Wireman

CHAPTER 20

HELEN MCCOMBIE rolled from the bed, heaving a weary sigh.

Standing next to the bed she said, “Wel1, let’s get to it!” She glared down at the double roll of fat around her plump waist. “One, two, three, four!”

She lasted through ten toe-touches and ten deep knee bends before falling back on the bed, exhausted and huffing.

“Now the shower,” she told herself, forcing her bulk upright once more.

Her brow was slightly damp with sweat and already the backs of her legs cramped. After the long shower, she applied revitalizing cream to her face and throat, carefully smoothing it on her round, full features.

“You beautiful thing, you’ll be thin and svelte before you know it,” she said to the wall of mirrors behind the sink.

In the adjoining dressing room she slipped on a pale green caftan of pure silk. Along the bordered hem were long-necked pink flamingos that exactly matched the color of Helen’s lipstick.

Fighting and losing the battle of the bulge occupied most of Helen McCombie’s life. If she was not involved in exercise, diets, or positive thinking, she was tinkering with her roses in the heart-shaped garden or trying to make her husband of twenty years confess his disgust with overweight women, something Dr. Mark McCombie would never do. Though Helen did not realize it, she was the most fortunate of women.

Her husband was faithful, considerate, and on his way to taking his place in the Houston medical fraternity beside the famed surgical team, Cooley and DeBakey. Besides the solid marriage that had never depended on her figure for resiliency, Helen was a wealthy woman in her own right. She had a sumptuous River Oaks’ home, a loving husband, good friends, an intelligent daughter at the University of Texas, and every advantage money could buy. But she did not have a Playboy centerfold body, and throughout life it was what she had wanted most.

On the way down the marble stairway Helen did side bends from the waist. Her double chins did a hula when she halted and rolled her head around and around on her shoulders. All the way through the house to the oversized, red-tiled kitchen, she practiced facial exercises that made her look as if she were auditioning for a horror movie.

The house was empty and her footsteps clicked loudly across the polished tile. She touched a control on the wall near the light switch, and from recessed speakers the voice of Aretha Franklin bellowed. Helen smiled and danced with abandon across the width of the kitchen to the refrigerator door. While Aretha belted out “Rock-A-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody,” Helen chose one carrot stick, a celery stalk, two Tiny Tom tomatoes, and a ripe peach from the crisper. She ate the breakfast while dancing around the kitchen pretending to be a fairy princess. A very thin, beautiful fairy princess.

When she got to the peach, she was dreaming of peach pie, peach cobbler, peach tarts fried in butter, and the biggest tub of whipped cream ever manufactured.

Outside, the first day of March shone brilliantly. Helen touched the wall control, killing the music, and went to the pantry for her gardening gloves. The nursery had told her if she did not get the five new rosebushes into the ground right away, there would be no hope of them blooming this summer.

She opened the French doors leading onto the back terrace and filled her lungs with fresh air. The rosebushes waited on the bricks at her feet. She stooped and fondled the waxy stem of a rose called Midnight. It was supposed to produce a bloom so red that it was nearly black, and though Helen did not believe it, she felt a flutter of excitement at the thought of raising a rosebush with such a peculiar shade of flower. Then there was Heaven Sent. She caressed a trio of midget green leaves. This one was already trying to grow. It would give bouquets of lavender roses the size of a child’s fist. At least that’s what the nursery guaranteed.

“Lovely, little ones,” Helen purred to the potted roses.

She worked diligently in her garden while the quiet morning passed serenely. She was dirtying the silk dress and did not care. She had an entire closetful of caftans, and when she succeeded in ruining them all, she expected to be sixty pounds lighter. Then she would go on an all-day shopping trip to the Galleria for a new wardrobe.

Midnight and Heaven Sent were lovingly planted. Scattered around Helen were her tools: shovel, hoe, a box of rose food, the water hose, a hand trowel, rake, and the three remaining potted bushes. She had almost finished tamping down the earth around Sunset when she had the unpleasant sensation of being watched. Jerking her head up and wiping the perspiration from her face, she looked to the two places where someone might be: the open French doors of the house and the wooden gate leading into the yard. Her gaze stopped at the gate. Her heart pounded fiercely. What was he doing standing there, only his face showing above the gate, watching her work in the garden?

The killer recalled a childhood fantasy as he drove around Houston. He and his brother were not the products of a broken home where an inattentive and sexually active mother thought of them as nuisances.

