Hunting the Five Point Killer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  Pieter shrugged, looking around the deserted lot. “Johnny was shot because he went public on reopening Dad’s murder case. At first I thought it was a good idea. Finally catch the killer. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “Johnny’s a professional. He knew what the consequences might be in going public. But he felt strongly that your dad’s murderer could be caught—with the right person coming forward. That’s why he agreed to go on air with Ana Maria.”

  “What’s the chance that someone will remember something new after all these years?”

  Arn started his car and turned the heater on before stepping out and closing the door. “I’ve worked many cold cases where information comes to light years later. In Butch’s case, someone may think there’s been enough time since the murder to feel safe going to the police now. I’d say there’s a good chance that someone out there has information. Johnny’s plea to the public just might jar something loose.”

  “Then that’s all the more reason for you to watch your back.” Pieter looked around the parking lot a final time before Arn climbed into his car. “’Cause I’d sure hate to see a friend of my Aunt Georgia’s hurt by Johnny’s shooter.”

  Arn slapped him on the back. “Thanks for your concern.”

  “Hey, you up for a cup? I’m just locking up.”

  “Ana Maria Villarreal’s on television for another installment,” Arn said, “in thirty minutes.”

  “You can come to my place and watch it. Beats sitting around that thirteen-inch TV of yours.”

  “Thanks, but I got to see to a homeless man.”

  Thirty

  As Arn pulled to the curb in front of his house, his headlights shone off a forest-green Impala parked at the curb. Pieter’s warning rang in his head, and he grabbed the gun he’d just bought today, a snubbie .357 revolver, from the glove box. His hand clutched his gun inside his jacket pocket as he approached the house. He bent his ear to the door. Muffled voices rose and trailed off inside: Danny’s and a woman’s. He took his hand out of his jacket pocket and chided himself for being so jumpy. But as his hand rested on the door knob, Arn reminded himself that women can be just as deadly as any man. And as ruthless. He shoved his hand back into his pocket, his finger finding the trigger, as he stepped cautiously inside.

  He followed the voices into the kitchen. Danny was laughing beside Georgia as they leaned against the new countertop frame that waited for Danny to finish it. Arn bent and slipped the gun into his ankle holster and then stepped into the kitchen. Clusters of candles illuminated the new folding kitchen chairs Danny had “found,” and he’d thrown a blanket over the card table as a quick tablecloth. An aria playing from Danny’s one-speaker stereo filtered through the room, and odors of something special wafted past Arn’s nose. They stopped laughing when they spotted Arn.

  “Mr. Danny was just telling me how you two met.” Georgia smoothed her skirt. “But he won’t tell me his last name.”

  “That’s Danny Boy. Mr. Mysterious.” Arn motioned to the table set with flowered plastic Chinet, not the pauper’s paper plates they’d been using. “What’s this?”

  “It’s your gourmet meal for the evening.” Danny grabbed a flashlight and opened the oven door. “Buffalo stew with corn bread.”

  “Where’d we get buffalo?”

  Danny’s hand covered his heart. “We Lakota always know where the buffalo roam.”

  “You in on this?” Arn asked.

  “It’s Danny who thought of a nice impromptu dinner.” Georgia sat on a folding chair. “It just happened to be my day off when he called.”

  Arn bent and whispered to Danny, “Where’d you get a phone?”

  Danny covered his mouth with his hand. “Those folks two doors down. They’re still not home. And they got a landline. Now sit.”

  Arn took a seat across from Georgia and waited for Danny to serve them. “It’s going to be hard to impress a chef. I mean a cook.”

  “I’m impressed.” Georgia scooted her chair back from the card table and laid her napkin beside her plate. “And full.”

  She picked up her plate but Danny stopped her. “Until we get the kitchen set up, it’s easy to clean up after meals.” He grabbed the plates and stuffed them and the plastic utensils in a garbage bag. He tied the drawstring and slipped his coat on.

  “Where you going?” Arn asked.

  “Take out the trash and then to bed. Unlike some people”—he exaggerated a look of scorn—“I got work to do here tomorrow.”

  Danny disappeared out the back door and Arn stood to refill their coffee cups. “I’d say let’s sit in the living room, but it’s full of things. And I have no sitting room yet.”

  “This is just fine.” Georgia sipped her coffee and leaned back in the chair. “How’s Chief White doing?”

  “Doctors are hopeful. They brought him out for a few moments today. I stopped by, but they wouldn’t let me see him.”

  “Pieter said he ran into you. And that witch Adelle.”

  “She was there with her husband.”

  “I’ll bet he told her he’d be busy jogging?” Georgia said.

  “You psychic?”

  Georgia laughed. “Meander gets all the dirt at the hospital. The only running Dr. Dawes does is into the arms of other women. Makes Adelle madder’n hell. She deserves him. Just like Hannah deserved what she got.”

  Arn refilled their cups and sat back across from her. “You never did explain what happened to her.”

  Georgia scooted her chair closer to the space heater and hugged her cup. “The year after Butch was murdered, Hannah took a double gainer off the bridge outside Laramie. Drunk.”

  “So she never straightened out?”

