Alvie waited a minute before braving the left turn. It was safe to turn her lights off on this rural road. In the distance, she saw the sergeant turn again. Alvie coasted her car to a stop. She could watch from where she was. The garage door went up and the sergeant drove in. It must be her home. Lights came on inside a minute later. It was her home. Did she live alone? That didn’t matter, at least not yet. She’d be back another time.
15
I wanted one more day off. My normal rotation was seven on, three off, five on, two off, six on, three off, then my favorite, six on, four off. I loved my job, but I loved my days off almost as much.
On my way in to work I replayed my time with Nick on Tuesday night and with Nick and Faith the night before. His kisses were the first thing I thought of that morning. When I told Sara about my attraction for Nick, and my confusion because of it, she interrogated me relentlessly: “Describe him in detail,” “What do you like most about him so far?” “How old is he?” “Is he a good kisser?” and on and on.
What I knew was, Nicholas Bradshaw was a devoted father, a successful administrator, a wonderful date, and a great cook. His daughter Faith was a sweetheart, kind and well-mannered, like an adult in a little body. My opinion of Bradshaw had changed considerably since the night we’d met in the hospital. Was that only ten days before?
My work shift started at two-thirty. It was ten after two when I walked into the muster room for my briefing from the day sergeant.
“Nobody’s seen him. He had an important arraignment at one thirty. He didn’t come back from lunch, or even call to say he’d be late. It’s not like him. He is the consummate professional and insists on being prompt.” It was an assistant county attorney, Julie Grimes, talking to Sergeant Chip Roth. She was about my age, very smart, and a hard worker. I had testified for many of her cases the past two years.
They both glanced my way when I walked through the door. I laid my briefcase on the table and listened.
“Do you know where he went for lunch?” Roth asked.
“No. I think he usually brings his lunch, but he always goes out somewhere to eat it. He says it’s his time to ‘meditate and commune with nature.’ He can be an odd duck sometimes.” Julie smiled and looked at me.
“Who are you talking about?” I asked.
Julie’s face turned serious. “Arthur . . . Franz.”
Consummate professional was an apt way to describe the county attorney. He ran his office with an efficiency everyone admired and many envied. Before I appeared in court, Franz always ensured I was thoroughly briefed and well-prepared. He had little time for the courtroom dramatics of some of the defense attorneys and didn’t allow any from his assistant county attorneys.
On a personal level, Franz was a quiet man, soft-spoken, and small in stature. His manner might not call attention to himself, but his appearance certainly did. He shaved his head, sported a large mustache that seemed to cover half his face, and dressed with a dramatic flair. One day he’d wear a gray pinstripe suit with a pink and purple tie, and the next it would be a fine leather sports coat with a silk shirt and ascot. Arthur Franz had an extensive wardrobe.
“Did he go to lunch alone?” Roth asked.
“As far as I know. I never hear him make plans with anyone, or see him leave with anyone, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t, I guess,” Julie said.
“Does he have a cell phone?” I asked.
“Yes, we tried calling many times, but it goes to voicemail after four rings. The judge had to order a continuance on the arraignment. The other attorneys and I aren’t sure what to do. They sent me down here to ask you guys.” Julie’s eyes shot back and forth between Roth and me.
“No one in your office knows where he went?” Roth asked.
“No. But Ray Collinwood walked out of the courthouse behind him. He said Arthur got in his car and drove away.” Collinwood was another assistant county attorney.
“I’ll talk to Ray,” I told Roth. “I know you’re worried, Julie, but I’m sure Arthur has a good reason for being late.”
I sensed she wanted to believe me, but didn’t. Something was wrong, and we all knew it.
Sergeant Roth gave me a rundown of the day shift. Mostly routine, except for a domestic assault, which wasn’t routine on a weekday morning.
“And here are two warrants they want you to serve, if possible. Some people are never home.”
I stuck them in my briefcase and gathered my things. Roth was in a hurry to get home. He was newly married to a teacher who had the summer off and spent as much time as possible with her.
