The I-94 Murders

by Frank F. Weber

  11:00 A.M., MONDAY, JULY 17,

  BROOKLYN CENTER

  I WAS INSTRUCTED TO WAIT FOR BACKUP, but, too obsessed and impatient to wait, I headed to Hillary’s on my own. Hillary

  Connelly lived in a cramped, lamp-lit apartment inside a filthy, white, stucco apartment building. She pulled open the door with such effort, one would think it was made of concrete. Hillary had choppy gray hair, and peered at me through heavily-lidded eyes, as if keeping them open was as difficult as it was to open her door. She was so frail, she was lost in her chartreuse housecoat—a color that did her mottled complexion no favors.

  My background information put her at sixty-three years old; my face-to-face impression added another decade. Barely glancing at my badge, she allowed me in, and gestured toward an orange and brown floral, velvet sofa. The lamp on the end table had no shade, so the bare bulb was an additional insult to the already spare room. As she sat on one end of the sofa, she propped her forehead on shaky fingertips, as if the effort of holding her head up alone would do her in. Her voice was hoarse, like she had been screaming since birth. She spoke without making eye contact. “I’m glad Colleen did well, even if she doesn’t talk to me.”

  Choosing to stand, I got directly to the point, “Hillary, I need to know the name of Colleen’s father.” I began to feel pressured, afraid she might fall asleep at any moment.

  Hillary took a couple slow breaths before she finally met my eyes. “Bull was Colleen’s father. He was the worst. He called himself the Brooklyn Bull, since he was raised in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center. He was such a dick. He’d introduce me as, ‘This is Hill. Not a mountain, not a molehill. Just a hill.’” A slight tremor shook Hillary’s frame.

  Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park were a couple of the tougher suburbs of Minneapolis, and I-94 ran through both. I’d heard them referred to as “Crooklyn Center” and “Brooklyn Dark,” from the less sensitive living too close to the fray.

  I asked, “Whatever happened to Bull?”

  “When I got pregnant with Colleen, he stopped coming home at night. I tried to get him to stay by giving up our baby, but he left anyway.” She looked up at me hoping for understanding. “I thought Colleen would be better off—Bull had a mean streak. After he left, I told social services I needed my baby, but there was no going back.”

  I finally perched next to her on the edge of the grimy sofa, and asked carefully, “Did Bull ever tie you up?”

  Hillary’s back stiffened. Her breaths were labored as I waited. “Why do you want to talk about that?” She reached for a tattered gold throw pillow and pulled it into her lap as if she could hide behind it.

  I softened my tone in hope of lowering her defenses. “Bull has a son—not your son—who we’re looking for regarding an assault.”

  Hillary said, “Well that must have been after we were together. Bull didn’t have a son when I was with him.”

  “I need to know Bull’s real name.”

  Hillary was silent as she busied herself trying to pull apart the clumped fringes on the pillow. I didn’t allow myself to wonder what exactly had caused the fringes to stick together so firmly. When she finally spoke, there was more strength in her voice than I’d heard since I arrived. “In the assault—was the girl dressed?”

  Energized, I now knew I was on the right track. “No, she wasn’t.”

  Her eyes were rheumy when they finally met mine, and I could see I had clearly triggered memories. I could sense she was shutting down. Through yellowed, clenched teeth, Hillary muttered, “I’m not a snitch.”

  “You must realize you’re not the only woman he’s done this to.” I put a hand out toward her forearm to offer comfort, but she flinched away and drew further into herself.

  I softly pleaded, “Just a last name. You could save another woman from being raped.”

  Hillary spat out, “Bull Martin. Bull is his real name.” Hillary pulled the pillow closer to her chest and looked sightlessly at the arm of the worn sofa, lost in the events of her past. She didn’t even bother to glance my way when she said, “I think you need to go now.”

  On the back of my business card, I wrote down the name and phone number for a clinic that addressed trauma. I carefully tucked the edge of the card under the lamp base, encouraging her to talk to someone about it. As soon as I was in my car, I called Sean, and then Tony, and reported my new lead.

