by Terry Odell
“We don’t have enough information—yet—to identify them or their owners. If you see any of these vehicles while you’re patrolling, get the full plate and call it in. And it goes without saying that any leads to our suspect—at the moment all we can say is he’s a white male—should be called in immediately as well. Be safe.”
With that, he threw the session to Gaubatz, who added the usual alerts. Lost dog, trampled flower bed, noisy neighbors. Diligence about expired parking meters and watching for people ignoring the flashing red lights on stopped school busses. Which reminded Gordon that it was time to head to the elementary school for his crossing guard duty. One of his favorite tasks.
As always after his stint at the school, Gordon’s spirits lifted. Something about the way the kids—mainly the little ones—smiled, waved, and said, “Hi, Mr. Chief,” gave him hope for the future. Maybe his presence might inspire one or two of them to a life of service. And maybe, just maybe, keep one or two of them from turning into someone like whoever had burglarized Angie’s apartment.
At the very least, it got him out from behind his desk and away from the endless spreadsheets.
When he got back, Laurie handed him a pink message slip. “Only one?” Gordon said. “Slow morning.”
“The others are on your desk,” she said. “This one came in a minute ago. From a Trooper Kennedy out of Section Five.”
Gordon’s pulse skipped. “Thanks. He say what it was about?”
Laurie shook her head. “Nothing specific. A case they were working. Said you could call him. He didn’t say it was urgent.”
Gordon thanked Laurie and kept his pace sedate as he went to his office, although inside, he was skipping. A break in the case? Which case? Pickup crash or the Wardell accident? Or had someone turned in a cell phone memory card. Ha!
He parked himself behind his desk and picked up the phone.
When Kennedy answered, Gordon skipped the niceties. “Hepler, returning your call. You have something new?”
“Something interesting. The Wardell accident. Missing wife case?”
“Yeah. Did you find her? She all right?”
“Nope to the first. But you remember the uncle from Telluride? The one we couldn’t reach? We found him.”
“Great. What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
Gordon sensed Kennedy was dragging this out, enjoying a moment of drama. “You didn’t call to tell me the man didn’t say anything. What’s the deal?”
Gordon could almost hear the drum roll. Stifling his impatience, he let Kennedy play it his way. Tucking the handset between ear and shoulder, Gordon went to his coffee pot for a refill.
“The Telluride cops got a Check on Well-Being call from a neighbor who hadn’t seen the uncle. Newspapers crammed into the delivery box, and the neighbor said the uncle would tell him if he was out of town.”
Another pause. Gordon waited again.
“Cops checked. The uncle was dead.”
Gordon stopped mid-sip and went to his desk. “I’m assuming there’s a reason to believe it wasn’t natural causes or you wouldn’t have called me.”
“Strangulation. Hardly natural.” Kennedy’s tone shifted to all business. “All I know is they found the guy in his bedroom, in bed. You’ll have to connect with the locals in Telluride and see what they’ll share after they do the autopsy.”
“I’ll do that,” Gordon said. “And still no leads on the wife?”
“Nope. And Wardell’s quit nagging us. Guess dealing with his uncle being murdered has shifted his whining to the Telluride cops. Don’t get me wrong—we’re still looking. But it’s in the hands of the CBI.”
Colorado Bureau of Investigation. They had all the toys. But they also had a lot on their plates.
Stop. You’ve got enough to do. It’s their puzzle now.
“Thanks for the call,” Gordon said. “What about the pickup truck homicide?”
“Based on how hard it would be to make those two shots, the investigative team is looking at snipers, but without any trace from the scene, in my opinion, it’s going to end up in the cold case file. On the bright side, though—the driver’s ex-wives aren’t calling us three times a day asking why we haven’t found the killer yet, the way Wardell is.”
