Vengeance Road (20 page)

A
few hours after Zachary Miller made his discovery, the Wichita Police Department's blue MD 500E thudded high over Clear Ridge Crossing.

Detective Candace Rose squinted up at it from her car.

The chopper was photographing the site to help determine the size, scope and boundaries of the crime scene.

Rose, the rookie homicide detective, was the primary. Lou Cheswick, the veteran, was her partner.

Outdoor scenes were problematic. And based on what the young Miller boys had already described to them, and what the responding officer had told them, this one was bad.

Real bad.

They'd interviewed a teary Zachary Miller in one of the job-site trailers, where the boy's shaken mother—“Dear Lord, I can't believe this. A dead person! Are you sure it's not an animal? Dear Lord!”—had brought her son a fresh change of clothes.

Then Cheswick drove their Impala to a ridge that was a natural gateway to the site and waited for the assessment. As the chopper's rotor sliced the air, Rose called her husband, an engineer at Cessna.

“You and the kids pick up a pizza. I won't be home for dinner tonight.”

“You don't sound so good. Did you catch one?”

“I did.”

“And are you the primary?”

“I am.”

“Good luck. I'll pick up some butterscotch ripple for you. For later. I'll wait up, if you like.”

“No, no need to wait up. I'll be fine with the ice cream. Thanks.”

Rose's walkie-talkie crackled in her hand. She held it to her ear as the spotter above guided them to the best point of entry to the scene.

Cheswick slipped their sedan's transmission into drive.

As they crept along a bumpy worn path that stretched across the earthen plain, Rose looked into her side mirror and was assured by the small convoy. Some marked units from Patrol South Bureau stayed back at the ridge to establish an outer perimeter. A couple of cars followed her and Cheswick in. The uniforms would tape off and secure the scene.

The CSI vehicle was with them, along with K-9 and some search boys if they needed to grid the area.

The flat wide stretch took Rose back to her childhood. She'd grown up in the heartland, a farmer's daughter, in Comanche County. Through high school Rose worked part-time in the sheriff's office, then studied law enforcement at college before joining the Wichita PD.

She'd worked a beat and met her future husband after giving him a traffic ticket. She hit the books and became a detective with the Sex Crimes Section. And when Homicide Section's caseload strained, she was called in to assist with murder investigations.

The lieutenant liked her work and suggested she apply for a vacancy that had opened up in Homicide. Rose scored high on her exams and won the job. Two weeks ago she was partnered with Lou “The Legend” Cheswick.

“Welcome to the few, the proud, the sleep deprived. Next case that comes our way is yours,” he'd said.

After six years as a street cop and four years as a sex crimes detective, Rose had seen enough misery to last a liftetime or two—savage abuse of children and women, the aftermaths of suicides, fires, car wrecks and murders.

But taking the lead of her first homicide? This was nerve-racking.

It was bad enough that it had an outdoor crime scene as big as all Kansas. But to be so grisly, and have it be a little boy who'd made the find…

Zachary Miller's voice was fresh in her ears.

“Is it human? Was it really a person?”

Rose reviewed her mental checklist: reread her statements and start her log, noting the time, weather and temperature and the relation of the scene to its surroundings.

Now she puffed her cheeks and exhaled slowly as they neared the solitary patrol car that had responded to the initial 911 call. She parked and got out.

“Take your time, Rose,” Cheswick said, “because you only get one chance at a first-time at the scene.”

They opened their trunk. As they slipped into white coveralls with shoe covers, then tugged on latex gloves, Rose took in the area, absorbed the conditions, atmosphere, its isolation, until they were approached by the responding officer who had preserved the scene. His name was Smart; he'd already suited up.

“We spoke on the phone, Detective.”

“Yes, thanks. Did you take in or remove anything from the scene?”

“No.”

“Anyone else go in there besides you and your partner?”

“No.”

“Good. Would you take us in now.”

