Show of Evil

Twenty

The St Louis Homicide Division was almost devoid of people when Flaherty arrived at the downtown office, a stuffy room jammed with desks, telephones, file cabinets, and computers. Only two detectives were in the room: Oscar Gilanti, captain of the division, who was heading the investigation, and Sgt. Ed Nicholson, an old-timer who had the dignified demeanour and conservative look of an FBI agent.

The two detectives were more pleasant than Flaherty had expected. The captain was a short box of a man, bald except for a fringe of jet-black hair that curled around his ears. He had deep circles under his eyes, his cheeks were dark with the shadows of a two-day beard, and his suit looked like he had slept in it, which he probably had. His deep voice was raspy from lack of sleep.

'I gotta get back out to the scene,' he growled to Flaherty. I'm giving you Sergeant Nicholson here fer the day. Knows as much as anybody else about this mess. What was yer name again?'

'Dermott Flaherty.'

'Okay, Dermott, you wanna go anywhere, see anything, Nick'll drive yuh. I pulled a package for yuh - pictures, preliminary reports, all that shit. Autopsy won't be up probably till tomorra. We can fax it to yuh, yuh need it.'

'I can't thank you enough, Captain.'

'Hell, you know anything, we'd appreciate it. We can use all the help we can get on this one. Fuckin' nightmare.'

'I can imagine.'

'I'll be out at the scene, Nick. If Dermott here wants to come out, bring him along.'

'Right.'

The sergeant, obviously a man of habit, asked pleasantly if he had a weapon.

Flaherty smiled. I'm an assistant DA, Sergeant,' he said. 'Things haven't got that bad yet.'

The cop chuckled. He was an old pro, tall, very straight-standing, with a tanned and leathery face, gentle, alert eyes, and blondish hair turning grey. Nicholson unlocked his desk drawer and took out his 9mm H&K and slipped it into a holster on his belt. He also wore his badge pinned to his belt like an old western sheriff. He slid a thick file folder across the desk to Flaherty.

'You might take a look at this picture first, give you a point of reference. Hilltown's about thirty miles down the pike, off to the northeast of US 44. The Spier place is a couple miles out of town, little frame house, one storey, two bedrooms, kitchen, den, and big bathroom, that's about it. Sets back in the trees.'

He had picked out an aerial photo showing the house at the end of a quarter mile of dirt road that wound through scrub pines and saw grass. Behind it, the road connected with another country road that ended at a lake.

'Calvin Spier and his wife - they own the place - are out in Las Vegas. Weren't due back until the middle of next week, but they're coming back now.'

'Do the Spiers know him?' Flaherty asked.

'Spier says no. Want to go out to the scene? It's a thirty-minute drive' - he winked - 'if I put on the flasher.'

Flaherty nodded and said, 'You're the boss.'

The drive was pleasant despite a misting rain. Nicholson, a social creature, spoke in a quiet, authoritative voice, filling Flaherty in on the prologue to the killing while the young prosecutor made a cursory examination of the package. The pictures confirmed his suspicion that this killing was a repeat of the Balfour/Gellerman murder.

'Fellow owns a quick shop down the road from the road into the Spiers' place, lives behind it. He found him,' Nicholson said. 'Noticed the UPD truck through the trees when he got up yesterday morning. When it was still there at lunchtime, he strolled over to take a look. Front door was standing open. Then he heard the flies. Damn near had a heart attack when he saw that young guy in there all carved up like that. Plus he'd been dead about sixteen hours.'

'What's the victim's name?' asked Flaherty.

'Alexander Lincoln,' Nicholson answered. 'They called him Lex.'

Alex Lincoln, Flaherty thought. The last of the Altar Boys.

Except one. Aaron Stampler.

Rain dripped off the yellow crime ribbons that had been wrapped around a wide perimeter of the house when they got there. A sheriff's car was parked beside the driveway. A cop waved them through. Several police cars were parked single file as they approached the house.

'We're going to have to run for it,' Nicholson said, turning up the collar of his suit coat. The two men got out of the car and ran through the rain to the small porch that spanned the front of the house. Several detectives in yellow rain slickers stood under the roof. They nodded as Nicholson and Flaherty ducked under the eaves.

'It's a bitch, Nick,' one of the cops said. This rain has washed out footprints, tyre tracks, everything. The old man's a bear.'

