“Seth Troxell here. Former police? What’s that mean? Retired?”
The melodic, virile voice came across as curious rather than hostile, so I allowed myself to laugh.
“Not even close,” I replied. “I left for health reasons. If you want a reference, I can give you a number.” Since Troxell had signed off on Toby’s suicide, revealing that Scarp Poletta worked Homicide might have tilted the scale toward hostile, so I skipped that part. That I’d had a brief affair with the guy was also irrelevant.
“First things first. Why do you wish to speak with me?”
I filled him in on my connection to Toby Stoddard and explained how I’d been hired to protect his widow.
“From?”
“Unclear. That’s why I need to talk to you.”
While Troxell connected the dots, I imagined a rugged but kindly man chewing his lip and furrowing his brow. I convinced myself that he carried himself like a portly rooster and all his employees but one, who clearly had ego issues, loved him. Especially endearing were his glasses, which he knew perfectly well were way, way out of style but couldn’t care less. I fervently hoped I wasn’t going to ruin his day.
“You have anything that’s going to cause me more paperwork?”
“Not yet.” Not for sure.
“Do I hear a ‘but’ at the end of that statement?”
“Yessir, you do.”
“Damn. Gimme that reference you talked about, will you? I gotta pick up my granddaughter pretty soon, and I promised her ice cream. You know where Hubbard’s is?”
I recited Scarp Poletta’s cell phone number from memory. Then I admitted the only place I knew in this area was the Mom and Pop diner where Chantal and I had eaten lunch. Troxell gave me easy directions from there, and we agreed to meet in twenty minutes.
The note I left for Chantal promised take-out ice cream upon my return.
Chapter 33
“So, Ms. Lauren Beck, why are the Roitmans suddenly dissatisfied with their son-in-law’s suicide?”
The county sheriff’s large hands surrounded his untouched cup of chocolate ice cream, while his eyes discreetly monitored his granddaughter. Holding her cone like a bouquet, the four-year-old tiptoed pretend “moose tracks” in and out through the dozen pink, mostly occupied, honest-to-goodness ice cream parlor tables and chairs. Lively and blonde, she looked like a Disney child, round-faced and wide-eyed and perfect, and I suspected that picking her up early from daycare was a favor to Troxell’s quite likely cash-strapped, single-parent daughter. That he did it personally suggested he was divorced or widowed himself and that his daughter and grandchild might even live with him. All speculation, of course, but connecting such dots was a habit I’ve never been able to kick.
“Not the Roitmans,” I admitted. “The death threats against Toby’s father-in-law make my nose itch.”
Troxell sighed and poked his melting ice cream with a pink plastic spoon. I’d gotten the paunch part of his appearance right and the glasses, but his real face was all bulldog folds and caterpillar eyebrows. He hadn’t removed his tan uniform hat, but with little Devon’s random wandering and me pretty much accusing his office of muffing a murder he might have forgotten the thing was still on his head.
“What else you got?” The intensity in his eyes warned me my answer had better be good.
“Stoddard’s wife is pregnant and, even though it was early-on when her husband died, Chantal insists they both knew.”
Troxell’s stare said So what?
“Plus they bought a larger house.” Even to me my argument sounded flimsy.
The sheriff poked his ice cream so hard I almost said ouch. “The threats. What are they about?”
I filled him in on the failed lawsuit regarding the young woman who died in the car crash. “Plus there’s a brand new lawsuit claiming mismanagement of a Roitman subsidiary’s pension fund. Plenty of people are angry about that.”
“So you’re being paid to protect his oldest daughter, whatsername.” He waved his spoon. “Chantal. Aren’t you stretching your job description a little thin?”
“It pays to be careful, don’t you think? If killing Roitman’s CFO was a message directed toward Frank, what’s to stop the sender from hitting him even closer to home?”
“Grandpa!” Having completed her circuit, Devon slipped a hip onto Troxell’s leg.
He pulled her onto his lap without a thought for her dripping cone—or the nature of our conversation.
