Hunting the VA Slayer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “I glanced over it,” Arn said. The only reason he had even read Sims’ military file Wagner gave him was that Arn was convinced Sims was first victim of the VA Slayer, as Ana Maria had labeled him. Or her. Even if the way in which Sims was murdered didn’t fit the MO. Or supposed MO. Without more evidence, all Arn had was that Steve and Frank had overdosed on cocaine.

  “I read it pretty thoroughly,” Ana Maria said. “Apart from the man living a quiet life on his family farm after Vietnam, Robert Sims was one competent criminal investigator over there.”

  “You talking about Robbie Sims?” Danny asked.

  “Ring a bell?”

  “Like Quasimodo,” Danny said. “Captain Robbie Sims was hell on wheels as a criminal investigator in ’Nam. He was CID—Criminal Investigative Division. And he was absolutely relentless. There was so much black marketing of cigarettes and booze, arms and ammunition before he was assigned to Saigon, half the American supplies probably walked north.”

  “But after he was transferred there?”

  Danny ran his finger across his throat. “After he came into Saigon, he put the fear into all of us.”

  Arn nudged Danny. “You mean you dealt in the black market when you were over there?”

  Danny shrugged. “Just a carton of Marlboros now and again to get some drinking money. Sold two bottles of Johnny Walker Black once and went on a week-bender.” He held up his hands. “But ol’ Danny never sold any arms or ammunition. Not so much as even one fragmentation grenade. The piddly stuff I black marketed wasn’t enough to interest a hot shot like Robbie Sims.”

  “Ever meet him?” Ana Maria asked.

  “Never,” Danny said. “But he was written up quite a bit in the Stars and Stripes. Sims even got a general’s commendation once for catching some Spec Sergeant named Bo Randall for stealing LAWs.”

  “What’s— .”

  “Light Anti-Armor weapon,” Danny said. “Portable rockets. Bad-ass little numbers. We used the hell out of them, and Charlie always loved getting his hands on them, too. But when Robbie Sims busted up Randall’s theft ring, I was long rotated back to the world.”

  “I’m still not convinced Captain Sims was our killer’s first victim,” Ana Maria said.

  But Arn was sure, not so much because any evidence pointed to it, but because that old gut feeling that overcame him. He sensed that Sims was the first victim, and that the killer got better at his hunting and killing techniques in the next couple years. The next victims. Which did nothing to explain who had murdered Brian Gibbs.

  Either way, Arn had other things to worry about… like who was killing the veterans. And why Ana Maria was leaving the house alone. “Where are you going?” Arn asked her as she put her shoes on.

  “I do have a nightly broadcast I am responsible for.”

  Arn stood and stretched. “I think I’m getting cabin fever. Mind if I tag along?”

  “Don’t you even start with that,” Ana Maria said. “I know what you’re doing, and I won’t stand for it. I have to function even with Doc Henry in town.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt for Arn to tag along with you,” Danny said.

  Ana Maria shook her finger at Danny. “You either. Get off it. Besides, I have that little gun Arn gave me for protection.” Her tone softened. “Thank both of you for being concerned. But I really do need to do things by my lonesome without having one of you looking over my shoulder.”

  “Understood,” Arn said. “You won’t don’t hesitate to use it if Doc puts the sneak on you?”

  Ana Maria nodded. “Believe me, after the last time, I won’t.”

  Arn waited until Ana Maria had left for her nightly broadcast before he grabbed Sims’ file. “Grab us fresh coffee,” he said to Danny. “We’re going to look at a military record.”

  “And you need someone who can decipher shit from ’Nam?”

  “You a mind reader?”

  —

  As Danny was reading Sims’ service file, Agent Kane from the South Dakota DCI called. “We have another body in the Hot Springs facility. Heart attack. He’s slabbed-up and gone now, but you’re welcome to come on up tomorrow and I’ll let you see what we found out.”

  The old Olds would be getting more miles put on than he wanted, and he asked Danny, “What do you think?” Arn asked when Danny had finished reading Captain Sims’ file.

