Last Call

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “It’s a damn shame what happened to him,” Klein said, shaking his head woefully. “I’m going to miss him a great deal. Not only was he my most trusted employee, he was a good friend.”

  Duncan removed a small notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. He then removed a pen from the same pocket, pulling the cap off with his teeth. As he removed the cap with his free hand, he looked at Klein and made a face, like he had just tasted something that was a bit rancid. “Before I get too deep into my questions, there are some awkward but necessary basics I need to cover with you, Mr. Klein. To start, can you tell me where you were last Friday morning between the hours of seven and nine?”

  I thought Klein might adopt an offended posture and attitude with the question, but I was wrong. “I understand,” he said. “Fortunately, I do have an alibi for that period of time. I was right here, on this job site, sitting at my desk. Fridays are my payroll days, and I spend every Friday morning calculating hours and writing checks.”

  “You do your own payroll?” Duncan said.

  “I handle most of my own money matters,” Klein said. “I have a degree in finance and I’m a CPA. I find that the fewer hands there are in the pot, the better.”

  “Can anyone verify you were here in your trailer during those hours?” Duncan asked.

  Klein narrowed his eyes and stared at the ceiling, his hands tented beneath his chin, his fingertips tapping lightly at a cleft there. After a few seconds, he said, “I believe one of my employees, a man named Roger Mulligan, came into the trailer at one point.” He paused, and dropped his head to look at Duncan. “He wanted to know if he could borrow some money against his next check.”

  “What time was that?” Duncan asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Klein said with a frown. “But I was here in my trailer from about six-thirty in the morning until well after ten. So it would’ve been somewhere during that time. The men usually show up on site around six forty-five. I do recall I had several checks written by the time Roger came in, and I hadn’t yet written his. I do the payroll alphabetically, and it takes me about three hours total, so you can estimate the time based on that.” He smiled and gave Duncan an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do.”

  “That’s fine,” Duncan said. He looked over at me with a questioning expression. I nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. Klein’s voice tasted like corn bread, and that taste hadn’t altered at all yet.

  Klein didn’t miss this exchange between me and Duncan, and while he gave us a curious smile, he made no mention of it.

  Duncan turned his attention back to Klein. “I’m curious, did you give Mr. Mulligan the advance?”

  Klein shook his head. “I don’t like to complicate the payroll process. But I also like to help out my employees, particularly the good, reliable ones, as much as I can. So I loaned him the money he needed and we wrote out an IOU agreement. If he pays me back from his next paycheck, there will be no interest. After that . . .” He shrugged, the conclusion needing no explanation. Given our suspicions about Klein being a money launderer, I couldn’t help but wonder if loan shark should be added to his résumé.

  “How long had you known Mr. Janssen?” Duncan asked.

  “We went to college together,” Klein said. “So I guess it’s been about twenty years.”

  “So, did you know his wife?” Duncan asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Klein said with an ironic chuckle. “She was a real piece of work, that one.”

  “How so?”

  “Let’s just say she had a bit of a problem saying no,” Klein said. “She couldn’t say no to men, she couldn’t say no to booze, and she couldn’t say no to drugs.” He sighed. “It all caught up to her in the end. I heard she died of an overdose.”

  “It would seem so,” Duncan said, garnering an odd look from Klein. “So I take it you know about his daughter also?”

  “Yeah, a sad case, though I suspect her death was all for the best given her . . . um . . . problems.”

  There was a moment of silence, and it was all I could do not to look at Duncan. But I didn’t want to interrupt his flow and I wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

  “Then, I guess you and Mr. Janssen weren’t that close,” Duncan said after the pause. “Because his daughter is not only alive, she was living with him.”

  Klein seemed surprised at the news, more than I would have expected. “Really?” he said after another pregnant pause.

