A Lonely Way to Die: A Utah O'Brien Mystery Novel (Minnesota Mysteries Series Book 2) (15 page)

I said. “If Mort’s right about somebody giving Mildred the same painkillers that were used to kill Sonje, it wouldn’t be Mark. Even if he is in Sonje’s will, he’d have no motive for killing his mother.”

“But maybe Mort’s wrong. It happens occasionally.”

How true—we both smiled at the thought.

We didn’t say much more until we got to Emma’s place. She lives in a cute little green cottage on the east end of Little Perch Drive, one block past the high school.

When Sam pulled into her driveway, he moved to open his door, but he stopped when he noticed that I wasn’t getting out. He reached over and touched my arm. “Are you mad at me?” he said.

“Of course not. Why would I be mad at you?”

Tears threatened to spill out of my eyes, and I wiped them away with my sleeve.

He pulled me to him, and said into my wool hat, “You’ve been acting strange the whole drive over here, and before that your mother was mad at me. Even my wool shirt isn’t doing its magic. Tell me what I can do?”

I took a deep breathe, then another one. This was not the right time. “Let’s go talk to Emma and get it over with so we can go home. It’s been a very stressful day. Nobody is mad at you, I promise.”

When we got out of the truck, I was ambushed by a happy Springer spaniel, all skin and bones. It was another stray—a lot of them were showing up since the recession started, dropped off by people from other towns who couldn’t afford to feed their pets because of all the layoffs.

Emma came out onto the porch and invited us in. Her hazel eyes were rimmed with red. Up until that day, I’d never seen her when she wasn’t smiling. That’s probably why her students love her so much.

I asked her if the dog was hers, to make sure.

“She’s been hanging around the last few days. I keep intending to call the animal welfare committee, but with everything that’s been going on—”

I pulled the phone out of my pocket. “You two go on in. I have a call to make.” Emma and Sam both stayed on the porch and waited for me as I looked up the number for Ernest Rupertsson on my cell phone. He’s the man with the barking spaniel who lives next door to Ian Tavish. He picked up.

“Ernest, this is Utah O’Brien. I’m over here at Emma Dawson’s house, past the high school, and there’s a Springer spaniel hanging around here. You haven’t lost your spaniel, have you?” I already knew the answer to that, because I could hear his lonely mutt barking in the background. In fact, when I pulled the phone away from my ear, I could still hear it. Rupertsson lives on the other side of the school grounds.

“Let me look,” he said. He actually took a few minutes to look—the man must be going deaf. “No, he’s here. You found a Springer, you say?”

“Yes, but don’t worry. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t yours before we call the animal welfare committee. They’ll take her to Randall, to the pound. Of course, the shelter is really full right now so she doesn’t have much of a chance. It’s too bad, too. She’s a purebred, nice lines, friendly. Probably a real good bird dog. But, I don’t see what else we could—”

“I’ll come on over to get her. It’s a little green house, isn’t it?”

“Yes. And Sam’s red pickup is sitting right outside. You can’t miss it.”

I put the phone back in my pocket and walked up the steps to the porch. I was feeling rather proud of myself. Sam grinned and said, “You’re going to make a good politician after all.”

Emma looked confused, so I told her about Ernest Rupertsson’ dog, and the calls I kept getting from Ian Tavish. It made her smile.

“Dogs shouldn’t be kept alone like that,” she said. “No wonder the poor thing barks all the time. I hope he gives her a nice name.”

She asked us to sit on the sofa in her small living room, and we sat. The dining room table was covered with half-finished art projects suitable for third-grade students, and workbooks were piled up on one of the chairs. The furniture was well-used, but comfortable, with flowered slipcovers that brightened up the room.

Emma excused herself to go make us tea. I didn’t really want tea, but she didn’t ask. Sam and I sat next to each other on the couch for several minutes, waiting. An herbal scent came into the room before Emma did, and she put two cups on the coffee table. Then she went back for a cup for herself. She sat on an overstuffed beige chair, and waited for us to speak.

