By His Own Hand

by Neal Griffin

  Tia expected the other name would be a bit easier: Ezekiel Mills. She knew that Mills maintained a home in the most exclusive neighborhood in Newberg, so she entered that as city of residence. She hit “send,” expecting to see a return of “no record on file,” but up popped a crime report out of Chippewa Falls. The report was over eight years old and was listed as ORO—“officer’s report only.” That designator indicated a noncriminal report of some kind—someone reporting suspicious activity, lost property, or some other trivial matter. Tia clicked on the case number for details.

  Ezekiel Mills was fully identified with his height, weight, date of birth, and home of record, which at the time of the report was in Chippewa Falls. That struck Tia as odd; identifying data for noncriminal reports was typically limited to name, address, and phone number. What really caught Tia’s attention was the designation after Mills’s name: POI. Why, she wondered, would Mills be listed as a person of interest in a report that wasn’t even categorized as criminal?

  Tia looked at the name of the reporting officer, a Chippewa Falls PD detective named Andrew Coleman. Pulling up the website for CFPD, Tia easily found the phone directory. She dialed the number for the investigations bureau and a receptionist picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello, this is Detective Suarez, Newberg PD, down in Waukesha County. I was calling for Detective Andrew Coleman. I don’t know if he—”

  “Hold, please.”

  The phone clicked over to elevator music and Tia wondered if she’d really get that lucky. Her question was answered before the end of the first song.

  “Coleman.”

  Tia couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. “Andrew Coleman?”

  “Andy, actually, but yeah. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ll be damned,” she said with a laugh. “That was a shot in the dark. I just pulled up an eight-year-old case, saw your name on it, and figured why not?”

  The Chippewa Falls detective laughed good-naturedly as well. “It happens like that sometimes, huh? Who is this again?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Tia said. “Detective Suarez, Newberg PD. Tia Suarez.”

  “Well, what can I do for you, Tia?”

  “I’m working a case down here, doing some background work on persons known to be in the area of a possible homicide.”

  “Oh yeah? Caught a good one, huh? Beats the car burglary stuff, right?”

  “For sure, but this one’s kind of odd. Seventeen-year-old kid, found dead in the woods. We’re going back and forth with the ME on suicide or homicide.”

  “Oh, man, that’s rough. Sorry if I popped off.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just, you know, saying good case. I mean, I got a seventeen-year-old son myself.” The phone went quiet for a moment. When Andy spoke again, his voice was serious. “How can I help?”

  “Like I said, Andy, I’m looking at an eight-year-old officer’s report. No crime indicated, but you’ve got a man listed as a person of interest.”

  “Really? On an ORO? Strange.” Tia picked up Andy’s curiosity and she could hear him begin to tap a keyboard. “Give me the info. Case number, name.”

  “Sure,” Tia said. “You may even have heard of him. Ezekiel Mills?”

  The phone went silent and the tapping stopped. Tia waited but there was no response.

  “Hello?” Tia said. “Andy?”

  “What’s this about?” He suddenly sounded like a different person—wary, guarded. Gone was the sense of cooperation.

  “Just routine checks.” Tia did her best to sound casual. “Like I said, just doing general background work on persons known to be in the area.”

  “And you’re digging into Ezekiel Mills?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say digging. But I guess you have heard of him, huh?”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t really think I can be of much help. Like you said, case was eight years ago. Doesn’t really ring any bells.”

  Bullshit, she thought. “No sweat, Andy. If you could just pull a hard copy of the report and send it over? Fax or PDF, whichever’s easiest.”

  “I don’t know if we’ll have a copy of something that old. You should probably call somebody in the records division.”

  “Yeah, okay then. So no memory of it, huh?” Tia went fishing. “I mean, this was before Mills hit the big-time and all, so maybe—”

  “Like I said, Detective, it doesn’t ring any bells. Now, if that’s all you needed, it’s getting late.”

