“Yep,” Tony began jogging toward the nearest tree.
As he arrived, he noted the tree appeared to be an old maple. It had obviously never been pruned, so large branches reached out from the trunk low to the ground. The first was no higher than Tony’s chest. He easily pulled himself up onto it. From there he found purchase again and then again. Soon he was twenty feet up with a clear view of the property. Thank goodness for fall, Tony thought, realizing this was working only because most of the tree’s leaves had finished their work for the year and were now resting comfortably among the weeds on the ground.
The bad news was that the clear view still didn’t afford Tony a very good look at the ground. Once his eyes moved more than a few feet from the tree, the weeds still provided a veil of secrecy for anything lying below their outstretched stems. He wrapped his right arm tightly around the branch of the tree, which stood beside him, and used his left hand to shade his eyes from the sun. He silently scoured the property for several minutes.
Finally, Davis called up to him. “See anything at all?”
“No, dammit,” Tony shouted back, louder than necessary. He hated giving up but couldn’t see much use in staying in the tree.
Davis encouraged him to take another look.
“Try it once more,” he said. “This time, forget about digs and just look for anything that looks out of place. Anything at all that catches your eye.”
The shift in perspective was all it took.
“Holy shit,” Tony barked.
“What?”
“I can see a trail through the weeds. Someone has walked from the tractor’s path to a spot behind and to the left of the shed.” Tony quickly scrambled back down the tree, brushed himself off, and said, “Let’s go.”
“Okay,” Davis said, clearly happy to have something to investigate. Then, as experience caught up to him, he added, “Be careful not to get your hopes up. It’s probably the route the farmer uses to take a leak in the weeds before taking the tractor into the field.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Tony said, “but maybe not.” He broke into a run.
While finding the path through the weeds was trickier from the ground, knowing its approximate location made it possible to spot the disturbed brush on their second pass. Moments later Tony and Rich Davis were staring at a sheet of rusted metal lying nearly flat on the ground. Its slight elevation indicated something was below it. Tony bent and reached for a corner of the metal, but Davis grabbed his arm.
“Hang on there, Joe Hardy,” he said. “This may be nothing but it also may be something. Something, for example, like a crime scene. We don’t just grab. First, we get tools…and backup.”
Tony was dying to see what lurked beneath the metal sheet, but he backed off. Davis used his cell phone to contact Rooney and give him instructions to join them, after getting the camera and the toolbox from the trunk of the car.
While Tony stood not very still in the background, the two agents put on their latex gloves and safety glasses. They then took photographs from multiple angles and used a mirror to ensure nothing under the lip of the metal indicated it had been booby-trapped.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Davis said, “Okay, we’re ready.” He and Rooney then carefully lifted the sheet metal and set it to the side. Below was a well. Its wide diameter, brick sides, and poor condition indicated it was probably the original water well dating back to when the property was settled in the 1800s.
“Flashlight,” Davis commanded.
“Careful,” Rooney replied as he handed him the light and Davis leaned over the opening in the ground.
Tony knew Davis would soon speak, so he fought the urge to ask. Then Rooney did it for him.
“Well, what do you see, Rich? Jesus, don’t leave us here with our thumbs up our butts.”
“Okay, okay,” Davis replied. “I see something but I’m not sure what. Get a rope so I can be secured before I try to reach down in there.”
Rooney ran back to the car and this time drove it up the tractor path until it was just a stone’s throw from the well. He pulled a yellow nylon rope from the trunk and jogged back to Davis. Soon the two men were tethered, and Tony stood behind gripping the rope’s tail. Davis dropped to his knees and leaned over the well. As the rope tightened, he leaned down as far as he could with his right hand, keeping his left on the top edge of the bricks on the opposite side of the well.
“We got lucky. Whatever it is got hung up on a rough patch where the bricks of the well are sagging in. I think I can just reach it. Give me a few more inches,” he said, his voice obviously straining as it reverberated out of the well.
