Code 61

by Donald Harstad

  “Gargoyles?”

  “Yeah. That's it.”

  Now he had me going. “How did you know they were bolts, then? Was that common?”

  “Coulda been, but I seen some of the blueprints for the house, at the historical society.”

  “Oh.” Blueprints. “Here in Freiberg?”

  “Oh, no, nope. Not here. Over in Lake Geneva, in Wisconsin, where the family moved. When they had too much money to spend here,” he said with a grin. “It's all donated to their historical society over there.”

  “In Wisconsin … that makes sense,” I said. It did. It also made sense that it was out of my jurisdiction and I wanted to see it. “When did you see that?”

  “The blueprints? Oh,” he said, “maybe ten, fifteen years back, I think. When Emma and I went in to Madison for her mother's funeral. Maybe twelve?” He nodded vigorously. “Twelve. Yep, twelve. We took a swing down to the lake afterward, you know. Might as well get some use out of the mileage, see.”

  “Absolutely.” Luck smiles sometimes.

  “I see that the crew from the Mansion came,” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “You think they're weird, Carl?”

  “No weirder than anybody else.”

  “Some of 'em seem nice. But I don't know why they dress like that. Just to make people look?”

  “Making a statement. Nothing else.”

  “I think they do it just to aggravate people.” He stared across the room to where Toby and Kevin were still talking to the girls. “The darkhaired kid with the thing through his nose, see him? That's what I mean.”

  “Pretty harmless, I think. Really. Remember, not too long ago, burning the campus down? The sixties and seventies?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Which you rather have? That, or these kids?” I suppressed a smile. “Or, back in your day, the agitators who wanted to go against the King?”

  He looked at me squarely. “You ain't too big for me to whip.”

  I almost missed what he said, because my eye had settled on the figure of William Chester, standing near the coffin. I drew Knockle's attention to him.

  “What's he doing here?”

  Old Knockle stared for a second. “Oh. Uh, well, I know what you said, but he had the bond money right with him, and since I had to bring him back up this way, and I was comin' right here anyway, I thought it'd be okay if I left him in the car.” He cleared his throat. “Looks like he got out.”

  “That it does.”

  “I'm really sorry, Carl. He said he'd stay in the car.”

  “I just bet he did.” I didn't want to draw too much attention to Chester, but for two cents I would have just walked up and knocked the idiot over the head.

  After taking some of the sting out for Knockle by getting him another cookie, I went looking for Hester. I saw her two rooms away, but before I could get to her, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Byng, in uniform. He looked very concerned.

  “Carl, you got a second?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Sure.”

  He motioned me toward the hall, and I followed.

  “I got a call from Harry,” he said. “They got a missing persons report on Alicia Meyer. She's been having a real rough time over her boyfriend and all, a'course. She was at a friend's house over in Conception County last night. They went out to eat at Gourmet Georges'. She went to the john, never came back. Guess her friends spent most of the night lookin' for her. Can't find her. She's just disappeared.”

  “What time, any idea?”

  “Not sure, but it had to be before one A.M. That's when Gourmet Georges' closes for the night.”

  “So, like what? Somebody snatched her right out of the women's room?” That was spooky.

  “Oh, no. No, I forgot. Her car was gone, too. Like she just drove off.”

  That put a completely different complexion on the case. I was relieved. “Ah. So, maybe she just wants to get away for a while?”

  “It's not like her, they say.”

  “They always say that, don't they? I mean, if it was like her, they wouldn't have reported it.”

  He let that sink in. “Well, sure.”

  “I'll bet Harry finds her before supper,” I said.

  “Hope so,” he said. He looked around. “Lamar's here? I really ought to express myself to him before I leave.”

  “Good idea.” I pointed out the receiving line. “Don't forget to sign the register.”

  I found Hester in another anteroom, talking with the funeral director and two older gentlemen I recognized as teachers from Freiberg High. I motioned, and she got away fairly quickly. I told her, quickly and quietly, about the cable car, and about the blueprints. I also mentioned William Chester. She'd already seen him.