  “Right.” Tia was already clicking on the report to pull up whatever else might be available. “Thanks for your help, Andy. Last thing. Could I get the number for your records—”

  The line went dead. “What the hell was that about?” Tia said as she hung up the phone.

  Tia scrolled through the screen and found there was no narrative or other detail on the report. She did find the name of the reporting party. Owen Allen Vickers had been twenty-two years old at the time and living in Chippewa Falls. She printed the report.

  “Why not?” Tia said to herself. “I’m on a roll.”

  Pulling up the white pages for Chippewa Falls, she punched in Vickers’s full name but got nothing. She tried the same thing for Eau Claire, which was twenty miles south of Chippewa Falls; still nothing. Tia was thinking of other communities in the Chippewa Falls vicinity when it dawned on her. She smacked her palm against her forehead and rolled her eyes, realizing she was letting the excitement get to her.

  “DMV, dumb ass.” Tia punched the full name and date of birth listed in the police report into the Wisconsin DMV computer. The curser blinked for a few seconds then came back with the driver’s license information for an Owen Allen Vickers in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. The date of birth was an exact match. She went back to her white pages search and the Rice Lake listing popped up with a phone number.

  “Yes!” Tia quickly dialed the number. On the second ring, she hung up.

  She needed to slow down. It was pretty obvious to Tia that Detective Coleman had been holding back. There was something about the officer’s report that he had decided not to share. As the reporting party, Owen Vickers would know what that was.

  What if he clams up like Coleman? If he hangs up on me, I’m done. Tia knew she needed to talk to Vickers face-to-face. She needed to go to Rice Lake.

  Tia punched the locations into MapQuest. Two hundred-seventy miles northwest. The route would take her right through Chippewa Falls, so she could stop at the PD and get a copy of the old police report. From there it was another fifty miles up the 53 to Rice Lake. If she took the Goat, she could make the whole circuit in less than seven or eight hours. She picked up the phone—not to call Vickers.

  “Hey, Rich. It’s Tia. We got another road trip tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at the PD at zero-five.”

  Tia heard the confusion in his response. “No. It’s got nothing to do with Gosforth. At least, not that I know of. But don’t worry about it. Be here at zero-five.”

  She listened then laughed. “Yeah, Rich. That means five A.M. We’re going to Chippewa Falls, then on to Rice Lake. I’ll explain everything on the way.”

  She emailed Travis to let him know she and her trainee were hitting the road early to run down a lead. She didn’t go into detail other than to say she’d be taking her own car and submitting a voucher for gas money. The way she planned on driving, the Goat would be sucking it down.

  This could just be a rabbit hole, she thought. It was definitely a departure from the Gosforth lead that in her gut felt really promising. But Tia knew the worst mistake a detective can make is to have tunnel vision. She needed to see the whole playing field.

  When she finally left she saw it was almost six. Connor was leaving for work in less than two hours. She turned out the lights and headed for the door.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Tia turned off the interstate and drove through the still-quiet downtown streets of Chippewa Falls. They pulled up to the police department at twenty minutes before eight o’clock and pa
rked the GTO in the public lot. They’d made great time, so much so that at one point Rich had asked why he only got to drive the Crown Vic.

  Her answer was simple: “Because no one drives the Goat but me.”

  During the drive to Chippewa Falls, Tia filled Rich in on how she’d found the eight-year-old CHRIS entry and on her odd conversation with Detective Coleman.

  “So,” Rich said, “maybe he really just didn’t remember?”

  “Could be,” Tia said, thinking back on the detective’s personality flip over the phone. “But I want to see the report for myself. The RP is an Owen Vickers. He’s another hour north in Rice Lake. We’ll take a look at the report narrative. See if it’s worth reaching out to him.”

  A woman in civilian attire and carrying an American flag stepped out from the lobby of the two-story redbrick building. Going to the nearby pole, she clipped the flag onto the halyard and raised it to the top. She bowed her head and stood for a few moments before disappearing back into the building.

  Tia looked at her phone and saw the time was 8:01. “Right on time. Let’s go.”

