by Alec Peche
“Ditto for me,” nodded Marie.
“My work is much more seasonal as a photographer than your work,” observed Angela. "The holidays are especially wicked for me as that is when families want portraits and the summer for weddings and engagements. I could handle more work in the winter months, but that work should be in warmer locations.”
“Good to know,” thanked Jill. “It really helps to have your unsolicited feedback on how we are doing as a team. I am a little conflicted between taking on additional work and truly wanting to help some loved ones. My vineyard is getting larger in acres and for that reason alone, I may have to hire some help. I want to grow that business and while the grapes grow at their own pace, I really like to experiment with varietals and that is what I can't get to while we work on these cases. If I am in the middle of one of my experiments and a client calls and I have to leave town, then I have to usually start over when I return which is a pain.”
“Okay, let’s move ahead with helping Michelle,” nudged Marie. “Perhaps Angela could start by telling us everything you know about Doug and his family and his job. Jill, I have some freezer paper that I could put on the wall to set up a ‘murder board’ for you in my dining room. Ugh, hopefully this will be the last time I decorate a dining room with a murder board.”
Marie handed Jill the box of freezer paper and she began laying out her murder board as Angela began her story.
“Doug’s full name is Douglas Easley. I don’t know his middle initial or middle name. He and Michelle have been married for at least fifteen years and he was probably between forty and forty-five years old. They have twin girls who will be about fourteen now. Michelle owns an interior design firm that she has operated for at least a decade. I don’t know if they are native to this area as Doug’s parents live in Florida and Michelle’s are in Arizona for part of the year. I haven’t met siblings of either. As I said earlier, I have taken photos of the family and I did a photo shoot for Michelle of a house she decorated. She wanted those photos for her portfolio of design work.
“As I mentioned, Doug has been an anesthesiologist at Our Lady. He has been president of the medical staff and may still be, for that matter. He is a partner in his anesthesia group and seems to get along with everyone. He had gone back to school to get a business or management degree around the time I took the family portrait, so he would have had that degree by now. Like I said earlier, I saw the family from a distance every couple of months, but we weren’t close."
Jill requested, “Marie, can I borrow your printer? I want to make copies of the pictures that Angela took to put on the murder board.”
“Sure, let me turn on the computer and printer in my office,” replied Marie. “By the way, I could make dinner or we could go out. Let me know your preference so I can take care of any prep work.”
“Once I put Doug’s murder picture up on the murder board, your kitchen may be too gruesome to cook or eat in,” reminded Jill.
“Having seen the murder, live and at the scene, I’m not sure a photo will bother me,” replied Jo. “I may have nightmares about the real thing, but the photo, not-so-much.”
“I would rather get take-out,” noted Jill. “Marie, you’re a fabulous cook but I would rather you work on building Doug’s profile than have you slaving in the kitchen. I could fetch Thai food from my favorite Thai restaurant. I don’t even need to look at the menu - I’ll order volcano chicken.”
“That sounds like a plan,” asserted Angela. “I’m not hungry yet, in fact I’m not sure I’ll ever be hungry again. Just give me a glass of wine and I’ll start on research about Our Lady hospital.”
“I think Angela has made a fine suggestion,” agreed Jo.
Jill asked, “Jo, any thoughts about how to approach the money picture here? This is a little different from many of our cases.”
“In a perfect world where I could retrieve the data, I would want to know about Doug’s finances, his anesthesia partnership, his wife’s interior design business, and Our Lady. I suspect that since all of these are privately held accounts and businesses, that I won’t find much information except for the hospital. Marie, as the guru of social media, do you have any thoughts on how to approach this lack of accessible financial data?”
“Perhaps we can go about building a picture of assets. How about if you do a property search to see what properties they own? Look them up on legal registries to see if there have been any lawsuits, divorces, foreclosures, or other issues. Check them out for political and other charitable contributions.”
“Thanks, Marie, those are some good suggestions,” Jo said leaning back in her breakfast bar stool to write down Marie’s suggestions and add some of her own.
Jill suggested, “Angela, I think you should be our liaison with law enforcement in addition to interviewing Michelle, her daughters - if mom will allow it, his partners, and the medical staff office at the hospital. Do you know anyone that works at Our Lady? Is there anyone we could get gossip from at the hospital?
“What kind of gossip?”
“We’re looking for our motive here. So was anyone unhappy with him? Were there any disagreements between Doug and other hospital staff or physicians? Was his work respected? Did he seem worried about anything? Did people know that he was going to be at this golf tournament? What did people think of his leadership when he was the medical staff president?”
“Wow, that is quite a list. I’ll give it some thought to see if there are any additional questions then I’ll start working on making connections. I have a few friends who might have close friends that work at that hospital and I’ll check my Facebook friends to see if any of them list working at Our Lady.”
“What are you working on, Jill?” asked Marie.
