The Deadliest Sins

by Rick Reed

  “Busted,” Liddell said, and Jack pulled off on the shoulder of Highway 62 and stopped.

  The deputy exited the car and came running to the driver’s door, huddled in his jacket, holding his Smokey Bear hat on his head against the cold wind.

  “Detective Murphy,” the deputy said when Jack cracked the window. “Remember me?”

  The deputy’s face was familiar to Jack, and he remembered where they’d met. “Last time I saw you a burning man was hanging from a burning grain silo,” Jack said.

  The deputy asked, “You on your way to another fire?”

  Jack said, “We need to talk to someone in your county, Deputy Stevens.”

  “It’s Corporal Stevens now,” the man said, and Jack noticed the corporal chevrons pinned to his collar.

  “Congratulations,” Jack said.

  “Are we on our way to a fire?” Stevens asked again. “I didn’t hear a dispatch.”

  “No fire. We just wanted to get to this person’s...” Jack hesitated to call it a house, and he didn’t want to call it a compound. “We just need to talk to this person without making them any more nervous than necessary.”

  Stevens held on to the brim of his hat to keep the wind from blowing it away. “I tell you what. You give me the address, and I’ll give you an escort. We won’t go as fast as y’all were driving, but we’ll get there.”

  Jack didn’t want to be seen as poaching, and he didn’t know exactly where the compound was located, so he agreed.

  “Okay, Corporal. I’m going to tell you something, but you have to keep it under your hat for a little bit.”

  Stevens said nothing.

  “You know my partner,” Jack said.

  Liddell leaned over and gave a curt wave. “Congratulations on the promotion, pod’na.”

  “Thanks a million,” Stevens said.

  Jack said, “We’re part of a federal task force. You probably haven’t heard of it yet.” He hoped Stevens wouldn’t ask to see federal credentials. “We’re following up a lead to the murders in Evansville. You’ve heard?”

  “Who hasn’t?” Stevens said. “We going after the killer?”

  “We’re just here to ask some questions, Corporal,” Jack said. “Probably nothing to it if you ask me. In fact, I’m glad you’re here. Maybe you could show us where the place is?”

  “Oh boy,” Stevens said. “I mean, hell yeah. I’ll have to call dispatch.”

  Jack said, “They’ll be dispatching a couple of units in about five or ten minutes. I’m hoping you can get us there before they arrive. Too many cars may put their backs up. I don’t want a fight.” Jack gave Stevens the name and address.

  Stevens grinned.

  “Something funny?” Jack asked.

  “I know right where that is. I know Karen personally. She goes to my church. I’m a member of the CIA. That’s Citizens In Arms, not the other CIA. We’re a group of patriots Karen put together, and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

  * * * *

  Corporal Stevens escorted them to Karen Stenger’s farm/compound. He had a key to the gate and quickly gained the detectives entry and an audience with Karen Stenger.

  Jack expected Karen to be a cammo-wearing, rifle-toting fanatic. Instead she reminded him of his wife, Katie. She was soft spoken, intelligent, and effortlessly put him at ease.

  Jack looked out of the farmhouse windows and considered what he’d seen on the drive in to the compound. The Midwest was farming country, and the Stengers lived in a simple farmhouse with barns and outbuildings and farm equipment and animals of all sorts on an enormous tract of land. He smelled something he thought might be pigs or hogs nearby.

  The ICE Queen passed on the meager intelligence that had filtered into the Homeland Security database. She didn’t know the real people, or their intentions.

  A rifle was propped in the far corner of the kitchen, but so far Jack had seen one person who was armed. As they drove toward the farmhouse, he’d seen a man sitting on a shooting bench with a rifle propped on sandbags. He was sighting in the riflescope at around a two-hundred-yard distance from a bull’s-eye target.

  Nearer the house, two straw-filled dummies were tied to upright posts. The earth around the posts was worn bare. The dummies were spilling their straw guts and brains, and one had an arm missing.

