Missing Mark

by Julie Kramer

  A man wearing dark glasses watched us from another vehicle. She explained he was her bodyguard, retained by her mother. “But he’s agreed to follow at a distance.”

  How exotic, I thought, a bodyguard. I wonder if he’s carrying a gun? I wonder if he would protect me if trouble came? More likely I’d be sacrificed to save the heiress. You get what you pay for in life.

  Madeline motioned for me to follow her down a wood-chipped trail into the woods. Easy for her, she wore walking shoes. I moved clumsily on the uneven ground because of my heels.

  “This is one of my family’s favorite places.” She waved her arms wide and spun around. “My grandfather donated the land.”

  We entered a clearing and she explained that this prairie was where she and Mark were supposed to get married, surrounded by rows of rustic benches for the guests. Normally weddings aren’t allowed, but in her case an exception was made. Her bodyguard stood about thirty yards away, on the line where woods and meadow met.

  “Mother and I planned and planned for the wedding. There was so much to get done in such a short time. I thought the only thing out of my control was the weather,” she said, “but it was a perfect Indian summer day.”

  She breathed deeply, reminiscing. “The way things turned out, the groom was out of my control and has been ever since.”

  “What happened in your meeting with the police?” On the phone she’d hinted at a break in the case.

  “They wanted to know if I’d given Mark any money. But I hadn’t.” She paused briefly. “They found $98,000 in cash in a safe-deposit box under his name.”

  My feet stopped, but my mind kept moving. Nearly a hundred grand. In cash. My first thought was drug money. And I was sure that’s where the cops were headed with this. After all, nobody ever mentioned Mark winning the lottery. And most folks would want to be earning interest on all that dough. Secret wads of cash suggest other secrets.

  “Seems like a lot of money for him to have stashed away,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.

  “I know,” Madeline answered.

  Without saying anything we walked down another trail toward a pond. I surveyed the view over the water. Birch trees with peeling white bark and oaks with fresh, pointy leaves. The colorful autumn forest must have made for a magnificent wedding backdrop. I could see why Madeline had wanted to get married here and I told her I admired the fact that she didn’t let memories of that day keep her away from such splendor.

  But I also asked, gal pal to gal pal, if maybe it was time for her to drop that Stand by My Man routine, now that her man stood accused of matricide.

  “I mean, Madeline, how good could the sex have been?”

  “That wasn’t the part of his body that did it for me, Riley.” She looked more anguished than angry. “It was his face. There’s no way for you to understand the intoxication. When I made love with other men, I closed my eyes. But when I was with Mark I could not take my eyes off him. I kept them open until they hurt.”

  She was right; I couldn’t understand an affliction like face blindness.

  “I’m sorry, Madeline.” We followed a loop around a wildflower garden and headed back. I watched a park worker shovel wood chips from a wheelbarrow on another path.

  “Maybe it’s just as well Mark and I didn’t get married.” She shrugged, more in resignation than conviction. “There seems to be a lot about him I didn’t know. What’s hard, Riley, is I can’t forget his face. When you close your eyes, you can conjure up any face you want. All I see is him. It’s like he haunts my soul.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a shadow, but it was Madeline’s bodyguard and not her AWOL fiancé or the ghost of his murdered mother.

  Mark’s father was easy to find but hard to reach, though he lived only half an hour away. A couple of mouse clicks and Xiong located him serving life in the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Stillwater. Murder topped off a list of more modest crimes.

  I’d contacted him by letter after Father Mountain shared Jean Lefevre’s secret. Now Felix Lefevre had my office phone number, with a note to call me collect and put me on his visitor list.

  Felix’s conviction ten years ago wasn’t for a particularly interesting murder. Just one thug shooting another. Never made the news.

  When prison inmates hear from reporters, they always hope we want to prove their innocence and free them. So Felix was disappointed to learn I only wanted to discuss his son. And all I really cared about was whether Mark had been in touch with him. That answer was no.

