Barbara Levenson - Mary Magruder Katz 03 - Outrageous October

by Barbara Levenson

  “Ken. It’s Mary. Are you with Lillian?”

  “Yes, we’re getting ready to go over to the gas station, just going over what Lillian is going to say.”

  Never mind the gas station or the money. I have Sherry with me. She’s okay, Dash and I are bringing her to the inn right now.”

  Ken turned and repeated what I told him. I heard Lillian scream and then Brett took the phone.

  “Mary, you’re the best,” he said.

  “No, I’m just the luckiest. See if Ken can get a doctor to come over to the inn to check Sherry out. She’s asleep. You’ll see her for yourself in a few minutes. We’re halfway there.”

  Lillian and Brett were in the lobby when I helped Sherry in. Lillian grabbed her and held her so tightly I thought she’d squeeze the breath out of her. Lillian and Brett helped her over to the elevator. Ken stood a little apart from the Yarmouths watching the reunion and smiling broadly

  “I have a nice hot bath ready for you, baby,” Lillian said.

  “Mom, I’m so embarrassed. How could I have been such a dolt?”

  The elevator door closed. Ken and I waited in the lobby for Dash who was parking the car. As soon as Dash appeared, I suggested we leave the family alone for a little while.

  “Anyway, I’m starved. Come on, let’s go get a big well-earned breakfast,” I said. I linked an arm with each of them and we marched over to the inn dining room where I gorged on pancakes with Vermont maple syrup, bacon, and a bucket of coffee.

  By noon time we were all in Lillian’s room. Sherry was dressed in jeans, a sweater and a sweat shirt retrieved by Brett from her dorm room. An intern had been sent over from Dartmouth Medical School courtesy of the administration office after Lillian called to inform the school that her daughter had been abducted from right under their noses and what were they going to do about it or should Lillian just go ahead and sue them for lack of campus safety.

  The intern found nothing permanently wrong with Sherry that time, sleep and food wouldn’t cure physically. He did recommend that Sherry might benefit from talking to a psychologist, and warned Lillian about Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

  Brett thanked Ken over and over for his police expertise. It was a totally happy scene although Sherry was still subdued from the knockout stuff that was forced into her over the past days.

  Dash, Ken and I were just about to leave when there was a knock on the door. Brett opened it and Jim Parsons identified himself, showing Brett his ID and badge.

  “Come in, please,” Lillian said. “I wanted an opportunity to thank you.”

  “It’s not necessary,” Mrs. Yarmouth. I’m really here about something else,” Jim said.

  “Did you get the others? Are they under arrest?” I asked.

  “We can discuss this later. I was summoned an hour ago to Roland Behr’s front yard. Mr. Behr has been murdered. Mr. Upham, you’ll have to come down to my office. I need to ask you some questions. I hope you’ll come voluntarily.” Parsons had a pair of handcuffs dangling from his front pocket.

  “I’m coming with him, as his lawyer,” I said, immediately switching into lawyer high gear.

  “Me too,” Dash said

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-FIVE

  “What kind of a place is this?” Lillian asked. “Kidnappings, murders. I thought this was a bucolic safe environment. Sherry, I’m taking you back to Miami.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. I don’t want to go back to school here. Can I transfer to the University of Miami?” Sherry closed her eyes again. The effort to talk exhausted her.

  “Sheriff Parsons, Dash and I will drive Ken to your office. But I want to know now whether the kidnappers are locked up. They aren’t still out there somewhere, are they?” I asked.

  “We got them just as they came out to get into a car in front of the farmhouse. They’ll be appearing before a judge tomorrow morning and then they’ll be transferred to holding facilities. I alerted the prosecutor and they’ll seek a ‘no bond’ status. Francie has already confessed to Carolyn Brousseau’s murder. I also have a statement from Paul Conrad about that murder. He told us that Carolyn got him and Otis to go with her to burglarize the Brousseau house. Paul waited outside as a lookout. Francie thought Carolyn was out of town. Too bad she wasn’t.”

