Cold Hunter's Moon

by K. C. Greenlief

  “Where have you been?” Joel asked. “I’ve been trying to get you for half an hour.”

  Lark informed him he had gotten what he needed in Marshfield.

  Joel whooped into the radio, unable to contain himself, and told Lark that they had gotten the same. They signed off, agreeing to meet in Big Oak. Lark got into town at noon and Joel pulled in fifteen minutes later.

  “Where’s Lacey?” Lark asked, surprised that Joel was alone.

  “This case is almost wrapped up and we needed her in Door County. We got our statement plus a damn fine picture of Sara on tape,” he said, watching Lark’s face.

  “I didn’t get a chance to thank her for all her hard work.”

  “Call her. Even better, drive over and take her out to dinner.”

  “Right,” Lark replied. “Let’s call Tom.”

  Tom Jenkins was there within fifteen minutes. He agreed that they had more than enough to arrest Sara and called Brad Clapton. After hearing what they had, Clapton agreed to pick Sara up rather than have them go out to the house and arrest her. Joel and Lark slipped over to the Big Oak Diner for lunch, knowing it would be way into the night before they got their next meal.

  At two o’clock, Lark’s beeper went off. He used Joel’s cellular to call the station.

  “You’d better get over here right now,” Flo said.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Not on the phone,” she said, and hung up.

  “Damn that woman.” Lark and Joel wrapped their cheeseburgers in paper napkins so they could eat them on the way.

  Jenkins met them at the door, his face ashen. “This is awful, she took an overdose.”

  “Who overdosed?” Lark asked, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “Sara Waltner,” Jenkins said, guiding them into the interview room.

  Lark tossed his half-eaten burger in the trash. “What happened?”

  “Brad called me right before I called you.” Jenkins slumped into the chair. “He went out to the house and found Sara and Steve nearly dead. She overdosed them on something. We’ll know after they do the blood work. They just got to them in time. They were barely breathing when the ambulance got there.”

  “How the hell did this happen?” Lark asked.

  “Clapton stayed at the Waltners’ until midnight, trying to impress upon Sara how important it was that he knew the truth so he could help her make the best decisions. He said he made it clear that if Ann could identify her, she was in big trouble.”

  “Did she confess?” Joel asked.

  “He says no. He spent most of the time refereeing a fight between them over Steve’s affair with his assistant.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Lark said, disgusted.

  “Clapton left when Sara went upstairs to bed,” Tom continued. “When he went out there this afternoon, no one answered the door. He went around back and saw Steve lying on the floor, so he broke in. He called the ambulance for Steve and found Sara upstairs in bed, nearly dead. He called me as soon as he found her.”

  CLOSURE

  A week later, Ann was home, learning how to walk with crutches. No small feat since she also had an arm cast.

  Steve and Sara Waltner lived. Sara had given them both a large dose of Seconal, a sleeping pill for which she had a prescription. She was not at all happy to be alive and had been transferred to Rhinelander for a psychiatric evaluation. Her physician finally gave Joel and Lark permission to interview her two weeks after her overdose. Lark was delighted to find out that Mrs. Krejewski, forever Mrs. Claus in his mind, was Sara’s nurse.

  “Who would have thought the beautiful Sara Lippert would come to this?” she said, her face full of sadness as she led Lark and Joel to Sara’s room. “She’s still very fragile, so I’m going to stay in here with you. If she has any problems, I’m going to ask you to leave. You agree?” she asked, looking at them as if she were setting ground rules for a couple of teenagers.

  “We agree,” Lark said. They followed her into the room.

  It was difficult for Lark to hide his shock at his first sight of Sara. He knew they were about the same age, but she now looked like she was in her late fifties. Her eyes were focused but dull. Her face was devoid of makeup and her forehead and cheeks were lined with wrinkles. Someone had made a crude attempt at styling her hair by brushing it back from her face. Her once beautifully manicured nails were free of polish and chipped and bitten to the quick. She didn’t seem to be aware that her hospital gown had slipped down over one shoulder.

