With the slightest turn of his head, Simms deferred to Heather Vance.
She said, “Actually, Dr. Frumpkin, we have no new test results. What we do have, however, is a whole new theory as to how—and why—your son-in-law died.” She paused.
Frumpkin tossed his arms. “Then let’s hear it.”
Heather turned to me. “Care to explain this, Brody?”
I said to Frumpkin, “Let’s back up a bit. Since the day of Jason’s death, we had a fairly sound theory regarding how he died in the hyperbaric chamber. Sarah herself suggested it—he was administered something other than oxygen. And we quickly determined that, yes, the gas lines had been rigged and Jason died of asphyxiation by nitrous oxide. That’s the ‘how,’ the means of murder and the cause of death—clean and simple.”
Frumpkin nodded. “Nothing new about that.”
“But,” I continued, “the ‘how,’ the means of murder, always has a corollary—namely, opportunity. And early on, we determined it was necessary for Jason’s killer to have had the opportunity to rig the gas lines on the night before the murder. That’s the only way it could have happened.”
“All right,” said Frumpkin. “Old news, if you ask me.”
“Which leaves us with only one other major variable,” I said. “The ‘why,’ the motive. We determined that this tragedy could not have been an accident, so someone must have had a very strong reason for wanting Jason dead.”
Sarah, Jason’s widow, looked at me with tears welling in her eyes. “How can you possibly say that? Why would anyone want to kill my husband?”
I told her, “I admit, that question has been the sticking point all along. We’ve identified a whole field of plausible suspects with plausible motives, some of them checking one or both of the other boxes, but none of them truly nailing all three—motive, means, and opportunity.” I paused. “Until yesterday.”
Frumpkin and his daughter shared a quizzical glance. They both brightened a bit.
“You mean you’ve solved it?” asked Sarah.
With a trace of skepticism, Frumpkin said, “Tell us more.”
I hesitated. Now it would get difficult. “I spent some time with little Olivia yesterday afternoon.”
Sarah flashed me a smile. “I know. It was kind of you and Mary to look after her.”
“And then,” I said, “last evening, I spent some time with Tommy Simms.”
Sarah turned her smile to the Sheriff. “It was sweet of Gloria to offer the play date with Tommy. Please thank her for me.”
Simms returned Sarah’s smile and gave her a nod.
Dr. Frumpkin asked me, “But what does Olivia have to do with any of this?”
“Plenty, I’m afraid.” With a woeful shake of my head, I added, “Way too much.”
Getting testy, Frumpkin said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Sarah asked, “Why would you try to drag my daughter into this? She lost her father—she’s a victim of what happened.”
“Yes, Sarah,” I said. “And she was also a victim before it happened.”
Frumpkin blustered, “You’re talking in riddles, Brody.”
There was no more dancing around it. So I braced myself and said it: “We’re fairly certain that Jason had been abusing Olivia—sexually.”
Frumpkin and Sarah froze for a moment before rising and screaming at me in unison. He: “You’re out of your fucking mind!” She: “That’s a vicious lie!”
I told them calmly, “You need to hear this.” There must have been something in my voice, in its surety, that penetrated their rage and sapped their outburst. Dazed, they both sat and listened as I began to lay out my theory:
“From the moment when I first encountered Olivia, two weeks ago today, at the FlabberGas pitch session at Mary’s house, I was mystified by the girl’s odd manner and terrible behavior, which struck me as something more serious than a childhood ‘phase,’ as Sarah described it. And each successive encounter only struck me as more bizarre. Then, yesterday at Mary’s, after school, Olivia had a private conversation with Mister Puss, which Mary and I overheard. She told the cat, ‘I feel bad for Mommy. She’s so sad that Daddy died.’ Now, when you think about it, isn’t that remarkable?”
“Remarkable?” said Frumpkin. “What would you expect her to say?”
I looked Frumpkin in the eye. “I’d expect her to say: ‘I’m so sad that Daddy died. I miss him.’ But instead she said, in effect: ‘I’m so sad that Mommy misses Daddy.’ It doesn’t take much digging to find Olivia’s subtext. She was really saying: ‘I’m not sad that Daddy died. I don’t miss him.’”
