Barry Friedman - Dead End

by Barry Friedman

  “All right, let me give you a number where I can be reached. If I’m not there, leave a message where I can call you back.” He gave her the number of the Stark County Sheriff’s Office.

  When he arrived in Canton, Vandergrift had already contacted Harriet Gibson.

  “She said her husband had been admitted as an emergency for a bleeding peptic ulcer. She was peed-off that they put him in a ward instead of a private room, as they had requested. She doesn’t remember anybody else who was in the room. In fact, she thought there had been only two others besides Gibson, not three.”

  “Did she recognize the names of either Graves or Abelson?”

  “No. I even tried Banks, Maloney and Jarnow. Negative on all three.”

  Maharos shook his head. “We’re making great progress.”

  A deputy stuck his head in the door. “Call for Detective Maharos.”

  It was Karen Hennessy. She was abrupt, no greeting, simply: “Daniel Maloney has not renewed his driver’s or vehicle license in Ohio for the past three years. Cornelius Jarnow is deceased. That all?”

  He thanked her. She hung up without responding.

  Vandergrift said, “Probably means Maloney has left the state. Scratch two more prospects.”

  “What about Hamberger. Think there may be a St. Agnes connection there?”

  “I called his widow in New Philly before you got here. There’s no answer at the house. The Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office in New Philadelphia is making inquiries to find out where Mrs. Hamberger went. They think she’s staying with her sister somewhere in Minnesota.”

  The deputy came in to tell Maharos he had another call. “We’ll start charging you our phone answering service fee.”

  It was Bonnie Graves. “I’m sorry I sounded so foggy when you called before. You know, I thought and I thought, but I can’t remember who was in Marlon’s room. I can’t even remember that guy Gibson who sent the letter. I’m real sorry. I wish I could help you.”

  Maharos said, “Do you remember how many other men were in the room with him?”

  “No.”

  “Bonnie, maybe it will help if you try to picture the room he was in. Think where he was in relation to the window and the door.”

  “Well, I’m trying to picture the room. Let’s see, Marlon was over near the window. Then there was another man near the door on the same side of the room. Then there was another man in the bed directly across the room from Marlon.”

  She stopped, Maharos could hear her muttering to herself. “You know, I can picture the fourth bed. It was across the room, like on a diagonal from Marlon. I don’t think there was anybody in that bed. No, I’m pretty sure there were only three people in that room, although there were four beds. Does that help any?”

  “Maybe it does. Thanks Bonnie.”

  “Call me if you need anything else, hear?”

  Vandergrift said, “Well?”

  Maharos stared at the wall over her shoulder, scratching his chin. “That’s two of them that say there were only three people in the room.”

  Vandergrift said, “Banks also said there were only three beds occupied after Abelson was discharged.”

  “Right. The point is: they didn’t always fill the fourth bed.”

  “Want me to check with Saint Agatha?”

  “You mean Saint Agnes.”

  “They just named it after St. Agnes. St. Agatha runs it.”

  He shook his head, “What a heretic. Call me if you find out anything interesting. I’m going back to Youngstown. Don’t forget about tomorrow. We’re going to picnic with Annie.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. Anything I can bring.”

  “No. I’ve ordered a basket from a deli.”

  A television sound truck and crew was standing out on the street in front of police headquarters when he pulled into the parking lot. Although that was not unusual, when he had left for Canton earlier there were no police stories on the burner big enough to warrant coverage by the mobile unit. He recognized Janet Olson, a reporter for Channel 8. She spotted him as he walked toward the steps leading to the building. Pulling on the sleeve of the cameraman, she hurried toward Maharos, speaking a lead-in to the microphone she held as she walked. “Detective Maharos, what can you tell us about the developments in the Horner murder case?”

