In contrast to Johnny’s Gorilla Legs, the investigations secretary—Michelle Gains, according to the nameplate parked at one corner of her orderly desk—smiled warmly as she stood. She took off earphones linked to a transcription machine and smoothed her pleated gray skirt. “Lieutenant Oblanski asked that you have a seat.”
Short. Professional. Nothing that indicated to Arn he would be kept waiting for two hours as he read tattered pages of People magazine lauding lives he cared little about. Passing investigators eyed him curiously as he thumbed through a last year’s edition of Cosmopolitan featuring the cover-teasing “Eight Ways to Give Him an Erection All Night.” A uniformed sergeant smirked as he walked by Arn reading a story in Fit Pregnancy, the closest thing he could come to a men’s magazine in the waiting room.
He jumped when Michelle entered the room. “Lieutenant Oblanski will see you now.”
The moment Arn started down the investigations hallway, he swore the temperature dropped a dime. Detectives hunched over computers stopped long enough to rubberneck the outsider walking past them, an outsider bulling his way into their agency. An outsider telling them how to conduct a homicide investigation.
He followed Michelle to the office at the end of the hallway. She pointed him to a door marked Lt. Oblanski and backed away. She remained in the hall, as if to watch the entertainment.
A man several inches shorter than Arn, and nearly as heavy in the arms and shoulders, motioned him into his office. He stood with a phone cradled in the crick of his neck as he jotted on a notepad on top of his desk cluttered with papers and shift schedules and the Tribune Eagle opened to a damning front page article ripping the police for failure to find Butch’s killer ten years ago. Arn started to close the door when Oblanski stopped him. “You’re not going to be here long enough to get comfortable.” His eyes looked past Arn to the audience of investigators craning their necks around their office doors. “Leave it open.”
Arn hung his Stetson on an elk antler coatrack and sat with one leg crossed over the other. Ned Oblanski ignored him while he stuffed papers into a thick manila folder marked Butch Spangler Homicide in red. He tossed it on his desk and it slid off the edge onto the floor. “There’s a copy of Butch’s file. Anything else you need?”
Arn picked up the file and slipped it into his bag as he met Oblanski’s stare. “There is. I need your help.”
He caught Oblanski’s faint blink, a micro tic that told him he’d hit a sympathetic nerve. But he’d need much more than that if he were to enlist Oblanski’s cooperation. “I’ll need your help—and your detectives’ help—if I’m going to find Butch’s killer.”
Light filtering through window blinds reflected off Oblanski’s nearly bald head, a short, bristly patch of brown in the middle that gave it the look of a Mohawk. His eyes locked onto Arn’s, and he crossed his arms while leaning back. “Someone thinks this agency screwed up the Spangler investigation,” he said, loud enough so the other investigators heard. “And some hot dog mercenary the TV station hired is going to waltz in here and set us hicks straight?”
Arn ran his fingers through his wispy blond hair. “I’m not your enemy, Lieutenant … ”
“That’s right. We share camaraderie, you an-ex cop and all. You even worked here way back in the day. We’re up to our asses in alligators here, mister consultant. I can’t spare anyone to help you.”
“Don’t you want to see Butch’s killer brought to justice?”
Oblanski came around his desk and glared down at Arn. “What do you take me for? Of course I want to. But you’re not going to learn anything that we didn’t.”
“I understand you were here in Investigations when Butch was killed.”
“Not that it makes any difference,” Oblanski said, “but I started the year before. I did the important stuff: grab coffee and donuts, run dead-end leads on the tip line. Important stuff.”
“You must have some notion who killed him.” The micro tic again tugged at the outer reaches of Oblanski’s eye, and Arn pressed the issue. “Someone must have stood out?”
“Frank Dull Knife,” Oblanski blurted out. “The Indian who was banging Butch’s wife. But we worked that angle to death. In my gut, though, I still feel he was good for it.”
“Just because he messed around with a man’s wife doesn’t make him a killer. You might have even messed around yourself a time or two.”
“When I was young and stupid.” Oblanski leaned on the edge of his desk. “But Butch had worked up a burglary case on Frank. They were scheduled to go to a preliminary hearing a week after Butch was murdered. A conviction would have made Frank a habitual criminal. Mandatory life. He would have been someone’s wife or girlfriend in the joint until he was too old to look pretty. I’d say that’s reason enough to murder Butch.”
“Is this Frank Dull Knife still in town?”
Oblanski spit tobacco juice in the trash can and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He’s breathing air someone else could be breathing. Still at his crappy little mechanic shop over by the refinery. Now if there’s nothing else—”
“I want the files on Steve DeBoer and Gaylord Fournier.”
“People in hell want ice water. That’s what the nuns told me in school.” Oblanski grabbed a pouch of Red Man tobacco and stuffed his cheek. He offered it to Arn.
“Never got into the habit myself.”
Oblanski chuckled. “And that’s what my priest said, too.” The smile faded. “But those files are off-limits to you. They weren’t suspicious deaths, and I won’t taint their memory dragging them into this.”
“Even with the mayor’s orders? I understand he’s on board with this TV series showcasing the deaths of his three detectives. Something about the good publicity it can give him next election.”
“Get the hell out before I throw you out.”
Arn stood and looked down at Oblanski. The man might get a meal out of a fight, but Arn would definitely get a snack. Oblanski seemed to weigh the possibility of getting his ass beat in front of his officers, and he backed away. “Just get out of my office.”
Arn hesitated. He’d too long been the top predator in the police world not to savor Oblanski’s defeat. For the moment.
He slung his bag over his shoulder and started for the door, then stopped and faced Oblanski. “One other thing: I want some protection for Ana Maria Villarreal.”
“Does she need protection?”
“Some nut called her after she began airing the series.”
“Did he threaten her?”
“She didn’t talk with him. The receptionist took the calls; the guy made no direct threats. But the timing of the phone calls telling her to stop the TV special is too coincidental. Especially since Butch’s killer was never caught.”
“Ana Maria Villarreal is no friend of this department.” Oblanski raised his voice once again for the benefit of his investigators, who eyed the open office door. “But she can come down and file a report like anyone else. Although I doubt we could do anything with information that sketchy.”
“Then how about Doc Henry?”
“I’m healthy. Never went to the man. Whoever he is.”
“He’s a shithead who stalked—and tried to kill—Ana Maria in Denver thirteen years ago. He got twenty-to-life in the Colorado State Penitentiary. Paroled two years ago.”
“Then he’s safe and sound and knee-deep into rehabilitation. But I’d worry about yourself, Anderson. With Ana Maria plastering your file photo on air as the one who’s going to catch Butch’s killer, you’d do well to look over your own shoulder.”