Buffalo Bill's Defunct (9781564747112)

by Simonson, Sheila

  “Who’s Kevin?”

  “Friend of mine from Portland. Kevin Dykstra.” She spelled the name for him. “Want his phone number?”

  “Yes.”

  She screwed up her face, shook her head, and went off. Eventually she returned with her purse and a bathrobe. She shrugged into the robe and began digging in her handbag. “Ha, found it.” She brandished an address book and read off a number. “That’s his cell phone.”

  “Have you talked with him since Saturday?”

  “No. We’re not, like, engaged or anything. He’s a grad student, a bit young for me.” She dimpled. Rob thought she couldn’t be thirty.

  “So you had a few beers?” Dave prompted.

  “Quite a few,” she admitted. “That’s probably why I woke up when the dog started barking. Bladder overload.”

  Dave said, “Did you hear shots?”

  She frowned, pensive. “Uh-uh. No shots, not consciously anyway. I heard the dog. He barked for quite a while.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “My bedroom’s in the back. I peeked out the front hall window.” She pointed upward. “I didn’t see anything and the dog was, like, calming down, so I used the toilet and went back to bed. It was cold in the hall. I went right back to sleep. Kevin didn’t move.”

  Rob said, “Did you hear anything other than the dog?”

  “No, sorry.” Outside, a car door slammed. She cocked her head. “That’s Kayla. Maybe she can do better than me.”

  Dave took her through some of his questions again while they waited for Kayla, but Tiffany stuck to the same story. No hesitations, no contradictions. She was probably telling everything she knew.

  Kayla dragged in, handbag over her shoulder, coat open over a neat rose-pink uniform. She looked her age, which was thirty-one.

  Her eyes brightened when she saw she had visitors. “Hey, cops in the kitchen, sounds like a great TV series. How’re ya doing, Rob?”

  Dave shot Rob a look, and he felt his neck go warm. “Fine, Kayla. Do you know Officer David Meuler? City force. We’re looking for witnesses to the Brandstetter killing Friday night.” Saturday morning, actually.

  She tossed her coat and bag on the counter and sat beside Rob. “Friday. Hmm. My night off. We boogied awhile, didn’t we, Tiff? Polished off a case, which is not terrible for six people. I had a couple of beers and too many potato chips. My, uh, date drank maybe six beers. He fell asleep as soon as we crawled into bed.” From her tone of voice, Rob gathered that the date would not be crawling into Kayla’s bed again any time soon. She gave them a name Rob didn’t recognize and a local phone number.

  Dave said, “Do you remember hearing anything, say, between two and three?”

  “About two-thirty. I probably heard the gunshot without, you know, hearing it, but I would have just rolled over and gone back to sleep if the dog hadn’t made such a racket.”

  Good old Towser. Rob said, “Did you go to the window?”

  She nodded. “I lay there a few minutes, but when Towser kept barking I got up and went to see what was going on. My room’s at the front. I saw a car pulling away, as if it had just backed out of the driveway. He had his lights off. I thought that was weird. He tapped the brake once when he got to the corner, then turned south.”

  “You said he. Did you see the driver?”

  “Nope, could have been anybody, male or female.”

  “Could you see Hal?”

  “No, there are bushes screening part of the deck. I looked for a while but I didn’t see anything else. I heard he was shot sitting in one of the deck chairs.”

  “Yes.”

  She was silent a moment, eyes dark with weariness. “I almost got dressed and went over, because the dog barked and barked, but I was too tired. Would I have been able to do something for Brandstetter if I had?”

  “No,” Rob said without hesitation. Among her many positive attributes, Kayla was an excellent nurse.

  She gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”

  Dave pushed the recorder a millimeter closer to her. “You said you saw a car.”

  She made a face. “Yes, but I’m nearsighted and wasn’t wearing my contacts. I think it was more like a van than a car, and sort of gray or light blue, but I have no idea of the make and I couldn’t see the license plate numbers. No, wait a minute.” She closed her eyes. “The red brake light came on. May have been an Oregon plate or a vanity plate, something like that. I have the impression of letters rather than numbers. Does that help?”

