Perverted Justice

by Michael Arches

  “My, how dark your mind is,” the older woman said as she looked me straight in the eyes. “I think it more likely that she did win some man’s affections, but she doesn’t realize the person committed murder for her. She’s not a good enough actress to fool you during your interview. It doesn’t sound like she was acting guilty. But, then again, I’m a romantic at heart, and I like to see the best in people.”

  “You’re right about one thing—she wasn’t acting guilty. Listen, you have the luxury of being a romantic. I hunt stone cold killers for a living. There’s damned little romance involved.”

  She stayed silent.

  “Okay, I’ve kept you from your work long enough. Let me throw out one last theory. Wouldn’t the killer you described make sure she didn’t choose a Mr. Plan C? Wouldn’t it suck if you kill someone for love then your lover runs off with someone else?”

  Margie put her hands over her face. “Yes, that would be very unsettling. Anyone with half a brain would make sure the woman they risked everything for would choose him next. But are there really people that coldblooded?”

  I nodded.

  “God, I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.

  “Welcome to my world. I’ll let you know how this little drama turns out when we go to see Swan Lake.”

  Chapter 4

  By the time I left Margie’s, I’d worked a twelve-hour day. There’d been times when I’d worked much longer, but this was a case where I had to be able to think clearly. I needed a break.

  When I arrived at the house Willow and I were living at, she cupped my face in her hands and kissed me.

  “You look like you’ve had a tough day,” she said. “Want to tell me about it?”

  “I do, but first, I need a shower. Maybe we could order pizza in?”

  “It’s the perfect comfort food. Franco’s or Say Cheese?”

  “You decide,” I said. “My brain isn’t working anymore. Can’t make any important decisions.”

  After cleaning up and getting some food in my stomach, I felt much better. A cold beer hadn’t hurt either.

  While we ate, I summarized my day.

  When I finished, Willow said, “Busy girl. You got a lot done.”

  I appreciated the compliment and didn’t know what to say.

  “Given your great effort today,” Willow asked, “why aren’t you happier?”

  “Haven’t made any progress on my case.”

  She shook her head. “Every time you eliminate a possibility, you come closer to the truth.”

  I hoped—but doubted—that she was right. “Spinning my wheels doesn’t get me anywhere.”

  Willow muttered, “Stubborn mule.”

  A little more beer helped me relax. “Here’s what I don’t understand. Let’s say a woman really loves her partner. She’s devastated when she loses him. What would she do next?”

  Willow chewed on her slice of margherita pizza for a moment then washed it down with some red Bordeaux. “I’d go home to family. That’s a safe place where I could come to grips with my loss.”

  “Candy grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota. Her dad still sells farm supplies there.”

  My girlfriend looked at me blankly. “Dakota?”

  “It’s up on the Northern Plains, near Canada. The breadbasket of the world.”

  Willow grinned at me mischievously. “I love farm country, as long as I don’t have to live there anymore. But I’d go back to the land to deal with grief.”

  Having seen how much Candy had changed from her time as a small-town beauty queen, I wondered whether she’d do the same. “What if your friends and folks back home disapprove of the way you supported yourself in Colorado?”

  “Good question. If I’d switched from the ballet to pole dancing, Maman et Papa wouldn’t be pleased. And I wouldn’t want to face my family. So, I’d get away from everyone. Work through my grief alone. I’d probably go to the Brittany coast. Very stormy this time of year. Perfect for working through despair.”

  Willow’s reactions seemed on-the-mark. That was what a woman with a broken heart would do. “Makes perfect sense. But if Candy really is a gold digger, and I’m leaning that way, she’ll move on to Mr. Plan B soon. If she waits, some other sleazy wench might grab him.”

  My girlfriend giggled. “You are amazingly perceptive about what a woman on the make would do. That’s the correct expression, yes?”

  “You’re right on both counts. I find it remarkably easy to read a gold digger’s mind these days.” I waved my arms around the kitchen of this fancy house. “Who wouldn’t love this kind of life?”

