Genesis of Evil (15 page)

“Mind if I sit down?” she asked.

He shifted his mouthful of burger, tried to speak, found no room to move his tongue and waved a hand at the bench on the other side of the table. Roberta plunked down the tray, leaned the crutches against the wall and slid into the seat. Gerhart finally managed to choke down the lump of burger and smiled across the table.

“How have you been?” he inquired.

“Fine, Chief, thank you. I’m so sorry about your wife. That must have been a terrible shock.”

Gerhart caught his lower lip between his teeth for a moment. “It was. I don’t think her mother will ever get over it.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes and concentrated on their lunch, neither one knowing what to say next. Roberta polished off her fries, washed them down with the last of her milk and wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “Has the mayor’s kid gotten into any more trouble since he tried to snatch my purse?”

Gerhart shook his head. “No, he hasn’t. I can’t imagine what possessed him. He never gave us any trouble before.”

“Maybe whatever got into him did it at the mall,” she said.

Gerhart jerked his head up involuntarily. “What makes you say that?”

“Circumstances. I know there’s been a lot of trouble out there. It makes you stop and think. If there’s that much going on that we know about, what do you suppose could be happening that we don’t know about?” she said, echoing his words from a few days earlier.

As he wondered how to respond to her, she stood, retrieved her crutches and picked up the tray that held the remains of her lunch.

“Listen,” she said. “I know what it’s like to work in a vacuum. I’ve lived alone most of my life. If you feel like you want somebody to talk to, well, give me a call. Sometimes it helps just to babble for a while, whether you get an answer or not. See you around.”

She raised her free hand in a quick wave, settled her crutches under her arms and swung off toward the trash containers.

When Gerhart had taken over the department it had been in one hell of a mess. The equipment was in poor condition, the morale was lousy and the duty roster was nonexistent. The retiring Chief, Frederick Thomas DuMore, was married to the sister of the previous mayor, who had been soundly trounced in the election by Manning Richards. Freddie T., as everybody called him, had been the Chief for the better part of thirty years. When he was hired, the police department amounted to Freddie T. and two part-time patrolmen. That was in 1967. As Trinidad grew, so did the police department. The problem was that old Freddie T. had no more idea than a lobotomized ground hog of what to do with it. His Honor, Mayor Manning Richards, being slightly brighter than his predecessor, managed to sweep most of the problems under the rug while searching for a replacement for Freddie T. He knew those problems would come to light when the new Chief took over, but by that time, the new Chief would have to deal with them.

It took Gerhart all of three hours to determine that he had inherited one colossal headache. Then he took a deep breath, rolled up his sleeves and went to work.

At that time, the department consisted of fourteen officers, the Chief and an acting assistant Chief—the ranking sergeant—who took over while Freddie T. enjoyed one of his five weeks of vacation. This provided four men to a shift with two extras. Gerhart was appalled to discover that only six of the men had any formal training in police procedures. The force had four Ford squad cars, each with more than 100,000 miles on the clock. The new Mercury Marquis driven by the Chief was traded on a two-year cycle.

The first thing Gerhart did was to turn the Chief’s Mercury into a patrol car and get the engines and transmissions rebuilt on three of the cruisers. The fourth car had been nearly totaled a year earlier and spent most of its time in the shop. Gerhart junked it.

Within the following three years, Gerhart let seven of the eight untrained men go. Then he hired nine experienced men and three cadets. He talked the city into new radio equipment for the force and bought a radar gun. By the time Gerhart celebrated his tenth anniversary in Trinidad, the city had grown to almost 15,000 citizens and the police department boasted three shift captains, three sergeants, thirty-two patrolmen and eight patrol cars. Gerhart acted as his own detective when the occasion demanded. The effort had cost him a lot of sweat and the city a lot of cash, but he felt the department was as good as it was going to get with the prevailing budget.

But as Roberta Valentine had guessed, Gerhart was alone. The men in his command liked and respected him and would ski across a lake of thawing shit on bed slats if he requested it. Unlike his men, however, Gerhart had no partner. There was no one to bounce ideas off of and he was well aware that with no sounding board it was possible for him to get into a great deal of trouble, both physically and emotionally. Virginia had been of little help in that respect, but at least there was somebody home to talk
at
, if not
with
. And so, the day after running into Roberta Valentine, he found himself punching her number into the phone on his desk.

“Panhandle Placement. This is Roberta.”

“I’m looking for someone to fill a position,” Gerhart said.

“What sort of position, sir?”

“The title would probably be professional listener.”

“Would that be someone to listen professionally, or someone to listen to a professional?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Hmmm. I seem to have an opening at eight this evening, if that would suit.”

“It would, indeed.”

“I’ll see you then, Mr. Kable.”

As Gerhart climbed from his car the front door of Roberta’s house opened. She leaned out to wave at him.

“Come on in,” she called. “I’m in the middle of something.”

She pulled back inside and left Gerhart to find his own way. “I’m in the kitchen,” she said when she heard the door close.

He found her taking a pie from the oven. She put it on the counter next to the sink, turned and smiled. “I hope you like cherry.”

“If it’s pie, it’s my favorite kind,” he said. “What prompted you to bake tonight?”

“Bake? Who bakes? This was a solid block of ice a half hour ago. Ms. Valentine’s pies are Mrs. Smith’s. I’ve never baked a pie in my life.”

“So who’s complaining?”

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Sure.”

They sat at the kitchen table and disposed of a fourth of the pie along with quite a bit of coffee. Roberta put a scoop of vanilla ice cream on her pie, but Gerhart declined.

“I take my pie like a real man,” he said with flinty eyes and outthrust jaw. “Straight up.”

