Dead Madonna

by Victoria Houston

  The paneled walls held clusters of framed photos, which included one of Bert on a golf course with men Osborne assumed to be famous (and one Golden Retriever in a golf cart); Bert in hunting and fishing camps with more men Osborne assumed to be famous (two Goldens in most of those photos); Bert with his son (just one Golden); and Bert with a woman whom Osborne assumed to be Audrey (no dogs). The woman was as tall as Bert but very slender. Her face was a narrow oblong, but a wide smile softened the sharp features.

  “If Moriarty doesn’t show up in five minutes,” said Lew, checking her watch yet again, “I’ll have to move our meeting at Universal Medical Supplies back an hour.”

  Just as she spoke, Bert appeared in the doorway, followed by a woman simply dressed in black slacks and a long-sleeved white blouse. The only jewelry she wore were gold hoop earrings, set off by the dark hair she had pushed back behind her ears. She was, indeed, the woman in the photos, but where that woman radiated happiness, this version carried herself with a haughty aloofness.

  After enduring a round of handshakes, she parked herself in a chair at the far end of the room, crossed her legs, crossed her arms over her chest and waited. It struck Osborne that she had positioned herself as far from her husband as possible.

  “My lawyer will be here shortly—another five, ten minutes or so,” said Bert, taking the chair at his desk and beckoning Lew and Osborne towards the sofas. “I really prefer we not discuss anything relative to the death of that young woman until he arrives.”

  “Whether or not you choose to reply to anything I say is entirely up to you,” said Lew, “but Dr. Osborne and I do not have time to wait for your lawyer.” She checked her watch. “We’re due somewhere else in less than an hour.”

  “So what’s so important you have to see me right now?” said Bert.

  “Earlier today we got the preliminary results of the autopsy on DeeDee Kurlander,” said Lew. “Given what we’ve learned, I have reason to think that you may be able to help us with this investigation. But I think it would be best if we met with you in private on this matter …”

  Bert tipped his head towards Audrey. “Sorry, dear, I thought they wanted us both in on this.”

  “I’m not leaving the room,” said Audrey, her head held high like that of an eagle on alert for carrion. “Anything that concerns Bert concerns me—and my lawyer is due any minute as well.”

  “You both have lawyers?” said Lew. “May I ask why?”

  Audrey stared at Bert, who said nothing, just kept twirling a pen in his right hand. “That ball’s in his court,” she said. Still Bert said nothing.

  “Well, okay, whatever the deal is, you folks can share what I have to say with your legal team,” said Lew. “We’re here because the autopsy report indicates DeeDee was three months pregnant at the time of her death—”

  “Now just you wait a minute,” said Bert, interrupting, “if you have any intention of pinning her pregnancy on my son, I guarantee you I can prove that that young woman was having sex with other people.”

  “We do know that,” said Lew, her voice soft and firm.

  The room went quiet. Very quiet.

  “Bert,” said Lew after thirty seconds had passed, “do you want to tell us about it? I take it you were aware of the pregnancy….” She kept her eyes on Bert. Her manner was direct but not threatening. Osborne had seen her do this before, and every time he admired her skill at letting people know that she knew the truth and they had a chance if they did the right thing. Bert didn’t have to answer—but he did. He tossed his pen onto the desk, a gesture that was followed by an explosion from the other end of the room.

  “No, no, no, no, Bert! I can’t believe you did this.” Audrey, eyes closed, tone mocking, wagged her head as she said, “I knew you were seeing someone, but that cheap little girl?”

  “Audrey,” said Bert, “maybe it’s time you left the room.”

  “Are you kidding? I want to hear every word—I don’t want to miss a thing you say.”

  “That’s a first,” said Bert. He set his lips in a thin line as he said to Lew, “I prefer to say nothing unless my lawyer is present. I’m sorry. If I thought I could help in any way, I would—but … I …” He shook his head.

  Audrey stood up. “Chief Ferris, could I have a word with you—in private, please.” It was a directive, not a request.

  “On the condition that Dr. Osborne joins us,” said Lew. “I make it a practice to always have two parties involved in any discussions related to a homicide investigation.”

