Death Casts a Shadow, page 23
28
BLUE DAHLIAS
Regina Malcaster chose blue and white as the colors for her niece’s funeral. Fourteen days after Lydia fell to her death, her body was clad in a dress of dazzling sapphire blue and laid in a special-order coffin made from the bleached wood of the white holly tree. The dowager special-ordered the day as well. Under a bright blue sky and against a backdrop of blinding white snow, a white hearse led the cortege to the church. Behind it were a white flower car overflowing with blue dahlias and the dowager’s white Rolls. For the occasion, Regina donned a white wool suit, the color she had asked her friends to wear in celebration of Lydia’s life. They rode to the church with her and walked with her behind the casket as the pallbearers escorted it into the sanctuary. Once inside, they sat alongside her in the first pew, each of them with a blue dahlia pinned to her shoulder.
Cubiak was seated across the aisle with Cate and Bathard. They were three rows behind the pallbearers.
“It’s like a winter garden.” Cate indicated the altar where massive bouquets of the vibrant blue flowers mingled with the red poinsettias and Christmas greenery.
On her left, Bathard seemed lost in thought. He nodded absently.
Cubiak nodded as well, but the truth was, he barely noticed the flowers. He was thinking of his daughter, who had been buried in a white coffin. Alexis was two months shy of her fifth birthday when she died, and for years, he punished himself over the hit-and-run accident that had killed her and Lauren. If he had been home, if he had kept his promise to come home, his wife and daughter would be alive. His failure to honor his word was a burden he would carry forever.
A noise from the back of the church interrupted Cubiak’s reverie. He turned as a group of ten or twelve women crowded the trio of young ushers who distributed blue dahlias to the mourners, urging them to hurry. “Ladies, please,” one said in a loud whisper. The women were middle aged and older. They were fierce and determined, each of them marked by a sad, knowing look. So many, he realized, glancing up and down pews.
Lydia claimed that she had led a sheltered life and had a limited circle of friends and acquaintances. These women probably had never met her, but something drew them to the service. Watching the influx of mourners, Cubiak understood.
After Lydia died, bits and pieces of her story began to circulate. Within days, five women called his office to relate similar experiences with internet romance scammers. When the host of a local radio program broadcast a segment on the issue and asked victims to call in with their experiences, the station’s phone line was swamped with calls from Door County and beyond. The women in the Sister Bay church might not have known Lydia Malcaster, but he suspected that they were part of the same sisterhood and that they had come in a show of solidarity. Whether they had been tempted by phony romance schemers or ensnared like Lydia, they understood her plight because the same trap had been laid for them. Bobby Fells targeted women from the two families that had been involved in the land dispute with his grandfather, but there were other scam operators, an army of the unscrupulous who were eager and able, trained even, to prey on human vulnerability from a place that could not be seen or touched.
Cubiak squeezed Cate’s hand. “Did you notice all the women?”
She glanced over her shoulder.
“So many!” Cate looked at him, puzzled. “You don’t think . . .?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. Why else would they be here?”
The funeral ended with the Mass and final blessing. There would be no burial until spring when the ground thawed and a grave could be dug. Outside the church, most of the mourners dispersed quickly. Lydia’s small circle, as well as people who knew her from her charitable work and whose organizations had benefited from her support, were invited to Regina’s for a funeral luncheon.
At the house, Cate circulated among the guests, but Cubiak kept to the periphery of the great room. He was at the window when Regina cornered him.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you since this started. Do you think this business with Bobby has something to do with the feud about the land?” she said, leaning on her silver-handled cane.
“Unfortunately, yes. That and greed,” he said.
