We rode several miles in silence before Jesse flashed his dazzling smile. I’m sure he did his best to make it as big and beautiful as usual because he knows I love his smile; however, it looked a little plastic that day. “It’s going to be all right.” He patted my hand. “They just want to ask you a few questions.”
Questions? I had a few of my own. “I’ve never been summoned by the law before.” I blinked away the tears that formed in my eyes.
Jesse reached toward me and wiped a tear off my cheek. “Then think of this as a new adventure.”
“I feel like I did something wrong, but I don’t know what.” At least they didn’t handcuff me. For that I would be eternally thankful.
At the sheriff’s office in Nevada City, a woman in a crisp uniform ushered me into a room that could have come straight off a movie set. Grimy gray walls with one metal light fixture dangling ominously over a rectangular table in the center. A faint odor of stale sweat lingered. I imagined a criminal hunched in the metal chair while angry cops pummeled him with questions. The air weighed heavily with echoes of their voices.
I twiddled my fingers on the metal table while waiting for Detective Rogers entered. He had an imposing stature, but no one would call him fat, more like brawny and broad. Probably about my age or a little younger. He smiled a professional smile, not overly solicitous, more of a greeting. A younger officer, Deputy Wright, trailed after him into the room and grinned a toothsome smile when introduced. After that, he leaned against the door frame and melted into the background.
Detective Rogers lowered himself into the chair across from me. “I appreciate you coming today, Mrs. Sterling. You don’t mind if I tape our conversation, do you?” Not waiting for my answer, he produced a voice activated tape recorder and set it up on the table.
“What’s this about?”
Instead of answering my question, he succinctly stated pertinent information identifying this session into the recorder and leaned back until the front legs of his chair had lifted off the ground. “Please tell me how you know Mary Wilson.”
I explained all over again. My hands shook while I told about finding her, but this time I didn’t cry.
“Did you touch anything in the house?”
“No, I don’t think so. If I did, I don’t remember.”
“Okay.” The chair legs tapped the floor when he shifted forward. He leaned his elbows on the table to move closer. “Tell me, why are you so interested in the murder of Baxter Dunn?”
“Why?” I repeated his question because I didn’t know where to begin. “I… don’t believe the things the media is reporting about him.” I sat up straight, perched at the front of my chair like an unrepentant child at the principal’s office. “If you knew him at all, you’d know he would never get involved with illegal activities.” I bent toward him, speaking louder as I got rolling. “Baxter Dunn was a wonderful person, an outstanding citizen, and a fine officer of the law. He loved this community and he loved his family. He did his best to live an exemplary life. How could you believe—?”
Detective Rogers held one palm in the halt position. “Simmer down, Mrs. Sterling.” He chuckled. “I’m on your side. Baxter Dunn was a great guy and a fine officer.”
My tirade had just started to pick up at the speed of a freight train. His statement derailed me. “What?”
“I agree with you.” He scratched his head. “You know, I’ve spent hours working on this investigation. It’s a doozy, this one. Keeps me up at night. Nasty rumors everywhere, more than on any investigation I can remember. Hard to sort out the truth. Don’t know where all the lies are coming from. I invited you down here because the further I dig into this case, the more your name keeps popping up, first with Dunn and now with Mary Wilson’s murder. I want to know about your involvement.”
“My involvement?
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I assume you think Mary Wilson is somehow connected to Baxter Dunn. With no formal training in investigation, you seem to have come to that
conclusion. I need to know more about it. Let’s start with why you went looking for Mary Wilson in the first place.”
“I didn’t know her name, but the news people said Baxter was seen with a woman at a bar out on Highway 20.”
“So you took it upon yourself to find this woman?”
“I waited several weeks, but you people weren’t making any progress solving Baxter’s murder. I got frustrated and I thought if I found her, I’d ask what Baxter questioned her about and find out what he was doing the night he died.”
“Why didn’t you turn her in? You knew we were looking for her.”
“You didn’t look very hard, did you? Because I found her on my first try.”
Rogers shook his head, half smiling. “At what point did you intend to share your discoveries with us?”
In my nervous state, I’d been gasping shallow gulps of air. It made me feel a little lightheaded. I forced myself to drink in one long breath and expel it in slow motion. “I… didn’t know if I could trust you.”
“You didn‘t know if you could trust me,” he repeated and shook his head again. Then he leaned back, crossing his arms. “So you found Mary Wilson. What did she tell you?”
“She said Baxter came to arrest her a year or so ago. She and her old boyfriend, Frank De la Peña. Frank wasn’t home, but Mary got arrested.”
Detective Rogers nodded. “The Kingfisher. Was that why you went out to Satori?”
I returned the nod. “Mary said Frank lives at the Gleason Mill outside North San Juan. She said he drives a black van.”
Detective Rogers straightened in his chair. “A black van?”
“Right. So I went to Satori to find the van.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Did you find it?”
I grinned.
“How’d you get in there?”
