Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries)

by Ryan, Annelise

  I get no response. I walk up to the door of Bernard Chase’s office and lean into it to listen, to see if I can hear anyone on the other side. Just as my ear touches the door it’s yanked open and someone charges out of the room, knocking me backward.

  Chapter 16

  I flail my arms and try to catch my balance just as I hit the back door. I jar it hard enough to knock the rock out of place and the door shuts. I lean against it, my arm in front of my face in a defensive gesture against whoever is there. Then I hear Hurley’s voice say, “Mattie? What the hell are you doing?”

  I lower my arms as I realize the person who mowed me down is Hurley. “I hollered for you and no one answered. I was spooked so I leaned in against the door to listen and you opened it just as I did.” I try to look more dignified than I feel. “Why the hell were you in there in the dark? And what’s the big hurry?” I add irritably.

  Hurley reaches over, grabs my hand, and starts pulling me down the hallway. “I was using a black light to look for body secretions on that couch in there. And the big hurry is Emily. Why the hell is she at your place? And who’s snooping around your place scaring the crap out of her?”

  “Who? What? Wait!” I can’t wrap my mind around all his questions that fast, and his tone of voice is irritating me. “First off, she’s at my place because she doesn’t have a house key and we couldn’t get in to your place.”

  “Oh, right. Hell, I didn’t even think—”

  “As for the rest of it, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I didn’t hear you yell. Sorry. I was on the phone with Dom. I’ll explain as we go.” Hurley turns and I stumble along behind him as we make a mad dash out of the administration wing and into the waiting room, then out into the parking lot. “Dom just called me and said that Emily is crying and scared. Some man was looking in the windows of your cottage at her. Apparently, Hoover started to growl and that’s how she saw the guy. She called Dom, who called me.”

  We climb into Hurley’s car and he sticks his police light on the roof. We make the trip to my place in just over three minutes and, when we pull up outside my cottage, all the outdoor lights are on, illuminating the backside of Izzy’s house, the front and sides of my cottage, and a good portion of the woods surrounding us. All the indoor lights are on in both houses, too. As we get out of the car, the back door to Izzy’s house opens.

  Dom hollers out to us. “I have her over here.”

  I head that way, but Hurley hesitates, moving toward my cottage and taking a cursory look around the front porch and door area.

  Emily bursts out of Izzy and Dom’s house and runs over to Hurley. She flings her arms around him and hugs him tight. Her face is turned my way and I can see it clearly in the bright lights; it’s tear-stained and terrified.

  “I was so scared,” she says, her voice breaking.

  Hurley wraps one arm around her and strokes her head with the hand of the other. As I watch, I feel a pang of jealousy, but not the kind I usually feel when it comes to Hurley. This is different. It’s that fatherly protector thing that has me jealous. That sort of attention is something I’ve never had and often yearned for.

  Hurley looks over at Dom, who has been joined by Izzy. “What can you tell me?”

  Izzy says, “Talk to Dom. I wasn’t here when it happened. I just got home from the office.”

  Dom, whose big eyes, fair skin, and reddish-blond hair can make him look frightened to death on a normal day, has a hand splayed protectively over his heart. He sashays over to Hurley looking like he’s just seen a ghost. “There was somebody there all right. Emily called me because Hoover started growling and wouldn’t stop. It was making her nervous so I told her I’d come over and check things out. As soon as I flipped the lights on and stepped outside, I saw a man standing by the front window. He heard me and ran off into the woods, over that way.” He points in the direction of my old house, the one I used to share with my ex-husband David. It burned nearly to the ground last November and as soon as the weather warms up enough to start construction, David plans to rebuild. Coincidentally, he’s being helped in this endeavor by Patty Volker, our insurance agent and his new girlfriend.

  “Could it have been David?” I ask Dom.

  He shakes his head. “No, he was taller than David, and stocky. And the hair was dark.”

  Hurley takes Emily by the shoulders and pushes her back, looking down at her. “Did you see this man’s face?”

