Barry Friedman - Dead End

by Barry Friedman

  “Please.”

  Taylor went back to her office with the file. Maharos noticed how her attitude had changed. Now that she was no longer a suspect, she was not on the defensive. He said, “I think we’re getting pretty close, Mr. Bost. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how sensitive this information is, and how important it is…”

  Bost held up a hand. “Of course. I won’t say a word about it. And I’ll be sure that Nancy keeps quiet as well.” He smiled broadly. “I must congratulate both of you. When I hadn’t heard anything, I had assumed you had given up on the case. I don’t know how you did it, but I’m impressed. I wouldn’t want to be a criminal and have you two dogging me.”

  Maharos said, “Thanks for your confidence, but we don’t have the killer yet.”

  Nancy Taylor came back shaking her head. “Closed. Half-past five on a Friday—and a holiday weekend at that. You know government offices…”

  Bost said, “They won’t be open until Monday. Guess you’ll have to wait, or try to find his present whereabouts from some other source.”

  Maharos said, “We’ll work it out. Thanks for your help.” He took the photocopy of Rankins file that Taylor had brought in, wrote out a receipt and placed it on Bost’s desk.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Ed Bragg was getting to leave for the day. His eyebrows shot up as he glanced through the glass wall panel separating his office from the squad room. Maharos and Vandergrift had just walked in. Bragg beckoned them to his office and leaned back in his swivel chair, a corner of his mouth turned up in an attempt at a smile.

  Maharos introduced Vandergrift. She grasped his big hand firmly.

  “So you’re Al’s partner in this case.

  Maharos was thankful the lieutenant avoided making a sexist remark, although he had warned Vandergrift of Bragg’s bias.

  “Yes sir.” Vandergrift stood rigidly at attention. Unsmiling. Maharos had trouble suppressing a grin. She was showing the son of a bitch she was just as much a grunt as any of his male underlings.

  “Sit down, take it easy. I don’t know what Al told you about me, but I haven’t bitten a deputy sheriff yet.” He chuckled. Vandergrift smiled weakly, said nothing.

  Maharos said, “We’ve got a pretty good line on our suspect, Ed.” He told Bragg about their visit to Horner’s office.

  “Sounds good. I think it’s time we get you some help. I’ll check around see who’s available.”

  Maharos tapped the cover of Rankins’ file. “We picked up a copy of his record from the lawyers’ office. We’re going over it now. See if we can get a lead as to where he might be. We’re going to have to work fast. The news hawks are already on our backs. The last thing we need right now is more sweaty bodies to add to the scenery.”

  Bragg shrugged. “Okay. I’ll have someone for you by tomorrow. Just don’t get yourselves in a jurisdictional bind in case the guy turns out to be out of bounds for us.” He pushed himself up from his chair and brushed lint off his trousers. “Look, I gotta run. Glad to have met you, Sheriff. You got one of my best men here.” He winked at Vandergrift. “Don’t let him get hurt.”

  They followed Bragg out of his office. Maharos looked at Vandergrift and shrugged a shoulder at the lieutenant’s last remark. She raised an eyebrow in response and silently mouthed.

  “ ‘Don’t let him get hurt’.”

  Detective Sean Norris and the elderly couple he was interviewing, were the only other occupants of the squad room as Vandergrift sat head-to-head with Maharos at his desk They were reading copies of letters and Worker’s Compensation forms in Rankins’ file. Vandergrift made notes in a spiral notebook.

  Maharos said, “Looks like Noah Hamberger was fighting to deny Rankins’ claim of back injury. Says there were no witnesses.”

  “Yeah, but this sheet shows that the Industrial Commission Appeals Court ruled in favor of Rankins.”

  “Uh-huh. Here’s the initial report of the doctor who operated on him. Russell Marino. He’s in Canton. Know him?”

  “Not personally, but he’s well-known in the city. Orthopaedic surgeon, I believe.”

  Maharos read, “Here’s the St. Agnes Hospital admission note. ‘Patient was admitted with a history of industrial back injury. CAT scan confirmed clinical impression of herniated disk between L4 and L5 on the right. Patient admitted for laminectomy.’ I guess that means taking out the ruptured disk.”

