Initially it looked like a bitter disappointment for the investigation. Then a series of developments. Cindy’s facade broke down after Lionel’s suicide. A good two weeks after the murders, against her lawyer’s advice, she made a confession. Even before this turn of events was made public, Tessa got a call from Ron Halprin. Dana drove her to the police station. When Halprin greeted her, he held her hand with his strong fingers. Tessa found this gesture both calming and exciting.
“I wanted to see you again before we fold up our tents,” he began when they sat across from each other.
“Does that mean that the investigation is completed?”
“Yes, we’re just about done.”
“So you do know what happened to Fran?”
He nodded. “I wanted to tell you that personally. Later we’ll tell the relatives and then make it public.”
He clasped his hands on the desk. “Cindy Miller told us what happened. What she said matched Lionel’s confession as far as the murders on the farm are concerned. And they match our interpretation of the clues in Cindy Miller’s car and Bob Barker’s shed.” He looked at his hands and then once again at Tessa.
“She killed Breena first, then Clyde, then Kayley?” Tessa asked.
Once again he nodded. “She confirmed that with us, but she still held back certain details. It looks like she just doesn’t want to admit how gruesome her crimes were.”
“What else did Cindy admit?”
“She told us that she and Lionel, after they shot Hank and the children, drove to an abandoned logging road near their cabin to discuss what their situation was and what they should do. Then they drove to the cabin, but Cliff Bight had already left. Toward the evening they returned to Whatou Lake. Cindy drove alone to her boutique, in order to remove any possible traces of her intimate meeting with Harrison Miller the night before. According to her, she found Fran dead in the storage room.”
Tessa shook her head incredulously but didn’t say anything.
“She says she has no idea how Fran got there. But it became clear to her that Fran was dead when she tried to talk to her, and then she shook her body. She swore to us that she had nothing to do with Fran’s death and she had absolutely no idea how Fran had gotten into her boutique.”
“But that’s crazy!” Tessa cried out. She felt like leaping to her feet. “Does Cindy think that she can get away with this lie, after everything that’s happened?”
It looked like Halprin had expected this reaction from her, since he just continued: “For us policemen, it often sounds crazy, but you know that already. When Cindy made her confession, we already knew why Fran died. We just had to wait for the results of one more blood test because of a piece of information you gave us.”
“From me?”
“You told us about Cindy’s dog and that Cindy had to give it daily insulin injections. I wanted to clear up whether it was possible that Fran had been killed by an overdose of insulin.”
Tessa held her breath. Why hadn’t she thought of that herself?
Halprin shook his head as if he had read her thoughts. “It was a false alarm. There was no evidence of medication in Fran’s body. And no injection marks. We could completely rule that out. Fran died of a heart attack. It was a natural death.”
She looked at Halprin aghast. “No murder?”
“No, and no suicide. It was a natural death.”
Tessa looked at him skeptically. Her lips formed words that she couldn’t speak.
Halprin raised his right hand as if he wanted to stop her from saying something too quickly. “Let me just explain. Fran must have already been suffering from a weak heart. She didn’t correctly understand the symptoms and didn’t go to a doctor in time. The guilty party is probably Melanie Pleeke, who didn’t believe much in traditional medicine. And experts have told me that women who have heart attacks often are incorrectly diagnosed. Especially young women. Because doctors still diagnose the symptoms based on those of male patients.”
Tessa’ s skin prickled while she listened to him. She swallowed deeply and then asked: “She had a heart attack?”
“She actually had two. She had had a mini heart attack sometime in the last year, which wasn’t diagnosed as such and was also not treated. Another heart attack finally took her life.”
Tessa again shook her head in disbelief. Every time she wanted to ask a question, all she could do was shake her head. She closed her eyes briefly and pulled herself together. “She was only thirty-four! You can’t have a heart attack at that age.”
“It was probably a genetic defect that came from her biological father. If she had known who her biological father was, she would have known about it.”
