Iceman (3 page)

Now the killer or killers have had their fun. The kids are corpses. Eichord stood, mentally covered in the children's blood. These sickos wanted more. Something takes place. A ritual, let's assume. The heads come off. Why? To impede identification of the victims? If that was the case, why not bury the torsos? And then, why wash off the parts? And the biggest why of all, why move the bodies?

That was the craziest part. The fun and games were over. But these maniacs took another big chance—loading the headless cadavers, the severed parts, unloading the bodies in a field where the vehicle or the perps might be spotted by an unseen watcher—and then go do whatever with the heads? Madness!

W
hen the drought finally broke, it did so with a vengeance. It was one of those drippy-looking Mondays that all but the incurably cheerful abominate, and the two huge salt-and-pepper cops were decidedly not of such temperament. Fat Dana Tuny and his new partner, tough, ace-black Monroe Tucker, stood at the top of the steps leading to the squad bay arguing about whose turn it was to drive the Dodge, bickering like two little boys choosing up to see who gets the bat.

“I'll drive,” Dana insisted. The massive black detective just stared at him like he'd enjoy throwing him down the stairs.

“Whatever, just do it.” Dumb fuck, they each thought simultaneously. And just as they started out the side door to the parking lot, the clouds unzipped a dark fly and relieved themselves in a sudden, wet, splashing pisser of a rainstorm.

“Fuckin’ great,” Tucker mumbled with disgust.

“You won't melt,” Tuny said, flinging open the door and breaking for the unmarked Dodge in a fast, waddling run. The two huge men flung themselves into the rump-sprung bench seat, the springs moaning in protest at the hundreds of pounds of abuse, and Dana Tuny ground the ignition and they wheeled out into traffic.

“What's invisible ... and stinks like CARROTS?” the fat, white cop asked in a sneering voice, switching on the wipers.

“How the fuck would I know?"

“Bunny farts,” he said, loosing a loud and vile explosion of flatulence into the car's already malodorous interior.

“OH, JEEZUS! YOU FUCKIN’ MORON!” Tucker fought to get the window down, fat Dana giggling like a schoolgirl.

“Sorry about that,” he said, “I hadda make poo-poo in my pants."

Monroe thought how he'd like to smash a big fist into this giggling blubbergut and watch him fold up like a goddamned accordion. Water streamed onto the arm of his new sportscoat.

“Hey, you know,” he said, his voice taking on a cold and dangerous edge, “I wanna ax you something.” He was trying not to inhale any of the poisonous air in the car, and rain was hitting him in the face. “How the hell you ever get hold of a detective's shield?"

“Just lucky,” the incredible, corpulent hulk riding beside him said. “I was the fourth caller on
Name It and Claim It
."

“Uh huh. But for real, man. How the fuck did you get a detective's shield, as fuckin’
STUPID
as you are?"

“I'm glad you axed me that, Monroe. I stole it off a dead nigger."

T
he boy-child was slipping off the mountain. Even though he was still a child in years, with a child's absence of morality, he was already possessed of a burning intelligence that told him how different he was.

And inside his mind he could see himself going off the deep end, over the high side, down the cliff. See himself caught in the throes of something dark and tenacious and deliciously forbidden and all-consuming. But the human mind is such that it will attempt to block out the imputations of anything remotely resembling encroaching insanity.

So he went with it. Gave himself over to its pull. And in that mind he created fantasy hideouts and magical escape routes. Great, safe havens in which he could hide from the laughter and cruelty downstairs. Safe hideouts from the overpowering urges that came and held lit matches to his groin and then made him do the bad things to his sister, to the child down the block, to himself.

And the boy-man constructed wonderful secret rooms inside his strange and frightening mind where he could go, always late at night, tuning in the faint signals of security as you tune in the sound of a distant station over late-evening radio. And in fact he would huddle into a fetal ball with total concentration, straining to hear the voices of escapism from the old Fada's tinny speaker.