Regina shuddered. “Thirty years ago, my husband and I and the Hansons reached out to Sarah Felton. We offered to settle, to make amends as it were. It was never clear what had happened back then between her father and the other two gentlemen, and we felt guilty about how things had evolved. Sarah wasn’t interested in anything we had to say. She mocked our offer of financial compensation and scoffed at the suggestion that we try mediation as a way to find some common ground. Rather than accept a compromise, she chose to bear a grudge. Then to prove whatever—maybe that she didn’t need anything from us—she retreated to that shack in the woods. She even broke with her son over the issue. I can only imagine the poison she poured into those grandchildren over the years. And look what came of it, where it all ended. The twins under arrest and an innocent man subjected to the most horrendous death.”
A woman from the catering staff approached, but before she could speak, Regina waved her off. “Yes, yes, please start serving,” she said.
For a minute, the dowager and the sheriff watched as the crowd arranged itself into four lines and advanced toward the buffet tables that had been set up in the center of the great open room. Then Regina went on.
“I don’t condone what Bobby did, but I can almost understand it. He didn’t know us as people. He certainly didn’t know Lydia. From his perspective, she was there for the pickings. For him, she represented easy money, and the scam was nothing more than lucrative entertainment, a spiteful game. He didn’t care about the emotional pain it could cause. He had his fun and lined his pockets while getting the revenge he believed he was owed.”
“What he did was criminal,” Cubiak said.
“Oh, I realize that. But I can’t help but think of him standing behind the green curtain and manipulating the levers to try and create his own version of reality, like Professor Marvel in the Wizard of Oz. Absurd, isn’t it?”
“What he was doing, or what you thought of it?”
“Perhaps both,” she said, patting his arm. “But Tracey? I know I disparaged her lack of interest in art but that was my own snobbishness. The truth is I liked her. I thought she had spunk.”
Regina turned a sad smile on the sheriff. “I never connected the dots. All the times when she played the curious ingenue and plied me with questions or when I found her passing nearby when I was engaged in a private conversation. I thought she hadn’t been brought up properly and always excused her behavior. Some judge of character, aren’t I?” she said, pressing her hand to the glass.
“I wouldn’t be too hard on myself if I were you. We’ve all been fooled at one time or other in our lives,” Cubiak said.
“You’re too kind, Sheriff.” Regina pulled her hand off the window and swiped it against her wool trousers. “And then there’s John. How am I to think of him? Is he poor John or evil John? The man I would have trusted with my life was running his own scam in full view of everyone. Oh, I’m sure he justified his actions one way or the other, but the truth is he was a thief. Worse than that, a murderer. And all the time fussing with his birds, protecting them from the elements and ensuring they were adequately fed while being so cold hearted about human life. What kind of a man is that?”
She turned to Cubiak. “And what else might he have been up to? He handled the books for Lydia, Gladys, me, and any number of my friends. He could have been embezzling from us for years. I was the first to hire him. I recommended him to the others.”
“We’ll investigate all possibilities, but I expect that any professional work he did for you was legitimate. As for the bronzes, it’s up to you as Lydia’s executor whether to press charges or not,” Cubiak said.
“I realize that.” She looked at the floor. “Life doesn’t get any easier, does it?”
“No, but we all get smarter.”
“Do we?”
“Hopefully,” he said, and offered her his arm. “Let’s get something to eat. I have something I want to discuss with you later.”
Cubiak waited by the fire with Cate and Bathard as Regina saw the last of the guests to the door.
“Shouldn’t we be going as well?” the old coroner said.
“Not yet. I need to talk to Regina, and I want both of you there.”
“What is it?” Cate said.
“Something I started to think about when this all began.”
The catering crew was clearing the tables when the grand dame advanced toward them. She took slow, deliberate steps and seemed to lean on her cane more than usual.
“Regina looks exhausted. I hope you won’t keep her too long,” Cate said.
Cubiak stood and offered the dowager his chair, but she shook her head. “Not here. Let’s go where it’s quiet.”
They followed her down a short hallway and into a small sitting room. A tidy stack of logs burned in a ceramic fireplace, and another bank of windows opened to a sprawling mass of snow-topped bushes. Regina sank into a white leather chair and motioned them to the facing sofa and chair.
