Death in a Summer Colony

by Aaron Stander

  Sue gave Ray a few moments to absorb the information before bringing his attention to the material on the table. “On the top sheet,” she motioned with an index finger, “is a list of everything contained in that pile. The first item under that sheet is a summary of my conversation with Mike Ogden.”

  “I thought he was tied up…?”

  “He was, a suspicious warehouse fire in Gaylord. He arrived about four. We still had plenty of light to pick through the ruins. Before we started I showed him the video of the explosion—we’ve got it from two directions. His immediate response was that it looked like natural gas, the way the building came apart, the appearance of the flames. Mike did take samples for analysis, but he was pretty certain that Zwilling had turned on all the burners on the stove or opened a gas line. The remains of the water heater and stove were down in what was once the crawlspace. There’s a connection from the gas line to the water heater, he had a name for it.”

  “Coupling?”

  “That sounds right. How do you know that?”

  “Remember, my father was a jack-of-all trades, and I spent much of my childhood and teenage years following him around as his assistant.”

  “Okay,” she continued, “it appeared that the coupling had been disconnected. He suggested that Zwilling was doing his best to blow the place up.”

  “Anything else?”

  “You were worried about a large stash of ammo. It wasn’t there. Zwilling must have run through most of it before the explosion.”

  “And the weapon?”

  “It turned up in the bottom of the debris. It was pretty grimy. Ogden said it looked like a Chinese knockoff of an AR 15, something about the machining being crude and the serial number looked like it had been done by junior high shop kids. He’s going to run it through the ATF tracking system, but didn’t think they’d get a hit.”

  “Probably a gun show special,” said Ray.

  “His words, exactly. We also had a run-in with a citizen.”

  “What was that all about?”

  “This obnoxious ass comes marching right into the site, tells us he’s the president of the place, and demands to know when we’re going to be finished. Ogden explains to him that this is a crime scene and politely asks him to leave. The guy just continues ranting at us. Ogden asks him to leave a second time. This time he’s much more direct. The man’s unfazed. So Ogden tells him if he doesn’t leave immediately, he’s going to be arrested and put in jail. Just about that time Richard Grubbs shows up in a golf cart and hustles the man away.”

  Ray chuckled, “You met Malcolm Wudbine. He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”

  “I can think of a few other ways of describing him. Not long after that Grubbs came back. We were just finishing up about that time. He said he thought he found the car.”

  “Zwilling’s?”

  “You got it. It’s an older Chrysler 300 with Arizona tags. It had been tucked behind one of the cottages close to the highway. I ran the plates. It was registered to a Garrick Zwilling in Tucson. I made a call to their PD, ended up getting a chatty detective on the line. Mr. Zwilling is known to the department, lots of problems with alcohol, lots of mental health issues. He’s one of those guys who goes out of control, gets taken to the hospital, three days later he’s back on the street. Occasionally he ends up in front of a judge, promises to stay on his meds, and in a few weeks or months, the whole cycle starts again.”

  “It’s a familiar pattern. You got all that accomplished before the end of the workday?”

  “No, I did that in the evening before going home.”

  “I thought as part of our plan to have lives outside of work we….”

  “That was a good thought. But neither one of us is going to be able to do that. It was okay, Ray. I went to dinner with Mike Ogden. I always thought he was very married, turns out he’s not anymore. I guess he wanted me to know. It was a little bit awkward. It’s not like he asked me out or anything, or even asked if I was involved with anyone. But it was clumsy.” She paused for a few moments. “I’ve got one more thing. You sent me an e-mail with the out-of-date contact info on the owner of the cottage, Regina Zwilling-Glidden.”

  “Yes,”

  “I ran that by the detective in Tucson. Seems she’s well known to the PD, also.”

  “How so?”

  “I guess she’s been an assistant prosecutor there for years. She was incapacitated by a stroke sometime in the recent past. I explained to him the reason for my call, and he said he would check on her and get back to me.”

  “Sometimes life is a train wreck,” said Ray.

  “So the rest of the materials there are first drafts of evidence to take to the prosecutor. I’ve also asked for a search warrant of Zwilling’s car. If he survives there will be a whole list of charges.”

  “And,” said Ray, “the issue of whether or not he is competent to stand trial.”

  6

  After Ray delivered his line on Zwilling’s competence to stand trial, they sat in silence, each reflecting on the horror of the scene.

  “Is there anything else?” asked Ray.

  “Simone, she has a vet appointment late this afternoon. She needs a heartworm check and a Lyme disease vaccination. And Ray,” she gave him her wry smile, “we don’t have an arrangement in our joint custody agreement for Simone’s veterinary bills, but if you would cover this I’d really appreciate it. I’m sort of short this month.”

  “No problem. And I apologize for not having thought about that earlier. In fact, from this point forward I’ll look after the vet bills, you do more than your share with her other expenses.”

  “And after the vet, would you take her for the evening. I’m going to dinner and a movie in town with the girls. I’d like to not be in a rush to get home.”

  “No problem,” said Ray. “She’s always good company.”

  “And you have no other plans? I guess I should have asked that first.”

  “No. She will be the center of my universe.”

