Iceman

Amarillo

Eichord was driving a loaner, an old car with the windows rolled down to try to cool himself off after a heated conversation with the locals. He told them that it looked like they'd run an investigation to its conclusion twenty years ago, they'd solved the Iceman murders, then turned around and walked away from it. Why hadn't they arrested Arthur Spoda? They had. Then why had they turned him loose? They had to. A witness “zoned out.” But why not press for a murder charge? They hadn't even tried for a conviction. On what grounds? On any grounds. He'd boiled as the rules of circumstantial evidence had been taught him for maybe the hundredth time.

I grow old, I grow mold, I shall drive with the windows of my loaner rolled, he thought. In the headlights the lumps of dead things come and go, and the yellow line rests its blacktop upon the dead possums. He drove past such enticements as rattlesnake buckles, velvet paintings, pecan log rolls, Indian Jewelry Made by Real Indians, a chance to See Bigfoot, and then the snake-oil hucksters thinned and he found the road sign he'd been watching for and within minutes he was going up the front steps of the asylum where he'd learned the Spoda woman was an inmate.

“I'm here to see the director, please,” he said to the woman at the front desk, telling her his name.

Five minutes later he was greeted by a heavyset woman who smiled and introduced herself, “I'm Claire Imus. How can I help you?"

“Hello,” he said, showing her his shield and ID. “We spoke briefly on the telephone about Miss Spoda. Can you tell me some background on her?"

“Let's go in here, shall we?” She closed the inner office door and invited him to take a seat. “Precisely what do you want to know about Ellie Spoda, Mr. Eichord?"

“Were you here when she was institutionalized?"

“No. But I've been here over eight years. I'm quite familiar with her case history."

Eichord summarized what he'd learned about the family, asking if that much was accurate.

“The abuse by the stepbrother and by other males went back to her early childhood. Sexual abuse as you know, but a campaign of terror that her older stepbrother waged, from what we know about the family background, pretty much relentlessly. The incest would have been bad enough, but he apparently was a sadistic so-and-so who never missed an opportunity to frighten, hurt, or intimidate Elite. The ‘mother’ didn't offer much protection. Finally there was a series of sexual attacks that left her totally disoriented and so terrified of her environment—and her stepbrother in particular—that she became quite insane. Not long after that she was institutionalized."

“Can she carry on a conversation? I need to ask her some questions about those events,” he said quietly.

“I'm afraid not.” She smiled again. “Unfortunately Ellie Spoda hasn't said a word to anyone in years. Would you like to see her anyway?” The woman seemed open and helpful.

Eichord was always as interested in HOW something was said as much as what the words were, and his impression was that Claire Imus was being as helpful as the situation allowed.

“Sure—if it won't upset her."

The woman shook her head. “She's playing Bingo. I'll take you,” she said, and Eichord got up and followed as she walked heavily down the clean hallway.

They entered a room where an attendant was announcing a Bingo game to a room of perhaps thirty persons, many of them patients. A brunette woman in sweater and slacks was helping the Spoda woman with her card.

“B-five,” the attendant called out. “B-five."

“Hello, Ellie. This is Mr. Eichord, who has come a long way to talk to you."

Flat black eyes looked up at him from under an unruly shock of white hair. Ellie Spoda appeared to be a woman of about sixty-five years old.

“Ellie,” Jack whispered, “could we go talk about your stepbrother, Arthur?"

She tuned out on him immediately, her eyes looking down at the Bingo card in front of her.

“I-seventeen,” the attendant called, and there was a murmur of excitement.

Outside, Eichord asked Claire Imus how old Ellie was.

“She was born in 1950, Mr. Eichord."