  “Sara, I’m going to fix your gown,” Mrs. Krejewski said as she reached her hand out towards Sara’s shoulder.

  “Get away from me, you fat bitch,” Sara yelled, swatting at Mrs. Krejewski’s hand.

  “Sara, we discussed this. Another outburst like that and the police will have to leave.”

  “Fine, just keep away from me,” Sara snapped, yanking her gown back up on her shoulder.

  Lark was so stunned by the change in Sara that he didn’t notice Brad Clapton in the room until he spoke. “Sheriff, now that you’ve got your tape recorder set up, I want to go on record that I object to this interview. Steve and I have advised Sara against this, but she has chosen to ignore me.”

  “Didn’t they determine that I was competent at that hearing we went through?” Sara asked, glaring at Clapton.

  “Yes, Sara, you were judged to be competent but that doesn’t mean that you should incriminate yourself.”

  “I want this over with. I want my children to get on with their lives and Steve to rot in hell with his harlot.” Her voice was eerily calm.

  Lark read Sara her rights and asked her if she understood them. When she stated that she did, he began questioning her.

  “Sara did you kill Gemma Patterson and Terry Foltz?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you kill them?”

  “They raped Sandi. She would never have had sex with them if they hadn’t forced her. She knows that sex between two women is an abomination,” Sara snapped, her hands twisting into fists on top of the sheets. Lark noticed the wrist restraints that dangled from either side of the bed. He wondered if they would get through the interview without restraining Sara again.

  “How did you know Sandi had sex with Terry and Gemma?” Lark asked, trying to make eye contact with her.

  “I found Sandi’s diary when I was cleaning her room. She forgot to take it back to Madison with her. She wrote about having sex with Gemma. I knew from her diary that she had been raped. She would never have written about it the way she did if Gemma hadn’t forced her.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lark said.

  “Sandi was traumatized by the rape. She wrote that she wanted to have more sex with that little bitch. I knew I had to do something to save my baby.” Sara’s eyes were full of hatred. “I called Gemma and asked her to help me plan a party for Sandi’s birthday in December. She agreed to stop by on her way home for Thanksgiving. I asked her not to tell anyone about it so we could keep the party a surprise.” Sara stopped to take a drink from a glass of water on her bedside stand. She gripped the glass so hard, Lark was afraid she might break it.

  “When she got to the house, I invited her into the kitchen and gave her something to drink. She asked if she could use the phone to call her mother and tell her where she was, because she hadn’t been able to get her earlier. I keep Michael’s old baseball bat in the pantry for protection. It was so easy. I got the bat and hit her a couple of times. She was unconscious when I loaded her in our two-man snowmobile and took her out to the marsh.”

  “How did you get her in the snowmobile?” Lark asked.

  “You men are all alike,” she said malevolently. “You see a pretty woman and you think she’s weak. I dragged her out to the garage and lifted her into the snowmobile. I carry forty-pound bags of water-softener salt down to the basement. I can drag a body a few feet.”

  “What did you do with her car?”

  “I drove it to E
au Claire and used Gemma’s credit card to fill it up with gas. Then I left it at a shopping center across from Lippert’s. I took a Taurus off the lot and drove it back to Big Oak. I left it in the parking lot at the diner. I got a snowmobile at the marina and rode it home. Steve and the kids use the store snowmobiles all the time. I put it in the back of the garage until Steve found it later in the winter. Then I drove back over to the Sofitel.” She looked at them defiantly, daring them to challenge her.

  “What did you do with Gemma’s purse?”

  “I tossed it in a trash Dumpster in back of a restaurant in Ladysmith on the way home.”

  “Why did you kill Terry?” Lark asked.

  “Things were so much better after Gemma went away.” She stared at the wall as if she were daydreaming. A smile flickered across her face and Lark caught a glimpse of the woman he had known before this tragedy. “Sandi started dating David and they were in love. I knew everything was going to be all right. To make sure, I read her diary whenever she came home. Things were good until she let that dyke Terry get too close to her. Terry raped her just like Gemma and brainwashed her into thinking she might be gay. They were doing sinful things. I did the same thing to her I did to Gemma. Exactly the same,” she said. Her eyes blazed into Lark’s.

