Hunting the Five Point Killer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “I don’t know,” Arn said. “It was pretty memorable. I might go back again tomorrow.”

  “No shit!”

  “Shit,” Arn said.

  Danny sipped his tea and dabbled at his salad. “You sure you don’t want to wait outside the TV station for Ana Maria tonight?”

  “I told Oblanski if he didn’t assign an experienced officer to Ana Maria, I was going to drop a dime to the mayor.”

  “And he reassigned him?”

  Arn grabbed the mustard and began smothering his meat loaf. “The sleeper was a new officer who’d not yet been to the academy, he said. ‘I don’t have the manpower to dedicate an experienced officer,’ he claimed.”

  “So?” Danny asked. “Is that officer still protecting Ana Maria?”

  “He was replaced.” Arn savored the buffalo meat loaf. “He’s now working elsewhere. You’ll probably see him running a street sweeper. Maybe a blade when it snows again. Something more suited to his demeanor. She’s got decent protection now.”

  “Then I feel better,” Danny said. “Not like I felt this afternoon when I was pulling wire in here.”

  Arn set his fork down. “What are you talking about?”

  Danny pointed with a piece of buffalo still on his fork to a photo of Steve DeBoer. “What do you see in that photo?”

  “Same as I saw yesterday,” Arn answered. “Steve passed out in his recliner. Beer cans littering the floor a few feet in front of him. Overflowing ash tray partially consumed by the fire. What do you see?”

  “I see something that isn’t quite right.” Danny dabbed at the corners of his mouth. “Do you believe Steve passed out and his cigarette started the fire?”

  Arn had read and reread the incident reports, and the fire marshal’s conclusions that were congruent with the autopsy findings. “Steve didn’t have soot in his throat. If he had, that would indicate he was breathing at the time of the fire.” He stood and walked around the makeshift table. He saw something, too. “But often as not, there’s no soot. Especially after the firemen hose the room—and the victim—with pressured water.”

  “I didn’t mean that.” Danny dipped meat loaf in a spot of catsup on his plate. He ate it and held his fork like a weapon as he walked to the white wall. “That.” He tapped his fork on one of the photos.

  “That’s a recliner.”

  “And what do you buy a recliner for?”

  “What is this,” Arn asked, “twenty questions? You buy it to recline. What else?”

  “Then why did Steve move his recliner up tight against the wall?” Danny said. “He wouldn’t have been able to recline while he was watching TV.”

  Arn paused, his fork near his mouth. That was the thing he was missing. Danny was right: Steve wouldn’t have been able to recline his Lazy Boy. The wall would have stopped him.

  He shuffled through the reports and pulled up the sketch the fire marshal’s investigator had made of the scene. He turned back to the photos and dug his reading glasses out of his pocket, angling himself so the light didn’t reflect off the glossy picture. “I’ll be damned.”

  “What?”

  “There.” Arn used his Sharpie to mark off twin indents in the carpeting where the recliner had rested. Perhaps for years. Until the day of the fire.

  “If I was a good sidekick, I’d suggest someone moved that recliner directly against those curtains at the wall.”

  “And a good sidekick might mention that those empty beer cans are right about in front of where the recliner always sat,” Arn said. “Not back against the wall. And against the flammable curtains.”

  “Thank God the firemen responded as quickly as they did,” Danny said, buttering his potatoes. “Or the whole room would have been consumed.”

  Arn checked his watch. Dr. Rough would just be giving the last finger wave of the day about now. On the fifth ring, his receptionist answered. “I’m sorry,” the woman said—hired, as were most good receptionists, for their skills at running interference for their bosses. “Dr. Rough doesn’t take personal calls.”

  “Would he,” Arn said, sounding pained, “if I told you I was experiencing complications from my exam today, and I’ve retained counsel?”

  “Just a moment,” she sputtered, and Arn was put on hold. Listening to Barry Manilow was nearly as bad as the digit exam earlier, and Barry had belted out half of “If Tomorrow Never Comes” before Rough came on the line.

