Devil's Playground (12 page)

“Yeah?” she said.

“Up late last night?”

The girl shielded the sun from her eyes, scanned Sam up and down, and then focused on the badge wallet, which hung from Sam’s belt. “What do you want? We didn’t do anything.”

“Why do you assume I thought you did something?”

“You’re a cop. Cops always think we’re up to something.”

“And are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then, why are you still here? The trial is over?”

“We’re merely voicing our religious beliefs and supporting our Earthly master. I think the Constitution allows us to do that.”

“Yes, it does. You can believe in anything you wish. You can follow that psycho Garrett around all you want. But, you can’t break the law. If you do, you’ll have to deal with me and Sheriff Walker.”

“I’m terrified,” she said sarcastically.

Another young girl, the blonde, rolled out of the van. Even her dirty, disheveled clothes and sleep puffed eyes couldn’t mask her beauty--pert nose, high cheeks, pouty lips, emerald eyes. Her short blonde hair looked like a trampled cornfield.

A dozen or so others came from the other vans or crawled from the tents, forming a vacant-eyed group. They looked like children of the damned.

“What’s your name?” Sam asked the brunette.

“Penelope.”

“Penelope what?”

“Just Penelope.”

“And you?” Sam directed to the blonde.

“Melissa.”

“Let me guess? Just Melissa?”

The girl offered no response.

“Where were all of you last night?” Sam continued.

“Here.” Penelope waved her hand toward the remnants of a campfire twenty feet to her left. Melissa nodded her agreement. The others stood motionless like mushrooms sprouted from the sandy soil.

Adjacent to the fire’s ashes, sat an altar, crudely constructed from rocks, which were painted with the drippings of black candles. Empty beer cans and several joint remnants littered the ground.

“All night? All of you?”

“Yes.” Penelope propped her hands on her hips.

Sam scanned the group. She figured half of them didn’t understand the question and the other half didn’t understand the answer. Melissa snuggled against Penelope, who wrapped a protective arm around her.

“You’re sure about that?” Sam asked.

“We left town about 7, stopped by the store for supplies, and got here about 7:30.”

“Then, what?”

Penelope shrugged. “We cooked, ate, had a few beers. Then, held a prayer service.”

“Prayer service?”

“Christians aren’t the only ones who pray,” Melissa said. “They just pray to the wrong God. We pray to the God of Darkness.”

“And a little marijuana helps him hear, I guess?” Sam shot back.

Melissa stared at her but again offered no response. Instead, she hooked a finger in the waistband of Penelope’s jeans and lay her head against Penelope’s shoulder.

“Look,” Sam continued, “I’m not here to harass you or violate your religious freedoms, such as they are, but a family was killed about a mile from here. You know anything about it?”

Melissa looked up, wide-eyed.

“No. Why should we?” Penelope said.

“Why shouldn’t you?”

“We aren’t killers,” Penelope said. “We’re here to support one of our own. He has no one on his side except us.”

“Do you know Richard Earl Garrett? Ever actually met him?”

“No.”

“You’re lucky. He’s a psycho child killer, nothing more.”

“You’re wrong,” Penelope said. “He’s Satan’s chosen disciple, his personification here on Earth.”

Sam looked at the dirty, young faces before her and couldn’t help wondering why these kids had slid down the path they were on. Why they had chosen Satan over college or a job or a family. Why they had latched on to Garrett as a symbol of hope and redemption.

“Anybody see you here last night?” she asked.

“Yeah. Dude named Ed something came by in a pick-up. Asked what we were doing.” Penelope cocked her head to one side, eying Sam defiantly.

“And?”

“We told him. He said not to leave beer cans or trash when we left and he drove away.”

Ed Campbell, Sam thought. He lived on a small spread a couple of miles further down Salt Creek Road.

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know. Must have been midnight or so.”

“You camp here every night?”

“Along here somewhere,” Penelope said. “Where ever feels right. Of course, we’re in town every day. We don’t have anything to hide.”

“Then, you wouldn’t mind coming by the Sheriff’s Department this afternoon and giving us your fingerprints?”

“Are you arresting us?” Penelope asked.

“No. But, if you give us your prints and they check out, maybe I won’t have to come back out here and ask more questions.”

