Mayhem, Mystery and Murder

by John A. Broussard

  “Call, call, for God’s sake! It was a swastika. I drew it on her forehead with her own lipstick.’

  Shem smiled. “Bingo! That’s it. That’s what convinced me it wasn’t just some native. It had to be someone reasonably well educated who knew she was Jewish and probably believed the old stereotype about Jewish greed. I can still remember how you went on and on about Jews. I’m real pleased to think we had sense enough to wipe that off before we turned her over to the coroner. Toomes said that knowledge would come in handy if it didn’t get spread around. And he was sure right. Well, a promise is a promise. Guess I’d better put in that call.”

  Shem ambled over to the old rotary phone on the kitchen counter and dialed 911. “Why, hi Betty! When did you start working the night shift? Don’t it worry you none to leave Jed alone in the evening with all those young gals around who keep eyeing that handsome husband of yours? Why am I calling? Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Would you ring Sheriff Toomes and have him come over to my place. I finally ran down Naomi Weiser’s murderer. Nope, I’m not kidding. And after you’ve called the Sheriff, give the medics a ring will you? The murderer ain’t feeling none too good. Seems to think he ought to have his stomach pumped out. Thanks. And say ‘hi’ to Jed for me when you get home. Be sure to tell him how lucky he is to have a pretty wife like you. Tell him Shem Duval said so.”

  Dennis was still cursing when the Sheriff arrived—moments before the medics, who stormed though the door, equipment in hand. “You won’t need that stuff,” Shem told them. “Dennis just had a small dose of mountain laurel mixture in his booze. Something I got from one of the locals. It was just enough to paralyze him. It takes almost an hour to work, but it wears off in fifteen minutes or so. Isn’t that right, Dennis? You should be able to start moving your fingers about now, and you’ll be right as rain in next to no time.”

  As he spoke, Shem strolled over to the kitchen counter, uncovered a tape recorder, ejected the tape and gave it to the Sheriff. “A full confession, Bill. It’s all here. He murdered the Weiser woman, and was able to describe the body exactly the way we found it. Not only that…”

  Dennis gave a contemptuous snort as, with an effort, he raised one of his hands to the height of the table. “None of that means a thing. I was never read my rights.”

  While placing the handcuffs on him, Sheriff Toomes said, “That applies only if the interrogator is a law officer. A lawyer should know that.” Then, grinning, he turned to Shem. “I guess you didn’t fill him in, did you?”

  Shem looked solemn. “It just slipped my mind, Sheriff. Sorry, Dennis, I guess I didn’t tell you I quit the sheriff’s department almost a year ago. That conversation you and I had was between two ordinary citizens.”

  SHOOT TO KILL

  I admit it. I was nervous when I went in to see Manny Lefkowitz that morning. I had reason to be, since I’d always prided myself on my professionalism—and here I’d messed up. There had really been no excuse for it, either. I should have tested the gun beforehand for accuracy, but I hadn’t. Chucks Weiser should have been dead, but he wasn’t. The only thing that saved me was that he never regained consciousness—dying a couple of hours later in the hospital.

  And all of us in Manny’s employ know how unforgiving he is. For sure, I wouldn’t get the second half of the payment. I’d been counting on that five-thousand, but I wasn’t about to broach the subject. Sure, Chucks was dead, but the botched job could have turned out to be a disaster. So I kind of edged into Manny’s office. Strangely enough he was all smiles, and he nodded toward one of his soft office chairs on my side of the desk.

  I handed over the Baby Eagle—standard practice after a hit, and Manny always insisted on it. I don’t know what he did with the guns. Sold them out of state maybe, or just deep-sixed them. They’re never used more than once. I hated to give that one up, though. Nice clean lines. Just under five inches, and it fit great into my shoulder holster. For a forty-five, it was still nice and light, and I could have adjusted the firing easily. Now I really don’t go for that big a caliber, but…

  Never mind. I know what you’re thinking. “Another professional so caught up in his trade that he can’t talk about anything else.” I’ve run into that type too often myself, from real estate agents to wine tasters. They’ll bore you to death with “location” and “bouquet” and don’t much care whether you’re listening or not. Well, I sometimes slip into that too, but I’ve made it a point to do a lot of reading on a lot of subjects. Maybe I wouldn’t win the million dollars on that quiz show, but I’m not the kind who knows only his own business and can’t carry on a decent conversation on any other subject.

