Edited for Death (6 page)

“It’s always good to put a voice and face together,” I smile. He’s easy to smile at. “I doubt you have anything new, but we, at least I, wanted to meet you and we want to spend some time at the hotel.”

“I really don’t have anything new. I’m frustrated. When I took this job San Juan County had six murders in the last decade. Five of those were drug deals gone south or drunks fighting. We have one official cold case—guy disappeared after an argument with the meth supplier. We’re pretty sure he was dropped down one of the mine shafts around here but there are so many I doubt we’ll ever find his body.” He’s picked up a pen and is doodling geometric figures on his desk calendar. “I’m not ready to retire but I came here looking for a few years of quiet after Southern California. That’s just too fast, too many murders, too much violence. And now what? I’ve got two bodies getting colder by the day.”

“Don’t you have any leads?” Clarice says. “Weren’t both of them bludgeoned? That seems to have the same MO.”

I’m surprised. Clarice usually just bulldozes into the case, asking questions and throwing out helpful suggestions for the cops to follow.

“Being hit in the head with a ‘blunt object’ may or may not be bludgeoning. And an awful lot of people get dead by blunt objects. That’s the beauty of it. You can pick up anything nearby—a lamp, a wrench, a rock—and you’ve got yourself a murder weapon. It’s the original equal opportunity.”

I jump in after he smiles at Clarice, which starts the pink tide again.

“Both of them died from blunt trauma, OK. But there are other ties too. Both of them were involved with the hotel. After lunch we’re going to meet with Royce Calvert. Didn’t he know both of them?” I use my calm, Mom voice.

Dodson nods. “That doesn’t mean much. In a town this small, everybody knows everybody. Even though Royce just moved back three years ago, he’s a Calvert and that name still means something here.”

“One of the questions I want to ask Royce is why he came back. Do you know about that?” as I pull a notebook and pen from my purse.

“I thought we were going to ask Royce Calvert?” Clarice is acting differently than I’ve even seen her. She’ll usually ask anyone anything and damn-all any protocol. We’ll talk on the way home.

“Sure. I have bunches of questions for Royce. But with Sheriff Dodson being new and so involved in the community, he can give us a perspective on the facts,” I say, trying to signal her to cool it.

Dodson jumps in. “Thanks, Amy. I don’t know how different my perspective is, but I’m glad to tell you what I can.”

I think, “There it is again, the old ‘I know something and can’t tell you’ line from the cops” but I force myself to smile.

“I’d never ask you to divulge something that might jeopardize the case. I’m more interested in the background whys, not the who-done-its. How well do you know Royce?”

“We’re not best friends,” the Sheriff says. “We’re both in Rotary and I have a meal at the hotel a couple of times a month. Sometimes lunch, sometimes dinner. I can tell you that the kitchen staff there are Royce’s doing. He imported them from the Bay Area and it’s putting the hotel on the map.

“In fact, I know that’s what Royce is shooting for. The hotel was always the hub of the community, but Royce is reaching out. He’d like it to be the hub for vacationers in this part of the Mother Lode. Yosemite is an easy day trip from here. A big chunk of the Mother Lode is within a few hours drive. Even in winter, some of the ski areas are close. Royce sees his business base as the Bay Area and he’s willing to use his grandfather’s name and fame to help him get it.” Dodson sounds like he approves of this.

I stop making squiggles on my pad. His grandfather? “Wait. When did he buy the hotel?”

“The deed says three years ago,” Clarice pipes in. “Before the Senator died. Has he used that connection the whole time?” The pink in Clarice’s face is gone and her “what are you hiding” look is back.

“He’s certainly traded on the Calvert name.” Dodson says. “I don’t know if the Senator’s death will make any difference. He was a Senator and war hero when he was alive and he’s still that—he’ll always be that—so I think the name’s the game. When you meet Royce at the hotel, spend some time in the lobby area. He’s got, well maybe not quite a shrine but surely a lot of memorabilia about the Senator.”

Dodson looks at his watch, a not-too-subtle reminder that we’re taking up time but not helping him along.

