The Wolf Lake Murders (A Bo Boson Adventure Book 1)

by Henri Jenkins

  Walter moved the gun to the back of the cop's head. "You can strip and get in the trunk of your car or I can shoot you dead right here, right now."

  "Okay. Okay. Calm down. I'll do it."

  Walter stepped away and watched as the police officer shed his clothes. He made the man place one handcuff on a wrist. He forced one sock into the man's mouth and secured it with duct tape from the cruiser's trunk. After he got in the trunk, Walter latched the second cuff. He shut both trunks and carried the uniform into the thick brush.

  Walter emerged from the heavy growth at an old railroad right of way. Unused and mostly overgrown with grasses and saplings, it still provided an adequate view in both directions. To the left a rotting trestle bridge carried the view across the Fox River. To the right, the gravel road to the camp. Beyond the road, the train path faded like an apparition.

  He made quick work of crossing the exposure. Halfway between the railroad track and property fence a small helicopter buzzed over the woods. Walter stopped and sat on a fallen tree. The gun rested patient in his lap. He fell deep into thought, considering his actions and steeling his resolve like a soldier preparing for battle. His eyes appeared empty of reality, cast upon visions created in his mind.

  Questions arose from the answers to other questions. Walter wondered if he could save Jay. He wondered if he could blame them all on him. He wondered if sacrificing Jay held any merit. His head slowly fell into a continuing nod.

  Walter lifted the gun and stood. He changed clothes and continued on.

  But only a complete disguise can hope to hide the true nature of the wolf.

  Other than hearing emergency vehicles enter the woods, the scene nearby had fallen quiet. Bo held his ground. His heartbeat had jumped a notch when a sheriff's deputy made his way around the left side of the camp to aid in containing the kidnapper. He considered the officer a barometer for what was playing out in front.

  Sound broke the silence - a man's voice attenuated to mechanical heights. Bo took it for a negotiator speaking on a bullhorn. Two shots rifled in reply. His peripheral vision snapped his head right meeting a movement within the trees. Bo's .45 came to bear. He sighed in relaxing relief at the sight of another deputy. The man, in hat and yellow aviator glasses struck a resembling figure.

  The officer had failed to catch Bo. He was unaware. Bo watched the figure stalk the undergrowth. The officer's weapon caught his eye. He had never known of a police officer to carry a silenced weapon. SWAT team members had access to silenced rifles but only in absolute necessity.

  Bo ducked, as the deputy drew closer. Through the brush, Bo's confusion grew into suspicion as he caught a glimpse of expensive Italian leather shoes. Either the Sheriff was overpaying his men or - Walter - the image came clear. Walter Freeman in disguise. He was making his way to the train.

  "Hold it right there Freeman," Bo said from cover.

  Two shots whiffed from the silencer, shooting wild. Bo fired one round striking Walter in the leg. He yelped in pain and fell to the ground. Walter emptied the clip into the woods. The other deputy fired at Bo and moved toward him. Hearing the commotion, Jay peeked out the rear window and saw Walter lying on the ground holding a bloody leg.

  "Walter!" he screamed. Bo found the proclamation odd. It twisted in his head. Noticing the deputy, Jay assumed him the culprit and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle. Multiple rounds found the officer.

  Bo fired a round to startle Jay and draw his attention away from finishing the deputy. Walter struggled to his feet and limped to the train. Jay provided cover fire. Bo rolled into a prone position as Walter climbed the ladder. He fired another round. It clubbed Walter in the back. Jay opened the door and pulled Walter inside.

  "No! No! Noooooo!" Jay raged. "You fucker. I will fucking kill you for this."

  Bo took advantage of Jay's diverted attention to make his way to the injured officer. Two rounds had lodged in the deputy's bulletproof vest, one passed through his forearm and a fourth had grazed his ear. Bo got the man to his feet and moved him away from harm.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  I knelt behind Walter and pulled him into a hug, sobbing at his pain.

  "I'm sorry Walter. I'm so so sorry. This is my fault."