  Emily nods. “Not for long, but when Dom turned the outside lights on it made me look over toward the window and for a second I saw him there. Then he was gone.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Dark, scruffy, older I think. Like I said, I only saw him for a second.”

  “You didn’t see him until after you called Dom?”

  Emily nods.

  “What made you call Dom in the first place?”

  “Hoover,” Emily says, and my dog, who is sitting at her feet, thumps his tail when he hears his name. “I was on the couch watching TV and he was lying at my feet when all of a sudden he started growling. He got up and went into the bedroom so I figured he was just messing with the cats. I tried calling to him, but he stayed in there for several minutes and kept growling. He finally stopped and came out, but then he started walking around the house, whining and sniffing at the air. He went into the kitchen and started growling again, staring at the window. I still thought it might be the cats, but when I got up I saw both of them asleep in the bedroom on top of the bed. When Hoover came into the living room and started growling is when I called Dom.”

  Hurley leaves Emily to stand alone and walks over to the window, then around to the side and back of the cottage, shining his flashlight along the ground. “There are footprints that track around the house from the back. Whoever was out here was probably at the rear of the house first. That’s why Hoover was growling in the bedroom.” He looks over at me with a worried expression. “Who would be spying on you? And why?”

  “I have no idea,” I say, suppressing a chill.

  “The obvious culprit would be David,” Hurley says, “though he strikes me more as the in-your-face type, not the skulking type.”

  “What reason would he have to skulk in the first place?” I say.

  Hurley takes out his cell phone and says, “I’m going to have some guys come over here and take a look around. Check out the woods and your old place.”

  As he makes his call, I start searching my mind, trying to think of someone who would want to spy on me. I have been avoiding people for the past couple months, but I can’t think of anyone who would come to see me who fits the description.

  Hurley ends his call and immediately places another. But this one gets no answer. When he disconnects, he stands there a moment, tapping his chin with the phone. Finally he says, “A couple guys will be out here shortly to see if they can find anything.” He looks at Emily. “In the meantime, I suppose I should take you back to my place. Do you have stuff you need to get?”

  She nods and heads inside my cottage to get her purse and jacket. To my amusement, Hoover goes with her.

  With a nod, Hurley steers me over to where Izzy and Dom are standing and addresses us in a low voice. “I just tried to call Kate and she isn’t answering. I have to consider that whoever was out here may have been spying on Emily rather than Mattie.” He fills Izzy and Dom in on Kate and her brother and the situation there. “If these guys who are after Kate’s brother somehow managed to track Kate to Sorenson in hopes of finding Brent, they could be watching Emily to see if he shows up.”

  “Then you can’t take her to your place and leave her there alone,” I say. “Not after this.”

  Hurley emits a sigh of exasperation and runs a hand through his hair. “I suppose not. But I can’t stay with her, either. I need to keep working on this case.”

  “Why don’t we just bring her along for tonight?” I suggest. “She wanted to come with me to the nursing home, anyway. S
he’ll be fine in the dayroom with Richmond and the patients.”

  Hurley frowns at the suggestion, but before he can say anything, Emily rejoins our group, Hoover at her feet. She looks at the group of us and smiles. “What?”

  “Are you comfortable with me leaving you alone at my place for a few hours tonight?” Hurley asks.

  Emily squares her shoulders and after the briefest hesitation says, “Sure.” But there is no conviction behind the word.

  I give Hurley a look and he says, “Okay, you can come with Mattie and me for tonight, but just this once, okay?”

  Emily smiles, looking immensely relieved. “Understood.”

  Two on-duty cops arrive to scour the area around my cottage and Hurley has us wait so he can check things out with them. Emily settles herself inside Hurley’s car, and Hoover jumps in beside her. I shake my head and smile, and when Emily shoots me a pleading look, I say, “Fine. You can be the therapy dog trainer at the nursing home.”

