Kwik Krimes (6 page)

T
HIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN
A T
WIST OF
N
OIR.

Recipient of the Stalker Award for Most Criminally Underrated Author, Eric Beetner is author of
The Devil Doesn’t Want Me, Dig Two Graves,
and the story collection
A Bouquet of Bullets.
He co-authored (with J.B. Kohl)
One Too Many Blows to the Head
and
Borrowed Trouble.
He wrote two in the acclaimed Fightcard series,
Split Decision
and
A Mouth Full of Blood.
His award-winning short stories appear in more than a dozen anthologies. He blogs at
EricBeetner.blogspot.com
.

Raymond Benson

T
he detective was assigned to the case three days into it.

The department had already allocated 80 percent of the force to the investigation of the missing twins. It had begun when the parents, who were suspiciously hostile, reported that their children had gone into the woods to play as they did most every day. When they didn’t return that evening, the father called the police.

On the second day, the team searched the woodlands; the dogs picked up a promising scent and led them deeper into the forest. The officer in charge called off the search at sunset, and the men resumed the next morning with the detective in the lead. The dogs once again found the trail. At midday the animals directed the party to an isolated, lone cabin to which no path led. While the detective was amazed that there would be a dwelling so deep in the wilderness, he was even more confounded by its appearance and construction. Its red, yellow, blue, and brown colors were very bright, almost syrupy, and the exterior material felt soft to the touch and smelled nice. His first thought was that he wanted to take a bite out of it.

The dogs became frenzied and had to be tied to trees at the area’s perimeter. At first the detective thought their noses may
have led them to the place because of its pungent, sweet smell rather than by the elusive trail of the missing children.

An elderly blind woman stormed out of the front door and demanded an explanation for the men’s presence. When asked for her identity, she said her name was Barbara Yaeger. She was not cooperative. She told them to go away and refused to let the officers inside. Without a warrant, the detective couldn’t insist, but they did have a look around the exterior. At the side of the strange house was a large six foot by six foot cage. The detective knew that the horror of its contents would forever haunt him. Inside were the remains of what looked like several human bodies. From the size of the bones, the officer was certain they were mostly of children. The Yaeger woman was immediately placed under arrest and taken to the precinct. The judge quickly gave them the warrant to search the house. The interior was more of the same sickly sweet decorations.

An experienced detective knew when he was in the residence of a mad person.

A fine crystal dust clung to one man’s index finger when he touched a sparkling blue lampshade. Before the detective could stop him, the officer had already put his finger to his tongue.

“It’s sweet,” the rookie said. “Like sugar.”

They found more bones in various rooms, but the biggest pile was in the kitchen area. There were a total of thirty-three human bones at the crime scene, although there were no complete skeletons. The Yaeger woman was charged with murder, and the detective believed the DA could and would charge her with cannibalism.

Because the difficult crime scene was immense, the commissioner approved calling in a more sophisticated forensics outfit to process it. The FBI intervened and met the investigative party at the command center set up at the edge of the woodlands. Using
a GPS, the detective directed the much larger group to the same area of the woods where the house was, or so he thought.

They couldn’t find it. The men searched until nightfall, and there was no indication that the peculiar house ever existed. The detective ordered another search for the following day.

When they got back to the station, the detective and the Feds went to interrogate the suspect and found her cell empty. The flabbergasted sergeant on duty insisted that once Yaeger was locked inside, no one came in or out of the jail all day.

The FBI put out an all-points alert for the woman.

The mystery confounded everyone.

The next day they searched for the house again. The men spent all day in the woods, and the dogs were no help at all. The detective began to question his sanity.

The case grew ice cold after a few weeks. The FBI went back to DC, or wherever it was they came from.

One afternoon on his day off, however, the detective took an excursion into the forest on his own. He followed the usual routes to where he remembered the ghastly dwelling to be.

The man didn’t find the sweet abattoir, but he did discover a different abode erected where he thought the previous lodging had stood. This one was made of logs and appeared to be completely normal. The smokestack issued dark puffs. Someone was inside. The detective approached the front door and knocked.

He knocked again.

A woman called, “Who’s there?” It wasn’t Yaeger, for this lady’s voice had a younger, much more pleasant timbre.

“Police, ma’am. May I have a word?”

“Oh, lovely, I’ve been expecting you. Come in, please! The door’s unlocked.”

He turned the knob. Sure enough, it opened easily.

The place was a nice, femininely decorated home. The modest kitchen was spic and span, and the detective could swear he smelled soup cooking.

“Ma’am?”

“I’m back here, darling,” she called from what the detective assumed was the bedroom.

He cleared his throat. “May I speak to you please?”

“It’s all right, sweetheart. Don’t be shy. I’m…I’m in bed, and I’m wearing something I think you’ll like. Come inside so that I can see you with my baby-blue eyes.”

What?

The detective gulped.

What did she say?

“Are you coming or not, big boy? I’m waiting!” The giggle that followed was playful and teasing.

This sort of thing never happened to him.

What kind of vixen awaited him beyond the threshold?

The detective couldn’t help himself. The lure was too tempting. He entered.

The last thing the man’s brain registered was a violent onslaught of brown fur and glowing red eyes.

And very sharp teeth.

