Last Call

by Allyson K. Abbott

  Amelia said, “I have booties in my case for us to slip over our shoes before we go inside.”

  Roberta nodded, and waved a hand toward a large stone mansion. “Shall we?” she said.

  I removed my weather gloves, stuffed them in my coat pocket, and then pulled on the latex gloves as we made our way toward the Knutson house.

  Knutson lived in one of Milwaukee’s elite, older neighborhoods. On the outside, with its boxy shape and stone façade complete with carved pillars, his house looked cold and unwelcoming. It reminded me of a mausoleum, and I had to suppress a shiver that I wasn’t sure came from the winter temperature outside.

  After we climbed onto the porch, Amelia set down the case she was carrying and took out several pairs of paper booties, which we all dutifully donned over our boots. When everyone was ready, Roberta used the lion’s head knocker to announce our arrival. Just to make sure, she also rang the doorbell.

  A woman I assumed was Caroline Knutson opened the massive, wooden front door and greeted us with a puzzled but welcoming smile. “Hello, Detective Dillon,” she said, casting a somewhat annoyed glance at Roberta before eyeing me, Duncan, and the rest of our entourage with a curious frown. With the sound of her voice, I saw a faintly undulating yellow line floating in the air.

  “Mrs. Knutson,” Roberta acknowledged. “May we come in?”

  Caroline frowned. “May I ask what this is about?”

  I couldn’t help but notice that she looked freshly pampered. Her hair was cut in one of those geometric dos and colored a pale blond with darker blond highlights that were beautifully and subtly done. Her fingernails were newly polished, done in a French manicure. Her skin glowed from a spray tan and who knew what sorts of facials or other skin treatments, and I felt certain if I could have seen her toes, they would have been immaculate as well. Sonja did nice work.

  “We need to have another look around your house,” Roberta said.

  Caroline narrowed her eyes at Roberta, chewing on her lip. “It’s not a good time,” she said. “What exactly are you looking for?”

  Roberta, borrowing from a book I gathered all the cops learned from because I had seen Duncan use the same tactic many times, didn’t answer Caroline’s question. Instead, she fired back with one of her own. “Did Mr. Knutson take any regular medications?”

  “No,” Caroline said. “Occasionally, he’d borrow one of my Ambiens to help him sleep. But like I told you before, he didn’t like doctors, and despite my nagging, I could never get him to go see one.” Her face took on a sad expression and in a mournful tone, she added, “If only he’d listened to me, he might still be alive today. His heart attack might have been prevented.”

  “Your husband didn’t have a heart attack,” Roberta said.

  Judging from the expression on Caroline’s face, she was clearly stunned by this information. “He didn’t?” she said, blinking fast several times.

  Roberta shook her head, and I thought I saw a glimmer of a smile on her lips.

  “How do you know that?” Caroline asked.

  “His autopsy showed it.”

  The two women were staring at each other with an intensity that was both unnerving and fascinating. It was as if they were the only two people in the world at that moment.

  “Autopsy?” Caroline said, and her voice was a little shaky. “I thought the coroner said it looked like natural causes and an autopsy wasn’t going to be necessary.”

  “Yes, well, that changed. The medical examiner has full discretion in deciding whether or not to perform an autopsy when there is an unexpected or unexplained death.” She paused, giving Caroline a moment to digest this.

  “If he didn’t die of a heart attack, what did he die from?” Caroline asked.

  “That’s what we need to find out,” Roberta said. “And it’s why we want to take a second look around your house.” I wondered why Roberta didn’t just show Caroline the search warrant straightaway, and wondered if she was toying with the woman—the way a cat teases a mouse—before moving in for the kill.

  Caroline gnawed at one of those perfectly manicured nails.

  “Mrs. Knutson, it’s quite cold out here,” Roberta said with a grimace after several seconds of weighty silence. “May we please come in?”

  This plea to Caroline’s politeness and sensibilities worked. She stepped aside, and our little entourage moved indoors.

