Hawk Moon (18 page)

"But nothing else."

"I know."

"I really appreciate this."

"So do I."

"Your wife was lucky."

"No," I said. "I was the lucky one, believe me."

And then I drew her to me, gently, tenderly there in the darkness, and she smelled and felt of woman, friend and lover and sister, and then she started softly crying and her warm tears on my face were both sad and erotic.

E
ven in many prisons, the red man was treated as an outcast. He was frequently brutalized by both the guards and other prisoners, and was often sold as cheap labor to private industry by corrupt wardens.

Professor David Cromwell's Indian Journal

A
utumn came.

Anna had followed the stout, handsome Douglas Shipman virtually every night. He had his card games at the country club, his business meetings at City Hall, and his carousing nights at three different downtown drinking establishments.

He never once went to Gray House.

One Saturday afternoon, just as the leaves were turning, Anna borrowed Mrs. Goldman's buggy and went out into the countryside. The fall leaves were almost blinding in their beauty. The hills smelled of smoky perfumes.

Gray House was unimaginably lovely.

All Anna could think of were the splendid Victorian homes she'd seen in magazines about London, everyone inside all genteel and elegant.

Gray House was surrounded by a black iron fence.

No signs of life were visible.

She thought of Poe's
The Fall of the House of Usher
and of its powerful opening description of a house that seemed barren of all life.

She pulled the buggy up to the front and checked the black iron gates. Padlocked.

Anna would not see any more of Gray House on this particular day.

O
ne day in the library, Anna came across it by pure accident.

Looking through the London Times, a newspaper she'd read ever since Jack the Ripper had gotten her interested in British society, she saw a headline on page 5. ‘CIRCLE OF SIX' MEMBERS ARRESTED.
"Six House of Lords members ‘groom’ young slum girls to give them pleasure," the text read. "A vile and degenerate plot' notes Scotland Yard Inspector.

Anna read the entire story in horror and disbelief. Now she knew what Douglas Shipman's "secret society" — which Trace had innocently mentioned one night — really meant.

"I
need to say something to you, Anna."

"I think I know what you're going to say, Trace."

"Maybe it's time I started seeing other girls."

"Maybe it is."

"I have needs, Anna."

"I understand, Trace."

"There are several girls over at the soda fountain who seem to like me just fine."

"I'm sure they do."

"And they're cute girls, too."

"I'm sure they are."

"Oh God, Anna, I don't mean any of this. I'm just trying to scare you."

"Can't we just go out and hold hands like we used to?"

"I don't think I can do that, Anna."

"Your needs."

"You don't need to be sarcastic about my needs."

"I'm not being sarcastic, Trace. I know you have needs."

"Maybe we should get married."

"Two minutes ago you were telling me you wanted to go out with these cute girls at the soda fountain."

"I didn't say I wanted to go out with them. I said they wanted to go out with me."

"Oh God, Trace, I can't argue anymore. And that's all we do these days. Argue."

"Well, it's not unreasonable for a modern young man to have certain expectations of a modern young girl in this day and age."

"I don't think I'm all that modern and I think that's the problem."

"Yes," Trace said miserably, "I think that's exactly the problem."

I
spent most of the following morning in Cindy's office going through the crime-scene data that the Cedar Rapids police had given Chief Gibbs to compare with his data from the first mutilation murder.

The supplemental crime reports showed that the Cedar Rapids people had done a very thorough job.

But for all of it — and the evidence list ran to more than thirty pages — what made me most curious was the fact that on both victims, the sister a week earlier, not only had the nose been mutilated but the arm had been cut off.

I wasn't sure why, but that particular method of operation sounded familiar to me.

I was using Cindy's office so I decided to link up her computer with mine.

The process took fifteen minutes and at the end of it I was able to find material relating to the ritual mutilations by certain Indian tribes during their wars with each other and with white men.