  Rob let out the breath he had been holding. “Yes, thanks. It helps a lot.”

  She looked almost alarmed. “I wouldn’t recognize it if I saw it again.”

  “It’s okay, Kayla. You’ve narrowed the field for us. Is it too much to hope for that you looked at your watch?”

  “Bedside clock said two thirty-seven,” she replied. “I could see that. It has oversize numbers.”

  “Outstanding.” Dave gave her a huge smile. “Can we go through it again?”

  “Okay.” She suppressed a yawn. “But make it snappy. I’m winding down now and I need my sleep.”

  In the rehash, Kayla decided that the van was probably fairly new. The corners were rounded, not boxy. She gave them the name of Lisa’s squeeze, a kid from Troutdale. She thought he hadn’t spent the night. Other than that she added nothing, but she said the Lhasa Apso had given a couple of yips out of sympathy for Towser. As she climbed back into bed, she had heard Tiffany flush the toilet.

  Kayla agreed to sign a statement as soon as Dave printed it up. They thanked her again and left, Dave to pursue the Brownings and the Iversons, Rob to do some departmental paperwork at his office, and afterwards, to look deeper into Hal’s computer. The interview had vindicated Rob’s opinion of Towser as well as of Kayla.

  He was stiff, sore, and irritable after a night of predictable nightmares. The stiffness bothered him. He had thought he was in better shape. Middle age.

  He walked to the courthouse, which helped ease the stiffness but not the paranoia. He had to avoid whirling and diving into the bushes whenever a car came up behind him. At his office, the paperwork blotted up an hour. He read the lab report on Eddy Redfern’s clothes and on the soils taken from Meg’s garage. There were some puzzles, minor, he thought. It would be awhile before results came through on the Brandstetter house.

  Reality intruded in the form of pending cases. He made reassignments. Earl would be testifying in court on Tuesday. Linda and Jeff were looking at Hal’s tax and financial records in official sources, but one of them was going to have to drop out and work on an ongoing problem of trespass in the north county near Tyee Lake. Rob wished he could go out to the lake himself. He needed to put the cabin in order for the winter.

  His mind drifted to Meg’s insight into Eddy Redfern. Maybe Redfern had found the collector. Rob played around with that, then gave some thought to Dennis Wheeler’s keys. Meg looked charming when she felt guilty. That must have saved her bacon more than once when she was a child.

  He walked back, less stiff and less jumpy. Outside his house, he bumped into a lurking Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter and said innocuous things. The video crew had gone home. At the Brandstetter house, he looked at the phone numbers garnered from all the interviews, the ones from Hal’s cell phone, and the computer records of Hal’s telephone charges. There were three matches: Dennis Wheeler, Vance Tichnor, and Charlotte Tichnor. Rob damped down the stir of excitement. There could be innocent explanations, but the matches were interesting.

  The cell phone had kept a record of the last five calls, the earliest to a number in Portland listed to some woman. That number also recurred on the billing list. The next to last was a Spokane number. One of the flights into PDX Friday evening originated in Missoula with an hour’s layover in Spokane on the way to Portland.

  Hal had called a Montana number seven times in the previous four months, but that number was also registered to a woman. Rob e-mailed the Kalispell Police Department for
the name of William Meek’s girlfriend, the one who had dropped assault charges.

  Earl came by at one with sandwiches and big news.

  “We got a match?” The fingerprints from Montana. Rob took a large bite of pastrami on rye. They were sitting at the Brandstetter kitchen table. “William Meek?”

  “Yeah, two matches,” Earl crowed. “The lab says Meek rode in the SUV. Good prints, so they’re recent. And the sucker drove the Datsun pickup.”

  “No lie?” Rob chewed.

  Earl was too full of enthusiasm to eat. “You know the GRT showed positive for the truck. Now we have prints. We’ve got him, Rob. I have to say I thought he was a long shot. You were right.” That was generous-minded.

  Rob thanked him gravely. “Maddie Thomas did the legwork, or her kids did.” He thought of Eddy Redfern without joy. There was no evidence that Meek had killed Eddy.

