Stay back, everyone stay back.”
“I was the one who found the body,” I said. “The other officer told me not to leave.”
That finally brought a direct focus on me. “I’ll check.”
He motioned the first officer on the scene over for a conference. A few minutes later, after taking down my name, address, and phone number, plus a warning that they’d want to talk to me again, they let me go.
My feet had at some time gotten wet, and my shoes squished as I plodded up the driveway.
From across the lake, after changing my clothes and shoes, I watched the activity through binoculars. As a number of other people were doing, I realized.
The fire truck was gone now, and another vehicle had arrived. People, apparently people official enough to be allowed on the dock, milled around. The thought occurred to me that they could very well be destroying evidence. A man in dark clothing knelt over the body. Medical examiner?
Eventually two men put the body in a bag and carried it on a stretcher to a van. The vehicle drove away. The crowd shuffled around for a few minutes, then, reluctantly it seemed to me, started to disperse.
Where were they taking her? Who would look after the arrangements? Who would mourn?
The whole situation suddenly seemed unbearably sad. Leslie, from all I’d seen, was so alone in the world. Alone, unloved …
And still, lurking in the dark basement of my mind, there was the ugly thought that perhaps she’d been even less than unloved and uncared for than I realized; perhaps someone had hated her. Hated her enough to kill her.
I’d forgotten lunch, I realized when the place across the lake finally appeared deserted by late afternoon, but I definitely had no desire to eat. I wondered if anyone had collected those blonde hairs and blue threads on the ladder. My whistle seemed unimportant now. I mentally apologized to Thea as I decided I’d just let it go.
Sandy had an after-school meeting. I automatically put three plates on the table when I saw Skye’s red car with both girls in it pull into the yard. I wondered if news of the accident had reached the school yet. Apparently not, because Sandy and Skye were giggling and chattering about some guy at school who’d caused an uproar when he showed up with a reverse mohawk—shaved strip on top his head, long frizzed strands on the sides. I was thinking I should tell them about Leslie when Skye suddenly looked at the clock, grabbed the remote, and turned on the TV. She always liked to watch her father on the local news.
Leslie wasn’t the top story. That went to a car accident on the other side of Fayetteville that had killed three people. But she was in second place.
“The body of a woman was discovered in Little Tom Lake in the elite Vintage Estates area near Woodston about 10:30 this morning. The identity of the body has not yet been released pending notification of next of kin, but outside sources say it is that of the owner of the property on which the body was found. Details of the drowning are still sketchy, but we’ll keep you up-to-date as further information is released.”
Brad Ridenour’s reporting of the incident was done with proper solemnity, but the announcement was so brief that I had the odd feeling Leslie had been cheated. Her death deserved more than this.
For a moment I thought the news had passed right on by Sandy and Skye, but then it registered with Sandy and she gasped, “Somebody drowned right here in the lake today?”
“Leslie Marcone,” I said. I swallowed. “I—I was over at her place, and I found her body.”
They both looked at me. Even blasé teenagers’ mouths can drop open, I realized. I explained the day’s events.
“How awful,” Skye said. “Finding someone dead.” She shuddered delicately, an expression of distaste wrinkling her petite nose. “I saw this movie once, about a body being discovered after it had been in the water for days, and—”
“Skye, shut up,” Sandy said, the command so fierce and harsh, so totally unlike Sandy, that Skye and I both looked at her in astonishment.
“Well, okay,” Skye said, an offended note in her voice.
Sandy swallowed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that … I mean, she was always jogging on the trail … and now she’s dead …”
“You didn’t even like her.”
“That doesn’t make any difference.”
Sandy turned and walked over to the window. Skye and I followed. Skye, more understanding than I expected after Sandy’s sharp outburst, put her arm around Sandy and squeezed her shoulders. We all stared across the lake at the big white house. I wondered if the car was still down there by the boathouse.
“But how could she drown?” Sandy asked finally. “She could swim like a fish.”
