by John L. Work
Yet, such killers aren’t really crazed – not in the true definition of insanity. They’re not hearing voices that command them to commit the terrible acts. They know what day of the week it is and who the President of the United States is. To an experienced police officer, a love induced slaying makes perfect sense because cops know human nature as few people do. They attend countless domestic disturbances – so many that after a few years they can write the all too predictable scripts for each one, with different names for the unique players in each situation. After they become forever cynical from years of answering the radio calls and seeing the violence in relationships gone wrong, a lot of cops begin to call domestic violence complaints by their proper name – love stories.
They understand the failings and faults in man’s character. The officer knows that the torment of a young male’s sex drive, the terrible emotion of jealousy, and his inordinate need to be back in control of the female who has suddenly spun out of his grip as she moves away from him and on to another mating partner can unleash tragedy. With a little alcohol or drugs thrown into the mix such a situation can lead suddenly to deaths and devastating losses for many others who are close to the two or three players in the drama. Cops don’t condone or excuse the love triangle violence – but they do fully understand it as well as any licensed shrink does. Gasoline is a volatile substance, which can be easily ignited by the tiniest spark. So, too, an affair gone badly is potentially explosive. The triangle of love is a terrible trap, Welch thought. But, occasionally it is so deliciously alluring as to be irresistible for any number of reasons. In the cases at hand there was mass human destruction on a scale he had never seen in his career.
And there was one more twist in this web he’d not yet encountered. While he knew of cases wherein lovers conspired to kill an estranged spouse over selfish lust or money, this was his first investigation that revealed two lesbian lovers as the principles, who did all of the planning together. The motives were as old as time – money and sex – but the actors were something Welch hadn’t anticipated. All of which made him think that the quote by the British author, soldier and poet Rudyard Kipling from his poem The Female of the Species was, and always would be, profoundly true: “…For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.”
Jon Skertich, the presiding judge at Marine McCowell’s initial appearance in Court on the morning that followed her arrest, set her bond at one hundred thousand dollars – the standard amount for a First Degree Murder case. She came up with the requisite ten percent for a bondsman in a matter of a couple of hours and was out of jail by that afternoon. Neither Steve Reilly nor Frank Raney had yet entered a warrant into the National Crime Information Center Computer system to have her held for the murders of Slaikovitch and Jim McCowell. She immediately called David Talidge and arranged for another meeting with Welch for the late afternoon of the same day on which she was released from custody.
Although his affidavit for an arrest warrant wasn’t completed, Steve Reilly got his extradition homework done and he faxed it to the Roberts County detective on the afternoon following their Colorado Springs interview with Marnie McCowell. Now it was time for some planning and communication in conjunction with the powers that be in New Zealand. Welch only had a few days to get a lot of things placed into proper order.
54
The post release meeting with Welch, David Talidge and Marnie McCowell had gone quite well. Marnie turned over her emailed travel plans and the itinerary that Samantha Newsom had sent to her. Welch spoke by phone with Frank Stanley and Steve Reilly, who agreed to wait on filing their arrest warrants, so that Marnie could confirm that everything was still on for the rendezvous in Auckland. That would enable her to continue using a cell phone and her personal computer to communicate with her lover in Samoa. Sammie would surely have a caller ID feature on her new telephone and any call she received from within a jail or police station would be a certain tip off that she shouldn’t go to Auckland – because Marnie was in custody and working with the police. So, for the time being it was better that she remained free. She wore an ankle bracelet that limited her traveling distances and would set off an electronic alarm if she either ventured outside her restricted area or cut the band that affixed the monitor. And she’d already voluntarily surrendered her passport to Welch for safekeeping. It was secured in a sheriff’s office evidence locker.
Welch ran everything he intended to do by Don Alcomb at the District Attorney’s Office. It was of paramount importance that they take Sammie into custody in Auckland, from whence she could be brought back to Colorado for trial. In order for that to occur, she’d have to truly believe that her lover and co-conspirator was following through with the plan to fly into New Zealand, where she believed they’d be happily united and continue on to Apia. She’d also know that a huge risk existed for her to travel into any country that had an extradition treaty with the United States – which was a large part of why the lovers had selected Samoa as their final destination in the first place.
Welch and Alcomb had to review the conditions and procedures for a successful extradition. The District Attorney’s Office, by and through the Attorney General of the State of Colorado, would make all of the necessary contacts and arrangements with the U.S. Department of State.
