Improbable Cause (2 page)

“So you’re actually

Mrs.

Rush, then?“

She nodded.

“What happened this morning, Mrs. Rush?”

Faint color had crept back into her cheeks, but now it faded suddenly. “It was awful,” she answered.

“Tell us about it. When did you get here?”

“Five to eight. The time I always do unless the bus runs late. That was one of the things Dr. Fred insisted on. Be here on time or early. Don’t be late.”

“The office opened at eight?”

“Yes, although we usually didn’t start booking patients until eight-thirty. The lights were on when I got here, but the door was locked. I assumed Dr. Fred must have come in and then gone back out for some reason.”

“You didn’t look in the back room?”

“No. I had plenty of work to do out here.”

“And you didn’t go down the hall?”

Debi Rush shook her head. “I started calling to confirm today’s appointments. Then, just before the first patient was due, I went in to set up the tray.”

“What time was that?”

“Twenty-five after eight. Around then, I guess.”

“And that’s when you found him?”

“God, it was awful! All that blood! I couldn’t believe it. I mean, he was so alive the last time I saw him.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I called 911.”

“Right then?”

“I don’t remember. It must have been right then.”

“Our records show that the call came in at five to nine a half hour later.”

Debi Rush looked at me in seeming disbelief. “A half hour? Really? Maybe I was in shock,” she offered. “Or maybe I fainted or something. I don’t remember. The first thing I do remember is the aid car showing up.”

A two-toned bell chimed, telling us someone had entered the outer office. A moment later the uniformed officer knocked on the door. “Mrs. Rush, your husband is here.”

“I asked him to come pick me up,” Debi Rush told us. “I couldn’t stand riding home on the bus, not today. Not after what’s happened. Are we almost finished?”

I looked at Al Lindstrom, who was leaning casually against the wall near the door, his thick arms crossed. He shrugged. “Not quite,” he answered.

She glanced at me. “We’ll need a few more minutes,” I told her.

Debi Rush got up and hurried out of the room. I glanced back at Big Al.

“She’s lying,” I said.

He nodded. “That’s what I thought, too. Now all we’ve got to do is find out why.”

That’s really what this homicide job is all about. If we can figure out who’s lying and why, we can usually find out who the killer is.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Anyone who’s seen my desk will understand that I’m a longtime subscriber to the old adage that a clean desk is a sign of an cluttered mind. While Debi Rush was out of the room, I grabbed the opportunity to examine Dr. Frederick Nielsen’s gleaming rosewood desk. It was remarkably clean. Disturbingly clean.

No absentminded doodle or marauding paper clip marred the unblemished green felt of Dr. Fred’s ink blotter. The wooden surface was polished to a high gloss, and no speck of dust or smudge of fingerprint appeared on the shiny brass pen holder or the heavy marble ashtray which sat, side by side, at the top of the immaculate desk.

Six file folders with their name labels clearly visible lay in a deliberately cantilevered stack on the leather-framed blotter. On top of the files sat a neatly typed listing of the day’s scheduled appointments, a detailed inventory of the patients and people Dr. Fred would have seen in the course of that Monday. If he hadn’t died first.

So Dr. Frederick Nielsen had been a neat freak—either that, or downright compulsive. Behind the gleaming desk sat a matching rosewood credenza. On it were two wooden baskets marked in and out. A stack of unopened envelopes waited in the in basket while three additional file folders rested in the out. On top of those folders was another piece of paper, lying facedown. Using the tip of my pencil, I flipped the paper over. It proved to be an additional typed schedule, this one labeled Saturday, July 14.

Studying the schedule, I quickly jotted down the list of names and times into my notebook: 8:30 A.M., Grace Simmons, root canal. 9:00 a.m., Don Nuberg, two fillings. 10:00 a.m., Reece Bowers, cleaning. Beneath the patients’ names were two more notations, one typed and the other handwritten. The typed one said, “10:30, Larry Martin, Damm Fine Carpets.” The second, carefully printed in black ink, said nothing but “LeAnn.”

As far as Dr. Nielsen was concerned, LeAnn evidently needed no last name to identify her.

