Murder Book

by Weber, Frank F. ;

  The parting comment Mandy made about my best friend, Serena, had shaken me. Serena Bell was more than just a classmate. She was the one person who honestly knew me in high school. We had spent hours walking and talking about every issue we could think of. But every time I’d express interest in formally dating, she would always put me off. Serena wasn’t at the New Year’s party, so when Mandy pursued me, I decided it was time for me to consider someone who wasn’t afraid to acknowledge publically that we were together. I didn’t want to be alone when high school ended. Isn’t it funny how we have a way of making what we fear most come true? That night, I thought if Serena found out I had sex with Mandy, the feud we’d have would be the worst thing imaginable. When I became the prime suspect in Mandy’s disappearance, I realized the absolute silence between us was much worse.

  The problem with the Mandy Baker case was that, while everyone in my hometown remembered her, Mandy’s disappearance had faded from the memory of the agency responsible for investigating it. The BCA always had new cases to work on, and Mandy didn’t have any family in the state pushing to keep the case alive. But I would never forget her.

  My quiet reflection in the cold case room was interrupted when my supervisor, Maurice Strock, entered the room. Maurice was a white-haired man in his early sixties, closing in on retirement. He always wore a gray suit with a white dress shirt and a solid-colored tie as his “work uniform.” Today, the only spot of color on him was his royal blue tie. Maurice was a small man with aardvark-like features—a pointed nose and small, marble-like eyes. Maurice did a double-take when he scoped his nose down the long row of shelves and spotted me. In a nasally voice, he asked, “Shouldn’t you be out celebrating your promotion?’

  “Yes. I just have to check on something before I go.” Not wanting to call attention to my supervisor that I was once a suspect in a girl’s disappearance, I tried to find something useful in the evidence box before closing it. Numbers were the easiest for me to remember, as I configure stories out of them. I can’t really say my ability to memorize numbers is a blessing, since the numbers continue to run through my head on lonely nights, wearing grooves in my brain as I miserably pray to be rescued by sleep. I quickly found three social security numbers and memorized them. “Biological Father: Cade Freeman 639-92-6484. Biological Mother: Carrie Baker 54679-8832. Mother’s live-in significant other: Ray Benson 652-712937.” I’ll try to explain how my system works with Ray’s number: 6 is the shape of a pregnant woman; 5 is giving birth; 2 indicates the baby is gone (so 652 in my brain is the birth process); 71 is a sharp and straight man; 2 is a woman, so 29 is a woman holding the baby instead of carrying it in her uterus (as 9 is the upside down of 6); 3 means that, as a result of her pregnancy, she now has larger breasts, and she’s still with her sharp, 7, husband. This story occurred in my brain in two seconds, and I would remember it as 652-71-2937. It was an odd system and, admittedly, not necessarily politically correct from a gender-sensitivity standpoint.

  I closed the box, placed it back on the shelf, and went to Maurice. Shaking his hand, I told him, “Thanks for giving me the opportunity to work as an investigator. I won’t let you down.”

  Maurice smiled at my exuberance.

  I HEADED BACK TO MY OFFICE on the first floor, determined to celebrate my promotion, at least for part of the evening. I’ve been told it’s important to mark positive events in your life. The negative events seem to mark themselves.

  My immediate problem was that I didn’t have anyone to celebrate with. I hadn’t been on a date for four months, and I deliberately avoided friendships with coworkers. My obsessiveness was an asset on the job, but hyper-aware it had to be irritating to others, I didn’t socialize with peers outside of work. Ninety percent of promotions at work were based on social interactions with coworkers, and I wasn’t going to let my annoying personality cost me a promotion to investigator. I was polite, professional, and respectful to everyone, and avoided the office gossip. Sucking up to the person in power made one look pathetic when the power structure shifted, and supervisors worked harder to please assiduous workers who didn’t blindly follow. At least that was the theory I operated under.

  I decided to call Clay Roberts, an old friend from high school. Clay and I played high school football and basketball together. When all else failed, we would look each other up, typically after months of no contact.