  “I don’t understand why you did an autopsy,” Caroline said as she closed the door. “Ollie wasn’t a healthy man. The coroner said so when he was here. He said it looked like natural causes.”

  “Yes, well, some information came up that made the ME decide to take a closer look at things,” Roberta explained. “And when he did, some irregularities turned up.”

  “What sort of irregularities?” Caroline asked, and I noticed the yellow line of her voice began to undulate a little faster.

  “I’m not at liberty to say right now,” Roberta said. She started to move deeper into the house, but Caroline stopped her.

  “Hold on a minute. I don’t think it’s a good idea to let you guys traipse all over my house again. You had your chance yesterday, when Ollie died.”

  Apparently, this was Roberta’s cue to play her trump card. “It doesn’t matter if you think it’s a good idea,” she said. Though the words were smug, Roberta’s voice was not. She sounded genuinely sympathetic. But with her next words, the taste of her voice turned rancid, and I knew there was no sincerity there. “I’m truly sorry to be such a nuisance to you, Mrs. Knutson. But you see, I have this search warrant that says I can look through your house now.” She pulled the search warrant paperwork from her jacket pocket and handed it to Caroline. “I’m sorry if our presence is compounding your grief,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “But we are going to look around. Here’s our warrant.”

  Caroline took the paperwork and scanned it, her expression shifting from simple concern to mightily pissed off in record time. She’d been played, and she knew it. “I think I need to call my lawyer,” she said.

  “You go right ahead,” Roberta said. “Show him that paperwork when he arrives. In the meantime, Officer Vasquez here is going to keep you company, to make sure you don’t get rid of anything we might want to look at.”

  Caroline’s face flushed a vivid red. She looked like a teapot ready to boil over. “Are you suggesting I have something to hide?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “Do you?” Roberta shot back.

  Caroline stuttered and stammered for a second before stomping her foot in a fit of petulance and storming away from us toward the kitchen I could see at the back of the house. Vasquez followed her, and as Caroline started swiping through her cell phone—probably searching for her lawyer’s phone number—Roberta waved for us to follow her.

  Chapter 16

  The inside of the Knutson house was the exact opposite of the outside. In stark contrast to the cold, sharp, colorless stone on the outside, the interior decor consisted of warm colors, plush furnishings, and gleaming, refinished hardwood floors.

  The entrance had placed us in a great room that included a living room, a dining area, and the aforementioned kitchen. It was obvious the inside of the house had been remodeled over the years, providing a sharp contrast to the nearly century-old façade on the outside. The kitchen was state-of-the-art, and the open concept design of the main living area was a modern touch that never would have existed when the house was originally built.

  Roberta, a woman I decided I never wanted to cross, led us down a narrow hallway off the great room to what was clearly the master suite. Though it lacked the enormity of the modern-day McMansion-size bedrooms—there were limits as to how much one could do with these older homes without building an add-on—it was still a good-sized room with beautiful, glossy-white trim around the floor, doors, and windows. The same glossy-white framing was evident in the crown molding near the high ceiling. There was a stone fireplace in the room, but it looked like it had been converte
d over to gas.

  Just off the bedroom was a bathroom, again a smaller version than what one might see in a more modern home belonging to someone of Knutson’s wealth, but still nice. There was a claw-foot tub, black and white hexagon tiles on the floor, a pedestal sink, and a tiled shower stall in one corner that looked oddly out of place.

  The bed was an old-fashioned four-poster with a canopy. There was a distinctly feminine feel to the decor, not only in the bed but in the frilly furnishings, curtains, and accessories. I suspected immediately that these touches were Caroline’s doing, but it turned out I was wrong.

  “This is where Oliver slept,” Roberta told us. “Caroline has her own room at the other end of the house.”

  I stared at Roberta in disbelief.

  “I know, I know,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “The room is definitely girlie. It shocked me, too, the first time I saw it. Apparently, Oliver’s first wife, Anne, decorated it. Caroline told me she had intentions of redoing the room but never got around to it. Oliver snored so bad that it was keeping her awake at night, so she took over what used to be the servants’ quarters at the other end of the house and renovated it as her own sleeping space instead.”