  I’d gotten that much over the phone and could have simply thanked him and said goodbye. But on the chance that he might still hear from Mark—or know something else newsworthy going on in the slammer, or like many snitches was doling out information one piece at a time—I went to meet Felix. I was his first visitor in quite a while, and it had taken some back-and-forth with prison officials to make that happen.

  Stillwater was one of the oldest prisons in Minnesota. Unlike some of the state’s newer correctional facilities, Stillwater looked like a prison. Stone walls and steel bars. The inside door crashed shut behind visitors just like in the movies.

  I held a photo of Mark up to the visitor glass for Felix to see.

  “So that’s what he looks like?” Felix said. They shared the same frizzy black hair. “Kind of forgot I had a kid.”

  He didn’t follow the news, so didn’t know his estranged wife was dead and his son a murder suspect. If he cared, he didn’t show it beyond mumbling something about his kid taking after his old man.

  So much for the theory that Mark left to find his father.

  y neighbor’s yard sale had expanded when I got home. I noticed some lawn gnomes that hadn’t been there earlier along with a white wicker picnic basket and a wheelbarrow. After walking to the post office to buy stamps, Shep and I went next door to check out the new stock and try making nice with George.

  A bearded man I’d seen there a couple times before was carrying an ugly multicolored vase to his pickup truck parked by the curb. He set his purchase on the ground to open the door.

  “Hope you didn’t pay more than a buck for that,” I teased.

  Shep pushed past me to stick his nose in the vase and paw against it. “Stop that,” I told the big dog.

  I apologized for my nosy canine companion. But when the bearded man grinned, his teeth looked brownish. His smile, disgusting.

  After he drove away I realized I might have just witnessed Shep’s classic drug-alert signal. And I recalled Shep pawing in the garage the other day, too.

  Wouldn’t it be something if my neighbor’s yard sale was a front for dealing drugs? That would explain the odd traffic patterns next door. And why so many of George’s customers seemed to be regulars. And why my neighbor didn’t need a real job.

  ——

  MALIK’S CAMERA WAS set up inside my dining room facing out the window at my neighbor’s driveway early the next morning. Shep and I sat on the porch with a newspaper and some breakfast treats, waiting for the YARD SALE sign to go up.

  The first customer, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline, seemed to leave empty-handed. That didn’t mean he didn’t have some contraband tucked in his jacket. But Malik and I figured we could only test two patrons before George became suspicious and pulled a gun or whatever drug dealers do when their neighbors piss them off. We decided not to make a move until we could visually confirm someone had made a purchase. But we did shoot his license plate.

  So even though Shep wanted to leave for a walk, we waited some more. After another hour, a young woman with a toddler walked into the garage and left minutes later with a used Twister board game.

  Shep and I went into action on the guise of putting a letter in the mailbox. I greeted the woman while she was trying to buckle her squirming son in his car seat.

  “Would he like to pet my doggy?” I asked her. Then, turning to the tot, “If you’re a good boy and sit still for your mom, I’ll let you pet my dog.”
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  The board game lay on the floor of her minivan. The mother seemed to be sizing Shep up. His tongue hung out of his mouth so he looked fairly harmless.

  “Doggy, doggy,” her little boy chanted. So while he was happily patting Shep’s back, and his mother was snapping him in, Shep was sniffing and pawing at the Twister box in the same distinctive manner he had earlier. Malik had a clear shot because the van door was wide open. He got her license plate as well.

  The outcome was the same when I flirted with a large man with colorful tattoos on one arm just as he was getting on his motorcycle to drive away. He’d left the garage carrying a hooded sweatshirt with a large front pocket that Shep found irresistible.

  George walked to the curb, craned his neck as if to check on us, but by then Mr. Biker had left and we were back on my porch. I gave him a small wave. He turned without saying anything.

  Opportunity allowed us to add a control element to our experiment. I helped an elderly woman across the street unload her groceries, but Shep showed no curiosity toward any of her packages, not even a plastic bag containing pork chops.

  “SO WHAT DOES it prove?” Noreen was excited over the prospect of a drug story now that it involved video of a dog. What it lacked was concrete proof my neighbor’s garage actually contained illegal drugs. So I wasn’t surprised when Miles prohibited broadcasting anything without additional verification.

