Wireman

CHAPTER 23

EILEEN MCKENNA pulled her blue fox jacket closer around her shivering body. Ever since she had heard about the River Oaks’ murder on the six o’clock news she had felt chilled. A general malaise settled over her as she prepared for her appointment later that evening with a client in the River Oaks’ district. It was her first job since she and Jack had made love after Willie’s death, and she realized her hesitancy to keep the appointment involved more than a reluctance to be near the scene of a brutal murder. She did not want to go to another man’s bed out of an unreasonable feeling that it would be a betrayal of Jack.

Could this be the beginning of a new morality, she wondered? Anyone who knew her would have laughed.

Since when did Eileen McKenna believe in sexual devotion to one man, in monogamy? There was no precedent for this sudden urge of fidelity on the part of Houston’s most sought-after call girl. It was utter foolishness.

The doorman of her apartment house watched enviously as a chauffeur opened the rear door of a beautifully kept 1975 Silver Cloud Rolls Royce for her. Hal Winifred’s style extended even to his paid companions, Eileen thought uncharitably as she got in. When you were a middle-aged bachelor who owned a large interest in Astro-world and the Houston Oilers football team, you could afford to send one of your Rolls to pick up a gorgeous redhead in a blue fox coat. That you also were expected to pay highly for the services of this woman did not matter.

I’m being mean and petty, Eileen thought, but could not manage to throw off her uneasiness. She felt like sulking, and when she was in such a mood her professional manner took over. There was an unwritten law that prostitutes kept their private lives private.

The chauffeur, an old man with pure white hair, did not spare his passenger a single glance, much less the benefit of a friendly word. This made Eileen even more irritable. The unspoken message was painfully clear. They were both employees of Hal Winifred. They need not waste one another’s time engaging in the social amenities. He drove the car and she rented out her body. She might as well be a basket of flowers or a sack of groceries.

“Turn around,” she commanded abruptly.

The chauffeur flinched and the back of his neck reddened. “Madame?”

“I said turn this car around and take me back to the St. John.”

“But Mr. Winifred is expecting you.” To the chauffeur this clearly settled the matter.

“Mr. Winifred will have to be disappointed. I don’t feel well and I wish to be taken home immediately.” For the first time since picking her up, the chauffeur twisted his head around to look at her. “But Mr. Winifred sent me—”

“You will simply have to convey my apology to your employer,” Eileen interrupted. “I’m sure you’re well-trained in that regard.”

The utter contempt in her voice was not lost on the chauffeur. “Yes, madam. Whatever you say.” Eileen relaxed against the soft leather seat and formulated a plan in her mind. All she had been able to think about for the past weeks was Jack DeShane. It was time to be honest with herself. She loved him and she no longer liked her life as a woman surviving on her looks and sexual skills. She knew her recent sleeplessness and irritability were caused by a refusal to admit she was in love. She had been needed before by various men for various reasons, but never had she been needed as a total woman, accepted as a total person, unconditionally. Jack needed her and loved her. She had tried to deny that she needed and loved him the same way.

It would mean taking a chance on another person, opening herself to hurt, relinquishing the lifestyle she had so studiously created. The safety of the cold, empty place she had put herself in would be gone. Love meant risking the emotional stability that came from non-commitment. After all these years, could she respond warmly and honestly to true love—and return it?

Not that she had a choice. Look at what she had just done. Look at how she had put off all the appointments with men after the last night with Jack.

The Rolls slid smoothly to a halt before the entrance of the St. John. Without a word to the chauffeur, Eileen let herself out and walked into the lobby like a queen. She called for a taxi and within minutes was on her way to Jack DeShane’s house. All the way she prayed that he was home. They had not seen each other for over a week because of his searching the streets. Could she ever erase his agony over Willie?

Would his son’s death destroy him so that their love might never have a chance?

“Here you are, lady,” the cab driver said, clicking over the meter.

Eileen looked out the window to the porch awash in yellow light. This was a home, not a hotel. It reminded her of Bloomington. “Thanks, keep the change.”

Her lovely smile melted the driver’s heart so thoroughly that it was not until he had driven away that he realized she had given him a twenty-dollar bill for a ride that cost three.

