Signs of Struggle (27 page)

“Looks like everything’s under control,” he said, staring at Wendy, then looking at me. I shrugged my shoulders in response to the unspoken question.

Wendy said, “I waive my rights to an attorney. I give up. I did it. What do you want to know? Anybody got a cigarette?”

No one had a cigarette. Payne said, “Evening, Mrs. Soderstrom. Would you like to go down to the office with us and answer some questions?”

“Hell, no. I want to answer questions here and now. I doubt I’ll ever be so free again as I am here in the middle of this God-forsaken vegetable bin you call a state. I’ll tell you every goddamn thing you want to know, and I’ll do it here, if you’ll allow me. If you won’t, you’ll never, ever, get another word out of me.”

Doltch holstered his Glock, turned to his car, reached into the front seat, and emerged with a tape recorder. Wendy watched, leaning against the cruiser. The cut on her eyebrow had clotted and the bleeding had stopped. She rubbed away the congealed blood from her cheek and lip. And then, in the mist growing heavier, she spoke.

She waived her rights against self-incrimination without threat or coercion from anyone. On tape. “I just want to be clean of the truth,” she said firmly. The mist became a sprinkle, but no one moved, fixed in that place where the criss-crossing shafts of cold headlights and the blue staccato flashing from Payne’s car converged on the widow, the murderer.

Liv came to my side and put her arm around my waist. I looked at her, and her sad eyes looked back at me, then to Wendy.

Wendy took a deep breath and began.

“I loved Hugh Soderstrom from the moment I saw him on the campus in Ames. He was tall and blonde with an athlete’s body, and he had brains and the quiet confidence of someone much older. A man among boys,” she said calmly, slowly. “He knew who he was and he knew where he was going, and when he asked me to go with him, I didn’t think twice. I was a girl and he was a man. It was a no-brainer. Him, too, as it turned out. He liked my boobs. When we returned from our honeymoon in Bermuda, we went into the military for Hugh’s two years’ active duty. We lived in Hawaii and it was exciting. Then he got out and I found myself on the farm, and most of the time the only human being for miles, unless you count the hired help. The contrast between Honolulu and Soderstrom Farms was extreme. The contrast between Ames and Soderstrom Farms was extreme.

“I liked it at first,” she said. “It’s kind of pretty, you know, the expanse of land and field and crop and horizon, and I loved it because Hugh loved it so much, and I loved Hugh. Still do,” she said, raising her eyebrows as if surprised by her statement. “He didn’t lie to me. He was a farmer and a businessman, and that’s all he wanted to be. Over time, though, I realized there was no hope of ever leaving the farm. None. I was crushed, pounded down, and flattened by the truth. And then I thought I could persuade him to consider a farm managing position in Rockbluff, then Cedar Rapids, as the promotions came from corporate farming CEO’s he would be working for, and perhaps then to Des Moines, and eventually Chicago. Or Minneapolis. I thought approximations to farming would entice him, but Hugh wanted to work the land directly. He liked the black dirt under his fingernails, for God’s sake.”

The sprinkle eased back to a fine mist, drifting this way and that like a flimsy curtain in a breeze, then stopped. No one else seemed to notice, certainly not Wendy. She did not seem concerned as she delivered information without emotion. There was no remorse.

“I am a fairly quick study,” she went on, taking a deep breath, then exhaling loudly, “and I finally understood that there would be no moving anywhere. I became restless. Then Hugh made me believe that children would change everything, and I talked myself into half-believing that they would, but it wasn’t going to happen. Hugh was sterile, and in a way, I was glad.” She looked at Liv. “You were smart to not have children. You look terrific for your age.”

Liv remained silent, gently squeezing my hand, keeping her eyes on Wendy as if the murderer was an exhibit of some kind, and I guess she was.

“So, with no chance of children, I was back at square one. Back to no hope. My mind began to wander, to suppose,” she said, and she smiled half-heartedly. “I became what the romance writers call a desperate woman thinking desperate thoughts. All kinds of ‘What if?’ ideas slipped into my mind.

