Hunting the Five Point Killer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  He looked around a final time before climbing inside his car. When he sat on the seat, something jabbed his butt. He leaned over and grabbed the small plastic object before he turned the dome light on and held it up for a closer look.

  Nine

  Arn tossed the small plastic five-point star badge on Johnny’s desk. “That look familiar?”

  Johnny picked it up and turned it over in his hand. “So it’s a plastic badge. Our DARE officers used to give some like those out to little kids. What’s your point?”

  “You failed to mention yesterday that all three dead officers had worked on two cases where the killer left those at the scene. Why did you keep that from me?”

  “It’s not material. It was just coincidental. We checked that angle at the time, ad nauseam.” He handed the badge back to Arn. “It looks about like any other badge our community service officers give out at schools.”

  “But not exactly the same kind?”

  Johnny shrugged. “What’s your point, besides being a pain in my rectum?”

  “You still got the crime scene photos of the Five Point Killings?”

  Johnny absently grabbed a pencil from his desktop and began to nibble on the eraser. “I can’t show them to you.”

  “I’m not asking. Just pull up the photos of the badges left at those two crime scenes and compare them with this one.”

  “They’re not the same. I don’t know how you got this notion in that thick head of yours, but the Five Point Killer is long gone from these parts.”

  “Humor me.”

  Johnny pushed his chair back and it rolled into the wall. “I got better things to do than prove your bullshit ideas wrong.” He tossed the pencil in his desk drawer. “But I will.”

  He slammed the door leaving his office, and Arn could hear him asking Gorilla Legs for the Five Point Killer case files. Their voices muted, then, as they moved down the hallway. In minutes, Johnny returned. His lip quivered and his voice wavered. “So, it is the same kind of badge—”

  “When did the department stop giving them out?”

  Johnny walked to the window and looked out. “Ten years ago,” he said over his shoulder. “About the time Butch Spangler was murdered.” He faced Arn. “Where did you get it?”

  Arn explained that he’d driven to the Archer Fairgrounds after Ana Maria got the call from the man who claimed to know who killed Butch. “The guy must have worked his way around and set it on my car seat.”

  “Toying with you,” Johnny said. “That’s all. Somebody having some fun.”

  “It was a warning.”

  “If it was,” Johnny said, “why didn’t Ana Maria share information with us about a potential witness?” He sat at his desk and looked around for that pencil to nibble on.

  “It’s in your drawer.”

  “What?”

  “Your pencil,” Arn said.

  “Piss on the pencil! I got half a notion to arrest her for withholding information.”

  “What are you afraid of?” Arn asked.

  Johnny looked away. “Nothing.”

  “Now it’s my turn to call bullshit. You’re afraid I’ll see something in those reports that links the Five Point Killer to Butch and the other two detectives.”

  “Drop it.” Johnny nibbled on his upper lip and his foot tapped the floor.

  “Tell me, what are you afraid of?”

  “The damned Five Point Killer!” Johnny threw his pencil stub against the wall. “You happy now?” He turned his back on Arn. His hands trembled as he got up to straighten a picture hanging on the wall. “At the time of the murders, the killer scared the hell out of most of us with any common sense.” He turned back around, and his eyes locked on Arn’s. “The son-of-a-bitch was a ghost. We never picked up even one tiny piece of physical evidence. Except those silly badges.”

  “After last night, there’s all the more reason for me to look at those cases.”

  “Someone was just screwing with you last night. Either way, I’m still deferring to Ned Oblanski. If he wants to give you those case files, he can. And”—Johnny leaned closer—“if he feels like I do about your reporter friend, he just might arrest her.”

  “If you think she’s withholding information, you must think she needs protection.”

  “Protection from some guy who might have information?”

  “If I hadn’t interrupted him, he might have got to her.”

  “So you say.”

  “He had a knife—”

  “What kind of knife?” Johnny asked. “And what did he look like?”

