The Trailer Park Murder, page 29
“Could be a voicemail.”
“Or someone not wanting to talk,” Lesley said. “At 12:40 p.m., the Fortescues called the sheriff’s office again.”
Bernadette rubbed her chin. “Okay, the sheriff’s office might call the Fortescues if the sheriff—or one of the deputies—suspected them of one of the murders. But why would the Fortescues call back?”
“We don’t have recordings of the conversation,” Lesley said, “but having done this in the past, I can tell you these kinds of communications usually fall into the panic category.” The sound of a keyboard clicking. “The sheriff calls the Fortescues to ask if they had anything to do with the car exploding, then the Fortescues call the burner phone’s owner to see if that person had anything to do with the bomb. Then when they don’t answer, they call the sheriff back, so they look like they have nothing to hide.”
“Not really admissible in court,” Bernadette mumbled. “Hang on—you said five calls. I count three.”
“Right. Because just after one p.m., the burner phone calls the sheriff’s office.”
Bernadette frowned. “Is this more innocent than it seems? Maybe the burner phone is a lawyer, not a conspirator?”
Lesley paused for a moment. “A lawyer with a burner phone?”
“Or it could be a conspirator calling to speak to the sheriff’s office to establish an alibi.”
The sound of the keyboard clicking again. “Maura told me you were supposed to interview the Fortescues today.”
“Yeah, I’ll absolutely ask about those calls.” Bernadette ran her free hand through her hair. “And speaking of the Fortescues, I’m onto something here. The Gabriel Constantine murder was because of a medication switch. Constantine was supposed to take modafinil and acetaminophen, but instead, he took axadabutin and ibuprofen.”
Lesley let out a low whistle.
“I think I know who swapped in the ibuprofen, but that pharmacist wasn’t the one in charge of the assisted living facility where—”
Bernadette blinked. Maybe she was barking up the wrong tree.
“Bernadette?” Lesley asked.
“Hold on for a second.” Bernadette paced in a tight circle, smashing the receiver next to her ear. “Someone stole the axadabutin. I figured the pharmacist might have had something to do with it, but now I think maybe it was an employee.”
“You got a name of the facility?”
“New Sunset House. It’s on River Street.”
“Hang on a second.” The sound of a keyboard clacking. “A lot of these facilities need to register their employees with the state. I can access the system pretty fast.”
Pretty fast turned out to be four or five minutes of Lesley mumbling to herself and Bernadette pacing in a small circle that tangled the phone cord. She spent a good thirty seconds dangling the receiver by the cord and getting it untangled.
Finally, Lesley said, “Okay—I’m in.”
“Names?”
Lesley started listing the employees. Bernadette didn’t recognize any of them—although there was a Penelope Eskola. Probably a sister, daughter, or in-law of Ed Eskola, the man they’d rented the pickup from. She listened for any names she’d come across in the investigation, but none of the other names sounded familiar.
“Anything?” Lesley asked.
“No. Was that the end of the employee list?”
“As of last week, yes. But you can’t tell a lot by just the name. There would be a spouse who hasn’t changed their last name, or a significant other, or, I don’t know, a second cousin who has a different last name. Or even a best friend—the kind who’d help you bury a body, you know?”
“Yes.” Although Bernadette didn’t have any of those friends. Not anymore, anyway.
“Tell you what. I’ll keep digging into these names. A small town like Lost Dish, someone is bound to have a connection to your investigation.”
“See if any of the patients have relatives—” Bernadette blinked. “Like Bonnie Farmington. Her mother is a resident there. Can you see if her mother is on axadabutin?”
“Medical privacy laws,” Lesley said. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
They said their goodbyes and Bernadette went back into the interview room.
When she opened the door, Kep and Jasper Fortescue were on opposite sides of the table. Kep was relaxed, leaning back slightly in his chair. Jasper looked tense; he was clenching and unclenching his fist under the table, bouncing his leg up and down nervously.
“Sorry,” Bernadette said, taking the seat next to Kep and smiling as pleasantly as she could at Jasper. She turned to Kep. “Where are you with the questioning?”
“Oh, we waited for you,” Kep said. He grinned through his salt-and-pepper beard and Jasper bounced his leg faster.
Not bad, Kep. Bernadette took a deep breath, straightened her blazer, then looked up at Jasper. “Yesterday, you received a call from the sheriff’s office.”
Jasper said nothing.
“The call lasted for several minutes, and then you made another call—this one to an unregistered mobile phone. Then you called the sheriff’s office back.” Bernadette sat straight in her seat, trying to make herself as tall as possible. “Can you tell me what those calls were about?”
Jasper clasped his hands together and looked down at the table. Bernadette could see the gears in his head turning furiously. After a moment—not too long, but long enough to make Bernadette think Jasper had concocted a story—he spoke.
“I need you to promise you won’t tell Trudy.”
Bernadette pursed her lips. “No. This is a murder investigation—”
“Deputy Moncrief called me.”
“Carla Moncrief?”
“Yes.”
“To talk about the threatening letter you sent to Evan McMichael?”
