CHAPTER

THREE

HE PARKS HIS VAN UNDER THE DARK BRANCHES OF a maple, staying away from the overhead lights, far from the rest stop’s white colonial façade. He must be cautious, away from prying eyes and security cameras. He looks for cars. Men parked alone. There are a few, but too near the entrance to be possibilities.

He sits for twenty minutes in the lot, drinking a beer and punching the radio dial, until a black Chevrolet sedan passes behind him. He rolls down his window halfway and makes eye contact with the driver, a white man in his early forties. The car pulls into a parking space three down from the van.

Time drags by for another ten minutes—the 25 feet between them is a chasm—a gap guarded by anonymity, mistrust, and silence. He stares at the Chevy’s driver. Their eyes meet and lock. A prickle creeps up his skin. The night air on the edge of a lush, warm softness, transforms into a crackling blue haze. He rolls up his window, locks the van, and strolls to the car.

He stops a few feet away from the window and looks into the man’s face. It is kind and giving, and he is glad because kindness —a weakness—will make the killing easier. A man who is angry is difficult because it fuels the hatred in him—an explosive situation.

The man’s features are ordinary: a bit of gray in a black mustache, short hair on the balding head, wire-framed glasses bridging a thin nose. He wears a gold wedding ring on his left hand.

Jack hitches his thumb into his jean pocket and nods.

“Hi,” the man says.

“Nice night.”

“Yes.” The man taps his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Looking for relief?”

The man looks away toward the rest stop and then back. “I know you won’t believe me, but I’ve never done this before.”

A short laugh. “Oh, a virgin to the tearoom.”

The man chuckles nervously. “Yeah, to this. I’ve stopped here enough. I know what goes on.”

A warm breeze curves around him and Jack relaxes for a moment. “Married?”

The man stares at his left hand.

“It’s okay. Pussy not enough for you?”

“Look, maybe this isn’t going to—”

“Come down to the van. It’s private. You’ll have a good time. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

The man sits, silent, staring through the windshield into the dark woods beyond.

“What’s your name?” Jack coaxes. He wants him now and would do almost anything to get him to the van.

“Ron.”

“Ron—I’m Jack,” he says almost sweetly. He avoids a handshake or any contact with the car.

Ron grips the steering wheel and says, “I wouldn’t think someone like you would be interested in someone like me.”

“But I am interested in you. You’re just my type. Guys who are married are stable. Not like your normal queer. I get off on guys who like a quiet evening at home. You know—the romantic type.”

Ron looks at him and Jack can see he has him hooked. He’s as good as dead.

“What the hell. That’s why I’m here.” He rolls up the Chevy’s windows, locks the doors, and walks back to the van with Jack. Ron opens the door and hops into the passenger seat.

Jack climbs into the driver’s seat, then leans across and locks the passenger door—he had already made sure the other doors were locked. He places his right hand on Ron’s leg and runs his fingers up and down the slick fabric of his dress pants. He can see the stiffening bulge in Ron’s crotch. Jack leans closer and in one move pulls the open cuff that’s attached to the seat and clamps it onto Ron’s left wrist. He moves for his gun just as fast.

“Don’t move and don’t say a word,” Jack says. “We’re going for a ride.” He starts the van and pulls out of the lot while holding the gun to Ron’s temple. As soon as he’s on the road, he lowers the gun. “Okay, let’s have some fun.”

Ron is silent, shivering in his seat, but finally manages to ask, “What do you want? You want money? You can have my wallet.”

Jack laughs and the power that fills him when he kills washes over him. “No, I want you. Just like I said. You want to get fucked don’t you? Well, that’s what’s going to happen.”

“Please…don’t do this. My wife and kids will be looking for me.”

“Ron. I don’t want to tell you this again. Shut the fuck up.” Jack slides his hand under the seat, takes out the slapjack and pops it against Ron’s left temple. Ron’s head lolls and then he slumps forward against the dashboard, the cuff cutting into his wrist.

***

Ron wakes from a hazy dream, his head throbbing—like he was underwater, but a dim light filters into his eyes. The air is humid in the back of the van, with a scent of pine, sweat, and the acidic bite of fear. He shakes his head and the fuzz clears a little. He tries to move; the maneuver is useless. His legs and wrists are bound to O rings secured to the van’s bed. He is naked, stomach down on the floor. He whispers a brief, hoarse call for help. No one answers and the silence stings him.

A few minutes later, the van’s rear doors open and Ron strains to look over his shoulder. Gloved hands slide over his buttocks. “Do you like it, Ron? That’s what you want, don’t you? You want to get fucked.”

