[Marc Kadella 04.0] Certain Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  “Good morning, Chief,” Jefferson and Marcie both said when Chief Sorenstad reached them.

  The chief stood silently for a minute staring at the body. His driver came up behind him and Sorenstad said, to no one in particular, “This will create one helluva shitstorm. When something like this happens to one of their own, the media goes nuts about it. Same guy?” he asked Jefferson.

  “We think so,” Jefferson said.

  “This Traynor nut job?”

  “Probably.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Sorenstad quietly said. “We had the sonofabitch and messed up the case against him. We’ll all get crucified, pardon the pun,” he added nodding toward the displayed corpse of Melinda Pace. “Find this sick bastard, Jefferson.”

  Before Jefferson could respond his phone rang. He looked at the I.D. and answered it. Jefferson listened to the caller, his face showing more and more concern as he did so.

  “What?” Marcie asked.

  Jefferson held up a finger to stop her and said, “I’ll be there as quick as I can. The Chief’s standing right here. I’ll tell him.”

  Sorenstad and Marcie looked curiously at Jefferson. He ended the call, replaced the phone in his coat pocket and heavily sighed.

  “We got another one, Chief. It’s Bobby Conlin. Detective Bobby Conlin.”

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Tony Carvelli parked the Camaro on the street one building down from his destination. He got out and walked the two hundred or so feet on the sidewalk and strolled across the asphalt entrance to the building. Tony saw the man he was there to meet, cleaning the limousine he drove for a living.

  “Hey, Jake,” Tony said as he extended his hand to his friend, former MPD lieutenant, Jake Waschke.

  The two men shook hands and Waschke said, “I was about to call you.”

  “You heard about Bobby?” Tony asked.

  “Yeah,” Waschke said as he tossed the towel he was holding into a laundry hamper. When he was released from prison, Jake’s many friends around the Cities had a number of jobs lined up for him. Limo driving seemed like a sensible, easy way to merge back into society.

  “How’s this gig going?” Tony asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe it,” Waschke smiled. “I’m making more money, working fewer hours and with less stress than I did as a cop. What about Bobby? What’s going on there?” Waschke asked.

  “It’s Howie Traynor. He’s back,” Carvelli answered him.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, Maddy Rivers saw him a couple nights ago. You remember Maddy, don’t you?”

  Waschke smiled and said, “Pretty hard to forget. Why Bobby?”

  “I think because he was with us when we busted Traynor for the Lucille Benson murder. Remember? At the East End, Bobby was the one who hit him with the Taser…”

  “And that psycho Traynor pulled the leads out of his chest, threw them back at him then busted his jaw,” Waschke interrupted finishing the story. “What do you think, is he after us too?”

  “Probably,” Tony shrugged as if to say, let him try.

  “I just remembered, the woman who was with us when we busted him, Helen Barkey…”

  “She got married a few years back,” Tony said. “She moved somewhere out west. She should be okay.”

  “Good. What are we going to do about this psycho?”

  Tony nodded his head toward the building’s exit and said, “I got an idea.”

  The two men walked out through the garage door toward the street. While they did, Maddy Rivers pulled up in her black Audi parked and joined them.

  The three of them quietly conversed and after a few minutes, Waschke asked Maddy, “You sure about this? You could be working without a net,” he told her.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” she answered him. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Is Conrad Hilton still around town,” Jake asked Tony, referring to a man who was an expert at wiretapping and electronic surveillance systems.

  “Yeah, in fact, I talked to him this morning. I told him what we needed,” Tony said.

  “Does he know why?” Maddy asked.

  “No,” Tony answered her.

  “Have you talked to the other guys yet?” Jake asked him.

  “No, I wanted to talk to you first. You know these guys. If I’m in and you’re in, they’re in.”

  Waschke thrust his hands into the pockets of his pants. He stared up at the sky for a few seconds then began to stroll about deep in thought. While he did this, both Tony and Maddy leaned against the front of her car waiting.

  A minute later he came back to them and said, “Is there any other way? Have we thought of everything?”

  “I’m open to suggestions about what else to do and hell no we haven’t thought of everything,” Tony replied.

  Waschke smiled a wry, nervous smile and said, “I can’t think of anything better either.”

  Jake looked at Madeline again and asked, “You’re sure about this?”

  “I’ll be fine, Jake. Yes, I’m sure,” she replied.

  Madeline was sitting at a table in the patio area of a hookup bar on West Lake Street in the Uptown area of Minneapolis. With her was Officer Karen Anderson. Between them they had received quite a few looks from the single guys in the semi-crowded establishment. The two women were unacquainted so they made small talk about the difficulties of being female police officers.

  Roughly forty-five minutes after being seated, a man from the bar approached them. Without invitation, he grabbed an unoccupied chair from another table and sat down with them. By all appearances, the two women appeared quite annoyed by the unwanted intrusion. The man’s name was Mitchell Cavanaugh and like Maddy’s companion, he was an MPD police officer.

  He leaned forward and above the din of the bar, said, “I haven’t noticed anyone out of the ordinary paying too much attention to you. The problem is, you’re getting a little too much attention and it’s hard to spot anyone unusual.”

