Death Casts a Shadow, page 4
“Had the bed been slept in?”
“I don’t think so. It looked fine to me, all made up and everything. So at least I knew she wouldn’t want me to wash the sheets today. She leaves it unmade when that’s one of the tasks on the list.” Tracey’s eyes blinked steadily as she talked. “I thought, geez, maybe she sent me a text telling me that I shouldn’t bother coming today. She did that sometimes. Anyway I wasn’t sure what to do, and that’s when I figured I’d go check and see if she was on the back patio. She goes out there sometimes, even in winter. I was halfway down the stairs when I saw her.”
“You didn’t see her from the upstairs foyer?”
Tracey shook her head. “The light was off . . .”
She twisted her hands into a knot. “I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe I should go to see if she was okay, if she was breathing or anything, but I was scared. She looked dead. I . . . I ran back up and called nine-one-one, and then I just walked back and forth by the front door waiting for someone to come.”
“Did you hear anything?”
A frown formed on her face. “Like what?”
“A car door slamming or somebody driving by on the road.”
“No, nothing. You can’t hear anything from the road except in summer when the farmers drive their tractors from one field to the other.”
“Which direction did you come from?”
“South, from Sturgeon Bay.”
“Did you see anyone or notice any vehicles on the road when you got up here?”
Tracey shook her head. “There was just snow everywhere.”
“The drive was already plowed when you arrived?”
“Yeah. Lydia insisted that Bobby put her first on the schedule.”
“Bobby Fells, your brother,” Cubiak said, remembering his conversation with Lydia.
Tracey started. “Yeah, that’s right. How’d you know?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll need his contact information.”
She frowned again. “Why?”
“He was here today before you and may have noticed something amiss.”
The young woman tucked her chin down and batted her lashes at the sheriff. “I guess, maybe. But Bobby’s not the most observant person in the world.”
“Earlier you said the front door was open when you arrived.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Was it open or just unlocked?”
Tracey pursed her mouth into a thoughtful pout. “It was open,” she said after a moment. “Just a smidge, but definitely open.”
“You’re sure?”
She looked at Cubiak. “I’m sure.”
“And you noticed nothing else unusual?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I’ll need you to come to the station later to give a statement.”
She scowled. “But I’ve already told you everything.”
“And I appreciate your help. It’s just procedure, that’s all. This afternoon if you can. Oh, and I’ll need your key.”
The young woman slipped off the stool and angled away from the sheriff. Lifting her jacket and shirt, she uncovered the orange carabiner key ring that hung from a belt loop of her jeans. A handful of keys dangled from the mechanism. Tracey extracted the one marked with a smear of bright pink nail polish and dropped it on the counter.
“Who else has a key to the house, besides you?”
“Beats me. Probably lots of people,” she said as she reattached the key ring to her jeans.
“Why do you say that?”
Tracey shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just that Lydia seemed very trusting.”
The sheriff escorted Tracey to the door and watched her drive away. Uncertain of his next move, he turned around and found himself heading back to the kitchen. When there, he went directly to the small table by the window and sat in a chair—perhaps the same chair Lydia used when she drank her morning coffee. The table overlooked the snow-covered garden. In the warmer months, the garden would be awash in color, but now it slept under a thick white blanket. The wind had carved wavy ridges in the snow and left a shiny patina on the surface. The sheriff imagined Lydia musing about James Dura and projecting fantasies of a bright future onto the snowy canvas. He stared at the same field of white and projected questions about her death.
The open door indicated that someone had been at the house before Tracey arrived that morning. But who? Visitor or intruder? And when? Had they come to the house the previous evening before the latest snowfall, or this morning after Bobby Fells had cleared the drive and shoveled the walk? Tracey had been quick to downplay her brother’s powers of observation, perhaps too quick. Cubiak opened his notebook and jotted down a reminder to ask the young man if he had noticed tire tracks or footprints when he came to plow.
It’s possible that Lydia was dead when the unknown person arrived. She might have had a stroke or a heart attack while she stood at the top of the landing and keeled over instantly dead, or been sent reeling headfirst down the staircase, dying as she fell. But if someone had seen her lying at the base of the stairs, wouldn’t they have checked to see if she was breathing or at the least called 911?
What if Lydia was alive when the visitor arrived? Perhaps they had argued. Upset by the encounter, Lydia rushed toward the stairs and then tripped and fell to her death. It wasn’t an impossible scenario.
Or worse, she had been pushed. And she died with the knowledge that the last pair of eyes she had looked into belonged to her killer.
No one should die like that. The possibility anchored the sheriff to the chair for several more minutes. Then he pushed up and returned to the foyer. For the second time that morning, he scanned the area at the top of the stairs, searching for imprints in the thick pile. But again, the rug revealed nothing. In the living room, the Christmas tree was dark and the furnishings appeared undisturbed. Upstairs, he checked to see if Lydia’s bedroom had been ransacked in the search for jewels. The chamber was pristine. Still, he made a note to ask Regina to inventory her niece’s jewelry, to be sure nothing was missing. When he finished with the upper floors, he went back downstairs to Zack’s study.
