“Want to guess what one payment the Strommens did keep up to date?”
I think a moment, but nothing leaps to mind that would cause the sort of self-satisfied tone I can hear in Hurley’s voice—a tone I know from past experience means he’s hooked into something big. Then it hits me. “A life insurance policy?”
“Bingo. And not just any life insurance policy, either. Donald Strommen was insured for half a million bucks.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah, wow,” Hurley echoes. “That translates into some serious motive for Charlotte.”
“You think she killed him for the insurance money?”
“Why not? You saw how they were living. The creditors were going to put them out on the street. Charlotte saw only one way out and took it. You were the one who saw her packing away her husband’s clothes before she was supposed to know he was dead.”
“Yeah, I did.” I frown because—despite what I saw, and my certainty that Charlotte wasn’t being totally honest with us when we talked to her—I’m having a hard time seeing her as a cold-blooded murderer.
“I’m going to look into this insurance policy a little more. I’ll let you know what I find out when I see you at one.”
“Okay, see you then.” I disconnect the call and glance at my watch. I still have a little over an hour left, so I head to my sister’s house.
When I pull up out front, I find my niece, Erika, hanging out on her front porch. She’s enjoying the unusually warm weather with a couple of girlfriends and two guy friends. She leaves the group and runs over to greet me as soon as I pull into the curb. Erika is going through a bit of a Goth phase, as evidenced by the blue-black hair surrounding her brown roots, a pair of black leather boots, which each have a dozen metal buckles, and makeup that includes kohl eyeliner and black lipstick. But beneath that grim appearance, Erika is really a sweet kid at heart. And given her fascination with blood and gore, I think she might make a crackerjack surgeon when she grows up. Still, while it’s easy for me to imagine her someday saving lives, her current fascination is with death. Because of that, the hearse intrigues her.
“Hi, Aunt Mattie! Can I show my friends your car?”
So much for the social niceties.
The other kids hang back on the porch, watching us.
“Sure,” I say.
“Cool! Hey, guys, come check this out. It’s so rad! They used to put dead people in here.” Erika’s eyes grow wide with delight as she says this, as if a car for dead people were the coolest hangout on earth.
The other kids squirm and shift uncomfortably, looking at one another. Clearly, they aren’t quite as enamored with the hearse as Erika is, though their expressions do indicate a certain level of curiosity. I suspect they are waiting for one person in the group to make the first move; it doesn’t take long for a blond-ponytailed girl named Becky to take the plunge. The others wait a few beats and then follow, meandering over to us in that unrushed “I’m cool” manner that teenagers are so good at.
I stand off to one side and let the kids do their thing with the car. They open the tailgate and doors, run their hands over the leather seats, and check out the rails in the back, where the caskets used to lock into place. The two boys check out the gauges on the dash, while Erika climbs into the back and lies down between the rails, staring up at the ceiling, her hands folded on her belly in perfect repose.
“I’m dead,” she says. “And you guys are my pallbearers. Can you carry me out?”
Nervous laughter follows, but no one makes a move. Erika is a spooky kid sometimes.
“Hey, guys,” I say, deciding the time has come, “let me ask you something. Do you know Hannah Strommen?”
“‘Charmin’ Strommen’?” Becky says.
“Not so much these days,” one of the boys comments.
Erika gives up on her pretend death and scoots out to sit on the back edge of the rear compartment. “Hannah’s been kind of off lately,” she tells me.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, ever since her father disappeared, she’s been acting all weird and stuff. She won’t talk to anyone, and her eyes are always red and puffy, like she’s crying all the time. I guess that makes sense, since her dad is gone. But she doesn’t ever eat anything at lunchtime now, and she keeps muttering strange things to herself.”
“Like what?”
Becky says, “Well, like the other day, she was talking to herself about how she was going to burn in hell, and how her mother would be there with her. It was really creepy because she was saying it like she was talking to someone, but she was all alone. It was a total Carrie moment, you know?” she says, all wide-eyed and wary. “I mean, I’m sure it’s a bad thing to go through, but seriously? The girl’s creep factor lately is off the charts.”
