Case Closed (4 page)

“Did you happen to notice if either of them wore gloves?”

She frowned in concentration. “No, I don't think so. I'm sure I would have noticed anything so odd.”

Bear sent Frank a look. Frank said to Mrs. Sarton, “He's going to open up the drum, and it could be pretty bad when he does. You sure you want to be out here?”

She nodded.

Without touching it any more than absolutely necessary, Bear used his gloved hands to move the stack of boxes to the ground, then tried to budge the drum away from the others. He couldn't move it. So he stood blocking their view and opened the catch on the metal ring that sealed the drum. He opened the lid so that neither Frank nor Mrs. Sarton could see into it. He grimaced as a strong odor of formaldehyde filled the air, grimaced again at the contents, and put the lid down. “Everybody out,” he said.

Mrs. Sarton had a look of shock on her face. “What? What have you found? Is it Derek?” she asked in near hysteria. “Derek out here all these years?”

“No, it's not him,” Bear said, “but we're going to have to let the coroner and the detectives take it from here. I think we may have found his girlfriend. Know anything about that?”

She turned paler still and shook her head mutely.

Frank walked her back to the house. “Anyone you would like to call to be here with you?” he asked.

She came out of her stunned state enough to stare at him.

She made him wonder if telepathy worked after all when she said, “My lawyer. I must call my lawyer.”

If he was the only member of the department who would be pleased that she would have legal representation, he could live with it. He couldn't believe Mrs. Sarton was a murderer.

Not even after a second drum in the garage was shown to contain the well-preserved body of Derek Sarton.

• • •

Ike Tucker and John Mattson caught the case. Mrs. Sarton's lawyer arrived shortly after they did. Since he wouldn't make Mrs. Sarton available to them, they grilled Frank about everything she had said to him.

“You know she tried to say all this to you guys for years,” Frank said.

“Pointe,” they said in unison.

“He's not the only person she tried to talk to.”

“No,” Mattson said, “but he's territorial. He does just enough to be able to say he did what he was required to do.”

Tucker added, “Missing persons isn't the right job for him, although I can't say I know what is. I wouldn't want the job myself. Most of the time, a missing adult, it's someone who's out banging his girlfriend in a no-tell motel and loses track of time. Wife calls in worried and everybody ends up embarrassed and mad at us.

“Or the missing person has good or bad reasons to want to disappear. Waste of our limited resources to go chasing after them, especially since it's not a crime to be missing.

“Other than that, it's a runaway teenager who is tired of hiding from Creepy Uncle Ernie. Or being hit by Dad. Or getting the younger kids off to school while Mom sleeps off last night's bender.”

Frank shook his head. “So Pointe believed this man with no debts ran away from a marriage he had been in for forty-five years? A marriage with a tolerant—overly tolerant, some would say—wife who supported him in a luxurious lifestyle. Disappears after threatening to take back management of his company. Does that sound like it should have raised a question or two?”

“Pointe's pulling the file for us, but he told us that in addition to the family members, he had three other witnesses who said the girlfriend told them it was in the works.”

“Anyone know anything about these three friends of Marlena Gray? Or where they are now?”

“We'll be looking for them,” Mattson said. “Don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, well. In case I forgot to say it—nice work.”

Frank thanked him, but felt uneasy. If all of this led to Mrs. Sarton being convicted of murder, he was never going to think of it as nice work.

• • •

Frank and Bear were given the duty of helping to keep the scene secure. Other cars arrived to help and Frank and Bear ended up near the garage, making sure anyone who came close to it had business being there, and signed in and out. Bear told him to stay put and toured around the perimeter to check on the placement of other officers. He wanted to make sure no civilians or press got close enough to be a bother.

The crime lab took more photos, then started dusting for prints, finding some on the outside of the drums, some on the lids. Then they did the same with the light switch and the hasp on the garage lock. He watched them work with interest, listened in on their conversations while keeping an eye on things.

One asked him to go find a handcart, but the other told him to leave the rookie alone, that he was Brian Harriman's kid and Bear would skin him alive if he left his post, especially since the place was crawling with reporters, who were a little too interested in Frank right now. So the guy used his radio to get another assistant to bring him what he needed.

Frank figured all of that meant Bear had parked him this far back from the road to keep him from being approached by the press, or getting into trouble in some other way.

Two hours later, Bear returned to him and said, “So, they checked all the other barrels, no more pickled remains.”

“Did you think there would be?”

“Always a possibility. We don't know what we're dealing with here yet.”

“You think Mrs. Sarton has dead bodies hidden all over the place?” Frank asked incredulously.

Bear scowled at him. “You ever hear of Nannie Doss?”

“No.”

“They caught her trying to kill husband number five. She murdered four of them, found several through lonely hearts ads. Also knocked off her own mother, her sister, a mother-in-law, a nephew, and her grandson.”

Frank recalled his dad's advice and summoned his inner alien. He shook his head. Any spoken reply at this point would not help him.

“How about Belle Gunness?” Bear asked. “No? Belle Gunness killed two husbands and two of her own four children. She ran an ad for suitors and killed the men who showed up. Her place burned down, killing the remaining two children, and supposedly her, but the body didn't match hers and its head was missing. They dug up her yard and found dozens of bodies.”

Frank said nothing.

“Amy Archer-Gilligan? Bertha Gifford?”

“No, sir.”

Bear laughed. “You may have grown up with cops, Frank, but you're still green.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bear muttered to himself and started to walk off. After taking three strides, he turned around and said, “Women are capable of anything, wiseass.
Anything.
”

“I'll remember that.”

“See that you do.”

Bear stood there for a moment, then said, “Let's hear it.”