“I need to get going, I have a staff meeting this afternoon,” he says as he stands up and reaches for his jacket. “How about The Mountain Miner. They have a few lunch specials as well as sandwiches and salads and stuff.”

I’m taken aback. After all his talk of the food at the hotel?

“Is there some reason you don’t want to go to the hotel?” Clarice asks, ready to jump on his “I know and you don’t” routine?

“I just thought you’d be on better ground it you met him professionally, not as someone he’d just had as a guest for lunch,” Dodson says quizzically.

Oh duh, of course. It rocks me back and instantly brings Clarice’s pink tide, this time up to her eyebrows.

“Oh,” she says, in one of the littlest voices I’ve ever heard out of her mouth, “that’s a good judgment. The Mountain Miner sounds fine.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Lunch is good, as Dodson predicted. I pick up the tab and will charge it to the
Press
. There aren’t any perks with the brothers in charge but never taking anything, not even a shared lunch, from a source keeps the ethics line intact. And not being sued for taking bribes is language the brothers understand.

Conversation at lunch swirls around the usual getting-to-know-you topics. Places you’ve lived. Where you went to school. How you ended up in your career.

It’s no surprise to me that Clarice always wanted to be a journalist. It does surprise me that she considered television until she discovered being in front of a camera made her nervous. It seems odd that her chutzpah doesn’t carry over but there’s an anonymity to working in print media. Clarice uses this to ask the questions that push the limits of polite behavior. She’s not rude, just insistent...bordering on pushy.

Two things about Dodson do surprise me. First is that he has a master’s in public administration from USC. That’s unusual in a small town cop until I remember he’s spent time in LA. Probing that, I discover he knew my first husband, Vinnie. Surprise number two.

I probably shouldn’t be surprised. Even in the LA area there are only a small number of cops who are killed on duty and one who gets killed in a high-speed chase is remembered. Dodson knows the story and he’s sufficiently classy to leave it at that. It’s been long enough that I don’t fall apart any more, but there are still places that I just can’t go, particularly with cops.

My past is past; Clarice knows how I feel about mixing business and pleasure and that I’m concerned she’s heading down the same street I took with Vinnie. A minute of uneasy silence ends when the waiter asks if we want anything else.

I grab the check. We gather our stuff and head into the sunshine. I was right about the temperature, it’s just pleasant, probably in the low 80s with a breeze gentle enough to just stir the Chamber of Commerce flags lining Main Street.

“Thanks for the company and information,” I tell Dodson. “I’m always surprised that it’s such a small world.”

“Well, there are only a finite number of cops and reporters, even in California. I don’t think it’s unusual to run into folks you know, or more likely folks who know folks you know,” Dodson says with a trace of compassion. “It’s always nice to work with people who have something in common.”

He turns to Clarice who’s been strangely quiet. “Please call me if you have any questions about San Juan County crime. If you’re up here again, maybe we can have lunch or a drink.”

He nods and walks off, leaving Clarice red and speechless.

“Damn him! I don’t know what...why....why the hell he makes me feel like a kid in the company of adults! I’m fine with him on the phone, it’s all business. In person—it’s just like my brain slips into neutral. I don’t say anything stupid. I just don’t say much of anything.”

She actually stomps her foot, like a five-year-old in a temper. This is interesting, I’ve never seen her act like this.

“Not to worry, Clarice. All of us go through this. I’ve always called it limmerence. Not lust, not like, just a glimmer of a feeling. It might burst into a light show, but chances are it’s just going to fade away. Let’s go find our Mr. Royce Calvert.”

The Marshalltown Hotel is less than two blocks from the cafe and just four from the Courthouse and Dodson’s Sheriff’s Office. It sits on the corner of Main Street and Mine Run Street, the intersection that was the heart of Marshalltown for close to a century. It’s a three story stone and brick building that takes up all of the block and carries an aura of permanence. There are no workmen visible but an electric saw whines in the warm air.

We go in through the large main door and are instantly blind. The drapes in the lobby, the hall and the dining room off to the right are all pulled closed.

