Hunting the Five Point Killer

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “What did you say?”

  “I said ‘bring it on, you Sioux Indian son-of-a-bitch.’ I came this close”—Oblanski held up his thumb and finger—“to dropping him like a bad habit, but he stomped out of the interview before I could. He’s been through the system enough to know that if I had enough to charge him, his ass would be sitting in the pokey.”

  “As long as he actually feels like we’ll soon have enough proof.”

  “Like we discussed, I indicated you have some loose ends you need to tie up before you present the prosecutor with all your evidence. And as soon as you tie it all in, you’ll meet with me.”

  Arn’s hand brushed the gun in his pocket. “Then I’d better start looking over my shoulder even more.”

  “If you’d let me assign an officer to you—”

  “You don’t have the manpower,” Arn interrupted. “Besides, if he was sharp enough to tail me when I went to the truck stop to talk with Laun McGuire without me spotting him, he’ll spot an officer tailing me.”

  Oblanski nodded. “I see your point.”

  “But since you’re so benevolent with security … ” Arn explained the latest threatening phone call that came into the TV station and the man getting into Ana Maria’s desk. He reached into his man bag and handed Oblanski the paper bag containing the letter. “Not much chance there’s any prints on it, but you could fast-track a DNA workup just to verity it’s Laun McGuire’s blood.”

  “I’ll run it down to the lab myself,” Oblanski said. He grabbed a chain of evidence form and Arn signed it.

  “Ana Maria insists she doesn’t want more security,” Arn said, meeting Oblanski’s eyes. “But if you’d assign your best officer to watch over her on the sly—”

  “Understood. Someone who is an experienced street cop,” Oblanski said.“I got just the man.” He put on examination gloves and slid the paper in the evidence bag. “Kingston. From an old ranching family around the original Fort DA Russell area. He’s been on Frank the moment he stormed out of my interview, but I have a number of officers capable of following Frank without him catching on. It’ll free Kingston up to watch Ana Maria.”

  “Thanks.”

  Arn stood to leave when the phone rang. He heard Gorilla Legs yell into the phone from the next room, and Oblanski held the receiver away from his ear before hanging up. “Damn, you’re bad luck, Anderson. Half the time you’re in my office, I get a call that someone else died.”

  “Who is it this time?”

  “Our good friend Dr. Jefferson Dawes. Let’s take a ride.”

  Oblanski and Arn pulled to the curb across from the Dawes’ house and parked behind the coroner’s van. Two attendants dragged a gurney from the back, a heavy black bag strapped to the cot waiting for Jefferson to fill it. They hummed the theme song from The Sound of Music, and any other time Arn would have stopped to listen; they were in such good harmony. At least they enjoyed their jobs, he thought. A real rarity these days.

  Arn shielded his eyes from the revolving red and blue lights as he watched Sgt. Long skid down the driveway, arms flailing on the icy concrete as he fought to maintain his balance. Arn held out his arm and stopped Long before he sailed by and crashed.

  “Thanks,” the cop said, pulling the collar of his police jacket over his neck and stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Damned near fell.”

  “What we got, Dan?” Oblanski looked up the circular drive at a squad car parked close to the house with the driver’s door still open.

  “Queens is inside talking with the widow—”

  “Just the quick and dirty, Dan.”

  Long took a long breath. “Adelle Dawes came home and found her husband on the living room couch. DRT.”

  Oblanski looked at Arn, who shrugged.

  “DRT,” Long repeated. “Dead Right There. Don’t you guys ever go to movies? Anyway, he didn’t twitch a muscle after he’d shot himself.”

  “Anyone else in the house?”

  “The doctor was alone at the time.”

  “Wife been tested yet?”

  “First thing,” Long answered. “Negative for gun shot residue.”

  “Go on.”

  “Victim left a note. The gun’s sitting there in his lap where it fell.” Long cupped his hands and blew into them. “The crime scene techs are just finishing their still photos now.”

  “Then let’s go visit with the ever-pleasant and petite Adelle Dawes,” Oblanski said.