They were children of a powerful, rich family, mother and father both doting, giving their two sons real love and anything else they desired. He had a room of his own with a bed in the shape of a racing car and a big chest of toys. He had a tutor and did not have to go to school. He had friends who never mocked or taunted him, friends who gave lavish birthday swimming-pool parties with things like radios and football gear as door prizes. Every summer his make-believe family went to Europe and every winter they vacationed on the ski slopes of Colorado. He wanted for nothing and in return for this paradise, he was a good boy. A good boy…

Suddenly he knew where he should go. To River Oaks, the Beverly Hills of Houston. He was taking more risks than ever, daring the world to stop him. Murder was not committed in River Oaks. The elite were protected by stone walls, heavy security, sophisticated alarm systems, guard dogs, and their own exalted sense of being untouchable.

The killer drove through white pillars with the legend RIVER OAKS down the front. Not far from the entrance he parked in an empty driveway and waited outside the car for someone to discover him. When no one came out to inquire about him, he started walking down the street, inspecting the mansions. When he saw a security patrol car coming his way, he ducked through a hedged walkway and circled behind a white two-story Italian structure. He had only meant to stay out of sight, but to his surprise he found exactly what he was looking for, waiting innocently behind a high weathered gate.

He stood silently, watching the woman work in the ground. If she had no gardener on duty, did she have a maid inside? It did not matter. He would kill the maid too, no problem.

From his pocket he took a yellow-handled knife and went in search of the phone lines into the house.

His face appeared above the gate, his hand on the latch.

“What is it that you want?” Helen asked, leaning on the shovel and shading her eyes against the sun’s glare. “We don’t allow solicitors here.”

“I’m not selling anything,” he replied, casually unlatching the gate and wandering onto the brick terrace.

His look took in the chaise lounges, the wrought-iron table and chairs. He listened for someone moving around in the house and readied himself for a shadow emerging from the French doors.

Helen was approaching, shovel in hand.

“I’m looking for the Garsons,” he said, the name coming into his head from nowhere. “Do you know where they live?” He smiled automatically.

Helen searched his eyes and knew something was phony. His smile did not reach his eyes. There were not any people in her neighborhood by that name. “I don’t know any Garsons,” she said, wishing he would leave. She had work to do, and it was uncouth of this man to invade her property without invitation. Why had security not stopped him?

They were so lax these days.

She had a strange sensation that the stranger was sizing her up. She noticed he was blocking her way to the French doors and the interior of the house. She did not like that and pursed her lips in disapproval. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave. I can’t help you,” she said, giving him a scathing look. She didn’t like being discourteous, but this man was in her way.

She made a move toward the house as if to dismiss him, but stopped when he stood his ground. Suddenly he took a step toward her, and instinctively Helen took a step back. She hefted the shovel into her plump, bejeweled hands and thought of her husband. Mark had wanted to install a wrought-iron gate with an inside lock because she worked in the garden so often. She wished she had not argued against it so strongly.

Could this young man be a robber? The suspicion made her shiver. Ridiculous. He was simply lost and, Lord knows, River Oaks was a maze to the uninitiated.

“You might ask security, they would know about the family you want,” she said.

“Your neighbors aren’t home, are they?” he asked softly.

With the question her hopes began to die. Helen breathed shallowly and measured the distance between them.

“Have you come to rob me?” she asked, wondering how she had the guts to come right out with it. She studied his expression. It had not changed. She had not surprised or insulted him. Something was terribly wrong. “I don’t have much here,” she continued when he remained silent. “I have these rings,” She proffered a hand to show him a ruby and diamond dinner ring. She stuck out the other hand where a swirl of sapphires sparkled. When he failed to show any interest, her apprehension increased.

“You’re alone and you’re scared,” he said without emotion.

Helen found herself leaning forward in order to hear him. She licked her lips and shook the shovel in front of her. “Just tell mè what you want! I don’t understand.”

Suddenly he moved swiftly and grabbed her thick upper arms. He stared down into her startled face. For a second his stare faltered as if he were losing concentration and Helen took a chance. She jerked away, stumbling backward. The white stone walls around her were too high to climb. Her neighbors were not at home, and there was no one to hear her scream. Taking a deep breath, she decided to get it over with. She thought she knew what he wanted.

“If it’s sex you want, you don’t want me. You’ve made a mistake. I’m fat! Can’t you see how unappealing I am? Look.” She held the shovel to the side and with a free hand gripped the rolled fat around her middle.

“See this? Even my husband finds me unattractive,” she lied. Seeing he was unaffected by her dramatics, she lifted the corner of her caftan high above a fleshy, dimpled knee. She glanced down and frowned at the thick, pasty, cratered skin of her bare thighs. “Who would want this?” she asked pitifully, believing it to be true and wanting him to believe it. “You don’t want to rape a woman like me. It’s ridiculous.”

