The Heirloom Murders (25 page)

“My wife committed suicide! You gave me the autopsy results yourself. Bonnie even sent a suicide note to Dellyn.”

“I don’t doubt that Bonnie wanted to kill herself. But I know more about you than you realize, Mr. Sabatola. Your friend Roxie shared some interesting stories. I know your mother abandoned you. I know you were raised by your stepfather, and that you always felt second-best against your half-brother Alan. I
know that while you’re already a rich man, your need for power will always matter more than anything else.”

“I—”

“Speaking of your childhood friends, you must be wondering why Mr. Guest didn’t pick you up at Roxie’s Roost last night.” Roelke began to prowl back and forth. “Did you drive home drunk, or did you actually call a cab? I don’t think Roxie drove you, because she knew that if she left her daughter—a minor—to watch the bar again, she’d be arrested for all kinds of things. Anyway, Mr. Guest is in custody.”

Skeet spoke for the first time. “And is Mr. Guest talking, Officer McKenna?”

“Oh yes,” Roelke said. “Mr. Guest is talking.”

Sabatola licked lips evidently gone dry. “Edwin has always been excitable. He’s jealous of my success. I’m not surprised he’d weave this tale of lies. I think he was half in love with Bonnie himself.”

“Your wife was a beautiful woman,” Roelke conceded. “And I believe she was planning to kill herself that morning.” He leaned over and planted his hands on the arms of Sabatola’s chair. “But you beat her to it. You couldn’t stand the idea of her leaving you. Of having her betray you,
abandon
you, just like your mother did. So you followed her to the trail.”

Something in Sabatola’s eyes changed. Roelke stepped back just before the other man exploded to his feet. Skeet moved but Roelke made a sharp gesture, warning him back.

“It was perfect!” Roelke said. “I don’t know anyone else who could have pulled it off! You followed Bonnie and you chased her down that trail. Then you held the gun in
exactly
the spot she would have, and pulled the trigger. You probably grabbed her roughly enough to leave bruises—but with the sudden loss of blood, no bruises formed. It was
brilliant
.”

“She was going to kill herself anyway.” Sabatola’s face was twisted with anger and contempt. “I could tell, that morning. She’d changed. She was calm. I knew what she was going to do.”

Roelke’s anger scorched his ribs. Not yet, not yet.

“So I followed her. What the fuck difference does it make? All I did was beat her to the trigger.”

Roelke took Sabatola down. He ground the man’s face into the carpet, and had him cuffed so fast Skeet didn’t have time to assist. “There was a chance your wife would have changed her mind,” Roelke growled. “There was
always
that chance. Simon Sabatola, you are under arrest for the murder of your wife.” He rose to his feet.

“Nobody walks out on me!” Sabatola yelled. “She deserved to die!”

Roelke kicked Sabatola in the ribs. Hard. Sabatola curled into a whimpering ball. Roelke kicked him again.

Skeet grabbed Roelke’s arm, pulling him backward. “Shit, man! Cut it out!”

“How does it feel?” Roelke demanded of Sabatola. “How does it feel to get attacked by someone stronger than you?”

Skeet shoved Roelke away. “Holy Christ, Roelke!” he hissed. “The chief will have your balls in a sling!”

“Do what you gotta do, man,” Roelke muttered, knowing that Skeet would fully describe these last few minutes in his report. “Do what you gotta do.”

Skeet got Sabatola to his feet, and recited his rights. Sabatola gave Roelke a look of scorn. “You can’t convict me of anything without more evidence than my secretary’s wild tales.”

“You’re right,” Roelke agreed. He was back in control again, the fire tamped down. “But we do have evidence. The man you trusted with your deepest secrets didn’t trust
you
. When you killed your wife, blood splattered all over your clothes. You told Guest to destroy them, but he didn’t. Your fine tailored suit is already on its way to the state crime lab.”