  Maharos did not break stride. He had known it was just a matter of time before word of his investigation would become public. He did not know how much information had leaked. Perhaps there had been some new development while he was on the road from Canton. He had to get upstairs and talk to Bragg, find out what the hell was going on. “I have nothing to report at this time. Our investigation is still underway. I’m sure you can understand the sensitivity of—“

  Olson broke in, “Do you have any suspects in custody?”

  “No.” He was halfway up the steps.

  “Is an arrest imminent?”

  He had reached the door and hurried inside without answering.

  Fuming, he passed the door to Records on his way to the squad room. Hennessy was typing at the keyboard of her computer. He opened the door. She glanced up and immediately returned her eyes to the keyboard.

  He spoke quietly and deliberately. “I know where the news leak came from. When I get proof, I guarantee you the person responsible will be looking for work—and the Civil Service Board won’t be able to do a goddam thing about it.” He slammed the door and took the stairs two at a time.

  Bragg held his hands out, palms up when Maharos asked him about the leak. “I don’t know any more about it than you. Shelly Ehrlich called me half an hour ago. Told me he was going with a story that we suspected Horner was the victim of a serial killer. That we had a good lead and it was just a matter of time before we made an arrest. Said he knew the trail of killings led to several other towns and cities in the eastern half of the state. Shit, the son of a bitch knows as much as we do. I didn’t confirm nothin’, of course.”

  “He’s going with it anyway?”

  Bragg pointed to the window and the street below. The mobile TV crew were packing up and getting ready to leave. “Where do you think they got it from?”

  At his desk, Maharos called Vandergrift and told her that the news of their investigation had gotten out.

  She said, “Tell me about it. I’ve got news people around here like flies on a pile of manure. I’ve been non-committal, of course. But it’s going to be tough to move around from here on in. By the way, I spoke to Mother Agatha. She confirmed that they often have one or two beds open in that four-bed room on 3-West. The hospital runs pretty fully occupied, but they use that room for industrial patients and for emergency cases when they don’t have semi-private or private rooms open and the patient has to be admitted for some life-threatening condition.”

  Maharos said, “Have you been able to contact Hamberger’s widow.”

  “Not yet. I did check with Mercy Hospital. Remember, that’s where Burnstein was working when he was killed. Thought maybe there might be a connection between him and Hamberger or Horner there. Neither one has ever been a patient at Mercy.”

  Maharos was pleased that Vandergrift was using her initiative, looking into angles that hadn’t occurred to him. He reminded himself that it was her idea that had led to the discovery of Abelson as one of the victims. Not only did it complete the chain of murders, but by linking him with Burnstein and St. Agnes Hospital, it provided a major breakthrough in their investigation.

  Vandergrift said, “One more thing. We got a positive on the fiber analysis.”

  “Fibers?”

  So much had taken place in the investigation that, for the moment, he had forgotten about the Navy blue fibers that had been found on Hamberger’s overalls and in the floor carpet of George Horner’s car. Vandergrift was telling him that the Crime Lab had run a comparison and found the fibers to be identical. They probably had come from the same source, a sweater worn by the killer.

  When he hung up the telephone, he leaned bac
k in his chair, folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes to think. The St. Agnes lead had seemed so promising a few hours ago. Now all the lanes had ended in brick walls.

  The phone on his desk buzzed. “Call for you on five.”

  “Pohs ee-stek, Alexander,” the pleasant voice said. Only one person he knew greeted him in Greek.

  “Kah-lah ehf-khah, Markos Sussman. What’s new in the head-shrinking business?”

  Dr. Marc Sussman said, “I have something for you. Not sure what you can do with it but, remember, I told you I’d check about some patients I had seen who had a compulsive-obsession with the number seven?”

  “Heptamania?”

  “Yeah. Well, I went back over my old records and came up with three names: Ronald Baker, he’d be 25 now. Saw him in consultation at Massillon State Hospital six years ago.

  “Monica Dudek, 33 years old. I saw her as an office patient five years ago.

  “Ephraim Rankins, now he’d be 32 years old. Saw him in consultation at Lima State Hospital six years ago.”