“What? No, I—” Then a dawning realization came over his face—then quickly disappeared. “Sorry, I’m so used to denying I did it. Yes, to talk about the letter.”
Bernadette could have kicked herself. She’d led him into a story that probably made a lot more sense than the lie he was planning to tell—but this story wasn’t true either. She looked at Kep, whose forehead was creased.
“Are you sure that’s the story you’re going with, Mr. Fortescue?” Bernadette said.
“I’m sure,” Jasper said. Then added quickly, “It’s the truth.”
“What did Deputy Moncrief say?”
“Just stuff about the threatening letter. She knew I had written it and said I needed to come clean if I had more to say about it.” Jasper tightened his shoulders. “But I don’t.”
“Then who did you call?”
“Oh.” Jasper’s gears were turning in his head again. “She and I got cut off, then I dialed the wrong number.”
“The wrong number?” Bernadette wished she’d had Lesley get information about the calls Jasper had made—she could have seen if the numbers were at all similar.
“Sure. I got voicemail, realized my mistake, then called the sheriff’s office back.”
Bernadette was disgusted; she’d mishandled this. She’d given Jasper a way out, and she couldn’t catch him in his obvious lies.
But there was still a flicker of hope.
“Let’s talk about what Deputy Moncrief discussed with you,” Bernadette said. “Your relationship with Evan McMichael.”
Jasper looked like he was forcing his face to relax and doing a poor job of it. “Like I told her, not much to tell.”
“Yet you were on the phone for six minutes—and you called her back.”
“I suppose.”
“Must have been something to say about what went on between you and Evan.” She leaned forward slightly. “He wasn’t part of the Old Victoria Ornithological Society, was he?”
“No.”
“Especially after you sent him threatening letters.”
“Those were—well, obviously I wish I hadn’t sent them with that tone,” Jasper said. “I intended to be a bit, well, metaphorical with those.”
Kep cleared his throat. “Perhaps you can explain how a threat of physical harm is metaphorical.”
“It seemed to be the only language he understood—no.” Jasper looked down at the table. “He didn’t respond to my requests—my original nice requests. So I’m afraid I went a bit overboard.”
“So you and he were on friendlier terms than those communiques would have us believe?” Kep asked.
“Sure.”
“Friendly enough to visit each other's houses?”
Jasper’s throat strained and Bernadette could see the tendons in his neck. He smiled. “I’m afraid not. Maybe he and I could have settled our disagreement like gentlemen, but I’m afraid our animosity was such that while we were civil to each other in public, neither of us would have accepted an invitation to the other’s home.”
“What about—” Bernadette began, then stopped. She searched Jasper’s face and looked in his eyes. He was shaking his leg under the table, only slightly, but enough. Jasper was a man on the edge—and with good reason: Bernadette trusted nothing that came out of his mouth. He was one uncomfortable question away from asking for his lawyer. And if that happened, Kep and Bernadette would get no more questions answered tonight.
Bernadette might have dragged Trudy across the line as well. Once Trudy got back to the sheriff’s office, Bernadette couldn’t imagine a scenario where Trudy walked into the room and didn’t demand Jasper stop talking. So Bernadette changed the subject.
“You own some property down near Banner Crossing.”
“Between Banner Crossing and Old Victoria. But you’re using the wrong verb tense.”
“Excuse me?”
“I owned it. Well, Trudy and I did. We sold it about three weeks ago.”
She’d suspected as much. “The sale’s final?”
“Escrow closed, so yes.”
“Who purchased it?”
Jasper narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think I have to tell you that.”
“Land use records are public, Jasper. How about you save me the time?”
He sighed. “PLC Enterprises.”
She stopped. “PLC Enterprises? Who are they?”
Jasper shrugged. “A company whose check cleared.”
Bernadette closed her eyes and tapped her fingers on the desk. “They were interested in the property?”
“Correct.”
“When did you list your property?”
“In this market?” Jasper chuckled. “I didn’t.”
“So you’re saying PLC Enterprises approached you?”
“Their property manager did, yes.”
“But if you weren’t planning to put it on the market, why sell?”
“They offered to pay the assessed price from two years ago, plus fifteen percent.”
Bernadette narrowed her eyes. “Why would they do that?”
Jasper shrugged again. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right?”
“So PLC Enterprises paid a premium for the property.” She turned to Kep. “How does Michigan real estate law work, Kep? They can back out of the deal, can’t they? Thirty days, right?”
“If you mean to clarify whether PLC Enterprises can sever the purchase agreement,” Kep said, “I believe it would require proof the seller misrepresented the property.”
“You mean, if PLC Enterprises discovered, for example”—Bernadette glanced at Jasper, who clenched his jaw again—“an endangered species on the property the seller knew about—”
“Hey, hey,” Jasper said, leaning forward, “no one said anything about backing out of the deal.”
Bernadette glanced at Kep, who tilted his head and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Neither one of them knew Michigan real estate law well enough.
“So PLC Enterprises didn’t contact you about voiding the real estate sale.”
“No.”
Bernadette caught Kep’s eye motion toward the door, and the two of them rose from their seats and walked outside the room into the hallway.
They walked down the short corridor to the water cooler, where Bernadette grabbed a paper cup and filled it.
