All the Fine Tombstones
by Gary Clifton
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3, 4 |
part 2
Houston had a zillion public branch libraries, and it didn’t take long to find one. I would have figured folks in River Oaks had their own personal libraries.
A pleasant lady explained how to pull up newspaper records on a system that involved feeding celluloid tape into a gadget. It even had a crude form of index. It quickly showed me I ought to pay more attention to the news. There was plenty.
Angela Boyer’s Mutilated Body Found in Cemetery, was the first atrocity reported. The article went on to say that the victim, a twenty-three year old nurse at County General Hospital, had left work just before midnight two months ago. Her father, a truck driver, received a call demanding one million in ransom, then the kidnapper or kidnappers had made no further contact.
The article went on to say that the ghastly remains were discovered in Grant Gardens Cemetery by Willie Amos, 29, an employee of a flower shop across the street. HPD had no suspects. The investigation was continuing.
Then, a dead ringer for the first, so to speak. Witnesses in Kobleski’s Family Deli had reported that a month ago, two men had forced Sarah Guthrie, 28, into a van, make and color unknown, in broad daylight as she walked from the restaurant to her car on the Gulf Freeway service road. Her battered remains had been found in Heavenly Park Cemetery three days later. Damn, three days was prima facie evidence some animal or animals had held her for three days. The stench of perverted monsters gushed.
My gut was already saying all three abductions were related. County General was situated not far away on the southwest edge of downtown. The I-45, the road to Galveston, commonly called the Gulf Freeway, was several miles distant and passed through areas heavy with jerkoffs capable of almost any crime. Grant Gardens was out in the Fifth Ward in northeast Houston, an area where guns were more common than dollars. No geographical connection jumped out of the machine.
County General was open for business at 8:30. The HR manager, a fat guy with thinning hair and a head too big for his body, cleared his throat nervously. “How can I help, Mr. Kratzert?”
“Mr. Slover, I’m an investigator for Dixon Mason Insurance Company. We have a sizeable life insurance policy payable to Angela Boyer’s father. Some silly company bureaucrat wants me to work up a file on Angela,” I sighed. “Doggoned desk-bound executives wanting to add to the burden. Did she have a romantic interest that you know of? Or any threats, stalkers, or the like?”
“Yes and no. Angie was a kid from a poor background. Worked as a waitress while she attended the University of Houston. Dunno if I ever heard where she worked.”
“She have any close friends here in the hospital?”
“Naw, the kid was a good worker, but sort of a loner. Worked her shifts, no problems. When she came to us, she had a boyfriend in tow she’d met at U of H. Only saw the guy once. Skinny, scroungy... needed a bath and shave. She was a real looker. Dunno why she settled for that bum.”
“How much beard?”
“Not much of one. Thin, not enough whiskers.”
“What did he do for a living?”
“Plumber, maybe? Dunno for sure.”
“Plumber. What did he drive?”
“An old van.”
“What color?”
“Light-colored, maybe white.”
Any idea who he was?”
“Naw, but I got his tag number. First saw it parked in the emergency drive. Thought it might be hoodlums looking for drugs. Later learned it was Angie’s boyfriend.”
He dug in his desk drawer and slid over a scrap of paper with numbers scribbled across it.
“You give this to the cops?”
“Yeah.”
I thanked him, purposely didn’t leave my name, and drove far enough away to pull over and call Rose at Homicide.
Rose said, “Dammit, Kratzert, what part of ‘no more HPD info’ didn’t penetrate your skull.”
“Rose, license plates are public. It’s very important to one of HPD’s abduction murders.”
* * *
The van was registered to Curtis Simmons at an address on Little York Road, north off I-45. At 9:28 a.m., the “plumber” was zonked out on a battered sofa inside a battered apartment. He’d left the door unlocked.
I pulled up a chair. “Morning’s here, Curtis.”
He sprang upright. “Whut the hell?”
“Oughta lock the door, son. Bad guys everywhere.”
“Who... who the hell are you?”
“Your worst nightmare if you don’t answer a few questions.”
“You a cop? I already told y’all I loved Angie. I was late pickin’ her up that night and some sumbitch grabbed her.” He broke into sobs.
Strung out the night he was late picking her up was probably the gospel, and his performance was the real deal. This wimpy kid didn’t smell right for Angela Boyer’s murder. “Curtis, lotta vans around town. Did you see any near the hospital that stuck out?”
He lit a cigarette. The stale room instantly filled with smoke. “Yeah, dude. Vans are all over the damned place...but there was these two guys, white van, followed us part way home once.”
“Descriptions?”
Two white guys, thirtyish, one guy had a beard.”
“Make... model?”
“Fairly new... Chevy. maybe.”
“Any signs or the like on the van?”