  Long eyed Arn trailing behind them, but kept quiet as he held the front door for them. “This is the ingress we used.” Long indicated a pathway to where Dr. Dawes sat slumped in his couch. The detective guarding the door glared at Arn, but jotted his name in a notebook along with Oblanski’s and Long’s before allowing them to continue into the crime scene.

  Jefferson Dawes sat with his chin resting on his chest. Blood trickled down from a tiny hole in his temple, nearly camouflaged when the blood met the maroon leather of the couch. A small Walther semi-auto lay between his legs where it had fallen after the shot, and a piece of parchment paper lay across his lap as if he’d put the note there for all to see. Oblanski donned examination gloves and handed Arn a pair. “Photos done?” Oblanski asked.

  A man wearing two cameras around his thin neck nodded. “He’s all yours, Chief.”

  Oblanski picked up the paper and separated the note, laying it on the carpeting away from any blood. Unlike doctors who wrote as if English was their second language—indecipherable enough that military intelligence would be envious—Jefferson’s note had been impeccable, each letter like a miniature work of art.

  “Guess we can scratch one suspect in Gaylord’s murder,” Oblanski said. “And in the Five Point cases.” He showed the suicide note to Arn. Jefferson had confessed to being the Five Point Killer. He outlined how he’d picked up Joey Bent at the Leapfrog, and how he’d met Delbert Urban at the Hobby Shop. Delbert was stronger than I thought, the note explained. I sedated him and thought he was out cold. But he came to, and he struggled. I had to jump on his back to strangle him. “Just like you thought,” Oblanski said.

  “I’m not celebrating.”

  I had to kill Gaylord, the note continued. The day I spoke with him about Adelle, he said he and Butch were close to catching the Five Point Killer, and he didn’t have time to waste worrying about Adelle’s infidelity. I killed Gaylord first, staging the hanging. I did the others later.

  “Here’s what he says about Johnny.” Oblanski carefully laid the note beside Arn. No one paid any attention to me at the hospital. I turned away from their primitive surveillance when I had to, slipping by the policeman unnoticed. The shoe print I left on the other side of Johnny’s bed was a nice touch, I thought.

  “I guess that was Jeff’s way of mooning the cops after all these years,” Oblanski said. “He must have thought we were close.” He stood and slid the suicide note into an evidence bag. “Guess we have to rethink Frank now.”

  “I’m not sure.” Arn squatted close to Jefferson’s note and put his reading glasses on. “Did you ever see a doctor with hand writing this neat?”

  Oblanski shook his head. “Doesn’t mean that he didn’t have nice penmanship.”

  “When I was in the hospital the other day, Dr. Dawes said his nurse called him. She couldn’t read what orders he had written. This”—Arn pointed to the note—“wasn’t written by Dawes.”

  “I’ve known some that wrote like hell in everyday correspondence, but wonderfully when corresponding with their mother.”

  “Was Dawes right or left handed?”

  Oblanski jotted in his notebook. “Adelle’s down at the PD now, waiting to be interviewed. I’ll ask her. Why?”

  Arn took out his pen and indicated several places on the suicide note. “The slant makes it look like a left-hander wrote this. But there’s just something not right. Like the lean of t
he letters is exaggerated.”

  “We’ll get our documents examiner on to do handwriting comparisons.”

  Arn knelt and looked closely at Dr. Dawes’ shoes.

  “Now what are you doing?” Oblanski asked.

  “Consulting,” Arn answered. “Have Dan Long check Jefferson’s closet for running shoes.”

  “What’s wrong with the ones he’s wearing?”

  “He’s wearing Nikes,” Arn said. “When I saw him at the hospital that day I stopped to see Johnny, then again at his house when he was stretching for a run, Jefferson was wearing Adidas. Runners don’t often change brands. They find one that works for them and it’s brand loyalty to the nth degree.”

  Oblanski motioned to Long. “Check Dr. Dawes’ room in a minute for the shoes.”

  Arn turned back to the victim and sniffed the air around Dawes.

  “You got some fetish about smelling dead bodies?” Oblanski asked.