“Or, what if Toby Stoddard knew something he shouldn’t, and the disgruntled person is afraid his wife knows it, too?”
Troxell bounced his granddaughter to a better balance on his thigh. “How about this? What if the suicide ruling is correct and nobody wants to touch a hair on Chantal’s head?”
“I would go home happy.”
Troxell sent a glance to the ceiling and slid me an oblique smile. “All I want in the world is to make you go home happy.” Then he concentrated on spooning chocolate soup into his mouth.
“You going to humor me, or not?” I asked.
Devon had begun to poke the curly hairs sticking out of her grandfather’s ears.
“Stop that, Sweetie,” the sheriff said then wiped his lip with the back of his free hand.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” he told me.
“Yessir, you are. Anything interesting in the trace evidence you gathered at the scene? Hair, fibers, fingerprints?”
Troxell’s visage hardened, and an awkward silence stretched. Bored, Devon wriggled free, only to descend upon an even smaller boy, who drew back in terror.
“Well?” I pressed now that we were without an audience.
The sheriff made a sucking noise. “Remind me why I’m telling you anything.”
“Because getting at the truth usually involves some give and take.”
Troxell rolled his eyes in a way he probably thought wasn’t obvious. “The trace evidence mostly belonged to family members.”
“Mostly.”
“The Roitmans often entertain guests there. We believe the non-relative prints and material belonged to them.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed just to be nice. “It was a, um, sudden death, so I assume you took pictures.”
“Yes,” Troxell replied, and I thought I detected a slight blush brightening his deeply creased cheeks. “Actually, the cleanup company I recommended to the Roitmans did the photos.”
“Because it was an obvious suicide.”
“Yes. I mean, no. We’ve used Warren and Son for years. Pete Junior is quite good with a camera. Knows exactly what we need.”
“And it was an obvious suicide anyway.” My smile aspired to be generous, but it felt a little tight.
“Right,” Troxell replied without looking my way.
“So may I see them?”
Another stalling cluck before he said, “Sure.”
While he recited Warren and Son’s number and I put it in my phone, I tried not to grind my teeth.
“One more question.” Troxell had stood and begun to head for his granddaughter. He wasn’t pleased about turning back. “Were there any sedatives in Toby Stoddard’s bloodstream?”
The sheriff stuffed his hands into his pants pockets and eyed me like a bug that was about to meet his shoe.
“Yes, Ms. Lauren Beck, ex-officer from Landis, P A, there was one, which I assume an ex-officer from Landis P A would know is not uncommon for a suicide.”
“Thank you,” I said with sincerity because he’d just saved me a whole bunch of trouble finding that out. Also because we both knew if my investigation—unofficial or not—turned up any damning evidence, I would be causing him a whole bunch of trouble, not to mention embarrassment.
He and little Devon departed hand-in-hand, and I threw his scarcely touched ice cream in the trash on my way to the counter.
My intuition and I were feeling pretty good about ourselves right about then—not smug, we were a long way from knowing what happened to Toby Stoddard, but I was encouraged enough
to reward my inner self with a double scoop of Rum Raisin.
Chantal fell on her container of Fudge Ripple like a teenage boy who’d missed his last meal. I’d chosen the safer flavor because I didn’t know her ice cream preferences and, in my experience, Rum Raisin melts too fast for take-out.
While I was gone she must have shifted into yet another phase of grief because she seemed more subdued, distracted, and bone-crushingly morose than I had previously witnessed. I’d expected being where Toby’s soul had departed to have an effect, but I hoped it would be a salutary and necessary one. For sure, whatever she was experiencing was private. When I excused myself to call Warren and Son, she didn’t even spare me a glance.
Still, I stepped out into the driveway to use my phone, partly because the signal was better, and partly to protect Chantal from the content of my call.
“Warren and Son,” a warm, male voice said with the appropriate mix of friendliness and concern. “Pete Senior at your service.”
