The East Avenue Murders (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 1) (13 page)

Maude removed the safety rope from around her waist and sat down with her
head in her hands, unwilling to look upon the face that she knew so well. Eyes that had been bright and intelligent were left as bloodied, vacant holes. The sweet smile of her mouth was gone forever, replaced by the handiwork of the killer. Her long auburn hair was tangled, dusty, probably from being dragged through the cave struggling against the madman intent upon her destruction.

There was reason for Maude to believe that the young woman had been dead for at least a day. She believed he had killed Mary Ellen shortly after making the obscene screensaver for her body was hanging in the same position. Possibly her death came from the large knife protruding from her back, an assault she didn’t see coming. Maude could only hope that at the end the killer had shown the girl some mercy.

Joe was beside himself, sick with helpless rage, seeing another young woman whose life had been ended by the same madman who killed those girls in the apartments on East Avenue. The latest victim was taken as a direct assault upon Joe’s partner in a cold-blooded attempt to get her attention. Why, what attraction did Maude hold for the killer? He was obviously obsessed, but why? What kind of sick person would use violence thinking it would endear him to another?

Joe took it upon himself to leave the crime scene using the best of the flashlights to find his way back out of the caverns until his phone showed a weak signal. He placed a call to Lieutenant Patterson’s cell phone
. When Patterson answered, Joe reported what they had found and was told to notify the local coroner’s office where arrangements could be made to ship Mary Ellen’s body back to Madison. The boss added that the two detectives had done well using the small amount of information they had.

H
e also said that a group from the Madison lab would be there within two hours, regardless of jurisdiction, and Joe and Maude were to secure the scene and wait for them. After he disconnected the phone, Joe looked out beyond the cave into the distance. In the interim time since they had arrived at the park, the morning sun had begun to rise over the river cliffs, creating a picture of spectacular beauty in blue and gold, defying any human tragedy to try and steal its glory.

The two hour wait was spent outside the cave
overlooking the river where they could hear the fast-running water below. Joe managed to put his fear aside and enjoy the quiet. Maude stationed herself in the shade with her feet hanging off the overhang. She asked Joe if he would help her back on her feet when the time came to leave. Arthritis had her knees hurting like crazy after the walk up the steep incline.

“We make a pair don’t w
e, Joe? You can’t handle heights, and me, I have parts that no longer work very well. It’s a shame you don’t have a younger partner. I know the rest of the guys give you a lot of trouble about working with me, and I have to tell you, I don’t really blame them. I’m nearer sixty than fifty, and can’t quit work, even if I wanted to, but I will try to keep up my end. You’re a good man to have around, and I’m sorry I talked you into this wild, middle of the night trip. It could have been done during the light of day.”

Joe
sat quietly, listened to Maude talk then told her that she was wrong, that he felt privileged to be working alongside her. He wanted to know what she thought had happened up there, where did the killer go, and how did he get away. From all of his profiling days, it appeared they had a very unstable man who had no fixed targets, that he seemed to be killing for the fun of it without caring who was next, and that made him more dangerous.

Maude agreed, and said she was worried that the killer might get away unless they got some real clues to his identity. She said that the equipment left in the cave needed to be looked at. Some of it was expensive and might have been purchased in Buena Vista and she thought she would talk to the boss
, see if they could be spared a couple of days to roam around the small burb and ask questions. She walked away to find a phone signal, stopping in mid-step to give Joe the high sign.

A short while later
she found him again.

“Bad news
, partner. Boss says you have to go home. He said we had other cases on our desks that were important and needed work. I told him we both needed to be here, but he had the last word. You’re going home.”

“
That doesn’t seem fair. You get stuck with the door-knocking and I get to go home to my good bed,” Joe said, making the best of it.

“Yeah,
poor luck for me. We could get this done a lot faster with both of us knocking,” Maude answered. “Listen Joe, since you have to go back, see if you can get back to the desk of one of the lab boys for the report on the blood from the robe.”

“Also, c
heck on the homeless victim and find out her story, what happened to her. We need to get that one cleared. Be good time for you to work by yourself a little. Find out more about how she died, and who had reason to want her dead.” Maude went on, “We’ve been sidetracked by a lunatic who kills and maims women but the boss is right, we have other cases.” As an afterthought, she added, “And Joe, when you get back there, find out everything the coroner knows about Mary Ellen.”

