Funeral Hotdish (19 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Thursday, January 13, 2000

Deer-hunting season was well over. So was elk. Pheasant season had closed last week. Nobody should have been out in that tree claim chomping through snowbanks to shoot at anything, but the Anderson boys were, and that’s where they found Crabapple.

The body had been half-covered with snow—probably completely covered at one point, but it hadn’t snowed for three days and the wind had blown away some of the burial shroud. If the Anderson brothers had any knowledge of crime scenes, they wouldn’t have tromped all over the place, sometimes twirling in circles in their fright at finding a dead body. By the time they were done, few of the tracks left behind were useful. But you couldn’t really fault them, for as soon as they ran home and their folks called the sheriff’s office—then called friends in town—word spread and a half dozen townspeople beat the cops to the site.

Sheriff Potter’s boys weren’t experts on crime scenes either, but they certainly knew one that had been “contaminated” when they saw it.

It was about ten a.m., Thursday, January 13.

Somebody had turned the body over so it faced skyward, rather than lying on its stomach. Nobody ever fessed up to it and it hardly mattered who’d done it. But now that the full horror of the corpse was visible to anyone, there were several who wished nobody had done that.

Fear had been growing in the silence of Northville for the last few days, that things would end up badly. Huntsie was telling everyone he feared for Darryl’s safety. Johnny Roth was seen around town looking wild and angry. After a no-show at the bakery for their Monday card game, the Tuesday dinner at the Senior Citizen Center also missed the Ralph Bonners, the Bernard Stines, and the Earl Krumps.

Wednesday morning, Huntsie gave up waiting, so he called the sheriff in Wahpeton to report Darryl missing.

The officer who took the report was new to the job. A mechanic missing in a small town nearby was hardly something to get excited about. But a day later, an excited Mr. Anderson reported his sons had found a dead body in a tree-claim four miles outside Northville. The chagrined officer now showed Sheriff Potter the missing person report.

The sheriff exploded. He pounded his fist on his desk and let out a string of swear words. “Those Rambo wannabes are in a shitload of trouble now!”

He headed to Northville, fully expecting to arrest three smart-ass bigshots by the day’s end. And he would have, too, if he’d had any evidence to pin on them.

But forget tracks or boot marks around the body—all those were trampled by looky-loos. Forget shell casings, as none were found around the body. Forget imprints in blood, for there wasn’t much blood out here. That was the main clue.

One of the Anderson boys announced to Sheriff Potter, as though the lawman wasn’t smart enough to see it, “This body was dumped here.” The twelve- year-old said it with such pride, knowing his notoriety had just soared. He’d be telling this story the rest of his life.

“I see that,” Sheriff Potter shot back, a little too sharply, some felt. He tried to recover: “But I thank you for your fine police work, son.”

Mr. Anderson grabbed his boy by the neck of his jacket and yanked him back to the sidelines with the look of “stay out of this!”

Sheriff Potter wasn’t as kind to the adults in the audience. “Now folks, you see how you’ve all been walkin’ around here and drivin’ your trucks up here, and you see how we no longer know YOUR tracks from those of the killer who dumped this body here? You see that? That doesn’t help us one bit. Now please leave so we can do our jobs. Thank you very much. And goodbye.”

The chagrined audience—realizing what they’d done—peeled off and went home to speculate about who had done this and when would Sheriff Potter figure it all out.

For his part, Sheriff Potter saw that mangled body as a personal insult. “Those sons of bitches,” he swore under his breath. “They think they can take the law into their own hands and made me look like a fool.”

To his men he announced, “We need to find out where this man was killed. We find the kill site and we’ve found the killer. Now I’ve got some strong suspicions about who that might be, so let’s nail this down. Benson, call the coroner’s office to come get this body. Stephens, take pictures of this corpse.”

His men looked at him with admiration—maybe Sheriff Potter wasn’t as lazy and clueless as he seemed. Right now, he looked and sounded very much like a lawman who knew how to solve a murder. And his men were proud of him.

