A locked-room murder with a completely bizarre twist.
The door opened, revealing a figure standing behind an upraised bouquet of cellophane-wrapped flowers. Crandall lowered them enough to peer over the tallest blooms and was treated to the sight of his smirking former sister-in-law. "Who is it?" Latanya called from the kitchen, and he clenched his teeth at the aroma of boiling meat and greens.
"For El," Tishawna grunted, abandoning the door.
"Who? It's who?" Now Latanya herself eclipsed the narrow entranceway between living room and kitchen, staring right at her ex-husband from behind a ruffled apron. She leaned against the arch and stared for a moment, no particular expression on her youthfully rounded face. He saw she'd had the precise rows of tiny braids removed from her scalp and now wore her short hair in lustrous waves that flowed from and around her features quite fetchingly, reminding him of why he'd originally been attracted to her. "Now what?" she asked dully.
Offering a disarming half-smile, he stepped over the threshhold with one hand jammed into his pants pocket and pivoted slowly from his ankles, trying to see if she had added or subtracted anything recently from the heavily African-influenced decor. "No longer honoring your Ute ancestors?"
She shrugged, wiping her hands on the apron. "This place is overrun with cowboys and Indians." Then she shouted, "Elliesha! Get in here!"
A voice muffled by distance and several walls cried back, "What, Momma?"
"I assume you're here to see her," the large woman said, turning back into the depths of the warmly lit kitchen.
Schultz maneuvered past the oversized ottoman and a huge swivel lounge chair and took Latanya's place in the doorway. He smiled at the wonderful aroma-filled steam forming condensation on the gold-colored walls and cheap wood cabinets nearest the stove. "I'm here to take her to dinner."
"Like you don't see me cooking."
"You don't cook," he told her softly, "you inspire."
She smiled and shook her head, but didn't glance up from stirring something in a tall stock pot. "I guess you can take her. I don't want her back late, though."
"Ah, that's the thing," he began, but turned to make sure they were alone and saw that they weren't. "For you," he said, holding the blossoms at arm's length for the teenager staring at him from the hallway that lead to the bedrooms.
"For me? What'd I do?" she asked, moving forward quickly to seize them. She looked for an attached card and didn't find one, but she stood on tip-toe to kiss his cheek just the same. "You need a shave."
That was a clue for Latanya. She narrowed her big cocoa-colored eyes and cut them sharply his way. "You on a case right now? Something big?"
He guiltily groped his stubbled cheeks and jaw, admitting, "Yeah."
She saw the way he avoided looking at her. "El--go ask your auntie for a nice vase from the garage."
"But, we have glass ones here in the kitchen-"
"El," Latanya said, staring at the girl, and Ellie bowed her head and dutifully left the two alone.
"She's beautiful," said Schultz wistfully.
"Don't look like neither one of us."
"She'll grow up one of those women who looks like she should be posing for Playboy, but always thinks you're kidding when you tell her."
Latanya joked, "Don't be the first one to say it."
"Uh, yeah...that's not really what I'm hoping for her future."
"She's supposed to be picking a major right now."
"Uh...really?"
The heavyset woman uncapped a bottle of apple cider vinegar and dumped some in the pot, wincing at the acrid steam that came wafting out of it. "Don't know what she thinks she needs one for."
Neither of them could afford to put the girl through college. "I'll talk to her," Schultz muttered.
Lowering her voice, Latanya rasped, "Whatever you're working on...better not have anything to do with her, right?"
"Well...one of her classmates was killed today."
"Who?"
"Justin Brunshweiger."
Latanya thought as she tasted broth and reached for ground pepper. "Justin that new boy I heard her talkin' about?"
He shrugged. "Maybe. There was a girl involved also...Jasmine Lintner."
"Oh, Jasmine Lintner! Her daddy comes into the shop now and then for fish sandwiches. On Fridays. I don't think he's married to her mother no more, though."
Schultz shook his head, briefly overwhelmed by the tremendously pleasant imagery of one of Latanya's gigantic fish sandwiches. "I wanted to be the first to tell her. Did she know the girl well?"
"I don't even know if she liked her. That girl has a bad reputation at school."
He could guess why. "Flirty?"
