by Roger Hayden
“A red van?” Shelton said, raising his head. “You believe this?”
Sirens echoed in the distance for the second time that day. Perhaps the girls were being held at the precise location in the message. Maybe their captor simply snapped and decided to end it all. It was all too perfect. The more plausible scenario indicated a third man, but Miriam didn’t know how she’d prove such a theory.
“It’s worth checking out,” she told Shelton as she scanned the room for signs of a struggle.
The mystery behind Frohman’s involvement died with him. There were many details yet to be found. The search of Walter Browning’s house was still ongoing, and now they had an entirely new suspect to investigate. He looked young, late twenties by Miriam’s estimates. His black, shaggy hair hung in his eyes and his cheeks were thick with stubble. There were bloodstains all along his white shirt and sweat pants. There was even a cigarette resting at the top of his left ear.
Something seemed off. Then again, Miriam knew nothing about the man and could only assume that everything was not as simple as it seemed. In his letter, Frohman had mentioned a family. She could have an analyst examine his writing and compare it to previous notes, searching for patterns. They needed to gather a list of contacts, friends, family, and anyone who could provide insight into their suspect. That would be a good start. But first, they needed to seek out the red van and find the girls before being blindsided again.
Reckoning
Police congregated in Sandspur Lane in little time and with an overwhelming presence. Although Detective Hayes had called for backup, he didn’t tell them to send half of the entire force. Someone had tipped them off—an anonymous tip, Sergeant Bennett explained as he entered the busy dining room full of confused investigators and uniformed officers.
“Someone called the station about ten minutes ago,” Bennett told Miriam. “Reported a disturbance at this address. Once we got the call from Detective Hayes, we knew that something was going on.”
“Could have been a neighbor,” Hayes added. “Maybe someone saw Detective Shelton sneaking around back.”
“Or maybe someone wanted us to come here. To find Mr. Frohman with his wrists slit. Maybe they’re trying to send a message.”
Hayes balked at the idea and massaged his temples, sighing. “What are you saying, Ma’am? Now there’s a third man? Should we check with the produce department?”
Miriam felt angered by his dismissiveness. “I don’t know. We can’t rule anything out, and you know that. Walter Browning wasn’t working alone. We know that now. What we don’t know was how many other people were involved.”
“I guess we’ll know for sure once we find this van,” Hayes said.
Sergeant Bennett scratched his head and looked around the room. There were ten to fifteen other investigators crowding into the small house. There were some new faces Miriam didn’t recognize, taking cell phone pictures and hovering around Frohman, who remained undisturbed. Two paramedics were kept at bay as the area around the deceased was marked with yellow placard numbers and the suicide note placed into an evidence bag.
Shelton seemingly appeared out of nowhere to elaborate on their presence. “Midland PD is involved now. After the McKenzie girl went missing.”
Hayes surveyed the bustling room with a growing dissatisfaction. “I appreciate the help, but this is our scene. We need to keep things under control.”
Shelton then stepped forward and held his arms out, addressing the room. “Everyone listen up. We need some space in here. There’s evidence throughout this house that cannot be tampered with. Please let leading investigators and the paramedics do their jobs. Everyone else, please step outside.”
A noticeable grumble followed in the hushed crowd as several men and women, uniformed and plain-clothed alike, shuffled out of the house. There was a definitive longing for answers on their faces as though the Frohman residence would reveal the entire mystery behind the kidnappings.
Sergeant Bennett kept close and surveyed the living room, hands on his hips. “Captain Vasquez is still at the station. He’s been on the horn with the FBI.”
“I knew it,” Hayes said and shook his head. “Glad to hear that he has such faith in his detectives.”
“Relax,” Shelton said, placing a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “The captain just wants to utilize all resources available.”
“He’s delaying his statement until we report back. Doesn’t want to jump the gun,” Bennett said.
Miriam examined the paramedics as they carefully lifted Frohman’s stiff body onto a wheeled gurney and inside a body bag. She’d be interested to read the coroner’s report after examination to find out the time of death. Would they declare it a suicide and rule out the possibility of homicide? From that day alone, Shelton and Hayes would undoubtedly have their hands full with reports into the next century. Miriam didn’t envy them. If her job was to help them get closer to the kidnapper, she felt as though she had accomplished that. But why did she feel like it wasn’t adding up?
The anonymous call to the station was suspicious. The van and directions to the girls was inexplicable. The Chancellor of Doom was well on his way to becoming an infamous media story. Why would he give up now? The suicide note didn’t mention Miriam whereas all his previous letters had made it a point to address her.
Frohman could very well have been prone to suicide and decided to end it, but such a rash move was inconsistent at best. The note was generic beyond the detailed directions. For someone who wanted to leave a mark, he said very little. Who was Ken Frohman?
A wallet lay on the table with his driver’s license, a credit card, and a discount auto parts buyer’s club card. His identity was clear, but was he really the man they were looking for? Miriam walked around the house to clear her mind and escape the chatter of a dozen police detectives and investigators all working the crime scene. Hayes and Shelton were on their cells, providing details on the suicide note and supposed location of the girls.
