Code 61 (9 page)

“Problem?” I asked.

They both spoke at once, the gist being that Toby didn't think Borman had the right to ask him to identify himself. Borman disagreed. I think the tone was set when Toby said, “You ever hear of the Constitution, Mr. Cop?”

I sighed, and reached into my hip pocket, removing my badge and ID case. I opened it, careful to avoid any sort of flourish. “Toby Gottschalk,” I said, showing him my credentials, “I'm Carl Houseman, Deputy Sheriff here in Nation County. Since you've already told me who you are, I can't see the problem with you identifying yourself to this officer.”

“He wants my date of birth, my address, and my middle name,” said Toby. “I don't have to give that. I know a little something about the Constitution.”

The problem was, of course, that they were nearly the same age. From my lofty distance of almost thirty-five years their senior, I thought I'd have a bit more luck.

I smiled at Toby. “Never say you know a 'little' about the Constitution. There's always somebody waiting to show you how right you are.” I put my badge case back in my pocket. “What you gotta understand, Toby, is that we have to treat any questioned death as a murder unless and until we can prove it's, oh, like a suicide or an accident. Okay?”

He at least had the sense to just nod.

“Cool. Now, since we're sort of constrained by procedure to assume we're dealing with a murder at this point, we have the right to ask you for a variety of personal identifiers.”

“I'm sure that's true,” said Toby. “Not to piss you off or anything, but I do have the right to refuse.”

“Yep,” I said. “You do. But then, we may have to do things that are not to your liking, to discover that infor mation.”

“Such as?” Toby looked completely self-possessed.

I was beginning to like Toby as a potential witness. Guts, fairly smart, and didn't have the sense to concede a point. “Such as,” I said, moving a little closer, and smiling, “determining your age by cutting off one of your legs, and counting the rings.”

He looked a little startled, but finally started to get the point.

“To tell the truth, Toby,” I said, as I went by him toward the window, “we'd just have to arrest you as a material witness. Take you to jail. Keep you until we either cleared the case by determining it wasn't a murder, or until you told us the basic things we have to know in order to positively identify you.” I looked back at him over my shoulder. “The food in jail sucks, Toby. And there are only three channels on the TV.”

“That sounds avoidable,” said Toby, more to get back at Borman than to agree with me.

“And while we're talking,” I said, “do you know who that is in the yard?” I looked out the window.

He moved toward the window with me. “The girl raking the leaves?”

There was only one person in the huge, manicured yard.

I nodded. “Yep. That's the one.” It was difficult to tell what gender, really, as she was wearing navy blue sweatpants, a long-sleeved dark blue hooded sweatshirt, fawn-yellow work gloves, red tennis shoes, and a purple baseball cap. A riot of color, as they say.

“Melissa Corey,” he said. “I call her Doom Girl.”

I looked down and to my right, into his unwavering gaze. “You do? Why's that?”

“Oh, she's probably the most depressed of any of us here. One of the really convinced 'life sucks' people. You know? One of those.”

I chuckled. I couldn't help it. “Yeah, I think I do.” I turned back to Borman. “You haven't managed to get her in for the basic questions?”

Of course he hadn't. He'd been distracted by his little tiff with Toby. Under other circumstances, the laboring Doom Girl could have made a clean getaway. My tone told him that, and a little more.

“I was just about to—”

I cut him off before he could reward Toby by saying that he'd been successfully distracted. “I'll talk with her for a sec. Why don't you just finish up with Toby, here.” Besides, it looked so nice out in that yard.

It was. I went out the front door, and around to the south side of the house, to my left. The majority of the leaves that had fallen onto the bright green lawn were intense yellow, translucent when the bright sunlight was behind them. The largest tree was in the middle of a grassy expanse that had to be at least a hundred feet wide, forming a green rectangle around the house. Melissa's wooden rake was making diligent scraping sounds as she methodically herded the leaves into one of a series of yellow piles that showed her progress around the yard. The sunlight was filtering through the leaves, picking up the faint swirls of dust she was stirring up as she worked.

