The Walking Man Page 5

  A little flutter of panic kicked up in his belly. He spotted the reverend nearby and Tom approached him. “Reverend, have you seen the girls?”

  The Reverend shook his head. When he was sure they weren’t in the picnic area, he went down the nearest trail. He would find them, and when they got home, they’d get the belt for disobeying their father.

  He heard footsteps on the path. Slapping the ground hard. Dean, Mary’s crush, came into view. His tie was askew and blood soaked the front of his khaki dress shirt. As he reached Tom, the boy’s face looked like he’d seen the devil and lived.

  Tom saw him, but Dean didn’t see Tom. He noticed Tom at the last second, nearly bowling into Tom, who put his hands up. Dean put on the brakes.

  Breathless, Dean said, “Someone took Mary. I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. God, there was so much blood.”

  His lower lip quivered and tears ran down his face.

  “Where are the other girls?” Tom asked.

  “Dead. All dead.”

  “You think he did it?” Detective Mike Rogowski said.

  “I know he did it,” his partner, Frank O’Bannon replied.

  O’Bannon eyed Dean through the two-way mirror that looked into the interrogation room three. They’d taken the kid’s blood-drenched shirt (and the olive-green t-shirt underneath) as evidence. He was currently wearing a surplus beige prison shirt from the state pen up in Mansville. They kept a box of prison clothes on hand, usually reserved for drunks that puked or pissed themselves.

  The boy’s hands were cuffed and secured by a chain to a ring bolted into the floor.

  “Sweating like a whore in the communion line,” Rogowski said.

  “I’d be too if I murdered four girls,” O’Bannon said.

  “You want to go in first?” Rogowski said.

  “My pleasure. And you need to shave those goddamned mutton chops.”

  Rogowski said, “The ladies like the feel of them on their inner thighs.”

  “My ass. You look like fucking Captain Kangaroo.”

  “I’ll have you know that Captain Kangaroo gets all the pussy he wants.”

  O’Bannon waved him off. The sideburns were to make up for Rogowski’s thinning hair. He was dating three girls at once, no doubt to make up for what happened with his wife. Rogowski’s old lady had been caught in a cheap motel with a uniformed officer half her age. Rogowski was currently living out of that very same hotel.

  O’Bannon had never married, and for that he was glad. He ate a lot of shitty TV dinners and slept alone most nights, which suited him fine. Half the cops he knew were either divorced or banging other women on the side. He’d take the quiet bachelor’s life and Swanson’s TV dinners over that crap any day.

  He straightened his tie and entered the interrogation room. The kid looked up. He looked scared. They all did at this point; there weren’t many tough guys in the box.

  “Let me get those for you,” O’Bannon said, taking the key ring from a clip on his belt. He unlocked the cuffs and the kid took them off. They clattered on the floor. The kid rubbed his wrists.

  “Get you some water?” O’Bannon said.

  “No sir. I’m fine.”

  Sir. The boy was clean cut and had signed up to serve his country. Frank didn’t understand it, but he knew from experience anyone could be a killer. He’d once arrested an eighty-year-old church trustee who’d stabbed her husband in his sleep with a knitting needle.

  “Did you call your parents? They let you use the phone, right?”

  “My mom’s dead. My father’s stationed in West Germany.”

  “We can get word to him,” O’Bannon said. “Any other relatives?”

  “All out of state, sir.”

  They’d gotten an initial statement from Dean, but Frank wanted to hear things in the kid’s own words. “Tell me what happened out there.”

  The young Marine told Frank how Mary Harwell had chatted him up and they’d gone to drink some lemonade. Shortly after that, Mary’s father had sent her and Dean to find the other Harwell girls, who’d wandered off.

  “So you went to look for them. Then what?”

  “We followed a trail to the caves. Heard a scream.”

  “Before or after you got to the caves?”

  “Before,” Dean said.

  “What happened at the caves?”

  “There was a guy. He was dragging Mary’s sister Sarah into the cave. She looked dead. Mary chased after.”

