by Steven James
Bizarre.
That was the best way to describe the Oswalds’ crimes.
From an early age James had indoctrinated Ted to kill.
During the trial, Ted’s defense attorney pointed out that James Oswald would often threaten to shoot his son, sometimes aiming a rifle at his head. When Ted was five years old, his father apparently killed puppies in front of him and mocked him if he showed any form of emotional response.
The files contained transcripts of the trial proceedings between Ted and the prosecuting attorney:
OSWALD: I thought the only way I could say no to him was to prepare to fight to the end. He didn’t say “I will kill you.” It was the implication.
BENEDICT: What made you actually believe it?
OSWALD: His details, the expression on his face. He’d show papers with lists of people he was going to kill. I can give you an example.
BENEDICT: Please do.
OSWALD: My physics teacher. I had gotten an A first semester, a B+ second semester. He [James Oswald] was irate. He described how he was going to have me get this guy. He was going to have me build a silencer in front of him and then shoot him in the belly and watch him barf…He [James Oswald] would as easily do it to me as to anyone else.
I scanned the next few lines of testimony and came to Ted’s account of the one time he’d actually attempted to leave: “The dark side became a reality in the barn. Once you entered, there was no going back. The only way out was death. I couldn’t go to the refrigerator and get a glass of milk, go to the bathroom, go outside, pick up a pencil, watch TV without asking permission. I packed my clothes in a bag, attempted to go through the glass door. He caught me and stripped me down to my underwear. He had me kneel down, basically recite that he was the commander of the barn, the only way out was through him.”
One piece of information I already knew: Eventually the father and son were tied to a string of bank robberies spread throughout southeastern Wisconsin. Each time they would arrive heavily armed, wearing clear plastic masks, and threaten the lives of bank employees if they called the police.
After they were caught, it took the officers all day to go through the Oswalds’ Dodge County farm. Law enforcement had been told the barn was rigged to explode, and the bomb squad spent hours searching the area around the barn and the house with metal detectors looking for traps, before they actually entered and found the Oswalds’ extensive arsenal of ammunition and weapons, including .50 caliber rifles. In the end, no bombs or booby traps were found.
In one news conference, it was brought out that the FBI had obtained a photograph of James standing next to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber. When the reporters asked James what he thought of the Oklahoma City bombing, he said simply, “I think it was the wrong target.”
The case files Browning had dropped off were comprehensive and, in some cases, inexplicably so. Not only did they include Ted Oswald’s Waukesha County criminal court records (case #1994CF000227), the records of the civil suit filed by Diane Lutz, the widow of the officer they’d killed (#1995CV001632), but also strangely enough, Ted’s Watertown Public Library card (number WT 50934), his USA wrestling competitor’s membership card from 1990 to 1991, and the freshman picture from his high school yearbook (page 116).
It’s sometimes baffling what people consider evidence.
Perhaps most troubling were the pages from Ted’s journal.
The diary contained drawings of swastikas, swords, assault rifles, and an often-repeated saying, “freedom for the strong.” He detailed his father’s and his plan to carry out raids in Indiana and Michigan, to kill the “pigs” and to start “Jajauna,” the code word they used to describe the crime spree they were precipitating. According to Ted’s journal, he was planning to “conquer world by 39 instead of 38.”
He had disturbing, chilling, but remarkably puerile plans for more crimes:
Day 1
Do one pig in morning and one in afternoon.
Make sure all heros are killed.
Get birth certificate of real dead person.
Day 2
8am—wake up
10am—hit 1st taget
—Get away
1pm—look for new target
4pm—hit 2nd target
—Get away
10 pm—Bed in AC at big Hotel
Day 3
Same as Day 2
March 4, 1995, an article in the Milwaukee Journal reported that in his testimony, Ted claimed that his father “believed he [James] was a different species born out of humanity, a mutant. His goal of humanity was to become a superman…that’s what I was supposed to become. I was nothing but his spawn…his property.”
The Spawn, the title of the true crime book.
In the end, the jury didn’t believe that Ted was afraid for his life when he committed the crimes, and convicted him to two life sentences plus more than four hundred fifty years.
Ted had recently turned eighteen when he and his father killed Captain Lutz. The sentencing of minors is almost never as severe as adults and I couldn’t imagine he would have gotten as harsh of a sentence like he did if he’d been seventeen.
Quite an eye-opening birthday present.
I lost myself in reviewing the files and when I looked up, I saw that more than an hour had passed and I was already late for meeting up with Ralph and Calvin at Tanner’s Pub.
69
Dr. Werjonic flagged me from a booth against the back wall.
Ralph had a pint of beer in front of him, Calvin a shot glass of whiskey. Both of their plates had already been cleared away.
On the way over I took in the place.
