Improbable Cause

by J. A. Jance

  Abusers are controllers. My years on the force have taught me that much. They want the people in their lives to dance to their tune like puppets on strings. They want to call the shots, all of them. If he was true to type, Nielsen would have wanted LeAnn to grovel for the money, preferably to crawl around on her hands and knees and beg for it. Barring that, if that hadn't humiliated her enough, then forcibly taking what he regarded as his personal property and throwing Debi Rush in LeAnn's face should have done the trick.

  But it hadn't worked. LeAnn hadn't knuckled under. She had caught a little of Alice Fields' contagious spunk during her stay at Phoenix House. She had fought her husband every step of the way, taken her money, and run.

  And that's when Larry Martin showed up to save the day. Of course, I'd have to get Martin to corroborate LeAnn's story, but that seemed simple enough. It sounded like justifiable homicide to me.

  Just then, though, the tiniest corner of doubt crept into my mind. I've been a cop too long. I'm becoming a cynic in my old age. Why had the story ended with the flowerpot? Had Alice Fields ended the narrative then, or had LeAnn broken off of her own accord, stopping just short of telling me about the dental pick? I couldn't remember.

  Doubts are meant to be resolved. My job is to prove things beyond a shadow of a doubt. So I went over the whole interview again in my mind. While the coffee grew stale in my cup, LeAnn's story began to sour in my mind.

  Had it really happened that way? Was it mere chance that Larry Martin had been there just when LeAnn needed help, or was there some other connection between Larry Martin and LeAnn Nielsen that I didn't know about? And what about LeAnn's reaction to the news of her husband's death? Had she heard it from me first? If so, why the laughter? Relief, grief, shock? It could have been any of those things. Or none of them.

  If LeAnn had known about Frederick's death since Saturday, if she had been there when he died, maybe she was laughing with relief because she no longer had to carry the secret around alone. Or maybe she was really happy that Nielsen was dead, that he would never be able to beat her up again.

  I tried to fathom what LeAnn Nielsen was feeling. I know what it's like to lose someone you love. That hurts. It hurts like hell, but it's simple. This was more complex. LeAnn had both loved and hated her husband, feared him and yet gone to him for help when she needed it. No wonder she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

  "Are you Detective Beaumont?" A sharp voice penetrated my reverie.

  "Yes.” I answered with a start.

  The woman who had shown me to the table was speaking to me. "There's a call for you. Somebody named Al. Says he needs to talk to you right away. The phone's down by the cash register."

  I hurried back down the stairway. A red wall phone with the receiver swinging loose was between the end of the counter and the huge table where yet another steaming tray of cinnamon rolls was coming out of the oven. A clock on the wall over the oven said five after ten.

  When I picked up the dangling receiver it was covered with a thick coating of flour. "I thought you'd be in court by now," I said to Al.

  "Now they say eleven.” he replied. "It looks like I'm going to squander the whole damn day locked up here in the office. Did the wife show? I hope I'm not interrupting something important."

  "She showed all right, but she's gone. What's up?"

  "I just took a call from one of the LOLs, the one who ditched us."

  "You mean Rachel?"

  "Yeah, her. I couldn't remember her name.

  It musta been a mental block. She called to say that her sister's at home now. We're welcome to come by and talk to her sometime today."

  "Al, you're shitting me. You're bored, so you made up this story to see what I'd say, right? Why would she ditch us one day and invite us to drop by for a visit the next?"

  "I swear to God, I didn't make this up, but I thought I'd tell you so you could go right over there from where you are. Figured it would save you some time."

  "Like hell you did," I retorted. "You're telling me now so I'll go there while you're still stuck on a short leash with the prosecutor's office, while you aren't in any danger of going yourself. Did that parrot bother you that much, or was it-the LOLs?"

  There was no answer from Big Al's end of the line. I had him dead to rights.

  "Rachel said it would be better if we talked to Dorothy this morning. She's just out of the hospital and evidently used to sleeping some in the afternoons."

  The lady from the cash register came over and pointed to a three-by-five card taped above the phone. On it was a typed message that read, This is a business phone. Please do not tie it up with personal calls.

  "I've got to get off the line here," I said. "I'll head on up to their apartment as soon as I can.

  By the way, if you get a chance, call the medical examiner's office and find out if there was a bruise behind Frederick Nielsen's left ear."

  "Right," Al said. "Will do."

  I hung up the phone and went back to my table. Diane came by and offered me one last cup of coffee, which I reluctantly refused. The bill for two coffees and two rolls was something less than five dollars. I left a ten on the table.

  If Diane was just out of Phoenix House and struggling to get back on her feet, I figured she needed a big tip way more than I needed an extra five-dollar bill in my wallet.

  It wasn't charity, either. She had earned it.

