Honestly Dearest, You're Dead

Fourteen

This time Reynolds returned my call. In two minutes.

He sounded out of breath. “What do you mean, no body?”

“Who saw the body?”

“I saw the blood, same as you.”

“Did you speak to anybody who saw the body?”

“I told you: I didn’t speak to anybody at all. I got a message saying there’d been a death from a home invasion on 12. The place was locked up, but the windows were busted out. I was supposed to keep an eye out when I passed by.”

“Who called?”

“The county, I thought. Except now you’re telling me they don’t know anything? Maybe it was the state. That would explain the runaround I’ve been getting from the sheriff’s office.”

“Forget the state. According to a guy named Dillard at the sheriff’s office, nobody has a record of any death of a Louise Thomas, a Carolina Dare, or a Jane Doe in Rambling.”

“This is bullshit. I’ll call you back.”

“I’ve got new information.”

“About that key?”

“That’s turning out to be a dead end. But Carolina mailed letters to herself that point to her killer.”

“How?”

“A kid wrote to the advice column, saying his or her stepfather was involved in a bank robbery in Iowa. Then the kid quit writing, and Carolina started receiving threatening letters, presumably from the stepfather.”

“Saying what?”

“Saying, ‘Return what’s not yours.’“

“The kid had sent something to your columnist?”

“I think so.”

Reynolds took a minute to let it all settle into place, then asked, “Like what?”

“Like the money from the robbery, or perhaps just proof that the stepfather pulled the job. I’m leaning toward the money, though.”

“You told the county all this?”

“I tried, but Dillard said without a body, or proof of a crime, there’s nothing he can do. I’m going to take a run at the cops in Iowa, but I want you to lean on Dillard.”

“I’ll call you back,” he said and hung up.

I called Aggert.

“Elstrom,” he said, “I’d given up on you.”

“Where’d you get the keys to the house in Rambling?”

“Speaking of keys, how’s it going?”

“You’ll be the first to hear. Where did you get the house and car keys?”

“The police.”

“Which police?”

“I presumed it was the county sheriff. I got a message, telling me about Louise’s-excuse me, Carolina’s-death and saying they’d found one of my cards at her place. They dropped off the keys in an envelope, after hours. Is there some question about jurisdiction?”

“Was it a man’s voice or a woman’s on your answering machine?”

“A woman’s, I think. What’s going on?”

“The county sheriff’s office knows nothing about any death in Rambling.”

“They must.”

“They don’t. The security guy out in Rambling is on the phone with them right now, trying to get them interested in what’s going on. We’ve got new information.”

“What new information?”

“Carolina mailed herself a few letters, something about a crime.”

“What crime?”

I paused as a thought flickered and then raged into full fire inside my head.

“I’ll tell you when I know,” I said.

Reynolds called back an hour after I hung up with Aggert.

“I talked to the county sheriff’s office,” he said. “Then I called the state police.”

The tone of his voice had already said enough, so I waited.

“Nobody knows anything about a death in Rambling,” he finished.

“Was it a man who called you?”

“Is that important?”

“Carolina’s lawyer said it was a woman who called him.” My mind had spent the last hour skittering over the possibilities.

He chuckled, understanding what I was implying. “It could have been a woman, talking low.”

“She faked her own death.”

“We’ve been had.” Then he laughed. “She pricked her finger, splattered a few drops of blood, broke some windows, had messages left for me and her lawyer, telling us she was dead. Then she took off. Smart lady.”

“Scared lady.”

“Maybe, but she was flush with that bank job money from the kid. She could get away, start enjoying the good life.” He laughed again, but this time there was a knife edge right in the middle of it. “You can quit wondering about her coat and those cigarettes. She wore the coat when she took off, but my hunch is that where she is now, she doesn’t need it. I see her thousands of miles away, on some beach, sipping margaritas and smoking those Salems.”

“The charade bought her time,” I said. “The stepfather was coming after her. Even if he did eventually track her to Rambling, the trail would disappear at Carolina’s cottage. He’d have to give up looking.”

“The cops would give up, too, assuming they ever did make the link between the stolen money and your Carolina Dare. The trail would be too cold.”

As Aggert might have said, everything looked neat and tidy.

“I’d still like to show those letters from the kid and the stepfather to the sheriff up here,” Reynolds said.

“You don’t think they’re legit?”

