(2012) The Key to Justice Page 8

  They reached the path, deserted in this evening’s rainy weather and late-evening darkness. She automatically headed north along the east side of Calhoun, as they always did, and began their stroll along the asphalt trail. They had gone less than one hundred yards when Keesha began a growl, deep in her throat, obviously sensing something out of the ordinary. She began pulling the old man along, straining the leash, toward a small copse of trees by the water’s edge, a dozen or so steps from the path.

  Suddenly, a figure came bursting out from the trees, a dark form sprinting across the rain-soaked grass, running away from the elderly man and his four-legged companion. Keesha barked loudly three times at the figure but then slinked between Marvin’s legs to lie down on her haunches behind him, as if seeking his protection from the danger she sensed.

  “What the hell was he doing there?” asked Marvin out loud to himself. He quickened his pace, almost to a run toward the place where they had first seen the escaping form. He reached the spot in a few strides, pushed aside a few bare, wet branches of the undergrowth bushes and gasped at the sight, the bile coming up in his throat. The light from the city was fairly bright here and he could clearly see the remains of who would come to be known as victim number six, Donna Sharon Senser. Her wet, muddy, blood covered corpse, it’s white naked skin in stark contrast to the dark bushes and ground around it. Her clothes, muddy and wet, crumpled in a ball lying next to her.

  “Hey you, come back here,” he yelled as he turned in the direction of the escapee. He looked down the path and saw the figure a hundred or so yards away now, walking on the path almost casually. He began to run after what he believed was a man but, after a dozen or so strides, realized that he was not likely to catch him and if he did, he would probably be the next victim.

  He knelt beside the dog urging her to give chase but the dog, obviously realizing the danger before her master had, could not be budged. For her too, her best days were behind her and she could sense the evil that strolled away from the scent of death behind them. Her master was here and in no immediate danger himself, so she would not leave his side. It was then that he heard it; laughter, loud and cold coming from the sinister figure now standing under one of the lights that illuminated the pathway circumventing the lake. For the next ten or twelve seconds the laughter continued, not the kind of hearty laugh from a good joke, but an evil, dark, cold laugh from the recesses of a sick mind and soul.

  “Tell them from me: Fuck you!” the figure yelled. “And fuck you and your dog, too, old man,” he yelled and laughed again.

  Marvin and his friend rose from the wet grass, began to trot toward the street, his only thought to call to get help and wishing he carried the cell phone his daughter had given him.

  When Marvin reached the street, he glanced to his left and saw the dark, sinister figure casually strolling across the same street, parallel to the man and the dog, and start to climb the short hill to the dead end barrier that halted 34th Street. The old man turned to his right, as much to move away from the evil as to seek assistance, just as a car came around the corner from 36th and began to slowly head toward them as the old man began to move toward it.

  Doug Foley had been on the force for almost fourteen years and he never grew tired of cruising the streets. A sergeant for the past two years working out of the third precinct in South Minneapolis, he enjoyed the evening shift the best even though it meant less time with Cindy and his two young boys. In a way, he reminded himself, it worked out for the best. Because Cindy worked days and he worked evenings the day care cost was minimal and the kids spent most of their time with at least one parent. Well worth the minor sacrifice, he thought.

  As he pulled through the intersection on Hennepin and 36th a flash of lightening lit up the dark sky, illuminating the large cemetery to his left, the one where the Governor’s daughter had recently been buried. It’ll be raining again, soon, he realized as he headed west on 36th toward the lakes.

  Probably not much point in cruising the lakes on a night like this. With the rain that had fallen earlier in the evening and what would be coming down soon, he thought, there won’t be many people out. It was then that he thought of Michelle Dahlstrom and decided he had just enough time before his shift ended to make one more cruise around the lakes, Calhoun, Lake of the Isles and Harriet.

