Poison Heart (11 page)

“If Walter was alive, that fire woulda never started.”

“You don’t know, you don’t know. These things happen.”

“Walter was real careful. I think he rewired that barn not so long ago.”

Rich sat and listened to the older men talk around him, the sound almost like waves lapping along a shore.

“Wasn’t much of anything in that barn.”

“Nope, there wasn’t.”

“Those dang soybeans are still rotting in that field. That woman beats all.”

“What’s the matter with her? She don’t have the sense that God gave geese.”

“You got that right.”

Ole joined in. “My wife knows her sister, and the sister don’t have much good to say about her.”

Rich perked up when he heard that. Time to step in and get some information for Claire. “Sister? She has a sister around these parts?”

“Not that close. Over toward Madison. I think they’re half sisters. Don’t stay in touch.”

“Do you know her name?”

“You know, it’s her married name. Let me think on it. It’ll come to me. I can almost hear my wife saying it. Give me a second.”

The room went quiet except for the sound of knife blade against wood.

“You know, I think it’s Parsons. First name of Debby. That’s it. Debby Parsons. She and my wife keep in touch. They’ve been friends since way back.”

“Claire might call your wife tomorrow to get the information.”

At the mention of Claire’s name, everybody looked up.

“What’s up?”

“She’s just checking on Patty Jo. The barn and the will that Walter left.”

“Damn shame, I say, that his daughter didn’t get that place,” Edwin said. “What was he thinking, leaving the farm to that fool woman? Now look what has happened. The barn burned down.”

“That was a good barn. Nothing wrong with that barn.”

CHAPTER 13

The hand-painted sign on the old church door read
FORT ST. ANTOINE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION
in bright-yellow letters against a deep-blue background. Claire knocked on the door and then stepped in. The building smelled of old cigars and wet wool.

An older woman with a halo of white hair was sitting at a typewriter, punching away at a good clip, and an older gentleman was seated in an inner office, reading over some papers.

Claire stood in the doorway for a moment, looking in at the scene, the sun pouring in from the east, the two people bent over their work in separate rooms. It looked like an Edward Hopper painting.

“Can I help you?” the woman said, holding her hands above the keyboard as if she were going to levitate it.

When Claire had moved to Fort St. Antoine, her banker had told her that she could get her insurance from this small company. He explained that it was an association of farmers from the area, a private insurance company. She liked the sound of it, so she had bought her insurance from them. A representative had come out and helped her determine the worth of her house. He introduced himself and told her that he had known the family that had built her house. Once a year she got a mailing from the company, telling her how much money they had in the group and how much they’d had to pay out over the year. Twice a year she received a typed notice for a bill. She didn’t want the woman to think she was there because of her insurance policy.

Claire looked down at her uniform. “I’m here on county business. I have some questions about how you investigate claims.”

“You’re Claire Watkins, aren’t you? I remember when you started with us. I’m Lois Schreider. My husband could talk to you about that.” She turned her head and yelled, “Stan, someone here.” Then she turned back to Claire and waved her hand. “Go on in. He’s hard of hearing, so speak up.”

When Stan Schreider stood up, he reminded her of a crane. He moved his legs all of a piece. He was tall and lanky. She guessed he was a farmer because he had a lighter forehead where his feed cap sat while he cultivated his fields. His eyes were a soft blue, set into a pool of wrinkles. Claire thought he was in his late seventies. He came and shook her hand and pulled out a chair.

“You’re a deputy,” he said, and chuckled as he moved slowly back around the desk and sat down in his own chair.

“Yes, I work for the county.”

“I’ve seen you around,” he told her.

“Sometimes I stick out,” she said.

“Like a sore thumb?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” she admitted.

He held his palms together as if he were praying. His hands were crippled with arthritis and hard work. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m wondering how you go about investigating your claims.”

“Well,” he said slowly, and leaned back in his chair. “We might send someone out from the board to look things over. You gotta claim?”

“No. I was wondering if you do the investigating internally or if you hire someone.”

“If we need to look something over, one of us does it.”

“What if you suspect that it’s a fraudulent claim?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking all these questions. We don’t have many problems. We know all our customers pretty well.”

“You’ve never had a suspicious claim?”

“One or two over the years, but it really hasn’t been a problem. Do you have something in mind?”

“Well, I was wondering if anyone from your company had gone to look over the Tilde barn.”

“We got a call on that. Walter’s been with us for over fifty years. I think this is his first claim.”

“Is that unusual to go so long without a claim?”

