Chapter XVI

ictor was talking to Nancy at the home of Len and Melinda Mathers.  With them was Officer Amanda Williams.  Victor had a problem on his hands and he needed a solution for it.  There was still the possibility of charges brought on him if he wasn't very, very careful.  He needed no mix-ups now.

Nancy was laying out the whole setup for them.  She remembered meeting Officer Williams on her first day as a rookie.  Officer Williams was the only person to give her any encouragement, and she admired her for her courage and downright stick-to-it-ness.  She had often given her a ride to work, and helped her get the job of Dispatcher and she thanked Officer Williams for it.

She had began seeing the Mayor over ten years ago.  It started with a birthday card, then a little trinket here and there.  A box of candy and invitation to a birthday party.  Within a couple of months, she was meeting the Mayor for a couple nights a week.  Then, the Mayors wife up and hung herself.  The Mayor had told her someone had stolen the body, probably the girls parents.

After that, she was going to the Mayors home for sometimes three nights per week.  But, it was costing her.  The Mayor had suggested little things at first, like removing a report from a file, to canceling appointments to keeping him informed of everything that happened at the precinct.  Through Nancy he had kept his finger on the action of the Police Department and had introduced several of the officers to him.

She had introduced Detectives and other important people who happened through the Police Department.  She learned the kinds and types of people with whom the Mayor could 'work.'

Then the Mayor married another woman and Nancy was put on the back burner for a while.  Within a month, she was back in the Mayors arms and good graces as well as his bed.  A year later, his wife up and disappeared.  He told Nancy she was actually his cousin, but had just ran off.

Officer Williams had been a detective during that period but outside of minor court appearances needing her input, she seldom saw the Mayor.  But she had heard rumors aplenty through the rumor mill.  It's been said the worst gossips in the world are preachers and policeman.  And the rumor mill was certainly alive and well in the Police Department of Stillwell Creek Township.

She had worked the case of the missing Mayors wife, and was poking around in places where she shouldn't be.  Then, one day the Chief of Police Don Siegal, (he was a dirty cop who died in Death Sentence), received a 'notice of missing persons found' via fax machine.  The name of the missing person they found was Trish Ludlow, Mayor Ludlows wife.

Officer Williams smelled a rat and stated her opinion of that.  The result was he removed Officer Williams from the case and placed her on a desk job.  When she kicked up a fuss, he promoted her to Lieutenant, and gave her some different responsibilities.  He warned her to keep her thoughts to herself or she would be disgraced and fired.

But the Mayor didn't trust her because she was squeaky clean.  More than once they fabricated stuff against her, but somehow she managed to pull through even though the information was placed in her file.  Some were 'evidence' of stuff that were a complete fabrication.  I know Lane Wardlow pulled her tail out of the fire a couple of times.

The Mayor hated Lane and put three contracts on him that I know of.  The last one, through Tack Guinn, was supposed to be the one that cleaned up the whole town by getting rid of Lane.  I knew when he kidnapped Chief of Police Walter Bension as well as Lane.  I feared for their lives, but the Mayor said he was only supposed to rough them up a little.

Then they found Lane and Walter.  I learned through Tack that neither was supposed to live.  I learned over dinner with him Walter was to be eliminated, Tack received fifty thousand from the Mayor.  The Mayor was always paying money out, and lots of it.

Lane lived but they got him again, at the same time they grabbed William Travis.  He was supposed to get fifty for each of them, but he needed some information from them first concerning some discs that Tack wanted.  I think it was something to do with a game called Death Vengeance.  I'd heard that name once before at Williams trial.

Tack brought in several dirty cops with him, and one I knew back from when William was supposed to give some discs.  The same discs I think.  He was going to be paid a hundred thousand to take out William and deliver the discs.  That cop was Boslo Wilson.  When he failed to get the discs, he was run out of town."  She paused for a second then asked for some water, and after taking a drink, she continued.

"But Rice, and several others were after something which only the Mayor, I and Russell Adams knew was around.  I found out what they were after, because Officer Russell Adams and I had become such good friends.  But Russell would talk when he got a little bit of liquor in him, and it proved to be his downfall.  He described the whole scene of the Crawley Caper to me early on.  The Mayor paid handsomely for that information."

"Russell had it made, but he wouldn't do his job as a policeman.  Actually, Russell was a lousy policeman, but I just don't believe he had it in him to be a cop.  And, he was a dirty cop.  It was about the time that the second murder of the Crawly Caper that Russell's own wife up and left him.  He told me he never did know where she went.  I became suspicious because so many women were just disappearing."

