Murder on the Lunatic Fringe (Jubilant Falls Series Book 4) (14 page)

As time went by and I got older, I settled into school, made friends and got used to the idea that this father I made up was just the dream of a wounded little boy.

Now that wounded little boy was back.

“So are you my father?”

“Is my name on your fucking birth certificate?”

“Yes, but I heard Mother put your name down because the social worker made her name somebody.”

Benny shrugged. “You know, all these years I always denied it—I just figured I was the only one whose last name that fucking idiot bitch could spell. I can see now, yeah, you probably are my son.”

So it was true.

“After you guys got arrested, I got put in foster care,” I said.

“Shit happens.” He shrugged and took another swig from the beer bottle, not looking my direction. “Probably the best thing for you, between your mother and me.”

“You don’t do heroin any more, do you?” I asked.

“No, thanks to Indiana’s Department of Corrections, I was made to see the error of my ways.” Benny sneered again. “Although I am not averse to the occasional economic opportunity the marketplace provides.”

“Mother got clean in prison, too.”

“Well, good for her. She still a whore?”

I wanted to punch him, but I sensed that was the reaction he sought. Instead I was silent.

Benny took a gulp from his beer and stood up. I caught a glimpse of a blue-black swastika tattoo beneath the collar of his tee shirt.

“I thought so. Listen kid, I don’t know why you came looking for me and I don’t fucking care. Just don’t do it again,” he said.

He adjusted the crotch of his jeans and walked back to the truck.

“Sorry, Benny,” I said under my breath. “I’ll be back in touch—and soon.”

Chapter 24 Addison

I was still working on the murder story when Dennis came into the newsroom shortly after seven. Bleary from lack of sleep, the words just wouldn’t come anymore. I’d looked at the story so long, I couldn’t tell if I was finished or not.

Pulling his thick glasses down his nose, he looked at my dirty jeans, athletic shoes and tee shirt.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Too damned long,” I answered, rubbing my tired eyes. “Duncan brought me in about four-thirty and dropped me off.”

“I’m assuming that means we’ve got a breaking story,” he said, stepping behind me to see the screen.

“Yes. Jerome Johnson, the farm manager at the Lunatic Fringe farm was shot. The owner said the men who did it were Russian mobsters,” I said. “On top of that, he wasn’t her farm manager—he was really a U.S. marshal. She was in witness protection and he was assigned to protect her.”

“What?”
Dennis jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Get up. You’re obviously out of your mind from lack of sleep. Did you just tell me Russian mobsters murdered a U.S. marshal in Plummer County?”

“That’s exactly what happened. Katya Bolodenka, the lady with the llamas from last Saturday’s story, is a federal witness and she’s in hiding here, of all places.”

“This is what happens when you ask for some unvarnished human misery, Addison.” Despite his dry tone, Dennis was just as excited as I was. He smiled at me as I stood and he slid into my seat.

Say what you will about the state of small town journalism, I knew I had an excellent crew, staff I could depend on when the news broke.

As I stood behind him, Dennis enlarged the text on the screen and began to read:

By Addison McIntyre

Managing Editor

A Youngstown Road man was shot on the front porch of a local farm early this morning in a murder that could have ties to organized crime.

Plummer County sheriff’s deputies discovered the body of Jerome Johnson, 31, shot in the head, at 68734 Youngstown Road.

Coroner Dr. Rashid Bovir would not confirm any other injuries.

Johnson’s death may be tied to another homicide involving an East Coast Russian mobster and a series of shady medical clinics.

According to the farm’s owner, Ekaterina Bolodenka, Johnson was a US marshal assigned to the federal witness protection program, and had been protecting her.

Bolodenka, who was featured last Saturday in a story about her work as a fiber artist, told the J-G she was really in hiding from her husband, Kolya Dyakonov, a reported Russian mobster, and was slated to testify against him in federal court.

Bolodenka had previously told the J-G that she was born in Russia, but raised in Chicago where she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. She claimed to have taught art history in Cleveland and purchased her first llamas and alpacas in northern Ohio.

None of that was true, she said.

