by Linda Lovely
“I’ll see you tomorrow at Darlene’s house. You’ll be there, right?” he asked.
“Yes, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I closed my car door.
As I drove away, I watched him recede in my rearview mirror. I was glad to be alone. Dammit, I knew Duncan was too good to be true. Why did he lie? Exactly what kind of relationship did he have with Darlene? Had she urged her rich husband to use an ex—or current—lover to rewrite his will?
“Get a grip,” I mumbled aloud. “Your imagination’s in overdrive.”
But I didn’t like lies. They made me damn suspicious. Time to dig a little. Even if I learned things I’d rather not know.
***
May woke from her easy-chair doze when I opened her front door. “Have a nice time, dear?”
“Yes, a good dinner and a nice cruise on the lake.”
May’s gaze seemed distant, distracted. No follow-up questions. She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I was dreaming. It was so vivid, kid. I was on our family farm in Missouri, riding my pony. I waved goodbye to Mother. She stood in our doorway, a lilac shawl draped over her shoulders.” My aunt took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I swear I could smell the cinnamon from one of her apple pies. I walked down the path and found my brother, Fred, and Father in our vegetable garden. Fred grinned to beat the band, like he might explode with a secret. He looked so handsome, nearly grown up, just like I remember him at fifteen. He never reached sixteen, you know. Fred drowned in that terrible flood, trying to get livestock to safety.”
“Oh, May, I’m sorry. How sad.”
“Seeing Fred didn’t make me sad.” She slid her glasses back on. “I felt happy. It’s been seventy years since I laid eyes on my big brother. Funny how your mind works. Half the time, I can’t recall why I’ve opened my refrigerator. Yet my dreams replay childhood vignettes like they took place a blink ago.” May stood. “Guess I should head to bed. Maybe I’ll have an even better dream with my head on a pillow.”
Too keyed up to sleep, I powered up my laptop and logged on. While May didn’t have wi-fi, a neighbor did. Time for a nosey-parker look into Darlene’s past, beginning with the death of her first husband.
I called up Mike Nauer’s obit and searched the Ames news archives for the prior week. Darlene’s husband had died instantly when his five-year-old Camaro tangled with a tree. Broad daylight. Two in the afternoon. A single-car crash. He was traveling on one of Iowa’s gravel county roads—the kind that bears Bingo call letters like A-1 and V-22.
How had Mike found a tree? Those country lanes bumped through cornfields. As a rule, the only shade trees clustered around farmhouses and sat far back from roads with their roiling clouds of tractor dust.
Then came the kicker. Mike wasn’t alone. A single passenger—Sheila James, 46, of 819 Franklin Street, Ames, Iowa. She was taken to the hospital, treated for minor injuries, and released. The newspaper reported Mike’s blood alcohol level had been .11—well above Iowa’s DUI limit—when he lost control of his vehicle.
I held my breath as I cross-referenced the address for Sheila James. Sure enough, four years ago 819 Franklin Street had been the residence of Duncan James, wife Sheila, and daughter, Kelly.
Why was Duncan’s wife driving down a country road with an intoxicated Mike Nauer at two on a Tuesday afternoon? I had a sudden inkling why Darlene’s grief for her husband of twenty-six years was side-dressed with anger.
The Ames news accounts failed to tell me what I really wanted to know. Were Mike and Sheila illicit lovers? Or was it just as reasonable to assume Mike and Sheila were wronged spouses meeting to plot revenge?
The fact that Duncan and Darlene lied about their past connection troubled me. The falsehoods seemed awfully lame, given how easy it was to unearth their tie. Perhaps Duncan’s claim that he hadn’t been friends with Darlene was a literal truth. Yet they’d certainly been more than nodding acquaintances.
Too bad Google can’t search people’s souls.
I had other avenues to explore. You don’t reach the rank of lieutenant colonel without participating in court-martials. I’d served as an Article 32 investigating officer—the equivalent of a one-man grand jury. If nothing else, I knew how to research and grill witnesses.
My troubled conscience fought my drooping eyelids. Sleep eluded me. Was I being a self-centered snoop? My mantra of justification did not serve as a total balm. No matter how you cut it, spying on friends is a breach of trust. Such serious insults usually destroy relationships. Darlene was a friend, and Duncan and I had certainly connected.
