Madeline Mann (16 page)

“Oh, Mann,” I said. She thought I was giving her a hard time. Customer service has deteriorated to this extent. I stood up and smoothed the legs of my pantsuit. It was cocoa colored and the closest thing to a power suit that I had. I walked to the door and was buzzed in by Tomato Hair, who was back in her magazine.

I stood uncertainly in the doorway, looking down a hallway. The only sound I heard was the soft clicking of computer keys. No perps. No escapees, nor people being wrestled into handcuffs. I cleared my throat. Tomato Hair swiveled in her chair and yelled, “Kubik! Your appointment's here!” The phone rang. She picked it up but managed to say, “Room Twelve,” and hand me a visitor's pass before she answered the call in her special winning way.

I went to Room Twelve, which was even more anticlimactic than the lobby. It was a bare, cold room, the walls scarred where posters had once hung. Bits of tape still lingered there, the only evidence that someone, at some point, gave a care. There was a long, ugly brown table in the center of the room, reminiscent of the kind donated to my church for bingo, and around the table were six metal folding chairs. Was this an interrogation room? It had no windows, so I left the door open to avoid claustrophobia. I leaned against one wall, somehow unwilling to sit.

Sam Kubik didn't make a good first impression. It wasn't just the way he walked in without looking at me, tossing a file folder on the table as if I'd already wasted his time; it was more the feeling he projected, and perhaps the sour expression he wore on his face.

He was not tall, perhaps about five feet eight. He didn't look like a TV cop, and yet he did. He had that slightly weathered, red-skinned look, perhaps from sun or too much booze, like the bad cop in a Raymond Chandler novel, but he also had a certain reserve about him, a disapproving hesitancy that suggested I had talked in the library and he had been sent to say, “Hush.”

He finally met my eye. “Miss
Man
?” he asked. He sounded annoyed. I'd not even spoken yet.

“
Monn
,” I corrected. I never insist on the German pronunciation, but it seemed fitting to do so now.

“Miss
Monn
.” He exaggerated it sarcastically with a lift of his multicolored eyebrows. He gestured to a chair.

“It's German,” I said patiently, sitting down.

“Thank you for coming in, Miss
Monn
,” he began, sitting across from me. “We're obviously doing what we can to follow the leads in the death investigation of Logan Lanford. We're cooperating with the Saugatuck police. I believe you spoke to them, is that right?” he asked. I had the strangest feeling he was trying to catch me out with this basic information.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“Your name, as you may know, features prominently in that investigation.” He was staring at his folder as he spoke, and I wondered if those words were actually written in there.

“I suppose it does,” I agreed again. I was quite the agreeable witness. “And I suppose either Detective Perez or her partner informed you that there was not much I could tell them. And perhaps they passed on the information about Quinn Paley, who was the last person to see him alive.”

Kubik squinted and looked thoughtful, like he was trying to hearken back about a hundred years instead of the day or so it had been since he'd been in touch with them. “I suppose they did tell me,” he said. “But there's a problem with that. I don't believe you.”

“Excuse me?” I asked. I knew that I was going to end up indignant, but for the moment I was amused.

“Look at the facts as we see them, Miss
Monn
. You got this guy a job after he was fired. You were his best friend in high school. You went driving out to Saugatuck for apparently no reason on the day he died. You slipped a note through his mail slot. Inside was a note he had written to you. Do you see the common denominator here?” he asked, tipping back his chair.

“Well, in that list of events, the common element is me,” I answered, looking at the back legs of his chair. I felt nervous that he was going to fall backward. “Of course, you're leaving out a lot of other pertinent facts, like who had motive to kill him and who else might have been in town. Since I know that I didn't kill Logan—or even see him—that list seems kind of unnecessary to me. But that's my perspective.” I smiled, trying to be friendly despite my opposing stance.

Kubik didn't smile back. I wondered if he was actually trying to fit me into the role of murderer, perhaps because he liked the idea of pinning it on an unlikely person. “It just doesn't fit,” he insisted. “Why were you there at his cabin to begin with?”