  “That’s true. Whether you want her to be or not.” Sue retrieved a brown paper bag and set it on the table. “Here’s Simone’s overnight bag. There’s a can of her special food, her favorite tennis ball, and some treats, to be doled out judiciously when she sits to have her leash taken off.”

  Many hours later, after the trip to the veterinary hospital, Ray took Simone home. As he started supper for himself, he opened her bag of supplies and pulled out the can of food. He eyed the label carefully and looked over at Simone. “Do you know what’s in here? Let me give you the highlights. Pork by-products. Simone, I can’t imagine what that would be. The stuff they can’t put in hotdogs because it’s too disgusting. How about powdered cellulose? That’s sawdust, kid. Then there’s marigold extract.” He paused and returned her intense look. “No, I’m not making this up. But wait, there’s more. Dried beet pulp, and guar gum—always one of my favorites. Then there’s a whole list of multisyllabic, chemical sounding stuff with the monos and tris, the sulfates and phosphates. Do you really want to eat this?” He held out the can, turning the ingredients list in her direction.

  Simone, looking up at Ray, continued to hang on every word.

  “How about a couple of lamb chops? You can have them with rice or whole wheat couscous.”

  Simone woofed, a command bark.

  “Okay, I take that to mean the whole wheat couscous. And we have to do something with this first.” Ray carried the offending can to the garbage. He dropped it in and then pulled paper over the top of it. “Simone, this is called destruction of evidence. In certain circumstances, this is a felony. However, extreme times require extreme measures. So don’t rat us out.”

  After dinner and a long walk, Ray and Simone settled in for a quiet evening—Ray in his favorite chair reading the New Yorker, Simone straddling the top of a couch near a window guarding
against marauding squirrels and killer rabbits. She soon nodded off.

  Eventually, Ray moved to the bedroom and went through his journal writing ritual, filling a favorite fountain pen and reading over his most recent entries. Then over the next several pages, brown ink on ivory paper, he reviewed the tragic encounter with Garr Zwilling. He speculated on other ways he might have handled the confrontation, concluding that there were few alternatives. At the end he gave Malcolm Wudbine a few paragraphs, trying to capture his mannerisms and the way he treated Richard Grubbs. He wondered if he’d ever encounter Wudbine again.

  Ray’s journal entry was cut short by a command bark. Simone was at the door awaiting a second evening walk.

  7

  Ray sat in the passenger seat of Sue’s Jeep, Simone standing in his lap looking out of the windshield. A golf cart piloted by Richard Grubbs led the way along the narrow, curvy main road of the Mission Point Summer Colony.

  “So what’s this all about?” asked Sue.

  “Grubbs wouldn’t tell me on the phone. Weeks ago, after the Zwilling incident, he said there was something he needed to talk to me about. Then he just dropped it. Late yesterday afternoon he called me and said there’s this police matter he needs help with. Would I please come by and could I bring an evidence technician. When I pushed him as to what was going on, he said he couldn’t talk about it on the phone; it had to be face-to-face. It’s all very mysterious.”

  Grubbs slowed and pulled off the road. Sue parked behind him. They followed him to the bluff overlooking what had once been the site of Ravenswood Cottage. Several pickup trucks were clustered around a new building that closely resembled the original.

  “A lot can happen in a short time,” said Grubbs.

  Ray and Sue stood in silence taking in the scene.

  “How many weeks has it been since the fire?” asked Ray.

  Grubbs looked thoughtful. “I think four. This is the start of the fifth week.”

  “How did this happen so quickly?” asked Ray.

  “Well, even before that unfortunate incident, there were a lot of things going on. Mr. Wudbine, in his role as president of the board, is always doing his best to micromanage both me and everything that happens in this organization. On the other hand, he’s not very good at communicating what he’s up to. Anyway, Malcolm had been negotiating for the purchase of Ravenswood Cottage, something he never mentioned to me until after that whole unfortunate affair.

  “As you will remember, the owner of the cottage was Regina Zwilling-Glidden, Garr’s aunt. When her nephew found out about the sale, he came up here to see if he could disrupt things. Apparently he has a long history of mental illness.”

  “How did you learn this?”

  “Well, once you sent me word that we could go forward with the site cleanup, Wudbine wanted to have his own people do the work. When I challenged him on the legality of that, he told me he’d purchased the property. Then he told me he wanted to get started on the new building as quickly as possible. We have this process here and a whole series of guidelines that any remodels or new buildings have to conform to. We’re trying to preserve the character of the place. He told me to make sure that process happened instantly, his favorite phrase ‘chop-chop.’

  “Like I said, we have this process here. We have a committee. We ask for architectural drawings. Our goal is not speed. Our goal is continuity. Malcolm doesn’t think any of that applies to him. And he pushed his contractor the same way he pushed us. The contractor pulled a building permit, and the first time the inspector showed up, he put a cease-and-desist order on the job because walls were going up before the footings had been checked. I was impressed by that guy, whoever he is. He refused to be cowed. Malcolm was yelling and screaming at him, and he was totally unmoved. Luckily for Malcolm, the contractor was able to smooth things over with the inspector and a day or two later they were back at work.”

