“You’re being sexist?” he answered. “So what if they’re a floral print. They were on sale.” He turned the report to the light as he read how Gaylord Fournier had died as a result of a hanging. His wife, Adelle, had found him swinging from their basement rafters when she came home from shopping. “Looks pretty straightforward. No mention that it was anything but suicide.” He handed Ana Maria the press release. “Any scuttlebutt that he had work problems? Problems at home? Another woman?”
Ana Maria smiled as she leaned back in her chair. “Remember down in Denver when I covered that group that was into the kinky stuff?”
“I’m still going to therapy over it. Was Gaylord involved in that kinky shit?”
Ana Maria nodded. She glanced out the window for a moment before she answered. “Detective Fournier died an autoerotic death.”
“Where’d you get that pearl of information?”
“Rumor. Cost me some lucky bucks to take a junior detective on a dinner date. If you could get Johnny White to open up, he might admit Gaylord was found swinging with a rope wrapped around his tallywacker and butter smeared all over his bare butt.”
“That’s why Johnny White didn’t want to tell me.” Arn laid the report aside. “Maybe I’ll talk with whoever was Butch’s and Gaylord’s supervisor at the time, if he’s still in the area.”
“You’ll need a Ouija board for that. The head of investigations then was none other than Steve DeBoer. He went the way of Gaylord, you know.”
“You mean he died spanking his monkey, too?”
“No.” Ana Maria thumbed through more papers and came away with another press release. “He died from smoke inhalation when he passed out in his recliner in his living room, a Virginia Slim still in his hand.”
“You certain it was smoke inhalation?”
“I’m looking for the fire marshal’s report to verify it.”
Arn glanced at the report and slid it back across the desk. “So how can you make an ongoing investigative series with just this?”
“I can because the public demands it. Look.” Ana Maria opened the blinds and pointed down into the parking lot. A circle of people rimmed the front lot, chanting things Arn couldn’t make out. Others held homemade signs that read Justice for the Three. “That started the morning after I aired the initial setup for the series. People living here still demand the three deaths be investigated as homicides. Connected homicides.”
“But why? Steve’s and Gaylord’s were accidents, if we believe the police investigations.”
“The public didn’t buy that the deaths of three investigators from the same agency—half the investigative division at the time—weren’t related. They wanted the three to be connected. They needed the three connected. And what better to connect them than airing a television special on the ten-year anniversary of their deaths.”
Arn shut the blinds and plopped back into the chair. “There’s nothing there. Butch Spangler was murdered by person or persons unknown. Period.”
“And you don’t think there’s a connection with the other two?”
“Like what?”
“They all worked together?” Ana Maria came around the desk. She sat next to Arn, and her cologne wafted over him. He fought to remind himself that he was old enough to be her father and backed his chair away. “Gaylord Fournier was Butch Spangler’s partner. And Steve DeBoer was their supervisor.”
“So?”
“They were all working on two murders the press had dubbed ‘the Five Point Killings’ at the time. And the Five Point Killer was never found.”
Arn leaned away from Ana Maria to concentrate. “I recall some regional teletypes coming through Denver Metro Homicide during that time. I guess someone figured that being an hour and a half away from Cheyenne, we might have some similar cases. Cheyenne police wanted to know if we had any murders where the suspect dropped one of those goofy plastic police badges at a scene.”
“Like the ones the DARE officers used to give out,” Ana Maria said. “Some reporter gave the murderer the moniker because of the five points to the badge.”
“That’s what every killer needs,” Arn said. “A catchy name to put on his toe tag. But I’ll bet it was the talk of the town, three deaths in a burg this size. Most exciting thing happens here every year is watching who wins the overall cowboy at Frontier Days. What caused you to bring these cases up in the first place?”
“I remember reading the AP articles about the deaths when I worked in Denver,” Ana Maria said. “When I moved here and started to interview people, I found folks that still lived in fear. Even now, the old residents shudder when you mention the Five Point Killer.”
“Then why didn’t Johnny White tell me that all three of them worked on those cases?”
Ana Maria shrugged. “Got to be some compelling reason.” She stood and smoothed her skirt. “I’ve got to tape the next segment of the series for tomorrow. We need to meet up before it airs. Where are you staying?”
“I’m bunked at Little America for now. But I’ll be working at my mother’s old house tomorrow.”
“Then let’s plan to go over these police reports there tomorrow afternoon.” She was halfway through the door when she stopped and faced Arn. “Thanks for coming aboard on this. Once again, I owe you.”
“All you owe me is your safety. After this starts airing nightly, you might draw the attention of someone who doesn’t like it.”
“Like the alleged killer?” Ana Maria laughed. “Believe me, if I really thought all three deaths were connected, I wouldn’t have proposed the series,” she added over her shoulder as she walked down the hallway toward the recording studio.
“I thought you were ready to walk on coals before you gave up the notion they were all connected?”
“What I was ready to do is walk on coals to get this special. They may be connected. But I’m not thoroughly convinced.”
Arn headed for the parking lot. As he passed the receptionist seated like a security guard—whom Arn had easily slipped past as he came into the building—the woman stopped him.
