Tony went on, “Maurice liked the way Jada Anderson handled the interview, so he gave her the exclusive on Lemor’s arrest. Saving Brittany, and now the quick arrest, has been great publicity for law enforcement. Maurice is strutting around like he’s the man, and he plans on squeezing as much glory as possible out of this case. A happy day for the gangster of love.”
Tony was making reference to a Steve Miller hit from the seventies, “The Joker”: “Some people call me the space cowboy, some call me the gangster of love. Some people call me Maurice, because I speak to the pompitous of love.” By the way, “pompitous” wasn’t actually a word. But apparently no one told Steve Miller that.
Tony continued to pull pine needles from his clothes. “Brittany’s improving, wavering in and out of consciousness. We’re keeping a guard with her twenty-four hours a day until Lemor is officially charged with attempted murder.”
My gaze fixed on the growing pile of tree detritus, but I no longer saw it. “I feel bad for the Brennans. Their little girl was raped and left for dead. It ignites a fire in me. I can only imagine how it’s affecting Al.”
Tony shook his head sullenly. “If I’d have been the one who ran Jeff down, he’d be in a world of hurt. I don’t take kindly to guys who open fire on investigators.”
I rubbed my eyes and, with the honesty that often stems from exhaustion, asked, “Why did you beat up Troy Halzberg?”
Tony ignored me initially, as he silently processed a thought. Finally, he asked, “What?”
“Why did you beat up Troy?”
“Are you kidding me?” Tony threw his hands in the air and then dropped them on the table. “What is with you? Nobody’s had the balls to ask me about that.” Tony glared at me. “You got a pop? I’m going to need something to sip on if you want to hear that story.”
I went to the fridge and grabbed a caffeine-free Diet Mountain Dew. “The only soda my parents have is caffeine- and sugar-free. They don’t keep anything around that’ll make it more difficult for Victor to sleep at night.”
Tony accepted the soda and muttered, “No nicotine, no sugar, no caffeine, no fun.” He cracked open the can, took a long drink, pondered the question, then slyly grinned. “I guess there really isn’t that much to the story. Troy raped my fourteen-year-old niece, after she drank too much at a party.”
I waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, I added, “So you assaulted him.”
Tony scratched his sap-spattered head. “Not immediately. Troy’s daddy bought him an attorney who convinced the jury my niece made the story up, because she didn’t want to get in trouble for drinking.” Tony was progressively becoming more agitated. “My niece didn’t report the rape until two days later, and she had already showered.”
I could imagine Tony pursuing justice on his own.
Tony leaned forward, his lips forming a thin line. Baring his teeth, he continued. “I initially left him alone. But then one night, after Troy was out using with his buddies, he walked into McDonald’s when my niece was working the counter alone. He taunted her with some of the things she said while he was raping her. She stepped into the back and called me.” Tony gave a small shake of his head. “So I found Troy. I told him I was her uncle, and I’d be visiting him anytime he came near her. Oh, yeah, and I hit him.” Tony shrugged. “It just seemed like the right thing to do. Then he made a smart-ass comment, so I hit him again.” Tony held his hands out. “Just like that he was on the ground. So I bent down and told him that, next time, it might not be so easy for him to crawl away. The next week, I was called into my boss’s office. I told him what happened. He told me to go back to work and never speak of it again. There were no charges, but it never goes away. I’m just one more dumbass cop who abused his power. That’s the story.”
“I can understand your frustration. I think a lot of guys would have responded the same way.”
Tony considered what I’d said. “But you wouldn’t have.”
“Honestly it’s difficult to say what I’d do, until I’m in that situation. I . . .” my voice trailed off as I decided it would be better if I didn’t finish this sentence.
Tony wouldn’t accept my retreat. “Speak up. What were you going to say?”
“Whenever I hear about a cop beating someone up, I always wonder how much of it has to do with the situation, and how much has to do with what’s going on in the cop’s life.”
