Head Shot

by Dan Ames

  Ray had filled in his superiors on the details of the case. Lisa Young's car had been found at the Java House, and he had been able to track down who had been working the night of the girl's disappearance, and then was able to find the customers, regulars, who had also been there that night.

  He interviewed them and they reported seeing a man alone, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper, but were unable to give much of a description.

  The Java House employee who had served the man his coffee said he was about six feet tall, somewhat handsome in a rugged kind of way, with a medium build and dark hair. Ray, however, was most interested in the possible observation another patron had offered. There had been a couple at the Java House that night who also reported seeing the man alone, reading the newspaper, at the time Lisa Young entered, and he left shortly after Miss Young.

  But the woman who was there with her husband said that the man had taken off his tinted glasses briefly to clean the lenses and she said that something seemed to be wrong with his one eye, like it was crooked, but she said she couldn't be sure because the man put his glasses on so quickly.

  No one saw anything else after the two left the Java House. The buildings surrounding the coffee shop were commercial, not residential. A real estate office across the street would have had the best view if the victim had been abducted from the parking lot, but the building had been vacant at the time.

  He saw the lights of the patrol cars ahead and pulled in behind them. This was a decent neighborhood, mostly duplexes and a large tenant population, but these weren't absentee landlords. The lawns were kept up and there wasn't a lot of crime, the biggest problem being teenagers breaking into parked cars.

  Ray walked up the sidewalk, ducked under the crime scene tape and entered the apartment. He detected the faint smell of marijuana, not surprising considering the way the apartment was decorated.

  A large, tie-dye flag of the Grateful Dead took up a good portion of the living room wall, and a bookcase was overrun with lava lamps and candles. Junk food took up most of the opposing wall, and a futon was spread out in the middle of the floor. Ray guessed the futon served as sleeping quarters even though there appeared to be a bedroom off the kitchen.

  The young woman sprawled on the futon was a bloody mess. Her lips were torn apart revealing gaps that once held teeth, and her face was bruised and battered.

  Ray stepped carefully across the deep shag carpet and squatted next to the body.

  He didn't need Herb Kellen to tell him that this woman had been killed by the same murderer who ended Lisa Young's life.

  He left the apartment and walked outside, spotting two patrol officers who were flanking a young woman whose strikingly beautiful face was marked by long mascara streaks, giving her a ghoulish appearance under the circumstances.

  "Mitchell, homicide," he said, flashing his badge to the two patrol officers.

  "Hi Miss...?"

  "DeMarinis. Carrie." She clearly had been crying at one point, but now her voice was cold, flat, and emotionless.

  "Can I get you anything, Carrie?"

  "Yeah, you can get me out of here. I'm tired of everyone staring at me," she said, her lips trembling slightly, and she cast a glance at the neighbors who had come out to watch the action.

  "I was just thinking that myself, Carrie." Ray answered, taking her by the arm and leading her to his car. She had her arms crossed and looked to be shivering, so he took off his jacket and she shrugged it on.

  "What do you say we give you a seat in my car, I’ll get you some hot coffee, and you can wait until I’m done?" he asked.

  "Fine," she said. "It doesn't really matter what I want to do, does it?"

  Ray shrugged. "I'll be back in a second," he said.

  He saw the Channel 6 news van and hurriedly sent an officer over to intercept the reporter, who Ray was sure would turn out to be Nancy Bishop. He sent another officer to get coffee for the young woman.

  He went back inside the apartment, took a closer look at the scene inside, jotted some notes down and went back to his car. He got in the back seat and looked at the young woman who was still trying to recover from what she’d seen.

  "Are you Sicilian?" she asked him.

  The detective smiled.

  "Nah, part Native American."

  "I never met a Native American cop," she said, a question in her voice.

  Ray wanted to tell her about some of the "Tonto" and "Geronimo" jokes he'd had to endure, how he'd had to be better than anyone else to make detective. Instead, he just smiled.

