The Case of the Missing Department Head

by David Staats

  “Yes?” said Dure. When she did not respond to this prompt, Dure was more explicit: “What did you tell them?”

  The woman was not unattractive. Her shiny brunette hair shimmered in the light as she spoke. “I was showing houses that Friday and Saturday. The police were fully satisfied.” She intertwined her fingers and rested her hands and forearms on the table in front of her, a triangular prow like the cowcatcher on a locomotive.

  “And your husband?”

  “He was doing the same. We were in and out of the office.” She was sitting up straight, her jaw subtly thrust forward.

  “How well did you know Mrs. Houlihan?”

  “Not at all.”

  “How well did your husband know her?”

  “I think they were political buddies,” she said. There might have been a note of sarcasm in her voice, or it might have been defiance and resentment towards Dure.

  The little room darkened slightly, as if the shadow of a shadow had come upon it. Yet it was enough to make Dure turn and look. Through the glass front of the room and the glass front of the office a tall truck could be seen just pulling into a parking space in front of the office.

  “I take it,” said Dure, turning back, “that you keep some kind of records as to to whom and when you show houses . . .”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “. . . so that you could – if it were necessary – give the names of the people to whom you showed houses on that weekend.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think,” said Dure, “that I won’t need you to testify at trial, but that could change. So, we’ll leave the subpoena in place, but it is likely that I will let you know before your appearance date that we don’t need you.”

  The woman nodded.

  “Thank you for your time,” he said.

  “I’m glad I could help,” she said, but there was heavy irony in her voice.

  * * *

  Dure and Kniffe met after lunch. The day being sunny and the temperature moderate for July, they decided to walk to the park.

  “The immediate neighbors of the Houlihans are three,” said Kniffe, beginning to report on his investigation as they walked, “The Vanderlogens on the right, Loveless on the left, and the Sweets across the street.”

  “What about their neighbors to the back?” asked Dure. They stopped at a corner to wait for traffic to clear before they crossed the street.

  “To the rear of the Houlihan residence is an area of uncontrolled arboreous growth, or as they say, a strip of woods,” said Kniffe, “I thought you had surveilled the scene?”

  “I did,” said Dure. “and I assume that behind that strip of woods is another house?” They crossed the street.

  “There is. But because that strip of woods is approximately 200 yards wide, and the total distance between the two houses is almost a quarter of a mile, that house is not within the scope of what you asked me to investigate, that being the ‘immediate neighbors.’”

  “That is fair,” said Dure. At the next corner they turned right to go down West Miner Street.

  “I did in fact exceed somewhat the scope of the tasked investigation by conducting a discreet inquiry into a fourth residence in the development, but then, I did not want to go beyond that without consulting you first.”

  “That is well. A fourth residence?”

  “The residence of Mr. and Mrs. Parker is in that development, although they are not immediate neighbors of the Houlihans.”

  “Hmm,” said Dure. “I did not connect their street address with that development.”

  “The connection is not superficially evident,” said Kniffe.

  “Ah! I see it now. The streets in Sunderly Chase are named after tree species. So it has a Cherry Lane and a Chestnut Lane.”

  Kniffe half-smiled and nodded.

  “Were the developers so specific as to use only the names of fruiting trees?” asked Dure.

  “No. There’s a Maple Drive . . . although there is also a Walnut Circle.”

  “Home of the fruits and nuts,” said Dure. “All deciduous trees?”

  “No, there’s a Hemlock Court.”

  “Never mind,” said Dure.

  They arrived at the small Baldwin’s Grove Park, which was five blocks from Dure’s office. Around the perimeter of the park at wide intervals were mature oak trees, three feet in diameter at their base. In the middle of the park, which was flat, open ground, a couple of teenage boys were playing with a Frisbee. The two professional men sat on a bench in the shade.