Betty Lawrence stood before the open door, a look of astonishment on her face.

“Is Jack at home?” Eileen asked.

Mrs. Lawrence quickly assessed the woman before her: fur jacket, small silver-beaded purse clutched to her chest, thick, luxurious red hair piled atop her head, and the sweetest face God must have ever made. What on the earth could she want with Jack DeShane?

“No, I’m sorry, but he’s out,” Mrs. Lawrence said when her appraising eyes were halted by the steady sea-green gaze.

“I’m a close friend of Jack’s,” Eileen explained. “Do you think it would be too much trouble if I waited for him?”

Mrs. Lawrence saw the cab pull away and stepped aside to allow the woman to come in. “He might not be back for some time,” the older woman warned. “He’s had a misfortune, and he spends every night out this way. If you’re close like you say, then maybe you know what he’s up to.”

“Yes, I know about Willie. And I know about Jack trying to find out something on the streets.”

Mrs. Lawrence heaved a sigh. Perhaps here was an understanding soul. But what this wealthy lady had to do with a poor cop was still a mystery. “I’m Mrs. Lawrence, Mr. DeShane’s housekeeper. I moved in to stay awhile after what happened to Willie.”

“Eileen McKenna.” Eileen held out a hand. “Jack’s told me about you. He really appreciates all you’ve done for him, Mrs. Lawrence, and so do I. I don’t know if he would have made it without you here to stay with him.”

The housekeeper took Eileen’s fur coat and hung it up. When she turned back to the woman, she was struck again by the unearthly beauty of Eileen McKenna. “Lord, but you’re pretty,” she said, and quickly closed her mouth in embarrassment.

But Eileen’s smile was innocent and kind, quickly putting Mrs. Lawrence at ease. “Thank you,” Eileen said. She glanced down the hall to the kitchen and into the darkened living room.

“Well, well. Look at me forgetting my manners this way,” Mrs. Lawrence said sheepishly. She took Eileen by the arm to lead her to the kitchen. “I’ll make tea if you like, and we’l1 have a little talk while we wait. I had just made myself some fried toast for a snack. I don’t sleep till Mr. DeShane gets home safe nights. Would you like a slice of toast, Miz McKenna? Or I could fix you something else.”

A long lost memory of a plate of fried toast from when she had been a girl in Bloomington surfaced and made Eileen’s stomach rumble. Home.

“I’d love fried toast!” she said. “That would be a wonderful treat.”

Mrs. Lawrence listened eagerly while melting butter into a heavy black skillet. The beautiful lady came from a small Texas town and a poor family. She was no stranger to fried toast and grits and collard greens and cornbread. The more she talked about herself and her childhood, the more the housekeeper liked her.

Not a snooty bone in her body, she thought happily. What a catch she would be for Jack. The house might come alive again with love and happiness with this lady around. God willing, and with a careful nudge from interested parties, Jack DeShane could be in line for a miracle. Stranger things had happened.

Both women’s attention turned to the sound of a key scratching in the front door. It was eleven-thirty, an early hour for Jack’s return from the streets. For a few seconds Eileen remembered the killer who stalked the city. Without her knowing it, Mrs. Lawrence too felt sudden fear at the sound from the front of the house. When they heard Jack’s familiar greeting, “Mrs. Lawrence, I’m home,” the women gave twin sighs of relief and only then realized how frightened they had both been.

Mrs. Lawrence smiled to Eileen shakily and said, “That’s my cue to go to bed. I’m sure Mr. DeShane will be happy to see you. If either one of you need anything later tonight, don’t hesitate to call me.”

“It was good to meet you, Mrs. Lawrence. Jack’s lucky to have you for his friend.”

“What he’s lucky about is having you.”

Mrs. Lawrence met Jack in the hall and told him he had company waiting in the kitchen. Then she excused herself and went to bed.

Jack stood at the threshold in the large, homey kitchen, obviously surprised. “Eileen, what are you doing here?”

Eileen felt horrible at the way he looked. His eyes had bags beneath them, and his scar, usually unnoticeable, was puffy and red. He was dressed like a poor bum and the jeans accentuated the weight loss he had experienced over the last few weeks.

