Stone Shadow

Dallas

The day began bad and progressively worsened. The waves of trouble came in the wake of a couple of bitter, threatening, and abrasive calls from one of the senior partners at Jones-Seleska, and from Ms. Collier in person, one to Michaels, one to Michaels’ superior, one threatening to bring some serious pressures from the hierarchy above, one in which a lot of words like “alcoholism,” “injunction,” “harassment” (mispronounced as usual), and “court order” were thrown back and forth like flattened Ping-Pong balls, crazed and erratic, impossible to return, the overall effect on Eichord a jangling, disconcerting one.

In the course of talking with Wally he finally put it all together. He was so smashed when he left Noel's house he'd forgotten to pull the Highland Park guys off her, and they were slowly rolling by eyeballing the residence late last night when Collier saw them out in front. Needless to say, there was no more surveillance.

Jack sensed that his booze problem had grown to a greater proportion than he was able to subjectively appreciate. But that's the thing about alcoholism, it's so easy to crawl inside the bottle and hide. And even with the bottle rolling off the table and breaking, you can stay in there and peer through the jagged edges of your life, looking out through the conchoidal spider tracks in the breakage—hiding from the critical world inside your shattered amber womb of glass.

It had been an uncomfortable moment, especially for Michaels, who clearly was an Eichord fan, when Wally had to mention the dread word “alcoholism” in his summary of the complaints from Noel's law firm. It made him vulnerable to attack that was all but indefensible, made it more difficult for him to function as an investigator, and made Wally Michaels look like a dumb so-and-so for bringing him in on the case to begin with. His way of handling it was to get out of the cop shop as soon as he could and find a nice, salty, dark tavern.

This time of the day the bartenders seldom screwed around with you. Little ma-and-pa tavern. They're not fucking over the booze usually—not your first one this early in the day. Save that shit for the lunch bunch. You go in like Eichord did and you get a nod and a howdy and if you don't respond to the “how y'all doin'?” with anything more than a nod and a “Daniel's rocks,” pause, money coming out on the counter, well hell's bells the ice is already meltin’ before you can get that motha up to your lips and over the gums.

The glow never disappoints. Never. Shit. THAT's what I like about the South. That Tennessee sippin’ delight ALWAYS hits. Pow. The fire never fails to light. Yes. YES GODDAMMIT YES. “Do it again.” All he could do not to smack his lips. The cozy amber womb. The dark morning bar with the salty boozer's smell thicker than the shafts of sunlight. Three solitary drinkers and a sleepy bartender who hadn't been open for an hour or two maybe tops—polishing, emptying, getting it ready for the lunch-hour crowd. Blue-collar drinkers. No conversation. You get a serious damn drinker in there this time of the day. Comin’ in for “triple vodka rocks,” black Jack, straight Scotch drinkers, guys wantin’ a double I. W. Harper with a beer back. People in there to get blitzed and feel it NOW. You got one thing this time of the day, you got bar rags.

Midway through his second one Jack got his shit pulled together to the extent his professional nature managed to swim to the surface for a minute and he recalled a piece of paper floating to the floor, and a phone rang and nudged an overlooked clue in his mind, and because Jack Eichord was one hellacious cop drunk sober or in between, he sees the words “WHO SAYS?” and it comes back in a flood of memory that washes through the booze-befuddled brain wrinkles. He remembers asking Ukie how come he hadn't talked to his brother that day as he saw in his mind's eye the monitor screen and the twins saying nothing. Staring at each other through the thick layers of glass and HOW COME you didn't speak to each other? and WHO SAYS WE DIDN'T? coming back and then the fist hits him in the heart. IN THE HEART and the recognition and pain and fear make him wince as he thinks his first solid thought about the perpetrator. Before there were suspicions but the bourbon and the rest of it contrived to keep it all liquid. No longer.

