Aside from this, Christopher is a charming and attractive man. Unfortunately, his condition cost him a marriage and a job as a police officer in California. He sued the police department and won a decent settlement, a fact that has made all his future employers—us included—wary of firing him because of his farts. Basically, it’s a disability, and as such, he is a protected employee.
I consider it a fair trade-off. Christopher is easy to work with, flexible with his schedule, and fun to be around. He’s even managed to hit it off with one of the police officers in town, Brenda Joiner, and the two of them have been dating for several months.
In the beginning, the constant farting did take some getting used to, but I don’t notice it anymore. I got used to nasty smells in my work as a nurse, and in my current job, I often encounter smells that are much worse. Besides, I live with a dog and a kid, and either one could give Christopher a run for his money.
“Good morning, Christopher,” I say as I enter the library. He is seated at the conference table rather than his desk, several reference books open and spread out around him. I set my box and my purse on the end of the table and shrug off my jacket.
“What are you doing here?” he asks. “Not working again, I hope.”
I smile guiltily. “This Ulrich case is eating at me. I want to do a bit of work on it.”
Christopher shakes his head. “If I recall correctly, you’ve used that same excuse several times recently. You don’t seem to grasp the idea of this job-sharing stuff.”
“I know it must seem that way lately,” I say with a sigh. “But this one really is bothering me, and I know that if I don’t work on it, I’ll just be at home, sitting and thinking about it all day.”
“Can I help?”
“I’d love another pair of eyes to go over some evidence,” I tell him. “Though it looks like you already have your own hands full.” I nod toward the books he has open on the table.
“This can wait,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand toward the books. “I was doing a bit of research on a cold case from twelve years ago.”
“Which one?”
Now it’s his turn to flash a guilty smile. “To be honest, it’s not one of ours. It’s a case I worked as a cop before I was let go. The wife of this guy who was employed at a meatpacking plant disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again, and—”
“Stop right there,” I say with a grimace as my stomach lurches threateningly. “I don’t want to know. I had sausage for dinner last night.”
Christopher arches his left brow and grins evilly.
“I’m serious, Chris,” I say, swallowing hard.
His grin slowly fades, his eyes narrow for a second, and then his right eyebrow rises to the level of the left one. “Are you . . . ?” He lets it hang there, probably afraid to commit to the question.
I debate my options for two seconds and figure I might as well come clean. “Pregnant? Yes, I am.”
“That’s great!” he says, beaming at me. “Congratulations!”
“Thanks,” I say with far less enthusiasm. He doesn’t miss it.
“Uh-oh, is it not a good thing?”
“It’s okay,” I say with a tired smile. “We’ve been trying. It’s just that I have some mixed feelings about it. Pregnancy isn’t my favorite state of existence, and I’m just a little worried about adding another kid to the mix of crazy already going on at our house.”
“Understandable. Though I have to say, I’m a little envious. I’d love to have some kid craziness in my life.”
There is a wistful tone to his voice that makes me feel like a heel for being less than enthusiastic about my condition. “Give it time,” I say. “At least with you men, you don’t have a biological clock ticking away, forcing or limiting your choices.”
“I don’t, but . . .” He bites his lower lip, shakes his head, and says, “Never mind.”
“You were going to say something about Brenda,” I nudge. “How are things going between the two of you?”
“Quite well,” he says. “I’m thinking of asking her to move in with me.”
“Really?”
He nods, looking at me expectantly, and I realize he’s hoping I’ll weigh in on the idea. This is dangerous territory. I haven’t talked to Brenda about her relationship with Christopher, so I have no idea how she feels about him. But I do know one thing that raises some concerns. Brenda lives in a condo downtown that is modern, relatively new, and requires little to no effort on her part for things like shoveling snow, raking leaves, and mowing grass. Given that Brenda works a lot of overtime, I know this arrangement is one she likes.
Christopher, on the other hand, has purchased a very old, very run-down farmhouse outside of town, which he’s in the process of fixing up. Currently it doesn’t have any electricity, thanks to old knob-and-tube wiring that has been torn out, without any new wiring being put in yet.
“Maybe you should make a little more progress on the house before you ask her to move in with you,” I say. “You know, secure the basics, like electricity and running water. I’m not sure Brenda’s the adventurous type.”
Christopher frowns. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
I feel bad putting a damper on his enthusiasm, and I make a mental note to have a chat with Brenda as soon as possible and try to feel out her thoughts on Christopher and their relationship.
“Anyway,” Christopher says, perking up. “Tell me about this case. Is it related to the Jane Doe you brought in earlier this week?”
“It is.”
I then spend the next hour filling Christopher in on the nuances of the case and its ties to the Ulrich murders. I can tell from the expression on his face that he’s hooked when I’m only five minutes into it. I’ve covered most of the particulars, including our findings at Troll Nook, our talk with Dutch, our chat with Ulrich yesterday (including a very detailed description of Barney Ledbetter and his antics), and our experiences with the Eau Claire people involved.