“First, if she's guilty, why did she keep calling us? Why not just let the world forget all about Derek Sarton and his girlfriend?”

“Guilty conscience. Next?”

“If she's got a guilty conscience, why not just confess?”

“Can't quite make herself do it. Wants to be caught, but can't turn herself in.”

“A stretch,” Frank said.

“Happens more often than you'd think. Besides, maybe she didn't have a guilty conscience, but was putting a little insurance out there. Someone like you, who trusts little old ladies, would claim just what you did.”

“If she wanted to get away with it, why would she leave the bodies here?”

“She has control over this space.”

“Her son had keys to the garage.”

“Which she took away from him as fast as she could.”

“How does she spend the evening with a friend and manage to kill her husband and his girlfriend, haul the bodies from wherever they were, get them into the drums, seal them, and lock up the garage all before her son and his wife come back here with a truck?”

“We don't know when he died, right?”

“Ask Mattson for the date he was last seen alive.”

Bear smiled, not pleasantly. “All right, I will.”

Frank thought things over while Bear found the detective. He was surprised, a moment later, when Mattson returned with Bear.

“So you want to know if we know when Sarton was last seen alive,” he said. “We know he was seen in Los Angeles by his son and daughter-in-law on Saturday, October 31, 1970, and Marlena Gray was last seen on that same day.”

“Thank you,” Frank said.

“You have more ideas about this case?” Mattson said.

He hesitated. He had half the department giving him a hard time. Bear was clearly ticked off at him for siding with Mrs. Sarton. And Mattson had already warned him about not trying to make recommendations to experts. And yet, on another case, Mattson had listened to him.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

“Let's hear them.”

He glanced at Bear, then said, “If Mrs. Sarton has two sets of keys to the garage, then she could have put the bodies in there. I don't know how she could have physically managed that, but let's say she's stronger than she looks or had a pulley system set up that she has since dismantled.”

Bear made a growling sound, but Frank ignored him.

“If she only has the keys she gave to Bear,” he went on, “the keys she says she took from Harold, then she had no way to get into the garage before Harold arrived here that night.” He paused. “Did either victim have keys in their clothing?”

“Interestingly, the woman, who has not yet been positively identified as Marlena Gray, did not. Pointe's notes say she never turned her apartment keys in, but the building manager said he had to rekey the lock whenever a tenant moved out, so he didn't think much of it.”

“So someone else may have been in her apartment that day, gathering her most personal belongings to make the story about her leaving town with Derek seem more likely.”

“I thought the manager talked to her,” Bear said.

“On the phone?” Frank asked Mattson.

“Yes.”

“Big building, would he really know one woman's voice from another?”

“You think Evelyn made that call?” Bear asked.

“I think it's a possibility,” Frank said.

“She talked to friends,” Bear said.

“Either someone called Marlena and claimed Derek was sending someone along to help her run away from home with him, which might have been something she hoped for, or the friends are lying. Not sure about that one yet.” He turned to Mattson. “What about Derek's keys?”

“The body of the man we have not yet positively identified as Derek Sarton was clothed, and after we fished him out of the drum, we discovered there were keys in his pockets. Keys for each of the two locks on the garage, and some others that look like they're house keys and maybe keys to locks at his company. Car key is missing.”

“We have no idea how many of those padlock keys there were,” Bear pointed out.

“True,” Frank said. “Usually they're sold with two keys, but you're right, copies could be made. But that doesn't explain the dolly.”

“What doll?” Bear asked.

“Dolly. Handcart.”

Mattson turned around and looked at the garage.

“I overheard the crime lab guys asking for one to be brought out here,” Frank said. “They couldn't find one in the garage.”

Mattson got a smile on his face.

“Those drums are too heavy for our guys to move,” Frank said. “Bear couldn't move the one he looked into. No way Mrs. Sarton could have moved them without a dolly.”

To his surprise, Bear smiled, too. “What'd I tell you, John?”

“That he'll be in homicide one day. Yes. But let's allow him to get a little more time on the job. Excuse me, I've got an item to add to a search warrant list.”

• • •

Evelyn Sarton was arrested, first for the murder of Derek Sarton and Marlena Gray, and then for that of her husband. Harold had been exhumed, and toxicology tests had shown him to have an extraordinarily high level of ethylene glycol in his system, which, as Bear had said, would have been good if he had been a radiator, but human beings didn't fare well with antifreeze in their systems.

Marlena's friends were able to describe her most expensive and unique jewelry, and produce photos of her wearing it. Evelyn had Marlena's jewelry in her possession. The same jewelry box held Derek's car key. The dolly was in her garage.

The woman who invited Frieda Sarton to dinner on Halloween night admitted that she had been paid by Evelyn to do so. She claimed she thought it was just a way to help Derek get some things out of the house so that he could run away with his girlfriend.

Evelyn confessed, in a deal that took the death penalty off the table and allowed her to get life in prison, that she had shot Derek when he was threatening to fire her and Harold. No one else was in the Sarton Industries building at the time. They were in an area where the formaldehyde was stored. She came up with the plan to lure Marlena down to LA, and drove up to Bakersfield to bring her and her things to LA. She brought her into the plant, where she strangled her.

Not knowing Frieda Sarton had a controlling interest in the company, they were going to rob the business blind over the seven years it would take for her to get Derek declared dead.

Then they realized that if they left the drums with the bodies in the plant, they risked discovery. Evelyn then planned to make it appear that Frieda Sarton had killed the lovers in a jealous rage, and stored them in her own garage.

But once they had been seen breaking into the garage, and Frieda told them about her will and the way the company ownership was left, Evelyn decided not to push matters. They might be able to drop the weapon off at Frieda's house, to make her look guilty, but then Evelyn discovered the house was too closely guarded.