The Noding Field Mystery

by Christine Husom

  She nodded. “I spent spring break with her. She took me to Mexico.”

  Morgan didn’t notice the significance of Smoke’s slight body shift, but I did. He kept his voice level and casual. “Where’d you go?”

  “The Yucatan Peninsula. It’s a neat area between the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Rennie has a timeshare there, so the last two years she’s gone there the week of my spring break so I can go with her.”

  “Sounds like the kind of stepmother a kid would be lucky to have.”

  “Rennie’s great. And we’ve stayed really close even though she moved away. I wish she wouldn’t have left, but she didn’t like seeing my dad around, or hearing what he was up to.”

  “She told you that?”

  Morgan looked at her hands again and hesitated. “Well, not at the time. She just told me when we were on vacation. After I . . .”

  “Go on,” Smoke said.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s not important anymore. I mean, not as important.”

  “You have me curious.”

  She looked at him and shrugged.

  Smoke nodded. “Tell us about your relationship with your father.”

  “Um, okay, I guess.” Morgan’s voice climbed higher.

  “Not to speak ill of your father, but we haven’t found anyone who seemed to approve of the way he lived.”

  Morgan shook her head. “I know. I didn’t know how embarrassed Dustin and Aaron were until I got to be older myself. Before that I was able to separate the bad things he did from who I thought he was supposed to be. You know, a fun dad.”

  “Bad things?”

  Her frown deepened, then eased slightly. “Um, well, you know, like the things people have been telling you.” The words spilled out quickly.

  “How about to you personally?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I get the feeling you’re holding something back. Something you want me to know, but you aren’t telling me.”

  Morgan blinked a few times. “I don’t know who killed my father. Or why. I feel bad for everyone he hurt, and I wish he would have changed and said he was sorry to . . . like all the people he abused. But that wasn’t meant to be.”

  Abused. That was Morgan’s word for how her father treated women? It was surely an accurate description of his behavior, from all we had learned.

  Smoke handed Morgan a business card. “Call me anytime. I mean it. Middle of the night, middle of the day, makes no difference. I’m a good listener.”

  Morgan looked at me and I nodded in confirmation, then gave her my best smile.

  “She’s definitely hiding something,” I quietly said when we neared Smoke’s car.

  “That’s a given.”

  “She started to say she had told her stepmother something she had found out about her father, then her stepmother revealed that she moved away because she couldn’t stand to watch Leder in action anymore.” We opened our car doors and slid in.

  Smoke turned the ignition key. “Rennie likely figured there was no longer a good reason to shield Morgan from the common knowledge that old Gage really was Mister Lowlife himself. I’d like to know what personal information Morgan shared with her, but couldn’t tell us.”

  “It was obviously important to Morgan, and maybe embarrassing, but a lot of things are when you’re an eighteen-year-old girl.”

  “Or boy.” He backed the car out of the lot.

  “After meeting the three Leder kids, I have to say I’m a little surprised they all seem so responsible, so together, given how irresponsible their father was.”

  “They had good mothers. Thank the Lord. The one thing Gage Leder actually did right—he married responsible women.” Smoke was silent a moment. “Do you think they—his kids—had anything to do with his death? Getting rid of the source of major embarrassment for them?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t, but I’ve been wrong before. Even if they wanted Dad gone, they all have plans for their lives. Plus it doesn’t sound like Gage was involved with them much, anyway.”

  “That’s true enough. They’re bright kids, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone couldn’t see past the fly on the end of their nose. Or think they could commit the perfect crime and get away with it.”

  “So what did Morgan tell Rennie?”

  “We’ll have to ask her now, won’t we?” Smoke took a right onto Randolph Avenue.

  My personal cell phone rang. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Corinne.” It was Eric, the only other person besides my mother who called me by my given name.

  “Hey.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “Smoke and I are on our way back from an interview in Saint Paul.”

  “It’s almost seven. I thought you were working the day shift.”

