Brush Creek Charlie by D. B. Reynolds (which ebook reader .txt) 📖

as to why he came back to the IRS. Kathy and Mitchell dispersed to different areas of the building. Overstreet and Derrick stepped into Cindy’s office. To feel more in command, Derrick grabbed the seat occupied by the manager. Overstreet casually took the seat on the other side of the desk.
“Do you know why I’m here?” Overstreet asked of Derrick.
“Sandy Barnholtz?” Derrick guessed on an intelligent notion.
“You’re correct. Did Sandy tell you that I might be paying you a visit?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Did she also tell you that your neighbor, Charles Rastelli, might be our main suspect in the Brush Creek killings?”
“She told me that also.”
“How well do you know Charles?”
“Quite well, Lieutenant.”
“How well is well? Give me some details on your repoire as neighbors.”
“We’ve been neighbors at The Rosenburg Apartments for quite a few years. Charlie is one weird man, detective.”
“Weird, how?”
“He makes a lot of noises up in his apartment during all kinds of crazy hours. My partner and I have seen him take large bags of trash out during early morning hours. To my knowledge, he’s never been married nor have we ever seen him with a woman.”
“Do you and your partner call him Charlie?”
“We do.”
“Does this same Charlie have a badly-pitted face?”
“Yes he does.”
“Is he a veteran of The Vietnam War?”
“Yes he is.”
“Do you know where he’s employed?”
“At a food processing plant down on Southwest Boulevard called Gomez Foods.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of Gomez Foods. Does Charlie convey any type of strange behavior?”
“Strange doesn’t even begin to describe, Charlie, Lieutenant,” Derrick deciphered. “He keeps some of the strangest hours, doing some of the strangest things.”
“Strange things like what?”
“Let’s see, Charlie yells out for no reason, whatsoever. He yells out these codes for when he was in the Vietnam War.”
“Could you interpret any of these codes?”
“Not’a one of them. You said that he could be your main suspect behind the Brush Creek killings. Do you think it’s possible that those same trashbags he carried out in the early morning hours had the bodies of the women found in trashbags in Brush Creek?”
“It’s a ninety to a hundred percent possible chance.”
“You mean that my partner and I have been living downstairs from a serial killer?”
Overstreet reached inside the inner pocket of his suitjacket and produced a folded stack of papers. “I have with me a judge’s order for a warrant to search his apartment. I’d like for you to come along with me and Sandy. He’s gotta be taken off the streets before somebody else turns up mutilated inside a trashbag in Brush Creek.”
“Another thing, Lieutenant,” Derrick recalled. “This man is absolutely, he’s positively, obsessed with Brush Creek. His walls are covered with posters of Brush Creek.”
“Which gives us another reason to believe that he’s the Brush Creek killer.”
“There’s a strong possibility the stench coming from those trashbags were the bodies of the women he killed.”
“Any betting man would put a huge wager on that.”
Derrick twisted his lips awkwardly. “Lieutenant, what if he’s home? This man knows all about war combat and how to kill people. He’s told us stories about being trained to use bombs and swords and his bare hands to kill lots of people.”
“My friend, we won’t be going to his apartment alone. There’ll be enough police manpower to take this guy out if necessary. The only way to prove his guilt or innocence, is to collect enough evidence to link him to the Brush Creek murders.”
“Do you think there’s evidence left inside his apartment?”
“We won’t know until we get there.”
“Can my partner come along, too?”
“Your partner?”
“My boyfriend named Mitchell. He also works here at the IRS.”
Overstreet knew right away that Derrick was a gay man. The voice, the walk, the mannerism, and just the overall demeanor, couldn’t be hidden by no means.
“Sure, he can come along.”
“This should be interesting.”
“I’d say so.”
The time to catch a maddog killer had come.