He knows now. Not all the whys and the wherefores. It is a horror so mysterious and so deep and so convoluted he may never be able to sort it all out. Not what the reporters call “deep background.” He'll just pray that he's right and that he can bring it all to a stop before there is more killing. And inside his head in a deathly whisper he speaks. He says, I haven't a shred of a hard clue. Not a fragment of worthwhile evidence that would hold up in any court. But I know now who and what you are. And you are MINE. And you're gonna fall. I promise. And—yes. What if.

And he picks up the phone and sets a plan in motion. Slo mo. Slooooooooow motion. Working carefully. Circumspectly. Walking softly. Carrying a BIG mother-fucker of a stick.

You are one of a kind. I don't know what made you this way but you are coming to a stop. This devious scheme! You have so much going for you, and why the hell you'd throw all that away for the fleeting, dangerous, hell-bound moments—the kill moments. Why? I can't imagine. Why put so much in jeopardy to hurt innocent, random human beings who'd done nothing to hurt you? Who offered you not one iota of personal gain by their deaths? WHY, you evil piece of human shit?

The thing was exploding. Even through the juice he could feel it coming down on him. Soon. Tomorrow. Tonight. This crazy mother was going to blow like a powder keg and, Noel, darlin', you don't want to be anywhere around when it does. You're treading in shark water, beautiful, and this piece of work doesn't feed he fucking CONSUMES. And now Eichord KNOWS—and it fills his blood with ice.

Even at this stage, far from the resolution of the case or so it appeared, the Grave-digger on the loose or in custody or perhaps BOTH ... he would leave nothing to chance.

Experts were reached out for through the tentacles of the task force. A guy who had a strange specialty: he hid things. Camouflage. He'd written books on how to find dope stashes. He'd helped secrete entire families away from the KGB, inside hollow walls and rooms within rooms. Hidden people from the Vopos at Checkpoint Charlie. They called him the Magician, because he could walk into a room and literally disappear. He was just one of the special team Jack had on the way to Dallas.

He would plan and scheme and lay his traps. But the truth was that Eichord had faith in only one crime-stopper. The big dark-haired flatfoot with the large shoulders and the broken nose. The one with all the scars. The one who looked “like a cop,” people told him. He looked at people a certain way. Wore his suits a little too long. That's the guy Eichord relied on when it came right down to it.

And the guy he trusted most didn't carry a Mach 4 Finjet blowgun-and-stun-wand, He didn't use porto-pak pain-field generators. He put his pain machine in a little holster. It was a steel thing patented by a couple of dudes named Smith and Wesson. It had a cylinder that revolved when you pulled the trigger and it made a very loud noise. Six times it did that. And if the projectiles found their mark you had yourself one hell of a little hand-held, portable, bite-your-lip-get-up-and-dance mother of a pain generator.

Because inside this soggy mesomorph was a soul. And a mind. Booze-battered, but still thinking. And the thoughts it thought were of another era and of another sensibility.

Jack belonged to soft hats in big, round Bond boxes and All Star Bond Rallies to aid the Sixth War Loan. He belonged to “Blue Tango” and Bix, Bud and Bird and Babe and “Begin the Beguine.” The Black Commando, the Black Widow, and Bob Steele and Bob Feller and Bowery Blitzkrieg and guys named Buck and Buzz and Brick Bradford, and boxtops to Battle Creek, and bad guys who made some fucking SENSE. The kind of warped, demoniacal monstrosity who could go and waste a hundred random lives was a thing out of the fucking comic books.

Eichord fished out more change. The plastic was beginning to hurt his ear. He gritted his teeth and dialed.

“Jones-Seleska, one moment please.” Buzzing of killer bees.

“Thank you,” after a pause. “May I help you please?"

“Noel Collier, please."

“One moment, please."

“Mizz Collier's office, Anna Stevenson, may I help you?"

“Noel Collier, please, this is urgent police business."

“Right. Okay. Just one moment please.” She didn't ask who it was. A few seconds and he heard Noel's voice on the line.

“This is Noel Collier."

