Fixed in Blood
Page 31
Eddie’s legal team stuck to the strategy that the shooting was a tragic mistake. Eddie told the authorities he was aware of the missing funds, but laid responsibility on Dennis. He testified Dennis was tired of fatherhood and his life with Ann Louise. He planned to amass as much cash as he could and simply walk away. Investigators found no evidence of a phone call between Dennis and Eddie that Sunday, supporting Eddie’s claim he thought someone had broken into the office. His defense team laid bare Edward Dirken’s financial records. At the time of his arrest he had less than two thousand dollars in savings and his checking account was nearly overdrawn.
Ten days into the trial the judge declared a mistrial. Eddie, ever the charmer, had been making eye contact with Juror Number Three, a twenty-nine-year-old violinist with the Minneapolis Symphony. The judge noticed it and warned Eddie and his defense team to knock it off. A few days later the bailiff saw the juror drop a tightly folded note onto the defense table as she walked by. He confiscated it and handed it to the judge. The note, in the juror’s handwriting, complimented Eddie on his eyes. She wrote how compassionate he seemed and stated she was certain he could never do what he was accused of. She was sure he’d be found innocent. The juror provided both her phone number and email address and asked if he liked classical music.
The prosecution demanded Eddie’s bail be revoked and that he be taken into custody. The defense was equally forceful arguing to the judge it wasn’t their client who’d dropped the note. They saw no need to penalize a man who’d shown up dutifully every day.
The judge, though furious with the situation, agreed with the defense. Edward Dirken thanked the judge and went home. He met with his attorneys the next morning to discuss potential changes in strategy given the prosecution’s assurance a new trial would begin as soon as possible.
“He was supposed to show up for another meeting with his lawyers a week later,” Ann Louise explained. “When he didn’t come and they couldn’t contact him, they called the judge. The police found his car in his driveway. No clothes were missing. His savings account was untouched. But his computer showed searches of foreign countries. They all had one thing in common: no extradition to the United States. The police checked air flights but found nothing. What they did find was the remains of a small notebook in Eddie’s fireplace. It was pretty burned but they had experts who could reconstruct the long lists of numbers on them.”
The numbers represented accounts in multiple banks. Each under different names and each holding just less than one hundred thousand dollars accumulated from deposits of various amounts. Those deposits began when Ann Louise left the company and were added to on a weekly basis. The last deposits were made nine days before Dennis was killed.
And now the accounts were closed. Emptied with cashier’s checks in random amounts over a six-week period.
Eddie Dirken had been as careful in closing them as he had been opening them.
Ann Louise waited nearly two years before reaching out to The Fixer. She said she prayed each day the police would find Eddie. But as the months dragged on and the trail got colder, Ann Louise could sense the hopelessness in the detectives’ voices. More months passed without a lead and she heard a growing irritation when she called.
“I guess I can understand it,” she said. “Every time I call them their noses get rubbed in a flaming shit pile of failure. But I have to try. My husband’s dead and Eddie’s dancing on all of Dennis’s hard work.”
The Fixer had high fees. Ann Louise was back at work as an office manager with a small insurance company. Lydia told Ann Louise The Fixer wouldn’t be taking the case. She wished her luck and never contacted her again.
But Lydia continued to monitor all correspondence related to Dennis’s murder within the Minneapolis Police Department. From her communication console she secretly accessed emails, status reports, and monthly updates. Anything submitted electronically was hers to review. She learned Edward Dirken’s name was placed on No-Fly lists across the country and in every nation listed in Eddie’s computer search history. Banks around the globe were asked to notify local authorities should someone matching Eddie’s description try to open an account.
Lydia focused closer to home. Eddie would have sacrificed his passport when he was granted bail. She was betting Eddie, with his good-time reputation and his lifelong aversion to hard work, wouldn’t assert the effort necessary to build a new identity.
Eddie was somewhere in the United States.
As a clinical psychologist, Lydia was a trained researcher. The same investigative abilities that led to an award-winning dissertation, dozens of scientific papers, and expert clinical diagnoses, proved valuable as she set about learning all she could about Edward David Dirken. Within a week she knew his childhood history, his tastes in music, his hobbies, and what he liked to eat. She learned about his health, the kind of movies he rented, and what kind of wine he drank. She gained access to his school and medical history. His credit cards provided insight into everything he consumed.
Lydia also monitored Juror Number Three, Janice Gleason. She followed the woman’s electronic and phone communications. For three years there was nothing to indicate Eddie had been in contact with the violinist. But Lydia was patient. Eddie was known as a life-of-the-party kind of guy. He wasn’t built for the isolation of an underground existence. When Janice received an email from a Bill Smith, complimenting her on her jury service, Lydia knew it was Edward Dirken reaching out for human contact. She tracked the source to an address in Westbrook, Maine, a small rented house overlooking the Presumpscot River.
Lydia stared at the face on the screen. Dennis Chait was dead. Ann Louise and her son were living a hand-to-mouth existence while the man who stole everything breathed pine-scented air and lived a life bankrolled by their misery. A calm, steadying warmth settled across her shoulders.
“I’m coming for you, Eddie.” She laid her hand across the face of the man on her computer monitor. “I’m going to fix this.”
Every great mystery needs an Alibi
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