Iceman

Texas

The Amarillo cop shop was superclean. Efficient and professional to a fault. Hardly what the records of twenty years ago would have suggested. The cop work on the Iceman kills had been spectacularly shoddy, Eichord thought, and the more he looked into the crime reports, the worse it appeared. Sloppy investigation techniques. Sloppy paper work. And one of the sloppiest mishandlings of a prime suspect he'd ever seen. At least that was his strong impression two decades after the facts.

With predictability the detectives involved in the investigation were all either deceased or seemingly scattered to the four winds. Nobody in the Amarillo shop had first-person or hands-on memories of the investigation. The most glaring omission in the records—the fact that neither the NCIC computers nor MCTF stored photo or prints of the suspect, a teenager named Arthur Spoda—proved to date back to a fire in which the suspect's records were destroyed. Then even THAT proved false.

“Bullshit,” the man in the sheriffs office told him. “I remember an ole boy in Homicide tellin’ me how they lost a whole buncha stuff in the flood they had over there. Water pipe busted, is what happened. Ruined a file cabinet fulla stuff. Ah think they just had it all hauled off to the dump."

“So you're saying nobody in law enforcement down here has got a picture or fingerprints on the primary suspect in a multiple-homicide headline case?"

“Just one of them things,” the man said. Eichord thanked him and talked again to the guy in Sex Crimes who put him on the Spoda trail as best he could.

Eichord was still driving, thirty minutes later, when he saw the VEGA sign on the outskirts of town. It reminded him of the deep South, where you can drive through residential neighborhoods and tall, centuries-old magnolias spread out over the traffic like the elm-shaded side streets of the 40s, before the national Dutch elm blight hit southern and mid-America. It was like that here. Big, unkempt trees drooping out over the highway.

A sign assured motorists Jesus Loves YOU and then another that Jesus Died for YOUR sins. Somebody had painted on the side of an underpass: Trust Jesus. Eichord passed an elderly gentleman in a slow-moving station wagon sporting a bumper sticker telling you to Honk if You Love Jesus. The phrase “Bible Belt” came to mind.

But this wasn't the Bible Belt. Perhaps it was below the belt, he thought as he drove by large stone abutments that looked like a mini-acropolis, once the supports for a massive loading dock. The compress for the cotton bales was long gone, and so in fact was the railroad that once hauled the cotton away. The gin was vanished. He passed shacks for migrant workers and signs advertising Rummy Cola, Brad's Truck Brokerage, and Velma's Salon. All rust-covered. Green frog-colored lily pads floated in stagnant roadside water. Joe's garage and muffler shop. Closed. Ivy's Café. Empty. no tresspassing.

A creek runs along beside a wooded area. The creek is banked by low-hanging willows, water lilies, thousands of cattails, goldenrod, water weeds of every description. An underground cable sign has all but rusted away, so that the only thing you see is the bold word W A R N I N G.

The vestiges of a ghost town without optimism or hope. A forgotten chunk of America not even the most hypo realtor could get excited about. A storm had flung mighty oak limbs into the two lane and nobody cared. He could tell they'd been in the way of traffic for a while as he slowed and navigated his way around the partial roadblock.

Prosperity had fled. Storefronts were clogged with broken roll-top desks, legless or seatless chairs, boarded-up buildings like Lou's Tack and Saddle Repair, Bud's, Vega Boot & Shoe Shop. On the side of what had been a diner somebody had painted bypass city. Buy Bond's Bread for extra nutrition. Memories of the 7th War Loan. The city Meat Market was empty. Keerist, what a ghost town.

The entire downtown area resembled one huge and sprawling thrift shop. The Main Street Bank Building was straight out of the Northfield, Minnesota, Raid, and appropriately it was now a historical museum. Eichord stopped and asked for the directions to the Spoda house. The man had never heard of it. He asked if the guy remembered the Iceman murders back in the 60s. Nope. Where was the local police station or sheriffs office? Weren't none. Was there anybody who had lived here a long time? Sure. Plenty of folks. Name one? Freda over at the gas station. Freda and her husband been here since the war. Eichord didn't ask which war. How do I get there? elicited the following direction:

“Go yonder to the Picken's sign and turn around an’ go back a block.” Jack digested this while he drove. He kept thinking of the James gang as he drove past crumbling brick edifices that triggered movie memories of the Daltons and Youngers. Pioneer Seeds. Wilson Grain still hawked their wares from ply-boarded hulks of weed-covered, vanished commerce. The town belonged, at the very least, to a world of cars with running boards, obsolete fireplugs, and five-cents phone booths.

A sign said Motel—Right, and his word-puzzle brain automatically substituted Motel-Blight, passing the once-pink motel with its totally redundant vacancy sign. One more tiny business clinging by its fingernails to the slippery precipice of the mercantile exchange. How many eternities since the NO vacancy neon had blinked on?

Eichord pulled up next to a gas station that sold eats, worms, and de xe coolers & vented heaters—not an appetizing combination. He thought the missing lu in De Luxe to be the final indignity. A person of indeterminate sex and age appeared, materialized really, from the shadows.

“Howdy,” Eichord said, and the person nodded. “I was looking for somebody who knew this town back in the old days, and the feller down at the bank said you might be the right person to come to.” Nothing by way of response, so Jack plunged ahead, wondering whether to flash his shield or not. “I was trying to find out a little something about a family who used to live here back in the 60s. The Spodas. Can you help me?"

