Whispering Pines Mysteries, Books 4-6, page 7
Lee explained that he followed the pathway from the parking lot, through a small cluster of trees, and finally to the Pentacle Garden. Shifting uncomfortably, foot-to-foot, he added, “The only place with lights on was that hotel. That poor kid at the desk must’ve thought I was a crazy person.”
Had to be Emery. The pock-faced nineteen-year-old was saving to build himself a cottage and took every shift Laurel would give him.
“Did either of you see anyone else around here?” I asked them both in turn.
They each shook their heads, offering nothing more and obviously desperate to be done talking to me. I took their contact information, just in case I came up with any other questions for them, but really there wasn’t anything more for me to ask. They could have found the body and kept going, so I gave them points for stopping and watching over him. As unhappy as I had been with Nick Halpern earlier, the last thing I would have wanted was for his body to suffer even more damage from a vehicle or wild animal.
“You two are free to leave,” I said. “I’m sorry that your evening turned into this. The sun won’t rise for another few hours. If you keep going east, you’ll come to a group of hotels on your right just past the ‘thanks for visiting the village’ sign. Park in one of their lots and get some sleep. If anyone gives you a hard time, tell them Sheriff O’Shea said it was okay.”
Half an hour later, Dr. Bundy and an ambulance arrived.
“You know how strange this is becoming, don’t you?” Dr. B asked as he pulled on a pair of latex gloves. There was little levity in the usually upbeat man’s voice.
I understood what he meant, though. The mystique of Wiccan magic wasn’t the only thing that hung over this village. Everyone, villagers and tourists alike, did their best to ignore the death rate, but every now and then as I patrolled the commons, someone would ask about it.
“Are there murderers running around these woods?”
Or, “Am I safe? Should I pack up and leave before getting too comfortable here?”
Or, “Maybe Whispering Pines should enlist an army.”
Yeah, because the best way to get a handle on the death rate was to arm everybody.
“This one seems pretty cut and dry.” I matched his somber tone. “I’m thinking hit-and-run.”
I led Dr. Bundy over to the body, although the portable lights in the middle of the dark night made it obvious where he needed to go.
“Deputy Reed?” I called out. “Are you almost done?”
“I think so. I took pictures from every angle, two of each.” He paused, staring at the body for a long moment despite my tip, head tilted as though wondering about something, then shook it off. “I searched the area, at least as much of it as the lights illuminated.” He indicated a few items scattered about the area that he’d tagged with yellow plastic evidence markers. “Could you help me with some measurements?”
“Give us a few minutes?” I asked Dr. Bundy.
“Why not? Got nothing else to do in the middle of the night.”
I couldn’t tell if Dr. B was more upset by another death—something he was surely used to after all his years on the job—or if he simply wasn’t a middle-of-the-night person.
I held one end of a twenty-five-foot measuring tape while Reed recorded distances from the body on his grid map. Five minutes later, we were done, and Reed was placing items in clear plastic evidence bags—a shoe knocked off Halpern’s body from the impact, his wallet, an empty fifth of whiskey, and a cell phone.
“Good job,” I told him. “We’ll scan the rest of the area once Dr. Bundy is done and we’ve got more light to work with.”
Reed gathered the evidence bags and brought them to the van. Once Dr. Bundy had finished with what he needed to do, and Halpern’s body was bagged and in the ambulance, he went to his car without a word to me. I followed.
“Dr. Bundy? Is everything okay? I know there’s been a lot going on here—”
He held up a hand to silence me. “It’s not Whispering Pines, Jayne. There have been an unusual number of deaths here, but that’s not it.” He stared straight ahead, hands on the steering wheel. “I’ve been doing this job for over twenty years. It never stops, does it? I understand natural death, especially in someone who’s lived a long life. Natural deaths in younger ones are harder to handle, but I guess certain bodies just aren’t meant to be healthy. You know?”
I nodded my agreement, even though he wasn’t looking at me, and let him talk it out.
“The accidents, especially the stupid ones, I have a hard time with. People have no idea how fragile these containers of ours are.” He smacked a hand against his barrel chest and paused, staring into the darkness again. “Here one second and literally gone the next. And once we’re gone . . .”
I’d learned a few things about Dr. Wolfgang “Wolf” Bundy over the past three months: He liked his meat on the rare side. He liked jazz music, which was almost always playing in the background when he called me. He cheered for the Minnesota Vikings rather than the Packers, which I did my best to forgive. I’d never seen him like this, though. Maybe something was going on in his personal life. Or it could be that this was a middle-of-the-night call; maybe someone he’d cared about had died in a nighttime accident. We all had our demons.
“I’d been having a good evening,” he said suddenly, startling me out of my thoughts. “I left the office early, took my wife out for dinner and to a movie. Spent some quality time with her.” His voice trailed off. He turned his head toward me, the lights of his dashboard shining off his mostly bald head, and offered a strained smile. “Gets to me every now and then. You know?”
Look around the body, not at it. “I understand exactly. I’m sorry your night was interrupted. Go on back home now.”
He nodded then shrugged and drove off without another word.
