Secret Waters

By Betty Alt

In the town of Paramont, over a two-year period in the late 1940s, several women have been murdered. For some reason all of the bodies have been placed in or near water -- a river or lake. Detectives Amos Taylor and Richard Samms spend months attempting to track down the elusive killer identified merely as young, “good-looking” and driving a light-colored sedan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669808787

Betty Alt

N/A

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Copyright © 2022 by .

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Rev. date: 01/25/2022

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Then is not Death at watch within these secret waters?

-Blunden, 1896-1974

L eaning heavily on his cane, the old man peered over the railing at the passenger cars from a train standing idly outside a station. They did not seem to be full, but within his memory he could see the days when dozens of passengers would scurry across the platform, climb the steps, and soon be on their way to various destinations. He knew the days of train travel would eventually come to an end as would travel by bus. Airplanes were the wave of the future he was always being told. Only old fogies would consider traveling any distance on land now that a new decade was fast approac hing.

He sighed and leaned a little further over the scene, carefully clinging to his cane for support. For the past year he had been having spells of dizziness—vertigo the young doctor had called it – and explained that it was a fairly common occurrence with older people.

Old people? He shook his head. He didn’t think of himself as old, although his watery blue eyes needed glasses, and his once black hair now was entirely white. He found it hard to believe, but he would be seventy-one in another two months. Born in 1879 in Oklahoma, he had lived and worked nearly ten years on a ranch in northern Texas before moving to Colorado. Recalling his days at the coal mines in the southern part of the state, he could almost feel his former agility to climb like a money up the tipple.

No vertigo then, he snorted. Quickly he looked around to see if anyone might be close enough to hear. He definitely didn’t want people to think he was senile and talked to himself although he found that he was doing just that more often. Just keeping myself company, he had said to a friend when he had mentioned the frequent mumbling.

Shortly after the end of World War I, he was able to get a job in the Colorado Iron Corporation, a steel mill at Paramont. Eventually, he had married, and had a son just old enough to be killed on Iwo Jima. In less than two years his grief-stricken wife was dead and, to his way of thinking, both had been killed by the war. Since his retirement from his job and the loss of his wife, there were few people with whom he could converse.

His pension from the mill provided an adequate living, and after selling the family home, he had settled comfortably upstairs on Central Avenue in a two-room apartment above an electric supply store. From the apartment’s three windows facing the street, he spent many hours simply watching auto and foot traffic. At night the music from a nearby bar usually lulled him to sleep. Every week, even when it snowed, he walked up to the library on Arlen Street for a supply of books as he was an avid reader.

Moving further along the bridge, he stopped and continued watching the Arkansas River, swollen from early May runoff in the mountains to the west. He thought for a moment that he could hear a gurgle from the water but then realized it was only the noise of automobile traffic as drivers made their way across town from north to south.

Then something almost directly under the bridge caught his eye – something crumpled and lying just above the water line. He couldn’t tell what it was or its color. Might be black he thought. What could be black? Well, maybe it’s not black. It’s wet and maybe just looks black. Might be brown or dark green. Could be a log but a log would be longer and smooth. Think it’s a pile of rags or some kind of blanket.

Taking off his glasses and wiping them clean, Perkins moved even further on the bridge and peered more closely at the item now directly below him. It was a pile of clothing, and he thought he could discern an arm sticking out from under it.

===============

Detective Levi Taylor moved cautiously down the embankment, knelt by the body, and moved a piece of the clothing. The side of a female face, bruised and partially covered with strands of dark hair, became visible. In the back of his mind he recalled a similar body with dark hair lying partially in water, although that had been a small girl in another town. A different life he thought, shook his head, and concentrated on the death in front of him.

Hair’s not wet so she probably didn’t wash down when the river was higher. Probably tossed from the bridge? No, that would have been risky. someone might have seen that. Must have been taken to this side of the bank and then tossed down.

He continued mulling over that scenario and then had a new thought. She could have been in the river at the other bridge further up river, lost her footing, floated down, and partially dried by the sun. River’s been running high for several weeks now. No matter. I need to get her moved out of here . . .

Climbing carefully back up the steep bank, Taylor directed two men from the responding emergency vehicle to retrieve the body and get it to the coroner. By now a crowd had collected on the bridge and along the embankment. Traffic was becoming snarled as people slowed their cars or parked to see what was happening.

Let’s get these people moved out of here, the detective snapped at two policemen standing nearby and merely watching the scene. They’ve already tramped any evidence up here on the bank into the ground and obliterated car tracks from this gravel street.

It took nearly a half hour for the emergency attendants to creep down the embankment, carefully load the body onto a stretcher, and climb back up to their vehicle. Walking beside the litter as it was loaded into a waiting ambulance, Taylor could tell that the woman was young.

