by Mary Logue
“You know, salt makes you strong,” Chet had said. “Really?” Rich had asked. “Yup, that’s what my grandpa told me. Comes from the ocean. So I eat a lot of salt.” Later at home, when Rich’s mom had noticed him dumping salt into his hand and licking it, she asked him why he was doing that. He had explained and she had laughed at him. All she had said was, “A little goes a long way. As they say, I’d take what Chet Baldwin tells you with a grain of salt.” Then she laughed again.
Rich had taken his mother’s advice and often tempered what Chet said. He knew that Chet exaggerated when he thought it would make the story better, but Rich had never known him to lie.
When Rich reached the Baldwin home, the front door was standing wide open and most of the lights were on. Rich stepped into the living room and saw no one. He heard nothing. No television, or radio. No talking. No noise of anyone moving around anywhere.
This silence bothered him more than a screaming fight would have. Where was everyone?
He hollered, “Chet?”
No answer.
Rich took another step or two into the living room and then stopped to look around. Growing up, he had spent a lot of time in this house. Chet had lived in it his whole life. The living room had always struck him as a pleasant, cozy place where you could settle in to read and think. An old iron wood-stove was its centerpiece, with a faded couch that was long enough to stretch out on and a set of matching Amish rocking chairs. The Red Wing newspaper was spread out on the coffee table, but other than that, everything seemed in its place.
He went to the hallway. “Where are you?”
Still no answer, but Rich thought he heard a noise. He followed it.
Pushing the bedroom door open, he stood back and looked in.
A lamp glowed on the bedside table. Two people were lying on the bed. At first glance, an intimate scene: the woman was stretched out straight and the man was curled up next to her. Anne and Chet Baldwin. Anne was wearing a sheer nightgown. She was a lovely woman and her form showed through the gauzy material just as it was meant to.
But there was a dark hole in the middle of her forehead and a red halo around her head as if someone had painted it on the pink-flowered bedspread.
Chet was so still that for a moment, Rich worried that his friend might be dead too. Then he heard a whisper of a cry.
Rich stepped back from the doorway and walked down the hallway. This was as bad as it gets. He found the phone in the kitchen and called Claire. She answered on the first ring and
when he said, “Get over here,” she didn’t ask any questions. She just said, “I’m coming.”
When Rich went back to the bedroom, he found Chet clutching Anne’s right arm and softly keening. Something dark was smeared on his hands and on his face.
“Chet, we need to get you out of here.” Rich stepped toward him, but stopped a few feet from the bed.
Chet didn’t respond to him.
“Chet, Claire’s coming over now. You need to pull it together. Get off the bed.” Rich forced himself to reach down and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. At his touch, Chet turned his head toward Rich and looked at him as if he was trying to place him.
“Come on, Chet. Get up.”
“I can’t leave her,” Chet whispered.
“Just get off the bed. It’ll be all right. We’ll stay right here.”
“You won’t make me leave her?”
“No,” Rich took Chet’s arm and got him to sit on the edge of the bed. “What happened here, buddy?”
Whatever had happened that night had aged Chet a good twenty years. His gray hair was sodden with sweat, his skin sallow and collapsed in on his face. He looked feverish and weak from the force of the recent trauma.
Chet glanced at Rich, his eyes uneasy and twitchy, and then turned back to his wife. “Anne’s gone.”
Rich didn’t know what more to say. He didn’t want to ask any questions for fear of what Chet might say. He kneeled down by the bed and mourned whatever had happened to Anne.
Fifteen minutes later, he heard someone at the front so he yelled, “Claire, back here. In the bedroom.”
She stepped cautiously into the room and stopped when she saw Rich kneeling by Chet. “Oh.” The sound whistled out of her like a soft scream.
She took a step closer, scanning the scene, then focusing on Anne’s still body. “Is she dead? Is he okay? Who shot her?”
Before Rich could answer her, Chet stood up as if he was about to say something, but no words came out.
The gun he’d been cradling fell to the floor with a thud.
* * *
Claire slipped her hand into the pocket of her uniform and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves before she bent down and picked up the gun, not sure of the make, but noting that it was a .38 revolver, a nice little pistol that was especially effective at close range, didn’t tend to send bullets through walls.
“Is this your gun, Chet?” She asked an easy question, trying to get him ready to talk. Chet had a full arsenal of firearms. He was known to be a hunter and an excellent marksman; he often gave them venison in the fall.
“No, it was Anne’s,” he said with his head sunk down between his shoulders. He looked as if he would topple over. Rich stood right next to him, ready to catch his friend if he passed out. “I bought it for her on her birthday two years ago. I taught her how to use it. She named it after Annie Oakley. Called it Oakley.”
His answer jolted her at first, but then it made sense. So it was Anne’s gun, possibly kept in the bedside table drawer in case of an intruder. “Let’s get you out of here. I need to make a couple calls.”
“There’s a phone in the kitchen,” Chet said as he followed her out of the room. Rich walked right next to him.