  I looked at my watch to see if it was that late. “Yeah, another long day. How are you doing?”

  “I’m doing fine. We haven’t had much chance to talk the past few days, so I thought I’d check in again about Friday night. Think of anything you need, like someone to pick up your brother at the airport?”

  “That’s thoughtful, thanks. We should be covered. John Carl likes to rent a car and drive out himself, and my grandma, seriously, will not let me cook. Smart woman that she is.”

  Eric chuckled in my ear. “You can’t be that bad.”

  Smoke took a left on Snelling Avenue to get back to I-94.

  “Pretty much. Actually, it’s more that I just never cook.”

  “We’ll have a cooking night some time.”

  “You’re a brave soul.”

  Eric laughed again. “I won’t keep you, since you’re on the road. See you at the party.”

  “Sounds good. Fair Mill Park at six-thirty.”

  “All right. Bye for now, Corinne.”

  “Have a good night, Eric. Bye.” I closed my phone.

  “Mister assistant county attorney?”

  “Yup.”

  Smoke merged onto the freeway, moved his vehicle into the left lane, and passed several cars. “So. I think we need to have another chat with Morgan’s mother, Nora. And probably Bridget, the shortest-term wife. And definitely Rennie. I’d like a face-to-face with her.”

  “Kentucky’s a long ways away.”

  “I’ll run it by the sheriff, check out the distance. Meantime, why don’t we pay a visit to Nora tomorrow at work?”

  “That’ll go over big in human services.”

  “We’re going to have to add more pressure, crank it up, to get anywhere in this case. So far it seems like all we’ve been doing is running around in circles.”

  “That’s why I’m dizzy.”

  Smoke’s face cracked into a smile. “No smart comment here. How about I meet you in at my desk at ten tomorrow, and we head over to human services.”

  “I start my days off tomorrow, but sure, I’ll be there.”

  Smoke tapped the steering wheel a few times. “That’s right. Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it on my own. Somehow.”

  “I won’t worry about it, but I want to be in on the interview.”

  CHAPTER 13

  When I walked into Smoke’s cubicle Thursday morning, he closed the file on his desk.

  “A couple of things. First, Detective ConIey talked to Willie Noding’s farmer friends—the ones who knew about the fields being sprayed—and cleared them all.”

  “Kinda thought so,” I said.

  “Yeah. Second, I checked with Leder’s doctor, the one who prescribed his meds, to see if Leder’d had some blood drawn, or had gotten some immunization that would account for the needle mark on his arm. No records of any visits to his clinic at all in the last three months.”

  “So we still have that mystery.”

  He stood up. “It never ends. If you’re all set, let’s go pay Miss Nora a visit,” he said.

  I set my briefcase on the floor by his desk then walked with Smoke through courthouse corridors to Winnebago County Human Services. There were three divis
ions and we found Nora Leder in the social services division. The receptionist said Nora was in her office and gave us directions without questioning whether we had an appointment or not.

  The door to Nora’s small office was open, and Smoke knocked on the door frame to alert her we were there. When Nora looked at us, her expression went from neutral to stern in a heartbeat.

  “Come in.” Her voice sounded as serious as she looked.

  “Sorry to barge in, but we have a few unanswered questions. You know Sergeant Aleckson, and I’m Detective Dawes.”

  Smoke’s easy manner relaxed her a tad. “Yes, I know who you are, from cases you’ve worked on. I’m between clients at the moment, but just so you know, I am expecting a family group soon.”

  Smoke sat down. “Sure. The first question I have is about Bridget Regan.”

  “Bridget?” Her eyebrows lifted in question, like she had never heard the name before.

  “Bridget Regan. Your daughters are good friends.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “And how do you and Bridget get along?”

  “Fine. I mean, Bridget and I have never really socialized. She has her friends, I have mine. We’ve been cordial, and we’d verify our daughters’ plans when they were younger, but that’s about it. I rarely see her.”

