SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1985
After a detour to Doughnut Land for the biggest, blackest coffee they had, I headed for Lyles’ Auto Body & Collision. It was an unassuming multi-stall garage set a block or so back from Main. I pulled up and parked on the other side of the street, got out slowly with my coffee, and took a long look before going in further. The main garage was a slab of white cinder blocks with a double-striped border along the roofline in Hawkeye gold and black. One of the garage doors was open and I could see a pickup hoisted on the lift inside.
The lot beside and behind the main building was ringed in by a worn chain link fence that someone had woven long strips of dirty white plastic through for privacy. They weren’t much help now since a huge chunk of the fence looked like it had been ripped loose and then hastily thrown back up and was held in place with bungee cords, snow chains, and duct tape. Whatever had knocked the fence down had pulled loose, or otherwise shredded, enough of the plastic strips to allow a clear view of the lot itself. Gravel, with a few oversized metal storage sheds along one edge, each one about the size of a single car garage, and an impromptu junk yard on the other.
I started towards the open garage bay but by then I’d been spotted. A squat, top-heavy man in a grease stained work shirt watched me from behind glasses with big lenses that faded from brown to clear. He had a thick black beard streaked with gray, and plenty of matching hair crammed under a silvery mesh cap with “Snap-On Tools” written across the front.
“Hello,” I called out. “I’m looking for the owner.”
“Y’ found him,” he said. He was big and barrel-chested with a round belly and thick arms of knotted muscles covered in wiry black hairs. His legs, in contrast, were comically thin, emaciated sticks that barely seemed to support the rest of him, like a bear on stilts.
I showed him my badge and offered my hand. “Detective David Carlson. I’m here to follow up on a report you made about a break in?”
“That was almost a week ago.”
“I know and I apologize, Mr. Lyles. The departments been under a strain the last few days and we’ve had to delay on any non-emergencies.”
Lyles grunted.“You want to see it?”
I nodded and he paused to retrieve a cane that had been leaning against the inside of the door before leading me around the side of the building. He walked with a tottering gait, rocking back and forth more than stepping. I could see his jaw set under his beard and imagined he must be in some pain. I followed him around to the damaged fence I’d seen earlier. We stood there as Lyles silently waited for me to do whatever he thought police would do. So, I played along and set my Doughnut Land cup down on the street and took out my notebook.
“Came in Monday and saw all this mess out in the street,” he said. “I took a picture for m’ insurance, but they said I needed to report it you all.”
I looked at him.
“So, I did,” he added, the slightest bit of irritation creeping into his voice. “Then I fixed it back up. Looks like shit, but I ain’t had time to fix it proper. Reckon I’ll wait for the check from m’ insurance anyhow.”
“Do you mind if I look around a little back there?” I asked, pointing through the fence.
“Suit yourself,” he said, unwinding a mess of chains loose at one end of the fence and pulling it aside to let us both in.
There wasn’t much more to see from the inside, and I figured most physical evidence would be lost by now. The storage units each had padlocks sealing the doors except for the last one.
“Did you discover anything missing?” I asked, looking over at that unit.
Lyles shifted his weight and moved his crossed arms to his sides and then crossed them again.
“I had an old junker back there . . . They took it,” he offered quietly.
“Could you describe it?”
“It was just an old rod. Junker I built from the old days. Weren’t nothing special. Wasn’t even insured, just—just never got rid of it.”
“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to take it?”
“No,” he said, too quickly. “Now, I don’t really care about the car. All I want is for m’ insurance to pay for the fence, otherwise I wouldn’t have even bothered with calling.”
“Well,” I said, looking up from my notebook, “I’ll add my notes to the report so we can get that settled for you.”
Lyles looked relieved.
“Kind of thing happens all the time. Bored kids usually. Probably went joyriding.”
Lyles grunted.
I put my notes away and casually reached for the newspaper article I’d copied and handed it to him “You know this is probably nothing, but any chance this was the car?”
He unfolded the paper and stared at the picture for much longer than he needed to.
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “That’s the one.”
“What can you tell me about it?”
“It was a custom job,” he said in a dry, flat voice hinting at a tremble. “Fifty-nine Caddy hearse. I souped it up, did some fabrication . . . ”
“Would you say it was loud?”
