A Cold Instinct

A Cold Instinct

By Cole St. James

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Cole St. James

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Chapter 1

In the Past

Salina, Kansas

Tuesday, June 7

As Creighton Bostwick accelerated into a moonlit Iron Avenue, he threw his head back and crowed: Hot-wiring Barclay’s Mustang had been easy.

Killing Georgiana and Corbin would be too.

He cranked the Mustang’s window down, annoyed by the sensation of his glove on the handle, and drove to Country Club Heights. He jagged into Overhill and stopped beyond the streetlight.

Pricked with the same uneasiness that had wrenched at him when he’d stabbed Noel, he zipped up coveralls and adjusted his ski mask. He assured himself that the Kukri knife was taped to a cowboy boot, then adjusted a fanny pack stuffed with his gear.

Using chloroform would be iffy at best, he reminded himself, so care had to be taken.

He smashed the Mustang’s dome light.

After babying the Mustang’s door closed, he snuck up Overhill to the VanLeewens’ two-story colonial.

Fury welled to Bostwick’s throat. The home was too perfect for a little shit bag who’d blabbed her ass off.

Dizzy with anger he stalked up the walk certain that the front door would be unlocked. Over a two-month period he’d studied the VanLeewens. Had ventured into the house twice, once to survey, another to strangle their Siamese and haul it off.

He glanced around the neighborhood.

Homes were blanketed in darkness.

No movement to snag his eye.

No sound.

Apprehension and fear seesawing in him, he cracked the screen.

The interior door.

He squeezed into the hall.

The master bedroom stood on the left. The second-floor stairway was down the hall. The living room sprawled on the right.

Bostwick caressed the front door shut. He stole to the master bedroom. Georgiana was snoring drunkenly in the glow of a nightlight.

The alcoholic old slut could wait to die. So could her puny freak of a son.

Bostwick padded to the stairway and climbed to the second floor.

Heather’s door was opposite her brother’s. Both were closed.

He chloroformed a gauze pad and oozed into the girl’s room. Oozed to the bed.

He felt a tremor of fear at what he was undertaking. No, he assured himself, no, he’d killed before and the bulls had never suspected him. He wouldn’t be suspected now either.

He slapped the gauze over Heather’s nose and mouth and dumped his weight on her. Her thrashing and grunts ceased in spurts.

He slipped to Corbin’s room and repeated his attack.

As he sauntered out with the boy in a fireman’s carry, he glimpsed a Nazi SS knife on the dresser.

He stowed the knife in a pocket, pleased at his luck, and toted Corbin downstairs and unloaded him on the patio. He chalked a pentagram around him, then loped to the master bedroom.

He assaulted Georgiana who was so drunk she hardly fought.

He stabbed until he was panting with exertion.

Afterward he raced back to the patio where he slathered Corbin with his mother’s blood and slashed his throat from behind to avoid arterial spray.

He pressed the SS knife into the boy’s fingers and ran through the house to the front door.

He jogged to the Mustang, hot-wired the ignition again, motored to the house and reversed up the drive.

Feeling the need to rush now he transported Heather to the car and dumped her in the trunk. He threw himself into the driver’s bucket and made the car thunder until a light blinked on across the street. When an old man materialized in a window, Bostwick squealed to the street and fishtailed down Overhill.

He reduced his speed out of sight of the house.

Abandoning Country Club Heights, he aimed the car down Iron to a Marymount parking lot where he pulled to a corner distant from buildings and traffic. He slotted in beside his green ’74 Plymouth, bowed out of the Mustang and glanced around.

University buildings were cloaked in sleepiness. A few lights dotted windows. Distant voices.

Certain that he was alone, Bostwick popped the trunks of both vehicles. Heather was still unconscious, her breathing shallow and scratchy. He lifted her from the Mustang and transferred her to the Plymouth where he chloroformed her again.

He’d removed his ski mask and gloves when the smell of dog shit froze him.

He crowed with delight.

In a fringe of grass beside the Plymouth, he scooped the chunks into a coffee can stored by the spare tire.

He navigated from the parking lot and worked his way to an area north of Salina’s business district.

He bumped across the Rock Island tracks, doused his headlights and knifed into a gravel rut that squeezed into the Cooch Feed Mill. The stucco of the twenty-five, eight-story silos pleaded for repair. Windows were boarded with corrugated tin. A boxcar rusted on the tracks.

Bostwick nosed the Plymouth into the abandoned maze, then up-ramped on a concrete loading dock that led to silos through a deserted building.

