The Heirloom Murders (24 page)

“He locked both of us in the springhouse,” Martine muttered, keeping her attention—and the arrow—focused on Guest. “I had to pull some stones from one wall and crawl out through the hole. Anyway, you can’t drive to get help. Your car has a flat—”

My car has a flat? Chloe thought stupidly. Since when?

“—so it would be quicker if you run for help,” Martine was saying. “Go straight up over the hill behind the barn and you’ll see my folks’ place down the valley.”

“But—are you—”

“This bastard isn’t going anywhere.”

Chloe didn’t doubt Martine’s assessment, but she did doubt her own ability to run anywhere just then. Her muscles felt like hot chocolate. “What about his car?”

“I slashed his tires,” Martine said impatiently. “Chloe,
go!
”

The German shepherd jerked his head up and stared down the drive. Then Chloe heard the sound of an approaching car. They all watched as a blue Ford Fairmont emerged from the tree-lined drive.

The driver parked, jumped from the car, and took in the tableau with wide eyes. “What the hell is going on here? Chloe, are you all right?”

Chloe ran to him. His arms went around her, and she put her head against his shoulder. “Oh, Markus. Thank God you’re here.”

Once Markus understood the
situation, he drove back down the drive at frantic speed. By the time he returned Chloe had fetched towels and a blanket from the house, and had done her best to bandage Dellyn’s wounds.

Markus skidded into the
Käsehütte
. “Holy mother of God,” he whispered, crouching beside Dellyn.

“She’s still alive.”

“Cops and ambulance are on the way. Martine’s father and uncle came with me. Brought their shotguns. Are Frieda and Johann all right?”

“When I got the towels a few minutes ago, Johann was sleeping peacefully. Frieda’s …” Chloe’s voice trailed away as Martine pounded past. “Stay with Dellyn, OK?”

Chloe caught up at the springhouse door. Martine grabbed Guest’s shiny new padlock and gave it a wrenching pull. “Damn!” she muttered, then raised her voice. “Gran? You OK in there?”

No answer. Fear darkened Martine’s eyes. Chloe followed as Martine ran around the building to a waist-level hole where several stones had been hacked from the crumbling mortar. She thrust her upper body through the hole, pushed off the ground, and slithered through.

As Chloe reached the hole she heard Martine moan. “Oh,
Gran
.”

Something hot and white and furious boiled up and over. Chloe forgot that her muscles didn’t work. She ran across the yard, past Martine’s father and uncle where they stood with shotguns trained on Guest. “You killed Frieda!” she screamed. “You maybe killed Dellyn! And you almost killed me! All for some
seeds!
”

Guest’s lip curled in a sneer. He opened the fingers of his clenched fist. The breeze snatched a folded bit of brown paper he’d been holding and danced it away, scattering its miniscule contents.

_____

Roelke had asked Meili to call dispatch once he was sure Chloe and Dellyn were OK. Since getting back to the EPD, Roelke had radioed twice to see if Alpine Boy had checked in. Nada. Roelke didn’t know whether that meant the women were
not
OK, or if Meili was just being a jerk.

Maybe, Roelke thought, I shouldn’t have threatened the guy.

He’d just finished faxing his report on Lester Odell to the DA when the phone rang. Roelke snatched it. “McKenna here.” He braced himself to hear Meili’s voice.

“R-Roelke?” Chloe quavered.

Jesus
. The clock stopped ticking. Roelke’s unnecessary functions—sight, for example—stopped working. His body rejected everything other than her voice. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“I’m f-fine,” Chloe said. “But Dellyn’s in the hospital. She got m-mauled by a German shepherd. She lost a lot of blood, and for a while they weren’t sure …” Another loud sniffle. “They think she’ll pull through. But Roelke? Frieda and Johann—they’re both dead.” She began to weep.

A man’s voice murmured something in the background. Meili. Roelke ached with the longing to be there, to be the one providing comfort. “Who are Frieda and Johann?” he asked after a moment.

She blew her nose. “This wonderful old Swiss couple. I’ll tell you about them when you get here. We’re at the hospital in Monroe. I mean … can you come? You really need to. The cops have Edwin Guest, and—”

“Hold tight,” Roelke said. “I’m on my way.”

Roelke drove hot, lights-and-sirens, and made it to Monroe in an hour. He found Chloe and Meili huddled into orange plastic chairs in the ER waiting room. Chloe’s head was on Meili’s shoulder; her eyes were closed. Roelke was enormously glad that he saw them a moment before Meili saw him. Roelke’s cop face was in place when Meili nudged Chloe awake.

