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Canaan Camp Chapter 1 Marked Tree Marked Tree,
Arkansas, April 26, 12:30 AM Headlights played slowly across family portraits, fireplace
mantel, deer head, and stuffed bobcat, finally spotlighting the girl in the chair. The whites of her eyes glistened
before the lights died. The afterimage burned in Paget's mind as he pressed himself to the wall beside the door. Muffled middle-aged bickering
accompanied approaching footfalls. Mild cursing. Metallic scraping as someone fumbled to find the keyhole.
Beuler readied his pistol in a two handed grip. "Remember
your training, men," he whispered.
Pitts, the third and final member of the raiding party, stood nervously in the doorway to the kitchen. The door swung back suddenly,
hitting Paget's pistol. He reacted quickly, smashing the weapon into the side of the man's head, yanking the
woman inside, and shouldering the door shut. The old man hit the floor as he clamped his hand over the woman's mouth. "What the hell!" exploded Beuler. "You were only
supposed to . . ."
I improvised," said Paget tersely. "Here. You take care of this one," he added as he propelled
her across the room roughly.
She stumbled forward, losing a shoe, and fell at the Beuler's feet. Beuler helped her to her feet, and then glared through
his ski mask. "From now on, we
stick to op procedure," he said. "You got that?"
The pig-headed old man refused to give up the combination.
"You're a brave
man," said Beuler, his ski mask scant inches from the man's face. "But this is foolish." The overweight gun dealer's
hair was tousled, but otherwise he looked as if nothing had been done to him, which it hadn't. Save for the mouse from
the tap Paget had laid on him when he came through the door. They had learned that the old man was sympathetic to the
militia movement, but the guns were his business, and he wasn't about to give them up for nothing. So far Beuler had
only managed to convince the old man that he could tough it out.
2.
"Sooner or later, you're going to have to tell us. Why not make it easy on yourself?" Knowing Beuler was bluffing, Riepe
clamped his mouth shut.
Paget came forward and knelt to capture the man's eyes. He reached for the Winstons in the man's shirt pocket.
He shook one out, lit it, took a deep drag, and then blew smoke in Riepe's face. Getting up slowly, he dragged the chair
in which the man's wife was tied over to face her husband. He wound his fingers into the woman's hair. "Leave
her alone, and stick with me if you're any kind of real men!" shouted Riepe.
Paget took the cigarette from his mouth
and examined the glowing end. Then he stabbed it into the woman's exposed neck. She screamed into her gag and
almost overturned the chair as she struggled to escape the pain. "Stop it!" yelled Riepe. "You bastard! You---" Paget pulled his pistol and shoved it to the woman's head, cutting short
the man's protest. "What the hell!" gasped
Beuler. "He'll talk now," said Paget, as
he holstered his weapon. "That was not authorized,"
said Beuler lamely. "No. But I think he's
through with his nonsense now."
He took Riepe's chin like one would a recalcitrant child and turned his face toward him. "You got balls, old man.
But you also got two women here. Maybe you'd like to keep them looking the way they are." "I'll give you the combination," Riepe said, his voice choked
with impotent rage. "I know."
Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 3:00 AM
They dropped Paget at the Walmart parking lot where the car was waiting. He had stolen it and switched the plate with
another car of similar color earlier, counting on at least a day before the plates were reported stolen. After transferring the weapons
from Riepe's van into the one they had left hidden in a copse of trees off a nearby gravel road, they had taken 67 North in
order to get out of state as soon as possible. Knowing that Riepe would report how many of them there were, they would
split up and take separate routes back to the compound in Oregon. "Drive carefully," Beuler instructed, as he had repeatedly since they left Marked Tree.
"Don't
do anything to get noticed---" "If captured
by the enemy I give only my name, rank, and serial number." "Are you trying to be funny?" "No.
I'm just tired of listening to you. If anybody screws up it won't be me." "See you at the compound then."
He watched the van make a cautious turn onto the four-lane
and drive slowly north through the sleeping town. You
strutting little prick. I hope they do catch you, thought Paget as he buckled up. The thought of Beuler in prison made him smile. They'd home in on you the first
day.
