Hunting the VA Slayer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “I hate to ask—what’s that got to do with me?”

  “I noticed you are still remodeling your mother’s old house… and even with Ana Maria and that old Indian staying with you I’m betting you have an extra room—.”

  “Not on your life—.”

  “It would only be temporary,” Oblanski argued, “until she could find another crib. Doc Henry wouldn’t dare cross your threshold with Gorilla Legs there.”

  “Ned,” Arn said as slowly and sternly as he could, “I would rather French-kiss a rattlesnake than have Gorilla legs living under my roof.”

  14

  ANA MARIA HUDDLED OVER HER plate of tuna casserole. She had eaten little tonight. She had eaten little since learning Doc Henry was in Cheyenne. Even though she tried to present bravado, that it didn’t bother her, Arn knew better. He desperately needed for her to get her mind off her tormentor as much as he needed Ana Maria’s help if he were ever to connect the dots between Frank and Steve. “Every man who died under these… unusual circumstances were officers?”

  She nodded and stabbed a piece of tuna with her fork. “Every man. The only thing I could find linking them all was that they were all Vietnam War vets.” She held up her hand. “And before you ask, if my research is correct, none of the eight ever served together. It is like their murders are all random. If they were murdered.”

  “The ninth victim was murdered.”

  Ana Maria’s head snapped up. “There’s no ninth name on my list.”

  “It wouldn’t be,” Arn said, shaking a bit more salt on his food even as Danny scowled at Arn ruining his dish. “He was killed a year before the other killings began. So, I suppose you could figure him the first.”

  Ana Maria sat up straight in her chair. “How come I never heard of that one?’

  “Because I just learned about the victim—a Captain Sims—from Oblanski today.” Arn explained that the chief had called him later in the day when Arn was knee-deep in slapping paint on a spare bedroom wall. “Investigators found no motive for Sims’ murder,” the chief said. “No reason he was targeted. He had no known enemies and no threats were found in his mail or his computer.”

  Ana Maria stuffed casserole in her mouth and said between bites, “then we better catch this bastard sooner than later. This might be enough to convince DeAngelo to let me do a special on their deaths.”

  DeAngelo had reluctantly agreed to Ana Maria’s special coverage, dovetailing it into her RSL broadcasts. But when he first heard that Doc Henry was in Cheyenne, he cancelled Ana Maria’s reporting on the VA deaths and suspended her coverage of the RSL. He didn’t think Doc was connected in any way to her reporting on the veterans. He just didn’t want her out there exposed as if taunting Doc with every nightly broadcast. And when she had been relegated to doing pieces on Cheyenne’s Botanic Gardens or entertainment at the Depot on Fridays, it had driven her deeper into a depression. Even though Arn knew her nightly coverage of the murders might flush the killer to the surface as it had several other times, he feared for her just as DeAngelo did. “I gave DeAngelo an ultimatum—let me go ahead with the specials or I walk.”

  “You sure going live with these deaths is a wise idea?” Danny asked. “DeAngelo might be right—it might be too much of the wrong kind of exposure—.”

  “Don’t even talk to me about DeAngelo. I told him I could handle whatever came along. And to hell with Doc Henry!”

  Deep down, Arn knew that—if he could keep Ana Maria safe as she did nightly broadcast covering the suspicious deaths—it might draw out the killer.

  —

  Arn finished his shower and slipped on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. He grabbed his book and settled into his chair in the sewing room. He turned the light just right and opened his copy of Les Misérables. Reading only an hour every night had taken him a month to get as far as he did. And the end was nowhere in sight.

  He donned his reading glasses, while the sound of Danny’s snoring coming from his bedroom two rooms over made Arn smile. He had taken the old man in when he was homeless, when Arn found him squatting in this house after Arn moved back to Cheyenne from Denver. Arn thought he’d let Danny hang around for a few nights until the old man offered to trade room and board for remodeling Arn’s boyhood home. And now it was, more than two years later and still Danny was here. Between the old Indian knowing more about construction than anyone Arn knew to the man’s skills as a cook to his insight and being a sounding board often, Arn would have it no other way.

  Arn turned to a new chapter and adjusted the reading lamp over his left shoulder when his cell phone rang. He ignored it at the first ring, until that cop-intuition told him he ought not ignore it any longer and flipped it open. “Do you know what time it is?” Arn asked when Chief Oblanski came on-line.

  “It’s time to get some sleep, but I thought I’d let you know—I called the state lab today and asked them to put a rush on Frank Mosby’s tox report. So happens, the lab completed it this afternoon and was just waiting for morning to send it over to the coroner’s office.”

  “I take it you wouldn’t have called unless something odd showed up?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Sorry about what? “

  “Sorry about your friend Frank—he died of cocaine overdose.”

  Arn thought he heard wrong, but when Oblanski repeated it asked, “you mean he died shooting up in the restroom?”

  “Apparently,” Oblanski said.

  —

  As long as Arn had known Helen Mosby she had gotten up with the chickens, as she put it. No matter how early he stopped by her house through the years, she was always awake. This morning was no exception. When Arn pulled into the circular drive, Helen was just emerging from the house with a gardener’s pail in one hand and what was left of a bagel in the other. She set the pail down and polished off the bagel while she walked to Arn’s car.