"That's putting it mildly." She added a dash of cayenne, tasted the pale green liquid again, closed her eyes in bliss. "You just don't know what you're missing."
"Oh...I know what I'm missing. I will never forget." He smiled meekly and she looked downward a little sadly.
"See?" said Ellie, pushing past her father with the bouquet arranged nicely in a contrasting turquoise vessel. "Thank you," she said, and kissed his cheek again.
"El...Crandall has something serious to talk to you about tonight. Take your cellphone and go with him. I told him not to keep you out too late."
"But I have keyboard practice-"
"Not tonight," her mother said soothingly, cupping the girl's chin. "He's gonna buy you some dinner and tell you a story about a couple of kids you might know from school." She glanced accusingly at the man. "Do not let him get you involved in anything that makes you uncomfortable, okay, Honey?"
"Uncomfortable means something that would make her mad," translated the girl, gazing impishly at him.
He chuckled and reached to take her hand. "I'll have her call you if we're going to be late."
"'cause you know I'll have your ass right through the phone," Latanya said, trailing them to the door.
"Am I dressed okay?" asked Ellie, swiping her handbag from the sofa.
"You're fine," he gulped, wishing the trend had gone more conservative since his own days as a teen.
Kissing her mother good-bye, Ellie beat him through the door and raced toward his truck. "Later, Momma!"
Tishawna was difficult to see, dressed in dark grey sweats as she leaned against the wall in the darkened hallway. "And after she gets through with your ass, the rest of you will be mine," she warned.
"Miss you, too, Sis," he told her, then pantomimed a kiss for his ex she repeated back at him. Ti-Ti glowered and faded farther into the shadows.
Schultz turned briskly and hurried after his excited daughter.
* * *
"We're having dinner at the hospital?" Ellie chuckled meekly as her father handed the keys to his Tucson to the valet.
"Actually, yes. There was an incident in town today...two kids you might know got hurt."
"Who, Daddy?"
He crooked his arm for her to take as he strolled through the parting glass doors. "Do you know Justin Brunshweiger?"
The girl shrugged, eyeing the few people waiting quietly amidst fake greenery in the front lobby. "I think I've heard of him. His dad did the rodeo circuit years ago or something, so he thinks he's hot stuff."
"Do you know a girl named Jasmine Lintner?"
"I sat with her sometimes at lunch. What happened? Were they in a car accident?"
He lead her past a reception counter, offering a nod and wave to the women stationed there, then along a broad and surprisingly underlit hallway sporting recent murals on the tile wall of primitively drawn children playing on a sunny landscape. "No, but Jasmine was frightened very badly. She's in shock and won't talk to anyone."
"W-what was she so scared of? What scared her?" He could feel her fingers digging deeply into the flesh of his lower arm. The girl was plainly nervous walking through the hospital.
"Justin was killed."
El gasped. "How did it happen?"
"We think...well, we aren't exactly sure yet-"
"Was it an accident?"
"Maybe," he allowed, trying to follow her own subconscious lead. "We don't actually know what happened to him, but Jasmine may have seen it."
"Where?"
He told her, "Did you know she worked at a hotel?"
"At a hotel? Doing what?"
"In town," he continued vaguely. "Cleaning. There was a room they had recently renovated and she went inside with Justin and while they were alone something terrible happened to him. It killed him."
Ellie asked, "Did a scaffolding fall on him or something?"
"No, the room was open for guests already. We really don't know what happened, Ellie, all I saw-"
She tugged on him and made him halt so she could whisper loudly in the vacant hall, "Did she kill him?"
Crandall made a face. "Not very likely. We think she saw what happened and it frightened her so badly that she's too scared to say anything about it."
The girl groaned. "I'm here because you think I can talk to her."
"Well, if you're offering-"
She said, "I really hardly know her, Daddy. Her dad owns a bakery on the east side of town, and I don't know anything about her mother, and I think she has like two older sisters in college or something-"
Crandall pulled her gently along toward the cafeteria. "It doesn't matter. It was just an idea. If you don't think it would work, I won't make you see her. I thought maybe you knew her better...that she might open up to you."
