“OK. Fire away.”
“Tor planned to get rid of his wife. Divorce was out of the question, since she would have gotten half of everything, including part of his business partnership. Her death, on the other hand, meant a big insurance payment plus their entire assets, which run well into eight figures.
“On the other hand, he had to shed himself of Paula, one way or another, in order to get anywhere with Madeleine. So far as she was concerned, all the signs indicated he was hurting…and hurting bad. The plan was really simple, for him, since he had access to the dynamite, a separate phone Connie had never called on—and the know-how for wiring it—which he could easily have picked up on the Internet. Once he found out his wife would be going to the hairdresser at three-fifteen, he went out early and took a cable off of the battery in her car. He then went to one of the building sites, probably Russo’s, in the van, picked up the dynamite and drove back home. Likely he didn’t wire up the phone to the sticks until he got there.”
“Why’d he pull the cable?”
It was Bretna who answered the question. “To keep her from driving the car. He wanted her to drive the van, which she would have when her car didn’t start.”
Seeing Low’s puzzled expression, Leola picked up from there. “He intended to switch to the Jag, leaving the cloned phone under the dashboard of the van. He knew she wouldn’t drive the Jag, with its manual transmission, but she most certainly would have driven the van. He also knew she would never, never miss her hair appointment.”
“But she has a real emergency—not enough Perrier water, and her BMW won’t start. So she calls him on his business phone when he’s in the garage, without knowing he’s there. He doesn’t answer. Just tosses the phone down on the passenger seat. By then he has the other phone all wired, duct tape in place. He opens the door to the van…“
Low broke in, his eyes wide. “So he had planned to call later, as soon as she set off for her hairdresser.”
“Right,” Leola answered. “But Connie—who had never called him before—calls him just when he’s about to step out of the car and finish taping the phone under the dashboard.”
“It makes sense, but where’s the proof?”
“Mostly conjecture, unfortunately. But look at it from his viewpoint. If his car had blown up with her driving somewhere on the highway, we’d have assumed the bomb was meant for him. We’d have questioned the same people. Asked the same questions.”
“But we would have suspected him—husbands first, you know.”
“Of course. But he would have anticipated and covered his tracks. He’d have come back in his Jag around the time she was being blown up on the highway. He’d have reconnected the cable in the BMW, gone in and poured himself a drink, would have been appalled when we called him and told him about his wife’s terrible accident.”
“Wait a minute,” the captain said. “The first question I would have asked him was why his wife was driving the van and not the BMW.”
Leola grinned. “My guess is it wouldn’t have been drivable for some other reason. Maybe a flat. No! This guy thought of everything except for a phone call from his to-be-jilted girlfriend.”
The three said nothing more for several moments. It was the captain who broke the silence. “It’s not as though we’re going to have to present evidence in a courtroom. We really don’t need solid proof. But it would be nice to have something tangible.”
“Something tangible,” Leola repeated. “If he was going to call his wife, then he wouldn’t have used a pay phone. Too easy to trace. And no cellphone in his name, either.”
Bretna’s eyes opened wide. “A clone. This time for sure. And, hey, I think I know where it’s at.”
“Right on,” said Leola. “C’mon, Low, you need to be in on this.”
***
A startled Paula Tor answered the ring after a few minutes wait. “You folks don’t give up, do you? What can I tell you this time?”
“It’s not information we want, Mrs. Tor, just permission to look into your garage,” Low said.
“Sure. Go right ahead. You need me, I’ll be out by the pool.”
It was there, in the Jaguar’s glove compartment. Bretna couldn’t resist saying, “Anyone want to bet it isn’t a clone?”
Low said, “Pass.”
Leola said, “No bets.”
NEAR DEATH, WITH A VENGEANCE
Even had she been hungry, the hospital waiting-room’s offerings would have kept Detective Jill Waliewiski from thinking about food. Not so with her immediate superior. In spite of the burnt-out light bulb over the dispenser, Detective Sergeant Gina Nolan was still trying to make out the barely visible items representing the contents.
