Leather Maiden (8 page)

“No. It was in a package, stuck in my mailbox at work.”

“Then it wasn't stamped?”

“No. We can get stamped mail there, but this wasn't stamped.”

“Mine either,” I said. “It was waiting for me at the newspaper office. Can anyone walk into the history department?”

“It's easy. You did it today. All you have to do is ride the elevator up. So many people come in and out it could have been dropped off at any time. Could have been put in with the mail batch, then delivered by someone in the office. The office secretary is the one who does that.”

“Did she know Caroline?”

“She's new. About fifty. Has three kids and a husband and shows us pictures of them and a little brown dog. I can assure you, she's not involved with a months-old disappearance.”

I started up the car and drove out of the rest stop, headed back toward town. As I arrived at the university, Jimmy said, “Thanks, Cason.”

“I'll do the best I can, Jimmy. But I'm going to add this: I told you to destroy the DVD. But you might want to just go on and tell the police, give it to them. There's a good chance it'll all come out anyway. Blackmailing starts, there's no guarantee it'll stop, even if you pay the money.”

Jimmy sat with his hand on the door handle. “I can't do it, Cason. I can't disappoint Trixie. I wouldn't want to lose her. Think about Gabby. How you feel about losing her.”

“You're hitting low, bubba.”

“I don't mean to play on your sympathies here.”

“The hell you don't,” I said.

He opened the door and stepped out, but before he closed it, he stuck his head inside, said, “You with me, bro? We okay?”

I looked at Jimmy. He was really scared.

“You're a shithead, but I'm with you,” I said.

14

I went back to the newspaper the next morning and sat at my desk and tried to think about what to do. I had thought about it all night and nothing seemed like a good idea. The sun doesn't shine on the same dog's balls every day, but I sure felt as if I were long overdue for a little sunlight.

Then I thought about what Jimmy had said, and he was right. I could talk to people he couldn't. As a reporter, even a small-town reporter, I had access to people and places other folks didn't.

A follow-up article on Caroline. That was the deal. I'd need to do research, talk to a few people. I had the Allison file in my desk, and information on my computer, so it was all at my fingertips. No reason for anyone to suspect I was doing anything more than my job.

I got the accordion file out of the drawer and read through it for the umpteenth time, and made a list of names and ideas on a yellow pad, then I looked through the computer file and did the same.

It was a short list.

On it was the police chief and the girl, Ronnie Fisher. I thought the police chief might be the best place to start.

I called and he was in, so I drove over there.

His name was Lanagan and I was let in to see him. He was a big man with gray hair and a young face and a complexion that appeared to be pumped full of strawberry Kool-Aid. I introduced myself and he stated the obvious. “So, you're a reporter for the paper?”

I agreed that I was. He ran a hand through that thick gray hair and motioned me to a chair, checked his watch to show me how busy he was, then sat down behind his desk.

“Listen, I can't give you much time. I'm supposed to do a little talk for the Rotary Club today.”

“I understand,” I said. “I'm doing a kind of follow-up to an article I wrote about Caroline Allison.”

“That was you? I read that. Good article.”

“Thanks. I was wondering if there was anything special you could tell me about the case. Something I could do to expand on the article. DNA testing, anything like that?”

I was looking for some way to get a connection, any kind of connection that might tell me if there were ties to Jimmy.

Lanagan leaned back in his chair, cupped his hands behind his head and gazed upward, thoughtful.

“I wasn't here then. It was another chief. Moved here from Michigan. Did a little law work up there, was a constable. Applied for the job, got it. Chief then was James Kramer. He died. Cancer. I took over. As for DNA, I'm going to be real honest with you…What was your name again?”

I gave it to him.

“Thing is, Jason—”

“Cason.”

“Cason. Thing is, you watch TV, you'd think everyone is doing DNA tests and cracking cases with all kinds of high-tech equipment, and in no more time than an hour TV show. Like everyone has a handwriting analyst that can tell if someone wrote a ransom note left-handed or with their toes. Sound equipment that can separate a car backfire from a dog fart. Ain't true, bucko. Our special-material budget, and that would include DNA and that nifty yellow crime scene tape we stretch around crime sites, is two thousand dollars a year. That's it. What we got here in Camp Rapture is some good hardworking cops, a drug dog so old he needs a live-in nurse and a leak in the department bathroom that slicks up the floor and makes it a death threat every time you go to the crapper.”

“So, I guess I can mark DNA testing off the list.”

“You can mark off DNA, ballistics, most everything. Drug dog dies, way they cost, I'll be out there sniffing tires and asses in his place.”

“I see,” I said.

“I'm angry every day I get up on account of it,” the chief said.

“That you might have to sniff asses and tires?”

He smiled, but it didn't look particularly heartfelt.

