The October Five (A Military Murder Mystery of Crime and Suspense) Read online

  THE OCTOBER FIVE

  BY

  THOMAS FINCHAM

  THE OCTOBER FIVE © Thomas Fincham 2011

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, including the right to reproduce this work or portions thereof, in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Visit the author’s website:

  finchambooks.blogspot.com

  Contact:

  [email protected]

  OTHER WORKS

  The Blue Hornet

  The October Five

  The Paperboys Club

  Killing Them Gently

  The Silent Reporter (Hyder Ali #1)

  The Rogue Reporter (Hyder Ali #2)

  The Runaway Reporter (Hyder Ali #3)

  ONE

  (VIETNAM, JUNE 1970)

  The twin blades of the CH-47 Chinook rotated effortlessly as it glided over the massive jungle. From above nothing could be seen through the dense foliage. No chance of manoeuvring if the Viet Cong fired a rocket at the army helicopter from below.

  Inside, Michael Lantern was huddled with eight other soldiers, each not sure whether he would survive the flight or even find a spot to land.

  Michael’s army fatigues, soaked with sweat, were sticky and uncomfortable. He had gotten used to being uncomfortable. It was the constant fear of being attacked he could not get used to.

  When he first landed in Vietnam, the sergeant on the tarmac welcomed them by calling Vietnam “Paradise”. This was a sick joke, he later found out. This country was hot, humid, and nothing like Philadelphia—his home.

  He scanned the faces crowded inside the belly of the helicopter, each as young as he, some much younger.

  Michael was not even nineteen when he joined the army. Something he now regretted.

  He had wanted to go to university and become a chemist or even an engineer. When he was rejected from all the universities he’d applied to, he decided to do something…anything. That anything was giving himself to the army and now to a war.

  His sweaty palm tightened on his M-16 rifle. The troops inside the Chinook were going to be dropped in a military landing zone from where they would trek three days to the tiny village of Phu Dang, between Duc Pho and Bong Son. Phu Dang was anti-Viet Cong or anti-communist. The Combine Action Platoon’s (CAP) main objective was to protect and train the villagers, in order for them to be independent and later fend for themselves.

  It was suicide, the other marines said when they volunteered for the CAP mission. Not only would they have to watch for the Viet Cong, they also would have to watch for traitors and spies from within the village. Going into the village, surrounded by the jungle, was like going into hell, they said.

  The Chinook shook from left to right. Michael glanced at the six marines, one navy corpsman, and the squad leader—a corporal. Like him, they were anxious to reach the ground.

  He turned to the marine on his right. Alvin Shorley had his head rested on his M-16. Behind the thick glasses his eyes were closed, as if he was sleeping. Michael knew that was not the case. Alvin’s knuckles were white around the rifle’s shaft. He was as nervous as any one of them.

  A brief smile crossed Michael’s face. If he was going into hell, then at least his best friend was with him.

  TWO

  CHICAGO, JUNE 2000

  Detective Karl Whaler chugged down the diet cola, crushed the can in his big chubby fingers, and tucked it in his coat pocket. He flashed his badge to a uniformed officer at the door, ducked underneath the yellow police tape and descended through a set of narrow stairs to the basement of a house in Logan Square.

  It was a little after six in the morning. Whaler was an early riser, getting up at four and at his desk by five. He liked doing most of the heavy-duty work when he was fresh. After lunch, his mind wasn’t as active.

  At fifty-two he didn’t have the same energy. And maybe he was getting tired of the day-to-day grind.

  Whaler was impeccably dressed in a well-tailored double-breasted suit. His thick white mane covered his large head. He was overweight, but that was only due to his work schedule and dietary habits. Eating pizza and drinking pop couldn’t be good for a man his age.

  Whaler pushed open the basement door and found a uniformed officer writing something in his notebook. The officer looked up and quickly came over.

  “Detective Karl Whaler,” Whaler said, flashing his badge.

  “Constable Moses Johnson,” replied the officer, who had a dark-brown complexion and was tall with a strong build.

  Whaler eyed the officer up and down. The first officer at the scene held the key between a successful and a failed prosecution. Accidental tampering with vital evidence, not following procedures or protocols, can give a defence lawyer enough ammunition to have the case thrown out.

  Whaler hoped this officer was apt.

  “Give me the scoop,” he said.

  Johnson looked at his notes. “I received the call from dispatch at five-forty-two. There was a dead person at 23 Fullerton Avenue.”

  “Who found the body?” Whaler asked.

  “I did.”

  “I mean who called nine-one-one?”

  “We don’t know.”

  This was not promising.

  “I knocked at the house above but the owner had no idea what I was talking about,” Johnson said.

  “He didn’t call it in?”

  “No, and he doesn’t know who did. I then went to the basement with the owner and knocked but there was no answer. The owner had the key and he opened it.”

  “Did he…?”

  “I had him wait outside.”

  Good going, Whaler thought.

  “I found the body in the bedroom. I quickly sealed the entrance and told the owner to wait upstairs.”

  Fantastic.

  “Let’s see,” Whaler said.

