Brush Creek Charlie, D. B. Reynolds [top non fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

shoved down their throats.”
“I see some of these signs with the acronym S.A.V.E. written on them. Could you tell us what it stands for?”
“It stands for Sisters Against Violent Encounters.”
“What is the basis for your organization?”
“We’re a non-profit organization dedicated to the safety and empowerment of women.”
“How long have you been in operation?”
“Five years now.”
“Has your organization had any success bringing justice to the family of any of the victims?”
“We’re coming real close to helping solve the Brush Creek killings. It’s just a matter of time before the perpetrator is brought to justice.”
Sandy turned away from the reporter. A man, some stranger wearing a thick parka and black wool cap covering half of his face, weaved through the group of women. Try as he might, he couldn’t conceal his identity from Sandy. The conniving bastard just couldn’t stop showing up. He couldn’t stop playing games. Could it have been Sandy was the victim who got away? Nobody escaped the wrath of Charles “Charlie The Machete” Rastelli. The wicked ego he’d been cursed with spinned way out of control.
“Chaaaaaaaaaaaarlie!” Sandy yelled, her voice having echoed through the hollow confines of Brush Creek.
The strange man accelerated his footsteps. Sandy started a high-speed, high-adrenalin chase.
“Charlie, I know that’s you, you sonofabitch!” Sandy yelled once again, her pitch ringing out amongst the women of S.A.V.E.
The man in the well-insulated parka and black wool cap ran like a sprinter headed to the finish line. Sandy put some real force in her race towards the man she recognized so well.
“Goddammit, Charlie, you can’t run forever!” she screamed out, confrontationally.
Carol and the others noticed Sandy chasing after some man who appeared harmless. Her pursuit of him grew more intense. Her speed shifted to a heartpounding rate. He disappeared from within her eyesight. The chase ended in such an embarrassingly abrupt manner.
“Charlie, I know you were the one who killed those two women they just found a few days ago in Brush Creek! You can run, you bastard, but you can’t hide forever!”
Carol swung Sandy around to where their faces met. “Babe, what the hell’s going on this time?”
“That bastard!” Sandy huffed in long hard breaths. “Carol, he’s fucking with me again!”
“How?”
“Showing up at the opportune time to make a goddamned mockery out of me!”
“Are you sure he’s the same guy?”
“Even with the wool cap covering most of his face, I could tell that that was him. I could spot that ‘nightmare-of-a-face’ in the darkest of rooms.”
“Just to prove what?”
“That he shows up when he knows I’m going to be in public.”
“You’re talking like this guy’s psychic or something.”
“Carol, I’m being watched by this maniac. We’re being watched by this sewage puke. Babe, it’s all coming together now.”
“I’d like to know, what’s coming together?”
“He’s still after me. He didn’t get the satisfaction of killing me that night I had Bolo with me down here in Brush Creek. The light came on in my mind, telling me that he’s one of those killers whose ego is bigger than a stretched limousine.”
“Your revelations are starting to frighten me.”
“We have a prayer vigil at Gillham Park, he shows up out of nowhere. We come out for The Plaza Lighting Ceremony, there he is in the thick of the crowd. We the women of S.A.V.E. stage this protest here in Brush Creek, he blends in with the women holding their protest signs. Something tells me that he’s keeping score, and he’s minus a point since I didn’t become one of his victims.”
“What’re you going to do, Sandy? What’re we going to do?”
“This time, Carol, I’m playing for keeps,” Sandy said with a stone face. “My first trip tomorrow will be to the Internal Revenue Service. Once I get what I want from there, my next trip will be to the downtown headquarters of the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department.”
“The IRS and the KCPD? Babe, I don’t get it.”
“Remember the guy we met at the celebrity impersonator show that night in Missy D’s?”
“Who, the black guy?”
“Yes, the gay black guy with the white guy for a boyfriend.”
“Where does he come into the picture?”
“In his conversation that night, he brought up the name ‘Charlie’. The name resonated so strongly with me. To top it all off, he mentioned the fact that this Charlie was a Vietnam War Veteran with a really bad complexion.”
“Where’re you going with all of this?”
“The same night he killed Bolo and tried to rape and kill me, before any of that took place, he told me that he was a Vietnam War Veteran.”
“Ask yourself this, how many guys in K.C. are named Charlie who served time Vietnam?”
A swift rendition popped inside the head of Sandy.
“Besides being named Charlie, besides having a badly-pitted face, and besides having served time in Vietnam, I’d have to say just one.”
“Honey, we’ve had this conversation before.”
“And we’re right back to square one.”
“Like still moving in the same circles.”
“On the soul of my mother and father, and on the soul of my Jewish heritage, before another woman turns up dead here in Brush Creek, the police are going to be taking this scum-puke away in shackles. Babe, I’ve fucking had enough! The night I spotted him on The Plaza during the lighting ceremony, I believe the woman he was with was the same woman they found a few days ago in the creek water. So, for the honor and dignity of the women who died at his hands, I’m going to help the police end his killing escapades.”
Sandy said what she meant. She meant what she said. Could the Brush Creek killer now become the hunted one? If Sandy Barnholtz had her way, he’d become the hunted and the dead one.


