Poplar Falls

by Arseneault, Pierre C;

  Entering the office, Sadie gestured for the detectives to sit in chairs normally for the parents of her kids. A curious little girl pressed her face against the glass of the large office window that overlooked the daycare, watching Sadie and the detectives. Sadie smiled and waved to the little girl as she closed the blind before sitting at her desk.

  “What can I help you with?” Sadie Cross inquired while smiling.

  “We were wondering how you knew Charlie Baker,” Dodge stated.

  “Who?” asked Sadie, her smile vanishing.

  “Charlie Baker.” Dodge laid a picture of a clearly upset Sadie on the desk. In the picture, Sadie was standing behind the yellow police tape.

  “Yeah, I was fucking him,” Sadie replied in a surprisingly blunt tone of voice, which caught Dodge by surprise, while Tilley’s expression didn’t change. She was no longer the demure, soft-spoken woman they had met when they arrived.

  “But can you blame me?” Sadie blurted as she opened a desk drawer and pulled out a giant, half-eaten chocolate bar. She peeled back the foil and took a large bite of what looked and smelled like dark chocolate. Her face flushed, she chewed while she turned her attention to the pictures on her wall. “Sunshine and fucking Rainbows, my ass!” she stated as she chewed. “It’s all over town, and all over fucking Facebook, that I was screwing Charlie.” Sadie took a smaller bite of chocolate this time as she continued what was becoming a rant. “You should see the way the fathers look at me now. And the mothers… holy cats! The judgemental looks I get from most of them. A few of them are jealous and pissed that it was me and not them. GOD!”

  “Does your husband know?” Dodge asked calmly as he took notes.

  “Probably,” Sadie replied as she took another small bite of chocolate before offering some to Tilley, who gently refused. “It’s dark chocolate. It’s good for you.” Sadie smiled weakly before wrapping the rest of the chocolate in the foil and putting it back in the drawer.

  “Vernon hasn’t made love to me in four years. FOUR YEARS!” Sadie said loudly. “Being married to Vernon is like always being hungry for steak but not being able to eat it. So I had a fucking hamburger instead. A BIG fat juicy one at that!”

  “Where were you the morning of…” Dodge started before Sadie cut him off.

  “I sure as HELL didn’t kill Charlie, if that’s what you’re implying. Hell NO, best lay I ever had, and I for one am gonna miss that huge dick of his.”

  “Could your husband have maybe…”

  “Vernon?” Sadie blurted with a sharp laugh. “Vernon was jealous all right, but not because another man was fucking his wife. Hell NO! He’d heard rumours of how big Charlie was. How good he was. Vernon probably wanted to fuck Charlie himself. Hell, I wish he’d just fucking come out already. GOD! It would make leaving him so much easier.”

  Tilley shot a glance at Dodge, giving him a look that he knew well. That look meant, ‘Let’s wrap this up and get out of here’. And Dodge, feeling satisfied with what he had heard so far, decided this might be a good idea. They would most likely talk to Sadie again, but best to come back later. Let her stew on the conversation for a bit and calm down some.

  Dodge dug out a business card and extended it towards Sadie as he spoke. “Well, thank you for taking the time to talk to us,” he stated.

  “Vernon doesn’t only make sausages—he loves them, too, you know. I bet that bitch Emma knows who killed my Charlie.” A tear ran down Sadie’s cheek as she wiped it away quickly. “Fucking, nosy Emma O’Brien and her gossipy old crows.” Sadie took out her chocolate, took a bite, and put it away again.

  “Are we done here?” she asked while she chewed. “I’ve gotta get back to the kids before those little lovable booger-snots eat my staff alive.”

  As the detectives were leaving, Dodge couldn’t help but marvel at the amazing transformation of the woman named Sadie Cross. Now she was the demure little woman again, smiling and laughing with the children—their happy little faces glowing at the sound of the daycare owner’s laughter. All was well again between Thomas and the little girl in the pigtails. The toy truck was gone now and they were playing on a giant plastic kitchenette. Thomas still had a large red mark from the toy truck on his face, but he didn’t seem to care as he helped his little friend take something from the fake oven.

