Sign Off

by Patricia McLinn

  “But you know about this case, don’t you, Gina?”

  Mike’s head jerked around at my low-voiced question, but it drew no response except a neutral stare from Gina.

  “You made sure to know where it was. Because you still inherit everything Foster had, don’t you? A lawyer knew right away that if a man dies without a will—like Foster did—his wife inherits, even if she has sued for divorce. As long as the papers haven’t gone through. The lawyer knew that right off, without having to look it up. He’s not even a divorce lawyer. So I’ve got to believe the divorce lawyer you saw in Cody would have told you that.”

  Silence.

  “I checked, Gina. You stopped divorce proceedings the week after Foster disappeared.”

  She stared at me without expression. Her hair and skin looked duller than two weeks ago, her eyes lacked even their earlier spark of anger at Mona Burrell. “Not much sense in paying for a divorce when I knew he was dead.”

  I swallowed. “How did you know Foster was dead, Gina?”

  “Because that’s the only thing that’d stop him from coming back for this damned case.”

  I allowed myself to look at it for the first time. A leather strap over the top ended in a mangled brass lock.

  “How’d you get it?”

  “I followed him to Marty Beck’s that afternoon and took it. I was just so tired of him coming ’round, using this place like a motel, using me. He screwed me that afternoon, ya know. He did that a lot when he came by. Sometimes I tried to say no, and he’d rough me up. It got so it wasn’t worth saying no.

  “But that afternoon . . . . He was full of himself. Saying how nobody’d be able to touch him in this county. How he’d found his ticket to Easy Street.” She stared straight ahead, into someplace I didn’t ever want to see. “He hurt me.”

  It was quiet and stark and chilling.

  “I wanted to get back at him. I went over there, thinking . . . I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I’d do something to his truck. Maybe break in on him and Marty, scare them some, you know.

  “But when I got to his truck, I saw that case, behind the seat. I had keys to the truck—he knew that, and he’d know it was me took the case. So I did it. I didn’t know what was in it, and I didn’t care. I brought it here, and I sat in that chair with the case at my feet and my gun ready. I knew he’d come for it.

  “About six o’clock, I heard a car in the drive. I was sure it was him. There was no way he wouldn’t come after that case. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would burst right through my ears. But it wasn’t Foster. It was Mona in that red Mustang of hers, out looking for her tomcat. Just sat there for a couple minutes, then drove off.”

  “Which direction?” I asked as softly as I could.

  “South. I figured she musta already checked Marty’s place before she came here, or she’d’ve gone north. She went south, toward Sherman.”

  Also toward Tom Burrell’s ranch and Three-Day Pass Road.

  “I waited all night. All the next morning, too. Until it was noon, and I was real hungry, and I made a liver sausage and tomato sandwich. I was washing the plate when I realized Foster had to be dead. It was the only reason he wouldn’t have come after me.

  “So I opened the case. Only key I knew of to it never left Foster’s chain, so I had to break the lock. It was full of money.”

  She leaned over, flipped the strap aside, and spread open the top. She was right, it was full of money. Some loose, some in rubberbands. Mostly small bills. But not all.

  “There used to be more,” she said with faint satisfaction.

  “Do you know where it came from, Gina?”

  “No.”

  “But you have suspicions?”

  “He was taking bribes. To let people off.”

  “How long did you suspect that?”

  Gina Redus let out a quick breath through her nose. “Just about from the start. One time he was bragging about arresting this big person or that big person in the county, and I said real nasty that none of those cases ever amounted to anything. He smirked. Said it depends on what you mean about a case amounting to anything.”

  “When did he start carrying the leather case?”

  “About a year after we came here.”

  “How about this past year, did you notice any changes?”

  Gina stared, unfocused, at a spot on the curtains. Mike drew in a breath as if to speak, and I cut him a look. He let the breath out slowly. For a full minute, breathing was the only sound.