  Vandergrift leafed through a sheaf of papers. “Here are the bills: Dr. Theodore Long, New Philadelphia; Dr. Russell Marino, Canton; St. Agnes Radiology Group; St. Agnes Anesthesia Group; Dr. Harold Schneider, Canton; St. Agnes Hospital. Boy! He accumulated a mess of bills.”

  “It don’t come cheap.”

  They glanced at copies of checks from the Industrial Commission that had been sent to Rankins. The last was dated three years before.

  It was seven-thirty when Maharos closed the file folder, blew out a deep breath. “Not much help there. I’ll get Records to see what we can get from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Meantime, why don’t you try to get in touch with Dr. Marino? Maybe he’s been seeing the guy for check-ups and has a recent address for him. Use my phone; I’ll use the one at the next desk.

  She placed a call to the number listed on Marino’s stationery. The exchange operator that took the call told her that the office was closed until Monday. “Dr. Marino is not on call, but Dr. Lathrop, his associate, is taking calls. I’ll connect you with him.”

  She opened her mouth to protest but the exchange operator was already patching her through to another number. A child’s voice answered. “My Daddy and Mommy are eating dinner. Is this a ‘mergency?”

  “Let me speak to your Daddy.”

  She heard the child calling loudly and a few moments later a man’s voice answered. “This is Dr. Lathrop.”

  She introduced herself and told him she was trying to reach Dr. Marino.

  “Dr. Marino is out of town for the holiday weekend. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Maybe you can. I’m trying to get the current address of a patient Dr. Marino operated on at St. Agnes’ about three years ago.”

  “Three years ago! This is the emergency?”

  “Look, Doctor, I can’t explain but this is urgent. Do you remember one of his patients named Ephraim Rankins?”

  Curtly, “No.”

  “Is there someone who can look up Rankins’ record and see what his address is?”

  “You mean now? This evening?” More annoyed.

  “Yes.”

  “Who did you say you are?”

  “Deputy Sheriff Vandergrift, Stark Count…”

  “I’ll call you back. What’s your number?”

  “I’m calling from the Youngstown Police Headquarters. The number here is…”

  “Youngstown! That’s Mahoning County. I thought you said you were a Stark County sheriff.”

  “Listen, Doctor, I’m investigating a homicide, a murder case.”

  “I know what a homicide is, Sheriff.” A loud sigh. “All right, give me your number there.”

  She hung up and sat staring at the phone, her jaw set. Maharos was watching, amused. “He give you a hard time?”

  She nodded. “I caught him at dinner. Maybe his steak was tough. Is your BMV trace going through?”

  “Yeah. They’ve got a skeleton staff on. Probably won’t get back to me for at least a few hours.”

  Five minutes later, Maharos’ phone buzzed. He listened and passed the phone to Vandergrift. The caller was a woman who identified herself as a secretary in Drs. Marino and Lathrop’s office. She said that Dr. Lathrop had been called to the hospital for an emergency, but had instructed her to meet Vandergrift at the doctors’ office in Canton. She would try to get the information on Rankins.

  Daylight was rapidly fading at 8:45 p.m. when Vandergrift pulled up to the parking lot of a one-story office building, one block from St. Agnes Hospital in Canton. A directory on the wall outside the building listed Dr. Russell Mari
no and Dr. Edward Lathrop, orthopaedic surgery, Suite 112. The lobby door was locked so she pushed the bell button and peered, shielding her eyes, through the glass door. She heard the click of a woman’s high heels on the vinyl floor, and a moment later a young red-haired woman was at the door. She appraised Vandergrift, looked up and down at her brown uniform before unlocking the door.

  As the two walked along the corridor toward the doctors’ office, Vandergrift said, “I appreciate your coming down so late. As I explained to Dr. Lathrop, we’re investigating a homicide, so this is urgent.”

  “Who was killed?”

  “Well, I can’t go into that right now, but we’re trying to locate Ephraim Rankins. Dr. Marino operated on him about three years ago. We thought the doctor might have been following him, you know, for check-ups and there might be a current address in his file.”

