by Glenn Ickler
“What was he wearing?” Trish asked. “Seems like they’d remember seeing him if he was running around in his Johnny.”
“I’m not sure what he was wearing,” Ann said. “I just assumed he put on his clothes.”
“Any trees near the hospital?” said a voice behind me. This produced a round of laughter.
“Funny man,” Ann said. “I doubt Mr. Jones is back to climbing trees. Now if you folks are done asking serious questions I’ll see if I can get in contact with the sheriff and get some more information.” As the mob parted like the Red Sea before Moses, Ann strode through the gap and headed for the office.
I settled into an armchair and sent an e-mail describing the latest turn of events to the Daily Dispatch city desk. Fred Donlin, the night city editor, e-mailed back a request for a brief story to post on the online edition. He also asked if Al had a mug shot of the missing man. I was sure he had some from the interview that preceded the kidnapper’s tree climbing adventure so I went back to the cabin to pass the word to Al.
To my amazement, he was alone. “Where are the girls?” I asked.
“Deputy LeBlanc came knocking on our door and took them away,” Al said.
“How’d he know to knock on our door?”
“He said he tried both of their cabins and when he found them empty he guessed that we would be, as he put it, ‘entertaining them here.’ I think we’re getting a reputation.”
“Oh, great. There’s nothing like being known for ‘entertaining’ prostitutes. Speaking of which, what did Carol have to say?”
“She said she trusted me completely.” His expression told me there was more.
“But?” I asked.
“But she talked to Roxie. And Roxie was impressed.”
“More secret girl talk?”
“Exactly. I’d sure like to know what she said.”
“Maybe you’d rather not know. Anything that scares Roxie has to pack a potent punch. Anyhow, right now we need to pack some copy and some pix off to the city desk.” I sat down to write the story and Al flipped through his file to find the best mug shot of Ronald Jones.
When I booted up my laptop again I discovered that I had mail from an unknown sender. I gambled on opening the message, planning to delete it if it carried an attachment or contained a link to something else. It had neither, and the return address was that of a public library. The sender didn’t identify himself but the content of the message told me who it was.
Twenty-Six
Finding a Pattern
Look at what I got from A Nonny Mouse,” I said to Al as I turned the computer screen to face him. What he saw was this brief message: “JW fnd glty asult w/ddly wpn, 8/15/12. Srvd 30 days + 90 prob + 60 pblc srvc. Male vic w/concussion.”
“Whoa!” Al said. “No wonder Weber wasn’t running for office. Imagine what fun the Republicans would have with this.”
“We owe Brownie for this one. Maybe you can shoot a really good angle of him with the next VIP who comes to town.” Getting a really good photo angle on Brownie was difficult because he is nearly bald and his ears stick straight out like the mirrors on the cab of an eighteen-wheeler.
“I suppose I could Photoshop his ears.”
“I just told the sheriff we never do that with news copy, only features,” I said.
“Brownie’s ears are a feature,” Al said.
“They’re a double feature. Like a pair of movie screens.”
“I’ll see if I can turn them into a short feature next time I shoot him.”
“I wonder who the victim was and what prompted the assault,” I said. “I wish Brownie had included that bit of info.”
“Maybe there was a story in the paper at the time.”
“Now why didn’t I think of that? Maybe you should be the reporter.”
“No thanks. I feel safer hiding behind my camera.”
I called the Daily Dispatch, punched in the extension for the morgue and got Alice Strait, the keeper of all things historical. I asked her to look up anything she could find on Joseph Weber and e-mail copies to me. A few minutes later a message from Alice that included several attachments popped up in my e-mail. The most interesting attachment was a crime short saying that Joseph Weber, age forty-one, had been charged with assault with a deadly weapon after a fight in Finnegan’s Bar on Payne Avenue in St. Paul. According to the story, Weber allegedly struck a man named Peter Vanfleet on the head with a beer bottle with enough force to shatter the bottle.
We flipped through the other attachments and found briefs about Weber’s appointment to the secretary of state’s staff, a citation for speeding and reckless driving and the court appearance that Brownie had sent us.
“We need to talk to Peter Vanfleet,” I said.
“Could it wait until after supper?” Al said. “My stomach tells me it’s that time.”
“So does my watch. Let’s go.”
The dining room was filled with grumbling reporters and photographers who either hadn’t been interviewed by the sheriff or had been ordered by their bosses to stay and cover the search for the escaped kidnaper. Everyone was voicing loud support for a quick capture and immediate confinement, preferably solitary, in an extremely secure facility. The pain that rippled through my ribs every time I moved gave me an additional interest in the pursuit. I couldn’t help but hope Ronald Jones would experience some physical discomfort at the time of his apprehension. A bullet in the soft part of his posterior would not make me weep for him.
We all sat around in the lounge after dinner hoping for a report from the sheriff via Ann Rogers. It didn’t come until almost eight o’clock and it didn’t give us much to work with. A man answering the description of Ronald Jones had taken a cab to a car rental agency near the airport, where he acquired a gray Chevrolet sedan. Nobody knew which way he had gone but every paved road that led out of the Brainerd area was being watched.
