Hunting the Five Point Killer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “You both must have been eliminated as suspects fairly quickly.”

  Georgia frowned. “We should have been that night. The crime scene tech who worked with Madden ran some chemical over our hands.”

  “GSR test: gun shot residue. Standard procedure to eliminate people as shooting suspects. Or confirm them as the shooter. I’d guess the tech bagged Butch’s hands?”

  “They taped paper bags over his wrists.”

  “In case Butch got off any shots of his own,” Arn explained.

  “His service gun still hung over a chair in the kitchen.” Georgia gripped Arn’s forearm tightly. “Now you’re not thinking Pieter could have killed his dad?”

  “I’m not thinking anything. But I’d like to talk with Pieter too, if he still lives close.”

  Georgia sat back and smiled wide. “He’s one of Cheyenne’s top architects.” She grabbed his notebook and jotted an address down. “I’ll tell him you’ll stop by.” She handed the pen back. “Now, when do you want to go to dinner someplace besides where I work?” Her hand shot to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I assume you’re not married.”

  Arn automatically rubbed his naked ring finger. “Not to worry. Cailee’s been gone for fifteen years now. Breast cancer.” He couldn’t believe himself, opening up to this woman he’d only dated for a month back in high school. “And you?”

  “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. So are we on one of these nights?”

  Arn’s neck warmed, and he hoped the lights were dim enough to hide his blush. “You’ve got a date. Just as soon as I’m settled in.”

  He quickly stuffed his notebook into his briefcase and started for the exit and then noticed the restaurant had filled with noon patrons. And he hadn’t even been aware of it. Had he lost his edge? Is that what had happened to Butch: Had he become complacent and let someone walk in on his space? Because if he was letting his guard down, this was no time for it. Not if plastic badges kept popping up on his car seat.

  Eleven

  “Hand me that framing hammer,” Arn said.

  Ana Maria tucked her notebook under her arm and grabbed the hammer hooked on a nail jutting out of the bare wall.

  “Did you do what I told you on the phone last night?” Arn asked.

  “I doubled checked the doors and windows before I went to sleep,” she answered. “And this morning, I got up in a pissy mood. That guy I was supposed to meet out at the fairgrounds never called back. Now I might never know who killed Butch.”

  “Well, if he does call, I don’t want you to meet him alone again. You understand?”

  “I’m doing an investigative story. If that’s the only way he’ll talk—with no witnesses—I’ll have to.”

  Arn swung the hammer, missed, and hit his thumb. He dropped the hammer and cursed under his breath as he shook life into his digit. “Just what I need, another damned appendage bruised.”

  “Maybe this will take your mind off your owie.” Ana Maria sat on a metal folding chair and opened her notebook on an overturned drywall bucket. “I asked around the police department—”

  “Someone there actually talked to you?” Arn didn’t hide his amazement. He’d tried talking with other officers but got the same cold treatment Johnny and Oblanski had given him.

  Ana Maria winked. “A couple of good-looking officers who worked there during the time of all three officers’ deaths talked with me.”

  “What did they say about Butch?”

  “That he was an overbearing jerk. But he was their sharpest detective in investigations back then. They were both amazed at the time that Butch hadn’t been able to solve the Five Point cases.”

  “How about Gaylord and Steve?”

  “They said the same thing about Gaylord. That he was a little prick.”

  “Prick could be good in the police business.” Arn stuck his thumb in his mouth. It didn’t help the throbbing or his thumb turning black.

  “When you were in football, did you ever have a manager who was some little geek everyone hated?”

  “Darrin Mays,” Arn said immediately. “Little peckerwood wasn’t tough enough to play, so he made our lives miserable. Switching play books. Writing us up late for practice when we weren’t. Just a little piss ant.”

  “That’s just how these two cops described Gaylord: a ‘piss ant.’ They said if his wife hadn’t been Steve DeBoer’s sister, Gaylord would never have gone back to investigations. They weren’t surprised when he accidentally hung himself.”

