14

ANA MARIA HUDDLED OVER HER plate of tuna casserole. She had eaten little tonight. She had eaten little since learning Doc Henry was in Cheyenne. Even though she tried to present bravado, that it didn’t bother her, Arn knew better. He desperately needed for her to get her mind off her tormentor as much as he needed Ana Maria’s help if he were ever to connect the dots between Frank and Steve. “Every man who died under these… unusual circumstances were officers?”

She nodded and stabbed a piece of tuna with her fork. “Every man. The only thing I could find linking them all was that they were all Vietnam War vets.” She held up her hand. “And before you ask, if my research is correct, none of the eight ever served together. It is like their murders are all random. If they were murdered.”

“The ninth victim was murdered.”

Ana Maria’s head snapped up. “There’s no ninth name on my list.”

“It wouldn’t be,” Arn said, shaking a bit more salt on his food even as Danny scowled at Arn ruining his dish. “He was killed a year before the other killings began. So, I suppose you could figure him the first.”

Ana Maria sat up straight in her chair. “How come I never heard of that one?’

“Because I just learned about the victim—a Captain Sims—from Oblanski today.” Arn explained that the chief had called him later in the day when Arn was knee-deep in slapping paint on a spare bedroom wall. “Investigators found no motive for Sims’ murder,” the chief said. “No reason he was targeted. He had no known enemies and no threats were found in his mail or his computer.”

Ana Maria stuffed casserole in her mouth and said between bites, “then we better catch this bastard sooner than later. This might be enough to convince DeAngelo to let me do a special on their deaths.”

DeAngelo had reluctantly agreed to Ana Maria’s special coverage, dovetailing it into her RSL broadcasts. But when he first heard that Doc Henry was in Cheyenne, he cancelled Ana Maria’s reporting on the VA deaths and suspended her coverage of the RSL. He didn’t think Doc was connected in any way to her reporting on the veterans. He just didn’t want her out there exposed as if taunting Doc with every nightly broadcast. And when she had been relegated to doing pieces on Cheyenne’s Botanic Gardens or entertainment at the Depot on Fridays, it had driven her deeper into a depression. Even though Arn knew her nightly coverage of the murders might flush the killer to the surface as it had several other times, he feared for her just as DeAngelo did. “I gave DeAngelo an ultimatum—let me go ahead with the specials or I walk.”

“You sure going live with these deaths is a wise idea?” Danny asked. “DeAngelo might be right—it might be too much of the wrong kind of exposure—.”

“Don’t even talk to me about DeAngelo. I told him I could handle whatever came along. And to hell with Doc Henry!”

Deep down, Arn knew that—if he could keep Ana Maria safe as she did nightly broadcast covering the suspicious deaths—it might draw out the killer.

—

Arn finished his shower and slipped on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. He grabbed his book and settled into his chair in the sewing room. He turned the light just right and opened his copy of Les Misérables. Reading only an hour every night had taken him a month to get as far as he did. And the end was nowhere in sight.

He donned his reading glasses, while the sound of Danny’s snoring coming from his bedroom two rooms over made Arn smile. He had taken the old man in when he was homeless, when Arn found him squatting in this house after Arn moved back to Cheyenne from Denver. Arn thought he’d let Danny hang around for a few nights until the old man offered to trade room and board for remodeling Arn’s boyhood home. And now it was, more than two years later and still Danny was here. Between the old Indian knowing more about construction than anyone Arn knew to the man’s skills as a cook to his insight and being a sounding board often, Arn would have it no other way.

Arn turned to a new chapter and adjusted the reading lamp over his left shoulder when his cell phone rang. He ignored it at the first ring, until that cop-intuition told him he ought not ignore it any longer and flipped it open. “Do you know what time it is?” Arn asked when Chief Oblanski came on-line.

“It’s time to get some sleep, but I thought I’d let you know—I called the state lab today and asked them to put a rush on Frank Mosby’s tox report. So happens, the lab completed it this afternoon and was just waiting for morning to send it over to the coroner’s office.”

“I take it you wouldn’t have called unless something odd showed up?”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry about what? “

“Sorry about your friend Frank—he died of cocaine overdose.”

Arn thought he heard wrong, but when Oblanski repeated it asked, “you mean he died shooting up in the restroom?”

“Apparently,” Oblanski said.

—

As long as Arn had known Helen Mosby she had gotten up with the chickens, as she put it. No matter how early he stopped by her house through the years, she was always awake. This morning was no exception. When Arn pulled into the circular drive, Helen was just emerging from the house with a gardener’s pail in one hand and what was left of a bagel in the other. She set the pail down and polished off the bagel while she walked to Arn’s car.

“Can we talk, Helen?”

She craned her neck up at him, and her smile faded as if she knew more bad news was coming her way. Arn declined coffee, and she motioned to the wino bench beneath the pine tree. He had thought about how to ask her on the way over, and none of his approaches seemed right. He’d finally settled on the direct approach and asked, “Helen, Frank didn’t die from heart complications. He died from a cocaine overdose.”

She stared unblinkingly at Arn for long moments when she said, “That is impossible. Frank never used drugs. Ever. Even when he was in Vietnam, he said he turned down more dope than most people could buy and never touched any of it. How can you say—.”

“The state lab finally got the tox report back and they found a lethal dose in his blood.”

She stood and walked to where a low-hanging bough brushed against a bird feeder. “The robins and finches were early this year,” her voice breaking up. “I suspect they’ll be gone early as well…” She faced Arn. “I knew my Frank as well as any person can know another. And I am here to tell you, he did not use drugs.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“How about that gall bladder operation he had last year?” Arn asked.

“What about it?”

“Wasn’t he prescribed oxycodone for his pain?”

“They sent him home with some pills, and I had to get it refilled once, but what’s that got to do with him overdosing on cocaine?”

“Perhaps he got… used to taking the drug. Perhaps he built up a tolerance and needed something stronger.”

“Like perhaps he bought cocaine on the street like a common druggie? Frank wouldn’t even know where—or who—to buy it from. No. If Frank died from an overdose of cocaine, it is because someone injected him. I knew my Frank.”

—

Ned Oblanski had a city commissioner meeting to go to so he only had a moment to talk over the phone. But that was all Arn needed. “I talked with Helen and she assured me Frank Mosby was no coke head.”

“Family is usually the last to know most of the time, you know that.”

“I do. What I don’t know, though, is how the ME could have missed an injection site. That should have stood out like a sore toe.”

“You read the coroner’s report—the only injection site Frank had was where he got a blood draw that morning at the VA. That was it.”

“Then clarify something for me,” Arn said. “When I talked with you last night, you said the dosage in Frank’s bloodstream was twice the LD50—twice the lethal dose.”

“That’s what the lab came back with.”

“Then if that were the case, Frank should have been found in the restroom—.”

“He was—.”

“With a needle stuck in his arm. Or his leg. If he had twice the lethal dose, isn’t it safe to believe that the needle would still be stuck into a vein? Isn’t it safe to assume he wouldn’t have been able to get rid of the needle, even if he wanted to?”

“I hate to admit it,” Oblanski said, “but you might just have a point there.”

“You admit we just might have some psycho targeting veterans running loose out here?”

“Could be.”

“Then I’m going to have to talk with a psychiatrist—.”

“Arn,” Oblanski said, “don’t get yourself so worked up you need to seek counseling.”

“Not looking for counseling for me,” Arn said. “I’m going to find out who among the dead vets ever sought help through the VA. I’m going to see a government shrink.”