Lucky Stiff (20 page)

“I see,” he says; and for one frightening moment, I think he does.

“Where are we on the ID stuff for Donald Strommen?”

“I expect to hear something shortly.”

I leave Izzy and head for the library, which doubles as my office. I copy Jack’s chart and then start reading through the various visit notes, doctor’s orders, and summaries it contains. Lisa Warden’s notes make up the bulk of the chart. It becomes apparent early on that her role was a dual one. In addition to the routine nursing stuff, such as baths, catheter care, wound care, and skin care, she also helped him with his meals and with the occasional errand. Her notes go back more than a year, with Paul Fletcher providing regular weekly supervisory visits. Everything is consistent time-wise with what we’ve already been told by Warden and Fletcher: Fletcher last saw Jack on December 23, and Lisa saw him early on Christmas Day.

Most of the notes in Jack’s chart involve routine care you’d expect to find with any paraplegic, but there were a few bumps in the road: a hospitalization for the debridement of his bedsore, with a resultant infection that required IV antibiotics for several weeks; a bout of the flu, which led to a month of home respiratory treatments; and a recent problem with severe constipation, which required frequent enemas.

Izzy comes in, just as I’m finishing up with the chart.

“Strommen’s dentist just called and confirmed, so we’re good to go out there anytime,” he tells me. “Given that I’m unsure of the cause or manner of his death at this point, we should probably invite Hurley along.”

I call Hurley and put him on speakerphone. First I update him on Arnie’s findings and my review of Jack’s chart. Then he, in turn, informs us that the notary on Serena’s note with Jack is legitimate, that the phone and e-mail records haven’t turned up anything of interest, and that the two patients Lisa Warden supposedly saw on Christmas morning after leaving Jack’s place have verified her alibi.

When I tell him we finally have an official ID for Strommen, the three of us discuss what to do next. We decide to have Hurley call Strommen’s wife—both to make sure she is home, and to make the visit, at least initially, appear to be nothing more than another police inquiry into her husband’s disappearance. Hurley puts us on hold to make the call and comes back a couple of minutes later to confirm that the wife is home and expecting him.

Izzy and I arrange to meet Hurley there. I decide to ride with Izzy in his car, figuring the arrival of a hearse at the Strommen house might be a bit impolite, considering our task. But riding with Izzy is a challenge, since his car is an old, restored Impala, with a bench front seat. Izzy can barely reach the pedals with the seat in its most forward position, which leaves me curled up in the passenger seat like a giant Baby Huey in utero. Unfortunately, the Strommens live on a farm at the edge of town, and the house is located at the end of a long, bumpy drive. By the time we arrive, I have a cramp in both legs, a bite on my lip, and the beginnings of a bruise on top of my head.

As I unfold myself from the car, I use a tissue Izzy gives me to wipe the blood off my lips and teeth. I look at the surrounding fields, which are now barren and plowed up, and the barn, which has huge holes in its sides and a missing door. Through the opening, I see a tractor and a combine parked inside, surrounded by a variety of farm attachments and an ATV that looks like it’s seen better days.

The house looks to be at least a hundred years old. The clapboard siding is faded and peeling, and the window boxes on the front are filled with dead plants. A brick chimney on the roof, which is missing a large number of shingles, is crumbling. As we climb the front steps, I notice that the handrail is leaning precariously and the porch is missing a few boards in the floor. There is an older model Ford pickup with a dual cab parked beside the house, and given the towing unit I see on the back of it, I figure it was what Donald Strommen used to get his boat to the launch site. I wonder how long it was before the truck was returned to the family once it was determined that Donald was missing. Living out in the country like this, having some sort of vehicle is a necessity.

Charlotte Strommen—a tall, thin woman, with stick legs, almost no waist, and a face that is gaunt and wan—looks as tired and worn-out as her surroundings. She is wearing a tattered white housedress, a once-white cardigan sweater with holes in it, dingy white knee socks, and white tennis shoes. With her pasty complexion and bleached blond hair, the all-white combination makes her look like a ghost.

Hurley steps up and shows her his badge. “I’m Detective Hurley, with the Sorenson Police Department. I’m the one who spoke with you on the phone a short while ago.” He then points to Izzy and me. “This is Mattie Winston and Dr. Rybarceski, with the medical examiner’s office. I’m afraid we have some bad news for you.”

