Murder on the Opinion Page is a mystery thriller about people who disappear after they write a letter to the editor. Veteran police detective, Dan Kawowski and forensics intern Jane Dockery, suspect a serial killer is on the loose. Why would someone be kidnapped and murdered for writing a letter to the editor? Kawowski and Dockery search for the killer, and stumble upon a plot no one would ever dream could happen. This couldn't happen in America, could it?

Murder on the Opinion Page

By Tony A. Powers

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Tony A. Powers
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-9257-0

Chapter One

"Officer needs assistance, shots fired," the voice cackled on Lieutenant Dan Kawowski's police radio.

"Two Caucasian males traveling west in a blue Mustang near 39th and Ingersoll, allegedly robbed Wells Fargo Bank. Armed and dangerous, use caution," warned the dispatcher.

Kawowski reached down to check his automatic shotgun on the seat beside him. He always preferred to use his shotgun rather than his service revolver in situations like this. Suspects usually surrendered peacefully when he trained his shotgun on them.

Another officer had picked up the chase.

"56 in pursuit, heading west at 45th and Ingersoll," said the officer, with sirens blaring in the background.

Lieutenant Kawowski had a hunch the suspects were heading for the I-135 freeway entrance at 60th and Ingersoll. Otherwise they would get boxed in by the neighborhood streets. He was close by.

"54 setting up block at 60th and Ingersoll freeway entrance."

"10-4," the radio shot back.

Kawowski quickly backed up to the freeway entrance in his white unmarked Ford and blocked the ramp. A red light flashed in his front window. He opened the car door and stood behind it, his shotgun at the ready. He could hear police sirens in the distance.

He hoped this wouldn't turn into a gun battle. In his nearly forty years as a Des Moines, Colorado, police officer, he counted five times he actually had to discharge his weapon at a suspect. He had seen enough shooting and killing in Vietnam forty years ago. He checked the rounds again in his pump shotgun and adjusted his bulletproof vest.

The same vest had saved his life two years earlier when a suspect pulled a hidden gun and fired. The shot would have hit him right in the heart. He suffered a bruised chest instead. He didn't like to shoot to kill. He already suffered enough post-traumatic stress.

Why hadn't he returned to Vietnam to find the love of his life, Lan Cao Ky? Blaring police sirens and squealing tires refocused Kawowski as the blue Mustang came screeching to a halt just feet from his cruiser. He trained the shotgun at the bewildered suspects, ready to pull the trigger if he saw a gun.

"POLICE! YOU ARE UNDER ARREST! GET OUT OF THE CAR WITH YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR HEADS! NOW!"

The Mustang's front doors slowly opened and a voice tinged with fear cried out, "Please don't shoot, mister. Please don't shoot. We're getting out."

Kawowski moved quickly to arrest the suspects, angrily slamming both of them down on the hood of his cruiser and handcuffing them with precision quickness. He took it real personal whenever an officer was threatened with injury or death. DMPD was his family.

He decided to give these punks a little lecture.

"Discharging a gun at a police officer is going to get you both prison time. You could have killed or seriously injured an officer by recklessly firing a gun."

Kawowski bent over so his face was just inches away from the suspects' ears.

"Did you two idiots hear me? Do you understand what could have happened here?"

One of the suspects started to whimper. The other was so scared he started to shake. "I'm sorry, officer."

"Sorry doesn't cut it, son. Officer Holmes, would you please read these morons their Miranda rights, transport them downtown, and book 'em. I need to relax a little."

"Bank robbery suspects in custody, Kahooski made the collar," cracked the police radio.

"Lieutenant, don't you get tired of everyone always mispronouncing your name?" chuckled one of the officers.

"Don't you remember my little saying?"

"We know. Wow yourself while skiing and you will always pronounce it right."

They all laughed but Kawowski knew some of his officers had dodged another bullet. One of those guns fired today could have killed or wounded an officer. "We have to find a way to control guns on the streets," he thought. He would write a letter to the editor about gun control and send it to the Des Moines Crier, the city's main newspaper.

Back at headquarters, Kawowski finished his police report on the arrest. This was small potatoes. There was a much bigger crime that needed to be solved. People had disappeared without a trace over the past two years. A serial killer was on the loose in Des Moines, Colorado. The city was scared and Kawowski had to do something about it.

Chapter Two

"Hello, Lieutenant! I'm the new forensics intern, Jane Dockery, from Dixon University," came the voice from outside Kawowski's office door.

"Well, I am very pleased to meet you. Dan Kawowski." He rose from his desk to shake the hand of the attractive young woman. She reminded him of Special Agent Scully on television's X-Files, with her flaming red hair and penetrating blue eyes. Kawowski directed her to sit down. He returned to his desk, feeling her penetrating stare. He could tell she was sizing him up.

"I guess you're my mentor."

"I'll try and teach you a few tricks of the trade. Tell me about yourself."