  “Time for a warrant?” Earl looked eager and hopeful.

  He meant an arrest order.

  “For the drive-by shooting anyway. That’ll give us enough to hold him.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  Rob smiled. “Eat your sandwich.”

  Earl was in a blissful frame of mind. He had answered two questions on camera at the sheriff’s press conference. He pontificated about that between bites. Rob let him. Then they sifted the evidence in both cases again, looking for patterns they could use in a case against Meek.

  As far as Rob was concerned, arrows still pointed to the Tichnors, Dr. Ethan excepted, and even he was concealing something. And it was time for another look at Dennis Wheeler, too. But Meek was a bird in the hand. Almost in the hand. Maybe he’d gone back to Kalispell.

  While Earl set the warrant request in motion and stepped up the search for Meek, Rob made phone calls. Carol Tichnor was still registered at the Red Hat. Vance had stayed one night and checked out. Rob called Vance’s home and left a message for Mrs. Tichnor to call him. She had disliked Hal Brandstetter, clearly a woman of discernment. Rob retrieved the name of the woman Hal had called repeatedly, too, but it didn’t mean anything to him. He sent in a query to Multnomah and Clackamas counties.

  He also tried Seattle. Apparently, Charlotte was still in British Columbia, but the lodge at Harrison Hot Springs reported that she had checked out. A name came through from Kalispell; Rob left a message for Meek’s girlfriend, Monica Peltz, to call him as soon as possible.

  Earl was due at the autopsy in Vancouver. That left Rob to wind up forensic examination of the Brandstetter house. He had Jeff crate up the papers and electronic copies of the computer records. The discs and papers went to the courthouse, to the evidence room. Meg’s handiwork, the print sources, he transferred to Hal’s desk, neat stacks neatly labeled.

  The garage was a disappointment. Rob had thought they might find something in there to indicate Brandstetter’s role in the Lauder Point case, but nothing conclusive showed up. The trail was too cold. He checked the gun collection one last time, while Jake had the SUV hauled to the compound for a closer look. Neither in the garage nor in the house was there physical evidence, other than the wallet, of Brandstetter’s role in the murder of Edward Redfern. None of Hal’s keys fit the locks on Meg’s garage, either.

  Some time that afternoon, Tom had taken Towser out for a long run and returned him to the fenced yard. Rob paid a visit. The big ridgeback snuffled his hand affectionately and fetched a stick with galumphing enthusiasm when Rob threw it for him. Rob was scratching the right place on his head and telling him he was a fine, public-spirited hound when Meg showed up at the fence, looking good.

  “Hi,” she said. “How goes the battle?”

  He told her about William Meek and was startled to discover he hadn’t told her of the man earlier. He explained the upcoming arrest. She extended congratulations, but Rob thought she was disappointed he wasn’t going to arrest Charlotte Tichnor. Towser snuffled. Rob scratched.

  “You’re all duded up,” he observed.

  Meg blushed. “I thought the press would be out in force, and I wasn’t going to be caught in my grubbies two days running. I’m just headed to the grocery store. Can I get something for you?”

  He considered. “A couple of steaks and some salad greens? I’ll cook dinner for you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “My turn. You can critique my renovation of Hazel Guthrie’s kitchen. The rest of the place is a mess.”

  “Tom—”

  “Tom and his mother are moving home tonight. She’s over at her sister’s right now waiting.”

  “Okay, well, great.”

  “You don’t like steak?”

  “Sure I do. What kind?”

  “New York cut. I like mine on the small side but don’t let that cramp your style.” He dug out his wallet and handed her two twenties. “I have wine. And chanterelles. The mushrooms were great this year. Get something for dessert, too.” He didn’t have much of a sweet tooth so he left that vague.

  She beamed like the rising sun. “Chanterelles. Wow.”

  “It’s chanterelle country.”

  “Are you sure you have time for this?”

  “Well, shit, I need to celebrate, right?” He also needed to call McCormick with the joyful news. And McCormick ought to call Chief Thomas.

  Meg was looking at him with a doubtful expression. Smart lady. Rob had doubts, too.

