Deadman (18 page)

14

Northern Tier

O
ne of the three other detectives at the Northern Tier Task Force meeting at the courthouse in Butte claimed to know Mulheisen. His name was Larry Edwards and he was from Missoula. He had grown up in Detroit and had gotten his start as a patrolman in the Thirteenth Precinct, he said, before he'd moved to Montana. “I'd probably be dead now, if I still lived there,” he said. “As Yogi might put it,” he added with the faintest hint of a smile.

Mulheisen didn't remember ever meeting Edwards, but he recognized him as a Detroiter all right—the cynical humor, the implacable face. Edwards was amusing, but he didn't let it get in the way of business. Evidently Edwards was familiar with Mulheisen's career and had spread some tall tales. The other detectives greeted Mulheisen with exaggerated respect. Even the other prosecutors and Judge Leahy seemed to share this deferent attitude, as if Mulheisen were some kind of super detective who was here to set them all on the right path. It was annoying, but as soon as they got down to business, he was gratified to see that the attitude modulated toward simple respect. After a while, however, he realized that all comments were directed toward him, as if this were a briefing of a newly appointed cabinet minister.

Mulheisen forced himself to interrupt, finally, with a little
speech. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I don't know what my friend Johnny Antoni has led you to believe, but I have not signed on for this task force. I'm in Butte as part of the investigation of a murder that took place six months ago in Detroit. I was also asked to attend this meeting, as an observer. I don't know anything about this ‘invasion’ that you speak of, but I do know a little about the mob in Detroit. This is the old mob. It's not what you're up against, if I read you correctly, but if my experience can be of any help, I'm glad to . . . well, to be of any help,” he ended lamely.

Johnny Antoni leaped to his feet, smiling, his voice ringing. “Aw c'mon, Mul. You know more about this kind of stuff than we do. Hey, don't you like it here?” He gestured toward the large windows, through which one had a view of some mountains. “Didn't you catch a trout the other day?” After the laughter died, he said, “You don't have to sign on today, but just let us put forward a little bit of what we've observed and what we're looking at in the future. If you want to go back to Detroit, fine, no strings . . . but I've got an idea you might have been hooked yourself.”

The meeting resumed, with reports from investigators from Spokane and Boise, from a Kalispell sheriff, an investigator from Medicine Hat, and so on, detailing an increase in gambling interest from “outside.” Apparently, someone was buying real estate, trying to muscle into existing taverns that had a substantial gambling business, and making offers to state legislators to support a broadening of state laws regarding gambling. In addition, there was increased prostitution along the interstate system—truckers’ plazas now had nude dancing bars and massage parlors where allowed—and an increase in drugs, especially cocaine. In just about every case the trail, admittedly faint, led back to the West Coast, to Orientals, or to people who spoke of Oriental interests.

Mulheisen listened to all this as attentively as he could, although he longed to be out of this meeting room, perhaps out on the river, or at least in a barroom talking to a suspect. What he was hearing,
it seemed to him, was not a really great increase in crime or suspect behavior, but just the rumblings of it. He thought it sounded like a normal increase of business that attends an increase in population. He wondered what the demographics were. And then some woman got up with a flip chart and began to show them what the demographics were. Basically, what they showed was population growth—not a very significant population growth overall (Montana had just lost one of their two congressional representatives because their population growth had not kept pace with other Western states), but a different kind of growth. Traditionally, the state had grown through immigration from the east and the south; now it was growing from the west, and the westerners were not arriving in covered wagons, they were arriving in Jet Commanders and BMWs. They were looking for retirement homes and vacation property. They weren't coming to work, they were coming to play. The average income of this group . . .

At this point Mulheisen began to fade. He found himself turning more and more to the vision of the mountains beyond the windows and he felt a bit sleepy. At last he roused himself and said, “I haven't seen anything that strongly suggests an Asian invasion. Now I'm not about to say that it's a phantom, although there is a history in this country of periodic ‘Yellow Peril’ scares, but I'd like to know if there are any more specific instances, something we can really glom onto.”

