Dead Ringer

by Annelise Ryan

  I recognize the voice and it sends a little chill down my spine. With a curious smile, I turn and look at Pete Hamilton. “How did you know to find me here? Or are you going to try and tell me that you lunch here a lot and this meeting is a coincidence?”

  Hamilton grins. It’s a crocodile smile, broad, phony, and full of potential menace. “No, not a coincidence,” he says. “I was with Detective Stetson when you called him, and he told me what you were asking. It wasn’t too difficult to guess you’d eventually get the info you wanted for Fowler’s office, so I went there. Then I followed you here.”

  “I had no idea I was so intriguing.”

  Hamilton walks over and pulls out an empty chair from a nearby table, swinging it around and placing it at ours. Then he sits down and looks at Brenda with that reptilian smile. How did this guy ever get elected? He gives me the creeps, but then I suppose his public persona comes across friendlier. He probably turns it on as easy as flipping a light switch.

  “I’m Pete Hamilton,” he says, extending a hand toward Brenda. “I’m the DA in these parts.”

  “Officer Brenda Joiner,” Brenda says, “with the Sorenson Police Department.”

  Hamilton unbuttons his coat, but doesn’t take it off. Beneath it, I see he’s wearing another of his whimsical ties, this one with a cartoon character Minion embroidered at the bottom. Ironic, given that he’s the head of all the other minions in his department.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard the latest in the investigation,” Hamilton says, turning his attention back to me and still wearing that smile. “We found Ulrich’s knife, the one he used to kill the last three women.”

  His smile is really starting to annoy me.

  “What? How? Where?”

  “A student found it down a sewer grate in the sidewalk by the high school. The student knew about Ulrich and saw the knife down there glinting in the sun, so he called the cops. We had a lot of rain a few days ago and those sewers were running hard and fast. The knife was probably buried beneath a bunch of old dead leaves, but the rain runoff was enough to wash the debris away. Might have washed the knife away, too, except part of the blade was stuck in a crack in the concrete. Lucky thing for us.”

  “If the knife was exposed to that kind of water, there isn’t likely to be any evidence left on it,” I say. “How do you know it belonged to Ulrich?”

  Wendy chooses that moment to show up with our shakes. She smiles at Hamilton. “Hello, Pete, are you joining the ladies?”

  Apparently, Hamilton does frequent this place.

  “Not today, Wendy,” he says. “Maybe a glass of water, though?”

  “Sure, coming right up.” She sets our milk shakes down on the table and hurries off.

  Hamilton turns his attention back to me, his cold eyes matching his smile. “The knife is exactly like the one that we know Ulrich purchased, and it matches the wounds and hilt marks on the victims,” Hamilton says to me. “It was found down a sewer grate near where Ulrich was working at the time of the murders. You’re right, there probably won’t be any DNA evidence left on it after all this time, but we are testing it anyway. Who knows?”

  Wendy returns, setting a glass of ice water in front of Hamilton. He thanks her warmly, and then turns cold again, once she’s gone, confirming my theory about his ability to turn the friendliness on and off with ease. “But you see, it doesn’t really matter if we can prove it or not, because we’ve already convicted Ulrich. The knife is just gravy, in case anyone gets any idiotic ideas about Ulrich’s guilt.”

  “Ulrich is a smart guy,” I say. “Too smart to dump a knife so close to where he works. He had to know that area would be searched. Which raises the question of why it wasn’t found back when he was first arrested? I find it hard to believe that no one found that knife until recently. Sloppy police work? Or a plant?”

  “I’d watch that mouth of yours,” Hamilton says, all pretense of a smile gone now. He runs a hand down his tie, and then takes a drink of his water, glaring at me the whole time. He sets his glass down firmly and narrows his eyes. “Take my advice, Ms. Winston, and go back home and tend to your own household. Don’t come here and try to clean ours. Maybe you should find yourself a nice, patient man and settle down, spit out a couple of kids. That should keep you busy for a while.” With that, he shoves his chair back, gets up, and leaves, the tails of his coat flapping behind him.

  “You want to kill that man right now, don’t you?” Brenda says.