“Larry noticed. He had been coming on to me at different times, and I always turned him away as gently as I could. Then he came by one day and I didn’t turn him away. Surprisingly, we talked afterwards. At the time, Hugh was in Omaha at a conference of swine producers,” she said, laughing a brittle laugh. “There was a kind of shallow pleasure, an irony, in bedding down the substance-abusing brother of my perfect husband while he was at a conference to help learn more about raising pigs. I liked it. Anyway, after a while, Larry told me he could arrange for Hugh to have an accident, that he wouldn’t suffer, and that I would end up free and with a couple million bucks, certainly enough to get me started in the direction of my fantasies, if not take up actual residence in them. We were together a lot after that. Larry called himself The Two Million Dollar Stud, and I had to agree.”

Wendy stopped talking for a full minute, maybe two. No one spoke or moved. Payne and Doltch just stared, transfixed. Wendy was looking beyond the headlights of the cars into the cornfields in the distance, as if she were searching for meaning out there.

I looked at Liv. She looked as if she wanted to strangle someone. Then she said, “Wendy, I have a gun and honestly, I’d like to shoot you.”

Payne shot her a quick look. I didn’t. I knew she wouldn’t shoot Wendy now, too many witnesses, but her emotions were valid.

“Save your bullets, Olivia. Let me finish, then you can shoot me. Girl, I’m just getting warmed up.”

And then she started talking again.

T
he contrast between the hushed countryside with its rows of corn and soybeans flourishing in humid warmth and the grisly tale of cold-blooded ending of human life was not lost on me. Listening to Wendy’s song held a strange fascination, and I wasn’t the only one. All four of us stood, transfixed, as she continued her confession that sounded more like bragging than remorse.

“So I agreed to Larry’s plan and we killed Hugh. Larry had never much cared for anything about the farm, or upkeep, and so when he asked Hugh to show him how to operate a tractor pulling a rotary mower, Hugh was surprised. Happy. Larry was operating the tractor with Hugh standing up there alongside him, a little back of him, just pleased as he could be. Cutting the grass of that big yard with his little brother. So sweet. So special.

“I came out and walked beside the tractor as it was cutting and started talking to Hugh, which distracted him. That was Larry’s signal. He pushed Hugh off the back of the tractor and the mower ran over him. Then Larry jumped clear and shortly after, he bugged out.”

Wendy stopped for a moment. Her face made little movements, like false starts into emotions she couldn’t sort out all at once as she remembered. “It was worse than I could have imagined. The sounds. God!”

She looked away again into the cornfields, gathering herself in. After a while she said, shrugging her shoulders, “Anyway, Hugh was dead, and it looked like we had pulled it off. I don’t regret it.” She stopped for a moment, alone with her thoughts. Her eyes might as well have been fine blue porcelain instead of sclera and iris and pupil, because those eyes looked dead. “You must remember,” she continued, “that I loved Hugh, but there was nothing there for me except the things he wanted. I could not die on the farm, an old woman who never really lived.”

I had never seen selfishness personified before. Up until then, I thought I was the most selfish person I knew.

Wendy shifted her weight, looked directly at me and said, “That’s what happened just before you came by that day. Larry grabbed me by the shoulders and made me look at what used to be my husband, then pushed me down into the…stuff. That was the horror. You might have thought Hugh’s death was the reason I was screaming, but that wasn’t it. It was being pushed down into it. And that’s my story,” she said lightly, tossing her hands into the heavy air, as if releasing her words into the sky. “Take me away. I want to be executed.”

“Not in Iowa, you won’t,” Payne said. “No death penalty. Surely you knew that.”

Wendy smiled.

I said, “Why are you driving Jurgen Clontz’s car, and what happened back at Larry’s?”

“Oh, hell yes! I should have known there would be questions! You better sit down, boys,” she said, actually grinning. She looked like a demon with a smile. Liv noticed, too, and her hand clamped harder on mine.

“I went over to Larry’s to kill him, of course. I told him to meet me there. It was supposed to look like suicide, and it probably would have worked. But,” she said, turning toward Liv and me with pure hatred and ferocity in her face, “you two had to show up, didn’t you? Christ! I wish to God you had died in that wreck with your stupid family, Thomas. You completely screwed up everything!”

“Good,” I said.

