(2012) Colder Than Death (27 page)

“I get sixty-four names,” I said.

“I get sixty-three,” said Viper.

“Let's count together.” We did. Viper was right.

“You and Quilla found seven more names. Tell you what... ” I handed him my list. “That's in alphabetical order too. You read the names from it and I'll check them off on the computer screen.”

“This has two separate lists of names,” he said.

“Read the longer one first.”

“No problem.”

It took us only a few minutes to find the additional names. All seven were common and none rang a bell for me.

“What's this other list?” asked Viper.

“Foreign names that might've been shortened to sound more American.”

Viper glanced at the list. “Some of these are really strange-sounding. And I thought having to go through life with a name like Petrovitch was bad.”

He laughed. I did too.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “This one name...” He stared at the sheet of paper. “I could swear I saw this...”

“What? Which name?”

“The fifth one from the top.” He handed me the list.

“Oberfuolner? You know this name?”

“I saw it.”

“Where?”

Viper closed his eyes and again scratched his head and scrunched up his face for several seconds, then a huge smile flashed across his face. “Ah! Yesterday. At Mr. Fowler's.”

“Nolan's?”

“It was over his fireplace. Hanging on the wall. It was one of those things. People with ancestors who go way back have them. Family... uh...family somethings.”

“Family crests?”

“Yeah! That name was part of a design with a couple of Crossed swords and some other stuff on it, but I remember the name because it was so weird-looking.”

I looked at the name again: Oberfuolner. I froze.

“What does it mean, Mr. Coltrane?”

“It's either the biggest coincidence of my life or it means that somebody I've known since I was your age killed Quilla's Aunt not to mention a couple of others. But more importantly, he may have Quilla.”

Viper stared at me. His face serious, concerned. Angry. I looked at Oberfuolner again and imagined it without the first four letters.

F-u-o-l-n-e-r

To myself I said, “Is this the Americanized version of Fowler?”

“Tell me everything you and Quilla talked about with Nolan when you were at his house yesterday.”

“Well... uh... mainly about me wanting to get into mortician business. Then Quilla talked about some of the ideas she had about who the killer was.” He looked up at me with compassion. “She told us about how your old girlfriend might be a victim. Sorry.”

“Did she say that in front of Nolan?”

“She said everything in front of Mr. Fowler.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He just listened.”

“Then you guys left?”

“Yeah. Well, I mean...I did. Quilla stayed.”

I wanted to throw up. “Why?”

“I had to go to my job. I work for my Uncle. Petrovitch Heating and Cooling.”

“Why did Quilla stay behind?”

“Nolan wanted to talk more about some of her ideas. He was very interested and said he wanted to help.”

“Jesus.” I stood up and walked out of my office. Viper followed, saying, “Where are you going?”

“To Nolan Fowler's.”

“I'm coming too.”

“No. Stay here. If I don't call you in forty-five minutes call Perry Cobb and tell him to go straight to Nolan Fowler's house. Tell him I said Nolan is the guy.”

“Got it,” said Viper. “Mr. Coltrane? Are there any bodies in here now?”

“One.”

“Is there anybody else in here? Anybody alive?”

“Just you.”

I watched him gulp. There was fear in his eyes.

“Don't panic,” I said. “It'll be good practice if you get into the business.”

Chapter 22

As I sped to Nolan's I found myself torn.

A part of me still viewed this as a terrible coincidence. I knew Nolan too long to let so little evidence make me think that he could be capable of harming anyone, let alone murdering someone. I wanted to call Perry and let him know that his Americanized list might've hit paydirt, but I felt that after eighteen years of working together, I owed Nolan the benefit of the doubt and the chance to explain. On the other hand, what if Nolan was involved in the killings? Or just Brandy Parker's? Or what if he had done something to Quilla? If I confronted him what would he do to me?