“This girl, this Caroline Allison, don't think I haven't read her file and wondered,” he said. “I've looked at her picture dozens of times. A face like that could make a priest quit fucking choirboys.”

“So nothing was found at the scene?”

“All that was left was a sack of stale Taco Bell, some shoes. She just disappeared, like morning dew by mid-afternoon. If you quote me, that by the way could be a good quote.”

I made a note on my pad. “Like morning dew by mid-afternoon,” I said. “I'll use it. So, if you had the money for DNA you could do DNA testing, but you have nothing to test, so it doesn't really matter if you can or cannot do DNA testing.”

“On the nosey. I'm going to lay that lack of evidence in the lap of my poor dead predecessor. No DNA was collected. Of course, that doesn't mean there was any to collect. But if there was, I wasn't responsible. I want it known that any incompetence was not my doing. Did you know speeding tickets have doubled on North Street because of a larger presence of officers?”

“I didn't know that.”

“Well, it's doubled. That's my doing. Fines for unleashed dogs are up too.”

“Are there fines for cats as well?” I asked.

The chief furrowed his brow. “You know, I don't think so. But we could make it that way. That's an idea, and I might steal it.”

“It's yours. What happened to Caroline's car? Do you know?”

“From what I remember from the files, no one claimed it. No relatives. It eventually was sold at an auction. I might have made another choice, but—” He spread his hands in a “Whatcha gonna do?” motion.

“Fingerprints?”

“Car was dusted, but nothing was found.”

“That means someone wiped it down, right?”

“It means no fingerprints were found. That's all it means. Oh, there were prints on the steering wheel, but they were all the same prints and didn't pop up in any systems, so we got to figure they were hers.”

“So, nothing,” I said.

The chief nodded and looked at his watch. “That's what I'm saying…Well, got that Rotary thing.”

“What about her apartment?”

“Way I remember is it was searched.”

“What happened to the things she owned?”

“My guess, auction and/or Goodwill. Really, I got to go.”

“Thanks,” I said, then: “Just for the record, what do you think happened to her?”

“Well, she's not living in Argentina with Hitler. My guess is what's left of her is under some mud somewhere, and the guy did it to her graduated or left town and is murdering folks somewhere other than here, which makes it a hell of a lot easier on us.”

“You think she was the victim of a serial killer?”

“I don't know. Could be. Maybe she just had a date with the wrong fellow. Jealous guy. Kinky sex. It could have been anything. I figure it was the guy called in about her car. That's my take.”

That would have been Jimmy. I said, “Oh?”

“Yeah, some turkey called in that her car was up there and it had been sitting there awhile, and he thought it was odd, but I think that's just the way the killer got the ball rolling. Wanted to see the circus come to town. He probably had her in the trunk of his car and was already thinking about maybe cutting her up and fertilizing the river bottoms with her. Got his jollies calling it in. Or maybe he had some real remorse and wanted to tell someone before he dumped her. No way to know.”

“Could have just been a concerned citizen,” I said.

“There's that,” he said.

15

I shook hands with him and left out of there. At least there wasn't anything to tie Jimmy to the disappearance. Any DNA that might be tested, provided it could be afforded, had never been collected. Jimmy might have leaned against the car and left a print, but if the cops were as sloppy as I thought they were, and with the car gone now and no one to match the prints to, it probably wouldn't have mattered if he had, wouldn't have mattered if he had bled all over the seat, shit in the glove compartment and jacked off on the package shelf. I figured he was probably home free in the DNA department.

Next person I had to find was Ronnie Fisher. But right then, I needed to get back to the paper and do some work.

As I was driving back, my cell rang. I flipped it open as I drove, saw the number. Oklahoma prefix. Booger. I started not to answer. I didn't want to answer. But I couldn't help myself.

“My man,” Booger said.

“Hello, Booger. How's things?”

“Well, I had an early morning at the range, and a very fine constitutional shit that caused me to strain enough to temporarily cross into another dimension, drank six beers, and right now I'm lying here in bed with one hand on the cell phone and the other lying between Conchita's legs.”

“Too much information, buddy.”

“I like to be thorough. That Gabby girl. You porkin' her again?”

“No. Me and Gabby. We're done.”

“Well, all right then, come on back to Oklahoma. I told you I'd put you to work.”

“I got a job.”

“That newspaper thing.”

“That's the one.”

“You know what, Cason old buddy?”

“What?”

“You sound like you got some woes to live on.”

“How do you mean?”

“Your voice. There's an imp down in it.”

I tried to be very calm. Booger was like that. Some people thought because he was raw he was stupid. That would be far from the truth. And he had an instinct about things, could see the slightest disruption in the force. Not that he usually gave a damn how anyone felt, but he had keen radar. And in my case, he probably did care.

