Termination Man

by Edward Trimnell

“Well, there’s more to it than what you know about. This is what I was trying to tell you the other night—when I passed out. Here: It might be easier for you to understand if you see it written down.”

  She removed a yellowed newspaper clipping from her pocket and handed it to me. I could see that it was from The Columbus Dispatch, dated November 17, 1996. The clipping contained an article about the murder of two Ohio State coeds named Carla Marsh and Jill Johnson.

  “This is unfortunate,” I said. “Tragic for these girls and their families. But this newspaper clipping is more than 15 years old. I don't understand––wait a minute. Were these young women friends of yours?”

  “Sort of. No, not really what you would call friends––more what you would call acquaintances. I had been in a class with one of them, and I saw them around campus a lot.”

  “I don’t understand. Why are you showing me this?”

  “I saw these women in a bar near campus the night they were killed. I saw them talking to a young man, a young man who appeared to be making sexual advances at them. And not in a nice way. He looked at them––looked at them like he wanted to kill them. I can still remember that expression on his face. You see, it was like a wolf's expression. It wasn't like his feelings were hurt. It was like he had already decided to kill them.”

  “And did you share this with the Columbus Police Department?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I didn't even know about the murders until several months later, after Shawn had raped me, and I had been through the ordeal of seeing him go free. I ran into a mutual acquaintance one day, and she asked me if I'd heard about Jill Johnson and Carla Marsh. And of course I said no; I was bad about reading the newspaper in those days, and keeping up with what was going on around me. I was trapped in my own little world. And this was before the Internet really existed, and long before you could get news on your cell phone. But I was shocked. Shocked that Jill and Carla had had a confrontation with that man and turned up dead the very same night.”

  “You still could have gone to the police, even if a few months had passed since the murder,” I said. “They still could have benefited from your information. Even if you would have been unable to identify the young man you saw in the bar arguing with them, you might have given them a lead that they could have followed up on.”

  I scanned through the article. It was obviously written shortly after the young women's bodies had been discovered. “Were these murders ever solved?” I asked. I still didn't grasp why Tina was showing me this. I figured that she was trying to make a point about how traumatic that year of her life had been. Or maybe she was trying to convince me that I should do everything I could to help Donna and her daughter, because bad things often happen to women. But I didn’t see any relationship between the two.

  “Did you tell anyone about what you saw?” I pressed.

  She stepped closer to me. I could smell her perfume. She began to breath heavily, and her exhalations caused the edge of the clipping to flutter in my hands.

  “You haven’t put it together—have you, Craig? The man I saw in the bar that night, talking to Carla Marsh and Jill Johnson, was Shawn Myers.”

  My God, I thought. How obtuse was I? I allowed myself a moment to take in the scope of this. If what this woman said was true, then my situation here at UP&S was far more dangerous than I had imagined up until now.

  I had known all along that Shawn Myers was a bully—and possibly an opportunistic rapist. This was all disturbing enough. But Shawn seemed to be a man full of dark surprises. Now I was being told that he might also be a double murderer.

  If Tina Shields’s information could be trusted. The clipping proved that two women had been killed in Columbus fifteen years ago. So far as I knew, Tina’s recollections were the only factor that connected Shawn to the killings; and Tina had admitted to a drinking problem. I had observed her drinking problem with my own eyes.

  “Why didn't you mention this the other night, when we were with Donna Chalmers?” I asked.

  She shuddered and wrapped her arms about her chest, pulling her coat tightly against her body, as if she were suddenly chilled. However, it wasn't extremely cold that night––certainly not for early winter in Ohio.

  “I'm afraid of this. I know what happened to me back in 1997; and I know that Shawn Myers was able to use his connections to make those rape charges magically disappear. Don't you get it? I scared Shawn Myers back then, when I accused him of rape––and I scared whatever forces are backing him. I've since learned who he is, and I know who his father is. I know they have money, and they won't hesitate to use it to make sure that Shawn can escape the consequences of whatever he does.”

  She reached out and took the clipping from me, and held it up in front of my face, forcing me to look at the headline, to realize what this old piece of news represented. It was a testimony to two lives that had been lost, two murders that remained unsolved.

  “What we're talking about here is something completely different,” she said. “This isn't only about a sexual assault or beating someone up, or groping a teenage girl. This is murder. If Shawn Myers is responsible for these two murders, then he could be sent to prison for the rest of his life. He could even go to the gas chamber. Ohio is a death penalty state, after all.”

  I anticipated her subsequent thoughts. “And you’re thinking that Shawn and his father would do anything––anything at all––to protect him from this. Based on what we've seen of them so far, it isn't unreasonable to speculate that they wouldn't stop at committing another murder in order to protect him from the punishment for those previous two.”

  She nodded frantically. “Do you see now why I’m—I’m such a mess? Jill Johnson and Carla Marsh would be alive right now if it wasn’t for Shawn Myers. If something isn’t done about him, then he’ll put more women in the ground.” She gave me a pointed a stare. “And maybe some men, too.”

  Suddenly it occurred to me that Tina had made a foolish mistake in coming here. If Shawn Myers had raped her fifteen years ago, then he might recognize her today.

