Chasing evil, p.17
Chasing Evil, page 17
Potts looked confused. “No. Why?”
“Michael said Janice’s face looked like was she was sleeping. And when he touched it with a stick, it was hard like wood.”
“So?” Potts said.
I pointed again. Dug into the front lawn, a prominent white sign read: ARMSTRONG FUNERAL HOME.
“For Michael’s story to make sense, there must be an explanation. Janice’s body couldn’t remain so well preserved unless Smith did something to it. And coincidentally, we have a funeral parlor next door.”
He nodded with understanding.
I headed for the funeral home with Potts in tow.
* * *
Dick Armstrong was in his mid-sixties, with white hair and a perfectly trimmed handlebar mustache. But the first thing that hit me when he answered the door wasn’t the way he looked. It was the waft of cherry tobacco smoke, smacking me in the face.
I smell pipe tobacco, John Edward said. Cherry pipe tobacco.
Armstrong was smoking a briar wood pipe, suffusing the air around us with the aroma of sweet cherry.
Potts and I introduced ourselves and flashed our credentials. Armstrong puffed on his pipe and studied my badge.
“FBI, huh?”
“Yes sir,” I said.
“It’s about time you fellas came to talk with me,” he said, opening his door and beckoning us in. He led us to a beautiful, old-fashioned, parlor.
“I suppose you’re here to ask me about John Smith?”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, only a little surprised.
“A couple of weeks ago I read an article about him being married to two women and they both were missing. One was the Hartman girl and the other … I think from New Jersey. And today I look out my window and see a bunch of FBI agents searching the Smith property.”
I nodded. “What can you tell us about him?”
Armstrong took another puff of his pipe.
The funeral home, which was also the Armstrong family residence, had been there for decades. He’d known Smith and his brother, Michael, since they were born.
“He was an unusual boy, you might say. A loner. Didn’t hang out with the other kids, which was odd for these parts. In a small town like this everybody knows everybody. We interact at church, in schools, or at community events. John never took to other kids his age. Kept to himself.”
“What about his family life or upbringing?”
“I don’t know what went on in that house. I do know that Ethel and Chester were more parents to him than his own were.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It was obvious in their daily interactions with those boys. Grace treated John more like an adult husband than a son. And John seemed angry any time Grace brought a man around the house, and eventually married Sam. I remember how John stared at Sam. I got the impression that boy really hated him.
“When Grace was pregnant with Sam’s child (John’s half brother, Stephen Maltz) John was a pot of water about to boil. I don’t think he could live with the thought of his mother being with another man … besides himself of course.”
Potts and I exchanged glances. The more we heard about Smith, the darker the stories got.
“Did you know his wife, Janice?” I asked.
“I met her a few times,” Armstrong said. “Cute little girl. Always laughing and smiling. I often wondered how a guy like him wound up with a nice girl like her. I guess it must be that thing about opposites attracting.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Do you remember anything about when she disappeared?”
“I couldn’t tell you anything about that. To be honest, I didn’t even know she was missing until I read that newspaper article. I assumed she smartened up, left him, and moved away.”
Armstrong guided his lighter flame to the pipe and inhaled. The tobacco glowed red.
“Mr. Armstrong, I’d like to ask you a sensitive question,” I said.
“Go right ahead.”
“It’s a hypothetical,” I said. “What if I told you a young woman was killed. Strangled to death. And the person who killed her built a plywood box and lined it with a bunch of clothes. Before putting the body in the box, her legs were cut off just below the knees. Are you with me so far?”
“Yes,” Armstrong replied.
“So, let’s say this box was nailed shut and placed in that garage next door. It sat on the floor for five years until one day it was discovered. When the box was opened, the face and body were completely intact and recognizable. The face was hard, like wood. And the hair … well the hair had turned from dirty blond to multicolored, like a rainbow. Based upon your professional experience, is there any way that could occur naturally?”
Armstrong lowered his pipe. “Not under the conditions you described. It would be impossible.”
