“We are looking at all possibilities.”
The tension in her stomach got worse. “What did Fran die of?”
“We’re still investigating the cause of death.”
Tessa tried to interpret the expression on his face. She was aware that he was examining her face, too. The sergeant sat slanted in his chair, one hand on the edge of the table, the other one holding the chair arm. This time the shirt sleeves were not rolled up.
“I thought you wanted to show me something,” she said.
“Did Melanie Pleeke have any enemies?” He could be just as stubborn as she was.
Now she wished that she had a coffee cup in her hand so she could take a sip before answering. She had come to the conclusion that Halprin’s questioning strategy was to not let his strategy be identified. That had already occurred to her when she had talked to him previously. He moved around like a hare trying to get his enemies off his trail.
“I don’t know Melanie Pleeke personally; I’ve never talked to her or had anything to do with her.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“If she was going around telling people who was delivering pot to whom, then maybe she had enemies.”
Ron Halprin of course didn’t fail to understand that she was beating around the bush. But strangely enough, he didn’t continue that line of questioning. Was he already focusing on a suspect?
“We have a list of people who were shown Bob Barker’s property. Does anything occur to you when you look at it?” He shoved a piece of paper in front of her.
She bent over and read a dozen names. She knew most of them. People from the town. Her father was on it; Lionel Miller, too. And real estate agent Hogan Dole. There were also some names she didn’t know.
“Yes, something does occur to me,” she finally said. “All are men. Probably Lola Dole knew this property, too. And my name is missing. I was there with my father.”
Halprin nodded. “You already told me that.”
She pushed the paper back over to him.
He took a very long sip of coffee, before he asked: “Are you somewhat involved with Telford Reed?”
For a few seconds she was speechless before she found her voice again. “What do you mean exactly by involved with?”
“Are you having an affair with him?”
It was clear to her why he was asking. The type of relationship was of interest to the police when it involved a crime. People tended to protect their sex or love partners; they might lie on their behalf or give them a phony alibi or convince them to not talk, or to not reveal something that might be important.
“No, there’s nothing going on between me and Telford Reed.”
She let this sentence ring out in the room while she thought back. Had somebody been watching them when he held her in Tennigan Park?
In a flash Halprin threw out the next question: “You were with him at Watershed Lodge?”
“No, that is not correct. I flew alone to the lodge in order to meet Noreen Chelin. I saw Telford Reed there by accident, but he didn’t see me. Then he disappeared, and I never even talked with him.”
Halprin’s silence after her answer made her uneasy, much more than if he had managed to squeeze something out of her.
It didn’t take her long to figure out why he was so interested in Telford Reed. Tsaytis Chelin had given the police an anonymous tip about Reed’s meeting with Fran at the cabin on Beaver Lake. She got the feeling that Halprin’s questions could be a warning to her. She decided to pull him out of his corner. “Why are you asking? Does Telford Reed have something to do with Fran’s death?”
“Do you have such a suspicion?”
“That . . . never crossed my mind.”
The sergeant looked at her thoughtfully. Far too long for her taste. She couldn’t defend herself against his bright blue eyes. She lowered her gaze to his loosely folded hands, the muscular fingers she didn’t usually see on an office worker.
“What did you want to show me, Ron?” she asked to loosen the tension. “Just the list?”
“This here.” He pushed a pile of loose sheets of paper over to her.
She flipped through them and was disappointed. They were the same drawings he had shown her father. Watercolors of landscapes and plants. She recognized Beaver Lake and the clearing around Fran’s house. More drawings and watercolors of flowers. Many flowers. Wild flowers and cultivated flowers.
She looked at Halprin. “These were Fran’s, I guess.”
“Have you ever seen them before?”
“No, I’m seeing them now for the first time. I watched Fran making sketches of flowers on a drawing pad when I visited her one time. But she actually didn’t show me any sketches, and I had the feeling that she wanted to keep them private.”
“Have you had the chance to think about where this sketchbook might be right now?”
She shook her head. “I had the impression it was something like a diary for her.”
“We’ve found some stuff, but nothing like what you’ve described.”
Tessa put the paintings back. “Why are you showing them to me? What do you hope to learn from all this?”
He picked out a couple of sketches and held them up. “Who gave these flowers to Fran? They look like they were bought in a store.”
She looked at them more carefully. Fran had scribbled her name and the day on the right-hand corner.
“There’s only one florist shop in Whatou Lake, and it belongs to Melanie Pleeke. You must certainly already know that.” She hesitated for a moment. “I . . . I can’t imagine that Fran would pay hard cash for expensive cut flowers that have to be flown in.”
“Could she maybe have taken photos of the flowers in the store and used them to draw from?” Halprin looked at her questioningly before continuing on with his thought. “Or did she sketch the flowers in a house she happened to be in when she visited Whatou Lake?”
“My father probably told you that Fran has not spent a single night at our place over the last couple of months. And my mother wouldn’t buy cut flowers on principle. She prefers the wild ones in her garden.”