Raymond Benson is the author of twenty-seven published books. His latest series of thrillers are
The Black Stiletto
and
The Black Stiletto: Black & White,
with a third installment coming in April 2013. Aside from original works, Raymond is a prolific tie-in writer and was the fourth official—and first American—author to pen authorized James Bond novels. Visit his website at
RaymondBenson.com
.

John Billheimer

B
aker hadn’t looked at his 401(k) statement for a year. He’d been afraid to. Then his broker called to tell him his ruined retirement account wouldn’t last three years at the rate he was spending.

The easiest solution was to go back to work. But after fifteen years, there was no way to resurrect his old day job as a statistician. His old night job, though, was a different story. He retrieved the shoebox from his bedroom closet and unwrapped the oiled rag that protected the sleek .45 caliber automatic. There’d always be a demand for his old night job.

It would be a lot easier to find night work if Big Bill Ellison were still alive. Big Bill had run the gambling concessions in East Wheeling and had given Baker his start as a contract killer. Big Bill’s older son, Jeff, had been engaged to Baker’s daughter, Sally. She was on the back of Jeff’s motorcycle when a hit-and-run driver turned left in front of them. It took two blocks for their mangled bodies to bounce free.

The police eventually gave up, but Baker haunted the accident intersection for months, making lists of left-turning sedans
that fit the scanty witness descriptions. He finally found a Lincoln sedan with a wine-red smear on its muffler that matched the color of Sally’s helmet.

Instead of going to the authorities, who had let the sedan’s owner back on the roads after two DUI convictions, Baker went to Big Bill Ellison. The two men coaxed a confession from the owner, then force-fed him alcohol until he passed out and drove him and his Lincoln into the Ohio River. And Baker’s moonlighting career was born.

Big Bill’s son, Little Bill, had inherited his father’s gambling operations, but not his intelligence, and had always resented Baker’s close relationship with Big Bill. Baker took a deep breath, dialed the phone, and heard the throaty rasp of surprise in Little Bill’s voice when he said he was looking for work.

“We didn’t part on very good terms. Got a kid doing your old job. Might be he could use some backup this weekend.”

“I work alone. You know that.”

“I need to be sure your head’s still into the work. You want the job or not?”

“I want the job.”

“Good. I’ll courier the details. Be in our parking lot Friday night at eight. The kid’ll find you.”

“The kid have a name?”

“No. And neither do you.”

The kid was a half hour late pulling his red Mustang into Ellison’s parking lot. He was wearing a Pirates baseball cap atop a face pocked with acne scars.

Baker slid into the passenger seat and asked, “How old are you, anyhow?”

“Twenty-four. How old are you?”

“Seventy-five.” Baker shaved a few years off his age out of habit.

“You don’t look it.”

“Neither do you. How long have you been doing this kind of work?”

“Long enough. You don’t need to worry about me, old man. I’ve turned in two of these jobs already. Goddamned if I know why they’re sending you along.”

After ten minutes, the kid drove into a narrow alley, parked, and pointed up at a lighted warehouse window. “That’s our man. He’ll come out around nine.”

“How do you know he’ll be alone?”

“He was alone last night.”

“You only watched him one night?”

“My time is valuable.”

“So’s mine.” Baker didn’t tell the kid he’d watched for the last three nights. “If he’s not alone, we abort.”

“No need. We’ll just take out his buddies, too.” The kid reached inside his Steelers jacket and pulled out a revolver.

Baker held out his hand. “Let me see that.”

The kid smiled and handed over the revolver.

Baker spun the cylinder, extracted a bullet, and squinted at it in the dim light. “Hollow points.”

“Stops vics dead in their tracks. I carve ’em out myself.”

Baker handed the gun back. “No point in both of us sitting here. I’ll go across the alley. Hide in that doorway behind the Dumpster. Anything goes wrong, we’ll have our man in a crossfire.”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

Baker left the car and vanished in the shadow of the Dumpster.

At ten till nine, a homeless man pushing a shopping cart full of rags and bulging garbage bags came up the alley. He stopped in front of the Mustang and raised a small bottle of Windex spray.

The kid waved him away.

The man started spraying the glass cleaner on the windshield.

The kid raised his hand again. This time his revolver was in it.

The man dropped the spray bottle on the curb and stuck both hands in the air. He backed away from the Mustang and put one hand on the handle of the shopping cart, indicating he was leaving.

The kid nodded and lowered the revolver out of Baker’s view.

The homeless man pulled a sawed-off shotgun free of the rags and emptied both barrels into the window of the Mustang.

There was no sign of the kid between the shattered window and the bloody dashboard.

Baker stepped out of the shadows and raised his right hand. “Nice shooting.”

The homeless man swung both barrels of the emptied shotgun toward Baker. “You must be the guy that called.”

Baker shot him twice in the heart with the .45 concealed in his left pocket. “I’m the guy.” Then he exchanged the .45 for the kid’s revolver and walked quickly away.

When he was safely removed from the scene, Baker called Little Bill Ellison and told him their target had surprised them and killed the kid before Baker could put him down.

“My God,” Ellison said. “How could that happen?”

Baker took the hollow-point bullet he’d palmed from the kid’s revolver and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know. It’s almost like the man knew we were coming.”