I wasn’t about to offer the girls my dark speculations, so all I said was, “She could have slipped and hit her head before falling in. There’s a ladder at the end of the dock, and her sweatshirt was snagged on it. It kept her from sinking right away. I tried to get her body up on the dock before the police got there, but I … couldn’t.”
“I wonder how long she’d been dead,” Sandy said.
“I suppose they have tests or something to figure that out.”
Sandy suddenly turned and hugged me. “I’m glad Leslie fired you,” she said unexpectedly, her tone almost fierce again. “If you were still working for her, maybe you’d have been down there on the dock with her, and you’d have fallen in too.”
Or been attacked by the person who attacked Leslie. But I didn’t say that. Although the thought occurred to me that the dock was a difficult place to sneak up on someone. Did that mean she’d known her attacker, and it had been a surprise assault?
Whoa! Remember, this was an accident.
I put the stir-fry dinner on the table and we ate, our conversation a bit subdued but on the normal subjects of school and gymnastics and Skye’s mother’s magazine and the Dumpling’s latest dietary kick, which was anything green. Green yuck du jour, as Skye put it. The girls studied together for a while, and then Skye went home about 9:30. Sandy and I watched the 11:00 local news together. Brad Ridenour had more information about the drowning to offer now, including that a former employee had found the body, but Leslie still wasn’t identified by name.
“They must be having trouble figuring out who her next of kin is,” Sandy said, and I agreed. I wondered if an ex-husband was considered next of kin. Would it be helpful to the authorities if someone told them about him? Although I didn’t even know his name, of course.
I did, however, know the name of that dot-com company about which he and Leslie had exchanged hostile words. Which gave me an idea.
19
Sandy had always been the one in the family who made most use of the computer, but it was in the den next to the living room, not in her bedroom. I waited until she went to bed right after the news, then turned it on.
I connected to the Internet and typed the company name plus the usual dot-com into the address line on the browser. If CyberPowerAds had a web page, that should bring it up. But all I got was one of those frustrating this-page-cannot-be-displayed notices. I’ve snagged on this before, but my computer expertise is too limited to know exactly what it signifies. That there is a page, but people like me can’t access it? That there had once been a website under that name, but it doesn’t exist now? That computers were purposely designed for maximum user frustration?
I tried a different tactic, a fishing expedition. I put the company name into a search engine and clicked “go.” Jackpot! All kinds of URLs popped up. What I wanted was a site that gave a simple, straightforward explanation of what this company was, who was involved, and what became of it.
It wasn’t that simple. What I got were sites where the company was briefly mentioned, often with something along the lines of “the surprising demise of dot-com powerhouse CyberPowerAds.” Also mentioned were “heretofore unrevealed capitalization problems” and “unrealized expectations.” A little later I found what appeared to be one of the earliest references to the company and finally identified
what the company actually did. In terms glowing enough to herald a discovery that simultaneously cured baldness, cancer, and absentmindedness, an online business magazine article announced the launch of this new business, CyberPowerAds, dedicated to capturing the market in Internet ads.
Internet ads. Did that mean those annoying things that were always popping up on the computer, interrupting whatever I was doing? Or spam? Maybe both?
Another, less formal, reference called the company “hot,” the partners “hip,” and the results “dazzling.” Projected sales of 7.3 million dollars the first year, one item said, and destined to rise like a rocket taking off. No one site named all the partners in the company, but I scribbled names on a scratch pad as I found them here and there: Michael Flattery, apparently the head honcho. Also Shane Wagner, Leslie Wagner, Dirk Carson, and Lissa Rambough.
Leslie Wagner. Leslie’s married name, of course. Which meant the ex-husband was Shane Wagner. One site even showed a photo of him, his grin confident and cocky as he slouched in jeans and baseball cap in front of a computer. Part of the new generation that scorned suit and tie while they racked up their millions.