I found Ray Collinwood in his office. Ray reminded me of Santa Claus without the beard—round, red-faced, white-haired, and usually jolly. He was on the phone, but ended the call shortly after waving me in.
“I’m here about Arthur Franz,” I said.
“Any word?” he said, not even a little jolly.
“Not yet. I understand you saw him leave for lunch.” I sat down and pulled out my memo pad.
Collinwood smoothed his tie over his ample belly. “That’s right. He took his car.”
“Did you see which way he went?”
“I wasn’t paying much attention. Let me think.” He closed his eyes. “I was parked on First Avenue, on the street. He drove past me and had his right turn signal on. I didn’t actually see him turn, you know, because the hill is there.”
“You mean the hill between First Avenue and County Road Thirty-five?” I asked.
Ray extended his arms on his desk and folded his hands. “That’s right.”
“So, your impression is, Arthur was going to take a right on Thirty-five, but you didn’t see him do it?”
“That’s right.”
“I wonder where he’d be going? Not much out there except farms, lakes, and the two or three small housing developments. He doesn’t live there,” I said.
Ray shook his head in agreement. “No, he still has his house in Plymouth.”
“Julie said he used his lunch hour to ‘meditate and commune with nature.’”
“That’s what he would say after a difficult morning. ‘I’ll feel better after I meditate and commune with nature for a while.’ It got to be kind of a joke around the office. We wondered if ‘nature’ is the name of someone he’s seeing—he’s pretty secretive about his personal life.” His grin brought a twinkle to his eyes.
I smiled, then shook my head to dismiss the joke as I handed him my card. “Give me a call if you think of anything else, something he may have said along the way about where he went or what he did.”
“Sure, Corky. I can’t imagine him just running away without an explanation. He is so ultimately responsible, always.” His phone rang, so he gave me a brief wave as he lifted the receiver.
I was able to serve the warrant on Jessica Jean Christy for issuance of worthless checks. When she opened the door of her apartment, I saw a small pile of designer clothes with the price tags still on lying on her couch, evidence she had not overcome her addiction. I took her into custody and drove her to the county jail to be booked. It wasn’t my first encounter with Jessica. She had a problem with compulsive shopping and was caught in a vicious circle of writing bad checks, getting arrested, paying fines, and serving time. Like anyone with an addiction, she needed treatment to get at the core of her problem.
I was about to stop a vehicle for speeding and recklessly passing a semi-truck when I got paged. “Winnebago County, Six oh eight.”
“Six oh eight, County, go ahead.”
“Sergeant, phone Communications, ASAP.” I glanced at my watch: Five twenty.
“Ten-four.” I found my phone and punched in the two-digit code. “Corky here.” I continued to follow Mr. Reckless.
“Sergeant.” It was Jerry. “Just got a call from a citizen, Jake Morrow. He’s on the east side of Bebee Lake. He found a man dead in his car there. License comes back to Arthur Franz.”
I braked and whipped my squad around to head south and east. “He�
��s sure he’s dead?”
“What he said was, ‘I just found a guy that killed himself.’ He’s pretty upset; my partner has him on the line.”
“Ten-four. Tell him I’m on my way and will be there in a few minutes. Have you called the sheriff?”
“My next call,” Jerry said.
“Copy that. I’m about five miles out. Oh, Jerry, radio the One twenty-six squad to keep watch for a red Corvette, Minnesota plate, Henry-Robert-six-Edward-eight-one, heading west on Fifty-five from Oak Lea. He’s speeding and did a reckless pass.”
“Ten-four.”
There was no reason to go code three—red lights and sirens—but I drove very, very fast. My heart pounded from the adrenaline release. I knew how unnerving it was to be alone with a deceased person. There was not a thing you could do, but you felt a responsibility to stay with the body until it was safely taken away. One of those unwritten rules no one is taught, but people somehow do instinctively, I had learned in my years with the department.