"I am studying criminology and forensics at Dixon. I am twenty-three and have a permit to carry and a brown belt in karate. My goal is to be either a crime scene investigator or fantastic detective like you."

Kawowski felt his face flush a little and hoped she didn't notice. He was already impressed with Jane Dockery. He had helped instruct dozens of interns in the past, but she seemed already leaps and bounds above the rest.

"What you have learned in the classroom you can now practice in the field. There are some basic things to remember right off. Never contaminate a crime scene by stepping in blood, mishandling DNA, or touching glass or windows without rubber gloves. I'm sure you already knew that. Are you ready to go to work?"

"Yes."

Kawowski handed Dockery a huge missing persons file, and a photo of twenty-four-year-old Marie Hoe fell out on the desk. Kawowski noticed Dockery staring at the picture so he briefed her about the case.

"She recently vanished. She's the fifth person in the last two years to disappear. They all vanished without any crime scene. We may have a serial killer on the loose who doesn't like to leave bodies or evidence lying around. What's puzzling are both men and women have disappeared. So it's probably not a sex offender we're dealing with. Please familiarize yourself with the file."

Dockery looked dwarfed by the huge file stuffed with pictures, notes, and crime reports.

She immediately began studying the contents. Kawowski glanced again at the photo of Marie Hoe. She reminded him of Lan Cao Ky, the beautiful French-Vietnamese girl who had worked in Bravo Company's mess hall in Vietnam. He had fallen in love with her.

Why hadn't he returned to Vietnam to find and marry her? For forty years, she had called out to him in his dreams. He would wake up drenched in sweat, agonizing over what happened to her.

He was Sergeant Kawowski then. A platoon sergeant in Bravo Company, 9th Infantry Division, Dong Tam, South Vietnam. It was fall 1968. He stared at her in the mess hall. She stared back. It was love at first sight. Her father had been a French Army officer. He was killed in the French Indo-China War. She supported her mother by working in the mess hall. One day Kawowski noticed Lan walking towards him in the base camp. He waved and she came up to him with a beautiful smile. He checked to see if they were noticed and then asked her to join him in a nearby abandoned bunker. She didn't hesitate. Inside the semi dark bunker, he hugged her and stroked her long, coal-black hair. He kissed her but noticed she was very nervous.

"Lan is very scared. I'm afraid I will be caught with you."

"We won't be caught. No one comes in here."

Kawowski marveled at how stunning she looked with brilliant white teeth that glowed in the bunker. She wore bright red lipstick as American women would. Her skin was soft and beautiful. She had the look and build of a model. They kissed again.

"Will you meet me here after dark?"

"I meet GI here after I finish work in the mess hall."

"My name is Dan Kawowski."

"Ka-wooow-ski." She laughed at her failed attempt to pronounce his name. "I'm Lan Cao Ky," she said in perfect English. "I must go. I'll come here right after dark."

"I'll be here waiting." Their lips met passionately once more.

"Lieutenant, you've been staring at that photo for quite a while. Does she remind you of someone?" Dockery said, smiling.

"Someone I knew a long, long time ago, Jane. I'll tell you about her at lunch. I'm buying."

Chapter Three

Marie Hoe was a twenty-four-year-old woman with a bright future. Her parents had emigrated from Vietnam in the early eighties. She had graduated with honors from Dixon University and had just passed her actuarial exams. She was looking at a great career as an actuary for a large insurance company in Des Moines. She loved to go jogging. She was very opinionated and even had written letters to the editor. Her last jog had started much like her first. She always ran where there was not much traffic or people. She was never seen again. A large-scale search found nothing. Marie Hoe had vanished without a trace. Just like Chip Hilton and Kathi Moore in 2006 and Dawn Tompkins and Billy Buckley in 2007.

This had been very frustrating to Lieutenant Dan Kawowski as he pored over the missing persons file. He didn't have much to work with. There were no crime scenes, no bodies, and no witnesses. And to make matters more complicated, many police departments around the country were not even investigating cold case files anymore. They needed a break in the case. Forensics intern Jane Dockery thought she had found something. She had reorganized all the files and had run computer searches on the missing names.

"Guess what, Lieutenant?"

"What?" responded a weary and depressed Kawowski.

"I think I may have stumbled onto something but I'm not sure."

Kawowski straightened up in his chair like he had just received a shot of adrenaline.

"Shoot."

"Remember when I told you I ran the missing names through the Des Moines Crier's computer files? I checked to see if they had written any articles that were published or had stories written about them."

"So."

"They had. I found Hilton, Moore, Tompkins, and Buckley all had written letters to the editor that were published. I'm also checking to see if Marie Hoe had any letters published."

The news spiked Kawowski's interest but he was confused.

"What are you trying to tell me, Jane?" "As I said, I really don't know if I've found something. But don't you think it's odd for the same missing people to each have written a letter to the editor?"