I found nothing publicly accusing Leslie of pulling a sneaky, unethical scam on her partners in selling out before the company collapsed, but another article was headed with the speculative question, “Did the Brains of CyberPowerAds Leave When Leslie Wagner Sold Out?” Finally, one article gave a brief but telling recapitulation: “CyberPowerAds: hype high, partners young and brash, profits nonexistent. Prognosis: painful corporate death.”
About that time Sandy appeared in the doorway, yawning. “Aunt Ivy, what are you doing? You’re going to run into weirdos if you surf the Net at this time of night.”
“I was just checking some business articles. No weirdos,” I assured her. I quickly broke the Internet connection and put the computer into shut-off mode. I couldn’t say exactly why I didn’t want her to know what I was doing. Maybe because I was afraid she’d ask questions, and I was reluctant to voice my concerns. If Leslie had to be dead, I wanted it to be an accident, not some vicious murder.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about the hostilities and angers in that company. A man named Michael who had furtively watched Leslie’s home through binoculars. An ex-husband whom I’d personally heard make a veiled threat. An unseen skulker crashing around in the brush.
And now, Leslie Wagner Marcone was dead.
“Is something wrong, hon?” I asked as Sandy just stood there in her shorty pajamas and bare feet.
“No, I just couldn’t sleep.” She yawned, but she wiggled her toes restlessly in the carpet. “Things feel, you know, creepy with Leslie Marcone dying right out there in the lake. I think I had a bad dream.”
“C’mon.” I put an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll go have a cup of warm milk and I’ll take you back up to bed.”
The hope that Sgt. Yates and I would not cross orbits fizzled when his police car showed up in the driveway the following afternoon. I was on the computer again, reading an online article about a dozen dot-com companies that had started, like CyberPowerAds, in a blaze of glory and then flamed out during the general dot-com bust, leaving onetime paper millionaires with nothing but scraps useful only for starting bonfires.
But not Leslie. She’d known when to get out, and had done so. With cash. To the original glee but later anger and resentment of her partners.
I opened the door when Sgt. Yates rang the bell. He was in uniform. This looked official.
“Got a minute?” he asked with what I thought was deceptive casualness. “I’m just checking on a few details from yesterday.”
“‘Yesterday’ meaning Leslie Marcone’s drowning, I assume?” I stood back to let him in and motioned toward a seat on the sofa.
“Right.” He sat on the edge of the cushion and pulled out a small green notebook.
We went through the whole situation, from when I’d last seen Leslie to why I was at her house and why I went down to the dock. From description of the position of the body when I found it to what I knew about the remote control for the gate. He went into one subject that hadn’t occurred to me, although, under the circumstances, I supposed it could be relevant.
“Do you have any personal knowledge of whether Ms. Marcone used alcohol or drugs?”
Either might have been a logical explanation for her tumble into the lake. Except for the fact that I’d never seen Leslie take so much as a glass of wine with a meal. Neither had I ever seen any sign of alcohol or drugs anywhere in the house. I told Sgt. Yates all that. “And I cleaned thoroughly,” I emphasized. “I was into every nook and cranny.”
“Drug users can be very adept at hiding their caches.”
“Well, I didn’t pull up floorboards or look behind electrical outlets or check the undersides of every drawer,” I said. I didn’t bother to not sound facetious. Actually, I felt a bit indignant on Leslie’s behalf. Contaminate that buff body with drugs? No way. “And I never checked to see if all her perfume and talcum containers were real or phonies holding something else.”
“You’re very imaginative, Mrs. Malone,” Sgt. Yates observed, as he had on another occasion. “How about sleeping pills? Did she ever take those?”
“You’re thinking she took a sleeping pill, wandered outside, and was so drowsy she walked right off the end of the dock?”
“You think that might be possible?” He managed to sound interested in my opinion, even though I knew he was really just dodging my question by asking another of his own.
“I left about 2:00 every day, so I don’t know what she may have taken at bedtime. But I never saw any sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet or anywhere else. But you’ll have a toxicology report, I’m sure, to tell you for certain what was in her body.”