1876

Albrecht knew he’d run
out of time. The well was filling with water. And he had not found another pretty topaz to make Clarissa smile.

Charles kept him on another day to haul the last of the rubble from the well site. Albrecht took his time, filling the barrow slowly, trundling it to the tree line, dumping each load with precision. Charles would likely use the stones to build a fence.

Albrecht hadn’t quite finished when Charles called him to the barn. “Job well done,” Charles said. He held out his hand and dropped the agreed-upon wages into Albrecht’s palm. “Thanks.”

“If you have any more chores, I’m available,” Albrecht told him.

“Nothing at the moment.” Charles turned away, already reaching for a harness.

Ten minutes later Charles had saddled his mare and ridden from the farmyard. Albrecht didn’t know where he was going, or how long he’d be gone. Clarissa was on her knees in her garden, hacking a shallow trench where she could bury potato skins and apple cores. This was his last chance.

He splashed his hands and face with cool water pulled up from the well he’d help dig. Hair slicked back, skin dried on his sleeve, he approached Clarissa with the small sack he’d brought with him that morning. “Pardon me, ma’am.”

Clarissa had been humming to herself, and she started. “Oh! Mr. Bachmeier. Are you finished?”

“Almost, ma’am. And—well, you see—I wanted to thank you for the kindness you’ve shown me.”

She waved that off with a little laugh. “I’ve done nothing more than feed you dinner! No need to thank me for that. You worked hard. Charles and I are both grateful.”

“It was more than cooking,” Albrecht said quietly. “And I have two small tokens of my esteem.” He offered first a tiny packet made of brown paper.

She accepted it slowly. “What’s this?”

“Seeds, ma’am. They’ll grow a flower that all the women in the village where I was born used to make a kind of cheese,
Grünen Schabzieger
. It’s strong medicine, especially good for stomach troubles. But you don’t have to make cheese with them!” he added hastily, seeing the tiny frown between her eyebrows. “You could make tea. And the flowers are beautiful in their own right. A strong blue.”

She beamed. “Why, how thoughtful! I do love trying new plants.
I often trade seeds with people, but I don’t believe I have any German varieties.”

“Swiss,” he corrected her. He knew that Charles had made an assumption—most of the Yankees did, when they heard his accent—but he wanted Clarissa to know who he was.

Then he reached into the sack and pulled out his second gift. “And I made this for you. That old cultivator you use looks dull. You needed a sharper one.”

He watched as Clarissa examined the hand tool slowly. He’d made a cultivator like this one for his mother, and given it to her before he’d left the Swiss community in New Glarus. He’d known he needed to live among people other than his own so he could learn about their plants, trading seed for seed. He was trying to establish himself as a horticulturist. He’d do odd jobs and farmhand work until he’d saved enough money to buy a few acres of his own, where he could cultivate flowers and vegetables. Maybe even fruit trees, one day.

Anyway, his mother had liked her cultivator. Albrecht held his breath.

A slow, delighted smile lit Clarissa’s delicate features. “This will be ever so handy! Thank you. And the rose carving is lovely! Is this your work?”

“Yes ma’am,” he said. “I’m glad you like it.”

Albrecht Bachmeier nodded, then turned away. He wanted to remember the woman he loved as she was right then, smelling of damp soil and sunshine, beaming with the pleasure of his simple gifts. He hadn’t found a topaz to give her … but he’d found a gem of his own. He’d touch her memory when he needed to, the way she sometimes touched her pretty yellow stone. That was enough, he decided. That would have to be enough.

At seven
am
, Roelke
pulled on his uniform again and drove to Chloe’s house. A blue Fairmont sat in the driveway behind Chloe’s rustbucket Pinto. Meili’s, of course. Roelke felt numb. He cut the engine and forced himself into cop mode. He needed to get this over with.

Chloe answered the door, her hair still damp from a recent shower. Roelke felt a tiny notch of relief. The thought of rousing them from—

“Roelke!” Chloe glanced over her shoulder before ushering him inside. “We were, um, just sitting down to breakfast. Want some granola?”