  “Is Oliver’s first wife still in the picture?” I asked.

  “She is,” Roberta said. “In fact, she was the primary impetus behind our investigation into Oliver’s death . . . other than your inquiry,” she added, giving Duncan a pointed look. “Anne has been quite insistent about Caroline’s motives for marrying Oliver, and was concerned that his death wasn’t from natural causes.”

  “So she lives here in the area?” I asked. Roberta nodded. “Did she have access to the house?”

  “Not that I know of. Besides, Anne has no real motive. She’s a wealthy woman in her own right.” Roberta narrowed her eyes at me. “Why do you ask?”

  Duncan was watching me closely. “Have you picked up on something, Mack?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing significant yet,” I said, though this wasn’t entirely true. There was something odd about the ceiling in the bedroom. When I looked at it, or at the crown molding bordering it, I felt a strange sensation, as if my body was lighter suddenly and wanted to take off and fly. But I had no idea if this was anything significant, or even exactly what it was that was triggering the response. “I was just trying to get a picture of who had access to the house,” I explained. “Did Oliver and Caroline use any sort of in-house help, like a cook or house cleaner?”

  “Good question,” Roberta said with a grudging smile of admiration. “And yes, they did. There is a woman who comes every Monday to clean, and a groundskeeper who takes care of the snow clearing in the winter and the lawn and gardening needs the rest of the year. But he hasn’t been here since we had the last snowfall. That was four days ago.”

  “And Oliver died on a Saturday, so it’s safe to assume the house cleaner wasn’t here either,” I noted, getting a nod from Roberta. “So the only people who were in the house that we know of were Caroline and Oliver?” Another nod. “And what did Caroline say about how she found him?”

  A voice came from behind me and, judging from the wavy yellow line I saw, I knew it was Caroline. I turned and saw her standing in the hallway behind us, Vasquez at her side. “My lawyer will be here shortly. I’d like you to stop this search until she gets here.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Roberta said.

  Caroline dismissed her and shifted her gaze to me. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Detective Dillon yesterday. I always get up earlier than Ollie, and I make a pot of coffee for the two of us. Then I go and wake him up. When I went in to wake him yesterday, he was cold, blue, and wasn’t breathing. I called 9-1-1 right away. When the paramedics got here, they pronounced him dead right away. The police were here at the same time. And then I was escorted out into the kitchen and not allowed to see Ollie again.” She gives Roberta a hurt look.

  Sensing that Caroline was in a chatty mood—something I’m sure her lawyer would have advised her against—Roberta egged her on.

  “I don’t have my notes from yesterday with me,” Roberta said to Caroline. “Can you go over the details again?”

  “I explained it all to you very specifically yesterday, Detective. Clearly you don’t believe me and think I had something to do with Ollie’s death. The idea is ludicrous, of course, and while he might not have died of a heart attack, the coroner—”

  “Medical examiner,” Roberta corrected.

  “Whatever,” Caroline said impatiently, rolling her eyes. “Whoever it was that was here yesterday felt certain Ollie had died of natural causes. You being here today is nothing more than a form of harassment. And I can’t believe you let someone cut poor Ollie open.” Caroline looked genuinely hurt, but the yellow line of her voice suddenly sagged, making me think she was being less than sincere. Then she pouted, spun on her heel, and retreated, giving Vasquez an irritated look when he fell into step beside her.

  Roberta sighed, no doubt disappointed over the missed opportunity to get a lawyerless Caroline to repeat more of her story from yesterday to see if it remained consistent.

  While all this was going on, I kept sneaking peeks at the bedroom ceiling and then shifting my gaze to the ceiling out in the great room area. There was something different in the bedroom, but at the moment I wasn’t sure what it was. The floating sensation I felt in my body was definitely a synesthetic reaction, but I didn’t know what I was reacting to. Was it something I was seeing or smelling? Or was it simply a side effect of some emotion? The way my synesthesia worked, it could’ve been any of those things.

