Frozen (16 page)

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Authors: Jay Bonansinga

BOOK: Frozen
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The door finally gave, and Olivia entered the dark lobby.
Immediately she smelled something unusual that she had never smelled in the place before—and if there was one thing Olivia Mendoza was well versed in, it was
odor
. It was a harsh, mineral smell, and it seemed to hang in the airless lobby as Olivia gazed around the shadows. She shook the rain from her umbrella and put it down. The place was a mess, of course, streaked with ink or vomit or God-knew-what-else spattered across the walls and carpet in great smudged streaks.
The old fart's done it this time
, Olivia thought as she looked around the dim room and heard that crackling sound again beneath her. She looked down and her heart started beating faster.
Blood
.
That's what was sticking to the bottom of the door, and that's what was currently sticking to the bottom of her white crepe-soled shoes, making delicate crackling noises as she shifted her weight. Blood, for God's sake! Olivia's mind raced for a moment.
Pete Bowden must have gone and gotten himself so drunk last night he took a fall and knocked his teeth out, or maybe he got violent and finally took out his sick frustrations on Evelyn with a paring knife, or maybe there was a fight, yeah, that must be it, but God, that's a lot of blood even for a barroom brawl, and look at the walls, and the floor! Maybe kosher salt and club soda would get that out—maybe—but good Lord, look at the streaks on the carpet—ohmyGod, look at the carpet!
Olivia dropped the plastic caddy, and cans of disinfectant rolled across the floor.
Something made the housekeeper freeze. There was a cry stuck in her throat, and her mouth was as dry as bonemeal, but she stayed planted on those sticky tiles by the door for a moment, gawking at that blood-ravaged lobby, trying to get a breath into her lungs. She made her legs move. She willed her legs to start toward the front desk, across the room, maybe twelve feet away. Slowly, convulsively, she followed the drag marks around the edge of the counter.
The bodies were neatly tucked behind the desk, laid against the baseboard.
Olivia's hand shot up to her mouth and trembled there as she stared at the pair of corpses—the thin man and the heavy woman—carefully arranged in identical poses, arms raised, ashen faces contorted, gray flesh marbled with blood the color of tar. The backs of their heads were cemented to the floor in puddles of black, glassy, hardened spoor.
Olivia Mendoza screamed then, but oddly enough, very little noise came out of her other than a hoarse, mucusy mewl that sounded like an injured bird in its death throes, as her trembling hand reached out blindly toward the countertop.
Her fingers found the telephone and fumbled for the receiver, knocking it off the cradle.
In the days and weeks to come, much would be made of the speed—or more specifically the
lack
of it—with which the official investigation of the Regal Motel massacre got underway that morning. Normally the Portland PD would be dispatched to handle such a serious violent crime in one of the city's outlying areas. But the motel was located just across the state line, in Washington, so all the jurisdictional complications immediately ensued.
Vancouver, ten miles to the north, was the closest town with any kind of homicide squad, but the crime scene lab had to come from Olympia, nearly a hundred miles away. Initially this caused a significant delay between the time the first patrolman—a fairly green deputy from the county sheriff's department—showed up at the scene, and the point at which the CSI unit from Olympia finally arrived.
Official records placed the deputy arriving at the motel at ten minutes after seven o'clock. He found the maid huddling in her car outside the office, nearly catatonic with terror, unable to utter even the simplest reply to any of the deputy's questions. At twelve minutes after seven o'clock, the deputy drew his sidearm and entered the premises, finding the bodies of the motel owner, Peter Bowden (fifty-three), and his wife, Evelyn Bowden (forty-nine), on the floor behind the front desk. They appeared—to the deputy, at least—to have been dead for several hours.
The deputy immediately called in the apparent “187” to dispatch, and the Vancouver squad was called. The next thirty minutes would become particularly problematic throughout subsequent inquiries for both the sheriff's department as well as the Vancouver PD. For reasons known only to the deputy and the first-on-the-scene detectives, no one thought to check on the motel's guests until sometime after 7:40. Perhaps the problem was the lack of activity anywhere on the property. For the two minutes the deputy was talking to the maid, as well as the five minutes or so he was investigating the blood-spattered lobby—and even after the first unmarked squad car had arrived from Vancouver—nobody stirred in any of the rooms. No faces in the windows, nobody peering out of any of doors. Maybe the investigators simply figured the place was empty. But regardless of the reasons, the first knock on a guest room door didn't occur until exactly 7:42 that morning.
