An Intimate Murder (The Catherine O'Brien Series) (17 page)

“I’d like to check in with my office too,” Jane said, and then gave a hesitant smile. “And maybe get a drink of water.”

Good. If she were distracted, she wouldn’t hear my conversation with the Sheriff. Maybe her fainting spell had shaken the memory of the first murder in the Luther family out of her head. Then I remembered her little note pad. I should have stolen the notebook and her tape recorder while she was unconscious.

We left Jane in a small conference room where she could call her office in private. I wanted to lock her in an interrogation room. That way she couldn’t sneak up on me while I was on the phone. Unfortunately, all the interrogation rooms were occupied.

Louise left to pull the court records on the Cousin’s trust before we left. I picked up the phone and dialed the McCann County Sheriff’s Department.

“Sheriff’s Office.” A perky female voice said.

“May I speak with Sheriff Rose, please?” I confirmed the name on the business card.

“Who’s calling, please?”

“Detective O’Brien. I’m calling from the Saint Paul Police Department’s homicide division.”

“One moment please.”

She clicked me over to the on-hold music and I was lost grooving to
Play That Funky Music White Boy
by
Wild Cherry
when the Sheriff picked up.

“Sheriff Rose speaking.”

“Sheriff, my name is Catherine O’Brien. I’m a Detective with the Saint Paul Police Department’s homicide division.”

“Yes, Detective.” His tone was friendly but impatient. “How can I help the S.P.P.D.?”

I fingered a statue of the Archangel Michael, which my Mother had given me, holding his flaming sword over his head. As the patron saint of police, mom considered Michael to be my personal guardian angel.

“I wanted some information on a murder investigation.”

“Marion Luther?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“We do get the Twin Cities’ papers up here. I read about the death of Jonathan and Susan.”

I don’t know why but I imagined McCann as some secluded mining town isolated from the rest of Minnesota. Of course, they had newspapers; their local papers probably covered the Luther’s deaths. Especially if they still had family in the area.

“I was sorry to hear they’d died.”

“Sheriff, I’m wondering if the murders could be connected.”

There was no point in beating around the bush. Sheriff Rose had probably already guessed why I was calling. Anyone with any investigative background could make the leap easily enough, and I didn’t want to insult his intelligence.

“They could be.” He let out a heavy breath. “Marion’s death is unsolved.”

“Chad mentioned that yesterday. Did you have any suspects?”

“Of course we did, Detective.”

He sounded disgusted by the question and I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t appreciate someone calling my investigative skills into question either.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t make anything stick. We brought the forensic team in from Duluth, and the only evidence they could come up with was circumstantial.”

“Who was the main suspect?” I tapped the end of Michael’s sword, which was sharper than it looked.

“That was the tricky part,” he said. “We narrowed it down to a member of the immediate family.”

My statue of Michael tipped over as I scrambled for a pen and a piece of paper.

“A family member? What brought you to that conclusion?”

“All the windows were locked and the doors were all dead-bolted when the killer left, which meant they had to have had a key. The only prints we found belonged to the family members. I don’t know about the crime scenes you’ve encounter in your time, Detective, but I’ve never seen one where the killer didn’t make some mistake.”

Not many. Murders either were a spur of the moment crime of opportunity or premeditated, but even the criminals that had planned their murders to the last detail, usually overlooked something.

“There hadn’t been any attempt to clean finger prints or anything?” I asked.

“Nope.”

Which meant the killer knew their fingerprints would be expected to be there.

“Detective . . .” I heard a paper crinkle on the other end of the line as he searched for my name. “O’Brien, I don’t have a whole lot of time to go over the details with you right now. Why don’t I fax you the case file and you can look at it?”

“That would be a big help. Thank you for your time, Sheriff Rose.”

I gave him my fax and my telephone number, in case he remembered anything that he thought might be helpful. He took the numbers but said there wouldn’t be anything that wasn’t already noted in the case file.

A nice way of saying, don’t call us and we won’t call you.

Louise returned from the records department as I finished my preliminary scan of Sheriff Rose’s report.

“The sheriff in McCann County sent me Marion Luther’s case file.” I held up the pages for her to see.

“Anything relevant?”

“He believes the murders were committed by a family member.” I tapped the edge of the pages. “Apparently, Jonathan Luther’s family had trouble with the law prior to this. His Mother had called the police because she felt threatened by Jonathan’s brother.”

Louise winced. “Jonathan and Susan were a match made in hell.”

“What do you mean?”

She handed me the file she’d gotten from Rainey Harper.

“Susan Luther had filed charges against her cousin for terroristic threats right after her uncle’s death.”

Louise eased into her chair.

“Rainey found additional information when she searched Susan Luther’s maiden name. Apparently, her family has a history of violence due to mental illness. Her Mother beat her Father so bad, he went into a coma. Susan was listed on the commitment papers along with her sister Linda.”

“Wow!” I pored over the pages. “Maybe these two were drawn together because of their hardships.”

Louise’s eyebrows rose as if she hadn’t considered the possibility. “I suppose they could relate to each other’s pain.”

“Now we have to figure out which crooked branch of the family tree decided to drop a few leaves.”

“Chad.” A voice said from behind me.

Silent as a butterfly, Jane had managed to creep up on us.

“Jack Meyers indicated that he thought Chad might be involved,” she said.

“We have no evidence to support his theory,” Louise motioned Jane into a chair.

Jane rolled a vacant chair up next to me.

“I did some checking on Chad,” she said. “It seems that it wasn’t just his appearance that went downhill after his Grandmother was murdered.”