Roelke pulled another chair in front of the couple and sat. “You’re OK?” he asked Chloe.

Chloe sat up straight, wiped her eyes, nodded. “I’m OK.”

Roelke forced himself to look Meili in the eye. “Thank you.”

Meili nodded. There was no look of triumph in his face. Triumph would likely come later, when the shock of whatever had unfolded this evening had passed.

_____

“Guest won’t be released tonight,” Officer Buckley of the New Glarus PD told Roelke. “The arrow—”

The
arrow?

“—came close to the hip. There’s joint damage.” Buckley shrugged.
He was middle-aged but still compact and muscular, with a welcome
air of competency. “He might need surgery.”

“Did he kill the elderly couple?” Roelke asked. “The Frietags?”

The other man spread his hands in a
Who knows?
gesture. “That’s not yet clear. Guest lawyered up real quick. Then Miss Ellefson told us what she knew, and said she’d called you. I figured I’d wait, since you’ve already had contact with the guy.”

“Thanks,” Roelke said. “I’ll see what I can shake out of him.”

Buckley led him into a closet-sized room. Guest looked even smaller than usual lying on the pillows of a hospital bed, wearing a gown. A gray-haired man in a navy pin-striped suit sat vigil in one corner. Buckley settled against the wall in another corner.

Being back in a hospital reminded Roelke viscerally of his own recent visit to an emergency room—courtesy of this asshole. “Mr. Guest,” Roelke said. “We need to talk.”

“I want a deal.”

“Now Edwin,” Mr. Suit began. “Let me—”

Guest tried to hitch himself higher in bed, and winced in pain. “I want a deal!”

Roelke wanted to pummel the little man. “What makes you think we’ll make a deal with you? There’s no reason to give you anything.”

“Simon Sabatola abused his wife,” Guest said. “That’s what you wanted to confirm, right? I won’t tell what I know about that without a deal.”

Roelke looked at him with contempt. This coward had been ready to kill for his boss, but as soon as things went south, he wanted to flip and tell all. “There’s no reason to make a deal with you,” Roelke repeated. “We have evidence of the harm you did at the Frietag farm this evening.
That’s
going to carry your sorry ass to prison.” At least he hoped-to-God so.

Mr. Suit cleared his throat. “My client—”

“As for Sabatola,” Roelke continued, “his wife is dead and buried. You can talk yourself hoarse, but it won’t give me anything I can use to convict her husband of a crime. I’d need evidence.”

To Roelke’s astonishment, Edwin Guest smiled. “You want evidence?” he asked smugly. “I’ve got evidence.”

_____

For the second time, Roelke found himself fishing for coins at the pay phone in an ER lobby. And for much the same reason. Evidently the police gods thought that one helping of humble pie that night had not been enough for Officer Roelke McKenna.

Midnight had come and gone, but Skeet answered on the second ring. “It’s McKenna,” Roelke said. “Sorry to call so late, man, but I’ve got a situation here.” And I didn’t want to call one of the younger part-timers, he added silently. This expedition could end badly. Skeet might cut corners, but when shit hit the fan, he was steady.

“Sure thing,” Skeet said. “What and where?”

Roelke told him. By the time he’d driven back from Monroe, Skeet’s car was sitting in Edwin Guest’s driveway.

The home was not as palatial as Sabatola’s, but it was nice. More important, the house and yard were sheltered on all sides by woods. No nosy neighbors would see their bright flashlights, or hear noise and wonder.

“Thanks, man,” Roelke said. He gave Skeet a condensed version of what he’d learned from Guest that night. “No reason to think we’re walking into anything here. No reason to think Guest hasn’t been acting alone. But I need two hands to dig. Company seemed like a good idea.”

They played the beams from their strong lights around the yard. “OK,” Roelke said, when his light caught a doghouse and run, surrounded by a chain-link fence. “Here it is.” Since Ajax had been taken into custody by Green County’s animal control crew, the kennel area was empty.

Roelke kicked aside a large metal water bowl. Then he holstered his flashlight, grabbed the shovel he’d brought, and began to dig.

Six inches down the blade hit something solid. “Got it,” Roelke said. Adrenalin pumped through his veins. Ten minutes more and he had unearthed a hard-plastic cooler. He jerked off the lid. The two men stared at the cooler’s contents.

“Shit,” Skeet said.

