The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of the Calcified Costumer, Part 3 of 6

The officials track down the terrible truth behind their killer, desperately examining where she comes from and what she is capable of.

Until Only Roaches Remain is available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 3 of The Case of the Calcified Costumer. To avoid spoilers, check out Part 1 and Part 2 first.

Content warnings: violence, gun violence, alcohol use, tobacco use, body horror, general grossness, creeps.

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 12, 1941
INSTITUTE FOR MIND AND BRAIN, COLGATE UNIVERSITY
HAMILTON, NEW YORK

“Any hack can make a man cluck,” Doctor George Hoben Estabrooks told his assistant down his nose. He kicked his feet off his desk and leaned forward, setting his reading glasses down. “Really, Deidre? This nonsense again? Listening in on snippets of the occasional lecture hardly breeds mastery of a subject.”

Deidre Daniels held her tongue. She’d heard George’s bullshit one too many times.

“Bark like a dog,” she whispered. The graduate student next to her switched from clucks and coos to excited yips.

“Deidre, honestly, your tricks are embarrassing,” George said.

Deidre huffed and sat. She tapped the chair’s wooden arm with her chewed-down fingernails, drumming a rhythmless tune.

“I cannot think when you do that,” George snapped. He glared at the barking undergrad. “And please, Brian, shut up!”

He snapped his fingers, clapped his hands, smacked his desk. The young man continued his noises. Daniels gave George a cruel smirk then drummed out a little tattoo on the arm chair. Brian went silent.

“You can leave, Brian,” she said. “Shut the door.”

Brian looked around, confused. He shook his head and thanked them, then scampered out of the office, closing the door behind him.

“That’s better,” George said, as if he’d done it. “Miss Daniels, this is frankly a waste of my time. I’m of a mind to call your husband and ask what has gotten into you.”

“Oh, be my guest,” Daniels said. “He is likely unavailable.”

Alfred should’ve been locked up by then. The house would have caught fire quickly, and the police would’ve found him waiting in the driveway, holding the gas can, bewildered.

“I certainly shall,” George huffed. He rifled through the papers on his desk, his means of sorting out his thoughts. She knew him better than he knew himself. She had read many of the books proudly displayed on his shelves for him. She’d typed his letters, prepared his lunches, transcribed his rambling lectures. She’d distilled his addled methods into their purest concentrates, all to make him look good.

In her care, the doctor had become an authority in his field. In their field. He was an authority to everyone from newspapers to the deans of Oxford to J. Edgar Hoover. Her guidance had helped him drag hypnotism from the carnival sideshow into the scientific sphere.

She had alloyed him from a kook into a doctor.

And what had he done for her?

George fumbled with his phone, having finally found her home number buried in his piles. She sighed. He couldn’t operate it. He slammed the receiver down, anger masking embarrassment.

“George,” she wondered.

“What?” he snapped.

“What do you think I’ve been doing all of these years working for you?” she asked.

“Deidre, I don’t have time for your - !” he started, but she cut him off.

“Tell me,” she growled. Her voice rumbled and wavered, cutting through his agitation like a bread knife.

“Making coffee, doing your nails, pissing your life away,” George snapped, unable to stop himself. His eyes went wide as soon as the last uninvited word left his mouth.

“How?” he stammered.

“Acoustic tuning, rhythmic sub-layering, cathexual verbiage, and… you know, George, it gets very technical.”

“‘Very technical?’” he sputtered. To be fair, it was all incredibly technical, and she had been forced to invent half the terms needed to describe her method. But she had dealt with George’s elitist, misogynistic bullshit for nearly ten years.

“Sit,” she said. Her precisely modulated voice reverberated through the room. He gasped like she’d kicked his feet out from under him and fell into his chair.

“Good,” she said, standing over him. “Clear your desk.”

George swept his arms across his desk, flinging aside his papers, coffee, trinkets, and awards. Satisfied, she took a seat on its rarely seen surface.

“How dare - !” he tried.

“Shut your mouth,” she ordered. His mouth snapped closed, stifling the words he was still speaking. He felt his face in horror. She hadn’t told him to ‘be quiet,’ so he continued to object despite losing the permission to open his mouth.