  I ventured deeper into the bedroom and made my way over to the bed. The covers were still rumpled from where Oliver’s body had been, but the bottom sheet had been stripped from the bed. I wondered if it had been taken along with the body. I looked over at the nightstand beside the bed and knew that something there had been moved or removed. Currently, there was a book—a paperback mystery, the irony of which didn’t escape me—lying open with its pages down to mark the spot where Oliver had stopped reading. Beside it was a pair of reading glasses, and one of those clip-on book lights. The rest of the surface of the nightstand was empty, but I sensed a distinct void in the light covering of dust and knew something else had recently been there.

  “Detective Dillon?” I said.

  “Please, call me Roberta.”

  “Okay, Roberta, was there something else on the nightstand here when the police first arrived?”

  “There was,” she said, giving me a curious look. “How did you know that?”

  “It’s just something I can do,” I said with a shrug. “Can you tell me what it was?”

  “It was an empty drinking glass. We took it as evidence in case it turned out that Mr. Knutson had been drugged. According to his wife, he sometimes took a sleeping pill.”

  “And did you find anything?”

  “The ME did test for Ambien, the sleep medication, because we knew he took it. It came back positive, but at the normal level one would expect to find in someone who had taken the proper dose at bedtime.”

  “And what was beside the bed, in front of the nightstand?” I asked, looking at faint impressions in an area rug beside the bed.

  Roberta looked at me, impressed. “I see why you call her your secret weapon,” she said to Duncan. Then she turned back to me. “Knutson had a machine and an oxygen tank there because he suffered from sleep apnea and had to use one of those CPAP devices,” she explained, verifying the information Duncan had already given me. “I imagine the sleep apnea is why he had such a snoring problem. We confiscated the machine, of course, and had our techs look it over to make sure it was functioning properly. And we also alerted the medical examiner to the fact that the victim used a CPAP machine. We thought perhaps the machine might have somehow malfunctioned, or been blocked so that air couldn’t get to the mask Mr. Knutson wore, and that he might have succumbed from breathing in his own exhaled carbon dioxide. The
medical examiner said that was unlikely as the lack of oxygen typically would awaken a patient, who would then remove the mask. Besides, this mask had a special valve in it that made accidental asphyxiation impossible.”

  “What about a power outage?” Duncan asked.

  “There is a backup battery and an alarm on the machine—quite a loud one, in fact—that seemed to be in proper working order when our techs tested it.” Roberta paused and sighed. So far everything she was telling us jibed with what Duncan had shared with me earlier. “We checked the CPAP machine thoroughly,” Roberta went on, “but I don’t think it’s relevant. Caroline told us Oliver wasn’t wearing his CPAP mask when she came in to wake him yesterday morning. According to her, he often took it off during the night because it annoyed him. Sometimes he did it in his sleep without realizing it, and other times he did it intentionally. The medical examiner tested Knutson’s blood for oxygen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide levels.”

  “Carbon monoxide?” I said.

  “From the furnace or the fireplace,” Roberta explained. “But the air in Mr. Knutson’s lungs had a normal level of oxygen, and there was no indication of high levels of carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. That would seem to indicate a sudden death, which is why we assumed he died of some sort of catastrophic cardiac event. The sudden onset of chest pain and an inability to breathe might have made him tear his mask off just before he died.”

  “I assume the oxygen tank was full enough?” I asked.

  “It was over three quarters full and functioning properly.”

  I thought a moment. “You’d think if Mr. Knutson had any sort of warning for whatever happened that his agitation prior to death would have been evident,” I said. “Yet he was supposedly found in perfect repose, right?”

  Roberta nodded. She shot Duncan a look I couldn’t quite interpret, though I sensed she was annoyed. Then she just stared at me, waiting.

  I walked around the room, letting my synesthesia take over. I looked, smelled, and listened, though I tried not to touch anything for fear of contaminating the scene. Aside from what I had already mentioned to Roberta, I didn’t pick up on anything except for the weird feeling I got when I looked toward the ceiling.