Hunting the Five Point Killer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “Historic or not,” Meander said, “Pieter paid too much in taxes for that spooky place.”

  Pieter grinned and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Meander wanted to see where a man died … an autoerotic death.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I intend on restoring the place. It’ll be our first house when we’re married.”

  Meander swiped at his shoulder, but he drew back in time.

  “Actually, I’ve got no time to restore any house now, as busy as I’ve been. So, I just replenished the boards that had rotted away, against vandals and homeless like I do all my old homes. Someday I’ll get the time to restore them.”

  “Like I’m doing with my mother’s old house,” Arn said, leaving out that fact that the old place came with an emaciated homeless Indian.

  Meander checked her watch. “Break’s over. I have to get back to the floor.”

  Pieter looked after her as she disappeared down the hallway before turning back to Arn. “Are you here to see Johnny too?”

  Arn nodded.

  “Meander said they brought him out of the coma for a few minutes today. That’s a positive sign.” He checked his own watch. “Got a ten o’clock appointment with the developer of that new shopping center south of town.” He started out the waiting room. “Meander’s going to keep her ear to the floor. If there’s any change in Johnny, I’ll call you.”

  “Thanks,” Arn called after him.

  He walked to the nurses’ station. The charge nurse saw him and came around the counter. “Thanks for taking Adelle away. She likes to throw her weight around. Which is considerable.”

  “Understood,” Arn said. “Does a Dr. Delaney still work here?”

  “Ralph?” The nurse sighed and picked up the phone. “He’s been in the cafeteria for an hour. I’ll tell him you’re coming. And tell him his nurse called and said he’s got patients waiting.”

  Arn took the elevator to the cafeteria and followed workers on their late lunch break, a cornucopia of colored scrub uniforms: blue and browns and green, intermingled with white lab coats here and there. Arn got in line at the salad bar and dished some greens onto a plate. He figured if he were talking to a doctor, it couldn’t hurt to show solidarity by eating healthy. At least until the interview was over. “Could you tell me where Dr. Delaney is?” he asked as the clerk weighed his salad.

  “That white-haired vacuum cleaner in the corner,” she answered, handing Arn change for the salad. “Notice he’s alone? That’s ’cause no one can stand to eat with him. Bon appetite, big guy.”

  Arn picked his way through the crowd toward the corner table. Dr. Delaney, a thin man in his seventies not much bigger than Danny, sat shoveling food in. Stripped chicken bones were piled high on one plate as the doctor worked on his last drumstick. Two cheeseburgers waited on another plate. He saw Arn standing over him and wiped barbeque sauce from his lips. “They had a special on ribs.”

  Arn introduced himself, and Delaney shook hands sticky with barbeque sauce. He motioned to an empty chair. “Sallie called and said a knight in dull armor rescued her from Adelle Dawes.” He striped the chicken leg and attacked one of the cheeseburgers. “You’re that retired cop the TV station brought in as a consultant on Butch Spangler’s murder.”

  “I am. I’d like to ask you some questions, since you were his primary care physician.”

  “What about patient confidentiality?”

  “The man’s been dead for better than ten years.”

  “Good point.” Lips smacking. “If Butch don’t like it, he can sue me.” Lip smacking. “What do you want to know?”

  “Butch was admitted to the ER a couple weeks before he died to have his stomach pumped.”

  “He OD’d on the Xanax I prescribed,” Delaney mumbled, halfway through the first cheeseburger. “The man was a bundle of nerves. A patrolman brought in the empty prescription bottle the night they admitted him. Butch must have taken a month’s worth—the bottle was near empty. That quantity should have killed him.” Delaney motioned to Arn’s salad plate. “You going to eat those?”

  Arn shook his head, and Delaney grabbed his pack of croutons and opened them. “I ripped Butch’s behind for that stunt once he came around. I told him to go easy on the Xanax, and he started bawling. First time I saw that in him. He said he needed extra Xanax to fall asleep. That he’d probably taken more than he should have with his nightly dose of Budweisers. I almost upped his dosage—the Xanax, not the beer. But then I thought better of it and just refilled the prescription. Two weeks later, he was worm food.”

