Vendetta Stone (25 page)

(T
his is Wolfe’s verbatim journal recount of his assault on Angela, with some scenes reconstructed for clarity.—GH)

I knocked all lovey-dovey on the wall as I neared the bedroom, whistling ‘Hungry Like THE Wolfe’ like I always do when it’s time to have some fun. She sounded SO happy to see me.

“Jack! I didn’t hear you pull u—”

Her smile vanished, vocal chords tightened. Stepping into the doorframe, blocking her way out,
stood the strange man she’d seen with Sarah on the kitchen floor. Dressed in black, wearing rubber gloves. He set his smartphone on the dresser, pushed “record,” and flashed an emotionless smile. And in the other hand, behind his back, something else.

“Hiya, Angie baby. Remember me?” Wolfe swung his ti
re iron as he came fast at her. But Angela reacted quicker than expected. She rolled off the far side of the bed as the tool struck the feather pillow. She shrieked.

Wolfe
wrote in his journal about how he loved that moment when his startled victim cringed in absolute terror at the stark realization of impending doom.

That was so fuh-reakin’ cool, glad I got it on camera. I’ll savor that one a long, long time.

She kinda suprised
me by moving that quick. We had a hot date ahead, a Luv Connection thing. She saw me with her hot little friend this afternoon and I knew she dug me. Chicks always have. I could see it in her eyes, how bad she wanted me. Just like Aunt Cora, she begged for it, and more! And you can’t dissaspoint them, right? Her little friend saw how much Angie baby wanted me and started hissy-fitting. Angie baby was so mad she cut out. For that, I’ll cut HER heart out and then get back to my sweet-hot Sarah.

The impact of the tire iron had exploded the pillow like a downy duck hit with both barrels. Angela fled for the door and her life, but Wolfe angled and cut off her escape. He grabbed for her arm and missed, but latched onto a handful of the light blue bathrobe and jerked her back. The tire iron broke ribs, but not her spirit, as she collapsed to her knees.

She panted, playing hard to get and thought she could scare me by saying, ‘You won’t get away with this. My husband will be home any minute. He’ll kill you. You don’t know his temper.’ 

Wolfe laughed, back-handing her. She smacked the wall, blood flowing from her nose.

‘Ooooh, I’m sooooo scared, baby,’ I said, and popped her again, landing a Joe Frazier uppercut that put her on her back. ‘Maybe I’ll wait up for him, after I’m finished with you.’

Angela fell back on the bed, and he pounced atop of her, beating her into humiliating submission. She tried to knee him. None of that, he told her, and threw his haymaker. She didn’t reply that time. The jarring blow shattered teeth and her mouth filled with blood. Angela passed out.

It was taking too long, and we had a long night ahead. I wanted to take her for a ride, and wasn’t taking no for an answer. I never do. No ALWAYS means yes.

Wolfe went to the garage, found a roll of duct tape, and first bound her ankles so she couldn’t kick, then pulled her arms behind her and wrapped her wrists. He then tore off pieces and double-covered her mouth. He lifted the slight, unconscious woman over his shoulder, took her downstairs, found the car keys, and dumped her in the trunk. Unhurried and unworried, he glanced over the city map he’d bought.

When someone reads this someday, they’re gonna want to know why I took Angie baby way across town to that particuler park instead of one closer to her house or maybe dump her in the river. Short answer, I just got in town and wasn’t ready to leave yet, so I didn’t want her body found too quick. But on a hot August night, the moon shinin’ bright and I was feelin’ all right. Just me ’n Angie baby.

Wolfe had pulled into the most secluded part of the park that he could find and went to enjoy his remaining time with Angela. Under a full August moon, he anticipated seeing her shimmering, lithe body in the moon glow. Instead, Wolfe howled. Already dead, her lifeless eyes stared at him.

Looked like she tried to twist loose in the trunk and suffucated. No fun at all!

Showing true Texas verve to the last, Angela must have scratched the duct tape from her mouth on a piece of metal; it pulled in the wrong direction when the car hit a bump and covered her nasal passages, cutting off her air supply.

She’d been so hot and was already cold. Well, a man’s gotta do what a MAN’s gotta do.

The rest of Wolfe’s journal entry was too sick and twisted to record. Suffice it to say he took out his sexual perversions and frustrations on the body. Finally spent, he dug the grave, covered it with bits of brush and drove back near the motel, where he left the keys in the ignition. Police would find her stolen car months later at a Tulsa flea market.