“Don't hang up yet. I know you're angry and you have every right to be. Just give me thirty seconds.” He paused, waiting for her to say, “Fuck you, eat shit and die, your job is hanging by a thread, I'm putting a contract on your life,” or more likely the cold electronic click that signaled a dead phone line. Nothing. Not even a deep sigh.

“I won't keep you or even to try to apologize. I know that you see me as somebody who got out of line and that's true enough. In that spirit,” he lied, “I guarantee that I will NEVER bother you again ... NEVER surveil Joe Hackabee in any manner ... never tail, monitor, or in any way, shape, or form, bother either of you—"

She interrupted him. “Mr. Eichord, I'm afraid you have a serious problem and I'm sorry that—"

“No, I do,” he interjected quickly before he could get pissed and blow it. “No question. I'm not only aware of it I've resolved to take care of it and something IS being done about it and I mean NOW. I only want one thing and I'll leave you be. Very simple. I'm a cop first and last—okay?"

“So?"

“All I ask is to keep you, to keep my bosses, to keep us all smilin’ and laughin’ and scratchin'—I stay away from both of you—all I ask is IF you ever feel you're in danger in any way, I hope you will forget about my behavior and incompetence and not let it influence you against calling us for some help. Fair enough?"

“Fair enough,” she said, totally unconvinced, “and now I do have your assurance that—"

“AbsoLUTELY you have that assurance. You'll never hear from me or see me—guaranteed."

She said, “All right,” and the connection was severed. And he had accomplished what he wanted to do. Eichord wasn't too good to kiss some ass when necessary. And when it looked as good as hers did ... But it went against his grain all the same.

He would like to have been able to tell the truth to this cold lady and watch her face while he told her. See what her reaction would be. But he'd forgo that luxury. Still, he'd just about had it with the telephones. One more call and he'd have to get away from the telephone before he barfed into the hunk of plastic. He had managed to embarrass himself so badly at every turn on this damn case.

He wanted to go back and lose himself at the bar, but he forced his fingers to move toward the coin slot of the pay phone and he inserted money and dialed.

“Hello."

“Donna?"

“Yeah.” A big sigh. Oh, Christ in his mercy.

“I'm so sorry.” The opening of every alcoholic since the beginning of time.

“'S awright. No problem."

“Tell me I didn't call you and make a horse's ass out of myself last night."

“You didn't call me and make a horse's ass et cetera."

“I did, didn't I?"

“You don't remember, right?"

“I'd had a few drinks."

“You can say that again, oh...” A loud noise. “Hang on a minute.” She went to turn her boiling kettle off and banged the phone down giving Eichord a nice little shot in the ear as she did so. Oh, blessed art thou. She thought about this man as she turned the flame off. The horrible thing that had overturned her life had left only tatters of the former woman. She could not dredge up any interest in this man as a partner. Someone to be with. But she could see he was interested and in her mind many emotions tried to spark. There were misfires. One or two flashed enough for her to identify what was in her head.

Donna was not a woman to play games. The role of bitch goddess was not one she found acceptable, despite her love for melodrama. She had some character, whether or not her own personal standards of what might constitute sexual misconduct were the average woman's. She lived by her own code, which she had always thought of as—before all else—humanistic. She was an honest person and she knew what drew men was the open free-spirited display of awareness. She could look at a guy, as—they most women can, and tell him everything she wanted him to know in that one frank glance. But she had that gift in even the most asexual encounters, and anyone who spent time close to her felt the visceral quality and realness.

Yet the horrors of her abduction had changed her. She no longer felt in touch with herself, no longer trusted, no longer wanted to be liked. She hated cold people and was both mad and sad about her own growing coldness. Donna did not want to end up alone, closed, pointing inward with her focus, living only for self as she saw so many do. She wanted her life to be full of others, and for her that meant men and that meant sex.