There was an extended, awkward silence before Tony admitted, “Honestly, my marriage wasn’t going well at the time. My wife was having an affair. I was working my ass off, and nobody appreciated it, even at work . . .”
When Tony was done sharing, I said, “Thanks for telling me. You’ve already earned my respect, but it’s nice to know the truth.”
Ignoring the compliment, Tony changed the subject. “So what’s your story?”
“What do you mean?”
Tony was tired, but he still managed to smirk at my ignorance. “Ten years may seem like a long time when you’re twenty-eight, but when you’re forty-nine, it’s like yesterday. I wasn’t the main investigator, but I worked the Mandy Baker case in 2004, and you were our prime suspect. If you didn’t kill her, who did?” Tony challenged me. “Her friends in Little Falls said Mandy was hellbent on getting to Pierz that night.”
Surprised by this revelation, I nervously repositioned myself in my chair.
Tony continued. “Maurice told me you went through the murder book. You know the killer, and maybe somebody out there knows you know.” Tony studied my reaction. When I didn’t respond, he continued. “The Mandy Baker investigation was abysmal. It was the biggest damn clusterfuck of an investigation I’ve ever participated in.”
“Why’s that?” He had my undivided attention now.
“Nobody could decide whose case it was. My boss thought it belonged to the BCA, so after a couple days of asking around, we gave it the BCA. The BCA thought it belonged to the FBI because even though Mandy had been in Minnesota for six months, she wasn’t a Minnesota resident. The FBI thought we should have kept it. But Mandy wasn’t a local and had no family around, other than her drug-addict mom, so nobody cared. I think everybody thought Mandy was just shackin’ up with a guy, and would eventually pop up.”
I found little comfort in knowing that, while the Little Falls community was ready to lynch me, nobody was looking for any other suspects.
Tony went on, “People in Pierz had nothing to say to us. I’ve always felt the Pierz crew knew more than they let on. It’s a pretty tight-knit community, and they tend to protect their own. Your brother was pretty evasive.”
“Victor is schizophrenic and a little developmentally disabled, but he’s not violent.”
Tony studied me for a moment. “He’s family. I get it. You’re more like me than you’d like to admit.”
“Victor never hurt anybody. He was always afraid, and Mandy would have torn him apart if he tried anything.”
Tony argued, “Victor, you, and your dad are all strong farm boys. Mentally ill people can be uncontrollably strong, because they fear for their lives in situations where it isn’t warranted.”
He was right, but I pointed out, “Victor wasn’t psychotic at the time, and he was never violent.”
Tony sighed and pushed his chair back, making to stand up. “Okay,” he conceded. “But you’re going to need to open your eyes to possibilities close to home, if you honestly want to resolve Mandy’s disappearance. Get some rest. I’ll keep you informed. “
“Before you leave, I need to ask the relevance of the jacket found on the dirt road by the Brennans. Why did you ask if I owned it?”
Tony scooted his pine needles into a more compact pile. “When we searched Mandy’s bedroom, we found two buttons on the floor by the bed that had been torn off of a man’s jacket. I was able to prove it was from a specific type of Express men’s leather jacket, but we never found it. And then, by some twist of fate, one of the searchers the Brennans sent out to look for their missing daughter, ten
years later, finds an Express men’s leather jacket in the ditch, missing two buttons. And I think God’s given me another chance at the Mandy Baker case. I looked all over for that damn jacket a decade ago, and now a perfect match is dropped on my lap. I think Mandy was wearing that jacket the night she disappeared. Her friends at school said she wore a leather jacket that belonged to a guy she was dating from Pierz, and, hello, that’s you. So, I called the space cowboy and asked for you, specifically, to work this investigation with me. Are you an investigator because of your guilt or your innocence?”
Shame washed over me, but I kept my composure and asked, “Do you think Mandy’s disappearance is related to the assault on Brittany?”
Tony said, “Not anymore. It certainly would be easier if all the bad crimes were committed by one guy, but I think we’re dealing with a couple different perpetrators.” Tony slapped his thighs and stood up as a cloud of dust puffed from his pant legs. “Okay, no work for you tomorrow. We’ll see how you’re doing in a couple days.”
