A Snowy Enterprise

CW: Substance abuse, physical violence

“He’s dead Jim.”

That much was obvious. But it wasn’t Detective James Roykirk’s job to determine that the man was dead. No, the coroner would make it official. It was, though, his job to find out how, and why, and who did it. Among Bozeman’s finest, he and his partner, Detective Leo “Fingers” MacCoy, they were considered the best.

“I can see that Fingers, but considering the circumstances and the scene, I’d also say we got our work cut out for us. For starters, how did he get here?”

Here was Stony Mill Community Park, the largest within Bozeman city limits. More specifically, here was in the middle of the park, with absolutely no real landmarks or trails near this spot. Now, with fifteen years on the force, Roykirk had seen all sorts of reasons why someone would come to a secluded spot in the middle of a park. Most of them weren’t even that nefarious.

However, most of them didn’t include it being the middle of December, sandwiched between two winter storms, the first having passed through only six hours before, and the next not twelve hours in the future. Furthermore, he must have got here before the storm began nearly a day before that, because there were zero tracks in the knee deep snow.

“Very little snow on the body Jim. And while the coroner has to determine cause of death, we have seen enough that this body wasn’t out in that storm. It’s not frozen.”

Fingers was right. If he came out here and laid face down in the grass before the storm came, he would have been covered.

“Could have wiped away the prints after coming here.”

Fingers grunted. He took a sip from his Dunkin Midnight coffee, the steam clouding his face in the chill air. “With what Jim? There are no loose branches around here, closest tree is twenty feet over there, and its an oak. No leaves to smear tracks. Unless you wanna say someone else did it, and took it with them.”

Roykirk knelt next to the body. “Nope, not ready to say that this wasn’t natural, or a suicide. Not yet. We get ID on this guy?”

A patrolman stepped forward, shivering. Couldn’t have been more than twenty five, twenty seven. “I did Detective.”

Roykirk extended his hand and the patrolman set the deceased’s wallet in it. “You first on scene?”

“Yes sir, other than the jogger. Real nut, running at that hour, in this weather.”

“Your name?”

“Patrolman Rodgers, sir.”

“Patrolman Rodgers, we don’t ascribe motive to people, especially when we are fresh out of academy. Keep your judgment to yourself. It will cause you to miss things. Leave that work to the detectives. Now go grab me a cup of coffee. Not that Starbucks stuff. Caribou if you can’t find the Dunkins.”

Roykirk flipped open the wallet. California ID. Harry Dirt. Address Los Angeles. “Our vic is a long way from home.” He handed the wallet back to Fingers, and examined the body.

“You were a bit harsh on the kid.”

“Yeah, no harsher than the old timers when I was that age. He’ll learn, or not.”

“Jim, this wallet is full off cash, and there are no missing cards. There is a hotel key tucked in here, and …” Fingers grunted, “A business card with a phone number written on it.”

Roykirk looked back. “Whose number?”

Fingers smile told him what he needed to know. “Sleazy Suzie DeMune.”

Suzie DeMune worked out of Tempters, in Three Forks. There were almost a dozen complaints for various crimes, from drug running to prostitution. The only good thing about the nearly an hour drive to get there was the Tempters had one hell of a steak sandwich.

“He has Sleazy’s number on a business card. Whose card?”

“His own. And she dotted her I’s with a heart.”

Really? It was hard to imagine that DeMune had a heart. More than one man had ended up with an empty wallet headed home after meeting up with DeMune. And those were the lucky ones. Unfortunately the cases against her never went anywhere. Lack of evidence.

“I wonder what that means. Nothing good for Mr. Dirt here,” Roykirk pushed the dead man’s shoulder, lifting him up to look under the body. Tufts of green poked through the snow, flattened down by the man’s body, Both hands were located near his waist, and Roykirk clicked his flashlight on to look at them. It was dark under there even in the growing light, and the light reflected off the dead man’s wrists. “This just upgraded to murder, Fingers.”

“Hmm,” Fingers slurped his coffee. “Why do you say that?”

“He’s handcuffed.”

“Yep, that will do it. Nyota, call the coroner. We’ve got a murder scene here.”

The evidence technician, Nyota Umura’s face went from a smile to a grimace. “You serious?”

Roykirk nodded. “Of course I’m serious. Not a time for jokes. This man has been murdered. Or, he put the handcuffs on himself, while making no tracks in the snow. You can also see here, “as he turned Dirt’s face towards Maggie, “his nose is broken, severely, and recently, but there is next to no blood. I’d wager that we are going to discover multiple broken bones.”

Fingers took another sip of the coffee, “I was wondering when you were going to say something. His arms and legs are twisted just a little too much to be natural.”