  So Manny greets me with a smile. And what does he do after dumping the Baby Eagle into the bottom drawer of his desk, but reach into the top drawer and pull out a familiar-sized pack of hundreds. I was about floored, but he was quick to explain that this wasn’t the bottom half for the last hit. It was the top half for the next one.

  Moving on to another one right away isn’t too good an idea. You work up your adrenaline when you’re out on the route, and you need a rest to recuperate. Even commercial airline pilots get a week off after a long run—or so I hear. But I’d been counting on that five thousand, so I wasn’t about to turn this job down, especially since there’d be another five waiting for me when I finished.

  “You know Patrick, I take it?”

  He didn’t have to ask me. Even if I hadn’t known Pat O’Beirn already, I had a pretty good idea why his name was coming up now. The word was already around. He’d messed up a lot worse than I had, at least to my way of thinking. And it seemed pretty evident Manny shared my view. Pat had finished off his target with one shot, which was better than I’d done, but he’d left a witness behind—someone who’d seen him fire the gun. Granted, the witness was a homeless wino who probably wouldn’t be able to identify his own mother if push came to shove… but rules are rules!

  No witnesses! It’s essential in our business, and Manny was cleaning up the slate in the best way possible. Don’t shoot the witness. That’s bad publicity. Get rid of the perp. That’s what he was explaining to me—how to go about it.

  “I told Patrick you would meet him at the old Donnelly Warehouse. Use this,” he pushed a Glock 23 across the desk. “It’s loaded and ready to go. And get back as soon as you’re finished. The other five will be waiting for you.”

  I didn’t much care for the Glock. Damn near seven inches long—a poor fit for my holster, but I wasn’t about to argue. Manny checked his watch. “Move! You’ve got just enough time to get out to the warehouse district. Patrick will be there. He’s figuring on working together with you on a job. Now, beat it!”

  When I walked in through the side door of the warehouse, Pat was waiting, gun in hand, with a big grin on his face. I caught him in my favorite spot—right in the throat. A bullet in the head is really stupid. Works most of the time, but it’s amazing how much damage that old gray matter can take and still leave the target in shape to talk. I aim for the top of the spine. Front or back. Makes no difference.

  Pat had a surprised look on his face as he went down. I checked to make sure I hadn’t messed up again, then dropped the clip out of his Model 23. As I’d suspected, unlike mine, his had live rounds. That’s when I was grateful for the sweet little Raven .25mm I carried in my ankle holster. I’d never used it for professional work before. Manny wouldn’t have liked that—he didn’t even know I carried it—but it had come through for some private business. And I always did prefer a small caliber. If you want… but there I go again. No need to bore you with technicalities.

  The next thing I did was to check Pat’s wallet. Only twenty-five hundred! It looked like Manny had figured on getting rid of me cheap. On the other hand, Pat would have gone through my pockets afterwards, so he would have had that five thousand in addition to the other half of his pay-off. That way Pat would have come out of it with the standard payment. Yup. Manny always thought ahead.

  Well, I’d p
romised him I’d get back right after the job was over, so I headed for his office. It was obvious he really wasn’t expecting me, and he ended up with the same surprised expression on his face as Pat’s. I hated to part with the Raven, but it is good policy to get rid of the gun after a hit—especially after two hits. There was no way it could be traced to me, so I dropped it in the bottom drawer of his desk with the rest of the collection.

  Before I left, I checked out the office for more bills. Twenty-five grand altogether. That’ll last me a while before I have to start looking for employment again.