  Willow put her palm to her forehead in fake horror. “I’ve ruined you. Your friends will never forgive me for turning you into a greedy, selfish, fortune seeker.”

  I cringed. That was too close to what I was worried about becoming, but I tried to keep the mood light. “It’s too late to save me, and I suspect Candy will show her true colors soon.”

  “Tomorrow, you can go back to your search for justice,” Willow said, grinning. “Tonight, I plan to have my way with you.”

  -o-o-o-

  After a good night’s sleep, I realized I’d probably focused too much attention on Candy Kaine. Plenty of other people were pissed off at Blatter, and I needed to understand more about them.

  Even so, I was still focused on folks nearby, not the guy from Cleveland who wanted to stuff the retired doctor’s head and mount it on a plaque. According to his local cops, this particular nut happened to be homebound due to extreme obesity complicated by diabetes. He sure hadn’t spent hours hunting with Shermie in the Elk Mountains.

  After breakfast, I called Linda to talk strategy. She’d already sifted through the documents we collected at Blatter’s condo, and she’d downloaded his emails, social media posts, credit card history, bank account details, and phone records.

  “I’d like to talk to someone in his family and get their sense of who might have been after Shermie.”

  “I’ve got all their contact info,” Linda said. “Two brothers, one sister, quite a few nieces and nephews, two ex-wives, and three kids of his own. Both parents are dead.”

  “Any idea who runs the family?”

  “Probably the oldest sibling, his brother Mark. He definitely runs the family’s business, a very successful Colorado cement company. By the way, I read a couple of annoyed emails from Mark. His baby brother had failed to show at a birthday party last Saturday for one of their aunts in Denver. Instead, he was hunting and dying near Aspen.”

  “Mark sounds like a perfect guy to talk to. He probably knows most of Shermie’s fuckups over the last fifty-eight years. Also, you have any idea who the family’s lawyer is? Someone might benefit a lot from the retired doctor’s untimely demise.”

  “Yeah,” Linda said. “Saw more annoyed emails from Bart Whitten, Esquire. The parents, years ago, set up a family trust that owns a lot of property, including that Aspen condo Candy still lives in—despite what she told me. A month ago, Shermie was supposed to walk one block over to the assessor’s office and pay the semiannual property taxes. The family’s black sheep forgot. Now they have to pay a late fee, too, and Whitten insisted that Shermie cover that expense.”

  Shermie is such a bozo. “I’m surprised one of the family didn’t kill the good doctor long ago. Listen, I still like the possibility that someone killed Shermie to get Candy for his own, but we need to check out other angles. You keep track of her phone calls today. If someone killed Blatter to get her, the killer has to make contact soon, if he hasn’t already. Meanwhile, I’m going to Denver to talk to the people who knew the black sheep the best.”

  “Sounds like a plan. When Skip and I finish reviewing the evidence we’ve collected, I’ll call you to talk about whatever looks promising. Oh, also, Shermie had a bunch of photos on his phone. Mostly him with friends. Skip and I recognized some of the people. I’m hoping the family might know the others, so I’ll send you the unknown
s. And if we have time, we’ll run by the local sporting good shops and outfitters to see if Shermie hung out with any hunting buddies who might’ve rode out with him.”

  “You two are doing fantastic. Make sure you tell Skip.”

  -o-o-o-

  As soon as I hung up, I asked Willow, “Interested in going to Denver today? I hope to talk to a couple of people there about Blatter.”

  “I’ve got a conference call with the Japanese finance ministry in twenty minutes. Shouldn’t last long. Then I’d love to go. I have a little errand I can run at the Federal Reserve office downtown. Can I drive?”

  She’d bought a dark gray Porsche 911 Carrera 4S. It was quite the machine. Could go from zero to sixty in 3.2 seconds. “I’ll check with Randy. He might be happy to save money on gas, not to mention wear and tear on my departmental SUV. And while you’re talking to the Japanese, I have to run over to the morgue and meet Dr. Dan.”