As soon as Cubiak turned on the light, he knew something was wrong. Three of the Remington bronzes—The Rattlesnake, Coming through the Rye, and The Outlaw—remained in position, lined up in a historic parade of the Old West. But The Bronco Buster had vanished.
“Damn it to hell, it was a burglary,” he said.
Then he paused. Who would steal just one of the bronzes? A professional thief would nab all four. Even an amateur would grab more than one.
Unless . . .
Cubiak swore under his breath and hurried back to where the body lay on the floor. He had assumed that Lydia had fallen on her arm, but when he lifted her head and chest off the red tiles, he discovered The Bronco Buster beneath her on the floor. Patches of dried blood smeared the statue and the front of her sweater.
“Jesus,” Rowe said, coming up behind him. “What the hell happened?”
Cubiak moved the statue aside and lowered the body back to the floor.
“She must have been carrying it when she fell, like this”—he held his arm to his ribs to demonstrate—“and when she landed, the impact drove the rim of the hat or the horse’s mane into her chest.”
“Do you think that’s what killed her?”
“I doubt it, but that’s Pardy’s call.” The sheriff straightened up and glanced around. “What’d you find?”
“Nothing.” Rowe pointed down the hall away from Zack’s office. “There’s a mudroom there that leads to the patio. The outer door was open but there are no tracks outside, although if there were any the wind could have covered them with snow. And no sign of forced entry anywhere either.”
“An open door down here would explain the draft I felt when I found this,” Cubiak said, taking the bag with the ring from his pocket.
“What does all of this mean?” the deputy said.
The sheriff shook his head. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”
He looked down at the dead woman on the floor. “What happened, Lydia?” he said.
The two men were standing over the body when Emma Pardy called out a cheery hello from the foyer.
“Down here,” Cubiak said.
The medical examiner peered at them from inside the fur-trimmed hood of her gold parka.
“I’d better leave this up here,” she said as she slipped off the jacket. “These too.” She kicked off her boots and slipped into a pair of black flats. Then she pulled disposable foot coverings over the shoes and sidled down the edge of the stairway.
Cubiak ran through the details and the timing for the day’s events: Tracey’s call to 911, Rowe’s response, and his arrival.
“And that? It looks kind of familiar,” Pardy said, gesturing toward the blood-smeared statue.
The sheriff filled her in on the story behind the antique bronze. When he finished, Pardy dropped to one knee.
“Okay,” she said, and unzipped her bag.
While Pardy conducted an initial examination, the sheriff checked in with Rowe and called the state tech office to request a team to come out and dust the premises for prints.
By the time he went back downstairs, the medical examiner was waiting.
As was her custom, she reported her preliminary findings in a straightforward, clipped manner.
“The deceased appears to be the victim of a fatal fall. Accidental from all appearances, although I can’t rule out precipitating circumstances, such as heart attack, aneurysm, or stroke, until after autopsy.”
“What about the bronze?” Cubiak asked.
“The statue appears to have pierced the dermis, presumably at the moment of impact. The presence of blood would indicate that the victim was still alive at the time. However, the small quantity of blood would also indicate that the puncture was not related to the death. Again, this is preliminary.”
“Time of death?”
“I’d estimate between eight and midnight.”
“She’s been lying here for some time then,” he said.
Pardy nodded and leaned against the wall. “I don’t know, Dave, why do things like this have to happen? My mother’s neighbor died from a fall down a flight of stairs. She caught her foot in her pant leg and tumbled headfirst. The same thing could have happened here. Look at the wide legs on the victim’s trousers! She may as well have been wearing an evening gown!”
The medical examiner picked up her black bag. “At least she was wearing sensible shoes with no-slip soles, not that it mattered in the end.”
“There is something else,” Cubiak said, and showed Pardy the plastic bag with the ring. “I found this on the floor along the baseboard. It looked like she was reaching for it.”
“And you think it belonged to the victim?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping you can tell me.”
“Well, she has a ring on every finger, so I’m not sure where she’d find room for another one. However, it’s a narrow band, so she might have been able to double it up with one of the others. I’ll see if I can find any supporting evidence. That’s more likely if she’d had the ring for years, even months, but if it were a new piece of jewelry, something she’d worn for a short time, I’m afraid I won’t be able to come up with anything.”
Pardy looked at the sheriff. “Did you know her?”
“Not really, why?”
“I know it sounds strange, but when I’m dealing with the dead, I sometimes get a sense of what they were like when they were alive. Today was one of those times,” Pardy said as she started up the stairs. “And I have the feeling that Lydia was a good woman.”
4
A VISIT WITH THE QUEEN
Cubiak and Pardy met the EMTs at the front door and watched as the team carried the gurney with Lydia Malcaster’s body to the first floor and then down the walk to the ambulance. Neither the sheriff nor the medical examiner spoke until the medics drove away.
“Tomorrow, then?” he asked.
Pardy pulled her car keys from her pocket. “I’ll have my report ready around noon.”