  SNAKE RIVER STALKER

  Sheriff Bill Lamb knew he was drinking too much. At least twice now, he’d spotted the State Patrol tagging along behind him. Both times he’d lucked out, controlling his erratic driving enough so that they thought better of stopping him.

  Damn Emilie, anyway! He’d never been anything more than a social drinker before she left him. The leaving had been bitter. She told him he’d never be anything more than a small-town sheriff, and she didn’t see much future in being the wife of one. And then there had been the man she left him for. The whole affair sounded like Nineteenth Century melodrama: “Wife runs off with actor.”

  He’d aired his own bitterness at the time of the departure. “If it hadn’t been him, it would have been some other man. You always had a roving eye.” Emilie had in fact been faithful, and the truth was that he was exactly that, a small-town sheriff. He would never be more than that.

  He should never have expected a city person like Emily to be satisfied with living in a town of four thousand people that had once thrived on mining, and now was little more than a resort area for the seasonal residents from California. But he’d added, before she left, “You won’t last long with that ham actor either, bouncing from one small town to the next. Life won’t be any different for you than it is here.”

  Life was different for him, however. He hadn’t been eager to noise her departure about. Few knew about it during that first month. Al Simms, the deputy he worked with most closely, knew. And when he’d no longer been able to cope with the housecleaning, he’d given in and hired a housekeeper who immediately provided endless amounts of unwanted advice on how to cope with an errant spouse’s final exit.

  “My son Erwin’s wife left him, and he’s lucky she did. A no good if I ever saw one. I warned him when he first started going out with her. But, of course, he didn’t know how lucky he was to be shed of her. Sat around and moped. I got him to go to church with me. He was never much of a churchgoer, but I kept after him. And, you know what? He was saved.” She glowed. “He’s a born-again Christian.”

  Bill found it difficult to envision his ever being saved.

  “Luther Chesterton is just the kind of person you should talk to.”

  Bill found it even more difficult to believe that Luther Chesterton was a person he should or could talk to. A local minister and fire and brimstone preacher who appealed to fundamentalist audiences, so much so that he was frequently invited by other congregations of similar persuasion to regenerate the unregenerate.

  Right now, more than anything else, Bill needed a drink, but with an FBI agent due to show up any minute, he steeled himself for the arrival without benefit of alcohol. The Snake River Stalker was on everyone’s mind, and even he had to forget his personal problems long enough to deal with what was now a regional issue. The killer had received his title because his first three victims had been found near the river, but the next eight had been scattered throughout Northern Idaho, adjacent Washington and Montana and as far south as Boise.

  Because the agent had specifically requested that only Bill be present, Simms was sent off on patrol. After the initial introductions, Bill commented that he had always encountered FBI agents in pairs. Bernard Wilson smiled, “We’re downsizing these days, like everyone else.” They quickly moved on to the matter at hand.

  “We’re personally contacting law enforcement officials all through the region. A lot of the material is confidential, so it’s not something we want to fax around.”

  Bill wondered what could be confidential about a killer who had strangled eleven women and whose deeds were now regular features of the newspapers throughout the region.

  Wilson seemed to read his thoughts. “I’m sure you know most of the background in this case. Whoever it is has a standard operating procedure. He uses a rope, he selects women—youngest so far seventeen, oldest forty-two—and there’s no sign of sexual molestation. He just simply kills them. The confidential part is his personality profile.”

  Bill nodded.

  “Frankly, I’m no great believer in what our psychologists come up with. They’ve been too far off in some cases.” He shrugged. “But my job is to pass the word along. He’s probably in his thirties or forties, may be married, has no record, and lives in a small town somewhere in this region. He’s quiet and probably has a good reputation in the community he lives in.”

  “So far, you’ve described about ninety percent of the adult males in this town.”

  “I know. That’s why I don’t hold much with these attempts to describe someone who’s never been seen. But he does have some peculiarities that we’d rather not noise around. He’s taken something from each of the victims. Something small, something personal. Souvenirs, I guess you’d call them. A watch in one case, an ear ring in another, a high school pin—stuff like that.”

