Dead Ringer

by Annelise Ryan

  “Unfortunately, it’s widely used, so I’m not sure how much evidentiary value it will have,” Arnie says. “But maybe when it’s combined with other evidence, it will help. Laura is working on the flower angle, too. She’s got inquiries out to nearly a hundred wholesalers and online shops to get a list of deliveries to the Eau Claire area.”

  Todd says, “Do you think that will pay off? It seems like searching for a needle in the proverbial haystack.”

  Arnie shrugs. “All we can do is try.”

  “Listen, guys,” I say. “I’d love to stay here and continue this with you, but my sister called while I was in the bathroom and I need to go and see her right away. She’s having a bit of a crisis.” Their faces all turn worried and I quickly add, “Girl stuff, you know.” A dismissive shrug from me and their faces all relax. I look at Todd. “You’re welcome to stay here and continue your efforts. I’m sure Arnie and Christopher won’t mind any insight you can provide on the case. You can bring them up to speed on the blood spatter evidence we went over yesterday. I’ll try to get back as soon as I can.”

  Todd frowns, but nods.

  “Absolutely, dude,” Arnie says. “I love me some blood spatter.”

  Before anyone can ask any more questions, I grab my coat and hurry out of the room, making my way down to the garage and my hearse. Ten minutes later, I’m standing in the living room of Brenda Joiner’s condo, waiting for her to finish applying her makeup.

  “Almost there!” she hollers to me. “You’re going to have to bring me up to speed on this case during the ride. I heard Junior talking about it yesterday and it sounds like a real can of worms.”

  “That it is,” I agree, looking around the neat and tidy interior of Brenda’s place. I recently saw the inside of Christopher’s half-wrecked house, when I picked him up to give him a ride to work because his Bug was being serviced. The comparisons are like night and day, and I decide to get that aspect of my plan out of the way first. “Brenda, how are things going with you and Christopher?”

  “Oh, okay,” she says with less enthusiasm than I expected. “We’re chugging along.”

  “He seems to think you’re doing more than ‘chugging.’ ”

  She finally comes out of the bathroom, makeup and hair fixed, her small but athletic body outfitted in yoga pants and a tunic-length, lightweight sweater. “You talked to him about us?” she says warily. For a moment, I’m afraid that she’s upset about this, but then she adds, “What did he say, exactly?” with a level of eagerness that suggests something else.

  “He seems to think the two of you are progressing along quite nicely.” I pause, wanting to gauge her reaction so far. She smiles, looking satisfied, and I drop the bombshell part. “And he’s going to ask you to move in with him.”

  Her smile freezes into a rictus worthy of the Joker. “Wh-wh-what?” she stammers. Her hands start to shake.

  I sigh, thinking that I should have saved this part of our conversation for later in the day, because getting her to focus on the case will be a challenge now.

  “Let me have your keys,” I say, doing a “gimme” motion with my hand. “I’m going to drive.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Half an hour into our drive, Brenda is looking a little less shell-shocked and her hands are no longer shaking. I had thought she’d be reluctant to move in with Christopher, but it turns out I was wrong. Brenda is all in, so much so that she’s already redesigning some of the rooms in his house and planning a vegetable garden in the mud pit he calls a backyard. To say I’m surprised is an understatement.

  “I really had no idea,” she squeals for the sixth time. “I thought things were going slow, plodding along. Christopher can be so hard to read sometimes.”

  “Well, there you go,” I say. “One step closer to your ‘happily ever after.’ ”

  She gives me a wry, skeptical look, but her smile is beaming behind it.

  “Any chance we can focus on the case now?” I try.

  “Sure. Of course.” She repositions herself in her seat, as if that will somehow make her more serious and focused. “Hit me.”