Len looked at Victor and just raised one eyebrow, then turned back to the speaker.  "But, a few others had went missing and simply disappeared.  Russell told me the Mayor had 'lost' a few workers off his ship.  They usually disappeared at night, and two that I know of went into the water off the Alaskan coast.  But they were dead by the time they got them out of the water, so they were simply buried at sea.  I read the reports given by the Captain of the ship, a fisher by the name of the Stillwell Lady and was actually owned by the Mayor at one time."

Another pause and a drink, then Nancy continued. "Russell was so taken up with the case of them that died, Greg Wheaton, Randy Gregory and Henry Thomas, that he questioned the Detective, Sergeant James.  Sgt James was always hitting on me even though he had a wife.  It wasn't too long after that, his wife died as well.  Russell dogged Sgt James and his side kick Damon Nix, a six month rookie, who was always full of self importance.

"Then, I spent some time with Sgt James, and he was so full of self-importance, he was always bragging to me about how much he knew.  And he was jealous of me as well.  He slugged rookie Damon Nix once for asking me to have dinner with him.  I grew fearful of Sgt James, and the Mayor told me to get as much info out of him as I could, and that he would protect me."

With the information Russell was gaining he figured out what was going on, and at the same time feeding Sgt James bogus information.  But he began telling me in advance about the next move, who it would be, and I was so intrigued by the whole thing, I didn't want it to end.  It was like the front row of a one time movie.  And Russell made it come alive.  And he knew who the killer was and how it came to be.  He knew it all.  It was him who worked the old man over so badly, killing him in the process, trying to get some more information out of him.

He got absolutely nothing out of Mr. Hastings.  Russell made up the story about him confessing.  With Russell being such a brown noser, he climbed up the ladder pretty fast.  And he was slick.  Slick enough that he managed to keep his record clean and look like a good cop.  Enough so that he was placed into the Chief's position over Amanda after Siegal and James died.

I figured Amanda would come unglued, but, she kept her demeanor, her old good natured self.  I was mad about that, but then I figured if she had gotten the job, the Mayor would have just had her iced.  By the time Victor showed up, Russell was way in over his head and quit immediately.  Mayor Ludlow was so mad I thought he was going to have Russell killed.

"You pretty much know the rest of the story . . ."  Nancy sat silent for a few moments, then she started again.

"Oh . . . I almost forgot.  The Chairman of the board of Stillwell Creek Township, Roger Strickland, came in to award the Chief of Police position to Officer Williams, but Mayor Ludlow intercepted him.  I heard them yelling through the door and I thought it was going to come to blows.  But the Mayor won out the argument.  Roger Strickland stomped out while the Mayor seated Jason Perry in the Chief's Position.  I don't think he was ever sworn in."

For several hours they questioned Nancy Wilhelm, and she spoke freely and gave names, dates, times, places and situations.  But Victors problem was increasing, not getting better.  His problem was he had pulled information out of the hands of the police at a crime scene.  And if the right person got a hold of the situation, he could have been in big trouble for obstructing justice.  He could get out of that trouble with the authority of his position, but he thought it best to prevent the action if at all possible.

Not only that, all this information had to be verified.  And that was an impossibility without alerting someone, perhaps, several someones.  Also, Nancy had to be sequestered and protected, and the only way to do that was get her out of town and out of knowledge of anyone concerned.  She was a witness, and the information she had given was invaluable.

At least the team could take what they did know and investigate from there.  They had all the pieces, now the real work began . . . putting it all together.

Sharon and Melinda packed a few things and loaded Nancy up, digging through the things of her house.  It had been ransacked, and now Nancy was extremely fearful of her life.  When they had a few things loaded, headed off to William's folks in a different state.  Not knowing what information the Mayor and the Chief of Police had on them, and/or, suspected them of, and/or had put tagging devices on their phones and vehicles, they decided it best to switch trucks.

After they were out of state, they disabled the U-Haul truck, forcing U-Haul to replace the truck and transfer its contents.  They stopped along the way and purchased some throwaway phones with phony names.

The next morning, Len and William were at the Adams house with Roger Thielgood, the contractor who was to start dismantling the house.  Through Victors eye for fine craftsmanship, they had a good idea as to where to start, and so the fireplace was where they began.  Within two hours they had two bodies, both, female.

Another body was found in a walled in portion of a closet, and yet another was found under the floor.  It was decided that the whole house would be taken down bit by bit, and then the back yard would be dug down to four feet.  The coroner was busy making trip after trip out there.  On the third trip, he left a couple of extra body bags with instructions to call him when they were full.

At four thirty they called him.  Sir, we have three more bodies.  A total of seven females were found, all strangled with a garrote.