A troubling thought entered Miriam’s mind that she desperately tried to vanquish: the van discovered in the middle of the desert with bodies of two young girls as one last laugh courtesy of Ken Frohman and Walter Browning—two small-town losers with nothing to lose.
Miriam felt a sudden desire to take a car and find the girls herself. Reports, statements, and endless briefings were a part of any investigation, but her patience with the procedures was waning. They needed to follow-up on the address immediately, even if the entire thing turned out to be a hoax. They needed to search the house inside and out for traces of the girls —hair samples, clothing, anything. But Miriam wasn’t in charge. She was an advisor. Her eyes scanned the simple set-up of the living room.
There was a torn couch with a blanket over it, a recliner to the side, a coffee table cluttered with beer cans, and a flat screen television on a TV stand with an Xbox and several games lying about. There was a bookcase in the corner with several framed pictures standing upright on the shelves. A younger Frohman was smiling, surrounded by people who looked like family, providing the closest window Miriam had to the recently deceased.
Past the living room were two rooms with a bathroom in between them. The room to the left appeared to be an office with a computer desk, computer, and office chair. A single mattress lay in the corner with sheets tossed across it and two pillows.
She entered the musty room and opened the closet. Clothes hung from one end of the pole to the other. Five different pairs of shoes lay on the ground. She kept keen watch for anything that might have belonged to the girls — a toy or article of clothing. If they had been held in the room at any point, it wouldn’t be difficult to find the evidence.
Miriam thought of Frohman’s garage and how imperative it was to search next. Foregoing her instincts, she did a quick sweep of what she presumed to be Frohman’s bedroom. Inside, there was a twin bed, lamp, and nightstand, dresser, stereo system, rock music posters, and clothes scattered along the floor, resembling a teenager
’s room. Miriam approached the wood-shuttered dual-close doors and then stopped at the sight of a banner hanging on the wall. But it wasn’t a banner after all. It was a flag.
“Detective Hayes, Detective Shelton. You better get in here!” she called out.
After a moment, they entered the room with Sergeant Bennett trailing behind. Both detectives had their phones at their ears.
“What is it?” Hayes said. He paused, noticing Miriam’s eyes fixated on the wall. All heads turned to face a black flag pinned on both ends and sagging in the middle. Written on the flag in crude white lettering was “The Chancellor of Doom” with a white equilateral cross inside a circle, reminiscent of the symbols used by the Zodiac Killer.
“Oh my God…” Hayes said, staring in disbelief. “I can’t believe I missed this earlier.”
“What does that mean?” Sergeant Bennett asked, perplexed.
“That’s what he called himself,” Shelton said as he lifted his sunglasses. “In the letters he wrote.” He then held up his cell phone and snapped a few pictures of the flag. There was a certain finality in discovering the flag. How could they not believe Frohman to be the main culprit after all? Miriam wasn’t going to draw any conclusions until they found the girls. That was paramount.
Hayes took a step back and ran his hands through his head. “The captain wants answers. The station is being bombarded with calls. They want answers, especially with all this Walter Browning business in the news.”
“Leave that to PR personnel,” Sergeant Bennett said, dismissing Detective Hayes’s concern. “We’ve got two girls to find.” He turned around and ran his hand across the wall. “I’ll tear the place apart if I have to. Just need a sledgehammer.”
Miriam turned from the flag with a sickness in her stomach. Her eyes traversed to the carpet, just under the bed, where she saw something small and bright-colored pink.
“Oh my gosh…” she said, kneeling. With the tip of her index finger and thumb, she carefully pulled the item out, revealing a pair of children’s underwear.
“What is it?” Hayes asked after taking notice.
Miriam released it and then stood up. “More evidence.” The sight of the abandoned underwear further twisted her stomach in knots.
Hayes’s eyes widened with disgust. “Is that what I think it is?”
Shelton leaned in to get his own look and then snapped another picture just as Hayes moved past him in a hurry. “Let’s get some crime scene folks in here now!” he shouted down outside the room.
Sergeant Bennett removed his aviator sunglasses and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “You sick son of a bitch.”
Miriam’s eyes darted around the room for more findings, but it was hard to distinguish anything in the scattered mess of clothes on the floor. “We need to check the garage immediately.” She turned and ran out before anyone could respond. By the time she reached the living room, Frohman’s body was no longer there, just an empty chair with a blood-stained carpet and yellow placards numbering the scene.
Near the foyer, the door leading to the garage was already open. Miriam rushed inside where three police officers were standing under a flickering bulb in a circle, taking photos. There was no van inside, no vehicle whatsoever, but fresh oil stains on the concrete below indicated that there had been something parked inside.
The three clean-faced men took notice of Miriam as one asked her if Frohman was the man they were looking for.
“We don’t know yet,” she said, scanning the garage. There was a tool bench with a chest of several drawers against the wall and a shelf of paints, oils, and cleaner on the other side. She stood in an ordinary garage, minus the vehicle.