“Right this way, and you should brace yourself.”

The others held back as Kern led Rose and Cheswick into the woods using what would become the path of entry for investigators.

Branches and shrubs slapped against them. They stepped carefully into the darkened forest whose moist, rich smells mingled with birdsong.

It wasn't long before a low monotonous drone rose from the darkness ahead. A breeze delivered an offensive smell as they stopped to behold the horror: a puzzle of flesh, mud and blood suspended crucifixion-style a few feet from the ground.

A long moment passed in silence, save for the flies, the birds and the distant hum of the housing construction. All three cops stood there, reaching deep within themselves, ensuring that whatever moral substance they safeguarded in their most secret corners remained untouched as they looked upon the outrage.

It was Cheswick who went first.

“What a wonderful world we live in. Times like this challenge my faith in humanity.”

“Those poor little boys,” Rose said.

“Let's get to work.”

Before they allowed the CSI people, the forensic photographer and the people from the coroner's office access to the scene to process it, Rose and Cheswick inventoried the area, took notes and digital photos, and searched the immediate scene for any sign of evidence—waste, condoms, a weapon. They searched for clothing, anything that might contain a suggestion of ID as to who the victim might be. Rose wrote down a description of the victim: white female in her twenties.

As she stepped closer, she noticed a brief metallic flash near the victim's right hand, which was closed into a fist.

A fine chain hung down from the victim's hand.

Jewelry.

“Lou, check this out. She's got something in her hand.”

Cheswick stepped up.

“Take pictures, Candy, then see if you can pry it out.”

She clenched her eye behind her small digital and took several photos before reaching for it with her gloved finger. She loosened the grip, allowing the item to fall into her palm.

“A tiny locket.”

It was inscribed.

“Love Mom.”

Rose opened it to a photo of a little boy.

“M
om, help me!”

Somewhere in the night at the edge of Buffalo's Schiller Park, the distant howl of sirens nudged Mary Peller from sleep to partial consciousness.

Voices and images continued streaming through her mind.

“Mom, help me find it.”

It was Jolene. Always Jolene. At various stages of her life.

Mary holding her in the maternity ward looking into her tiny scrunched face and meeting a pair of blazing little eyes.

“Mommee, slow down!”

Mary fleeing with little Jo into the street after Mary's worthless husband began smashing furniture in a drunken rage over burned potatoes.

Mary working full-time as a supermarket clerk. Finding an apartment.

Jolene in a new dress Mary made for her first day of school.

“But I don't want to go away from you!”

She's so pretty. So heartbreakingly pretty.

“Your daughter's been in an accident!”

A halo of blood grows around Jolene's head after she's fallen from the swing in the playground. Ambulance. Hospital. Antiseptic smells. Doctors being paged. Serious fracture to her head.

“Her condition is critical, Mrs. Peller. I'm so sorry but you should brace for the possibility you could lose her.”

Jolene skipping classes in high school. Hanging out with kids who did drugs. Arrested for shoplifting. A parade of loser boyfriends. Mary pleading.

“Jolene, please listen, I love you. You can't go on like this!”

“Stay out of my life!”

Jolene dropping out of high school. Running away. Drifting in and out of Mary's life. Making demands.

“Do you have any money? I need a place to stay for a while.”

Mary finding drugs hidden in her dresser.

“Stay out my life!”

Jolene living on the street. Living in a vermin-infested house with street people, gang members, drug dealers, prostitutes and addicts.

Year bleeding into year.

Then Jolene at her door.

Pregnant.

“Who's the father?”

“I don't know. I'm raising it myself.”

Mary holding her grandson in the maternity ward, looking into his face and meeting a pair of little diamond eyes.

“I'm naming him Cody. He's my lifesaver.”

Hope, love, maturity and determination light in Jolene's face.

“I have to pull my life together for him. Will you help me, Mom?” Tears, so many tears. “Please, Mom, will you help me?”

