“You mean he doesn’t have a backup plan in place?” I say.
“No, I mean about him being worried. I’ve heard there have been some territory disputes already.”
“Do tell,” Brenda says, feigning high interest.
She not only bats her eyelashes, she manages to look alluring doing it. I’m impressed, because whenever I try to do it, I look like I’ve got a bad nervous twitch.
“I love a good man squabble,” she coos. Brenda gives Cecil a flirty look and he smiles, moving closer to her and away from me.
I know I should be glad that we’re getting the job done, no matter how it happens, but I feel an inexplicable twinge of rivalry that starts to grow like the Grinch’s heart. Maybe it’s my pregnancy hormones, and if anyone asks, it absolutely will be that, but I suddenly want to win Cecil’s attentions away from Brenda. This has nothing to do with my being attracted to Cecil in any way—I’m decidedly not—but rather with the affirmation of my allure and attractiveness when it comes to the opposite sex. There is something about being married and pregnant that brings both of these qualities into doubt for me.
I run a hand through my hair and sit up a little straighter, thrusting my bosom out there. Brenda may have me when it comes to overall physique, but if Cecil is a boob man at all, I think I stand a chance here. Of course neither Brenda nor I have any serious interest in Cecil as a man, other than the fact that some flattery or flirting is often a way to stroke the male ego and avoid having to stroke anything else.
“Yes, Cecil,” I say in what I hope is a breathless voice, “tell us all about these territorial disputes.”
Cecil tears his eyes from Brenda, who is running a finger over her lips in an action that is quite sexy, if I do say so myself, and his eyes briefly settle on my cleavage before looking at my face. He frowns, and then looks back at Brenda, who is now twirling her hair. Clearly, the girl knows what she’s doing, because Cecil’s expression turns beatific.
“Well, I haven’t actually witnessed anything myself,” he says, “but I’ve overheard some of the guys in here talking about how Cory pays the dispatcher to give the death calls to him and not to the new doctor who’s supposed to be learning. The doc gets to do the slicing and dicing, of course. Cory doesn’t do that, but he doesn’t want anyone else doing the investigating and decision-making. I heard that this one guy who works with the doc got into a yelling match with Cory not too long ago about Cory trying to keep him from the death calls. Apparently, Cory let him have a death call after that, because it was one of those nasty ones, you know? Someone who had been dead for a long time. In fact, it was one of them girls that serial killer guy did.”
I recall Todd telling me a similar story. I’m about to ask Cecil what kind of car Cory drives, but a male voice behind us says, “What the hell are you doing here?”
I try to turn on my saddle and end up sliding off instead. One of the stirrups tangles around my legs and I manage to catch myself just before I fall. In doing so, I end up with my hips wedged between two of the saddle seats.
Cory Llewellyn stands in front of me, looking like he just ate a mouthful of rusty nails. He is dressed in jeans and cowboy boots, but his top half is pure Packerland. He has a green sweater, with the Packer G on the front of it, embroidered in green and gold, and a matching baseball cap, with the same embroidered emblem.
“Hello again, Mr. Llewellyn,” I say, mostly for Brenda’s benefit. I wiggle my hips to try and get unstuck, but I’m wedged in good. “We just stopped in for a drink. Fancy meeting you here.”
Llewellyn isn’t falling for it. “You can quit with the charades,” he sneers. “I spoke to Pete about you just a bit ago. You’re going to keep pushing this damned Ulrich matter, aren’t you? You think you’re going to waltz in like some great savior and show everyone how us dumb country bumpkins got it wrong, but you’re the one who’s messed up.” He takes a step closer to me and wags a finger in my face. “You need to keep your nose out of things you got no business looking into.”
Brenda slides off her stool and manages to insert herself between Llewellyn and me, all five feet six inches of her. Her physique is deceptive. The girl works out like a demon and she’s all hard muscle underneath that slender-looking exterior. She juts her chin up at Llewellyn and says, “That sounded like a threat, sir. I’m sure you don’t mean to be threatening my friend here. So back off before you force me to do something I don’t want to do.”
