Murder at Willow Slough (5 page)

He snoozed till 6:16. Too early to get up and too late to switch off his thoughts.

He remembered a deep-breathing technique his therapist had taught him years ago in New York, in a session which revealed that every emotion he’d ever repressed was stored in his body. All his fears in all the years of Thelma and Ronald; all the lonely pain of being called faggot and queer in grade school, because he minded the teachers and didn’t pick fights—all the men and women who wanted him, whom he didn’t want—came flooding back as he lay on an apartment floor on Central Park West, a dictionary on his abs, exhaling.

But abdominal breathing, using all his lung capacity and expelling the “dirty air” completely, had taught him how to sleep when he couldn’t. He set the alarm for 10 a.m. He’d be up in plenty of time for the start of ICU visiting hours at noon, if the hospital didn’t call.

He was a total wreck and he knew it; but he breathed.

6  

Agate

Jamie gathered newspapers under his arm and drove his own car to the hospital. He made his way to the entrance, passing under shirtless hard-hats in September heat. A young brunet working on the roof was hunky, but the others were lip-curlers.

Outside the doors a knot of smokers gathered. “So I says to Alice, I says to her, Listen, if you’d gotten him looked at before this, you would-n’t be in this fix.” She was a thin-lipped White woman, prematurely aging in faded jeans, a NASCAR shirt and Marlboro Lights. Jamie strode past her trying not to feel superior.

Then feeling superior, what the hell.

He moved past the volunteer shop with its guilt-free, wilt-now flowers, to the elevators. He followed signage to double doors, behind which his mother lay incarcerated. He stopped at the nurses’ station, gave his mother’s name and his own. “How is she?”

“It’s been a tough night,” a nurse named Terry said. “We’re trying to stabilize her blood pressure. But she’s a fighter.”

They’re all fighters till they’re dead. He entered Room 10. There was Thelma, beautiful and wasted, with tubes in places he didn’t want to look. She was asleep.

A nurse named Sandra, hair tied up in a Mennonite bun, punched up numbers on Thelma’s monitor. Satisfied with her readings, she moved past Jamie without so much as a nod. He could have been a used catheter.

He found Thelma’s inert right hand, the one with the red light taped to it. He stroked her hand, knowing it wouldn’t do any good or any harm. She still looked devastated, but maybe her color was a bit better; or maybe that was merely what he told himself.

Today there was a big visitor’s chair for him, and after a minute he sat down and picked up the local paper. Besides Yugoslavia, the front page focused on the prospects for this year’s corn harvest; the weather was cooperating so far. The local section had a big spread about a gazebo in Columbian Park, and he devoured every smalltown word.

Then he spotted something in the agate.

Body Recovered in Slough

MOROCCO—A conservation officer discovered the partially-clad body of an unidentified white male in woods near a lake in the Willow Slough Fish and Game Area yesterday afternoon, state police said.

The victim, wearing only white socks and athletic shoes, appeared to have been strangled, police said, but final cause of death is pending until an autopsy can be performed. No identification was found at the scene. Police estimated that the victim had been dead up to two weeks.

The victim was between 25 and 35 years old, according to State Police Sgt. Kent Kessler of the West Lafayette post, the detective in charge of the investigation. No other details were available.

Chills started at the crown of his head, ran down to his toes and didn’t let go for ten full seconds.

He made a fist, looked away. A man’s murdered and he’s only worth the fine print?

He searched the local section of the Indianapolis paper, but the Sun didn’t have a report. He watched his mother’s monitor for a second, then gazed out the window at nothing. A quick phone call, when Mom no longer needs anything, might be all it takes.

“Whatcha doing over there?” his mother croaked.

Jamie jumped up, put on his game face and strode over to lean across the bedrail. “Just wondering how much beauty sleep you need today, lady,” he grinned.

She coughed, blinked, tried to clear her throat. “A lot,” she murmured. But her eyes worked at smiling too.

He stayed with her for an hour, during which she fell asleep twice and asked him to mow the lawn three times. At 1 p.m. he drove back to West Lafayette, opened the garage door and pulled out the mower. It was heavy, and he had to figure out how to reattach the grass-catcher, which was full from the last time Arnie mowed.

