"I don't believe so. Even if the man she saw in the store is the person who attacked Stanley Buttons, he won't associate Kimberly with any actions we take."
"But she may have to testify," Kimberly's mother said. Worry lines etched deep in her forehead indicated the woman focused on many concerns.
"A slight chance. I may be off base, but there is someone I've recently connected to some other activities in town. If it's the same person, I can bring him in without ever mentioning Kimberly."
Mr. Hamilton sat back in his chair, and Mrs. Hamilton released a sigh.
Elizabeth turned to Kimberly. "You ready to look at a page of photographs?"
She nodded, with enthusiasm. "I want to help."
From a file folder in front of her, Elizabeth took a legal-sized piece of paper. On it were a number of photos. Two besides Blake Wessley were local, but most were mug shots Hammer had pulled from elsewhere. One was a Hollywood stunt man. Elizabeth had no idea where Hammer got that photo.
"Now, I want you to take your time." She placed the page in front of Kimberly. "You don't need to rush…"
"That's him. Top row, in the middle. That's the man who was in Hy-Vee that night."
Blake Wessley's unsmiling photo sat squarely under Kimberly Hamilton's index finger, and she wore a big smile.
WHEN SHE CALLED TO EXPLAIN the situation, the perpetually nervous Dollar General manager had more questions.
"Sir, all you have to do is give Blake Wessley a chore that will take him to the back of the store. You will have already let Grayson and Mahan in through the back entrance, and they'll be in the storage room."
"And where will I be?" Howard asked.
"Since you said it's just you two in the store now and it's almost closing, when Wessley gets to the back of the store, they'll confront him and tell him his only option is to accompany them to the police station. If you want, you can leave the store, but I suggest you simply wait in your office if you don't want to stay on the selling floor."
"It'll be terrible publicity!"
Elizabeth tried to make her tight smile a reassuring one. "We'll try not to handcuff him in the store, but if he gives any indication of resistance, we'll have to."
After a few more of his questions, Elizabeth wanted to suggest that Howard wear what TV ads called discreet protection, available in the diaper aisle.
Elizabeth stayed in the station when Grayson and Mahan went to Dollar General. She had briefed the mayor and asked her to sit on the information until tomorrow, in case Wessley wasn’t their man. But she knew he was.
The station seemed almost eerily quiet after the activity of having Clancy in a cell, questioning Herbie and Just Juice, and working with Kimberly and her parents.
She still found it hard to believe that Blake Wessley had killed Stanley and attacked Skelly. She had thought him conceited and irresponsible, then seen him as trying to change. She would never have pegged him for such violent crimes.
The station phone rang and she answered it.
"Chief, Jerry Pew here."
"Ah, Jerry. Looking for more ways to say we aren't doing squat?"
"Now, Chief, there wasn't anything to tell. I hear now there is now."
"Did Avery Maxwell get hold of you?"
Pew's tone grew formal. "If you don't mind, Chief, I'd rather not say."
Elizabeth smiled to herself. She bet Jerry Pew had at least one new orifice. "We'll put out a formal press release, maybe even tomorrow. I know you aren't on deadline."
He almost whined. "Chief, that's Christmas Eve! Can't you give me anything?"
"I need your agreement not to post anything on your web page tonight."
Silence.
"Jerry, I'm serious. I need to work out several details. If you can't guarantee that you won't print on paper or the web until tomorrow, then we're done talking."
"Okay, okay!"
"Two college students have confessed to the unintended killing of Louella Belle Simpson, and a very stupid effort to hide her body in a dryer. When we issue the release, you'll know their names, and after you read the release you can call me with questions."
"What about Finn Clancy? You had him in there."
"At this point, I believe we'll refer to him as an accessory after the fact. And you damn well better not use that now, either."
His tone grew haughty. "The people have a right to know."
"Most of the people in Logland are getting ready for bed. Tomorrow is plenty of time. If you don’t sit on this, it'll be a lot harder for you to keep the people in the know in the future."
