Three-Ways: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery

by Mike Markel

  “Shit.”

  “Well, you did want to know what we were missing,” he said. “I think we figured it out.”

  “Thanks, Sherlock. Call the lesbian girlfriend, would you? Find out if she’s still in Rawlings.”

  I hurried out of the house, down the metal stairs, and around to the front of the house. I banged on the front door and gave the landlady back her key. Told her we wanted to talk to May. I gave her my card and asked her to get in touch if she ran into her.

  I looked over at the Charger parked at the curb. Ryan was already inside. I hurried over and got in the driver’s seat. “Get through?”

  “Kathy Caravelli is in her studio. Hasn’t heard from May since the day we were over there.”

  “Let’s head back to headquarters and put out the alerts on her car.” I turned over the Charger and drove us back to headquarters. While Ryan put out a national and a Montana alert for May Eberlein and her red Suzuki shitcan, I went downstairs to check with Harold Breen and Robin about the bullet from Suzannah Montgomery’s head. It was a 9mm round, but the striations were too compressed by the impact for Robin to identify a manufacturer.

  I went upstairs and checked in with the chief.

  “You’re sure she’s on the run?” he said.

  I nodded. “She left her books and shit, but all her clothes are gone. All the shoes.”

  “Got it,” he said. “Now we wait.”

  Actually, now we write up all the reports, including the domestic that killed Tiffany Rhodes, the boyfriend pistol-whipping the English department chair, and the shot Ryan put in the boyfriend’s shoulder. We didn’t have an autopsy report yet from Harold about Suzannah Montgomery, but I opened up a file on that one and started to fill it in.

  It was a little before quitting time when I got the word from Montana State Police. It was a Sergeant Miller.

  “We got your red Suzuki in the O’Day Manor Motel. It’s on Old Oak Avenue, two blocks south of State Road 2 in Shelby.”

  “Great,” I said. “Where’s Shelby?”

  “All the way north, on I-15.”

  “Up near the border?”

  “Twenty-five miles south of the crossing.”

  “Here’s what I’d like you to do. She’s a suspect in a murder down here in Rawlings. If she moves, grab her and hold her. If she stays in the motel, don’t move in. We’ll need a couple hours to get there.”

  “Okay, we’ll sit on her till you get here.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant.”

  We gassed up and headed north. Five minutes north of Rawlings, we were out in the country, with nothing to keep us company except the scratching sound of the wind-whipped grit on the side of the Charger. Every little while, we’d see a small herd of cattle and a few farmhouses with barns and some silos. An hour out of town, the sun sank off of my window. I swung my visor over and turned on the heat. We passed through a bunch of small towns, each with a stoplight or two and a John Deere place, a bar, a soft ice-cream stand, and a couple gas stations.

  “Shit, you think we should’ve gotten an arrest warrant?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ryan said. “It’s a classic hot pursuit. We’re fine.”

  “Because she’s headed for the border?”

  “The way I’d see it.”

  “Hope Larry Klein sees it that way, too.”

  Ryan and I didn’t talk much after that. Cases like this, you want to figure out exactly why the murder happened, but you can pretty much guess the broad outlines, and the details don’t usually give you any sense of satisfaction. Where we were right now, May Eberlein and Suzannah Montgomery were both screwing Austin Sulenka, probably one of them was in love with the guy. Maybe both of them. So they got into some sort of competition, which got out of control.

  We pulled into the lot at the O’Day Manor Motel, a basic two-story family-run joint. I parked alongside a big Ford sitting near the office. It was obviously an MSP officer. I got out and introduced myself to him, a guy named Reynolds. His Smokey hat was on the seat next to him, but with his jarhead haircut, his dark blue uniform, and his big Ford painted municipal grey, he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “She’s in Unit 16,” he said. “She brought in some fast food about an hour ago. I’ve already told the girl in the office you’d be by to pick up a key.”

  “All right, thanks,” I said. “Did you scope out an exit?”

  “There’s a bathroom at the back of the unit with a window big enough for her to crawl out of. Just that and the front door.”