The other kids all nod in agreement.
“Is there someone at school Hannah is close to?” I ask them.
“Not anymore,” Erika says. “She and Danny Olsen were a thing for a while, but they broke up. He said she’s kind of demento lately. And she doesn’t hang out with her usual girlfriends much anymore, either.”
“I take it this is a change in her behavior?”
They all nod and Becky says, “Totally. It’s like she doesn’t care anymore. Hannah is kind of pretty, but lately her hair has been all stringy and greasy, and sometimes she wears the same clothes to school for days in a row.” Becky pauses and wrinkles her nose. “She kind of smells.”
With that, I thank the kids for their candor, leave them to explore the hearse, and head inside. I find my sister, Desi, in the kitchen; she’s whipping up some kind of batter in a big mixing bowl. There is chili simmering on the stove, so I suspect the batter will be turned into Desi’s mouthwatering corn bread.
“Hey, sis,” she says when she sees me. She pours the batter into a glass baking pan and sticks it in the oven. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”
“I missed my little sister,” I say with a smile, settling onto one of the stools at the counter.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she says. Then with a wink, she adds, “What’s the real reason?”
“I wanted to pick the kids’ brains about one of their fellow students. Something related to a case I’m working on.”
“Lucien’s case with that kid?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s another one, not something I can talk about yet.” I get up and walk over to take a spoon from the silverware drawer. Then I decide to risk my life for the greater good by doing a quick “poison test” on the chili. It’s delicious, with just the right amount of spice.
“How is it?” Desi asks.
“Perfect, as usual. Clearly, you inherited cooking genes from your father, which I didn’t get from mine.”
Desi and I are technically half sisters. Though we share the same mother, we each had different fathers—neither one of which is still married to Mom. Our mother goes through husbands faster than I can go through a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. At least Desi’s father, who was only married to my mother for a little over a year, is still somewhat involved in Desi’s life, unlike my father, who escaped faster than Ellie the horse. Since our mother’s idea of cooking involves nuking food into hard blocks of sterility to make sure it is free of both germs and taste, it’s pretty obvious where Desi’s cooking abilities come from.
“Is Ethan here?” I ask.
Desi nods. “In his room.”
I toss my chili spoon into the sink. “I’m going to pop my head in and say hi.”
Ethan is a peculiar kid in a different way from his sister. He’s extremely bright, socially awkward, and a bit of a loner. It’s probably just as well, since most folks don’t take well to the hobby that is Ethan’s greatest passion: bugs. The kid has a thing for insects of all kinds—the creepier and crawlier they are, the better. Fortunately, most of them are dead and pinned into cases, safely secluded behind glass fronts. But he has a few live ones. In addition to an ant farm, he has a terrarium that holds a
tarantula, with the unfortunate name of Fluffy. Ethan is always quick to point out to anyone who mistakenly calls Fluffy a “bug” that he’s actually an “arachnid.” But few people hear this explanation because they are either running, screaming, from the room or passed out cold on the floor.
Ethan recently acquired a new pet: a Madagascar hissing cockroach. It’s a hideous looking thing, a giant cockroach that measures about three inches in length and has an alarming habit of rearing back on its legs, waving its long antennae in the air, and hissing. Ethan bestowed the creature with the unimaginative but frighteningly apt name of Hissy. I don’t know how the hell Desi does it. Living with Ethan and his pets would give me nightmares.
I find Ethan sitting at his desk, holding a magnifying glass, head bent over a display of beetles. Both Fluffy and Hissy are safely ensconced inside screen-topped terrariums atop a side dresser, so I venture in.
“Hi, Ethan,” I say.
“Hi, Aunt Mattie.”
“What are you up to?”
“Just studying some of my collections,” he says.