Claire called in to the dispatcher and asked that whoever was on hand be sent out to the Baldwin house. Then she turned her attention back to Chet. “I’m going to be asking you some questions now and I’m going to be asking them as a deputy sheriff. You understand.”
He lifted up his head slowly as if it weighed almost too much for his neck to carry. “Yes, Claire, I do.”
She had to stop herself from moving in on him and giving him a consoling hug. Sorrow radiated off of him in waves. “These questions might seem scary, but that’s just what I have to do. Try to answer them as best you can. Do you understand?”
“Claire,” Rich started to say, but she shot him a dirty look.
“Do you understand, Chet?” she asked again.
Rich said slowly and clearly, barely controlling his anger. “Give the guy a break, Claire. His wife is dead. He’s in shock. Let’s get him something to drink.”
“This is not a social visit. What happened here tonight?” Claire asked Chet, wishing somehow that she could get Rich out of this house. She tried to send him a thought dagger or two, but his ESP seemed not to be working, or he was totally ignoring her. He moved in closer to Chet as if to protect his friend from Claire’s questions. “How did the gun go off?”
Chet bowed his head and shook it back and forth.
Rich put an arm on his friend’s shoulder and said, “Let’s all go and sit down. Chet will tell us what happened here. He didn’t do anything to his wife, for god’s sake, he’s on the county board.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Claire asked.
“You know what I’m trying to say, Claire. He’s a good person,” Rich said.
Claire felt like another person had stepped into her body. A very angry woman was taking over. “Rich, you need to back off. It’s my job to ask Chet whatever I need to in order to understand what took place in this room. For god’s sake, a dead woman is lying on the bed. Now, you either shut up or get out of here. But Chet needs to answer some questions right now.”
Rich grabbed Chet’s arm and turned the dazed man so he was no longer facing toward Claire. He spoke quietly. “Chet, you don’t need to say anything right now. Take your time.”
“I don’t mind
answering some questions. Claire’s got a right to know. It’s her job,” Chet said. He turned back toward Claire.
“What happened tonight?” Claire asked.
“We had a fight,” Chet started, then sagged more. “You know, we never fought. In all our ten years together. I mean, maybe over the laundry or something stupid, but this was a real fight. All my fault.”
“What were you fighting about?”
Chet shook his head, didn’t answer.
“Did the gun go off during this fight?” Claire asked.
“No, not then.”
“When?”
Chet lifted his head again as if he were coming up for air. “Well, I went for a walk after the fight. I needed to get out of here. It must have happened sometime after I left and before I got back.”
“How long were you gone?”
“About an hour or so, I’d guess.”
“Can anyone confirm that you went for a walk?” Claire asked. “Did you see anyone?”
“Just Bentley.”
Claire felt hopeful.
Then he added, “Anne’s dog.”
CHAPTER 4
Amy parked her squad car behind Claire’s. She sat for a moment and drank the dregs of her coffee. It was after two in the morning. All she wanted to do was lean her head forward onto the steering wheel, close her eyes, and go away. Just her luck that Claire’s call had caught her as she was finishing up with the medical examiner. Another minute or two and she would have been out the door, on her way home to a beer, an hour of late-night TV, and some much needed sleep.
But Claire had said there had been a shooting and they needed to secure the premises and call in reinforcements. It wasn’t a drill they went through very often and Amy would rather not miss it.
Pepin County had been very quiet since the meth bust they had a year or so ago. Just the usual toilet-paperings, drunk drivers, dead deer, and motorcycle accidents. In the two years since Amy had joined the department, motorcycle accidents had increased in the county by fifty percent.
All these old geezers were trying for a second teenage-hood by buying the Harleys they couldn’t afford when they were seventeen. Some of them weren’t living to talk about it. They had discovered how fun it was to drive along the shore of Lake Pepin
and through the bluffs of Pepin County, disturbing the locals with their loud tailpipes, scaring the livestock, and not always being able to avoid either the wildlife or each other. Bad things happened to people when they flew off bikes at high speeds, or even low. Things she wished she hadn’t seen: limbs severed, skin torn away to bone, head trauma so bad that the skull appeared to have the fragility of an eggshell.
Amy stepped out of the car and threw that last bitter sip of coffee onto the ground, then tossed her mug back onto the seat of her car. The air was still warm and very humid, making it feel like she was in a sauna. She could smell some flower blooming, but didn’t know enough to identify the cloyingly sweet smell. The lights in the house were on.
All Claire had said was there had been a shooting and a woman was dead, her husband near hysterical. Amy wondered what she would find inside.
* * *
Rich watched in dismay as Claire gave Amy the job of babysitting Chet. As if she didn’t even trust him to take care of his friend. She left the three of them sitting at the kitchen table: chunky, blond Amy who was valiantly trying to stay awake; Chet, who would sit silently for a while and then talk non-stop as if he could scramble back in time if he worked hard enough; and Rich, who was wondering what the hell was going on with Claire.
Rich had never seen her like this before. She was acting as if he was infringing on her territory, and she was being mean about it. The meanness was the part that concerned him.