“This is the way it was last time I was here,” Clarice half-whispers. “It’s creepy but Royce says it cuts down on the heating and cooling bills.”

It is creepy. Not scary-creepy but old-creepy, as though generations of people are all clamoring for attention. You could cut history with a knife here.

“Can I help you?”

The voice comes from the left. When I turn, I realize that it’s the bar or cocktail lounge, a room large enough for a long bar, several tables and space for a dance floor.

“Hello Royce, do you remember me?” Clarice is over her Dodson-induced silence and is all business again. “I told you I was gonna come up again and here I am.”

She sticks her hand out, grabs his and says, “This is Amy Hobbes the managing editor of the Monroe Press. Amy this is Royce Calvert. His grandfather was Senator Robert Calvert and he’s the new owner of the Marshalltown Hotel.”

Good God, she’s back with a vengeance, she’s talking so fast she’s on the edge of babbling.

I stick my hand out to the youngish man who’s looking a little blown over by Clarice’s hurricane of words. “Hello Mr. Calvert, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Please, call me Royce,” Royce says with a smile that’s reminiscent of the Senator’s cocky grin. “And it’s good to meet you, too. What can I do for you?”

“I got interested in Marshalltown after Clarice was up here,” I say taking in the dim lobby. “We’re practically neighbors. I know we don’t do much coverage of Marshalltown so I decided to come up and see what’s here. Also, two recent murders stoked my interest.”

Royce paled and caught himself. What is it, I wonder? Fear, guilt, compassion, anger?

“I’m sorry that it takes two murders to get the media interested in an historic California town,” he says. His tone is peevish and I realize he’s angry. “I wouldn’t have thought the Monroe paper would be in the ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ category.”

“It’s not just the murders,” I say. Now, quick, how to backtrack and get on this guy’s good side. It never helps to have any source think you’re part of the sensational tabloids.

“Ever since your grandfather died, I’ve spent time in the San Juan Room of our library, reading about the town and your family. I didn’t know that the Senator was from Marshalltown, and I’m sure our readers didn’t either. I’m still not sure what I want to do with all this information, but I’d like to have as much as possible. We may do a special section on the Senator and his Marshalltown background.”

It isn’t a lie, just a little quick thinking. I don’t know what I have in mind but I want to leave options. Anything for the
Press
will have to be run by the brothers so I can use them as the heavies for the decisions of what or what not to print. And anything I can glean for the possible book can be vetted later.

Royce relaxes and half smiles. “I didn’t mean to be cranky. I’ve been trying for the past three years to get some paper or magazine or TV show interested in coming up here to learn about us. No one’s come. Suddenly, bam. Two bodies and we’re on the tour.”

“We do want to know about the murders.” It’s Clarice, she’s back. “Both Baldwin and Boxer had ties to the hotel, right?”

“Joe Baldwin died in the hotel, that’s right,” says Royce, tensing again. “I let him sleep in the lobby area while it’s under construction. I called him the night watchman, but it was just so he didn’t think it was charity. He was usually too drunk to watch anything.

“Janice Boxer died after showing a cabin in the mountains. Her car went off the road. There’s a rumor going around that she was dead before that, so I guess the sheriff’s calling it murder. I knew her because she’s the one who helped me buy the hotel.”

Ha, now we’re getting there.

“One of the things I’d like to know is why you bought the hotel. Maybe even further back, why’d your family sell it?” I ask. “I know somebody else built the original, but your family owned it, and practically the town, for more than 100 years. What happened?”

“The Second World War happened,” Royce says.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Henry Blomberg had been born Heinrich Blumenberg in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1928. The Blumenbergs had lived in the city for better than 400 years and prospered through banking and trade. Heinrich’s father, Walter, was an academic, using his family’s money to pay for the big house below the castle.

It was a comfortable life. Servants took care of the family’s needs with the quietness of the fog off the river. The Blumenbergs tended to their art, music, philanthropies, friends and their children. Walter used some of his family’s vast art collection—including a Bruegal, a small Rembrandt and three Durer etchings—in his teaching. A Leonardo da Vinci working sketch held the place of honor in a drawing room and student tours always ended there