Authors: Mark Richard Zubro
Rust On the Razor (15 page)
“Snakes in here?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Deadly ones?”
“Yeah.”
“I don't want to hear about it.”
“Okay. As long as you're here, can I ask, what is it like living with Scott Carpenter and being gay and all this coming-out stuff?”
“When all this is over, if we need a reporter, we'll call you. Right now I'd rather concentrate on catching a killer.”
“Can't blame me for trying.”
I lost count of the number of turns we made. The first rumble of far-off thunder came about ten seconds after Dennis stopped the car.
“Why are we stopping?” I asked.
He pointed to the left. “See that barrel stave around the base of the tree? That's his marker. It's the only left we
take. We drive a couple hundred feet to the end of a lane. Then we have to walk about a hundred feet beyond that to get to his place.”
take. We drive a couple hundred feet to the end of a lane. Then we have to walk about a hundred feet beyond that to get to his place.”
“We're going to walk in the rain, aren't we?”
“Unless you know a way of running between the drops.”
We turned onto the lane and drove for less than a minute. The thunder and lightning were still distant and infrequent as we got out of the car. As we took our first steps, the rain increased. My head and shirt were soaked in seconds.
“This is nuts,” I said. We followed a muddy path, the only sign that humans might be present. About one hundred feet in, as Dennis had said, we came to a clearing about fifty feet wide. On the other side was a small cabin.
Between us and it was an enormous cross, with a six-foot crosspiece and a ten-foot pole embedded in the ground. It was obvious that it had recently been set on fire. Water dripped off a small animal skull that had been nailed to the top of the cross with a large metal spike.
I shuddered and looked beyond it to the cabin. The one window I could see had a lace curtain. An aluminum screen door hung in the entrance. It gleamed as if it had been polished. The front of the cabin was maybe fifteen feet wide. The tips of nails shone on the porch, holding down what looked like newly sawed and regularly spaced pieces of wood. The entire structure was set up on pilings about a foot above the ground.
“You sure he lives here?”
“He has for years.”
I pointed to the space under the cabin. “It flood much here?”
He shrugged. “Protects against snakes too.”
We crossed the clearing and stepped onto the porch. It seemed sturdy and well made. It was a delight to be out of the rain. Drops covered Dennis's glasses. He pulled out his
shirttail to try and dry them. I knocked on the screen door. There didn't seem to be an inner door.
shirttail to try and dry them. I knocked on the screen door. There didn't seem to be an inner door.
No one answered my knock. I peered through the screen. The cabin seemed to consist of one large room. To the right was a cot, the corners of which were tucked in with military precision. A row of cupboards stretched halfway around the far wall. Below them was a stainless steel sink, a small white refrigerator, and a Franklin stove.
I knocked again. “Nobody home,” I said.
Then I heard the
ka
-
chunk
of a shotgun being pumped.
ka
-
chunk
of a shotgun being pumped.
“Don't turn around. Don't move. Don't think. Just obey.” A male voice, barely above a whisper.
Dennis began to turn around. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the tip of a shotgun barrel poke its way into the young reporter's ear. Dennis stopped turning and faced front.
“Hands on top of your heads.”
I complied. Dennis hesitated. Seconds later he pitched forward. His arms weren't quick enough to break his fall and he slammed face-first into the log wall. Blood spurted from his nose.
“Now you've got it dirty,” whispered the voice.
Dennis whimpered.
The butt of the gun smashed down on the back of Dennis's knee. He screamed in agony. I turned to help or fight or escape but got the barrel of the shotgun rammed under my chin.
What startled me into inaction, besides the whap from the shotgun and a gleaming revolver in Jasper's other hand, was my first look at our captor. I was expecting a snaggletoothed behemoth in bib overalls.
What I saw was perhaps the most handsome man I had ever seen. GQ would rush to put his face on the cover and
thousand-dollar suits on his body. His hair was slightly longer than a brush cut and parted neatly to the side. It gleamed with the rain. His eyes were brown and were shaded by beautiful long lashesâbedroom eyes. His jaw was firm, and the bottom half of his face had the kind of five o'clock shadow that some male models worked to achieve. He was just short of six feet tall, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. He wore a white T-shirt that was damp from the rain, and the fabric clung to his washboard-rippled stomach. He had on black nylon running shorts, cut up each thigh almost to the waistband, with white ankle-length sport socks and black running shoes. Put him in a commercial, and people would stampede to the stores to buy whatever he was selling. The fat little nerd Dennis remembered had long since been transformed.
thousand-dollar suits on his body. His hair was slightly longer than a brush cut and parted neatly to the side. It gleamed with the rain. His eyes were brown and were shaded by beautiful long lashesâbedroom eyes. His jaw was firm, and the bottom half of his face had the kind of five o'clock shadow that some male models worked to achieve. He was just short of six feet tall, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. He wore a white T-shirt that was damp from the rain, and the fabric clung to his washboard-rippled stomach. He had on black nylon running shorts, cut up each thigh almost to the waistband, with white ankle-length sport socks and black running shoes. Put him in a commercial, and people would stampede to the stores to buy whatever he was selling. The fat little nerd Dennis remembered had long since been transformed.