Llewellyn looks down at Brenda and laughs. “You and what army?” he scoffs.
Brenda slips her badge out and shoves it at his face. “This army,” she says.
Llewellyn’s smile falters ever so slightly, but he doesn’t back down. “I’m not afraid of cops,” he says. “Nor am I afraid of you.”
“You should be,” Brenda says with an icy, brittle smile. There is a glint in her eye that I’ve never seen before. I suspect it’s fueled with some gin and tonic. I find it quite off-putting, and, apparently, Llewellyn thinks so, too, because he finally backs up a couple of steps.
“Drinks are on the house,” he says. “Now leave.” With that, he turns and storms off, disappearing through a door off to one side of the far end of the bar.
Brenda whirls around and looks at me. “You okay?”
“Not exactly. I’m sort of wedged in between these saddles and can’t seem to get myself loose.” I try again to maneuver my hips, but nothing is giving.
“Hold on a sec,” Brenda says, and she manages to slide a hand in between the outside of my thigh and one of the saddles. She does some manipulating of the upper part of the stirrup and I feel a little give. I give a mighty heave of my hips and manage to break free. I stand there, rubbing my hips, which hurt like they’ve been branded. The last time my hips ached this bad, it was because I’d just been introduced to an evil machine at the gym that tried to rip my legs apart like two halves of a wishbone.
“Ready to go home?” Brenda asks.
I nod. “Just one sec.” I fish in my pocket, come up with a twenty-dollar bill, and slap it on the bar. I notice the fifty has disappeared.
“You heard Cory,” Cecil says. “Drinks are on the house.”
“Then that’s for you,” I tell him. “But I have one last question for you before we go.”
“What?” He eyes the twenty eagerly.
“What kind of car does Cory drive?”
“A Jeep Grand Cherokee.”
Great, an SUV. “What color?”
“Black. Why?”
“Thanks for everything, Cecil,” I say, avoiding his question. “You’ve been great.”
I follow Brenda out through the fake saloon doors and to her car. “Why were you asking about Llewellyn’s car?” Brenda asks.
“I thought I might have been followed the other day, but couldn’t be sure.”
“What kind of car?”
“A black SUV.”
“But what make and model?”
“I don’t know. They never got close enough for me to tell. I’m not very good at identifying vehicles by make and model. I don’t know how you cops do it.”
We get into the car and I start the engine. “I had no idea you were so good at flirting, Brenda. You had Cecil wrapped around your little finger. Or rather your index finger, since that’s the one you kept rubbing over your lips.”
“I was getting him then, but you stole him in the end.”
“What? No, I didn’t. He isn’t a boob guy. He’s probably a leg man.”
“Nope, he’s an ass man,” Brenda says. “When you were wiggling that butt of yours, trying to get out from between those saddles, his eyes were fixed on your tush. He couldn’t stop staring and he had this stupid grin on his face. Heck, he was practically drooling.”
“Really?” I say.
“Really.”
This information has me feeling pretty good for a minute or two. But it vanishes when I slip behind the wheel of Brenda’s car and Brenda informs me that I have toilet paper hanging out the back o
f my pants.
CHAPTER 24
I keep my eyes on the cars behind us for the duration of our ride home. There are quite a few black SUVs that appear behind us at different times, but they all turn off or pass us by eventually. There is a blue sedan that stays a good distance back for the entire trip, until I turn off to head for Sorenson. I wonder if it’s the same car that was behind us on the way to Eau Claire, but then remember that the first blue car left us at the city limits and I decide I’m being overly paranoid again.
We’re just outside of Sorenson when I get a call from Arnie; Brenda answers for me.
“Mattie Winston’s phone. This is Brenda Joiner. How can I help you?”
There is a moment of silence before Arnie says, “What have you done with Mattie?” in a mockingly menacing tone.
Brenda laughs. “Nothing. She’s here with me, but she’s driving. I’ll put you on speaker, okay?”
