Buffalo Bill's Defunct (9781564747112) (13 page)

Jane Schmidt was not yet on duty, so he talked briefly to Teresa Morales, the night dispatcher, and longer to Earl Minetti, who was starting the day early.

Earl was in a cranky mood. He grunted when Rob explained his own daybreak mission to interrogate the Brandstetters. Earl had found nothing noteworthy on the walls of Meg’s garage the day before and that rankled. He meant to sift every inch of the garage floor and was prepared to be boring about it. More power to you, Rob thought, signing off.

He considered calling Dave Meuler, too, but Dave was off-duty, having put in eight days in a row and an all-nighter without extra compensation. The city budget was in dire straits. Dave’s report on his interviews in the neighborhood would be waiting at the office. As would the results of Linda Ramos’s real estate inquiries.

Outside, it was still night, though the rain had let up. The Brandstetter house lay in darkness. So did Meg’s. Rob wondered which shaded window was her bedroom.

Cut it out, he told himself, and picked up his pace. His joints were rusty from all the sitting he’d been doing. He crossed the street and walked on the uneven concrete of a sidewalk that had been poured in 1923. Quiet on that side, too, though Mrs. Iver-son’s kitchen light shone. He stumbled on a crack and caught himself. Clumsy. Time for a session with Takeo Johnson, but his martial arts partner was off at a conference. Back Monday. Maybe a swim? Could go for a run. It wasn’t raining.

“Hi, Rob, what’ll it be this morning?” Marge Barnes beamed at him from the brightly lit take-out window of the espresso stand.

“How you doing? How’s Benny?” He listened to Marge’s worries about her twenty-year-old slacker son while he scanned the menu. Then he ordered what he usually ordered, a double-strength espresso, hold the whipped cream. He didn’t like the stuff sprayed from a can. It tasted like shaving cream.

“Slow this morning,” he murmured when the first swallow of caffeine brought him into focus.

“It usually is on Saturdays.” Marge settled onto her tall stool for a good yack. “I like it quiet. I just wish old Brandstetter would stop staring at me.”

Rob glanced over his shoulder at the darkened Brandstetter house. Someone was sitting, half-concealed by an overgrown rhododendron, in one of the heavy wooden deck chairs. Rob turned all the way around and looked. The wood was stained dark and the bulk hunched there was dark, except for the pale blur of face and hands. “He do that often?”

“First time.”

Rob squinted. It wasn’t raining but the chair had to be damp.

Marge said, “They must be fighting again. I hope she locked him out.”

Rob sipped and set his Styrofoam cup on the ledge that thrust from the take-out window. “When did he come out?”

Marge swiped at the spotless ledge with a cleaning cloth. “I dunno. I think he was sitting there when I came on at six, but I didn’t notice right away.”

Alarm bells clanged. “I’ll just go say hello.”

“Your coffee?”

“Keep it for me.” He was vibrating like a plucked guitar string, but he made himself stand for a moment with his eyes closed. He patted the gun—in place. Good. He opened his eyes.

Hal’s mud-spattered SUV, a steel blue Wrangler with bloated wheels, stood in the driveway, top in place. At three hundred pounds, Hal didn’t hunt afoot, but he liked to bounce over the defenseless landscape like the god of internal combustion engines. He kept an old thirty-ought-six in the back, bragged about it.

Halfway across the street, Rob stopped again. It was Hal, sure enough. He was staring. His gaze did not shift.

“Brandstetter,” Rob called, keeping his voice low. He didn’t want to wake the neighbors unnecessarily.

No response, not a twitch.

By the time he reached the deck, Rob was thinking crime scene. “Hal,” he called, “Hal, wake up, you fucking idiot,” but he was pretty sure the man was dead.

All right, he thought. Call it in. He didn’t want to disturb the surface of the deck but he had to be sure. He knelt for a moment, tipping his head and squinting. Shoe prints showed under the smooth layer of condensation. He avoided the steps, climbed up on the deck at midpoint, and edged around to the left, looping wide.

He came up on Commissioner Brandstetter’s chair from the left. The scraggly rhododendron at the edge of the deck blocked the street light, but Rob could see better than he wanted to. The right side of Hal’s head was a dark, jagged mass. Exit wound. His hands gripped the arm rests in what looked like cadaveric spasm. Blood and brain had spattered the wooden decking.

