Dreamcast, p.20
Dreamcast, page 20
I circled, trying to sense the place. What was at this end of town? The rail yards loading area, warehouses, the empty grain elevators, the stockyards... and the slaughterhouse!
Of course! Shipments of animals were unloaded, crowded into pens, driven wholesale into the antiseptic hall, murdered en mass, washed and hung, skinned and butchered, shipped in refrigerated trucks to other meat processing plants in the city and the state. A constant stream of cows and pigs passed through the killing zone. Yes, there was much anxiety, fearful anticipation, and then the searing pain. There was a high-pitched squeal that cut into my brain, then it would cease... much too abruptly, only to start up again. No wonder my sensors were going off the scale.
I circled and circled, unable to close the distance. When I finally resumed my way north, everything looked dull by comparison. I had looked into the scorching light of the sun, and my senses were blunted. I flew on.
A shriek tore through me and knocked me out of the air. I was falling... out of control... spinning to the ground. I was anticipating the impact when I ripped open my eyes to find... to find a horrified woman staring down at me. Her face was twisted by the shock of finding me in her closet. The cleaning lady.
“I’m sorry...” I mumbled, raising myself from the seats. “I was trying to take a nap...” I finished lamely.
I went to Maclure’s office and found him on the phone, talking earnestly. “It could be as far back as seven months ago. Your courier service would have delivered a package to Sarah Decharme on 62 Parkview Crescent... That’s right, Parkview. You do service the area?” There was a long pause. “I know it’s a lot of work. But it’s important, involving murder.” Maclure frowned as someone on the other end was objecting. Maclure finally cut in. “We could come down with a truck, take all your files and search through them ourselves...” Then he listened. “Yes, that would be the best. And the Police Force, of course, is grateful for your cooperation.” Maclure hung up in disgust.
“That was the nineteenth firm I called. Who knew there were so many couriers in town? What’s wrong with using the postal service?” He reached for a cigarette, then frowned, remembering that he had quit. “The last bastard tried to get me to forgive a wad of parking tickets in exchange... The nerve some people have.”
Toma came in then, a bright smile on her face. “You know the Talbots? They have been arrested!”
“The who?” Maclure and I both asked.
“78 Walnut Street. The foster home.” A light went on. “The couple was abusing the kids in their care, both physically and sexually. Going back years. Social Services got the kids to disclose and the couple is now in custody. Good work, Travis.” Then she frowned at me. “But how in hell did you know?”
“I told you he’s special. Clean out your ears,” Maclure grumbled.
Smythe came in, threw a wad of printed matter on the table, folded himself into a chair, poured himself a drink from the water pitcher on the table and drank it noisily.
“The charger is definitely a Samsung item, used through the whole range of their product line, from basic cell phones all the way to the com-unit. You can watch streamed TV, surf the Net, e-mail, send pictures and videos. The only thing it won’t do is wash dishes.”
“Yes, that would make sense,” I contributed needlessly.
“What does?” Toma asked.
Maclure sighed. Why did the Captain saddle him with this woman? There was no longer a need for her as Smythe was back on the job. “Our present theory holds that Tex somehow established contact with Sarah some time ago and later sent her a prepaid cell phone so they could communicate in private with no one the wiser for it. There was no record because it was not in her name.”
“Jeezus!” Toma was near speechless—but not quite. “So he could talk to her any time and her family wouldn’t be aware of it?”
“Something like that,” Smythe confirmed. “I can even see the phone used in video mode, surreptitiously transmitting a streamed movie of the household. The bastard probably knew all the routines and habits of the family, and could plan accordingly. Down to the split second.”
“Man, that’s mind-boggling.” Maclure had difficulty reconciling himself to the entire concept. He did not trust technology and could not appreciate its capabilities.
“So Sarah was the unwitting spy within her own household?” Toma asked.
“He had her eating out of his hand. He probably fed her some romantic garbage an impressionable 15-year-old was starved for. You can bet that she was a willing participant.”
“She was a fool!” Maclure interjected. Then he turned to Toma. “Be useful and get us some coffee. Two creams, double sugar, right Trav?” I nodded. She frowned but left on the errand.
“So what did you find, Trav?” They both looked at me expectantly.
“The cleaning lady,” I said glumly. They looked at me stupidly like cows chewing their cud. “Nothing, I’m afraid,” I said, reluctant to confess failure. “He could’ve taken her out of state or even upstate. I haven’t been able to find any trace of him or her in town.”
“Well, keep trying,” Smythe advised. “I don’t think he left and risked transporting her across state lines making it a federal matter. More than likely he’s near, hiding. What we know is that he would be well prepared.”
“Which is good and bad,” I commented.
“How?” came from Maclure.
“Good, because he’s not in any hurry to kill her off. Not after so much painstaking preparation. He would drag it out to make it last. And that gives us time to find her. Bad... well bad because she is experiencing the worst torment that could be devised by a diabolical mind.”
“We ought to kill the asshole,” Maclure declared, smacking his lips. “And save the taxpayers the cost of a trial and keeping him in jail.”
