Hunting the VA Slayer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  Arn thought of Ana Maria, working her way through college in her father’s repair shop. Arn had a hard time picturing Ana Maria elbow-deep in grease and under a car just like it was difficult for him to image someone as beautiful as Sam being there, either. “My good friend… a woman, works on cars in her spare time. So no, I have no problem with it.”

  Sam’s frown faded as if approving of Arn’s new attitude. “Fair enough. Now what do you want to know about Jonah?”

  “Whatever you can tell me about him. He seems to be increasing his protests around the area.”

  Sam leaned back and studied the ceiling for a moment. “When I first met the damned fool, we were in the Enlisted Men’s Club in Kuwait. He was at one end of the bar. Me another, nursing a beer, when a Butterbar Louie and another Butterbar strolled in. You might say we both were too unkindly to officers being in the EM Club—they had an O Club of their own they could go to.” She leaned back and smiled as she recalled the incident. “I started putting the run on them and a fight started. Jonah tried to get into the thick of things, but I don’t recall him doing much more than getting tangled up in the melee. Since then, he thought we had some kind of solidarity or something. Some connection between us, which is bullshit.” She stood and stretched, and Arn had to look away. “This is about a couple veterans dying in an odd way, isn’t it?’

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  She smiled. “Men come in here and tell me things. All sorts of things like I’m some psychologist. But I ain’t, even though I’m a pretty good listener when someone has something interesting to say. Or maybe they just want to get on my good side. So is this about those guys having their heart attacks at the VAs?”

  Arn nodded. “But getting back to Jonah—did he ever try to recruit you?”

  “For that silly group he is supposed to command?” she laughed. “He tried. I had just gotten discharged and landed a VA Service Officer gig and was in Sheridan—that’s one of my stops—when I ran into those RSL fools protesting. I was there meeting with some orthopedic surgeon who had denied a veteran’s claim and I ran into Quentin… Jonah now. We had a few friendly words and he asked me to dinner. Him! There’s no lifeguard in the man’s gene pool. If you stand close enough to Jonah, you can hear the ocean. The man is an idiot, for sure I wouldn’t date him.” She smiled. “But you… you seem a little sharper than him.”

  “Thanks for the compliment. I think.”

  “At least you’d know if I gave you the brush-off.”

  “And Jonah didn’t?”

  She shook her head and pulled a lock of hair behind an ear as she spoke. “I give riding classes in Rapid City on Saturdays during the summer. Jonah just happened to be there one day and hit on me again. Man couldn’t understand no. But I’m certain you’re not interested in my romantic relationship with that fool.”

  “I’m interested in the times you may have seen his group protesting during your travels. The VA website says you do travel a bit.”

  “A bit! I go all over hell with this job. Which is why I don’t mind being single.”

  Arn thought she emphasized the word single. But it might just be his wishful thinking.

  “I travel to VA facilities and outreach centers in South Dakota and Wyoming. Most veterans genuinely wish to see me to learn about benefits they’re entitled to, and I advise them. Advocate for them. But some, like Jonah,” she leaned forward, and a smile crept over her face. “Has he done something illegal you can connect him to, ’cause that would plumb make my day. Especially if he is involved in all those veterans’ murders.”

  Arn sighed, wondering just where she had heard it. Wondering who had leaked the information about the vets’ suspicious deaths. “I can’t say for certain right now that they were murdered.”

  “Then why investigate deaths that were not homicides?”

  Arn closed his notebook and took off his hat. He ran his fingers through his hair before putting his Stetson back on. “Sam, I’ve been a lawman all my adult life. Through dealing with criminals all that time, I’ve developed a sense of… what, I don’t know exactly, but it’s something that makes my gut churn when something just isn’t what it seems. And whenever I think of the coincidences of those deaths to the presence of the RSL, it makes my gut growl more than a butter churn.”

  “Maybe it’s not that,” she said. “Maybe you’re just hungry.”

  “I am a little gaunt. Missed my lunch today.”