Should I just ask Darlene or Duncan to explain?
Maybe I would.
TWELVE
Sun poured through the sheers covering May’s guest room windows. The nightstand clock confirmed my suspicion. Nine-thirty. The morning half gone. The smell of hazelnut coffee and Aunt May’s cheerful off-key hum got me moving. I’d tossed and turned most of the night, but my pleased senses suggested I’d awakened on the right side of the bed. Showered and dressed, I padded into the living room barefoot.
“Hello, sleepyhead,” May chirped. “Thought I’d have to call the fire department to roust you. Anna will be here in half an hour. I thought she’d have to make the bed with you in it.”
Anna Huiskamp had been my aunt’s biweekly cleaning lady for fourteen years. May claimed she liked to be home when Anna dusted her antiques. The truth is, my aunt enjoys mining her housekeeper’s vast gossip reservoir. In a two-week cycle, Anna cleaned upwards of fifteen houses, scattered throughout the community’s neighborhoods—from Milford’s Maywood to Big Spirit’s Marble Beach. That made Anna ringmaster of an impressive, albeit relatively good-natured, rumor mill.
I’d just finished my first cup of coffee and wolfed down a piece of toast smeared with peanut butter when the doorbell rang. Figuring it was Anna, I wiped crumbs on my shirttail as I sauntered to answer.
Sherry Weaver towered and glowered behind the door. “We need to talk—alone.” No pretense of a make-nice greeting. The lanky FBI agent scanned the room beyond me for signs of life. “I assume your aunt’s here. We’ll go for a drive.”
As I framed my uppity reply, May popped into view. “Hello?” My aunt bustled forward to welcome the newcomer, hand extended, a smile playing across her face. “Have we met?”
“No, ma’am.” Weaver shook hands. Clearly, she’d hoped to avoid meeting anyone. “I’m with the FBI. I need to speak with your niece about the Olsen investigation.”
“Well, come in, come in.” I recognized my aunt’s glee at a prime snooping opportunity. “Make yourself comfortable. How about coffee? It’s fresh.”
“No thanks.” Weaver obliged my aunt by sitting, although her behind teetered on the edge of the couch. I could tell the Fed hoped to fly the coop at her first opening.
The doorbell sounded, and I reprised my butler role. This time the person behind door number one was expected. Anna, my aunt’s affable cleaning lady, barely cleared the threshold before wrapping me in her husky arms. She squeezed hard enough to offer chiropractic realignment. A lifetime of milking cows had endowed the burly farm wife with weight-lifter forearms.
“Marley, you’re a sight for sore eyes!” Her high-pitched giggle prompted a smile. “I’ll bet it’s been a year. Where you been hiding, eh? May’s roped you into helping with her eightieth wingding, has she?”
The cleaning lady peered past me and spied Ms. FBI looking as though a corncob had been shoved up her derriere.
“Oh, m-m-my,” Anna stuttered. “Sorry. I’m interrupting. You should have shushed me. Shall I come back later?”
“No, I was just about to put on shoes. Ms. Weaver and I are going for a drive.”
My pronouncement drew a look of relief from Weaver and consternation from May. You win some, you lose some.
Weaver led the way toward her utilitarian coupe at a brisk trot. “Know someplace off-the-beaten track where we can be sure our talk is private?”
“Several.”
I gave directions to the Kettleson Hogs Back area, less than two miles from Spirit Lake’s sleepy downtown.
Ross and Eunice introduced me to the wildlife sanctuary and its flock of trumpeter swans. Like my cousin and his wife, these feathered white giants appeared to mate happily and monogamously for life.
Weaver didn’t say another word until we’d parked and exited the car. “I’ve never seen birds like that. They look prehistoric. God, their wingspans must be eight feet. What are they?”
“Trumpeter swans.” I turned up my volume to compete with the birds’ raucous cries, which seemed to vibrate the air. From our bluff-top perspective, we could see—and hear—a dozen breeding pairs weaving their elongated necks as they glided through the marshy shallows below.
“Let’s walk.” Weaver’s motions crackled with pent-up energy or maybe frustration. However, she took another moment to survey her surroundings. “What is this place?”
I shared Ross’s explanation of kettleholes, depressions formed when great ice chunks tore away from retreating glacier parents. As the orphaned ice clumps slowly melted to oblivion, they left steep bowls that later filled with rain and snowmelt.