  “You mean, if he hadn’t died spanking his monkey while hanging from the rafters in his basement,” Danny chimed in. He dragged a sheet of plywood across the floor of the kitchen and propped it against a wall.

  “Where did you hear that?” Arn asked. “It’s supposed to be confidential.”

  Danny’s thin shoulders bounced under his bib overalls as he chuckled. “Nothing’s confidential if you know who to talk to. I lived here back then. And I listened to talk on the street. About the fourth or fifth rumor I heard that Detective Fournier died buffing his banana, I started believing it.”

  Arn turned his back on Danny and leaned closer to Ana Maria. “Those officers you talked with get any vibes, any rumors that Gaylord’s death was connected to Butch’s murder? Or Steve DeBoer’s for that matter?”

  Ana Maria grabbed a cigarette out of her purse. She fumbled around for her lighter when she caught Arn’s scowl and put it back in the pack. “They thought it odd that Butch’s supervisor died in a fire, and a month later his partner hung himself. Butch suspected something wasn’t right with those accidents. They were certain of that.”

  “Maybe Butch killed them,” Danny said, coming back into the kitchen.

  “Don’t you have home remodeling to do?”

  “I would if someone helped me.” Danny fished a snipe out of his pocket, along with a wooden match. He sat and struck the match to the butt just as he caught Arn’s look of disapproval and snuffed it out. “Can’t even smoke in my own home.”

  “Danny—”

  “I know,” Danny said, grabbing the wall to help him stand. “Get to work and earn my keep.”

  “Why don’t you go out and start the generator. It’s cold in here.”

  Ana Maria waited until Danny had walked out of the room before she asked, “Who’s the old dude you adopted?”

  “Danny.”

  “Danny who?”

  “Danny LNU,” Arn answered. “‘Last Name Unknown,’ as we used to write on arrest sheets when we didn’t know someone’s name.”

  “Are you saying the law wants him?”

  Arn shrugged. “All I know is I want him. The man looks like he’ll keel over with a big heart attack any moment. But he works me into the ground, and he knows near everything about home construction.”

  “Then why isn’t he out making good money?”

  “Probably just doesn’t want to be found.”

  The generator kicked in. The bare bulb overhead flickered to life, and the two space heaters started to spew heat.

  “Couldn’t you just call Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power and get electricity turned on?” Ana Maria asked.

  “They’d need to inspect the house first. And as long as this place has been left abandoned, with the squirrels chewing the hell out of the wiring, it’s a mess. Until Danny rewires the place so I can get an inspector over here, the generator will have to do.”

  Danny came back into the house and headed for the front room with a bag of drywall screws under his arm. Ana Maria leaned closer. “Do you plan to move in here? To this—” She waved her arms around the room.

  “Until Danny gets it renovated, I can’t afford to live in a motel and at the same time shell out money for this … dump. So I have to move in here. Just to save a few lucky bucks. And speaking of which, if I don’t get busy and work on Butch’s case, I won’t even hav
e any money for another space heater.” Arn slapped his hands against his thighs to restore circulation as he paced the room. “Butch and Gaylord and Steve all worked on the Five Point cases during that time. That’s got to be the connection.”

  “Not that again. The Five Point cases were isolated.” She held up her hands. “I know what I said about them all being connected somehow. Two men murdered the same year. The same way. And none after the last victim. But that was just for television. The cops I talked with think whoever the killer was, he moved on after that second victim.”

  “Then how do you explain that plastic badge in my car?”

  “So someone tossed in a cheap kid’s badge,” Ana Maria argued, sounding a lot like Johnny White. “It doesn’t mean the killer has returned.”

  “Maybe he never left.”

  “Maybe it’s not a ‘he.’” Ana Maria grinned. “Wouldn’t that boost ratings?”

  “Hey boss,” Danny called from the bay window by the front door. He was looking out the one dirty pane of glass that remained. “You got company.”

