[This appeared in Detective Mystery Stories #48. It felt
good to be published several times by them. I felt like I had a home for my
detective stories. And then something happened, as it always does. I’ll talk
about that next time, though. This story was inspired by my late-night walks,
which I used to go on almost every day. Two miles a night. Elmhurst does,
indeed, have a Free Garbage Day, so when I took my walks around that time, it
was common to see trash pickers going through piles and piles of garbage. As my
brain tends to go to dark places, I wondered if one of those pickers was
actually disposing of a body. Also, take note of Detective Laurich. He showed
up in “Yum,” which was in TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE. He also appeared in a
lot of unpublished stories and novellas. He was my stab at writing a series
detective. He also appeared in my novella, “The Meat House,” which was extreme
horror but was never published, as I wrote it in my first year of high school.
I kind of like the idea of that one, so maybe I’ll dust it off and turn it into
something I would enjoy reading. For now, Cameron Laurich is lost in the mists
of time.]
I hate being old.
At first, it was only bothersome. My hair color faded, and
then my hair itself faded. I remember thinking to myself when I was in my late
forties: At least I still have my teeth.
Not half a decade later, I started losing those, as well.
Now I’ve only got a few molars that I can call my own, and the rest are
falsies. I’ve been meaning to have the molars pulled and getting a full set of
dentures, but I’m kind of attached to the last of my real teeth.
Then, what was merely bothersome became debilitating. I
found my strength slowly leaving hand in hand with my energy, and I was
ballooning out, no matter how much I watched what I ate.
One of the worst things about getting old, however, is fear.
Not that I’m going to die, but that I’ll live with something horrible, like
cancer. Every time my doctor checks my prostate, I get a chill, wondering what
might be lurking inside of me. When I was young, I hated going to the doctor,
Now, in my old age, my hatred has developed into fear and loathing.
No matter how bothersome, debilitating, fearsome, and
disgusting old age is, the absolute worst part is seeing all your friends and
family die. Everyone I used to know, everyone I used to work with, everyone I
used to drink with, they’re all gone. My wife died three years ago. Our only
son died way back in Vietnam,
and our only daughter was run down by a drunk in broad daylight just outside
the town library where she worked. I have no surviving relatives, blood or law.
There’s just me.
I started collecting hobbies to take up my time—mostly
stamp/coin collecting and tying fishing flies—but the only thing I truly enjoy
is walking. Not at day, but at night, while everything is peaceful. It’s the
single most relaxing thing I do.
It’s also why I nearly got killed.
I went out for my nightly walk at about one o’clock on May
15, the night before Free Garbage Day. In Redford,
the town where I live, you have to pay to throw your garbage away. The city
allows you toss one bag for free; if you have any more bags for the dump, you
have to buy stickers at the hardware store—two dollars a sticker—which you then
have to put on each bag.
However, once a year in the spring, the city has a Free
Garbage Day; you can throw as much as you want out for free. Since it was
around spring cleaning time, everyone jumped at the opportunity to get rid of
their junk.
So, when I went out for my walk, I passed unbelievably high
heaps of trash. People threw away just about everything: old bikes, broken
playsets, and doors. Someone had even torn down his fence and thrown it away.
I was about halfway through my walk when I noticed a station
wagon idling down the block by a stack of garbage. The man was obscured by the
shadows—all I could tell about him was that he was a man—rummaging through the
heap. It’s not an uncommon sight. I thought he was scavenging, and I could
hardly blame him. After all, sometimes people threw good stuff away. One man’s
trash . . .
Picking through garbage on the night before Free Garbage Day
would actually be pretty practical, and I thought that if I happened to walk
past something I fancied, I would probably scavenge it myself.
I paid the man no mind as I got closer. Just before I
reached him, he got in his station wagon, empty-handed, and drove off.
About fifteen minutes later, on the way home, I saw him
picking through trash again, and just like last time, before I reached him, he
got into the station wagon, again empty handed, and drove away.