  “So you were completely wrong thinking Carolyn was killed by her son,” Dash said.

  “I know I wasted a lot of time looking at Tom. Well, with this Roland Behr murder, things are going to be different. I’ll follow your car, Dash, but I want your word that you’ll bring Ken directly in.”

  “Are you charging Ken with this murder?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say for now he’s a person of interest,” Parsons said.

  I grabbed my purse and jacket, gave Lillian and Sherry hugs and headed out to the elevator. Ken looked as if he were in shock. I wondered if I was ever going to get back to Miami. My vacation had turned into a major crime spree.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-SIX

  The police department was housed in the back of a converted school. The sign over the building read 1898. The building smelled of mildew mixed with the smell of coffee coming from a pot in the front office.

  We walked through a series of rooms arriving at what must serve as the interrogation room. It contained a square table surrounded by four mismatched chairs, two wooden and two folding. Long windows faced the lawn in back of the building. The sun was shining on two maple trees whose red and yellow leaves fell into hills of brown dry leaves.

  Sheriff Parsons sat at one end of the table. Ken sat across from him while Dash and I each pulled our chairs on either side of Ken.

  “I need to read you your rights before we begin.” Parsons pulled a worn card from his pocket and began reading, “You have the right to remain silent—”

  “It’s not necessary, Jim. You seem to have forgotten that I spent almost thirty years in law enforcement. I understand all of my rights. Let’s get to your questions.” Ken’s annoyance was evident.

  “Why are you even bothering to question Ken? This is silly. Shouldn’t you be out at the murder scene, looking for evidence?” I used my most assertive voice.

  “Listen, Ms. Katz, I didn’t invite you to my office or to High Pines. This is my investigation. I don’t need some flatlander woman telling me how to run things,”

  “Now, hold it, Jim. Mary is here as an attorney,. She isn’t to be insulted. You’re making this personal. We’re all professionals here. Do you understand?” Dash was half out of his chair.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s just let Jim ask me whatever and get on with this.” Ken had his hand on Dash’s arm.

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” Parsons said. Now Ken, Roland Behr was found by his attorney at eight this morning. The lawyer stopped there before going back to Rutland. He got no answer when he knocked on the door. Lights were on inside the house. Then he saw Roland’s body lying in some bushes. The body was cold and stiff as if it had been there for some hours. We’ll get a more definitive answer from the coroner later, maybe tomorrow. Where were you last night, Ken? Can you account for your whereabouts?”

  Sure, I spent most of the night at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock emergency room. My wife was there with me. Then we went home and we got a few hours’ sleep. Then I went to help Lillian Yarmouth get ready to go meet her daughter’s kidnappers.”

  “Do you have the hospital records?”

  “My wife has the discharge paper, I think, and I can get the records from the hospital.”

  “Ken, I’ll go over to the hospital right now and get the records. Mary can stay here with you,” Dash said.

  “Wait, Dash, you’ll need a release from Ken, so they’ll give you the records,” I said. “Give me some paper and I’ll draw up something for Ken to sign.”

  Parsons pulled a sheet of paper from his pad where he had been taking notes. I quickly wrote out a release statement and Ken signed it.

  “I’ll be back as quickly as possible and that sh
ould put an end to this,” Dash said. He grabbed his keys from the table and bolted out of the room.

  “Now, Ken, Roland Behr was suing you about the trees you removed. Isn’t that correct?” Parsons went right back to his questioning,

  “Don’t you want to wait to look at the records? Ken was totally unavailable to be murdering someone last night. His wife thought he was having a stroke,” I said.

  Parsons ignored me. “Wasn’t he suing you and didn’t that make you angry?”

  “Right on both counts” Ken answered.

  “And weren’t you going around town calling Roland the Tree Nazi?”

  “I don’t think I was the one that invented that name. I think it was one of the boys over at Hal’s store, but, yes, I used it and it kind of caught on.”

