Two days after the Hobby Shop takedown, Oblanski scooted his chair close to one side of the conference table. He nodded to papers scattered the length of the table in front of him. “It’ll take me a year to sort through all those reports and statements. Thanks a bunch.”
Arn held up his coffee cup in a mock toast. “My pleasure. Glad I could wrap up my consulting gig on a positive note.”
“How about one consulting freebie for the city? Off the payroll?”
“Just one. Someone once told me I’m a mercenary bastard.”
Oblanski smiled. “Okay. Here it is: maybe you can tell me why Pieter retained the best attorney out of Denver, then didn’t take his advice and told me whatever I wanted to know in the interrogation?”
Arn sipped gingerly from his cup, thinking. “I believe Pieter wanted it out how his father was the best investigator the department ever had. And he wanted the public to know that the only reason Butch didn’t solve the Five Point Killings was that his son knew just where the investigation was headed and was always a jump ahead of him. Maybe he really did love his father deep down.”
“Or maybe he’s as egotistical as Butch was.” Oblanski began gathering papers into neat piles ready for transcription. “With all the newspaper and television coverage, Pieter will be infamous. At least until they execute him. The prosecutor’s going to try him as a death penalty case.”
“With all the delays and automatic appeal,” Arn said, helping Oblanski with the paperwork, “I don’t expect to see that in my lifetime.” He stood and walked to the coffee pot and refilled his cup. Oblanski held up his mug, and Arn topped it off. The coffee was fresh, strong, and just right. All Oblanski had to do was build up the courage to ask Gorilla Legs in just the right tone to make it.
“The news mentioned you found Mr. Noggle, Pieter’s high school science teacher.”
“He was walled up in the family room in Gaylord’s old house that Pieter bought.” Oblanski settled back and held his mug with both hands. “He was just where Pieter put him sometime after he purchased the place. That’s the one thing Pieter wouldn’t tell me—where Noggle was, from the time he killed him until he bought Gaylord’s house five years later.”
Arn rested his elbows on the table. “The thing that’s puzzled me the most was why did Pieter plant those plastic stars at the murder scenes?”
“It was as simple as an accident,” Oblanski said. “He told me he’d gotten a badge at school that day when an officer came to talk to the class. When he was doing his thing with Joey Bent, the star fell out of his pocket. He was worried to death about losing it, until the news dubbed it the Five Point Killings.”
“And he got the urge to drop one at every scene?” Arn stood and walked to the window. Fresh snow had blanketed Cheyenne during the early morning, and kids played outside on a sled pulled by a large mongrel. “As much as I despised the man, it’s a shame Pieter killed Jefferson Dawes.”
“I forgot to tell you.” Oblanski laughed, outwardly pleased. “That’s the best part. Remember we put out teletypes to Customs and the Marshals? Well, the first—and as it happened, the only—Mrs. Dawes was located in the Dominican Republic. She left Jeff over his womanizing. And Jeff and Adelle never actually married.”
“And that’s the best part?”
“No,” Oblanski replied. “The best part is, she’s coming home to settle Jefferson’s estate. When I told Adelle that Jeff’s wife was returning to take possession of everything Jeff had, I thought she’d cry herself to sleep right there on the floor of her former million-dollar home.”
“Justice comes in all forms, my friend.”
“That it does.” Oblanski held his cup high and toasted. “To Adelle Fournier and the cheap whisky she’ll be forced to drink from now on.” He checked his watch. “Visiting at the county jail will be over in fifteen minutes.”
“So?”
“When I was there with the stenographer taking Pieter’s statement, he mentioned he was looking forward to Georgia’s visit today. In case you’re interested.”
By the time Arn pulled into the parking garage across from the jail, visitors were shuffling out the door. Arn went inside and spotted Georgia standing in front of a locker, gathering things she had to stow before being allowed inside to visit Pieter. Meander stood beside her, frail-looking, with her shoulders slumped and bags under her eyes from crying. Probably all night. She looked around the lobby of the jail as if in a daze.
They had started out the door when Arn called Georgia’s name. She looked around and saw him. She walked toward him as she put her coat on, her arms crossed in a hug, a sad look on her face from seeing the only son she’d ever know. “Wait for me in the car,” she said to Meander. “I’ll be out in a moment.”
Meander looked through Arn with bloodshot eyes. She had no expression as she stumbled past him and out the double doors without speaking.
“How’s Pieter doing?” Arn asked.
“Like you care!” Georgia blurted out. “I’m sorry for that.” She motioned to a bench and they sat. “I’m just upset—”
“Understood.”
She nodded in the direction of the cell blocks as if she could see Pieter through the thick walls. “To answer your question, Pieter’s in solitary. He’s a celebrity in there.” She laughed nervously. “Petty druggies. Burglars, like Frank Dull Knife. People who’d rip off their grandmothers or do a stop-and-rob.” She threw up her hands. “But in there, Pieter’s special. He’s a serial killer.”
Her eyes watered and she looked away. “His attorney says Oblanski doesn’t have a case. ‘Leave this up to me,’ he said. ‘By the time I’m through with the city, they’ll be owing me for Pieter staying in this rat hole.’”
“Do you believe him?”
Georgia shook her head. “Butch always said that lawyers will say whatever you want to hear as long as they’re on the clock—a healthy retainer, in this instance, is what Pieter’s already shelled out.”
Georgia watched the last of the visitors leave the building. “You’ve been in law enforcement all your life. What are the chances that Pieter will walk on those murders?”
“After giving Oblanski an eight-hour confession, with verifiable corroboration? None.”
“Maybe he’ll be found incompetent to stand trial.”
Arn looked at Georgia clutching for emotional straws, for any thread of hope that Pieter would go free. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her close, tell her that he’d be there for her whatever Pieter’s outcome. But they’d talked well into the morning yesterday after leaving the hospital, and something had passed between them. Georgia knew that it wasn’t Arn’s fault that Pieter had murdered. She knew that it wasn’t Arn’s doing that Pieter began killing once again after so many years of dormancy. But she also knew that if the TV station hadn’t hired Arn and his investigative skills to work with Ana Maria, Pieter would never have been caught. He would have just gone on with his now-quiet life.
“It’s obvious from listening to Pieter that he prepared for the day he would get caught,” Arn said. “During the interrogation, he admitted to exhibiting textbook signs of a sociopath. And he’s right. But that doesn’t mean he’s criminally insane.”
“Will the state execute him?”
Arn nodded. “Not this year. Or the next. Perhaps not even this decade, as many automatic appeals as he’ll have. But at some point the public will demand their pound of Pieter.”
“I understand,” Georgia said, standing and wrapping a scarf around her neck. “All too well.”
She started for the doors when Arn called after her. She stopped and waited for him to catch up. “I have to know something that’s giving me fits,” he said.
She stood with her back to him, not turning around. “What is it?”
“All those years you took care of Pieter … all those times you were at your brother’s house … in all those times, did you ever suspect Pieter killed those men?”
“How can you even ask me something like that?”
“Because Pieter told Oblanski that when Hannah died, you came to clean out his room so he could stay with you. He said you probably found his stash of plastic badges, and his masks and surgical gowns. Did you know—”
Georgia turned around, her hand sliding into her purse. She handed Arn a plastic five-point badge. “Goodbye, Arn Anderson.”
“Goodbye, Georgia Spangler,” he said as he watched her walk out of the building on the heels of the last visitors.
The End