AHMM, October 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "I'm not suggesting a thing. Just asking questions."

  "Well, you're on the wrong track there!"

  "Probably. Well, you know what to do now. Margaret's to get the cheek swab kit from your police station if they have it, or order it from the Internet. She's to notify the police in Cairo to see if they want to work on the case now that the girl has been identified. Under our supervision, of course. Remember, we have jurisdiction here. Oh, yes, and we'll have to know if Margaret wants Colleen's remains reburied here or shipped down there."

  "I'll have her call you."

  * * * *

  Cellini put one of the junior detectives, Neil Nelson, on a search for employees of logging companies fifty years ago. There were several ways to do this, but only two that had any chance of success at this late date. The first was to check with each of the companies that had been in business fifty years ago to see if they had payroll records from that era. The second was to check the income tax records. Withholding taxes had been established by Congress in the mid forties so those records could be subpoenaed. Or the records might still be extant in the Madison offices of Wisconsin's Department of Revenue.

  Cellini went back to the list of junk found at the scene to be sure they hadn't missed something else thought unimportant at the time. Nothing clicked in his mind that would link a miner or an Illinois resident. What did he expect? A 1955 Illinois license plate that could be traced to Gordon Foster?

  * * * *

  The Cairo police wanted no part in the case. Their chief said, in effect, that the trail was too cold for them to spend the money and officers’ time on something that was doomed to failure from the start. But they had no problem about turning over what information they had on record about the investigation into Colleen's disappearance. There wasn't much. Just a little about the search and the interrogation of a few people, including the short-tempered boyfriend. And they would do the DNA test if Mrs. Foster could come to the station house.

  Margaret Foster did get a cheek swab done at the Cairo police station. The report was sent to Cellini by fax. There was a ninety-nine percent chance that the murdered girl was a blood relative of Margaret Tichna Foster.

  "That's as good as it gets,” Cellini told Chief Wistrom, “you can sometimes get a hundred percent on an exclusion, but almost never on an inclusion. That girl is Colleen Tichna."

  "Agreed,” the chief said.

  It took a week for Neil Nelson to find in the yellowed records of the Mosinee paper mill the name “Gordon Foster.” From Centerville, Illinois. Age eighteen when he was hired. Worked for them for two years, first as a chain sawyer, then as a driver of a big flatbed stake truck that carries loads of pulpwood—popple and pine—from woods to mill.

  "Not likely to be a coincidence,” Cellini mused to Nelson.

  "No, sir."

  Cellini spun in his chair and pulled out a plat map of Eau Claire county. He opened it to the index page, found the proper page number for the area where the body was found, put his finger on that area, and looked up at Nelson. “Mosinee owns that forest. Almost a full section. Mosinee also owns the paper company."

  "Foster could have worked in those very woods."

  "Yes. I've got to go down there."

  "He'll never confess, and there's nothing but very circumstantial evidence to tie him to the murder."

  "Yes, just the headlamp and the fact that he must have known the woods around here pretty good."

  "Not enough."

  "You're right. That's why I've got to go down there."

  "Yes, sir."

  * * * *

  He called Helen Rush and told her he was coming down there the next day. He could hear her take in a deep cogwheel breath and let it out in a rush. “So,” she said softly, “you've hit upon something, then?"

  "Yes. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. Will you reserve me a room if there's a motel there?"

  "Yes. We have one small motel. The Red Roof."

  Cellini left the next day. It was an easy flight: an hour and a half from Minneapolis to Chicago, a little over an hour from Chicago to Cairo. He rented a car at the airport and drove directly to the Red Roof Motel on the edge of Centerville and checked in. It was three o'clock when he arrived at the library.

  Helen was waiting for him at the front desk and led him back to her private office. She closed the door, sat in her swivel chair, and said, “Please tell me what's going on."

