Deadly Fall (30 page)

“We can't tell from a cell phone.”

“What's Felix's address?” Paula called to Isabelle, who didn't look up from her reading. “Never mind.” She hurried through the dining room to the pile of mail on the kitchen counter. No guns were missing from the wall rack and case. He must have used one of his twenty other ones. She rattled off an address in a window envelope. At the other end of the line she heard computer taps.

“Are you at the residence of Felix Schoen?” the woman said.

“He's dead.”

“How did he die?” The tapping continued.

“He killed himself. Didn't I say that?” She paced through the dining room. Felix's body on the chair looked rigid. How long did it take for rigor mortis to set in? At room temperature, three to six hours, according to what she learned in an insurance course. He'd have died before 9:00
AM
.

“We'll send someone right away,” the woman said. “Please go out of the house and wait on the sidewalk. Don't touch anything.”

She had touched the counter and mail. Isabelle was touching the sheet of paper.

“Is it a suicide note?” Paula asked.

“I think so,” Isabelle said.

Yesterday, Felix had acted weird but upbeat, determined to finish the column he was struggling to start. Had he killed himself over frustration with it? A half glass of Scotch sat on the table beside him. Drink might have contributed, depressing him enough to take his life. Suicides often used drink to bolster their courage for the act. On the hike, he had sliced off a large leaf. “It was going to fall anyway,” he had said. She had to phone Sam. He had wanted to know if his friend was still off balance. “They said to get out of here,” she told Isabelle.

Isabelle chewed her nail, not looking up. “I'm almost finished.”

“Why are you taking so long? It's only one page.”

“His writing's all wavy, like an old person's. I can't figure out all the words, but for sure he offed himself.”

Two men on the
TV
screen babbled about rain and crops. A voice blared, “More about canola after the break.” She would zap the annoying voice if the remote wasn't on the table beside the body, and she wasn't supposed to touch anything. The Bavarian costume lay heaped in front of the
TV
. The walking stick rested on top. Dark stains spattered the bamboo floor. Blood. Felix's blood. She stayed behind the chair where she couldn't see the body, only the bald top of his head.

“What's that stink?” Isabelle wrinkled her nose. “It smells like piss and shit.”

“The sphincters relax with death.”

“Is Felix Catholic?” Isabelle said.

Paula edged toward Isabelle, who still wore the feather cap.

Isabelle fluttered the sheet of paper. “This is that newspaper article Felix was raving about. The start of it anyway. It's like a confession you make to a priest. I'll read it to you ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been thirty-five years since I've been to confession and almost as long since I've attended . . .' I think the next word is ‘mass.' ‘That isn't my confession, nor do I want or deserve forgiveness. To . . .' I can't read the next few words. ‘Understand me, Readers, for I have sinned. Two weeks ago a woman was murdered on the . . .' this must be ‘Elbow River pathway.' Something, something, something ‘Callie Moss. I am responsible for her death. Why did I . . .' something something . . . ‘come forward? How to explain my crime? Will explanation bring peace? I hope it brings . . .' something. ‘To understand, we must return to the start. The story begins with love.'” Isabelle looked up. “That's as far as it goes. He murdered Callie.”

“Does he say that? Let me see.”

“They told us not to touch.”

“You've already touched it.” Paula skimmed the page. The peacock blue writing was shaky, but not that hard to decipher. “‘Her name is Callie Moss. Why did I wait all this time to come forward?' Does he mean wait the two weeks since her death?”

“I don't know.”

“Callie died ten days ago. Of course, the column would run this Thursday. That would be exactly two weeks.”

“Was Felix saying he was in love with Callie?”

“Sam insisted he viewed her as a friend.” Although Felix was notably upset, if not broken, by her death. Was this a classic case of a man killing the woman who rejected him, and later killing himself? Much later, in this case. Ten days.

