At the County Office Building Maharos and Fiala retrieved their car and left without returning to the sheriff’s office.
NINE
Early June in Ohio. While Fiala drove from New Philadelphia back to Youngstown, Maharos sat alongside gazing at the landscape. The gently rolling hills were green with freshly sprouting alfalfa and hay and corn. Every few miles they passed farmers riding tractors plowing fields alongside the interstate highway. Traffic on I 77 was light with a few cars and trucks. In cars or RV’s they passed, kids pressed their noses against the windows or waved at the detectives. School was out and families were on the road towing their cars or boats behind the tall RV’s.
Maharos watched the shield-shaped signs flash by. On top, the red background with white letters that said, “Interstate.” Below, a blue background and white numbers that read,”77.”
Near Youngstown, a lawyer had been shot dead and left in his car on a side road off Interstate 77. Near New Philadelphia, a hay and feed dealer had been shot dead and left in the bed of his pickup truck on a side road off Interstate 77. A month apart. Exactly a month apart.
Logikos. Maharos could hear the deep voice of his father, a man who had less than a fifth grade education in the old country. Who knew that Pi was the sixteenth letter of his alphabet, but knew nothing of its mathematical significance, yet knew his plow made a circular furrow three times longer than the distance across the center of the same circle. Think. Reason. These you don’t learn from books, Alexander, he would say. My testicles, he would say, gave you what my father and his father got from their great-great-great grandfathers, men named Socrates and Aristotle. Logikos. Coincidence is a lazy man’s way of thinking. There had to be a connection between the two events that appeared to be separated in time and space.
Fiala glanced at Maharos out of the corner of his eye. “When you don’t say nothing for half an hour, you’re either asleep or thinking. You ain’t asleep.”
“I’m thinking.”
“I know. You’re thinking the same thing I’m thinking.”
His eyes half-closed, Maharos nodded. “Uh-huh. Maybe the Youngstown P.D. could save one salary and get rid of one of us. No sense duplicating.”
“Better be you. I need the dough.”
Maharos said, “When we get back, call the Crime Lab and ask them to send us copies of their findings in the New Philly case. I want them to compare their ballistics with ours on Horner. I also want to see the autopsy report on Hamberger.”
“You want me to call Sheriff King Kong and ask him for it?”
“I guess we’ll have to go through him, much as I hate to.”
Fiala said, “Want to send the Mobile Techs down to cast that tire track, take a closer look at the bush?”
“You mean on our own? Forget about Anderson?”
“Yeah.”
Maharos shook his head. “Nah. You know who’ll be getting the bill, don’t you?”
“The city.”
“Damned right. Ed Bragg’s over budget now. He’s not gonna sit still for that. Maybe Anderson is right. There have been so many people through that dirt road, there’s no way to know who made the tracks.”
* * *
Lieutenant Bragg wiped flecks of Danish muffin icing from his mouth. “So what did you find out?”
Maharos was seated across from Bragg. He knew the lieutenant liked to get to the bottom line with as little detail as possible. “Fiala’s writing up his report now. The main thing is, they’ve got a collar in their lock-up who’s the wrong guy. We’re waiting for the lab and autopsy reports, but I’ve got a hunch whoever killed the guy in New Philly is the same one who killed Horner.”
“What makes you think the guy they picked up is the wrong one?”
Maharos related briefly their interrogation of Roy Young. Bragg nodded idly. He said, “I’m going to have to take Fiala off the case. We caught a jewelry store robbery where the owner was shot dead last night. I’ve got Hassler on it and I need Frank to help him. You’ll have to work on the Horner case alone.”
“Okay.”
“And Al, I’m getting some heat from the Bar Association. They don’t like losing members. They want to know why we haven’t figured it out yet.”
Maharos shrugged. “I’ll try harder.”
Karen Hennessy a civilian employee in Records, held at arm’s length the request form Maharos handed her, as though it had germs on it she might breathe. She said, “You want me to punch up all the homicides in Ohio that occurred on the seventh of the month?”