“You're Melissa?” I asked as I approached.

She looked up at me, continuing to rake. She had a pale face, big dark eyes, with purplishred hair sticking out from under her ball cap, and a piercing with a small cube in her left eyebrow. “And you'd be?” A soft voice.

“Deputy Houseman, Sheriff's Department.” I fished out my badge again. She stopped raking, and examined it and the ID card I was displaying. She looked up. Eyes red-rimmed, I noticed. Whether from crying, or from the dust, I couldn't tell.

“So?” She was trying to be blasé, but there was a little hesitation in her tone. She looked to be about twenty-three or twenty-four, I'd guess. I didn't remember seeing her around before.

“What can you tell me about what's happened to Edie?”

“I hear she's dead.” She started to rake again.

“You hear right.”

“Well, it happens to all of us, now, doesn't it?” Her voice was soft, and my hearing is a little old. Throw in the sounds of her rake, and the crinkling noise of the leaves …

“Pardon? I didn't quite get that?”

“It happens to all of us,” she said, louder. “All right?” When she got louder, she enunciated harder, as it were. I could see a little, blue metallic stud in her tongue.

She started raking more rapidly, the only real effect being more dust. The leaves were starting to swirl away from her rake as her speed increased.

“Well,” I said, “we all do die, all right. But most of us don't bleed to death.”

She slapped the rake into the grass. “Fuck!” She took a deep breath, and looked up at me again. “Fuck.”

“You got that right.”

“So what do you want me to say?” She looked like she could hit me with the rake at any second.

“You could tell what you know.”

“You want me to tell you she was my friend? All right, she was my friend. But it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean fuck.” Her voice was quite calm. But she started to cry. “It just doesn't mean fuck at all. It just doesn't,” and she turned her back, shoulders shaking a little.

I just hate that.

I gave her a few seconds, wishing I had something like a Kleenex to offer her, and then said, “Mind coming into the house for a few minutes? I'm afraid I have some routine questions.”

She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes and nose with her sweatshirt sleeve, and straightened up. She must have been all of five-one, and didn't make it to my shoulder level.

We both stood there for a few seconds, and I suspect she didn't know just exactly what to say. I know I sure didn't. Finally, she took a deep breath, and let out “Fine.”

We walked back to the house together, and I could see Toby watching us from the parlor window. “You live here?” I asked, more to avoid a prolonged silence than anything else.

“Yes. If you can call it that.”

“Great place,” I said. “What's the rent like?”

“It's free,” she said, nearly monotone. “We're serfs. We just have to take care of the place.”

Serfs? We'd reached the front steps. “Don't hear that term much anymore,” I said, trying to lighten things up a little. “Not since the unions came in.” Melissa didn't say a word.

SEVEN

Saturday, October 7, 2000
11:18

By the time Special Agent Hester Gorse arrived at the Mansion, Borman and I had done the preliminary interviews of Toby and Melissa. We'd got the standard personal ID stuff, and statements from both of them that they lived in the house, and that they were asleep when Edie's body had been discovered. And, no, she hadn't seemed more depressed or despondent than usual. Toby, it turned out, worked at the local branch of Maitland State Bank, and Melissa worked at the Freiberg Public Library.

I was a bit surprised that Toby could work at the bank, with the stud in the bridge of his nose, and said so.

“I just take it out,” he said. “Like pierced ears.”

Hanna Prien, still upset, had also talked to us. Generally, she had the same kind of information for us as

Toby and Melissa, except that she'd been the one who found Edie when she went into her room to get her up for work. They both worked in Freiberg: Hanna at the local convenience store, and Edie had been employed at Wilson's Antique Mall.

Hanna said that she had stuck her head in the bathroom door after calling out a couple of times, stared for a few seconds, trying to put together what she was seeing, and then just freaked. Understandable.