  Smoke nodded. “What can you tell me about Morgan’s relationship with her father?”

  “Deputy Mason already asked me that when the two of you came to my house.” Nora looked at me.

  Smoke leaned forward. “I’d like to have it down in my own notes.”

  “Oh. Well, Gage took her to restaurants, to movies, hiking. Went to fun places, did fun things. He didn’t have rules, to speak of. He didn’t want parental responsibility. Convenient for him, tough for me. When Morgan was young, she would come home and say, ‘Dad doesn’t make me pick up my toys.’ Things like that. It drove me nuts. When she got older, she didn’t care to spend as much time with him.”

  “And why was that?”

  Nora lifted her hand and turned it palm up. “Besides finding out he really wasn’t as great as she thought he was, I think she liked the structure she had at our house.”

  “When we talked to Morgan, we got the impression there was something more to it than that,” Smoke said.

  Nora flinched, ever so slightly, but enough to notice. “She grew up and figured things out.”

  “Tell me where you were, what you did last Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of this week.”

  “You’re asking for my alibi?”

  Smoke hitched a shoulder up.

  “Saturday, I was home, cleaned my house, talked to Morgan and some others on the phone. Read. Sunday. Um, church. Oh, I picked up a few groceries for my neighbor. She’s elderly and doesn’t drive anymore.”

  “Her name?” Nora looked like she didn’t want to tell us, but did anyway.

  “Um, Monday, I was at work all day. Home all three evenings.”

  “No one to verify that?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Have you thought of anything else that might help us in this investigation?”

  Nora shook her head. “But if I do, I know how to find you.”

  “Well, that was short and not so sweet,” Smoke said when we were out in the corridor.

  “The air was a little thick in there.”

  “Let’s stop by and see the sheriff, then go meet with Bridget Regan, have a little chat.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Nora what she thought about Gage and Bridget’s marriage and why it lasted, in Morgan’s words, ‘for like five minutes?’”

  “That’s Bridget’s story. We’ll ask Nora about it later, if need be. Seems to me she is not prone to talking about others’ lives.”

  “Or her own.”

  “You are right on, little lady.”

  Dennis Twardy was bent over his desk, reading through his endless stack of paperwork.

  “Sheriff?” Smoke said to get his attention.

  Twardy looked up and blinked to refocus. “Come in,” he said. “Well Dawes, I thought that was a good idea, putting Gage Leder’s photo in the newspaper, but we haven’t gotten much so far.”

  “Yeah. I talked to Dina earlier and she told me the hotline has been pretty cool.” Dina was the sheriff’s administrative assistant.

  “But you never know.”

  “I’ve spoken to the few who have called in since the paper came out, but so far it’s been people saying they think they saw him here or there. Or he looks like someone they saw doing this or that. Nothing substantial.”

  Twardy nodded. “Any progress with his family members?”

  “Maybe.” Smoke and I took chairs opposite the sheriff. “Sheriff, I’d like to meet with Rennie Leder, wife number three, in person. She moved to Kentucky, supposedly to get away from it all, but she still keeps in close touch with Leder’s daughter, Morgan. They were on vacation together, in fact, when they talked about something important. I don’t know what it was, but I’d like to find out.”

  “And you can’t get it out of Morgan?”

  “Probably can, yeah. But I’d rather not tighten the ratchet straps on her too much. Not yet. She’s young. I thought I’d see what Rennie has to say, and you know nothing compares to a face to face interview.”

  Sheriff Twardy nodded his head a few times before he spoke. “Yes I do. Okay. No problem. I’ll have Dina check on flights and rental cars.”

  “Already did that, and found out you can’t get there from here.” Smoke glanced down at his memo pad. “Flights are crazy expensive, and there are no direct ones from Minneapolis to Owensboro—that’s where she lives—that I found anyway. By the time I drive to the airport, get there an hour early, take a flight with one or two stops, I’d be halfway there if I drove myself.”