Hundreds of bottles of liquor rested on shelves above the bar and a variety of British memorabilia decorated the walls—pictures, postcards, photos of soccer matches. The bathroom doors halfway down a short hallway were labeled LADIES and GENTS. Darts to the right, bagpipe music overhead, the smell of fish and chips all around. Just like I remembered from the time Taci and I came here a couple months ago. Right now that was not an easy memory to contend with.
“Sorry I’m late,” I told them as I took a seat. “I was reading over the Oswald files. Kind of lost track of time.”
“It’s a crazy case, isn’t it?” Ralph said.
“Sure is.”
He pounded the table with his fist. “Well, let me get you something to drink. You want some food too?”
“I could eat something.”
I ordered a pint of lager from a local microbrewery that had just opened, and a platter of fish and chips.
Second supper.
“Good choice of a restaurant, my boy,” Calvin exclaimed. “I feel like I’m back home.”
“Glad to hear that.”
He slid me a manila folder—they were everywhere today. “Notes from today’s lecture. I thought you might be interested.”
“You read my mind.”
The two of them had heard about what’d happened with Griffin and they peppered me with questions, so even though I was anxious to hear about Slate, I took some time to fill them in on Griffin’s death.
Considering that Dr. Werjonic had consulted with law enforcement agencies all over the world, on the way here I’d decided that tomorrow morning I would ask Thorne if we could bring him in on the case as a consultant. In the meantime, considering Calvin wasn’t yet working with the department, I shared as much as I could.
“And Mallory?” Ralph asked concernedly. “How’s she doing?”
“Hard to say. I couldn’t really tell if she was sad or relieved that Griffin was dead.” My food arrived. I waited until the server had walked away. “Just before they wheeled her onto the ambulance, she told me something pretty unnerving: the woman in the photo—you remember, Ralph, the one Griffin was—”
“Stroking a little too fondly.”
“Yeah. Well, Mallory told me that was her mother, Griffin’s wife.”
A stony kind of silence followed my words, then Ralph gave a l
ong, low whistle. “That’s one”—he glanced at Dr. Werjonic and perhaps thought he was too distinguished to appreciate a little cussing, and appeared to alter course right in the middle of his thought—“screwed-up family.”
“Indeed,” Calvin agreed.
“So…” I was ready to move past Griffin and his crimes. “Slate,” I said to Calvin. “Let’s hear about him.”
“Caucasian. Mid-fifties. Slightly graying hair. Brown eyes. Attached earlobes. Approximately eighty-five kilos.”
At the mention of kilos Ralph glanced at me grumpily.
“Um, about a hundred eighty-five pounds,” I whispered to him.
“Based on his height and approximate body mass index, that would put him”—Calvin did a quick calculation in his head—“I would say about forty-five pounds overweight. Married. Right-handed. Bites his fingernails rather than clipping them. He was dressed casually in khakis and an inexpensive oxford that he hadn’t taken the care to tuck in all the way. On the right side of his neck he had a distinctive birthmark in the shape of a crescent.”
Ralph glanced at me and it was clear he was thinking the same thing I was. He said, “Sounds like Detective Browning from the Waukesha Sheriff’s Department.”
Yup, he was thinking the same thing.
The birthmark was the clincher.
Calvin eyed us curiously. “A detective, you say?”
“He wasn’t too happy about having us look into the Oswald records,” Ralph answered. “And this could explain why.”
I thought things through. “Well, if he really is the author and used Griffin as his source, then their association could explain how Griffin got his hands on the Oswald cuffs. And it could explain why Browning hand-delivered the Oswald files today. He was coming to town anyway.”
“To meet with me,” Calvin said.
“To meet with you.”
“A tit for a tat,” he mused. “Browning obtains the information he needs for his books, then in exchange, he gives Griffin access to evidence. Criminal symbiosis.”
It was becoming clearer to me that even though all the threads weren’t ostensibly visible, everything in this investigation was linked, inextricably, beneath the surface. My kind of case.
I recalled the photos Browning had on his desk of him serving at different police departments in the state throughout the years. “Browning’s been around a long time. He could probably get access to other evidence rooms without too much trouble.”
I wondered if he knew anything about Griffin’s involvement in Mindy’s and Jenna’s murders. It seemed like a stretch that he would’ve known and not done anything to apprehend him, but if he was relying on Griffin for information for his books, he had a dog in the hunt and it was possible.
Motives.
You just can’t untangle people’s motives.
“He only gave me the name Slate,” Calvin noted. “I didn’t actually ask to see his driver’s license, so I can’t confirm if he really is this detective.”
I asked, “What exactly did he say?”
Calvin filled us in about their meal. Slate—or Browning, if it really was him—was researching Mindy’s case and wanted to apply some of Calvin’s geographic-profiling theories to try to postulate where the killer might live.
“I told him that he would need more locations for the calculations to be effective. He had certainly done his research—his knowledge of the intricacies of the case was impressive. Patrick, you mentioned the jacket just now in your account of what happened at the Griffin home. Slate mentioned it too.”
“What did he say?”