  I leave the two of them and go inside my cottage to make sure all the windows are latched. I also look at my diary, which appears undisturbed on the table where I left it, and tuck it away inside a drawer. The cats, who apparently could care less that someone was lurking about outside, are still asleep on my bed. I top off the food and water bowls, still pondering the night’s events.

  Why would a man be spying through my windows? I think about the casino and all the money I’ve lost there, recently. But since I don’t owe anyone any money and the casino has made plenty from me, I can’t imagine a reason they would want to spy on me. There were a few men at the casino who I’d flirted with casually from time to time. Had I perhaps attracted a stalker? I thought back to the men I’d befriended while playing the tables, but no one I could recall fit the descriptions Dom and Emily had provided.

  I realize Hurley’s theory might be right. Maybe it’s Emily who is being watched. Had we been followed earlier tonight when I was driving her around? If so, why would they follow her rather than Kate? Then it hit me. Maybe they had followed Kate. Hurley said she hadn’t answered her phone when he tried to call her earlier. Had something happened to her?

  I’m feeling spooked and full of questions, so when Hurley comes in a few minutes later, I’m eager to hear what he and the cops outside might have determined. “Find anything significant?”

  He shakes his head and sighs.

  “How did this person come and go? He must have had a car somewhere. Were there any signs of one over at my old place?”

  “Hard to tell,” Hurley says. “The driveway is concrete and the roads are dry so there aren’t any tire tracks to see. There isn’t anywhere for a car to park along the road near here because it’s too narrow. If someone had tried, I think we would have been called on it. I remember when someone broke down not far from here. We were flooded with complaint calls within minutes of the car being left at the side of the road.

  “We didn’t see any footprints in the woods, but the ground is pretty hard and covered with leaves. In fact, if it wasn’t for those plant beds around your cottage, we wouldn’t have any prints at all.”

  “Are the prints you do have of any help?”

  Hurley shrugs. “Maybe. It’s a large size and I think one or two of the prints have enough detail for us to identify the specific type of shoe. But unless we find a shoe to match it, that’s about all we’ll be able to know. I’m going to try to get a sketch artist to come in tonight to see if Dom can work on what he saw, although I don’t know if I’ll be able to find one this late.”

  “You might not need to.” I tell him about Emily’s drawing from earlier. “Let Emily be her own sketch artist.”

  “Can’t hurt I suppose,” he says, looking thoughtful. “It will give her something to do while we’re at the nursing home.”

  “Have you tried to reach Kate again?”

  Hurley nods and scowls. “I did. Still no answer. That worries me.”

  It worries me too, but I don’t say so. A few minutes later, after locking the cottage up tight and some last-minute instructions Hurley gives to the officers on site, he, Emily, and I all head back to the nursing home.

  It’s close to nine o’clock by the time we get there and we’re all tired. The person seated at the sign-in desk is a nursing assistant by the name of Anne, who asks us to sign in.

  Hurley grumbles, “We already did,” and walks on past her toward the dayroom.

  The assistant casts a wary eye at Hoover and looks like she wants to insist, but in the end her timidity wins out and she says nothing.

  Hurley sets Emily up in the dayroom with some pencils and paper and gives her instructions on what to do. She appears eager to get to it, but several of the patients, intrigued by the young newcomer and happy to see Hoover again, start chatting with her.

  Richmond is still here, and after we fill him in on Emily’s presence and why she’s here, he informs us that the lawyers still haven’t arrived. He also tells us that the patient room searches are ongoing and haven’t turned up anything of interest except some cigarette papers and some stuff the cops thought might be pot.

  “It’s not pot,” I tell them. “It’s a mix of oregano, mint, and tea.”

  The two men look at me with puzzled expressions.

  “And you know this how?” Hurley asks.

  “I had a little chat with the guy who’s making it.” I fill them in on my discussion with Randolph, including his theories about Frank Dudley and Ruth Waldheim’s boys.