Needing more information, I said, “I have one more question.” “You’re pushing it.”
“What do you have from the Mandy Baker investigation that never made it into the case file?”
Tony swept the needles into his hand and dropped them into the nearby garbage can. “Not a lot, because we didn’t have the case for long. I wanted to talk to Victor again, but your dad lawyered him up. I guess the biggest thing is we initially had a pretty good description of the car. Small, white four-door with red pinstripes. Likely a Chevy Cavalier. When the BCA re-interviewed the witness, she wasn’t as sure, so, ultimately, a vague description of the car went into the file. I didn’t find anyone related to the case who drove one, so it wasn’t particularly helpful.”
I calmly said, “Thanks,” but it bothered me immensely. I knew someone who drove a white Cavalier with red pinstripes ten years ago.
As I DROVE TO MINNEAPOLIS, I spent an hour considering a variety of scenarios involving my Cavalier-driving friend and Mandy Baker. While I wanted to confront this individual in person, I needed to fight my obsessive desire for an immediate answer. I forced myself to wait patiently for the proper opportunity.
Chapter
Eleven
PANTHERA
I‘M SHUT DOWN FOR A WHILE, but I vow to remain disciplined. I need to sit back and enjoy my success for the time being. I needed Brittany silent and Jon Frederick off the case, and I have achieved both.
Jada Anderson has to be the best-protected person in the state of Minnesota. As one of the few black professional women in central Minnesota, everybody pays attention to her. You can’t be near her without being observed. She’s also staying at the AmericInn with all of the investigators. Going after her would be my undoing, and getting her would only resolve my curiosity. I need to be smart. So, she’s safe for now, but if she interferes with my life, game on.
I have better options to consider. One I’ve had before, another is highly rewarding, and both would ease my resentment. Balance the world again. I could have ravaged Serena, but I opted to just watch her sleep beneath me. She had become available to me unexpectedly. This time, I’ll have her on my own terms. Acting yields a powerful reward, but there is also powerful satisfaction in restraint. I have the power to say, “I spared her life tonight.” Exercising options makes an attack all the more exciting.
Chapter
Twelve
JON FREDERICK
7:15 P.M.
wEDNESDAY, APRIL 2
MINNEAPOLIS
ON MY WAY BACK to my apartment, I decided to stop at the BCA office for one more look at Mandy’s murder book. While I could greatly benefit from some manja, the white Cavalier troubled me. My hand throbbed, and I no longer envisioned this evening going well.
The cement cold-case storage room was quiet, aside from the humming of the fluorescent lights. As I carefully worked through the evidence box, I searched for details I might have missed in my first overview. I held up a Ziploc bag containing two brown buttons. According to the report, there were no partial fingerprints found on them, and that bothered me. Mandy’s bed was unmade, but it was always unmade. There had been no sign of a struggle in her room. Whose jacket was it, and how did it suddenly turn up ten years later? I may never find that answer, so I needed to sort through the remaining contents of the box.
A number of registered sex offenders living in the area were also investigated, but alibis were verified for all. One offender, Randall Davis, had a victim with similar physical characteristics to Mandy. Randall pled guilty to criminal sexual conduct in the third degree in 2003, for having sex with a fifteen-year-old girl. While he pled guilty to a statutory offense, the victim reported fearing for her life as he forcibly raped her. A plea was taken in this case because the victim was labeled “promiscuous,” and the prosecutor didn’t want to take it to trial. The DNA testing on Davis’s victim suggested the girl had sex with more than one man in the previous twenty-four hours, which could simply mean she had a boyfriend. Davis’s alibi on the night Mandy disappeared was his live-in girlfriend—a woman he had a previously assaulted. Randall would be worth revisiting.
I smiled at the thought of Tony interrogating my brother. Victor was a paranoid schizophrenic, so you could ask him the time of day and he’d be suspicious. In addition, thoughts flew through his head like divider stripes by a car cruising down the freeway.
