Eleven Days Read online

  Lamar is bighearted and can’t bring himself to fire Theo. Besides, it’s Lamar’s fault we have him in the first place. The rest of us don’t want him on the night shift, so he can’t really transfer him out of investigations. It makes it a little difficult for us, though, because Lamar won’t trust him with an important case. At least, not anymore.

  I got to the office and met with Lamar, Art, Mike, Theo, and Hester Gorse. I was finding her to be extremely efficient and free with her opinions. Which were usually right. She doesn’t have that disturbing feminine trait of deferring to men, or to officers of experience. A definite asset.

  I handed my list to Hester, who looked at it and raised her eyebrows.

  “I’ll explain that a little later.”

  She nodded and put it under her briefcase.

  “Well,” said Lamar, thereby bringing the meeting to order, “let’s get started. Sorry to wake you guys up, but you know how it is.” He paused. “We gotta get the son of a bitch who did this, and we gotta get him quick.”

  Lamar looked at Hester. “You want to start it off?”

  She produced a legal tablet that looked like it was about three-fourths full, and began to summarize the progress of the case to date.

  “Okay, let’s start with the bodies. All four have been taken to Des Moines for autopsy by the state medical examiner. We should have the results within seventy-two hours. They will include, but will not be limited to, the following: (a) type of death (natural, unnatural, violent), (b) pathological diagnoses, (c) probable cause of death, (d) gross description, (e) laboratory procedures (but probably not all of the results), (f) body diagrams, and (g) summary and comments. This is standard autopsy stuff, but it should pin down time of deaths.”

  She also said that the one female remained unidentified at this time, and that a search of fingerprint and dental records was being started up on her.

  “Oh, and Carl? The dog was apparently struck in the back with a blunt instrument. Possibly the back end of an ax. We found one, at McGuire’s, and think his hand was cut off with it, too. It’s on the way to the lab. The vet who posted the dog said they’d have had to put it to sleep, anyway.” She smiled. “Just thought you’d want to know.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” I looked at Art. He was writing something on a notepad, so I wasn’t able to give him a look.

  She looked back at her notes. “That leads me to believe that his hand was cut off at his farm. We just haven’t found where yet. And since there was not a lot of blood anywhere, it may have come off postmortem.” She flipped the page. “We’ll get back to that later.”

  She then went on to a general description of the crime scenes, paying particular attention to the occult paraphernalia found at both scenes. They had discovered several items I had not been aware of, particularly in the little boxes in the McGuire basement. Little crystal cylinders, purpose unknown. A shoe box full of letters from the state penitentiary at Fort Madison, apparently written by a prisoner, detailing Satanic practices and requesting McGuire to obtain several Satanic books for him. Also containing many homosexual references—some veiled and some obvious.

  “Were you all aware that McGuire had done time for forgery?”

  We all sat dumbly.

  “About nine years ago. Did a year and a half at the reformatory at Anamosa.”

  She leafed through her notes. “This other guy, who only used his nickname of Mystic Fog, or the initials ‘MF,’ is believed to be one John Allen Zurcher, who was in Anamosa at the same time as McGuire. He was transferred to the Fort when he was convicted of molesting a child. He was under investigation by the Johnson County sheriff when he was convicted by Iowa County on two burglary charges, so the sex abuse charge was filed, and he was tried and convicted while in prison for the burglary.”

  Interesting.

  “The correspondence covers a period beginning shortly after McGuire was released, until the present. We are assuming that McGuire answered some of the letters, because Zurcher refers to them in his letters to McGuire. We also found almost all the books that Zurcher requested from McGuire at the Herkaman residence. Not the same copies, necessarily, but the same titles.”

  She flipped some more pages. “Oh, yeah. We also found thirty-seven hits of LSD at the Herkaman residence. They were in a small metallic box, like a little snuffbox, that was in the closet of the master bedroom.”

  She looked at Art. So did I. Did he know about this last night? “Any suggestions as to who might have sold the acid to them?”

  Art thought for a second. “If they were bought local, maybe six or seven people. What were they, microdots?”

  “Yes.”

  “At least six or seven, depends on the level of the connection. Probably didn’t pick ’em up on the street corner—too wealthy to do that. Probably home delivery. I’ll check it.”

  “Okay. Speaking of wealth, it appears that Herkaman’s first husband died about four years ago, an accidental death in Bremer County. He was working at a grain mill and suffocated in a bin full of corn. She got a lot of money from the insurance, went back to school, ended up working at the hospital. One kid, nineteen, is at the community college in Cedar Rapids … what do they call that one?”

  “Kirkwood Community College.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, he’s clean, but we’ve got the CR office doing an interview with him today. And her ‘estranged’ is currently in jail in Bettendorf.”