Left on his own, Cubiak went back into the house.
Less than twenty-four hours had passed since he had listened to Lydia’s bright chatter about her late husband, her new beau, and the wonderful days ahead. How quickly circumstances changed. The house was empty and quiet, weighted with the presence of death. Only his footsteps disturbed the oppressive silence.
Both Cubiak and Rowe had searched the premises and found nothing that could explain Lydia’s death. Perhaps the fall was an accident, but the sheriff still wasn’t convinced.
Taking his time, he revisted each room in the house.
He looked behind every closed door, checked every niche, scrutinizing the house for anything that seemed out of place, anything that he or his deputy might not have noticed earlier that would help him understand what had drawn Lydia to the top of the stairs and precipitated her fatal fall.
Again, he found nothing suspicious. There were no signs of a break-in or scuffle. Nothing missing or out of place. Pardy had taken The Bronco Buster to analyze the blood, leaving the three remaining bronzes undisturbed in Zack’s office. Lydia’s bed had not been slept in; her purse stood on the dresser, the wallet stuffed with twenties; a string of pearls nestled in a basket.
Cubiak was locking up when Cate sent a message saying that she was heading home after her talk with Regina.
He texted her back: How is she?
Stoic. But it would be nice if you can check on her.
Of course.
The sheriff needed to talk to the matriarch, so he may as well do it now. From Lydia’s drive, he turned north. Regina lived ten minutes up the road. The first estate he passed had a gated entry. The second was marked with a large abstract sculpture that probably cost half of his annual salary. Given Regina’s chauffeured Rolls, Cubiak figured her property would have an equally imposing entrance and was surprised to discover a nondescript gravel driveway with a simple wooden post marked by the Malcaster name etched into it. The understated entry belied the elderly woman’s exalted status on the peninsula, and he suspected that the modest entrance was false cover for what lay beyond. Driving up the long lane through the heavily wooded parcel, he was reminded of the road that led to The Wood, the grand estate that Cate’s grandfather had built. They had only just met the first time Cate took him to the old house. To her, the chalet and manicured grounds were familiar turf and didn’t represent anything out of the ordinary, but to him the elaborate home was a harsh reminder of his low-ranking position in the world. A house like The Wood would match well with a Rolls. So too would a Tudor mansion with a steep, gabled roof and rows of leaded-glass windows. Or perhaps the woman who was known as the queen inhabited a faux castle.
Rounding the final curve, Cubiak anticipated a grand edifice. Instead, he pulled up to a contemporary, single-story structure at odds with his notion of a home fit for a dowager. He checked the GPS to make sure that he was in the right place. Perhaps another Malcaster lived in the area and he had gone to the wrong address. He hadn’t met Regina Malcaster, but he found it difficult to imagine a woman of her age and pedigree residing in the sleek, glass and wood house that stood before him. Surrounded by towering trees, it appeared both fragile and exposed. The chauffeur-driven Rolls was nowhere in sight.
As the sheriff approached, the door swung open to a tall, silver-haired woman dressed in black slacks and turtleneck. She wore no jewelry or makeup, but there was steel in her regal posture and confidence in the way she extended her hand.
“Regina Malcaster,” she said, her tone imperious. “Good of you to come so soon.”
Only then, at this hint of the purpose for his visit, did Cubiak notice the strain in her face and the faint redness that rimmed her intense blue eyes.
“Very kind of Cate, as well.” She started to say something else, but then she stopped and exhaled a puff of warm air that condensed into a small cloud and instantly vanished. Wordlessly, the dowager stepped back and let the sheriff pass. In the foyer, she pointed to a row of brass hooks on a brick wall. A plain wool coat hung from one. A silk scarf from another. He added his clunky parka to the collection.
Leaning on a cane that seemed to materialize from thin air, Regina led him through the wide entrance hall and into the house.
“Not what you expected, is it?” she said as they entered the living room, an indoor field of pale wood flooring, soft colors and light, and simple furniture heaped with pillows.
An awkward moment passed before Cubiak realized that she was referring to the house, either from a need to make polite small talk with her guest or a wish to delay the inevitable.
“It doesn’t go with the car,” he said.
“I suppose not,” she said as she strode forward. “But then the grand old manse burned, and the Rolls kept rolling along. I appreciated the sedan for its roominess and ready accessibility—easy for me to get in and out of, a consideration in one’s advancing age—so I kept it despite the absurd cost of repairs and maintenance. Do you know cars, Sheriff?”
“Not especially.”
“I imagine that there’s no reason you should. Like the car, the old house had its finer features, and I could have replaced it with a clone or something in the same vein, which is what people expected, but stairs had become the bane of my existence and the curlicues did nothing but collect dust, hence this.” The dowager swung the cane like a pendulum, aiming it first at one glass wall and then the other.
“I told my architect that my time was limited and that as long as I was still on this earth, I wanted to be as close to nature as possible without having to endure any discomfort. The house is a tribute to her talent, not mine. I merely signed the checks.”