  Danny sipped his coffee, smelling so good after the green tea he had made for Arn. “I think Bo Randall was a gnarly SOB. He’s lucky someone didn’t frag Sims.” Danny explained how men—usually officers hated by their men—would go to the latrine only to have someone rig or lob a fragmentation grenade in to settle whatever perceived score was outstanding.

  “Lucky he wasn’t knifed in the brig.” Arn said, “By statements made by chasers, Bo Randall had spent time in some brig in Vietnam.”

  “Lucky he wasn’t killed in the riot,” Danny said, then explained when Arn shook his head. “Bo Randall was probably sentenced to Long Binh jail—that was located about twenty kicks northeast of Saigon.”

  “Sims’ background on Bo said he spent time for assaulting an Army major,” Arn said. “Don’t that usually earn you a Dishonorable Discharge?”

  “Usually,” Danny said as he flipped pages Sims had compiled on Bo Randall’s background. “But it looks like he was knee-deep in the riot at the brig in August ’68. Bo was one of the few white guys in there according to Sims’ report, and he saved a guard and a Spec Sergeant from a group of blacks marauding through the brig kicking the hell out of honkies.”

  “Even with that, he should have been drummed out of the Army.”

  “Normally,” Danny sand and motioned to Arn’s cup. “More tea?”

  “Not tonight,” Arn said. “I had too much of your wonderful tea last night and was in the bathroom half the morning. Damn regularity.”

  “Suit yourself,” Danny said and filled up his own cup from a coffee carafe. “It looks like Bo Randall was… invaluable to Army command. A genius in the area of supply. Sims noted that—if a CO needed to… acquire an armored vehicle—an M113 for example—and there were none to be had, Bo could find it. That went for anything else the command needed.”

  “I read where Bo had stolen eight cases of LAWs from the 3rd Marines and gave to the Army 1st Infantry. He barely got out with his hide. You’d have thought he would be back in Long Binh over that.”

  Danny laughed. “Three was more than a little interservice rivalry back then, and the Army brass looked the other way. Same as the Marine brass would do if the tables were turned.”

  “It looks like Bo’s shenanigans finally caught up with him,” Arn said. “He was caught again when Captain Sims nailed him for his black marketing of weapons and ammo.”

  Danny tucked his legs under him and Arn marveled at the old man’s flexibility. “As far as a connection to the other deaths you’re looking into, I don’t see a one linking Sims to any of them.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Arn said. “If someone had wronged you to the point where it all but ruined your future, would you seek revenge?”

  “I would. I’d make it slow. Painful.”

  “Then it is safe to assume that Bo Randall would have a grudge of the most intense kind towards Captain Sims.”

  Danny nodded. “I would say so. Why is that relevant to your victims?”

  “Because,” Arn handed Danny the background information on Bo Randall, “when he enlisted in the Army, he gave Custer in the Black Hills as his home.”

  “So?”

  Arn leaned over and flipped to the next page. “He might have given his home as Custer, but he enlisted in Sheridan in 1966.”

  Danny grabbed Arn’s glasses and held the light under the reading lamp drooping over his shoulder. “Damned if you’re not right.”

  “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” Arn said.


  Danny handed the report back. “I’m not sure how it helps knowing Bo enlisted in Sheridan… there is no information about any friends or relatives of his living there. No one who might tell you where he might be living. I’m assuming you intend finding him?”

  Arn stuffed the file back into the folder. “That’ll be the only way to scratch him from the suspect list. Or elevate Bo to the top. Only other thing I have to go on is that Bo’s home was in Custer before he enlisted.”

  “It might just be worth it for you to drive up to Custer and talk with that old sheriff about Bo.”

  “The ex-sheriff’s not available for a couple more days. And I doubt if that croaker at the VA will wait a couple days for me. I’m going to ask Ana Maria if she wants an all-expense paid trip to Custer tomorrow.”

  “Good idea,” Danny said. “The more she’s away from town the less likely she’ll run into Doc Henry.”

  “Or the less likely that he’ll run into her,” Arn said.

