“No, he did it a few hours …”
Before Claire could finish, Colette stood up as if she was going to leave, then turned back. “What’s going on here? I know Anne and Chet were having some problems, but what happened to them that they would do this to each other?”
* * *
Definitely too hot to cook, Rich thought as he peered into the refrigerator. At ninety-three degrees, it was almost too hot to eat.
He decided to just make a salad. A big salad, full of tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers and throw in a can of tuna for protein. He could put in some of the green beans he had picked in Chet’s garden. He figured as long as he was over there, he might as well harvest some of the veggies, otherwise they’d just go to waste.
Rich had gone back to feed Bentley for a second time. This time the dog hadn’t raised a fuss at all. In fact, Bentley just slobbered over him. The horses had been let out to pasture and then back in. The chickens were back in their coop. A little early but he didn’t want to have to go over there again today.
He put a small pan of water on to cook the beans and let them cool. He’d wait to see the whites of Claire’s eyes before he’d throw the salad together.
While he was waiting, he grabbed a Leinenkugel’s beer and sat on the deck where he could catch a breeze and watch for her car. The sun had dropped behind the trees that shaded the house to the west. Rich kicked his shoes off and stretched out full-length on a lawn chair.
The beer hit the spot. He liked to drink it ice cold and kept a couple mugs in the freezer just to keep it that way.
Rich remembered the first time he and Chet had gotten drunk. Chet stole a couple six-packs from his dad’s fridge, the one he kept out in the garage that was just for beer. Figured his dad would never miss them.
All of fourteen years old, they had ridden their bikes down to the Rush River, brought their fishing rods, stuck the beers in the ice-cold spring water, which was always a cool forty-five degrees and started drinking. Two trout later, they had finished the first six-pack. Rich felt like his stomach was about to burst.
Then Chet fell into the river. It was too early in the season for the cold water to feel good. Rich started laughing and he tipped over the bucket and the two trout flapped their way back into the water.
When Chet managed to clamber back out of the river, they decided it was time to go home. The light was fading and the temperature was dropping. Neither one of them wanted to drink the last beers so they left them in the river. Too drunk to ride their bikes home, they had to walk, stopping for each other to throw up in the bushes. By the time they reached Chet’s house, they were freezing and starving and hungover.
When they came walking up, Chet’s dad had just stuck out his hand and asked for the money for the two six-packs, then he gave Rich a lift home. Rich’s parents never said anything. Since he went right to bed, there was a chance they never knew, but he had a feeling his uneven walk and the smell probably gave him away.
The phone rang as he topped off his mug. He had to haul himself out of the lawn chair and walk into the kitchen to answer it.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Rich, Jim Turner here.”
“Hey, Jim, what can I do you for?”
“Just heard the news about Chet. Couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Figured you’d have the inside scoop and all with Claire in the know. I heard he shot his wife, then tried to kill himself.”
“What? Where’d you hear that?”
“Niece of mine works at the hospital. She said they brought him in early this morning. Guess he tried to hang himself in the jail of all places. Said his wife’s laid out down in the morgue. What the hell’s going on here, Rich? Can you give me the low-down?”
Rich took a moment to recover, then scrambled for something coherent to say. “First of all, Jim, no one knows what happened to Anne. I, for one, am sure that Chet didn’t kill her. And I’m kind of in a spot here. Claire doesn’t like me to talk about her work and all. Sounds like you know what there is to know.”
“So it’s true.”
“You know as much as I do,” Rich said, thinking, actually you know more than I do.
When he hung up, Rich stood at the railing and wondered if it was true. Could Chet really have tried to kill himself? He kept seeing his friend pitching horseshoes, hollering, “that’s a ringer.” Always ready to play a game, always wanting to win, always thinking things would turn out for the best. How could such a man try to kill himself?
Damn that woman, why hadn’t Claire told him?
A
my stood on the other side of Claire’s desk, excited to tell her what they had found. She was sure the shirt would crack this John Doe case wide open. Claire was working on her computer. Amy waited until she looked up.
