to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber. When the reporters asked James what he thought of the Oklahoma City bombing, he said simply, “I think it was the wrong target.”
The case files Browning had dropped off were comprehensive and, in some cases, inexplicably so. Not only did they include Ted Oswald’s Waukesha County criminal court records (case #1994CF000227), the records of the civil suit filed by Diane Lutz, the widow of the officer they’d killed (#1995CV001632), but also strangely enough, Ted’s Watertown Public Library card (number WT 50934), his USA wrestling competitor’s membership card from 1990 to 1991, and the freshman picture from his high school yearbook (page 116).
It’s sometimes baffling what people consider evidence.
Perhaps most troubling were the pages from Ted’s journal.
The diary contained drawings of swastikas, swords, assault rifles, and an often-repeated saying, “freedom for the strong.” He detailed his father’s and his plan to carry out raids in Indiana and Michigan, to kill the “pigs” and to start “Jajauna,” the code word they used to describe the crime spree they were precipitating. According to Ted’s journal, he was planning to “conquer world by 39 instead of 38.”
He had disturbing, chilling, but remarkably puerile plans for more crimes:
Day 1
Do one pig in morning and one in afternoon.
Make sure all heros are killed.
Get birth certificate of real dead person.
Day 2
8am-wake up
10am-hit 1st taget
— Get away
1pm-look for new target
4pm-hit 2nd target
— Get away
10 pm-Bed in AC at big Hotel
Day 3
Same as Day 2
March 4, 1995, an article in the
In the end, the jury didn’t believe that Ted was afraid for his life when he committed the crimes, and convicted him to two life sentences plus more than four hundred fifty years.
Ted had recently turned eighteen when he and his father killed Captain Lutz. The sentencing of minors is almost never as severe as adults and I couldn’t imagine he would have gotten as harsh of a sentence like he did if he’d been seventeen.
Quite an eye-opening birthday present.
I lost myself in reviewing the files and when I looked up, I saw that more than an hour had passed and I was already late for meeting up with Ralph and Calvin at Tanner’s Pub.
69
Dr. Werjonic flagged me from a booth against the back wall.
Ralph had a pint of beer in front of him, Calvin a shot glass of whiskey. Both of their plates had already been cleared away.
On the way over I took in the place.
Hundreds of bottles of liquor rested on shelves above the bar and a variety of British memorabilia decorated the walls-pictures, postcards, photos of soccer matches. The bathroom doors halfway down a short hallway were labeled LADIES and GENTS. Darts to the right, bagpipe music overhead, the smell of fish and chips all around. Just like I remembered from the time Taci and I came here a couple months ago. Right now that was not an easy memory to contend with.
“Sorry I’m late,” I told them as I took a seat. “I was reading over the Oswald files. Kind of lost track of time.”
“It’s a crazy case, isn’t it?” Ralph said.
“Sure is.”
He pounded the table with his fist. “Well, let me get you something to drink. You want some food too?”
“I could eat something.”
I ordered a pint of lager from a local microbrewery that had just opened, and a platter of fish and chips.
Second supper.
“Good choice of a restaurant, my boy,” Calvin exclaimed. “I feel like I’m back home.”
“Glad to hear that.”
He slid me a manila folder-they were everywhere today. “Notes from today’s lecture. I thought you might be interested.”
“You read my mind.”
The two of them had heard about what’d happened with Griffin and they peppered me with questions, so even though I was anxious to hear about Slate, I took some time to fill them in on Griffin’s death.
Considering that Dr. Werjonic had consulted with law enforcement agencies all over the world, on the way here I’d decided that tomorrow morning I would ask Thorne if we could bring him in on the case as a consultant. In the meantime, considering Calvin wasn’t yet working with the department, I shared as much as I could.
“And Mallory?” Ralph asked concernedly. “How’s she doing?”
“Hard to say. I couldn’t really tell if she was sad or relieved that Griffin was dead.” My food arrived. I waited until the server had walked away. “Just before they wheeled her onto the ambulance, she told me something pretty unnerving: the woman in the photo-you remember, Ralph, the one Griffin was-”
“Stroking a little too fondly.”
“Yeah. Well, Mallory told me that was her mother, Griffin’s wife.”
A stony kind of silence followed my words, then Ralph gave a long, low whistle. “That’s one”-he glanced at Dr. Werjonic and perhaps thought he was too distinguished to appreciate a little cussing, and appeared to alter course right in the middle of his thought-“screwed-up family.”
“Indeed,” Calvin agreed.
“So…” I was ready to move past Griffin and his crimes. “Slate,” I said to Calvin. “Let’s hear about him.”
“Caucasian. Mid-fifties. Slightly graying hair. Brown eyes. Attached earlobes. Approximately eighty-five kilos.”
At the mention of kilos Ralph glanced at me grumpily.
“Um, about a hundred eighty-five pounds,” I whispered to him.
“Based on his height and approximate body mass index, that would put him”-Calvin did a quick calculation in his head-“I would say about forty-five pounds overweight. Married. Right-handed. Bites his fingernails rather than clipping them. He was dressed casually in khakis and an inexpensive oxford that he hadn’t taken the care to tuck in all the way. On the right side of his neck he had a distinctive birthmark in the shape of a crescent.”
Ralph glanced at me and it was clear he was thinking the same thing I was. He said, “Sounds like Detective Browning from the Waukesha Sheriff’s Department.”
Yup, he was thinking the same thing.
The birthmark was the clincher.
Calvin eyed us curiously. “A detective, you say?”
“He wasn’t too happy about having us look into the Oswald records,” Ralph answered. “And this could explain why.”