“You’re that ex-Denver cop Ana Maria goes on about all the time.”
Doris was engraved on a brass nameplate on her desk. She sat stoically, pulling her gray hair back behind her ears and over twin hearing aids.
“I met Ana Maria in Denver right after she started for the CBS affiliate there. And yes, we’re friends.”
Doris took off her glasses and her eyes met Arn’s. “Then if you’re a friend, you tell that girl to watch her backside.”
“Has she had problems lately?”
“She got calls the morning after that first airing of her special.” Doris sipped from a Starbucks cup as big as a thermos. “Then two more calls the morning after the next airing.”
“What type of calls?”
“Just some man.”
“Threats?” Arn asked.
Doris eyed the ceiling fan as if her answer were hidden there. “Not directly. The man just said, ‘Kill the story,’ and hung up.”
“Did Ana Maria recognize the voice?”
“She was out working other stories each time he called. I told her about it, but she waved it away like it was some annoying cigarette smoke that made her uncomfortable.” Doris put her glasses on and picked up her copy of Good Housekeeping. “But if you want my opinion, the voice I heard on the other end was as threatening as if he came out and said he’d kill Ana Maria if she continued with the special.”
Arn opened his man bag and caught Doris’s grin as she stared at it. He jotted his number down on a notepad and handed it to her. “You call if that man phones again.”
“I will. And check on her now and again, will you, Mr. Anderson? Please.”
Three
In contrast to Johnny’s Gorilla Legs, the investigations secretary—Michelle Gains, according to the n
ameplate parked at one corner of her orderly desk—smiled warmly as she stood. She took off earphones linked to a transcription machine and smoothed her pleated gray skirt. “Lieutenant Oblanski asked that you have a seat.”
Short. Professional. Nothing that indicated to Arn he would be kept waiting for two hours as he read tattered pages of People magazine lauding lives he cared little about. Passing investigators eyed him curiously as he thumbed through a last year’s edition of Cosmopolitan featuring the cover-teasing “Eight Ways to Give Him an Erection All Night.” A uniformed sergeant smirked as he walked by Arn reading a story in Fit Pregnancy, the closest thing he could come to a men’s magazine in the waiting room.
He jumped when Michelle entered the room. “Lieutenant Oblanski will see you now.”
The moment Arn started down the investigations hallway, he swore the temperature dropped a dime. Detectives hunched over computers stopped long enough to rubberneck the outsider walking past them, an outsider bulling his way into their agency. An outsider telling them how to conduct a homicide investigation.
He followed Michelle to the office at the end of the hallway. She pointed him to a door marked Lt. Oblanski and backed away. She remained in the hall, as if to watch the entertainment.
A man several inches shorter than Arn, and nearly as heavy in the arms and shoulders, motioned him into his office. He stood with a phone cradled in the crick of his neck as he jotted on a notepad on top of his desk cluttered with papers and shift schedules and the Tribune Eagle opened to a damning front page article ripping the police for failure to find Butch’s killer ten years ago. Arn started to close the door when Oblanski stopped him. “You’re not going to be here long enough to get comfortable.” His eyes looked past Arn to the audience of investigators craning their necks around their office doors. “Leave it open.”
Arn hung his Stetson on an elk antler coatrack and sat with one leg crossed over the other. Ned Oblanski ignored him while he stuffed papers into a thick manila folder marked Butch Spangler Homicide in red. He tossed it on his desk and it slid off the edge onto the floor. “There’s a copy of Butch’s file. Anything else you need?”
Arn picked up the file and slipped it into his bag as he met Oblanski’s stare. “There is. I need your help.”
He caught Oblanski’s faint blink, a micro tic that told him he’d hit a sympathetic nerve. But he’d need much more than that if he were to enlist Oblanski’s cooperation. “I’ll need your help—and your detectives’ help—if I’m going to find Butch’s killer.”
Light filtering through window blinds reflected off Oblanski’s nearly bald head, a short, bristly patch of brown in the middle that gave it the look of a Mohawk. His eyes locked onto Arn’s, and he crossed his arms while leaning back. “Someone thinks this agency screwed up the Spangler investigation,” he said, loud enough so the other investigators heard. “And some hot dog mercenary the TV station hired is going to waltz in here and set us hicks straight?”
Arn ran his fingers through his wispy blond hair. “I’m not your enemy, Lieutenant … ”
“That’s right. We share camaraderie, you an-ex cop and all. You even worked here way back in the day. We’re up to our asses in alligators here, mister consultant. I can’t spare anyone to help you.”
“Don’t you want to see Butch’s killer brought to justice?”
Oblanski came around his desk and glared down at Arn. “What do you take me for? Of course I want to. But you’re not going to learn anything that we didn’t.”
“I understand you were here in Investigations when Butch was killed.”
“Not that it makes any difference,” Oblanski said, “but I started the year before. I did the important stuff: grab coffee and donuts, run dead-end leads on the tip line. Important stuff.”
“You must have some notion who killed him.” The micro tic again tugged at the outer reaches of Oblanski’s eye, and Arn pressed the issue. “Someone must have stood out?”
