by M. K. Coker
“You do that. First priority. After that, you’ve got a pile of evictions waiting, and I’m getting tired of being nagged about them.”
“I’ll get to it, when I have time.” That was one plus for the current investigation. “I’ve got Bunting to clear up first.”
“So far as I’m concerned, you can let Bunting stew in his own shit for eternity.” Josephine’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you glare at me, Karen Okerlund Mehaffey. That man was a menace. And he’s going to give me nightmares that I won’t be able to ride out to the buzzer. Do you know yet if it’s a homicide?”
Karen wished it wasn’t. So that she could shut the door on Bunting and forget him.
“Stabbed in the back, according to Larson,” Karen began just before the doors burst open.
Walrus stomped into the room with a curious crunching sound, like boots on twice-frozen snow. He dropped himself into his chair, jerked off his boots, and turned them up. The soles glittered like ice pellets. “Geez, these boots are new, too.”
Trailing in after his partner, Kurt pursed his lips into a line thin enough to cut ice—or glass. “I told you not to step there.”
“After I’d stepped. That doesn’t count. It’s going to be a bear to get these out. It’s disgusting.”
“That you have to work at it?” Kurt shot back.
“Geez. Get a clue. That people litter public parks like it’s their own backyard.”
“People don’t litter their own backyard. They litter public grounds because they don’t have to clean it up. Biester said it’s become a real problem.”
“Get real, Kurt. Broken glass has always been a problem, from way back when that’s all we had. Now it’s usually cans and plastic, not glass. Point is, people have no respect anymore for Mother Nature.”
Used to the bickering, even reveling in it as a return to normality, Karen nonetheless had work to do, and time was ticking. They needed to get to Aleford. But they needed evidence more. “You got the list of payments dropped in the box?”
“Yep, we did. Kurt’s got it.” Walrus banged his boots together, creating a shower of small pellets over the marble floor. Kurt glared at him, handed off the list, and disappeared into the break room. A minute later, Kurt returned with a dustpan and sweeper while Walrus obligingly lifted his de-glassed boots for his partner to sweep under them. After sharing an amused glance with Marek, Karen left them to it.
The only good thing about this homicide was that it hadn’t gotten anyone down. While they might not be glad, they certainly weren’t sad.
CHAPTER 10
Aleford, to the north of Reunion, was primarily known for its truck stop, and unlike the majority of Scandinavian, Slav, or German towns in Eda County, the town was primarily populated by English and Irish settlers like Walrus.
Karen pulled the Sub into the drive of a white vinyl-sided ranch home that barely fit in its tiny spot between two larger homes whose incomes, she guessed, were earned by commuting to Sioux Falls. Zoning laws weren’t as strict in the country as in cities.
Personally, Karen liked that, that you had a good mix of the haves and the not-so-haves, but she doubted that the sentiment was echoed by the raker-of-leaves in the right-hand house. The woman eyed the official vehicle with grim satisfaction, as if she’d predicted that the neighborhood would go to rack and ruin if one lone woman of seventy years was allowed to live amongst them.
That woman, Alice Dutton, turned out to be nothing like the overbearing female version of Bunting that Karen had expected. Instead, she was immensely petite, almost nonexistent, at least compared to Karen and Marek.
Her red-rimmed eyes peered up at them with a resignation, even an acceptance of something long feared, which told Karen that Alice Dutton had held no illusions as to her nephew’s character.
After Karen and Marek were seated on an afghan-draped sofa that creaked under their combined weight, Alice spoke first. She perched on a wood-slatted chair. Only the toes of her sensible shoes touched the floor. “I feel as if I should apologize to you, Sheriff Mehaffey, for what my nephew did to you during the election. I told him that he’d made a pact with the devil, but he just said that he hadn’t been born with a silver spoon, but when he won, he’d buy a really long one.”
Her hands twisted a soaked handkerchief. “Josephine Lindstrom told me you’d be by, and I’ve been trying to think what to say.” She sighed, a whisper of sound that barely ruffled the air. “I still don’t know. But I hope you find his killer, not for the man he became, but for the boy he was.”
