Deer Season (29 page)

“And you elected not to accompany him?” Sue questioned.

“Boyd said there were things he needed to do on his own. I was specifically not to. And I don’t think I would have, anyway.”

“Why’s that?”

“My job is to provide legal counsel. I’m not his bodyguard. And I wouldn’t do anything that might lead to my disbarment.”

“So what will be your role now?” Ray asked.

“I will continue to provide counsel to the corporation as long as my services are needed. I’ve called the firm and explained the situation. One of the senior partners, Nicholas Ovilbee, who oversees criminal matters, will be on the first flight from Chicago tomorrow morning to assess the situation. I suspect Nick or someone he designates will be attending to this matter.”

Ray looked across the room. Hanna Jeffers was striding in their direction. She stopped as she reached the table. “I was hoping I would find you here.”

“What’s happened?” asked Ray.

“Boyd coded shortly after you left the unit. We started a very aggressive resuscitation; we were not successful.”

“He’s dead?” asked Hawkins, disbelief in his voice.

“Yes,” she said, her tone softening. “His damaged heart just gave up. There was nothing we could do. Mrs. Boyd needs you. I’ll take you to her.” Then she marched away, Hawkins trailing after.

50
John Tyrrell, the Cedar County prosecutor, was sitting at the head of a conference table in a room adjoining his office. His collar button was open and the knot of a muted tartan tie hung several inches below his corpulent neck. A carafe of coffee and mugs were on a tray in front of him. As Ray and Sue entered the room, he folded a copy of the
Wall Street Journal
and moved it off to the side. Sue sat at Tyrrell’s right, Ray at his left.

As they exchanged pleasantries, Ray poured a mug of coffee. Sue had brought a Diet Coke with her and a stack of folders that she arranged on the desk in front of her.

“What do you have for me?” asked Tyrrell.

“First there’s Gavin Mendicot. He’s finally coherent enough that we’ve been able to question him.”

“Does he have representation?”

“Yes. A Chicago law firm that seems to look after Mendicot has retained Keith Birdsall. Mendicot seems to live off a very substantial trust.”

“Was Birdsall there during the interviews?”

“Yes, both times.”

“Good. Go ahead.”

“The prosecutor in Alger County is preparing a warrant for his arrest in the murder of Danny Lowther. They should be able to put together a fairly strong case for first-degree murder. We have the probable murder weapon and evidence that puts Mendicot in the area near the time of the murder. The weapon, clips, and related material are on their way to the State Police lab. We’re confident that the brass found at the scene will establish that this is the murder weapon.”

“Anything else?”

“A credit card charge at a 24-hour gas station outside of Newberry and an ATM photo at the same location. The station is about forty miles east of the scene of the shooting. We found the credit card receipt the first time we searched his car. The State Police did the legwork that produced the ATM photo and security camera video.”

“Date and time?” asked Tyrrell as he freshened his coffee.

“It was after three in the morning, an hour or two after the murder took place. He was on his way downstate.”

“So why did Mendicot want Danny Lowther dead?

“We’ve pieced things together from our interviews with Mendicot. He’s told us a lot, far more than Birdsall would have liked. Once you get him started, he just rattles on. That said, he provides a very confused and often conflicting story. But before we get into that I’d like Sue to summarize the evidence we have in the shooting of Lynne Boyd.”

“Here’s the inventory of the contents of his car,” said Sue, passing Tyrrell several pages held together by a blue paper clip. She waited, watching his eyes move down the first page and onto the second page.

“It looks like he had a mobile drugstore and a weapons cache,” Tyrrell observed.

“Yes,” she agreed. “And in the weapons category you will find a rifle with a high power scope.”

“Okay.”

“We are waiting for results to come back from the State Police lab, but we believe that the rifle was used in the Lynne Boyd shooting.”

“What’s her condition, now?” asked Tyrrell.

“Lynne is in stable condition,” Ray answered. “She was moved to Cleveland Clinic on Monday.”

“What’s the prognosis?”

“According to Hanna Jeffers, the young surgeon who treated her locally, the prognosis is good. That said, she probably needs a month or six weeks more in hospital care. Dr. Jeffers suggested an additional surgery might be necessary during the healing process.”

