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

a 273 for physical disability with entitlement to receive severance pay.”
“So, he got a nice piece of change from the government after being discharged.”
“Well, well, well,” Overstreet contained as he read further. “Charlie got a 460 for emotional instability reaction, a 461 for inadequate personality, a 462 for mental deficiency, a 463 for paranoid personality, a 464 for schizoid personality, a 469 for unsuitability, and a 480 for personality disorder.”
“To make a long story short, Charlie Boy got pushed out because of mental and emotional problems.”
“Along with this severe wound he suffered.”
“What wound?” Carey asked, having not read as far into the medical report.
“Genital mutilation.”
“Eeeeeek!”
Overstreet summoned Dr. McKinnis from across the room. “Doc McKinnis, how would you define genital mutilation?”
Dr. McKinnis slipped on his best pair of reading glasses. “Detective, I once did an autopsy on a Vietnam veteran who died from complications of lung cancer. This veteran was also minus his privates due to a severe war wound. My knowledge of castration and genital mutilation is vast and researched.”
“The report, what can you tell us about it? How is it in relation to our perp?”
“To begin, wounds of the external genitalia are the most feared combat injuries, but not the most common. Soldiers were known to place their helmets over their genitalia during static trench warfare.”
“Guess Charlie didn’t have anything to shield himself from losing his privates.”
Dr. McKinnis read from one page to the next. “Wounds of the penis, scrotum, and testicles made up two to three percent of American casualties in Vietnam.”
“Charlie happened to be one of the two to three unfortunate percent.”
“More below-the-waist explosions from mines and crossfire happened during Vietnam combat. The report tells us that Charlie suffered severe injury to his corpora cavernosa and the subcutaneous tissues around the scrotal-testicular area were stitched together.”
“Was he beyond surgery to save his privates?”
“Orchiectomy or bilateral orchiectomy couldn’t’ve saved them. The severity of the injury was way beyond the skill of any surgeon.”
“The report explains how a powerful enemy crossfire stripped Charlie of ever making little Charlies.”
“Both his testicles and penis were castrated by the powerful blast of the crossfire.”
Though he’d killed four innocent women, Overstreet sort of felt sorry for Charlie. Like he’d sadly told Dr. McKinnis, the man didn’t have the ability to create little Charlies. He didn’t have the tools to satisfy any woman, let alone satisfy himself. How disheartening it had to be for a man to know he couldn’t procreate or enjoy a sex life.
“Doc, him being minus his privates explain why he uses these urine collections bags.”
“A special surgical procedure was performed in order for him to discharge waste from his body.”
“I’ll bet the VA Hospital picked up the tab for him to have that procedure done.”
More evidence surfaced throughout Charlie’s apartment. Boxes of Brush Creek photocopies were stashed to the side on shelves inside the closet of the front room. A banner, one stretching approximately ten feet long, fell to the floor after more boxes were removed from the closet.
In black bursting letters, the banner read: WAR HAS NO BEGINNING, AND IT HAS NO ENDING.
The drawing of a large machete, along with a shiny thirsty blade dripping with blood, was sketched at the middle of the banner. Overstreet and Carey just couldn’t understand it. Two other detectives held the banner in mid-air for them to study.
“Is there a message that he’s emulated?” Carey asked Overstreet, scrupulously studying the banner for himself.
“It’s a cry for help, Cork,” Overstreet concluded.
“War has no beginning, and it has no ending? What exactly were they trying to say?”
“My interpretation is, war will be here until the end of time. No matter where it starts, no matter where it ends, it’ll always be with us.”
“Charlie is still dealing with the psychological effects of Vietnam. But why did he target innocent women as his victims?”
“Same question was asked of Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader.”
“Good point, Jerry.”
Overstreet reached down and shuffled through a thick stack of Brush Creek photocopies. “The question still scrambling my brains is why is this creep so infactuated with Brush Creek? It’s just a goddamn sewage system that runs several miles east and west. I love the hell out of the Grand Canyon, but I’d never worship the place like it’s God Almighty.”
Carey sorted through more items inside one of the boxes until he came upon something quite frightening. A group of handwritten letters were tucked away inside a black leather organizer. “Look at what we have here. Who’d have ever thought he kept personal notes to himself?”
“What’cha got there, Cork?”
“Letters and notes Charlie kept for his private collection.”