Roelke felt a surge of fury and vindication so hot it almost scalded his throat. “I’ve
got
the bastard,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They stopped at the EPD long enough to process the evidence properly and package it for the state crime lab. Then they headed back to the squad car. “You don’t want to wait ’til dawn?” Skeet asked.

“No. No
way
.”

Skeet shrugged. “Your call.”

No lights and sirens, this time. Roelke didn’t want Sabatola to know he was coming. He slowed when they reached Sabatola’s long driveway, and parked in a way that blocked the garage.

The house was dark and silent. When no one answered Roelke’s bang on the door he knew a sick moment of fear. Had Sabatola somehow known he was coming, and fled? Roelke pounded again. Finally he heard the metallic click of a latch being thrown, and the outside light came on. The door opened a crack, and a woman’s frightened face appeared. She was a middle-aged Latina, wearing a long bathrobe over her nightgown.

Roelke flashed his badge. “Eagle Police,” he said. “Is Mr. Sabatola at home?”

“Mr. Sabatola is sleeping!” the woman said, stepping back as the two officers came inside. She clutched the bathrobe close beneath her chin.

“Wake him up,” Roelke said. “Tell him Officer Roelke McKenna is here. And that Waukesha County deputies have surrounded the house.” That was a lie, but it couldn’t hurt.

Sabatola must have heard the commotion, because he came downstairs just moments after the Latina woman disappeared. He wore dark blue pajamas and a matching robe—both silk, of course—and slippers made from glossy leather. “Officer Mc-Kenna?” he demanded. “It’s two
AM
! What is—”

“In here.” Roelke jerked his head toward the living room. He turned on a table lamp beside the beautiful photo of Bonnie Sabatola. “Sit down.”

Sabatola hesitated, then obeyed. Roelke saw a flash of unease in the man’s eyes. Skeet stayed on his feet, vigilant but out of the way.

Roelke began to pace in front of Sabatola. “I’m here to discuss your wife, Mr. Sabatola.”

“What about her?” The other man started to rise again.

“Sit
down
,” Roelke ordered. Because of his own impatience they were doing this in Sabatola’s home—in his own comfort zone. Roelke at least wanted the advantage of physical dominance.

“You know, Mr. Sabatola, I still have some lingering questions about your wife’s suicide,” he began. “Let me lay out some facts for you. First of all, Mrs. Sabatola told us where to look for her wallet and keys. But when Officer Deardorff and I arrived—” he nodded toward Skeet—“those items were elsewhere.”

“My wife was obviously in great emotional distress.”

“She was,” Roelke agreed. “She was also calm and rational. She told us we’d find her three hundred paces down the White Oak Trail, but we found her body well short of that. And the heel of one of her sandals was broken. That suggests that she ran down the trail, instead of walking.”

Sabatola started to rise again. Skeet stepped forward and shoved
him back into the chair.

“According to our clerk,” Roelke told him, “your wife’s last words
were ‘Oh Jesus.’”

Sabatola’s face was still composed, but his fingers gripped the arms of the chair tightly. “Bonnie was a devout woman.”

“I think she said ‘Oh Jesus’ because she saw your car pull into the parking lot.”

“I—I didn’t—that’s absurd! I was playing golf in Lake Geneva when Bonnie killed herself.”

“I don’t think so,” Roelke said. “When I tried to find you to notify you of the death, Mr. Guest said you were in the middle of a business-related golf outing in Lake Geneva. He also said he didn’t know which particular course you were enjoying that morning. It took the Lake Geneva police awhile to track you down. Because no one suspected that a crime had been committed, they didn’t pay much attention to the timeline of events.”

“This is preposterous!”

“But I checked with them, Mr. Sabatola. The Lake Geneva officer found you and your guest near the first hole at the Three Springs Country Club at ten-forty-five. According to your secretary’s desk calendar, though, the golf outing was scheduled for nine AM at Three Springs. Funny how Mr. Guest couldn’t produce that information, even though it was written in his own calendar.”

Sabatola was shaking his head. Tiny drops of sweat glistened on his forehead.

“I got the name of your golf partner from the club manager, and checked with that gentleman’s office. He told me that you were supposed to pick him up at nine, but that your secretary called shortly after nine to say you were running late. So the way I figure it, you had time to chase your wife down the trail, kill her, and drive away before we got to the scene. And you had time to call your secretary, and then drive to Lake Geneva and get out on the course before the police found you.” Roelke stared down at him. “Because you did kill your Bonnie.”