  Delaney wolfed down the second cheeseburger and stood with his tray in hand. “If Butch loaded up on the Xanax that night and took a few too many beers, he would have passed out cold.”

  “And he might not have been aware if someone walked in on him?”

  “That’s almost a certainty,” Delaney said. He was walking toward the tray drop-off when he stopped and turned back. “You want some free advice?” He nodded to Arn’s plate. “If you have another salad, skip the cheese. Causes hardening of the arteries. You got to start eating healthy, Mr. Anderson.”

  Arn pulled out of the hospital parking garage as his cell phone chirped. He pulled to the side of the road and accepted it. When no one talked on the other end, he said louder, “Arn Anderson.”

  “It’s me,” Ana Maria said in barely a whisper. “DeAngelo wants me to go on air tonight again. Give an update on Johnny’s shooting.”

  “And you don’t want to?”

  “Does it show?” she asked.

  “It does if you connect Johnny’s shooting with your television special. This morning you were gung ho about going ahead with tonight’s airing. What happened today?”

  “Your ratty old slippers,” Ana Maria said, her voice trailing off, shaky.

  “I lost them,” Arn said. “What’s that got to do with you not wanting to go on tonight?”

  “I got your slippers. The ones you thought you lost,” Ana Maria’s voice wavered.

  “What do you mean, I thought I lost?”

  “They were on the front seat of my car when I came out of Sanford’s restaurant today. You didn’t lose them. Someone took them—”

  “Sometime last night,” Arn breathed. “While we were sleeping.”

  “I’m scared, Arn. I don’t know if I should treat this as a warning to back off the special or be on notice that the killer can take us any time.”

  “Or he’s toying with us,” Arn said. “Maybe you ought to turn it over to Nick Damos.”

  “I need this. We need this, to catch this guy.”

  “All right,” Arn said. “Do you want me to hang around the station until you get off work tonight?”

  Ana Maria paused, her breaths coming in quick gasps. “I’ll be all right. I’ve got police protection sitting in the parking lot. And I still have your gun.”

  “I’ll call Oblanski and ask him to beef up security.”

  “Don’t,” Ana Maria said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t,” she repeated. “There’s just enough investigative reporter in me to want not to scare him away. Or her. Besides”—she waited while footsteps walked by—“Nick Damos will jump on this like a crazed dog if he thinks I’m too scared to finish the series.”

  “All right. It’s your call.”

  “But if you happen to replace your doors and window locks in the house, I’d be a happy woman.”

  “I’ll get Danny on it. Just as soon as I go to Frontier Arms and buy a gun.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Arn pulled his truck beside Pieter’s white Audi parked in front of the large Pieter Spangler, President sign in front of Spangler and Associates. He walked past the splashing waterfall that sprayed water on duck and swan sculptures, and on a trout that appeared to be leaping out of the water after a dragonfly. It was flowing freely despite t
he freezing temperature.

  He ascended marble steps that were devoid of the recent snow. They were polished to a high shine, yet had a slight pebbly feel that made walking safe. The entry doors opened automatically, split so that one half dropped into a slot in the floor and the other shot up to disappear into a slot overhead. As soon as Arn walked through the opening, the doors came together like a clamshell trapping its prey.

  Halfway down the thirty-foot-high ceiling, an indoor terrarium bigger than a car hung suspended by invisible wires. Bonsai trees grew beside native Wyoming grasses growing beside wildflowers sprouting out of lush green vegetation on the terrarium floor. Lightning bolts and a mini rain shower highlighted the effect.

  Arn walked to the receptionist’s desk. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear her. Yet nothing separated the lady from Arn. He moved to one side, but could not see an attached headset on the receptionist.

  “May I help you?” she asked, suddenly audible.

  “I’m here to see Pieter Spangler.”

  “One moment,” she said. Then once again her muted voice talked with someone for a brief moment. “You may use the elevator,” she said, “or the staircase.”

