Certain Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  He had been watching the judge for a couple of days. He followed him to the airport this morning and watched from a space in front of the terminal a couple of cars down as the old man dropped off his wife. Now he was in the courtroom checking on the judge to finalize his plan.

  The defense lawyer finished his exam of his client and Peterson had the lawyers come forward. When the two prosecutors and defense lawyer reached the bench, Peterson asked, “You got any more witnesses after this?”

  The defense lawyer, a well-known African-American said he did not.

  Peterson then asked the prosecution about their cross-examination. The lead attorney told him she had at least an hour.

  When the lawyers returned to their chairs, the judge informed the jury they would take a short break. It was almost 5:30 P.M. and Peterson was determined to finish taking testimony that evening.

  While Peterson was leaving the bench, the out-of-place stranger in the back quickly fled to the hallway. He exited the courtroom and went right to the elevators.

  Judge Peterson parked the old Taurus in the attached garage and looked at the dashboard clock. It was 8:18 and almost dark outside.

  The trial would be given to the jury tomorrow, two days ahead of schedule. Peterson took pride in running a tight ship. He had been on the bench for twenty-one years and knew how to be in charge and keep a trial moving.

  On the drive home he had indulged himself with a meal at a small restaurant by his home. He rationalized the expense by convincing himself it did not cost much more than if he ate at home.

  He went into the house through the door to the kitchen and to the refrigerator. The judge allowed himself one or two lite beers each night, his one and only vice. He reached for the door handle as a shadowy figure dressed completely in black appeared in front of him. The man stood in front of the elderly judge, his right hand in the pocket of his black windbreaker.

  The judge jerked backward at the sight and awkwardly said, “Who, what, ah, who are you?”

  “I’m hurt,” the sinister figure said, “I thought you would remember me.”

  At that moment, the light of comprehension came on in the judge’s head. He immediately thought of two names: Robert Smith, an acquaintance and appeals court judge and Rhea Watson, a lawyer who had tried many cases before him.

  “Wait, no, please…” Peterson started to say as he held up his hands and extended his arms. What stopped him was the 50,000 volts the intruder sent through him. Unfortunately, the fun he expected to have torturing and killing his third victim was not to be.

  Unknown to the judge’s assailant, Peterson had been fitted with a pacemaker a little over a year ago. The voltage from the Taser produced a cardiac arrhythmia and in less than two minutes, Judge Ross Peterson was dead.

  By 9:05 A.M. the next day, Marty Colstad had become quite concerned with the missing judge. Marty was Ross Peterson’s clerk and in the year and a half he had clerked for the judge, Peterson had never been late to work.

  Marty, a student in his final year of law school at William Mitchell in St. Paul, had taken it upon himself to find out what happened. The first thing he did was discuss it with the lawyers. Both sides were ready to give closing arguments and the jury was getting impatient.

  Marty then called the police and asked them to check at Peterson’s home. Within a half hour, they called back with the grim news.

  Officer Rhonda Dean parked her squad car on the street in front of the Peterson’s home. The first thing she did was ring the front doorbell and look through the windows in the front of the house. Next she went around the side to the back door, knocked several times and looked into the kitchen. Seeing nothing noticeably amiss she walked around the garage to check the yard.

  She came around the back corner of the garage and saw him. He was sitting up, his back to the garage, his hands nailed to the garage wall and what looked to be a crown of some type on his head.

  Owen Jefferson parked his car at the mouth of the Peterson’s driveway. He and Marcie Sterling followed the small crowd of police and first responders around to the back of the garage. The head of the crime scene unit was already there and the two detectives walked over to her.

  “Hey, Barb,” Jefferson said as he shook hands with her. “Lieutenant Barbara Langer, Detective Marcie Sterling,” he said introducing the two women.

  “I have a team in the house and your guys are canvassing the neighborhood,” Langer said. “So far, we haven’t found anything inside. Whoever did this is really careful.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Jefferson quietly agreed. “Wait here,” he said to Marcie.

  Jefferson walked carefully across the grass and knelt down in front of the body next to Clyde Marston, the man from the medical examiner’s office.

  “No blood this time,” Marston said referring to the front of Peterson’s shirt. “No crushed fingers either.”

  “What do you think?” Jefferson asked.

  “Don’t know. He could’ve had a weak heart and if he was hit with a Taser like Watson that could’ve killed him. We’ll see.”

  Jefferson took a minute to look over the victim’s fingers and the wound where the nails were driven through his hands. “He died before our guy got around to the fun part,” he quietly said.

  “Looks like it,” Marston agreed.

  “Put a rush on it, will you, Clyde? And let me know right away.”

  “You got it, Owen. I may even know yet today.”

  That afternoon Jefferson commandeered one of the private conference rooms in the detective’s squad room. He and Sterling moved their case files into the room and set up on the table inside. There was a large whiteboard along one wall and the tech department set up two PC’s for their use.

  Marcie was finishing listing seven names on the whiteboard when Selena Kane entered the room.

  “These are the ones from our list who are attached to all three victims. They were all tried by Rhea Watson with Ross Peterson on the bench. And all seven had their appeals rejected by the judge up North, Robert Smith.”

