Stone Shadow (28 page)

And she is almost in shock and starts to ask, “What...” the first word only a quarter second from her mouth. “What?
W H A
...” barely out and another hand clamps her mouth hoarsely saying, “Don't talk. Hurry. Move!” Shoving her rudely toward the desired direction and she stumbles through the door and down the stairs and into the stone room just as the killer slams out of the vehicle and he is so fast and deadly, and he smiles at the sureness of his movements as he moves toward the woman who is in the house.

All of Eichord's concentration now is shifted from a defensive posture to an attack mode. And the thoughts you think at a time like this come in a lightning blur, intensified by the survival instincts and triggered by the clutching talons of danger, Eichord watching both the image recognition pattern of the DEtection MONitor and the doorway to his right knowing the killer is coming and then seeing the conflict and wondering who or what but no time now and in the midst of all this a ridiculous thought.

He thinks, If this was a movie the music would be playing a woodpecker electro-motif. The Wizard of Oz ad told him about it the other day. Something the Soviets had once used on areas of the recalcitrant populace they wanted to punish. Ozzie Barnes had played a few seconds of it over the phone. It was an incessant variant of the Chinese water torture, a note repeated staccato endlessly, the sort of thing that was punishing enough just to hear via a taped shortwave monitor, and it would have made a nice background score for that second in time. That was the absurd thought his mental defense mechanisms evoked as he thumbed back the hammer on the Smith and when the dark form crashed through the door he squeezed one off just a hair below the eye slits. No “Freeze! Police!” Just forearms resting on a chair back, trying not to make any mistakes, no freeze—just a squeeze, and the maggie loud in the house, pyrotechnics momentarily blinding as his bullet smashed out drilling the intruder smack dab between the running lights.

It was never over until you made sure. Making sure was the hardest part, but it was the next step and he slapped the wall a couple of times with his left hand, right hand still in the weapon-up position, not hearing the screams of the terror-stricken woman down in the stone room, hammer thumbed back again, smoking muzzle pointing at the prone man's head, and he stepped over on the muscular wrist as a precaution and reached over to touch the head, instantly realizing it had been a mistake.

Joseph Hackabee a/k/a Joseph Houtcheson was about half empty of gray matter. Eichord's single shot had covered Noel Collier's nice white wall in red, dripping mist and assorted nasties and brain-burger bits, and some of it was on his hand. He fought bile back and wiped it off. Joe had a fourteen-inch Randall-type fighting knife which Eichord picked up and walked out of the open door and into a crowd of police.

“(something).” Michaels was patting him on the back and he caught “IAD” and “shooting team” and he popped his neck and it cracked, and he swallowed, and he could hear a little now, still half-deafened by the gun report after all the silence.

Noel Collier ran up to them and tried to say something to him but he was already moving, and he acted like he hadn't heard her and just kept going.

There were guys everywhere. Three or four cars had their bubble-gum machines on and the light bars were throwing eerie shadows everywhere. A medical dude said his name and he turned and the guy said, “You all right?"

And Eichord said, “Are the Kennedys gun-shy?” And he kept walking in the direction of his unmarked car.

Yeah. Shit. I'm great. Never better. I'm in Dallas fucking Texas and I just shot a man to death. I'm fine. Wonder how late it is anyway? Gotta call a lady about a dog. See if she takes in strays.

Postmortem

Dear Mr. Eichord:
Subsequent to my contacting Chief Mulcahey with respect to my concerns in light of the notoriety following the fatal shooting of Mr. Joseph Hackabee in Dallas, Texas, please find enclosed deposition(s), copies of the Houtcheson X rays, and other related material of possible interest.
After seeing a photograph of the deceased, and taped interviews with Mr. William Hackabee, I contacted Chief Mulcahey. Upon receipt of my original deposition I was asked to forward this material along to you, and as per our initial conversation of 26 February, I am also sending you this summary and overview of my report to the Major Crimes Task Force, which is written pursuant to your request “in simple English.”
On or about the evening of 8 February, I was watching the evening news broadcast on Channel 5 When a story ran showing a photograph of the twin of Mr. William “Ukie” Hackabee, who had been the self-confessed murder suspect in the Dallas Grave-digger investigation, which ran during a story that included an interview with the deceased man's brother. I remembered treating this individual here in Bellaire this past fall (September 9, 16, 21, SEE ENC.) and was able to produce our records of said treatment in this office.
The individual whom we treated used the pseudonym “Joseph Houtcheson” (SEE ENC.). He listed no family doctor, which was attributed to a transient life-style, and childhood medical records had been lost. Subsequent to tests and X rays made of Mr. Houtcheson, who had a history of severe headache pain, the first of several skull X rays revealing a possible pinealoma, which is a type of brain tumor, was shown to the patient. He became agitated and abusive, and abruptly left these premises in a state of extreme anger.
In several attempts made by our office we were never successful in locating Mr. Houtcheson again, either by telephone or via the mail, for the purposes of arranging treatment with either our clinic or some other suitable health-care facility. The information given by Mr. Houtcheson on his earlier visits turned out to be false.
The unsettling affair with “Joseph Houtcheson” was in the back of my mind when Channel 5 news ran their story on the investigation in which you and your task force had been involved, and I telephoned Chief Mulcahey to provide the information that I thought might be important to a resolution of the case.
Because of the nature of the deceased's fatal gunshot wound, I was told that a positive identification of X rays cannot be made, however in my opinion this group of X rays (SEE ENC.) are those of Mr. Joseph Hackabee. As I stated to you in our phone conversation of 26 February, in twenty-three years of practice I have never seen X rays such as the enclosed.
The brain tumor is unique in this instance: being a rare tumor of the pineal gland and with the configuration as shown. This gland, which is essentially believed to be a nonfunctional gland in humans, is often calcified in persons by the time they reach their thirties. The calcification is an easily discerned feature in a skull X ray and if there is some identifiable mass such as a tumor or hematoma in the brain one can sometimes see the calcification displaced from its normal position.
The only tumor that occurs primarily in the gland is a pinealoma, normally, but because of the configuration in the X rays and the displacement factor, I cannot be sure of the nature of Mr. Houtcheson's brain tumor. Nonetheless, one might theorize that this tumor would be a significant factor in any future analysis of the case.
During our initial phone conversation you asked me to clarify an offhand comment I made about “a third eye,” which I made figuratively, with respect to the tumor's configuration and the fact that it involved the pineal. The gland was once mythologized to be a vestige inherited from ancient ancestors, a remnant of the legendary “third eye in the middle of the forehead.”
The pineal “third eye” is what could be called a biological anthropomorphism based on the evolution of the lizard, in which a stalk is attached anatomically to the gland which once may have been its prehistoric forbearer's third-eye nerve tract.
In humans the pineal appendage may have something to do with our being able to distinguish a sense of the difference between day and night, but such a function is largely speculative.
Boyd, the famous Canadian pathologist, says, “Now that the pineal gland is no longer regarded as the seat of [man's] soul, it has been difficult to ascribe a function to it.”
If I can provide any further information with respect to this matter, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Kingman Fredericks, D.O. Chief Radiologist Bellaire Clinic of Radiology Bellaire, Texas
P.S. Pinealectomy performed on a lab animal stimulates gonadal hypertrophy and sexual development, and there is speculation that the pineal gland may influence human sexual characteristics and behavior as well.

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