Shelf Ice (25 page)

“Has Molly been involved with Kinver recently?” asked Sue.

“He’s always been around,” Birchard answered. “He just can’t leave her alone. He ruined her life. She can never say no to Richard. Never.”

“So what is going on with Molly now?” asked Ray. “She didn’t show up for work yesterday, and she didn’t call in.”

“She’s in some kind of big trouble,” Birchard answered, her voice barely audible.

“What kind of trouble?” pressed Ray.

“I don’t know, Sheriff. She comes over here on Sunday and asks if I can look after my grandson, Scott, for a while. I’m thinking that she’s talking about a few hours, but I come to understand very quickly she’s talking about weeks. She tells me something bad is going on. She’s got to get out of town. Go somewhere far away. Go into hiding where no one can find her. Then she asked me how much money I could give her.”

“Did you give her some?” asked Sue.

“I gave her what I had here, about $600, money I had been saving up from tips, mostly in small bills. She told me she had a credit card that would keep her going for a while.”

“How about her son?” asked Sue.

“I took him over to a friend’s house so he wouldn’t hear this conversation. He’s used to staying with me. This has happened a lot over the years, so he won’t think much about it. He’s got his own bedroom here, I’ll take him to school and look after him. Life will go on almost as usual.”

“Did Molly give you any indication of where she might be going?” asked Ray.

“No. She had a destination she didn’t want to share with me. She said she’d call from time to time to check in. That’s all I can tell you, Sheriff.”

‘Do you know anything about Molly being involved with a church?” asked Sue.

“Oh, that church. That’s become so important to her. She never was much interested in religion until she got involved with that church. Lots of times Scott ends up staying here because she’s got church activities. I don’t know, something doesn’t seem quite right about it. Maybe she was just sneaking off to spend the night with Richard.”

Ray slowly stood up, “Thank you for telling us all this. It’s been very helpful.”

“Is she in danger, real danger?” Birchard asked.

“She may be. But we’re doing our best to get to the bottom of this mystery. We hope to get it resolved before anyone else is harmed,” said Ray.

41.

After returning to Sue’s Jeep, they sat for a long moment, each reflecting on what they had just heard. Finally, Sue turned the ignition switch, the sound of the engine ending the silence.

“What now, kimosabe?” asked Sue as she began backing out of the drive.

“I think we need to talk to Rod Gunne again. He seems to be at the center of this. Why don’t you turn around, we’ll start at the church and then check Gunne’s residence.”

“Ray,” started Sue, as she continued driving north, “it’s almost six. I don’t think anything is going to happen tonight that would be prevented by our trying to track down Gunne. But if you still want to do that after I drop you off, go for it. I’m going to pick up Simone and go to my yoga class. I haven’t been there in weeks.” She paused, glanced at Ray briefly, and continued. “And after, maybe I will go and have a few glasses of wine with the girls. Ray, I need a bit of normalcy. I can’t continue to work sixteen hours a day. And you can’t either. We’re burning out. Both of us.”

Ray started to respond, carefully forming his opening sentence before he gave voice to it. He caught himself at the last moment and remained silent. He looked over at his colleague; he could see that she was exhausted. For months she had been at his side during several grueling murder investigations, selflessly working nights and weekends without ever a complaint. It slowly began to sink in. Sue was emotionally and physically drained. She was teetering on the edge of total burnout, a state from which people wander away from once rewarding jobs to seek something new.

Then he thought,
Maybe I’m projecting,
he thought, but he couldn’t deny his own feelings of weariness. As he sat there reflecting on what was going on with Sue, Ray realized that he was having difficulty keeping the wall in place that provided the emotional distance necessary to work effectively. For months most of his energy had been focused on work. He had made little time for his friends and was probably responsible for the seemingly sudden end to his relationship with Sarah.

After Sue dropped Ray off, he returned to his office and keyed his notes from the conversation with Ruth Birchard. He thought about Molly. She probably had the information to help quickly break this case.
Why did she choose to do a runner rather than coming to them for help?
he muttered out loud. He thought about how wary and apprehensive she seemed during their interviews. Given what Ruth Birchard had told them, Molly must have developed a deep-seated fear of law enforcement during her many years of using illicit drugs. He wondered how many weeks she had stayed clean to pass her employment medical test, and if and when she had returned to using drugs.

By the time Ray drove up his drive, covered with a fresh dusting of lake-effect snow, it was dark, and he was tired and hungry. He stood at his kitchen counter for several minutes and sorted the mail, noting that there were two
New Yorkers
. He checked the dates, curiously there were two consecutive weeks.

Without energy or imagination, he made a supper of bread, cheese, and an apple, washing it down with several mugs of chamomile tea.

As he ate, his attention was focused on a long article in the
New Yorker
on a conflict of people and values in a rural area of New Jersey little more than twenty-five miles from Manhattan. Ray took interest in the fact that some of the problems discussed in the article were similar to those he faced in northern Michigan, the often-conflicting interests of the locals and the more affluent part-time residents.

Later, standing at his writing desk, pen in hand and his journal open before him, Ray mentally reviewed the day. Much of his first few paragraphs was a recapitulation of his thoughts as Sue drove him back to the office. He wrote about what he perceived was going on with her, and how he was probably experiencing much of the same feelings. They were both being worn down by the workload and the trauma of the two horrific murders. He sympathized with Sue’s need for a life and was forced to confront how the demands of his job and his own workaholic tendencies were keeping him from the companionship and support of his friends. Ray stopped writing for a while and thought about his life. He had given up a career in college teaching to return to the area that he loved. And in the early years as sheriff, he had taken the time to walk the beaches, watch the setting sun, and kayak the big lake. He had skied in the winter, walked the streams with a fly rod in the summer, spent time with good friends, and struggled with romance. Now he seldom did any of those things. He wondered how and when he could get some balance back in his life.