  They went through the confined hallway and to the bedroom. Johnson switched on the lights.

  Young. Male. Caucasian. Early-to-mid twenties. He lay in the middle of the bed with his hands over his chest and his legs together. He was wearing a white t-shirt and red Chicago Bulls shorts.

  Whaler scanned the room—a large queen-sized bed in the middle, a computer table and chair on the left and a closet on the right.

  Whaler walked around the bed and leaned close to the dead man’s face.

  Johnson said, “I checked for vital signs but there were none. His name is Mark Mansfled. It’s on his driver’s licence.”

  Mark Mansfled’s eyes were closed and his mouth, open slightly. The area around his lips was bluish purple.

  Something caught Whaler’s eye. He pulled out his pocket light and flashed it at the side of the neck.

  A red bruise streaked from end to end. “Asphyxiation.”

  “And look at this,” Johnson said.

  Johnson shut the bedroom door. Behind it was a clothes hanger. A blue shirt and beige khaki pants hung on one of the hooks, and beside them hung a black leather belt.

  Whaler eyed the belt and then the bruise on the neck. The thickness of the bruise and the belt seemed to match.

  “Notify the coroner and get forensics,” he finally said.

  ***

  “I don’t know how it happened,” she said.

  “Don’t worry, lady, I’m here to save the day,” Sam Patroni said with a devilish smile.

  Patroni heard all sorts of stories. I had the k
eys in my other pants’ pocket. The keys must have slipped from the pocket and into the edge of the sofa. And even, my iguana swallowed them. In the end the only thing that mattered was that the keys were gone.

  Sam listened and then sniffed.

  “Something cooking?” he said.

  “I put a pot on the stove,” the woman said. “I just went down the hall to drop the garbage in the chute when I got locked out. You have to do something.”

  Sam smelled onions.

  Great, he thought. I’m going to smell like kebabs the entire day.

  They were in the hall of an apartment building in Armour Square.

  An expert locksmith, Sam quickly examined the lock. “Jeez, this isn’t a deadbolt,” he said.

  Most apartment buildings had deadbolts, as they were the most reliable.

  Sam knelt down and examined the lock. Sam had soft hands like a surgeon’s, perfect for manipulating the pins in a lock. In fact, he had the most beautiful hands in all of Chicago, he had once boasted.

  This looked like your typical pin-and-tumbler design, he thought.

  “Quick! Quick! I don’t want to start a fire,” the woman said.

  “Take a deep breath, ma’am,” he said. “I can’t do magic.”

  The woman, who looked to be in her mid-thirties, complied.

  “I am the best,” he smiled, reassuring her.

  Sam pulled out his lock-picking kit, which contained a tension wrench, a tool that looked like a flathead screwdriver, and several different picks (thin pieces of metal that curved up at the end). The first time he saw them he thought someone had stolen them from his dentist.

  To the casual observer lock picking looks easy. On TV the burglar or spy or even detective will unlock a sophisticated lock just by using a screwdriver or even paper clips.

  After almost twenty-five years as a locksmith, Sam knew how difficult a skill it was to master, how to apply the exact pressure and what sounds to listen for.

  Suddenly the fire alarm rang.

  People came out into the hall, wondering what was going on, asking questions. With this much noise, there was no way he could manipulate the lock. He pulled out an electric pick gun with vibrating metal picks, and stuck it into the lock.

  He began raking the lock.

  When Sam turned the gun, there was a click and the lock was broken.

  Sam pushed the door and the woman rushed in.

  A cloud of smoke hovered over the stove as the woman quickly removed the pot and placed it in the sink.

  Another damsel in distress rescued. Sam smiled.

  ***

  They were sitting at the dining table. Guy Lomnadi, an elderly Italian man, was already on his second cigarette when Karl Whaler said, “How long has Mark Mansfled been a tenant of yours?”

  “A year-end-a-half, maybe.”

  “Do you know if he has any family here?”

  “His mom and dad live in Wisconsin. Never seen or met them, though.” Lomnadi blew out smoke.

  Whaler was jotting down everything. He had learned the hard way—if it was not in his report, it never happened.

  Years ago, in Whaler’s third month as a detective, he was called to an apartment and found the body of a young woman in the bathroom. It was the jealous boyfriend who had committed the crime.

  When examining the room Whaler had seen an odd-looking nineteenth century metal lamp with heads of unicorns jutting out from the handle. Paint had come off one of the unicorns. It was on the bedroom floor. At the time Whaler didn’t pay too much attention. It looked as if someone had just forgotten it there.

  At the trial it was revealed the victim was hit on the temple with a sharp object. Particles of paint were found inside the skull.

  The photographs at the scene did not show any such lamp.

  No lamp with that description was ever found, but Whaler knew he had seen it.

  Karl Whaler flipped to another clean page and continued writing. After documenting everything from the crime scene he was now on page nine.

  “Mr. Lomnadi, what were you doing last night?”

  “After dinner I watched some TV. Then I went to sleep.”

  “Did you hear anything from the basement?”

  Lomnadi blew out smoke. “Mark used to turn the music up high. I don’t know how many times I told the kid to turn it down.”

