by Maggie Pill
CHAPTER FIVE
Barb
Faye came back to the office with news that was not completely welcome. “Barb,” she said breathlessly as she closed the office door behind her, “I found a dog on the road. He’s hurt, and the vet is working on him now. I’d like to keep him if no one claims him.” She bit her bottom lip. “Is that okay with you?”
I tried to maintain a pleasant expression. While I have nothing against animals, I don’t relate well to beings with no higher thinking skills. In my experience, dogs either jump on you to demonstrate affection or try to eat you to demonstrate dominance. I’m not thrilled with either.
On the other hand, my home was now Faye’s home. When we started the detective agency, I’d invited her and her mostly-disabled husband Dale to move into the downstairs of my rambling house near Allport’s business district. There was plenty of room for me upstairs, and the main floor had comfortable living space for them in addition to the two formal parlors at the front we now used as offices.
Having spent her adult life in a series of cramped and unlovely rental homes and apartments, Faye fell in love with the house’s numerous windows, ten-inch mop-boards, and nine-foot ceilings. She also loved the back yard and spent winter evenings drawing diagrams of the lovely and aromatic flowers she planned to plant when spring came. I figured if she kept the dog, its house could take up a corner of her garden plot.
“Faye, you live here,” I said. “You don’t need my permission to get a pet.”
The look on her face was worth giving up a tiny piece of yard. “Wait till you see him! He’s only about fifteen pounds, but he’ll put on weight once we get him home and feed him right.” She bit her lip again, this time in thought. “I wonder if I kept the dog bed I had for Sheba. It might fit in the corner of my bedroom where the bookcases meet.”
Before I could speak again, she headed off to find it. Not only had she not told me about the Darrow interview, but apparently we were going to have a dog that lived inside.
Once she found the dog bed Faye returned and, wiping hair from her clothes, recounted her meeting with Darrow. When she repeated what the sheriff told her afterward, words like liar and slime-ball made it clear she didn’t like our client much.
“Okay,” I said when she finished. “He’s no hero, but is it possible he killed his wife?”
She hesitated, rubbing her neck absently. “I can’t picture the guy putting a gun to someone’s head and pulling the trigger, but strange things happen between husbands and wives. It’s just that—well, you know.”
I knew. She felt compelled to take the case for Retta’s sake, and so did I. Baby Sister had been fed a line by a man with few, maybe no morals, and we knew how embarrassed she must be. It seemed disloyal to discuss her being taken in by a handsome face, however true it might be, so “you know” was as far as either of us would go.
“So we look into this?” I asked.
“Yes, at least that’s my vote.”
“Agreed. And we can’t leave Retta out this time.”
“No.” Faye sounded relieved.
“Will you call and update her?” I glanced at my watch. “I have to go out for an hour or so.”
“Okay, but then I visit The Meadows.”
“What’s she done now?”
Faye’s mother-in-law, ninety years old and senile when she chooses to be, has become Faye’s responsibility due to Dale’s weakened condition and the rest of the family’s disinterest. Having met the old bat a few times, I admire the patience of those who have to deal with her, especially Faye, who seldom does anything the old lady approves of.
“She filed complaints about the food again, this time at the state level.”
“I thought you took her phone away.”
Faye shrugged. “She borrowed one from some dewy-eyed newbie. You know how convincing she can be.” Dropping her phone into her purse she asked, “Where are you headed?”
“To find out exactly what they’ve got on Darrow. Rory might be willing to ask the sheriff for information he won’t tell us.”
In order to keep our relationship businesslike, I’d always called to make an appointment before visiting Rory Neuencamp’s office. Not only is it unprofessional to drop in, it’s unrealistic to expect the head of a mid-sized police force to have free time whenever he chooses. Still, if nothing big was happening, I thought the chief would give me ten minutes.
Once a city cop, Rory had looked for something less stressful after twenty-five years on the Chicago police force. Allport was perfect for a man tired of the big city but still capable of doing the job. Our town kept him busier than he’d expected, but I thought he was pleased to have his own department.