  “Just ’cause her husband was dead?” Georgia laughed. “Hannah hit the sauce even harder after Butch died. She collected the hundred thousand bucks the feds give spouses for line-of-duty deaths and drank through it by the time of her wreck. If I hadn’t insisted she set some aside for Pieter’s college, he never would have been able to attend.”

  “Must have been devastating for him to lose both parents inside a year.”

  Georgia stood and emptied the grounds in preparation for brewing another pot of coffee. “After the police were through working Butch’s crime scene, I took Pieter to the house to gather his things. He moved in with me, and Hannah never saw him after that. She never even went by her own house that I know. It went back to the bank when she didn’t keep up payments.”

  Arn laid his hand on Georgia’s. “You must have done something right, by the way he turned out.”

  Georgia smiled wide. “I guess I did.”

  A key rattling in the door caused Arn to jump, and he bent and grabbed his ankle gun. He put his finger to his lips and tiptoed toward the door. He stood off to one side and unlocked the deadbolt, flinging the door open in one smooth motion. Ana Maria’s eye widened and her legs buckled when she saw the gun pointed at her, and Arn quickly stuffed it in his back pocket.

  “My key won’t work,” she sputtered.

  “Danny installed a new lock today. I got a key for you in the kitchen.”

  Ana Maria followed Arn into the kitchen and stopped when she saw Georgia. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

  “You’re not interrupting anything,” Arn said and introduced them.

  “I’d know that face anywhere.” Georgia stood. “I see you every night doing the news. How’s the special coming along?”

  “We’ve got tips coming in every day. I’m optimistic we’ll find your brother’s killer.”

  Ana Maria fidgeted, her eyes darting to the door, wanting to tell Arn something. Georgia picked up on it and nodded to Arn. “I have to turn in. Got the day shift tomorrow.”

  They walked through the house, and Arn held the door for Georgia. She stepped gingerly off the steps and froze when she saw the police car parked acro
ss the street under the light. “Are you in trouble?”

  “Just a precaution to keep Ana Maria safe. She been getting threatening calls over her TV special.”

  Georgia reached out and brushed his cheek as she touched the bandage dangling from his ear like an oversize gypsy earring. “Connected with that?”

  “I believe it is.”

  Arn opened her car door. “This is our first one,” she said.

  “First one what?”

  “Dinner date, thanks to Danny. Now all I got to do is talk you into taking me on a real date.”

  Arn was certain he blushed even in the darkness. “As soon as I make some headway in this case and can take a breather, I’ll call.”

  “Understood.”

  He waited until Georgia pulled around the corner before walking up to the police cruiser. The officer’s head slumped against the headrest, and even with the windows shut, Arn heard snoring. He slapped the window and the officer jumped. He grabbed his flashlight and shone it into Arn’s face. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m one of the people you’re supposed to be protecting.” Arn shielded his eyes. “Now if you can’t keep awake, maybe Lt. Oblanski can find a replacement.”

  “Please don’t do that, Mr. Anderson.” The cop rubbed his eyes and sat up tall in his seat. “I won’t go to sleep again.”

  “We’ll let it slide this time,” Arn said and walked back into the house.

  Ana Maria huddled around the space heater in the kitchen. “He was at tonight’s taping.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy who grabbed me. The one who attacked you.” She used the chair to steady herself as she sat. “I was interviewing Lt. Oblanski at the front entrance to the police department. He’d just started connecting Johnny’s shooting with Butch Spangler’s case when that man walked in back of my cameraman. Just enough on the periphery I couldn’t see his face.”

  “You’re sure it’s the same man?”

  “You know that woman’s intuition thing you always hammered into me? Well, mine went off louder than gunshots in a closed room.” Her legs trembled and her foot tapped nervously against the leg of the card table. “It’s the same Old Spice I noticed before. And I smelled it in spades tonight. The guy must bathe in it, it was so strong.”

  “We need more than that to go to Oblanski.”

  “His black drawstring on his hoodie. Same as the guy had the other night. How many guys go around wearing white hoodies with black drawstrings?”

  Arn tried to come up with an argument to refute her logic, but knew it was a lost cause. Ana Maria was right.

  “He came around to say hello,” Ana Maria said. “To let me know he was still thinking about me.”

  Arn slipped his gun out of his boot and set it on the table. “We know someone got in the house last night. He could have killed us right then if he’d wanted to.”

  “Except he didn’t want to.” Ana Maria’s hand shook holding her coffee cup. “He wants to play with us a little first.”

  “Which is why I had Danny hang that new door yesterday, and install a new lock this afternoon.”

  “And there’s a cop out front.”

  Arn forced a laugh. “If you can wake him long enough to do something.”

  Thirty-One

  Arn had stayed up half the night going over the reports, comparing photos of all three officers’ deaths, racking his mind for the connection. It was there. He just didn’t spot it. Yet. And when he dropped exhausted into the cot with the lumpy camping mat and covered himself with an old comforter the bedding fairy had left for Danny, Arn slept sounder than he had in years. And that scared the hell out of him. With the person who’d knifed him and shot Johnny still roaming the streets, the last thing he wanted was to sleep soundly.