  Maybe it’ll interest you to know that someone painted a swastika on Roland’s forehead.” Parsons looked like he had just scored the winning touchdown in the game of the year.

  “Are you kidding? Do you think that I would do such a stupid thing over a nutty fracas about trees? I spent my life arresting bad guys and solving cases. You are way off base.” Ken said.

  “Being that you’ve been a law enforcement officer, you are proficient with a firearm, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “You still own at least one firearm, don’t you?”

  “I own a 45 caliber revolver and a hunting rifle. If you’d like to see them, stop by my house.” Ken’s hands were beginning to shake.

  “Is my client under arrest, Sheriff?” I asked as I stood up.

  “Not at this time.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll be leaving.” I took Ken’s arm.

  “Just don’t leave town,” Parsons called after us.

  Once we hit the sidewalk outside the police building, I realized that Ken’s car was at the inn and my car was at the diner. Dash drove off on his emergency mission with the only car available for our dramatic exit from interrogation hell.

  “I’ll call Rita to come get us. She’s probably home worrying over my health anyway, and I haven’t even had time to tell her that we got our kidnap victim back.”

  “And I’ll try to get Dash to tell him not to return to Parsons’ office. Maybe we can all meet back at my place after we retrieve our cars.”

  I tried to dial Dash but got no signal again. Ken finished updating Rita but left out the part about his being questioned regarding a murder.

  “She’s on her way,” Ken said. “I thought it best to tell her about Roland Behr when she gets here. Did you reach Dash?”

  “No, my cell won’t work. Try yours.”

  Just then my cell rang. I answered quickly.

  “Mary, it’s Dash. Were you just trying to call? I saw your number on the caller ID. Anyway, I’m having trouble getting the records. First the hospital records department said the release wasn’t proper and that Ken would have to come here himself. That damn Privacy Act, you know. So I told them I’d bring him right over and they should get the records ready.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  “Not so good. The records clerk came back to the window and said they can’t find any records for Ken Upham from last night.”

  “Oh, really? Dash, I’m standing outside the police office now with Ken. I walked him out when the questioning became bizarre. Rita is coming to pick us up. We’ll get our cars and we can meet at my place in a little while.”

  “I read you, Mary. You don’t want Ken to hear about no records, right?”

  “You got it. See you in a few minutes.”

  I clicked off and stared at Ken. Either the hospital was a pillar of inefficiency or my client was a murderer.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Rita roared into the parking lot in a Mustang convertible. She jumped out and ran over to Ken.

  “Are you okay, honey? You’re still so pale.” she said, motioning for us to get in the car.

  “Mary, go ahead and get in while I talk to Rita for a minute,” Ken said. He led Rita a few feet away and took her hand.

  I couldn’t hear what he said, but I could see and hear her startled reaction.

  “Roland is dead? Are you kidding? They can’t believe that you—”

  Then I heard a long string of “shits and damns.”

  Fred led Rita over to the car and helped her into the passenger seat. He got in the driver’s seat and pulled away from the old brick building.

  “Mary, I can’t believe this.” Rita turned to me. “Where is Dash?”

  “Oh, Dash went over to the hospital to try to get Ken’s records from last night to show the sheriff that he was otherwise engaged. He was having a little trouble getting the records,” I said.

  “Typical, isn’t it? It took me three weeks to get my last mammogram results. That’s exactly why I made them give me copies of everything when we left last night. I said we needed to get them to our doctor in New Haven.” Rita turned back to Ken “Now where did I put them?”

  “They’re probably still in your purse. That’s where you put them last night,” Ken said. He pulled into the parking lot at the diner next to my car. It seemed like a year since I parked the car before dawn this morning.

  Rita was fumbling through her humongous bag. “Here they are, a little crumpled but intact.”