  "Gordon Foster worked for the Mosinee paper mill for two years. Fifty-two years ago. He worked in the woods felling trees at first, then he drove a logging truck. I think he killed Colleen Tichna, drove to Eau Claire, and dumped her body at the end of that logging road. He knew very well that it wasn't used much anymore because he himself had helped to clear cut it a few years before."

  Helen sat with fingers pressed against her pursed lips as she listened to Cellini. Then she said, “I do hope you're wrong."

  "Well, let's go see what we can find out. They're expecting us?"

  "Yes. I told them it would be around three. It's quarter after now."

  Cellini drove them to the Ninth Street address in his rental car. The Fosters awaited them on the front porch but invited them in, “because,” Margaret said, “we got nosy neighbors."

  Margaret handed Cellini the yearbook with Colleen's picture. He glanced at it and said, “Thanks, Mrs. Foster. But we don't need it. Her DNA matches yours."

  Tears sprung to her eyes. “So the waiting is over,” she said softly, and wiped her eyes with a small handkerchief.

  "Yes, ma'am. It's what we call closure. Now we just have to find out who did it."

  "Any leads, detective?"

  "I've got a few ideas. There was a boyfriend who used to beat her up when he got drunk."

  "Oh yes, Bert something or other. Franks, I think. You can't question him. He died in Vietnam. And as I recall, he was completely cleared because of an alibi."

  Cellini sat quietly for a moment. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked loudly in the silence.

  "Mr. Foster?"

  Gordon Foster's eyes widened, then contracted.

  "Mr. Foster. I understand that you worked in Eau Claire for a couple of years."

  "Yes.” The tone of his voice was querulous, as if to say, “What's that got to do with anything?"

  "What kind of work did you do?"

  "You probably know the answer. For the paper mill. Logging at first, then driving a log truck."

  "Have you been back there since you left?"

  "Of course not. No reason to."

  "How well did you know Colleen Tichna?"

  "Not too well. I was engaged to Margaret, and Colleen had her boyfriend. And we were a couple of years apart in school. At that age you don't see or do much with someone older or younger. Just what are you getting at, detective?"

  "Just routine questions, sir. I'll be talking to quite a few people in the next few days."

  Cellini pondered for a moment. “Did you work in the Mosinee Forest down by the Chippewa River?"

  "Yeah. For about six months. We clear cut the entire section. Furnished almost all the pulp the mill needed during that time."

  "Could you find that place again? Today?"

  "I doubt it."

  "But you could have, just a couple of years after you left?"

  "Probably."

  "I think you did. I think that's where you dumped Colleen's body."

  Gordon's face blanched white and his lower lip trembled. Margaret gasped, crossed the room, and placed a hand on his shoulder. He said in a raspy voice, “That's a damn lie, Detective.” Margaret soothed him by speaking softly to him.

  Cellini waited patiently for a few moments, then said, “You worked in the coal mines near here?"

  "Forty years,” he managed to say through tight jaws and lips.

  "Did you know that a miner's headlamp was found at the scene?"

  "No, how the hell would I know that?"

  Margaret sucked in her breath and put her
fingers to her mouth. She's remembered something, Cellini thought. And Gordon was telling the truth—the headlamp was one of items on the “junk list” and was not released to the public, not because it was important but because it had been thought to be irrelevant.

  "Just asking. You know, Mr. Foster, that Colleen was three months pregnant at the time of the murder?"

  "Yes, everyone knows that now."

  "How does everyone know that here?"

  "It was in the news. The reporter wanting to open up the case again. The exhumation. All that. It was in the Carbondale paper, which everyone here takes if they take a paper at all."

  "It couldn't have been. The fact that she was pregnant was never released to the press."

  "It must have been. How else would I have known?"

  "That's what you'll have to explain to the judge and jury, Mr. Foster. I'm arresting you for the murder of Colleen Tichna. Anything you say from now on..."

  * * * *

  The story came out in tearful, stuttering sentences with long pauses as Gordon fought for control of his breathing. As he'd said earlier, he was engaged to Margaret and Colleen had her boyfriend. But he still had somewhat of a roving eye. After all, he was only twenty-one and not really quite ready to settle down.