  He reached the corner of 36th and the Parkway as the drops began to splatter on his windshield, turned on the wipers, made the right turn to head north on the east side of Calhoun and immediately saw a man with a dog in the middle of the street about a block ahead of him. The man began waving his arm, slowly at first and then, almost frantically. Foley pushed down the accelerator to quickly close the distance as the rain began to come down harder and a huge roll of thunder rumbled across the city.

  He pulled up to the old man, now clearly illuminated in his headlights, rolled down his window as he slowed to a stop and said, “Is there a problem, sir?”

  “Down. . ., down there. . .,” Marvin breathlessly stammered, more frightened than winded.

  “Slow down, sir. Catch your breath.”

  “No, dammit. Over there,” he continued, pointing toward the trees and bushes along the shoreline. “A body. A woman . . .”

  “What? Where?” said the policeman, alarmed now.

  “No, no. Down there,” Marvin continued, now pointing down the street. “A man. He did it. I saw him. He went up the hill to those houses.”

  “When?” asked the now charged up policeman.

  “A minute ago. No more than that. He should be real close,” Marvin answered, calmed now by the presence of the policeman.

  “Put your umbrella up and wait right here. I’ll be back,” said Foley as he punched down on the gas and sped off down the street toward the place where the old man had been pointing.

  He slowed the squad car at the spot where he believed the old man had indicated, reached for his radio and peered up the hill in the darkness. Pressing the send button on the microphone, he raised the dispatcher, gave his location and a brief description of the incident including the location of Marvin and Keesha. Once again he pressed hard on the accelerator and raced to the stop sign where 33rd met the Parkway. Barely slowing, his tires squealing and sliding on the wet pavement, he made the sharp right turn on to 33rdand headed into the residential area fronting the lake as a voice crackled over his radio.

  After leaving the bar, Waschke got in his car, started the engine and sat while the engine idled, waiting for traffic to clear. He made a u-turn from his parking space along the curb and headed north on Lyndale, intending to cruise east on Lake Street to get to 35W. He had decided that wasting the city’s gas cruising around town hoping for what, he did not know, was a fruitless effort again this evening. He had done it every Wednesday and Thursday, as had all of the members of his squad, for the past two weeks. Hoping somehow, someone would see or hear something, report it in and give. the police the break they so desperately needed.

  As he began to turn right onto Lake, he heard the dispatcher’s voice come out of the speaker to inform all patrols of the call received from Doug Foley. Waschke quickly pulled the car to the curb, and listened as the dispatcher described the situation not far from where he was. He listened for about ten seconds as the monotone voice calmly relayed the details, and then turned on the car’s emergency flashers on the dash and in the grill. He picked up the car’s radio microphone, pressed the send button and, as he pulled away from the curb and made a u-turn in the middle of the busy street said into the mic, “This is Waschke. I’m on Lake and Lyndale, westbound on Lake. Patch me through to the reporting officer.”

  After taunting the old man and the dog who had abruptly startled him while he admired his night’s work in the bushes, the stalker calmly crossed the Parkway and climbed the short, steep hill heading away from the lake. He passed through the yard of a darkened house on top of the hill, removed the ski mask and calmly stepped out onto 34th. It took tremendous effort to control his almost over
whelming urge to run, but he managed it and quickly began walking, turning left at the first corner. He quickened his pace to move away from the scene to get to the safety of his car. It was probably only a matter of minutes before the area would be crawling with cops.

  “This is Lieutenant Jake Waschke,” Foley heard from his radio speaker as he straightened the car to go up 33rd. “Pick-up Foley, I need to speak with you.”

  “This is Foley,” he answered. “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”

  “Listen carefully Doug. This could be our stalker. Be careful. No lights, no sirens. Dispatch, keep me patched through directly to Sergeant Foley and I want every cop in the city in that neighborhood in two minutes. We gotta get it sealed off now!”

