Harley held out his hands. “No need to worry. I had George bring him to the station and give him plenty of food and water. You can pick him up tomorrow.” Sheriff Harley started to herd them down the hallway. “You two need to get some sleep. I’d recommend the Super 8 down the road. Place is clean and won’t cost an arm and a leg. I need to stick around to talk to Dr. Bentley. And don’t worry about the pooch. I’ll go and check on him later.”
Cate was too tired to object. “Fine, but don’t forget to take him for a walk.”
“I’ll treat him like he’s my own.”
30
The next morning while Robin slept, Sheriff Harley, wearing a pair of khakis and a yellow golf shirt, strode up to the ICU desk at Eau Claire’s trauma center. “How’s Brenda Krause this morning?” he asked the stocky charge nurse, flipping her his badge.
“In and out of consciousness.” She glanced at a computer screen before slipping off her glasses to let them hang on the beaded chain around her neck. “Her vitals are stable at the moment, but she had a rough night. Her husband had to stay in the lounge most of the time. I don’t think he got any sleep at all.”
“Is he in with her now?”
With an apologetic smile, she said, “No, the rooms are just too small when the nurses are working with a patient. I told her husband to get some breakfast. I imagine you’ll find him in the cafeteria.”
“I’d like permission to interview Mrs. Krause. Alone.”
She nodded. “I’ll detain the husband if he comes back, but please make it brief.”
Brenda Krause lay dwarfed by an array of tubes, wires, and beeping machines. Her bruised face peered out of some contraption that looked like a hockey player’s shin guard with a cutout. Her eyes were barely visible under heavy lids.
He pulled an armless chair around the equipment, careful not to trip on the electrical cords and hoses. “Brenda, do you recognize me from yesterday?”
She moaned.
“I’m Sheriff Harley. I saw you fall. You’re lucky to be alive.” He sat on the edge of the chair, leaning forward to rest a hand on her bedrail.
She moaned again. Mama, she said. Or was it Martin? He couldn’t tell.
“I know you’ve had quite an ordeal, but I need to get a few things straight. Mrs. Krause, can you understand me?”
Her hand fluttered on the sheet. “Uh-huh.” Her speech was constrained by the head immobilizer, and probably by pain medication.
Glancing at the morphine drip, he wondered if they could cut back on it long enough to conduct an interview. No time. He plowed on. “Why did you go to the cabin?”
She winced. “’ere was no conf’rence. I had to know. She … she …” Brenda’s eyes filled with water.
He grabbed a tissue to blot her tears. “She what?”
Brenda swallowed, wincing as she did. Her breathing was rapid. “She looked right … at me.” The next words were unintelligible. Then, “… jus’ kep’ begging me. Over ’n over. Help me, please help me.”
He felt like he’d walked into the wrong movie. Who was begging her? Was she talking about Robin?
“Help me.”
“You want me to help you?”
“Not me! Her!”
“Who?” he asked, more sharply than he’d intended.
Brenda’s eyes rolled wildly before her lids squeezed tight, pulling at the tape holding the nasogastric tube on her nose. “I jus’ left her there,” she said and licked her lips with a dry tongue.
“Who? Who did you leave?”
Her eyes opened to slits. “Bitch!” She spat the word. “He’s my husband. She could have anyone. Why’d she have to take mine?” She began sobbing, huge racking sobs. One of her monitors lit up, its beep loud and insistent. A nurse rushed in and shooed him out the door.
At two that afternoon, Foxy and Louise, summoned by Grace and Cate, met with them in the small conference room behind the sheriff’s office. Deputy Brill passed out a round of chewable coffee. Sheriff Harley came in shortly, slid a chair up to the table next to Cate’s and slurped the sludge from her untouched cup.
There was a loud clicking in the hallway, the door crashed open and Grover hurtled in. He slid to a stop in front of Cate, who reached down to him.
“Grover, our hero!” She kissed the top of his head.
Grover returned the kiss by slobbering on her jeans, hurriedly purchased that morning at Farm and Fleet.
