Missing persons, p.12
Missing Persons, page 12
part #1 of Kate Conway Mystery Series
“You’ve been asking around about Frank’s death,” I said. “I’m hoping you’ll tell me what you’ve found.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? He was my husband. If someone killed him I’d like to know who.”
Podeski leaned back and bit into his toffee.
“Detective,” I continued, “I’m asking if you’ve found evidence that my husband died of something other than a heart attack.”
“You and I are both used to asking questions, not answering them,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“Just an observation.”
I ignored him. “I understand you found digitalis in Frank’s system. Is that a preliminary finding or the results of a complete tox screen?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I’ve worked on a lot of true crime. I understand how cause of death is determined.”
“I’m talking about the digitalis.”
I paused. I was about to say something about not revealing my sources, but I’m not really a journalist. Instead I said, “I have friends.”
He smiled. “You’re probably a well-connected lady.”
“You think I killed Frank.”
“I don’t know that anyone killed Frank. But you’re right about the digitalis. That’s probably what killed him. How it got in his system is the next question. When I answer that, I’ll know if there’s a need for further investigation.”
“If you want to know anything, then ask. Ask me everything you want. Search my house. Search my car. Call all of my friends. Just leave his parents out of it. They’ve been through enough.”
“I’ve already talked to his parents. His mother is a big fan of yours.”
He sounded sincere but I assumed sarcasm. “We’ve always had different ideas about what was best for Frank,” I said.
“She told me you were the best thing that ever happened to her son. She seems to think his girlfriend is who I should be looking at.”
“She said I was the best thing that happened to Frank?” I needed to hear it again. My world really was going upside down if Lynette actually defended me. “Did you tell her who gets the insurance?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he finished his toffee, then looked at me for a long time before speaking. “Mrs. Conway, I want you to understand something. I’m not considering this a murder investigation. I’m considering it an investigation. A healthy man dies suddenly. A drug that would be toxic if taken in large amounts is found in his system. There is an insurance policy of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and the beneficiary is the man’s soon-to-be ex-wife. Isn’t this the sort of thing that would appear on one of those true-crime shows you work on?”
I sighed. “We always make some poor idiot look guilty for the first three acts of the show before revealing the real killer. And I can see how you would want to cast me as that idiot. But I didn’t know about the insurance policy, so that removes motive. I hadn’t seen Frank in weeks, so that removes opportunity. And I don’t have access to digitalis, so that removes means. Even on a TV show I wouldn’t look like a good suspect.”
He leaned forward and folded his large hands together, resting them on the table in front of me. “All I have is your word on that. Frank had the policy for the entire time you were married, so it’s possible he mentioned it at some point. He was in your house the day he died so it’s possible that you did have contact with him. Maybe he waited back. Maybe you told him you wanted to talk after work,” he said. “And you’ve interviewed a lot of people, learned a lot about how to commit a murder from your work. It’s possible you know how to acquire the drug and what it does. You could have gotten digitalis from nearly anywhere, including your mother-in-law, who’s taking it for her heart.” He paused. “And even if you really didn’t know about the insurance, there’s always the fact that you were a woman scorned. You wouldn’t be the first.”
“And I’m the only person you’re considering?”
He shook his head. “There’s Vera Bingham. I bet you’d like it to be her.”
“I’d like it to be no one. Believe it or not, Detective, I’d like to be arguing with Frank right now over which one of us gets to keep the toilet scrubber. What I don’t want to be doing is burying my husband of fifteen years, splitting up his belongings with his mistress, or sitting in a police station with you.”
He just sat emotionless and waited for me to finish talking. “What do you know about Ms. Bingham?”
“More than I’d like to know.”
“She was with your husband for almost a year, but you were only separated for the last four months, is that true?”
“That’s what I understand.” I sat back, suddenly exhausted and desperate to go home. I can see why people confess to crimes they didn’t commit. Police interrogation rooms are stuffy, soulless places. “I’m tired, Detective.”
“You don’t want to hear my concerns about Ms. Bingham?”
I didn’t, but then again, I did. “What are they?”
He nodded. He was testing me. Hoping to wear me out, catch me saying something I hadn’t intended. I’d played this game many times, though I’d always been on the other side of it.
“Ms. Bingham is the granddaughter of Walter Knutson. Of Knutson Foods.” He waited for a reaction, which I wouldn’t give him. “Do you ever shop at one of their grocery stores, Mrs. Conway?”
“Everyone has shopped there. Even you, I’ll bet, have shopped there.”
“They have a pharmacy in every branch of their stores.”
“That’s stretching it, don’t you think? Just because her family owns the place doesn’t mean she knows anything about it.” Why I was defending her, I don’t know, but Podeski was annoying. I didn’t want him to be right about anything, on principle.
“She would if she were a pharmacist.”
“She’s not,” I said, though honestly I had no idea if she was. She just didn’t seem the type.
“She owned a pharmacy for a time. She’s owned plant shops, a dance studio, a make-your-own-pottery place. She’s had eleven different businesses in the last twenty years.”