The thought of munching granola across the table from Meili made Roelke want to puke. “No thanks. Some stuff got wrapped up last night. I figured you’d want to know.”

They all settled in the living room. Chloe brought Roelke a cup of coffee, and he took a bracing sip. He wasn’t sure how much Meili knew, so he started by summarizing what he’d learned about Guest’s and Sabatola’s childhoods from Roxie. “They both had hard times as kids. Sabatola’s mother abandoned him to his step-father. Guest and his mother were homeless for a while.”

Alpine Boy crossed his arms. “Is he using poverty as an excuse for what he did?”

“I’m just telling you what I know. Guest was heavy into science stuff, but couldn’t afford college. Sabatola got a job in his step-daddy’s company, and hired Guest. The two caused a lot of trouble together, but once the shit hit the fan, both of them shoveled dirt on the other as fast as they could.”

“Nice guys,” Chloe said bitterly.

“Roxie was part of the Sabatola-Guest gang when they were all kids,” Roelke added. “I don’t know if Simon still went to her bar once a week to relax, or to remind himself of how far he’d risen. Anyway, I saw them arguing at Bonnie’s funeral. Roxie told me later that she’d asked for a five thousand dollar loan so she could go to cosmetology school. That’s chump change for Sabatola, but he wouldn’t do it. When I threatened her with prosecution for helping run me off the road, she started telling tales pretty quick.”

Chloe shuddered. “It’s all so creepy.”

“Back to Guest,” Roelke said. “He’s been doing research about old-time plants.”

Chloe and Markus exchanged a glance. “We got that part,” Chloe said. “But why?”

“Alan Sabatola is expanding his chemical division to include plant genetics, and—”

“Of course!” Meili exclaimed. “Alan is buying into the agrochemical revolution. There’s no way Simon and Guest could beat him at his own game, so they decided to do the exact opposite!”

“Looking to the past,” Chloe added, “instead of falling in with the chemical corporations’ vision of world monopolies!”

“It’s a brilliant strategy,” Meili mused. “Completely unexpected.”

Meili and Chloe had just grasped a scheme that Roelke was still struggling to comprehend.

“Some of the board members evidently have qualms about Alan’s approach, which involves engineering crops that are dependent on pesticides AgriFutures is already making,” Roelke said. “It’s just like you were telling me, Chloe. Guest and Sabatola wanted to impress the board by coming up with something new, something that moved into Alan’s area of expertise, and something that sounded more ethical than Alan’s empire-building plan.”

“I finally guessed they were after those rare Swiss flower seeds,” Chloe said, “but I still don’t understand
why
. The flower is pretty, and the old Swiss people used it to make cheese that had medicinal properties. But AgriFutures can’t transport cheese to the Third World!”

Meili frowned. “And how did Guest know about the plant anyway?”

“After Mr. and Mrs. Burke were killed in that car crash, Bonnie took her mother’s garden journals home,” Roelke said. “Guest found one and read about that Swiss plant—”

“
Käseklee
,” Meili supplied.

Roelke forced himself to unclench his jaw. “
Käseklee
,” he repeated. “Someone in Eagle gave seeds to Mrs. Burke’s great-grandmother years ago, and she recorded how they’d been used. Guest was intrigued by accounts of the healing properties of this special cheese—”

“Grünen Schabzieger,”
Meili said
.
This time Chloe gave him a tiny frown.

“—and he developed this theory about the whey,” Roelke continued doggedly. “I even heard him discussing it on the phone once, but I didn’t realize what he was saying.”
That’s not the way I want
…, Guest had said. And,
We can’t apply for the patent until I’m sure that this is the way I—”
Except Guest had been saying
whey
, not
way
.

