The Heirloom Murders (4 page)

“Got a minute?” Chief
Naborski asked.

“Sure.” Roelke followed the chief into his office. It was shift change again. The older man liked to catch up with whomever was coming on duty. He always posed his request as a question, though. Not an order.

Chief Naborski dropped into his chair. He refused to purchase anything that swiveled or rolled; he liked chairs he could tip back on two legs, which he did now. “Fill me in on the suicide. Have you talked to the husband?”

“Simon Sabatola.” Roelke settled in a chair in front of the desk. “Not yet. He was playing golf in Lake Geneva with a client. Some business thing.” He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The idea that playing golf on a summer morning qualified as work was beyond his experience. “It took awhile for the local guys to track him down. Sabatola’s office, and the client’s office, knew about the golf outing but didn’t know which course. I’m going to talk to Mr. Sabatola today.”

“Good.” Chief Naborski ran a hand over his buzz-top. He was
a stocky man, plain-spoken, fair with his officers and with the public.

“I’ve got a funny feeling about this one.”

“Suicides are never easy.” The chief shook his head. “Hard to tell what finally pulls the trigger, so to speak. Money problems. Relationship problems. Or who knows what else.”

“Yeah.” Roelke thought about that. Money and marriage. Tricky things to investigate. But he was going to try.

“Different topic. Everything set for your first Movie Night?”

“All set.” Roelke had proposed a summer series of free, family-friendly movies in the village park. His theory was simple: kids watching a movie were not bored and, therefore, not getting into trouble. He’d written a grant that pulled in some state dollars, and gotten approval from the village board.

“Lined up all the help you need?”

“I’ve got volunteers from the Lions Club, American Legion, the Fire Department, and the Kettle Moraine Snowmobile Club.”

“Good. One more thing.” Chief Naborski gave him a level gaze. “Wasserman’s retiring.”

Roelke felt every cell quiver, like a hound catching a scent.

“So there’s going to be a permanent, full-time slot opening up,” Naborski said. “Patrolman II. Earns $7.40 an hour.”

Which would be a nice bump from Roelke’s current Patrolman I status, at six bucks an hour.

“We’re not going to open the search to outside applicants,” the chief was saying. “Not when I’ve got two good part-time officers already waiting.”

Two good part-time officers, Roelke thought. Me and Skeet.

Naborski twiddled a pen in his fingers, like a cheerleader with a miniature baton. “It’s out of my hands, of course. The Police Committee will handle it. Get your application to the Village Board by next Wednesday.”

“Will do.” Roelke realized that his right knee was bouncing up and down with suppressed energy. He forced it into stillness.

Chief Naborski let the front of his chair bang to the floor, his end-of-conversation signal. “Any questions?”

“No sir,” Roelke said. But there was one more question. It clanged
like a bell in his brain as he left the chief’s office, checked his duty belt, told Marie where he was going, and headed out.

If Skeet wins this job, Roelke thought, what the hell am I going to do?

_____

Simon Sabatola lived outside the village. The short drive gave Roelke time to consider strategy. Putting Sabatola on the defensive would probably accomplish nothing. Good cop, then. I am your friend.

Roelke felt his eyebrows rise as he turned into a long, winding drive. The place looked like an estate, better suited for suburban Chicago than rural Wisconsin. The grass was the uniform lush green that signaled the regular arrival of a lawn service team with power trimmers and tanks of herbicide. Flower beds lined the drive, filled with a few plants he recognized—roses, day lilies, hydrangeas—and a lot he didn’t. No dandelions or dead blooms in sight.

The house itself was a modern chalet. Roelke parked beside a gleaming black Lincoln Town Car. When he knocked on the front door he half-expected a maid or uniformed butler to answer. Instead, a small man in an expertly cut navy-blue suit appeared.

“Mr. Sabatola?” Roelke asked.

“No, I’m Edwin Guest. I work for Mr. Sabatola.” Guest paused, eyebrows raised expectantly.

Roelke introduced himself. “I’d like to speak with Mr. Sabatola.”

Guest hesitated. He was balding, and had a thin face and pale eyes, with no particularly memorable features. Roelke wondered if rich people looked for that when they hired people.

Finally Guest ushered him inside. “I’ll see if Mr. Sabatola is available.”

