Hunting the Five Point Killer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “Gaylord. What a dud he was. And you know what a kick in the ass is: that junior loan officer did make bank president when Daddy retired.”

  “Gaylord must have had some aptitude for police work if he made detective?”

  Adelle laughed. “When Daddy put a call to the police commissioner, Gaylord made detective. And Steve promoted Gaylord over experienced officers.” She spilled booze down the side of her mouth and Arn handed her a box of tissue. “Gaylord’s background was robbing old ladies when he was a kid. Busting shop windows and stealing booze. He grew up north of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In the East Village.”

  Arn’s college roommate had been raised in that area, in the Bowery. In that neighborhood infamously known as the Five Points. “Wyoming’s a long ways from New York,” he said.

  “It is. But when the judge tells you to leave the state or he’ll throw the book at you next time, you move. ’Cause the next time Gaylord would have been in court as an adult.” Adelle ignored the tissue and pulled her sweatshirt up to wipe her mouth, exposing her belly. Arn looked at the ceiling. He was having too many nightmares lately as it was.

  “Anyway, it scarred Gaylord, and he left New York. Came out west. Straightened out. Got his Criminal Justice degree, and that same year Steve hired him. Gaylord would have been Lieutenant of Investigations,” Adelle spit out, “if he hadn’t hung himself.” She stood and staggered back to the wet bar. “If I’d caught him loping his mule like that, I would have killed him. Where does anyone even get the notion to do that?”

  “Internet would be a good start.”

  “Dumb as Gaylord was?” Adelle chucked. “Use the Internet? Besides, he was just too lazy to research such things.”

  Arn had investigated several hangings in his career that were reported suicides but proved accidental. An underground community existed where men—usually white, usually blue-collar—exchanged tips: how to intensify their orgasms. Or how to escape detection by padding the rope around their neck with a towel. Or how to construct the perfect escape knot so that—at the moment of masturbatory orgasm—they could disengage the rope and save themselves. Apparently, Gaylord’s had failed. Apparently, he should have done his research better.

  Arn flipped to a blank page, expecting the worst from Adelle. “Tell me, did you know about Gaylord’s dirty little habit, or you just didn’t care because you had other things … going on?”

  “I told you, I didn’t know.” She used the back of the couch to stumble across the room. “Just what the hell are you implying?”

  “Just that you had your own little thing going on the side.”

  “How dare you … ”

  “Do you deny having an affair with Jefferson while you both were married?”

  Adelle leaned over the couch and Arn thought she would tip over. “Maybe I was. His wife didn’t care, running off to wherever the hell she went with that science teacher from East High. But to imply we did something illegal … ”

  Arn held up his hand, and she stopped long enough to take another swallow. “A week after Gaylord’s death, you moved in with Jefferson.”

  “So we couldn’t get married,” she blurted out. “Until later. We thought it would look … ”

  “Suspicious?” Arn finished for her.

  Adelle dropped into a chair across from him. “Look. Jefferson’s wife left him before he could serve her with divorce papers. Ran off with that teacher, Noggen or something.”

  “Noggle?”

  “That’s him. Jefferson couldn’t serve her because he couldn’t find her. He had her declared dead years later and we married. But what’s that got to do with Butch’s murder?”

  “It all is tied in.”

  “How?”

  Arn poised with his pen above his paper. He’d written a full page of notes, talking with Adelle, and hadn’t recalled doing so. “I don’t know yet.” He flipped to a clean page. “So you just boarded the house up when you moved out?”

  When Adelle leaned over to set her glass on the coffee table, she farted. And chuckled. “After Gaylord hung himself in there, I checked with a Realtor. She said no one would buy a house where a man hung himself. ‘Wait a while,’ she told me. ‘People will forget in a couple years and we can put it up on the market,’ she said.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  Adelle shook her head. “Jefferson does quite well with his practice, so we didn’t need the money. I forgot about it.” Her face turned crimson. “Until that piss ant Pieter Spangler bought it from the county rolls.” She shook her head. “I suppose it’s really my fault. I should have kept the taxes up.”

