Buck Vs. the Bulldog Ants

by David Kersey

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

  Charlie Cramer was done with. Back to Greg Minnick for the time being. He needed serenity and sanity after he had bungled such an easy job. It confused him since his entire life had been so meticulous that he was constantly teased for it, even in grade school, but especially by his mother. She was an evil woman, always taking an opportunity to embarrass him publicly. Like his stamp collection for instance. Neatly done in exact order, precise, worthy of adult praise. He didn’t receive the slightest adulation from her, only ridicule for not being an “outside” boy. Nag, nag, nag, she could nag until wallpaper let loose from the wall. There were too many episodes of her bringing him shame, hundreds of them, so eventually he had reached a breaking point. That’s why he killed her and chopped her up into as many pieces as he had stamps. And the reason he eventually enlisted in the Army to avoid the suspicious looks from relatives and the one friend he once had. He had never had a girlfriend. Girls only had to know him for an hour before they didn’t like him. Guys took a little longer. Didn’t matter.

  He may have left evidence at the scene and in his car. Stupid, so unlike him. He had rushed the Crawford job. There was no need for haste but it seemed right at the time. He stretched out his map on the wooden table of a roadside hole in the wall named the Pink Pig, which rustic establishment filled his belly with the best pork barbeque he had ever eaten. The closest target from here was a woman in Sweetwater, Tennessee, but he thought better about that, too much of a straight line continuity on a south to north pattern, which was not in concert with the randomness he wanted. After Florida he wanted to crisscross back and forth, back and forth, but not more than one Z pattern at a time.

  “More coffee, mister?”

  “Please, that would be nice.”

  “Hand me your cup, honey, don’t want to drip on your mayap. Looks liken you be a travellin’ mayan.”

  My God, what an accent! “Yes, it’s my first time on the planet Earth.”

  “I see. Weyell you surely got some kinfolk lives up this away. Have a niyess day.”

  The movie Deliverance entered his mind. He folded up his mayap and leyeft after leaving her ten bucks for speech therapy.

  “Prednisone is used for many different ailments, and is so widely used, we’re not going to get much from it,” said Sheriff Marion Sims, St. Johns County, Florida to his day force. And we are not sure who it belongs to but we do know it didn’t belong to the victim or store owner. The store was only open for an hour when the homicide occurred, which probably happened just after we received the alarm signal. There were no sales tickets punched in that hour, and the pill was not there at the store close on Saturday according to the store owner who was the last one out. There is a good chance the pill belonged to the perpetrator. We couldn’t get a print from the pill, so it’s not much use to us, other than the perp may have an illness of some sort.

  The coroner strongly believes the perp is right handed because of the depth of the cut on the vic’s neck being deeper on her left side. We have no idea if the killer was on foot or used a vehicle, but the desk clerk at the Suites operation across the street from the scene said there was a white four door sedan, make unverified, in the motel parking lot, occupied by a man alone for about an hour and the vehicle faced the crime scene for the entire hour, then crossed A1A to park in the strip center at approximately fourteen hundred. The clerk wasn’t close enough to make the license plate. Cousins was the first on the scene and passed a white car on 206 that was westbound, twenty over the limit, twelve minutes after the alarm. Cousins isn’t sure about the make of the car.

  The store owner believes the killer got two hundred and fifty dollars, the starting bank for store operations, and since no sales tickets were punched. The bills are unmarked. We dusted everywhere and found hundreds of prints on the glass cases and cooler handles. I don’t think we’ll find anything there because what we did find was a bloody smudge on the inside of the entry door. The blood was the vic’s, so the perp had to be wearing gloves.

  The Palm Beach victim had the same kind of signature mark, the cross, in the same location on the torso as our victim, and death occurred by asphyxiation in both cases because of a fatal laceration to the windpipe. The coroner down there also believes the infliction came from a right handed person because the vertical part of the cross had a right handed bias, meaning the bottom of the cut was left of the top.

  Both counties have interviewed family members of each victim. There is no known association other than both victims may have known each other from military service. We’re still checking if their lines may have crossed at some point in time during their service careers.

  So, here’s what we have: the pill potentially indicating an illness of some type; a white four door sedan as a potential; a man as a potential; a knife as the weapon; a right handed perpetrator as a potential; a killer using a signature; and two similar slayings reported that are 220 miles apart. A state profiler believes the two victims were targeted and not at random. She also believes he will not stop with the two due to the signature which is an effort to make a statement. She also believes if there is a next that it will be outside of Florida, but she warned me she could have that wrong. I have notified other jurisdictions. And there may be some sort of military connection, or an anti-military vendetta. We should think in terms that we’re looking for a serial killer.

  So go with that and keep your eyes open.”

  “Hey John, this is Chip. Just letting you know that two murders were committed in Florida that involved women that had a military background. Just letting you know I know about it and will keep you apprised if anything more develops. How’s the project coming?”

  “Thanks for the information Sheriff. It’s progressing on schedule. She’s going to be very busy for a pretty long while and she is extremely excited. It’s good for her. She may have found her first employee, don’t know yet if it’s for sure but I’ll meet the person shortly.”

  “I put out some feelers about the facility to some other departments in the state. You just might get some business since there was a lot of interest. I was asked to ask you if you are selling or leasing dogs and what you’d charge for them. Ok John, talk with you later, gotta run.”