“After that, Hannah was afraid to be in the same house with you, and she started crashing at my place. Until your old man’s murder. Then she stopped being so interesting.” He turned his gun on Arn. “The murder you tried to pin on me.”
Arn’s circulation had returned to his hands and arms, and he was sitting only ten feet from Frank. “So where do we go from here?”
“Go?” Frank smiled. “I go back to the reservation, but you five go six feet under. When the store opens tomorrow morning, they’ll find your sorry asses soaking up the carpeting.”
“You’re really going to kill us like you killed Hannah?” Arn asked.
Frank shrugged. “I have more … options than I did with Hannah. When she said she was going to talk with Bobby Madden about the burglary at Joey’s place and about her kid, I had no choice. You know when I said I fixed her alternator? I lied. I fixed her brakes. Real good. So they wouldn’t work when she most needed them.”
“You got that? “ Arn called out.
Two shotgun slides racking back sounded as if they were in a very loud tunnel; the sound that criminals fear and police love. Right now, Arn loved it.
“We got it,” Oblanski yelled back.
Two uniformed policemen entered the room pointing shotguns at Frank’s head, while another covered Pieter with his Glock. Oblanski and Dan Long entered the room after them, handcuffs dangling from their belts. Frank dropped his gun and snarled at Oblanski.
“Don’t shit yourself,” Arn told Frank.
“What?”
“Just something my training officer used to tell me.”
Long and the uniformed officers handcuffed Frank and Pieter. Arn brought his hands around and rubbed them. Oblanski pointed to the pocket knife in his hand.
“Just in case you didn’t make it in time,” Arn said.
Oblanski untied Danny, and Arn cut the plastic ties on Ana Maria’s wrists. Oblanski talked on a portable radio, and soon paramedics entered the room. They set their jump bags between Danny and Ana Maria and began working on them. One peeled off and asked Arn to sit on the couch.
“You knew they were out there?” Pieter asked.
“I did,” Arn answered. “When I left my house, I put a piece of the puzzle together. The note on my windshield and the note nailed to Erv’s forehead was neat. But it wasn’t Frank’s writing, so I knew someone was setting him up. And I was convinced someone—Frank—had been following me all night. He couldn’t have killed Erv and abducted Danny and Ana Maria if he was following me.”
“But that was me following you,” Pieter said.
“So even I make a mistake now and again.”
Frank, handcuffed, lunged at Arn and a burly officer planted a knee on his thigh. Frank went to the floor screaming in pain. “You got nothing on me! The statute of limitations is up on that old burglary charge—”
Oblanski brought Frank’s contorted face around to look him in the eye. “First, I’m sure we could push an accessory after the fact on Joey Bent’s murder that you and Hannah nearly walked in on. But if not, there’s the attempted homicide of five people tonight.” He fished his micro recorder out of his pocket and showed Frank. “And you’ll be pleased to hear your confession to rigging Hannah’s accident made it clear.” He nodded to an officer who stood Frank on his feet. “And you’ll have time to decide if you want to be the wife or if you want to be the girlfriend when you get down to Rawlins,” Oblanski called after him as they led Frank screaming out the door ahead of Pieter.
The paramedics struggled with the duct tape on Danny’s mouth, and Arn knew he’d refuse treatment if he could talk. “Better wait until you get to the ER to take that off,” he suggested. “He’s tape sensitive.” They secured Danny to a gurney.
The paramedics loaded Ana Maria onto a backboard and then onto a gurney. A saline IV tube dripped into her arm, and she looked over at Arn. Another look of recognition crossed her face, a moment before she went under as they wheeled her out to the ambulance.
“I put it at eight, maybe ten stitches,” the paramedic said to Arn.
“Didn’t anyone tell you old cops aren’t supposed to take chances like this?” Oblanski said when the medic had finished his assessment of Arn’s injuries.
“I had to earn my consulting fees somehow.”
Arn sat on the couch next to Georgia, but she moved away from him. She stared at the back door while they escorted Pieter to a waiting ambulance. “What will happen to him?”
“After the ER docs patch him up? He’ll go for arraignment within forty-eight hours.”
“I should have seen the signs,” she sobbed. She looked up at Arn. “Why didn’t I see the signs? They were there for me.”
“We can talk about it tomorrow,” Arn said. “Would you like me to see you home?”
“If you’re driving that little rental car”—Georgia stood and smoothed her slacks—“not on your life. We can take a cab. I’ve had as much of your Clown Car as I can stand.”
Arn rubbed the small of his back. “I can’t take much more either.”
Sixty-Three
Arn stopped in the doorway of Danny’s room and leaned against the door jamb. “Looks like you took a few stitches, too,” Danny said, focusing on Arn with the eye not covered by gauze.
“Ten stitches, to be exact.” Arn carefully patted his head and touched the Steri-Strip closing the gap on his cheek. “This will leave a shallow scar.”
“Guess both our pretty faces will look like hell when we mend up.”
“They looked like hell before.” Arn smiled, and winced in pain. He came into the room and pulled up a chair beside Danny’s bed. “I just had to come visit my friend Daniel Lone Tree.”