Rooney and Tony took a baby step forward and heard Davis cry out, “Got it!”
They tugged on the rope as Davis raised his torso and then leaned back on his haunches. Following his arm out of the well was a long, flexible, black tube about three inches in diameter. By the time Davis pulled it all from the well, they could see it was nearly twelve feet long. Dangling from the end of it, apparently caught on an edge of the hose that had been roughly cut, was a black woolen ski mask.
“Well I’ll be a frog on fire,” Rooney said. “I bet that’s the mask he wore at the Ennis place the night he killed them.”
“You could be right,” Davis replied. “But what’s the black tubing?” It looked like rubber, similar to a radiator hose only much longer.
“I don’t have a clue,” Rooney said.
“I do.” They turned to look at Tony.
Tony could feel his stomach clench and a wave of dizziness as he said quietly, “It’s the smoking gun.” Davis and Rooney stared open-mouthed as he continued, “It’s obvious to me this is the hose that Peters used to connect Lisa’s tailpipe to the interior of her car.”
Tony could see from the stricken look on Davis’ face that he realized Tony was probably right, and then, just as quickly, realized the ramifications of what that meant.
Rooney, of course, had no clue. Not being privy to Tony’s theories, he could only fumble out the obvious questions. “Lisa? What’s this have to do with her? What are you talking about?”
Davis was the one to respond. “Dan, please hold your questions. Trust me, I’ll fill you in later.”
Tony continued as if neither man had spoken. “He probably held a gun on her, making her sit there, helpless, while he hooked up the hose and ran it through an opening in the window.” Tony was crying now, his voice shaking. “Once he was sure she was dead, he removed the hose, shut the crib doors, and left the car running so it would appear the fumes got her as a result of being in the enclosed building. That’s how I found…that’s how I found her when I was too late. When I was late.”
Davis made a move to console him, but Tony turned away and fled to the back seat of the car.
“Well I’ll be a frog on fire,” Rooney mumbled to himself.
***
On the trip back to Orney, Davis forced Tony to talk about practical, and necessary, things, such as how the news coverage of the discoveries would be handled. They agreed Tony would write about the discovery of the ski mask but would leave out any mention of the hose. Once it had been tested for exhaust residue and fingerprints, they could decide the appropriate time and way to publicize it or not.
Tony used his cell phone to call Ben. He told him the whole story and related what he and the agents had struck as a deal. Ben’s only response was that he appreciated knowing all the facts, and it was up to Tony to decide how to handle it.
While the telephone conversation was underway, Davis and Rooney were discussing next steps in the investigation. They decided they needed to call in a DCI team with the training and equipment to explore the well further. If Peters threw in those two items, which possibly represented evidence from two different episodes of murder, what else might be down that well?
By the time they dropped him at home, Tony had pulled himself together enough to ask Rooney to email him a couple of pictures from the scene. As Tony stepped onto and across the porch, e
ntering the house to get a change of clothing, he realized how glad he was to have a job to do and how glad he was to have a boss like Ben. Despite Tony’s obvious emotional state, Ben trusted him completely to do what was best for the newspaper and the investigation. Support like that was worth more than any salary paid by any paper anywhere.
When Tony arrived at the paper, he didn’t go to Ben’s office but headed straight for his own desk. He logged onto the computer and began typing the story. He didn’t stop until he was finished. When he finally looked up, he could see Ben watching him from inside his office. Tony pushed the code that sent the story to the copy desk for editing. He then stood, stretched, and took two big gulps of a diet soda which someone had thoughtfully placed on his desk while he had been writing. He was debating what to do next when Ben waived him in.
“It’s only 3 o’clock and you’ve already had a full day,” Ben said with a smile.
“Can’t argue with that.” Tony smiled back, hoping the fact he was on the verge of tears again wasn’t obvious.
“I was going to be my usual lovable self and give you the rest of the day off, but the school superintendent just called to say they have an announcement to make, probably related to the bond issue they’re going after in the election. Since everybody else is tied up, would you mind heading over there? It shouldn’t be any big deal. A couple hundred words is all we’ll need.”
