Silenced Girls

by Roger Stelljes

  To Tori’s dismay, Backstrom and Watson were nonplussed by the disclosure and unbothered by the result.

  “Were I actually prosecuting a case that might give me a little discomfort,” Backstrom stated while looking over to Wilson, who nodded her agreement. “But I’m not, so I’m not worried about that, again particularly because of how Mr. Brule was found two nights ago. Dead, a gun below his hand.”

  “That’s an admission in my book,” Wilson added. “What could be clearer?”

  “No note,” Tori offered.

  “He didn’t exactly seem like the writing type,” Cal quipped.

  “What if it’s not him?” Braddock asked reasonably. “What if what Tori and I did was get an innocent man, a wounded man, a veteran with PTSD so panicked about what was about to happen to him that he couldn’t handle it and he killed himself?”

  “You and Tori did nothing wrong in questioning him, even if it was aggressive, even if you did run a game on him,” Cal replied. “That was just good police work.”

  “Still, what if we’re wrong?” Tori pressed.

  “Who else would it be?” Backstrom inquired.

  Tori looked to Braddock, with a what do you think look.

  Braddock gave her a nod.

  “This will take a few minutes to explain, but Will and I think it’s someone who’s killed or abducted up to twenty-three women in twelve states here in the Upper Midwest, and out in Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana, as well,” Tori answered.

  “It started with Jessie Hunter,” Braddock explained. “There was a gap in time, maybe four years, and then the killer has taken one to two women per year since, with the most recent woman not being Genevieve Lash but a woman named Joanie Wells in Brookings South Dakota. Last week.”

  Tori explained that most of the women disappeared, although there were four who were found that were bound, strangled and stuffed in the trunks of their cars. “Those four could probably be eliminated.”

  Then she started ticking items off with her fingers. “The killer, whoever he actually is, is very good, very skilled. He gets to these women and nobody ever sees him do it. Nobody ever hears anything. No forensic evidence is left behind. He takes them in places where there is no surveillance, no security, where nobody is watching. In most cases the woman’s vehicle is involved in some way. In many cases it’s damaged. And in the case of the four women who were found bound and strangled, they were found in the trunk of their cars.”

  “All of that requires advanced scouting and planning,” Braddock added. “A lot of scouting and planning by someone who is, if not regularly in that area, has at least spent enough time there to know it well, and to know the gaps in security and surveillance.”

  “Which means, at least based on my experience, it requires a level of intelligence and even some charm to get this close to these women, traits that Gunther Brule did not possess,” Tori opined. “He’s an ass pincher. He is not that smart. And if that’s not enough, the records Braddock has prove Brule couldn’t have been in those places at those times. Gunther Brule didn’t kill all these women. He didn’t kill Genevieve Lash and he didn’t kill my sister,” Tori argued. “It’s not him.”

  The garage was silent for a minute.

  Backstrom and Wilson were incredulous. Cal’s expression was one of dismayed annoyance, having thought he convinced the two of them to shelve the other women and just focus on Jessie Hunter and Genevieve Lash.

  “You think we’re getting ahead of ourselves?” Backstrom asked in disbelief. “You think we’re wildly speculating on this case? Did you two just listen to yourselves? My gosh, you both act like the last thing you want is this case to be over.”

  “I want to know who killed my sister,” Tori growled. “I want the person who did it.”

  “I do too, Agent Hunter,” Backstrom barked back. “And I know who it is. It’s Gunther Brule.”

  “It can’t be,” Braddock answered, holding up Brule’s work records. “These exculpate him.”

  “Assuming all of those cases are connected, then you might be right,” Backstrom conceded. “But that assumes all of those cases are connected. And that assumes that Jessie Hunter and Genevieve Lash are part of all of that. I can make a far more compelling argument that they’re not.”

  “Let me hear it then,” Braddock retorted.

  Backstrom looked over to Wilson.

  “For starters, answer me this,” the assistant county attorney asked, transitioning to cross examination mode. “For Jessie Hunter and Lash, where their vehicles were found there was no evidence of a struggle, correct?”

