Hunting the Five Point Killer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  Pieter’s mouth drooped and he hugged Georgia. “What are you going to do, Chief?”

  Oblanski shook his head. “I’ll have all weekend to make a decision.”

  Fifty-Five

  Oblanski shut the door, leaving Georgia and Pieter to fill out statement forms. “Now I see why you didn’t want the interview recorded.” He jerked his thumb at the interview room door. “Just what the hell do I do with that?”

  “It’s going to be a tough call.” Arn waited until the secretary from Records walked past them in the hallway. “Sometimes, the right thing isn’t always the legal thing to do.”

  “Criminally, there’s nothing that can be done.”

  “The statute of limitations has run out on fraud.”

  “And the feds may not even pursue reimbursement for the money once they know why Butch killed himself.” Oblanski sounded like he was trying to convince himself rather than Arn. “It could be argued that he committed suicide as a result of job stress.” He led Arn into his office and shut the door. He found a victim from among the pencils on his desk top and began chewing the end. “If I keep my mouth shut, Georgia and Pieter will benefit, but you’ll be hurt.”

  “How so?”

  “If we don’t go public with this, it’ll mean the hot dog detective the TV station hired to solve Butch Spangler’s murder failed. And failed to connect it to the other deaths, like Ana Maria claimed.”

  Arn groaned. “I forgot, I’ll have to break the news to her … ”

  “Don’t you dare,” Oblanski said. “She’s never kept her mouth shut about anything yet. This would be a huge story for her.”

  Arn thought of just that. If he told Ana Maria, there was a risk she would use it to catapult herself to national prominence. On the other hand, if he kept quiet, she’d go on spinning her wheels trying to solve a homicide that had never occurred.

  “You’ve still got the deaths of Gaylord and Steve—and the Five Point cases—to solve,” Arn said. “There’s still a lot of news coverage she can get with your cases.”

  “You mean our cases.”

  “Not hardly.”

  “You’re the one who uncovered them as homicides,” Oblanski said. “And Butch’s death as a suicide. The least you can do is stick around and help—”

  Arn held up his hand. “I was hired to solve Butch’s murder. I’m willing to go along with it if you decide to keep the Spangler secret buried. But”—he leaned closer to Oblanski—“I might be persuaded to come in as a consultant on those other cases.”

  “For a fee, no doubt.”

  Arn held up his hands. “So call me a mercenary. Renovating Mom’s old house is costing me a mint, and I need the bucks.”

  Oblanski leaned back and tossed his chewed pencil in the trash can. “It’s more than the money with you though, isn’t it?”

  Arn pulled his neckerchief away from his collar. His wound had scabbed up with the salve, but it still itched. “This is personal. It was personal when Johnny was murdered. And now that I know Gaylord and Steve’s deaths weren’t accidental, it’s even more so.

  “And the Five Point Killer?”

  “Those cases are important because I’m convinced they’ll lead us to Steve and Gaylord’s murderer.”

  “There might be some problems getting the town council to release money for a consultant that failed to solve the Spangler murder.” Oblanski looked to the ceiling fan for answers. “But right now—with the department in chaos over Johnny’s murder—the council and mayor will probably give me whatever I ask. Let me make a call.” He winced as he picked up the phone and talked with Gorilla Legs. He told her—no, asked her, as no one tells a two-hundred-pound Bohemian woman what to do—to set up a meeting with the mayor. “I need combat pay just talking with that woman,” Oblanski said as he hung up the phone.

  Laughter came from outside and Oblanski swiveled in his chair. He pulled back the window blinds. Two kids had piled on one sled and raced along a snow-packed alleyway pulled by a large yellow dog. “Now that you’re in the consulting business, who would float to the top of the shit pile of suspects in Gaylord and Steve’s deaths?”

  “Frank. Maybe you were right about him all along.”

  Oblanski tapped his fingers on the desk. “No, I was wrong about him. I fingered him for Butch’s murder. I never figured him to be involved—”

  “In a couple accidental deaths?”