  Danny’s music awakened Arn just as the sun crested the horizon, melting the new snow that had fallen on his scrub lawn last night. He put on the slippers Ana Maria had returned to him and trod down the stairs. Danny had covered the steps with carpet remnants, but they still creaked under Arn’s weight.

  The smell of coffee hastened him to the kitchen, where Danny stood over a pan frying bacon, poached eggs waiting in small bowls and a bright flowered apron protecting his torn sweatpants. The old man hummed along to some rock song playing on the mono-speaker ghetto blaster he’d rescued from a downtown dumpster. He slapped the side of the pan with a spatula in time with the music. “Grab a fork and paper plate,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Aren’t we going to wait for Ana Maria?”

  “She left an hour ago. I think. I heard her walking around and covered back up.” He dished up food on plates and sat across the table.

  Arn speared bacon with his fork. ”You outdid yourself this morning.”

  “Figured you needed cheering up.”

  “How so?”

  “Someone slashed your tires. And keyed your Oldsmobile.”

  “What!”

  “Yeah, sometime between when Ana Maria left the house and when I took the dog out for a crap.”

  “What dog?”

  Danny finished his bacon and seemed to ponder if he should have seconds. “Those folks a couple doors down saw the cable line tapped into theirs and followed it here. They threatened to go to the cops on you.”

  “On me!”

  Danny waved the air. “Don’t worry. I smoothed it over.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I traded walking their dog while they’re on another vacation for cable time.” Danny’s appetite won out and he impaled another piece of bacon with his fork. “Aren’t you going to check on your car?”

  Arn dropped his knife and fork and headed for the door.

  “You’ll freeze your Little Johnson out there unless you put something on,” Danny called after him. “My robe’s in the closet.”

  Arn grabbed the flowered, terry-cloth robe with Lucille embroidered over the pocket, which was big enough for two people plus the woman who’d donated it to Goodwill. He wrapped it around himself and slipped on his boots, then cracked the door and peeked out. The marked cruiser was gone, following Ana Maria as directed. Arn waited until a car had driven past the house before he stepped outside and shut the door.

  His car hugged the ground on flat tires where he’d parked it behind Georgia’s last night. He ran his hand over the knife cuts to the sidewalls, careful not to get cut on the exposed steel cords. Standing, he studied the footprints in the melting snow, indistinct as the paw prints that ran from the neighbor’s house to Arn’s.

  He continued to examine the footprints, hunched over, following them. When he reached the far side of his car, he froze. Drop the Case had been gouged in the side of the door, probably with a sturdy knife.

  Arn warmed his hands with his breath as he walked to the porch. The door had locked, and he banged on the side of the house. He banged again just as an elderly couple drove by slowly, pointing and laughing at the odd man wearing the woman’s flowered bathrobe.

  Danny opened the door and stopped him. “Knock the snow off first.”

  Arn knocked one boot against the other before setting them on cardboard. He slapped the door. “One of those spring-loaded ones. I hate them.”

  “It was the best lock they had.”

  “Remember me telling you about Butch’s lock just like that?”

  “Vaguely,” Danny said.

  “Replace it with a dead bolt.”

  “You paranoid?”

  “You paranoid?” Oblanski asked, and Arn could almost hear his snicker over the phone.

  “After someone grabbed Ana Maria and attacked me? You bet I am. After somebody came into my house—into my room—and stole my slippers, just to make a point? You bet I am. And after my tires got slashed and the side of my car sliced up? You bet I am. And don’t forget Johnny. All I’m askin
g you is to do your job.” Arn felt growing anger; not so much at Oblanski but at himself. He’d let his guard down—that guard that had saved his bacon more times than he could count when he’d worn a badge—and his complacency now could have cost him his life. As well as Ana Maria’s and Danny’s.

  “I’ve assigned a man round the clock to keep watch over Ana Maria,” Oblanski said. “That’s about as much as I can do with the manpower we got.”

  “Well, someone got into my house past your steely-eyed patrolman.”

  “And now you want protection, too?”

  Arn wasn’t sure if his pride would allow police protection, but Oblanski’s arguments made his case. “If someone wanted you dead, why didn’t he just walk up and shoot you like Johnny?” Oblanski asked.

  “He’s toying with me. Wants me to keep looking over my shoulder.”

  “Like a deer looking for the cougar who’ll pounce eventually?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m sorry all to hell I have budget constraints,” Oblanski said. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but every available man is running down leads on Johnny’s shooter. You’ll just have to keep looking over your shoulder until—”

  “Until the killer decides to make his move?”

  “I got to run to the hospital,” Oblanski said. “They might bring Johnny out of the coma for a few minutes. If they do, I want to be there to talk with him.”

  Arn hung up his phone and accepted the coffee Danny handed him. “You’re on your own, by the sounds of the fine Lt. Oblanski.”

  “You mean we’re on our own,” Danny said.

  “That’s why I need you to reinforce the windows and stick extra screws in the boards over the windows we haven’t replaced yet.” Arn grabbed a Bounty towel and jotted a number down. “Get a security system installed.”

  “What do I use for a phone?”