  I fill her in on the case, beginning with our local victim, the findings, the Ulrich case, and our trip to Eau Claire. I’m skeptical of Brenda’s ability to stay focused, given the level of delirium she’s been displaying over the news that Christopher is ready to drive their relationship up a notch; but to her credit, she stays focused on what I’m saying and asks appropriate, intelligent questions. She even eyes me suspiciously when I tell her about meeting Todd at the conference and how he shared the flower petal information with me, and how he has now come down to help us with the investigation. I suspect she has sensed I’m hiding part of the story, but she doesn’t ask about it. At least not yet, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the topic comes up later in the day.

  During the drive, I keep checking the rearview mirror, looking for a black SUV. Oddly enough, given the prevalence of such vehicles on the road, I don’t see one. There is a small blue sedan that stays a ways behind us for most of the drive, but it turns off as soon as we reach the city limits.

  It’s going on eleven o’clock when we arrive in Eau Claire and our first stop is Caroline Helgeson’s place of employment, a financial firm that handles investment accounts. Given that our arrival is unplanned, I’m surprised when the receptionist takes us to meet with the woman who had been Caroline’s boss.

  “Hi, I’m Theda Magnus,” the woman says, extending a hand to each of us.

  Her grip is firm, though not overly so, and brief. She is a tall, lanky woman, as tall as me, though much thinner. Her gray hair is pulled back in a tight twist and her features are sharp and hawklike, though there is a warmth in her brown eyes that softens the otherwise harsh, angular lines of her face.

  “Please have a seat,” she says, gesturing toward a grouping of four chairs off to one side of the room. “Did I hear right, that you are looking into Caroline’s death?” she says, settling into one of the chairs, once Brenda and I are seated. “May I ask why, given that her killer is already behind bars?”

  “Some questions have arisen,” I say. “We are looking into the possibility that Caroline may not have been killed by the person who was convicted of her murder.”

  “Mr. Ulrich,” she says, nodding slowly, a troubled expression on her face. “I must confess, I always thought he seemed like an unlikely culprit.”

  “Why is that?” I ask.

  She raises her eyebrows briefly and smiles. “Well, for one thing, the way that Caroline talked about him. I mean, don’t get me wrong. He wasn’t the love of her life or anything like that. In fact, that was the thing that troubled her about him.”

  “What do you mean?” I say.

  “She said that the two of them were so compatible—they shared the same tastes, they liked doing the same things, their basic philosophies were the same. Caroline kept bemoaning the fact that she felt so comfortable around him and enjoyed his company so much, yet there was no . . . What did she call it?” Theda taps a finger on her temple, looking off to one side. “Spark. That was it. She said there was ‘no spark’ between them.”

  “Did you ever meet Mason Ulrich?” Brenda asks.

  “Once, very briefly. I happened to run into the two of them coming out of a restaurant one evening and Caroline introduced him. He seemed . . .” Once again, she struggles for the right word. “Polite?” she says finally, clearly not happy with that choice. “He was solicitous, but not overly so. He opened the door for Caroline, and during the brief time I chatted with them, he only spoke of her and how much she enjoyed her work.” She looks heavenward for a moment and sighs heavily. “I know there are people in the world who are good at masquerading. Sociopaths, or psychopaths, or some such. And maybe Mr. Ulrich is one of those people. If he is, he fooled me. I didn’t get the sense that he was the sort of person who could do a thing like that.”

  On that note, I thank Theda for her time and we take our leave.

  “I
nteresting,” Brenda says on the way back to her car. “What was your take on the guy when you talked to him in prison?”

  In bringing Brenda up to date on the case earlier, I tried hard to share only the facts, not any impressions with her. Given her current question, I must have done an okay job of it.

  “To be honest, he seemed sincere and believable. But Theda is right. There are people out there who can fool the best of us, and for all we know, Mason Ulrich might be one of them.”

  “So where to next?” Brenda asks as we traverse the parking lot.

  “I’d like to talk to Ulrich’s first attorney, but I don’t know who that was. I need to call someone.” I take out my phone, google the nonemergency number for the Eau Claire police department, and dial the number. When a woman answers, I ask her if Detective Stetson is in. In true cop-shop fashion, she doesn’t answer my question; she fires back with one of her own.

  “Who is calling, please?”