The side of his mouth twitched up slightly and a short chuckle snuck out. “I put two super-charged V8s in there, friend. Pulls about a thousand horsepower. Sonofabitch sounds like King Kong got up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“Some junker,” I said.
He offered a grunt and I tried to meet his gaze, but he looked away.
“I bought her at sheriff’s auction when they’d repossessed it after the fire . . . ” he trailed off, then took a deep breath like he was forcing the story out. Still holding back, but I knew it was the truth this time. “I don’t know why. Just needed to save it, I guess. I put her up for winter and she’d been there since.”
“If you’re going to store a car like that for that long wouldn’t you . . . ”
“Yeah,” he said. “All the fluids out. Battery. Tires off. She was packed up tight ‘last eighteen years.”
“So, how did it drive off your lot?”
“Last few weeks,” he started, “I ain’t been sleepin’ too good. Gettin’ old, I guess. Need to move at night. Tinker with something. Got a wild hair one night to see if she still ran, so I—”
“Did anyone else know about this?”
“No. The boys at the shop’d all gone home by the time I was doing anything.”
“No one who might have been in the neighborhood maybe, passing by and seen you working?”
“Naw. Well, there was . . . scared the shit out of me. I thought . . . But it was just some kid.”
“Some kid?”
“Yeah, I was putting the oil filter back on an’ looked up and saw this kid peeking through the fence. Middle of the night, out in the street. After he saw me, he walked off.”
“What did this kid look like?”
“Skinny. All black on. Hair all messed up. Long and standing up all over.”
X
James West had gotten a lot more interesting. Thought I’d call in to get some details from his statement and see if I could “bump into him” so he wouldn’t get spooked right away. I was feeling good. Had an appetite for the first time in days so I headed over to the Lunch Box.
The Lunch Box was a staple of life in Dubois. Like its namesake, it wasn’t much to look at, more or less a concrete bunker improbably sandwiched under the on ramp to the 139 bridge with only a small neon sign to let you know it wasn’t a municipal machine shed. It had been there since the Depression, and local legend had it that the WPA guys who built the bridge redrafted the plans so that they could save the place and eat there every day. The menu is short: loose meat sandwiches and pie. Both are worth the trip.
It was damp and chilly outside, but stepping inside was like being wrapped in grandma’s quilt. Hot coffee, cigarettes, and steamed hamburger. Two booths in the front two corners and a horseshoe-shaped counter covered in blue-green Formica surrounded by shiny stools dead center. There’s a box of peppermint patties and a stand with little bags of Sterzings potato chips, fresh from the plant in Burlington, by the register. The walls are yellowed wood panels, bare except for a framed photo of FDR and a reproduction portrait of JFK.
The lunch crowd was lighter than during the week, but even still all but two spots at the horseshoe counter were full and buzzing.
“Heard he was butchered! Strung up and bled like a hog!”
“Horrible! I can’t imagine— just came into their house in the middle of the night and . . . ”
I took an empty seat facing the windows next to Merle Travers. His wife had died when his youngest son was born. He had lost one son to Korea and the other two to Vietnam. Few people in town can remember the last time Merle spoke, but most put it at around then.
“Merle,” I said.
He looked up from his paper and nodded in acknowledgment. I gave a similar nod to the folks at the counter who were sheepishly trying to change the subject.
“Y’see the old Moonlite’s opening up?”
“The Drive-In? Who’d want to go back to that old place?”
“You don’t listen to a word of that nonsense,” said a friendly voice. “I know you’ll catch ‘em.”
“Thanks, Betty,” I said.
As far as anybody in town could remember, Betty came with the place when they put it up in the thirties. She baked all the pies, made all the sandwiches, took all the orders seven days a week, and never had a bad thing to say about anything or anybody. She set a tall plastic glass full of crushed ice and water in front of me.
“You want your usual, honey?”
“Bunch of folks say they’ve inherited it from the Skoger Sisters. They’re staying up at their old place.”
“Yes, please. Everything but onions.”
She smiled and tapped the pie case. “Save room. I made pumpkin this morning. First of the season.”
“Thanks, Betty.”