  “Okay, give us a few minutes, okay? Me or my partner will come out and let you know when we’re done.”

  “No rush,” he said.

  I got back in the Charger. “Let’s get the key, then give me a minute to set up in back. You knock and announce, okay? If she doesn’t break for the window right away, I’ll come around front.”

  Ryan nodded. He disappeared into the office as I found the path that led back to an alley lined with scraggly weeds. There were a couple of dumpsters full of broken-down cardboard boxes and ringed by two- or three-hundred cigarette butts. Unit 16 was the eighth unit down from the office. The window was about chest-high. It had frosted glass, so I couldn’t see clearly. I put my ear to the stucco wall. The shower was going. I could see the steam curling around the window. I heard Ryan bang on the door and call out “Rawlings Police Department.” I waited a minute for him to get inside, then went around to the front.

  I turned the doorknob on Unit 16 and walked inside. Ryan was sitting on an armchair near the TV, facing the bathroom. He nodded to me and, just as I sat on the end of the bed, the bathroom door opened, releasing a cloud of steam. Out stepped May Eberlein, nude except for a pale yellow towel wrapped around her head.

  She screamed when she saw the two of us. “What the fuck?”

  “Hello, May,” I said.

  “What are you doing in my room?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to knock?” She put her hands on her hips in a gesture of indignation. She was a beautiful woman. In my experience, most people—men and women—look better with clothes on. But not May. Her limbs were long and slender, her waist thin, her hips smooth and rounded. Her breasts were full and high, with the dark nipples I remembered from the portrait of her at Kathy Caravelli’s studio.

  “We did knock. You didn’t answer. We need to talk to you about Austin Sulenka and Suzannah Montgomery,” I said. “You want to put some clothes on?”

  She nodded, then turned and walked a few steps to the tiny dresser next to the television. She opened the top drawer. When she turned back to face us, she held a 9mm in her right hand.

  I started to slide across the bedspread to get some distance from Ryan, making it a little harder for her to hit us both if things went south.

  “Don’t move,” she said, pointing the pistol at my chest.

  “Listen, May, you really shouldn’t point a gun at cops. We want to be able to help you.” I stood and started walking toward her slowly. “I’m gonna take the pistol now.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said, settling into a two-handed firing stance. “I said don’t move.”

  I put my palms up and stepped backward. “Okay, May, let’s just talk.”

  She didn’t move, didn’t say anything.

  “Tell me about that night, May. What happened with Austin? Was it a sex game that went bad? That happens.”

  May Eberlein turned to Ryan but kept the pistol aimed at my chest. “Is she always this stupid?”

  I looked over at Ryan. He didn’t say anything. His face was a blank, which was smart: it’s less confusing to the suspect if there’s only one cop doing the talking. Less chance that she’ll panic and do something impulsive.

  “Tell me what happened that night with Austin,” I said.

  “I strangled him.”

  “But you didn’t mean to, right? It was an accident. There was nobody else in the apartment with you two. Nobody who could say it wasn’t an accident
.” When someone’s pointing a 9mm at my chest, I’m happy to offer helpful legal tips, even though they might not be accurate.

  “Of course I meant to,” she said.

  I had to keep her talking, give me a chance to think of a Plan B. “Why, May?”

  “Because he disrespected me.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I cared for him. I might have loved him.”

  I waited for her to say more, but she was silent. “But he didn’t love you?”

  “Not enough,” she said. “He didn’t love me enough.”

  I didn’t know what to say next. The best I could do was hope she would keep talking.

  “I gave him every opportunity,” she said.

  Suddenly, Ryan spoke. “How did you get Suzannah Montgomery to drive out to the boat launch?”

  Holy shit. I had no idea what Ryan was doing. Someone’s got a gun on you, probably not the best time to remind them they killed two people, not just one. Maybe May could convince a jury she accidentally yanked the knot around Austin’s neck a little too tight; it would be somewhat harder to convince them she accidentally lured Suzannah Montgomery to the reservoir, shot her in the temple, fired up her SUV, put it in Drive, and watched it roll into the reservoir.

