Cruelest Month

by Aaron Stander

  Ray got up and added computer below the $2,000 cash. “Okay, so here’s a possible scenario. A couple of the Capone true believers have been keeping track of Fox’s movements. They grab him off the street or at his house. When he struggles, they use a stun gun. When they apply some torture, he dies. Later they grab the computer because it might contain information that would lead them to the treasure. The money was just an unexpected bonus.”

  “Our perps are on a continuum from being sadistic bastards to totally weird psychopaths.”

  “But is what we’re seeing all there is? Could something else be going on here?” asked Ray.

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “We’re running old scripts, things that have come up before. We’re pushing the Fox murder into a familiar paradigm. It’s not working. And then we have the Terry Hallen case. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever figure out what happened to him. Finally, perhaps coincidently, there’s the ten grand that Ma French found in the cemetery.” Ray sipped his coffee and asked, “So what did you think of the Hollingsford Estate and Perry Ashton?”

  “I’m always surprised,” she responded. “Like I think I know this area well, and then there’s something like that place. Mind blowing. How many times have I rolled past that muddy road with no idea of what was hidden in those woods.”

  “I’d heard about it some over the years,” said Ray. “It always seemed more mythical than real, but, yes, I was amazed, too.”

  “What do we know about Perry Ashton? Has he ever been on our radar?” asked Sue.

  “I checked this morning. Nothing recent. There are two DUIs and speeding tickets. All years ago.”

  “So what we learned,” said Sue, “expands and confirms what we already knew. Terry Hallen’s naked body was found on the beach of the Hollingsford Estate. If he had indeed gone skinny dipping, the logical place for him to enter the water would have been closer to his home, 10 miles below where the body was found. As far as we know, his clothing was never recovered. Perry Ashton says the water was still very cold, and the victim appeared to be terribly thin. Those two things would delay the number of days it would take for him to become a floater. We’re probably looking at 10 days to two weeks. Mrs. Schaffer’s memory is that he was found a few days after he disappeared. We have no record of when he was reported missing or who identified the body. There’s no way to date anything. There was no autopsy, just a certificate of death. No evidence of any investigation. The mother is deceased, as is the grandmother, and his siblings disappeared shortly after his death. To top it off, there’s Perry Ashton’s memory that the body was high up the beach, higher than it might have been carried by waves. Lots of unanswered questions. Lots. And I wonder what was going through Dirk Lowther’s head.”

  “Dirk wasn’t into heavy lifting,” said Ray. “If Terry’s people weren’t moxie enough to challenge the finding, nothing more would have been done. So it was open and shut, accidental drowning. Case closed. Dirk had better things to spend his time on.” Ray paused again and sipped his coffee, then pointed to the right side of the whiteboard. “What about Ma French and the $10,000.”

  “I need to tell you about that, the money. I e-mailed the serial numbers from those bills to an agent at the FBI—I met her at that financial fraud workshop I went to last year. She forwarded my inquiry to another agent who works on cases involving currency, you know, things like money laundering. The guy’s name is Braeton Jackson. He could tell from the serial numbers that the bills were part of 12 billion in cash sent to Iraq right after the invasion to keep the provisional government running. He went on to explain that approximately eight billion of the 12 went missing. There was no chain of custody after the money was offloaded in Baghdad.”

  Ray’s coffee mug had been hovering between the table and his mouth. He put it down as Sue continued. “Jackson says these bills have turned up all over the globe. He was curious how 100 crisp new C-notes suddenly turned up on a beach in northern Michigan after all the years they were out of circulation.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment, then Ray asked, “What do we know for sure?”

  “We have two tire castings that might be from the perp’s car.”

  “And they might be from the meter reader. Iraq. Eight billion. Who knew?”

  “Even more amazing than a lost estate, huh. So what do we do now?”

  “You know the answer as well as me. We sit tight, turn our attention to our usual duties, and wait until something else happens. Or we have a sudden flash of brilliance.”

  “Well, did you note that more root vegetables were reported stolen yesterday?” said Sue, smiling.

