Hunting the Five Point Killer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “Nike and Pepsi sponsored the team the year they won state.” Georgia came around the bed, smoothing the sheet. “Everyone got a new pair of Nikes and Pepsi for a year.” She stood with her arms crossed in front of the picture. “It was his junior year, and you’d have thought he won the lottery.” She laughed. “I think that was the year his voice changed. Kid grew up faster than Butch wanted.”

  She dusted off the picture with her handkerchief. “I told you he spent as much time in sports as he could to keep away from Butch.” She tapped the picture. “But then he’s always been competitive. And generous. Hell, he gave the Nikes away to Meander’s little brother. Stayed with New Balance. Pieter said Nikes hurt his feet. Generous.”

  “You sound just like a proud … ”

  “Mother?” Georgia smiled. “I am. In a sense. He’s more like my boy than my nephew. Sure, I was proud, the way he always worked his tail off at that freight company after school. Or helping Meander’s little brother out when he could. Pieter wasn’t afraid to give as much as he made. Sure, you can say I’m just a little proud.”

  She brushed past him and tucked the comforter in, leaving Arn to roam the room again. A scarred green footlocker with US Army in faded black letters on the lid guarded the foot of Pieter’s bed.

  “That was Butch’s,” Georgia said from somewhere on the other side of the waist-tall mattress. “Pieter stores a few things of his dad’s he wanted to keep after the murder. I took the rest to Goodwill, and his police equipment down to the police department.”

  “I saw Butch’s old uniform hanging behind the glass down in the lobby.”

  Georgia slapped the bed to knock the last of the wrinkles into submission. She came around and looked down at the footlocker. “Pieter donated Butch’s uniform and Sam Browne belt from when he worked the street. He thought people coming into the police station might see it and remember who his father was.”

  She stepped back and surveyed the room with her hands on her hips. “Finished. At least until next week. Hungry?”

  “Famished.”

  “Then I’ll pick the spot,” she said as she flicked the lights off in the room.

  Thirty-Five

  Georgia asked the waiter at Sanford’s Grill to seat them in the back. Arn followed her past wall-to-wall junk hanging off the walls and suspended from the ceiling. Bicycles more at home in a 1950s commercial dangled overhead, while old dented and rusted hubcaps dotted the walls between more old-time sports pictures than Arn recalled seeing before. Shiny hood ornaments from the 1960s accented cracked, wafer-thin baseball gloves. As the waiter showed them to their table, Arn thought the only thing missing was Fred Sanford faking a heart attack while LaMont looked on skeptically.

  “I think I had a unicycle like that once.” Arn pointed to a single-tired contraption missing a seat. “I wrecked every day after school trying to get away from the Ortiz brothers.”

  “They were ornery, as I remember,” Georgia said as she opened the menu.

  “Ornery, hell. They were purely mean little bastards. They weren’t very big but they hunted in a pack.”

  “And that might have been mine.” Georgia pointed to a cracked Louisville Slugger balanced on top of a rusted milk can.

  “You played ball?”

  “Don’t sound so chauvinistic. I played Little League shortstop before I filled out enough to become a cheerleader.”

  Arn wanted to comment on how aptly Georgia had filled out, but he wisely kept quiet and opened his own menu. “What’s good?”

  “I love the Rusty Hood. Reuben smothered with wine sauerkraut and pickles and—”

  “If it’s so good, why don’t you serve it at Poor Richard’s?”

  “Shush,” she whispered. “They’ll shoot me as a spy if they hear I cook there.”

  A waitress arrived at their table wearing a red-and-white-striped skirt and bobby socks with patent leather pumps. She was smacking gum. Georgia motioned to Arn, and he ordered the Rusty Hood and vegetable noodle soup. She the Cobb salad.

  “I thought you said the Rusty Hood was good?”

  “It’s great. But if you only knew how many calories there were in that, you wouldn’t have ordered it.”