  Arn and Ana Maria joined him at the window. A white Audi had pulled to the curb behind Arn’s Oldsmobile. A man Arn’s height, but lean, lithe, and athletic, stepped from the Audi and hopped over a snowdrift. A turquoise hair tie held his blond ponytail, which ended right at the top of his ski sweater. He stood with his hands on his hips as he looked at the sagging second story, working his way down to where Arn and Danny had shored up the porch with landscape timbers.

  “Stay here,” Arn told Ana Maria. “Danny and I will go out and … ” But Danny had already disappeared out the back door.

  “Hello, the house,” the man called out in a baritone voice that sounded as if he should be practicing for Christmas caroling next month. He stepped gingerly onto the rickety porch and stood by the door.

  Arn slid his hammer from his tool belt and concealed it beside his leg. He opened the new solid oak door Danny had hung, and it swung open as smoothly as a bank vault. “What can I do for you?”

  The man’s pale blue eyes held Arn’s for the briefest time before he worked his way from Arn’s scuffed work boots to his Carhartt jacket with the one sleeve torn from an exposed staircase nail. “You look just as I remembered.”

  “You’re the second person to tell me that. Explain.”

  “When you worked here at the police department, Dad brought me to work. You were a shift sergeant then, I believe.” He held out his hand. “Pieter Spangler.”

  Arn fumbled to slip the hammer back into his tool belt. He wiped his hand on his trouser leg and shook hands. Pieter’s grip was surprisingly robust for someone fifty pounds lighter.

  Pieter peeked around the door to look inside. “I tried to buy this place a few years ago. All the windows were broken and the door was down, so I came in and looked it over. I figured I could pick it up for a song. But the assessor said the owner kept the taxes current and wouldn’t give me any other info. ‘The owner wishes to remain anonymous.’” He backed away from the door. “So, you’re Mr. Anonymous?”

  “I am.” Arn shook his head and caught himself staring. “And you’re Butch’s little boy. You were so—”

  “Cute? Another way of saying ‘effeminate.’ Until halfway through high school, that is.” Pieter leaned closer. “Do you know how embarrassing it is when you’re fifteen and your aunt pinches your cheek and brags what a darling you are?”

  Arn tilted his head back and laughed. His own mother’s sisters did just that. “Oh yeah, how I lived for the day my voice finally changed.”

  Pieter raised his hand in a high five, and they slapped palms. “To all us guys who were once cuties,” Pieter said.

  His smile faded and he became solemn. “Aunt Georgia said you wanted to talk with me. I thought I’d save you a trip to my office.” He tapped the side of the porch. “Cool old place.”

  “You like old houses?”

  “I buy historic old homes. And now and again I even restore one. This was one of the last of the carriage houses in Cheyenne.” He stepped to the far end of the porch and looked up at the high drive-through where people used to pull their wagon in to unload supplies.

  “Great Grandfather built it when Cheyenne was little more than an end-of-the-line railroad town,” Arn explained. “Passed down through the family. I was the only one left alive who wanted it.”

  “Well, you’ve got a good start on restoring it.”

  Arn wanted to tell Pieter that Danny Last Name Unknown was the craftsman behind the new drywall, the demolition of half the house that had rotted through the years, and the plumbing he planned to replace later in the week. But if Danny was that paranoid, Arn wouldn’t spoil it by telling on him.

  “Aunt Georgia said you had some questions about Dad.”

  “If it wouldn’t be too painful.”

  Pieter shook his head. “I’ve told it so many times.”

  “Come inside. I got two folding chairs that … a friend acquired someplace.”

  They stepped inside and their breath frosted, the space heaters failing to reach this far. Arn led Pieter through the house to the kitchen, where Ana Maria leaned against the counter. She stood close to a space heater, and her hand was wrapped around a mug of hot coffee.

  Pieter smiled and his eyes locked onto Ana Maria’s. “You’re the TV lady who’s doing the special on Dad’s murder.”

  “I am. Did you watch the first two installments?”