  CHAPTER 11

  Rachel Miller was waiting for me when I got to the Edinburgh Arms at ten-thirty that morning. She was seated on a wooden bench in the garden, daintily drinking coffee from a Melmac cup. The fountain with its pissing cherub gurgled in the background.

  Sitting there in the dappled morning shade, she was the perfect picture of a sweet, demure little old lady. I happened to know, however, that as far as she was concerned, appearances were deceiving.

  Rachel Miller may have qualified for senior citizen discounts, and she may have been sweet, but she was also the same spry old dame who had given Big Al and me the slip the day before. I didn't trust her any farther than I could throw her.

  "Over here," she called, waving to me as I got out of the car.

  She was dressed in an exact duplicate of the khaki uniform and Maine hunting boots I had seen her sister wearing the day before. A straw pith helmet lay on the bench beside her. She moved the helmet to her lap and patted the bench, inviting me to sit down beside her.

  "I trust you'll forgive me for yesterday," she said apologetically. "I had to go with my conscience and do what I thought was right."

  "No problem," I said, unwilling to give her the satisfaction of saying anything else.

  "I'm glad you got here before I had to leave for the zoo. I'm going in today. Daisy and I have to juggle our schedules now so one of us can be home with Dorothy round the clock. Otherwise, she would have had to go to a nursing home."

  "She's here with you now?"

  Rachel nodded. "We picked her up from the hospital just this morning. She's resting now." Rachel Miller grew thoughtful. "I told her," she said.

  "About her son?"

  "Yes. I couldn't bear the idea of somebody else telling her, some stranger. You can understand that, can't you?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "She took it real hard. I was afraid she would. Fred was Dotty's only child, you know."

  Rachel Miller lapsed into an uncharacteristic silence, leaving me ample opportunity for comment. I held off, waiting, saying nothing.

  "Now that she knows, now that she's gotten a grip on herself, she wants to talk to you, Detective Beaumont, either you or your partner. She wants to know exactly what happened. She wants to see the killer brought to justice."

  "So do we," I said.

  "Did you find LeAnn?" Rachel asked suddenly.

  "Just this morning," I answered. "The director of the shelter helped us locate her."

  "Good. If you see her again, tell her to get in touch with us right away. Someone has to take charge of funeral arrangements. D
otty isn't in any condition for it. Daisy and I could, but it doesn't seem like our place. By the way, did you tell her about Dorothy?" Rachel Miller's eyes were brightly inquisitive behind the sparkling lenses of her glasses.

  "Tell her what?"

  "That Dorothy was ..." She paused. "Sick," she added lamely.

  I shook my head. "It never occurred to me. You're saying LeAnn didn't know her mother-in-law was in the hospital?"

  "It happened after LeAnn and the children left. There was no way for her to find out about it. We didn't know how to reach her." She shrugged. "Besides, I'm not sure she would have cared."

  "They didn't get along?"

  "It's hard for more than one woman to live in the same house. Daisy and I do fine, but even with us there are times when it's sticky. We call it cabin fever." Rachel paused again, then continued. "I'm sure LeAnn was shocked to hear about Fred, but she's lucky to be rid of him."

  Rachel Miller had evidently overcome her previous day's reluctance to wash dirty family linen in public.

  "You didn't like your nephew much, did you?"

  "No," she answered.

  "Did anybody?"

  "His mother, but mothers are like that."

  "Was he upset when LeAnn moved out?"

  "Upset is hardly the word for it. He came raging over here, wondering if we knew where she'd gone, demanding to know whether or not we had helped her."

  "Had you?"

  "No, but I would have in a minute if she'd asked. I don't blame her one bit. I thought Fred was going to have a stroke on the spot. He swore up and down that he'd see to it she never got another penny out of him. He was such a skinflint, I doubt she got much more than that the whole time they were married anyway."

  "He offered to give her money on Saturday, enough so she could move into her own apartment."

  Rachel looked incredulous. "Really? He didn't actually give it to her, did he?"

  "Evidently," I said.

  "Amazing. He was a wholesale tightwad, that man was. Just like his father, if you ask me. The idea of having to split things up in a divorce settlement scared him pea green. Dotty told me he was afraid LeAnn would get into his office and try to lay hands on his financial records. That's why he changed the locks."

  "He changed them?"

  "All of them—the house, the office, even the cars."

  "Cars?" I asked.

  She nodded. "They had two cars. A new one and an older. One was his and the other was supposed to be LeAnn's."

  "But you said he changed the locks on both of them."

  "That's right."

  "LeAnn didn't take a car when she left?"

  "No. I don't know exactly why, either. I would have if I'd been her. As I understand it, she left by bus. One of the neighbors saw her and the kids getting on a bus down on Green Lake Way. When Fred found out she was gone, he signed LeAnn's car over to Dorothy."