I tried to figure out how to handle the situation. I couldn't just show up at Nolan's door and say I was in the neighborhood. I'd never even been to his house. The only reason I knew his address was from preparing his W-2 tax forms all these years. If Nolan was guilty and he saw me approaching he would have time to prepare. And if he wasn't guilty and he let me in and I presented him with this extreme coincidence of his family's original surname being on a grave near the mausoleum where Brandy Parker was found, how would it make him feel to know that I thought he might be a killer?

It would hurt him deeply. He had little enough human contact and I was one of the few. If he was innocent how would it affect our working relationship? And what would Lew Henderson have to say about it? Lew liked me a lot, looked at me as if I were a son, probably was going to hand over the business to me when he finally had enough. But he and Nolan went back thirty-five years. There was a history there and the loyalty that goes with three-and-a-half decades of almost daily contact. Lew would find himself in the middle. He would have to take a side and I wasn't sure it would be me.

I decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to not confront Nolan directly. I felt that if I could obtain more evidence it might be easier. I decided that before I did anything I needed to see the family crest Viper told me about. To do this I would have to make sure that Nolan wasn't around, assuming he was home in the first place. Maybe Viper was wrong about the spelling of the name. Maybe it wasn't an actual family crest. Maybe it was something Nolan picked up at a flea market.

I called Nolan. I wondered if he'd be awake. The clock on the dashboard said 12:15 a.m. After the first ring he answered with an overly friendly, “Hello?” It was as if he were waiting for the call.

I hung up. I would wait until I got to his street, then call again, only this time I would pretend to be calling from the Home. I would tell him we had a body coming in and that he needed to get there right away. When he pulled out of his driveway I would make my move.

I got to Nolan's street which was actually an unpaved, dirt and stone road without streetlights or sidewalks. It was in Dankworth's oldest and least upscale neighhorhood. Although the houses were smallish and run down, the lots were surprisingly large with at least thirty yards separating the home from its neighbors. Nolan's was the last one on the right. He liked to say he lived on a cul de sac, but it was really a dead end. His was a tract house, circa pre-World War II, which was almost an exact replica of the house I lived in when my mother and I came to Dankworth: a living room, dining room, kitchen and two small bedrooms on the first floor, an unfinished second floor and a basement. I knew from past conversations that Nelson was very adept at carpentry and that he'd renovated his basement and attic. As I approached Nolan's house I observed that the front and back had several tall shade trees and that the house itself was surrounded by thick, elaborate shrubbery.

Four houses down from Nolan's I noticed a For Sale sign in the front yard of a house that clearly had no one living in it. The seller had timer lights on in the living room and upstairs bedrooms. It would suit my purpose well. I dialed Nolan's number again, only this time I didn't hang up.

“Hello?” he said.

“It's Del. Did I wake you?”

“Nah. I was watching TCM.”

“I'm gonna have to ask you to come in. Got a body on its way. Guy just called. Wants the full deal with a quickie viewing tomorrow night.”

“I'm leaving in five minutes,” he said, then hung up.

I pulled into the driveway of the house that was for sale, bringing my car up to the side entrance. I turned off the engine and lights. I had a decent view of Nolan's place. Five minutes later, like clockwork, Nolan backed out of his driveway and motored down the dark street.

The drive to Nolan's house took me twelve minutes, so unless he knew a shortcut I assumed it would take him the same amount of time to get to the Home. I would figure out a way of explaining why I sent him on this wild goose chase later. When his tail lights dissolved out of sight I started to pull out of the driveway, but I decided that it would be smarter to leave the car here, out of sight. I got out and walked over to Nolan's property. Most of the surrounding houses had the lights off, so I was able to move along in the dark without any of Nolan's neighbors noticing me.

Fortunately, Nolan left lights on in the living room and kitchen. I snuck up to the bay window in the living room and looked in. By craning my neck I could definitely see the crest with the name Oberfuolner displayed prominently.

Now what?

I suddenly began to question what I was hoping to accomplish. If Nolan was the killer and if he had Quilla, why did I think he would have her here at his home? And why would he have her? To kill her too? And if he did have her, what had he done with her? Was he holding her hostage for some reason? Had he already killed her? And where would he have hidden the body? This last question was unsettling because it forced me to remember that the killer had done a masterful job of hiding bodies, so he could dispose of Quilla just as effectively.