  Pieter’s mouth down turned. “I couldn’t. No offense. Maybe it was linking Dad’s death to Gaylord’s and Steve’s that put me off.”

  Ana Maria poured Pieter a cup of coffee and nodded to a metal chair beside where Arn sat. “You don’t think they’re related?”

  Pieter sipped his coffee. Arn thought he hadn’t heard Ana Maria, it took him so long to answer. “When Steve died in that fire,” he said at last, “Dad was senior investigator, and he assigned himself Steve’s investigation. Same with Gaylord. All I know is Dad would have told me if he thought there was anything unnatural in the way they died. And believe me, he looked for it. Obsessively.”

  Ana Maria handed Pieter a mug of coffee. “I just hope my special will jog someone’s memory about your dad’s murder.”

  Pieter forced a smile. “I still think about him every day.”

  “Must have been hard.”

  “Hard?”

  “Being with your father every day. Going to some of those crime scenes he investigated,” Ana Maria said.

  “I coped.” Pieter finished his coffee. He handed Ana Maria the empty mug. His hand brushed hers and lingered there for several moments. “Are you married, Ms. Villarreal?”

  “To my job.”

  “Bummer.”

  Pieter leaned on the piece of plywood that spanned two saw horses and functioned as a countertop. “By now I assume you’ve read the police reports on Dad’s death. The autopsy report. The follow-up interviews with a hundred people who wanted him dead.”

  “I started reading them last night,” Arn said.

  “And you thought I might have some hidden tidbit of knowledge I might have forgotten that you’ll be able to bring out?”

  “Something like that.”

  “‘Better to get it straight from the horse’s ass,’ was Dad’s way of saying people don’t realize they have some knowledge until asked in the right way.”

  Arn’s eyebrows rose.

  Pieter smiled. “It was something Dad thought he could do, too.”

  Arn took off his ball cap and ran his hand through his sweaty hair. “I’ve interviewed witnesses years later who didn’t realize that the car they saw the night of the murder, or the phone call they got, or the kid walking his dog was significant. Until I walked them through it.”

  Pieter smoothed his slacks and tugged the cuffs over his wingtips, old and worn on the outside but polished.
“Dad had that quality, too. Something good investigators develop, I suppose.”

  Some men were just born with that ability, Arn thought: the ability that put them at the top of the food chain. By all accounts, Butch had been top dog in his world, just as Arn had been in his when he was in Metro Homicide, innately sensing weaknesses in others that told him when to pounce. And if Butch was anything like Arn, he’d developed the same instinct to bring that information to the surface. Sometimes to be used against them.

  Pieter stood. “May I have a refill?”

  Ana Maria poured from the percolator, and Pieter’s hand brushed hers again. He smiled as he sat back down. “I was on Christmas break from school, and Brothers Medical Supply had given me more deliveries. Between that and getting ready for basketball practice that month, I was plumb worn out and hit the hay early. So when I heard arguing downstairs, I wasn’t sure how long it had been going on. Then I heard a shot.” He looked away. “I later learned it was two shots to Dad’s chest.”

  “If you don’t expect them, two or three shots can sound like one.” Arn had responded to a robbery in progress in Denver’s East Colfax area one night for what they called a stop and rob: quick in at a convenience store, intimidate the clerk, and quick out with all the cash. Usually took only minutes. Sometimes it went sour. Like that night. When Arn had stepped from his unmarked car that evening, he swore he heard only one shot. But the shooter had gotten off three, she shot so fast before she burst from the store directly toward Arn. Scratch one robber, and the crime scene techs had to pry her gun from her cold, dead fingers still curled around the grips.

  “I came down the stairs and there was Dad,” Pieter continued, looking at the tip of his shoes, “sitting where he always did in front of the TV. Pants undone like he always did right when he got off work.” Pieter swirled the coffee around in his cup. “Did I mention how vain my dad was? Kept his pants too tight because he thought it made him look thinner? He was having a hard time growing older.”