Grover then swung his head over to lay it on the sheriff’s knees. Looking at the man with his big brown eyes, he let a tiny whine escape.
“Brill,” Harley said, fluffing the dog’s ears, “Can you run out and buy this poor little pooch another bag of dog food? See if they’ve got it in fifty-pound bags this time.”
“Little? Hunh!” She stood. “Should I put him back in the holding cell while I’m gone?” Cate began to object, but Harley grinned. “Not to worry, Ms. Wolf. Our canine friend’s been lolling on the cot in there all morning.”
As soon as the deputy left, Grover close on her heels, Cate hit Harley with the question they all wanted to ask. “Did Brenda confess?”
He threw a sardonic look in her direction. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Of course not,” Foxy said, smoothing a wrinkle on her denim skirt. “But we kind of put together what we think happened. Could we just try it out on you?”
He meant to say something about letting the authorities work things out, but looking at Foxy’s hopeful smile, somehow the word that came out was Okay.
Grace pulled out her planner, opening it to a list that covered one page. She ignored the sudden slump of his shoulders.
“Go ahead.” Staring out the window, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
Grace took a breath and said, “For starters, there was blood in the car.”
He sighed. “Actually, we didn’t find any blood in Krause’s vehicle. It had been thoroughly cleaned and repaired.” He sighed again. “And his wife’s car was clean.”
“Not in Brenda’s car, in the neighbor’s,” she insisted. “Brenda used Phyllis’s car the weekend Melissa Dunn went missing, and if you look, I think you’ll find blood on the inside of the driver’s seatbelt.”
“How do you know this?”
“I went shopping with her.” Grace sat back with a self-satisfied smile.
Harley swung his hand up to clasp his forehead. “Of course you did,” he sighed.
Undeterred, Grace continued. “Phyllis told me about the borrowed car, and I saw the blood. With my own eyes.”
“When you went shopping?”
Grace looked at the others. They nodded for her to go on. “Well, since Brenda’s car was impounded, and Phyllis is this whiz with finding the right clothes at bargain prices—”
“All right! You were in this Phyllis person’s car,” he said. “But even if it was blood, which only our lab can verify, what makes you think it belongs to the victim? People bleed in cars, you know … paper cuts, bloody noses …”
“But it all fits!” Louise exclaimed. “Grace found out that Brenda was house-sitting for the neighbor that weekend. The neighbor comes back and Brenda says, oh, by the way, I borrowed your car while you were gone.”
“And had it detailed!” Foxy added.
The sheriff’s shift in demeanor was almost imperceptible. He stared at each of them in turn before clicking his pen. “Do you know Phyllis’s last name?”
“Carson,” Grace told him. “She lives in the house next to the Krause’s, to the left of it if you’re facing the house.
“And another thing,” Foxy said, “Did you ever follow up on Ross Johnson’s Chicago connection?”
Harley chewed a hangnail on his thumb. He looked tired and rumpled. “I suppose I owe you that much. Yes, ladies, Ross Johnson did have Krause’s Mercedes repaired. At a body shop that has been less than forthcoming. And …” He paused. “And all the damage was to the passenger side.”
Louise punched the air. “Woo Hoo! So Melissa wasn’t
driving!”
He shook his head. “Would appear not.”
“So who was?” Foxy asked. “Martin?”
“Wouldn’t that make him an accessory after the fact?” Grace posed.
Cate threw her hands up. “At the very least, obstruction of justice!”
Harley closed his eyes. He felt a headache coming on. “Look, we don’t know who drove the car, but Johnson’s the one who had it repaired.”
But the women were on a roll. “Leaving the scene of an accident!” Foxy called out.
“Perjury,” suggested Grace.
Harley held up his hands. “Ladies. Please!”
“Well, think about it! Let’s say Brenda followed her husband when she became suspicious he was having an affair.” Grace paused, and the others nodded for her to continue. “The paint on the tree must have gotten there when Martin drove into it.”