  “Mattie Winston. I’m with the medical examiner’s office in Sorenson.”

  The woman tells me to hold and then leaves me listening to a painfully tinny but blissfully short segment of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”

  “This is Detective Stetson, Ms. Winston. How can I help you?”

  “Oh, hi,” I say. “I was wondering if you could get some information for me. I’d like to chat with Mr. Ulrich’s first attorney, the one who represented him at his trial. Could you give me a name and address for him?”

  “I believe that information is in some of the stuff Detective Hurley copied from our files,” Stetson says.

  “Yes, well, I’m not with Detective Hurley at the moment. I’m here in Eau Claire and—”

  “You’re back in Eau Claire? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I believe I just did,” I say, surprised by his harsh tone.

  “Why do you want to talk to the lawyer? Are you still thinking Ulrich might be innocent? Because that’s crazy thinking.”

  “Is it?” I say. There is no immediate answer and I can almost hear Stetson’s wheels turning.

  Stetson finally says, “I think you should leave the investigating to the police, Ms. Winston. Let your local detective do the work and you stick to the autopsies. If you have questions, I suggest you direct them to your detective.”

  I gather from this that he doesn’t know that Hurley and I are a couple. It didn’t come up when we were here the other day, a point that was driven painfully home after the whole Todd debacle at the motel. Apparently, it didn’t come up while Stetson was with Hurley, either.

  “I have a police officer with me,” I say. “And part of my job is investigating the deaths that come our way, so if you don’t mind, would you please give me the information I asked for?”

  “I’ll need to look it up and get back to you,” he says.

  I know he’s lying. There is no way he doesn’t know the name of Ulrich’s lawyer. He’s just stalling, hoping to put me off my game. “Okay, please do that,” I say, knowing I likely won’t hear from the man again. I give him my cell number, thank him as sincerely as I can, and then disconnect the call.

  I look at Brenda, my face screwed up in thought. “Here, you drive,” I say, tossing her the keys.

  “Where to?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Hold on.” We get in her car and I use my phone to search for Barney Ledbetter’s contact information. I find a number and, much to my surprise, Barney himself answers the call.

  “Mr. Ledbetter, it’s Mattie Winston. We met the other day at Columbia.” I offer this explanation as a memory jog, though I feel strongly that Barney doesn’t need it. The man did his homework prior to meeting with us and I got a sense that he’s a smart cookie.

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering if you could give me the name and number for Mr. Ulrich’s first attorney. I’d like to speak to him.”

  “Why?”

  “I have some questions I’d like to ask him.”

  “You can ask me anything you need to know.”

  I let out an exasperated breath. “For cripes’ sake, I’m trying to help your client here. And unless you were present during the early part of the trial and investigation and can tell me how other people reacted and what they might have said, you can’t tell me what I need to know.”

  There is a pause and I can hear Barney’s nasal breathing on the other end. “His name is Norman Fowler.” He then recites the man’s address and phone number, which I quickly scribble down on a pad that Brenda has provided for me. I thank Barney when he’s done and then quickly disconnect the call before he can say or ask me anything more.

  “Sheesh, it’s like pulling teeth trying to get any information out of these people,” I say to Brenda.

  “It’s almost as if they have something to hide,” she says pointedly. We exchange a look, but say nothing more. We both know we’re on the same wavelength. Brenda plugs the address I’ve written down into her GPS, and after a moment, the route is calculated for us. It turns out to be a serendipitous moment in our day as Norman Fowler’s office is only a few blocks away from where we are now. I debate calling ahead, but instead opt for a surprise drop-in visit, which has worked okay for us so far today.

  Norman Fowler is part of a small practice with a group of five lawyers, each with their own specialty. Norman is the only criminal lawyer in the group, and it seems our luck has run out, because he’s not in the office.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Fowler is in court today,” the skinny, twentysomething receptionist, with skull earrings, tells us. “If you’d like to leave some contact information, I’ll be happy to pass it on to him,” she says, looking anything but happy at the idea.