“Oh, Jack, Mrs. Lawrence was right.” She slowly walked to him. It took all of her willpower not to enfold him in her arms and soothe him like a child. “You’re trying to kill yourself. This has to stop.”

Jack dismissed the topic with a gesture of his hand. He had been hearing the same thing every night from his housekeeper, and he did not want Eileen to worry. “I’ll be all right,” he said, kissing her lightly and leading her to the table. “That’s not what brought you here, is it? If Mrs. Lawrence called you…”

“Jack, you know better than that. Mrs. Lawrence didn’t even know me before I came here tonight. Though she would have had a perfect right to call for help. You look like a scarecrow.”

Wearily Jack ran a hand over his gaunt face and slid down in the dining-room chair until his head rested on its back. “No one seems to understand that I can’t sit at home waiting for the department to come up with something.” He sat up abruptly and his face was full of barely controlled fury. “This leave of absence is driving me crazy, don’t you know that? They won’t let me work on the case; they keep me in the dark when they get snippets of evidence. And they don’t have the manpower it takes to patrol the streets looking for a lead, any lead. This is the only thing I can do to help find the bastard who killed Willie. It may not be worth a damn, but at least I’ll know I made an effort.”

Eileen put à hand on Jack’s arm and squeezed it, offering support. “Jack, I didn’t mean to quarrel with you over what you’re trying to do. I’m just concerned about your health. Late hours, not eating, and even Mrs. Lawrence told me you’re going to parts of town where it’s dangerous to be at night. It scares me, Jack.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she wanted to curse herself. The self-control she valued so highly seemed to have deserted her.

“Don’t cry, Eileen, please. It just seems so many people are against me and I get defensive. Sometimes I feel raw all over, as if my skin’s been peeled away. I catch myself blowing up at Mrs. Lawrence over nothing, and now I’ve made you cry. I’m so miserable that I make everyone around me miserable.”

Eileen wiped her eyes with her hands, but still the tears welled and rushed over her lids. “Dammit, Jack, this isn’t the way it was supposed to be tonight. I came here to… I wanted to tell you…”

Jack could feel Eileen’s struggle. It was wretched of him to lash out at her, to accuse her of misunderstanding. Looking at her, her shoulders shaking, he felt a tightness in his chest. “What did you want to tell me? ”

Jack brought her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. He closed his eyes, breathing in the soap and perfume smell of her. With Eileen in his arms he could forget the horror his life had become. She represented all that was good and worthwhile. With her near, the streets vanished for a little bit, the pimps and crooks and con artists did not exist. The child he had loved so much and missed so desperately released the dead weight from Jack’s heart and he could even hope that he could love again.

His lips found Eileen’s, and he tasted the salty wetness of her tears. A lump formed in his throat so large that he could hardly speak. “Eileen, marry me, tell me that’s why you’ve come. No, don’t say anything yet.” He kissed her again to silence what he was afraid to hear. “I’ve never wanted another woman the way I want you. I don’t care what you are or what I am. The past shouldn’t matter. I love you more than my own life, and that’s what matters. I’ve lost Willie—dear God, it’s so hard for me to admit I’ve lost him…”

He swallowed hard only to find the pain still deep within. “This is the first time I’ve been able to say it aloud and know that it’s true. I’ve lost a part of my life, but I’m willing to face that and go on. I can’t lose you, Eileen, don’t tell me you’ve come here tonight to tell me that.”

He kissed her again, and it seemed as if his very life was draining into her, and in return, her life was surging into him. They did not have to make love and join their bodies to become one.

“Jack, Jack, listen to me,” Eileen whispered. Her doubts were gone, regret was a thing of the past. She felt as if she were leaping into a dream and there was no way back. “I came here tonight to tell you I want to be your wife.”

Jack burrowed his face into the velvety fragrance of her neck and sighed like a man who had just been given his life back.

“I’ve never loved anyone before,” Eileen went on. “I’ve made mistakes and wasted years of my life doing such meaningless things.”