Of course, no one answered, despite the fact that eleven out of the twenty-four rooms were listed as occupied on the blood-spackled register in the Regal's office. Eventually one of the detectives took a peek through a curtained window and saw blood. Doors were broken down and met by coughs and flinches of surprise. More calls were made. Grim instructions went out over the lines, voices constricted with stress. In addition to the crime lab in Olympia, local FBI field offices in both Seattle and Portland were alerted.
By eight-thirty that morning, in the veils of mist billowing in from the Pacific coast, the Regal Motel teemed with somber activity. A kaleidoscope of cruiser lights and emergency flares streaked the sheets of rain with bloody watercolors, attracting onlookers like flames beckoning a swarm of moths. Hikers, duck hunters, third-shift workers on their way home, and mechanics from a nearby body shop—they all huddled in grim fascination under a blanket of umbrellas on the edge of the police cordons. Some of them sat on makeshift chairs, ice chests, and crates. Others chatted nervously.
They all wanted to glimpse a little carnage, maybe get a fleeting look at the victims being extracted from the motel under bloody sheets. But for the next hour and a half, only technicians passed in and out of the rooms: stoic morgue attendants dressed in white haz-mat suits, sullen-faced detectives carrying clipboards. Whispers of the unseen abominations passed through the crowd, but nobody outside the cordons really knew what was going on in there. Nobody except the tall, hunched, middle-aged figure standing behind the group of mechanics.
This unidentified man, his long, gaunt face shrouded by the hood of a stolen parka, stood in the rain as though getting soaked to the bone didn't bother him in the least. Nobody paid much attention to him as he lurked there, his head craning to see over the tops of umbrellas.
He had the patience of a sphinx as he watched and waited, paying very close attention to every new investigator who arrived at the scene.
13
Rogue
NEW ORLEANS (AP)—“Old Sparky,” as the inmates on Angola's death row refer to the electric chair, was fired up one last time Sunday for the execution of a man who at one time held Louisiana and east Texas in a grip of terror. Convicted mass murderer John George Haig, known to local old-timers as “Dracula,” had no last words as he was led down the narrow cement corridor at 11:45 a.m. yesterday to the “processing room.”
Haig was read the last rites and strapped into the chair at 11:55. As the second hand on the big regulator clock reached straight-up twelve o'-clock, ten thousand volts passed through Haig's body—thus bringing to a close two epochal examples of Louisiana's living history. The first being the use of the electric chair in state executions—recently made obsolete by a constitutional amendment that goes into affect at the end of next month. The second example being Haig himself.
THE MAKING OF A KILLER
Born in Oxford, Mississippi, in 1935, the son of a Pentecostal preacher, Haig grew up in a world of Old Testament fire and brimstone. Records indicate that Haig got as far as the third grade, then ran away from home and spent the next ten years of his life drifting from town to town, begging and panhandling. Chances are Haig was mildly retarded, although he was never diagnosed as such.
Psychologists tell us that the seeds of homicidal behavior are planted early. And in the case of John George Haig, all signs indicate that the boy was on the road to murderous behavior at a young age. Friends and relatives told tales of animal torture, petty crime, and arson. But the first documented, public display of Haig's strange and violent behavior occurred in 1965 at a traveling museum exhibit popular throughout the South.
Known as the Inman Brothers Emporium of Scientific Oddities, the show had been playing to huge crowds across the bayou area that summer. The main attraction was an actual mummified human believed to be a mound dweller over 2,000 years old—on loan from Tulane University, which had unearthed the find in a bog at Poverty Point the year before.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing Haig acting “in a peculiar manner” around the display case that housed the mummy. Seconds later, Haig had broken the glass with his bare hands and was trying to abscond with the artifact. Security men interceded and saved the mummy. The 29-year-old Haig was arrested and thrown in jail for three months.
REIGN OF TERROR
Upon his release, Haig seemed to vanish into the backwoods. Over the next ten years, most official records lost track of the man, but criminologists have pieced together a time line that paints a picture of spiraling madness and violence. Unsolved murders started piling up in the parishes, baffling investigators.
Random victims were found posed in odd postures, their necks ripped open as though by a wild animal. Traces of human saliva were found in some of the wounds. As well as teeth marks. Rumors started circulating that the killer was some sort of cannibal or vampire—drinking the blood of his victims.
