Improbable cause jpb-5

by J. A. Jance

  “No,” she answered.

  “Did anybody?”

  “His mother, but mothers are like that.”

  “Was he upset when LeAnn moved out?”

  “Upset is hardly the word for it. He came raging over here, wondering if we knew where she’d gone, demanding to know whether or not we had helped her.“

  “Had you?”

  “No, but I would have in a minute if she’d asked. I don’t blame her one bit. I thought Fred was going to have a stroke on the spot. He swore up and down that he’d see to it she never got another penny out of him. He was such a skinflint, I doubt she got much more than that the whole time they were married anyway.”

  “He offered to give her money on Saturday, enough so she could move into her own apartment.”

  Rachel looked incredulous. “Really? He didn’t actually give it to her, did he?”

  “Evidently,” I said.

  “Amazing. He was a wholesale tightwad, that man was. Just like his father, if you ask me. The idea of having to split things up in a divorce settlement scared him pea green. Dotty told me he was afraid LeAnn would get into his office and try to lay hands on his financial records. That’s why he changed the locks.”

  “He changed them?”

  “All of them-the house, the office, even the cars.”

  “Cars?” I asked.

  She nodded. “They had two cars. A new one and an older. One was his and the other was supposed to be LeAnn’s.”

  “But you said he changed the locks on both of them.”

  “That’s right.”

  “LeAnn didn’t take a car when she left?”

  “No. I don’t know exactly why, either. I would have if I’d been her. As I understand it, she left by bus. One of the neighbors saw her and the kids getting on a bus down on Green Lake Way. When Fred found out she was gone, he signed LeAnn’s car over to Dorothy.”

  “That’s not legal,” I said. “LeAnn would have had to sign the title.”

  Rachel looked at me as though I was somewhat dense. “LeAnn’s name wasn’t on the title,” she said. “Her name isn’t on the deed to the house, either.”

  I could see that, community property laws notwithstanding, Dr. Frederick Nielsen had done his best to keep the deck stacked totally in his favor. LeAnn should have invested in a top-notch lawyer before she left the house.

  “Where’s the car now?” I asked.

  “Out in our garage. Dorothy can’t drive it now, not with her hip, of course. If I could figure out a way to give it back to LeAnn, though, I would.”

  Across the driveway the door to Rachel and Daisy’s apartment opened and shut. Daisy came striding toward us, one hand shading her eyes.

  “So you are here,” she said to me, dropping her hand from her face as she walked up to the bench. “Why didn’t you come in and let us know, Rachel? Dotty’s been asking for him.“

  “She’s awake then?”

  “Has been for some time,” Daisy replied. There was an undercurrent in the conversation that made me suspect that a serious case of sisterly cabin fever was brewing.

  Rachel got up and placed her pith helmet over her silver hair. “All right then, take him in to talk with her. I’m going on over to the zoo. I’m almost late as it is.”

  I held open the door to the Buick while Rachel climbed inside. With George’s help they must have managed to unload the U-Haul. It was nowhere in evidence.

  When Rachel switched on the ignition, the old car coughed and sputtered and smoked, but gradually the engine caught and ran. Standing safely to one side, I watched the car lurch out of the driveway. She must have been using both the gas pedal and brake at the same time. It’s ladies like Rachel Miller who give women drivers a bad name.

  “Are you coming or not?” Daisy asked impatiently. She was standing at the top of the plywood wheelchair ramp, holding the door open for me to enter.

  “I’m coming,” I said, hurrying up to the door.

  All the curtains on the lower floor had been drawn, throwing the room into cool, dusky shadow. The living room was still much as it had appeared the day before, except that the hospital bed was made up and the frail figure of a woman lay in it. The dining room, however, was stacked high with boxes and furniture, including Dorothy Nielsen’s rocking chair.

  From somewhere behind the boxes I heard Buddy’s now-familiar voice. “Freeze, sucker.”

  “My goodness,” said Dorothy Nielsen from her bed. “Can’t somebody shut that bird up? He’s driving me crazy!”