Danny set the issue of People magazine on the tray table beside his bed. “I guess this means Oblanski got my prints back?”
Arn pulled his chair around to the foot of the bed so Danny wouldn’t have to turn his head to see him. “He got a lengthy history back on you.” He took a notebook out of his man bag, which was slung over his shoulder, and Danny snickered. “Army tunnel rat working the Chu Chi tunnels in IV Corps, Vietnam. Honorably discharged.” Arn flipped a page. “Attended the University of Minnesota under the GI Bill. Accurate so far?”
“Just finish it.”
“It says here you became a structural engineer.”
“I earned the degree, anyways.”
“And you put it to such good use”—Arn turned a page—“when you and two other American Indian Movement activists bombed a building in downtown Minneapolis in 1969.”
“We thought we would disrupt transportation in the city.”
Arn snickered. “You didn’t make much of a criminal. The building was abandoned. Scheduled for demolition. I guess you did the city’s work for them when you took it down.”
Danny laughed and his hand shot to his head. “Pretty rank amateurs, we were.”
“And … ” Arn squinted, his own writing a little shaky when Oblanski had passed the information along. “Minnesota issued warrants for your arrest.”
“And I’ve been on the run ever since,” Danny said. “I guess Oblanski’s doing a jig, nabbing an international criminal. I’ll be surprised if Interpol doesn’t give him an award.”
Arn closed his notebook and stuffed it back in his bag. “What did you do from the time you blew up the building until you squatted in Mom’s house?”
“I began using another name.” Danny reached over and grabbed a bowl of runny Jell-O from the tray table. “I had this romanticized notion that the Sioux tribe might want some help getting on its feet. Help with their housing development. That maybe an engineer would be of some use. But all the young bucks wanted back then was to raise hell.”
His face scrunched up with the first bite of Jell-O and he put the bowl back. “I opened my own business in Rapid City doing high-end home m
odifications.” He frowned. “Under a different name, of course. I spent all my money sending my boy to college.” His voice wavered, and Arn waited until he composed himself. “But he and some of his friends got tanked up one afternoon and hiked to the back of Mt. Rushmore. They were so drunk my boy did a double gainer off Washington’s head.” He closed his eyes and settled back on his pillow. “When’s Minnesota coming for me? ’Cause I’m not going to fight extradition.”
“Never.”
Danny opened his eyes. “What’s that?”
“I’d like to say I got your charges dropped in exchange for working on my house. But the fact is, Minnesota purged their old warrants five years after you three stooges pulled that little stunt. They figured it would cost more in the long run looking for you guys than you’re worth.”
“So I don’t have to hide out anymore?”
“Not unless you want to.”
Danny smiled for the briefest time before he became serious again. “This mean you’re kicking me out into society?”
Arn shook his head. “Not on your life. We had an agreement: you were going to renovate Mom’s house. All this means is that you’ll be able to get a driver’s license so I won’t have to do the Driving Miss Daisy thing anymore.” He handed Danny a Trac Phone. “I stored my number in there. Call when they release you—probably tomorrow—and I’ll come get you.”
“Not in that micro-hearse you’ve been driving?”
Arn grinned. “I got the Beast back.”
Danny lay back in his bed and his mouth downturned in sadness.
“I thought you’d be happy you’re a free man.”
Danny shook his head. “Erv tried warning me that Pieter had come sneaking into the house. When he tripped the circuit box outside, it disabled the security system. Next I knew, Pieter stuck that gun under our noses and led us out to his car. When Erv didn’t join us, I knew he was dead.” Danny wiped his eye. “He didn’t have any family to make arrangements?”
“He had us.” Arn laid a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “I’ve taken care of it. Erv’s funeral is Friday.”
Danny closed his eyes. “Thanks, Arn.” He sat up straight in his bed. “I forgot to ask how Ana Maria’s doing?”
“Good,” Arn said. “At least the nurses tell me she is. I’m headed over to her room now.”
“Tell her to grab a wheelchair and come keep me company.”
Arn smiled. “I will.”
He walked to Ana Maria’s room at the other end of the hall and paused at the door. Her breathing told him she was sleeping, and he was turning to leave when she called after him in a faint voice, “You better be bringing flowers when you come calling.”
He turned on his heels and entered the room. “I’m headed to the gift shop downstairs now.” He took her hand, careful not to disturb the IV tube. “How you feeling, kiddo?”
“Let’s see.” She forced a smile. “I got a fractured cheek bone, a cracked jaw where Pieter shoved me into the car door. I’ll have eleven stitches across my forehead. How the hell you think I’m doing?”
“I think you’re recuperating.”
“To what?” She wiggled around, and Arn propped pillows in back of her. “The scars left on my head will look like hell on camera—”
“It’ll give you character. Besides, they can do wondrous things with makeup nowadays.”
She forced a laugh. “That’s the least of my worries. Did you catch the morning news today?”
“That proves my point,” Arn said. “As busted up as Nick Damos got down in Denver, he looked pretty good on camera.”
