Gray Matter (24 page)

In order to function, Schultz had to counter the overload of pain that practically dripped from the folders. It was a sickening compilation of gruesome killings and imaginative mutilations. There were groups of three or four murders with a similar technique, then a gap of up to two years. The locations were all over the map: Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, Illinois, Arizona, Minnesota, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. The victims showed a lot of variety: by sex, age, occupation, race, even social class. The only thing they all had in common was decapitation following the mutilation.

“Do you really think all these murders could have been committed by the same guy?” Ted asked.

“I talked with Doc about that. She said that psychos tend to stay with one MO because they’re fixated on reliving some aspect of their past. But she admitted there’s the possibility that somebody could break the pattern…” Schultz stopped, suddenly putting together something else he and Doc had talked about.

“Yes? Pattern?” Ted said.

“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about something else that came up during that same discussion. I said that the decapitations themselves might be the ritualistic pattern, and everything else is incidental, almost whimsical, depending on what’s going on in his life at the time. Then there would be consistency over all the murders.”

“Whimsical?”

“Well, a poor choice of words. If you consider the different types of mutilation.” Schultz tapped his pen thoughtfully. There is a strong suggestion of patterns running through all of them. Bones broken symmetrically. Burns arranged in lines. Slices of skin removed from both arms and both legs. Disembowelments with intestines arranged in loops. Stab wounds in a circle around the heart. Fingernails and toenails removed in a matching pattern. Acid painted on the symmetrical parts of the body. And the latest, carving the skin to form a recognizable pattern, a picture of a dog.”

“Sounds to me like the guy is trying to put some structure in his own mixed-up life.”

“I’ll leave that kind of speculation to Doc,” Schultz said. “I’d like to leave my own pattern on him: a bullet to the heart and another one smack between his eyes.”

Ted chuckled. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” The two men sat companionably, Schultz at ease with the FBI agent for the first time.

Schultz took copious notes. He was planning to request copies of the files, but it would take some time; hundreds of photos and pieces of paper were involved. It might be a couple of days before he could get the entire set, and something was pushing him, telling him he didn’t have that much time to spend. In fact, he was suddenly eager to leave. An idea had taken shape in his mind, and it had the same sharp-edged quality to it as previous hunches, the ones that had panned out.

Schultz wanted to talk to the sheriff who handled the case in Fallsburg, Tennessee. He wanted to talk about two headless corpses and a sixteen-year-old boy who fled from the terrible memory of his parents’ murder.

Or fled from the scene of his own bloody handiwork. He wanted to find out what type of person this boy Paul E. Macmillan was, and hear first hand about the investigation. He wanted to go back to the beginning.

By the time Schultz had made his exit from the FBI office, phoned both PJ and Wall to let them know what he was doing, tossed a change of clothes, a travel alarm, and his toothbrush into a canvas tote bag with cute kittens on the outside, and grabbed a quick bite of dinner, it was almost seven pm. Logically he should have made plans, gotten a good night’s sleep, and left in the morning. But logic had little to do with it when he realized that the tenuous thread between himself and the killer was really beginning to take shape. It had begun when he held the Macmillan case folder in his hands.

A sense of connection.

A typed name on the page that had riveted his attention.

Schultz headed south from St. Louis on I-55 in his Pacer, automatically and continually correcting the pull to the right that the car had. He picked up a map and some nacho chips, cookies, and soda at a gas station in Cape Girardeau. On the open highway he found that the Pacer really didn’t shudder too badly unless he pushed it over eighty. He made it to Memphis before midnight, and picked up State Road 57 just east of town. According to the map, the road paralleled the state line between Tennessee and Mississippi, just five miles into Tennessee. Another hour passed before he got to Fallsburg, and he pulled in at the first motel he found. The place was called the Restaway, and it had a dozen tiny little cabins. There was a car parked in front of one of them. The owner was grumpy when he finally answered Schultz’s persistent pressing on the buzzer, and he tacked on an extra five bucks to the room rate.

Schultz carried his tote bag into the small but surprisingly clean room. He set his alarm clock, stretched out on the well-used mattress, closed his eyes, and slept.