  “Fine,” said Audrey. “Follow me.”

  She opened a door down the hall from Bert’s office. Inside was a large empty room with white walls and wood flooring. The only furniture was a fax machine on a stand in one corner and a floor lamp in the other. “I moved my things out last week,” she said with a slow, sly smile. “Do you think he noticed?”

  “I take it you and Mr. Moriarty aren’t getting along,” said Lew.

  “Bert will be served with divorce papers shortly,” said Audrey with an impatient wave. “All I want to know is how long I have to stay here. I have an interior design business to run in Chicago and the last thing I need is for Bert’s situation to impact that.”

  “At the moment,” said Lew, “I prefer that no member of the Moriarty family leave Loon Lake until we’ve completed our initial investigation. That includes you, your husband and your son—”

  “Robbie is not my son.”

  “Until I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with each of you, with or without your lawyers, I need you to remain in Loon Lake.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  “Another day or two, maybe longer. I don’t know yet.”

  “All right.” Audrey sighed. “I’ll move into the guest house.” She rolled her eyes. “I am so tired of that man. I knew something idiotic like this would happen.”

  “Criminal is a better word,” said Lew.

  “Whatever.”

  “Mrs. Moriarty—,” said Osborne.

  “Spencer. Audrey Spencer—I didn’t take Bert’s name.”

  “Ms. Spencer, is there any connection between your divorce and this case that we could discuss without jeopardizing anyone’s legal rights?”

  Audrey crossed her arms over her chest and stared out a window before saying, “Too much History Channel. That and the fishing catalogs.”

  “Sorry,” said Osborne, “I don’t get the connection.”

  “He bores me out of my mind,” said Audrey. “The only books he reads are the fishing catalogs—oh, excuse me, and the gun catalogs. When he’s not doing that or golfing, he’s glued to that goddamn History Channel.”

  “Mind if I ask how long you’ve been married?” asked Lew.

  “Five years. And that’s four years too long.”

  “You had a pre-nup, I assume.”

  “You better believe I did. That’s why my lawyer’s here. If our marriage ends due to the involvement of Bert and a third party—I get eighty percent.” A crafty look crossed Audrey’s face. “I knew what I was getting when I married him.”

  They left before the lawyers arrived. Audrey saw them out. Looking back at her as he climbed into the police cruiser, Osborne noted that Audrey’s sharp features had relaxed into a smirk of self-satisfaction.

  “That woman is a piece of work,” said Lew as they sped back towards town. “I don’t doubt she had divorce in mind the day she married the guy.”

  “Sure sounds like she’ll get a good chunk of the Moriarty money,” said Osborne.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her to find a way to get it all—one hundred percent,” said Lew. She glanced over at Osborne. “Think about it. If she is supposed to be Bert’s alibi for where he was when DeeDee disappeared …”

  “As in watching the History Channel?” said Osborne.

  “Right. Betrayal may be more expensive than Bert Moriarty ever imagined.”

  Osborne was quiet as they drove into Loon Lake. In too many ways, Audrey Spen
cer and her disdain for her husband had reminded him of his late wife. Thank goodness those years were behind him.

  CHAPTER 18

  Her foot heavy on the accelerator and lights flashing when necessary, Lew managed to get them to Universal Medical Supplies just half an hour late. Rick Meyerdierk met them in the reception area. Small in frame with a wiry build and close-cut, light brown hair, the call center manager appeared to be in his early thirties. And so well tanned, it was obvious he didn’t spend his entire day indoors. Osborne knew he’d seen him somewhere before—likely at a bait shop or on the water.

  After introducing himself to Lew, Meyerdierk turned to Osborne. “Dr. Osborne,” he said, his voice genial in spite of the tense look in his eyes, “we’ve met. I coach my daughter’s soccer team and your granddaughter, Mason, is one of my players.” “Oh, sure,” said Osborne, “I thought you looked familiar.” “At out last practice, I suggested to Mason that she consider soccer as a main sport. The kid’s got a knack for it, but she insists she’s working to become a world-class kayaker.” “Oh, really,” said Osborne with a chuckle. “Yep, she keeps trying to persuade the team to go kayaking with her one of these days. At our soccer practice last week she said she discovered a secret passage she wants to show them—that has a big surprise at the end. My daughter’s begging to go. You know kids—they love intrigue. We have a game this weekend but maybe next week the girls can work something out.”

