Stalking Susan Read online

  “What was that?”

  “She was the hottest thing I’d ever met. Red hair, green eyes. She got better-looking each year. Like she knew the secret of eternal youth. She was actually more lovely the day she died than the day she got that damn beauty crown. I mean, you’re a good-looking babe, but you’re no Susan.”

  Malik risked shaking the camera shot just to kick me under the table. I elbowed him back. Having a lifer who hadn’t been with a woman in so many years tell me I’m good-looking but…would be a blow to most women’s self-esteem. However I’m a pro; I just kept the questions coming.

  “You saw her the morning she died. A neighbor saw you go in the house around nine but didn’t notice when you left.”

  “I admitted everything to the police. Susan and I messed around that morning. Then I drove up the north shore and went hiking. She’d have gone with me, because her old man was out of town, but she had a big charity event that night and needed the afternoon to get dolled up. Next day I heard she was dead.”

  “No one saw you during that time?”

  “No. Bad for me, my alibi couldn’t be verified. My fingerprints were all over the place. Friends of ours misunderstood some things we each said, and the cops came up with a story of ‘If I couldn’t have her, no one could.’”

  “You said she gave you beauty. What did you give her?”

  “A secret. She lived the high life with the doc; with me she got to sample low life. She discovered she liked sweating and sneaking. She may not have been ready to leave the marriage, but neither of us felt our thing had run its course.”

  Foster had nothing to lose in talking to the media. If he was lying, we were an interesting distraction to his otherwise predictable day. Lieutenant Dex acknowledged that Foster had passed a lie detector test, but the results weren’t admissible in court, and anyway Foster wouldn’t have been the first psychopath to beat a polygraph.

  “What’re you doing here?” Foster asked. “And how come it seems like you might believe me?”

  So I told him about the other Susans.

  “I want a new trial.” His face looked relieved, genuinely. “I’ve already done too much time behind bars for a crime I didn’t do. At last this nightmare is over.”

  “Unless someone confesses, I don’t see you going anywhere. There’s no proof. And it’s not like there’s police or prosecutorial misconduct.”

  “I’m calling my lawyer.”

  “Great. Tell him to let me know if he has any ideas. I’m going to keep plugging away. But I didn’t come here to get your hopes up, I came here for a story.”

  The guard indicated time was up. He put the cuffs on Dusty and led him away. Dusty looked back and tried to tell me something, but since he was behind the glass, off speaker, I couldn’t understand his words.

  “YOU GOTTA BE kidding me,” Malik said when I told him about our next stop. “We’re interviewing some guy about his dead dog?”

  “Listen, I can’t risk Noreen howling at me the next time I walk into the newsroom. This story was a direct order and I have no choice but to roll over.”

  “Well, this dog better not be named Susan.”

  Before Toby Elness could share the sad tale of Fluffy, his recently departed bichon frise, we had to meet the rest of the family: a German shepherd named Shep, a husky named Husky, a labrador named Blackie, seven cats named after the seven dwarfs, a pair of hamsters named Giddy and Gabby, and an aquarium of fish, all of whom had names, too, like Bubbles and Fishlips.

  When Toby first opened the door, I expected him to own a basset hound, because that’s what he looked like. Sad eyes, droopy face, long earlobes, short legs.

  Toby’s wife had left him four years earlier. In the divorce settlement she got a hefty bank account, the car, and half his pension. He held out for custody of the animals, a house heavy with mortgage and pet odor, and the ashes of Terry, their deceased tiny terrier.

  “We had him cremated and kept his ashes in a small box in her underwear drawer,” he explained.

  “Her underwear drawer?” Malik repeated.

  “It was her idea; he always liked to sniff her crotch.”

  Malik didn’t say anything, and neither did I. Toby was another knucklehead Noreen would normally roll her eyes at, except that they obviously shared a penchant for pets.

  “Why do you think these aren’t Fluffy’s ashes?” I tried to get the story back on track.

  Toby set two small boxes on the coffee table.