Six hours later, the strident alarm jolted him awake. It seemed as though he had just gotten into bed a moment before. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed before he could reconsider it. His knees were locked up, especially his left one, and he walked stiff-legged into the bathroom. A hot shower cleared his mind and limbered up his legs. The bath towels were so skimpy it took two of them to get him reasonably dry. He wondered if a couple staying at the Rest-away would argue over who got to take a shower first.

He had paid in advance, but he went back to the motel office to turn in his key and ask directions to the sheriff’s office. Fallsburg was the county seat, with a population of about eighteen thousand. He ate a full breakfast at a place that reminded him strongly of Millie’s Diner, except that it was run by a tough looking man with tattoos covering just about every inch of his formidable arms. Schultz was certain that there were never any arguments over the bill.

Seeing the town in the daylight, he realized that it must be economically depressed. There were liquor and pawn shops everywhere. The downtown section was centered on the County Court Building and City Hall which faced each other across a narrow rectangle of park land. Stretching out on either side were a couple of blocks of brick two-stories with offices for attorneys, bail bondsmen, and title companies. Most of the buildings were a little shabby looking, with decrepit awnings, cracked glass held in place with silver duct tape, or crumbling chimneys. Past the office area, there was a shopping district, with the usual hardware store, department store with window displays that hadn’t been changed in years, a few clothing and shoe stores, and a small theater with a genuine marquee showing a movie that had played months ago in larger cities. The ceramics shop had a “Going Out of Business” banner in the window.

The sheriff’s office was directly across the street from the courthouse. It was located in a squat cement building that looked out of place, as though it had been dropped in by military helicopter as a forward command post. It did have off-street parking, which saved Schultz from having to feed the parking meters that lined the downtown streets. The only spot that was left was marked “Official Parking Only.” He pulled in and rooted in the glove box for the sign that identified the car as an official police vehicle of the St. Louis Police Department. He placed it on the windshield, only half expecting it to be taken seriously. The Pacer didn’t have an official look to it.

The office was actually pleasant inside, with a furnished reception area and paintings by local artists displayed on the walls, each with a discreet price tag in the corner. Judging by the dust on the frames, they weren’t hot sellers. He stepped up to the window, showed his ID, and asked to talk to Sheriff Youngman. He was told that Al Youngman had retired ten years ago. The current sheriff, a man named Treacher, was out on a call. He ended up at the desk of a deputy, a middle-aged woman named Rita Wellston who was both professional and courteous, a combination that was hard to find. He explained his reason for coming from St. Louis, and asked to see the file on the Macmillan killings.

“What year was that again?” she said.

“1976.”

“OK, that would be down in the archives.”

The archives turned out to be a locked room in the basement. Inside were cardboard boxes containing file folders, each labeled with the year. It didn’t take long to locate several boxes with 1976 written on them. Murder cases were in red folders, and there were only two out of all the boxes for that year. One was for the Macmillans and the other was for a man who shot his estranged wife.

Deputy Rita, as she liked to be called, obligingly duplicated the Macmillan file while Schultz waited. There wasn’t much to it. Other than the photos and written descriptions of the crime scene, there were only a few pages of reports of interviews.

It looked like the sheriff had given up pretty easily.

Over coffee in the small lunchroom, Schultz grilled Rita on her knowledge of the case, which was practically nil. She hadn’t been a deputy at the time, hadn’t even moved to Fallsburg until she got divorced twelve years ago. Sheriff Youngman had mentioned it to her when she first hired on because it was an unsolved case which the office was theoretically still working on. She doubted that Bob Treacher, the current sheriff, knew any more about it than she did. She said she would let Bob know that Schultz was in town, in case he did have any information for him.

“The person you need to see is Al Youngman,” she said. “I’m not sure how thrilled he’d be to talk about the case, because it kind of rankled him that he didn’t solve it and close it for good. Maybe he’d be eager to hear about your interest, or any light you can shed on it. Or maybe he doesn’t want to be reminded. He lives out on Harvest Road, right past the big orchard. Got a little place, ten acres, runs a couple of cows and some chickens. He had a heart attack a couple of years ago, but it doesn’t seem to have slowed him down much.”