“No problem at all,” Tony was genuinely relieved again to have something specific to do.
“That’s great, thanks. In return, I’ll give you tomorrow morning off if you like. You can sleep in or whatever.”
“Thanks. I actually had been thinking about asking you for a couple of extra hours of free time in the morning. The weather has been perfect so I think I’ll get on the bike in the morning and take a ride. It’s been too long since I’ve had a decent workout.”
With that settled, Tony headed out for the public high school where the district’s administrative offices were housed. Maybe some controversy about a bond issue will take my mind off Lisa…Lisa, sitting helplessly while that bastard stole her life, Tony thought. Yeah, maybe not.
Chapter 25
The following morning was cool, clear, and just as spectacular as the day before. Tony slept in. When he arose at 8:30, the sun was shining through the east and south windows, warming the hardwood underfoot wherever it found a clear path to the floor. The events of the previous two days seemed surreal, like a bad dream sequence in an old movie. Here, with the sun shining through the windows and neighbors raking leaves across the street, it wasn’t possible to conceive of conspiracies and murder and fear. This was Orney, Iowa, and the beautiful fall colors were beckoning him to get out of the house.
Tony brushed his teeth, shaved, and pulled on sweat clothes and sneakers. He then grabbed his ten-speed bicycle in the front room where he had pulled it from the porch the previous morning, rolled it down the front steps to the sidewalk, and hopped on. Ten minutes later, he was on the public bike trail headed for the Raccoon River. Warm coffee from the corner convenience store sloshed in his water bottle strapped to the frame as he peddled faster, trying to get his heart rate up.
He had remembered sunglasses, but quickly realized he should have thought to bring gloves. The October air was chilling his hands to the bone. Oh well, Tony thought, pulling the sleeves of his sweatshirt down over his fingers. He wasn’t going back. It was just too perfect here.
Tony had been on only a few of Iowa’s two thousand miles of bicycle trails. He enjoyed riding but somehow failed to make it a priority in his outdoor activities. However, he had been on this particular trail several times and loved it. The trail was wide and hard-surfaced. It was built on a former railroad line, as many of the trails were. This one, however, went right into the timberland between Orney and the river, providing its riders with protection from the wind, solitude, and, best of all, spectacular scenery. Where the trees thinned, he had views of the wide river valley practically shouting, “Look at me,” as thousands of trees proudly displayed the reds, yellows, and golds of fall. As it reached the river, the trail crossed over on the former railroad trestle, having now been rebuilt with a concrete surface, protective guardrails, and even lighting for those riding after dusk.
Tony had two options. He could ride to the river bridge, turn around, and then ride back – a trip of about eighteen miles – or he could cross the river, catch the trail north to the state park, cross back over the river on the highway, and return on the blacktop. This was a trek of nearly forty miles. He still hadn’t decided which to take when he reached the end of the first leg.
Tony glided to a stop on the river bridge. He paused to admire the view up and down the valley. The maple, ash, oak, and other trees were in their full glory. Tony realized he regretted not bringing his camera even more than the gloves.
Then, reluctantly, he turned the bike around to ride back to Orney. Forty miles would make him late for work and, while Ben would never say anything, Tony felt like he had imposed on his generosity enough over the past three months. Before beginning the more difficult ride back up the hill and out of the valley, Tony bent over to grab his insulated container of coffee out of its cradle on the frame, just as he heard a loud “ping” ring out from the metal bridge strut next to him, followed immediately by a crack in the distance.
He began to straighten his back, turning to see what had caused the noise, when the realization struck him like a two-by-four. That was a gunshot. Tony dove to the pavement, his bike crashing down beside him. What the hell…? Tony lay flat on his stomach, turning his head from side to side, straining to see every patch of woods he could from the cold surface of the bridge deck. He quickly realized how ridiculous he was being. The woods could be filled with a whole division of Marines and he wouldn’t be able to see them among the trees, grass, and leaves that filled the hillsides in every direction. Dear God, I’m a sitting duck up here, he thought.