Once he’d told me in passing that he liked to stop around three o’clock and take what he called a personal break. “Mornings are rushed,” he’d said, “catching up, getting things done. Lots of times lunch is business, and just before shift ends some deadline always seems to pop up. But around three o’clock it gets pretty quiet. If I can, I put my feet up for a while.” He’d grinned as he added, “At fifty-plus hours a week, I deserve it.”
It was just a few minutes before three, and I figured Rory wouldn’t mind the interruption if I brought some of Faye’s peanut butter cookies along. Everybody loves Faye’s cookies, and Rory is a man who likes his sweets.
Janet, the woman at the front desk, said the chief would see me almost at the same instant that Rory came out to welcome me himself. Leading the way into his office, he offered coffee or tea. I chose the latter, knowing he liked tea in the afternoon. Like a true Irishman (on his mother’s side; his father was mostly Native American Anishinabe), he kept a small set-up in one corner, with real tea leaves in a rectangular tin, a china pot, and a one-burner unit with a kettle already heating water. Checking the temperature by touching the kettle lightly, Rory poured water over the loose leaves in the pot and set it down to brew. While we waited, I set the cookie plate on the desk between us. After precisely four minutes, he poured tea into our mugs, added cream to his from a small carton on the tray, and took two cookies, setting them on his napkin with obvious anticipation. As we sipped carefully, he caught me up on the day’s events, speaking candidly of the city commission’s short-sightedness and the planning commission’s mistaken belief that the citizenry wanted a parking ramp downtown. Once we’d hashed that out he asked, “What are you up to, Barb?”
I checked my watch with a grin. “Is break time over?”
He raised a brow. “This isn’t a social call, then?”
My hands got fidgety. “I don’t want to take advantage of our friendship, um, our acquaintance—”
“Barb,” Rory interrupted, “You’re not the kind of person who’d take advantage of me.” Picking up his mug, he added, “Not that I’d mind.”
Since I often have trouble deciding how to take Rory’s comments, I ignored that one. “We got a case this morning, and I wondered if you know anything about it.” I told him about the murder and Darrow’s arrest.
“I heard it on the news, like everybody else,” he said when I finished. “Let me see what I can find out.” Turning to the phone, he hit a number and waited. “Sheriff Idalski, please. This is Chief Neuencamp over in Allport.” After a short wait he said, “Wade? How are things?” He listened for a while before saying, “I understand you have a murder suspect in custody.” … “Oh, is that right? Well, can you answer some questions for me? Rumor says the guy was involved with a woman here in Allport, and I’d like to stay informed.” He listened for a longer time, taking notes and responding with grunts and “um-hums.” Finally he thanked the sheriff and ended the call.
Raising my brows, I asked a tacit question.
“It isn’t pretty,” Rory said, taking a sip of tea. “First, the guy’s wife was apparently planning to leave him. They found two packed suitcases under the bed and a one-way ticket to La Paz. The sheriff thinks she meant to visit the bank Monday morning, get her money, and leave.”
&nbs
p; “They think she heard about Retta so he killed her.”
“Not intentionally. Idalski thinks they fought when he realized she was leaving.”
“So second degree, maybe manslaughter if she’s the one who got the gun out.”
Rory set his cup down on the desk. “Another thing: Darrow didn’t call the police.”
I almost spilled tea in my lap. “What?”
“Their housekeeper arrived around 8:30 a.m., saw one car in the ditch near the end of the driveway and the other one gone. She didn’t find anybody in the house but noticed footprints in the snow on the back porch. She went out to investigate, and thirty seconds later she was calling the police, screaming, “He killed her! He killed her!”
I sensed there was more. “What else?”
“Sheriff Idalski has seen Darrow around, and he’d formed an opinion of your client. When the news came in, Wade immediately sent a deputy to the bank. Shortly after 9:00 a.m. he caught Darrow withdrawing all the funds from the only account he had access to.” He rubbed his chin. “By the way, there’s no will, so he gets everything—unless he killed her.”