  “Just what I need.” Arn tugged at his waistband. “Another new belt.”

  “How’s Chief White?” Georgia changed the subject. “Meander says the floor nurses up on the seventh floor have high hopes for his recovery.”

  Arn filled Georgia in on what Oblanski had told him: Johnny wasn’t strong enough today, but by tomorrow the doctors expected to bring him out of the coma to see how he handled the pain. “If Johnny’s up to it, Oblanski hopes to be able to talk with him then.”

  The waitress brought their orders, and Arn was only vaguely aware that he broke his second pack of crackers and sprinkled them in his soup.

  “You sure you’re hungry?”

  “What?” He looked up.

  “You’ve been reading the alphabet soup in that bowl for five minutes like it was the newspaper.”

  “Sorry.” He brushed crumbs off his hands. “I hate to admit it, but I have other reasons for asking you to lunch.”

  “I figured as much.” Georgia dribbled vinaigrette over her greens. “You needed to ask me more questions.”

  “Damn woman’s intuition.”

  She smiled and picked up her fork. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take a date any way I can get it. Ask away.”

  “Okay.” Arn took a deep breath. “Here goes. Butch and Hannah’s neighbor, Emma Barnes, placed you at the house at 12:45 the morning Butch was murdered. But you didn’t call 911 until 1:45. An hour later.”

  Georgia sipped her tea, twirling the tea bag around in the hot water. “I called 911 at 1:45 because that’s when I arrived. Pieter called me at 1:30 and I drove right over. As soon as I saw Butch, I called police dispatch.”

  “How do account for the hour discrepancy?”

  Georgia speared an olive, and it bounced on the end of her fork as she gestured. “Butch constantly complained to me about that old busybody. Always calling the police about things.”

  “I saw on the call logs how many times she reported them fighting.”

  Georgia put her fork down and seemed to be studying an old ball bat resting on a milk can screwed to the wall. “When Bobbie interviewed me that morning, we talked about it. He thought like I did: that Emma must have seen someone else going into Butch’s house. He never had a yard light, and she was older than dirt ten years ago. Bobby was convinced Emma saw the killer, and that he went inside the house at 12:45, shot Butch, and fled. Bobbie doubted she’d ever had a clear view of the front door from her house.”

  “Then I’d better talk with her.”

  “Good luck getting anything from her,” Georgia said, picking onions off her plate. “She sold the house a year after Hannah lost hers to the bank. Emma is soaking up air at the Shady Rest Retirement Home.”

  “Why do they always give old folks’ homes names that sound like the residents should have one foot in the grave?” Arn asked.

  “Because Emma does.”

  “Then I better drive on over there sooner than later.”

  “And one other thing,” Georgia said, leaning her arms across the table. She squeezed Arn’s arm and winked. “She dislikes men. Especially if you tell her you were a retired cop.”

  “So you’re saying I should go in drag and hope her eyesight’s crappy?”

  Thirty-Six

  Ana Maria squirmed to get comfortable in the tiny car. “We could have taken my Bug. At least there’s some room in it.”

  Arn pulled his bad leg away from the steering column and flexed it. “As you can see, the Clown Car’s not exactly smooth driving for me, either.”

  “Clown Car?”

  “Clown Car. Damn thing reminds me of those miniature cars at circuses totin
g a dozen clowns around the arena. Friggin’ Clown Car.”

  They drove past Frontier Mall—what else would you call a shopping center in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Arn thought—and past strip malls farther up the road. “Turn at the next light,” Ana Maria said. “Shady Rest is the next block.”

  She directed Arn into a cul-de-sac. A scrub field sat on one side of the retirement home, a Toyota pickup up on blocks on the other side. With no trees in sight, the Shady Rest waited at the end of the turnaround. “Just where I want to spend my last days,” Arn said.

