Testing to see how far this man would be willing to go, Dick jokingly suggested that the man give him five hundred dollars. Then he might forget. The man pulled out his wallet, extracted eleven twenty-dollar bills, and handed them to Dick. He took off, saying he’d be right back with the balance.
Stunned, Dick watched the humbled man head toward his portable office trailer. While he waited, he stuffed the money into his pocket and looked around to make sure nobody had seen or heard what had just happened. And that was that.
The operator returned with the rest of the cash. Dick snatched it quickly from his hand and shoved it deep into his pocket. “If you ever tell anyone about this, I will deny it under oath. I’ll tell the court you tried to bribe me. And believe me, they will never believe your word over mine, considering your background. Now, get this place into compliance before I come back. And have two hundred more for me next time.”
It was the easiest five hundred bucks he’d ever made.
He couldn’t believe his good fortune. What would have happened if he’d asked for a thousand? Or five thousand? Who knows? he wondered. Maybe the guy would have paid it. He knew without a doubt that the next time he visited that operator, he would be greeted with a friendly man bearing a gift of more cash.
He quickly discovered that many operators were willing to pay cash under the threat of being issued a notice of violation or under the threat of repeat and consistent visits from the EPA regulator. Regardless of their compliance with the permits, they eventually paid.
He had never before realized how much power he had been given as a federal enforcer of the cumbersome air quality regulations.
It took him no time to pull together a list of names from all the air quality permit holders in his region. Starting with the most obvious violators, he quickly learned the infallible system of feigning a complaint, threatening to report a violation, and demanding cash to ignore it.
After accumulating nearly two dozen steady clients throughout the state and accumulating nearly $25,000 from each of them in the first two years, Dick had amassed a small retirement pool.
But he wanted more.
He’d exhausted the easy targets: violators and typically less ethical operators.
He pulled permits by size, visiting the compliant, small operators who were just starting out in their businesses. He changed his tactics and repurposed his pitch to protection rather than hush money. He knew those operators had too much at risk in the tender, early years of operations and that they were generally not savvy enough to know that this was not the standard way of doing business with the regulators.
He quickly discovered that the more ethical the operator, the easier it was to convince them that they had to keep their mouths shut since the money they paid him on his first visit would appear to be a bribe of a federal official. Mortified by the prospect of being accused of bribery, the operators continued to pay the quarterly demands—no argument, no protest. They had no other choice.
Over the years, the collection of what Dick called his “insurance money” had accumulated to nearly $300,000. With his current client base of forty, he could visit an average of three clients each Saturday and visit each one of them four times a year.
Limited to forty hours a week by the federal government, he became creative in how he used those hours, putting in his full week with the EPA by Thursday afternoon, which allowed him to collect on Fridays and Saturdays.
He tried to avoid working on Sundays. That was his day of rest.
He crossed his legs and leaned back in his recliner as far as it could go. Lighting up another unfiltered cigarette, he took a long, slow drag and blew the smoke above his head. A thin-lipped smile spread across his face.
He was proud of himself. His tongue flicked across his teeth as he calculated how much he would collect by the time he retired from the EPA in four years. He had had the discipline and intelligence to know that he should continue living his modest lifestyle until he retired so as not to raise anyone’s suspicions about his moonlighting activities. By spending more money than his EPA salary would support, he would not only draw unnecessary attention to himself but would also give credence to someone’s allegations, should one of his clients decide to grow a spine and a conscience.
Instead, early on he’d decided to rat hole the money he made from the various clients and let it grow as interest was earned. He had already added nearly 25 percent to his earnings over the past five years.
At the rate he was collecting, and assuming he would be unable to pick up any new clients primarily because his time prohibited it, he figured he would have saved a total of nearly three quarters of a million dollars. He had already opened three bank accounts in separate banks throughout Denver.
In four years, along with his retirement from the EPA, he would be a millionaire. Then, he could live off the interest and spend nearly $50,000 a year on himself—maybe more—without ever touching the principal. That would afford him a more luxurious lifestyle than he’d ever enjoyed during his career. If he chose the right investment broker in Florida, he could double his principal within five or ten years.
He finished his cigarette and crushed the remains into the overflowing ashtray beside his chair. Pushing his calves against the recliner, he rose to his feet and padded toward the kitchen to make himself another drink. The fat dog sprang to her feet and waddled behind her master, hoping for a portion of whatever food item he was about to prepare. Happy with himself, Roth began to whistle. The poodle perked her ears at the shrill sound and cocked her grey head to the side expectantly.
Dick spoke to the little mongrel. “What do you think about Florida? I’ve always wanted to live in the Keys. Nice and warm down there.”
The poodle stood perfectly still, not to dissuade her owner from tossing her a scrap if he were so inclined.
He stood at the open refrigerator and tossed the dog a scrap of fried chicken and then ate two pieces himself. Around a mouthful of partially chewed meat, he added, “Then girls will be begging me for a piece. Bitches always go for money, don’t they, sweetie? I’ll have money. Lots of it.”