"Gosh," the girl said, lifting her right hand up toward her lips where large white teeth often ravaged too short nails while she was deep in thought. "What if whatever she saw would scare me?"
"I'm sure it probably would," he said, drawing a quick zigzag along her upper spine with his fingertips. "It might even scare me."
"Nothing scares you," she chuckled softly, clinging to him again.
"I didn't know you were afraid of hospitals."
"I didn't know the public could just walk right in and eat here."
He directed her through a set of double doors into a fresh warren of quiet walkways. "Well, sure, but I'm taking you to an even better place. I'm taking you to where they serve the really good stuff."
"In the hospital?"
He nodded, smiling.
There was a public cafeteria, a small coffee shop that also provided ice cream, and then there was the staff cafeteria where medical personnel and other professionals could grab a quick bite cheaply without worrying about confrontations by the distraught public. Schultz led his daughter through yet another double set of swinging doors and paused to show his badge to a tired-looking woman clipping coupons at a small table set up by the entrance. She nodded and they passed her to stand in line.
"I never knew this was here."
"Most people don't. These people deserve a break from sick people every once in awhile, dontcha think?"
She shuddered and hugged herself. "Just...y'know...the idea of eating dinner...in a hospital."
He pointed at a chalk board set up on an easel. "Specials today are fried catfish, jerk chicken with rice, gumbo, and buffalo burgers. Oh, did you want to get fast food somewhere or something instead?"
It was his manipulative manner which had driven him and his ex-wife apart. He couldn't stop playing investigator--even with his loved ones.
"I wonder how many pieces of catfish you get?"
He pointed toward the cash register where a young man in dark turquoise scrubs was lifting a loaded tray so he could follow his friends to a table. "Plenty, I reckon."
"Oh, I hate it when you get all country on me," she teased, punching him lightly in the breadbasket.
"Your friends still tease you? Tell you you're half redneck?"
"That was elementary school when you used to wear a uniform and give everybody's parents speeding tickets."
"Wow. Was I handing out citations when I was that young?"
She made a face, then broke into a smile as she caught onto his joke. "Stop that! You remember! You know what I mean!"
He watched how she stood, a little too close to him, arms folded protectively over her chest. She was beautiful, but didn't know it yet. Skin so softly brown it was almost dusky gold, oversized light brown eyes surrounded by thick black lashes, and a faint smile that remained even when she was totally distracted. Her face was youthfully chubby, but her neck was long and slender. Ellie had a broad back for a girl, but her waist tapered perfectly into hourglass form, accentuating the womanly roundness of her slightly too full bottom. If she developed heavy breasts, it would spoil her form. So would very small ones or a flat chest. Crandall didn't like to imagine such things. He was perpetually torn between imagining she was still the little chubby child who used to climb in his lap and hum to herself while he watched football on Sundays, scented sweetly of soap and fresh air, her knees crisscrossed with Band-Aids, plastic bow-shaped barrettes in her short, fat braids, and the woman he could see she might well become all too soon. It seemed imperative that he remain friends with her, to protect her, possibly even to guide her, so that she didn't end up as rotund as her mother nor as jaded and contrite as her more worldly live-in aunt. He felt like he was losing control, but also knew he should be slowly letting go. He'd hoped for a boy he could have palled around with and molded into the happy go lucky child he wished he could have been himself once, but Henry had died at the age of four and a half, having wandered from the unlocked car of his sitter while she'd gone out for cigarettes. He'd been found at the base of a shallow, dry gully, already marked by the beaks and teeth of hungry black vultures and brown rats. It had been yet another blow dealt to an already shaky marriage.
"So, they don't tease you now?"
He watched her withdraw into herself. "Not...like they used to."
Crandall suspected the teasing had turned more sexual in nature. He remembered his own high school days all too well. After discovering they were going to have a baby girl, he'd endured flashbacks of the teasing he and his brother had dealt many of the girls they'd once found annoying and stupid, then suddenly considered highly intriguing. Strange to try and imagine it from their point of view. Unwanted advances by immature jerks sometimes twice their size. And after El had been born, he'd vowed no clumsy, artless creep of a kid would ever get within twenty yards of her. Just like countless other fathers of daughters thought around the world. Trying to save their girls from the kind of boys they used to be themselves.