  "That's not legal," I said. "LeAnn would have had to sign the title."

  Rachel looked at me as though I was somewhat dense. "LeAnn's name wasn't on the title," she said. "Her name isn't on the deed to the house, either."

  I could see that, community property laws notwithstanding, Dr. Frederick Nielsen had done his best to keep the deck stacked totally in his favor. LeAnn should have invested in a top-notch lawyer before she left the house.

  "Where's the car now?" I asked.

  "Out in our garage. Dorothy can't drive it now, not with her hip, of course. If I could figure out a way to give it back to LeAnn, though, I would."

  Across the driveway the door to Rachel and Daisy's apartment opened and shut. Daisy came striding toward us, one hand shading her eyes.

  "So you are here," she said to me, dropping her hand from her face as she walked up to the bench. "Why didn't you come in and let us know, Rachel? Dotty's been asking for him."

  "She's awake then?"

  "Has been for some time," Daisy replied. There was an undercurrent in the conversation that made me suspect that a serious case of sisterly cabin fever was brewing.

  Rachel got up and placed her pith helmet over her silver hair. "All right then, take him in to talk with her. I'm going on over to the zoo. I'm almost late as it is."

  I held open the door to the Buick while Rachel climbed inside. With George's help they must have managed to unload the U-Haul. It was nowhere in evidence.

  When Rachel switched on the ignition, the old car coughed and sputtered and smoked, but gradually the engine caught and ran. Standing safely to one side, I watched the car lurch out of the driveway. She must have been using both the gas pedal and brake at the same time. It's ladies like Rachel Miller who give women drivers a bad name.

  "Are you coming or not?" Daisy asked impatiently. She was standing at the top of the plywood wheelchair ramp, holding the door open for me to enter.

  "I'm coming," I said, hurrying up to the door.

  All the curtains on the lower floor had been drawn, throwing the room into cool, dusky shadow. The living room was still much as it had appeared the day before, except that the hospital bed was made up and the frail figure of a woman lay in it. The dining room, however, was stacked high with boxes and furniture, including Dorothy Nielsen's rocking chair.

  From somewhere behind the boxes I heard Buddy's now-familiar voice. "Freeze, sucker."

  "My goodness," said Dorothy Nielsen from her bed. "Can't somebody shut that bird up? He's driving me crazy!"

  Daisy set off, threading her way through the stacks of boxes. Moments later, she returned. "He's covered, Dotty. He'll be quiet now."

  It sounded as though Buddy was in for some tough sledding with Dorothy Nielsen in the house. I don't think she liked him any better than Big Al Lindstrom did.

  "Detective Beaumont is here now," Daisy said to her sister. "Would you like me to raise your bed so you can talk with him?"

  "That would be fine," Dotty answered.

  By the time she had been raised to a sitting position, I could see that Dorothy Nielsen was a paler, more delicate version of her two sisters. Her features, though similar, were finer, more patrician somehow. Her skin was smooth and unweathered. A box of tissue lay beside her on the bed. She groped for one as she sat up, daubing her eyes with it.

  "I can't seem to stop crying," she said. "The tears just keep coming. I think they're finally gone, that I can't possibly cry any more. Then they start all over again."

  "It's perfectly understandable, Mrs. Nielsen."

  "You're the detective?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Detective Beaumont."

  "Are you going to catch my son's killer?"

  "We can't make any promises, of course, but we're certainly going to try. We're working very hard."

  She pointed to a newspaper at the foot of the bed. It was a copy of the P.I. folded open to Maxwell Cole's column. "That's not what they said in the paper this morning," she announced accusingly. "This man here said you weren't doing anything at all."

  "The newspapers don't have access to everything we do," I said. I could have added "Thank God," but I didn't.

  "So you are doing something, then?" she insisted.

  "Yes, we are. You don't have to worry about that."

  She shook her head. For several moments she seemed to drift away from me, lost in a maze of private, painful recollection. "He was such a good boy," she whimpered into a tissue. "Such a good boy. He never gave his father or me a moment's trouble. Grew up to be a professional man, just like his father. If only he hadn't married that woman."

  "You mean LeAnn?"

  Dorothy Nielsen nodded. "She wasn't good enough for him. She never was. He should have held out for something better."

  "What do you mean, she wasn't good enough?"

  "Dentists have to work very hard, you know," she declared, pausing long enough to blow her nose. "It's a very high-stress job. I should know, I was married to one. And when a man comes home from working that hard, he has a right to expect his house to be the way he wants it."

  "And how was that
?"

  "Straightened up, for one thing. He hated to come in and find toys scattered all over the living room or the laundry not done and put away. And he wanted the children fed and asleep by the time he came home from work. He needed peace and quiet. I kept trying to tell LeAnn that she should pay more attention to those little things instead of doing all that running around."