“Sshh,” Jack whispered. “Don’t say any more.” He swept her into his arms and carried her to his bedroom and softly closed the door.

Betty Lawrence eased the crack of her own door shut and smiled to herself in the dark. She had been right.

The pretty girl was heaven sent.

“Stranger things have happened,” she said as she tossed her robe across the foot of her bed. For the first time in many years she fell asleep thinking about her own youth.

Jack kissed Eileen tenderly and rolled away from her to feel for his cigarettes on the night table. Their lovemaking had filled him with wonder. She was sensitive to his every move, every touch. Now that he knew she would be his, she would soon be Mrs. Jack DeShane, their coupling was even more unrestrained than before. She stroked his thigh while he smoked, the tip of his cigarette glowing gently in the dark.

“I was at the bus station tonight,” he said.

“Are you finding out anything, Jack?”

“Blind alleys and brick walls. I checked out a hustler last week with a reputation for turning lethal when he’s crossed, but he had an alibi for the times of the last two murders.”

Jack balanced a plaid bean-bag ashtray on his stomach and tapped ashes into it. “I talked to a kid tonight who works with some kind of perverted freak I want to talk to.”

“What’s he done?” Eileen asked.

“I don’t know if he’s done anything, but it’s what he says about the killings that’s pretty sick. Jesus, what was his name?” Jack held his cigarette stiffly above the ashtray trying to remember. “I knew I should have written it down. He works at Apex Burglar Alarm and his name is… Singer? No. Winger? Christ! ”

“Eileen sat up and propped a pillow behind her back. “Take it easy, Jack. The name will come to you.”

Jack swung his legs over the side of the bed and set the ashtray on the night table. He was about to rise and pace the floor when the correct name came to him. “Ringer! Nick Ringer, that’s it!” He sighed in relief. “The son of a bitch was in Vietnam too, and Sam told me he’s been working on a list of vets in Houston who were in Special Forces and had guerrilla training. Maybe they haven’t checked out this guy yet, and I’ll save them some time.”

Eileen sat rigidly against the headboard, a look of startlement on her pale face.

“Jack…” she said very softly.

“The kid said Ringer talked about the murders all the time. He said they probably deserved what happened to them. Can you believe anyone—”

“Jack, please listen to me.”

Something in Eileen’s tone made Jack turn to her. “What is it, Eileen? What’s the matter?”

“I know him,” she said simply.

“You know who?”

“Nick Ringer. I know him. Or, at least I did when I was a kid.”

“Are you serious?” Jack could not believe what he was hearing.

“Yes, I knew him and his brother, Daley. They lived next door to me in Bloomington. I was ten and I had a kitten…” She covered her face with her hands and shivered.

Jack took her wrists and kissed them gently. In the dark he could not see if she was crying, but he thought she was. “What happened?” he asked, knowing that the memory was painful.

“He wasn’t as pretty as Toby,” Eileen said as if she was talking to herself. “His name was Shingles, a little marmalade cat with bands of yellow fur. I carried that kitten everywhere with me. I played house with it. I dressed it in doll clothes and sneaked my mom’s cans of sardines from the pantry to give it something special. It was the first pet I ever owned, and I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me have it when I found it crying in a thicket behind our house.” She paused and looked at Jack. “Can I have one of your cigarettes?”

Jack automatically picked up his pack before realizing he had never seen her smoke. “Are you smoking now?”

“I am tonight.”

He lit one of his Marlboros for her and handed it over. She took a shallow drag and coughed behind her hand before continuing the painful story.

“One day I made Nick angry. I called his mother a name.” She laughed ironically. “The name I called her is a joke on me now. It was summer, hot, terribly hot, and Nick came over to play, but he was always bullying me, and even then I was an independent little girl. When I got mad I always talked back, something most little girls never dared to do, especially to Nick.” She drew on the Marlboro and this time did not cough. She stared straight ahead as if seeing the summer day long ago being played out on the white stucco wall of Jack’s bedroom.