  “You need to leave,” I said. “Shawn Myers is inside this building right now. And yours is probably a face that he would recognize, even after all these years, if what you’re telling me is true.”

  She blanched. “Are we being filmed?”

  I nodded. “There are security cameras all over the parking lot.”

  Upon hearing this bit of information, her cheeks flushed red with color, as if a sudden wrath had overtaken her. She looked upward, toward the security camera that was mounted on the light pole near my car.

  “Come and get me, Shawn Myers!” she shouted.

  “Quiet!” I hissed. I didn't know if Tina Shields was a reliable witness or not. I did know that she was extremely volatile, and obviously given to poor judgment. If Shawn was in fact a killer who had raped her, then this display of bravado could endanger her—and Donna—even more.

  “I don't think that’s a very good idea,” I said. Reaching forward, I took her by the shoulders and gently turned her away from the camera. She briefly struggled before allowing herself to be led.

  “You’re right,” she said. “It’s just that I’ve been wanting to make that son-of-a-bitch pay for going on twenty years. Can you understand what that feels like?”

  I nodded. In a way I could, or so I thought.

  “You’ve already thought of the perfect idea for fixing this, haven’t you?” she asked me, half in sarcasm, half in supplication. “Is there anything we can do?”

  “Maybe,” I said. I did have an idea—though I knew that it was far from a perfect one.

  Chapter 54

  That was how I found myself sitting in Dave Bruner’s office for the second time. I gave him a slightly edited—but essentially faithful—account of my meeting with Donna and Tina, then my subsequent encounter in the UP&S parking lot with Tina alone. Bruner listened attentively. Then he proceeded to poke holes in everything I had said.

  “Let
me get this straight. You want to Columbus PD to charge Shawn Myers with a cold case murder based on the fifteen-year-old testimony of a coed who was drunk at the time. And even if that was Shawn Myers who she saw in that bar, the only thing that her testimony establishes is that Myers had a conversation with the victims.”

  “No,” I said. “All I'm asking you to do is to pass the information on. New Hastings is only a few miles outside Columbus. You must have some contacts over there.”

  Bruner stood up with the newspaper clipping in his hand. “Okay, okay. Let me make a copy of this. I happen to know a captain in Columbus homicide. If this case is still open, he can add the testimony of this Ms. Shields to the file.”

  I sat there while Chief Bruner placed the Columbus Dispatch article on the glass face of the little copier in his office and made a duplicate. He handed the clipping back to me.

  My impatience and frustration must have shown. “What?” He asked. “Now what's wrong?”

  Bruner was now seated behind his desk again. “I don't know,” I said. “I suppose that I was expecting this matter to be handled with a bit more urgency, you might say.”

  Bruner smiled indulgently. He had obviously determined that he was not going to lose his temper with me again. Perhaps he had decided that I was a crackpot, and therefore unworthy of a reaction of anger. Or perhaps this was another piece of an elaborate ruse. I still couldn't grasp the nature of Chief Bruner's motivations. I could surmise that Kurt Myers was already working on him. But was he still clean? Was he in Kurt Myers’s back pocket––or were his thoughts and words still his own?

  “Thank you for stopping by, Mr. Parker,” Bruner said. Then he added: “Again. I’ll be in touch.”

  I didn't have to wait long for a response from Chief Bruner. I was preparing to stroll down to the UP&S cafeteria for lunch the next day when my cell phone rang. I answered and the chief said: “Come to my office now, please. I want a word with you.”

  I should have grasped from Bruner’s tone that the lawman was about the turn the tables on me. However, I still clung to the hope that I could bring Chief Bruner around to my side.

  When I stepped inside the chief’s glass-walled office, he brusquely ordered me to close the door and have a seat.

  Then he began without preamble: “I investigated your story. All of it. And here is what I found. First of all, there is no record of Shawn Myers being investigated for rape in 1997. Moreover, there is no record of a rape case involving a Tina Shields in 1997.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. I recalled Tina’s drunken behavior that night in Applebee’s, her history of substance abuse, and her odd behavior in the parking lot of UP&S, when she shouted taunts up at the security camera. “Could the records have disappeared from the system somehow?”

  Bruner paused to consider this. “Anything is possible, technically speaking. Mistakes do happen. But the Columbus PD’s investigation records were already computerized by 1997. The investigating officer would have been required to enter the names of everyone who was questioned in connection with the crime. And I can’t buy into the idea of the entire case disappearing from the database. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen.”

  “Okay,” I said, shrinking against the back of my chair. “What else?”

  “I also found a bit more information about Tina Shields.”

  “I didn't ask for more information about Tina Shields.”

  Bruner ignored my last remark. “What I found out was that Tina Shields isn't exactly the most reliable witness.”

  I didn't want to take the bait. I figured that he had dug up something in Tina Shields’s past. A woman like Tina Shields would have a past––she had already admitted this in so many words.

  Nevertheless, I had to know where things stood.