  “I did, too,” she said as she tapped his business card with her fingernail. “I am hungry, and curious what kind of Oldsmobile you mention on the card.” She stood and stuck her head out the doorway. “Tell those other fellers waiting I’m closing up shop early today,” she told the receptionist. She turned back to Arn. “You don’t mind going for a bite to eat—my treat?”

  A dinner date with a woman everyone else has been trying to land? He never looked a gift horse in the mouth. Even if she was a looker like Samantha Holder. “I have a few loose ends I need to sew up here. If you meet me at the Police Office downstairs in fifteen minutes, I’ll take you up on that offer.”

  —

  Arn took the down-elevator and caught Sgt. Wagner just as he was locking up for the day. “Did you get a chance to pull up Captain Sims’ service file?”

  “I did,” Wagner answered. He looked both ways along the hallway before handing Arn a manila folder held tightly closed with a rubber band. “Remember, you did not get this from me. It’s not Sims’ whole file, but it covers his duty stations and what he did while in Vietnam.”

  Arn thanked him and slid the file into his briefcase.

  “If I’m caught giving a civilian military records, I’ll stand by my initial answer—if there’s anything to your theory that veterans were murdered around the area rather than dying natural, then I’ll do whatever it takes to find the SOB.”

  Arn turned to leave when Wagner stopped him. “I noticed the side of your face isn’t red like I thought it might be.”

  “Red from what?”

  Wagner grinned. “Getting slapped by Miss Ice Lady Samantha Holder when you put the moves on her.”

  Now it was Arn’s turn to grin as he caught sight of Sam walking toward the Police Office. “Matter of fact, sergeant, I projected my Norwegian charm and landed a dinner date.” He exaggerated a look down the hallway, “where is your dinner date?”

  “What?”

  “Winger?”

  Wagner waved the air. “He just stopped by to show me his new boots he’d bought with all the overtime he made. Can you imagine paying a cool grand for a pair?”

  “Not this cowboy,” Arn answered.

  “Back to Sam—where’s that date you thought you’d line up?”

  “We’re going to eat in a moment.”

  “Sure you did,” Wagner said with a grin. “You stick with that story.”

  “I will,” Arn said as Sam stopped beside him and threaded her arm through his. “Ready for dinner?”

  Wagner’s mouth dropped and Arn winked at him. “I’d offer to take you along, but I don’t think you’d fit in the back seat of my car. Maybe tomorrow, sergeant.”

  As they started out the door of the VA, Arn glanced over his shoulder at Wagner still staring at them. Mouth agape.

  19

  ARN FOLLOWED CHIEF OBLANSKI INTO the sound-proof room and closed the door after them. He turned the sound up on a speaker in the wall as Quentin Barb—aka Colonel Jonah Barb—sat upright and stoic in the chair on the other side of the one-way glass. “Only reason I’m letting you set in on this interrogation,” the chief said, “is because you’ve done enough nosing around about Jonah that something he says might click.”

  “It might if you tell me a little more than you did when you woke me up.”

  “Fair enough,” Oblanski said. “A homeless man found Brian Gibbs’ body in back of the American Le
gion about sunup. He had been dead for four to five hours according to the coroner.”

  “You said Gibbs was bludgeoned to death.”

  “To put it mildly. There was so little left of the man’s face that he was almost unrecognizable from his driver’s license photo. If he didn’t have his DL in his wallet, we might have taken a lot longer to identify who he was.”

  “Any money left in his wallet?”

  “Four-hundred dollars and a few cents,” Oblanski answered.

  Arn’s eyebrows arched. “Rules out robbery. Who’s doing the interrogation?”

  “Mike the Mauler,” Oblanski said. Mike Sommers had acquired his nickname because he had an uncanny way of coaxing confessions out of people—even sometimes when they didn’t commit the crime. And he did so without any threats. Without any intimidation they could later claim in court. “Here he is now.”