  21

  “DEANGELO SENT ME ALONG,” ANA Maria said, “only because there might be something newsworthy at the end of your rainbow of suspicions.”

  “Just keep an open mind.” Arn slowed to allow a small herd of whitetail deer to cross the road.

  Agent Kane of the South Dakota DCI had called last night. “You need to get up here,” he said. “We have an odd death that you might be interested in.” Arn hung up the phone and began laying out his clothes to wear for his trip to Hot Springs so Ana Maria could approve. Something about she didn’t trust his combining stripes with checks. Arn figured it must be a woman thing. He’d do his job even if he looked like he just fell off a clown car. “You’re welcome to come see for yourself,” Kane told him over the phone, “but this old feller died as peaceable and natural as you please.”

  They drove past the Mammoth Site, cars in the parking lot of the archeological dig showed no shortage of people wanting to uncover the bones of the animals, and crossed a bridge over a slow running creek, until the Hot Springs VA Center loomed off to their left. Once called Battle Mountain Sanitarium, it had been the first short-term medical facility for war veterans in the country. Last year the Veterans Administration had threatened to close the facility, but public outcry kept it open.

  Arn recalled one weekend in the summer of his youth when he and his father—in a rare moment of actually being a parent—made the drive to Hot Springs. They soaked in the healing waters of the mineral springs, though it did nothing to heal his father’s battle with the bottle, and he had reverted to being the mean drunk as soon as the weekend ended.

  Arn parked his car in front of the enormous sandstone structure and led Ana Maria inside. The receptionist directed them to the campus police, and they walked a short hallway to where a man older than Danny sat under the “Police” sign.” With his hat tilted over his eyes, and his head bouncing now and again on his chest, Arn suspected he was still alive. They stopped in front of the VA policeman and coughed. When Arn got no response, he coughed louder. The man’s elbow fell away from the arm of the chair, jolting him rudely awake, and he rubbed the sleepers out of his eyes as he focused on Arn. “Don’t look at me like that.” the old man said. “I’m just catching a few ZZs is all. Not like anything ever happens here to need the police.”

  “Except that patient who died here yesterday?”

  “Oh, that.” He stood and stretched his back while he fished a pack of cigarettes from his uniform pocket. He put one in his mouth but didn’t light it as he stood under the no smoking sign. “Down the hall and to your left. Those DCI agents took over for us, and they’re interviewing folks,” he guffawed. “As if we couldn’t do the job ourselves.”

  “Indeed,” Ana Maria said.

  The old policeman didn’t wait for Arn and Ana Maria to leave to resume his duties. He sat back in his chair, pulled his hat down low, and started sawing logs, while his unlit cigarette still dangling from the corner of his mouth.

  Ana Maria glanced back at the old man as they walked towards where the interviews were being conducted. “Good thing something bad doesn’t happen in here.”

  “Like someone dying alone in the restroom,” Arn answered and stopped outside a room with a do not disturb—police interview in progress sign duct taped to the door. Chairs had been placed along the wall outside the room, but no one occupied any. “Must be something more than just some old veteran keeling over,” Ana Maria said and sat in a chair. “What did Agent Kane tell you exactly?”

  “Just what I said—that there had been a death, unattended, like the others I was looking into. Asked if I wanted a firsthand look at the scene.”

  “Appears we’ll know the skinny soon enough,” Ana Maria said as the door opened and a woman wearing dirt-scuffed pants and the top of a janitor left the room. A stocky man—squat was Arn’s first impression—followed her out of the room. “You must be Arn Anderson?” he said as the janitor disappeared down the hallway. “Please come in.”

  When Ana Maria stood to follow, Kane stopped her.

  “She’s with me,” Arn said, leaving out the fact that she was reporter. “She’s my secretary.”

  Ana Maria’s face flushed and Arn smiled. “She does all the transcribing. Pencil sharpening. Small stuff around my office.”

  Kane hesitated for a moment before motioning her to follow. He pointed to chairs lined up at a long table, notes strewn across the tabletop, manila folders marked and waiting for reports to be stuffed inside. A laptop stood open beside the folders. Kane tapped keys and turned the computer so Arn could see it. “Scroll through the photos and tell me what you see.”

