Full House

by David Housewright

  “No, she’s not here.”

  “Where is Jodi?” the sergeant asked.

  “Visiting her sister Joanne in Fargo.”

  “Joanne what?” I asked.

  “Joanne Farmer. Who are you?”

  “Is that her car in the garage?” I asked.

  “What of it?”

  “When did Jodi leave?” the sergeant asked.

  “Yesterday morning.”

  The sergeant set his hand on Bakken’s shoulder. “We need to talk,” he said. The deputy brushed the hand away.

  “Talk about what?”

  The sergeant gestured at me to get lost. I told him, “I’ll meet you at Eats ’N’ Antiques.” As he nudged his deputy back inside the trailer, I moved off the deck and casually walked over packed snow to the fire pit. A chunk of pale plastic caught my eye and I retrieved it from the ashes. It was the body of a Barbie doll, the head torn off. I tossed it back into the pit, moved to Bakken’s cruiser and leaned against it while I studied the trailer. After a few moments to build up my courage, I slipped around to the driver’s side, opened the door, and used the lever below the seat to pop the trunk. A few minutes later I was backing my own car out of the driveway.

  I drove about a hundred fifty yards to a crossroads, hung a left and parked, hoping the sergeant wouldn’t notice the car when he left. I abandoned the vehicle and made my way on foot through the woods back to the edge of the clearing overlooking Bakken’s trailer. I was just in time. Before I had a chance to settle in, Bakken and the sergeant emerged from the trailer, stood and chatted for a few minutes on the wooden deck. They shook hands and the sergeant went to his cruiser. Bakken watched him drive off from the deck.

  I gave it a slow count after the sergeant was out of sight. At twenty-seven seconds, Bakken leapt from the deck and dashed into his garage. He came out a moment later carrying a small spade, ran behind the trailer and disappeared into the woods, moving fast. I noted the time on my watch. Less than fifteen minutes later he returned, walking casually and smiling, the spade slung over his shoulder. He returned the shovel to the garage before disappearing back into the trailer. I circled to my right, keeping out of sight, until I cut his trail. A double set of footprints in the fresh snow—they weren’t difficult to follow.

  It was an hour before I was able to join the sergeant at Eats ’N’ Antiques. He was walking out as I was walking in.

  “I waited for you,” he told me, his mood foul.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “There was something I had to do.”

  “Bakken is all broke up about his wife. I hope you’re satisfied.”

  “Not really, but then it takes a lot to satisfy me.”

  “Jodi Bakken and Jack Edelson running off together isn’t a criminal matter,” the sergeant said. “I don’t see how it makes much of a newspaper story, either.”

  “If that’s what happened.”

  “You know something I don’t?”

  “Did you talk to the sister, Joanne Farmer?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “Because she has an interesting story to tell.”

  I retrieved my cell phone from my pocket, hit the re-dial button. A moment later, Joanne Farmer answered. I had spoken to her during my drive from Bakken’s place to Eats ’N’ Antiques.

  “Ms. Farmer, this is Daniel Thorn. Could you please tell the sergeant everything you told me?” I handed the sergeant the cell. He asked the woman the same questions I had and while I couldn’t hear her voice, I knew what her answers would be.

  She told the sergeant that Jodi had not come to visit her, that a visit had not been planned and that she was worried about her.

  “When was the last time you spoke to Jodi?” the sergeant asked.

  “Three days ago, the last time that creep beat on her.”

  “Bakken beat her?”

  “He’s been abusing her for years. Last time he burnt her collection of Barbie’s.”

  “What happened?”

  “Who knows? Maybe he didn’t like the way Jodi grilled his steak. Maybe his beer wasn’t cold enough. Maybe he has serious self-esteem issues and whenever he doesn’t get the respect he thinks he deserves from the people he works with, from the people on the street, he takes it out on Jodi. Only this time he not only beat her, he destroyed her collection of Barbie dolls - Jodi’s been collecting Barbies since she was a little girl. She loved those dolls. Sergeant, my sister is a beautiful woman both inside and out. She deserves a lot better than getting beat on by that, that creep.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you? Than you can do me a favor. If my sister ran off with some guy who treats her decent, don’t find her.”

