The I-94 Murders

by Frank F. Weber

  Walking through Alan’s house the second time gave me an insight I hadn’t caught earlier. His kitchen made perfect sense to me, and almost no one’s kitchen made sense in my brain. The utensils, knife block, and pans were all in one area, and the porcelain and glass in another, separating metal from breakables. Even though Alan and I had different tastes in art, music, and dating, I saw an obsessive cleanliness and order, which was familiar to me. It was disturbing to identify with murder victims this intensely, as it was a hard reminder that under different circumstances there, but for the grace of God, go I.

  Maddy and I reconstructed the most likely scenario. The killer set the note on the garage floor and waited for Alan to return home. After he pulled into his garage, the killer shot him in the leg. Alan was likely directed to undress, was cuffed, and ordered into the trunk. The killer then shot him in the head. The killer had likely invited Ava to Alan’s home, unlocked the front door, and then waited for her in the basement. It wasn’t a forced entry. The home and garage had a security code, which was likely used. We dusted the security keypad for prints, but it had been wiped clean. Alan wouldn’t have wiped the keypad clean.

  WHEN I RETURNED TO THE OFFICE, I copied the note and placed the original in evidence. The killer was very careful not to leave prints, and actually wore a pair of Alan’s shoes during the killing, then tossed them back into the garage. We had bagged the shoes for evidence, but I was not hopeful for anything useful. The killer had not been sloppy. The removal of Alan’s computer tower with the security camera footage was well thought out. This killing and sexual assault was carefully planned, with a note prepared ahead of time. The killer was angry at Alan.

  After I returned to my apartment, I found myself staring at the copy I’d made of the note. I booted up my laptop and typed the whole message, then parts of the message, into the Internet search bar, hoping to find some significance. None of the results were helpful. After a couple hours, my frustration saw me pounding harder and harder on my keyboard. I stood up and paced around my space, trying to expend some excess energy. As I walked, I soon realized my brain was registering my every step, counting out the steps as I moved, one, two, three, four … I stopped short and returned to the note.

  I had become interested in cryptography after we studied the Zodiac Killer in a law enforcement course. Zodiac was a serial killer who killed at least five people in Northern California in the 1960s and early 1970s, and his identity was never discovered. The killer wrote the most famous cyphers—notes containing a hidden message—which he sent to newspapers in San Francisco to advertise his killing. Cyphers were also used by international spies, but spies didn’t intentionally leave them lying around. It was the type of obsession I couldn’t let go of. Cyphers involving numerical sequences were right up my alley. I began to wonder if that’s what I was looking at.

  A short cypher was difficult. I could use the rules of grammar to solve a long cypher, but, with a short one, I would be stuck trying any number of hit-and-miss attempts. I began by looking for the word “Alan” in the code, since the victim’s name would be the name most likely to appear in it. I was facing a long and tedious night, just what I needed to keep my mind off Serena.

  3

  JON FREDERICK

  8:00 A.M., SATURDAY, APRIL 15,

  ANGELA AND MARCUS MAYER’S HOME, EDEN PRAIRIE

  THE FINGERPRINTS FOUND in the basement of Alan Volt’s home all belonged to either Alan or Ava Mayer. I suspected the killer had worn gloves. Maddy Moore and the BCA technology expert, Zikri Abbas, met me at Ava Mayer’s home to pick up her computer and discuss our next steps. Zikri or “Zeke,” as Maddy called him, was a little overweight and a bit shorter than average. He had thick, black hair and a thin but neatly trimmed goatee. His skin was almost terracotta in color. Socially anxious, Zeke spoke little, and when he did, it was in short, clipped sentences.

  Ava told us she had just dragged herself out of bed. She was barefoot and wearing a PINK brand t-shirt with satin white pajama pants. Her makeup and hair were perfect, though, suggesting she was prepared for us. As we spoke in the entry way, Ava kept inching away from Maddy and into me, pushing the boundaries of personal space.

  Ava’s behavior didn’t escape Maddy, who shot me a questioning glance.

  Uncomfortable with this game, I asked Ava, “Can we take your laptop back to the BCA lab?”

  She crossed her arms petulantly in a genie pose. “Why should I turn my laptop over?”

