Hunting the VA Slayer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “That’s what I’m asking,” Arn said. He had tried overcoming her reluctance to having civilians talking with her about police matters by cranking up his charm. Apparently, Arn’s charm-fairy had taken a leave of absence for the day because Waddie was not impressed.

  “Ridiculous,” the lieutenant said. “I can’t have civilians waltzing in here demanding to look at something that is none of their business.”

  “It’s for the family,” Arn said, wringing his hands like that funeral home director back in Cheyenne. “Just so Urchek’s sister can get some closure— .”

  “So you’ve told me already,” Waddie said. “I can’t let you see the report. And don’t expect the Meade County Sheriff’s investigators to be any more forthcoming to such a notion if you go asking them.”

  “Lieutenant,” Ana Maria said, taking Arn’s cue to resume the request like a good tag team partner. “Please set for a moment and let me explain our… conundrum.”

  Waddie remained standing, hands on her hips, glaring at Ana Maria. “Please sit. For the sake of your government position.”

  Arn saw a micro tic, a slight twitching of an eyelid that told him Waddie had suddenly become nervous. She dropped into a chair across from Ana Maria. “I’m listening.”

  Ana Maria smiled her toothiest grin. Disarming to most men. Met with cold stares from most women. This one especially. “As Mr. Anderson explained, I am a reporter with a network affiliate in Cheyenne. We have reason… no, we have good reason to believe that the deaths at our own VA center is connected with Mr. Urchek’s at yours.”

  “They are not, I can assure you,” Waddie said.

  “See Misti… I can refer to you as Misti in my broadcast, can’t I?”

  “What broadcast?”

  “The one where I spell out to listeners the connectivity of the deaths of both veterans.”

  “I told you—.”

  “I know you said they are unrelated.” Ana Maria waved the air as if dismissing Waddie’s arguments. “But without proof—without something tangible that Mr. Anderson can compare to refute your argument—I will have to speculate on-air that your agency did not conduct a thorough investigation.”

  Waddie’s neck turned crimson, the hot blood flowing into her flushed face. “Steve Urchek’s death was natural. The man died of a heart attack, for God’s sake.”

  Ana Maria shrugged. “We—Mr. Anderson and I—are not so certain. And without looking at the report, I will have to conclude to my viewership that the Ft. Meade VA Police refused to cooperate. And ask them to reach their own conclusion.” Ana Maria’s face assumed a hound-dog look, her brows arching, her face slackening. Just like a trainer actor. A transformation Arn had seen many times from Ana Maria when she was extracting information from a reluctant person. “You see how it will end, Misti—that you hid something.” Ana Maria took a pen from the side of her long notebook. “Is Misti with an I or a Y?”

  The lieutenant slumped in her seat. “What do you need, Mr. Anderson?”

  He lowered his voice as if there were others inside the conference room. “The complete file: reports. Photos. Scene diagrams.”

  Waddie stood and faced Ana Maria. “This better be off the record,” she said, her last-ditch effort to save face.

  Ana Maria batter her eyes. “Well off the record, Misti.”

  When Waddie shut the door behind her, Ana Maria breathed a deep sign. “I thought she was going to arrest me for intimidation of a federal officer.”

  “And have the whole incident broadcast for all of southern Wyoming? I’m just glad the bluff worked.”

  “What bluff,” Ana Maria said. “I think there might be a genuine story here.”

  “Even without looking at Steve Urchek’s file?”

  She nodded. “Call it women’s intuition. Besides, the big story—one that can be proven—is that RSL group of fanatics. I’ve heard very little about them.”

  “Remember, whatever Waddie shows us concerning Steve’s death is off the record.”

  Ana Maria spread her notebook in anticipation of Waddie bringing the report into the room. “That doesn’t mean I can’t… use information I see in the reports to generate my own contacts. Besides, even if there’s no story after I look at Urchek’s death investigation, there is surely another story outside right now.”

  “You mean those fools that are protesting the military?”

  “You got it. This Righteous Sword of the Lord have been keeping a low profile.”

  “Or maybe they’ve just been laying low until they get enough recruits for their own army to be a serious threat before escalating their protests.”