I didn’t think much of it and merely headed for home, where
I had a nightcap and went to bed.
It wasn’t until three days later that I heard about the
Decapitator in the newspaper. He was a killer who chopped up his victims for
easy disposal. He was named for the first body part that the police had found.
Normally, I would shake my head and wonder how someone could do such a thing in
Redford, but one detail caught my attention:
the killer got rid of the body parts by dumping them in other people’s garbage.
The garbage men found body parts scattered throughout Redford,
but two of the places had been on my nightly route.
Exactly where I saw the scavenger.
I debated on whether or not to call the police. I don’t like
getting involved with anything that really isn’t my business, especially if the
police are a part of it. Besides, I might’ve ended up in trouble.
Despite all this, I called the Redford Police Department—I
considered it my duty as a citizen—and they sent over a polite young detective
named Cameron Laurich. He was a tall, thin man with curly brown hair, probably
about forty. He called me “sir” a lot; it’s something you don’t see much with
young people today.
“Would you mind telling me what you saw, Mr. Reming?” he
asked after taking down my name, address, etc.
I suppose I rambled a bit—I have a tendency to do that –but
I told him everything I saw during my walk. He took notes on a small pad of
paper. He was disappointed when I said all I knew about the man was that he was
a man, and a big one at that. Tall, not fat. I also couldn’t tell him that the
license plate number for the station wagon, but I said I thought it might have
been a Buick Century of the early nineties, I’m not that big of a car man, but
I remember Ellis, one of the old guys of Redford—which is what I like to call my
peers—had a Buick Century, though it wasn’t a station wagon, and I thought the
Decapitator’s vehicle looked a lot like Ellis’s. Ellis is dead now, by the way.
Car crash. It was probably because of bad eyesight; Ellis was starting to get
cataracts before he died. Too bad; he was a World War II vet, just like me,
except I fought the Japs and he fought the Krauts.
Detective Laurich thanked me and left. The next day—after
the police held a press conference, no doubt—reporters came by my house and
asked me all kinds of questions. I told them everything I told Detective
Laurich, and they seemed grateful for the information.
The day after that, Marty Holman, another old friend,
stopped me at McDonald’s—I usually go there in the morning for coffee—waving a
newspaper in his hand. “Hot damn, Frank!” he said. “You’re in the paper!”
Marty and the rest of the old guys—we usually hit McDonald’s
at the same time, not out of agreement, but mostly out of coincidence at first,
then unspoken tradition—wanted to hear everything, so I told them the story a
third time. They were disappointed that I didn’t tell them anything the paper
didn’t print, but they at least seemed satisfied.
Even when I went to the matinee at the Redford Theatre, the
young man behind the counter knew about me being in the paper. “Anything they
didn’t print, Mr. Reming?” he asked.
I never knew so many people were interested in this kind of
thing. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know that later, I would be telling yet
another story over and over again, but the next time would be even more
frequent.
That night, I decided to forgo my walk due to weather
conditions. I sat on my porch, smoking my pipe, watching and listening to the
rain fall.
At about midnight, a car pulled up in front of my house.
From within stepped a tall man wearing a suit. I couldn’t tell much more about
him—I couldn’t see his face through the shadows—but I recognized the posture
immediately. It was the scavenger, Mr. Decapitator himself. He had a different
car, but it was still him.
He walked up to my porch. “Mr. Reming?” he asked.
“Yep,” I told him. I’d been a POW in World War II, tortured
by Ishii himself; the Decapitator didn’t scare me one bit. Besides, if I
slipped up, and he killed me, what would I lose? Another decade of loneliness,
insomnia, and doctor visits?
The Decapitator flashed a badge that was so fake it was
insulting. “I’m Detective Adams,” he said. “I’m working on the Decapitator
case, and I’d like to ask you some questions.
“I thought Detective Laurich was working that case,” I said.
He spoke without hesitation. “He works it during the day
shift, and I work it at night.”