He was terrified to move but knew he had no choice. If someone truly was shooting at him, lying still on the bridge would only protect him until the shooter shifted positions to get the required angle for a clear shot. Stay calm, Tony. Okay, okay, he thought, forcing himself to breathe normally. There hadn’t yet been a second shot, so he must be right. The shooter couldn’t get a clear angle from where he was originally. So, he probably was moving. Because of the delay between the ping on the bridge and audible crack of the gunshot, Tony knew the shooter wasn’t nearby. He was back in the hills. It was equally likely the shooter couldn’t just swing his weapon up and take a quick shot. Even with the best long-range weapon and scope, he’d need time to find a firing position and aim.
In other words, Tony, get your ass out of here! He crawled up on his knees, then pulled his feet under him and stooped over as low as he could. If he was wrong and the shooter was waiting him out from the original sniper position, he didn’t want to give him a target. He grabbed the bike and dragged it along the bridge deck. As he waddled and dragged, it seemed to take forever to cover the forty yards to the end of the bridge and the additional twenty or so up the hill to where the trail curved into the woods. Tony’s back ached and he was covered with sweat when he reached a spot where he felt safe enough to mount. He scrambled onto the bike as fast as his shaking hands would allow and began peddling furiously through the trees toward Orney.
***
He rode straight to the Crier offices, never slowing down until his bike reached the rear parking lot. He tossed it off to the side against the aging brick and practically jogged into the office. There, he suddenly realized, he had no idea what to do next. He knew he should call the police, but who could he trust, really? While catching his breath he glanced around the room and noticed three different colleagues staring at him. Then he looked down and realized his sweat suit was smudged with dirt and oil from the bike and the bridge, his hands were red from the cold, and he was shaking. He tried to compose himself as he headed straight for the men’s room to clean up
.
When he came out, two people were in the hallway waiting for him. Ben was one. The other was the young woman Ben employed to take advertising orders, primarily classified ads, over the telephone. Both tried to talk at once. Ben decided to be a gentleman and stepped back, encouraging Laurie to speak first.
Between chews of what smelled like bubble gum, Laurie said, “Well, I’m sorry to bother you, Tony, but there was a message for you on the answering machine when I got to work this morning. Somebody named Molly asked you to call her right away. She said it was, like, you know, super important.” Chew, chew.
“Molly?” Did Tony know a Molly? There was Molly Parks, Lisa’s co-worker at the party headquarters. The governor’s party headquarters…“Do you mean Molly Parks?”
“Dunno,” Laurie said. Chew, chew. “She said you would know. But here’s the funny part, she said not to call her from any of your ‘regular’ telephones. I wonder what that means?” Chew, chew.
“Did she leave a number?” Tony hadn’t realized his heart could race even faster than it had already been.
Chew, chew. “Well, sorta. She said she has Lisa’s old phone. She said when Lisa moved back to Iowa she got a new iPhone and wanted a new number with an Iowa area code, so she gave her old phone to Molly.” Chew, chew. “I know, I don’t quite get it, but she, this Molly person, said she couldn’t afford a cell phone, so Lisa just kept paying the bill and let her have it. Can you figure that? I don’t have nobody in my life paying my bills.” Chew, chew. “You wanna hear the message? I saved it.”
“That’s good, Laurie,” Tony said. “Good thinking. Hang onto it, but for right now I’ll just give her a call and see what she needs. Thanks.”
“No prob, Bob,” Laurie said, chewing as she walked back to the office.
Ben was still standing against the hallway wall and Tony turned to face him.
“Care to explain any of that?” Ben asked.
“Oh, I would if I could. I barely know Molly Parks, but she works for the Roskins campaign at the party’s county office, so who knows? Maybe she’s got a scoop for us?”
Burying the Lede Page 23