  “Did she go in the cave?”

  “The guy noticed Mary and ran after us. He caught Mary and hacked her with his knife. I tried to help her, but God, the blood.”

  He began to sob, and Frank let him go for a minute. When he was done, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

  “How’d the blood get on your shirt?”

  “Mary was on the ground. He was stabbing her. I tried pulling her away but he dragged her away from me.”

  “Was she still alive?”

  “Barely. He threw her over his shoulder and headed for the caves.”

  O’Bannon said, “So you ran?”

  “I did. That’s when I met up with Mr. Harwell on the trail.”

  “Describe him for me. This man.”

  “Big. Like Dick Butkus big. He wore an army jacket. His face was burned real bad. His eyes, they were kind of just white.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows. “That was quite a tale.”

  “I didn’t kill them.”

  “You can tell me son. The judge might go a little easier if you admit it. Might save your life.”

  “Honest, sir.”

  Frank looked him up and down. Dean shifted in the chair.

  “Our officers searched those caves and the woods inside and out. We found no sign of a boogeyman in an army jacket. What we did find was four girls laid out in the cave. Butchered. Sliced open. Why’d you do that?”

  Dean shook his head. “I would never hurt anyone.”

  “Make it easy. Tell me why you did it.”

  “I think I need a lawyer, sir.”

  Smart enough to ask for a lawyer. “Last chance.”

  “I’d like a lawyer.”

  A lawyer didn’t do Dean much good. His trial lasted two weeks. It took the jury two hours of deliberation to produce a guilty verdict. At the trial, two people had passed out when the crime scene photos were revealed. Tom Harwell had buried his face in his hands and cried.

  In the spring of 1970, when his appeals had been exhausted, four guards, the warden, and a prison chaplain escorted Dean to Old Sparky at Mansville State Penitentiary. His last words were: “I’m sorry those girls died, but it wasn’t me that killed them.”

  And with that, the State ran 2,000 volts of electricity through an innocent, twenty-two-year-old man.

  Eight

  “Remind me how this was a good idea again?” Chris’ father said. Mike Peters was sitting at the kitchen table. He still had on his blue mechanic’s pants and steel-toed boots. There was grime caked under his nails. It was always there, no matter how much he scrubbed with Gojo soap.

  “We were just checking the place out,” Chris said.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Peters,” Hope said. “It was my idea.”

  “Don’t take the blame for this chowderhead. He’s a big boy. You knew someone got killed the other night. What if you had run into the killer?”

  He’d neglected to tell his father about hearing someone on the other side of the door. “But we didn’t.”

  “And if you had?”

  “I would’ve messed him up,” Chris said.

  His father rolled his eyes. “You’re soft.”

  Dad put in twelve hour days as a diesel mechanic for a big trucking outfit out of Hamburg. To Dad, anyone who didn’t perform at least ten hours of manual labor a day was soft.

  Chris was about to point out that he was, in fact, tough. Then the doorbell rang. That would be the police. Dad got up, wiped his hands on his pants. Chris heard him open the door and star
t up a conversation with female officers. To his surprise, Dad came back with two, good-looking plainclothes cops. One was blonde, the other brunette.

  “These are Detectives Martz and Greco,” Dad said, and he pulled out two chairs.

  “I’m Martz,” the blonde said.

  “Can we sit down?” Greco said.

  “Please,” Dad said.

  They sat down. Dad took a seat across the table from the detectives. Chris and Hope sat on either side of Dad. He had called them after finding out Chris had gone to the slaughterhouse.

  “We checked out the slaughterhouse,” Martz said. “You claimed there were bloody clothes in the basement.”

  Chris said, “They were soaked.”

  Martz said, “We didn’t find any clothes.”

  “They were there, I swear,” Hope said.

  Greco put up her hand. “There was residual blood on the floor. Our crime scene people are taking samples.”

  “See Dad, we’re not crazy,” Chris said.