Charlotte starts wringing the thin cotton dish towel she is holding in her hands. “You found him, didn’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hurley says. “I’m sorry. His body washed up along the shore of the river, near a farm on the other side of town.”

“Are you sure it’s Donald?” she asks, looking from Hurley to us, and back again.

“It’s definitely Donald,” Izzy says. “We verified the remains using his dental records.”

Charlotte squeezes her eyes closed, and two fat tears roll down her cheeks. “I guess I knew it all along,” she says. “The empty boat, the fact that he didn’t come home . . .” She sighs and her body sags, making Hurley step up and take her arm.

“Let’s go inside and sit down,” Hurley says. “Are Peter and Hannah here?” he asks, referring to Charlotte’s two kids.

Charlotte shakes her head as Hurley steers her inside and to a nearby couch. “They’re at a neighbor’s house,” she says. And then she starts to sob. “Oh, God. How am I going to tell them?”

As Izzy and I follow Hurley and Charlotte inside, I scope out the surroundings. Despite the warm temp outside, it’s cold inside the house. And if the furnace is working at all, I’d wager the thermostat is set at around 50 degrees. There is a fireplace, but it’s dark and empty. Based on the condition of the chimney outside, I’m guessing it’s unusable. The walls are covered with faded, peeling paper; the furniture all looks like frayed and shabby rummage sale stuff; the wood floors are dulled, scuffed, and scarred from hundreds of feet wearing them down; the light fixture in the living room is hanging down from the ceiling by a cord that I suspect is old knob-and-tube wiring.

Off in one corner of the living room is a scraggly-looking Christmas tree decorated with mostly homemade ornaments and two sparse strings of lights, none of which are lit. Clearly, the Strommen family has fallen on hard times. I wonder if Donald was out fishing in an effort to put food on his family’s table.

Charlotte zeroes in on me for some reason—perhaps because I’m the only other woman in the group—with a stricken expression. “Did he drown?” she asks in a quiet, little voice.

“It doesn’t appear so,” I tell her.

Her eyes grow wide and she shifts her gaze to Izzy, then to Hurley, and back to me. “What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t appear so’? How did he die?”

Izzy jumps in. “At first blush, it looked as if he might have drowned, but the results of our subsequent examination ruled that out. He had a fairly significant head injury, but I don’t think that was the cause of his death, either.”

“Well, what else is there?” Charlotte asks, wringing her hands.

Hurley decides to take over at this point and deftly distracts her from the subject. “We’re not done with all the tests. It would help us if you could go over what happened the day he disappeared.”

“I already talked with the police about this,” she says in an exasperated tone. “Don’t you people share your notes?”

“We do,” Hurley says with admirable patience. “But we like to go over the facts multiple times. Sometimes people remember things they didn’t the first time, because they’re too upset or emotional. I realize this isn’t easy for you, but it would help us if you could just go over it once again.”

Hurley takes out a notebook and pen and stands poised and waiting.

Charlotte sighs heavily and leans back into the couch. “Donald took the boat out to fish around two in the afternoon the day after Thanksgiving,” she begins. “He liked going out at night because he said the fishing was better then. Usually, he came back by midnight, but that night he didn’t come back at all. I didn’t realize it until the next morning, because I was tired and went to bed around ten.”

“Do you know where he fished?”

“He usually put in at the launch down by Riley’s Corner. There’s a bait shop there he likes.”

A lot of folks like that shop because its name is a saucy double entendre: Bass Master Baits.

As Hurley scribbles some notes, I shift from one foot to the other, feeling the pressure of all the coffee and the hot chocolate I drank pressing on my bladder.

“Charlotte, would it be okay if I used your bathroom?” I ask.

“Sure. It’s the door straight ahead at the top of the stairs.”