Maharos said, “You read it right.”
“The seventh of each month?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Starting when?”
“You can start with last November.”
“Last November? This is June.”
“I know how to read a calendar.”
“And you want to know where each one occurred?”
He counted to five, slowly. Finally, “Why is it every time I hand you a request you go through a major interrogation? It’s written there in plain English.”
She put up her hands defensively. “Okay, okay.”
“I need it by tomorrow afternoon.”
As he walked out, he saw her reflection in the glass part of the door, her tongue pointing at his departing back. Without turning around, he said, “And put your tongue back in your mouth.”
He heard her mutter, “How does he do that?”
At his desk, Maharos read through the report from the Stark County Sheriff’s Crime Lab.
Casts taken of footprints in Hamberger’s barn were of two types. One matched the work shoes Hamberger had been wearing. The other was from a size three Adidas gym shoe. The approximate weight of the wearer was 125 to 130 pounds. A similar set of footprints was found near the pickup truck where Hamberger’s body had been found.
A woman?
He read on. The back of the shovel found on the floor of the barn was covered with blood that matched Hamberger’s. No, not likely a woman. There were no latent fingerprints on the shovel. No prints? Hamberger must have used the tool. The absence of any prints probably meant that the handle had been wiped clean. It was used to bash in the victim’s face. Why didn’t the killer simply shoot him rather than knock him out first and shoot him later? Although he hadn’t gotten the autopsy findings yet, he’d be willing to bet that Hamberger, like Horner, had suffered a cerebral concussion before he had been shot dead.
Maharos pieced together the information. The bloody shovel in the barn told him that Hamberger had been clobbered there. Blood in the bed of the pickup where the body was discovered, indicated that the victim had been driven, probably unconscious, to the dirt road where he was shot and left to die. Why not finish him off in the barn?
The lab had found no latent prints anywhere in the truck except those belonging to Hamberger.
The bullets had been sent to the Crime Lab from the medical examiner. They were from a .25 caliber handgun, probably a Colt. Spent shells found on the floor of the truck cab verified that the gun was an automatic, which ejects its shells. The ballistics specialist found that the bullets did not match those that had killed Horner, nor did they match any others on file.
Hair and fiber analysis from the victim’s clothing and the truck seat showed mainly an assortment of vegetable fibers. One sentence in the report leaped out at Maharos: “Several fibers removed from the front of the victim’s overalls were of a Navy blue wool.” Wool? On a warm day in June? Were these the same type of fibers found in the vacuumed material from the carpet of Horner’s car? Hamberger had not been wearing anything made of wool. Probably the wool fibers had adhered to the murdered man’s overalls from contact with the killer’s clothing.
Maharos was becoming more and more convinced that the same person committed the two murders. Since most serial killers selected their victims at random, there was probably no connection between the two victims—if there were only two. And if they were both killed by the same person.
The homicides were listed in four columns. The first column consisted of the names of the victims; the second, the jurisdiction charged with investigation of the crime; the third, the type of homicide; and the fourth column, the status of the case, whether closed by a conviction, trial pending, or open, meaning unsolved.
He started with November 7th.
Victim………….Jurisdiction….Type…Status
11/7
Benson,Carl…Cincinnati PD..MV..Conviction
Jackson,T. R..Cleveland PD..St…Conviction
DeAngelo,A.J..Columbus PD..GS..PendingTrial
12/7
Bannister,J.J…Fairfax Sheriff..MV..Conviction
Carson,Ed.N….Dayton PD……MV..Conviction
Masson,Herb…Cincinnati PD…MV..Conviction
Thompson,E.T……Cleveland PD….GS….Closed
Thompson,Abdul-K.Cleveland PD..GS…Closed
Thompson,Emily..Cleveland PD…GS..Closed
1/7
Borden,Isaiah..Cincinnati PD…St…Pending Trial
Burnstein,Frank..Canton PD..GS..Pending Trial
Lancaster,Victor..Toledo PD…MV..Conviction
Maharos fished a yellow, lined pad from his desk drawer and examined the list of November 7th homicides. Benson was a motor vehicular homicide, undoubtedly hit and killed by a drunk driver. Not interested. He put a line through the name. Thomas Jackson was a stabbing victim in Cleveland. A little out of the territory, and stabbing was not the M.O. he was looking for. He placed a question mark next to the name. DeAngelo had been killed by gunshot and was being investigated by Columbus police. Although a suspect had been apprehended and was awaiting trial, he knew from experience that they could have the wrong person—e.g. Young, Roy vs. Tuscarawas County. He circled the name.
