The Cadillac Murders

The Cadillac Murders

Evil has a distinct smell. Standing here in Tarrat’s Barn where it all happened, Wade could still smell the sickening odor that permeated the barn and the clothes of all who were there when the forensics technicians exhumed the bodies. It has been eleven, no, twelve years now, and the images, complete with smell, still interrupted his sleep on a regular basis.

The murders had stopped when the Cadillac Murderer’s den and torture laboratory had been discovered by a local metal detectorist who had wandered upon the site and been horrified when she saw a partially butchered body through a crack in the planking of the barn. When the authorities arrived, the body that the detectorist had seen was buried in a shallow grave in the dirt floor of the barn, along with nine others they were to discover. The bodies were recovered, but the perpetrator was never apprehended.

Wade and his partner, Judith, had been working independently of the FBI on a series of disappearances, and presumed dead, cases in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, several at which eye witnesses had seen a Cadillac near the scene, but who could give no details about the driver. It was Judith who called the cases the Cadillac Murders, which the local press picked up on. Both Judith and Wade attended the recovery of the bodies and followed up the few slim leads that emerged, only to have them peter out like a Georgia gold mine.

Both were now retired, but Wade had recently noticed two recent disappearances that mimicked the Cadillac Cases, including a report of a Cadillac at one of the disappearances. “Unfinished business!’ his dreams screamed at him.

So Wade had now returned to the Barn of Horrors as one scribe had labeled it. Nothing had changed since the last body had been bagged and sent to Baltimore for autopsy. Three rusty meat hooks which once held the killer's victims were attached to one wall, and Wade could imagine the victims, both live and dead, hanging on them. Iron rings were still bolted to the floor, but the chains and shackles had long ago been removed as evidence. Depressions in the dirt floor looked like they had been dug by treasure hunters, but Wade could see in his mind the deteriorating bodies they once held.

Wade carefully walked the scene, looking for any sign of recent disturbances, any hint that the perpetrator of the recent disappearances had returned to the barn either for nostalgic reasons or as an unlikely place to return to his good old days. He examined the meat hooks. One looked cleaner than the others, and he took a close-up picture of it, and scraped some rust off the tip of the hook into an evidence bag. He closely examined the rings bolted to the floor but they appeared totally undisturbed. He walked the perimeter of the barn looking for signs of vehicular traffic, and found a tire impression about forty yards from the barn. He could make out a tread design and he carefully photographed the tire mark.

From where he found the tire impression he started a circular search, and after about thirty minutes, came upon a spot of disturbed earth covered with leaves and brush. The leaves were not rotted so he knew they were relatively recent. To Wade’s experienced eyes, he was sure he had come upon a grave of something or someone. He was also pretty sure the Cadillac killer had returned to his place of comfort.

Not wanting to scare off the killer, as they had done twelve years ago when the whole of the County Police Force had responded with sirens and flashing lights, Wade called no one. Judith, the one person he would have called was in Amsterdam and not available.

Instead Wade set up his own surveillance. He waited till darkness descended, and put up a half dozen motion-activated day and night wildlife video cameras with audio, connected to an app on his laptop computer. The batteries were good for four weeks before needing to be refreshed, and the app had enough memory to handle a month of video if need be.

Satisfied with his video installation, Wade returned to the comfort of his home, plugged in his laptop, and waited for the app to tell him whenever motion triggered it. He tried to finish Michael Connelly’s “The Poet” which was about a serial killer, but he found his mind too busy on his own case to focus on his e-book. What did help steady his thoughts, though, was a baker's double of Laphroaig single malt scotch, which he sipped while thinking good thoughts about Dick Francis who introduced him to the peaty liquor decades ago in one of his jockey detective books.

Over the next several days Wade watched video of deer, a fox with her kits, and a groundhog. But on Sunday at 5:22 in the morning he got video and audio of a Cadillac stopping near where he had found the probable grave. Before the car came to a full stop, Wade was in his car driving furiously to the barn. With no traffic on the road that early in the morning, he stopped for no red lights or stop signs. By 5:48 he was approaching the barn silently in his Tesla with lights off.

The Cadillac was still there and Wade could hear sobbing interrupted by shovelling sounds off to his left. Silent as a deer hunter, Wade approached the sound until he was about fifteen feet away. A young woman wearing a UMD sweater cried as she was forced to dig what was supposed to be her own grave while a shortish, balding, slightly paunchy man in a business suit stood over her with a pistol hanging loosely by his side.

Wade fixed his pistol sights on the man’s head and moved closer. Sensing company, the man whirled toward Wade while raising his pistol. Wade calmly shot him right between the eyes, and the murderer collapsed to the ground, fully and completely dead.

A phone call and hours of questioning later, the co-ed was at MedStar being assessed and Wade was back home with the understanding that he was to stay available for further questioning.

After a mid-day club sandwich followed by an end-of-the-work-day glass of Laphroaig, Wade leaned back in his recliner, smiled to himself, and finally had no trouble sleeping. The only dream he had was of a border collie he used to have playing at water’s edge on a beach he didn’t recognize.