HIGHWAY HOMICIDE (10 page)

The murderer watched all the activity at Iona Cackett’s place with interest, from behind a tree further down the street.

He wasn’t in the least bit concerned about his prints being on the axe, since he’d worn gloves. And he was still wearing them. Not that it mattered anyway, since that dumb fool had picked it up with his bare hands and had waved it around.

The footprints he’
d left wouldn’t mean a thing either. His shoes were inside full rubber overshoes and the tracks would have no bearing whatsoever on the actual size of his feet. The overshoes would be disposed of as soon as he could find a suitable place to get rid of them. With all the neighbors tramping around, any other tracks he may have left would also have been obliterated as well.

He was annoyed he’
d been forced to return to this area. But loose ends were dangerous and had to be seen to promptly. His life would depend on it now.

If the caller had just notified the police,
he would have still been alive. Instead, he’d resorted to blackmail; payment so what he had seen would remain a secret.

The murderer had never met the caller face to face. Not even tonight. He had no idea who he w
as or what he looked like. He’d listened to the man’s demands over the phone and had arranged an immediate meeting in Cooper’s Corners as requested.

He’d thought
the man’s choice of venue was a little odd but he would deal with it when he got there. The caller had assured him they wouldn’t be observed, and just how dumb was that!

Knowing that Iona Cackett always went to Bingo, rain or shine, on a Friday night, Forrest had arranged the meeting in her secluded back garden. Her house was the last one in the street and had nothing but fields and woods beyond and behind it.

Forrest’s own home, an apartment, was on the other side of town, well away from the meeting place. He’d also worn a black woolen ski mask, so the man he planned to blackmail wouldn’t recognize him if they met again. Of course they’d meet again. Forrest planned to milk this opportunity for all it was worth.

The man he was meeting had other ideas
, however. There was no way he’d ever meet with the blackmailer again. He planned to kill him the first time they met. The original murder weapon was supposed to have been an old tire iron. But Forrest had seen it immediately and had knocked it from the man’s hand out into the snow. Then realizing the man’s intention was not to pay him off but to kill him, Forrest had turned to run.

With his original weapon gone, the man glanced down and saw
Iona’s old axe beside the birdbath. In one smooth motion he’d picked it up and swung it at Forrest’s head. It connected with the base of his skull, knocking him forward. The impetus of the blow and Forrest’s weight wretched the axe free and Forrest dropped face down in the snow, blood pouring from his head. One blow had been quite enough.

The killer quickly made a decision as to what to do next. He would drag the body across to the short path to the driveway and then out to the road. Some of the neighboring lights were on but there was no one out and about to see him.

He figured it would only take him a minute or two to get to his car. Then he would drive it back, throw the body in the trunk and drive away. He would worry about any blood in the trunk later. He would destroy the car too if necessary and he would dispose of the body on his way home as he’d done with Gates and Maria Caspar.

In order to make it easier for him to drag the body and also to take the axe with him as well, he stuffed the handle of it into his victim’s coat pocket.

Unfortunately for the killer, he was unaware of the time the church Bingo finished. He’d just dragged Forrest’s body over to the path when he saw the lights of a car approaching. Since this was the last house in the street, logically it had to be coming here, the man thought. He just had time to swing the body partially under the bushes and slip away before Iona’s car turned into the driveway.

Iona
hadn’t noticed anything amiss at her home until she’d found herself sprawling headlong over Forrest’s feet. When she’d started to scream, the killer was no more than ten feet away from her behind the bushes. By the time the first of her neighbors had arrived, he was safely hidden behind a tree further down the road.

Later, as the ambulance, crime scene van and the cop and doctor’s cars had all
pulled away, the murderer headed for his own car. When he reached it he opened the door and got in. As he sat down and put the key in the car’s ignition, he noticed, with a jolt of utter panic, his wristwatch was gone!

He must have broken the strap as he was dragging the dead man.

It had already shaken him badly when he’d gotten the phone call from the blackmailer. Since he’d been absolutely certain there had been no witnesses out on the highway.