“There’s a pretty good chance he’s our man,” she continued, not wanting to make any definitive statements. Suddenly, one of the officers moved toward the roll-up door and opened it. The outside light of dusk poured inside. Miriam was startled to see an army of police cruisers and unmarked cars surrounding the house and blocking the street.
The young officer turned to her as though he sensed her next question. “We have to make a path for CSI. They’ll be bringing a lot of stuff in and out.”
Miriam could see an ambulance parked in the streets, its lights flashing wildly. Frohman’s body lay inside, zipped in a black body bag—the second dead person she had encountered that day. His “suicide” remained as much a mystery to her as the whereabouts of the two girls. A closer glance at the officers revealed Midland PD patches on their shoulders.
“The McKenzie girl,” she began. “Was there anything left behind? A note. Some kind of memento?”
The officers looked at each other and then back to Miriam with blank faces.
“Um. No, Ma’am,” an Officer Whitman told her. “Not that we know of.”
Miriam dug her hand into her pocket, feeling the small red bow she had recovered at the possible site of April Johnson’s kidnapping, one block from her house. The kidnapper’s methods followed a pattern of preying on young girls in the afternoon, whether they were walking home from school or sitting in their parents’ car in a grocery store parking lot. The most definitive way to conclude if Frohman and Browning were the only ones involved would be an end to this pattern.
Troubling questions still plagued Miriam’s mind. Why would Frohman betray Browning and then kill himself? It made no sense. An unexpected chill shuttered down Miriam’s neck as a bizarre thought entered her mind. Could this be just another part of the game? Was Frohman the real Chancellor of Death or was there someone else—a mastermind—manipulating her every step of the way?
Hayes entered the garage, clutching his cell phone. “I just spoke with the Captain and told him what we know. He’s all set to deliver a statement.”
“And what do we know, Detective?” Miriam asked.
“We’ve found a pair of girl’s underwear, for starters. Between that and the finger, we’ll have a match soon enough.”
The Midland officers shuffled outside the garage as a crime scene van parked directly in the yard. There would be mountains of evidence by the time they were done packing everything up. Maybe more. Miriam looked around, examining a section of drywall for a possible crawlspace or compartment.
It was time to follow the last remaining lead they had—directions from Frohman’s suicide letter. Miriam, however, stressed caution first.
“We need to go, Detective. But we also have to be ready for a trap.”
Hayes tugged at his jacket and looked around the garage, thinking. “Well, it’s hard to believe that he would give up those girls out of the kindness of his heart.”
“He wants us to go there. That doesn’t settle with me,” Miriam said.
“But he’s dead now,” Hayes said. “What does he care?”
It was clear that he wanted to wrap up the case every bit as much as she did, but there was no sense in rushing to judgment. They needed to strategize each move, assess the risks, and ensure that they were in control of the situation. Years as a detective had taught Miriam that much. In their line of work, miracles were few and far in between.
“We still have that aerial drone, correct?” she asked Hayes. “Let’s find a position and send it in. See if there’s a van actually waiting for us or if it’s a hoax.”
On cue, Shelton entered the garage with his attention shifting between his partner and Miriam and the cell phone in his hand. Miriam could sense a troubled expression in his eyes.
“Everything okay, Detective Shelton?”
He stood between them and nodded, placing his phone in his coat pocket and then pulling out a sealed evidence bag with Frohman’s alleged suicide note. “No one else saw this. I just don’t understand.”
“Understand what?” Hayes asked.
Shelton took a deep breath, eyes fixated on the ground. “I’m hearing some rumblings from back at the station. They don’t have the details, but some guys are gearing up to search for this red van. That station is organizing a search party.”
“What?
” Hayes said, angered. “No, no, no. They need to stand down. Lieutenant Sandoval and I were just discussing the possibility of using the drone.”
“But who would have told them?” Miriam asked. She narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to the detectives. “Is someone working against us on this?”
Suddenly, Sergeant Bennett’s booming Southern drawl startled them from the walkway. “There you are. Been looking for you folks everywhere.”
Miriam glared as the two detectives turned around, eyes piercing through the police sergeant.
“Have you talked to anyone yet about this supposed van?” Hayes asked.
Sergeant Bennett shifted his aviator glasses and shook his head, dumbfounded. “What do you mean? I don’t know anything about that van.”
Shelton inched toward him. “What’s this noise about a search party? This could be nothing but a ploy by an unstable individual to have the last laugh.”
“The point is, Sergeant, we’re in charge of his investigation. Got it?” Hayes said.
Sergeant Bennett stared ahead with a hurt expression and nodded. “Yeah. Sure. I haven’t told anyone.”
Desiring anything but an endless back-and-forth with the police sergeant, Miriam held her hands out and addressed the detectives. “We need to get a small team together and get moving on this. Keep it quiet until we know for sure.”
The detectives agreed, and they blew past Sergeant Bennett, who still seemed hurt by even the slightest implication of his interference. “Thought we were a team,” he said as they went inside the house. But Miriam had little time to console him. They had to move ahead and piece together the pieces as they came. The girls were counting on them.