“I heard one of them say they were their nephews. Grandkids maybe?”
I took a long, deep sip from the glass and swallowed a mouthful of ice to chew on. I’d brought a small stack of financial reports on Boyd’s holdings and transactions from the last couple years before he sold out, but I knew they were probably a dead end.
“Hell, you know those two couldn’t have had kids.”
“Didn’t stop them from trying.”
I tried my best to ignore the snickering.
“Here you go, hon.” Betty slid a wax paper bundle and a spoon over the counter to me. You don’t get a plate at the Lunch Box, just a shiny white bun with ketchup, mustard, and pickle stuffed to overflowing with loose ground beef. Maid-Rite lays claim to these sandwiches, and will serve a pretty good one in almost any other town in Iowa, but I haven’t ever had a better one than right here. Like most simple pleasures, it’s almost impossible to explain the appeal. I took a big bite and sighed.
“I saw one of those Skogers out at Farm and Fleet. I can’t put my finger on it, but he just rubbed me the wrong way.”
I let my mind drift while my body ran on autopilot. The Lunch Box was not only under the ramp to the bridge but it also offered a lovely view of the dumpsters in the alley behind Main Street. It was dead. Grimy and overgrown back lots of businesses that had started moving out of downtown and closer to the highway for the last ten years. Most of what was left catered to men from the meat plant and the railroad workers that passed through. Bars. Taverns. A bowling alley.
“This whole thing rubs me the wrong way. You see that they’re opening up on Halloween? It’s right on their posters, like they’re celebrating twenty years to the day.”
I finished the sandwich and looked down to find my spoon so I could scrape up all the meat that was left in the wax paper. I scooped a bite into my mouth, and looked up to see James West walking across the street. He moved with purpose up the block, and ducked around the corner and into a storefront with no windows.
“I had forgotten about that! Jesus, was that twenty years ago?”
I wiped my mouth and left some cash on the counter. “Sorry, Betty. Gonna have to take a rain check on the pie.”
X
The storefront had rust-colored planks of wood set in a diagonal pattern covering the brick walls. The glass door was tinted black except for a square in the middle with the hours. Above it hung a cheap-looking glowing box. Black printed letters on translucent yellow plastic that read: “Cinestar Video.” This place had been a few different things in the time I’ve been in Dubois. A tavern and pool room, a tanning salon, a tavern again, and now this. I went in.
The place was a cave, and as far as I could tell, deserted. The overheads were off, so the only light came from chintzy plastic runner lights casting a yellowish glow up from the floor. Some of the walls were covered with shallow shelves, and similar shelves were worked into free standing units in the middle of the room. The bar along the back wall, leftover from the tavern days, had been turned into a counter. To the right, a large TV mounted in the corner near the ceiling was playing some black and white movie I didn’t recognize. To the left, an open doorway with a beaded curtain hanging in front and the words “Adults Only” spelled out in stenciled letters on the top of the frame. A red glow flooded out into the main room from within.
As my eyes adjusted, I could see that the shelves were covered with cardboard boxes of home video cassettes. Small rectangular signs adorned each set of shelves, all neatly printed with a single word. “Comedy.” “Musicals.” “Action.” “Romance.” I’d looked at those video cassette players when they first came out and decided they were too expensive. I’d heard there were places where you could rent the tapes for a lot less than what they cost to buy, but it hadn’t changed my mind.
I started towards the doorway with the curtain but stopped short by the tapes next to it. This section was at least twice the size of all the others. The covers of these boxes were all screams and knives. Bloody chainsaws and heaving breasts. The sign resting here was carefully drawn in black gothic type letters, each dripping red: “Horror.”
Hanging by a piece of tape off every other shelf were letter-sized flyers exactly like the ones that man was putting on windshields out at the Farm and Fleet. I peeled one off to get a closer look.
The bead curtain rattled to life with a splash. It was James, head down, checking off a list on a clip board. He stepped right into me, and then bounced back in shock.
“Oh, shit! Sorry, man,” he said, reaching up to pull a pair of headphones down through his mop of teased black hair. He was wearing a white t-shirt with something on it under the blue satin dinner jacket I’d seen him wearing the morning after we found Boyd. A cheap looking gold plastic name badge pinned on the lapel, along with a round white button with a crude death’s head leering from inside a black circle with “The Misfits Fiend Club” written on it.