It was safe to assume she wasn’t a patient. Her name wasn’t listed on any of the Saturday file folders in the out basket. According to the schedule, LeAnn had been due in the office at twelve, well after the carpet installer was supposed to have finished with the carpet, and after Debi Rush should have gone home.

Beneath LeAnn’s name were several more notations, all in the same precise printing: shoes, groceries, tickets, flowers. Dr. Nielsen had evidently used the written schedule as a personal “to do” list as well as a tool for keeping track of his daily appointments.

Big Al stopped prowling around the desk long enough to peer over my shoulder and examine the list himself.

“What about this LeAnn?” I asked, tapping the name with the tip of my pencil. “A girl friend maybe?”

Al nodded. “Like as not. This guy was so organized he probably couldn’t get it up if it wasn’t written on the schedule.”

That made me laugh. Big Al and I had been thrown together and packaged as a temporary team right after my other partner, Detective Ron Peters, was injured. We had worked together now for several months. I was learning to enjoy the big Norwegian’s square-headed sense of humor, as well as to ignore his sometimes surly attitudes.

Debi returned to the small office, bringing with her a lanky, loose-jointed young man who looked a whole lot more like a beardless high school basketball player than someone only two years away from being a real, live, grown-up dentist. College kids seem to look younger with every passing year.

It’s one of the hazards of growing older.

“This is my husband Tom Rush,” Debi said to me, urging the reluctant young man forward. “These are the two detectives I was telling you about.”

I held out my hand. “J. P. Beaumont,” I said. “And this is my partner, Allen Lindstrom.”

Tom Rush nodded politely to each of us, but the hand he extended was cold and clammy. It was like shaking hands with a long dead mackerel.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Tom Rush said, shuddering with dismay. “I just can’t believe it. And like this, too. Murdered.”

“I’m sure it’s a shock to you. Murder is always a shock,” I told him. “We’ve been asking your wife some questions, and we’re not finished. Would you mind waiting outside for a few more minutes?”

Tom Rush put it in reverse and backed toward the door. “No problem,” he answered quickly. “I don’t mind at all. I’ll be right out here, if that’s okay.”

He stumbled all over himself escaping the small office. It struck me that Tom Rush was either incredibly shy or terribly nervous. I couldn’t tell which.

As soon as the door closed behind her husband, I turned back to Debi Rush. “Who’s LeAnn?” I asked.

She paused for a moment. “His wife, I guess,” she said.

“You guess? You mean you don’t know? You must be fairly new here if you don’t know his wife’s name.”

“I mean I guess they’re still married,” she added quickly. “They were separated. I don’t know if the divorce was final yet.”

“As far as you know, then, his wife would still be the next of kin?”

Debi Rush nodded.

“Any idea where we can find her?”

“No.”

“Did you see her at all on Saturday before you left?”

“No. Why would I?”

“She was due here at noon.”

“She was?” Debi Rush seemed surprised.

“And she didn’t get here before you went home?” I asked.

Debi shook her head. “No, I didn’t even know she was…”

“But that’s what it says on the schedule.”

Debi stopped abruptly and took a deep breath. A slight flush colored her pale cheeks. “Then Dr. Fred must have written it down himself.” she answered firmly. “I know I didn’t put it on the schedule, and she wasn’t here when I left.”

“You said they were separated. Is she still living in the family home?”

Debi shook her head. “No, she took the kids and moved out.”

“Kids?”

“Two of them. A boy and a girl. Seven and eight.”

“So where are they staying?”

“In one of those shelters someplace.”

“What kind of shelter?”

“You know, one of those places for battered women.”

“A domestic violence shelter? Was LeAnn Nielsen a battered woman?”

“You mean, did Dr. Fred beat her?” Debi Rush’s eyes struck sparks of anger. “Never. He wouldn’t have done that. He said her lawyer probably suggested it in hopes she’d get a better settlement.”

“Do you know which shelter? We’re going to have to locate her to tell her what’s happened.”

Debi shook her head. “I don’t have any idea. Dr. Fred didn’t either. I know he tried to find her when she first took off, but they keep the location of those places a secret.”

