Silenced Girls

by Roger Stelljes

  “Hmpf,” Tori snorted. “I can tell you this, the night Jessie’s tire blows and she has to pull over, if Eddie pulled up she wouldn’t have thought twice about jumping in his car. She would have trusted him implicitly. I would have trusted him without question. Eddie was a friend, a good friend. A safe friend.”

  “You know, all of your friends said everything was normal the night Jessie disappeared. Lash’s friends said the same thing, other than Gunther. They said it was a normal night, no different than any other. I always thought that meant something. Now I think I know what it means.”

  “Which is?”

  “It was someone Jessie knew. It was someone Lash knew. And it was someone who wouldn’t raise suspicion.”

  “Eddie,” Tori answered. “Nobody would think it possible.”

  Braddock nodded, took a sip of wine and then slowly swirled his glass, deep in thought.

  “What are you thinking?” Tori asked. “That it will be nightmare to pursue this?”

  “That and,” Braddock replied before turning to her, eyeing her wide soft gaze, “I’m wondering how you feel about all this.”

  Tori sighed. “You’re wondering if I feel betrayed?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “For twenty years, I never even contemplated a friend of mine did this. I would have never believed it, as close as our friend group was. But no matter how hard I find it to believe, I can’t ignore what we’ve found. I can’t ignore the evidence. If Eddie killed Jessie, I don’t care if he was a friend. He can burn in hell and I won’t stop until I deliver him there.”

  “You really think it was him?”

  “You have doubts?”

  “I’m asking, do you think it was him? Do you really think it was him? Could he do it? Take all the other women, Lash, Katy, all of them but Jessie out of it. Back then, could Eddie have done it? Killed Jessie as a seventeen-year-old?”

  Tori sat back in her booth and took a drink of her wine. Braddock had asked an important question. She gave herself a long moment to think it through, taking another long sip before nodding her head. “Knowing what I know now about Eddie, especially the beatings he took from Irv and the impact it had on him. Also, now knowing about the sexual assault, or at least alleged sexual assault when he was in the Marines. Guilty or not, something pretty…rough happened with that, so…yeah, I think…he could have done it.”

  “The rep around town is he’s very successful with the ladies.”

  “Why wouldn’t he be? He’s a good-looking guy with money. In all those towns, college towns, he’s the restaurant owner rolling in with his corporate jet, fancy car, Rolex and huge wad of cash—the life of the party. A women’s guard goes down and…”

  “He gets them,” Braddock answered. “Is he smart enough, though?”

  “He might be smarter than we think. He is running the restaurant business and it’s thriving. He might be pulling a rope-a-dope on us and beneath the party boy exterior is a ruthless son-of-a-bitch. After all, Irv was. And violence against women? Maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Irv knocked his wife around. Why wouldn’t that get passed down? You want something from a woman, beat it out of her. As we’ve discussed, he had the sexual assault charge against him. Maybe if we dig a little more, we’ll find that wasn’t an isolated incident.”

  Their entrees arrived, Tori’s filet and Braddock’s prime rib. He poured each of them another glass of wine, his a little shorter than hers. “I’m driving.”

  “Or you’re trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me.”

  “Two birds, one stone. Besides, I hate to let a fine bottle of wine like this go to waste,” he replied and then returned to the topic at hand. “I don’t have to tell you, we need to tread carefully.”

  “The Mannion’s?”

  Braddock nodded. “Our gut is not enough on this and the evidentiary connections you and your colleagues found, provocative as they are aren’t enough, at least not in this case. We need more than what we have. Particularly since the sheriff and the county attorney are pointing the finger at Gunther Brule. If you are someone who runs for election, what sounds better? Gunther Brule as the killer or Eddie Mannion?”

  “We do have a good circumstantial case on Gunther and he’s dead, so there’s nobody to really challenge it,” Tori agreed. “With the evidence we do have, we almost have to point the finger at him. We won’t find Jessie or Genevieve’s body, but so what? Gunther buried them somewhere and we’ll never find them, or so the story can plausibly go.”