There were two other residents of the house, one Kevin Stemmer, and a girl named Holly Finn. Holly, according to Hanna, had the misfortune of having the nickname of “Huck.” That rang a bell, and I pictured her in my mind immediately. I'd never arrested her, but she'd been in the area when I'd popped some others. With that nickname, she was hard to misplace. With Kevin I drew a blank, but was pretty sure I'd remember him when I saw him.

According to Hanna, Kevin and Huck had left for work before she'd discovered the body. They were both dealers on the
General Beauregard;
and worked a 06:00-to-14:00 shift. Toby had notified both of them by phone before I arrived. They wouldn't be home until their shift ended.

“Yeah, I called them right away.” Toby was one of those people who seem to have to interrupt. “I talked to Huck, though, not Kevin, really. I thought one was enough, and she'd tell Kevin.”

Great.

“Toby said they were real upset, though,” Hanna said, almost as if she were trying to excuse their not coming right back.

“Oh, yeah. Huck was, anyway,” Toby explained. “I didn't talk to Kevin.”

I'd asked if the owner was here, and got kind of a surprised look from all three. Jessica Hunley, according to them, lived in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. She was exceedingly wealthy, ran a dance school in Chicago, and only visited the house three or four times a year.

I'm no expert, but I had a bit of a rough time with “exceedingly wealthy” and “runs a dance school” being in the same sentence. That needed to be checked further.

We'd released the EMTs, prompting Toby to ask why they weren't taking the deceased with them. He got a straight answer. Melissa then asked just how long we were going to keep the body in the tub before removing her. I told her that it would depend on when the scene had been thoroughly processed, but that it shouldn't be too very long.

It being Saturday, and an urgent call-out to boot, Iowa DCI Special Agent Hester Gorse was more informally dressed than usual, in blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a gray turtleneck, with a blue microweave rain jacket, worn to conceal the gun on her right hip. I saw her head through the window as she started up the steps, and was in time to greet her at the door.

“Hi, Hester. Thought you'd be here sooner.”

“Hard to find this place. I must have missed the drive the first time.” She smiled, in sort of a weary way. None of us get enough weekends off. She'd probably been counting on this one. “So, Carl,” she said as we paused in the atrium, “just what do we have here, anyway?”

I told her, in about two minutes. Told her that it could be a homicide. Told her that it looked like a suicide.

“So, are you leaning either way?”

I shrugged. “It doesn't look right. The clothes, or lack thereof. The wound, although that could be self-inflicted, God knows.” I'd told her what Doc Z. had said about the arterial spurts and the bruises. And the Coumadin.

“But we don't know, yet, if there was any major arterial damage caused by the wound?”

“Right.”

She smiled again. “So, do I just sign for the free pathologist and lab team, or am I going to have to work today?”

“I feel so transparent,” I said, grinning back at her. “No, I'm afraid you're going to have to work on this one.” I told her about the body in Wisconsin.

We went into the parlor, and I introduced her around. We left Borman in charge downstairs, and I took Hester up to meet Edie.

Afterward, we compared notes, Hester seated at Edie's vanity, and me leaning against the bathroom door, where I could keep an eye on the door to the hallway.

“You got an extra pen in that camera bag of yours?”

“Sure.” I handed her the bag. “Right-hand front pocket, there.”

“I want the lab team here,” said Hester, peering into my camera bag. “I don't know just exactly what we have here, but we can't wait for them to come up to process the scene until after the autopsy.” The lab team had to come from Des Moines, some four to four and a half hours away.

“I'm for it,” I said, as brightly as possible. This third visit to the tub had been difficult. “What do you think? Can we move the body out now? I'd like to get her out as soon as practical.”

“No problem. I don't think the victim has any more to tell us until the autopsy.”

“Good.”

She found the pen, and browsed absently through the bag. “You've got just about everything in here, Houseman. Exam gloves, bags, labels, fflm, batteries, pens, scissors, tweezers … ” She unzipped the side pocket, and looked up. “Girl Scout cookies? Are these Girl Scout cookies?”