“I’ll wait until he is.” Roelke smiled pleasantly.

Guest disappeared. Roelke used the pause to take impressions of the house. The décor favored leather and steel, with splashes of color provided by large abstract paintings on the walls. Roelke stared at one particularly vivid piece, trying to make sense of the primary colors slapped on the canvas. What did people see in this stuff ? It probably cost a fortune, and Libby’s young son could have—

“Officer McKenna?” A man entered the hall from a side room. “I’m Simon Sabatola.”

Roelke shook the widower’s hand. Simon Sabatola stood over six feet, with broad shoulders and a firm grip. At first glimpse, he had a commanding presence. His eyes, though—they were red and swollen, full of shadows, full of pain.

“I’m terribly sorry for your loss,” Roelke said. “And I’m sorry to intrude at such a difficult moment. I hope you can understand that I need to ask a few questions.”

Sabatola ushered him into the living room. “Would you like anything? Coffee?”

Roelke declined the coffee, and perched on the edge of a black leather sofa. Sabatola sank into a matching chair. A framed wedding portrait of Simon and Bonnie Sabatola sat on a glass end table beside him. She’d posed snuggled against her husband, chestnut hair arranged in curls, face glowing with joy beneath her bridal veil. Roelke felt a tightening in his chest. She was—had been—stunning.

“Have you learned anything about my wife’s death?” Sabatola asked.

“I have no new information,” Roelke said carefully. “As I’m sure you were told, your wife died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.” He paused. Some people in this situation wanted all the details. Some wanted none.

“It still seems so … unreal.” The other man’s eyes filled with tears. “I keep thinking it’s all a mistake.”

Roelke never knew what to do with men who cried. He avoided Sabatola’s gaze for a moment, giving the other man time to compose himself. “I can only imagine the shock, sir. But … had Bonnie seemed distressed lately?”

“No, nothing like that.” Sabatola spread his hands, palms-up, in a gesture of bafflement. “I mean … obviously she must have been upset about
something,
or she wouldn’t have done such a thing. But whatever it was, she managed to hide it from me.”

“Was she being treated for depression?”

“No.”

“Forgive me, sir, but I need to ask. Had the two of you been having marital difficulties?”

“What? No!” The other man looked shocked. “Our marriage was perfect.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “I knew the moment I saw Bonnie that she was the one for me.”

“What did your wife do?”

Sabatola blinked. “Do?”

“Did she have a job? Do volunteer work? Have a hobby?”

“Bonnie chose not to work, after we married.” He leaned over, arms on his knees, too restless to sit still. “She sometimes did charity work. She loved to cook, and to garden.”

Roelke thought of the huge garden he’d glimpsed at the Burke house. It wasn’t surprising to think that Bonnie had a green thumb. “Did your wife keep a diary?”

Sabatola shook his head. “I went through her things after I got home last night. I didn’t find a diary, or a letter, or anything else to explain what she did.”

Roelke flipped open his little notebook so he could jot down key points. “Your wife shot herself with a 9 millimeter Smith and Wesson, Model 39. The gun was yours?”

“Yes. We only had it for self-protection. I never dreamed Bonnie …” He swallowed visibly.

“I understand you were golfing?”

“Yes.” Simon Sabatola stood abruptly and walked to a bar that stood near the back corner of the room. He used tongs to put a few ice cubes in a glass, then added a splash of whiskey. “I beg your pardon,” he said, as he seated himself again. “I’m not an alcoholic. But a little Glenlivet does help.”

“No need to apologize, Mr. Sabatola.”

Sabatola sipped before resuming the conversation. “Anyway, I was in Lake Geneva, playing a round with a man I hope to do business with. A parts manufacturer.”

“You work for a company called AgriFutures?”

“I do.” Sabatola nodded. “My stepfather started the company forty years ago, in Elkhorn. After he passed away we probably should have moved the company to Chicago. But my wife’s family was in Eagle … well, you know that, of course. She didn’t want to leave Wisconsin.”

“So you put family first.”

“It’s always a balance,” Sabatola said. “I’m going to be named CEO of AgriFutures soon. Bonnie and I had always dreamed of that. Now … it hardly seems to matter.” He took another drink of whiskey—more of a gulp, this time. When he put the glass down on a marble coaster, his gaze lingered on the wedding portrait. Fresh tears glistened in his eyes.