“I just walked in with my dog. They didn’t see me. I found quite a few vehicles in one of the larger buildings. The black van was one of them. A license plate was stuck under the passenger seat. Let’s see now. You-ate-little-curly-worm something…U8LCW…” I looked at my fingers. “Five. Yes, that’s it. U8LCW5” How’s that for a little old lady’s memory? “But the awful part is that…” I started to tear up and the words wobbled out. “They stole our dog.”
“Let me get this straight. You took Mary to Satori…to get your dog back?”
I nodded. “I have to find her. She’s part of our family.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but apparently changed his mind and closed it again. Instead, he slumped back in his chair and stroked his chin.
I fidgeted with my hands.
After a long interval, he glanced back at me. “I head the investigation into the death of Deputy Dunn. Why didn’t you come to me when you found the black van?”
“We tried. Jesse called your office, but you weren’t available. Zora Jane, that’s Baxter’s mother in-law, she said you wouldn’t talk to us because we weren’t directly involved. You haven’t told them much and they’re family. Plus, when we tried to talk to Deputy Colter—”
He straightened so abruptly that the chair legs clattered on the floor. “When did you talk to Colter?”
“Several times. The last instance was here. Let’s see, what day would that be?”
“What did you tell him?”
“We tried to tell him about the van, but he wasn’t interested.”
“What do you mean he wasn’t interested?”
“We mentioned to him that we might know where to
find it. He told us to mind our own business. We didn’t get a chance to tell him anything else.”
Detective Rogers plunked back down in his chair, chin lowered to his chest. I wondered if he’d fallen asleep, but then his eyes popped open. He stretched a hand out for the tape recorder and pushed the off button. “Mrs. Sterling.” He cleared his throat. “The media has reported a great deal of false information concerning our investigation into Baxter’s death.”
&nb
sp; “Yes, it has.” I started to launch into my tirade again, but stopped when I saw the expression on his face. “You mean, you didn’t give them that information?”
He shook his head.
“So the official findings when they reported the cause of his death in the newspaper? Was that true? Any of it?”
“We haven’t released official findings on the C-O-D yet.”
Budding hope immediately replaced my shock. “Baxter ingesting a hallucinogenic drug and falling to his death in a drug induced state is not the official report?”
“He did have drugs in his system. But we’re still investigating how the drug got into his body and how it contributed to his death.”
“He wouldn’t use drugs voluntarily.”
“We know he didn’t have a history of using.”
Relief flooded my soul. “Oh, my goodness! I’m so glad to hear you say that.” Tears of joy spilled over my lower eyelids. I swiped one cheek with my hand and sniffled. “How can the media get away with reporting lies?”
“Very early on, the investigating team made the decision not to comment on what the media reported. We haven’t confirmed or denied any of it officially. We don’t know where they’re getting this misinformation or why they’ve chosen to defame Deputy Dunn. But these rumors may prove useful later. In strictest confidence, I tell you that it is possible there
is internal misconduct. If so, we must tread carefully. We need to be certain we apprehend everyone involved. You must not interfere. Do you understand that you must not speak to anyone about what I’ve said? If you do, I’ll be forced to deny this conversation.”
I nodded, unsure I fully understood the ramifications of what he had shared. “Can you tell me what you know so far?”
Before speaking, he clasped his hands across his slightly protruding belly. “I’m sorry. I can’t say any more. My best advice is to let us work. We’re trained to investigate. I’ll be on the lookout for your dog. I know how important she is to you. We’ll discover the truth, no matter how long it takes us. I promise you.”
I could have kissed him. “What a relief! I’ve been so worried. I thought you wanted to talk to me because you found my fingerprints on the murder weapon.”
Apparently, he hadn’t spoken with Deputy Anderson. “Why would your fingerprints be on the murder weapon? I thought you said you didn’t touch anything in the house.”
“They wouldn’t. Shouldn’t be. Deputy Anderson came to interview me right after I found Mary. He took my fingerprints because he said they needed to compare them with the ones on the murder weapon.”
Detective Rogers pulled his chair closer to the table, snapped the tape recorder back on, and placed a pair of magnifiers on his nose. He shuffled through papers in the file folder he’d left on the table. After several minutes, he stopped to read a few items. “Uh-huh. They found a fingerprint on the murder weapon but I don’t see that they compared it to yours.”
Papers rustled again.
“Ah.” He studied a page in silence before his eyes met mine. “The fingerprint match was inconclusive because they only found a partial print. What they’re saying is that this print
has characteristics in common with yours…” His eyes returned to the page. “But not enough for a positive match.”
I nodded. “Well, there you go. Not a match.”
He set the folder down and adjusted his magnifiers. “How would your print get on the murder weapon anyway, Mrs. Sterling, if you didn’t touch anything in Mary’s room?”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, it wouldn’t.” The whole thing was ridiculous! “I did not touch anything in that room.”
But someone thought I did. Who?
Chapter Seventeen
My picture glared from the front page when I unrolled the next morning’s newspaper, not a particularly good picture, either. The picture looked as if someone had surprised a fat woman with her hand in the cookie jar. Note to self: throw away those jeans. Above the photo, a bold headline proclaimed: “Grass Valley Woman Suspected in Wilson Death.”
