Garwood Village - Robert F. Clifton (free novels .TXT) 📗

tests, one of which was blood alcohol”.

“And?”

“And, for your information and for what it's worth Edna Fisher had a blood alcohol reading of 08. Florence Alberson had a reading of .12”.

“So what are you telling me?”

“It seems that both women had been drinking the night they were killed”.

“Interesting. We didn't find any booze in either apartment”.

“Is there a bar in the neighborhood?”

“You know Nautilus Beach. There's a bar on every corner”.

“You might want to check them out”, said Edwards.

“I will Doc, thanks. I'll talk to you later”.

“Bye”.

Chapter Three

A crisp breeze came in off of the ocean on the evening of Friday, October 31, 1975. Hundreds of costumed children, some running others walking carried an assortment of containers. Some had the traditional paper shopping bag, others the store bought, decorated kind or plastic jack o' lanterns and then there were those that carried cloth sacks, such as old pillow cases. It was Halloween and the children of the tenements, like those in other neighborhoods went door to door seeking candy and fruit and at the same time showed off their costumes to their elders for the festivity.

At nine o'clock that evening Amanda Kinshoffer looked at the small bowl holding a few candy bars. These were what was left after it appeared that this Halloween was drawing to a close. The candy would not go to waste, she would eat them herself. She pulled back the curtain on the front room window, peeked out and not seeing any children walked to the front door and flipped the wall switch shutting off the porch light. As she turned to go to the kitchen there was a knock on the door. “Who's there?”, she asked.

“Trick or treat?”

“Oh, wait a minute. Halloween is over. You should be home by now!”, said Amanda as she opened the door.

Amanda's eyes opened wide as she felt the knife penetrate her abdomen. Then, they glazed over as the knife point punctured her aorta. She was dead in less than three minutes.

At nine thirty five on the morning of November 1, 1975 Captain Robert Wallace approached the apartment of eleven seventeen, Garwood Village. As he did he saw Detective Myers seated on the top step of the porch. Frank Stiles stood at the porch railing. Wallace took a look at Carol Myers noticing the gray, ashen, complexion of her face. Looking at Stiles he asked, “What's wrong with her?”

“She's sick to her stomach. It's the first time that she's seen a mutilated body”, said Stiles.

“So, the body has been mutilated”.

“Yep, how many feet of small intestine does the human body hold?”, asked Stiles.

“About twenty-three feet. Why?”

“Because who ever killed this woman pulled out about twenty feet of her intestines and tried to line the hallway with them”.

“Alright, let me see what we have”, said Wallace letting Stiles lead the way.

Wallace walked down the short hallway deliberately avoiding the trail of white intestines on the floor. Entering the single bedroom he saw the milk white nude body of a woman laying upon a blood soaked bed. The eyes were closed, the body cavity had been cut open. Walking closer to the bed the Detective Captain stood studying the corpse. “The throat has been cut, but not like the others. In this case the carotid artery is still intact. To me this more or less indicates that the killer knew that the victim was dead before slicing the pharynx. The question is, why is there a change in method? OK. Tell me what you know of the victim”.

Stiles opened a small notebook and read his notes aloud. “The victim is Amanda Kinshoffer, a Caucasian female, age sixty. She has resided at this address since nineteen fifty-eight. She is unemployed, on welfare and as far as we know has no next of kin”.

“Then I guess it is safe to say robbery wasn't the motive. The killer seems to becoming more violent, more ferocious. Could be who ever it is, was agitated last night. Do we have a time of death?”, asked Wallace.

“ The coroner said between ten and eleven P.M.”

“Even the time is different”.

“What do you make of that Cap?”

“Hard to say. It could be a copy cat crime or they are trying to throw us off. From the look of the victim I'd say the son of a bitch is not only crazy, but also angry”, said Wallace as he walked into the bathroom. He looked at the floor in front of the wash basin. It was dry. Walking to the shower stall he pulled back the heavy plastic curtain. He looked at the shower walls, then the floor. “Where's Sergeant Campo?”

“She's on the way Cap”.

“She should be here now”, said Wallace.

“Hey Cap. It's the weekend, her day off. Cut her some slack.”

“Yes, you're right. When she gets here have her take samples from the shower floor”.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, when Myers comes out of the shock she's in, send her home. She's not worth a damn here today”.

“Remember, this is her first case where she saw a mutilated body”, said Stiles.

“I am remembering it. I'm also going to send her to autopsy after autopsy until the sight of a dead body, no matter how putrefied or mutilated no longer bothers her. She's too good of an investigator to lose because of a weak stomach”.

Wallace walked back into the living room. “Who did you talk to this morning?”, he asked.

“The woman next door. Her name is Mildred Benson. She has lived next door to Miss Kinshoffer since nineteen sixty five.”.