Standing outside Nolan's living room window looking inside made me feel stupid. That I was even considering these thoughts struck me as insane, almost laughable. Nolan Fowler couldn't hurt anyone. I wanted to leave, but the fact that Viper said he and Quilla were here yesterday lingered in my head. If Nolan was indeed the killer maybe he had let something slip and Quilla had picked up on it or he sensed that she was a loose cannon and could jeopardize his cover. Despite the fact that I was leaning more in favor of Nolan being innocent I knew I had to keep checking to see if Quilla were here, which meant going inside and looking around.

Getting in wouldn't be a problem. Because Nolan lived by himself he had a phobic fear of dying alone at home and not having his body discovered soon enough to prevent decomposition. He'd worked on his share of single, divorced and widowed people who died in their sleep or keeled over in their basements, only to lie there undiscovered for days and weeks at a time. What was left of the bodies, as Nolan liked to say, “Looked nasty and smelled like four day old catfish.”

Once I began working at Henderson's, Nolan had made a point of emphasizing that he was extremely prompt and if he was a few hours late for work there was a good chance he had died at home and that I or Lew or Clint was to drive straight to his house and check on him. He kept duplicate keys in a fake, hollowed out rock behind the central air conditioning compressor which was located amidst some shrubs next to the rear door to the house.

I crept along his driveway, then went around back looking for the compressor, but couldn't see it, partly because of the dark and also because it was hidden by a fifteen foot long row of shrubbery. As I made my way through the shrubs I could hear the soft hum the unit. For a second I wondered why he had the air conditioning on at such a late hour on such a cool October night.

When I got to the compressor, which was behind the fifth shrub in from the driveway, I felt around the back, looking for the fake rock with the keys. There was nothing, except smooth dirt and a few twigs. With my foot I felt around the entire perimeter of the unit and still found nothing, but as I was about to get down and feel around my left hip bumped into something solid that I knew wasn't the next shrub.

It was a second air conditioning compressor. Before I had time to ask myself why Nolan had two units to keep such a small house cool, I reached down and immediately found the rock with the keys. I opened it and one Medico key was inside. It would open the back door, which was a few shrubs from where I was standing.

The door opened easily. I stood in a small landing with three steps leading up to the kitchen and a stairway to the basement. I went to the kitchen. It was smallish and neat with a breakfast nook. The appliances looked old. Directly through the kitchen was a dining room with a table, buffet table and hutch, and through it was the living room with an old comfortable-looking couch. I stared at the Oberfuolner name on the crest hoping that up close it would be spelled differently than the headstone at the cemetery. It wasn't. The crest's design was two Crossed swords resting on a laurel wreath with the name of a city and country: Landkern, Germany.

The mantle and fireplace wall were also filled with a dozen or so framed photographs, two of which
I
was in. I looked closely at the photos, most were of Nolan at various stages in his life. I assumed they were with his parents and grandparents and perhaps even great grandparents. The photos of me were all with Lew. I was about nineteen in one, about twenty-five in the other. There was also a picture of Nolan as a young man with an attractive young woman. They were dressed up. I guessed it was his wedding picture.

Off to the left side of the house was a bathroom and two bedrooms, one of which Nolan used as a den. There was a small desk with a computer, 40” High Def TV, DVD player and stereo system that looked years old. There were more record albums than CDs. The bedroom had a queen-sized bed and a dresser. The entire house was furnished not so much in a bachelor-like manner, but it sent off a vibe that it needed a woman’s touch.

The physical appearance of the inside of Nolan's home was so normal, so ordinary that I was at a loss for words. There were no unusual smells except possibly cleanliness. I knew that Nolan was finicky about keeping the Embalming Room spotless so it stood to reason that he would be a neat freak about his residence. Nothing struck me as unusual. If Nolan had indeed taken Quilla I couldn't see or hear anything that suggested her presence. There were no signs of a struggle. I didn't see blood or broken furniture or weapons or knives.