“If we ever get our hands on him...” Smythe was more realistic. All of us considered the consequences. Tex was good. He had proven that. He might get away with this yet. We would get another body to add to the death toll and he would be free to do it again. We looked at each other, silently vowing to prevent that. By any and all means. Hell, there goes another semester down the drain.
I went home, showered and changed clothes. Amanda fed me a plateful of green beans with almonds sautéed in peanut oil. She was slowly but persistently turning me into a vegetarian. I didn’t have much appetite, but ate to please her and to keep up my strength.
“How was your flight?” she asked.
“Had some difficulty above Chicago. O’Hare was fogged in and we were stuck two hours in a holding pattern.” She smiled. I figured that a touch of humor was probably a good sign under the circumstances.
“I’m getting better at this. Learning as I go along. For instance I found that metal cuts down my extrasensory acuity. I have a hard time seeing through metal. Not impossible, but the strength of the signal is much reduced.”
“You better have some rest before going out again,” she said in her most persuasive tone. I nodded. I needed a nap. I lay down but couldn’t unwind. She came into the bedroom to check on me, and found me still awake. She lay down next to me, and under normal circumstances we would have made love, but this thing with Tex had dirtied me. She massaged my shoulders and neck and I relaxed, soon falling asleep.
I slept exactly 37 minutes by the clock, just enough to feel refreshed. I considered what I would do next. I knew Maclure was still rattling the bushes to flush out a courier who could have delivered a phone to Sarah. Smythe was looking for a possible safe-house where Tex could have set up. There were only a finite number of places in the city where that was possible—to hide and not be noticed. Places with a high transient population. Of course, he might be holed up in some outlying farm, making our task more difficult. I had covered most of the city thus far; soon I would have to press into the countryside, which I knew less well. Navigation was going to be a problem.
I launched and headed straight for the slaughterhouse. Again, at a certain distance I was repelled. Matter meeting antimatter—or some such nonsense. Just could not be done. At least I couldn’t. I approached at different levels, from alternate directions but within a specific distance I was again repulsed. It was not a hard wall, more like some rubbery resistance, yielding slowly, stretching, absorbing my intrusion, but finally robbing me of all momentum and not letting me through. Frustrated, I exhausted myself.
I landed and considered. This was the only place in town with sufficient intensity to mask other such events. But how was I going to investigate it if I couldn’t get near it?
I was striding back and forth in the kitchen, worrying out loud with Amanda quietly listening as I worked myself into a fever pitch. “I didn’t ask for any of this! This... this sensitivity is not a gift, it’s a curse! I wish I never had it. Or became aware of it. It lets me know a little but not enough. What am I supposed to do? Where do I go from here? I wish to hell I could just give it up... and chuck it.”
“Easy now. Because you know, it makes you responsible for knowing...” Amanda was trying to calm me down. “And why do you think he’s hiding? Do you think he’s sensitive like you?”
“I don’t know what he is.” Took another turn around the kitchen. “He is a different breed of fish, that’s for sure.” I stopped abruptly. “Because I can’t fly in, I might have to walk in there to find him.”
“Not by yourself!” Amanda jumped in sharply.
“Relax. Just to scout out the position. Find out what is what.” She looked very uncomfortable with the idea. To me it sounded like the most workable solution. I resolved that somewhat after midnight I would drive there and explore. I figured at night there would be less activity to confuse a trail if there was any. I watched the evening news, trying to reconnect with normal reality. I found it hard to concentrate. I was in the midst of a war, all the more intense because it was fought underground: only I and Amanda knew about it, and Maclure and Smythe.
For a while Amanda stayed up with me reading her book Serial Killers of America. She interrupted the broadcast. “Listen to this. The public fascination with serial killers has produced a brand of news coverage that, in not so subtle ways, has promoted copycat killings. Because of the inordinate attention paid to this genre of crime, more and more petty criminals are now aspiring to become serial killers...” She looked up from the book. “I always said that the public was in part responsible for this increase... through feeding their vulgar appetites for the bizarre and the violent. I just hate to think that the media is stimulating these marginal people to come out of the woodwork...” After a moment’s consideration she added, “Tex, however, is a real predator, not just a wannabe. Really dangerous.” She snapped her book shut, stood up and announced she was going to bed. She admonished me not to stay up too late. “You need your strength.” Amen to that.
At 12:30 a.m. exactly, I left the house, dressed in dark clothes for the undercover op. I got into the car and started north heading for the stockyards. On the kitchen table I had left a note for Amanda letting her know what I was up to. At the end I jokingly wrote that if I was not back by 7:00 a.m. call Maclure and Smythe for rescue.
The industrial district was poorly lit by an occasional street light. Rundown brick buildings lined the way, half deserted and decaying. At the turn of the last century this had been a hub of productivity and the main source of prosperity that had paid for the expansion of the city. There were shoe factories, leather works, textile shops, and three breweries. Now the city was contracting as the manufacturing base shrank. Jobs were bleeding off to more modern facilities to the southwest or worse, leaving the country altogether for the Third World.