  The same woman who had raised the flag was seated at the glassed-in front counter. She smiled pleasantly. “First customer of the day. How can I help you?”

  Tia pulled out her badge. Caught unprepared, Rich fumbled around but eventually produced his patrol badge.

  “Good morning, ma’am. I’m Detective Suarez with Newberg PD in Waukesha County. This is my partner, Ri…” Tia stopped herself. “Officer Puller. We need to pick up a copy of a police report.”

  The woman reached under her desk and came up with a preprinted form that she slipped through an opening in the glass. “No problem, Detective. Just fill this out for me.”

  “The case is eight years old,” Tia said, filling in the form. “Will that be a problem?”

  “Shouldn’t be. Nothing gets purged before ten years.”

  Nodding, Tia returned the form, and the receptionist took it and said she’d be right back.

  “Partner, huh?” Rich said.

  “Relax.” Tia knew he was happy with his elevated status. “Doesn’t mean you drive the Goat.”

  A moment later the woman returned empty-handed. “Sorry. I spoke too soon.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, I’m not sure.” The receptionist seemed genuinely confused. “Everything else from that time period is on the shelf—just that one report is missing. What was it?”

  “Just an officer’s report. No crime listed.”

  She shrugged. “Well then, maybe it got purged early. Sorry.”

  “Does that ever happen?” Tia asked. “A single report gets purged?”

  “No,” the woman said. “Not really.”

  Tia wasn’t happy, but that wasn’t this woman’s fault. She had a feeling she knew who might be responsible. “Can you tell me, is Detective Coleman in?”

  She laughed. “I doubt it. Detectives don’t start wandering in until after nine o’clock. They’re not like civilian staff.”

  “All right, then. Can you do me a favor? Let him know that Detective Suarez came by. Tell him I said thanks for the help. I definitely owe him one.”

  “Sure will.” She smiled. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

  Once they were outside, Rich said, “‘Thanks for the help’?”

  “Yeah,” Tia said, seething, pulling hard on the car door. “Big help. He pulled that report—I’d bet money on it.”

  “Now what?”

  “What the hell,” she said, starting the engine. “We’ll spitball it. Let’s go to Rice Lake.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Rich used the driving time to try to find a work address or employer information for Owen Vickers of Rice Lake, with no luck. Tia had the home address from the DMV, so that was where they headed. It was after nine when they pulled up to a neat, single-story home on a typical, tree-lined Wisconsin street.

  “We’ll cold-knock it,” Tia said. “Hopefully he’s home.”

  As they walked up to the door, Tia saw an envelope attached by a clothespin to the outside of the mailbox. The cursive writing on the envelope looked feminine. Tia knocked on the door and waited. A moment later, the door was opened by a blond woman; Tia figured she was in her late twenties.

  “Mrs. Vickers?”

  The woman, guarded but pleasant, dried her hands on a dish towel. “Yes?”

  It had been a guess, but a good one. The more this woman thought Tia knew, the more likely she was to feel compelled to cooperate.

  “Ma’am, we’re police officers from Newberg PD down in Waukesha County. We were hoping to have a chat with your husband, Owen.”

  Looking back over her shoulder at the stairway, the woman replied, “He’s still in bed. He worked a late shift. Can I ask what this is about?”

  “It would probably be better if we talked to your husband.”

  The woman pulled her shoulders back and Tia felt a wall go up between them. She’d miscalculated.

  “Well, like I said, he’s sleeping. I’m not waking him unless you tell me what it is you want.”

  “You’re right.” Tia did her best to sound conciliatory. “I apologize. I just didn’t want to bother you with it. There’s a police report out of Chippewa Falls from eight years ago. Your husband—”

  “How do you know about that?” There was alarm in her voice now, maybe even a trace of something else. Was it fear? Anger? Tia scrambled for a new tactic.

  “It came up during a records check in an investigation we’re working in Newberg—a rather serious case. So, it’s important we speak with Mr. Vickers.”

