Murder at Spirit Falls

by Barbara Deese

  “Naturally,” his deputy said. “And I’ve got the evidence kit too.”

  “Good. And coffee?”

  “A whole thermos, freshly brewed. I should be there in a few minutes.”

  Harley pushed open the car door, and prepared to step out when a cramp seized his right leg and all of his attention. He tried to pull his toes upward, a difficult feat considering that he was wearing steel-toed shoes. Once the cramp subsided, he got out and stretched, sniffed under his arms and ended with a full head scratch that left him with Einstein hair.

  A quick inspection of the driveway satisfied him that no one had come during the early morning hours. He yawned and scratched and shook himself to wake up, and decided to walk behind the cabin to relieve himself. Afterwards, he made his way down to the creek. The water was still running high and fast. Kneeling on the bank, Harley held onto a sapling with one hand as he cupped water in his other, splashing it onto his face and neck, enjoying the numbing cold.

  Another sound broke through that of rushing water—the shriek of a siren—and Harley knew that his trusty but over-exuberant deputy was on her way. He stood and flicked water off his rumpled uniform shirt, brushed off the knees of his khakis and hurried up the hill past the fire pit and around the woodpile to the driveway.

  Brill stood at the open door of her vehicle, hands on hips, shoulders thrust back. In full uniform, complete with hat, sunglasses and jacket, she looked downright formidable even before she unbuttoned her jacket to reveal a holstered six-inch Smith and Wesson.

  “Thanks for turning off the siren.” His tone was heavy with irony.

  She leaned into her vehicle and grabbed a red-plaid thermos, waving it in the air at him.

  He found himself smiling at her as she poured coffee into the lid. “Aah, you’re the best,” he exhaled after taking a sip. The minute he saw Brill’s reaction, he regretted his choice of words. If she were a dog, he thought uncharitably, she’d be wagging her tail!

  Extracting an envelope from her jacket pocket, she handed it to him. “Hot off the press,” she said. “Okay, fill me in.”

  He could hear the excitement in her voice. He swallowed more coffee and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, letting her wait. “Good,” he said to himself as he ripped open the envelope and scanned the search warrant.

  “So what happened?”

  He folded the paper and tucked it into his pants pocket, enjoying the way she stood at attention.

  “Well?”

  “Okay, Maki got enough out of Krause to confirm that his girlfriend, Melissa Dunn, was here at Johnson’s place before she disappeared. The jerk started out with some cock-and-bull story about bringing her here to raise money for the college.” He snorted. “Yeah, right! Like we haven’t had our suspicions about Johnson’s little den of iniquity.”

  “Yeah, right.” Brill agreed. Her laugh was high and nasal.

  Harley thought, not for the first time, that his personal torture chamber would have his deputy’s laughter piped in twenty-four/seven. Nevertheless, he was glad Brill was here so they could proceed with their search. Looking now at her youthful enthusiasm, he remembered to thank her for her early morning courier service.

  Instead of acknowledging his thanks, his deputy said, “You look like you slept in those clothes.” And then she snickered.

  Eight in the blasted morning, and she’s already getting under my hide, Harley thought. “Cute. Grab the kit.”

  “So what are we looking for?” Brill walked around the squad car to retrieve a large metal evidence case from the trunk.

  “Specifically, the murder weapon, which could be any damn thing, and evidence of foul play—blood, other bodily fluids, signs of a struggle, that kind of thing.”

  “How about prints?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Drugs?”

  “If we see ’em, we seize ’em.”

  They climbed the four stairs to the front entrance. Pounding on the heavy wooden door, Harley called out, “This is the sheriff.” He tried the handle and found it locked. Anything else would have surprised him, since his was the only car there.

  Brill removed her hat to scratch the back of her head. Today her wiry hair was tamed into a low ponytail. “What do we do now, break a window or try to break the door down?” she asked with a bit too much eagerness.

  His eyes narrowed at her. “Christ almighty! What do you think we’re going to do?”