  “No, just stupid for poking around when a killer’s on the loose,” his father said. He took out his pocket knife, clicked it open, and started digging grime from under his nails.

  “Your dad’s right. It wasn’t smart. Not safe out there,” Martz said.

  “Did you see anyone?” Greco said.

  Chris glanced at hope. They were screwed.

  “That look tells me you did,” Martz said.

  His dad folded the pocket knife and stuck it in his pocket. He leaned forward, forearms resting on the table. “What did you two see?”

  “Didn’t see anything, but I heard something behind the basement door in the slaughterhouse. Something scratching on the door,” Hope said.

  “Did you see a person?” Greco said.

  “No,” Chris and Hope said in unison.

  “Where’s the door go?” Martz wondered.

  Hope jumped in and said, “It runs to the mansion. There used to be a hotel that took up the mansion and the slaughterhouse property. A big resort. A tunnel ran from the hotel laundry to the hotel. I like to research things.”

  “Apparently so,” Greco said.

  “She’s right. My grandfather worked in the hotel laundry. They used the tunnel to take the stuff back and forth,” his dad said.

  “We’ll need to get through that door,” Greco said. “Our man could be in there.”

  “But the other side of the tunnel is bricked,” Martz said.

  “We’ll get through the door,” Greco said, and stood up. “I have some calls to make.”

  Martz said, “We appreciate the information. Stay the hell out of there from now on.”

  Before questioning the kids, Greco and Martz had talked with Bill Meyers. He’d chased a suspect to the caves and lost him; the murders had stopped shortly after. A trip over to the halfway house also yielded nothing.

  Now, they were in an abandoned slaughterhouse trying to bust open a door.

  They tried a locksmith first. Maria stood in the slaughterhouse’s basement, her shadow thrown on the wall by the work lights set up nearby. Members of the county SWAT team stood around. They were decked out in tactical gear. Some of them carried MP5s. Others had shotguns. Just in case their guy was in the tunnel and didn’t come willingly. Maria felt it was better to have overwhelming force in a situation like this.

  The SWAT guys were looking a little pissed off. They’d tried battering the door down with no luck. The locksmith was fiddling with the lock, a stream of curses coming from him.

  They also had a welder standing by with an acetylene torch if the locksmith couldn’t get it done.

  Martz approached Maria and said, “He’s good at swearing, I’ll give him that. What’s a cock bag?”

  “He gets points for creativity.”

  The locksmith, who was on his knees fiddling with the lock, stood up. His pants had drooped and his ass crack was visible.

  “Think we need to make a crack bust?” Maria whispered to Martz.

  “That crack is worth millions on the street,” Martz said.

  The locksmith picked up his tool box and came over. He reminded Maria of a black bear. He towered over her and Martz, his hair and beard a wild charcoal color. “I can’t get that motherfucker to budge.”

  “Thanks for trying,” Martz said.

  “Never seen a goddamned thing like it,” he said, and wandered off, muttering.

  Maria turned to the welder, who was on loan from Custom Fabricating. “You’re up.”

  The welder slipped on some long leather gloves and flipped his mask down. He snaked out some rubber tubing from the tank that was strapped to a dolly. Carried the welding torch to the door and took out his flint. “Stand back and don’t look at the light.”

  He asked one of the SWAT guys to turn on the gas, and the SWAT guy obliged. The welder sparked the flint and a flame popped to life. Maria turned around, as did everyone else in the basement.

  The stink of burning metal filled the area. The torch hissed. After a few minutes, she heard the torch cut out and Maria turned around.

  The welder lifted his hood. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Maria looked at the door. Not only was it intact, but there wasn’t so much as a scratch on it. “Holy shit, what’s that thing made of?”

  “Beats me. Should’ve cut through like butter,” the welder said.

  The last option was having SWAT attempt to breach the door with a charge. Maria turned to the captain and said, “You guys are up.”

  The SWAT commander, a sad-eyed guy with a bristly mustache, barked orders, telling everyone to clear out of the basement. Two of the SWAT guys helped the welder get the tank upstairs.

