Lucky Stiff (30 page)

And then there’s a knock on the door.

We freeze, both of us panting with desire. Exasperated, I holler out, “Who is it?”

“It’s Izzy. I have Hoover. Can I come in?”

“Just a minute.” I thrust Hurley back away from me, grab my sweater up from the floor, and hastily pull it on. Hurley clutches his shirt closed, looks down at the impressive pup tent in his pants, and beelines for the bathroom, shutting himself inside. I take a few seconds to smooth my hair, grab our coats, and toss them on the couch. I gather myself together before heading for the door.

“Hello, Izzy,” I say. Hoover lets out a muffled woof and runs over to me. I squat down and wrap my arms around his neck, letting him lick my chin while his butt wags in delight.

“Sorry to pop in like this, but I couldn’t sleep and I heard you guys pull up,” Izzy says. “So I thought I’d come over and see how you were.”

“We’re fine,” I say. “Tired, but okay.”

“Where’s Hurley?”

“He’s in the bathroom. It was a long trip.”

Izzy nods. “I take it you managed to avoid any further disasters?”

“Fortunately, yes,” I say, thinking that his arrival helped me to avoid a big one. “Everything good at the office?”

“It’s been quiet. I’m still waiting on the results of the tox screen on Donald Strommen, but the Madison office is backed up because of the holiday. I’m hoping we’ll have something in the next day or two.”

Hurley comes out of the bathroom then and I’m relieved to see that evidence of our recent encounter is no longer visible.

“Hey, Steve,” Izzy says. “Thanks for delivering our girl here back home, safe and sound.”

“My pleasure,” Hurley says. He gives me a look laden with innuendo.

“I’m glad I caught the two of you together,” Izzy says, making my heart skip a beat. Hurley lets out a nervous, little cough. “Dom and I are planning a small party tomorrow night for New Year’s Eve and I wanted to invite you both. Dom plans to serve drinks and hors d’oeuvres and we’ll have champagne to toast at midnight. Can I count on you both to be there?”

“Of course, I’ll be there,” I say.

“Me too,” Hurley says. “What time?”

“We’re planning to start around nine, but you’re both welcome to join us earlier for dinner, if you like. Say around seven?”

“I’d love to,” Hurley says.

I smile and shrug. “You know me. I rarely pass up a chance to eat Dom’s cooking.”

“Sadly, neither do I,” Izzy says with a laugh, patting his belly. “Well, I’m sure you both want to get settled, so I won’t keep you any longer.” He looks at me and adds, “See you in the morning at the office?”

“Bright and early,” I say, giving him a snappy salute.

“Okay, then. Good night.”

I see Izzy to the door. As soon as he’s gone, I close the door and lean back against it, with a sigh. “That was close,” I say.

Hurley grins wickedly. “It sure was. I felt like I was back in high school.” We stare at one another across the room for a moment before he adds, “I guess I’ll be going home?”

Izzy’s arrival has had the effect of a cold shower on me, squelching my hormonal hot spot faster than the fire hoses squelched the fire in Jack’s house. “I think that’s best,” I say, wondering if it’s true. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

He looks disappointed, but he nods, gets his coat from the couch, and puts it on. Hoover waddles his tail-wagging butt over to the couch and sticks his nose in Hurley’s crotch, making me sigh. Hurley gives him a scratch on the head and a pat on the rump, making me even more jealous of my dog. Then, as Hurley approaches the door, I step aside to put a safe distance between us.

“See you in the morning,” he says. And then, sadly, he’s gone.

Chapter 27

I wake to the screech of my alarm clock the next morning at seven sharp. My head feels logy and dull. Every time I blink my eyes, it’s as if they’re lined with sandpaper. A shower helps minimally, but two cups of strong coffee make things better, as does the sugar jolt I get from the gigantic pastry I buy from the local bakery, Swedish Sweets. It’s New Year’s Eve and I resolve to get serious about my diet, but that starts tomorrow. I decide that today I’m going to indulge myself one last time.

The meteorological Armageddon that’s been all over the news for the past couple of days has left its mark here as well. Outside the temperature is 19 degrees, with a predicted high of 23. And that’s without the windchill. Sharp gusts of cold, stinging wind howl from every direction, sculpting the foot of snow on the ground into artistic drifts. I drive past a house that has a snowblower parked on the roof and a snowman built atop a bench, a noose around its neck tied to an overhanging branch. The sky has an odd yellowish gray tint to it, which reminds me of the skin color on a renal-failure patient, and I can’t help but wonder if there’s more nasty weather on the way.

