Last Call

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “Now then,” she said, her smile once again fading. “Let’s talk turkey. I’m guessing you’re here because you finally figured out that Oliver’s wife is a gold digger. I tried to tell that lady detective something might be fishy about Oliver’s death.”

  “What made you think that?” Duncan asked.

  “Well, isn’t it obvious? She’s so much younger than him, and she targeted him the minute he hired her. Hell, she probably targeted him before that, for all I know. And she’s always talking about money—how much Oliver has, how little she has, griping about how unfair Oliver was with the division of assets—and griping about Oliver himself... his weight, his snoring, him smoking those cigars of his. She couldn’t wait for him to kick the bucket, and I’m guessing she decided not to wait any longer.”

  “Did she ever say anything to you about wanting to hurt Mr. Knutson?”

  “She never said anything to me directly. She knew I wasn’t a fan. But I overheard plenty. She liked talking to the younger employees, like Andy and Cheyenne over there.” She jutted her chin toward the windows, toward the girl handling the balloons. “She complained about Oliver to Cheyenne all the time.”

  Midge went on with her diatribe, but I tuned her out. I’d turned to look at Cheyenne, and once again I was distracted by the ceiling above her. My mind started churning, thinking back to things I’d heard, things I’d read. And then it clicked.

  I whirled back to face Duncan, grabbing his jacket sleeve. Midge was still going on about Caroline and her kibitzing, but I interrupted her. “Duncan, I think we can go now,” I said.

  Duncan looked at me, his eyes narrowed. Midge let out a harrumph of annoyance at my interruption.

  “You two aren’t going to listen to me either, are you?” Midge said indignantly. “You think I’m just some old lady who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Well, let me tell you something. I know a whole lot more than you think. You need to . . .”

  As Midge rambled on, I gestured with a nod of my head toward the room’s exit, still maintaining eye contact with Duncan. He didn’t hesitate any longer. “Thank you for talking to us,” he said, interrupting Midge. She opened and closed her mouth several times, like the proverbial fish out of water, glaring at us in disbelief and with a fair dose of contempt.

  “Well, I never . . .” she huffed, placing her hands on her ample hips.

  Duncan slid past me and opened the door to the room, holding it for me. I slipped past him, escaping Midge’s wrath. We could hear her muttering as we walked back toward the front of the store.

  Once we were back in Duncan’s car, he turned to me and said, “Okay, give.”

  “I think Caroline murdered Oliver, and I think I know how she did it. There are some things I need to check. I need to chat with the medical examiner. And if my suspicions are right, we need to figure out a way to pin it on her.”

  I shared my theory with Duncan, and he listened intently. I watched his expression morph from curious and mildly skeptical to excited. It was a look I knew well, one that said he was on the hunt and closing in, about to make his kill.

  When I was finished, he took out his phone and made a call. Minutes later, we were on our way to the ME’s office.

  * * *

  The medical examiner’s office was in the basement of a downtown public office building. I thought we might run into Dr. Al Spencer again, but the pathologist in charge of the Knutson case was someone different, a Dr. Gaines. He met us in his office—a relief for me because I was afraid we’d end up in an autopsy suite with a bunch of cadavers in various states of postmortem ugliness, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to handle something like that.

  The smell of formaldehyde was strong throughout the place, and it triggered a crunching sound, like someone walking in the forest after the autumn leaves have fallen. It also gave me a peculiar headache, a low, throbbing pain in my right temple.

  Dr. Gaines’s office was filled with large textbooks stuffed into a bookcase, sitting on file cabinets, spread out over his desk, and stacked on a chair. Mixed in with the books was an assortment of papers and reports. A quick glance at those closest to me revealed scientific articles related to various aspects of postmortem analysis. This display of educational material left only one empty seat other than the chair behind the doctor’s desk, so both Duncan and I stood on one side of the desk while Dr. Gaines settled in on his side.