  “That’s what Cal and especially Backstrom are thinking. It’s nice and clean. No fuss, no muss, lots of evidence to support it, no need for anything messy, like say…taking on the Mannion family.”

  “I don’t blame them, but …” Tori held up a small copy of the map. “This map tells us, along with Gunther’s employment records, that he’s not the guy. This map, those records and what we found today say Eddie is.”

  CHAPTER 28

  “I AM AWARE OF THE IMPERATIVE OF DISCRETION.”

  Dr. Renfrow called everyone over to the medical examiner’s office for the results of the autopsy. At nine, Renfrow was ready to go along with Braddock, Tori, Backstrom and his assistant Wilson. They were all waiting on Cal who was out in the hallway on a phone call.

  The atmosphere in the room was, in a word, awkward. Backstrom and Wilson had gone toe-to-toe with Braddock and Tori two days ago and there was still some residual enmity, at least on the part of Tori and Braddock.

  Typical of a lawyer, Backstrom acted as if the other day hadn’t happened at all, making small talk with Braddock as if the two of them were best of buddies. Braddock saw right through it, but mindful of Cal’s warnings about the future, engaged Backstrom pleasantly in return. He was laughing inside, though, as he threw a wink at his partner.

  Tori, whose future was not at all tied to warm and friendly ties with the powers that be in Manchester and Shepard County, stayed true to herself. She was wholly uninterested in playing the game as Wilson tried the same friendly, let bygones-be-bygones tact. Tori was giving Wilson her crossed arm pursed lips look with one-word answers.

  “Sorry,” Cal apologized as he came into the autopsy room. “We had a missing person call over in Aitken County that they requested assistance on. I needed Steak to get on it.”

  “Let’s get to it then,” Renfrow started. The medical examiner noted that the gun found beneath Brule’s hand was used to kill him. There was, in fact, small trace amounts of gunshot residue on his hand. His blood alcohol content was .26.

  “He did himself in, then,” Backstrom quickly surmised. “Why did this take four days?”

  “I’m not done yet,” Renfrow replied with just a hint of annoyance. Then he stirred the pot. “The angle on the bullet entry into Brule’s head is troubling, very troubling.”

  The doctor stepped to Brule’s dead body, unzipped the body bag and pulled it open. He then inserted a thin red rod into the messy bullet wound on the high right side of Brule’s forehead and pushed it through so that it came out on the low left backside of Brule’s skull. “That is a very steep angle.”

  Tori and Braddock shared a knowing look but stayed quiet. After a moment, Cal looked over to them with a raised eyebrow. A long-time detective in his own right, he quickly realized where Renfrow was going.

  “I’m not following, Doc,” Backstrom replied.

  “Let me demonstrate then,” Renfrow replied as he pulled an office armchair over to the group. “Mr. Backstrom, please sit down in this chair.”

  Backstrom did as he was instructed. “Now, Brule is at .26 blood alcohol. That could mean he’s steeling himself up to do the deed…”

  “Which is what I’m thinking,” Backstrom interjected.

  “Or it could mean something else,” Renfrow continued as he pulled the gun out of the evidence bag and showed that the cylinder and chamber both were empty. He put the gun barrel up to Backstrom’s head, high on his forehead, at the angle the bullet enter
ed and then reached for Backstrom’s right hand. “Try and reach up with your right hand and hold the gun at this angle.”

  Backstrom had extreme difficulty pronating his wrist to keep the gun at the proper angle while pulling the trigger. “That’s hard to do. Why would he do that?”

  “He wouldn’t,” Braddock answered. “Nobody would.”

  “If someone else pulled the trigger that might explain it,” Tori suggested, going through the door Renfrow opened.

  “He didn’t say that,” Backstrom retorted.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Let’s say it wasn’t suicide,” Braddock proposed. “At .26 he was clearly intoxicated and maybe even passed out in that chair.”

  “He would be more slumped in the chair, wouldn’t he,” Cal noted, tracking along with where the doctor and his people were going.

  “Likely,” Braddock replied as he took the gun from Renfrow. “Mr. Backstrom, slump in the chair as if you were intoxicated. Your head would be tilted down, drooping.”