  He expected more members to be present. Where were they?

  Corporal Stevens had introduced them, but Karen said, “I know who they are, Ed. My late husband admired both of you. When this was a working farm, he would come in from the fields with my son and they’d sit down at this table, my husband would shake the newspaper open and read it out loud to us. He said people like you made it possible for people like us to keep going.”

  To Corporal Stevens she said, “You didn’t know him, did you, Ed?”

  “No, ma’am. But I feel like I do.”

  Karen continued. “He always said you kept the bad guys on the run.”

  “Where are the rest of your people?” Jack asked.

  “Everyone’s at church, Detective Murphy. Everyone except Arnie, that is. He’s the one you hear out there giving those targets hell. He’s a recovering Baptist, according to him, so he doesn’t go to church on Sunday. He says God is resting on Sunday, so he doesn’t want to disturb him.”

  “You train with bayonets too,” Jack remarked.

  Karen said, “We train with whatever we need to, Detective Murphy.”

  “How many members do you have?” Jack asked, and Corporal Stevens answered for her.

  “There’s seventy-two of us, including Arnie out there. Arnie comes every Sunday to practice shooting and do whatever chores he can do,” Stevens said. “I thought he might’ve been a sniper in the Army or Marines. Maybe some kind of hand-to-hand combat instructor. You should see him work a bayonet. Scary. And he don’t talk much. I finally got him to tell me what he does, and he’s a damn accountant. He’s never been in the service. He said shooting and stabbing things helps him relax. Tell you what, that made me see my tax guy in a whole different light.”

  Jack mentally filed that tidbit away. He’d need to get more information on “Shootin-stabbin-Arnie the accountant.”

  “Karen, we want to ask you some questions about...” Jack said.

  She interrupted him and said, “I was expecting you or someone from Homeland Security to pay a visit a long time ago.”

  “Why do you say that?” Jack asked.

  “You’ll laugh at me. I shouldn’t have said anything. Go ahead and ask your questions, Detective Murphy.”

  “That was my first question,” Jack said, and she smiled. “Why did you expect police or Homeland Security to pay you a visit?”

  “They’ve taken a real interest in us. In me, I should say. One of my bankers is my cousin. She said a bank examiner had called and was asking questions about my business and personal accounts. She said that’s not how bank examiners work.”

  Jack knew enough about bunco-fraud investigators to know that was true. Bank examiners weren’t generally interested in just one account. Maybe Anna Whiteside could explain this. Maybe Karen Stenger was channeling other funds through her account, enough that she caught the interest of the bank.

  “And last year I was audited by the IRS. First time for everything I suppose, but there are other things too. Like that guy, Arnie. He just showed up one day after I was audited and wanted to join up. I can always spot a liar, Detective Murphy. He said he was a true patriot and wanted to give something back to his country. I tried to explain to him that we weren’t a militia. Just a group of citizens who believe in our Second Amendment right to bear arms. With what’s going on in the country, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared to defend ourselves.”

  “You know Arnie is a government agent?” Jack asked. “How?”

  “I had Ed here follow him. Arnie doesn’t w
ork anywhere, but he does take a lot of trips to the Federal Building in Evansville. I told Arnie I needed an accountant. He didn’t offer to take the job himself. He said he would find someone at his company for me. I asked what company. I said I would just go there and talk to someone. I like to meet the people I do business with face-to-face. Arnie danced around and finally gave me the name of his company in Evansville.”

  Jack said, “Did Ed find Arnie at work?”

  Stevens shriveled under Jack’s glare.

  “Ed’s a deputy sheriff. I didn’t want to get him in trouble. I called the company. Told them I was thinking of hiring an accountant. The person I talked to gave Arnie a glowing recommendation, but I didn’t believe them. I kind of staked out the office where he worked, and guess what, he never showed up for work all that week. I know what he drives and never saw it on their lot. I went in and asked for him, and they said he was on vacation, but he told me he was working overtime that week.”