“I'm just tired, Booger.”

“Do I need to come down there?”

“I can't imagine what for.”

Booger laughed. “I know I make you nervous, bro, but you ain't got no worries. We done thrown in together. We been through hell's ass and out the other side. We're devils together.”

“I guess we are.”

“Sure we are. Now, listen up. You get to needing old Booger, you just flip the phone and hit the number. You'd do that, right?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I don't want my little darling here to grow cold, so I'm going to hang up and mount up.”

“Enjoy the ride, and go light on the spurs.”

“Hell, Baby Man, I'm a professional.”

When he hung up, oddly enough, I felt lonely.

Before arriving in Camp Rapture I had made a detour to get my handful of things from Houston where I had them in storage, and then I had made a detour to visit Booger.

I call Booger a friend, but I'm not really sure I mean it. He may be more of an attachment, like a growth of some sort. It was like I told Dad. I want to get rid of him, cut him out, but there are complications and attachments.

Booger makes me nervous. He makes everyone nervous.

Booger has a real first and last name, but he doesn't go by them and doesn't like either mentioned in polite society. He isn't the kind of guy you take to a fancy tea. You tell him not to handle all the sandwiches, open them up to see what was inside, he might shove your head in the punch bowl and hold you there till you drowned, then piss on the carpet on his way out.

He lacks patience.

He's not tall, but he's thick and vigorous, and has a shiny shaved head the color of a penny. Racially, he's marooned somewhere between black guy and honky, with a slightly Asian cast to his eyes. In Iraq, the handful who liked him called him the Copper Cat.

He's the kind of guy who's not averse to scratching his privates in public or beating a smartass near to death with a car antenna, which he nearly did once. No one remembers the source of the disagreement that led to the beating, not even Booger, though he has a faint memory about an argument over a game of horseshoes. And though two witnesses saw him give the beating, they had a sudden loss of sight and memory when it came time for them to give information to the law.

They get free beer for life at Booger's bar now, or at least it's offered. According to Booger, they don't actually come around and hang out, not after what they saw in the parking lot. The guy Booger got onto, they found him out near the town dump with his pants pulled down and the antenna pretty far up his ass, minus lubricant, and he was running a low-grade fever and hallucinating. He lived, but he developed a solid case of memory loss himself, told some insane story about being attacked and raped by a roving band of belligerent homosexual Bible salesmen. He drives a car that won't get radio; missing an antenna.

Around his little town of Hootie Hoot, Oklahoma, the cops make a point of leaving Booger alone. To them, he's like the big bad ghost that lives on the hill, in the back of his bar.

Before I had come to Camp Rapture, I had been hanging out with Booger at his gun range, and then his bar. And though me and him are on good terms, it's always a little precarious when we're in the process of bonding. A certain shift of light, a fart blow in his direction, and he could go off the beam faster than a Baptist preacher in Las Vegas with a pack of ribbed condoms and the church funds in his pocket.

Booger had never gone off on me, but I had seen his eyes narrow and his mouth twitch from time to time, and I made a habit to watch for any telltale signs when we were together, minded my Ps and Qs around him and wondered why I bothered at all; that bother is something I keep coming back to, investigating and arriving nowhere.

I suppose it's our Iraq connection. That kind of thing, making war together, gives us a link; sometimes, for me, that link is like a ball and chain. Booger, in many ways, has yet to quit fighting the war. Originally, he moved his inborn hatred of just about everybody from Oklahoma to Iraq, and now that he was home again, shooting squirrels and deer didn't do it anymore. He kept hoping they'd call him back to Iraq. He liked the smell of blood, the charred odor of burning corpses. He liked being shot at. He told me so. He was that soldier who gave the rest of us a bad name.

It's possible he could go to Iraq again. They're taking anyone who can fog up a mirror these days. But last word from the military was they hated to see him go, but sort of had to let him, which gives you some idea of where Booger is on the reenlistment charter. They were beginning to suspect he might have killed some of our soldiers, ones he deemed weak, pussies not driven to take enough lives and enjoy the pleasure. They called it friendly fire, and he was suspected, but if it was Booger, one thing I can assure you, it wasn't friendly. I hoped it was just a rumor. I had to believe it was.

For some reason Booger forgave my not being gung ho about killing. I did what I had to do. When I killed, I felt as if I had collected the souls of the dead, and they were heavy, a weight I didn't want to carry. Booger knew how I felt, but in me he didn't see it as a weakness. Coming from me, somehow, it was novel, a point of interest that intrigued him, like watching a dog leap through a ring of fire in the circus. In others, thoughts of compassion for the enemy or civilians, doubts of purpose and feelings of guilt would have been suspect and common. I was Booger's soft spot, his Achilles' heel. He had saved my life more than once in Iraq. Maybe he thought of me as a pet.