He grabbed a half-eaten summer sausage and a chunk of cheese from the cold cuts drawer and bumped the refrigerator door closed with his padded rump. Freeing up one hand by wedging the chunk of cheese between his lips, he grabbed his iced tea and tequila and made his way back to the recliner.
Then someone knocked on his door.
He froze. He hadn’t been expecting anyone.
There was another knock.
He set down his drinks and snack, hurried to the door, and peeked through the peephole.
There were two police officers, a man in a crumpled white shirt and dress pants, and a heavyset, disheveled woman with thick glasses and frizzy brown hair.
With the woman motioning to knock for a third time, Dick swung the door open.
“Richard Roth? Dick Roth—inspector with the EPA?” one of the uniformed officers asked.
Dick nodded, puzzled.
The disheveled woman stepped forward, extending a badge toward him. “Special Agent Laurie Frumpley. Meet the district attorney.” She motioned to the man in the crumpled white shirt.
As the officers flanked him, while the district attorney read him his rights, Dick Roth realized he was most unnerved by the chubby woman’s expression.
Her confident sneer meant his holidays had just come to an end.
“OH MY GOD,” I gasped as I rose to my feet and started pacing.
I had been utterly shaken by his story. Streeter’s undoing, his long, excruciatingly painful life, overwhelming personal grief, and trauma in the aftermath, underscored the true tragedy of Paula’s murder. It was worse than Dillinger’s letter.
A cold sweat had broken out on my forehead and chest. My hands and knees were trembling. I’d hoped that pacing would calm my nerves. I understood now why Streeter did it so often—like a caged tiger.
After nearly ten hours of purging, he’d long sinc
e left my side and retreated to the deck with his back to me. He was stooped from the weight of the nightmarish memories, and he seemed to have aged from those recollections right before my eyes.
No wonder his hair had turned white overnight.
I mumbled, “He killed her. To get back at you.”
He drew a silent breath and lifted his gaze again to the distant woods. The sun had begun its early ascent over the mountains, and ghostly greys with threads of pinks were beginning to spread across the sky.
His words were broken and uneven. “I came home later than I told her I would. Maybe if I’d called or come home sooner …”
He buried his face in his large hands.
I was glad that he had turned his back to me now, so he couldn’t see the genuine pity I felt for him at this moment. I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. “If you had, you’d both be dead. Paula wouldn’t have wanted that.”
The shadows of the evergreen trees stretched across his deck.
He cleared his throat and wiped his face. He patted my arm. I’d laid my head between his shoulder blades.
He folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve never talked about this since the day it happened. Not to anyone. I spent so much time telling the story from a clinical perspective, a lawman’s view, over and over in the days that followed her murder, that I swore I’d never talk about it again. And here I am, spilling my guts to you.”
I felt his body tense.
“I didn’t think it would be this hard,” he continued. “I thought time would have lessened the pain somehow. But it hasn’t.”
I held my breath during the quiet moments that followed and waited for his free flow of thoughts and emotion.
“When I opened the door, the first thing I noticed was the smell. She’d been making dinner on the stove. My first thought was that Paula had made my favorite homemade vegetable soup. But the smell—it was off.”
I squeezed him tighter.
“Then, I pushed the door open. I saw her lying there on the floor. It was just her torso. She was on her side with her knees tucked up against her waist and her arms splayed out in front of her. She looked so small, so … fake.”
I felt the tremor ripple through his body and held him closer.
“I couldn’t believe what was happening. I must have stood there staring for who knows how long. My mind couldn’t accept what I was seeing. The horror was too great. I knew it was Paula. She was wearing the sweater I had given her the Christmas before. And the faded blue jeans she always wore. I knew it was her.” His voice grew increasingly thin. “But there was a very small crimson pool on the carpet where her beautiful head should have been.”
I shuddered. I didn’t know if I could take much more of this. Yet, he had lived with it for decades. And I loved him. I told myself to buck up and stay glued to the saddle.
“I wanted to see her face, her hair, her beautiful winter wheat locks spilling across that floor, just as I had seen them spilled across her pillow so many nights when I’d watched her sleep. But her hair wasn’t there. She wasn’t there. It was her, but it wasn’t her.”
My arms squeezed tightly around Streeter’s waist. I rubbed my cheek softly across his back.
His memories were disjointed. “There wasn’t much blood, considering. I always thought there would be more in a … with a … there was hardly any.”
He shuddered again. He couldn’t say the word “decapitation” or “beheading”—words that flowed so easily from Coyote Cries’s stories to Dillinger.
I stroked his chest with my hands.
“It was horrifying to witness. Even if I hadn’t known her and loved her, I would’ve been forever haunted by the gruesome sight. The nightmares were always there, whether I was alseep or awake. I couldn’t shake that image.”
The quiet chirping of the birds pierced the silence. The forest was awakening.
The sun would soon be shining brightly, the cool air rapidly warming in the coming dawn. I felt his sweat-soaked back against my cheek and his shivers come and go like a tide.
“They say I called Sid Carter, the Denver SAC, my boss. But I don’t remember that. I don’t remember much. One minute, I was coming home, finding her like that. And the next minute? I was sitting in a pew at her funeral in a church I didn’t recognize, being consoled by people I’d never met. I think Sid must’ve handled everything. Sid and Roger Landers. Roger flew to Denver from Rapid City and stayed with me until after the funeral.”
