Murder and Salutations - By Elizabeth Bright Page 0,44
to depict how he looks. The photographs are a decade old, and I don’t know his personality or habits. Is he married or single? Still slim or spreading with middle age? How does he eat? Does he exercise?”
Walter raised his eyebrow, signaling his interest. “I can tell you a bit about him. I’ve seen hundreds of cases like this, many involving bikers. He’s tremendously macho, aggressive, with an exaggerated sense of importance. He’s very concerned about image. He dispatched the body brutally, like tossing away trash, and simply for reasons of power, not sex or fantasy or Satanism or any other such nonsense. He’s just tired of her and wants to move on.”
Bender’s eyes gleamed like go lights. “Rich, maybe you and I could work on this case together.”
Walter frowned at Bender and leaned back, eyeballing him as if from a safe distance. He took a draw on his Kool and let the silence develop.
Bender leaned forward into the vacuum, speaking faster and with great enthusiasm.
“Rich, why don’t you come talk to the marshals tonight? I can set it up.”
“I’m afraid not, dear boy. It’s well known I won’t have my libations at the hotel bar interrupted.”
Bender laughed again. Walter took a long draw on a cigarette and turned inward. Bender is a very intense character, very intense, bright but off the wall, he thought. What the hell is he all about? Oh, well, I’ll never see him again.
At six the next morning, Walter shot out of a deep sleep in his hotel room. The telephone was ringing.
“Hi, Rich!” Bender sounded like he’d had five cups of coffee.
Oh, God, Walter thought. What have I gotten myself into now? He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for a Kool.
“The marshals want to meet with you today!”
Walter went to breakfast at the Downhome Diner with Bender and Tom Rappone, head of the U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force in Philadelphia, to discuss the Nauss case. Bender played a trick on the somber psychologist. “You’ve got to try scrapple, Rich. It’s a classic Pennsylvania delicacy. You’ll love it.”
“What is it?”
“Meat.” The artist grinned.
Walter looked down at the odiferous brown extrusion of last-chance pork parts, snarled, and pushed his plate a foot away as Bender exploded in schoolyard laughter. Walter quietly took in black coffee and a cigarette, turning a hard flat gaze on the boisterous clown who seemed to be forcing his way into his life. “I was not pleased.”
At four that afternoon, the thin man sat in a conference room at the marshals’ office at Sixth and Market streets with Bender. With them at the table were Rappone and two other deputies.
“Listen up,” Rappone said.
Walter looked down at a yellow pad filled with scribbled notes, and cleared his throat.
“I’ve conducted a brief crime assessment of the Nauss murder,” he said. “Nauss was a closet case in the motorcycle gang in that he was very high up, but he also wanted to be in the mob, a promotion as it were. He had a middle-class background, and he’s going to be a little brighter than your average semi-organized PA killer and he’s going to be clever. He’s going to clean himself up a little bit, be not as scruffy; he’ll have more options available to him.”
Walter looked down at his pad. “Frank Bender is right. He’ll be clean-cut and living in the suburbs. He’ll be married to a compliant woman who has no idea about his past, and present a wholesome image to the community.”
Bender beamed like the father of a newborn son. “I agree with Rich. I think Nauss will be clean-shaven, short-haired, and living in suburbia,” he said. “He’s come from a good family and I think he’ll go back to what he’s known.”
The marshals exchanged doubtful looks across the table. One deputy pointed out that their few leads were consistent with a biker lifestyle. The marshals had set up a cabin in the Poconos for several weeks following a tip that the biker was hiding out in the Pennsylvania mountains. They followed another tip to a Western state, and set up surveillance across from a motorcycle parts distributor, with no luck.
Dennis Matulewicz, one of the lead agents, frowned. “I don’t know about this. A biker is a biker is a biker.”
Walter cleared his throat. “Not only is Frank right that Nauss is hiding in the suburbs, I have some idea what suburbs.”
Rappone leaned forward, his voice nearly caught in his throat. “How do you know that?”