  Jack made a second mental note. He would have to ask the ICE Queen if Arnie was indeed a plant. Karen was probably right. In any case, she was shrewd as hell. And she seemed to want Jack to know that she was.

  Plus, she was training her members with the use of bayonets. Jack didn’t peg her as a killer or someone that would allow anyone to join the group if they were bent in the head that way. But it was possible that one of her members was. Even the police department had hired a psycho or two before. People lie.

  “I guess you know about the newspaper articles from a couple of years ago and aren’t satisfied that I’m just a citizen that wants to be prepared. I know this must have something to do with all those bodies you found in Evansville.”

  “Yes, it does,” Jack said.

  She gazed out of the window for a long time before saying, “My son was in town to see a movie with some friends from school. Doug Jr. had a lot of friends. He was a good boy. He had the flu that night, but he wouldn’t stay home in bed. He was as headstrong as his father. His friends said he started feeling worse during the show and they made him go home. He left the theater and was stabbed to death and robbed on the way to his truck. The killer couldn’t have gotten more than ten dollars. That’s what my son’s life was worth to the man that killed him.”

  “Did they catch the killer?” Jack asked. He already knew the answer.

  “The man that murdered my son was in this country illegally. Costa Rican. He had been deported three times in one year for violent crimes. Each time he came back, and each time he committed another violent crime. They arrested him for the murder, but the jury decided the case against him for murder was too weak. He admitted to getting into a fistfight with Doug Jr. He said Doug Jr. started it and that Doug pulled the knife. He was convicted of battery, and the judge sentenced him to be deported a fourth time.”

  “Was he?” Jack asked. “Deported I mean?”

  “Oh yeah. He was flown back to Costa Rica on the country’s dime. He was home and my son was dead. My husband was never the same. He lost interest in farming. He lost his appetite and shrunk up to nothing before we found out he had cancer. The kind you don’t get better from. At least he lived long enough to see the man that murdered our son in the ground. And before you ask, no we didn’t kill him. I would have...”

  She caught herself and said, “I wanted him dead. But we’re not that way. We’re farmers. Or we were. That man took my life from me. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  “Did you or your husband hire someone to kill him, Karen?” Jack asked.

  She laughed. “If I did, I wouldn’t admit it. But no, I didn’t hire anyone.”

  Jack noticed she had said “I” and not “we.” But she wasn’t going to incriminate herself.

  Jack said, “Is someone helping you through this? There are groups...”

  Karen said, “Hell, I’m through the grieving. I keep busy. My husband’s life insurance will keep me going for a long time, and I’ve got my group right here. They’re my family. For better or worse, we’re a family. It’s enough.”

  Jack asked, “Why bayonets?” It seemed an insensitive question given the direction the interview/conversation was going, but it was one that needed answered.

  “My son was beaten to death and stabbed. The bayonets are for close combat. If my son had taken combat training, maybe he’d still be alive. Maybe my husband wouldn’t have just given up and his cancer wouldn’t have progressed so fast. Maybe we would still be working this as a farm. But this is what we’ve got.”

  Jack waited.

  “I abhor violence, Detective Murphy, but I’ve seen what happens when it catches you by surprise and unprepared. I’ll never lose another person. My husband said you were good at reading people too. Was he right?”

  “Yeah. I guess I am,” Jack said.

  “Okay, tell me what you think. Am I a fanatic that would kill a bunch of innocent people?”

  Chapter 32

  The walk from the Dream Lodge to the parking lot at Deaconess Hospital was short, and the cold helped him think. Coyote now sat in a visitor parking spot on University of Evansville’s campus with the engine running. He had a clear view of the Weinbach/Lincoln Avenue intersection and the front of the Coffee Shop. A couple of hours ago he’d watched the owner pull the curtains open on the upper floor. She lived above her business. That was convenient for her. For him as well.