“Frank Dull Knife,” Oblanski blurted out. “The Indian who was banging Butch’s wife. But we worked that angle to death. In my gut, though, I still feel he was good for it.”
“Just because he messed around with a man’s wife doesn’t make him a killer. You might have even messed around yourself a time or two.”
“When I was young and stupid.” Oblanski leaned on the edge of his desk. “But Butch had worked up a burglary case on Frank. They were scheduled to go to a preliminary hearing a week after Butch was murdered. A conviction would have made Frank a habitual criminal. Mandatory life. He would have been someone’s wife or girlfriend in the joint until he was too old to look pretty. I’d say that’s reason enough to murder Butch.”
“Is this Frank Dull Knife still in town?”
Oblanski spit tobacco juice in the trash can and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He’s breathing air someone else could be breathing. Still at his crappy little mechanic shop over by the refinery. Now if there’s nothing else—”
“I want the files on Steve DeBoer and Gaylord Fournier.”
“People in hell want ice water. That’s what the nuns told me in school.” Oblanski grabbed a pouch of Red Man tobacco and stuffed his cheek. He offered it to Arn.
“Never got into the habit myself.”
Oblanski chuckled. “And that’s what my priest said, too.” The smile faded. “But those files are off-limits to you. They weren’t suspicious deaths, and I won’t taint their memory dragging them into this.”
“Even with the mayor’s orders? I understand he’s on board with this TV series showcasing the deaths of his three detectives. Something about the good publicity it can give him next election.”
“Get the hell out before I throw you out.”
Arn stood and looked down at Oblanski. The man might get a meal out of a fight, but Arn would definitely get a snack. Oblanski seemed to weigh the possibility of getting his ass beat in front of his officers, and he backed away. “Just get out of my office.”
Arn hesitated. He’d too long been the top predator in the police world not to savor Oblanski’s defeat. For the moment.
He slung his bag over his shoulder and started for the door, then stopped and faced Oblanski. “One other thing: I want some protection for Ana Maria Villarreal.”
“Does she need protection?”
“Some nut called her after she began airing the series.”
“Did he threaten her?”
“She didn’t talk with him. The receptionist took the calls; the guy made no direct threats. But the timing of the phone calls telling her to stop the TV special is too coincidental. Especially since Butch’s killer was never caught.”
“Ana Maria Villarreal is no friend of this department.” Oblanski raised his voice once again for the benefit of his investigators, who eyed the open office door. “But she can come down and file a report like anyone else. Although I doubt we could do anything with information that sketchy.”
“Then how about Doc Henry?”
“I’m healthy. Never went to the man. Whoever he is.”
“He’s a shithead who stalked—and tried to kill—Ana Maria in Denver thirteen years ago. He got twenty-to-life in the Colorado State Penitentiary. Paroled two years ago.”
“Then he’s safe and sound and knee-deep into rehabilitation. But I’d worry about yourself, Anderson. With Ana Maria plastering your file photo on air as the one who’s going to catch Butch’s killer, you’d do well to look over your own shoulder.”
Four
Ana Maria Villarreal puts on her most serious look as floodlights cast a halo around her darkly beautiful face. Unblinking, she stares into the camera and begins the first broadcast of her special, live from the steps of the Cheyenne Police Department.
“As if I don’t have anything else to do but watch her.” Now I’m talking to myself, like a crazy person.
But I s
top short of turning off the television. I wonder just what she hopes to accomplish.
“It was ten years ago,” she explains. “Three officers dead—all from the same agency, all investigating the Five Point Killer—has to be more than coincidental.” I laugh because it was more than coincidental when I planned those deaths back in the day. It had all seemed so exciting. Selecting my victims like wolves select their prey, based on certain parameters known only to them. Researching the places where I would kill them. Carefully leaving only those clues that I wished law enforcement officers to discover on their own. It was exciting then to get the best of the cops. Back in the day …
“We need the help of the public,” Ana Maria concludes. She gives a number for a tip line and my head pounds. Why can’t she just let it drop? Even though the men I killed deserved it, what I did a decade ago was a mistake. And I’ve been pure as the driven snow ever since.
It’s said that a murderer never sleeps well after he kills; that his conscience prevents him from ever letting his mind rest. But years ago I came to grips with my crimes. I told myself that what I did, I did because they deserved their deaths. And I’ve slept quite well since.
But since the TV station began promoting Ana Maria’s investigative report, I’ve begun to sleep fitfully. Not from fear of getting caught—I planned things too well back in the day to ever get caught. And certainly not from anything that retired Denver cop or Ana Maria could uncover. But every few hours I snap awake shuddering, shaking my sweat-drenched hair, reliving those orgiastic feelings that overcame me back then. The newspaper said Butch was killed in cold blood. And possibly the other officers as well. I liked to think of it more like in cool blood. Watching the life ooze out of them. Enjoying their deaths from different angles. Coolly watching.
I reach over to turn the television off, but my hand trembles. I haven’t felt this way since then. I fantasize about once again setting the murder scenes up so that every police officer investigating will look in the opposite direction. And I’ll stand on the sidelines watching as they stumble by. Just like back in the day.
Hunting the Five Point Killer Page 2