“So going back to this rifle,” said Tyrrell, “you’re pretty solid on having the weapon that links Mendicot to the Lynne Boyd shooting?”

“Yes,” Sue responded.

“What was his motive for shooting Lynne?”

“Well, that was an accident of sorts. He was really trying to get Dirk Lowther. Mendicot had obviously been watching Dirk, getting his daily pattern down, so he could take him out. But his plan fell apart. On the day of the shooting Lynne was driving Dirk’s truck, wearing his coat, and arrived home about the time Dirk usually did. And to make things even more difficult, Mendicot was several hundred yards from his target in near-blizzard conditions. And God only knows the amount of alcohol and drugs he might have ingested.”

“So why was he trying to kill Dirk?”

“He seems confused on that point; he can’t seem to remember the chronology of events that led to the shooting.”

“Well, I’m getting confused, too,” opined Tyrrell.

“Let me explain,” Sue said. “When we come in to do these interviews, we’re very organized. Granted, these conversations quickly take on a life of their own, but usually you can lead the person back to the topic under discussion. Mendicot is all over the place. In non-clinical terms, his brain seems to be fried, nothing is quite hooked up anymore, or if it is hooked up, the connections are in the wrong places.”

“What’s Birdsall doing? Is he trying to keep Mendicot quiet?”

“He’s given up on that. His client seems completely oblivious to anything he says,” Sue answered. “Birdsall’s suggested to us that Mendicot might have multiple personality disorder, as well as major addiction problems. That may be the course of his defense, rather than denying that his client committed the crimes.”

“Let’s go back to Mendicot’s motive,” Tyrrell said.

“There seem to be several,” answered Ray, picking up the story. “First he told us that Dirk was messing with his woman. His language was a bit more graphic.”

“I can imagine. Who is the woman in question? Anyone I might know?”

“Donna Bateman.”

“Ah, yes, the lovely Donna. That woman is driving me crazy. I think that she would willingly compromise the integrity of a member of the prosecutor’s office, if she thought it would get her kid off the hook.”

“Are you suggesting that she might try to influence the prosecutor himself?” asked Ray.

“You got it,” Tyrell responded.

“We are so lucky you’re not easily tempted by her feminine charms,” Ray said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “So what’s the situation with Clay?”

“Remind me to come back to him. I want to know Mendicot’s motive, or shall I say motives.”

“Well, like I said, he was angry with Dirk over Donna. Mendicot had been living with her for a number of months, and after that incident involving Clay, she kicked him out. The shotgun that Clay used belonged to Mendicot. Donna put the blame on him rather than on her son.”

“Then there’s the other story,” began Sue. “Mendicot said he shot Dirk because Prescott Boyd threatened him, saying he would tell the truth about how Mendicot’s stepfather died if he didn’t kill Dirk and Danny.”

“And what’s the truth?” asked Tyrrel.

“This goes back more than twenty years. Mendicot’s stepfather died on Round Island during deer season. The story has been that he shot himself accidentally, and that Dirk, Danny, and Orville investigated the death. But one of Mendicot’s versions is that everyone out there had been drinking heavily. He and his stepfather got into an argument, a gun went off, and Orville and his deputies said he had killed his stepfather. Mendicot says he doesn’t think he shot him, but they convinced him that he had. Then Prescott Boyd paid Mendicot several million dollars for his stepfather’s share of the club and promised never to divulge Gavin’s secret,” explained Ray.

“And there are further versions?”

“Yes,” answered Sue. “Mendicot also told us that Danny and Dirk killed his stepfather and told him that they would kill him too, if he didn’t sell his share of the club to Boyd. He said he was too scared at the time to go to the law. That Danny and Dirk had a lot of things on him, so even if he managed to get them sent to jail, he would have been going away for a long time, too. He also said that they told him they knew lots of people inside, and they would have quickly made sure he got dead.”

“They were a couple of quality guys,” quipped Tyrrell. “What do you know about the Boyd connection? Is there any truth to that?”

