The Big Blast Read online

  “Don’t tease me,” I said. “It’s cruel.”

  We pulled up in front of the USO, but before I got out to help her in, she said, “I’ll see what I can find out. You just remember what I said. Stay safe and come home to me tonight so we can enjoy our favorite part of the day in our bed together.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Otis and I were back out looking for The Creeper.

  Otis was looking as nondescript as ever—something I couldn’t help but believe would work to our advantage.

  It was a dark night—and cold, with gusts of wind that made you feel like you weren’t in Florida.

  Like the night before, we started at Nick’s.

  To my surprise, Orson was there. We found him outside about to go in.

  I rushed over to him and grabbed him by the arm.

  He spun around like he was going to hit me, then squinted and shook his head, recognition slowly registering on his huge face.

  “Jimmy?” he said, looking confused.

  “What’re you doing here?” I said.

  I pulled him a ways down the sidewalk, away from Nick’s and the people going in and out. Well, actually, I pulled on his arm a little, and he began to follow me.

  He shook his head again, as if trying to come out from under anesthesia.

  Otis stood in front of us, facing the street, trying to block as much of us as he could.

  “Huh? Whatta . . . you . . . Looking for Joan,” he said. “And I wanted to apologize to the girl from last night. Patty.”

  “Apologize for what?” I asked.

  “Whatever I did. You remember. I blacked out, but you said I—”

  “She’s dead, Orson,” I said. “She was murdered last night. The cops think you did it.”

  “Did I?” he said.

  “You don’t remember?”

  He shook his huge head.

  There was something in his eyes, something I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t tell if it was the presence of something new or the absence of something that had been there before, but there was a definite difference.

  “Your grandmother said you were home with her all night,” I said.

  “Was I?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “If she says I was, I was.”

  “You don’t need to be here,” I said. “Come on.”

  I turned to Otis. “I’m gonna take him to the car. You take a quick look around and see if he’s here, then meet us back at the car.”

  “Roger that,” he said.

  “What do you remember from last night?” I asked.

  Orson and I were in the car waiting for Otis. Motor idling, heat on.

  Orson was in the backseat—well, actually, Orson was taking up the entire backseat—and I was looking at him in the rearview mirror while also keeping an eye on the passersby and the entrance to Nick’s.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I have bits and pieces swirling around my head. Can’t say for sure what night they’re from.”

  “Do you remember going off with a woman? Making love? Getting upset? Hitting her? Hurting anybody in any way?”

  He shook his head.

  Otis walked out of Nick’s as a couple of cops were walking in.

  “That worked out well,” I said.

  “Huh?” Orson said. “What’s that?”

  Otis opened the passenger side door and got in shaking his head. “Not in there tonight.”

  “But did you see who is?” I said.

  “Cops?”

  I nodded, put the car in gear, and pulled away from the curb.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “Dixie Sherman,” he said. “He goes to the bar in there a lot. But keep your eyes peeled. I’ve seen him just walking around downtown several times.”

  I drove over to the Dixie, searching the crowds along the sidewalks as I did.

  Orson and I stayed in the car while Otis ran in to check. We repeated this same procedure at the Tennessee House, the Marie, the Ritz Theater, and a few dozen other places—all of which yielded the same results.

  Now we were riding around downtown, just looking, not sure what else to do.

  Orson was quiet in the backseat, and though he was looking out the window, he didn’t seem to be looking for The Creeper so much as staring into the distance at something unseen to all but him.

  I had slowed several times to ask Otis if a guy I saw matching The Creeper’s description was him, but so far none had been.

  It was getting late. Soon we would have to call it a night. I needed to pick up Lauren from the USO, take her home, get her to bed.

  “Well, fellas,” I said, “looks like that’s all we can do for—”

  “There he is!” Otis exclaimed.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I looked in the direction he was pointing, Orson stirring in the backseat for the first time since he got into the car.

  There on the corner was a slight man in an army uniform getting into a Diamond Cab.

  “You sure?” I said.

  Orson started to open his door, though we were in traffic and moving.

  “Stay put,” I said. “We’re gonna follow him. If he has her, we need to know where.”

  He let go of the door handle.

  “I need you to not do anything until I tell you, okay big fella?”

  He nodded.

  “I mean it. It’s important. Could mean the difference in getting Joan back or not. Okay?”

  He nodded again, but didn’t say anything.

  The taxi pulled away from the curb and we followed.

  North on Harrison out of downtown. West on 6th. Past Grace. North on Jenks.

  When the cab finally stopped and The Creeper got out, it was at a small clapboard house on Jenks less than two blocks and one street over from where Lauren and I lived.

  Orson grabbed for his door handle again.

  “Orca, no. Wait.”