At this point, our receptionist, Cass, comes into the room. It’s one of the rare occasions when Cass looks like herself and not whatever character she’s currently playing with the local theater group.
“Mattie, there’s a gentleman out here asking to see you,” she says.
“About what? Did he give a name?”
“Mr. Oliver.”
It takes me a second or two to make the connection. “Ah, Todd,” I say. “I wonder what he’s doing here?”
I follow Cass out to the front lobby and see Todd standing by the front door, staring out.
“Todd?” I say, and he turns around with a big smile. “This is a surprise.”
He walks over to me, looking abashed. “I know, I know, I should have called first, but I didn’t want you to talk me out of it, and I feared you would.”
“Talk you out of what?”
“Helping you with your case . . . the one that’s connected to Ulrich. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have another pair of eyes on it, particularly a pair of eyes that are intimately familiar with the details and evidence relating to the Ulrich victims.”
“Well, your timing is impeccable,” I say. “I was just bringing my work partner up to speed on the case, so he can help me sort through the evidence. Come on back and join us.”
Cass buzzes us through and I lead Todd down the hall toward the library.
“I don’t suppose I could ask you to return a favor and give me a tour of your facility,” Todd says.
“Sure,” I say. “Let me introduce you to Christopher first.” I lead us into the library and make the necessary introductions, watching Todd’s face closely to see what reaction, if any, he will have to Christopher’s ever-present miasma. The two men shake hands, share a few pleasantries, and then I tell Christopher I’m going to give Todd a quick tour.
Once we’re back in the hallway and the library door has closed behind us, Todd says, “Have you guys had some kind of failure in your exhaust system?”
I
smile and shake my head. “Nope.” I then explain Christopher’s condition to him. I expect him to bemoan the situation and express some sympathy for me and the others who work with Chris, but he surprises me.
“Geez, the poor guy,” he says. “How awful it must be for him.”
“I suppose so,” I say, “though he seems to get on well enough, despite it. He even has a girlfriend, one of the local cops. And I think most of us here at the office are so used to it that we don’t really notice it anymore.” This is a tiny white lie because some of Christopher’s emissions are about as easy to ignore or miss as a nuclear blast. I think I got used to it quicker than Arnie, Cass, and Izzy.
I give Todd the nickel tour of the first floor, starting with the autopsy suite and ending with the doc’s office. It doesn’t take long; the space isn’t all that big. I tell Todd that Arnie has a lab upstairs, but don’t offer to show that area, explaining to him that both Arnie and Izzy like to limit the people who visit or have access to the lab to ensure the security of any evidence we have there. Todd seems to understand, and less than ten minutes later, we are back in the library.
We dig into the evidence related to the Ulrich case and start sorting and comparing it to the evidence we have from our own Jane Doe case. Even though we’re quite certain our victim is Lacy O’Connor, based on her birthmark and other physical characteristics, until we get her DNA back, she will remain a Jane Doe officially.
After looking at the information Todd and Dr. Larson gathered about the knife wounds on the Ulrich victims, we compare it to the knife wounds on our victim. I call Arnie down to the library to join us, and after introductions, the four of us do an in-depth analysis of the wound photos and specs, including depth, width, hilt marks, and other characteristics.
“I’d say it’s conclusive,” Arnie announces once we’re done. “Our victim’s wounds match those of the other victims, except the first one, right down to the hilt mark and the amount of force behind the stabbing.”
“But that’s not enough by itself,” Christopher says. “The knife that was identified as the likely weapon is a common hunting knife that any number of people could buy or might already own. It means a copycat is still a viable option. And while it appears that the amount of force used to stab the victims is the same in all the cases, that could be mere coincidence.”
Todd and I both nod.
“What else have we got?” I say.
“Let’s look at the trace,” Arnie says. “That’s the kind of thing copycats don’t always know about.”
“The biggest trace evidence is the flower petals,” I say. “In theory, a copycat shouldn’t know about those, but there were enough people who did know that we can’t rule it out.”
“Did anyone ever figure out where the flowers came from?” Arnie asks.
Todd and I both shake our heads.
“That’s key,” Arnie says. “The time of year for both the Ulrich murders and ours don’t coincide with a natural-growing season for carnations. They had to have been grown indoors or ordered from a florist. We need to find a way to connect those flowers.”
“But the cops in Eau Claire tried to do that and they couldn’t find any connection between Ulrich and the flowers,” I say. “They checked with local florists and greenhouses, some outlying florists and greenhouses, and Ulrich’s Internet activities. Nothing came up.”
Christopher snaps his fingers. “Arnie is right. The flowers are key. And the cops in Eau Claire went about it the wrong way, or rather they went about it in a way that seemed logical at the time, because they had a specific suspect. We need to look at it from a different angle. Instead of trying to tie Ulrich to the flowers, we need to tie the flowers to Eau Claire. At least that’s where we start. It means assuming the killer is from the Eau Claire area, but I think that’s a reasonable assumption, given the first murders.”
