“See, my dad drinks a lot and he’ll act like that. I hate it. I just hate it.” The young woman’s eyes glistened as she spoke. Her hair was long and loose and every few minutes she would use both hands to shove it behind her ears. “I was starting to hate DeeDee and … and now I feel so bad about that.” Osborne tensed. The anguish twisting Carrie’s face was familiar. He’d seen that same look on his daughters’ faces and he’d hoped never to see it again.
“So that night she came home drunk …” Lew urged her on.
“Right away I could tell she was in one of those mean moods so I sat on the sofa like she asked me to and listened. To humor her, y’know. That’s when she told me Mr. Moriarty—Bert is what she called him—said he didn’t want to see her anymore, but she was ‘sure as hell gonna change his life with a big surprise.’” Carrie mimicked DeeDee’s tone.
“That’s when she told me she thought she might be pregnant. She didn’t know for sure, but she’d missed her period two months in a row.” Carrie paused.
“See, the thing about DeeDee …” Carrie tilted her head up and gazed at the ceiling as if making up her mind. “The thing I didn’t like about DeeDee was how she was about money. It was the most important thing to her. Whenever she got blasted like she was that night, she would always go on about how you have to marry money or you end up like her mom. Then she would swear that she would never end up like her mom—all alone, living paycheck to paycheck. She was a broken record about it.”
Carrie’s eyes searched Doc and Lew’s faces for approval. “You can see why I couldn’t let her mom hear something like that.”
“So she wasn’t seeing Bert any more? Did he know about the pregnancy at that time?”
“Yes. DeeDee had decided to tell him she was pregnant even though she wasn’t sure. She wanted his reaction and it really surprised her when he told her he would pay for an abortion, but he had no intention of asking his wife for a divorce, much less marrying DeeDee. Oh God, you had to see her face that night to know how furious she was. It’s when she decided to do what she did with Mr. Curry. She thought she could make Bert jealous. And if that didn’t work, she was going to convince Mr. Curry it was his baby and get him to marry her. He was infatuated with her and she knew it.”
“Really,” said Lew. “So you’re saying she was deliberately leading Hugh Curry on?”
“Talking drunk that’s what she said—and, man, she had it all planned out,” said Carrie. “To me, anyway, it seemed like the minute she thought Bert was dumping her, she just got more determined to get married. She had this evil little smile when she said it, too: ‘I don’t care who the hell it is as long as he’s rich. I’ll get married, have the baby, then get a divorce and leave with all the money.’”
“I don’t think it’s quite that easy,” said Lew.
“You couldn’t tell DeeDee that,” said Carrie. “She was convinced she could pull it off.”
“But one of the people she was working with at the Chamber told us she was planning to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against Curry,” said Osborne.
“Oh, she talked about that, too,” said Carrie. “She was going to use that for leverage, so if Curry didn’t do what she asked, she could hold that over him. She thought it was so clever that she had him wrapped around her finger—other people could see he was doing things that would appear inappropriate. What they didn’t see was her encouraging it.”
“But that man is so … so … so unattractive,” said Lew. “I find it hard to believe—”
“Money. The guy’s got ‘tons’ according to DeeDee.” Carrie gave a grandiose wave of her hand as she mimicked her roommate. According to DeeDee, she had him on his knees: “‘Do I have him roped or what?’ she’d said. ‘Right by the old schnoze.’
“But like you just said, Chief Ferris, I remember saying to her—Yea-a-h, but you still have to sleep with the guy.”
“What did she say to that?” said Lew.
“One word: ‘So?!’ But, see, the money made it okay. Don’t ask me how she knew, but she was convinced he was worth at least a million, most likely more. She told me that in one day she had watched him withdraw nearly a hundred thousand dollars from different accounts.”
“Do you think it occurred to her he might be doing something illegal?”
“No-o-o. She thought maybe he gambled.”
“Did Curry ever come to your house?”