They walked to the house entry. Isabelle gaped at the body Paula avoided looking at. A siren shrieked down the street. An Emergency Services van pulled to the curb. Two paramedics leapt out. One dashed up the stairs and told them to wait on the sidewalk. A patrol car roared up. They met the policewoman on the sidewalk.

“Is this your car?” she asked Paula. “Can you move it down the street?”

“I forgot my purse. The keys are there. I'll get it.” She turned around.

The policewoman's arm blocked her. “Nobody goes in. I'll have someone retrieve them.” She spoke into her walkie-talkie.

Isabelle was talking with a passerby who was walking her dog. Felix's cap was still perched on her head. They should have left it in the house. It belonged to him, except that would be disturbing the scene. A male constable got a roll of tape from the patrol car and started running it around the perimeter of Felix's yard. Ten days ago, it all began with yellow tape across the Elbow Pathway entrance. Another constable handed the policewoman the keys. She gave them to Paula, who got into her car, feeling too shaken to drive.

“Don't go away,” the policewoman said. “We'll want your statements.”

Paula parked her car down the block and walked back through a corridor of curious neighbors on doorsteps. A second police car zoomed by. A dark sedan wove slowly through the gathering crowd and stopped across the street from Felix's house. A constable ran to greet the new arrivals. He pointed at Paula and Isabelle. The man and woman dressed in suits came over, flashed
ID
s, and introduced themselves as detectives.

“Where's Mike?” Isabelle asked.

“Detective Vincelli,” Paula explained.

The female detective glanced at the house. “He must be inside. Do you know him?”

“Well enough to know he's not here.”

The woman led Isabelle to a quiet spot across the street. The short man with the crew cut and mustache remained with Paula beside the unmarked car.

He took out his notebook and pen. “How did you come to discover the body?”

“We were picking up Isabelle's belongings. She lived here a day before she moved in with me.”

He demanded precise dates and times. Was Paula a suspect all over again? This time, Sam would be her alibi and she would be his, apart from that hour he was away for his walk.

“What time do they think Felix died?” she asked.

The detective looked up from his writing. “Isabelle is the niece of Callie Moss, who was recently murdered?”

“Yes. I already told you that.”

“Sam Moss is Mrs. Moss's husband?”

“Yes. No. Your unit is aware of his marital situation.”

He either didn't know or was pretending or had forgotten.

“Sam is also a friend of Felix Schoen. He would want to know about this. Has anyone contacted him?”

“When did you last see Felix Schoen?”

“Yesterday, around 5:00
PM
. We dropped him off after our hike in Kananaskis.”

“We? That would be you and who else?”

“Isabelle and Sam Moss.”

He looked up. “I'll need a full description of your day.”

Three people in coveralls got out of a police van. They draped cameras around their necks and carried boxes and machines into Felix's house.

“Do they always go to this much trouble for suicide?” she said.

“What time yesterday did the four of you leave for Kananaskis?”

Not surprised by his non-answer, she went into details about the hike, including Felix's Bavarian costume and his excitement about his newspaper column. “His suicide note seemed to be the beginning of the piece.”

“How do you know that?” the detective asked.

“We read the note when we were in the house.”

“You should not have contaminated the crime scene.”

This detective was annoying. His pointed face reminded her of a coyote's.

Another patrol car pulled up. The officers jogged down the block to control traffic entering the street. Isabelle mingled with other spectators, her interview concluded. Lucky her to get the less picky cop. A man from the crime scene unit scoured the lawn and went around the side to the backyard that bordered the Elbow River. Presumably, the morning Callie died, Felix had taken the gun he had stolen from Sam's father's shed, followed Callie to a secluded spot and shot her. A premeditated crime, executed coolly enough to leave no evidence.

Paula concluded her story of the Kananaskis hike. “Felix slept all the way home. We watched him walk into the house. It was the last time any of us saw him. Alive.” Her voice croaked.

“After you left Felix, where did the three of you go?” the detective asked.