Meili—once again—nodded with instant comprehension. “For years whey was a byproduct. Cheesemakers fed it to their hogs or dumped it in ditches. But lately—”

“Whey protein products have become popular!” Chloe chimed in. “And unlike milk or cheese, it would be easy to ship whey protein anywhere in the world!”

“That’s about it,” Roelke said. “It” being the limits of his understanding of the topic. “Guest thinks he can infuse whey protein with the medicinal benefits from this plant. Somehow. Something like that.”

Meili shoved a hand through his hair. “And all the board members would know is that Simon was making progress in
both
branches of the company. Guest’s project—at least on the surface—would come without the … what’s the word? The ghost of bad things?”

“Specter,” Chloe supplied. “The specter of the possibility that genetically engineered plants, forced on Third World countries, could end up destroying a huge percentage of a country or continent’s food supply.”

Am I even needed in this conversation? Roelke wondered. Chloe and Markus communicated in the shorthand that came from shared history or shared worldview. Or both. All right, he told himself. Wrap this up and get the hell out of here.

“Guest needed seeds, fast, but he hadn’t been able to find anyone who still grew that particular plant around here. The only known source was Mrs. Burke’s garden. He thought he could patent the process of getting the plant’s medicinal properties into the whey protein. He asked Bonnie to get him the seeds, but she refused. Then he went to Sabatola, who tried to bully his wife into helping him.”

“Oh, God,” Chloe murmured. “That poor woman.”

“Bonnie hid or destroyed the journal. Guest thought he could find seeds at the Burke place. He couldn’t find the plant in the garden, though, or any labeled seeds in the garden shed.”

Chloe jerked upright. “Or in the barn, by chance?” she demanded.

Roelke’s right knee began to jiggle up and down. “Guest was searching in the barn the night you surprised him. His resentment boiled into hatred after Bonnie hid the journal, and hid or destroyed her mother’s seeds. That hatred transferred to Dellyn.”

Chloe closed her eyes. “Guest thought that Dellyn had maybe taken the seeds to Old World Wisconsin for her Garden Fair. And …”

“Guest hasn’t admitted to killing Harriet Van Dyne,” Roelke said, “but my guess is he searched the displays Dellyn had set up, and became enraged when he
still
didn’t find the seeds he was looking for. When Harriet came back for her purse, he probably thought—again—that it was Dellyn. I’ve already talked to the detective handling that case.”

“
Gott in Himmel
,” Meili muttered.

“Sabatola and Guest thought they were out of chances,” Roelke said. “Then Dellyn told Simon about the Frietags.”

Meili groaned. “I thought that visiting Frieda and Johann
might cheer Dellyn up, so I made the arrangements. I had to attend
a historical society meeting last night, but I’d planned to join everyone at the farm later.”

Chloe patted Meili’s arm. “It’s not your fault.” Then she glanced at Roelke, and pulled her hand back into her lap. “I’ve pieced together the sequence, I think. Frieda kept seeds in her granary, so it took Edwin awhile to find them. He slashed my tires so I couldn’t follow him, or get help quickly. But once Martine got out of the cool cellar, she disabled
his
car so he couldn’t escape.”

“That fits.” Roelke nodded.

“Guest found the seeds he wanted at the Frietags’ place,” Chloe said slowly, “but he deliberately let them blow away! Was he trying to destroy evidence? Or did he feel that if he couldn’t have access to them, no one should?”

“Both, probably.” Roelke shrugged.

“Nice guy,” Chloe said again. She rubbed her arms as if the thought of Guest gave her a chill.

Meili looked at Roelke. “Thank you for calling me.”

“Thanks for getting out there so fast.” And saving Dellyn. Saving Chloe.

An awkward silence settled in the room. Olympia wandered in, flopped on the floor, and began washing her face. Finally Chloe cleared her throat. “Did either Guest or Sabatola say anything about the Eagle Diamond?”

“No. But that reminds me. Why did you mention the diamond in your phone message?”