He could see it in their eyes and it gave him a jolt of confidence.

“Nobody’s gonna make a fool of Sylvester Joseph Potter,” he silently vowed. “I’m gonna show this town and those assholes what it means to mess with the law.”

LeRoy Roth was one of the spectators that day—several looked at him askance—and he hightailed it to his brother’s when the sheriff turned everyone away. Paul had just heard the news from the frenzied grapevine, which was working overtime.

One look at his brother and LeRoy knew something was terribly wrong. Paul hadn’t slept for days, and the red rings around his eyes made him look like a raccoon.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“We can’t find Johnny. He’s been gone three days. He left here like a bat out of hell on Sunday after the storm, and he hasn’t come home. I’ve looked for him all over. He’s disappeared. His mother is beside herself. And we just heard about the body. I don’t want my boy to go to prison.”

Now you’re concerned,
Lois thought as she angrily bit her lip.
NOW!

“Calm down, calm down,” LeRoy said. “You don’t know he’s the one who did this. You don’t know, Paul. And he could be anywhere. Maybe staying with a friend. Maybe he went away for a few days—you know how hard it is for him to come back here. Now calm down, man.”

The phone rang and Lois Roth ran to it. A cousin was calling to report she’d seen Johnny’s pickup parked at the Catholic church. “I think he’s talking with Father, and that’s a
good
sign, Lois. It’s really a good sign.”

Maybe the only sign of hope Lois had for a long time.

When she told Paul, he and LeRoy dashed off to town to see if Johnny was still there. But his pickup was gone.

Paul walked up to the two-story parsonage that stood next to the church and rang the bell. Father Singer was distressed to see the Roth brothers on his stoop.

“Is Johnny here?” his father asked, with hope.

“No, he’s gone.” Father Singer had so much more he wanted to say to this man who was about to grieve, but he couldn’t. The words spoken in a confessional are sacrosanct in the Catholic church, and no matter what the consequence—
no matter what—
a priest cannot reveal what he’s been told.

“Johnny came to confession,” the priest explained—that at least he could say, but that was all.

“Father, I hope you helped him. My boy is so lost.”

“I hope so, too, Mr. Roth. Do you want to come in and we’ll pray?”

“No, that’s alright. I’m going to look for him. Any idea where he’s gone?”

The priest could honestly—and legally—admit he had no idea.

***

The sirens on the sheriffs’ cars blared as they blasted through town at about three p.m., turning left at the Sunoco to rush to Darryl Harding’s farm. It was the obvious place to start, Sheriff Potter had instructed, knowing none of his deputies had ever investigated a murder before. He neglected to mention that he never had, either.

Two pickups were in the yard. One had keys still in the ignition. The other one’s keys were under the front seat.

The officers went into the house, looking for clues. At least these men knew enough about forensics that they wore gloves and were careful what they touched. One whipped out a fingerprint kit and started dusting items. The splay of broken glass along one wall looked particularly suspicious, and a few shards were big enough to hold at least a partial print.

In a closet, they found drugs hidden under a loose floorboard—marijuana, Ecstasy, a small vial of cocaine. Here was the evidence the town had been begging them to find. But now it was way too late.

“I’ve got a bootprint on the carpet,” one man yelled. Someone cut out that piece for testing.

Along with all the photographs they’d taken at the dump site, Sheriff Potter guessed they probably had something. He wasn’t sure what, but something had to make sense. Clearly, Darryl Harding had not been killed in his home. There was no blood. No pockmarks from a shotgun’s pellets. Nothing here but a trashy house occupied by a young man who’d never come home.

On the way out of the house, Sheriff Potter told one of the officers to double check the barn. “Sheriff, you gotta see this,” he yelled. Sheriff Potter ran—as fast as he could with his belly flopping.

Hanging from the rafter was Johnny Roth. His body was still warm.

Chapter Nineteen

Saturday, January 15, 2000

Joya Bonner was on the next plane out of Phoenix when she heard the news.