  "Well, we make the best trackers," he said, half joking.

  Carrie DeMarinis, with her black eyes set inside a pale face, peered at him.

  "Are you going to catch this guy?" she asked.

  Ray didn't hesitate.

  "Yes," he said.

  She looked out the window, the streetlights momentarily illuminating her face before it sank back into the darkness.

  "OK, let's start at the beginning, Carrie,” Ray finally said.

  For the next forty-five minutes, Carrie DeMarinis, with brief interruptions from Ray, described Harriet's invitation to come out for a weekend.

  She filled Ray in on how she and Harriet had grown up together and the nature of the relationship. She said how surprised she was when she got off the plane and she wasn't there, then told him that since she had her address she decided to just take a cab.

  After Carrie described the brief struggle with the strange man, and seeing Harriet's body, Ray asked her to be very specific in describing the man.

  "He was probably a little over six feet and short brown hair, kind of a square face."

  "Anything else?" Ray asked.

  "Yeah, he had a lazy eye, his left one. I only got a quick look at him, when I punched him, and I noticed that his eye was rolled to one side. It looked weird, you know?"

  Ray nodded.

  She started crying.

  "Why did he have to kill her?" she said, sobbing between breaths.

  "Tell me more about Harriet," he said.

  "Everyone thought she partied too much, but she isn't...wasn't...she was just a nice girl who only really cared about having a good time, and there's nothing wrong with that."

  She used a Kleenex to wipe her nose.

  "She always hung out with weird people, you know? She told me she had been scrounging around for clients, she was a lawyer, just passed the bar, and she said she'd been meeting some freaks. Which means for Harriet to call them freaks they had to be pretty weird, you know?"

  Ray nodded, realized he didn’t have any other questions at the moment, and told Carrie to wait.

  He got out of the car and quickly returned with a female patrol officer. He had Carrie get out of his car. “I'm going to have Officer Eves here take care of you. If I have questions I'll come and talk to you in the morning. I may also want you to look at some mug shots. Okay?"

  Carrie nodded.

  "You were brave tonight,” Ray said. “Your fast thinking and that mean right hook probably saved your life."

  She looked up and met Ray's eye.

  "Harriet didn't deserve that."

  Ray nodded. Carrie DeMarinis stood and left, a bit shakily, with the female officer.

  It took him several hours to finish at the scene, interview the neighbors and have a brief chat with Kellen. Ray then drove back to headquarters and logged into his computer to follow a hunch. He punched in the name Harriet Bednarski and then court records. Once the computer was logged onto the court system's database, he asked it to compile a list of all court cases where Harriet Bednarski was one of the lawyers, and then supply the list of people she had defended.

  With the word "processing..." on the computer screen, Ray left to get another cup of coffee.

  My stomach's going to look like the surface of Mars by the time I retire if I keep this up, he thought.

  He walked back to his computer where the screen told him his request was still processing.

  He ch
ecked his cell phone to see if there were any messages for him, but there weren’t any. That was good.

  How, if at all, were Lisa Young and Harriet Bednarski related? He'd gotten nowhere on the Young case, but he had definite hopes that the murder of Harriet Bednarski would help fill in the picture. He wanted to catch this guy and catch him fast, before anyone else died.

  The computer beeped, telling Ray that it had his answer.

  A list of court cases came up with the names of the defendants highlighted in boldface.

  Ray's eye went to each name first and then to the crime.

  Speeding.

  Possession of a controlled substance.

  Driving under the influence.

  Clearly, Harriet Bednarski had been no F. Lee Bailey.

  Ray continued to scan the list of offenses until he got to the third to the last entry.

  Trespassing. Ray eyes went to the name.

  Joseph P. Ferkovich. The name meant nothing to Ray. He scanned the court record which stated Mr. Ferkovich was seen in Cedarburg, lurking in someone's backyard. Cedarburg, where Lisa Young had been abducted. Was this guy a peeping Tom or something much worse?

