Murder Book

by Weber, Frank F. ;

  I carefully unwound the t-shirt from the lock and tested the door. As I suspected, the tape was wrapped all the way around the armoire. My best bet was to try to push the top of the armoire up, since it wasn’t made to take force from that direction, and I doubted Al had wrapped tape over the top. I pushed up hard with my head, but it didn’t budge. If I could turn my body upside down, I could push with my legs, but my skin burned against the wooden sides when I tried to change my position. I was just wedged too tightly in one damn spot. Hitting my head against the top would only knock me out. Come on, think.

  I tried the door again, managing to push it open a quarter of an inch so I could gulp some badly needed fresh air. It was getting dark. I stuffed the t-shirt partially into the slight opening, to make certain the door remained at least that much ajar. This helped my stomach some, and the fresh air and deep breathing also reduced my panic.

  I wished I had something to cut the imprisoning tape. I worked a finger through the crack and started scraping on it with my fingernail. There was a lot of tape, so this would take time, but it could work. Something had to work.

  The truck stopped. Al got out and smacked the dresser door hard, scaring the hell out of me. It was all I could do not to react.

  I anxiously thought about the sexual predator on the other side of this door. Jon had told me that Al had brutally sodomized Vicki without having any reason to be angry with her. My fiancé had sent him to prison, and I could testify that he picked Mandy up on the night she disappeared. What form of hell awaited me? I was sweating with fear, and my hands were clammy. I decided it would be best to let him think I was still unconscious.

  My wooden tomb was pushed out the back of the truck bed and fell hard to the ground. It knocked the wind out of me, but I willed myself to stay quiet, gasping silently. I was now able to see more light through the hole in the back of the dresser. I saw gravel for an instant, then heard scraping as the armoire slid along. I was then tipped upside down, my body shifting and sticking with each jostle. I tried to brace myself, palms flat against the side. All of a sudden, I was flipped quickly back, right side up, but the landing felt unstable. Whatever I landed on gave under the weight of the armoire, and bounced fluidly a few more times. The scent of rotting fish and something mossy seeped into the openings, reminding me of days playing in the pond behind our house. I could only guess the armoire had been tipped into some kind of a boat. The buoyancy started to give me motion sickness, and I again fought the urge to throw up, swallowing it out of fear he would hear me. Then I couldn’t hear him moving anymore. Had he left me? What was he going to do? I clawed desperately at the tape again. It was too thick.

  I heard movement, so I quickly pulled my finger back in, hoping he hadn’t seen it in the dark.

  Al grandiosely said, “It’s time for you to beg for your life, Serena. After that kick to my groin, you’ve got to deliver on something so erotic, I’ll never stop fantasizing about it. Tell me what you can do for me.”

  I despised everything about Al, and found myself deliberating over what would frustrate a sadist the most. I took pleasure in not responding.

  After a couple minutes, the drawers were pulled open and something clunked heavily as it dropped inside them. Oh, God, he was filling the drawers with, what, rocks? Concrete blocks? Something heavy. When this stopped, I could hear the ripping of tape again. He was taping the drawers shut. Suddenly, it dawned on me that I was going to be dropped into a lake in this weighted cage. I was completely unravelling. A new wave of hysteria threatened to escape from me in a primal scream.

  Al’s voice slid through the armoire like a lazy snake. “Now, I imagine you’re wearing very little in there, and I planned on having you under me on the ground, ass up, by now. But, I’m having a little trouble getting it up from your kick to my balls last time. So, it’s time for you to do your best sweet-talking. First, you can tell me everything you’d beg to do for me, and then you can show me.”

  When I didn’t respond, the boat was pushed from the shore. This was my worst nightmare. I was cramped into a small, dark container and about to be deposited into a smelly body of water. The combination of my claustrophobia and inability to swim shot a paralyzing fear through me. I wished I would have done so many things differently. I wasn’t ready to die. God, please help me, I prayed. Kyrie eleison.

  Al started talking to me again. “If you can hear me, this would be a good time to talk. I don’t like dumping a nice piece of ass without using it first. Beg!”