I introduced myself, mentioning that Sheriff Troxell had given me their number. Then I briefly explained my Stoddard/Roitman connections, adding that I got my current bodyguarding job “because of my police training.”
“Okay,” Warren said tentatively.
“I’m familiar with the sort of work you do…”
The business’s founder laughed. “That helps. Not many people are.”
I smiled to myself. “Not until they have your sort of problem.”
“Very true. What do you need?”
“I know when the Roitmans hired you to clean the gun room, they asked you to dispose of the furnishings. Where did they end up, if I may ask? ”
“We send anything the family doesn’t want to an auctioneer. Wasn’t much in this case—a table, a couple of chairs, a lamp. Oh, and an oriental…” Pete Senior held the receiver away and shouted, “Andy, what did you do with the Roitman’s rug?”
“Forgot about it, to tell you the truth,” came the near-distant reply.
The boss grunted. Then he mentioned that they used a high-end carpet specialist to clean expensive orientals. Again to the employee, “Where is it now?”
Andy must have moved closer, because I heard his answer clearly on speaker-phone. “Still in the shed, I guess. The weather was below freezing back then, so….”
“Was it dry or wet when you rolled it up?” I inquired.
“Already dry,” Andy admitted. “Pete Junior met the sheriff there to take photos, but we couldn’t do anything else until the undertaker came. The Roitmans left right after that, but in the meantime we got an emergency puff-back call, furnace soot everywhere and a family of seven waiting to get back in…”
“We figured the Roitman job could wait another day,” Warren Senior abbreviated for me.
“Makes sense.”
“Yeah, and then my van broke down before I could pick up the rug,” Andy added. “Didn’t get it back for two weeks. Probably why the rug just plain slipped my mind. Sorry,” Andy threw in for Warren Senior’s benefit.
Another grunt. “Don’t you worry,” the boss told me. “We’ll pick it up today, right Andy?”
“Right on it.”
“No! I mean no rush now.” How could I examine what was probably the only remaining piece of hard evidence regarding Toby Stoddard’s death if they rushed over and took it away?
“It’s okay. We’ll be right there.”
“No, please. Chantal’s having a tough day. Let’s not make it any harder. Anyhow, it’s not that important.”
Not much it isn’t.
Chapter 34
As soon as I disconnected with Warren and Son, I ran—ran—back into the house.
I was about to shout for Chantal to tell me how to open the shed’s padlock, but I stopped just in time. The last thing she needed was to see that rug again, and the last thing I wanted was her watching me examine it.
“Chantal,” honey, baby, I wanted to say like a lover with an agenda, “do you happen to know the combination to the lock on the shed?”
The young widow’s head rested on the arm of a sofa facing the fire. Her legs stretched out under a blue fleece throw, and her hands rested gently on her abdomen. Nothing else going on but whatever was on her mind. “Did you try Dad’s birthday?”
“Didn’t know it.” My face would have given away my eagerness, so I kept myself safely out of sight in the kitchen.
She gave me the numbers, then added, “If that doesn’t work, try my mother’s, April twentieth,” and then a year Marsha Roitman probably wouldn’t care to have anyone remember.
I was back in the kitchen five minutes later. “How about your parents’ wedding anniversary?” Other than his wife’s birthday what date was a man never supposed to forget?
“August seventh.” The time elapsed coincided closely with Chantal’s present age, but who cared about that anymore? I thanked Chantal and exited quickly, but quietly.
The anniversary date worked.
A funky, earthy smell wafted over me as soon as I tugged the right half of the door open. The left was fixed in place by a sliding bolt that poked into a small hole in the floor. I blamed mice for some of the fustiness, the rolled up carpet for much of the rest. Old blood, after all, might as well be spoiled meat.
Leaned upright against some shelves, the rug was between seven and eight feet tall and, rolled up, about a foot in diameter. The underside showed that wool yarn had been looped cheek to jowl about as closely as humanly possible, which was surely why Warren’s people assumed the “oriental” was valuable.