  With Ana Maria looking over his shoulder, Arn began scrolling through pictures of a man lying face down on the floor, his head partially inside a urinal. “This guy looks a lot younger than the others,” Ana Maria said.

  “Looks a lot like Steve Urchek and Frank Mosby’s crime scenes to me,” Arn added.

  “Funny you use that term,” Kane said, “because I think it is a crime scene.”

  “So you think my theory holds water—that there have been deaths at the VA facilities made to look natural.”

  Kane popped the top on a can of Red Bull and took a long pull. “The VA Police call us or the local law on every unattended death—more out of curiosity than policy. As many old vets die in these centers—just worn out or from complications of their service—we usually waiver the call. Tell the locals and the VA Police to handle it. After all, there hasn’t been a suspicious death here since it opened in 1907. But,” he took a longer drink of the Red Bull this time and tossed the empty can into a recycling bin by the table, “I remembered your… theory. I told them not to contaminate the scene until I got here, and to lock the facility down. No one in or out.”

  “Doesn’t explain why you think this death is anything more than natural,” Arn said.

  Kane eyed another Red Bull but didn’t assault it. Yet. “After I called you, I got to thinking maybe this veteran didn’t die peaceable like I told you. So me and another agent searched the restroom where the victim was found. Nothing odd. Until we expanded the search to include adjacent rooms.” He reached over and turned the laptop so he could read it before turning it back to Arn and Ana Maria. “That’s when we found that stuffed inside a trash receptacle by the entrance to the center.”

  Arn donned his reading glasses, and stifled a smirk when Ana Maria had to do put on her own Walmart readers. A bent hypodermic needle stuck out of a plastic syringe partially covered with a crumpled Burger King bag. “Xylazine.” He took off is glasses and examined the drug name pasted on the side of the syringe. “Not sure what that is. Did you look it up in a PDR?”

  Kane turned the laptop around again. “Wouldn’t be in any PDR. Xylazine is a horse tranquilizer. The syringe in on the way to the lab now, though I’m certain we won’t find DNA or prints on the tube.”

  “What is horse tr
anquilizer doing in a medical facility?” Ana Maria asked.

  Kane looked at her with an odd expression, and Ana Marisa quickly wrote in a long, reporter’s notebook. As if she were taking notes for her boss—Arn. “That’s the question we need answered. It might have absolutely no connection to the man’s death. But— .”

  “I bet you don’t believe in coincidences,” Arn said.

  “I do not,” Kane answered. “The closeness of this trash receptacle to the restroom—not thirty feet away—is just too handy. But we’ll see what the lab comes up with.”

  “Did you find an injection site?” Arn asked, knowing that—if the victim was killed by horse tranquilizer—it could have been administered IM through the clothing. In the muscle.

  “We found no injection site, though it means little at this point. If there is one, we’ll find it at autopsy.”

  Arn turned the laptop again but could not see the victim’s neck clearly. “Did he have bruising on his neck like the other victims I faxed you a couple days ago?”

  “No,” Kane said. “But the coroner said there might not be since the man was about thirty years younger than all the others you showed me. Skin too pliable. Resilient, she said. Not so prone to bruising.”

  “So, the victim’s an Iraq War vet, maybe from the Syrian conflict if I figure his age right.”

  Kane gathered his notes and stuffed them into a briefcase. “You’re not looking at any veteran. Our victim—Charles Boding—wasn’t a vet at all. He was merely here giving his father a ride to Hot Springs for his annual checkup.”

  “But the hat,” Ana Maria said. “The photo shows Boding wearing a Vietnam hat with gold embroidery of some kind on the bill.”

  Scrambled eggs,” Arn said. “They call them scrambled eggs. Officers wear them.”

  Kent unplugged his laptop and slid it into a pocket in his briefcase. “Boding’s father was wearing an identical hat when he visited his primary care doctor right before his death. Must have given his son a cap like his with Vietnam pasted across the front and those gaudy scrambled eggs on the bill.”