Page 20 of The Girl from Devil’s Lake (Joanna Brady Mysteries #21)
Fertile, Minnesota
Five years in, Stephen Roper’s career in teaching was going swimmingly.
He no longer had to deliver his opening day speech each fall because his reputation preceded him.
By the time students entered his classrooms, they were already terrified.
At first people wondered a bit about his bachelor existence, and occasionally a newly arrived female teacher would make a play for him, but he quickly made it clear that he wasn’t interested.
Why would he be lonely? After all, his voices were always with him.
Stretches of interstate were being constructed here and there along the way, but Steve stuck to less traveled roadways, staying at modestly priced, family-owned motels in smaller towns—Milbank and Yankton in South Dakota, Norfolk and Hebron in Nebraska, before crossing into Kansas.
After an overnight stay in Salina, he headed off on a diagonal route across the state that landed him in Liberal for that night’s stay.
A quick trip across bits of the panhandles of both Oklahoma and Texas found him in New Mexico.
His first glimpses of vast desert landscapes with blue-tinged mountain ranges off in the distance were so awe-inspiring that, despite being a lifelong Minnesotan, Steve Roper unaccountably felt right at home.
Along the way he’d kept an eye out for suitable victims, but so far nothing had caught his eye.
Finally, somewhere between Safford and Globe and just past a tiny burg called Bylas, the stars aligned with the muttering voices in his head to offer up exactly what he wanted—a dark-haired young woman wearing a sky-blue squaw dress who was walking westward on the shoulder of the road.
He slowed the vehicle enough to put it in reverse and came to a stop next to her. “Need a lift?” he asked, rolling down the window.
Nodding demurely, she reached for the door handle, opened the door, and stepped inside.
Once the car started moving again, she sat huddled next to the door in total silence.
Glancing in her direction, Steve noticed she wore an ornate silver and turquoise necklace with what looked like a horseshoe front and center.
“Nice necklace,” he observed.
The girl touched the horseshoe with one hand and murmured a quiet thank you.
After that she fell silent once more. Steve didn’t say anything, either, mostly because he didn’t want to alarm her—at least not until it was too late.
Several miles later he said, “Where are you headed?”
“Globe,” she answered. As far as small talk went, that was it.
Steve Roper was a serial killer whose preferred deadly weapons were his hands.
He’d figured that strategy out early on.
Bullets or shell casings left at a crime scene could be traced.
He still had the switchblade he’d taken from the Turtle River bitch and the one-bullet derringer he’d purchased in advance of his Freddy the Freeloader drug purchase, but those were back home in Minnesota, still hidden in his cigar box.
As for the cigar box itself? That was locked away in the safe he’d had installed in the far back corner of his basement, concealed behind a mountain of boxes.
But even if he’d had the switchblade with him, he wouldn’t have used it.
Knives were messy. Ditto for instruments that caused blunt-force trauma.
Strangling worked best for him. For one thing, it made for a clean kill. It was also up close and personal.
When it came to disposing of the corpses, his first choice was always dumping his victims into bodies of water.
That way, any physical evidence would most likely be washed away.
At that moment no bodies of water were in evidence.
US Highway 70 seemed to be traveling parallel with something called the Gila River, but the several culverts he’d crossed, ones that presumably held washes that would eventually feed into the river, were bone dry, leading him to believe that the riverbed itself was also probably dry as dust.
But then, just past a tiny place called Peridot, barely more than a wide spot in the road, he saw a sign indicating that the next intersection was with something called Coolidge Dam Road.
If there was a dam, didn’t that mean that water of some kind had to be out there somewhere? If so, Steve intended to find it.
The Camaro was almost on top of the intersection when he slammed on the brakes and spun the steering wheel sharply to the left.
His unsuspecting passenger’s body slammed against the car door while her head bounced off the passenger window.
Momentarily dazed, it took her a few seconds to recover.
Meanwhile Steve, having regained control of the vehicle, floor-boarded it.
By then the girl had come to enough to realize she was in danger.
Screaming in alarm, she grabbed the door handle as if determined to throw herself out of the moving vehicle.
Before she could do so, he seized her left wrist and held it in an iron-clad grip.
She fought for all she was worth, forcing Steve to stop the vehicle in order to gain control.
While he was occupied with that, she somehow managed to lean over far enough to bite the hell out of the back of his hand.
The wound instantly spurted blood. At that point, he dragged her across the bench seat where he was able to pin her body against his by clamping his right arm around her throat.
Then, using only his left hand to steer, he once again set the Camaro in motion.
Luckily there were no other vehicles nearby to bear witness to what had just occurred.
She struggled against him, trying to loosen the pressure on her neck, but it was no use. Eventually she went limp, but in case she was only playing dead and trying to trick him, Steve maintained the pressure on her throat. He wanted to be sure the bitch was really dead before loosening his grip.
Several miles later Steve finally caught sight of a body of water he later learned was the San Carlos Reservoir.
On the way, he encountered only two oncoming vehicles.
If anyone had noticed the couple snuggled together in that speeding blue Camaro, they probably assumed it to be a pair of carefree young lovers on their way to a secluded spot near the water for an afternoon make-out session.
The girl was deceased long before Steve arrived at the shoreline.
Some cars were parked here and there, but not many and not enough to be worrisome, and Steve managed to locate a sufficiently secluded spot.
Even though his hand was bleeding like crazy, the first thing he did was yank off the girl’s necklace and stuff that into his pocket.
Then, knowing the bright blue dress would be easy to spot, he took the time to undress her.
After unhooking her bra, he wrapped that around the wound on his hand to stem the bleeding.
Once he had stowed her clothing under the Camaro’s spare tire, he carried her into the murky water, let go of her, and watched the body sink to the bottom.
Heading back to the highway, Steve’s hand hurt like hell! Damned Indians , he thought, staring at the bloodstains marring the page of his road atlas, which was still open to the map of New Mexico. How come those savages fight back so hard?
He had planned to stop at the first available car wash to remove the telltale dust from his vehicle, but once he left Reservoir Girl behind, he realized that Globe was too close to the scene and so was the next burg over, a town called Superior, so he headed for Apache Junction and Mesa.
By the time he reached Apache Junction, the bleeding had stopped.
He pulled into the parking lot of the first pharmacy he saw.
Before going inside, he went around to the trunk of the car where he stuffed the blood-soaked bra in with the dead girl’s other clothing.
Then he rewrapped his damaged hand in a clean handkerchief that he took from his luggage.
Inside the store, he collected a bottle of peroxide—Grandma Lucille’s preferred first aid treatment—along with a stock of gauze and tape.
“What happened to your hand?” the concerned pharmacist asked while ringing up Steve’s purchases.
“Neighbor’s dog bit me,” he said.
“Any chance he’s rabid?”
“No, the guy who owned him claimed he’d had his rabies shots, but I can promise you this, that dog sure as hell won’t be biting anyone else.”
“You take care now,” the pharmacist added as Steve walked away. “Whatever you do, don’t let that thing get infected.”
After leaving the drugstore, Steve treated his injured hand and wrapped it properly before tracking down a do-it-yourself car wash.
By then he was beyond exhausted. He located a nearby motel, checked in, and showered, all the while managing to keep his bandaged hand out of the water.
After that he went straight to bed without even bothering to go looking for something to eat.
His hand was still aching once he got into bed. Lying there, he couldn’t help regretting that he hadn’t been able to watch the light go out of the little bitch’s eyes, but at least he had her necklace. That counted for something.