“A couple times, but she would always step outside and see him. Except one night he scared the living daylights out of us. Our neighbor called to say there was a man standing outside DeeDee’s window. That was creepy and it scared her, too. Later she laughed it off. Most times they’d talk in his truck. At first Juliana and I assumed it was all business—but here’s what I remembered in the middle of the night last night: First it was the drunk talk about tricking Curry into marrying her. And then I remembered something else.
“It was the night before she … the night of the day before Robbie’s party. She got several calls from Mr. Curry that evening. I didn’t think too much about it at the time because there was always a flurry of phone calls from him right around one of the job fairs. The guy was fanatic about checking on stuff both before and after the event—it was always crazy. Whatever bad things I say about DeeDee, she was great at all those details and the arrangements. She really ran those job fairs.
“But I overheard one conversation. The more I try to think back, the more I remember how it made me sick to my stomach to hear her being so … so … seductive on the phone, too. Not professional. Wa-a-y too personal, y’know.”
“You’re thinking he might have been the person she met at the landing that night?” said Lew.
“Yes, I am,” Carrie nodded.
Lew jotted a few notes then stood up behind her desk. “Thank you, Carrie, I’m going to look into this right now.” In response to the look on the girl’s face, she said, “No, it’s okay. You did nothing wrong. Giving yourself time to think things over is not the same as withholding evidence. Just call me on that cell phone number I gave you if anything else comes to mind.”
CHAPTER 23
Shotguns and bathtubs are never a good combination. That, Osborne had learned years earlier when Henry Bloomquist, the elderly dentist whose practice he had purchased, committed suicide in the family home the night before his daughter’s wedding. Colleagues pointed to mercury poisoning as a possible source of his depression, but Osborne knew better.
After discussing the patients whose care he was handing over to Osborne, the old man had invited him to the tavern across the street from the dental office. Three whiskeys into their chat, Henry was ready to unload. “I got a miserable family life, Paul,” he’d said, slamming his drink on the counter. “And I sure as hell hope it never happens to you. Got a wife and daughter who love the money and despise the old man who makes it. You oughta hear ‘em—’you don’t dress right, you drink too much, blah, blah, blah.’ Hell, they say they’re too embarrassed to go to fish fry with me.
“But ya know what?” he said, slurring slightly as he ordered a fourth whiskey. “I’ll fix ‘em. Just you wait. First, I’m take’n a trip all ‘round the world—just me, see. All by myself. Spend a lotta money on the way. Then when I get back … big surprise.”
He didn’t say what the surprise was. Osborne assumed he was thinking divorce and, in a way, he was. So Dr. Bloomquist did exactly what he said he would. After selling the practice, he traveled for six months. But it was his final trip—the one he took after the rehearsal dinner—that ruined the day for the women in his life. Killing himself in the bathroom of the newly redecorated master bedroom suite that was so important to the mother of the bride made for an awkward wedding day. He could not have better revenged himself.
But Gwen Curry did not appear to have had revenge visited on her. Yes, her face was drained of color and her eyes were red and puffy from tears. And, yes, she seemed stunned. But she was surprisingly calm. The denial and anger, not to mention anguis
h, that Osborne had come to expect when arriving to perform the duties of deputy coroner on the occasion of an unexpected and sudden death, were absent.
Lew and Osborne had arrived to find her sitting on the stairs of the house they had rented on Mirror Lake, still in her red shirt and black leggings. Saying nothing as they walked towards her, she held out a sheet of paper.
“I had no idea,” was all Gwen said, arms crossed and body still, as Lew scanned the page. “I knew he kept copying checks but I thought they were payments from the exhibitors. I had no idea they were counterfeit.”
“And that girl …” Gwen dropped her face into her hands, then raised her head with a fierce shake. “Why didn’t I pay attention? I should have known, but I trusted … I thought it was all DeeDee, but no, no, no, NO. They were in it together. I’m a fool, such a fool. And now I’m to be blamed, aren’t I?”