  “Where the hell does he get off saying that stuff?” I seethe.

  “I take it he doesn’t realize you’re already married, and to a homicide detective, to boot. You’re not wearing your ring.”

  “I have to have it resized. My fingers have been swollen.” I feel the sudden burn of tears behind my eyes and my confession comes rolling out of me. “I’m pregnant again, Brenda,” I say at a half-sob.

  “Oh,” she says, her eyes growing wide. Then her face morphs into a confused frown. “Is that a good thing?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. Hell, my life right now is a big mess. Hurley and I are fighting, and I’ve got mixed feelings about this whole baby thing, and this guy kissed me last night, and I—”

  “Whoa!” Brenda says, holding her hand up in traffic-cop fashion. “Who kissed you?”

  “Oh, this guy from up here in Eau Claire. He’s the one I met at the forensic conference last year who told me about the flower petal thing. He’s like a version of me in Eau Claire, except he’s not completely official yet, because the doc up here is still training. And then there’s some legislative crap that has to happen.”

  “And he kissed you because . . .” Her eyebrows arch expectantly.

  “We were at the Sorenson Motel and we were doing this experiment with wine and we kind of bonded, you know? But just in a friend way . . . or coworker way, I thought. Apparently, he thought different.”

  “You went to a motel with him?” Brenda says, looking like lightning had struck. She leans back in her chair and stares at me. “Who are you really and what have you done with my Mattie Winston?”

  Wendy chooses this moment to arrive with our burgers. “Here we go,” she says cheerily, setting the plates down. Her eyes go from me to Brenda and back to me again, her expression growing warily puzzled. Clearly, she can sense that something monumental is going on here. “Did Pete leave?” she asks.

  That shakes me out of my misery. “He did,” I say. “Do you know him well?”

  “Pete? Sure,” she says. “He comes in here a lot. He’s another regular. His office isn’t far from here. Plus, he’s kind of a big shot in these parts.”

  “What’s his story?” I ask. “Is he married? Single? Seeing anyone?”

  Wendy arches one brow. “Are you interested?” she asks.

  “Maybe,” I say, figuring if I play along with that line of thinking I might get the answers I want. Brenda is staring at me slack-jawed, no doubt wondering where I’ve hidden my pod.

  “Word is, he’s on the market again,” Wendy says. “He’s been married and divorced a few times. I think his job is hard on relationships.”

  More likely, his smarmy, smart-assed attitude is hard on relationships. “Are any of his exes tall, blond, and blue-eyed?” I ask.

  Wendy eyes me critically for a moment and smiles. “Yeah, I’d say you’re his type, all right. Maybe a little heavier than some of the others, but I don’t think that’s a deal breaker. You should go for it, honey. Life is too short.”

  With that pearl of wisdom, Wendy departs, leaving me with a shell-shocked Brenda.

  “Mattie, what the hell has gotten into you?”

  I cock my head to one side and give her a get-real look. “I need to clarify a few things, and my questions about Hamilton are for the investigation. Our victims are all of a type. They’re tall, blond, blue-eyed.”

  “Like you,” Brenda says.

  I nod.

  “You’re trying to determine if Hamilton might have any grudges against
women who fit that mold.”

  “Yes. And as for the kissing thing, it was just a misunderstanding.” I explain the situation with Todd and me, how we ended up at the motel, the experiment we did with the wine, and the kiss afterward. “I set him straight. He didn’t know I was married, and when he found out I was not only hitched, but to Hurley, I thought he was going to run away screaming.” I chuckle remembering the horrified look on Todd’s face.

  “Is that what you and Hurley are fighting about?”

  “No. God, no. He doesn’t know about that, and I don’t want him to. That’s all I need right now. No, our fight, if we’re actually having one, is about the fact that I lied to him about seeing that shrink I go to at times, Maggie Baldwin.”

  “I remember,” Brenda says with a roll of her eyes. And well she should. She was my escort and chauffeur back when I was pregnant with Matthew, unsure about my relationship with Hurley, being stalked by a madman, and making regular visits to Maggie.