Roberta threw her head back and roared with laughter. When both plates were empty she picked up the coffee pot once more and waved it at Gerhart. “More coffee, Chief?”

He put a hand over his cup. “Believe me, I’m stuffed. I think I’ve gained five pounds.” As if to back up the statement he belched silently into his fist. “Sorry. Look, stop with the Chief stuff. Considering all of your food that I’ve just stuffed in my face, don’t you think we should be on a first name basis? Call me Gerhart. How about you? Roberta? Bobbi? Robby?”

She looked up in surprise. “Bobbi? I like that. Nobody ever called me Bobbi.” She thought for a moment. “I wonder why?”

“Beats me. You look more like a Bobbi than a Roberta to me.” He reached across the counter next to the sink and took a clean knife from the drying rack. “I dub thee Bobbi Valentine,” he said and touched her lightly on each shoulder with the tip of the blade.

“Okay by me, unless I have to change my driver’s license,” she replied with a grin.

“Not necessary. You have friends in high places.”

“Come in here, I want to show you something.” Roberta stood and led the way into the living room.

In the corner next to her desk was a cardboard box surrounded with pieces of Styrofoam. “I got a new printer for my computer yesterday,” she explained. “The old one was dying a slow and painful death. Besides, this one’s a laser. But this is what I wanted to show you. It’s a riot.” She reached into the box, pulled out a pamphlet and handed it to Gerhart. “Look at the first page.”

He took the proffered item and dropped into a chair. After a moment, he chuckled, then laughed out loud. “This is great,” he said when he caught his breath. “Whoever translated this should be shot. I like number four. ‘Do not use this products near water, if liquid has been spilled into the board or has been exposed to water may causing the board can not work properly.’” He scanned down the list, chuckling as he read. Then he leaned back in the chair and laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. “The last one is hilarious,” he gasped. “Did you read all of these?”

Roberta giggled sympathetically. “No. I didn’t get a chance.”

“‘Do not leave or fall any metal/conductive item (like screw…) on the board, other wise the board will on vacation permanently when power on.’”

They rocked to and fro in their chairs and held their sides as tears rolled down both cheeks.

Roberta coughed and wiped her eyes. “My Lord, it’s a wonder any of this stuff gets installed correctly at all, what with instructions like that.”

Gerhart nodded, then raised an eyebrow and stared at her. “You know, I think you’ve just cleared something up for me.”

“Really? What?”

“Something I saw at the cemetery the other day. I thought I understood it at the time, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t think what I saw is what I thought I saw. That is, I thought what I saw meant something other than what it meant. Uhmm…”

“Never mind,” Roberta said, giggling. “When you get it figured out let me know. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Maybe you’re not,” he said, “but I’d better before the neighbors start a rumor.” He stood and smiled at Roberta. “Thanks for the pie and coffee. I’d like to return the favor.”

“It wasn’t a favor, it was a pleasure. I really enjoyed your visit. Don’t be a stranger.”

Roberta watched from the porch until Gerhart’s taillights disappeared into the darkness.

Three days later Gerhart drove south on Route 19, thinking about the revelation he had experienced at Roberta’s. Gerhart naturally assumed that the inscription on the black ribbon, Von Hexenbrut, was somebody’s name. It was shallow thinking, he thought, for a policeman. Especially for a policeman who spoke German, even if he hadn’t spoken it for quite some time.

When Gerhart’s father was shipped to Germany to serve out his time with the U.S. Army, he met a pretty German girl who, in spite of a policy of ‘No Fraternization with the Natives,’,ultimately became his wife and returned with him to the states when he was discharged from the Army. So when Gerhart was a boy, his mother insisted on speaking her native tongue one day a week. He hadn’t thought much of the idea at the time but when high school came around and he was able to ace his German classes, it made more sense. His mother still used a few German words when the family was together, mainly because there were some phrases that are more concise in German than in English. Although Gerhart still understood German perfectly, he seldom had occasion to use it. But when he read the sloppy translation from Japanese into English, he had a sudden flash of insight and knew that Von Hexenbrut wasn’t the name of a German aristocrat. Like the printer instructions, the phrase was grammatically incorrect, but understandable.
 

It meant “From the witches’ coven.”

So Gerhart had once more called Lt. Orselli. Orselli called back two days later with some interesting information.

“It gets sort of complicated,” Orselli said, “but it goes something like this. A high school kid got involved with a bunch of so-called witches and his folks found out about it. They called us and we looked into it. There wasn’t really much we could do, freedom of religion and all, but we warned the group against taking minors. In the process of investigating, we got the names of a lot of people who were involved. I made a few calls and turned up a girl who knew your Joseph Lucas. She says she would be glad to talk to you, but she claims she didn’t know him very well and doesn’t think she can give you much help. You want her number?”

“Is a frog’s asshole watertight?” Gerhart asked.

Gerhart decided to drive down and talk to her face to face. He preferred to do his interviews in person—it’s hard to read body language over the telephone.

The girl’s apartment was in Largo. Gerhart spent almost half an hour making wrong turns before pulling to the curb in front of an old two-story house. He walked up to the second floor and knocked on the door.

Suzy Pilsberry was evidently not related to her namesake on television. She was almost as tall as Gerhart but weighed no more than ninety pounds. He figured he could close a hand around her waist. She greeted him with a brilliant smile and led him into her living room. She parked him on a lopsided but clean couch that stood against one wall in a sparsely furnished room. Suzy sat down on a wooden rocking chair next to a fireplace. Then she leaned forward, spread her hands wide and raised her eyebrows.

“So, what can I tell you about Mr. Lucas, Chief Kable? I understand he died in your town.”

“That’s right. We haven’t been able to find out much about him. How well did you know him?”