My basic tool was the Deathmobile, and my basic means of avoiding capture was the complete eschewing of criminal patterns. I never spoke of my exploits. I never used drugs or alcohol; I never made purchases with the credit cards I stole, and I only sold them to drunken and drug-wasted lowlifes I met in bars — men who later identified me as “big,” “tall,” “young,” and “the Shifter,” but who would never be able to pick me out of a police lineup. I never killed when there was the remotest possibility of eyewitnesses, and the few partial witnesses who spotted me talking to roadside acquaintances I would later kill would never be able to ID me, because I always kept my back to the highway. “Big,” “tall,” “white” — certainly. Martin Michael Plunkett — no.
Caution.
Between 1974 and 1978 the gross yield from my robbery-murders was $11,147.00. I did not, of course, carry that amount of cash on my person — I kept it in bank safe-deposit boxes, the banks themselves spread across the western half of America, the rent on them paid for ten years in advance, the keys safely hidden in wooded areas nearby, so that the final key was my memory.
Ultra-caution.
Deathmobile II, purchased in Denver with the proceeds from my Aspen killings, replaced Deathmobile I when I realised the imprudence of driving with an illegal handgun clipped under the seat. The .357, the detective magazines I kept as mementos of my exploits and the marijuana I habitually harbored to seduce hippie types with would, if subjected to police scrutiny, arouse suspicion of the worst sort. I needed to keep them within a few moments’ reach, but out of reach of the most heavy-duty cop shakedown. Deathmobile I had no suitable hiding places, but studying the owner’s manuals of various make vans revealed that late-model Dodges had an undercarriage made up of metal “pockets,” rectangular-shaped, with openings on the side. I surmised that two or three of the pockets would hold all my contraband items. In order to achieve a look of uniformity I would have to cover all the ends with wire or steel, but the peace of mind I would gain would make the effort worthwhile.
So, in March of ’77, I bought a ’76 Dodge 300 van and performed major surgery on the undercarriage, blocking off all twenty pockets with wire mesh. Inside four of them I kept my .357, my magazines, and my drug supply. Behind the seats, along with my legal belongings, I kept a supply of tools and flares to aid me in my role of Good Samaritan motorist, and my Polaroid was always up front with me, loaded.
Caution.
Ultra-caution.
Preparedness.
Those three watchwords combined to italicize, bracket and underline methodology. Within that word, conjugations of the first three combined to form rules:
Wipe all van surfaces victims might have touched.
Kill with the magnum only as a last resort, and try to retrieve the spent rounds.
Bury all victims as deep as the ten-minute stopwatch will allow.
Sex-kill only when the nightmares and fantasies start to hurt, and tear up the snapshots within four hours, after memorizing and mentally cataloguing the most minute details.
During ’74-’78, I was only to sex-kill/strip/position/photograph a total of four times. The first time, after leaving San Francisco, I acted out of a need to rectify the disarray of Eversall/Sifakis; the following instances were fueled by nightmares and impacted sexual longing. Still, I knew instinctively that what I was looking for was beyond relief and orgasm, and I had enough presence of mind to carefully choose my victims — their selection based on an instinct as to what their bodies would look like together.
The Keneallys nude in the Colorado snow killed my nightmares and made me come, but did not ease my curiosity, so eight days later I placed Gustavo Torres beside them, and felt an ancient third party knock at the door of my memory. Dimly afraid of what the knocker might say, I retreated until the nightmares got terrible and my groin felt like it was holding back bomb bursts; then I found the Kaltenborns hiking near Glenwood Springs and spent hours arranging them and snapping pictures, myself nude as the third party. Again there was instant release and weeks of comfort, but no penetration of the memory.
Sensing that the memory originated in my childhood and corresponded to my old demon of blondness, I waited for two years, until I found a pair of potential lovers who were perfect beyond perfect — the Muldowney siblings of Joplin, Missouri — blond, blue-eyed and lovely. Promising hashish, I lured them out to a deserted stretch of hills, strangled them and stripped them and took pictures of them and touched them and touched myself and even risked my own safety by staying past dark with their bodies.
The effort did not enlighten me.
The effort did not enlighten me because, at base, I was killing for monetary caprice, biological gratification and to make the hurt go away. The nine months after the Muldowneys went by in a blur, and then even my memory exploration was rendered capricious, for a nightmare materialized in live human form, and I had to kill for survival.
IV
Lightning Strikes Twice
16
January 4, 1979.
I was driving north on U.S. 5 in a snowstorm, my destination the all-year resort town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. My traveling stake was low, due to winterizing Deathmobile II with top-of-the-line snow tires, goose-down sleeping quilts and expensive insulation paneling, and my nearest bank cache was in central Colorado. Crossing from Illinois into Wisconsin, I looked at the big snowdrifts forming and knew they would be a long, deep freeze for whoever was unlucky enough to cross my path.
The decision made, I brainstormed with caution and preparedness. I thought of highway patrolmen prowling for stranded motorists to help, and of old Aspen killings and how difficult it was to strangle or bludgeon with legs mired in snow. Massive walls of bare spruce trees flanking both sides of the road caught my peripheral vision, and I imagined them as receptacles for bloody hollow points. The answer of shoot/rob/retrieve/bury came to me, and I pulled over and took my magnum from its undercarriage hiding place.
The snowfall got steadily worse, and toward noon I started wondering whether I should find lodging or park and wait the storm out. I was in the process of deciding when I saw a Cadillac erratically positioned on the left-hand side of the highway, nose out, the car in imminent danger of getting sideswiped.
I pulled over and tucked the .357 into the back of my pants, making sure my down jacket covered the butt. The highway was traffic-free, and I ran across it to the Cadillac.
There was no one inside, and I saw a faint trail of single snow-dusted footprints leading over to the right shoulder and northward. Stalking now, I returned to the Deathmobile and drove slowly ahead, one eye on the space cleared by my left wiper blade, the other on the roadside.
Half an hour later, I saw him, trudging in ankle-deep drifts. He turned around when he heard my motor, and something about the snow on his head made me reach for the Polaroid.
I tooted the horn and braked; the man waved frantically at his presumed rescuer. Setting the hand brake and hitting the blinkers, I squeezed out the passenger door to confront my victim.
He was middle-aged and portly, and his aura of affluence in distress undercut the lovely crown of snow he was wearing. Panting, he said, “My wife’s been after me to get a C.B., now I see why.” He pointed to my Polaroid. “Shutterbug, huh? I heard you guys would go anywhere for a picture, now I believe it.”
I pulled out my .357 and placed the silencered snout on the man’s nose. He said, “Hey, what the—” And I smiled and said, “All I want is your money.”