“That leads me to my next question,” I said. “While I understand the process of how a body is embalmed, I’ve never seen it done. I imagine it must take extensive training and experience.”
“Of course,” Armstrong said. “Nowadays young folks get degrees in mortuary sciences. It’s not something you learn overnight.”
“Agreed. So, let me ask you then. Is there a ‘shortcut’ to embalming a body?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if I didn’t know how to embalm a body, is there a simpler way to do it?”
A look of understanding came over Armstrong’s face. He puffed on his pipe some more. “Do you hunt, Agent Hilland?”
“Hunt? I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You know, hunt … like deer, turkey, ducks, that kind of thing.”
“Oh. No. I hunt people,” I said.
Potts nodded vigorously in agreement.
“Fair enough,” said Armstrong, as he stood up. “Follow me. I have something that might answer your question.”
We followed Armstrong to the rear of the house, into a kitchen.
“If I could ask you gentlemen to stay here for a moment? I’ll be right back.”
Armstrong disappeared through a door that led to the basement and returned a few minutes later carrying a large Tupperware container.
“My sons and I are avid hunters,” he explained. “Deer, fox, ducks, turkey. You name it, we hunt it. Turkey season started about a week ago. We shot the most beautiful, prized turkey we’ve ever bagged in over 35 years of hunting. It was so beautiful, we decided to take it to a taxidermist to be mounted. The problem with turkeys, though, is the taxidermist does a beautiful job on the body and feathers, but because of the cellular structure of the head, they can’t really preserve it.”
Something solid was sloshing around in the Tupperware.
“They cut it off and mount a fake rubber or plastic head on the top of the body. So, when we shot this bird, I cut the head off and placed it in this container filled with 50 percent water and 50 percent formaldehyde. It’s been sitting in this solution for four days.”
Armstrong put on a pair of rubber gloves and took the container to the sink.
He slowly removed the lid and poured the solution down the drain while keeping the turkey head inside. Then he pulled the head out of the Tupperware, rinsed it under tap water, and grabbed a nearby towel to dry it off.
Tap, tap, tap.
He banged the turkey head against the countertop.
“Hard as wood,” he said, and handed me the head.
I studied the face of the turkey; its features were intact.
“So, the answer to your question, Agent Hilland,” said Armstrong, as he stowed the head back in the Tupperware, “is yes. There is a simpler way. All you’d need is a few gallons of formaldehyde, a tub, and some regular tap water from any kitchen sink.”
13
DIGGING
LAW ENFORCEMENT
Roy Speer, FBI, Cleveland
Roy Cavan, senior special agent
Sergeant Brian Potts, Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, Ohio
Jane Fisher, special agent of the FBI’s Ground Penetrating Radar Team
HELPERS
The dog handler
Duke, cadaver dog
NEIGHBORS
Patricia Donnolly, neighbor
Margaret Boone, neighbor
GRACE LANE, DAY ONE
Hammer drills bore through the thick layer of concrete.
Plumes of smoke and dust billowed from the garage, drifting over to me and the other agents and detectives on site at the townhouse complex on Grace Lane—the location Michael thought Janice’s body might be buried.
I was with Potts, Cavan, and Special Agent Roy Speer—the one who sounded like a country singer over the phone to my East Coast ears—who was joining us from the Cleveland division.
We stood in front of Unit 2019, arms crossed, watching the garage floor get ripped apart.
Our exhaustive search at Ethel’s a few days earlier yielded zilch—so far. The cadaver dog locked onto an area on Ethel’s garage floor—the spot where Michael first saw the box and body. We removed bricks and soil samples, sending them to the lab for testing. After 25 years, I wasn’t betting on finding any definitive results in that respect.
I’d also sent out a teletype alert to all law enforcement agencies in the country—local, state, and federal—asking if anyone had information on the plywood box:
A SOURCE WAS RECENTLY DEVELOPED WHO PROVIDED INFORMATION CONCERNING THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JANICE HARTMAN SMITH.