  Maddy said, “I’m going to slap you then get up and leave. Karen, you stay with Mitch and watch for anyone following me out.”

  True to her word, Maddy suddenly slapped Mitch across the face. Both he and Karen looked shocked while Maddy looked angry. As she stood up, grabbed her purse and fled quickly out the front door, several of the men at the bar, all too young for Maddy anyway, heartily laughed and made lewd comments.

  A bearded man with dark glasses and hair over his ears briefly smiled at the sight. Howie Traynor enjoyed a clear view of the women and was hoping Maddy would leave by herself. She barely made it through the door when he slid off the barstool and casually followed her out. Unfortunately, at that exact same moment, at least eight other people left. Howie slipped out acting as if he was just another person in the crowd.

  When she first arrived at the bar to set herself up as bait, Maddy deliberately parked her car in a remote lot two blocks away. After leaving the bar, when she was approximately half way back to her car, she heard Mitch’s voice come through the audio receiver in her ear. He told her about the crowd at the door that left right after her. Unconcerned, Maddy acknowledged the information and kept going.

  Howie knew where she was parked and had a different route he could take to get there ahead of her. As soon as he was outside, he began jogging silently down the street to an adjacent alley. He broke into a sprint, got across Charles Avenue and was into the lot before she came into view. Howie ducked down between his car and another and waited for her in the dark, his Taser ready to go.

  When Maddy received the news from Mitch Cavanaugh, something in her clicked. Somehow she knew Howie was in that crowd and slipped out unnoticed. Calmly, she opened her purse and put a hand inside it. She removed a small, metal cylinder and held it at her side.

  Of course, Madeline knew how dangerous Howie was. She had a pistol in her purse but did not want to use it. Maddy had killed two people, both completely justified, but she was still going through some serious counseling over them. If she didn’t have to shoot Howi
e, she wouldn’t. Believing what she held in her hand would be sufficient, she went toward her car.

  Strolling through the parking lot, she impressed herself with her lack of fear. Even though he likely left the bar after her, somehow she knew he was waiting for her. Three occupied parking spaces from her car, she sensed rather than heard, a movement coming from behind.

  “He’s here,” she loudly said to be sure the mic she was wired to would pick it up. As she did so, she spun around, let her purse slip to the ground and snapped her right wrist to extend the metal baton she was holding.

  Howie lunged at her, holding the Taser out to incapacitate her. Maddy swung the baton at his hand and hit the Taser, smashing it into a dozen pieces. Shocked at her sudden attack, Howie froze for a second, long enough for Maddy to swing again cracking him across the left elbow numbing his left arm.

  “Ahhh! Goddamnit…” he yelled.

  His left arm hung limply at his side and he swung a poorly aimed right hook at her. Maddy stepped into it, blocked the punch with her left arm and drilled his left knee with the baton. His knee started to collapse and she hit him two more times across the rib cage, fracturing four or five and across his right wrist. He went down on one knee, puzzled at the ferocity of Maddy’s attack while looking into her eyes.

  By this time a Ford van was screeching past the parked cars coming straight at them, the lights from the van illuminating the scene.

  Howie managed to get up on both feet. His left arm still hung limply, his knee slightly buckled and the pain in his ribs excruciating. The van came to a halt just as Howie said, “Who are you?”

  Madeline was standing silhouetted by the lights. Her feet were slightly apart, her right hand holding the baton at her side. She looked and felt absolutely calm and totally unconcerned. The van’s doors started to open and Maddy took a half step toward Howie with her left foot, pivoting on it, she spun completely around and drove her right foot into the exposed chest of the helpless Howie Traynor. The kick took him completely off of his feet, flat onto his back and his head banged off the asphalt surface.

  Tony Carvelli, Jake Waschke and two other men were out of the van by this time. Maddy stepped over to Howie and straddled his prostate body. She looked down into his barely conscious eyes, snarled and said, “You’re worst nightmare. That’s who I am, asshole.”

  The men from the car quickly gagged him, handcuffed his hands and covered Howie’s head with a hood. Ignoring his obvious pain, they picked him up and literally tossed him through the side door onto the vehicle’s floor.

  Carvelli reached Madeline as she was retrieving her purse. “You okay?” he asked with obvious concern.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Now what? What about him?”

  “Go home, sweetheart,” Tony said and gave her cheek a light kiss. “You’ve done enough. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  Maddy looked at Carvelli and said, “So, don’t ask questions I don’t want to know the answer to, right?”

  “Something like that,” Carvelli said.

  “Tony, be careful. I don’t want you to get into any trouble.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t. Neither will anyone else. Go home and relax.”

  SIXTY-SIX

  Two nights later, Jake Waschke and three retired cop friends pulled away from a private dock on Mille Lacs Lake. It was after 11:00 P.M. and they had a chore to perform.

  Mille Lacs is a two hundred square mile lake located in central Minnesota. It is approximately ninety miles north of the Cities. The short distance makes it one of the most popular resort areas in the state. Normally on a June night, the lake would be semi-busy with fishermen angling for walleyes. Tonight, there were severe storm warnings for the area which cut the boat traffic down to almost nothing. No one wanted to be out on this large body of water with a windy thunderstorm hammering you.

