Murder at Spirit Falls

by Barbara Deese

  “Go on.” Maki’s angular features had softened.

  “Ross was already gone in his car. I went on foot and when I got to the road, I saw him on the other side of the road, motioning to me. That’s when I saw it. My car had jumped the ditch and hit a tree.”

  “And Melissa?”

  He looked at Maki, tears in his eyes. “She wasn’t there,” he said, with wonderment in his voice.

  “So you weren’t with Mr. Johnson when he discovered your car?”

  Martin shook his head. “Ross left the cabin before me.”

  “And when you saw your car, were you concerned about Ms. Dunn’s welfare?”

  “Of course! But she wasn’t there. What could we do?”

  When neither Harley nor Maki made any comment, Martin felt compelled to continue. “We thought maybe she’d gotten a ride from someone after all.”

  Maki’s fingers metrically tapped on the table as he stared into Martin’s eyes. “Someone from Johnson’s party?”

  “How should I know?” Martin snapped. “Maybe it was a stranger that came along.”

  Harley was pleased to see Krause’s mask of propriety slipping a bit.

  “Was there much damage to the car?” Detective Maki continued to probe.

  “Some.” Martin shrugged. “It was pretty minor, actually.”

  “Where did you get it repaired?”

  “I don’t know,” Martin muttered helplessly.

  “You don’t know?”

  “Ross took care of it. He even loaned me a car to drive back to Minneapolis.”

  Detective Maki blinked in disbelief. “You’re telling us you let your friend take your classic Mercedes to be fixed and you didn’t ask where?”

  Krause attempted a smile. “Surely you can see my predicament.”

  Just then the door to the interview room opened, causing all four men to fall silent. A uniformed police officer summoned Detective Maki into the hallway.

  Within minutes, Maki reopened the door. “Sheriff, could I speak to you for a minute?”

  Stepping out of the room, Harley pulled the door shut behind him. “What’s up?” He could already tell from the grim expressions that it was bad news.

  “Johnson’s dead,” Maki let out a heavy sigh.

  Harley flung his head back. “Aw, damn it all to hell!”

  “Drug overdose.” Maki ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Our men found him next to the crapper with the empty syringe next to him on the floor.”

  “We’ve got no time to waste, then,” Harley said, jerking his thumb toward the interview room.

  Maki slugged a fist into the palm of his left hand. “Okay, here’s the way we’re gonna play it.” He outlined his plan.

  Martin and his lawyer looked up expectantly when the two men reentered the interview room.

  “Sorry about the interruption.” Maki rubbed the back of his neck nonchalantly.

  “We’re back at the same question, Dr. Krause. Why did you not report this accident and come forward when Melissa Dunn was reported missing?”

  “I don’t know. I screwed up. I’m a married man, for God’s sake.” Martin’s voice rose with each sentence. “What would you have done?

  Maki stared at him for a full twenty seconds before saying, “Explain to us how Ms. Dunn’s driver’s license ended up in Johnson’s fireplace.”

  “Her license?” Martin’s eyes widened. “I … I don’t know.” Covering his face with his hands, Martin remained like this for what seemed like several minutes, then suddenly sitting upright, he looked at them with red eyes. “As God is my witness, I’m telling you the truth. I did not see Melissa after she left the cabin.”

  “Gentlemen, I think this interview has ended.” The attorney slid a hand under his client’s elbow and guided him to stand.

  Midway to the door, the two men were stopped by Maki’s voice. “By the way, President Krause, your friend Johnson is dead.” His brutal delivery had the desired effect.

  Martin’s face froze. “Ross is dead?” His hair was disheveled and his shirt limp from sweat as his attorney tried to physically steer the man through the doorway.

  Watching Martin Krause leave the room, Sheriff Harley couldn’t tell if Martin’s last expression had been one of shock or relief.

  Cate heaved the last case of canned dog food onto the stack and stood back to check the height of their makeshift platform in the east corner of the shelter’s storage room. The sunlight flowing in from the west windows had been a consideration in choosing the platform’s location, but the deciding factor was that this was the only area not crammed with bags of dog food, cat food, carriers and unassembled kennels. “How’s that?”