  “I've already told you that she has a bit of a drinking problem––”

  “But you didn't tell me that she also has a prescription drug problem. Nor did you tell me that she was arrested and convicted in 2003 for forging prescriptions in Lancaster, Ohio. Or that she was arrested and convicted in 2004 for passing a bad check. Tina Shields also has a habit of making charges against men that don't hold up. She was briefly married from 1999 through 2001. In 2002 she filed stalking charges against her ex-husband. The charges were dismissed when the ex-husband produced rock-solid alibis that proved he was out of town on most of the days when she claimed he was harassing her.”

  No one likes to be set up. I had taken Tina’s claims at face value and run with them. Now they had blown up in my face. Based on what Chief Bruner was telling me, I had apparently fallen for a grand deception. Could anything that Tina Shields had said be trusted? The only ironclad fact was that two coeds had been murdered in Columbus in late 1996. Everything else that Tina alleged—her own rape, and Shawn’s confrontation with the murdered women—might be pure fabrications. Tina was an emotionally troubled woman who had a history of substance abuse and deception. Her appeal to me might have been a self-serving bid for attention, and nothing more.

  “I checked out every aspect of your story,” Bruner said. “And it simply didn't stand up to scrutiny.”

  “Okay,” I said, defeated. I could see that there was nothing more I could do here. I did, however, want to have a talk with Tina Shields.

  “Your information has been added to the case file,” the chief went on. “Just like I promised. The Columbus PD will contact Tina Shields if they decide to interview her about what she allegedly saw in an off-campus bar fifteen years ago. Based on her record, we can assume that they already know how to contact her. She’s done business with them in the past.” Bruner could not resist the slightest hint of a smile as he added this last remark.

  “Thank you, Chief Bruner. I may have made a mistake. I’m sorry to have troubled you.” I made as if to stand up from my seat. Dave Bruner held up his hand in a “stop” gesture.

  “And there’s another little matter that we need to discuss.”

  “Alright.” I remained seated.

  “I ran a check on the license plate of the car you’re driving, the Toyota Camry. That car is registered to Craig Walker Consulting, LLC. Why do I have a funny feeling that your name is not really Craig Parker—the one you gave me?”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Dave Bruner had practically refused to follow up on the information I had given him about Shawn. But he had absolutely no qualms about conducting a private investigation into my background—despite the fact that I was under no suspicion of any sort.

  “Because it isn’t,” I said. I had no choice now but to come clean. I told him that my real name was Craig Walker. I also told him that I was not the rank-and-file UP&S employee that I had purported to be.

  “I see,” Bruner said when I was finished. “Can you understand that I’m not too happy about being lied to? This also clears some things up for me. You’re no ‘concerned employee’ of a local company. You’re a highly paid hotshot business consultant—a fact that you concealed from me until I’d found out on my own. Is your vendetta against Shawn Myers part of some sort of a hostile takeover? Are you actually working for TP Automotive, like you now claim? Or are you working for someone else?”

  Dave Bruner gave me the sort of stare that is unique to public officials who have been temporarily given power over a person who earns three or four times their annual income. He was not merely sparring with me at this point. He was motivated by real hostility now—and all the baggage that comes with class envy and class warfare. Never mind that my father had been a union machinist, or that I had not owned a decent set of clothes until I was nearly thirty. All Dave Bruner saw was a wealthy man who had thought that his position and income had entitled him to lie to the police—because there are certain rules that don’t apply to “highly paid hotshot business consultants”—as he put it.

  And he was partly right. This was the fact that made it difficult for me to backpedal, or even try to.

  “I’m working for TP Automotive,” I said.
“Just like I told you. And I wanted no part of any conflict with Shawn Myers—until that night when I saw him forcing himself on a fifteen year-old girl. I’m telling you the whole truth now. There is no hidden agenda.”

  “I hope not,” Bruner said. “Because if I find out otherwise, there will be hell to pay. What you did was technically illegal, you know—giving the police a false name. Now please, Mr. Walker, do yourself a favor and get the hell out of my office, before I have second thoughts about not arresting you.”

  I should have gone back to the UP&S factory right then. I should have gone back to the desk that wasn't really mine, and reassessed the situation. But I was angry and I wanted to vent. I was angry because Dave Bruner now knew that I wasn't really Craig Walker; and I couldn't trust him to keep this information to himself.

  I dialed Tina Shields's cell phone and told her that we needed to talk. “Are you still in Columbus?” I asked her.

  “I’m here through the end of the week,” she said. “For business.”

  “What sort of business are you in?”

  “Sales,” she said.

  “What kind of sales?”

  “I sell…” her voice trailed off. She was obviously trying to think of an answer. Clearly there was much more to Tina Shields than met the eye.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I need to talk to you. In person. Now.”

  She resisted at first, telling me that there was no way that she could break away from work in the middle of the day.

  “I need ten minutes,” I said. “Ten goddamned minutes.”

  My angry tone convinced her. We arranged to meet in a little park on the outskirts of Columbus. I drove straight there from the police station. She was waiting for me when I arrived, leaning against a jungle gym, smoking a cigarette. She looked like a wreck, with bloodshot eyes—which told me that she had been drinking too much and sleeping too little. At least there are no children in the playground area to see her, I thought.