The December list contained no likely candidates for further study. The three Thompson homicides in Cleveland, he recalled from reports he had read at the time, were all members of the same family. One had killed the other two and turned the gun on himself.
In January, the suspect who had gunned down Frank Burnstein in or near Canton was waiting to be tried. Here it was June. What had happened to his constitutional right to a speedy trial? Canton was in the right vicinity for his investigation. Maharos drew a circle around “Burnstein.”
He went through the list eliminating the vehicular homicides. The stabbing victims he separated from those who had been killed by gunshot. He subdivided the list into geographic categories. When he had finished, he had the names of fifteen people—including George Horner and Noah Hamberger— who were possible gunshot victims of a serial killer.
Now came the legwork.
TEN
Detective Lieutenant Charles Birtcher of the Canton Police Department peered over the tops of his half-glasses. “Is that the Greek Adonis I see invading our territory? Or maybe Kojak?”
Al Maharos had just walked through the door of Birtcher’s office. “Hello, Charlie,” he said.
“Has Ed Bragg sent you over to spy? See how a department should be run?”
Maharos ran a finger over the top of Birtcher’s desk and examined the tip of his finger.”
“Actually, we’re trying to recruit someone to do our office cleaning. But I don’t think you’ve got what we want.” He extended his hand. “You’re looking good, Charlie.”
Birtcher looked at the top of Maharos’ head. “Hey, I think you’ve grown a hair since I saw you last.”
“Yeah. In my nose.”
It was worth a chuckle from Birtcher. “What’s up, Al?”
Maharos sank into an easy chair in front of Birtcher’s desk.
“You’ve got a guy I’m interested in talking to.” He glanced at a sheet of paper in his hand. “Lance Harwood.”
Birtcher gave him a sideways leer. “This your day for boys? You’re no longer interested in girls”
“What have you got on him?”
“Harwood’s a fag. He and his lover had a spat. It got past the biting and scratching stage. Harwood put him away with a .25, or maybe it was a .22, I forget. Anyway, he’s in the lock-up. I think his trial is on the books for next week. What’s your interest in the case?”
Maharos told him that he was investigating George Horner’s death and that he was looking at all of the comparable recent homicides for a possible lead. He asked, “Do you have a confession from Harwood.”
Birtcher shook his head. “No. He claims he’s clean. Says he loved the guy too much to even think of killing him. But we had picked him up twice before, charged with assault with a deadly weapon, a knife. Both times he had cut up his roommate, Flossie Burnstein.”
“Flossie?”
“Not what you think. Flossie is—was—Frank. He was a male nurse at Mercy Hospital. We should have locked up Harwood before, but Burnstein refused to press charges. They kissed and made up. This time, Harwood really kissed him off.”
Maharos asked, “Where was Burnstein killed?”
“We found him in his car out near Hurford Run, know where that is?”
“It’s a little south of here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It’s just off I 77. Want to look at the file?”
“I’d like that.”
Birtcher buzzed his secretary and had a thick file folder brought in. He handed it to Maharos. “I’m not sure what you expect to find. Didn’t you say your homicide occurred in May? Harwood was locked up at the time.”