“Now, Dave, talk to me.”
He cleared his throat. “This has been on my mind for several days. I’m sure you noticed the number of women who attended the funeral?”
“I did.”
“I suspect that they came because they felt they had something in common with Lydia. If I’m right, your niece, Gladys Ingersoll, and Helen Yaeger weren’t the only women on the peninsula who’ve been victimized by internet romance scams, and they won’t be the last either. Bobby Fells ran an amateur local operation, but the real pros are out there in droves. Trying to curtail them is more than I can do as sheriff. Even the FBI can intervene only after the fact. But I believe there’s more that can be done to help women protect themselves before they fall prey to these schemes.”
“Go on, I’m listening.”
“Lydia was an intelligent woman. When Bobby Fells first contacted her and pretended to be James Dura, she may have had her doubts about him, but she had nowhere to turn for guidance or advice, no one to talk to. She was too embarrassed to confide in you or her friends, and with him being so persuasive and credible, she found him hard to resist.”
Cubiak leaned forward. “Imagine if there was a hotline she could have called anonymously, and someone had helped her understand how internet con artists operate. Even someone as convincing as the would-be James Dura. The hotline rep could have told her how to search for an obituary. Or how to verify the receipts he sent her for the so-called trip of a lifetime that he’d concocted. A single red flag might have been enough to give her pause and keep her from falling for the scam. The same for Helen Yaeger. Ultimately, she made the right calls, but only after she’d sent Bobby money for a phony stock deal.”
“It is an admirable idea but you’ve already said your department could not take on such a project,” Bathard said.
“That’s true. We don’t have either the money or the expertise and staff.”
Regina thumped her cane on the floor. “But I have the money that can hire the staff and pay for the expertise, isn’t that what you’re getting at?”
The sheriff tried to hide his smile.
“You’re a clever one, you know,” Regina said with a teasing glance. Then she got serious. “I plan to sponsor a community garden in Lydia’s name and perhaps I still shall, but why not do both? With the proceeds from the sale of The Stampede, there will be more than enough to fund such a program. It will take time and effort to establish, but it will be a fitting memorial.”
The dowager glanced from one to the other. “I’ll do it but only on one condition,” she said.
“What is that?” Bathard asked.
Regina looked at Cate. “That you, my dear, agree to be the executive director, the woman in charge.”
29
GOING HOME
After Lydia Malcaster’s funeral and the arraignments of John Overly, Tracey Fells, and Bobby Fells, the days passed in a wintry haze. More quickly than Cubiak would have liked, they reached the last Saturday of the month. It was the day he had circled in red on his desk calendar. He had hoped a blizzard would close the highway, but the weak storm that started late the night before had fizzled in the early predawn hours. By midmorning the roads were clear. Cate was sifting through a stack of research material when her husband and son said good-bye and left.
“So, Mom’s got this great new job. Do you think she’s going to like it?” Joey said when they were on the highway headed to Chicago for the game.
“She seems to be enjoying it. Your mother’s a very accomplished woman, you know. She can do a lot of things.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You’re a lot like her.”
Joey flushed with adolescent embarrassment. “You think so?”
Cubiak glanced at his son. “I know so.”
The boy squirmed and reached into his backpack for a chocolate bar.
“We’re not going to be late, are we?” he asked as he unwrapped the candy.
“We’ll be fine.”
“Want some?” He held out a piece of the chocolate.
Cubiak shook his head.
“Did you bring the tickets?”
“Right here in my pocket.”
“What about you?” the boy asked.
“What do you mean, what about me?”
“What are you going to do? I heard you and mom talking yesterday.”
“Ah, that. Retirement, you mean,” Cubiak said as he moved to the inside lane and accelerated past a milk truck. He switched on the wipers and waited for them to clear away the slush that had splattered the windshield. “It’s something people start thinking about when they get to be my age.”
“But you’re the sheriff.”
