Murder in the Devil's Cauldron (31 page)

"She here in Minnesota?"

"Naw. Some place out in California. Came here
a couple of times in the beginning, but now mostly calls."

"Have you had anything new?"

"Hold on a sec."

He must have put his hand over the phone as
all the noises at the other end were muted for a few minutes. Then
he was back.

"Sorry about that. But to answer your
question, there's been nothing. Got tons of information right at
the beginning, but not much since."

"What do you mean by not much?" Fae
asked.

"Every once in awhile someone will call with
a rumor or to say maybe he saw her. A couple of times one of the
other victims called to say they saw the guy, but he was long gone
by the time we even got the call. Stuff like that. But nothing
concrete and nothing that's gone anywhere."

"What do
you
think happened?" Fae
asked.

"Me?" He hesitated. "Officially? Or …."

"Let's say unofficially."

"Unofficially? I think the guy killed her and
put her body where no one would find it. Hunters and hikers are
always stumbling over someone's skeleton in the woods some place,
ya know? But this guy's pretty slick. So whatever he did with the
body, he made sure it would never be found."

"You talked to him?"

"Once. But like I say, he was so smooth he
could be a slide at the playground. And then he turned into smoke
and I couldn't find him again."

"What name did he give you?"

"David Bakken."

One of the few aliases that hadn't had an
outstanding warrant against it until recently. Fae had been hoping
to hear a new alias that might give her a more substantial
lead.

"Any idea where he might've left her
body?"

"Naw. We checked all the places he was linked
to and you can believe me when I say we checked
every
place
that was even a possible." His tone seemed to suggest that someone
had questioned his thoroughness and he wasn't about to leave room
for that.

"But you know what the woods are like here
and in Wisconsin," he continued when Fae didn't say anything. "Be
pretty darn easy to dig a hole some place out of the way of even
the most dedicated hunter. Not to mention one of the caves along
the river. I think the guy put her some place she'd never be found
unless there was a major fluke. And I don't mean some guy stopping
to take a leak along some two-bit back road."

"So no unidentified bodies in one of the
lakes or the rivers?"

"None that match her."

"What about Lake Superior?"

"Well, that's pretty far off and I doubt he'd
take her there," he said slowly. "But I put a call into someone in
Duluth and they call when anything turns up that might be a match.
Which isn't much, ya know."

Fae knew. She also knew that Lake Superior
didn't usually give up its dead. Once in the icy depths, it tended
to stay there.

"Was that the only disappearance you ran into
with this guy?"

He didn't answer. Fae could hear dulled
chatter at the other end, along with the sound of chairs being
dragged and someone's tinny laugh.

"Ed?"

"It's kind of funny you should ask," he said
slowly. "Cause I'd have to say 'no' simply 'cause no one's ever
actually reported someone else missing."

Fae picked up on the detective's undertone.
"However …."

"Exactly," he said. "However. 'Cause it's
real weird how some of the people who might've been conned just
can't be located. They just up and disappeared like Scotty made an
unscheduled transporter run."

Fae grinned. She was a Star Trek fan herself.
"And no one reported them missing?"

"Most of 'em didn't have close ties. Or at
least not close enough to make a report. People I talked to said
they hadn't seen that person in a while. Didn't even much care
whether they did again or not, seems to me."

"Geez."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Pretty sad. Especially
since I figure there's at least five people who haven't been seen
after getting conned by this guy."

"So you caught the Kathy Nichols
disappearance initially?"

"Yep and now you're wondering about the
others." He had read her mind.

"Something like that."

"I caught the second one only 'cause one guy
was out sick and the Captain knew I had worked this one. And since
this David whatever-his-name-is was involved, they figured it might
be connected. Pure luck it happened here. The third one happened in
Minneapolis and I probably wouldn't have heard a thing about it
except I had already called them to let them know what I was
working on, so they gave me a holler when it came in."

"So you can be pretty sure you know about
most of the disappearances connected to this guy." Fae was
impressed.

"Mostly, I guess," Larson replied. "Hard to
tell. Could be more we haven't heard about. People who haven't been
missed."

"It's a little unusual for con artists to
kill their victims," Fae said. "So if he is killing them, any idea
why?"

"Money. Kathy Nichols had tons and this guy
bilked her for a big chunk of it. My guess is he figured we'd take
her complaints a lot more seriously than some of his other victims
who didn't lose that much. Not to mention, she was a friend of the
Lieutenant Governor's
and
helped raise a lot of money for
the DFL. So we were encouraged to put a little extra elbow grease
into investigating her complaint. And you can bet we stepped it up
a bit when she vanished. Not that it did a lot of good, but if that
guy ever resurfaces, you can bet he won't be getting bail."

"Same story in the other disappearances?"

"Sure was. Money's a powerful motivator when
there's lots at stake."

"Have you run across any of his other
aliases?"

Fae could hear paper rustling as he went
through his notes.

"Ah, here it is," he muttered. "I've
Morrison, Mondreau, Bakken and Miller."

"Damn."

"You were hoping for one you didn't
have."

"Yeah. I might have a lead on this guy, but
if he's around, he isn't using any of those."

"Anything you can give me?" Larson asked.
"I'd love to be able to call the sister and give her some good news
for a change."

"Not yet," Fae said. "I might have something
in a day or so. I'll definitely call you if it pans out. Oh, and
let's keep this just between the two of us for right now, OK?"

"Anything I need to know about?"

Fae knew he was wondering if he needed to
cover his ass in some way. "No. I just need to keep this super
confidential right now. Seems he has connections all over the
place."

"Ah. Well, you've got my number."

Fae gave him her information and hung up.

She made a few more calls and then dialed
Bailey's direct number.