The Missoula detective, Edwards, said quietly, “I have a snitch who says that a meeting took place on Flathead Lake between three people. One of them was a Mr. Lee, who is supposed to be a Hong Kong businessman. Another was a Mr. Service, who was described to me as a Mafia figure. The third was a Montana businessman, Thomas Shivers, who owns the house on the lake. Mr. Shivers used to be a rancher, but he long ago moved into investments. My informant says the conversation was mainly about gambling and investment. The idea was to set up some kind of money-washing system. Gambling was seen as a good way to do this. Money can be washed through gambling
machines, the kind you see in practically every bar in Montana. These machines accept nickels and dimes and quarters, but when the customer scores, he has to collect from the barkeeper. These countless little payoffs have to be reported, but it's easy to fudge. It can be a lot of money, when you consider how many bars there are, how many machines. Now, you can say this is only hearsay, nothing is certain, but my feeling is that if Mr. Lee meets Mr. Shivers, or Mr. Shivers meets Mr. Service, or Mr. Lee meets Mr. Service . . .” He shrugged as his voice trailed off. “But when they all meet together, then I sit up and take notice.”

Mulheisen agreed that this was worth notice, but he pointed out that it was mostly conjectural, dependent on a single informant. Were there some other significant instances? Nobody, it seemed, could really provide anything concrete, just this growing awareness of an impending problem. But they were all quite adamant about the need to prepare for a crime wave. It went on in this vein for some time, but eventually the meeting broke up.

Afterward, at lunch with the judge and Johnny and two of the prosecutors, Johnny pressed Mulheisen very hard not to close his mind about joining the task force. The problem was real, he insisted, and the task force was going to happen—the money had been appropriated. Mulheisen began to see that it was politically important to Antoni. He didn't want to let his old friend down, and he ended by agreeing at least to consider joining the task force. For now, he was going back to Detroit. A decision would have to be made soon, though.

Mulheisen went back to the Finlen and met in the lounge with Larry Edwards and Jacky Lee. They went for a drive in Lee's Blazer.

“I've gone over all this with Jacky,” Edwards said. “I haven't spread this info around too much because I've had some problems with other enforcement agencies blabbing. Jacky I trust. I don't know anything about this Service guy, but Jacky tells me you do.”

They had stopped near a park down on the Flat. The three
men got out and strolled around through the rattling autumn leaves. The sun was shining but it was brisk out. A beautiful day. Mulheisen said that he'd been giving a lot of thought to Service lately. “It seems pretty certain that Service is the guy who's up there in the hospital. I never paid enough attention to Service in the past, but now it seems to me that he's been involved in several cases that came my way in Detroit. He was never a suspect in any of these cases and, as far as I know, he has broken no laws . . . but he was always there. I missed something, I think. There were frequent rumors about a guy from the West, someone the mob had called in to straighten things out. Sometimes they called him a hired gun, but generally he was just a trouble-shooter. It was never solid enough to pursue. But lately our investigations of the deaths of some mob figures in Detroit have turned up this name, Joe Service, again. We think he might have been involved in at least three killings, one of them in Iowa City. We have fingerprints from the Iowa City killing, and when I get back to Detroit, we'll try to match them with Jacky's ‘Deadman.’ There was also an eyewitness in Iowa City, but we don't have any pictures to show her, and we can't justify bringing her out here to look at this guy, at least not yet. But it's enough to pursue.”

Jacky Lee said, “Let's call him Joseph Humann. That's the name he used down in Tinstar. It's the same guy. He's been around the Mountain West for a while under that name. No criminal activity that we can see, but there are hints. His medical bills are being paid by some woman who sends in cashier's checks from all over the West—Salt Lake, Denver, Phoenix, L.A. From what Mul tells me, this could be Helen Sedlacek, a woman last seen with Humann—or Service—in Detroit.”

“We figure she may have killed Carmine,” Mulheisen said. “The point is, they seem to have a lot of money, and the indications are that she is smurfing this money to pay for this Joe Whoever's care, and for her own needs. But she moves fast. We don't have any kind of line on her. I don't think a bulletin to every bank in the West is going
to alert people to someone just walking in off the street to buy a cashier's check. But if Joe was trying to make a deal with this Lee and Shivers, that might be something. And then we have this other body—Mario Soper, found on the Humann property.”