He gave a left turn signal and waited for the light to turn. He would hit US 60 six miles north of town and take it
west through Springfield while the others continued up 67 to St. Louis to catch I-70. Just before the light changed
an image flashed into sharp focus. Surrendering to impulse he turned right instead of left. Twenty minutes later
he passed the State Line Café and continued south into Arkansas and the darkness.
The room stank of stale smoke and overheating as cheap motels do in the summer. Ratty fifties era's furniture looked
as if it had neither been cleaned nor repaired since the dump had been built. Paget sat on the dingy bedspread and poked
through the pile of wallet trash. He picked up a debit card. He could have sworn that there was a Master Card
also. Trying to use any of the cards was a loser's play, and he couldn't be caught with the photos. He let the
necklace play through his fingers, savoring the tactile reminder. Opening the heart-shaped necklace, he saw with disgust that it
had some dude's picture in it instead of hers. He picked up the photo he had taken from the old man. It was a
couple of years old. "Everyone
calls me KC."
He snickered, remembering how she had played up to him. No matter how young or stupid they were, they all had that instinct,
but nobody could play Bobby Lee. "Butch
name for a girl," he muttered.
Since he had the pin number, maybe he'd use her ATM card after all. He'd burn everything else except the necklace.
He dug out the boy's photo and closed it. Then he scooped up the all the crap and dumped it on the bedside table.
Yawning, he stretched out with hands clasped behind his head and closed his eyes. He tried replaying the highlights,
but they had already gone stale, and not even the necklace helped. He couldn't sleep as sticky as he was, so he rolled to his feet
and stripped off his clothes. The full sized mirror in the bathroom was dirty, but it gave
him a good view of his naked body. The girl had liked it too. It had taken a little persuasion but she had finally
admitted it.
The shower had little pressure because its pinholes were clogged with lime. Part of the water squirted up to douse the
flyspecked ceiling. A fat roach scampered through the over-sized hole in the wall around the rusted shower-head.
He hardly noticed the squalor. Bobby Lee Paget's whole life had been nothing but squalor. Without toweling, he
flopped onto the creaky bed. The uneven rattling of the AC bothered him not at all. Soon he drifted into an untroubled
sleep. He'd had a good day.
Marked Tree, Arkansas, April 26, 11:15 AM
Agent Hal Tanner sensed the latent animosity as he worked his way slowly through the crime scene. The volume of stolen
weapons had brought in the ATF, and they had called the Little Rock field office for assistance as soon as they saw the complicated
crime scene. The locals hadn't asked them in. He would do his best to soothe ruffled feathers, but that wasn't
his main concern at the moment.
He moved slowly from victim to victim, beginning to make sense of the havoc. Empathy was the key. He imagined
what it had been like for Riepe, then the wife, and finally the daughter. Despite the difference in treatment, he was
leaning toward a single killer, but not a single perp. Already he was beginning to see and hear it the way it went down.
The perp had taken his time with the girl. Paraphilia.
What you did to her had nothing to do with the rest of it.
He tried to regain his objectivity by concentrating on
the overview. He sketched each room and made notes as he went through the ransacked house: an empty gun safe,
a pile of weapons on the floor, a discarded cash box.
Robbery and a crime of opportunity? Two stages? Three people to control, so there were at least two of you. He looked at each of the
victims. This took a long time. Forensics would tell if the girl had more than one attacker. Tanner examined
the couple more closely. The man had been beaten, but not severely. A single blow to the left temple left a two-inch
abrasion. Blood had clotted around it. A split lip had bled onto his shirt. The hole behind the right ear
showed the cross of split skin and tattooing of a contact wound. No exit---probably a twenty-two. Execution just
to clean things up.
Empathy hit him like possession. He was the horrified Riepe watching his wife and daughter being tormented and killed. No. That's
wrong. He started with you.
Like her husband, the woman had been tied to a ladder back chair. A pillowcase covered her head. No blood or wounds
were visible.
He heard the local criminalist taking photos in the bedroom. "Have you got all the shots taken in here?" he
called. "Until we remove the pillow
case from the woman, sir."