  He looked confused, but then stopped, considered me, and leaned back.

  The Creeper, peering over his shoulder periodically, walked from the cab, through the gate, into the chain link fenced-in yard, and into the dark house.

  The cab pulled away.

  I sat there wishing Clip was here with me, but he wasn’t. He was following Rita Thomas and I had no way of contacting him.

  “I’m going to wait here,” I said to Otis. “Keep an eye on things. Will you and Orson take the car back to my office? If Clip is there, send him back. If not, ask Miki to call David Howell or Henry Folsom and send them.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You did good,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

  “Happy to help, sir.”

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Orson said from the backseat. “Not leaving without Ernie’s girl.”

  “I really need you to go with Otis and get backup.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m all the backup you need, brother,” he said.

  “Orca, please. I need you to—”

  “Save your breath, pal. I ain’t budging.”

  I shook my head. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll wait here. Otis, send Clip back fast. If you can’t find him, then Howell or Folsom.”

  “Will do,” Otis said.

  I thanked him again and climbed out of the car quietly.

  Otis slid over in the seat and I gently and quietly closed the door.

  Behind me, Orson noisily disembarked and slammed the door.

  I looked back at the house. The one light that had been on went out. Was that because of the door slam?

  “Go,” I said, and Otis pulled away.

  As I looked for any other signs that The Creeper had been alerted to our presence, I whispered to Orson, “We have to keep it down. Be as quiet as possible. Don’t want him to know we’re here.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  On the left side of the house was an empty, overgrown lot. The properties were separated by a hedge—one sparse enough for us to see through fairly
well.

  “Let’s go over there so we can see the front and back doors at the same time,” I said.

  Without waiting he began to lope in that direction.

  “Wait,” I said, but he didn’t.

  He moved through the undergrowth like it wasn’t there.

  I followed.

  About halfway in, an unseen car over on 11th or Grace backfired and Orson lost it.

  Yelling, screaming, crouching in a defensive position, Orson appeared to be back on the battlefield—which in his mind I was sure he was.

  “Orca,” I said. “It’s—”

  He turned, knocked me down, and ran off.

  By the time I was on my feet again, Orson was ripping off The Creeper’s front gate, slinging it into the street and advancing on the house.

  Assuming The Creeper, who was a fairly small man, would go with flight instead of fight when he saw the size of Orca, I ran toward the back.

  I could hear Orson breaking down the front door, cracking and splintering boards, and the bang of the door hitting the floor.

  I expected to hear yells or shots being fired but there was nothing—only the howling of the wind and the desultory sounds of traffic in the distance.

  Across the way and around the back, lights from other houses began to blink on, people inside them beginning to stir.

  More sounds from the house—but only those being made by my mad friend. It sounded like he was running from room to room busting up furniture and breaking up the place.

  By the time I reached the back door, Orson was kicking it down.

  “She ain’t here, Serg,” he said. “No one is. Clear the next?”

  “No,” I said. “Stand down. Await your next orders.”

  He seemed to relax a little.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Guard the back door,” I said, “and keep an eye out for The Creeper.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  He then saluted and stood at attention beside the now permanently open door.

  I searched the house, fast at first, then slowly and methodically. Orson was right. No one was here. But someone had been. And not just The Creeper. There was blood in the bathroom and women’s soiled and bloodied clothes in the back bedroom, which wasn’t a bedroom at all, but a dungeon-like cell that had been someone’s special kind of hell.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “Where’d the hell he’d go?” Folsom asked.

  I shrugged.

  “You saw him come in here? You’re sure?”

  I nodded.

  “Then less than ten minutes later, y’all come in and he was gone.”

  “More like five.”

  “Okay boys,” he said to a group of uniformed officers, “search the yard, under the house, the neighborhood. See if you can find him.” He turns to Otis. “Give ’em the description again.”

  Otis stepped up and described The Creeper.

  “Thanks. Now Otis, you go out to the car with Lieutenant Ponds and wait there for us with Orson, okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” Otis said, and almost saluted, then turned and marched out just behind the uniform cops.

  That left me, Folsom, Howell, two other cops I didn’t recognize, and the coroner, who was still unclear why he was here since there was no body.

  “Let’s have a better look around,” Folsom said. “And remember, there’s still a chance he could be hiding in here somewhere so be careful.”

  We had already searched the small house a few times, but he was right. We could’ve missed something.

  We paired up and began a more thorough search of the little house. I was with Howell.

  We started with what was obviously The Creeper’s closet. It was in a small bedroom with only a bed and a single chest of drawers.

  “Found some mail,” Folsom yelled from the other room. “Our boy’s name is Demetri Christopoulos.”

  “Let’s see what’s in your closet, Demetri,” I said.

