Big Sick Heart: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery

by Mike Markel

  “She’s there, Ms. Weddle, right? Please ask her if she’ll come to the phone. Tell her it’s Detective Seagate. Ask her, please.”

  “Detective, I did ask her. She knows who you are.” The nurse’s tone softened. “She knows who you are. She asked me to tell you not to call anymore. Not to come by.”

  I sank. “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry, Detective. I’m very sorry.”

  “Me, too,” I said softly. I folded my phone shut but couldn’t get it back in my pocket before I lost control. Five minutes later, I took a tissue out of my bag, rubbed off the smeared makeup, and went back to my desk.

  Ryan looked up at me. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “You sure? You want to talk?”

  “I want to talk about Timothy Sanders,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Did you find out anything from Soul Savers?”

  “I couldn’t get anything from them about a family or any dependents. I did get that he attended Loyola University Chicago. It was more than twenty years ago, but maybe they can point us to a home address. Want me to try that?”

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind. I’ll be right back.” I figured with Ryan noticing my face looked all screwed up, I should stop by the bathroom and see if I could straighten it out. No sense frightening him any more than necessary. I got back to my desk two minutes later.

  “When he went to college, he listed a home address in West Chester, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia,” Ryan said. “He lists a Gerta Skarzenski. I looked her up. She’s still there, same phone number,” he said, passing me a slip of paper.

  “Great, thanks.” I picked up my phone and dialed.

  “Hello?” The voice was tiny and rough. I pictured her as a small woman, maybe seventy or seventy-five years old, with a cigarette.

  “Hello, I’m trying to reach a Gerta Skarzenski.”

  “Let me save time. Whatever you sell, I not buy, so hang up now—”

  “No, no, Ms. Skarzenski, I’m not selling anything or asking you to donate any money. My name is Karen Seagate. I’m a police detective in Rawlings. It’s a little town in Montana.”

  “You say police detective? Why you call me?”

  “Ms. Skarzenski, don’t be alarmed. Nobody’s been hurt, nobody’s in trouble. I just want to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Questions is fine, but my program is on in few minutes. I talk to you, then my program is on.”

  “That’s fine, Ms. Skarzenski. We’re trying to find Timothy Sanders. Can you help us? Do you know where he is?”

  “Timmy? No, I don’t know where Timmy is. Is Timmy in trouble?”

  “No, Ms. Skarzenski, he’s not in any kind of trouble. We just need to talk to him about the Arlen Hagerty murder last week.”

  “Someone murdered last week?”

  “Yes, ma’am, Arlen Hagerty. The president of Soul Savers, the organization that Timothy founded.”

  “Oh, Soul Savers. Now, who was murdered?”

  “His name was Arlen Hagerty, Ms. Skarzenski. You don’t need to worry about that. I was just hoping you could tell me where Timothy is.”

  “I’m sorry. What is your name?”

  “My name is Karen.”

  “Karen, no, I don’t know where Timmy is.”

  “Do you know where Timmy lives?”

  “I think Timmy lives Colorado someplace. I’m not so good with names anymore.”

  “Ms. Skarzenski, when did you last hear from Timmy?”

  “Long time ago. Ten years. Maybe more. Long time.”

  Ryan pointed to himself, asking me if he could talk to Ms. Skarzenski. I nodded yes. “Ms. Skarzenski?”

  “Who is that? Who talks now?”

  “Ms. Skarzenski, my name is Ryan. I’m another detective here in Montana. Can we talk for just a moment?”

  “Okay, Ryan. But my program.”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can, ma’am. Can I ask you why Timmy’s last name is Sanders and your last name is Skarzenski? Was Timmy adopted?”

  “No adopted. Timmy my son. I don’t know why. Timmy change his name a long time ago.”

  “That’s interesting. He didn’t tell you why he wanted to change his name?”

  “No, I ask him. He tell me he just wants new name. I go to courthouse with him because he too young to make paperwork himself.”

  “How did Timmy’s father feel about changing his name?”

  “Timmy’s father gone a long time. He not there then.”

  “Do you know how old Timmy was at that time, when he changed his name?”