  She didn’t have to answer. A voice behind them said, “Mr. Johnson sure wouldn’t like it if you did that.”

  George Wellman stood below them in the shadow of the tuck-under garage.

  Sheriff Harley hadn’t expected George to seek him out, but there he was, acting like he owned the place. “You don’t happen to have a key, do you George?”

  “I might have.”

  Brill put a hand on her holster. “Well, we’ve got a search warrant.”

  “A search warrant?” George paused indecisively. Looking at Harley, he asked, “I don’t want to be in trouble with Johnson.”

  Harley shook his head tiredly. “We’ve got the warrant and we’re going in there one way or the other. It’s all on the up and up. Besides, this way you won’t have to explain to Johnson why he’s got a busted door when you could’ve let us in.”

  George’s shoulders slumped in resignation. He mounted the steps as if they led to the gallows, and, pulling a circle of keys from his pants pocket, he selected one, inserted it in the lock and clicked it to the right. “You sure I won’t get in any trouble?”

  “You’ll never go wrong cooperating with the authorities.” Harley pushed the door open. He and Brill entered.

  “Wait,” George said as Brill prepared to shut the door behind her.

  “You can’t come in,” said the sheriff.

  “But,” George wheedled, “I watch out for the place, y’know?”

  Harley said, “Go home. You’re not in trouble.” From inside the cabin, he watched George slouch down the driveway, then shut and locked the door.

  Stepping into the posh great room, Deputy Brill let out a whistle. “Holy Moley. This is some little cabin.”

  Although Harley had been here before, he was still impressed at the expensive furnishings. “And this is his second residence,” he said.

  “So where do we start?” Brill gave her latex glove a snap that reminded Harley he needed to call to set up his next physical.

  “We’ll do this together. We’ll go through the rooms counter-clockwise.” Don’t they learn anything about procedure anymore, Harley wondered? He rubbed his index finger across his brow as he took in the scene. “He’s had it cleaned.”

  They began their systematic search, unaware that George had turned back to watch them, as best he could, from the shadow of the trees. The pair worked their way around the living room, opening closets, going through drawers, and taking swabs. Each time they found something of interest, they slipped it into a paper evidence bag, identifying the contents on the outside with permanent marker and affixing an official seal to it.

  An hour after they’d arrived, the pair had finished with the great room and decided to split up to cover the remaining rooms. As Harley combed the bedspread in the guest bedroom, he heard Brill let out a whoop from somewhere in the back of the cabin.

  Harley met her in the hallway outside of the master bedroom. Brill beamed and held a pastel lavender disk out for him to see. “This was wedged behind the nightstand drawer, like it had slipped back there.”

  Carefully, Harley opened the plastic case.

  “Birth control pills,” Brill announced. “Only five missing.”

  He flipped the case over. The prescription label clearly said they belonged to one Melissa Dunn. “Fundraising, my ass!” Harley snorted.

  After bagging the pill case, they returned to their separate searches. When he’d come up with nothing unusual in the meticulously clean powder room, the sheriff proceeded to the storage closet off the kitchen. Reaching into the
dark space, he felt around for a light pull and let loose a cascade of fishing gear. An oar fell heavily onto his outstretched arm and he yelped in pain. That brought Deputy Brill on the run.

  “Cripes, it sounded like someone was attacking you out here.” Brill reholstered her gun. Her boss was grimacing and rubbing his arm. “Let me see that,” she said, grabbing for his sleeve.

  He jerked away from her. “Don’t go all Mother Hen on me.”

  Red splotches bloomed on her cheeks. “Fine,” she said and left him standing there feeling like a jerk.

  The day after Melissa’s wake, Grace called Brenda from work and learned that Martin had been released after all, and was, at that moment, attending Melissa Dunn’s funeral. Grace was initially surprised that Brenda was not at her husband’s side, but she knew the whole mess had to be taking a toll on their marriage.

  “How are you doing with all the stress?” Grace asked.