She asked for beef tips on rice and a side of baby carrots. He selected fried chicken and cornbread, white rice with gravy and green beans. Ellie was handed a bottle of water with a tumbler full of ice. Crandall figured he could use the caffeine boost and ordered two cans of Red Bull. He paid a surprisingly meager sum, and then they wandered toward a small table surrounded on three sides by flimsy fake-wood partitions topped by flowing silk greenery.
"You brought me here to talk to Jasmine."
Her father smiled as he drank deeply from one of his cans.
The girl shuddered. "I dunno, Daddy...there's just something...I don't feel right."
"What do you mean? You're afraid?"
"No, I..." she rubbed at fresh goosebumps along her arm. "I'm getting the creeps. I guess I need some details. Maybe my imagination is getting in the way."
Crandall moved cornbread morsels around on his plate with his fork. "Okay. This is all speculation. We don't have any cold facts yet." He told her why they thought the two kids had been alone in the room together, described the room for her. He told her the boy had been chopped up--it had been enough of a description for the dispatcher who'd contacted him. He asked her if she swore she wouldn't repeat any of what she'd heard, at least until the kid's parents knew.
"Jasmine chopped him up?"
"No, Honey. Not the way this kid was laid out. It isn't possible, but she may have seen something or someone that might help explain it all for us."
"Was she hiding when they found her?"
"She was on the floor, leaning against the door, screaming and crying. The door was locked," he added.
"I think she saw something, then."
He shrugged and lifted a chicken wing, noted dark veins visible just below the thin skin where batter hadn't covered it all and set the piece back down again.
"You saw the body."
He glanced up at her sharply. His daughter was staring intently at him. He grinned. "Ah, yeah." Crandall lifted the plate of chicken and set it aside so he could concentrate on his cornbread and vegetables instead. "You're good."
"Cop blood runs in the family."
"On one side anyway," he muttered, then hoped she hadn't heard him.
She had, but ignored the comment. "My God...it would take a little while to really chop up...a body...wouldn't it?"
She was fishing for more information, but he wasn't prepared to completely creep her out just yet. "The way this kid got it, yeah. Had to've."
"With like...a hacksaw? An axe?"
He shrugged. "Autopsy's not complete yet. Actually, Denny's having one of the state boys come down for a good look-see, maybe fill in some of the answers for us."
"Huh," she replied, disappointed. "Okay."
He forked rice into his mouth. "Okay?"
"Yeah. I'll do it. I'll try anyway. Can't guarantee anything, but I'll talk to her."
"Oh, thank God," he said, swigging from his can to wash rice down with. "I don't even know if you'll be able to get through to her at all tonight, but if you can get anything out of her at all, then maybe we can catch this guy before he strikes again."
Her eyes large, Ellie watched him carefully, thoughtfully. "You think it's a serial killer?"
"One murder does not a serial killer make."
"But you said-"
He clarified, "The way it happened...whatever exactly happened to this, this Justin Brunshweiger kid...had to've been very carefully planned out ahead of time. This was no random event, no happenstance chance, no crime of passion...this took some skill. And some time."
She queried, "Do you think they did it to torture Jasmine? To make her watch something horrible? Some, some sicko made her watch it?"
"You'll just have to find out," he said softly, finding he didn't like the way the gravy was gelling over the rice...like bodily fluid on wet brains. "My guess is that we'll have to schedule more than one visit."
* * *
Jasmine's parents were desperate with hope and eagerly agreed to allow Schultz's daughter into the room with her, but the attending physician put up a fight. "She's totally unresponsive...and the situation is disturbing," he added in softer tones, hoping Ellie wouldn't hear.
"Disturbing how?" asked Schultz at a normal speaking volume.
"We have her heavily sedated. She kept glancing wildly around the room and screaming and shaking for no reason."
"She kept glancing where in the room?" Obviously, she was reliving the moment. Small details could prove crucial.
"Up at the walls," the doctor grumbled dismissively. "The bathroom was bothering her so much we had to shut the door."
"Bathroom..." the detective repeated. The hotel room had not had its own bathroom. "And now?"
