Silenced Girls

by Roger Stelljes

  He walked back to the front of the house and picked up his backpack and brought it back to the sink. From the backpack he took a camera and took several photos of the glass in the sink, along with photos of the entirety of the kitchen. He also took out his notepad and jotted down that he’d found the glass in the sink.

  With the documentation taken care of, he reached down with his gloved hand into the left side of the sink and carefully, with as light a touch as possible, picked up the glass and inspected it. It was clean, not a spot on it. “A glass in the sink, perfectly clean, but not put away,” he murmured. “In an orderly, organized, kitchen where nothing is out.” He examined the glass again, holding it under the bright light of a lamp, only to confirm that the glass was perfectly clean. “Hmpf.”

  He walked out of the kitchen and back into the living room. He went to the chair opposite of the one Brule was found in. The one with the coaster in front of it. Braddock snapped two photos of the coaster, noting the coaster holder on the table to the right of Brule’s chair. He also noted that there was a glass on the table in front of Brule. “Two glasses. One for Brule. Who was the one in the sink for?”

  He started thinking out loud. “Okay, so let’s just say someone was here, drinking with Gunther. He waits until Gunther is trashed, his head bobbing, maybe he’s passed out. Then, he takes out the 38 Special, walks over and—shoots him.”

  Braddock crouched down to the left of the chair where Brule’s arm was hanging down, the gun underneath it. “Now, you know you need Gunther to have fired the gun.” He walked over to the sliding door, unlocked it and slid it open. He then walked back to the chair.

  “You just fire another bullet out the sliding glass door out to the water.” The cabin was somewhat isolated. To the west were dense woods. To the east, the next cabin was a good hundred yards away. But what if he wanted to avoid the loud pop of the gun? Particularly with the window open?

  He walked back into the kitchen and found the garbage can under the sink. It was empty other than a few crumpled-up paper towels. The other garbage cans in the bathroom and the two bedrooms were empty as well. He even went to the garbage can on the side of the garage, which was empty. He took another look through all the crime scene photos and he didn’t see what he was looking for, the two-liter bottle of Diet Coke. “And if you were mixing the Maker’s Mark with Diet Coke you could pour out the bottle, wash it out, hold it on the end of the gun and…there’s your silencer.”

  That could work, he thought. That could really work.

  He went back over and closed the sliding door and locked it, then stopped.

  The cabin was locked when they’d arrived.

  “So how would a killer have been able to leave and lock the cabin?”

  Braddock stepped outside and began searching around for a key, looking under the mat at the front door, under all the windowsills, beneath the metal hose holder and water meter and all along and under the cedar deck. Next, he worked his way around the detached garage, checking the three windowsills, the top of the side door, under the one empty flower pot on the cement apron to the left of the garage door. He spent the better part of an hour looking in all the obvious and what he thought would be less obvious places around the entirety of the cabin grounds. He did not find a key.

  “He could have simply left with the outside key,” he muttered but then thought it through some more. If there was a key the killer would have left it behind. “Because you wouldn’t want anything to be amiss or create any reason for someone to question whether it was a suicide.” There were people he could ask to see if Gunther kept a spare key outside. “But let’s assume he didn’t, then what?”

  Braddock stepped back inside the house and pondered. Brule probably had a spare key somewhere inside the house, but would the killer know that? Depended on who it would be. If they knew Gunther well, they might know, but what if they didn’t? “Again, say you can’t find a spare key, what would you have done?”

  Will pulled out his phone and called Dr. Renfrow. “I assume you inventoried everything on his body.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he have?”

  Braddock could hear Renfrow shuffling through papers on the other end. “Wallet, his cell phone and a set of keys.”

  “How many keys?”

  “Hang on, let me get that stuff.” Renfrow was back on the phone two minutes later. “There is a truck key, a key fob, and six others that look like door keys, plus another one, two…no, three that are small keys. They look like filing cabinet keys.”

  Renfrow was back down in Manchester. “Doc, I’m on my way to you.”

  “What are we working on?” Tracy Sheets asked.

  Tori explained what she and Braddock stumbled onto earlier, the status of their case and the fact their backs were against the wall. “I emailed you this database and list of Mannion’s employees. We need to start sifting through these people and seeing if we can tie them to these towns or victims somehow. But I will say this up front, I think it’ll come down to just a couple of possible people.”

  “And how quickly do we need to do this?”

  “Like yesterday,” Tori replied emphatically. “And I’m working it on this end as well. We have to move fast.”

  Dr. Renfrow handed him the evidence bag with the keys in them, and a clipboard with a release form.

  Braddock signed the release form and handed the clipboard back. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  His first stop was Brule’s house outside of Manchester. A sheriff’s deputy named Smith was parked out front. “Deputy, I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind following me up to the house. I need another set of eyes.”

  At the house Braddock took the keys out of the evidence bag. There was a key for the van, a fob with a Dodge Ram logo on it and six other door keys. He went to the back door of the house and started trying keys. The third key, an older copper one and the oldest looking of the six, opened the deadbolt on the door. He and the deputy walked to the front door and that key was also good for the front door deadbolt. Braddock took notes and then a picture, noting that the key’s usage was witnessed by himself and Smith.