  “When these cases go up on appeal,” Kane said, “they are not decided by just one judge. Have you thought of that?”

  “Marcie did, yeah,” Jefferson answered making sure he gave his new partner the credit. “And you’re right, there are three judges on each case. We have figured out who and we’re having them all notified. The state can provide them with protection until this is over. That’s the best we can do.”

  “Okay,” Kane said. “Good catch,” she said to Marcie.

  “I think it’s one of these three,” Marcie said pointing to three names on the board. “Eugene Parlow, Aaron Forsberg or Howard Traynor.

  “Why them?” Kane asked.

  “They’re the ones who were recently released because they were convicted with falsified DNA test results,” Jefferson answered.

  “Oh, okay. I see what you mean,” Kane said. “Did this start after they got out?”

  “Yes, a few weeks later,” Marcie answered her. “There was a fourth one too,” she continued, “a rapist named Angelo Suarez. He was the guy shot and killed by that woman in St. Paul…”

  “I remember that,” Kane interrupted. “We should send her flowers, a congratulatory card and a shooting merit badge. Now what?”

  “We’ll get them in here for questioning,” Jefferson said. “But I’m not sure. My bet would be Traynor but he’s got a solid alibi for the first two.”

  “Try to catch this guy and soon. The media will be all over this before much longer.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Mia slow down! Don’t cross the street without me,” Katie yelled at the little girl. Katie Gibbs was a twenty-three-year-old, part-time nanny for three-year-old Mia Harper. Mia stopped at the corner and Katie hurried to catch up with the child. Katie was a student at the University of Minnesota in their dental hygienist program. The Harper’s were a post forty couple with successful careers who had Katie as their little showpiece accoutrement. Their total
parental involvement with Katie was to make sure she had good nannies and to get her into the best schools and occasionally display the beautiful, brown-eyed brunette to their wine and cheese friends.

  Mia waited impatiently for Katie at the corner of Twenty-Fifth and Bryant in south Minneapolis. It was almost 10:00 A.M. and Katie was taking her to Mueller Park for some play time. The Harpers had spent a small fortune renovating a ten room house a block away. They had chosen this neighborhood to demonstrate their trendy side but were not thrilled about their little trophy fraternizing with the locals. The Harpers disapproved of both the small park and its inhabitants.

  Katie held Mia’s hand while they hurried across Twenty Fifth and entered the park by the wading pool. As soon as they reached the park’s grass Mia jerked away from Katie and took off. Katie walked quickly behind her as Mia ran toward the large sandbox play area. Mia knew her two best friends, a three-year-old-girl named Kyra and another three old girl named Sailee, would already be there.

  Katie sat down on a bench next to the small park facilities building to watch the girls. The day care provider for Mia’s friends and a couple of the other younger children was also there. The two women watched as the children ran in, out and off of the various swings, slides and playground equipment. A couple of other regulars with children joined them and for a half-hour or so they gabbed and watched the kids play.

  Several times Katie turned her head toward the park’s picnic area. Finally, after the fourth or fifth time, she asked her friend Darlene, the day care provider, about the man sitting at a table. He was about a hundred yards away from them, his arms spread out on the table top and his head tilted forward.

  “I think he might be a passed out drunk,” Darlene answered her.

  Both women looked toward their left at the man and Katie said, “He hasn’t moved since I got here. What’s that all over the front of his shirt?”

  “He probably got sick and threw up on himself,” Darlene said.

  By now, the other women in their little group were looking at him as Katie said, “Maybe someone should go over there and check on him.”

  “Go ahead,” the others said in unison. Katie turned back to Darlene and said, “Come with me, please.”

  “Okay,” Darlene answered reluctantly.

  The two of them walked slowly toward the man. He was in the Southeast corner of the park sitting at a picnic table. His back was against the table, his head facing away from it west toward Colfax Avenue. His arms were stretched out to both sides and his head tilted downward, his chin touching his chest and they could see he was barefoot.

  Katie and Darlene slowly came to within fifty feet of him when Darlene exclaimed, “Oh my God! That’s not vomit, it’s blood!” Darlene grabbed Katie’s arm as if to stop her and almost yelled, “What should we do?”

  By this time Katie was already doing it. She removed her phone from her pocket and started to punch in 911 on it. As she did this she calmly said to the horrified Darlene, “Go back to the kids and make sure to keep them away from here.”

  Owen Jefferson and Marcie Sterling listened quietly while Katie told the story for the fourth or fifth time. They were standing on the south side of the little building. While they talked, the CSU people were combing over every inch of the park and an M.E. doctor was examining the body.

  When Katie finished, Jefferson asked, “Do you think you could do something for us? We’d like you to take a look and see if you can identify him.”

  “Oh, God, I don’t know,” Katie said wrinkling her face in revulsion. “I guess I could try.” She turned around to check on Mia. All of the children had been hustled into a corner of the play area directly opposite from the body. The park’s building blocked their line of sight but none of them were playing. With the police all over the park even the little ones knew something was wrong and they all quietly sat watching. All of the adults had been asked to stay to give statements to the police.