"All right, all right." Pew hung up.
Elizabeth cleaned empty food wrappers and scraps of paper from the conference room table and thought about calling the hospital to check on Skelly. She decided he would be sleeping, and she didn't really have time for a conversation on any topic other than solving Stanley Buttons' murder. And the attack on Skelly, of course.
The phone rang again, and Matt Howard told her Mahan and Grayson were on the way to the station with Blake Wessley. "I still can't believe it, Chief. I worked with him, just the two of us, several days a week. I could be dead."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Good that you're still with us, Mr. Howard. Thanks for the call."
Mahan's cruiser pulled up in front of the station, and he and Grayson got out. Mahan then opened the back door and a handcuffed Blake Wessley emerged. He must have given them a hard time.
Elizabeth opened the station door without saying anything, and locked it when the men were inside. "Conference room, gentlemen."
"Chief Friedman," Wessley began, "this is ridic…"
"Put a cork in it, Mr. Wessley."
After ten minutes of questioning, Elizabeth knew Blake Wessley would tell them nothing quickly. She stared directly into his eyes. "I don't understand your reluctance to provide any information. I'm simply asking about any contact you may have had with Stanley Buttons the night he died."
Wessley's jaw clenched and unclenched. "And I've told you I don't know the man."
No law said Elizabeth had to be fully truthful in questioning a suspect. "Come on, you guys came within a few inches of each other in the grocery store the night Mr. Buttons died."
"I was preoccupied. I didn't notice anyone."
"The store has cameras," Calderone said.
Elizabeth was pleased he had picked up on her ploy.
Wessley looked from one to the other. "He was a nosy old man who tried to mind other people's business. But he was nobody to me."
"Maybe he noticed you and Finn Clancy selling pot in the laundromat," Elizabeth said.
Wessley said nothing.
"We aren't running a boarding house here, so Officers Mahan and Grayson will drop you at the county jail for the night. We can resume tomorrow."
He shouted. "I'm not going to jail! I want a lawyer!"
Elizabeth kept her tone neutral. "As we told you, you can have one. I can hold you on suspicion of selling pot without a distributor's license, and we'll sort out the really nasty stuff tomorrow. It's been a long day."
When Mahan, Grayson, and Blake Wessley left, Elizabeth stared at her phone for several minutes. She wanted a call from the woman at All Eyes on You. If it didn't show Buttons and Wessley interacting, it could show a malevolent stare from Wessley. I must be really tired.
Her cell phone rang, and she recognized Hammer's home number. "Everything okay, sergeant?"
"Better than. I gave the woman from All Eyes on You my cell phone number, and she just called."
"Late. Thanks for being so diligent."
"You can thank her later. When Buttons was in the back of the store, near the dairy stuff I think she said, the man she describes as wearing pressed jeans turned from an aisle and they looked at each other."
"Any conversation?"
"Didn't seem to be, and she'll send over the DVD. What she did notice was that Stanley seemed nervous to see Wessley. He had just taken a pound of butter from the refrigerator case
and he dropped it. Then he hurried to the check-out."
Elizabeth pictured Stanley Buttons the day she had talked to him and Grace. At one point he closed his eyes, and she wondered if he'd been trying to remember something. Maybe he had seen Finn Clancy and Blake Wessley exchanging money or plastic baggies, but didn't want to get involved."
"Chief?" Hammer asked.
"I'm here. Good to show them near each other, and that Stanley seemed nervous. I suppose it's too much to have expected an argument where we could read their lips."
"Okay, I thanked her pretty good."
"Great. When we get the video we can check to be sure it's Blake Wessley who worried Stanley, but it sure sounds like it."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE MORNING OF CHRISTMAS EVE, Elizabeth stopped by County State's Attorney Donaldson's office in the courthouse. Sunday was a rare day for him to be there. In an odd way, the cheery decorations in his outer office reminded her that Stanley's son would not have another Christmas with his father.
