Death at the Door (11 page)

May 31—Door County Memorial Hospital,
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

Lark felt as if he had just fallen asleep when the telephone went off like an explosion beside his head. His alarm clock showed 2:15
A.M
. He groaned and rolled out of bed as he picked up the phone, knowing that a late-night call was never good news.

“Lacey and I will be over to pick you up in ten minutes. Daisy DuBois has been shot,” Joel said, in a hurry to get off the phone.

“Who's Daisy DuBois?” Lark attempted to stretch the phone cord far enough to fish socks and underwear out of the armoire drawer.

“We'll tell you when we pick you up.”

Lark pulled on his clothes and hurried past the Ransons' suite and down the wooden stairs. He made a mental note to call John and beg off the golf game they had scheduled for the morning. Wind whipped through the old maple and cherry trees bringing the smell of rain. He could hear the waves washing up on the shore of Eagle Harbor.

He sat down on a bench in the garden in front of the parking lot. Whoever had designed the garden had placed lights close to the ground throughout the space. The small lights shining up under the shrubs and ferns made the garden look like a fairyland. Sometime during the last twenty-four hours the gardeners had replaced the fading spring bulbs with a sea of blooming annuals. The pond and the little stream that flowed through the garden had been dry the day before. Water now burbled softly over the stones in the stream. He watched three male mallards waddle out from under some ferns near his feet and glide into the little pond. They paddled away from him to the other side of the pond and got out and settled under a bush.

“You boys are better off as you are. Who needs females?” he whispered just as Joel and Lacey pulled into the parking lot.

He jumped in the backseat and Joel pulled out onto south Highway 42.

“Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep but these cases just moved into high gear. The sheriff's office got a 911 call at oh one forty-one from someone at Daisy's home. They heard a faint voice call for help and then nothing. They dispatched the police and an ambulance and found Daisy DuBois lying on her kitchen floor in a pool of blood. She was shot three times; once in the head and twice in the back. She was still alive when they got there but just barely. They took her to Door County Memorial.”

“Who the hell is Daisy DuBois?” Lark asked.

“Rose Gradoute's sister. Paul Larsen's interior decorator and off-and-on lover. Her house is up the road, just north of Ellison Bay. Skewski's there and I have another crime-scene team double-timing it up here from Fond du Lac. It looks like she surprised a burglar and was shot and left for dead. We're headed down to Door County Memorial to see if we can get anything from her, and then we'll go to the scene.”

They discussed the Larsen case until Joel pulled into the nearly empty emergency-room parking lot at the hospital. The ER waiting room was quiet with only two elderly people sitting in front of a television. The patient care area was a beehive of activity and noise. They could hear Gene's voice shouting for a fourteen-gauge needle and they saw a nurse run to the supply cart, grab something, and run back behind the curtain. They introduced themselves to the clerk sitting at the desk, and she got up and went behind the curtain.

“Tell them I'll be out to talk with them as soon as I get her out of here,” Gene yelled.

They sat down in the ER waiting room and watched the last half of an old
Rockford Files
. As James Garner faded into the sunset, they heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter.

They were drawn to the ER entrance to watch it land. The crew climbed out of the helicopter while the rotors were still working and pulled the stretcher out onto the landing pad. They watched the crew trot into the ambulance entrance with a stretcher. Ten minutes later they watched as Daisy was loaded on the helicopter. Just as the helicopter took off, Gene yelled for them to come on back to the treatment room.

Blood was everywhere. The linens that had been thrown in a tripod hamper were soaked with blood and the floor around the cart was strewn with bloody gauze dressings. Bloody footprints ran in helter-skelter patterns around the room. Gene was sitting on a stool bent over a counter. He had a telephone tucked under his ear and was riffling through a sea of papers. His shoes, scrubs, and lab coat were splotched with blood.

“Let me finish dictating and I'll fill you in.” He turned away from them and began mumbling into the phone. It seemed like minutes but it was only seconds before he was done.

