Stalking Susan

by Julie Kramer

  He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, and because he didn’t ask, I told. It wasn’t like I had anything to be ashamed of—lots of people hate to fly. With great difficulty, I can get on a commercial airliner. As for a small single-engine plane, forget it. This fear means I’m not network material. On a clear day I get that my career is more likely to crash and burn because of my phobia than I am to crash and burn because of an airplane malfunction. But most days I’m not that clearheaded. In network news, competitive advantage often comes down to how fast the assignment desk can get someone to the scene of a breaking story. If you’re a reporter for one of the big three, you spend more time in the air than on the air.

  “I’ll drive you,” he said.

  “Thanks, but it’s an early-morning flight. I’ll just take a cab.”

  “No, I mean I’ll drive you to Vegas.”

  We left the next morning. Four days later we were husband and wife.

  CHAPTER 10

  I walked a couple miles through downtown Minneapolis, lingering at the farmers’ market on Nicollet Mall. Squash, potatoes, and other fall food beckoned from the small booths. I continued through Loring Park, savoring the crisp Indian summer weather before heading back to Channel 3. I slipped in the security desk entrance to avoid walking past Noreen’s office, since being blind wasn’t one of her shortcomings.

  Once again, I faced the SUSAN chart, as if staring at it long enough might produce physical evidence linking the two murders.

  I’m experienced enough to concede that what I was searching for might not exist.

  I unloaded the interview videotapes of Susan Chenowith’s parents from my black bag so I could log them later in the day. For daily news stories it’s much faster to just pull a sound bite and drop it into the script. For investigative stories, I like to transcribe each interview verbatim, because sometimes something crucial hinges on a remark that didn’t seem significant at the time.

  I pulled the raincoat photo her mother had given me from my notebook. So this is what Susan Chenowith wore the last time she left home. I added the picture to her homicide file, then stopped, a bit puzzled. She wasn’t wearing a raincoat in the crime scene photos. Wrong Susan. The raincoat was on the second Susan’s body. Side by side, the coats looked identical, but the style—tan, knee length, belted—was commonplace. RAINCOAT? I wrote on the wall chart.

  “LET ME GET this straight.” Garnett paused on the other end of the phone line. “You think the unsub took a raincoat off the first victim and put it on the second victim one year later?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Too wild. You’d have to be talking about a perp with the sophistication of the Zodiac Killer.”

  Every homicide cop in America knew about the Zodiac, the killer who took credit for seventeen murders in California in the late 1960s. He taunted police and media with dozens of letters containing codes and a trademark salutation: “This is the Zodiac speaking…” While the crimes appeared random, the killer insisted he picked his victims based on their astrological signs. Evil and elusive, the Zodiac was never captured. The cases were never cleared.

  “It’s the first possibility of physical evidence linking the cases,” I said. “Maybe the killer wants us to know. Remember the show-off factor you were pushing?”

  “Show-offs aren’t that subtle. He’d be much more in our face. The raincoat can’t be proven. We aren’t dealing with first graders whose mamas write their names inside their clothes.”

  “Where would the raincoat be today?”

  “Homicide case? No statute of limitations? In the property room. That stuff is saved forever.”

  “Can you get me in to see it?”

  “I’m off the force,” he argued. “You’ll have to take it up with Chief Capacasa, and lots of luck there. He’s an amateur chess champion, so he’s always a move ahead of everyone.”

  “Well, eventually he’ll know about the story because I’ll need an interview. So I guess it’s sooner rather than later.”

  “Later is better. Do some more legwork before you start pissing off the top brass.”

  “All right, I won’t head for the cop shop yet, but when I get there, I’m going to mean business.”

  “Fine,” Garnett said. “I suspect these cases can’t be cleared unless you figure out whether there’s a significance to the name and date. November 19 clearly means something to him. It might be a stressor connected to his past. And who was Susan? A girlfriend who dumped him? A mother who didn’t love him? If the victims were not random, these were not simply crimes of opportunity. That means these women were preselected. Stalked.”