  Maddy feigned curiosity and asked, “Is there something you need to hide?”

  Ava’s eyes flashed angrily, and her expression hardened as she met Maddy’s gaze. She turned to me, and her features transformed into that of a distressed child. She sniveled, “My ex and I used to sext. It’s all deleted now, but I’ve heard you can pull all that back up. I don’t want a bunch of horny cops getting off on my personal affairs.”

  I replied, “That’s not going to happen.”

  Unaffected by Ava’s narcissistic hysteria, Maddy continued her line of questioning, “Are there any bondage pictures?”

  “No,” Ava whispered coyly, glancing at me through her lashes. We waited patiently until she finally added, “I had cuffs on in one.”

  I considered, “Did the metal cuffs Alan was wearing belong to you?”

  Ava gave me a coquettish smirk, “Maybe.”

  Her efforts to flirt seriously irritated Maddy, who responded in disgust, “For God’s sake Ava, Alan Volt died in those cuffs.”

  Ava spun toward Maddy, forcing us all to back away, shouting, “Get your skanky ass out of my home!”

  Maddy shot her a death ray of a look, and pointed into Ava’s face, “You and I are not done. Not by a long shot.” After Maddy and Zeke left, Ava handed me her laptop without a bone of contention.

  Ava gave a victorious smirk. “She’s such a bitch. Why can’t you just help me?”

  “Maddy’s a great investigator, and she’s my partner. Your disrespect of her makes my job more difficult.” I considered, “Is there something you need to tell me?” When she didn’t respond, I told her, “Ava, you need to talk to a therapist.” I left her staring after me, her mouth slightly open in unspoken outrage.

  When I left the Mayers’ home, Maddy waited for me in the chilly air, still hot from her exchange with Ava. She steamed, “There was nothing in that basement that didn’t belong to Alan or Ava. Something is not right with this girl and this whole scenario. This is Jodi Arias all over again.”

  Jodi Arias was convicted of murdering her boyfriend at his home in Mesa, Arizona, in 2008. After having sex with him, she stabbed him and shot him in the head. There were some similarities, but this wasn’t a copycat murder. The problem with referencing history was that it could put a person in a mindset that wasn’t accurate. History repeated itself, but never exactly the same way. I pointed out, “Ava didn’t ask for what happened to her.”

  Zeke was your typical introverted computer geek. He was standing next to Maddy in his army green, fur-lined parka. He pointed out, “Ava agreed to be bound and blindfolded, naked, by a man she barely knew. If Alan wouldn’t have been killed, I doubt there even would have been cause for an investigation. I’m not saying she wasn’t assaulted. I’m just sayin’.”

  Maddy looked at me accusingly, “What the hell do you have going with Ava Mayer?”

  I answered evenly, “I have no interest in Ava outside of this investigation. She’s a pain, but painful people get assaulted every day, and it’s our job to protect them.” My mom would take it a step further and say it was our Christian obligation to love them.

  Maddy dug into her coat pockets and pulled out a pair of brown leather gloves. As she was working them onto her icy fingers, she blew out a long, slow breath, in an effort to calm herself. I silently hoped her anger would be carried away with the tendrils of vapor being forced from her lips. She sarcastically commented to Zeke, “Maybe Ava thinks if she’s cuffed to the bed, she’s technically not sexually active.”

>   I switched gears, “I have a friend I want to talk to about the lines cut into Alan’s body—Tony Shileto. He’s a former investigator.” I didn’t add that Tony was paralyzed from the waist down, confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home, after being shot on the job a couple years ago. “He’s given me some good insight into cases.”

  Maddy appeared to have checked her hostility. “I’m familiar with Tony’s case. There’s always someone who has it worse, isn’t there?” Maddy’s gave a quick nod, and said, “I’m fine sharing this with Tony. I’ll talk to Ava’s ex-boyfriend. We’ll connect on Monday.” She began to turn away, then turned back, looking perplexed, “What do you think the lines mean?”

  “The straight lines and the angled lines remind me of an ancient alphabet, but I can’t remember the name of it.”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” she nodded slightly. “The series of bloody lines looked like the work of a cutter to me. Ava has the over-dramatizing personality of a self-cutter. I think when Alan set her free, Ava killed him, and then cut the hell out of him. Perhaps for the number of times she felt hurt by him.”