Rob stood far enough away not to step in the spatter and called Teresa Morales on his cell phone. He spoke in tones whose calmness surprised him. The adrenaline was in full flow. What about Tammy? Where was she? Did she know about this obscenity? Had she snapped, finally, and killed her husband when he came rolling up in the middle of the night? When
had
Hal returned?

“That’s a four-nineteen?” Teresa sounded flustered. “You sure?”

“Yes.” He reached out and touched the stiff right hand. Ice cold. The jacket sleeve was soaked with dew. “I need backup. Wife’s probably in the house.” Not to mention a large, anxious dog. He heard Towser barking. He stared down at the huge body while he and Teresa talked, quiet, half in code. When she grasped what he needed, Rob signed off.

He could hear background commotion in the office, then silence. “Okay. Ten-four,” Teresa said.

He retraced his steps along the edge of the deck and walked across the lawn to the sidewalk.

“What’s happening?” Marge called from across the street.

He waved a vague arm at her and waited.

Blue and white lights whirled—the city car, one of the rookies. The driver’s-side window was open. “What’s up?”

Rob leaned on the car roof and bent down to explain and to reassure the officer that he’d already called in his deputies. Joshua Myron, that was his name, looked relieved and maybe disappointed.

Marge Barnes had thrown a jacket over her shoulders and was watching from the drive-in lane. Rob went over to her.

He explained what he’d found and her eyes widened. She was groping for her cell phone. “Look, Marge, I know you want to call your friends and let them know all about it, but it’s not a good idea. We don’t know what went on yet, or where Tammy is.”

“D’you think there might be shooting? More shooting?”

“I hope not, but go back inside, just to be safe. I’ll send someone over to take your statement when we know more.”

She gulped and nodded, pocketing the phone. “You want your coffee? Dumb question. Be careful, hear?”

He nodded and turned back. He was worried about Tammy. She had been in a volatile state of mind, God knew. Spousal murder followed by suicide was one of the commoner domestic calls. But he didn’t think that was what had happened here.

It was still hard to see, though the east was growing brighter. Officer Myron sat in his car talking to somebody, Chief Hug probably. The lights flashed.

Rob walked back across the wet lawn to the edge of the deck. He could make out the entry wound on Hal’s left temple. It looked like a contact wound.

Tammy might have shot her husband but she wouldn’t have
executed
him. The whole setup was too neat for a domestic blowup. It looked as if Hal had sat down for a chat with a friend, not expecting trouble, and been shot where he sat. The empty chair on Hal’s left was pulled around slightly. Have to cordon off the whole front of the house, the drive, and the SUV.

Meanwhile, Tammy. Towser was still barking, but the sound was perfunctory. Rob gestured to Myron to break off his call. The paramedics should be coming any time now, and the county car. Linda Ramos and Thayer Jones had the night shift. He glanced at his watch—6:42.

“We gonna break down the door?” Myron unhitched the seat belt and emerged from his car.

“I hope not. Wait, there’s the ambulance.” The boxy white van swung around the far corner by Rob’s house with its red lights flashing. Rob had specified no sirens. The county car followed the medics, almost riding the rear bumper. They pulled up and the blue-clad medics jumped out.

“Okay, Josh, I want you to block off the street. Marge’s early customers will be showing up any time now and we don’t need more civilians on the scene.” Good thing it was Saturday. Weekdays they lined up around the block.

The kid nodded. He looked disappointed.

It took awhile to sort things out. The paramedics were not happy to be kept from the victim, and they were right to question him. With some head wounds life continued, but what did they imagine they could do for a man who had been sitting outside for at least an hour, probably all night, with half his head shot away? Rob described the corpse. They went back, grumbling, and sat in the ambulance to await the medical examiner.

Rob detailed Thayer to tape off the entire front of the house including the driveway and garage, and to assist Myron with crowd control after that. Thayer didn’t grumble. He was an old hand at crime scenes.

Rob looked at Linda. She was not an old hand. “I’m going around the garage to see if I can get at the back door to the house.” He gestured. “I don’t want to compromise the evidence here.”

She nodded, big-eyed. She was in uniform, very trim. He was glad she wasn’t wearing her glasses. Contact lenses were safer.

“I want you with me when I go in. I need to locate Tammy Brandstetter. I don’t think she’s the perpetrator, but I’ve been wrong before.”