  May and I both turned to him. She aimed the nine at Ryan’s chest.

  “I told her we needed to talk.”

  “What about?”

  “Something Austin said to me. Something about her.”

  “That’s all it took?”

  “I might have said a little bit more. About how if she didn’t meet with me, her career was over.”

  “What had Austin said about her?”

  “That they were sleeping together.”

  “And you told her that, at the boat launch?” Ryan asked his questions calmly, as if he was curious about what happened. Not as if someone was aiming a pistol at him.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She asked me what I wanted. Whether I wanted money.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I made it clear she was insulting me.”

  “So what did you tell her you wanted?”

  “Not so much what I wanted as what I was going to do.”

  “Which was kill her?”

  “That’s right. I told her I was going to kill her.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She lost control, began to scream. She said she had to take care of her son.”

  “What did you do then?”

  She looked puzzled, as if she didn’t realize Ryan was slow-witted. “Then I shot her.”

  “You’re a fool, May.”

  “I’m holding the gun, and you’re calling me a fool?”

  “Austin didn’t love you,” Ryan said. “Not even a little.”

  May Eberlein shifted her weight back and forth but maintained the firing stance. She didn’t say anything.

  Ryan said, “He was just fucking you. You’re an easy lay, but you’re quite stupid.”

  I felt my stomach drop. I didn’t understand why he was goading her.

  “Those are your final words,” she said.

  “What did he tell you? I mean, so you’d keep spreading your legs for him?”

  May’s expression became clouded, as if she had never considered that Austin was playing her. “Austin loved me. I know that. But Suzannah corrupted him.”

  “Corrupted?” Ryan said, with a smirk.

  “That’s what I said. Austin had no future as a professor. He knew that, and I knew that. But Suzannah dangled this big project in front of him.”

  “The Melville book?”

  “That’s right,” May said. “The Melville book. Suzannah and Austin were going to work on the Melville book with Frances Hamblin. Austin started to believe that the connection with Frances Hamblin was going to open doors for him. All he had to do was keep fucking Suzannah Montgomery.”

  “When he should have been fucking you.”

  “Something like that,” May said.

  “I don’t believe that, May.” Ryan shook his head. “And you don’t, either. Frances Hamblin didn’t need a third-rate scholar like Suzannah Montgomery, and she certainly didn’t need a pathetic grad student like Austin, who spent most of his time sniffing out pussy—like yours.” He pointed right at May’s crotch.

  Jesus Christ.

  “If Frances Hamblin wanted someone to help her with the Melville project,” Ryan said, “she would have picked up the phone and made a call. The first American literature scholar who answered would have given anything to work with her on it.”

  May’s expression got dark, like she’d never had anyone talk to her like that.

  “You want to know why you really killed Suzannah?” Ryan said.

  May adjusted the aim of the pistol. She was close to losing it. She didn’t respond to Ryan’s question.

  “You killed Suzannah because you knew Austin had a connection with her he didn’t have with you,” Ryan said. “It had nothing to do with Frances Hamblin or the Melville project.” He paused. “He fed you that line so you’d keep fucking him. He knew you were so morally stunted you’d believe he loved you but that he couldn’t break it off with Suzannah because he’d lose the Melville project. He knew you’d believe that line because that’s exactly what you would do in that situation. But you had to have known, May. Deep down, you had to have known he didn’t want to break it off with her because he cared about her. You? You were just one of the women he fucked. You were just pussy, May. Easy pussy.”

  “Fuck you,” May said slowly.

  Ryan picked up his cane, which was leaning against his chair, raised himself up, and began to walk toward her.

  “Now you die.” She squeezed the trigger. It clicked.

  “May Eberlein,” Ryan said, “you’re under arrest for the murders of Austin Sulenka and Suzannah Montgomery. And the attempted murder of a police officer.”

  He held out his hand for her to give him the pistol. She was frozen there, her eyes wide and uncomprehending, her hands still gripping the pistol. He grabbed the barrel and yanked the pistol out of her hands with a little more muscle than absolutely necessary. She cried out in pain, pulling her arm back like he had broken her finger.

