by Midge Bubany
I put off interviewing the rest of Cat’s friends and headed straight up to Prairie Falls. As I slowly made my way on I-94 through the construction traffic, I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror. The grimace on my face mirrored the tightness in every muscle in my body. Finding Hawk’s car abandoned was not good—not good at all.
Chapter 7
Brooks’s cabin was located eight miles northwest of Prairie Falls. The rustic cabin, painted brown with dark-green trim, was set in a wooded lot about a quarter mile from the road. Deputy Austin Spanney, who went by Spanky, came out and stood on the back steps of the cabin. He was six-foot-four and 230 pounds of rock-hard muscle. Hawk was his height, but the last time I saw him he was beginning to look doughy.
Spanky was soft-spoken and polite to everyone he encountered, but any suspects who mistook his gentleness for stupidity and gave him trouble found out the hard way when he flipped them to the ground and slapped cuffs on in one fell swoop.
As I approached he said, “How was Vegas?” He was one of the few people I’d told where I was headed and why.
“Tell you later. What have we got here?”
“When Mr. Brooks arrived this morning about seven, he noticed this door lock had been pried open. Looks like a tire iron or crowbar. Come on in for the tour. Won’t take long. It’s a one-room cabin.”
Before I went inside, I put on footies and gloves so as not to compromise the scene.
“Hey, Betty and Les,” I said to our crime scene investigators dusting surfaces for prints.
Betty said, “Hi. We’re pretty much done here.”
She was a fifty-something, no-nonsense woman whose real name was Catherine Elizabeth Abbott, but prefered Betty. I called her Catherine for a long while before she corrected me—sometimes I still forget.
Les Ruper ignored me. I didn’t take it personally. He looked and acted like a bulldog—grunted a lot, and what he lacked in social skills he made up in job expertise. Betty thought he was autistic.
“I’d like some DNA samples taken,” I said.
“Deputy Spanney already requested it. Got some especially good prints off the fridge door and DNA swabs from various places including the toilet rim. Men give us nice drops of urine with their inability to hit the bowl,” Betty said.
“Ha. Good then.”
Spanky pointed to the table. “Chester Brooks said they ate some of his food—we bagged an empty potato chip bag, three Pepsi Colas, and two empty cans of Dinty Moore Stew.”
“It always amazes me how many burglars stop to eat and drink. Burglary is hard work, I guess,” I said.
Betty snickered. “Then they have to pee.”
Spanky placed his hands on his hips. “We searched the entire property for evidence but didn’t find anything. There are neighbors on each side—both full-time residents.”
I surveyed the one-room cabin. It was only big enough to hold an old plaid couch, one small round table, a full-sized bed, an old four-burner stove, a chipped white porcelain sink, a few cupboards, and a wood-burner for heat. The bathroom, which appeared to have been a remodeled closet, held a toilet and sink, but had no room for a tub or shower.
“Does Brooks use this as a hunting shack?” I asked.
“Exactly, and he stores his boat here too. Brooks uses the public landing on Rodgers Lake.”
“That’s a good walleye lake,” Les said, as he continued to dust the kitchen cabinets.
“Must be only a mile away,” I said.
“That’s about right,” Les said. That’d been the most he’d spoken to me in months, and today I found out he was a fisherman.
“Where does he live?”
“Prairie Falls,” Spanky said. “Yeah, this place is pretty basic. The shower is outside the garage next to the fish-cleaning table.”
“Anything taken from the garage?” I asked.
“Mr. Brooks had it locked up, and it didn’t appear to be broken into.”
“Let’s take a look.”
Spanky picked up the key from the table, and we made out way out to the garage that was more spacious than the cabin. It had white exterior vinyl siding, a cement floor, and room enough for one extra-large vehicle, plus the sixteen foot Alumacraft fishing boat on a trailer parked inside.
Fingerprint dust covered the doorknob and window into the garage. Nothing inside seemed disturbed. When we returned to the cabin, Betty and Les were starting to pack up.
She said, “I have three hundred photos for you to look through.” She chuckled.
“Thanks. Did you use Fluorscein to detect blood evidence?” I asked.
“Yes, and none showed. Now we are on our way to the county garage to take a look at the abandoned Mercedes SUV we had hauled in,” Betty said.
“How did it look?”
Spanky said, “Had a broken taillight is all. Happened somewhere else because the broken pieces weren’t where it was found. I had some deputies search the area, and they didn’t find as much as a footprint, but it rained recently, so whatever was there was wiped out.”
“I’d like to take a look,” I said.
Hawk’s Mercedes had been found three miles from the Brooks’ cabin on an abandoned farmstead, where only a weathered gray house and barn remained. The grove of trees commonly protecting farm buildings from winter’s blast had been removed, and the newly planted field came within ten feet of the structures. We parked along the road and walked in on the gravel driveway so infrequently used weeds were growing in the center. NO TRESPASSING signs had been posted along the drive and on each of the buildings. The windows of the house had been boarded.