  Clay had been raised rough and rugged by his father and liked to pretend to be a tough guy, which I always felt was a veneer covering a salvageable soul. He had been abandoned by his mother in his early teens, when she left the family for a man she’d met online. Clay was the one friend who had stood by me without reservation when Mandy disappeared. He now had his own construction crew, which worked in the suburbs around Minneapolis. We had little in common. Clay loved four-wheel-drive trucks and hunting, and bedded a lot of different women. I didn’t. If we hadn’t grown up together, it’s unlikely our paths would have crossed. I liked the fact that, in small towns, you’re forced to befriend whoever’s around, rather than having the option of seeking out like-minded people. I think it prepares us better for the variety of personalities we encounter at work.

  Clay answered the phone with a clipped, “Yep,” and after our usual banter, congratulated me on my promotion. “That was fast work.”

  “If you call one thousand, four hundred, eleven days of work fast.”

  “You and those damn numbers,” he groused. “Have you ever noticed you talk more about numbers when you’re single? The only number that matters right now is the number of women lining up to celebrate with you.”

  I considered this and said, “I don’t know that the number of women a man dates is an effective way to measure happiness. It could be argued that the correlation is negative—as one increases, the other decreases.”

  In his gravelly voice, Clay chided me. “The number’s significant when it’s zero. So, no dates since your fallout with Jada?”

  “I’ve been busy at work.” Jada Anderson was an attractive and assertive African American woman I had dated for four years.

  Clay continued. “I get why you wanted to be with her. She had that Mandy Baker body type. Same height, same—”

  It wasn’t rude to interrupt Clay. I considered it to be a moral obligation, as he tended to become progressively more inappropriate if you let him ramble on, particularly about intelligent women. “I know you weren’t wild about Jada, but she was good for me. Deep down, she has a good heart.”

  Clay laughed. “So deep down that it’s not visible.”

  “I don’t think either of us should judge her moral character.”

  Clay casually responded, “I beat up a guy for picking on a retard once, so I think I’m good with God.”

  The best chance Clay and I have of getting into heaven is through an unlocked window.

  “You need to find someone and settle down,” Clay continued. “You’re going to end up wandering around alone at night like your crazy brother does.”

  Ready for a subject change, I said, “I’m looking into Mandy Baker’s disappearance. I’ve been thinking about calling Serena Bell. I know it sounds desperate, calling her ten years later and asking, ‘Remember me from high school?’ But I want to find out how she met Mandy. Serena was the one who first invited Mandy to our parties.”

  Clay was uncharacteristically speechless for a moment. “That’s worse than desperate. That’s pitiful.”

  “I know. But I need to start somewhere.”

  I was quickly lost in the memory of her for a moment. Serena Bell was a true beauty—pretty and petite, with long, dark hair. She was often mistaken for Hispanic, but was actually of Polish descent. She had large, tear drop—shaped green eyes that scintillated when she smiled—and her smile was contagious.

  Clay went into a sermon about how Serena was “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” This lecture was triggered every time I brought Serena’s name up. Not every “kind” woman is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. After al
l, what do sheep wear? I, in turn, responded with a conversation he didn’t want to hear. I reminded Clay he needed to get over his mom’s departure. It was a dozen years ago. Now frustrated with each other, we decided not to go out for a drink. It sounds harsh, but it was how we communicated. The next time we spoke, this conversation would be ancient history, which was both good and bad. It was nice to always be able to start over, but it also meant nothing ever got resolved. It’s what men do.

  I decided to call my parents to tell them about my first day of work as an investigator. My dad always answered the phone, and then would immediately hand it to my mother, without saying anything in transition. I once mentioned to Dad that this felt like a control issue, but he pointed out that not all calls to our home had been pleasant since Mandy disappeared. Once my mother, Camille, was on the phone, she gave me the usual who’s-ill-among-old-people report. I learned a long time ago that it didn’t pay to tell her I didn’t even know those people, because this would only lead to a twenty-minute explanation of how I should know them, still followed by the report. I did manage to find out that Serena’s family had moved to the St. Paul area.