  “Just a boy. Twelve or thirteen, maybe.”

  “About twelve or thirteen,” Ryan said.

  “Twelve. I remember now. Bad year. I remember.”

  “What happened that year, ma’am?”

  “Bad, bad year …” Her voice trailed off.

  “Do you remember what happened?”

  “Timmy was wonderful boy. Happy, friendly. Everybody like Timmy. Then something happen. I don’t know. Maybe it was age, you know kids change when they are teenagers.”

  “Yes, I do,” Ryan said. “I’ve got a teenager myself. I know.”

  “Well, I hope your teenager doesn’t do like Timmy.”

  “How do you mean, Ms. Skarzenski?”

  “Moody. Very mean to people. He spends all the time in his room. I ask him what he is doing in room alone all the time. He doesn’t tell me. He just say, ‘nothing.’ He wasn’t listening for music. Doesn’t play with friends. Just terrible. Then the stuttering. So bad. I cannot understand half of what he say. I hope he doesn’t have stutter anymore. He never find nice girl if he stutter.”

  “Did anything else happen that year, Ms. Skarzenski?”

  “All that was very bad, but then he stop the church.”

  “Was the church important to your family?”

  “The church is most important thing, most important thing. One day, he stop the church. He say he no go church anymore. I ask him why that. ‘Because I’m not.’ That’s what he say. He is like I didn’t know him anymore. I think on it now, it is exactly what I think. I didn’t know him anymore. And now, I don’t know where he is now.”

  “That church you attended, was that the Roman Catholic Church in West Chester?”

  “Oh, no, we don’t live in West Chester then.”

  “Where were you living then, ma’am?”

  “Wisconsin. It was so cold, the winters. It is cold in Pennsylvania, but not like Wisconsin.”

  “Can you tell me where you lived in Wisconsin, Ms. Skarzenski? What city was that in Wisconsin?”

  “It was Division Street.”

  “What was the city, ma’am?”

  “Oh, Milwaukee, in Wisconsin.”

  “And that church you attended, do you remember the name of that church?”

  “Beautiful church. Very old, beautiful old church. Our Lady of Mercy. Hill Street. Beautiful old church.”

  “Well, Ms. Skarzenski, we’ll let you go now. Your program is probably about to start.”

  “Will you do one thing, young man? I’m sorry, I no remember name. If you find Timmy, you ask him to call me? If he has time? I like to talk to him. See how he is.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that, ma’am. I’ll certainly do that.” We heard her phone go dead.

  I was already on the Internet, getting the phone number of the church in Milwaukee. “Good work, Ryan,” I said to him as I dialed the number.

  “Hello, Our Lady of Mercy.”

  “Hello, my name is Detective Karen Seagate, Rawlings Police Department, in Montana. Can you tell me who you are?”

  “My name is Cynthia O’Neil. I’m a volunteer here.”

  “Ms. O’Neil. I need to speak to, well, I don’t know who specifically, the senior priest for your church. Is that person in?”

  “That’s Father Hrbek. I saw him around earlier. Let me see if I can find him for you.”

  “Thanks very much.”

  Whil
e we waited, Ryan said, “How’re you going to go at him?”

  I shook my head. “No idea.” I sat up straight in my chair as I heard someone pick up the phone.

  “This is Father Hrbek. Can I help you?”

  “Father Hrbek, sorry to bother you out of the blue. My name is Detective Karen Seagate. I’m the lead investigator in the murder of Arlen Hagerty in Rawlings, Montana, last week. Can I speak with you a minute?”

  “Yes, I read about that. What a terrible tragedy. How can I assist you?”

  “We’re trying to locate a man named Timothy Sanders. He was an associate of Mr. Hagerty’s. He used to be a parishioner of Our Lady of Mercy, some years ago. I imagine that was before your time.”

  “I’ve been here only two years, so, yes, that would have been considerably before my time.”

  “Father, we have some reason to think he might be in Milwaukee. Have you seen Mr. Sanders recently? He’s about fifty years old, blond hair, receding, a beard, about five eleven, one eighty?” There was silence on the line. “Hello? Father Hrbek? Are you there?”

  “Yes, Detective, I’m here.”