  After he finished his conversation, the sergeant returned the cell and I deactivated it.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  The sergeant drove us to Bridges Medical in Ada. The admitting nurse confirmed what Joanne Farmer had told us—Bakken regularly abused his wife. Jodi had been treated for major contusions, sprains and a few fractures over a three-year period.

  “Why didn’t you call the police?” the sergeant asked.

  “Deputy Bakken is the police,” the nurse replied. “And besides, as hard as we tried to make her say it, Mrs. Bakken refused to admit she had been abused. She insisted her injuries were the result of an accident. Forty percent of the women we treat in emergency rooms are sent there by husbands and boyfriends and it’s always an accident.”

  “That’s probably why Bakken acted all paranoid before,” the sergeant said when we were back in the cruiser. “He thought someone, maybe Jodi, had dimed him out.”

  “Unless he has some other reason to be upset by a visit from the cops,” I told him.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “You know what I’m getting at.”

  “First Mrs. Edelson killed her husband, now Deputy Bakken killed his wife.”

  “Yes.”

  “Like most reporters I’ve met, you have a vivid imagination.”

  “Think so?”

  We were in Highway 32, following the railroad tracks as we drove south to Fertile. Without warning, the sergeant pulled off the highway onto the shoulder and halted. He rolled down his window. The snow had stopped and the sky was clearing. Cool, crisp air filled the car.

  “What do we know?” he asked.

  “You tell me,” I said.

  “It looks to me like two lovers ran off together, deserting their spouses. The only reason I’m sitting here now is because there’s the suggestion that Mrs. Edelson was plotting to kill her husband and Jodi’s husband has a history of abusing her—which are two darn good motives for taking off, don’t you think?”

  “Bakken lied when he said Jodi went to visit her sister in Fargo.”

  “Not necessarily. That could’ve been what Jodi told him before she left and he believed it.”

  “Except her car is still in the garage. So is Jack’s.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “How did Jodi and Jack leave Fertile? Do you have airline service here? Buses? Amtrak?”

  The sergeant shook his head. In the distance we could hear the mournful whine of a railroad whistle.

  “Do you think they hopped a freight?” I asked.

  “Maybe they had help.”

  “Maybe they never left.”

  “We need a little more evidence before we start saying that.”

  “If this was the Twin Cities, the cops would be all over it - the beautiful wife of an abusive police officer disappears, are you kidding? Forget the local media. CNN, Fox News, every tabloid in the country would be in your face demanding to know what the hell you’re doing about it.”

  “This isn’t the Twin Cities,” the sergeant said.

  “What’s it going to take for you to bring Bakken in for questioning? To get a warrant to search his place? A dead body on the street corner?”

  Apparently, that was exactly what it was going to take. The sergeant made noises about issuing a mis
sing persons bulletin, monitoring credit card usage, contacting the Social Security Administration, even placing a notice in the American Hotel Association monthly newsletter, but what it amounted to was this: the Polk County Sheriff’s Department did not have jurisdiction to look for two lovers on the lam from their spouses. Unless it uncovered physical evidence that a crime was committed, it was inclined to look the other way.

  Like many a poor gambler, I had overplayed my hand.

  But then I got lucky.

  The Winnebago blew up.

  From what we were able to piece together later, every month a Hispanic and his Dakota partner would drive from Mason City in Iowa, to La Crosse and Eau Claire in Wisconsin, up to Duluth in Minnesota, across to Grand Forks and Fargo in North Dakota, down to Sioux Falls and Sioux City in South Dakota, then back to Mason City, scrupulously avoiding major metropolitan areas and their police departments. They’d stop for only a few days in each city, crank up a clan lab in the back of their fully-loaded RV, cook a few pounds of meth, sell limited quantities to a select circle of low-profile dealers, then hit the road again. Since they were on wheels, they’d be in and out of a police jurisdiction before the local heat even knew they were there. Sweet. Except this time the boys were careless storing their chemicals in the back of the Winnebago. While cutting through Polk County on their way to Grand Forks, they encountered a pothole and the meth lab exploded.