  “The Vanderlogens no one has seen,” said Kniffe. “I had an operative stake out the house. He did not observe anyone go in or out. When the lawn mowing crew came, he questioned them. They have a standing order to mow the lawn once a week. The man who mowed the lawn did not know anything about how payment arrangements were made.” Kniffe sat with both feet flat on the ground; his lumbar spine followed the curved contour of the park bench and his elbows rested on the back of the bench. “We developed information as to Mr. Vanderlogen’s place of employment. They would only say that he is out of the office and are ‘not sure’ when he will return. None of the neighbors have seen any of the Vanderlogens since the end of May, and the unfalsified hypothesis at the moment is that they went to Holland for a summer vacation. If in fact they left town after school let out in May, that would eliminate them from any suspicion.”

  Dure sat to Kniffe’s right. Dure’s right leg was crossed over the other, his right foot pointing off in an oblique direction. While keeping his back straight, his head was bent down in thoughtful concentration and his hands were clasped in his lap. “It also eliminates them from being witnesses who might or might not have been useful,” he said.

  “Regarding the residence on the other side of the Houlihans,” said Kniffe. “Loveless is a retired chemist. He worked at the Cartong Chemical Company. Seventy years old. His wife died ten years ago. No children.” Kniffe recited all of these facts without checking any notes or written report. His gaze swept the park as he spoke. “No arrest record. No lawsuits. Member of the Greenback Party. Apparently he used to be a bird-watcher. Caused the proverbial raised eyebrow among the neighbors by walking around the neighborhood with binoculars, but apparently gave up that practice some time ago.”

  Dure nodded.

  “Across the street” said Kniffe. “are the Sweets, Darryl and Doris. Two girls, aged fifteen and seventeen. He is the comptroller at LiveRite Mobile Home Manufacturing. She works part-time at Martel University. No arrest record. No lawsuits. Shortly after the Sweets moved into their house, six years ago, they had put up a political sign in their yard. A day later they got a visit from Mrs. Houlihan who told them it was against the rules and they had to take it down. What Mrs. Sweet remembers about this is that Mrs. Houlihan smiled and was civil, but she made demands like a tyrant. The Sweets would take down their sign or there would be consequences.”

  “Unh-hmm.” Dure nodded.

  “The homeowner’s association does not have an office and is deficient in record-keeping practices. Just meeting minutes and some financial records. We developed a source who had been a long-time member of the council. He knew Mrs. Houlihan as the proverbial squeaky wheel. According to him, she must have kept a copy of the association rules by her bedside. She would complain to the association about other people’s signs, flags, long grass . . .” Here Kniffe did reach into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and take out a notebook. “. . . trash containers, RV’s in the driveway, curtain linings – ”

  “Curtain linings?” said Dure.

  “In Sunderly Chase, with respect to windows which are visible from the road, the allowable colors for curtain linings are regulated,” said Kniffe. He glanced at the next page in his notebook, then put it back in his pocket.

  “The implication is,” said Dure, “that she made someone in the development change the linings on their curtains?”

  “That is the implication from the information we have developed.”

 
“Do you know who it was?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “Here’s a lagniappe: As I mentioned, the Parkers also live in this development.”

  “But they’re not immediate neighbors,” said Dure.

  “No. They live on Locust Lane, about four tenths of a mile away, as the crow flies,” replied Kniffe, “but, if you drive, it’s about 1.1 miles from the Houlihans’.” Kniffe paused, as if annoyed. When Dure did not say anything, and it was clear that Kniffe had the floor, he said, “One of my female investigators belongs to the Reform Party, and I had her do some checking on this case. Later, as it were, by serendipity, she was talking with a party insider who said there was definitely some extracurricular activity between Tiffany Houlihan and Rhys Parker.”

  Dure picked up on Kniffe’s desire to impress with a juicy story, so he remained quiet and attentive.