  The three ex-cops with Waschke were the same men who helped Carvelli do surveillance on Howie Traynor. Tom Evans was driving the boat, a twenty-three foot Crestliner with a 200 hp Mercury outboard. The boat’s owner, a retired MPD captain, had a half-million-dollar summer place on the lake courtesy of his wife’s money. The ex-captain and his wife were conveniently away for a few days. Without asking questions, he agreed to the use of the house and boat.

  Evans pushed the accelerator down and the big Merc roared to life making the boat jump. The lake was starting to become quite choppy as the wind picked up. Looking west in the direction they headed an ominous dark mass was flashing lightning as it moved toward them. An occasional dull thud of thunder could be heard over the noise of the outboard.

  The boat bounced along over the lake’s waves, some getting as high as two feet and growing. When they had traveled almost two miles out, Waschke tapped Evans on the shoulder and yelled above the noise, “This should do.”

  Evans backed the engine down and the boat cruised to a stop. He swiveled around in the captain’s chair while his three companions stood up.

  Normally this particular boat had six passenger seats. Before setting out, the men had removed two of them to accommodate their cargo.

  Steadying themselves on the side of the boat, two of the men, Dan Sorenson and Franklin Washington moved into position. Waschke knelt down on one knee and ripped off the duct tape covering the mouth of Howie Traynor.

  “You can’t do this!” Traynor immediately whined. “It ain’t right. You’re cops. You can’t do this. Please, I’m begging you, don’t…”

  “Ssssh, ssssh,” Waschke quietly whispered and put a finger to Howie’s lips. “You should’ve thought about this a long time ago, tough guy.”

  While Waschke taunted Howie Traynor, Sorenson, kneeling at Howie’s feet, checked the single chain wrapped around Howie’s ankles. Attached to the chain were two forty-pound kettle balls. The chain was also wrapped around Howie’s waist and hands and secured with a lock.

  “They’re good,” Sorenson solemnly declared as Tom Evans knelt down next to him.

  Waschke looked at the three men while Howie continued to whine and cry. Waschke asked, “Any second thoughts? Now’s the time.”

  “No,” each man emphatically said.

  “How deep is it here?” Waschke asked Evans.

  “The depth gauge had it about twenty-five feet,” Evans answered.

  “Nice night for a little swim, don’t you think?” Waschke said to Howie.

  By now, consigned to his fate, Howie had calmed down. Defiantly he said, “I’ll see all you sonsabitches in hell.”

  With that, Waschke replaced the duct tape over his mouth. Sorenson grabbed his feet, Washington took the shoulders, Waschke his mid-section and Evans the two kettle balls.

  The four men heaved him up onto the gunwale of the boat. Sorenson edged aside so Evans could toss the kettle balls into the water. At the very last second, before they pushed him in, Waschke said, “Take a real deep breath, dickhead. You’ll have to hold it for a long time.”

  Howie held up both hands extended his middle fingers and the ex-cops sent him over the side. The water splashed into the boat and hit all four of them.

  Dan Sorenson reached into his shirt pocket and removed a small key. He dropped it into the water where Howie had gone down, laughed and said, “Good luck, shithead.”

  A few seconds later, the men were back in their seats, Evans had the boat turned around and was heading back to shore.

  Howie Traynor sank like a stone. The kettle balls attached to his ankles dragged him to the bottom, through the tall weeds in less than two seconds. Instead of panic or fear, Howie felt at ease, serene even. He always knew his life would end violently and that he was not destined for old age and a peaceful end in a hospital bed. Now that it was here, his mind cleared and he decided to enjoy the experience.

  His feet hit the muddy bottom first and his shoulders a brief moment after. He settled into the weeds and mud to await the end when a tiny object hit him in the face. Reflexively his hands shot up, despite the chain, and he snatched the piece of metal off
his right eye.

  Remaining calm he held onto it and a couple of seconds later he realized what it was. It was a key that must have been tossed into the water by his would-be executioners.

  Had it been mid-day, there would be very little light at this depth. At night, almost midnight, Howie literally could not see his hand in front of his face. The calm Howie felt after accepting and awaiting his fate was instantly replaced with near panic. His conscious brain immediately began to signal his heart and lungs that time was running out. Now that he held the means of escape, a reprieve from his watery grave, his will to survive kicked in.

  He found the lock quickly enough and even managed to insert the key without a problem. Howie clicked open the lock and that’s when his problems began. The chain was wrapped around his wrist three times and his waist twice. While the clock kept ticking and his oxygen starved brain started to scream, he struggled to uncoil the chain. What seemed like several minutes but was less than thirty seconds, he got his hands free and the chain removed from his body.

  While holding his breath, his lungs aching to exhale Howie still had to free his feet. He reached through the weeds and tried to kick his legs free at the same time. The eighty pounds of weights were too much to allow his feet to move. Feeling his way through the mud, weeds and darkness, he found the chain around his ankles. It was wrapped around each one twice and it seemed to take an eternity to get his feet free.