The Weatherman (28 page)

Angelbeck tried to explain the situation. “We have a witness who saw somebody who looks something like you with one of the victims before she died.”

“Saw somebody who looks something like me? Is that the best you can do?”

“There’s also a fingerprint,” Angelbeck told him.

“Whose fingerprint?”

Redmond exploded. “Your fingerprint, sucker! We

got this computer that turns fingerprints into numbers. And this computer says those numbers belong to you.”

“It’s inconclusive,” said Angelbeck. “It’s just a partial print from the scene of the first murder. The one at your parking ramp. But this computer spit your name out on a list of probables.”

Dixon Bell was cool. “Maybe it is mine. I park in that parking ramp five days a week.”

“Do you park behind the transformer?” Redmond wanted to know.

“Would you submit to a polygraph-a lie-detector test?” Angelbeck asked him.

“Absolutely not. Those things are bogus. Don’t you guys watch ‘60 Minutes’?”

Donnell Redmond was an inch taller than Dixon Bell. He folded his arms and stepped into the Weatherman’s face. “Don’t you remember me? Como Park? A cold Christmas morning? I chased your frosty ass over the waterfall. You left that girl in an ice cube out on the lake.”

“That’s sick.”

“Y’all listen to me, cracker. You’re lying right through those TV teeth of yours. Now we’re gonna fry your ass.”

“I’ve never had any trouble with you people.”

“Oooh, is that right? I ain’t never met a white boy from Mississippi who didn’t have trouble with us people.”

Les Angelbeck stuck his cane between them. “Lieutenant, why don’t you wait in the car.”

Dixon Bell walked to his patio window and studied the sky. He heard the front door slam. “It’s going to rain,” he muttered. He saw Donnell Redmond march to his car, climb in, and slam that door too. He eyed the Weatherman from the front seat as he talked on his two-way. “He’s not from Minnesota, is he?”

“I’m sorry about that, Dixon. No, he’s from Florida. It’s the Edina officer. Has a lot of cops smelling blood.”

Dixon Bell turned. “You mean the electric chair?”

“If she dies, maybe.”

The Weatherman tried to wrestle his heavy breathing under control, as if he were the one suffering from emphysema. “If I came in tomorrow and answered all of your questions, and submitted to your stupid polygraph machine, could you keep this out of the news?”

“Yes, I could,” Angelbeck assured him. “If anybody

were to ask, we’re just getting some advice on the weather factor?”

So Dixon Bell agreed. “I’m visiting a classroom tomorrow morning. I’ll be in after lunch.”

But the governor’s office forced them to break the promise they had made to the Channel 7 weatherman. They marched into an elementary school, put handcuffs on him, and took him away as news cameras rolled-and children watched.

After the suspect had been booked and jailed, Les Angelbeck and Donnell Redmond sat under a bright fluorescent table lamp at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, paging through the Weatherman’s diary, found in a search of his weather office, reading his most intimate thoughts. Angelbeck wiped his weary eyes, then put a hand to his aching chest. There was no such thing as growing old with dignity. It was humiliating. His doctor wrote a letter making him eligible for a handicap sticker. He’d die before he’d stick that thing on his dashboard. It had been a long frustrating day.

The chilly spring days were getting longer, but they were still too short for all of the work that had to be done on this case. Dixon Bell wore a size-fourteen shoe all right, but a search of his home and office turned up no cheap athletic shoe called Alacrity. The best they could find was a brand-new pair of Nikes.

“Look at here, March thirty-first,” said Redmond, pointing at a page in the diary. “It says, ‘a note really, folded here on this page.’ And here, two pages later, ‘Letter folded here on this page.’ ” He flipped through the diary. “There ain’t no note and there ain’t no letter.”

Angelbeck tore through the pages. “Dammit. Get back up there and search that office again. Take a team and search that entire newsroom.”

“We can’t do that. Judge says weather office only.”

Then the police captain thought about his wily source in the Channel 7 newsroom. “How long after the arrest before you got up to that office?”

Rick Beanblossom reached up and turned off the news. He popped open a Pepsi and swallowed two painkillers.

He stared at the big fat file on his desk. If Captain Les Angelbeck felt in his heart they had the right man, Rick’s heart was telling him quite the opposite.