“This is the least prepared for an interrogation I’ve ever been.” Bernadette downed the cup of water and refilled it.
“The circumstances are unfortunate, yes.”
“I can tell this guy has been lying through his teeth ever since he sat down.”
“That’s possible—but haven’t we established a motive? We possess the threatening letter from Mr. Fortescue to Mr. McMichael, so I don’t believe the U.S. attorney will ask for much more.”
“You’re right; maybe it’s enough.”
“And yet,” Kep mused, “our theorized motive leaves me less than satisfied.”
“Jasper’s threatening letter might only be the tip of the iceberg,” Bernadette said. “If PLC Enterprises found out the land they just purchased was the new habitat of a species that had just come off the extinct list?” She and Barlow had been through messy escrow details a decade before: title insurance, walkthroughs, signatures for indemnity. A discovery like McMichael’s might throw a huge wrench into the process. She drank another cup of water, this time more slowly.
“Perhaps PLC Enterprises has deep enough pockets to drown Mr. Fortescue in lawyer fees even if Michigan real estate law is not on their side.” Kep ran a hand over his beard.
“So if Evan McMichael had gone public with his discovery of the Keweenaw coalhawk…”
“Then Mr. Fortescue might have envisioned a nightmare scenario with the land sale. And if he’d already spent the money, he may have panicked.”
Bernadette nodded and crumpled the paper cup in her hand. “If he thought he’d be forced into a reversal of the sale, what else might he have thought?”
“The land could not be sold or developed,” Kep ventured.
“Right—it might have bricked the entire piece of property. Maybe the state or federal government would use eminent domain to protect the coalhawks—like Barcelona Lute said.”
“Giving Jasper a tiny fraction of the money PLC Enterprises had purchased the property for.”
Bernadette tossed the crumpled cup in the trash can next to the water cooler. “I know our evidence is a little thin to back up that motive, but it serves to explain why Jasper sent the threatening letter.” She pulled out her phone and texted.
“Whom are you contacting?”
“I’m asking Maura and Lesley to find out about PLC Enterprises.” She tapped Send and a whooshing sound came from the phone’s speaker.
Kep was quiet for a moment.
“What is it?”
“Lead me through your theoretical timeline.”
“Okay.” Bernadette stared at the beige vinyl tiles on the floor and absentmindedly drew a figure-eight with her foot. “Jasper doesn’t want Evan running his mouth off about the Keweenaw coalhawk, so he invites himself over to Evan’s home with a bottle of nice whiskey and a shtick about letting bygones be bygones.”
“Where did he get the sulfuric acid?”
“We can check his financials. He could have purchased some at a local hardware store—or even had some at his large piece of property.”
“And why target Mr. Constantine?” Kep asked.
“Any number of reasons, but here’s what makes the most sense to me: Jasper paid Constantine to kill Evan. Constantine shot up Evan’s trailer but didn’t kill him, and Constantine became a liability.”
“Are you suggesting that Constantine attempted to blackmail Mr. Fortescue?”
“Possibly. But even if he didn’t, Constantine might start talking in jail to save his skin.”
“I see.” Kep held out his hand, palm up. “And how is Jasper’s spouse involved?”
“I think Jasper asked Trudy for help. So she figured out Constantine is on an anti-addiction medication, gets an idea to get rid of Constantine. She purposely makes a common error in switching the over-the-counter painkillers, then uses her pharmacy connections to get access to the assisted-living facility to steal the axadabutin.”
“Axadabutin,” Kep repeated. “Is that the bright pink hexagonal pill Dr. Goadbury identified in her memorandum?”
“Yes. Unique shape and color combo.”
Kep pinched his lips together. “Why choose that particular medication?”
Bernadette blinked. “Opportunity, I guess.”
“Axadabutin and ibuprofen are well-founded as a deadly combination,” Kep said, pacing a few feet down the corridor, then turning back. “But there are other medications just as deadly when combined with ibuprofen, and certainly much cheaper and easier to obtain.”
“Maybe she thought she could hide the theft of the axadabutin.”
Kep tilted his head unenthusiastically. “It’s possible. A toxicology screen would need to be targeted specifically to axadabutin.” He raised his chin. “To that point, we have not conclusively proven the cause of death was axadabutin. We only know the deputy stated he gave Mr. Constantine two bright pink hexagonal pills.”
“But those pills have to be axadabutin—and we know the other pills were ibuprofen. That’s pretty close to conclusive.” Bernadette paused. “But why would the deputy lie? And about something with such a unique color and shape?”
“It’s possible—” Kep began.
“What?”
“I was about to say it’s possible Deputy Mueller was involved in the murders. However, if he were, he would point us away from the pills—or away from a unique pill shape and color, at any rate.”
“Do you think Jasper was telling the truth about getting the call from Deputy Moncrief? He wasn’t telling the truth about anything else.”
Kep was silent and ran his hand through his hair. “No. I have little confidence he spoke to Deputy Moncrief. We can certainly ask her.”
“Where does this all leave us? Jasper was lying, Trudy was lying. Are the Fortescues our lead suspects?”