  Mrs. Vickers stepped outside and pulled the door behind her, leaving it open just a crack. On her face was a look of desperation that Tia had seen before when a person was suddenly confronted with the resurfacing of an ugly past.

  “My husband is not going to talk to you about that. He can’t. And even if he could, I wouldn’t let him. We—” Her voice began to rise in anger and Tia watched as the woman tamped it down. “He’s put that behind him. For good. Now please. I want you to leave.”

  “Mrs. Vickers, I know you’re trying to protect your husband. But I should tell you, we’re working on a murder investigation.”

  Startled, the woman fumbled. “Murder? Who? What do you think my husband has to do with it?”

  “Nothing at all, ma’am. I don’t want you to think that.” As much as Tia wanted to talk to Owen Vickers, she didn’t want to unnecessarily scare his wife. “But he might be able to help us in our investigation.”

  Tia watched the woman think. “If you don’t want us to speak with him now, that’s fine. We can come back another time.”

  “No, you won’t.” The firmness in her voice told Tia that Mrs. Vickers had made up her mind. “If there’s one thing we learned through that whole mess, it’s how not to be pushed around by the police. Now leave. And if you come back, I’ll file a complaint for harassment.”

  With that, she went back inside. The door clicked shut, then Tia heard the deadbolt turn. Shaking her head, Tia turned to leave, Rich beside her. When he spoke, it was as though he’d read her mind.

  “This is getting interesting.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  After striking out in Chippewa Falls and Rice Lake, Tia was frustrated, staring down the barrel of a fruitless six-hundred-mile road trip. Oh for two, she thought. Not wanting to feel like the day was a complete bust, she decided on one more stop. They headed east on the 29, hitting a diner in Wausau for lunch. From there, they drove north to the town of Irma and pulled up to the locked chain-link fence, topped with looping razor wire that surrounded the Lincoln Hills School for Boys. After signing in and locking up their guns at the guard shack, they waited for an escort to take them to the main administration building.

  According to Carla, Lincoln Hills was where Henry had met Kimo. She’d laid out her thoughts to Rich during the drive. “We should be able to get full ID on this Kimo kid, plus some backgroun
d on both him and Henry. Maybe figure out how they would’ve hooked up on the outside.”

  Ten minutes of standing at the guard shack went by before a gray-haired man that looked more grandfather than jail guard sauntered across a large open field. Dressed in a rumpled dark green uniform he identified himself only as Jake and apologized for the long wait. “Staffing sucks” was the limit of his explanation. Tia noticed, typical of custodial guards, Jake’s black belt was equipped only with Mace, handcuffs, and a baton. No guns were ever allowed in lockup facilities, including a juvenile facility like Lincoln Hills.

  Seeing Tia’s questioning look as they headed across the empty, eerily quiet yard, Jake explained that all the juvenile inmates were currently completing their compulsory education requirements. Tia had visited most of the adult prisons in the state, and this facility felt no different. Lincoln Hills School housed juvenile male offenders from throughout Wisconsin. At any given time, about two hundred teenage boys called the facility home. Some stayed months, some were there for years. The most serious offenders would leave the facility at eighteen—only to be transferred to an adult prison, where they’d finish their sentences.

  Previous dealings with the staff of Lincoln Hills School had taught Tia that the only way to get good information was to visit the facility in person. Recent state and federal investigations had uncovered acts of misconduct ranging from inmate abuse to unauthorized release of information. There had been a round of firings at all levels of the organization and procedures had been tightened. Now, trying to get even the most basic information long distance involved formal letters of request on department letterhead and other such nonsense. Showing up with a badge still worked, and was how Tia preferred to do business anyway.

  Tia and Rich were escorted to the counseling offices, where they sat for another twenty minutes in the reception area watching shackled teens being escorted in and out of the various cubicles. Eventually a tall, slender black woman emerged from behind the counter, dressed in khaki pants and a dark green polo shirt with a Wisconsin Department of Corrections embroidered logo. A star-shaped badge was clipped to a black basket-weave belt.