The self-disparaging remarks brought tears to her eyes. She checked his face to see if she was impressing him. His stare was unreadable. What did he want if not to rob or rape her?

“That’s not what you want?” she asked, suddenly even more fearful.

He shook his head, and Helen felt her heart sink.

“What?” she whispered because she had to know, had to understand what was required of her. Worse than being burglarized was being raped, but beyond rape her imagination refused to function.

With infinite care the man unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and Helen relaxed slightly. He wanted sex after all. His hand went into the space between his shirt and chest. She wondered if he was playing with his own nipple and if that was what rapists did to arouse themselves. But his hand was reappearing, and in it was a—Helen squinted—a wire? A circle of wire? With brown wooden handles. For what purpose, handles?

Helen started backing away from him, seconds before she saw his hands take the handles and stretch the wire until it vibrated like the string of a yo-yo. She recognized the murder in his eyes, watched his broad shoulders tense, his muscles strain against the material of his shirt. He was coming for her.

“Scream,” he said. “I want you to scream.”

Helen bolted. After a few steps, she turned and threw the shovel as hard as she could. She pivoted and ran for the roses. There she snatched the water hose in one hand and the three-pound box of rose food in the other. She flung the box at her attacker and winced when it hit him in the face. He stopped and shook his head. She squeezed the handle of the hose and sprayed him directly in the eyes while groping for the garden trowel.

He continued to come for her, impervious to the water. There was a furious dark glow in his eyes. Blood dripped from his hairline and caught in the socket of one eye.

“Don’t fight,” he commanded. “Just scream for me.”

“Damn you! Damn you! Get away from me!”

She dropped the hose and ran through the rose garden. Thorns tore at her hands and arms and snagged in her caftan. She came out from the center of the heart-shaped garden and ran along the flagstone walkway under the oaks. She looked over her shoulder and saw him not far behind. His head was down and he was meticulously extracting a thorn from his wrist. She pressed her back to one of the oak’s far sides and clutched the garden trowel to her heaving bosom. All she could hear was her own breath.

When he passed by the tree, she swung at him with the forked garden instrument. He grabbed her quivering wrist, the trowel inches from his face. She was breathing into his shirt, smelling him, her eyes out of focus.

She was mad with fear, insane with the prospect of her death. Her mouth opened, her head lurched into the cold, wet material, and pure instinct made her bite his chest with a fury she never knew she had.

He screamed in agony. He released her wrist and the trowel fell to the ground. His hands, the wire hooked into his fingers, covered her buried head and forced her away. With a horrible sucking sound Helen’s teeth were torn from his chest and she pushed at him, upsetting his balance so that he hit the tree.

Again she ran. Through the roses, unmindful of tears and scrapes, through the open beautiful lawn. From the corner of her eye she saw him gaining, running to her left, going for the gate, to block her escape. She went through the open doorway of the house. There was no time to bar the doors. She flew through the kitchen, down the two steps to the den, and had the telephone receiver off the hook while still in flight.

Frantically she put it against her ear and heard—nothing.

“You!” she screamed at him as he came down the steps to her. “Get away! Get away from me!”

She tried to reach the front door, but he was too close. She opened the door into the library, trying to keep her mind calm enough to remember what rooms had openings out of them so that she would not be trapped.

Blood dripped from her thorn wounds onto the pearly white carpet, spotting her trail. She grabbed an onyx horse head and flung it at him as he came into the library. She heard it miss, hitting the wall as she collided with the shut door of a bathroom. Quickly she fumbled with the brass knob, slipped inside, and slammed it behind her. She pushed the lock button, smiling as his fist banged on the other side. She slipped out the other door of the bathroom into the hall, rushing for the living room and freedom.

Behind her a crystal lamp fell. Helen’s head swiveled to see her attacker crossing the room. One side of his face was bloodied. He was clawing his way toward her, spilling the Chinese vase of flowers, the garrote swinging wildly from one hand.

The stairs, the upstairs! Lock him out!

She was on the seventh step when his hand snaked through the spokes of the banister and caught her ankle.

She went down to her knees painfully, hearing a snap, feeling the surge of pain travel up her calf to her thigh. She twisted away from him, kicked with her other foot, and got free. She crawled up one step, got to her feet, steeling herself against the pain from her cracked kneecap, and half hopped, half crawled to the second floor.

Four bedrooms, two baths, dressing rooms, closets, a balcony. She had no time to devise a plan. She fell into a hall closet and managed to shut the door just as he was about to clear the stairway. She held her breath, hands tight over her mouth, eyes wide open in the dark. She was surrounded by their tennis rackets, jogging shoes, and scuba-diving gear.