Dockery's question befuddled Kawowski. One part of his brain thought, yes, it was odd. The other said no. They were trying to make something out of nothing.

"Jane, did you notice anything written in the letters that would make them stand out?"

"I thought you'd never ask. Here are the copies of their letters."

She placed copies of all four letters on his desk in front of him. Together, they read the letters, looking for clues. Chip Hilton's letter was about concentrating more troops in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He wrote that we needed to hunt down and capture Osama Masur Rashaam if we were to defeat al-Qaeda. Kathi Moore's letter to the editor said that Iraq did possess weapons of mass destruction. She wrote the Iraqis hid them before the United States invaded. She believed that Saddam and Osama Masur Rashaam were linked together in terrorist plots. Dawn Tompkins wrote in her letter to the editor that we do need a border fence to help keep out illegal immigrants and terrorists. Billy Buckley wrote that we should continue to interrogate terrorists by using the threat of waterboarding. He didn't think it was illegal, and it would force terrorists to give up valuable information and save American lives. Kawowski read and reread the letters.

"Immigration, Saddam, Osama, waterboarding. They all seem to kind of write about the same theme, Jane, but hundreds ... thousands of people send in letters to the editor. This is insane. A serial killer is on the loose and here we are, reading letters to the editor. But, on the other hand, this seems to be the one common denominator we have. Good work, Jane. This gives us something to go on. We need to contact Missing Persons in Denver and Colorado Springs to check if any of their people who disappeared recently might have had any letters to the editor published. Can you handle that?"

"I'm already working on it."

Kawowski gave her a smug smile.

"I should have known."

The smile slowly faded from Kawowski's face. If a killer were targeting letter writers, could his name be on the hit list? After all, he'd written plenty of letters himself.

Chapter Four

The bone sticking out of the mud in the hog lot sure looked human. Lieutenant Kawowski and the Des Moines Police Department Forensics Team had been given a tip: Investigate a hog farm east of the city owned by a person named Guy Braun. A hog buyer had noticed the bone fragment. He speculated it could be a human bone. The buyer also reported Mr. Braun and his two helpers acted suspiciously. They wouldn't let him look in a certain hog containment building. Kawowski studied the forensics intern, Jane Dockery, as she did her work. For a college intern, she was very professional. She took several pictures of the bone and then carefully picked it out of the mud. She placed it into a plastic container to be analyzed later. Her jeans and shoes were muddy.

It was humorous to see her beside the three-hundred-pound porkers, which seemed oblivious to her digging in the mud. Kawowski turned away so she would not see him chuckle. He turned his attention to Mr. Braun, who looked more like a movie director than hog farmer. He had very dark tanned skin and wore a Des Moines Demons baseball cap with the bill pulled down, covering his forehead. He also wore big, black sunglasses. His helpers looked very much the same. Kawowski decided he would have a look in the building that the hog buyer was so concerned about.

"I would like to see what is in that hog containment building, Mr. Braun."

"Suit yourself, Lieutenant. Remember, I warned you."

"Is there something in there I should be concerned about, Mr. Braun?"

"Nothing but a bad-tempered hog."

Kawowski figured the hog couldn't be that much of a threat and headed towards the building. Besides, he loved those big pork chops on a stick at the state fair.

The spring-loaded door quickly slammed shut after Kawowski entered the building, shutting out the daylight and plunging him into darkness. His hair stood up on the back of his neck. He had the same feeling in Vietnam when the Vietcong were ready to spring an ambush. The feeling of being stalked. Kawowski noticed the almost overpowering odor of hog urine. It smelled like ammonia. He flicked on his flashlight.

Shreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. It was an ominous sound as the huge animal charged him.

Kawowski jumped aside as the gigantic beast crashed into the wall where he had just been standing seconds earlier. Shreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. The animal with elephant-size tusks and hooves continued to charge. Its scream was deafening. Kawowski had no time to make it back to the door. He decided it was either him or the hog. He grabbed for his .38 snub-nosed revolver nestled under his left arm. He wished he had brought his automatic shotgun. The beast whirled for another attack.

Shreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Kawowski really didn't want to shoot the animal. His laser beam found its target. Before he could squeeze the trigger, his feet flew out from under him and he crashed to the slippery concrete floor. His .38 revolver and flashlight slipped from his hands and slid like hockey pucks a few feet away. He quickly crawled to retrieve them.

Kawowski loved a good breaded pork tenderloin but this was getting ridiculous.

Shreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. The huge animal charged again. The beast lost its footing on the ice-like floor. A ton of pork slid towards Kawowski like a large refrigerator.

It could crush him. He regained his footing and leaped aside as the gigantic monster slid by, trying desperately to regain some traction. It finally did. It came at him again.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Murder on the Opinion Pageby Tony A. Powers Copyright © 2009 by Tony A. Powers. Excerpted by permission.
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