  We shoved the clothes around some and took another look at the closet itself before more closely examining the clothes.

  “Not much,” Howell said.

  The closet was small. There was nothing in it but a single rod and some clothes hanging from it. A pair of pants, two white shirts, and three uniforms—all from different branches of the military.

  “Not a GI,” Howell said. “Just pretending to be one.”

  “To get in the USO and blend in other places,” I said.

  While Howell went through the pockets, I stepped over to the chest of drawers and searched through it—a search that yielded exactly nothing. Of the five drawers, three were empty. One had socks and underwear, the other ties, handkerchiefs, and tiepins.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Same here.”

  Though we had searched beneath the bed before, we did it again—this time taking it apart and completely moving it.

  Nothing.

  We walked into the other room where Folsom and the coroner were.

  “I can’t say for sure that it’s human blood,” the coroner was saying, “but I have no reason to doubt that it is.”

  The blood was concentrated around a wooden chair in the center of the room and a mattress in the back corner, but it was everywhere.

  Several women’s garments were strewn about, all soiled and blood-soaked.

  Both the chair and the mattress had leather restraints, and a small tray on a stand between them held blood-covered surgical instruments.

  “No way to tell how much blood is actually in here,” the coroner said. “So much has soaked into the floorboards and materials, and I have no way of knowing how many different people have actually bled in here. So I can’t say with any certainty if anyone died in here due to blood loss or anything else.”

  Folsom nodded.

  Howell seemed transfixed on the blood-splattered objects.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “The things we saw over there,” he said. “In the war. All the . . . and you come home and there are worse things here.”

  One of the other cops started yelling for Folsom from the kitchen.

  He turned and headed in that direction. We all followed.

  The kitchen was small and in disarray.

  “Look,” the taller of the two older men said. “Figure this is how he escaped.”

  They had removed an old wooden pie safe from the wall to reveal a passageway that led down under the house and into a small tunnel.

  “Take a flashlight and see where it goes,” Folsom said to the smaller man. “Keep your gun out. We want him alive but don’t get yourself hurt over it.”

  The smaller man nodded, took off his coat, withdrew his weapon, and was handed a flashlight by his partner. Then without a word he entered the passageway.

  “You stay here,” Folsom said to his partner. “Keep talking to him, checking on him. We’re gonna go out outside in the direction the tunnel is headed. Be waiting for him out there.”

  The taller cop nodded, crouched beside the opening, shone another flashlight inside, and started talking to his partner.

  Folsom went out the back door and we followed.

  The night seemed darker and colder than before, the wind more biting.

  “Damn,” Howell said.

  “This is the kind of cold that wipes out orange groves,” the coroner said.

  We walked in the general direction the tunnel seemed to be heading and found the other end before the cop inside made it to it.

  A dirt and leaf-covered board had been left beside the hole—both of which were inside a small clump of trees and underbrush.

  The cop’s flashlight beam could be seen dancing down in the hole.

  “Demetri Christopoulos is a smart boy,” Folsom said.

  “And was prepared for this day,” I said.

  “Which means he probably has money and supplies somewhere,” Howell said. “Maybe another house, even.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “You think she’
s dead, don’t you?” Lauren said.

  “I think it’s likely,” I said.

  Patrol cops were searching the city for Demetri Christopoulos.

  Orson was being questioned by Folsom and Howell at the station.

  Ernie was on his way home.

  Joan was still missing.

  Clip and Miki were keeping an eye on Gary and Rita Thomas—or were earlier. They were probably back home now in a warm bed of their own.

  Lauren and I were in our warm bed on this cold night, wrapped up in each other again, enjoying our favorite time of day.

  As it often did at the end of the day, a quote from Emerson came to mind.

  Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

  “Huh?” I said.

  Lauren had said something I missed.

  “You’re thinking of the Emerson quote again, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Say it for me.”

  I did.

  “What I said was,” she said, “why do you think she’s dead?”

  “He’s a vicious, demented killer,” I said. “And she was obviously in his crosshairs.”

  “But—”

  “Wasn’t finished.”

  “Sorry.”

  “She went missing and he stopped coming around when she did—like he knew she wouldn’t be there, like he knew where she was.”

  “God, I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Not as much as me,” I said. “It’s going to destroy Ernie.”

  “So very much suffering in the world,” she said.

  “It doesn’t make you question the existence of God?”

  “If anything could . . .”

  Lauren had undergone a spiritual transformation when we were together the first time. It wasn’t something I fully understood, but it wasn’t something I doubted either. I had witnessed it, had watched the fruit of it blossom not only in her life but in our relationship.

  “Love is stronger than suffering,” she said. “Even stronger than death. God is love. I believe in love.”

  “I believe in you,” I said. “In us.”

  “What are we if not expressions of that love?”