  I shouldbeg, I thought, but I just couldn’t give him the satisfaction of giving in. Instead, I closed my eyes and prayed. My trembling body was cramped and sore, but I tried sliding myself upside down one more time. I still couldn’t turn. It was useless. I thought about pleading to Al, just to get out of this damn dresser, but I was both angry and terrified to face him. I imagined what he’d do to me, and feared it would be even worse. I had held out hope to the very last second that someone would save me. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want my baby to die. But if I left this crate now, I knew I’d soon be begging to die.

  Al kept talking. “You should have recovered from that tranquilizer by now. It wasn’t any more than I gave Brittany. You gave a good fight, but now you either give it up, or I’m just going to watch you die. At your parents’, you damn near knocked me out. My balls were swollen for a week! Today, I can’t even get you to try to plead your way out of a dresser that’s destined for the bottom of Green Lake. Adios, bitch!” He started to tip the armoire into the water.

  I called out. “What do you want?”

  Chapter

  Forty-Six

  JON FREDERICK

  9:20 P.M.

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4

  MORRISON COUNTY

  WHERE WAS AL TAKING SERENA?

  During our last conversation, Al said he made a mistake leaving Brittany’s body in water beneath a road. I had the impression he still would opt for some kind of submersion. He put Brittany underwater alive. Would he do that again? The Mississippi River runs through the heart of the city of Little Falls. If he was going to dump her in the Mississippi, he would have to do it either north or south of the city, which wouldn’t be convenient for him. I called Dad, and he agreed to get friends to the roads that access the Mississippi. Dad said he would go to Fish Lake, between Little Falls and Pierz.

  I would give my life for hers in a heartbeat. I envisioned myself with Serena. She was holding an infant she recently gave birth to. At first, I dismissed it as wishful thinking, then the number 195 flashed in my brain. One-ninety-five could mean straight man with a woman, holding a baby she’d recently given birth to, or it could simply be a road.

  With my siren wailing, I cruised through Morrison County. Tony had mentioned off-hand that Al fished Green Lake. It would be an easy spot to dump a body unnoticed, especially at night. There are no houses on Green Lake. It’s a small body of water completely surrounded by farmland, and fewer than two miles from Al Brennan’s home, off of 195th Avenue. That had to be it.

  I called the Morrison County sheriff, and he sent the closest deputy to meet me by the dirt road that ran to Green Lake, just off of Highway 27. I asked that the deputy leave his sirens and lights off to give us the element of surprise. I prayed to God I wasn’t wrong about this, and that I wasn’t already too late.

  Chapter

  Forty-Seven

  SERENA BELL

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4

  GREEN LAKE

  AL SILENTLY CONSIDERED MY PLEAS, then finally told me, “Okay, I’ll knock a hole big enough so you can stick your hands out, and then I’ll zip tie your wrists together. Then I’m gonna pull you out and bend you over one of the bench seats in this boat, and if you’re really good, I’ll take you with me instead of dumping you in this lake.”

  Al’s response gave me an odd sense of relief as I resigned myself to my fate. He was going to rape me, and deposit me in the lake when he was through. That’s why he wasn’t taking me back to shore. I h
ad no chance of surviving if I went into the lake with my hands bound. How do I want to die? I was fed up with Al and every other misogynistic jerk who abused women, so I considered what response would create the greatest narcissistic injury. I calmly responded, “Beg me.”

  I could hear the anger in his breathing, which had gotten heavier and was whistling through his nose. He ground out, “What did you say?”

  I responded, “Get on your knees and beg me, asshole.” I had decided to take my chances in the dark lake.

  Al’s voice was dripping with cold rage. “It’s time to put you down, bitch.”

  I felt the armoire being lifted and heard the loud splash as I hit the water. Dank, fishy water began seeping through the cracks in my tomb, and I realized I would soon be submerged. I took a deep gulp of air, wondering how many more of those I would get. Adrenaline fired through my body as I realized this was it. My only way out had to be through the top of the dresser, so I banged my head against it. I couldn’t get enough leverage to push and force the top off. No matter how frantically I struggled, I still couldn’t turn my body.

