Lethal Lineage (4 page)
He got right to the point. “The coroner can’t find Mary Farnsworth’s next of kin. He wants to notify them right away. He’s also going to need instructions as to the disposition of the body.”
“What about an autopsy?” Keith asked.
“Don’t need their permission for that. That’s standard procedure for an unattended death, but her people need to know.”
“Her purse is still in my car,” I said. “I was going to take it to the office tomorrow morning. I’ll run get it.” I rose and headed for the Tahoe and came back with her keys, her purse, her cell phone, and the small plastic bag she’d left on the table. “Couldn’t Dr. Comstock find everything he needed online? There should have been emergency contact information.”
“Not according to Comstock. He supposed I’d gotten in touch with the family, and I thought he was on top of it, so this is a royal screw-up. Just awful.” His face tightened.
I tried to think. I hadn’t been around Mary all that much, but when I was she hadn’t mentioned family. I always remember when persons do. Part of my work at the historical society is to record family histories, so I have a second antenna out for these stories. Of course, there wasn’t any reason for her to talk about her family. When I was in her office, it was usually an emergency. Some kid needing foster care immediately.
“She’s the only supervisory person out here. There’s no boss to call. Except on a state level and those offices won’t be open until tomorrow morning. In fact, I think she just kept a skeleton support staff after the budget cuts.”
“Beer, Sam?” Keith asked. “Might as well while you get this sorted out.”
“Can’t. Not till midnight. Then I get to turn this whole mess over to your wife. For twenty-four hours. Day was ruined anyway. KU got shut out of the playoffs.”
“Sorry you had to drive all the way out here,” I said. “You could have called.”
“Did. You didn’t hear.”
“Sorry again. We can’t hear the house phone outside unless I plug in an extension and since you were on duty I didn’t bother.”
My cell phone didn’t work at the farm. We finally got a new tower outside of Gateway City, then an ice storm took it out. Our region was next in line for repairs but technicians were in short supply.
“Figured you would know right off who to get in touch with, Lottie.” It was a rather unreasonable, but mild reproach. I was used to it.
“You can’t just let her lie there,” Josie said, her voice sharp. “This will be a terrible shock to someone.”
Sam reached for his pipe and gave her a sour look.
“I don’t know a thing about her family,” I said, “but there’s got to be some information in her purse.”
First I flipped open the contact list on her cell phone to see if there was an ICE, In Case of Emergency, listing. There wasn’t. Then I started through her wallet, but the only identification was a single credit card and her driver’s license.
“I would have sent these with you when you came over earlier, but I assumed since she was a state employee there would be information on the computer. I guess on a local level, her paperwork would be at her office in Copeland County.”
“Her house is in Bidwell County,” Sam said.
I checked the address book on her cell phone for any listings under Farnsworth, then “mom” and other likely nicknames and drew a blank there too. I went through the purse again. It contained some cosmetics in a cheap plastic pouch, a checkbook, a mending kit from a hotel, tissues, and Wal-Mart receipts.
I dumped the contents of the plastic sack on the patio table. As I had first thought, she’d obviously planned to deliver these things after the service because she had a little hand drawn map enclosed and each item was listed on the back: aspirins for the Caldwell baby, a diabetic kit for Bertha Summers, wound dressings for Jim McAvoy, and antibiotic salve for Irma Johnson.
“Sam, I’ll take her keys and go over to Copeland County right away and get her personnel file from the office. Then I’ll call her people. Want to ride along, Josie?”
She got up and followed me into the house. “I thought you weren’t on duty.”
“I’m not.” I glanced at the clock. Nine-thirty. I had time to drive over and back before I had to check in. “I’m going over there as Mary’s friend. That way we won’t have to arouse Betty’s curiosity by Sam’s going off duty and me going on early. We’ve already made one switch today.”
Sam continued to visit with Keith and would until I got back. No doubt he planned to accept Keith’s offer of home brew the moment I took over. But he couldn’t have known it was like moonshine; it varied considerably from bottle to bottle.
***
Josie was solemn on the ride over to Copeland County. Drained. She had left Tosca with Keith. Her hands were tucked under her armpits like they were chilled. I turned on my scanner.
“I can’t imagine having to go one hundred miles for an autopsy. What does law enforcement do out here if there’s been foul play?”