  “Yes, carrots and potatoes,” agreed Ray, sighing. “Same M.O. Theft from an unlocked building. The farmers are unsure of when the robbery took place. They don’t go into the storage area more than once or twice a week during the winter, and they’re unsure of the quantity. They don’t keep a tight inventory. Assign this to Brett. He can work these into his road patrol duties. At some point, we should be able to figure this one out.”

  “Brett is just back from his first major crime workshop, and what do we drop in his lap? The case of missing celeriac.”

  “It’s all the same kind of leg work, and it gets him out of his car and meeting people. How was Ann Arbor, by the way?”

  “Ann Arbor is Ann Arbor. Saw a good movie, had some fantastic food, went to a jazz club.” She smiled, thinking that the real answer was she ate too much, drank too much champagne, and spent most of the weekend in bed making love.

  28

  Mackenzie had followed Ken Lee’s instructions carefully, and yes, there was a regular pattern. Mornings about 9 a.m., Sabotny and Rustova would leave their compound. After half an hour or so at The Espresso Shot, they would head for the Bayside Family Market, sometimes hand in hand like a loving couple, other times exhibiting some tension and distance. They would return about 20 minutes later with two or three paper bags, never plastic. Mackenzie speculated that they did European-style shopping, picking up what they needed for the day and not stocking a larder.

  After several days of this, Mackenzie was ready to make her move. She positioned her car in an area of the parking lot used by the employees of the market, a far corner that afforded her a clear view of the entire area. From the moment they drove into the shopping area, she would have them in sight. Sipping on her own tall cappuccino, she watched them first enter the coffee shop and later head for the grocery store. She waited five minutes, then pulled into a parking place next to their vehicle. She’d rehearsed the placement of the GPS the evening before following Ken Lee’s step-by-step diagrams.

  Taking several long, deep breaths, she glanced around to ensure that no one was in a position to observe her actions. Then, with the engine still running, she pushed her door open. After a quick second scan of the area, she moved to the rear of the SUV, dropped her purse, then quickly knelt to pick it up. In the process she slid the transmitter into position at the rear of Sabotny’s vehicle. Mackenzie slipped back inside her car, closed the door, and took one last look around before driving away.

  That evening she and Ken Lee—2,500 miles apart—watched Sabotny’s movements from their separate locations, using Google Earth to get street-level views of his travels. Sabotny stopped at three spots: an Outback Steakhouse, a multiplex cinema, and a bar just south of Cedar Bay.

  In the course of their conversation, Ken Lee reminded her that she needed to look again at the other guys who were in Sabotny’s company on the day of the attack. Her rational self knew that he was right, but her emotional self pushed back on the idea. The character she always saw in her nightmares was Richard Sabotny.

  Before the conversation ended, Ken Lee mentioned that a friend in Florida had run the plates on the Range Rover and the Lexus. Both vehicles belonged to RS Investments, LTD, a company registered in Belize. “I had my friend do a little a more checking. RS Investments also has a couple of Visa debit cards and a merchant account at Belize Caribbe
an International Bank. That’s probably how Sabotny is getting around U.S. currency and tax laws. He has total access to his fortune because these transactions are currently almost untraceable.”

  “How much is all this research costing me?” asked Mackenzie.

  “Nothing. This was a quid pro quo. I’ll let you know if and when the meter is running. By the way, did you put the GPS transmitter in your Subaru?”

  “Yes, and if you stay up a few more hours, you can watch me go to a 7 a.m. yoga class in Traverse,” she answered. “I’m taking a vacation day tomorrow. Living like a real person.”

  “Good idea. Have fun,” he said. “I’ll watch your travels with my morning tea.”

  Mackenzie woke at five, made coffee, and searched her almost barren cupboards and refrigerator for something appealing to eat. Her choices were one large brown egg, a navel orange, assorted energy bars, and some wilted celery. She opted for the egg and orange, tossing the celery in the garbage.

