Hunting the Five Point Killer

by C. M. Wendelboe

Arn handed him his cell. “And tell them we don’t want those stickers plastered over the doors and windows advertising we have a system.”

  “What are you going to be doing?”

  “Before I call the insurance and a tow truck? I’m going to take a shower to cool off.”

  Thirty-Two

  Arn stopped the videotape of Butch’s crime scene. He’d watched it a half-dozen times, but nothing jumped out that wasn’t noted in the police reports. He ejected the tape from the obsolete VCR Danny had “acquired” somewhere and turned to the white wall. He stood studying the photos of the three officers pinned beside those of the Five Point Killer’s victims, his mind playing with the variables. And with the constants.

  Danny pulled up a chair and set his coffee cup on the makeshift table. “Let’s see what we can brainstorm this morning.”

  “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “A fresh set of eyes can help, if I recall you saying that,” Danny said. “And as many times as we’ve both seen them, our eyes are getting a little weary. But let’s try it again.”

  “Don’t you have drywall to hang?”

  Danny looked sideways at Arn. “I would if someone else in this house would help me. But right this moment, I’m on break.” He rested his elbows on the table and leaned to look at the white wall. “So what we got?”

  Arn sighed. “Both Five Point murders were committed in late summer, but a year apart.”

  “Damn,” Danny said. “I never noticed that.”

  “That’s why I’m a PI and you’re a sidekick.” Arn munched on a cookie from the plate Danny brought. “I thought it might be someone whose business slows down after the summer: bricklayer. Construction worker.”

  Danny leaned back in his chair sipping coffee. “Maybe the killer was a teacher. School janitor. Someone who’s gone for the summer.”

  “Or a student just returning from living with a custodial parent away from Cheyenne.”

  “Can you see some kid overpowering grown men?” Danny leaned back and caught Arn staring at the dog biscuit Danny gnawed on. “I just finished walking the neighbor’s dog. It was a leftover treat.”

  Arn dropped his pen on the door. “No one reported anyone suspicious walking away from either crime scene. And again, with that much blood, the killer would have been covered in it.” Arn had read in one police report that two patrolmen responding to Delbert Urban’s homicide had puked the moment they saw the amount of blood covering the office. “Delbert Urban especially, killed in the middle of a business district in the afternoon. Why?”

  “Beats me.”

  “What are sidekicks for?”

  “Okay.” Danny stood and walked to the white wall, looking at the photos from a different angle. “Maybe the victim showered before coming out. Does the Hobby Shop have a shower?”

  Arn made a note to ask Oblanski if the Hobby Shop had a shower. And if it or Joey Bent’s house was checked for blood in the drain. “Good idea.”

  “That’s what sidekicks are for.”

  Arn sifted through Butch’s field notes and located one he found interesting. “An angle that Butch and Gaylord were working was that both victims were killed by prostitutes.”

  “Because both were almost nude?”

  Arn nodded. “Cheyenne’s not exactly the mecca for street flesh. Where would someone find a hooker around here?”

  Danny laid his hand on Arn’s forearm. “You’re good-looking enough you don’t have to pay.”

  Arn jerked his arm back.

  “All right,” Danny said. “But do you want male or female?”

  “With someone as fat as Delbert Urban, and effeminate as Joey Bent, I’m leaning toward male. Especially with that NAMBLA letter at Delbert’s.”

  “I agree. We’ll take a drive by a place in a little bit that used to cater to gays when they were open. But break’s over. I got to get back to taping drywall.”

  Danny had just risen to leave when Arn stopped him. “Thanks for hanging that new door. The place is shaping up. Just wondered where you learned your home improvement.”

  Danny faced him and rested his hand on his thin hips. “Home improvement? Try old world craftsmanship. I wasn’t always a derelict.”

  “You’re not one now.”

  “Thanks,” Danny said and nodded to the photos on the white wall. “One other thing: the media at the time also called this guy the Full Moon Killer, as both victims were killed under a full moon. Think that’s just coincidence?”