Bolodenka said she was actually from a Brooklyn neighborhood called Brighton Beach, in New York City, and has never been to Chicago or Cleveland.

Johnson had been identified as her farm manager, but that was also a ruse, Bolodenka said. He was on the farm to provide 24-hour protection until she was slated to testify.

The couple was also romantically involved, she said.

According to Bolodenka, two Russian men broke into the farmhouse where she and Johnson were sleeping. Bolodenka managed to escape, but Johnson was taken downstairs and shot.

US Marshal Robert Peppin, along with a special witness protection response team, were also on the scene. He confirmed Bolodenka was in the federal Witness Security program, also known as WITSEC, but would not confirm the exact details of the case.

According to Bolodenka, however, Dyakonov owned a series of New Jersey medical clinics and had been accused of Medicaid fraud. Associates reportedly brought homeless people into the clinics by van, where they were promised health check ups and medication, including reportedly highly addictive painkillers, such as Oxycodone, the cost of which was then submitted to Medicaid.

With no follow up, patients were free to take the medication themselves or sell it on the street. They would also be free to return to the clinic for more prescriptions.

Bolodenka said she witnessed Dyakonov murdering a man who threatened to report the fraud. Dyakonov is also a suspect in the murder of her sister, brother-in-law and their daughter.

New Jersey authorities have long blamed unethical doctors and Russian mob-owned clinics for the state’s spike in drug overdoses and deaths, according to Associated Press reports.

Bolodenka raises llamas, alpacas and cashmere goats on the Youngstown Road farm, which she purchased recently and named The Lunatic Fringe Farm, in a nod to her art. She recently won first prize at the Ohio State Fair for a woven tapestry.

Two cashmere goats were recently killed and mutilated there, but she and Johnson declined to press charges or file a report, Bolodenka said. Instead, Johnson had requested extra sheriff patrols at the property.

It was not known at press time if those livestock attacks are connected to Johnson’s murder.

“Good God,” Dennis said. “Where did you get all this?”

“Katya showed up on my doorstep about two-thirty this morning. Most of what I got, I got right from Katya, so the feds aren’t going to be real happy with us.”

“Probably not.”

“Hey, what about that fight at the feed mill Saturday? Should that be included in the story?”

Quickly he typed in two sentences:

“
Johnson had also been the victim of an assault last Saturday at the Grower’s Feed Mill, following an argument there.

“It is not known if the events are at all connected.”

I looked at it critically and shook my head.

“Take it out. Duncan told me that Doyle McMaster used the N-word and Johnson swung at him. The two have got to be unrelated—and we don’t have any proof of connection. I’m no organized crime expert, but I’ll bet McMaster isn’t smart enough to be wrapped up with the Russian mob—and they’re too smart to get wrapped up with him.”

“You going to tell Earlene all this?” Dennis asked as he tapped the ‘delete’ key, erasing the two sentences.

It had been my habit to meet with the previous publisher and Earlene’s father, J. Watterson Whitelaw, when we had a huge story break. He was an old newsman himself—he knew the value of a free press.

Whitelaw kept the best media lawyers in the state on retainer. Before the story ever hit the page and the paper ever hit the streets, I would sit down in his dark, mahogany-paneled office, and tell him what was up. He would pick up the phone and let counsel know what we were doing, what questions he had and generally, give me the thumbs up once he knew the ramifications. He had no compunction about going up against the small-town powers that be. He knew Ohio’s public record law inside and out and had no problem pushing it to the limit, even when there was a possibility such action might cost him an advertiser or two.

Earlene, on the other hand, with her concern over community opinion, might put the kibosh on this story in the interest of keeping everyone—especially the feds—happy.

“I suppose I should. Is she here yet?” I sighed.

I rolled my eyes, thinking about this afternoon’s focus group meeting—what I’d begun to privately refer to as the “fuck us” group. By two this afternoon, I would be running on empty and my patience would be running thin. It could get ugly—fast.

What ground did she have to stand on? The radio dispatch was public and we had to follow up on that, not to mention the fact that Katya knew she was talking to the newspaper when she was talking to me. I had my damned notebook out, for Christ sake!