  So Mr. Herkaman one was dead. And we’d eliminated the “estranged husband” as a suspect. Well, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

  “We have identified the male subject at the Herkaman residence—one William Randall Sirken, DOB 9/12/49. Petty criminal record, at least four convictions. Driver’s license indicates a residence in Coralville, Iowa, and they advise he was employed at University Hospitals in Iowa City, as a maintenance man, and that he was also a part-time student at the university, with a major in psychology. Took about one course each year, not doing particularly well. Wanted to get into counseling, particularly for disturbed women.”

  Just doing research, your honor. For my term paper.

  “We don’t exactly know his connection to Herkaman, but they may have met in Iowa City when she went back to school. We’ll check that out.”

  She looked up. Even after only working with her for a few days, I knew Hester wouldn’t mix her words. “I feel sorry for you bastards. We don’t really have shit at this point.” She smiled. “Except, Carl, the ‘chewing tobacco’ you saw in McGuire’s mouth wasn’t. It was feces.”

  “No shit?” Sometimes I amaze myself.

  She grinned. “Yes, shit.”

  “We don’t know if it was ingested or not. The autopsy will tell us that.” She wasn’t using notes much at all. I liked that.

  “As long as we’re on McGuire, we’ll take him first. Very little blood at the scene, so we think he was killed elsewhere and taken back home. Like I said. He was, we think, from a couple of faint traces on the door you found him at, in a sitting position, or possibly bent into a kneeling position, postmortem. The lividity was mostly on his stomach, indicating that he was in a prone position for some time after death. It also looked to me like the knife was stuck in him postmortem, but we’ll have to wait for the autopsy for that one, too. I’m not qualified to determine the cause of death, as we all know. But I’d bet it was from asphyxiation.” She looked up at us. “If that is the case, and it wasn’t at his house, then there’s a good chance that the telephone call came from the location where he was killed, and not where he was found.”

  She glanced at the ceiling for a second or two, then continued.

  “At the Herkaman residence, let’s take the bodies from the front door on in. The unidentified female appeared to have been strangled. It looks to me like she was surprised while she was undressing, and attempted to flee the residence, toward the front door. Or maybe she was dragged, with a possible motive of removing the corpse from the residence, and the perpetrator was either interrupted
or changed his mind. No signs of a struggle anywhere that would point to her. The red cord around the neck was a ligature, and bit pretty deep into the tissues. She had abrasions on her knees that appeared fresh, and what looked like a possible fresh wear point on the right knee of her blue jeans. There was a little blue jean fabric, about six or seven threads, stuck at the bottom of the door frame of the second bedroom, in that metal strip where the tile met the carpet. Position indicated it might have been placed there by the main fabric as the fabric was moving toward the hall. There was some tissue, I think, under her nails on both hands—lab will ID those—and she had a cut on her lower lip that looked fresh.

  “It looks to me like she may have been the first victim in the Herkaman residence.”

  She paused again, then went on.

  “The male subject, now known to be Sirken, was pretty obviously castrated. I think that is the cause of death, as there was a whole lot of blood on the bed. The whole mattress was soaked. By the way, we’re shipping that to Des Moines, too, Lamar.”

  Lamar winced. A bite out of the budget, as a king-sized bed wouldn’t fit in the trunk of a patrol car. Gonna have to rent a truck.

  “He appears to have been tortured, and the ligatures around his wrists and ankles made some severe abrasions, indicating he struggled. The cords are nylon, and it looked to me like he might have pulled his right arm free at one point, because that cord looks like it was retied. You know how cheap nylon cord retains kinks?”

  She was asking nobody in particular.

  “Anyway, I would prefer duct tape or something like that, so I think that the killer might have used the cord for a particular purpose or reason. The marks in his chest were mostly fresh, but it looks like the first 6 in the 666 was old. No ideas about that one. Also, it looked to me like the last two 6’s were done in a different hand, although that could just be that they were done from a different angle.”

  Hester was nothing if not thorough. She had to be considering the critics in the audience, I guess.

  “We should remember that, just because he is the second body discussed, he may not have been the second to die. We can’t tie that down until the autopsy comes back. Maybe not even then.”

  “Any signs of a struggle with him?” I asked. “I mean, before he was tied up?”

  “Not really. But there are a couple of interesting marks on his throat that could have been made by a sharp object, indicating a knife was used to make him cooperate. Or he could have cut himself shaving. Anyway, he also had a couple of burn marks on his dick, and the pubic hair on the rear of his scrotum was burned off, with reddening of the adjacent tissue.”

  Winces went around the room.

  “You guys a little sensitive to this stuff?”

  “No, that’s okay, Hester. Always wanted to know how you checked out a date.”

  “Thanks … Mike, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll never forget you. Anyway, that’s about all on the Sirken dude. It could have taken him anywhere from twenty minutes on to die, depending when the testicles were removed. Oh! The most fascinating part …”

  A groan went around the room.

  “You guessed it, guys. No nuts at the residence. At least not so’s you’d notice. But there is an interesting bit of debris and bloodstain in the blender in the kitchen.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” That was from Lamar.

  “Nope. Just a possibility for now, but it looks to me like it’s a good one.”

