Eleven Days (11 page)

Mike came on the line.

“Yeah?”

“Hi, it’s Carl. You talk to Lamar recently?”

“Oh, about twenty minutes ago. Rothberg agreed to have the funeral. I was going to call you.”

“Okay. Look, it might be a good idea if you were to connect up with Theo and give him a copy of the deed.”

“Yeah, I think so, too. Lamar ain’t altogether happy about us talking to Rothberg.”

“Right. You know about the other female who lived with Herkaman?”

“What other female?”

I told him what Lamar had told me. Mike said that Theo was still out, and that he would pump him about the new woman and would see what he could come up with. Theo was pretty easy that way.

A new lead—a third woman at Herkaman’s place. Rachel … Rachel who? Who cares … we’ll find out. But I was sure she was the caller we hadn’t been able to identify. Our survivor. Our witness. The key to the whole thing. Now all we had to do was find out who she was, and where she was, and get her to talk. No problem …

I woke up a little after noon and felt pretty damned good. A little sore in the shoulder, but my head seemed much better.

After I had a cup of coffee and had taken Fred out for a little while, I called the office to see what was new. Shouldn’t have done that. Everybody was in a restrained sort of tizzy. We had had five burglaries the night before. Theo was working one now, and Mike was still up, doing the last of his reports on the first two burglaries, which he had discovered.

Two of the burglaries had occurred in Maitland, and Dan was still up, working those.

That meant that one or two burglars had taken just about the whole local homicide team off the case for at least a day, maybe longer, leaving DCI to do the work. With Hester still in Iowa City, that meant that Agent Hal Greeley was the only one left in our county to do any interviews, and probably meant that the search for Rachel was going to be his main project, and he didn’t know
anybody in the county. That was crucial, because many of our citizens will be somewhat less than candid with any cop, but with a state agent by himself … not good.

I got Hal on the phone and offered to help interview. He was going to the Bockman house first. I had another cup of coffee, some peanut butter toast, and I was ready to go.

Or so I thought. I realized that I didn’t remember Bockman’s first name. Or her maiden name. I hated to do it, but I called the school and asked for Sue. She had to be called away from class, so she would have to call me back. She did in about two minutes.

“Carl, are you all right?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, you scared me to death!”

Uh-oh. I should have thought of that. I was home on sick leave with a head injury, right? What would be the first thing she would think? Dummy.

“I’m sorry, dear, no, I’m just fine. Look, what I need is Mrs. Bockman’s first name.”

“Who?”

“You remember, was in my class in high school—a year behind you. Hefty gal, about five ten, was in extracurricular speech with us one year, then went to school in Iowa City for about one semester … then quit? Married that Bockman who lives north of town about three or four miles?”

“Oh, that would be Tammy Bockman’s mother. Her first name is Helen. She was a Floyd, wasn’t she?”

“Sure! Okay, thanks a lot.”

“Did you have to call me out of class for that?”

“Yeah, it was important. Look, I’ll tell you tonight, okay?”

“All right. I love you.”

“I love you, too. See you around suppertime.”

“You’re going someplace?”

“Just a ride with one of the state officers, no big deal.”

“Should you be going out?”

“Hey, I feel fine.”

“I think it’s stupid. Let somebody else do it. You’re on sick pay, stay home and be sick.”

“I’ll be okay, and there’s nobody else available.”

“There never is, is there?”

“Look, I’ll be all right. Nothing dangerous or anything like that. Just an interview I don’t want to miss.”

“An interview for a better job?”

I forced a laugh. “No, afraid not.”

“All right,” she said, sounding resigned. “I’ll see you for supper, or whenever you get home.”

“Okay, bye.”

Now I was ready to go. Helen. Yes, good old Helen. Now that I thought about it, she had to leave the U of Iowa because her mother had a stroke, and her dad needed her at the farm. Her sister had been through law school by that time and had left the area for good. I remembered hearing that Helen was pretty bitter and resentful about that … probably with reason, because Helen probably could have done very well in school.