  “Mr. Anderson, tell me what problems you’re experiencing. If it’s an emergency, I can meet you at the ER—”

  “No emergency. No complications.”

  “But Abigail said you started having problems after the exam—”

  “I lied. I’m not having problems. Though it’s a little uncomfortable where your ring caught.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I needed to ask you something, and I didn’t want to wait until your finger was knuckle-deep in my behind to ask it.”

  “Is this about the Five Point cases?” Rough asked.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Thank God.”

  “It’s about Steve DeBoer. You performed the autopsy on him.”

  “I remember him well,” Rough said. “He died a month or two before Butch Spangler. Fell asleep in his recliner, as I recall. Dropped his cigarette and passed out. Not uncommon.”

  Arn held the autopsy report to the light. He’d underlined a portion of Dr. Rough’s report. “You specifically noted you found charred larvae in Steve’s body.”

  “I remember that, too. Is there a point to all this, because it is Monday and tee-time is—”

  “If that were true,” Arn interrupted, “and I’m sure you were diligent in your conclusions—that would put the time of death twenty-four to thirty-six hours before the fire.”

  The line went silent for long moments before Rough came on again. “Flies have a natural life cycle, like everything else. The fact that they went through their first life-death cycle before the fire means the victim didn’t die that day. I suggested that to Detectives Madden and Oblanski—that the larvae could not have gotten in there any other way. But they did.”

  “And with no soot in his windpipe?“

  “Inconclusive.”

  “By itself,” Arn said, feeling his anger rise. “And with all that, you ruled his death accidental.”

  Rough’s voice rose an octave and his words came quick. Sharp. He wasn’t used to being second-guessed. “My decision to rule Steve DeBoer’s death an accident was based on the totality of the circumstances. The fire marshal found no accelerant at the scene to indicate the fire was set intentionally. Steve simply passed out with a cigarette in his hand, which started the recliner on fire. It spread quickly to the curtains. He most likely died by smoke inhalation. I’m sorry that’s not what you wanted to hear. Not with that television special linking all three officers’ deaths.”

  Arn had worked with thorough pathologists and with sloppy ones, who took for gospel whatever investigators wanted on victims’ death certificates. Perhaps, he thought, it was better that Rough had left the field of forensics. “I just had to satisfy my curiosity, doctor.”

  “Then if there’s nothing else, we can conclude this charade.”

  “There is one other little thing,” Arn interrupted him. “Remember we talked about how the medical examiner’s opinion doesn’t make it to the final report if there’s nothing to back it up scientifically.”

  “My opinion stands that Steve’s death was an accident.”

  “And I accept that. I know you conducted a fine autopsy,” Arn lied, imagining Rough’s head blowing up on the other end of the line as big as one of his examination gloves. “But was there anything at all you found inconsistent with your assessment? Anything that made you stop and wonder what the hell’s this?”

  There was a pause on the other e
nd of the line, and Arn thought Rough had hung up. “A feather,” he whispered.

  “Feather from the recliner stuffing?”

  “No,” Rough said. “The recliner had batting material. This was a single feather that I found in Steve’s airway that somehow was not washed away by the firemen’s hose.”

  “What was the feather from, then?” Arn asked.

  “What else?” Rough forced a laugh. “A bird.”

  Forty-One

  When I come out of the supply closet, two nurses pass me. One begins to say something, then stops. I look like every other doctor on the floor, coming and going, and she’s certain she knows me under the mask. But not certain enough to stop and chat. Certainly not certain enough to poke fun at me for missing my flu shot and having to wear this thing. Thank God for hospital policy.

  Those two are just the kind of people I didn’t want to run into. They almost stop me to talk, and I kick myself in the butt for doing this in the morning. I should have realized it wasn’t visiting hours. I should have realized the only people in the hallway would be hospital personnel. If I’d done this in the afternoon, or early evening, the halls would be flooded with visitors. And confusion. But I’m committed now, and I pray my good luck—which has served me well all the other times—will hold out.