Reed’s footsteps crunched on the gravel surface of the parking lot and stopped next to me. “He seemed a little down.”
“Even the best of us break sometimes. Can you finish up here or do you want my help? If you’re good, I need to go wake up Nick Halpern’s wife.”
Chapter Ten
I stood outside the Pine Time room we had dubbed The Treehouse. It was located at the front corner, farthest away from the garage. The way the house was angled, the only thing that the people staying in this one could see was trees. I preferred lake views, but this was Tripp’s favorite room in the house, other than the kitchen, of course. After I’d knocked softly for the third time, Constance opened the door.
It took her a few seconds to figure out who I was, either the early hour or the sheriff’s uniform confusing her.
“Jayne? What’s going on?”
“I need you to come with me,” I whispered.
She squinted at me, trying to understand, and then her shoulders slumped and her expression changed from sleepy to disappointed. “What did he do?”
I held a finger to my lips. “I don’t want to wake the others. Would you get dressed, please, and meet me on the front porch? Bring your car keys.”
Ten minutes later, she came outside dressed in athletic gear—black capri leggings, red T-shirt, form-fitting black jacket—like she was planning to go for an early morning run. “What did he do this time?” Now, her voice held a good deal of anger.
“The sheriff’s station is less than ten minutes away. Follow me and I’ll explain everything when we get there.”
As we entered the dark station, Constance watched Meeka slide through the bars of her preferred jail cell. It was quite chilly this morning, so instead of crawling beneath the cot, Meeka jumped on top of it and curled into a tight, furry white ball. Time to get that dog cushion for the station that had been on my to-do list for weeks.
“He’s not here,” Constance noted with a nod at the other empty cell. “Sheriff O’Shea, what’s going on with my husband?”
I plugged a fresh pod into the coffee maker on a table near Reed’s desk, started the cup brewing, and led Constance to the small interview room in the back right corner of the building.
When I interviewed someone, I preferred to have no barriers between the person and me. A table could serve as a type of security blanket, and removing it kept the interviewee a little off balance. While there was a simple five-foot wooden table in the room, I had it pushed up against a wall and the chairs positioned to face each other. I indicated that Constance should take the chair that put her back to the wall. I always preferred to sit so there was no way for anyone to sneak up behind me, which meant my chair faced the room’s door.
“I promise, I will explain everything in two minutes, but I need a cup of coffee. Would you like one?”
She held my gaze for a moment and then nodded, indicating coffee would be welcome. I gave her the first cup and prepared a second for myself.
Finally, I sat across from her. “There’s been an accident, Mrs. Halpern.”
Instantly, she stiffened. “Don’t do that. Don’t turn formal on me. You wake me up at five o’clock in the morning and ask me to come to the station with you. You tell me it’s about my husband, but you won’t say anything more. Now you say there was an accident and are calling me Mrs. Halpern. If it was an accident, you’d take me to the hospital. Is my husband dead, Jayne?”
With controlled empathy, I replied, “I’m sorry, Constance. He was hit by a car. Two people traveling through the village found him alongside the road around two o’clock.”
Constance sat with her hands wrapped around the hot mug and stared into it. After a long moment, she blinked as though she had forgotten and now realized there was coffee in the mug. She took a sip and cleared her throat. “You didn’t answer my question. Is he dead, or will we be going to a hospital next?”
“He is deceased, I’m sorry—” I almost added, “for your loss.” I’m sorry for your loss. One of the coldest, most clichéd phrases a person could ever offer. A simple, heartfelt “I’m sorry” was a hundred times better.
I gave her a minute to let this news sink in. She took another drink of her coffee, paused with the mug near her mouth, and took one more sip. Then she looked up at me and rearranged the expression on her face from a look of shock into a more business-like one. “What do you need from me?”
Everyone reacted to horrible news in different ways. I hated when people said, “I just know I would” and then proceeded to explain how they would react. No one could know how they’d react until they were right there, living in that awful moment. Some people would become hysterical and cry or throw things or physically beat on the closest person or object. Some went straight to the nearest liquor cabinet. Some refused to accept the news, insisting that I was lying to them. Others would go into a catatonic state, unable to process the information at that moment. Occasionally, there were people that took this kind of news matter-of-factly. Even with those people, I would usually see sorrow or emotion of some kind behind the reaction—rapidly blinking eyes, repeated swallowing, hands fidgeting, heavy sighs. Constance Halpern was stone cold. Not that it meant anything. It could simply be her way of reacting.
I moved to the edge of my chair, a few inches closer to her, our knees almost touching. “Late last night, around eleven, I was out on the sundeck of my boathouse waiting for my dog to come in for the night. I saw someone leave through those back doors off the great room and head up the driveway. A late-night walk, I assumed. Because it was so dark, I couldn’t tell who it was.”
Constance nodded, not waiting for me to ask the question. “It was most likely Nick. He walks at night when he’s upset about something.” A small, pained smile turned her mouth. “He’s been doing a lot of late-night walking lately.” Her expression turned blank, coldly reporting the facts. “We had a fight last night. I’m sure you can guess why.”
