by Joan Hess
“Get out of here!” he bellowed at the dog, or so I assumed.
I was chagrinned when the dog clumsily got to its feet and trotted away into the night. “Sexist mutt,” I said in a low voice as I put on my bra and shirt with all due haste. The phrase also described Deputy Norton, but I didn’t want him to take offense and stomp back to his car. I was the princess in the tower, so to speak, and for the distasteful moment, he was the only knight in the neighborhood.
“I’m surprised you’re on trespass duty,” I said as I came down the stile into the cornfield.
“One of my men saw your car on the highway and reported to me, Mrs. Malloy. Lippet said you’d been at his house, so I decided to follow up. I thought I told you to butt out.”
“I did,” I said, doing my best to sound dignified as I wobbled on one foot. “I was following a potential lead in Sarah Swift’s case. Deputy Harraldson acknowledged that a witness had seen activity near Flat Rock the night of the murder. I confirmed that it was possible, that’s all.”
“So to celebrate this astounding discovery, you took off your clothes?”
“The dog ran off with one of my shoes. The ground’s rough.”
I waited for another sarcastic remark (I could thinks of dozens, if not hundreds), so I was rather flabbergasted when he slipped his arm under mine so I could hang on to his shoulder. Each step with my bare foot felt as if I were traversing a bed of hot coals, but I bit my lip in an admirable display of stoicism and slogged along until we reached the stile by the dirt road.
Deputy Norton waited until I’d scrambled over it and then joined me by my car. “What witness you talking about?” he asked.
“The Lunds’ grandson. He was three years old, but—”
“Three years old? Geez, how could we have failed to record his every word? Did he see a cat in a hat, too?”
The truth would not play well with the transformed Deputy Hyde. “He saw someone with a flashlight on the other side of the river.”
“I didn’t see anything in the reports.”
“No,” I said, “because Deputy Harraldson didn’t bother to write up the interview. I believe the boy saw someone that night.”
“High school and college kids come out here all the time. Lippet can’t stop them unless he wants to stand guard twenty-four hours a day—with a shotgun. Damn kids got no respect for the law.”
I did my best to look respectful and a tiny bit penitent. “Thank you so much for helping me across the field,” I said as I pulled my keys out of my pocket.
“What do you think you’re doing, Mrs. Malloy? I told you I have to take you in for trespassing. Get in my car.”
“Is this necessary? You can write me a ticket now, or I promise to come by the sheriff’s department tomorrow and clear this up. I’d really like to go home and collapse.”
“So would I,” he said coldly, “but I’m on duty until ten. It’s been a helluva day. It began with you barging into my office, so it might as well end with me booking you. What goes around and so on. You can collapse in a holding cell until we can get you transferred to a women’s facility. Get in my car.”
“Mr. Lippet put up stiles to make it easier for people to get to Flat Rock. Has he ever demanded that these people be arrested?”
Deputy Norton pulled out handcuffs. “You want to wear pretty jewelry?”
I got in his car.
* * *
It took Peter over an hour to free me from the holding cell, where I’d met two very drunk sorority girls, a woman covered with tattoos, and a hooker named Angel. We got into his car, and once we were headed out on the highway so I could fetch mine, I said, “I can explain.”
“I’m sure you can.” He held the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were little snow-capped peaks. So manly, my husband.
“Or you can sulk.”
“I was worried about you. Caron called me with a garbled account of you being attacked by a dog. She had no idea where you were. I finally remembered the lawyer’s name and called him, but he said he hadn’t seen you since the courthouse scene. I drove by the Book Depot to see if your car was there. It wasn’t, and the lights were off. I drove out to Sarah’s house on the chance you’d broken in for some crazy reason. No car, no lights.”
I politely overlooked his remark about “some crazy reason” and said most reasonably, “Did you try Miss Poppoy’s house?”
“You may be familiar with that area, but I haven’t spent the last forty-eight hours crawling down back roads. What does she have to do with it?”
I told him every place I’d gone and what I’d learned, which wasn’t much of anything. “I think there must have been an incident with the church choir teenagers, but the chaperones aren’t talking. Lippet told me that the preacher’s daughters are in the group. Maybe they’re involved.”
“In the murder?” asked Peter skeptically.
“No, the shenanigans on the Lunds’ side of the river.” I stopped for a minute. “I didn’t see any poison ivy.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“I don’t know. Tricia Yates claimed to have gotten a rash from it and stayed up all night, feeling sorry for herself. That wouldn’t preclude the teenagers from getting into mischief; they simply had to be stealthier than usual.”
“Sneaking across the river under the nose of a sentinel can’t be any harder than, say, breaking into the biology storeroom at the high school to liberate frozen frogs.”
“I would say the latter is more of a challenge,” I said. “Caron and Inez had to elude the custodians and any lingering faculty and staff.” It seemed like a good time to change the topic. “I need to question the miscreants without the presence of the chaperones, but I don’t even know their names, much less how to drag them off to the nearest dungeon for a bout on the rack.”
“Let’s say a couple of them admit crossing the river to drink, smoke pot, or have sex on what must have been an uncomfortable patch of weeds. One of them had a flashlight. All that proves is that the kid saw them.”