Continuing to go through the box, I found the note stating that Mandy was picked up in a white car at about eight o’clock in the evening. Visualizing that car gave me a sick feeling. What was I doing here? I had wanted to be with Serena for as long as I could remember, and here I was in the cold-case room instead. The unknowns about Mandy’s disappearance had already consumed a decade of my life. I used to worry this case would never be solved; now I worried about who it was going to implicate. I started this trouble by getting involved with Mandy, and when you start trouble, you have no control over how others respond. I had a bad feeling about this.
I called Serena and told her I had some work to attend to, so I couldn’t be with her tonight. That call was difficult. She wanted to take care of me, and I wanted to be with her, but I wasn’t feeling well, and I had to carefully consider my next step.
8:30 P.M
THURSDAY, APRIL 3
BIRMINGHAM APARTMENTS, MINNEAPOLIS
TODAY WAS NOT PARTICULARLY PRODUCTIVE. I went to the gym and worked out the best I could, avoiding the use of my left arm. I was never a fan of passive healing. I bought some groceries and took a nap but was no closer to knowing how to address my concerns.
The best distraction from my pain tonight was Serena, sitting next to me in an off-the-shoulders, lacy white blouse and black jeans. Her beautiful dark hair flowed to her smooth shoulders and her green eyes shimmered. A hint of lipstick gave her lips a satin sheen. Was she a semblance of pulchritude, or did that beauty radiate within, as well? My headache wasn’t completely gone, but it seemed irrelevant, and the pain in my hand had dissipated to the point where it was only a minor distraction.
Serena softly observed, “Something’s bothering you.”
“Tony gave me a little more information on the car that picked Mandy up on the night she disappeared. It was a white Chevy Cavalier with red pinstripes. How many cars, would you guess, met that description in Morrison County ten years ago?” I had given her a baited question, based on my suspicion. There were actually more than you’d think—thirty-seven, to be exact.
She swallowed hard and glanced down for a moment. “I wanted to talk to you about that. I was the one who picked Mandy up that night.”
My stomach burned acid. “Tell me what happened.”
“Mandy called me, because she knew I was close to you. She wanted to be in Pierz when your team got back from your game. I was home alone at the time, so I drove her to my house and we talked.”
I patiently waited for her to continue.
Serena looked agonized. “She told me how sexually naïv
e you were. It was miserable. I was trying to be nice to her, but she was so spiteful to me. Mandy was wearing the leather jacket you gave her.”
Frustrated, I said, “I never gave her a jacket. I’ve never even owned a leather jacket.”
She nervously nodded in agreement. “Okay.” Serena paused, then said, “Looking back, I think she said a lot of things because she knew they bothered me, and she wanted me to hurt just like she was hurting. She said it was urgent that she talked to you, so I thought maybe she was pregnant. I didn’t know when I picked her up that you’d just broken up with her. Mandy found a bottle of Windsor in my parents’ liquor cabinet, and we had a couple drinks. I asked her if she should be drinking and she laughed. I wasn’t a drinker, and she mixed them strong. After a couple, I told her I needed to stop. My head was spinning, so I laid down on the couch. I wanted to rest a little before I gave her a ride home, but I fell asleep. When I woke, she was gone. I never saw her again. I assumed she walked over to your house. You would have been home by then.”
I tried to speak calmly and softly as I said, “Why didn’t you tell the police this?”
“No one ever came to talk to me,” she said.
“You didn’t call to check on her the next day?”
“I had no desire to talk to her again. She made so many nasty comments about me and my faith—always followed with ‘I’m just kidding.’ But she wasn’t, really. Out of anger, I told her she was wasting her time with you. If you said you didn’t want to date her anymore, it was over. You’ve always been stubborn—sometimes in a good way.” Serena took my good hand. “Looking back, I wish I wouldn’t have reacted as I did. My life was easier than hers in so many ways. But you don’t think about that when your heart’s broken.”
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