by A. E. Howe
I decided to play it cool and was rewarded when Dad asked, “You know your offer to take him to the vet? Would you mind? I’m booked solid for tomorrow.”
“I can make time in the afternoon,” I said easily. “Your schedule tomorrow is part of the reason I’m here. I talked to Margret Devries and she’s coming over from Jacksonville. She doesn’t want to talk to me either. She said she wanted you to personally handle the case and she’s coming to see you in the morning.”
“Damn it. Can’t you deal with her? Never mind, I know what she can be like. She almost drove poor Jim to Chattahoochee. I’ll meet with her briefly. You be there too, and I’ll make it as clear as possible that you and Greene are in charge of the case. I can play up the fact that you’re my son, which shows that I’m taking it very personally.”
“Good luck.”
He huffed and went into a back room, coming out with three yearbooks. We sat at the dining room table and went through them. It was heart-wrenching to see pictures of my mom. She and Dad didn’t get together until his first year at college, so there were no pictures of them together. He pointed out a couple kids that had come by from time to time, but none of them were a part of the group, and he couldn’t imagine that they would have a reason from back then to kill someone today.
When I got to the office Wednesday morning, the desk sergeant told me that Margret Devries was already there. I waited for Matt and Dad to show up before I went anywhere near the woman. I figured this needed to be a shared experience.
Mrs. Devries, tall and well rounded with a face that showed signs of professional work, stood pacing back and forth in front of Dad’s office. Matt and I let him take the lead.
“Ted Macklin? I’d forgotten you were sheriff,” Margret said as he got within shouting distance.
“I am. If you’ll let us get in my office, we can talk about your sister’s case.” He maneuvered around her and opened his office door, holding it for her. One of Dad’s talents was diplomacy when he wanted to use it.
“What have you learned about my sister’s murder?” she demanded, invading his personal space. Dad eased around his desk, putting some acreage between them.
“These are Deputies Greene and Macklin,” he said. “They are the men working the case for me.” Dad tried to deflect her attention onto us. It didn’t work.
“You’re the sheriff, aren’t you? Why should I have to listen to your lackeys? Don’t you know what’s going on?” She tried to stare him down.
Dad met her gaze. “I’m telling you that these men have firsthand knowledge of the case. Wouldn’t you rather hear the details of the investigation directly from them rather than get it second hand from me?”
She thought about this for a moment. “Why aren’t you directly involved?”
“Would you rather have the owner of the restaurant prepare your dinner or the chef?”
He’d finally found an argument that she seemed to think held merit. Reluctantly she turned to Matt and me. “Okay, what do you two know about my sister’s killer?”
Before we could answer there was a knock at the door. Exasperated, Dad called out, “What?”
The door opened and an assistant stuck her head in. “Sorry to interrupt, but Tim Devries is here and would like to hear anything you have to say to his mother.”
“I have a right,” Tim said, loud enough for all of us in the office to hear him.
“Show him in,” Dad said in a voice that was too calm.
“But…” Mrs. Devries started to say, but Dad cut her off.
“Can’t hurt for him to join us.” He said it fast before she could say anything more.
Tim pushed past the assistant. “Mom, you should have talked to me before you came here.”
“I don’t have to talk to you about anything. How did you even find out I was in town? Let me guess, Little Miss Motor Mouth.” And, as if on cue, the door opened again and Tilly pushed her way in, despite the assistant’s best attempts to block her.
“I told you I’d handle this,” said Tim at the same time that her mother said, “I told you not to tell anyone…”
Dad lifted both his hands above his head. “Enough! It is too early in the morning for this crap!” To emphasize his point, he slammed his hands down on the desk. “Everyone sit down!”
No one felt like arguing with him, so we all found something to sit on. Dad eased himself down in his big leather chair and eyed Tim and Tilly.
“You two have seen fit to barge into my office.” He held up a hand to stop them from saying anything in their defense. “I’m sure that you want to see your aunt’s killer brought to justice and that you are also here out of concern for your mother.” I wasn’t so sure that the latter part was true. “So since this meeting was requested by your mother, I’ll let her decide if she wants you all to sit in on it.”
Everyone looked at Margret Devries. “What the hell, you’re all here anyway.” She gritted her teeth and looked around at us. “Now, will someone tell me how close you are to finding my sister’s killer?”
Matt surprised me again by leaning forward and facing off with the woman.
“We aren’t very far into the investigation. I’m going to the autopsy this afternoon. Maybe we will get some idea of the type of blunt object used to damage her face. And possibly we’ll discover that there was another, different, cause of death, say strangulation, and that the pulverizing of the facial features was done post-mortem. But… and this is my point… These things take time.”
“Thank you, Greene. He’s right. If we don’t find the murderer standing over the body then we have to move forward the best we can, and with caution so that we don’t inadvertently damage our chances of prosecuting a suspect when we have one.”
I decided I should put in my two cents. “The assumption that we are currently working with is that this murder is connected to the murder of Mark Kemper.” I paused to see if this would have the same effect on Margret that it did on Dell. She showed no reaction, which I found curious. “You did know Mark Kemper?”