  “That’s true,” Braddock and Tori replied in unison.

  “So, there was no evidence of a struggle, of a fight of any kind. Their purses were gone. Lash’s phone was gone. Their cars were locked. The trunks and spare tires were not accessed. What’s that tell you?”

  “They knew who picked them up,” Tori answered.

  “Exactly,” Wilson answered. “And they both knew Brule. He was familiar to both them.”

  “Except Brule was drunk and driven home from Mannion’s the night Lash disappeared,” Tori replied.

  “Can anyone verify he was still at home later that night?” Wilson asked.

  “No,” Braddock answered honestly.

  “He owns two vehicles, right?”

  “He does.”

  “Fine, he gets dropped off. Nobody is at home, nobody suspects he’s up to anything. He gets in his other vehicle. He goes back to Mannion’s, angry at Lash. He sticks a big knife in her tire,” Wilson argued and then gestured to Tori. “Just like he did to your sister twenty years ago. He knows cars, right? I’ve seen his garage, it looks like a NAPA auto parts store. This is a method that worked once, twenty years ago, correct?”

  Tori and Braddock both reluctantly nodded.

  Wilson kept going, painting her story.

  “So, he follows Lash and pulls up to her a minute or two after she pulls over with a flat tire. Maybe says he was sorry when he pulls up. Maybe she gets apologetic because Genevieve Lash isn’t exactly the tire-changing type, and she wants a ride home late at night with a violent thunderstorm hanging overhead. She’s a woman in distress, out on that backwoods road. He says he’ll drive her home to make amends. Genevieve may not like him, but she can suffer through a three-mile ride with him, given the circumstances. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out the rest. Case closed.”

  Wilson’s case was straightforward and simple. It made sense with the added feature she’d never have to make it to a jury.

  “Anne, put yourself in that spot on that road,” Braddock asked. “Yes, there is a storm, but you’re three miles from home. You have a cell phone and your father, as would any father, would come and pick you up. So, do you call your dad, or do you jump into a white panel van with a guy who was tossed from the bar for pinching you on the ass three hours ago?”

  Wilson shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I would do. What matters is what she did. She got in the van. Maybe he was holding that 38 Special on her that he killed himself with.”

  Tori wasn’t buying it. “And then what? He goes home and mails me a copy of a newspaper article from when my sister disappeared? Why do that? How does that fit in?”

  “To make a point. To play a game. To rub it in since he just killed again on the twentieth anniversary. To celebrate. To cover what he did to Lash. There could be any number of reasons to do that.”

  “That is so weak,” Braddock replied dismissively.

  “Who knows why he did it?” Wilson answered.

  “And we’ll never know now, will we?”

  “I don’t have to know,” Wilson retorted.

  “No, I think you do,” Braddock asserted.

  “We do know,” Backstrom argued emphatically. “He killed himself because he knew the two of you had figured it out. Come on, it’s like I said yesterday, you two have done a great job. A great job. Take. The. Win.”

  “And the more I think about it, t
he less I’m worried about the lack of a DNA match on those cigarette butts, especially because of all of the other evidence that says Brule’s the killer,” Wilson added. “He has a history with Lash.”

  “History? He pinched her ass,” Tori replied dismissively. “That’s a history? That makes him the killer? Gimme a break.”

  “He had a history with her,” Wilson insisted. “Genevieve Lash told him to know his place. On top of that, he lived in the town when your sister went missing. He has a record of domestic abuse. Convicted? No. But we’d get that evidence admitted if we had a trial. There’s a ballistics match for the gun that he used to take those shots at you, Agent Hunter. He works at Sidwell so he’s familiar with and has experience with explosives. We found mercury switch materials at his house, along with mercury from Sidwell. His van was positively identified leaving the area by a credible witness.”

  “Fran Larson saw a van speeding away that looked like Brule’s,” Tori countered.