  Daisy set off, threading her way through the stacks of boxes. Moments later, she returned. “He’s covered, Dotty. He’ll be quiet now.”

  It sounded as though Buddy was in for some tough sledding with Dorothy Nielsen in the house. I don’t think she liked him any better than Big Al Lindstrom did.

  “Detective Beaumont is here now,” Daisy said to her sister. “Would you like me to raise your bed so you can talk with him?”

  “That would be fine,” Dotty answered.

  By the time she had been raised to a sitting position, I could see that Dorothy Nielsen was a paler, more delicate version of her two sisters. Her features, though similar, were finer, more patrician somehow. Her skin was smooth and unweathered. A box of tissue lay beside her on the bed. She groped for one as she sat up, daubing her eyes with it.

  “I can’t seem to stop crying,” she said. “The tears just keep coming. I think they’re finally gone, that I can’t possibly cry any more. Then they start all over again.”

  “It’s perfectly understandable, Mrs. Nielsen.”

  “You’re the detective?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Detective Beaumont.”

  “Are you going to catch my son’s killer?”

  “We can’t make any promises, of course, but we’re certainly going to try. We’re working very hard.”

  She pointed to a newspaper at the foot of the bed. It was a copy of the P.I. folded open to Maxwell Cole’s column.

  “That’s not what they said in the paper this morning,” she announced accusingly. “This man here said you weren’t doing anything at all.”

  “The newspapers don’t have access to everything we do,” I said. I could have added “Thank God,” but I didn’t.

  “So you are doing something, then?“ she insisted.

  “Yes, we are. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  She shook her head. For several moments she seemed to drift away from me, lost in a maze of private, painful recollection. “He was such a good boy,” she whimpered into a tissue. “Such a good boy. He never gave his father or me a moment’s trouble. Grew up to be a professional man, just like his father. If only he hadn’t married that woman.”

  “You mean LeAnn?”

  Dorothy Nielsen nodded. “She wasn’t good enough for him. She never was. He should have held out for something better.”

  “What do you mean, she wasn’t good enough?”

  “Dentists have to work very hard, you know,” she declared, pausing long enough to blow her nose. “It’s a very high-stress job. I should know, I was married to one. And when a man comes home from working that hard, he has a right to expect his house to be the way he wants it.”

  “And how was that?”

  “Straightened up, for one thing. He hated to come in and find toys scattered all over the living room or the laundry not done and put away. And he wanted the children fed and asleep by the time he came home from work. He needed peace and quiet. I kept trying to tell LeAnn that she should pay more attention to those little things instead of doing all that running around.”

  “What running around?” I asked. Dorothy Nielsen was like her sister Rachel. It didn’t take much to prime the pump and get her talking.

  “LeAnn’s a regular little joiner. Not things like the Junior League or something that would have helped Frederick, oh no. She worked on the P.T.A. used-book sale and insisted on being room mother, not just for little Freddy, but also for Cynthia’s class. And the
n she signed them both up for Tee-Ball this year. Can you imagine? A girl in Little League! What’s this world coming to, if they let girls do that!“

  Tee-Ball and P.T.A. wasn’t exactly the kind of running around I expected to hear about. I was hoping for something a little more wicked, something sinister that would add up to motive rather than motherhood and apple pie. What was the world coming to, indeed!

  I tried approaching the subject from another angle. “You said if only your son had married someone else. Are you implying that LeAnn may somehow be responsible for his death?”

  “It was terrible of her to leave him like that, just terrible. He was wild with grief. It hurt him so much, you can’t imagine. He wasn’t himself.”

  “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Do I think she killed him? Probably not, but she didn’t make him happy. That’s what hurts me. If his life was going to be this short, she should have made him happy instead of running away, hiding from him, and breaking his heart.”

  “Why do you suppose she did that?” We had been talking for some time, but Dorothy Nielsen hadn’t been looking at me. She had been staring indifferently at a section of blank wall across from the foot of her bed, distancing herself from me the way invalids do when they’re not firmly connected to whatever’s going on around them. Now she turned and looked me square in the face.

