Murder One

by Allen Kent

  “Galen was pretty nervous about it. I think he’s worried that one of you did it.”

  His eyes narrowed. He reached out a tethered hand and tipped ice chips into his mouth from a plastic cup, sucking at them for a few moments before answering. “He told you that? I don’t think so. Galen wouldn’t turn on us like that. He believed Verl when he came back from the house.”

  Joseph stepped closer to the bed. “When Verl came back from Nettie’s house?” LJ looked at her quickly, then back to me. “We was talkin’ by phone, me and Galen. He decided we should tell her, but didn’t want to come to town yet. Verl got along with the old woman better than I did. She’s always hated my guts. Wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire.” He gulped some more ice, sucked at it, then added, “She always thought I steered Galen wrong. Been a bad influence on him. So Verl went over.”

  “And she didn’t like what she heard, so he killed her,” Joseph finished for him.

  “You stay out of this, bitch,” he snarled without looking at her. “I’ll be havin’ my lawyer come talk to you. Verl came back and said he’d found her dead. Said the place smelled like hell, and he stuck his head in to see what was goin’ on. She was dead in her chair.”

  Joseph started to say something and I gave her arm a quieting squeeze. “We checked for prints in the room and didn’t find Verl’s, LJ. Why would he have been worried about leaving prints if he was just going to talk to her?”

  LJ snorted painfully. “Sometimes you law people can be such dumb asses. We were cutting logs when Galen called to say he thought we’d better tell her. Verl wears them leather gloves like a second skin when he’s workin,. Wouldn’t have taken them off.”

  I couldn’t restrain Joseph. “Very convenient,” she muttered. “You’re poaching her trees, Verl goes to tell her, and comes back to say he found her dead. And you didn’t let anybody know?”

  “We called Galen,” LJ rasped. “Told him. Then we all decided we’d be better off to let someone else find her. Otherwise, you’d be thinkin’ just what you’re thinkin’.”

  The nurse stepped into the room, holding up her wrist to show an Apple watch. “Time,” she said. “In fact, I’ve given you more than I should. You need to let Mr. Greaves get some rest.”

  I needed time to think on what he’d just told us anyway, so her timing was good. I just had one final question. “Where’s Verl,” I asked as the nurse put her hand on my elbow to turn me toward the door. “We need to talk to him about this.”

  “No idea,” he croaked after us. “If he wants to talk to you, he’ll come find you.”

  As we exited into the hall, I asked the nurse what I had intended to when we first came up, but she’d gotten away too quickly. “Where’s the security for this man? He turned a weapon on a police officer and has charges against him.”

  She gave me one of those “I put up with you people because I have to” frowns. “You saw the man. He couldn’t walk to the nursing station without help. When he becomes ambulatory, we’ll have someone watch him. And by the way,” she said, deciding to be more helpful. “I heard your last question. Someone’s been calling his room phone to check on him two or three times a day. A man. You might check with our admin downstairs for the incoming number.”

  I gave her a “thank you” nod and followed Joseph into the elevator.

  “Who’s calling?” she wondered. “Galen or Verl?”

  “I’d put my money on Verl. I think Galen wants to keep what distance he can from his old pal right now.”

  “Verl calling to see if he’s getting better? Or hoping he isn’t?”

  “Or maybe to find out if anyone’s come to talk to him. See what he’d said.”

  Joseph nodded. “If it’s a cell phone, it may show us where he is. Do you think he killed her?”

  “One thing troubles me,” I wondered aloud as the elevator door slid open on the main floor. “Telling LJ that the place smelled like hell when he came back seems like a strange thing to say if he killed her while he was there. I’d think he’d just say he found her dead. He couldn’t be sure LJ might want to go back over there or call it into my office.”

  “Or LJ could be lying about the whole thing,” she suggested.

  He could, I thought, but the old man had been slurring what he said just enough to sound half-sedated. I doubted he was thinking clearly enough to lie.

  “Let’s see if we can get that phone number. I’ll call Grace and ask her to trace the location of the calls while we talk to Brenda. I don’t see our emergency alert lady as being in the clear yet.”

  Joseph led me to the board that listed hospital offices. “That’s the problem,” she muttered. “I don’t think anybody’s in the clear yet.”

  29

  Hospitals are obsessive about records of any kind, even if they don’t seem at all related to health issues. The administrative assistant called her boss who said she would at least look up the calls to LJ’s room and have an incoming number available to us if we could get a subpoena. Joseph called the office of her judge friend and we headed up toward Kearney to the Troop D headquarters.

  Brenda Castoe paced the floor of the reception area like a caged lioness, dressed as she always was in an ankle-length dress and sensible shoes. She showed none of the chipper helpfulness we had seen when she first met us at the Grillhouse.

  “I hope this isn’t going to become a regular thing,” she complained as we entered the building. “I had to cancel an afternoon appointment that I’ve now had to slide for another two weeks.”

  We had agreed that Joseph would be lead on this interview. She had called ahead to schedule a room and the receptionist handed her a note as we entered.