  “Give me cop talk. You know how I love cop talk. What else would that tell you about the killer?”

  Garnett paused before answering. “That he’s disciplined. An annual kill seems to satisfy him. That’s a long cooling off period between crimes. And he didn’t overkill his victims either. He used enough force to get the job done. Mission accomplished. No mutilation. No frenzy. That might suggest he wasn’t emotionally involved with them. Probably views women as objects. Disposable.”

  “Ish,” I groaned. “Don’t give me cop talk anymore.”

  I DOUBLE-CHECKED my list of loose ends and focused on Susan Moreno’s old boyfriend, Sam Fox, her tattoo namesake. Being in jail the night of her murder proved he didn’t do it, but that didn’t mean he might not have an inkling neither he nor the cops had appreciated back then. I e-mailed Fox’s name and date of birth to Xiong and asked for a full background check.

  Then I dialed Susan Chenowith’s parents. Tina answered the phone on the first ring. I’d assured them I would stay in touch, but neither of us expected my next call to be this soon or about such an odd query.

  “The brand of her raincoat?” She repeated my question. “Actually I do know. It was a London Fog. She bought it used at the Salvation Army store on Nicollet. I remember she paid four dollars. It looked practically new. You’d be surprised all the nice things people donate there. After your visit my husband and I even discussed taking some of her things there. It feels like it might be time.”

  I asked her to hold on to their daughter’s things just a little while longer—until after the story ran. I couldn’t risk their giving away potential clues, and I couldn’t judge what might end up being important.

  Xiong must have had light duty that day, because he’d already sent me the information on Sam Fox by the time I hung up on Tina.

  Fox, who’d had a history of drugs, alcohol, and petty crime right up to the night of his Susan’s death, hadn’t been arrested since. If he was currently in a Minnesota prison, there should be one more arrest. My first hunch was that he had moved out of state and I might need to appeal to Garnett to have one of his buddies run an NCIC for me, since only cops can access the national crime database. But as I paged through the file, it hit me that Fox might have accomplished the impossible: he might have gone straight.

  Turns out, he had a valid Minnesota driver’s license, owned an older model Nissan, worked at the Best Buy in Brooklyn Park, and held title to a small house in Richfield with a woman named, eerily enough, Susan Fox.

  THE BEST BUY telephone operator confirmed it. “Sure, Sam Fox is working today. He’d be happy to help you.” She assumed I wished to buy a new stereo or refrigerator from my favorite sales guy—especially since I didn’t mention my name or television affiliation.

  I didn’t spot him right away when I entered the store. He looked older and cleaner than his mug shot. He was losing his hair in the front and wore a Best Buy polo shirt with a nametag reading SAM. I also noticed a ring on his left hand.

  Sam worked in home electronics. He was disappointed to find out I worked in television news, and that I was not there to purchase a sixty-inch HDTV screen with 1080p resolution, even though they had a great sale going on and an attractive financing plan.

  “I’m here to talk about Susan Moreno.”

  His eyes appeared puzzled, like he’d forgotten his old girlfriend
from the streets. He took a step backward and bumped into a DVD display of the latest Harry Potter movie.

  “I know she’s a name from the past,” I continued, “but she used to be important to you.”

  “I know who she is,” he answered. “But I don’t know why you’re here.”

  “I’m working on a story about her death. Looking for justice. Trying to make sure murders aren’t forgotten by the police or the public.”

  “I haven’t forgotten her.”

  “That’s good, but you probably haven’t thought of her in a while.”

  He laughed with a snort and rolled up his shirt sleeve to unveil a matching tattoo: Sam Susan.

  “My wife thinks I got it for her. Early in the courtship. Because I knew she was the one. Who can fight fate? And you better not rat me out, either.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told him, “it’s not the kind of thing I need to put in the story.”