“It adds credibility to the rest of his story. He claims he saw a figure by the barn.”
“Didn’t Lund say he went outside after he heard the shotgun? The kid couldn’t recognize him in the dark, so he created an imaginary scenario—unless you believe in zombies. Please don’t nod, Claire.”
“You didn’t clap for Tinker Bell?”
“Yes, but I was five years old. By the time I was six, my brothers had tipped me off about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, thus shattering my innocence.” He pulled over beside my car.
I unbuckled my seat belt and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I’m so sorry you turned into a cynic at such a young age. We can still hunt Easter eggs.”
“Laid by a rabbit? I don’t think so.”
“Maybe he buys the chocolate ones at Walmart,” I said. “That’s what I told Caron when she questioned the concept.”
He waited until I got in my car and started the engine, and then we both headed home. As soon as I arrived, I took a hot shower to wash away any vestiges of dog slobber. When I emerged from the bedroom in dry clothes, I found Peter on the terrace with a plate of sandwiches and a bottle of wine. I thanked him in a mildly lascivious fashion, then settled down to eat, drink, and think. The first two were easier.
“But,” I said after I’d polished off the last bite, “if William Lund was out by the barn, why didn’t he see whoever was cavorting by the river?”
“You said that you could see the second story of the house. He was at ground level and preoccupied with the animals. He didn’t have a reason to walk across the blueberry field.”
“Well, he should have,” I said as I held out my glass. “Did Caron mention where she and Joel were going tonight?”
“No, just that she was spending the night at Inez’s house. I was too concerned about you to demand details.”
“I’d better call her and let her know I’m okay.”
“I called her after you called me from the
county jail. She said she’d see you in the morning. I hate to ask this, but are she and Inez up to something that might not be legal?”
“Double-dating is protected under the Geneva Convention,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. “Or the Treaty of Versailles. I often confuse the two.” I gazed at the stars for a minute. “What about Sarah?”
“The feds are still tracking down the paperwork. It’s been forty years, back when vintage VW Bugs roamed the earth and there were no computers. And, of course, it’s a holiday weekend. Her real name is Carol Ann Draper and John Cunningham’s was Douglas Tucker. The antiwar protest took place at a liberal arts college in Southern California. I don’t have any details. She was questioned all day and is currently at the county jail in a private cell.”
“Did Evan talk to her?”
“Tomorrow morning, if he can get past that insufferable dispatcher.”
I went inside and returned with a package of cookies I’d hidden in the back of the refrigerator. “Do you think she shot her husband?” I asked.
Peter sighed. “Her story is flimsy. I can understand why Sheriff Dorfer had her arrested. Had this happened in my jurisdiction, I would have done the same thing. I see three scenarios. One, she’s a profoundly deep sleeper. Two, she shot him and went to bed. Three, she wasn’t there at midnight.”
“So where was she?”
“How would I know?” he said. “Why don’t you ask her in the morning?”
“Good idea, Sherlock.” I was too tired to think anymore, so I joined him on the chaise longue and let my head rest on his chest. “I’m still going to get the Weasel.”
* * *
I met Evan at his office and gave him a recap of the previous day’s fruitless endeavors as we walked to the county jail. I was wearing a skirt, a jacket, and pantyhose, doing my best to look like a dedicated, altruistic lawyer. It was all for naught, since LaBelle was not at the front desk. A deputy escorted us to an interview room, and five minutes later brought in Sarah. After he had left, we looked at each other for a long time.
“Well?” Evan finally said.
Sarah winced. “I guess I omitted a few things. It all happened so long ago that I didn’t think it mattered. I was a different person then, and so was Tuck. We were so confident that we were going to spread peace and love.”
“The dawning of the Age of Aquarius?” I said.
“Basically.”
Evan seemed bewildered. “What does astrology have to do with it?”
“I’ll explain when you’re older,” I said. I turned to Sarah. “What took place at this protest that brought the feds down on you like a pack of feral dogs?”
“There were about ten of us in the group, and we were earnest. We picketed the ROTC Department, handed out pamphlets, and drew peace signs on the sidewalks with chalk. Tuck stood on the front steps of the library and read the names of those who’d been killed in that senseless war. I wore flowers in my hair. One guy climbed a tree in front of the student union and announced that he wasn’t coming down until the American troops were pulled out. We thought it was silly, but the frat boys showed up with golf clubs and baseball bats. The campus cops had to protect us all night while we sang ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’ It would have been more impressive if we’d known all the lyrics.”
Evan was beyond bewilderment. “And that put you on the FBI’s most-wanted list?”
“No,” Sarah said with a frown, “I was just giving you some background. A new guy, Roderick, joined our group. He’d been a student at Berkeley until he was expelled for vandalism, trespassing, and pissing off the president of the university. He came up with the idea of a protest at the student union on the day the military recruiters had reserved the ballroom. We chained and padlocked the front doors and then sat down and chanted, ‘Hell, no, we won’t go.’ The campus cops arrived, along with the local police. We were accused of holding the people inside hostage.” She chuckled. “There were three other doors into the ballroom.”
“But someone was killed,” Ethan said.