And all of this filled her with mixed emotions and a disconsolate awareness of how badly the status of victim had mangled both her own esteem and her life's longitudinal axis. And she saw, for reasons that were unknown if not unimportant to her, a good man who appeared to be crumbling at a dangerous time, and he had reached out to her as a fellow human being for companionship and she'd cut him off at the pass. In that moment's pause as she turned the flame off and walked back to the telephone she shrugged to herself and the decision she made in those few seconds saved both of them.

“You still there?” she said, making herself sound like she cared.

“Still here. Am I calling at a bad time?"

“No.” She laughed. “But funny you should mention it.” He winced. “I guess you don't remember calling me in the middle of the night asking for a date?"

“I don't suppose I can convince you that was somebody impersonating me."

“Oh, you mean you DON'T want me to go out with you?"

“No! I mean ... Yes, I do. Of course. I meant—"

“I know. Forget it,” she said. She knew if she didn't plunge on ahead that would be it. Now or never. Do it. “You still want to ask me out?"

“Sure,” he said, waiting for the put down.

“How about six-thirty, seven ... something like that? We can go to a show or something.” There.

“Fine. Wonderful. Sure. Six-thirty tonight?"

“Yeah. One thing. I don't like guys to get drunk. I mean, I'm not a what-do-you-call-it, I don't care what somebody else does. But I don't like—TEMPERANCE, that's it, I'm not into that. I just don't like somebody that I'm with that way."

“My word of honor—” He started to do a tap dance.

“That's okay. I just wanted you to know. Okay?"

“Sure. Okay."

He wasn't used to people being so direct. The women in Dallas came on so forthright. He liked it, you understand, he just wasn't used to it. He fumbled around and told her he'd pick her up and thanked her, a little more enthusiastically than either of them liked, and that was that.

Donna Scannapieco puffed up her cheeks and blew out a big stream of air as if she'd inhaled a third of a cigarette, shaking her head at her own moves as if to say, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” And then she just sort of sighed and collapsed on a couch and stared out the window at nothing. What the hell is the difference? she thought. What can it hurt?

For his part it changed everything. He straightened up to his full height, put his shoulders back, and walked out to the car. Mostly what he wanted to do was make it all right. Back to square one.

He sensed or he knew what she was doing. This was a rape victim, somebody to whom the idea of a date—not to mention a date with a booze-hound of a cop—a chauvinistic, booze-hound cop at that—had to be at the bottom of her wish list. Yet she felt enough of his need that she was making one super effort in his behalf and that effort, which some men might have found demeaning or patronizingly insulting, it turned him on as nothing else could have. He loved, treasured honesty in a person insofar as personal relationships went, and she was giving him a priceless gift. Her no-strings-attached forgiveness. And it gave him the necessary shot of strength to get through the day.

Eichord was a full-steam-ahead kind of guy. All or nothing. And there was no thought of failing again. He was back on course as he hadn't been in months. He stopped and bought some dog food in a convenience store, walking past the package goods as if the liquor wasn't there. The last thing he craved was a drink. He craved a toothbrush. He wanted to go home and brush his teeth. But he didn't. He bought a toothbrush and toothpaste and went back to work.

He spent an hour and a half in the cop shop, taking care of some details that had been floating submerged beneath the layer of alcohol. He called someone who's name he obtained from the MCTF computers. The man was very elderly and Eichord pondered whether or not to handle it on the phone or call someone up in the Midwest to send a detective out and question him. He decided he'd gamble first and dialed the man direct, expecting a forgetful old codger who could barely hear, and he was in for a nice surprise.

“Hello, Mr. Lloyman?"

“One and the same. What can I do for you, sir?” Chipper voice.

“My name's Jack Eichord, sir, and I'm with the police department in Dallas, Texas. We're investigating a number of homicides and I need to ask you a few questions please."

“Ah. Okay. All right. Fire away, Mr. Eichord."

“According to some records we've come across you were with the Branson Social Services Agency for many years."

“Yes, sir, I ran that agency for nearly thirty years."

“Do you remember ... Let me ask this, it's a kind of personal question but the records say you're ninety-one. Is your memory such that you can still recall individual cases that you were involved in? Forgive the question."