  Lingering over her coffee, she used her iPad to check the web for times and locations and quickly came up with a schedule: yoga at 7 a.m., and a massage at nine to be confirmed by e-mail. She thought about having her nails done, maybe some shopping. She would ask the women in her yoga class to recommend places. She’d find a bookstore, too, and take time to browse—sheer luxury.

  Several hours later, Mackenzie drove back north with new books on the passenger seat and bags of food and wine from the organic co-op filling the back hatch. The tension building for weeks had finally dissolved. Just doing a few routine things had pulled her away from the cloak and dagger world in which she had immersed herself.

  A late season storm had rolled in the day before from the southwest, bringing a mixture of heavy rain, sleet, and snow, but this afternoon the drapes of her great room opened to a brilliant, sunlit landscape. The bay had only a modest chop and yesterday’s snow had all but disappeared while she’d been in Traverse. Even the grass on the hillside above the shoreline was starting to show the first signs of green.

  Mackenzie pivoted back and forth in her desk chair as she studied at the names on her computer screen. Ken Lee was right. She had focused on Richard Sabotny as the main perpetrator and let the other boys who were present that day slide into the background.

  Restless, she pushed back from the desk and walked to the wall of glass. There was his house across the bay. She looked through her telescope, zooming in on the windows. In the bright daylight, her scope couldn’t probe the interior, but she took some satisfaction in knowing that the mirrored glass on her windows provided a similar barrier to prying eyes.

  Mackenzie returned to her computer and looked again at the file that contained the names and rather limited information she had been able to collect on the four boys, now grown men. Each entry included her personal memories of them.

  Richard Sabotny, aka Rich. Leader of the group on the day of the assault. Known as the toughest kid in the school, even some of the teachers seemed to be afraid of him. Often involved in fistfights in the parking lot after school hours. Known for bullying people. According to Classmates bio, he was career military. Recently resettled in Cedar County. No hits on Google other than the Classmates piece. See more extensive note on Sabotny in Ken Lee file.

  Zed Piontowski, aka Smokey, followed Richard Sabotny around, probably enjoying the status of being a buddy of the toughest kid in the school and also enjoying the protection that friendship probably afforded him.

  Zed got on the bus several miles north of Sandville. He lived in an old trailer with a multitude of brothers and sisters from various fathers. His siblings had different last names.

  At 15 or 16, he was short and rail thin. Like a small dog, Zed didn’t have a sense of his size. He was ready to throw a punch at the least provocation. What he lacked in stature, he made up for with his loud, obscenity-filled speech. He always smelled foul—lack of bathing, soiled clothes redolent with the smell of wood heat, tobacco, and greasy food. His jeans and tattered shirts were soiled, the holes genuine, not fashion statements. Away from school, he always had a cigarette in his mouth.

  Listed in online yearbook at Classmates, but no photo available. No current phone listing in Cedar County or the surrounding area for anyone with the last name of Piontowski. Ditto for Facebook and Twitter. One hit on Google from the Galveston Daily News for a Zed Piontowski: homeless man identified by a former girlfriend, her name not given. No age given. Death caused by drug overdose. Deceased found with needle stuck in his arm.

  Zed was with the other boys the day of the attack. He was hanging back, watching. In a strange kind of way he was a friend of Terry’s. Maybe it was a bond of poverty.

  Jim Moarse, medium height, lanky, sandy hair, uneven home-cut look, bad teeth, empty gray eyes. He was in the special ed. class with the kids who had emotional problems. Known for uncontrolled rage, getting suspended from school, and problems with the sheriff.

  Liked breaking windows. I remember him dancing on the glass that had been popped out of a classroom door, grinding the shattered pieces into finer shards with his heavy black construction boots, the steel heel-plates pounding the bits against the terrazzo surface.

  Major player in the assault, roughly grabbing my breasts after Sabotny tore my shirt open. Moarse said something about my having a tight ass. Sabotny said it wouldn’t be tight when he got through with me. Everyone else would have to settle for seconds.

  Local address available online. No phone listing. Arrests for domestic violence, DUI, and assault listed in local paper archives.