  Arn dropped his eyes and somehow found that same piece of lint still on the carpet. “It was too dark. I never got close enough to see. He made it out of the barn before I got a good look. But I swear he had a knife—”

  “I recall you were always quite the tracker. Like a lot of cowboys. Did some elk hunting. Deer and mountain lion, as I recall.”

  “And your point?”

  “My point”—Johnny dropped into his chair—“is that there should be tracks enough for an experienced hunter like you to see something.”

  “The tracks were indistinct. Like they were … brushed away. Or something.”

  “Because there was no one there.”

  “That badge—”

  “Proves nothing,” Johnny argued. “Anyone could have put it there on your seat anytime. It just took a while to work its way into your imagination. And your butt.”

  “You forget, I interviewed people all my life. And just now—when you came back from comparing that badge with the old crime scene photos—you knew they were the same. So let’s cut the crap, and maybe we can find out who the Five Point Killer is. And find out who killed Butch in the process.”

  “There’s no connection.” Johnny nibbled through another eraser. “Can’t you get that through your head?”

  “Then why this?” Arn picked up the plastic badge and held it for a moment before he tossed it back onto Johnny’s desk. “I was hired to find out who killed Butch. If this wasn’t a warning to back off, why risk putting the badge on my car seat?”

  Johnny grabbed his mug and walked to the coffee cart. Stalling. He sniffed the day-old coffee and dribbled some into his cup before turning back. “Butch and Gaylord worked the Five Point Killings. I worked patrol when those murders happened, so I wasn’t privy to a lot. All I remember is Butch coming into shift briefing and asking us to shake down our snitches. See if anything dropped out. ‘I’m so close to finding this son-of-a-bitch,’ he kept telling us, ‘I can smell him.’ Apparently he was. The killer found him first.”

  “So you do think those killings and Butch’s murder are connected?” Arn asked.

  Johnny looked away, and Arn had his answer. “Have you talked with Oblanski?” Johnny said.

  “He wouldn’t tell me anything about the Five Point cases,” Arn replied. “But I know Gaylord died an autoerotic death. And Steve died in a house fire.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  Arn didn’t answer as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Awfully coincidental, those two dying just as the Five Point cases were close to being solved. And not a month before Butch’s murder.”

  “If you talked with Oblanski, then you know he still thinks Frank Dull Knife would be good for Butch’s homicide. Not some killer passing through here with a pocketful of toy badges.”

  “Either way, Ana Maria’s television special just might bring some witnesses forward.”

  “After all these years?” Johnny shrugged. “I doubt it.”

  “Well, it got someone spooked enough to send me a little warning last night to back off.” Arn stood and walked to the coffee pot. The same donuts were on the cart that were there yesterday, as stale as the coffee, and he passed on both. “If Gaylord Fournier died by an autoerotic death, maybe his death was
n’t an accident. Maybe he was murdered for what he knew about the Five Point cases. Same as Butch.”

  “So how do you connect Steve DeBoer? He didn’t work those cases.”

  “He was their supervisor,” Arn explained. “They had to report to him about their progress. He knew what they knew. “

  “Enough!” Johnny swiveled in his chair to toss the rest of his coffee into the trash can. “Gaylord’s and Steve’s deaths were accidental. Live with it.”

  “Then let me see the reports. Maybe there’s something there—”

  “We missed?” Johnny said. “We didn’t. You’ll have to do your mercenary gig without those files.”

  Arn leaned forward. “I was loathe to mention it before, but you’re in the running for the permanent police chief job.”

  “That’s no secret.”

  “And it might make you look … inept … if an outsider waltzed in here and solved a crime that your agency’s worked on and off for ten years.”

  Johnny stood. Though thirty pounds lighter than Arn, he was several inches taller, intimidating in his glare as he came around the desk. He stood close enough that Arn smelled his coffee breath and stale cigarette smoke reeking from his blue blazer. “What’s your point?”