  Arn walked to the white wall and put his reading glasses on. He could almost feel the knife rip into soft flesh; feel sticky blood spurting over the victims, the cast-off blood spattering the walls and floor. He could hear bones break, lungs filling with fluid to snuff out life before their time. He could smell the stench of rancid blood and putrid feces as they died.

  “That SOB didn’t do anything by coincidence. He planned it that way,” he said. When he was a young officer, Arn’s shift sergeant had warned his men to be especially vigilant during full moons. And it was true. People did crazy things during a full moon.

  He started gathering the police reports and then whirled around. “There!” He slapped Delbert Urban’s picture. “That’s where I saw that shoe print before.” Arn scrambled to look through Gaylord’s case file. He tossed a picture in the center of the door. “Right there! It’s the same print.”

  Danny squinted and put on his own glasses. “I don’t see any shoe print.”

  Arn traced a single, faint shoe print found in the mud in front of Gaylord’s house the afternoon Adelle found him hanging. “There’s no mention of this print in any police report.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning Oblanski was the first officer on scene and secured it until Butch arrived. Yet Oblanski made no mention of it.”

  “Because another officer put it there?”

  “Or because he didn’t think it was germane to the case.” He held Gaylord’s photo next to Delbert Urban’s. “The same tread pattern outside Gaylord’s house is on Delbert Urban’s back.”

  “I’ve seen it, too.” Danny pocketed his glasses and backed away, his lips quivering. “You remember that morning you lost your slippers? That shoe print”—he nodded to the photo of Gaylord’s house—“was in the drywall dust right outside your room.” He laid his hand on Arn’s shoulder to steady his trembling legs. “I thought it was yours. Maybe you’re right. Maybe the Five Point Killer has returned.”

  Arn pried Danny’s hand from his shoulder. “And maybe Gaylord’s hanging wasn’t autoerotic after all.”

  Thirty-Three

  “Friggin’ glass!” I deserve everything I get, stepping on what’s left of my television. How juvenile, picking it up and slamming it on the floor. And how juvenile was it slicing Anderson’s tires and gouging the side of his nice old classic? But when I went right past that policeman again and to the front door, the try keys wouldn’t work. I needed to get inside once more. The last time was just too much fun, watching him sleep. Knowing I could take him any time I wished. I’d been thinking of that all day, anticipating. Short of my head exploding and waking the cop sleeping in his car, I had to do something to bleed the anger off. But vandalize a car? And on a full moon, when the cop could have awakened and seen me. It’s not like when I planned the killings on a full moon to give the cops something to ponder. Send them in a different direction. Tonight the policeman could have spotted me. Tonight luck favored the foolish. Again.

  I take off my shoes and wrap them in a plastic bag before hiding them above my loose ceiling tile. I’ve read some people have a favorite weapon they use. Some a ritual they go through before heading out to hunt. My superstition is my shoes—they’ve been good to me all these times, and will continue to be in the future. Because they have a future with me.

  Tonight. Tomorrow at the latest. With Johnny surviving and com
ing out of his coma immanently, I can’t chance that he’ll remember me walking up to him in his driveway. I can’t chance he’ll remember me thrusting out my hand to shake his, clutching my small auto.

  I’ll have to pay him another visit. And I’ll wear my lucky shoes when I do.

  Thirty-Four

  Arn tossed the photos from Delbert Urban’s crime scene and Gaylord’s hanging onto Oblanski’s desk. “Same tread pattern at both scenes.”

  Oblanski picked them up and held them to the light filtering through his window. “It was muddy that day. So some patrolman walked in the slop with Vibram shoes. We all wore them back then.” He tossed the pictures on his desk and went back to sorting through his messages.

  “Damn it, Oblanski. Can’t you get off your high horse for just a moment and admit the same person who killed Delbert Urban and Joey Bent might also have hung Gaylord—”

  “Enough!” Oblanski slammed his fist on his desk. A small framed wedding picture bounced to the floor. The glass shattered, but he made no effort to clean it up as he glared across his desk at Arn. “You want to sensationalize this. Make your name pop into people’s minds. What kind of gig you looking for, some talking head at CNN or Fox?” Oblanski took several deep, calming breaths before continuing. “I’ve heard enough of your lame theories these last few days to last me a lifetime.”