She sounded as if she should still be in high school. A surprise. Tanner thought he might have to reevaluate his
assessment of the sheriff. "Is it
okay to remove this pillow case now?" he asked.
5. "Yes, but put on gloves first and
don't touch anything else." Tanner smiled at the instruction. His gloved fingers closed
on a corner of the pillowcase and he gingerly pulled it off. Dark bruising around the eyes. He peeled back the
right eyelid. There were ruptured capillaries in the conjunctiva where the white met the upper lid---petechia.
A short nylon cord looped around her neck and draped over her back. An angry looking cigarette burn was on the right
side her neck about two inches from the trachea and just below the ear. You burned her, but only once?
He stood behind her trying for the position the perp would
have taken had he burned her while she was sitting in the chair. The positions of the victims and the perpetrator formed
a straight line. Maybe he had the order of the deaths wrong. If you wanted him to watch while you killed her, why cover her face?
It didn't feel right.
He didn't know how he knew---could never have explained it---but he knew that the man had died before his wife had
been killed. He examined the burn more closely. What did it tell him? Right handed, just like whoever clubbed
Riepe. That really narrowed things down, didn't it? The burn looked as if it had begun to scab over---forensics
might be able to tell him. He was reasonably sure that it wasn't postmortem. No. You did this earlier. You wanted him
to tell you something---where the money was, or how to get the gun safe open. Staring at the burn again, he wondered if an autopsy could
pinpoint how long before death it had occurred. He had a gut feeling that it been quite awhile, perhaps hours. Why the pillowcase? Were
you ashamed of what you did? Did seeing her afterward make you uncomfortable? He didn't ask himself why the killer hadn't
used the gun. The answer to that was in the other room. Unlike her husband Mrs. Riepe's hadn't been merely executed. So, you stood behind
her, but didn't want to see her because . . . she was too old? Too much like your own mother? What he found in the bedroom made him sick, but no one watching him
would know that.
This
was what it was all about.
Lengths of window blind cord were still attached to bedposts, but the body lay face up diagonally across the bed, arms at
the side, hair splayed carelessly. One leg protruded from the sheet in which she was wrapped, hanging over the edge
of the bed, bent at the knee. A blue bathrobe lay on the floor. Its belt was knotted around the victim's neck.
A towel covered the face.
Complete control. You had to hear the terror in her voice, see it in her face, and feel it in your hands. Tanner wasn't reading minds.
He'd seen it before, and he'd interviewed sexual sadists in prison. That's what they had here, but the locals hardly
needed him to tell them that.
6.
He tried to make sense of the position of the body.
Were you going to take her with you so you could play some more? Maybe you thought about it and decided it wasn't such
a good idea. So you just threw her back on the bed. The towel across her face didn't puzzle him.
"Sheriff Myers, Could you come in here a minute?" he called out.
The man swaggered into
the room, jaw clenched in an effort to deny his unease in the presence of nightmare scene. "What do you need?" he asked, glancing quickly at the body
splayed across the bed. "Was the towel over
the girl's face when your men got here?" "I'll
find out. Logan! Come in here."
A young deputy, obviously having trouble with the sights and smells of the scene came in, eyes darting quickly to and away
from the bed. He swallowed with difficulty
before answering. "Yes, sir." "Was
that towel on her face when you found her?" "No,
sir. I covered her. It seemed like the decent thing to do."
"You don't have the luxury of being
decent at a crime scene," said Tanner. "Did you touch anything else?" "No. Did I destroy evidence or something?" "I don't think so." "Is it all that big a deal?" asked the sheriff after the embarrassed deputy beat a hasty
retreat. "It could have misled us," said
Tanner. He had found that the more he used "us"
and "we" with the local authorities the less "I" problems he had. "Covering her face wouldn't have fit in with your theory?"
"No. It's a sign
of remorse. There's no remorse here. Your perp enjoyed all of this, especially what he did to the women." "Shows a lot of hate, doesn't it?" "I don't think he hated them---at least not personally."
7. "How
do you know that?"