Late in the night, when the last mysteries and horror tales were over, he'd switch from the network stations to the local stations in nearby Amarillo. And he'd lie there for hours with the midnight dance bands soothing him, playing lullabies in the darkness, as his imagination would concoct complex fantasies of revenge, release, and escape. And they nurtured and comforted him, these evil and dark thoughts, rendering him invisible and all-powerful, a man-child going all the way over the edge into a kind of controlled madness.

M
rs. Alvarez, distraught and shaking, proved to be totally worthless. They had ended up meeting at the cop shop at eight a.m., and she sat in a small interview room, hugging herself and always appearing to be on the verge of shivering, as she numbly took Eichord over the ground she'd trod a dozen times in the past seventy-two hours. She was not going to go back to work until she found the kids.

Angela and María were, by all evidence, sweet, adorable kids without enemies. She never let either of them go out alone on the streets, even in the neighborhood, “so they'd never get into trouble.” Why couldn't the police find them? Juanita Alvarez kept asking. It was a question nobody could answer.

He tried to take her down fresh avenues, doing what he always did, watching as much as listening. Because this was not about the kids, this interview. It was about Juanita Alvarez. And as he probed about school, church, and other affiliations, subtly moving the questions into more intimate areas, Eichord's sensors were picking up the mother's vibes. Unless she was one of those rare types of total sociopaths, or an extremely capable actress, this was a worried mother who didn't know where her missing children were.

An hour and a half later he'd also had just about all he could take of one Pam Bailey, the fourteen-year-old who'd popped off to a pair of investigating officers about “that mean old coot who lives next door, bragging about getting even with rowdy brats.” She was a sullen, olive-skinned couch potato of a kid in an Elvis Is Still Alive sweatshirt. The neighbor, Mr. Hillfloen, had apparently complained to the manager about her dog, which they let run, and this was the girl's idea of payback.

It turned out that the Bailey girl hadn't really seen anything—it was clearly a kid trying to run a shuck on the cops. By nine-thirty Eichord had cut her loose, and was going through the motions of finding 1458 1/2 South Utica.

Eichord found the trailer court with some difficulty, tucked away off a low-rent side street in South Blytheville. It would be a long time before he ceased to be haunted by the image of his first impression, each time he saw a yellow dead end sign peppered with good ole country-boy buckshot.

Each yard was filled with cultural castaways: cars on blocks; a three-wheeler with For Sale sign; a trio of plaster leprechauns, one headless, peering out over a domain of plastic herbicide buckets and empty milk jugs strung together with wire; a rusting import towed into someone's yard, now put to work as a rubiginous garbage can.

The last driveway on the left of the field with its ventilated Dead End sign, a gravel slope running up between two rows of sad tin boxes, announced the presence of The Sunshine Trailer Court.

Eichord was reminded of the obligatory trailer-park TV-news shot, the one you saw after every major tornado, cyclone, hurricane, or earthquake. He doubted if even acts of God could tip these rustbuckets over. Rip the roofs off? Sure. But the aged, rectangular, and bullet-shaped living quarters that squatted here appeared to be growing out of the earth. Surely not even a force majeure could make these
mobile
homes.

He got out of the car and was moving toward what appeared to be the manager's office, according to a mailbox adorned with the peeling decal
OFFI
E
, but he saw the old man and changed direction.

“How-doo,” the man said, his voice loud and startling.

“Howdy,” Eichord said. “Would you know where I might find Mr. Hillfloen?"

“If you're seeking
Owen
Hillfloen, I might."

“He's the one.” Eichord smiled.

“I be he.” The old guy smiled back, friendly as all get-out. He could have been anywhere from forty-eight to seventy-eight, with one of those weather-whipped, windburnt country faces you can never picture in your mind when they're out of sight.

When Eichord thought of the man's image, later, his memory would conjure up the sign, then the head first, as he scanned—top to bottom—for something that set him apart.

The hair: wind-touseled, midlength. Mr. Hillfloen looked like the kind of man who awoke, plunged his face under icy water, pushed his wet hair back with his hands in a single push, and left it that way. No brush or comb had touched it. He would not indulge his vanities in a mirror.