  “Yes, really. We’re hoping to find some next of kin who might want to take the girl in,” Duncan went on. “It appears Mr. Janssen wasn’t very close with his family. They didn’t know he’d ever had a daughter. Do you know if Janssen’s wife had any other family in the area?”

  Klein, still looking disturbed by Duncan’s revelation, simply stared at him.

  “Mr. Klein?”

  Klein’s expression turned angry for the briefest of moments. It was there and gone so fast, I began to wonder if I’d really seen it. Was he simply upset that someone he thought was a close friend had kept something this significant from him? Or was it something else?

  “Um, I heard Hope mention something about a sister once,” Klein said finally. “But I never met her, and I don’t even know her name. I’m not sure they were that close.”

  Duncan moved on. “How long did Mr. Janssen work for you?”

  “I hired him on about a year after college. Sheldon never finished, and he started taking odd jobs here and there. He did a lot of construction work, so it seemed like a good fit.”

  “So you hired him on as a regular worker?”

  “At first, yes. But I promoted him pretty quickly after that. He might not have finished college, but Sheldon was a smart guy. And he’s a good supervisor. He knows . . .” He paused and winced, and then corrected himself. “He knew how to get the most out of people.”

  “Did Mr. Janssen oversee all your work sites and employees?”

  “He did.”

  “Were you aware of anyone he was having trouble with recently?”

  Klein sighed and folded his hands in his lap, taking another look at the ceiling. “There was someone: a worker on one of my other sites downtown. Sheldon mentioned that he thought one of the guys on that job might be a spy of some sort. Said he caught him taking pictures at the site with his phone, and that he was asking a lot of questions of the other guys.”

  “Did he tell you who this worker was?” Duncan asked, and I held my breath waiting for the answer.

  “No,” Klein said, pursing his lips and sighing again. I let out one myself. “He didn’t. He said he wanted to get more evidence first, that he didn’t want to color my attitude toward the guy because he was reliable, a hard worker, and quite talented. Sheldon said he really knew his stuff.”

  “Do you have any idea who this worker was? Even a guess might be helpful.”

  Klein shook his head. “Sorry, but I have no clue. To be honest, I let Sheldon handle most of the hiring and firing stuff. He knew the workers, and I left all that personnel crap to him. It’s not my favorite thing to do.”

  “Okay, then,” Duncan said. “That’s all I have.” He looked over at me. “Do you have anything?”

  We had discussed our strategy in the car on the way over, and Duncan had given me a few questions he wanted me to ask.

  “Mr. Klein, I’ve heard some rumors that your business practices might not be on the up-and-up. Can you clarify that for me?”

  I expected the man to be angry, or confused, or defensive. But all he did was laugh. “Let me guess,” he said when he was done chuckling. “You heard these rumors”—he made air quotes with his fingers when he said the word rumors—“from one of my competitors.”

  “Does it matter where I heard it from?”

  He smiled at me, and there was something slippery and dangerous in that smile. “No, I suppose it doesn’t, because it isn’t true. It’s just wishful thinking on the part of some of my competitors who aren’t as good in business as I am.�
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  “I’ve heard you have certain officials on your bankroll,” I said. My heart was pounding in my chest. Provoking this man was like poking a stick at a mad tiger. “I’ve heard you’ve been known to bribe building inspectors from time to time, encouraging them to look the other way when your work is, shall we say, shoddy?”

  That made the smile disappear. “I think we’re done chatting,” he said in a cold, dark tone. He stood, hands on his hips. “You can leave now.”

  We did so, exiting the trailer and hearing the door slam shut behind us. When we were a safe distance away, Duncan said to me, “Well? What was your take?”

  “Oh, he’s up to no good,” I said. “His voice definitely changed when I asked him about the rumors. When he denied them, his voice went from a sweet corn bread taste to something more like sauerkraut. But the good news is, he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know who the suspect worker was. So I think Mal is in the clear.”