“Hard to say, Gwen,” said Lew, turning to Osborne. “Doc, just to be on the safe side, would you hand me a pair of those Nitrile gloves and put on a pair yourself before I hand you this?”
“Sure,” said Osborne, “and an evidence bag, too?”
“Yes, thank you. We’ll want to keep the chain of evidence tight on this as we enter.”
“It’s a suicide, not a crime,” said Gwen, taken aback.
“Yes, but your husband is confessing to a crime—this piece of paper will be evidence needed by the court and it’s my job to see it handled by as few people as possible.”
Gloves on and holding the typewritten document at the edges, Osborne read down the page as Lew said, “Gwen, do you know where the money is?”
Gwen raised her hands and dropped them. “No idea. I found Hugh with that,” she pointed to the sheet of paper, “on the bathroom counter. Obviously he did it on the computer and printed it out before … Not sure what to do, I called 9-1-1 and walked out here. Been sitting here waiting is all. Didn’t even cross my mind to look for the money. Does that surprise you?”
“No,” said Lew. “When someone takes their own life nothing surprises me. I know it’s a shock and I can only try to understand how you must feel.”
Osborne glanced up as she spoke. Hugh was a good typist and his message was clear: Opening accounts in job seeker’s names, depositing counterfeit checks from companies participating in the job fairs, then leaving town before companies and banks got wise to his scheme, he had managed to siphon nearly eight hundred thousand dollars from a dozen banks—four in Iowa, five in Minnesota and three in Illinois where they worked their scam before arriving in northern Wisconsin. And after he met DeeDee Kurlander, it appeared that he had decided it was all for a new life with that young and beautiful woman. “I loved her, Gwennie. She was so, so sweet and so pretty. And she listened to me. She loved me, too. She said I made her laugh.”
But DeeDee betrayed him. On a night when he had told Gwen he was working late at the Chamber, he had waited for DeeDee to leave the office and followed her, hoping to tell her he had all the money ready so they could run off together—only to see her meet and embrace another man. It was obvious they were lovers.
“All she wanted from me was the money,” he wrote. “She destroyed me. I waited until her lover drove off and then I couldn’t help myself. She ruined me!!!! Now the banks are closing in, too. Gwennie, I did love you. I did, maybe I still do. I’m so confused. All I know for sure is I deserve to die. I think that if you show that woman police officer the checks I used she’ll know you had no part of this. You’ll find them in the cab of my truck, under the back seat. Please, Gwennie, forgive me. You deserve better.” That was it. No signature.
“Want me to check the truck?” said Osborne.
“Later. Let’s take a look at the body before the EMTs get here.”
“I have to keep this, Gwen,” said Lew, as Osborne slipped the confession into the evidence bag she held open.
“I know,” said Gwen. She clenched her eyes shut. “Oh, God—how he must have hated me. You know,” she raised one hand, “I sensed something was wrong these last few weeks, but Hugh has always been a tense person when the fairs are going on. It’s so much work.”
“Where will we find him, Gwen?” said Lew. “Dr. Osborne has to confirm the—”
“Master bath,” said Gwen, averting her face. “We rent this place so I’m sure the landlord won’t appreciate what’s happened.”
With effort, she pushed herself to her feet. Osborne felt bad but he had a definite reluctance to reach out and help her. “You go ahead. I’ll wait in the kitchen. I can’t—I can’t look at him again.”
“You have a dog,” said Lew, “in the house?”
“Don’t worry about Choppy, he’s out back.”
“That Ford,” said Lew, pointing to a dark green truck parked next to the white Toyota pick-up in the driveway, “that is your husband’s, correct?”
Gwen nodded and opened the door to the house for them to enter. The wail of an ambulance could be heard in the distance.
CHAPTER 24
The Curry’s house was the type of expensive seasonal rental that came fully furnished, including a dock and small boathouse on Mirror Lake. The lake, which branched off the Loon Lake chain, could be reached by canoe or kayak through the shallow stream that Mason called her “secret passage.” Too small for the bass boats with their 250-horsepower outboard motors and surrounded with acres of wetlands that discouraged development, Mirror Lake was a popular destination for kayakers and canoeists eager for herons and turtles.
