The Equalizer (21 page)

Chapter 27

DAY SEVENTEEN

B
ullet came slinking
into the
kitchen looking for his breakfast. He must have heard me making coffee,

“Oh, so now I’m good enough for ya, huh, boy?” I loved him up. When I took him out to do his business, it was sprinkling. Bullet never minded getting wet. I got the just-in-case-container of dog food I kept in my vehicle, picked up the newspaper wrapped in an orange plastic bag from the steps, and went back inside.

As I filled a pie pan with Bullet’s food, the cats joined the feed-me dance, meowing loudly—all three animals staring at me eagerly. When Bullet finished in three minutes flat, I put him back out in the fenced yard so he wouldn’t steal the cats’ food. Shannon walked in and poured us each a mug of coffee.

“Sleep well?” she asked.

“Surprisingly well—after we solved the department’s problems. What are you doing on your day off today?”

“I plan to get a lot done. How about you?”

“Work. I have a meeting this morning. It’s only six, so I have time to get cinnamon rolls from the Sportsman Café.”

Her eyes lit up, and that was all the encouragement I needed. When I returned Shannon had already showered, and was letting her hair air-dry. She looked good for only five hours of sleep.

“You should wear your hair down more often.”

She rolled her eyes then pointed to the paper on the counter. “Did you read the headline?”

“
REPORTER AND BIRCH COUNTY DEPUTY A TARGET”

“Shit! She must have been working on the story when I talked to her yesterday.”

“Robert Webber wrote this one. Read it then look at page three.

Since staff reporter, Victoria Lewis, wrote an article about a Bible verse found in Ted Kohler’s truck the day of his death, she herself has been harassed with similar Bible verses and related items. Last evening an arrow used for hunting large game was shot through a window in the home of a Birch County deputy sheriff investigating the Kohler/Peterson murder cases, narrowly missing the deputy and Lewis. This is the most recent in a continuing series of threats and physical attacks related to Bible quotes Lewis has received. Fifteen days later after the Kohler/Peterson murders, no names of suspects have been released and the case continues to remain unsolved.

BIBLE THREATS continue on page 3.

I turned to page three. Victoria’s article was accompanied with photos of the crow, snake, the broken kitchen window and arrow in my cabinet. She told it all: from Kohler’s Bible verse, to the dates she received each one along with each related object.

At the end of the article she wrote: “I’m not saying the Sheriff’s Department is incompetent, but I do think they could use some expert help in solving the murder cases, perhaps from one of the metro police departments—before more innocent citizens get killed just doing their jobs.”

“Damn it!” I said.

“She’s one crazy bitch,” Shannon said. “But I bet she had your dandy doodle at attention.”

I smiled. “Cute.”

“So call her.”

I was so pissed off it didn’t take much encouragement to dial her number.

Cal?” she answered in a sleepy voice.

“Congratulations on your full-page article,” I said.

Silence. Then, “You’re not happy with me, are you?”

“That would be an understatement.”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

“It was pretty stupid on so many levels,” I said.

After a few seconds, she said, “Robert said we had to.”

“And you had nothing to say about it?”

“Cal, I’m sorry. Can we talk later?”

“Nah, I’m done talking to you.”

I touched off and Shannon gave me a fist bump.

I met Ralph and Troy at the department at eight o’clock. We laid everything we knew about Victoria’s case on the table. I said, “In my opinion, she orchestrated the whole thing herself.”

“Well, if you’re right, at the minimum, she’s facing felony charges for supplying false information,” Ralph said.

“What’s her motive?” Troy asked.

“The story,” I said. “After she discovered the quote and reported on it, she plotted her own copycat scheme: sending herself the threats, putting the crow on her door, paid or coerced Max Becker into buying the snake and shooting the arrow through my window. He probably even got the crow for her. Then she wrote a grand article about it—what a great way to get her father’s attention.”

“Yours too. Do you like Max for Peterson/Kohler?” Ralph asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t think he entered the equation until she needed him to do her dirty work.”

Troy crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Victoria has Max Becker by the dick. He’s not going to give her up.”

Ralph said, “Maybe so, and he’s all lawyered up. You two need to find Victoria and bring her in.”

On the way to the newspaper office,
Troy said, “You picked the wrong one, Sheehan.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean
you
could be with Naomi. I know you two dated before you went to Vegas with Victoria.”

I looked out the window.

“Look, Sheehan, I would never date a woman a friend was currently seeing.”

“We’re friends?”

He got a weird look on his face. “Aren’t we?”

“We could be—if you weren’t such an asshole.”

He laughed. “You okay with me and Naomi?”

“Yeah—super.”

The managing editor of the paper,
Robert Webber, said he had no knowledge of any plan for Victoria to stay with them, nor did he know where she was. He said, “She hasn’t been in the office for a couple days.”

“But the article?” I asked.

“She emailed it in.”

“What’s her contact number?”

“If you have her business card, you already have it.”

I still had her number in calls received. Her phone rang six times before a voice came on saying the number was out of service. I replayed it for Robert and Troy on speaker.