  We found them a few clicks east of Highway 32 on CR 12, what remained of their RV was laying on its side across the blacktop. The two deputies I had met earlier—Hermundson and Moore—were already on the scene by the time we arrived. So were the Fertile volunteer fire brigade and Polk County EMS.

  The Dakota was toast; the EMTs had already draped a blanket over his body. The Hispanic was badly burned on his arms, torso and face. He was crying as they loaded him into the blue and white van, but not for mercy, medical attention, or even his lawyer. He wanted to see Deputy Bakken.

  “’E’s my friend.”

  “Your friend?” said the sergeant.

  Maybe the Hispanic was delirious with pain and that is why he was making what the courts call “spontaneous declarations.” Most likely he saw the police uniforms and figured they were all his friends.

  “’E show me good place ta camp,” the Hispanic said. “Good place ta cook my goods. Dep’ty Bakken my friend.”

  From the expression on his face, I had the distinct impression the sergeant no longer felt that way about Bakken, if he ever had.

  “I want him here, now,” he snapped at the female deputy.

  They paged him, radioed and called on a land line. Only Deputy Bakken wasn’t answering.

  I looked upward. The clouds had parted and the sky had become a pale blue. It was turning into a beautiful day.

  Three Polk County Sheriff department cruisers rushed into the clearing surrounding Bakken’s trailer only to find a fourth cruiser in the driveway. Unfortunately, Bakken was long gone, and so was the Buick Regal that had been parked in the garage. The sergeant ordered an alert for the Regal. Afterward, he told Moore to search the cruiser while he and Hermundson checked out the trailer. I remained with Moore. I had managed to tag-along with the deputies mostly by pretending I wasn’t there and I stayed way back while she meticulously examined the contents of the cruiser. I didn’t speak a word until she popped the trunk.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “What’s what?”

  “That smell.”

  Deputy Moore sniffed the air.

  “It smells like—that’s perfume.” Moore leaned into the trunk. “Oh, no,” she said, followed by, “Sergeant.”

  She explained quickly when he returned to the driveway.

  “The trunk smells of a woman’s fragrance—I think it’s called Obsession.” As if on cue, Deputy Hermundson returned to the trailer.

  “Something else,” Moore said. “Along the inside of the trunk lid—I think that’s blood and human hair.”

  The sergeant reached over and slammed the trunk closed.

  “Don’t touch anything else,” he said. “Have the car towed to our impound lot, then call the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and ask them to send a forensics team up here.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Moore.

  “Sergeant,” said Hermundson. The deputy had returned from the trailer. He was holding a small bottle of Obsession in his hand.

  The sergeant looked like he was about to be sick. His expression became even worse when his radio crackled. The Buick Regal had been spotted moving at high speed on Summit Avenue toward Sand Hill River.

  “Tess,” I said aloud.

  I had been surprised by how calmly and efficiently the deputies moved up on the scene—I had expected Barney Fife but got Steve McGarrett, instead.

  It was only about five thirty, but night was already a reality. Yet in winter it’s never entirely dark. The snow and ice always find one source or another of illumination to magnify and reflect and the night sky was loaded with them—stars you rarely see in the light-polluted Twin Cities. They made the area around the Edelson house seem as bright to me as Midway Stadium during a night game and I felt terribly exposed as we moved to the front.

  Light also poured from the house; it fell like a blanket on the snow that laid beyond the large bay window overlooking the river. Inside, we could plainly see Tess tied to the arms of a chair. Her face was so mottled with fear and exhaustion that I scarcely recognized her. Bakken paced in front of her, talking loudly and waving his hands.

