Read The Taking of Libbie, SD Online
Authors: David Housewright
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Hard-Boiled, #Private Investigators
The Taking of Libbie, SD (34 page)
The obscenities were spilling fast and furiously from Miller’s mouth, along with questions—what, why? A crowd was gathering, and it was asking the same things.
I curled my fingers around the back of his belt and propelled him into the street, steering him in the general direction of the bank. He attempted to run again, and I had to hang on to keep him from escaping. His weight was too much, though, and the belt slipped from my fingers. Miller fell forward, splashing against the asphalt, scraping his elbows. I reached for him.
“C’mon, Miller,” I said. “You’re making it harder than it needs to be.”
Miller rolled onto his back and lashed out at me with his feet. His heel caught me in the upper thigh. He tried to kick me again. I caught his foot. He pulled it back. His shoe came off in my hand, and I tossed it behind me, nearly hitting one of the citizens who had followed us out of the government building. Miller shrieked and tried to spike me with his other shoe. I caught it and yanked it off as well, taking his black sock with it.
Miller rolled onto his knees and started crawling forward. I grabbed his belt again and helped him along. The crowd following us seemed to swell in size as we closed the distance to the bank. Some of the people were telling me to leave the old man alone. Others were laughing. Miller heard the laughter. The obscenities increased in volume and included everyone around him, even his supporters.
I used his arm and belt to pull him upright. He spun his massive body around. An elbow jabbed my fractured ribs. Pain went through me like a jolt of electricity. I pressed my left elbow against my rib cage even as I brought my right hand up. I wanted to slap him down. If he had been twenty years younger, I would have. Instead, I shoved him. He moved several steps backward, lost his balance, and sat on the pavement.
“Why are you doing this?” he said. “I never hurt you. I never hurt anyone.”
Does he actually believe that?
my inner voice said.
Is he that much of a sociopath?
I grabbed his wrist. He pulled it away and tried to kick me again. I seized his pants cuff. He kept kicking at me. I pinned his leg under my arm.
“Boxers or briefs?” I said.
I couldn’t bring myself to beat up an old man, but humiliate him the way he had humiliated me when his minions dragged me nearly naked from my bed—yeah, I could do that.
I reached for his belt buckle. Miller clawed at my hands, scratching them with his fingernails, yet I managed to open the clasp. Horror colored his face.
“What are you doing?” he said.
I opened his pants and started to yank them down. He clutched the waistband. I slapped his hands away and tugged. Miller screamed. I kept tugging. He kicked at me. I grabbed both cuffs and wrenched the pants off of his hips, his thighs, and his knees, until he was dressed only in white cotton briefs. He shrieked like an animal in pain. The sight of his ashy body caused some in the crowd to howl with laughter. I got the distinct impression that Miller had made many enemies over the years and they were now having a wonderful time. I didn’t like them any more than I liked Miller.
“The emperor’s got no clothes,” someone said.
Humiliation burned in Miller’s eyes. He started to beg. He used the word “please” for the first time since I’d known him.
I grabbed his wrist and forearm and pulled up. Miller resisted, but not very much. Up ahead I saw Harry step through the front door of the bank. He walked to the curb and stood watching us, his hands behind his back, looking like a football referee waiting for the TV time-out to expire so he could start the game.
Miller was weeping silently, yet he hadn’t given up. He pulled his arm from my grasp and tried to run again. It took some effort to gather him in my arms; I nearly tackled him. Miller made a long wailing cry. He attempted to speak, but his words were unintelligible. I pushed Miller toward the bank. His resistance diminished until he saw Harry waiting for us. For the first time he realized what was happening. He said he had made a mistake. He said he was sorry. He offered me money. He offered more money. He said he would give me anything. I thought about Victoria Dunston and what she had said.
The people who hurt McKenzie, they’re still out there and they’ll probably hurt other people, too, unless someone stops them. If McKenzie doesn’t stop them, who will?
You’re making the world a better place, I told myself, as I gave Miller a hard shove. I pulled on Miller’s arm and heaved his massive body the remaining yards to where Harry stood in front of the bank. I forced him into a sitting position at Harry’s feet. I was pointing when I said, “Special Agent Wilson, this man drugged me, beat me, kidnapped me, transported me across state lines, and left me to die on the Great Plains. I would like to press charges.”
“It’s about time,” Harry said.
Miller sobbed.
Michelle Miller slowly made her way to his writhing, nearly naked body. She looked down at her husband and shook her head.
“I want you to remember something, Dewey,” Michelle said. “You’re the one who insisted on putting an immorality clause into our prenuptial agreement. At the time I thought you meant adultery, but I think this qualifies, too. You’ll be hearing from my divorce lawyers.”
“Man, that’s cold,” Harry said.
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” I said.
JUST SO YOU KNOW
There are some astonishingly good criminal lawyers in South Dakota.
