We relaxed by the pool and dined at the Marriott. At seven twenty-five in the evening, Anna’s phone rang. After she had said hello, I heard her say, “Just a moment,” and handed me the phone.
Maximillian wasn’t the kind of guy that tried to micro-manage Palatini assets, but he did like to keep up with the latest news. After briefly backfilling him on the project status, he asked about Kuhl’s status. “We’ve had negative contact.”
Max knew the drill. We never said more than was necessary over open airwaves.
“We’re tying up a few loose ends.”
“Good show, anything I can do for you?”
“Negative. We’re inbound tomorrow to put a wrap on the project.”
“Good luck. Keep in touch.”
I turned toward Anna, “I want to leave bright and early. We can catch breakfast on the road.”
We turned in early. I waited for Anna while she went through her nightly routine. I flipped on the television and that was the last thing I remembered doing. I woke up in the middle of the night covered in a cold, clammy sweat. Detective Sergeant Brandon A. Ware had fingered me, and I was on the lam. The faster I ran, the closer he came to putting his mitts on me. I’d escaped by waking.
Ware didn’t scare me, at least not when I was awake. I could outfox him because he was in my world and a player in my game. Nobody beats me at cat and mouse because I’m not a mouse at all. I’m a chameleon. Ware had been a good cop and I could count on him being a good PI. If he continued to hound me, I’d have to give him the slip.
We pulled out of the Marriott parking lot at ten minutes till five. I was driving. We caught the city loop that brought us up on Highway 75. We took it northbound.
“We should be there at noon,” Anna said.
“Let’s make it one o’clock.” I took the exit north of Plano and said, “Let’s grab a bite.”
The pancake house was fast with the service, and we were back on the road in less than an hour. I set the cruise control and let her roll. We made a pit stop at Muskogee, Oklahoma, refueled and tanked up on coffee. From there to Dixon Holler would be a maze of state highways and roads. We skirted the south side of Cassville and made a beeline for Thompson’s corner followed by Bates corner. When we came up on State Road M, we hooked a right and proceeded to Dixon’s turnoff.
In a bold move, Anna planned to drive straight to the Dixon residence and present herself as a State of Missouri crisis counselor for child and spousal abuse. Minnie didn’t have the character or nerve to ask Anna for credentials. It was a calculated risk, but players like Anna knew how to be tough with her accusations. She intended to engage Minnie in a dialog concerning the incriminating photos of Duke. In my estimation, Minnie was the most likely candidate to be the whistleblower. Once she’d handled the photos we would drop them in the mail to Landers. When he opened them, the police would pick up her prints, and tag her with having made the call whether she admitted to it or not.
At the base of the road leading into Dixon Holler, I climbed into the back seat of the Taurus and laid flat. Once Anna was inside, she would engage Minnie and capture her focus. I would give it a few minutes then quietly sneak from the car to the back door located on the south side of the house.
“If she refuses to allow me inside, how do you want to handle the situation?”
“Keep her busy at the front door.”
Anna was capable of doing it the rough-and-tumble way. She was physically more capable than Minnie in every aspect and possessed a tactical mindset. Not to mention she had a razor-sharp speed assisted Kershaw blade, compliments of none other than Duke Dixon.
Duke’s pickup was parked next to Minnie’s car on the south side of the house. Anna pulled the Taurus past the main entrance that faced to the east and parked directly behind the two vehicles. Anna spoke aloud, “Two target vehicles—no others in sight.”
“Gotcha.”
The gun range by Dixon’s place wasn’t a busy place, but we didn’t want to drop in when she had company. It was early afternoon and the heat had become unbearable. Anna opened all four windows, stepped from the car and walked directly to Minnie’s front door. I couldn’t hear any conversation, but I’d heard Anna knocking. I took a quick glimpse through the back window in time to see Anna entering the house. I opened the back door nearest the target vehicles and slithered out not wanting to attract attention, I closed the door with barely a sound.