“All failures?”
“No. Most were successful. She owned them with friends. She put up the capital, and when the business was strong enough, each friend bought her out. She hasn’t made much money off each deal, as far as I can tell, but for the most part she’s recouped her investment.”
“Good for her.”
“Her love life wasn’t as successful until your husband came along. Did you know they were talking about opening an art studio together?”
“No.”
“And they were engaged?”
“Since he wasn’t even divorced, I think that might be wishful thinking on her part.”
“Not according to Frank’s friend Neal.”
“Neal said they were engaged?”
“Neal has been very helpful.”
“Meaning?”
Podeski smiled and popped the last of his toffee in his mouth.
Thirty
After throwing Neal’s name at me, Detective Podeski was suddenly anxious to go on his dinner break. I left the station with the feeling that he was trying to get me to do something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
My offer to let him search the house had gone unnoticed. I did it mainly because several cops had told me it was something innocent people usually said, and I was hoping it would make Podeski realize I had nothing to hide. Instead, as I walked out of the police station I wondered if I did have something to hide. Was there something else I didn’t know about my marriage?
If it were an episode of one of my true-crime shows, I’d have a pretty slim list of suspects. Me, because of all the reasons Podeski outlined, and Vera, who had money and potential access to the right drug. But did she have motive? If they were opening an art studio and planning a wedding, what reason would she have to kill Frank? Assuming he had been murdered, and I wasn’t conceding that he had. I just couldn’t figure out how he could have gotten digitalis in his system, especially since Podeski had said something about large amounts.
Ever since Podeski had first shown up at my door I’d had a knot in my stomach. Every unpaid parking ticket, every questionable tax deduction became another reason I might look like a killer. I’d told myself it was irrational, but it kept getting stronger. And now, with Podeski more or less calling me a suspect, the knot was beginning to take over my whole body. Knowing I hadn’t killed Frank provided me little comfort. I just kept imagining Podeski flashing an arrest warrant and handcuffs.
I wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and hide from the world, but Podeski’s final taunt sent me in a different direction. I drove by Neal’s house, not knowing what I was going to say but hoping to catch him alone. Instead Neal was on the lawn with his twins and a few neighbors. I was about to drive past when I saw him looking at me. I pulled over.
“Kate, is everything okay?” Neal was at my car window before I’d even turned off the engine.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m not having the best night.”
As soon as I got out of the car, he threw his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s grab a beer. Come into the garage.” He turned to the twins, now nearly six. “Kids, go inside and tell Mom Aunt Kate is here.”
As the kids went inside, we went to the garage. Neal had fixed it up to be a sort of den. He had two overstuffed reclining chairs, a television, and a minifridge on one side, leaving just enough room for one car on the other. Or there would have been, except for a dozen or so boxes and a tarp-covered pile of more stuff they obviously didn’t want but couldn’t seem to get rid of.
He grabbed a bottle of beer from the minifridge and handed it to me. “You want a glass?”
“In these elegant surroundings”—I smiled—“I think I’ll manage without it.”
“Beats drinking a beer surrounded by stuffed bears and princess costumes,” he said, laughing. “You don’t know how lucky you are.” Then he blushed.
Frank and I had tried for three years to have kids, with no luck. It wasn’t exactly regret, especially when I saw how overwhelmed and broke our friends were, but it wasn’t exactly a choice either.
“You looked like you were having fun with the kids,” I said.
“It’s bedtime anyway. What’s going on?”
“I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Okay, I guess. I keep grabbing the phone to call him, and then I remember, you know.”
I nodded.
Neal smiled. “You miss him too, don’t you?”
“I’ve missed him for a long time. Months. Years.”
“It wasn’t such a bad marriage. You guys had some great times together. Like the night he proposed, and you were so drunk, instead of saying yes, you just kept hiccuping.”
“I knew he was going to propose, and I was nervous. I was just drinking to calm my nerves.” I laughed. “Poor Frank couldn’t tell I was saying yes through all those hiccups.”
“And remember when you guys first bought the house? He spent every waking moment fixing it up.”
“He did,” I admitted. “I forgot about that. He stripped all the woodwork, and he refinished the floors. He was very good with his hands.”
“And he planted the garden.”
I nodded. “Every summer he’d cut a big bunch of roses for me on my birthday. And paint me a card. He said it was a better expression of his love than buying some lame present.”
“And cheaper.” Neal laughed.
I lightly slapped his hand. “It was damn romantic. And I loved it.” I looked down at the bottle of beer in my hands. “I haven’t thought about that stuff in a long time.”
“I know he wasn’t the perfect husband, Kate, but every marriage has its bad times.”
I shook my head. “That’s kind of an understatement, Neal. Besides, I really didn’t come over for a trip down memory lane. I talked with a detective. His name is Podeski. Do you know him?”
He nodded. “He talked to me too. I wouldn’t worry about it, Kate. He’s just filling out paperwork.”
“So you don’t think he has any reason to be suspicious?”