When the lab techs arrived
they couldn’t believe they had been dragged all the way from Madison to some cliff-hole above the river, especially so early in the morning. Joe rolled his eyes at Maude, and began to get his stuff together to make the trip back.

In darkness the climb had been frightening but in
sunlight, the distance to the river below seemed to go on and on. Joe was terrified by the closeness of the path to land’s end and its sudden drops into nothingness. The water flowed at least seventy-five feet below the path in places and without handrails near the edge, Joe grasped whatever was available as he sidled down the path. Maude held out her hand, offering support where he needed it.

She
understood how some fears cripple a person, even though the affected one might put up an excellent fight. She wondered if Mary Ellen had been in such a position before the knife went through her back and pierced her kind and gentle heart. Maude grieved over the girl, never having had a daughter or a sister. She had felt a real liking for the young woman whose life she had shared for a short time. Part of her grief was guilt, and no amount of words could change that.

The ride into Buena Vista was lonely
, with Joe staying near the scene to ride back to Madison with the techs from the lab. Ernest went home early, for there was no reason to wait. Besides, too many cops and technicians were crowding the small path, trying to get to the scene. Maude had decided to avoid being questioned by local law enforcement until she had reported to her lieutenant, a procedural matter she always tried to uphold. When she returned to Madison, she would write a report with the details of the incident for Patterson.

Her first stop when she got back to town was going to be for food
. Her last meal had been the tacos around midnight. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and Maude was starved and almost out of unfiltereds. She checked her package and found two bent and twisted cigarettes.

“Guess its food second, cigarette stop first.”
She muttered.

The Sheriff’s
Office was open with the lights on and at least two people walked back and forth across the floor of the small room. There was no sign of Ernest, hopefully he had gone home to his bed content in his belief that his job was done for the night. Maude was pleased with the man and impressed with his dedication. She hoped in the future there might be a time she could return the favor and give him a hand.

The morning’s excitement had brought out all manner of people and Maude wondered why the sheriff
hadn’t shown up with the rest of the law enforcement people. Some highway patrol officers from the next county over were there along with a couple of park rangers.

Poss
ibly, professional embarrassment had kept the Sheriff away. An out of town city cop finding a dead body in a closed-down county park was difficult to explain away. The saving grace was that Ernest Garrison, Deputy, was involved in the find. Maude wanted to stop and thank the Sheriff for allowing Ernest to lead them through the maze of the caverns. Without his help the trip would have been a great deal more difficult.

Obviously there were other offices in the county building, possibly the justice of the peace court where citizens could be seen quickly by a magistrate and pay their fines for traffic violations. She hoped that Sheriff Biden was as amiable as his deputy
, and inclined to talk a little. The other person that had been visible through the front door was no longer there. Probably a clerk had been passing information to the sheriff.

Maude
entered through the familiar glass door and pulled her shield from her pocket. She stepped forward toward the desk, sticking out her right hand as a way of introducing herself. The man behind the desk continued sitting in the broken down, rolling office chair, frowning a bit as he listened to the woman cop. Maude could tell from years of experience that this man didn’t cotton to women in law enforcement, but since he was in no position to have any opinion of her, she thought,
too bad for him and his attitude
.

So much for hi
m being like Ernest; still, she gave it her best shot, smiling a little, polite, refraining from cussing and smoking, though her nicotine habit was crying out.

Sheriff Biden seemed a little too superior for Maude’s liking, not getting any better as time passed. When he did start t
alking, it appeared that in his macho brain Maude was non-essential personnel, no doubt riding along with a male lead detective who tolerated her presence and waited while she brought him coffee. She could feel a slow burn starting in her belly, the same belly that had been without food and sleep for too long to tolerate a red-necked, prejudiced A-hole, who didn’t know his scrotum from his belt buckle.

After patronizing
her with a lengthy diatribe about how law enforcement worked in the county of Buena Vista, and what
real
police officers did to get the job done, he never offered her a seat all the time that he was insulting her. He never shook her outstretched hand. Maude finally had enough and smiled sweetly, turning to go.