  “I’m fine,” Brenda answered, her voice tight and controlled. “They kept the Mercedes, though, and it’s a real pain having just one car. Martin had to take mine to work, and as soon as he left, I just went completely stir-crazy.” Her laugh was brittle.

  Grace could understand that. When her boys had started driving, there were times she’d been without a car, and it always prompted her imagination to fixate on everything she could not do without transportation. “Would you like me to give you a ride someplace?”

  “You’re so kind, really, but actually I thought I might borrow my neighbor’s car if I really need to. You’re both so gracious to offer.”

  “Let me know if you feel like talking,” Grace said. “Call any time. Really.” She hung up and chewed on a pencil while she thought about Brenda’s predicament. Maybe her husband wasn’t a rat in general, but if Cate was right, he’d certainly exhibited ratlike behavior with Melissa Dunn. Obviously, he was guilty of cheating on his wife. Maybe he was even guilty of sexual harassment, but murder?

  What would it do to her, she wondered, if she ever discovered Fred having not just an affair, but one that ended in his mistress’s death and the whole sordid mess being discussed on the evening news. It was unthinkable.

  She closed her office door and dialed Robin’s number. “Did I call at a bad time?” she asked when Robin answered on the first ring.

  “I can talk for a few minutes, but I’m waiting for the doctor’s office to call back. I’ve decided to have the surgery,” Robin informed her. “Probably in late July or early August.”

  Shifting mental gears, Grace responded, “You mean on your other breast?”

  A single, resolute word. “Yes.”

  Grace gulped and hastened to say, “Good. You know, I think I’d do the same thing.” She felt queasy, but the more Robin explained her decision, the more sense it made. After eliciting the pertinent details, she turned to the reason for her call, a brief retelling of her concern for Brenda. “You know, Brenda never talks about doing things with friends. She’s so tightly wrapped, always worrying about how anything she says could reflect badly on her husband, and I just don’t think she has any place she can just let her guard down.”

  Robin thought she knew what was coming.

  “Hey, how about inviting her to join No Ordinary Women?” Grace suggested, as if she’d just thought of it. “Call it a mission of mercy.”

  Robin hesitated before answering. “Hmm. Maybe you’d better run it by the others.”

  “That’s not a ringing endorsement.”

  Robin hated to step on all that good will. “Don’t you think it might be a little awkward? ‘Welcome to our little book club, Brenda. I want you to meet my friends Robin and Cate and Foxy. They’re the ones who found the body of your husband’s mistress.’”

  “Well, we wouldn’t have to tell her.”

  “And be sure to save the date. We go to Spirit Falls every spring,” Robin continued.

  With a groan, Grace acquiesced. “I see your point.”

  While Deputy Brill searched the gazebo, Harley checked out the garage, then poked around the ashes of the fire pit in the back. He’d always believed that the best fires started with a thin base of ash from previous fires, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why anyone would vacuum their fireplace. Unless … He slid his sunglasses down on his nose, pushed his fingers through his sweat-drenched hair and scanned the concrete blocks along the back wall. Directly below the chimney was the telltale metal door, about the size of a breadbox, as his mother would say.

  “I’ll be in the house,” he called in the direction of the gazebo. Pulling a fresh pair of latex gloves from his pocket, he entered through the back door. He looked again at the elaborate shelving and entertainment center that took up the entire back wall of the walkout basement, seeing again the deep shelves and cabinets on either side of a shallow tier of shelves that held video tapes and CDs. They were flush in the front, meaning there was dead space of at least eighteen inches between that shelf and the outside wall. He sprinted up the stairs.

  During his earlier inspection, he’d glanced in the fireplace to see if Johnson had built it with an ash dump. Looking in the front for a cast iron door, the usual access, he had found none. Now he grasped the heavy log holder in his gloved hands and set it on the hearth. There in the center of the fireplace floor was, instead of a cast iron door, a removable concrete brick. He used the poker to lift the brick by its embedded steel loop.

  “Damn it all!” he swore when it slipped back into the hole. Again, he pried it loose, setting it on the hearth. He shone a flashlight into the opening, his lips stretching into a smug grin.

