Desperate Measures

by M. Glenn Graves

  “Proves you need me by your side more often,” Rosey said.

  “To correct my flaws,” I said.

  “To keep you within the guidelines,” he corrected.

  “Found any connection yet?” Walters said.

  “Rogers is searching. If there is something to find, she will find it.”

  “What’s your ETA?” Rosey asked.

  “I’m about three hours out. Should be there in time for an early evening meal,” I said.

  “We shall dine in style. Fine food will help your disposition, my dear,” Walters said. “I shall prepare something beyond the ordinary.”

  “You generally prepare beyond the ordinary. Not sure that food will help my disposition. My only consolation in this is that it would seem that Starnes has uncovered a pattern, and that it is more likely than ever that Melody did not willingly commit suicide.”

  “Good to have talented friends like Starnes,” Rosey said.

  “You have no idea.”

  59

  Owens didn’t call the evening of my arrival back in Boston. After Uncle Walters’ meal of roasted duck and some mysterious vegetables that adorned the bird, I retired early to get some needed rest. I decided my brain was not functioning at the optimum level of late.

  There was no information forthcoming from Rogers. I figured she must be hacking into somebody’s computer somewhere and it was taking her considered skills to connect the two parties.

  I called Owens mid-morning. I was ready to drive to Weston, but I wanted to be sure that he had something of substance before I made the trip.

  “No boyfriend,” he said.

  “No where to be found, huh?”

  “His apartment was empty.”

  “No clues?”

  “Empty as in vacated.”

  “Empty, empty.”

  “Yeah. Completely gone, every self-aggrandizing posture of him hanging on several walls, every canvas, paint brush, and article of disheveled clothing he might want to wear. Somebody cleaned house.”

  “Well, he couldn’t have known that we were coming,” I said.

  “Doubtful, but it might be that on the other front, whoever is the straw boss has begun to circle the wagons,” Owens said.

  “Or get out of Dodge.”

  “Something akin to that. Not sure where the wagons might be circled. Any ideas?”

  “A fine detective recently suggested that we backtrack,” I said.

  “Yeah, but that idea proved to be worthless.”

  “Not worthless. We just didn’t backtrack far enough.”

  “So where to?”

  “Give me an hour or so and then meet me at the house on Garden Place.”

  I told Rosey my plan. He opened his arsenal trunk for a quick inventory of its contents. The handmade wooden trunk was designed to house some of Rosey’s collection of firearms. It was lined with red velvet cloth both on the lid and in the well of the trunk. It was long enough to allow him to carry some of his favorite rifles. He had three different models neatly attached to the lid and two identical rifles secured in the well. Between the two identical rifles in the trunk’s well, he created spaces for four different pistols, two revolvers and two semi-automatic handguns. We loaded Sam into the backseat and waved at Walters.

  “No need to tell you two to be careful,” Walters said.

  “Probably not. Hope it doesn’t come to a shootout,” I said. “I don’t like killing, even the bad guys.”

  “But you go prepared,” Walters said.

  “My man here is always prepared,” I said.

  “Glad you have Rosey with you.”

  “And Sam. Both invaluable.”

  We drove in the direction of Weston.

  “This Detective Owens … you think he’s any good in a gun fight?” Rosey said.

  “I hope we don’t have to find out, but he has been around for a number of years. I would think he knows how to fire his weapon. Failing that, he could hide in the car and wait for the smoke to clear. But I don’t see that happening.”

  A few miles down the road, Rosey spoke again.

  “What makes you so confident regarding Owens?”

  “Must be the doughnuts. But, it could be the fact that he likes dogs without admitting to it. Reminds me of someone else.”

  He was about to say something when my cell phone rang.

  “I need to take this,” I said to him.

  He winked and said nothing.

  “Tell me something really vital, O wise one,” I said to her.

  “It took a lot of digging and some delving in private places, but here is the substance of what I found. Chester Farely Chatterworth was married during the 1980’s. He and his wife, Audrey, had two children. A girl, Sandra Blakely, born in 1989, and a son, Lee Nordberg, born in 1984. The name Blakely was Audrey’s maternal grandmother’s maiden name. The Nordberg name, albeit unusual, is from Chester’s side of the ledger. It was his great, great grandfather’s name. Scandinavian descent.”

  “You search out this Lee Nordberg Chatterworth person?” I said.

  “Of course I did. I promised you that I would leave no stone unturned. Lee Nordberg changed his name to Leonard Johnstone and moved to Weston, Mass. in 1996. The Johnstone name, by the way, is Mrs. Audrey Chatterworth’s maiden name.”

  “The connection.”

  “Yes, I would say the dots are connected.”

  “So tell me about Chester from his Racine days forward.”

  “Easy enough. Chester left Racine in 1963. Attended a small college in Illinois for two years. Dropped out, moved around a little, and then got involved in some cults. I found some info on him in the F.B.I.’s database.”

  “Say it isn’t so?”

  “You wanted info. I got info.”

  “Okay, say no more about that. What did you find and why were they keeping a file on him?” I said.