Roelke closed his notebook, and decided to edge into deeper waters. “Mr. Sabatola, I’m sorry to say that I’ve seen other cases like this. I hope you don’t blame yourself. Sometimes women have everything they could ever want, and still …” He let the sentence trail away.

“Bonnie did have everything.” Sabatola tossed back another gulp of whiskey. “Everything any woman could dream of.”

Roelke shook his head sadly. “Thank you, Mr. Sabatola. I’ll be in touch if I need to speak with you again.”

“I’ll be back in the office tomorrow. I couldn’t face it today, but … I find that rattling around this house is even worse.” Sabatola looked around the living room—stylish, cold, empty. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. I just can’t imagine coming home from work and her not being here.”

Both men stood. “I’ll call my secretary to show you out,” Sabatola said. When he left the room he took his whiskey with him.

Roelke waited for the promised escort, not realizing until Edwin Guest appeared that he’d already met Sabatola’s secretary. “Thank you,” Roelke said when they reached the door. Guest nodded.

Once outside, the door firmly closed behind him, Roelke sucked in a deep breath and blew it out again. He knew better than to admit it to Libby or Chloe, but male secretaries—or nurses, or flight attendants—made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t proud of that, but there it was.

He could almost hear Chloe calling him a Neanderthal. That pushed his thoughts to the last time he’d seen her. For a moment he’d forgotten about Alpine Boy. For a moment, it had been just him and Chloe, picking things up right where they’d left off before her stupid Swiss ex had popped up.

You need to be thinking about Simon Sabatola, not Chloe, Roelke chided himself. He drove a mile and pulled over. He wanted to flesh out his notes while the conversation was still fresh. Once he’d done so, he stared at the page. Simon Sabatola had not been able to offer any explanations for Bonnie’s suicide. Had Bonnie truly been such a skilled actress? Or had Sabatola’s business trips and aspirations blinded him to the fact that his wife was struggling?

Still, the widower had obviously been in real pain, experiencing deep grief. He may not have been a particularly attentive husband … but he’d loved Bonnie.

Roelke slipped his notebook away. He wasn’t finished with Simon Sabatola. Next step: a visit to AgriFutures. Roelke was planning to attend Bonnie’s funeral, too, with eyes and ears wide open.

“This,” Chloe muttered, as
she turned into the village of New
Glarus on Saturday morning, “was a big mistake.” She already felt emotionally assaulted. The area had been settled by Swiss immigrants in the 1850s. Now, tourism based on Swiss heritage was a huge part of the town’s economy and identity. Many of the commercial buildings resembled Swiss chalets. Canton flags hung proudly from poles. Signs identified the Swiss bakery, the Swiss embroidery factory, the Sw
iss pharmacy and imports store.

Chloe inched her Pinto into a parking spot on Main Street and sat clenching the steering wheel. She hadn’t wanted to invite Markus into her world, but coming into his was just as brainless. Finally she took a deep breath, pried her fingers free, and climbed from the car. She wasn’t going to run away with her proverbial tail between her proverbial legs. She had a firm plan established: Meet her ex, say some things that needed to be said, and turn her back on him. Forever.

The New Glarus Hotel was a village landmark. The big frame structure, originally known as the Glarus House, had been welcoming hungry travelers for well over a century. Chloe walked into the dining room twenty minutes early. She wanted to choose her seat; wanted to see Markus before he saw her. She wanted to have the few seconds—as he approached the hotel, entered the dining room, scanned the room—to see how she felt.

Markus didn’t give her the chance. He already sat in a booth in the sun porch that overlooked Main Street, watching her.

Lovely.

Despite her intention to be cool and aloof, she stopped moving. For a year, now, Markus had been her past. She’d worked hard to construct a new life here in Wisconsin. Without him. But here he was.

“You can sit anywhere,” a waitress called.

Chloe made her way to the booth. Markus got to his feet, looking as if he might make physical contact—a hug, perhaps a friendly kiss. She slid quickly onto the vinyl bench.

