Authors: Jon A. Jackson
“We’d have to talk to Imp. Luck.” Tucker seemed eager to pursue that. “There might be questions he’d have to answer.”
“But would Luck cooperate?” Mulheisen asked rhetorically. “Mightn’t he say too much, about other questionable issues? If he felt threatened, I mean?”
“Ah. I see what you mean,” Tucker said. He seemed more composed now, collaborative. “Well, that’s something we can face when and if it arises. But he’ll have to answer for Connie, won’t he? That’s really, after all, a separate matter. Yes, I think it could be managed.”
He gestured toward the bottle and Mulheisen nodded. Tucker poured himself a sizable jolt, then drank. “Ah, that’s not such bad stuff,” he said, “though a little commercial. I prefer the single malts. You don’t drink, sergeant?”
“Where was Luck when the bomb went off?” Mulheisen asked.
“Fishing,” Tucker said. “He had an alibi.”
“Who attested to it? One of his men?”
Tucker shrugged. “It seemed to be substantiated. It would be hard to dispute.”
“I wonder,” Mulheisen said. “There must have been some kind of trail associated with the explosive, the truck that was used, the other men involved.”
“Oh, we’ve gone over that meticulously,” Tucker said. “No witnesses could identify the accomplices. The truck was stolen, no fingerprints. It was a well-planned job. No, we’ve found that to be a dead end.” The Colonel spoke confidently now, recounting the details of the incident. “The explosives were common materials, nothing that could be traced. No pattern that could be associated with known bombers, particularly. We’ve been all through that.” He nodded at Mulheisen. “That’s something you might be able to help us with, though, if you came on board, Mul. You might see something that we missed, as thorough as we have been.”
“What’s this group that Luck runs?” Mulheisen asked.
“Well, again, it’s . . .” Tucker hesitated. “Well, it’s just a local patriot group. They’re just conservative types, like a lot of good, ordinary, staunch citizens. He calls it the Holy American Flag and Farm, Hunting and Fishing Society, or something like that.” He laughed lightly. “It’s a kind of joke, I think. A bunch of guys get together and drink beer. A night away from the wives. The government doesn’t pay much attention to it: it’s harmless, releases some tension, some crankiness about government. Hell, it’s an American tradition to complain about government.”
“It’s not a mask for something more serious?” Mulheisen asked.
“No. I don’t think so,” Tucker said confidently. “Hey, I’ve known Imp for years. He’s got some beefs, some of them legitimate. But he’s been a loyal citizen.”
Mulheisen looked up at Joe. “Do you have anything?”
“Me? No,” Joe said. “I’ve heard enough. What do you want to do with this guy?” He gestured at the Colonel. “Lose him?” Then he laughed. “Just kidding, Colonel. Well,” he said to Mulheisen, “have you got room? I don’t think this guy is fit to drive, and I’m tired.”
“Yeah, there’s room,” Mulheisen said. “That all right with you, Tucker?”
“I’d like to call my people,” Tucker said. “Get them to stand down. I’m sure they’ve been anxious.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’re used to it,” Mulheisen said. “You can call them in the morning. Is that all right?”
“Ah, yes. Sure. So, where do we . . .?”
Mulheisen pointed to the loft. “There’s beds up there. Bedding. It’s comfortable enough for hunters, I guess.”
“Well, since we’re not going anywhere,” Tucker said, reaching for the bottle again, “join me in a nightcap?”
“No, thanks,” Mulheisen said. “Well, get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we’ll go get those records on Constance Malachi. Okay?”
“All right,” the Colonel said agreeably. He drank, standing by the table. “Well, I’m glad we had this talk. You’ve given us a good direction here, Mul. Maybe something will come of it. It’ll clear the air, at least. See, I knew you’d be a good guy to bring in.”
16
Dogged
H
elen drove out to the Mulheisen place first thing in the morning. She got there early, a little after eight. She’d been prepared to have to wait, but she saw that the household was up and moving about. Mrs. Mulheisen was quite perky and friendly. She was just finishing her breakfast and invited Helen to have some tea and toast with her before she went on her morning walk. Helen had introduced herself as a friend of Mulheisen’s, which both the nurse and the mother accepted without question, although Mrs. Mulheisen soon began to probe the nature of this association.