  Law enforcement staff shared information with Tony, likely due to his devastating injury in the line of duty. The truth was, he wasn’t appreciated as he deserved, prior to being shot. It wasn’t long before Tony called me back and told me Bull Martin was living at a place that housed offenders transitioning from prison to the community, called the Dream Center, in St. Cloud. I drove north on I-94, and took the Clearwater exit, which brought me into Clear Lake. This felt right.

  As I turned on Highway 10 to St. Cloud, I received a call from Sean Reynolds. He said, “I just had an odd encounter. I picked up the Minneapolis Tribune and spent the morning in Harper Cook’s hospital room. When she came to and saw me, Harper demanded I leave. I asked if the assailant was black, and she said, ‘No—just go!’ Her vitals escalated and I stepped out. Once she recovers, I’m going to ask a nurse what might have triggered the panic attack.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” I said. “Is Sly talking?”

  “Sly isn’t a man who likes talking to anyone associated with law enforcement. He claims the guy wore a white hockey mask the whole time. I’m not buying it, but I think he’ll come around eventually …”

  2:15 P.M., MONDAY, JULY 17,

  THE DREAM CENTER IN ST. CLOUD

  THE DREAM CENTER IS A BOARD and care place in the Pantown area of St. Cloud. Bull Martin was a bald man who was aging badly. His baldness was not trendy, as there were still thin, dirty-looking wisps of hair above his ears, circling around the sagging skin at the back of his head. He sported a beer belly, faded tattoos about his neck, and full sleeves of images inked onto his arms.

  I used Bull’s pending probation violation hearing, for testing positive for marijuana, to motivate him to talk to me. Bull didn’t want to go back to prison, and he knew his cooperation with a BCA agent would be viewed favorably at his hearing. He would rat out his own kid in a heartbeat if it would save him from one more day of incarceration.

  We sat outside on a metal bench facing the brick 810 office building on Germain Street. It was hot and sticky, and the underarms of Bull’s black, Jack Daniels t-shirt were darkened with sweat. The air around us was sour. He pulled out a pack of Camels and smacked it violently against the heel of his hand. He produced a beaten-up Zippo and lit a cigarette.

  As we discussed his past relationships, Bull complained heartily. “They were a bunch of lyin’, cheatin’ whores. And now, not one of them has room for me. I took them in.” He jutted a grime-encrusted thumbnail toward his chest, then took a hard drag off his cigarette and blew it out through his nostrils. “Felt sorry for them, even when they’d get pregnant and bitchy. I’d hang in there for a while, but there’s only so much a man can take.” Bull rested his crossed arms on his bulbous stomach, tapping ashes onto the ground as he did so.

  I had read through Bull’s probation history. He worked only sporadically, living like a parasite off women who received public assistance. I interjected, “So who were you with after Hillary Connelly?”

  Bull smiled greasily, watching a Mustang full of young men cruise by, blaring rap music so loudly the bass rattled our bench. “Hill’s bills,” he said, blowing a plume of smoke above our heads. “Hillary should have come with a warning label. She was like a doorknob—everybody got a turn. I don’t think Hill kept the kid.”

  He scratched his chin, “After Hill, it was Jade something. What the hell was her last name? She had a boy. Claimed it was mine, but a guy never really knows. I mean, I’ve been with some married women who ended up getting pregnant.”

  He attempted to give me a knowing wink, but after receiving my flat expression,
took a another drag from his cigarette. “I don’t like talking about Jade.” With a grunt, he hauled himself up and wandered to an outdoor ashtray on the top of a garbage can. He stubbed his cigarette out more aggressively than was probably necessary.

  “Why not?” After no response, I tossed a thought out I knew he’d respond to, even though I had no idea of to its accuracy. “I’ve heard she was pretty hot in her day.”

  Bull was hovering over the bench to sit back down, the seams of his Levis threatening to give, but straightened as he growled, “Where the hell did you hear that? She was a small-town girl from somewhere in the holy land over there—St. Anna, St. Stephen, St. Wendell, St. Joseph. I couldn’t get rid of her.” He lowered himself to the bench now, sitting forward in a way that accentuated his protruding belly. “I tied her up and did another woman right next to her, and she still didn’t leave. It’s like, you never lose a cheap pair of sunglasses,” he chuckled mercilessly, “just the nice ones.”

