Cool Demise

by Stanley Sauerwein

  I leaned back in my chair with my hands behind my head. I kept my cold grin in place. “You look guilty about something, Jean,” I said softly. “You were at Utta’s that day. You were there and so was someone else who drives a Toyota. Dr. Santos does, doesn’t he? And your Jeep was seen at the doc’s that morning.”

  “No,” she replied quickly. “Not at Utta’s and not at the dentist’s.” Calmness swept into her face. “We all thought you had Barney for Utta Podeski’s death. Why are you asking me these questions now?” She smiled. “What’s the matter, Chief? Your case against Barney crumbling?”

  Her blunt assessment hit me hard. My smile vanished and I sat up straight. “Tell me how you were involved, Jean. Things will go better if you talk now.”

  She started laughing which raised my blood pressure a good ten points. “I was at Utta’s a week ago, like I said. I still have some of the bread I bought that day in my freezer. I wasn’t anywhere near the dentist’s office that day. I have no idea when he died, but I’ll bet it was about the time I was on Dr. Phillip’s examination table.” She smiled sweetly. “And unless you can get tread marks from the gravel at his office, or your witness wrote down my license plate number, you can’t prove my Jeep was there, can you? Am I the only person with a white Jeep in this state?”

  I picked up my pencil and bent it until the wood snapped. I stared at her for long seconds. “You think I’m a small town cop out of his depth. Maybe I am. But I know the people in my town and that includes you, Jean. You’re hiding something. You’re guilty about something. It’s plain as the nose on your face.”

  She stood up, waiting.

  “You can go,” I said. “But this isn’t over. Someone killed Utta and someone killed the doc. Your Jeep was at both crime scenes and I’ll prove it.”

  Jean turned quickly. She sort of glided away which riled me even more.

  “I don’t need your statement anymore.” The chief was flipping pages in a manilla folder on his desk as he spoke. “You say you saw a Jeep when you left but it doesn’t mean it was hers. She denies being anywhere near the dentist that day and I can’t prove otherwise.”

  “It has to be hers,” I answered.

  “Like she said, there’s more than one white Jeep in the state of Oregon. You didn’t see who was driving. Could’ve been anyone.”

  “What if I told you I know who was driving?”

  The chief stopped flipping papers and looked up at me, waiting for me to continue. “Do you?”

  I slowly nodded my head.

  “Who?”

  “I can’t tell you yet, Chief. There are some things…”

  “You’re withholding evidence again, damn it! And you broke your promise. You’d said you’d tell me everything you learned but you kept this Jeep business to yourself. Why should I trust you?”

  “I didn’t want to get her in trouble if I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

  “What other secrets are you keeping, Ms. Willoughby? What else have you been hiding?”

  “I need to find something out, Chief. And when I do I’ll tell you everything I know. I promise.”

  The chief smirked. “That’ll be a change.”

  Margaret Santos grew up in Glacier. People told me she was affable and kind, but she had the same sub-surface aloofness everyone in Glacier seemed to have. It was a defensive tactic brought on by living close to other people in a small community, I supposed. A kind of protection. If you’re under everyone’s eye every time you leave the house, you naturally withdraw. You try to keep your secrets private. Keep them your own. I knew I was doing it already and I was still fresh bait for the gossip sharks in Glacier.

  The mac and cheese casserole was Nancy’s idea. I agreed to the age-old custom of food gifts when someone you know has died, and mac and cheese was as comforting a comfort food as I could imagine. We drove to Mrs. Santos’s house in Beauty with Nancy cradling the dish on her lap.

  I fumbled through the gears as we made our way from the older part of Glacier, with its wooden-sided buildings, to the more ritzy Aspen Heights subdivision on the way to the ski hill and where Dr. Santos had built his house covered in fancily-carved cedar shakes. “Jean probably stonewalled the chief,” I said as we reached our final turn to Dr. Santos’s street, passing through the shadows cast by stands of tall aspens. “I didn’t tell McCaffrey I knew it was Pavel in the Jeep, but he knows I know who it was.”

  Nancy sighed and shook her head. “You’re digging a big hole, girl.”

