“And then?”
“I took off into the high grass and then made for those trees.” Tori pointed to the small grouping of trees across the highway. “He just kept shooting and shooting.”
Braddock nodded. “How many times have you run this path?”
“At least five times before this morning, when I took my morning runs prior to leaving for Des Moines.”
“I see,” Braddock answered. “This is a good spot, it has height, an unobstructed view of the H-4. The highway is in the valley here so what little wind we have is blocked by these trees behind us and the bluff. Pretty optimal shooting conditions. You’re lucky.”
Tori simply nodded, staring across the highway.
“Will? Tori?” Steak yelled from deeper in the woods, waving to them. “This way!”
Steak tracked deeper into the woods. He found fresh indentations in some tall grass on the rear edge of the tree-line that looked the width of tire tracks. The tracks led onto an old dirt road. It had rained recently. There was some soft mud on the edge of the road where the two tracks emerged from the woods and knee-high grass.
“This is why I deer hunt with you, man,” Braddock remarked with a grin.
“We need photos and molds of those tracks,” Steak suggested.
Braddock looked back to Eggleston, who was already calling it in.
“So where does this road lead?” Tori asked Steak.
Steak peered around the area. He’d lived in Manchester his whole life, but even he’d never been in this particular area, “The impressions are angled such that the vehicle went north. I think if we go that direction, it eventually leads out to County Road 96.”
Braddock had his phone out, using Google Maps, and showed Steak the screen.
“Hmmm. This road isn’t even on the map, but…” He took the phone from Braddock and tweezed the screen with his fingers, zooming in on the satellite image. “Fran Larson’s house is right on this corner here and that’s a mile, maybe a little more away.”
Cal called for crime scene at their location and another vehicle. “You all need to keep on this.”
Fifteen minutes later, Braddock, Steak, and Tori were motoring along the dirt road and Steak had called it right. The road led to County Road 96 and on the corner was Fran Larson’s place.
The two-story plain white clapboard house with red shutters was situated south of the intersection. The house was set back from County Road 96 by perhaps fifty yards, with a long, well-manicured lawn gently sloping out to the road. They found Fran Larson sitting on her front porch, a pitcher of lemonade and several newspapers and magazines strewn haphazardly on a small rectangular wicker table in front of her chair. Her two black labs popped up and came galloping easily down the steps and out to greet them, tails eagerly wagging.
Larson immediately recognized Steak as the three of them walked up, calling him by his given name. “Jake, good morning, or…” she looked to her wrist, “I guess it’s good afternoon now. What brings you out here this warm day? I mean, my goodness, you look like you’ve been through the wringer already. You all do.”
“If she only knew,” Tori quipped under her breath, which drew a wry chuckle from Braddock.
“We just need a few minutes, Fran,” Steak started while staring at the pitcher of lemonade. “You know, I would never impose but my gosh, the lemonade looks fantastic.”
Fran Larson smiled. “Well, of course, three more glasses coming up then,” she answered, clearly happy to have a little company as she scurried back into her house. Fran was back a moment later with a fresh pitcher of lemonade, three more glasses and a plate of gingersnap cookies. With Steak’s help, lemonade and cookies were quickly served and greatly appreciated.
Steak took a chair opposite of Fran while Tori and Braddock leaned back against the porch railing. “Fran, we’ve been busy this morning and we’re wondering if you can help us.” He provided some background as to why they were all were standing on her front porch drenched in sweat.
“Heavens to Betsy, you two went through all that yet you’re still working?” Fran asked Braddock and Tori.
“We have to, ma’am,” Tori answered. “While the trail is hot.”
“I do suppose that’s the case.”
Steak looked over to Tori. “What time were you running?”
“At that point it was probably six-fifty a.m. give or take a few minutes,” Tori replied. “The first time I remember looking at the time after everything happened, it was six fifty-eight a.m. but that was after I called 911.”