Foxy interrupted. “Unless Ross Johnson was driving.”
“This is how I picture it,” Cate said, leaning forward to rest her forearms on the table. Her voice was soft, but her tone commanded attention. “Somebody, either Martin or Ross, drove the car into the tree. He was drunk or high. Definitely scared. He took off, probably to get help.” She stared at the tabletop. “Melissa’s injured, all alone in the car. There’s blood. She’s hurting. She sees someone come to the window. The door opens. She tries to turn, but she can’t seem to move her legs. So she looks up into the face of the person standing there. Oh, God, not her! But scared as she is, she begs, ‘Help me. Please help me!’”
Harley cleared his throat. “Go on.”
“And that’s when—”
Louise interrupted Cate. “That’s when Brenda bashes her head with something—a branch, a tire iron, something like that. Here, take that, you home-wrecker!” She swatted the air with a fist, then sat back smugly.
“A rock,” Cate’s voice was almost a whisper.
The sheriff turned back to her. “Go on. What do you mean when you say you picture it?”
Her eyes slowly lifted to his. “I … I don’t know how to describe it, but there’s something about that spot.”
“What spot?”
“By the tree—well, the stump. That’s where it happened. Molly Pat picked up on it.”
“The dog?”
Cate nodded. “She tried to tell me at the time … that first morning. I went back yesterday, and that’s when I just … I saw it.”
A long Grover howl came from down the hall.
Foxy rubbed her bare arms, suddenly chilled.
Harley felt prickles on his neck. “So, are you like a psychic, or what?”
Cate’s lids lowered a notch. “Let’s just say I’m highly intuitive.”
“And accurate,” Grace added.
Cate hesitated. “There’s something else.” All eyes turned to her once more. “Yesterday, after the stump, I felt drawn back to the bridge. When I got to the middle I felt a little sick, so I held onto the railing and looked down. I felt like I was falling.” She clung to her amulet, shaking her head. Suddenly, she looked up. “Where, exactly, did George find Melissa’s bracelet?”
When Sheriff Harley and his deputy arrived again at the trauma center before dinner, he stopped at the ICU nurses’ station for permission to see Brenda Krause once more.
“Her husband’s in there now.” It was a different charge nurse. This one had the tone and expression of a schoolmarm. “I assume this is of utmost importance.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Five minutes,” she said, turning back to her paperwork.
Approaching Brenda’s room, they heard Martin’s voice. “For God’s sake, Bren, why? What were you thinking?”
Harley motioned to Brill with a finger on his lips. They kept their distance.
Martin’s voice again: “I know how hard this has been on you, but we can still rebuild our lives, babe.”
There was a muffled sob from Brenda.
“My God, Brenda! Why would you throw yourself over the cliff?” Martin seemed to choke on his next question. “Why there, of all places? Why did it have to be the same place where, where …”
Her voice was weak, but the words were clear and venomous: “You can’t even say it. Why was I there where your precious little whore died?”
His sobs turned to whimpering. “I’m sorry, I’m just so goddamn sorry for all of it. She was nothing to me, I swear.”
Harley and Brill edged closer. Through the narrow opening, they could see Martin’s shoulders heaving as he sat hunched on the edge of her bed.
The sheriff strode into the room, Brill behind him. He held up his badge. “We need to talk to your wife.”
“Now? Can’t you see how hard this is on her?” Martin pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “She’s in no shape—”
“Just give us a few minutes. Go down to the cafeteria, get some coffee.”
Martin nodded meekly and slunk out of the room.
Despite Brenda’s internal damage, including a ruptured spleen, she was fairly lucid. Her head, held in place by the immobilizer, faced straight up, but her eyes followed him. Harley slid a chair close to the head of the bed, perching on the edge of it to reach through the bedrail so he could touch her hand. Standing at attention near the closet door, Sara Brill tried to be inconspicuous.
Harley cleared his throat and plunged in. “Are you up to talking, Mrs. Krause?”