Mulheisen sketched for them a possible scenario in which the mob had put out a contract on Joe Service and/or Helen Sedlacek. Somehow they had tracked them to this place, Mario Soper and possibly one other man had been sent, but Soper had been killed, probably by Joe. The other killer had apparently been more successful, and Joe's body was left on the highway by this unknown killer, who had then gone on his merry way.

“Could the second killer have been the woman?” Edwards asked.

“Helen? Why would she attempt to kill Joe, and then why would she be paying his hospital bills?” Lee replied. “We've talked to banks all over the West and they give a pretty good description of this woman, and she is always unaccompanied. No, we think there's another killer.”

The other question was, Who was the Joe Service who had talked to Shivers and Lee at the Flathead Lake meeting? Mulheisen said, “Say it is Joseph Humann. He has a lot of dirty money, a lot of cash, and he's looking for a way to get it out into legitimate uses. This thing about gambling machines may be just the ticket for him. The problem now is, of course, that he's laid up in the hospital for the foreseeable future.”

“The doctors tell me that he's responding to therapy,” Lee said, “but he's still disoriented, can't talk, can't take care of himself. He'll be out of it for weeks, maybe even months to come—if he ever really recovers. Let's face it, the man took a bullet in the head. He's lucky to be alive. Hell, I thought he was dead when I found him.”

Mulheisen knew it was pointless to go see Service again, but he wanted to. There was very little any of the detectives could do at this point, just wait and watch—particularly watch for Helen Sedlacek.
“And watch for another killer,” he warned. “By now the mob must know where Service is. If they went to the trouble to send someone after him in the first place, they'll still be interested. Perhaps even more so. Whether they'd send the guy who failed to get him the first time is a moot point.”

Jacky Lee said that the Butte-Silver Bow police couldn't keep a guard on the patient. They simply didn't have the resources.

“Then he's lying up there exposed,” Mulheisen said, shaking his head. “Maybe he is a dead man, after all.”

“Mul, what can I do?” Lee said. “I can talk to the sheriff, maybe he'll let me have a man, but I doubt it.”

“Maybe the Northern Tier could help out,” Edwards suggested. “They seem to have money. We've identified Service as a guy who might be involved in this so-called Asian invasion. Maybe they could pay for a guard.”

Mulheisen agreed to press Antoni on the subject. “The trouble is, it gets me involved in their operation,” he said, “and at this point I have no intention of joining the task force. I've got plenty to do back in Detroit. Besides, I'm running out of cigars. There doesn't seem to be anyplace you can buy a decent cigar around here.”

With these halfhearted, minimal gestures the three men parted. Mulheisen said he would keep in touch, and he would be back out in Montana if anything developed. By this he meant if Joe Service ever came around and could be properly interrogated, or if Helen Sedlacek should make an appearance or was apprehended.

He did return to the hospital and was able to speak to the brain surgeon, who, as he expected, could give him no assurances or even any solid indication of what might happen with Joe Service's recovery.

“I see people who fall out of an apple tree and they never remember a thing,” the doctor said. “Something happens inside, but we can't see what it is. The person is a vegetable, never recovers. Another one, like Deadman, he gets shot and we can see the damage—I
was in there for hours, I saw brain damage—and we think, ‘Vegetable, no chance,’ but then he's recovering. He hasn't recovered to the point of talking or indicating that everything is going to be all right, but he has made amazing progress already. He recognizes things, he responds to stimuli, and he's guarding himself.”

This was interesting to Mulheisen. He wanted to know more.

“I'm observing him,” the doctor said, “and I get the impression that he has recovered more than he lets on. Little inadvertent responses that are hard to describe, and a certain look in his eyes at times that seems to indicate that he understands something you say, but then he doesn't respond, as if he were willfully holding back. It isn't too unusual. Most patients are eager to respond, they sense that they are helpless and they want to recover. Mr. Deadman sometimes seems to want to keep it to himself, to husband his successes, to reserve a margin of privacy.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe I am all wrong. Maybe he is doing nothing of the sort. It's just a mannerism, perhaps, something he is not conscious of doing.