"Because this isn't the first time he's done this. What's really interesting is that two different crimes happened
here. We've got a planned robbery and then a prolonged and elaborate sexual homicide." "I'll buy the planned part,"
said the sheriff. "They got in without breaking glass or jimmying a door. Without the bodies, this looks
like a typical burglary. Whoever went through that chest of drawers started at the bottom and left them all out.
I think this was just a burglary gone bad."
"There's a purpose to everything here," repeated Tanner, trying to win the sheriff over. "What do you
think they were looking for?"
"The electronics are still here. Pistols and shotguns too. They took bunch of rifles. Your ATF boys
are going through Riepe's records for a list. They were probably looking for the business cash---maybe jewelry too." "The victims are our
best clue. He killed them in a particular order, and he did it methodically. Notice the different treatment of
the victims." "He killed her
in front of her folks?" "I think they were
dead first." "There's that I guess,"
said the sheriff. "If he's a professional burglar his prints could be on file." Tanner looked the scene over. There wouldn't be fingerprints or seminal fluid
either. "How can a man do something like this?"
asked the sheriff. An experienced homicide cop would
never ask the question, but experience came slower in rural areas. "So what kind of help can I expect, Agent Tanner?" asked the sheriff. Tanner ignored the overt skepticism.
"Tomorrow I'll have
a tentative profile of your killer. There was at least one other perp. I don't know anything about him yet.
Let me work on it, and I'll have you a tentative profile tomorrow." "The way I figure it is that they got the guns and money and
then decided to kill the witnesses. Then they decided to rape the girl while they were at it." The criminalist had come in and was taking close ups of the girl's ligature
marks.
"He killed her like that," said Tanner, nodding toward the bed, "because he likes doing it that way.
He's done it before."
"They were all killed different," mused the sheriff. "Hey. Maybe there were three of them, and
each one of them killing in his own way."
"I don't think that more than one killer, Sheriff. It happens, but not often. Accomplices usually say that
they didn't want it to happen." Tanner tried to imagine how it came together. "You found the Riepe van
down the road so maybe the other one, or ones, went on with the guns while the killer stayed behind and did this."
8.
"Two crimes, two motives?" "I think so." Tanner closed the pad containing
his notes and sketches. "I'll need copies of the crime scene photos, plus anything you can get me on the victims,
and a preliminary coroner's report. I'll try to get in this guy's head and tell you what kind of person you need to
look for."
"Touchy-feely crap. I wish Sigmund Fraud had choked on his cigar before he invented his psychology nonsense." Myers obviously needed the last word. Tanner left it to him.
Near Turnbough Camp, Missouri, 6:00
PM
One hundred and seventy-five miles to the northwest in the Missouri Ozarks, Deputy Richard Carter ran the back roads of Hawthorn
County on night patrol unaware of the manhunt underway. He was not doing real police work, nor did he expect to.
Pardons neither absolve nor expunge. Things had happened to him. That's what Jill told him. But things hadn't
just happened to him. He had caused things to happen. He had done things. He came to Route D and turned off toward
one of the many named places in the county that he once had mistaken for real towns. Their names lived on long after
the lumber camps and railroad stops had evaporated. He turned on the radio briefly to catch the news and weather from
the NPR station at Arkansas State University.
" . . . in northeast Arkansas. They were killed in what local authorities term an arms theft. The Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is assisting the investigation." Quick news bits followed along with a summary weather
forecast. He wanted to know more about the crime, but leaving the radio on was against procedure.
Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 11:45 PM
The two thousand tempted him to score, but that wasn't smart in a strange town. Opting for safer stimulation, he found
a run-down place called The Friendly Tavern, where he wolfed down a greasy steak sandwich and allowed himself two
beers. Scanning the room he saw mostly overweight, shabby women trolling the gloom, the one exception being girl in
jeans and cowboy boots who kept making eye contact until the big guy she was with finally noticed. She was trying to
start a fight, which would have been all right under different circumstances. He called it a bust and hit the door. Twenty minutes later he was
north of town catching the 60 West ramp. Through the sparsely settled eastern edge of the Ozark Plateau he held it right
at the legal limit. Vanilla driving. No need to attract the attention of a bored patrolman. Traffic was
light, mostly semis like his old man used to drive.