  She thumbed through the folders on one of the shelves. “No Rankins here. Let me try the inactive file.” She moved to another stack of shelves, picked out a manila folder. “Yes, here it is. Dr. Lathrop said the medical information on the chart was confidential. I can give you the last address we have.”

  “That will be fine.”

  She leafed through the chart. “The last address we have is the Akron YMCA.”

  “When was that?”

  “Dr. Marino saw him last about three years ago.”

  “Nothing since?”

  “No.”

  Vandergrift’s lips compressed. A YMCA address was not likely to be permanent. Still, there might be a forwarding address. She thanked the secretary and headed for home.

  She unbuckled her holster, kicked off her shoes and took a beer out of the refrigerator. She sprawled on an easy chair in her living room, reviewed notes she had scribbled in her spiral notebook during the day. She would type up her report when she returned to the office day after tomorrow.

  With the cold beer in one hand and the phone in the other, she got the number of the Akron Y and placed the call. The desk clerk said Rankins was not registered.

  She said, “Could you look up your records and see if he was registered three years ago. If he was, I’d like to know when he checked out and if he left a forwarding address.”

  “Three years ago? Wow!”

  “This is a homicide investigation.”

  “I’ll try. See what I can find.”

  She had just finished eating a hamburger she had broiled, when the YMCA desk clerk called back.

  “You’re lucky. We put our records on computer just a little more than three years ago. I found Rankins’ registration.”

  Her pulse leaped.

  “He was here for a month. Left no forwarding address.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  A shower of red and white and blue sparks filled the sky. It was followed by another and another.

  “Wow, that’s beau-u-u-tiful.” Annie’s mouth gaped open as she stared up at the fireworks display. Gradually, the flashing sparks faded as they fell in slow motion toward the ground. A few echoing booms remained as the bright flashes of exploding rockets in the shy were replaced by blackness.

  “I guess that’s the finale,” Maharos said.

  They got up from the Boardman High School stadium bleacher seats and shuffled slowly, following the crowd out of the stands toward the parking lot. Vandergrift, dressed for the warm night in blue batik shorts and a white halter, led the way. Annie held a tight grip on her father’s hand. She spoke softly. “She’s nice, Daddy. I like her.” Maharos squeezed her hand in reply.

  They had picked up Annie at ten that morning. Marcie hadn’t come to the door and Annie was ready. Maharos was relieved. He would rather not have the two women look each other over appraisingly.

  They picnicked on fried chicken and sliced ham, potato salad and cole slaw. They ate on a blanket spread on the grass at Firestone Park. Around them, hundreds of other families celebrated the Fourth in much the same way. They swam and sunned. And they talked. Vandergrift found Annie easy to talk with. Maharos listened, watched and smiled a lot. Vandergrift looked good in a one-piece bathing suit, lavender with a large white floral pattern. Cut low over her chest, high over the hips and buttocks. Very slight bulge at the belly. Small breasts with nipples pointing through the material. Even with her short-cut, wet hair hugging her head like a helmet, she looked good.

  Late in the afternoon, they folded the blankets and dressed in the locker rooms. They stopped at the Hungry Bear, a franchised fast food restaurant for a light supper of salads. It was dusk when they got to the Boardman High School stadium for the fireworks display.

  Although he avoided talking to Vandergrift about the hunt for Rankins in Annie’s presence, half a dozen times during the day Maharos’ mind wandered to it. Early that morning, he had spoken to Frank Fiala who was on duty, briefed him on the state of the investigation, and had given him instructions on following up with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles trace. In addition, Fiala was to run Rankins name through the files of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, headquartered in London, Ohio, and the FBI’s National Center for Criminal Information. Several times he was tempted to call headquarters and find out what Fiala had learned. He resisted the temptation. If Fiala had something urgent to report, he could rouse him on his beeper. Meantime, he would enjoy his day with Annie and Karen.

  As he walked out of the stadium, the acrid odor of cordite, from the exploding fireworks, hung in the air. He stopped, sniffed. Stared at the ground, thinking. The association of odors plucked a cord in his memory bank.