  Robin looked up from her task of affixing her camera onto the tripod. “Perfect.”

  Crawling onto the platform, Cate stood to straighten the pale blue sheets they had hung for backdrops. “I really appreciate you doing this. So does everyone at the shelter.”

  “Glad to do it.”

  “Just from putting photos on our website,” Cate said as she billowed a royal blue cloth to cover the platform, “our adoption rate has already improved by a third.”

  Robin checked her light meter. “It’s hard to turn away when you look into their eyes.”

  Cate put on her most innocent expression. “I knew Grover would get to you! I knew it!”

  “Hard, I said, not impossible.”

  “I have to figure out a way to get him a permanent home soon. I promised Erik this was a very short-term situation.”

  Robin tilted her head toward the door.

  “Okay, I’ll get the dogs.”

  After two hours and countless shots of the shelter’s newest residents, Robin and Cate relaxed with Diet Pepsis and cheese sandwiches they had put together in the shelter’s lunchroom.

  “Have you noticed anything different about Grace?” Robin asked before taking a bite.

  “She’s looking great.”

  “She does, but does it seem to you she’s pulling away from us?”

  Cate nodded slowly.

  “I know we encouraged her getting reacquainted with Brenda Krause, but lately it seems like it’s all Brenda, all the time.”

  “She’s probably offended that we didn’t want Brenda to join the No Ordinary Women,” Cate said.

  “That could be.” She picked at the bread crust. “It’s probably just Grace being Grace, wanting to fix everyone’s problems.”

  Cate reached into the bakery box, snagged a brownie and munched in silence.

  Robin said, “You never told me how Prickly is. Was it epilepsy?”

  Cate gave an embarrassed laugh. “It wasn’t a convulsion at all. All the foaming at the mouth and jerking legs is just part of what the vet called self-anointing. Prickly was just spreading his spit on his back.”

  Robin grimaced. “Why?”

  “They don’t know, but it seems to be a reaction to certain smells.”

  “How bizarre!”

  “Hedgehogs really shouldn’t be pets. Of course Prickly was born in captivity so there’s no way he could ever be released into the wild now.”

  “Yeah, I’d hate to think of him falling in with a pack of wild hedgehogs!”

  As they packed up to leave, Robin said, “You’ll never guess who has experience in wildlife rehabilitation.” When Cate shook her head, she announced, with a note of triumph in her voice, “George Wellman.”

  “George? No way.”

  Robin nodded. “He raised two orphaned raccoons one summer. When they were big enough, he even bought a kiddie swimming pool and stocked it with minnows so they could learn how to fish.”

  Cate sat silent, wondering what to make of this new information.

  25

  With Ross Johnson silenced in the most permanent sense and Martin Krause casting suspicion on his dead friend, the ultimate responsibility for Melissa Dunn’s death would most likely be determined by a jury. That didn’t keep the Minneapolis newspaper and television stat
ions from conjecturing about the college president’s involvement in his mistress’s death, and what role the dead millionaire contractor played. It had all the elements of a good news story: sex and betrayal, money and influence. Whether the details of the case had been leaked to the media or merely deduced from the Roseville police captain’s terse statements, the talking heads were talking.

  A criminal psychologist made an appearance on the evening news extra to do a post mortem (not to mention in absentia) psychological autopsy on the local contractor. Ross Johnson, who acted alone, suffered from antisocial personality disorder exacerbated by illicit drug use, he concluded. The next night this diagnosis was countered by a criminologist who specialized in body language. She claimed that the college president was hiding something.

  The No Ordinary Women, for their part, discussed little else at their next book club meeting, giving short shrift to their July selection, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. They’d gathered in Foxy’s apartment just off Summit Avenue, Saint Paul’s architectural showplace of mansions, historic homes, college campuses and churches. In one of the less impressive brick buildings on Summit, F. Scott Fitzgerald had penned This Side of Paradise. Cate and Erik’s comfortable old Tudor home was not far from there. To the west was the governor’s mansion, and to the east, at the crest of the hill and marking the highest point in downtown Saint. Paul, stood the magnificent Cathedral of Saint Paul with its copper dome.