“If it’s obviously that, we notify the KBI immediately and they send an agent to witness the autopsy.”
“And if it’s not obvious?”
“You watch too many crime shows.”
She didn’t laugh.
I used OnStar to call Dr. Joel Comstock, our district coroner, and told him we would have contact information to him soon.
***
It was fully dark when we arrived in Dunkirk. The street was deserted. The town was smaller than Gateway by about six hundred persons. Even though Gateway City was the Carlton County seat and our population was only two thousand five hundred we were a metropolis compared to Dunkirk, the county seat of Copeland.
Retail businesses have a hell of a time in both towns and most of them double up. Our computer guru sold an assortment of essential office products, vitamins, Malaluka Oil, and his mother-in-law’s crocheted doilies.
Hardly any of our stores would have been considered normal in a large city.
Mary Farnsworth monitored six counties. Her caseload was staggering. Her part-time staff consisted of a secretary and two women who investigated “situations.” The sign on her blond brick office read “Northwest Kansas Social Services.”
We parked in front and Josie came in with me. I flipped on the light and we winced when the cheap fluorescent bulb stabilized. Everything was in its place. Neat, but dreary. Low budget and no hope for improvement. Kansas was operating on a shoestring.
“Aren’t there privacy issues here?” Josie asked. “Don’t you need some kind of official paperwork?”
“Nope. I’m just doing what any friend would do. There’s no crime involved and no suspects so I don’t need a warrant. I’m just trying to figure out how to get in touch with that poor woman’s family. As a friend.”
“Still. It’s wrong to look at her clients’ personal records.”
“That’s why I won’t. But I don’t need the law to tell me that.” A row of mismatched file cabinets stood along one wall. Two of them were locked. I looked through the key ring. “I’ll bet that’s what these little keys are for. With luck, all the personnel files, past and present, will be in one of these two-drawer files.”
But they weren’t. I found minutes of board meetings, old ledgers, budget sheets for the state, copies of compliance reports, pages of statistics, and government rules and regulations. “They have to be in one of these locked drawers.”
“That’s good. She was a careful person, then,” Josie said.
I unlocked the drawer and opened it. “Look at these files. She’s even got me beat. Color-coded and every label bolded and in caps.”
“No personnel files,” Josie said. “But there’s no good reason to keep them in the top drawer. That’s something she wouldn’t check every day.”
We worked our way down and found a file labeled “Employees” in the bottom drawer of the cabinet closest to the wall. I pulled it out and placed it on Mary’s desk. I flipped through the sheets. A total of eleven men and seven women had been employed by her office during the past nineteen years.
Some had left to find work that paid more. A couple files contained notes in Mary’s large extroverted handwriting that they were going to get more schooling. These were followed by exclamation marks and one even had a smiley face.
I paused. Mary was very much involved in the lives of people, whether clients or employees. I winked back tears and looked at Josie. She squeezed my shoulder.
“Life’s a bitch, sometimes,” she said softly.
I started to complete her sentence “and then you die,” but couldn’t bear to inject any humor into this day’s events. I reached for a Kleenex sprouting from the box on the desk, glanced around the office, and was struck by a detail I hadn’t noticed before. There were no pictures of her with family.
None.
No picture of her period.
There were enormous collages of kids she’d helped or placed in homes. But no photo of her with persons wearing dated clothing suggesting her own childhood. There were 4-H pictures, pictures of multi-county events, pictures of fair exhibits, but no pictures of adults who might be her relation. Slowly, I went from grouping to grouping.
Granted she would usually be the one taking the photos, but some little kid would always be pestering her to have their photo with her for the scrapbook. For that matter, where were the photos of her at church events in her role as an Episcopal priest?
“This is starting to weird me out,” I said, calling Josie’s attention to the omission.
She stared. “It is strange. Let’s go through the files again. We only looked at the files labeled ‘employees’ before. That’s where I keep my own personal records, but maybe she files it somewhere else.”
“OK. But I don’t see how we could have missed anything.”
“We must have,” she insisted. “It’s part of government compliance. And she has to have her fingerprints on file with the state.”
“Maybe not.” I said. “I’ll check with Sam, but she came here nineteen years ago. I doubt if that rule was in place then.”