THE SOURCE REPORTED JANICE HARTMAN’S REMAINS WERE DISMEMBERED AND DISPOSED OF IN A PLYWOOD BOX. THE BOX WAS DESCRIBED AS APPROXIMATELY 48" LONG, 20" WIDE, AND 20" TALL.
ALSO CONTAINED IN THE PLYWOOD BOX WERE SEVERAL ARTICLES OF THE VICTIM’S CLOTHING AS WELL AS SOME INEXPENSIVE JEWELRY SUCH AS A PEWTER CRUCIFIX.
THE BOX WAS LAST SEEN IN THE WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO, AREA IN 1979.
WHILE THE CURRENT WHEREABOUTS OF THE BOX ARE UNKNOWN, IT IS BELIEVED THE BOX MAY HAVE BEEN DISPOSED OF IN THE OHIO, INDIANA, OR MICHIGAN AREA.
ANY AGENCY WITH RELEVANT INFORMATION IS REQUESTED TO CONTACT SPECIAL AGENT ROBERT HILLAND OF THE FBI, NYO …
That was a longshot, too—and so was this new dig. But I was filled with single-focused determination. We had to find this box.
We whisked away the current owners of Unit 2019 to a hotel, promised a new garage floor when we were done, and got to work. Various tents and canopies were set up outside the garage, and the entire area was blocked off by bright yellow police tape to keep gawkers—and reporters—at bay.
I coordinated the Ground Penetrating Radar Team to come up from headquarters, and Speer coordinated a local Evidence Response Team unit. The GPR Team dragged radar equipment across the garage floor to search for anomalies underneath.
“We found three,” said Special Agent Jane Fisher, head of the Radar Team, pointing to “X” marks on the ground made with orange chalk.
“The largest anomaly is right here,” she said, pointing to an X near the rear wall. “It’s 36 inches from the surface and runs about four and a half feet long by two feet wide.”
The other two anomalies were much smaller, she said, at depths of 28 inches and 14 inches. The GPR could tell us the depth and size of an anomaly, she explained, but not if the anomaly was a body or simply construction debris.
That was Duke’s specialty.
Standing by was a dog handler and her cadaver dog, Duke, a black Doberman with soulful eyes. A police badge hung from Duke’s collar; he and his nose were ready to go to work sniffing out dead bodies.
Before we set him loose, the country crew drilled a dozen holes near the anomalies to allow the trapped scent below to percolate.
“And if your dog alerts on something, how do you know?” Potts asked.
“He’s trained to lie down on top of it.”
After the holes were drilled, the team vacated the garage and closed the door so that the subfloor could release any secrets it might hold. Thirty minutes later, the handler and Duke returned.
“Find it!” she commanded, with an excited voice.
Duke dropped his nose to the ground and circled the concrete floor, tail wagging. After several passes over the largest “X” he stopped over it, took several deep, fast breaths, and laid down on it.
X marked the spot.
Potts, Cavan, and I donned masks as county workers sliced through the concrete with heavy masonry saws and thick waves of dust filled the air.
Wayne County’s new command post arrived on the scene—a large RV with the sheriff office’s seal prominently painted on the side. Reporters began to gather and ask questions, filming what they could from behind the yellow tape. A helicopter circled overhead. But the FBI had an unspoken rule: say nothing to the press. Not yet, anyway.
Once the concrete was cut up, everyone pitched in and carried or wheeled large, heavy slabs of it to a nearby backhoe. It was backbreaking work in sweltering summer heat.
After the concrete was removed, the digging began. We planned to dig at least three feet deep, all the while loading the dirt onto wheelbarrows and carting it out to the makeshift tents, where it would be sifted through giant screens to search for evidence.
This was going to take a while.
I stood at the edge of the garage and scanned the broken-up floor, wondering what lay beneath.
Wondering if she was there.
* * *
By early evening, we halted our work and arranged to continue the next morning.
