Deadly Seduction (19 page)

*   *   *

On August 8, the day of the funeral, one of Susan’s neighbors from Summit Drive walked over to the Grund residence and talked to Susan outside the house.

“They’ll never solve the murder of Jim because they never could figure out who burglarized the house,” Susan told her neighbor in a remarkably businesslike manner. The neighbor decided there and then that Susan knew who had pulled the trigger.

At 11:00
A.M.
that morning, family, friends, and members of the community paid their respects to Jimmy Grund when Miami Circuit Judge Bruce Embrey called a packed courtroom to session for a memorial service conducted by the Miami County Bar Association. It was standing room only.

Local attorneys and those from neighboring counties presented resolutions with expressions of regret for losing Grund, but also out of gratitude for having known him.

Judge Embrey fought back tears as he told the packed assembly, “I’m going to remember a smiling Jim Grund who always had a kind and upbeat word.”

Then he said bitterly, “I look forward to the day when this veil of anger and frustration and feeling of pain lifts and we can all remember those good moments.”

Susan Grund watched from the front of the courtroom, looking stunning in a tight-fitting black dress and subtle, matching pumps. Her hair gracefully combed back into a bob, she could not help outshining every other woman present, even though virtually no one was prepared to talk to her.

Judge Embrey also read a letter from Superior Judge Garratt Palmer, who couldn’t get to the service. Palmer wrote that Grund would be greatly missed in the court and community.

“A ‘friend of the court’ in the finest sense of that term will be lost,” he wrote.

Lawyer Pat Roberts represented the county bar association by reminding the audience of Grund’s keen ability as a lawyer. Roberts also recalled Jimmy Grund on a personal basis, talking of his generosity and after-hours friendship.

The courtroom then went completely quiet as Jimmy’s father, James A. Grund, got up to address his son’s accomplishments.

Grund told the story of a day when his son, with whom he shared an office, came in and talked about how easy it is to complain about the legal profession. Grund told his father there were too many arguments between attorneys.

Then he looked at his father and said, “I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate practicing with you.”

At the end of the memorial service, a very small number of people offered their condolences to Susan who hugged each one in turn, making sure she saved her most emotive hug for when a photographer from the
Peru Daily Tribune
pressed his motor drive button.

*   *   *

Jimmy Grund’s actual funeral service at 2:00
P.M.
that afternoon was a very large affair with an eighty-car procession. It took eight pallbearers to carry the casket because Jim Grund had insisted on being buried in a Sequoia wood coffin and, as one pallbearer explained, “It weighed a helluva lot.” As the graveside service was conducted by the Rev. J. Robert Clark at Mount Hope Cemetery, the sun shone brilliantly.

Then just before Jim Grund’s casket was lowered into the ground, a tiny black rain cloud stopped overhead and deposited a brief shower on all the mourners.

Suddenly there was a clinking from the coffin. A few of those present smiled gently. Gary Nichols had put two bottles of Jim’s favorite vodka and tonic in the casket as a farewell gift. Above them, the small, dark rain cloud continued pouring rain drops on all the mourners.

“That was Jimmy pissing on us,” said one of the pallbearers looking up at that small, black cloud in the sky. Most of his closest friends managed a smile.

For Jimmy Grund’s close buddy Nichols, the whole event took on an eerie significance because he was burying his friend on his own birthday. He was also deeply disturbed because he and most of Peru’s ruling class were convinced the killer was standing just three feet from the casket. There had even been talk just before the ceremony of planting a bug at the graveside, in case Susan made some sort of confession in her moment of grief.

The only good thing that came out of Jimmy Grund’s death in the eyes of all those hardened friends and colleagues was that Susan began referring to Grund as “Jimmy” after his murder. It was a name she steadfastly refused to use when he was alive.

Just a few yards from the site where Jimmy Grund was laid to rest was a semicircular arch. To the left of that was a large conelike stone that read
COLE.
There are several round stones, like rolled up pillows. This was the burial spot of Cole Porter and his wife Linda, Peru’s two most famous residents.

After Jimmy Grund had been laid to rest, one of the mourners described Susan as being as stiff as a board without a tear in her eyes.

Susan seemed determined to keep up appearances despite the Grunds’ extraordinary snub of her at the funeral of her murdered husband. She even went to great lengths to send a card to every single person who sent her a letter of condolence. The card read:

Just when friends are needed

You find them always near;

Just when shadows are darkened,

Their comforting words you hear.

                                     Thank you

The cards were all signed Susan, Jacob, and Tanelle Grund.

After the funeral, Susan and the Grunds even held rival wakes at their respective homes. No more than ten people went to the house on Summit Drive. Susan pretended to her sister-in-law Jane that dozens of people had attended.

At Susan’s party, her brother suggested that he purchase Jim’s Toyota for a knockdown price. Susan, well aware that all her money was frozen, accepted a miserly offer and sold the car before her husband’s body was even cold in his grave.

*   *   *

The day after the funeral, Bob Brinson stepped up his investigation, safe in the knowledge that now that Jimmy Grund had been laid to rest the townsfolk would be expecting him to double his efforts to apprehend Grund’s killer.

Brinson made arrangements with Susan and her mother Nellie to meet with him at the Indiana State Police post in Peru. She had agreed to take a polygraph. Nellie showed up exactly on time at 9:00
A.M.
But then one of Susan’s sisters, Rita Saylors, telephoned at about 9:15
A.M.
to say that Susan wasn’t feeling very well and wouldn’t be able to come in for the interview. Rita explained that she had been staying with her sister at the house on Summit Drive since the murder.

Bob Brinson was very irritated by Susan crying off like that. He had talked with her the previous day about doing a polygraph test and she had seemed more than willing to participate. Now she was playing shy and it worried Brinson. He had a feeling she was going to make a run for it if he was not careful—and he knew how much flak he would get from Wil Siders and all the rest of the town if that happened.