“Oh,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“Could we go inside?” he asked. “I’d like it to be a private
discussion.”
I didn’t mention the fact that it was midnight, and there
was no one in sight. I put my pipe in the ashtray, stood, and opened the front
door. He wasn’t on the porch yet, so I thought I could turn my back to him long
enough to get inside.
I stepped aside and watched Adams
enter my house, then closed the door without locking it. “Have a seat,” I said,
pointing to my couch. As he sat, I asked, “Would you like something to drink?”
“Just a glass of water, please,” he said. “It’s starting to
get hot out there.”
“Summer’s definitely on the way,” I said. “I’ll be right
back.”
I went into the kitchen, wondering what I should do. It’s
been a long time since I killed somebody—fifty long years; for a few years
after the war, I went on a bit of a spree through the Southwest, and they never
caught me, so my weapons were limited.
I settled for a steak knife, which wasn’t too bad. Back in
1947, I killed a family with a butter knife.
I slipped the steak knife up my sleeve and held the handle
where Adams couldn’t see it. That
accomplished, I filled a glass with water from the tap—I can’t stand bottled
water—and headed back into the front room.
The Decapitator stood and reached for the glass. I noticed
he was now wearing gloves. “Thanks,” he said and took a sip.
We sat down, him on the couch, me in my easy chair, where I
used to read newspapers after hearty breakfasts cooked by my wife. “How can I
help you?” I asked.
“Well, I noticed you talked to the reporters,” he said.
“Since you did, you were placing yourself in danger. Killers read the papers, too,
you know.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I just wanted to see my name in print, is
all.” A lie, of course. I just didn’t see the harm in talking to them.
“Very understandable, Mr. Reming,” the Decapitator said. “If
I were you, I’d never do anything like that again.”
I’ll bet, I thought.
“Down to business,” he said. “Would you tell me your story
one more time? What did you see on May 15th?”
I took a deep breath. Show time. “I saw you, Detective
Adams, dumping body parts and driving your station wagon.”
He stared at me a moment, then one corner of his mouth
turned up in a half-grin. “A wily old man,” he said. “How did you know? Was it
the badge?”
“No,” I said. “I just knew the instant I saw you. Maybe I’m
psychic.”
“Psychic, huh?” He laughed. “Tell me what I’m thinking
then.”
“You’re going to kill me,” I said.
“You know, maybe there is something to this psychic
business.” He started to reach for his knife when I realized this would be my
only chance. Granted, I have killed nearly a hundred people—not including Japs;
wartime doesn’t count—but I did them without ever having to fight. I always had
the element of surprise, and the strength to back it up. Now, at the age of
seventy-nine, all I had was the element of surprise. If the Decapitator got his
weapon out, I would never have had a chance.
Just before his hand disappeared into his suit coat, I
pulled out the steak knife and leaped at him. Adams
never expected to be attacked by such an old, frail man, I’m sure, so his
reflexes weren’t much. He wasn’t quick enough to stop the blade from sinking
into his throat.
What that done, I backed off, holding the steak knife,
letting him flail around a bit. At first, he pulled out his own knife—a rather
impressive Bowie—and
tried to get me, but the blood rushed out of him far too fast. When he realized
that, he dropped his weapon and held his wound.
It wasn’t long before his life had run out of him, and he
laid still on the floor. At that point, I called the police and asked for
Detective Laurich.
He arrived with a bunch of other policemen, begging to hear
my story. I told him about the fake badge, saying that was what tipped me off.
“It didn’t look much like your badge,” I told him.
He went on to tell me how lucky I was, and I agreed. “If I
hadn’t been trying to get some baloney out of that damned package, I would
never have had the knife,” I told him. It was one of my habits my wife
disapproved of. She always insisted I should use a fork instead.
I ended up telling the story over and over again, for the
reporters and old friends and other curious parties. I gained a lot of respect
for killing that man, which I thought was pretty funny.
Pretty funny, indeed.