Ray started flipping through the notebook, moving back weeks, then months. The name
Elise Lovell
pulled his attention. He scanned his entry from November where he commented on his interview with her during the early inquiries in the Lynne Boyd shooting. He noted her perceptiveness, wondering how much of that came from her training as psychiatric social worker and how much of it was just an innate trait. Ray stopped and read the entry a second time, he mouthed,
psychiatric social worker.
He thought about his most recent encounter with Elise. Hadn’t she told him and Sue that she was a chemist by training? Maybe she did chemistry and changed majors, he thought. But he suddenly had a feeling something was very wrong.

He grabbed his phone and started to call Sue, stopping at the last instant. It would have to wait till morning.

42.

Ray was well into his workday, his attention focused on the necessary bureaucratic tasks of his job, when his secretary, Jan, popped in to relay a message from Sue. She was taking a half-day of personal leave and would see him in the afternoon. He was a bit startled by the news. He had never known Sue to take leave time during an important investigation.

They had both been working intensively for months without a respite. And one of the things that he had noticed early in her tenure with the department was that Sue seemed to share his work orientation. In the past, one of the women he dated had accused him of being a workaholic on her way out of the relationship. But now as he thought back on it, that assertion was probably true, his life revolved around his work. He sat confronting the fact that he had not been sensitive to Sue’s needs. At her age she should be pursuing some of the other things that life offers.
 

Ray began to wonder if Sue was in the process of starting to look for another job. Given her background, experience, and skill, Sue could move downstate or out-of-state and greatly improve her salary and get a normal workweek. He remembered that she had also expressed an interest in graduate school, and perhaps even a career change. She had also talked about finding a man and starting a family. With a sense of uneasiness, Ray focused on the tasks at hand.

A few hours later, when Sue came in, Ray noted how rested and relaxed she looked. She seemed more like the personality that he had become used to, easy-going and usually good-humored.

“Anything happening?” she asked.

“Quiet morning,” said Ray. “No new bodies or suspicious fires.” He reflected on what he said and thought he should lighten the tone. “Just another day in paradise.”

“Good,” Sue responded. “I could really get into that routine for a while. Searching for lost dogs and doing elementary school traffic safety talks never looked better.”

“I did have a thought, however,” said Ray. “Remember the first time we talked to Elise Lovell when Lynne Boyd was shot?”

“Yes,” said Sue. “Talk about crunchy granola. She was so perfectly turned out in clothes made of natural fibers. And her make-up was impeccable. It was sort of Woodstock does Vogue. And it was fun to watch you.”

“Why’s that?”

“You seemed to be so taken with her then. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything quite like it. And she certainly was aware of what she was doing and how to work you.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Ray.

“Trust me, Ray. She was working you like, well, I don’t know quite like what. But she had your full attention. In fact, it got me to thinking about the women you choose. They tend to be professional, brainy, and readers. And I’m not saying that Elise isn’t bright, not at all. But she doesn’t seem your type. I was surprised that you seemed to be totally attracted to her, whether you were aware of it or not.”

“I think you’re imagining things,” Ray retorted.

“No,” said Sue. “That was the beauty of it all. She was so skilled at working you and you were totally unaware of what was going on. Trust me on this. It’s a woman thing.”

“Why didn’t you mention something at the time?”

“It didn’t seem necessary. She was providing information that confirmed what we both believed to be true. Although you did a better job than me, neither of us was able to overcome our dislike of Dirk Lowther. That said, what Elise told us in no way changed the course of the investigation. And,” Sue chuckled, “it gave me some new insight into your character. It made you a bit more human. You could very occasionally be something other than totally cognitive and objective. That’s a good thing, Ray. It’s okay to be human.” Sue paused briefly. “I think I got us off track. What were you going to tell me about Elise Lovell?”

“That first interview during the Lynne Boyd shooting investigation,” said Ray, “Elise suggested that she had some professional insight into the matter, given her training as a clinical psychologist. Do you remember that?”

“Yes,” Sue answered. “And then she told us what Lynne had shared with her about her marriage. Elise further explained her own observations of Dirk. She seemed very insightful.”

“But when we recently talked to her about Brenda Manton,” said Ray, “she told us that she was a chemist. Did you catch that?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” asked Ray.

“No, I thought that somewhere along the line she had college work in chemistry. Perhaps it was an undergraduate minor, maybe even a major. And later, when she started to think about graduate school, she decided to go in a different direction. If I went back, I might do something in art.”

“So that never bothered you?” said Ray.

“No, and I’m not sure it means anything, but perhaps we should check it out.”

“I think we should. So would you get in contact with Elise Lovell. See if you can set up another interview. And maybe you could start doing a background check on her.”

“I’ll get on it right away,” said Sue.

“While you’re doing that, I’m going to go out and talk to Rod Gunne again. He seems to be at the center of so much of this. Let’s plan on meeting late this afternoon.” Ray looked at her and smiled, “Four, Sue, not seven or eight. We’ll compare notes and decide what to do next. And we will complete our work day at five.”

43.