  Arn bent over and sniffed again before straightening up. “I smelled Old Spice the other day when I went up to talk with Adelle. Dr. Dawes passed me as he was going out jogging. I just assumed he was wearing it.”

  “Congratulations,” Oblanski said, exaggerating a sniff of Arn’s neck. “I smell Polo. Is this what I get for my consulting budget?”

  “I smelled Old Spice on the guy who attacked me in the park, and again that night in Gaylord’s basement.”

  “Who the hell uses Old Spice?” Oblanski laughed. “Except old farts. Which Jeff isn’t.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure he was wearing it the other day.”

  He turned to Long. “When you go to the doctor’s room to look for those shoes, see if he had a bottle of Old Spice, too.”

  After Long left the room, Oblanski bent and looked closer at the small gun that had fallen between Jefferson’s legs. “At least we know what happened to that gun that killed Johnny.”

  “How do you know that?” Arn asked.

  Oblanski moved to look at it from a different angle. “After Gaylord’s death, Adelle auctioned most of his things off. But she kept some things. My guess is that that’s Gaylord’s backup gun.”

  “It wouldn’t be my guess,” Arn said, standing, his knees popping as loudly as he imagined that tiny gun had. “I doubt that it’s Gaylord’s.”

  “Then just whose gun is it?”

  “Am I on the consulting payroll?”

  “You mercenary SOB. Let’s hear your thoughts.”

  Arn looked up at Jefferson. Except for the tiny hole and trickle of blood down the side of his head, Dr. Dawes looked like he could jump up and start running a marathon. “Ask the state lab to run ballistics comparisons with the slugs recovered from Butch Spangler and the one floating around the doctor’s skull. You guys still retain that evidence, I’m assuming?”

  “Butch was listed as a homicide.” Oblanski lowered his voice. “Initially. So we still have all the evidence in our evidence vault. But Butch’s gun? I don’t understand where you’re coming from. “

  “Georgia described Butch’s backup gun. It sounded like a PPK or a PP, .32 or .380. Just like this one Jefferson … used.” Arn stood and walked around, eying him from different angles. “Georgia said Bobby Madden gave it to the officer in charge of destroying the guns in the department buyback program to be crushed.”

  Oblanski said, “I was junior man then, and I handled the crappy guns to be destroyed. But Bobby never gave me a Walther. I’d have remembered that. All we ever got was junk. Mostly guns that wouldn’t fire.”

  “You keep records of them?”

  “Sure,” Oblanski answered, staring at the pistol. “We checked all guns dropped off for that program through NCIC—just to make sure there were none stolen—before we relegated them to the mulch pile.” He shook his head. “But just how would Jefferson have gotten ahold of it?”

  “Adelle,” Arn said immediately. “My guess is that Bobby Madden knew it was a quality piece and had second thoughts about destroying it. Especially since Butch and Gaylord were partners.” He pointed to the fireplace mantle where the two badges sat. “When I talked with Adelle the other day, she pointed to Steve and Gaylord’s badges as if they meant something to her. She wanted Butch’s, but Georgia wouldn’t give it to her. I’m thinking Bobby gave Adelle Butch’s gun for sentimentality reasons. Especially since Georgia wanted nothing to do with it.”

  Oblanski flipped open his phone. “Just to be safe, I’ll have Gorilla Legs pull up the records for the guns that year.”

  Dan Long returned from Jefferson’s room empty-handed. “Nothing there except Adidas shoes. Eight pairs in boxes.” He handed Oblanski a bottle of Old Spice. “But I found this on his dresser.”

  “You print it before you picked it up?”

  Long dropped his head.

  “I figured as much,” Arn said. “What did Adelle Dawes tell you when you initially responded here?”

  Long grabbed his pocket notebook and flipped pages. “Mrs. Dawes left the house at 12:40 this afternoon to go to the hospital where she does volunteer work twice a week. She returned home”—Long turned another page—“at 4:30 and found the doctor—”

  “DRT?” Arn said.

  Long smiled and nodded to Jefferson. “Dead Right There.”

  “Did she say anything about him initially?”