“You know my process Fingers. No judgments at first. Just observations, whatever comes to me first. Where’s my coffee?”

Finger’s chuckled. “Nearest Dunkin is a half hour away.”

Roykirk stood up, and brushed the snow off his knees. “Lets go talk to the jogger.”

The jogger was wrapped up in a shiny blanket sitting in the ambulance. A woman in her mid fifties, she had the body of a thirty year old, outlined in a skin tight spandex jogger’s suit. Her face carefully botoxed, she could have passed for late thirties. Her graying hair sold her out though.

“Ma’am, I am Detective Roykirk, this is Detective MacCoy. I just want to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Oooh, that smells good, whatchya drinking cutie?”

Fingers took another sip. “Happily married ma’am. We will just be needing the facts ma’am.”

“Okay then, I guess I can help. Is this gonna take long? I really want to get home before the next storm rolls in.”

Beneath her non-chalantness, Roykirk could see fear in her eyes. People act in strange ways the first time they see a dead body. “Let’s start with your name. Take us through your morning. Led us up to the moment you came upon the deceased.”

“I’m Majorie Barrett. I got up, like everyday, at four to go for my run. Got to keep in shape to keep up with those boys. I had my shake, and set out. Even in storms like this I run. I’ve lived here all my life, so I know where I’m going.”

Roykirk wrote this down in his notepad, when Fingers chimed in, “You bring any sort of cold weather gear?”

Barrett rubbed her hand together. “No, but I have my phone on me. I get signal everywhere. I usually get pretty hot, if you know what I mean, during these runs. Cold really isn’t a worry.”

Fingers raised an eyebrow. “You must be lucky. Accidents happen.”

Barrett smiled. “Then nice detectives like you come to rescue me.”

Roykirk didn’t think she had anything to do with this crime, even though she was very inappropriate. He would have one of the female officers recommend a therapist to Ms. Barrett when they were finished. “Ms. Barrett. So you were on your jog. Is this your normal route?”

“No, but I have taken it before.”

Roykirk scribbled. “The trail is a good seventy feet over there. How did you even see the body through the falling snow?”

She sat up, and rubbed her shoulders under the silver blanket. “I heard this loud roar, outta nowhere. I dove into the snow to avoid it. It passed over head and went that way,” she pointed towards the body, “I ran after it to see if I could see it, when I came upon him.”

“Did you touch the body at all?”

“No. I called out to him, but he said nothing. He was just laying in the snow face down. I called 911 right away.”

“That is good thinking Ms. Barrett,” Fingers smiled, “we want to thank you for your assistance. We need help from good citizens like yourself to catch criminals like the one that did this.”

“Oh thank you very much. Could I get your card…” her voice trailed off as the two detectives turned and walked over to the coroner's van.

“You thinking what I’m thinking, Jim?”

“Yeah. We need to hit the Dunkins on the way to the coroner's office.”

***

“Talk to me Speck.”

Dr. Leonard Speck was the daytime coroner. He adjusted his glasses and flipped through the papers on his clipboard. “Detective Roykirk, its Doctor. I do believe I’ve earned it.”

“Hmm, okay, I apologize Doctor. What are your preliminary findings?”

“Well, I can tell you that what ever broke nearly twenty bones in his body wasn’t what killed him.”

That was fast. “How can you tell that?”

Speck picked up his arm, and showed the inside of the elbow. “Pretty sloppy needlework. Lot of bruising. But good veins. This man didn’t typically use intravenous drugs. I’ve sent off for the toxicology lab his blood, to find out what there. But he has constricted pupils, and his lips are blue. His body temperature when he was brought in was around 60 degrees.”

“Sixty? Doctor, this man was found outside in the storm.”

“Not for long Detective. Not for long. I suspect I know what the drug is, but I will wait for toxicology.”

Roykirk nodded. He also suspected he knew it as well. Seen it far too many times, for far too many nights. “Anything else Doctor?”

“This man has had plastic surgery. Not recently, but there are scars. Posterior implants.”

Roykirk did a double take. “This man has had his ass replaced?”

“Yes.”

Well, that was a new one for Bozeman. “Thank you Doctor. Let me know if anything else comes up.” Roykirk left, and met Fingers coming in the building. “Tell me that I was right.”

Fingers smiled and shook his head. “You were right. I guess that means I’m gonna get a steak sandwich for dinner.”

***

After a call to the Gallatin County sheriff, and the Three Forks Police department. Roykirk and Fingers set out. The big open sky looked ominous to the west, the incoming storm moving in faster than the weatherman said it would, threatening to whiteout everything. “You know, I have been on stranger cases Jim.”

“Really? We’ve been partners for fifteen years, so this must be an old one.”