  Maharos said, “Do you have addresses for them?”

  “Only for Monica Dudek. Want it?”

  “Hold on to it, but I don’t think it’s worthwhile wasting time following it up. Our killer is not a woman.”

  “I agree. Baker is still in Massillon State Hospital. He had a number of psychogenic problems; heptamania was the least of them. The most debilitating was mental retardation. He was, what we used to call, an idiot savant. He had been institutionalized since he was fifteen. Could do all sorts of arithmetic tricks—multiply two columns of seven figures in his head, tell you what day of the week any date in history fell on, things like that. But he couldn’t dress himself without help.”

  “Does he get out of the hospital?”

  “Only with supervision. His mother, or some relative takes him out for dinner once in awhile.”

  “Tell me about the other one. What’s his name, Rankins?”

  “Okay. I was only teasing you with the other two. This one may be promising. He was in Oakwood Forensic Center for eight years. Diagnosed as a schizophrenic.”

  Maharos said, “Only it wasn’t called Oakwood then. It was called Lima State Hospital For the Criminally Insane. You want me to ask you why he was in Lima State, right?”

  Sussman chuckled. “Okay, game’s over. He was in for suspected homicide. Supposedly killed his landlady. He passed M’Naughton, incompetent to stand trial. By the time he got out eight years later the D.A. figured he had no case.”

  “Sussman, you’re a prick.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  He heard Sussman chuckle. “Wait, Al. Don’t hang up on me, there’s more. This guy has a history going back to childhood. Ever hear of Bellefountain?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a residential therapy center for disturbed children in Cleveland. Anyway, Rankins—or Rankin, as he was known then, was placed by the Akron Child Care Agency in Bellefountain for a year or so. He was there because his foster father had been killed in a farm accident while the two of them were working together. His foster mother suspected that Rankins was somehow responsible although charges were never brought. At Bellefountain he had a battery of tests and was diagnosed as having superior intelligence but he was borderline schizophrenic.”

  Maharos digested the information. So we’re dealing with a kook. “How old was he then?”

  “Seventeen. He was eighteen when he got out. They treated him with some medication that seemed to bring him back to the real world. Trouble is, unless he continued to take it, he’d be back in la-la-land.”

  “How long did they continue to follow him?”

  Sussman said, “He was lost to follow-up after they sent him back to Akron. The next time he surfaced was when he was admitted to Lima State. That’s when I first saw him. His schizophrenia was now full-blown. It was only a one-shot consultation. I recommended that he be given one of the antipsychotic drugs. What happened after that I don’t know. You can probably get more information from the people at Lima State.”

  “Any more you can give me about the form his schizophrenia took?”

  He heard Sussman rustling some papers. “According to my notes, he got messages right out of the Book of Numbers.”

  “You mean the Old Testament?”

  “Uh-huh. He was Ephraim, leader of the seventh tribe of Israelites.”

  Maharos shook his head slowly. “And I’m Moses, King of the Jews.”

  Sussman laughed. “I’m disappointed. I always thought you could walk on water.”

  Maharos said, “Thanks for the information Marc—even if I had to pass one of your psycho-stupid tests to get it.”

  He was about to hang up, had a thought. “Oh, one other thing. You said he was known as Rankin when he was in that place in Cleveland.”

  “Yeah. At Bellefountain his name was Edwin Rankin. By the time he got to Lima State, it had been changed to Ephraim Rankins.”

  “So what’s the big deal? Most of the guys in lock-ups have a string of AKAs that stretch a city block.”

  Sussman’s clucking in the mouthpiece stung his ear. “Al, you’re not paying attention. Heptamania. Each name had to have seven letters.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Maharos was on the line to Vandergrift as soon as he finished talking to Sussman. In his gut he felt that this was going to lead him to the killer, but his experience told him that he was a long way from the solution. He had trouble trying to sound calm when he told her what he had learned; she made no effort to hide her excitement.

  Vandergrift said, “What’s the next step?”