Ready for an angry, vituperative interview, Karen wasn’t quite sure how to handle this sad, faded woman. “We will do our best to find his killer, no matter who or what he was, Ms. Dutton.”
“Miss, please. I never went for Ms. It seemed too outrageous at the time. I’m afraid that once I made it out into the work world, I was so afraid to lose my position there that I never rocked the boat. So I’m Miss Alice or just Alice.” She repeated that last under her breath. “Just Alice.”
Wanting to pace, Karen wished she hadn’t sat down. “When did you last hear from or see your nephew?”
Alice glanced at an old radio on the settee. “I stayed up to hear the recount. When I heard he lost, I didn’t rightly know what to feel, given how he’d conducted himself, but I called him. Isn’t that what they always say, to just be there for your kids? He was all I had, even though he paid me little attention. He was in the car. At least, I could hear road noise. He was furious. He said it wasn’t over, that the whole county was corrupt. I’m afraid that I... how do you say it? Tuned out? Until I heard him turn onto gravel—you know that sound it makes, with the rocks hitting underneath? Then he... well, uttered an oath... and said something about the last straw. He hung up on me. That’s the last words we had between us. I wish I’d said I loved him. Because I did.”
Yet Karen would’ve bet Bunting was one of those people not even a mother could love. “You were close, then?”
A faint smile ghosted over the pale, almost translucent face. “A long time ago, yes, when I babysat for him. He was such a sweet little boy, bringing me little gifts, like dandelions and rocks and bottle caps, even a ragged red ribbon once for my hair, and I wore it. He’d snuggle in my lap like I was his blanket in the night. I blame my sister and her parade of men for how he turned out.”
A tear spilled down, disappearing into a deep line, and finally dropping down onto her blue-veined hand, unnoticed. “I wanted to adopt him after his father split and Rachel took to the bottle. But she resented me, even though she didn’t want to be saddled with the brat, as she called him. Can you believe it? That’s what he thought his name was, until I told him, no, it was Robert, and he cried because the other kids taunted him with ‘brat,’ and he didn’t know why they thought it was so funny. Later, they called him Baby, and it stuck, much as I hated it. I made sure I always, always called him Robert, to remind him that it was a good name, a solid name, and that he could live up to it. It means ‘bright fame,’ and I told him he had a famous future. Back then, I believed it.”
More like infamous. Karen didn’t really want to hear this, but she needed to, because knowing Bunting might lead them to his killer. “I take it you were unsuccessful in getting custody.”
Wringing her handkerchief, Alice got up, went to a drawer, and pulled out a photograph, which she handed to Karen. A much-younger Alice Dutton in a neat white blouse and modest gray skirt held a beaming baby with a smeared face and a cowlick. Baby Bunting in the flesh. Bookending them, both standing with arms crossed, must be the sister and one of her men. Rachel was taller and broader than Alice, as if she’d been pulled like taffy out of the neat shape of her sister. The dark-blond, mustached man on the other side towered over them all, his jaw jutting, as if he’d just been asked to take a hit, not a photo.
“Rachel cleaned up her act just enough to satisfy social services. And her husband at the time, Ed Johnson, was in your line of work, and that was that.”
Karen imagined that Ed was a man’s man, a cop of the old school, who’d expected to be kowtowed to, and for Alice Dutton to have challenged him must have taken more than a little courage.
Alice’s lips compressed to invisibility. “The judge ruled that, as a single woman, I had no claim, even though I’d spent more time with Robert than Rachel had by that time. The judge told me to go snare my own man and have my own kids if I wanted them so bad. After that, I only saw Robert rarely. By the time Rachel got done with him, he’d not only lost any sweetness, he didn’t trust anyone, not even me. Not that I can blame him. He had a terrible childhood, worse than mine and Rachel’s, being our father’s punching bags.” She took the photo back, cradled it in her worn hands, then put it back in the drawer and shut it with a sharp click. “But I comfort myself that, while Robert was undoubtedly... less than ethical... he wasn’t violent.”
Marek finally spoke, his voice gentle, “What about your nephew’s ex-wife? Nadine Early. She had a restraining order out on him, didn’t she?”