Shapes had always puzzled Jamie; he was wired for words, not objects. He finally got the grass-catcher to hang behind the mower. He was starting to work up a sweat and he hadn’t even got the mower out of the garage yet.

He went into the house, pulled off his shirt and changed into gym trunks. There was no helping his white cross-trainers; they were the only shoes he’d brought besides boots and dress shoes, and they’d just have to get grass-stained.

He had a leftover tan from Amsterdam, where he covered and played in the Gay Games with thousands of athletes, exactly his idea of a good time. He carried the banner for Team Columbus in the opening ceremonies, then spent two weeks stripped down to serious, sexy trunks, showing off his buff body for all it was worth. He’d never forget the spirit of the Games, an atmosphere of support and respect and celebration. He had a blast in Amsterdam, his first fun since Rick died.

He found sunblock. But mowing was a bear. The grass catcher filled up every five minutes, the mower weighed a ton, and the drainage ditch in the front yard was impossible. The job took him two hours, and Thelma had a little yard. By the time he was done he knew he would drive to the Slough.

***

The local TV news barely mentioned the murder and had no additional details. After Dan Rather, Jamie headed back to the hospital. His Mom was awake when he walked in; that was a first. “How’s the grass?” Thelma asked.

“Chopped to smithereens,” he said with mock exasperation. “Manicured within an inch of its life. Worthy of Augusta National, though you’d never let the public tramp through your estate. Yet they may look through the palace fence with the other commoners, once or twice a year, noblesse oblige.” She smiled, waited for him to finish. “As for me, I’ve got a sunburned nose. How are you?”

“I’ve got burns too,” she replied, touching her belly where the grapefruit had grown.

“It took me two hours. That mower’s heavy.”

“That’s twice as long as it takes Arnie. The mower’s self-propelled, you just hold down the lever.”

“How was I to know? Do you think you might have mentioned it?”

She said meekly, “Sorry.”

Oh,how cute she was when she was guilty.“Lord,she sends a Gay guy out to wrestle a machine and fails to give him the most basic instruction. Mom, the gene that makes me Gay prevents me from being mechanical, it’s some kind of on-off switch in the brain!”

She laughed, “Thank you for getting it done.”

He held her hand, kissed her forehead; it felt like sandpaper. Something in the drugs she was on had completely dried out the skin on her face. If he couldn’t do anything for the pain in her abdomen, at least he could help her moisturize. In a cupboard he found a bottle of cream. “Time for your facial, dear,” he chirped, squeezing white, cool liquid onto his palm, warming it, then using two fingers to apply the lotion to her forehead in gentle, circular strokes.

She closed her eyes. “Ooh,” she breathed. “That feels good.”

Jamie saw a picture of Lettie, Rick’s mom, after her last surgery. She rallied, got off the ventilator, tasted water. Even sick, her eyes twinkled at the boys. “Water. That’s the best stuff!”

Jamie still had that plastic tumbler with her name and room number taped to it. His mind’s eye could see it on his bookshelves in Columbus. He and Rick buried her a few days later, with most of the responsibility on Jamie. Rick never could think during a crisis. Usually Rick was rock solid; in an emergency he turned into a jumble of nerves.

With more lotion, Jamie traced figure-eights on Thelma’s cheekbones. Her breath seemed to come a little deeper. He smoothed and rubbed from cheekbones to jawbones and back again. Even her earlobes had dried out, but the rest of the ear seemed all right. Then back to the cheeks, first one and then the other. Her chin needed some special attention, then gently down the neck. The dry area seemed to end under her shoulder blades, at the top of her chest, a good stopping place.

When he was done she opened her eyes again. She didn’t say anything, she just looked at her son. Jamie acted as if it was all in a day’s work. But inside, he smiled.

On his way home he paused in the twilight, remembered the construction worker from that afternoon. Neither of his Straight brothers would have thought to notice Thelma’s skin.