She looked at me as though I was a dead fish she had found in her bed. “I’m sure I didn’t.”
“We’re sure you did.”
“How dare you accuse me of lying?” She was doing her best offended dowager routine, but I really wasn’t buying it.
Dad stepped in. “You remember Mark. He started hanging around your house when we were seniors. You must have been a junior at the time.”
She looked over at him, her face showing annoyance. “There were a lot of wannabes hanging around our house in those days. Dell and I were two of the prettiest girls at Adams County High School.”
And modest too, I wanted to add.
“Maybe there was a Mark, now that you mention it. Blond hair, he was very young.”
“Now he’s dead,” I emphasized.
“This all seems like a crazy conspiracy theory or something,” Tim said. “It sounds to me like there is some whack job going around beating people to death.”
I looked over at Tilly, whose eyes were going back and forth, following the speakers. Finally she spoke. “Yeah, why can’t you find this guy? How many psychopathic killers are there running around this county? Can’t you find the one that murdered my aunt?”
I almost laughed out loud, but constrained myself. These people were nuts. “It’s not quite so easy as going around and checking to see where all the psychopathic killers were on the night of the crimes.”
Dad stepped in. “We’ve been running background checks on the all the violent felons that might be living in the area.” Tilly gave me a “see there” look.
“So when will you arrest someone?” Margret asked.
“We have some evidence which, for the sake of the investigation, we can’t share. It is going to take a while to fully develop it and to determine in which direction it points. Until that time, we will keep the families of all the victims informed of the progress of the investigation.” Dad rattled this off and then looked at the
Devries family with the profound hope that they would take the hint and leave. No such luck.
“I don’t think you all are trying,” Margret stated flatly.
Tim stepped in. “Mom, why don’t you let me liaison with the sheriff on this. You have Aunt Dell’s funeral arrangements to deal with.”
The reminder about the funeral seemed to redirect her mind. “So much has been placed on my shoulders.”
“That seems like a great way for us to move forward,” Dad said judiciously. There was no doubt that dealing with Tim would be much, much more preferable to ever having to talk to Margret Devries again.
“That might be best until I’ve dealt with this funeral. But as soon as it’s done, I’m going to want answers and someone locked up for my sister’s brutal murder.”
“I’ll work closely with them. I’m sure that they are doing everything they can to find the murderer,” Tim said.
“You’ve always been like your father, too naïve.” She turned and, without another word, stormed out of the office.
“Sorry about my mom. She’s… headstrong. Which one of you will I be working with on my aunt’s case?” Tim looked around the room.
“Why don’t you and my son work together?” Dad gestured toward me.
“I’ll be in touch.” He shook my hand with a firm manly grip, the kind you would expect from a man who’d worked on the land beside his dad most of his life.
“Fine, and I’ll call you if there is any new information about the case that we can share,” I told him.
“You’ve always been a suck up,” Tilly said to Tim as she followed him out of Dad’s office.
After they’d left, Dad looked at Matt and me. “Is there anything you need to talk to me about?” Our silence was his answer. “Good, let’s hope the rest of the day is quieter.”
After wading through the morning routine, Matt left for the autopsy. I touched base with Pete, who was dealing with several unrelated cases. He was very glad that we had excluded him from the morning visit from the Valkyrie.
I called Eddie and was surprised when he answered on the second ring. “Caller ID not working?” I asked.
“Hey, I’m not trying to avoid you.” Not right now, I thought. “I got something for you. I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”
“I’ll meet you in Rose Hill at the north wall,” I offered.
He considered it for a moment and agreed.
Rose Hill was the second oldest cemetery in Adams County. It was started in 1840 during an outbreak of yellow fever. Against the north wall were the graves of Union soldiers killed during the Civil War. The joke was that it was as far north as they could bury them and still be in the cemetery. There were over a hundred of the two-foot-high, rounded white gravestones with the name, rank and military unit of the deceased on them. I walked among them, wondering what it must have been like to die in a land both familiar yet foreign. I was glad that the wall blocked the cold north wind.
I saw Eddie looking furtive as he walked toward me, hunched over with his head covered by a hoodie. He looked up once in a while to make sure he was on course and to look right and left, just to make sure that anyone who saw him would be suspicious.
“Why don’t you just shout ‘I’m guilty of something’ every couple of minutes,” I asked.
He looked a little chagrined, but said, “This is dangerous. My family gets wind of what I’m doing, I’m dead. Period. End of story.” Actually, I believed him. Even a lot of the Thompsons that led relatively normal lives were a little scary.
“What have you got for me?” I didn’t like any of this. It felt dirty, and I wanted to get it over with.
“There are a couple guys running molly in the county.” Molly was the new meth, which was the new crack. Of course molly was already being replaced by flakka and whatever else someone wanted to use to get high. I hated dealing with drugs. Every time I heard about them, there was some new level that people were willing to go to to drop out. Just like the sixties—it was all about dropping out, only the music wasn’t as good and the drugs were more toxic.