  I swallowed my revulsion, knowing my gut reaction would shut this conversation down, and asked as casually as I could, “What happened to her? Where does she live?”

  For a moment, there appeared to be a glimpse of grief in his eyes. He exhaled a stream of rank breath. “She died of cancer right after Christmas. She’d been at St. Benedict’s nursing home in St. Cloud. I probably should have visited, you know. She never stopped loving me.”

  “What was her boy’s name?” My muscles began tensing as I was putting pieces together in my mind. A young boy, perhaps through a door with a hole in it—from a fist being punched through—witnessing his mother being humiliated.

  Bull struggled to recall the memory. “I’m not sure. Maybe the boy’s name was Jade. It may have even been a girl. There were so many, and I was using heavy. I think there was a small A in the last name.”

  I was barely breathing as I suggested, “Like Anderson?”

  “Maybe. I was thinking more like ‘Catsandjammer’ or something like that. Or, it’s nothing like that and my brain is just messing with me. It does that sometimes.” He huffed and turned to me impatiently, “Are you going to say I cooperated?

  “Yes, but we’re not done yet.” I asked, “Where was this child when this crazy sexual stuff was going on?”

  Bull laughed through his nose, “Always on the computer. The kid’s probably the next Steve Jobs …”

  AFTER LEAVING BULL, I immediately called Serena. She still had contacts in healthcare and would know how to find a woman named Jade, who died in a nursing home in December of 2016, much quicker than I could. She may even be able to find the name of a surviving descendant.

  Within an hour, Serena called me back, “Does the name Jane Peterson mean anything?”

  “No—do you have anything else?”

  Serena hummed as she searched, “How about Jane Kelly?”

  “It’s Irish—that might mean something. There were two Janes who died at St. Benedict’s in December of 2016?”

  Serena paused, “Oh, St. Benedict’s? I thought you said any nursing home in St. Cloud. Okay … hold on.” I heard the clicking of computer keys through the phone. “No one died at St. Benedict’s Center in December of 2016, but a Jade Kavanaugh died in November of 2016.”

  My enthusiasm became a tangible force as Serena continued, “The executor of her affairs was her son, Jack. She didn’t really have anything. It was more a matter of closing accounts.”

  It made perfect sense. Jack Kavanaugh was a writer—a wordsmith, as Serena affectionately referred to those with extensive vocabularies. I mentally began clicking the puzzle pieces together. Jada said she had been talking to other reporters at a table the same night Maddy Moore was sedated after leaving the bar. I’d bet Jack Kavanaugh was one of those reporters. Jack was the one who got Ava to backtrack on her initial impressions of her attacker. And the third cypher was sent to Jack, sky-rocketing the ratings for his article. Jack’s name was on the list of people identified at the last murder scene, but because he was the crime reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, he wasn’t considered out of place.

  As I hung up with Serena, a call came through from Sean Reynolds. “We caught a break, Jon. Harper Cook wasn’t freaking out over me—it was the fact that I was holding the Trib. It turns out she’s allergic to newspaper print. If the killer had some on his clothes, that would explain her hives.”

  I told him, “I’m sure he did, Sean. The killer’s Jack Kavanaugh …”

  AVA’S BODYGUARD, JEREMY, CALLED and reported tersely, “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for a half hour. Ava ditched me this morning, which isn’t all that newsworthy. I can’t follow her into places when she’s trying on clothes. She came back on the grid briefly, about thirty minutes ago. At first, I thought she was headed back to your parents’ place, but she’s just sitting at this address—30409 County Road 34, 93rd Street, Pierz. It’s in the middle of nowhere, east of Buckman.”

  I plugged the address into my GPS to see exactly where it was. It was the old Giadowski farm. When I was about to make the cut from Highway 10 to Monticello, to get on I-94, Sean Reynolds called to tell me Jack Kavanaugh wasn’t around. He wasn’t at home, and he’d called in sick to work.