“I hope she’s all right,” Robert said.

Troy and I drove
to Victoria’s home. No one answered the front door and her car was gone. We went back to the office and while Troy did the paperwork for a search warrant for her house, computers, phone records, and vehicle, I checked her credit card activity—nothing in the last forty-eight hours. We went back to her house and used tools to gain entrance. For a while I thought maybe I was wrong about her and that something bad had happened, but when I saw that her personal items were gone, including her luggage, I knew she’d split. By now, she could be anywhere.

Ralph called Adam Lewis who said he had no idea where his daughter was, but she often took off on a whim. Ralph told him we were concerned for his daughter’s safety and to contact the department when he heard from her. Lewis said
if
he heard from her he’d give her the message.

And we were at yet another standstill and no closer to finding the real killer in the Peterson/Kohler murders.

Chapter 28

DAY EIGHTEEN

T
uesday morning before Troy arrived,
I found Ralph in the squad room having a cup of coffee. A white pastry box sat in the middle of the table, so I lifted the lid and picked up a raised sugar. I pushed the box toward Ralph.

“Nah, I’m on a diet.”

“Again?”

He patted his belly.

“Gained five.”

The doughnut was fresh—slightly crispy on the outside and soft in the middle just like I liked.

“Are they as good as Dixie’s?” he asked, looking miserable with his decision to refrain.

“Nah, they’re terrible.” I grabbed another.

Troy walked in fully pumped. “Talked to Zach Whitman. Max Becker now works at the newspaper loading dock and knows Victoria Lewis. He didn’t understand what she was up to until he saw the article in the paper and realized he’d been played.”

“When did you talk to Zach about Max Becker and Victoria?” Ralph said.

“At Jack’s last night.”

Ralph and I exchanged glances. “You were at Jack’s?” Ralph asked.

“Yeah, I dropped by for a visit. What’s wrong with that? You both visited him in the hospital.”

“Did Max admit to sending the verses?” I asked.

“Zach said Max didn’t know anything about them.”

Ralph placed both hands on the table. “I talked to Oliver Baken this morning. He doesn’t think it’s worth the time or money to pursue Victoria Lewis.”

Baken was the county attorney, and if he wasn’t willing to pursue Victoria, it was over.

Ralph said, “Since he lost his last two big cases, his evidence standards have tightened.”

“The arrow could have killed Cal,” Troy said.

“And we’ll go for Max on that charge, but Victoria was right there and was in as much danger. It’s her word against his.”

Ralph’s cell phone sounded. He’d changed his ring. “It’s the old Dragnet theme,” he offered.

“What’s Dragnet?” I asked.

Ralph rolled his eyes then took the call. It was brief.

“Mike Johnston’s waiting in the lobby. Asked to speak to Cal. Leave me a message on what’s up with him. Troy, if you can get Warner to let us question Becker about Zach’s comments, go for it. I’m late for a meeting.”

Troy said, “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. I’m more interested in what Johnston’s doing here, right now. I want to observe.”

Johnston wasn’t alone.
Virgil Dodge, a local attorney, was sitting beside him, along with his mother and a man who had to be his father. Virgil was a small man with a concave chest who looked like his choice of weight lifting equipment might be a toothbrush. His pale complexion and gray comb over didn’t add a thing to his look. He rose to offer a limp hand, then introduced Stanley Johnston whose handshake was a vice grip.

Virgil said, “Mike’s come in on his own accord. Wants to clear things up.”

“All right,” I said.

Gone was the hostile body language I’d seen earlier. Something big was happening, and I was pumped. I asked the group to wait in the lobby while I arranged for his statement to be taped and notified Troy. I went up to the office and found my case notes. Fifteen minutes later, I joined Mike and Virgil Dodge in the interview room.

When I entered, the only sound was Mike’s feet tapping on the tile floor. After noting the date, time, and his personal information, I said, “Mike, you’ve voluntarily come in to make a statement.”

Without hesitation, he said, “I was in Kohler’s Town Car and had a fight with him.”

“When was this?”

Droplets of sweat formed on Mike’s forehead.

“September twenty-ninth.”

“Start from the beginning. Why did you have this altercation with Mr. Kohler?”

“Okay. Well, it started the day Lisa called to tell me Kohler trapped her in the file room and felt her up.”

“State Lisa’s full name please,” I said.

“Lisa Ann Kelly.”

“Go on.”

“She acted upset, and I didn’t want Kohler thinking he could get away with that, so I called him and told him I wanted to talk to him—to meet me out at Cadillac Jack’s.”

“How did you pull that off?”

“I left work, without signing out and drove over to Cadillac Jack’s. I used the payphone downstairs by the restrooms to call Kohler.”

“Did you give him your name?” I asked.

“No, and I disguised my voice so he wouldn’t know it was me. Told him he’d want to hear what I had to say, or if he didn’t, I was sure his wife would.”

“No one saw you?” I asked.

“No one paid any attention to me,” he said.

Johnston wiped the beads of sweat from his face with his hand, then sat back in his chair and began the foot tapping again.