  I head for the stairs. Johnny White’s room’s on the seventh floor, and I’d like to ride the elevator. But the security camera would pick me up the moment I stepped off. By taking the stairs, I have a dozen yards before I enter its field of view. And I know if I look behind me as I pass under it, the camera will only record my backside. And I’ll look like every other doctor roaming the halls.

  When I reach the seventh floor, I stop before entering the hall and check my watch. It’s shift change at Cheyenne Regional. Thank God for them being so consistent. I wait for a few moments to make sure the nurses have huddled-up in their meeting room. And to let myself catch my breath.

  I step out of the stairwell and into the hallway. The same police officer sits reading outside Johnny’s room. I count the steps before I enter the field of view of the hall camera. Five steps. Six. Seven. Eight and I look over my shoulder, concealing my face.

  I approach Johnny’s room and I see the officer reading a Sports Illustrated. Except he’s not doing much reading. He’s doing more drooling than anything else. Gotta love that swimsuit issue. He looks up only briefly as I enter and close the door.

  Tubes and IVs are stuck into Johnny. Monitors overhead produce a monotonous tone, green backlight bouncing off Johnny’s slick forehead. His breathing is shallow but even. It’s true what the doctors said: he’ll pull out of this. I’m glad after all I didn’t wait until later in the day. He might have been brought out of his coma. And I can’t have Johnny talking. Damn you all to hell, Johnny White, this is just what I didn’t want to start up again. But I got no choice. You know me.

  I move to the far side of his bed and take off one paper booty covering my shoes, grabbed from the supply room.

  I check my watch. They’ll be in shift briefing for another five minutes, and I approach Johnny’s bed.

  I read once that more people die in the hospital than anywhere else. All I can say to Johnny today is “no shit.”

  Forty-Two

  Ned Oblanski’s voice threw an edge that Arn picked up on immediately. “Meet me at the hospital. I need that outside set of eyes.”

  “What’s going on?” Arn asked, but Oblanski had already disconnected.

  When Arn arrived at Cheyenne Regional, a security guard stood by the entrance to escort him to a downstairs conference room. The guard shut the door, leaving Arn alone in the room not only with Oblanski, but also with a man he recognized as the hospital’s chief of security and a gray-haired woman with an ID around her neck proclaiming her the hospital spokeswoman.

  “Better sit for this one,” Oblanski said. He didn’t look like he’d slept for days as he introduced the chief of security, Captain Moore, and hospital public relations spokeswoman Hennessey.

  Arn set his hat on one end of the conference table and took a chair across from Oblanski, who nodded to the security chief standing in front of a big screen TV. Moore punched a remote. A security camera monitoring a long hallway had recorded people walking by a uniformed policeman Arn recognized as the one he’d spoken with outside Johnny’s room right after the shooting. The policeman kept his head buried in a Sports Illustrated as people walked by, and Moore tapped the screen. “This was a minute before.”

  “Before what?” Arn asked.

  “Before that.” Oblanski stood and approached the television. “Freeze it!” A doctor in a white lab coat, cap, and face mask walked past the policeman and entered a room. “He’s in there exactly fifty-three seconds.”

  Moore resumed the recording, and Arn watched the tape counter. Fifty-three seconds later, the doctor emerged from the room. The man glanced nonchalantly to one side, his face away from the camera, before disappearing down the hallway and off camera. “Just what are we looking at?” Arn asked.

  Hennessey looked at Arn like he was little more than an annoyance in the room. She smoothed her gray skirt and scowled at Oblanski. “We were informed that no extra security precautions were needed.” She nodded to the chief of security. “Or we would have provided it.” She leaned on the table and stared at Oblanski. “The hospital holds no culpability in Mr. White’s death.”

  “Johnny’s dead?” Arn said, sounding like so many people he’d given final notification to through the years: full of disbelief. Full of denial. “I just checked with the nurses’ station a couple hours ago. Johnny was doing well. What the hell happened?”