“To talk to him,” I said. “As I told Detective Perez, I was there on behalf of his wife, who couldn't reach him. I was basically doing her a really big favor. My boyfriend was with me as well. He's an English and journalism instructor at Webley High School. I'm sure he'll corroborate my story, if you'd like to call him.”

“I'm sure he will.” Kubik was being undeniably sarcastic. Being me, I was having trouble swallowing it.

“You know, I can't help but feel that you dislike me, Detective Kubik, despite the fact that I've never met you before, and despite the fact that I've been civil and forthcoming and polite. Maybe it's something in the water here, or the paint or something, since your secretary was equally rude and unfriendly. I would think, as your ambassador to the people, you'd want her to take a little seminar in customer service. The way I was raised, you're polite to strangers, even if you suspect them of murder.” I was on a roll now. I could feel my blood pressure rising as I vented my spleen. “In any case, were there any specific questions you wanted to pose, or did you want to continue with your insinuations about my dishonesty?”

Kubik hadn't liked this, but I'd taken him by surprise, and he'd let me finish. Now he closed his folder with deliberation. “I guess we're through, Miss
Monn
. It's been revealing.” Again, the insinuations. “I'll be in touch as the investigation progresses. Please be sure to call me if your story changes—I mean, if you remember any details you might have forgotten to mention.”

I stood up. “Luckily, the truth is easy to remember. But thanks again for inviting me. It's interesting here in the interrogation room. I think I'll write a feature about it for the paper. People love to read firsthand accounts.”

I sailed past him in a rush of righteous indignation, tossed my visitor's pass to Tomato Hair, and escaped into fresh air.

fourteen

I stopped at
the Webley White Hen to pick up some beverages for the evening, still fuming. Of course, I can't go into any store and restrict myself to buying only one thing, so I was clutching a liter of Diet Coke and a six-pack of beer and staring down at a box of frosted doughnuts when I heard a voice that sounded familiar. A woman was talking to the checkout boy as he rang up her order. The clerk was not my friend Sunil, but the other voice was the one that had caught my attention. I grabbed the doughnuts and headed to the front of the store.

The woman was Detective Perez, from Saugatuck. She had exchanged greetings with the guy at the counter, retrieved her plastic bag, and was heading to the door.

“Detective Perez!” I yelled.

Surprised, she turned and, flatteringly, recognized me instantly. “Miss Mann, right?”

“Madeline.”

“Madeline,” she corrected with a smile. “Our paths cross again.”

“Do you have a minute?” I asked, pointing at my groceries.

“Sure,” she replied. “I'll be outside.”

I found her leaning against her car and drinking a carton of chocolate milk. Her dark hair was hanging loose to her shoulders, and she had apparently found some moisture cream since last I'd seen her. She looked great.

“Krosky's still in Saugatuck,” she said before I could ask, providing yet another reason why she might look ten years younger. “I'm just here to investigate a few things. Funny thing is,” she went on, staring over my shoulder at a Trans Am that was leaving the parking lot at an excessive speed, “I spoke with him just a while ago, and he says he received a call from the mayor of Webley and that your name was mentioned in the conversation.”

“I can't believe Don Paul called you,” I said. “But that's great. Let him implicate himself. I didn't know this when I spoke to you before, but I've run across some things that make me think the mayor's office was harassing Logan Lanford, maybe because Logan had incriminating information about the mayor. Is that what you're here to look into?” I asked hopefully.

“No.” Detective Perez could play the taciturn game as well as any cop. She smiled, though, which made it less annoying.

She held up a finger and then walked over to a Dumpster at the edge of the parking lot, where she threw away the milk carton. She wore authority well; I tried to picture myself as a cop, intimidating people with my presence. I failed. She returned with the same measured pace and went back to leaning on her car, an unmarked Nissan.

“So,” I asked her, trying not to sound like an intrusive reporter or, worse yet, a nosy citizen, “if you're not here to investigate the mayor, then…” I thought of Pamela's comment about Linus Lanford. “Is it Logan's brother?”

Detective Perez's eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch, but she continued to regard me silently, and I shivered. It was another cold day, but the sun was out, and someone's barbecue smelled like a wonderful campfire. Finally she said, “Let's just say we have to pursue some leads, based on some information we got from family and friends in Saugatuck.”