  13

  “I was looking at Charlie’s financial records,” Tilley stated as she sat at her desk working on her computer. “I think I know what brought Charlie Baker to Poplar Falls.”

  “Do tell,” Dodge replied as he sat at his own desk with a fresh cup of coffee.

  “Two days after he moved here, he paid a pretty hefty sum to the Magnolia Wellness and Rehabilitation Centre.”

  “Interesting,” Dodge replied.

  “I’ll say,” Tilley replied. “It actually explains why he had an apartment in town, too. I mean, living on the grounds is very expensive. So taking a small apartment in town would be a better idea.”

  “True,” Dodge replied. “Plus, he’d have more privacy, too, considering his lifestyle choices.”

  “Odd part is the payments stopped about three months ago.”

  “Well maybe he was cured? No?”

  “He wasn’t there for drugs or alcohol,” Tilley said as she paused and checked her own coffee cup. “If he was we’d have found something. The place was clean of that. I mean, a couple of bottles of wine don’t constitute alcoholism.”

  “Meaning?” Dodge asked.

  “Meaning he had to be there for sexual addiction,” Tilley replied. “That’s what I’m betting on.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s a bit obvious, considering the circumstances,” Dodge replied.

  “True,” Tilley replied as she proceeded to get herself more coffee.

  Soon after they discovered a large refund of money from the Wellness Centre, and the detectives spent the next half hour discussing possible reasons for such a credit and planned to inquire about it. Tilley mentioned a visit to the owners of the Wellness Centre, as she knew them well. Dodge never thought to inquire who they were, but would know soon enough.

  14

  “You wanted to see us,” Dodge said as he and Tilley entered Lemkie’s lab.

  “Ah, yes,” Lemkie replied as he got up from his computer and dug out three different evidence bags from a white storage box and placed them on a table between himself and the detectives. Each sealed evidence bag contained a prescription pill bottle, each with a different label. One bottle was empty, another had a small number of blue pills, while the other contained a little over half a bottle.

  “Viagra?” Dodge asked.

  “Of course,” Lemkie replied. “But that’s not the interesting part.”

  Tilley picked up the first bag with the empty bottle and turned it over to read the barely legible moisture-damaged label.

  “Who’s Albert Johnson?” Tilley asked as she set the bagged pill bottle down and picked up another.

  “From everything I’ve found so far, I assume he was a client of the Rehab Clinic,” Lemkie replied.

  “He’s from Stonevalley,” Dodge said. Lemkie and Tilley met this statement with puzzled looks. “I met him about a month ago,” Dodge added. “I gave him a warning and sent him on his way.”

  “For?” Tilley inquired.

  “Public nudity,” Dodge replied. “I was at Alice’s Dairy Spot out on Hazelnut Drive and some lady told me she had seen some guy, half-naked, just up the road from the dairy bar. Looked like he was playing with himself or something, so I checked it out. Too many kids around, you know. Anyway, he said he just stopped to have a piss. Couldn’t wait to find a bathroom.”

  “You let him go?” Lemkie asked.

  “The story sounded legit and I had no other way to prove it. Besides, he was heading out of town and I called in a favour to check him out.”

  Tilley looked at the s
econd bottle and smiled, but when she showed it to Dodge her smile quickly faded.

  “Bill O’Brien? Emma’s Bill?”

  “Yup,” Tilley replied. “That’s his address on the bottle.”

  “And the third is a Simon Doiron. But the address doesn’t exist and so I have a feeling Simon doesn’t either,” added Lemkie. “And that’s all fine and dandy, but that’s not what I found interesting in the least bit. What I found fascinating was the prints on two of the bottles.”

  “Two?” Tilley asked.

  “I assume the prints on the O’Brien bottle were Bill’s and, of course, Charlie’s prints were on it, too. Still waiting on some searches on those, but I found these on the other two bottles,” Lemkie stated as he handed Tilley a beige folder.

