The Vienna Connection

by Dick Rosano

  In the handful of days between his confession and funeral, Libby slipped farther into the drug-induced haze of life that her pills offered. She had expected to see him graduate from an Ivy League university; now she was watching the last rays of afternoon sun glint off the surface of his coffin as it was lowered into the hole.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  April 20

  Vienna and Bethesda

  Arthur had more luck than I might have hoped for.

  “The Montgomery County Police turned it over to the FBI,” he said.

  “That’s good, right?” I replied.

  “Yes, because the MoCo guys won’t talk to me, but the Bureau will.”

  I remained silent for a brief moment, but Arthur didn’t continue.

  “Well?” I said to prompt him.

  “Pretty sure it’s female, and dates back quite a ways. Decades. Forensics is still working on it.”

  “Any connection to Bindemann where they found it?” I asked.

  “Don’t know yet. Usually is, though. If it is, it suggests an amateur, or inexperienced perp.”

  “Uh-huh,” I replied. Those experienced at killing are not always predictable, but people who commit crimes without planning also don’t plan out their after-action. Most of them return to places that give them confidence, suggesting that – if there is a connection between the female remains and the school – the one responsible for her death was probably also associated with Bindemann.

  “Okay,” Arthur said, “what’s the deal, Darren? Why so interested?”

  “I came across some information that might tie in.”

  “Like what?”

  “Can’t say just yet,” I countered.

  “You gonna report it to the authorities? Do you want me to?”

  Here I am in Vienna, researching something for the President of the United States, poking around in safe deposit boxes that my new friend Chi-Chi thinks might be relevant. So, no, I wasn’t going to share any of that with Arthur.

  “Not just yet. Let me think about it for a bit. Would you get back to me if you hear anything more?”

  “Sure, Darren,” he said then clicked off.

  I considered the news article, what Arthur had told me, and what Chi-Chi had given me. There were too many coincidences that were beginning to line up. So, instead of waiting for Arthur to track all this down for me, I thought I should pay Bindemann a visit myself.

  I didn’t tell Alana that I was making a quick trip back to the States, but of course she found out.

  “I could hold you here, you know,” she said, coming up to me in the airport.

  “Oh, please do!” I replied with a grin.

  “Stop it,” but she laughed. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the States for a bit. Just a couple of days. I’ll be right back. Buy me a drink when I return?”

  “It’s your turn,” she said, but then turned to let me go.

  The flight was an early one and, with the time difference, I expected to get to the construction site in Bethesda before sundown. With luck, the guys mentioned in the article would still be there.

  The flight left on time and I raced to exit the plane. Luckily, my Global Entry pass allowed swift maneuvering through Dulles Airport and I was on the curb in no time. I gave the cab driver an extra twenty at the start of the ride and asked him to get me to Bethesda before five. He looked at me like I was crazy, complained about rush hour Beltway traffic, but pocketed the bill anyway. It was close, but I made it.

  The taxi dropped me off on the curving driveway in front of the school. It occupied an enviable expanse of land on Rockville Pike just north of Bethesda, on a sprawling campus that, if converted to residential zoning, would be worth tens of millions of dollars.

  I could hear the sound of construction coming from behind the clutch of buildings that faced the road, so I paid the driver and walked around to the back. There was a large flatbed construction truck with its engine idling under the trees, a backhoe pawing at the ground, and a crew of three men and one woman at work.

  I walked up to the one who appeared to be in charge and introduced myself as Donovan Trainer.

  “Here’s my card,” a business size introduction that stated my occupation as writer for The Washington Post. In fact, Donovan Trainer had worked there and retired, but he came from undercover ops, too, and he turned away questions whenever his name was used by one of us.

  “I read about the body you found,” I began.

  “You mean skeleton. It was completely decomposed and nothing more than bones in a sack.”

  He shook my hand and introduced himself as Raul.

  “Do the authorities know the year of death yet?”

  “They’re working on it. Think it’s late ‘60s. Probably hear something soon.”

  “Did you find anything else?”

  “Just the skeleton and the blanket.”

  “What color was the blanket?”

  “Dirt. No kidding. The thing was so faded that it looked more like dirt than any real color.”

  “What else?” I asked.

  “Bunch of stuff. The usual. You know these rich kids throw all sorts of shit out. We found baseball caps, copies of lit books they apparently didn’t like. Hey, you’ll laugh but we found the bumper of a car buried over there,” and he pointed to a spot beyond the outline of the new building.

  “Girls’ panties, condoms – lots of condoms,” he added, swinging his arm from left to right to indicate that these things were found scattered about.

  “Okay,” I said. “I was just looking for clues. Nothing else?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can I look around a bit?”

  “Sure, just don’t fall into the ditch.”

  I walked around the perimeter of the plot lines for the building, scanning the ground but also taking note of the crew. I wanted to see if anything passed on their faces to indicate some knowledge not yet conveyed to me. The woman stood leaning on a rake and watched me. Then she turned toward Raul and called out to him.

  “Hey, Raul. What did you do with the nasty looking book we dug up?”