His collections are all over the room: covered glass boxes that are filled with various creepy-crawlies, and flying bugs pinned onto white paper, with tiny, neat labels beneath each one bearing the critter’s scientific name, the date it was obtained, and where it was found.
“I brought you something,” I tell him, rummaging through my purse and pulling out the paper I stuck in there earlier. I unfold it, lay it on the desk, and smooth it out.
Ethan glances over at it, shrugs, and goes back to his beetle collection. “It’s Tineola bisselliella,” he says.
“Is it a grub for some kind of water bug?”
“Hardly,” Ethan says in a tone that implies I’m an idiot. “It’s the larva for the clothes-eating moth, though that’s not a fair name because it’s the larvae, not the moths that actually eat fabrics. I have an adult moth.” He pushes back his chair, gets up, and goes to a shelf that holds dozens of display cases. He grabs one and brings it over to me.
“This is what the moth looks like. I’ve never found one of the larvae. Can I have this one?” He taps my picture.
“Sorry, but it’s evidence in a case I’m working on.”
“Did you find it on a sweater or something?”
“No, we found it in a body, inside the breathing tube of a man we think may have drowned.”
Ethan looks up at me with a quizzical expression. “That’s weird. Tineola bisselliella don’t live anywhere near water. They like dark, dry places, like closets and trunks. Their primary food sources are fabrics and sometimes other insect parts, so I don’t know how one would get inside a drowning person, or why it would. They aren’t necrophagous, like the maggots of Sar-cophagidae and Calliphoridae, the flies you typically find on decaying flesh.”
Ethan’s comfort level discussing this topic doesn’t surprise me. He’s had a fascination with bugs for as long as I can remember; not long ago, I arranged for him to spend some time with a leading forensic entomologist we had to consult on another case. Ethan was enthralled by the somewhat aptly named Dr. Beadle, and Dr. Beadle was equally fascinated with Ethan’s knowledge and interest in entomology—enough so that he invited Ethan to attend the weeklong “Bug Camp” for kids Dr. Beadle runs every summer. Ethan is beyond excited about it, not only because it will give him a chance to learn more and collect new specimens, but also because he won’t be one of the regular campers. Instead, Ethan will be functioning as Dr. Beadle’s assistant, complete with pay in the form of a full camp scholarship and some rare bug with an unpronounceable name that Ethan gets to add to his collection.
Ethan says, “Was the drowned person wearing a scarf?”
“Not that we know of. There wasn’t one on him when we found him, but I suppose he might have had one, which came off in the water.”
“What kind of coat was he wearing?”
I finally guess what Ethan is thinking. “I get it, you’re wondering if that worm was on some of the clothing he was wearing. Am I right?”
Ethan nods. “It’s possible that the larva was on his clothing. When he went into the water, it was knocked loose and he inhaled it, along with the water. That’s the only explanation I can think of that makes sense.”
I close my eyes and do a quick mental inventory of the clothing we removed from Donald Strommen’s body during our autopsy. “He was wearing a parka, one of those fiberfill things with a nylon-type outer covering. Under that, he had on a flannel shirt and some thermal underwear. His pants were jeans. The socks might have been wool, but he was wearing heavy boots over them, and his long johns covered the cuffs. When we found him, he didn’t have any gloves or hat, but they may have gotten lost in the water.”
I open my eyes and see Ethan frowning. “What?” I say.
“The parka is definitely not moth material. The jeans, shirt, and underwear all could be, but those are items that are typically washed a lot and that should keep any larvae from settling or developing on them.”
“Well, as I said before, he may have had a scarf or hat of some sort when he first went into the water. Those would be candidates, wouldn’t they?”
“They would,” Ethan says, nodding. “Don’t you know what he was wearing when he was last seen?”
“I don’t,” I tell him, smiling at how keenly his mind is working along investigative lines. “But I can find out. In the meantime, I need you to keep this to yourself for now, okay? It’s top secret.”
“No problem.”
“You can’t mention it to anyone. Not even your family or friends.”