“Cut the bullshit. I want something related to my cases or the dirty cops you promised.”
“I can’t just tell people to hurry up and spill their secrets because I’ve got a deputy that’s on a damn time schedule.”
This is the point where I could have thrown him up against the wall and read him the riot act. But I didn’t work that way, and I’d never been convinced that it was the best way to get the world to do your bidding.
“I told you I’m not going to start talking about the bad cops until I’m sure you aren’t going to screw me, and I’m ready to leave this shithole. If you get your guys to take out these drug dealers, it will help a lot.”
“Help who?”
“Me. Who do you think? But you too. It will help me get back into my family’s good graces.”
“When you were selling me this unique relationship, you told me you heard things all the time.”
“I might have exaggerated my standing within the family just a little. I was honest about them abusing me. Trouble is, a lot of that hasn’t stopped. And I don’t get invited to the house very much.”
“So how is me going after some drug dealers going to help your situation?”
“One of my cousins is having trouble with these guys. I said I’d see if I could get them off the street. I didn’t tell him how.”
“I’m not in vice. But the way I understand it, guys who deal drugs are pretty savvy. It’s not easy to catch them with the goods. Or at least not enough of the goods to have them taken off the street for any length of time.” All I could think of was what a waste of time this was. Was he telling the truth about the crooked cops? I just couldn’t be sure. I was beginning to think that this was turning into a Tar Baby situation.
“My cousin is close enough to them that he’ll know when they have a full house. They aren’t high-level guys. They deal with most of the shit themselves. Only thing they farm out is the street selling. Got kids doing that.”
“Okay, what the hell, give me the details.” I took it all down. He stiffed me for forty bucks to buy a burner phone to use to call me when it was time to have our men make a move on the dealers.
I left with him giving me assurances that this would give him the street cred he needed to be brought into his family’s inner circle again. What am I getting into? was the only thing running through my mind as I drove away.
Chapter Fourteen
I called Dad to find out the time for Mauser’s appointment.
“Three o’clock. I told his sitter to expect you,” Dad said and hung up without more ado. It didn’t sound like his day had improved much from the morning.
It was just noon, so I drove back to the office. There was no new information from forensics. I thought about calling, but I was always very cautious about nagging them. I’d heard enough rumors about what they would do if they decided they didn’t like you. Their work-loads were so heavy that they were forced to prioritize. This meant that they had a choice—they could move your lab work to the top or the bottom of the pile depending on a varying set of circumstances, which included whether or not they liked you.
Matt was still at the autopsy and Pete was busy with cases. I went through my emails—nothing interesting there—and met with our direct supervisor, Lt. Johnson. On high-profile cases the chain of command was almost always superseded by the sheriff, but Johnson still needed to be kept in the loop. He was an Army man. Most of the guys in the department were pretty relaxed, but not Johnson. He always left you thinking you should have saluted him. After he heard about the fracas that morning, he looked positively relieved that Dad was taking personal supervision of the case.
I picked Mauser up without incident. The limp almost wasn’t noticeable, but I was determined to have another meeting with Cara, the vet tech.
When we got to the vet, Mauser, the contrary beast that he was, hopped out of the van and headed straight to
the door with only a minor detour to sniff the yard and to leave peemail for the other dogs. I had hoped he’d put up his usual temper tantrum so I could ask for Cara’s help, but Mauser appeared to have his own agenda. We scared the crap out of a puppy being led out of the office by a proud new owner. Then I had to answer all of the owner’s questions about Mauser while the puppy got brave enough to come over and sniff Mauser’s shins. Having answered every repetitive Great Dane question there is, including Have you got a saddle for him? we finally got into the vet’s.
Once inside, I began to worry that it might be Cara’s day off. All kinds of worst-case scenarios ran through my mind as we sat on the wooden bench and waited. What if she’d been fired, or quit? But no worries. Ten minutes after three Cara came out of the back.
“There he is!” she said, her voice rising in excitement. I pretended that she was talking about me.
Mauser dragged me over to her, making it impossible for me to act suave or debonair. She patted his head as he smiled stupidly. Of course I was smiling stupidly too.
“Hi, it’s nice to see you again,” I said, wondering if the glamorous aura of Mauser would totally obscure me.
“Thanks, you too,” she said, kneeling down and ruffling Mauser’s ears and making eye contact with him as she spoke. She is a vet tech, I told myself.
“Your paw doesn’t seem too bad,” she chatted to him as we went into the back. Mauser and I were shown into an exam room without me getting a good opportunity to ask Cara out again.
“Why would she change her mind?” I asked Mauser while we waited for the vet. The Dane raised his eyebrows and gave me a look that suggested my problems were of no concern to him. He turned around and presented his butt for me to scratch.
“You’re a lot of support.”
The doc came in and examined Mauser with the end result being that he didn’t see anything wrong with the paw and that Dad should just keep an eye on it for a few days. Typical Dane drama.
We were headed for the front desk to check-out and I hadn’t seen Cara again. I was kicking myself for not saying more to her when we got there. Then she appeared from the back, carrying his chart, which she gave to the receptionist.