First thing the next morning he phoned the state police and made an appointment with Sgt. Kent Kessler.

7  

Hyoid

The state police post was on River Road, next to the interstate. “Hello, my name is Jamie Foster,” he smiled at the young woman behind the Plexiglass shield. “I have an appointment with Sergeant Kessler.”

“Just a moment. Please have a seat,” Trooper J. Campbell said. She was pretty and, like all women cops, very authoritative.

Jamie thanked God for his mother, a clinical pharmacist who had also entered a “man’s profession” and helped make it everyone’s. Though he seldom sat in waiting rooms, he sat down immediately at police stations so cops could keep an eye on him.

A door on the left opened, a tall officer leaned through and said, “Mr. Foster?”

“Yes,” Jamie said, getting to his feet right away.

“I’m Sergeant Kessler,” the officer said, stepping into the waiting room and extending a greeting. They crushed each other’s hands. “Please come in. Down this hallway to conference room 1, second door on your right.” Jamie entered interrogation room 1. “I’ll get my file.”

The room was equipped with a round oak table, four vinyl-padded chairs. In the corner a video camera was hung from the ceiling; on end tables sat soft-lit lamps, houseplants, a small audio recorder. A wall held an observation mirror. Cement block walls, painted light blue, were decorated with safety posters and a scene of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Fish swam in an aquarium. For an interrogation room it was cozy; the browbeating probably took place in interrogation room 2. Jamie sat.

Kessler walked in, all business in his uniform of navy blue shirt, light blue tie, gray trousers with side stripes, black shoes, Glock 9 millimeter on his left hip. Twin brass pins on his collar denoted a sergeant’s stripes. There was nothing subtle about the uniform; the tie conveyed professionalism and the rest was naked power. “This is about the John Doe in Newton County,” Jamie began. He looked up and it hit him like a neutron bomb.

His sweat popped out.

“Right. Now who is it you work for again?”

Sergeant Kent Kessler was stunningly handsome.

Jamie’s abs flexed, he felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. It was painful, disorienting. He hadn’t quite looked at the man before, just the uniform.

But he was trained to keep control in a stressful situation; to perform. This was no way to begin an interview. So he breathed deeply to relax, then said firmly, “The Ohio Gay Times. Chief correspondent.” He wanted to see the cop react to the word Gay.

The cop looked neutral. “Does that make you Gay too?”

“They tried to hire George Will, but his wife didn’t want to move to Columbus.”

Kessler smiled, asked smoothly, “So what brings you to our neck of the woods?” His black hair was wavy and well-cut.

“I work in Ohio, but we circulate in Indiana and I’m originally from West Lafayette. My mother’s in the hospital and I’m here to help out. Meanwhile this John Doe in Willow Slough sounds like it could be a Gay-related murder. Is it?”

“Could be, maybe not. I’m trying to get an ID first. I asked him about his sexual practices, but he just couldn’t say.”

“Stiffs aren’t too good with answers. Questions, those they’re good at.”

“Tell me. What makes you think it’s Gay-related?”

“The nudity.”

Kessler frowned. “It’s possible.”

“Four years ago I broke a story about a serial killer dumping bodies of young men from Indianapolis in Ohio and Indiana. A dozen of them. This sounds similar, if the Union-Gazette reported it accurately. Why do you have the case? It’s Rensselaer’s territory.”

Kessler’s eyes narrowed. “Rensselaer just does traffic, drugs and lesser felonies. They don’t do homicides.”

It was a lie and Jamie knew it. Every state police post handled every type of crime. First thing out of the guy’s mouth is a lie.

But it was such a handsome mouth. Kessler’s hair framed a tanned, unlined face of deep-set brown eyes, a narrow, straight nose, tucked-in ears, a strong chin. The features by themselves weren’t so remarkable, but there was something about the eyes that made the total package dazzling. They took on a look of smoldering emotion Jamie had never seen in a man, much less a cop. Jamie shook his head, tried to focus on the lie.

“I’ve heard Lowell does some of Rensselaer’s homicides. Why do you have it? They’re much closer. You’re an hour south.”