  “What time was the music turned up high last night?”

  Lomnadi stuck the butt in the ashtray and scratched his thin white hair. “I was watching…the news on WGN…so that was… maybe ten or ten-thirty when the music came up—Mark listened to this rap non sense, you know. Whatever happened to the classics, like Dean Martin, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, right?” Lomnadi was waiting for Whaler’s approval. Lomnadi was a good twenty years older than him but the thick white mane made Whaler look old.

  “Yeah, the good old classics,” Whaler finally said.

  Lomnadi went for another cigarette but decided against it. He shook his head. “I can’t believe Mark is dead.” The old man’s eyes went moist. “He was not even thirty. He had a great future ahead of him. You know, he was working on this new product that would make people’s teeth whiter, like those people you see on TV, but better. He said he had a product that would make him millions.” Lomnadi stretched his mouth wide to reveal his teeth. Whaler wasn’t impressed. Lomnadi’s teeth were badly stained, yellowish and brown. Lomnadi then put a cigarette to his lips. “I smoke these like they were candy canes. So my teeth aren’t much too look at. But with Mark’s product they were going to look great.”

  “You haven’t tried the product?” Whaler asked, curious.

  “No.” Lomnadi tilted his head back and blew smoke into the air. “It was still under development. I’ll show you something.” He got up, went into a room and came back with a picture. It was a five-by-ten photo of Mansfled, who was wearing a dark blue suit with a navy blue tie. In the photo Mansfled was smiling and his teeth were radiantly white.

  A little too white, Whaler thought.

  “If Mark’s teeth could look like that imagine what it could do to mine.”

  “Can I keep this?” Whaler said.

  “I don’t know…that’s the only picture I have of Mark.”

  “I’ll have this scanned and brought back.”

  “Then I guess so.”

  Lomnadi sat down.

  Whaler said, “Do you think anyone else knows what Mark was working on?”

  Lomnadi thought about it. “I never told anyone. Mark told me not to. He was working on a deal with those big companies. He showed me the paperwork and everything. Arm & Hammer or Crest, I don’t know.” Lomnadi’s eyes widened. “Do you think someone killed Mark because they wanted to steal his product?”

  That was a possibility.

  Whaler paused and then said, “Okay. You said you fell asleep at ten or ten-thirty and the music was turned up high at that time.”

  “Yes.” Lomnadi leaned in. “This house is over a hundred years old. I can hear almost everything that happens down there. Maybe, that’s why Mark turns up the music, so I don’t hear nothing.”

  “What time would he normally turn off the music?”

  “Around one, maybe, but last night it wasn’t.”

  Whaler looked up from his notes.

  Lomnadi’s eyes narrowed. “I woke up at about two-thirty to go to the bathroom—the pills I take make me go often, and the music was still on.”

  Whaler’s brow furrowed. “The radio was off when you woke up this morning, is that correct?”

  “Y-yeah, it was.” Lomnadi put a third butt in the ashtray.

  This meant Mark Mansfled was still alive at two-thirty, Whaler thought. Or someone was in his apartment at least until then.

  Whaler thanked him and got up. “If I have any more questions I’ll call you.”

  THREE

  “Five pounds of ground beef!” yelled Barry Tarkovski over the noise of the meat-cutting machine.

  A short Indian man came forwar
d. He went to the front of the store to the cash register.

  “That’ll be ten dollars,” Barry said.

  The man paid, took the bag and left.

  Over half a dozen customers were waiting for their orders.

  Mr. T Butchers & Sons, located in West Town, was always busy and chaotic.

  Barry’s oldest son, Marvin, was behind the cutting machine, slicing a lamb’s shoulder into pieces.

  Barry’s youngest son, Lee, would be coming in anytime now.

  Barry took the next order. Ten pounds of chicken legs—cut in small pieces.

  Barry went to the cold counter. There weren’t enough chicken legs. He went to the back of the store, wiped his hands on his bloodstained apron and entered the cooler.

  He searched through the cold room and found several brown boxes piled at the corner. He examined the little white stickers on the boxes—whole chicken, chicken legs, half chicken, chicken wings.

  Barry picked up the heavy box he wanted and went out to the front of the store.

  He dumped the chicken legs into the cold counter and then weighed them on a digital machine. They were slightly over ten pounds but Barry didn’t care.

  As an experienced butcher Barry pulled off the skin using a cloth, stripped off the fat with a sharp knife, chopped the legs into small pieces with a heavy cleaver, and placed them in a bag, all in a matter of minutes.

  Barry handed the bag to a boy who was not even ten.

  Barry remembered a time when he was young, not even in his teens when an old man came into the shop, which at the time was owned by Barry’s father, and was so impressed with Barry that he gave him a dollar, an exorbitant sum for any kid at that time.

  The old man was this boy’s great-grandfather.

  Barry took the next order.

  ***

  Whaler went outside. On the other side of the house, two forensics men were going through a two-door Pontiac Sunfire. Whaler went around to the basement. A forensic investigator was examining the main front door’s lock.