Hal picked me up, and I filled him in on Helen on the way out to her place. We got there about 13:25.

Helen lived about three-fourths of a mile from Herkaman’s place, off the main road and west, or behind, the Herkaman house. The closest farm to Herkaman’s, as a matter of fact.

Helen came out onto the porch to meet us. She looked like she had aged more than I would like to think I have, but still didn’t look too bad. She invited us in, and I introduced Hal. It looked like Helen remembered me, which made me feel a little embarrassed for not remembering her name. She was very congenial, and offered us coffee and cookies, while we sat at a modern kitchen table. I looked around briefly and was impressed. The house was
quite clean and tidy, and most of the interior appeared to have been remodeled, with the furniture being nearly new. Helen was doing well for herself. Then I remembered that her dad had died about three or four years back. She must have inherited a bit of money.

I was kind of surprised that Hal and Theo hadn’t talked to Helen before this, but Hal took care of that for me by saying that they had started with the northeast neighbors and had let interview lead to interview. He was explaining to Helen just what he was doing there and why he wanted to talk to her. He went into how horrible it all was and what a terrible thing had happened at the Herkaman house. How we really wanted the people who had done such a thing and how they should be put away for a long time. He was talking down to her, and I hoped he wouldn’t make her mad.

He explained a little about the murders, just enough to let her know that we didn’t have a suspect, but left out the Satanic overtones. Then he asked her to tell us what she knew about Phyllis Herkaman and her guests.

“Well, not a lot,” said Helen.

She then proceeded to tell us a lot about Phyllis Herkaman, her son, and some of the strange guests at the house.

Helen had known Phyllis Herkaman for about two years, it turned out. She thought Phyllis pretty friendly but sort of melancholy. Thought that there must have been some pretty tragic circumstances in her life, even more than the death of Phyllis’s husband, which she knew about. She and Phyllis had coffee in the mornings about once a week, and Phyllis had said some pretty disturbing things.

“Like what, Helen?”

She looked at me with kind of a funny expression. “Well, Carl, she was pretty quiet, like I told you. But she was always saying things about freedom to be yourself.
Not like your typical liberal, understand. Not at all. Much more freedom than that. She would tell me that it was all right to do virtually anything, as long as it benefited you. That it was all right if it hurt somebody else, because if they could be hurt by it, they didn’t deserve to be protected in the first place. That sort of thing. Very determined. Not forceful, you know? But deep down convinced, and unshakable.”

“Was this political,” asked Hal, “or was it more like a creed, or a religion, or something like that?”

Helen smiled. “She was a Satanist, if that’s what you mean,” she said matter-of-factly. “Care for another cookie?”

It turned out that Helen and Phyllis had discussed Satanism on several occasions. Phyllis had apparently had a considerable amount of respect for Helen, telling her that she admired her intelligence and could understand all about the tragedies in Helen’s background. Phyllis had railed against “fate” and the fact that women were constantly being taken advantage of. By men, and by society as a whole.

Helen told us that Phyllis had taken the death of her husband pretty hard, because she was intending to leave him in a year or two anyway, and that she felt guilty about that. She had tried to find somebody in her hometown to talk to who would understand. No luck. She had gone back to school in Iowa City and had come across some people there who not only provided sympathy but told her that she had no business feeling guilty about anything. They had introduced her to Satanism, a little at a time, until she finally began to accept it as her religion.

“Did she try to, uh, persuade you to adopt Satanism, too?” I asked.

“Oh,” said Helen, “sort of. In her own way. She wasn’t pushy, or anything like that. Just trying to share what she thought was a good philosophy.”

There was a short pause, with the unasked question hanging in the air.

“No, Carl.” She reached over and poured more coffee into my cup. “She didn’t convert me.”

“Well, good.”

“But I have to admit, she made me think.”

“I suppose she did.”

She gestured with the pot toward Hal’s cup, and he shook his head. “You said on the phone yesterday, after I asked you what had happened to Rachel, that you didn’t know anything about her. Is that true?”