  -o-o-o-

  On the way to the coroner’s office, I called our chief deputy and caught him up on what I’d learned since we’d last spoken at the condo. Then I made the pitch for me to ride with Willow to Denver.

  “Works for me,” he said. “Make sure she knows we’re not fixing any tickets.”

  “Already told her. She picked up one by speeding in Glenwood Canyon a week ago and hinted that maybe I could talk to someone for her. I told her my campaign motto, ‘No special favors for special people.’”

  He snickered. “I’d forgotten about that. You really ought to get out and politic more. If you’re going to beat me, at least make it look like you’re trying.”

  He’d always been incredibly good-natured about the fact that we were both competing for the sheriff’s job. His only problem was also his greatest strength. He’d been Jenkins’s right-hand man for five years.

  Unfortunately, Jenkins had a lot of bad habits, like a tendency to make dirty deals for his buddies. When I’d publicly promised not to do that, I’d inadvertently tapped into a strong undercurrent of resentment within the county.

  “I am trying,” I said. “My campaign manager claims I’m better off keeping my mouth shut and working.”

  “Makes sense. May the best man or woman win.”

  After I hung up, I thought about the election more. My only election interview had been a disaster. I wasn’t making that mistake again. But I’d been wrong to ignore my supporters. They’d emailed and texted me, but I hadn’t replied to most of them. I made a mental note to find time to do that.

  -o-o-o-

  The coroner, Dr. Daniel J. Longfellow, was a well-loved ER surgeon who’d patched up more than his fair share of cops over the years, including me. Not surprisingly, we were big fans.

  He met me in his office’s lobby. “I heard you caught this case. You seem to get all the weird ones lately.”

  I hadn’t thought about it, but he was right. “God’s punishing me for some past sin. What sins did God punish Blatter for?”

  “No idea, but I do know how he died.” Dr. Dan waved for me to follow him.

  An image flashed into my mind of the poor bastard being stapled to the bristlecone with an arrow. “I figured that out for myself, thanks. Tell me what I don’t know.”

  “He ate quite a bit of beef jerky and trail mix in the hours antemortem.” The doctor grinned like that was the secret to cracking my case wide open.

  He entered an examination room filled with the scent of disinfectant. Blatter was on a table, buck naked. His chest was opened with the familiar Y cut. Organs were spread out around the body.

  “Any idea how long it took him to die?” I asked.

  “My best guess is at least four hours. I wouldn’t wish Mr. Blatter’s death on my worst enemy. And here’s something else you might not know. He ingested a small amount of tequila shortly before he was shot. Given the cirrhosis we found in his liver, I doubt that quantity of alcohol affected him much.”

  “You think that matters?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I’m puzzled as to why he didn’t struggle more before he expired. Might’ve been drugged. We sent out a blood sample for a complete toxicology. I’ve asked for expedited results, but you know how frequently that works.”

  Not often enough. “Actually, damned little about this case adds up. Anything else you can tell me that’ll lead to his killer?”

  “No, but I did stumble across something interesting from a purely medical perspective. His pancreas contained an aggressive form of cancer. No signs of treatment, but Mr. Blatter didn’t have good options. He might’ve accepted his fate instead of undergoing very uncomfortable radiation treatments or chemo. And no matter what approach he took, the man was not likely long for this world. His odds of survival for six months were less than five percent.”

  I waved goodbye to Dr. Dan, not knowing how cancer played into the story of Shermie’s tragic end. Had Candy known? Maybe that was the reason for moving up their June wedding in Hawaii? Was it really his idea, or hers?

  As for me, I frowned on murder, no matter how unhealthy the victim was.

  -o-o-o-

  In good weather with no traffic, it normally took three and a half hours to drive from Aspen to Denver. Willow made it in under three. And I’m sure she would’ve driven considerably faster if I hadn’t been mumbling constantly about how important speed limits are in saving lives.

  To get my mind off of her driving, I began marching through the emails and texts on my phone that I’d stashed in a special folder and ignored. Thank God, I’d stopped my campaign manager, Skip, from setting up Twitter and Facebook pages. No time for that.