  “You ever go back to the house after you found Gaylord … hanging?”

  She shrugged. “No. I turned everything over to an auction house to sell all our stuff. Not that we had much. Not like this.” She waved her arm around the spacious room. “The weekend Gaylord jerked his root in the noose, Jefferson and I were to meet in a Denver motel—”

  “I thought you went shopping?” Arn asked.

  Adelle waved the air. “Did I? Don’t matter now, does it? Anyway, I made our meeting. Jeff didn’t. He called and said he had a patient emergency come up and couldn’t make it down there. When I got home, there was Gaylord. Swinging like a naked Tarzan.”

  Arn jotted in his notebook, knowing that if he remained quiet he’d learn more.

  “Jefferson and I have had our speed bumps,” Adelle went on. “His marathons he insists on running take time away from us.”

  Arn thought of the sports Pieter went out for, not because he especially liked them but because it got him away from Butch. Arn could see Jeff doing the same, to escape the creature sweating bourbon in front of him.

  Adelle sat quietly on the couch, rubbing her glass like she wished the booze genie would come floating out and take her away. When he was sure Adelle had gotten off her sagging chest what she wanted, Arn asked the questions he really came here to ask.

  “Do you recall what Gaylord said about those Five Point cases?”

  Adelle shuddered, and Arn wasn’t sure if it was from the overdose of bourbon or from the fear of remembering. “That’s all Gaylord talked about when he came home from work. How he and Butch were close to solving it.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Gaylord became paranoid. He was outright terrified, I tell you. Afraid to death the killer would find him and Butch.”

  “Did he take any extra precautions?”

  Adelle shrugged. “He bought a new vest, and even wore it at home most of the time. He started carrying a backup gun just like Butch’s little automatic. Too small to do any harm, but it made him feel secure.” She downed the last of her drink. “Except he wasn’t secure from himself.”

  Arn stuffed his notes in his bag. “I’ll let myself out,” he said, not wanting to risk having to help Adelle up when she toppled over. When he was nearly out of the room, he stopped and turned. “Tell me, when Jefferson goes out running, does he always look like he’s … going to work?”

  “You mean, does he always fix his hair and gargle a quart of Scope?” Adelle asked.

  “That and his cologne.”

  Adelle’s eyes teared and she looked into the bottom of her empty glass. “That damned Old Spice. He just started wearing it lately. Almost like some … friend said she likes it.”

  Thirty-Nine

  Dr. Willem Rough entered the examination room, and Arn was reluctant to shake hands with the proctologist. Especially one named Rough. But he needed information, and this was the only way to corral the doctor’s time. Rough pointed to the examination table with a finger as big as a Polish sausage. When Arn seated himself on the table, the doctor scanned his information in a laptop on a counter. “My receptionist said you needed to talk about some cases I had when I was with the Coroner’s Office.”

  “I do.” Arn eyed Dr. Rough snapping on examination gloves and taki
ng the cap off a tube of KY Jelly. “I had the finger wave when I retired two years ago,” he said.

  The doctor smiled. “Then it’s high time you had another. Drop your knickers.”

  “But all I need is to talk.”

  “You’ll drop them if you want information.” Rough put the tiniest drop of KY on the end of his gloved finger. “Time is money for me. Besides covering your ass, it covers mine. Now drop your socks or we don’t talk.”

  Arn turned around and dropped his pants along with his whitey tighties. He gritted his teeth as he thought of the doctor’s bulging knuckles.

  “Say ‘ah.’” Rough laughed, and Arn grimaced when he realized the doctor hadn’t taken his wedding ring off. He withdrew his glove with a snap and deposited it into a specimen container before motioning for Arn to sit.

  “Do I get a cigarette with that?”