“Hey, Amy. What’s up?”
“I had to tell you what we found down in a dumpster at the Maiden Rock park.” Amy tried to slow herself down, but the words just came pouring out. “There’s a chance it might not be anything. We don’t know if this has anything to do with our John Doe, but it sure looks like it.” Amy brought out the t-shirt that she had bagged.
“A t-shirt?” Claire looked at the large, dirty red t-shirt that Amy was holding out to her in a super-sized baggie.
“I think it might be from our guy. This tree symbol on the front matches the tattoo on his shoulder. Sven at the bar there remembers the guy wearing this t-shirt coming in for a drink and his description matches our guy too. Seems too close to be a coincidence.”
Claire nodded. “Sounds good.”
Amy went on. “So what I’m thinking is the guy was probably dumped there in Maiden Rock bay.”
“Near where we found him?”
“Exactly.” Amy pulled up a chair and started to explain, the words tumbling out of her in a torrent. “And in a way it makes a lot of sense. See, I checked the maps and the currents in Lake Pepin are slower than the rest of the river, and they’re even slower in the bay areas, like near to where the body was found. There the current speed drops to about a half a foot a second. You can walk faster than that. Which isn’t taking into account the eddies and all. What it was saying to me was that the body might not have been dumped very far from where it was found. Especially as the body might have been in the water as little as three to four days. Especially with this heat. You know decomposition happens fast when it’s this hot.”
Claire’s face was blank, but Amy could tell she was listening carefully. Claire asked, “And be that bloated?”
“Well, the medical examiner explained to me how in this weather everything happens a lot faster. The water temperature in the lake is getting mighty close to eighty degrees and with the heat on the surface, the body would start to decompose very fast.”
“Okay, then what did you figure?”
“Well, Bill and I …”
“Oh, Bill went with you?”
“Yes, and it was a good thing he did too, Claire. I couldn’t have done it on my own.”
Amy then proceeded to tell Claire in great detail about checking out the dock and then discovering the t-shirt and then going to the bar and finding out about the tree removal guy.
“So what do you think?” Amy asked when she could think of nothing else she needed to tell Claire.
“Amy, you’re running with this case. I’ve got my hands full with the Baldwins. What do you think?”
Amy loved it when Claire asked her what she thought she should do. It showed her how much Claire thought of her ideas. She tried to be always ready for that question from Claire.
Amy had given it some thought and was glad to explain what she thought her next few steps should be. “First, I suppose we should send the t-shirt to the lab to see if they can find anything on it, like maybe some blood splatters. It’s a little odd that there isn’t a hole in it, but I thought about that and he was shot pretty low in the belly, right around the groin area, and maybe the shirt was pulled up or something.
“Then, I thought I’d check the computer for Minnesota tree service companies along the river, like in Red Wing and Hastings. There can’t be too many. And then call them and see if they take jobs across the river and if any of their workers are missing.”
Claire tapped her pencil on a pad of paper in a quick rhythm. “Have you checked missing persons for Minnesota?”
“Yes, but nothing’s popped up. It can take a few days for the new cases to get entered. That’s what I’ve been finding out.”
“A tree removal guy. Seems kind of strange. What might he have done to get himself killed?”
“Maybe cut down the wrong tree?” Amy suggested.
Claire laughed. “Doesn’t seem like it would be something to get killed over.”
“Maybe when he was walking through the woods, marking trees to cut, he found something else, a secret. Or maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone was hunting squirrel and shot him?”
“With a revolver? Not what guys usually hunt squirrels with.”
“What do you think?” Amy asked.
“I think you’ve more than earned your pay today. I like where you’re headed with this, Amy. Sounds like our John Doe is going to have a real name very soon. Please keep me posted.”
Just what Amy was hoping she’d say.
* * *
Sheriff Talbert was leaning back in his chair, looking as tired and ornery at the end of the day as he ever did. Claire couldn’t help noticing from time to time that his hair was getting sparser and his stomach was growing larger.