  “Some of the cults had ties to subversive organizations. They kept ties on just about everything of a secret nature. Chester didn’t stay long in the cult, maybe two years or so. Long enough for the Feds to track him, but not long enough to be brainwashed.”

  “That remains to be explored,” I said.

  “Well, he moved to a small town in western Pennsylvania in 1970. Started a church there. He preached for a few years, and the small congregation added a few hundred members while he was there.”

  “Wait a minute. Lost three years or so there, from 1967 to 1970. Have anything on him?”

  “Not a thing. No records, no data, nothing.”

  “What denomination was he affiliated with in that church in 1970?”

  “Independent. No affiliation. Stayed in Pennsylvania for twelve years. Married Audrey Johnstone during that time,” Rogers reported.

  “No previous entanglements?”

  “You mean relationships?”

  “Call them what you like. Did he have any women around?”

  “There were some reports that he was a less than careful minister when it came to women and dating. However, I could find no official documents chastising him or reporting anything untoward in his relationships.”

  “Untoward?” I said.

  “Vocabulary is growing,” Rogers said.

  “Your vocabulary is become archaic.”

  “One has to stretch where one can. I thought it sounded like a good word.”

  “So, back to the story. He married Audrey in 1980 and they had the two children during the eighties. When did they divorce?”

  “No record of a divorce. Next documented fact about Chester Chatterworth is that he showed up in Weston, Mass., started another church, and legally changed his name to Reginald Fletcher. All of this happened in 1996. No more mention of Audrey and no facts about Chatterworth or Fletcher from 1989 until he comes up on the radar in 1996.”

  “So we have some data that says that Chester, a.k.a. Reginald, and Lee, a.k.a. Leonard, both come to Weston in 1996 and both changed their name that same year. Lee would have been only twelve
years old, so Chester had to be the one who did that. One has to assume that seven year old Sandy was also around when they arrived in Massachusetts. But it does beg the question,” I said.

  “Where was Audrey?” Rogers said.

  “Indeed, where was Mrs. Chatterworth? You still digging for an answer?”

  “I am.”

  “Okay, from 1996 until the present day, Fletcher has built up his church in Weston without anyone knowing that Lenny is his son.”

  “No one has come forward to connect Fletcher and Lenny. Doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t know of that familial relationship. Perhaps there are some members of the church who knew. I would also add that few outside the church know that Sandy is his daughter as well. Doesn’t seem that he has tried to overtly hide that fact, but it was not generally known by Sandy’s friends.”

  “Recruitment tactic,” I said. “But Lenny’s relationship with his father was clearly hidden.”

  “Something’s not right here,” I said. “See what you can find about Audrey.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Since I had Rogers on speaker phone there was no need to repeat the info back to Rosey.

  “You make sense of all that?” I said.

  “Some. With what you have told me so far, I followed it.”

  “Anything stand out to you?” I said.

  “Yeah, that missing wife. Seems that she fell off the earth,” Rosey said.

  “Or was removed.”

  “Crossed my mind.”

  60

  Owens climbed into the back seat with Sam. I updated him on what Rogers had discovered. He made the same observation that Rosey had made about wife Audrey. After he viewed the photographs that Starnes had given me, we all decided that we were on the right track if not in the right location.

  “Where’d you get all that info on Fletcher or Chatterworth or whatever he calls himself?” Owens said.

  “Research.”

  “Yeah, I reckon,” Owens muttered without conviction.

  “You still waiting on that ballistics report for the weapon that killed Raney?” I said to help change the subject.

  “Handed to me before I left to come here,” he said. “Just like I told you earlier, it was a .45 handgun and they used hollow point ammo for visual effect.”

  “Since they wanted to send a message,” I said.

  “Be my guess. It certainly made an impression on me, and I’ve been around since grass started growing.”

  “Autopsy findings come through yet?” I said.

  “The M.E. called me late yesterday and said Raney Goforth had been dead at least two days by the time the body was discovered.”

  “You got any leads on who might have killed him?”

  “Nary a one,” Owens said.

  From our perch in the SUV, we were mostly hidden behind a grove of trees but we could see the front of the house. The damaged door from the previous explosion was leaning against the door jam. The hole was clearly visible even from four hundred yards. We went over our plan of approach and then disbursed. Sam stayed with me as I moved along the left side. Rosey took the back as his point of entrance into the house. Owens traveled along with his elk-like stealth on the right side.

  It was midday and warm. I arrived on the front porch a minute or so before Owens. I tried to give Rosey enough time to make it to the back. He was more familiar with that terrain since that had been his entrance our first time on the premises.

  I thought I heard a muffled-like sound coming from inside. Owens approached, breathing heavily.

  “What are you waiting on?” Owens said.

  “Giving Rosey time to get to the back and see what he might see,” I said.

  “And the plan after that?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “You hear that sound?” Owens said.

  “I hear it, but I don’t know what it is.”

  “Send the dog in. Whoever might be in there won’t be expecting a dog to come sauntering up.”

  I nodded and told Sam to go inside and check it out.

  “He understands all of that?”