“Maybe the kid’s are, but Carolina could have forged the death threats from the stepfather. That sends the cops in circles, looking for a body instead of looking for her. Gives her more time to run. Whatever, we need to get those letters to the sheriff.”

“I still can’t figure why she’d mail the kid’s and the stepfather’s letters to Woodton.”

“I told you: for you to read,” Reynolds said. “They point away from her.”

“It was a long shot that I’d even discover that she was getting her mail in Woodton.”

“Extra insurance? Send you off on the wrong trail, in case you were getting too close?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “You know anybody who does blood work?”

“You mean to analyze the residue in the house?”

“We should preserve the blood evidence,” I said, “in case an unidentified body shows up sometime.”

“Accept it: We’ve been had, Mr. Elstrom. Played for chumps.”

“We need to preserve the blood.”

“Tell you what: I’ll cut out one of those small panes of glass on the front porch, one with blood on it, and I’ll take it with your letters when I go to see the sheriff.”

“I’ll do the blood sample,” I said. “I want to walk through the cottage again, take some photographs. But first I’m going to call the cops in Cedar Ridge, find out what they know. I’ll be up tomorrow or the day after.”

“Bring that key for the sheriff to look at, with the letters.”

I said that sounded fine.

I tried to call Aggert back but got his machine. I didn’t leave much of a message beyond mentioning that Carolina Dare had been crafty about more than her name, and that I’d be running up to Rambling to collect a blood sample that nobody might ever use.

No body, no victim. Everything fit it being a setup.

Except the envelope that Carolina had sent herself. If she’d been planning her own disappearance, it didn’t figure that she’d preserve letters linking her to stolen bank money. Better to have burned them.

I got the phone number for the Cedar Ridge, Iowa, police department from the Internet. As I dialed, I imagined a place where Sheriff Andy and little Opie, bamboo rods on their shoulders, were walking down a dirt road to some bucolic fishing hole. I could almost hear them laughing about that apple pie waiting for them back at the house, cooling on the windowsill, as in the background someone whistled theme music from the bushes.

Despite my imaginings, the Cedar Ridge cop who took the call, a sergeant named Patterson, was all pro. “A kid getting killed?” he repeated. “Accident, or deliberate?”

“Deliberate, though it might have been made to look like an accident.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Don’t know.”

“How old?”

“Ten, maybe twelve, guessing from the writing and the notebook paper. It would have happened in the past year.”

“Cedar Ridge isn’t very big, population-wise, but our jurisdiction covers a lot of miles. What else can you tell me?”

“The child, with his or her mother, had moved recently into a stepfather’s double-wide trailer.”

“Your interest, Mr. Elstrom?” Patterson’s words had suddenly become more clipped.

“I’m following up the disappearance of a newspaper advice columnist. She received three letters from the child. The kid suspected the stepfather was involved in a bank robbery where a million dollars was taken. Then the kid stopped writing. Shortly after, someone, perhaps the stepfather, sent three of his own letters to the columnist, all threatening.”

“Your missing columnist thought the stepfather murdered the kid?”

“That’s my guess.”

“And your columnist feared the stepfather would come after her next?”

“I think so.”

“Because the columnist had proof the stepfather was involved in the robbery and in the child’s murder?”

“Sure.”

“And now the columnist has disappeared?”

“Or was killed. There is blood evidence.”

“We’ll need those letters, Mr. Elstrom.”

“You know of a kid who might have died under questionable circumstances?”

“You want to drive those letters out, or shall I send someone to pick them up? It would be faster if you came to us.”

“You know of a robbery that fits with a dead kid?”

“Your choice: come to us, or we come to you,” he said.

“I can be on the road first thing tomorrow morning…” I let the sentence dangle.

“But?”

“I’d like something to think about on the ride out.”

“Lucia Helm,” he said. “That’s your kid. She died in a trailer fire, along with her mother. Happened last April. A real tragedy.”

“Arson?”

“Not even suspected,” he said. “Loose fitting on a propane connection. Something sparked it and up it went.”

“It could have been arson?”

“The line between deliberate and forgetful is awful fine.”

“Who survived?”

“The husband, the stepfather. He was devastated, just devastated.”

“Was he questioned?”

“Of course he was questioned.”

“And?”

“No reason to suspect him of anything, then,” he said.

“What do you mean, ‘then’?”

“We need to see those letters, Mr. Elstrom.”

“You know about a bank robbery that fits with that child’s death?” I asked.

“Have a safe drive,” Patterson said and hung up.