The Noding Field Mystery

by Christine Husom

  Mason cleared his throat. “We’ll need to talk to her.” Nora fixed her eyes on him in protest, so he added, “But we don’t have to do it tonight.” He took a thinking moment. “You mentioned schemes. Were there other people he worked with on any of those?”

  “I have no idea. It’s possible, but frankly, as long as my daughter was not involved or affected, I wasn’t interested.” She looked like she meant it.

  “Do you know the other women Gage was married to?”

  “I’ve talked to Sheila, his first wife, over the years. Her sons are Morgan’s brothers, of course. I can’t say we’re friends, but we’re cordial. The others? Well, this was kind of nasty of me, but when Morgan told me she had a new stepmother, Rennie, I called Rennie up and told her if she wanted to hang onto Gage, she’d best not get pregnant.” Nora shrugged. “And she didn’t. I always wondered in the back of my mind if what I said had anything to do with that. Their marriage lasted the longest. Six or seven years. And I have to say, she was very kind to Morgan. Morgan took it pretty hard when Gage left her.”

  “And the other two?”

  “I knew Bridget because our daughters were best friends in school. That’s how Bridget and Gage got to-gether, of all things. Through our daughters. I had never talked to Bridget about Gage. I should have. I was surprised when they married, not surprised when it ended. I guess he blinded her with his charm. And lies.” Nora shook her head. “And the poor woman he’s married to now, that’s just plain sad.”

  “Why is that?” Mason acted like he didn’t know.

  “I’ve heard she’s slow. That’s what Morgan told me. But she has a house, and that’s what Gage does . . .” she corrected herself, “Did. He’d find a woman to live off until it was time to move on. But marrying Tonya was a new low for him.”

  “When was the last time you saw Gage Leder?”

  She shrugged. “He didn’t even show up for Morgan’s graduation last spring.”

  Mason withdrew a business card from his pocket and handed it to Nora. “Give me a call if you remember anything that might help us. Anything at all. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Well?” Mason asked when we were cruising down the highway in his car to our next stop.

  “I’m surprised I didn’t know her since she’s been with the county forever,” I said.

  Mason typed the plate number of the car we were following on his laptop keyboard. “Her name was familiar to me. I figured I saw it in the staff directory when I’ve talked to human services here and there over the years, but I don’t remember seeing her until now. What was your impression?”

  “It’s hard to tell if she just can’t stand him, or if she truly hates his guts.” The vehicle registration information came back and I scanned through it. “Clean and clear.”

  Mason glanced at the screen and nodded. “I know what you mean about Nora. Either she didn’t want anything to do with Leder, or she wanted him dead. My impression is that she’s pretty much removed from Gage on just about every level, except for the daughter connection. And she didn’t seem all that upset Gage didn’t go to her daughter’s graduation.”

  “No. Who knows, she may be used to downplaying his actions to protect her daughter’s feelings. We’ll see what Morgan has to say about Mom and Dad.”

  “You’re up next.” Mason turned his wrist for a view of his watch. “Monday night, seven-thirty. Let’s hope Bridget’s home.” He stopped in front of a large Cape Cod stucco home. The yard was nicely landscaped with several rock gardens and flowerbeds.

  Bridget was home and seemed surprised to see us. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and her blue eyes were as big as moons on her delicately featured face. My first impression of her was, “bleeding heart.”

  “Yes?” She hugged both sides of the door.

  “You’re Bridget Regan?” She looked like her driver’s license photo, only better.

  “Yes.”

  I introduced Mason and myself, then asked if we might come in. Bridget gradually eased her grip on the door and stepped back. “It’s about Gage?”

  “You know?”

  She nodded. “My daughter called me. She’s friends with Gage’s daughter, Morgan, and Morgan told her. Please come in.” Bridget was tall and so thin I wondered if she had an eating disorder.

  The inside of her home was creatively decorated and inviting. We settled in at the dining room table off the kitchen. After I verified her personal information, and we’d chatted for a minute, I told her we were working on the criminal investigation, looking into Gage’s death, and enlisting help from everyone who had been close to Gage. She agreed to do what she could.