  I didn’t bother to share that self-cutters were actually less likely to kill someone than the average person. I countered with, “Cutters typically don’t address their anger overtly. Instead they take it out on their bodies—most often the underside of their arms. Ava has no scars on the underside of her arms that I could see.”

  I turned to Zeke and explained, “There was a note left on Alan Volt’s floor with a hidden message.” I handed Zeke the copy I’d kept and told him, “At the end of a long night, I discovered the hidden message is ‘Alan is just the beginning.’”

  Zeke studied it for a few seconds and frowned, “I don’t see it.”

  His lack of interest in the cypher was atypical of an investigator. I wondered if he simply wasn’t feeling well.

  Maddy reached for the copy and gave it a hard look. “How did you break it?”

  “I took a stab at a number of possibilities before I finally tried writing down every thirteenth letter.” I pointed to the significant letters and added. “The name Culhwch isn’t part of the cypher.”

  Alan Volt kept blaming Ava M. for allowing his denigration of an identity that I see as caring. In just this act he used her need to submit to the altruistic care stewards of good honor give with everlasting subjective love. He had to save his guiltless pics in a file anyone networking can now find. So it’s time for all pigs needing to hurt girls to die. / Culhwch

  Maddy shook her head, “How in God’s name did you know it was a cypher?”

  “I wasn’t sure,” I said honestly. “There were a number of words in common sayings that had been replaced. People say ‘stewards of good will,’ not ‘honor,’ and the word ‘subjective’ is unnecessary. The murder was carefully executed, and this led me to consider that the letter was likely thought out just as carefully.”

  I had spoken to Tony Shileto about the name Culhwch. I explained, “Culhwch is a cousin of King Arthur in Welsh mythology. It’s a tale that dates back to the eleventh century. Culhwch’s mother went mad after being frightened by a herd of swine. The pigs raised Culhwch until he was a lad. His mother’s madness made him determined to be chivalrous to one particular woman, Olwen. Culhwch became infatuated with Olwen, even though he’d never met her face-to-face, after being told he could never marry her. Culhwch was wise and ultimately achieved thirty-nine seemingly impossible tasks in order to marry her—tasks like taking the horns off a wild boar, which could only be achieved by first killing it. His lover, Olwen, would never have considered him as a suitor in the beginning, but ultimately refused to marry until Culhwch was considered proper by her father.”

  Maddy said, “And you think Alan Volt was the wild boar?”

  “Possibly.”

  I watched Zeke amble to his car. In his hurry to get to Ava’s house, he landed one tire up on the curb. It was a 2012 gray Chevy Impala, license number FPC 835. I have an obsession with numbers and items that are out of place. The plate registered in my brain as Foolishly Parked Chevy, and 835 is how eighth graders write “SEX” upside down on a calculator.

  1:00 P.M., SATURDAY, APRIL 15, COUNTRY MANOR IN SARTELL

  TONY SHILETO AND I SAT TOGETHER in the dayroom at his rehabilitation center, at a worn, vinyl-topped table—me in a formed plastic chair, and Tony in his wheelchair. Country Manor provided both nursing home care and rehabilitation for individuals with spinal cord injuries. It was a nice place, though I was a bit concerned with how living with the elderly would affect a fifty-year-old man’s mental state.

  Tony’s salt-and-pepper black hair was freshly combed back, and he sported a couple days’ growth of matching stubble. His facial features looked Italian, but he was actually Irish. Tony was dressed in a well-worn gray sweatshirt, threadbare charcoal-colored sweats and faded black, corduroy slippers. This man, in his own current shades of gray, once lived, and dressed, like an active and rugged outdoorsman. Now he was steeped in self-pity. The news of my separation from Serena further distressed him. Tony harrumphed, picking at the chipped edges of the old table, “I thought it was fate.”

  I remarked, “Nothing is entirely fate. Even people who believe in fate look both ways before they cross the street.” Trying for humor, I added, “I still believe in love at first sight, though—so much so, I try not to look in to the eyes of homeless people.” My effort was wasted as he ignored me.

  Tony finally grumbled, “Aren’t you a glut of unceasing wisdom?”