  She’d come out in front of the shop and gone back inside. He imagined she was looking for possible customers. It was Sunday. He didn’t imagine she would have any, but he’d counted two customers in the last two hours. Both had that harried academic demeanor that only college professors can carry off. One left; one was still inside.

  He sat patiently watching for another half hour before he saw movement on the side of the shop. The shop owner had a dog on a leash and was letting it piss on the bricks of the neighboring business. The dog was black and white. Some kind of border collie. His daughter had wanted a border collie, but he was gone so much and he didn’t think she was old enough or responsible enough to care for it. Besides, he hated dogs. Dogs scared him. He wasn’t afraid of being bitten. It was a visceral response. Just seeing the mutt caused his groin to contract and a sharp pain ran down his legs. Still, he’d never hurt an animal. They couldn’t help how he reacted any more than they could help biting him in the face when he was a kid. He shouldn’t have gotten in the dog’s face.

  The dog was in the VW the night he’d killed the driver. The shop owner had a bad attitude to go with a face that would stop a train, but she had some cojones on her, and he respected that. He’d still have to kill her.

  He laid his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes, bidding the pain to go away. It almost always faded immediately, but this time it didn’t. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on the problem.

  Chapter 33

  “The Mt. Vernon lead is no good.” Jack said to Anna Whiteside over the speakerphone on the drive back to Evansville. “Karen admitted she was glad her son’s killer had been murdered. Even admitted to wanting to do it herself. But I don’t see her as dangerous to anyone else. She’s just dealing with the grief of losing her husband and son. But the group may bear watching. They claimed to have seventy-two members including a man named Arnie Johnson.”

  Anna said nothing. Jack continued. “The only armed and suspicious person we saw was this Arnie Johnson. Karen Stenger thinks he’s a government plant.”

  “He’s not one of mine,” Anna said too quickly. “Did you talk to some of Mrs. Stenger’s members?”

  “Quit bullshitting, Anna. I know you can’t give up an operative, but I’m telling you she’s on to Arnie. His cover is blown. And one of her bankers you checked with is a relative and told her someone’s going through her accounts.”

  Liddell added, “I think siccing the IRS on her was a little mean.”

  “I have my job and you have yours,�
� Anna said defensively. “So why don’t you do it. Get back out there and track down the other members and do some interviewing. If she’s being so cooperative, have her give you names, addresses, that kind of stuff.”

  Jack said, “She says they’re all at church, Anna. We’ll go back if you don’t get better leads. Did you know the group is called CIA for Citizens In Arms?”

  “I may have heard that name.”

  Jack thought it was as close to an admission as Anna was capable of. “If you think this group is dangerous, you’d better get your guy out of there. The deputy sheriff we met is a member of the group. Maybe other local law enforcement is supportive if they haven’t already joined,” Jack said.

  “I’ll have Angelina call you with updates. We’ll put a question mark on Mrs. Stenger for now. The Border Patrol connection looks promising.”

  When the call ended, Liddell said, “I think Anna just wants to say she took down the CIA.”

  “Yeah, she’s a bitch, Bigfoot, but she’s our bitch. You don’t trust her?”

  “Do you?”

  “I trust Double Dick more. At least we know what he’ll do,” Jack said.

  They were coming up on St. Joseph Avenue. Because Liddell was driving, the car seemed to go into auto-drive, steering itself toward Donut Bank.

  “Okay. We can do the drive-through, Bigfoot, and take coffee with us,” Jack said, and the car turned north on St. Joseph Avenue.

  “Where we going?”

  “Back to see Mrs. Rademacher,” Jack said. “That’s why we’re getting coffee here.”

  “Excuse my confusion, pod’na,” Liddell said, “but why exactly are we going to see Freyda?”

  “I want Joe to have his dog. I know Sister Aquinas won’t mind letting him have it for the short term. And Freyda might want to keep her customers from becoming dog food.”

  They got their coffees and headed east on Lloyd Expressway then south on Weinbach. They drove past the university with its jam-packed parking but very little foot traffic.