Stiff Competition

by Annelise Ryan

  Speaking of addled brains, George appears at the door looking sleepy-eyed and dull. His hair is sticking up in the back, and there are at least three parts I can see in the front. His left cheek is creased from lying on something, and he’s putting the finishing touches on a huge yawn as he stops in front of us. The exhalation of his breath hits me square in the face and it’s almost enough to make me gag. Trips to the dentist don’t appear to be high on George’s list of priorities.

  “Momma said you guys want to talk to me?” he says, scratching at a roll of belly that’s poking out from beneath his yellowed, wife-beater tee.

  “Mr. Haas, you went out hunting this morning, correct?” Hurley asks.

  “Yeah. So? I got a license. I can show it to ya if ya want.”

  “Where were you between five and eight this morning?”

  George ignores Hurley’s question and shifts his gaze to me. “Hey, you’re Mattie Fjell, aren’t ya?”

  “More or less,” I say. I’ve been considering changing my name back to my maiden name now that I’m divorced, but the task has been on a back burner for a while. The paperwork is a headache, and if Hurley and I ever do get married, I’d just have to change it again. Besides, I’ve never been fond of my maiden name.

  “Oh, right,” George says, dragging out the last word. “You married some fancy doctor up at the hospital, didn’t ya? Heard it didn’t turn out so well for ya.”

  George may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he is a master of understatement. “George, can you please answer the detective’s question?” I say in an irritated tone.

  George’s brow furrows, magnifying the Neanderthal ridge he has in his forehead. I can tell he’s figuring something out, and for a second I swear I can smell burning rubber from those wheels spinning in his head. “Wait,” he says slowly. “You work for that death doctor now, don’t ya?” He nods vigorously in answer to his own question and with his flat, splayed nose, prominent brow ridge, and sloping forehead, he looks like a prehistoric bobblehead doll. “This is about that guy I found out in Cooper’s Woods, isn’t it? Did that damned idiot Axel squeal?”

  With that question, I know who George was talking to at the convenience store. Axel Nilsson is another of my ex-classmates, a Sorenson lifer, and George’s lifelong friend. They are of a similar caliber mentally, although Axel hasn’t been as lucky when it comes to skirting the long arm of the law. He’s been busted several times for possession with intent to sell.

  “Tell me about it,” Hurley says.

  “Ain’t nothing to tell,” George says with a shrug. “Saw the guy all stretched out on the ground with an arrow in his neck. Figured someone would report it, and I was on the trail of a ten-pointer. I checked to make sure he was dead and didn’t need the meat wagon.”

  “You checked?” Hurley says with a questioning arch of one eyebrow.

  “Yeah, I felt on his neck for a pulse even though I was pretty sure he was a goner, given all the blood and the way his eyes were staring up at the sky.”

  Hurley clenches his jaw and sighs heavily.

  “What?” George says, looking back and forth between me and Hurley. “I didn’t break no law, did I?”

  Hurley ignores the question and comes back with one of his own. “Do you hunt with a bow and arrow?”

  George grins, revealing his dentition challenges, and holds up a hand. “Kind of hard to do that with this,” he says, revealing the one remaining finger and thumb he has on his right hand. “Heck, I have a hard time just pulling a trigger.”

  “Right,” Hurley says with another sigh. “Did you see anyone else out there this morning?”

  “Saw that ten-pointer. Almost bagged him, too. But if you mean other people, nope. I didn’t see anyone. Heard something though.”

  “What?” Hurley asks, clearly impatient.

  “Sounded like one of them four-wheeler recreational vehicles,” George says. “You know, an ATM.”

  “ATV,” I correct.

  “Whatever,” George replies with an impatient wave of his hand.

  “Did you see the ATV?” I ask.

  George shakes his head. “Nope, just heard it.”

  “Where was it?” I ask with a friendly smile. I can tell Hurley’s level of patience has worn painfully thin. He is shifting back and forth from one foot to the other and he’s glanced at his watch at least three times in the last minute. George has sensed it, too, and I can tell he’s about to clam up.