  “Morgan told Lea that Gage was found tied up in a soybean field.”

  “That’s right.” She shuddered, and I gave her a moment before I continued. “Tell us about Gage. You said your daughter and his daughter are friends.”

  A pained look crossed her face then disappeared. “Yes. That’s how I met Gage. Lea and Morgan had classes together when they were in the seventh grade. They completely clicked, you know, and after that were joined at the hip. Together all the time. Gage picked up Morgan here at our house sometimes, for their weekends together. He’d invite Lea to do things with them. And then he started inviting me. I said no at first, but he didn’t give up until I said yes.”

  The pained look returned for a split second. “He was nice looking and charming and did everything possible to please me. I knew he had been married a few times, had had a series of jobs, but I ignored all the red flags. He seemed completely sincere, and I bought into his sob stories.”

  A bleeding heart, all right.

  “You weren’t married long.”

  “No, his true colors came out right after we said I do. Somehow—and I can’t imagine how—before that he had managed to keep any doubts I might have had at bay. We had been married about two months when I finally decided to follow him one night. He went into an apartment building in town. I waited a few hours, then finally went home. I hired a private detective who got some incriminating photos, which made it easy to get a quickie divorce.”

  “Your daughter Lea and Morgan are still friends?”

  “They are, but they’re at different colleges so they don’t see each other that often.”

  “Do they keep in touch?”

  “They phone and e-mail a lot.”

  Of course.

  “Do you know of anyone in particular who would have reason to hurt Gage?”

  She frowned. “I haven’t associated with that man since our divorce. Lord only knows how long that list might be.”

  “When was the last time you saw him, or spoke to him?”

  Bridget closed her eyes, shook her head slightly, maybe to shake a date loose in her mind, then opened her eyes, and shrugged.

  “What about Lea’s father? Is he still around?”

  “No. Sadly, he died when Lea was nine.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” She nodded, and I handed her my card. “If you think of anything of interest about his associations, even if you don’t think it’s important, please let us know. And we may need to talk to your daughter.”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t know anything. She’s been away all year, except on some weekends.”

  I smiled, thanked her, and we were off.

  Mason and I went back to the station and headed to the squad room to write our reports. Edberg was on the phone and Carlson was typing away on a computer keyboard.

  Carlson nodded toward Edberg. “He finally got ahold of the nurse. She’s in Kentucky—not Florida or Arizona. The hospital didn’t want to give any info about her, but Bob convinced them to call communications to verify he really was a Winnebago County deputy, and had them transfer the call here. They gave up her cell phone number after some convincing.”

  Bob held up his hand for our attention. He put his finger to his mouth, then moved it slowly to the phone and hit the speaker button.

  “ . . .
I can’t say as I’m sorry he’s gone. That man hurt a lot of people in his sorry lifetime.” Her voice held a faint, pleasant Southern drawl.

  Edberg bent down close to the phone. “The hospital said you’re on vacation this week. Somewhere exotic?”

  There was a pause. “No, I spent time with family.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “I grew up here in Kentucky, and my sister’s about a hundred miles southeast of me. I don’t get ta see her very often.”

  “Are you at your sister’s now?”

  “Yes. I’ll be leavin’ Sunday.”

  “You been there all week?”

  She hesitated. “Ah, no. I did things around my house the first part of the week. I’ve been working a lot of overtime lately so I needed to catch up on things I’ve been neglecting.”

  Bob switched to his official mode. “Ms. Leder, we’re looking at anyone who may have thought he had reason to kill Gage Leder. Anyone who comes to mind for you?”

  Another pause. “That man left me years ago, and I came down here a while back. Heaven knows who he’s had bad dealings with since then. I can’t think of anyone in particular from the time we were together. I’m guessin’ I didn’t know much about what all he was involved with.”

  “Okay. I want you to write down this number, and if something comes to mind, give a call.” He gave her his cell phone number, which she repeated back to him, and they said their goodbyes.