“We drove Isabelle to my daughter Erin's house, where she was spending the night.” In a sense, Paula owned the house, but this would take forever to explain in the detail he was bound to require.

“From your daughter's house, you and Sam went where?”

“To dinner.” She provided the restaurant's name and location. “Sam drove me home and stayed the night.”

The detective looked up, smirking.

She balled her hands into fists. “He left around eight forty-five this morning.”

He returned to his notes. “You can vouch for Sam Moss the whole time, between 10:00
AM
yesterday and 8:45
AM
this morning?”

“Aside from about an hour between 6:55 and 7:55
AM
, when he went for a walk to the Elbow River. That is, he told me he did. I didn't know he had gone until around seven forty, when I woke up. His car was still parked in front.”

“What time did you and Sam fall asleep last night?”

“Around two o'clock, I guess.” Surely, if Sam had left her bed much earlier than 6:00
AM
she would have noticed.

The detective closed his notebook. “That's enough for the moment.”

Did he think Sam had snuck out of her house, drove to Felix's and killed him, then returned the car and went for a walk so she would wake up to see it there and find his absence believable?

Two more vehicles entered the street. One turned into a driveway. The sedan continued and parked behind a patrol car. A tall, broad man in a business suit got out. Dark complexion. Shaved head. Beard stubble.

“Don't go away.” The short detective said to Paula. He went over to talk with Detective Vincelli, who kept nodding and glancing in her direction. The men strode toward her.

“I didn't expect to find you here,” Vincelli said.

“Since homicide is involved, does this mean you think it might not be suicide?”

“After I look inside, I want to take you to the station.”

This not sharing of information was such a cop power-trip. “What for?” she said.

“Fingerprinting and questioning.”

“I've been answering questions for an hour. Fingerprints? Am I a suspect?”

“We need your prints to eliminate ones found in the house.”

“You contaminated the scene,” the short detective said.

“While you're inside,” Paula said, “can you see about getting my purse and Isabelle's tote bag with her clothes?”

“I'll do my best,” Vincelli said.

The men walked together to the yard, talked with various constables and disappeared into the house. A television van appeared. Reporters jumped out. One carried a mic to the sidewalk. A cameraman panned the scene. Isabelle held court with a group of spectators, no doubt detailing and embellishing her involvement in the event. Paula hung back across the street, surveying the scene from a distance.

Eventually, Vincelli came out. “You can pick up your purse and Isabelle's bag at the station, after they're checked.”

“We should return that hat Isabelle's wearing to Felix's family,” Paula said. “He left it in the car last night.” After an hour of talking, her throat was dry. She coughed to clear it. “We were sure we'd see him again. Soon. He won't need it now.” Her eyes watered. She pictured the bulky corpse flopped on the recliner chair. “He held something in his hand. It looked like a silk scarf. Navy with yellow dots.”

“They're stars.”

“Did it belong to Callie?”

“We don't know, yet.”

“You think he killed her and, ten days later, killed himself?”

Vincelli didn't reply.

“Sam doesn't think Felix had a romantic interest in her. The note was the start of his newspaper column, not a suicide note. I found it ambiguous.”

“You read it?”

“He didn't say, explicitly, that he killed her. The note isn't conclusive proof.”

“I agree, but it fits with other things.”

“What?”

“Additional evidence.”

The interview room was twelve feet square, its only furnishings two chairs and a table. Seated across from Vincelli, Paula described the hike and dinner with Sam. While talking, she could see it was possible that Sam had planned their whole evening so he could murder his friend, using her as an alibi.

“After we woke up in the living room, I went to the bathroom,” she said. “Sam made orange juice in the kitchen. I found him waiting for me in bed with the glasses of juice on the bedside tables. Maybe he spiked mine so I'd sleep through his trip to Felix's house.”

Vincelli rolled his chair back. He placed his fingers together in a display of concentration. “We could examine the juice glasses.”