A deep, anguished rage lit her faded face. “It should’ve been the other way around. Nadine was the worst thing that happened to him.” Her toes went en pointe on the floor. “Robert wanted kids. Did you know that? So I could be their granny, he said, and we would have the life we should’ve had together. He’d finally escaped his mother, was living in my spare room, and was working for... your father, I believe, Sheriff Mehaffey? Arne Okerlund. A good man, if a bit abrupt.”
Her lips trembled. “I had such high hopes for Robert then. I told him, after he proudly brought his new girlfriend around to meet me, that Nadine was his mother all over again. A drunk, a manipulator, and a backstabber. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so blunt, because it just put his back up. I didn’t see him again for a long time after that. Often, I didn’t even know where he was, as he moved around a lot, from job to job. But I was right. She dumped him, then she’d come back and hit him up for money, promising him they’d reconcile, have kids, and she’d stop drinking. Cheated on him the whole time. He finally divorced her, and she married Jim Early on the rebound. That didn’t last any longer than you can hold your breath, and he fled to Mexico. So she went right back to her old ways with my nephew. I never did understand why he couldn’t stand up to her, but I guess, if he had, he might’ve killed her.”
“Do you know where Nadine is now?” Marek asked.
“No, I haven’t seen her for a long while. In a town this size, that’s unusual, but I’m grateful. We had an unspoken agreement, you might say, to look right through each other. Of course, most look through me anyway, always did. Rachel was the looker, ’til she lost it to the bottle.”
Alice looked down at her handkerchief blankly, then with a stiff, determined movement, she wiped away the fallow tears. “Alone of the Duttons, I escaped. I took typing and shorthand in high school and got hired as a secretary for Milt Logan, the lawyer. I still have no idea why he took me on. He taught me how to dress, how to act, how to talk, even.” She glanced around her neat little home, without a single family photo or anything else on the white walls. Though one bookcase did hold a large, framed photo of a man in a suit. His salt-and-pepper hair, wide smile, and pronounced jowls rang a bell with Karen—she’d seen Milt Logan in the courthouse hallways when she was growing up and visiting her grandfather or father, and he’d always given her a friendly nod.
When Alice looked back at them, her eyes—blue fading into the whites—looked as empty as her walls. “I’m the last of my family. Maybe it’s for the best.”
CHAPTER 11
In high school, Marek had once taken a job as a busboy at the Early Diner in Valeska. He’d hated every one-thousand-two-hundred minutes of it before he and the owner, Eldon Early, had decided to part ways. He’d spent the rest of that summer detasseling corn for Curry Seed. When you finished a field, you felt you’d done something, unlike the never-ending parade of dirty dishes at the diner.
While Marek often ate out, or at least got takeout from Mex-Mix or The Café in Reunion, the clink of dishes, the clatter of utensils, and the slosh of water in bussing tubs always made him feel closed in, trapped, and faintly nauseous.
The Aleford truck stop was no different.
Unfortunately, they’d struck out on Nadine Early’s last known address, a dilapidated Section 8 apartment building that had been razed to the ground after a fire caused by someone using an upside-down iron as a cooktop. So Marek took a deep breath to settle the memories before he walked in behind Karen, who’d apparently never had a phobia in her life.
After a quick survey, Karen headed straight for the roly-poly waitress by the counter. The woman wore a pinstripe polyester dress with a blue apron and heavy-duty support stockings that ended in a pair of bright-blue sneakers. “Hi, Mrs. Bridges. Can we have a word?”
Looking up from where she mulled over an order, Nancy Kubicek Bridges blanched. “Is it Tanner?” Her son was the light of her life, or had been, last Marek knew.
“No, nothing wrong,” Karen assured her. “We’re looking for someone who used to work here.”
“Oh. You gave me a fright.” Nancy rubbed at a liver spot on her chin as she looked around the room with its low-level hum of midafternoon. “Well, it’s a lull. Should be okay. Fred! I’m taking fifteen!”
“Make it ten!” a smoke-graveled voice rumbled back from the bowels of the kitchen.
Nancy rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t believe in breaks. Says it’s a lazy habit, not to be encouraged. Let’s go outside. If I stay in here, somebody’ll flag me down.”