  Walter coughed and spat blood. "No," he said patting my hand, "it's mine."

  I pulled my hand from Walter's chest wound. "I don't think I can save you." My hand jumped back.

  "I wanted to save you Fitz."

  "I don't care about me but I never imagined this would hurt you the way it has."

  "I wish you had changed me instead of." He coughed blood. "This."

  "How do we fix it?"

  "There's no fix. It's done."

  "I can't live without you."

  "I love you," he whispered.

  The words charged through me like an electric shock. Walter lifted his gun to the underside of my chin. "We can go together."

  I felt the metal against my skin. "I love you Walter, you're my first love," I cried. I slid my right hand down Walter's back and pulled the gun from his waistband.

  "Oh yes that's it. Let's go together."

  I cocked the weapon and placed the barrel to Walter's temple.

  "On the count of three?" Walter suggested.

  "Wait," I said and climbed to a stand.

  "Jay? Jay we have to hurry."

  I sat the gun on a tabletop. "I'm coming out," I yelled. I opened the door and walked into the sunlight, my hands in clear sight. Still sobbing, I knelt then laid on the ground waiting for it to be over. One group of officers rushed me and another made their way to the train.

  As the first officer breached the door, the click of an empty pistol shot through Walter's mind. There was no time to reload. The police secured the train cars and carried Walter out to receive medical attention. The EMT worked tirelessly to save Walter for a death sentence.

  Luck is a myth.

  Bo brought the lucky officer around front to have his wounds attended. He joined Detective Lancaster on the deck. He questioned Bo with a bewildered stare.

  "I don't understand," Lancaster said.

  "I was half right."

  "I'll say you were. Jay Fitzgerald and Walter Freeman III?"

  "The kid." Bo nodded. "Worked for Freeman. Must have been some kind of workplace romance."

  "Romance? Wait. You're saying they're?"

  "Yes, I believe so."

  "But Walter's married and has a son."

  "A conversation with an old friend explained more than I realized at the time. Of course now it all makes sense. We were discussing." Bo looked to the train. "Pullman cars and Walter Freeman III. This friend told me Brock Wiseman and Walter III shared a common bond in raising children who weren't their own."

  "What does that mean?" Lancaster asked.

  "Pretty much the same thing I asked. They said on paper, legally speaking, they are father and son. In actuality they're half-brothers."

  "What? How's that possible?"

  "Evidently the summer after Walter III finished high school, Walter Jr. caught the boy and two male groundskeepers having sex in a garden shed.

  "No way."

  "Yes, and instead of finding out the truth, Junior assumed the worst and used the situation to his favor."

  "What was the truth?"

  "The groundskeepers were raping Walter III."

  "No."

  "Evidently it wasn't the first time."

  "Oh no. How did Junior use the situation?"

  "He made Walter III marry Elizabeth."

  "So?"

  "Elizabeth was Junior's mistress."

  "No way."

  "Can you imagine?"

  "I-I really can't."

  "The marriage allowed Elizabeth to move into the house and into the money."

  "Right."

  "With Elizabeth his father's mistress, Walter III and her never consummated their marriage. Word is they never even saw each other naked."

  "So Junior got Elizabeth
pregnant."

  "Right and Four was born as the son."

  "But was really his half-brother." Lancaster nodded in understanding. "This is like the storyline from one of those TV soap operas my wife loves to watch."

  "You can't write stuff this good."

  "No kidding. Well why didn't Walter III divorce Elizabeth at some point."

  "Junior held the company over his head. If he divorced Elizabeth, he would out his sexuality, his false child, fire him and cut him out of his inheritance."

  "Damn, his own father."

  "Right? By the time Walter III came to run the organization, he had already discovered his true orientation."

  "So he really is gay?"

  "Evidently. And as long as he kept his affairs a secret everything was status quo."

  "I'll be damned."

  An officer noticed Walter's attire. "Hey Sheriff, this guy's wearing one of our uniforms," he said.

  The Sheriff stepped close. "You're not King."

  "Anyone know where Officer King was posted?" asked Bo.