  “It was nothing hospital personnel did,” the woman said.

  “I think you’d better leave us now,” Oblanski told her. “We really need to talk alone.”

  “Not if it involves the hospital.”

  “Please,” Oblanski said, but it came out as a stern order rather than a simple request.

  Hennessey huffed once before slamming the door on her way out.

  “What happened?” Arn repeated.

  “Like I said, this guy was in Johnny’s room for fifty-three seconds. Twenty seconds after that, alerts went to the nurses’ station that Johnny had coded.”

  “Our trauma unit rushed in,” Moore said. “But Johnny was gone.”

  “When the nurses … ” Oblanski closed his eyes and pinched his nose, breathing deeply to calm himself. “When the nurses called for the trauma team, Officer Blake went in there with them.”

  “The kid outside Johnny’s room?”

  Oblanski nodded. “He tried his best to preserve what evidence there was, in case Johnny’s death wasn’t natural. But the team tramped all over. If there was any evidence, it got wiped away quickly.”

  “The team had to get in there as quickly—”

  “I know,” Oblanski said to Moore. “I know. It’s just that we don’t have squat on the killer.”

  “Did Blake hear anything while the guy was in there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You sure it was murder?” Arn asked.

  “Blake’s down at the PD now making a statement,” Oblanski said. “But in a nutshell, when he followed the trauma team in, the first thing he noticed was Johnny’s pillow on the floor. It had bloody smears on the pillowcase.” Oblanski buried his face in his hands. “The guy put the pillow over Johnny’s face hard enough that it broke his nose. He bled all over the pillow.”

  “So Johnny was smothered?”

  “Most likely,” Oblanski answered. “We’ll know at autopsy.” He kicked the table leg. “If I hadn’t gone on television claiming we were close to solving Butch’s murder—and Johnny’s shooting—” He glared at Arn. He said no more, but there was an unspoken accusation between them: if Arn hadn’t suggested Oblanski go on air with Ana Maria that second time with such false
claims, Johnny may have been on his way to recovery. Rather than parked on a steel table awaiting autopsy.

  “Tell me someone recognized this guy,” Arn said.

  Oblanski nodded to Moore, who aimed the remote at the TV and rewound the recording. “I had all my officers view the tape. Along with a dozen of the senior hospital staff. The mask and cap hid his features.”

  “So we’re looking for a doctor?”

  “Probably not,” Moore answered. “He was dressed like a physician, but everyone agreed he wasn’t any doctor working here.”

  Arn slumped in his chair, feeling as if life had just drop kicked him through goal posts he wasn’t prepared for. “How the hell does someone impersonate a doctor and no one notice?”

  “The mask,” Moore answered. “Hospital personnel who fail to get a flu shot by the deadline date have got to wear a mask by policy. People saw him walking masked-up and just figured he missed his flu shot.” Moore started the recording once again. “This guy knew where he was going even though he didn’t work here. As you can see”—he pointed to the hallway—“he was in and out with no one paying him any mind.”

  Oblanski stood and paced in front of the television. “He went into Johnny’s room at shift change when nurses on the floor are normally in their shift briefing. This guy knew his way around.”

  “Or studied hospital policy and procedure,” Arn pointed out. “Can Officer Blake tell us anything about the guy?”

  “He said he was taller than average.”

  “That’s it? What the hell was he doing, sleeping?”

  “Screw you,” Oblanski said. “Not every officer sleeps on duty. Blake was ordered to keep everyone out of Johnny’s room except hospital personnel. And”—he jerked his thumb at the television screen—“the guy was damned sure dressed like hospital staff.”

  Arn studied the screen again. The killer walked by Officer Blake and into Johnny’s room as calmly as he would walk into Starbucks for his morning latte.

  “We locked the hospital down as soon as this happened,” Moore said. “And I pulled all the security tapes from two hours before that.”