Tessa crossed her arms and looked out the window at the auto repair shop across the street. “Ron, excuse me, but that all sounds very strange to me. A coincidence like that can’t happen. Fran has a heart attack the same evening or the night before her family is murdered. She was seen at the hospital in the late afternoon that day.” She didn’t want to hide her skepticism from him.
He leaned on his elbows, with his fingers interlaced. “Fran went to the hospital because of her nosebleeds. Dr. Kellermann heard about her symptoms for the first time on Monday. As it turned out, it wasn’t just nosebleeds and muscle pain, but also difficulties with breathing, vomiting, sweating, exhaustion. Dr. Kellermann had a suspicion and wanted to check it out the next day. But unfortunately she never had the chance to do that.”
“I can imagine all of that is possible,” Tessa replied after thinking about it. “But that Fran died so soon before the murders . . . and Cindy is supposed to have nothing to do with it. I can’t believe that.”
Halprin straightened his shoulders. ”Fran very probably witnessed a sexual encounter between Harrison and Cindy. She had gotten into the boutique with the key from the flowerpot. Suddenly she heard Cindy and Harrison coming in from outside and she hid herself in the storage room. She overheard their intimacy. It must have been a real shock for her. That could have triggered the heart attack.”
Tessa tapped her toes, as suddenly something came into her mind. “Hank didn’t hear about Cindy and Harrison’s affair from Fran. His mother had told him. Glenda. That’s the way it must have been. She told Hank about it. But Hank didn't say anything to Fran because she had enough problems. Oh, my god, Fran had no idea until she caught them in flagrante delicto.”
Ron Halprin didn’t contradict her. “She must have felt so terrible that she didn’t even confront them.”
“Fran wouldn’t have dared to do that without first talking it over with Hank.” Tessa did some deep thinking and then asked: “But didn’t you find traces of Fran in Cindy’s car?”
“Cindy put Fran’s body in her car. Not an easy thing to do, but Cindy is strong. She drove to Bob Barker’s shed with her. She knew the place because she had been there with Lionel when the property was up for sale. And she had once met Harrison Miller there in secret. For understandable reasons, she didn’t want anyone to find Fran’s body in her boutique.”
“Was Fran at that point already dead?”
“The forensics confirmed that.”
Tessa rubbed the side of her neck. “And did Lionel know about it?”
“Cindy denies that. She kept it to herself because she was afraid that Lionel would have a complete breakdown.”
That makes sense, Tessa thought. Cindy was strong enough to take care of something like that without Lionel’s help. She sat for a few minutes silently, depressed by the revelations. It was crazy. However, there was no reason to doubt Ron Halprin and his experts. And when one looked at it carefully, there really wasn’t any more reason for Cindy to lie. She had confessed to the brutal attacks on the three children; she could have also admitted a fourth murder. It wouldn't have made her situation any worse.
Tessa tried to find some small comfort in the new disclosures. Fran had not simply left her children in the lurch. She hadn’t considered committing suicide. She wanted to star
t a new life with her family. She had fought for that, right to the end. And she never knew anything about the massacre of her children and husband.
With these thoughts in her head, she let herself be driven to her parents’ house after the talk with Halprin. During this whole trip she hardly said a word to Dana.
“I can’t tell you anything about Fran; I have to talk to my parents first,” she said, excusing herself.
“I get it,” Dana answered. “Did he say anything about the attack on Melanie Pleeke?”
“No, and I forgot to ask him about it.”
Melanie Pleeke’s broken nose was not the only thing that had moved to the back burner after the four murders at the farm and Fran’s death. Similarly, the media and the general public were only mildly interested in the bear poaching and the floatplane pilot, Kratz Hilder. That was also the case with the young Sitklat’l and the park ranger who turned out to be a drug dealer. Day after day, almost every announcement had to do with the dead Millers.
“The young Sitklat’l poachers are certainly not a simple matter for Tsaytis. Have you talked to him recently?” Dana asked a couple of days later.
