A Luring Murder (14 page)

I thought about all the times that children had been present when we’d broken the news of a loved one’s death. Mrs. McMahan had an uncanny foresight that most people didn’t possess.

“She promised to speak to us before she leaves.”

“Leaves?” Louise said.

“Yeah, she’s going to bring her boys home and away from all the activity.” He used both hands to hitch up the back of his polyester uniform pants. “I guess she’ll need to make funeral arrangements in the cities for him.”

“She can’t leave, Sheriff Anderson.” Louise’s stern gaze left no room for argument. “Not only does she have information about her husband that might be valuable to this investigation, but she’s also not ruled out as a suspect yet.”

Digs and I nodded like bobblehead dolls.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

The boom of Mrs. Peterman’s voice startled all of us. She’d managed to sneak closer to us with the stealth of a ninja.

“Leona McMahan is one of the most decent human beings I’ve ever known and a damned good mother. I will not have you speak of her that way.”

Louise raised her cane in front of her, jammed one fist into her hip, and shook the cane toward her like one would shake a finger at a naughty child. I thought about stopping her before Louise bopped her on the head, but a small tap might put everything right in her head.

“Alright you’ve had your say. Now, unless you’re confessing to your involvement I don’t want to hear another word out of you.”

Mrs. Peterman sucked in such a deep breath I thought she might pass out.

Louise ignored the hiss of indignation.

“You have a killer running around your town. If we don’t find out who did it, you might be next.”

“I – ”

“You.” Louise raised her voice above Mrs. Peterman. “Will answer our questions, and not impede our investigation, or Sheriff Anderson will be forced to put you in jail for obstruction of justice.”

Anderson trapped in the headlight glare of Mrs. Peterman and Louise looked as if he would wet himself. Finally, his resolve galvanized.

“Claire, I’m afraid the Detective is right.”

She gave another windup gasp, but Anderson held up a halting hand.

“Please, let us complete our investigation. If the McMahan’s cabin has been rented for next week, then they’ll need a place to stay. I’m sure Leona would appreciate it if you would take care of the details for her considering everything she’s going through right now.”

He gestured over his shoulder toward the garbage heap.

Mrs. Peterman mashed her wrinkled lips together flat. They trembled with the effort to hold back what she wanted to say.

Louise’s eyes shot daggers as if daring her to disagree. I think, despite her injured leg, Louise would have wrestled Mrs. Peterman to the ground and handcuffed her.

She whirled on her heels and stomped up the dirt road toward the main house.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the fluttering hand of a woman just outside the crude barricade the Sheriff had constructed from saw horses and police tape. I left the group and approached the barricade.

“Ma’am,” I said. “There’s nothing to see here. Please go back to your cabin.”

She grimaced at me. “I’ve already seen it thanks. I wanted to tell you something that might be useful to you.”

I drew close. “What is it?”

“I saw Mr. McMahan fighting with Mr. Peterman yesterday.”

“Fighting?”

She nodded. “Very heated. They were shouting and gesturing. I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying, but both of them looked angry enough to kill each other.”

She looked earnest enough, but I’d run into kooks before who only wanted to cause troubles for others, just to see what happened. I took her name and told her we’d look into it.

When I returned to the huddle, the Medical Examiner had joined the group.

“The gash on the back of his head is a long narrow one. I’d like to take him out of here, if you’re done with your sample hunting.”

He looked to Digs who nodded with authority.

The sheriff shook his head, and a shadow of grief covered his face. “Who could have done this? Why?”

“Maybe we should ask Mr. Peterman,” I said.

The assembled group turned a questioning eye to me.

“I have an eyewitness who says Mr. Peterman had a heated argument with the deceased.”

“Oh, come on,” Anderson smirked. “Elderly Wes Peterman? McMahan was forty years his junior.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t take much effort to attack someone from behind. Plus, I saw him loading the firewood into the back of his truck yesterday. You were huffing and puffing after only a few logs, but Peterman seemed to be in good shape. Wasn’t even breathing hard when he spoke to us.”

“He’s in excellent physical condition for a man of his age,” The M.E. said.

I had to remind myself that he was also the town doctor.

“She’s right. It wouldn’t take much power to crush the skull like this. Even Mrs. Peterman could have managed.”

Sheriff Anderson took off his baseball cap and mashed the hat in his hands.

“Are you telling me that you believe Wes Peterman is a rampaging killer?”

“Nope,” the Doctor said. “Personally, as a friend, I don’t believe he could do such a thing. Physically though, he is capable. You’ll have to draw your own conclusions from there. I’m going fishing with my Grandson. The body is all yours.”

He tottered off toward a large silver Cadillac, got in, then drove away with a wave over his shoulder.

The Sheriff waved away anything I could say before I had a chance to speak.

“Don’t go off half-cocked. We don’t have any evidence that Wes was involved in any way. Other than that of an argument.”

“No one’s saying he did it Sheriff, but we certainly can’t rule him out as a suspect out of hand,” I said. “You have to investigate every lead. Even the painful leads.”

He wrung his hat in his hands until his knuckles went white with the effort. His head wagged slowly back and forth.

“Why is all this happening?” The question was full of pain.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “You may never know. Even if you find a killer, his reasons might be kept to himself.”

Anderson straightened and jammed his hat onto his head. The bill of the cap tilted down on one side.

“I don’t want any more killings in my town. This ends now.” He stuck a hands on hip Superman pose. “I’ll bring Wes in for questioning. If I can find him. I haven’t seen him all day.”