“Nick and I had experienced run-ins before, but this time Nick kept taunting me. He planted himself between me and the house and wouldn’t let me past. I was afraid my mom might look out the kitchen window and see us in the backyard fighting. She didn’t like me to play with the Ringer boys. None of the kids in the neighborhood were allowed to play with them. They had bad reputations—or rather, Nick had a bad reputation. Daley was like his shadow. He always followed Nick around, skulking around corners, hiding in bushes, creeping up on Nick to catch him doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Because that’s what Nick did—things kids aren’t supposed to do. Horrible things. Sadistic, dreadful things. I may have been the only kid in town who really knew what was going on. I lived next door and I was curious because the Ringers were taboo. I’m not proud of the fact now, but I was almost as bad about keeping watch on Nick as Daley was.

“He did awful…” She motioned for the ashtray, and when Jack set it on the sheets, she ground out the cigarette.

“He killed your kitten, didn’t he?” Jack said quietly.

“Yes, the morning after we had our fight I found Shingles hanging from the clothesline by a wire noose.”

It took a few seconds for the word “wire” to fully sink in for Jack. When it did he nearly shouted. He wanted to grab the telephone book and look up the Ringer address. He wanted to find the man and shake him by the collar until he confessed to the murder of Willie. The only thing that stopped Jack was the insanity of it all. He had no proof. He had a twenty-year-old horror story of animal mutilation and murder plus the untrustworthy gossip of a drug-dealing kid. He had coincidences. Vietnam, wire, sadism. He had nothing, goddamn nothing, but coincidence.

“Tell me all you know about him,” Jack said, shaking another cigarette from his pack. “I want to know everything you can remember about the family.”

“We were all poor in that neighborhood, but the Ringers were worse than poor, they were considered white trash. His mother was a now-and-again whore, and that’s what I called her when I was mad at Nick.” Eileen gave an ironic laugh. “I know that probably sounds funny coming from me, but in 1960 it was the worst slur you could make about a kid’s mom. Whoring just wasn’t a socially acceptable hobby in a little southeast Texas town. If you whored, everyone knew it, and you became an outcast.”

Jack tried to picture the small town of Eileen’s childhood. He had always lived in cities, and although there were people around with small-town mentalities, it was not the same as growing up in provincial 1960 Bloomington, Texas. He felt an ache for the little girl Eileen had been. He wished he had known her with her long pigtails and quick temper.

“Nick and Daley’s father wasn’t around much. He worked at the switch yard for the railroad when he was in town, and when he was gone Nick’s mother turned tricks. Finally he left them altogether. I realize now Nick’s mom had to do something to keep body and soul together, but kids can’t rationalize and they take on the prejudice of their elders. Besides, Mrs. Ringer was sluttish in other ways. She let the boys run wild and put a lot of responsibility on Daley’s shoulders even though he was two years younger than Nick. That was because Nick was a… troublemaker.

“He was into trouble all the time, most of it of his own making. And he was a strange boy—aggressive, cruel, always looking for revenge for what he felt were unfair judgments against his family. In a way I couldn’t blame him. He was pitiful and life was hard for him then, but no one made him cruel. No one made him kill Shingles.”

“You’re sure he did it?” Jack asked when Eileen shuddered.

“Positive. I’d seen him kill other small animals. Frogs, snakes, birds. Then after Shingles was killed, I started watching him closer. I wanted to catch him doing something I could report to my father, something he could be punished for. By that time I hated him. He scared me, and he had taken away the first pet I’d ever loved. I wanted my own revenge.”

Eileen took another cigarette and got out of bed. As memories returned, she began to walk around the room. “So I watched. I’d run straight home from school and watch his house through the bushes from my bedroom window. I imagined I was Nancy Drew and that Nick would go to jail for all his wrongdoing. I knew—I just knew he’d do it again, kill something, and strangle it. That’s what he did, strangled small innocent things that couldn’t fight back. I guess it made him feel powerful.” She shook her head slowly.

“Then one day it happened. It was a weekend, a Saturday. School had just started so it must have been September. God, it was hot. The black pavement in the streets was spotted with bubbles where the tar rose. The sun was so bright it hurt your eyes.