“You may as well say nothing at all.” I realized I sounded a bit like a petulant child. I don't know why I expected Detective Perez to cozy up to me, woman to woman, and share all that she knew. I guess because I thought we had some sort of implicit bond. Plus there was always a certain amusement in her eyes when she spoke to me.

“Do I take it you've begun your own investigation into this case?” she asked.

“Well, yes. My newspaper, that is. But it's my story, and I've found out enough to know that something was rotten in the state of Webley, and that Logan was onto it, and later Logan was dead.”

“But he was killed a couple months after being fired from the mayor's office, isn't that right?” she queried.

She had done some homework, I was glad to note. “Yes, that's right. But that doesn't mean that something didn't happen, something perhaps that he discussed with them the night he left town, when he was seen talking to Lyle from the mayor's office.”

“Is that so?” she asked.

“Well, I didn't know it was Lyle when I talked to you. I found out today. But Logan had been here at the White Hen, and the manager saw him talking to some people in a black car. That was Lyle and the mayor. I went to talk to them, and the mayor got so agitated when I spoke with Lyle privately that he all but kicked me out of city hall. There's something going on there; I really wish you'd check it out.”

“I'll do that.” Detective Perez made a little note in a notebook, as if she were writing, “Buy cat food.” It was infuriating how calm cops could be when you were telling them to get excited. I suppose that's what we pay them for.

“Listen, there's something else,” I said.

“Really,” she answered.

“I went to Quinn Paley's house before I left Saugatuck. Logan's son thought he would go there. He implied that Logan was in trouble and that Quinn would help him out. Well, I guess he didn't know he implied that,” I said, confusing her. “Anyway. When I went there, I saw this plant—it was a marijuana plant. And he has these two vicious, slavering guard dogs, and I asked him what for, and he got angry. And I'm wondering if—”

“If he's running a little business?” Perez asked.

“Yeah.” She didn't look surprised, damn her. “And maybe Logan occasionally helped with that business, I don't know. Or maybe he just asked for loans. Paley's doing well; he's got a brand new car—a nice car—and he said he was ‘between jobs.’ I'm thinking he might be more important than I originally thought.”

She nodded. “It's definitely worth following up on. Thanks, Madeline.”

I stood there, frustrated. I wanted her to rush to her car and drive away in a cloud of dust to confront Quinn Paley. She just didn't project enough urgency for my taste. She seemed to sense my disappointment, because she said, “Paley's been in our sights for a while, Madeline.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“He's under surveillance, and I shouldn't be telling you that much. So it's not likely he slipped away to kill Logan without someone noticing.”

“So…I should cross him off my list?” I asked.

“For the time being,” she told me.

I would hate to be a cop, I decided suddenly—always having questions and rarely finding answers. Every lead in the Logan case seemed to drive up to a dead end. “He could have been killed for a couple of dollars. Sometimes that happens, if a person is strung out or something,” I said.

“That's true.” Detective Perez took her keys out of her pocket and stared at them reflectively.

“But we're not dealing with drug addicts or gangsters here, are we?” I asked, still thinking aloud.

“No.” She gave me a significant glance, and I saw that her eyes were very green, with a dark black outline around the irises. “I don't think we are.”

We looked at each other for a while, thinking our own thoughts. “Do you have any other information you'd like to share with me?” she asked finally.

“Well, the Webley police have me pegged as the murderer,” I said. I watched for a reaction and, of course, got none. Just a green stare. “I don't suppose you tried to talk them out of that ridiculous hypothesis?”

“I wouldn't worry about it,” she said.

“I do worry. Kubik practically accused me of murder because Logan had written my name in a notebook. Maybe I should get a lawyer. Or maybe I should work harder, since Kubik's obviously not looking for a killer. Are you?” I asked. “I mean, do you really have leads, or are you just looking at me?”

She selected her car key from about ten others and pinched it between two fingers. “I'll tell you this. We have no reason to believe that Mr. Logan Lanford was killed for his money. And if I were you, I'd watch your back.”