“I didn’t see her Porsche in the parking lot when I pulled in.”

“I’ll give her a couple hours and then go down to tell her about it. I need to call Roarke and Bovir to see if we have anything else from the scene that I can include before I talk to her.”

“Go down to Aunt Bea’s and get some breakfast. I’ll handle things until you get back.”

***

Gary McGinnis was just starting his second cup of coffee when I slipped into his booth at Aunt Bea’s.

“You look like hell,” he said, motioning the waitress over to our table. “I heard through the grapevine Johnson was murdered last night.”

“Good morning to you, too,” I said, nodding at the waitress as she filled my coffee cup. “Yes, he was. Everything you and I suspected was true. Katya told me on the way over to the scene—”

“What? She came to you first?”

I slurped my coffee and nodded again. “Yes. She was knocking at my door after two in the morning—she’d apparently escaped from the house somehow.”

“Hey, Linda—” Gary motioned the waitress back over. “Give her two eggs, over easy, bacon and whole wheat toast with butter—to go—and put it on my bill. She’s in a bit of a hurry.”

Gary turned his attention back to me.

“What the hell happened that she’s telling you all this stuff at your house?” he asked. “Why didn’t she call the cops? Why didn’t you?”

“Katya showed up at my house, like I said. She wouldn’t let me call, but as Duncan and I are driving over there, she’s telling us she is in witness protection and Johnson was a marshal protecting her.”

Gary exhaled and shook his head. “It all fits together then. I doubt if Johnson was his real name—or hers.”

“Katya told me her name wasn’t real,” I said. “Too bad I don’t have Graham Kinnon here to help me on this.”

Linda brought my breakfast over in a Styrofoam box and sat it in front of me.

“So where’s Graham?” Gary asked, digging into his own breakfast.

“His stepdad had a heart attack. He took some time off to go home to Indianapolis.”

Gary’s voice was odd—maybe it was the mouthful of eggs. “That so? I hate to hear that.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, the kid works like nobody’s business and deserves the time off, but the shit always seems to hit the fan when I’m low on staff,” I said. “Anyway, do you know anybody in the marshal service? A guy named Robert Peppin?”

Gary looked up at me and nodded. “He heads up the Cincinnati office. I’ve met him once or twice on task force stuff, like when they come through on regional drug or sex offender sweeps.”

“What do you think of him?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know him personally, but I get the impression he knows his job. He’s a typical fed, though, really buttoned down. Why?”

“He’s an ass—he slapped me in a pair of cuffs just because I was holding Duncan’s shotgun.”

Gary tried not to laugh out loud. “Yup, that’s Peppin. He’s never quite adjusted to the fact that out here in the hinterlands honest folks own guns.”

“I can tell thinks we’re all savages and that everything north of the Cincinnati outer belt is the Wild West. He probably wonders if we even use forks. Roarke talked him into letting me go, but he was pissed off when he found out the feds had not told him he had someone in witness protection in his county,” I said.

“I can imagine. That really puts law enforcement at a real disadvantage.”

“Peppin’s not going to be real happy with me about noon,” I said, standing. “Oh well. Hey, before I go, can you e-mail me that BMV picture of Jerome Johnson? I need it for the front page.”

“Sure. And if I hear anything else, I’ll let you know—or at least where to look,” Gary said.

“ Thanks!” Sliding out of the booth, I took one more slurp of coffee and grabbed my breakfast. Within a few steps, I was out the door on the sidewalk.

Back in the newsroom, everyone else had arrived and Dennis had page one mocked up. My reporters had been busy as well—Marcus Henning had a story from yesterday’s county commission meeting and Elizabeth Day had a feature with photos about the school bus drivers running their daily routes as practice for the opening day of school.

“Marcus, I need you to pick up police reports, since Graham is off,” I said.

“Will do,” he answered without looking up from his computer.

I ducked into my office to finish the story.

In between bites of my breakfast, I called Bovir and confirmed a single gunshot had killed Jerome Johnson, but that was about it.

“Can you confirm any other the victim was tortured?”

“I can’t say anything until the autopsy is completed later this afternoon,” Bovir said.