“You’re that cop from the cemetery,” he said.
I could get a much better look at the kid now than I had before. He was tall, rail thin with a long neck and large angular head. Patchy and irregular stubble grew along his jaw leading to long wiry sideburns that hung like wet moss and mostly hid his prodigious ears.
“That’s right,” I said. When I first saw him, I thought he looked weird, but I wasn’t really buying it. Seemed like a costume worn by a kid who’d been led to believe he was an outsider so he started to dress the part. Or maybe he was a little weird, but like those rock videos, the look was just for show. Today, however, his eyes were what caught my attention. Without his sunglasses, I could see them clearly for the first time. Pale green, set back behind dark insomniac circles, and capped with heavy black brows. They projected a kind of weary sadness, but there was something else there, too. He held my stare for longer than most.
“I was just doin’ inventory back there. Didn’t hear you come in.”
He seemed uncomfortable, so I let him stay that way a while.
“Are you . . . um. Is there something I can help you with?”
“I came here to see you.”
“Wh— What about?” He stepped around me awkwardly and went behind the counter to set down the clipboard and started busying himself with stacks of tapes.I walked over to the counter and tried to catch his eyes again. When that failed, I read his t-shirt.“Pieces,” I said flatly. “It’s exactly what you think it is.”
He chuckled and held his jacket open, showing the jangly letters and the picture of a chainsaw blade made to look like it was running him through from behind complete with garish red blood stains.
“That it is,” he said with an impish smile, “We got a copy of that one in if you want it.”
“I’ll pass.” One of the tapes piled on the counter caught my eye. Its cover was a cheap-looking photo of a cross-eyed platinum blonde staring off into space, her mouth an almost perfect ‘O’ slathered in Crayola red slop. The movie’s two word title written with dripping letters. I picked it up. “Blood Feast,” I read. “I think I may have actually seen this one.”
“It’s a classic,” said James. “H.G. Lewis’s stuff was ahead of its time. Looks kinda corny compared to stuff like Day of the Dead or whatever but nobody else was doing anything close back then.”
“I just remember a pretty blonde getting her heart cut out by a madman in a black suit . . . ” I said. The vague memory nagged at me. “And then he ate it, I think.”
“She was a redhead,” said James in a matter of fact tone. “And the killer in that scene was dressed up like an ancient Egyptian. Or supposed to be, anyway. Looked kinda like a toga party. He wears a black suit later on though.”
“Maybe I’m thinking of something else,” I said.
“We can put it in and check it out, if you want,” offered James eagerly.
“That’s fine,” I said, setting the tape back on the counter face down, so I didn’t have to look at the cover. “So I take it you’re a fan of that kind of stuff.”
“Yeah,” he replied. Cool and reserved now. Trying to impress me. “I mean I’m into all kinds of movies. Foreign stuff—I go to the Bijou, up in Iowa City sometimes. But I’ve always loved monsters. Most people think it’s all junk, but a lot of them are really good and, like, important, you know?”
“How so?”
“Like they get right to it, you know? What you’re afraid of. Shit you can’t talk about. Whatever it is, they put it right up there. Like nightmares that you’re awake for.” He paused to make a note on his clipboard.
“I went up to Blackburn last spring ‘cause I heard they were gonna show Last House on the Left on a big screen in an auditorium. They had this professor talk before the show, and that’s what he said. Like we need to see that stuff. Called it catharsis.”
He looked around the room and sighed. “When Russ first opened this place he just wanted to rent out Adult Films.” He chuckled, making exaggerated quotation marks with his fingers. “I don’t know what’s so Adult about them. It’s not like you’re watching people do their tax returns or something. Anyway, I convinced him to try some other stuff and it was a hit. Now he lets me do the ordering.”
He was getting comfortable with me. I had no idea where I was headed with any of this, but my instincts told me there was something about this kid. I figured if I kept him talking I might find out what. “So, the horror ones are pretty popular?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “People act like they don’t like it. Like make fun of the titles and stuff, but they still rent ‘em. And then rent more. Gorier the better.” He smiled.