When Officer Williams was a two year rookie walking a bad nightshift beat, she gained a good reputation.  Through her level head and consistent efforts, she had worked her way up.  She was promoted to a cruiser with a partner.  Within a couple years, she made Sergeant.  A couple more years and a lot of night school education later she was promoted to Lieutenant and jumping several ranks.

It rankled the Mayor to see her promoted and wasn't too worried who he told about it.  It had gotten back to Lane Wardlow and he had approached Officer Williams about it, asking if there was anything he could do, and telling her he was on her side.  So, when Chief of Police Walter Bension had been killed, she began to nose around nonchalantly, learning small details which she filed away for later use.

She figured out that Russell Adams was either in on the death of Chief Bension, or, knew details about it.  Then, when Victor came to town, things began to happen.  Russell up and quit right away, raising suspicion on the Mayor, leaving the position open.  Two letters came in urging for her promotion to Chief.  One from Victor Bension, and the other from Lane Wardlow.

Because of the difference between the backgrounds of the Mayor and the contributors of the letters, Lieutenant Amanda Williams didn't think she even had a chance.  She was right.  She was passed over by a much inferior officer and dirty to boot, Jason Perry.

She had told no one, but she had applied at another Police department in the State of Arizona.  She didn't want to move, but, she was pretty disgusted with the law in Stillwell Creek.  A dirty cop is one thing, but when almost the entire force and the Mayor is corrupt as well as a few on the City Council who had deep connections with the Mayor, well, she just wanted out of there.

The only thing that had kept her there for the moment was the urge to help Victor.  She trusted him completely, and felt he was as honest and had as much integrity as Walter Bension and Lane Wardlow.  And she wanted justice for Walter.  Walter had treated her kindly and with respect, and had pulled her tail out of the fire a couple of times as well.

There was still several subjects which must be talked out and put to rest.  But Lane, Len, William and Victor all knew they had an inside connection to the Police Force in Amanda Williams.  But she wasn't in on all the juicy stuff as Nancy had been.  That connection was lost.  And, they didn't know it then, but they had spoken with Nancy for the last time.

Nancy had stayed at William's parents house for six days, then tiring of the boredom, decided she would go to live in the house she owned in San Diego  Besides, no one knew she would be there . . .  She was done with Montana.  She would probably have survived a little longer had she not called Lane to thank him for his help.  Lane cringed when he learned who it was and where she was.  He put Sharon and Melinda on a plane to San Diego within the hour, and within three hours they were at Nancys' house.

The shades were drawn, there was no answer on her phone, and no answer at the door.  The vehicle she had rented in Montana was in the driveway.  It was a quiet neighborhood, but quite rough.  A little girl was seen peeking through the fence and Sharon went over and played with her a few minutes to win her trust.  After a few minutes she asked if the lady was home that lived in this house.

Before the little girl could answer a very rude and loud mouthed woman interrupted her from the porch of the house where she lived.  "Adrianna, how many times have I told you never speak to strangers?  You come here to me right now.  The little girl was crying loudly and Sharon walked around the fence and into the yard of the little girl.

The lady who yelled at her met her at the door and said "lady, I ain't interested in whatever you're selling, so scram before I give you the beating of your life."

Sharon revealed her FBI badge and said quietly, "perhaps you might want to reconsider assaulting a Federal Officer?  We are dear friends to Nancy Wilhelm, the owner of that house.  We need to ask you some questions."

"The woman suddenly broke down and began to cry.  Between sobs she gushed "I only did it because we barely have enough money to live on.  And now, they'll come back after us."

The little girl was crying now, and Sharon took the woman in her arms and shushed her.  "I need you to tell me all about it"

The lady dried her tears and began  "About a week ago, this man who was a real estate agent came and talked to me.  He asked if anyone was there, and if someone came, he wanted to talk to her about the house.  He promised me five hundred if I'd call him.  He left his card there on the cabinet.  When she came, I called him and within an hour, two men showed up.  Rough.  One came here, the other went into the house with a key.

The man that came here laid down a stack of bills on the counter and walked out.  When I counted it, there was only seventy five dollars.  The other man came out of the lady's house and they both jumped into the car and took off.  You were the only other ones to come here.  Is that lady OK?"

Melinda came in with her phone to her ear.  "yes sir.  We'll be here."

In between words she looked at Sharon and shook her head negative.  "OK, got it" Melinda finished, then hung the phone up.

Victor hung up the phone at Lane's office.  Len and William were waiting with him to see Lane.  When the office phone rang, the secretary said "No, but Victor is."  She handed the phone to Victor.  After the brief conversation, he simply said "Nancy is dead."

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