I picked up my cup and took a whiff. Chamomile and mint—and something else that didn’t smell quite so good. I looked at Emma.

“Echinacea root and goldenrod. I grow them myself. I always put it in my tea during the winter because it’s good for your immune system. You would not believe the number of kids who come to school with colds and the flu. If I didn’t drink this stuff, I think I’d have to stay home more days than I worked.” She took a big sip, and relaxed against the back of her chair. She looked exhausted. “It doesn’t taste very good, but you get used to it.”

I sipped at my tea. So did Sam. It tasted like the Sleepytime brand tea mixed with dirt, and with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Emma picked at the front of her sweater, not looking at us. “They said on the news that Gwyneth killed herself. It made the national news, because of her books and because of that musician she married. They still haven’t said her real name yet, but I’m sure they’ll find it, and then the reporters will be camped outside Mother’s house. But you don’t think it was suicide, do you? I know you don’t, because you came here to ask me questions, didn’t you? Why isn’t Mort with you?”

“He’s working on the case, unofficially, but he needed a break. He delegated this visit to us,” I said, “And no, he doesn’t believe it was suicide. What do you think?”

She shrugged. “I can’t believe the girl I used to know would do such a thing, but people change. I saw her on one of those community service commercials a few months ago, right after little Grace was born. It was about postpartum depression. She didn’t look depressed to me, but maybe that’s why she volunteered to do it. I don’t think they pay people to appear in those ads.”

“They found a note in her purse,” I said. “It wasn’t signed, and I didn’t get to read it, but there was enough in it to make the sheriff think it might have been a suicide note. It said something like ‘I can’t go on like this…’”

Emma’s eyes opened wide. “She said that in one of the letters she sent to Mother a few months ago. But she was talking about the economy and how much crime there is in the city. That was the letter when she told Mother she intended to move back here. After that, we realized we had to talk to her. If she lived here we couldn’t walk down the street and pretend we didn’t see her, after all.”

I asked Sam if he had his smart phone with him. He did. I borrowed it to call the sheriff. When he answered, I asked if he could send a photo of that note to Sam’s phone. It must have been sitting on his desk, because it came right through. I handed the phone to Emma.

“Yes, that’s it. See how the first word isn’t capitalized? And there’s no period here at the end, so it was right in the middle of a sentence. I’m sure it’s that letter she sent. She used little notepaper and wrote big, so she had to use a lot of pages. And she didn’t fold them—she stuck the whole pile in a big envelope and mailed it that way. I’m sure Mother still has it.”

“Do you have any idea who could have wanted Sonje dead? I mean Gwyneth? Somebody with a motive, or a grudge?”

She looked at the white cotton socks on her feet and shook her head. “I can’t imagine. She left town when I was eight years old. I was so hurt. I lost my father and my sister at the same time, and it ripped my world apart. Dad almost never visited after that, and after a while he stopped coming. He kept paying child support, so at least my mother couldn’t complain about that. She said really horrible things about them after they left, and I was so young. Gwyneth tried to contact me, a lot of times, and I didn’t—”

She wiped a tear from her cheek and sank a little lower in her chair.

Sam said, “Someone called her yesterday when she was talking with Carol Kramer in the diner. Are you the one who called her?”

“No. I called her earlier, though, before she left the city.”

Sam waited respectfully for her to continue. When it was obvious she was finished with her thought, he asked, “Why did you call her? Why didn’t you wait to talk to her this morning at Mildred’s house?”

I took another sip of the tea while I waited for her to answer. It was really bad. I glanced at Sam, who was looking suspiciously into his own mug. He shrugged, and tipped the mug back, and drank, trying to get it over with fast.

Emma set her cup on the coffee table. She sat forward, with her forearms on her thighs and her hands between her knees, thinking.