  “I hope he's not here for the reason I think he is,” she said very quietly.

  “Pardon?”

  “I hope he's not here hunting,” she said, a little louder.

  “Yeah.”

  Just as I was about to mention Alicia Meyer taking off, we were interrupted by one of Edie's three classmates.

  “Excuse me, are you Deputy Houseman?” She was about five-ten, slender, brown hair and eyes, maybe twenty-five or so.

  “Yes.”

  “Hello, I'm sorry to bother you, but my name is Darcy Becker, and I knew Edie, and the sheriff just said that I should be talking with you.” She seemed very confident, self-assured, and sophisticated. Polished. As Old Knockle would have said, you could tell she'd been away.

  Since Lamar had handed her off, I was fairly certain that she'd approached him with something important about the case. Something he thought we should hear, and something he figured he shouldn't.

  “Nice to meet you. This,” I said, gesturing toward Hester, “is Special Agent Gorse of the Iowa DCI.”

  “Hello,” said Hester.

  “Oh. Are you, well, working together? About this?”

  “I'd suggest,” said Hester, “that we might step outside.”

  The media were out there. We ended up moving out through the kitchen, past the preparation and, if necessary, autopsy room; and ended up in the garage between two parked hearses. It was a little gloomy, but it was private as hell.

  “So, Lamar said you should talk to me?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He said that this … well, I thought that since Edie had, well, taken her own life … I thought I might know why. The sheriff said I should talk to you right away.”

  “Why did you think she might have killed herself?” asked Hester.

  “Well, I know she's been kind of down. Lately. Well, for a while, really. But lately, things had taken a turn, I think…. ” She looked at us beseechingly. “I don't really know, but she had gotten mixed up with some older man. I think.”

  Hester and I exchanged looks.

  “It's possible,” I said. “Why do you think that?”

  “Well, we tried to get together, and we talked on e-mail, and I couldn't make it, and she called me, because it was going to be her daughter's birthday, and she was worried, it seemed to me. No. Well. No, no, she was frightened. Scared. Worried and scared, I guess.”

  “About … ” I prompted.

  She sighed. “Well, I called her, I mean when I couldn't make it. And we talked on the phone.”

  You have to be so careful not to spook somebody, but at the same time, you sometimes just about have to drag the simplest stuff out of them.

  “About some older man?” Hester, this time. Gently, not wanting to stress her.

  “Yes. I think she was, well, involved. Pretty far, I think. And I think he was either married, from what she said, or at least there was another woman in the picture, and she was afraid to let him go, and afraid to stay.” She looked at Hester. “You know?”

  “I think so,” said Hester.

  It struck me then. “You wouldn't be 'DarcyB2' would you? Your e-mail address?”

  “I … Yes, I am.” She looked at me and thrust her head forward slightly. “How on earth do y
ou know that?”

  “Let's back up a bit,” I said. “There are a couple of things you apparently haven't heard about this.”

  As it turned out, on Sunday she and her two friends had heard Edie was dead, that it was suicide, and they had scurried around and gotten away from Iowa City and Marengo, where they worked, and headed up after lunch. Darcy's only solid news was from her mother, who was the one who originally called on Sunday.

  “In the first place,” I said, “Edie didn't commit suicide.”

  “You mean it was an accident?” She looked surprised.

  “No, I'm afraid not. Edie was murdered.” Boy, if I thought she'd looked surprised before …

  There was a sort of gasp, her chin quivered a little, and then instant tears. No real crying. Just tears.

  “Like to sit down?” I offered.

  “No, no, that's fine.” Darcy had come equipped with a pocket full of tissues. She blew her nose. “Oh, God. The poor kid. The poor, poor kid.”

  We couldn't have agreed more.