  They slid to a stop in a parking lot that probably hadn’t been scraped of ice and snow since last winter. Arn opened his door and began the ritual he’d developed to get out of the car. He used his hands to pull one leg past the steering column and set it on the ground before using the door jamb to haul himself erect. He stood for a moment stretching his back and legs before grabbing his bag when he caught Ana Maria staring at him. “What?”

  “I don’t feel one bit sorry for you,” she said. “If you’d upped your policy, you’d be driving something comfortable now.”

  “You mean, if I hadn’t arrested the agent who sold me the policy?”

  “That too.”

  They made their way slowly across the pavement, passing a picket fence broken down from the weight of the snow and time, a few rotting boards all that was left to show there’d even been a fence once. As they climbed the ice-and snow-packed steps leading to the retirement home’s office, Ana Maria started to slip and grabbed Arn’s arm. Arn wasn’t sure who would fall first as he grasped the bent railing loose in the concrete. His cowboy boots skidded, and he grabbed the railing again. It pulled loose from the crumbling concrete and he flailed his arms to keep his balance.

  “Of all the times not to have my cameraman here,” Ana Maria said. “Or my phone. I could have made a mint posting that little dance to YouTube.”

  When they reached the top of the steps, Arn stomped snow from his boots before entering the office. A television sat in one corner of a small commons area, four residents huddled around it. Sleeping. “I’ve seen test patterns with better picture quality than that,” Arn said.

  Ana Maria looked at him. “What’s a test pattern?”

  Arn shook his head. “Just something I used to study for.”

  He walked across the commons to the front counter. A pimple-faced kid wearing jeans with the knees blown out and sporting an AC/DC cap perched backwards on his purple hair looked up from a computer. He made no attempt to hide the porn flick he was engrossed in. And he made no attempt to see what Arn and Ana Maria wanted.

  Arn slapped the ringer hard enough that it bounced on the counter and nearly fell to the floor. But it got the kid’s attention. “I dammed near fell on your steps out there.”

  The kid looked over his shoulder briefly before going back to watching every bump and grind on the video. “And your point?”

  “Snow and ice is packed in your parking lot. That’s my point.”

  The kid swiveled in his chair and faced the counter. His eyes settled on Ana Maria’s chest for long moments before he nodded at the door. “Did you notice that snow shovel leaning against the door? I leave it there. If anyone’s offended by the snow, they can shovel it. Just what are you and this hot mama here for besides bitchin’ about our sidewalks?”

  “We need to see Emma Barnes.”

  “You family?”

  “No. We’d just like to visit with her.”

  The kid looked over at a roster of residents tacked to a wall. “Go pack sand, mister,” he said, and started turning back before Arn reached over and clamped a hand on the kid’s shoulder. He recognized the world of authority the kid was king in—he was a bully like Arn had dealt with a hundred times. In another life, this geek might have worn a gun and badge and ordered people around just to watch them squirm.

  “You denying the authorities access to Ms. Barnes?” he asked.

  “You are … ”

  “The authorities,” Arn answered. “Now if we need to get a subpoena just to talk to her”—he waved his hand around the shabby lobby—“we might as well call in the state inspector to look at this dump.”

  Pimple Face threw up his hands in resignation. “No need for that. We just like to protect our clients.”

  Arn looked around. “So you’re all about their welfare here at Shady Rest?”

  “You could say that.”

  “No, I couldn’t,” Arn said, “with any conviction. Her room number?”

  The kid pointed down a long hallway on the other side of a door. “Hall B. Room 107.”

  Ana Maria waited until they’d started down the hall before she chuckled. “A subpoena? Is that your standard threat for everything? And the state inspector was a nice touch.”

  “If that didn’t work, my next threat was probation and parole.”

  They walked the hallway, which was mushy from a recent ceiling leak, black mold forming down on one wall. They found Emma Barnes’ apartment next to a three-foot gap where the drywall had been torn out. Arn rang the doorbell, but didn’t hear it chime. He punched the bell again and it fell to the floor, wires dangling out of the wall waiting for a repairman. Someday.