  As we passed a section of the structure draped in plastic, a bitter gust of wind blew down the alleyway, making a large wall flap of that plastic slap in the wind. It furled upward exposing the inside. I saw Klein’s crew, or at least some of them, standing on the other side of that plastic, and it made me stop dead in my tracks.

  One of the men working on Klein’s crew was Tiny Gruber, Cora’s current boyfriend and a member of the Capone Club.

  Chapter 22

  “Duncan, look,” I said in a low voice, nudging his arm and pointing to the exposed interior of the structure. “That’s Tiny.”

  Duncan looked where I’d indicated just in time to see the men inside before the plastic sheeting flapped back down, obscuring our view. “Interesting,” he said. “I knew Tiny worked in construction, but I didn’t know he worked for Klein.”

  “Cora told me he freelances a lot, working for different contractors, sometimes doing some small, odd jobs himself.”

  “I wonder if Mal has ever seen him at his site,” Duncan mused. We walked the rest of the way to the car in silence, but once we were on our way, Duncan said, “We should have a chat with Tiny. We might be able to use him to gain access to Klein’s books.”

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  Before he could answer me, his cell phone rang. “This is Detective Albright.”

  He listened, once again frustrating my efforts to garner who he was talking to and what it was about. When he looked over at me and smiled, I knew it would be good news.

  “Thanks,” he said after listening for a minute or so. “Send the info to my cell phone.” He disconnected the call, set the phone on the seat between us, and said, “I should be getting an address texted to me in a moment. It’s DMV info with an address for a woman I hope is Hope Janssen’s sister. She lives in Waukesha. We don’t have a phone number, though, so we may have to pay her a surprise visit.”

  “That’s great news. How on earth did you find her?”

  “I had some guys research Hope Janssen’s history. They found her maiden name on her marriage certificate to Sheldon. Fortunately, it wasn’t a very common name, and the sister either never married, or if she did she kept her maiden name, or got divorced and took it back. Then I had them pull up all the women with that same last name and look for a hippie-dippie first name.” He looked over at me and winked. “The end result is one Peace Vanderzandt.”

  “Well, the name Peace certainly fits. I hope she’ll be willing to take Felicity. That poor child needs some stability in her life.”

  Duncan’s phone dinged and he said, “Go ahead and look if you want.”

  I picked up the phone, opened the text message, and studied the info. Along with the address and some info on Peace Vanderzandt’s height, weight, eye and hair color, was a picture. She was thirty-three years old with shoulder-length brown hair. According to the other data, her eyes were blue, her height was five-five, and she weighed 185 pounds. My mind adjusted that last number for the typical ten pounds we women tend to fudge on these things and put her at closer to 200 pounds.

  “Duncan, she fits the description of the woman who was seen by the neighbor at Janssen’s house.”

  “DMV listed her bust measurement?” he asked with a healthy dose of skepticism and amusement.

  “No, but the other parameters fit: brown shoulder-length hair, and based on her weight, she’s going to be a little on the hefty side.”

  “Let’s hope she’s a buxom woman,” he said. “Because those parameters would fit half the women in Milwaukee.”

  “Should we go there now?”

  Duncan considered the question and then shook his head. “I want to hit up the party stores Oliver Knutson owned and chat with some of his employees. Once we’ve done that, we can pay a visit to Peace Vanderzandt.”

  “How many stores are we going to?”

  “There are five here in the Milwaukee area, and another ten in other parts of the state. Bobby didn’t see much benefit in visiting the out-of-state stores because they likely didn’t see Knutson all that often. So we’re splitting the local ones. She’s doing three and we have two to visit.”

  I considered correcting him on Roberta’s name again, but decided it was a lost cause.

  We reached the first of our assigned stores a few minutes later. It was located in a strip mall, one of the anchoring stores at the end and the largest store in the group. A large sign over the entrance identified the place as simply “Pizzazzeria,” but a smaller banner beneath it read, “Party and Special Event Planning and Catering.”