Kessler leaned forward, put his arm on the table. “You’re asking a lot of questions, little man.”

Jamie eased out a chuckle; he was not a little man. “That’s what we both do for a living, sergeant, ask questions. Maybe I can help you with this. If it does turn out to be Gay-related, you need access to the Gay community. They’re not always friendly to cops. If it’s not Gay-related, I’m out of here. If it is, I’m your access card. You think his girlfriend overpowered him, choked him, stripped him and dumped him?”

Kessler eyed him conspicuously, then opened a red file marked JOHN DOE and the date. “No. What do you want to know?”

“I’d like to know why West Lafayette has this case and not Rensselaer or Lowell.”

“Whoa, you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Kessler said, chopping his head down. “I don’t know you’re a reporter yet. Heck, I don’t know you didn’t kill him yourself.”

The Big Challenge: but Jamie had heard it all before. He shrugged to let the guy know he wasn’t fazed. Kessler said, “All I know is I’ve got somebody here who says he’s Jamie Foster, says he works for some paper in Ohio, says he’s interested in a murder in Newton County. Ain’t that all I’ve got?” His eyes bore right through Jamie. Those eyes were thoroughly convincing at the authority game.

Jamie reached for his wallet. “Sergeant, my business card. My driver’s license with social security number. My press badge is in the car, I’ll be happy to get it. Here is the card of Detective Homer Sauer of the Quincy County, Ohio prosecutor’s office, and one for his partner Sgt. Barry Hickman. Here is one for Lt. Phil Blaney of Indianapolis P.D., homicide investigator. I’ve got enough of these to play 52-card pickup. You want Jasper County, Hamilton, Hancock, Shelby? Stillwater, Defiance, Kickapoo? Give any one of them a call. Check me out.”

Kessler studied Jamie’s card with the color mug shot, blond hair swooped perfectly. He stood. “Please wait here,” he said, scooping up Jamie’s license and the cop cards.

“Or I can get my press badge from the car,” Jamie thumbed toward the parking lot.

Kessler moved to the door. His teeth looked like a sales poster for orthodontists—straight, shiny white, perfect. “Sure. You show me yours, I might show you mine.”

Jamie didn’t watch him leave. Instead he walked out of the air-cooled building into heat and humidity. He unlocked the passenger door on the Acura. The sun was already scorching its interior. He reached into the glove compartment, poked around among roadmaps, napkins, insurance papers, shampoo samples, condoms in case he got lucky some year; found the badge on its neck chain. There was no need to lock his car at a state police post, so he lowered the windows, then looked back at the building, steeling himself. It’s the eyes. Professional but open. Masculine, intelligent, sensitive. Will you marry me?

Jeez. Be a reporter! He strode back up the sidewalk, trying to get a grip.

He stopped at the front desk, caught Trooper Campbell’s eye, showed his press badge. “Sergeant Kessler wanted to see my ID.”

“Okay, you can go back in. To conference room 1 only.” She buzzed him in, then stood in her doorway and made sure he went to interrogation room 1 only.

Kessler reappeared a minute later, pulled out his chair and sat down, six-feet-four and 225 pounds of muscular grace and narrow hips. Jamie forced himself to look away.

“IPD says they know you, they’ve worked with you on some murders, you were helpful. Very helpful, in fact.” Kessler crinkled his eyes a little. “And also a pain in the butt. Thanks for the ID. You look like you’re 19, not 26. Where are your corrective lenses?” He tossed the cards back to Jamie.

“Line 1 of my job description says, ‘Be a pain in the butt,’” Jamie smiled. “I wear contacts in lieu of goggles. Here’s my press badge.”

Kessler picked it up, measured Jamie’s face against it, returned it. “How long have you been lying about your height?”

Instant raw nerve. Jamie had lied about his height for so long he now believed it. “I’m five-ten.”

“You’re not even five-nine.”

“I’m every bit of five-ten.” He had to be, would never have gotten jobs without it.

“We’ve got a height chart in the other room. Want to stand next to it?” Jamie’s eyes got big. Was this cop throwing his weight around over height? “No, didn’t think so,” Kessler smiled.