Cop humor. Gordon thanked Kennedy and returned to his coffee. After making sure his door was closed, he tilted back his chair, folded his hands behind his head, and crossed his feet on the desk. More puzzle pieces, but how many puzzles was he looking at? He ticked them off in his head. On the home front, which should be his priority, was Angie’s case. It was the one in his jurisdiction, but he could stretch the missing memory card from his phone in there as well. Then, the fire at the Yardumians’, with its unidentified victim. Wardell’s missing wife, and what sent his car down the ravine. The pickup truck driver’s homicide.
Whoever said life in small towns was boring ought to check out rural Colorado.
Since Solomon had done an excellent job making sure everything was ready for Gordon’s first day back, Gordon called the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office.
He introduced himself and was transferred around until he was connected with someone who would, in the interest of interdepartmental cooperation, answer Gordon’s questions.
“Still early days,” the deputy said. “Lab results aren’t in. I can tell you there didn’t seem to be signs of a struggle.”
“He was strangled, according to what I was told. So if there was no struggle, he might have known his attacker.”
“That’s one theory. Another is he was drugged first. Or, he was killed somewhere else and the body positioned on the bed. Lividity suggests if that was the case, he was moved shortly after death. They’re waiting for tox screen results. That, and the autopsy will help. No motives we can find. Neighbor said everyone liked him. Active in his church, paid his bills. Run of the mill good citizen. Modest bank account.”
“What about his nephew? Orrin Wardell. I had a run-in with him at the Tranquility Valley B and B—”
The deputy cut him off. “He’s a royal pain in the ass. Thinks the real world works like television and we should have this wrapped up in forty-five minutes.”
“You looking at him as a possible?” Gordon asked.
“He’s on our list,” the deputy said. “So far, he’s clean. We’re keeping him as a person of interest.”
“Where did he say he’s from? When he showed up at the B and B, he claimed to be from New Mexico, but his car came back to a Colorado address.”
“Huh? Hang on.”
Gordon went through his email while he waited for the deputy. An estimate for a security system for Angie’s place. He knew staying all the way out at his place wouldn’t work for her, but she’d finally agreed to having a system installed for Daily Bread. Gordon had taken the liberty of tacking her apartment to it as well. Even though she’d give him that manly-macho stuff again, he’d feel better knowing she was safer. He replied to the email and authorized the add-on.
The deputy came back on line. “Got an address in New Mexico on Wardell. I guess since he said his car was totaled, nobody bothered to look beyond his address.”
“Can I have it?” Gordon asked. He jotted down what the deputy dictated. He’d started punching the address into his search engine when Solomon came in.
“Those prints from Daily Bread, Chief. Good news and not-so-good news,” his officer said.
Chapter 39
“Start with the good,” Gordon said. “And then I’ve got another puzzle piece for you.”
Solomon’s brows lifted. He yanked the wooden chair from in front of Gordon’s desk and sat. “There’s a definite match between prints in the restroom and prints on the chair. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is we haven’t had any hits on them. But I’ll expand the search. Would help if we had a suspect.” He rested a forearm on the desk. “So, what’s your new puzzle piece?”
“Different puzzle. Part of the disappearing wife case. Wardell’s uncle—th
e one in Telluride—was murdered.”
Solomon’s eyes popped. “How? When? Is it connected?”
Gordon lifted a palm. “Slow down. First, they haven’t got any results yet. Apparently, he was strangled. And it’s not our case by any stretch of the imagination. But since Wardell said he was staying with his uncle, there might be a connection. Big might.”
“They looking at Wardell?” Solomon asked.
“They did. Person of interest. They haven’t found anything to tie him to the crime.”
Solomon snapped his fingers. “The wife. She disappears. Maybe Wardell says she was with him, goes through all that ‘Find my wife’ stuff. But she wasn’t with him. Gives her an alibi while she kills the uncle.”
Gordon mulled that one over. It fit the facts—that there’d been no evidence of the wife being with Wardell. If she’d never been there at all, had stayed in Telluride … “That’s a possibility. But why?”
“Too soon for that. Endless possibilities. Does he have money? Does she need money? Does he know a secret? Did her husband put her up to it? Hell, people commit crimes for motives that make no sense to us.”