  “She identified that van,” Wilson answered, undeterred. “I saw Steak’s report. She didn’t equivocate.”

  “And the cigarette butts? You really don’t think that’s an issue?” Braddock inquired.

  “Those cigarette butts could’ve been from some guy out hunting for all we know,” Backstrom lamely replied.

  “Really?” Tori replied, jumping on the response. “You know, I haven’t been back for twenty years, so did the laws change? Is there a hunting season right now in mid-July?”

  “It’s not hunting season,” Braddock noted. “And even if it were, nobody would be hunting there.”

  “They’re not from any hunting season,” Tori argued. “Those butts aren’t from last year. They were fresh and they were found by the spent shell casings. Brule’s a smoker, but he didn’t smoke those.”

  “So, what are you saying, Agent Hunter? You think they were planted? What evidence is there of that?” Backstrom posited. “As a prosecutor I think I could pretty easily explain that away.”

  “I think someone else was the shooter,” Tori explained.

  “And then what? They fail to get you and Will, so they set up Gunther Brule?” Wilson asked.

  “He’s a patsy,” Tori blurted.

  “I see, so someone else was shooting from the grassy knoll,” Backstrom quipped derisively. “No way.”

  “Success or failure, Gunther Brule was going to be set up either way,” Braddock replied calmly, having seen the question coming for ten minutes. “If the person we’re after succeeded and killed Tori and I, you would have investigated the case the way the two of us have and you’d have what? Gunther Brule. That’s what the killer wants. And Gunther isn’t alive to proclaim his innocence. That makes it awfully easy for you to just pin everything on him and call it case closed.”

  “Nice theory,” Backstrom replied, “but the simplest answer is almost always the right one. I know whose version of events makes more sense and which version I could win a case with and it isn’t yours.”

  “The operative term there was almost always,” Braddock countered as his cell phone rang. He read the screen on his phone. “Excuse me…I should take this.” He stepped outside of the garage.

  “And by the way, we’re not going to court,” Tori continued, pushing the argument. “Brule is dead.”

  “But we can put to rest at least the recent disappearances of Lash, the shots at you, the attempt on Will’s life. And I honestly think you could consider your sister’s case closed,” Cal offered in a measured tone that nonetheless indicated which version of events he agreed with. “The evidence is strong on all of that,” he added.

  “Heck, we just need the autopsy and some forensic reports completed so we have everything. That’s the direction this thing is going,” Backstrom said reasonably.

  “But what if that’s the wrong direction?” Tori persisted. “And what about Katy Anderson? How does she fit into all of this?”

  “Why does that even have to be connected?” Wilson asked. “It could just as easily be coincidence, and in fact is more likely unrelated. Hell, and I’m sorry, Tori, but she was crazy. She could have jumped on a bus to Seattle and simply be gone.”

  “Really? Really?” Tori replied in angry exasperation now of her own. “You guys can just wipe away evidence and disappearances with the wave of a hand, as if they’re irrelevant because they don’t fit your neat little narrative. Aren’t you the least bit curious as to how she fits into all of this?”

  “Look, I’m sorry, Agent Hunter. I know she was your friend,” Wilson said apologetically.

  “Genevieve Lash disappears. I show up. I see Katy and then Katy is gone, and you don’t think that’s related? What are you smoking?”

  “Given what I’ve just listened to the last half-hour, I could ask you the same thing,” Backstrom snapped back.

  Braddock’s call was from Dr. Galen Renfrow, the medical examiner. “Is the autopsy complete?”

  “Yes, I suppose,” Renfrow answered after a moment, “I’ve had it done for twenty-four hours but …well, I’ve been sitting on it.”

  Renfrow was leading somewhere. “Why the delay, Doc?”

  The coroner exhaled. “Because I have a finding that is…well, curious. I was hoping the searches at Brule’s properties would clear it up.”

  “A curious finding? Curious how?”

  “Based on preliminary blood tests, Brule’s blood alcohol content upon death was .26.”

  “No shock there. He was getting up his courage to pull the trigger, Doc.”