"She's restrained and unresponsive. We'd like to keep her that way for at least twenty-four hours, allow her brain a chance to try and work through or temporarily erase whatever it was that frightened her so badly."
"Can you bring her out of it? Just a little? Enough to answer a couple of questions?"
The guy looked back at Schultz like he'd deck him if he wasn't afraid of breaking his hand. "You're not going in there and neither is she," he grumbled, then turned abruptly and stalked off toward the nurses' station.
"Can you tell us what happened?" asked a mustached man holding a shaking, crying woman.
"No. I don't have any details yet."
"Was there an accident? Did somebody die? Was she...was she...?"
"Your daughter wasn't harmed, Mr. Lintner," Schultz assured the wide-eyed man. "The doctors would have told you that."
"They said she must have seen something, that she's in shock."
"We think she witnessed a serious crime."
"Like an accident?" asked Lintner.
"We don't know," said Schultz. "Too soon. We'll be back," he promised the distraught parents, then placed an arm about his daughter's shoulders and led her toward the elevators.
* * *
A scrawny young man with straw-colored hair didn't care if he went upstairs and looked around some more after he flashed his badge. Schultz had returned to the hotel after dropping Ellie off for the night, relieved there were no reporters lingering around the building. The local paper was small, but a story this big would draw assholes from surrounding towns. It never took long for rumors to fly, and he wondered how well the kid manning the night shift at the front counter would deal with any persistent journalists or news crews.
The third floor had been marked off with yellow tape. Stepping from the ancient elevator, Schultz tripped, but caught himself quickly before the cop at the end of the hall noticed him. It looked like every room had been designated a crime scene until he got a better look at the black letters on the plastic tape and saw it read, "Haunted House" and "Happy Halloween". The owners had temporarily sealed the rest of the floor with leftover holiday decorations. Saved the taxpayers a few cents, he thought mirthlessly.
He knew Holland when he turned around and smiled at him. The kid was a rookie with brown hair and a golly-gee attitude. The chief's nephew, of course. Not a bad cop, but not exactly officer material, either, he was often assigned pissant jobs nobody else wanted to bother with. "Hey, Jake."
"Sure is spooky up here," Holland muttered, hoping he could go home.
"The elevator's the only way up, it's old and creaky and you're armed," Schultz pointed out.
"You mind if I hit the john?"
"Where is it?" asked the detective. He grabbed the kid by the shoulder before he got away. "That way?"
"I really gotta go!" wailed Holland as Schultz walked past him in the direction he'd been headed in.
There was one bathroom per floor. One toilet and one old clawfoot tub with a dull metal ring supporting a Native American-themed plastic shower curtain that could be drawn for privacy. A pedestal sink stood beside the modern toilet and there were plenty of hooks and shelves to hold bathrobes or toiletries or what have you while the smallish room was occupied. This bathroom was closer to the elevator than room 39 and not adjacent to it. Had Jasmine been in the bathroom, then confronted the killer on her way back into the room? Had she surprised the killer in the bathroom? Had she run and tried to hide in the bathroom?
Leaning against the recently cleaned sink, he looked down toward the shiny chrome drain and inhaled deeply, playing possible scenarios within his head. Everything in here was so clean it still smelled of household chemicals. There were no towels stacked on the shelves, but there was wrapped soap and a wrapped set of plastic tumblers by the sink, a paper band across the toilet proclaiming it sanitized, and an oil-based air freshener plugged into a socket near the window. It was possible the bathroom had been cleaned after the crime, and he wondered if anyone had thought to search it for clues ahead of time.
Cripple Creek was not large enough to afford a sizable police force with state of the art equipment, and statistics proved it did not yet require them. Schultz was the only detective available because the only other one they had, Anschel, was on vacation with his fiancee in Cozumel. They had plenty of time to attend classes and courses on specialized training, so there was no excuse for anyone on the force not knowing how to handle oddball cases like this one, but he rather doubted anyone had thought to literally sweep the entire floor for clues, probably concentrating mainly on the room where the crime had taken place, the hallway, and the elevator. It was very likely that a number of uniforms and possibly even the paramedics had used the bathroom already to wash their hands or use the facilities as Holland was waiting to do.