  “Let’s start with Horner’s office, see what we can find out. How long will it take you to get here?”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Nancy Taylor, George Horner’s former secretary, was putting the cover on her typewriter as Maharos and Vandergrift walked into her small cubicle at quarter-past five.

  A faint smile on her lips. “Well, Detective, more questions for me?” A glance at Vandergrift, in uniform. “I see you brought reinforcements.”

  Maharos remained deadpan. “We’re checking to see if a certain party had been one of Mr. Horner’s clients.”

  Nancy Taylor hesitated. “I’d better check with Mr. Bost before I give out any information.” She got up and walked out without offering the officers a seat.

  A minute later she returned. “Mr. Bost would like to see you in his office.” She led the way down the corridor to Harrison Bost’s office. He got up and, smiling, greeted the pair. Maharos introduced Vandergrift. Nancy Taylor remained standing at the office door.

  Bost said, “I understand you wanted to know about one of George’s clients. Some new developments in the case?”

  Maharos said, “Possibly. Mr. Bost, did Mr. Horner have a client named Ephraim Rankins?” He dropped on Bost’s desk a faxed photo he had received from Oakwood Forensic Center. It was front and profile mug shot of Rankins.

  Bost glanced at the photo. “Nancy, could you check the files?” He turned to Maharos. “Is this the man?”

  “Yes.”

  Taylor went back to her office and Bost gestured the officers to a pair of chairs. “I had rather expected I might be hearing from you. I heard something on a news program about a serial killer. Do you think this could have been George’s murderer?”

  Maharos said, “We’ve made some progress, but I’d rather not say anything more specific as yet. I’m sorry the news leaked. It’s going to make our job more difficult.”

  Bost nodded gravely. “I understand.”

  Taylor returned with a manila file folder and placed it on Bost’s desk. The attorney flipped it open. “Ephraim Rankins?”

  Maharos’ pulse raced. The pieces were coming together. He nodded. Bost pushed the file across his desk. “Read it for yourself.”

  Maharos and Vandergrift sat side-by-side, heads together as they opened the file. Vandergrift touched an index finger to a line on the first page and turned to face
Maharos. He read, “Employer, Noah Hamberger.” Another piece fell into place.

  But why?

  That would wait. For now, he knew whom he had to find.

  Maharos said, “Could you have this file copied for us? And would you have a current address for him?”

  Bost looked up at Taylor, questioning. She shook her head. “Only the one in the file.”

  Vandergrift said, “That’s New Philadelphia. It’s three years old. Any way of knowing if he’s still there?”

  The secretary flipped to the back of the file. “No, the last contact we had was three years ago.” She removed a paper from the folder, read it silently for a moment, shook her head slowly and handed it to Maharos. It was a letter, written on lined paper, a page torn from a notebook. The writing was uneven, some words small, some large, some in script, others printed in block letters.

  GEORGE HORNER Why don’t YOU answer my calls?? WHAT happened to the money YOU were supposed to get for ME. EPHRAIM RANKINS

  Maharos said, “Did Horner answer him?”

  Taylor took the last letter out of the file. Stapled to it was an envelope bearing the letterhead of the law firm. The envelope was addressed to Rankins at the New Philadelphia address. Stamped across the front of the envelope was, “Return to sender. No forwarding address.” Horner’s letter, in reply to Rankins’ note, was a three-paragraph explanation and apology saying that Horner had tried to return all of his calls. He said it was possible that he hadn’t received a message that Rankins had called because a check of his logbook showed that every call had been returned, although not always the same day it was received. The log also showed that on two occasions, when Horner tried to return Rankins’ calls, there had been no answer.

  Vandergrift said, “So he had already left New Philadelphia when Mr. Horner wrote this letter.”

  Taylor said, “Rankins was getting checks from the ICO. They may have a more recent address.”

  “ICO?”

  “Industrial Commission of Ohio. I can call their Columbus office for you and find out, if you’d like.”