  An explosion of gunfire shocked me into stillness, ripping a hole through the door right in front of my face. Al was going to make sure I was dead, and I couldn’t do a thing to prevent it.

  JON FREDERICK

  OFFICER TOM CANNON AND I spotted Al’s black truck in the dark, on a gravel boat landing at Green Lake. As we ran toward the lake, we could hear a boat. Tom used his flashlight to scan the lake surface. A beam of light caught Al pushing the dresser into the lake from the boat. If that boat moved before we found Serena, there was no chance of finding her alive in that murky cesspool. You couldn’t see a foot in front of you in that water in broad daylight, let alone at night. I raised my gun.

  I’m not certain what happened first. Al leaned forward to fire at the dresser, and I began to mercilessly fire at him until his body toppled into the lake. Then, I dove into the murky water and swam as fast as I could toward the splash, praying God would help guide me to Serena. Still fifty feet away, with Officer Cannon’s flashlight trained on the boat and dresser, I helplessly watched the dresser sink beneath the algae-covered water.

  SERENA BELL

  AS THE ARMOIRE SANK into the dark water, I tried flipping myself one last time. My lungs burned and I was running out of air. This time, the slimy water provided enough lubrication to allow my body to turn, and I was soon upside down stomping at the top of the armoire as hard as I could. It loosened! With one last push I kicked it free, and now, upside down, I used my arms to push myself out. I was momentarily disoriented, not knowing which end was up. Buoyancy righted me, though, and I kicked to the surface as the armoire descended below me. When my drenched head broke the surface I greedily swallowed mouthfuls of air. I still had a major problem, though—I couldn’t swim. I could dogpaddle a little, which got me to the surface, but I couldn’t maintain it long enough to make it to shore. I grabbed hold of something floating by, only to realize it was Al Brennan’s body. He didn’t move, but I swear his now-vacant eyes looked right at me. I immediately let go with a scream and started panicking in earnest.

  Someone was swimming toward me in the dark, calling my name. I just had to tread water. I thought I could do this, but found my mouth filling with the sour lakewater as I struggled and yelled for help. If I went under, they’d never find me. I flailed my arms, but my head slowly slipped back below the surface. This couldn’t be happening. Not now.

  JON FREDERICK

  MY FIRST DIVE DOWN toward the armoire was unsuccessful. In desperation, I resurfaced for air. Terror struck when my fears were confirmed—I couldn’t see a damn thing in the water. I had to find her, deo valente—God willing. As I was about to dive again, Serena’s dark head popped above the water just twelve feet from me. It was an incredible relief to see her surface, but before I could get to her I watched her sink under again. I dove after her, and with God’s grace, caught her t-shirt and pulled her above water.

  Serena was panicking and I had a hard time keeping her afloat. I tilted her head back and yelled “Breathe!” before she pushed me back below the surface as she desperately clawed her way upward. I fought my way back above water. She still struggled, but her fight had slowed to the point where I could hold onto her with one arm. I slowly began to make my way to the boat, which had mercifully not drifted too far away. Officer Cannon’s light remained steady and trained on the boat for guidance. If he hadn’t been there with the flashlight, this could have ended tragically. Once I got close enough, I grasped the edge of boat and simply hung on until Serena finally calmed down enough to work together to get into the boat.

  WHEN SERENA AND I FINALLY made it to shore, Officer Cannon and I dried her off with one blanket and then covered her with another. The officer retrieved his car and kept the headlights on so we could see what we were doing. While we worked, Officer Cannon tried to offer me an out, saying, “I saw him shoot at the dresser before you started firing,” but I wasn’t interested. He also saw me raise my gun and repeatedly fire until Al was in the lake.

  I told him, “Just report what you saw. I don’t regret what I did, and I’ll stand by it. We need to get to the hospital.”

  Officer Cannon pressed, “Byron Smith was convicted of murder in this county for shooting two people who broke into his home. You’re going to need my support.”