“No, and I won’t be doing that for the time being,” Tessa replied as she was playing solitaire on the laptop, a card game that always calmed her down. “I think we need some distance. It’s not right to look for a soulmate in a married man.”
“I see,” Dana said after a noticeably long pause.
“By the way, I also think that a white woman with my cultural background can never really be right for a Sitklat’l. I let myself imagine that nobody could understand Tsaytis as well as I could. I think that was not only naïve of me, but also . . . presumptuous.” With that, she returned to her card game.
Dana was smart enough not to reply. Maybe she’d come back to that a day or two later. But then, there was an unexpected development. Dana was called for questioning at the police station. As she came back, she explained somewhat distractedly that two fourteen-year-old students had seen her in the arena’s parking lot. They told the police that on the day of the press conference, Dana had approached Melanie Pleeke’s car. Then they had heard a dull thud. “Those are the two potheads who usually skip school,” she railed.
“What are you going to do now?” Tessa asked uneasily.
“Nothing.” Dana plopped herself down on the sofa. “Nobody will believe them, it’s such an unbelievable story. After everything they’ve done.”
“Why did those two kids pick you, out of all the people who live in Whatou Lake?”
“No idea. I was a social worker. There probably isn’t a single teen here who doesn’t know me.”
Tessa frowned. “But you were in the arena when Melanie was attacked. There must have been a bunch of people who saw you there.”
“We entered the arena together. So I have an alibi that will clear me.”
Tessa stared at the screen, but the cards swam before her eyes. This conversation had taken a turn that she didn’t like. “And in any case,” she replied cautiously, “how would have somebody done such a thing, with witnesses standing around?”
Dana stretched out her legs and leaned back on the sofa pillows. “Such a dumb idea would never have occurred to me.”
I wouldn’t just call it a dumb idea, Tessa thought. I’d call it revenge. She didn’t say that out loud, all she said was: “You certainly had differences of opinion with Melanie Pleeke . . . about the séances that she had with Fran and about Fran’s accusations against Dad . . . Despite that, you certainly couldn’t have wanted her to suffer such a fate.”
“No, you don’t wish something like that on your worst enemy.”
“So is Melanie your worst enemy?”
They looked at each other. Dana seemed to be thinking things over and then she said: “That was only a figure of speech.”
Tessa dropped the topic like a piece of hot coal. She silently looked out the window.
What was it that Ron Halprin had said? Sometimes it helps to just insert some geographical distance.
It was time to get back to Vancouver.
47
Vancouver — July 28, 2017
Tessa looked at her face in the mirror. Her eyes searched for the woman she had been just two months ago. Her reddish hair was still there and had become longer and more voluminous. Silver earrings. A lighter color on her lips. She couldn’t detect any sharp lines near the corners of her mouth or creases on her forehead.
How could that be possible? The events of the past weeks had to have left some traces behind. Her skin was only a bit darker than it had been at the beginning of June due to the long evening walks, alone, on Jericho Beach or around Stanley Park. It was only the expression in her eyes that was different. More suspicious. More impervious. Spaced out. They were no longer her old eyes.
No longer her old life, either. Although she was still living in the same apartment in the Olympic Village. She looked through her living room window at False Creek and the shimmering dome of the Science World center. On the horizon, the mountaintops of North Vancouver appeared blurred in the haze. She fingered her olive-green pantsuit that was made of a lightweight fabric she liked so much. She wore a white T-shirt under it.
Summer clothes but businesslike, because she didn’t know the exact reason why she would be meeting with Ron Halprin. At any rate, she was looking forward to it.
She grabbed her handbag, locked the apartment, and took the elevator down. It was not a sunny day. The air was humid and the sky a transparent gray. She crossed the square dominated by outdoor sculptures of sparrows that were five and a half meters tall, passing mothers with their baby carriages, people walking their dogs, tourists taking photographs, teens with cell phones.