“I was bored and feeling hateful. I’d been watching Nick’s house from my bedroom window since early morning, and it was almost two in the afternoon. My mother thought I was sulking because I didn’t like the new school clothes she’d bought me, so she left me alone. I was sleepy and about to give up when I saw Nick through the bushes. He and Daley had been arguing all day. Daley wanted Nick to play with him or go somewhere and Nick wouldn’t do anything. Finally Daley went inside to get out of the sun and Nick came from the thicket behind our houses and passed by the bushes where I saw him.

“Well, that was it. Finally I had some sleuthing to do.” Eileen smiled at the memory. “I got out of the house without being seen and followed Nick across the street and through a weedy lot. It was kind of fun. I was still mad at him and he still scared me, but you have to remember it had been a long summer and school was so boring. So tracking Nick without getting caught was an adventure. At least I was doing something.

“Nick cut through yards and alleys. He crawled between stopped railroad tanker cars at the tracks. I stayed with him at a safe enough distance so I wouldn’t be seen. What I didn’t want to happen was for Nick to discover I was following him. Being around him when Daley was present was bad enough. I couldn’t imagine getting caught alone with him.”

Eileen paused and stared out the window. The moon was down and nothing stirred in the house.

Jack knew he was seeing a side of Eileen she had never before revealed. The more she talked about when she was a child, the more southern inflections entered her speech.

A portrait of Nick Ringer was evolving in Jack’s mind too. He did not want to, but the more he learned about the Ringers, the more convinced the boy Eileen was describing could have grown up to commit the murders. The police academy spent very little time on the psychological aspect of an officer’s education, but it was easy to see a pattern in the disturbed boy that might have erupted in the grown man.

“There were birds singing everywhere in the woods,” Eileen continued. “We were on a country road back of the railroad tracks. Nick walked down the center of the road through the hot gravel. To keep from being seen, I went into the trees that lined the road. I ran from tree to tree like a little rabbit. It was a game, a stupid kid’s game. I was Sherlock Holmes, and nothing could touch me because I was so smart. Never in a million years would I be discovered.” Eileen began to tremble and Jack went to her, enfolding her in his arms.

“But I was wrong. I was fooled by a kid much smarter and craftier than me. I was a minor-league sleuth pitted against a master. You see, Nick was practiced at this. I’d forgotten he had a brother who tailed him everywhere. After a while Nick had developed a sixth sense that told him when someone was behind him or when eyes were on his every move. He’d actually known from the very beginning—from the second I leaped off my porch to trail him—that I was there. I really was the rabbit. And the fox walked ahead of me kicking gravel in the late afternoon sun.

“The woods thinned, I was scampering further and further between tree trunks trying not to be seen. There was more brush in my way and cockleburrs latched onto my socks and my clothes and tangled in my pigtails. The game was rapidly losing its thrill. I was soaking wet with sweat and my throat was dry. I was out of breath and my legs ached.”

Jack heard Eileen’s breath shorten and come in quick gasps as she spoke. Her eyes closed and her fingers tightened around his hand.

“We’d come to the burial ground,” she said calmly. “It wasn’t a city graveyard or a family plot. It was a deserted piece of land where Nick came to bury the animals he killed. It was his own private reserve, a secret place full of death.

“I didn’t know that at first, of course. I was disappointed that I’d come all that way chasing after Nick to wind up on an ugly patch of scrub land in the middle of nowhere. There were a few short-needle pines that looked as if they were dying. There was a broken-down fence and a dry red ditch. When I crept closer I could see where sticks had been piled up and set on fire in the ditch. Suddenly I realized that this place meant something special to Nick. He walked on it as if it were sacred ground. I’ve seen people in cemeteries since who moved that way—slow, with their heads down as if they are communicating with those who have passed on.” Eileen paused for a moment before continuing.

“Nick still hadn’t let on he knew I was there. He ambled around with his hands stuck in his pockets and stooped every now and then to pat little mounds of dirt. I couldn’t imagine what he was doing. The mounds looked a lot like red ant hills, but no one would go around patting anthills. I tried to figure out what they might be and what they meant to him, but it didn’t make sense.