There hadn’t been any noise coming from the range, and there were no extra rigs parked within eyeshot. I quickly made my way to the compound, entered and was satisfied no one was there. We hadn’t scheduled a time frame but the sooner we tied up this end, the better.
The back door was open, as I suspected it would be. I turned the handle slowly and inched the door forward. As stealthily as a cat, I stepped over the threshold and into the utility room. I could hear a conversation and identified the two voices as Anna’s and Minnie’s. Anna was loud and demonstrative. It was a convincing act. I crept slowly through the kitchen until I stood in the doorway of the living room. Anna was seated in a lounge chair faced toward me. We made eye contact briefly. Minnie sat in the chair across from Anna and had her back to me. I called her name loud enough to command her attention. She startled and gasped for air. I moved to a position where I could get a good look at her. But it wasn’t the Minnie I knew.
I’d described Minnie’s appearance to Anna before they’d met. She must’ve been surprised when Minnie answered the door. With Duke out of the picture, she’d changed. Her hair was colored an Auburn shade and cut short to around jaw level and aligned close to her face. She had a hint of makeup and looked as if she’d spent time outside catching sun rays. She’d exchanged the Quaker style dress for the casual look of summer with a pair of hip hugger jeans and T-shirt. With a complete makeover, Minnie was a new person with a new lease on life. Judging from her appearance, she wasn’t expecting Duke back anytime soon. Remembering Kuhl’s comment about the Minnie that had opened the door to him and invited him back for dinner wasn’t the Minnie I’d described.
“You’re the one that tipped off Landers, aren’t you?” I asked.
Minnie looked at me curiously, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t have to play dumb with me. I know you’re the one who called.”
With Duke no longer around she didn’t bow her head or kowtow. She was a different Minnie in more ways than one. She was able to look me in the eye and lie.
“Why are you here?” She demanded. “Why are you here with this government lady?”
Anna slipped on her gloves and collected the pictures she’d let Minnie handle. I pulled up the ottoman and took a seat near Minnie. What I had to tell her would be devastating but she had to know. Otherwise, she would never be free of Duke’s bondage. While I waited for Anna to finish her task, Minnie became testy. “You’re supposed to be a newspaper reporter, and Joyce said you’d vanished into thin air.”
I kept cold, hard, eye contact. “It’s not about me it’s about you. All I want is the truth. Why did you contact Landers?”
Minnie started to rise from the chair. “Sit back down!” I had no intention of allowing her near the room where Duke stashed his weapons.
“Landers did what I wanted him to do.” Minnie sat back deep in the chair, crossed her ankles, and clasped her hands behind her head showing off the new Minnie. But there wasn’t much to the show. As she stared at me, I couldn’t help wondering if this was the new Minnie or the old Minnie—or maybe the real Minnie.
“What was that?”
“I needed him to scare someone, and he did.”
“Scared Duke too because he went with them.”
“I didn’t expect that, but you obviously know everything.”
“Why didn’t you call before the girl died?”
“She didn’t mean anything to me.” An eerie chill cascaded through the room.
Chapter 19
“I am the punishment of God...If
you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”
—Genghis Khan
Anna stood with the photos in the manila envelope tucked under her arm and walked to the front door. There she turned and said, “I’ll be in the car.”
I nodded.
Minnie spoke up, “Duke will be coming through the door at any moment.”
“Yeah—I doubt it—and so do you.”
“Why is that?”
“Your hair, makeup, and clothes tell a different story. You don’t expect to see Duke any more than I do.”
Minnie smiled. I read her response as an acknowledgment that I was right. However, Minnie didn’t have a clue he was dead.
“You said you didn’t care about the girl, but you did care. You cared what Duke and the other guys were doing with her?”
“Not the others, I didn’t care what they did with her. They were sick, nasty animals.”
“But you cared what Duke did, and he was doing it too.”