“Interesting,” she purred. He took her commands literally. Her experimentation with the grad students had been thorough and specific. She had avoided idioms, which she was coming to understand had been short-sighted. If she wanted to use her method in the field, she would have to be quick and adaptable. There would be no time to second-guess the phrases she used. She could adjust.

“I began my studies watching and admiring you, George,” she said. “I thought you were a genius. But that was me. I made you up as something other than a man. That was not fair to either of us.”

George tried to add something, but he couldn’t talk and she didn’t care to hear him.

“When you refused to allow me to enroll in classes, I was done. I had been by your side. Those awards? I wrote the applications. Your grants? Your speaking engagements? I built you, George.”

George shook his head, but she was used to that.

“When you told me, again and again, that I am a woman, I couldn’t study or research here, in this institution we built together…”

She sighed and took off her glasses. She was so tired of him.

“I perfected the methods you barely grasp at, and you could not even see it happening. I’m above you. I’m beyond you! And all you could see was some horseshit rule set by horseshit men a hundred years ago! I could audit and pay, but never graduate, isn’t that right? I could have been your greatest accomplishment, but you couldn’t see past your own nose.”

George glared at her, furious. She was still not worth his time.

“You know what, George? Alfred felt the same way, and that’s all it took. I needed a fresh start, so I asked him to burn our house down.”

George twisted in his chair. Hamilton was a small town. He could see the smoke from his window. His eyes went wide.

“I am taking my skills where they’ll be appreciated. People are willing to pay real money for help convincing others to do things. See you never, George.”

She hopped up off the desk, snatched up her purse and headed for the door.

George mumbled something through his clenched jaw at her back. She couldn’t quite make it out, but he sounded like an ass saying it.

“You know what, George?” she sighed, “Why don’t you take a long walk off a short pier?”

FRIDAY EVENING, JULY 2, 1943
OLDE HEURICH BREWING CO., SUB-BASEMENT
FOGGY BOTTOM, WASHINGTON, D.C.

“The Office has been tracking Deidre Daniels for over a year now,” Ortíz began. “She is pretty hard to keep an eye on. As you could see from Mister Larkman's reaction, even people that have seen her face-to-face have trouble recounting it.”

Mickey leaned back in his chair and loosened his collar. The basement under the bustling brewery was more humid than the D.C. streets were. There would be no respite from the summer heat for for him. He glared across the room at his fellow officials.

“Is this another chemical weapon?” he asked.

“No,” Ortíz said, then hesitated.

“Tell him,” Beasley urged.

“Hypnotism,” Ortíz finally answered.

“Quit pulling my leg, kid,” Mick said. “It was some new Department Three serum, wasn't it?”

“No foolin', Mick,” the younger agent replied. “Daniels worked at a college as a secretary for Doctor George Hoben Estabrooks, the psychologist in charge of the regular Army's hypno-programming project.”

“Hypnotism,” Mickey grunted. The concrete floor was somehow both slimy and gritty under his socked feet. The Office’s D.C. headquarters was just across the street, but Mick could hardly get in over there. He wasn’t surprised that the only space Inspector General Klavin could afford them for the investigation was a yeasty dungeon under an imminent-domain’d German brewery. And then they expected him to deal with some psychology hokum.

“Estabrooks claimed that he could change a man's personality without his cooperation or consent. He turned a Marine into a treasonous Communist and back again,” Ortíz explained. “And Daniels was even better at it than him.”

“So why isn't she working for us?”

“She had a chip on her shoulder,” Beasley chimed in, “An understandable chip.”

“Despite being Estabrooks' most accomplished student, she was not one,” Ortíz continued. “Colgate is an all-male school, and they refused to admit her or grant her a degree, so she took her talents on the road.”

“Like I said, understandable,” Beasley said.

“Nobody likes their work getting overlooked,” Mick agreed. “So now she's lashing out?”

“Lashing out for profit,” Ortíz said.

“We've tentatively linked her to killings, bombings, robberies, and kidnappings from New York to Wyoming,” Beasley explained. “She’s slippery, she makes reliable witnesses hard to come by. Just two months ago, she was arrested for all of eight minutes after a bank robbery in Philly. When backup got there, the arresting officer was hurling while oinking like a pig and didn't stop until he passed out two days later.”

