Hunting the VA Slayer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “When you fall, I don’t want your hurting yourself.”

  Arn laughed. “Whatever.”

  Winger shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll slap here,” Winger said and tapped the muscle between Arn’s neck and shoulder. “Ready?”

  Arn nodded.

  “Say goodnight,” Winger said and Arn caught a brief movement, a palm slicing the air, a heartbeat before he felt himself lose consciousness.

  —

  When Arn came around and his head began to clear, he realized he was seated on the mat. One of the VA officers held him from toppling over while Winger Hays bent over him from the back, massaging Arn’s neck and shoulders. As Arn’s vision slowly returned to normal, two Winger Hayses emerged into the one instructor. “As you can see, it doesn’t take a big man to perform the technique.”

  Arn struggled to stand as Winger eased him back onto the mat. But within moments, he felt the pain subside, his vision clearing. “Is it normal for the effects to last this long?”

  “Long? You’ve been down and groggy for just a few moments. Thirty seconds tops.” Winger and the other officer steadying him grunted as they helped Arn up and into a chair. “Most effects last less than a minute. We like it because it lasts just long enough to slap a set of handcuffs on someone before they recover.”

  “You’ve never had any serious injuries in your classes?”

  “Never.”

  “How many classes have you taught?”

  Winger pulled up a chair and sat with his arm draped over the back as he looked to the ceiling for an answer. “Hundreds in the last three years since I was hired. I teach in all the VA Centers in South Dakota and Wyoming. Sioux Falls to the VA here in Cheyenne.” He laughed. “A real traveling drummer like they had in the old days, except this drummer’s a GS-10 with overtime up the wazoo and per diem that pays for keeping my horses in shape and fit when I get the time to ride them.”

  Arn felt the pain subside, but an ache in his neck still persisted. “Who do you teach this to?”

  “I teach anyone in the VA system who has to deal with unruly vets—ER personnel for example. Or anyone that has to deal with potentially violent veterans. We are—after all—dealing with men who have killed for a living in whatever war they served.” He stood and motioned for the class to form up against one wall.

  “If I have any more questions, where can I reach you?”

  “I’ll be up in Rapid City tomorrow, and from there I can’t say—check with my secretary,” Winger said. “And if you want to do some more research into the stun, feel free to come back,” he smiled. “I’d be happy to show you again.”

  12

  WHAT BETTER WAY TO FIND those needing reeducation than at a VA center? Here at Hot Springs facility, the government nearly closed it, but enough folks put up a fuss they had to keep it open. There were just too many people wanting the facility to remain just like it is. Including me. This is the only medical center for veterans in the southern Black Hills, and I truly enjoy the ride through scenic forests and wandering roads. I love seeing the occasional Big Horn ram scaling a granite wall, and now and again I have to slow to allow buffalo to wander across the road in Custer Park. It’s almost as if I was on a mini-vacation when I visit here. Almost.

  A light breeze off the creek begins to chill me and I stand, strolling under the porch that runs the full length of the front of the facility. I nod to a nurse bending over an old man in a wheelchair as she tucks his blanket under his legs, and I greet a stooped-over old man with a WWII insignia on his crumpled ball cap.

  I enter the building and make my way to the waiting room, no one paying me any attention, no one giving me even a second glance.

  A middle-aged man bumps against a Navy man, teetering him, nearly knocking him down, not apologizing. Not acknowledging the old man’s Korean War service if his cap is any indication. He turns and gives the old vet a sideways glance and nothing more.

  An officer!

  I can spot them even across a crowded room like this, their arrogance seeping through their very pores—too good for common folks. Too good for the enlisted men and women who helped them during their times of service. My jaw muscles clench and unclench, thinking back to what an officer did to my family. Not this officer. Not like Captain Sims whom I met that cold October day in the restroom at the Sheridan VA Center.

  I shudder recalling just how close I came to being caught. I had followed Sims into the head on an impulse and confronted him there. Why no one heard the commotion, why no one came into the restroom as I was choking Sims out I can only attribute to my incredible luck.

  God was watching over me.

  God knew I had to right a terrible wrong.

  I drove back home that morning, checking the rearview mirror, expecting a cop to stop me. But none did. And when I arrived home, I sat alone in the dark room recalling the feeling, the ecstasy that pulsed through me as Sim’s tongue—thick and blue and swollen—lolled out of the side of his mouth a moment before he died.

  Since then, I have been more measured in my hunting techniques. Since then I have patiently waited—as I wait now—to make sure no one follows me into the restroom after the man who nearly knocked a hero down in passing.

  An officer.

  I fight to control my anger recalling that first week after returning to the states. The Army had assigned me to an artillery unit… an artillery unit, for God’s sakes! I was a Ranger. I didn’t want to leave that MOS. I enjoyed it too much. “A change of MOS to field artillery will be a way to transition from your Ranger life,” the executive officer had told me. “It will be easier for you to get your college degree if you’re not away on missions for weeks at a time.” The XO had been right in one regard—artillery allowed me to be available nights to attend college classes.

  I pause at the door to the restroom and glance nonchalantly around, checking one last time before entering. I won’t be long inside. My job will take less than a minute.

