Sweet After Death

by Valentina Giambanco

  “Yes, about four years old,” Brown said.

  “Whatever happened between her and Tanner must have been quite something to up and leave. She was quitting the kids, as well as the marriage.”

  “I’ve seen a mother leave a toddler in an Emergency Room and move to another state,” Sorensen said. “We worked on what the child was wearing for a month to find out where he was from, and we got zip. We only caught up with the mother a year later; she was living in Indiana with her new beau.”

  “That’s just . . .” Madison could not find the words for how depressing that story was, but Sorensen was smiling.

  “What?” Madison said.

  “The boy is doing great. He was fostered by the nurse who found him in the ER, who adopted him legally three years ago. He’s in Little League. I still get pictures.”

  Madison blew out air from her cheeks.

  “Tanner’s ex hasn’t even visited for years,” Brown said. “The last person who spoke to her was the woman who owns the diner. She called from California to say she wasn’t coming back. She wouldn’t be able to tell us anything about what happened here four days ago.”

  “I concur,” Sorensen said. “What’s happening with the warrant for the DNA test?”

  Brown and Madison had briefed Sorensen on the morning’s events and the failure of getting Tanner to agree to a test. In terms of DNA the only positive news they’d had so far was that the dried blood Madison had recovered from the clinic had been a match to the doctor’s.

  “There was no way in hell Tanner would have agreed,” Madison said. “But we had to try.”

  “Nothing is going to get through this today.” Brown waved at the window and at the weather behind it. “Hopefully tomorrow.”

  “Tanner is under no doubt that the warrant is coming. It’s just a question of when.”

  “You know,” Brown said, as he leaned back in his chair, “it was clear that he wasn’t going to agree to it, but it didn’t feel as if he was overly worried about it. I mean, he told me that he thought the chief would try to fix it and make him look guilty when he wasn’t.”

  Sorensen, outraged by the notion, looked up from her fabric records book. “That’s not how testing works. I like the chief but he has more chance of becoming an astronaut and walking on the moon than he has of manipulating short tandem repeat sequences and fixing a DNA test.”

  Sorensen and Madison had listened to the same words, but Madison had heard something different. “You think he believes the test wouldn’t be a match,” she said. “You think Tanner thinks Sangster would fix it, because the test would prove the blood at the scene is not Tanner’s.”

  Brown didn’t reply straightaway. He had picked up on Madison’s tone—for her, it seemed, there was only one possible result to the test. It would be a match for Tanner, and it would put him at the crime scene where Robert Dennen had died. The medical file would then link the two murders, and those would be the first nails that would pop the defense’s balloon.

  Brown toyed with his glasses. “I’m not so sure that, when we get him to submit to the test, we will achieve the result we desire,” he said. “He wasn’t happy to talk to police officers, whatever their badge or jurisdiction, but he was intrigued by us and entertained by the spat with the chief. He didn’t seem particularly anxious about the murders. His game was to tell us as little as possible, and make us dance for it.”

  “That’s not how I read it,” Madison said. Then again, while Brown had been exchanging confidences with Tanner about his relationship with the victims, she had been trying to weasel information out of a boy who might—even as they were speaking, in the relative comfort and warmth of the senior center—be in terrible trouble if his father had found out.

  Brown met Madison’s eyes. “I’m not so sure that, when we get him to submit to the test, we should hope for one result over the other.”

  Over two years working Homicide side by side and he was still telling her to keep an open mind. At the beginning of their partnership Madison would have felt stung by his assumption that she might not, but today she checked her tongue. She knew what she knew about Jeb Tanner, and it wasn’t something that she could easily share with Brown. She busied herself with making a list of things that the deputies might help them with—like identifying, for exclusion purposes, every resident caught by their cameras and the footage of the news channel taken in the square.

  When Sorensen went back to her instruments in the next room, Madison took over flipping the pages of the fabric records book, looking for a purchase of white cloth. That’s what they make surrendering flags out of, she muttered to herself.

  Brown, who knew better than to press an unsolicited point with his younger partner, let her be.

  The call came twenty minutes later. Madison saw the caller’s ID on her cell screen and replied with a circumspect hello.

  “Detective,” the dark voice said, “It’s Nathan Quinn.”

  Madison knew then that it would be bad news and the call was official business.

  “Judge Eugene,” Quinn continued, “has rejected the warrant for the DNA test. I’m sure Chief Sangster is going to be informed by my counterpart, but I thought you should also know as soon as possible.”

  “He what?”

  “He rejected the warrant application,” Quinn repeated.

  About a dozen words rose to Madison’s lips, but only one got through. “Why?”

  “In his words, there wasn’t enough for probable cause. Give him more and he might rethink.”

  “We gave him plenty. There’s a history of conflict, there’s—”

  “I did not make the decision, Detective.”

  “This—” Madison tried to stem the flow of profanities that was threatening to spill over. “This is really not helpful,” she said.

  “Luck of the draw. Judge Eugene is tight with his warrants and a friend of the Fourth Amendment.”