“Preposterous,” said Frumpkin.
“I don’t think so. In fact, I found her words so extraordinary, it made me wonder how Olivia could possibly react that way to the death of her own father—her parent and protector. But then, last night, I was alone in my car with Tommy Simms, and he confided something to me that not only confirmed a horrible suspicion, but nearly made me ill with the scope of its depravity. He told me that during his play date with Olivia, she was talking about her father, and she said, ‘His penis was icky.’ She said, ‘It hurt me.’”
Sarah planted an elbow on the table and dropped her forehead into her hand.
Frumpkin insisted, “Kids don’t say ‘penis.’ When I was seven, I called it my—”
“Dad,” said Sarah without looking at him, “times have changed. We raised Olivia to speak of anatomy without the priggish euphemisms.”
“Even so,” said Frumpkin, “kids make things up. They live in a make-believe world.”
“Some do,” I acknowledged, “but if I know Sheriff Simms and his son—which I certainly do—I know that Tommy would never lie about such an important matter. As for Olivia, I don’t know her well enough to vouch for her honesty, but why on earth would a seven-year-old accuse her apparently loving father of rape unless it were true? Where would someone so young even get the idea unless it were true?”
Frumpkin had no answer. Sarah seemed unable to raise her head from her hand.
“Further,” I said, “there was a strange and troubling incident I’d rather not even broach, but I’m afraid it’s highly germane. This past Monday, Sarah, you came to my loft to let me know that the FlabberGas project was officially cancelled. It was in the afternoon, after school, so you brought Olivia with you. I was cat-sitting Mister Puss for Mary Questman that day, and Olivia went up to the mezzanine to play with him. You saw what happened—she threatened to drop him over the railing. Later, while you were leaving, she said Mister Puss tried to bite her. But she didn’t tell us why. I have reason to believe that she attempted to insert her finger into the cat.”
No one was expecting that—everyone at the table gave me a wide-eyed stare.
I explained, “It’s a well-documented pattern that young children who are victims of rape often play-act the abuse they’re suffering as a silent cry for help. In fact, all of Olivia’s history of bad behavior over the last several months, all of her ‘acting out’—she wasn’t just going through a childhood phase. All of that was a cry for help, but the only one who understood it was her father.”
Tears now streamed down Sarah’s face in tacit recognition of the truth of my words.
“Think back again,” I said to Dr. Frumpkin, “to the pitch session at Mary’s. When Olivia arrived, you asked her to give Grampa a kiss. She skipped over to you and delivered the kiss. But then Jason also asked for a kiss, saying, ‘Hey, princess, what about Daddy?’ And Olivia backed off, refusing.”
Frumpkin bowed his head. “Good God,” he mumbled.
Sarah looked up. “Those damned princess dresses, they were his idea—Jason’s.”
“I’ll just bet they were,” I said. “And since the funeral, those princess dresses have disappeared, and so has Olivia’s erratic behavior. Yesterday afternoon, she was a perfect little lady. An amazing transition—but it’s easily explained as the result of her knowledge that the monster in her life is now dead a
nd buried.”
Frumpkin sucked a bubble of snot from his upper lip.
I said to Sarah, “This past week, you’ve had a hard time adjusting to Olivia’s after-school hours. Dahr Ahmadi mentioned to me that her schedule hadn’t been an issue before Jason died. How come?”
Sarah raised her puffy, reddened eyes to the ceiling, saying nothing.
Frumpkin answered for her. “Jason arranged his schedule to come into the office early and leave by three. Sarah stayed till five. Meaning”—Frumpkin choked—“meaning, each afternoon, at home, Jason had two hours alone with Olivia.”
“And there you have it,” I said.
Frumpkin trembled with his conflicting emotions of grief and rage, telling the room, blaring to the heavens, “Why, it’s horrifying. It’s disgusting.”
“It’s more than that,” I told him. “It’s a strong motive for murder—by the one person whose every instinct commanded her to protect her daughter.”