“Well, I was out here reading,” Fran Larson answered, nodding. “I’m up at five-thirty each morning. I let the boys here out to do their business while I grab my newspapers and magazines. I sit here on the porch, have my coffee, some toast and catch up on the world’s events. There’s much to read about, don’t you know.”
“So, between six forty-five and seven-fifteen you were out here then?” Braddock confirmed.
“Sure, you betcha.”
“Do you recall seeing anything that caught your attention around that time?” Steak asked.
Larson shrugged. “What would I have been looking for?”
“Did you see a car or maybe a truck come racing down that dirt road over yonder? Sometime in that time window we just discussed?”
Fran thought for a moment, sitting in her rocking chair and looking out to the road. “Now that you mention it, I remember seeing a white van come down the road and turn hard onto the county road out there, squealing the tires. It didn’t hardly stop at all. Blew right through the sign, turned hard onto the road and kept flying away.”
“Is that unusual?”
Larson nodded. “That dirt road doesn’t get much use these days now that 96 is all finished. That dirt road used to be part of the road people drove to get back this way before they paved 96 all nice and straight-like.”
“Can you describe the van?” Tori asked.
“Sure. White panel van. Had racks on top for ladders and other stuff.”
“It wasn’t Panel Van Dan, was it?” Steak asked referring to a well-known local handyman.
“Oh no, no, no. I know Dan’s truck, he’s done some work for me. There was no writing on the van I saw. But I can see why you’d reference Dan. The van I saw was plain white and had a rack, ya know and…” she paused for a moment, “it had a black bumper, the back bumper was black. I remember that, too.”
Tori looked to Braddock, who’d already reached for his phone and stepped off the front porch. “Sheila, yeah…I’m fine, we both are…yes, thankfully. Thanks for coming in on a Saturday. I need you to look something up for me.”
Ten minutes later Tori and Steak stepped down off the porch and walked back to find Braddock finishing up a call. Before Tori could ask him about the call Braddock blurted, “I’m hungry. Let’s get lunch. Judy’s Counter isn’t far from here. Let’s go.”
Five minutes later they grabbed a quiet table in the back of the small restaurant, awaiting their order of greasy sandwiches.
Once they sat down Tori looked to Braddock. “What gives?”
“I had Sheila run a quick search of our database of men in the area ages thirty-seven to sixty-five, you remember that list?”
“I do.”
“You have a list?” Steak asked quizzically.
“I’ll explain later,” Braddock answered and then looked to Tori. “She did a vehicle search and there is someone on that list that we all know who has a van like that.”
“Who?” Steak asked.
“Gunther Brule, and he works at Sidwell Explosives, too.”
“You don’t say,” Tori remarked.
Their sandwiches were delivered. Everyone grabbed napkins and in Tori’s case, silverware.
“That’s a sandwich, you know,” Braddock noted, gesturing to Tori who had a fork and knife in her hand.
“I’m not holding that. Look at all that grease and cheese, it’s a mess.”
“You mean oozing goodness,” Steak
stated gleefully, putting his big mitts around his sandwich and delivering it to his mouth. “That’s heaven right there,” he mumbled while he chewed a gigantic bite.
“I suppose you use a fork and knife on pizza, too?” Braddock asked as he picked up his sandwich.
“Sometimes,” Tori replied.
“Seriously? You don’t fold a long slice in your hand.”
“No.”
“Pfft. Some New Yorker you are.”
“Oh fine, whatever,” Tori replied, dramatically dropping the plastic utensils and picking up and squeezing the sandwich, the cheese, mustard and mayo oozing out the sides as she dove her face into it, taking a huge big bite and then slowly chewing, a greasy cheesy smile spreading across her face. “God, that’s so good.”
Braddock approved. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Steak got them back to business. “You know, Will, I do recall Gunther having a white panel van, and he has a pickup truck, too.”
“And he was at least around the night Jessie went missing,” Braddock remarked. “We know that.”