It took awhile to understand what was happening, for her mother’s weeping over the phone. That kid they thought was the pusher was dead, and poor Johnny Roth had hung himself. The whole town thought Johnny had done it and then couldn’t stand the guilt. But the sheriff was still sniffing around because he thought her father had something to do with all this.

“What?” she cried incredulously. “What would Dad have to do with this?”

Her mother sobbed all the louder, while Joya waited for the woman to compose herself. Her mother never acted like this, even when there was a death in the family. She was far more likely to call with a calm, motherly voice of comfort to break bad news, like when Grandpa died. But this was different. This was her mother in turmoil and terror.

“Your father…your father…I can’t say. But it’s bad. And the sheriff has gone nuts trying to pin it on him.”

“Pin what?” Joya couldn’t picture what was going on.

“Pin Crabapple’s murder. And he’s not sure Johnny really killed himself.”

“FUCK,” Joya yelled, a natural response that her mother wouldn’t appreciate. “Sorry, Mom. What in the world is going on back there? The sheriff thinks Dad killed that kid and Johnny? What possible motive would he have?”

Later, Joya would realize that when you hang with cops for months, you get to talking like they do.

“They knew he was a drug dealer and tried to get the sheriff to arrest him, but he wouldn’t. And then Amber died. And…”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Joya asked. She was reminded about the three musketeers of Northville. “So the sheriff thinks all three are involved?”

“Well, they are,” Maggie said through hiccups that often came on her when she bawled. “But I can’t talk about it. Oh, it’s so awful. And your dad isn’t sleeping.”

“Dad’s involved? How? What did he do? This isn’t even possible. My dad is no killer.”

“I know that, Joya!” It was the first clear sentence Maggie had uttered.

Joya instantly regretted her words. “Mom, I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

The horrible reality of the sheriff’s thinking was becoming clear to Joya Bonner and she had to get home. She quickly calculated if her bank account could handle it—she lived paycheck to paycheck like every print journalist—and knew it was shy. But she had a good friend who would float her a loan.

“Mom, I’m coming home.”

“Oh, Joya, I don’t know. Do you really think so?”

That was mother-code for “please hurry.”

When Ralph and Maggie Bonner met Joya at Hector Field in Fargo the next day, the mother embraced the daughter with relief and joy while the father gave a perfunctory hug as if to say, “Why are you sticking your nose in this?”

The greeting didn’t surprise Joya. She’d always had a standoff relationship with her father. She knew she should be gentle with him, completely supportive, not pushy, but that wasn’t how she played cards. They got off to a bad start.

“Tell me what happened.” She asked her father the same way she’d question someone like Sammy the Bull. It was the worst approach she could have taken.

“If you think you’re going to stick your nose in this, I’ll tell you right now, you are not,” her father exploded. “This is none of your business. I don’t want you digging around in this. You’ll only make things worse. If you came home to visit, fine. But if you came home to mess in this, then I want you to get back on that plane and go home to Phoenix.”

Joya had stood up to governors and mayors and richer-than-God land developers and even the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America,” but standing up to her father was far harder. He could hit that spot in her gut that none of the others even knew existed.

“Dad, I don’t want to mess anything up. I want to help.” Her voice sounded too much like a little girl’s.

“I don’t want your help and I don’t need your help. So goddammit, stay out of this!”

The first half-hour of the trip to Northville was noisy in its silence. Maggie tried to make small talk, but it was lame. Joya waited, anxious that she didn’t know what she needed to know—how in the world was her dad involved in a murder-suicide? Why was the sheriff after him and his buddies? How could any of this be happening to her church-going-upstanding-community-leader father?

Something was horribly wrong and her dad would never fess up. Hopefully Mom would come clean when they were alone. She counted on that, just as she counted on her dad stonewalling her unless she got him to see she could be a help.

They were forty minutes into the ride when she started detailing her recent scoop on Sammy the Bull.

She told the story with flourish and excitement, noting how he was going on trial and could face decades in prison.

“You know,” she finally said, taking aim, “he ran a big Ecstasy ring that focused on the Southwest, but his dope went all over. The Phoenix Police Department says the Ecstasy that killed Amber came from Sammy’s ring.”