“Like what happened to Larkman,” Mickey said.

“Her compulsion is so strong that victims lose control of their bodies when forced to face it,” Beasley confirmed. “I’ve seen it myself.”

“Yeah, me too,” Mick said, wiggling his toes in his soiled socks.

“And, though Estabrooks categorically denies her skill, she did nearly make him try to drown himself. His notes indicate that she can slip the leash on someone, like she did with Larkman, in under sixty seconds without him even realizing she's doing it,” Ortíz added.

“So the desk manager thinks the dame is hanging around to chat him up and instead she's getting his brain to do a back flip.”

“So how do we catch her?” Beasley asked.

“We figure out what she wants and why this woman needed to die for it, then cut her off at the pass,” Mickey answered.

“I think I've ID'd the vic,” Ortíz said.

“Show me,” Mick said. While Ortíz flipped through the missing persons files, Mickey sipped on a warm German-style beer then grimaced at the taste. It was thin and grassy, like drinking a pint of wet hay. It was no wonder the krauts were so sour. He drained the rest of the swill and slid the empty glass away in disgust. Ortíz slapped a photo down on the table in front of him. An attractive brunette in her mid-thirties looked up at him.

“Daniels most closely resembles this woman, Irene Matthews McIntosh of Arlington, Virginia. McIntosh's mother reported her missing this morning.”

“What do you know about her?”

“Married, occupation listed a dressmaker,” Ortíz said.

“Matches the story she gave the front desk,” Mickey recalled. “So why would Daniels want to make dresses? Who’s her husband?”

“He’s a staff sergeant in a Marine supply company. Stationed in Australia right now, no influence to strong-arm, really,” Ortíz said, then shut McIntosh's file.

“Then it's got to be Irene that Daniels was after,” Mick surmised.

“I'm on it,” Beasley chimed in. “I'll talk to her boss.”

“Good thinking,” Mick said. Beasley smiled, eliciting a grin from Ortíz as well. She ducked under some dripping pipes and left the dank basement. Ortíz gazed longingly after her.

“Keep it together, kid,” Mickey muttered. Ortíz shook the stars out of his eyes and focused back on Daniel's' file.

“How do you plan on taking on a killer who can recruit anyone to her cause?” Ortíz asked.

“That's the question, isn't it?” Mick said. “Might have to use my light touch.”

Ortíz chuckled. Mickey's singular brand of prisoner-apprehension had become infamous throughout the Western Hemisphere bureau. He was known for sending the the Grave's medics some challenging patients.

“Do we know exactly what this woman is capable of?” Mickey asked.

“She’s an academic. I’d be surprised if she had a callous anywhere other than her writing hand. No military training of any kind in her history, a real bookworm,” Ortíz read.

“So we just have to worry about her volunteers,” Mick concluded.

SATURDAY MORNING, APRIL 26, 1916
PIER FOURTEEN, PORT OF TAMPA
TAMPA, FLORIDA

“What are you waiting for?” Police Sergeant Bob Cross grunted. Mickey Malloy turned around and squinted at the thick goon and his two pals. The sun rising behind them forced him to look away.

The gangway up to the waiting Backhouse loomed in front of him. He knew what was up there, and where the ship was headed.

“You welching?” Cross barked.

“No,” Mick snapped. He knew what he’d promised to do. It hadn’t seemed like such a raw deal ‘til he had to stare it in the face.

"So march, soldier boy,” another of the cops snarled.

Mick stood stock still. He felt his heartbeat through his fists. He hadn’t much read up on the war in Europe ‘til he’d promised to go fight in it. With more information, the chain gang seemed like a more attractive option.

“He’s got as much backbone as a damn jellyfish,” the other of Mick’s escorts whispered, intentionally loud enough for him to hear.

“Maybe pour a couple drinks in him, that always gets him fired up,” another chuckled.

“Why’d I have to get the French judge?” Mick muttered to himself.

“What’s that, asshole?” Cross asked. He jammed Mick in the back with his nightstick, hard enough to shove him a step forward. Mick caught himself before he tripped over the gangway and spun, seething.