“No. That's all right. I must say my memory isn't what it once was. I used to have a fine memory. But I notice this last five or six years it's not what it was when I was in my sixties or seventies, say. I'm awfully lucky, though. I know most ninety-one-year-old men aren't out painting their houses each year like I have for the past fifty-eight years. My health is wonderful for my age. Legs are starting to go, but, well, you asked about memory. Go ahead. Maybe I can remember the case."

“Great.” Eichord loved the guy. “There were twins. They were placed by your agency into a foster-home situation.” He mentioned the year.

“Oh, boy. That's so long ago now. I was about to be forced to retire then but I sort of remember some twins placed with a couple. I couldn't tell you the name."

“Hackabee."

“Hmm? Speak up please?"

“HACK-A-BEE.” He spelled it for the man.

“No. Nope, I don't know that name at all. There was a Hackaberry here in Topeka some years ago, but no. I don't recall a family by that name in Branson."

“The records show they died many years ago but they were apparently the adoptive parents of these twins. We can't find anyone who remembers the twins, which seems unusual. But the records being no longer available and you are the only living survivor of the agency—"

“No! You mean something happened—a fire or something?"

“Not that I know of, sir. I see in the records here"—Eichord turned a page of notes—"that all of the other people who might have worked for the agency back in that time period seem to have pre"—he caught himself before he said predeceased—"passed away or cannot be located."

“Well, my stars. I can't hardly understand that. Some of those people like Marty Burrows and the little Morton girl, what was her name, Ruella Morton—you mean they're all dead now?"

“According to these records, yes, sir, they are."

“See, I moved away, moved out of state in the, oh, guess when I hit sixty-seven, sixty-eight. Opal and I went to Alaska. It was wonderful up there. I had always wanted to go up there. We had a son working up there and so we moved up there. Beautiful country. Anyway, she took sick a few years after that and when she passed away, oh, let's see, I guess after I lost her it was two years before I moved back to the Midwest. We had a little piece of ground we'd bought in Kansas years ago—"

“Mr. Lloyman, the individuals we're investigating. One of them, the twins, is a suspect being held in connection with multiple homicides so it's very important we are able to trace their background. They claim the orphanage there in Branson burned down and the state does not have records on them and the Hackabee family didn't have surviving relatives. Wouldn't it seem odd to you that you don't remember twins with a name like Hackabee?"

“It certainly would. I placed a few twins over the years. But I could swear up and down there wasn't any foster family named Hackabee. I just never recall hearing that name before."

“Did you place any twins in foster homes—identical male twins—during that time period—any instances occur to you that you might think back on as unusual—anything out of the ordinary?” He waited while the man thought.

“Ummm ... No. Can't say as I can think of anything out of the ordinary. Identical male twins ... Didn't place too many. I remember one set we placed with a couple—the Houtchesons was the name of the family they just loved getting those kids so much. I often wondered what happened to them—the boys I mean. They were so cute and smart. Poor little devils. We'd got ‘em from a lady rescued them from an awful situation back in the woods. Rumors of them being tormented and such. Some no-good hillbillies back in a hollow there had ‘em. Poor little tykes. This schoolteacher gal got ‘em somehow and she came to us with the thing. I believe they were there in the hospital for medical attention for a time so you should be able to get their medical records if that would help?"

“Oh.” Eichord was excitedly making notes. “I'll say it would. Do you recall any more details? About the hillbillies that had them or who the schoolteacher was—her name? Anything?"

“No. Nope. Surely don't. So many years ago. ‘Course now you should go to Helen Houtcheson. Or the husband. Let's see what was his name ... I just don't. Richard. Robert. I—uh, it just doesn't come to me. I'll think of it though. ROY! Roy Houtcheson—that was their name."

“Great. This is really a big help.” He thanked the man, extracting a promise he'd allow Eichord to phone back for a follow-up if necessary and giving him the Dallas number and extension in case he'd think of any more details. He was still dialing Branson families with the last name Houtcheson when one of the other phones rang for him.