“Got any change, Jill? This damn thing won’t take bills.”
Waliewiski reached into her pocket and came up with a handful of coins. “Jeez! You’re not going to buy an eighty-five cent sandwich, are you? I’ll guarantee it’s going to taste like wood chips between two pieces of cardboard.”
Nolan slipped some money into the slot, pulled on a chrome button and waited for the satisfying thump of the item as it dropped out of the chute.
“It even sounds like lead,” Waliewiski said.
Nolan shrugged as she unwrapped the sandwich. “Gotta do something with our time while we’re waiting for the doc to okay a visit to the Walker woman.”
Waliewiski watched unbelievingly when Nolan took a bite and chewed it without grimacing. Partly to take her mind off of what she was witnessing, the detective said, “I still don’t see why we should push, on talking to her. The cops who arrived on the scene said she was conscious and gave about as good a description of the robber as you could expect under the circumstances.”
“About six-two, two hundred pounds, green ski mask.” Nolan managed between bites. “She’s sure he was a black because she saw his wrist as he leveled the gun at her.”
“What more could she tell us beyond that?”
“You never know. Since we have to follow-up the shooting, we might as well start here. Better than outside in the rain.” The last of the sandwich out of the way, Nolan strolled back toward the food dispenser.
Waliewiski shook her head, then felt relief as the doctor came into the waiting room, announcing, “Five minutes, max. I don’t know how she manages, but the nurse is going to give her a strong sedative. That should quiet her down. Would you believe it? With a bullet that nicked a rib, just barely missed her heart and now lodged behind her scapula, she’s talking about going home tomorrow.”
“When will you be releasing her?” Nolan asked.
“Barring infection, or something worse—and we aren’t about to go probing for that bullet—maybe by next Thursday.”
Greta Walker was somewhere in her fifties, a big blonde woman whose size was definitely not due to fat. If she hadn’t been in a hospital bed, her chest in bandages and with a nurse hovering over her, the average onlooker would have rated her in the best of health.
“The doctor said five minutes, and that’s what it’s going to be.” The nurse was addressing the patient as well as the police and waved the hypodermic needle to emphasize the statement.
“More cops.” Greta may have been asking a question, but it came out as a statement, with a slight accent which neither Nolan nor Waliewiski could place.
“We just have a couple of…”
“Why not forget it?” the patient interrupted as she eyed the newcomers. “You won’t catch him. He’s halfway to Timbuktu or wherever in hell he came from by now.”
Nolan was startled by the seeming indifference of the woman to what had truly been a hair’s breath brush with death. Even so, she decided to make the most of their remaining time. Greta, while acting impatient, quickly rattled off essentially what Nolan and Waliewiski had learned from the patrol officers who’d arrived first on the scene.
“Bastard knocked. Said he had my order—a pizza. I opened the door. He barged in, held this gun on me, told me to turn over my mon
ey. I had my purse in my hand, so he didn’t need to ask. He grabbed, I held on, he shot. That’s it. He ran off with it, and I managed to get to the phone and call 911. Gotta hand it to the cops. They got there along with medics in no time at all. Carted me off before I could make sure they’d locked the door behind them.
“I suppose you want a description? Well, what I told those cops last night stands. I’m not about to strain my brain trying to remember something I didn’t see.”
“Where did you order the…”
A wave away from the nurse and a quick jab with the hypodermic needle, which made both officers wince, interrupted the question.
Waliewiski reassured her companion as they were ushered from the room. “We’ll call her tomorrow to find out where the pizza came from. It’s the obvious connection.”
“Has to be, though it may not be as direct as one of the drivers. That would be too easy. Maybe a friend of someone at the restaurant. Anyhow, first thing tomorrow we scour the neighborhood.”