Schultz looked up into a frameless headstone-shaped mirror bolted into the wall and etched at the corners with berries and blossoms. The glass was chipped and marred with spidery dark bronze areas where the silvering was coming off the back. He absently studied the room behind him in the mirror, then ran the cold water and splashed some on his face. It wouldn't hurt to make sure all the rooms on this floor were thoroughly checked out for stray hairs or shoe scuffs or fingerpints. He doubted Holland would know if he asked him, so as he exited he simply gestured for the younger man to go ahead on in and do his thing.
Room 39 still held a whiff of something sour and meaty. Schultz stood in the doorway and looked upward, along the top of the walls near where they met the ceiling. Cobwebs. Sloppy paint job. He imagined Jasmine Lintner in her hospital bed, glancing "up at the walls" furtively and screaming. He thought of a bat flitting around up there, a small bird caught inside, a large moth perhaps...nothing which would send her into shock. He stood with his back to the bed and looked up again. The window was narrow and not set high, so there was bare wall above it. He removed the pen and ink drawing and looked behind it, examined the frame. He re-hung the picture and looked at it up close, then farther back, trying to see some image the lines and shadows might form subliminally. There was nothing caught in the drapes over the window and the frame was sealed shut with many years' worth of paint. He was beginning to think he was overthinking the situation when the large mirror over the dresser caught his eye again. Schultz moved to stand before it, staring at himself, unimpressed by his own reflection. He turned around and looked at the room behind him, then gazed at its few details reversed in the image on the glass.
This mirror needed resilvering, too. He glanced upward toward the ceiling again and moved so he could see as much of the room as possible reflected back at him from the glass. What the hell had she been looking at when she'd snapped, he wondered. Where had she been standing? His eyes darted toward the bed and he knew she might not have been standing at all. Schultz turned toward the room's door and looked through it. Holland was not back yet. He placed himself beside the bed and leaned over it, trying to see through the door from the perspective of someone lying on the bed. He could not see the bathroom door. The only place in the room he could see the bathroom from was the threshhold. And the girl had been found in the room with the door shut and locked.... had she shut and locked it after the killer had left?
"Oh!" he heard distinctly from the bathroom, and he jogged quickly as quietly as he could toward the closed door and paused, listening intently. When no further sounds assailed him, he rapped lightly on the door while standing beside the wall to the right, in case someone abruptly burst through it into the hall.
"Holland? You okay in there?"
He thought he heard a heavy breath, then silence.
"Jake?" he tried, snaking a hand within his jacket toward the shoulder holster beneath his left armpit.
"Crandall?" he finally heard faintly, and it almost sounded like the poor guy was crying. Then Jake whined, "There isn't any toilet paper in here."
* * *
The next morning broke a dull grey-blue, hinting thunderstorms which never materialized. Schultz wandered back through the small police station carrying a flimsy cardboard tray of drinks in waxed cups with plastic lids, and a large paper sack of convenience store sandwiches in cellophane. His old, battered desk was in a far corner, marked off with upholstered office dividers from the rest of his fellow officers' work spaces. As he trudged by with the refreshments, Faldourette rose from his own desk and trailed him.
"Coffee?"
The uniformed cop shrugged and accepted one of the tall cups, shaking his head when offered cream, sugar, or packets of sweetened flavorings. "Sarcopski checked with all of the local key-copying places and none of them has made a hotel key in the last month. It's all vehicles and house keys lately."
Schultz stretched and yawned. "The girl saw something up high that terrified her. Something up by the ceiling."
"A shadow?" Faldourette guessed.
"Now that's intriguing. Where did you just come up with that?"
The other man shrugged and lifted the lid from his cup. "When I was a kid I thought I saw figures in the shadows on my bedroom wall at night. Sometimes they spooked me."
"The murder took place during full daylight."
He inhaled fragrant steam, then attempted a noisy slurp. "Had anything been removed from the wall? A picture or decoration of some sort?"
None of these things had occurred to Schultz. He cocked his head as he studied the younger man. "There was only one picture on the wall. A pen and ink drawing of an old mill or something. I took it down and examined it and looked behind it. I didn't notice anything strange about it."
"Any pale squares on the walls? Any square patches plastered over?"