I turned south on Beacon, a gravel road a mile east of the one where I lived. Bebee Lake was small and pristine with good fishing. Most of the lakeshore was surrounded by privately owned farmland. When Malcolm Johnson had retired from farming some years back, he deeded a road and lake frontage for public access. The road to the lake was little more than a tractor trail through a field of corn. I steered my squad car down the path.
A stocky man about forty was pacing back and forth by his late model Ford pickup truck. A connected trailer held his fishing boat. He saw me coming and walked up to the front of my car, forcing me to stop so I didn’t hit him. His face was tight and pasty white, a stark contrast to the tanned hand he used to wipe the sweat from his brow.
“Thank God. How can you do something like this to yourself in such a beautiful spot?” He asked a rhetorical question I couldn’t answer.
I extended my hand. “You’re Jake Morrow?” He nodded and shook my hand. “I’m Sergeant Aleckson, Winnebago County.” He followed me to the beige Taurus parked facing the lake.
Clearly, the death was not an accident. One end of a clothes dryer hose was attached to the vehicle’s exhaust pipe, and the other end was secured in the front passenger side window. The window was open just enough to accommodate the hose. A pillow was stuffed in the rest of the opening, banning unwanted, life-giving oxygen. I was careful not to disturb the immediate area around the vehicle.
The car was not running. Apparently the engine had run out of gas. I glanced in the front windshield, then in the driver’s window. My stomach rose in my throat. I swallowed a few times to erase the bitter taste, but it didn’t go away. I stared at the body of Arthur Franz, his head back, mouth open, arms dropped on the car seat.
Arthur’s face was bright red, the telltale sign of carbon monoxide poisoning. His death wasn’t natural, but at least it was painless. I stared for long moments, trying to believe what I was looking at. Arthur was successful, a prominent county attorney, and a man I personally respected, both in and out of the courtroom. What on earth had gone so wrong?
I spoke into my radio. “Six oh eight, Winnebago County.”
“Go ahead.”
“Send Detective Dawes and Doctor Melberg to my location.” Dr. Gordon Melberg was the county coroner.
“Ten-four, at seventeen forty-six.”
I looked at my ashen companion, close by my side, then reached over and patted his forearm. “I know this is very upsetting, but I need to ask you a few questions. How are you doing? Okay?”
Morrow nodded, looking anything but. I walked him over to my squad car, and we leaned against the front hood. I withdrew the notebook and pen from my breast pocket. Morrow was visibly tense, his hands clenched into tight fists.
“It looks like you were planning to do some fishing. Do you come here often?” I asked, hoping he’d relax a little.
“Usually once a week, or so. The lake is full of northerns. A lot of people don’t like ’em ’cause the Y-bones are hard to remove, but I pickle ’em. We love pickled pike, better than herring.”
I nodded then switched to the information I needed for my report: name, date of birth, address, phone numbers. “What time did you get here today?”
Morrow looked at his watch for an answer. “I’m trying to think. Okay, I left home at five o’clock. I must have gotten here about five fifteen.”
“You pulled in here and then what?”
“Okay, I saw that car sitting there when I pulled in. I saw someone inside, and didn’t think much of it. I mean, not too many people use this lake, a shame, but I guess that’s why the pike get so big.” He stretched his hands apart as an indication of how big they grew in the lake.
He pointed to the back of the Taurus. “Anyway, I drove my truck behind the car there and started to back my trailer to the lake to unload my boat. When I got next to the car, I looked over and saw the guy sitting there, red as a beet, not moving. That’s when I noticed the dryer hose in the passenger window. It was kind of hidden by the underbrush there.” He pointed again and sucked in a deep breath.
“I jumped out of my truck, ran over and got a closer look. I could see he was dead and called nine-one-one right away. For once, I was glad my wife makes me carry a cell phone when I go fishing.” He thought for a moment. “You got here a little while later.”
“Did you touch anything, move anything?”
“No, I almost opened the car door, but the nine-one-one officer said not to touch anything when I said it looked like he had been dead for a while—with his tongue hanging out like that and everything.” Morrow frowned at the awful memory.