She moved more slowly than Marek recalled, and he wondered just how long she’d spent on her feet over the years. Far more than he had, he’d bet. She went out and sat down on a concrete divider that separated the gas from the diesel lines. She heaved a big sigh. “I feel ’bout ninety today. Doctor says I need my veins stripped. I keep hoping to put it off.” She rubbed her thigh. “Tanner is after me to do it while I still qualify for subsidies for insurance.”
“Smart kid,” Karen said. “He still in school to be a vet?”
Nancy’s lips compressed. “The insurance company twisted like a ball on a string, trying to get out of paying Leo’s life insurance claim, but they finally paid out the day before Tanner’s college bills came due. Thought that boy’s heart was going to break, when it looked for sure like he’d have to drop out, even with the scholarship he got. Just not enough. Never enough. I offered to mortgage the house, though it still would’ve come up short in the long haul, but Tanner said no. Leo paid his premiums, fair and square, and the company should’ve done the same. Playing with people’s lives like that, it’s criminal.”
Marek had barely made it through high school, but he’d heard an earful over the years from financially strapped coworkers about the cost of college. Gone were the days that a summer job could cover tuition and a side job could cover room and board.
Nancy raked her hand through limp brown hair. “Now, who’re you looking for? I figured you’d be working the murder at the park. That was the big buzz this morning. But maybe you already solved it. We’ve had a few light-fingered waitresses over the years, but Fred grinds them up and spits them out. Can’t say I ever got to know any of ’em well enough to know where they ended up. In jail, I’d guess. Once you start down that road, you ain’t likely to do a U-turn.”
When Karen glanced at Marek with a raised eyebrow, he knew that he’d been far too quiet, even for him. He cleared his throat. “We’re looking for Bob Bunting’s ex-wife. Nadine Early.”
Nancy’s lips parted. “Well, you should know, Marek Okerlund. She’s closer kin to you than me.” When he just stared down at her, trying to process that unexpected answer, she blew out a breath. “Okay, so maybe you wouldn’t know. Your mother was pretty standoffish when she came back to Valeska, even though it was the Kubiceks gave her a roof over her head growing up. But I don’t want to rehash old hurts. You’re my cousin. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. Whatever went on before, wit
h hard feelings both ways, that’s water under the bridge. When you’ve got nothing else, you’ve got family. My sister Lola’s been a godsend to me since Leo died. We used to fight like cats and dogs as kids. Now we’re closer than two catfish in a skillet. Even if she does nag me about getting my hair done up right. Who has time?”
A truck honked as it pulled out. Nancy gave the driver a wave. “That’s Henry Dill. One of Leo’s friends. Nice man. Good tipper.” She gave them a sad smile, as if resigned to the idea that tips were all she would ever get from a man again. She rubbed her thigh again. “I’d better get back soon if I don’t want to be thumbing for a ride.”
As if trying to spare Marek from having to ask, Karen did it for him. “How is Nadine Early related to the Kubiceks, and where might we find her? Is she still working at the truck stop?”
Nancy gave a mirthless laugh. “Nadine? She worked the gas station, not the diner. And only when it pleased her, which wasn’t often. Fred took her measure first time he saw her. Same as your grandmother did, Marek. ‘That girl’s gonna be trouble,’ she told my ma when Nadine was just a tyke. And boy, was she right. Let’s see. She was your grandmother’s brother Frank’s youngest. Spoiled rotten, if you ask me, just ’cause she was one of those surprises you sometimes get when you think the fat lady’s sung her last. Her father got his own back, you might say, when he cut her right out of his will. And he had a fair amount of prime farmland, so it wasn’t chump change. ‘To my daughter Nadine, I leave nothing, not even my name for her to further shame.’ What a cut-up that was, her trying to make it out like her father was batty in his old age and that she’d been the one to take care of him. Think that’s what finally banded that family together again after she’d done her best to destroy it. If anyone should’ve been in that toilet at the park, it was her, not Bob Bunting. Always felt sorry for him. He had no clue what he’d walked into when he walked her down the aisle with that gaudy diamond on her greedy finger.”