As the weight of my words sank in, all heads turned to Sarah. But the only gaze she returned was mine. She said, “You’re out of your mind. You may be right about Jason—which is totally shocking, if it’s true. And if it is true, you may be right that I would’ve been tempted to protect Olivia at any price. But the point is, Brody, until today, I had no idea this was going on. I’m stunned.”
“No,” I said, “I think the moment you were stunned took place two weeks ago, on Saturday, in Green Bay, when you took Olivia to see Dr. Hammond, the renowned child psychologist you’d been trying to book for so long. The day before, at the pitch session, you described how you and Jason had been taking Olivia to appointments with several doctors, none of whom seemed able to get to the root of her problem, so you’d been especially eager to get her in with Dr. Hammond, which wasn’t easy. And suddenly, he had a last-minute opening on Saturday—when Jason couldn’t go along because he was booked up with his own patients. So you insisted on taking Olivia to see Dr. Hammond by yourself. And when you were there, without Jason for a change, that’s when Olivia finally opened up. Right?”
“We, uh”—she waffled—“we didn’t end up going that day after all.”
“I think you did, which is easily checked. And while you were there, Olivia said something, maybe not enough to tip off Dr. Hammond, but you understood her, or maybe you coaxed more out of her during the ride back. Either way, by the time you got home, you were determined that Jason would never harm your daughter again. Then, late that afternoon, I phoned to let you know that Mary Questman had backed out as the volunteer guinea pig for the next day’s FlabberGas demo. On the spot, while I was still on the phone, you recruited Jason as Mary’s stand-in. That evening, you went over to the surgical center to take care of some supposedly forgotten last-minute preparations, switching the gas feed to the hyperbaric chamber—and leaving the outside door to the gas closet unlocked, to spread suspicion. And then finally, on Sunday, you watched coldly as your husband drifted off, not in the mild euphoria of an oxygen buzz, but in a massive, suffocating overdose of nitrous oxide.” I paused for effect before concluding, “You had the means, you had the opportunity, and most important, Sarah, you had an overwhelming motive to protect your daughter by killing her father.”
Sarah smirked. “You’re so sure of yourself. You think you’ve figured out every little detail. But you’re pulling this out of thin air.”
“No, I’m not. I admit, I didn’t have an inkling you were involved until just recently. But as early as the day after the murder, you said something that didn’t make sense to me, and I wasn’t sure why. We were here in this room with Sheriff Simms, and you mentioned that you’d kept Olivia home from school that day. You said she seemed surprised by that, and you explained that you were concerned about how her classmates might react to the news—you were afraid all the fuss might disturb Olivia.”
Sarah shot me a stupefied expression. “So?”
I looked her in the eye. “When a little girl’s father dies on Sunday, you keep her home from school on Monday because she’s sick—sick with grief—not because the fuss might disturb her. You, however, understood the bigger picture. You knew that your daughter wasn’t grieving at all.”
She spit her words: “You’re full of shit.”
Frumpkin, looking drained and destroyed, patted Sarah’s arm. “Honey,” he said, “things are bad enough. Don’t make it worse.”
“But it did get worse,” I told him. “Did you know that, two days ago, someone tried to kill me?”
Staring at me, aghast, he asked quietly, “You, Brody? Why would anyone—”
I explained to him what had happened outside the veterinarian’s office, in my car, with the laughing gas. “And the reason,” I continued, “was because Jason Ward’s killer was afraid I was getting too close to the truth. On Monday, when Sarah visited me at the loft, I assured her that the investigation of Jason’s murder was ‘focusing on a new lead,’ one that ‘checks all the boxes,’ and I noticed that she seemed more agitated than relieved by this news. Then on Tuesday, after the funeral, Sheriff Simms told her, ‘This is starting to move fast now. Brody’s been a huge help. We’re getting to the bottom of everything.’ And once again, her reaction seemed odd. At the time, I had no reason to suspect her, but now I understand that I should have. In fact, I should have feared her, because on Wednesday she tried to set up a second murder with nitrous oxide. I assume she simply followed me when I left my office that morning, not knowing where I was going, but waiting for the opportunity to strike—and then finding it when I went inside the vet’s office.”