  “Anyway, I’ve been having second thoughts about the whole baby thing, not sure I want to do it again, and feeling insecure about my abilities as a mother. It’s not that I don’t want to have another kid. I adore Matthew and the idea of having another child with Hurley makes me happy. It’s the pregnancy part. And the worrying-if-I’m-a-good-mother part. And, frankly, the exhaustion part.” I pause and take a bite of my hamburger, which is delicious and juicy and greasy and probably on the list of things I’m not supposed to eat. Screw it.

  “You need to be careful about this moving-in-together thing, Brenda,” I say, covering my mouth partially with my hand, since I’m still chewing. “Men don’t always hold up their end of the bargain.” I swallow and take another bite, chewing and swallowing this one before I continue. Brenda, despite being the tiny thing she is, has already put away most of her burger and all her fries.

  “Take Hurley, for instance,” I say. “He’s great at taking care of Matthew and sharing those duties, and he cooks dinner sometimes, and even does the dishes on occasion. But he never dusts, or vacuums, or cleans the bathrooms, or does the laundry. And if it’s a choice between work and childcare, something that fortunately happens very rarely, there’s this assumption on his part that his job is the more important one, and the childcare issues are mine to figure out.”

  Another bite.

  “I mean, Emily helps out some, but in another year, she’s going to be moving out to go to college, and by then, we’re going to have another kid in the mix. Twice the kid laundry, twice the kid messes, twice everything. And just the idea of it exhausts me. What’s the reality going to do?”

  “Have you talked to Hurley about any of this stuff?” she asks.

  I shake my head, chewing.

  “You need to do that.”

  “Yeah, yeah, so I’ve been told.” I know she’s right, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. My burger, however, is going down very nicely. I give her a couple of exaggerated nods and take another bite.

  By some mutual, unspoken agreement, we drop the topic for the rest of the meal and eat in silence while I do some more research on my phone. When we’re done, I have one more chat with Wendy about Mason Ulrich and Caroline, asking her to describe what she observed between the two of them whenever they ate here.

  “To be honest, they seemed to get along really well. They laughed a lot, talked a lot, and seemed to genuinely enjoy one another’s company. I was surprised when she told me they’d broken up. She said they got along well and liked each other but didn’t have the spark.” Wendy shrugs and gives us a look that indicates, “Go figure.”

  I pay for lunch over Brenda’s objections and leave Wendy a very nice tip.

  When we’re back in the car, Brenda says, “Where to now, boss?”

  “There’s a bar I want to visit. Are you up for a drink?”

  “Always, but you can’t, can you?”

  “No, but I’ll be your designated driver.”

  “Okay, but the drinks are on me.” I acquiesce with a shrug and she smiles. “You and I should take road trips more often,” she says.

  CHAPTER 23

  Since Brenda is already behind the wheel, she drives to our destination, handing me the keys once we arrive. The parking lot of the Town’s End Bar—an apt name, given that it is literally just past a city limit sign—is surprisingly full for this time of day. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of pickup trucks in the mix.

  The building is a large, sprawling affair with a Western theme. The long, wooden front porch is decked out with hitching posts that have likely never seen anything hitched up, other than someone’s low-riding, crack-revealing pants. A split front door is made to look like swinging saloon panels, and a couple of old, wooden wagon wheels are propped up against the railing. Several wanted posters are tacked to the wall next to some hooks bearing lassos, an old-fashioned gas lantern, and a couple of bridles.

  “We forgot our cowboy hats and spurs,” Brenda says to me sotto voce as we climb the front steps. “This could be interesting.”

  Despite the appearance of the front door, it’s a clever disguise for two regular old doors that open with the turn of a knob. Inside, the place is dimly lit like most bars, and we stop to give our eyes time to adjust from the bright sunlight outside. I see tables scattered about a large open area, and on the far side of the room from us, there is a long bar with a mirrored back and stools that have saddles for seats, complete with horns and stirrups.

  Someone is approaching us, but the lighting is behind whoever it is. My eyes are still adjusting, so it takes me a moment to realize it’s a saloon girl. Yep, a tray-carrying, boot-wearing, feather-in-her-hair, old-timey, buxom saloon girl. Though I think “bar wench” would be the more appropriate term.