  I was still sore about his legal advice to destroy the mother-of-the-groom interview, but Noreen didn’t appear to hold that episode against him. What he called advice, she took as gospel.

  So the following morning, I’d gone next door to George’s yard sale, wired with a hidden camera. I surveyed the merchandise, pulled a worn copy of All the President’s Men off a shelf, winked at my neighbor, and asked how much.

  When he replied a buck, I winked again. And said, “Are you sure?” hoping he’d slip a little dope or speed between the pages and jack the price up.

  “All right, fifty cents.” George pretended not to get my drift and seemed in a hurry to get rid of me.

  Xiong had cross-checked the license plate with criminal records. Only the minivan mom had a drug offense, but it was three years ago and, as Miles reminded us, people change. I had the county e-mail me her mug shot and she could have been a poster child for one of those “before and after” anti-meth billboards along the freeway showing pleasant wives and mothers reduced to street people. Trouble was, I couldn’t be sure which image—minivan mom or jailhouse junkie— was her real persona.

  Bottom line, our attorney refused to take Shep’s word on the matter. Even though the big dog lay at my feet on the floor of Noreen’s office looking sober and responsible.

  “So whose word would you take?” I asked.

  “If your neighbor had a history of drug sales or even other illegal activity, that would help,” Miles said.

  No luck. I’d pulled George’s last name from his license plate and he came up clean.

  “All we have is your hunch that this is how the dog behaves around illicit drugs,” Miles continued. “And you’re not a trained K-9 officer.”

  Oh, but I knew a trained K-9 officer. And in this business, sources are everything.

  I checked with the hospital and found out Emily Flying Cloud had been discharged two days earlier. She wouldn’t be ready to go back in the field for some time yet, so I called her at home. When she answered, she sounded like I woke her up.

  “Emily, just checking to see how you’re feeling.” I started off reminding her who I was, but she remembered me easily. “I’m going to be in your neighborhood this afternoon, are you up for any company? I’ll bring the doughnuts.”

  I wanted to keep things casual and not let on I needed a favor. Especially since it was the kind of favor she’d probably insist on clearing with her boss first. But she said fine, so I put the video of Shep pawing on a DVD and grabbed a portable DVD player, not knowing the sophistication of her home electronics equipment.

  I left Malik back at the station because I didn’t want her calling her department public information officer because a television camera was on her stoop. And I’d left Shep with Noreen in the newsroom because I wasn’t sure if Emily was ready to face the big dog in person. More than likely he’d jump all over her stitches in his glee at seeing her again.

  Emily was slow answering the door. She wore a baggy sweat suit, easier to slip on and off. Definitely a step up from a hospital gown. But physically, she looked ragged out.

  We visited a few minutes before she asked about Shep.

  “I brought some video of him,” I said. “Would you like to watch?” That prospect cheered her.

  Normally journalists can’t go around showing people, especially law enforcement officers, unaired video because then the cops start thinking they are always entitled to our work product. And that would make news organizations an arm of the government. Which would contradict the First Amendment. And diminish our status as the Fourth Estate, something the press is touchy about. But in this case, I was seeking Emily’s reaction to the videotape. That’s part of my job, to seek reaction to events. That context makes all the difference.

  So I got out the DVD player and set up the scenes by telling her, “Shep’s greeting some shoppers leaving my neighbor’s yard sale.” Then I hit Play.

  Emily watched Shep pawing the board game. Then pawing the pocket of the sweatshirt. “Let me see that again,” she said. Rewind. Play. “Riley, explain what I just saw.”

  “Actually, Emily, I’m hoping you can explain it.”

  I told her my suspicions about my neighbor’s never-ending yard sale. She confirmed the pawing motion was Shep’s drug-sniffing alert.

  “I’d bet anything your neighbor is running meth. It’s big business in the suburbs. And dealers need false fronts to stay under the radar. That’s what his yard sale is all about.”