  The sergeant sent Hermundson to the far side of the house and positioned Moore closer to the bay window. Both deputies were carrying .308 hunting rifles fitted with telescopes.

  Moore sighted on Bakken.

  “I can take him now,” she said.

  The sergeant rested a hand on her shoulder.

  “Don’t fire unless you need to,” he said. The sergeant removed his gun belt and set it next to Moore’s knee. “I’m going to try and negotiate with him.”

  Bakken turned his back to Tess and walked to the window. I thought for sure that he had seen us until he brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the light and I realized that we could easily see in, but because of the reflections, he couldn’t see out.

  I sighed deeply and both the sergeant and Deputy Moore looked at me like they were surprised I was there.

  “Be quiet,” the sergeant said. “Stay the hell out of the way.”

  I nodded my agreement, afraid to speak.

  “Jeezus,” he muttered and started making his way toward the front door. He couldn’t have taken more than a half dozen steps when we all heard Bakken scream, “I want my money!” loud enough to penetrate the walls of the house and echo across the snow.

  The sergeant looked up; saw Bakken take his county-issued Glock from his pocket and point it with both hands at Tess.

  “I want my money now!”

  “Deputy,” the sergeant said.

  It was early morning before they finally removed Bakken’s body from the house, before the ME, the county attorney, the county sheriff and a field agent for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension ran out of questions to ask. One question in particular still hung in the air: What did Bakken mean when he said, “I want my money.”

  With a loud, sustained sob, Tess collapsed into the sergeant’s arms—it was like the question had given her permission to cry. The sergeant seemed embarrassed as he gently maneuvered her to the sofa. He wrapped her arms around Tess and held her close. Tess rested her head against his shoulder and wept. After a few minutes she began talking. She said, “He told me he killed Jack. He said he found Jack and Jodi together and he killed them both. He said he did it as a favor to me, but now the police were after him. He said he heard it on his police radio. He said he needed money and he wanted me to give him some. He wanted me to pay him for killing my husband.” She cried throughout most of her answer and when she finished, all restraint left her. She wept until the sergeant’s shirt was wet with her tea
rs.

  And I thought, Tess was more than a good actor. She was way up there with Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett.

  “You don’t believe this, do you?” I asked the sergeant. “Tess and Bakken were in this together. Don’t you get it? Bakken came here to get his money and Tess wouldn’t give it to him.”

  “What money?” the sergeant asked.

  “The percentage of the insurance settlement Tess promised to give him for killing her husband.”

  It was then that the sergeant decided he had had more than enough of me for one day and threw me out of the house.

  To prove I was full of crap, Tess agreed to take a computerized polygraph exam conducted by John Hopkins University. According to the Applied Physics Laboratory Computer Scoring Algorithm—whatever the hell that was—the probability was greater than ninety-nine percent that the subject was being truthful when she answered “No” to the questions “Did you conspire with Deputy Bakken to kill your husband?” and “Are you responsible for the death of your husband?” Despite my protests, the BCA cleared her as a suspect.

  DNA testing proved that the hair found in the trunk of Deputy Bakken’s cruiser belonged to Jodi Bakken and the blood belonged to Jack Edelson. Based on that and Tess’ testimony, the Office of the Polk County Coroner concluded that they were both dead and classified their deaths as homicides. Despite an extensive search, their bodies were never found.

  A few weeks later Tess and I met in the office of a probate attorney in Crookston, Minnesota, the seat of power in Polk County. According to the will he read, Jack left his thirty-five hundred dollar golf clubs to me. He left everything else to Tess—an estate valued at over seven hundred grand including his half of their joint property. Tess and I thanked the lawyer. As we left his office, Tess said she had Jack’s clubs in the trunk of her car. I transferred them to my car.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked her.

  “I already put in my notice at the hospital; my house will go on the market tomorrow. The realtor thinks I’d be better off waiting until the weather gets warmer but I don’t want to wait. I want to sell the house, sell the furniture and get out of here just as soon as I can.”