Dr. Frumpkin removed from his jacket a flowing pocket square of crimson silk and blotted his eyes with it, then wiped his nose. “Sarah honey,” he said, “this can’t be true. Please tell me none of this happened.”
Instead, she said, “I had to do something, didn’t I? Of course they were getting too close to the truth. But going after the sheriff would be too risky. I thought Brody would be easier to deal with.”
“Well, thanks.” Indignant, I asked, “You intended to pick me off because I was the low-hanging fruit?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes, I suppose you were.”
Sheriff Simms had not said a word since we’d all sat down. But now he spoke. “Sarah,” he said, taking a small recorder out of his case and setting it on the table, “I wonder if you’d mind repeating that for me—on the record.” Then he recited her rights and switched on the gadget.
At the far end of the table, Dr. Frumpkin wept.
Over his shoulder, however, the monkey danced.
Chapter 16
News traveled fast. That Friday afternoon, the Dumont Daily Register broke the story on its website, and within minutes, word began to spread through town—and beyond—via social media. On Saturday morning, the Register published a full report in its print edition.
Early voting just two days away
Sheriff Simms, amid “shocking revelations,”
arrests alleged FlabberGas killer
Compiled from Register staff reports
•
OCT. 23, DUMONT, WI—The race to solve the two-week mystery of Dr. Jason Ward’s bizarre murder came to a stunning finish on Friday when Dumont County sheriff Thomas Simms arrested Dr. Ward’s widow, Sarah Frumpkin Ward, and charged her with the crime.
Sheriff Simms reported that Mrs. Ward was taken into custody peaceably at his office yesterday morning after she was confronted with an accumulation of circumstantial evidence, which he described as “solidly convincing.” When asked about the motive for the murder, Simms declined to give details, stating, “The particulars of this case are extremely sensitive, with a child’s welfare involved. The shocking revelations that led to the arrest will be aired in due time before a judge and jury.”
The murder case has taken on added significance in Dumont, as its timing has become a factor in the community’s upcoming election for county sheriff. The incumbent in that office, Thomas Simms, has faced a surprisingly strong chall
enge from one of his own deputies, Alex Kastle, whose campaign strategy has focused on framing the election as a test of Simms’s competence in solving the so-called FlabberGas murder.
That tactic, however, appears to have backfired for Kastle. As word spread yesterday that the mystery had been solved, the Register sent its reporting team back to the local Walmart to sample the mood of shoppers in the aisles. The voters we polled were unanimous in their praise of Sheriff Simms.
Emily Schmidtt, mother of two preschoolers who rode in her cart, echoed the responses of many others, telling us, “I’ve always liked Thomas Simms. I never doubted for a minute that he’d pass this test, which wasn’t very fair to begin with. His deputy should be ashamed. Bottom line: four more years.”
“Four more years” was a sentiment expressed over and over …
Sunday morning, I awoke upstairs at the loft, with Marson still dozing deeply at my side. All was quiet, except for the lullaby rumble of the furnace. And the room felt unusually warm. I couldn’t recall having woken up to the sound of the furnace in an overheated room since the prior winter—it meant that the night had turned very cold.
In the nearly two years since I’d moved to Dumont, I’d learned to recognize signs of the transitions between four distinct seasons, which had been more of a blur throughout my earlier life in Southern California. But now, overnight, there’d been a hard freeze.
Winter wasn’t here yet. This was just a foretaste, a warning. There would still be warmer days, even a few hot ones—Indian summer, as they called it here. But the first hard freeze was a turning point.
Like it or not, it marked a new beginning. And it wasn’t only the weather that had changed that weekend. The mystery of Jason Ward’s murder had been solved. The trajectory of Sarah Frumpkin Ward’s life had been derailed and sent down an uncertain but ominous course. Sheriff Simms’s election challenger had been all but vanquished. And my brief foray into amateur sleuthing had come to an end. I could now return to my true calling. No longer would this mild-mannered architect tussle with the vagaries of murder or justice or death threats. No longer would I flirt with such nonsensical notions as gas clinics or infidelity—or talking cats.
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