Jackson needed to picture Angela’s final moments on Earth as being peaceful. He knew she would miss life, would miss him, but look forward to seeing her grandparents and her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jackson liked to think she offered one final prayer that he would someday, somehow find her killer and bring him to justice.

He wanted
to believe, to hope, to pray, her final earthly thoughts focused on him.

Attention to detail is the key for any good reporter or columnist, and I seem to have a knack for seeing the one little item others often overlook, that would help explain the bigger picture. And I know how to read people, when I’m hearing a lie, when somebody’s trying to cover up facts, and I can draw the truth out of them. That psychology class still ranks one of the best I ever took, and it also helped me learn the value of remembering birthdays, anniversaries, names, faces, places, and events.

Those memory tricks came into play w
hen I clicked on the online slideshow attached to my story on the Fletchers’ deaths. Photographs ranged from investigators looking for clues to the body bags being taken out of the house, from a worried-looking Stone talking to two detectives to the fearful looks of neighbors gathered outside the house. There were other pictures of the Fletchers as well, from past social gatherings to several taken of Herb Fletcher at the visitation for Angela.

I spent a long time studying one particular photogr
aph. I remembered seeing it in print, but cropped into a tight mug shot of Herb. Now I stared at the same photo online, but saw the full frame, and what I saw bothered me. The picture revealed a snaking line of people, stretching from near the front door of the funeral home all the way down the driveway. Fifty or sixty people could be seen in the frame. All in various poses, caught without being aware of the shot being snapped. One fifty-ish man scratched his ear, while an older couple dressed in somber black looked ahead. A young

woman straightened her daughter’s skirt
. The thirty-something man smiled as he chatted up a young woman, probably about Angela, but maybe about the weather. Near the front of the line, Herb mugged for the camera. All the people in line bore one thing in common—all except one. All the other figures in the photograph faced the camera. That solitary figure with his back to the lens? A young, well-dressed man with his long, dark hair pulled into a ponytail. About seven or eight feet from the camera, he headed away from the line, toward the parking lot. Something about it struck me as odd and made me think of the famous
Life
magazine photo from the 1950s of all those people sitting in the movie theatre wearing those funky 3-D glasses. If one person left off those glasses, he would stand out from all the rest. That’s how this visitation photo struck me, and I couldn’t help but wonder why the man with the unseen face picked that exact moment to leave the line. People leaving the visitation room were routed to the parking lot through another exit. In my recollection of the visitation, I couldn’t envision this young man in line behind Herb Fletcher, because I had focused on talking with Herb at the time. I zipped through the rest of the thirty-frame slideshow and saw no other picture of the unseen young man. Or his back, I should say.

Good reporters, like good detectives, listen
ed to that inner voice that bugged them from time to time, and played hunches. Curious to see the face of that individual, I wondered why he left in such an apparent hurry when he stood in line so long. Maybe on his lunch break and running late to get back to work. Or maybe because Casey and I showed up to talk to Herb, and he didn’t want his picture taken. I called the funeral home to ask director Arthur Greaves to see security tapes, but he’d departed for the day.

When one road’s blocked, there’s always a detour. I picked up the telephone and dialed my good friends over at Channel 11. As a prof
essional courtesy—Dan Clarkston later admitted he thought he might glean something about the possible connection between Angela’s murder and the Fletchers’ deaths from me—Clarkston called Greg Pittard, and they met me at the front counter.

We spent
twenty minutes quick-scanning footage. Near the end, I thought I saw the right segment, but I’d check closer when I got home. As a dodge, I asked to see the first five minutes at regular speed, then wanted to see it again in slo-mo. Then I requested a DVD of the entire segment. Clarkston nodded, and Pittard returned in five minutes with my copy.

“Thanks for doing this
on short notice,” I told Clarkston as we shook hands. “It’s been a crazy day, hasn’t it? Who would have thought the Fletchers would wind up dead, too? I’ve never covered a story quite like this.”

“I know what you mean,” he
said. “I’ll be glad when it’s all over. But I don’t think that’s anytime soon. So what’s your angle?”

We were two competitive journalists jousting, so I lobbed a softball.

“I’m researching for the Sunday piece we’re doing on Stone,” I lied. “I wanted to see if you captured any interaction between Stone and Fletcher at the visitation that I might have missed. We’ve got a mug shot of Herb but nothing else. I didn’t even know him until you interviewed him that first night. Nice piece.”

“Thanks.
He seemed harmless.” Clarkston shrugged. “You believe that about something between him and Angela and then Sarah killing him after he killed Angela?”