"Like a doorway or old window had been there?"
Faldourette shrugged and blew on his coffee. "Just ideas."
"You're pretty observant, then?" When the cop shrugged in reply, Schultz told him, "You'll go back and take a good long look at everything next."
"Can do."
"Talk to Angelwiet?"
"Briefly. He was angry about the whole thing. I don't think he's coming in today."
Billy had been one of the first people to see the inside-out body. "Say anything?"
"He said there wasn't enough blood to explain what had happened. Said he knew the girl hadn't done it, but had no idea who could have--especially after he found out what the coroner said about it."
"How many taxidermists live in town?"
"None that I know of right in town...one next town over. Then there's two butchers in the area that specialize in game and stuff. Aside from the ones that work in the grocery stores."
"Not butchers," Schultz said, standing behind his high-backed chair between his desk and the chalkboard behind it that made up the entire rear wall. "Surgeons?"
"I wouldn't know how many there are at the local hospital, but I bet we could narrow it down to the ones with specialties."
"Like extreme plastic surgeons?"
The younger man arched an eyebrow, but ignored the dark humor of his superior. "Veterinarians?"
Schultz wasn't sure. "I don't know that you can really interchange an animal doctor with a human one. I mean, this was done by somebody who really understands anatomy."
"Wouldn't that rule out a taxidermist?"
"As long as none of the missing citizens from the last few decades happen to turn up in his freezer or back yard."
"Aside from lost tourists looking for lost treasure and the occasional abducted child or wandering Alzheimer's patient, we really haven't had that many missing persons cases in this area."
"We generally don't have much crime here at all, let alone violent crime."
The uniformed cop set his cup down and sat staring at a glass paperweight on Schultz's desk. "This wasn't violent, though. Just weird."
"Weird we got," muttered the detective.
"Hardly any blood despite the mess. No marks whatsoever on the girl. No sign of violence in the room or forced entry."
"It happened quickly," added Schultz to himself. "Denny said the body was still fresh. Too fresh for it to have taken much time to accomplish."
"And yet what happened to that kid could not have been done in a hurry."
"Sandwich?" asked Schultz, reaching for the bag.
"DNA proved it's Justin, right? It really is him?"
"It takes a little longer than a day to get the results back."
"But, what if it wasn't Justin that was originally in the room with this Jasmine kid? What if she was in the room alone...or with somebody else?"
"Tell me more."
"I mean, with the lack of blood soaked into the bed and everything, whose to say the kid wasn't filleted somewhere else and brought there afterward?"
"You think the girl was in the room and watched someone bring him in and set him up? They didn't find any blood on the floor. That kid was a loose casserole...he should have dripped everywhere. How would you tote him? They had to cut away part of the bedding to lift him into a bodybag."
"Maybe she went into the room to clean it or something and then discovered the body."
Schultz's eyebrows lowered. "And then she locked herself in with it and freaked out?"
"I can't explain what happened to him. It couldn't have taken less than several hours by someone extremely skilled, according to Vodoureaux."
"But having moved him seems unlikely, also."
Faldourette's eyes opened wide and he snapped his fingers excitedly. "You could move him without too much mess or effort if he'd been at least partially frozen!"
It seemed far fetched, but without anything concrete, it was worth exploring. "Denny said the organs were in very good shape and good color. I can follow up on that."
Chief Holland came shuffling in, his ponderous mass supported on thick legs with wide feet that never lifted too far from the ground. "How's it going, Crandall?" he asked, his eyes alighting on the bag he assumed contained food. Faldourette was ignored.
"Sandwich, sir?"
"Don't mind if I do...and one for later," he said, pocketing a spare. "What the hell's going on about this teenaged boy turned inside-out? Did he explode or something?"
"He was a classmate of my daughter's. I'm going to have her help us out by interviewing the girl."
"The girl in the hospital? What did she see?"
Schultz offered, "She's still in shock, sir. No way of knowing just yet."
Cellophane came off and was dropped on the sparsely topped desk. "She see it or do it?"
"We think she only saw it."
"Where did this come from? It's pretty good."
"Sandgully Quick-Mart. They get them fresh daily."