He headed down the ER back hall and motioned for them to follow. They ended up in a small room that had been turned into a combination sleeping room and lounge to give the ER physicians some respite time during their twenty-four hour shifts. Gene motioned them to sit down. He pulled a fresh lab coat out of a locker and threw his old one in a hamper. He sat down at the table and passed around a stack of foam cups and the coffeepot. They all poured themselves a cup even though the thick black coffee looked as if it had been there for hours.

“Your victim was unconscious and shocky when she came in. She was shot three times. One shot went clear through her back. It's a miracle that it didn't hit anything vital. Another shot nicked her lung. We put in a chest tube to get her lung expanded and two more tubes to keep her chest drained. Both entrance wounds were posterior.” He took a sip of coffee and gave Lacey a tentative smile. It wasn't returned. “From the scene the paramedics described she must have been running from whoever shot her. She also had a lot of blood on her knees, as if she had crawled after she had been shot.”

“We'll need her clothing,” Lacey said.

“The nurses saved it.” Gene shot her another smile. It turned to a frown when Lacey ignored it.

“We heard she was also shot in the head,” Joel said.

“She was and she must be the luckiest woman alive. The bullet entered the left parietal area and fractured her skull, but it didn't go through the bone.” He looked at their puzzled faces and got up from the table. “Let me go get her films. It's much easier to understand if you look at them while I'm trying to explain. I'll be right back.” He left the room.

Lacey got up to make another pot of coffee. Lark and Joel sat staring down at the table, thinking their own thoughts about this latest development. They didn't have a clue about who had murdered Paul Larsen or who was committing the summerhouse robberies. They both wondered if this new shooting was an isolated incident or related to one or both of the other crimes.

“Joel, what else did the sheriff tell you about the scene?” Lacey asked, once the coffee was under control.

“He said the place was trashed and there's blood everywhere. He says it's the most grisly scene he's seen in years. Even worse than some MVAs.”

“Wonder why someone would want to kill Daisy DuBois?” Lacey asked as she refilled everyone's mug.

“Who the hell knows? At least we've got a theory on Paul Larsen.”

“What is it?” Lark asked.

“What's what?” Joel jerked around and looked at Lark.

“What's your theory on why someone murdered Paul?”

“Paul crossed someone who wanted to develop their land,” Joel said.

“And they murdered him?” Lark narrowed his eyes, considering Joel's response.

“You got a better idea?” Joel snapped. “If you do, let's hear it.”

Lark threw his hands up. “I don't know enough about the case to begin to have a theory. I'm just skeptical that someone would risk stabbing and shoving someone off a cliff on a golf course on a busy Sunday morning over land rezoning.” Lark shrugged his shoulders. “What if he didn't die? What if someone saw him? That golf course was very busy. I still can't believe no one saw a thing. Why not just try and bribe someone on the zoning commission rather than take the risk of going to prison for murder or attempted murder?”

Gene walked in the room with the X-ray films, cutting off their discussion. “Sorry it took me so long. We just got a kid who's being worked up for appendicitis.” He mounted the films on the light box on the wall. “The bullet entered here.” He pointed to the left side of the Daisy's skull film. “It hit the skull and created a slightly depressed skull fracture, but then deflected around her skull.” He moved his finger around her head and then moved to another film. “It came out here, just above her left eyebrow. It never entered her brain. You can't get much luckier than that.” He smiled at them.

“Only a doctor would be this thrilled over someone getting three gunshot wounds including one to the head,” Lacey said.

All three men glanced at her, saw the angry expression on her face, and looked away hoping that her mood would go away if they ignored her.

“I do think she's lucky. There's a good chance she won't have any brain damage from a gunshot wound that could have killed her or made her a vegetable. The exit wound is very near her left eye, but as far as we can tell, her eye's unharmed. Her pupils are equal and they react to light the way they should. She's going to need a lot of plastic surgery but she will probably be okay.” He pulled the films down and slid them into a large yellow folder.

