Chapter Twenty-Five
FEELING EXHAUSTED, I decided to sleep in the next morning. Factoring in the one-hour time difference between Cleveland and Kansas, my plan was to call Detective Aldean at nine o’clock. I was skeptical that he could provide anything of importance, but I figured I should at least follow up.
As it turned out, I should have called later. Detective Aldean picked up on the sixth ring, and he was clearly not happy. A hangover will do that for you.
“Whoever the hell this is better have a damned good reason for calling me at this hour.”
I explained who I was, where I was calling from, and my interest in Samuel Dennert. I expected him to claim lack of memory or just hang up. Instead, the line went silent for a full minute.
Finally, he spoke. “Explain to me in more detail your interest in that cocksucker. Be warned, your answer will determine mine.”
This was getting interesting. Giving as few details as possible and remembering this guy used to be a cop, I gave him a quick summary of the case. I included the link to the priesthood, the murders in New Orleans, and our belief the prime suspects might have followed Father Dennert to Cleveland.
“Right now,” I said, “I’m looking for anything that might link the suspects to Samuel Dennert. When I discovered Dennert was involved in a juvenile incident, I figured I should at least find out what that incident was. Even if he only lifted a car, it would still help me know who I’m dealing with. I know the records are under seal, but I figured with you being retired…”
“You figured with me being retired, I might not give a fuck. Normally, I wouldn’t give you a goddamned thing. You woke me up, and I have a splitting headache—I’ve shot men for less. It just so happens, though, you struck a nerve. You want to find out about Samuel Dennert? I’d be happy to tell you everything I know.
“Let me start by saying Samuel Dennert was a punk. All the Dennerts were. Except for the college, this town ain’t much. What it does have, the Dennerts own most of it.”
“I heard they owned a chain of furniture stores.”
“They own a lot more than that. People around here call them the Dennert F’s, and you can imagine the fun we all have with that name. The Dennerts started with fertilizer and farm equipment and then branched out to fireworks and furniture stores. Just for fun, they later bought two funeral homes. With ownership comes power, and with power comes arrogance. The Dennerts are as arrogant as they come.
“The case looked routine at first,” he continued. “I got called to the home of Jill Donahue. Jill was the divorced mother of two girls. Sandra Donahue was seventeen at the time of the case, and Grace Donahue was fourteen. Both were students at the local high school.
“Jill met me at the front door crying. Sandra had gone to the prom the previous evening with a boy named Bobby Hurt. Bobby was a moron, but Sandra had gone out with him a few times in the past, and Jill had no real worries about the evening. That changed when Sandra came home at 3:00 a.m. with a black eye and a torn dress. She also smelled of alcohol.
“After repeated questioning from her mother, Sandra broke down and admitted what happened. From what Jill told me, the couple never made it to the dance. Bobby drove them directly from her house to one of the Dennert furniture stores. He told Sandra they were going there to meet Sammy Dennert and his date. Bobby needed to pay Sammy back some money he borrowed, and the four of them would go to the prom together.
“Sandra wasn’t totally naïve. She asked Bobby why they were meeting in a furniture store after closing hours instead of at Sammy’s house. Bobby told her Sammy had full access to his father’s store keys, and he liked to party there after hours.
“They arrived at the store, and Bobby asked Sandra to come in with him while he met with Sammy. Once they were inside, Sammy was waiting for them alone next to one of the furniture displays. That’s when Sandra found out she was the payment for Bobby’s debt.
“Sammy had some whiskey he stole from his father. The two boys forced Sandra to drink from the bottle until she almost passed out. They then taped Sandra’s mouth and tied her spread-eagled to the posts on one of the display beds.
“They took turns after that, with Sammy going first. They penetrated Sandra vaginally and anally, always being sure to wear condoms. Sometime during the evening, they tried to force her to have oral sex, but Sandra told them if either one of them put their thing in her mouth, she would bite it off. That’s when Sammy gave her the black eye.
“Throughout the night, they kept making jokes about prom. Whenever one boy would finish, the other would take over and ask ‘if he could have this dance.’ When they were done, the boys untied Sandra, and Sammy gave her what he described laughingly as ‘the lay of the land.’