Well, there went the hope that she would have hit her head hard enough to forget all about the Grandmother.

“I had a friend of mine at the paper do a little checking. Chad’s grades went downhill when he moved to Saint Paul and he’s been in several fights at school. One so bad that he sent the other kid to the hospital.”

I checked my watch again. “You got all that in fifteen minutes? How?”

“Can’t tell you.” She shook her head. “I promised not to reveal my sources.”

“Oh, God.” I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. “We’re not falling back on that old cliché are we?”

“Yep.” She swiveled her chair in my direction. “Of course, Detective, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Jane inclined her head toward the paper I held in my hand. Before I’d had a microsecond to consider the proposal, Jane rescinded the offer.

“On second thought, I think I’ll play my cards close to my chest, and only dole out the information when it becomes necessary to help you along the path.”

“Ms. Katts,” Louise said in an even measured tone that told me she was pissed as hell. “If you have information relevant to this investigation, I suggest you spill your guts before I throw you in jail for obstruction of justice.”

“Now how would that look? You arrest the reporter who gave you bad press?”

“Frankly, I could give a rat’s rectum,” Louise said. “If you impede this investigation in any way, the deal I made with the paper is off. I will call my friend on the board of directors and let him know that you’re withholding evidence. I don’t think the Mayor’s office or your bosses at the paper will stand behind you on this one.”

Never had I heard Louise utter a phrase as crass as, rat’s rectum. This girl’s skill for irritation far surpassed mine.

I hunkered down in my seat and waited for these two to come to a head. Louise’s capacity for stubbornness would take her through to the end; that much I knew for sure. What I couldn’t calculate was Jane Katts’ stupidity, and if she had the need to get her one-upance right now, or if she could wait to strike.

Jane opened her notebook, clipped the pen to the metal spiral, and handed the notebook to me. Louise ruffled with irritation but held her tongue; she had after all won the battle.

“Chad was arrested for a school yard fight. The kid he brawled with lost a tooth and received two stitches in his cheek. Charges were dropped.”

I handed the notebook back to her.

“That’s a pretty anemic card,” Louise said. “That’s like bluffing with a pair of twos.”

Jane shrugged. “I had to try.”

Louise smiled, and in it, I saw a genuine admiration for Ms. Katts’ moxie. That’s the word my Grandfather used to use, moxie. I had the inkling that moxie was why Louise liked me too. Maybe that’s why Jane and I rubbed each other the wrong way. We were too much alike. The thought annoyed me.

“I’m surprised you didn’t run Chad’s arrest record,” Jane said. “Chad has been violent in the past. His Father and his Uncle had a point.”

“Except!” I held up my finger. “We only have the Uncle’s word when it comes to what Jonathan Luther thought of his son’s change. From the candid snapshots on Jonathan’s desk, some very recent, he not only wasn’t afraid of his son, but he loved him and was very proud of Chad.”

“Well, he can’t tell us that for himself,” Jane said. “We have to rely on hearsay.”

“That might work in the newspaper world but we need a little more to go on.” I jabbed at her for no real reason except that I was beginning to like her. “Before we slap the cuffs on Chad, we’d need confirmation from a few more people. Anyway, I thought you were good at spotting lies.”

Jane looked at me with confusion.

“Didn’t you notice Jack Myers’ behavior when we arrived?”

Louise leaned forward. “I did. He looked nervous. Like he was hiding something.”

“That’s what I thought too,” I said. “I wouldn’t trust anything Jack had to say at this point.”

“Maybe he was just nervous,” Jane said. “People get nervous when the police show up at their door. At least I would.”

I nodded my agreement and then changed directions and shook my head no.

“What?” Jane asked. “People don’t get nervous around cops?”

“They do,” Louise said. “Usually, nervous people explain too much.”

I returned to my up and down head motion. “People who are just nervous, invite the police in to prove there’s nothing to hide and then jabber nonstop.”

I opened and closed my fingers in front of Jane’s face like operating a sock puppet. Then I pressed my fingers tightly together.

“Jack Myers was way too tight lipped,” I said.

“At least until we left.” The expression on Jane’s face changed to one of enlightenment. “Then he had plenty to say.”

“Maybe it took him that long to think of a lie,” Louise said. “His explanation did point us to Chad and away from any other direction.”

Which left us, half-a-step ahead of where we’d been this morning. Forward progress at last.

Katie Dolan screamed in our faces, when we introduced ourselves, and called us tools.

“I’ll fucking kill you if you come near me.”

She launched a chunk of spit in the air. The juicy wad arched through the air and landed on Jane Katts’ cheek. Jane sucked in a deep breath and tensed, frozen by disgust.

“That fucking bitch deserved what she got!” Katie slammed the door.

The slam of the door brought Jane out of her disgust-induced catatonia.

“Oh my God,” she whined and used her shirtsleeve to clean the retaliatory loogey from her face. “She’d better not have given me some damned disease.”

“You’ll live,” Louise said.

We retreated to the safe distance of the car parked in the street. Louise took out her cell phone and called for a warrant to bring Katie Dolan in for questioning.

“And I’m pressing assault charges.” Jane rubbed her cheek like Katie Dolan’s spit had been laced with acid.

“Then we can arrest her now,” I said. “We don’t need a warrant, we witnessed the assault. Let’s just go in and get her.”

Louise twisted around in her seat to look at Jane. “Are you sure?”

Jane nodded and pulled at her cheek with the heel of her hand.