More deputies entered the house, some of them sticking their heads into the kitchen and giving the nod to him and Amy. Bill Peterson came in and rubbed Amy’s shoulders for a second. At first, Rich was surprised, then he remembered that Claire had told him that the two deputies were seeing each other socially. No one said anything to Chet even though a few of the deputies knew him.
Suddenly Chet started talking, launching into the middle of a conversation. “Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw Anne?”
Rich knew the story well, the tale of a dance where Chet had met Anne, but he shook his head because he knew Chet needed to tell this, needed to have Anne alive for a moment again.
“I didn’t usually go to those things, those square dances. You know me, Rich. I’m not that kind of a guy. Dancing reminds me of someone having an epileptic fit. So it was weird that I would go to this dance. I think I was just killing time. But I went and I stood against the wall and I watched all these people promenading around the room in these crazy outfits, women in turquoise skirts all puffed out like upside-down petunias. And most of them knew exactly what they were doing, like precision dancing, do-se-doing when they were supposed to, alamanding left and the whole nine yards.”
Chet stopped talking and his tongue strayed out to his dry lips and Rich knew he was back there, could smell the sweat off the swirling dancers.
“Anyways, then I saw her. She was wearing a pair of jeans and some kind of shirt. She didn’t know when to do-se-do or
promenade, but as she got swinging and her blond hair was flying, she was just having so much fun—she was having the time of her life.” He paused again. “I knew I wanted in.”
Rich nodded.
Chet continued, “We got married three months later. You remember. I think I surprised myself, I surprised everyone. Confirmed bachelor. That was awful fast, but I knew that she was the one. You know how you know.”
Amy lifted her chin up from the cup of her hands. “How do you know?”
“When they make you want to live more than you ever have before. Besides, she was a hell of a cook.” Chet’s eyes filled up. “She made Reuben sandwiches last night with potato salad. She knows how much I like her potato salad.”
Rich thought about the meal he had made for the birthday party earlier that evening. He couldn’t believe that was only a few hours ago. He wondered if Claire had appreciated it; if she appreciated what he did for her anymore. It seemed like she took him for granted and then she yelled at him when he wanted to help out his old friend.
“Chet, you want me to stay here tonight?”
Chet shook his head. “No need for that, Rich. It won’t matter. I don’t really care what happens any more. I deserve it all.”
Rich couldn’t believe he heard Chet say that. Even though he was afraid to hear the answer, he couldn’t help but asking, “What d’you mean?”
“What more can they do to me? I lost the love of my life. My beautiful Anne. Not much else matters.”
“Chet, you’ve got to take care of yourself. You might think
about calling a lawyer before you talk to Claire. This is serious.”
Claire stepped into the room, but didn’t look at Rich.
He hoped she hadn’t heard what he had just said to Chet. She would claim he was interfering again. All he was doing was being a friend to Chet.
“Amy, could you go back and help Speedo with the photos? Just make sure he takes shots from all angles. And then if you would watch the body until it gets moved to the morgue. Then head home. I know you’re working way past your shift. I’m going to take Chet back to the department with me.”
Chet bent his head over.
Claire turned to Rich, “Before you say anything, I’m taking him in because I need to talk to him and find out what happened here. He can’t stay here, obviously. Won’t hurt him to stay in the jail overnight. He can talk to whoever he wants in the morning. I’ll make sure of that.”
Rich decided not to argue with her.
Chet looked up at Rich. “Could you feed Bentley and see that the horses get let out to pasture in the morning?”
“Sure, Chet.”
“Can’t let anything happen to Bentley. Anne loved that damn dog almost as much as
she loved me.”
* * *
A deep, dark moonless night was all around them as Claire headed away from the river and up Highway 25 toward Durand. Good thing she knew this road so well. It was lightly lit by the squad car headlights, one of which seemed to be turned a little
high and slanted off to the right, catching the edge of the corn fields. She kept her eyes sharp for animals running across the road. Deer were the biggest problem. They could total a car, but she even hated to hit raccoons or possums.
Chet sat next to her in the squad car—she had seen no reason to put him in the back, even though it was procedure—and stared straight ahead as they drove through the night down Highway 25. On the best of days, Chet wasn’t chatty, and tonight he wasn’t saying a word. Claire wasn’t sure what to make of his silence. She wanted to give him beyond the benefit of a doubt, but it was hard given what she had seen at his house.
As much as she hated to admit it, she was betting that Chet had killed his wife, but—knowing too how in love they had been, having seen them together for many years and never having witnessed a mean word between them—she hadn’t a clue as to why. But at the moment he was the only suspect. And, from her long years of working homicide, she knew that people were most often killed by family, by their loved ones.
At the moment, she just wanted to get him to the jail, do a gunpowder residue test on his hands to document that he had held the gun, and put him to bed. She had to remember to ask the medical examiner to do a similar test on Anne. Maybe, when they got the results of these two tests, it would be clear what happened.
It was nearly three o’clock in the morning and Claire was starting to seriously fade, feeling a tiredness that no caffeine could alleviate. She was afraid she was in no shape to drive home. She might just sleep at the jail herself—there was a bunk that sheriff’s personnel could use.