  “Why did you try to kill Ann?”

  “The bitch wouldn’t leave things alone. When she asked me if Katey was gay, I knew she had figured it out. It would have ruined my baby’s life if Ann told anyone. I just snapped.”

  “What did you do with her car?” Lark asked, since they still hadn’t found it.

  “It’s under a tarp in one of Steve’s boat storage buildings out on Highway T, the furthest one in the back. I didn’t have time to dispose of it. You wouldn’t have found it until spring. No one goes out there until people start taking their boats out of storage.”

  “Why didn’t you kill Katey since Sandi and Katey slept together?” Lark asked, bracing himself for the worst as he watched Sara become enraged.

  “Katey’s a victim. Those bitches raped her, too,” she yelled, flinging herself up in bed towards Lark.

  “That’s enough,” Mrs. Krejewski said as she pushed the screaming and crying Sara down on the bed. Lark didn’t think he’d ever get the sound of Sara’s crying out of his head.

  “The world gets stranger everyday,” Lark said as they walked out of the hospital into the first sunshine they’d seen in over a month. “This is a vicious hate crime where the murderer claims she killed two innocent girls out of love for her daughter.”

  “She’s sure going to have problems in prison,” Joel said as they headed for their car.

  “If she makes it there. She may be legally competent, but she’s the sickest woman I’ve ever met. I doubt she’ll ever get to the pen,” Lark said as they drove away.

  EPILOG—DECEMBER 31

  When Lark, Joel, and Molly walked into the Park Falls Country Club, they were greeted by Ann and John. John was smiling from ear to ear. Ann wore a big grin along with a small cast on her arm, a floor-length, dark burgundy velvet skirt and a matching sweater studded with pearls. When she saw Lark, she stepped away from John and embraced him in her best imitation of a one-armed bear hug.

  “It’s so good to see you,” she said, stepping back to look him over. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you for the last two weeks.”

  Before he could get a word in edgewise, John came over to shake his hand. “Where the hell have you been? I haven’t seen your Jeep around town lately.”

  “I went home to see my family over Christmas,” he said, blushing at the attention.

  Joel introduced Molly to the Ransons and the five of them were standing around talking and joking about the antics of the Grenfurth children when another group of people came around the corner. Molly and Joel moved into the ballroom after receiving instructions from John on how to find their table. Before Lark could follow, John pulled him into conversation. They were interrupted when Ann called to them.

  Lark looked over to see what she wanted and his heart fell to his knees. As she walked over to them, he found himself making a detailed study of the paisley pattern in the carpet.

  “Look what blew in from Wausau.”

  “Hello, Lark, how are you,” Lacey said, smiling up into his face and reaching out to shake his hand.

  “Great, and you?” Lark asked, with just the hint of a smile despite his rapidly beating heart. Lacey was a vision in a long, dark green cut velvet skirt and matching jacket with a black, low-cut lace camisole underneath. Her hair was in masses of curls around her face and hanging down her back.

  “Wow, you look fantastic,” John said, giving her a hug and then stepping back to look her over. “In fact, you look almost as good as my wife.”

  “He’s living proof that love is blind,” Ann said, taking John’s arm. She glanced down at her watch and scanned the entrance of the club. “It’s past time to start dinner and it looks like no one else is coming. Let’s go eat. By the way,” she said over her shoulder to Lark and Lacey, “don’t even think about slipping away after dinner. We’ve got music and dancing planned, although that’ll be hobbling for me.” As she walked into the dining room, Lark noticed that John’s hand under her elbow provided support; she was still walking with a slight limp.

  John led the way to a table for six consisting of the Ransons, Joel and Molly, and Lark and Lacey. Dinner passed in a fog for Lark, seated between Ann and Lacey. Although he made polite conversation with Lacey about the Patterson/Foltz case, the continued bad weather, and the Green Bay Packers, he couldn’t bring himself to get into more personal issues. Lacey was also seated next to Joel, who kept up his usual banter with frequent gooses from Molly to watch his mouth. During conversation lulls, Ann kept Lark busy talking about his family.