“That’s fair. We just want to be left alone and be near our master.”

“Meanwhile, I’ll check with Ed. See if he corroborates your story.” Sam turned to leave, but stopped and turned back to the group. “And don’t smoke that shit in town or I’ll bust you. Out here, I don’t care what you do, but in town, you don’t even pick your nose. Understand?”

No response, blank stares.

She climbed in her Jeep, whipped a U-turn, and pointed it toward town.

*

As Sam drove toward town, she mentally formulated a suspect list for this morning’s murders. None of her choices excited her. Garrett, the groupies, an unknown accomplice, the Manson Family, space aliens. Hell, she might as well consider a joint suicide, for that matter.

She discarded aliens and suicide since she included them only as an attempt to find a scrap of humor in all this. Garrett was in jail, which eliminated him. Mostly.

She knew the groupies weren’t the killers. They didn’t hack up the Hargroves in some misguided attempt to free Richard Earl Garrett. No way. Lost, confused, rebellious, sure, but not murderers. Everything--her nose, her gut, her common sense--told her they weren’t involved. Of course, she would finger print them anyway. And, if they didn’t show up voluntarily she
would
haul their butts in.

She had to admit the murders of Roger and Miriam were Mansonesque in many respects. The shear madness of the murders, the mutilations, the overkill, the removal of their hearts. Manson’s outfit could have done all this, and more. She remembered reading that Sharon Tate’s unborn child had been cut from her womb by the cult. And more recently, she had read that as many as a hundred members of his so called “family” still resided in California. Could they have heard about Garrett and come here to reignite Charlie’s “Helter Smelter” fantasy? Could any of Garrett’s groupies have a connection with Manson’s “family”? They were all too young to even remember the murders. Sam was, too. Still, cults had a way surviving, multiplying, spawning splinter groups.

Maybe a new “Charlie” was responsible. A mad man with no relationship with Garrett. Unknown to Garrett. Possible, but like the Manson Family, too coincidental.

She knew most homicides occurred for a reason, a payoff. Even Manson’s rationale for the Tate-LaBianca murders made sense on some screwball level. The killings of white people in white neighborhoods, which he assumed would be blamed on blacks, was supposed to trigger a black-white war--”Helter Skelter”--and result in him ending the war and becoming a world leader. Crazy, but rational to a paranoid schizophrenic.

What would be the payoff for a new “Charlie”? Maybe something as bizarre as “Helter Skelter.”

What the hell are you thinking, Samantha?

This case was making her delusional. The Manson Family for Christ sakes.

The only perp that made any sense was an accomplice. But who? A relative? A friend? A fellow Satanist? Someone who would realize some benefit from clouding the Garrett case. But what? Money? Power? Revenge for Garrett?

Sam returned to her office to find that Lanny Mills had called twice to see if anything new had turned up. Thelma gave her the messages complete with Lanny’s phone number and his requests that she call immediately.

Sam sat behind her desk, tossed the messages in the trash, and gathered her notes on this morning’s crime scene. She scratched out a somewhat coherent report, including her visit to the groupies, and gave it to Thelma for typing.

Ralph Klingler called.

Ten minutes later, Sam tapped lightly on Klingler’s office door. It stood slightly ajar, so she pushed it open. Ralph sat hunched over a microscope, dictating monotonaly into a hand held recorder. He looked up as the door swung open.

“Sam, come on in. Have a seat.” He gestured toward the chair that faced his desk. A two-foot tower of medical journals occupied the seat. “Sorry. Let me get those.” He stood.

Sam waved him away and lifted the stack. “Where do you want them?”

“Over there. On the shelves.”

Sam placed them on the only vacant shelf in the bookcase that covered the wall to her right. The remainder of the shelves held thick textbooks, bound journals, and several photos of Klingler’s family. She returned to the chair and sat, nudging it forward, close to his desk.

“What’d you find for us?” she asked.

“I finished the autopsy gross exam on Miriam and Roger. Haven’t completed the microscopics yet, but I don’t think they’ll add anything.”

“I take it from your call that something important turned up.”

“The wounds. Both of them were stabbed several times...in addition to having their throats cut and their hearts removed. It’s the stab wounds that are bothersome.”

“In what way?”