When Haig was finally captured in 1975—from fingerprints found in a gas station bathroom—the number of unsolved murders attributable to Haig had risen to 34. Over the next 18 months Haig was interviewed extensively by a number of experts. The results paint a portrait of a deranged, bloodthirsty lunatic with inscrutable motives.
FINAL JUSTICE
During his trial, Haig revealed much about his twisted psychology, not to mention his modus operandi as a killer. He believed that he was gifted with supernatural powers bestowed upon him at birth by God. He also believed that his true calling was revealed to him on April 13, 1965—the day that he first laid eyes on those mummified remains at the Inman Brothers show.
Over the course of many interviews Haig revealed to psychologists that the “voice of God” had come out of the mummy and commanded him to “perform cleansing rituals until the enemy is found.”
“The sacrificial lambs never suffered,” he told one interviewer. “They died quickly and painlessly.”
The drinking of the blood, which Haig had done on several occasions, was ceremonial, according to the murderer. “So I can live forever.”
On Sunday, much to the gratitude of those who remember the horrors perpetrated on Louisiana by this sick individual, this last wish was dashed with a single jolt of electricity.
Professor de Lourde nodded at the screen of his laptop after the others had gotten a chance to skim the newspaper article. “I must confess,” he said gravely, “until now, the connection was lost on me.”
De Lourde sat on a velveteen and brass chair that was pulled up to a telephone terminal outside the hotel's mezzanine restrooms, his Mac Powerbook connected to the wall jack. The terminal was nestled in a little alcove at the end of a bank of pay phones, and doubled as an Internet hookup—an exorbitant fee charged for each minute of activity. Muzak droned softly, and the faint scent of pipe tobacco flavored the air. Thankfully, it was still early enough in the morning to ensure relative privacy in this little cubby area.
“The enemy . . .” Grove murmured, standing directly behind de Lourde, peering down at the Tulane University home page that displayed the archival strip of news print down the center of the screen. “What's
that
about?”
The others had gathered behind Grove, gazing over his shoulder at the Web site. Zorn stood on one flank, looking skeptical and restless as always, and Maura County stood on the other, chewing her lip nervously, looking as though she might be sorry she had started all this. Father Carrigan was perched on a chair beside Grove, fingering his cane and looking askance at the twenty-first-century technology that he didn't seem to fully comprehend. The other professors stood behind Maura, each of their faces thoughtful and pensive. Dr. Armatraj looked especially engaged by the whole turn of events.
Moses de Lourde gave a shrug, his gaze still fixed on the Haig execution article. “Before yesterday I would have assured you it was nothing but the ravings of an unhinged mind . . . but now, after conferring with all my colleagues and speaking with the good father here, I'm not so sure.”
“I'm not so sure of
anything
anymore,” Grove muttered, trying to ignore the cold finger on his spine.
De Lourde glanced over his shoulder at Grove. “There's more.”
“I'm listening.”
The southerner licked his lips judiciously. “The mummy that the article speaks of—the cave dweller?—this was the reason I came here. I was part of the team that originally discovered it.”
This got everybody's attention, and Grove nodded at de Lourde. “Go on.”
“Well . . . as I told some of the folks last night, I was only thirty-two at the time . . . 1964, I believe it was. I was working on my doctorate in anthropology at Tulane, when I learned about this dig out at the Poverty Point site. Heard they had recovered a mummy from the bog. As Professor Endecott will tell you, human remains that end up in a bog will stay as well preserved as that of any medium, including ice. Am I right, Professor?”
From behind Maura, Edith Endecott nodded her assent. “A lucky break for us archaeologists, I might add.”
“Absolutely correct. Anyhow . . . there was much discussion at that time of the
era
in which this alleged victim of ritual sacrifice lived. It was theorized by most anthropologists that the mound dwellers believed they were being punished by their gods.”
Grove looked at the southerner. “Punished?”
De Lourde nodded. “Again, it's all speculation, but the world was changing around the first century. Especially in the Middle East. Prophecies were coming true. Christ was crucified, the Roman Empire was beginning its decline. Even in North America, cultures were clashing. The mound dwellers believed that a demonic force was starting to kill them off. Who knows? Maybe it was simply nature at work, an animal, a plague. But it could have been human.”
Grove thought about it for a moment. “An early serial killer, you're saying.”
A shrug from the southerner. “A stealth attack from an adversarial culture . . . who knows?”
“The
cycle
is what it is!”
