What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m not going anywhere near his barber. You think gay men like this style?”

  “Beats me.”

  “We’ll find out.”

  John pushed up the sleeves of the raincoat to check his wrists. “Still got a watch and bracelet. How often do you find a stiff with all his property?”

  “Just a wild guess, but let’s rule out robbery.”

  “Funny, Boss.”

  “Yeah, I’m a barrel of monkeys.”

  Thirty-five minutes later, Morris Rappaport and Earl Ogle drove up in the morgue wagon. They made a few preliminary checks, and we adjourned to the shore to wait for a team of evidence technicians.

  “Looks like he was dragged on his back for a short distance on the dirt road and into the creek,” I said.

  “I’m guessing that the shot to his heart was the first,” Morris said. “The motor stopped, and not much blood pumped out. The other two shots bother me. I’ll have to check when I have him on the table, but I’ll bet they were made from different angles.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “Maybe more than one shooter. It would seem strange for one person to circle a dead body and shoot into it.”

  “Maybe more than one gun,” John added.

  We all nodded.

  “The holes are clean and look like about a third of an inch. What do you figure, .38 wadcutters?” I asked.

  “Good guess,” Mo said. “But wait until I retrieve them. There are no exit wounds.”

  “Considering John’s theory that this kid may be gay and considering the possible ammo used… Maybe target shooters? But why? A hate crime?”

  “The young man looks a little flamboyant. Are you thinking male prostitute?” Morris asked.

  “Possibly. And that might suggest the victim of choice for the Riverside Strangler. But he’s not strangled or stabbed. You’d think a serial killer would have the decency to keep his crimes in character.”

  “Did he have any ID on him?” Morris asked.

  “Had everything, Doc,” John said. “Driver’s license says he’s Toby Lee Bowman with an east Knoxville address.”

  “Nothing says a serial killer plays by a set of rules. Except for the method of death, everything else fits the pattern.”

  “No one said we were put on earth to handle simple murders,” I added.

  Three hours later, John and I walked back into Prospect PD with disgusted looks on our faces and wrinkled l
unch bags in our hands.

  We found Lonnie Ray sitting at Bettye’s desk working on her computer. She stood behind him, looking over his shoulder.

  “What did you find, gentlemen?” Bettye asked.

  “One rather dead young man,” I said. “And unless the Riverside Strangler has graduated to using a handgun, it may be a half-assed copycat.”

  “The kid is dressed up like he could be a hooker,” John said. “Might be a homosexual.”

  I felt a need to indoctrinate our new IT man. “Lonnie, you’re hearing a lot of cop talk that can’t leave this room. Agreed?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I learn more secrets about people by rummaging around in their hard drives. Keeping my mouth shut goes with the job.”

  “Was he strangled?” Bettye asked.

  “Doesn’t look like it, but Morris will check for internal damage. No visible knife wounds.”

  The thought of probing a corpse must not have appealed to Lonnie Ray who wrinkled up his nose and shook his head.

  “You look like you just stepped on a dead skunk, Lonnie. Want to tag along when we watch the autopsy?”

  “Me? Not on your life. I look into sick computers, not dead bodies.”

  “Just checking.”

  “You find any leads?” Bettye asked.

  “Not much. Jackie and David just got there and will probably be a few more hours. It looks like he might have been shot on the dirt path and dragged down to the water. Lenny thinks he found a branch used to cover up evidence on the dirt. That looks probable. The water’s too shallow to float a body. Like I said, the victim fits the profile of the others, but the method of killing doesn’t. Who knows?”

  “How’d he get there?” Bettye asked.

  “Beats me. No car around, if he used one.”

  “The kids who found the body didn’t see anything,” John said. “They just went down to the creek to screw around and found our DOA.”

  Changing the subject, Bettye said, “Well, we’ve been pretty lucky. Lonnie Ray broke into Rosanna Wakefield’s computer files. I’ll let him show you what he found. And when he finished that, he helped me with a few questions I had.”

  “Good,” I said. “When you bill us, forget to mention helping the sergeant. Our mayor gets all flustered when there’s a murder in his city and tends to spend more to help me clear the case.”

  “At $75.00 an hour, I’ll write it up anyway you want.”

  Lonnie Ray’s hourly wage threw John Gallagher for a loop.

  “Boss, you don’t even pay me seventy-five bucks a day. I should start up a computer business.”

  “You’re exaggerating, John. And maybe you should learn more about computers than just how to turn them on and Windex the monitor.”

  “Boss, that hurt. I do pretty good with a computer.”

  “Sure, John. You’re compatible with a computer because you both speak machine language instead of English.”

  “Two dispatchatory remarks in one day. If we had a union, I’d complain to my delegate.”

  Lonnie’s eyes darted back and forth between John and me, probably wondering if we were serious. Bettye just smiled.

  “Before you get involved with Rosanna’s laptop, Sammy, you might want to see the mayor. He called down wondering what the new murder is all about.”

  “It looks like you’ve got things to keep Lonnie busy. Should I eat first or see the mayor? If he aggravates me, I might lose my appetite.”

  “I doubt that would ever happen, darlin’. He sounded pretty anxious.”

  “Okay, but John’s idea of a union is sounding pretty good. If I miss my meal period, I’d have someone to complain to.”