  The lights went down after dinner and the DJ started playing a mix of holiday carols, oldies, rock, and country. In no time, everyone was dancing. Ann only danced about once an hour, claiming that her leg cast made it difficult. While everyone else danced, she had a delightful time talking to the people who stopped by their table. Lark, a very good dancer, found himself having fun, dancing with several women he knew from Big Oak. Much to his relief, he and Lacey were rarely at the table at the same time.

  Shortly before eleven, Ann and Lark were talking when Lacey and John came back to the table. When Ann refused to dance to a fast song, Lacey stepped in to dance with John again.

  Ann leaned over to Lark so she could be heard over the music. “What’s going on with you and Lacey?”

  Lark was thankful that the room was dark so Ann couldn’t see him blush. “Nothing’s going on. Why do you ask?”

  “Yeah, right.” Ann snorted. “Nothing’s going on. Here’s a news flash. You can cut the tension between you two with a knife.”

  “Ann, I think you’re imagining things,” he said, staring at the dance floor to avoid her eyes. “We worked together on your case. There isn’t anything more between us.”

  “Excuse me, but that’s nothing but pure bullshit.” Ann craned her neck around to look at him, forcing him to look in her eyes.

  “You’re right, this is bullshit,” he said, exasperated. He picked up his empty beer bottle and attempted to drink out of it. “Shit,” he said, getting up. “Would you like something else to drink?”

  “No, and you don’t need anything else either.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him back down in his seat. “We’re going to finish this conversation.”

  “You’re way out of line here,” he said, his voice stern. “Despite your good intentions, this isn’t any of your business.”

  She hesitated, breaking eye contact to watch John and Lacey on the dance floor. She took his hand in both of hers and looked into his eyes. “You’re probably right, but I care very much about you and Lacey so I’m making it my business. Since you’ve seen me nearly naked and almost broken emotionally—I’ll take the risk and wade into this. If I’m wrong, I’m sure you’ll forgive me.�
��

  Lark groaned but didn’t move away from her.

  “At the risk of sounding sappy, we both know how short life can be. Love and happiness are rare commodities, truly to be cherished when you’re lucky enough to find them.”

  When Lark said nothing, she plunged on. “I’m so sorry that I never had the chance to know your wife. Joel tells me she was remarkable and that the two of you were very much in love.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” he said, staring out at the dance floor.

  “Someone that remarkable would not want you to be alone. She would want you to find someone to love and have children with.”

  “So you say,” Lark mumbled, looking down at the table.

  “I know it,” she said, her hands tensing around his.

  When she said nothing more, Lark looked into her eyes and found them sparkling with tears.

  “Just hear me out,” she said. “When I was out in the marsh, I nearly gave up on being rescued. I got to the point where I thought I was going to die. I remember looking up at the stars and marveling at how bright they were despite all the snow we were getting.” Tears flowed down her cheeks. “I remember wishing that I could see a falling star so I could make a wish. I know it sounds trite, but you had to be there to understand.”

  “I was there,” he said, staring down at her.

  She ignored him. “When I didn’t see one, I decided to wish anyway.”

  Lark, unable to stand her tears, picked up a napkin with his free hand and brushed them away. “Ann, don’t put yourself through this.”

  She went on as if she didn’t notice him. “I wished that if I couldn’t live, John would find someone wonderful. Someone he loved madly, who would love him and give him beautiful children. When you love someone as much as I love John, and your wife must have loved you, you want them to be happy. Maria would want you to be happy. Don’t let her down.”

  She let go of his hand and shoved herself to her feet.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, getting up to help her.

  “Of course I’m all right. I’m alive and here with people I love. I’m going to the ladies’ room to fix my face. Think about what I said. You’ll never hear it again. You saved my life a couple of times. Let me return the favor and help you get yours back.” She limped off to the ladies’ room just before John and Lacey got back to the table.