"You think we got a homicidal maniac on our hands out there, son?"
"Undoubtedly," answered Schultz.
"You can't find him, I'll call in Anschel. Then maybe we can get Little from the next town over to assist you all. The less outside help the better. When this blows, it would look good if we were able to handle it all ourselves, and quickly. Don't want no outsiders thinking this is an easy place to hit just 'cause we got a lacking police force. City won't pad the budget of a police force that can't solve its own crimes."
"No, sir," Schultz agreed, smoldering inside. He despised being threatened with a lack of yet another year's raise because he couldn't solve the town's strangest murder in less than twenty-four hours.
"Good sandwich," the rotund chief muttered, walking back toward his office to do whatever it was that occupied the bulk of his day behind closed doors.
The phone on Schultz's desk trilled and the two men glared at it balefully. "Detective Schultz." He rolled his eyes and Faldourette slumped in his chair, irritated. It was bad enough to find themselves suddenly confronted with a particularly strange and ugly murder case, but to have to take time to play cat and mouse games with the media also was just plain irritating. "Hello, John Weederow. No, I don't read your paper. I'm sorry, no. I don't have any facts now I could give you. I'm afraid I'll be busy during lunch...and dinner, too. No, no one else here can help you. Detective Anschel is on vacation with his family and knows nothing at this time. We don't actually know that there was a murder. Yes, there is a dead teenaged male involved, but the DNA tests aren't back yet--I am aware of the possibility Justin Brunshweiger may be missing. I have no idea. There isn't any proof of that. Nothing has been established at this time. You can speak to the Lintner family yourself about that. The entire third floor is being guarded and we'd appreciate if you stayed out of it until the investigation is complete. No, I don't know that. Yup, I really don't know much, now do I? Now why would I be uncooperative? You can go gather your own facts the old-fashioned way for all I care. Sure, I'll patch you through to Chief Holland."
Faldourette cocked an ear toward the Chief's closed door, but no phone was heard through it. "I think he has a secret door behind the bookcase and escapes that way to go fishing."
"I don't even have a door," grunted the older cop, unplugging his phone. "I'll call and leave a message with Denny. See if he can tell if the body was ever frozen or not. I'd think there'd be cell damage."
"Who has a freezer that big? A restaurant?"
"A restaurant in a hotel," mused Schultz. A quick scenerio whizzed through his brain. Bucky Burnwold kills his rival and keeps him in the walk-in refrigerator. He sets the body up in the newly renovated room, then lures Jasmine inside and locks her in with a spare room key. "Why kill the boy and not the girl?"
"Let's not assume things about the girl until you've questioned her."
"What motivates people? Money, fame, sex.... Pretty girl. Two teens ain't got no money to speak of on 'em. Maybe some psychotic wants to get his name in the news. Maybe some jealous boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or potential boyfriend needs to get this Justin kid out of the picture. Maybe he wants to make sure Jasmine gets the lesson. Maybe it's revenge."
"Commercial sized cooler, possibly in a hotel. Pretty girl. Someone who knows how to butcher. You're thinking it's that teenaged cook Croom's got. That Bucky kid."
Schultz shook his head. "It's weak, but it's something to eat up time with and it might give me some better ideas while I'm talking to him."
"How's it so hard to believe? I read about this high school kid who chopped up a girl some friend of his didn't get along with, then tried to hide the parts by burying them in different locations."
"Justin wasn't chopped up. What happened to him...Denny thinks it had to be a pro."
"Want me to come along?"
"Got anything better to do?"
"Speed trap on 27."
"Hey," said Schultz, "that's revenue for us."
"Sometimes I think a bake sale would work better. Or, if we had something we could walk intersections with to stuff money in like the volunteer firefighters with their boots."
"If you can get approval, I'll ride out there with ya. Right now I'm gonna try and call Denny."
Plenty of clues, but what do they point to? Will the killer strike again? How do you turn a teenager inside-out? Stay tuned for further updates in Indian Chief Part Three.
The Butcher's Boy
- 2011 Readers Favorite Award Silver Medal Winner in Horror - Fiction
A Paranormal/Chiller by Michael Robb
Thirty-one years ago, Buxly the Butcher went to trial for killing h