For the Australian government to cooperate in an extradition process, a crime had to have been committed in a foreign country and the accused must have fled to New Zealand. In urgent cases the Australian Attorney General’s Department can instruct the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to get a provisional arrest warrant from a magistrate. There was every indication that this case would fall under a sense of urgency, since the fugitive from justice, Samantha Newsom, only intended to be in New Zealand for a day or two before fleeing back to Samoa with her newly arrived lover. The police could then make the arrest, based upon the warrant.
Next, the Australian government would have to receive a formal notice for extradition from the United States. The Attorney General or Minister for Home Affairs would have to read the request and thereby believe that the person in custody is extraditable, that a warrant for the arrest of the person has been issued by the foreign country in which the alleged crime was committed, that the crime for which the person is in custody is also a crime in New Zealand, and that the punishment for the crime is at least twelve months incarceration. Welch didn’t see anything in the guidelines that would prohibit Sammie Newsom’s extradition to the United States to stand trial for three murders. All that remained was to keep the trap freshly baited and spring it when she walked through the arrival gate at the Auckland airport. From there it would be up to a jury of twelve in each murder.
55
He was ready for the weekend off. The trip to New Zealand was set for the following week. His tickets had been purchased, he had the contact information for his Auckland police connections and he’d managed to locate his most recent passport. The phone rang late on Friday afternoon.
“Detective Welch.”
“Hi, stranger. Long time no see. You forget about me?”
“Janet. No, of course I didn’t forget about you. How are you?”
“I’m okay. But I kind of miss seeing my favorite lawman, who used to pay me a visit once in awhile at the bank.”
“I miss seeing you, too. I’m so sorry. I’ve been meaning to come by and visit you, but I got so darned busy, it’s been just about impossible to break away.”
“I know. I saw on a television newscast you arrested Marnie for killing Sheila. How terrible. What must you think of all this?”
“I really don’t know what to think any more. I never dreamed that I’d get a case like this – one that would take all the twists this one has.”
Then she dropped the brick on his head.
“Care to tell me all about it over dinner? Are you up for some home cooking?”
“Of course I would. Tonight? Your place? Sounds like I’ve been invited to your place for dinner tonigh
t.”
“My, we are getting wiser with age, aren’t we. Six-thirty? Don’t wear a tie.”
“See you then. Want me to bring anything?”
“Just your appetites. All of them. Goodbye, detective.”
“Bye.”
He swallowed a rather large lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. My God, he thought. How long had it been?
It was raining when he rang her doorbell. She answered within a few seconds, wearing a pair of very short shorts, a sleeveless t-shirt and her feet were bare. She extended her hand, took him into her living room, led him to the sofa, handed him a glass of red wine and went back to her kitchen. From the couch he could see that the dining room table was set with a dark red cloth and topped with two white candles, burning brightly in the dimmed light. Momentarily she reappeared and waved her fingers toward him to follow her. They sat down at the table across from each other. She smiled, showing him that damned dimple again, and removed the lid from a sterling silver platter. The aroma hit him like a freight train – pot roast, oven-browned potatoes, buttered French cut green beans, and mouth watering mushroom gravy. He served both of them and they ate, savoring all of it. Lastly, she force fed him a large piece of apple pie and some vanilla ice cream for dessert.
After dinner they went into the living room and sipped some hot coffee. She sat close to him as they talked, resting a well-shaped upper arm on the back of the couch, with those flawless, marvelous, smoothly muscled legs curled beside her on the cushion. She asked about the Jim McCowell murder case. He did his best to concentrate on the conversation as he told her where the investigation had gone and where it was headed. It wasn’t easy to do with her sitting so close to him.
“What happens now? How are you going to get her back here from Samoa?”
“I have to go to New Zealand. The request for an urgent warrant has already been issued by our government and granted by the Australians. As soon as the plane lands at Auckland, the cops there will arrest her and the extradition process will begin.”
“When are you leaving?”
He hesitated. Could he trust her? Against his better judgment and years of investigations experience, he told her. At some point he had to trust someone or he’d be alone for the rest of his life. He needed to trust this woman. He wanted this woman, in the worst way.
“I’ve got a flight out of Denver on Monday morning. She’s supposed to land next Thursday. I’m leaving a couple of days early so I can make sure that everything is in order. This is the only opportunity we’ll have to catch her, unless she travels to another country that’ll cooperate in sending her back here. My bet is that she won’t do that very often. She has to have done enough homework to know that it’s very risky to venture into a country that does extraditions with the United States. I’m a little surprised she’s even willing to take this risk to meet Marnie in Auckland.”