He never spoke above a whisper.
He said, “Very slowly turn back around. The slightest swift movement and I will kill both of you.”
I turned slowly and faced the door.
My hands were seized and a pair of handcuffs applied. Must have taken five seconds, if that much.
“Open the screen door and walk in.” He nudged me in the back with the shotgun. Awkwardly, I turned sideways and grabbed the knob. I swung it open as far as I could and then caught it with my elbow. I stepped into the doorway. The rest of the cabin was as pristinely neat as the part I had seen from the porch. He prodded me in the back until I was halfway to the west wall of the cabin. “On the floor,” he ordered.
I lay down.
“Turn your head away from the door. If you move it this way, I will kill both of you.”
I complied. The corner of the cabin I stared into had one of those all-in-one exercise machines. Like everything else in the cabin, it gleamed as if it had been polished five
minutes before. Behind it hung a Nazi flag. To the left of the flag was a five-foot-long aquarium. I thought it odd that it was devoid of water. I saw small mounds of sand with small logs on them. Then one of the logs moved. Snakes. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them I tried to avoid looking looking in the direction of the flag or the creatures.
minutes before. Behind it hung a Nazi flag. To the left of the flag was a five-foot-long aquarium. I thought it odd that it was devoid of water. I saw small mounds of sand with small logs on them. Then one of the logs moved. Snakes. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them I tried to avoid looking looking in the direction of the flag or the creatures.
I heard Jasper put his guns down. Several swift steps followed, and seconds later I felt sure hands grip my ankles. I kicked violently and by luck caught him in the nuts. It took me extra time to get to my feet because my hands were tied, and those few seconds were too many. Something hard crashed into the back of my head. I fell back and smacked my head on the floor. I felt woozy and dizzy. He tied my ankles with leather thongs.
“Don't do that again,” he said. “Your death will be ever so much more unpleasant because of it, but remember, I could make it even worse.”
I watched him walk to the flag, stepping over the handgun on the floor, and lean the shotgun against the wall. He opened a drawer in the table on which the aquarium sat and pulled out a four-foot-long set of tongs. Then he dragged out what looked like a cane with a loop on the end.
He opened the glass lid of the snake pit, slipped the tongs in, and grabbed one of the vipers just behind the back of the head. He held the squirming beast at arm's length.
Jasper said, “Time for a walk, Bob.”
I guess if you live in the middle of a ghastly swamp in Georgia and have guests in to torture, you might as well name your snake something, Bob being as good as any other moniker. I certainly was in no position to tell him it sounded supremely weird.
Bob coiled and writhed. He opened his mouth wide, and I saw acres of white, which framed vicious-looking fangs.
Jasper looped the rope-thing at the end of the cane just behind where Bob's ears would have been, had he had ears. Then, holding the four-foot squirmer at arm's length, Jasper took Bob and set him down so his head was a foot from my nose. Jasper took a metal pin out of the floor, inserted it through a hole in the far end of the cane, let it fall back into the hole in the floor, gave the end of the pin a twist, and stood up.
Bob could now move his head up to about six inches from my face and a foot or so to either side.
“In case you decide to hinder me, Bob will intervene. You've probably never been bitten by a cottonmouth before. It's not pleasant.”
There are times in our livesânot many, it's trueâwhen a mad, blind panic seems like the only sensible option. Certainly this was well on its way to being one of those times. I couldn't remember ever being this frightened. I breathed slowly and deeply, tried concentrating on any small opening that could give me an edge in fighting back. There didn't seem to be a lot of those at the moment.
Jasper opened a cabinet and took out a scrub brush, cleaning fluid, and a sponge. I heard the screen door open and close. I guessed he was cleaning up Dennis's blood from the cabin's logs. He reentered, returned to the sink, cleaned the sponge, and replaced everything neatly where it belonged. I saw him pick up the guns, then heard his footsteps. The door swung open but did not close. I heard the click of handcuffs. Finally Jasper said, “Into the cabin.”
“I can't move,” Dennis said.
“Then I will kill you here.” I heard a hammer pulled back. Must have been the handgun he held.
“Okay, okay, okay, okay.” Dennis sounded like he was crying. The subsequent whimpering and moaning I heard I took to mean Dennis had begun to move.
“No noises,” Jasper commanded.
For the next half-hour I heard the shuffle of a human being dragging himself across the floor. I heard rain pouring on the cabin roof, and saw Bob twisting and squirming at the end of his tether. Dennis couldn't muffle all of his moans and sobs, but Jasper seemed content with the low decibel level of his captive's agony. I didn't hear Jasper's footsteps, so I assumed he stood and watched, certainly made no move to help his victim.
The shuffle-shuffle noise stopped and Dennis said, “I can't.”
Footsteps crossed the floor and then Jasper reentered my field of vision. He placed his guns on hooks, turned, and from the wall opposite the aquarium picked up a table. He carried it to the center of the room. He quickly returned to the hooks and picked up his guns. He looked down at me and said, “Shift your body ninety degrees and look in this direction.”