“We’ll see if we can speak to Mrs. McMahan,” Louise said. “She might be more inclined to talk to us.”

She swept her arm down the front of her. “No uniform.”

“Don’t go against her wishes,” he said. “Don’t upset her or her boys. She’s been through enough today.”

I gave a sharp salute. “Aye, aye, chief.”

He gave me a withering glance, much like the one my own chief gives me.”

“Digs,” I said and drew his attention away from some bug that traipsed up his sleeve.

He brushed the bug away.

“Get to the lab and find us something concrete. You heard the Sheriff, we need to catch this guy before he kills again. Do your magic.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He gathered up his samples, stuffed them into a backpack, which he donned with great effort since the pack was three times the width of his own frame. When the pack was settled he got on the bike and hurried away.

“I’ll meet you two back at the jail.” The Sheriff wagged a finger at each of us in turn. “I’m serious about, Mrs. McMahan.”

“We know,” Louise said. “We’ll be respectful of her.”

Mrs. McMahan’s cabin was full of people offering condolences. Her boys were out on the deck with a group of other children who were playing, but the McMahan children hung back away from the group and stared without focus. My heart twisted in pain. Part of me wanted a mystical power that would allow me to take away their pain. But I knew as well as their mother probably did. No one gets through life without pain. The McMahan children would need to learn how to cope with their pain on their own.

At the sight of Louise and I, Mrs. McMahan waved us in and asked the comforters to allow us some privacy. She motioned us to sit at the table.

“I knew you two would come see me.” Her voice held no bitterness toward us, only trembled with the caged emotion that threatened to break free at any moment. “Was he involved in the first murder? Is that why he was killed?”

“We don’t know.” Louise gripped her hand. Mrs. McMahan put her hand over Louise’s. “We’re so sorry.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. “Thank you.”

I leaned my elbows on the table and laced my fingers together. “Can you tell us why he might have been at the garbage dump?”

She choked back a sob then took a deep breath to steady herself. “No. Bruce said he had to take care of some important business.”

She gave a high hysterical laugh, which tittered away into a low chuckle. “I thought he had some poor business owner, who was here on vacation, roped into buying an entire fleet of vans.”

“Did he give any clue in anything he said about who he was meeting?”

She shook her head automatically.

“Think hard,” I said. “Maybe not directly, but at any time before he left? Was he acting suspicious?”

She stared blankly at me for a long moment then her eyes focused. “The only thing I can think of is an off handed remark he made.”

Louise and I leaned in close.

“Go on,” Louise said.

“He was reading the newspaper. The article about the murder. He wadded up the paper and said, “you think you know someone.”

“Do you still have the paper?” Louise asked.

Mrs. McMahan went to the kitchen cabinet under the sink, opened the door, and removed a blue recycling bin. She dug through the can until she found a wrinkled paper, and then brought it to the table.

“This is it.” She folded the paper back at the crease and smoothed it out in front of us.

There on the page was a photo of the Sheriff standing with Wes and Claire Peterman. The newspaper had used a photo from the fish fry party to accompany the article.

“Could we keep this?” Louise said.

She nodded. “If it helps.”

“Thank you.” I stood. “We won’t keep you from your guests any longer.”

Mrs. McMahan gave each of us an automatic handshake. The zombie look she’d had when we arrived had returned.

Outside, and well away from the McMahan children, I said to Louise. “The paper proves our eyewitness account of McMahan arguing with Peterman.”

“It doesn’t prove a thing.” She leaned heavily on her cane. “Mrs. Peterman was in the photo too.”

“Oh, that would be too good to be true,” I said. I rubbed my greedy hands together. “Let’s get her.”

“I’m serious, Catherine. You heard the M.E. say that crushing in McMahan’s skull didn’t take much effort. Maybe McMahan approached Mr. Peterman about his wife’s involvement and that’s why they were fighting.”

“I don’t know, Louise. She’s rude, and maybe a little nuts, but I don’t think she homicidal.”

“We can’t rule her out.”

I held up the paper and studied the photo. Maybe, I thought, if I scrutinized the picture long enough the answer would pop out at me. It didn’t.

“Let’s go talk to Mr. Peterman,” Louise said.

I folded the paper in a small square and stuffed it in my pocket. I looked toward the lake where a man helped his wife, and two girls into a boat at the dock, untied the boat and slowly pull away.

I smiled.

“Louise? Have you ever considered changing professions?

“No. Why?”

I shrugged. “Part of me wants to know what their life would be like. They never have to consider that someone they like could conk another human being over the head.”

Louise watched the family until they passed a land out cropping, which obscured them from our view.

“You’d be crazy in a week.”

I screwed my face into an exaggerated pout.

“Catherine, you were born to this job. Your natural suspicion and overweening need for justice would force you back.”

“Great. Suspicious and crusading.”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “I forgot to mention your innate fairness.”

I pressed my lips flat into a grateful smile. We stood for a moment longer without moving. Then Louise patted my shoulder.

“Okay. Are you sufficiently comforted?”

I nodded. “Yes, I think so.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Wes Peterman sat slanted forward in his seat elbows on knees, as if he would vomit between his feet at any second. I’d remembered him as old, and my mind had made the equation to frail, but now I could see how wrong my calculation had been.

Lines and crevasses mapped Wes Peterman’s face and hands, but his arms were smoothed by the muscles underneath. Years of physical labor in the sun had given his face and arms the contradiction.