Donaldson was in no rush to get a confession from Blake Wessley. "It's not just Sunday, it's Christmas Eve, Chief. And the guy is off the streets. I've gone over what you summarized for me, and talked to Judge Kemper. Wessley's parents are going to provide an attorney, and I said the guy can meet with Wessley anytime."
"Will you get beyond the period where you can hold him without charging him with anything?"
"Could be, but when they booked him, the corrections staff saw scratches on his right wrist, which they photographed. He had on a shirt with longer sleeves to cover them. Between that and the girl's ID, it could be the basis for you to arrest him on a new charge. We can hold him for a bail hearing on the twenty-sixth."
"I'd like to get a search warrant for his apartment."
"Today? On Christmas Eve?" Donaldson asked.
"Yes, he could tell his parents to go in there and remove something."
"What do you expect to find?
"Maybe the knife that killed Stanley Buttons. Maybe the piece of wood used to hit Skelly." She described what Skelly said. "I've been thinking it could be one of those hand-held weeders. They sell them at Dollar General."
"In the winter?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "We need to get in there before someone else does."
"Okay. You get it typed up and I assume Judge Kemper will allow the warrant."
Elizabeth stopped in the courthouse lobby to call Calderone about working up a request for a warrant. "Talk to Mahan, in case I missed something about how Skelly described what he thinks hit him." She paused. "In the Buttons autopsy report, Skelly gave an opinion about the type of knife used to kill the poor man."
Calderone added, "I suppose you could add paraphernalia to package and sell pot, since Jenson and Gibson said Wessley was somehow in on that with Clancy."
"Not sure the word of two suspected killers will be enough to add the pot stuff to the search," Elizabeth said.
"That's okay," Calderone said. "It'll give Judge Kemper a chance to throw out part of the warrant. He likes to do that."
"Cynic. I'll be at the station in about forty-five minutes."
"Before you hang up, Chief." Calderone paused for several seconds. "Writing the warrant request is straightforward, but the one thing that's absent is clear motive. Why would Wessley kill Stanley just because he saw the guy sell pot? Thirty years ago, maybe. Not now."
"It does seem strange, and more so that he'd have a weapon handy. But he's self-centered and used to getting his own way. He's also on thin ice with his parents, and on probation. A pot conviction might put him in jail and cause him to lose any monetary support from his parents."
"I suppose. I'll have a draft warrant when you're back here." Calderone hung up.
She left the courthouse and drove to the senior apartment building. If Grace was not in the lobby, she would call her. Elizabeth also needed to call Stanley's son to tell him they were making progress. She decided she'd let Skelly talk to Steve Buttons about the apparent cancer his father had. A minister might call that a comfort, and maybe it would be. Not to Elizabeth.
She thought of closure as the best kind of comfort. Progress might seem like small consolation, but it could make Christmas slightly less dismal for the two people most upset about Stanley's death.
If only someone cared as much about Louella Belle Simpson.
BACK AT THE STATION, Hammer handed her a note to call Louella Belle's attorney, John Stone. And two messages from Jerry Pew.
"What did Stone want?"
Hammer shrugged. "You know him. He never says."
Elizabeth dialed Stone. As he answered, she could envision him sitting in his older wooden office chair. It always squeaked as he sat back in it.
"Morning, Chief," Stone said. "I filed Louella Belle's will at the courthouse Friday, but I headed out of the office before I thought to call you. I have a copy for you that I'll send over."
"That's great. I'll stop by, or one of the officers will. Anything especially important?"
"Nothing that relates to her death. She left all of her assets to two places."
"And they were?"
"There's a little-known poison control function in the county Office of Public Health. She left a decent amount to develop literature and do classroom visits about food safety."
When Elizabeth said nothing, Stone continued. "The bulk goes to the summer lunch program, which is a United Way effort. Guess they wish they could do more. Louella Belle hoped the interest would be enough to fund lunch every day, all summer. With mostly organic food, of course."
