Fatal Encounter, Chapter 8
by Irv Pliskin
R-Rated
To prepare for the contingency that he might become a hunted man, Carl made a road trip to a half a dozen nearby cities where he withdrew large sums of money from his various bank accounts. He had evolved a control system and had committed to memory the numbers and the names on every account.
His savings accounts earned only a little interest, but he was able to arrange that the bank statements would be held until he asked for them. With his withdrawals, he assembled a war chest of fifty thousand dollars. That was enough to get him out of the country and to somewhere he could hide, if he decided to do so. He could access the money he had in offshore and Swiss banks easily, once out of he United State, but he thought his $50,000 nest egg was enough for most contingencies.
It took Carl a year to build his escape hole. During that year he met three different women in English speaking cities around the world.
In each case, he brought them to the United States, entertained them, in a variety of places, and then took them to the Pocono cabin.
Each of them left finally, completely naked in the trunk of the car and was confined to the cold flowing waters of the Delaware River.
Although Hallen was chafing at the bit, he couldn’t really speed up any of the processes. He wanted desperately to move fast, but he knew that too much speed would lead to carelessness and mistakes. He didn’t want to risk anything in his search for this killer. He chafed, but didn’t push the people he worked with very hard. He kept reviewing the diaries, and one morning, stood up and cussed himself loudly.
"How the hell did I miss that?" he asked. "How in the world? My God, it is like editing something you’ve written. You go over it time and time again, and check and double check and you still don’t see the error. This is the same sort of thing."
He had read the passage half a dozen times, but it had not registered: “Carl and I went to Barclays, this morning. He said he needed some walking around money. Cute phrase. I thought he would cash a bank cheque , but instead he offered a withdrawal slip. I watched him fill it out before I realized the man must have an account there. Interesting, So? I watched him fill out the withdrawal slip. He first put the pen in his mouth to wet the nib, on a ballpoint yet, and then he wrote with it quickly on the top of his hand, making a small mark to check it out. Later I saw him do that whenever he wrote something. Strange quirk, but it makes him ever so much more charming.”
Hallen was angry with himself. Not that the information contributed much, but how
had he managed to miss it?.
"What the hell kind of an investigator am I?" he muttered.
"You better watch it Jerry, before you do something really stupid. Boy, that was dumb."
As soon as the Police Artist had finished the drawing of the man in the seat in front of
him on the plane, Hallen had copies made and faxed one to Murchinson in London.
Murchinson called him the next day and told him that they had taken the picture to Mrs. Morgan of Extraordinary Antiques, Ltd and that although she had met Eliana’s male friend she was not sure if this was the man.
"She said it looked somewhat like him," Murchinson reported, "but she said, that
Eliana’s Carl had been clean shaven, and this man with mutton chops whiskers and a cavalry officer’s mustache looked similar, but she couldn’t be sure."
"Don't think I can blame her very much old chap," Murchinson added, "She says it was over a year ago and she’s finding it hard to remember."
Hallen went back to the sketch artist, and together they did another composite, the same man, without facial hair. This was sent to Murchinson, and he called back and said that Mrs. Morgan was 75 percent certain that that was the man with whom Eliana had left for America.
“She told my investigator that it had been quite a long time since she had seen the man, and then it was only for a few hours in a dark pub where they had gone for a ‘bite to eat’ After work, you know.” I do want to help,” she had said, “but I don’t want to mislead you.”
Hallen decided he would circulate both pictures in his quest for the killer. Beards and mustaches could be shaved off in minutes, so he built a portfolio of both images. He put both images in his ‘murder book’, which, by this time, had become quite full of notes, comments and observations.
He had queried the airlines about the tickets held by the man and women in the seats in front of him. The tickets had been bought in London, for cash, in the name of William Boacuda. A search of the residences in North Eastern Pennsylvania showed no one with that name. Looking at it, Hallen decided the perp had a sense of humor: and put together his name from the snake, a Boa constrictor and the flesh eating fish, the Barracuda. Very cute. Although it was logical that he look first in North Eastern Pennsylvania for a person with that name, he expanded the search to all of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The Pocono Mountains were in the heart of North Eastern Pennsylvania, and the Delaware River marked its border, but the killer could have operated elsewhere and brought the body to the river for disposal just to confuse authorities. Not likely, but it was possible.
The cops checked with all of the rental car agencies in the Philadelphia airport and with the parking lots that served the facility. Hallen looked for long term parkers: people who had left their cars there for a long while. He figured that in Eliana’s case some time had evolved, and in this one it was quite possible that ‘William’ had been out of the country for at least a month.
He laboriously checked the car rental records. There was no one by that name in their records either.
With the artist's drawing in their hands, his investigators canvassed the auto rental agencies, making sure that they saw the people who were on duty the day he and Clarissa and William had arrived from London.
On the second day of that check they got lucky. The girl at Hertz, who had been off the day before, recognized the drawing photocopy.