  “Either way, I think folks would be fascinated to learn more about them.”

  Arn checked his watch. Lieutenant Waddie had been gone for better than twenty minutes. Perhaps she was preparing to arrest them for intimidating a federal officer. “I got to admit it was pretty ballsy—generically speaking—for you to push Waddie like you did.”

  “Wasn’t ballsy at all,” Ana Maria said. “I tagged her as a career bureaucrat right off the bat, one of those more interested in their pensions and positions, just like you said. As soon as I saw the fifteen-year pin on her lapel, I knew she’d do anything to make it to twenty and to a cushy federal pension.”

  Arn thought of the brilliance of Ana Maria’s reasoning. She was right—the last thing a federal employee wanted was to get the axe—for whatever reason, or for no reason—just before they reached their twenty years.

  Lieutenant Waddie entered the conference room and dropped the thick case file in front of Arn. “You’ll excuse me if I stay right here in the room with that file?”

  “I’d have it no other way,” Arn said.

  Ana Maria scooted her chair closer to Arn as he opened the file and separated photos from officer’s reports and began reading. Like Frank Mosby’s death investigation from the Cheyenne VA, this one was scant, leading nothing to sustain Helen’s suspicions of Steve’s connection to Frank’s death other than that they were family.

  Arn set the officer’s report aside and opened the autopsy report. Unlike Helen, Steve’s Urchek’s wife had requested an autopsy. The medical examiner—a contract pathologist out of Rapid City—had outlined Steve’s lung problems—those of a two-pack-a-day smoker, possibly leading to his heart failure. “Guess Steve wasn’t as healthy as Helen thought,” Ana Maria said.

  “She told me Frank had guilt tripped him into quitting smoking five years ago,” Arn said, “and to start running. They even did the Run Crazy Horse Marathon last October as part of a five-person relay.”

  “Too bad he didn’t quit sooner,” Waddie said. “He might be alive today.”

  “Might.”

  “Are you satisfied the man died of heart problems?” she asked.

  “Not quite yet,” Arn said. “Do you have a laptop I can use?”

  “What for?”

  “I’d like to look at the death scene photos. They are stored on this disc?” he held up the disc that was stuffed in a pocket in the folder.

  “So call us frugal,” Waddie said. “The government is cutting paper, or haven’t you heard.”

  “Laptop?”

  Waddie stood abruptly and walked across the room. She reached behind a lectern and came out with a scratched and dented Dell. She handed it to Arn who promptly passed it to Ana Maria amid Waddie’s snickering. “It’s not that I don’t know how to use these things,” Arn told her. “It’s just that Ana Maria is… a bit more proficient than me.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Waddie said. “My dad can’t operate those things either.”

  With the disc loaded, the investigation format popped onto the screen and Ana Maria started scrolling through the scene photos. “Say when.”

  As she scrolled, Arn saw that the Meade County photographer had taken enough pictures so that Arn got a g
rasp of where Steve had died. It showed Steve sitting on the commode, pants around his ankles, a copy of VFW Magazine lying at his feet. “Did he fall at some point?”

  Waddie shook her head. “No. Some other vet got the two-minute warning and burst into the stall to find Steve sitting just like that. Way we figure it, Steve sat down for his constitution and strained a little too much and—boom—there went his heart.” She looked sternly at Arn. “Man should have drunk something—green tea for example. Keeps a person regular so he don’t strain so much.”

  “I’ve heard that,” Arn said. He pointed to a faint discoloration on Steve’s neck. “I ask because it looks like he fell against something in the stall perhaps.”

  “We wondered about that, too,” Lieutenant Waddie said. “Steve had a blood draw and several doctor’s appointments that day, but none could identify that mark. Crap!” She keyed the microphone clipped to her lapel and answered her radio call. “I’m needed outside for that damn protest. Be back in a moment, I hope.” She jabbed at Arn with her finger. “And make damn sure all of that file is still there when I return.”

  As soon as Waddie left the room, Arn quickly slid the laptop over to Ana Maria. “I don’t know how to do it but send a copy of that disc to my email.”