“There has to be a specific form submitted,” Josie said. “She can’t have waltzed into here like a little Jayhawk and started a government-funded mental health service.”
“No, but she could have faked compliance,” I said. “Not that I suspect her of doing anything that wasn’t one hundred percent on the up and up.”
There was no knock.
He was just there. Bursting through the door. A flashlight in one hand and his other hand on his gun.
Irwin Deal, sheriff of Copeland County.
I knew this man and I didn’t like him. It’s not reasonable to judge someone by his eyes, but in his case I can’t help myself. His are black and flat and dead. Like dry olives. Without sheen or expression. When one can see his belt buckle, it’s large and shiny, but it’s usually obscured by his large belly.
He had slipped into office after the old sheriff retired. Once in, he had been fanatically proud of the honor. He invariably introduced himself as the High Sheriff of Copeland County. His snickering constituents usually referred to him as “The Mighty High Sheriff.”
At that time I did not think he was evil. Just stupid. I had never said so out loud to anyone, but I am free to think whatever I like. I’ve heard his questions at district training sessions and listened to the complaints of his victims. He was a mean petty bastard who forgets our motto is “to protect and serve.” He thinks it is and should be “capture and accuse.”
He doesn’t like me either.
Yet for all his comical inept braggadocio, there is a dark streak to this man. He reminded me of high school bullies who could explode when pushed too far. It was evident in the sudden flush of his face, and his over-the-top bursts of profanity. When one mistake compounded the next, Irwin didn’t have sense enough to stop. He doggedly pushed on until he became embroiled in messes God couldn’t fix.
Small counties work around such persons. Large cities work around them. Whole countries work around them. There’s a certain delicacy to sheriffing in a small town. We’re more inclined to load drunks in our squad cars and drive them home. What’s required is a little judgment.
One night Deal had pulled over a load of high school boys who were celebrating the fact that Oren Pinnaker had just learned he was a National Merit Semi-Finalist. Oren was driving and John Chauncey had an open container of 3.2 beer in the back seat.
Deal gave Oren a breath test and when it came up clean, Deal arrested him for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. It was ridiculous of course, but Oren was jailed overnight. All charges were dropped and Deal was reprimanded by the judge, but the arrest was all it took to ruin Oren’s chances of being accepted at Brown.
Colleges don’t take kindly to students lying about the “have you ever been arrested?” question on their form. Nor do they give students a chance to explain the circumstances. After multiple rejections from Ivy League schools, Oren bitterly stopped applying for scholarships. His family was desperately poor, so he found work on a construction crew and after two years finally acquired enough money for tuition at a third-rate school.
“Hold it right there,” Deal yelled.
“Good evening, Sheriff Deal.” I kept my voice even, pleasant.
“Lottie Albright? Deputy Lottie Albright?”
“Undersheriff, actually. And you are not seeing double. This is my twin sister, Josie.”
“You ladies are under arrest for breaking and entering.”
I tried not to laugh. Even Irwin could not be that stupid. But the excited flicker in his little black eyes said he was.
“Sheriff Deal, we came over to try to find out who to notify about Reverend Mary Farnsworth’s death.” Inside, I seethed. Josie kept still and nervously eyed the gun which he put back in his holster.
“You have the right to remain silent,” he said stiffly.
Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.
Triumphantly, he finished reading us our rights.
“Irwin, I came over here as a friend of Mary Farnsworth. Sam Abbott sent me. But even if that were not the case, I’d like to remind you that I’m an officer of the law and could just as easily have come in that capacity to investigate her death.”
“Hell you could. Not without my permission. You don’t have the authority. She died in my county. My jurisdiction.”
“You’re crazy,” I blurted, then thought, and shut up. We had built the church on the corner of four counties for the sake of unity, and not given any consideration to the other implications. St. Helena would be exempt from paying real estate tax, and after a brief squabble over its description in a brochure, law enforcement problems hadn’t crossed my mind.
I had simply assumed Mary’s death was in my bailiwick.
I glanced at Josie. She was regal, icy. Stone cold furious. I knew this although her face was still. Totally without expression. The quiet of a clinical psychologist required to stifle emotion in front of a psychotic client capable of violence. I closed my eyes. Deal would be extremely sorry for this stupid move.