The caller, a man, had just said, “I saw what you did” and then he had named his
price. A few moments later he’d hung up, after arranging a meeting place in Cooper’s Corners. The killer had naturally assumed the caller had somehow managed to see him dump Maria and David Gates beside the highway, although he’d no idea how he could have done.

It didn’t occur to him either,
how
the man could have traced him, only that he had. Had he thought about it, he would have realized the only way he could have been traced was by the car he was driving. But
that
car had been David Gates’, not his own. If he hadn’t been so shaken he might have thought about it later, but he’d reacted to the caller’s demands immediately.

In actual fact, the caller, Forrest Appleyard, hadn’t seen
him on the highway at all. He’d observed his actions somewhere else entirely.

Forrest had been in
Rutland, visiting one of his numerous lady friends. This was one he’d met at the ski resort, nicknamed ‘Mega Mountain’, at Killington. He had always found it to be an excellent hunting ground for him and he and this particular catch were very well suited.

Not well suited enough to marry perhaps, because that wasn’t Forrest’s scene, but highly compatible in other ways. In fact, the girl called Forrest by the resort’s other nickname, ‘The Beast of the East’.

He’d just left the girl’s apartment and was about to drive home. A few hundred yards ahead of him he saw another car pull out of the driveway of a private house. It had its lights turned off, just as his own were. He hadn’t wanted to embarrass the girl by drawing her neighbor’s attention to their little tryst, with his departure in the early hours of the morning.

He’
d grinned to himself, thinking that some other lucky guy was in the same situation as himself. It was at that point the house the other car had just left burst into flames. Forrest saw the car ahead of him pause momentarily to look back and then it drove on.

Keeping a good distance back but always keeping the other vehicle in sight, Forrest followed it, disregarding the blazing house. A few minutes later, the car ahead pulled up beside a phone booth and the driver got out. As he had his back to the road dialing the phone, Forrest drove slowly by and took down the other car’s license number.

If the man in the booth had noticed Forrest’s car drive by, he probably would have thought it was just someone else wanting to use the phone. The fact Forrest also had his lights off may or may not have registered.

Forrest knew how easy it was to obtain a name and address from a car’s license plate, jus
t as he knew how to get false ID if and when he needed it.

When he got bac
k to Cooper’s Corners, he’d made his call to the car’s owner. All he’d said was, ‘I saw what you did’. Just five little words but they were enough to guarantee he would soon be a dead man.

As far as Forrest
was concerned, he believed Cooper’s Corners was far enough away from Rutland not to make the man suspicious. And in any case it was convenient for Forrest as well. Let the other guy do the driving, if he could even
find
Cooper’s Corners, that is.

For
rest had absolutely no idea the man he’d just called to blackmail about setting the fire in Rutland knew Cooper’s Corners very well.

Extremely well in fact, since
he’d just recently dumped a girl’s dead body there!

Chapter Fifteen

As a
group of young students, they’d all attended the University of Vermont together in Burlington. Their group had included David Gates, Jason Wells, Toby Clarke, Hughie Larkin and ‘Biff’ Baker as the male contingent.

When Biff had been in junior school, his nickname had been ‘Beefy’ Baker because he was just fat and heavy rather tha
n muscular. Even so, after he’d floored several of his schoolmates for teasing him about his weight, his nickname had changed to ‘Biff’.

His physique had
changed too, as he’d gotten older, with the fat turning into hard, solid muscle. Because of his height and bulk, he became a popular linebacker on the University’s football team. Over the years he’d lost none of his youthful aggression, but he now took most of it out on the football field.

The girls that made up the group included Melinda Parrish, Jennifer Eden, Terri Parks, May Brooks and Maria Caspar, and were all very attractive in their own individual way. There was a mixture of blondes and brunettes, but Maria Caspar was, without a doubt, the most beautiful girl in their group
. Many of the guys thought she was the most beautiful girl in their whole school year.

Along with her sister Erica, who was a year or two ahead of her in her studies, Maria was of pure Latino heritage that went back for many generations.

A lot of the UVM guys, and not only those in their own group, had made unsuccessful plays for Maria’s affections. Unfortunately for them, she was neither gentle nor sympathetic when she turned them down. Consequently, when she had started dating David Gates semi-seriously, there was a great deal of jealousy and resentment.