Minnie’s face flushed red. She leaned forward placing her face into her hands and cried. When she’d wept for a few moments, she looked through her fingers at me. Something phony was in the air. Slow to regain her composure, she hid her face partially behind her hands. She kept her face covered as she spoke. “She stole all Duke’s love and affection from me. She went up to our room and in our bed. I couldn’t stomach it any longer. She was getting what was rightfully mine.”
“You mean Duke took her to your room against her will and repeatedly raped her?”
Minnie dropped her hands from in front of her eyes. “But that’s how Duke shows his love.”
“How dense can you get? It wasn’t love or affection; it was a crime.”
If Minnie believed what she was saying, she was severely messed up in the head. She was blind to the truth and couldn’t see reality. I don’t know when it happened to her, maybe when Duke took her on the beach that day. In her mind she justified it as love and had held onto it ever since.
With a piercing gaze through teary-eyed mascaraed eyelashes she said, “Duke wanted to keep her.” Her cold stare continued, “I wouldn’t let that little tramp come between Duke and me.” I nodded as the picture she painted became apparent. “He said I would learn to live with it.”
“You got a raw deal for sure. But I want you to know that problem is over now.”
She continued her icy stare, “No it is not.” Minnie closed her eyes, but instead of a sigh of relief she shook her head. “Duke bought me new clothesline cord. It was mine. He gave it to me.” I nodded, but I had no idea where she was going with this. It sounded like pure craziness.
“But for her, he cut my clothesline in pieces and tied her up to play games.”
I listened intently.
“When my husband and that whore were done, he wanted to shower and told me to watch her so she didn’t wiggle out of the cord. She wiggled, but she never got out.”
“You watched her struggle to get away?”
Minnie smiled, “I took a piece of my clothesline, put it around her neck and squeezed it until she didn’t wiggle any longer.” Minnie barely blinked an eye as her icy stare intensified, as if she was reliving the event.
“I’m not buying it, Minnie. I know Duke killed her and you’re protecting him. You don’t have the strength to squeeze the life out of anyone.”
“You’re wrong. I put a piece of strapping tape across her mouth and wrapped it around her head so it didn’t come off. While Duke showered, I took the toilet plunger handle and tied a piece of cord around her neck then slipped the plunger into the loop and twisted the cord tighter and tighter. When that hussy stopped trying to get away, I twisted it tighter. When Duke finished showering and saw what had happened, he was angry with me.”
Her bizarre coldness and attention to details were convincing.
“Duke showed how much he loved me. He didn’t want me to get in trouble, so he took that thing and dumped it.”
A chill rippled through my body as I realized Minnie’s wiring had become so screwed up she wasn’t capable of making a right judgment.
“Tell me again how you supposedly killed the girl so I can believe you.” I picked up a six-foot extension cord that connected a floor lamp to a wall socket. Minnie passively sat smiling and looking out the window while I disconnected the cord from the lamp and then from the wall receptacle. With no apparent reaction from her I stepped into the kitchen and took the paper towel roll off the holder that hung on the wall and brought the roller back to Minnie.
“You took the cord and placed it around her neck.” I demonstrated on Minnie with the electric cord.” She assisted with the placement of the cord on her neck. “Is that the way it went?”
“Yes like that.”
“All you did was place something inside the cord and twist?” Again, I went through the motions with the inch-thick paper towel roller inside the loop I’d made around Minnie’s neck. I twisted the cord twice and it became snug on Minnie’s neck.
“Yes, that’s it.” I tightened it only slightly more than snug. Minnie reached for the cord gasping, “Too tight.”
I squeezed to test her theory. I twisted the roll tighter and tighter. Minnie dug at the cord with her fingernails, but she had been too late the minute I’d started. She sprawled on the chair, jerked and kicked until only muscle spasms were left. Minnie had been right. A physically weak person like her was capable of killing someone in the way she’d described.