  The medical examiner had set up a three-sided portable screen around the picnic table and body. A crowd was gathering along the streets bordering the park. There were also houses along the little park’s south side. The screen would shield the grisly sight from the gawkers and the media. The latter were starting to arrive. Channel 8 had a van and crew on site that was being held back by uniformed officers.

  The two detectives, with Katie in between them, walked back toward the body. When they got within ten feet of him, Katie could see his hands were nailed to the tabletop and he was wearing a barbed wire crown.

  “You okay?” Marcie asked her.

  “Barely. What kind of sicko could do this?” Katie said.

  The M.E. looked at them and when Jefferson nodded at the doctor he gently lifted the man’s head so Katie could see his face.

  “You still okay?” Marcie asked again.

  Katie stared at the gruesome white face, completely drained of blood and said, “Yeah, I’m alright and I shouldn’t be.”

  “Do you recognize him?” Jefferson quietly asked.

  “No,” she said. “I’ve never seen him around here.”

  They walked her back to the group of civilians and children. There were two other police officers there who told Jefferson they had taken statements from the adults. Jefferson then gave the okay for them to get the kids home.

  Before leaving the scene themselves, Jefferson had the M.E. get the fingerprints from both of the victim’s hands. While watching him do this, Jefferson again looked at the crushed and bloody fingers and toes of the man.

  While they were walking to where their car was parked on Bryant for the ride back to headquarters, Marcie said, “That’s two in two days. First the judge and now this guy, whoever he is.”

  Jefferson was looking at a Polaroid of the ghastly looking man. Just like the others, he thought. Throat cut from behind by a left-handed person from ear to ear, blood covering his abdomen, the crushed fingers and toes and the macabre crown of barbed wire thorns.

  They reached the car and he slipped the photo into his inside coat pocket.

  “You check missing persons and I’ll run his prints. Let’s see if we can find out who he is,” Jefferson said.

  Before they could get in the car a woman reporter with the Channel 8 van yelled at Jefferson and caught his attention. Gabriella Shriqui was politely but firmly being held back by an MPD cop.

  Jefferson heard his name being called and looked toward the source. He saw Gabriella and decided he would take a minute to talk to her. He motioned to the uniformed officer to let her through. She started to come forward with a camera operator but Jefferson quickly held up a hand to stop the cameraman.

  When Gabriella reached him, the three of them, including Marcie, walked silently across the street. When they reached the edge of the park Jefferson turned to Gabriella and held up a hand before she could ask a question.

  “Here’s the deal,” Jefferson began. “I’ll talk to you only, no cameras and this is completely off the record.”

  Gabriella stood in front of them with her back to the park. She took a quick look at each of the detectives then said, “Owen, that’s not fair…”

  “What’s fair got to do with it?” Jefferson said.

  “Okay,” Gabriella shrugged. “We’re getting reports…”

  “Leaks,” Jefferson again interrupted.

  “Okay, leaks…” she started again.

  “Rumors actually,” Jefferson corrected her.

  “Fine, goddamnit,” an annoyed Gabriella said. “Rumors, leaks, whatever. We’re hearing there’s a serial killer out there and this guy is victim three or four. You guys need to start coming clean or we’ll start reporting using the ‘sources close to the investigation’ bullshit attribution.”

  Jefferson thought it over a minute before saying, “Call me later this afternoon. I have to check with some people first, okay?”

  “Fair enough but if I don’t get anything we’ll run with what we know. I’ll keep your name out of it but we will report
this. We have to.”

  On the drive downtown, the two detectives talked over the case. The first thing they needed was to identify this latest victim. From that they would see if there is a connection with the other victims.

  “These cannot be random,” Marcie said. “There has to be a connection.”

  “And when we find the connection we’ll find our psycho,” Jefferson agreed.

  Jefferson electronically submitted the fingerprints taken from the body into IAFIS, the automated Fingerprint Identification System. IAFIS is used by law enforcement throughout the nation to identify people by their fingerprints. It is maintained by the FBI and contains over one hundred million sets of fingerprints obtained by a number of ways, especially from criminal subjects.

  While he waited for a response, Jefferson leaned back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest and stared at the names on the whiteboard. Marcie was on the phone talking to someone in missing persons. Whoever she was speaking with placed her on hold to check on something.

  “We may have a hit,” Marcie said while holding the phone to her ear. Jefferson sat up and wheeled his chair around to look at her but before he could respond, Marcie held up an index finger to him and said into the phone, “Yes, I’m here. What do you have?”

  She listened for a minute and took some notes while saying, “Uh huh, uh huh. Okay. Yeah, I got it. Thanks, we’ll check it out.”

  Marcie hung up the phone and made a few more notes on the tablet she had written on.

  “What?” Jefferson impatiently asked.

  “They got a call from a woman a couple of hours ago. Her name is Marilyn Kuhn. She was supposed to meet her dad for breakfast this morning and when he didn’t show she got worried and went to his house. When she got there his car was in the garage but he wasn’t there. She called and we sent a squad car to get a statement. The description she gave sounds like our victim.”