“He might have looked good, but he sounded like a second grader, stuttering when he was reading the news about Pieter and Frank.” She sipped ice water from a straw. “That was my story that Nick botched. I put all my heart into uncovering the killer. Now what the hell did I get for it?”
Arn patted her shoulder. “I’m sure DeAngelo will have you back in prime time once you’re back on your feet.”
“That might be,” Ana Maria said. “And maybe it’ll be Nick who catches the eye of some national producer.”
“Then look at the bright side. At least Nick will be gone from Cheyenne.”
Ana Maria smiled and winced, her hand going to her split lip. “At least he’d be out of my hair.”
Epilogue
Two days after the Hobby Shop takedown, Oblanski scooted his chair close to one side of the conference table. He nodded to papers scattered the length of the table in front of him. “It’ll take me a year to sort through all those reports and statements. Thanks a bunch.”
Arn held up his coffee cup in a mock toast. “My pleasure. Glad I could wrap up my consulting gig on a positive note.”
“How about one consulting freebie for the city? Off the payroll?”
“Just one. Someone once told me I’m a mercenary bastard.”
Oblanski smiled. “Okay. Here it is: maybe you can tell me why Pieter retained the best attorney out of Denver, then didn’t take his advice and told me whatever I wanted to know in the interrogation?”
Arn sipped gingerly from his cup, thinking. “I believe Pieter wanted it out how his father was the best investigator the department ever had. And he wanted the public to know that the only reason Butch didn’t solve the Five Point Killings was that his son knew just where the investigation was headed and was always a jump ahead of him. Maybe he really did love his father deep down.”
“Or maybe he’s as egotistical as Butch was.” Oblanski began gathering papers into neat piles ready for transcription. “With all the newspaper and television coverage, Pieter will be infamous. At least until they execute him. The prosecutor’s going to try him as a death penalty case.”
“With all the delays and automatic appeal,” Arn said, helping Oblanski with the paperwork, “I don’t expect to see that in my lifetime.” He stood and walked to the coffee pot and refilled his cup. Oblanski held up his mug, and Arn topped it off. The coffee was fresh, strong, and just right. All Oblanski had to do was build up the courage to ask Gorilla Legs in just the right tone to make it.
“The news mentioned you found Mr. Noggle, Pieter’s high school science teacher.”
“He was walled up in the family room in Gaylord’s old house that Pieter bought.” Oblanski settled back and held his mug with both hands. “He was just where Pieter put him sometime after he purchased the place. That’s the one thing Pieter wouldn’t tell me—where Noggle was, from the time he killed him until he bought Gaylord’s house five years later.”
Arn rested his elbows on the table. “The thing that’s puzzled me the most was why did Pieter plant those plastic stars at the murder scenes?”
“It was as simple as an accident,” Oblanski said. “He told me he’d gotten a badge at school that day when an officer came to talk to the class. When he was doing his thing with Joey Bent, the star fell out of his pocket. He was worried to death about losing it, until the news dubbed it the Five Point Killings.”
“And he got the urge to drop one at every scene?” Arn stood and walked to the window. Fresh snow had blanketed Cheyenne during the early morning, and kids played outside on a sled pulled by a large mongrel. “As much as I despised the man, it’s a shame Pieter killed Jefferson Dawes.”
“I forgot to tell you.” Oblanski laughed, outwardly pleased. “That’s the best part. Remember we put out teletypes to Customs and the Marshals? Well, the first—and as it happened, the only—Mrs. Dawes was located in the Dominican Republic. She left Jeff over his womanizing. And Jeff and Adelle never actually married.”
“And that’s the best part?”
“No,” Oblanski replied. “The best part is, she’s coming home to settle Jefferson’s estate. When I told Adelle that Jeff’s wife was returning to take possession of everything Jeff had, I thought she’d cry herself to sleep right there on the floor of her for
mer million-dollar home.”
“Justice comes in all forms, my friend.”
“That it does.” Oblanski held his cup high and toasted. “To Adelle Fournier and the cheap whisky she’ll be forced to drink from now on.” He checked his watch. “Visiting at the county jail will be over in fifteen minutes.”
“So?”
“When I was there with the stenographer taking Pieter’s statement, he mentioned he was looking forward to Georgia’s visit today. In case you’re interested.”
By the time Arn pulled into the parking garage across from the jail, visitors were shuffling out the door. Arn went inside and spotted Georgia standing in front of a locker, gathering things she had to stow before being allowed inside to visit Pieter. Meander stood beside her, frail-looking, with her shoulders slumped and bags under her eyes from crying. Probably all night. She looked around the lobby of the jail as if in a daze.
They had started out the door when Arn called Georgia’s name. She looked around and saw him. She walked toward him as she put her coat on, her arms crossed in a hug, a sad look on her face from seeing the only son she’d ever know. “Wait for me in the car,” she said to Meander. “I’ll be out in a moment.”
Meander looked through Arn with bloodshot eyes. She had no expression as she stumbled past him and out the double doors without speaking.
“How’s Pieter doing?” Arn asked.
“Like you care!” Georgia blurted out. “I’m sorry for that.” She motioned to a bench and they sat. “I’m just upset—”
Hunting the Five Point Killer Page 36
