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 have 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?”
“You’re being sexist?” he answered. “So what if they’re a floral print. They were on sale.” He turned the report to the light as he read how Gaylord Fournier had died as a result of a hanging. His wife, Adelle, had found him swinging from their basement rafters when she came home from shopping. “Looks pretty straightforward. No mention that it was anything but suicide.” He handed Ana Maria the press release. “Any scuttlebutt that he had work problems? Problems at home? Another woman?”
Ana Maria smiled as she leaned back in her chair. “Remember down in Denver when I covered that group that was into the kinky stuff?”
“I’m still going to therapy over it. Was Gaylord involved in that kinky shit?”
Ana Maria nodded. She glanced out the window for a moment before she answered. “Detective Fournier died an autoerotic death.”
“Where’d you get that pearl of information?”
“Rumor. Cost me some lucky bucks to take a junior detective on a dinner date. If you could get Johnny White to open up, he might admit Gaylord was found swinging with a rope wrapped around his tallywacker and butter smeared all over his bare butt.”
“That’s why Johnny White didn’t want to tell me.” Arn laid the report aside. “Maybe I’ll talk with whoever was Butch’s and Gaylord’s supervisor at the time, if he’s still in the area.”
“You’ll need a Ouija board for that. The head of investigations then was none other than Steve DeBoer. He went the way of Gaylord, you know.”
“You mean he died spanking his monkey, too?”
“No.” Ana Maria thumbed through more papers and came away with another press release. “He died from smoke inhalation when he passed out in his recliner in his living room, a Virginia Slim still in his hand.”
“You certain it was smoke inhalation?”
“I’m looking for the fire marshal’s report to verify it.”
Arn glanced at the report and slid it back across the desk. “So how can you make an ongoing investigative series with just this?”
“I can because the public demands it. Look.” Ana Maria opened the blinds and pointed down into the parking lot. A circle of people rimmed the front lot, chanting things Arn couldn’t make out. Others held homemade signs that read Justice for the Three. “That started the morning after I aired the initial setup for the series. People living here still demand the three deaths be investigated as homicides. Connected homicides.”
“But why? Steve’s and Gaylord’s were accidents, if we believe the police investigations.”
“The public didn’t buy that the deaths of three investigators from the same agency—half the investigative division at the time—weren’t related. They wanted the three to be connected. They needed the three connected. And what better to connect them than airing a television special on the ten-year anniversary of their deaths.”
Arn shut the blinds and plopped back into the chair. “There’s nothing there. Butch Spangler was murdered by person or persons unknown. Period.”
“And you don’t think there’s a connection with the other two?”
“Like what?”
“They all worked together?” Ana Maria came around the desk. She sat next to Arn, and her cologne wafted over him. He fought to remind himself that he was old enough to be her father and backed his chair away. “Gaylord Fournier was Butch Spangler’s partner. And Steve DeBoer was their supervisor.”
“So?”
“They were all working on two murders the press had dubbed ‘the Five Point Killings’ at the time. And the Five Point Killer was never found.”
Arn leaned away from Ana Maria to concentrate. “I recall some regional teletypes coming through Denver Metro Homicide during that time. I guess someone figured that being an hour and a half away from Cheyenne, we might have some similar cases. Cheyenne police wanted to know if we had any murders where the suspect dropped one of those goofy plastic police badges at a scene.”
“Like the ones the DARE officers used to give out,” Ana Maria said. “Some reporter gave the murderer the moniker because of the five points to the badge.”
“That’s what every killer needs,” Arn said. “A catchy name to put on his toe tag. But I’ll bet it was the talk of the town, three deaths in a burg this size. Most exciting thing happens here every year is watching who wins the overall cowboy at Frontier Days. What caused you to bring these cases up in the first place?”
“I remember reading the AP articles about the deaths when I worked in Denver,” Ana Maria said. “When I moved here and started to interview people, I found folks that still lived in fear. Even now, the old residents shudder when you mention the Five Point Killer.”
“Then why didn’t Johnny White tell me that all three of them worked on those cases?”
Ana Maria shrugged. “Got to be some compelling reason.” She stood and smoothed her skirt. “I’ve got to tape the next segment of the series for tomorrow. We need to meet up before it airs. Where are you staying?”
“I’m bunked at Little America for now. But I’ll be working at my mother’s old house tomorrow.”
“Then let’s plan to go over these police reports there tomorrow afternoon.” She was halfway through the door when she stopped and faced Arn. “Thanks for coming aboard on this. Once again, I owe you.”
“All you owe me is your safety. After this starts airing nightly, you might draw the attention of someone who doesn’t like it.”
“Like the alleged killer?” Ana Maria laughed. “Believe me, if I really thought all three deaths were connected, I wouldn’t have proposed the series,” she added over her shoulder as she walked down the hallway toward the recording studio.
“I thought you were ready to walk on coals before you gave up the notion they were all connected?”
“What I was ready to do is walk on coals to get this special. They may be connected. But I’m not thoroughly convinced.”
Arn headed for the parking lot. As he passed the receptionist seated like a security guard—whom Arn had easily slipped past as he came into the building—the woman stopped him.
“You’re that ex-Denver cop Ana Maria goes on about all the time.”
Doris was engraved on a brass nameplate on her desk. She sat stoically, pulling her gray hair back behind her ears and over twin hearing aids.
“I met Ana Maria in Denver right after she started for the CBS affiliate there. And yes, we’re friends.”
Doris took off her glasses and her eyes met Arn’s. “Then if you’re a friend, you tell that girl to watch her backside.”
“Has she had problems lately?”
“She got calls the morning after that first airing of her special.” Doris sipped from a Starbucks cup as big as a thermos. “Then two more calls the morning after the next airing.”
“What type of calls?”
“Just some man.”
“Threats?” Arn asked.
Doris eyed the ceiling fan as if her answer were hidden there. “Not directly. The man just said, ‘Kill the story,’ and hung up.”
“Did Ana Maria recognize the voice?”
“She was out working other stories each time he called. I told her about it, but she waved it away like it was some annoying cigarette smoke that made her uncomfortable.” Doris put her glasses on and picked up her copy of Good Housekeeping. “But if you want my opinion, the voice I heard on the other end was as threatening as if he came out and said he’d kill Ana Maria if she continued with the special.”
Arn opened his man bag and caught Doris’s grin as she stared at it. He jotted his number down on a notepad and handed it to her. “You call if that man phones again.”
“I will. And check on her now and again, will you, Mr. Anderson? Please.”