  I started with three dozen texts first because there were far fewer. Most of the county’s residents didn’t know my cellphone number, but it wasn’t a secret either. With a little digging on the sheriff’s office website, anyone could find it.

  I thanked a dozen folks for their support and deleted their texts. Then, the next text sent a chill through me. I hope you and your whore of Babylon rot in Hell! If I could get around, I’d sent you ther myself. Know where you staying, north of Sodom.

  Usually, I ignored the less flattering messages, but this one lit me up. Probably because of the threat to Willow and the claim about knowing where we were staying.

  Well, asshole, same goes. I had the dumb fuck’s phone number, so I called my cellphone company. After explaining I was a cop tracking a threatening message, they sent me through customer service hell to three other cellphone companies until I found the one who was responsible for the phone I was calling about.

  I groaned when I learned the asshole had used a burn phone to send the text. The company told me the phone had been activated minutes before sending the text and hadn’t been used since. They also confirmed that the activation and text were received at a cell tower in Basalt.

  I could’ve gone door-to-door to the thousand or so homes within range of the cell tower, but that seemed like a poor use of my time. I blocked further calls from that number and deleted the text.

  After I cleared out my backlog of texts and gritted my teeth a few more times, I decided to face a hundred emails. For some reason, I found considerably more nasty ones. A few more claimed to know where I was staying, but none of those explicitly mentioned Willow. And none of them directly said he or she wanted to send me to Hell.

  I should’ve expected this. Before I’d filed my papers to run for the sheriff’s job, Skip had told me, “Politics ain’t bean bag.” I’d guessed at the time that he meant it could be nasty, but I hadn’t expected this.

  By the time we made it to Silverthorne, I’d cleared my backlog. And I told my sweetheart about the ugly people out in the world who wanted to do us harm.

  “Not much we can do about the haters,” she said, “but save the worst ones in a folder. When I have time, I can probably figure out who most of them are.”

  That cheered me up.

  -o-o-o-

  Mark Blatter’s office sat in an industrial
area a few miles north of downtown. The company’s cement plant literally roared a hundred yards away.

  “I think that’s the cement kiln,” my girlfriend said as she pointed at a large, slowly spinning pipe that was about fifty feet long.

  “A cousin of mine worked at one in Lyons,” she said. “Don’t ask me why they heat the cement. Anyway, call me or text me when you’re finished.”

  She knew more about the Blatters’ business than I did, but that didn’t surprise me. She knew more about most things than I did.

  Willow dropped me off at the main entrance to the office. I waved goodbye as she rocketed out of there.

  Fortunately, I found the office’s lobby to be blissfully quiet. The building was modern and tastefully decorated. It reminded me of a lawyer’s or accountant’s office.

  A matronly receptionist asked, “How can I help you, ma’am?”

  I was wearing a sports coat and khaki slacks, so she probably thought I was some kind of sales rep. “Detective Henrietta Morgan for Mark Blatter. He’s expecting me.”

  She buzzed him on an intercom, and he strode out from behind a closed door. Mark was a tall gangly man, almost bald. I did see a slight resemblance to his handsome younger brother, but Mark was definitely on the homely side. I could sympathize because I was, too.

  He smiled at me, but his brow was furrowed. Introduced himself with a quiet, low voice then led me to his office.

  It was surprisingly tiny for the CEO of such a large business. His walnut desk contained several piles of neatly stacked papers and a photo of his wife and children.

  A man about my age was already seated in front of the desk. He was also tall and gangly, with a full head of black hair. Unlike Mark, who was dressed casually, the second man wore a suit and tie.

  “This is David Blatter, Sherm’s oldest son,” Mark said. “I mentioned you were coming, and he asked to join us. He’s a prosecutor in the Denver DA’s office.”

  I shook David’s hand and sat in the empty seat next to him. Although I wasn’t crazy about most lawyers, prosecutors were a completely different story.