Halprin sat on a concrete bench next to one of the giant Styrofoam birds. There was nothing businesslike in his clothes, she noticed right away: sporty khaki pants, running shoes, a short-sleeved T-shirt that displayed his muscular biceps.
Under other conditions she would have greeted him smilingly, the way Vancouverites do, but these were not normal conditions.
He got up and greeted her: “Hello, Tessa.” He was obviously happy to see her. “Maybe we want to go over there and sit on a bench by the water?”
She had a better idea. She wanted to sit across from him.
“Don’t laugh, but in the upscale pet shop on the other side, there’s a really comfortable corner to sit down where you can talk without being disturbed. I think there’s going to be a thunderstorm soon anyhow.”
He rolled up something that looked like a windbreaker. “Do you have a pet?”
“No, but the owner lives next to me and I feed his parrots when he’s away.”
Halprin proved to be uncomplicated. They went into the store, past a sky-blue bathtub for dogs and faux-gold food bowls for cats and sat down on two chairs in a private corner. The store owner’s dog came over to say hello and then lay down for a nap.
“A different world than Whatou Lake,” Tessa remarked. She was a bit nervous. A new situation with unknown rules. She couldn’t help noticing that Halprin’s blue eyes were emphasized by his tanned skin. His face looked relaxed.
He came right to the point: “A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think about Whatou Lake and what happened there. I should know better, but I’m still deeply disturbed by what so-called ‘normal’ people are capable of. How are you doing?”
“It’s a nightmare that doesn’t go away. My work helps me. It gives me something else to think about. I call my parents a lot.”
“Have you visited them in the meantime?”
“Yes. On a long weekend. I was helping them out with legal matters. My parents still can't understand what happened. They accuse themselves and feel guilty that they didn’t notice the slightest sign of danger from Lionel and Cindy. And that’s also the way I feel.”
“You’re not alone in this, Tessa. It’s so often the case that after the arrest of a murderer we hear: He was such a nice neighbor. Never
seemed unpleasant. Was always so friendly and ready to help. You know the clichés.”
She sighed: “I couldn’t stop the murders of Breena, Kayley, and Clyde. It keeps me awake at night. Although I know that I’m not responsible.” She bent down and patted the dog at her feet. She knew that Halprin was watching her, although she was looking at the dog. She could avoid his eyes but not his voice. She didn’t really want to. She wanted him to be close to her. “Murderers are good at going undetected. They manipulate other people and hide who they really are.” She looked up and read the compassion in his face.
“People are complex beings, Tessa, just like you and me. Sometimes I feel as powerless as you do.”
The dog got up, wagging its tail, and wanted her to pat it some more. She scratched it with both hands behind its ears.
“I heard that Cindy was moved over to the high-security prison in Agassiz?” she asked.
“Yes, she’s under constant observation. We don’t want to have a second suicide. We’re waiting for the court case, but that can take a while. I expect it to be quick since Cindy has confessed. She doesn’t want to have a public trial.”
“And Harrison?”
“Cindy says that he’s the one who set the house on fire. He claims that she did it. But we still don’t know where they got the fire accelerant. It’s very possible that he gets away unpunished. He will stay in Whatou Lake; his wife didn’t throw him out.”
“Glenda took him back? Who would have thought . . . after everything.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. He’s the only connection to her dead sons.”
Ron Halprin clasped his strong hands like she had often seen him do.
She looked at him. “Did you ever consider me to be a suspect?”
Immediately a smile appeared on his face. Fascinated, Tessa took note of how fast his expression had changed. She felt the magnetism that came from him.
“You mean because of the cat collar?” He shook his head and became serious again. “Our people found traces on it. Tiny fibers. Cindy must have put the collar in her jacket pocket. On Fran’s camera, the one you found by the house, there’s a photo of Rosie’s grave. The collar was hanging on the little cross. Cindy took it from there and put it on the path to Whitesand Bay. Where you found it.”
MURDEROUS MORNING: A heart-stopping crime novel with a stunning end. Page 32