  “Stella Rubbin,” Lemkie said as Tilley opened the folder to reveal a police mug shot of a dishevelled Stella. “She has an interesting record of petty stuff, but it’s a long list. Drunk and disorderly, driving under the influence, assault, assaulting a police officer, and the list goes on. She even did a little time.”

  “I’ve seen her in town before,” Tilley said. Stella, a busty black woman in a town full of mostly white people, stood out to Tilley. “I’m sure of it.”

  “From what I can see,” Lemkie replied as he reached over and flipped a page in the folder. “She used to be a manager at a posh hotel in California before she went to prison. Now she’s the manager at the Wellness Centre.” Lemkie pulled out a pamphlet from the back of the folder and plopped it on top of the page Tilley was looking at. At the bottom of the back page of the pamphlet was Stella Rubbin’s name with the title of manager, confirming what Lemkie said.

  “What would her prints be doing on those pill bottles?” Tilley asked.

  “If the clinic treats people for sexual addiction like you said,” Dodge replied. “Then perhaps Charlie Baker took the pills from the clinic. She might have been holding on to them or something; or maybe confiscated them in the case of Johnson, for example. Can I get a copy of this folder?” Dodge asked.

  “That’s your copy,” Lemkie replied with a smirk. “I printed it for you. Tilley can get a copy from the shared folder in Q drive like everyone else does.”

  Dodge ignored the sarcasm about his love of the printed page and the fancy computer lingo, taking the folder from Tilley. He leafed through it briefly as he turned to leave and paused at the doorway, waiting for his partner.

  “Where are you with the hard drive?” Tilley inquired.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Lemkie said as he took a plastic shopping bag from his desk and smiled. “I’m going to go find that out right now.”

  “What’s in the bag?” Dodge asked.

  “This?” Lemkie said in a light-hearted tone as he held the bag before him. “Nothing much; just some lotion and a box of tissues for Calvin. He’s been watching Charlie Baker’s porn for close to two days now, so I got him this.”

  The two of them laughed all the way down the hallway and back to their desks while Lemkie delivered his goods to Calvin, who sheepishly smiled and then used a flurry of curse words that would have made his late mother blush twenty shades of red.

  15

  After a quick meal, Tilley had gone to the office that evening with the intention of sorting through the case file she had on the Charlie Baker murder. She hoped that organizing her notes and reviewing everything might help her make sense of it all. She opened her email and found a message from Calvin. The email was addressed to Lemkie, Dodge, and herself, and was brief. Calvin explained that without the proper software, which he had asked for but they didn’t have the budget to get, he had tried to collect good pictures of all the faces from the hard drive. The email also contained a link to the Q drive where Calvin had compiled a folder of pictures of all the women in the home movies found on the hard drive. The folder contained fourteen faces, most nameless at this point, except a select few.

  Tilley recognized Sadie Cross from the picture of her smiling with downcast eyes. There was no doubt this woman was the demur little Sadie who owned Sunshine and Rainbows Daycare. Only she didn’t quite appear as the mousy type in this picture. The woman’s coy smile said all she needed to know about her relationship to Charlie Baker.

  Another picture was of the famous comedian Lucy Shaffer. Tilley briefly wondered what a tabloid would pay for such a photo, but quickly dismissed the idea as stupid. (She would reflect on this again later that night. And she would speculate if Calvin, or perhaps Lemkie, had been on the same train of thought. )

  Still sitting at her desk, and a few clicks of the mouse later, and she was looking at a picture of Stella Rubbin. The detectives had planned on a visit to the Magnolia Wellness Centre to talk to Stella, and this picture cemented the need. But first they would visit the owners of the clinic, as they had questions about Charlie Baker.

  From amongst the pictures of women Tilley recognized the pretty blonde, Trudy Wilkins. Trudy was a prominent lawyer in town and apparently a lover of Charlie’s as well. The rumours about Trudy must have been wrong, thought Tilley, although her instincts were usually never wrong about these things.