  “Mason would love it,” said Osborne. “She’s mentioned this amazing discovery of hers a couple times. I need to follow up and see what the heck she’s talking about. She makes it sound like pirate treasure, and I can’t imagine what it could be since that creek runs up into a tamarack forest that’s all wetland. No buildings back in there.”

  Rick started down the hall. “If you’ll follow me this way, folks,” he said. “I reserved the review room for us.”

  He opened the door to a small office holding a round table and four chairs, its walls lined with cabinets. On the table were three sets of headphones. “Dr. Osborne, if you would take that chair and put on the headphones; Chief Ferris, you do the same here; and this is my set. I ran the tape half a dozen times while I was waiting for you and I think it’s better if you listen through the headphones than through the speakers—there’s some ambient sound you can hear better this way. But before I run it for you, let me explain some of what you’re going to hear.

  “When a call comes in, if the people in the call center are busy with other calls, the incoming call is put on hold with a message that states ‘all calls may be monitored for quality purposes.’ Our monitoring starts at that moment so that anything said while a caller is on hold is picked up by the system. As the manager-in-training that night, Nora was instructed to randomly sample the calls holding in order to see if our people taking orders were using the correct greetings and so forth.”

  “So that’s how she happened to be listening to this call?” said Lew. “She wasn’t taking the order, just waiting and listening?”

  “Correct.”

  Rick twisted a dial on a console set into the center of the table. They listened.

  At first all they heard was a grinding noise not unlike a coffee grinder. Then a voice. “I told you she won’t be there, I’ll take care of things,” said a dark, low-timbered voice close to the phone. Osborne couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.

  “What do you mean? She told me she’d be there.” The second voice, higher-pitched and wheezy, could barely be heard. The speaker sounded distracted.

  “Well, she won’t. I fired her.”

  “What?!” the distant voice grew upset. “You what? Give me the phone, I’m going to call her and tell her to forget that baloney.”

  “You can’t.”

  “What do you mean. Oh—no, you didn’t,” the voice paused. “Don’t tell me you lost it with that girl. Last time you did that you ended up with assault and battery charges. Is that what’s going to happen? Are we going to get a call from cops next?”

  “I—I just wanted to talk to her, to tell her to keep away from you but she started screaming. You know I can’t stand people screaming at me.”

  “What are you telling me? You hurt her? If you did, you’ll get us both in trouble. Tell me, goddammit, did you hurt her?”

  The dark voice again: “I told you I couldn’t help it.” The voice caught in a sob, “I grabbed her, you know—and she—she—all of a sudden she was down and she wouldn’t get up. Sorry, sorry, SORRY!” The voice shouted as if backing away or ducking to avoid a blow.

  The wheezy voice grew stronger: “You always do it, don’t you. You always think you’re running my life … Well, you’re not. You’re ruining things—everything. Every goddamn thing you—” The words were followed by a series of thuds, a grunt and sobbing.

  “Hello? Hello?” A third voice now. Female, pitched high with worry. “Hello? Do you need help? This is Nora Loomis with Universal Medical Supply—do you need help?” The line went dead.

  Lew looked at Osborne, then at Rick. “Why on earth did she identify herself like that?”

  “That’s the rule,” said Rick. “Anyone in the call center who does not identify themselves in the first greeting is penalized—on their paycheck. Trust me,” he said with a look that made it clear he did not agree with the policy, “they pound it into ‘em.”

  “All right, please play it again …” After the sixth replay, Lew said, “that deep voice—do you think that’s a woman? Doesn’t sound like it until you hear the sobbing. The other is definitely a man, though. What do you think, Doc?”

  “Not sure myself, but whoever it is has a problem with their front teeth—hear that whistle on their “s” sounds?”

  “Yea-a-a-h, you’re right,” said Rick, after replaying the call again. “Bad dentures, you think?”