  “I’m not here to make you look bad, Johnny. But … ” Arn shouldered his briefcase. “The mayor insists your department cooperate.”

  Johnny looked down at Arn, inches away. His jaw clenched; his fist balled and slapped his leg. “It’s been years since anyone’s threatened me without getting an ass beating. Only reason I don’t now is because we worked together once. And we were friends. Once. Now get out of my office. Mercenary bastard.”

  Arn hesitated just long enough to let Johnny know he wasn’t intimidated before he started for the door. Then he stopped and without looking back said, “If you won’t order your lieutenant to give me their files, the least you can do is point me to someone who may know something.”

  “No one in this department’s going to help—”

  “Anyone?”

  “Georgia Spangler,” Johnny blurted out.

  “Butch’s sister?”

  “Ah, that’s right,” Johnny prodded. “You two had a thing in high school.”

  “Until I quit the team to go work cows and she dumped me. I didn’t know she still lived here.”

  “She’s a chef at Poor Richard’s. You know she was the first one to call Butch’s murder into dispatch.”

  “I didn’t realize that.”

  Johnny smiled. “You would if you actually took the time to read the police reports.”

  Ten

  Arn sat in the Poor Richard’s parking lot. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes as he thought about what he would say to Georgia. He’d called her when he left Johnny’s office and was surprised she remembered him from their brief fling in high school. “I’d be delighted to visit with you,” she said. He tried reading her tone of voice, her willingness to talk. But even after a lifetime of reading people for a living, he came up blank with her.

  He walked into the restaurant and spotted Georgia. She leaned on a podium as she talked with the hostess. An apron encircled Georgia’s waist, as small as Arn remembered from her cheerleading days. Her black hair fell to her collar, and her hazel eyes twinkled through crystal-rimmed glasses. She smiled when she spotted him. She wiped her hands on her apron and smoothed her top. “Arn Anderson. It’s been what? Thirty-five years?”

  “Thirty-seven.” He’d done the math on the way over. “You don’t look a whit different from the last time I saw you.”

  Georgia laughed easily. “You mean that night when we … broke up?”

  Arn nodded.

  “Well, you’ve got some bad memory, ’cause I’m not that pretty girl that dragged you into the back seat of that old Mercury of yours.”

  “I thought I was doing the draggin’,” Arn said.

  She hooked her arm through his and led him toward the back of the restaurant, past two couples sitting on either side of a half-eaten birthday cake sporting enough candles to start a forest fire. The elderly birthday girl looked up and smiled as they passed. Blue frosting smeared her bright pink lipstick and mixed with her red rouge. The younger man next to her dabbed ice cream off his cardigan sweater before he turned his attention to wiping the old lady’s mouth.

  Georgia seated Arn at a table in back and promised to return. When she did, she was cradling two plates in the crick of her arm and a carafe of coffee. “People claim I have the best rhubarb pie.” Heat from the pie had started melting the vanilla ice cream, a small drop spilling onto the table in what Arn recognized as a low velocity spatter. Just like blood, he thought, and cursed himself for thinking like a detective at a moment like this. He unfolded a green linen napkin and spread it over his lap. “Johnny White said you take offense when folks call you a chef.”

  “That’s right.” Georgia frowned. “A little too pretentious for me. Around here, I’m just the cook. And sometimes baker. Dig in. But don’t go to sleep.”

  Arn stopped his fork mid-mouth. “Sleep?”

  “Folks say I put so much sugar in my pies that they drift off to sleep.” She laid her own napkin over her lap. “I hate wimpy ingredients.” She poured each of them a cup of coffee. “I wondered when you’d come around. After Ana Maria Villarreal brought up your name as a consultant that first night on television, I figured you’d stop by and ask me about Butch.”

  “If this isn’t a good time … ”

  Georgia waved the air. “I’ve told the story so many times, I can do it in my sleep. The first few times gave me more grief than you can imagine, but I’m all right now.”