  “How long a drive?”

  “Thirteen hours, give or take.”

  “When do you want to go?”

  Smoke shifted back in his seat. “I was thinking about Monday. Rennie’s been on vacation this week. At her sister’s. She’s due to go back home Sunday. I could leave Sunday, early, stop by her house late evening. Or leave Monday, surprise her at work. Makes no difference to me.”

  Twardy looked at his desk calendar. “With the long hours you’ve been putting in this week, plus the party at your place tomorrow night, you need to take Saturday and Sunday off.”

  “Like I said, makes no difference to me.”

  The sheriff tapped his pen on his desk while he thought. “You need a partner. Sergeant, have you got anything important next week? Court, for instance?”

  I mentally ran through my schedule, then double-checked the calendar on my phone. “No, not until next Friday. A week from today.”

  “Then you’ll go with Dawes. Leave Monday morning. I’ll have Dina book you in a hotel near . . . Owensboro, did you say?”

  Smoke nodded. “Yup.”

  The sheriff wrote it down. “You can meet with the Leder woman Tuesday and head back after you’re done. That way you won’t be driving twenty-six hours by yourself, Dawes. I know how you push yourself. Too hard, in my book.”

  Smoke looked at me like he was trying to figure out how I fit in the equation, but he didn’t argue with the sheriff. Neither did I.

  “I’ll have the chief deputy get your shifts covered Monday and Tuesday, Corky. Anything else?”

  Smoke lifted his elbow and laid it on the arm rest. “One other update: I talked to Bob Edberg this morning. He met with two women Leder has been stepping out with, on the side. One’s married, the other is single, but only eighteen years old.”

  “Huh!” accompanied the sheriff’s look of disgust.

  “According to Edberg, both were upset about what happened to Leder, and both had substantiated alibis. And so did the husband of the wandering wife, who had been clueless of his wife’s extramarital fling until Edberg interviewed him. Things got pretty tense during their discussion, so Edberg hung around while the husband packed his things and
left.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “I hate to think how many lives Gage Leder wrecked, or at least wreaked havoc with.”

  “Way too many. But we’ll keep plugging away to find out which one of them decided it was time for him to pay the piper. Aleckson and I are about to head over to Emerald Lake High and have a chat with Bridget Leder, wife number four.”

  “Something new come up?”

  “Not really. I just want to look her in the eyes when I ask her about her marriage to Leder, and why it was so short lived.”

  “I thought word was she caught him cheating.”

  “That’s the word, all right.”

  Smoke and I walked out of the sheriff’s department to the parking lot. He smiled when he spotted my car. “Your baby looks as good as new. Nice repair job.” I had driven my red 1967 Pontiac GTO to the office. Since it was officially my first day off, Deputy Joel Ortiz had picked up our shared squad car sometime before he went on duty at seven a.m. Three deputies shared two squad cars for our on-duty rotations.

  “Yeah, I’m really pleased. After it got vandalized, I thought it would wear that angry gouge forever.” My classic car had been keyed from stem to stern the previous month, and I had finally gotten it in for the needed body work.

  Smoke ran his hand over my car door where the damage had been. “Change of subject, about the sheriff’s decision. I need to vent. I’ve taken how many road trips during my law enforcement career? And now, all of the sudden, he decides I need a co-pilot. No offense to you, little lady.”

  “None taken. It threw me off, too. I’m telling you, my mother’s overprotectiveness is influencing Denny.”

  “I‘m starting to believe that.” He looked up at the sky and shrugged. “Ah. I guess it’s smart to have two drivers. And two officers at the interview.”

  I nodded. “I like watching peoples’ faces when you question them. Those unguarded reactions are the best.”

  “Yeah, it’d be nice if we could charge people based on their facial expressions—when you know in your gut they’re guilty, and that’s the best you got.”

  “I think that’s how they do in some countries.”