The front of the slaughterhouse was flood-lit, and as I drove by, the chain link gate was opening to let two trucks onto the road. Belching plumes of diesel exhaust, the trucks turned off toward the interstate. I had my psychic senses firmly shut off, not to be repelled by what was going on inside. I passed the place, then two more, and pulled into a deserted, weed-overgrown parking lot. The building behind was dilapidated, the windows partially boarded up, missing glass. Corroded machine parts were scattered about everywhere, barrels and sheet metal weeping rust stains. I killed my lights and sat quietly for a couple of minutes to let my eyes adjust. There was a partial moon and a sky full of stars to give good ambient light.
Taking a pencil-beam flashlight from the glove compartment, I got out of the car, easing the door shut. There might be nobody on watch for miles but then again, there might. Tex had to be somewhere.
I sniffed the air; there was a stagnant pool nearby. Six, seven miles off to the right was the small municipal airport, its lights probing the darkness to lead the occasional plane home. Closer were a water tower and the black silhouette of unused grain elevators. All around were darkened buildings, abandoned some time ago, deteriorating with neglect. Still, somewhere the distinctive whine of an electric forklift sounded some activity among all the rot and rubbish.
I moved off, cautiously skirting a pile of junk. I blinked my mind’s eye, and instantly pain exploded through my head. White, blinding agony. I groaned and stumbled, then for a minute was gasping for air. Yes, I was inside the umbrella of the killing zone, and up close the intensity was overpowering. I tried to remember if there was anything else mixed in with the animals’ slaughter. I couldn’t tell. The response had been too sharp and abrupt to analyze.
I steeled myself and blinked again. This time the backlash nearly threw me to my knees. I stumbled forward a few steps and grasped a steel post for support. After my breathing steadied, I tried breaking down the memory. If there was something, then it had to be to the southwest. I headed in that direction.
The task was daunting. I was facing acres of industrial ruin, dumps and a wasteland of pollution. There were rumors that these abandoned sites contained secret caches of deadly chemicals that for decades had leaked into the groundwater. The council didn’t want to know about it and the state didn’t want to acknowledge it, though every few years the federal regulators tried to prod some action into the local authorities—without success. For the next two hours I wove my way through this toxic labyrinth.
My watch said 2:38 as I was rounding a huge stack of rusting steel trusses salvaged from the old Thornton Bridge. From time to time I had to snap on the narrow beam flashlight to find my footing in the tangle of cables and metal parts. I was approaching a building from the back that was in better shape than most I had passed. I paused at a corner and took bearings. The slaughterhouse was about 300 yards to my right, bathed in light, and ahead was the darkened street. I tensed against the expected pain and blinked into the paranormal. A jagged white light lit up the inside of my skull and I hissed loudly with the stab that went with it. In the aftermath, my mouth tasted of rotten orange juice. I spat to get rid of the taste. Again there had been nothing extra.
Watching my feet, I went along the side of the building, nearing a tall truck door that still seemed secure. I was cutting across the concrete approach lane when I noticed an oddity. The path crossed a soft spot, and impressed into the soil were distinctive tire marks. I shone my light on them, bent over to examine the find. The contours and ridges were still sharp, so these were recent imprints. Unquestionably they led to the door and into the building, or was it the other way around? Don’t get distracted, I told myself, but if I was looking for some unknown thing, for something out of place, this was mysterious enough to investigate. I went to the large door and tested the handle. It was locked. I followed the building around, turned the corner to the front, and walked until I found a narrow window. The glass was broken and crunched underfoot. I had no difficulty slipping through sideways into the dark interior. I shone my light around, finding myself in an office space. I waded through the debris toward the far side. The door was jammed and required all my strength to push through, trying to make as little noise as possible. The other side opened into a high, cavernous space, partitioned into some sort of manufacturing, warehousing and loading areas. I headed toward the east end where the truck entrance was.
I snapped my flashlight on and off as I negotiated a jumble of machinery. In spite of my best efforts I was making noise, crushing glass or hooking myself on loose wires. I moved by a line of tall machines that cut off my view. The aisle led me on, and occasionally I bumped into something solid. I swore. Suddenly, I was in the open facing the loading bay. In the middle sat an eighteen wheeler. Even in the dim light streaming through the high-placed windows, the rig looked shiny and new. I approached cautiously. What had I stumbled onto? A smuggling operation? Whatever it was, I wasn’t looking for it. Still, I stole up on the truck, working my way to the front. I was going by the chrome grill when I stopped dead in my tracks. I could feel the heat radiating through the metal mesh. The engine had been on just an hour ago. But the tracks in the mud were days old. What did that mean?
I circled the truck, looking for a clue. To what? I didn’t know. There was no other sign of activity. The tires were cold to the touch, and so were the brake drums. The truck had not moved, just had the engine on. What was a truck doing in an otherwise deserted building? You fool, of course it had to be stolen. Well, I turned away, I had other fish to fry; it was high time I got the hell out of there. I started backing away.