The face: wrinkle city. But the hard work and toughness wasn't all that was there. Something else showed. A gaunt, indefinable harshness that one could see on the faces of derelicts, on some of the elderly forgotten in nursing homes, and—sometimes—in the faces of the insane. Eyes deep-set in the outdoor face. A couple of teeth missing in the easy smile. The look all the more unsettling for its inexplicability.

The body: slim and sinewy in an old-fashioned barber's work shirt buttoned at the throat.

“And I know
you
."

“Is that so?” Eichord had his ID case in hand but hadn't flashed it yet.

“Dollars to donuts."

“Hmm?” The oddity of his words, the loud, booming voice, and his appearance gave off disconcerting vibes, and it was this image that would stay with him. That was the instant Eichord thought the man Owen Hillfloen might not be sane.

“Dollars to donuts either you are the tax man or you are the law. Which is it, pray tell?"

“Yes, sir,” Eichord said, showing his identification. “We're investigating the death of two children.” He pulled the police circular out and handed it to the man. “Do you recognize them?"

“Lordy. Well...” He took the photo circular and made a show of getting glasses out of his shirt pocket and putting them on the tip of his nose, holding his head back a little and studying the pictures and descriptions. “Mmmm."

“These are the Alvarez girls. They were killed sometime in the last seventy-two hours. Killed and raped. Do you recognize them?” He watched the old man carefully.

“Lordy, Lordy. I don't know as I can say for sure. These foreigners"—he shrugged and looked up at Eichord—"they're so hard to tell apart. Are these the ones that lived down the block here?"

Eichord nodded. “Yeah. Did you know them?"

“No, sir. I can't say as I did."

“How did you know who they were?"

“It says the names on there."

“I mean, how did you know they lived down the block?"

“Oh, we been seeing the story on the television and in the papers over the weekend. Tragic thing."

“Um hmm."

“Kids running around unsupervised and all."

“How do you mean unsupervised?"

“Why, I hear tell their mother never knew where they were after school and so forth. Just let them run loose, you see? Unsupervised. That's the way these third-worlders are. They don't have the same values as we do.” He shook his head.

“Third-worlders,” Eichord repeated easily, drawing the old guy out.

“Hispanics, La-
TEE
-nos, Chicanos, I don't know all the different names they go by now. Your Latin types from down
under.
Your drug-country people. Brown-skin types. Your Mexes and your boat people. LORdeeee!"

“You realize we're talking about mutilated children, Mr. Hillfloen?"

“That's what I'm talking about.” He shook his head. “Unstructured, unsupervised third-worlders. Running loose. Mother and father Lord knows where. THAT'S how they get into trouble."

“Some sicko grabbed these girls in front of their home and tortured and killed them. Mutilated the bodies. Decapitated the kids. We're talking about somebody who
REALLY
had it in for these little girls. Do you hate people of color that much, Mr. Hillfloen?” Eichord's eyes bored into the old man.

“ME?” He laughed mirthlessly, drawing himself up and returning Eichord's glare. “'Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for such is the kingdom of Heaven ...’ Matthew nineteen:fourteen."

But you do not lock a man up for giving off bad vibes, looking vaguely strange, or for having a voice like a loudspeaker. Nor is it against the law to be a bigot, so long as you keep your feelings to yourself. And that was the thing about Owen Hillfloen: whatever else he might have been, he was a private man.

T
he ego is an amazing thing, Tina Hoyt thought as she watched the woman confide in her. Telling her that her speech had been so EXCITING and MEANINGFUL. Tina had already formed a poor first impression of her as she chattered on, trying to impress Tina with her intellect and misusing the words “comprise” and “hopefully” in a single utterance, thus losing Tina Hoyt's full attention.

Yet the ego is such a phenomenal animal that you will stand there and smile and soak it all up as if it had some meaning as a critique, because it flatters you to do so, she thought. Because it is exciting and meaningful. Tina allowed her smile muscles to go slack and took a deep breath.

“Just so incisive and brilliantly handled, and I—” The smile flashed back on in automatic response, but it was getting late and she had worked her butt off this week, and now this nothing lecture in North Buckhead, and she had to drive all the way crosstown to Buckhead Christian Church, and—she stole a look at her watch—it would be ten-forty-five, eleven o'clock before she got home.