Brinson got into his blue Ford Taurus and went straight to the Grund residence. Susan’s sister Rita came to the door in a very protective manner, hardly opening it wide enough for him to see her entire face. Brinson tried to be gentle, but firm. He had an arrangement with Susan Grund and she had let him down. She had to take that polygraph test.

Just then, Rita exploded into an emotional outburst. She accused Brinson of holding a witch-hunt for her sister and she was very upset that anyone would even dare to suspect her beloved sister of murder. Brinson was taken aback; the last thing he wanted was his suspicions out in the open. He believed the best way to deal with his chief suspect was not to accuse her outright at this stage simply because he knew he did not have enough evidence to pin it on her in any case.

Brinson pleaded with Rita to hear him out. He had specially scheduled a polygraph and the technician was waiting down at the state police post in town.

“That polygraph would help prove your sister’s innocence,” explained Bob Brinson patiently.

At that comment, Rita slowed down and thought for a moment. It did seem to make sense. She suggested that Brinson wait until the first of the week and then contact Susan again about rescheduling the polygraph and holding another interview.

He pulled out a business card with the following information: Indiana State Police, Bob Brinson, 473–6666.

“Tell her to call me if she needs anything.”

Bob Brinson was irritated. He had not got what he wanted, although it could have been worse. She might have thrown him out and refused outright to even take a test or come for another interview. But he knew full well that the longer she had to think about things the more likely she was to get her story absolutely airtight, and that was bad news for his investigation.

Brinson was trying to divide the investigation into three important segments. He believed that once he had the answer to each of these points he would solve the entire case. They were:

1. The gun.

2. Susan’s extramarital affairs/her credibility.

3. Insurance claims.

Brinson knew that Susan’s ultimate aim must have been to snare a high roller like the senator she had been hanging around with in recent months. He knew that her boutique had burnt down in highly suspicious circumstances and he knew that she was obsessed with never going back to the
wrong
side of the tracks.

That same day, two of Brinson’s colleagues carefully drove the route given by Susan and her family members as the route they took on the night of Jimmy Grund’s murder. The mileage was recorded from Nellie Sanders residence at 419 East 3rd to the reservation campgrounds. The time was recorded as the investigators drove at the posted speed limits.

The route to the Grund residence at Summit Drive from the campgrounds also was measured and timed via both the river road and the Wayne Street bridge in town. A return route using Bus 31 across the Kelly Avenue bridge and through downtown Peru using Main Street to the Sanders’s residence at 419 East 3rd also was measured and timed. The times and measurements recorded were very relevant to checking out the various accounts of what had happened that night:

Bob Brinson was intrigued. During her earlier interrogation just after Jim Grund’s murder,
Susan had claimed that it took her almost double the time to cover the same trips.

Two days later, on August 10, lawyer Nick Thiros contacted Brinson and his unit to inform them that he had been officially retained by Susan Grund. Thiros, from the Merriville area of Indiana, did not exactly surprise Bob Brinson when he informed the trooper that his client would not submit to a polygraph or any further interviews by the police.

Coincidentally, on that same day, Brinson’s colleague, Sgt. Ken Roland notified the trooper that he had met with a confidential informant who had described knowledge of a so-called plot to kill Jimmy Grund as early as six weeks before his actual murder. The source insisted that Susan’s former husband Gary Campbell had been telling friends that he was going to get a gun to kill Jim Grund or that someone was going to get a gun for him.

The details of these claims were a little sketchy, but the idea was apparently that Campbell would make sure he had an airtight alibi for the night of the killing. Sergeant Roland’s mystery informant even told him that he himself had been so concerned by the alleged plot that he made an appointment at Grund’s office to warn him of the murder scheme. But when he got to the office, he discovered that the Grunds were on vacation in Alaska.

Bob Brinson was so taken aback by this entirely new development that he felt an obligation to thoroughly check it out. A member of his unit even visited Jimmy Grund’s law offices and obtained the appointment log which clearly recorded that the informant had called on July 23 at 12:45
P.M.
and had scheduled an appointment on August 10 at 2:00
P.M.
The investigator’s ears pricked up at this news. Maybe there was something in the claim after all.

Then Jim Grund’s legal secretary Diane Hough pointed out that the source’s call had been about a legal settlement Jim Grund was handling for her. No mention had been made about death threats at the time and surely if the danger was so imminent the informant would have said something.

Brinson was feeling a little confused by this stage. He did not want to ignore such a significant claim, but it did not look particularly reliable.

The following day his unit interviewed Michelle Harshman, one of Gary Campbell’s ex-wives. She denied all knowledge of a plot to kill Jim Grund and she insisted that she had not—as the informant had claimed—overheard any conversation about guns or killing by her ex-husband. She even told investigators that she had not seen or heard from Campbell since their marriage broke up in 1989. The tip was another dead end.

Indiana State Police Investigator Brinson was about to wind up the interview when Michelle had an afterthought that she felt obliged to share with the officer.

“I know Susan’s nephew Paul and he told me that he caught Susan in bed with Gary at Gary’s house in Oklahoma City in 1991,” said Michelle in a very casual, matter-of-fact way.

The investigator looked up, but said nothing in the hope that Michelle would continue. She did.

“Paul also told me he caught Susan naked in bed with some guy at his mother, Rita Saylor’s [Susan’s sister] house in Kokomo.” Michelle then provided more details of Susan’s alleged extramarital activities.

Bob Brinson’s biggest problem through the initial stages of the Grund murder investigation was that he had the greatest difficulty keeping anything confidential because anyone who was anyone in Peru believed they had a right to access his case file. Brinson had no way of controlling the leaks. It was a logistical nightmare for the hard-working investigator.