  While Summit Avenue was still a prestigious address, many old mansions in the surrounding neighborhood had been subdivided into affordable apartments and condos. Foxy’s building, once a spacious Victorian home occupied by a childless couple, had been renovated as five apartments that shared a front porch. Foxy’s portion was the better part of the second floor. The rent was at her upper limit, but here she was allowed her beloved animal companions: Elvis, aka “the King,” a sleek black cat she’d rescued from a dismal alley life in Las Vegas just before rescuing herself from an equally dismal life, plus Jasmine, a haughty Siamese, and Molly Pat.

  As honorary book club member and self-appointed greeter, Molly Pat stood at the door to greet each new human with a single yip. When all four guests had arrived, the dog sauntered over to sprawl on her red plaid pillow by the kitchen. From this comfortable vantage point, she could eyeball the women as they lined up to fill their plates at the taco bar Foxy had set up in her small but efficient kitchen. Elvis slunk around, waiting for an opportunity. As soon as Foxy turned her back on him, he leapt gracefully onto the counter for his own chance at the spiced beef.

  “Keep doing that and you’ll turn into Fat Elvis,” Foxy said as she nudged him to the floor. He let out an outraged howl.

  The five women ate around a table overlooking the old-fashioned garden in the backyard, making a few stabs at discussing their chosen book, which they all agreed was compelling. Just not more compelling, at the moment, than a real life mystery involving a body that had washed up, quite literally, in Robin’s backyard.

  Foxy grabbed a magazine off the table and fanned herself with it, then took the rubber band from her wrist and pulled her thick hair into a high ponytail. “It’s pretty hot in here. Should I turn on the air?”

  “I’m fine,” Grace and Louise said together.

  Robin, knowing she couldn’t count on the accuracy of her internal thermostat, shrugged.

  Louise eyed Foxy’s shorts and tank top, which definitely won the Least Fabric Contest, and said, “Don’t tell me you’re having hot flashes.”

  “I do not have hot flashes.” Foxy’s exaggerated glare let them know she was only half kidding. It had long been her belief that anyone who kept in good physical shape wouldn’t succumb to such things.

  None of them dared to crack a smile.

  When they’d finished dinner and cleaned up the dishes, they took their decaffeinated coffee and orange flan down to the screened porch, where they settled into a jumble of chairs. Foxy lit candles on a makeshift table before sitting in a rocker. The evening air was heavy with humidity, but a slight breeze wafted through the porch.

  From somewhere nearby, they could hear the unmistakable voice of Janis Joplin. Conversations drifted from other porches, open windows and from the sidewalk where people were out for an evening walk. In the only state farther north, the sun would still be shining at midnight. In Minnesota, it wouldn’t set until almost ten o’clock, and people who’d been cooped up over the winter were reveling in the extended daylight.

  “If Ross Johnson was such a monster, why would Krause hang out with him all those years?” Robin, the only one who’d actually known Ross, expressed her doubt that he could be the sociopath that his old friend Krause was now making him out to be.

  “Exactly! And if President Krause is such an upstanding and moral man,” Cate asked, “what’s he doing with a mistress?”

  Louise, spoon poised in front of her lips, pronounced the flan “divine.”

  Around the room, heads bobbed in agreement.

  Foxy’s rocking chair creaked with her every movement. “So how should we look at it? Is having a girlfriend on the side just a momentary lapse in judgment?”

  “Or a pattern of sleaze!” Louise countered.

  “Okay, I admit he’s been pretty sleazy, but I still don’t think that makes Martin Krause a killer,” Grace insisted. Whether it was the fact that she’d met the man years earlier and in his official capacity presiding over the college, or the fact that she and Brenda Krause had become friends, Grace was the only one who believed that Ross had acted alone. “What kind of weasel would blame something like that on his dead friend if it weren’t true?”