“When will you be back?”
“Probably not until next weekend, late Saturday night. The police will hold her in custody over there until all of the formalities are completed and then put her on a plane to Denver. So, I can leave and come home as soon as she’s in their custody.”
She locked her eyes onto his. “I’ll be so looking forward to your return. I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too.”
She leaned even closer toward him. Her hand touched his. She brushed her lips across his cheek and moved them slowly over his ear, down to his neck. He could feel her breath against his throat as she lightly kissed him. He turned toward her and put his arm around her shoulders. She moved her hips closer to him. His lips touched her cheek – the one with the dimple. She turned her head slowly upward to look into his eyes and slowly, oh God so slowly, moved her parted lips toward his. The scent of her hair was exquisitely intoxicating. She closed her eyes as their lips met.
His pager went off.
56
It was a multiple shooting at a party of high school kids, in a home where the parents were gone for the weekend. The entire team of detectives had been called in. The jail division sent a group of uniforms to stay in the patrol squad room at the field division where the partying kids had been taken, to make sure that no one left and that there was a minimum of conversation among the potential witnesses. Michelle Kuchtar and Jack Swain were already inside the home, photographing bullet holes in the walls and trying to dig out the projectiles. There were blood stains on the carpeting. Yes, it had been a fine evening for a get together of All American high school kids to socialize, listen to music, dance, make out, and get shot up by some gangster with a grudge against the world.
The party had been crashed by some G homies who took exception to their invitation to leave, which was extended by the kid who threw the party. Everyone present had been drinking or smoking some grass – or both. Someone called the cops just before the homies decided to make their exit. They were gone by the time the first deputy, Lou Zeigler, arrived in his marked car. He was standing in the kitchen, talking with the kid whose parents were going to be really pissed off when they arrived back home from their weekend in Vegas. One of the gangsta homies who’d been ejected came back to the house, walked through the open front door into the living room holding a nine millimeter handgun – and opened fire. Thirty or so kids began screaming and hit the deck, along with Zeigler, who was hugging the carpeting and trying to figure out where the hell all the gunfire was coming from.
Three kids were hit, but the injuries weren’t life threatening. Ambulances came and took the victims to two different hospitals. Parents were notified to come and pick up their bullet riddled children at the emergency rooms. The Jail Division sent a bus to the home and all the party animals were herded into it for a ride to the field division squad room. The kids weren’t at all happy about having their Friday night fun interrupted by the cops and a coerced trip to the sheriff’s office substation for interviews with detectives. In fact, they were more angry at the police for interrupting the party than they were at the G Money homie who’d fired his weapon at them and shot their friends.
Welch stuck his head into the squad room to look at the crowd of revelers. He saw a lot of haggard looking surly faces, kids with their hair mussed, girls with mascara running down their cheeks, boys with ear rings, nose rings, bolts through their eyebrows, and some had tattoos. He thought he detected the pungent smell of marijuana, probably emanating from the clothing of these party goers – America’s finest they were. This didn’t look anything like the kids he’d gone to parties with during his high school days. Christ, he thought, what happened to the United States? Or, am I still living in the United States? And he shook his head in disbelief to think that for this he had to leave a pleasant, erotic evening of love making with Janet Rogers. There was no justice in the entire world – not for this cop. Not on this night.
He had to separately interview three of the reluctant party participants, none of whom gave him any useful information about the shooting. They didn’t know there was any problem at the party, except for the police arriving. They didn’t see anyone leave the party, they didn’t see anyone come back in to the party, they didn’t hear any gunfire at the party, and they had no idea what happened that caused the police to round them up and put them onto a bus. When Welch informed each of his uncooperative witnesses that three of their friends had been shot, they shrugged their shoulders and looked at the floor. It didn’t seem to matter to any of them. They all denied drinking or smoking weed and every one of them wanted to know how soon they could leave and go home to go to sleep.
It took him until about 2:30 a.m. to finish. He was worn out from listening to their bullshit. If they didn’t want to help the cops put the G Money Man who shot up their friends into the slammer, then they deserved whatever might next come their way. He thought they were incredibly stupid. He drove home and eventually fell into a sleep, dreaming about Janet’s scented hair, her hand on his, her lips against his throat, her beautiful legs deliciously curled on the
couch, her green eyes invitingly looking up at him – and that dimple on her cheek.