Freezing

SIXTEEN

A bathrobe-clad Frank Spicer first turned on his porch light and then opened his front door at 1501 Prickly Pear Close to find four people on his doorstep. They had been pounding on it for the entire minute it had taken him to get to the front of the house. Two were men holding Federal Bureau of Investigation badges open towards him. The other two were wearing Phoenix Police Department uniforms. One of the FBI people handed him some papers. The front page had WARRANT typed across it in letters big enough for Frank to read without his glasses. He did need glasses for the rest of it, so he invited the authorities into the house. After all, he had nothing to hide.

As it turned out, the law enforcement officers did not want to search his house. It had all been a mistake, as Frank was sure it would be. They wanted to search that old van parked in front of their house, a vehicle they had nothing to do with. Frank told them that and his wife, Sally, seconded him, now that she had joined them in the front room, wearing a pink terrycloth muumuu.

‘That’s right, the van isn’t ours. We have a Saturn. It’s in the driveway.’

‘Ma’am,’ the blond FBI agent said. ‘The van has an extension cord running into your garage.’

She reared back. ‘I beg your pardon?’ She crossed to the window, pulling her husband with her. ‘Frank, had you noticed that?’ She looked at him in wonder.

Frank felt tired. ‘No, I sure didn’t.’

She appealed to the four people standing like statues in her living room. ‘We’ve been out of town for a few weeks. Maybe someone was trying to steal our electricity while we were gone?’ She broke off and looked at Frank again, who shrugged. ‘We thought the van belonged to someone visiting a neighbor. I never noticed the extension cord.’

Scott regarded Frank and Sally Spicer. Neither fit the image of the person he’d seen going into the van the previous evening. ‘Mr and Mrs Spicer, does anyone else live here with you?’

‘Our son, Wayne, lives with us.’ Sally sounded puzzled.

‘We’ll need to speak with him to determine if he’s the owner of the van. Where can we find him?’

‘It’s not his—’ Sally began.

‘Let me get him,’ said Frank. ‘It’ll be easier that way. He doesn’t like to be disturbed,’ he said over his shoulder as he began to leave the room. One of the police officers followed him.

Scott stood across the room from Sally Spicer. She didn’t look concerned about the unfolding events, only as befuddled as would someone who had been woken up abruptly after having gone to bed for the night. She tried to fluff her short grey hair, then smiled self-consciously at him. He maintained a polite expression.

The person who followed Frank into the room was a very good match for the tall man seen by Scott and Eric on the surveillance video. He was still wearing dark sweatpants but now had on a white vest. His body hair was long and pale and stuck to his skin in rivulets of sweat, as though he had come from a room without air conditioning.

Scott turned to the newcomer as the two police officers quietly moved to block the doorway.

‘Are you Wayne Spicer?’

‘Yes.’ The man seemed surprised that anyone knew his name.

‘Do you own the van sitting in front of this property?’

‘Yes. It’s mine.’

Scott noticed Sally grip Frank’s arm.

‘We have a warrant to search your van, sir.’

Eric came to stand next to Scott, holding a second copy of the warrant papers they had had issued.

Wayne’s eyes darted between Scott and the window.

‘Why? It’s not parked illegally. I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Wayne’s voice took on a higher pitch with every phrase.

‘Take a seat there, sir.’ Scott indicated the flowered sofa. ‘Here’s your copy of the warrant.’

Eric handed the papers to Wayne. Scott expected the large man to resist in some way but he looked like he no longer heard or saw them.

Sally pleaded, ‘Wayne?’

He didn’t respond.

One police officer remained in the living room with the Spicer family while Scott, Eric, and Officer Perez walked outside.

Perez went to her cruiser, which was parked across the Spicer’s driveway, and put her spotlight full beam on the back of the van. Eric brought a camera out of an equipment bag he carried with him. Using the flash, he photographed the entire van and then took several shots of the padlock securing the rear doors. Perez arrived with a bolt cutter she had retrieved from the trunk of the cruiser and Eric photographed her actions as she cut through the padlock and removed the chain from between the door handles. She then carefully opened both doors to their widest position while Eric photographed. Scott flicked on a flashlight and surveyed the scene before him.

The extension cord traveled up from under the bumper and into the van’s floor via a rusty hole partially ringed with short pieces of black electrical tape. Scott’s eyes followed the cord. It met another, this one white and protruding from the back of a white, mid-sized chest freezer. A grey rubber strap ran like a belt around the front of the freezer and was bolted to the wall with shiny screws that looked new. There was barely space for a path between the freezer on the right and an army cot on the left. At the far end of the van, a tarp hung from the ceiling and obscured the front seats.

Eric photographed the van’s interior. Perez climbed in to cut through the padlock securing the freezer’s lid and then Eric traded places with her. Scott lifted the lid so Eric could photograph the inside. Scott couldn’t see in from his position, so watched Eric’s face. But Eric lowered the camera without taking a photograph.

‘What is it?’ Scott asked.

‘You gotta see this.’ Eric took three flash photographs in quick succession and jumped down.

Scott climbed into the van and shined light into the freezer. There was a dead woman tucked inside it. She was resting on her back, held in a crouch with her head against the left wall and chin tucked down. Dark hair curled about the young face and across shoulders pushed slightly inwards by the front and back walls. Her arms were extended and crossed over her body, which was clothed in a bra and underpants. Her hands lay palms-down over her abdomen. Her appearance was innocent and peaceful, preserved intact by the cold.

Scott locked eyes with Eric. ‘We got him. We finally got the bastard. Perez, get us hooked up with a flatbed. We’re impounding this vehicle.’

Wayne Spicer remained silent throughout his arrest. He nodded to indicate that he understood his Miranda rights and looked dully at his parents before being led out of the house in handcuffs. Scott glanced at Frank and Sally Spicer as he left their living room. They looked as though they had fallen into the sofa and weren’t getting up any time soon. He closed the front door quietly behind him.

Eric stayed with the van. He would maintain continuity of evidence for the transport crew from the Medical Examiner’s Office after they arrived to formally confirm death and he would wait for the police tow truck unit who would take the van away on a flatbed.

Wayne sat in the back of the police cruiser as Officer Perez drove out of Prickly Pear Close and through the quiet streets of Mesa. He looked out of the window, taking shallow breaths and sweating. Sitting next to him, Scott was trying to keep his own breathing under control as he thought about how they would be able to use the body in the freezer against the suspect during interview. He couldn’t imagine this guy didn’t know he was going down. They would make him cough up the locations of the other women he’d killed and then he and Eric would finally close the cases in Atlanta.