Maharos knew that Birtcher would laugh him right out of his office if he told him that he was investigating all the homicides by gunshot that had occurred on the seventh of each month. He shrugged. “Obviously Harwood’s not a suspect in Horner’s death. It’s just that there are some similarities. Maybe we’ve got a copy cat.”
Birtcher furrowed his brow but said nothing. Maharos took the file into the squad room and sat at an unoccupied desk to leaf through it.
Burnstein and Harwood had been roommates and lovers for three years. They lived in an apartment complex in an upper middle class neighborhood. Lance Harwood was a decorator who worked for a large furniture store. His work was highly regarded, but he had a reputation of being temperamental. Other employees found him difficult to work with.
Frank Burnstein was pleasant, placid and friendly. He made friends too easily to suit Harwood whose jealous rages resulted in shouting that had been reported to police by neighbors on three separate occasions. Twice, as Lieutenant Birtcher had told Maharos, Harwood had attacked Burnstein with a knife. Both times the wounds had been superficial although they required suturing at the hospital emergency room. Emergency room personnel as required by law had notified police, but Burnstein did not press charges. Harwood’s last knife attack had occurred two days before Burnstein was killed.
The last time Burnstein had been seen alive was when he went off duty from his three-to-eleven p.m. shift at Mercy Hospital. The night security guard saw him walking to his car in the hospital parking lot. Harwood contended that Burnstein never arrived home. He did not report Burnstein missing, claimed it was not unusual for him to cover for one of the nurses on the night shift. The following day Burnstein’s body was discovered in his car by the side of a county road.
Harwood admitted to having owned a .25 caliber handgun, which he bought four years before. He said he purchased it for protection because he had to go to the homes of clients at night. It had been registered with police. After Burnstein’s death, Harwood had been asked to produce the gun but was unable to find it.
By the end of an hour’s reading through the file, Maharos learned two things that convinced him that Burnstein and Horner and possibly Hamberger as well, had been killed by the same person: First, the autopsy showed that Burnstein had been shot twice from behind. One bullet entered at the base of the neck and the second entered between the shoulder blades. These were
the identical entry sites to those that had killed Horner. He hadn’t received the autopsy report on Hamberger as yet. Second, vacuumed material from the carpet in the back of Burnstein’s car included blue wool fibers. He made a note to check if they had been compared to those found in Horner’s car carpet and on Hamberger’s overalls.
Maharos closed the file and stared at its cover. What significance was there in the location of the bullet entry sites? It had to be more than accidental that the two bullet holes in each case were in identical places. One notable difference was that Horner and Hamberger had sustained severe head injuries as well. Burnstein had been spared that. Why? He visualized Burnstein as being passive, not offering resistance like the other two.
Another thing: here are two gays living together. Violence between homosexuals is not uncommon, but, as a rule, these fights erupt in a moment of passion and in their home. If Harwood did shoot his lover wouldn’t he have done it in the apartment they shared? Why take him out to a remote road? There’s also the question of how would he get back home? The file had described Harwood as fastidious and debonair. Somehow he couldn’t picture the decorator trudging down the lonely, dusty road at night, or hitchhiking as he theorized Horner’s killer and possibly Hamberger’s as well, might have left the scene.
He shook his head to clear it like a dog shakes water off its fur, and took the file back to Birtcher’s office.
The lieutenant greeted him, “Well, detective, did you get any ideas?”
Maharos was not ready to tell Birtcher what he suspected, what he knew. For one thing, he was not sure Birtcher would agree with him. The Canton police had what they considered to be a credible suspect. The district attorney, relying on the circumstantial evidence had presented a convincing case to the Grand Jury so that Harwood had been arraigned for murder one. Because it was a capital case, Harwood had been imprisoned without bail for five months. Maharos knew the repercussions would be horrendous if he blew away the case against Harwood at this time. Besides, it could drive the killer underground for a time only to surface with a new rash of killings. Maharos said, “Can I talk to Harwood?”
Barry Friedman - Dead End Page 6