  “Sorry,” he said, waving a hand around the room. “I’m not the neatest person, as you can see, and I don’t normally have more than one person at a time visit my office. We can go to a conference or family room if you’d prefer, but because you said you had some theoretical questions regarding Oliver Knutson’s death, I figured it would be more helpful to me to have my resources close at hand.”

  “This is fine,” Duncan said, and I nodded my consensus. “As I said on the phone, I . . . or rather Mack here, came up with an idea about Mr. Knutson’s death, and we wanted to run it by you. But first we have to explain some things to you. For that, I’m going to let Mack take the lead.”

  I went about providing Dr. Gaines with a brief explanation of my synesthesia, a subject he fortunately knew something about. After providing several examples of how it manifested itself for me—including my formaldehyde reaction—I explained to him the odd reaction I’d had to Mr. Knutson’s bedroom ceiling when I looked at it.

  “I had the same reaction earlier today when we were visiting one of Mr. Knutson’s stores,” I went on. “And I think I know why.” I then explained my theory to him, relieved to see he didn’t look skeptical. In fact, he looked intrigued. When I was done, I fell silent, and Duncan and I both stood there staring at him expectantly, waiting for his reaction.

  “It’s brilliant,” Dr. Gaines said after a few moments of silence. He whirled around and started digging through a pile of papers he had on top of a filing cabinet that stood behind his desk. Amazingly, he found what he was looking for in a matter of seconds. Despite the disorganized look of his office, I suspected the man knew exactly where everything in it was located.

  “Take a look at this,” he said, handing several sheets of paper that were stapled together to Duncan. “It’s a printout of an online article I found that was written by the Final Exit Network. Do you know what that is?”

  Duncan and I both nodded. “It’s a group that supports the right to die, or assisted suicide,” I said. “I saw a late-night TV program about it sometime in the past and remembered it when I was in the store. That’s what gave me the idea.”

  “You are correct,” Dr. Gaines said, giving me a broad smile. But his delight quickly faded, his smile dropping into a frown. “Your idea is a good one, but unfortunately, I’m not sure it’s a valid one.” He then explained why.

  I was crestfallen. But the doctor took on a thoughtful expression and said, “Although . . .” Duncan and I waited while he again fell silent. Finally, he said, “It’s possible your theory is correct, but I suspect our Mrs. Knutson may have been too clever for us.” He shared his thoughts on the matter, and when he was done, he sank down into his chair, shaking his head. “Let me think on it for a while, but I don’t think there’s a way for me to prove it. I’ll run it by some of my colleagues as well, to see if they have any ideas, but I’m thinking it’s a lost cause. It’s a pretty foolproof method of dispatch, if I do say so myself.” He sounded as if he bore some grudging admiration for Caroline Knutson.

  A dismal silence fell over the room as the three of us contemplated our inability to prove what I strongly suspected was the truth, and the idea that Caroline Knutson might just get away with murder.

  Then Duncan said, “Well, we may not be able to prove it, but I’m betting Caroline Knutson doesn’t know that.”

  “What are you thinking?” I asked him.

  Duncan shared his thoughts.

  “It’s a long shot,” Dr. Gaines said, and I had to agree with him. “But it’s worth a try. After all, what have you got to lose?”

 
Chapter 23

  After leaving the ME’s office, we headed back to the bar to get something to eat and regroup. Duncan got a call from the taciturn Ms. Parnell, informing him that he had permission to bring me by again to see Felicity.

  “Are you okay with waiting until this evening to do that?” Duncan asked. “I’d like to go pay a visit to Hope’s sister next.”

  “Sure,” I said. The truth was, I really wanted to see Felicity again. The kid had wormed her way into my heart, and I felt a near-maternal urge to see her. But I also recognized the importance of solving the case, both for Mal’s peace of mind and Felicity’s.

  After making fast work of our lunch and checking to see that things were under control at the bar, we set out for Waukesha, which was twenty miles outside of suburban Milwaukee to the west. It took us a little over half an hour to arrive at our destination, a cute little Cape Cod–style home that sat at the base of a drumlin outside of town. It was a bucolic setting, a small, semirural development that hadn’t been completely stripped of its natural beauty.