The other stations in town were clobbering them, as were the networks. The newspapers were having a field day. There were rumors about a diary. Rumors about a love triangle at Channel 7. Overnight the Calendar Killer was renamed the Weatherman. For the first time since the Gulf War, no viewer phone calls were being allowed through to the newsroom.

The tornado that tore by Sky High News and blew out a window, the tornado that caused Skyhawk 7 to crash to the ground, was nature’s most violent act; the deaths of their colleagues a shock. But it was a shock they could deal with. After the tornado took the lives of two of their best, Sky High News went on to become the most-watched news station in Minnesota. Critics stopped calling what they did fluff news and more respectfully referred to it as soft news. Other stations in town tried to copy their formula. The bimbos and the bozos kept coming and going, but with less frequency. Those who stayed with Channel 7 grew in their roles. All of this had spi-raled out of a tornado. But none of these hearty souls knew how to deal with the storm of trouble now raining down on them. This was no violent act of nature but the most violent acts of man. Their man, police were saying. Their weatherman.

Andrea Labore strolled over to Rick’s desk. She put her nose to his flowers and smiled, a sweet, sad smile. “Grab some dinner? We should talk.”

Her face was sweeter than the flowers, the scent of her perfume more calming than the pills. She set his heart on fire. Her strengths were his weaknesses. But what did she feel for him? Love? Pity? Dateline was ringing. Rick looked up at the row of clocks. “Ten minutes,” he said in a reassuring voice.

“Ten minutes,” said Andrea. Then she was gone.

Already he felt better. Rick picked up the phone. “Beanblossom.”

“Read any good letters lately?”

“Can’t say as I have. How long have you suspected our weatherman?”

“The arrest got all screwed up. Almost two hours passed before we got somebody up there to search his weather office. There are some letters missing from there.”

“What kind of letters?”

“Besides the letters from the Afton girl, two letters that were folded inside the diary. My guess is someone from the newsroom walked over there and searched that office before our people got up there. Someone with a leather nose for news.”

“If that someone took the letters, why wouldn’t that someone have taken the whole diary?”

“Why take the diary when he can photocopy the entire thing in a matter of minutes?”

“Then why didn’t he just photocopy the letters?”

“Because he didn ‘t want us to have them.”

“And why is that?”

“I suspect they seal the Weatherman’s fate. I want those letters, Masked Man.”

“I’ll ask around.”

“I spoon-fed you your first news story before you even knew you wanted to be a newsman.”

“Was that out of respect, or pity?” There was no answer, but he was still on the line. “A lot of people think you’ve got the wrong man.”

“Murder number one. Your own Sky High ramp. His fingerprint was found at the scene. Two feet from the body.”

“That fingerprint only has seven points of ID. Worthless in a court of law.”

“Shame on you, Mr. Beanblossom-you have other sources. The fingerprint is hardly worthless.
FBI
says it’s his.”

“And what does your man say? Arkwright’s his name, isn’t it?”

“Your weatherman was in Lake Country on the Fourth of July. We have reason to believe he was at that wet-T-shirt contest.”

“There’s videotape of that contest. Can you find him in the crowd? Can any of the five thousand drunken motorheads put him at the scene?”

“This case is like a chain. It’s made up of links. There may be a few missing links now, but in the end we ‘ll link him to all eight murders … then we’ll chain his ass to the chair.”

“Excuse me, but last time I checked Officer Sumter was still alive.”

“Check again. She died fifteen minutes ago. I want those letters, Masked Man.”

Rick Beanblossom punched up Script on his computer. He began typing up the obituary of Shelly Sumter, to go on the air immediately. He mumbled into the phone. “Like I said, I’ll ask around.”

“Don’t you dare let me see that diary showing up on your news show.”

Dateline went dead.

Ramsey County Adult Detention Center-2 West, D Pod, Cell 340. Dixon Bell sat alone on his bunk, staring out the window at the sunny weather above the muddy river. But this window was seven layers thick, with a motion alarm. It was as if he had stepped through the looking glass. His face was all over television, for all the wrong reasons. The district attorney called him a serial killer. The judge denied him bail, and he was locked up like a zoo animal in this high-tech podular jail that hung over the white sandstone cliffs of St. Paul.