  Chris Brewler, medium height and stocky. Brown hair, chipped teeth in lower jaw, scar across his forehead that separated his right eyebrow. His nose was off center, pushed over to the left at midpoint. The facial injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. Chris also sported several tattoos—crudely done artwork and lettering. He bragged that his uncle had learned to do tats while in Jackson.

  Chris was in Terry’s graduation class, but he was older, held back once or twice. He had been in several of my classes, usually a disruptive element on the infrequent occasions he showed up for school. He was on our bus route. Always talking about sex, hitting on girls in the crudest terms. More than once he said to me, “My uncle says your mother is the best piece of ass in the county. Bet you’re a chip off the old block.”

  The day of the assault he was cheering Sabotny on. Made an attempt to pull off my jeans before Terry fought them off, giving me a chance to escape.

  No local or regional phone number. No listing in Classmates, Facebook, Twitter. No hits on Google. No listing for anyone in the region with the last name of Brewler.

  Mackenzie opened a new file and keyed a title at the top of the document: What Happened at the River:

  It was a spring day, one of the first warm days. Terry and I had ridden our bikes down to the river a few miles east of Sandville. We had taken some lines and hooks. Terry collected some crawlers and crickets near the river, and was showing me how to hand cast, how to toss the lead weight and baited hook into the stream without getting entangled with the hook.

  She stopped suddenly, pulled her hands from the keyboard. I need to see the place again, she thought. I need to go there, shoot pictures, and record everything that I remember, then come back and write it down.

  29

  Mackenzie dressed in her bird-watching costume: baggy jeans, hiking boots, a flannel shirt, and Carhartt vest. She strapped a holster to her left ankle, slipped the Rohrbaugh R9 in place, pulled her hair under a stocking cap, and slipped a pair of compact binoculars into her vest pocket—something she would later drape around her neck as part of the costume. She also packed a notepad and a small camera, nothing expensive looking, nothing that would attract attention.

  Reviewing the area on Google Earth, Mackenzie considered the probable route from Sandville to the part of the river where she and Terry had confronted Sabotny and the other boys. Her memory was that just north of the village they had biked down two-tracks and the bed of a
deserted railroad. Then they got back on a two-track again. She scanned the area on her computer display, trying to determine the possible site.

  There was an old bridge built from timbers just wide enough for a car that she remembered too—no side rails, just a deck. Upstream from the bridge was a low dam with a spillway in the middle and a pool behind it.

  Twenty years before, she and Terry had been fishing below the dam, letting their bait swirl in the eddies at the side of the stream. But looking at the map, she couldn’t see a widening in the stream or anything that looked like a dam. She found what she thought was the bridge and the road that ran across it. It now appeared to be more than the trail of her memory, still dirt, but wider. The bridge also looked more substantial.

  She scaled back the map until Sandville was in the lower right corner and plotted distances and directions in her head. When she got to Sandville, she would use the map function on her iPhone if she needed any assistance finding the location.

  She was surprised by how quickly she found the place, even though her estimates of distance and time were way off. The big curve on the river was only about two miles north of the village. She remembered it as being much farther—a long slog or a hot dusty bike ride. Parking in a small lot at the side of the dirt road, she walked out onto the bridge. It was a new structure two lanes wide with steel rails bolted to concrete pillars. Looking upriver, Mackenzie searched in vain for the dam, but nothing remained of the structure or the wide pond. Crossing to the south side of the bridge, she peered down at the stream, much narrower and shallower than she remembered it. The only sound was the wind and the gurgling of the river as it snaked around and disappeared in the low shrubs on the flood plain. There were no humans or their machines. She snapped several pictures.

  Returning to her car, Mackenzie noticed a trail running from the parking lot toward the stream. She followed it, concrete at the beginning, turning to sand as it wound through the brush and small trees near the water’s edge. Small patches of grass bordering the track were beginning to shed winter’s hues, green replacing brown. The willow buds, turgid with new growth, were on the edge of opening and the reeds in the wetlands approaching the water were taking on a summer’s green.