  They waited on the killing floor of the slaughterhouse while the SWAT team prepped the charge. After a few minutes, someone yelled “Fire in the hole!” There was a hollow bang and the captain appeared at the top of the stairs. He lifted his visor and stroked his chin.

  “Well?” Maria said.

  “Not a mark on that door. It should’ve blown right off the hinges.”

  Maria was stumped.

  “Your call detective,” the captain said.

  “Stand down. I’ll figure something out,” Maria said.

  “What’s the next move?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” Maria said.

  Maria knew they still had to deal with the other end of the tunnel, the brick wall underneath the mansion. She rounded up the SWAT team and they headed to the mansion, warrant in hand, to give it a try.

  Maria pulled up with Jenna in the unmarked. Two patrol cars and the SWAT truck pulled in behind them.

  Maria got out of the car. She scanned the mansion, wondering if he killer was watching. The thought of the bloody mark left on her house the other night sent a chill through her. Then there were the clothes those teenagers found in the slaughterhouse; they were waiting for the lab to analyze the blood.

  “Hey, space cadet, you ready?” Martz said.

  “Yeah. Just thinking about that present he left me on the house.”

  “We’ll get him. I know we will.”

  The SWAT guys were out of the truck and ready.

  “All right. We sweep the house first, just in case our friend is hiding out.”

  “You heard the lady. By the numbers. On me,” the captain said, and led the team towards the house.

  Maria drew her Glock, and Martz hers. Half the team went in the front, the other through the rear butler’s pantry. They cleared the mansion room-by-room, and when that was done, they headed to the basement.

  She led the team to the tunnel. The SWAT guys brought in some battery-powered lights. They didn’t bother with finesse; the SWAT team set charges on the wall and cleared the tunnel.

  Another bang and dust rolled from the tunnel. When it cleared, Maria and Martz led them into the tunnel. A haze of dust still hung in the air.

  She wasn’t surprised when the brick was still intact. “What the hell is this place made of?”

&n
bsp; Nine

  Jenna got off duty and stopped at the Bar-Bill Tavern to grab an order of Sicilian Wings. The place was packed, which was the norm. While she waited for the wings, she drank a Guinness. Sicilian-style were Rachel’s favorite, although Jenna preferred the hottest of wings. But to keep her better half happy, she went with the Sicilian.

  The bartender set the box of wings on the bar. She paid him and finished off her beer. Drove to their Cape Cod and parked. Rachel’s Lexus was in the driveway and Jenna was glad to have her home. Rachel had been pulling long hours as the director at the art museum downtown. Their annual gala was coming up and she’d come home exhausted every day after planning the event for weeks.

  Jenna found Rachel emptying the dishwasher.

  “Sicilian?” Rachel said.

  “You got it.”

  “You read my mind.”

  Jenna went over and kissed Rachel hello. “You win this time.”

  “Any luck with the case?”

  “Nothing. We had SWAT guys try and breach the tunnel. Didn’t budge. How’s the gala coming?”

  “The Hyatt messed up and shorted us tables. Good thing I caught it. We would have had two hundred guests standing and eating. They’re going to fix it.”

  “Let’s dig into the wings. I’ll help you with those after dinner,” Jenna said.

  “Don’t have to ask me twice.”

  Jenna grabbed two beers from the fridge and they plopped down on the couch. They were halfway through watching House Hunters when Jenna polished off her first beer. “Ready for another?”

  “You trying to get me drunk and take advantage?”

  “Maybe,” Jenna said.

  “It might work. I’ll take another.”

  As Jenna went to the fridge, she heard a loud thump outside. It was followed by a crash that sounded like garbage cans being tipped over.

  “What the hell was that?” Rachel said.

  2003 – Meyers

  Detective Bill Meyers was downing his sixth chicken wing when his cell phone jangled in his pocket. He grabbed a fresh napkin, wiped sauce from his mouth, and took out the cell.