  “So am I. I love the Fourth Amendment. It’s my favorite amendment. But no DNA test also means no warrant to search the Tanner farm, right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  Madison stood, because some news is just too frustrating to hear sitting down. “We need those warrants. We can’t go back there with a quip and a smile. We need legal handcuffs that will let us search Tanner’s property with a very small sieve.”

  “I understand your frustration.”

  Madison was about to snap her reply, but she didn’t. It wasn’t Quinn’s fault, and it wouldn’t be professional or, more important, kind to jump up and down when he had valiantly brought her news that he knew would upset her.

  “I know, I know you do,” she said finally. “Thank you for calling. We’ll find more, there has to be more . . .”

  Brown took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his fists, like a child. He had grasped the gist of the call.

  Probable cause is the grail of warrants and searches—without it, any seizure is deemed illegal—and Madison couldn’t so much as peek through the window and inside Tanner’s cabin without him slapping her with a harassment suit if it pleased him. And there was no question that it would have pleased him very much indeed.

  “We need a list of Tanner’s gun permits,” Madison said, because she needed to do something achievable, something that would help dissipate her temper. “The sons had a rifle each, and there might be more lying around the place.”

  Brown reached for his laptop. “I’m going to look at family connections.”

  The door of the senior center flew open and Chief Sangster rushed in from the road. His shoulders and the brim of his hat were white. He opened his mouth to tell them about Judge Eugene; however, one look around the room told him they already knew.

  Deputy Hockley’s pickup inched its way up Main Street and stopped by the Magpie Diner. A misty glow from behind the window told anyone who was foolish enough to be walking in the flurry that the diner was open for business—the combination of a Puritan work ethic and an owner who lived three m
inutes away. In truth, Joyce Cartwell was not in the mood to stay at home by herself. If she was going to be alone, she’d rather be in the diner, where there was at least the potential for unexpected company.

  Brown and Madison covered the few steps from the car to the door, leaning against the wind.

  “I’m impressed,” Joyce said with a smile, keeping her place in the book she was reading with her finger. “I’d have thought you were more the phone-and-delivery types.”

  “We’re indomitable,” Brown said. “Especially when sent on the lunch run.”

  Madison decided to let them get on with it. She perched on a stool, took a menu from a holder, and pretended to read while Brown and Joyce Cartwell agreed that the weather was really something, wasn’t it? And wouldn’t you know it, just when spring was around the corner. Brown had in his pocket the lunch order for the whole Ludlow police force plus Sorensen, and he was jousting his way to it.

  “What can I get you?” Joyce said. “I’m only doing cold today, but yesterday’s meat loaf alone is worth the walk in the snow.”

  The meat loaf had been prepared by the cook in anticipation of a busy afternoon after the vigil. In the end, the diner had been full but few customers had been hungry.

  Brown took out the piece of paper and flattened it on the counter with the palm of his hand.

  “Here . . .” he said, and rattled off each request for food, drinks, and coffees. “There’s something else,” he said, and Madison looked up. “I’d like to ask you about your brother, Jeb Tanner, if it’s okay.”

  Joyce Cartwell sighed, as if she had hoped against hope that the question wouldn’t come but had always known that, ultimately, it would. “He hasn’t been my brother for a long time,” she said, and she began to gather what she needed to make the sandwiches.

  “You’re not in touch?”

  “No, not for years.”

  “May I ask why? Since you’re the only family he has in town.”

  Brown’s questions were so calm, and his tone so gentle, that Madison made herself very still and—she hoped—invisible, because there was something there, she could tell, and for what they wanted she hoped that Joyce Cartwell hated her brother’s guts.

  “Jeb has never been that great with family,” Joyce said.

  “What do you mean?”

  The woman hesitated. “Why do you want to talk about Jeb? Is he connected to what happened?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to work out, but Mr. Tanner isn’t an easy man to speak with.”

  Joyce smiled, and there wasn’t much mirth in it. “I bet.”

  “People fall out for all kinds of reasons,” Brown said. “And we don’t want to pry into your personal business. But chances are that you’re the person in Ludlow who knows him best, and it would be really useful if we could find out a little about him so that we’re in a better position to get him to open up to us—to talk about what happened.”

  “Jeb isn’t the kind of person who opens up to anyone, not really. And if he did, I’d be terrified of what I’d find inside. I don’t want anything to do with him, and even talking with you about him is—”

  “Dangerous?” Brown said.

  “Yes.”

  “Has he threatened you?”

  “He doesn’t need to threaten me.”

  “Because . . .”

  “We’re not in each other’s lives, haven’t been since he came back after our father died. It suits us both.”

  Joyce was assembling the food as if it were her one connection to all that was safe and good. Her hands trembled a little as she pressed down on the blade.

  “Have you met his wife?” Brown said.

  “Ex-wife, from what I’ve heard. Barely. We met once by chance in a shop. Jeb was never big on get-togethers.”

  “So you haven’t met his children.”

  Something flickered in the woman’s face. “No, I haven’t.”

  Brown’s eyes were sharp and yet kind with it. “He has twelve children living with him on the mountain.”