  “More likely poor orthodontia,” said Osborne. “Or cosmetic dentistry. If veneers applied to the central incisors are a little too long or too thick, you’ll hear that sibilant “s.” Also, listening on tape like this you’re more likely to hear it than if you were speaking directly to the person.”

  “Tell you what I hear—” said Lew. “That grinding sound? Sure sounds like a shredder to me. Marlene bought one for the office and it sounds just like that.”

  “So we have a whistler and a shredder—,” said Osborne.

  “And a very good reason for Nora to think someone was at risk,” said Lew. “Rick, I understand that when you attempted to trace the call, no luck?”

  “Right. We checked with our phone company to see if the records would show the originating number. But when they checked, they found the caller had used a TracFone, which is a prepaid cell phone that is impossible to trace.” He shrugged, “I wish we could do more. I had a CD made of the tape so you can replay it on your office computers if you need to.”

  CHAPTER 19

  As Lew and Osborne walked through the main doors of the department, Marlene rolled her eyes towards the conference room. Dropping her voice, she said, “Ray’s entertaining … in his hat.” You would have thought she was reporting that the mayor’s wife had been seen greeting the mailman in her shortie nightgown.

  “Oh-h-h,” said Lew with a grimace, “I take it you weren’t able to reschedule Gretel?”

  “She said her cell phone lost its charge just out of Duluth,” said Marlene. “I kept trying but no luck. Ray stopped in here on his way back from Moccasin Lake, took one look at her and you can imagine the rest.” The trill of a happy robin floated from the conference room. A six-foot-six happy robin. A happy robin with a beard. Again that look from Marlene. “I love the guy,” she said, “but jeez Louise, y’know?”

  “Did he find anything?” said Lew, shuffling through the notes that Marlene handed her. “Oh yes, two teeth and a shoe.”

  “Yes, indeed. Sounds like he found the site where the Kurlander girl was killed?”

  “Let him tell you about it,” said Marlene, getting to her feet and picking up he
r purse as the night operator, her niece Laura, walked in. “It’s the only reason I didn’t put the kabosh on his taking over with Blonde Beauty in there.”

  “Oh dear, I don’t like this,” said Lew, handing one of the messages to Osborne, who was waiting patiently behind her. He studied the note. It was a message from the owner of Ralph’s Sporting Goods: Marcy Kurlander purchased a box of ammunition for the handgun that belonged to her late husband. She seemed pretty distraught when she was in the store. They thought you should know.

  “That’s not good,” said Osborne. “On the other hand, it may be she feels vulnerable.”

  “We’ll see,” said Lew. “When she calls about the Mass and wake for DeeDee, I’ll talk to her about it.”

  “Keep going,” said Marlene, watching over Lew’s shoulder, “you’ve got another good one in that stack—from your banker friends …”

  Lew sorted through until she found it. “You mean this one?”

  “Yep, they can’t wait to talk to you. Seems they found something. Carlson left his home number and his cell phone in case he’s in a meeting.”

  Lew’s face brightened, “Boy, would it be nice to move that off my desk.”

  “Now when it comes to sniper rifles,” Gretel Sandersson was saying as Lew opened the door to the conference room, “you can’t beat the police version of the Remington M700 …” From behind the table where she had just lifted a shiny new rifle from its case, an attractive young woman with a chin-length cap of lemon yellow hair glanced up as Lew and Osborne walked in.

  The conference table was hidden beneath open gun cases. Revolvers, pistols and rifles had been set out with care—along with holsters, cartridges and magazines. It was apparent Gretel had decided not to let Lew’s absence get in the way of her sales demonstration. And from the smiles on their faces, it was obvious the seller and her target were mutually charmed.

  To his credit, Ray had removed his hat and was listening intently. Osborne could see why. Gretel was a striking blonde, her face lightly freckled and eyes a sparkling blue that spoke to her Scandinavian heritage. Not unlike Lew, she was of medium height with heft on her bones. That made sense to Osborne. If you’re going to be selling sophisticated weapons, you better know how to shoot, and that takes upper body strength.