“Then…” Eileen drew in her breath sharply and Jack tensed. “Then all of a sudden Nick turned right around, facing where I was hidden behind a pine and stared my way. I froze. My knees locked and I couldn’t even blink. I knew he had seen me, and I wanted to run out of the woods and onto the road away from him, but I was hypnotized. Before I had time to run he crossed the space between us, ran the last few yards, and caught hold of my arm, squeezing it tightly until I cried.

“‘What do you want?’ he said. ‘What do you want to know about me, Eileen?’

“I couldn’t speak. I was too shocked that he’d caught me. At that moment I could see that he hated me—really hated me.

“I tried to jerk away from him, but he held on, his fingers pinching me to the bone. I stopped struggling and tried to get mad. I knew if I could get mad enough I’d stop being scared, but it was the look on his face that made me most afraid. No one had ever looked at me that way before, and I was paralyzed.

“‘I want to show you something, Eileen,’ he said, dragging me behind him into the open. ‘You followed me to learn my secrets, so I’ll show you a secret. You came here to see something so I’ll show you something worth the trip.’”

Eileen broke into a sob and buried her head in Jack’s shoulder. “Oh God, Jack, it was horrible! He dragged me to the fence line at the back of the property. It was a weedy place, but a path had been trampled through it to where the fence turned at a right angle to cross the back of the land. The weeds were brown and dead and some of them were as high as my head. I didn’t know where he was taking me or what it was he wanted to show me.

“When we got through the path and to the fence corner, Nick pushed me forward. I couldn’t see where I was going, and I stumbled across something. When I saw what it was, I started to gag.”

Eileen turned her face from Jack, but not before he saw the revulsion etched on her delicate features. “It was a cat. A dead cat with a rope around its neck. I didn’t recognize it from our neighborhood so it must have been a stray he’d killed. It was stiff and dried looking. Nick pushed me down onto my knees and wrapped both of his hands in my pigtails to force me to look at it. I clenched my eyes shut, but he shook my head until my scalp hurt and I looked. That’s when I saw a small hatchet resting near the cat’s head.

“’Know what I’m gonna do now?’ he whispered in my ear. ‘I’m going to chop it into pieces. I’m going to cut off its legs and its head and then I’m going to bury it here,’ he said, pointing out to the clear space where we’d come from.

“I started screaming at him. I don’t remember what all I said, but I did tell him I was going to tell his mother. I was going to tell everyone what he was doing. Do you know what he said then? He said go ahead, tell on him, who cared? He said it was his word against mine and who cared what kids did? He asked me if I hadn’t ever wanted to see what a cat looked like all cut up into bits. Then he said that if he got into trouble and was found out, he’d make it look like I was involved too. People would believe anything bad about kids and he’d make them believe that I was just the same as he was. He’d tell them we did it together and that it was my idea, kind of an experiment, a nasty little experiment.” Eileen shuddered and Jack held her close stroking her long hair.

“I never did tell,” she concluded weakly. “I was afraid to tell. What he was doing was obscene and cruel, but who would believe me? It was too insane to believe. My mother would have laughed at my vivid imagination. Nick’s mom couldn’t handle him and didn’t have the power to stop him. Then there was Nick’s threat to think about. I felt guilty. Although Nick was the one doing these awful things, because I knew about it and had seen the corpse of the cat, in some crazy way I felt responsible for what he did. By following him that day I’d entangled myself in his nightmare world.”

“You don’t have to feel gui1ty,” Jack soothed softly. “He was a warped little kid, and it wasn’t your fault.”

“I realize that now, but when I was ten I believed Nick Ringer had the power to show me up as his accomplice. I took the blame for his secrets upon myself. It terrifies me that he’s in Houston, a grown man now.”

“It’s all right, Eileen, try not to think about him. I’ll never let anything happen to you.” Jack slowly rocked her back and forth.

“Do you think he might be…?” Eileen’s voice trailed away.

Jack’s mind shrieked, Yes, yes, he’s the most likely suspect I know about. But he answered, “We can’t know yet. They have a psychological profile worked up on the killer downtown, but I haven’t seen it. I don’t know what kind of a man would kill…” His voice broke.

“With a wire,” Eileen finished.

“Yes,” Jack echoed, “with a wire.”