Fixed in Blood (29 page)

Authors: T. E. Woods

BOOK: Fixed in Blood

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Chapter 2

Lydia Corriger sat behind the communication console in the secure room hidden behind the walls of her at-home office. She kept her eyes riveted to the thirty-inch high-definition screen in front of her, breathed deeply, and braced herself for the white-hot surge of strength radiating from her spine out to her limbs.

There you are.

She used her finger to trace a circle around the man shown walking across a small-town main street, then tapped the screen to freeze the image. With her thumb and forefinger she enlarged the encircled area. The man’s face filled the screen.

Eddie Dirkin looked a bit older than his mug shot. But then, it
had
been seven years. His hair was grayer than it was in the dozens of photographs Lydia studied. Photographs taken from his trial. Photographs from the front page of the newspaper under headlines screaming of his escape. Lydia swept her hand and the Man on Main Street’s image shifted to the left half of the screen. She manipulated her computer mouse and a gallery of other photos filled the right side. She tapped them in succession, and with each tap the selected photo filled the eastern hemisphere of her viewing area, giving her a side-by-side comparison of Eddie Dirkin to the man on the left.

You’ve put on weight, Eddie. Is that by design? Did you purposefully add pounds to round out the chiseled physique you had when you murdered your friend? That must have been difficult for a vain man like yourself. You always tried to stand out in a crowd. How many cheeseburgers and pizzas did it take for you to morph into a soft-bellied everyman?

She brought up another old picture of Eddie. In it, he had come out of the courthouse and was looking to his right, just like the Man on Main Street. Lydia’s eyes traced the two profiles from brow to chin. She used her finger to drag the seven-year-old image of Eddie over top of the shot of the Man on Main taken from a live-feed web cam just that morning.

It was a perfect match.

I found you, Eddie.

Lydia leaned back and an image of Ann Louise Chait floated across her consciousness.

It had been nearly four years ago. Before she met Mort. Before Savannah had walked her troubled soul into Lydia’s office.

Life was easier then. I had my patients. My home. And I had The Fixer.

Ann Louise had contacted her the way every Fix had. Someone who knew someone knew somebody who heard from a guy in a bar who got it from a lawyer buddy of his that there was a person “out there” who took on cases. Cases where the bad guy got away and there was no hope for justice. Ann Louise didn’t put much stock in the legend of The Fixer, but she’d been desperate enough to follow the instructions whispered to her by a friend who swore it was true. Ann Louise placed three identical ads in
USA Today, The New York Times,
and
Rolling Stone
on the first Thursday of October four years ago. Following the advice she’d been given, Ann Louise’s ad said she needed help translating an old family cookbook. Lydia called Ann Louise three days later from her secured communications center, her voice digitally disguised and cell signals bounced randomly seven times every minute.

Ann Louise told Lydia about her husband. She and Dennis Chait had been married six years. They had a son, Billy, who would be three in a few weeks.

“But he hasn’t seen his father since before his first birthday,” Ann Louise explained. “Edward Dirken murdered him.”

Ann Louise related the story of Dennis Chait and Edward Dirken. They’d been friends since their freshman year at the University of Minnesota.

“Everyone always wondered how they got along,” she said. “Dennis was so quiet and studious. Edward was a charmer. Never concerned about his grades. Only interested in getting to the gym and the next party. I met Dennis our senior year. We knew from the start what was happening between us was serious. That didn’t stop Eddie from hitting on me the first time I went to their apartment. I told Dennis about how uncomfortable it made me, but he shrugged it off. Said that’s just the way Eddie was. Still, it was always hard for me to relax around him.”

Lydia learned Dennis graduated top of his engineering school. Edward Dirken never completed his degree and left the university after Dennis graduated.

“He was dependent on Dennis,” Ann Louise said. “For all his bravado and carefree ways, Eddie relied on my husband for everything. Dennis thought of him like a goofball brother. When Dennis got his first patent, there were offers from major companies, but Dennis knew what he had. I couldn’t have been more proud when he started his own company. I told him it was a mistake to hire Eddie, but like I said, Dennis loved him like family.”

Dennis’s murder captured the headlines in Minnesota. Lydia researched newspapers, blogs, and court records for the details of the case. She learned Dennis’s company started small. Dennis designed the products, Ann Louise handled the administrative details, and Edward Dirken was the face to the corporations eager to buy Dennis’s switches, relays, and programming boards. Within three years Dennis held more than twenty patents and his firm was billing nearly fifteen million dollars annually.

“Dennis thought it was time for us to get married,” Ann Louise chuckled through her tears. “He wanted to be financially stable before he proposed. Of course, Eddie was his best man. Things were good for a year or so. But when Billy was born, Dennis started to change. Maybe that happens to all parents. The business wasn’t as important to him anymore. He wanted to sell it, move somewhere warmer. Just the three of us. He wanted a simpler life. And to me, the thought of not having Eddie around was a bonus.” Ann Louise’s sobs had made her difficult to understand all those years ago. But Lydia could still remember her pain. “We never got that chance. Eddie killed him.”

Dennis Chait was shot three times at close range. Twice in the neck, once in the shoulder. He died on a Sunday afternoon in the hallway connecting his office to Edward Dirken’s. Eddie called 911 immediately. The frantic recording was played during his trial. Lydia was able to access it and for the first time heard Eddie’s voice.

“Oh my God…oh my God…Den, I’m sorry. Oh my god, come quick. My friend’s been shot. I shot him. Oh, god. Den…Den…I’m so sorry. I thought he was a burglar. I’m here by myself. It’s a Sunday. Oh, God, Den. What are you doing here? Come quick. I think it’s bad.”