“The cops tried to drag us away from the door. Roderick threatened them with a knife. A cop pulled his gun. The students watching the show panicked. Another recent addition to our group, Abel, tackled Roderick. All of a sudden it was pandemonium, with people screaming and pushing each other. That’s when Tuck grabbed my wrist and yanked me through the cafeteria and out to the street. We heard later that Roderick had wrested the gun from the campus cop and hell broke loose. The other cops took out their guns and started firing. Roderick was finally thrown to the floor and handcuffed. Abel was dead at the scene. Turned out he was an undercover FBI agent. Roderick was charged with murder, and the rest of us as co-conspirators and therefore equally guilty. Tuck and I fled to a commune in Oregon. Someone there knew how to establish false identities.”
I leaned forward, thinking it might be useful information if I disgraced myself in front of Peter’s mother. “How?”
“It wasn’t hard back then. We searched cemeteries until we found the headstones of children, ordered birth certificates from the state authority, and applied for Social Security numbers. I’ve been Sarah Swift longer than I was Carol Ann Draper. Poor Carol Ann would have bought the Brooklyn Bridge if anyone had offered her a deal. Well, the Golden Gate Bridge.”
Evan was staring at a legal pad. “Wessell told me that he’d received an anonymous tip concerning you and Cunningham. Do you have any idea who might have made the connection?” She shook her head.
“Did he say when he received the tip?” I asked Evan.
“He said something about it taking a long time to verify the information and deal with the FBI. I didn’t pin him down because it didn’t seem relevant. I have an appointment tomorrow with the head of the investigation. I don’t think he’ll tell me anything. The first thing I’ll do Tuesday is file a motion for a continuance, but if Wessell was telling the truth, Judge Priestly will deny it.” He gazed at Sarah. “Have you reconsidered a plea bargain, assuming Wessell will go along?”
“I didn’t kill Tuck,” she said coldly, “and I’m not changing my story. The feds may have a hard time finding witnesses to the shooting at the student union after all this time. No one can claim that I had anything to do with the violence. Tuck and I were outside when we heard the first shot.”
She might have been in denial, but I wasn’t. I said, “What happened to the others in your group? Were they all arrested and sent to prison?”
“Roderick and six others were sentenced to twenty-five years to life for felony murder. Three others got away and went underground, too. Jamie and Justine showed up at the commune, put together false identities, and were last seen headed for Georgia in the back of a moving van. Laura vanished.”
“Did you keep in touch with any of them?” I asked.
“God, no. I didn’t want to know where they were any more than I wanted them to know where Tuck and I were. That way, no one could use the knowledge to cut a deal with the feds.”
Evan made a note. “Is there anything else you forgot to mention? You know, minor stuff like armed robbery or grand theft auto.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I jaywalked once, but I got off with a scolding. What about you? Defended any pedophiles?”
“No, and this is my first murder trial. Unless you’re completely candid with me, I’m going to lose it.”
“Candor has nothing to do with competency,” Sarah retorted angrily.
I intervened before the combatants in the sandbox began hurling plastic buckets and shovels at each other. “Calm down, damn it. Sarah, we need to figure out what Tuck did that day. Do you have any ideas?”
She sat back and sighed. “I told you that I didn’t think he was having an affair, but he had been acting peculiar for several weeks. Once I saw him parked across the road when I got off work at the café. There were a lot of times when he got home fifteen minutes after I did. When I asked him what he’d been doing, he offered lame explanations.”
“Do
you believe he was watching you?” I asked.
“It crossed my mind.”
“Because he thought you were having an affair?”
“It could have been paranoia,” she said. “His, not mine. He saw feds below every bridge and behind every tree. He was convinced he was under surveillance around the clock, and it was only a matter of time before they stormed the house with tear gas and automatic weapons.” She held up her palms. “I know that doesn’t make much sense, but he could have decided that if they weren’t following him, they were following me.”
Evan appeared to have regained his composure, but his face was still rosy. “We need to know what Tuck was up to that day. He made up the story about going on a fishing trip with the neighbor. Could it have been to give you a false sense of security?”
“To meet the feds or my lover?” she said. “I presumed the feds would have scooped us up if they knew where we were—and I didn’t have a lover. I was relieved I didn’t have to deal with Tuck that evening, that’s all. If he was tailing me, he did a good job because I never noticed him. He may have been non compos mentis, but he was competent.”
Evan bristled. “And I’m not?”
Once again, I intervened. “Did Tuck ever mention the name of anyone he might have encountered outside of your circle? A clerk at the co-op, a vendor at the farmers’ market?”
“I know he went to the library several times a week to use the computers. He was always coming up with obscure diseases and their symptoms, which he developed on the way home. His other obsession was organic farming. He could cite every banned substance more quickly than he could run through the alphabet. He joined online groups that pester organizations like the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements and the National Organic Program Standards Office. He talked about getting certified as an inspector. He was a zealot.”
“The library is open this afternoon.” I said. “I’ll swing by and see if anybody on the staff knew Tuck.”
Evan made a note on the legal pad. “I need to work on motions for a continuance and a change of venue. Neither will be granted, but we can use it on appeal.”