“Claire, I’m getting too old for this job,” he said while rubbing his stomach. He had never been self-conscious about his weight—or anything else, for that matter.
“Don’t you dare quit. You’re only ten years older than me.” “But a lot goes downhill in those ten years, let me tell you.” “Is that why you called me in here, to complain about how old you’re getting, Stewy?”
“I thought I’d start with the complaints. No really, I got some lab results I want to go over with you.” “Since when do you look at the lab results?” He had the grace to look sheepish. “Oh, I can’t help myself. I’m feeling pretty caught up in this investigation with Chet Baldwin. I mean he’s been a friend for yea these many years. I didn’t know him like Rich did. They’re a little younger than me, went to school together, but since Chet’s been on the county
board I’ve worked with him closely on a couple projects. Nothing but admiration for that guy. When he says something, he does it.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
“I’m just having a hard time believing he’d shoot anyone, let alone Anne. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Claire folded herself into a chair and waited. “You have my full and undivided attention.”
“They’ve come up with a trace of someone else’s blood from the living room rug. And it’s not Chet’s.”
“Now you really do have my attention. How did the lab get the blood results so fast?”
“This is a simple blood test—just the blood type. Anne was O positive, Chet is B positive, and this other splotch of blood was B negative.”
“What’s going on here? Usually I’m giving you the information. Don’t you think I’m handling this case correctly?”
Sheriff stretched his hands across the desk. “Don’t go getting your panties in a twist, Claire. This isn’t about you, it’s about me. I know I’m meddling. I already said that. I just can’t believe Chet would do such a thing.”
Claire calmed herself down. She didn’t need to get in a snit with the Sheriff. She sat down and he handed her the lab results. “O positive, very common, 37 percent of population has that. B positive, not so common at 10 percent. But this B negative is really rare, only one person in fifty has it. Might tell us something. But who else would have been in the house?”
The sheriff tapped the lab results with his forefinger. “It’s worth checking out.”
“So now you think we need to look for someone else?”
“What we need to do is get Chet here and hash it out with him. Find out what went on. Keep an open mind about what might have happened.”
“Well, I certainly agree with that. I’ve made arrangements to pick him up tomorrow when he’s released. In the meantime, one of the guys is parked outside his room.”
“What does Rich have to say about this?” the sheriff asked. “He and Chet were best buds.”
Claire said, “To tell you the truth, Stewy, we haven’t talked about it much. I haven’t been home. We talked on the phone, but I haven’t even dared tell him about Chet’s suicide attempt yet. He can’t believe Chet would kill his wife. I don’t really want to be the person to persuade him that it’s a possibility. That’s all there is to it.”
* * *
When he came close to chopping a finger off as he cut up the carrots, Rich knew how upset he was. He tried to rein himself in, advising himself to give Claire a chance to explain when she got home, not to jump to any conclusions.
Resentment, he decided, was a good word to describe what he was feeling: resentment bordering on real anger. He was tired of how Claire was treating him, tired of how she just expected him to be there, supporting her, keeping the house running and her daughter attended to. Not that he didn’t enjoy doing most of it, but he wouldn’t mind a little acknowledgment once in a while.
And now she couldn’t even call him and tell him when one of his best friends had tried to kill himself. How could she do that to him? How could she not take care of Chet and let him know what was going on?
She usually got home around six and here it was nearly seven o’clock. He was starving and decided to wait no longer. Rich poured the dressing over the salad and tossed it.
He was just getting ready to take his first bite when she walked in the door. He set down his fork.
“Hey sorry, things piled up. Crazy day. That looks great.” She sat down and started to dish up some salad. “Where’s Meg?”
“She and Curt went to the county fair.” Trying to contain his anger, he asked her, “Why didn’t you tell me what happened to Chet? Jim Turner called and asked me what was going on with Chet. Hell if I know.”
She looked at him, then tilted her head down. “Shit, Rich. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to go into it over the phone.”
He hated that she said that to him. As if she could save him from something. In the past, she would have taken the time to tell him, even if it was over the phone. “So I have to hear about it from Jim? Do you know how that made me feel?”