“You’re very young,” Mrs. Mulheisen said. “How long have you known Mul?”
“Oh, not long,” Helen said. “I met him a couple of years ago when he was investigating a case about a colleague, a man named Grootka.”
“Oh, I remember Grootka,” Cora Mulheisen said. “Rather a formidable fellow, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t know him,” Helen said. “I was just administering a foundation. One of our grantees was researching a history of the police department, and she got interested in Grootka’s career. Which was how your son came into it.”
“Ah. Well, tell me, dear, are you married?”
Helen smiled. “No.”
“Goodness, why not? You’re very pretty.”
“Well, I guess I’ve just been busy,” Helen said.
“Mul isn’t married either,” Cora said. “I’ve given up nagging him about it. In fact, I despair of him ever getting married. Probably too late for grandchildren now.”
“Well, he’s a fine fellow,” Helen said. “I wouldn’t despair, if I were you.”
“Do you think so?” The old woman sized Helen up out of the corner of her eye. She seemed to like what she saw. “Well, we’ve finished the tea,” she said, “and it’s a fine day. Not too late to see a few birds. Why don’t you join me?”
Helen agreed. The nurse said she would accompany them, but she soon fell back, obviously happy for Helen to walk with her charge while she herself had a cigarette.
Mrs. Mulheisen carried a set of small binoculars. She seemed quite agile for a woman of her age who had recently suffered a serious accident. She walked slowly. She explained that when looking for birds one always walked slowly, often stopping. “They’ll come out, if you just wander,” she said.
“Does Mul enjoy the birds?” Helen asked.
“I think he likes the idea of bird-watching, but he’s never really gotten into it. I don’t push it. If you try to get a child to like something they’re sure to hate it. Maybe when he gets a little older. He’s gone off, up north, to some little town called Queensleap.”
“What an odd name,” Helen said.
“The people there are even odder, it seems,” Mrs. Mulheisen said. She paused on the path and focused her glasses, scanning across the waist-high marsh grass. More to herself than to Helen, she muttered, “Birds hibernating! What nonsense!”
“What’s that?” Helen said.
Mrs. Mulheisen explained the cockamamie theory of the fellow up north, as it had been told to Mulheisen. “It’s absurd,” she said.
“Why on earth is Mul up there?” Helen asked.
“Oh, it’s something to do with terrorists,” Cora said. She lowered the glasses and moved on, alongside Helen, toward the channel. “He’s wondering whether to get involved in this investigation the government is doing. A fellow named Tucker is heading it up. Nothing will come of it, I daresay. But it’s good for Mul to get out of the house. It’s ridiculous for him to retire at his age. He’s really not very old . . . in his prime, one might say . . . the child of my old age. A man can go to seed without something to occupy his time and energies. Well, he does spend a good deal of time on his study.”
Helen seemed puzzled, so Cora explained. “You doubtless saw the little cottage that’s going up out near the barn.”
Helen looked where she pointed. She had noticed it, a small building, hardly large enough to be more than a single-bedroom house, with a four-sided roof. She hadn’t realized, she said, that it was on their property.
“Oh, yes. We have several acres here,” Mrs. Mulheisen said. “It was supposed to be just a kind of glorified hut. Mul needed some place to go smoke his cigars. The poor boy won’t smoke in the house, although I don’t mind, as long as he doesn’t smoke too many. He used to smoke one or two in the evening, when he was living here. Well, he got involved, as one will, with the project. He’s over there at all times, bothering the contractor. The project has grown. I’m amazed at how quickly it went up, but now of course the contractor is doing the interior, and that takes forever. I hope I’m not dead before it’s finished.”
Helen hastened to assure her that it was obvious that she would be around for many years to come. But Mrs. Mulheisen waved that away with a careless gesture.
“If I linger too long, the hut will be a mansion,” she said. “I think Mul’s planning to live there once it’s done, now that I’m so much better. Well, it’s a good project for a man. It would serve as a honeymoon cottage.”
Helen didn’t rise to this bait. “Still, I’d think bird-watching would interest him, with an expert at hand to point out the various species,” she said. “Wasn’t he interested as a boy?”