Her cheeks turned red. “I didn’t want to mention any names to your clerk since all I had was a wild hunch that Simon and Edwin were actually interested in old knowledge, not new. I hoped you’d understand it as code for something important.”

“Yeah.” Roelke was reaching the end of his endurance. “I’m sorry about Mr. and Mrs. Frietag. The ME said it looked like they both died of natural causes. Seems unlikely, but he’ll sort it out.” He stood, wiping his palms on his trousers. “Just one more thing. Simon Sabatola killed his wife.”

Chloe’s eyes went wide.
“What?”

“He followed her that morning, took the gun from her hand, and shot her himself. We’ve got hard evidence.” Roelke turned toward the door. “I gotta head to work.”

“Wait!” Chloe jumped to her feet. “That is—do you have another minute?” She hurried from the room and returned with a piece of paper. “This letter arrived for Dellyn yesterday. Bonnie sent it to a friend in Guatemala, and asked her to forward it back here. I had it with me when I went to New Glarus.”

“Why didn’t you show me this last night?”

“Because Dellyn hadn’t seen it yet,” Chloe said. “I waited until after the blood transfusions, when she was feeling a little better.”

Roelke took the letter, and began to read.

Dear Dellyn,

I’m asking Susie to send this so it arrives well after my funeral. Someone may be monitoring your mail. That probably sounds paranoid, but you have no idea what my life has been like since I married Simon. And I pray you never will.

Sweetie, I’m so sorry it’s come to this. I wish I knew another way out. But Simon will never let me go.

Please forgive me. I love you forever. I pray that memories of our carefree childhood provide what you need to make your own way.

Bonnie

Roelke thought about Bonnie Sabatola’s desperation, and Erin Litkowski’s, and resisted the urge to crumple the letter in his fist. You got the bastard, he reminded himself. This time, you got him.

“I’ll need to take this into evidence,” he told Chloe.

“I know. Dellyn does, too.”

“How is she?” Roelke asked, as she walked him to the door.

“A lot of stitches. A lot of pain.” Chloe sighed. “She was sleeping when we left the hospital.”

“She’s going to need a good friend,” Roelke said. “I’m glad she’s got you.”

He was out the door and headed toward his truck when the screen door slammed. “Roelke?” Chloe ran after him.

For a moment he thought she was going to talk about Meili, about her obvious decision. Not today, he told her silently. Please, not today.

She surprised him, though. “What happened to the dog? Ajax?”

“Animal control took custody.”

“I don’t think he’s a bad dog,” she said anxiously. “He only attacked Dellyn because he was ordered to, you know?”

“Yeah. And once he had her down, he could have killed her outright. Gone for the jugular.”

Chloe grimaced. “He could have gotten me, too. Guest had trained him to attack on command, but also just to threaten people into staying still. What happened isn’t the dog’s fault.”

“Buckley—one of the New Glarus cops—mentioned that too,” Roelke said. “In fact, he said Ajax reminded him of a shepherd he used to own. I think the dog will be OK.”

“Thank goodness,” Chloe said fervently.

How many women, after what she’d been through, would be worried about the dog? “I gotta go,” Roelke repeated, before he said or did something really stupid.

_____

By the time Roelke got to the office, Marie had coffee made. “Has Skeet been in?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “And the chief wants to see you.”

Roelke had been in trouble with the chief before, so he had a sense of what to expect. He’d saved time this go-round by typing up a list of all the things he’d done wrong. Before heading into the inner office, Roelke reviewed the key points. His first mistake had been refusing to let Deputy Bandacek call in the county evidence team the day Bonnie died. Then there was the fact that he’d missed the broken heel on Bonnie’s sandal. He hadn’t questioned Marie about the end of her conversation with Bonnie. He had caught the inconsistencies regarding Bonnie’s keys and wallet, but he’d let Libby convince him to set those things aside. Worst of all, he’d lost his perspective. Lost his cool. Twice. Verbally with Meili, physically with Sabatola.