  I pulled my emergency brake after parking on the steep shoulder, and sat still, staring off into the distance of blue mountains. Glaciers gleamed in the afternoon sun, and the Mole River glinted far below.

  I said, “I’m going to tell the chief everything eventually. Honest.”

  “Including what you did with Allan?” Her smile was hopeful.

  “When we find the real killer, Allan’s little white lie won’t matter,” I said, climbing out of the van. “We need to find out if his wife knew about the blackmail. Good cop and bad cop, okay?” I linked an arm in the crook of hers as we walked to the door. “You up for this?”

  Nancy slowly nodded. “Keep it honest, is all I ask. And don’t hurt her feelings. I don’t need more bad karma.”

  I rang the bell; heard the melodic chime inside, and nervously adjusted my floral T-shirt as I waited, tugging the hem over my white leather belt. Margaret answered the door fairly quickly and, after we introduced ourselves, said our consolations, and Nancy passed over the casserole, she led us inside to her living room.

  “Were you his patients?” She motioned for us to sit down. “It’s kind of you to make a casserole the girls will actually eat.” She gave Nancy a weak smile, placing the dish on the coffee table and finding a seat of her own.

  “Your husband often came over to The Grind. It’s a café where we work,” Nancy answered.

  “He liked the ’coffee of the day’ mystery.” She smiled again, wiped at a tear with her hanky and then clapped her hands. “Speaking of coffee, can I offer you two a cup?”

  “Just a quick one. We won’t stay,” I said.

  Neither of us said anything as Margaret bustled in the kitchen. It was warm in the house but we didn’t remove our jackets. She came back with a loaded tray. Three mugs, a jug of cream, and bowl of sugar.

  “Your husband was a kind and gentle man,” Nancy said as she took her mug. “I’ll miss him.”

  Margaret gave a tight smile. “Thank you.”

  “Is his family coming over for the funeral?” Nancy asked.

  Margaret shook her head with a hard swipe. It was like she was batting away the question. “No!” she said vehemently. “He has no other family but us.”

  After a brief pause I looked at Nancy, blinked, and continued. “He was always so thoughtful,” I said. “Muriel at the post office says he sent money orders to the Philippines every month. Must have been friends or charities or something.”

  Margaret’s face spasmed with shock, then set hard as concrete.

  “You didn’t know?”

  Margaret could barely shake her head.

  “That’s what I mean. He was so thoughtful and humble. People say he was the most gentle dentist you could find. That’s what made the bad feelings he had for Utta Podeski such a mystery for everyone,” I continued.

  Nancy held up a hand. “I’m sorry. She’s new in town and …”

  “It’s okay.” Margaret accepted Nancy’s apology for my brashness. “No harm done. That woman was the only person in town he didn’t get along with. It certainly wasn’t a secret.”

  “I wonder why,” I said, sipping my hot coffee.

  “How are the girls handling things?” Nancy’s fast question was an obvious diversion.

  “They’re very upset, naturally,” Margaret replied. “They’re at my mother’s ‘til things have settled down.”

  “He was upset the last time I saw him too. Practically clobbered Mrs. Podeski in The Grind.” I said it like I had no idea it
was inappropriate.

  “Please!” Nancy dropped her cup to the coffee table. “Show a little sensitivity!”

  “Oh! I’m sorry.” I gave Nancy a puzzled wince. “Did I say something wrong?” I looked at Margaret. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Santos.”

  “That incident upset him,” Margaret said. “He and Utta Podeski were cat and dog.”

  “No kidding,” I said. “Ever since they nearly came to blows in the post office over some pages or something. What was that all about?”

  Nancy was visibly shrinking into her cushions.

  Margaret glared at me.

  “She cleaned your house for a while, didn’t she? Everyone says she stole something but wasn’t charged. Your husband was too kind. If that battleax stole something of mine, I’d charge her. You bet I would.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Santos.” Nancy stood up. “We should be going.”

  “What? Did I do it again?” I gave them both my most innocent expression.

  “Utta Podeski did clean for me. For about a month. Then my husband discovered things were missing. Parts of his diary. He had to let her go.”