  Vandergrift looked back. Maharos and Annie had stopped. She walked back to them. Her expression questioned him. He looked up smiling and shook his head. “Nothing.”

  They drove Annie home three abreast in the front seat. At the car door she reached up hugged him tightly around the neck. Then she leaned back into the car and kissed Vandergrift. Self-conscious, she quickly turned and ran up the front steps of the house. Over her shoulder, she called, “Thanks. ‘Night.” Maharos stood at the car door watching while his daughter disappeared inside the house. His chest was bursting with pride and with joy.

  They rode in silence for two minutes before Vandergrift said, “That was me, twenty years ago.”

  “Annie?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Like her?”

  She faced the windshield and nodded. Maharos noticed the glistening in her eyes. “She likes you, too.”

  She thought, that could be the daughter I will never have. It had been years since she had given it much thought. Before the divorce, like any wife, she had expected that one day she’d be a mother. That would wait until Tom’s law practice had become established. They had never gotten around to it before the marriage ended. Afterward, she was gun-shy, wanted no repeats. She avoided permanent attachments. Before she knew it, she was thirty, thirty-five, now thirty-six, pushing forty. She didn’t think she’d want to be tied to an infant—squalling, bawling, at this stage in her life. Yet it would be nice to have a daughter. An Annie. This Annie?

  At Maharos’ apartment, where she had left her car earlier that day, they went upstairs together. There was no preliminary small talk as they pressed their lips and bodies together, barely inside the door. His hand slipped to the small of her back. She pressed herself against him while they moved, like ballroom dancers, toward the bedroom. He unfastened her halter while she unbuttoned his shirt, lightly ran her tongue over his nipples. Her hands stroked him below. He unfastened his trousers and burst out.

  Afterward, her head on his chest, she murmured, “Talk about fireworks!”

  Maharos said, “Can you stay?”

  She shook her head. “Got to get back for early report.”

  He watched, lying on his side on the bed. Head propped on an elbow, while she dressed.

  She stood before the mirror, plumped her hair. Took a small vial of perfume from her purse and placed a dab behind each ear. Smiling, she bent to kiss him. He started to get up. Gently, she pushed him down. “Don’t get u
p. I’ll find my way out.”

  The fresh perfume aroma lingered after he heard the front door close. Again, as when he walked from the stadium, his memory was jogged by association of odors. He stared at the cracks in the ceiling without finding the answer.

  * * *

  He awoke to the sound of church bells. Remembered it was Sunday. He reached over to the phone and placed it on his chest while he placed a call. Fiala answered with a voice that was still hoarse with sleep. Maharos said, “Sorry to call you so early. Wanted to get you before you left for church.”

  “You could have waited. I’m sleeping in. Henny and the kids have already left for Mass. You want a report, right?”

  “Got anything?”

  He waited while Fiala got his notes.

  “Okay, here it is. BMV has a registration of a motorcycle owned by Ephraim Rankins. A Yamaha.”

  “Address?”

  “New Philly. Last registration was three years ago. No re-registration since then.”

  “Did he sell the cycle?”

  “They don’t have any record of a sale. Maybe it was scrapped.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. He hasn’t renewed his driver’s license for three years either. Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation has him listed for incarceration at Lima State. Served nine years. He was released to a halfway house in Akron. Saw a parole officer for two years. Last contact was when he moved to New Philly. Everything seems to stop at New Philly.”

  Maharos said, “Well, not everything. He hurt his back there and went to St Agnes Hospital in Canton for a back operation. After he left the hospital he apparently moved to the Akron YMCA. That’s where we lose him.”

  Fiala went on, reading from his notes. “NCIC has nothing on him after Lima State. I called Lima State. Incidentally, they don’t call it Lima State anymore. It’s Oakwood Forensic Center.”

  Maharos said, “You’ve really been on the stick. What did you find out?”

  “They dragged out his file. Was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault, homicide. His landlady. Never came to trial, a M’Naughton ruling. While he was in the joint, he was a good boy. Took some medicine that straightened out his head so they had no reason to keep him. The D.A. didn’t think he could get a conviction, so the homicide charge was never pressed after he got out. Don’t forget, this was nine years later. Go try to find witnesses.”