  “I’m tired of eating Cheerios. I’ll make time.” He checked his watch. “Around seven?” It was five. Tammy was expecting to have access to the house at six.

  Meg jogged off and Rob went back to the garage.

  At six-ten, as Rob was turning the house keys over to Tammy and her son, Dispatch called with a complaint from the campground on River Road.

  River Road didn’t run along the Columbia, despite the name. It followed the course of Beaver Creek from Tyee Lake to the Kapuya, a minor tributary of the Columbia. The campground was private and new. It catered to tourists in the summer and hunters in the fall. So far the manager had run a trouble-free establishment, and that was a good thing. So Rob told the dispatcher to send Jake and Todd to investigate. Then he went home, changed into jeans and a pullover, not quite grubby, and started thawing stuff. When Meg appeared with the steaks and salad makings, he had even cleared and set the kitchen table. Hazel’s dining room was covered with drop cloths.

  He set the steaks to warm up in a marinade and took Meg on a tour of the house. He thought she liked it and was glad she could see past the drop cloths and stepladders and half-peeled wallpaper. The pièce de résistance was the turret room. Like many fancy Victorian houses of its era, the old place had a turret. It was the one room besides the kitchen that he had finished fixing up.

  “It was my room when I was a kid. Now it’s Willow’s. She picked out the furniture in August.”

  “It’s great, like something out of an English novel.”

  He smiled. “It is now. When I had it, it was something out of a spaceship.” He led her back downstairs. “She’s going to spend Christmas vacation with me this year, so I wanted to have it done for her.”

  “I guess I ought to fix a room for Lucy, though I’m not sure she’ll come north. She says she has a job lined up.”

  “Jobs are good.”

  “Yes, but I’ll miss her.”

  “You can take Willow shopping if you like,” he said generously.

  She laughed. “Such a deal.”

  Steak, chanterelles (thawed and sautéed in butter and white wine), green beans with a touch of garlic, twice-baked potatoes (thawed and heated), and a salad of the mixed greens Meg had selected. Not an exercise in gourmet cookery but a good meal. He enjoyed it and liked Meg’s enjoyment. His ex-wife had always picked at her food.

  “This is only the second time I’ve eaten chanterelle mushrooms.” Meg speared a last morsel. “They’re so expensive in LA.”

  “Not cheap here either. I have mushroom-picking friends. Chanterelles are a bitch to clean but they’re worth it. More win
e?”

  “Half a glass. Thanks. Are you sure this Meek person is the murderer?”

  He poured. “I’m sure he attempted murder. Mrs. Crookshank will be pleased.”

  “And the sheriff will be pleased?”

  “You got it.” His cell phone rang.

  “Don’t mind me,” Meg said generously.

  He stood up and went out into the hall. He could have talked in front of Meg but it didn’t seem hospitable.

  “Yeah, Neill.”

  Teresa Morales said, “Jake says they have an apparent suicide at the campground.”

  “Okay. Does he need the Crime Scene crew?”

  She cleared her throat. “The thing is, he says the victim may be your wanted man.”

  “William Meek?”

  “He’s not sure, Rob.”

  “Head shot?”

  “Yes.”

  The steak churned in Rob’s stomach. “Tell him to secure the site and wait. I’m coming out. Call Earl. Better send Linda, too.”

  “She’s on days.”

  “Shit. Jeff?” ‘

  “Yes, he’s on call. He won’t be happy.”

  “Neither am I,” Rob said and signed off.

  MEG did the dishes. She left Rob’s change on the counter and took the dessert home. An ice cream torte it was, with lots of dark chocolate curls. She stuck it in the freezer alongside the leftover chili. Then she took a bath, went to bed early, and thought serious thoughts, mostly about Rob.

  Lust was all very well, expressed or suppressed, and chanterelles had their charm, but a real attachment was something else. She wasn’t ready for it. She didn’t want complications. “And I like my own house,” she told herself, hugging the duvet.

  Not that she disliked the gingerbread house, a grand house on a grand scale. A Beverly Hills designer of opulent spaces would have found the kitchen disappointing, but Meg liked it. A pantry slid out from the cabinet by the refrigerator.