He put the coffee cup down on the edge of the writing table, out of spilling range of the various documents. His movements were heavy, it seemed to her, as if he was shuffling a huge burden of thoughts around like a loaded pallet.
Was he thinking about the place where Melanie lived, above the funeral home? She couldn’t believe for a moment that Fran would have sketched or taken photos there. Fran didn’t visit Melanie for drawing lessons. Or was that part of the visualization technique Melanie Pleeke had talked with Halprin about?
Tessa was relieved when he again changed the topic. “We have almost finished the investigation of Hank and Fran Miller’s house and the surrounding area. The day after tomorrow, their relatives may go to their property again.”
She tensed right up. This was the news that she had been awaiting impatiently. But now that it had arrived, it came as a surprise.
Before she could say anything, Halprin went on: “Do you want the crime scene to be disinfected first by specially trained professionals?”
Crime scene. Spattered blood. Traces of violence. Traces of the children’s brutal death. Breena, Kayley, Clyde slaughtered. She took a deep breath and replied: “No. That’s not necessary.” She wanted to see where the children were murdered.
Anything was better than uncertainty. Maybe she could even begin to understand what had happened out there. And she didn’t want to see any more strangers in Fran’s house. “You can’t find professional crime scene cleaners around here. We’ll take care of that ourselves. Have you informed the Millers of these developments?”
“No. I’ll do that tomorrow.”
She returned his look. Was he giving her some extra time?
“When exactly will the house be opened up?”
Halprin gathered the papers with Fran’s artwork and put them in a folder. “When the crime scene tape comes down along
with the seals on the doors.”
That was the information she needed. She felt energized. Her hand pointed to the folder. “Will we get the drawings back? These are memories of Fran’s my parents would surely like to have.”
“I’ve got to ask you for some patience; I’ll let you know.” He rolled his chair back. “There’s one more thing I wanted to tell you: we discovered a kind of grave with a wooden cross on the farm. It says Rosie.”
“That’s the third cat. . . . I didn’t know Rosie had died.”
“We took a look at that grave and found a cat. Is that the cat you were looking for?”
“Yes. I . . . I already brought you the cat collar with blood on it and the name Rosie.” She rubbed her cheek nervously. “Now I understand even less why we found it on the trail to Whitesand Bay.”
He rolled his chair toward the desk again. His hands, which Tessa could hardly stop looking at, played with a big paper clip. “The cat in the grave was not wearing a collar.”
“Did the blood on the collar come from the cat?”
“Let’s just speculate for the time being that this is the way it was.”
“Maybe the cat was badly injured and died. Maybe she had been attacked by a wild animal. The children might have wanted the collar as a keepsake.”
“And then?”
“Somebody took it from the farm and dropped it on purpose on the trail. On the day we were searching for Fran.” She looked at him. “It couldn’t have been Fran, right? She was already dead.”
Ron remained silent. She would have given a lot to read his thoughts. Did he think that she had laid the collar on the forest path? But what kind of motive would she have had? “I wish I could read your thoughts,” she said out loud. It almost sounded like a sigh.
He stopped for a moment; a look of astonishment lit up his handsome face. Astonishment . . . or was it something else? Tessa tried very hard to recognize what was floating in the room between the two of them. Then the moment was gone. Halprin stood up and held out his hand. “Thanks for coming.”
She took his outstretched hand, which felt warm and strong. His spontaneous gesture encouraged her to ask: “How’s the case coming along?”
He cleared his throat. “It is difficult, but we’ve figured out a lot of things. I . . .” And then he broke off.
She kept pressing. “I don’t want to . . . sound like I’m giving you a lecture,” she said, “but can’t you try to encourage the people to make anonymous tips? In a town like Whatou Lake, it’s sometimes the only way to make people help the police. They have to be able to keep on living here. Do you know what I mean?”
He lifted his right arm a little and let it sink down again. “I understand you very well, Tessa,” he said. “Probably more than you think.”
She nodded and quickly went to the door.
“Do you want to take this with you?” she heard him call. She turned around.
Ron Halprin held a plastic bag in his hand. Her pistol.
“Really? I can have it back?”
“Special permission from me. The gun was not used in a crime. But if you lose it again, I’ll make sure that your license is taken away.”
“I’ve been losing a lot of things lately. I’ve also lost a memory card that the young bear researcher at Watershed Lodge gave me to give to the police. Potentially it includes filmed evidence of a poacher.”
He pursed his lips. “We found a memory card at Bob Barker’s shack.”
“That’s got to be it!” she said, relieved.
“Well, I hate to disappoint you. There’s nothing recognizable on it. Only blurry shadows.”
38
Tessa called up Kratz Hilder’s office from her car and booked a flight. She was already halfway home when Savannah’s Ford Fiesta came toward her. Both of them stopped on the side of the road and got out.
“I’m going to see Melanie in the hospital,” Savannah called over to her.
Tessa was surprised. “Do you know her pretty well?”
“We’re both on the fundraising committee of the United Church.“
My, my. Savannah was a busy fundraiser for the church. Another unexpected discovery. Lola Dole was also a devoted member of the United Church. As was Cindy Miller.