“The Mercedes was parked next to the house where it was hidden from the road,” Spanky said.
“Who found it?” I asked.
“The owner, Lyle Nissen. He thought someone parked there and went for a walk or bike ride or something. He put a note on it saying it was private property. When he came back two days later the SUV was still there, his note still under the wiper blade, so he called it in.
“Did you search both buildings?”
“Yeah, nothing there.”
“Was the Mercedes locked?”
“Nope, and no keys were left in it. And because of the rain, there were no tire tracks.”
“Where does Lyle live?”
“Half mile down the road. There was nothing out here—not a cigarette butt, pop can, or even a scrap of paper. I was thorough, Cal, but I have the keys if you want to do a walk through. I know you always say two pairs of eyes are better than one.”
I nodded. I did want to see the scene for myself. It was difficult for me to relinquish control of an important case to a part-time investigator, with far less experience than I had.
We put on booties and gloves and walked through the front door and into the dark. The stench hit straightaway—a putrid odor mingled with the dank and dusty smell of the abandoned structure. But the odor indicated a rodent infestation, rather than a corpse. We flipped on our flashlights to illuminate the rooms absent of anything other than dust and rodent droppings. Mice scurried across the linoleum, curling and chipped. The faded, top layers of tattered wallpaper were chipped away as well.
Spanky shined his light on footprints. “Those are mine.”
“So no one else was in here or their tracks would show in the dust.”
“Exactly. The house has been stripped of any useful materials. He’s going to take these two buildings down this summer, but until then he keeps everything locked up tight to keep the kids out.”
After we looked through the barn, I said, “You’re right about nothing helpful here, Spanky, so let’s go have a talk with Brooks’s neighbors.”
The doublewide trailer was nestled in a small clearing approximately fifty yards in from the road. I quickly ran the plates on the small To
yota pickup parked alongside the residence. It came up as registered to Nathaniel Cook. A very pregnant young woman exited the trailer. Her bellybutton created a bump under her knit shirt stretched tightly over her enlarged belly. We got out of the Explorer and approached the smiley, freckle-faced young woman. After I introduced the two of us she said, “Hi, I’m Tammy Johnson.”
“There was a break-in at the Brooks’s place next door, and we were checking to see if you saw or heard anything recently?” I asked.
Her eyes widened. “A break-in?”
“Have you heard or seen anything out of the ordinary?”
“It’s usually real quiet out here, but one day I heard people talking—I thought Chester had company.”
“You wouldn’t remember the day and time, would you?” I asked.
“Yep, it was a week ago Monday. I was sitting out on the front step getting some sun on my face while I was waiting for my story to come on TV. The Bold and the Beautiful? I was anxious to watch that day to find out what happened. They always leave you hangin’ on Fridays.”
“What time of day was that?”
“Well, my show comes on at twelve-thirty, so just before that.”
“Could you tell how many people you heard?”
“Two or three men.”
“Was there anything distinctive about the voices? Were they speaking in regular conversation tones, or did they sound upset or angry?”
“Regular voices, except one of the guys shouted ‘Hey’ real loud. Then I went inside for my story.”
“Anything else you remember?”
She wrinkled her nose while she thought about it. “Nope.”
“Does Nathaniel live here with you?” I asked.
“Yep. He’s sleeping because he works nights at Estelle’s Candies.”
Spanky took out his notebook and began writing.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“A year.”
“Do you know Chester Brooks next door?”
“Oh, sure, he’s our landlord,” she said. “Nice old guy. He gives us fish and venison, and vegetables from his garden.”
“We should speak with your boyfriend at some point,” I said.
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” She went inside.
I asked Spanky, “How far into the woods did you search?”
“To the property lines. It’s approximately a hundred yards from the trailer to the Brooks cabin.”
“Okay.”
A short, slight man came to the screen door of the trailer.
“Nathaniel Cook?” I asked.
“People call me Nate.” He stepped outside.
He was wearing a white T-shirt, pajama pants, and flip-flops. He yawned and ran his fingers through his hair. He was quick to smile like his girlfriend, and appeared to be a few years older than Tammy.
I asked him the same questions.
“This is the first I’ve heard about Tammy hearing anything.”
“I didn’t know it was a big deal, otherwise I would have told you,” she said.
“So you rent this property from Chester Brooks?” I asked.
“Yes, he owns several acres around here.”
“Does he also own the residence on the other side of his cabin?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. He used to live in that house before he moved to town.”
“Have you met the folks who live there?”
“We tried on two occasions to welcome them, but no one answered the door. So, we kinda gave up.”
“How long have they lived there?”
“Just a couple months.”
“Do you know their names?”