The Currys appeared to be canoe enthusiasts. As Lew had pulled into the drive that ran alongside their house, Osborne had spotted a long metal canoe beached near the dock. A lifejacket and a paddle lay on the ground nearby, as if someone, jumping from the canoe in a hurry, had thrown them there.
Moving past Gwen to enter the house, they stepped into a spacious “lodge” room with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the lake. On the immediate left was an open kitchen with a cooking island fronted with a breakfast bar and four chairs. Straight ahead was a large living room with a beamed ceiling and river-rock fireplace. Sofas, chairs and tables were scattered around the room, though they would not be easy to use as they were fully occupied.
The house was crammed with stuff. Every counter, every end table, even the coffee table held piles of papers that appeared to have been set down and shoved around at random. Unopened envelopes, bank statements, bills, brochures, magazines, newspapers, half-eaten cookies, used glasses, crumby paper plates, crushed napkins, clumps of used plastic wrap, lipstick-smeared coffee mugs and opened beer cans littered the place.
The kitchen sink was crowded with dirty dishes and the counters held even more papers, along with half-empty bottles of gin and vodka. But it was the piles of papers sliding every which way that amazed Osborne. He resisted the urge to walk through the room and straighten up the stacks. As far as he could see, there was only one item in the room currently free of clutter, though he was sure that would change. Just inside the front door and off to the right was a large, unopened cardboard box stamped, “Fragile.”
Gwen, who had followed them in, walked over to the breakfast bar where she paused to move a pile of stuff onto the floor and hoist herself onto a chair, her back to them. Catching Osborne’s eye, Lew raised one brow in silent comment, “do you believe this mess?
“Down there,” said Gwen, with a wave towards a hallway that Osborne assumed led to the master bedroom. On their way down the hall, they passed two other rooms also in disarray, with papers strewn about and clothes tossed over chairs.
One appeared to be the office Gwen had referred to, since a long table against one wall held a computer and a cordless phone on its base—along with a slew of discarded bottles, cans, mugs and an open box of chocolate chip cookies. Shoved to the side of a table holding a printer was a commercial-size shredder that, judging from the contents spilling from a black garbage bag next to it, got plenty of use. But this room did have some order to it. A path through boxes and litter led to an office
chair stationed in front of the computer.
Pausing in the doorway to the office, Osborne shook his head in wonder. Any attempt to make sense of the mess in this house would be as challenging as tracking a wounded deer through a cedar swamp dense with dead trees, fallen limbs and treacherous hillocks. He shuddered at the thought of the bacteria growing in the discarded bottles and cans.
At the end of the hall, they arrived at the master bedroom—or at least an unmade king-size bed indicated that was its likely use. An L-shaped nook—intended to serve as a dressing room, though it appeared to be just one more dumping ground—led to a door, which was closed.
“This has to be it,” said Lew, smoothing the Nitrile gloves tight along her fingers.
Osborne braced himself. The 9-1-1 call had come in just as—in hopes that the search warrant might arrive any minute—he and Lew had finished wolfing down take-out cheeseburgers from the Loon Lake Pub. Right now that seemed like bad timing.
The scene in the bathroom was unsettling. While the shotgun pellets may not have exited, the blood had. The bathtub and the white ceramic tiles surrounding the tub held a collage of neon blue fabric, clots of tissue, fragments of hair and teeth, and a human frame recognizable from the shoulders down—all soaked crimson. What remained of the man they had last seen in grimy shorts and a Hawaiian shirt was slumped sideways over the barrel of a 12-gauge shotgun—a gun that would need a professional cleaning if it were ever to be used again.
After several moments of silence as he and Lew took in the scene before them, Osborne knelt to do his job. But a careful prodding of the soggy shorts yielded only a small comb and loose change.
Dead Madonna Page 14