“He said he was, others said he was,” Tori answered. “I don’t honestly really remember if he was or wasn’t. He wasn’t lying when we interviewed him. He didn’t necessary run in our crowd back in that day.”
“But he said he wanted to.”
“I’d have to agree with that,” Steak added. “Gunther was something of a friend back then. For what it’s worth, I’m still friendly with him now.”
“How friendly?” Braddock asked.
“To say hi, spend five minutes chatting if I run into him somewhere, but he’s not a social friend, if you know what I mean. He’s just someone I knew from back in the day.”
“Did Jessie have any sort of relationship with him?” Braddock asked.
“Jessie certainly didn’t date him, if that’s what you mean,” Tori answered.
“She probably led him on, though,” Steak remarked.
“Steak!” Tori protested.
“Tori, she was a tease.”
Tori shot him a dirty look, but Steak didn’t back down. “We’re talking relevance here. Jessie was a flat-out dick tease. She led guys on, a total flirt and she’d leave them hanging all the time. She did it to a lot of guys, whether it was me, Eddie or someone like Gunther. She would have taken perverse pleasure in giving someone like Gunther a glimmer of hope that she would even say hi to him in the hallway.”
“Come on, that’s not fair.”
Steak was undeterred. “Your sister was my good friend, but don’t you ever think of denying it.”
Tori’s defensive look receded. She sighed and reluctantly admitted the truth of the statement. “My sister had a way with the boys, always did. She had them calling, had them asking her out. If we had texting back then, I can only imagine what that would have been like. A date for Homecoming was never an issue for Jess. The question was simply which one. It was like ‘The Dating Game’.”
“Dates probably weren’t a problem for you, either,” Braddock offered.
Tori snorted a little laugh. “To the contrary. We were identical twins, but Jessie was always the prettier one, the more social and outgoing of the two of us. Her friends were my friends—if we double dated it was because Jess set it up. I was the more…serious, intense one.”
“That I can believe,” Braddock replied with a snort of his own.
“What?”
“The serious, intense part.”
“And you haven’t changed,” Steak added, drawing another defensive look from Tori. “What? What, Tori? You haven’t. And you know what, I’m damn glad you’re alive so I can say it. I am so happy to see you, but you could be then, and you can be now, a real...”
“Bitch.”
“No. No, no, no, you were never, ever a bitch. Never. I would never say that.”
“Feisty? Difficult? Pain in the you know what?”
“Well…yeah, maybe a little of each of those.”
“So I’ve been told,” Tori replied with a knowing headshake. “I guess I really need to start working on that,” she added, looking apologetically to Braddock. “And I will.”
“Fire is good,” Braddock replied agreeably, “when channeled properly. So, you want to start channeling it on Gunther Brule?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
“Ahh,” Steak laughed. “There’s your Minnesota showing through.”
He pulled his truck to a quick stop in front of the small house. Grabbing the rifle from behind his seat, he fast-walked to the shed and opened the lock. Inside the door, he pulled back the rectangular floor rug and reached down and pushed in the small blank and heard the click. A door-sized segment of the floor popped up. He hit the light switch on the wall, and he walked down the steep steps into the basement underneath and to the gun cabinet, where he placed the rifle inside. Taking a quick look in the mirror he noted how sweaty he was, and the small scratch near his eyebrow, undoubtedly from running through the woods to the van.
With the gun put away he went back up the steps, locked everything up and then jumped into the truck and drove back up to the main house. Inside the quiet, musty house he took a quick shower, waiting some time for the water heater to kick in before washing away the sweat and dirt. Out of the shower, he examined the cut on his brow and became a little less concerned. With the blood cleaned away there were two small scratches, both of which could easily be concealed with some makeup in a day or two. That it was a Saturday morning was helpful. By the time he went to work on Monday the scratches would be mostly healed.
Having fully dried his hair, he went to the closet in one of the bedrooms and took out a spare white t-shirt and pair of khaki shorts, clothes that would be good enough to get him home.