  There was a car parked in the driveway of Peace Vanderzandt’s home—a good sign for us. Duncan rang the doorbell, and seconds later, a woman answered the door. I felt a surge of excitement when I saw she fit the description of the woman the neighbor had seen visiting Sheldon’s house: shoulder-length brown hair and very buxom. Her eyes and her basic stature matched that of the vital statistics Duncan had come up with for Peace. Except something about her was wrong.

  “Are you Peace Vanderzandt?” Duncan asked.

  “I am,” the woman said, and her voice made me see the little flashing lights one might see on a warm night during the height of firefly season.

  “Are you the sister of Hope Janssen?”

  “What has she done now?” the woman said, and the flashing lights faded to specks of glitter.

  There was an awkward silence of a few seconds while Duncan parsed this question and its meaning. “Ms. Vanderzandt, I’m sorry to inform you that your sister, Hope, is deceased.”

  Peace sighed. “Well, I can’t say I’m very surprised,” she said. “She’s had a substance abuse problem since she was a teenager. She wasn’t exactly a model of healthy living.”

  “May we come in for a moment to chat?” Duncan asked.

  “About what?”

  “There are some things we need to clarify about your sister.”

  Peace sighed again, this time rolling her eyes. “There isn’t much to clarify. She was a loser and a junkie.”

  “There is the matter of her daughter,” Duncan said.

  Peace blinked several times really fast. “Daughter? Hope had a daughter?”

  Duncan looked behind him, scanning the neighboring homes. “Can we please come in?”

  Peace clearly didn’t want to invite us inside. She hesitated, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “I suppose. But I have an appointment in an hour, so it’s going to have to be a short visit.”

  We stepped inside the house, which was decorated in a European contemporary style: lots of gray tones, furniture with sleek, minimalist lines, and a dearth of accessories. We settled onto a low-backed, gray leather couch adorned with two bright red throw pillows—one of the only sources of color in the room—while Peace sat on the edge of a white chair with short wooden legs and a throw in the same bright red color.

  “Your sister died three months ago,” Duncan began. “She and her husband, Sheldon Janssen, had a daughter named Felicity, who is nine years old.”

  Peace opened her mouth as if to say something, but she bit it back. She was sitting ramrod straight, wringing her hands in her lap, clearly nervous. “Yes?” was all she finally said.

  “Felicity was living with her father, but unfortunately, her father has now also passed on, leaving the child an orphan.” Peace showed no visible reaction to this news. “Child Protective Services has made temporary arrangements for the child,” Duncan went on, “but we were hoping to find a family member who might be interested in assuming the child’s care.”

  Peace’s color paled. Something about this conversation had her upset, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Was it the information about Sheldon? Or was she acting when she showed surprise at the presence of a niece, a niece she might know well enough to know she didn’t want to be saddled with her care?

  “I’m hardly in a position to take on a child,” Peace said, flashing an apologetic smile. “I’m single, and at the moment, I’m also unemployed.”

  “I see,” Duncan said. “Are your parents still alive?”

  Peace shook her head. “Our dad died when we were kids, and my mom passed away from cancer fifteen years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, knowing how it felt to be parentless. “No other siblings?”

  Peace shook her head. “You said temporary arrangements had been made for Felicity?”

  Duncan nodded. “She’s been placed with a foster family for now.”

  “Would I be able to see her?”

  Duncan shrugged. “I suppose. But you should understand that your niece has some . . . um . . . unique circumstances. She’s a special-needs child.”

  Peace nodded, seeming neither curious nor bothered by this information. “As I said, I’m not a candidate for motherhood at this point in my life, particularly single motherhood. But I would like a chance to meet my sister’s daughter.”

  “I take it you and Hope weren’t very close?” Duncan said.