“Right,” I said. “Is there anyone else, any other relatives that you know of, who might be able to help us locate her?”

Debi shrugged. “His mother, maybe.”

“His mother? What’s her name?”

“Dorothy, I believe that’s her first name. She always called herself Mrs. Nielsen whenever she called here and talked to me.”

“And where does she live?”

“With Dr. Fred. She’s lived with them for several years now.”

“What’s the address?”

“Green Lake Way North, 6610. It’s one of those big old houses facing the lake.”

“You haven’t made any effort to contact her, have you?”

“No,” Debi answered.

“Do you think she’d be at home?”

Debi shook her head. “Maybe. I haven’t tried to call. One of the officers told me not to, not until someone had notified her in person.”

“Right,” I said. “Detective Lindstrom and I will be taking care of that just as soon as we finish here. Now, let’s go back to Saturday morning for a minute. What happened after the last patient left?” I glanced at my list. “Reece Bowers, I think his name was. Cleaning only.”

For some reason Debi Rush looked down at her hands and smoothed the front of her skirt. “Nothing,” she said. “Like I told you, after he left, we just waited for the installer to get here.”

“We. You mean you and Dr. Fred. Did you talk while you were waiting?”

She shrugged. “I guess,” she said, “but I don’t remember what about.”

There it was again, some tiny alarm inside me, sounding a warning, telling me that Debi Rush was lying through her teeth. But why? What was she covering up? Who was she protecting?

“Where did you wait?” I insisted, pressing for more detail. “In here? Out by your desk?”

“Here,” she answered quickly, nodding toward a short couch that sat opposite the desk. “I remember now. He dictated a couple of letters, and then we talked.”

“About?”

“Things,” she answered evasively. “He wanted to know how Tom was doing in school, stuff like that. But then as it got later and the installer still wasn’t here, he started getting more and more upset.”

“Did that seem unusual to you, for him to be disturbed because someone was late?”

“That’s just the way he was,” she said.

“Was anything out of place at the time you left? For instance, what about the plant in that one examining room. Was

it

broken?“

“No. It was fine. I put it up on the counter just before I left to keep it out of the installer’s way, but it wasn’t broken.”

“What about this morning when you came into the office. Was there anything out of place when you came to work?”

“No,” she replied. “Not out here. Everything seemed to be fine until I went down the hall.”

“What about the door from outside, was it still locked?”

“As far as I know, both of them were.”

“Both?”

“There’s another door that you may not have seen. It leads from the second examining room and goes directly out into the parking garage. That’s the way Dr. Fred usually came into the office.”

“But you didn’t use that door?”

She shook her head. “I ride the bus, so I don’t use the garage. My key is to the front door.”

“When you came in this morning, didn’t you notice the smell?” Al asked. There was a thinly veiled tone of sarcasm in his voice. I noticed it. Debi Rush didn’t. She shook her head.

“My allergies have been acting up for the last two months. I haven’t been able to smell anything for days.”

“All right,” I said. “One more time. Tell us once more what you did when you got here today.”

“Like I said before, I called today’s list of patients to confirm their appointments, then I came in here and dusted, the way I always do. I always tried to have the dusting done before Dr. Fred got here. And I put the schedule and today’s files on his desk. Dr. Fred liked everything orderly.”

“You dusted?” I focused on that. In this day and age dusting didn’t sound like something that would still be in any self-respecting dental assistant’s job description.

Debi continued. “Every morning. In here, at least. And I polished his desk, too. The whole thing. That’s one of the reasons I got along so well with Dr. Fred. I was always on time, and I was willing to do whatever he wanted.”

“So much for fingerprints,” Big Al grunted under his breath, but I went on with the questions.

“What about the patient files from Saturday?”

“What about them?”

“Shouldn’t they have been refiled? They’re still here in the out basket.”

“I was going to put them away just as soon as I set up Dr. Fred’s tray. That’s when I found him, and I—” She broke off suddenly, too overcome by emotion to continue.

I glanced at Big Al, who looked disgusted. He doesn’t have a very high tolerance for tears. “Anything else you want to know at the moment?” I asked him.

Al shook his head. “Not that I can think of right now. Maybe later.”