A young woman wearing an outfit that suggested a Swiss dirndl, with
Tess, Trainee
printed on her nametag, appeared at Chloe’s shoulder. “Um, do you want coffee?”

“Please.”

The waitress splashed coffee into the mug with such vigor that some slopped into the saucer. “Oh, sorry! Do you, um, need time with the menu?”

Chloe shook her head. “I’ll just have some toast.”

“We’re only serving off the lunch menu now,” Tess said apologetically.

Chloe ground her teeth, looked at her choices, and ordered
Kaesechuechli
—a cheese pie served with fruit. Markus asked for
Wienerschnitzel
. Tess nodded, started to walk away, returned and snatched up the menus, left again.

“I thought you might not come,” Markus said.

“I almost didn’t.” Chloe became aware of the music being piped into the dining room, a lively Swiss folk collection with plenty of yodeling that hit her nerves like a band saw.

“You look good.”

“Thanks.” He did too, actually, although she didn’t feel like saying so. Markus Meili was slightly built, with a wiry strength that made him at ease handling draft horses and oxen and hogs. His face was still interesting, rather than handsome, although his gray eyes were more watchful than she remembered. His wavy hair was still thick as ever. Still worn a little long. Still displaying a tendency to fall forward across his forehead. It asked—begged, really—to be smoothed back. Chloe’s fingers twitched with silky remembrance. She slid them under her thighs, pinning them against the seat.

“How are you?” he finally asked.

Chloe pulled her hands free again, reached for the tiny pitcher of cream, and carefully poured a generous dollop into her coffee. “I’m good.”

Markus pushed his mug aside and placed both palms on the table, leaning closer. “All right, look,” he said quietly. “You don’t want to chat. So let’s just say what needs to be said.” He paused, raking his own fingers through his hair. It was a gesture both forgotten and so viscerally remembered that for a few seconds Chloe couldn’t breathe.

Markus held her gaze. “I screwed up.”

“Yeah. You did. Big time.”

“I made a mistake—”

“A mistake?” Chloe hissed. She didn’t want to touch his hair anymore. “You asked me to move to Switzerland, Markus. I turned my life inside out to do that. We were happy together for over five years. Then I had a miscarriage, and three days later, you told me to pack my bags. It was inhumane. And you call that a
mistake?
”

Tess returned, deposited their plates, marched away again.

Markus swallowed visibly. “You have every right to be angry—”

“Damn straight.”

“There’s no excuse for what I did. The only explanation I can give is that … well, I panicked.”

Chloe regarded him coldly.

“We’d never even
talked
about having a family. I didn’t even know you were pregnant, and—”

“I didn’t know I was pregnant either,” Chloe snapped. An elderly, frizzle-permed woman at a nearby table turned her head, eyeing them with interest. Chloe forced her voice down a few decibels. “Did you think I’d gotten pregnant on purpose? You thought I was trying to trap you or something? Was
that
it?”

Markus sighed heavily, picked up his fork, put it back down.
“I didn’t know what to think.”

“How could you even
consider
that I’d do something like that?” The odors of coffee and melted cheese seemed suddenly sour, making Chloe feel nauseated.

“Chloe, I—”

“You know what? I’m outta here.” She wriggled from the booth.

Markus scrambled after her, and grabbed her wrist. “
Please
don’t go. Just hear me out.”

Chloe jerked her arm free. For a few moments they stood like that, face to face. Chloe contemplated hitting him, telling him to kiss her ass, walking away forever.

Instead she sank back on the bench. The elderly woman hitched her chair to one side, so she’d have a better view.

Markus slid back onto his seat. “I’m
sorry
. I know that sounds empty. I know it doesn’t change anything. But I’ve needed to say it. I treated you horribly, and I’m very sorry.”

Chloe looked out the window. On the street below a man in a red car was blocking traffic while he tried to parallel park in front of the hotel. Chloe watched as he see-sawed gingerly back and forth for several minutes before giving up and driving on. Finally she looked back at Markus. “Why now? All this happened a year ago. Is there a reason you’re here right now? Because your timing sucks, Markus. It really sucks.”

“I saw mention of your hire in the ALHFAM magazine.”

Damn professional journal. Editors had no right to publicly spew people’s personal information, even in the living history, farm, and agricultural museum community.