  “According to this insider, a group of six party activists, including Tiffany Houlihan and Rhys Parker, were having a meeting in a private room in a restaurant. Two bottles of wine were ordered, though it’s not clear if they were fully consumed. After the meeting, three people left. The Houlihan woman and Mr. Parker and the party insider remained. He said that Mrs. Houlihan and Mr. Parker quote, got the giggles, and got, quote, googley-eyed, and he became uncomfortable. He left and doesn’t know how long the other two stayed there.”

  Dure nodded as if digesting this information. “So . . . all of that is background. And your men apparently talked at least with Mrs. Sweet . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they able to find out if anyone saw, or heard, or noticed anything during the key weekend?”

  “Mrs. Sweet said that when they had found out on Monday about the murder, they were shocked and they all at dinner tried to remember if they had seen anything over the weekend. She said no one could remember anything out of the ordinary and that this frightened them as much as anything, the idea, as she said, that such a thing could happen in the normal course of events.”

  Not far from where the two men were sitting, a small dog tried to chase a squirrel. The squirrel scampered up the oak tree in the shade of which they were sitting, and the small, white dog tried to follow, fruitlessly rushing a few feet up the trunk, falling back, and yapping in frustration.

  “Time is really getting short,” said Dure. “I want you to . . .”

  Kniffe took out his notebook again.

  “Check on the flights of the Vanderlogens. Confirm if they really went on a vacation to Holland, and if so, when they left. Try to interview Loveless and all of the Sweets again, not just Mrs. Sweet. And if possible, interview them separately – I can see how that might be difficult with the two girls – and ask them about everything they saw or heard that weekend, not just what might have seemed unusual. Lastly – there are lots of little wooded strips throughout that development, right?”

  Kniffe nodded.

  “See if there is a path from the Parkers’ house to the Houlihans’ that goes only through woods. That is, would it be possible to go from one house to the other on foot keeping in the cover of wooded strips?”

  Dure steepled his two index fingers and pressed the septum of his nose down on them. His torso oscillated forward and back two or three times. “Okay. That’s it. I’ll see you later.” He put his hands down, rocked his whole body forward, stood up and strode away at a rapid pace, leaving Kniffe behind.

  11.

  Back in his office, Dure asked Kara to prepare three more subpoenas: a subpoena duces tecum for each of Dawn Parker, Rhys Parker, and Parker Real Estate, Inc. requesting the records of house showings for the week of June 3 through June 9.

  Then he asked Ralph to serve those subpoenas when Kara had finished preparing them. Finally, he asked Kara to call the jail and set up another interview for him with Mr. Houlihan.

  * * *

  Yet again Dure went through the gantlet. The dim lighting, the worn condition of all the furniture and fixtures, the way that distrust of everyone was institutionalized and bureaucratized, with sign-in sheets, ID inspection, sitting and waiting, the presence of guards, the clanking and crashing of steel doors and grates.

  He and Houlihan went through the Brady materials, which seemed to mean nothing to Houlihan. Then Dure recounted to him the interview with Dawn Parker. This narrative seemed to elicit some form of interest on the part of Houlihan. His formerly shaggy, now shorn, head tilted and twisted, as if he were trying to get a little steel ball to fall in the right hole. He pressed together his lips, closed his eyes, and scrunched up his face. “Ah!” he exclaimed, as his head righted itself and his face came back to normal. “That’s who it was, Mrs. Parker! She was the woman who avoided me at the gun show!”

  Dure was regarding his client with exasperated, skeptical eyes. “Okay . . .” said Dure.

  “That could be it,” said Houlihan. “She bought a gun at the gun show and shot my wife. I wish I hadn’t made that confession.”

  “Why would she shoot your wife?”

  Houlihan’s mouth made a moue and he looked up and to his right, staring at the ceiling. “Yeah, I don’t know.”