“Why, I don’t know that he was,” Mrs. Mulheisen said. “Perhaps he might have been, but I only took it up late in life myself. The poor boy doesn’t know a hawk from a handsaw. Now this young fellow who came by the other evening, one of Colonel Tucker’s young men, he immediately fell into it. We were fortunate enough to chance upon a marsh hawk. A very handsome and dramatic bird, a male—”
“What was his name?”
“Well, the American Ornithological Union now prefers the term ‘northern harrier,’” Mrs. Mulheisen said, “but it’s the same old
Circus cyaneus,
of course. The A.O.U. keep messing with these names. They even tried to change the Baltimore oriole to the northern oriole, but that didn’t go over. They claimed it was the same as the Bullock’s, but that’s nonsense.”
Helen was momentarily baffled. She had no idea what the woman was talking about. Then she caught on. She laughed. “I’m sorry, I meant the young man.”
“What about him?” It was Mrs. Mulheisen’s turn to be baffled. “He didn’t seem to know much about birds either, but at least he was interested, I could tell. He even borrowed my binoculars to look at the hawk. It was sitting on a post along the river channel. Maybe he’ll be there again today. They’ll do that, you know, come back to the same perch, although most of the time these marsh hawks are tireless fliers, working over the fields, looking for a mouse . . .”
“He didn’t tell you his name? The young man? Was he sort of small and dark?”
“Why, yes. Very handsome, very lively little fellow,” Cora agreed. “Actually, he rather resembled you, my dear. You could pass for brother and sister.” She looked at Helen appraisingly. “No, I didn’t catch his name. But Colonel Tucker is always sending his fellows around, to sort of keep an eye on me. You’d think I was a terrorist.”
They both smiled at that notion. They walked on and Helen told her that she’d read about the bombing. “Were you very badly injured?” she asked.
They had reached the channel and began to walk along it, toward the lake. “Yes, it was quite harrowing,” Cora said. “By rights, I should have perished, but I survived. Poor Mr. Larribee was killed. Some others, too, although I’m not sure who all. None of my group was even hurt. We were there protesting the planned disruption of the habitat of the Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrow, you know—
Ammodramus nelsoni.
At least, that’s been put off for some time, one hopes for good. But you know how these developers are: you think you’ve stopped them but they just start up again.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Nelson’s,” Helen said.
“Few have. They’re quite . . . well, I don’t suppose I should say ‘rare.’ They’re certainly not widespread, or common. Uncommon, is the word, occurring in isolated breeding groups. I always hoped to see one around here—they like these kinds of grassy marshes—but, alas, no. Plenty of grasshopper sparrows, though. Nelson’s is a small, rather orangish sparrow. So you see how important it is to preserve the locations where they do appear.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Helen said. “I’m so glad you didn’t suffer any lasting effects from the bombing.”
Cora had stopped and was thoroughly scanning the marsh, as if intent on discovering the Nelson’s. “Oh, I lost my memory,”
she remarked, over her shoulder, not lowering the glasses. “It’s a little late for the sparrows, I’m afraid. They’ve migrated south, I expect. Unless,” she said, with a snort of amusement, “they’re hibernating.”
“But that’s horrible,” Helen said. “I mean, your memory.”
“Oh, I’m recovering it, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Cora said. “Why, just the other night, I remembered a very odd person.” She lowered the glasses and turned. “He was at the hearing. Well, outside, in the hall. Very agitated. Nice-looking gentleman, though. He told me . . .” She hesitated a moment, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Why,” she said, as if it had just struck her, “he told me to ‘get out’! He was quite vociferous about it. ‘Get out of this,’ he said. Do you suppose he knew what was going to happen?”
Helen caught her excitement. “It certainly sounds like it. What did he look like? Did you recognize him?”
“No, he wasn’t with our group. Although he looked like he could be a bird-watcher. He wore rather rustic clothing. He had on one of those canvas field hats. One of our gentlemen, Chad Parsons, wears one. It’s called a Filson, I believe. Rather rakish, with a brim around it. Waterproof, Mr. Parsons says. Quite useful, I’m sure. We often meet with inclement weather.”