  Just the confirmation I needed. To celebrate, I opened the doughnut box. Emily picked a real looker with chocolate frosting and vanilla pudding in the center. I settled for an apple fritter over your basic raised glazed because fruit is healthier. We discussed the damage meth has done to our state and to people we knew. But my elation came and went with her next words. “You’re not thinking about putting this on the news, are you?”

  I mumbled something resembling “Well… yeah … sort of.” And then made like my mouth was too full to talk.

  “You can’t do that, Riley. Your neighbor will destroy all the evidence before police can move in and stop him.”

  Another legal/ethical dilemma. One more encounter with Miles and Noreen might be one more than I could handle.

  Luckily, Emily had an idea. “Just hold off for a day or so. I can file a search warrant affidavit based on your tape. You can run your story after the police go in.”

  That would give Channel 3 the ultimate confirmation of any drug activity. Police have to make public what they confiscate during such raids. So Emily and I agreed to talk to our bosses. A more complicated task for her because that conversation would involve multiple law enforcement agencies, but first she needed a nap.

  “In the meantime, Riley, stay indoors. Don’t spook your neighbor.”

  ((RILEY/LIVE/CAM PAN))

  I’M LIVE IN WHITE BEAR

  LAKE … WHERE EARLIER

  TODAY POLICE RAIDED THIS

  HOUSE AND DISCOVERED

  WHAT THEY ARE

  DESCRIBING AS A MAJOR

  METH-SALES OPERATION.

  The cops had debated waiting to further develop the case, but had concerns that I might, knowingly or unknowingly, raise suspicions in the neighborhood. So they busted George the next day. Naturally, Malik hid at my house to record the action.

  ((RILEY/NAT))

  HERE YOU SEE THE

  OWNER… GEORGE

  MAURICE … TAKEN INTO

  CUSTODY IN

  HANDCUFFS …

  AUTHORITIES SAY HE RAN A

  LARGE-SCALE DRUG

  OPERATION FR
OM HIS

  GARAGE WHERE HE HELD

  YARD SALES AS A COVER-UP.

  THE REAL HERO IS THIS

  DRUG-SNIFFING GERMAN

  SHEPHERD WHOSE NOSE

  PICKED UP ON THE RUSE …

  WATCH AS HE PAWS ITEMS

  THESE CUSTOMERS

  PURCHASED…

  Miles made us blur their faces because the mom and the biker guy, nonpublic figures, hadn’t been officially accused of anything. I suspected authorities were negotiating a plea bargain to get them to testify against George.

  ((RILEY/NAT))

  THAT’S THE DOG’S WAY OF

  INDICATING DRUGS ARE

  HIDDEN INSIDE.

  ((RILEY/LIVE/SHEP))

  AND HERE HE IS, WITH ME

  NOW … THE DOG OF THE

  HOUR.

  Just like Lassie, Shep barked on cue.

  And of course, the overnight numbers went through the ratings roof at Channel 3. Helped along, no doubt, by a promo that ran all through the network’s prime-time lineup.

  ((PROMO/SOT))

  EXCLUSIVE! SEE RILEY

  SPARTZ’S BIG BUST

  TONIGHT AT TEN.

  I only found out because my mom called me, all embarrassed, checking to see whether she dared tune in at ten.

  She and Dad live outside the Channel 3 viewing area, but bought a satellite dish for Christmas just so they could watch my stories and tell me how good they are. At first, she thought she misheard the promo, but when it ran again half an hour later, she tried to alert me but I let her call roll over to voice mail and didn’t find out until too late.

  Noreen apologized that no one at the station caught the double entendre. Then she abruptly changed the subject by asking me how I was coming along on the fish story.

  I DIDN’T KNOW it at the time, but Emily’s hunch about Shep being in danger was more than pooch paranoia. Among the 30 share audience watching my reports on the yard-sale bust must have been the meth cartel seeking to eliminate Shep.

  To protect him from revenge seekers, I’d been careful not to mention Shep’s name on the air. Or that I lived next door to the drug raid. Or that the hero dog temporarily lived under my roof. But this kind of information apparently gets around in criminal circles. And George Maurice probably viewed my actions as less than neighborly and likely ratted me out to any drug kingpin or peon behind bars who’d listen.