  I patted Mason’s arm. “Todd, did you notice something Nora and Bridget and Rennie all called Gage?”

  He thought a moment. “That man.”

  “Right. I noticed that Bridget said it, because Nora had, and now Rennie said it, too.”

  “Maybe that’s what women call men who put them through a lot. Bob?” Mason looked at the most senior deputy in the room.

  Edberg turned his palms up and raised his shoulders. “Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I understand what motivates women to say what they do. ‘That man’ is pretty mild, if you ask me.” His cell phone rang and he nodded when he read the display. “It’s the first wife.” He hit the talk button. “Deputy Edberg. Yes, thanks for calling. . . . Yes, it is. . . . ” Bob went on to confirm that Sheila Walker knew about Leder’s death. “We’d like to meet with you, check out some things. . . . How about tomorrow morning? Let me check my schedule.” He put the phone against his chest and looked at me. “What time did Dawes say he’s interviewing the Nodings?”

  “Ten, I believe.”

  Edberg put the phone back to his ear. “How about eleven? That work for you? . . . Come to the front desk at the sheriff’s office. We’ll meet you there.”

  “Mrs. Leder the first, now Mrs. Walker. She and her husband were on their way back from visiting her mother-in-law who’s in a nursing home in South Dakota when she got the call from her son with the news about Gage. She got my message to call when they got home.”

  “Conveniently out of town,” Carlson said in a conspiratorial tone.

  “Supposedly an unexpected trip. Her mother-in-law had a stroke, so they were out there for a few days.”

  “And just happened to be on their way home when Gage was found,” Mason said.

  I smiled and shook my head. “You guys cops, or what? And it wouldn’t hurt to see if said mother-in-law really did have a stroke, and if her son and daughter-in-law really were visiting her when Gage Leder died.”

  CHAPTER 6

  We gathered around Smoke’s desk for our late evening meeting. “We need a war room with a big white board on the wall,” Smoke said when Carlson, Edberg, Mason, and I finished delivering our verbal reports.

  “How about the one in the squad room?” Carlson said.

  “Nah, that’s got all that other info we can’t erase on it.” He looked at his notes. “So far we don’t have much. Weber and Zubinski, along with Ortiz, and Brian here . . .” Smoke nodded at Carlson, “. . . all crawled on their hands and knees with magnifying glasses looking for trace and forensic evidence. Besides the rawhide splinters, presumably from snowshoes, they found a few hairs near where the body lay. They are human and appear to be from Gage Leder.”

  “We got some good shots of the snowshoes tracks, but nothing deep enough to cast,” Carlson said.

  “And it’s strange there were no other regular foot or shoe prints from the suspects,” Smoke said.

  Carlson nodded. “For sure. They must have put on the snowshoes without stepping on the ground. Then they likely got the victim out of the back of a truck or SUV, judging from the width of the vehicle, the distance between the tires.”

  Smoke drove the tip of his pen into his pad. “And loaded him onto a toboggan-like sled.”

  “Apparently. The weeds were packed down where they must have gotten Leder out of the vehicle and onto the sled, but nothing distinct showed up. And it seemed like we parted every single blade of grass looking,” Carlson said.

  “Hopefully the suspect—suspects—left their DNA on the body,” I said.

  Smoke drew his eyebrows together. “Autopsy’s scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at fourteen hundred. I’ve assigned Weber to go witness it. I think Zubinsky needs more time to get back on her feet.”

  I nodded. “That’s good. Mandy’s a little squeamish at autopsies.”

  Smoke flipped a page in his memo book. “I tracked down Shane Coates. He’s currently residing in Rochester, and holding down a job. He seemed honestly upset his buddy had been killed, but who knows? He said he’s been at work all week, which I’ll verify tomorrow. Coates said he hasn’t had much contact with Leder for the last year. He didn’t know of anyone who, in his words, ‘would actually kill him, but he was involved with a lot of women who might have wanted to.’ He didn’t have anyone in particular he could, or would name.”

  Smoke paused and sucked in a breath. “And Chip Ashland is not off the potential suspect list just yet.”