When I check in at the office, I’m delighted to discover that the entomologist in Madison we consulted has faxed his report to us, making the same identification of the worm we found in Donald’s trachea that Ethan did.

There isn’t much going on in our office—so far, no one is checking out on the last day of the year—and because tomorrow is a holiday, I figure Hurley will want to tie up as many loose ends as possible today. I head over to the police station a little before nine, where I find him holed up in the break room with the newspaper.

“Great picture of you on the front page,” he says. He hands me the newspaper and chuckles. There I am, in full color, front and center, just above the fold, on the edge of the river, wearing my waders and the underlying Tyvek suit. My hair and face are smeared with mud, and my body is bent over at a slight angle that makes the waders billow out around me. I look like a grubby Teletubby.

Alison Miller may have given up on her pursuit of Hurley, but she’s clearly still holding a grudge. The headline reads, BODY FOUND IN RIVER; and as I scan the article, I see that Alison has remained true to her word. There is no speculation on the cause of death or the identity of the body, outside of a mention of the gender. Nor is the body visible anywhere in the picture. It’s of little consolation.

I toss the paper onto the table in disgust. “I have some news,” I tell Hurley. “The entomologist in Madison faxed his report over and he identified the worm we found in Donald’s throat.”

“Judging from the smug expression on your face, I’m guessing he agreed with Ethan?”

“That he did.”

“Well, good for Ethan. But what does it mean in terms of our case?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe nothing. Or maybe my theory about Charlotte drugging Donald and shoving a scarf in his mouth to suffocate him is right. I want to go back out to the house and look around some more.”

“Can do. Thanks to the storm, my officers reported that Charlotte didn’t leave the farm at all until yesterday, when she went grocery shopping and then returned home.”

“Are they still watching her?”

“They are.”

“So we know she’s home. Let’s drop in for a visit. Should we give her a heads-up or just surprise her?”

“I like surprises.” He gets up and grabs his coat; but before he puts it on, he turns to me and says, “Listen, about last night—”

I hold my hand up to stop him. “Let’s just put it behind us for now, okay?”

He frowns at that, but nods. “Okay.”

As usual, Hurley insists on driving. He cranks up the heat as we head out of town. By the time we pull up outside of the Strommen house a few minutes later, it’s snowing and a stiff wind has blown in. When we get out of the car, I pull my collar close to me, against the cold; but out here in the open country, the gusts that blast us are hard and frigid.

Charlotte Strommen opens the door as we approach, and she doesn’t look all that surprised to see us. She doesn’t look happy, either, and I suspect there won’t be any kindly offers of a hot drink at this stop.

“What now?” she asks, exhaling one of those weight-of-the-world sighs.

So much for the country welcome.

Hurley says, “We need to talk to you some more about your husband’s death.”

“This isn’t a good time,” Charlotte says. “My kids are here.”

All the better,
I think. I’m already plotting a way to get Hannah Strommen off to myself so I can talk with her.

Hurley quickly clamps down on any more objections by saying, “We know about the life insurance policy.”

I half-expect Charlotte to play dumb, but to her credit, she doesn’t. Instead, she goes on the offensive. “So? Just what do you think that proves?”

“It proves you had a motive to kill your husband,” Hurley says.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Charlotte says, her voice rife with skepticism. “You want to take the only piece of dumb luck I’ve had over the past few years and use it to frame me for something I didn’t do?”

“Dumb luck?” I echo.

Charlotte shifts her angry gaze my way, her eyes ablaze. “Yes, dumb luck,” she snaps, stepping out onto the porch and letting the screen door close behind her. “Don’s father died of a brain aneurysm when Don was only fifteen, leaving him and his mother, who was handicapped from multiple sclerosis, destitute because Mr. Strommen didn’t have any life insurance. As a result, Don’s mother ended up in some rat house of a nursing home, where she died five years later. Because of all that, my husband was a firm believer in life insurance. We argued many times about that damn policy and what it cost, but Don refused to cancel it. I thank my lucky stars that he didn’t, because now my children and I have a future. You people trying to make that into something sinister is just cruel.”