  “Sounded like it was over in the field off to the east, by that stream.”

  I know where he means. There are several small tributaries of the river that runs through town that meander through surrounding fields. One of them divides what used to be the Cooper farmland and runs through Cooper’s Woods.

  “We should check that area for ATV tracks,” I say to Hurley, hoping to get him refocused.

  He nods absentmindedly, takes out his cell phone, and looks at it.

  Sensing that Hurley is hopelessly lost for the moment, I tell George, “When you find someone dead, you need to report it.”

  “I will from now on,” George says with a vigorous nod and a big smile. “I swear. It’s just that I really wanted that buck.”

  “Did you get him?”

  “Not yet, but tomorrow is another day,” he says with high optimism. He gives me a quick head-to-toe perusal and pushes his optimistic outlook a little further. “Say, did you get married again after ditching that doctor, or are you available?”

  “Not married, and not looking to be,” I say. I half expect Hurley to react to this, but he doesn’t.

  “Well, how about a date? No harm in that, is there? I’ll even spring for dinner.”

  I give his invitation a split second of serious consideration, only because going out for anything right now sounds like a dream, even if I had George for a dinner companion. Then I shake it off, realizing how sad my social life has become. The only thing going out in my house these days is my garbage.

  “Thanks, George, but I’m kind of seeing someone.” I glance at Hurley, hoping he’ll support my claim, but he’s still distracted by his phone. Besides, if I’m looking for confirmation of seeing anyone, I’d have better luck with my UPS guy. “Got any trophies from past hunts?” I ask to change the subject and hopefully get Hurley refocused. The Haas farm strikes me as just the sort of creepy place for a bunch of stuffed animals. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that George does his own taxidermy. And I’m trying to find an excuse to get invited inside to see if the Haas house serves as home to any black cats.

  “Yeah, we got a twelve-pointer hanging in the living room that my daddy killed years ago when I was a boy. Haven’t seen another one like him since. That’s why I was hoping to bag that ten-pointer. Not as good, but it would be close and I know my daddy would be smiling down at me from heaven.”

  “Can I see it?”

  George shrugs. “Don’t see why not.” He steps aside and waves me inside. I look back at Hurley, expecting him to follow, but he’s gazing off in the distance.

  “Hurley, you coming?”

  He waves me off. “You go ahead. I’ll wait out here.”

  To say I’m stymied is an understatement. George isn’t Deliverance material, but he’s not far from it. I can’t believe Hurley is letting me go inside this house alone. With a little shake of my head, I square my shoulders, and venture into the unknown.

  The Haas family home smells like a mixture of hay and stale cooking oil, though there is a subtle hint of manure underlying the main aroma. From the entry foyer I can see a dining room off to the right, and beyond it a kitchen that looks like it hasn’t been remodeled since the fifties. To the left is the living room, which is furnished with two couches—both of which are covered with handmade afghans, and one of which is at a tilt and missing its right legs—and two stuffed chairs covered in some sort of worn, rose-colored brocade. The flooring is wide pine boards, nicked, stained, and scarred along the perimeter I can see, the middle section cov
ered by an oval, rag rug. A huge stone fireplace on one wall has a big soot smear up the front of it, and there are several burn marks on the floor in front of the hearth. Someone has laid a fire ready to light. On the far wall, perpendicular to the fireplace is a wooden flatbed wagon, the hitch end propped up on an old, metal milk can. The boards of the wagon look ancient and brittle, ready to ignite should a spark from the fireplace make it that far, and barely strong enough to support the TV sitting on it. The TV looks like it’s from the 1980s—big, boxy body with a small screen. There’s no cable service out here in the country so there isn’t much reason to have a modern TV. Hanging on the wall above the TV is the promised deer head.