  As we walked down the TV aisles, he talked about Susan Moreno. Much of what he told me I’d already read in the police report, but some was new. Like how she had rebelled to try to shatter her father’s indifference. Or how she had looked for love on the streets that she was denied at home. And how the two of them had planned to start a splendid life together, just as soon as they got straight.

  Her life ended before that could happen.

  When the cops told him about her murder, he told me he had vowed to keep that pledge. I complimented him, sincerely, not just reporter shtick. After all, he lost his love and pulled himself together. I lost my love and fell apart.

  But nothing he said seemed to contain any motive or clue about her murder. Occasionally he and his girl had grabbed a bite to eat at Peter’s Grill, the same diner where Susan Chenowith worked. But that seemed to be stretching things, since most folks, including me, who live or work in downtown Minneapolis are also regulars. Even President Clinton ordered lunch there on one of his trips through town. (A Canadian bacon and egg sandwich, Coke, vegetable soup, and apple pie. Now known on the menu as the “Clinton Special.”)

  I referred to a short list of questions I had scribbled beforehand in case I got only one chance at Sam. “Do you think her father might have killed her?”

  “Nope. Too much bother for him. He’d have preferred to let the Lord sit in judgment of her.”

  “Most likely a john then?”

  He flushed, embarrassed at his former girlfriend’s occupation. “She kept telling me she was going to stop. Trick gone bad—I know that’s what the cops think happened. But she was savvy. I never believed it.”

  I showed him a crime scene photo of the raincoat with his girlfriend’s head tastefully cropped off. He didn’t react.

  “Did she ever wear a coat like this?” I asked.

  “Not that I ever knew. Why?”

  “It’s what she was wearing when the police found her body.”

  “I’ve never seen it before. Did it belong to the killer?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s definitely a woman’s coat.”

  “Could her killer have been a woman?”

  I shrugged and we left it at that. Sam Fox was the kind of knucklehead Noreen would bemoan my wasting time or lunch on. News directors prefer that reporters wine and dine top-level sources, because they think the investment is more likely to pay off with top-rated stories. They don’t realize the invisible bum on the street corner sees plenty. Cops understand this, and have long cultivated a diverse array of nitwit snitches. So as part of my knucklehead outreach program, I gave Sam a business card with my cell phone number, and he promised to call me if he remembered anything interesting, as long as I promised never to call his house.

  I felt a little better knowing someone had wept for Susan Moreno.

  FRANKLIN AVENUE IS six miles of diversity linking Minneapolis and St. Paul. Called the Twin Cities, they’re not identical twins: Minneapolis, corporate; St. Paul, quirky. Franklin Avenue used to be a main thoroughfare, passing through rough neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods, until Interstate 94 cut neighborhoods out of most commutes.

  Vice cop Pete Terrell let me ride in the back of his undercover car while he pointed out the place where he had last seen Susan Moreno on November 19, 1992. It was one of the rougher stretches of Franklin Avenue.

  “Sounds like a long time ago,” I told him. “What do you remember about that night?”

  Malik rode in the front videotaping our conversation. I’d set up the ride-along with the police department in the guise of researching vice. I had waited until dark because I wanted the video to match the time frame when Susan had disappeared. Casually, I had asked Terrell whether he’d ever been involved in any murder investigations.

  “I wouldn’t remember most hookers ten years later, but when she showed up dead the next morning, it did kinda stick in my mind. Yep. I kept thinking she traded her life to avoid a night in jail. Wrong choice.”

  “What was she wearing when you stopped her?”

  “Slutty street outfit. Short and tight. That’s what sells.”

  “How about a raincoat?”

  “Raincoat?” he asked. “I’m not following you. It wasn’t raining that night.”

  I already knew that because I had one of the station meteorologists check the National Weather Service records.

  “Was she wearing a raincoat anyway?”

  “No. That would defeat the purpose.” He spoke slowly as if talking to a child. “Hookers don’t wear raincoats. If she’d had a raincoat on, I wouldn’t have given her a second look and neither would any john.”