  Inside, I felt like I was a kid again. The shelves nearest the door were stocked with all kinds of children’s party favors: hats, noisemakers, colorful gift bags, disposable plates, confetti, crepe paper, banners for everything from bar mitzvahs to birthdays, glow sticks, glitter, and an assortment of small toys. A colorful assortment of balloons, both vinyl and Mylar, floated at the end of each row of shelving. There were two checkout lanes—one on either side of the door—and both were manned. A portly, rosy-cheeked woman with gray-streaked hair at the register to our right greeted us with a big smile and a cheerful voice laced with energetic enthusiasm.

  “Welcome to Knutson’s, your full-service party-planning place! How can I help you fine folks today?”

  Duncan hesitated a second or two, and I suspected he was trying to figure out a polite way of ignoring the woman. I gathered he quickly determined, as did I, that she wasn’t the type of person one could easily dismiss, however, and with a sigh, he pulled his badge and approached her.

  “I’m Detective Albright with the Milwaukee Police Department,” he said. “I’m here in regard to Mr. Knutson’s death and would like to talk with the employees if I may.”

  The woman, who was wearing a name badge that identified her as Midge, cocked her head to one side, her smile faltering ever so slightly. “I thought the detective in charge of Mr. Knutson’s death was a woman,” she said, a hint of challenge in her tone.

  “You are correct,” Duncan said. “Detective Roberta Dillon is the primary on the case. I’m assisting her.”

  “I see,” Midge said. She shifted her gaze—one that I doubted missed much—to me. “And are you a detective also?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “My name is Mackenzie Dalton and I’m a consultant with the police department.”

  “A consultant,” Midge said, her eyes growing wide. “How impressive.” Her tone was mildly mocking, but I shrugged it off, figuring if she was making fun of me now, one could only imagine her reaction if and when she learned just what it was I did in my role as a consultant. “It was my understanding Mr. Knutson died of natural causes,” she said, shifting her attention back to Duncan.

  “We haven’t yet been able to determine a precise cause of death,” Duncan said.

  With this, the woman’s smile faded away, the antithesis of the Cheshire cat. “So, did that woman detective finally decide to listen to me?” she said in a condescending tone.

  “What did you tell her?” Dunca
n asked.

  The front door opened and a woman with three kids entered the store. Midge’s smile reappeared, and her tone turned chipper again, albeit less loudly so. “Why don’t we go back to one of the planning rooms where we can chat privately?” she said. “Follow me.”

  She promptly turned and left her station, marching toward the back of the store. Not once did she look back to see if we were following her; clearly, she assumed we would obey her command. She was right.

  We made our way between shelves toward the back of the store, where the displays gave way to an open area. In the farthest left back corner there was a balloon station, a desk with a wall behind it that featured pinups of the many options available. A young woman stood behind the counter chatting with a male customer as she inflated a balloon from a large helium tank. Something near the ceiling caught my eye, and I stopped and stared for a moment, curious.

  My hesitation didn’t go unnoticed. I heard a loud ahem and tore my attention away from the ceiling. Midge was standing in the doorway of the middle of three glass-walled rooms that ran down the right side of the rear area, each one furnished with a table and four chairs. Each room had pictures on the wall that displayed a variety of party venues, and there were several large notebooks on the tables, presumably filled with more pictures and samples of items for customers to peruse. The first room was occupied by a woman wearing a faux fur coat and hat. A designer handbag sat on the floor beside her chair. Across the table from her was a young man in a suit and tie who was pointing to an anniversary-themed display in an open notebook he was holding up for her.

  “Mack?” Duncan said. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  He accepted my answer for the time being, though I could tell from the look on his face that he was going to grill me later. He headed for the open door next to Midge, and I followed. Duncan ignored the seats, opting to stand behind the farthest one. I took a stance behind the closer one, and we waited as Midge closed the door and walked around the table to the other side. Apparently taking her cue from us, she, too, remained standing.