  I am not what happened to me, Carl Jung once said. I am what I choose to become. He was right—I choose to become what I am.

  And I will choose to send that officer to the big induction center in the sky.

  13

  ARN DID HIS HUNTER’S BEST to sneak past Gorilla Legs, but the woman had some kind of superhuman hearing. Or animalistic hearing. “Where the hell you going, Anderson?” She asked from behind her desk.

  “Where’s the chief’s secretary?”

  “Out to lunch. You got the assistant. Now what—.”

  “I need to talk with Chief Oblanski.”

  “Got an appointment?”

  “I do not. But I figured he’d see me if I just dropped in, since we’re pards and all.”

  Gorilla Legs stood from her desk and walked towards the counter. Arn’s gaze froze, and the secretary followed Arn’s eyes. “It’s casual day, and I chose to wear shorts.”

  Arn held his tongue. The woman never shaved as long as he had known her, with hair escaping under her blouses from hairy armpits, and the hint of a mustache most men would be proud of. “It’s healthier to go au naturelle,” she told Arn last summer. But he had never seen her legs… in such a state of hair growth, and she looked like she was wearing a pair of woolly chaps over those powerful legs. “This is a government agency,” she said, “not an old-boy’s club where you can just drop in and shoot the shit. Now beat it—the chief’s got a lot of work to do before budget time.”

  “That’s all right,” Oblanski called, presumably from his office. “I phoned Anderson. We need to talk about something.”

  She glared at Arn so long he thought she’d next throw a punch over the counter when she hit a button on her desk and buzzed him through the door. “Next time, lover boy.”

  “Loverboy?” Oblanski said when Arn had walked down the hall and into the chief’s office. “You and her aren’t doing t
he wild thing by any chance?”

  “Hardly,” Arn answered and took his hat off. “Just an old… handle, but not sure how she found out about it.” He ran his fingers through his wispy blond hair and set his hat on the chair beside him. He’d talk to Ana Maria later about letting his secret dating handle slip. “I don’t recall you phoning me for a meeting.”

  “I didn’t.” Oblanski propped his foot up on an open desk drawer. “Just couldn’t have stood by while that… creature chewed you up and spit you out.”

  “Then thanks for saving me.”

  Oblanski chuckled and slapped a pile of papers. “I saved myself from doing this budget stuff the longer you’re in here, so it was selfish.” He picked up a pencil and began chewing the eraser end. “These No. 2 pencils have been number two for as long as I can recall.”

  “Your point?”

  “If they’re that popular, why aren’t they number one by now?”

  “That and Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance and we’ll have all the mysteries solved,” Arn said. “Except the mystery of why eight men died at VA centers under suspicious circumstances.”

  Oblanski put his foot onto the floor and rested his elbows on his desk. “What suspicious deaths?”

  Arn handed Oblanski a spreadsheet Ana Maria had made covering the eight deaths. Arn explained that Ana Maria had uncovered six more veterans that had died under similar circumstances as did Steve Urchek and Frank Mosby.

  “So you’re saying that the six vets besides Frank and Steve died of an apparent heart condition is somehow odd?”

  “I am.”

  “Do you not think it natural that older men would have heart problems leading to their deaths?”

  “All died unattended, with no witnesses.”

  “That certainly doesn’t ring any alarm bells for me,” He snapped his fingers. “There was something that came through the mail a couple years ago. A flyer telling about a veteran’s murder…” Oblanski opened each drawer in succession and rummaged through it.

  “I bet if you asked her real sweet-like Gorilla Legs would help you find it.”

  “Bite your tongue,” Oblanski said a moment before he came away with a crumpled piece of paper. He unfolded a pair of glasses and scanned the flyer.

  “Since when did you start wearing readers?”

  “Since my eyes got too damned old. Now you want me to read this for you, ‘cause I know your eyes are bad.”

  “Read away,” Arn said as he dug his notebook out of his back pocket.

  “A Vietnam Army Captain was murdered at the Sheridan VA—.”

  “It says specifically ‘murdered’ and not just unattended?”

  “Murdered,” Oblanski said. “Strangled. Petrie in the eyes and a crushed windpipe point to murder. Must have been a hell of a fight as the flyer says the restroom was busted up.”

  “Can I see that?”

  Oblanski handed Arn the flyer and he dug his own reading glasses from his pocket. He scooted closer to the window where the light shone into the office. The flyer—sent by the Sheridan County Sheriff’s Office and the Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigation three years ago—asked agencies if they had similar deaths as Captain Sims’.

  “Could you make a call to Sheridan and see what else they have.”

  “That,” Oblanski said as he pointed to the flyer, “is nothing like the other deaths you described. Besides,” he tapped Ana Maria’s spreadsheet, “there was a full year between this murder and the unattended ones.”

  Arn thought better with coffee and he said to Oblanski, “I’ll take that cup of coffee now.”

  “I didn’t offer one.”

  “I could stick my head out the door and yell at Gorilla Legs to fetch us a cup— .”

  “I’ll make it,” Oblanski said and walked to his coffee maker. “Why are you so sure this one and the others are connected?” he asked over his back.