  “Just ‘good riddance,’ and grinned. What do you suppose she meant by that?”

  Arn looked down at the dead man. “Good riddance to her philandering husband and hello to his sizeable estate, I would imagine.”

  He turned his attention back to Jefferson and squatted in front of him. Unlike with Butch, Jefferson’s hand was positioned properly for a suicidal shot. He’d slumped after firing the gun, and Arn closed his eyes. In his mind, he reconstructed the scene as it happened, as he often did. He suddenly opened his eyes. Something didn’t quite seem right. As he stood, he realized why. Tiny light-colored specks all but lost in the beige carpeting caught his eyes. Arn dropped onto his knees and donned his reading glasses. “Hand me your flashlight.”

  Long handed Arn his Surefire, and he held it close to the carpet at an acute angle. The specks were clustered to one side of Jefferson. “Give me an evidence marker.”

  Long handed Arn a yellow plastic tent with a number on it. “What did you find?”

  “Who did the GSR test on Adelle?”

  “Queen did,” Long answered. “Was there a problem with it?”

  Arn set the plastic tent on the carpet beside Jefferson’s feet. He stood and arched his back. “Tell your crime scene tech to collect those little specks. If I’m right, it’s talcum powder. Or at least the type of powder that’s inside examination gloves.”

  Oblanski came back into the room. “I heard what you said. Jeff was a doctor. Don’t you think it’d be natural for him to have talc on his hands from exam gloves falling onto the floor?”

  “It would be,” Arn said. “But given the doctor’s running shorts and sweaty top, I’d wager it’s been a while since he’s been at the hospital. But Adelle just returned from there. “

  “Grab Queen and get to the office,” Oblanski told Long. “Draft a search warrant for this place, and specifically mention any discarded examination gloves.”

  After Long left, Oblanski sat on a chair across from the dead man. The coroner’s team stood at the doorway, still humming like half a barber shop quartet. “We got a problem,” Oblanski said. “The officer tailing Frank lost him ten minutes ago over by the refinery.”

  “Things just get better and better,” Arn said. “How’d it happen?”

  “Frank went into his shop. The officer waited outside, watching with his spotting scope half a block away. When he didn’t see any lights come on in Frank’s shop after a while, he put the sneak on it. Frank’s got a back door that opens out into that junkyard of his. The officer speculates Frank ju
st walked away. Probably has a car stashed somewhere within walking distance.”

  “But if he didn’t kill Butch, why’d he take off?”

  Oblanski pushed his ball cap on the back of his head. “Maybe I pushed him too hard.”

  “Isn’t that what we wanted?” Arn said.

  “It was. But you watch your backside.” Oblanski motioned for the coroner’s assistants. “There’s one thing that Frank kept saying over again in that interview: ‘if I ever get the chance, I’ll slit Anderson’s throat for bringing heat down on me after all these years.’”

  Fifty-Eight

  Arn nearly jumped out of his skin when Ana Maria burst through the door. She ran through the house and found Arn sitting in the sewing room, studying the white wall. “You promised to give me some information on Jefferson Dawes’ suicide.”

  “Did you hit the deadbolt and arm the system?”

  Ana Maria stopped and eyed him suspiciously. “My guardian cop is right outside.” She took her purse from her shoulder. “You’re worried about something more than the usual.”

  Arn explained that Frank Dull Knife had made threats against him, and might now be desperate enough to carry them out. He told her that Oblanski had convinced Frank that he’d worked up enough evidence to charge him for Butch’s murder. “And there’s that bloody note you found in your desk.”

  “This policeman’s a little more on the ball than the others. Now do you have something for me? I go to air in three hours.”

  Arn sat up. A massive headache had begun even before she came into the room. “As soon as I have something concrete—”

  “Concrete? The meat wagon left Dawes’ house two hours ago. Oblanski won’t tell me squat. That leaves you.”

  “I’ve just got to get some things straight first.”

  “What about that agreement we had?”

  “What’s all the commotion down here?” Danny came into the room carrying a putty knife and a tub of spackling paste. “You guys make enough noise to give me a headache.”