“Go on,” I said.

“Well, I didn’t think he had the balls to show up, but he did.”

“And if he hadn’t?”

“I’d have found him.”

“What happened then?”

“I watched him park the car and go into in the bar. That’s when I climbed in the backseat of his car and hid. When he came back out, he didn’t even notice me. After he drove a couple miles, I sat up and pulled a toy gun on him. Told him to pull over. I made him get out of the car. I punched him a few times to teach him to stay away from her.”

“Did Mr. Kohler know it was you?” I asked.

“I wore a ski mask, so I don’t think so,” he said.

“Did you use Lisa’s name?”

“No,” he said.

“So, you wanted to teach him to stay away from Lisa, but you never used her name, you disguised your voice, and wore a ski mask.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Seems like you went to a lot of trouble to disguise yourself. Why not just approach him at his office and have a face-to-face talk with him?”

Suddenly his expression changed—like he realized how stupid it sounded. But what he couldn’t say was his intent had been to hurt Kohler, and he didn’t want to be identified. But what I didn’t get was why Kohler didn’t report it.

“Did Mr. Kohler fight back?” I asked.

“At first, then he just curled up.”

“Did you continue to assault him?” I asked.

His eyes widened and seemed to realize he may still be in big trouble. “No, I left.”

“You walked away?”

“No, I drove his car back to Cadillac Jack’s and left it with the keys in it.”

“So you left Mr. Kohler out on the road, injured?”

“He wasn’t hurt that bad.”

“So you assumed. What happened next?” I asked.

“I drove back to work and finished up a small job, checked out, and went home to clean up. Then I drove back to Cadillac Jack’s.”

“Anyone know about this?”

“No.”

“So, why come forward now?” I asked.

“I was afraid the evidence would show I was in his car, and you’d think I killed him, too.”

“Did you leave anything in the car?”

“Just a warning note,” he said.

“What did it say?”

“Leave her alone, or next time you won’t be so lucky. Something like that.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning nothing. I wrote it just to scare him.”

“What did you do with the toy gun?”

“I don’t know. I lost it,” he said.

“If there’s anything else, now’s the time,” I said. “Like what happened the morning Kohler was killed.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t kill him.”

“Beating him up satisfied you?”

“I guess you could say that,” he said.

“But you warned him with a Bible verse,” I said.

“Are you talking about the one in the papers?”

“Yes.”

“The only thing I wrote to him was on the back of that placemat.”

I went on for a couple more minutes trying to trip him up, but he maintained steadfast in his story. I excused myself and went to get Troy’s opinion.

He said, “Johnston looks like one big, sorry kid.”

“I suspect he’s telling the truth, which slams the Kohler/Peterson case right back to square one.”

I went back in and wrapped up the interview. When Johnston stood, I shook his hand.

“You did the right thing coming in, Mike. I’ll discuss your case with the county attorney and see what he wants to do. We may have further questions.”

Dodge shook my hand and said, “Okay, well, thank you for your time, Deputy Sheehan. Someone will get in touch with me?”

“You can count on it,” I said.

I showed them back to the family lounge where his parents had been waiting. The Johnstons approached me.

“It was Mike’s idea to come in,” Mrs. Johnston said.

“That’s in his favor,” I said.

Mr. Johnston said, “We didn’t raise our son to be violent but no self-respecting man is going to let a man touch his girlfriend like that. Too bad he didn’t know she was such a liar.”

Too bad I didn’t know Victoria was one. We men can be such suckers.

Later, Ralph found me
in the office. “Saw Johnston’s tape.”

“I thought he was going to confess to Kohler’s murder,” I said.

“Do you think he’s our shooter?”

“You saw the tape. What do you think?”

“He’s believable and there’s no point in arresting him without a ballistics match. The kid did himself a big favor coming in before the DNA showed up on the placemat.”

“Now we know how Kohler got the bruises. So why didn’t Ted report the assault?”

“Good question.” Ralph sighed. “Maybe he did. Jack might have handled it on his own, like he did Lisa Kelly’s claim.”

“
You
ask him,” I said.

Ralph laughed. “I will. Oh, and Webber called me back to let me know he’s not happy with the prospect of Victoria’s orchestrating her own harassment. He also told me something interesting: Bob Brutlag bought the old tire shop and is going to start his own business.”

“Really? That takes capital.”

Ralph nodded.

“So does his dad have money?” I said.

Ralph shook his head. “Not
that
much.”

“He was my first suspect. And now he has enough money to buy a business.”

“Remember, no ballistics match.”

“There’s got to be an angle we’re missing.”

“What could we possibly have missed?”

“It all goes back to that original Bible verse. Maybe it’s church related.”

“So do your research. What have we got to lose?” he said.

I woke in the middle of the night and found myself mulling over what a fool I was to trust Victoria. She paid or manipulated someone to harass her so she could write an f-ing story. And where did Bob get the money to purchase his own shop? Someone could have paid him to kill Kohler. It would be easy to dump a rifle around here.