  He rapped on the door, and was ready to knock again when it opened.

  “Who the hell are you?” Emma Barnes stood little more than five foot, with trifocals that caused her to constantly move her head up and down as she focused on Arn. Wind whistled through ill-fitting dentures, and she shifted her weight between legs swollen with fluid. “I said who the hell are you?”

  “Arn Anderson, ma’am.”

  “That supposed to mean something? You ain’t selling seed packs, are you? ’Cause the last zucchini seeds I bought never came up.”

  “We’re here looking for information … ”

  Ana Maria stepped in front of Arn and smiled broadly. “I’m Ana Maria Villarreal, from News 5.”

  Emma’s eyes lit up and she shook Ana Maria’s hand. “I see you every night at six. Cuss you out, now and again.” She held up her hands. “Nothing personal.”

  “No offense taken. May we come in? We would like to visit for a moment.”

  Emma turned painfully and hobbled into the living room of the tiny two-room apartment.

  “It wasn’t going too well,” Ana Maria whispered. “Thought I’d better jump in before you blew it.”

  “So much for my natural charm.”

  Emma motioned them to a three-legged couch, a brick jammed under where the fourth leg should have been. Like the Captain Ahab of the couch world. She craned her neck up at Arn. “You were just at the door.”

  “I was.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m working with Ms. Villarreal. We’d like to know about Butch Spangler.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “We know that.” Arn forced a smile. “May we visit?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  She sat in an occasional chair and picked up a tatting shuttle from a TV tray beside her. She wrapped a ball of string around one hand and began making lace, ignoring them. She looked up as if seeing them for the first time. “You were just at the door.”

  “We were,” Ana Maria said.

  Arn watched in fascination as the old woman bowed her head to her string. His mother had knitted for hours, much as Emma did now, everything from sweaters to tablecloths to baby booties. And every year at Christmas, Arn would get a knitted stocking cap and matching pair of gloves, both too porous to keep out the cold. Usually in a pink or pastel. Which gave the Ortiz brothers more fuel to pick on him.

  Beside Emma’s ball of string, an empty plate with crumbs of some sort indicated she’d just eaten. “What did you have for lunch?” Arn tried loosening her up.

  “How should I know,” Emma said, not looking up from her tatting.

  Arn’s
uncle, his mother’s brother, had deteriorated much as Emma had. He couldn’t remember what Arn wore to school that morning, but he remembered every person’s name who’d helped him brand cows for the past fifty years.

  Arn took out his notebook and pen. “What do you recall about the night Butch Spangler was murdered?”

  Emma laid her tatting shuttle and string on the TV tray. “I’m half blind. Not deaf. You don’t have to yell. Now what the hell you want to know about?”

  Arn looked to Ana Maria for help. She rested her hand on the old woman’s arm. “We just want to know what happened the night he was killed.”

  Emma turned in her seat to face Ana Maria. “What do you need to know?”

  “When the police talked with you,” Ana Maria said, “you reported that Georgia Spangler got to Butch’s house—”

  “At 12:45.”

  “You’re quite sure about that?”

  Emma glared at Arn. “I’m old. Not dumb. Of course I’m sure. Oh, I didn’t see her face, but that sister of Butch’s was the only one who ever came around. She’d pick up that little guy of his … ” Emma trailed off and grabbed her shuttle and string again. “I was sitting there”—pointing like she could see it in her mind’s eye—“by the window facing their place. I thought she was coming to pick up the boy again.”

  “Were you usually up at that time?” Ana Maria asked. “Because it was pretty late.”

  “I was always up late. Damned trains a block away always blowing their fool horns. Sure, I was always up, keeping an eye on that Spangler house in case I needed to call the law.” She looked at a corner of the ceiling with a faraway look. “Sitting right by my bay window. Wish I was there. Sitting and making doilies.”

  “Could anyone have come to the house before the sister got there?”