I did as commanded. Bob remained between Jasper and me. I prayed for the little thong to hold Bob tightly. I now had a clear view of Jasper's actions.
Dennis lay next to the table. Jasper placed the guns on the table. With one hand he grabbed Dennis by the belt and hefted him onto the table. It wasn't a perfectly smooth move, but he executed the maneuver with incredible ease. From the knees down, Dennis's legs hung past one end of the table. His head rested on the far edge.
Tears, blood, and snot ran down Dennis's face.
Jasper took a rocking chair from a corner and sat down on it, forming a triangle among the three of us. Bob was directly between Jasper and me. The rocker looked as if it had been carved from one piece of wood. It was all white and unvarnished.
“I don't like guests,” Jasper said. “You've been here before, Dennis. What did I say last time?”
Dennis sobbed while Jasper rocked.
“What did I say?” Jasper repeated.
“That you'd kill me if I ever came here again.”
“Did I ever break a promise I made in school?”
“Jasper,” I said. “It's not his fault. He drove me out here because I asked him to. We don't mean to intrude.”
“Yes, you did mean to intrude. You came because the sheriff is dead and you're trying to find someone who would be a better suspect than yourself. I'm one of the usual suspects they try to round up when anything goes wrong in this county. Only reason I'm not in jail is because they're afraid to come into my swamp. Doesn't hurt that my daddy owns half the county.”
He got up and walked to a cupboard and took out a slim box about eighteen inches wide and twenty-four inches long. He set it down on the floor in front of me so that I could see what he did. It comforted me to know that even Jasper took care not to get in range of Bob's fangs.
He opened the box. It was filled with knives of various sizes. He examined them carefully, then picked out a slender one from the blue-velvet-lined interior. He snapped the lid shut and carefully replaced the box on the floor on the far side of Bob's leash.
Jasper stood next to Dennis's head. “I've been curious about the sheriff's killing,” he said. “Lots of secrets in this county, and I know most of them. Usually, I stay in my swamp, but I sneak out when I have a mind to. I thought it was funny last night how Hiram Carpenter made you walk all the way up the driveway. I almost laughed out loud when I rustled that bush and you almost ran out of your pants to get to the house.”
“You were there?”
“You know what I've always wanted to do?” he said, then answered his own question. “I've always wanted to play connect-the-dots on somebody's face.”
The threat was awful, but I think his constantly talking
in a whisper was the most unnerving thing of all.
in a whisper was the most unnerving thing of all.
Jasper continued, “You know, like connect the dots from zit to zit.”
“That's not necessary,” I said.
Jasper walked into the kitchen area, opened a drawer, took out a pair of surgeon's gloves, and pulled them on. “Can't be too safe these days, with all these diseases going around. Don't want to infect myself. You never know who might be queer and trying to spread diseases. Always thought you were a fag, Dennis. Even in first grade, I thought you had a bit of a swish.”
Dennis's eyes tried to follow what Jasper was doing. I could see the whites around Dennis's gray pupils.
Jasper flipped a knob on a radio. I heard soft country music. Throughout his preparations, Jasper hummed softly along with the music. Songs to torture by. I knew I'd hate the sound of country music as long as I lived, which I hoped would be longer than sunset.
Jasper took several thick towels from a pile in an open cupboard. He folded one several times, then lifted Dennis up by his belt and gently placed the towel under his crotch. He placed the others in a small pile next to his butt. From another drawer he pulled out some rope and tied Dennis's torso to the table. Then he opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out a plastic dish drainer. He placed a towel under it, and the whole thing under Dennis's head. He returned to the kitchen and came back with numerous smaller towels, three bottles of rubbing alcohol, and a box of cotton balls.
Gently he took Dennis's glasses off and placed them carefully next to the sink.
Dennis tried to wiggle and squirm from his bonds, but Jasper had tied him tighter than a swarm of Eagle Scouts working together for an hour.
Jasper stood with his feet on either side of the table end
near Dennis's head, leaving enough room so that I could see clearly what he was doing.
near Dennis's head, leaving enough room so that I could see clearly what he was doing.
Jasper said, “You still have zits, Dennis. You should see a dermatologist. But then that won't be a problem after today.”
“Leave him alone,” I ordered.
Jasper said, “Course now, you're out here investigating. Y'all want to know who would want the sheriff dead.” As he talked, Jasper gently lifted Dennis's head as carefully as if he were a diamond cutter choosing where to carve the next facet of a jewel beyond price.
“Lots of people didn't like the sheriff. Especially women who couldn't fight back. He used to take advantage of them a lot. I never put a stop to it, because I enjoyed watching when I could. Instead of arresting young ladies who were in trouble, he'd often as not take them into the backseat of his police car. Bet they could find all kinds of interesting things if they took a microscope to the back of his car. He never saw me watching. Best show in town on a Saturday night. I was going to buy a video camera so I could film it and give him a Christmas present. Died too soon.”
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