  “I can do that,” Ana Maria said and started tapping keys.

  “Not my regular mail,” Arn said. “Waddie might track that if she suspects we’ve sent the pictures. Use my alternate email.”

  “Which is?”

  Arn sucked in a breath. He had only used that email a few times since Cailee died. “Denverloverboy@AOL.com,” he said under his breath.

  Ana Maria stopped typing and stared at him. “Say that again.”

  “You heard me the first time.”

  She grinned wide and resumed typing. “Okay, Denver lover boy. Where the heck did you come up with that handle?”

  Arn explained that after his wife, Cailee, died, he tested the waters for potential dating partners. Being a little on the shy side when it came to talking with ladies—actually being rusty and a bit rough around all the edges—he figured it was his only chance at a relationship. It had failed miserably when a lady that answered Arn’s ad had him by twenty years and forty pounds, and he’d not ventured out into the dating scene since. At least none online, though he still retained the email address. For times than he wished to remain completely anonymous, such as if Waddie found out they had forwarded copies of the photos.

  Ana Maria hit the send button. “Done,” she said as Waddie came back into the room, panting, her uniform scuffed.

  “Problems?” Arn asked when he saw Waddie’s U. S. Navy pin—previously tacked to her lapel—torn away along with part of her uniform pocket. She wore a dejected look and dropped into a seat at the conference table.

  “My guys had to drag six protestors away. One put up a hell of a fight and deputies are transporting the guy to the ER. He’ll be resting tonight at the Meade County jail along with the rest of them.”

  Arn slid his chair back and took off his reading glasses. “I’m not familiar with that group out there.”

  “You must not be a vet.”

  “I’m not,” Arn answered. “That yahoo that stopped us coming in mentioned something to that effect as well before he stepped aside and let us pass.”

  “Figures,” Waddie said. “They only hate veterans.”

  Ana Maria closed the laptop and slid it across the table to her. “What do they have against vets?’

  “Everything,” Waddie answered. She slumped as if exhausted from her contact with the protestors, and Arn hoped she’d make it to her twenty years. “The RSL feels like the country should disband our military. That we are armed invaders when we travel to foreign lands to kill our enemies. All of that horseshit is outlined in their manifesto which you can get online with a donation to that fine bunch of assholes.”

  Waddie stood and tried tucking her torn pocket into the hole where a protestor had ripped it. “Now if there’s nothing else, I have a lengthy report on what just went down out there.”

  Arn handed Waddie the file. “Just one more thing—I see the toxicology report is not in the autopsy file.” Arn knew the medical examiner would draw fluids and send them to the lab for analysis. It was standard procedure for all unattended deaths. “Misplaced?”

  Waddie tucked the folder under her arm. “The ME didn’t put a high priority order on the tox. She figured with the lung and heart problems Steve Urchek had, there was no need to rush the report.”

  Arn and Ana Marie followed Waddie out the room and she told them to drive out the east gate to avoid the protestors.

  “What are you thinking?” Ana Maria asked as they walked into the parking lot. “’Cause I know that look. You see something you didn’t like?”

  Arn couldn’t put his finger on it just yet. All he knew is that—after looking at the photos—he began thinking of Steve Urchek as a victim. And of the pictures as crime scene photographs.

  5

  AS I SIT PATIENTLY READING a year-old copy of The American Legion, I wonder if any of the men around me this afternoon has ever been featured in the magazine, or for that matter any of the men I talked with in my own special way. I ran into a Lt. Colonel at the VA Center in Hot Springs last summer right after he returned from Iraq, complaining to me how he had developed medical issues from being close to burn pits. It almost made me laugh—an officer working around burn pits? I doubted it! It’s the enlisted men—regardless of what war—who always bear the brunt of the nastiness of combat. It’s always the enlisted men tasked with working around the pits who came away with medical complications. An officer working a pit—fat chance!

