Fishing for a Killer

by Glenn Ickler

  Oh, yes, my exclusive story. I managed to blur the arrival of Angie and me—I was walking her home because she was so distraught that we feared for her wellbeing—with the assault on the back door by Roxie. In my version, no real time passed between Angie opening the front door and Roxie banging on the back door. No time for hugging, kissing and the arousal of anything male. I was hoping that this would negate the arousal of any curiosity in the mind of a certain St. Paul female.

  With Roxie seated more comfortably in a chair, Holmberg led her through a repetition of the story she had told us. While she was talking, Ann Rogers arrived, took a military stance on the front doorstep and tried to quiet the crowd. This only led to more high-volume complaints about abrogation of the First Amendment and denial of freedom of the press. To her credit, Ann remained stoic throughout the verbal assault.

  When Roxie finished her story, which got a bit more explicit the second time through, Holmberg said he had an ambulance on the way to take her to the hospital for a checkup. As everyone does when they hear the word “hospital,” Roxie stood up and protested, saying she was kind of beat up and hungry but that she would be fine without going to the hospital.

  “You won’t be fine,” Holmberg said. “My men and I won’t be here to hold back those people outside, so they’ll be yelling at you and beating on your door and looking in your window all night if you stay here. In the hospital you can have your wounds treated and get some food and rest. You are going to the hospital and you will stay overnight for observation, and you’ll be under police guard.”

  Properly chastised, Roxie resumed her seat in the chair. The sheriff went to the front door, opened it a crack and spoke to Ann Rogers’s back. She turned her head and said something and Holmberg closed the door.

  “Ms. Rogers is telling the media that I will be making a statement in a minute and then Ms. Robideaux will be put in an ambulance and taken to the hospital, where she will be treated for minor injuries and kept overnight for observation,” Holmberg said.

  “They’ll be on you like a pack of wolves,” Al said. “Better stay way back from the tape.”

  “I’m staying on the steps until the ambulance crew arrives. Once they’re here we’re going to have to walk Ms. Robideaux through the crowd because the ambulance can’t get up to the door. You two can help us build a moving shield around her.”

  “They’ll kill us when they see us come out the door,” Al said. “They’ll tear us apart.”

  “That’s the idea,” the sheriff said, with a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “You’ll be a buffer for my deputies and me as we help Ms. Robideaux to the ambulance.”

  “Hey, we found both the kidnapper and the victim and now you want us to sacrifice our lives to save yours?” I said.

  “That’s about it. Wish me luck; I’m going out to face them now.” He opened the door and stepped out beside Ann Rogers. A roar went up, followed by a sharp reduction in the decibel level when Holmberg raised his arms above his head.

  Holmberg did a nice job of delivering an abbreviated version of Roxie’s story. I couldn’t help thinking he’d be an asset on the Daily Dispatch copy desk when a long and salty story had to be trimmed and made fit to print in a family newspaper. He didn’t censor the fact that Roxie had been hired by Ronald Jones to provide sexual favors for money, but he glided smoothly over the reasons for Jones’s anger and the graphics of the subsequent sexual assaults.

  Of course the news mavens were not satisfied with the sheriff’s stripped-down picture of the Roxie horror show. They wanted more detail and were demanding it loudly when flashing lights in the distance signaled the arrival of the ambulance. The sheriff was trying to disengage from the crowd and the crowd was trying to keep him answering questions when inspiration struck me. I popped through the door, held up my arms for silence and yelled, “If you want all the details, read my online story in the St. Paul Daily Dispatch.”

  The decibel level rose to a crescendo as every reporter on the other side of the tape started screaming at me. I was called many unpleasant names as they questioned my presence in the cabin, the accuracy of my story and the marital status of my parents at the time of my birth. Trish Valentine was actually bouncing up and down with anger and frustration, which gave me the pleasant feeling that I had more than gotten even for her sneak attack in the morning. While this was going on, the sheriff disappeared into the cabin and four deputies followed him in.

  Holmberg and his men formed a solid ring around Roxie as they walked her down the steps and through the cordon of shouting faces, microphones and tape recorders. Al took a position on the left side of the ring of lawmen and I walked on the right. My media compatriots were unsparing in their defamatory remarks but I held my temper until the EMTs from the ambulance had taken charge of Roxie. I finally blew off some steam when a TV reporter from Duluth said, “Hey, Mitch, what were you guys doing in that cabin with those two hot little babes before the sheriff got there?” The sneer and the implication were obvious.

  I knew the man was reporting live, so I grabbed his wrist, pulled his microphone up to my chin and held it there while answering his snotty innuendo: “You asked me what we were doing? We were chasing down a hot little news story while you and your buddies were sucking up cold martinis in the bar at company expense. That’s what we were doing.” I let go of his wrist and he shrunk back like a terrified turtle drawing its head and legs into its shell. Warren “Mitch” Mitchell reporting live.