“Electrical something. Hey, man, I told the cops all this.”
“Angie live here with you, Curtis?”
“Naw, she was from out in the Fifth Ward. Said it was home and she was comfortable living there. Had an apartment in the Green Paradise complex, a real dump. We always got together over there.”
I supposed half the punks in Houston drove white vans. The occupants’ descriptions were critical. I thanked the distraught kid and headed out Westheimer.
* * *
The Heights is a neighborhood of small houses and big thugs off Loop 610 North. The name “Heights” must have originated by someone desperate to find high ground in Houston, which is as flat as a new billiards table. I’d read that downtown Houston was thirty-one feet above sea level and, if the heights — or any other area — was more than thirty-five, it would have taken an optimistic surveyor and a compliant transit to determine any rise in the terrain.
Noon was near. The manager of the Casa Loma should be on the premises, gearing up for the day’s run. He was a little fat guy with a Jersey accent and no hair. “Hey, dude, don’t know nuttin’ ’bout nuttin.”
I laid an ominous hand on his shoulder. “What’s your name, cueball?”
“Reggie... Reggie Fronzoni, assistant manager. Look, Tarzan, don’t hurt me. My boss has juice.”
“Your boss, Hugo, has asked me to help with Traci’s abduction. You gotta know about it.”
“He’ll have my ass if—”
“And I’ll have it if you don’t. Now, Reg, who actually saw an abduction?”
“Customer just leavin’ come runnin’ back. Said two white guys in a light-colored van drug her inside.”
“Who’s the customer?”
“Dunno, honest. Like I told Worms, the customer had just left, ’bout half in the bag. Dunno his name, never saw him before, and he split in the excitement. We went out, found her purse with her keys layin’ next to her ride.”
“Make or model of the van?”
“Naw.”
“How did the customer pay for his drinks?”
“Damn, never thought. Some kinda credit card. Gimme ten minutes and I bet we can find it.”
It took only seven minutes to find the witness’s bar tab. It was just over fifty bucks with tip.
“Hey, dude,” Reggie said, “that’s a business credit card.” He punched around on a fancy cash register. “Edgar Cantrell... Christ, he’s a lawyer. Address just down the way on 610.”
* * *
Another thank-you, and I drove away. Cantrell, a solo lawyer, operated from what’s normally called an executive suite, a tiny cubicle in a complex where several other businesses operated. A single secretary, who hovered over a dozen or more telephone lines answered each as if the business had a permanent home.
Surprisingly, Cantrell was present and partly sober. I’d seen him around the Harris County courthouse. He looked one step above skid row. About half in the bag at midday meant Cantrell was a lawyer not to hire. That he didn’t ask for ID was very un-lawyer-like and fine with me.
“Yeah, I damned sure did see those two jackoffs grab the kid. Like I told Reggie at the scene, old white van, maybe a Chevy, two guys maybe age thirty in some kinda dark blue uniforms. Guy drivin’ had a dark beard. Other guy piled in the van. Heard him say, ‘I got the bitch, Tampa.’ Must be the dude’s name.”
“Anything on the license?”
“Texas, first letter was an ‘R’.”
* * *
I pulled into traffic. If Cantrell’s descriptions hadn’t matched what I already knew, I would have half-figured a sorry lawyer could be a part of the program instead of a witness. My cellphone screamed. It was Hugo Fat.
“S’up, Hugo?”
“Kratzert, the bastards jes’ called, said they still had Traci. Wanted the other half mil.”
I’d not fully believed the dollar amounts the pervert had mentioned earlier. Hugo shorting the pot as much as he was going moon-eyed over Traci meant he figured he could find a duplicate babe for a half mil, probably much less. By now, Hugo was more interested in taking a blowtorch to the guys trying to get over him than he was his lost babe. A real prince, old Hugo.
“What did you tell them, Hugo?”
“That if they hurt her, I’d have their nuts in a jar of formaldehyde on the back bar of the Casa Loma, and to call you. You doin’ a dammed thing, Kratzert?”
“Hugo, I’m back-trackin’ on a couple of similar cases HPD is workin’. It’s gotta be the same two mopes. I’m not there yet, but I swear I’ll help you with the castration thing.”
“Hey, we aren’t cuttin’ this up with no cops, are we?”
“No cops, Hugo.”
Dammit, do somethin’ Kratzert or—”
I pulled up my best John Wayne: “Whatever the hell you do, Hugo, don’t threaten me. I can give back your cash and you find somebody else.”
“No, no, hell, Kratzert. Jes’ keep on it.”
“Hugo, like you just said, tell ’em to call this number.” After three tries, he managed to jot down the info. The abduction had really stabbed him in his soft spot: his pocketbook.
Copyright © 2025 by Gary Clifton