  A man older than me by some years walks by, and I pick up on the “scrambled eggs” embroidered on the bill of his cap. Unlike many of the veterans walking these hallways at Ft. Meade wearing caps designating their rank—an Army sergeant here, a Navy Master Chief there—his demeanor stands out from the crowd. I can always spot an officer even without them wearing something designating their rank. They swagger like they have more of a right to be in this facility than just enlisted men and women. Officers will elbow their way into an elevator past others, or they’ll cut to the front of the line in the cafeteria like they are the protected class of military society. Once—years ago when they were active duty and had control over the lower ranks—they may have gotten by with treating others like dirt. But not now. Not when I’m around to do my small part to rectify their arrogance.

  A retired major by his lapel insignia—no doubt living off the government teat—catches my eye as he saunters into the restroom. No one goes in after him. No one has gone into the restroom in the past fifteen minutes, and I set the magazine down. Just as I walk nonchalantly toward the room, another vet—his staff sergeant rank proudly displayed on his Marine cap—follows the officer into the restroom ahead of me.

  I pause, the anticipation of educating the major washes over me, and I catch my breath, finally turning and walking away from the restroom. If I went in now, with the intention of… talking with him, old habits might surface. I might not be able to control my passions. And there I would be, trying to fend off the Marine in my zeal to educate the officer. I have spent too much time honing my hunting techniques to get caught now.

  As I was nearly caught three years ago.

  I will not be sloppy again.

  There will be other opportunities to deliver retribution to arrogant men!

  6

  ARN PULLED INTO THE CIRCULAR driveway of the house that Frank and Helen had lived in since they were first married shortly out of high school. The two-story brick affair stood in the historic part of Cheyenne on Carey where—in Cheyenne’s infancy—the Cheyenne to Black Hills Stage Line rolled by twice a week on the way to Custer City and Deadwood beyond. Now all that rolled up was an aging former homicide detective who still retained s
ome small amount of justice for those who can’t speak for themselves. As Arn climbed out of his car and walked towards the door, he thought of Frank and Steve—both who could never speak for themselves again.

  Helen stooped bent over picking up loose pinecones under the bough of a huge evergreen. When she spotted Arn, she used the trunk to stand slowly. She put her hands on the small of her back and arched, stretching, before pulling her wide, floppy hat over her eyes against the bright morning sun. “If you take a seat, I’ll bring us some lemonade.”

  “That would hit the spot.” Arn took off his Stetson and ducked low under overhanging pine branches to a wrought-iron wino bench well out of the blistering sun. As he waited for Helen to return with the lemonade, he thought back to the many times he had sat on this very spot whenever he’d come back to Cheyenne to visit his mother before she passed. Towards the end of her life, Arn found himself more and more sitting here talking with Helen. Fearing what lay ahead for her after she died, Arn’s mother had practically lived in the Greek Orthodox church that she’d been a member of since he was a youngster. She had tried her best to shame Arn into attending as well, but something about the dedication required to be Orthodox frightened him.

  And Jessup. He and his childhood buddy would sit on this bench for hours after they were grown men. Arn would relate his exploits, about gory crime scenes he’d responded to as a Denver Metro cop, while Jessup told Arn of gory details of accidents on the slope when he was a ski bum in Telluride. Before the mountain claimed Jessup in a freak avalanche.

  Helen returned balancing a sweaty pitcher in one arm, glasses in the other, and set them atop a small, round glass table in front of the bench. She poured lemonade over ice in both tumblers before sitting next to Arn. “I take it you’re here to tell me how stupid it was for this old woman to suspect her husband and brother had been murdered.”

  Arn sipped his drink, drawing his explanation out slowly. He had rehearsed it on his way over, figuring just what he would tell Helen. He had thought hard about the photos of Frank’s crime scene—for he had realized after comparing the two deaths it was a crime scene. He recalled Frank’s body where it had hit the sink in falling down, and Steve’s final resting place on the toilet in the Ft. Meade restroom. At first, he reasoned that there was no connection, that he was placing too much stock in his gut—a feeling that had served him through thirty years as a lawman. He told himself that common sense would overcome him, and he would be left with explaining to Helen her women’s intuition was no more reliable than Arn’s gut instinct. Until he compared more closely both crime scenes and determined that he and Helen were right. “Frank and Steve were both combat vets— .”