“You going to try something, big boy?” Cross demanded, suddenly an inch away from the back of Mickey’s neck. His breath was hot and sour. He smiled wide, inviting Mick to slug him. He’d had his share of run-ins with old Bob. They didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye. “All it would take to get out of this deal is one punch. You don’t have to go to some big, scary war. Plenty of ditches to get dug here, where you’re nice and safe.”

Mick took a deep breath, counted to ten in his head, then smiled over his shoulder.

“Deal’s a deal,” he said. He’d get on the boat, he’d promised he would. Besides, his only other option involved a beating and lock-up.

Belting the piss out of two college kids whose dads were bigger than their britches was typical for Mick. He could’ve guessed that no one would give a shit that the kids were pawing at every girl in the place, just that some lumbering townie had knocked them senseless. But his real turn came when he was up for sentencing. Catching a judge whose parents had emigrated from France was bad luck, even for him.

It had seemed like a good deal at the time: enlist in the British Expeditionary Force, push the Hun out of the France, and get his record expunged. Not just for the bar fight: all of it. Do a little more fighting, come home to a clean slate.

That was before he heard about the trenches, the gas, the artillery barrages lasting days. The war had seemed so far away until he he had a one-way ticket to visit it up close.

“He’s not going,” he heard one hiss.

“I ain’t surprised. Big guys like that are always yellow.”

Mick didn’t react. Getting too hot too quick was how he’d gotten himself into a pickle in the first place.

“I’ll take him,” Cross said. “Got your ‘cuffs?”

Chains rattled. Cross’ hand closed around his upper arm. Mick wrenched out of the cop’s grip and lurched into the sweating goon’s face.

“Get your God damn mitts of me,” he snarled.

“You know the deal, Malloy,” Cross said. He reached for Mick’s hand again, ‘cuffs open and ready to latch onto him.

“I know the deal, I made the deal!" Mick snapped. He stepped away again. His heels clunked against the gangway.

“Come on, kid, you don’t want to fight, I know it, you know it, let’s go back to the jail, you take your licks,” Cross said.

“Yeah, I’ll be out there with you on the side of the road, Malloy,” one of the other cops snickered. “It’ll be a stroll in the park.”

“I can fight,” Mick replied.

“You won’t fight for a bunch of frogs.”

“Don’t matter why you’re fighting once you’re in it,” Mick replied. Truth was, he wasn’t trying to fight krauts or whoever. But when fists were flying and barstools air mid-air, a fight’s already happening regardless of intent. He’d just need to keep his elbows up and wade through it.

“Oh yeah? Well I don’t see you getting on that boat.”

“Give me a minute,” Mick snapped. The cops tensed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of stale baywater, diesel exhaust, and rotting wood. It smelled like home.

That breath was pushed from his body he was suddenly shoved backward. He fell flat onto his ass. All three cops laughed.

Mick surged to his feet, ready to pound the sucker-puncher into rubble.

“Yeah, Malloy, lay one on me,” Cross sneered.

Mick froze, inches away from touching him. Cross wanted Mick to hit him. The other two watched, ready to strike like rattlers. If he laid a hand on that piece of crap his deal was out the window. He’d be on the chain gang by the afternoon.

The cops watched him, eager and cruel. They wanted Mick in their control. They’d given him a hard time for a long time, ever since he was a kid, to make an impression. They had big plans for him.

Suddenly, France didn’t seem so bad. At least he’d have a fighting chance.

“Yeah,” Mick said, exhaling slowly to take a beat. In France, he’d die on his feet. Under the watch of the cops he’d die in a ditch, heat-stroked and mosquito-bit, a rusted shovel in hand.

“Yeah? So you got it in you?” Cross asked. Mick called him the ‘biggest,’ but that particular turd was barely piled up to Mick’s eyes.

“Guess I must,” Mick replied. His threw his bag over his shoulder, swinging it close enough to Cross’ nose that the red-faced man felt the breeze.

Mick spun and started the long walk up the gangway, leaving the cops staring daggers into his back.

He didn’t care what they thought: he was going to to live. He’d figure out his reason to fight, even if he had to trick himself into doing it, because he wasn’t especially interested in the alternative.

Then, when his record was clear, Mickey Malloy would return to Tampa and plow through it like a rhinoceros.

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Copyright © 2024 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Bruce Connors.