  “We think we’re getting close to wrapping this case up,” she said to Brenda, leading us into the back of the building to a small conference room. “You offered to help in any way you can, and there are a few things you can clear up for us.” Joseph pulled out the chair nearest the door, invited Brenda to sit, and walked around the table to sit opposite her. I took a seat at the end of the table, leaving the conversation to the women.

  Brenda sat with hands folded primly in front of her, chin lifted and eyes set on Joseph. “Am I still a suspect in this case?” she demanded.

  “We are gradually eliminating suspects,” Joseph said evenly. “That’s why we wanted to meet with you this afternoon. We have some new information we think you can clarify for us.” Brenda’s jaw clenched resolutely, but she blinked nervously across at her interrogator. She said nothing about doing all she could to help.

  “When we met last,” Joseph began, “we informed you that you have been named in Nettie Suskey’s will as her sole heir. You seemed surprised at that, and insisted you had no idea she was leaving what she had to you.”

  “I didn’t,” Brenda insisted.

  Joseph’s expression remained impassive. “We have been told since, by a very credible source, that Nettie had informed you of her intentions to make you her heir.”

  The woman started to protest, paused in what appeared to be genuine confusion, then slumped slightly forward. “I didn’t think she was being serious,” she whispered into the table. “Quite a long time ago, maybe two years, she told me I was about the only person who seemed to care at all about her. She said she might just have to leave everything she had to me.”

  “And you didn’t believe she meant it?” Joseph pressed.

  Brenda lifted her chin and looked glumly across at Joseph. “What was there to believe? The woman had nothing. At the time she was having one of her bouts of depression. I just thought she was trying to find some way to thank me for being kind. I didn’t see it as a serious thing.”

  “So you wouldn’t have taken it any more seriously if she later told you she was leaving what she had to someone else?”

  Brenda smiled thinly. “I would have thought the same thing. That there was nothing to give away, and she was just having another depression episode. They were pretty regular.”

  “
And you never seriously wondered how the woman supported herself? When we talked last, you said you knew she had some source of income, but chose not to ask about it.”

  “I also told you,” the woman said indignantly, “that our company policies are very clear about avoiding financial discussions with our clients. We want there to be no suggestion that we are doing anything to take advantage of them.”

  “And we told you during our last meeting that Nettie had a small fortune in property. You must have known that.”

  Brenda’s indignation grew. “I can see that I’m still under suspicion. I think it may not be wise for me to say more about my work with Nettie without talking to my company people and maybe getting legal advice.”

  “Do you need legal advice, Brenda?” Joseph asked.

  “I need to quit being hauled in every week to be harassed by you people.” Her voice was now razor-sharp. “And if you’re through with this little interrogation, I have things to do.” She stood abruptly and glared across at Joseph. “But I will tell you one thing. I had no idea how much property Nettie Suskey had before you told me. As far as I knew, she lived on a little patch of land down in that valley, and those good-for-nothing men behind her she was always complaining about owned right up to the back of her trailer. Now. Can I go?”

  Joseph looked over at me and I nodded. “Yes, you can go,” Joseph said. “But as we told you before, stay around town until this is all resolved.”

  “Why would I go anywhere else?” Brenda snapped back at her and tromped out of the office, her sensible shoes clicking hard against the tile floor as she left the building.

  We had our moment of silence. “Like I said before,” Joseph said finally, “she’s either telling us the truth or is a very talented actress. Which way do you lean?”

  I pushed up out of the chair and stood with hands flat against the tabletop. “Sometimes I feel like a real asshole having to pressure people like that. You did it well. Is she lying? I hope not. She seems like one of the more decent people involved in this whole mess.”

  “Seemingly decent people do terrible things sometimes,” Joseph reminded me. “The Pogues seem decent. I’d hate that Angela to be involved. We’d better be hoping for the Greaves if we don’t want decent.” Her phone rattled against the tabletop. She answered, listened in silence, then thanked the caller.

  “Our judge got a subpoena delivered right to the hospital,” she announced. “They not only got the incoming number from their phone service but managed to get a point of origin. All the calls came through a tower in Muskogee, Oklahoma.”

  Joseph insisted that her need to stay in Springfield for a few days and get caught up on other work had nothing to do with not wishing to spend another night in close proximity to yours truly.

  “See if you can track down Verl,” she said as she pushed open the door of her own office at Troop D headquarters. “And call when we have something that needs both of our attention.”

  “I’ll need someone to go to Muskogee with me,” I protested. “If I find Verl, I don’t want to try to deal with him by myself.”

  Joseph looked back with a wry grin. “Take that chief deputy along. She’s been angling for more of your time.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Call me when you have something,” and disappeared into her office.

  I called Grace from the parking lot and told her about Muskogee.

  “No surprise here” she said. “I managed to get into Galen Suskey’s phone and two of the most recent calls were to a motel in Muskogee. The America’s Best Value Inn.”

  “The password Galen gave us was right?”

  Grace chuckled. “He didn’t strike me as a guy who was very tech savvy, or one who wanted to try to remember a complicated password. Did you look at what he wrote down? 4567. And that was it.”

  “Have you called the motel?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first. If Verl’s there, I don’t want to do anything to spook him.”