  Ray highlighted the name and asked the computer to bring up his record.

  Ray got the processing signal again and leaned back, his heart beating quickly. He tried not to get excited. Trespassing was a far cry from serial murder.

  The computer beeped and Ray sat forward.

  Joe Ferkovich. A long rap sheet as a minor including petty burglary, drug use, and disturbing the peace, but it was the second to last entry that caught Ray's eye. Attempted rape. Ray clicked on that entry and the computer processed for several minutes, then beeped.

  Ray punched the keys and Ferkovich's mug shot slowly filled the screen.

  His left eye lolled crookedly to one side.

  Chapter 17

  On the way to Chief Trimble's office, Ray's mind went back to his conversation with Carrie DeMarinis.

  Although fiercely proud of it, Ray rarely talked about his heritage, as it was something he had come to terms with a long time ago. As a child in Portage, Wisconsin, he had learned to despise games with the other neighborhood kids. In a game of cowboys and Indians, it was no surprise who was always being cast as the Indian. Same for playing war, Ray was always picked to be the enemy.

  Because he was different.

  He didn't know for sure, but it could have been some of those childhood memories that pointed him in the direction of becoming one of the good guys.

  Now, on his way to the chief's office to ask permission to get a warrant, Ray looked down at the rap sheet in his hands.

  Joseph P. Ferkovich, present address 229 North Baxter Drive, Glendale. A long list of offenses, both in Michigan and Wisconsin, followed.

  Chief Trimble and Lieutenant Soergel were waiting for him.

  Trimble was a barrel of a man with a thick head of gray hair, perfectly coiffed. Soergel was tall and slim, with dark hair and a high Roman nose.

  "This better be good news, Ray," said Soergel. Bernie Soergel didn't like Ray. Then again, the man didn’t really care for anyone on the force other than himself.

  Ray ignored Soergel and focused on the chief.

  "Here's what we've got," he said.

  He outlined all the information he had, Ferkovich's history, the eyewitness accounts, and the evidence from Kellen and his team.

  "You're going to need backup," said Soergel, after Trimble told Ray to go to Judge Cho, a friend of the police force who nearly always granted warrants upon request.

  "That's taken care of,” Ray snapped.

  “Get the warrant, and then get this nutjob,” Trimble said.

  "Screw this one up, Mitchell, and we'll all get staked out on an anthill by the press,” Soergel said.

  Ray didn't stop, but he could feel his face redden with anger. Soergel constantly made veiled Native American references to him that weren't quite obvious enough to be used as evidence of racial harassment in a lawsuit.

  The detective thought to himself, you've got bigger fish to fry.

  It was early evening and just beginning to get dark when Ray arrived at Judge Benjamin Cho's house in Whitefish Bay. Judge Cho and Ray knew each other well. Ray had testified in many cases in the judge's court and quickly learned the judge was a fair man who, when in doubt, tended to favor law enforcement. Because of that, he was also a favorite for cops who needed a warrant in a hurry.

  "Hello, Ray," the Judge said as he let the detective inside the impressive Victorian on Lake Drive. “What do you have for me?"

  Ray brought out all the necessary paperwork which the judge perused and then he signed the many forms.

  "Hope you catch him soon" Cho said.

  Just like when Carrie DeMarinis posed the same question, Ray did not hesitate.

  "We will."

  Ray left Judge Cho's house in Whitefish Bay with a warrant in his hand, two additional homicide detectives, and three squad cars filled with two cops each.

  His foot tromped the accelerator to the floor and the big sedan shot onto Silver Spring, up I-43, then onto Good Hope Road before turning again, this time onto Baxter Drive.

  Ray could feel the adrenaline start to flow. There was a lot of pressure and attention building on this case, and he wanted a fast, clean solution.

  Minutes later, they were parked in front of 229 and Ray took over.

  "Let's go, Patrick," he said.