“Okay,” he says with a degree of impatience.
I realize the risk of Ethan spreading tales is pretty low, since he tends to be a bit of a loner, preferring to spend time with his insects rather than other humans. So I decide to push a little further.
“Do you know Peter Strommen very well?” I ask.
“Not really. He hangs out with the other farm kids mostly.”
“Have you noticed anything different about him lately? Or heard any rumors about him?”
Ethan thinks a moment and then shakes his head. “He’s been a little sad since his father disappeared, but other than that . . .” He shrugs.
I reach over and tousle his hair, which makes him flinch. “Thanks for all your help, kiddo. Once our investigation is done, I’ll let you know what we find, okay?”
“Do you think there’s a chance I might be able to get that larva for my collection?” he asks, pointing to the picture that’s still on his desk.
I grab the picture, fold it up, and stuff it back in my purse. “I don’t know, buddy. I doubt it, but I’ll see what I can do, okay?”
He shrugs again, and then he summarily dismisses me by settling back in at his desk and focusing on his beetle collection.
I head back out to the kitchen, where I steal a quick bowl of my sister’s chili and a piece of hot-out-of-the-oven corn bread, which I promptly smother in butter.
As I scarf down the food, grateful that my stomach is finally back to normal, my sister fills me in on our mother’s latest health complaints. Mom is not only a germophobe, but a hard-core hypochondriac. She recently became concerned that she might have cutaneous porphyria, a relatively rare disease that causes photosensitivity of the skin, resulting in blistering after sun exposure. Because of this manifestation, it is sometimes referred to as the “vampire disease,” as its victims tend toward very pale complexions and avoidance of sunlight. Apparently, Mom was outside for all of thirty minutes yesterday. Despite the fact that she was wearing a sunscreen with an SPF factor of about 2 million, and not yawning at the sky the whole time, she is convinced the canker sore she developed in her mouth last night is a manifestation of cutaneous porphyria. With her naturally pale coloring, Mom fits the physical description of many who do have the disease. However, despite her ability to suck the life out of me at times, I’m as sure as I can be that she doesn’t have it.
While I eat, I list
en to Desi reiterate her conversations with Mom, and I nod or smile when expected. But I’m only partially focused as my mind ponders the puzzle of the inhaled moth larva. Maybe Charlotte really did kill her husband. Maybe she shoved a scarf or some other item into his mouth, choking him. I quickly discard that idea, because the size of Donald compared to the size of Charlotte makes it highly unlikely. But maybe she subdued him first and then choked or smothered him with something. Had she drugged him somehow?
The size issue makes me realize something else. If Charlotte did have something to do with Donald’s death, then, in all likelihood, he died at home. How did she get his body to the river? Moving a man Donald’s size when he’s deadweight would be nigh onto impossible for someone of Charlotte’s size. Someone had to have helped her. And given what I learned from talking to Erika and her friends, I’m betting that someone was Hannah.
There’s no way right now to know if Donald was drugged, because the tox screen isn’t done, and won’t be for a day or two. But it occurs to me that the police might want to search the Strommen house to see what drugs they can find there, and to collect the items of clothing I saw Charlotte packing up before she has a chance to get rid of them. And I want to be there when they do it, to see and assess Hannah’s frame of mind, even if her mother won’t allow us to talk to her.
Chapter 22
When I pull up in front of the police station at one o’clock, Hurley is waiting for me out front, as promised.
As soon as he climbs into the hearse, I say, “I have a quick question for you. What clothing was Donald reported to be wearing when he disappeared?”
“The original missing persons report filed by Charlotte said he was wearing a hooded blue parka, blue jeans, a red-and-green-plaid flannel shirt, and brown boots. Pretty much what he was wearing when we found him. Why?”
“No mention of any scarf, or hat, or gloves?” I ask, ignoring his question.
“Nope. And now that you mention it, that’s kind of odd, given the weather.”
Lucky Stiff Page 19