She does so, and after checking to make sure all involved can hear, Arnie says, “Your friend wasn’t very happy when you skipped out. He didn’t stick around very long.”
“You mean Todd?”
“Yes, Todd,” Arnie says, “though I have to admit that it might have been the air quality that drove him away. Sorry, Brenda.”
“No need to apologize,” she says. “I know how bad it can get.”
“Anyway, that’s not why I called,” Arnie goes on. “Do you remember that small gold fiber you found on Lacy O’Connor?”
“I do.”
“Well, I found something on it. A tiny bit of pollen. It looks like it could have come from a carnation, though I’m going to have to send it to a specialized lab to be sure. That’s what sent me looking for Todd. Didn’t he say he had a special degree in botany?”
“I think he did, yes.”
“Well, he was gone, but then I remembered that Laura also specialized in forensic botany for a while, so I got her out of bed and made her look at it. She wasn’t too happy with me, but karma’s a bitch, you know?”
I chuckle and Brenda gives me a questioning look. She isn’t aware of the romantic triangle that recently existed between Laura, Arnie, and Jonas Kriedeman.
“Laura looked at it,” Arnie goes on, “and said it looks like pollen from a carnation. That’s key, because the presence of the pollen shows that bit of gold thread is connected to the killer, ruling out the possibility that it was from some random source.”
“Good work, Arnie,” I say, my mind scrambling back to the earlier events of the day. “Thanks for letting me know.”
Brenda disconnects the call and says, “Gold thread. That would certainly apply to the getup that Llewellyn guy was wearing with all that Packer green and gold in those emblems on his sweater and hat.”
“But why would he kill the women?” I say. “I get why he’d want to stop the investigation we’re conducting and have our victim declared a copycat because it sheds a bad light on him, and he’s up for reelection this year. Plus, his job is being threatened.”
“Maybe his job being threatened is why he killed the girls,” Brenda poses. “A big serial killer case with a newsworthy trial and his involvement front and center. That’s some good political advertising for free.”
“I suppose, but it would take a hell of a lot of planning in advance. I mean, these killings took place two years ago.”
“And when did the forensic pathology program start?” she asks, looking a bit smug.
“Two years ago,” I admit. “But if we’re going to go with that motive, then we should consider Pete Hamilton, too. He’s also up for reelection and his face was certainly out there during the Ulrich trial.” A memory flashes and I snap my fingers. “He had an embroidered character on his tie, one of those cartoon Minions,” I point out. “It was made with gold thread. And when I saw him the other day, he had on another colorful tie. He might have several with gold fibers of some sort in them. And I’ve noticed he has a habit of stroking his ties, which would make it easy for a fiber to come loose.”
Brenda frowns. “This investigation could get very dangerous, Mattie,” she says. “Neither one of those guys was very happy to see you today, and they clearly don’t like the fact that you’re pushing for Ulrich’s innocence. You need to be careful.”
I return the frown. “You don’t think either of these men would develop some elaborate serial killer scheme and then carry it out . . . actually murder people, just to make sure they’re reelected, do you?”
“I don’t know. People have killed for lesser reasons.” She’s right. “But even if we don’t think they’re the killers, those two men obviously don’t want you investigating and reopening the Ulrich case. That could cost them the election, particularly if it comes out that Ulrich is innocent. And situations like that make men desperate.”
“I think they’re all huff and bluff,” I tell her. She gives me an exasperated look and I quickly add, “But I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“Thank you. And now give me the background on Arnie and Laura and tell me why he’s seeking revenge on the girl.”
We’ve arrived at Brenda’s condo building, so I pull into her lot, park, and then tell her about the Arnie-Jonas-and-Laura debacle. When I’m done, she shakes her head in dismay.
“That was mean of Laura,” she says. “I don’t understand why men and women have to play so many games when it comes to matters of the heart.”
“Do you and Christopher play any?” I ask, thinking about the current riff between Hurley and me.