I recognized the names from my research. Both had been his bosses: one in Rapid City, one in Denver. I adjusted my hold on him, pressed my hands flat against his chest to protect him from the cool breeze. The chirping grew clear, distinct, and cheerful.
“I don’t remember much. They gave me sedatives. Lots, I suspect. One minute I was in Denver, the next, in Lead-Deadwood. I don’t even know where I stayed. I can’t even tell you what was said at Paula’s funeral. Can you believe that?”
I answered, “I can. That had to have been the most traumatic event a human being could experience.”
He stared at the sunrise, shaking his head in disgust. “Some husband—can’t even remember the words spoken about my own wife at her funeral.”
“You were beyond upset. It’s understandable,” I comforted him.
“I love you,” he said absently and unexpectedly.
“I know,” I responded evenly. “And I love you, too. To my very core. And for always.”
“My hair turned all white the day after I found her.”
I knew that. I had either read it in one of the articles or someone had told me … Father Shannon … he’d told me. He had officiated the Mass.
“It had been brown, dark brown, without a trace of grey all my life. Then, it was white. Overnight,” He babbled. His thoughts rambled. “They say that happens sometimes during moments of severe stress or shock. I guess I’m one of those classic cases that proves it’s true.”
“You could have died, Streeter. From the shock,” I said.
“Believe me, there were so many times that I’d wished I had,” he replied honestly. “This all took its toll on Roger, too. He was terribly upset about June Chase being killed by the car bomb.
I didn’t know who June was and hadn’t see her name anywhere in the files I’d read. Maybe she was a relative of Roger Landers.
“Her murder happened on the same day that Paula was killed. She died when she started her car that morning. On her way to work.”
“At Roger’s home?”
He shook his head. “On the reservation. She was a witness in one of the cases he was working.”
I’d have to look into that case and read the files. Then, something dawned on me. “Then Coyote Cries couldn’t possibly have killed both women, could he? He couldn’t be in two places at once. On the reservation in South Dakota and then in Denver.”
He sighed. “He could’ve planted that bomb sometime during the night and driven back to Denver. He had plenty of time. They never found June’s killer—just like they never found Paula’s. They never found enough evidence.”
“This guy is an expert.”
Streeter scowled. “If he didn’t kill June, he ordered someone to do it. Roger suffered a massive heart attack two weeks after June’s death.”
I gave him another loving squeeze. He rubbed his eyes and forehead with his right hand.
I waited quietly so as not to interrupt his thoughts before saying, “I’m confused. Why didn’t Coyote Cries get a stiffer sentence? I’m surprised he wasn’t given a life sentence without parole—or even death. For such a heinous and brutal crime of revenge against a federal agent, I would have thought they would have put him away forever. It makes no sense to me.”
I’d read everything in the files and, although circumstantial, as a juror, I’d have ignored my duty to the law and nailed the bastard because he clearly murdered Paula. Maybe I’d been prejudiced with Dillinger’s letter.
“He was never charge
d with Paula’s murder, or June’s.
“What about the advances in DNA? Maybe he could be tried now.”
Streeter sighed. “We did fiber searches, dusted for fingerprints, and scraped under Paula’s fingernails and teeth for any DNA we could get on her murderer.”
“Nothing?” I asked. “Not even DNA?”
“Nothing. No prints; no witnesses. No weapon was ever found. Nothing was missing from our apartment. No apparent motive. For some time, they even investigated me as a potential suspect.”
I let him go and leaned back, stunned by the revelation. Of course they’d suspect the husband—especially with no evidence. “How could they ever believe such a thing?”
He shrugged. “I can’t blame them. I had no clue who would’ve done such a thing at first. The thought never crossed my mind that Coyote Cries was the culprit. I was in a fog for weeks, wondering who would do such a thing and why. I think Roger suspected it all along. But he was probably trying to spare me the torture.”
He stretched and grabbed my hand. He led me to the couch. I slumped down into the soft cushions beside him. Just as I was about to ask how he was so sure it was Coyote Cries if there was no evidence, Streeter took the conversation in another direction.
“I didn’t see … the rest of her at first,” he whispered, averting his eyes. “Maybe I did, but I avoided it. I saw her hair—behind the couch. I remember a lot of commotion going on around me. The police and the bureau, arguing over jurisdiction for the case. I stared at the men who were all milling around our apartment, while … my wife was in pieces.”
I didn’t dare move. Or breathe.
“I saw everyone. But I didn’t really see them. It was kind of like a blur. I remember the flashes of cameras. Picture after picture. Of my wife, the floor, the wall. The apartment.”
The wall? Of course: where he’d thrown her head. I wanted to scream. I closed my eyes tightly against the images that had begun to burn in my mind’s eye.
He stopped breathing and stared at the floor—for a long, long time. “The guys never talked much about it with me. I guess I really didn’t want to know.”
Jeremiah’s Revenge: A Liv Bergen Mystery Page 27