“I was impressed with the whiskers,” the girl said. “That was a very formidable mustache. It reminded me of a romantic war movie.”
She went through her transactions for the day, and found one, which she showed to the investigator who reported all this to Hallen.
The car was rented in the name of William Conkorier, and paid for with a credit card. The man had rented a blue Lincoln Town Car for a week, and had told the agent he would drop it off in upstate Pennsylvania.
“Would that be okay?” he had asked.
She told him yes, but that there would be a drop off charge. He had merely shrugged his shoulders and said, “What else is new?”
The car had been dropped off at the Hotel Casey in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the customer had insisted on paying cash for the rental. He had explained that by telling the clerk that he was going to be out of the country for several months and he did not want to have the credit card company upset because he didn’t pay the bill.
The autopsy report brought a smile to Hallen’s lips, and then when he had finished reading it he laughed out loud. The prosecutor, who had done the evaluation had dictated:
The subject is a young Caucasian female in her mid twenties. She was extracted from the Delaware River after having been immersed for not more than six or seven days, according to skin condition and physical evaluation of her body.
Investigation of the lungs and bronchial area determined that the subject had been dead when she was confined to the water. This is confirmed inasmuch as there was no trace of water in the subject’s lungs.
We found no readily available indication of the cause of death, but after thorough and extensive studies of body tissue and internal organs it was determined, finally, that the subject female had been killed with a fast action poison, a derivative, we believe, of Curare and liquid Cyanide. The effect of the administered dosage would be instant and would shut down of all body functions causing an almost instantaneous death. Extensive scrutiny of the body, with a high intensity microscope finally showed a puncture hole in the gluteus maximus, which could have been caused by a needle syringe. The investigating team (denier Mr. Andrew Charles and prosecutor, Doctor Boris Abraham) assumed, therefore,e that that was how the poison had been administered.
Examination further revealed intense sexual activity; the marks of continued penetration were on the labia with resultant stretching and swelling, and still quite prominent and pronounced. We considered this extraordinary in view oft he time lapse. There were traces of male semen, and it was still viable for DNA study.
The subject suffered from STD: she had had a full blown virulent case of gonorrhea.
“Well, what do you know. Clarissa had the clap,” Hallen grinned. Then he laughed out loud and pounded his fist on the desk in glee.
That would serve the bastard right. It’s too bad it isn’t Syphilis he thought. ‘But syphilis would take too long to incubate, and it might never make a difference to the man. Some syphilitics don’t know they have the disease for years.’
Hallen remembered that it was rumored that Winston Churchill had the disease, and it never did affect him adversely.. But with luck, the son of bitch, Carl, was already having trouble with a nasty penis drip, and it could hurt like hell when he urinated. It would serve him proper, he thought, if he couldn’t pee at all. ‘It is in a small way poetic justice, it certainly is.’
Hallen put his ‘lets-see-if-we-can’t-catch- this guy plan” into full swing.
He pulled out all the stops and did everything he could think of to find and apprehend the alleged culprit.
Carl had been out in the area, going from place to place with his lap top and plugging in to the networks where he could not be easily traced. He used a Cyber Cafe in Binghamton, NY, right near the university. He stopped in to the Traveler’s Motel in Moscow, Pa. and sent a message from there, too. He spent a night at the Casey Hotel in Scranton, but he found a working Computer station he could use in the library of Marymount College, and sent a message to a woman he was courting in London from there.
He spent several days on the road, convincing the woman, whom he had met in a chat room, that he was a fine fellow and that she intrigued him. She was an ideal subject for his current search. She was twenty-four, lived alone, said she had no family that cared for her and would love to travel and have an adventure.
Just perfect for his web, he thought. He was about to tell her that he was planning a trip to England on business, and if he were to be able to get there, could the meet somewhere and have a cuppa tea?
He had sent the question to her, and waited, breathlessly. The answer came back almost immediately.
"When are you planning to be here?”
He picked a date a week away. That should give him time to book a seat, get a false passport, pack and get ready,
Mary, she was a plain old Mary, not a very fancy name, this time, was effusive. Oh yes, she would be happy to see him, just let her know when he planned to travel; she could even meet him at Heathrow, if he wished. He told her he would let her know.
Carl was anxious to get over there. Although his relationship with Clarissa had been active and frenzied, he had really not found it too satisfying, and was feeling a growing need to find and ravish a woman.
Accordingly, he hurried back to his Pocono cabin to get ready and make the arrangements to go to London.
He got home at dinnertime, and just to kill the time as he scrambled some eggs and nuked a half a pound of bacon to go with it, he turned on the kitchen TV. He flipped it to WBRE, the NBC affiliate station in Wilkes Barre, Pa. He could, of course watch NBC, in New York, but he liked the local news, and he felt that although BRE was a little short of the slick professionalism of the Big Apple, it was more than adequate.
He happened to look up as the talking head said: "The Pennsylvania State Police are asking area citizens to be on the alert for this man."