“You told me that your husband lost his job six months ago. Do you feel that was the reason for his temperament?”
“You mean his piggish, bullying behavior?” She nodded. “Yes, he wasn’t like that before. I’ve been trying to get him to go for counseling.”
“Counseling for what in particular? His anger problem? Help getting another job?”
She shook her head. “Neither of those. One of his coworkers accused him of sexual harassment eight months ago. He swears to me all he did was compliment her dress.” She drank from her cup. “Our anniversary was a few weeks away, and he had wanted to take me out somewhere nice. I made the comment that I had nothing to wear since my wardrobe consists of jeans and sweaters, workout gear, scrubs, and business suits. I have no evening wear. He told me that he thought the dress looked like something I would wear. He wanted to know where the woman got hers so he could take me to buy one for our anniversary.”
There were always two sides to every story. It was very possible that Nick was telling her the truth about the dress. It could also be that he complimented this woman in such a way that it appeared to be sexual in nature. Or maybe something had happened in the woman’s life and she was looking to make someone pay. He could have flat out lied to Constance and it had been straight up harassment; it seemed to come naturally to him, after all.
“This is why he lost his job? Because of the harassment charges?”
She paused, considering her answer before speaking. “I’ve gone through a lot to get where I am—eyes rolling after every suggestion I make; being overlooked for promotions that are given to younger, less-experienced males; fighting off inappropriate propositions that would guarantee me a chance at the next promotion.” She exhaled a heavy sigh. “It’s hard to go through all that and then be upset at my husband’s company for taking a harassment charge seriously. Even one against him. I know it’s got to be difficult to understand, especially after seeing the man you saw here, but I believed him. He’d been under a tremendous amount of pressure working on a project that just wouldn’t conclude. We’d been planning to go on an extended weekend trip, Las Vegas most likely, but he couldn’t take even two days away. All we could manage was dinner and maybe a movie.”
I empathized with her position, but I couldn’t let her know that. “These harassment charges were simply one more frustration for him?”
“Frustration?” She laughed, annoyed. “Those charges pushed him over the edge, one that he’d been standing on for months. It was too much. The proverbial straw, and his was the camel’s back it landed on. I swear to you, something snapped in his mind. It became almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“You mean he was accused of sexually harassing a woman, so he started sexually harassing women?”
“Exactly. Nick always had a temper, but he never exploded. His was more of a slow burn, and he rarely lost control. This was too much, though.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “About nine months ago, I finally got that promotion I deserved. Of course, everything has a payoff and this one was that I had to work even more hours. He’d been killing himself over this project, though, and not getting anywhere near the recognition he deserved. I guess his anger started rising then.”
“You mean, because you were rewarded for your hard work and he wasn’t, that was one more push toward that edge?”
She barely heard my statement, just continued to vent. “He never saw how hard I worked. Partly because he was so wrapped up in himself, and partly because I’ve always preferred to keep work at work and did my extra hours in the office whenever possible. As far as he was concerned, I got a promotion and salary increase I hadn’t done anything to earn, while he was being ignored. I saw how stressed he was so kept my frustrations over that to myself.”
I smiled at her. “Even if we’re not literal mothers, women always find someone to mother.”
Once again, she turned stone cold. “I find that mindset offensive, Sheriff O’Shea. Just because we have the physical ability to bring a child into the world doesn’t mean we are all genetically programmed to mother others.”
I nodded my apology and redirected the topic. “You said you and your husband had a fight last night. About what exactly?”
“About him being so obnoxious. He didn’t want to come this weekend. He wanted to stay in Madison and go sit at the corner bar until they kicked him out like he’d done every weekend for the past six months.”
“What made him come?”
Constance pushed her shoulders back, inhaled, and then blew out a slow breath. She’d done that numerous times since sitting down with me. Deep breathing was a self-soothing reaction to stress few people even realized they used.
“Kyle had been giving him a hard time about turning into a recluse,” she explained. “He was trying to help because he had actually gone through something similar a year or two ago. Not sexual harassment, but a conflict with a coworker. Kristina told me that Kyle and one of the men in his department got into a fight at a community gathering one time. The man tried to turn it into a work issue, which it wasn’t. Getting in a fight outside the office with someone you work with has nothing to do with the company you work for.”
“There was obvious tension between Nick and Kyle at breakfast yesterday.”
“Like I said, Kyle has been trying to help. I think what you witnessed was embarrassment on Nick’s part. Similar to lashing out at someone who cares about you because you know that person is a safe place to express what’s bothering you.”
“Nick was making some pretty nasty innuendoes about your sister.”
“Yes, he was.”
Once again, the lack of emotion, first over her husband’s death and now her sister’s embarrassment, struck me. She acted more like a human resources manager dealing with employee problems than a wife whose life had been turned inside out by her husband’s stress and resulting inappropriate behavior.
“This fight we had last night,” she began, almost as though returning to a skipped item on a checklist, “I kicked him out. We came here for a nice weekend to try and get away from the stress we had both been feeling. We had agreed we would let it all go, have a good time, and start trying to put things back together.”