  A clear glass spiral staircase connected the ground floor to the next, the steps appearing to disappear into the wall. They didn’t look like they’d hold his weight, and he opted for the elevator.

  Arn expected a futuristic time machine that would whisk him upstairs at warp speed. But when the elevator door opened, he was greeted by an old freight lift like those he’d used in Denver warehouses years before. He stepped in and pushed the only button: the second floor. The elevator struggled upward, chains overhead clanging against supports. It shook and rumbled like an amusement park ride. When the door opened, he stepped out and looked thirty feet down to the lobby through clear glass. He felt his legs buckle and grabbed the elevator door for support.

  “A little over the top, isn’t it?” Pieter leaned cross-armed against a secretary’s desk, broad smile gracing his face. He chin-pointed to the glass floor. “I got that idea from the Hualapai Tribe’s glass walkway at the Grand Canyon. What do you think?”

  “I think I might throw up if I get any dizzier.”

  Pieter laughed. “This building’s my laboratory.” He came off the desk and stepped closer. “And my showroom. I employ my vision of what I think people will want in their future.”

  “Like the receptionist downstairs? Try as I might, I couldn’t spot the microphone or how she controlled her speakers and phones.”

  “That one was a real brainchild, one of my favorites,” Pieter said, his hands animated as he talked. “I got that idea from watching old reruns of Get Smart. There are no speakers or phones per se. I call it my Cone of Silence. Pretty cool, huh?”

  “It is.” Arn chanced a look down. His stomach churned and he closed his eyes. “Particularly in contrast with that old-school elevator.”

  Pieter motioned for Arn to follow him. “Don’t look down and you’ll be all right.” He led Arn to his office. Once inside Pieter’s office, all sounds from the outside were blocked—even though there was no door.

  “I salvaged that old elevator from a hotel in Salt Lake City they tore down a couple years ago,” Pieter said. A dreamy look crossed his eyes. “And until I get the time to restore one of my historic houses, I’ll have to settle for riding that old lift every morning.”

  Inside Pieter’s office, Arn felt as if he’d walked through a time bubble. The room stood in stark contrast to the rest of his building. Pieter’s graduate degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn hung beside his picture of the Cheyenne South basketball team when they won the state championship. Filing cabinets lined one wall, marked Codes and Future Proposals and Upcoming Bids. A horizontal rack held dozens of cardboard cylinders packed with, Arn guessed, a hundred building layouts. Plain Berber carpeting cushioned heavy footfalls, and the office was furnished much the way he was furnishing his mom’s old house: Walmart Modern.

  “I don’t spend much time with clients in my office.” Pieter seemed to be reading his mind. “I figure there’s no sense in spending money on furniture and office accoutrements when it’s just me. If you saw the house I grew up in, you’d know where my frugality comes from.” He motioned for Arn to sit.

  “The sign said Spangler and Associates. Where are the associates?”

  Pieter laughed. “There are none. Just me. It just sounds more … professional.”

  “I’m impressed,” Arn said. “How does one go from graduating Pratt Institute of Architecture to three years later owning one of the region’s premier firms?”

  “I’ve always had an interest in architecture.” Pieter beckoned Arn to a four-foot-square piece of plywood butted against the far wall. On top of the plywood stood a miniature office complex, each building showcasing a different architectural concept. “My junior year science project in high school.”

  “Can I?”

  Pieter nodded and Arn carefully picked up one of the tiny plastic buildings.

  “That features a cantilevered roof. My science teacher had never heard of such a thing on that type of building until I brought this model in.”

  Arn set it back in the same dust spot, counting the sixteen buildings that formed Pieter’s idea of an office complex clustered around a central fountain. Arn recognized many of the concepts in Pieter’s office building displayed in the model. Each miniature building had been glued together so carefully, Arn thought they’d come from a kit.