Jolene struggling in vain with her addiction. Back on the street searching, fighting to get clean until an overdose nearly kills her.

“I'm here, Jolene.”

Mary at her bedside in the hospital.

“Please help me, Mom. It's so hard. I need to get clean, for Cody.”

Jolene and Cody moving in with Mary. Mary taking overtime shifts. Jolene in rehab and going to night school. Going to church. Working with outreach groups. Surviving. Winning.

Getting clean.

Getting a job in Florida. A new life in the sun.

Mary's gift to her.

The locket.

Jolene stronger. Jolene, a reborn young woman with a job waiting.

Jolene at the door with her bag and bus ticket to Orlando—the last time Mary saw her daughter.

“Call me every day. Promise me, Jo.”

“I'll call you. I promise. I love you so much, Mom.”

Mary so proud they'd worked through it all together.

A telephone not ringing.

No calls. Nothing.

“I'll call you. I promise
.

Nothing.

“Help me, Mom. Help me find it.”

Jolene's so near. She's here. In the living room! Mary can sense her presence. Jolene is sitting on the sofa.

“I'm so sorry. I tried to call you, Mom. I'm doing my best.”

Jolene crying.

Mary reaching out, aching to hold her.

“Oh honey, that's okay. You're here. You're safe.”

Jolene shaking her head.

“I'm not, Mom. I lost it. Help me find it.”

“Find what, sweetheart?”

“My locket. I can't find my locket. Mom, I'm so scared!”

“I'm right here.”

Mary reaching out.

To nothing.

Screams pierce the night.

Mary Peller sits bolt upright, her heart pounding.

Cody is standing next to her bed in the soft light, wide-eyed.

“I miss Mommy.”

Mary takes her grandson into her arms, holding him tightly to keep both of them from falling off the earth.

T
he jet's wing tipped slowly, giving Jack Gannon a spectacular view of Calgary, a city of one million nestled in the foothills of the Rockies.

It was dusk.

Once he landed, he rented a compact car then checked into the Radisson, near the airport, where he'd reserved a room.

“We have a package and a message for you, Mr. Gannon,” the clerk said.

It was a brown envelope thick with files, old clippings and yellowed typed notes. The message was from Ross Sawyer.

Gannon ordered a cheeseburger from room service and ate while working. Sawyer's files included articles on the murder, isolated societies, psychology, and theories about the killer.

In the morning Gannon didn't recognize Sawyer in the lobby. With his thick white hair, rugged features and trim build, he looked like a man closer to sixty-five than eighty.

They took the Trans-Canada Highway east, with Sawyer telling him about regional history during their two-hour drive.

“Drive several more hours east into Saskatchewan and you'll come to the spot where Sitting Bull led his people into exile after Little Big Horn.”

They cut across gentle hills that soon flattened to the horizon for as far as Gannon could see.

“I called Lorne Macdonald like you suggested,” Gannon said. “We'll meet him at the detachment and he'll take us out to the house.”

RCMP sergeant Lorne Macdonald was dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt. He was an imposing man close to retirement who gave Gannon a crushing handshake. Brooks was a small prairie city known for agriculture, gas and oil, he told Gannon as they got into his unmarked Chev.

“Beyond town there's not much,” Macdonald said.

The geography outside of Brooks was an eternal rolling treeless plain. After following a ribbon of paved highway with next to nothing in sight, Macdonald turned onto a dirt road to nowhere.

“These are service roads for underground gas and oil operations,” Sawyer said.

Macdonald had called the gas company that now controlled the land under “the old Rudd place.” The manager had OK'd a visit. Dust clouds rose behind them, as if taking them into another realm, another time, Gannon thought.

It's like this part of the world's been forgotten
.

After twenty minutes the skeletal remains of a dilapidated ranch house came into view as Macdonald brought his car to a halt.

Overgrown dry grass laid claim to the place now, left empty and neglected for decades.