“Okay.” She touched her holster.

“Got a crowbar?”

“What?”

“Just kidding.” He turned to Thayer and explained his intentions. Thayer nodded. He looked bored but would be awake to the first sign of trouble.

The back gate was no trouble at all. It was closed but not locked, typical of the neighborhood, of the whole damned county. Some people didn’t even lock their houses.

Rob and Linda entered the yard, and Linda closed the gate behind them. With her trailing, he walked up to the back of the dark, silent house and knocked on the door, announcing their presence. No response. He pounded harder and rang the bell. Towser set up an enthusiastic clamor.

“That’s the big dog, right?”

“Yeah. He’s a cupcake but he doesn’t know his strength.”

“I don’t like dogs.”

“Take it easy, Ramos.” He pounded on the door again, and Towser bounced so high Rob could see his bright eyes. The dog leapt at the door and scratched.

“Jesus Maria.”

“Let me deal with him. I think we’d better break in. Truncheon?”

She handed him the baton the uniforms carried. The window in the door smashed at the first blow. Covering his hand with the cuff of his jacket, Rob reached through, slid the bolt back, and opened the door using the inside knob.

Towser slid past Linda, knocking her against the jamb, and erupted into the backyard. Rob closed the door.

“Por Dios.”

“He needs to pee. Good thing you closed the gate. Let’s hope his paws aren’t cut.” Rob stood for a long moment, head cocked, listening. Nothing. Linda’s drawn gun pointed at the ceiling.

“Police,” he shouted. “Tammy. Tammy Brandstetter, c’mon, Tammy. It’s just Rob Neill. I need to talk to you.”

No response. Skin crawling, Rob crunched glass as he crossed the small entryway and walked slowly through the kitchen. It smelled like dog and old food. The hall beyond was black. He thought the living room lay to the left, bedrooms to the right. He flipped the hall light on with his sleeve over his hand, blinked against the brightness, and called again. This time he thought he heard a moan.

Linda said, “Was that a sound?”

They listened, but the noise was not repeated. Rob walked right. The first door, open, showed an office with a desk that overflowed with papers. A computer console sat on the desk and a light showed on the power strip. The first door on the left revealed an empty bathroom. The second was the master bedroom. Tammy lay without moving across the rumpled covers of a king-sized bed.

Rob said, “Tammy, it’s Rob. I’m going to turn the light on. Are you all right?”

The body stirred.

“Hey, wake up.” He flipped the light on and the room came into sharp focus. It was a mess. Clothes, dirty and clean, strewed all the flat surfaces and scattered over the old shag rug. When he moved toward the bed the reek of vodka and something citrus was sharp enough to stun an ox. Relief flooded through him. She was just drunk.

Relief was followed by a familiar stab of revulsion and anger. In the last year of her life, his mother had drunk a lot and hung out with other drunks. She had died riding with a drunk driver.

“Come on, Tammy,” he said briskly. “Wake up. Linda, go get one of the medics. Tell him we have an intoxicated female, unconscious. Tammy, dammit, you need to wake up.”

She stirred and moaned a little but she didn’t open her eyes. The left was swollen shut and the skin around it gleamed a ripe purple. Better get them to look at her injuries. He checked her pulse, which was slow and steady. Her skin was warm to his touch. He left her lying there.

He found Towser’s leash on the kitchen counter, took it out to the backyard, and secured the dog to a metal fence post. The paramedics, happy to have something to do, carted Tammy off on a gurney they wheeled to the back door. Rob thought they hadn’t contaminated the area too much. The dog cried a little. Tammy remained comatose.

He sent Linda off with the ambulance, because somebody had to talk to Tammy as soon as she could string two words together. She was, at least technically, his primary suspect. Then he went back to the ridgeback and told him he was a good dog.

With a full food dish in front of him and a bowl of water, Towser settled down peacefully enough in the yard, but something would have to be done about him if the hospital insisted on keeping Tammy overnight. The son. Rob ducked back into the kitchen, found the phone book with a Portland number for the boy scribbled on the cover.

Around front, Thayer had taped off the appropriate area. Neighbors were waking up all along the street. Some came out to look. Their coffee steamed on the fall air. Marge was talking away on her cell phone. Rob didn’t blame her. Josh had cut off all her customers, so she didn’t have anything else to do. He didn’t see Meg McLean.