  In the next few minutes, we got an encapsulated life story of Edith Younger. It was kind of interesting, because it was as close to being from Edie's perspective as we were likely to ever get, and was something we probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise. It was very helpful.

  Darcy had moved to Freiberg with her parents when she was in third grade. She first met Edie on the first day of school that year, and by the end of the semester, they were fast friends. They remained so all the way through high school, going so far as to want to own a beauty salon together, in about fifth grade, and planning to jointly operate a horse ranch by the time they were juniors.

  Darcy said that Edie was quite intelligent, and had absolutely excelled in high school. Got fine SAT scores. Was ready to go to college with Darcy and the rest, when she found herself just a little bit pregnant early in the summer of graduation.

  “He was a real loser, and we told her that he was,” said Darcy. “The problem was, her mother told her the same thing. You know how that is?”

  We said we did. The young man was a bit of a jerk and a rebel. Only not particularly good at it. Edie was apparently on the outs with her mother, who had been “just mean to her, all her life.”

  When I asked what, exactly, she meant by that, Darcy told a little story.

  “Oh, an example would be best. Well. One night, my date and I came to her house to pick her and her date up. He was already there, we were going to double. And Edie made kind of an entrance, you know, from upstairs? Came down, looked really pretty, and her mother said 'Oh, you look so pretty. I just wish you'd picked that other dress.' That sort of thing, see? All the time. Just always had to down her a little.”

  “Okay.” I mean, it wouldn't have bothered me a whole lot, but I could see how it could sting. I could also see how it could get a little old after a while.

  So Edie got pregnant. Nothing deliberate. Just what happened because she got involved with the young man to spite her mother. Edie had pretty strong principles, and decided to keep the baby. She also decided not to keep the young man. Her mother had, ostensibly, supported her all the way. That was until the baby was born, and it turned out that Edie couldn't support the kid. Her mother had become absolutely relentless about putting her down, for her small income and for getting pregnant.

  Edie moved out, and took the kid with her. That lasted for about three months, according to Darcy. Then Edie decided that it wasn't healthy for her little daughter to live the way they had to live. Edie absolutely refused to move home. Her mother offered to take the child for a while, to help.

  “She didn't see it coming?” asked Hester.

  Darcy shook her head. “It was her mother. Well. It was, and she just always loved her mother, regardless. She just couldn't stand her, you know?”

  Hester nodded.

  “And then the lawsuit started, for custody of Shanna,” said Darcy. “It's still going on, as far as I know.” She thought for a second. “I suppose it's not, is it? Not now. It's finally over.”

  Darcy then told us what she knew about the “older man.”

  “She met him after she moved into the Mansion,” she said. “Edie thought that was such a nice place, and there was no rent, so she could save and get Shanna back in a year or so.”

  She said that Edie met him at a party thrown by the owner.

  “You sure it was the owner?” I asked.

  “Yes, that's what she told me. The Hunley woman, the dancer, from over by Chicago. She needed house-sitters.”

  That would have been Jessica, all right.

  “Edie told me that he was an unusual man.” Darcy looked at Hester. “He was a very strong personality. Very sophisticated. Well educated. She thought he was very upper class. You must understand that. She was just enthralled with that. She was in love with him, I think. But she was afraid of him, too. Well. He was into some strange things. Very personal, but spooky, strange things.”

  “Like what?” I was hoping, I guess.

  Darcy pursed her lips, and then said, “Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. Not now. Well. She said that he liked to tie her up sometimes, and liked to, uhm, well, drink her blood. Just a little.” By the time she'd ffnished, a blush had crept up from her neck to the lower part of her face.

  Son of a bitch. I said it, in fact. “Sonofabitch” sort of all came out as one word. I startled Darcy, so I apologized. I didn't explain.

  “What was his name?” asked Hester.

  “Dan,” said Darcy.

  “Dan who?” I asked.

  “Peale,” she said.

  “How do you spell that?” Hester asked what turned out to be the best question of the day.

