“I’m still waiting for the lab results.” He spread his hands wide. “What do you expect me to do?”
Brill closed her eyes and shook her head. “Do what you tell me. Go back over everything you have and see it with new eyes. Talk to the witnesses. Ask new questions. Ask the same questions.” Her pager beeped and she looked at the message. “Gotta go.”
He waited until he heard her exit the building, then picked up the phone and dialed. He got answering machines at the Bentley residence and again at the Running Wolf residence. Or was it just Wolf? He wasn’t sure how that worked. He dialed Foxy Tripp’s number.
“I don’t have another client for, um, forty-three minutes,” she told him.
Harley let out his pent up breath. “Okay, I’m just going over this Dunn case and want to make sure I’ve got my T’s dotted and my, uh, you know what I mean.”
“And your eyes crossed?” Foxy’s laugh was warm, easy.
Harley indulged in a laugh. “Right. So I’m just wondering if there’s anything you can remember, anything you haven’t mentioned.”
There was a pause. “I think we’ve told you everything.”
“Yeah.”
Another awkward silence. “So, do you think your friend Cate is, y’know, clairvoyant?”
She didn’t laugh at him. “To a degree, yes. I think her instincts are good. She’s very attentive to detail so she picks up on things others might miss. But there’s more to it.”
“Like?” He shifted in his seat and found himself smiling.
“Well, for one thing, we know people have animal instincts about danger. Take pheromones, for instance. They’re secret scents that can warn us about danger or identify someone’s identity. They’re even part of our sexual attraction to each other.”
Harley almost choked.
“Cate isn’t always accurate, but it’s uncanny how often she is right. If she thinks Melissa was alive when she went over the rail, I tend to believe it.” She cleared her throat. “And please don’t think I’m all into séances and fortune tellers. I mean, science hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface of the paranormal. As a cop, don’t you rely on gut feelings?”
Ignoring his demotion, he replied, “All the time.”
They both sighed.
“Well, if you think of anything, you just call me, okay?”
“I sure will.” She sounded like she meant it.
“I mean anything. I’m just sitting here waiting for lab results that I’m hoping will put that creep Krause away.”
“You think he’s guilty, then.”
“I do. This is the time in any investigation when you’ve got nothing to do but wait. The tension gets to you, y’know?”
“Tension, huh? I just happen to know a good massage therapist.”
He thought about her hands on his shoulders. “Yeah, I forgot. You do, uh …”
“Massage.”
“Right. Say, maybe you could, y’know, do something with the knots in my neck.”
“I could. But it would be a long drive for you. I work in Saint Paul.” Her laugh was light.
“I’m actually going to Saint Paul this Friday. Say, for this, uh, massage, you keep your clothes on for that, right?
“I always keep my clothes on.” She laughed again. “Yours, however, are optional.”
The sheriff felt the blood creep up his neck and turn his face glow-in-the-dark red.
The lab shot back results in record time. Blood found on Martin Krause’s nylon windbreaker and Ross Johnson’s shoe tassel matched Melissa Dunn’s. Fibers tweezed from the bridge railing had been snagged from the front of the very same coral windbreaker, the shredded ends fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle. This placed Martin at a point on the bridge very near the spot, where, according to George Wellman’s deposition, he had found Melissa’s bracelet.
Martin Krause had no hint of swagger as the news cameras covered his arrest in Minneapolis, his extradition to Wisconsin and his perp walk into the courthouse. In the ensuing interrogation, as evidence against him mounted, his speech became less articulate and at times he referred to his wife as if she were still alive.
When gruesome photos of his dead lover were slapped down on the table in front of him, one after another, he began to crumble. But it was Sheriff Harley who played the winning card—a bluff, perhaps, but well played.
“When you and Ross Johnson picked up Melissa’s body and heaved her over the railing into the creek, did you realize she was still alive?”
The prisoner began to raise his eyes, then shut them tightly. “She was—?”
His lawyer clamped a hand on his forearm. “Not another word.”
“Did you feel her heart beat against your chest when you held her up, ready to throw her to her death? Did her eyelids flutter? She would probably have survived if you’d gotten her to the hospital.” He waited a beat, two beats, three. “Her body was warm in your arms, wasn’t it?”
Martin put his head into the crook of his arm where it lay on the table. “Stop!” he sobbed.
The attorney’s lips tightened ever so slightly as he fought to conceal his disgust. “May I have a moment with my client?” asked the lawyer.