  “Oh, yeah. I don’t remember. No, wait, I pitched it into the back of my truck.”

  With that, he walked toward his truck and rummaged through the piles of garbage that half-filled the bed. After a moment, he raised his hand in triumph, holding a small, brownish colored book in the air. Then he walked over to me while fanning through the pages.

  “Didn’t think an old book was much evidence. It wasn’t with her, the body, I mean. How about the condoms and all?”

  I lifted the book from his hands and opened it to the first page.

  We left him at the party. He was too drunk to be of much help. When I saw him the next day, he was hungover…

  I read the entire first page but knew that focusing on this might elicit the wrong response from Raul. Which was confirmed when he said he should turn this over to the police.

  “No, like you said, it’s just some kid’s fantasy spilling out onto the page. It makes interesting reading, though. Can I keep it?”

  “If the police don’t need it, sure.”

  I walked toward Rockville Pike quickly to put some distance between me and Raul, hoping to prevent him from catching up to me and changing his mind. As I walked to the street, I called for an Uber to pick me up and I waited by the bus stop to read some more. The journal, if this could be called that, recounted the rape and murder of a young girl by teenage boys named Miller and Axle. The narrator was a third boy who was not named on the pages; of course, he was the author of the writing.

  It seemed like what began as a routine high school beer party had somehow had a tragic ending for the girl. What Raul had probably not read nor noticed was that, buried in the latter pages of the journal, was a description of how the girl in the story had been buried by the boys. Raul and his crew dug up an old skeleton near where this journal was found. More than the condoms, underwear, and other items tossed away
by spoiled youth, this notebook was, in fact, the confession of the murder uncovered by the construction workers.

  I made some guesses and decided to begin with the two names, Miller and Axle, and try to run them down. There had to be a connection to this school, so I went to the library and pulled yearbooks from the late-60s trying to get a match. Although it was Saturday, the library staff was on campus and working on inventory. I presented my fake Washington Post business card, told the librarian that I was doing an article on the alumni of the school who had “set the world on fire,” and wanted to check out predictions that were made about their prospects while still in high school.

  “You think those yearbook pronouncements are some kind of crystal ball?” she asked.

  “No,” I had to respond with a laugh. “But maybe that’s the point.”

  “Why are you working on Saturday?”

  “What? It’s Saturday?” I asked with insincere surprise. “I’m a journalist. We don’t have five-day weeks.”

  She laughed, then gave me access to the aisles of the library where the yearbooks were kept. I went straight to the collection from the mid-’60s and flipped through pages of student photos. One year was followed by another as I worked my way from 1965 forward. No one in any of the first couple books was named Axle. I found some Millers and made notes of these.

  Then I got to 1967. One of the seniors was a successful hurdler on the track team. His nickname was Axle…his real name was Michael Pendleton. It was an old photo, but the boyish face staring back at me clearly belonged to the current President of the United States.

  On a hunch, I assumed that Axle and Miller were friends, so I focused carefully on the M’s in the student section. But I came up with none. I was actually surprised because prior years had a couple Millers in each book, so I would have to abandon my hunch and return to those. Before quitting the yearbook for 1967 though, I turned to the page for the track team. There in the team photo, standing tall among many other thin, gangly runners, was Mike ‘Axle’ Pendleton. Again, I found no Millers there, but noticed another familiar name.

  In the front row, there was a big-chested, chubby fellow, labeled as the shot putter for the team. I knew the event well and knew that stocky athletes usually filled that role. This guy was neither stocky nor particularly athletic looking, but in high school sometimes the pickings are slim.

  Beneath the team photo was his name: Winston “Willy” Ebert. It was clear to me that this guy was our current Senator Ebert, the Republican Majority Leader.

  So, Pendleton and Ebert went to school together. I might have known that if I had spent some time studying our current crop of politicians; such brotherhood was not a secret. But this revelation had a different meaning for me.

  If Pendleton was clearly implicated in the journal unearthed at the grave site – although cleared of wrongdoing by the notes scribbled there – and he was friends with Ebert at the time, was it possible that Willy Ebert was the Miller I was looking for?

  I flipped the page and saw more photos of the track team, including one that showed Pendleton and Ebert alone in a picture wearing silly hats and standing by the track. Below the photo was an inscription that said, “Don’t forget me,” and signed “Willy.”

  There was another odd picture of Ebert posing at the edge of the track. He was holding a small instamatic camera with a flash attachment, and whoever was taking the picture must have decided that this was an iconic depiction of Willy Ebert.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  May 13

  Bethesda, Fifty Years Earlier

  Too much money and too little discipline. Mix privilege together with teenage hormones and society’s rich kids can get into trouble.

  Way too much trouble.

  Beer was the lubricant for much of their misconduct. High school parties in homes conveniently absent of parental oversight frequently turned into drunken chaos, eliciting behavior unwelcome by the few sober guests, yet pressed by the inebriated boys who fought for conquests the way a gladiator would fight for victory in the arena.