  “So why is that confidential?”

  “This is one time when I agree with the psychologists. I’m sure that every so often he takes them out—his souvenirs—so he can relive the killings. We don’t want to make too much of that, because we don’t want him to destroy them. If we get lucky and catch him, that’s the kind of evidence we’ll need.”

  “Don’t you have anything else on him?”

  “Yes, and this is absolutely confidential. We’ve got matching hair found on two different victims, so now we know the killer’s DNA.”

  “So all you have to do now is take samples from every adult male in the area where he’s been operating.”

  “Right,” Wilson smiled at Bill’s obvious skepticism. “As a rough estimate, that comes to about one-and-a-half million men. We’re not even going to attempt that. But we do want a hair sample from anyone who’s booked for any reason—burglary, drunken driving, littering, whatever. It’s not a scientific approach, I know, but it’s all we can do for now. We have a special laboratory in Spokane using the latest techniques of DNA testing. They’ll work on any samples twenty-four hours of the day, seven days a week. They can provide a preliminary in about two hours. It’s not enough for the courts, but it’s enough to hold a suspect, and the standard analysis can come later.”

  “So that’s the scenario. Anyone I book from now on contributes a few hairs, and I send them off to the lab. They’ll report back right away, and if it looks like a possible, I contact your office.”

  “Exactly. And we’ll be swarming down immediately. If you find him, you’ll be a national hero. The TV crews will be the next thing swarming down on you.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  Bill didn’t hold his. In a region covering almost a hundred thousand square miles, it seemed rather unlikely that the Snake River Stalker would stop by in his jurisdiction long enough to have a hair removed. Besides, Bill’s personal problems were more immediate and more pressing. He was never far from thinking about Emilie and her actor. Now he was wondering why he still hadn’t heard from her, since she had assured him she would be contacting him once more—for a divorce.

  He had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t drink while on duty, but there had been too little to do, too much boredom, too much time to think, too much opportunity to drink. Fortunately, less than a week after the agent’s visit, the call came through before he had time to do little more than take a generous sample of the bottle he kept in his desk. The report was electrifying. A body—a young woman found along a path leading to the highway—a rope around the victim’s ne
ck.

  Bill recognized her immediately—Mrs. Chesterton, the minister’s wife. Homicides were rare in this part of the State. What few there had been during his tenure had been easily resolved—a couple of fatal tavern brawls and a dispute over a property line that had become deadly. There had been little to investigate. For a few moments he debated with himself, then decided there was no need as yet to call in the FBI. Doctor Fessenden, who was already on the scene, was as competent as any pathologist. Simms would keep the curiosity seekers away, and the other deputies had had good training in crime scene investigating. The FBI could wait, at least for the moment.

  The main thing now was to start looking for potential witnesses, anyone who might have seen a possible perpetrator. And, of course, there was the distasteful task of informing the husband, Luther Chesterton.

  Bill had encountered a wide variety of reactions to the report of the death of a loved one. Chesterton’s response came as no surprise. If Bill had had to classify it, he would have called it disbelief. There was little point in pushing the questioning beyond learning that Isobelle Chesterton had left around noon to visit a friend some half-mile away, that she usually did so along the shortcut to the highway, and that there was little more he could contribute.

  Bill, Simms and Dr. Fessenden gathered back at the office. Fessenden’s report was straightforward. Death by strangulation. No sign of sexual molestation. Clearly the Snake River Stalker’s m.o., but with a new lead.

  “She scratched him,” Fessenden said, “There’s blood under her fingernails.”

  “How soon can we get a sample.”

  “Matter of minutes after the crew gets the body to my lab.”

  Al broke in. “Shall I contact the Feds?”

  Bill was wishing the haze from his morning drinks would fade. He couldn’t think clearly, but could still sense that something was wrong. He shook his head. “Not yet. Pick up the sample and come back here with it. I’m going to go see Chesterton again.”