  Patrick Krahn was a muscular, no-nonsense homicide detective, who had been friends and on-again off-again partners with Ray for the last three years. They tended to rely on each other during those rare instances when either of them needed help.

  With guns drawn, and a small army of police officers behind them, the detectives rapped on the door, but there was no answer. It was a flimsy door with oak veneer over old particleboard and posed no problem for Pat Krahn, whose steel-toed size 13EE shoe easily smashed in the lock.

  The door swung open and Ray entered slowly, gun drawn.

  "Police!" he yelled. “Joe, come out now!”

  There was no answer.

  Slowly, room by room, the officers made their way through the house.

  It was dark now and no lights were on inside, shadows danced across the walls. The hum of the refrigerator echoed around the empty rooms as the cops searched the entire house.

  No one was there.

  A card table and steel folding chair sat in the middle of the living room. A phone, some paper, and a pile of magazines were on top of the table.

  Facing the table was a small television on top of a cardboard box. A sunken love seat took up the opposite end of the room.

  Soon, however, the officers all ended up in the bedroom.

  There, plastered wall to wall, floor to ceiling, were photographs of men and women engaged in various sex acts.

  "Oh man," said Krahn.

  The twin bed sat in the middle of the room, and a stench of stale body odor lingered in the air. The dresser beneath the window had been left with its drawers open, a sock hung over its front and the closet door was open, exposing empty hangers that hung silently from their perch. Yellow drapes cast the room and its contents in an eerie glow.

  After the officers confirmed the place was vacant, Ray holstered his weapon.

  His adrenaline was down to normal levels and his mouth tasted metallic. He had prepared for a battle in which the enemy had already retreated.

  "Get Casey in here," he said.

  Paul Casey would dust the scene down and get prints, fibers, hairs, anything that could be used as physical evidence.

  "He ran right away, didn't he?" Krahn asked, looking at the photos on the wall.

  Ray nodded.

  "Well, he's consistent, you can say that about him," offered Krahn. "I've heard of fixations before, but this takes the cake."

  Images of Joe Ferkovich's mug shot flashed across Ray's mind, Lisa Young's body in the river, Harriet Bednarski's mouth ripped to shreds.

/>   "We'll see what Casey finds, but there's no doubt now that this sick bastard is our guy."

  The crime scene tech entered the room wearing surgical gloves and carrying a small case.

  "Hello, boys," he said, taking in the pictures on the wall. “I didn’t know our boy was an interior decorator.”

  Krahn snorted a short laugh.

  Ray left the room and walked outside, punched in a number on his cell. He felt like Ferkovich was somewhere watching, laughing at him, planning his next attack.

  He got through to the office and began sending people to find out everything they could about Joe Ferkovich. Where he was from, where he grew up, relatives, living and dead, where he might go. Ray also considered calling the FBI to see if they could put together a profile of Ferkovich.

  He was pulling out all the stops on this one.

  Ray decided he might even try to get Ferkovich's case on that television show that does re-creations of crimes and then asks the public to help look for fugitives. What was the name of that show, again? Ray asked himself. He thought for a minute and then snapped his fingers. That's right.

  Nation’s Most Wanted.

  Hopefully, they'd take this case. He'd look into that right away. In the meantime, he had to find out all he could about Joe Ferkovich.

  Chapter 18

  Joe Ferkovich's fingers tightened on the steering wheel as a state trooper, his siren blaring, flew down the freeway in the opposite direction.

  Joe looked in his rearview mirror and, feeling confident he was safe, worked to loosen his grip on the wheel. He leaned his head back, then to the side, and finally shrugged his shoulders. The drive so far had been a tense one, and he knew it was still far from over.

  The truck he was driving was stolen. His former employer, the Capitol Cookie Company, would notice it was gone the next day. For Joe, it had been an easy decision to steal the truck. He had the keys to the building, and he knew they kept the inside door to the garage unlocked, so it was just a matter of going in and digging out the keys from the small desk in the corner of the garage.

  It had been a no-brainer to run.