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  Copyright Information

  Hunting the Five Point Killer: A Bitter Wind Mystery © 2017 by C. M. Wendelboe.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2017

  E-book ISBN: 9780738753645

  Book format by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Wendelboe, C. M., author.

  Title: Hunting the Five Point Killer / C. M. Wendelboe.

  Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota: Midnight Ink, [2017] |

  Series: A bitter wind mystery; #1

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017022250 (print) | LCCN 2017025518 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780738753645 | ISBN 9780738753201 (alk. paper)

  Classification: LCC PS3623.E53 (ebook) | LCC PS3623.E53 H86 2017 (print) |

  DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017022250

  Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  For Doris Rogers and Charlie Zumo

  “There are hunters and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience and alertness, you will decide if you are the hunter or the victim.”

  – Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis –

  One

  The middle-aged victim slumped dead in his Barcalounger, one trouser cuff riding up over his snow-white ankle and his zipper splayed open like he expected a happy ending. But there was nothing happy about the small bullet holes in his chest. Or the blood that had seeped down his shirt front, coagulated just short of his Cheyenne Police belt buckle, and pooled atop his polished wingtips.

  Beer cans were strewn over the orange shag carpeting in front of the recliner that had been positioned to better catch America’s Most Wanted. An ashtray made from an engine piston welded to a free-standing pipe overflowed with butts beside one arm of the recliner, and a half-eaten bag of Fritos spilled on the floor beside the other.

  Stepping back—and discounting the obvious fresh wounds—it was clear the man would still stop crowds. Even in death his thick black hair remained parted neatly, his pencil-thin mustache like a gentle slash across his upper lip. He could have passed for a modern-day John Dillinger. And like Dillinger in death, the victim’s brown eyes, glazed over now, looked with astonishment at the evidence camera’s lens.

  “Stop and rewind the tape,” said Arn Anderson.

  Acting Police Chief Johnny White rewound the player until Arn stopped him.

  “Can you go half speed?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Johnny fumbled with the remote. “Been a while since I worked a VCR,” he laughed. But there were no laugh lines around his haggard eyes.

  Johnny found the right button, and Arn scooted his chair closer to the television screen. The evidence tech who’d recorded the homicide scene stepped carefully around the chair where Detective Butch Spangler slumped, dead. The camera bounced, zooming in here to get a close-up of the bullet wound, zooming out there to get a better angle on the blood-soaked silk shirt. Two distinct holes off to one side of the monogrammed pocket marred the flawless fabric.

  “‘An inglorious end to an illustrious career’ is how Chief Patterson put it at Butch’s funeral.” Johnny ejected the tape and slipped it into a protective cardboard sleeve. He paused a long moment before he slid it across his desk. “Here’s your damned tape. Good luck finding a player.”

  “How about—”

  “This one?” Johnny grinned and patted the VCR. “No. This little baby is still evidence from a burglary six years ago. You can’t have it.”

  “After six years?”

  Johnny shrugged. “Sorry, old friend.”

  “Like hell you are.”

  Johnny grabbed a pencil and started chewing the eraser. “What do you want me to say? That I’m happy the community—and especially the city council—has so little faith in our ability to solve cases that they order us to cooperate with some asshole outsider who comes in to find our killers for us?”

  “I’m not an asshole.”

  “Sure you are.”

  Arn thought a moment. “You’re right. I am an asshole. But that’s not why you’re pissed.”

  Johnny walked to a coffee tray and picked up a donut. He pinched it between his thumb and finger before he dropped it back onto the serving tray. It landed with a dull thud: it had been there even before the stale coffee. Perhaps before the police station itself moved into the old telephone building in the ’80s. “I’m pissed because the city council bought that line of cock and bull the TV station crowed. You know as well as I do, you’re not going to learn anything new after ten years.” Johnny snapped the pencil and lobbed it into the trash can. “We got more tips back then than a Japanese masseuse with roving hands. We worked every lead imaginable—and we came up blank. And you accuse us of shutting down the investigation prematurely?”

  Arn stuffed the tape into his briefcase and walked to the coffee cart. He grabbed the pot and sniffed it before he put it back to scald some more. Screw Juan Valdez and his coffee-hauling ass, he thought. “Nasty cop coffee,” he said as he faced Johnny. “Some things never change. Like, a fresh set of eyes looking at the evidence might come up with something new. Remember someone telling you that once?”

  “You horse’s butt, you’re pulling that ‘I used to be your training officer’ crap on me. Sure, you taught me about fresh eyes.” Johnny nodded to Arn’s bag that contained the tape. “But this time you’re wasting your time.” He snapped his fingers. “But then, what do you care if your time’s wasted? The TV station will still pay you.”