He stared at the screen. It was his picture. An almost perfect likeness of the way he looked at the moment with his well developed mustache and his lamb chop whiskers.
"This police artist’s rendering," the announcer said, "is of a man suspected of several murders of young women in the Pocono area. If you have seen him or can identify him, please contact Detective Hallen of the state police."
There was a phone number and a crawl across the bottom of the screen giving the same information.
“Holy shit," Carl exclaimed to the empty room, as he stared at the image still on the screen. "Where the hell did they get that?"
The announcer continued. "We have another drawing of the man without the facial hair,” he said. "This may make the man easier to identify. If you know him or have seen him, please call the state police. Do not, do not approach this man yourself, the police believe that he may be armed and that he may be extremely dangerous."
The screen faded to a commercial for Capture, the effective rug-cleaning agent.
Carl stood dumbfounded, staring at the screen, and only came back to the here and now, when the butter in the pan began to burn.
He stared at the screen some more. No time to think about this, he knew. This was a small community, really, and it was likely that someone had seen him, knew him and could tell the cops where he might be.
He kept his comings and goings to himself, of course, but he had had one or another of the local merchants and shopkeepers question him when he walked in the stores for milk or cream.
- “Been away have ye? Well you missed some bad or terrible weather or great or extraordinary weather.”
- “Stayin’ long this visit?”
He was always polite, but non-committal. He was sure that his evasiveness might be a cause for speculation, and that folks might wonder about him.
“Jesus Christ, I don’t have any time to screw around. I gotta move it. Do I have time to eat, I wonder.”
Yes." He decided not to panic. Even if someone called the cops instantly, it would take time to marshal forces and get to the cabin.
He figured he had, what, a few minutes to eat something. He was hungry and this could be the last hot meal of fresh eggs he would have in a while.
He turned the pan back on, until the brown butter sizzled, and he dropped three eggs into the pan and scrambled them with a wooden spoon. He pulled the almost cooked bacon out of the microwave, separated it and dropped it on the pan, where it sizzled and sputtered.
When his eggs were finished, he ate his meal from the pan, and finishing, put the shells into the garbage disposal, and everything else into the dishwasher and turned it on.
If they showed up while the dishwasher was still warm, they would spend a long time scouring the neighborhood looking for him. He was sure they wouldn’t find him on the property: they probably wouldn’t spend much time looking on the property. They’d check the out buildings, the garage and the storage area. But who would think that he could be a couple of hundred yards away, deep in the ground in an impossible to find bunker?
So, they would spend a lot of energy with roadblocks, posters, and cops scurrying about. He felt, though, he had no time to waste. He went to his safe, took out the money there, about $l0,000 dollars in twenties and jammed it into his over the shoulder bag that contained a few extra necessitiest. He went to his gun cabinet and took out the Purdy shot gun, the Desert Eagle 9 shot pistol and the Uzi, which were the weapons he kept in the cabin should he need them to protect himself from prowlers or some kind of home invasion. They were all loaded, and there was plenty of ammunition for them, plus other weapons, in the tunnel.
It was growing dark, but he decided he wouldn’t use a light, he knew the way. He also decided to take the long way around; over the rocks so he wouldn’t leave footprints someone could follow. He didn’t think they would come by with dogs until the morning, if they did at all.
And, by that time the automatic sprinklers would have gone off, and the water would certainly dilute any scent he might have left. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t scour the place at night, certainly, so he had a little bit of leeway.
By the time he got to the camouflaged cover of the tunnel it was night, and it was dark. He opened the tunnel, and it was dark inside too. He flashed his light down, climbed over the edge onto the ladder fixed into the wall and started down. He was pretty much laden with over the shoulder bag and weapons and was having trouble hanging on to the ladder and his equipment. He pulled the cover into place and was in total darkness. He managed to turn the locking device on the cover, in the dark, but he was becoming disoriented. He had never imagined how totally dark it could be, and he suddenly was feeling more than a little faint, and dizzy. Somehow he had dropped the flashlight, it had smashed and went out when it hit the floor. As he started down the ladder, he lost his footing and slipped. He couldn’t hold on and fell l0 feet to the raw cement floor.
“Holy Christ” he said, “Jesus H. Christ.”
It was so dark he could not see his hand in front of his face. The flashlight was gone, he didn’t know where. He started to pull himself up to a sitting position, and he felt sharp pain in his back. Excruciating pain. He sucked in his breath and relaxed.
“Was anything broken? Was he bleeding?”
He felt around, but he couldn’t tell. He felt no moisture, so he figured he was not bleeding, but as he tried to move, the back pain stopped him.
The flashlight. “Where the fuck is the flashlight?
“Am I going to die in here, in the total blackness? “Oh God. Oh God, Help Me God, Forgive me. Forgive me.”
He fell back on his back and started to sob, real, chocking cries full of genuine despair that echoed slightly off the brick and concrete walls.