“After I set up the murder board, I want to follow the track into the woods. I wonder if I can get satellite records at the time of shooting to see who walks out of the woods. There is a private company in Colorado that has satellites up in orbit. They sell pictures of what the satellite views as long as I can prove that they are for a non-military purchase. I thought I would explore getting satellite pictures over a half-hour period of when the shooter had to have left those woods. I don’t know if I can ask for past photos.”
“Yikes, that sounds cool and creepy. Cool because it would be great to get those photos, creepy because I hate the thought of being watched by satellite at all times,” said Jo with a shudder.
“Well it sounds like we all have avenues to explore that will make this a very interesting case in addition to helping your friend, Michelle,” Marie commented. “Does anyone need me to print the Thai menu so we know what we are ordering?”
Jo replied, “Unlike Jill, I don’t always order the same meal, so yes I would like to see a menu. Jill, can you stay longer if we don’t solve this crime in your remaining four days in Green Bay?”
“That will be a first; usually I am trying to negotiate with you three for extra amounts of your time. I can probably stay an additional two days, and then I’ll have to go home. My vines bloomed last month and next month is peak growing season and I have a lot of work to do around the vineyard. I individually look at all my plants each week to be sure that the grape clusters are well supported on the vine, pest free, and evenly growing. Things change quickly this time of year with the vintage. I’m sure Nathan won’t mine taking care of Trixie an extra day or so. I need to call him and tell him about this case. This is the closest we have been to danger while not being the target of the violence.
Moments later Marie returned with pictures for the murder board and the menu for the Thai restaurant. After making their choices, they decided to get food early as they hadn’t eaten much on the golf course and it might be less disruptive to the flow of their work if they ate now. Before heading out to pick-up the food, Jill called Nathan.
“Hey, how was your golf tournament? Were the jello shots as good as you remembered?” asked Nathan, upon seeing who was calling.
“We didn’
t get to the hole with the jello shots.”
“Why? Did you get rained out? I didn’t think there was any rain in your area.”
“No, jello shots were on the tenth hole, and a man was murdered on the second green as we were teeing off on the third hole.”
“What! What happened? Were you hurt? Are you someone’s target?”
“No one was hurt in our foursome. We were not the target. It was the foursome behind us. Let me start from the beginning of this story."
“Yeah, please do, but I am happy you’re safe.”
“You can look this up on Google Earth - Mystery Hills Golf Course in DePere, Wisconsin," began Jill as she recounted the crazy events of the day. She ended her narrative with, "He was a distant acquaintance of Angela's so we are conducting a free investigation for the widow."
"What an amazingly strange story and you sure have bad luck being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most of all, I am thankful that none of you were hurt. How is Angela doing?"
“She is doing okay. I printed out a no-cost contract and she was able to get the widow to sign it perhaps two hours after her husband was murdered. I may end up staying here longer, but no more than two extra days. Are you okay with dog-sitting Trixie?"
“You know your dog provides my cat and I with endless hours of entertainment, so yes I can keep her for additional days. Tell all your friends that I am glad you’re all safe and I wouldn’t think you would have problems with this investigation turning violent. It just sort of wrecks whatever you were planning on doing during your vacation.”
“Not really, I got the major to-see and to-eat at items done already. We’re all doing this as a favor for Angela. It will be a high profile case by the police as there are so few murders in this city and they seem like they’re good and competent cops.”
“How weird that you had a guy murdered on a ski slope, and now on a golf course - who knew that sports were so dangerous?”
“Yeah, but this is going to be harder to figure out, as the killer could be anyone with marksmanship skills. That is probably half of the adults in this area of the country. All the person needed to be able to do was shoot probably a Winchester .308 and be able to walk through the woods for about a quarter of a mile. The shooter could be male or female, and almost any height as it would have been somewhat easy to bring a stool with you to stand on in the woods. About the only people we can rule out are those with alibis. I’m going to try something new with this case. I am going to see if I can purchase a satellite picture of the golf course at the time of the shooting. Fortunately within a minute, we know when the gun was fired. We know the sniper didn’t stick around as the police searched the woods shortly after they arrived. So I have at most a fifteen minute window to catch the sniper walking out of the woods. When he entered the woods is another question, he could have chosen to wait there for hours. We had been on the course for about an hour and an half when we reached that hole. The case would be so much clearer if I could find that picture and extremely hard to solve if I can’t. We’re going to work on the motive, but this case is going to be difficult.”
“It sounds difficult, but then I think at the start of all of your cases finding the killer always seems difficult. Even in your last case where you needed someone with the specific skill set of being an advanced skier, you didn’t have an answer for a couple of days. You’ll figure this out. In fact I can’t recall a single case since we have been together that you couldn’t solve. Besides, this is home ground for you and the team, which should make it easier. You know where to go and who to trust. Also, for the first time you don’t have to worry about your friends flying home before you have solved your case. They simply can’t go anywhere.”
“Yeah that’s true. It will be interesting to conduct an investigation on very familiar ground. Oh well, what is going with you?”
“Well besides being entertained by Arthur and Trixie? I think I told you that I had a client in Napa Valley that was contemplating trying a wineglass design as an extension of his brand?”