  One evening after work he decided to drive down to the lake a few miles from town and do some fishing. He settled in on one of his favorite inlets in a rather remote part of the lake. That was back when there was a lot of undeveloped shoreline. His tight line was in the water and his back against a tree trunk. He was half asleep when he heard a voice saying, “Well, fancy meeting you here!” It was Colleen. She was biking, had been to visit her grandmother, who had a cabin on the lake, and saw his car parked on the road by the path to his fishing spot. One thing led to another and he was unfaithful to his fiancée. That was the only time. They both agreed that they would not meet again. At least not like that.

  Three months later Colleen informed him that she was pregnant. And it had to be his baby because she and her boyfriend always took precautions. She insisted that he marry her. He refused and she went off crying. But she kept coming back to him whenever she could find him alone. Finally, one night when he'd been drinking heavily, she showed up at his house. He lost his temper and in a drunken rage beat her head in and broke her arm. He thought she was faking unconsciousness, but finally he realized that she was unconscious.

  He panicked then. He hadn't meant to hurt her that bad. Maybe the doctors could ... no, if she died he'd be arrested for murder.

  He put her in the trunk of his car and took off. At first he had no idea where he was going, but gradually, as his liquor wore off, he got the idea to drive all night to Eau Claire, dump her at the end of a tote road that he knew, and drive right back.

  And that's what he did. The first time he stopped for gas he phoned the mine office and left a message that he wouldn't be in to work the next day.

  It took him ten hours each way. When he got home the next day he found he hadn't been missed by anyone. But the town was in an uproar because Colleen Tichna had disappeared. He helped with the search.

  The only thing that worried him was that he'd lost his headlamp when he bent over to drag the body into the “junk yard.” Unfortunately, it had landed on the switch and turned itself off. He'd searched briefly, even turned the car around so the lights would shine on the junk, but he was in such a hurry to get away that he gave it up very quickly.

  That's what had brought Margaret's fingers to her mouth. She had remembered that he'd had to buy a new headlamp shortly after Colleen disappeared. But of course she hadn't made the connection then.

  She sat quietly sobbing, watching Gordon as he told his story. Then she asked Cellini, “What's going to happen now?"

  "That's up to the judge. He'll take into account his age, his lung condition, his record since that time, the fact that it wasn't premeditated, and any other factors that his lawyer can enter."

  She nodded and reached for Gordon's hand. “I'll be with you all the way."

  The “too cold a trail” had turned hot after all.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Birney Dibble

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  EITHER WAY by Bruce Graham

  "State against Robert Kluge,” cackled the bailiff. “Hearing before the court."

  Sharon Lucelli sprang to her feet. “That's us. If the judge lets Kluge out of custody and doesn't let us have his DNA, the case is sunk.” She gathered her purse and strode toward the twin doors where the bailiff waited.

  John Williams trailed along. He was a slender six footer in an ill-fitting suit and a tan raincoat. Next to the courtroom door he carefully pushed a wad of gum from his mouth, wrapped it in a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, and dropped the tiny bundle in the trash receptacle.

  "Come on,” Sharon said.

  John followed her past the bailiff and into the courtroom, scattered with people. Edwin Rooker, the county prosecutor, was in an apparently pleasant conversation with Ann Pine, the defendant's attorney, in front of the empty jury box.

  "State against Robert Kluge,” called out the assistant court clerk from beside the witness box. “Please, everybody, take your places."

  Sharon and John walked quickly to the front row of seats reserved for witnesses and sat down. They were prepared for this, the first—and probably pivotal—act in this long-running drama.

  * * * *

  Nineteen months earlier Mary Olson had been finishing her junior year at Northwest Community College. She was a slightly overweight late bloomer, a stolid navy veteran with shore patrol experience, who worked part-time as a bartender at the downtown hangout known as Louie Louie's. Her job included maintaining order among the sometimes unruly patrons.