  “He started talking this once about his future taking him big places. He said he’d put nickel and dime operations behind him, and now he was looking at the big picture. But that didn’t mean he had to paint the same big picture somebody else was painting.” Her eyebrows dipped into a frown. “I asked what he meant, but he wouldn’t say any more.”

  “And you have no idea what he was talking about?”

  She shook her head.

  “When was that? Do you remember?”

  “Last spring. About a year ago, I guess.”

  Mike and I stood.

  “Gina, one last thing . . .” This wasn’t nearly as off-hand as I tried to make it sound. I figured if it worked for Columbo, it might work for me. “What time did Foster get here that last day?”

  “Around two.”

  “What time did he leave?”

  “A few minutes before three maybe, something like that. I told you, he didn’t stick around long. He never did. Just a wham-bam, not even the thank-you-ma’am.”

  “Did he say anything about what he’d been doing that day?”

  “Just that he’d had a meeting that morning. He was real pleased about that. Said he’d had a good meeting and his future looked good.”

  I tried to keep my voice even. “Did he say who his meeting was with?”

  “No.”

  I hadn’t really expected any other answer, but I’d hoped.

  “We’ll have to tell Sheriff Widcuff about the case, and the money, Gina.” She gave no reaction. “You can’t spend any more.”

  “Okay.”

  As Mike closed the door behind us, I mentally amended my statement about telling the sheriff. We’d tell Widcuff and the state people and the Sherman police and Ames Hunt . . . just to make sure.

  Back in the car, Mike didn’t turn on the engine right away.

  “How the hell did you know about the money?”

  “Bits and pieces of things.” The rumors about Redus being on the take. The pattern of his arrests. Penny’s ramblings in the grocery store about the timing of Gina’s new buying habits. “And Gina hadn’t asked about the leather case. Mona did, remember? Now what I want to know is who told the sheriff’s department that Redus was on his way to see Burrell that day. The official report simply says they learned Redus had intended to see Burrell. How’d they learn that? Who told them? Who called in the anonymous tip?”

  “Gina could have. She said she followed Redus to Marty’s. Maybe she kept following him. Maybe she saw him go to Burrell’s and leave. Somehow she got him to go up to Three-Day Pass Road with her. Hits him on the head. Takes the case and uses her truck to push his truck over the edge.”

  “Thus setting up Tom Burrell as the fall-guy?” I objected.

  “Maybe all that stuff about loving him is a lie, a cover-up. She had the money as a motive—she took the case, and she’s been spending it for six months.”

  “But look at what she’s spending it on—mustard, hair styling, dinner at Ernie’s, lingerie. You saw that case, she’s barely made a dent in it. She could have bought a new house, flashy clothes, a new car—hell, she could have left Cottonwood County. I don’t think it was the money. She took the case because it was important to Redus, so it was a way to get back at him. When he didn’t come for it, she kept getting back at him by frittering away his precious money.”

  He spread his hands—in surrender if not conversion—so I went on.

  “We know from Gina and Tamantha tha
t Mona wasn’t home all night like she told us, but if Mona had known Foster had gone to the Circle B, surely she would have raised the alarm sooner instead of assuming he was with another woman. Next we find out if Marty told the police. If she didn’t, it becomes a real interesting question: who was keeping close enough track of Redus’ moves that day to know he’d gone to Burrell’s ranch?”

  Paycik turned over the engine. “Let’s go find Marty Beck.”

  * * * *

  “Why should I tell you anything? You’re the ones trying to get Burrell off.”

  Marty lifted her chin in a way she probably imagined was plucky, then ruined the effect by looking over Mike Paycik with avid interest from behind the counter where she served breakfasts and lunches at the Saddle Up.

  Mike answered. “We’re trying to get to the bottom of this, Marty. And we think you can help. Of course, it’s a matter of record that he came by that afternoon to, uh, visit you. That’s been in the report since the first day.”

  “Yeah, it has. And I don’t care if Mona is dead, she was lying when she said Foster loved her and was going to take her away. It was me he loved.” Some people don’t know when to quit. Marty Beck was still fighting a dead woman for a dead man. “He trusted me. Not like Mona. He said she was always poking into his things, listening to his phone calls. He said it was a real pleasure to spend time with me and know I wouldn’t go prying. He trusted me.”