“I’m sure the Telluride folks will look at all the angles. They say he’s not particularly well off. A pillar of the community.”
“Well, lots of people like knocking down pillars.” Solomon rose.
“Might help if we knew more about the wife,” Gordon said.
“Her name’s Roni, right?” Solomon got that gleam in his eye. The one that said he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into this one.
“On your down time,” Gordon said. “And with the approval of any agencies involved. Anything connected to the uncle’s death is San Miguel County.” No point in telling Solomon he couldn’t investigate—he’d do it anyway. And Gordon admitted he was more than a little curious himself.
“No problem, Chief. I’ve got connections. I’ll share anything I find.”
“Don’t leave yet,” Gordon handed Solomon the paper with Wardell’s New Mexico address. “Run this address for me, please. Wardell told the deputies he lived in New Mexico. They didn’t know about the car registration.”
“Sure thing. I’ll check ’em both.” With a bounce in his step, Solomon left Gordon’s office.
Laurie buzzed him. “Charlotte Strickland from the Mapleton Bee would like a few minutes of your time.”
Gordon sighed. “Concerning?” The duty officer routinely handled the press. If it was the false alarm at Daily Bread, in all probability the whole town knew about it already.
“She wants to get a personal interest story. What it’s like to run into a burning building to save someone.”
And fail, Gordon thought. “Firefighters do it all the time. Why doesn’t she interview one of them?”
“Because they’re trained to do it, Chief Hepler.” Charlotte Strickland pushed her way into his office, an apologetic Laurie at her heels. Gordon gave Laurie an understanding nod. Doors had no meaning for Ms. Strickland.
Gordon made a point of looking at his watch. “I have ten minutes, Ms. Strickland. What do you want to know?”
She turned, apparently making sure Laurie had left. “It’s not about me, Chief Hepler. It’s what my readers want to know.”
Readers, ha! No, it was about her. The woman’s idea of reporting the news seemed to be more of a path to insider information that gave her a sense of superiority. He’d bet she had been one of those kids who chanted, “I know something you don’t know” on the playground.
“What did it feel like?” she asked, her cheeks turning pink, her eyes glistening behind the large black frames of her glasses. “I want more than cold, dry facts. Why did you decide to rush into the fires of hell instead of waiting for the firefighters?”
He scowled. Politely, he hoped, but it was still a scowl. “First, let me make it clear. It was not a blazing inferno. The fire had just started, and the innkeeper’s wife told me her husband was inside. In a rural area, in bad weather, you can’t be sure what the firefighters’ response time will be, so it seemed prudent to attempt the rescue forthwith.”
“But it didn’t matter, did it?” she asked. “He died anyway, and he wasn’t even the man you were looking for. According to my sources, he was some vagrant. Some homeless guy.”
He narrowed his eyes. “It’s about trying, Ms. Strickland. Of course I wish I’d have been in time, but there were extenuating circumstances. Even if I’d been aware of them, I’d still have done what I could. We take an oath to protect, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a firefighter, a paramedic, or a law enforcement officer. It doesn’t matter if someone is rich or poor. We do our jobs. It’s part of who we are.” He wondered what her attitude would be if she knew the man had been drunk when he died.
And he wondered who her sources were, although she delighted in being part of the press, saying she would never reveal them. He wondered if Angie might be able to pump Charlotte Strickland when she stopped at Daily Bread for her afternoon coffee, which, Gordon suspected, was where she found her sources. She wouldn’t name anyone outright, of course, but she might drop a few hints as she gloated about her latest stories.
He looked at his watch again. “I’m sorry, Ms. Strickland, but I’m going to have to cut this short.”
“One more question, please,” she said. “What progress have you made into the burglary at Angie Mead’s home? Mapleton residents have a right to know if they’re in danger.”
He shifted into full-fledged PR mode. “At this time, all possible measures are being taken to identify a suspect. You must know by now that we don’t give out information regarding ongoing investigations.”
