“Good point. Tell me about the trip to the place he took you. What kinds of noises did you hear? How many times did he stop? How long did it take?” And on and on over the same stuff, listening to the different way she'd describe the same experiences, looking for the telltale elephant footprints in the cottage cheese. It occurred to him as he listened, watching her, it wasn't just the eyes. The sexual statements were transmitted by the clothing.
There was something about the clothing she wore. It wasn't all tight sweaters and low-cut dresses or the obvious things like that. It was that her clothing was just ... He couldn't quite describe it or categorize it even to himself. Somehow Donna's clothing never quite seemed to be appropriate. Ridiculous, but there it is. Take today. She'd been drug over the coals by a therapist or whatever, the intel and homicide boys had been at her, Eichord again, and what does she show up in that morning? Some kind of strange, great, voluminous and flowery dress and big, gold hoop earrings, playing the Gypsy Queen today. What was it with this woman?
“Do you have a boyfriend or steady, uh, relationship?” he heard himself asking her.
“I had somebody I was seeing a lot before this but...” She trailed off and shook her head. “It was hard for him to deal with and it looks like it has ended. Why?"
Why, indeed. “I was wondering if this had harmed you in your personal life. Very often a terrible thing like this reaches out and hurts those close to the victim. Family, friends, a husband or boyfriend. They have their own feelings of confusion, and anger, and the utter helplessness of thinking about someone they care for put in the kind of a situation you were subjected to ... and it's tough to handle."
“Yeah,” she said wryly, “that's life, eh?” He nodded as she said, “Has this hurt me in my personal life? What personal life? Between the press and you cops and a shrink—that's it."
“When you were first chained up, you told earlier that you'd had a blindfold on, and when you felt the thing being fastened to you and then when he removed the blindfold and you first saw the room, what did you think? Try to remember your reactions to what you saw and what he said to you at that time."
“Horror. Incredible horror. I knew from the pictures he hadn't brought me there for a Sunday picnic. All I could think of was I wished I had screamed back when I had the chance or just fallen down on the floor of the car and hoped he couldn't shoot through the windshield, a dozen different things I thought of after it was too late. And there was just the awful horror of it. I figured I was in deep trouble. And he didn't say much. I started pleading with him to please let me go, that I wouldn't say anything about it and stuff and he just said, ‘Shut up’ and called me a name. And he said I had one chance. Put out when he wanted some, do what he said and be a good sex slave, and he wouldn't kill me."
He could feel he was not getting through to Donna Scannapieco the way he often was able to. Eichord was usually good with people. His innate kindness and caring would communicate itself. Everything was screwed up lately. Even his ability to convey a sense of understanding to a crime victim. He knew just how much this barrier between himself and the woman could hinder the progress of the investigation, yet he felt himself powerless to remove it. He could sense, or thought he could sense in her the intuitive ability to pick up on his bad vibes and it was absurd that he couldn't do anything about it.
Inside the swamp of Donna Scannapieco's head there was only icy resolve. She thought nothing of Jack Eichord the cop. Just another face in the crowd. Her inner being was too full of cold, unyielding hatred for the dirty, no good son of a bitch who had taken her and ruined her life, and for the unfairness of a world in which an awful thing like this could happen. She hadn't done anything to deserve such a fate. And now she wanted only vengeance, and the bitter taste of it was filling her with alienation and lonely isolation and it was draining her of the warmth and softness and femininity and decency that had given her life meaning and value. And, like Eichord, she felt herself powerless in the awesome ebb and flow of forces much stronger than her own sense of self.
Eichord tried to phone the lawyer again. Wally Michaels had told him there were some negotiations going on between a prestigious Texas law firm and Mr. Hackabee. There was something off-key about it. Hackabee was apparently being offered representation by the famous Noel Collier, arguably the most famous woman defense counsel in the country and second only to Racehorse in the ranks of famed Texas criminal lawyers. Jack had been trying to get hold of her for two days and she hadn't returned his calls. He finally got her on the line and made an appointment to come see her. One of Eichord's techniques involved catering to egos, and clearly Ms. Collier would be a formidable challenge in that department. He hoped to do a little homework on her today with Hackabee. What would anybody that big hope to gain from defending a dead-bang murder one headed for death row? It would be different if she'd been some court-appointed pee-dee, but this was THE Noel Collier of Jones-Seleska. Why would they touch a loser like Ukie?
There was a lot of ink flowing over this, on the other hand. Every paper had Grave-digger headlines. Was a movie deal in the works? Had Swifty called with a book offer? There had to be something sweet and Jack would check it out. Meanwhile he'd go around with Ukie again. He took a couple of aspirin and wished for something to wash them down but he decided he'd better settle for that clear stuff that you get out of a water fountain. He took another deep breath, tried to shake the cobwebs loose, and opened the door that led to interrogation.
Dallas
Martin Scorsese it ain't, but each tape begins with a pro slate like a TV commercial or something. And this one says:
A/N SURVEILLANCE
VCR V-3102-H WH/14
PROPERTY: HOMICIDE
And in a different handwriting:
Hackabee #14
The shot is from over Eichord's right shoulder. The resolution—grainy.
“Hi, Jack. No pun intended. Suppose I start by saying hello in a perfectly normal fashion. No tricks. No logorhumbano horizontal bopping of the cerebellum,” it sounded like he said, and Eichord interjected, “'Scuse me. I don't know the word logorhumbano. Define please?"
“Whoops.” He smiled. “Clarity is in order. I said, no LOGO-RHUMBA no word dancing, a coined word, no lofo-rhumbas, no horizontal bop, dig?"
“Okay."
“I begin with ordinary speech. Relating, say, to the weather. I say, ‘Nice day, Officer.’ You go, ‘Nice day,’ in reply. I tell you how it looks like it's too cold to snow but snow is predicted. Or I tell you how I love the smell of rain. Or whatever mundane weather fact. Or I say, ‘Didja’ see those Giants? How's about that playoff game, eh? Kicked the stuff outta the Redskins. Who do you like in the Super Bowl?’ And you think, Hey, gee, this is a regular person, after all. And we begin fresh. See where I'm coming from?"
“Uh huh,” Eichord said.
“Idea here is that we reestablish my credibility as a human being. Because I want to talk to you, Jack. I want to tell you how I did it. I want to lay it all out for you and try my damnedest not to go off on one of my goofy word-flights, because it's important somebody understands what they've got in Ukie Hackabee. So first I've got to build up a little credibility and you might say belief insurance—so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you some dead people. A whole bunch of them. Isn't that exciting? So you're taking notes, the tapes are rolling, I assume, and let's just pitch right in to the nasty business at hand. I'd like to begin with a cute little number who I picked up in fact not too many miles from this very spot. She's in a nice deep grave waiting for you right now, even as we speak. Do you know where the reservoir is?” And he began a nonstop tirade of talk that ran for twenty-two minutes. In twenty-two minutes he gave up another grave every two and a half minutes roughly. In twenty-two minutes of wild and crazed conversation and rambling reminiscing he told Eichord and the men and women at the monitors where they could disinter nine more victims. Exact almost pinpoint locations. He'd obviously rehearsed this in his mind overnight.