  "He was at the gate the last time I saw him," said another officer within the crowd.

  "Get over there and see if you can find him," the Sheriff grunted.

  Everyone not otherwise busy headed for the gate. Jay Fitzgerald did not speak a word. He stared a hole in Bo until paramedics pulled the Mexican boys from the train. He looked at them as wasted opportunity.

  "What's their story?" Lancaster asked.

  "Give Dave Lowman a call. I imagine they are some of the boys missing from Indiana."

  "You think?"

  "I do and I'd search the property. Where there's one dead boy there always seems to be more."

  "Then you no longer think they had anything to do with Harold Haverly's death?"

  "The typewriter, I almost forgot."

  Bo led Lancaster into the train car and to the typewriter. He studied the paper sitting beside it. Bo loaded a sheet into the typewriter then pulled a folded piece of paper from his wallet. Using the photocopy, he replicated the note. Bo raised the copy alongside and both men examined the two.

  "Look at the 'k' - a perfect match I'd say," said Lancaster.

  "Perfect indeed."

  Bo relaxed, content in knowing Harold's death would not go unsolved. He was happy to have plucked three more boys from the jaws of a Wolf.

  The search party found Officer King locked in the trunk of his cruiser. It was on the side road parked behind Walter's car. Stripped to his skivvies and gagged with his own socks, his only injury was to his ego.

  A sea is only virgin to the sailor and his craft.

  In Cleveland Ohio, Prescott Farmer's head shook at the Fox River shootout news. Not for what had occurred but the intellect and tenacity of his friend. Bo was also the reason Prescott remained in Cleveland. The property information he suggested had expanded the search for the missing Miranda Presley.

  The FBI executed a search warrant on property the Fitzgeralds owned south of the city. With the arrest of Jay and Walter III, Abigail and Edgar were happy to cooperate fully. During a phone interview, Prescott asked if there were any automobiles at the Cleveland property.

  Edgar stated there should be a Land Rover in the garage. The garage was empty. Prescott provided the details to area law enforcement with an "armed and dangerous" notation. Dirty towels and fresh garbage spoke of someone having been in the house recently.

  With the sailboat missing from its slip, Prescott brought the Coast Guard into the investigation. He provided photographs of the ABBA Gale to aid in the search. In a good old-fashioned shoe leather investigation, the FBI checked every available dock space near the marina. The Coast Guard actively searched the area by boat and helicopter.

  The FBI caught a break when an agent ran afoul of a crudgety repair yard superintendent. A peace offering disguised as a flask of twenty-year-old Scotch whiskey eased the man's disposition and loosened his tongue. On learning of Miranda's reward, the codger spilled all.

  He told the agent of a soldier-looking man bringing the boat in for an inspection and name change. He said the new owner flashed a bill of sale and paid in fresh hundreds. The man had seen nothing of a young girl. They hand painted the new name, "Southern Cross."

  As Jay stewed in a muted cell and Walter recovered, the search for Miranda narrowed. Prescott hunted her scent like a Deep South prison hound. On Wednesday, someone reported seeing the Southern Cross traveling north in a set of locks between Lakes Eerie and Ontario.

  The Coast Guard dispatched two fast crafts and a helicopter to locate, stop and board the vessel. As the first chase boat approached, gunfire erupted from the Southern Cross. The Coast Guard helicopter moved in to provide cover fire at a male figure on the stern. The man fell into the lake. A female ran onto the deck and screamed at the water.

  The man disappeared. One Coast Guard craft broke off to search for the man. The other boat captured the sailboat. Miranda Presley was the sole occupant. After spending the night in a Buffalo, NY hospital, she flew home to her family the following day. Her captor went unfound.

  In the end, life falters to time and death wins.

  Even though I was not enough to make him stop, until he said those words I wanted to die with him. It was something in the way he said, "I love you," the whisper of it like he had done before killing each of those worthless boys. It destroyed me. He thought nothing more of me than he had them. That left his words feeling worthless. I lost all respect.