  The ambulance pulled away, bound for the hospital in Brainerd with Roxie riding in the front seat beside the driver. The sheriff and his deputies split up, with two following the sheriff to Roxie’s empty cabin and three others going to Ronald Jones’s abandoned cabin. Al and I followed the sheriff, along with half the media mob. The other news crews followed the deputies. All of us were disappointed when all the sheriff and his men did was string yellow tape around both cabins and warn us to stay outside the perimeter.

  “See you tomorrow, folks,” Holmberg said. He led his men back to their vehicles with all of us trailing along behind. As he got into his van, Holmberg added, “We’ll be searching those cabins for evidence in the morning so you’d better not mess with anything around them. And we’ll also be interviewing people about the death of Mr. Alex Gordon. Anyone remember him?” Oh, yeah. The original reason we hadn’t all gone home after breakfast Sunday morning.

  After the sheriff’s entourage disappeared into the night, Al and I kept walking toward our cabin. The media mob split up, some following us and some heading back toward Angie’s cabin. I hoped she had followed our advice to lock all the doors, close the curtains and turn off the lights.

  We arrived at our cabin with a dozen people trailing behind us. On the doorstep, we turned and faced them and the TV lights lit us up like high noon on a Hawaiian beach. Reporters began shouting questions and I held up my hands for quiet. Instantly, three microphones appeared beneath my nose, including one bearing a big number four.

  “You folks have been calling us names and cussing us out all night, so obviously we are not reliable sources to answer your questions,” I said. “That means it’s good night from Mitch Mitchell and Alan Jeffrey, reporting live from the shores of beautiful Gull Lake.” Al was holding the door open. We walked in, slammed the door faster than the spring on a mousetrap and snapped the lock.

  After shouting a few final insults, the group outside grew quiet. I peeked out a window, half expecting to see Trish Valentine’s face staring back at me. To my relief, all I saw were the backs of people walking away from our cabin. Before I could celebrate, my cell phone warbled and again it was Martha Todd.

  “I just got through watching Trish Valentine reporting live from the cabin where the missing woman turned up,” Martha said. “Then I went online and read your story. You guys have been pretty busy.”

  “It’s been crazy,” I said. “We’ve gone f
rom covering a report on what we thought was an accidental drowning to a homicide to a possible second homicide to a captured suspect to a returning kidnap victim, all in about twelve hours.”

  “You must be exhausted.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  “Tell me something. You didn’t come right out and use the p-word in your story but I get the impression that the missing woman and her friend are working in the world’s oldest profession. Is that correct?”

  “That is correct.”

  “So tell me something else,” Martha said. “What were you doing in that working girl’s cabin at ten o’clock at night?”

  I knew she would ask that question and was ready with a plausible explanation. I told her that Angie had been terribly distraught about the probability of her friend being dead, that we had taken it upon ourselves to calm her down and that I had walked her home because she was afraid to go alone. “She was barely in the front door when Roxie, the missing woman, started hammering on the back.”

  “Barely in the door?” Martha said.

  “You know what I mean. Barely in the sense of very recently, not in reference to a state of dishabille.”

  “But the victim who came in the back door, the one you call Roxie, was, as you put it so cleverly, in a state of dishabille?”

  “Just for a few seconds. We immediately wrapped a blanket around her.”

  “We?”

  “Angie and I.”

  “Oh, yes, Angie,” Martha said. “How did you and Al happen to the ones who calmed Angie down and escorted her home?”

  I could feel myself sinking deeper into a morass. I decided stating the truth would be the best way out. “She and Roxie solicited us the first day and we told them we weren’t interested in buying what they were selling. They were very disappointed because, as you know, we are a couple of hot-looking stud muffins, so we bought them each a drink to make them feel better about their missed opportunity. We had a nice friendly conversation that day, sort of like big brothers and kid sisters, and when Roxie didn’t come home Sunday night Angie came to us looking for advice. Then later, when the sheriff all but told the press he thought that Roxie was dead, Angie heard it and went ballistic. We happened to be there and we did what friends do. You know, it is possible for a man to talk to a hooker without purchasing her product.”

  Al, who was listening to my end of the conversation, was covering his mouth with both hands to keep from laughing out loud.

  “So you’re asking me to believe that you and Al have been spending time strictly as friends and never as customers with two prostitutes you describe in your news stories as young and quite attractive?” Martha said.

  “Well, yes,” I said. “That’s exactly what I want you to believe because that’s exactly what’s been happening, although I wouldn’t say we’ve been spending very much time with them. You can ask Al; he’ll tell you the same thing.”

  “I imagine he would. After all, Don O’Rourke swears that you two are connected at the funny bone.”

  “It has nothing to do with how we’re connected. It’s the honest-to-god truth, Martha.”

  Beads of sweat were forming on my forehead and I must have sounded desperate because Martha said, “Oh, Mitch, take it easy. I’m just pulling your chain. I can’t imagine either of you two cheapskates ever paying a woman for sex.”

  I realized I’d been holding my breath and let it whoosh out. “I’d rather you believed me because of the high quality of my character than the thriftiness of my nature,” I said.

  “Whatever toasts your bread, sweetie,” she said. “Just be glad I believe you for any reason at all because if I didn’t, you’d find your things out in the front yard when you got home—assuming you’re ever going to get home.”