Railroad tracks ran directly beneath his cell, so close he could see wisps of engine smoke as the trains chugged by. They chugged by often, and then the whole building shook. If he could somehow smash through that window, it was only a three-story drop to the tracks. He thought about busting out. These days he thought a lot about escape.

It was summertime. Eighty-and ninety-degree temperatures. His window faced south. People were boating right in front of him. Off to his right he could see the High Bridge arched from cliff to cliff. To his left was the Wabasha Street Bridge, and further downriver were the dramatic arches of the Robert Street Bridge. From there the mighty Mississippi wound around Pig’s Eye Bend and started for Vicksburg. If he could bust out he’d just follow the river home.

The brick cell was triangular. Two bunks were attached to the wall. Dixon Bell had the cell to himself, but every once in a while when the jail was full they’d toss a harmless bum in there with him. He had an aluminum toilet that made a lot of noise when flushed; that way the deputies could hear it. If a prisoner flushed his toilet too often the deputies would come up and shake him down. They were sheriff’s deputies and they despised being called guards. He had an aluminum wash basin and a mirror. On the wall was an intercom button. Each prisoner was allowed two sheets, a towel and a wash cloth, a few bathroom items, toothpaste and brush, and a couple of books, paperbacks only.

Cotton cumulus clouds floated across a clear blue sky. High pressure was in control on this day. He could see a refreshing breeze off the water, but he couldn’t feel it. That was the most punishing aspect of all, being removed from the natural elements and locked in climate control. The Weatherman was made to wear jail greens and sandal slippers. He was locked in his cell from ten o’clock at night until five o’clock in the morning. If he was a good boy he’d be promoted to “trustee” and allowed to stay up until 1:00 A.M. and watch television. To date, he hadn’t been very good.

There were ten cells in his pod: five upstairs, five down. They opened up into a day room with a winding staircase, where the prisoners spent most of their time. Meals were served in the day room. There were telephones on the wall, some broken exercise equipment, and a new television set. Dixon Bell had destroyed the old set.

Within minutes of his arrest the media had turned on him. A feeding frenzy. They chased him with cameras, microphones, and satellite trucks. In and out of court, in and out of jail; whenever he caught a glimpse of the dazzling summer sun, they stepped in front it.

The television set in the day room was bolted to an iron sling that hung from the ceiling. Channel selection and volume were controlled by the deputies inside the control room, to keep prisoners’ hands off the set and to prevent fights. During his first week of imprisonment Dixon Bell was watching the news on CNN when they ran another story on his arrest. The Weatherman was livid. The story was so distorted, so slanted against him- “Just skip the fucking trial and fry me, why don’t you?” He filled a paper cup with water and tossed it into the back of the set. Boy, did that sucker blow! The Weatherman was locked in Isolation TFN-Till Further Notice. Now he was out.

It was in Isolation that he began thinking about escape-if not for the freedom it might bring, at least for the challenge. He was a scientist. He had to set aside his emotions and frustrations and approach escape in a cool, calculating manner. If there was a simple way in, logic dictates, there was a simple way out. As one prisoner suggested, “Use the door.”

The big steel door to his cell slid open and closed along a thick metal rail that was bolted to the floor. Only one deputy manned the control room, and he had to keep an eye on two different pods. That meant he was watching the Weatherman’s pod only half the time. One day when the deputy was out of sight Dixon Bell, big and heavy, stepped up on this rail and bounced up and down a few times. Sure enough, after a week or two of bouncing he felt the rail give a little. So the Weatherman did some calculating about pressure points and weight distribution, and he figured with enough time he might be able to snap that rail right off. Of course it had to be snapped at just the right point, so that he could slip it back down there and the door could slide open. He’d keep working on it.

“Dixon Bell.”

The echo sounded like a wake-up call from the deep blue sky.

“Dixon Bell.”

The Weatherman pulled his head out of the clouds. He was being summoned over the PA system. He got off his bunk and walked out of his cell to the railing.

The deputy down in the control room was leaning over the microphone. “That reporter with the mask is here to see you.”