  I half expect to find Irma lurking somewhere, but she’s nowhere in sight. So I brace myself and settle my gaze on the deer head. I hate seeing trophies like this but I have to admit that whoever preserved it did a great job. The glass eyes look warm and friendly, the fur begs to have a hand run through it, and the stately antlers loom proud and powerful above it all. He was a handsome, majestic beast in his time, and seeing his head mounted like this makes me want to cry.

  “Pretty impressive, isn’t it?” George says.

  I nod, afraid to speak, and turn away. “Got any pets, George?”

  “Naw, not really. There’s a bunch of cats out in the barn to help keep the mice in check, and we used to have a mutt named Brutus here in the house, but he got some kind of cancer last year and dropped right there in front of the fireplace.” George looks sad and shakes his head. “He was a good hunting dog, too.”

  I make my way back to the front door and George follows on my heels. When I reach the porch, I see Hurley pacing at the foot of the stairs. I look over at the barn thinking that we should probably check it out, too. Then, as if on cue, three cats come scampering out of the barn: one yellow tabby, one calico, and one black and white cat. I’m starting to think that black cats really are a jinx.

  I thank George and tell him good-bye as I descend the steps. “We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.”

  I grab Hurley’s arm and steer him back toward the car. “Give me your keys,” I tell him. He does so without question. “Still no word from Emily?” I ask rhetorically.

  He shakes his head, his face a mask of worry.

  “Hurley, I think you need to pass this investigation off to someone else for now, and go look for her. You’re obviously distracted and concerned, and I’m sure Richmond can take over for you.”

  “Yeah, maybe I should.”

  Hurley’s quick capitulation worries me. His investigations are always a priority. The fact that he’s willing to hand it off so easily tells me how concerned he is.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” I ask. “Has Emily been talking suicide or anything like that?”

  Hurley shakes his head. “No, it’s just my gut. I have a bad feeling.”

  In the time that I’ve known Hurley I’ve learned that his gut is pretty darned trustworthy.

  “Do you want to have Richmond call George in for more questioning?” I ask him. “We do have his fingerprint on the dead man’s neck. And I don’t know if you noticed it or not, but there are at least two cats on the property that have black fur—a calico and a black and white one.”

  Hurley squints up at the sky and shakes his head. “Not yet. Haas’s explanation is plausible, and without any other evidence, we don’t have anything on him. Besides, with his fingers the way they are, he couldn’t have shot a bow and arrow. If something else comes up, we can always come back. Let him think he’s off the hook for now so he doesn’t try to disappear.”

  I start the car and head back to the main road. “Call Richmond and ask him to take over this case for you for now.”

  Hurley nods and punches in Richmond’s number. I listen to Hurley’s half of the call, a bit spooked by the underlying current of dread I can hear in his voice when he explains to Richmond what’s going on with Emily. When he’s done with the call, he says, “Drive back to the station and we’ll hook up with Richmond there. They’ve just brought all of Sanderson’s home files in for Jonas to start digging through, and Richmond says you and he can start interviewing the girlfriends.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to drive around and look for Emily. I’ll check back at the house again. Maybe she just went off somewhere to be by herself for a while before she headed home.”

  “We should probably check the hospital,” I suggest. “Just to make sure nothing has happened to her.”

  Hurley looks panicked by the idea, and he takes out his phone and calls the hospital ER. I listen in as he asks if Emily is there. After listening for a moment, he then says, “But I’m her father and I’m concerned about her because she’s missing. Can’t you just tell me if she’s there or not?”

  I can tell from his rapidly reddening face that he isn’t making any progress and I think I know why. He confirms my suspicion once he disconnects the call. “Stupid privacy laws,” he mutters. “Whoever that was on the phone told me that they can’t reveal the presence of anyone in the ER over the phone.”

  “That’s because they’ve been tricked before by people who say they’re someone other than who they are so they can get info. So they won’t say one way or another. They either let the patient make the calls, or if the patient can’t, they’ll get the cops involved. But I think I know a way to get around it.” I take out my phone, dial the ER number, and ask if my ex-coworker and good friend Phyllis—aka Syph—is working in the ER. I breathe a sigh of relief when I find out she is, and when she comes on the phone, I tell her what I need.