  An image of Redus leaving his precious leather case in his truck available for Gina to commandeer popped into my head. And words popped out.

  “Even after you opened his leather case? Did he trust you then, Marty?”

  Anger blasted red up her throat and across her cheeks. “I didn’t take none of that money. I don’t care what anybody says, I didn’t take none. And Foster knew that. When he calmed, he got over that idea. He understood I was curious was all, what with the keys right there and all, and him in the shower. And he came back, didn’t he? He came back to be with me.”

  Before I could say anything more, Paycik, without taking his eyes off Marty, pressed his foot down on mine in a clear and painful order to be quiet.

  “That’s right, Marty,” he said. “Everybody knows he came to see you that afternoon. All we want to know now is what time he left.”

  She turned away from him, then slewed her eyes back, looking at him through her lashes. I would bet a lifetime’s supply of Milano cookies she’d practiced that in a mirror.

  “About four.”

  He unleashed his smile on her. “That’s great. That’s real helpful. Of course, if you had something else to tell us, maybe something that Redus said that afternoon about his activities, somebody he’d talked to earlier in the day, we’d be happy to hear it, too.”

  She gave him a direct look. “We had better things to do than talk.”

  I got another nudge from Paycik, and headed to the car without him.

  He didn’t stay long. When he slid in behind the wheel, he shook his head. “She didn’t tell the sheriff that Redus was going to Burrell’s, because she didn’t know. And the same argument applies to her as Mona—if she’d known, she wouldn’t have been so worried Mona might have Redus hidden away, and there wouldn’t have been that cat-fight at the Walmart.” Mike was frowning thoughtfully as he asked, “Next stop?”

  “The sheriff’s substation. Your Aunt Gee.”

  * * * *

  “I’ve been looking for you, Michael.” Gisella Decker glanced beyond the dispatcher’s horseshoe to the deputies’ desks. The only one occupied was Richard Alvaro’s. He was openly listening. She frowned, then relented regally. “I suppose I can tell you, since the sheriff’s setting up a news conference. Though why he doesn’t wait until he knows something for a fact, I never will understand.”

  “Tell us what?” Mike prompted.

  “The gun they found at Tom’s office, the one that killed Mona . . .” She drew in a breath dramatically. “It was registered to Foster Redus.”

  “What?” Mike and I demanded in unison.

  But it only took a second to add that to the pattern that was finally coming together.

  Redus had been using his position as deputy to arrest people, then let loose the ones who could pay. But recently it had become something different. Not a simple bribe, but more elaborate schemes. The big picture. A bigger picture that someone else was painting?

  So he must have been working with someone higher up the food chain. Someone who’d had his own scheme going. A scheme Redus had spotted and horned in on? Someone Redus had met with the last morning of his life. Someone who had known enough about Redus’ plan to confront Burrell to make him a handy scapegoat when Redus disappeared. Someone with enough connections to law enforcement to drop the hint to look at Burrell’s house for evidence of a fight. A fight he knew about because he’d seen Redus’ wounds and had heard his outraged tale just before he smashed in Redus’ skull with the stock of his own shotgun.

  Alvaro walked over to join us. “They’re checking to see if it was also the weapon used to kill Redus.”

  “There are marks on the stock,” Gisella Decker said in a tone that made it clear this was her story to tell. “They’ll test it for DNA. The narrow edge would fit the wounds to Redus’ skull. And, of course, when they recovered the body and the truck, his shotgun was missing.”

  “Aunt Gee, do you remember where Redus was supposed to be the day he disappeared?”

  “He was on liaison at the courthouse, of course, but he stopped by here, bragging about keeping his nose to the grindstone all morning at the sheriff’s office in Sherman.”

  “What time did he get here?”

  “Arrived at four-ten, left at four-thirty.”