  “Have you talked to this Dudley guy yet?” Hurley asks Richmond, who consults his list and then shakes his head. “All right, Mattie and I will do that next. What room is he in?”

  Richmond finds the room number and tells us it’s in the C wing. Hurley takes the fingerprint scanner, and he and I head for room number forty-four. We run into Larry Johnson and his helpers still conducting room searches in room forty-three—one room away from Frank Dudley’s and only five rooms away from being finished, with the exception of the D wing, which is where all the bedbound patients are housed. Hurley has Larry come with us to Mr. Dudley’s room to conduct a search while we talk to the man.

  We find Frank Dudley reclining in his bed watching TV. His status as an amputee is glaringly obvious given that his right leg ends just above the knee, and an artificial leg, complete with sock and shoe, is propped up against the closet door on one side of his bed. He has the look of a lifelong farmer, with skin that appears to have a permanent tan, precancerous spots on his face and arms, and large calloused hands that look like they’ve hauled a lot of hay bales in their time.

  “Mr. Dudley, my name is Steve Hurley and this is Larry Johnson. We are detectives with the Sorenson Police Department. This is Mattie Winston from the medical examiner’s office. She’s here to assist me. We’re looking into the death of Bernard Chase and would like to ask you a few questions. We’d also like to take a look around your room.”

  “Why do you want to do that?” Dudley asks. “Do you think I killed the son of a bitch?”

  “Did you?” Hurley asks.

  “I would’ve been happy to, but I didn’t. If I’m not mistaken, you can’t search my room unless I give you permission, or you have a search warrant.”

  “As it turns out, we do have a search warrant,” Hurley says. “Detective Johnson here will be happy to show it to you.”

  Larry takes a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, unfolds it, and shows it to Frank Dudley.

  Dudley looks at it for about two seconds and then shrugs. “Do whatever you have to,” he says with irritable resignation.

  Larry refolds the search warrant paper and tucks it back inside his pocket. Then he moves the artificial leg to one side, opens the closet door, and starts digging around inside.

  “I didn’t kill the guy,” Dudley says, “but I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead.”

  “Why is that?” Hurley asks.

  “Because it’s that bastard’s fault that I’m even in this place,” Dudley grumbles. �
��He and them damn kids of mine are all in cahoots together. They lied to me. When I lost my leg, the kids told me they would take over running the farm, and that taking care of me on top of that was going to be too much for them. So I let them talk me into coming here to stay for part of the year, so that they could have their time freed up to do the planting and harvesting. They were supposed to check me out of here in the wintertime and let me go back home. But that bastard Chase talked them into making this permanent. He convinced the kids that they deserve better than to be stuck on some old farm trying to eke out a living. Since I’d given the kids power of attorney so they could handle the farm business, they were able to sell the farm right out from under me. My kids took half the money and ran off with it, and that greedy bastard Chase got the rest.” Dudley pauses and shakes his head wearily. “I’m glad Dora is dead. It would probably kill her if she knew what her kids had done.”

  “Have you ever been in Mr. Chase’s office?” Hurley asks.

  “Can’t say that I have been,” Dudley says.

  “Then you won’t object to us fingerprinting you to make sure your prints aren’t found anywhere in that office.”

  “Actually, I do object. I have diabetes and those damned nursing assistants are in here poking my fingers all the time. The last thing I need is a bunch of dirty ink on my fingers that might give me an infection. Those of us with diabetes get infections really easy and we can’t fight them off very well, you know.”

  Hurley looks at Dudley with a smug smile. “That won’t be a problem. We have a new toy we’re using now.” He holds up the fingerprint scanner tablet. “No more ink. All you have to do is set your fingers on the screen here. Very clean and very painless.”

  Dudley frowns, but makes no further objections. As Hurley goes about getting Dudley’s fingerprints scanned in, Larry Johnson starts going through Dudley’s bedside table. In the bottom area he finds a plastic washbasin filled with rolled up socks. He pulls it out and sticks his hand into the pile of socks to root around, and then stops suddenly.