  “No,” Rough said. “Even if you felt pretty good.” He laughed again. “But don’t take that personal. All I found was your prostate’s as big as a bagel.”

  “I keep it in check with medication.”

  “Take this slip to the checkout desk.” Rough handed Arn a piece of paper and typed on his computer. “Now what cases do you want to talk about?” he said without looking up.

  “The Five Point killings.”

  Rough stopped typing. He swiveled his stool toward the wall, his breath quickening. When he turned back around and faced Arn, he’d composed himself. “Now I recognize you. You’re that retired cop looking for Butch Spangler’s killer.”

  “The TV station hired me as a consultant.”

  “Then forget the Five Point cases,” Rough said. He snatched his paperwork and headed for the door.

  “You haven’t given me a chance to ask.”

  “You got questions, check with the police.” As Rough opened the door, Arn grabbed his arm. Rough jerked away. “What right do you have—”

  Arn nodded to the specimen jar. “Having some guy shove his finger up my keister gives me the right.”

  Rough paused.

  “We had an agreement.”

  The doctor sighed and shut the door. “I don’t talk about those cases.” He walked back to the counter and set the jar down while using the edge of the counter to ease himself onto a stool. “Junior detectives used to come around for years and grill me like I was withholding information. I stopped talking with them years ago when I got out of the Coroner’s Office.”

  “If you didn’t want justice, why’d you get into forensics in the first place?”

  “I was fresh out of med school and I didn’t know what I wanted. I watched the old TV show Quincy, M.E., and documentaries with Michael Baden. Henry Lee. They fascinated the hell out of me. I inhaled that stuff.” He took out a pocket knife. He opened a blade and started cleaning under his nails. “So, when the ME’s office offered me a position, I thought I’d died and went to heaven. I thought I’d be catching bad guys or finding hidden diseases that killed a loved one. Offering closure to survivors.”

  Rough turned away, and Arn was quick to point out, “I’m sure you helped a lot of families find solace.”

  “A couple.” Rough’s eyes lit up. “One was a twenty-seven-year-old runner who died at the finish line of the Casper marathon. I found she had near arterial blockage. Hereditary.”

  Arn kept silent, feeling more like a priest than an investigator needing answers.

  “And a drowning at Glendo Reservoir they brought to me that same summer.” He shook his head. “The family thought a fishing buddy had killed their son before pushing him out of the boat. But he’d experienced a cadaveric spasm: his hands were still clutching the reeds from the bottom of the lake when they snagged him and brought him up. When I told the family I thought his death wasn’t a homicide, you should have heard the relief in their voices.”

  “An involuntary clenching of the muscles,” Arn said. “I had a case in Denver years ago that had me scratching my head. Two brothers had been drinking at home when one got the call of the wild and went after the other one with a knife. Bad move. That brother shot the one with a knife. The dead brother still clutched the knife when they brought him into the autopsy room.”

  “And the ME had to break the victim’s fingers to get the knife loose?”

  Arn nodded.

  Rough snapped his fingers and smiled. “It was things like that that made the job so fascinating. Figuring things out.” He looked at the floor, his smile gone. “Then came the Five Point cases, and I thought I’d fallen into hell. That’s when I knew I couldn’t live with a job where you brought nightmares home at the end of the day.” He stood and straightened a Pfizer calendar leaning to starboard on the wall. “Those cases caused me to get out of forensics and into something that didn’t stink as bad.”

  “Anyone can become affected seeing homicides,” Arn said.

  Rough stuck his hands in his lab coat. “The Five Point cases weren’t my first rodeo, Mr. Anderson. I’d been to shootings and knifings. One call where a son crushed his dad’s windpipe with a rake handle. Another guy who killed his sister and propped her in a chair and went about his life like she still made breakfast for him every morning. But those were cases of spontaneity. Those I could understand. But the Five Point cases were so brutal. So … well planned.”

  “How so, Doctor?”