The corners of her mouth tightened, but she didn’t answer.
“Brenda?” He had been mulling over how he would conduct this interview, knowing his time was short and the evidence sketchy. The conjectures of the book club ladies did fill in the blanks nicely, he had to admit, and so he decided to use their premise as a starting point. “You started telling me this morning about how you found Melissa Dunn. That must have been quite a shock for you, finding your husband’s mistress in his wrecked car. You must have just about snapped when she was begging you—you, of all people—for help.”
Brenda’s eyes overflowed with tears.
His bluff seemed to be working. “That’s when you hit her with a rock.” His tone suggested it was a minor detail.
Brenda’s lips parted. Her eyes cast about the room before settling on the sheriff’s face. “I had to make her shut up.” She inhaled deeply, her lip quivering. “And then—” She looked at him, her eyes pleading. “And then … after … she did.”
“She shut up after you hit her with the rock? Was she dead?”
Brenda averted her eyes. With no sound, her lips formed the words: I don’t know.
“How did you get her to the bridge?” Even as he asked it, he couldn’t picture this diminutive woman lugging Melissa’s dead weight sixty yards to the bridge, then heaving her over a rail that was almost her height.
Brenda’s face contorted in pain. “No! I didn’t do that!” She put the emphasis on that.
“How did she wind up in the creek?”
She ran her tongue across her bottom lip.
Please implicate those sons of bitches, he willed her.
Brenda appeared to be struggling with a decision.
He let a compassionate tone into his voice. “You must have felt so betrayed when you found out who your husband was with … a woman you knew … a woman so much younger.”
Her lips quivered. “He couldn’t deal with it. Too scared. Pathetic! Stumbling around blubbering, calling her ‘babe.’” Her face twisted in anger. “‘Oh, babe, It’s all my fault. I love you so much, babe.’”
Harley patted her hand. “You must have been devastated.”
She inhaled in one long shudder.
“When did you find out they were having an affair?”
“I saw them!” she spat. “Standing on the deck all lovey dovey. Never even thought somebody might see them.”
“But you saw them, didn’t you?”
Her anguished expression was answer enough.
He paused, trying to put together a picture in his head. “But ho
w did you know he’d be there? Did you follow him?”
For a moment, she looked almost triumphant. “I figured it out. A couple phone calls. I figured out there was no conference. When the cheating bastard called me, I heard Ross in the background.”
“Johnson?”
“Yes, Johnson. So I called Ross’s office. Secretary said he was at the cabin.”
“You’ve been to Johnson’s cabin before?”
“Not in a while.”
“Why did you go this time?”
“I had to know.”
“You borrowed your neighbor’s car, right?
Her eyes fixed on his for a long, calculating moment. “I parked off the road just past the driveway.”
He thought about this. “How did you manage to see them on the deck?”
“I went on foot.”
“So you walked up, saw them being all lovey dovey, and then you walked back to the car?
“Uh huh.”
He saw her energy waning. “And then?”
“I cried.”
“And then?” he prompted again.
“And then the car came.”
“Martin’s?”
“And she was with him. Waving her arms around just before they hit the tree.” Tears oozed from her eyes. He dabbed them with a tissue.
He continued. “Did he know you were there that night?”
Her tone was bitter. “I never crossed his mind.”
Stay with me, now. “You never told him, did you?”
Her lips formed a silent No.
“And you never confronted him for his part in her death, either, did you?”
He wondered if she’d fallen asleep. He glanced at his deputy, who shrugged and motioned him to continue.
Still holding her hand, he tried another tack. “You must have panicked when Grace Samuels figured it out. And that’s when you knew Robin Bentley held something linking you—”
“Who?”
“The woman at the cabin. The one you knocked out and tied up in the closet.”
“Robin Bentley,” she mused. “Never even knew her name.”
“Did you bring the kerosene with you to her cabin?”
She stared hard into his eyes. “Wasn’t like that.”
Murder at Spirit Falls Page 26