  “The pages,” I affirmed. I put my coffee mug down on the table and stood up too. “Must have been private stuff for him to get so upset.”

  “She read it and tore out some pages. Yes, it was private.”

  “Did he ever get them back?”

  “Melanie!” Nancy moved to Margaret’s side. “Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?” She draped an arm over Margaret’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “It’s just that everyone is talking about that and—”

  “No!” Margaret finally put her mug down too and stood up. “He didn’t get them back. I told him not to make a federal case out of it. The whole affair was ruining our reputation, for heaven’s sake! What was the point? But he was absolutely livid over it all.” Margaret hugged herself. “I don’t know why.” She sighed heavily. “It doesn’t matter now anyway.”

  “I guess not,” I agreed. “I didn’t mean to get you so upset, Mrs. Santos. Sorry.”

  “Come on.” Nancy clutched my arm and tugged me towards the door. “I’ll send you some metta, Margaret,” she said as she nudged me outside. When we were on the driveway, she practically pushed me over in anger. “That was cruel. Did you have to be so mean?”

  I fished in my pockets for my keys. “We had to find out if she knew.”

  “Not that way!”

  Our sandals slapped back down the driveway, and warmth radiated from a rocky outcrop on the shoulder of the mountain behind us. A chipmunk popped out from behind a rock and then disappeared just as quickly. If this mess ever gets sorted out, I could maybe enjoy living here again. Big if.

  “What’s metta?” I asked as we climbed aboard Beauty.

  “A prayer. White light. Love. Blessings,” Nancy said. “Something pretty far from your mind.”

  “My uncle Barney could use some metta too.” I reached over and gently squeezed Nancy’s thigh. “We had to know, Nance. And now we need to find out what was on those pages. I have to follow up on my deal with Allan.”

  I would have felt more comfortable and safe meeting Allan at the Long Branch but I figured he wouldn’t bring what I wanted to the bar. For the same reason I opted not to meet him in the Lee Hotel restaurant either. I felt reasonably safe meeting him in his room.

  “We had a deal,” he blurted as he snapped shut the hotel room door after I entered. “I tell the cops I was there when your uncle left, and you cough up some cash. Why’d it take so long?”

  His anger at seeing me was expected so I had Su with me on a leash. Su-Jitsu ignored Allan as we entered, sniffing his way into the room. I turned to Allan when I reached the bed and smiled sweetly.

  “We had a deal,” he repeated. He had his hands on his hips, set like he was ready to face off. His arms were bare. His ratty shirt had the sleeves ripped out, and a thread dangled down over his tattoo of an ace of spades. Without really thinking about it, I knew that I’d seen this tattoo on his arm before.

  I lifted Su into my arms. “Relax,” I replied, sitting on his unmade bed. Don’t they make up rooms in this hotel? As though he was only now aware of who we were with, Su gave Allan a short, throaty growl from my arms. “It took me a while to get the money,” I said. I sat Su in my lap and unhooked the leash, stroking him as I spoke. I didn’t expect the little terrier could defend me if Allan decided to get rough, but his sharp teeth might distract Allan long enough for me to get out of the room unhurt.

  “Settle down, Allan,” I soothed, holding up a hand. “We both know you’re in charge here. I won’t do anything to screw up our deal.”

  Mollified but still suspicious, Allan crossed his arms. “Gimme the money.”

  I released my grip on the scruff of Su’s neck. A tense ball of growling fur, he remained on my lap. I opened my purse and pulled out cash. It was all twenties so the wad was quite large. I waved the bills. “Five hundred” All my feeble bank account will let me withdraw in one day. Please let him accept it.

  He eyed the money with a greedy sneer. “That’s not enough. I told you what she’s paying me every month. I want the twelve hundred you said you’d pay.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. He’s so predictable. “This is all I brought with me, but I can get you the rest tomorrow.”

  “Then you’ll get the pages tomorrow.”

  I waved the bills. “I’ll give you this half right now. For a taste.”