  “All right, so we were wrong about Steve and Gaylord’s deaths being natural. You proved they were homicides. But Frank had no reason to kill them. Butch went to the prosecutor and asked that Frank’s burglary charge be dropped.”

  “About two weeks after they were both murdered. And only when Butch thought Frank would implicate Hannah.” Arn scooted to the edge of his chair and leaned on Oblanski’s desk. “Frank would still have a lot to lose with them alive.”

  “I wanted Frank to be Butch’s killer.” Oblanski paced in front of his desk. “As much as I want him to be involved in the other deaths, I’m not so sure. I’ve been wrong all these years. It’s about time I rethink Frank.”

  “Consider this,” Arn said. “Frank might have known Butch was close to solving the Five Point cases. And he would know Butch’s partner and his supervisor would be privy to whatever information Butch had. So he killed them. One at a time when the opportunity arose. But when it came time to kill Butch, Butch did the job himself.”

  “You really think Frank could be the Five Point Killer?”

  “He fits what little information we know about the killer,” Arn answered. “Ana Maria found out that Frank got a severe leg injury when he was serving time in that Colorado prison. The suspect who picked up Joey Bent from the Leapfrog the night he was murdered had a limp. Frank knew Joey. They were both mechanics. Joey even tossed Frank work now and again.”

  “And how do you square Frank knowing Delbert Urban?”

  Arn shrugged. “He could have found him on the Internet. Maybe it was just random, and Delbert was unlucky enough to be at the Hobby Shop when Frank broke in. He’s a good enough home burglar, he would have all sorts of ways to gain entrance to homes and businesses.”

  “And maybe he was the one who got into your house that night and stole your slippers just to toy with you.”

  “Good possibility,” Arn answered. “Frank hasn’t broken into all those houses you suspect him of these last years without being able to do so quietly.”

  “I don’t know.” Oblanski pulled the curtains aside, but the kids and their dog were gone. “You forgetting about Johnny. Why would Frank want him dead?”

  “Ana Maria’s special brought Johnny to the forefront of reopening the investigations. Remember, Frank used to service the hospital vehicles. He probably still has a key to the maintenance door.”

  “And as long as he came and went in the hospital,” Oblanski said, turning and dropping into his chair, fumbling for reports, “he’d know where the surveillance cameras are located and their area of coverage.” Oblanski grabbed a one-paragraph report from the bottom of his stack and handed it to Arn. “Hospital security took a report that someone has been stealing things from the supply room. They didn’t connect anything until … Johnny’s murder.”

  Arn put on his glasses. “Booties, masks, and a gown. Just like Johnny’s killer wore.” He handed the sheet back to Oblanski. “Makes it less likely that Dr. Dawes killed Johnny that day. He wouldn’t need to steal anything from the supply closet. He already has access to everything on that list.”

  “I thought of that.” Oblanski hunted his desk drawer for a victim-pencil to chew on. “But we found that shoe print that exactly matched those found at Gaylord’s—both when he was murdered and after the assault on you in the basement—and identical to the one on Delbert Urban’s back, in Johnny’s room. And it matched the shoes we recovered from Dr. Dawes’ Caddy.”

  “Frank,
” Arn said. “If we’re right about him, he damned sure would know enough to get into Jefferson’s car and plant those shoes there. He may be a crappy mechanic, but even crappy mechanics can break into most cars. And place that anonymous call that led to your search warrant.”

  Oblanski slumped in his seat. “We’re screwed.”

  Arn waited for an explanation.

  “We brought Dawes in on suspicion of Johnny’s death. And unless there’s two killers—assuming your theory about Frank holds water—Dawes is pure as the driven snow.”

  “I guess you’d better grab your city attorney and visit Dawes this afternoon. Patch things over as best you can,” Arn said. “And have Frank brought in for another interview.”

  Oblanski guffawed. “You expect Frank to break down and confess?”

  “I don’t expect him to say anything. But what a person doesn’t say often sinks him. Tell him you’re a hair’s breath away from pinning Butch’s murder on him.”