  Foxy rocked forward. “A scared weasel.”

  Grace said, “Too bad Ross Johnson isn’t around to defend himself.”

  Cate agreed. “It does seem a bit too convenient.”

  “The whole thing is unthinkable,” Louise pronounced.

  “Even good people do unthinkable things,” Robin said, adding, “if they’re scared enough.”

  They thought about that for a while.

  Cate broke the silence, putting to words what, as it turned out, they were all feeling. “I’m a little ashamed to say it, but I’m kind of sorry it’s out of our hands now.”

  Robin agreed. “I know! We had our very own whodunit, starring our five evanescent selves as amateur sleuths, and now it’s just turning into a boring old police investigation, to be followed by a tedious courtroom drama.”

  Heads nodded in agreement.

  “We may have found the body,” Foxy said dismally, “but after that, what have we really done?”

  “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I went Dumpster diving!” Grace said.

  “You! Who wound up covered in garbage?” Robin wailed, and they all laughed.

  Foxy poured a second round of coffee.

  “So you think that it has to be either Johnson or Krause or both?” Foxy asked. “Do you think the police have ruled out the possibility of other suspects?”

  Grace pointed out that Todd was now completely exonerated. “I liked him,” she said. “I hope he can have a normal life again.” She collected the plates and spoons and stacked them on the tray.

  “I suppose George is off the hook, too.” Robin glanced in Cate’s direction.

  Cate looked dubious. “I don’t know about him, but what about that gorgeous creature with the ponytail?”

  Louise snapped her fingers. “Oh, right. The one you two saw in the liquor store.”

  Wiggling her eyebrows, Cate did a Groucho Marx gesture with an imaginary cigar. “I wouldn’t mind tailing him, if you know what I mean.”

  Robin just shook her head.

  While the others laughed, Cate’s mind began sifting through the events of that weekend at the cabin. Naturally it was heavy with significance since that was the weekend Melissa Dunn had died. But she’d been apprehensive even before Melissa Dunn’s death. She felt a chill now, recalling her premonition that weekend. She wo
ndered, not for the first time, if she could somehow have prevented it. That was the trouble with her premonitions. They came and went of their own volition. There was no rewind button, no slow motion, no volume control, no zoom focus.

  And what to make of her chronic discomfort with George? Odd little man. She couldn’t think of him without those words following automatically. And yet neither Grover nor Molly Pat had reacted fearfully around him. In her world, that meant something too.

  Maybe Robin was right. Odd, even creepy, but not evil. Cate fondled her amulet. Maybe if she went back to Spirit Falls and stood at the bridge, she’d get another psychic clue. With a start, she realized that her thoughts seemed to have merged with the current discussion.

  “So I went back to the bridge to get a few shots of the wildflowers. They’re pretty spectacular right now.” Robin was talking about her most recent trip to Spirit Falls. “And when I got back to the cabin, there was Sheriff Harley at my door. He makes regular stops at the cabin now to check on me. He came in while I got a drink of water, and that’s when he got the call on his radio.”

  Cate hadn’t heard this part. She turned her focus to Robin’s words.

  “It was his deputy calling, and he was having trouble hearing her. So he stepped outside for better reception, and I’m thinking, Damn, now what? But then I found if I stood just inside the door, I could ear hustle pretty well.”

  “Ear hustle?” Louise asked.

  “Sorry. That’s what Cass used to call eavesdropping when she was little, and I just adopted it. Anyway, Harley had to talk louder and kept repeating things, so I got the gist of it.”

  “We’re all ears,” Foxy said.

  A sudden gust caused the candles to gutter.

  “From what I gathered,” Robin said, “they’ve determined that Martin’s car has recently been repaired, repainted and all the upholstery replaced, so they’re pretty sure it was in some kind of accident. And because of the paint on the tree, well, on the log now, they can surmise that the accident occurred at that place.”