  I had a legitimate reason to talk to Serena. She had information on Mandy Baker, and I finally had the ability to investigate Mandy’s disappearance. But in all honesty, Clay was right. Part of me had a desire to chase the ghost of “what could have been” with Serena, and that was pathetic. I didn’t try to access her phone number through work, as I didn’t want anyone suggesting I used my new employment status to look up an old girlfriend. I decided to take on the challenge of calling Serena’s parents to ask for her phone number. Serena’s mother refused, and I understood—I was once accused of being a murderer in their community. I did manage to get her to agree reluctantly to give Serena my phone number. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  6:15 P.M.

  BIRMINGHAM APARTMENTS, MINNEAPOLIS

  BACK AT MY APARTMENT, I untucked my white shirttails and, with restless energy, bounced on my toes like a boxer in my black work slacks and stocking feet. I threw some punches in the air as if I was sparring Manny Pacquiao on the beige carpet in my living room. Like a boxer, I’d had an extended period of abstinence. I abandoned my contrived fight and played “All Along the Watchtower,” by Jimi Hendrix, on an old record player I kept in my living room. My dad was always in a good mood when he played music on the record player, so I kept it when they were ready to discard it. It’s possible I still hung onto that memory because it wasn’t always pleasant at home.

  My apartment on the fifteenth floor gave me a great view of Minneapolis at night. Going out to eat alone felt a little depressing, so I decided to make myself an extravagant meal as a reward for my accomplishment. As I searched recipes off of the Food Network, my mind returned to thoughts of Serena. I wondered what she was like today. I wanted her to be content, as opposed to suffering through the restlessness I struggled with, because she was truly the nicest person I had ever met. I printed the recipe for pan-seared salmon with a citrus glaze and chilled mango salsa.

  After I picked up my groceries, I found myself in Robbinsdale, driving by Travail, Jada Anderson’s favorite restaurant. Why? I’m not sure. I didn’t even want to talk to her. I think I wanted to see someone I cared for happy. Not necessarily with me. Just happy. No matter how I spun it, I couldn’t ignore that I was now more alone than ever. After a moment of anguish, I reached a conclusion. I would give myself one year from today to solve Mandy Baker’s disappearance, then I would start my own family. The remedy was obvious. The first step would be to stop putting off dates for work. The second would be to start dating women who actually wanted children.

  MIDNIGHT

  BIRMINGHAM APARTMENTS, MINNEAPOLIS

  I SPENT THE NIGHT on the couch with my laptop, gathering what I could on Carrie Baker, Ray Benson, and Cade Freeman. Cade Freeman, Mandy Baker’s biological father, committed suicide with a handgun in 2001 in Fresno, California. Mandy claimed she was afraid of the rural darkness because she was a “city girl,” but Fresno wasn’t exactly New York or LA. She lived with her biological parents at the entry point for Yosemite National Park. If Mandy had early sexual victimization, as I now suspected, I’d bet it started in the darkness of the park. It would help explain both her fears and her father’s suicide. But Cade’s suicide happened three years before Mandy moved to Little Falls, so Cade had nothing to do with Mandy’s disappearance. Strike one.

  Carrie Baker, Mandy’s mother, had been involved in court-ordered chemical dependency treatment in 2002 and 2004, after she was charged with writing bad checks. She died in 2006, from a series of strokes, renal and liver failure. Her autopsy showed the presence of methamphetamine and opiates. Carrie’s abuse of alcohol and drugs apparently became a death wish after Mandy disappeared. Carrie was in detox when Mandy went missing, so she was not involved in Mandy’s disappearance, either. Strike two.