  Mike the Mauler entered the interrogation room carrying a single, thin file under one arm. At barely five foot, the investigator had been interrogating criminals longer than most officers on the department had been alive. He had developed that same gut-instinct Arn had developed over the years of listening to other men’s lies. He sat on a chair across a tiny table from Jonah and laid the file on top.

  “There must be some compelling reason why I’m here,” Jonah said.

  Mike smiled but remained silent as he scooted his chair closer to Jonah. He cleared his throat nervously like this was his first rodeo before asking, “Yu have been read your Miranda rights it appears.”

  “At the motel when your officers dragged me out of bed. But I was just a little bit groggy so I’m not sure what they said as The Mauler fished his rights card out of his shirt pocket and began reading it to Jonah.

  Oblanski turned the sound down. “The patrol officers who found Jonah’s motel room said it appeared as if he had been sleeping when they rousted him out of bed. Means he had either been sleeping all night like he claimed—.”

  “Or he killed Brian Gibbs earlier in the night and really was sleeping.”

  “He’s good for it,” Oblanski said and turned up the speaker volume.

  “Jonah Bard,” The Mauler said, pausing as if not knowing. “Is that your given name?”

  “I go by Jonah now. Like the biblical feller who got hisself swallowed by the whale and later escaped.”

  “So, you do equate yourself with Jonah in the Old Testament?”

  Oblanski turned the volume down again. “Won’t be much to hear for a while. Ol’ Mike’s just speaking small talk, loosening Jonah up, getting him comfortable talking before he drills the main point home.”

  Arn took off the lid of the Starbucks cup and blew on it to cool the Americano. “Why do you think Jonah is good for Gibbs’ murder?”

  “Some drunk—Harlan something-or-other, his name’s in the report—claimed Jonah was in the Legion and had some words with Gibbs. He remembered you coming in and talking with Gibbs.

  “But Jonah left after a few minutes, according to Gibbs. About an hour before I came in,” Arn said. “Came back a few hours later. Drunker ’n Harlan if you can believe him. Jonah picked a fight with Gibbs which lasted all of twenty seconds before Gibbs gave him the bum’s rush.”

  “What was the fight about?”

  Oblanski nodded to the one-way glass. “Jonah thought it was his right to waltz into the Legion and recruit for his RSL. Gibbs thought otherwise. I’m leaning towards Jonah hanging around until Gibbs locked up for the night and ambushing him.”

  “What was the murder weapon?” Arn asked.

  Oblanski wiped coffee dripping from Arn’s cup onto his shirt front. “We don’t now yet. Officers combed the alley in back of the Legion for six blocks either way. Nothing discarded. Nothing tossed in the dumpsters.”

  “And nothing in his motel room by the sounds of it?”

  Oblanski stared at the glass and nodded. “If Jonah killed Gibbs shortly after he locked the Legion up for the night, he’d have more than enough time to dispose of any weapon.”

  “What kind of weapon you think it was?”

  “Something big and round,” Oblanski answered. “Pipe of some kind perhaps. Something that made deep, rounded marks in Gibbs’ head and face.” He turned up the volume to the interrogation room.

  “We have two witnesses who will testify that you threatened to kill Brian Gibbs,” The Mauler said.

  Jonah waved the air. “That was just the booze talking. I’d never hurt him.” He tilted his head back and laughed hard. “As big as that man is—was—do you think I could have hurt him any? Look at me compared to that big bastard.”

  “Any man can kill with the right tools,” The Mauler said.

  Jonah tapped his chest. “But not this man.”

  “Then how do you explain this? The Mauler opened a small envelope and shook out a small, silver colonel wing and laid it on the table. “Whoever killed the victim must have lost it in the struggle.”

  Jonah picked up the shiny wing that reflected the light as if they were just buffed.

  The Mauler scooted his chair closer, his knee touching Jonah’s knee. “Looks like the wings that you wear when your group is protesting.”

  Jonah hung his head. “You can get DNA from those wings, can’t you?”

  “We can. And our crime scene tech is processing your motel room now.”