  “Have you talked to Paula recently?” I asked him cautiously, as Tony and another BCA investigator, Paula Fineday, had once been lovers. Since his paraplegia was determined as permanent, however, Tony had refused to see her, suggesting she “move on.”

  Sadness cascaded over Tony, his demeanor slack as he shook his head.

  I had brought an electronic tablet with a downloaded photo of the lines carved into Alan Volt’s body, so I used it to quickly distract him from his melancholy. Tony’s eyes flickered briefly over the lines in front of him.

  llll …. ///// xx ll 1111…. ll ll …. /////

  He glanced at me through hooded eyes and remonstrated, “Don’t come here with some bullshit to create pretend work for me. That’s not going to make me feel any better.”

  I ignored his reproach, “Like I have a desire to waste time with some ornery old Celt. Are you going to help me or are you too busy?” I punctuated this by gesturing toward the few elderly folks disbursed about the room, plaid blankets over their frail legs, all of whom were napping.

  Tony snorted and made a valiant effort to ignore the lines. It didn’t take long, though, before his shoulders straightened, pulling him out of his slouch, and his eyes seemed to brighten. He cleared his throat, and with renewed confidence said, “It’s Ogham. It’s an ancient Irish alphabet. Once you get a list of suspects, you may want to see who has ties to Ireland.”

  Admittedly, I brought this to Tony because I recognized the alphabet as old Irish, and I knew Tony was proud of, and entrenched in, his Irish ancestry. I was also desperate to help my friend. Tony needed something to pull him out of his funk.

  Now fully engaged, Tony and I spent the next hour converting the lines to the letters, “S,E,R,I,A,L, new word, C,I,L,L,E,R.” Tony noted my hesitancy, and said, “There’s no ‘K’ in Ogham.” Now that I knew the word, I hurriedly typed “serial killer” into the online Ogham translator, and it revealed the exact marks on Alan Volt’s body. Tony and I smiled triumphantly at each other.

  I tapped the search results with a closed pen and looked at Tony. “I don’t think our killer necessarily has anything to do with Ireland. I think this guy just spends a lot of time on his computer.”

  He nodded approvingly at the revelation.

  I asked, “Are you okay if I drop a bunch of home surveillance footage off for you to go through, from the victim’s neighbors?

  The corners of Tony’s mouth curved up as he nodded begrudgingly, “Yeah, sur
e.” He collected himself, then said gruffly, “Thanks for getting me back in the game.”

  I couldn’t sit on this information, so I called Maddy and shared it with her. She told me she’d search the law enforcement databases for any murders that left the victims with similar lines cut into their bodies. This had possibilities, as the killing and assault were pulled off too cleanly to be our killer’s first effort.

  10:00 P.M., SUNDAY, APRIL 16, MINNEAPOLIS

  I HAD ENJOYED A WONDERFUL DAY with Nora. I loved picking her up and kissing those pudgy cheeks. Once back at my apartment, I double-checked the camera. It was working and showed no one other than me coming in and out.

  Jada Anderson sent me a text suggesting I watch the 10:00 p.m. WCCO news. I hurriedly clicked the TV on, just in time to see Ava Mayer in a crisp white, designer Balenciaga parka, being interviewed by Jada Anderson. Ava had agreed to do a brief interview alone, outside of her parents’ home, and Jada’s questions took advantage of Ava’s histrionic nature. Ava primped and swayed to show off her expensive coat like she was on the runway of a fashion show. Her devil-red lipstick, and the manner with which she dramatically bobbed her head, gave her the look of sassy diva.

  Jada had done her homework on Ava before she introduced this case to me, and knew Ava was somebody the masses would love to hate—a spoiled, rich, white girl. If Jada could antagonize some drama out of Ava, she’d have a blockbuster of a news story. Ava was too self-centered to notice she was led right into admitting she had been at Alan Volt’s home on the night of his murder.

  Jada asked her directly, “Did you kill Alan Volt?’”

  Ava inappropriately simpered into the camera and quipped, “No!”

  Jada had her teeth into this one, and was not going to let go. “But you do acknowledge that the two of you were into bondage and S and M.”

  It was obvious Ava wanted to talk about this, but to my relief, she kept this desire at bay by biting into her pouty bottom lip with perfectly straight teeth.