“They were made by the same knife Garrett used on the kids. Or an identical one.”

“What?” Sam lurched forward in the chair, her hands grasping the edge of the desk. “Are you sure?”

“The knife Garrett used is very distinctive...curved, eight-inch blade with serrations along the top. The wounds on the Hargroves’ match in every dimension. I’m no forensics expert, but I’ve seen quite a few homicides in my day and these wounds are so distinctive...well...yeah, I’m sure. It would help if I could have Garrett’s knife again. For a better comparison. All I have on file are photographs and my descriptions.”

“Sure. It’s in the evidence lock-up. I’ll zip over, get it, and bring it back.”

During the mile drive to the Sheriff’s Department, Sam attempted to make some sense of what Ralph Klingler had said. An identical weapon used in an identical murder when the killer and the weapon were both locked away. How could that be? There must be an accomplice. What else could explain this? Did Garrett and his partner plan such an elaborate scheme? Down to buying two identical knives? If so, why wait for Garrett to be convicted? Wouldn’t it make more sense to do the other murders before the trial? It didn’t fit. Unless, the entire plan was designed to embarrass the legal system. But, why?

“Hello, Thelma,” Sam said as she entered the office. “I need the evidence room keys.”

“Here you go.” Thelma retrieved the keys from her desk drawer and tossed them to Sam.

“Is Charlie around?”

“In his office.”

“Don’t let him walk out of here while I’m digging around. I’ve got to talk to him.”

She unlocked the door to the evidence room and flipped on the overhead light. She located the box that held the evidence in the Garrett case, pulled it off the shelf, and dumped its contents on the table, which sat along the wall. She shuffled through the sealed evidence bags, but didn’t find the knife. She spread the items out, examining each one in turn. No knife. A third inspection, same result.

“Thelma,” she said, peering out the door, “has anyone signed out any evidence from the Garrett case.”

“No, I’m sure they haven’t, but I’ll double check.” She removed the evidence log from her desk drawer and opened it. Her finger traced down the page. “No.”

“And everything was returned from the court? Right?”

“It’s all listed here. Hector Romero signed everything in after court the other day.”

“The knife, too?”

“Yep.”

“Get Hector on the phone.”

Thelma reached Hector at the court. After Sam spoke with him and Hector assured her he had indeed retuned everything, including the knife, she marched into Charlie Walker’s office.

“You are not going to believe this.” She flopped down in the chair next to his desk.

“Believe what?”

Sam explained everything to him.

“So, what you’re telling me is that we have a copy cat or an accomplice who stole the knife from the lock-up and used it on the Hargroves?”

“Exactly.”

Charlie exhaled loudly. “I’m getting too old for this shit.” He leaned back in his chair and slung one leg up on the corner of his desk. “Why? Who?”

“The who is the million dollar question. The why? Maybe Garrett and his buddy are thumbing their noses at us.”

“Seems to me, if that was the case, they’d have done it before the conviction. Even before the trial.”

“I know.” Sam agreed.

“I could understand it if there’d been a reward for Garrett. Take the money after his arrest and conviction, disappear, and then throw the curve ball. But, that’s not the case.” Charlie tilted his hat back by pushing up the brim with one finger.

“None of this makes a whole hell of a lot of sense,” Sam said. “How did someone break into the lock-up and steal the knife in the first place?”

“Our security isn’t the best. Never had to be before. That room only has a simple dead bolt. Wouldn’t take Houdini to get by that.”

“I suppose.”

“Thelma,” Charlie hollered.

Thelma appeared at the door, squinting, brow furrowed. She appeared pale and unsteady and grasped the doorjamb as if she might fall without its support.

“You OK?” Charlie asked.

“Damn migraine again. I’ll be all right after I take my medicine. Did you change the light bulbs in here or something? Seems awfully bright.”

“You’re the only one around here that changes bulbs. Or even knows where they are. Why don’t you go lie down for a while.”

“I’ll be OK. What’d you need?”

“The evidence room keys. You keep them locked in your desk, don’t you?”

“Always.”

“No one could have gotten to them?”

“I don’t see how without my knowing it. Of course, someone could’ve broken in at night, but they’d have had to pry one of the doors and my desk drawer and I’d know if they did.”