  “Can we talk, Helen?”

  She craned her neck up at him, and her smile faded as if she knew more bad news was coming her way. Arn declined coffee, and she motioned to the wino bench beneath the pine tree. He had thought about how to ask her on the way over, and none of his approaches seemed right. He’d finally settled on the direct approach and asked, “Helen, Frank didn’t die from heart complications. He died from a cocaine overdose.”

  She stared unblinkingly at Arn for long moments when she said, “That is impossible. Frank never used drugs. Ever. Even when he was in Vietnam, he said he turned down more dope than most people could buy and never touched any of it. How can you say—.”

  “The state lab finally got the tox report back and they found a lethal dose in his blood.”

  She stood and walked to where a low-hanging bough brushed against a bird feeder. “The robins and finches were early this year,” her voice breaking up. “I suspect they’ll be gone early as well…” She faced Arn. “I knew my Frank as well as any person can know another. And I am here to tell you, he did not use drugs.”

  “Ever?”

  “Ever.”

  “How about that gall bladder operation he had last year?” Arn asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Wasn’t he prescribed oxycodone for his pain?”

  “They sent him home with some pills, and I had to get it refilled once, but what’s that got to do with him overdosing on cocaine?”

  “Perhaps he got… used to taking the drug. Perhaps he built up a tolerance and needed something stronger.”

  “Like perhaps he bought cocaine on the street like a common druggie? Frank wouldn’t even know where—or who—to buy it from. No. If Frank died from an overdose of cocaine, it is because someone injected him. I knew my Frank.”

  —

  Ned Oblanski had a city commissioner meeting to go to so he only had a moment to talk over the phone. But that was all Arn needed. “I talked with Helen
and she assured me Frank Mosby was no coke head.”

  “Family is usually the last to know most of the time, you know that.”

  “I do. What I don’t know, though, is how the ME could have missed an injection site. That should have stood out like a sore toe.”

  “You read the coroner’s report—the only injection site Frank had was where he got a blood draw that morning at the VA. That was it.”

  “Then clarify something for me,” Arn said. “When I talked with you last night, you said the dosage in Frank’s bloodstream was twice the LD50—twice the lethal dose.”

  “That’s what the lab came back with.”

  “Then if that were the case, Frank should have been found in the restroom—.”

  “He was—.”

  “With a needle stuck in his arm. Or his leg. If he had twice the lethal dose, isn’t it safe to believe that the needle would still be stuck into a vein? Isn’t it safe to assume he wouldn’t have been able to get rid of the needle, even if he wanted to?”

  “I hate to admit it,” Oblanski said, “but you might just have a point there.”

  “You admit we just might have some psycho targeting veterans running loose out here?”

  “Could be.”

  “Then I’m going to have to talk with a psychiatrist—.”

  “Arn,” Oblanski said, “don’t get yourself so worked up you need to seek counseling.”

  “Not looking for counseling for me,” Arn said. “I’m going to find out who among the dead vets ever sought help through the VA. I’m going to see a government shrink.”

  15

  ARN WAITED OUTSIDE PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES Office as veterans walked by, some smirking, others pointing fingers and whispering to their friend or wife walking beside them. Yet others walked by and gave Arn a sad, knowing look, as if to say it’s all right for a warrior to seek help. Arn almost felt he was a patient seeking help when the door opened, and the receptionist motioned him inside. “Dr. Ames will see you now.”

  Arn slung his briefcase over his shoulder and followed the lady. He had expected a fainting couch where patients could lie down and tell their troubles to a man trained in classical psychology. Instead, the cramped room sported only a dented gun-metal gray desk and two chairs for office furniture. He took off his hat, but there were no hat racks nor coat racks to hang it, so he held it while he waited for the man behind the desk to acknowledge him.

  As he waited, Arn thought back to the many times in his police career where he had been ordered to see a psychiatrist. Every time he had been forced to kill a suspect in the line of duty, every call to an especially gruesome homicide, every action that alerted a supervisor that Arn needed to visit a shrink he did. He had, through the many visits, grown to understand the subtle verbiage of the psychiatrist. And fool them into allowing Arn to return to duty.

  The receptionist closed the door, and Arn looked around the tiny room. A framed photograph of the doctor sitting on a palomino was captioned the Fourth of July Parade, Casper. Beside it, a photo of Doctor Ames crossing the line at the Boston Marathon. Arn looked closer—the date etched on one corner showed just last year.

  Doctor Ames, a fit man, younger by twenty years than Arn and nearly as tall, but smaller—compact came to mind—looked up and smiled. He walked around his desk toward Arn. With close cropped sandy hair and clean shaven, he reminded Arn of an Army recruiting poster. He thrust out his hand, the handshake matching Arn’s first impression—firm, yet not crushing. “I am sorry to keep you waiting, but I had a patient session. Sit, please.”

  Arn sat on a straight-backed chair with an off-color cushion and rested his briefcase on his lap. “Dr. Ames— .”