“Yeah you did. He was what I would call a sort of a small to medium sized vintner geographically stuck at the end of a long line of eleven wineries in St Helena and all of them operated by appointment only. He wanted to have a wine tasting room that was open to the public, but with all the other wineries being by appointment only, he couldn’t generate any traffic to his tasting room. Is this the vintner you are speaking about?”
“Yes, Andrew has been scratching his head on this one and we tossed around a few ideas. He wants to try a combined discussion of wine and wine glasses in his tasting room to see if that will be enough of a unique idea to pull traffic in. Both the design and the marketing materials are exciting to me and I’m enjoying this fresh challenge.”
“Have you done any research into glassware to help with your glass design? I mean I think we all know the basic concept of a wider goblet for red varietals to allow more breathing to occur by the wine, but what else is there?”
“Ah, I can feel your eyes rolling two-thousand miles away. Let me ask you a question. Why don’t we serve wine in a beer stein?”
“Okay I get your point. Wine is not served in a beer stein because it’s generally not drunk like beer as far as volume, it’s sipped and savored. Besides beer is carbonated and exposure to air generally makes it taste worse rather than better. Then there are the subtleties like it can be nice to sip a single glass of wine over an hour, by which time a beer would be warm and flat; or you like to give wine as a gift, but you give it as a present to be shared with others not a single glass for yourself. You’re brilliant enough to figure out how to sell just about any idea in the wine industry. More importantly, I like the fact that you’re trying your idea with a “David” in likely an area of Goliath wineries. Perhaps you’ll change the industry with this move.”
“Maybe and equally likely the idea could flop. If it turns out to work, I’ll do designs for you next, even though you don’t have a tasting room yet. I might run out of originality in glassware design, so it will be best to get me early.”
“Ha ha! You’re a creative genius so I am sure you have years in front of you to exploit this idea.”
“Actually I think you hit it on the nose. I am enjoying helping Andrew see if he can get cars to drive by the eleven by-appointment-only wineries to reach his tasting room. I think you can put money into finding new customers by selling to wine stores everywhere or by getting foot traffic to your tasting room. In this case we’re trying the second strategy.”
“I have to go pick up Thai food, so I will talk with you later. All this talk about wineries has made me thirsty for a few glasses and I need food in my stomach before I do that. Good luck with your design project. Cheers!” and Jill ended their call.
“How is Nathan doing?” Jo asked as she returned to Marie’s kitchen.
“He’s doing well. He has a marketing challenge for a winery in Napa Valley and that has his creative juices going. He is also thrilled that we aren’t in danger for this case and he thought it would go faster since we are on home ground. Did you make your dinner choices?”
“Yeah, here are our choices,” said Marie handing the list to Jill. “We already called the meals in including your volcano chicken. You’ll need to leave in about five minutes to pick up orders.”
“Then I’ll leave now. I would really like to indulge in a glass of wine while we brainstorm possible motives for this murder. So the sooner I pick up dinner, the sooner I’ll get back here to indulge,” said Jill as she grabbed her purse and headed out the door.
“Who else should we invite into this mystery? Since we are on home ground I think we should invite anyone we know might help,” Angela suggested. “We can check with Jill when she returns, but her usual theory is the more heads on the topic, the sooner we are likely to solve it. I think we should invite my friend, Ann, and maybe her mom since they are so well connected to everyone in this city.”
“I’ll add my sister whose kid
s attend the same school as our victim’s kids,” Marie added to the list.
“I’ll add my boyfriend, Jack, since he can be good to bounce ideas off of and he can keep us supplied with junk food and wine if Marie runs out,” Jo observed. “That might be a tragedy for my brain power. Marie, do you know if we have all of the pictures up there on Jill’s murder board?”
“Let’s see, we have the victim, the three players on his foursome, his wife and kids, and a picture of Our Lady, so yes, I think that is all of the pictures,” replied Marie. “Can you think of anything to add?”
“Can you print out a picture of the murder weapon which I think is a Winchester .308 and maybe some data about that model of gun? Perhaps something on the scope as we think the sharpshooter accuracy might reduce our pool of potential killer suspects.”
“After Jill gets back, we can start making calls to see if people are available,” remarked Angela. “Marie, do you have enough wine and chips for four additional people?”
“I do for tonight but if we gather every night, I’ll have to stock up on supplies. Okay, we have that settled, what else do we need to do?”
“Let’s put additional names on the side of the murder board of everyone we think is involved so far and their role in this case. Police officers, foursome partners, family, work associates, the organizer of today’s golf outing, and any other names we can think of related to the case.”
“That’s a great idea, Angela. You’re keeping us well organized in Jill’s absence. For now, let’s use sticky notes to write these names down as we don’t know how Jill wants them organized on the board,” Marie said as she handed out little sticky note squares to Angela and Jo. “If you don’t know their name, write their role down and we’ll go back later and add names.”
Silence reigned in the room as the three of them thought of people that been involved in the case that day as well as anyone they could think of on the periphery of the case. They were still writing when Jill returned, bag in hand, great aromas in her wake.