  Foley had reached the corner of Irving and 33rd when he heard Waschke make the last demand. Slowing, Foley began to go through the intersection, looking first to his left, then turning to his right to look up Irving. When he did, he saw him. A dark form half-way down the block walking across the street parallel to the direction he was headed. Foley hit his brakes, reversed the car and said into his radio, “I see him. He’s crossing Irving heading into the yards.”

  Jake was flying down Lake, red light flashing, windshield wipers thumping, bobbing in and out of the sparse traffic, heading as fast as he dared in the general direction of Foley and his suspect. His heart was racing as fast as the car in anticipation of maybe getting the lucky break he had literally prayed for. After going about a mile down Lake, all the while speaking on his radio, he made a sharp left turn onto Holmes Ave. and began his run through the residential area as he turned off the light attached to the roof.

  The stalker looked down Irving to see a car’s brake lights come suddenly on as it passed the corner on 33rd. He quickened his pace and headed toward the yard directly in front of him as the car began to come up Irving toward him. All caution aside now, he broke into a run as he reached the yard and headed past the lighted porch to the dark side between the houses, uncertain if he had been seen but taking no chances.

  “Go after him. Take your radio and give chase on foot. Keep me posted where you are,” Foley heard Waschke’s voice instruct as he headed up Irving toward the dark figure crossing the street in the rain. At that moment, from the light above the porch of the house the figure was headed toward, Foley saw the man begin to run onto the lawn of the same house.

  Foley screeched to a stop in front of the house, slammed the car into park and was out the door before the car stopped rocking, engine still running. Holding his .40 caliber in one hand, he tried to follow the beam of his flashlight in the rain as he ran through the yard, the alley in back and into the yard directly behind the one he saw the suspect enter.

  The rain was coming down hard now, so hard the light reflected back in his eyes. Just as he was entering the yard of the second house he saw him. Or, at least, caught a glimpse of the dark figure as it broke into the opening between the two houses and dashed to his left, in front of the house next-door.

  “Hold it, police,” he yelled through the rain. “Stop right there.” Foley raced up the side of the house and, just as he was about to reach the front, his left foot hit a small hole in the ground twisted his ankle sharply causing him to lose his footing and go down hard. He landed hard on his hip, dropped the flashlight and just managed to get his hands down before he hit the ground.

  Seated on the grass, holding the pistol in front of him, waving it back and forth in the darkness, the injured cop pulled a handheld radio from his pocket. Clenching his teeth from the pain in his ankle and hip, and pressed the button on the radio to let Waschke know what just happened.

  “I’m down,” Waschke heard the radio squawk “He’s on Humboldt headed toward 33rd. Pick him up there.”

  “What happened? Are you all right?” Waschke said into the mike.

  “I fell. I’ll be okay but I’m out of it. I lost him,” came the reply just as Waschke reached 33rd Street heading south. He made the right hand turn onto 33rd to head in the direction he was certain the suspect would be coming from. He had gone almost the full length of the short block, doing almost forty through the hard rain on the quiet residential street, when he saw him. There, right up ahead to his left on the sidewalk was a dark clothed man running along the street. Instinctively, without a moment’s hesitation or thought, Waschke jerked the steering wheel hard to his left. The heart pounding and adrenaline rushing to his brain made him react too quickly. Without thinking, he failed to realize how fast he was going. There was no way to could make the turn.

  The stalker reached the corner and, without slowing, he quickly glanced back over his shoulder in the direction of the voice he had heard commanding him to stop. To his relief, he saw no one and heard no footsteps pounding down the street except his own. When he reached the corner, he turned right and, still running as fast as he could, headed east, still moving quickly down the sidewalk away from the lake. After he had taken a dozen or so strides, he saw the headlights speeding up the street toward him. Too late to slow down now, he thought as he sped past a large elm tree and approached the streetlight at the entrance to the alley. It was at that precise moment that the speeding car came even with him and suddenly, tires squealing and one side of the car virtually off the pavement, made a half-circle to head right toward him.