“It turned out Sammy had put a lot of thought into the evening, and his plan included their choice of victim. Sammy knew Sandra’s mom was divorced and worked in one of the Dennert stores. He assumed that would give them leverage.
“The alcohol was also not a whim. Sammy told Sandra if she brought this to the cops, the police would insist she go to a hospital for a rape test. Once there, the fact she had alcohol in her system would be sure to come out.
“If questioned, Sammy and Bobby would claim that Sandra agreed to have sex. In fact, they would say she suggested it when she saw all the store beds. Sandra’s blood-alcohol level would only support that claim. When you add all that with the fact that she’d voluntarily walked into the store, Sammy told her there was no way anyone would believe she was raped.
“Sandra repeated the entire story at her mother’s urging. I believed her. If you had been there, you would have too. All the while Sandra was talking to me, her mother looked more and more furious. That was one area where Sammy had miscalculated. Jill Donahue was devoted to her two children, something I can’t blame her for one bit. Losing her job wouldn’t keep Jill from pursuing Sammy Dennert and Bobby Hurt. What really worried me was Jill owned a gun. I had to do a lot of talking to convince her that we would take this seriously. That turned out to be a lie, even if I didn’t know it at the time.
“Manhattan had a female officer who handled most of our rape cases. Fortunately, that number was small. She and I drove Sandra and her mother to the local hospital. The boys had used condoms, so there was no semen to analyze, but the trauma around her vagina and anus was consistent with rape. As Sammy had guessed, they also tested Sandra’s blood-alcohol level. It was high, around .20.
“Any illusion this case would be normal ended after we got back to the station. As soon as I walked in the door, I was told my captain wanted to see me. I walked into his office and found he wasn’t alone. He and the district attorney had been waiting for almost an hour.
“They asked me to run through the details of the case, so I gave them the same summary I just gave you. They then asked me if this was something we could win. Think about that for a second. We hadn’t called in Bobby or Sammy. We hadn’t examined a single piece of forensic evidence. At that time, we didn’t even have the rape test results. The investigation hadn’t started yet, and they wanted to give up.
“I deliberately didn’t answer their question. I told them I wanted to bring in Bobby and Sammy for questioning. They really couldn’t say no at that point. They reminded me, however, that I would be interviewing two minors.
“The other officer and I went to pick up Bobby and Sammy, and you couldn’t imagine a bigger contrast. Bobby looked confused. Granted, he had an IQ lower than most trees, but I was amazed he was so unprepared for us to show up at his door. His parents were furious, as much at their son as at us. From the beers in their hands, I think we interrupted their afternoon drunk. They followed us to the station, and we stuck them all in an interview room.
“We then went to pick up Sammy. I’m not sure who at the station tipped them off, but Sammy’s parents were waiting for us at the door along with their lawyer. The lawyer started by telling us he’d just gotten off the phone with Bobby’s parents. The parents agreed he would represent Sammy while his partner would do the honors for Bobby Hurt. That wasn’t shocking, but it meant our odds of splitting the two had gone down considerably. The second problem came right after that. Two uniforms and our crime scene investigator went to the furniture store. There was no bed in the display area that matched the description Sandra gave us.
“I won’t go over the rest of the gory details. Suffice it to say, Bobby and Sammy consulted with their respective lawyers before they would let us in the room. After that, their stories matched exactly. Bobby went to the furniture store expecting to pick up Sammy and head to the prom. Sammy was going solo since he’d split up with his girlfriend. Once Bobby and Sandra arrived at the store, the three of them passed around a bottle until Sandra noticed all the beds. As Sandra warned us, the boys said it was she who suggested they take advantage of their surroundings. They also said the more the night went on, the rougher Sandra liked it. They both denied tying her hands.
“As I mentioned, all the beds on display at the furniture store had standard headboards. None had the type of bedposts that Sandra had described. Now, Sammy’s father’d had plenty of time to change the beds on display, but no one who worked in the store would acknowledge a switch had taken place.
“The district attorney said he looked at the inconsistency about the bed, the alcohol in Sandra’s system, and her acknowledgment that Bobby had told her they partied in the furniture store when making the decision not to bring the boys to trial. With another case, I might have accepted his judgment. When you were a cop as long as I was, you realize prosecutors toss good arrests all the time.