“A few,” she admits with a roll of her eyes. “But for the most part, Christopher is refreshingly forthright and honest about things. And he’s not very moody, which is a good thing, because I’m moody enough for both of us. He speaks what’s on his mind, and I find that’s a rare trait in men.”
“Tell me about it. I wish Hurley would do that more. Sometimes that guy is tighter-lipped than a ninety-year-old nun.”
Brenda shoots me a bemused look.
“Sorry, nursing humor,” I say. “It has to do with catheters and older women and . . . Never mind. Anyway, Hurley likes to keep things close to the vest. He doesn’t open up to me all the time, and I hate having to try to guess what he’s thinking.”
There is a shared silence while we both contemplate the enigma that is men and women, Mars and Venus.
“Do you think you and Christopher will go the distance?” I ask Brenda.
She gives me a tentative smile. “It could. I’m almost afraid to think about it. We’re a strange couple, with surprisingly little in common. He likes news and documentaries, and I’m a chick-flick, dramedy, and thriller kind of gal. He has a lot of dietary restrictions, and I eat anything I want. He doesn’t exercise much, and I work out regularly. He likes old-fashioned styles, and I’m into modern.” She sighs and gives me a fearful look. “It’s a wonder we hooked up at all, given all the differences, but we did, and we get along surprisingly well, to boot. On the important things, like our overall relationship philosophy, our future goals for the relationship, and mutual respect, we agree. I suppose that’s the most important part of it, right?”
She looks at me hopefully, wanting me to confirm her theory, but I have no idea if she’s right.
“I don’t know, Brenda,” I say apologetically. “When it comes to relationships, I don’t have the best record. But I know that every relationship requires work, compromise, and forgiveness at some point. If you let them, little pet peeves can build into monster peeves. I think if you’re honest with one another, speak your minds, and always treat one another with respect, then you’ll be okay. Heck, look at my mother and William. If you want to see a strange relationship, there’s a doozy. Yet they’ve made it work. Not without conflict, mind you. One of the things that binds them together is their mutual OCD issues, yet even that has its limits. Last fall, my mother tried to make William rake the leaves in her backyard into piles designated by color. He rather liked the idea, as it appealed to his need for order, but once he got started with the
actual task, he realized how ridiculous it was. And how tired he was. He and my mother argued over it, and they didn’t speak for several days—all over how to rake the leaves!”
Brenda chuckles and shakes her head woefully. “I assume they worked it out eventually?”
“They did. They hired someone to rake the leaves for them and had him come when they weren’t home. That was a challenge in and of itself, since my mother rarely leaves the house. But William managed to arrange things so that the raking fellow came when my mother had one of her doctor appointments. Those take some time, because my mother has burned through all the local docs with her histrionics and hypochondria, so now she travels nearly an hour to see one. That allowed plenty of time for getting the leaves raked up and gone.”
“If Christopher and I get to arguing about something as trivial as that, then I think we’re done for,” Brenda says with a laugh.
“I hear you, but keep in mind that this issue wasn’t a trivial one for William and my mother. To them, it was as big a deal as, say, the decision to have kids.”
Brenda stares at me for a moment and then says, “So, are you going to practice what you preach and go home and have a chat with Hurley?”
“I suppose we do need to talk,” I say.
Brenda’s eyes grow big. “Oh, God, don’t start it off by saying, ‘We need to talk.’ Go with ‘Can we talk?’ World of difference. ‘We need to talk’ is code for ‘This is so over, and I’m about to dump your ass.’ ”
I chuckle, though there is some truth in what she just said. “Thanks for coming with me today, Brenda.” I turn the car off and hand her the keys.
“Hey, it was fun. Though I owe you for the drinks at the bar. It was supposed to be my treat.”
“No worries. You can make it up to me later. We can do lunch or something.”
“Sold. Good luck with Hurley.”
With that, we get out of her car and lock it. I head off to my hearse and try to call Hurley, but the call goes to voice mail, ramping up my irritation level. Ignoring me won’t work for very long.
Dead Ringer Page 24