“We’ll never know the complete story,” said Sue. “We know that Mendicot lives off the proceeds from a trust fund, and that Boyd was party to establishing the trust. We also know that, based on cell phone records, in the days preceding Danny’s death Boyd made a number of calls to him. He also called Mendicot after he reportedly argued with Dirk, also verified by phone records.

“We think this might have been the scenario for the final confrontation on Round Island. Boyd lured Dirk Lowther to a meeting there. He then got Mendicot to rush over in the hope that he would take Dirk out before he got to the warming house. But just in case Mendicot failed, Boyd was ready. As soon as Dirk came through the door, Boyd put a bullet in him.”

“Wasn’t that pretty high risk, both physically and legally?”

“Yes,” answered Ray. “But Boyd was a sick man. He was well aware of the fact that he didn’t have much time. We think that Dirk had been extorting money over the years for his silence in the death of Hawthorne, Mendicot’s stepfather. With Dirk and Lynne’s divorce, it seemed things were coming to a head. We believe Dirk was increasing his demand, perhaps asking for a final big payout.”

“If this Boyd is so rich, why didn’t he just buy Dirk off?”

“I think he needed closure, he didn’t want to put his estate in jeopardy. The only way to be really sure of that was to have Dirk dead,” Sue explained.

“Well, that makes sense. He neatened things up and then had the good sense to check out,” Tyrrell chuckled at his own joke. “Not many bad guys are so protective of their families.”

“If you don’t need anything else,” said Sue, “tell us about Clay Bateman.”

“Donna and Mr. Smiles are doing their best to convince us to treat Clay as a juvenile. Here’s their argument. Since he didn’t finish the football season, he doesn’t have much chance for a scholarship. Now he thinks he’s going to join the military. If he has a criminal record, they won’t take him. As you know, his juvenile record will be expunged when he turns eighteen. And that will happen in early June. They’ve already talked to the Marine recruiter, in fact the guy’s even come in to talk to me about Clay, how they will turn him into a responsible adult.

“So here’s my dilemma,” continued Tyrrell. “Will I be able to sleep knowing that I allowed Clay Bateman off the hook to go into the service. How do you feel about him defending our nation’s borders? I mean, you’ve met this kid. Would it be better for all of us if I put him in jail?”

Before they could respond, Tyrrell pulled himself out of his chair. “I’ve got a lunch meeting. Good work, guys. Keep me in the loop.” He started to move away from the table and then came back. “Ray, early on, just after the Lynne Boyd’s shooting, you told me about some threatening letters she’d received. What happened with those?”

“We sent them to the State Police Laboratory. And it turns out the sheriff’s office in Antrim County had sent them some similar packets—threateningletters sent to a principal and a science teacher. The evidence techs quickly determined the same person assembled those letters and the ones sent to Lynne.”

“And,” prodded Tyrrell impatiently.

“An eighth grade student in Bellaire got in trouble for bringing a hunting knife to school. When the sheriff was interviewing the student, he asked him about the letters and kid eventually fessed up. They called in the State Police and the boy admitted to writing the letters that Lynne received as well.”

“What was his motive?” asked Tyrrell

“The sheriff told me the kid comes from a family of gun nuts. The kid thought Lynne’s reports were an attack on his second amendment rights.”

“Well, someone needs to tell that kid those rights don’t apply to children,” Tyrrell responded. “Again, keep me in the loop.”

Ray sat and watched Tyrrell depart. He looked across the table at Sue. “How about lunch? It’s on me.”

“Do I have to watch you eat a tempe Rueben at the Good Earth,” she joked.

“You pick the place,” said Ray. “You can have a bacon-topped double cheeseburger with fries, and I won’t say a thing.”

“You’re on,” said Sue.

Author’s Note

In the process of writing this book I received help and encouragement from readers and friends. I am especially grateful to the early readers of the manuscript for their insightful feedback that helped me grow the story during the many revisions. Special thanks to Heather Shaw, Anne-Marie Oomen, Irene Biber, Angela Williams, and Diane and Danny Carr for that gift. And to Jan Nellett my gratitude for a close reading at the end and decades of friendship.