  He was probably right, but at the moment I didn’t care. My only concern was getting this toxic muck washed off Serena.

  I rushed Serena to the hospital in Little Falls. At my speed, it was only ten minutes away. Once at the hospital, Serena immediately showered to make certain all the toxins were washed off. She requested solution to rinse out her sinuses.

  I never had a desire to kill anyone. The commandment “Thou shalt not kill” doesn’t have any footnotes identifying exceptions. But I didn’t regret killing Al. It was what I had to do to save Serena. If I was put in that same situation a hundred times, I would shoot him every single time. This was something I’d have to work out with God.

  THE MORRISON COUNTY SHERRIFF interviewed me at the hospital. They had recovered Al’s body. It would take time for the official autopsy to be completed, but it appeared I had hit him twice. The first bullet had gone through his torso, but wasn’t fatal. The second appeared to have severed his spinal cord at the neck, resulting in his immediate paralysis and his drowning in the filthy soup of Green Lake. Officer Tom Cannon estimated I fired six to eight shots. I wasn’t keeping track. I just fired until he wasn’t standing, hoping to keep him from interfering with Serena’s rescue.

  It was finally over.

  WHEN MY INTERVIEW WAS OVER, I met my parents outside of Serena’s room.

  Mom pointed out, “Serena is being examined by Dr. Philippi. She’s an obstetrician. Why did she ask to see an obstetrician?”

  I matter-of-factly told Mom, “Serena’s pregnant.”

  Mom slapped me and scolded me. “This is your fault. You’ve been trying to get with her since she was sixteen years old.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  Exasperated, Dad smiled and told Mom, “He just saved Serena’s life. He saved your grandchild.”

  Mom fussed, “Thank God she’s okay.” She put her open hands on each of my cheeks like she was addressing a small child who needed to hear her message. “Slow down. You’ve been going a hundred miles an hour since you left home. Please—for Serena’s sake, and for your family.” An unexpected lump formed in my throat, so I averted my eyes and nodded.

  Dad shook my hand and clapped my shoulder. “Congratulations.”

  Serena called for us to join her. She was wearing light blue scrubs and hospital slippers and sitting on the edge of her hospital bed. I bent down and gave her a hug. She pulled away and said, “Everything’s okay. I can go now.”

  Mom went directly to Serena, nudged me aside and hugged her. “Thank God you’re okay. You are one tough girl.” Mom had expressed her immediate frustration with me, but h
ad quickly moved on and was looking forward to the opportunity to both teach and pamper a grandchild. With Serena’s hands clasped in hers, she said, “Bill and I will get to work on making a room baby ready.” Adding, “for when you regularly come with the baby to visit.”

  Serena met my eyes, and I gave her a reassuring wink.

  Chapter

  Forty-Eight

  JON FREDERICK

  3:30 A.M.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 5

  MINNEAPOLIS

  WHEN WE WERE FINALLY able to leave Little Falls, Serena and I drove directly to Fairview Hospital to pay our respects to Tony. I needed to see him, and Serena had been through enough that she didn’t care if she visited still wearing the scrubs the nurses had pulled together for her at the hospital. I was frustrated over not being informed of Al’s release from prison, until I was told Tony had agreed to notify me but never had the opportunity.

  Tony’s status hadn’t improved any. Paula shared that he had threatened Al, saying he would have him back in lock-up before the day ended. It didn’t take Al long to recover his gun, along with the tranquilizer he used on Serena, from somewhere near his farm. Al returned to Little Falls, and when he found Tony getting into his car, Al opened fire. Tony had taken a bullet to the head, and two more to the body. He had not yet regained consciousness. Al then drove to Minneapolis looking for me, but instead he found Serena.

  Tony always did what he felt was needed to resolve a situation. In movies, the rogue cop is the hero. In real life, a cop who threatens people gets shot. But, who am I to say? I got shot sitting in a field by myself. I had hoped Tony would one day find peace. Maybe he would, now. We agreed to keep Tony in our prayers, and Paula promised to keep us updated.