By the time Charlotte is done with her rant, she has closed in on us; both Hurley and I have backed up to the edge of the porch steps. Charlotte’s rage is intimidating—and given what I’ve seen, I have a newfound respect for Donald Strommen. If he managed to hold out against this woman’s wrath, he had to have been a man of strong character and immeasurable patience.

I force myself to step forward, moving into Charlotte’s space. She looks surprised by my action; but before she can back away from me, I take one of her hands in mine.

“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” I say in my best calming voice. “It isn’t our intent to upset you. But we found some irregularities when we did Donald’s autopsy and they raise some questions. We’re here to try to find out the answers. We didn’t come with any preconceived notions about anything. We just want to get to the truth. If you have nothing to hide, then helping us will only make things easier for you.”

Charlotte’s angry expression relaxes a smidge, but not enough, so I deliver my coup de grâce.

“Please understand that we are simply trying to do our jobs here. And until we can come up with some sort of satisfactory explanation for the unanswered questions surrounding Donald’s death, we can’t complete a death certificate. And without a death certificate, any insurance settlements that are pending will be tied up for an indefinite amount of time.”

I’m not sure if this is true, but it sounds good, and has the desired effect on Charlotte. Her angry expression evaporates, and both her body and her face sag. “Fine,” she says in a defeated tone, turning back toward the house. She grabs the screen door, pulls it open, and waves her arm. “Go on in.”

We step inside and immediately I notice a small, pale face peering out at us from the kitchen. It’s Hannah Strommen and the poor child looks like death warmed over. Dark circles surround her eyes; her skin has the pasty, waxen look of a long-term shut-in; her hair is a tangled mess that looks like it hasn’t been combed in weeks. She’s dressed in a flannel nightgown under a worn cardigan and wearing a pair of old mukluks on her feet.

I turn and give Hurley a pointed look, gesturing ever so slightly toward Hannah as Charlotte shuts the front door. Hurley acknowledges my gesture with a slight nod of his own and moves in on Charlotte.

“Mrs. Strommen, I need to examine some of your husband’s things, and I’d like to start with his clothes.”

Charlotte looks from him to Hannah—who retreats into the kitchen—and then at me. I can tell she isn’t comfortable with the arrangement, but she doesn’t object. Seeming resigned to whatever fate awaits her, Charlotte says, “Follow me”; then she heads up the stairs.

Hurley falls in behind her, while I make a beeline for the kitchen. Hannah is seated at the table pushing a few soggy, flaccid cornflakes around in a tiny puddle of milk at the bottom of a cereal bowl.

“Good morning, Hannah,” I say, taking the chair across from her. “I’m Mattie Winston. I think you know my niece, Erika Colter?”

She doesn’t answer right away; and when she raises her eyes from the bowl to look at me, I’m shocked. Several years back, I took care of a guy in the ER who had been involved in a bombing over in Iraq that killed most of his fellow soldiers and left him deaf in one ear, missing one eye, and minus his left arm. Even worse was the invisible damage he incurred. He was suffering from PTSD and plagued with depression, insomnia, numerous somatic complaints, paranoia, and anxiety. There was a haunted, resigned, dead look in his eyes—the look of a mortally wounded animal that has lost its will to fight. I never saw that look again, until today. Hannah Strommen has the same haunted, dead-eyed expression.

“I take it your mom told you about your dad,” I say to her.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” she says with a sarcastic snort. She drops her gaze back to her bowl and pushes the cornflakes around some more.

“Where is your brother?”

Her hand freezes midstir and she looks up at me again—this time with a spark of life in those eyes. “What do you want with Peter?”

“I want to talk to him.”

“Why? He doesn’t know anything about this.”

“Your mom hasn’t told him yet?”

“Why would she do that?”

“Well, sooner or later, your brother’s going to need to know that your father is dead, isn’t he?”

I watch confusion play across Hannah’s face; and then, as if someone flipped a switch, the deadness returns.

“What aren’t you telling me, Hannah?”

She drops her spoon into the bowl and it clatters loudly. Then, without another word, she gets up and leaves the room. I hear her thumping her way up the stairs—even her gait sounds defeated—and then I hear a door slam closed above me.