  “But we know now Butch wasn’t murdered.”

  Arn smiled. “Frank doesn’t know that.”

  Fifty-Six

  Arn thought Doris was reading the same Good Housekeeping as the first time he’d stopped by the television station. She looked up and dropped her magazine. “Thank goodness you’re here. I told Ana Maria she should have called you.”

  “Tell me what’s going on,” Arn said.

  Doris kneaded one hand in the other as she looked around the office. “Ana Maria didn’t say?”

  “Give me the headline version, and I’ll talk with her.”

  “That same man called again.”

  “The one who called last week?”

  Doris stood and walked back and forth behind her desk. “This time it was serious, Mr. Anderson. This time there’s no denying he means to hurt her.”

  “Is she in her office?”

  “She is,” Doris said. “But she’s a nervous wreck.”

  Arn laid his hand on Doris’ shoulder. “I’ll go talk with her.”

  He walked the hallway, empty at this time of the afternoon. Ana Maria’s door was shut, which was unusual for her unless she had visitors. She always kept an open door for anyone to come in and pass the time. He knocked on the door but got no answer. He knocked a second time, and still no answer as a young man wearing a headset passed him. “I just saw her go inside,” he said.

  Arn rapped again. “Ana Maria. It’s Arn.”

  She cracked the door. When she saw it was him, she flung it open and closed it just as quickly after he stepped inside. Arn slapped the door. “Little unusual for you, keeping fortressed-up like this.”

  She retreated back behind her desk, and Arn noticed the gun he’d let her use was sitting on top of her desk, the barrel pointed toward the door.

  “Doris said you had a threatening call again.”

  “Busybody.”

  “I’d say she’s looking out for you. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Ana Maria grabbed a bottle of mineral water and handed Arn one, but he waved it away. “I get enough healthy things at home with Danny doubling as Dr. Oz.”

  She didn’t smile, placing a book over the gun as if Arn hadn’t spotted it yet. “I received a call again this morning while I was out.”

  “And it wasn’t Nick Damos again trying to scare you off? Weren’t the childish notes he left around enough?”

  “It wasn’t Nick Damos.” Ana Maria forced a smile. “He’s recuperating at DeAngelo’s condo outside Estes Park.”

  “Recuperating?”

  She exaggerated a solemn nod. “Seems like when he went to Denver to follow up on that hot lead, the neighborhood banded together to repel an intruder, so to speak. Nick got busted up. Bad. DeAngelo sent him to recover at his condo. The way DeAngelo talks, Nick’s jaw is going to be wired up for some time, so I’m sure Nick’s not the one who called and told Doris.”

  “Told her what?”

  “The man said he didn’t want to talk with me. He knew I wasn’t in the office, and he might just visit me this afternoon. He said to pass along that he really means it. Unless I drop the special, he will kill me. Slowly. Like he did to Laun McGuire.”

  “This sounds like a credible threat. I’ll call Chief Oblanski—”

  “The guy already covered that. He told Doris ‘no police’ right before he told her to tell me to check my desk.”

  “Check it for what?”

  “This.” Ana Maria opened her middle desk drawer and grabbed a single sheet of paper. Arn recognized the fetid odor, the blackened discoloration of blood that had recently been smeared across the paper. A single word, Laun, had been scribbled across in blood. “Whoever this guy is, I’m certain he followed me when I drove to the Flying J to verify Laun worked there.”

  “I’m afraid he followed me, too,” Arn said. He told her about meeting with Laun at the truck stop, and about how he could feel someone tailing him last night. Someone besides Sergeant Dan Long.

  “Whoever this guy is, he waltzed right past Doris.”

  “That wouldn’t be hard.”

  “But make it this far, pick the lock on my door and then my desk, and stroll out without anyone seeing him?”

  Arn spotted a paper bag on Ana Maria’s top shelf and took pens and paper out of it. He used a tissue to grab the bloody paper and slip it inside the bag. “I think we should call Oblanski. Have a tighter security placed on you.”