“Caught me. Want one?”

Hester ate the chocolate mint cookie in two swift bites, and then looked for a place to put her notepad on the vanity.

“Look at the neat stuff.”

“Pardon?”

“Her makeup,” she said. “Lipstick colors. Interesting. Like these: Tar, Bordeaux, Garnet, Pulsing Blood … ”

“Oh.”

“With foundation names like Porcelain. And glitter for the eyelids. Little stick-on holograms. Neat stuff.”

“You betcha, Hester.”

“No, really. This isn't your mother's kind of makeup, chances are. And not the shades and colors that are usually worn around here.” She gave me a smug look. “Sort of a gentle rebel, this Edie. Look more closely. She took very good care of all this stuff. It's orderly. Neat. Her appearance was important.”

“I caught the neat part right away,” I said. “Always makes me feel out of place. Speaking of makeup, you notice her nails? The multicolored thing. Does that mean something?”

“Probably not. Whimsy, I'd think.”

“Whimsy. Like with the frilly clothes?”

“You mean the brocades, the lace, the velvet and satins hanging over there?” She gestured toward the walk-in closet.

“Yeah.”

Hester smiled. “I'd think she enjoyed being a girl.”

“Oh.”

She ate one more cookie, then pulled her walkie talkie out of her pocket and went on to the mobile repeater channel. That was so neat. She was talking to her car radio via a secure channel, which, in turn, transmitted to State Radio repeater towers down to Cedar Falls State Radio, also via secure link, and enabled her to order up the lab team without the media getting wind of it.

Being from the wrong side of the government procurement tracks, I went into the hall, and down the first half flight, where I could see Borman standing in the doorway to the parlor. I caught his attention, and told him to use the residence phone to call our office and get the hearse coming.

I got back to Edie's room, and couldn't see Hester. I looked around the door frame into the bathroom, and saw her checking the contents of the bathroom cabinet.

“Got something?”

She turned. “No, and that's just the problem,” she said slowly. “No open shampoo, no open soap, no razor, just blades.”

Oh. “Yeah. Doesn't sit right, does it?”

“Like you said, Carl. Where's the stuff you'd use in a tub or shower?”

We'd talked about that during her first pass through the bathroom area. Although it was barely possible that someone would run out of everything currently in use at the same time, it was unlikely as hell. The problem was, there wasn't a really good explanation as to why it was gone.

“I don't get it,” said Hester. “Why isn't it here?”

She came toward the door, and I backed out of the doorway to let her pass. “It isn't like somebody would enter her bath and cut her throat in order to gain possession of a used bar of soap and half a bottle of shampoo … ”

“Souvenir?” I just tossed that in.

“Right.” She shook her head. “First things first. I want to know where that knife came from.”

“The kitchen?”

“I'd bet. We couldn't be so lucky as to have it come from anywhere else.”

“Right now,” I said, “if this case were on a balance scale, I'd have just about a quarter of the weight in the suicide dish.”

She sighed, pulling off her latex exam gloves. “Maybe a bit less. We really need that autopsy.”

We moved back into the bedroom.

“So,” said Hester, “what can you tell me about the group who lives here?”

I explained that they were local, or very close. Marched to a bit of a different drummer than some, but were known to us as pretty decent people. Those I knew were bright. They caused no trouble, which in cop parlance meant a lot.

“Some, like the one they call Huck, just strike me as people who would really like things to be different. But who know they can't make it happen.” I considered. “Like, at a party, when some nice person knows that if they join in the conversation, there's going to be an argument. So they sit on the couch, and are pleasant, and pass the dip, and kind of let the flow go around them.”

“Like the hippies used to be?”

“This is going to date me,” I said, “but they remind me more of beatniks.”

“Angry? Intellectually rebellious? Cynical? Depressed?”

“You got it. All the above. Caused by life in general.”

Hester smiled. “You sure this isn't a bunch of retired cops?”