  “Just Ethan,” he said. “I have gotten used to my patients called me by my first name. It puts them at ease when we visit. Besides I’m no shrink. I’m no psychiatrist, I’m the VA’s psychologist in these parts. At least the one that treats veterans on a daily basis.” He sipped from a coffee cup shaped like the U. S. S. Enterprise, and Arn imagined Captain Kirk looking out a window on the observation deck. “My secretary had no idea why you wanted to see me.” He laughed easily and set his mug down before it spilled coffee. “Mysterious is what it is. But then, I love a good mystery.”

  Arn opened his briefcase and took out his notebook and a copy of Ana Maria’s spreadsheet listing the deaths of the veterans who had died under similar, suspicious circumstances.

  Ethan looked over the spreadsheet. “You say all these deaths were officers?”

  Arn nodded. “And all served in Vietnam.”

  “What is it you want what from me, Mr. Anderson?”

  “I thought because you work with veterans exclusively you might have some insight as to who I should be looking for.”

  “You want my analysis… like Dr. Phil?”

  “Something like that.”

  Ethan looked over the spreadsheet once again, running his hand down the list as if becoming familiar with each victim. “You are absolutely certain these men didn’t die naturally?”

  “Not one-hundred percent, but I’m going to ask law enforcement in the jurisdictions where they died to examine the bodies.”

  “But some are two years old. Exhumation,” he shuddered, and his hands began trembling thinking about it. “Gruesome. So, you’re not sure?”

  Arn shook his head. “Some of the men’s deaths were ruled heart failure. Others the big MI. But right now, I’m just clutching at straws, which is why I’d hoped you could give me some insight into who might have wanted to kill these men.”

  Ethan walked back around his desk and dropped into his captain’s chair missing one arm. He rested his elbows on the table and tented his fingers while he closed his eyes. “The man you’re looking for—if in fact these veterans were murdered—would be what you’d call a control freak.” Ethan opened his eyes and breathed out a long sigh. “If he managed to evade detection in all eight deaths, he would be a very meticulous man. One not prone to doing anything rash, unless some compelling reason caused him to throw caution to the wind. And,” Ethan held up his finger, “he would be the smartest person in the room. Able to fool the inept authorities.” He sat back in his chair. “At least in his opinion. But as long as I’ve interacted with former service members, there is still so much that puzzles me with their mindset.”

  “Were you ever in the military?”

  “Negative.” He leaned. “As far as targeting strictly officers and only those who served in Vietnam, it shows an intense hatred for both groups. That he hasn’t killed any enlisted man is… fascinating. Have you connected anything between all the victims—work interaction? Perhaps they served in the same units in Vietnam.”

  “I have found no common denominator among them,” Arn said. “Do you read anything into the fact that the murders were committed in two states, and with no particular pattern?”

  “That’s a little out of my wheelhouse. That would be for the police to determine,” Ethan said. “Don’t they have some software that can analyze dates and times, find the common theme?”

  “I don’t think such software exists. I think this case will be solved by LPCs.”

  “LPCs?”

  “Leather Personnel Carriers,” Arn said. “Wearing out good old shoe leather talking with just the right person who might have seen or remembered something.”

  “Understood,” Ethan said. “Getting back to your question as to why men might be killed at different facilities, I would wager that it could be someone like me—any given week I see patients in a dozen facilities and two different states.” He chuckled. “But as compelling a case as you laid out, Mr. Anderson, I doubt there is any malevolent killer stalking the halls of the VA centers waiting to pounce on unsuspecting vets.”

  “Let me ask you this, then,” Arn said, “since you see so many veterans… have you ever treated anyone that hates officers
and Vietnam vets so intently?”

  Ethan looked away.

  “You have, haven’t you?”

  Ethan scooted his chair back. He brought the Enterprise to his lips and sipped. “If I did, I could not tell you. Even the government requires strict patient confidentiality.”

  “Can you at least tell me if you’re currently treating anyone who might fit the profile?”

  Ethan frowned. “I am currently treating several men with violent histories, but none that fits that profile. The ones I am seeing hates everyone, not just officers.”

  “Even though you cannot tell me directly,” Arn asked, “you could… steer me in the right direction should you treat such a man?”

  Ethan nodded. “I might be able to do that.”

  Arn stuffed the spreadsheet and notebook into his briefcase and stood. “One other thing—do you treat substance abusers?”

  “If they become psychotic, I do.”

  “Meth heads?”

  Ethan nodded.

  “Even coke heads?”

  “I’ve treated a few since I entered the VA system four years ago. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I suspect when we exhume the bodies of the victims, we might just find high levels of cocaine in each and every one of them.”

  16

  CHIEF OBLANSKI AGREED TO MEET Arn at Starbucks down from the Public Safety building. “I can’t take much more of that woman.”

  “Your wife?”

  “Gorilla Legs,” Oblanski said. “With the deadline approaching for me to submit my budget, she insists on proofreading everything.”

  “How about Mary? I would have thought your new secretary would have straightened Gorilla Legs out.”

  Oblanski shook his head. “I don’t think you could straighten her out with a whip and a chair.”

  “Maybe she needs to proof it.”

  “Hell, I’m not even done with it. I keep getting out of the office for other things. Like your cock-a-mamie request.”