  Rough paced the small examination room. “Butch Spangler and I went over those cases until I was sick of looking at him. The victims were either selected at random, or the killer met with each to have sex with them.”

  “Man or woman?”

  Rough shrugged. “We had no read. Could have been either. But that was the only motive we could come up with.”

  “I’ve read Butch’s reports. He almost seemed to admire the killer.”

  “Maybe because he—or she—was so thorough,” Rough said. “We concluded with such a lack of physical evidence, the killer must have planned them to the tiniest detail. The total lack of evidence baffled us. Except … ” Rough looked away.

  “Anything you might remember could help.”

  “Okay then.” The doctor faced Arn. “Think about this: we had partial shoe prints in blood on both crime scenes. We were convinced the killer put them there on purpose, because we found no other prints at the scene or leading away.” He started for the door. “Now I got nothing else to say. I just want to forget.”

  Arn moved to block the door. He’d bared his butt and allowed himself to be violated, but he wasn’t finished with the doctor yet. “Think: Is there anything at all you might remember … ”

  Rough nodded to Arn’s notebook. “I’ll bet you have every one of my reports in there. That should tell you everything I knew at the time.”

  “You assisted with Butch Spangler’s homicide.”

  Rough rubbed his forehead. “That was perhaps the hardest of all. Other officers told me he was an egotist, but I liked him.”

  “There was a scribbled note in Bobbie Madden’s report that you felt Butch knew his attacker.”

  “It was just an opinion,” Rough said. “Would never have made it to court.”

  Arn waited for an explanation.

  “I thought he knew his killer. Butch was killed with contact shots to the chest. I could imagine him spotting the gun the killer drew on him and grabbing it. Trying to wrestle it away, when the gun discharged. We did a GSR on his hands, of course, and he had gunshot residue on one. But Madden admitted he botched it bagging Butch’s hands, so I couldn’t even note it.”

  “And Pieter and Georgia’s hands had a GSR test run also?”

  Rough nodded. “The detectives tested them before I got there. Now if there’s nothing else, Mr. Anderson, I got other poop chutes to look at today.”

  The doctor was out the door when Arn hit him with a final question. “You drew Butch’s vitreous fluids in his eyes for a second test.
Why?”

  Rough stopped and dropped his head, taking a deep breath before answering. “Bobbie Madden asked me to,” he answered without turning around. “He felt Butch had taken an undue amount of Xanax, by the near-empty prescription bottle he found in the bathroom. Madden thought Butch may have been sedated at the time he was shot.”

  “Did the second test pick up anything missed on the first?” Arn asked.

  Rough slapped the door with his hand. “Nothing. But then, Xanax has a short half-life. If Butch took enough to knock himself out—or if someone gave Butch the medication without his knowledge—it wouldn’t have shown up on the second test anyway.”

  Rough started down the hallway, then stopped. “My office will call you if anything comes back on your specimen.” He forced a smile. “And maybe we’ll talk again over an ice cold colonoscopy.”

  Forty

  Danny brought their plates of meat loaf and potatoes and set them on the door-turned-table in front of the white wall. When Danny first suggested they eat their meals in front of photos of murder victims—an early working supper, he called it—Arn thought he was sick. Now it only seemed natural that they eat with pictures of graphic crimes as a backdrop. Like grotesque wallpaper someone should market, as Danny mentioned.

  The old man opened a napkin and laid it over new jeans Arn had bought him. “Where did these come from? Because if you’re giving me a handout—”

  “I’m not.”

  “Good.” Danny said. “’Cause Danny don’t take charity. But where’d you get them?”

  “The jean fairy,” Arn told him.

  Danny grinned and drizzled raspberry vinaigrette over the bowl of salad. He handed Arn the serving forks.

  “I thought all you Indians were carnivores?”

  “Even we carnivores need roughage,” Danny said. “Or we’ll end up like you did today at the proctologist’s office.”