His phone buzzed with an incoming text from a friend: Did you hear? Someone tried to kill Tori Hunter and Will Braddock this morning.
Tried? Are they okay? he typed back in response.
Yes, came the reply. They both lived, although there was an explosion at Braddock’s house.
How was there an explosion yet Braddock wasn’t dead? How did Braddock avoid that?
CHAPTER 20
“EVERYTHING TELLS YOU SOMETHING.”
T ori, Braddock and Steak made their way back to the sheriff’s department late in the afternoon and they reassessed where they were at. It would take some time, hours, more likely days for ballistics to come back from the crime lab and they would have value only if they could find a gun to match it with.
“Forget it,” Steak mused. “That gun is at the bottom of a pond somewhere. It’s too hot to keep.”
The cigarette butts had been collected, but DNA would take time and that process was being evaluated. “I might be able to help expedite that,” Tori offered, and Braddock said he just might take her up on it.
The crime lab also collected pieces for the mercury tilt switch and would evaluate them, but just as the bomb squad officer had done, the tech from the crime lab tempered their expectations. “We’ll do everything we can but, given the charred state of the pieces of the device, I doubt there will be much for us to find forensically.”
Then there was the matter of Gunther Brule.
Tori was giving him serious thought and looked to Steak. “You know, back when we were in high school Gunther was nice enough. He was a pretty good-looking guy who liked a party, but he was a little on the quirky, awkward side too, which is maybe why he didn’t necessarily…fit in with the group.”
“You guys were the cool kids?” Braddock asked.
“Pretty much,” Tori replied, “and as Steak noted earlier, Jessie was the queen cool kid.”
Steak agreed. “That’s how it was. As for Gunther, I’d agree with the quirky comment and over time he got even more so. He served early in the second Gulf War as an infantryman and I think he experienced some serious shit over there. He came back to Manchester and the quirkiness was gone. When I saw him after he got back, Gunther seemed…” Steak struggled
for the words. “He just wasn’t the same guy. You could see it in his expression, in his eyes. He seemed damaged, there was more of a darkness to him. A lot of guys came home from the war that way.”
Gunther was a hunter; he liked guns and owned them. And he was a smoker now, so the cigarettes they found by the shell casings could be tested. “But tested to what?” Braddock asked. “I checked and there isn’t an on-record DNA sample, at least not in CODIS of Gunther Brule to compare them to.”
“Not yet, anyway,” Tori answered. “One thing at a time.” She paused for a moment, pacing in front of Braddock’s desk, a disconcerted look on her face.
“What are you thinking?” Will asked.
“We kind of eliminated Gunther a couple of weeks ago.”
“Eliminated is a strong word,” Braddock replied, nonplussed, leaning back in his desk chair, his hands locked behind his head. “I’d prefer to say he was downgraded as a suspect. We’re allowed to miss on occasion, but I also think it’s a little early yet to conclude we were wrong.”
“You’re saying you don’t think it’s him?”
“No. What I am saying is we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We have a maybe identification of his van in the area of your shooting from an elderly widow sitting a good distance away.”
“I don’t know, she seemed pretty on it to me.”
“I agree, but still we need another way to tie him to that area.”
“Then let’s go get some.”
“How?”
“It’s Saturday night. Would he be home?”
Braddock closed his eyes for a moment and then shook his head. “Maybe, but there at his house he’s not going to be talkative. He’s going to tell us to go pound sand. We can still go, but…”
“But what?”
“Since it’s Saturday night, there is one place he could be. We could stop along the way first to see if he’s there.”
“Well,” Tori mused, “if he’s not at his house, I also have an idea of how we could get a DNA sample.”
Roger Hayes, Braddock’s father-in-law, was a Navy veteran and liked to go to the VFW and would invite Will to join him on occasion for beers. Brule was often there, especially on Friday or Saturday nights and, as he and Tori pulled up to the front entrance, they had immediate verification Brule was inside. His white panel van was parked on the street in front of the bar.
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