“Knowing that, this case still gnawed at my gut. Everyone knew the fix was in. Someone from the police department called Sammy’s father and warned him we were coming after his son. That gave him plenty of time to move or destroy any evidence before we arrived at the store.”
“Couldn’t Sammy have told his father?” I asked.
“I wondered about that myself. All the people I talked to said Sammy hated his father with a passion, and the two barely spoke. One family member even suggested Sammy might have hoped the story would get out. The newspaper ran an article about a potential court appearance for Sammy and Bobby. The same family member suspected it was Sammy who’d tipped them off. It would have been the perfect way to embarrass his father.
“Throughout the case, it seemed like the entire police department and prosecutor’s office were mobilized on behalf of those two boys. Nobody cared about the victim. The hardest thing I ever did was drive out to the Donahue house and tell Jill her daughter’s case wouldn’t be going to trial. Jill was furious. She slapped me, and I didn’t even think of trying to stop her. She threatened to get her gun and hunt those two boys down, but I talked her out of it. I told her the girls would need her now more than ever.
“Jill quit her job and moved her family out of town. About ten years later, I heard Sandra had hooked up with some guy in a trailer park and tried to commit suicide. Two days after her attempt, someone took two shots at Sammy when he walked home from one of his father’s fertilizer stores. We never found out who did it, but I don’t think anyone tried very hard.
“Sammy left town soon after the shooting. That was when I quit the force, though you might say I really quit right after the Dennert case. I was never part of the in-crowd after that.
“So that’s the whole sad story. Now you tell me Sammy Dennert became a priest, and some psychopath is trying to hunt him down. I don’t care if Dennert is reformed. Given what he did to that girl, all I can do is wish the other guy luck.”
Detective Aldean hung up the phone, and now I was the one with a headache. He’d given me way more than I expected, and I didn’t have a clue where to go from here. I took out my case notes and tried to summarize what he’d told me:
Possible link between Grieve and Father Dennert
Both had sex with young girls. In Grieve’s case, the sex appeared to be consensual.
Could Grieve have found out about Father Dennert’s past? Both of their professions offered possibilities.
Through confession—would Dennert have used his past sin to forge a connection after hearing Grieve’s history? Highly unlikely.
Through counseling—was Dennert one of Grieve’s patients? A little more likely, but why didn’t Dennert’s name come up in Grieve’s patient records?
Could be no link at all—don’t assume a connection
Follow-up
Call Chris in New Orleans
Request new review of Grieve’s patient database. Any names similar to Samuel Dennert?
Dennert might have used an alias. Ask Chris to show Dennert’s picture to Grieve’s secretary. She might remember Dennert even if he used a different name.
Talk to Father Lawrence
Did he know about the rape?
How will he react if he didn’t?
Might wish to confront Father Dennert himself
Plus—Dennert might confess link
Minuses?
As promised, Hannah came to pick me up at ten o’clock. I shared my conversation with Detective Aldean and how I thought we should proceed. Not surprisingly, she had her own opinion.
“I admit, this is more than I expected. Given that, what do you think you’re going to accomplish?”
“Remember how we talked about communicating with Grieve through the Private Matters website? If we can come up with the connection between Dennert and Grieve, that gives us one more vulnerability. We already know about Grieve’s fifteen-year-old girlfriend. While not involving Grieve directly, this is another case of sex with an underage girl.”
“To be honest, the connection to this case sounds sketchy at best. Be careful you aren’t pursuing this just because you don’t like the man.”
“A fair point, but I’d still like to know what inspired Grieve to come to Cleveland. He may be a psychopath, but he’s a logical one. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of killer who would come here on a whim. There’s something we’re missing, and I want to find out what that is.”
“I have no issues with you following up with Chris, but we still need to look at Mary’s credit card records and check with the cab company. Let’s deal with those first, and then we can go back to the Dennert thing.”
“I can live with that. By the way, did your parents say anything about me?”
“Yeah, my mother said you reminded her of me. Be warned, that was probably not a compliment.”
“It is to me. Now if she’d said I reminded her of your father…”