“Three forty, Six oh eight.” It was Smoke.
“Go ahead, Three forty.”
“I’ll be there in five.”
“Copy that.” My cell phone rang. “Sergeant Aleckson.”
“Sergeant, it’s Communications. Sheriff Twardy should be pulling in any minute, and the coroner is on his way back from a meeting in Minneapolis. His ETA is eighteen hundred.”
“Thanks, Robin.” As I hung up I heard the sound of tires crushing gravel on the narrow road. Sheriff Twardy. He hopped out of his car with the ease of a much younger man and jogged over to the beige Taurus.
“I’d hoped it wasn’t Franz,” the sheriff said, peering in the window. “You the one who found him?” he directed at Morrow.
Morrow nodded.
“Helluva thing.” The sheriff kicked at a small rock in the gravel, then looked at me. “Talk to Dawes yet? He’s the one on call.” He must not have heard him on the radio.
“Yes, sir. He’ll be here anytime now. I’ve already interviewed Mister Morrow, but we’ll see if the detective needs any more info.”
The sheriff nodded and walked around the Taurus, peering in the windows.
Morrow had had more than enough of Arthur Franz’s death scene and wandered down to the lake. He stood on the shoreline, staring at the gentle ripples on the otherwise smooth-as-glass surface of the water. I wondered if the magic of that fishing spot was gone for him forever, replaced by his shocking, tragic discovery.
“Take any pictures?” Sheriff Twardy asked.
“Not yet, sir. I thought I’d wait on Smoke.”
The sheriff nodded his okay.
We heard a vehicle, and within seconds Smoke’s Crown Victoria drove into the access. His car was barely in park before he had joined us by the Taurus.
“Damn,” was all he said when he saw Franz. He screwed up his face in disgust then nodded in Morrow’s direction. “You interview him yet?”
“I did.” I followed Smoke to the shoreline.
“Good. I’ll introduce myself and give him my card in case he thinks of anything else,” Smoke said.
He shook hands with Morrow and soon had him on his way home with instructions not to talk to the press, or the general public, until the sheriff issued a press release. He told the fisherman to be sure to call, however, any time if he needed help or wanted to talk to one of us.
&nbs
p; “Where’s your camera?” Smoke asked me.
“In my car. I’ll get it.” We worked together for some minutes. Smoke took the pictures and I noted what each one was.
“Does this make any sense to either of you?” the sheriff asked.
Both Smoke and I shook our heads.
Smoke rubbed the back of his neck. “Something definitely went wrong, that’s for sure. We’ll talk to his friends, family, co-workers. I see a suicide note next to him, but we’ll preserve the scene until Melberg gets here. My biggest question right now is, why go to all this trouble, the dryer hose, pillow? Wouldn’t it be easier to drive in his garage, close the door, and leave the car running?” Smoke asked.
“Maybe he didn’t want his family, or housemate, to find him,” I offered.
“As far as I know, he lived alone. You know different?” the sheriff asked.
I shrugged, shaking my head. “No, just speculating. I don’t think anyone in Winnebago County knows much about his personal life, from what I can gather. I talked to Julie Grimes who made the initial missing report, and Ray Collinwood, who saw Franz leave for lunch. Both of them told me no one knew where he went for lunch, except Arthur’s lunch hour was his time to ‘meditate and commune with nature.’ The joke around the office was that ‘nature’ was a person.”
“Male or female?” Smoke said.
“I think that’s one of the burning questions. Was Franz straight or gay?” I asked.
“Did he live alone, or with someone?” Smoke added. “I’ll phone his home later to see if anyone is there. If not, I’ll go to Personnel, get a court order if need be to look at his file. We’ll need contact information. How can we know so little about a man who’s been with the county for what, ten, eleven years?”
“I can’t tell you the number of times we had coffee together, either in his office or mine. He didn’t say much about his personal life, except what restaurants he liked or where he traveled to. That’s about it. He mainly talked about the cases his office was working on,” the sheriff said.
Murder in Winnebago County Page 9