  Ray Benson, Carrie’s live-in boyfriend at the time of Mandy’s disappearance, was now serving time in Florida after being charged with lewd or lascivious battery (statutory rape) in 2013. The victim was the fourteen-year-old daughter of Ray’s lover at the time. Odds were, Ray Benson had also sexually victimized Mandy. He looked like a promising suspect. Ray never had a reported income, but had performed tree-trimming work for cash. Tree trimming was big money in rural Minnesota, but many of the crews burned up the cash on alcohol and meth as fast as it came in. They drove nice cars but lived in crappy houses, because you can’t get a home loan without an identified income. But Ray Benson was incarcerated on the night of February 6, 2004, the night Mandy disappeared, for driving while intoxicated. Carrie went to detox and Ray went to jail when they were pulled over earlier that afternoon; Mandy was still at school at the time. Strike three.

  In most cases, you could use Facebook for information and direction. That wasn’t a possibility with the three names I had, as two were dead and one was in prison. I thought about the information I had hastily scanned from the cold case box. My name had been written down and circled. My paranoid schizophrenic brother’s name, Victor, was also on the list. There were two names written down and crossed out: Clay Roberts and Randall Davis. I was familiar with Randall’s name, as I had researched sex offenders living in Morrison County over the past decade. Randall was accused of raping a fifteen-year-old girl the year before Mandy disappeared but pled it down to a statutory offense. Randall apparently had an alibi, Anna Hutchins, for the night of Mandy’s disappearance. I wanted to talk to her.

  Chapter

  Two

  JON FREDERICK

  1:30 P.M.

  SATURDAY, MARCH 29

  HIGHWAY 10, HEADED NORTH TOWARD LITTLE FALLS

  SATURDAY AT NOON, I received a call for my first official case as an investigator. An eleven-year-old girl had gone missing in rural Minnesota. Unsure how long I’d be away from home, I quickly hauled all of the perishable items from my refrigerator out to the garbage, packed, and headed north. With two days in a row of temperatures hovering around forty degrees, the snow was departing fast. Late March and early April in Minnesota can be unforgiving, with cold, gloomy, overcast days. April is the purgatory ending the hell of winter, before the green of May brings everything to life once again. The trees were barren, and the color was drained from all the foliage by the bitter and exhausting winter. Patches of snow littered the burlap-brown prairie.

  As I drove through Little Falls, I adjusted the rearview mirror to double-check that my insulated, watertight boots were in the backseat. They were. I had packed in a hurry, and hoped I hadn’t forgotten anything I would need. Warm or not, I would be spending time outside.

  I turned right onto Highway 25 from Main Street and headed east out of the city. Sean Reynolds, a BCA colleague, called and told me I’d be working with an investigator from Morrison County named Tony Shileto. I would be the liaison between the BCA and local investigators. I got the liaison assignment because I was the rookie. Sean gave me a brief description and hist
orical rundown of Tony’s past, as he wanted me to be adequately prepared. Tony had a history of hostile relationships with others. The story was that he beat a citizen, after the individual was found not guilty of a sex crime. Tony had a friend in administration who helped him keep his job; however, local investigators had been reluctant to partner up with Tony, out of fear that the prosecution of their cases could be muddled up by his history. The Morrison County investigators used terms like “Shileto Justice” when an officer overreacted to a situation.

  Three miles east of Little Falls, toward Pierz, I approached a gravel road that had been recently named 210th Street. The city managers had elected to give the small roads street names, to make it easier for families to direct ambulance drivers when accidents occurred on the farms. Two police officers had blocked off the road, so I showed them my identification and was waved through. Gravel crunched beneath the weight of my tires for a half mile before I reached three squad cars parked by the side of the dirt road. Based on Sean’s description, the man not in uniform standing among four sheriff’s deputies was Investigator Tony Shileto. Tony was in his late forties. He had thick, black hair streaked with gray, which he wore combed back. His face bore strong Italian features, despite Sean’s suggestion that he was Irish. Tony fiercely shouted directions to the deputies through the bitter wind.

  I quickly stepped out of the car into the cold spring air, and swallowed hard as I studied Tony. His tan trench coat was open and waved with the wind as he scurried about in scuffed brown hiking boots.