  She handed them over to me. I thumbed through checking the dates and times. The last entry was two-thirty a.m. on the discharge notice which stated that patient was advised to follow up with his own physician as soon as possible. There were countless entries with results of blood tests, a C-Scan, a chest x-ray, and some indecipherable doctor comments.

  I took the records, jumped out of the car and waved Ken and Rita off. Then I zoomed off to Lucy’s house to rescue poor Sam who had been alone for over six hours.

  Dash’s car was already in the driveway when I drove up. I could hear Sam barking as I rushed to the door. I opened the kitchen door and found a tidal wave of what appeared to be yarn and paper.

  When Sam gets bored he always finds some new enterprise to break the boredom. This time he had trashed a kitchen rug into thousands of shreds. Mixed in with the remains of the rug were tiny pieces of paper towel along with the cardboard roller that had once housed the roll. The remains of the contents of the garbage can now lying on its side in the middle of the debris added bits of color to the heap.

  Dash was standing in the doorway. He let out a low whistle. “Wow, what an amazing mess.”

  “At least he didn’t eat the bottoms of the cupboards, thank God.” I hustled Sam out the back door. He promptly relieved himself and scratched on the door to get back in where he stood proudly surveying his handiwork.

  “Aren’t you going to punish him? Spank him or something?” Dash said.

  “It’s too late for that. He won’t connect it with the mess. You sort of have to catch him in the act. Besides, it’s my fault for leaving him for so many hours,” I said.

  Dash just shook his head and wandered back to the great room. Immediately, I thought of how Carlos would have joined me in laughing at Sam’s kitchen makeover. Dash’s reaction was totally different.

  Dash always reminded me of someone else I knew, but I never could put a face to this picture. Now it was coming to me. Dash reminded me of my brother, William. William was the middle child so he was closest to my age. I was the baby in the family with both brothers looking out for me. William in particular would often scold me for disobedient behavior. Dash had the same paternal, no nonsense attitude. His first thought was to punish my silly dog. Carlos loved a good joke, and Sam was famous for pulling laughable antics.

  Dash was a good friend, but I knew for sure now he couldn’t be the right guy for me. I still thought he’d be the model boyfriend my dad would love.

  After a hasty attempt at cleanup of the kitchen with a broom and dust pan, I joined Dash and handed him the records that Rita had given me.

  “Shouldn’t we take these over to Jim right away?” Dash asked.r />
  “Yes, we should, and we should also find out what else that inept sheriff is doing to find who did Roland in. Call Ken and tell him to sit tight at home while we try to assist Sheriff Parsons in a real investigation.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  “What did you find in Roland’s house? Do you even know if he was killed out in his yard or just deposited there?”

  We were back in Jim Parsons’ office. While he looked at the hospital records, I had begun peppering him with the questions that rolled around in my head.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I haven’t been in the house yet,” Parsons snarled.

  “Well, why not, Jim? Why weren’t you in there the minute you got there? The killer could have been in the house for all you know. Valuable evidence could have been taken.” Dash looked at Jim with a puzzled frown.

  “Well, for one thing, I was busy arresting Francie and Otis Wallace out at the farm where I also had my two deputies working. Then we had to question them briefly at least and I had to call the prosecutor to get on over to our lockup.”

  “Instead of wasting time picking up Ken and questioning him, you could have gone right into the house,” I said. “There could have been more bodies in the house, or the killer could have been holding hostages. Exigent circumstances like that would have allowed an immediate entry.”

  “I’m working on a search warrant now. I still have to get this over to a judge to sign, so it’ll probably be tonight before I can get in there. Why is it that you two lawyers think you can run my investigation? Listen, Dash, if you’re so smart, why don’t you run for sheriff?’

  “Good idea,” Dash said. “If you or one of your officers had gone right in there, the exigent circumstances would have allowed you immediate entry without worrying about a warrant. Who knows who might have been hiding in there?”

  “Well, I’ve got a man stationed in a car out front and the place is secured with evidence tape so whatever’s there will still be there.” Jim said.