  “Smarter than the average dog,” I said.

  A minute or so later, Sam barked loudly from inside the house.

  “It’s clear. Let’s move,” I said to Owens.

  “You speak dog, huh?”

  “I have good communication skills. I know some French and Spanish, too.”

  Rosey was already inside when we arrived in the back bedroom. Sam had barked two more times so we had followed his sounds. Sandy Chatterworth was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed. She was bound with ropes and gagged. There were some marks on her face as if someone had hit her a few times. She was alert and seemed to be glad to see us.

  “Who did this?” I said.

  “My family,” she said and then broke down, weeping uncontrollably.

  For fear that she might have other injuries and since she was in no condition to inform us of the full extent of what had happened to her, we called the EMT’s who arrived about twenty minutes later. They lost five minutes when they told us that they missed the house on their first pass. The SUV was too well hidden, I suppose.

  They took Sandy to the Waltham-Weston Hospital. Owens called the police there and had them send a cop over to the hospital to guard Sandy just in case. Our plan was to talk with her after she had been thoroughly checked and was a tad calmer. We assumed that she might talk with us.

  After conducting another search of the house, nothing turned up. We all packed inside the SUV once more and headed to the hospital to talk with Sandy. A cop met us at the front desk.

  “You the one who called for a policeman?” the officer said to Owens who showed his badge to him upon entering.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” Owens said.

  “She’s not here,” he said.

  “Where is she?”

  “Don’t know,” the cop said.

  Owens turned to speak with the lady behind the information desk.

  “They don’t know either. I already asked.”

  “What floor was she taken to?” Owens asked the lady who in turn asked for the name and what was happening.

  Owens looked as if he might explode. I decided to intervene.

  “They probably took her to emergency,” I said to him. “Which direction to emergency?” I said to the lady.

  She pointed towards some double doors. “Down that hallway. At the end take the elevators to the first floor. When the doors open, turn right.”

  We hurried. The cop from Waltham joined us since he was likely curious as to what was going on.

  We stopped at the nurses’ station and asked about Sandy.

  “Yeah, they brought her in and we checked her vitals. She seemed okay, but we left her alone for a second or two and then she was gone,” the attending nurse told us.

  “She say anything?” I asked.

  “Not to me, honey,” the nurse said.

  “Anyone else talk with her?” Owens said to the nurse.

  “Just the EMT’s.”

  “Have they left?” I said.

  “No, I don’t think so. They’re in the employees’ room. Down that way. Through those doors. It’ll be on your left.”

  Owens and I left to find the EMT’s. Rosey remained at the nurses’ station. The EMT’s were drinking soft drinks and eating nabs.

  “That young woman you brought in from Garden Place, she say anything to you guys?” Owens said upon entering the room.

  “Only that she was fine and that we could let her go.”

  “And you said?” Owens continued

  “Couldn’t let her go, that it was not our decision but the hospital’s. Said that it might be a good idea to be checked out and all that,” the African-American EMT said.

  “And she stayed?”

  “Yeah, sure, I guess. For awhile. We left after filling out the paperwork. The nurses were swarming around her at that point, so I figured she would be busy with them,” the same EM
T said.

  “You didn’t see her leave,” Owens said.

  “Nope. Handed in the paperwork and came straight to the break room. We’re not responsible after we turn over the patients.”

  Owens and I returned to the nurses’ station. Rosey was engaged in a conversation with a young, black nurse. Owens started to say something to the nurse who had given us directions to the break room and I stopped him.

  “Let’s see what Rosey comes up with,” I said quietly to Owens. “She might know something that the boss nurse didn’t.”

  Owens nodded and began pacing in front of the nurses’ station. In a few minutes, Rosey strolled back over to where we were standing.

  “Learn something?” I said to Rosey.

  “Her phone number.”

  “I meant about Sandy and where she might have gone.”

  “First things first. Networking takes time. She said Sandy wanted to know about cabs and was it possible to get one here at the hospital,” Rosey said.

  “And?”

  “That’s it,” he said.

  “Well?” Owens said. “Is it possible to get a cab here at the hospital?”

  “If you call,” Rosey said.

  “Did she call?” Owens said.

  “Nurse Smith didn’t know.”

  “Not much to go on,” Owens said.

  “It’s something,” Rosey countered. “What do you have to go on?”

  Owens was silent.

  “I think we should check with the cab companies who operate in the area and see if we can glean something from this,” Rosey said.

  “It’s worth a shot,” I said to Owens.

  Owens shrugged and walked out the door of the emergency room. Rosey and I followed behind him.

  “We might want to go back to where we entered this facility,” I said.

  “I know, I know,” Owens replied. “I just wanted to check out here to see if Sandy might be waiting for a cab or something.”

  The three of us looked around and saw no one who resembled Sandy Chatterworth. There was a maintenance guy working on a junction box near a light pole across the way. Owens strolled over to him and we followed.

  “You been here long?” Owens said.

  “Three years.”

  “I mean on this job, this pole, this box,” Owens clarified.

  “Hour or so.”