“No, it happened two years ago. When you took that vacation to Riverside, and that Amish town in Iowa, what’s that called?”

“Kalona. Karol always wanted to see it. Tried some blackberry wine. Found it too sweet for my taste.”

“You kept the key chain.”

“I did. Great little brewery down there. Middlestream.”

“Hmm. Well, we got called out to this run down building. Somebody reported screaming. We we got there, whoever was there was gone. Lots of paraphernalia, and a messed up sex dungeon. Whips, chains, everything. Even left the camera. They took the tape with them.”

“That's pretty messed up.”

Fingers tapped the car door handle. “We never did found out who was out there.”

Roykirk nodded, “I heard about it when I got back. How come you mention that one now?”

Fingers scratched his mustache. “Besides the weirdness?”

“Besides the weirdness.”

“Because you remember that vice bust six months after that? One of the tape we recovered. It was filmed in that location. Real scuzzy film. All the faces were covered in masks. All of the minor parts were there shooting up, while the two main’s did their business on the dirty mattress in the middle.”

“Let me guess, you think the woman was DeMune.”

Fingers tapped on his knee. “I can’t prove it, but it was her. But it was the man who was unusual. I didn’t know what I was looking at the time, but I’m pretty sure he had ass implants.”

***

Tempters was getting rolling when they pulled up. Officers from the other two departments had beat them there, and the first snow flakes began to glide onto the cars. “Lets make this fast and thorough boys. I want to get her here.” The officers all nodded at Roykirk, who adjusted his Kevlar.

The detectives moved through the dazzling lights and smells of perfectly grilled steak as completely nude strippers writhed onstage. Roykirk burst through the dressing room door, where DeMune sat, showing not one ounce of surprise on her face. “I am placing you under arrest Suzie DeMune, for the murder of Harry Dirt.”

She smiled. “Nice to you see again Jim. If you wanted a complimentary lap dance, all you had to do is ask. We are old friends.”

“Maybe next time. Are you going to go quietly, or do I have to have the officers drag you out?”

“Tsk, tsk Jim, where is your better half? Get lost over at the restaurant on his way here?” DeMune chuckled, “I didn’t kill him Jim, but I’m willing to tell you who did. An associate of mine who goes by the name Kruge. He put the needle in his arm, not me.”

“Why?”

“Not yet. Tell me how you found me.”

Roykirk breathed out. “Two things. You gave him your number.”

“Damn, I knew that boy would be trouble. Much too fine and good in bed.”

Roykirk forced down a bit of bile. “The second was that you filed a flight plan. Figured out that he was killed elsewhere, and you disposed of the body in a park during a snowstorm. Your plane went right over the park about the time the witness heard you. The fall broke a bunch of bones, but it explained why there was no tracks. Fingers checked with the tower, and voila, a flight from Three Forks to Bozeman, and your plane’s tail number.”

“I knew it was going to be a stupid plan, but Kluge insisted. He has some ties, if you know what I mean.”

Roykirk motioned for the other officers to come in. “I bet he is your supplier.”

“Supplier of what? Now if you excuse me, I’d like to get to that warm holding cell before it gets too snowy out there.”

“You were going to tell me why.”

“Oh yes. You see, Harry came to to town to finance and star in a little project. Poor man actually brought cash with him. Lots of it. Amounts that get men like Kluge a hard on for more. And Harry said no. And then threatened to expose us to the authorities. I tried to stop him, but he is such a big man.”

Roykirk shook his head. “Of course you did. Cuff her and read her rights. Where can we find this Kluge?”

DeMune’s smile reached ear to ear. “He’s over at that new club, Genesis, I think. Their potato bar is quite good, but not up to our level yet.”

She was lead away, and Roykirk followed her out. Fingers emerged from the rear, having guarded the back exit. “Well, how did she get out this time?”

“To be honest, it is likely that she didn’t do this one. DA is probably going to take the low level mafia she is going to offer up, and let her walk. Even though she supplied the plane and almost certainly the drugs that killed him. Mr. Dirt was likely the guy in that video we confiscated in that bust. Can’t be too many porn stars who are willing to come to Bozeman with ass implants.”

“So a witness to that crime is dead, but of course we can’t prove it.”

“Nope. We just need to keep at her. Eventually she will slip up, they all do.”

Fingers looked around for a window. “Its snowing pretty hard out there. Three Forks is taking her to their lockup for tonight. It their jurisdiction to go get Kluge. And I don’t want to drive back home in this weather on an empty stomach.”

He was right. You had to take the wins when you could them. A Tempters steak sandwich was a win, just not the one he was looking for right now. It would have to do.

“Lets see what’s she’s got.”