“Depends."

Jack realized then that it was a woman. “You Freda?” He smiled pleasantly.

“Yep,” she said.

“Boy,” he said, looking around as if he'd just seen the town for the first time. “What happened here anyway?"

She shrugged and waited.

“Looks like a kind of a ghost town. What happened to all the businesses?"

“Ever'body left.” She spoke slowly. “It was the oil boom."

“The oil boom."

“Yep. An’ then it just died out and, uh, they lost the bank and a bunch of businesses and stuff, uh, you know, just died out."

“When was that?"

“Huh?"

“When did the business die out?"

“Oh, few years back. I forgit rightly."

“When was the oil boom? I mean, could you put a year on it when the town was prosperous?"

“Nnn.” She made a noise as she shrugged. “There's always been wells n’ stuff. An’ people around here was, uh, you know, leasing their land for high prices. Specially up north a ways. An’ they had a lot of workers come in here and then the highway went around us and it really died then."

“When was that? When did the highway go around you?"

“The highway bypassed us in ‘76."

“You mean the town was prosperous until 1976, then?"

“Yeah.” He felt her unfreezing as he eased her into the details. “See, this was ole Highway 66."

“This was Route 66?” he said incredulously.

“Yeah. Was back then."

“Listen. I'm looking into a family that was here back before that. You ever hear of the Spodas?"

“Yep. I heard the name.” He saw something change in her weather-beaten, deeply tanned face.

“Can you tell me about them? Where they are now?"

“You a cop,” she said in a hard voice without the question mark on the end.

“Matter of fact, I am.” He nodded, again pleasantly, speaking in a soft, soothing voice and not whipping his gold out.

“No-goods."

He nodded. Tell me more. She didn't. So he said, “Tell me about them, please."

“I didn't know the woman. You hear things in a small town. I didn't really know her."

“You heard what sort of things?"

“There was all kinds of rumors about that family. It was the talk of this town for years. Sex things. They was supposed to be perverts."

“In what way?"

“She slept with everybody in town. Supposed to have slept with her own son. What was made him touched when he was little. He was off,” she said, tapping her head.

“Off. How?"

“I don't know what you call it. Touched in the head. They always said it was because o’ her. Somebody, a social worker or somethin', they found out about her and the boy. And then the half-sister too. He'd been messin’ with his own half-sister. She was off too. The whole family was off.” She shook her head.

“What happened to them?"

“She's been dead for years. The sister's in the looney bin. I heard the boy got into some trouble."

“The Iceman murders?” She nodded. “What do you recall about those murders?"

“Nothin'."

“But you just said you remembered he'd got in some trouble,” he said gently.

“That's all I ever heard. Somebody said he got into some trouble with the law. But I don't ever remember hearin’ anything about him goin’ to prison. I think somebody said they seen him in Las Vegas some years back. I don't rightly remember."

“In Las Vegas? Who saw him?"

“Oh, my stars, that's too long back. I don't recall. You just hear rumors in a small town.” She looked around like she wished a car would pull up wanting gas, oil, eats, worms, and a de xe cooler—something to get her away from the interrogation. But up and down the highway as far as you could see, Eichord and the woman were the only living souls.

“It's very important, Freda. Who told you he was in Las Vegas? Try to remember if you can."

“I told her,” a scratchy voice said, and Eichord jumped a little as he turned and saw the man who had come up silently behind him. He reminded Jack of the farmer with the pitchfork on the famous painting.

“Yes sir.” Eichord smiled. “Can you tell me a little more about the Spodas?"

“Just that the one they called Arthur never spent a day in jail. I seen him myself big as life at the California Club in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, wheeled right to the table like he owned the place."

“Pardon me? You say wheeled?"

“Yeah. He was in a wheelchair. Still is, I imagine."

“I didn't know he was handicapped."

“Heard his mama caught him an’ his sister together and took a ball bat to him, is what put him in a wheelchair. ‘Course that was just the stories at the time."

“When was this?"

“'bout the late 1960s sometime, I reckon. Probably a good thing too. He wasn't nothing but trouble."

“Do you know where I could find a picture of Arthur Spoda?"

“Nope. Sure don't."

“You remember what he looked like, though, right?"

The man breathed a tired sigh. “I ain't seen him for a long time. I think I'd know him but I can't swear I'd even know him if he stopped me onna street."

“If I'd get a police artist in here, would you be so kind as to help us get a composite drawing made of the way he looked—the way you remember him—the last time you saw him?"

“Sure. I reckon I'd be willing to try. He was a handsome rascal in the face. If you didn't know what the boy was like. He was a real fox in the henhouse, if you catch my meaning."

Eichord nodded, wondering who to call first, thinking about how they'd nail down the dates. The all-important dates. Did the Iceman killings stop consistent with the time when Arthur Spoda ended up in a wheelchair? A hundred questions screamed at him. How soon could he get Weyland down there? What should he do first? Who was Spoda's physician and were there records? Where is Arthur now? How who what where? WHY? That was the first question.

“Why didn't you give this information to the police?” Eichord asked the man.

“They never asked me.” Wonderful.

But he'd worked in enough provincial backwaters that he knew what the realities were. You don't just waltz in and get arrest warrants, pal. One learns early on that there are states with statues a hundred times more quirky and restrictive than any Supreme Court decision you ever hitched about.