At a local hotel, I washed off the dirt and concrete grime of the day and called home from the landline. The kids were also fresh from their baths, bubbling with excitement to talk to Daddy.
“Everything okay, Alex?” I said, when she wrangled the phone back from them.
“Sure,” she said.
I could hear the loneliness and frustration in her voice. She had a new era to contend with beyond my late nights at the office: my absence for days and weeks out of town.
My cell phone rang—it was John Edward.
“Listen, I have to take this…”
“Go ahead.”
Click.
“Hey, John.”
“Hey, Bob. So … I’m seeing a big hole in the ground and dirt all around you.”
“Yeah. We’re digging.”
“Okay. That explains it. Just … be careful.”
“What do you mean. Am I going to fall into the hole?”
Pause.
“No. Not exactly. But I feel a tension at the office for you. Like you’re getting into trouble. Watch that you don’t push too hard.”
“Maybe I’m digging my own grave. Ha!”
“Just … be careful. They’re telling me to tell you.”
I didn’t take his warning too seriously. I was working my ass off, operating in good faith, and potentially on the brink of a big break in the case. How could I possibly get in trouble? As far as I could see, work was the only thing I was doing right.
After we hung up, I flipped on the TV and grabbed a cold beer from the mini bar. In the background, the local news came on.
“I’m at the scene of 2019 Grace Lane,” said a female reporter, standing in front of the command post RV, “where FBI and police investigators have concluded their work for the day. Take a look at this earlier footage.”
I turned to watch as the station cut away to an aerial shot of the garage from the helicopter, then closer shots of FBI agents pushing wheelbarrows of dirt.
“Investigators spent hours tearing up a concrete floor and sifting through the earth below a garage floor at the Grace Lane townhouse complex here in Medina. Officials were extremely tight-lipped concerning the investigation and provided no official release as to what they were looking for. But sources have suggested that the FBI is pursuing leads related to the disappearance of Chicago Teamster Jimmy Hoffa.”
I choked on my beer, nearly spitting it out.
Oh, shit.
PATRICIA’S BACKYARD
As day two of the Grace Lane dig began, I went to investigate a mysterious message left on our tip line the day before.
“I know where Janice is buried,” the woman said on the answering machine. “You’re looking in the wrong place!”
Patricia Donnolly lived at the far end of town in a cramped, dirty, disorganized apartment. But until recently she’d lived two miles from Grace Lane, she told me, Potts, and Speer, as we sat around her kitchen table.
In a haunting way, Patricia reminded me of Janice Hartman’s friend, Kelly Perdoni. She looked worn, sad, and much older than her actual age. But she came across as an emotionally stunted teenager, stuck and stagnating in a traumatic past.
Like many of the women linked to the Smith case, she was a victim of the evil that men do.
Patricia grew up sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by her three brothers, she told us. They took turns raping her as a teen, and when she was ten years old, they held up her pet rabbit by the ears and slit its throat in front of her as they laughed. She was not the only one they hurt, she claimed. They would pick up girls at the local truck stop, bring them back to the house, and rape and torture them in the basement for days.
“I heard girls crying, screaming for help,” she said, sadly.
Two of Patricia’s brothers were currently in prison for murder. Patricia’s eldest brother, Kevin, was friends with Smith decades earlier.
She left us the message, she told us, because she believed “Janice is buried in the backyard of my old house.”
Patricia told us about a day in the late 1970s, when she was sitting on the back porch at sunset.
“I saw Smith and two of my brothers carrying something in a rolled-up carpet or a blanket. They walked into the yard where a deep, rectangular hole—like a grave—had already been dug. They put this rolled up carpet in the ground and covered it with dirt.
They didn’t see me at first. I was scared to death and tried to tiptoe away but Kevin heard me and dropped his shovel. I ran as fast as I could but he caught me. He pulled me by my hair and slammed my head in the ground. I couldn’t breathe. I was crying for help.”
She began to cry as she told us the story, and the pet Chihuahua by her feet began yelping. Patricia put the dog on her lap and held onto it like a security blanket.