“I think they’re Mexicans,” Tammy said. “I forgot what Chester said their names were. Do you remember, Nate?”
He shook his head. “I feel bad because I’m supposed to keep watch on Chester’s place. I walk over there a couple times a week. I didn’t notice anything. What did they do to it?”
“Not much really.”
I didn’t want to give him details. He could be the one responsible.
“Well, he doesn’t keep much there,” Nate said.
“So you’ve been in Brooks’s cabin then?”
“A few times. He had a fish fry the Saturday night of the opener.”
“Then you need to go to the county jail as soon as possible to have your fingerprints taken and give a DNA sample to tell yours apart from the burglar’s.”
“Cool, I’ve never done that.”
On the drive over to the other rental property, Spanky said, “Why wouldn’t Nate Cook have noticed the back door had been jimmied?”
“Maybe he didn’t go over there to check like he was supposed to—or he didn’t pay close enough attention. Was the door closed when Chester got there?”
“Yeah, but anyone could see the damaged door lock.”
“When was the last time Chester had been there?”
“Last Sunday. He left the place late afternoon about five.”
The white, ranch-style house was not visible from the road. Marigolds and purple petunias had been newly planted in front of the house.
I rang the bell, waited a few seconds and rang again. The door opened and a goliath-sized man wearing a black eye patch stuck his head out. A faint scar above the left patched eye ran through his eyebrow and up his forehead.
The strong aroma of meat, garlic, and onions cooking drifted out the open door. My stomach rumbled in protest of the meal I’d missed. I flashed my badge and said in my most friendly manner, “Hi. I’m Detective Sheehan with the Birch County Sheriff’s Department, and this is my partner, Deputy Spanney. We have a few questions about your neighbor’s property. Might we come in?”
He stared at me with his one good eye—dark as pitch. He let seconds pass while considering my request, then stepped back and opened the door. I’m not used to feeling like the small guy with my six-foot-three, 210-pound frame, but this dude had to be at least six-foot-five. He was wearing a plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots; his long, dark hair was pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck.
I glanced around the living room as we walked through a short hallway into the kitchen. The furnishings were simple and sparse. He went to the stove and turned down the flame under a large pot.
“Smells good,” I said.
“What’s this about my neighbor?”
“May I have your name for the record?”
He lifted the undamaged brow. “Bobby Lopez,” he said.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Lopez,” I said.
I glanced back at Spanky, who had remained in the kitchen doorway a few yards behind me. He nodded at Lopez who returned the gesture. Lopez’s reluctance to let me inside was not unusual, but his demeanor was making my skin prickle.
Lopez picked up a Molson Ice sitting on the gold laminate counter, took a sip, then held it up.
“You boys want to join me?” he asked.
“No thanks, we’re on duty. We just stopped by to see if you had any information about the break-in next door.”
“Break-in? I wasn’t aware there was one.”
“Have you seen or heard anything unusual within the last ten days?”
He narrowed his eyes like he was thinking about it. “I may have.”
When he didn’t elaborate, I said, “And what would that have been?”
“A black Mercedes drove into my yard. I looked out the door, and they backed out.”
Oh, whoa. “When was this?”
“Maybe a week ago.”
“What did this person look like?”
“Couldn’t see because of the glare on the windshield.”
“Was there more than one person inside?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“I’m told you’ve been renting for a couple months. What was your previous address?”
His good eye shifted back and forth, like he was trying to decide whether to tell me the truth or not.
“LA.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“Invest wisely,” he said, with a smirk. “Only renting this place until I can find something I want to purchase.”
“Tell me, Mr. Lopez, have you been in the Brooks’s cabin?”
“Why yes, Deputy Sheehan, I have. I was there to sign the rental agreement, and then a while back he asked me over for beer.”
Was he mocking me?
“Okay, then we’ll need you to go to the county jail to give fingerprints and a DNA sample to eliminate you as the burglar—as soon as possible, please.”
“And that’s necessary?”
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid it is. Well, we won’t keep you. Thanks for your time. And here’s my card if you should think of anything that would help us find who broke in to your landlord’s property.”
He took the card and put it in his shirt pocket. “Not much to steal from that cabin,” he asked.
“Enough.”
He nodded a couple times.
Spanky was already out the door when I turned to ask Lopez, “Anyone else live here?”
“Just me,” he said.
“All right, thanks for your time.”
When I crawled in the driver’s side, Spanky said, “He is one scary, weird hombre.”
“Yes, he is.”
“We’ll want to check him out?”
“We will. First, I’ll drop you at your vehicle back at the Brooks’s cabin. Then I’ll stop by and see Chester Brooks. You’ve put in a long day. You can go on home.”
“Are you taking over the case?” he asked.
“We’ll work it together.”
“But you’re lead?”
“Yeah, I’m lead.”
“Think your buddy could be inside Lopez’s house?”