“If he was with the bombers,” Helen said thoughtfully, “I imagine that right now he’s hoping that you won’t remember him. What else do you recall about him?”
“He was tall,” Cora said, “about fifty, or older. And, as I say, agitated. Rather a long face. Strong nose, blue eyes. Oh, I’d recognize him, all right, if I saw him again. I told that young man of Colonel Tucker’s about it, but he didn’t seem very interested. Of course, at that time I hadn’t recalled as much as I subsequently have. I’ve pieced it all together now, though. The young man suggested I tell the Colonel about it, but I haven’t had the opportunity. And,
after all, I’m not sure it would actually be pertinent. Do you suppose it’s something I should tell Colonel Tucker?”
“It might be a good idea,” Helen said. “It might be important. So, the Colonel’s young man wasn’t interested?”
“No. Well, as I say, it was pretty sketchy at that juncture. I’ll mention it to Mul when he gets home. He can decide.”
“When will he be back?” Helen asked.
“He was supposed to return last night, but he got involved with something up in that town, Queensleap. A friend of his came by last night and left a note about it. I was asleep, but the nurse gave it to me this morning, a little while before you came by. I’m to call him at a number, in an emergency. But I’m not to call from home. He said to go to a phone booth. That seems odd. There’s one down by the marina.” She pointed up the channel. “I could walk there. But I don’t think this is pressing news. It can wait until Mul gets home.”
“I could call him,” Helen said. “Do you have the number with you?”
The old woman looked at her for a moment, then said, “Oh, that’s all right, my dear. Thank you for volunteering. But I think I’d better wait.” She made a humorous grimace. “Police business, no doubt. Mul is funny that way, rather like the Colonel. All very hush-hush. He’d be upset, I’m sure, if you called him.”
Helen smiled. She suddenly thought:
I could get that message from her right now. I’ll bet it’s in her pocket.
But she didn’t do anything. Instead, she said, “You ought to have some protection. Doesn’t the Colonel—”
Cora interrupted her. “The note said, come to think of it, that I shouldn’t communicate this number to the Colonel. I thought that was especially odd. What do you think?”
“More hush-hush,” Helen said.
“That’s what I think. Oh! There’s the harrier.” She pointed as a large and elegant hawk swept past them and alit on a post.
“That’s the very same post where I saw it the other evening, when that young man came by. What did I tell you? They often come back to the same perch.” She held out the glasses to Helen, inviting her to look.
It’s an agonizing thing to delay when you are dying to be going. But Helen controlled her impatience admirably while the old woman dawdled, looking at birds, chattering away. But eventually they drifted back to the house, with Helen silently urging the woman to get a move on. There, Mrs. Mulheisen invited her to stay for a cup of tea, but Helen demurred. She reiterated that she’d just stopped by on the chance of catching Mulheisen in. She had an appointment in nearby Mount Clemens, she lied.
However, she said, she had a need to use the bathroom, if Mrs. Mulheisen didn’t mind.
“Oh, by all means,” Cora said, “freshen up. You want to look your best. Use the bath in my room, dear.” She pointed the way.
Helen hurried to the bathroom. She had to go, desperately. But afterward she lingered to look about the old woman’s room. As she’d hoped, there was the envelope with Mrs. Mulheisen’s name scribbled on it in ballpoint, lying on her dresser. Helen took the chance and opened it. She instantly memorized the number and replaced the note.
Mrs. Mulheisen watched her leave and remarked to the nurse, “She’s very pretty, but she hasn’t a chance with Mul, I’m afraid. Much too small, I think. And probably too young.”
An hour later, Helen had Roman behind the wheel of her father’s elegant Cadillac, headed upcountry. Ten minutes of that time had been spent online, locating the address of that phone number on a Yahoo! Web site. Unfortunately, the map on the site had not been able to pinpoint the location, just indicating the road and the presence of the Manistee River nearby. But she felt confident she could find the place. It was apparently the home of a
Charles McVey. Just for reference she’d also looked up Luckenbach, but all she could find was an M. P. Luck. Still, that address seemed to be close to the McVey house, where Mulheisen was presumably staying. She supposed that, if necessary, she could stop and visit with this Luck. He ought to be able to tell her how to get to McVey’s. After all, they were neighbors.