  With no other options available, I give her one of my cards and tell her that it’s about the Mason Ulrich case. I’m hoping this will get me some attention and it does, just not in the way I’d hoped.

  “Mason Ulrich? That’s an old case, closed a long time ago,” she says dismissively.

  “I’m aware of that,” I say. “But it’s important.”

  “Okay,” she says, clearly amused by my efforts. She tosses my card off to one side and smiles at us again. “Anything else?”

  “No,” I say. “Wait, yes. Your name please?”

  Her smile falters ever so slightly. “My name?” she says, looking surprised.

  “Yes, please,” I say, all icy politeness.

  “It’s Courtney,” she says, shuffling some papers on her desk and acting as if I’m taking up her very valuable time.

  “Courtney what?” I push.

  Her eyes slide from me to Brenda, and then back to me. “Courtney Edwards,” she says, the forced smile still in place. Her lips tremble ever so slightly and then she adds, “Why?”

  The word comes out in a tone of innocent curiosity that I’m sure is meant to suggest nonchalance. I can tell she didn’t want to ask, but her need to know was simply too overwhelming.

  Which is why I beam a smile at her, looking much more confident than I feel. I say, “Thank you.” Then I turn and leave.

  CHAPTER 22

  “Sheesh, Winston, you’re good,” Brenda says when we’re back outside. “I’m pretty sure she called you a bitch as we walked out.”

  “No doubt, but I’m pretty sure she’ll tell Mr. Fowler about me now, and that’s all I want.”

  “So, where to next?”

  “I’m hungry and there’s a restaurant called Cully’s, which Caroline and Mason Ulrich went to several times. Let’s grab some lunch and see if we can get any information as a side dish.”

  Brenda searches for the place in her GPS and we are there fifteen minutes later.

  Cully’s is a restaurant that reminds me of the Red Robin chain, but with a more limited menu. Their focus is solely on burgers and shakes, and the interior décor looks like it was stolen off the stage during a performance of Grease.

  Our waitress is a woman named Wendy; I guess her to be fortysomething, and she has the weathered assurance and sensi
ble shoes of a lifelong wait staffer. The menu is intriguing, a mix of traditional beef burgers with various add-ons and toppings, plus a few nontraditional burger offerings made from bison, lamb, pork, and, of course, since we are in Wisconsin, venison.

  I opt for a basic mushroom beef burger with Swiss cheese and a side of regular fries, while Brenda goes for the more daring area of the menu and gets a bison burger, with a side of sweet potato fries. We both opt for the chocolate shakes based on Wendy’s recommendation, and once our order is placed, I ask Wendy if she ever works the dinner shift.

  “All the time,” she says. “You can’t live off what you make here on lunches alone.”

  “Did you ever wait on the couple from the infamous Ulrich murders?”

  “You mean Caroline?” she says with a wistful tone. “She used to eat here a lot, long before she met that Ulrich guy. She was a regular.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Are you a reporter?”

  “No. I work at the medical examiner’s office in Sorenson, Wisconsin. We’re looking into a death we have down there that has some similarities to the ones in the Ulrich case. You knew Caroline Helgeson?”

  Wendy shrugs. “I guess you could say that. I waited on her a bunch of times and we chatted. She was trying to advise me on a retirement plan, because Lord knows this place doesn’t have one.” She rolls her eyes at the very idea of it. “Anyway, yeah, I suppose I kind of knew her. Awful thing that happened to her.” She wags her head woefully.

  “Did you wait on her when she came in here with Mason Ulrich?” I ask.

  “Yeah, twice.” She frowns, pursing her lips and tapping her pen against them. “I wouldn’t have pegged him as a nutjob,” she says. “He always seemed so nice and polite. But then they said that about Ted Bundy, too, didn’t they?”

  We nod, and her expression perks up.

  “Well, best get this order in. Back in a flash with your shakes.”

  I give Brenda a satisfied look and I’m about to tell her what I’m hoping to learn from Wendy, when a male voice behind me says, “Hello again, Ms. Winston.”