  “Fluffy was bigger than Terry, but as you can see, the amount of Fluffy’s ashes is much smaller than Terry’s.”

  “Is it possible that the bichon frise just looked bigger ’cause of all its fur?” Malik asked. I flashed him a please-don’t-encourage-him look.

  “No. Fluffy definitely weighed more than Terry. And if you open the two sets of ashes, they don’t physically look the same. Fluffy’s don’t look like real ashes.”

  Malik moved in for a close-up shot as Toby opened the boxes. One set looked like…charred ashes, I guess. The other set looked more like cat litter mixed with sand.

  “Where did you have the bodies cremated?” I asked.

  “My veterinarian took care of the details. Fluffy was eighteen years old and needed to be put to sleep.” Toby rubbed a tear from his eye. “I paid $160 for a private cremation. I didn’t want Fluffy’s ashes being mixed with the ashes of other animals. The vet made the arrangements, took care of transporting his body, and I picked up the ashes the next week. I should tell you, it wasn’t the same vet for both dogs. My old vet retired; this new one I don’t like as much. Blackie and Husky and Shep always growl at him.”

  “Did you tell your vet you’re worried about the ashes?”

  “No. I’m considering dropping him. I think Blackie and Husky and Shep were trying to tell me something. I wish I had listened.”

  “All right, for now, don’t say anything,” I told him. “We don’t want him to get suspicious. Give us some time to see what we can find out.”

  We videotaped old photographs of Fluffy and Terry in happier times. I wrote down the veterinarian’s name and address. While we were packing up our gear, I got an idea.

  “Hey Toby, can we take Fluffy’s ashes with us?”

  Toby frowned. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable letting them out of my sight. They’re all I have left of Fluffy.”

  “Come on, you’re not even sure they are Fluffy. We’ll bring them back.”

  Shep rubbed his back against my leg and licked my hand.

  “Well, nobody tried to bite you,” Toby said. “So I guess you’re okay.”

  IT WAS A few miles before either Malik or I could speak. We kept our eyes on the road straight ahead. Finally Malik couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “How big a fight do you think his ex waged to get custody?” He burst out laughing, then choked a couple times.

  “Maybe I should drive.” I slapped him on the back and grabbed the steering wheel. “Give you a chance to get it out of your system.”

  “I’m fine.” He straightened up in his seat again. “You planning on scattering those ashes somewhere?”

  “No. We’re taking them to an expert.”

  Journalists don’t personally know much about anything. All we know is what people tell us. A lot of what people tell us isn’t worth dog shit. But I was no more going to air a story about Toby Elness’s cremation speculation without getting independent corroboration than I was going to offer to pet-sit for him Thanksgiving weekend.

  CHAPTER 13

  The morning news was under way when I walked into the newsroom. Noreen Banks sat at her desk, on the phone, monitoring our rivals while speaking to the control room.

  I winced as I heard her telling Channel 3’s producer “to put more energy in the last block of the show.” My old news director insisted that our work product be referred to as a “newscast,” not a “show.” We’re not entertainment, we’re news, was his motto. I tried sharing this philosophy with Noreen once, but
suspected if I brought it up again it would be our last conversation.

  I stuck my head in her office, knowing now was not a good time for her to talk. “Got some very nice sound on the dog cremation story.” I used my best boss suck-up voice.

  She gave me a thumbs-up and I moved on to the computer center to thank Xiong for Susan Redding’s death certificate. He was working on a script for the noon newscast. He told me to check my e-mail.

  When I returned to my office, I made a new board for my new victim.

  SUSAN REDDING 1990

  AGE: 28

  DOCTOR’S WIFE

  REDHEAD

  DEATH DATE/NOVEMBER 19

  STRANGLED

  LOVER CONVICTED/MAINTAINS INNOCENCE

  DULUTH HOME

  I set her chart next to the Susan Chenowith and Susan Moreno boards, then logged on to my computer. Seven e-mail messages. I skipped over likely spam and one from my sister to click on Xiong’s e-mail. I found myself staring at another death certificate.