  “D-a-n,” she said, “P-e-a-l-e.” She paused. “Daniel, actually, I think.”

  “You're sure?” I asked.

  “Yes. I have it in a letter, somewhere. Wait … No, I don't, it was on my old computer, and I got rid of that when I got my laptop.” Darcy shrugged apologetically. “But she did write it. And that's the way it was spelled. He's from England, somewhere around London, I think.”

  I looked at Hester. London?

  “London? England?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. Didn't I say that earlier?”

  “Uh, no. No, you didn't. You said something about 'upper class,' but not English.”

  “Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Houseman. Yes, English. Edie thought he might be sort of incognito. Yes. She thought he might be a nobleman or something.”

  “Any idea why?” Hester asked. “Any evidence to suggest that?”

  “Just the way he behaved,” she said.

  “Ah,” said Hester. “Did Edie have any experience that would help her tell that?”

  “No,” said Darcy. “Well. Just movies, I guess.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Oh, God,” said Darcy.

  It turned out that she was feeling especially guilty since she and Edie had grown apart. She felt that she let herself be romanced, as she put it, away from her old friend by college and then her job.

  “It was just circumstance,” said Hester. “Different paths, and her child and everything. And you just grew apart.” She sounded so wistful, I began to think that she was speaking from experience.

  We gave Darcy our cards, and told her to call us if she either discovered or remembered anything we might want to know.

  The upshot was that if my conversation with Knockle had been good luck, our talk with Darcy had been serendipity.

  Hester and I decided to leave as soon as we could gracefully get out. I was really eager to get to the office and run Daniel Peale through the system in both the U.S. and U.K.

  As we worked our way to the main entrance, I noticed that Melissa and Hanna were still occupied in their small room, and that Toby and Kevin were still talking to the two friends who had come in with Darcy.

  Huck was standing by herself, looking intently at a nondescript oil painting of some idyllic countryside, with horses and birds. The visual equivalent o
f elevator music. I think she'd turned her back to avoid the hostility emanating from most of the other mourners. I stopped beside her.

  “Ugliest painting I ever saw in my life,” I said.

  She turned, and actually smiled. “You got it.”

  “You be coming right down to the office?”

  She looked over her shoulder toward Toby and Kevin. “We're all in the same car. When the boys”—and she inflected the word disparagingly—“get done trying to score with typically quiet grace, we'll have to take Hanna back, and then maybe we can come on down.”

  That could take a while, and I really wanted to keep going with Huck, and not give her much opportunity to reflect and withdraw, or to support the others.

  “You could ride down with us, so we can get started,” I said. “They could pick you up at our office.”

  “That sounds all right, actually,” she said. “If you can give me a few minutes to say good-bye to some people.”

  I found Hester again, passing by Toby and Kevin, who were still hitting on Darcy's friends. I idly wondered how their efforts would be rewarded after Darcy talked with her buddies.

  I told Hester about the plan to take Huck with us, and she thought it was a pretty good idea. We wanted to catch the reaction of Toby, Kevin, Melissa, and Hanna when Huck told them she was going with us, so we used the old cop trick of facing one another and making small talk. That way, each of us could see about half the room, and yet appear to be looking at each other.

  “At about your five o'clock position,” said Hester. “William Chester just approached Huck.”

  “Really … ”

  “Don't look. They seem to be talking.”

  “Does it look like he knows her?” That would be interesting.

  “I don't know. He seems to be doing most of the talking.” Hester paused. “Whoa, she just took a really fast step back. He's moving closer…. ”

  I couldn't wait. I turned, just as Huck backed up one more step, quickly, abruptly, almost into the wall behind her. Her eyes were wide, and she looked startled and frightened.

  I was beside Chester in three or four fast steps. “Mr. Chester,” I said softly, “why do I see you everywhere I go?”

  He'd been speaking pretty intensely to Huck, and it took him a second to change directions. “What? Oh, Deputy … uh, Heightman?”