  Tilley kept scrolling through the images, noting the ones she knew, the ones she thought looked familiar and, lastly, the ones that were a mystery to her. In her third scroll through, she realized that she had not seen her former teacher among the pictures. Her suspicions about Ms. Weatherbee never having been with Charlie might not be so far off, she thought. Then she wondered if this would make Dodge happy or sad. She couldn’t help but notice how he paid extra attention whenever her name came up in conversation. They would have to visit her soon just in case, though. Tilley couldn’t not, as it might look like she was playing favourites if people found out. And people would find out since Emma and Bill knew Ms. Weatherbee had been to Charlie’s apartment the very morning he was found stiff as a board.

  Tilley grabbed a Post-it pad and made a list of people to talk to. She would discuss this with Dodge in the morning over coffee and they would hatch a plan. Or maybe she wouldn’t, thinking about the look on his face if she just showed him instead. That’s when the idea struck her as too good to pass up and she smiled. Suddenly she couldn’t wait until morning. And since Tilley still had steam to burn, a visit to the gym sounded just right.

  16

  As Dodge’s rusty Ford Escape pulled up behind Tilley’s car, he couldn’t help but wonder why she had asked him to meet her at the O’Briens’ house at this hour. It was almost seven in the morning and what he wanted to do was get to the station, grab coffee, and have a look at Charlie Baker’s lady friends in the folder Tilley had told him about. Earlier that morning she had called him and had filled him in about the folder and how they had a full day ahead of them. She had insisted on getting started early and asked that he meet her at the O’Briens’ house first.

  The first thing Tilley did when Dodge arrived was to hand him a file folder, which she explained had copies of Charlie Baker’s financial transactions. She had printed off the records that showed he had paid for therapy at the rehab centre. Dodge filled Tilley in on the gossip from Facebook he had found the night before. Charlie had been getting therapy at the Magnolia Rehab Centre, but people were talking about how he had gotten kicked out of the place. The last straw apparently had been when Charlie was caught having sex in a closet, and on more than a few occasions one lady had said. But these were just rumours of course, and worth looking into when they met Stella. But that would come later. Dodge put the paperwork in his car as he spoke. “Why couldn’t this wait until later?”

  “They won’t be home later,” Tilley replied. “And I wanted to catch them without anyone else to overhear.”

  “Elaborate, please,” Dodge asked.

  “There are things those financial records don’t tell you,” Tilley replied. “Remember late yesterday, when you called the clinic to speak to the manager, Stella Rubbin? Remember how
that kid told you the manager wasn’t available right now? He thought the owners were filling in for the manager or something?”

  “Wait,” Dodge replied. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “The O’Briens’ own the rehab centre,” Tilley replied, who had to bite the inside of her mouth to prevent from smiling as she watched his reaction.

  “Seriously?” Dodge asked. “I had heard some rich lady owned the place when I first moved to Poplar Falls.”

  “That would be Emma,” Tilley replied as she walked up the steps of the porch of the O’Briens’ home, Dodge right behind her. Tilley rang the doorbell and then heard someone shuffling about coming from inside the house.

  “Coming,” Emma shouted.

  “Who could that be at this hour?” Bill said in his usual too loud voice, which sounded like he wanted the early birds to hear him.

  Moments later Emma opened the door, wearing a fuzzy pink housecoat and matching slippers, her makeup and hair immaculate even if she wasn’t dressed.

  “You’re here about the pills, aren’t you?” Emma questioned before either of the detectives could even utter a greeting.

  “Emma!” Bill shouted from somewhere out of sight.

  “Oh, shush,” Emma replied, half-hiding behind her front door. “Be quiet if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Promises, promises!” Bill replied.

  “Yes,” Tilley replied. “But we also wanted to talk about the payments for treatment at the rehab centre.”

  “That and we were wondering if the rumours are true that he was kicked out of the rehab clinic.” Dodge amended.

  “The money was for treatment at the clinic, for sexual addiction,” Emma replied as she cast her gaze down as if she was thinking. They had seen her do this before and so they waited a moment, knowing full well she would soon volunteer more information than they had asked for.

  “Some was for Viagra, too.”