  As Waschke’s right foot jammed down hard on the brake pedal, he furiously began to spin the steering wheel back to his right to correct the squealing tires on the wet pavement. At the last moment he realized it was too late. He had been going far too fast for the attempted maneuver so all he could do was tighten his grip on the wheel and hope for the best as the huge tree anchored to the boulevard came looming up to fill his view through the windshield.

  As the front wheels hit the curb, both wheels exploded causing most of the underside of the car’s front end to be torn, twisted and smashed and delayed the deployment of the air bag long enough for Jake’s forehead to hit the steering wheel. Just as his head hit the steering wheel, the air bag deployed and smashed him in the face with the force of a heavyweight’s punch. The car then bounced over the ten inches of concrete, which absorbed most of the shock. As the car hit the tree, it was barely moving at all which, fortunately for Jake, meant the tree caused little additional damage. Jake would later be told had it not been for the bounce from the curb, the tree would have ended up in his back seat and his own mother would not have recognized him.

  After hearing the shrieking tires the stalker inexplicably stopped dead in his tracks. Like the proverbial deer in the headlights, frozen for a brief moment as if glued to the sidewalk. As the big car screamed toward him, just as it reached the curb, his reflexes took over and he dove to his right, away from the two tons of oncoming metal. He covered his head with his arms, rolled three or four times away from the enormous explosion of grinding, crashing steel and came to a stop, lying flat on his stomach, directly under the streetlight.

  Jake’s head bounced backward after striking the steering wheel, his entire body convulsed by the sudden crashing stop. He sat staring, eyes wide open but obviously stunned, looking through the cracked but still intact windshield, as the steam rose up from the smashed radiator. Slowly, he turned his head to his left, blinking his eyes, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Peering through the unscathed driver’s window, he reached up to his forehead with his right hand and felt the wet, warm blood that began flowing from the three inch gash. He watched as the dark body on the sidewalk slowly began to rise under the light. Just as the fog of unconsciousness began to envelope his brain, Jake’s and the stalker’s eyes met, no more than ten feet between them, locked together through the haze they both felt.

  Barely conscious, Jake looked through the driver ’ s side window at the man he had been chasing. Shaking his head t o focus his foggy mind , he tried star ing intently at what he saw . In disbelief, he squinted his eyes just befo re his bloody forehead thumped against the glass, his mind going blank as his quarry trotted off.

&nbs
p; SIXTEEN

  Marc Kadella stepped through the elevator doors and walked down the hallway toward courtroom 1745 of the Hennepin County Government Center. He reached the double doors of the courtroom entrance and looked through one of the small glass windows set in the doors. Seeing no one in the room and looking at his watch to note he was fifteen minutes early, turned and walked over to the glass paneled wall in the hall. He stood staring out at the offices on the building’s west side about one hundred feet away, across the empty space between the buildings two sides, watching, but not really seeing, the county employees going about their daily routines. Turning his head to his right, he saw the tower clock in the Old City Hall building across the street. Shifting the small leather briefcase - a birthday gift from his wife during better days - from his left hand to his right, he again glanced at his watch as he began to pace back and forth over ten feet of the carpeted floor. After several short trips on his pointless journey, checked his watch again, turned and headed through the door of the men’s room.

  After using the urinal, he stood bent over the sink thoroughly scrubbing his hands, staring at his image no more than six inches away in the mirror above the sinks. He dried his hands from the paper towel dispenser and again faced himself in the mirror. Straightened the knot in his meticulously tied tie, ran his hands over the lapels of his suitcoat, touched up a few loose strands of his still dark brown hair and said to the image in the glass. “Well, pal, sorry but that’s about as good as it’s gonna get. Not too bad,” he continued as he leaned closer to study his face, “but you are starting to show your age a bit.”

  He reached in his pants’ pocket to retrieve a breath mint, popped it into his mouth, picked up the briefcase, took one last look in the mirror and headed out of the restroom and into the court.