One of the
Burlington students was particularly annoyed and planned to do something about it. It had been a huge blow to his ego when she’d turned him down.

All his life, i
f he’d wanted something, he’d somehow got it, and if he wanted Maria Caspar, then he’d get her too. It was inevitable, just a matter of time and it would be a game he’d enjoy playing. It would now be a game of the hunter and the hunted with Maria having no idea she was the intended prey. He realized too, it would take more than looks to achieve his objective.

Maria too was accustomed to getting what she w
anted as well. So much so, she would just take whatever she wanted, whether it was belongings or boyfriends. This behavior caused her older sister a great deal of distress. She’d warned Maria countless times about the probable consequences of her illegal actions. Maria had merely laughed her concerns off and had continued to do it. The problem was, in order to continue to bask in Maria’s spotlight, the other girls would quite willingly forfeit some of their little trinkets to her sticky fingers.

Stealing a boyfriend, though, could perhaps have some much more serious repercussions for her.

Another one of the students also had a huge crush on Maria, a crush that grew into almost an obsession as he grew older. He would just seethe with anger as he watched her with other guys, especially with David Gates. But he also knew he would never stand a chance with her as long as Gates was around.

He’
d tried a straight forward approach with her and she’d just laughed in his face, telling him not to be so bloody ridiculous. To make matters worse, she’d told all her girl friends about his stupid declaration of love for her. They’d all had a good laugh at his expense but he’d been absolutely mortified by the experience.

Well, he’
d thought, perhaps it was now time to take a different approach. He swallowed his pride and pretended he was neither upset nor offended by her rejection. It’d only been a joke anyway, he’d said with a laugh. But secretly he was determined they would eventually be together, one way or another.

He’
d tried the direct approach and had failed miserably, so now he would try the other. Watch out, Maria, he’d thought with a smirk, I’m not done with you yet. Not by a long way.

But that
was before everything had gone so horribly wrong.

Maria Caspar was now dead!

‘Bobo’ LaRosa was another guy from their University days. One, who, despite his good looks and impressive physique, constantly found himself
on the outside of ‘The Group’ looking in. It was a fact that had made him royally pissed in his University days and continued to do so even now.

He was tall, muscular an
d with a Latin handsomeness he expected the girls to fall over themselves for. In addition to that, he claimed a not too distant kinship with television’s Julius La Rosa. Because of his claim, he was taunted that
anyone
could be related to
anyone
if you bothered to go back far enough.

After all, didn’t it all go back to Adam and Eve? That didn’t turn out too well, offspring wise either, did it? And it had all fallen apart from there on.
You could even go back to the ape theory as well, one of the girls said derisively and looking ‘Bobo’ up and down as her friends all laughed at him.

Bobo wasn’t on the football team, as Biff was. He was a bodybuilder, a weightlif
ter. Most of the girls felt he spent way too much of his time admiring himself in the mirror, to ever appreciate their own attributes. 

Even so, a couple of the group’s girls were interested in him but it was Maria who ran the show. She set the rules for membership of the group, for the guys as well as the g
irls. Everyone had thought, Bobo, being Latino like Maria herself, would have been a shoo in.

But Maria had just laughed at him when he had asked to join them. Their group was large enough already, and there wasn’t any room f
or great big muscle bound apes like him, she’d told him. To make matters even worse, she’d told the rest of them what she’d said.

All he wanted was to be part of the group and t
he truth of the matter was Bobo had never bothered to take any interest in Maria at all, beautiful though she was. She resented the fact he wasn’t attracted by her and didn’t plan to let him ever forget it either. On the other hand, Bobo had his own resentment towards her to deal with for slighting him. He would get even with her in some other way, he told himself.

The boys in the group were all well aware of what had happened, but not the reasons behind it. However, none of them wanted to be the one to upset the group’s harmony. Consequently none of them did or said anything in support of him.

His smoldering resentment towards Maria spun off to include everyone in the group, males and females, for not wanting him.

But at the time, he’
d done nothing about it.