Doesn’t look to be much over eighteen . . . early twenties at most. Wonder what she was doing down in this neighborhood. Taylor rubbed his head as if that movement might make things clearer. Had to have someone with her unless she jumped. No! Don’t think she jumped. She’d have landed in the water if she had gone off the bridge. If she jumped from the bank, the vegetation would be torn up as she slid down . . . No, someone was with her. Tossed her out over the embankment.

Who called this in? Taylor asked a young policeman that was standing nearby. He thought the man’s name was Dan Hutchins but wasn’t sure.

An old guy. Names Sidney Perkins. Said he was walking across the bridge and just stopped to watch the train. Went to the nearest house, over toward the library. The man pointed in a southerly direction. He asked to use their phone.

Where’s he now?

In my car, sir. He’s just sitting there, waiting. Doesn’t seem to be at all anxious to leave. Hutchins grinned. Probably this is the highlight of his day.

Taylor merely nodded and headed toward the police car. Mr. Perkins? he asked, noting that the man seemed to be settled comfortably in the back seat of the auto.

Yep, that’s me. Been that way for over seventy years now. You don’t have to be so formal. Most people just call me Sid.

Taylor merely smiled. I understand you called the police when you saw the body.

Yep, Perkins said again. I hurried as fast as I could walk to get across the street and to a phone. Lucky that someone was home. I think the lady who answered the door thought I was going to fall over ‘cause I was out of breath. Don’t do much fast walking these days.

You didn’t notice anyone else around . . . maybe someone on the embankment further down river or along the road beside the river?

No, nothin’ moving but the water. Wasn’t even sure at first that I was seeing a dead person. Perkins looked out the car door past Taylor. Didn’t expect to see anyone down there near the water, especially someone dead. Was just going to get some new books to read.

Thanking Perkins, Taylor offered to have the patrolman drive him to the library as he could tell the old man was becoming overly tired. Perkins eagerly accepted the offer, and somehow Hunter knew that finding the body and riding in the police car would be the highlight of the man’s week, something he could repeat for days to friends or anyone who would listen.

Taylor walked back to the river’s edge and stared down for several minutes at the vegetation. He again mulled over his idea that the woman had been tossed from the bank, but it was difficult to tell for certain as the grass and other vegetation had been disturbed by the first police on the scene and medical personnel climbing down to the body.

He must have been fairly strong to heave a dead body that far. Don’t think she was killed here so there had to be a car. Imagine there have been a few other cars down this street since then, plus the police cars, so must be all kinds of tire tracks besides those of the killer. No help there. Best thing I can do now is get back to the station, get ready to notify relatives . . .

Taylor sighed. He hated that part of his job, telling people he was sorry when he knew that they knew it was just a job for him. Well, that would come later, much later as in some way he would have to come up with the young woman’s identity. If I get lucky, someone already may have called in about a missing person.

===============

Back at his desk at the Paramont Police Station, Taylor hoped the coroner would have time to get him a report that day on the victim’s means of deathbut knew it was only wishful thinking. So far, no one had reported a missing female, so he had nothing to go on – no name, no relatives, no place of work or school – simply nothing. Sighing he glanced at a couple of notes on phone calls that had come in during his absence from the office, one from the Police Chief, Alfred Ames.

Taylor had been hired from his position as Sheriff in Wallton, a small town about fifty miles south of Paramont, during the summer of 1944 when almost all eligible men were in the military, most still fighting around the globe. The department budget allowed for the salary of three detective. One of the other men—John Sanders, sixty-one with gray hair and a complexion to match—was nearing retirement, and several applications had been received to be his replacement.

The third man was Walter Acton, just past fifty-one with thinning blonde hair, large ears, and slightly stooped shoulders. When talking, his words dropped so slowly that Taylor had to restrain himself from grabbing the man and saying, Hurry! Spit it out! Acton usually took the night shift, was seldom seen during the day, and was almost a stranger to the other two detectives.

Those crimes where perpetrators more easily were apprehended and which were considered to be less damaging to the community—altercations with little injury, minor theft, lewd or drunken behavior—were handled by uniformed officers. Unfortunately, much of the patrol work by these men had to be done on foot as the department had a limited number of automobiles. Officers could be seen day and night down town and in two other small shopping areas, patrolling against theft. It was the mom-and-pop stores located by themselves on various street corners throughout the city that frequently got robbed.

All other investigations—cases involving unusual death, major burglary, and assault with severe injury—were handled individually by the three detectives, and Sanders could not retire until a new man was on board. Taylor was hoping this would happen soon as Sanders had recently been diagnosed with an ulcer. The chief also was waiting impatiently for a new guy as he often had to leave the station and handle crime scenes if the three detectives were busy on other cases.

Taylor, now approaching forty years old, still tall and trim, but with a touch of gray peeking through his dark brown hair, sat deep in thought for a few minutes. He liked working with Sanders and hated to think of his coming retirement as