  Jonah shook his head, and Arn thought the man was going to confess when he said, “Then there’s only one thing to say.” He looked up and laughed. “Kiss my behind. I got nothing to say to you. Those wings,” he flicked it with his finger, and it skidded across the table, “can be bought off the internet, or at any military surplus store. Just like I bought mine.” He stood. “You got nothing on me. Process my room all you want, and when you’re finished, prepare yourself and your department for a lawsuit. In case you didn’t know, we have two attorneys living and organizing with us down in Winsdor.” He straightened his shirt. “Now unless you’re going to arrest me, I’m walking out the door.”

  The Mauler looked at the one-way glass and Oblanski keyed his portable radio twice, his signal to allow Jonah to walk.

  He knocked the chair over as he turned and stormed out the interrogation room.

  The Mauler walked into the viewing room and tossed his file folder on the counter. “I was certain he was going to break down. Sorry, boss.”

  “You did your best. Any read on him?”

  The Mauler plopped himself in a chair, a disgusted look on his thin face. “Jonah is one cool customer. For the life of me, I couldn’t get any read on him. I could not tell if the man was lying or not.”

  “Meaning he’s a habitual liar and used to it,” Oblanski said. “Or a sociopath who doesn’t even know right from wrong.”

  “Or that he’s innocent,” Arn added.

  20

  “WORD IS THAT YOU HAVE a new squeeze,” Ana Maria said.

  “Who’s spouting that rumor?” Arn asked.

  “Oblanski. He saw you having dinner at Poor Richards with an absolute knockout. Some young babe—.”

  “She’s only twelve years younger than me.”

  “The chief says she could be your daughter.”

  “She just looks naturally… youthful. Good genes, she says.”

  “You could have brought her home for dinner,” Danny said as he handed Arn and Ana Maria a plate with apple pie hanging over the sides.

  Arn licked the side of the plate and sawed off a piece of pie with his fork. “I’d be afraid you two yahoos would scare her off with all the questions you’d have of her.”

  “We gotta look out for you,” Danny said.

  “And speaking of Chief Oblanski,” Ana Maria said, “he’d give only the barest of facts at the press briefing this morning.”

  “Like he doesn’t trust the media?” Arn said. “Hell, I don’t trus
t the media.”

  “But you trust me?” Ana Maria said.

  “Only if it’s off the record.”

  Ana Maria nodded. “Ok, let’s have it. Off the record.”

  Arn began by telling her the murder weapon was probably a pipe, or a wrench or some other heavy, rounded object, which Oblanski had kept from the press. He also said the department had located no weapon used in the homicide. Oblanski also didn’t say police had brought in Jonah for interrogation. “Small, silver wings were found beside the body like they were dropped by the attacker. Maybe Gibbs fought and ripped one off. Maybe not.”

  “But you said Jonah’s a little fart,” Danny said, “not much bigger than me.”

  “Not much.”

  “That means there must not have been much of a struggle. He had to have taken him quick. As big as Gibbs was, anyone would have had to take him quick.”

  “You knew him?” Arn asked.

  Danny’s face flushed. “Just from my drinking days. The Legion always treated us vets good.” Danny finished his pie and washed it down with a sip of coffee. “And Jonah’s right—you can buy those wings at most surplus stores.”

  Arn nodded. It had seemed too pat to Arn that colonel wings were found at the murder scene. As much as he wanted Jonah to be the killer, there was nothing to connect him to Brian Gibbs than an occasional fight and a tour in Iraq together.

  “Anyways,” Ana Maria said, “Chief Oblanski gave me nothing that I could air and I came home with nothing to show for bugging the chief. I thought maybe Captain Sims’ file would have held something I could use so I could say I didn’t waste the whole day.”

  Arn stopped his pie mid-mouth. “Tell me you didn’t look at his file.”

  Ana Maria took another small bite of pie and cooed. “Great pie, Danny.”

  “Don’t avoid the question,” Arn said. “If you looked in the file you weren’t supposed to—.”

  “Then don’t leave it lying around where other people can peek at it.” She stood and set her empty plate on the counter. “Did you read it yet?”