When I had seen him last, we had gone to his gun range. Guns are a passion of his. Shooting things with big guns so he can see them blow up, shooting them until they grow smaller and smaller and finally become one with the universe, that's a big part of his life. He even has old cars out there and he has the big guns with the big bullets, as I have heard him say, and he likes to shoot those cars with the big bullets and see how things jump to pieces. The flying sparkle of those pieces in the sunlight is like a religious experience for Booger. In their quick bright bursts, it's as if he sees the face of, and hears the voice of, the god of war.

After the gun range, the bar was Booger's little slice of heaven. It's no more than a mile from his range. And it's where he offered me a job. But like everything else with Booger, even had I been interested, it came with complications.

Way I got the offer was we shot stuff up with the big guns and then went into the bar. When we came in, sitting on a stool was a very fine-looking Hispanic woman wearing a pair of shorts so small and tight, way she was sitting, at first I thought she wasn't wearing any pants, just a tight white blouse and some flip-flops. It was a thrilling moment, until she shifted and I saw the blue jean shorts, cut so thin and so far up her butt that the denim had to be tickling the back of her tongue.

“How you doin'?” Booger said to the woman. He grinned at her and patted her on the back. “You still ballin' for money?”

“I ain't won no lottery yet,” she said. “You lookin' to clean your pipes, Booger?”

“Maybe later, or if not me, Cason, my buddy.”

“No thanks,” I said.

“He's kind of shy, ain't he?” the woman said.

“Naw, he's just polite, Conchita.”

Booger picked us a table, got us both a cold beer and brought them back and put them down in front of us. He sat down and grinned and said, “You sure you want to go back to Texas?”

“Why wouldn't I?”

“What about that hot little Mexican meal over there? Ain't that got no enticement? You could stay, shack up for a few days. I'll pay. She'll turn you every way but loose, that I can guarantee you. She's finished with you, you won't know which end your asshole's on.”

“Booger, I don't know how to turn down such an appetizing and aptly phrased offer, but I'm going to pass.”

Conchita had the ears of a fox. She said, “What? You don't like some pussy?”

“It's very nice actually,” I said, “and I'm a big fan, but I'm going to have to pass. Thank you.”

“It's a racial thing,” she said.

“No,” I said.

“Hey,” Booger said. “Don't diss my boy with that. He hangs with me, don't he? Ain't nobody knows what I am, not even me. The only color pussy comes in is pink, honey.”

“There you have it,” I said to Conchita.

Booger turned back to me, looked perplexed. “You haven't gotten a taste for the red eye, have you? Something go on in the showers in Iraq I don't know about?”

“No. But I'd rather go home.”

“Man, anyone would rather drive to Texas than fuck in Oklahoma, that do be on the confusing side, partner.”

“That's kind of homo,” Conchita said.

“Naw, he ain't no homo,” Booger said, feeling it necessary to leap to my defense. Then he turned back to me and shook his head. “Texas. Man, why? It looks like right where you are now. Texas is just the ass end of Oklahoma.”

“East Texas. Lots of big trees and plenty of water. It's better to me.”

“So it looks like here with trees and a fucking lake. Stick here with me.”

“I got a job interview.”

“That newspaper shit?”

“That's the stuff.”

“It's really that Gabby gal, ain't it?”

“I think that's over.”

“No you don't. And I'll tell you now, bubba, you ought to drop her like a hot rock. I mean, hell, she dropped you. Come on, man. Stick.”

“I'm going to pass, buddy.”

Booger ran his slightly damp hand over his scalp. “I could make you a partner in the range,” Booger said. “You could run it when I'm not there.”

“You're always there. Only reason you're not there now is it's dark, and if the moon was full, you'd be there.”

“I'd be there if it was half full.”

I knew this was true. Booger was the kind of guy that always had a weapon on him, and he carried a duffel bag in his car that had weapons in it, including a rifle you could put together with nothing more than the edge of a coin and a determined attitude. Even had a silencer, and of course plenty of ammunition. I don't know why he needed the rig or what he used it for, and I didn't want to know.

“So, what you say, you gonna stay?”

“Thanks, Booger. But no.”

“The bar, you could run the bar.”

“You have Runt to run the bar.”

“I could fire Runt.”

Runt was about six-five with a shock of blond hair, a chest like a fifty-five-gallon drum, and two and a half teeth—the latter being snaggled from taking a tire iron in the mouth. I didn't get the details, but the guy who hit him was a traveling salesman for industrial vacuums from Arkansas. Booger said Runt just grinned some ragged teeth at the guy and told him he should have brought a Tootsie Roll instead of a tire iron, because they were a lot easier to eat.