Doom Girl could have made a clean getaway. My tone told him that, and a little more.
“I was just about to-”
I cut him off before he could reward Toby by saying that he'd been successfully distracted. “I'll talk with her for a sec. Why don't you just finish up with Toby, here.” Besides, it looked so nice out in that yard.
It was. I went out the front door, and around to the south side of the house, to my left. The majority of the leaves that had fallen onto the bright green lawn were intense yellow, translucent when the bright sunlight was behind them. The largest tree was in the middle of a grassy expanse that had to be at least a hundred feet wide, forming a green rectangle around the house. Melissa's wooden rake was making diligent scraping sounds as she methodically herded the leaves into one of a series of yellow piles that showed her progress around the yard. The sunlight was filtering through the leaves, picking up the faint swirls of dust she was stirring up as she worked.
“You're Melissa?” I asked as I approached.
She looked up at me, continuing to rake. She had a pale face, big dark eyes, with purplishred hair sticking out from under her ball cap, and a piercing with a small cube in her left eyebrow. “And you'd be?” A soft voice.
“Deputy Houseman, Sheriff's Department.” I fished out my badge again. She stopped raking, and examined it and the ID card I was displaying. She looked up. Eyes red-rimmed, I noticed. Whether from crying, or from the dust, I couldn't tell.
“So?” She was trying to be blase, but there was a little hesitation in her tone. She looked to be about twenty-three or twenty-four, I'd guess. I didn't remember seeing her around before.
“What can you tell me about what's happened to Edie?”
“I hear she's dead.” She started to rake again.
“You hear right.”
“Well, it happens to all of us, now, doesn't it?” Her voice was soft, and my hearing is a little old. Throw in the sounds of her rake, and the crinkling noise of the leaves…
“Pardon? I didn't quite get that?”
“It happens to all of us,” she said, louder. “All right?” When she got louder, she enunciated harder, as it were. I could see a little, blue metallic stud in her tongue.
She started raking more rapidly, the only real effect being more dust. The leaves were starting to swirl away from her rake as her speed increased.
“Well,” I said, “we all do die, all right. But most of us don't bleed to death.”
She slapped the rake into the grass. “Fuck!” She took a deep breath, and looked up at me again. “Fuck.”
“You got that right.”
“So what do you want me to say?” She looked like she could hit me with the rake at any second.
“You could tell what you know.”
“You want me to tell you she was my friend? All right, she was my friend. But it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean fuck.” Her voice was quite calm. But she started to cry. “It just doesn't mean fuck at all. It just doesn't,” and she turned her back, shoulders shaking a little.
I just hate that.
I gave her a few seconds, wishing I had something like a Kleenex to offer her, and then said, “Mind coming into the house for a few minutes? I'm afraid I have some routine questions.”
She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes and nose with her sweatshirt sleeve, and straightened up. She must have been all of five-one, and didn't make it to my shoulder level.
We both stood there for a few seconds, and I suspect she didn't know just exactly what to say. I know I sure didn't. Finally, she took a deep breath, and let out “Fine.”
We walked back to the house together, and I could see Toby watching us from the parlor window. “You live here?” I asked, more to avoid a prolonged silence than anything else.
“Yes. If you can call it that.”
“Great place,” I said. “What's the rent like?”
“It's free,” she said, nearly monotone. “We're serfs. We just have to take care of the place.”
Serfs? We'd reached the front steps. “Don't hear that term much anymore,” I said, trying to lighten things up a little. “Not since the unions came in.” Melissa didn't say a word.
SEVEN
Saturday, October 7, 2000
11:18
By the time Special Agent Hester Gorse arrived at the Mansion, Borman and I had done the preliminary interviews of Toby and Melissa. We'd got the standard personal ID stuff, and statements from both of them that they lived in the house, and that they were asleep when Edie's body had been discovered. And, no, she hadn't seemed more depressed or despondent than usual. Toby, it turned out, worked at the local branch of Maitland State Bank, and Melissa worked at the Freiberg Public Library.
I was a bit surprised that Toby could work at the bank, with the stud in the bridge of his nose, and said so.
“I just take it out,” he said. “Like pierced ears.”
Hanna Prien, still upset, had also talked to us. Generally, she had the same kind of information for us as
Toby and Melissa, except that she'd been the one who found Edie when she went into her room to get her up for work. They both worked in Freiberg: Hanna at the local convenience store, and Edie had been employed at Wilson's Antique Mall.
Hanna said that she had stuck her head in the bathroom door after calling out a couple of times, stared for a few seconds, trying to put together what she was seeing, and then just freaked. Understandable.
There were two other residents of the house, one Kevin Stemmer, and a girl named Holly Finn. Holly, according to Hanna, had the misfortune of having the nickname of “Huck.” That rang a bell, and I pictured her in my mind immediately. I'd never arrested her, but she'd been in the area when I'd popped some others. With that nickname, she was hard to misplace. With Kevin I drew a blank, but was pretty sure I'd remember him when I saw him.
According to Hanna, Kevin and Huck had left for work before she'd discovered the body. They were both dealers on the General Beauregard; and worked a 06:00-to-14:00 shift. Toby had notified both of them by phone before I arrived. They wouldn't be home until their shift ended.
“Yeah, I called them right away.” Toby was one of those people who seem to have to interrupt. “I talked to Huck, though, not Kevin, really. I thought one was enough, and she'd tell Kevin.”
Great.
“Toby said they were real upset, though,” Hanna said, almost as if she were trying to excuse their not coming right back.
“Oh, yeah. Huck was, anyway,” Toby explained. “I didn't talk to Kevin.”
I'd asked if the owner was here, and got kind of a surprised look from all three. Jessica Hunley, according to them, lived in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. She was exceedingly wealthy, ran a dance school in Chicago, and only visited the house three or four times a year.
I'm no expert, but I had a bit of a rough time with “exceedingly wealthy” and “runs a dance school” being in the same sentence. That needed to be checked further.
We'd released the EMTs, prompting Toby to ask why they weren't taking the deceased with them. He got a straight answer. Melissa then asked just how long we were going to keep the body in the tub before removing her. I told her that it would depend on when the scene had been thoroughly processed, but that it shouldn't be too very long.
It being Saturday, and an urgent call-out to boot, Iowa DCI Special Agent Hester Gorse was more informally dressed than usual, in blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a gray turtleneck, with a blue microweave rain jacket, worn to conceal the gun on her right hip. I saw her head through the window as she started up the steps, and was in time to greet her at the door.
“Hi, Hester. Thought you'd be here sooner.”