  Susan Niemczyk. November 19, 1994. Rochester, Minnesota. Suicide. Suffocation.

  “ALSO SIGNIFICANT IS what I did not find,” Xiong explained. “No other Susans murdered on that day anywhere else in the country. It’s less coincidental we should have a cluster here.”

  Xiong showed me the results on his computer screen. He had found other Susan deaths on various November 19’s, but they appeared to be from accidental or natural causes such as car crashes, cancer, or heart disease.

  “I threw you the suicide because, well, you never know.” Xiong hesitated. He looked uneasy about the subject. I wondered how much he knew about what had happened with me. And if he knew, how many others did too?

  “It’s okay,” I assured him. “I’m okay.” Most of the newsroom thought I had simply taken time off to grieve. My family knew the truth. So did the station bigwigs. Even though I assured them I would never have gone through with it, they weren’t satisfied until I admitted myself—okay, forced by their intervention—to the Mayo Clinic psych ward. There, surrounded by some seriously troubled patients, and some seriously patient therapists, I had found my way back.

  Xiong avoided eye contact with me, but continued talking. “I remember what you said about a possible murder slipping through the cracks.”

  This time I did some research before flying out the door for southern Minnesota. Nothing in the online newspaper archives, except an obituary that listed Susan Niemczyk’s parents and a sister. With a name like Niemczyk it wasn’t hard to locate addresses and phone numbers. Lucky for me, they lived in the Twin Cities: her mother in northeast Minneapolis, her sister in St. Paul. I decided not to contact them just yet and dialed Rochester Police instead.

  The officer who handled the case had retired five years ago, but the desk sergeant gave me his name: James Anderson. Tough break for me; it’s the Minnesota equivalent of writing John Smith on a motel ledger. Minnesota has deep Scandinavian roots, having been settled 150 years ago by sons of Ander, sons of John, and sons of Carl. My hunch is 25 percent of Minnesotans have last names ending in “son.”

  I couldn’t find a phone listing for Anderson in Rochester, so I asked Xiong to run the name through his computer databases. Cops like to keep their home addresses and other personal information private. But Channel 3 had copies of state driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations. If those didn’t work, we could fall back on the hunting and fishing license files. Finding cop addresses in that bunch was like shooting fish in a barrel; cops always use their home address rather than risk their hunting license renewal going astray. If we still came up empty, we could search for Officer Anderson in our criminal records database. I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary; he’d be in a foul mood if he was in jail.

  “First I will run death records to make sure he is still alive,” Xiong said. “If I find no trace of him there, we will look in snowbird states.”

  Seemed as good a plan as any. Just then I heard my name paged over the newsroom loudspeaker. “Riley Spartz to the news director’s office.”

  I didn’t think I was in any trouble, but I’m often the last to know, so I headed to Noreen’s office to see what it would take to get her off my back this time. Turns out, she just wanted more details on the dog story.

  “I’ll level with you,” I told her. “I’m not saying it’s not a story. I can make it a story. But our tipster seems a little flaky.”

  “In what way?”

  “A little doggone crazy.” I filled her in on Toby Elness’s domestic zoo.

  “He sounds like he has a good heart,” she said. “I hope you’re not judging him harshly because he cares for animals.”

  “Not…at…all.” I stammered the words as I tried backtracking.

  “Excuse me.” Noreen’s secretary, Lynn, interrupted us on the speaker phone. “The president of North Country Bank is on the line. They caught Mike Flagg going through their garbage dumpster.”

  “Not again.” Noreen put her hands over her face. “Put him through.”

  Flagg was last year’s hotshot hire: smooth, handsome, with the kind of year-round tan only money can buy. From what I’d seen of him on air, he was a cross between a tattletale and a playground bully. Most irritating was his tendency to do crime victim interviews with an exaggerated “let me feel your pain” gimmick.