“Just that it was found with the child, but he had a crime scene photo of the inside of the tree house.” Calvin evaluated that for a moment, then tapped the table lightly. “I’ve been thinking, the timing of his contacting me might not have been because of your connection to the case, but because of my visit to Milwaukee for the lecture series. It would make sense that he would try to speak to me while I’m here.”
“Well,” I said, “if Browning really is Slate, we need to have a little talk with him.”
“I’ll take care of that first thing in the morning.” Ralph’s words were iron and I knew I would not want to be in Browning’s shoes during that little exchange.
Ralph finished off his pint. “By the way, Pat, Griffin’s subscription list didn’t yield anything. So it looks like that’s another dead end.”
“Well,” Calvin remarked. “That’s helpful.”
We both looked at him. “It’s helpful that we ran into a dead end?” I asked.
“Every dead end shows you more clearly the pattern of the labyrinth. You now have one more piece of information that will help you fail your way to success.”
That was an interesting way to put it.
But actually, I kind of liked it.
“I’ve been thinking about Indiana,” Calvin added. “I have some ideas, but I’d like to check on a few things first. Perhaps I can share them with you in the morning?”
“Great.”
“Ring me at eight.”
“Will do.”
It was only after Calvin had left and Ralph and I were on our way to the door ourselves that he brought up the topic of Taci. “How are you doing, man? You okay?”
Truthfully, I’d been so consumed with this case and what’d happened with Griffin that I hadn’t been thinking much about the breakup—at least not as much as I would’ve expected. “Better than I thought,” I told him.
“Yeah, well, you’ll be tempted to do it, but don’t.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Dwell on it. Let pain become your home.”
I hesitated. “Okay. Thanks.”
“I’m saying this because you brood. I can tell.”
“I brood?”
“Yeah. You brood. You’re a brooder.”
“I’m not a brooder.”
“Oh, I’ll bet you are.” We came to the door and he paused, eyed me up. “I’ll bet you’re Mr. Brooder when no one else is around.”
“Really?” I opened the door, led him outside. “And who are you, Captain Sunshine?”
“That the best you can come up with?” He stopped beside me, folded his Herculean arms. “I’ll wait. Go on. Try again. I’m in no hurry.”
I thought hard, but no clever comebacks came to mind and that just annoyed me worse.
“Thought so.” He turned his collar to the wind. “Go get some sleep, man. You and Radar nailed Griffin. That’s a good thing. Tomorrow we go at this again. Be ready. Things are starting to heat up.”
“Right.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you tomorrow, Ralph.”
Then I went home to watch the video footage that Browning had left us, and to read the notes Calvin had given me at the pub, and to page through Heather Isle’s—or Detective Browning’s—book: anything to keep me distracted, to keep me from thinking about Taci.
No, I told myself. I wasn’t going to brood.
I was going to solve this case.
DAY 4
Wednesday, November 19
The Hospital Room
70
4:42 a.m.
Joshua’s bedside phone rang.
Sylvia was asleep beside him, her arm draped lovingly across his chest, and she jerked involuntarily when the phone jangled. He was already awake, however, thinking about what would happen at First Capital Bank in just under twelve hours.
Surprised by getting a call at this time of night, he slid out from under Sylvia’s arm to answer the phone. She rolled in the other direction with a soft, sleep-infused sigh.
Joshua spoke into the receiver. “Yes?”
“Someone has not been playing well with others.”
“What?”
“I know what you were doing in that train car, Joshua.”
An initial, almost debilitating chill swept over him, but it dissolved quickly with the revelation that this did not sound like something a cop would sa
y. “Train car?”
“You’ll learn it’s not smart to leave that much evidence behind. Remember, everything you touch is an arrow leading back to you. You have to leave arrows that point somewhere else.”
Words that might have come from the mouth of Joshua’s own father, if he were not dead.
This is the man! This is the one you’ve been trying to get the attention of! The one from Illinois and Ohio!
Joshua stepped as far from the bed as the phone cord would allow, then whispered so Sylvia wouldn’t hear, “You’re the one who killed Hendrich.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To leave an arrow pointing somewhere else.”
Joshua processed that. “The gate was locked, how’d you get him in there?”
“The hole in the fence. It’s amazing how compliant someone will be when he believes his life is in danger and that it might be spared.”
“And you banged on the track to alert me? Why?”
“You were cutting it too close. One of the detectives was on his way to your boxcar.”
“But how did you find me? How did you—”
“Colleen.”
“Colleen?”
“Let’s just call it luck.”
Joshua’s heart was racing almost as much as it had when he’d listened to Colleen scream in the boxcar. “When can I meet you?”
“Is that what you want? Is that why you’re doing all this?”
“Yes.”
“Auditioning?”
He hadn’t thought of it exactly that way before. “Yes.”
“What you’ve been doing is child’s play—having someone leave a man in an alley? Coercing someone to drop off a corpse at a hardware store? I’m not sure you’re taking this seriously.”