  “They weren’t lame.”

  “A murderer didn’t grab Ana Maria and cut you when you went to help her. It was some damned fan obsessed with her, is all. Then there were the slippers you forgot you left in Ana Maria’s car that you claim someone sneaking into your house grabbed. And don’t forget some neighborhood kids slashed your tires. Keyed the side of your car.” Oblanski skidded a pencil off the rim of the trash can. “It’s not as sensational as you make it out to be.”

  Arn stood and shouldered his bag. “All right. Blow me off. But mark my word, Acting Chief: anything happens to Ana Maria Villarreal because of your complacency, and I’ll come hunting you.”

  Oblanski stood suddenly and rushed around his desk, fists clenching, jaw muscles working overtime. “You come in here and threaten me, I’ll … ”

  Arn stepped closer and tossed his bag on a chair. “Just what the hell you gonna do, Acting Chief? I hope it’s something, ’cause I’m butt-tired of your petty horseshit.”

  Arn counted to five—the number that experience told him bullies usually took to realize their threats could lead to an ass-whooping—and Oblanski backed away. “I got nothing else to say to you. Do not come into the police department again.”

  Arn passed the Air Guard base on his way to pick up Georgia for a lunch date. She lived with Pieter in a part of town that was the exclusive part of Cheyenne in the 1940s and 1950s. Doctors and lawyers, railroad tycoons and cattle barons lived there when Cheyenne was booming. And that part of town now boasted one upstart architect.

  Arn drove past massive brick homes large enough for multiple families. His father had told him stories about this area, where the police responded to calls about minor thefts and vandalism, about people hopping guarded fences to steal exotic flowers grown in the summer. Occasionally a designer dog or cat. Not like other parts of town, where it might be dangerous just to step off your porch at night. Like where the house Arn grew up in was located.

  He pulled off Carey into Pieter’s wide circular driveway. Arn’s tiny rental car looked out of place beside the red brick tri-level, twin frozen waterfalls caught in mid-flow on the edge of the back yard. The fan-shaped stained glass balcony window above the portico seemed to smile at Arn as he stretched, and twin colonnades on either side of the front double doors were accented by cast-iron lion heads with the bodies of horses.

  He used the car door to steady himself, working the stiffness out of the leg the attacker had struck the other night. If he had been more limber, he would have kicked himself in the butt for buying the ghetto car insurance policy that had given him this tiny widow-maker until his 4-4-2 was fixed. What he needed was his car back. Something with leg room. “We’ll be done with your Olds in a week,” the manager at the body shop told him. “Give or take a week.”

  The garage door opened and Georgia stood with her arms wrapped around herself, breath frosting as she waved him into the driveway. “Car doesn’t much fit you. Yours?”

  “Not any longer than necessary.” He explained the tire slashing and the car getting gouged with the warning, and how he was at the mercy of a Denver insurance agent whom he’d arrested for fraud some years back. And who was so gracious as to authorize him the go-cart sitting in Pieter’s driveway.

  Georgia stood in the doorway looking up with concern in her eyes. “The damage to your car is connected to Johnny’s shooting and to your investigation, isn’t it?”

  “Naw,” Arn said without conviction. “I just live in a bad neighborhood, is all.”

  “That’s for sure,” Georgia said.

  Arn had grown up living next to blacks whose fathers worked as porters on Union Pacific passenger trains, and Mexicans whose dads worked as firemen oilers. It hadn’t been easy for him, with his ice blue eyes and nearly white blond hair. More than a few days he’d gotten jumped on the way home from school. And more than once his dad had to set his broken nose. He waved his hand around the front of the house. “Our place wasn’t like this.”

  Georgia looked around with a smile. “Pieter said if he ever made it big, he wanted a place along the old Cheyenne to Black Hills stage route.”

  “It used to go right by here,” Arn said. “My great-granddad drove for the line when it first cut through Indian country in 1876. Cracked a whip for two years until he realized it was safer punching cows than become part of a Lakota ambush.”