“I’m five-ten. It says so right on my ID.”

“Uh-huh,” Kessler chuckled. “Just teasing you, man. You lie a little about your height. So what do you want to know?”

Jamie pulled on his earlobe in frustration and embarrassment; he was at least five nine and three-quarters—and could always stretch tall. Besides, it had been years since he’d measured, maybe he was five-ten now. He glanced down at his notebook. Start over, stay on the good side of this cop. I’ll get nowhere if he categorizes me as a pushy faggot. I am not short, I am five feet ten! “Let’s start with the basics, shall we? White male, between the ages of 25 and 35?”

“Correct.”

“Body recovered in the woods near Lake Murphey in Willow Slough, nude except for white socks and athletic shoes?”

“Right. The name of the lake wasn’t in the newspaper. How come you know it?”

“I’m from there, the Slough’s my old stomping grounds; I was born in Rensselaer, lived in Morocco and Kentland, moved to West Lafayette when I was 12. Do you have autopsy results back yet on a cause of death?”

Jamie knew that by admitting familiarity with the area, he’d just given Kessler another reason to suspect him.

“We have a probable cause, strangulation. Medical examiner is still waiting on drug and alcohol screens, blood work, the usual. Those take awhile.”

Jamie made notes,felt his own sweat.“Is Dr.Webster the pathologist?”

Kessler hesitated, raised his head to look at Jamie. A beat. “Yes, Dr. Webster. This is getting interesting.”

Thank you. Webster was internationally known, he’d been the first to connect the dots on Schmidgall, and he’d worked all the Strangler cases in Indiana. He’d also said he’d come to Jamie’s cop conference fiasco and not shown up. Still, he was a great forensic pathologist, a source to cultivate. And if he had the autopsy there was a reason. “You were pres

ent for the autopsy?”

“Of course.”

“Last meal?”

“Pasta salad, lots of vegetables, possibly for lunch. He was ready for another meal.”

“Pasta salad,” Jamie frowned. “That isn’t right.”

“It’s what he had in him.”

“Okay, but it doesn’t fit. All the other victims have been poor. The poor don’t eat pasta and vegetables, they eat burgers and fries.”

“Good point.”

“Condition of the liver?”

“Smooth, no scarring. But he’d had a couple beers.”

“Who discovered the body?”

Kessler returned to the front of the paperwork. “A conservation officer at the park, Officer Suzanne Myers. She was cataloguing the early geese migration when she found something at the edge of a woodpile. It wasn’t a goose.”

“Height, weight, condition of the body? How long had he been there? Was it directly in the water? If so, water should have helped preserve him, though it might also wash away possible evidence.”

“It’s been awful hot up there lately, so we’ve got a combination of waterlogged and, uh, slightly cooked. Again, all we have is an estimate. We’re putting it at possibly two weeks but I bet it’s only a day or two, he wasn’t that cooked. To the other questions, six feet, 190 pounds, some of which could be water weight if he was killed on-site.”

“Two weeks. That would include Labor Day weekend.” Does this make six murders over Labor Day?

“Right, we’re calling it August 25 to September 7, but it’s all preliminary.”

Jamie wrote that down. “Okay, you said he was strangled. Ligature? If so, what type, and was it still on him?”

“Ligature, yes. Not found on him. Waiting results on what might have caused those marks.”

“Neck? What about hands and feet?”

“Hands and feet were clear. You’ve done this before.”

“Did you ever hear of Roger Schmidgall?”

“Schmidgall? Did you work on Schmidgall’s cases?” Kessler’s eyes widened, his voice went higher.

“I just caught the tail end of him, when he pleaded guilty in the Barlow case four years ago and tried to blame the veterinarian. I’ve visited his crime scene in Newton County, those four men on the abandoned farm next to the Kankakee River, which he confessed to through his lawyer when he died 18 months ago; and the Red-Haired Boy in Jasper County whose name he forgot.”

“Ah yes, the absent-minded veterinarian. Couldn’t remember slashing that guy to ribbons, could he?”