That wasn’t exactly true, but it could have been. Even if it wasn’t, Joya needed her dad to believe it. It was the only way she knew to get through his wall of hands-off. Funny, she thought to herself. For the last few months, I was praying they’d build the wall that would get Sammy. Now here I am trying to tear one down.

“Why does the Phoenix Police Department know anything about Amber?” her dad asked, too sharply.

“Well, I’ve made a lot of friends in the department as we were working this Sammy thing, and when I first heard about Amber, I mentioned it and they came back to me and told me how she was connected to Sammy.” Joya knew her dad respected law and order—Sheriff Potter notwithstanding—and she hoped that would help her now.

“How are they connected?” Ralph showed guarded interest.

“They’ve traced the stuff to Minneapolis and that’s where North Dakota dealers get their Ecstasy,” she said, as though all those dots had been connected. It was an educated guess and that was good enough for now.

“That’s where Crabapple went when he ran,” her dad mused.

“Really? He went to Minneapolis?”

“Yeah, to a cousin’s or something. Huntsie told us.”

Joya had a toe in the door. “Make sure your attorney knows that,” she offered, “and I can give him anything he needs about Sammy’s operation in Phoenix. I can put him in touch with the detectives who worked that case—I have their private numbers. And I brought copies of my story home, so you could give that to him—it might be helpful.”

“We don’t have an attorney,” Maggie said.

“What? You don’t have an attorney? Isn’t that sheriff snooping around like he suspects you of something?”

Ralph shot a nasty look to his wife, but she glared at him in defiance. “This is no time to stick your head in the sand,” she declared, knowing Ralph’s was already halfway there. To her daughter in the backseat she announced, “I’ve been telling him he needs an attorney.”

“Dad, even though you’re innocent, you need an attorney. I’ve watched innocent people go to prison because they didn’t have anyone to protect them. You know, the police aren’t always after the truth. They’re really after a conviction—closing a case and sending someone away. Sometimes they don’t care who that someone is. And if this sheriff has his sights on you, well, that’s bad.”

Ralph didn’t say anything, although he was glad to hear she thought he was innocent. And his daughter was making sense. That pissed him off, because of all his children, this was the one he usually disagreed with the most.

Maggie would say that was because father and daughter were frick and frack. Both were stubborn to the point of pigheadedness. Both were mouthy. Both naturally thought they should lead. Both were chauvinists, with Ralph believing males were superior to females and Joya believing it was the other way around. She even had a quote on the wall of her study at home from folk singer Louden Wainwright III: “…and the world is a place of horror because every man thinks he’s right.”

For his part, Ralph actually relished the verbal sparring that came home with Joya every year—once telling a visiting son he couldn’t get into issues with him because “I’ve got to rest up for Joya.” But in the end, he thought his daughter was almost always wrong and always, always, too liberal. He couldn’t figure out where he’d gone wrong with her.

“What do the boys say?” Joya knew her father put more stock in his son’s opinions.

“Oh, they agree with me.” Maggie turned in the seat to look her daughter in the eye, signaling that the boys might agree, but they weren’t pushing. The look pleaded, “PLEASE PUSH.”

“I know lots of lawyers in Phoenix, Dad, and I could ask one for a recommendation here in North Dakota.”

“We don’t have money for attorneys.” As though that really was a factor.

“I’ll help you find one that isn’t expensive,” she replied. “Somebody from this area would be good. It doesn’t hurt to just talk to an attorney.” She’d have to find a male attorney because her father would never trust a female.

“Maybe you and Earl and Bernard could all go in together,” Maggie suggested now.

Joya opened her mouth to object, but her mother threw a look that said “back off.” Still, if her mother’s bawling recitation on the phone had been accurate, each of those three men needed their own attorney.