“It seemed like it was meant to be. I’d already been talking with Claude—you remember Claude?”

“I remember Claude,” Chloe said through gritted teeth. Claude was Markus’s boss at Ballenberg, the huge open-air museum in Switzerland where he worked. And where she had, once, worked also.

“We’d been talking about me coming over here, doing some fieldwork. Many Swiss emigrants ended up in Wisconsin—there are still some old-timers in New Glarus, and Monroe … we were hoping someone might even still have some old-breed livestock.” His eyes sparked with the enthusiasm she remembered. “Genetically, finding a new population here would mean—”

Chloe glared at him as understanding dawned. “You
prick!
You didn’t come here to talk to me, you came here to look for goats!”

Markus sobered. “All I meant was that I was able to get Ballenberg to pay my travel expenses, and approve a two-month leave.” He leaned back and studied her. “I’ve never gotten over you, Chloe. The more time went by, the more I realized that I still … that I still have feelings for you.”

Chloe pulled a napkin from the silver dispenser and began folding it into tidy triangles. “So what, you think you can pick things up where we left off ? I’m supposed to just forget everything you put me through? It’s not that easy.”

“Of course it’s not that easy.” Markus rotated his coffee mug a neat quarter-turn. “But I’ll be in Wisconsin for another month. I would like very much to spend some time with you.”

Tess appeared and stared with dismay at their full plates. “Is something wrong with the food?”

“Absolutely not,” Markus assured her. “It’s as good as I could get at home in Brienz. Be sure to tell the chef.” Tess beamed, and disappeared again.

Chloe watched her leave before turning back to Markus. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to spend time together.”

“Is there someone else?”

I wish I knew, Chloe thought, pausing from her freestyle origami. “Maybe.”

Something flickered over his face. It took her a moment to decipher his expression as regret. She had once thought she knew his every nuance. Regret—that one was new.

“Just give it a chance,” he said. “Please, Chloe. We were good together. Let’s just see if we …” He lifted one hand, palm up. Another forgotten/familiar gesture. They were coming back now—all the intimacies, all the shared experiences, all the memories. All the things she’d spent a year trying very hard to forget.

“We can start small,” Markus said. “I need to visit Old World Wisconsin. Will you show me around?”

“Absolutely not.”

He blinked. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“But I must visit! Claude expects me to learn about your breeding program!”

“Oh, come on. We don’t even have a Swiss farm.”

“It doesn’t matter. Old World Wisconsin is one of the best-known American historic sites among agricultural historians.”

“Fine. Call the site and ask to speak with the head farmer. He’ll show you around.”

“And I’ll need to see whoever manages your garden program.”

“Gardens?” Chloe felt her brows rise.

“Some of my funding for this trip came from a … what’s the word? Consortium? A consortium of European historic sites doing research on heirloom plants. They want to know what species and traditions might have crossed to North America.”

“Begin with the farmer,” Chloe said firmly. “Our head gardener’s sister just died. And she only started this past spring, anyway. I don’t know how much she’ll be able to tell you.”

“I really want to see the site through
your
eyes.”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

He chewed his lower lip for a moment. “All right, how about this. I just got an invitation to visit an elderly couple, Johann and Frieda Frietag, on Monday. They are evidently quite frail, but still living on the farm his great-grandfather built. There’s a tiny cheese factory on the grounds, and I want to talk with them about livestock and vegetables. Why don’t you come with me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I have to work. Staff meeting.” It was even true. Director Ralph Petty started each week by convening the few Old World Wisconsin employees with permanent status.

“Their granddaughter said they make an old variety of green cheese,” Markus said, with the air of offering a tantalizing treat. He knew how interested she was in historic food traditions.

Chloe didn’t like being manipulated. “I don’t care.”

“And Frieda is an expert at embroidery.”

Chloe glared at him. He knew how interested she was in historic textiles, as well. They had done this many times in Switzerland—visited some elder, learning what they could about traditional folkways.

“Please, Chloe.
Please
.”

Maybe it was the humble tone to Markus’s plea. Maybe it was a reflexive response to five years of shared history. Or maybe it was the permed lady’s tiny, encouraging nod. For whatever reason, Chloe heard herself mutter, “Oh, all right.”