Sheriff Biden remarked then that he held jurisdiction over the finding at the cave
. He went on that since their medical examiner was laid up, and couldn’t work right now, Lieutenant Patterson from her department, who seemed like a fine man, had called and made an offering to remove the body, and return it to Madison for autopsy. Biden then began to bluster about his own expectations from Madison PD, and how he would like to meet a real officer from her department. It was just too much for Maude’s taste.

”You know,” she said
, turning back, staring into the man’s eyes, “You’ve got a real fine fellow working for you. I don’t I know how he can put up with a mean-spirited son of Satan such as yourself. I was on my best behavior when I came in here, to thank you for allowing us to borrow that fine man, and to inform you of the events in your county. Your deputy was very helpful in the discovery of that young woman’s body this morning, and I might add, you slept right on while
this
old woman neglected her bed to get the job done.”

“
If you have a problem with me,” she continued, “J
us
t because of my gender, then mister, I don’t much care, but I had hoped for a little respect, and professional courtesy from you, because of your office. And one more thing, if you were to pull out that hoe handle someone shoved up your butt, you might find your constitution would be in considerably better shape, thereby making you a much nicer person.”

Sheriff Biden’s face began purpling
, and Maude was afraid he was going to have a seizure. She went out the door, shaking her head at the small minds in the world, knowing she had just had occasion to hear from one and could expect no more help from that place.

The air outside was muggy after a light rain that had fallen
while she was in the Sheriff’s Office, and the heat had escalated. Remembering the motel located just at the beginning of town, Maude headed her car that way, hoping there was food and cigarettes available in or near the place. The damp weather caused her arthritis to settle in around both hips and knees and the tiredness she felt from all the mental anguish had her falling asleep at the wheel. Thankfully, only a short distance had to be covered before she pulled into the parking lot of the motel. She unrolled her long body from the front seat of the car, walked to the motel office and paid in advance for a room.

A small cafe was a block down from the motel, close enough for Maude to walk, but the afternoon sun beating down on her back made her wish she had driven the short distance.
She sat down at a small booth, stretched her long legs under the table and waited on a server to appear. A boy of about fifteen came to the booth and took her order for a burger, fries, and a beer. She asked about cigarettes.

“
S
i Senora,”
the boy told her. “We have the cigarettes.” After the meal was over, Maude used the facilities, stepped outside and looked around a bit, then went to her car. Being prepared for travel was one of her strong points. She always kept a suitcase with spare clothes and cosmetics available in her closet.

Last night she had retrieved it just in case, bringing the supplies along on the last minute trip.
Besides her few articles of clothing there was a small flask of decent gin and an extra pack of cigarettes that she had forgotten. Some ibuprofen lay near the bottom of the small suitcase, and she popped two of those with a small amount of water from a bottle that was in the car. The proprietor of the motel was peering out his window in the evening light, watching her, probably wondering if she was shooting up.

“Sorry to disappoint you buddy,” she
said aloud, “I am not nearly that interesting.”

T
he sun was still high but Maude was so tired that she went straight to the small bed, dropping the suitcase as she fell into the pillows. The bed sagged a little in the middle, but she was so tired that it didn’t matter for the first four hours. After that, her back started hurting from lying on the worn out mattress.

When no manner of movements made the difference in the comfort of the bed, a big h
it from the gin flask helped to settle her down. Of course she knew about mixing over the counter pain pills with alcohol, but her need was greater than the fear. Memories of the morning and that poor girl’s face were on instant recall, the hollow eyes and the large knife in her back. Maude was quite certain that the knife was the one used in the East Avenue killings. The effect of stabbing Mary Ellen with the same weapon must been planned for in advance.

The bed
creaked loudly when she rolled over during the night awakened from a restless toss and turn sleep. The motel window flashed a neon vacancy sign through the drapes, the darkness beyond mysterious and somehow dreadful in its silence.

Lighting
a cigarette, she sat at the small desk provided by the motel, staring outside searching for answers to the questions she had been avoiding. The fixation of a serial killer upon a particular police investigator was well-documented, but in those cases, behaviorists usually pinpointed a connection between the two individuals. She had been through it all before, the letters he wrote her in Chicago voicing his desire for her approval and participation in the cruel game he played. It was no more confusing now than it had been back then.