Thin wisps of devil fog threaded across the two-lane whenever it dipped into valleys. He tooled along, his mind less
on his driving than on the gun dealer's daughter and the woman at the bar. As he topped a hill a brownish-gray blur
hit the periphery of his vision, and a hard thump sent the suddenly uncontrollable Contour fishtailing onto the gravelly shoulder.
Spinning to the right, it slid to a stop with a sickening screech of metal. The remaining headlight angled crookedly
skyward illuminating wisps of steaming coolant. The car sat at forty-five degrees with the passenger side wedged hard
against the rock face of a road cut.
Once the air bag deflated, he grabbed the door handle to keep from sliding down and unbuckled himself. Now that he had
time to think, he realized that he had hit a deer. He braced his foot on the console and forced the door open.
He managed to crawl out just as headlights lit the tops of the pine trees on the rocky bluff to his left. Not until
his feet hit the loose gravel of the shoulder did it register that he was in deep trouble, especially if the approaching vehicle
were a patrol car.
As the approaching car slowed, Paget slipped the butterfly knife from his pocket and flicked it open. The car slowed
without the appearance of the flashing lights and crunched to a stop on the eastbound shoulder. The window came down.
He couldn't see her face, but she sounded young.
"No, I . . . I don't think so," he said, affecting
a shaky voice as he closed the knife and put it back in his pocket. "But I've got a . . . kind of a weak heart,
and I feel kind of . . . funny, you know?" "Do
you have like medication or something?"
"No, but I think . . ." He put his hand to his chest and slumped to a sitting position. "I think
need to get to a doctor." "Oh
my God!" said the woman, as she jerked the door open.
Sandals clapped she rushed across the pavement. When she
knelt, he got a glimpse of her face. She wasn't bad. "Careful, I'd hate to see you ruin that outfit," he said weakly. "Don't worry about it. Let's get you to the hospital." "Maybe I'll be okay until an ambulance gets here," he said
with a grimace. "Did you call 911?"
"I don't have a cell phone," she said apologetically. "Can you stand?" "I'll try."
He winced as she helped him to his feet.
Leaning heavily against her, Paget felt the heat of her body as she guided him to the car. "You'll have to get in the back," she said. "My
baby's up front." Paget let her help him in,
but stopped her when she tried to fasten his seat belt. "I
don't think I can stand the pressure," he said, restraining her hand.
After
she pulled onto the road, she glanced into the rear view, but didn't see him. "Are you okay back there?" she asked. "I think so," he said, sliding his hands appreciatively over the Thunderbird's leather upholstery. "By the way," she said. "I'm Cathy Hansen." "I'm John Kruger," he said from directly behind her.
"Don't speed." She assumed that he had
slid behind her so that he could lean against the door.
10. "I'll
risk a ticket. We've got---" Cathy caught her breath in surprise. He had
taken her by the hair. She wrestled with the incredible reality. There was a knife at her throat. "What do you want?" she stammered.
"Slow down!" He jerked her head back for emphasis.
"You got that?" Stunned, she couldn't respond. "I said, You got that?" "Yes," she gasped.
She briefly considered flooring the car and ramming it
into the pines lining the highway, but Billy was in the car. "Good. Now let's go home." A
moment later he spoke again. "That car was stolen.
I just need a place to stay until I can find a way out of here." Paget needed her calm and controllable.
"Let us out and you can have my car," she said,
praying that he would just take it and go.
"Right. A patrolman comes along---you tell him which way I went, and it's all over. I'm not going back to
prison." "I won't say anything.
I promise." "Don't be ridiculous.
Do what you're told, and nothing will happen to you . . . or your baby."
The implied threat to Billy frightened her almost beyond thinking. "Will your husband be home when we get there?" The pressure
of the blade increased. "Tell me the truth now,"
he murmured, now comfortable with the situation. "I'll know if you're lying." "I'm not married . . . I mean . . . not anymore." "He left you, Cathy, right?" "Yes." Two
Cathys---no, the other one was---what the hell kind of crazy name did she have? "So will the guy you're shacking up with be home?"
"Well good. Maybe I'll stay with you and the kid a day of two. You got a job?" "No," she lied. "Figures."