  I caught a glimpse of myself in Terrell’s rearview mirror. Ugh. No one would give me a second look either. Splotchy skin, snarly hair. Definitely a long day. Good thing Noreen wasn’t around to see me.

  MALIK WANTED TO grab a late dinner at the Black Forest, an old German restaurant a few miles from the station. I craved their spaetzle and cheese casserole so it seemed as good a time as any to brainstorm story logistics.

  Malik brought his camera inside with him and set it on a chair at our table. Channel 3 had recently reverted to unmarked vehicles after a string of break-ins and equipment thefts. The head of the promotion department bemoaned the loss of station logos displayed as our vehicles traveled around the state, but our photo chief insisted that the only thing marked vehicles advertised was that expensive camera equipment was kept inside.

  I ordered a glass of white wine from the Rhine Valley and Malik called for a St. Pauli Girl Beer. We discussed how best to visualize the Susan story, and we agreed he would swing by both grave sites the next day and shoot the names and dates on the markers. Thirty seconds of b-roll was better than nothing, and I knew he’d come back with creative and artsy shots we could dissolve-edit between to create mystery.

  “It’s good to be working together again.” Malik raised his glass. “I heard you were off writing a book.”

  That was a rumor I had started to explain my absence from Channel 3, and to keep other rumors from spreading. I’d been in a physical tailspin. Anyone with eyes could have seen that. What I wanted to keep under wraps was the psychological effect of the Iron Range firebomb. “Nope, just chilling.”

  “Cut the shit, Riley. So you needed some time to sort things out. You’re back now. You’re among friends. Lean on us if you need to.”

  I regretted not having returned his calls while I was off. Malik Rahman was an all-American nice guy who, during recent years, had been frequently mistaken for a terrorist—especially when he was videotaping exteriors of federal buildings, like the FBI office in downtown Minneapolis. His mother had never traveled outside the state, but had married a man from Pakistan while they were students at the University of Minnesota.

  “Missy wants you to come over for dinner some night.”

  Malik had married his high school sweetheart after serving a short stint as a video photographer in the U.S. Army shooting propaganda films for the military. His wife and their two kids waited for him each night after the news. Supperti
me. Bath time. Bedtime. Ratings months played havoc with their suburban bliss, but Missy swapped whatever overtime he racked up for a new household appliance. This month, he explained, she had her eye on a new clothes dryer. Let the long hours begin.

  “Hey, I ran into Noreen after our shoot yesterday,” he told me. “She wanted to know what I was out on. Hope that didn’t create trouble.”

  “No more than I should have expected. My contract’s coming up and she’s playing wicked witch.”

  “She’ll fold once she gets a chance to see you in action. Unfortunately, she came on board the station just before you were going under. But I have a feeling about this story. Let’s not settle for the hack version. Let’s break some real news.”

  So that’s what we toasted to. Breaking news.

  MALIK PULLED INTO the driveway next to my house, a small English tudor in the Tangletown neighborhood of south Minneapolis. Stately, well-maintained houses set on curvy streets lined with mature oak trees. A harvest moon shone overhead. A perfect autumn night.

  “Ever think of selling?” he asked. Mine was the smallest house on the block, one street over from a bus stop, and would likely net multiple offers the first day of listing. I bought it four years ago when I signed my last contract. Since then the housing market had skyrocketed, and I already had six figures of equity. Cashing out would be simple, and starting fresh might be smart.

  “Can’t leave. Too many memories.”

  “Must be bad memories. Keeping you up at night. You look like crap.”

  “The good ones make the bad ones worth it.”

  As Malik drove off I allowed myself the indulgence of reliving a good one as I walked toward the door, fallen leaves crunching under my feet. I’d always considered carrying the bride over the threshold a corny tradition. “The neighbors will laugh,” I had told Boyer. I pivoted away, keeping the pile of suitcases on the sidewalk between us. “Just carry the luggage.”