“Oh. Yes,” came her muted voice. “Okay. I’ll be right there. We can’t be late for that!”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“There he is,” I said.
We’d driven to Indianapolis in good time, allowing us to pick up a fast food lunch consumed while staking out the unemployment office near where two interstates connected on the east side.
The downside of the set-up was a central circle divided the parking. If he parked far to one side or the other, we could have a hard time intercepting him before he reached the doors. We did not want to have to talk to him after he’d been inside and discovered he did not have an appointment or a problem with his application.
We parked as close as we could to the center then watched carefully.
Fortunately, Ward Ebersole also parked close to the center, a few rows away from the doors. As he walked toward the entrance, we hopped out, separated as we’d agreed, with me getting behind him.
When he was boxed in between cars, Clara, from in front of him, said, “Ward Ebersole, right?”
Immediately, he spun around. And found me behind him.
“You,” he said in surely unintentional mimicry of Rod Birchall.
“We want to talk to you. We know you’re Ward Ebersole. We know you were a butcher with Jolly Roger and were among those fired last week. We know you were there in the Haines Tavern store when Birchall was murdered. We know you and Jacqueline live together. All that and more will go to law enforcement if we don’t stop transmission in a few minutes.”
I glanced up at the building. He turned his head, looking in the direction I’d looked.
If he saw someone in a window, he had far better vision than I did, but all he had to do was wonder if someone was watching us.
“What happened when you went in the back room after we all saw Birchall on the floor?” I asked.
“What do you think happened? I made sure he was dead.” Facing me again, he smiled grimly at his own turn of phrase. “Then I got the hell out of there.”
“Why?”
He said nothing.
“Did you kill him?”
“Then?” he asked dryly.
“Then or at any time.”
“No comment.”
“Okay, let’s back up. While Foster Utton was away from the produce section and it was just you and Jacqueline, did either of you go into the back room?”
He didn’t ask who Foster was, so presumably he’d been following coverage on TV or in the newspaper, which had all run the Jolly Roger corporate website photo of the acting CEO. The newspaper had far more complete information than the TV coverage, but both were well behind us.
“No.”
“While Jacqueline was away, did either you or Foster go into the back room?”
There was a pause, then an almost reluctant, “No.”
He’d seen a possible way out, a future for his romance with Jacqueline that didn’t include one of them in prison for life. He hadn’t taken it.
“Did you know Foster Utton before Monday at the Haines Tavern store?”
“No.”
“Did you see anyone go into the back room by any door after Rod Birchall did?”
A flicker of his eyelids made me wonder if the idea of someone going in another door was new to him.
“No.” More reluctance.
“Did you hear anything from that back room after the rest of us left?”
“No.”
“Did anyone say anything that might shed any light on Birchall’s death?”
“No.”
“If Jacqueline killed him—?”
“She didn’t.” Without meaning to, he’d answered my question, which would have been if he would lie to protect her … this one answered with a rare yes.
“What do you think you’re accomplishing by disappearing like this, much less this clam routine? If you truly believe in her innocence, you should be down at the North Bend County Sheriff’s Department, unburdening your soul of every last detail. As it is, you’re muddying the waters and making Jacqueline a strong suspect. Unless you know she murdered Birchall and—”
“There’s another explanation.”
“Yeah. That you killed him. Did you?”
The muscle beside his eye ticked. “I’m not saying if I did or I didn’t.”
“If you did, they’ll probably get you with forensics. Eventually. Sometimes takes years and years. Even decades. In the meantime, are you trying to make her look guilty?”
“She didn’t kill him.”
“That’s sure not what your actions say. Your actions say she did it and you know it and you’re trying to cover for her.”
“We’re done here.”
“Not quite. We want your phone number.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. We’re trying to figure out this mess. If neither you nor Jacqueline committed the crime, everything we do will move the case closer to being solved and proving your innocence. You should want to help us.”
“No way.”
I eyed him. “Look, we have a witness who saw you and Jacqueline together in the parking lot before Birchall arrived, not to mention all the people at your old store and in your lives who would testify you’re involved. Another whole bunch of people saw you in the Haines Tavern store at the time Birchall was there. Then there’s you and Jacqueline being feet away from where Birchall lay dead with a set of swinging doors between you. You’re tied to this. Jacqueline’s tied to this. All that can go to law enforcement and they’ll take it from there. Is that what you want?
“At least we’re looking beyond the obvious of you and Jacqueline as the prime suspects.”
I thought I heard his teeth gnashing. “Leave a message the way you did this time. That’s all you get.”
Not letting on that it was better than I’d expected, I growled. “Check your messages. Frequently.”
I backed up, opening the aisle for him to exit. He glanced toward the building, recognized he didn’t have an appointment to keep and walked past me, saying, “You two are nuts.”
“Are not,” Clara said, mostly to us, since he was out of earshot for her quiet words.
I turned her toward my car and we started walking. “Why didn’t you say anything, Clara?”