“You’ll think it’s silly. I’ve been buying the tabloids at Walmart in Randall every week or two and reading the entertainment news on the Internet at school. Mother told me to stop it because they make things up, but it was the only way for me to know what was going on with my sister.”

She gave us a wry smile. “Except for picking up the phone and calling her, of course, which I was too proud to do. And I know a lot of it is lies. Gwyneth was more famous than her husband, but he’s the one they’re always writing about. They probably wouldn’t, if he wasn’t married to her. And if he wasn’t supposed to be a Christian.”

That didn’t answer Sam’s question. I looked at him, and he raised his right shoulder. I tried again.

“So, did you want to talk to Sonje about the stories in the news?”

“Sort of. I kind of used them as an excuse to tell her that I was glad she was coming to town. I apologized for not answering her letters, and I said that I would help her in any way I could, if she needed it. She thanked me, and said she’d already filed for divorce. I knew that, of course. And she said she hardly ever saw her husband, and they weren’t angry at each other or anything, but I didn’t really believe that part.”

Sam put his hand on my knee and raised an eyebrow. I nodded.

“Do you have any idea who will inherit her estate?” I said.

“I do, actually. Gwyneth didn’t tell me, but Mark did. He always stayed in touch with her. He went to Dad’s funeral. It was four months ago. When he came home, he was really angry. He expected to be included in Dad’s will, but he wasn’t. Dad left everything to his wife. He had every right to, but Mark was counting on something coming to him, because of him getting laid off, and his child support payments, and the mortgage. So he point-blank asked Gwyneth if he would inherit anything from her if she died. I can’t believe he did that.”

We waited a few beats. Finally, I couldn’t stand the suspense. “What did she say?”

“Oh. Sorry. My mind is kind of … She’s leaving everything to the kids. There’s a few bequests, she said, to charitable foundations, but she has lawyers who will administer the trusts for the children. Mark isn’t in it. She said her husband isn’t in it, either. By the next day he was embarrassed for asking, and called her to apologize. She wasn’t angry at him. She was a really nice person. She gave Grace my middle name. Grace Marie.”

A single tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn’t notice.

“What would happen if the children die young?” I asked.

The question bothered her. “I have no idea. You’d have to ask her lawyer. Lawyers, probably. I think there’s a lot of money involved.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to ask, other than to use her bathroom. She pointed me down the hall. While the toilet was flushing and the water was running in the sink, I opened the medicine cabinet and looked for a bottle of painkillers. There was nothing there but antibacterial creme, Tylenol, and an unopened carton containing two pregnancy test sticks. I closed the cabinet door softly and left the bathroom.

One of the doors in the short hallway was cracked open, and a crib was inside. I pushed the door open wider, and stepped inside. The room wasn’t exactly ready for a baby, but quite a lot of baby stuff was in there. I turned to leave. Emma was standing in the doorway.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just …”

Tears were flowing down her cheeks. She brushed them away. “I’m so emotional today, I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Every little thing sets me off.”

Again, I didn’t want to ask, but what choice did I have? “Emma, why do you have a crib?”

“I never had the heart to give it away. The doctor told us not to tell anyone we were pregnant. She said things can go wrong at the beginning, and you don’t want to get people’s hopes up. But I was so excited, and I told people anyway. My mother-in-law gave us the baby things. But I had a miscarriage. We tried again. We even tried fertility treatments, and it was so expensive, and so much stress. I think that’s why my husband found someone else.”

She was sobbing now. She turned, and ran into Sam, who was right behind her. She fell into his arms, and he, surprised, looked at me, then down at the top of Emma’s head. He patted her back and made soothing sounds, and she quickly pulled away, embarrassed.

“Oh! I’m so sorry. I can’t seem to …”

“It’s OK,” Sam said. “It’s been a really bad day. For all of us.”

Emma was in control of herself by the time we were back in her living room. We thanked her for her tea and her time, told her again that we were sorry for her loss, and headed to the front door for our boots. She followed us.