  Next, Braddock walked them over to the detached garage, which was now closed but there was a side door. An older silver key, the second in the key rotation opened that deadbolt, so two of the six keys were accounted for. They again did the paperwork on it.

  An hour later, Braddock rolled back up to Brule’s cabin. This time he asked the Cass County deputy to join him. There were four keys in play. Braddock first went to the small detached garage. The first key worked on the deadbolt for the side door. Pictures and documentation were completed.

  “That leaves three for the cabin,” he mumbled. Yet, none of the three keys worked on the deadbolt or the knob for the front door of the cabin, the only door with a keyed lock. Pictures, notes and signatures were collected. “Thank you, Deputy.”

  An hour later he was back dropping the keys with Renfrow. “Will, Cal just called, asking for an ETA on my report,” Renfrow explained. “I told them it’s nearly complete and that it would be ready tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

  “Did Cal ask you about your conclusions?”

  “No, he just asked if I was done yet. I don’t think he expects anything other than Brule committed suicide. As you know, I have some question in my mind as to what happened there.”

  “Your call but I say play it straight,” Braddock counseled. “If that’s your thought, if you’re concerned about that, then we need to put it out there and let the chips fall where they may.”

  A little past five p.m. Tori sat forward with her elbows on her thighs, looking down to the floor. Quiet. Contemplative. Wrathful.

  “Tori, you’re not surprised by all of this, are you?” Tracy’s voice called from the speaker on the phone. “You said if you and Braddock were right it could come down to a couple of people.”

  “No, I’m not, but…” Her voice trailed off at the thought of it. “Tracy, ab
ove and beyond. Thanks for everything today.”

  “Hey, anytime, and we’re not done here. I’ll forward you everything I’ve put together on this end today. Tomorrow we keep digging for more. In the meantime, what are you going to do?”

  Tori sat up and straightened her back. “Fight for this on my end,” she answered as she looked to the picture on her computer screen.

  After he finished up with Renfrow, Braddock made his way to the government center where, to his relief, all was quiet at five-thirty p.m. Cal and most others were gone for the day.

  He went to his desk and found a note from Steak on top of a folder. Inside he found Brule’s phone records from last Saturday night. He’d made one phone call after he and Tori had left him at the VFW.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Tori. “Hey, I think I need to buy you dinner. I have an out-of-the-way spot.”

  “I accept,” Tori replied. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  CHAPTER 27

  “I HATE WATER METAPHORS.”

  Braddock pulled under the canopy for the Radisson at seven-thirty on the dot. Tori came striding purposefully out of the entryway in a faded jean jacket, tight jeans and a silver top, her hair hanging loosely.

  He smiled when she jumped in. “Uhh, Special Agent Hunter, did you do some shopping? You look really nice.”

  “I ran over to a couple of the boutiques since I had a spare hour,” she replied while closely inspecting Braddock. She liked his loosely-styled hair and the look of his untucked off-white long sleeved button-down shirt, faded blue jeans and casual gray canvas slip-on loafers. Plus, she caught the scent of cologne. “You know, you clean up nice yourself. How long is the drive up?”

  “Forty, forty-five minutes.”

  “Good,” Tori answered. “Because I have a name for you.”

  “Eddie Mannion, I bet.”

  “Yup. Buckle up, this could be the start of bumpy ride.”

  “This would be different how?”

  As Braddock pulled away from the hotel Tori asked, “So how did you conclude it was Eddie? Other than we thought it could be him or Kyle this morning. You must have learned something else.”

  “Brule called Eddie after we confronted him at the VFW. I’m guessing he told Eddie where he was going.” Braddock explained what he found at the cabin, his testing with the keys and his discovery of how Brule could have fired the gun. “Someone killed Brule, I’m pretty certain of it.”

  “Eddie?”

  “That can’t be proven based on what I found today. All I found were a couple of pieces that might go toward establishing Brule didn’t commit suicide. They say nothing about who killed him. What did you find? You clearly learned something else.”

  “A lot.”

  There was a Mannion’s Restaurant in or very near the town in which each victim was last seen. However, the Mannion’s restaurants weren’t always named Mannion’s. “There are Victory’s and Ansel’s, four of each.” Tori added that a review of recent corporate reports indicated there were more Victory’s and Ansel’s openings on the horizon, set in college towns. “But all of them fall under the umbrella of Mannion Restaurant Corporation.”

  “I talked to a couple of other investigative agencies about these disappearances and there was never a common tie anyone could find. If it is tied to Mannion’s, perhaps that’s why nobody picked up on it earlier,” Braddock speculated. “Because not all the restaurants are named Mannion’s. Maybe that’s why they started getting away from the Mannion’s name for some of the locations.”

  “Regardless of the name, who is at every Mannion’s Companies restaurant opening?” Tori asked.

  “Eddie Mannion.”