  When I told him I loved him, I thought about stealing his thunder - killing him before the count of three. It dawned on me that doing so would make me no better, no different from him. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be better. I wanted to be more.

  "I'm coming out," were the last words I spoke for quite some time.

  And come out I did. The truth of me lay bare before my family, my friends and the public. Walter tried to take everything from me, not in seeking the glory but in trying to save me from a similar fate. Having made me in his image, I wondered if he felt responsible. Or maybe he hoped his legacy could continue through me.

  Whatever his reasons, there would be no separating me from shooting two police officers and kidnapping the boys. With only three able to testify against me, they were unable to burden me with any more.

  In Walter's confession, he explained so much. Certainly more than I knew. He said it (the killings) had started because of an event the previous fall. He met a man on a blind date. A man he did not know was Latino. Walter did not date them.

  The man refused to accept Walter's dismissal. He forced himself. When he had finished beating and using Walter, the man leaned to the lump cowering on the floor, said, "I love you," and left.

  The rape humiliated Walter and brought back repressed memories from his late teens. The only information Walter had on the man was that he was from Hammond, Indiana.

  He also provided details of how Patty Jameson had solved Harold's death and tried to blackmail him and I. Walter boasted of turning her cheap ass with the lure of money. To her end, she cost more than her worth.

  While awaiting trial in a maximum-security facility south of the city, a swifter justice found Walter. Like a graduating class posing for a yearbook photo, seventeen men of Mexican decent stood over his bloodied, lifeless body. Seventeen shivs, each with a dead boy’s initials, imposed their death sentence for seventeen mothers who would worry no more. They killed the very monster they had created. Fuckers.

  After Walter's death, they rushed my transfer to Stateville Penitentiary. A solitary berth kept me from the beasts. Even as criminals, the wealthy are worth saving, worth more. They tried everything their simple minds could think of to get me to talk. I would not give them the satisfaction, not even when that Boson guy visited. He asked me all these questions. If not for the shackles, I would have killed him with my bare hands.

  In the quiet of solitude, my hatred came focused. I blamed him. I knew what I wanted and the red-headed bitch who would provide my satisfa
ction.

  In the end, my plan to copy Leopold and Loeb came complete. Harold Haverly assumed Bobby Franks' position. As had Richard Loeb, Walter died in prison. I followed Nathan Leopold to Stateville Penitentiary and hoped to not meet his end.

  I was never more intent on escaping.

  We each chase our own end.

  PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

  From The Desk Of: William Boson

  Thank you for taking the time to read about the Wolf Lake murders. I hope you found it, I won't say enjoyable because one could view that as being morbid, so I will say interesting. I hope you found the book interesting.

  Now that Walter is dead and Jay is behind bars, I have the opportunity to close out the story, as it were, with additional information.

  We found out it was the Wolf's idea to have Jay accompany Four to Maine. The boys were schoolmates and friendly outside but not the pair people had described. Walter realized we were looking at the two boys for Harold's murder. He saw it the perfect opportunity to get the police off Jay's sloppy trail by having both out of town when John Henry went missing and turned up dead.

  Wolf as it turns out has been more than simply a moniker for the Freeman men. It is their initials - Walter Oglethorpe Livingston Freeman. With his death, the company was automatically placed into a trust for Four.

  Four receives a complimentary stipend but Elizabeth heads the empire until his 30th birthday. Of course the eighty percent stake in the seafood business is his outright. And he will have other birthdays.

  In researching connections between the parents of the rich boys, the FBI discovered a link. After each kidnapping, a company called WLFR Holdings contacted each of the families with an offer to divest their company or stock. Though well hidden, they traced WLFR Holdings to Wolf Lake Fox River Holdings owned by Walter Freeman III.

  We found a valve in the Fox River train camp that fit the handle Gunner retrieved from the diesel engine at Wolf Lake. It was also encrusted with blood. In the same bag holding the valve were bloody clothes, paper towels, and a Poloroid camera. In a nearby cabinet, we discovered three photos of Harold, dead, and a handcuff key.