  Arn ate his last bite of pie and spooned up the remaining ice cream until he couldn’t put it off any longer. He set his plate aside and grabbed a notebook out of his briefcase when he caught her snicker.

  “That’s some purse you got there.” She smiled. “They issue you that down in Denver?”

  “A friend thought I needed to … expand my horizons. Said I’d feel young again. It’s a man bag.”

  “Suit yourself. But here in Wyoming—and you should know—it’s still a purse.”

  Arn flipped to a clean page and leaned back in the booth. “I’ll read Butch’s incident report tonight, but give me the headline version of what happened the night your brother was murdered.”

  Georgia took a deep breath to steel herself. She wasn’t as numbed to the incidents of that night as she professed. “Pieter called me at 1:30 that morning. Crying. He asked me to come over right away. When I got there, Butch was slumped over in his chair. I learned later he’d been shot twice in the chest.”

  “I remember when Butch brought Pieter along on patrol when I worked at the PD here. Cute little fella. Where was Butch’s wife that night?”

  Georgia closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead while Arn waited for her to continue. “Hannah was out partying. Like always. She usually came home long enough to sleep it off and put on fresh clothes before she went out cattin’ around again. She was still out bar hopping when I got to the house that night. But then, she had a few more minutes drinking time before they closed.” A slight smile tugged at the corners of Georgia’s mouth. “The gutter slut died in a car accident the year after Butch was murdered. Guess the booze finally caught up with her.” She held up her hand. “Sorry if I don’t sound too upset by Hannah’s death.”

  Arn said nothing and flipped pages in his notebook. “Johnny said a Detective Madden assumed Butch’s murder investigation.”

  “Bobby Madden.” She nodded. “But don’t expect to interview him unless you got a clairvoyant on retainer. Detective Madden died in a retirement home in Aurora four or five years ago. I remember he was a good detective. Thorough. He interviewed me multiple times.” She looked away and took off her glasses, which had started to fog. She dabbed at her eye
s with her napkin.

  “We can do this another time.”

  “I’m fine. It’s just that Madden interviewed Pieter a half-dozen times, too, like he was a suspect. A boy who just lost his father.”

  “Standard procedure with homicides: look first at the family and work out,” Arn explained. “Most times, the killer will be close to the victim. But to bring Pieter in that many times does seen excessive. Unless … ”

  “Unless Madden had something? All he had was rumors around the police station that Butch abused his son.”

  “Did he?”

  Georgia stirred cream into her coffee while she thought. “Not physically. He wouldn’t want anyone to think Butch Spangler abused his own kid.” She leaned closer and her hand brushed Arn’s. “Don’t get me wrong—I loved my brother. But he was terribly vain. He abused Pieter emotionally. I don’t think he even realized that he did.”

  Arn refilled their cups and jotted in his notebook. “How so?”

  Georgia motioned to Arn’s face. “Because Pieter looks more like you: blue eyes, blond hair. Tall. Unlike the Spanglers, with our black hair and dark eyes and stubby short legs. Butch told Pieter he must have been someone else’s son.”

  “Then you can see why Madden naturally thought Pieter resented his dad. Maybe even hated him.”

  “I can.” Georgia wrapped her hands around her coffee cup and sipped slowly. “But Pieter put Butch on a pedestal. He was proud his father was the department’s top detective. And when Butch started dragging Pieter along to work—”

  “Because Hannah was rarely there to watch him?”

  “Because she was never there for him. It doesn’t mean it was right for Pieter to see what he did when Butch drug him to those crime scenes. You ask me, that’s abuse. But under the circumstances, what could Butch do?” Georgia looked askance at the birthday girl as the young couple helped her into her wheelchair. “Detectives got called out at the drop of a hat back then. When I wasn’t working, I’d come over and watch Pieter until Butch came home. But just as often I was at work and couldn’t get away.”