The house had to burn. I hadn’t intended to kill Minnie, only to let her know she was free of Duke. In one way, I’d freed her from his bondage forever. I saw no other option. Nonetheless, the house was loaded with forensic evidence. It had to be sanitized.
The compound could stand. I had gloves on, and there might be something of value for law enforcement tucked away in a drawer that would further connect Duke to criminal events in the community. I slipped my gloves back on and went to work.
As all good survivalists, Duke had fuel in reserve. I took a five-gallon Jerry can of gasoline from off his pickup and brought it into the house. I picked up the body and placed it back in the chair where she’d been sitting. I reattached the electrical cord and put the paper towel dispenser back in the original condition. Some might ask why the extra steps. I’ve always believed in putting the scene back together in the way it was prior to the killings.
I walked out to Anna, who sat in the Taurus with the air conditioning running. “She was the killer.”
Anna nodded. “She was a victim as much as Dawn.”
“Yeah, well now she’s dead. I’m going to torch the house. It’s dry, and the fire will spread fast likely destroying any evidence in the place and mask, at least for a little while, how Minnie died. The rural fire department will respond and any vehicle tracks we leave will be covered.”
I went back inside and thoroughly doused the house with fuel and lit the accelerant. With Anna at the wheel, we made our way out of the Holler. The blaze wasn’t noticeable as we drove away but at the bottom of the Holler we could see smoke rising.
We set course along the same route we’d taken from Dallas. Anna dropped Landers package at the Cassville Post Office then we continued along our route. Anna had a great idea to stop at a Texas-style roadhouse where the smell of charcoaled meat permeated the air. Searing meat drove my taste buds insane.
We traveled as far as Fayetteville, Arkansas before I’d given into hunger pangs. I topped off the tank at a gas station on the edge of town while Anna sought information on our quest from two of the attendants. When she returned, she had a hand drawn map to a local restaurant that they highly recommended.
It didn’t take us long to find the joint. I was skeptical; I didn’t see a line of people as promised. Our waiter assured us we’d come to the right place and fortunately for us, we’d missed the dinner rush hour.
After downing a tasty slab of beef, I climbed in behind the wheel to take on some of the driving. Anna acted like it
was a surprise when I moved the car to the edge of the parking lot and dropped the windows an inch to let the cool evening air pass through the cabin. After a hard day’s work, a good steak and some well-deserved shut-eye was in order.
“I can drive if you want to sleep, Walter. We should drive on to the hotel.”
“I don’t see why, it’ll still be there tomorrow. Close your eyes and get some rest.”
Anna hunkered down in the passenger seat and was sound asleep before I found a comfortable spot to rest my head. The two-hour powernap passed quickly. I felt fresh and ready to tackle the drive. Anna remained asleep.
At eight fifteen in the morning, I pulled the Taurus into the Marriott parking lot; the hotel hustle and bustle was in full swing. We strolled through the midst of the people, none being the wiser to our affairs. We rode the elevator to the eighth floor and squeezed out between people with their luggage crowding on board for the return trip. Once inside our room Anna launched into her bedtime routine. I didn’t make it any farther than the couch. I turned on the television and headline news was the last thing I remembered. I woke up five hours later. Anna was still in bed.
We were starting our day late but in reality, our day had never ended. Projects frequently ran one day into the next, until time became an indistinguishable blur. After showering and putting on clean clothes, I suggested it was time to contact Max. Anna placed the call. We had the good fortune to have Max answer; it didn’t always work out that way.
Max and Anna jawed casually before the conversation turned to the business at hand. Anna sat the phone on the coffee table and turned on the speaker function.
“We’re packing it in,” I said. “All ends are tied off.”
“Superb. Have you received any word from Kuhl?”
“Not to date.”
“I would like to get his input.”
“If we hear from him, we will relay your message,” Anna said.
“Wonderful then, stay in touch soon.”
Blood Appeal Page 29