Elizabeth felt her eyes start to tear. "Did she tell you why such issues were important to her?"
"No, but when you called to say it would be good to remove that scrapbook and the items on the shelf with it, I went to her house."
"So sad," Elizabeth said.
"Yes." Stone hesitated.
Elizabeth sensed he had more to say. "What else sir?"
"She was worth a lot of money."
"How much?"
"One million, two hundred thousand dollars, give or take."
Elizabeth sat up straighter. "How does a retired teacher amass that much money?"
"My guess is she never felt she had anyone to spend it on," Stone said.
WHEN THE WARRANT CAME through early Sunday afternoon, Elizabeth went to Wessley's apartment with Calderone and Mahan. She didn't want anything missed, as Louella Belle's hat had been at the laundromat.
She had made a list of objects that she wanted them to look for – potential weapons, of course, a dark ball cap, indications of pot supplies, and a ski mask. When she passed them to Calderone and Mahan, she said, "Be creative. Maybe something else will jump out at you."
Elizabeth had been in the now-closed fraternity when Wessley lived there, but had no reason to have visited his one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a dress shop on the town square. The apartment was locked, and Wessley had not been willing to provide a key.
Before she had officers damage a door frame, Elizabeth asked the dress shop owner downstairs if she knew the landlord. She did.
The sixty-plus landlord was found at the grocery store, buying cans of pumpkin for his wife. "Thanks for calling to get a key, Chief. Saves me repairing the door. Never had anything like this from a tenant before." He took a quick look at the search warrant and let them in.
"We'll call you when we leave so you can lock up," Elizabeth said.
"Turn the lock on the handle, then I don't have to run right back to do the deadbolt." As he walked down the stairs, he muttered, "Can't trust anybody these days."
Mahan shrugged at Elizabeth and he and Calderone followed her into the unit. Rarely did the phrase 'neat as a pin' apply to the apartments of men she knew, but they fit Blake Wessley's place. Even the placemats on a small dining room table were precisely aligned.
The three did a brief walk-through first. One bedroom with a walk-in closet, small kitchen, large bathroom, and a living-dining room combo.
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"Each one of us will do each space separately," Elizabeth said. "If you need help moving furniture or whatever, ask. Then leave it pushed aside for the next person."
Mahan flexed his arm muscles and Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
They worked in silence until Calderone called from the bathroom. "Got it."
Elizabeth and Mahan joined Calderone, who had squatted on the floor to look under the toilet tank. He looked up. "He taped the knife to the back of the tank."
"Has every man in this country seen The Godfather?" Elizabeth asked.
"At least twice," Mahan said.
Calderone stayed on his haunches and reached his gloved hand behind the toilet tank. He gently loosened duct tape. After twenty seconds or so, he slid the knife down the back of the toilet with one hand, and caught it with the other.
They studied it in silence until Mahan said, "I think I've seen that kind of steak knife on a display in the grocery store. You get one when you spend something like $500 in one month."
"And what?" Elizabeth asked. "He put it under his coat and went after Stanley?"
Mahan frowned. "I bet he tries to say he took it at the store that night, and it was spur-of-the moment, not planned."
Elizabeth continued to stare at the serrated blade. "Easy to hide in his coat as he left the store. But why on earth would he keep it?"
Calderone stood slowly. "I'm too old to squat like that. I can see him bringing it back here initially. He couldn't toss it near the senior apartments, and if he put it in the dumpster behind this place and it was found, it would be too close to where he lived."
"I bet he meant to take it out of town, like if he went home for Christmas," Mahan said. "Could have tossed it in one of the lakes around here."
Elizabeth shook her head. "And lucky for us, he ran out of time."
WHEN THEY WRAPPED UP at Wessley’s place, Elizabeth kept turning over issues related to Finn Clancy. Yes, his interview had implicated Just Juice and Herbie Hiccup; it could have taken her a long time to get to them. The two men were such bumblers, she thought their roles would have become apparent eventually.
Final Cycle Page 18