She shrugged and gave a half smile, as if to say it was worth a try. “Thanks for your time, Chief Hepler.”
He waited for her to leave, gave her enough time to get out of the building. Or was she looking for another cop to interview? He buzzed Laurie. “She still in the station?”
“That’s correct,” Laurie said in her most professional tone.
“She’s standing at your desk, isn’t she?”
“That’s also correct. Shall I bring you the notes for your meeting, sir?”
“Um, yes, please.” Of course Laurie knew his meeting was his standard ten o’clock break at Daily Bread. But if he headed straight over, Charlotte Strickland would likely follow him and get her knickers in a twist when she discovered he’d blown her off. No telling how she’d spin the story in that case.
A quick tap on the door, and Laurie entered carrying a green file folder. “Thanks for bailing me out,” Gordon said. “I’m seriously considering suggesting—strongly suggesting—that the budget include hiring a PIO. You think if I tell the Town Council that I’m liable to do more harm than good to the image of Mapleton when I talk to the press, that they’ll go for it?”
She dropped the file folder on his desk. “Public Information Officer, huh? Since the shake-up on the council, there’s some fresh blood on the board. New points of view. Maybe you can use the ‘all the big cities have them, and we don’t want to look like a hick town’ angle. They might be more receptive to that over the ‘I’m no good at a facet of my job’ angle.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He reached for the folder. “Anything important in here, or is it a dummy to get away from Charlotte Strickland?”
She slid it out from under his fingers and tipped it open. A pink message slip was clipped to several sheets of paper. “Both. Maybe. The papers are copies of your schedule. I needed something official-looking. The phone message is from the fire department in Tranquility Valley. I don’t know if it’s important. And Charlotte Strickland is gone.”
“I owe you. Again.”
She grinned. “Keep saying that. And thanks again for the flowers and chocolate.”
With that, she left Gordon staring at the message slip. No name, just initials. LJ. The number led him to the firefighter who’d been first on scene at the Yardumians’.
“Thought y
ou might want to know we got the preliminary word from the arson investigator.”
Gordon grabbed a pen from the mug on his desk. “And?”
“Arson is doubtful,” LJ said. “The victim was intoxicated, a smoker, and a drinker. There were two open bottles of whisky in the middle of the floor.”
Gordon wondered if those were what he’d heard fall over when he was in the cabin—and if he’d exacerbated things by knocking them over where they might have added to the fire.
“The investigator’s report is still inconclusive, but it gives two possibilities. One, spontaneous combustion of the rags caused the propane lantern to explode. Two, the victim dropped a cigarette or match too close to the rags with the same result. The cabin owner confirmed he’d been doing repairs and remodeling, had left rags, linseed oil, turpentine, paint, and stain in the cabin.”
“Did they confirm the identity of the victim yet? Was it the owner of the cell phone?”
“You’ll need to talk to the cops for that,” LJ said. “All I can address is the fire, and since you were involved, I thought I’d let you know.”
He thanked the man, then called the CBI and left a message for someone to get back to him if they’d ID’d the fire victim. Gordon hung up and checked the clock. He figured it had been long enough to justify time spent at a meeting, and went to Daily Bread, only a little later than usual. Angie set a plate with a cinnamon roll on the counter with a decisive clunk, then disappeared into the kitchen.
“Guess the security company called,” he muttered.
Vicky McDermott approached from the rear of the diner and slipped onto the stool next to his. “Sorry to interrupt, Chief, but I saw a Focus like the one from Finnegan’s.”
Chapter 40
Gordon shifted his focus to Vicky McDermott. “Where? You get the plate?”
With a smile, McDermott waved off Donna’s offer of coffee. “Too much coffee is why I had to stop in here to begin with.” She swiveled her stool so she faced Gordon. “I called it in. Can’t even be sure it’s the same car. Figured I had time for a quick pit stop while I waited for the results, and then I saw you.”