  “What’d he say?” I asked.

  “It’s more what he didn’t say. He didn’t want to speak ill of the dead.”

  “Oh, brother, a bible-banger?” Edberg said.

  Smoke adjusted his readers. “Maybe it was his way of avoiding saying something to incriminate himself. He is very protective of his cousin, Tonya. She was in a car crash that killed her folks. She suffered a traumatic brain injury from it. Ashland says since the crash she’s been like a young teenager in an adult body. Easily taken advantage of.”

  “Did he say how Leder met Tonya in the first place?” I asked.

  “Yeah, some church function. The Ashlands thought he was too good to be true. Turns out they were right.”

  “So Ashland had a possible motive,” Edberg said.

  I leaned forward. “I’d say. And opportunity. Self-employed farmer. Only his wife to verify that he was working on the farm the past two days, as he said he was. But did they—because we know there are at least two suspects involved—did they hate Leder that much? I’m not a psychologist or a profiler, but it seems to me whoever killed Leder harbored a lot of hatred. They went to a lot of trouble to put his body on display instead of just dumping it.”

  “And he was naked. No ID,” Smoke said.

  “Which brings up the question of what they did with Leder’s car and personal possessions,” I said.

  “My head is spinning,” Carlson said.

  Smoke cleared his throat. “I checked back with Tonya Leder and she confirmed that Gage left in his car on Saturday, early afternoon. I asked her to make sure it wasn’t in the garage—which she did—and it wasn’t. I sent out an e-mail memo to everyone in the department to be on the lookout for a tan Corsica, plate number . . .” He read the data from his memo pad, “. . . Lincoln, three, seven, zebra, zebra, Edward.” We all recorded the information. “And I had communications flag it as wanted by our county. In case it turns up somewhere outside of Winnebago.”

  Smoke looked at his watch and stretched. “No wonder I can hardly see straight anymore. I’m going home to bed. Okay, Aleckson and Edberg, I coul
d use your help with the interviews in the morning. Nine o’clock?” Bob and I both agreed. “And Brian, Todd, thanks for all you’ve done so far. We’ll see if we need your help as we move along with this case.”

  “Yeah, let us know,” Mason said.

  Smoke nodded. “Sure. We’re covered, for now. I did run a criminal history on Leder, to see if anything turned up outside of our county. Nada. And same goes for civil suits.”

  “Nobody filed a suit against him—they just took whatever matter it was with Leder into their own hands,” I said.

  Smoke nodded. “Looks like.” He glanced at his notes. “Detective Conley volunteered to check with Leder’s past employers. He’s also going to have a chat with the farmers who knew the Nodings would be spraying chemicals. I got a feeling this could go on for a while. We need good evidence, or a credible witness, or a guilty conscience and confession from the killers to get somewhere. We got a lot of possible suspects, but none of them are very strong at this early stage of the game. Have a good night, everyone.”

  We had an hour until the end of our shift, so Mason, Carlson, Edberg, and I went back to the squad room to finish our reports. Smoke went home, hopefully for a good night’s sleep.

  My phone rang a little after seven the next morning. I found my phone and managed to spit out a nearly understandable, “H’llo?”

  “Wake up, sleeping beauty.” It was Smoke.

  I wasn’t awake enough to appreciate any kind of a stab at humor. “What is it?”

  “They found Gage Leder’s vehicle.”

  “Yes!” That cheered me up. “Where?”

  “In the Roy Slayton County Park. Norwood took a routine sweep through there this morning and found it was pulled off the road next to some trees, not far from the public fishing access.”

  “It sat there for almost three days without being noticed?”

  “We don’t know when it got there. And if someone saw the car with nobody in it, they’d most likely think it belonged to a hiker who was out on one of the trails. It’s not that busy of a park. Which is probably why the bad guys left it there in the first place. It’s nobody’s private property, but it’s fairly private public property.” I heard him radio his location to communications. “I’m here. Weber and Zubinski are waving at me, so I’ll see you when you get here.”