“I see where you’re going with this,” Arnie says, looking excited. “But it’s a needle in a haystack. We’d have to research all the online florist sites and find any orders coming to Eau Claire or the surrounding area over a period of several months. We’d have to look at orders to businesses, as well as to individuals. That could take a lot of time.”
“Still, it’s a place to start,” Todd says.
“That sounds like something Laura would be good at,” I say to Arnie.
Laura Kingston is an evidence technician and lab rat that our office shares with the police department. For a while, Arnie and his counterpart in the police department, Jonas Kriedeman, were also sharing Laura. Then they learned that she was secretly dating one of the local cops, Patrick Devonshire, aka Devo, and the two men have since moved on. Amazingly, they’ve all managed to do this without harboring any bad feelings among them.
“I’ll have her start on it tonight when she comes into work,” Arnie says.
Laura works mostly night shifts, which is how I suspect she and Devo got hooked up, since he has also been working night shifts for a while.
Todd is looking through a folder that contains notes on our most recent victim. “You know,” he says, “the freshest way to look at this thing is this girl’s case. I see that her identification hasn’t been absolutely finalized, but her parents know we have a body fitting their daughter’s description, including a birthmark. And there’s a boyfriend, too. We should be talking to them, finding out what we can about the girl, particularly her movements just prior to her death.”
“We talked to the boyfriend already,” I tell him. “It was a dead end.” I grimace, realizing what I just said. “Excuse the pun.”
Both Christopher and Todd shrug off my apology, though I notice that both are wearing a hint of a smile.
“What about the parents?” Todd asks. “Has anyone talked to them?”
Christopher says, “I imagine the cops have done that already.”
“Maybe not in any detail,” I say. “They were waiting for the DNA results. Let me give Hurley a call and see what I can find out.” I take out my cell phone and leave the library, preferring my conversation with Hurley to be as private as possible, given the way we parted company earlier today.
I pace in the hallway, listening to Hurley’s phone ring until it flips over to voice mail. I’m not expecting this, and for a moment, I’m not sure what message to leave, if any. After stammering for a few seconds, I simply say, “Call me,” and then disconnect.
Frustrated and unsure of what to do next, I fall back on my usual fail-safe. I walk back into the library and say, “I’m hungry. Anyone interested in lunch?”
CHAPTER 18
As it turns out, the only person who takes me up on the lunch idea is Todd. Arnie says he brought a lunch and Christopher is a snacker. He rarely eats an entire meal in one sitting, preferring to graze all day long. He’s convinced this minimizes the level of his gastric emissions, in quantity if not in quality. I’ve wondered if by eating all day, he merely spreads his gas production out over the day, creating frequent small but noxious emissions as opposed to a few hearty and robust emissions such as might follow a regular meal. Far be it for me to suggest this, however. The man has been living with this disorder his entire life and I trust that he knows what’s best at this point, though what’s best for him isn’t necessarily what’s best for the rest of us.
I ask Todd if he has a food preference and he assures me he does not.
“If it’s okay with you then, I suggest we eat at a place called Dairy Airs. It’s owned by a farm family that raises dairy cows and most of their menu is related to that. There are lots of cheesy stuff and creamy desserts. Their ice creams and cheesecakes are to die for.”
“Sounds perfect for a couple of people who work with the dead,” Todd says with a wink.
I offer to drive and escort Todd down to the underground garage. When I walk up to the hearse and open the driver’s door, he hesitates, looking from the car to me and back at the car again.
“Oh, sorry,” I say. “I forgot that you haven’t seen my person
al vehicle before.”
The corners of his mouth twitch up. “You drive a hearse as your personal vehicle?”
“I do. It’s a long story as to why. Climb in and I’ll fill you in.”
“As long as I don’t have to ride in the very back section.”
“Not today,” I counter with a wink, and without further ado, we both climb in.
The drive to Dairy Airs only takes about seven minutes, but that’s long enough for me to give Todd the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books version of my split from David (though I spare him the gory details of just how I discovered that David was cheating on me), my dire financial circumstances in those first few months, how I came to own the hearse, and the homicidal stalker I had for a while. This is why the hearse has reinforced steel panels, bulletproof glass, and run-flat tires.
“You certainly have led an exciting life,” Todd says with amusement as I park in the lot at Dairy Airs.
“Things were kind of crazy for a while,” I admit. “It’s better now.” Even as I say this, a niggling doubt nags at my brain.
Once inside, we peruse the menus and Todd orders the grilled cheese sandwich, with homemade tomato soup, while I opt for a cheese omelet, with spinach and mushrooms, and a side of sourdough toast.
“I’ve told you some of my dark and dirty secrets,” I say, once the waitress takes our orders and disappears into the kitchen. “Tell me about your life.”
“Not much to tell,” Todd says. “I’m one of four kids, and the only boy, also the youngest, so I’m a bit spoiled. I grew up in Minneapolis, came to Milwaukee for college, and decided to stay awhile. I have a bachelor’s degree in agronomy, with a focus on botany.” He sees my surprised expression and chuckles. “I know what you’re thinking. How the heck did I end up doing what I’m doing now, with that as my background, right?”
Dead Ringer Page 18