“Not particularly. Some years are bad. Those straight-line winds tore up part of the county three years ago. We paid for that, all right. Lots of claims that year. But Walter didn’t catch the winds.”

“Will someone go up and look at the barn?”

Stan Schreider looked at her over his hands and shook his head. “Might. That was an old barn. His wife said the fire chief thought it was caused by an electrical problem. He’s probably right.”

“What do you do if you suspect it might be arson?”

He looked at her, puzzled. “Why do you ask?”

“That does happen from time to time, doesn’t it?”

“Not really. People don’t need to create problems down here. They come on their own often enough. Walter was a good customer.”

“Yes, but Walter’s dead. It’s his wife you’re dealing with now. I was up at the fire. The fire chief didn’t really take a careful look at the barn. There might be something you could discover if you went up there.”

“Do you suspect something? We don’t have many problems around here like that. Maybe you did in the city.”

Claire decided she should explain why she was questioning him. “Walter died, as you know, very recently. His new wife has inherited everything. I’m just following up on the barn on the chance it might have been a case of arson.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Well, if we find anything, we’ll let you know.”

Claire figured that was as much as she would get from him. “If I discover something about Patty Jo Tilde that might shed some light on the barn burning down, would you like to hear about it?”

He looked at her for a moment as if she were speaking a foreign language. Then he said, “Sure. That would be fine. We’ll be taking care of the claim in the next week or two.”

“Okay,” Claire said as she got up to leave.

Lois Schreider stopped typing for a moment as Claire walked back into the room. Above Lois’s head was a large stained-glass window left from when the building was a church. Jesus stood over the woman, blessing her with his open hands. Lois smiled at Claire. “You have a nice day now.”

Patty Jo was spending her money. She had a piece of paper down in front of her, writing down all the money she would make from the sale of the farm. She had figured that Reiner would give her about $400,000 for the house and the 120 acres it sat on. She hadn’t called him to tell him about the loss of the barn, but she was pretty sure he wouldn’t care. One less building to take care of. As far as she knew, he was just going to pull it all down anyway.

She hoped to get about $20,000 from the contents of the house at auction. And then Walter had left her a nice nest egg of $180,000 in various stocks and bonds. The insurance for the barn would pay about $50,000. The pickup truck would bring in another $10,000. Well over a half a million dollars. She was collecting Walter’s social security check now and could collect her own in another couple of years.

She was set for life. If she didn’t go to the casino too often.

Nothing could stop her now. She’d shuck off this damn farm like it was an old skin and move into her new life. Any day now.

Patty Jo heard the sound of tires on the driveway and looked up to see a Pepin County squad car pull up in front of the house. She thought of pretending she wasn’t home even though her car was sitting right out front. A friend could have picked her up for an event. She could have gone for a walk.

She watched behind the shadow of the curtains as the woman deputy, Watkins, got out of the car. But the deputy didn’t head toward the house. Instead she walked over to the remains of the barn. This was not good. Patty Jo didn’t need her messing around in there. The insurance company had assured her that they would process her claim lickety-split. They’d agreed to send the check in her name. Walter had put her name on the insurance policy at her request.

The deputy was standing in the doorway of the barn. Patty Jo couldn’t have her snooping around, so she walked out the door and yelled, “Can I help you?”

The woman turned her head and waved as if they were friends, then came walking over.

“What a smell,” said Watkins.

“Yes, the whole house stinks,” Patty Jo agreed.

They stood on the porch. Patty Jo didn’t intend to invite her in. She could state her business and be done with it.

“The sheriff said you called to let us know the barn burning down was accidental.”

“That’s right,” Patty Jo said, wondering why the sheriff had sent someone out to talk to her about that. “You should know. You were here that day.”

“Yes, I was. I wanted you to know that I’m the investigator for the county and offer my services. It’s my job to look into such matters.”

“Well, there’s nothing to look into.”

“No one you know who might have set the barn on fire?”

“No. Why would anyone do that?”

“Well, the reason I’m asking is it sounded like you thought the fire might have been electrical, but a friend told me that Walter had recently had the barn rewired.”

Who had she been talking to? “I think he just did part of the barn. Not the whole thing. Anyhow, there still can be problems with it.”

“Sure.”

“You’re a friend of Margaret’s. Did she ask you to look into this?”

“I do like Margaret, but I’ve only met her recently.” Watkins stared at Patty Jo, then went on to say, “I’m just doing my job.”

Patty Jo didn’t see how she could argue with that. “Well, I don’t need your help.”