“Jack,” the voice said, “Doug Geary."

“Hey, Doc. D'jou get the tapes yet?"

“Yes. That was fast. I don't have anything on them myself, but a guy was watching them with me, that is in the lab where the machine is, and he made a comment, I have no idea whether this is worth even passing along. He's a sharp fellow. Was in commercial broadcasting for a number of years and he knows all about voices and accents and such. He made the suggestion to me that y'r buddy Ukie is not speaking in his real voice. I asked him what the hell he was talking about and it turns out that he gets the impression that Ukie is pitching his voice up higher than he normally would. It was such a crazy thing—I mean, what would be the point?—but something you said lit up TILT inside my noggin when he told me that.

“You remember you said something about how they looked just alike but one dresses sloppy and doesn't have as deep or mellow a voice? Wouldn't those be characteristics you could easily change? Get me? If you were a twin and wanted to try and put as much distance between your own appearance and your same image, you could dress differently, walk funny, talk in a different pitch of voice—things like that."

“Interesting.” Eichord couldn't think of anything else to say. “I appreciate anything like this that might come to you. Please."

“No problem. I realize it wasn't earthshaking but I thought you'd want me to call you on it. I'll let you know if I find anything after I've had time to really give them some thought. So far it just looks like I'm watching a man who is scared half out of his gourd."

“Well, I do appreciate the other information. Please lemme know soon as possible—whatever you think might help.” He told him how grateful he was and they hung up. A couple of calls had grown into an hour and. a half and nothing much. He put the Houtcheson thing in the hands of MCTF and walked away from it for the rest of the day—or so he hoped. He had a lot of soul-searching to do. He needed to get his head screwed on right, first of all. And the second he had the thought he burst out laughing at his choice of phrase but it was nonetheless true. He wasn't a tap dancer, he said to himself, he was a cop. Start behaving like one.

He wondered about Joseph Hackabee. Oh, yes. Nothing was right about any of it but his vibes counted and at this particular moment his vibes were shouting to him. He wanted to unfog so he could hear what they were saying. He let himself momentarily visualize them together, Joe and Noel. He had a phrase from one of the task-force background checks that bounced back via Houston PD, “surfer, ultra-light-aircraft pilot, hang-glider, subject is athletic and extremely competitive...” In shape. He and Noel would be a handsome couple. He envisioned her posing in the string bikini. Letting Joseph Hackabee see the little spur of bone at the base of her spine, letting him have a little vestigial tail. A little piece of tail. And that was the last time he would ever think of Noel in a sexual context. He shut her out with the booze.

Right now he was grateful more than anything else. Gratitude was his single overriding emotion. He was grateful to God for letting him come through this somehow. And he thought as he drove, God, just let me nail this one, and Lord, I'll never touch another drop of that stuff. Never. Strike me dead if I'm lyin'. And then he caught himself immediately as he framed the thought and apologized to the Lord. God. Forgive me, Heavenly Father, Blessed Heavenly Father. Forgive me for trying to make a deal with you. Thank you, Lord. Just thanks, is all.

He was grateful, too, that he had Donna to look forward to. He wanted to be with her and it amused him that he could think of her now so ... How did he think of her? As such a warm, attractive person, just because she took pity on him? No. She was a good woman. She was decent. He liked her a lot. And they'd both been through similar if totally different ordeals. It seemed to Eichord as if they both had a lot of memories they'd just as soon forget.

This was the same Donna he'd sized up as a hardboiled, invulnerable toughie that it was hard to feel any sympathy for. This was the same Donna whose book he'd judged by its cover, so to speak, without the slightest regard for the content. And this is the Donna who has enough compassion to forgive a copper in whom she couldn't have less interest or for whom she couldn't feel less attracted.

But that I can work on, he thought. And he wondered how some pretty flowers would do for openers. Would she be a flower lady, with a home full of plants and ferny things and a garden and stuff growing everywhere? Would Donna be a flower child?