  “What do serial killers all have in common?”

  Oblanski laughed. “That easy—they kill.”

  “Besides that, what happens the longer they kill?”

  Oblanski turned and handed Arn a steaming cup. The Chief sat behind his desk and put his cup onto a leather coaster, tenting his fingers as he thought. “They get better. They learn. They improve their chosen killing technique.”

  Arn nodded. “And some even become so proficient they are never caught. Can you say Zodiac Killer?”

  “Ah,” Oblanski said, lightly sipping his coffee. “I see your point. You’re thinking one man has perfected his killing so well he flies under our radar?”

  “I lost a goodly amount of sleep thinking about this,” Arn said. “After that first murder in Sheridan—where it was a homicide to everyone looking at it—the killer learned from that. I had a case once in Denver years ago where a man stabbed his victims to death. There was a lot of blood at his crime scenes, and his victims didn’t die easily or quickly. One clawed the hell out of him before she succumbed to her wounds. His MO suddenly went cold, even though we had several more bodies piling up. Victims killed instantly when a blade was shoved into the base of their skulls. When I finally caught the man three murders later, he admitted he needed to be more… discrete. So, he jumped on the internet and found the quickest method to kill a human with a blade, ergo the wounds to the back of the necks. Don Vito Corleone would have been proud of him.”

  “You’re saying these veterans who you think were murdered were the product of a killer who perfected his technique—after Sheridan?”

  “Perfected and studied and researched until he found the most proficient way to kill and make it look natural.”

  Oblanski looked around for another victim-pencil. He found one at the bottom of his stack of papers and began chewing the end. “And just how did he evolve, because the others weren’t strangled.”

  “But the ones we looked at—Steve and Frank—had bruising no one can explain. I think the killer incapacitated them with a brachial stun—.”

  “Nonsense,” Oblanski said. “We teach that to our officers, and no one’s been incapacitated. Not even any injuries. The technique wouldn’t kill anyone.” He tossed the stub of a pencil in the round file beside his desk. “Drawing your suspicions out, it would have to be someone familiar with the VA system, meaning a vet.”

  “Or an employee.”

  Oblanski nodded. “Sure. It could be. That would give the killer opportunity for certain. But how do you square that victims were killed in multiple VA centers?”

  “A traveling employee,” Arn said. “Here look.” He turned Ana Maria’s spreadsheet so Oblanski and he could both look at it. “I thought at first it was someone on the move—perhaps they lived in the northern Black Hills and—when they moved to the Cheyenne area—started killing again. But these dates are random. They show someone who moves between facilities, and there is no pattern.”

  “Back to the manner of their deaths… though I can’t speak for those deaths we didn’t investigate; the ME has already ruled Frank Mosby’s was natural.”

  Arn waved the air, frustrated that he couldn’t quite get his point across to the police chief. “I read the death certificate—mechanism of death was a cardiac arrhythmia.” Arn leaned across the desk. “But that was before the tox report came in.”

  “Arn,” Oblanski said, “you know how backed up the crime lab is. When a person dies of natural causes, they don’t order a toxicology screen.”

  “But they have to for unattended deaths.”

  “They do, but if it’s a natural death, the samples the ME submits take a back burner to obvious cases of foul play.” Oblanski finished his coffee and pushed the cup aside. “What are you getting at exactly?”

  Arn smoothed what wispy blond hair he had left and put his hat on. “I think these men were all killed with some… substance. Maybe something the lab doesn’t test for.”
r />   “For that, we would have to ask the lab to test for some specific substance.”

  “You would.”

  “All right,” Oblanski said. “What substance?”

  “I don’t know,” Arn said. “But I’m working on it. In the meantime, could you put a rush on Frank’s tox report?”

  Oblanski drooped his head. “You are one pain the rear end, but I’ll do it, just ’cause you spared me an hour of looking at budget crap.”

  Arn started for the door when he stopped and turned back.

  “Now what?” Oblanski asked.

  “Doc Henry.”

  “That murderer who abducted Ana Maria in Denver? What’s he to you now with him being somebody’s girlfriend in prison?”

  “He’s living and working here in Cheyenne.”

  “What! I thought you said he’d been paroled to Colorado?”

  “He was,” Arn explained, “though I couldn’t believe it, either, that they allowed him to move to the same community where his last victim lives.

  “But how—.”

  “You know the drill. Shit head gets a sentence reduction because he’s a model prisoner, then another and before long he’s out. To reoffend again.”

  “We haven’t had any dealings with him.”

  Arn knew that law enforcement was reactive—if a crime occurred, the police responded. Oblanski and his department could do nothing until Doc made a move against Ana Maria. But—by then—it might be too late. “Could you fill your officers in about Doc Henry?”

  “You know I will.”

  “And have a patrol cruise by the house and the television station now and again?”

  Oblanski nodded.

  “Thanks.”

  Arn turned to leave once again when Oblanski stopped him. “I have a small favor to ask you now.”

  “Oh?” Arn said, detecting something in Oblanski’s voice that told Arn no good would come out of his mouth.

  “Yes… Gorilla Legs lost her apartment when the owner sold the building. She has to be out of there by the first of the month.”