  Back in the squad car, he grabbed a garbage bag, a collapsible shovel and a 3M mask and hobbled down the hill to the exterior ash pit door. It was a dirty job, but he was rewarded after only two shovels full were dumped onto the plastic bag. He slipped on a fresh glove to pick up the half-burnt driver’s license buried in soot. The photo was gone, most of the information obliterated, but what Harley could make out as he blew ash off the plastic made his heart beat with excitement. The birth month was August, and the first four letters of the name, MELI, were there, along with a partial address. It was enough to know the driver’s license had belonged Melissa Dunn.

  “Gotcha!” Harley said. Ross Johnson had just earned himself a place on the Persons of Interest list.

  23

  Robin was having second thoughts, not about her upcoming surgery to remove a healthy breast, but about how to heal the wound it was causing in her marriage. Now that her mind was made up, she and Brad did not discuss it, and that felt as wrong to her as it had when they were arguing openly about it. When Brad had called earlier in the day to say he was making his hospital rounds later than usual, she interpreted it as avoidance.

  She stomped down to the laundry room and threw a load in the washer, feeling herself becoming agitated along with the clothes. She checked her watch, and, trudging up to the bedroom, she flung herself onto the chaise and wrapped herself in an afghan to get maximum comfort for the phone call.

  “That’s a tough one,” Cate said when Robin had laid out her worries. “You have to be proactive and do what you think is right about your own health.”

  “Right,” Robin agreed, vindicated.

  “And if you have a marriage worth saving,” Cate paused, but Robin didn’t fill the silence, “then how he feels does matter.”

  “You’re a big help.” Robin jammed her fingers, one at a time, through the lacy holes of the afghan.

  “Yeah, I got my counseling license in a Cracker Jack box.”

  Robin laughed. “Oh, that’s what they mean when they say ‘with nuts.’”

  They giggled about that, then Cate said, “But seriously, you know I don’t say it lightly. It’s way too easy for a marriage to come apart, and too damn hard to put it back together.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know I say Erik and I are stronger than ever,” Cate went on, “and we are, but it left scars. I tell myself I trust him completely
, but I have my moments. I mean, if someone as truly good as Erik could deceive me week after week, never once tripping my alarm …”

  “He wasn’t in his right mind. He’d never do that now.”

  There was a long pause, during which Robin pictured how Erik’s attention to detail had enabled him to keep his affair secret until he chose to reveal it. His precise nature was absolutely indispensable in his work as an anesthesiologist, but at home, it sometimes drove the more spontaneous Cate wild. No, Robin considered, people don’t really change much—Erik could still be an anal-retentive pain in the butt, and Cate still surrounded herself with creative clutter.

  “No, I certainly hope he wouldn’t. I’m counting on that.” Another pause. “But when Grace was talking about her new friend’s situation … I mean, Brenda said her cheating husband was her whole stupid, pathetic life, for God’s sake!”

  Harsh, Robin thought. But in truth, hadn’t they all been offended by the betrayal? And didn’t they all, on hearing such stories, hold a little tighter to what they had? “You’re right, Cate, it could happen in any relationship. And despite vows, no guarantees. But, don’t you think, with all you and Erik went through—”

  “Oh, I’m not really worried,” Cate said, and abruptly changed the subject. During the months Cate and Erik were separated, they’d sought out counseling. One of the more helpful tidbits, as Cate reported, was a way to abort the worry process. “Once you’ve chewed on something, either swallow it or spit it out.” Obviously Cate was spitting it out.

  Only a few miles away, Ross Johnson, having left the office early to avoid rush hour traffic, was taking the scenic route home, along Minnehaha Creek, one of the more picturesque areas of the Twin Cities. He looped around the north side of Lake Nokomis, slowing to watch a young man throwing a Frisbee to a black lab. In the early years, he and Sandy had come here often and played catch with their own dog, a German short-hair named Klaus. Sandy had been striking back then, with her long legs and tumble of red curls.