  With a chortle, he sat on his only chair and stared, evaluating me. Finally, he spoke as though I’d twisted his arm to make him decide. “There are four pages. I’ll give you two for the five hundred but without a look. No reading ‘em first.”

  “Sounds fair enough.” I dropped the wad at Su’s feet. Allan removed his cellphone from his pocket and set it up on his dresser after turning on the video. “Can’t forget my proof, can I?” He chuckled nastily and moved to a briefcase he had stored in the closet. It had two combination locks which he meticulously turned, shielding the numbers from me with his body. Once opened, he rifled through several folders and removed two pages.

  With a big smile, he turned to the phone’s camera and adjusted his position so we were both in frame. “This is half of ‘em,” he said, holding out the pages in one hand, and his other hand for my money.

  20

  Nancy poured coffee for Bill as I told them about my visit with Allan. As I unfolded the two sheets of torn notebook paper, I made them promise not to tell the chief, no matter what we read. “Not yet. What’s here might be a link to the killer and we still need to find out who that is.”

  Huddled together, we read the pages. What was written on them made no sense. Dr. Santos referred to school grades, something about the fact he’d have loved to see a ‘golden duck’ and that he had to warn ‘Sammy’ about a ‘beamer’ because it was dangerous. He wrote to himself in diary style. He said he knew he wasn’t likely to ever see the ‘duck’ and that despite the ‘beamer’, he was enormously proud of ‘Sammy’. The rest of the pages dealt with his need to replace his ‘hand piece’ and how he couldn’t afford both that and the ring he wanted to buy his wife for their anniversary. Little else. I folded the paper and shook my head. “Well, that was a total waste of money.”

  “Maybe it’s code. What’s a hand piece?” Nancy asked.

  Neither Bill nor I knew. “I’ll Google,” I said, sipping my coffee.

  Bill leaned back in his chair. He tapped his teeth with a finger. “Golden duck and beamer.”

  “Like I said. Code,” Nancy asserted, tapping her teeth as well.

  “Makes me think of Dickens,” Bill replied.

  “Huh?” Nancy and I said it in unison. I fought the urge to unfold the note pages and tap my teeth as well.

  “The Pickwick Papers.” He looked at me and blushed slightly. “I borrowed it,” he said apologetically. “I should have bought it but I figured…”

  “Oh stop that!” I slapped his shoulder
. “What about The Pickwick Papers?”

  “Dickens wrote about a cricket match in one of the chapters. He went out shooting crows.”

  “Rooks,” I corrected. I’d done a paper on the book in college. At least I remembered that.

  “Right. Rooks. Then he went to a cricket match. Lots of crazy terms like googlies and bowls and wickets. These words remind me of all that. Kind of cricket-y.”

  “Cricket?” I asked him incredulously. Bill was surprising me.

  “I can’t remember if he mentioned either of those things in The Pickwick Papers, but it sounds like the kind of words he might have used.”

  “Jeeze, Bill.” Nancy shook her head and gathered the cups to refill them with more coffee. “Why would Dr. Santos write about a cricket game he didn’t see? And isn’t cricket really boring to watch anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” Bill replied. “Just reminded me of Dickens. And why would the doc write about school grades either? Why would they be important to him? It’s sort of British boys’ school stuff, isn’t it?”

  “You’re reaching,” said Nancy. “I think it’s code.”

  Bill shook his head and glanced at me. “Check it out. It’s worth a computer search, don’t you think?”

  After a shoulder shrug I moved to Bookmarks and signed on with the laptop. Sure enough, hand piece is what a dentist calls his drill and both those words were cricket terms. “What’s that supposed to tell us?” I asked.

  Bill was tapping his teeth again. I looked at him and smiled warmly. “The Pickwick Papers?” I laughed as he blushed. “Okay. He’s proud of some kid’s grades. Maybe this Sammy kid is in a boys’ school. And Dr. Santos is all over the moon about some obscure cricket words. What does any of that mean?”

  “You willing to pay Allan the other half of the money to find out what’s on the other pages? It has to be better than this stuff.” Bill was frowning at me as he asked. “It’s a lot of money to risk on something iffy. Don’t forget we still need more books in Bookmarks.”