  Ana Maria wrapped her arms around her chest and rocked back and forth in her chair. “This scares the hell out of me. But if I have an officer shadow me—not outside in his car, but right on my heels wherever I go while I’m working—DeAngelo will cancel the special. That scares me even more. Arn, don’t tell Oblanski.”

  “I don’t know. This is serious—”

  “Promise me. Doris already has said she won’t say anything to the police or DeAngelo.”

  “Are we in the negotiating mode?”

  Ana Maria leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Not that old negotiating crap again?”

  When Ana Maria worked at the CBS affiliate in Denver, she would sleep with the scanner next to her bed. And when she’d respond to Arn’s crime scenes and want some tidbit to go to air with, Arn would dicker with her: tit for tat. She’d air just enough information that people thought it inevitable the killer would be caught. And in return, he’d arrange through media relations to give her an exclusive.

  “I’m game,” she said. “What’s the offer?”

  “Trust me?”

  She looked warily at him. “Sure. What you got?”

  “We found Butch Spangler’s killer. But I can’t let you go to air with it just yet.”

  She snapped her chair down and grabbed her notebook and pen. “Who was it?”

  “I haven’t heard that you accepted the offer yet.”

  “How long do I have to sit on it?”

  Arn thought. “This is Friday … you can air it for your weekend special.”

  “Damn you drive a hard bargain,” she said, her pen perched above the notebook. “But I agree to the terms. Who killed Butch?”

  “Butch.”

  “No, I mean who killed him?”

  “Butch,” Arn repeated, just to see the frustration on her face. He explained to her the circumstances surrounding Georgia and Pieter’s confessions. “But I don’t want the public to know about it just yet. If ever. It might be moot.”

  “Moot? There are still two more officers’ murders that were unsolved, along with the Five Point cases, and you say Butch is moot?” She let the pen drop on the desk. “Any updates on those, now that we know Butch was a suicide?”

  “Oblanski and I think Frank Dull Knife might—and I emphasize might—be good for the other murders.” Arn reached over and lifted the book off the gun. He sniffed it. It had been fired recently.

&
nbsp; “Practice,” she volunteered.

  Arn slid the gun back under the book. “We don’t want Frank knowing Butch’s death was a suicide. Oblanski thinks he can convince Frank he has conclusive proof that he killed Butch. If Frank thinks Oblanski has planted evidence, he may make a mistake. He may go back and make certain his ass is covered with the other murders.”

  “He hasn’t made a mistake all these years, if he’s the killer.”

  “He hasn’t been this close to getting nailed.”

  Ana Maria jotted notes in her book. “Or Frank may start working his way through the people who could put him away. Like us.”

  “I’m banking on that.”

  Ana Maria threw up her hands. “Just great. Now you’re prodding the bear.”

  “Look,” Arn said, “with Frank cornered, I’m hoping he comes after one of us. Namely me.”

  “And why do you think he’ll hunt you down?”

  “He failed at killing me in Gaylord’s old house. I’m sure that infuriates him. And with you safe with more security—”

  “I said DeAngelo will shut the project down.”

  “Then at least let me talk with Oblanski and make sure his best officer is still watching over you.”

  Ana Maria took the book off the gun. “All right, but until then, this thing’s never away from my grasp.”

  Fifty-Seven

  “Arrogant bastard.” Oblanski slammed the door hard enough that it rattled the windows overlooking the alley.

  “What did Frank say to get you spun up?” Arn asked.

  “He admitted to more than twenty residential burglaries. Years ago. Gave specifics on what he took. But he knows they’re past the statute of limitations and we can’t touch him.”

  “What did he say when you told him you were gathering proof that he killed Butch?”

  Oblanski smiled. “That was sweet. He accused me of fabricating evidence, just like Butch fabricated evidence on him ten years ago. ‘Bring it on, you Pollack son-of-a- bitch. You got nothing on me,’ he yelled, ‘and if we go to trial, I’ll testify it was you dancing with Hannah the night Butch was murdered. And maybe you offed him.’”