  “And for purposes of where he was shot in the head, probably listing to the left,” Renfrow noted.

  Backstrom reluctantly did as he was instructed. Braddock, standing at a forty-five-degree angle, put the gun barrel to Backstrom’s head at the angle of entry for the bullet. He could hold the gun naturally.

  “You think he was murdered, don’t you?” Cal asked Renfrow before looking to Braddock and Tori, who both nodded.

  “Hold on…” Backstrom started.

  “That more logically explains the entry angle for the bullet,” Renfrow stated.

  “And I presume,” Cal started while looking to Braddock and Tori, “that you guys have some other evidence or theories to buttress this? I mean, clearly you two anticipated this might be the finding.”

  “I have a few things from the scene,” Braddock replied, opening his backpack and pulling out his file. He mentioned the ordered nature of the house, the glass in the sink, the coaster on the table. “Now, I’ll admit that all of that isn’t terribly convincing. But the one thing that occurred to me while I was going through that cabin again yesterday was, if Brule was murdered, how did the killer get out of the house? We found it locked up tight.”

  “This is nuts,” Backstrom muttered.

  “He locked the cabin with a key,” Wilson offered with a sideways glance, trying to figure out where Braddock was going while wary of irritating her boss.

  “Right. What key?” Braddock asked.

  Backstrom and Wilson shared a quizzical look. “Was there one outside?” Wilson inquired.

  “Not that I found,” Braddock answered. “And I looked for over an hour. And if there was an outside key, a killer would have certainly left it behind since he set it up to look like a suicide to begin with. However, I did take the keys on his key ring and tested them.”

  “And none of them on the key ring work on the cabin deadbolts, right?” Cal asked, following where Braddock and Tori were going.

  “Correct. How does Brule get in without a key? There was no key on the key ring. I think what happened is the killer took the cabin key off Brule and locked the cabin and left but made the mistake of not leaving the key behind.”

  “Or he could have concluded that leaving the key behind would be a mistake, if it turned out you interviewed friends who said Gunther never left a key outside,” Wilson replied. She was slowly buying in. “You know, the smarter play would have been to leave the cabin unlocked.”

  “Agreed,” Braddock answered. “He overthought it.”

  “Have we printed the inside of the cabin?” Lund asked.

  “No,” Braddock answered. “We should have the crime scene team go back. I suspect if the killer was this careful, he won’t have left anything behind but who knows. I used gloves on the keys.”

  “Me too,” Renfrow answered. “We can get these printed, too.”

  Backstrom looked about the room, perturbed, “It appears I’m the only skeptic and everyone else around here now apparently thinks Brule did not commit suicide and was murdered instead. Is that what I’m hearing?”

  There were nods all around the room.

  “Sometimes we have to take the hard way,” Braddock stated flatly. “That’s the job.”

  “I think at this point, there is certainly reason to question the idea that he committed suicide,” Renfrow replied, hedging just slightly. “That angle really bothers me.”

  “Gunther was murdered,” Tori commented, not hedging, “And set up.”

  “Set up?” Backstrom asked. “By whom?”

  Will winced and then sighed for dramatic effect. “Tori has a possible name that we need to investigate more. A lot more.”

  “Who?” Backstrom asked.

  “Well, Tori brought it to me based on some work she and some of her fellow FBI agents did. I didn’t know they were doing it so I’m a little…leery and not ready to disclose it. I’d like to have more time to dig into it myself, before I even mention the name…”

  “Eddie Mannion,” Tori blurted on cue.

  “Dammit, Tori!” Braddock barked. “I told you…”

  “Come again?” Cal asked in disbelief.

  “Oh God,” Backstrom moaned.

  Braddock gave Tori a severe look, just as they planned. It was all part of the Will Braddock protection plan.

  “I don’t have time to consider the political niceties of it,” Tori replied. “Let’s just get it out there.”

  “Will?” Cal asked. “Do you have something to say to the class?”

  Braddock shook his head in anger at Tori, still play-acting. “It’s your theory, you tell them.”

  Tori, cutting Braddock out of the explanation, went through what she had learned about the connection between the abductions of women and opening of Mannion’s restaurants and the fact that Eddie was always there.