  “They will. I’m on their payroll. Same as the city will still pay you even if you never solve another case.”

  Johnny looked around his desk for another pencil before he ripped into Arn. “And just whose ass did you blow smoke up to get this lucrative ‘consulting’ job?”

  Arn nudged a piece of lint embedded in the shit-brown carpeting with the toe of his boot.

 
Johnny came around his desk and sat on the edge. “It was that TV reporter—that Ana Maria Villarreal—wasn’t it? When she came on air two nights ago she seemed to gloat that the station hired an outside consultant.”

  “She guilt-tripped me into doing her a favor and looking into Butch’s death.”

  “And was it her brilliant idea to lump Gaylord’s and Steve’s deaths along with Butch’s into her TV special?”

  Detectives Steve DeBoer and Gaylord Fournier had died a month apart shortly before Butch Spangler was murdered. Arn saw no connection, but Ana Maria’s intuition said there was. He’d worked with her enough in years past to trust her intuition.

  “All I know is, I’m getting paid to look at Butch’s murder and the deaths of the other officers. Whether I’m successful in learning anything new is doubtful. But I intend to work it until I can’t anymore. Now, the police reports on Butch … ”

  Johnny nodded to the door. “I’ll have Gorilla Legs make copies.”

  “Who’s Gorilla Legs?”

  “You see that lovely lady out front? With a scowl and a mustache any cowboy would be proud of?”

  “Looking like she could ride Steamboat into the ground?”

  “The same. I inherited her as secretary when I took over as acting chief. I’ll ask her to make copies of Butch’s investigation.” Johnny grinned. “But you might have to arm wrestle her for it.”

  “And can she make copies on Gaylord and Steve as well?”

  Johnny’s smile faded and he leaned across the desk. “Those two deaths were—”

  “Suspicious.”

  “Not connected.”

  “How did they die?”

  Johnny rubbed his temples. “I’m not going to lift a finger to be a part of this charade. Their deaths were accidental. A lot of us still hurt over them. Leave it at that.”

  “I’ll bet I could research the Wyoming Tribune Eagle and find out how they died.”

  “Then hop to it.”

  Arn set his bag down on the chair and approached Johnny. “We were friends, once upon a time when I worked here. Why are you so hostile to me?”

  “I told you: the TV station. The public was outraged—again—this week when Villarreal started airing her special. ‘Three officers from the same agency dead in one year is more than coincidental,’ she said.”

  “But you don’t think they were murdered?”

  Johnny stared at Arn so long that he wasn’t sure Johnny had heard the question. Until he finally spoke slowly, deliberately. “Butch Spangler’s murder put every swinging dick in the department on edge. Looking over our shoulders. Locking our doors. If someone could get the best of Butch—who was the most paranoid cop in the department—in his own home, no one was safe. But we worked the hell out of Gaylord’s and Steve’s cases on the off-chance they were connected. Nothing linked them to Butch’s homicide. Nothing. Those files are not public record. Even I can’t release them without authorization.”

  “Who can?”

  “The investigations lieutenant, Ned Oblanski.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “You don’t want to. He’s even madder than I am that you’re sticking your nose into city business—some outsider from the TV station we’re ordered to cooperate with. Like we’re a bunch of hicks.”

  Arn slung his briefcase over his shoulder and headed for the door.

  “Watch your ass with Ned,” Johnny called after him. “You’d be better off French kissing Gorilla Legs than tangling with him.”

  Two

  Arn poked his head around the corner of the TV station break room. “Your security here stinks.”

  Ana Maria jerked her head up from her newspaper and knocked an empty coffee cup onto the floor. “Why’d you scare me like that?”

  Arn walked around the cubicle and leaned on the short wall. “Just thank God it’s not some stalker waltzing in here. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened.”

  Ana Maria bent and picked up the pieces of broken cup. “That was … about a century ago—”

  “Thirteen years ago.”

  She trembled visibly as she patted the carpet with some paper towels. Then she motioned for Arn to follow her down the hallway. “Is that a purse you’ve got slung over your shoulder?”

  “It’s a man bag.”

  She jabbed Arn with her elbow. “Kind of sissified for a cowboy to carry a purse.”

  “Man bag.”

  Ana Maria led him into an empty office and shut the door. “Doc Henry’s been paroled for two years now and he hasn’t contacted me since, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She wrapped her arms around Arn and hugged him. “Besides, I’ve got my protector here in Cheyenne now.”