I sighed. “Retta says Darrow wouldn’t know which end of a gun to hold onto. Faye distrusts him but doesn’t think he’s the murdering type.”
“If there is a type.” The chair squeaked as he shifted position. “What’s your take on it?”
I felt a little thrill at the genuine interest in Rory’s voice. “If he killed her, it seems to me he’d have run.”
Rory shrugged to indicate that was a possible but not telling argument. I moved to my next point. “The con men I’ve met use charm to solve their problems, not violence.” As an assistant D.A., I’d seen my share of criminal types.
“That’s true,” Rory replied, “but you and I know anyone can become violent if the circumstances are right.”
“Agreed. But if a con man planned a murder, wouldn’t he either figure out a way to disappear or come up with a method that didn’t leave him on the hook for the crime?”
“Maybe he didn’t plan it. If she was about to leave him, he might have panicked.” Rory wasn’t dismissing my idea. He was playing devil’s advocate.
“But why was she leaving?” I asked. “Darrow claims Stacy insisted on coming to Michigan. She loved the house; she loved her horses and the lake and all that. If she was tired of his philandering, why didn’t she kick him out?”
He tilted his head to one side. “Afraid he’d get a chunk of her money in the divorce?”
“That’s possible, I guess.” I thought of something else. “Darrow travelled a lot. Maybe Stacy had a lover, and he killed her.”
“And arranged for the husband to take the blame.”
I nodded. “If Stacy was about to leave Michigan, something about her situation had changed.”
He sighed. “I’m on the outside looking in, but your logic works for me. Most con men I’ve known would have offered her the moon rather than chasing her around with a gun.” He drank the last of his tea, adding, “And if Darrow’s charm didn’t work, I agree with you. He’d make it look like an accident.”
CHAPTER SIX
Faye
“Their eggs taste like crap.”
I sighed, looking at my mother-in-law’s pinched face. Apparently she’d misplaced her teeth again, so her lips folded inward, tight with disapproval. She was dressed in blue polyester pants and a purple tee-shirt that said I Love the Mackinac Bridge, and she wore soft-soled shoes with Velcro closures. She considers it a point of pride to rise each morning, make her bed, wash, and make herself “presentable,” though these days it requires a lot of help from the staff. Her outfit always includes jewelry in the form of Mardi Gras beads the facility gives out as Bingo prizes. When she’s in a good mood she often offers me a necklace, often with the admonition that I need to “pretty up a little.” Beads clicked as she shoved the tray away.
Wincing at the waste of food I said, “Last week you said scramble eggs are the only food they make right.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but experience made me close it. “Harriet, you can’t call the state because your eggs were rubbery.”
“I did it, didn’t I?”
Another sigh, this time from the dietician, who stood behind my mother-in-law, her mouth a parody of a smile.
“Mrs. Berrien is going to see you get whatever you want for lunch. How will that be?”
Mrs. Berrien and I both knew Harriet would take two bites of anything they offered and claim she was full. How she’s lived the last few years on the tiny amount she eats is anybody’s guess. Dale says she only eats in order to find something to complain about. The food is cold. It’s salty. It’s tasteless. Most often it’s “crap,” except when it isn’t, which happens sometimes. There’s no way to predict her approval or disapproval.
We all need something to live for, and my mother-in-law lives to complain. It hadn’t been that way when she was still able to get around. Back then she went to garage sales, had coffee with her friends, and gambled a little at the casino. When she broke a hip and became unable to walk, she turned into a full-time grump. Her mind isn’t always sharp, so there are times we aren’t even sure what the complaints are about. Other times, though, she’s as clear as a bell. Her unhappiness makes Dale a nervous wreck, so I run interference, trying to keep her from unloading on him.
The dietician spoke in a voice as fake as her smile. “We’re going to see you get our best, Mrs. Burner. We appreciate the chance to improve our service.”