  “Emily isn’t here and hasn’t been here,” Phyllis says. “If she does show up, I’ll call you. Good luck. These darned teenagers can be a handful.” I thank her, and as I’m about to disconnect the call, she asks how Matthew is doing and when I’m going to come by and show him off to her and the rest of the staff.

  “Soon,” I promise. “I’m just getting my feet wet with being back to work. Once I get a little more organized, I’ll come by.” She finally lets me go and after I’ve disconnected the call, I pass the information along to Hurley that Emily isn’t and hasn’t been there.

  “Okay, that’s good,” he says. “At least I think it is.”

  I shoot him a curious look.

  “It’s not that I’d want anything to happen to her,” he clarifies. “But at least if she was there we’d know where she is.”

  We arrive at the police station and, as we head inside, Hurley checks his phone for the umpteenth time. I can tell he’s growing more concerned by the minute and his worry is contagious. I’m starting to feel a real sense of dread and urgency, as much toward Hurley as Emily.

  “Hurley, hold on,” I say before we enter the building. “Richmond can handle this investigation without me and I’m worried about you. Why don’t I come with you?”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’d love to have you along, but I think it’s best if you’re not with me when I find her . . . assuming I do.”

  He’s probably right, given that I’m an unwelcome complication in Emily’s life right now, but I still feel a bit slighted at being left out. “I understand,” I say, “but I want you to promise that you’ll call me as soon as you know something. And call me later anyway even if you don’t. Okay?”

  He nods and I lean over to give him a kiss on the cheek. He doesn’t kiss me back, but I’m not bothered by the fact. What does bother me is the war going on inside my head. Part of me is fuming at Emily for all the stunts she has pulled and the crap she has put us through. Another part of me empathizes with what she’s gone through. And yet another part of me is worried sick that this isn’t one of her usual stunts, and that something really bad has happened to her this time.

  Chapter 13

  We find Richmond sitting at his desk and happy to help—he and Hurley typically work as a team these days anyway—and half an hour later we are all up to speed on
the various aspects of the investigation.

  Richmond informs us that Jonas and Laura are going through the contents of Lars’s office and that, unfortunately, the crew we left behind in the woods this morning didn’t find any useful trace evidence, nor did they find anyone in the wooded area who might have been a witness.

  “There were people out there, though,” he says. “There are still patches of snow on the ground in some places, and they were able to see footprints. They did some photos and casts of them, but Junior said they weren’t very clear and he doesn’t think they’ll be much help.”

  Hurley tells Richmond about our conversation with George Haas and suggests that Richmond compare the footprints to Haas’s shoes. “It’s unlikely the guy could have shot the arrow given his hand limitations, but we know he was out there and he might have had an accomplice. While you’re at it, we should also have them look for ATV tracks,” Hurley adds. “Haas said he heard one off in the distance. Don’t know if it’s at all significant, but we should probably check it out.”

  Richmond looks out the window of his office and frowns. “It’s almost dark so we might have to let that one wait until morning. And in case you didn’t already guess this from my silence on the matter, our search of Morton’s house didn’t turn up anything either. No bows, no arrows, not so much as a piece of hay. So far we’re scoring a big fat zero on this one.”

  “Maybe something will pan out with the girlfriends,” Hurley says, offering up his notebook so Richmond can copy down the names, addresses, and phone numbers. “We had a chat with Kirsten Donaldson already because she made a surprise visit to Lars’s house while we were there.” He then fills Richmond in on what we learned from and about Kirsten, finishing with “We should check around with her neighbors to see if anyone can verify that she was home this morning. And her ex-husband, Brad, is a potential suspect, too. Sounds like he has a jealous streak, and if he’s still carrying a torch for Kirsten, he might have wanted Sanderson dead.”