  “Eddie Mannion,” Tori echoed. “There are pictures of Kyle and Eddie Mannion together at a lot of these restaurant openings, especially in the early years, but now it’s strictly Eddie. He’s the president and CEO of Mannion Restaurant Corp. Eddie is quoted in these articles talking about the restaurants and the towns and how happy they are to be there and add the town to the Mannion family of restaurants. I mean, I had twenty-three missing or dead women and in a day’s research, between what you and I unearthed this morning and what Tracy and I found during the day, we found…”

  “Twenty-three connections with the Mannions, with Eddie Mannion,” Braddock finished and then whistled as he opened his truck door. “And we know Eddie was in those towns when the women went missing?”

  “For a number of them, yes,” Tori replied. “Based on photographs and FAA records. Eddie always takes the Mannion jet to those openings and we can put that plane in those towns for every disappearance since 2009, which was the year they first purchased the plane. From then to now, that is fifteen of the women. Before that, it appears Eddie flew commercial on occasion with arrivals and departures of his commercial flights putting him in those towns on the dates of the disappearances.”

  “And what about Kyle?”

  “In the early years he was at those openings, but best we could tell, he hasn’t been to one of those in eight years. Ever since the rest of the Mannion Companies profile took off, that’s been his focus. I don’t see how it could be him.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “Like I said, the water is about to get choppy.”

  Braddock snorted a laugh. “I hate water metaphors.”

  “I’m just saying. You’re going to need a bigger boat.”

  “Yeah, because now we’re going after the local great white shark,” Will replied.

  Braddock’s friend Bert, owner of the supper club, greeted them at the front and immediately walked them to a secluded corner booth. Tori quickly ordered a bottle of wine and they ordered their entrees. Bert checked on them again and even made a point of taking a photo of them on his phone, the two of them moving close and smiling. “You two look good together,” he remarked, turning the phone around for them to see. He forwarded the picture to Braddock, who then sent it to Tori.

  The two of them examined the photo. “You’ll have something to remember me by,” Braddock stated, smiling.

  Tori nodded, smiled and the flipped her phone face down and getting back to business. “Now,” she leaned in, “here is what might be the kicker. Tracy dug into Eddie’s background, particularly in the military. Turns out Eddie had some legal issues when he was in the Marines. He was brought up on charges for sexual assault with a woman when he was stationed at Camp Lejeune.”

  “Sexual assault?” Braddock asked, intrigued.

  “Yes,” Tori replied. “His JAG lawyer pulled some clever Daniel Kaffee maneuvers and got him off with some fairly light discipline, but the record is there. Tracy made some calls and in his military record, as part of his case, there was a psych evaluation.”

  Tori paused while their server opened and then poured them each a glass of red wine. After the server departed Braddock asked, “And the psych evaluation said what?”

  “Eddie claimed he was severely abused by his old man. Now, I’m not that surprised to hear it,” Tori stated. “I often wonder how Kyle turned out to be such a successful guy, such a successful man, because Irv Mannion was an absolute asshole.

  “Kyle is six years older than me and Eddie. He went away to Ohio State to college and Eddie, after he graduated high school went into the service, I think to get away from the old man. Not long after, Irv died of a heart attack. Kyle took over the restaurant and the few other small manufacturing businesses his father owned and went to work building the Mannion business empire. Once he was honorably discharged from the Marines, Eddie came home and went to work for his older brother.”

  “I’ve always perceived Kyle as the alpha and then his little brother as kind of the tagalong type.”

  “That’s probably true from a business standpoint. One guy graduated with a business degree from Ohio State, has an MBA from the University of Minnesota and the other was in the Marines. But one thing occurred to me about Eddie and the service. That period of time could explain the gap in time between Jes
sie and the first victim, Carrie Blaine from Bismarck.”

  Braddock nodded. “Yeah, he’s gone four years, starts working for the restaurant business and Kyle has it ready to expand. Eddie gets to Bismarck and…”

  “Kills again,” Tori finished the thought. “The sexual assault allegation in the Marines suggests he was on the verge of being active in those four years. Now that he was out and out of town, he was free to satisfy his urges.”

  “I’ll tell you what else is true about Eddie Mannion—he and Gunther Brule are friends,” Braddock noted. “And who is it that Gunther calls after we jack him up?”

  “Eddie,” Tori finished. “Does that make Gunther a patsy or…”

  “A helper. Was the call maybe, I’m not going down for this?”

  “We’ve not seen any evidence of that.”

  “Other than maybe taking a shot at you and trying to blow me up,” Braddock answered. “And since he’d failed, he was a liability Eddie had to eliminate.”

  “It could be that Eddie was using Gunther. He’s a killer, what’s someone like Gunther to him?”

  “That’ll all come out in the wash,” Braddock answered. “If we can ever get Eddie in the box and go to work on him.”

  Tori shook her head. “Eddie had the major hots for Jessie. And Eddie wasn’t at all awkward like Gunther. We both thought Eddie was good-looking. He’s still a sharp, good-looking guy.”

  “Money helps,” Will replied. “Makes him look good.”

  “That’s an almost catty, woman-like comment.”

  Braddock chuckled. “I’m just saying that it probably took more than a nice smile to get close to these women. Money, cars, flashy clothes, you know, the whole ensemble. Women see that, they don’t see…killer.”