Harriet waved a hand that looked like someone had pounded it with a hammer. “Sure, sure. Help me into bed. I want to take a nap before they bring in my crap lunch.”
Mrs. Berrien, certified in food but not in patient re-positioning, backed out the door with a horrified look on her face. “I’ll send someone down.” Her shoes squeaked a little as she hurried way with quick steps, eager to be somewhere else.
“Didn’t she hear me?” Harriet has no concept of job descriptions and expects whoever is nearby to do as she wants. Aide, doctor, or visiting pastor, anyone in sight might be ordered to take her to the toilet or fetch her some Boost. Worse, she assumes everyone at The Meadows is a health care expert, which has led to some interesting situations. For example, on the advice of “the nurse,” she decided a while back that she’d do better without pills that “messed up” her mind. That “nurse” had actually been a janitor with a mouth too big for her own good. Her advice resulted in a week-long crying jag for Harriet, a letter of reprimand in the janitor’s personnel file, and a lot of headaches for me.
Harriet glared. “Will you get me into bed or not?”
“We’re supposed to have help,” I responded.
“So what was that fat woman? Chopped liver?”
Luckily, I didn’t have to explain. An aide slipped into the room and began maneuvering Harriet’s wheelchair into place. “We’ll get you back in bed in a jiffy, Mrs. B,” she said. I admired her cheerful demeanor despite dealing with problems like Harriet all day every day. Patting my mother-in-law’s arm, she said, “You’ve got time for a little snooze before lunch.”
“I’m going to have scrambled eggs,” Harriet said, smiling up at her. “The cook in your restaurant makes really good ones.”
When I returned to the office, a man was stepping onto the front porch. Instead of going in the back door, I parked in the narrow driveway and hurried up the steps to let him in.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “We have a lot going on today, and I had to go out for a while.”
“I see.” His tone said he couldn’t have cared less. He was a stranger, probably from someplace where closing an office to run errands was considered unprofessional. He stepped inside and did a quick turn of the outer office, his shoes clicking on the wood floor as he made an obviously judgmental appraisal.
His cold manner and the thought that we’d made a poor first impression made me nervous. Taking off my coat, I hurriedly slid my pur
se into a desk drawer and kicked off my boots, babbling a little to fill the space. “It’s been one of those days. My mother-in-law needed me, and my dog is at the vet. He was hit by a car.” The words my dog brought a tiny twinge of warmth. I hadn’t realized how much I missed having a dog, but Buddy’s presence already made life seem better. Reminding myself that he might belong to someone, I resolved to put a notice in the paper that afternoon.
Returning to the present, I focused on my guest in a businesslike manner. Well-dressed and perfectly groomed, he was at least ten years my junior with wavy, dark-brown hair, deep-set brown eyes, and a clean-shaven jaw except for a narrow strip that ran vertically from lower lip to jaw line. He wasn’t a bad-looking man, but his face was blank, as if he only allowed emotion to show when he chose. His eyes were flat, like the tunnels Wile E. Coyote used to paint on a cliff face.
A quick glance confirmed my impression he was from somewhere else. Though his clothes looked expensive, he wasn’t dressed warmly enough for a Michigan winter. The well-cut leather jacket was too light. His expensive-looking loafers were stained with salt, and he had no hat, gloves, or scarf. Definitely a tourist, probably a first timer.
“What can we do for you?” I gestured toward a chair as I sat down at my desk.
He peered at the chair before sitting as if to assure it was clean. “I am Maximilian Basca, and I have a proposal for your employer.” He shifted the chair to a spot that suited him. “I believe she’s taken the Darrow case.”
Miffed to be taken as only a receptionist, I said, “My partner and I can’t discuss client business, Mr. Basca.”
His gaze turned more focused. “You don’t need to tell me anything, Ms.—” He glanced at the nameplate on my desk. “—Ms. Burner. If you hear me out, your advantage will become clear.”