“Where did you send her?” Joel asked. “We need to talk with her ASAP.”

“I sent her down to the trauma unit at University Hospital in Madison. They'll be able to deal with her medical issues and do an immediate assessment of her plastic surgery needs. One of the other gunshot wounds exited through her left breast. She's going to need reconstructive surgery there as well.”

“When can we talk to her?” Joel repeated.

“Not for a while. She's intubated.” Gene noticed Joel's puzzled look. “She's got a breathing tube down her throat and she's hooked up to a ventilator that's helping her breathe, so she can't talk. I gave her medication to paralyze her so she won't thrash around and hurt herself or use too much energy to breathe. She's on a continuous IV morphine drip for pain and another IV drip of medication to relax her. She's lost a lot of blood so she's also getting blood and IV fluids to keep her from going deeper into shock. She isn't going to be talking to anyone for several days. The goal right now is to make sure she lives.” Gene asked Lacey to stay behind and walked Lark and Joel out to the ER waiting room.

He returned to the lounge, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat down at the table across from Lacey. “I want to apologize for what happened last night.” He tried to catch her eye but she looked away. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“You could have fooled me.” She got up from the table and paced around the room.

“Part of it was the alcohol.”

She walked over and slammed her hands down on the table, finally looking him in the eye. “I told you then and I'm telling you now: I know you didn't have that much to drink. What was the other part?”

It was his turn to look away. “I hate to admit it but you're right. I see a beautiful woman and I immediately want to go to bed with her.”

“You think you're the only one? Everyone has occasional attractions. What separates them from you is a little thing called impulse control.” Lacey threw up her hands, walked away from the table, and paced the room.

He watched her, a great deal of pain in his eyes. “Lacey, how can I make this up to you? I don't want to ruin what we have.”

She whirled around to stare at him. “You really don't get it, do you? You've already ruined it. If you wanted to be with someone else, all you had to do was tell me that you wanted to take a break. You could have told me you wanted us to see each other casually. Or, hell, why not try the truth for a change and just tell me that you found someone else you were interested in? I would have understood and respected that. You can't fix this because you've been dishonest and now I don't trust you.”

“I understand that I broke your trust, but how do I get it back?” A hint of irritation had entered his voice.

Before she could respond, an RN from the ER stuck her head in the door. “We're calling the surgery crew back in. This kid's white count is sky-high and his CT scan is positive. He needs surgery.”

Gene glanced down at his watch and back up at Lacey. “Can we talk about this later?”

Lacey stopped pacing. “I'll make this quick and easy. We may be friends in the future when I get over being angry, but not now. I'll try and drive over today to get my stuff. I'll leave my key on your kitchen counter.” She walked out the door, not giving him a chance to respond.

She met Lark and Joel in the lobby. They could tell by her face that they would be taking a big risk if they asked any questions about her discussion with Gene. Neither of them brought it up. They decided it was pointless to drive to Madison now to try to interview Daisy. Joel called the state police office in Madison and asked them to work with the University of Wisconsin police to have a guard with Daisy at all times and to limit visitors to her immediate family.

They decided that their best course of action was to drive up to Ellison Bay and go over the scene. Joel had received a call from the evidence technicians when they'd got to the house. They'd confirmed that the place was a mess and they had called for another team to come up and help them. Joel sped north up the peninsula at a record pace since there wasn't any traffic on the roads. The only sign of life could be found in the lighted dairy barns they passed.

Between Ellison Bay and Gills Rock, Joel turned west off Highway 42 onto a blacktop road called Highland Drive. It wound through a dense forest of pines into a clearing that overlooked the lake. They turned onto a gravel road and pulled into a circular drive in front of a two-story stone house perched on a steep cliff overhanging Lake Michigan. The gables and rooflines of the house made Lacey think Hansel and Gretel might have lived there.