“Of who?”
“Of me.”
He directed me to sit in one of the chairs, then he pulled up a cooler and sat on it, facing me. Our knees were inches apart, just like I conducted interviews. “Why would you have killed Frank?”
“Aside from the obvious reason?”
“But that’s crazy.”
“What did you say to Podeski?”
He turned white. “Nothing.” He took a long chug of his beer, while I waited.
“Neal, you said something. If it’s about the engagement . . .”
“You knew about that?”
“Only after he died.”
“That was something he never wanted you to find out.”
“I would have found out when they got married.”
“No.” Neal got up and started pacing. “You don’t get it. He wasn’t going to marry her. He got a little carried away. It was a mistake.”
“He told you that?”
“He wanted to come back to you.”
I could feel the blood drain from my face and my heart begin to move upward into my throat. I was going to pass out.
“Is that what you said to Detective Podeski? Because he told me you confirmed Frank’s engagement to Vera.”
He hesitated. “I didn’t say anything about what Frank told me. I didn’t know if you would want to know, and I figured, what difference did it make? But Kate, I promise you, Frank really did love you. He was even interviewing for a job teaching art at a community center. The one near you on Augusta.”
I got up and handed Neal my beer.
“You’re lying,” I said. “You think you’re helping me. You think it’s what I want to hear, but you’re lying.”
I walked out of the garage and toward my car.
“Kate, don’t go,” I heard Neal call after me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his wife, Beth, walk out from the house.
“Kate,” I heard Beth say.
I didn’t respond. I got in my car and pulled away.
I knew I was overreacting but I couldn’t stop myself. I used to get so mad at Frank that I would storm out of the house and stay away for hours. When I’d get home, he’d be sitting on the couch, watching TV. He’d smile as if nothing had happened. I’d get angry about his indifference and we’d start the cycle all over again. I knew even as I was doing it that I was just trying to get a reaction, any reaction, trying to get him to do something, to fight—not just with me, but for me. It didn’t work. The angrier I got, the more he withdrew.
It made us both miserable, but at least while it was happening, I could hate him and feel certain of it. Now nothing made sense.
Thirty-one
“Kate, are you okay? I’ve been in a panic about you.”
It was Ellen. And she didn’t sound panicked. She sounded completely in control.
“Why were you in a panic?” I asked.
“I got a visit today from a police detective.”
I could feel myself turning red. It wasn’t just frightening anymore. It was embarrassing. “It’s fine,” I said. “He’s just asking questions.”
“Well, don’t worry. I took care of it.”
That worried me. “What did you say, Ellen?”
“I told him that you didn’t love Frank a bit and you didn’t care what happened to him. You thought of Frank as a liability, so his leaving you was a good thing,” she said. “I also told that detective that since you didn’t want him back, you didn’t have a motive to kill Frank. It’s not like you were going to inherit anything.”
“There was a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy. His dad took it out.”
Silence. “Well, the point is I said you didn’t kill Frank. I think he’ll just forget about you.”
“Sure, I mean, with character references like yours, why would Podeski think I’d kill Frank?”
“Kate, honestly, it’s fine. I was very clear in saying you aren’t the killing type. And I teach seventh grade, remember. I know sociopaths when I see them. Don’t worry about it anymore and just get some sleep.”
I did not sleep. I lay in bed for about two hours, then I got up and paced. I thought I might get sick, but after ten minutes of hanging my head over a toilet, I went away a failure.
I wanted to kill Frank. An irony not lost on me since at least one person thought I had. If it was true that he was hoping to come back, why hadn’t he said anything to me? Was he afraid of what I might say? I guess that made sense, since I had no idea what I would have said. Half of me hated him and only remembered the bad times. The other half loved and missed him. I don’t have any idea which half would have won.
And it didn’t matter. Frank was gone.
It’s an odd thing about losing someone. It doesn’t hit you all at once. Obviously Frank was gone. He’d left the house four months ago, and died over a week ago, but every time I said the words, it surprised me.
“Frank is gone,” I said out loud. “He’s never coming back.”
It still felt like a punch in the gut, and I waited for the umpteenth time for tears to flow, but none came. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t let myself cry for him?
I thought about my conversations from earlier: Gray’s insider information that Frank had died from digitalis poisoning; Podeski’s insistence that I had means, motive, and opportunity to kill Frank; and Neal’s revelation about the engagement. Why did so many people know what was happening in my life and I knew so little?
I turned on my computer hoping somehow technology had the answers that I did not. I started with Vera. I searched for information on the Knutson family and its many heirs. There were the usual scandals of the very rich: a cousin of Vera’s had died of alcohol poisoning in the midnineties, several other members of the family had been through messy divorces and custody fights, and an uncle had been accused and then cleared of insider trading. But there was nothing as interesting about Vera. She attended an occasional charity event for animal welfare and was photographed at several of those dull-looking luncheons that end up being written about on the society page. She’d written a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune about education reform and had recently attended a fund-raiser for the governor. That was getting me nowhere.