Martin and Melissa Dunn had, according to his admission statement, been under the influence of alcohol and “an illicit substance” when she left the party and, seeing that she was “wildly emotional,” he agreed to drive her home. Distracted by her impaired state, he hit a tree and though he was unhurt, she was “bleeding from a head wound and barely conscious.” He told her to hang on until he could get help. Running back to the cabin in a driving rain, he risked death by “the almost continuous lightning strikes.” Once at the cabin, without attracting attention from the others, he told his friend Ross, who informed him that the phone lines were down. Together they drove back to the scene of the accident.
“There I found Melissa Dunn covered in blood and unresponsive. The head wound was more grievous than I’d first thought. After many attempts to revive her, I was desperate and wanted to take her to the nearest hospital, but Ross checked her over and assured me it was too late.”
Martin went on to describe his inconsolable grief that ended in the decision to drive her the quarter mile to the bridge and dump her body over the railing. And though he pronounced the act “indefensible,” he went on to defend himself on the basis of the “overwhelming influence of alcohol, drugs, and Ross Johnson’s unrelenting pressure.”
It was never officially concluded whether Melissa was alive or dead when she hit the water. Perhaps none of the participants in her death knew either, but the unofficial conclusion was that all three had caused her death—her secret lover, by not getting her to a hospital immediately, his wife Brenda by bashing her head with a rock, and if poor Melissa had managed to survive that, Ross Johnson and Martin Krause had surely done the deed by pitching her into the creek to be killed either by the impact on the rocks below or by drowning.
Due to overcrowding, President Krause was transported to the minimum-security portion of the prison in Stillwater, Minnesota, and immediately put on suicide watch.
Sheriff Harley called Robin as soon as the deal was finalized. Her husband answered and said she was sleeping. At two in the afternoon.
He dialed Cate’s number. “Your hunches paid off!” he said before he realized the voice on the other end was a recording.
The next morning Sheriff Harley decided to catch up on paperwork he’d sidelined in recent weeks. Deputy Brill was packing for a vacation in North Dakota. He figured he could live without her for a week.
He had the place to himself. After a couple hours of filing and returning phone calls, he sat back and put his feet up on a newly vacant corner of his desk. To his growing pleasure, no one was there to criticize him for being unprofessional. As he gazed at his stockinged toes, they moved, just a slight twitch to begin with, then his whole foot began bouncing nervously. Damn, it was quiet! He sat up, feet again on the floor, and thrummed blunt fingertip
s on the desk. It was just too blasted quiet to think! Something was missing.
Maybe he should just jump in his vehicle and ticket some speeders.
He heard a car door. Damn Brill. If she was coming back …
From the hallway he could see the door to the parking lot. Suddenly he found himself looking into a pair of black eyes set in a massive face. And below the face, a red tie. No, not a tie, he saw, but a tongue. He grinned back at Grover who gave him a bark in greeting, spattering the bottom half of the door with drool.
At the other end of the leash was Cate Running Wolf.
He rushed to open the door.
Cate held tight to the leash and said, “I know you’re eager to see your buddy.”
Robin came into view. “Maybe we ought to keep all that energy outside,” she said.
Harley laughed and squeezed through the door. “Hey, there, boy.” He patted Grover’s flank. His voice, still soft, took on a different tone. “Grover, sit.” The dog sat.
“I got your message,” Cate said, and since Robin was already—”
“I was already coming up because I need to take a few photos to replace the ones that—” Her voice caught. “Anyway, Cate decided to come along.”
“Grover was driving me nuts,” Cate protested. “I needed to get him out of the house.”
Robin stopped her. “So he could drive us all nuts.”
Harley enjoyed their easy banter.
“So.” Cate looked at him, her eyes shrewd. “You said in the message that my hunches were right.”
He raised his wrist to look at his watch. “If you haven’t eaten yet, we could all run over to the A & W and I’ll fill you in. If we eat outside, this little guy won’t have to sit in a hot car.”
Robin and Cate looked at each other and said, simultaneously and with the same inflection and tilt of the head, “Okay. Sure.”
Sitting at the shaded picnic bench behind the drive-in, he told them of Martin Krause’s statement of admission. They eagerly listened, protesting only when he said, “They agreed to a term of forty-two months, with ten years’ probation.”
“But he could be out in less than two years,” Cate wailed.
Robin sucked in breath to say something, but instead doubled over in a coughing fit. When she could breathe again, she said. “I’m tired of this nonsense.”
Cate looked worried. “Maybe this trip was a bad idea.”
Robin shook her head. “I’m fine, really.”