  Joyce’s breath caught. “I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know he had such a big family?”

  She nodded.

  “Should we be concerned for his children?”

  “Are you asking me if he is a better father to them than he was a brother to me? I’m quite sure I don’t know the answer to that question. And he wouldn’t thank me for talking to you about the past.”

  “He doesn’t have a record—not here or in California.” Brown was treading very lightly. “But it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a history of trouble,” he said. “A history of violence.”

  Joyce didn’t look up from her work.

  “Is there anything that you could tell us that would help us deal with the situation?”

  For a while there was no sound except the muffled burbling of the television in the corner and the sizzling hot plate where the bread was turning golden.

  “I would like to help you,” Joyce said. “I really would. But whatever happened between me and Jeb happened a very long time ago. It’s all in the past, and that’s where I’d like it to stay. It has nothing to do with why you’re here today.”

  “Okay,” Brown said, and he smiled. He knew when to push and when to let go, and they were not done with her. They were nowhere near done.

  “There is something you could do to help us,” he said.

  “Anything,” she said.

  Brown had to word it carefully. “Some blood was recovered at one of the crime scenes. It could be Jeb’s. If we could run a test on a sample provided by you, it would tell us whether he was there.”

  Joyce stared at him, frozen, her hands in midgesture. “You can’t mean . . .”

  “You share part of your DNA with Jeb. It would tell us with complete certainty whether he was present at the crime scene.”

  “Why don’t you . . . I don’t know . . . why don’t you get a sample from him?”

  “We can’t.” Brown had decided that honesty was the way to go. “The judge said we didn’t have enough to get a warrant.”

  The woman crossed her arms and leaned back against the fridge. Her eyes were wide and frightened.

  “Joyce, I’m telling you this because there is no other way to prove that he was there. And because, even if you don’t want to talk about it, I think you have reason to believe that Jeb is capable of violence. And you might want to help us.”

  The woman reached inside the fridge, pulled out a can of orange soda, opened it, and took a long sip. She pressed the chilled can against her flushed cheek. She looked from Brown to Madison and back.

  “You have no idea what you’re asking me,” she said.

  “We wouldn’t ask unless we needed it. And only because I think you know that he’s dangerous.”

  “Do you know what he would do to me if he knew that—?” The woman shook her head. “I’m still living in Ludlow because I made sure I didn’t have anything to do with Jeb, and to him I don’t exist. His wife called me from California to say that she was never coming back, and I wished her well. She called me because she knew I would understand why she had run. And if she had gone all the way to China to get away from him, I’d have understood . . .” Joyce paused, took another sip of sweet fizzy orange to soothe herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t help you.”

  Madison waited; it was up to Brown how to finish it.

  “Okay,” he said, and he stood up. There was no animosity there, only a whispered sadness. He put some bills on the counter and picked up the bags.

  “Please consider it,” he said. “Think about it. Think about the fact that, whatever occurred between the two of you when you were young, he now has power over twelve young lives.”

  Brown and Madison went back into the swirling white.

  After she heard the engine start up and go, Joyce Cartwell came out from behind the counter and slipped into one of the booths—her legs wouldn’t hold her, and the scar over her ribs prickled hot.r />
  In the car Madison turned to Brown. “You made the case against Tanner as if you really believed that he was the killer,” she said. It was at odds with his keep an open mind attitude.

  “I believe the woman is scared to death of him, and I want to find out why,” he replied.

  Chapter 39

  Deputy Kupitz, who Madison thought had been strangely quiet since the morning visit to Jackknife Farm, seemed appeased and more like himself as he monitored the easy way the chief and Brown were comparing notes and eating the diner’s lunch.

  There was a large amount of footage to go through from the vigil, and the deputies dragged two chairs to a monitor in the corner of the main room in the station and proceeded to point and name. Between them they would be able to identify most of the crowd by the end of the day.

  Madison’s thoughts didn’t stray far from the diner and Joyce Cartwell’s distress. Had she really not known that her brother was holed up on Jackknife with little kids? And what about the grown-up ones? How had their hearts and their souls been molded by their father?

  Madison stood and paced. The wall thermometer on the window said it was 32°F outside. What she wanted was a nice solid run to shake off the excess energy and focus her mind. What she had was the prospect of an afternoon stuck indoors , poring over paperwork, because Ludlow, the county, and apparently the entire world was in shutdown mode.

  Madison turned and, on the muted television, caught herself in the square, crouching and firing rapid shots against an unseen enemy. If the killer was in the mood to settle scores, who was next on his list?

  Deputy Hockley was about to say something to Madison but then thought better of it.

  “I still don’t understand why the shooter had to go and check old Edwards’s medical file.” Chief Sangster sipped the last of his diner coffee and sank the cup into the wastebasket with a perfect shot.

  The issue had bothered Madison from the beginning. With Tanner as a prime suspect everything had been straightforward: motive had followed action, and the crimes had followed the motive. The file, though; the file was a splinter in her thumb, and everything she touched caught on it.