  “I don’t know if we had a bad connection, or something, but did you get my description of him, of Timothy Sanders?”

  “Yes, Detective, I did.”

  “Okay, good. Has he stopped by your church?”

  “Detective, I don’t know where Timothy Sanders is.”

  Ryan was giving me the thumb-up sign. I nodded. “Okay, well, thanks very much, Father Hrbek. Have a good day.”

  “Yes, you too, Detective.” He hung up.

  “Bingo,” Ryan said.

  “You think the priest is gonna tell him we got him?”

  “It’s possible, but I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t want to give him a lot of time to put two and two together,” I said. “Let me try the Milwaukee police, see if they can hold him.”

  “Want to run that by the chief?”

  “No, let’s see if we can get them to grab Sanders, then we’ll ask permission to go interview him. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

  “Ancient wisdom,” he said as he looked up the number for the Milwaukee Police Department. He wrote it down and passed it to me.

  “Thanks.” I dialed. I got the main number and asked to be switched to the precinct where Our Lady was located. I asked the receptionist to connect me with the precinct lieutenant, a Lieutenant Dayley. I introduced myself.

  “Lieutenant Dayley, I’m the lead on the Arlen Hagerty murder, last week here in Rawlings, Montana. I need your help. We’ve got a person of interest, a Timothy Sanders, who we think is in hiding in Our Lady of Mercy.”

  “In hiding?”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure what you call it. He was a parishioner there some years ago, and I think he’s kind of—I don’t know—seeking sanctuary in the church. Like he’s having some kind of breakdown or something.”

  “Did you contact the church?”

  “Yeah, we did. The priest there, Father Hrbek, didn’t exactly say so but didn’t deny it, either. More like he didn’t want to admit Sanders was there, but we got a pretty strong impression he’s there.”

  “What’re you asking for?”

  “He’s a suspect in the Hagerty murder, and we think he’s on the run. Could you go in and grab him, bring him down to your precinct? We’d fly in, as soon as possible, just interview him and either ask you to let him go or work on extraditing him to Montana.”

  “Your CO authorize this?”

  “He’s out sick today but he okayed it. I just talked to him.”

  “You say he’s a person of interest or a suspect?”

  “I guess he’s a person of interest. We’re not quite ready to charge him, but, like I said, we think he’s trying to run. So if you could just hold him. We could get there maybe by tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  “I hate to get into a jam with Our Lady. They’re good people …”

  “I understand, Lieutenant, but this would look real good for you if you help us with this guy. That murder has been all over the national media. It would be quite a coup for the Fourth Precinct. What do you say?”

  “I want to talk it over with my Commissioner. Let me get back to you as soon as possible.”

  “Okay, great, I appreciate it, but like I say, I think he wants to run.”

  “I hear you. As soon as possible.”

  I gave him my number. “Thanks, Lieutenant.” I hung up. “Ryan, you stay here in case he calls back. I’m gonna go ask the chief for authorization to fly there.” I rushed out of the bullpen and down to the chief’s office. I brushed past his gatekeeper.

  The chief looked up, annoyed. “What is it?”

  “Chief, we like this guy Timothy Sanders in the Hagerty case.”

  “Which one’s that?”

  “He’s the guy who founded Soul Savers. Then he had a power struggle with Hagerty—and he lost. Then we found out he lied to us about his whereabouts when Hagerty was killed. He was really here in town at that time, and now he’s on the run.”

  “Know where he is?”

  “We’re pretty sure he’s hiding out in his old church in Milwaukee. The police lieutenant there is working on grabbing him. Ryan and I want to fly to Milwaukee to interview him.”

  “Jesus, Seagate. What is that? A thousand bucks? More?”

  “Chief, this guy’s got a screw loose, and he’s the only one of the whole bunch who’s on the run. If he flips out and commits another crime, we don’t want to be in the position of not having grabbed him when we could. The Milwaukee lieutenant said he’d pick him up from the church, and it’s fine with him if we fly in and interview him. Grabbing him would look real good for the department, Chief.”

  “Go. But you better be right about him.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Chief.”

  Back at my desk, I said to Ryan, “The lieutenant call?”