  Arn held her at arm’s length and looked down at her. “Your protector was a spry forty-three back when we were in Denver. Don’t count on me riding up on a white horse now.”

  Ana Maria smiled. “You always were pretty savvy with horseflesh, from what I recall.”

  “That was a century ago, too. You need to watch yourself.”

  “Doc Henry’s the least of my worries right now.”

  “What could be more important than protecting yourself?” Arn asked.

  “Right now, protecting my job,” she said soberly.

  “And as I recall, you could always find work turning a wrench if you needed to.”

  Ana Maria sat behind the desk and propped her feet up on an open drawer. “No one wants to hire a mechanic who can’t work on computerized cars.” She dropped her feet and leaned across the desk, her frown replaced by a wide grin. Her brown eyes showed the twinkle Arn remembered from when she was a reporter at the Denver television station. The last thing Ana Maria wanted—Arn knew—was to go back to turning a wrench like she did before she got her first reporter gig. “This series on the old murders will help me keep my job. Maybe even get national attention.”

  “Ah.” Arn sat on the edge of the desk. “That’s why you conned your station owner into bringing me in. So you could reopen old wounds and propel yourself higher?”

  “Yeah,” Ana Maria answered. “But I won’t admit it to anyone else.”

  “Bull. Your job might be on the line, but there’s another reason you proposed reexamining those three officers’ deaths.” Arn smiled. “Maybe there’s still a sense of justice flowing through those reporter’s veins?”

  She shrugged. “Just like you have another reason than your consulting fee for agreeing to look into them.”

  “I needed money to restore Mom’s old house.”

  “Now that’s bull. You retained a sense of justice from your police days. You’d like nothing more than to see Butch Spangler’s homicide solved. Besides, you miss it, don’t you? Chasing the bad guys. Outsmarting them.”

  Arn shrugged.

  Ana Maria leaned back. She grabbed an emery board from a center desk drawer and started to scrape grease and dirt from under her nails. Like most mechanics. “Then we might solve a case. Or three.”

  Arn dropped into a chair beside the desk. “I doubt it. The police investigators and Wyoming DCI turned all three cases upside down. They even called in an FBI profiler. The chance that I find anything new is slim.”

  “You mean the chance of us finding anything is slim.”

  “No,” Arn repeated. “I mean me.”

  Ana Maria dropped the nail file back in the drawer. “I proposed the story. Put my butt on the line selling it to my station manager. I’m going to be actively involved.”

  Arn started to interrupt, but Ana Maria held up her hand. “I’ve got to stay connected to this. Last thing I want to do is fall on my butt. Especially on the air.”

  “Hello,” Arn said, “this could get dangerous if I do uncover something new.” He stood and paced the room. “Someone murdered Butch Spangler and got away without a trace. I won’t hav
e you jeopardized—”

  “I need this!” Ana Maria leaned back and crossed her arms defiantly. “The station manager gave me this one story to pull my ratings back up. If I’m not involved, I might as well not be alive, because I’m not going back to fixing cars.”

  Arn sighed deeply. He wanted to argue. He needed to argue. But he also knew that if he were ever to learn anything new about the deaths of the three detectives, he would need community support. And Ana Maria Villarreal, with her engaging smile and dark beauty, just might make the difference in loosening memories of the deaths. It did when she covered a pot convention in Denver all those years ago, exposing the seedy side of that game and earning her enemies. Including one Doc Henry.

  “All right,” he said finally. “But only because I need the money will we be working together. So to speak. If things get hinky, you pull out.”

  “I will not—”

  “I don’t need the money that bad. Either you promise you’ll back out if things go south, or I stroll right out of here and go back to Denver.”

  Even through her dark complexion Ana Maria’s face turned red, but she nodded in resignation. “Agreed. But you keep me informed of what you learn.”

  “Agreed.” He sat in a chair again and leaned his elbows on the desk. “Now, what have you found out so far?”

  Ana Maria took a thick manila file folder from a drawer and spread papers atop the desk. “Even after I filed a FOIA request, I got very little. Butch Spangler’s police investigation is public record—for the most part.” She thumbed through the papers and set aside the ones about Butch’s homicide. She slid copies of official Cheyenne Police press releases across the desk, including the reports about Steve and Gaylord’s deaths that were so redacted with black marker it must have cost the department a bundle for the Sharpies. “But all I got was press releases about the other officers’ deaths.”

  Arn automatically grabbed for the high-dollar Walmart reading glasses sticking out of his pocket and caught a smirk from Ana Maria. “What?”

  “Are those women’s glasses?”