  He said, “There’s nothing in Jack’s home that looks suspicious. So, I got to thinking, why would a writer smell like ink? He doesn’t deliver the paper. The Pioneer Press isn’t even printed in St. Paul. It’s printed by the Minneapolis Tribune at the Heritage printing facility, in the Warehouse District in Minneapolis. So, I asked if Jack ever visits the print site. I was told he does, in fact, and even has a locker there. I’m on my way to the Heritage Center with bolt cutters now.”

  I did a quick U-turn and headed toward the abandoned Giadowski farm. Ava wasn’t answering her phone. Something about this didn’t feel right.

  While racing to the farm, I called Serena to make sure she and Nora were safe.

  Serena was laughing with Nora as she answered the phone. They were home. Her voice was light and joyful when she said, “Sonia left earlier. I think she was going to sight in her rifle with your dad.”

  Any other time, I would have been more careful with delivering news like this to Serena, but in the interest of time, I got right to it. “The killer is Jack Kavanaugh, and right now, we can’t seem to find him. I’d like to see if Clay’s in the Pierz area and have him stop over with a loaded rifle, to sit with you until this is resolved. Would you mind if I did that?” I couldn’t take any chances.

  “Not Clay,” as if a switch was flipped, Serena’s tone darkened with urgency that matched my own. “I’ll call my dad. And I’ll see if my cousin’s around. She’s a better shot than both of them, anyway.”

  I heard a rustling through the phone as Serena’s movements increased. I could almost see her, phone snugged between her shoulder and ear, as she used both hands to make sure the doors were locked—the knobs, the deadbolts, and security chains. I knew she’d continue working her way through the house until every window and door was secure. She asked, “Is there any reason Jack would come here?”

  “No. There has been nothing posted online about the location of our home. I just want to make sure you’re safe—I’m not taking any chances.” The rustling continued as I spoke, so I ended the conversation. “Text me after you’ve got the place locked down and the security system on.”

  I was comforted knowing Serena was at my home—our home. It was brick with wood shutters for the windows that locked from the inside, and I’d had a state-of-the-art security system installed just a few weeks earlier.

  I tried calling Sonia, but her phone went directly to voicemail.

  I then called Bill and asked, “Dad, are you with Sonia?”

  Bill replied, “No. Did you try her cell?”

  “She isn’t answering. Serena thought Sonia was sighting her rifle with you.”

  With consternation, Bill shared, “I hid the 237 she’s been using last week, and told her we needed to take some time off. Sonia’s been madder than
the snake that married a garden hose since hearing her sister was assaulted before she was murdered, so I thought she needed to take a break from firing a rifle. Your mom and I are in Genola now, but we can head home if you’re concerned.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you would try to find her. We have just discovered that Jack Kavanaugh is the I-94 Killer, but we haven’t located him yet. I want to make sure Sonia’s safe.” Then I asked, “Can you think of any reason why Ava would head to the old Giadowski farm?”

  “No. Camille and I walked through the woods with her on their land and shared some of the stories. Ava’s only called once or twice since she left.”

  “Snapchat places her at the farm right now.”

  Bill harrumphed, “Well I wouldn’t know about Snapchat. Ava did joke that the only way she’d spend a night out in that hunting shack was if she live-streamed it to her friends as her own personal episode of Survivor …”

  43

  CULHWCH

  4:45 P.M., MONDAY, JULY 17,

  EAST OF BUCKMAN IN RURAL HILLMAN

  IT IS PARTLY CLOUDY TODAY, with the sun painfully bright when it appears, and uncomfortably cool when clouds impede the sun’s presence. I take 20oth Street West, off 169, and head into the woods of rural Minnesota. I consider myself fortunate to maintain cell coverage. I turn right on Sage Road, past Gottwalt’s store.

  I should clarify that this isn’t a town. It’s a country store that could be from the old west, in the middle of nowhere. I close in on Ava Mayer’s GPS location. Her obnoxious Infrared Lexis is sitting at the end of a long dirt driveway, which is mostly grown over with weeds and scrub grass. There’s a barn that’s completely collapsed to the ground, but no house left on the property. There are no other vehicles around. I drive a hundred more yards, park my car on a field approach and walk back toward my prey. There are no other cars around.