  “And that, I suppose, is one possible explanation for the angle of entry on the wound.”

  Braddock caught the tone. “What bothers you about that angle, Doc?”

  “Let me ask you a question. Do you want me to be bothered?” Renfrow asked, picking up on Braddock’s inquiring tone. “Tell me, do you question whether this Brule is your man?”

  “Are we off the record, Doc?”

  “For now, sure.”

  “I have to be honest, Doc. There’s plenty, plenty that’s says its him,” Braddock replied truthfully, laying out the case he’d just heard Wilson and Backstrom lay out. If he was being honest, it was a convincing case. “So, there is the obvious case that says yeah, Brule’s our guy. But there is an alternate theory that says he’s not.” He provided Renfrow the abbreviated version of that line of thought as well. “Right now, the first theory is the prevailing one of Backstrom, Wilson and Cal, the decisionmakers. And while it has a few holes, it’s a persuasive case, especially since Brule is lying dead on the slab in front of you. The alternative theory is one posited by Tori Hunter and I, and it’s not currently finding a receptive audience.”

  “I see.”

  “So, since we’re off the record, what do you have?”

  “The angle of entry and exit of the bullet is oddly steep.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “From what I can tell, he was holding that revolver at a really high angle over his head, almost vertical, not at all horizontal. And the exit wound confirms that steep angle with the exit wound out of the left lower base of his skull.”

  “Is it possible to do that?” Braddock asked, sitting down and trying to mimic the shooting angle with his right hand. “Pronating his wrist like that seems really awkward…and unnecessary.”

  “Yes. And I know we’re talking about someone who supposedly is committing suicide so if he did, he wasn’t necessarily rational in his thinking. He was doing weird shit, but I’m not sure why you would hold the gun at such an angle to shoot yourself. Put the barrel in your mouth, up to the temple or stick it under the chin. That’s what people who are committing suicide do.”

  “You said supposedly. Are you saying it’s possible he didn’t shoot himself?”

  “I don’t know, Will. That angle really bothers me.”

  “Is the angle of entry more consistent if someone else shot him?” Braddock inquired.

  Dr. Renfrow was quiet on the other end for a long moment. “He was in
that chair, right?”

  “Yes,” Braddock answered. “And if the blood tests are accurate, very intoxicated.”

  “Go on.”

  With Renfrow’s insight, the scene at Brule’s suddenly played differently to Braddock. “Doc, he’s drunk and passed out in that chair. His head is tilted down, drooping to the left, like how someone often sleeps in a chair.”

  “And if I follow, Detective, someone walks up and shoots him in the head from a higher angle because they’re standing.”

  “Right,” Braddock answered. “Did you test Brule for gunshot residue?”

  “I did. There was a small trace on his right hand. You know as well as I do that often with suicides, we don’t find any.”

  “The gun used on him was the .38, correct?”

  “Yes. That’s confirmed. We extracted that bullet out of the back of the chair.”

  “We found five in the cylinder, obviously the one that went through his head extracted from the chair. But if there was someone there and they did shoot him, it’s not hard to put the gun in Gunther’s hand, pull the trigger on a second bullet and then replace a bullet in the cylinder.”

  “Shoot it where?”

  “Outdoors. From that chair you could open the sliding glass door fifteen feet away and shoot it out toward the lake. With Brule dead, our second man could come up with some sort of way to silence the sound of the gun.” After a moment’s thought, Braddock thought that could have happened. “But of course, we’re off the record here.”

  “We are.”

  “Anything else bothering you?” Braddock asked.

  “Isn’t that enough?” Dr. Renfrow replied with a rueful chuckle. “But look, other than that angle, I don’t know that I have anything medically or forensically I can point to that says it’s not a suicide.”

  “In other words, your report could go in a couple of directions.”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to continue to take my time and…ponder my analysis. I need to think it through. But I’m glad I called. My delay might give you more time to prove your theory. I can tell you have serious doubts about Brule.”