She gambled and took one more step she prayed would work. “Dad, I’ve investigated a lot of crimes and one of the things that’s important is what the sheriff knows and what he doesn’t know. There’s ways of finding that out. The police report is a public record and anyone can read it. The autopsy report is a public record, too. I could get those for you, without any problem, and you’d see what kind of evidence they think they have. Or maybe the sheriff is just bluffing, trying to make you guys nervous enough to fess up to something. It’s important to know what the sheriff knows.”

Ralph had to admit this was one of the most practical sentences his daughter had ever uttered. As he pulled into the driveway of his home and hit the automatic garage door opener, he could see the wisdom. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if she did this
one thing
and got those reports.

It took him most of the afternoon to revisit their conversation.

“Is it hard to get those reports?”

“Oh no, it’s easy-peasy. I can go next week and get them.”

Ralph Bonner’s silence let the words hang there. He gave a little shudder, amazed he was talking with his daughter about records in a murder case.
How the hell did I get here?

Joya had his tacit approval—since she was a rebellious teenager, when her dad meant no, he said no, but silence meant it was okay.

They’d just sat down for supper—Mom’s famous pot roast—when a loud pounding on the front door startled everyone.

Joya jumped up to answer it and was swept aside as this overweight, huffing man pushed his way in and announced he was there to see Ralph Bonner. She didn’t have to ask to recognize Sheriff Potter.

“I need your shotgun and I need your shells,” he bellowed at Ralph, standing with his legs spread shoulder-width as though he were on the shooting range.

“Why?” Ralph’s voice didn’t sound as strong and sure as he usually did.

“You know why,” Sheriff Potter answered. Joya was sure she saw a smirk.

“No, Sheriff, I have no idea why you’d want my gun.”

“The game’s over, Bonner. We found the silo.”

Ralph paused, and then punted. “What silo?” He’d later be incredibly grateful he’d remained calm.

Silo?
Joya thought. What’s a silo got to do with any of this?

“The silo where you three Rambos chained up Darryl Harding before you killed him. We’ve already arrested your co-conspirator. Earl Krump.”

Joya stopped breathing.

“Sheriff, we did not kill that kid!” Ralph now was on his feet, and he stood toe to toe with the sheriff. “Don’t you come in my home and make wild accusations. I am not a killer. Neither are my friends. But if you want my gun, you can have it because I have nothing to hide.”

Joya’s mind was racing with the ridiculous image of her father and his friends chaining up a kid in a silo. They really did that? What were they thinking? What in the world were they doing?

Ralph started to take a step toward the gun cabinet. If she were ever to help her dad, Joya needed to help him right now.

“Wait, Dad!” She was screaming.

She turned and threw back her shoulders to make herself taller. “Sheriff, do you have a warrant?”

She said the words with clarity and force, looking him right in the eye. Sheriff Potter stared and stayed quiet.

As though she were teaching a tutorial in basic police work, Joya lectured, “You know, you can’t just waltz into somebody’s home and demand they hand over anything without a warrant saying you’ve got probable cause. You’ve got to convince a judge that you have cause to believe this man committed a crime. You can’t just run around like you’re the Gestapo. So I ask again. Do. You. Have. A. Warrant?”

Nobody had ever spoken to Sheriff Potter that way. Ralph and Maggie were mortified that their daughter would be so obstinate. After all, he
was
the sheriff. But they quickly realized she was standing up to a man who had already made up his mind that Ralph was a murderer.

“And who do you think you are, young lady?” the sheriff asked with disgust.

“I’m Joya Bonner, an investigative reporter from Phoenix who just worked hand-in-hand with the Phoenix Police Department to break up a major drug ring. So I know how these things work. And they don’t work with a sheriff who doesn’t know the constitutional rights of American citizens, waltzing into my parents’ home and making wild accusations against my father. If you can get a warrant, we’ll be glad to give you the shotgun and you can see it has nothing to do with anything. If you can’t get a warrant, then we’re done here. I’ll show you the door, Sheriff.”

Joya threw out her arm in the direction of the door. Sheriff Potter looked at her like he was seeing a unicorn. “Now listen here…” but he got no farther as she flicked her hands to shoo him away.