The prosecution brought first-degree murder charges against Edward Dirken, citing pending criminal exposure as Eddie’s motive. Ann Louise’s pregnancy had been difficult. She left Dennis’ company when her OB/GYN recommended complete bed rest her last trimester. Eddie agreed to oversee the two women hired to take over her administrative duties. According to Ann Louise, everything seemed fine until a potential buyer’s pre-purchase audit uncovered nearly ten million dollars of cash, equipment, and inventory missing.

“There was only one person who could have done it,” Ann Louise explained. “Dennis was devastated. The buyers backed out. His dream of leaving the business died. Someone he trusted like a brother had betrayed him. Eddie knew he was coming to confront him that Sunday. He knew and he killed him.”

Eddie’s legal team stuck to the strategy that the shooting was a tragic mistake. Eddie told the authorities he was aware of the missing funds, but laid responsibility on Dennis. He testified Dennis was tired of fatherhood and his life with Ann Louise. He planned to amass as much cash as he could and simply walk away. Investigators found no evidence of a phone call between Dennis and Eddie that Sunday, supporting Eddie’s claim he thought someone had broken into the office. His defense team laid bare Edward Dirken’s financial records. At the time of his arrest he had less than two thousand dollars in savings and his checking account was nearly overdrawn.

Ten days into the trial the judge declared a mistrial. Eddie, ever the charmer, had been making eye contact with Juror Number Three, a twenty-nine-year-old violinist with the Minneapolis Symphony. The judge noticed it and warned Eddie and his defense team to knock it off. A few days later the bailiff saw the juror drop a tightly folded note onto the defense table as she walked by. He confiscated it and handed it to the judge. The note, in the juror’s handwriting, complimented Eddie on his eyes. She wrote how compassionate he seemed and stated she was certain he could never do what he was accused of. She was sure he’d be found innocent. The juror provided both her phone number and email address and asked if he liked classical music.

The prosecution demanded Eddie’s bail be revoked and that he be taken into custody. The defense was equally forceful arguing to the judge it wasn’t their client who’d dropped the note. They saw no need to penalize a man who’d shown up dutifully every day.

The judge, though furious with the situation, agreed with the defense. Edward Dirken thanked the judge and went home. He met with his attorneys the next morning to discuss potential changes in strategy given the prosecution’s assurance a new trial would begin as soon as possible.

“He was supposed to show up for another meeting with his lawyers a week later,” Ann Louise explained. “When he didn’t come and they couldn’t contact him, they called the judge. The police found his car in his driveway. No clothes were missing. His savings account was untouched. But his computer showed searches of foreign countries. They all had one thing in common: no extradition to the United States. The police checked air flights but found nothing. What they
did
find was the remains of a small notebook in Eddie’s fireplace. It was pretty burned but they had experts who could reconstruct the long lists of numbers on them.”

The numbers represented accounts in multiple banks. Each under different names and each holding just less than one hundred thousand dollars accumulated from deposits of various amounts. Those deposits began when Ann Louise left the company and were added to on a weekly basis. The last deposits were made nine days before Dennis was killed.

And now the accounts were closed. Emptied with cashier’s checks in random amounts over a six-week period.

Eddie Dirken had been as careful in closing them as he had been opening them.

Ann Louise waited nearly two years before reaching out to The Fixer. She said she prayed each day the police would find Eddie. But as the months dragged on and the trail got colder, Ann Louise could sense the hopelessness in the detectives’ voices. More months passed without a lead and she heard a growing irritation when she called.

“I guess I can understand it,” she said. “Every time I call them their noses get rubbed in a flaming shit pile of failure. But I have to try. My husband’s dead and Eddie’s dancing on all of Dennis’s hard work.”

The Fixer had high fees. Ann Louise was back at work as an office manager with a small insurance company. Lydia told Ann Louise The Fixer wouldn’t be taking the case. She wished her luck and never contacted her again.

But Lydia continued to monitor all correspondence related to Dennis’s murder within the Minneapolis Police Department. From her communication console she secretly accessed emails, status reports, and monthly updates. Anything submitted electronically was hers to review. She learned Edward Dirken’s name was placed on No-Fly lists across the country and in every nation listed in Eddie’s computer search history. Banks around the globe were asked to notify local authorities should someone matching Eddie’s description try to open an account.

Lydia focused closer to home. Eddie would have sacrificed his passport when he was granted bail. She was betting Eddie, with his good-time reputation and his lifelong aversion to hard work, wouldn’t assert the effort necessary to build a new identity.

Eddie was somewhere in the United States.

As a clinical psychologist, Lydia was a trained researcher. The same investigative abilities that led to an award-winning dissertation, dozens of scientific papers, and expert clinical diagnoses, proved valuable as she set about learning all she could about Edward David Dirken. Within a week she knew his childhood history, his tastes in music, his hobbies, and what he liked to eat. She learned about his health, the kind of movies he rented, and what kind of wine he drank. She gained access to his school and medical history. His credit cards provided insight into everything he consumed.

Lydia also monitored Juror Number Three, Janice Gleason. She followed the woman’s electronic and phone communications. For three years there was nothing to indicate Eddie had been in contact with the violinist. But Lydia was patient. Eddie was known as a life-of-the-party kind of guy. He wasn’t built for the isolation of an underground existence. When Janice received an email from a Bill Smith, complimenting her on her jury service, Lydia knew it was Edward Dirken reaching out for human contact. She tracked the source to an address in Westbrook, Maine, a small rented house overlooking the Presumpscot River.

Lydia stared at the face on the screen. Dennis Chait was dead. Ann Louise and her son were living a hand-to-mouth existence while the man who stole everything breathed pine-scented air and lived a life bankrolled by their misery. A calm, steadying warmth settled across her shoulders.

“I’m coming for you, Eddie.” She laid her hand across the face of the man on her computer monitor. “I’m going to fix this.”