  “What do you mean?” she asked sharply. “Do you have any idea why your daughter-in-law ran away?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “How long did you live with them?”

  “Me live with them? They lived with me, young man. They moved into my home right after they were married. We remodeled the maid’s quarters into a separate apartment for me. After all, there was no need for a maid anymore.”

  “How many years ago was that?”

  “Eight or nine. It must be nine now. They got married the year Frederick opened his practice down in Pioneer Square. LeAnn worked in his office for a while, but she quit after little Freddy was born. Frederick insisted that his wife stay home with the children.”

  “Did the two of them ever quarrel?” I asked.

  “Detective Beaumont,” she answered indignantly, “all married couples quarrel on occasion, or haven’t you noticed?”

  “Did you ever see any signs of violence between them?”

  “Violence?” she asked, mouthing the syllables as though the very word was foreign to her, offensive.

  “Did you see any physical evidence of their quarreling?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “What about with the children?”

  She pulled herself up in bed, incensed that I should dare to suggest such a thing. “Are you asking if my son harmed my grandchildren? Is that what you’re implying?”

  “Did he?”

  “Frederick believed that sparing the rod spoiled the child. Yes, he spanked them. Of course he spanked them.”

  “Were you aware that when LeAnn left she went to a shelter for abused women?”

  “Frederick told me that, yes. It was the worst possible thing she could have done. If word had gotten out, it would have created a dreadful scandal, him being a dentist and all. Frederick couldn’t believe she’d do such a disloyal, terrible, ungrateful thing. I couldn’t either. LeAnn and I had our differences, but I thought she was a better woman than that, a better wife.”

  Again Dorothy Nielsen turned away from me. For a time she once more stared silently at the blank wall. “I’m tired,” she said at last.

  As far as Dotty was concerned, our interview was over. I was being dismissed, but I still had unanswered questions. Dorothy Nielsen’s bedrock of denial fascinated me, made me wonder.

  “How did you break your hip, Mrs. Nielsen?” I asked.

  She shifted uncomfortably in the bed as though my mention of her injury had somehow reactivated the pain. She answered without looking at me. “I’m a stupid, clumsy old woman,” she said. “I fell.”

  Before I could ask her anything else, she turned to Daisy. “I’m beginning to hurt again, Daze. Let the bed down and give me some of that pain medication. It’s time for me to have it again.”

  Daisy moved quickly to Dotty’s side and shook two small white pills into her outstretched hand. As Dotty raised the pills to her mouth, I noticed the hospital ID bracelet was still on her narrow wrist. Seeing it gave me an idea. While Dotty sipped water from a glass, Daisy went to the foot of the bed to lower it. She finished drinking, and I moved closer to her to take the glass and place it on a bedside table.

  “I see you’re still wearing your hospital ID bracelet,” I said casually. “Would you like me to clip it off?”

  Dotty looked up at me and nodded gratefully. “That would be nice,” she said. “I hate those things.”

  She held out her wrist and I cut through the thin plastic band with my pocket knife. “How’s that?” I asked.

  “Thank you,” Dorothy replied. “It makes me feel like I’m finally really out of that place.”

  Neither she nor Daisy noticed when I slipped the bracelet into my jacket pocket. I turned to go, then stopped. “Mrs. Nielsen, did your son have any enemies that you’re aware of?”

  She shook her head. “No. Why would he? He was a good, law-abiding, tax-paying citizen. He was a good son, a loving son. I still can’t believe he’s gone, though. It’s such a waste, such a terrible, cruel waste.”

  I didn’t argue the point with her, but I could have. Dr. Frederick Nielsen’s death may have been a terrible tragedy to his mother, but I doubted it was much of a loss to the rest of the world.

  From what I had been able to discover, it seemed to me as though someone had done the human race a real favor in getting rid of him.

  It was my job to find out who that person was.