CHAPTER—49

Overstreet and Sandy arrived at The Rosenburg Apartments at precisely 2:37 p.m. on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. Derrick and Mitchell parked a few yards behind the unmarked detective’s car driven by Overstreet. The moment of truth had arrived. A row of ten marked police cars were lined up in perfect order across the street. Residents of The Country Club Plaza looked out their windows. Pedestrians walking on different sides of the street starved to be informed of what was going on. Motorists took their eyes off the road to see the spectacle waiting to happen.
Overstreet and Sandy emerged from the car. Derrick and Mitchell did likewise. A total of twenty-one police officers came out of the ten cars and met up. Charlie was considered a very dangerous man and had to be approached with caution. By some weird coincidence, the elderly owners of The Rosenburg Apartments, Joseph and Nora Rosenburg, decided to pay one of their many properties a visit. Had someone tipped them off about one of the sickest men in the city residing at their prized piece of property?
“What’s going on?” Joseph Rosenburg turned to ask Overstreet.
“You are?” Overstreet turned to ask the super wealthy real estate mogul.
“Joseph Rosenburg. My wife and I own this apartment building.”
“Well, Joseph, the Brush Creek killer might be a resident here.”
“You can’t be serious! Who are you?”
“Lieutenant Jerry Overstreet. I’m in charge of the KCPD homicide division.”
“How could we not know that?”
“The same way lots of other people didn’t know it.”
“What do you plan on doing?”
Overstreet fished out the warrant granted to him by a judge. “I have a signed judge’s warrant to search the apartment of Charles Rastelli.”
“Charlie?”
“You know him personally?”
“Yes, my wife and I have conversed with him on several occasions.”
“Charlie might be responsible for the murders of the four women found mutilated down in Brush Creek.”
“He’d tell my wife and I stories about his obsession with Brush Creek. Then, he’d turn around and tell us horror stories about the Vietnam War.”
Carol left work early after getting a phone call from Sandy. She parked almost two blocks away from where all the action would soon take place. Overstreet, along with a cadre of other detectives and police officers, slowly approached the front door of The Rosenburg Apartments with their weapons drawn. Joseph Rosenburg unlocked the door and stepped aside for the assigned law enforcement to enter. Derrick didn’t utter a word to Overstreet.
He pointed to the top of the stairs and straight at the door to Charlie’s apartment. Each step was taken with masterful precaution. No sounds were coming from the apartment.
Overstreet tapped lightly with his knuckles. “Charles Rastelli?”
He listened closely for any detectable noises.
No one inside the apartment responded. Carey and other detectives waited by the apartment across the hall. KCPD officers were lined along the stairs with their pistols pointed for action.
“Charles, are in you there?” Overstreet twittered, knocking for a second time.
A move had to be made. Overstreet allowed Joseph Rosenburg to open the door with prudence. Not a second after the key turned the lock and the door opened, Overstreet and the others scattered throughout the one bedroom apartment.
“Police!” Overstreet cried out, using his best detective’s voice. “Charles, if you’re in here, then come out with your hands up!”
“KCPD!” Carey yelled even louder, coming in right behind Overstreet.
“Check all the closets,” Overstreet ordered one-half of the many officers.
“Look under the bed and behind any open spaces,” Carey ordered the other half.
A thorough search began around Charlie’s apartment. All parties slipped on surgical gloves to keep from contaminating any crucial DNA evidence. Cabinet doors in the kitchen went flying open. Closets in the bedroom had been rummaged through with stringent skill. From behind the front room sofa, to the side of the bathtub, no area went unchecked.
All eyes were directed at the walls in the front room. Everything Brush Creek appeared to be posters hanging on the wall inside personalized frames. Overstreet focused his attention on a large thirty-by-forty poster of an aerial view of the floodwaters of 1977 which destroyed lots of property and claimed many of lives.
A smaller twenty-by-thirty poster next to it had a caption at the top in large bold letters which read: SEARCHERS FIND 20TH BODY IN BRUSH CREEK AS AREA PICKS ITSELF UP. Posters hung neatly in the front room, the bedroom, the bathroom and even in the kitchen. Overstreet and the others knew this psychopath kept Brush Creek on the brains.
“These posters tell a lot of the story,” Overstreet commenced.
“Tells a story of obsession, like a sick fascination,” Carey incited.
“The large one in the middle of the wall,” Overstreet pointed. “That poster must be his most prized one of them all.”
“But why would a poster showing flood waters destroying property and dead bodies fascinate this guy?”
“Question should be, why does Brush Creek fascinate him in general?”
Sandy stepped in and added her own input. “Detectives, the night that he tried to attack and kill me down in Brush Creek, he explained to me how Brush Creek was like an engineering marvel to him. He said with great passion how The Statue of Liberty,