But Josie’s retribution would be in the future. This was now. He had not given us a choice. He was the sheriff in this town, this county, right here and now. We could not stop him from arresting us, but I could break the bastard’s balls tomorrow.
“I get one phone call,” I said.
“And I get one too,” Josie added.
“We need a moment to talk about this,” I said.
He looked unsure. I took Josie’s arm and we marched into the ladies restroom, knowing Deal wouldn’t follow us simply because the sign said “women.”
“I can’t believe this shit,” Josie said. “Why in god’s name you would want to live out here in this dogpatch piece of…”
“Shut up,” I snapped. “Don’t start any of that. We’ve got to use our heads. He will hold us to that one phone call and we need to make it count.”
“Mine is going to be to Harold,” she said.
I laughed. “Perfect. Just absolutely totally perfect.” Harold Sider was a retired FBI agent and a lawyer to boot. He was a registered consultant in my county as was Josie. Harold would blaze right out here with enough authority to banish Irwin into outer space.
“And you? You’ll be calling Sam, of course.”
“Actually, no. He and Keith are probably still outside trading bullshit. I can’t take a chance that they’ll hear the phone. I’m going to call our dispatcher, Betty Central, and ask her to page Sam and get ahold of Troy Doyle and ask him to drive out to our farm. Betty will make sure they get the message. And I’ll have her double check to make sure you get through to Harold.” I fished in my purse for a notebook.
“I have Harold on speed-dial,” she said.
“Wait. Let’s make a list. Make sure we think of everything beforehand. Betty’s a pain, like plugging into Twitter. This will be all over the state in a flash. However, she has her virtues, and will do everything we ask. She’s like a rat terrier worrying a mouse.”
We meekly walked into the main office. Deal nodded toward the telephone. He leaned against the wall, standing on one leg, his other shoe cocked against the cheap paneling, his arms folded across his chest, faking a Hollywood law officer stance.
Casual, casual, but his eyes gleamed with malice. “Phone’s right there.” He nodded toward it. “You each get one.”
“Why Sheriff Deal, that would be illegal. I can’t use Mary’s funds to pay for this kind of call.” Honey dripped from my tongue. “I know you want to do this right.” I stuck out my wrists.
His face darkened. “Don’t think that’s necessary,” he mumbled.
“No, I understand that you want to do everything just right.” Behind me, Josie snorted. “I know you’ll want us to make that call from your jail.”
He frowned as though sensing some kind of a trap. Then he manned up and told me to get a move on. My sister, too.
“One moment sheriff,” Josie said. “I have my cell phone with me. Let me see if I can make my call from here.” She pulled it from the side pocket attached to her purse.
I looked at her hard to warn her not to waste her time, then I realized from the dull red gleam on her Blackberry, she’d activated the video function.
“Darn,” she said. “My reception is no good here either.” She tucked the phone into the breast pocket slit on her pullover with the lens facing out.
“Just don’t hurt me.” I turned back to Deal and stuck my wrists out once more. Maybe I would get the academy award. “Just don’t do anything to hurt us. We’ll come along quietly.”
He blinked, sensing he was losing control of something he couldn’t put a name to. Mutely, Josie stuck her arms out too.
Uncertain now, he hesitated before he got a grip on himself and snapped on the handcuffs.
It was like shooting fish in a barrel. We headed for the door, Deal trailing unhappily behind.
The jail was empty.
“We get our calls now,” I snapped, knowing Josie was still recording. “You stopped us before, but it’s the law.”
Like fish in a barrel. We would probably both go to hell.
“Didn’t try to stop…” he protested, confused. “Just call, damn it.”
“We’re entitled to privacy and I’ll use Josie’s phone.”
***
Betty Central gasped with delight at the sheer importance of being charged with such a critical mission. “I’ll get Troy right in here and go out to the farm myself.”
“OK. And let Sam know we couldn’t find information about Mary Farnsworth’s family or her personal life. He’ll have to send someone to her house and that’s in Bidwell County. Next, Josie’s going to call you. Separately. She’s standing right here. She’ll tell you how to reach Harold Sider. But before she does, hang up. I’m going to send you a video. Take it with you to show Sam and Keith and make sure you send it on to Harold. Then post it on YouTube.”
Josie gave her Harold’s work phone, home phone, cell phone and email address. Then we both obediently marched off to our cells.