“How about this?” I handed him the flyer.
“Yeah, I may know a thing or two about that.” He smiled, tapping a corner of the page decorated with crumbling tombstones.
“Johnny Alucard, a zombie nightmare with hex appeal,” I read. When I looked up, he was grinning ear to ear. “That’s you?”
“Awesome, right? This summer, this guy comes in and we started talking about movies and stuff and he says he owns the old Moonlite Drive-in, like he inherited it. And I freak out, obviously.”
“Why, what do you mean?”
“Boris Orlof, man! That’s where he died, right?”
“You mean the TV guy you were talking about the other day?”
“Seriously? You haven’t heard of any of this?”
I shook my head, which isn’t technically the same as lying.
“Well, so he was on TV in the fifties and sixties. And he hosted old horror movies, right? Like—you know who Elvira is right?”
“I don’t really watch—”
“Whatever. It’s like he wore a spooky costume and he’d like cut in around the commercials or whatever and tell jokes and do creepy stuff. Make fun of the movie or talk about trivia or something. It’s awesome. There’s only like thirteen shows that still exist, but I’ve got ‘em all on tape. Guy up at the station let me make copies.”
I nodded.
“And it was a pretty big deal, too. Like all the kids and teenagers or whatever watched it every week and were way into it.
“So, he started doing these live shows at the Moonlite where they’d play a horror movie and then he’d get up on stage and, like, do the same thing as on TV but like way better. Like I heard he had go-go dancers and rock bands and stuff. And he did these big magic show things, except they were really gory! Like he’d saw somebody in half and there would be blood everywhere.
“And then on Halloween the stage caught on fire while he was performing and he got trapped up there and burned alive . . . I mean,it’s terrible. But it’s kind of perfect, you know? Like The Phantom of the Opera or something.
“So, anyway, I started telling this guy how great I thought it would be if somebody did a show like that again, and he just looks at me and is like I think you should do it. I want you to do that.”
“Have you ever done anything like this before?” I asked.
“Not really. I mean, I used to be kinda into magic tricks and stuff and used to do little performances for my neighbors or whatever, but nothing like this really. But, I mean, how could I pass it up? So, I’ve been working on my act since then. The owner is really cool. He’s been really helpful, too. I guess he knows a lot about this kind of thing. Has lots of ideas and helps me work out some of the technical stuff.”
“Make sure they have plenty of fire extinguishers.”
“Yeah.” He laughed.
“So, James,” I started, trying to sound casual. “I’m investigating the death of Richard Boyd. One of our officers spoke to you that morning, I believe.”
“Um . . . yeah. Yeah, I was on my way to work and saw the crowd so I went over to check it out.”
I took out my notebook and flipped to a page where I’d jotted some details from the reports. “You made a statement that you were actually out on the street that night?”
“Yeah, uh. Yeah. I mean, I was taking a walk that night and I walked past that house.”
I made a show of checking his address from my notebook. “Kind of far from your place, though. Is there a reason you were out that far in the middle of the night?”
“No. I mean, I was just walking around. It was really foggy that night and I thought it looked cool. Like in The Wolf Man. So I just, y’know. Took a walk.”
“Did you see anything unusual? Hear anything, maybe?”
“Uh, no.” He reached up and gave the headphones around his neck a tug. “I had my music up pretty loud though.”
“Didn’t hear a loud car?”
“No.”
I made a note. “And how about Sunday night? Where were you after nine?”
“Uh, I was working here until about eight. I closed up and left a little after. Walked home, but I took the long way and kinda just walked around a while I don’t know.”
“You remember when you got home?”
“No. Midnight, maybe? I don’t know.”
“Pretty normal for you to wander around town all night like that?”
“Yeah, I guess. I like it at night. It’s peaceful.”
“Hmm.” I closed my notebook and put it away slowly and got one of my cards out. “Well. If you remember anything you’d like to tell me, give me a call.”
“What really happened to him?” he asked. “That guy, I mean.”
I paused and looked around. The wall of horrors reflecting back every imaginable bloody end a person might come to. When I looked up, I saw James watching me patiently.
“A nightmare,” I said. “That he was awake for.”