  He was careful on air to refer to himself as “Michael” Flagg. “Mike flag” is TV jargon for the 3-D plastic station logos clipped onto microphones and shoved in the face of whoever is being interviewed. News folks generally dislike them because they focus viewers on the station logo rather than on what is being said. Promotion folks generally like them because they focus viewers on the station logo rather than on what is being said. The stations here in the Twin Cities used to have a gentleman’s agreement of “no mike flags” at news conferences to avoid a mishmash of channel numbers and network symbols. One of the first moves Noreen made as news director was ordering flashy new mike flags for each of the photographers. Our competitors quickly followed suit, so a mike flag war, with each more cheesy and obnoxious than the next, is currently being waged in the Minneapolis–St. Paul news market.

  Noreen grimaced as she took her phone off speaker mode. “Hello, Mr. Kahn, how are things at the bank…I’m so sorry for your inconvenience…Yes, I’ll speak with him…I understand completely…Thank you.”

  “Dumpster diving?” I asked.

  “A reporter at his old station did a story about financial institutions not shredding sensitive customer records. He’s trying to see if it’s a problem here.”

  “It was a problem here,” I told her, “until about four years ago when I first did the story. Then everybody else in the country copied it. Now it’s not such a big problem.”

  “Oh.” Noreen seemed startled, like she’d forgotten why I was in her office. “That’s good to know.”

  I sure wasn’t going to remind her that she had been on the verge of reprimanding me for snickering about Toby Elness. She shuffled through some papers on her desk, apparently trying to recall just what I had done to vex her. I decided to jump in first.

  “We were just talking about the need to shoot enough tape on the pet story so promotion would have plenty of animal shots to work with.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Don’t skimp on video.”

  THE FLASHING MESSAGE at my desk, like most of my phone calls these days, came from my family, checking up on me. My mom had the station 800 number and didn’t hesitate to use it. I suppose a mom message is better than no message, but a reporter is only as good as her next story, so I was anxious for old sources to start calling with new ideas. Except most wouldn’t realize I was back at work until they actually saw me back on the air, which wouldn’t happen for another couple weeks.

  I marked the best sound bites from Toby Elness’s interview and added more details to the SUSAN boards. Writing VEHICLE under the unsub column didn’t require any Sherlockian skill, but I vowed to keep track of all clues, no matter how obvio
us or obscure. Clearly, our Susan killer had access to wheels.

  The phone rang. This time, not Mom. A computer voice said, “You have a collect call from Oak Park Heights prison.” Short pause.

  “Dusty Foster.” Slowly and deliberately, Dusty said his name.

  After another brief pause the computer voice continued, “Will you accept the charges?”

  “Yes,” I answered. Outsiders can’t call prison inmates. And for obvious reasons, inmates can only dial numbers collect, from a preapproved list. Cell phone numbers are not allowed.

  “Hello, Dusty. How’s it going inside?”

  “Same as it’s gone the last fifteen years. How’s it going outside?”

  “Better than inside, I’m sure.”

  “How about your investigation?”

  He craved encouragement, but I made no promises. I’d rather have him calling out of boredom than out of false hope. “I put a call in to your attorney. He’s sending you an authorization form to sign, then he’ll get the old files up from storage.”

  “You do believe me, don’t you?”

  “Dusty, we’ve been through this. The state proved you’re a murderer. I’m open to the possibility you’re not. That’s the best I can do.”

  “My mom wants to talk to you.”

  “I already have a mom” would have been my reply in most cases, but I took her phone number because I sensed another television interview ending in a mother’s sobs. Here we go again: sound up, tears.

  IN ADDITION TO the police and court records, I’d found several articles about Susan Redding in the Duluth News-Tribune. She and her doctor husband had been married four years. No children. A feature profile talked about her earlier reign as Miss Duluth, and her later charity work at the hospital, a local church, and the university.

  When Susan Redding failed to show up at a fund-raiser for the University of Minnesota-Duluth that night, a friend had called her house. When no one answered the phone, the friend stopped by and discovered Susan’s partially clothed body. At ten o’clock at night the front door had been unlocked. Rigor mortis was complete, so the medical examiner put the time of death between ten in the morning and one in the afternoon.