  “No kit here.” Pieter picked up another building and held it to the light before blowing dust off and setting it back. “All of this is from scratch. Made in my bedroom.” He chuckled. “I must have used a gallon of modeling glue putting it together. People down at the store must have thought I was huffing, as much glue as I bought.”

  Arn turned over a placard that had tipped over. It was the grade of C-minus that Pieter’s teacher had given him. Pieter had encased it in plastic to display next to his project.

  “My teacher gave me a bad grade because he thought the concepts would never work. Said I’d never make it into the architectural world.”

  “What’s he saying now?”

  “I wish I knew. Mr. Noggle left his wife for some banker’s secretary my senior year. Rumor was he went to the Bahamas and drowned in a boating accident.” He grinned. “Serves him right.” He bent to a small office fridge and handed Arn a bottle of Perrier. “But you didn’t come here to ask about snobby old Mr. Noggle.”

  “I didn’t.” Arn took a sip and the fizz shot up his nose. “I’ve been losing sleep over your dad’s anxiety.”

  “You? I’ll bet you sleep like a log and snore just as badly.”

  Arn laughed. “You’ve been talking to my … friends.” He was careful not to mention Danny. “I spoke with your dad’s physician, Ralph Delaney. Butch had taken much of his Xanax by the time he died. Much more than was prescribed.”

  Pieter swiveled his chair and looked out the window. In a vacant field across from the building, a mother pulled her young daughter down a snow-packed slope on a sled while a Yellow Lab barked as it kept pace with them. “Dad was reluctant to take too many Xanax. He was afraid taking too many would take the edge off finding the Five Point Killer. But he drank too many brewskies and took too many pills.”

  “And had to be rushed to the hospital?”

  Pieter nodded. “A couple weeks before his death, he had to be carted to the emergency room.” Pieter swiveled back around. “Catching the Five Point Killer was his obsession, and he said he was so close he could taste him.”

  “Is that why he needed Xanax?”

  “That, and Dad would become livid thinking about Frank Dull Knife being out with Mom. Especially since he suspected Frank was the killer. Pretty soon he’d take more Xanax and chase it down with more beer.” Pieter paused, and Arn waited for him to tell it at his o
wn pace. “You’d pop Xanax like candy too, if your partner died within a month of your supervisor. Add to that the Five Point cases.”

  “Did your dad ever talk with you about those?”

  “Talk about them?” Pieter tilted his head back and laughed, but Arn recognized it as a laugh of pain. Not pleasure. “Dad bounced his ideas off me, even though I didn’t want to hear his gruesome details. But you want to know if Dad told me something that never made it into any report. He didn’t. And I’d know, too. ’Cause by the time I started high school, I’d been to so many calls with Dad that I was more knowledgeable about crime scenes than any of those boobs on CSI. I’m just lucky I turned out reasonably sane.”

  Pieter finished his Perrier and lobbed it into the trash across the room. “Still got it,” he said. “You asked about Dad’s Xanax. You on to something?”

  “Dr. Delaney said if a person took too many Xanax along with alcohol, he’d pass out. Butch had four beers that night and was working on a fifth when he was murdered. Did you hear anyone else downstairs with your dad that night?”

  “Like company?” Pieter shook his head. “But then I always slept sound. If Dad had invited someone over that night I wouldn’t have known. Dad really had no friends except … ” Pieter looked out the window again. “Other cops. Why?”

  “There’s another possibility I’ve been kicking around. Maybe Butch invited someone into the house. Maybe for a beer. Maybe just to talk. And maybe this person saw his Xanax in the bathroom and slipped them into his drink. And when Butch passed out, shot him and fled. All without a struggle.”

  “But that would rule out Frank Dull Knife. If he came around, Dad would have climbed his frame and the place would have been torn to hell. I can’t see Dad letting him in.”

  “So of the officers he worked with, which ones did he invite over regularly?”

  Pieter’s face went pale. “Johnny White.”

  By the time Arn started for the parking lot, it was nearly dark and Pieter insisted on walking him out the building. He stayed with Arn until he opened his car door. “I get the impression you want something,” Arn said before he climbed in.