Nicholson and Flaherty stood just inside the front door for a few moments. A plainclothes detective was standing beside the door jotting a note to himself in a small notebook.

'Hi, Nick,' he said. 'What a mess, huh.'

'That it is. Ray Jensen, this is Dermott Flaherty. He's a prosecutor with the Chicago DA's office.'

Jensen offered his hand. 'What brings you out here?' he asked.

'We have a thing working up in Chicago. It's a long shot, but there could be a tie-in.'

'Be a nice break for us if we could get some kind of a lead,' said Jensen. 'Right now we're sucking air.'

A hallway led to the rear of the house. Flaherty could see white chalk lines marking where the victim's legs had protruded into the hall. He held a shot of the interior of the house taken from the front door out in front of him. Lincoln's legs could be seen protruding from the door halfway down the hall.

'The Spiers left a light on in the living room,' said Jensen. The rest of the place was dark. My guess is the killer called Lincoln back there to do his dirty work.'

They walked past a living room that was cluttered with kewpie dolls, embroidered pillows, and dozens of photographs. The furniture was covered with plastic sheets. Flaherty smelled the acid-sweet odour of blood and death.

The death room was a small den with a fireplace. Sliding glass doors led from the room to an enclosed porch on the side of the house. Another door led into the kitchen, which dominated the rear of the place. There was blood everywhere: on the walls, the ceiling, the carpet. Flaherty found a full-length shot of the corpse. Lincoln lay on his side, his head askew. A terrible wound had almost severed his head. His mouth gaped open like that of a dead fish. The wounds were numerous and awesome. Lincoln's pants were pulled down around his knees and he had been emasculated. The results of the brutal amputation had been stuffed in his mouth.

Flaherty flipped through the pictures, found a close-up of the rear of Lincoln's head.

There it was: 'R41.102.' Flaherty showed no emotion. He kept flipping the photographs.

'How'd he get in? The killer, I mean?' he asked.

'Broke a window in back,' Jensen said. 'The way we figure it, he cased the place very carefully. Knew the back road to the lake would be abandoned this time of year; particularly after dark. He came in the back way, pulled on down to the house, and broke in through the sliding glass door leading from the little deck in the back. Here's what's interesting. It rained the night before, but there were no footprints in the house and the porch was hosed down so there were no footprints out there either. What I think, the perp took off his shoes when he came in. Then when he left he hosed off the deck so there weren't any out there, either. Probably used the hose to wash off the victim's blood, too. I mean, you look at the pictures of Lincoln, the perp had to be covered with blood.'

'Yeah, somebody did some homework on this,' Flaherty said, still flipping through the photographs. 'Whoever set up the victim knew Spier and his wife were away. Little town like this - '

'Was in the Post-Dispatch,' said Nicholson.

'What was?'

'About Spier and his wife going out to Vegas. A story in the people section. He drives a semi, won a trip for ten years' service without a citation or mishap.'

'How about the package?'

'Mailed from over in East St Louis, one of those wrap-and-send places,' Jensen offered. 'During lunch hour. Place was jammed, nobody remembers a damn thing about who posted it. Return name and address is a phony.'

Flaherty looked at the receipt slip. On the line that read 'sender' was the name M. Lafferty.

'Know an M. Lafferty?' the detective asked.

'Nope,' Flaherty said. ' The victim picked it up himself, huh?'

'Yeah. Was bellyaching about having to run over there after working hours and then drive down here and back after dark.'

'What about this… Lex Lincoln? Anything on him?'

'Young guy, twenty-six, been workin' at UPD since he moved here from Minneapolis two years ago.'

'Minneapolis? Anything there?'

'Nothing on him. No sheet. His boss - fellow named Josh Pringle - says he's a good worker, always on time, kind of a joker. No enemies we've uncovered so far. Big with the ladies - had two dates the night he was killed.'

'Maybe they ganged up on him,' Flaherty said with a smile.

The old pro laughed. 'Way I heard it, they were both really torn up over it.'

'Was anything taken?' Flaherty asked.

'Nothing from the house that we can determine,' Jensen answered. 'The Spiers will be able to tell us, but I think we can rule out robbery. This was an ambush. The only thing we know was taken was Lincoln's belt buckle.'