  “Can I help you ladies?” she coos at us.

  “Can we sit at the bar?” Brenda asks.

  “Now that is a question,” the woman says with a light chuckle that sounds about as genuine as those boobs of hers look. “I don’t know if you can. Those saddles can be tricky, but you certainly may sit at the bar, if you wish.”

  Great. We have a frigging grammar cop disguised as Miss Kitty for a waitress. Then I take a better look at the woman and realize she’s quite young, probably in her mid-twenties, which means she likely doesn’t even know who Miss Kitty is.

  Brenda heads for the bar and I detour to the bathroom. When I’m done, I make my way to the bar and try to straddle one of those saddle seats next to Brenda. They are close enough together and wide enough that I need to turn sideways to get between two of them. The seat is not only awkwardly shaped and positioned, it’s slippery and not designed for women who don’t have an appreciable thigh gap. I wonder how many drunks fall off these seats each night. And how many of them slap the seat first and holler out a rousing “Giddy-up!” while hanging onto the brass rail.

  Brenda orders a gin and tonic, while I try to get into the spirit of the moment by asking for a sarsaparilla after the bespectacled bartender, who is wearing a red vest over a white shirt with arm garters, assures me it’s just root beer. The bartender looks to be about thirty years of age and fifty pounds overweight. His name tag reads: CECIL.

  Cecil hovers near us after serving our drinks, drying bar glasses and occasionally taking an order from the bar wench. Brenda and I don’t talk much at first; I’m busy scoping out the other people in the bar, hoping to see a particular face. When I don’t see the person I’m looking for, I ask Cecil if the owner is anywhere around.

  “You mean Cory?”

  “Yes, Cory Llewellyn. Is he here?”

  “He is. He’s in the back. Can I tell him who you are? And can I ask what this is in reference to? He’ll want to know.”

  For a second, I’m tempted to tell him that I don’t know if he can ask, but he certainly may. Instead, I simply say, “My name is Mattie. And this is Brenda. And first, we’d rather talk to you. We’re working with someone who is thinking of running against Llewellyn for the job of coroner and I’m tryin
g to get some inside intel on the guy. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to spill any beans? I promise you absolute confidentiality.”

  I promise him something else when I reach into my purse and take out a fifty-dollar bill, which I then slide across the bar. That fifty is my emergency money, a folded-up bill I keep in a small, zippered section of my wallet. It was Hurley’s idea: “In case you need an emergency tow, or something.” I did it to appease him, even though I have credit cards to cover any such emergencies.

  Cecil’s been polishing the same glass for a while. It’s so dry by now that I’m surprised there aren’t cacti growing out of it. He continues toweling it, but his actions have slowed some as he eyes the fifty. He tears his gaze away and looks at me, then at Brenda. I can tell he wants to talk, but he’s weighing the consequences.

  “If you don’t want to tell us anything, that’s fine,” I say. “To be honest, we’ve told our candidate that it will likely be impossible to win because it’s basically a popularity contest, and who could be more popular than the owner of a bar?”

  “Especially one who buys votes with free booze,” Cecil says, leaning in close, his eyes temporarily growing big as his voice dwindles down to just above a whisper. No sooner do the words leave his lips than he straightens and looks around guiltily to see who is nearby. His drying efforts speed up again. At this rate, he might rub that glass into nonexistence.

  “Oh, dear,” I say, looking worried. “That will make things tough. It’s going to be hard enough as it is, given how long he’s held the position.”

  Cecil frowns for a moment and scans the room again. “You know,” he says in the conspiratorial tone again, “I’ve heard that they’re starting a program with some doctors in the area that will eliminate the need for a coroner, so your friend might want to rethink the whole thing.”

  “Is that right?” Brenda says. She slides her empty drink glass over toward Cecil, who then thankfully abandons the driest glass in the world in order to serve her another gin and tonic.

  “Yeah, Cory says he isn’t worried about it, that he has some backup plan in place, but I can tell he’s lying.”