I wanted to haul the thing out like a wrestler tackling his opponent, but I forced myself to think first. If this really was the best and last physical evidence of a crime, the legal folks would string me up by my thumbs if I didn’t protect the chain of custody.
I took a couple pictures with my phone. Then I looked around to see what might help me move the rug without straining any important body parts.
The shed contained the usual suspects—snow shovel, rake, weed-whacker, gas can, bucket, axe, a pruning saw hung on a nail—all dusty and old. No wheelbarrow, unfortunately, but I found an old denim drapery panel spotted with dried paint on a kitchen chair in need of glue. When I spread the drape on the ground, it measured four feet by eight feet; and since it had been folded, it wasn’t as dusty as everything else. In other words, it wouldn’t add or take away anything that wasn’t already on my precious “evidence.”
Carefully, I wrapped my arms around the rolled up rug and began to back up, which tipped the tall tube onto the drape and almost took me with it. Another picture just in case. Then, bunching the corners of the drape in my fists, I dragged the rug on my makeshift sled twenty feet across mud and dried grass to the somewhat cleaner gravel driveway. Taking it inside would have been better and opening it in the gun room ideal, but Chantal was in there grieving or coping or whatever was going on with her, and anyway my arms and shoulders couldn’t have pulled the thing much farther.
Another picture, and then the moment of truth. I unrolled the rug, took photos, then put my phone away. “Talk to me,” I urged the inanimate evidence before me. Please, I added with gusto.
The rug’s design was mostly ornate curlicues with bands of solid colors forming a border. The reds had faded to shades of brick, the blues to gray. There were probably yellows and maybe white and teal, but I was partly guessing because of the age and wear, and to be honest the dried blood and bone chips and brain material commanded most of my attention.
Initially, there was always an emotional jolt, the shock of seeing the result of violent death. I’d responded to gunshot deaths on the job, of course, not as often in my small city as you might expect; but the results were nothing you’d be likely to forget. Yet you can’t do police work without learning to distance yourself from life’s more unpleasant realities. Also, I’d nearly died enough times during my cancer treatments to have made peace with my own mortality. In a few moments I settled down and allowed the mental process to b
egin.
The forensics expert Landis employed for questionable situations loved to lecture us cops on blood spatters and such. When she spoke, I listened. Now as I studied the gory patterns spread in front of me, I hoped common sense would make up for whatever I might have forgotten.
It took fifteen minutes or more for the rug to reveal its secret. I walked around the perimeter at least three times, pausing for long intervals to imagine where Toby Stoddard’s chair stood before it fell. The position of the table was easy; the legs had left clear impressions over time. I knew where the body landed because of fainter smears where liquid had been absorbed by Toby’s clothing. The largest pool of blackened blood was where it should have been. Even the mark to the right where the shotgun fell wasn’t too difficult to discern.
It was when I stood at the fringe end of the rug opposite the indentations for the table, which I assumed had been closer to the window than the door, that I noticed an unexpected pattern. The majority of the spatters spread toward me and what I’d determined was the doorway. The body marks occurred just my side of the table marks, the shotgun strip to my right. Next, the chair, then a relatively untouched span of dried matter fanned my way again.
What seemed odd was a strip of dried blood that came toward me from the shotgun to my feet, almost as if a line had been drawn in the blood…by a string!
Toby Stoddard had been murdered.
Chapter 35
My reactions included much more than fury. Astonishment at the murderer’s gall accompanied my amazement that the chancy trick worked. Low on the list, but there nonetheless, was a hint of vindication. Just as Karen, Mike and my gut suspected, Toby Stoddard had not killed himself.
Afraid the angle of daylight that exposed the murder method might shift, I snapped several more pictures. Then I called Sheriff Troxell’s office and stated my case for speaking with him again as soon as possible.
“He’s not here,” the dispatcher responded in that lifeless voice they use.
“I know. I met with him an hour ago.” Tell her where? Sure. “At Hubbard’s. It was business,” I added, and now it’s urgent business.”
Guilt Trip Page 16