'His belt buckle?'

'Yes. One of a kind - an American flag, embossed on brass,' said Nicholson. 'It was cut off his belt. There's one other thing. Look here at this photo, on the back of Lincoln's head, it's written in blood. R41.102. That mean anything to you?'

Before he could answer, Gilanti came back in the house, shaking rain off his coat. He stomped down the hall, his face bunched up in a scowl, talking aloud to himself as he approached Flaherty, Jensen, and Nicholson.

'We don't have a description of the perp, we don't have a description of the vehicle, we don't have shit. And whoever done this job's been on the run for eighteen to twenty goddamn hours.' He stopped at the three men, looked down at the floor with disgust. 'Hell, the son of a bitch could be halfway to New York by now.' Jensen said, 'We're talking to everybody in town and in the area. We're checking all pass-through vehicles between seven and ten P.M. We're checking filling stations up and down 44. Looking for anybody suspicious.'

'Christ, that's half the world. We'll be getting calls for the next year with that description.'

'Maybe the ME'll come up with something,' said Nicholson. 'Blood, fibres, DNA sample, something.'

'Yeah, sure. And Little Bo Beep'll give us all a blow job if we're good boys. What we got is nothing We don't know what or who the hell we're looking for or where he or she is going. Christ, the killer could be standing out there in the rain, looking across the ribbons, we wouldn't have a clue.'

Then he looked at Flaherty and shrugged.

'Got any ideas, Dermott?'

Flaherty gave him a lazy smile. 'I convict 'em, Captain, I'm not much at catching 'em.'

'Well, sorry I disturbed you boys. Go back to whatever you were doin'.' Gilanti moved away, then looked back at Flaherty. 'You know anything, any fuckin' thing at all that'll help us, Dermott, I'll name my next kid after you, even if it's a girl.'

'Thanks for your assistance, Captain.'

'Yeah, sure,' Gilanti said, and went out into the rain.

'What was in the box Lincoln delivered?' Flaherty asked Jensen.

'That's the sickest thing of all,' said Jensen. 'Just this, wrapped in a lot of tissue paper.'

Flaherty looked at the object and a sudden chill rippled up his backbone.

Chief Hiram Young was just sitting down to his evening meal when the phone rang. 'Damn,' he grumbled under his breath as he snatched up the phone. 'Abe Green's dog's probably raising cain in somebody's yard. Hello!

'Chief Hiram Young?'

'Yes, sir,' Young answered sternly.

'Sir, my name's Dermott Flaherty. I'm an assistant DA up in Chicago.'

'I've already talked to your people. How many times I have to tell you—'

'Excuse me, sir. I just have one question.'

'I'm just settin' down't' dinner.'

'This will only take a minute. Was anything taken from the Balfour home when Linda Balfour was murdered?'

'I already told you people, robbery was not the motive.'

'I'm not talking about robbery, Chief. I'm talking about some little insignificant thing. Nothing that would be important to anyone else.'

There was a long pause. Young cradled the phone between his shoulder and jaw as he spread jam on a hot biscuit.

'Really wasn't anything,' Young said.

'What was it?'

'A stuffed fish.'

'You mean, like a fish mounted on the wall?'

'No, a little stuffed dolphin. It had ST SIMONS ISLAND, GA. printed on the side. George bought it for Linda when they were on their honeymoon.'

'Where was it? What I mean is, was it in the room where she was murdered?'

'Yes. On the mantelpiece.'

'Same room as the murder?'

'That's what I just said.'

'Thank you, sir. I appreciate your help. Goodbye.'

Young slammed down the phone.

'Something wrong, honey?' his wife asked.

'Just some big-shot DA up in Chicago tryin' to mess in our business,' he said, and returned to his dinner.

'Abel? I'm at the airport in St Louis,' Flaherty told Stenner. 'Got to hurry, my plane's loading. I'll be there at seven-oh-five.'

'I'll pick you up. Get anything?'

'A lot. I think we need to talk to Martin and Jane Venable tonight. It's the same perp, no question about it. Victim even has the symbol on the back of his head. Let me give it to you, maybe Harve can run over to the library and check it out. Got a pencil?'

'Yes.'

'It's R41.102.'

'R41.102,' Stenner repeated. 'We'll get on it right away.'

'Good. See you at seven.'