  “Good thinking. Anything else on the phone that helps?”

  “Lots of calls to and from a phone I’d guess is LJ’s. One of them early the morning you found Nettie. Nothing recently.”

  “Before we found her?”

  “Yeah. More than an hour before.”

  I humphed into the phone. “That pretty well jives with the story we got from the old man this morning. He said Verl went over to tell Nettie her brother had given them permission to cut timber and found her dead. Went back, and LJ called Galen. They decided they’d better stay quiet about it and let someone else find the body.”

  “Or he went over to see if anyone had discovered it yet,” Grace suggested. “They may have called Galen to tell him to stay away a little longer.”

  I started up the Explorer and headed her way. “Always that possibility,” I agreed. “We need to talk to Verl. Call the Muskogee police and ask them to send someone over to the Best Value Inn. Get them his mug shot. If he’s there, have them pick him up and hold him ‘til we get there on a charge of attempted murder.” I paused, then added, “Ask them to check his room and pickup for a Marlin 336.”

  “You headed directly over there?”

  “No. I’m coming by to get you. Tell Marti to find Rocky and Frankie and have them where she can get in touch with them if calls come in.”

  “The state investigator isn’t free to go along on this one?” Grace asked, unable to completely hide the sarcasm.

  “I want you with me. This is our case, and I think Verl is key to it in some way.”

  Her tone softened. “I’ll get the notice to the Muskogee PD. How far out are you?”

  “Just leaving Springfield. I’ll see you in about an hour-thirty.”

  “You want to drive over there tonight? That’s at least three hours.”

  “Yes. Have Marti find us a place to stay. If they locate our man, I want to be right there.”

  “I’ll go pick up a change of clothes. I guess you’ll need to stop.”

  “No. I keep a change with me.”

  “Oh, yes. I guess you do,” The edge was back in her voice.

  30

  We dropped down into Arkansas and crossed into Oklahoma on 412 through Siloam Springs. The GPS showed it would be faster to take I-44, but that meant going north before heading west, and that didn’t seem right to me. I’d just as soon be heading in the direction we’re supposed to be going, even if it takes a little longer.

  We didn’t get out of Crayton until almost 8:00. Grace had picked up a couple of sub sandwiches at Casey’s on the highway and we both worked on an Italian combo while I drove. It gave us the catch-up time she said she’d been going without.

  The rural roads were completely dark by the time we got into Arkansas, giving the inside of the patrol car a kind of intimacy that brought Grace closer than any time we’d spent together. It made both of us a little uneasy. We ate without talking until most of my sandwich was gone. I was fishing in the Casey’s bag for an apple fritter when she broke the silence.

  “Galen was in Bartlesville with this Calvin Latty until the day before he showed up at the office. He had some pension issue he was straightening out and didn’t leave until late the afternoon before he arrived in town. I talked to Latty and the union office people. They said he was there most of the day we know Nettie was killed. This Calvin says he can account for Suskey’s time when he wasn’t at the union shop. I think we can pretty safely say he wasn’t our killer.”

  “Did you run anything on Calvin Latty?”

  “I did. No criminal record and no prints under that name. The union people said he was one of their retired members.”

  I gave her the details of our conversation with LJ and my impression of Brenda Castoe’s story.

  She wrapped an unfinished half of her sandwich and slipped it back into the store bag, finishing off the last of her drink. “It sounds like you believe both,” she said, reaching back over the seat to stow the sack.

  “Talking to villagers in Iraq, I think
I developed a pretty good sense for who was telling me the truth and who was setting me up or covering their ass,” I said. “LJ seemed too drugged up to keep a lie straight. Brenda was more angry than scared.”

  “So what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I could be completely wrong. But both stories will hold up well unless someone gives us better information than we have now.”

  “And you’re hoping to get that from Verl.”

  “Some of it. And what are you thinking?” I glanced over to try to measure her reaction. The glow from the dash lit her face in profile against the window and I couldn’t escape the thought that she truly was a remarkably pretty woman. Deciding Mara Joseph was worth knowing better had definitely loosened the cloak of grief and self-pity I’d been wrapped in for the past two years, a cloak that had been covering Grace as much as me. But I work with Grace, I was reminding myself when she turned toward me, holding my eyes long enough that I suspected she knew what I was thinking.

  “I’ve been keeping a suspect board in the office with the people who seem possibilities. Verl and LJ. Galen Suskey and Brenda Castoe. David Pogue in Springdale and possibly his daughter, though from what you told me, she seems unlikely.”

  “Old Mr. Pogue in Mazatlán,” I added. “We need to keep him on the list for now. And his security man, Miguel.”

  She shook her head in the shadows of the car. “One other bit of information I forgot to relay to you in all of our not keeping each other informed. I checked with ICE on Pogue Senior. He hasn’t been back in the country since he moved to Mexico. David and Angela go to see him about once a year but not since well before Nettie died. He never comes back to the States.”

  “So not old Mr. Pogue. That gives us six suspects or someone who’s not even on our radar. A random robbery by the owner of the unidentified prints? Someone in the county who somehow got wind Nettie had a hidden fortune or money in the trailer?”