“Because you were doing so well with honest, forthright, and blunt, which you do so well.”
I wasn’t touching honest and forthright with a ten-foot pole — or my history with Abandon All. “Surprised you’d think blunt would work,” I muttered.
“Oh, Kentucky men often need blunt.”
“Uh, Clara. I think he’s from Indiana.”
“That explains a lot.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
We called Karen Zalesk on the way back to North Bend County.
She agreed we could stop by to talk … after we dangled the hint that we wanted to talk about food allergies and labeling.
She wasted no time on chit-chat when we arrived, finding her alone at the old Family Place. Heck, she barely invited us to come in when we knocked on the door we’d left by on our first visit.
The only sign of Lorelei was the sound of a children’s movie from another room.
We received a precise and extensive rundown of discoveries in food allergies and wrongdoing in food labeling. She did know her stuff.
“The laws have loopholes,” Karen said. “Some of the companies slip through them. Since Birchall arrived, the Jolly Roger chain drove Mack Trucks through them.
“First of all, they don’t have to list every ingredient. Only certain foods are considered major allergens and those are the only ones required to be listed in the United States.”
“Even if they know something can kill people?”
Clara’s indignation fed Karen. “Wait, it gets worse. Most countries have their own lists of which ones have to be listed, so there’s no standardization. You have to know which allergens have to be listed in which country to be sure the one that can kill your child isn�
�t lurking. And then there are the exceptions, which has included ‘fresh food.’ Labels for foods prepared on-site don’t have to include allergens — if there are labels at all. When Birchall—”
The outside door opened and Judy and Gundy Vance walked in.
“—realized that, suddenly all sorts of things were labeled as ‘fresh.’ Then he sat back smugly and essentially said catch me if you can. Well, I guess he was caught.”
As understandable as her anger was, her satisfaction at Birchall’s death was unsettling.
“He deserved everything he got and mo—”
“Karen—”
She spun on her brother. “I didn’t tell you they were coming so you could try to shut me up.”
“Of course you did,” Judy Vance said calmly. “You wouldn’t have called Gundy if you hadn’t wanted him to save you from yourself. Again.”
“Hadn’t you better put all your energies into saving your husband, Judy? Especially from that cute, young assistant manager at the Roger. I understood a lot when I got a look at her.”
Judy’s face went tight and angry, but she held it in, saying coolly. “For someone who values correct information, you are wildly misinformed. Again.”
“I know enough to—”
“Cut it out. Both of you,” Gundy ordered, though it was clear he meant it only for Karen. “It’s clear they didn’t come to talk to you about food allergies and labeling.”
“We did, actually,” I said. “Though we’d also like to know where Karen went and what she did Monday from the time she took Lorelei away from Birchall in the produce section and leaving the store.”
Before Gundy could stop her, she said, “I raged and tried to disguise the fact of my rage from my distressed daughter by pretending to study the shelves of our family business’ rival. One side of the store to the other, as if my observations would ever be given any weight—”
“God,” Gundy breathed.
“—until he finally arrived. The anointed one, handing out aid. The boy. The reason I would never be considered worthy of being the caretaker of precious Shep’s, the family legacy.”
“This again? You could have come home. You could have taken over Shep’s Market when Dad had the bad stroke.”
“Me? He never wanted me in charge. Never believed I was worthy. Dad said as much that last Christmas I was here.” She turned to me. “He said he’d never expected me to graduate from college and he was quite surprised I was doing as well as I was in the working world. I was vice president of a marketing company.”
Gundy tried. “He was proud of you. That’s what he was saying.”
“He’d expected me to get married and start popping out kids and I wasn’t meeting his expectations. Overachieving messed with his expectations. Meanwhile, Gundy got the family name — and business — while I got a leftover.”
“You got a family name, too.”
“Some dead cousin’s name to make her mother — her rich mother — happy. Except it didn’t. She cried every time she saw me, so I soon learned to run away whenever I saw her.
“And a fat lot of good it did me being named for a dead girl. Her mother left all her money to build baseball fields for kids because that’s what her Karen liked. A real tomboy or a—”
“Really, Karen,” Judy said, still cool. “Will you please think before you speak? It might help in your divorce proceedings as well as in a murder inquiry.”
* * * *
Judy walked us to the car.
“You’ll have to excuse my sister-in-law. She is going through a very difficult time. Almost losing Lorelei and the divorce. She’s always had a sharp edge. Now she is her own worst enemy.”
* * * *
“Judy was right, Karen Zalesk is her own worst enemy,” Clara said. “I don’t know that I believed a word of what she said about walking around the store after her confrontation with Birchall.
“The only thing that stops me from thinking she’s a top suspect is what she would have done with Lorelei while committing murder. Leave her out in the store? No way. Take her with? Again, no way. Take her in the back room but a little way off and risk the girl seeing or hearing her commit murder? That doesn’t work either.”
“Judy Vance might be right about Karen, but she is also worried. Possibly angry, too. Did you see her face after Karen’s comment about Jacqueline…? Do you think Judy thinks Gundy is having an affair?”