  “So how about this building, does it conform with your colony standards?” ask Ray.

  “Absolutely. As you can see, it’s a beautifully built replica of what was originally there. But the point is that we have this process, and Malcolm goes out of his way not to cooperate.” Grubbs looked over at Ray and Sue. “So a lot happened in a few weeks. We had a very dangerous confrontation. A man has died from horrific burns. It was a death of his own making, but still he’s gone and with him a hundred-year-old building with all of its memories and all of its history. The debris has been carefully removed from the site, the earth sanitized, and a new structure erected. That’s a lot of change in a place where change takes place very slowly. It’s something this old historian is having difficulty comprehending. But that’s not why I called you here. There’s another matter that needs attending to. Malcolm said I shouldn’t involve the police, but I think it’s something that should be investigated.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “We had a robbery of sorts. Actually, I think we’ve had many of them. I can only verify one, and I think that’s a good starting place. This whole thing is rather embarrassing, and I hope we can handle this discreetly.”

  “What do you mean?” said Ray.

  “We have our traditions. I wouldn’t want to read about this problem in the local paper. Follow me down to Verity Wudbine-Merone’s cottage, and I’ll explain the whole thing.”

  “Sounds like trouble in paradise,” said Sue as she followed the slow-moving golf cart past the dozens of cottages that lined the sandy trail, some clinging to hillsides, some—like Ravenswood Cottage—clustered in two or three building cul-de-sacs.

  “Yes,” agreed Ray.

  Grubbs parked behind one of about a dozen cottages that were built on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan.

  Ray and Sue joined him, leaving Simone in the Jeep. The door of the cottage opened as they approached the building. A small, wiry woman came out to greet them. Ray guessed her to be in her late 60s or early 70s.

  “This is Verity Wudbine-Merone,” said Grubbs, “her ancestors were among the first families to build in the Colony. Sheriff Elkins, Detective Sergeant Lawrence.”

  “Come in, please,” she said, after shaking each of their hands.

  “I’ve made some coffee, I hope you will have some.” She quickly filled a cup, placed it on a saucer, and handed one to Sue before any of them could respond. “Please, sit.” She directed them toward a table at the front of the cottage. “There’s sugar and cream, please help yourself to the cookies.”

  A series of casement windows, each with a latticework of framing holding small panes, provided a panoramic view of the lake.

  Once they were seated, Ray asked, “What seems to be the problem?”

  “What have you told them?” Verity looked at Grubbs.

  “Nothing, Verity.”

  Ray and Sue sat and waited, finally Verity said, “I’ve been robbed.”

  “What was taken and when did this happen?” asked Sue.

  “I can’t say for sure when it happened. I was here in late April just to drop off some supplies and then came back a week ago and noticed things were missing.”

  “What kinds of things?” asked Ray.

  A long silence followed, Grubbs and Verity looked at each other. Finally Grubbs said, “A large quantity of alcohol.”

  “Could you be more specific, please?”

  “Well, I always restock the cottage in the spring. On my first trip up here I stop in Chicago and buy enough liquor to last the summer. We have cocktail parties every evening, us old timers. I sort of know what everyone drinks, that’s what I stock up on.”

  “So how many bottles were taken?” asked Ray.

  Another long silence followed. Then Verity answered, “I’m afraid it was more than bottles. It was cases, five cases. Five cases,” she repeated. “It was all the top notch. All of it. Single malt scotch, Irish whiskey, some bourbon, some very good vodka and
gin. I lugged them up here and with Richard’s help got everything discreetly stored away.”

  Verity got up from the table and crossed the room and opened the pantry door. “It was all here on the floor. The cases were on their sides so I could get to the bottles without having to do any lifting.”

  She returned to the table and looked at Sue and then Ray before continuing. “We do more than just give lip service to the temperance roots of this colony. If you go into the cottages, you won’t see liquor bottles out in the open or any other drink making paraphernalia. And no one consumes alcohol out in the open. With the exception, of course, of Malcolm’s damn clambake, but that’s off the property. Even when I go to someone’s cottage for dinner, I always carry the wine in a basket.”

  “What was the value of the stolen property?” asked Sue.

  “Well it was a lot, yes indeed. I can’t quite say for sure. You know how it goes, they ring it up and you just give them your card. I’d have to try and find my MasterCard bill. But I’m sure it was $1000 or more. And there was also some wine on that bill, the brands and vintages that are hard to find up here. And the wine is all here. They didn’t touch that. Just the liquor, the hard stuff.”

  “And you have no idea when it was stolen?”

  “Well, yes. It happened some time during the weeks I wasn’t here.”

  Ray looked at Sue, then looked out at the rolling surf.

  “How did the thieves gain entrance to your cottage?” asked Sue. “Was there damage to a door or window?”

  “No, nothing that I noticed. I’m not even sure the doors were locked. As you can see, there’s nothing really worth stealing here. It’s just old stuff. Old China, old flatware, the furniture is mostly castoffs from other homes. That little flat screen I bring with me at the beginning of the season and take it home in the fall. Electronics don’t make it through the winter here. It’s too moist.