All heads turned toward the elderly priest, whose rusty voice burbled like a broken pipe organ. “This is exactly what I'm talking about,” he went on, his shredded breathing coming in fits and starts. “The wickedness following each discovery paralleling the evil and misery present eons earlier when the mummy lived and died. Do you see? This is the endless cycle, repeating down through the centuries.”
“It would appear there's something to this theory,” de Lourde allowed. “If you look at the empirical, even the circumstantial, you'd have to admit there's a pattern.”
Zorn finally spoke up: “Excuse me, but that is just grade-A horseshit.”
“Terry,” Grove warned.
“All due respect, Father,” Zorn said, glancing at the trembling priest. “But I've been zippin' my lip through most of this dog and pony show. I think I got the right to put my two cents in.” Zorn looked at de Lourde. “You're talking about one example, okay. One so-called cycle. I mean, let's get
real
here, people. This ain't even
circumstantial
evidence. We got a copycat out there. There's no voodoo in it. There's no—”
“Agent Zorn, if I might say a word,” interrupted a soft, accented voice from across the corridor. Professor Armatraj stepped forward, nervously fiddling a handkerchief in his delicate brown hands.
Grove gave the dapper Indian a nod. “Go ahead, Professor.”
“The female remains that we recovered from the Italian Alps in 1987 certainly match the pathology,” he began, addressing Zorn, mostly. “The fatal wound in the neck, the artificial posture. The mummy was carbon-dated back to two hundred BC, also a time of much upheaval, as my colleagues will certainly attest.”
De Lourde glanced up at the Indian. “You're talking about Locusta?”
“Exactly.”
Zorn let out a weary sigh. “I'll bite. Who the hell is Locusta?”
Armatraj looked at him and said, “She may very well be history's first serial killer.”
“She was a creator of poisons,” de Lourde added, “although I understand she used other methods as well. Strangulations, stabbings. Today we'd call her a contract killer—a hit woman for the empire, if you will. Legend has it she kept a stable of slaves on whom she tested her potions and tortures.”
Armatraj nodded. “She also ran a school for ‘poisoners. ' It was thought that she and her students collectively killed over ten thousand people. The Roman emperor Claudius was probably her most famous victim.”
The priest spoke up again, that soft warning wheeze making the hair stand up on Grove's neck: “Locusta the Sentinel was a historical figure whom the Vatican believes was under the influence of demons, a person possessed by an unclean spirit. This is documented fact.”
Zorn was shaking his head. “I don't understand. You're saying these remains were
her
?”
Armatraj raised his slender brown hand. “A
victim
of hers, was the unofficial consensus among my team, and I believe they were correct. Especially now. Now that we have a deeper context.”
There was a pause, and Grove said, “Was there something at the other end of the cycle?”
Armatraj took a deliberate breath. “In 1988, less than a year after we recovered the Icewoman from the Alps, there was a scandalous case in Italy. An infamous gangster . . . he suddenly became . . . I suppose we would say the man went
rogue
. Started killing people for the sport of it.”
Grove took a deep breath. “Let me guess: the method of these killings was—”
“An ice pick to the neck, the
back
of the neck,” Armatraj said, his dark eyes shining. “And he fooled with the bodies afterward, too, posing them. At the time, like Dr. de Lourde, I saw no connection.”
Grove was starting to say something else when he noticed a heavyset man in a topcoat and English cap, carrying a sample case, approaching one of the pay phones at the far end of the corridor, maybe twenty feet away. Close enough to overhear this conversation. The fat man dialed a number and started talking. Other businessmen and various early risers were circulating around the mezzanine level beyond the bank of telephones. They were making Grove uneasy.
“Professor de Lourde, I'm going to need you to go ahead and unplug the computer,” Grove instructed in a low voice, then gestured toward the far reaches of the vestibule, beyond the phones, beyond the restroom doors, where they could speak in private. “This way, everybody . . . please, just for a second, if you could please come this way.”
He led the group over to the far end of the corridor, a deserted area where two upholstered “smoking chairs” flanked a small glass table, and the subdued yellow light from Victorian brass wall sconces shone down on the rich accoutrements with tasteful elegance. The group huddled around Grove, who all at once felt a little bit like the reluctant intelligence officer herding his operatives behind enemy lines where everything took on sinister dimensions—the muffled thrum of Muzak, the low lighting, the perfumed sterility of the Hotel Nikko's mezzanine. Grove's head swam with the silent revelations, his gut tight with icy dread. “Dr. Endecott,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper, gesturing at the blue-haired woman, “you've been fairly quiet through all this.”

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