  When she’d finished, the room remained silent for a moment.

  “And you knew nothing of this?” Cal asked Braddock skeptically.

  “Of Mannion? Not until last night,” Braddock answered and then gestured angrily to Tori, “she went off on her own on this. I told her to lock it up for now, but she didn’t listen. Go figure.”

  Backstrom looked to Tori. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “No, I’m of quite sound mind, thank you very much,” Tori replied sharply, standing her ground.

  He looked to Braddock. “Will?”

  “I don’t like the way she got there, and I don’t like that she blurted it out now, but…George, I did warn you to not get out too far in front of this.”

  “I know you said that, and you were perhaps right… as it pertains to Brule. But do you have any idea what the Mannions could do to you? To me? To all of us if we’re wrong?”

  “And what if I’m right?” Tori asked feistily. “What then?”

  Braddock glared at Tori again, shaking his head. She was still the bad cop, so he assumed good cop status. “George, I do know what they could do to me, to you, to all of us, and what it could do to the town. But flip it. What if Tori’s right and we did nothing? What if it turns out that Eddie Mannion was a serial murderer living in our midst, yet we didn’t even investigate out of fear of losing our jobs because big brother Kyle would be upset? How does that play?”

  A worried Backstrom looked over to Cal, who simply shrugged. “He’s right.”

  “Let me investigate it with Tori,” Braddock reasoned, “that way, we retain some control. Otherwise, I can pretty much guarantee you Tori goes to the Bureau with it and…well, who knows where it goes from there. Why don’t we investigate this carefully—very carefully—and see what we find?”

  After a moment, Backstrom nodded but like any smart lawyer and politician, he kept his options open. He started by looking over to Renfrow. “Don’t file your report yet and keep quiet. Not a word to anyone, especially the press.”

  “I understand.”

  “You send all that shit my way.”

  Renfrow nodded.

&
nbsp; “We’re going to do this, but I’m going to take Braddock’s advice and not get out in front of it, so for now Brule is still the guy as far as anyone knows.”

  “I follow you,” Braddock replied and then glanced to Tori. “We both do, don’t we? Don’t we?”

  After a moment of faux contemplation, Tori nodded agreement.

  “And for crying out loud you two, be discreet,” Cal counseled sternly. “Detective Braddock, you need to proceed very carefully. You too, Victoria. Perhaps you could be considerate of the ramifications for those of us who still live here that you get this right?”

  “I am aware of the imperative of discretion,” Tori answered earnestly. “We can’t be wrong, not on this.”

  “And you two are coming to me before we’re going after documents, dragging anyone in for interviews. Heck, before you start surveillance on him, watching his every move, we’re going to have a long talk about what you have,” Backstrom stated emphatically. “Fair?”

  Braddock looked over to Tori. Backstrom was trying to shackle them, at least to a degree. It wasn’t so much to protect the Mannion’s as it was to protect George Backstrom. However, they had what they wanted; the green light to investigate Eddie Mannion, even if they were to tread very carefully.

  “Fair?” Backstrom pressed.

  “Fair,” they both replied in unison.

  As they left Renfrow’s office Braddock leaned to Tori. “And I just thought of the first person I should call. He can do some of our dirty work for us.”

  Tori rubbed her eyes and yawned as she leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms before glancing at her watch. 11:25 p.m. She looked over to Braddock sitting behind his desk, his hair disheveled, a weariness apparent as he tried focusing on a document. Sitting on the couch with his head tilted back and eyes closed was Cal.

  They’d worked through the day nonstop and now deep into the night. Over the course of the day they’d been able to further firm up the information on the dates of the Mannion’s restaurant openings and then disappearances. In the process, Braddock made discreet contact with law enforcement in the towns where women disappeared, asking local investigators to subtly go back and interview friends and family of the victims to see if anyone remembered the opening of the Mannion’s, Victory’s or Ansel’s restaurant and Eddie Mannion. If so, did they remember him having any contact with the victim or missing woman. Braddock requested discretion, providing the other jurisdictions with a photo array of six men, one of whom was Eddie Mannion.