  I left John with instructions to start his background investigation on Toby Bowman and for Bettye to check Charlie’s List for any advertisements that looked like something Toby could have posted. If anything linked Bowman and Rosanna to similar clients, it might be an obscure lead that we could back trace to people who answered their ads.

  I sat in one of the Mayor’s green leather, button-back guest chairs and brought him up to date on the Wakefield murder and what new information I had on the latest victim.

  “I hate to say this, Sam, but I really wish this Riverside Strangler would have stayed in the county’s patrol area.”

  “So do I, but…” There was no need for me to elaborate. “As soon as I put together a couple of case packages, I’ll give all our information to Ryan Leary for his task force.”

  “You gonna be working with this expert detective they hired?”

  “Schmecke?”

  He nodded and adjusted the knot of his two-tone purple silk tie that, along with a pearl gray suit, made him look like an overdressed televangelist.

  “I’d prefer not. I know something about him, and I’m not impressed.” I shrugged and pushed my hands out to my sides. “If he can use the information I provide the task force and come up with something useful—and he doesn’t try to steal the collar himself—I’ll deal with him and give due credit.”

  “Long as you keep an open mind.”

  I could have smacked him for that.

  “I’ve got our own expert downstairs right now. While Gallagher and I were out with the new victim, he cracked into the Wakefield girl’s computer. As soon as I get back downstairs, he’ll show me her business records, and we can begin the phone and field work.”

  He nodded again. “Then I won’t keep ya much longer. I jest want ta let ya know that the council finally voted ta fill that PO’s slot left vacant when Dallas Finchum passed away. They’d like ya to fill the vacancy by the next pay period. That way the new person could come on board and be ready for the next academy class they got scheduled for the end of Joo-lie.”

  “The next pay period?” I sounded shocked to myself. “That’s in what, two weeks?”

  “Twelve days, actually.”

  “How am I going to pick and process a new recruit in only twelve days?”

  I wished I had been carrying a mirror to check if steam was escaping from my ears.

  “Well, ya could hire someone contingent on them passin’ all the exams.”

  “Does that make any sense? The council dicks around for months and finally, when they collectively get their heads out of their asses, they want a competent new cop lickety-split. That’s asinine. Suppose we hire this individual and he or she fails the medical or psychological? Then we start from square one. These people aren’t legislators, they’re numbskulls.”

  “Sorry, Sam, but that works out best for us.”

  And they get to stick it to Sam as he has, in the past, stuck it to one or more of their political cronies. Sounded like bullshit to me. It was one of those times when I wanted to walk up behind Mayor Shields and mess up his lacquered hairdo.

  Chapter Six

  I stormed into the PD lobby wishing I held something I could have thrown.

  “You don’t look happy,” Bettye said. “Bad news?”

  “Not exactly bad, but monumentally stupid.”

  “Uh-oh, Boss,” John said. “What’s up?”

  “John, you’ll make out like a bandit over this one. Get ready for some serious OT. His Royal Highness, Prince Nitwit the First, told me the morons on the city council finally decided to free up the salary to hire a replacement PO.”

  “That sounds good,” Bettye said. “But that got you angry?”

  “You’re half right. It will be good to get another body on the road. The bad part is we have to hire this lucky person in only twelve days.”

  “That’s stupid, Boss,” John said. “How can we get the county to schedule the tests, give the candidates a fair warning and us time to complete the background?”

  “He wants the new person hired before they take the tests.”

  “Stupid,” John repeated.

  “At least he didn’t give me a name of some political hack’s kid who wants to be a cop or would be just as happy as a ticket taker at the Cineplex.”

  “Yet,” Bettye said.


  I wiggled my finger at her. “You have no reason to discourage me, young lady.”

  She fluttered her eyelashes. “Sorry, sugar. Jest rememberin’ past history.”

  “And don’t pull your Daisy Mae act on me at times of extreme stress.”

  Bettye smiled and made a production of wiping the smile away. The woman plays me like a hillbilly fiddle.

  “Do we have a list to work from, Boss?” John asked.

  “This is the Third World, John. There are no civil service lists.” To Bettye, I said, “Do we have any applications on file?”

  “I think three, but if I remember correctly, everyone is in the military.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying something,” Lonnie Ray interjected. “I got a young cousin who could use a job…If you don’t hold that stolen car arrest against him.”

  “You’re a big help,” I said.

  “I just figured since I’m on the clock, I’d offer a suggestion.”

  I looked at the ceiling. “I do not want to live any longer. I want to go to sleep and never wake up.”

  “Oh, Sammy darlin’, go eat your lunch, and you’ll feel better. I’ll pull out the police candidate file and see who we’ve got.”

  “I plan on washing down my sandwich with a bottle of single-malt. Maybe when I wake up, all this will be a lousy dream.”

  “You drink single-malt with your lunch?” Lonnie Ray asked.

  I sighed. “Let’s take a look at the laptop. I want to see what my seventy-five an hour bought me.”

  He and I adjourned to my office.

  “I hope you don’t mind if I eat while you explain,” I said.

  “Won’t bother me.”

  I took the side chair next to my desk, and he parked it in my big swivel, behind the laptop. I unwrapped the turkey, bacon and Swiss hero I purchased when John and I stopped at Quizno’s.

  “Have you eaten?” I asked.

  “The three doughnuts and half-gallon of coffee should hold me for a while. You really having a glass of single-malt?”

  I looked over the top of my sandwich. “Some other time maybe.”

  “Uh-huh.”