  “Tomorrow they’re going to search the cabins of Roxie and her kidnapper and interview those of us who are stuck here until the sheriff lets us go. I’m hoping the sheriff gets to Al and me before we have to spend another night.”

  “What are going to do all day if he doesn’t? Spend some quality big brother time with your new kid sisters?”

  “No, no, of course not. We probably won’t even see them. We’ll be reporting on the search results and whatever else the sheriff does. And we’ve got a couple of leads on the Alex Gordon murder that we can check out.”

  “You’re not going to get bludgeoned, shot or stabbed by one of those so-called leads, are you?” Martha said.

  “No way. I’ve already cracked some ribs, and that’s all the physical damage I can take for one assignment.”

  “Be sure it is. I don’t want to spend our wedding night hugging Sherlock Holmes.”

  I remembered how my ribs had hurt when Roxie threw herself at me and almost said something about letting Sherlock stand in, or lie in, for me. Wisely, I took a different path. “Don’t worry, Sherlock will spend the night in the kitchen,” I said. I was counting on my friend Oxycodone to help me make it through the night.

  Al was still grinning when I put down the phone. “Sounded like Martha put you through the wringer,” he said.

  “And hung me out to dry,” I said.

  “Speaking of hanging out to dry, don’t get scared when you go into the bathroom. I washed out some skivvies and hung them over the shower rod.”

  “Think they’ll mind if I hang mine alongside them?”

  “No problem. Just don’t connect them at the funny bone.”

  Twenty-Two

  Fishing for Comments

  The sun was shining and the temperature was rising toward a normal spring level when Al and I went to breakfast Tuesday morning. As we entered the dining room, Angie Olafson gave us a come-hither wave from a table by the windows.

  “I suppose we should join her,” I said.

  “I seem to remember someone saying that’s what friends do, big brother,” Al said.

  “I seem to remember you laughing like a kid at a clown show while I was trying to save my impending marriage on the phone.”

  “You should have seen the look on your face while Martha was grilling you. I almost took your picture.”

  “Either that picture would have been deleted or you’d have been debilitated,” I said.

  “It would have been delivered to Martha, who would have been delighted,” he said.

  Angie had managed to put herself together physically, but not so well emotionally. Her blonde hair was neatly pony-tailed with a purple scrunchy and she looked fresh and ready to go in short red shorts and a tight white T-shirt with a full-color leaping walleye on the front. If one ignored the fact that walleyes don’t leap, it was appropriate for the occasion.

  Her eyes were covered by a pair of sunglasses to hide the effects of crying, but there was anguish in her voice when she spoke. “You know what’s really rotten about this whole mess with Roxie?” she said after we sat down.

  “Well, what Ronald Jones did to Roxie is pretty rotten,” I said.

  “The way Roxie spent the day yesterday was also pretty rotten,” Al said.

  “What are you thinking of as number one on the rotten list?” I asked

  “I think it’s really rotten that the news stories have been calling Roxie a prostitute, a hooker and a call girl,” Angie said. “It’s going to kill her parents.”

  “They didn’t know what she’s been doing?” Al said.

  “Are you kidding? She told them she’s serving the customers here,” Angie said. “They thought she was waiting on tables.”

  “What she’s doing does involve customer service,” I said.

  “Different method of delivery,” Al said.

  “You guys are so not funny,” Angie said with tears trickling from under the shades. We both apologized for trivializing the situation and said we hoped that Roxie could straighten things out with her
parents.

  “They’ve been humiliated,” Angie said. “I don’t think they’ll give her a chance.”

  “She’s still their daughter,” Al said.

  “You city guys don’t understand the people up here,” Angie said. “They’re still living by the Bible.”

  “There were prostitutes in the Bible,” I said.

  “Yeah, and people were ready to stone them,” Angie said. “I’ll bet Roxie’s parents are out picking up rocks as big as baseballs this morning.”

  “Are her parents without sin?” I asked. “Remember, Jesus called for anyone without sin to cast the first stone.”

  “So they’ll go to confession,” Angie said. “Believe me, Roxie ain’t got a chance with her parents.”

  “That’s too bad,” Al said. “You two are the nicest bad girls I’ve ever met.”

  “Tell that to Roxie’s father,” Angie said.

  We were interrupted by Ann Rogers, who came to our table and said the sheriff wanted to talk to Angie. “The poor man is working two high-visibility cases at once,” Ann said. “After he interviews Ms. Olafson he plans to finally begin talking to people who were here when Alex was killed. I’m sure that includes the two of you.”

  “That can’t happen too soon,” I said. “I’ve got a wedding to go to in a few days.”

  “Hope you make it,” said Ann. She took Angie by the arm and led her away without even asking whose wedding I needed to attend.

  “Time we checked out those people Mari Gordon mentioned as possible suspects,” I said. “We need to get to them before the sheriff does or they’ll be on the road for home.”

  “What’s our excuse for talking to them?” Al said.

  “That’s easy. We’re doing a roundup of people’s reactions to this crazy weekend. It might even be true. Let me check it out with Don.” I took out my cell phone and punched in Don’s direct number.