CHAPTER—43

A humongous clock hanging from the Twentieth Century decorated walls of The Union Station lobby on Pershing Road read exactly 9:15 a.m. Before the big crowd of elementary school kids visited the station for the science city activities, Sandy traveled through the lobby and down a set of long stairs leading to a section to purchase tickets. On display were the famous paintings of Andy Warhol. Sandy looked down a long hallway and noticed a huge painting of Marilyn Monroe behind a set of protective bars.
The true diva moviestar of the sixties always captivated her. According to her own fantasies, had she not picked Carol Wexler as her lifelong lesbian partner, Marilyn would’ve been her top choice of women to fall in love with. She stepped past a set of glass doors and onto a long walkway leading to a building connected to levels of parking space. Workers employed by the postal service came out of the building parking lot. What sad faces they sported in the early morning hours.
Sandy always knew working for the post office wasn’t the most pleasant job, though the pay did enough to keep them satisfied. Those were moments she never wanted to get caught up in. She arrived at the front doors of the unfamiliar building and went for the elevators. Once inside, she pushed the button for T, which meant straight for the tunnel. The elevator doors opened. Through a set of solid wooden doors was the station where all the guards for the IRS checked in daily for their guns and walkie talkies.
The monitors flashed almost every square inch of space around the inside and outside of the IRS building. Sandy noticed a long line of people. The Treasury Department sure had its way of bringing different cultures together. She walked up to the guard’s desk with the most uncertain look on her face. Sets of wandering eyes went in every direction. There to greet her at the desk was a guard with skin as dark as fresh coal from the mines of West Virginia. No one could’ve been prouder to have teeth as white as his.
“Hello mam, how might I help you?” the guard said to Sandy, flirtatious overtones to follow.
Sandy didn’t know he had a hidden fetish for attractive white women. Sorry, but Sandy was one white woman who was off limits.
“Yes, I’m trying to locate someone here at the IRS named Derrick Thomas.”
The name Derrick Thomas registered with the guard right away. The name actually rung in his head like the loudest Christmas bells.
The guard flipped open a registry for employees and individual departments. He ran his finger down the list and found the person of interest. “Uh, Derrick works in data conversion. Can I ask who you are?”
“My name’s Sandy Barnholtz.”
“Jewish?”
“Till the day I die.”
“My ex-wife’s name was Sandy,” the guard hinted, volunteering stuff Sandy cared less about.
He punched in the numbers and got a quick response. “Derrick, there’s a Sandy Barnholtz down here at the guard’s desk to see you.”
Derrick spoke into the phone with surprise. “Sandy Barnholtz? I don’t know nobody by that name.”
“Well, c’mon down here and see who she is.”
“Are you asking me, or are you telling me?”
“Both, now get on down here.”
Derrick and the guard knew one another well enough to joke around in such a fashion. Sandy parked herself against the wall across from the long line of patiently waiting people. Derrick and Mitchell came through the revolving glass doors. Sandy recognized them at first sight. Neither of them recognized her after looking around at the sea of uncertain faces. Seconds after their entry, their diehard co-worker and partying friend, Kathy Lowell, fell in right behind them.
Talk about having a shadow, she single-handedly casted enough shadows for all three of them. They still teased her about being the white girl who should’ve