  CHAPTER 12

  I asked Daisy if I could use the phone to check in with the department before I left the Edinburgh Arms. She obligingly led me to the kitchen. The receiver on the phone was dangling off the hook. “Is somebody using it?” I asked.

  “No,” Daisy answered. “We did that this morning as soon as we saw the article in the paper. Rachel said we didn’t need people calling here. I know they mean well, sympathy calls and all that, but with Dotty just out of the hospital…” Her voice trailed away.

  “Leaving it off the hook is probably a good idea,” I told her.

  When I dialed the department, Big Al wasn’t in, so I asked to speak to Sergeant Watkins instead.

  “Did the prosecutor finally put Al on the witness stand?” I asked.

  Watty laughed. “Are you kidding? There’s been another delay. He’s at lunch now, but I’ve got a note that says they’ll want him for sure at one. What’s happening with you, Beau? I heard from Al that you’ve managed to reach Dr. Nielsen’s next of kin. Arlo Hamilton has scheduled a press conference for twelve-thirty. Any objections?”

  “None from me.”

  “How about leads?”

  “It’s coming together.”

  My answer was evasive. Watty knew it and called me on it. “So what are you finding out?” he asked.

  “There’s a witness up in Lake City,” I replied. “Since I’m already halfway there, I think I’ll go on up and see him. Once I talk to him, we’ll know a whole lot more.”

  “That still doesn’t sound like a straight answer to me. Come on. What gives?” Watty insisted, pushing me into a corner.

  “This is all supposition, of course, but I’m leaning toward justifiable homicide.”

  “Justifiable! What makes you say that?”

  “According to the wife, there was a fight. Nielsen tried to attack her and she fended him off, with the help of this other guy, a carpet installer named Larry Martin.”

  “The one you’re going to talk to now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you going to arrest him?”

  “No, I’m not going to arrest him. I already told you. I just want to ask him some questions. My guess is it’ll probably
boil down to self-defense.”

  Watty was silent, but only for a moment. “Tell me about the wife, Beau. Is she a looker? Your recent track record isn’t so hot, you know. It wouldn’t be the first time a pretty lady’s turned your head.”

  “Go to hell, Watty,” I snarled.

  “By the way, Al says the medical examiner wants to know if you’re psychic or what. He says there was a helluva bruise just behind Nielsen’s left ear, a bruise and some pottery fragments.”

  “I’m psychic, all right,” I told him. I hung up the phone long enough to cut the connection, then I dropped the receiver again, leaving it hanging loose the same way I had found it.

  Behind me, Daisy came into the kitchen carrying a cardboard box. She opened it on the counter and carefully began removing and unwrapping the contents-a set of fine, bone china teacups and saucers. She held a delicate cup up to the window and examined it in the sunlight.

  “Dotty wants us to use her things,” she said. “I’m afraid we’ll break them.”

  I could understand her concern. The china was as far from their worn Melmac as a shiny new Mercedes is from a broken down VW bus. Behind us the telephone squealed, letting us know it had not been hung up properly. We ignored it.

  Daisy escorted me back through the living room. On the bed in the corner, Dorothy Nielsen appeared to be sound asleep.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing,” Daisy said, once we were outside the apartment and well beyond Dorothy’s earshot. “Did you say something about arresting someone?”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear,” I told her. “That was my supervisor downtown. He’s overeager. This is an important case. The department wants some action, especially after Maxwell Cole’s piece in the paper this morning, but it’s far too soon to arrest anybody.”

  “Do you have a suspect?” she persisted.

  I didn’t want to offend her, but I didn’t want to spill my guts, either. “Look,” I said kindly,

  “I can certainly understand your concern, but I can’t answer that question without jeopardizing the investigation. You wouldn’t want that, would you?“

  She shook her head. I put one foot inside my car then pulled it back out. “By the way, Sergeant Watkins did tell me that they’ve scheduled a press conference for twelve-thirty. That’s when they’ll release your nephew’s name. I know word leaked out before, but this will be the first official announcement.”