I gasped in shock, dropping the paper as if a scorpion had just crawled out of it. Was it my imagination or were those words bigger than the usual headline? While I wandered into the house, I attempted to read the story, however the words blurred and swam on the page like a school of minnows speeding from a shark. Where was this coming from? I couldn’t believe Detective Rogers would call the media about my visit to his office. But if he didn’t, who did?
“Look at this, Jesse.” I pointed to the article when he came into the kitchen for breakfast. “Can you believe it?”
Jesse released a low whistle. He took the paper and lowered himself onto a chair at the table. I stood over his shoulder, deliberating on every word.
The basic facts were true. But mixed into the facts, a subtle slant made it sound as if the fingerprint on the murder weapon had definitely been matched to mine. The writer named me a person of interest in the death of Mary Wilson, never once using the word alleged. Speculation concerning my motive suggested a botched drug deal. Were they accusing me of selling drugs? A previous arrest on drug related violations rendered Mary’s character questionable and me guilty by association.
I perused the article for the third time. “What in the world? Where are they getting this stuff? Don’t they have an obligation to the public to verify stories before they go to press? Can I sue them for slander?”
Jesse finished reading without answering. Then he laid down the paper and turned to stare at me. “Sit down, Christine.”
I slid into a chair beside him. “What?”
The way he continued to stare, I imagined all sorts of dreadful things he might be about to say. “Come on, Jesse. You’re scaring me now.”
He caressed my cheek. “Christine. This is serious. You’re might need an attorney.”
“An attorney? What for?” I laughed nervously. “You’re kidding, right?”
He sighed deeply. “I wish I was. They can accuse you whether you are guilty or not and it sounds like they’re revving up to do just that.”
Did I hear him right? “Accuse me? Of what?”
“Murder.”
Jesse had an odd sense of humor. I searched his eyes for a glimmer of laughter. Not finding one, I pushed away from the table and started to pace. “How could they? This is completely ludicrous. I had no reason to murder Mary. I just found her, that’s all. What’s my motive? Where’s the proof?”
Jesse studied me with sad eyes.
I stepped to the table, feeling my face drain. “Detective Rogers said the paper printed lies. That’s all this is. More lies. They’re not seriously going to charge me.” I planted both hands on the table to steady myself. “You aren’t serious, are you?”
The gate buzzer sounded.
Jesse turned to look out the kitchen window. “Just on cue, the circus has come to town.”
I followed his gaze.
News vans jammed the driveway outside our gate. Strange media people clamored at the fence, fat black microphones and video equipment poised.
Lines furrowed Jesse’s handsome brow. “Welcome to your two seconds of fame, Christine.”
Another summons to the sheriff’s office came that afternoon. This time Deputy Colter requested my presence. Ed and Zora Jane recommended an attorney, but when Jesse contacted the one they mentioned, a secretary informed us he was in court and couldn’t accompany us to the appointment. According to instructions given by the secretary, I should answer exactly what Colter asked without volunteering any additional information. Better yet, I could refuse to answer at all until the attorney could accompany me.
Jesse grabbed my hand and bowed his head when he parked the Jeep at the sheriff’s office. “Here we are, Lord,” he prayed. “You know Christine didn’t have anything to do with this murder. Protect her today. Don’t let her say or do anything that would give them reason to continue investigating her. Give her your peace.”
The fear that gripped my heart
like a clenched fist didn’t disappear when Jesse said Amen. I continued to be so frightened that I went numb again. However, infused with a quiet underlying strength after Jesse’s prayer, I managed to walk into the same interview room where I’d sat only a day before with Detective Rogers. It helped to know God went with me.
Once more, I studied the grizzled walls and large black sheet of glass through which viewers could listen without being seen. Again, I experienced the coldness of the metal chair and table which seemed more unfriendly and unyielding than before. The single light dangled from the ceiling, waiting to shine on the guilty.
What was I doing here? Dear God, is this all part of Your plan? Was this happening because I put my trust in Him?
After nearly thirty minutes, during which I squirmed on the chair, paced a bit, and was finally reduced to counting holes in the ceiling tiles, Deputy Colter entered. He wore a sour disagreeable expression as if meeting with me had ruined his day. A young deputy I didn’t recognize followed him closely. The stranger leaned against the doorposts popping his wad of gum while Colter heaved his neatly uniformed body into the other chair.
Deputy Colter squinted for a moment before reaching into his pocket to extract the tape recorder which he set up on the table. Before speaking to me, he pulled a large white handkerchief out to shine his star badge. An overpowering whiff of saccharine sweet cologne wafted toward me.
What odor was he trying to mask with that disgusting smell? Surely, with a nose the size of Texas he’d notice when he went overboard with his aftershave.
Deputy Colter repeated identifying information into the recorder after snapping it on. I stated my name at his request.
“You are here to explain your part in the death of Mary Wilson. Please start by explaining your relationship to the deceased.”
The Dunn Deal Page 15