“I’ll try not to get him too excited,” Schultz said. He got directions, thanked Rita, and collected the copies she had made for him.

On his way out of the building, he noticed that none of the paintings had sold this morning.

The orchard on Harvest Road was impressive. Acres and acres of fruit trees were well tended in neat rows. Schultz wasn’t exactly sure, but he thought he saw peach, cherry, and apple trees as he cruised slowly by the orchard’s long road frontage. Al Youngman’s property adjoined the orchard land.

Schultz passed it before realizing that the fruit trees lining the driveway were not just more rows of the orchard. He backed up—Harvest Road didn’t exactly carry a lot of traffic—and pulled into the driveway.

Before he was halfway to the house, a black German shepherd ran out from around back. It stopped directly in front of him and held its ground, barking and showing serious teeth. He inched the car forward, but the dog didn’t budge.

A man came into view carrying a mesh basket full of something green. The man was short, maybe five-six, but had a compact strength and an easy grace to his walk. His still-mostly-red hair was shot with silver, and the bare arms that sprouted from his T-shirt looked like they were accustomed to outdoor work, and up to the job. His body was lean and flat where it was supposed to be flat. Schultz knew that Youngman was in his seventies, yet he appeared twenty years younger. Heart attack or not, Schultz found himself wishing that he would look that good at seventy-five.

The man’s face showed friendliness overlaid with healthy caution. He stopped about fifteen feet from the car, right behind the dog.

“That’s enough, Oscar,” he said. The dog stopped his barking and sat down, but his ears remained on alert. The man spoke bluntly to Schultz. “Who are you?”

Schultz leaned out the window. “I’m Detective Leo Schultz from the St. Louis Police Department. I’m looking for the former sheriff, Al Youngman.”

“Let’s see some ID,” he said.

Schultz hung his ID out the window. The man squinted at it, then walked up closer and took the leather wallet from Schultz and held it up close. “Can’t see to read without my glasses,” he explained, and then handed it back.

Schultz could see that the mesh basket was full of freshly-harvested green onions, with dirt still clinging to the roots. The pungent early summer smell brought back his own childhood memories: he and his brother George working in the garden, pulling onions, pelting each other with dirt clods.

“What’s your business with Youngman?”

“I want to talk to him about the Macmillan murders back in 1976. I think there could be a connection to a couple of recent murders in St. Louis.”

The man sighed. “Lord, the bad stuff never stops, does it? Pull on up. I’ll get cleaned up inside. I’ve got some lemonade made. I was ready for a break anyway.” He turned to the dog. “Oscar, go lay down.” The big black dog immediately trotted over to the shade of a large oak tree on the front lawn. He lowered himself to the grass and put his head down on his outstretched front paws, still watching Schultz and the car.

Schultz pulled up closer to the house and got out under Oscar’s watchful eyes. He went up on the front porch and sat down on a wicker chair with a flowered cushion on the seat. The porch furniture didn’t look like something Al Youngman would pick out himself. A few minutes later, the man came out the front door carrying a tray with two tall glasses of ice and a pitcher of lemonade. He set the tray on a small table, poured, and handed Schultz a glass. Then he pulled a wicker rocker up close to Schultz’s chair, leaving the table and the pitcher between them.

Schultz touched the lemonade to his lips and felt them puckering in anticipation of full contact. He took a big swallow. It was strong and barely sweetened. When it hit his stomach, it promptly dissolved the contents. It was great.

“Hope the lemonade’s OK with you. I don’t like it very sweet,” Youngman said. “Marge and I used to fight about it all the time. The day she died, nearly three years ago now, she fixed a pitcher and must have put three cups of sugar in it. I told her she’d have to drink it all, and dam if she didn’t do just that.”

“It’s perfect,” Schultz said. He was thinking that the way things looked, he wasn’t going to be spending his old age sipping lemonade in wicker chairs, bickering with Julia about how much sugar to use. Loneliness stretched out in front of him like a bleak highway, flat and deserted to the horizon. He squelched the thought and yanked himself back to business.