She heard his footsteps pound past her hiding place. She waited, feeling faint from the pain in her knee.

Blood from her hands trickled down her arms. Her heart beat so rapidly she could not catch her breath. The fear of dying thumped through her thoughts like a monster rampaging through a small village. Her fear was Frankenstein and the town was her brain. Footfalls echoed inside the dark confinement of the musty closet until Helen thought he would burst through the plaster and wood. She whimpered inside like a small child waiting to be punished. Let me out! Let me out of here! Oh God, I can’t stand to be locked in here waiting for him!

When the claustrophobia was too much, Helen ripped open the closet door.

She blinked. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the light, and she saw nothing, no one. She let out her breath and heard something crash downstairs.

Limping and crying silently from the pain and fear, she started for her bedroom. In some small kernel of her soul she knew she would not give up, would never give up without using all her resources to outwit him.

At her bedroom door she saw the whole room. It looked empty, but was it? Had the crash downstairs come from his plundering the rooms for her or had it been mere accident—- book, a vase, a statue tumbling on its own?

She moved as quietly as possible across the room, all the while watching the closet door, the bathroom full of shadows, the rose-patterned drapes on each side of the French doors leading to the balcony. At any moment she anticipated the pounce of her attacker. She stared ahead of her bravely, holding her body erect even though her knee throbbed relentlessly. She was past the bed, past the extravagant dresser with its tremendous array of cosmetics. She had the doorknobs of the double French doors in her hands.

Outside was sunlight, her garden, the unplanted roses. Freedom waited at the bottom of the drop to the terrace floor. She had to do it. She had to make the effort. She would not give her life willingly to a madman. She knew who he was. She had known it in the garden when she saw the wire and understood how the wire was used. He was in all the newspapers and on the television newscasts. He had killed a little boy and two women. He had taken two of the heads and now he wanted hers, but she would not make it easy for him!

At the white balcony railing she leaned out into the air and felt a soft breeze caress her wet cheeks. She glanced behind her then peered over the drop. He was nowhere in sight. Quickly now, she told herself, hoisting her good leg over the railing to stand on the narrow ledge. Quickly and be done with it before he comes.

Her weight dragged her earthward. She hung from the rail by her hands. She chanced a last look at the terrace that seemed to be so far down. You’re going to break your legs on the bricks, she thought. You’re going to have to crawl out the gate.

Panic began to invade her mind, making her not want to let go. Because… was it worth it? Would it save her? She did not want to find herself shattered and helpless on the cold, unyielding bricks below.

She looked up above her, and for an instant she thought the man’s hands clutching her hands belonged to her husband, who had come to save her at last. Then she realized the truth.

“No!” she screamed, falling, twisting.

The pain on impact was too much. She could see nothing but a black, starry void. She instinctively began to grope her way across the smooth squares of brick to where she thought the gate must be. Her vision slowly returned, and with it came the reality of her situation. For the first time she felt as if she was not going to make it. Both her legs were bent at ludicrous angles, and she could see her left anklebone protruding through the skin like a piece of splintered wood. Blood was splattered all over her pale green skirt. She turned her head and looked to the balcony. He was not there. She looked through the French doors into the kitchen. He was not there either.

Helen crawled, breathing laboriously, grunting at each half foot she took.

Finally, after an eternity, she was at the gate, close enough to touch the gray planks. She was sobbing and weakly calling for someone to help her, to rescue her. The gate would not move. She gazed without comprehension at the latch. She reached out one scraped and bleeding arm, but there was so far to go, so much she had to do, and no one to help her. She couldn’t reach the latch, oh God, she couldn’t get to it.

“Please,” she cried, her voice no more than a hoarse whisper. “Please, someone…”

She felt his presence behind her. Frantically she clawed at the gate until her fingernails tore away from the skin. His knees were pressing against her back, and she could feel the warmth from his body burning into her. His hands were oddly gentle on her shoulders as if to calm her. Still she clawed and pushed and heaved against the locked gate, desperate to be away from his touch.

The wire descended. Helen saw it, the entire length of it held rigidly before her eyes, the handles squeezed tightly in his hands. She reached for it to stay her death sentence, murmuring, “Wait… wait… please.”

Helen McCombie’s death was not swift or neat. She used her body as a weapon. Her hips bucked, her feet slid up, and she kicked out at him with one broken ankle, her hands beat at him. Finally, her valiant fight ended with her life’s blood spurting against the traitorous closed garden gate.