“Yes,” said Hal.

“I find that a little hard to believe.”

I grinned. “So do we, Helen, but there it is.”

She looked at me with that funny look again. “What do you want to know about her? I worry about her, she is pretty dependent, you know, and I hope nothing has happened to her.”

“Well, we’d like to start off with her last name, if you know it.”

“Certainly. Rachel Larsen.”

Things were definitely looking up.

It turned out that Rachel had started coming to the Herkaman farm about a year to a year and a half ago. She was a student in Iowa City, originally from Minnesota. Majored in speech pathology. About twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, had been married, but was divorced by the time she was twenty-three. He apparently beat her. She was a part-time student and worked at the bookstore at the student union. She was pretty shy and withdrawn, and was bisexual, her female lover having been Peggy Keller. She also slept with Phyllis on occasion.

Hal and I exchanged glances. Wonderful. All I could think was, that if this case ever got to a jury, we were going to have a little trouble keeping their minds on something as mundane as a murder or four. And with the
lifestyle and religious preferences of this group, a jury just might feel they had gotten their just deserts.

“Does that bother you?” asked Helen.

“No,” I said. “It doesn’t bother me, but if we ever get the suspect to trial, it might bother a jury.”

She seemed to collect her thoughts for a moment. But something was bothering her.

We asked her if she knew Sirken, and she said only slightly, but that he was something of a jerk, tried to be very dominant, but only came across as a pain in the ass. He worked at a hospital, that was all she knew. Except that:

“He was a janitor, and took about three hours a year toward his psych major. But he tried to tell strangers that he was a psychologist, sometimes a psychiatrist. Didn’t know anything! Only a fool would have bought his phony act.”

“But he and Peggy and Rachel were all into Satanism?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know about Francis McGuire’s connection with these people? I mean, how did he fit in?”

Helen snorted. “He provided some support, like with money. He was always trying to impress them with his devotion to Satan, but he didn’t really understand the true philosophy behind it.” She shook her head. “But all three of the girls screwed him, if you’ll pardon my language. Just to keep him around.”

“Oh.”

“They told me that they thought he was sort of nice, and that they could do that for him. But they always laughed at him and called him the whore.”

“They called him,” asked Hal, “the whore?”

“Sure. After his surgery, he had to be on the bottom every time. You know what they say … a whore spends most of her time on her back?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s why they called him that.”

She paused, and seemed to be trying to resolve a conflict. She looked at me again.

“Carl, would you answer a question for me?”

“I will if I can.”

Her lip started to tremble. “Did you find the baby?” And she started to cry.

Well, Hal and I just about crapped.

Turned out that Rachel had a baby a short time ago and that Helen thought we had some information about it and were withholding it from her. It took her a few minutes to compose herself, and Hal and I just sort of sat there stunned.

Helen went into the bathroom eventually.

“Jesus Christ, Hal. This is just getting to be like a freakin’ soap opera!”

“You got that right.”

“You don’t suppose we have a dead baby over there, do you?”

“I don’t see how. She probably took it with her.”

“I didn’t see any baby stuff in the house, Hal. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“That doesn’t mean much. She lived in Iowa City.”

“Yeah, but if she is the one who called, she sure didn’t seem like somebody who had the time to pack up the kid and all its stuff.”

“Maybe. Listen, let’s take Helen to the office and have
her listen to the tape of the original call. She ought to be able to tell if it’s Rachel on the phone.”

I nodded.

“In the meantime, let me call Iowa City and see if we can locate Rachel down there.”

Helen returned to the table. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Hal. “Nothing to be sorry about at all. Could I trouble you to use your phone? It’ll be long-distance, but I’ll use my state credit card.”

“No, go ahead. That’s fine.”

“Thank you.”

Hal went to call, leaving Helen and me at the table.

“Carl, I’m sorry I got so upset. It’s just that I thought you knew and weren’t telling me.”