Each Indian tribe had its own way of slashing and thereby "marking" the arms and legs of its victims. Indian warriors followed a practice called "counting coup" touching a live or dead enemy and then crying out, "I claim it" — meaning "I claim this brave's body and soul."

This sometimes led to ritualistic slashing, in addition to the inevitable death.

Some tribes believed that by cutting off the limb of an enemy, you maimed his soul as well as his body . . . leaving him less than whole in the Afterworld.

I then punched up some additional information.

Sex murders are typically stabbings, strangulations or beatings

If the killer used a weapon he brought along, this points to an organized person

If the killer used whatever weapon was available, this points to a disorganized personality

But as I read through several pages of material on post-offense behavior I kept thinking back to the notation that certain Plains Indians had severed the limbs of fallen warriors in order to ensure that the warriors would be maimed in the Afterworld.

For some nagging reason, this sounded familiar.

Had I heard of a case like this before?

A
few minutes later, I was talking to a friend of mine in Quantico.

"Say again," he said.

"Cuts off a limb so that in the Afterworld, that person will be maimed. Can you remember a case like that?"

"No."

"How about Native Americans in general?"

"That's where I'll start, Payne, but I'll tell you, I'm so busy right now I can't guarantee when I can get back to you."

"Fine."

"How's Iowa?"

"Iowa's great as always."

"Man, you sure love that state."

"I sure do. The countryside more than the cities but the cities are all right, too."

"I'll do what I can for you on this."

"I appreciate it."

"
Ciao
."

"
Ciao
? A Bureau guy saying
Ciao
?"

He laughed. "I knew I could get you going with that."

C
indy came in ten minutes later with a crisp new khaki uniform and a worn tired face. Not much sleep after leaving
my motel room, apparently. She looked pretty and sad in a way that was touching, in a way that made me want to hold her again in the quietly erotic embrace of last night.

"You mind if I close this door?" she said.

"Huh-uh."

She closed the door. "I'm sorry about last night."

"Yes, I guess you did sort of take me against my will."

She didn't smile. "I'm a married woman."

"There's married and there's married, Cindy. You shouldn't feel guilty about it. I needed to be with somebody and so did you."

"I feel like a slut." Her brown eyes were slick with tears.

"It was tender and gentle and fun," I said. "And you're one hell of a decent person. And one hell of a long way from being a slut."

"He's running for his life and I'm sleeping with somebody."

"He didn't worry about you a whole lot when you needed him."

"It shouldn't have happened. And it was my fault as much as yours. I just wanted you to know that."

I decided to change the subject and almost immediately wished I hadn't. "He try to call you last night after you got home?"

"No."

She was lying.

I could see it right there in her beautiful brown gaze. She was a very moral person, Cindy was, and lying, like sleeping around guiltlessly, just wasn't in her.

But I wasn't going to say anything.

It wasn't my place.

She nodded to the front of the station. "They brought the tracking dogs back this morning."

"You going with them?"

"I'm going to look a few places on my own."

"I see."

"Chief Gibbs said it was all right to do it so I thought why not. Right?"

"Right."

Obviously she knew just where he was hiding and was going out there the moment she got a chance.

"You want me to go with you?" I asked.

"Better not. In case I run into him."

"I see."

She touched her hand to the doorknob.

"You remember what you said last night about not blowing your whole life — everything you've worked so hard for — to help David?"

"Yeah, I guess I remember that."

"Keep that in mind."

"Are you implying that I know where he's hiding?"

"I'm not implying anything, Cindy. I just don't want you to get into trouble."

She surprised me by walking three steps over to my chair and kissing me tenderly on the mouth.

"You were nice and gentle, and I appreciate that," she said.

"I should be the appreciative one, Cindy. You're a fine woman. Being with you was an honor. I don't think you know just how fine a person you really are."

I'd embarrassed her. She went back to the door. "Maybe I'll check in on you tonight. See how things are going. Just to have dinner or something."

"I'd like that."