I asked Ann how a hospitalized man who’d been scheduled for a court appearance the morning he disappeared was able to keep his wallet with cash and credit cards. Ann shrugged and said the wallet had been left with his clothing in a closet in his hospital room. “Just one of those dumb little mistakes that people sometimes make,” she said.
With no more immediate news on the horizon, the group broke up. Al and I adjourned to our cabin, where Al started taking off his clothes while I called information and obtained a number for one Peter Vanfleet in St. Paul. For some reason the name seemed familiar but I couldn’t attach it to any personal meeting or news story.
A woman answered, said she was Mrs. Vanfleet and told me that her husband was at a meeting and wouldn’t be back until nine o’clock. I identified myself as a reporter and asked her to have him call me no matter how late he got home.
“A reporter? What’s this about?” she asked.
“It’s about an incident in Finnegan’s Bar a few years ago,” I said.
“You’re not going to drag all that crap out and put it in the paper again, are you?”
“No, it definitely will not be in the paper. It’s strictly for background. The man who hit your husband might be in trouble again.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” she said. “That man’s a walking time bomb.”
“Apparently he went off on your husband.”
“Did he ever. Who’d he whack on the head this time?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t say. I don’t have enough evidence yet.”
“I hope the bastard goes to jail,” she said. “I’ll have Pete call you when he gets home.”
Al was sitting in bed with two pillows behind his back talking to Carol and the kids on his cell phone. I stripped to my underwear and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. A pair of wet white undershorts hung over the shower curtain bar. A few minutes later they were joined by anothe
r. They hung side-by-side like two white flags of surrender to the forces holding us captive at Gull Lake.
My cell phone warbled at 9:15 p.m. and I picked it off my bedside table. The caller was identified as Peter Vanfleet. I greeted him, and he asked what Joe Weber had done this time.
“It’s too early to prove it was Weber,” I said. “But I’d like to hear about your adventure with him.”
“You promise you’re not dragging this up to put in the paper again?”
“Swear it on a stack of stylebooks.”
“Whatever those are. Well, basically my story is that we got into an argument over politics in Finnegan’s and he settled it by whacking me with a full bottle of beer. The bottle broke and I wound up with eighteen stitches and one bitch of a concussion, not to mention being soaked with cold beer. My civil lawsuit against him is still in court. His claim is that he just meant to scare me with a tap and accidentally swung too hard.”
“You say you argued over politics?”
“That’s right. He’s a big-spending leftwing socialist and I’m a solid conservative Republican, as you must know.”
“I should know your politics?”
“I was Anders Anderson’s campaign chairman the first time he was elected governor,” Vanfleet said.
“That’s where I’ve heard the name,” I said. “Well, it’s no wonder you got into an argument with Joe Weber.”
“So how is this helping whatever story you’re working on?”
“It’s showing me a behavior pattern that could verify my current suspicion.”
“Wait a minute,” Vanfleet said. “Didn’t you say your name was Mitchell?”
“That’s right.”
“I read your paper every day. You’ve been writing about the Alex Gordon murder. Are you thinking that Joe—”
“I’m just following a hunch,” I said, cutting off his question. “Please don’t start any rumors because of this call.”
“Oh, boy, wouldn’t that be something? I hope you get enough to hang it on him. And don’t worry; I’ll keep my mouth shut until I see that he’s been charged. I wouldn’t do anything to screw up sending Joe Weber to Sandstone.”
“I’d appreciate that. Thank you for the info and your time.”
“Have a good night,” Vanfleet said.
“You may have just made it better,” I said.
I put down the phone and ran the conversation past Al, who had finished his phone call and was listening to the end of mine.
“Interesting,” he said. “Here we have a man who hit another man on the head much harder than he intended.”
“Could be a pattern,” I said.
“Yeah, a pattern etched in fractured skulls.”
* * *
Wednesday morning I awoke before Al and went into the bathroom. While brushing my teeth my thoughts turned to home and I shivered a bit realizing that I was only three days away from becoming a married man. Surely we’ll get out of here today, I thought. Surely Ronald Jones will be caught and Don O’Rourke will say, “Come home, oh good and faithful servant.”
There was a knock on the bathroom door. “You about done in there?” Al asked.
“Innamintch,” I said through the toothbrush. I finished brushing, rinsed my mouth and took my undershorts off the shower curtain rod. When I pulled them up to my waist they felt like a cold, damp octopus grasping my family jewels. No wonder babies cry when their diapers are wet.
At breakfast the dining room was half-filled with crabby, disgruntled people who were swearing never to cover another Minnesota Governor’s Fishing Opener. The governor was back in his Summit Avenue home, the lieutenant governor was contaminating the air with cigar smoke somewhere on a campaign tour while we were all trapped in a multiple crime scene at Gull Lake with no clean clothes to put on. In addition, it was raining. Drizzling, actually. Just enough to make it unpleasant to be outdoors.