I
expected that to come up in the conversation, but thought I’d have to work it in. I wanted to keep him off-balance, so I threw my curveball.

“I’m not so sure,” I s
aid, shrugging. “I heard some of it, but couldn’t get it confirmed on the record so we didn’t toss it out there. However, I did include a line that Stone denied a Channel 11 report that the three deaths were somehow connected.”

“Well
, just great,” he said, somewhat glum. “Hope you at least spelled my name right.”

One more and the inning would be over. “So how’s the New York gig going?”

“We’re still talking. Maybe I can get you on the show as an expert. Maybe you can help me get Stone to agree to appear.”

A
lot of maybes, I thought, and zipped the fastball. Strike three!

“Yeah, maybe. First, though, I’ve got a killer to catch.”

Mike Whitfield wished he
was
in rehab. A lot more exciting than this, the Metro police sergeant yawned as he weaved through traffic, while keeping a reasonable distance behind Jackson’s Honda.

Chief King
called Whitfield after his fruitless conversation with Stone and ordered him to stick to Stone. He said Jackson refused to aid the police in the plan to lay a trap for the killer, but that didn’t mean the chief planned to end surveillance. Now more than ever, King confided, he felt the murderer would come after Jack. They didn’t yet know why the Fletchers died and would need to find the killer to answer those questions. They were, of course, pursuing all leads, but if the chief proved correct that the killer pursued Jack, then Whitfield would be there to prevent another tragedy. Whitfield’s supposed rehab ran a week. The chief said that could be extended if necessary—but for how long?

An exhausted
Whitfield had followed Jackson for two days, a move to jump a full pay grade from sergeant to lieutenant. The chief would’ve loved for him to be Jackson’s shadow twenty-four/seven, but settled for eighteen-hour days. They just hoped for the right eighteen hours. What if an attack occurred in the middle of the night while Whitfield napped? They talked it over and the chief considered pulling a shift himself.

Whitfield watched Jackson
turn into the church parking lot, then he drove around to the opposite side of the church and parked behind the bushes where he could keep an eye on

Jackson
’s car. Services lasted an hour? He dug out his cell phone and dialed for backup.

“Is this your one phone call? How’s lockup?” officer Barry Mendez answered smartly, recognizing his partner’s number.

Whitfield laughed. “I’m out on parole. You busy?”

“Never for you. What’s up?”

“I’m out here in Bellevue and wondered if you could meet me in about twenty minutes at Red Caboose Park.”

“I’m leaving now.”

Enlisting help seemed like the right move at the time, but Whitfield’s plan backfired, and three hours later, he flew into a state of half-panic, half-rage. Whitfield didn’t know if he should call the chief or not. Jackson had disappeared!

About five minutes before Jackson’s arrival at Belle Rive Baptist, pal Big Red pulled into the church parking lot. He went inside to use the bathroom and stayed in there as Jackson arrived. Jackson joined the service conducted by Reverend Armstrong. After Red washed his hands, he walked outside to wait for Jackson and have a smoke. Stepping around the side of the building to light up, he saw Jackson’s car—and dropped the matchbook. Half-hidden by a large oak, Red realized he’d seen the red pickup before. It followed Jackson out of the parking lot at that restaurant in Murfreesboro. Red ducked behind a bush and watched another five minutes before the pickup pulled away, then he re-entered the church.

“Jack.”

“Where you been buddy? I saw your truck outside,” Jackson whispered back.

“Jack!”
A more urgent whisper. “Remember that red pickup truck you saw in the ’Boro? It’s outside.”

“Outside where?”

Armstrong didn’t break stride in his sermon as he saw the two men slip into the hall where he saw them talking. They clasped hands and Jackson alone returned to the sanctuary.

More than a handshake,
they swapped car keys. Big Red got in Jackson’s car and waited. Forty-five minutes later, the red pickup returned. Red pulled out of the lot, making sure to be seen, and headed for the interstate.

Whitfield smiled at seeing Jackson’s car still in the church parking lot. His conversation with Barry Mendez had taken longer than expected as he explained the situation. Essentially, Whitfield wanted Mendez to help keep tabs on Jackson around the clock; he’d clear it with the chief in the morning. Mendez listened to Whitfield’s explanation and agreed to take over surveillance for the sergeant as soon as his shift ended at ten p.m., and Whitfield would resume watching at four a.m.