"What've you got?"

She brought him up to date on her progress so
far. "I have two more resorts I want to check tomorrow and I'll be
talking to some of the park rangers around here to see if they've
seen him."

"Keep me posted."

Fae hung up and wondered what else she could
do or if she was missing something. She changed into something
comfortable and went out into the garden. She wouldn't be able to
do much, but it would give her a break. Plus, she did her best
thinking out there.

She stopped at the edge of the garden and
then looked in the direction of the Lodge. Maybe this afternoon
she'd pop over there and talk to the manager instead of leaving it
for tomorrow.

After his reconnaissance of the employee
housing area, Fowler got in his car and drove to Ruby Cove.

Tonight he'd find out which cabin belonged to
the kid and, with any luck, he'd get the camera and dispose of it.
He was pretty sure she wouldn't be taking pictures at night.

In the meantime, though, his first priority
was making certain Viv was ready to step in and play her part.

He wasn't worried about being noticed when he
pulled off the highway in Ruby Cove and drove around to the back of
the motel. He was driving a different car than he had during his
first visit and he knew that motels were too busy checking people
out in the morning to be paying attention to who was coming and
going in the parking lot. Still, after he parked, he waited for a
few minutes, making sure no one was around before getting out of
the car. He casually checked the area again, and only then walked
around the end of the motel and knocked on the door to cabin
14.

This time Viv was in. She opened the door a
crack and when she saw who it was, let him in and closed the door
quickly behind her.

Starr almost walked past the sheriff's
station. Even though Charlie had said it wasn't very big, she was
still expecting something bigger or more impressive. She figured an
important place like that would have a big flight of steps or
official looking notices out front. Maybe there'd be a statue or it
would have Latin words carved into the front. Something like that.
Something that told you how important the place was. At the very
least, Starr had expected impressive.

So when she passed Ole and Lena's Café, she
gave the nondescript concrete cube next to it no more than a
passing glance. Starr somehow thought that the building just past
the grey concrete cube was the sheriff's station. It had big
windows and was painted a cheery French blue with cream trim. But
when she got to the door, she realized it was The Bookworm,
Charlie's favorite bookstore.

Starr stopped and looked around, only then
noticing the grey building next door that looked more like someone
had left a concrete mobile home there by mistake. Starr had had
bigger portable classrooms at school in Minneapolis. A small sign
next to the solid grey door said "Sheriff." There were no statutes,
no inscriptions, no windows and only two stairs. There was an
American flag, but it was really small and hung listlessly from a
short pole on the far side of the building.

Starr took it all in, wondering if the real
sheriff would even use a place like that.

But Charlie had said it was next to the diner
and the sign said "Sheriff," so she supposed it must be the place.
Maybe it was different inside. She went up the steps and opened the
door.

It wasn't different inside.

Instead of a big desk with an officer behind
it, Starr saw a very round woman sitting behind a small grey metal
desk. She was typing energetically while peering into a small
computer screen. Fluorescent lights had been turned on, but every
other bulb was off, giving the place a feeling of twilight. A
hallway just past the metal desk was unlit and disappeared into the
gloom. A couple of empty resin chairs were pushed up against the
wall, lined up under posters hanging haphazardly from push pins,
one chair for each poster as if they were place tags.

Starr walked up to the desk and waited for
the woman to stop typing.

"I'm not buying any more candy bars or Girl
Scout cookies this month," the woman announced without looking up.
"Try over at the bookstore."

"I'm not a Girl Scout," Starr said. "I want
to report a murder."

The woman's fingers continued to type for a
few minutes. Then, as the words sank in, the woman stopped typing,
turned away from the keyboard and looked at Starr over the rims of
her glasses.

"And who are you?"

"I'm Starr Nelson and I saw a man push his
wife into the Devil's Cauldron yesterday."

"That your real name?" She pulled a form out
of the desk drawer.

"Well, not exactly," Starr said reluctantly.
"It's really Stella, but it
means
Starr and nobody calls me
Stella, anyway. Except my mom sometimes when she's really mad."

The woman stopped writing and looked up at
her again, her glasses threatening to slide off the end of her
nose. "I see. So Stella, also known as Starr, do you live around
here then?"

"We do now. My mom works at the Storm Point
Lodge. So we live there, too."

"And you just happened to be watching when
this person pushed his wife in the Devil's Cauldron."

Starr nodded. "I was on the bluff above the
waterfall. They didn't see me."

"So what did you do?"

"I ran down to the Visitor Center and told
the park ranger. He called the sheriff and then we went back up and
I showed him where it happened. There was some blood on the side of
the Cauldron, but it's all gone now." She had looked on the way up
the trail, hoping it would still be there. But, of course, it had
been washed clean by the force of the river.

"I see." The woman filled in more of the
boxes on the form.

"So can I see the sheriff now?"

"He's not here right now."

"Oh. Doesn't he need to talk to me or
something?"

"I'll give him the report. I imagine he'll
talk to you sooner or later."

"Isn't there something else I can do?" Starr
couldn't keep the frustration out of her voice. No one seemed to
care that someone had actually been murdered.

"Not a thing," the woman said
matter-of-factly. "I think he did send someone out to look at the
Cauldron already. He'll probably talk to you when he gets the
report."

"Doesn't he care that the killer is going to
get away?"

"I know it seems like that," the woman said,
finally taking off her glasses and looking at Starr directly. "But
there are certain procedures we have to follow. Don't worry, if
there was a murder, the sheriff will make sure the guy doesn't get
away." She gave Starr a big insincere smile, turned the form around
and pushed it towards Starr, pointing at it. "Sign at the bottom
and fill in the boxes with the yellow highlight."