An uncommunicative “Hmmm” was all I got in response.
“I didn’t expect you to be involved in this, Sgt. Yates. I thought major crimes were your area of police work, not accidents.”
I was fishing, of course, wondering if someone besides me was speculating that this might not be an accident. I was suddenly almost certain Sgt. Yates was suspicious. Not taking anything at face value was, in my own suspicions, as much a part of Sgt. Yates as that scar across his eyebrow.
I just couldn’t see him as “sweet,” no matter what Tammi Ridenour said. This was the kind of man who might risk his life to save you but who would also look for ulterior meaning in a morning hello.
Though all he said at the moment was a mild, “Our manpower is limited.”
That apparently closed the subject. However, my curiosity knows few bounds, so I jumped to a different subject. “Has Leslie’s next of kin been located yet?”
“Yes, an uncle in Toledo. However, he has Alzheimer’s, so it’s his wife who will be coming here. Arriving tomorrow, I believe. And, since the next of kin has now been contacted, Ms. Marcone’s name has been released to the news media.”
I didn’t expect Sgt. Yates to let me in on how they’d acquired this information about an uncle, but I asked anyway, and, to my surprise, he told me.
“We lucked out. His name turned up on an admissions form Ms. Marcone filled out at the local hospital when she went to the emergency room for a minor accident a few weeks ago. Their forms always require the name of a next of kin.”
“How in the world did you discover she’d filled out such a form?”
“We have very few cases that require autopsies here in Woodston, so the few we do have are conducted at the hospital. The form, with the information about the uncle, turned up when we made arrangements for an autopsy.”
“Autopsy?” I repeated with a little shiver. It’s a word that invariably brings up ugly images.
“Standard procedure in a death of this kind.”
Of this kind. What did that mean? That they discovered a lot of stray bodies in the lake?
I squelched that mental remark. Sgt. Yates would undoubtedly identify it as an “attitude.”
“W
ill you be attending the autopsy?”
“Why do you ask?”
Okay, I asked because in detective books the detective on the case always has to attend the autopsy of the victim. But nothing, I decided, required me to tell Sgt. Yates that. He’d already politely implied on another occasion that I read too many mysteries.
“Just curious, I guess.” Which was true enough. My mutant curiosity gene never blinks.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I will be attending the autopsy.
It’s scheduled for tomorrow morning.”
Okay, I’m just going to leap into it, I decided. “Does anyone think this might not have been an accident?”
“It would seem an unlikely way to commit suicide.”
Suicide! That thought had never entered my head, and it slammed around in there now like a ricocheting ping-pong ball while I stared at him. After the initial shock of the suggestion, no, I didn’t think it was likely. I suspected Leslie may have felt murderous toward the ex but never suicidal about herself. Was suicide even possible, given the circumstances?
Then, spotting a twitch around Sgt. Yates’s stern mouth, I had the unexpected feeling that he might, with some macabre sense of humor, be teasing me again about my tendency to amateur sleuthing.
I kept my dignity. “As you say, suicide seems highly unlikely. So everyone accepts that this was an accident?”
Sgt. Yates gave the smooth, fits-all-occasions response that he’d used before. “Why do you ask?”
“The situation does seem a little odd. Leslie was an expert swimmer.”
“So others have mentioned. But I believe you suggested to an officer on the scene that she may have slipped and hit her head, rendering her unconscious before she fell in.”
“Isn’t that a possibility?”
“These are your speculations, Mrs. Malone, not mine,” he countered, his tone gently reproving.
“Okay, then, I’m also wondering why her car was down at the boathouse. With keys in the ignition and purse on the front seat.”
“You inspected the car?”
“I didn’t inspect it, but I looked in the window.” I felt defensive, as I often seemed to with Sgt. Yates. “At that time I didn’t know her body was in the lake. But I didn’t open the door, if that’s what you mean. So I didn’t disturb any fingerprints that may have been there. Although one of the officers did touch the door handle.”
In Plain Sight Page 14