“Does the Kinshoffer woman have any history of drinking, or bringing men home to spend the night?”

“No. It seems the victim only left the apartment either to shop or go to church”.

“Strange. Very strange. The other two victims had a history of drinking on the weekends. They also liked male companionship, Now, we have a victim who was completely different from the others, introverted and religious”.

As he did every year, Robert Wallace joined Doctor Manfred Edwards for Thanksgiving dinner at the Nautilus Beach Country Club. As they waited to be served Edwards took a sip of his scotch and soda and looked at his friend seated across from him at the table. “I see that you are deep in thought. It must be the three murders that is on your mind”, said Edwards.

“Yeah, and the problem is I'm no further along in an attempt to solve them”, Wallace replied.

“And that frustrates you?”

“You're damn right it does”.

“Let me remind you that this isn't your first homicide investigation. You've been down this road many times. Then all of a sudden a light goes off in your head and you solve the case. This is the same as the last case and the one before that and on and on”.

“No, in the other cases I at least had ideas, opinions, a place to start from. With these cases, I've got nothing”.

Edwards took another sip of his drink. Placing the glass on the table he leaned back in his chair looked at Wallace and said. “I might be able to help you. A very, very, good friend of mine is the leading Forensic Psychologist in Australia. If you can put everything you have on these homicides on an audio cassette I might be able to get her to listen to it and at least give you a profile of the killer or killers”.

“Her? Your very, very, good friend is a woman?”

“Yep, and a damn pretty one at that”.

“Why you old, sly, son of a bitch. You've been holding back on me all of these years”, said Wallace.

“Holding back nothing. It was none of your business”.

“Alright, you old bastard open up. Tell me about this very, very, good friend”.

“Well, there's nothing really to tell. When World War Two started I joined the Navy. I went to Pensacola, Florida for flight training. I was going to be a hot shot Navy carrier pilot. Instead I ended up as an ensign assigned to a P.B.Y. Squadron. PB represented Patrol Bomber and the Y meaning the manufacturer. Eventually, I ended up in Perth, Australia flying Catalina's out of a place called Crawley. Most of the time we flew cargo to either other parts of Australia like up north or escorted convoys coming into port. Actually it was good duty. So, good that liberty meant days off at the beach, or at the officers club. Mostly it meant meeting the Australian women. At the same time I began to think of what I wanted to do after the war. It was then that I decided I wanted to be a doctor.”

“One day, off duty and living at the University of Western Australia which had been turned into the Bachelor Officers Quarters I wanted to see the library there and read some medical text books, just to see for myself how hard a medical curriculum would be. It was in the library that I met Sharon Marshall. She was enrolled at the university studying psychology, but during the war had joined the Australian Navy as a Liaison Officer between the Australian and U.S. Navy. We sort of hit it off. The next thing we knew we were together whenever we were free, her from work, me from duty. Finally, January came and she was free for two weeks. I got leave and we went to Rockingham. Her aunt had a home there but was away serving in the RANNS. That was the Royal Australian Navy Nursing Service. So, Sharon had the key and we had the house for two weeks in January, nineteen forty-three. We had the house, the beach and walks along Mangles Bay. Rationing was in effect, but I was able to purchase, steaks, coffee, butter flour and sugar from the PX(post exchange) on the base. That meant that for those two weeks we ate better at home than if we had gone out to restaurants. We did go out dining and to a couple of clubs at night so we could dance. Those were the days of dance bands. There was Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw. Rock and roll was years away. In those days when you danced you took the girl in your arms and held her. Even though the war was on we had the big band sound on records.”

“Two weeks went by like two minutes. By that time I was in love. Hell, I even proposed. Guess what? She turned me down. She loved being an Australian more than me. Let me explain. She was smart enough to know that me being a Yank I would never give up living in the United States and settle in Australia. She felt the same way about leaving Australia for America. So, when the war ended we parted. I came home used the G.I. Bill to go to college, enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania and eventually became a doctor, specializing in pathology. Sharon continued her education at the University of Western Australia and got her doctorate and specializes in forensic psychology.”

“For the past thirty years we have corresponded back and forth with me always promising that one day I would return to Australia and when I did we would meet again. Well, guess what? The Australasian Division International Academy Of Pathology will meet between January nineteenth and the twenty-third in Perth, And, you can bet your ass I'm going to be there.”

“At the same time I will be with Sharon and after I make up for thirty years of lost time with her I'll ask her to listen to your tape”.

“ I appreciate that Doc”, said Wallace.

“While I'm at it I've told you some of my past. Now I'll tell you my plans for the future. If she'll have me I plan to propose again. This time I will settle and live in Australia. I've got twenty five years in the job here. That means I can take my pension tomorrow. So, I can retire and live there collecting my pension. Or, I can take the exams and