  Willy Ebert and Mike Pendleton often turned up at these parties, especially if they were hosted by the testosterone-driven athletes of the sports teams from their high school. Beer was carted from car trunks as the partiers arrived, and girls arrived to hang with the jocks who were the most famous faces in the hallways of their school. It was a clear mismatch: Boys high on hormones and girls teased with beer.

  It was on one such night that Willy, Mike, and Mason Terrell found themselves in an upstairs bedroom with a pretty blonde girl from the class behind them. They were only seventeen and she had just turned sixteen. In fact, she arrived at the party with her friends, who suggested celebrating her birthday in the crush of youthful misconduct at the house.

  After she had had a few beers, and the boys many more, the four of them ended up in the bedroom together. Mike was kissing and fondling her and, while she was enjoying the sexual foreplay, she was nervous about partaking of it in front of these other boys. The drinking continued though and, at one point, Mason was sent downstairs to the kitchen to get another armful of beers.

  When he returned, Mike was unconscious and the girl was spread across the bed, legs pulled apart.

  Willy was standing at the foot of the bed, staring down at the couple.

  “What are you doing?” Mason asked him.

  At his question, Willy raised his hands in front of his face, and it was then that Mason saw that he held a camera. A quick succession of flashes blinded Mason momentarily in the darkness of the room, but then he reached out to Willy to push his hands down and move the camera out of position.

  “Come on, man. That’s not cool!”

  Willy considered Mason for a moment, then looked back at Mike and the girl on the bed.

  “Well, actually, I think these pictures will be very popular in the locker room tomorrow.”

  “No, seriously,” Mason protested. “That is really not cool. I don’t know what happened while I was gone, but these two are really out of it. This sorta shit could be very troubling, and her mom will freak out if word gets back to her.”

  “Yeah,” nodded Willy, “and Mike’s dad will beat the shit out of him.”

  The two boys hovered over the bed, considering what to do next. Willy was not deterred by Mason’s argument, but he slipped the small instamatic camera into his pocket. Mason pushed on Mike’s arm to rouse him but with no luck.

  “He’s out,” Willy laughed, seeming undisturbed by what was happening.

  “What should we do about her?” Mason asked, waiting for Willy to take charge.

  Mason went around the bed and approached the girl. At first, he reached for her underwear in a feeble attempt to pull it back up around the girl’s ankles. She didn’t stir and her immobility made his effort more difficult. So, Mason shook her by the shoulder to wake her. Still nothing.

  Willy rapped his knuckles against the bare right foot of the girl, but still no reaction.

  The boys looked at each other and Mason remarked, “Man, she is flat-out gone.”

  Mason was still standing along the side of the bed, so he put his hand against the girl’s cheek, then held it an inch from her lips. They were parted slightly, as if in mid-breath, but he felt no movement of the air. He looked up at Willy, startled at what he might have discovered, then placed the pads of his first and second fingers on the side of her neck.

  “Shit!” was all he could say.

  Willy looked down at the unconscious Mike on the bed and whispered, “Mike, what did you do?”

  It sounded to Mason as if Willy was trying to affix blame on Mike.

  “Shit!” Mason said again in a stage whisper. “Shit, shit, shit!” he blurted, walking around the room in a tight circle.

  “Shut up,” Willy said, although his voice was eerily calm. Mason looked at Willy and thought about the pictures he had taken. It was some sick sort of porno pics at first, but now they seem to be evidence.

  “We’ve
got to do something,” Mason said, adding “Let’s get out of here.” Then he started toward the door.

  “No, stop!” Willy said, pushing a hand into his chest to stop him, then looking down again at Mike who had still not stirred.

  “She’s dead,” Willy said. Then, addressing the unconscious Mike once again, said, “I don’t know what you did, but she’s dead.”

  He said this without inspecting the body.

  “We can’t just leave her here and run,” Willy added. “Dozens of kids saw us coming up here, and they saw you bringing up a bunch of beer.”

  Mason was growing afraid of Willy, who kept pulling Mike into the event by his comments, and now pulling Mason in by his reference to the beer.

  “We can’t leave her here to be found. We’ve got to get rid of her.”

  “What does that mean?” Mason’s voice grew to a nervous pitch. “We can’t do that. What are you going to do?”

  “Hide her,” Willy said with a steady voice. Willy was so calm that it frightened Mason.

  Mason remained frozen in inaction, but Willy went around to the girl’s side of the bed, grabbed the edge of the blanket, and threw it over her. He had to wrestle Mike’s limp body off the rest of the blanket and called to Mason to help.

  “Damnit, get over here. You need to help.”

  They wrapped the blanket around the girl’s body and carried her to the edge of the room, below the window.

  “Go get your car,” Willy said looking at Mason. “Pull it around back and I’ll lower her down to you. You stick it in the trunk, and we’ll drive her to the woods outside the back of school.”

  Mason hopped over the body and pulled the door of the room open a slight bit. Seeing no one in the hallway, he quickly exited, pulling the door closed behind him.

  Willy opened the window and waited for the sound of Mason’s car. He threw a glance back at Mike to see if he had recovered yet. Nope.