Clara did her lip chewing. “I suppose it’s possible, but I didn’t get a jealousy vibe off her. Maybe the anger is what she’s feeling for her sister-in-law? Thinking Karen drew Vance into a mess and now her temper is digging them both in deeper?”
“Possible. Definitely possible. Karen was the most demonstrably upset of any of them Monday. But does that mean she was more likely to kill Birchall because she was angry? Or less likely to kill him and pull it off, because she was upset?”
“Let’s go back to Jacqueline. Revenge for Birchall’s firing her mentor and her boyfriend as her motive? That seems like a stretch,” Clara said.
I told her my thoughts about Jacqueline possibly fearing for her own job adding a potential layer to her motive.
Then I added, “Like we said before, a spur of the moment murder. She’s angry about her mentor and Ward. Birchall suddenly shows up and then she’s also worried about her job. He’s there, there’s an opportunity. She takes it.”
“What about Ward? He was angry, too,” Clara said. “He could have lied about Birchall being dead. Say Birchall was sick, incapacitated, but not dead. Ward Ebersole waits until he’s back there with the supposed body and that’s when he hits Birchall in the head. That’s when he commits murder. And then he walks out the side door. Petey missed seeing him or he waited until Petey was looking in the other direction. In a minute, he could be in his truck and gone.”
“That’s good.”
“Then why do you sound depressed?”
“Because we have plausible scenarios for all of them, the ones we just talked about and Foster Utton and Kurt Verker while nothing points more to one than the other.”
Clara patted my shoulder.
“It’s been a long day with The Great Dog Pursuit taking a lot out of us. Not to mention, we could use more salve on our nicks and cuts. Let’s make an early night of it and start fresh tomorrow.”
* * * *
I dreamt about the dogs running away and our pursuit.
But as if from the perspective of a drone. Looking down, seeing the pattern of the creek, with the houses on one side of it not connected to those on the other side. Close when looking down, yet distant if judged by roads and borders.
And then the highway, with the culvert carrying the creek underneath.
And the fear.
Though that was mine. Not the drone’s and not the dogs’. They padded on below my drone view, noses to the ground, tails high, prepared to make any sacrifice for this moment of supreme satisfaction.
I woke abruptly from the dream. Unsure for a breath where I was, where I’d been. Both came back quickly. Yet leaving a sense of incompleteness.
Which made no sense. I was not a drone. I had no need to know the pattern of Clara’s neighborhood. I had no cause for fear. Not anymore. The dogs were back. Safe.
And dreams would not help catch a murderer.
Or would they?
I rolled over to find out.
DAY FIVE
FRIDAY
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
If dreams were going to help, they sure weren’t serving up the aid on a silver platter.
Nothing cleared up with the additional sleep.
And, Clara kindly pointed out, as we sat on aging lawn chairs outside my back door, I still looked tired. We’d returned from the dog park with all three dogs, who now lolled in the shade. Teague continued work on the retaining wall.
Clara and I had rehashed what we knew, agreed it eliminated no one. Now we were tossing around ideas of how to organize what we knew in order to figure out what
to do next.
“How about if we look at who’s told lies and what those lies are,” I suggested.
“Told lies? Jacqueline Yancik. Ward Ebersole. Foster Utton. Gundy Vance. Even Isaac. Oh, and Kurt Verker. In other words, everybody. Maybe except Karen Zalesk. On the other hand, if there were camera footage, maybe we’d know she lied, too.”
“Then we go deeper than the outright lies, examining the small, seemingly inconsequential inconsistencies…”
I was saying that when my conscious mind went on hiatus while another part of my brain assembled, rearranged, and collated small, seemingly inconsequential inconsistencies.
Until Clara asked a question that snapped me back to the here and now.
“Why are you looking at Teague like you’ve never seen him before?”
“It’s not Teague.” I barely even saw him. Barely. I had to think that word.
“Of course it is. Teague O’Donnell. Right there in your back yard. Shirtless. Which I must say is not hard to look at and—”
“It’s not Teague, it’s what he did to catch the dogs yesterday.”
“You mean the murderer’s run away?”
“Sort of. It’s also that pieces that seem very far away from each other if you take the normal routes can actually be quite close together if you get a bird’s-eye view. Also, we’re chasing the murderer, which sends him — or her — farther away from where things started. We need to stop and think about the lever we can use to have the murderer come to us. Like Teague did.”
“You mean use a lure like Murphy.”
I turned to her slowly. “That’s right, Clara. That’s exactly right. A lever and a lure.”
“Okay.” She dragged it out to seven syllables.
“Don’t you see? We use what the murderer handed us.”
* * * *
Clara didn’t see. Not until much later.
But she went along with me in gathering everybody at the Roger. Not only went along, but tossed around more than her share of fibs.
That let me confirm a large part of what Teague would surely call speculation, but Clara called brilliant.
Death on Covert Circle Page 21