  Peace sighed. “My sister and I hadn’t spoken in years. We parted ways a long time ago. She started hanging out with a bad crowd, and when she was using, which was all the time it seemed, she wasn’t a nice person to be around.”

  “So you never met her husband?”

  “I didn’t even know she was married.” The fireflies returned, and I frowned, unsure what to make of this visual manifestation.

  Duncan feigned a look of confusion and said, “One of Mr. Janssen’s neighbors said he saw a woman fitting your description knocking on Janssen’s door a few days before he was killed.”

  Peace let out a nervous titter and swiped her hands down her thighs. “Well, it wasn’t me,” she said, and the fireflies glowed brighter. “What sort of description did this neighbor provide?”

  “He said it was a woman, about your height, with shoulder-length brown hair and, um, a well-endowed chest.”

  Peace laughed. “Well, surely there are hundreds of other women who fit that description,” she said. “I assure you, it wasn’t me.”

  Duncan fell silent for a moment, and Peace fidgeted in her seat. Finally, Duncan said, “Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you.” With that he stood, and I did the same.

  Peace also got up, and she hurried over to the door to show us out. “I really would like a chance to meet my niece,” she said as she opened the door. “Can you arrange that for me?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Duncan said. “I’ll be in touch. Is there a phone number I can use to reach you?”

  Peace hesitated for two blinks, and then said, “Sure.”

  Duncan took the notebook and pen he carried from his jacket pocket, opened the notebook, clicked the pen, and then looked at Peace expectantly. She rattled off a phone number, which he dutifully wrote down. Then he closed the notebook, returned it and the pen to his jacket pocket, and said, “I’ll be in touch.”

  When we were back inside his car, Duncan said, “Something is off with her. Did you pick up on anything?”

  I explained to him about the fireflies.

  “That makes sense. I’m certain she’s lying to us. Did you notice she didn’t question who Hope Janssen was, even though she claimed she didn’t know her sister was married? And she didn’t so much as flinch when I mentioned that Sheldon had been killed; not just that he died, but that he was killed.”

  “What reason would she have to lie about that stuff?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Maybe she’s the one who killed Sheldon. Whatever it is, I’m not letting her anywhere near Felicity until we
figure it out.”

  “There was something else about her that seemed odd to me,” I said as Duncan did a U-turn in the street. “I’m not sure what it was. Something about her appearance.”

  Duncan said nothing, giving me time to puzzle it out. He took out his phone and placed a call, and instructed whoever was on the other end to dig up anything they could find on Peace Vanderzandt. When he was done, he ended the call and looked over at me. “Anything?”

  I shook my head in frustration. “Give me some more time. Maybe it will come to me. In the meantime, can we go see Felicity now? Maybe I can show her the picture of Peace and see if she reacts to it.”

  Duncan took out his phone and handed it to me. “The Varners are in my contact list. Go ahead and make the call.”

  * * *

  Ms. Parnell was at the Varner house when we arrived. Because the woman and I seemed to rub each other the wrong way, Duncan spoke to her to update her on our finding of Peace Vanderzandt, and her reaction to the news about her sister and niece.

  “I was able to get a copy of Felicity’s birth certificate,” Parnell said. “And based on my research, the sister is correct. There are no surviving family members on the mother’s side other than Hope’s sister, and while there are plenty of family members on Mr. Janssen’s side, no one our office has contacted has any interest in taking the girl in or supporting her. As such, we have started proceedings to have her made award of the court.”

  “Does that mean she’ll be placed in an institution again?” Irene Varner asked.

  “Most likely,” Parnell said. “It’s probably for the best. It’s not likely anyone is going to want to adopt her, given her condition and issues. An institution is probably the best place for her.”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed with her, but I didn’t have any other options to offer. If I was in a different position in my own life, I might consider trying to adopt her myself, but the demands of my bar, my single status, and my new job as a consultant with the police department wouldn’t mix well with the demands Felicity’s care would place on me. I felt sorry for the child.