“So you can visit her?”
“Sure, I spoke to her on the phone.” Savannah seemed to be proud of it. “Although I could hardly understand her. She has a broken nose.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Bad, of course. They are giving her strong painkillers.”
“Has she said anything?”
“No. As I mentioned, she can hardly talk. Maybe I’ll learn more from her in the hospital.”
“Who would do something like that to Melanie? Any idea?”
“None at all. She’s a bit nutty, tarot cards and stuff. She believes in ghosts. As far as she’s concerned, everything is karma.”
A shiver went down Tessa’s back. “There must have been witnesses.”
“Melanie came late. Everybody was already in the arena.”
“And Melanie’s husband? How did he react?”
“He wants her to stop with this baloney. No more séances and things like that.”
“So he thinks that this attack could have something to do with it?”
Savannah pulled the orange fake-leather jacket tighter. “Of course he’s shocked. He was always against it. That’s why she mostly did it when he was away.”
“Where was he when that happened to Melanie?”
“She thought he was in the arena, but he wasn’t there.”
“Well, where was he, then?”
“He said that he’d been at the airport to pick up the coffins.”
The coffins. For Breena, Clyde, and Kayley. For Hank and Fran.
Savannah opened the car door. “I gotta go. Do you want to come along?”
Tessa had mixed feelings. She would have liked to ask Melanie Pleeke some questions. But not if Savannah was there.
“No . . . no, I . . . we can’t leave Mom and Dad alone. Tomorrow I’ll be away the whole day. Can you look after them again?”
“Where are you going?”
It was easy for her to give the excuse that she had already prepared. “Legal matters. I’ve got to find out what Fran’s estate consists of.”
Savannah nodded. “Yes, do that, before the Millers do. I’m sure that they are chomping at the bit to do that. I’ll be back early tomorrow morning.”
Tessa would have liked to hug her in relief, but there had never been any hugging between her and Savannah. And this was not the right time to try something new.
The main door was unlocked when Tessa arrived at her parents’ house. She locked it from inside and secured it with a bolt.
Her father was on his knees in the two-story living room pushing logs into the wood stove. She took in the unmistakable smell of cedar and crouched down next to him.
“Dad, you’ve got to keep that door locked. There are violent people running around.”
Her father took the poker and pushed the logs farther into the fire. When he put it back on the tiles, she got out of the way.
“Bring them on,” he growled. “Then I can take care of them.”
He got up, breathing heavily. His face no longer looked so deeply exhausted, Tessa noted with relief. His morning sleep must have done him a lot of good. A moment of calm before another wave of despair would roll over him.
“While you were away, a couple of journalists came by,” he said. “Savannah drove them off with a broom.”
“Dad, that’s no joke. You have to consider Mom, too.”
“She’s lying in bed and talking on the phone with her relatives.”
She’s talking to other people, but not with me, Tessa thought. And I’m also not telling her everything.
Her dad blew his nose. They were both fighting with their emotions. “What did Halprin want from you?” he asked.
Tessa gave him a summary when they sat in the kitch
en. Then she passed on the important news: “Fran’s house is being opened to the relatives the day after tomorrow.”
“We’ve got to get there as fast as possible.”
“That’s what I’m planning. I’ve booked a flight with Kratz Hilder. He can get me there tomorrow. We don’t have much time before the Millers know about it.”
“You want to get there with Kratz? Will he keep quiet?”
“I’ve talked about it with him. He won’t say anything to anybody. It’ll cost me a pretty penny. I’ll walk from Beaver Lake to the farm. There I can take Hank’s ATV.”
“Are you sure that Harrison won’t hear anything from Kratz?”
“Pretty sure. When I asked for some information about a client yesterday, Kratz wouldn’t tell me anything. Neither would his wife. They don’t want to make any trouble for their business.”
“Yes, especially right now. He’s got to keep his clients coming.” Before Tessa could ask what he meant by that, her father went on: “You’ve got to go there alone, Squirrel. Otherwise people will notice. The fewer people who know about it, the better.”
“So you’re not going to tell Mom anything?”
“That would just upset her more.”
“And you won’t say anything to Dana?”
Her father looked at her amazed. “Not Dana, either.”
There was a pause. “And the police?” he asked.
“Officially I’m only flying to Beaver Lake. That’s not forbidden.”
“And if the RCMP are still at the house tomorrow?”
“Then I’ll just wait. The sergeant said I can go in as soon as the tape and the seals on the doors are taken down. I don’t think they’ll be there all day tomorrow.”
He rubbed his chin. “Did the police give you back your pistol?”
“Yes.”
“Take it with you, Squirrel; you can’t run around there without a gun. Take some pepper spray and a flare pistol. Tomorrow you can take the Pathfinder to the pier. I can pick it up there.”
Tessa swallowed hard. She suddenly realized that she was on her own. Out there in the wilderness, she wouldn’t have any way of connecting to the outside world. And if the murderer was sneaking around? Many killers felt forced to go back to the scene of their crime.
MURDEROUS MORNING: A heart-stopping crime novel with a stunning end. Page 25