  He turned to me. “I’m sorry, Karen,” he said. “Didn’t have a chance to tell you.” He patted the left pocket on his suit jacket. Through the cloth I heard the muffled clicking of the 9mm rounds. “She takes long showers.”

  “Not anymore, she doesn’t,” I said.

  Chapter 36

  I got May Eberlein dressed, and we brought her back down to Rawlings. Since she’d already admitted in front of Ryan and me how she killed Austin Sulenka and Suzannah Montgomery, the interrogation was quick and easy. She signed a confession for the two murders. Now she, like Brian Hawser, would be Larry Klein’s problem, which was fine with me.

  I don’t tend to have any sympathy for people who aim a pistol at a cop and squeeze the trigger, and I didn’t feel sorry for May. She was way past shallow, vain, thoughtless, and the rest of those other bad things we’d all admit to if we were being honest. Ryan was right about her: she was morally stunted. Other people were put on Earth to serve her, praise her, and please her. If they didn’t, they didn’t deserve to live.

  I got pretty upset when Larry told me May’s attorney was thinking about an insanity defense. I asked him if she would walk. He told me no. Montana law says we charge you with murder and try to convict you, even if you seem to be crazy. If we convict you and then decide you really are crazy, we don’t give you the needle. But we keep it nearby, just in case, sometime in the future, you stop being crazy. That made me feel a little better.

  I didn’t want to see her executed, although she deserved it at least as much as some poor black guy who kills a store clerk when a robbery goes bad. I knew Larry would make sure she’d stay inside long enough she’d look as crappy and busted-up as me when she got out. That would be harsh but leg
al, just this side of cruel and unusual.

  Her two victims? I didn’t have any real feelings for them. I never met Austin, of course, but I doubt I would have thought much of him. The women said he gave good value in bed, and I guess that’s something, but I’m old enough to know it’s not that much. Certainly not enough. According to Frances Hamblin, the old Melville coot, he made some connection with Suzannah’s sick kid, which might have been the only truly unselfish thing he did.

  Suzannah Montgomery was a puzzle to me. I’m afraid she was one of those people who I’d dislike more after I got to know her history. She didn’t do right by Suzannah Collins, the roommate she maybe destroyed back at Clemson. The car crash was one thing, and I’d like to think I wouldn’t have put the Collins girl behind the wheel so I didn’t have to take the fall if she died. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have done that, but if there was liquor involved I can’t say for sure.

  No, the real sign of Suzannah’s character wasn’t that, or even how she stole the girl’s transcript and the rest of her identity. The real sign was how she never went to see her—before she had that stroke and went into a coma, or after.

  Still, I never saw Suzannah with her sick kid or her daughter, just like I never saw her with Austin or with Frances Hamblin. And I never saw her with her husband.

  When we brought Aaron Montgomery in to ID his wife, he fell apart worse than I’d ever seen, and I’ve done that little ritual at least a hundred times. He screamed, he cried, he collapsed onto the floor, all in a way I took to be genuine.

  To be honest, though, I’m not that curious about the weird story of Aaron and Suzannah Montgomery. I don’t care about the details of their relationship, how they met, what they did to Suzannah Collins at Clemson, whether he knew his wife was screwing around behind his back, whether he was screwing around, whether he was a phony architect like she was a phony professor.

  The one I feel the worst about is Tiffany Rhodes, who died of a brain bleed when her idiot boyfriend beat her up and drove off after watching her hit her head and lose consciousness as the blood soaked the carpet beneath her head. She made some stupid choices, the stupidest one hooking up with Brian Hawser in the first place. But she didn’t have too many good cards to play. She wasn’t attractive or smart or endearing in any way I could see. She was born to just stumble along through life. But with a little luck, she might have stumbled into a job she was bright enough to do, and she might have stumbled along until she found a guy who was fine with her being ordinary because he was ordinary, too. On her own or with someone ordinary, she might have lived long enough to be okay with being ordinary, long enough to learn not to keep doing stupid things, such as fucking your English teacher so he’ll give you a higher grade.