  Mike and I exchanged a look, not doubting Aunt Gee’s precision, but in recognition that Redus hadn’t had time to do anything except go directly to Burrell’s ranch, where he’d arrived shortly before five.

  “What are you frowning about, boy?” Aunt Gee’s question brought our attention back to Alvaro.

  “Redus wasn’t in the sheriff’s office all morning.” He looked from Aunt Gee to Mike to me. “I reported to the courthouse first thing that morning to testify, but I ended up waiting around until mid-afternoon. While I was out in the hall in the morning, I saw Redus. He went right in, and stayed there a good hour.”

  “Where?”

  “Judge Claustel’s office.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Ms. Danniher and Mr. Paycik of KWMT to see you, Judge Claustel.”

  His assistant’s announcement was formal and strained. She’d answered the first call we’d made from the car, and had been so uncooperative that we’d called Ames Hunt, asked him to set it up, and sidestepped specifics.

  “And then I’ll be leaving,” she added.

  She did that well, with the faintly aggrieved note clearly exempting her boss and aimed squarely at Mike and me for keeping her into the evening.

  “Of course, of course. And thank you.” It was Hunt playing host. “Come in, Elizabeth. We were just having an after-hours drink. Since this is, as you told me, a strictly informal gathering to clear up mistaken impressions about this case.”

  That was a quarter turn from what I’d actually told him. And what I’d told him had been another quarter turn from the truth. That brought us all the way around to face away from where we were actually heading, enough misdirection to keep everyone at ease. For now.

  Hunt waved us to the guest chairs, now facing the couch, and settled back into the chair pulled around from behind the desk. His sports jacket, neatly hung on a hanger, joined Claustel’s wrinkled robe and shapeless jacket on the antler-topped coat tree.

  “You know Judge Claustel and Sheriff Widcuff, of course,” Hunt added with a nod to the men seated on the couch, Claustel with one arm spread across the back with a studied air of ease.

  “I believe you know Michael Paycik.” Nods all around.

  Claustel lifted his glass, revealing amber liquid. “Would you ca
re for one?”

  We declined.

  I felt suddenly edgier than I had when anticipating this meeting. And then, almost as quickly as I recognized the reaction, I recognized its cause. Just the faintest scent, like a whisper in passing. But it was definitely the remnants of Mona’s strong perfume.

  A surge of adrenaline tingled out to my fingers. Mona’s scent clung to one of the men in this room, woven into the fabric of his clothes so deeply he probably no longer smelled it. From their last encounter, when he shot her at the trailer?

  A noise at the door caught my attention. Mike opened it, revealing Diana, who’d been trying to bump it open with the camera because she had both hands on the strap of her gear bag. She’d been the second call we made from the car.

  I’d asked her if she could get her hands on a camera from the station. She’d said no. But she did have one of her own, even older and bigger than the station’s antiques, that she’d bought on eBay and kept running herself.

  Of course she did.

  “This is Diana Stendahl,” I added. “She’s going to record this. I’m sure you don’t mind, since I’m sure you all are as eager as everyone else in Cottonwood County to straighten out the murders of Foster Redus and Mona Burrell, even if it is done informally.”

  “Always glad to get any unpleasantness with the media straightened out informally,” Claustel said, political smile intact, as he set down his glass on a side table, out of view of the camera. “That’s what’s so wonderful about this part of the country. We don’t have to stand on ceremony, Ms. Danniher. Or do you think we know each other well enough to use Elizabeth and Ambrose?”

  “I’d feel more comfortable with Judge Claustel.”

  I nodded to Diana. She dropped the equipment bag and started taping—and I do mean taping. I hadn’t seen one of those behemoth cameras, complete with attached tape deck, since early in my career.

  “Ah, journalistic integrity.”

  I ignored that, instead opening with a softball question about his working relationship with Foster Redus. I listened with every appearance of great interest as he rolled on about that, then segued to his terrific working relationships with everyone in the courthouse, including County Attorney Ames Hunt and Sheriff Tom Widcuff.