Marked Tree,
Arkansas, April 28 Sheriff Bert Myers
frowned as he read Tanner's initial profile.
PROFILE
OF UNSUB KILLER OF THE RIEPE
FAMILY MARKED TREE, AR The perp is a white male, aged twenty-five to thirty-five.
He has a criminal record stretching back to his juvenile
years involving voyeurism, burglary, and/or arson. He has served jail time, possibly for sexual assault, and/or burglary.
The crime is atypical of his usual MO in that the motive was primarily robbery, and in that he worked with another/other person(s). He is unmarried, divorced,
or separated. If he has a consensual relationship presently, it is a stormy one, probably abusive. He probably abuses drugs
and/or alcohol.
He is either a high school or college dropout, with at least normal intelligence. If he was in the armed services, he will not have served
a full enlistment, but will have been discharged either dishonorably or with a face-saving general discharge. He may be unemployed,
but has worked manual labor jobs, like construction, where the work force is transient, and the work site moves. He
has a record of absenteeism and bad debts.
He may have a deformity of the genital area, suffer from sexual impotence, or be a stutterer. To compensate, he may
be involved in bodybuilding or martial arts. He
belongs to an extremist paramilitary group, but is not a long time nor devoted member.
If he owns a car, it will be an older model muscle car or macho-image
pickup truck.
12.
"You got this from your crystal?" asked the scowling sherrif. A less profane judgment than Tanner anticipated. "Educated guess, Sheriff. But I've been doing this
for a long time." "What am I supposed to
do with it?" "Narrow your search and take
it seriously if you question anyone who fits the profile." "Okay.
How about his race? Why couldn't he be black?"
Northeast Arkansas was delta country, southern both historically
and culturally. Tanner chose his words carefully. "This kind of killer doesn't usually cross racial lines."
That had been changing lately, but revealing
that wouldn't contribute to his bona fides with Myers. Besides, he had a gut feeling about this one. The killer
was Caucasian.
"So we're looking for a psycho," mumbled the sheriff. "You don't have anything in here about a mental
asylum or anything."
"A combination of things," said Tanner patiently. "He was too organized, too careful to be a ‘nutcase.'" "How can you say that? The whole damned thing is crazy." Like many people, Myers saw mental illness in mayhem. Tanner chose words that would resonate in the Bible belt.
"This is evil, Sheriff,
not insanity. He knows exactly what he's doing. He's driven by homicidal rage, but he's in control all the time.
He's careful with the details---proceeds logically---thinks about what he's doing. He wanted to take the girl's body
with him, but, once his frenzy was over, he realized it wasn't smart. So instead he dumped her of the bed and wiped
down the place." Myers nodded in
agreement.
"You think
he's done this before---the killing I mean?"
"This could be his first kill, but I doubt it. I can almost guarantee that he's attempted rape, beaten
a woman, or threatened to kill one. You might check for an initial sex crime back about ten to fifteen years.
That's about the time he probably started."
13. Tanner tried to
strike the right tone.
"All I can give you right now is an estimation of the type of man you're looking for. I can guarantee that some
of that profile is dead on. Some of it is probably off. The thing I want you to know is that I'm here to help
you whenever you need me. If you find something that you want my analysis on, just let me know." "I'll do whatever I have to," said the sheriff. "I
want this guy."
Carter County,
MO, April 28 Brent Halliday saw something wedged between the driver's seat and
the carpet where it curved up to the door. Using his pen he flicked it out of the crack and onto the floorboard in the
back. Careful to touch only the edges, he held it close to read the name. "Son of gun," he said to himself as he
hurried up the steps, hoping to catch the sheriff before he left for lunch. "I think I know who our car thief is,"
he said before he was half way through the door. "It's like on the radio. You know: ‘He was arrested
a short time later.'" The sheriff looked at
his new deputy sourly. "What are you
talking about?" He dropped the credit card on
the blotter of the sheriff's desk. "That's our
guy. Let's put out an APB." The sheriff
read the name and stiffened.
"No, Brent. I know where to find this guy," he said as he picked up the phone. "He's laying on
a slab in Marked Tree."
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