“That cough doesn’t sound good,” said Harley.
“I’m fine,” she reiterated. “Anyway, what kind of punishment is that for murder?” Robin demanded.
Harley examined a hangnail. “That’s the bugger about it.” He gnawed his cuticle and spat something onto the grass. “Truth is, we’re lucky to get anything on him at all. And think of it this way: two of the three bad guys are dead, and the other one’s in prison, maybe not for long, but he’s lost pretty much everything that ever mattered to him.”
Cate tossed a chunk of hamburger in Grover’s direction. He caught it on the fly. “It just seems to me—” She exhaled in indignation. For the moment she was speechless.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating, all right. Believe me, if it were up to me, he’d rot there, but without his confession, this case wouldn’t even be about murder. In fact, if it weren’t for all of you, I suppose Melissa Dunn would just be another drowning.” He handfed Grover a french fry.
Robin shifted uncomfortably. “I know we should be celebrating this, but I can’t help feeling bad for Melissa’s parents. If we hadn’t exposed this whole mess, they could just go on believing their daughter died accidentally, rather than having to read in every lousy magazine about her affair with a married man and how she dabbled in drugs.”
“At least, they know the truth.” Cate’s look had grown solemn too. “The truth would’ve come out eventually. It’s better this way.”
Grover stood and surveyed the small grassy area behind them. Cate jumped up. “I know that look.”
The dog squatted. Robin grabbed her hamburger wrapper and handed it to Cate.
“Got anything about four times that size?” Cate asked with an apologetic grimace.
“Wait a sec. I’ve got just the thing.” Sheriff Harley sprinted to his car and returned with a large evidence bag. He scooped up the mess and deposited it in the covered trash container. “You know, I was thinking,” he said as they headed to their respective vehicles, “If you’re gonna take pictures, I’d be happy to keep an eye on the dog.”
Robin and Cate looked at each other conspiratorially.
“No, really. He enjoys riding shotgun.”
They looked at each other again. “Actually—” they began and stopped at the same moment, laughing.
“Actually, we have a proposition for you,” Cate said. “How do you feel about adoption?”
He looked bereft.
“Adopting Grover,” Robin clarified.
Harley’s eyes lit up. “You mean—?”
“Yup,” Cate said and Robin nodded, grinning.
Cate shrugged. “I’ve never seen such a natural with dogs, and Grover—Grover, what’s gotten into you?” The dog was pawing deliberately at the door of the squad car.
“Wanna get in, buddy?” Sheriff Harley strode over and opened the door.
Grover understood the opportunity. He jumped in, where he sat, proud as the new deputy he was, in the passenger seat.
33
We gathered for a private memorial service on the concrete patio overlooking Spirit Falls, where we stood looking at the rubble that had once been a magnificent chimney. Three weeks and two rains hadn’t removed the stench of fire or the soot covering everything in sight. Louise uncorked a bottle of champagne and Grace provided the stemware. Then, without making a formal toast, we jumped right into telling funny or poignant stories about the deceased.
“It just won’t be the same, will it?” Louise said. She didn’t bother to wipe away the tears trickling down her cheek.
We shook our heads. More than one of us sniffled.
“I just can’t believe she’s really gone.” Foxy’s tone was somber.
Heads nodded in assent.
The silence went on until Cate spoke what we were all thinking. “She may be gone. But you can’t keep a good woman down.” She turned and grabbed the hand at her side. “She can be rebuilt, can’t she, Robin?”
Robin squeezed back. Her lips curled in a knowing smile. “I’ve already done some preliminary drawings. And this time, she won’t be decorated with dead animals.”
And just like that, the heaviness lifted. We clinked glasses, celebrating the long and rich life of the cabin. It could, we all agreed, be rebuilt, because it was not the wood and stone that had made the cabin extraordinary, but the idyllic setting and the spirited people who gathered there. Nothing like a near-death experience to remember what’s important.
We talked about events leading to the fiery death of the cabin, and decided that we made a pretty good detective team. It took all of us working together to make the puzzle pieces fit, but without us, Melissa Dunn’s murder may never have been solved. We celebrated our strength in numbers, and admitted that along the way we’d discovered some individual strengths as well, strengths you don’t usually associate with youth.
Robin summed it up. “As long as we accept that we’ve reached the age of character lines and power surges, we might as well claim the wisdom we’ve accumulated. Right?”
“Right,” Cate agreed. “We are, after all, no ordinary women.”
Molly Pat just rolled her eyes and yawned.
THE END
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Murder at Spirit Falls Page 28