***
Nolan was giving Waliewiski a rundown of the police report as they worked their way through the morning traffic toward the crime scene. “She lives in the second floor apartment of a two story house. Neighbor downstairs wasn’t home when it happened, apparently. At least she wasn’t there when the officers arrived. Let’s start with her. They got her name and number, so I left a call on her answering phone last night saying we’d be out and to get in touch with us if she couldn’t be there. With luck, she’ll be waiting for us.”
She was. Mrs. Millicent Cutbank, a thin middle-aged individual, was an interrogator’s dream. The only problem with her willingness to answer all questions was that she in fact hadn’t been there at the time of the shooting, had seen no strangers hanging around at anytime—let alone a black—and most certainly wasn’t about to open her door to anyone she didn’t know.
Waliewiski had scribbled down a few notes, anyway. As the questions dwindled, Mrs. Cutbank, seemingly in fear of losing her audience, rushed off to the kitchen with a promise of coffee to come. Evidently it had been prepared ahead of time since, within moments, she returned with a tray of coffee, coffee cake and cream cheese. Waliewiski passed on the food, but Nolan dug in, leaving further questions to her subordinate.
There was no waiting for questions. “I didn’t socialize with her much. Been to her apartment a few times. She’s German, you know. Married an American soldier years ago. That must be why she has all those locks on her door. I hear Germans are like that. And, can you imagine, bars on her windows. On a second floor!
“I probably wouldn’t have noticed the shot, even if I’d been here. Her and her ex-husband…he comes by every so often…raise so much ruckus, I’d have just thought it was him again stomping around, or her throwing something at him. No, I can’t tell you much about her, but maybe her sister can?”
“Her sister?”
“Yeah. She’s going to be here tomorrow, to sort of clean up. I hear there’s blood on the rugs. Her sister…name’s Mathilda Gruening…is real nice. Some kinda government worker. Social work, I think. A Baptist. I’m a Methodist, myself, but have nothing against Baptists. She drops in usually, when she’s visiting her sister. She called this morning. Said she’d be here by…by nine tomorrow…”
The coffee cake gone, washed down with weak coffee, Nolan stood up and the session ended despite protests that there was lots more coffee. A promise that they’d be returning the following day to talk to the sister and perhaps look at Mrs. Walker’s apartment helped to mollify their hostess.
***
The call to the hospital in the afternoon produced a groggy response and rather obvious wonderment at the officers’ continuing pursuit of a hopeless cause. “She says it was the local Domino’s,” Nolan said, punching the end button. “Let’s give it another hour. I’ve got a meeting with the captain at three and plenty of paper work to keep me busy. We can check back tomorrow and see what the sister has to say, but I get the feeling we’re just spinning our wheels.”
The Domino manager was no help, since a check of the previous night’s orders showed no delivery to that address. Nolan shrugged. “She’s so sedated, she probably didn’t remember where she ordered the pizza from. When we get back to the station, you can call the other nearby take-out places.”
The day passed swiftly for both officers. No restaurant had a record of the delivery. Another call to the hospital produced impatience, and insistence that it was the local Domino, and that the service was bad, and that she wouldn’t have ordered if she hadn’t gotten home late from work, didn’t want to bother cooking and was hungry enough to eat a horse. Much good it had done her.
Both officers went off to more pressing matters.
***
“Let’s go!” the sergeant said on her way by Waliewiski’s cubicle. “I want to be sure to catch Walker’s sister before she leaves. We’ll check out the apartment, then maybe run down that ex-husband of Walker’s. I’ve got his address and phone number. He might have seen a loiterer around the apartment.”
“Pretty slim chance.”
“I know, but the take-outs seem to be a dead end. I’m guessing she’s right about Domino’s. They just screwed up on the order.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe we should go by again and find out who was on at the time and who was actually taking orders.”
***
Mathilda Gruening measured up to Mrs. Cutbank’s description. Apologizing for the dustcoat, which was obviously her sister’s, since the small and slender Mathilda was swimming in it, she invited the officers in, waved them to the couch next to a rolled-up rug, rushed off to microwave water for instant coffee, and came back apologizing for the lack of a snack.