Overstreet was handed a stack of letters and he began to read. What he found documented in one particular letter disturbed even the sickest of minds. “Charlie had a deep rooted hatred for women. This explains why he despises the entire female race.”
“Why’d you say that?”
Sandy, Carol, The Rosenburgs, Carey and all the others, they gathered around Overstreet as he read to them the details of one letter. “Charlie explains here how he’d been mocked by a pair of Vietnamese hookers inside a brothel right before he left Vietnam.”
“Mocked him? How, detective?” Sandy asked, her intrigue pumped sky high.
Overstreet read out loud the letter laced with vengeful connotations: “The night was peaceful and mysterious. I, Charles Robert Rastelli, happened to run upon two chink hookers from a nearby village. These two whores were about twenty or twenty-one. They pulled at my sleeves and begged me in broken English to come and have a good time with them inside one of those hot and smelly rooms. Even though I knew I couldn’t satisfy neither them nor myself, I went with them anyway. They began to take their clothes off. They told me to take my clothes off. At first I was shy, knowing I had nothing down there to work with. When I pulled down my pants and underwear, they pointed at me and started laughing. These two insensitive chink whores laughed and laughed and laughed, and they kept laughing until their mouths were drained from laughter. From that point on, no other woman, whether in Vietnam or anywhere else in the world, was going to laugh at me. Every bitch, every whore, every cunt, every female parasite, they’re going to pay for what those two Asian bitches did to me. I hate all women of the world and every woman will be exterminated when I’m done.”
Overstreet mesmerized everyone with his thorough reading of the letter. One man setting out on a mission to kill every human female on the Earth was shocking.
Would he do it if he were given the full resources? Would he wipe out all womankind if the opportunity were available to him.
“This psychotic sonofabitch has got to be stopped,” Overstreet coerced, his blood pressure having shot up.
“Sounds like women’s extermination from the planet would be very satisfactory to him.”
“The letter tells us that an unfortunate event in a Vietnamese brothel is what aggravated him into murdering innocent women.”
“He wants every woman to pay for what a couple of women did to him.”
“Sounds unfair to me.”
“Charlie is beyond rational, beyond being reasonable.”
“Sick he might be, but unintelligent he isn’t. Charlie has smarts and knows how to use it to his advantage.”
Carey dug to the bottom of another box and made another substantial discovery. “Jerry, will ya take a look at this?”
“You found something else, Cork?”
“This right here will tell the whole story.”
Overstreet turned a white sheet of paper sideways. The pencil drawing of a makeshift altar overlooking the sewage waters of Brush Creek was sketched onto the paper. Underneath the first sketch was another drawing of women’s bodies lying around the altar.
“This drawing here, it explains why he used Brush Creek to dump the bodies,” Overstreet pointed out. “This drawing shows how he killed the women and sacrificed them to Brush Creek.”
“Of all places, why Brush Creek?”
Their findings only got scarier.
“The proof stands here in these drawings. Brush Creek is like a sacrificial ground for his murdered victims.”
“What about the mutilated body parts in the trashbags?”
“I’d say to make transportation easier and to make a statement.”
“Why kinda statement?”
“His method of killing.”
Homicide detectives searched more areas of the apartment for clues. No stones were left unturned. Luckily for the crime lab, more blood samples were found in non-descript areas. Low velocity blood droplets were discovered near the front door. Did Charlie not scrub the floor hard enough with his cleaning agents? Clue after clue turned up around the apartment. In one of the boxes, photos of Charlie and his fellow combat troopers were stacked neatly inside of envelopes.
Overstreet walked up to Joseph Rosenburg. “Mr. Rosenburg, when Charles applied for residency here at The Rosenburg Apartments, did you know anything about his background?”
“Such as?” Joseph said with a confident face.
“His military service in Vietnam. His mental state of health. His criminal and family background.”
“Detective, after processing his application, no criminal convictions surfaced. Charles showed that he had a stable work and rental history, and that he’d been an honorable soldier during the Vietnam war. I had no reason, whatsoever, to deny him residency here.”
“Any complaints from other residents?”
“Other than occasional loud noises, there weren’t many complaints.”
“Do you know he’s employed by Gomez Foods?”
“Yes, the food processing plant down on Southwest Boulevard.”
“Were you ever suspicious of his character?”
“Charlie never