I turn and leave the room, heading for the stairs. They creak loudly as I climb, plotting my progress for anyone who cares to listen. I find the bathroom, relieve myself, and wash my hands, noting that the only towel hanging in the room is as threadbare as everything else. When I’m done, I venture back out into the main hallway, pausing before I return to the living room. The stairway is located in the center of the house; and to the right of the landing down the hall, I see the doorways to two other bedrooms, one on either side, both of them closed. I move toward the first one and see the name
Hannah
painted on a piece of poster board and taped to the door. Under the name it says: KEEP OUT! in big red letters. The second door is plain and empty. Back toward the stairs, I see the entrance to a third bedroom, to the left of the landing. The door to this room is open and I can see the footboard for a double bed in the room. I assume this is the master bedroom. Curious, I tiptoe closer, grimacing as I hear the floorboards beneath my feet creak as loudly as the stairs had.

I step inside and stop short. The bed is neatly made and covered with an old-fashioned patchwork quilt. On top of the quilt are several piles of clothing—men’s clothing from the looks of them, plaid flannel shirts, blue work shirts, jeans, and T-shirts. All around the bed are boxes; some of them with clothes inside.

I walk over to the closet. It’s a small one, typical of these old farmhouses, some of which don’t even have closets in all the bedrooms. Hanging inside it are a half-dozen housedresses, some slacks and blouses, and a woman’s brown wool winter coat, which has a tiny slip of paper with a dry-cleaning number safety-pinned to the collar. On the overhead shelf are a dozen or so sweaters neatly folded and stacked, and lined up on the floor are six pairs of shoes—two pairs of women’s sneakers, one basic pair of pumps, one pair of semi-dressy flats, a pair of clogs, and some everyday casual flats. The closet isn’t overstuffed, but its tiny area is pretty much filled by what it contains.

I walk over to the bed and examine the clothes piled there and in the boxes. I see that my first assumption was correct; they all appear to be men’s clothes. If Charlotte Strommen thought her husband was still missing, and she was supposedly hoping he might be alive, why was she packing up all his clothes?

By the time I make it back downstairs, I can tell that Charlotte has realized what I might have seen. She watches me warily as I reenter the room, fidgeting with a loose thread in her sweater.

I say nothing and avoid looking at her. Hurley closes his notebook and shoves it and his pen back into his pocket.

“I think we have enough for now,” he says to Charlotte. “We’ll keep you posted and let you know what we find, once we’ve concluded all our tests.”

He thanks Charlotte for her cooperation, and then heads out the door with Izzy and me on his tail. When we reach the cars, I grab Hurley before he can get into his.

“Hold up,” I say in a low voice. I glance back toward the house and see Charlotte watching us behind the thin curtains hanging in the living room. “I think we need to take a closer look at Donald, because something isn’t right about this. Charlotte is lying to us. She knows more than she’s letting on.”

“What are you talking about?” Hurley says. Izzy leans in to hear what I’m going to say next.

“When I went upstairs to use the bathroom, I peeked inside Charlotte and Donald’s bedroom. The bed was covered with his clothes, and some of them were packed in boxes next to the bed.”

“Maybe she was just packing away the summer stuff,” Izzy offers.

“I don’t think so. There were heavy overalls, plaid flannel shirts, and a quilted vest packed in one of the boxes.”

“Interesting,” Hurley says.

“That’s what I thought,” I say. “Especially when I realized that the closet had only her clothes left in it. Why would she be packing up all of her husband’s clothes if she didn’t even know he was dead yet?”

Hurley sighs. “I thought this was going to be an easy one,” he says. “So much for buttoning things up before Florida.”

Izzy says, “I’ll put a rush on the tox screen.”

“You know,” I say, looking at Hurley, “with two kids in the house, I’m betting one or both of them might know something about what really happened to their father. Maybe you should talk to them?”

“Not a bad idea,” Hurley says, “but I think I’ll wait. Right now, Charlotte is cooperating with us, and I don’t have any real evidence to suggest foul play. And if Charlotte is hiding something, she isn’t likely to let us interrogate her kids. I could do it anyway, but it will just piss her off and make her less likely to work with us. So I think I’d rather hold off for now to see if you guys come up with anything new.”

We climb into our respective cars. As we head back into town, Hurley’s last words trigger an idea. Donald and Charlotte’s daughter, Hannah, is close in age to my niece, Erika, and the boy, Peter, is around the same age as my nephew, Ethan. The Sorenson schools are small and the kids all know one another and gossip like crazy. If we can’t talk to Charlotte’s kids directly, maybe I can find out something by taking a more indirect route.