Weaver asked no follow-up questions. “I’m disappointed you haven’t phoned me, except to report that someone shot at you.”
Okay, so much for nature, we were down to brass tacks.
“The Glaston murders make matters look worse for your friends. Dammit, the general and I need your help. Jolbiogen’s testing suggests the killer used cyclogel and phalloidin to murder Jake and Gina. Julie’s lab stocks both.”
Weaver pushed her red-gold mane away from her face. “There’s more. One of our hotshot computer specialists pulled disturbing emails from Julie’s laptop. She told everyone her affair with Dr. Valberg was over, but her emails—deleted ones teased out of cyber trashcans—tell a different story.”
I held up a hand. “You sure they weren’t planted, then erased, knowing nothing ever really disappears?”
Weaver sighed. “It’s possible. The erased messages don’t include any shoptalk about gene therapy and the military project. But, my boss finds the very existence of an ongoing dialogue troublesome. He claims they were communicating in code. Right now, technicians are examining phalloidin molecules from Gina’s liver to see if they’re tagged with the fluorescent Julie uses. If there’s a match, her noose gets a little tighter.”
I sighed. “Oh, come on. If Julie were guilty, would she have suggested a test to incriminate herself?”
“Maybe she’s being clever…figures her candor will make us consider a frame.”
“Well, that’s my bet.” Though somewhat troubled by my recent sleuthing, I still thought Hamilton’s theory of Julie as a bioterrorism collaborator was pure crap.
“That’s why we’re talking,” Weaver reminded. “Give me something to work with here.”
I remembered the disposable gloves on the cabin counter. “Did those gloves test positive for the toxin used to kill Gina?”
“Yes,” Weaver answered.
“Any usable fingerprints?” Like most TV-educated criminologists, I’d watched “CSI” and imagined myself a forensic genius.
“We couldn’t lift prints. Apparently, the killer double-gloved—wore a second skin of plastic inside. The discarded gloves were the outer pair.”
Weaver’s explanation sent a shiver up my spine. Hadn’t Julie advocated double-gloving?
I veered to a different subject. “The murderer seems well acquainted with the victims’ health problems. Who had access to their medical files?”
“Anyone with a hairpin and a little nerve. Jolbiogen has a fulltime doc on staff. He provides free physicals to executives and their families. Complete medical information about Jake, his daughter, son-in-law—hell, the whole Olsen clan—is stored in a standard-issue file cabinet with a dime-store lock. The companion electronic files sit on the mainframe under the password RX. A decent hacker could grab the data in seconds. One of our guys is trying to trace any recent downloads. I’m not holding my breath.”
“Did Jake’s file include the MG diagnosis?”
“Yes. But, Marley, I didn’t come to hear myself talk. Have you learned anything that might help me? And I mean anything. Hamilton’s pushing hard for the FBI to arrest Julie for espionage and murder, even though the circumstantial evidence is fairly flimsy. He has to know an arrest would downgrade our investigation. If Julie’s innocent, the real killer will have more time to cover his tracks.”
“Not to mention the price Julie would pay in terms of mental anguish,” I huffed. “Is there really enough evidence to arrest her?”
“Not until the phalloidin tag tells its story. Then, maybe. It depends how Julie answers questions about her lover. She needs to walk me through every move since she first hung up her lab coat at Jolbiogen. Her coworkers and lab director vouch for her. While I think she’s a scapegoat, I can’t afford to be wrong. I have to turn her life inside out and shake.”
“Well, when you’re through browbeating the young lady, I have a lead you can follow.” I told Weaver about the Glaston safe room.
“I’ll ask Eric how to get inside,” she said. “If he pleads ignorance, I’ll hunt down the architect. Meanwhile I’ll keep the house off limits to everybody except investigators.”
“Do me a favor and make sure that includes Hamilton. The man has an axe to grind.”
I chewed my lip and wondered why I felt compelled to keep my trap shut about the lie Darlene and Duncan told about not being friendly before Spirit Lake.
Was I a total idiot? Friendship arm-wrestled my common sense and won. I wouldn’t fuel the fires of suspicion until I gave my friend a chance to explain. Stubbornly, I clung to the hope Darlene could provide a reasonable account, and I’d be able to laugh off last night’s wild speculation about a nefarious plot starring devious, greedy lovers.