  On April 19, she left Louie Louie's at her usual time, three A.M., and was not seen or heard from again at the college or the bar. She missed two days of classes and two nights of scheduled work. This was unusual, since no one interviewed about her could recall her ever having missed even one event without giving some sort of notice. On the morning of April 22, her fully clothed body was discovered thrown over a bank along Highway 20, west of town. Her purse, apparently complete with contents, including an empty wallet, was discovered a half mile farther west in a ditch.

  The autopsy report showed no indication of sexual assault. She had been badly beaten with some sort of metal object that left traces of paint in her hair. The cause of death was listed as asphyxiation, meaning that she was strangled. Of special interest to the investigators was tissue, hair, blood, and fibers under several of her fingernails and in her mouth, evidence that she had fought vigorously against her attacker. This was not mentioned in news releases. By means he kept to himself, the medical examiner fixed the time of death as the morning of April 19.

  Mary was not known to have had any boyfriends, although she had dated several of her classmates at the community college, the latest one at least two months before her death. Two of these had graduated and were far away at the time. Two others were eliminated as “persons of interest” by solid alibis. The one remaining allowed investigators free rein of his home where nothing even remotely incriminating was found and provided a DNA sample that quickly excluded him from consideration.

  In the meantime, investigators tracked down most of the dozens of patrons of Louie Louie's and several people known to have been in the neighborhood around the time of Mary Olson's departure. But through crosschecking of their stories most of them could be excluded from a possible suspect pool. The special “Serial Killer Squad,” set up by the state in an effort to cut off the sort of demented killer whose work seemed to fit this homicide, worked down the remaining potential suspects to only three.

  * * * *

  "Your Honor,” the prosecutor said, “for the purpose of simplicity, the State concedes that Mr. Kluge is in custody, and for the purpose of taking a DNA sample, pursuant to Judge Nguyen's search warrant of September 26, last. The State further concedes tha
t because of Mr. Kluge's physical resistance to giving the sample, it is the State's intention to forcibly extract samples of his blood, hair, and saliva for the purpose of testing. The State further agrees that all of Mr. Kluge's attorney's steps to bring this matter before the court are procedurally sound."

  Sharon Lucelli knew that they were not only procedurally sound, but also amazingly prompt. Robert Kluge had been in custody pursuant to the search warrant for only two hours and had made only a brief telephone call to his attorney, Ann Pine, when she pranced into the sheriff's office with a restraining order preventing the taking of the specimens pending a hearing on question of whether Robert Kluge could be compelled to provide a DNA specimen.

  The judge was a somber, fortyish new appointee from three counties away. He was unknown to Sharon, and she momentarily felt the usual resentment for the judiciary's interference in the grinding and grueling police work that led to convictions.

  "Unless the State justifies its search warrant,” said the judge, “I'll order him released because he cannot be compelled to provide a DNA sample."

  "The State has evidence that would justify taking Mr. Kluge's DNA. For ease of understanding and a clear record, we intend to call Officer Lucelli, then Officer Williams, and the people connected with the DNA examination, then back to Officer Lucelli."

  The judge nodded. He wasn't about to provoke an argument; it was up to the prosecutor to present his case as he saw fit.

  Sharon well knew that if the State's case failed, Robert Kluge would walk out, and another warrant to compel him to provide a specimen would also be denied. If that were to happen, she was resigned to the case being lost, even though she believed that the case against him could be made. Her mouth became dry. She sidled to the gate through the bar into the lawyers’ section of the courtroom, knowing that the prosecutor could see her out of the corner of his eye.

  "I call Detective Lucelli,” Rooker announced.

  Sharon advanced past the prosecutor to the witness box. She almost took the chair before she noticed the assistant clerk holding a weathered, drooping book. She uttered a firm “I do” in response to the words of the oath. For an instant she wondered if she would ever say the same words in a much different setting with her beau Tom Bernhardt.