Ann Rogers walked into the dining room and the muttering rose to a clamor. She raised her arms for silence and waited. “The sheriff is on his way here to continue his interviews of those who were here last weekend,” she said when the questions and complaints died out. “His deputies, local police and state police are continuing to search for Ronald Jones, who is driving a gray Chevy Impala. You may quote the sheriff as saying he is sure that both Mr. Jones and the person who murdered Alex Gordon will be brought to justice very soon. I thank you all for your patience and I will notify you as soon as I know anything further about either case.” She went directly out the door without even looking in the direction of multiple questions shouted her way.
“Tough way to break into a new job,” I said.
“If she survives this week she should get a raise,” Al said.
“Watch what you’re saying. That’s our tax dollars you’re talking about.”
“From what we’ve been hearing, it’s better that Ann gets the money than Alex Gordon.”
“Be careful, you’re speaking ill of the dead.”
“No problem. Once the ill are dead they can’t sue me,” Al said.
“Maybe they can haunt you,” I said. “And speaking of haunting, here comes that spooky editorial writer from Channel Five.”
Dexter Rice greeted us and pulled up a chair between us. “Solved the Gordon murder mystery yet?” he asked.
“We think the butler did it,” I said. “We’re just waiting for the DNA report to confirm our suspicions.”
“Always the wise-ass, aren’t you?” Rice said. “Do you have any real theories?”
“If I did, I certainly wouldn’t share them before they were good enough to publish. How about you?”
“Not a thing. You know, after thinking about our conversation yesterday, I had the feeling you might have suspected me.”
“Should I have?”
“Of course not,” Rice said. “Why would I do such a damn fool thing?”
“He took away the cushy state job you thought was secure for another two terms. And it was easy to see that you hated him.”
“A lot of people hated him. In fact, if you lined up everybody who hated Alex Gordon end-to-end it would stretch halfway from here to St. Paul. And I actually walked into a better job where I could get my kicks knocking Alex Gordon’s boss on TV whenever I felt like it. No, Mitch, I had absolutely no desire to kill Alex Gordon. I was having too much fun throwing stink bombs into his life. I’m one of the few people who’ll actually miss the little shit.”
“Can I quote you on that? I have to file some sort of story this morning.”
“Absolutely not,” Rice said. “I have my dignified TV image to maintain. If you really want a quote, you may say that I am frustrated with the inordinate amount of time it is taking the state and local authorities to apprehend the perpetrator of this heinous crime. Who knows who might be the deranged killer’s next victim?”
“How do you know the killer is deranged?” I asked.
“Only a madman—or woman—would think they could get away with murdering a man who spoke directly for the governor. Indeed, his or her next target might be the governor himself. Have a nice day, gentlemen.”
Rice rose and walked away, leaving Al and me shaking our heads. “Was that the performance of a man with murder on his conscience?” I said.
“If it was, he gets a bravo for bravado,” Al said.
“Or at least a hurrah for chutzpah. I’m certainly not deleting Dexter from my tiny little list of suspects.”
We walked briskly through the drizzle back to our cabin. When I booted up my computer, I found an e-mail from Don O’Rourke, who was looking for stories on both the murder and the kidnapping, and wanted them pronto. I put what little new information we had—that Jones was still on the loose and the sheriff had no suspects in the Gordon murder case—together with some backg
round filler and sent it off. As expected, Don’s reply was not complimentary, but what could I do? Although Joe Weber looked like a prospective killer, neither I nor the sheriff had enough evidence to even hint at having found an unnamed person of interest. And I had nothing much beyond wishful thinking on Dexter Rice.
I e-mailed back that Al would almost certainly be interviewed by Sheriff Holmberg today and then we’d be heading home.
“No, you won’t be heading home unless the fugitive kidnapper is caught,” was Don’s reply.
Al heard me groan and said, “Don’t tell me Don wants us to stay.”
“Come here and read it then so I don’t have to tell you,” I said. “I’m going to ask him to fly us a suitcase full of clean shirts and underwear.”
I sent an e-mail to that effect and Don sent back a suggestion that we run a load at the local laundry. I replied, “Send us two rolls of quarters.”
He responded, “Try the Brainerd bank.” I gave up and closed the laptop.
“So now we’re supposed to just sit here on our butts and twiddle our thumbs waiting for the troops to bust Ronny Jones?” Al said.
“That’s what the boss wants us to do,” I said.
“We can’t even go fishing in this crappy weather. And I finished reading the book I brought along. Six hundred pages.”
My cell phone warbled. It was Martha Todd.
In the cheeriest tone I could muster, I said, “Good morning, my love.” Her response sounded borderline hysterical.
“Mitch, you’ve got to come home. You’ll never believe what happened this morning.”
Twenty-Seven
Hot News
I quickly ran through the possibilities that could have put Martha in such a state of panic. I finally decided on one. “Are they deporting Grandma Mendes?”
“No word on that yet. Like I said, you’ll never guess.”
“You lost your job?”
“Worse. You lost your pants.”