  “No, the Commissioner did.”

  “Shit, what’d he say?”

  “He said he’ll do it. He used the word reluctantly four or five times. They’ll hold Sanders till noon tomorrow at the latest. And we better be right.”

  “Yeah, that’s what the chief just told me. So, Ryan, you better be right about this.”

  “I better be right? How about ‘we’ better be right?”

  “No,” I said. “See how much you can learn from me?”

  * * *

  I got the call saying Milwaukee PD had Sanders in custody. Ryan booked our flights. We spent about an hour and forty-five minutes in the air, but the trip took more than five hours. We were routed through Denver to Milwaukee, tracing a big triangle of wasted taxpayer time.

  On the cab ride into Milwaukee, I saw some of the reasons I chose to live in Montana: the obstacle-course ancient highways with potholes so deep they spit out hubcaps onto the trash-filled shoulders; the abandoned factory hulks that nobody had the money to tear down; the scary-looking unemployed guys, shoulders hunched, hands in their pockets, gathered close around the bonfires in the rusted oil drums. I gazed at the past that hadn’t finished dying, the future that would never be born.

  When we got closer to downtown, it looked a little better. There were people out on the streets, doing errands, headed home from work, living their lives. It was a mixed neighborhood, with whites, blacks, Asians, and people from the Middle East mingling, if not in harmony, at least without apparent hostility. Some of the old row homes, built with care a century ago, needed paint and had plywood windows, but most of the houses still had their dignity.

  Ryan said to the driver, “Do you know where Our Lady of Mercy is?”

  The driver, a dark skinned Asian man, nodded yes. He said, “You want stop?”

  Ryan said, “Yes, just for a minute.” A moment later, we pulled up to the curb. The church was a blend of stone and brick, built, according to the year on the cornerstone, sixty-three years ago. It was bordered by a six-foot tall wrought-iron fence with sharp points that w
ere installed for decorative purposes when the church was built but had probably become part of the security in recent years.

  I looked at the heavy lock at the gate at the entrance, remembering when churches were always open. Near the heavy wooden doors at the main entrance was the glass-covered notice board announcing the hours of services and masses and the names of the priests. The glass was cracked diagonally, with a piece the size of a fist missing near the bottom. The glass had not been repaired, the brown city air dirtying the white letters on the black felt background.

  Ryan and I got back in the cab and asked the driver to bring us to the Fourth Precinct. He pulled up to an old red-brick building, four stories, set back from the curb. There were ten parking spots inside the high chain-link fence enclosing the front entrance to the building. A wooden sign, hand-painted in a fancy script that looked like it dated from the 1930’s, announced Milwaukee Police Department, Fourth Precinct.

  We walked up the seven gum-blackened stone steps and into the precinct house. Unlike our own building, which had a receptionist at a desk and could have passed for the entryway at any of a hundred businesses in Rawlings, the Fourth Precinct looked like an old precinct building. To the left, a wooden counter stretched back some thirty feet. Behind it, two uniformed sergeants stood guard, processing the drunks, the mugging victims, and the petty thieves the uniforms brought in. A staircase on the right led up to the detectives’ bullpen, the holding tanks, the interview rooms, and the showers and bathrooms.

  We walked up to the sergeant on duty at the counter. He was a black man, about fifty, a little too heavy for street patrol. He looked like he was in the last couple of years of his twenty. His badge said Willey.

  “Can I help you?” he said in a voice that signaled it would be just fine with him if we turned right around and walked out and never came back.

  I took out my shield. “Hi, we’re Seagate and Miner, from Rawlings, Montana.” Sergeant Willey just stood there, as if I would have to do better than that if I wanted to motivate him to do anything. “Lieutenant Dayley said he would be holding a Timothy Sanders for us to interview.”

  The sergeant looked down at his counter, in no hurry, his eyes scanning papers, looking for anything that might help him figure out what he needed to do. A long minute went by. Finally, Willey called out to the other officer, a young woman who was talking with a man who looked like a detective at the far end of the counter. “Hey, Barner.” She looked up, annoyed at the interruption. “You know anything about the lieutenant holding someone for two detectives from—where’d you say you’re from?”