43

“THE VICTIM WAS LAST SEEN hanging around your house,” Oblanski said.

Arn didn’t have to pick up the photos, nor did he have to study them even though the face was crushed and showed little resemblance to a human being. The spider web tattoo on the big man’s elbows and the wrist watched inked on his wrist told Arn all he needed to know whose time had run out. “Bulldog.”

“The South Dakota parole board knows him better as Chauncy Big Eagle. He hasn’t showed up at a meeting with his PO for over a year. Now why the hell was he at your house?”

Arn took off his hat and massaged a rising headache spreading across his forehead. “He was an… acquaintance of Danny’s.”

“There’s more to it.”

“There is,” Arn said. “Danny had some romantic notion that Bulldog was going to… persuade Doc Henry from bothering Ana Maria.”

Oblanski tossed his pencil into the round file. “What a dumb assed idea. Doesn’t your man servant— .”

“Roommate.”

“Whatever,” Oblanski waved it away. “Doesn’t he know better than to try pulling off some bonehead plan like that? Now we got us another dead body and no one to pin it on.”

“Sure you do.”

“And who might that be?”

“Doc Henry,” Arn answered.

Oblanski picked up the photo. “It took four men to lift this… man into the meat wagon, and you think some old guy like Doc Henry could do this,” he tapped the photo showing Bulldog bloody and unrecognizable and left in a downtown alley.

Arn’s headache only increased as Oblanski forced him into remembering what Doc was capable of. “Every one of Doc’s victims—.”

“I thought Doc was convicted of just one murder?”

“That’s all that we could prove. Each victim had been strangled and bludgeoned worse than the previous one. It was as if Doc was learning the best way to ensure no one could identify them. As for besting some big bastard like Bulldog, Doc was found straddling a two-fifty-pound inmate while he was in Florence High. Only because guards pulled Doc off the guy did he manage to pull through. Doc had everyone in the block so scarred they all claimed he was acting in self-defense.”

—

Ana Maria picked at her casserole while Danny hung his head, and Arn rubbed his headache. “Aren’t we a sorry bunch,” Arn said. “Danny’s friend has been murdered, I have a headache bordering on a migraine from talking to Oblanski half the afternoon, and you’re having some issues,” he motioned to Ana Maria. “What’s going on with you?”

“Just the old good news-bad news thing,” she said and dropped her fork on the plate. “You want the bad news first?”

“If you’re talking to me,” Danny said, “I’d like the good news first. Maybe it’ll cheer me up.”

“Ok, here it is. Remember I told you I’ve been working my tail off to convince Ethan Ames to submit to an interview,” Ana Maria said.

“Sure I remember,” Arn said. “I recall his superiors wouldn’t approve it. Something about patient confidentiality.”

She nodded. “My argument was that there is no confidentiality issue if the patients are dead, but he said his hands were tied. Well, he called me this morning—he’d convinced his supervisor in Rapid City that my argument held water, and that he could talk freely about the victims.”

“What’s there to talk about?” Danny said. “They’re dead.”

“A profile,” Ana Maria answered. “Ethan will go on the record and talk about the victims and he will offer a psychological profile we can put out to the public. His supervisor agrees with me—any information out into the public domain might help us catch the killer.”

“That’s great news,” Arn said. “I hate to spoil our festive mood, but what’s the bad?”

“The bad news is I arranged to talk with Beth Randall Schwartz tomorrow afternoon. The same time my interview with Ethan’s here in town. He’s giving me an hour for an interview.”

“Could you reschedule either one?” Arn asked.

“I don’t see how. It took all my persuasion for her to agree to even talk. I am just afraid if I postpone it, she’ll think something’s up. I can’t say for certain, but I got the impression that Beth is deathly afraid that Pudgy will find her. As for Ethan, he has to catch a red eye out of Denver for a conference in D. C. tomorrow night, so he won’t be available for another week.”

“Someone has to make that interview. If Pudgy is involved, Beth may have the one piece of information we need to find him,” Arn said. “I’ll go.”

Ana Maria picked at her food with her fork. “Didn’t you hear a word I said? Beth is so paranoid; I know she won’t agree to talk with you. The minute you call her and tell her you’re replacing me, the interview will be off. She might even skip town.”

“I didn’t plan on calling her.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m not going to call her. I’m just going to show up at the time you’ve arranged and hope to hell she agrees to talk.”

“How are you going to get her to talk?”

Arn flashed a grin.

Danny groaned. “Not that old Anderson charm again.”