Once the car was stashed in the cavernous interior, he threw Heather over his shoulder and waded through the building’s emptiness to the first silo where he flopped her down to unfasten a hatch. He wormed into the silo and wrestled Heather in after him. With the hatch secured behind him he fired up a lantern.

The illumination didn’t pierce the black roundness that pressed over them. With a few exceptions, the silo was outfitted with junk from the mill: a plank table, a sliver of mirror, a three-legged stool. A pallet bed layered with foam rubber was elevated from the floor on cinderblocks. The coffinlike box stowed under it was handmade.

Bostwick heaved the box into the feeble light and swung the lid back. He lowered Heather into the box. Savoring the way the lace teddy cupped her breasts, the way it snuggled her crotch, he hitched the stool near and plopped down to wait.

Hours seemed to float by before a moan rasped from Heather. She rocked and chewed at her tongue.

Bostwick crouched over the coffin so that she could see him clearly.

Heather blinked with fear. She sucked in a sharp breath. Y—You!

Bostwick hammered the lid down. While Heather thrashed and screamed, he curled a padlock through a U-bolt to trap her inside, then scooted the box under his bed. He sprawled on the foam rubber.

Perfect, he crowed, per-fect!

Chapter 2

June 15

Today life was almost as glorious as it once had been, Blackjack mused as he studied his friend at the speed bag.

Dutch Cooper looked as though he’d never abandoned the ring. Even after nine years he moved with a dancer’s grace, his frame flowing with power, the muscles washboard hard, the timing impeccable. Only a slightly crooked nose and scars around his eyes and ears revealed the trauma of his years in the ring.

Dutch weaved, then shuffled left to pound a vicious hook into the heavy bag. With his forehead braced against the canvas, he hooked again and again with machinelike regularity.

Blackjack wagged his old head in disappointment and pinched the skin of his neck. He’d first seen the potential of that hook when Dutch was thirteen. Sixteen years later, the power of that punch had almost propelled Dutch into the heavyweight championship of the world.

Shit, Blackjack grumbled at the memory. He thumbed false teeth into a more comfortable position and took a seat near the YM’s Nautilus machine.

Shit what? Max asked.

Fidgeting with warm-ups that hung on him, Blackjack twisted around to face Dutch’s younger brother.

I was thinkin about Davy Boy and that tenth round.

Won’t do any good.

I know, Blackjack said. But shitfire we was close.

Max Cooper was a darker version of Dutch. His nose was sharper, his cheekbones higher. An open suit jacket revealed a badge and service weapon.

Max and Blackjack argued about poker until Dutch completed his workout. His Marvin Hagler T-shirt sopping wet, Dutch ambled through a crowd of iron pumpers and rope skippers. He extended his gloves to Blackjack, laces up, as he’d done a thousand times over the years.

Me and Max are gonna get us up some poker tomorrow night, Blackjack said as he tugged off the gloves and scissored the tape from Dutch’s hands. You in?

Dutch snagged the towel Max offered. Can’t. Lainie’s folks are coming to dinner.

Max wagged his head. You’ll never straighten those two idiots out.

What’s their problem anyhow? Blackjack said. So you’re older than Lainie and a widower and got a little one—so what I wanna know?

Are you coming tonight? Dutch asked Blackjack.

Course, I never missed a meal of Lainie’s yet, have I? Yeah, yeah, Blackjack growled at a boxer who was summoning him, I’m comin, hold your horses.

As the trainer plodded off, Dutch shifted to his brother. What’s up?

Remember the VanLeewen case?

Dutch nodded and toweled his face.

Poppa VanLeewen is pissed about department progress. I told him I’d introduce you. Max trapped a document folder under Dutch’s arm. Photocopies of what we’ve accumulated on the QT. We’re done with the crime scene. Poppa is in the lobby.

A drinker’s complexion reddened Spenser VanLeewen’s face although his eyes were sober behind bifocals. His handshake was granite hard.

Detective Cooper here, VanLeewen said throwing a thumb at Max, can’t find the way out of his own asshole. What makes you different?

Nothing. Dutch grinned a pirate’s grin. I don’t promise anything.

VanLeewen contemplated Dutch as he extracted a cigarette from a suit pocket and fired up.

Look, he said almost apologetically, my business is floundering and the cops are stuck to my ass. I need to clean the shit off myself. And I need help—I won’t pretend otherwise. The detective says your fee is three hundred a day to charity. I’ll double it if you get to the bottom of this mess.

Dutch nodded agreement.

So what do you need? VanLeewen asked.

Dutch toweled perspiration from his arms. "An appointment in the morning and a key