  Georgia looked to the north, as if she could envision the stage rolling by on muddy roads. “That’s where you must have gotten your love of horses.”

  “Actually,” Arn said, “my granddad passed that along. He came to live with us when he got too old to run a branding iron or cut nuts.”

  Georgia scrunched up her nose. “That sounds barbaric.”

  “That’s calves’ nuts. And it’s not as barbaric as sitting on his lap, listening to his stories, knowing I could never really live them like he did.” Arn unbuttoned his coat. “The old boy even fought in the Johnson County War in 1892.” He laughed. “With all the things he got into, it’s a wonder he lived until he was 94 rather than dangle at the end of a posse’s rope.”

  “Enough talk of death for one afternoon.” Georgia led him through Pieter’s garage. Arn stopped and admired a canary yellow Karman Ghia under a car cover. “Great shape for a … ’74?”

  “You know your imports.” Georgia ran her hand along the top. “This is Pieter’s baby. He doesn’t drive it much. Can’t hardly find anyone to work on them anymore. It was his first car as a kid, and he’s been nursing it since.”

  Arn shook his head, hoping his own baby would be out of the body shop soon.

  He followed Georgia into the house, which was filled with antique furniture. Georgia hung his Stetson on a hall tree that reached nearly to the ten-foot ceiling. It was topped with a carved elk head resting on intricate maple leaves.

  They walked past twin oak secretaries on either side of double stained glass doors, past a standing Tiffany lamp illuminating a roll-top desk as long as Arn’s bed. At least what he remembered his bed being like back in Denver. He stopped and lightly traced a hunting scene carved in the back of the desk.

  “Pieter got his love of old things from Butch,” Georgia said. “Who never owned anything new, what with following Hannah around town and paying her bar tabs. Pieter said when he became successful, he’d start collecting.”

  “I got old stuff,” Arn said.

  “Antiques?”

  “No. Just old stuff I should have gotten rid of instead of sticking it in a storage unit in Denver.”

  Georgia
nodded knowingly. “I got some of that old stuff myself that’s hard to toss out.” She motioned with a finger. “Keep me company while I finish putting on sheets.”

  Arn followed her across polished mahogany floors, nails and gouges showing through a satin finish and giving the floor character. As they walked past an iron-grated fireplace, the pine pitch crackled and spit, and Georgia paused just long enough to toss in another log before heading up the winding staircase. She looked at Arn trailing after her. “I just need to straighten Pieter’s things up a couple times a week. If I don’t, he’ll sleep in the same sheets for a year.”

  “Sounds like you won’t be doing it much longer.”

  “How so?”

  “Pieter’s fiancée will be taking over those chores,” Arn said.

  “Meander?” Georgia laughed as she grabbed a set of sheets from a hall closet and headed into Pieter’s bedroom. “I don’t look for them to be tying the knot anytime soon. Grab an end.” She tossed the fitted sheet across the bed to open it. Arn was never able to do much with fitted sheets. Or much else domestically related. Cailee had done all that, and Arn was always amazed at the hours she put in around the house. He wished she were here so he could say how much he appreciated her. He made a mental note to tell Danny how much he appreciated what he did every day around the old house.

  “I thought they were engaged?” Arn lost his grip on the fitted sheet. It swatted the side of his head like a giant rubber band.

  “Pieter and Meander have been engaged since high school. Pull that corner.”

  Arn did as he was told.

  “I think it’s more comfortable for them to claim they’re spoken for than fight off suitors.” Georgia shooed him away. “You’re not much with sheets, are you?”

  “Guess I do more harm than good.”

  “You got that,” Georgia said. “Let me finish so we can get a bite to eat.”

  Arn dropped his end of the sheet and walked around the spacious room. For as many antiques as the rest of the house had, Pieter’s bedroom was bland. Like his office. A simple rag rug lay in front of a four-drawer dresser. A single photo hung over the dresser, and Arn put on his glasses. It was the same picture Pieter had in his office.