“Stop. I’ll give you whatever you want—you can have it.”

“I don’t want anything.”

The gloves move up the cleft of his back, toward his shoulders and stop on his neck. They linger too long and Ron shakes them away, but the grip tightens.

“Why would you want to do that? Don’t you want your lover’s touch?”

The hands squeeze and Ron gasps for air, his lungs burning for breath. Then, as quickly as they closed around his windpipe, they open, and he gasps down the sticky air.

Jack’s voice is soft, mockingly erotic. “You want it, don’t you pervert? Faggot. If you want to get fucked—fuck this.” Jack leans over him. The gloved hands are replaced by something that feels like a cool metal rod. It doesn’t take long for Ron to realize that Jack is scraping a gun barrel across his back.

The barrel slides down to the cleft of his buttocks and the cold steel runs up and down like a metal finger between his testicles and rectum. He stifles a scream as the gun pushes against his perineum and then lifts to his anus.

Jack takes excited short breaths.

The barrel cuts into Ron’s rectum, the pistol sight rips the tissue as it jabs his insides.

Ron screams and Jack slams Ron’s head against the van floor. Again. And again.

When he comes to, he is face down on the damp earth, gasping for breath. A fiery pain travels from his head to his toes. His right jaw is shattered. His glasses are gone and one eye is covered by a bloody red film; through the other he sees the dark outline of legs to his right. A booted foot pushes down on the back of his head, crushing his face into the ground. The rocky earth muffles his screams. His bound hands struggle to catch the grip of the gun still inside him.

Strong hands part his legs.

The voice is soothing, gentle. “Thanks, Ron, for the one-night stand.”

The gloved hand pushes against his buttocks.

The gun fires. The bullet rips through him and his world plunges into darkness.

***

New Hampshire State Trooper William Anderson is the first officer to arrive at 9:32 p.m. on July 3^rd off Route 119 near Fitzwilliam. He opens the patrol car door and tosses his nearly finished cigarette on the ground. He crushes the butt with his boot and pulls on his jacket. The day, warm and muggy this holiday weekend, has faded and the night brings relief from the heat. The temperature, about 72, is dropping and the wind sharpens off the peaks. Rain would be nice, he thinks. The ground is dry and cracked. So much can go wrong on the Fourth. Rain would keep people indoors, maybe fewer drunk drivers, boating accidents, drownings and hiking mishaps. Protect and serve, my ass. More like babysit and clean up the mess.

He radios headquarters he is on site and soon to be out of the car. He checks his right jacket pocket for a pad and pen and then lifts the portable light from the seat. He switches on the vehicle’s rotating beacons and the lights vibrate violently against the black pines before being sucked into the darkness.

About fifty yards to his left, on a dirt construction access road, flashlight beams scatter through banks of bushy undergrowth and reflect off the white birches.

“Over here,” a man yells. Other voices break into chatter.

Trooper Anderson focuses the beam in front of him and pushes through the trees in a zig-zag walk past low, leafy branches.

He mentally prepares himself for the body. No matter how many times he’s seen a victim, no matter how hard he tries, he never quite gets over knowing that the flesh in front of him was once a living, breathing human. Some scenes are worse than others. Kids, particularly, or those that look like slaughterhouse leftovers.

Dust motes whirl through the scattered light. Smoke wafts from the red tips of cigarettes. Three men from a construction company in Nashua huddle in a cramped circle over a dark form on the ground. They break from the circle and back away. Their lights careen down.

“Jesus, God,” the trooper says.

“I came over to take a leak,” a stocky young man says. “Just finished cutting a road through the lots. Thought I saw a leg.”

The body, festering, bloated, is face down on the forest floor.

Anderson gawks at the corpse. “I’ve never seen….”

“We’ve been prepping all day,” another man says and flicks an ash from his cigarette. “Owner wants to get the house up by winter.”

Anderson tracks his light down the body from head to toe. The blast has blown away part of the lower back and buttocks. Blackened blood coats the back and shoulders; a dried inky stream runs from the waist.

“He’s got something God-awful clutched in his left hand,” the second man says.

Anderson kneels for a closer look. He studies the top of the discolored hand, the distended fingers, which he can imagine before death as fair-skinned and fine with little hair. An etched gold band cuts into the fourth left finger which is the greenish color of bad meat. He plays the light into the tight circle of fingers and peers into the fist.

The trooper’s stomach turns a little. “It’s a dick,” Anderson says.