“Has General Irvine made any progress on the murder of those farm workers?”
“No. The people who own the farms don’t recall seeing any strangers around before the folks got sick. The general’s coordinating with Homeland Security. We have the government’s whole alphabet soup involved now.”
***
Entering May’s condo, I almost collided with Anna as she performed her vacuum aerobics. Engrossed in sucking dirt from the plush wall-to-wall carpet, the woman jumped and screeched like a banshee.
“Oh, my,” she gasped and powered down the upright Hoover. “You ’bout gave me a heart attack.”
Rake-like vacuum tracks on the carpet and a thin sheen of sweat above Anna’s lip said she’d reached the climax stage of her cleaning routine. Like a veteran stock car, Anna’s chassis was unimpressive and pockmarked with dings, but it hid one heck of a souped-up engine. Solid, reliable, and fast as the wind. Potential clients begged to earn a spot on her two-year waiting list.
As the vacuum’s whiney song faded, my aunt reclaimed her living room roost.
“Oh, Marley. Didn’t hear you come in, but how could I over that racket? Just wait till Anna tells you the scoop on the Olsens.”
Despite an insincere—“Tell her, Anna”—my aunt never gave her housekeeper a chance to open her mouth. “Kyle’s mother is back in town and staying with him!” May blurted.
I shrugged. “Not exactly shocking news. Kyle just lost his father. Why wouldn’t his mother visit?”
My nonchalant reaction clearly disappointed May.
“You forget.” She clucked. “Nancy was wife number one. The bad egg. Jake caught her cheating when Kyle was a toddler. When he confronted her, she split and abandoned Kyle. Didn’t want visitation rights. Imagine she’s been stewing in her own juices ever since. If she’d kept her panties on, she’d be loaded. Instead she doesn’t have a pot to piss in.”
“You suggesting that Nancy materialized to grab a little cash? Possible. Then again maybe the woman’s changed. It’s been what, forty years since she was unfaithful? Maybe she returned to ask Kyle’s forgiveness. Saw Jake�
�s death as an opportunity to reenter her son’s life.”
May rolled her eyes. “Boy, have I got a bridge to sell you.”
“I know nothing about motives,” Anna chimed in. “I just clean Kyle’s house every Tuesday. Usually not a soul’s around. Easy money, though it’s creepy. Olivia, Kyle’s wife, knows I don’t work on the Sabbath, but she called and asked me to come Sunday. Wanted her house spiffed up ahead of Jake’s funeral.”
Waiting for Anna to sidewind into her story, I gave Kyle’s reconciliation with his long-lost mother more thought. The more I considered it, the odder a reunion seemed. Kyle didn’t strike me as emotionally needy or forgiving. There had to be something in it for Kyle—something beyond a warm, fuzzy feeling. I voiced my opinion.
Anna vigorously nodded agreement. “I’ve never seen Kyle so much as give his wife a peck on the cheek. Yet there he was scurrying around his mum like a doting dachshund. Bizarre. Looks like Nancy is putting down roots, too. She’s cozied up in a guestroom with all her bags unpacked. What with Eric barricaded in a room down the hall, the Olsen house is filling up fast.”
“How’s Eric doing? Can’t say I’m enamored of the young man, but I’d have to be awfully hard-hearted not to feel sorry for him, losing his mom and granddad in the space of two days. He has to be hurting and scared.”
Anna shrugged. “Who knows? I never saw him. Olivia told me to skip cleaning his room. But I saw enough of Nancy and Miss Olivia to know there’s no love lost between them. They acted like stray cats pissing to mark territory. ’Course I always thought Kyle treated Olivia more like mother than wife. A little friction between those females could produce one beaut of a blaze.”
“What’s Nancy look like?” May emerged from the conversational sidelines with an inquisitor’s focus. “The woman must be late sixties, maybe seventy. Bet she’s no seductress now.”
“Remember, Lilith, Frazier’s icy wife on ‘Cheers’?” Anna asked. “Nancy could be her mum. Hair dyed coal black and pulled tight in a bun, eyebrows tweezed to a razor’s edge, almost albino skin. Looks like she’s done herself a favor there. Whatever she’s been up to, she hasn’t done it in the sun, so her face isn’t a wrinkled prune like mine.”