“Someone else can be sheriff.”
“Like who?”
“Whoever gets elected. Maybe like Mike Rowe.”
“He’s too young,” Joey said.
Cubiak chortled. “He’s no younger than I was when I took the job.”
“Huh,” Joey said. “But what would you do?”
“I don’t know. Maybe your mother would give me a job.”
“Yeah, right.”
They joked about the possibility for a moment. Then Joey got lost in the futuristic world of the internet and Cubiak drifted into the past. For twenty years, he resisted going back to Chicago. The one time he had returned was for Malcolm’s retirement party. He owed his former partner that much. When Cubiak was at his lowest, when he had given up on life and himself, Malcolm had pulled him to his feet and demanded more of him. More than he thought he could give. Malcolm sent him north to Door County. Malcolm had saved him. At the party, when Cubiak hugged his friend, he had assured him that he was fine.
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes,” he’d said. It wasn’t completely true then, but it was true now. Cubiak patted Joey’s knee. He wished Malcolm were still alive to hear it.
“I don’t smoke.”
Cubiak blinked. What was his son talking about?
“That night I came home from play practice, you asked if I’d been smoking. But I hadn’t, and I don’t.”
“Good,” Cubiak said. He glanced at his son. “Let’s keep it that way.”
They reached the stadium and were in their seats in time for the tipoff. They cheered their team. They ate hot dogs in steamed buns, buttery popcorn, and nachos dripping with melted cheese. They rued the Bucks loss but consoled themselves that it had been a close contest—three points would have tipped the scale in the other direction. They spent the night at a downtown hotel, where Joey swam in the enclosed rooftop pool. Then, after breakfast the next morning, they drove out of the Loop and away from the dark ridge of storm clouds forming along the lakefront.
“Where are we going?” Joey asked.
“To the neighborhood where I grew up,” Cubiak said as he steered the jeep south on Halsted.
Near the new Sox park, he turned onto a narrow street lined with bungalows and two-flats. Cars and SUVs were parked bumper-to-bumper, leaving little more than a single lane for traffic heading in either direction. Within four blocks, they passed three churches. At the end of the street, he steered the jeep around a corner piled high with dirty snow and pulled to the curb alongside a row of squat, weather-beaten brick buildings.
Cubiak leaned into the windshield. “See the one near the corner with the green door? Second from the end.”
Joey squinted out the window. Like the buildings, the doors were barely distinguishable from each other, the colors faded and peeling and tinged sad. He focused and found the slab covered in an ancient green. “That’s where you lived?”
“We had an apartment on the third-floor rear.” Cubiak rolled forward another fifty feet until he was even with the gangway. “Back there,” he said, pointing down the tight walkway.
The boy’s gaze followed the trajectory of his father’s arm and then lifted to the roofline. “It looks kind of small.”
“It was. People in this neighborhood didn’t have much money. Most of my friends lived in apartments like that.”
Cubiak showed his son the corner playground where he played baseball as a kid and the vacant lot where the parish school had stood. “It’s gone now. Torn down. Lots of things are gone,” the sheriff said.
They went past his old high school. “It’s coed now, but used to be all boys,” he said.
“What about where you worked, when you were a cop?”
“That’s gone too. There’s a new building there now.”
When they were back on Lake Shore Drive, the boy pressed his nose to the window. He knew the sites and called them out as they drove past. “McCormick Place. Soldier Field. The Aquarium. Navy Pier. The Hancock.”
At Belmont, Cubiak took the exit and headed west.
On block after block, storefronts blurred past. After a few minutes, Joey lost interest and pulled out his phone.
They drove several miles before Cubiak pulled to the curb. Joey was so absorbed, he didn’t realize that the jeep wasn’t moving until his father turned off the engine. The boy looked up, curious. They were on a quiet street lined with trees and neatly kept two-story houses. Christmas lights dangled from the eaves and bare branches, and wreaths hung on doors.