Wendy shook her head as if to realign her thoughts. Her hand went to her forehead, her fingertips touching the cut. Her gaze returned to the dark cornfield. “Anyway, Ernst talked me into killing Larry and making it look like suicide.”

“Reverend VanderKellen!” Sheriff Payne blurted.

“We’ve been having what you would call in polite circles, serial assignations. A discrete affair. When he found out I was pregnant, he freaked, absolutely convinced it was his, the ego-meister. I guess it could have been his, or Larry’s, or Jurgen’s for that matter.”

Payne whistled. “You were sleeping with Jurgen Clontz?”

“Five Hour Energy Drink junkie,” Liv whispered in my ear.

“We were hardly sleeping,” Wendy said. “Trust me on that one. He was attentive, gave me diamond earrings and cash I had to hide from Hugh, and promised me that if certain things came together, we could travel and enjoy each other’s, um, company, without any strings. Sounded good to me. Anyway, our plan, I mean the one Ernst and I had, was to kill Larry and then leave for Europe together. He was going to leave Ruth behind, of course, the prude, and have a sweet chunk of change of his own.”

“’A sweet chunk of change’ from…?” Payne asked.

“Oh. Yes. I didn’t tell you about that. This is sooo cool! I’ve realized this really is an interesting little community, and just as I’m leaving it, too,” Wendy said, smiling. “Anyway, Ernst and Jurgen had worked out a little deal with regard to the sale of Soderstrom Farms, which couldn’t take place with regard to the entire property, unless both brothers were dead. Of course, Larry and I took out Hugh, and I took care of Larry.

“See, when the land goes up for sale, Ernst was going to find out what the sealed bids were so he could tip off Jurgen, who would, naturally, come in with the highest bid. Ernst told me that Jurgen would pay a ten percent kickback, which we estimated at around four-plus million bucks, which we’d split. That would put my total take at, let me see, oh, I guess figuring in my two mil from the estate, right around four million dollars, give or take—widow’s recompense. Course, I’d ditch the good Reverend VanderKellen after a couple of thank-you tumbles in a five-star hotel in Paris. He’d manage, and I’d be on my way.”

Sheriff Payne just shook his head. Stephen Doltch’s mouth had been hanging open for quite some time. I feared bats might be attracted, thinking it was a cave. “So Jurgen Clontz had nothing to do with the death of either of the Soderstrom brothers?” I asked.

“Nah, he’s a scuz, but I think whacking someone is a little beyond his repertoire. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a greedy little shit and wants the land, but I don’t think he did anything wrong. Just a little old-fashioned affair with me and insider trading. Nothing you can prove, unless Ernst confesses, and then it’s just a he-said, it-said.”

“So who’s been trying to kill me? You?” I asked. Wendy looked at me. She actually grinned.

“Larry hired those two idiots from Dubuque, and when that didn’t work, he dug a little deeper and went with the so-called professionals from God knows where. Which I thought would work. We had no idea you were such a man,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. Liv’s hand tensed in mine. “You’ve got a hottie there, Olivia, if you know what to do with him.”

Payne said, “What happened tonight, Wendy?” His voice was soft, sad.

“Oh, that. I went over to Larry’s to take him out. Loose lips sink ships, and man, did he have loose lips. Anyway, I got him drunk and he passed out. Then I took his gun, stuck it in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. I wiped down the gun, put it in his hand and left when I heard Mr. Ubiquitous over there,” she said, jerking her head toward me, “fiddling at the front door. I could not believe it. No one would have doubted Larry’s suicide and I could have been long gone, the grieving widow and sister-in-law, with my treasure, disappearing into happily ever after. Except for you, Thomas.”

Wendy glared at me. “Why in God’s name did you show up tonight, of all nights, at that house?”

“Actually,” I said, “it was Olivia’s idea. Something to do after dinner. Random.”

Wendy’s head dropped until her chin was on her chest, then, quickly, she looked up and said, “Why couldn’t you just mind your own business? And you, O-liv-ee-a, why couldn’t you have just taken Sweet Thomas back to your tacky little bungalow tonight, of all nights, and sweated up some sheets? All this would’ve worked. Damn!”

I returned her look, saying nothing, then, “Wendy, tell me about your baby. How does he, or she, fit into your fantasy?” I needed to know about the child.