  “Jesus, Hester. You gotta be a little weird just to think of that.”

  “Nonsense. I’m a gourmet. But don’t gross out too much—his tongue was missing, too, and still is. Also, the stuff that Carl thought was superglue around his mouth looks like semen. We’ll check that, too.”

  “Yucch,” from all around.

  “Anyway, let’s get to Herkaman. She’s pretty interesting, and is the most tortured of the three victims in her house.”

  Hester looked at the ceiling again for a minute. I found myself following her gaze, somehow thinking I was going to see crib notes or something.

  “Let’s see … Phyllis Irene Herkaman appears to have had her wrists handcuffed behind her back, Peerless brand. She then had the cord thrust through the space between her shoulder blades and her arms, forcing the arms to the rear, and making sort of a sling. Appears to be the same or similar cord as used on the other two. Her legs and ankles do not appear to have been tied at any point. There are marks about the mouth indicating the presence of fabric at some point, possibly a gag. There was a white dish towel approximately seven feet from her body which may have been used for that purpose. It will be analyzed to see if saliva from Herkaman is present. Anyway, the immediate cause of death appears to have been the shaft inserted into her vagina—the amount of blood is quite significant. The shaft was not removed by the lab team, and will be by the autopsy team. It is of note, though, that there was a rake inside the basement, behind the washer and dryer, with the shaft broken off at about the three-foot mark—a ragged break, leaving a sharp end, so that it is possible to assume that the same condition would exist on the missing end. It is similar to the shaft found in her, and I believe that is where it came from.”

  I noticed that the joking or bantering tone was missing from Hester’s voice altogether now. I guess talking about your own sex’s parts is harder than talking about the other’s. She spared no detail, though.

  “The right breast is still missing. The pin that was thrust through the left nipple is an antique, I think, with a small ruby centered in a five-sided mounting. Significance unknown. There was a pentagram, apparently sterling silver, a circumscribed, pentagram, with the circle being a snake eating its own tail, hanging from a pipe above the body. There was also a stub of a black candle on the water heater about three feet from her.

  “Carl and I apparently missed that. That’s why the lab team makes the bucks. Just how long it took her to die is not certain, but from the amount of blood, her heart was working for a while after the instrument was inserted in the vagina. Autopsy will reveal what organs were affected, and that will give us a better estimate. I also feel that the breast was removed postmortem, as there is very little blood in that area.

  “Found in the master bedroom was a copy of the Necromiton, a copy of the Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey, several books on witchcraft and the general occult, and a large amount of personal correspondence in a dresser drawer which will be read and printed. We haven’t actually looked at any of the documents yet. There was also a small Gerber-type dagger, with a steel skull Welded or soldered to the end of the handle. Ceremonial, I think. Plus several candles of various colors, including black and red, yellow, and, I think, green. A red robe with a hood in the same drawer and a white one in the closet. The one in the drawer was synthetic, rayon and something else. The white one was terry cloth and would be classified as a standard bathrobe, I think. There was also a small box in the upper left dresser drawer containing some nine hundred dollars in cash. None of the drawers appeared disturbed, except the one that held the candles, which appeared in a state of disarray, compared to the other drawers.”

  She paused for breath. “The labbies have got the whole scene on video camcorder, and Carl and I took four hundred 35mm stills.” She looked at me. “We need yours labeled, so I’ll get them back to you as soon as they’re developed.”

  There was a long pause. “I’m done, I guess.”

  “Thanks, Hester,” said Lamar. “Okay, gang, let’s talk suspects.”

  5

  Tuesday, April 23

  11:06 hours

  Suspects. A more difficult proposition. There was a prolonged silence in the room. Finally I raised my hand.

  “I don’t suppose they had a butler?”

  Broke the tension a little. Not much.

  We went through all the obvious avenues to develop a suspect—cars at the crime scene, for example. At McGuire’s place, only his car was present. At the Herkaman res
idence, her car, Sirken’s, and a car belonging to a neighbor that was up on blocks in the garage. He worked on it on weekends.

  Relatives … weren’t known for sure, but we had a partial list. McGuire had a brother in Iowa Falls, worked in a hardware store. He would be checked out by Iowa Falls PD, but nothing there so far. No parents, both dead. No other siblings. Several cousins, all of whom lived in our county, and we’d go for them. But none of them were out of the ordinary, so no obvious suspects there.

  None of us—not even Mike—could think of an enemy McGuire might have had. He was pretty clean, only the bad checks years ago. Not a particularly upstanding individual, and he had been known to drink to excess in the past. Nothing unusual there, either.

  Herkaman was pretty well liked at the hospital, had been working there for three years, no known enemies. No known friends, either, but she was very good with the patients. Tended to keep to herself, but not obsessive about it. Thought to be pretty responsible, always on time for work. No known vices, at least not before her murder. Two sisters, one brother, all from the Omaha area. Straight. Her activities at the university would be checked very thoroughly. Obviously, we hadn’t known about Sirken, and we didn’t know what other connections she had had there.