The couple that Miller hired made me look like a vengeance-crazed lunatic on the witness stand and portrayed Evan both as the most maniacal villain since Charles Manson and the greatest traitor since Judas Iscariot. After he rested his case, the federal prosecutor told me that he didn’t like our chances at all. Then the arrogant sonuvabitch decided to testify, insisting on telling the jury his side of the story even though Miller’s attorneys stipulated to the judge that they had strongly advised him against it. After sixty minutes, with his attorneys cautiously leading him, Miller had the four men and eight women practically weeping at the injustices he had suffered. After two and a half hours of the prosecutor’s systematic interrogation, they were ready to convict him of everything from Lincoln’s assassination to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. He’s currently serving one hundred and fifty-six months at the Federal Correctional Institution in Littleton, Colorado, while the appeal process runs its course. I was a little disappointed at the court’s generosity; I thought he should have received a much longer term. Yet at Miller’s age thirteen years could easily amount to a life sentence. We’ll see.
Pleading guilty and agreeing to testify against Miller didn’t help Evan much at all. He was sentenced to a hundred and twenty months in the Federal Prison Camp at Yankton, South Dakota. At least he’ll have someone from home to chat with—Jon Kampa.
Kampa’s attorneys were nearly as effective as Miller’s had been. They managed to convince a Perkins County jury that Nicholas Hendel was a thief after all, that he had attempted to defraud the community and steal all of the jury’s hard-earned tax money, and would have succeeded if Kampa hadn’t heroically tried to stop him, killing Hendel more or less by accident. The jury reluctantly convicted Kampa of second-degree manslaughter, and the judge, his judicial reasoning influenced by the fact that Kampa had been an upstanding community leader and that this was his first criminal offense, sentenced him to four years. The Feds, on the other hand, hammered him. They convicted Kampa of a dozen counts of bank fraud and embezzlement and gave him a twenty-four-year jolt—and then insisted that he serve his federal sentence before he was released to the custody of the South Dakota Department of Corrections to begin his state time.
Dawn and Perry Neske were never charged for their crimes and left Libbie immediately after testifying in the Kampa case.
Jeff wasn’t so lucky. He was convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of Tracie Blake and first-degree manslaughter in the death of Mike Randisi. He is currently residing at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls. He won’t be eligible for parole for about thirty-seven years.
And yes, he’ll also have friends from home to visit with. Church and Paulie both pled guilty to two counts of “reckless burning or exploding”—I am not making this up—and threw themselves on the mercy of the court. Church in particular bemoaned the fact that he was now homeless and without personal transportation. Fortunately, the problem was soon rectified when he and Paulie both drew seven-year sentences.
This all took about a year out of my life as well, while I provided evidence in five—count ’em—five criminal court proceedings, actually testifying three times. Yet somehow I managed to fulfill the promise I had made to myself on the great, windswept plains of Montana. I took Nina to Paris for three glorious weeks. I didn’t even whine when she refused to let me buy a Royale with cheese at the McDoo on the Champs-Elysées—what they call McDonald’s in France—claiming it was tacky even by my standards. During our second day visiting the Louvre, I actually got down on one knee inside the Near Eastern Antiquities exhibit and proposed yet again, figuring we had been touring the museum so long that she might say yes out of pure exhaustion. She didn’t. I told her it was my final offer, that next time she’d have to propose. I don’t know if she was relieved by that or not. She hooked her arm through mine, and we walked back to our hotel where we ordered room service—twice.
Meanwhile, Michelle Miller convinced a court that her husband’s criminal acts had violated the immorality clause in their prenuptial agreement. Faced with the ruling, Miller caved, quickly agreeing to a three-million-dollar settlement. Apparently he was preoccupied at the time and didn’t want to be bothered with a protracted divorce action. After his conviction, he arranged for management of his many business concerns; the proceeds were to be deposited in a money market fund pending his release from prison. At his death, everything will go to Sara. She said she didn’t want it. On the other hand, she confided to me that she was planning to attend the University of Minnesota to study both economics and film. To hell with sound effects. She was going to be a movie producer. I could imagine her using Daddy’s dough to finance a film. So could Michelle, and she didn’t like that idea at all, but I’m betting on the kid. In any case, Sara Anne and Michelle moved to Edina. Michelle had invited me to visit her—emphasis on “her”—but that’s not going to happen. Sara Anne, however, is one of about a dozen people who have my cell number.
I also recently received a nice e-mail from my heroine on the white horse. Angela enrolled at the University of Illinois, where she’s studying agriculture and consumer economics. I put her and her family up for the night and bought them dinner when they passed through the Cities on their way to visit the campus.
As for the bounty hunters—it turned out that their names really were Lord and Master; they weren’t kidding when they told me that. They worked out of an office in Billings, Montana. At a cost of five thousand dollars in cash—Greg Schroeder gave me a two-for-one deal—a couple of gentlemen were dispatched to the Big Sky State to carefully and emphatically explain to Lord and Master that they were no longer welcome in Minnesota. They were free to pursue their chosen profession anywhere else, but Minnesota was closed to them. Cross the state border and they would be the ones who would be hunted. Names were never exchanged, but I’m pretty sure they knew where the message came from. Probably I should have delivered it myself, but Schroeder talked me out of it. “This is a great country,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re tough or mean as long as you can hire someone who is.”
As far as I know, the sign outside the Libbie, SD, city limits still reads, rules, regulations, and respect! Go figure.
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