“That baby is no more,” she said. “I took care of it ten days ago in Iowa City. Ernst paid, thinking he was the baby-daddy, the egocentric phony.”

Doltch finally spoke up. “Why are you driving the Jag?”

Wendy turned and looked to her left, at the questioner, as if she’d forgotten Doltch stood there. She looked surprised. “Another county heard from! To answer your question, Jurg and I had met earlier this evening at his place. He said I could take it, that driving the Jag would give me a taste of the possibilities if something were to happen to Larry, like, for instance, he killed himself because he lost his brother. Said he’d take his Mercedes over to the club when he went out for dinner.”

“And what Jurgen Clontz gets out of this situation is a guarantee he’d get all of Soderstrom Farms now that both brothers are dead. Tidy,” Payne said. “Did Clontz have anything to do with Hugh’s death? Anything at all?”

“No, he didn’t get involved until after. He saw an opportunity. But it was Ernst who got me to thinking about taking out Larry. He knew what had happened out at the farm that morning.”

Payne said, “So you murdered Larry at Doctor VanderKellen’s suggestion?”

“You are sooo brilliant. May I touch you? Ernst never directly suggested I kill Larry. He’d just say things like, ‘If Larry wasn’t around anymore’ or ‘If Larry had an accident like Hugh.’ Stuff like that. Subtle. And he’d say things like, ‘Of course, murder is wrong, but still, things do happen.’ And it was obvious that, until Larry was pushing up daisies, there was no way Jurgen and I would ever bed down in a spiffy hotel on the continent. I mean, nothing was going to happen for me with Larry alive.

“This afternoon I swung by Ernst’s office for some pastoral counseling, which took all of ten minutes, and, while we tidied up, he reminded me of those things about Larry. I guess I was just inspired to act on what needed doing. He wasn’t man enough. Oh, by the way Thomas, he says you’re the kind who’ll sniff around until you get what you’re after and, if he’d been Larry, he’d have set you up and killed you himself before you wised up. I believe him. You should, too,” she said.

“You think Doctor VanderKellen will try to kill me?”

Wendy snorted. “Look, O’Shea, once it gets out what happened tonight, Ernst will know that you know. And maybe the courts could never convict him of anything, but he’ll be afraid you’ll be on him like a fly on a cow pie, and mess up his little scheme with Jurgen. Not to mention the public humiliation and probably losing his cushy job at the church.”

“Wendy, how did Ernst find out about what happened to Hugh?” Payne asked. “You said he knew. How? How did he know you two conspired to kill your husband?”

“Larry told him, for God’s sake! Can you believe that moron! Which proved Ernst’s point about Larry spouting off, which Ernst made clear to me later. Ernst got Larry looped several times out at Larry’s place after Hugh’s death, not a tough task, by the way. Finally, motor mouth had to blab about what a criminal wizard he was, what a great criminal team we were. In less than forty-eight hours after Larry spilled the beans to Ernst, the good Reverend let me know he knew everything, and told me what he and Jurgen had cooked up. That’s when he started in on the idea about killing Larry.”

“Let me get this straight, for the record,” Payne said, glancing at the tape recorder. “You got restless on the farm, began an affair with Larry which led to killing Hugh so Larry could continue his affair with you and you could acquire the money in the provisions for widows in the Trust. You and Doctor VanderKellen were also having an affair, and when Doctor VanderKellen started getting suspicious about Hugh’s death, he got Larry drunk and found out about the murder conspiracy. And then he encouraged you to kill Larry and make it look like a suicide?”

“Spot on, I say,” Wendy replied with a British accent.

Payne went on. “You were pregnant by Larry, Doctor VanderKellen, or Jurgen Clontz, and Doctor VanderKellen paid for your abortion, thinking the baby was his. Doctor VanderKellen and Jurgen Clontz have a kickback scheme on knowing the bids for Soderstrom Farms. Doctor VanderKellen was going to take the kickback money from Clontz and split it with you, and you two would go off to Europe. Clontz had nothing to do with either murder or the abortion. Larry hired the boys from Dubuque and the three gunmen to kill Thomas because he was snooping around and getting close to the truth of the fraudulent sale of Soderstrom Farms. Is that it?”