“Hold it,” Macdonald said as Gannon approached the yawning doorway. The Mountie tossed a couple of rocks that thudded into the empty house.

“Might be coyotes.”

An owl lifted off through the window.

The place reeked of mouse and bird shit, wind buffeted against the loosened boards of the ramshackle walls. Gannon had a good idea of what had transpired here in 1937, but walking on the creaking floorboards, in the steps of a mass murderer, brought it all to life.

As they went from room to room, Gannon envisioned the carnage.

“After it happened, no one ever lived here again,” Sawyer said. “I think the mattresses and furniture were burned. People were spooked.”

They entered the last bedroom, at the end of the hall.

“This is where they found Deke, hiding under his dead sister,” Macdonald said. “I'll tell you what my dad told me about this case a month or so before he died.”

Gannon nodded.

“Not all of this is in any file. And since everybody involved is now dead, it's really a matter of history.” Macdonald said the case had haunted his father.

“He had several theories about what happened. The Rudds were killed with an ax. The doors were never locked, so anyone could have entered easily. One theory was that a stranger, possibly a convict who'd escaped from Stony Mountain in Manitoba at the time, was responsible. The convict was looking for food or money and murdered the family.”

The speculation was that young Deke survived because he slept in a loft and was missed.

Deke Rudd was traumatized. Over several interviews, he said that after he'd gone from bed to bed and discovered his family dead, he'd hid in fear underneath one of his sisters.

“It explained the blood trails, the blood on him and his clothing, and his condition,” Macdonald said.

The murder weapon was never located. The suspected escaped convict was arrested in Quebec and it was determined that he'd never set foot in Alberta. The killer of the Rudd family had never been found.

An unknown and disturbing element concerned the eldest Rudd sister, who, contrary to press reports, had survived in hospital for a few days before she died of her injuries. The Mounties kept her survival secret, hoping to obtain information from her that would help them find the killer. Half of her face had been severed from her skull. She was medicated and emerged periodically from her coma to give a hazy, piecemeal deathbed account.

“My dad interviewed her and she revealed to him that Deke was not her brother, but her son,” Macdonald said.

“What?” Gannon said. “And that was never made public?”

“No,” Macdonald said. “She told my father that Clydell Rudd abused all of his girls, said the Bible gave him dominion over his women. Some of them had babies by him, but the babies, all girls, died and Clydell just buried them at night somewhere out on the land. Deke was the only boy.”

“That's incredible,” Gannon said.

“Clydell Rudd was an evil, evil man,” Sawyer said.

“He said he'd kill his daughter if she ever told anyone about the abuse and that she would burn in eternal flames,” Macdonald said. “She thought that young Deke had overheard her arguing with Clydell one day and learned the terrible truth about who and what he was.”

Even at Deke's age, he probably reasoned that his parentage was wrong. “That's what my father figured,” Macdonald said. “The girl told my father that Deke had grown sullen and withdrawn. It gave her reason to believe that Deke had learned what most of his family knew.”

“What was that?” Gannon asked.

“That they lived with the devil.”

Sawyer said that he'd researched the subject of incest and found that inbreeding was common in small, isolated communities and cultures.

“In some cases, there was no impact on health, but in others, there were terrible health problems, including some theories that inbred offspring were susceptible to catastrophic psychiatric problems.”

“Such as Jekyll-and-Hyde behavior?” Gannon asked.

“Who knows for sure,” Sawyer said.

“You said your father had several theories about what happened?” Gannon said to Macdonald.

“My father's second major theory in the Rudd massacre was that young Deke Rudd had murdered his entire family.”

Gannon was stunned.

“And,” Macdonald said, “given what he knew of the case, my father came to believe it was the most likely scenario.”

The wind moaned through the gaps of the death house as Gannon absorbed the revelation and its impact on his story.

This was the gene pool from which Karl Styebeck had emerged.