“I was sorry to hear about your husband’s death.”

“Thank you.”

“Did he have another stroke?”

Patty Jo wondered why she was asking about Walter. “The doctor wasn’t really sure. He thought it could simply be failure to thrive.”

“Mind if I take a look in the barn before I go?” Watkins asked.

“Oh, I couldn’t let you do that. It’s a liability. That structure could come down at any time. I’m having it bulldozed as soon as I can get some men up here to do it.”

Claire nodded and turned to go.

Patty Jo stood and watched the deputy walk back to her car. She wasn’t going to take her eyes off the woman. She was up to something, that was for sure.

When she was only a few feet from her squad car, the deputy turned and said, “Oh, a friend of mine knows your sister.”

Patty Jo felt her heart drop into her feet. What had made the deputy mention that? Her sister was the last person on earth she wanted to know what she was up to now.

“You don’t say. Small world,” Patty Jo said.

In the late afternoon light, the land looked burnished, as if some large hand had rubbed at its surface until it glowed. The grasses were turning color, and while they didn’t do it as dramatically as tree leaves, she loved their soft golden hues.

As Claire drove east from Durand, she had plenty of time to ask herself why she was pursuing this Patty Jo Tilde so hard. Or Patty Jo Splinter, her name by her first husband. Or Patty Jo Johnson, her maiden name. She had checked her out on the computer and come up with nothing. The woman had no record.

Even today Patty Jo had acted like a woman with something to hide. She hadn’t wanted Claire to get anywhere near the barn.

But Claire was sure her sense that something was terribly wrong wasn’t just woman’s intuition. She had worked in law enforcement long enough to know that men got this feeling too, and certainly as strongly as women. She had seen men become completely obsessed about catching a particular person.

One time a cop she worked with had sat outside a man’s house for months, following him at night, convinced that the man was a serial killer. What he discovered was that the man was not a serial killer. He was seeing his wife’s sister on the sly and so had not given straight answers when he was questioned.

Claire was taking some of her own personal time to drive toward Madison to talk to Patty Jo’s sister. The drive took her through gently rolling hills with the occasional outcropping of rock or mound.

She had set up the meeting the night before and made it for late afternoon so that it wouldn’t interfere with work. Rich would be home when Meg got there, and she told him she’d try to make it home in time to watch a rerun of
The West Wing.

Rich had pointed out to her last night that she could simply talk to Patty Jo’s sister on the phone. But Claire had learned that people were more open when you interviewed them in person. She wanted to see how this woman reacted physically to some of the questions she would ask about Patty Jo.

She felt pretty stuck, even if she did get something from the sister. She felt sure Patty Jo had torched her barn, but since the insurance company didn’t seem to care, that might be a dead end. And she felt that Patty Jo might have been instrumental in Walter Tilde’s stroke. But it would be impossible to prove that Patty Jo had withheld pills from him. What evidence could there be? Even if she found out that he hadn’t been taking his pills, how could Claire prove it hadn’t been his own decision?

As she turned into the small town of Whitewood, Claire decided she would stop trying to collect evidence against Patty Jo if the conversation with the sister produced nothing. She would give it up and get on with the rest of her work.

The town was three blocks long, and Debby Parsons lived next to the library on the far edge of town. A brick bungalow, she had said, with a white picket fence around it. “My roses are still in bloom—you’ll get to see them,” the woman had promised. When Claire said she was coming to ask some questions about Patty Jo, Debby hadn’t seemed surprised.

The roses were indeed in bloom, sprawling over the fence like a red- and-green quilt hung out to air. Claire admired them for a moment or two, then walked up the sidewalk to the front door. She didn’t even have a chance to knock on the door before a small blond woman appeared and introduced herself as Debby. She had her hair pulled back at the nape of her neck and wore a white shirt with blue jeans. Claire guessed her to be in her early fifties.

“Look at you in your uniform. Does a heart good to know there are women deputies out there. Come on in. I’ve put us in the porch. This time of day, it’s so pleasant.”

Claire stepped into the porch and saw that a table was set with china and linen. A white wooden swing hung on the far end of the porch and was covered with flowered pillows. Debby offered her a chair.

“This wasn’t necessary,” Claire began.

“No, but it’s nice to have an excuse. My husband died about two years ago and I’m quite comfortable, but I don’t have people over the way I used to. I thought this would be nice. What news have you of my sister? I haven’t heard from her in almost ten years. Coffee?” Debby asked.