Whitfield
saw Jackson’s car pull out of the lot and into the evening traffic. He noticed a more erratic driving style. The car weaved around vehicles without the use of turn signals, then sped up without warning. Whitfield roared through a yellow light so he wouldn’t lose Jackson. The car whipped onto the Interstate 40 East ramp—again without using his turn signal—and zipped toward Nashville at eighty miles per hour. On the east side of town, Jackson’s car then headed toward Murfreesboro as storm clouds darkened the horizon off to the southwest.

Heavy traffic
thinned as they reached the Murfreesboro area. Whitfield wondered where Jackson was headed, but assumed he headed for the property near Murfreesboro he co-owned with his brother. But Stone’s car zipped past the first Murfreesboro exit, then the second, then the third, the fourth, the fifth interchange.

“Okay, so where
are you going, Jack?”

A half-hour passed, and so did a brief shower before the turn signal ahead flashed. He exited in Manchester. The car pulled into a gas station—and Jackson Stone didn’t get out!

“What the . . . ?” Whitfield quickly figured out the red-headed stranger must be Stone’s friend, Jimmy “Big Red” Boyle. Whitfield kicked himself at how he’d been outfoxed. He sat there considering his next move. Should he confront Boyle or continue to follow him to see where he’d wind up? Should he call the chief and give him the bad news that he’d screwed up? Boyle finished filling the tank, paid outside with his credit card, and took off. Whitfield followed for another half-mile and Jackson’s car pulled into the Golden Calf steakhouse’s parking lot. Boyle went inside and took a window seat.

Red watched and waited to see what the man in the red pickup would do next. The waitress came over
, and Red asked for a booth, saying he expected a friend. He ordered sweet tea for both of them as Whitfield headed into the restaurant. Red sized up the man walking across the pavement. The stocky man took off his sunglasses as he entered the building. The waitress pointed in his direction. Red smiled and held up a hand missing a finger.

“Hello
, Red,” Whitfield said in a serious but amiable tone. This guy wasn’t the enemy, just misguided like Jack. He tried to gain Red’s trust.

“Jimmy Boyle,”
came the not so trusting reply. “Just my friends call me Red.”

“I’m
Jack’s friend. His guardian angel. Where is he?”

Jackson stayed at church for the rest of the evening service and a half-hour after that as Brother Armstrong cornered him and wanted to talk. They went to the church offices upstairs and faced each other.

“I wanted to see how you’re doing after this morning,” the pastor said. “That must have been quite a shock, finding your neighbors like that.
”

“Yes
sir, it was.”

“Is there any truth to what they reported on Channel 11, that Herb may have murdered Angela? I saw him at the visitation and find it impossible to believe.”
 

“It’s not true,” Jackson assured him. “None of it is. But somebody out there has tried to build a convincing case. The chief isn’t buying it and wanted me to help lay a trap for Angela’s killer who in all probability also murdered the Fletchers. I declined.”

“But, Jack, I thought you wanted to find the killer.”

It took several minutes for Jackson to explain his refusal to go along with the chief’s request. He told his minister about Angela’s pregnancy, how he had to make things right for his wife and their child. How he didn’t protect them when he should have, so he had to see this through.
Jackson wanted his pastor to understand his motivation in case something happened to him in the next forty-eight hours.

“Only one other person knows what I’ve told you, Brother Bob.” A smile crossed his face. “By the way, did you start doing confession on the side?”

The preacher laughed. “I’ll pray for you and Angela and your unborn baby. They’re in heaven and someday—not too soon, I pray—you’ll all be reunited in the Lord’s arms. But maybe there’s another way to satisfy this yearning.”

The preacher’s earnest pleas brought back the old doubts that Jackson wrestled with, since it went against everything he’d ever learned in church. Never a saint—far from it during his wilder college days—meeting Angela proved the salvation he needed after all he witnessed in the Persian Gulf. Some called what happened to Angela a test of faith, and maybe it was, Jackson agreed, recalling their conversations. He said he prayed for answers and still awaited a sign.

“I don’t know if you’ll ever get all the answers you want, but the Lord provides. Have faith, Jack. Don’t ever lose faith.” Angela had always told him the same thing, Jackson recalled.

Off in the distance came the first rumblings of the late summer storm.

“I’m trying, Brother Bob. Everything I’ve shared with you tonight is between us, right?”

“You have to ask?”

“Yes I did, I’m sorry to say. I’ve got to go, but if anything happens to me, explain to Patrick and the police why I’ve been doing this. Let the world know.”

“Let’s pray together.”

Reverend Armstrong and Jackson Stone clasped hands and bowed their heads as another peal of thunder clapped.