  Dure had not told everything he had learned or suspected about the possible relationship between Mrs. Houlihan and Mr. Parker. But then, there was that hint in the Brady materials they had just gone over, if one knew what to look for. Had Houlihan picked up on it? Maybe Houlihan did not want to express suspicion of his wife for reasons similar to those which inhibited Dure from mentioning his suspicions to Houlihan: Should a man’s life be put in jeopardy for the sake of protecting the memory of an unfaithful wife? Or, was the right question to ask: Should the memory of a faithful wife be ruined for the sake of a far-fetched theory that might not make any difference? There was still a little over a week until trial. Further investigation might make things clearer and decisions easier.

  “We were able to listen to Rhys Parker’s cell phone,” said Dure. “There was what seemed to be a voicemail from your wife at nine thirty on the evening of Friday, June 5. That time is within the outside limits of the broad time frame allowed by the medical examiner for the time of death, but outside of what he considered the most likely time frame. And that’s good for you, because to the extent the call suggests that your wife was alive at that time, your alibi is stronger, because you were at the gun show then. When you went looking for alibi witnesses, what time frame were you looking for?”

  “At first, the times we discussed, you know, early in the afternoon, as early as possible, to prove I was there at a time that would agree with my having left home when I did. But at the end, I was just looking for anybody who could say I was there, any time.”

  “You didn’t happen to talk with anybody who saw you Friday evening or during the night Friday?”

  Houlihan shook his head.

  “I said ‘seemed to be a voicemail,’” said Dure, “because all we heard was silence for five minutes, or you might call it static. To me, it seemed like a ‘pocket dial.’ Could that mean anything to you?”

  Houlihan shook his head. “As you said, it could have been a pocket dial, or let’s see . . . maybe the time stamp got distorted . . . I remember sometimes missing a call, the time would say, maybe one o’clock, but then hours later, the voicemail would come through.”

  “Did your wife ever call you and then hold the line open without saying anything?”

  “No, no.”

  “But if it was a pocket dial,” said Dure, “that would mean that your wife had Mr. Parker’s number on her phone. Would you know why that would be?”

  “Maybe he called her? About Reform Party business? She did a lot with the Party,” said Houlihan.

  “One more thing. It seems that your wife was vigilant about enforcing various rules in the development: homeowner’s association rules, county code . . . I sense that I do not have a complete list of all her activity in this area. Can you give me a run-down of, say, the most recent five years?”

  Houli
han was dismissive. “That’s nothing,” he said, waving his hand down. Houlihan was so evasive that Dure had to become almost brutal. He slammed him with rapid-fire questions as if he were cross-examining a liar:

  “Your wife was killed, right?”

  “Your wife was murdered?”

  “Someone murdered your wife, isn’t that right?”

  “You didn’t murder your wife, right?”

  “If your wife was murdered, and you didn’t do it, then someone else did, right?”

  “Someone else murdered your wife?”

  “You don’t know who it was?”

  “You don’t have any idea who it was?”

  “If you don’t know who it was, then it could have been anybody?”

  “If it could have been anybody, then it could have been one of the neighbors?”

  “Or all of the neighbors?”

  Houlihan was beaten down by this attack and got into a more cooperative mood. Dure shifted his mode of questioning now to a gentler, more collaborative manner. “A murderer is most likely found in one of three groups: first, family, intimate relations, and lovers; second, co-workers and business associates; and third, neighbors. So far we have no likely suspects from groups one or two, so let’s look at group three.”

  Dure’s notes at the end of the interview consisted of a list:

  The Sweets – yard sign violation

  The Calvattis – garbage canister violation

  Loveless – illegal trapping

  The Smiths – long grass violation

  The Wismeres – violation of open burning regulations

  The Vanderlogens – long grass violation; garbage canister violation.

  * * *

  A mere week remained until the start of trial. Dure had convened a brain-storming session. Dure, Kniffe, Ralph and Kara sat around the conference table in Dure’s conference room. Kurt Kniffe was giving a report of his latest investigations. He spoke in a near monotone.

  “The Vanderlogens left on a flight to Amsterdam on May 26 – the wife and son, that is. Mr. Vanderlogen did not fly out until two weeks later on June 9. He also flew to Amsterdam.