With an accent more marked than her sister’s, she added, “Greta’s allergic to gluten, so she never has any grain products in the house—no cookies, no cakes. You’ll have to make do with these chocolates she had in the cupboard.”
Nolan made do quite well. Waliewiski hoped her eyes rolling heavenward weren’t too obvious, then asked, “Have you spoken to your sister since the shooting?”
“Not really. I called her this morning, but she was obviously still sedated. I’d like to go by today, but I have to be at work for a conference this afternoon and it’s quite a drive. I’ll drop off the rug for cleaning, so she won’t have to look at the mess. I was terribly shocked when I heard about it…when the police notified me last night. My, a robber, just walking in like that. I’m surprised she opened the door for him. That’s not like her, but I guess we all make mistakes. But it was a terrible one to make. She is so lucky.”
Both Waliewiski and Nolan, on her third chocolate, looked up at the front door which they saw bore a chain and the three locks the downstairs neighbor had mentioned.
After a series of questions bearing little fruit, Waliewiski decided it was time to search out a more productive orchard. The box of chocolates appeared to be the only reward for the visit.
No, Mathilda had never seen any suspicious strangers around and she would have noticed any blacks, since there were few in this part of town. “Of course, some of the deliverymen are blacks.”
A question about the ex-husband produced the first frown. “He’s a no-good, if there ever was one. Why Greta ever married him, I’ll never understand. She’d visited him here in the States and really didn’t care to live here, so it was especially surprising when she married him. And they never got along. I’m not sure which one hated the other most.”
There seemed to be little more to be gained from the interview, and even Nolan—a last look at the box of chocolates and taking one “for the road”—was ready to leave. One page of Waliewiski’s notebook now had Mathilda Gruening’s address and that of the no-good husband—not that the sergeant thought that either would be of use.
“Another try at the hospital?” Waliewiski asked as they pulled away from the curb.
“Nah. If she’s awake, she’ll just shrug us off. I’ve neve
r seen anyone who cared less about getting even for being damn near killed by someone.”
Waliewiski grinned. “Maybe she just doesn’t have much confidence in the police. Figures she might just as well write it off and get on with her life.”
“Whatever. Time to move in on some informants.”
“Which is a pain.”
“Don’t you know it. I’ll talk to the chief when we get back to the station and see if he’ll pass the scut work off on Mulcahy or Brennan. I have enough other things hanging so I can beg off, and you have a court appearance this afternoon. We’ll pick up again on this shooting in the morning. If we can get help, we’ll scour the neighborhood for possible witnesses, and maybe look up the ex.”
***
“Mulcahy and Brennan pick up anything?” Waliewiski asked, looking up from the mound of paperwork on her desk.
“Nada.” Nolan was unwrapping her usual morning hamburger.
“What the hell. Let’s try talking to the Walker woman again. More and more I’m beginning to wonder about her.”
Nolan shrugged, reached for the phone and punched in the hospital number Waliewiski handed to her.
The puzzled expression on the sergeant’s face as she hung up after a lengthy call brought a questioning look from Waliewiski.
“I got through to the nurse on the floor, finally. Guess what? Walker bugged out, over everyone’s protest. Can you imagine? And with a lead slug still in her. The nurse says they had a hell of a time with her. She was adamant. Said she’d set fire to the place if they didn’t bring her her clothes. They called the doctor. He was horrified, naturally.”
“Crazy! I’m not in love with hospitals, but if I could take a week off or so, I wouldn’t go passing up the chance. Why would she be so darn eager to leave?”
Nolan put in another call, this time to Greta Walker’s downstairs neighbor. To Waliewiski after hanging up, “Yup. She showed up at home, but stayed only a minute.”
“Phew. That one is strange. Real strange.”
Nolan’s expression became more thoughtful. “There are a whole lot of things strange about her. Just exactly why weren’t we able to find the right take-out?”
Expect the Unexpected Page 54
