Putting Lipstick on a Pig Page 23

  “It is. It’s designed for hunters who want to go after big game with handguns. We found it on the decedent’s body.”

  “But Ken wasn’t a hunter. He hated the very idea of hunting.”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t think he brought this gun up here for hunting. It’s a forty-four magnum. Most rifle hunters use something considerably lighter—thirty-ought-six, three-oh-three, thirty-thirty. During deer season, though, you’ll still find some hunters here and there with a forty-four/forty. That’s an Old West rifle caliber, supposedly developed so that cowboys could use the same cartridge with their handguns and their rifles.”

  “I see.”

  “Ma’am, this Ruger is not a defensive weapon. It’s heavy and inconvenient to carry, and it takes a good six seconds or more to haul it out and deploy it. The decedent brought this gun up here to kill a human being with it, and make it look like a deer hunter with a rifle had done it.”

  “You clearly know a lot more about it than I do,” Melissa said. “But it’s awfully hard for me to square that with the Ken Stewart I thought I knew.”

  “Who do you think he came up here to kill?”

  “I can’t think of a good reason for Ken to kill anybody.”

  “How about your husband?”

  “Why in the world would Ken want to kill Rep?”

  “Why would he sleep outside instead of with his wife?”

  “Ah, comes the dawn,” Melissa said. She supposed she ought to feel indignant, but instead she found herself intrigued by Oldenberg’s idea. “You think Ken and I were having an affair. He came up here to kill Rep or Gael or both, with or without my connivance. Either I got cold feet or I found out what he was up to. Whichever, I panicked and ran terrified into the woods. He ran after me to keep from spoiling everything, but with fatal consequences for himself instead of me. Is that your theory?”

  “I may have some details wrong here and there,” Oldenberg said. “Why don’t you tell me the way it actually was?”

  “Okay, here’s the way it actually was,” Melissa said briskly. “The Milwaukee detective I told you about earlier wanted Rep and me to get out of town for a week to bait Leopold into burglarizing our apartment so the police could catch him. We agreed. Walt Kuchinski—the lawyer who stomped out at the beginning of our interview—invited Rep on a hunting trip, but that left the problem of finding a place to stash me. Ken solved that problem by coming up with this cabin. So your theory that this was all a plot to murder Rep requires either a lot of convenient coincidences or a conspiracy reaching into the heart of the Milwaukee Police Department.”

  “You’re sticking with that, are you?”

  “Deputy Oldenberg, I was not carrying on an affair with Ken Stewart or anyone else,” Melissa said, her voice ringing effortlessly with conviction now that she could tell the real truth. “I wasn’t cheating on my husband. I’ll agree to a vaginal swab if you’d like to have a nurse check me for Ken’s DNA.”

  “I may, at that. But I think you’ve read too many of those crime stories you were talking about.”

  “Occupational hazard.”

  “Look, this is my job.”

  “I know it is, deputy. I’m not upset. Your questions were perfectly proper, and I’m not blaming you for asking them. But your premise is wrong. Ken Stewart’s tragic death had nothing to do with a sexual affair between him and me, because nothing of the kind ever took place.”

  “The hunter who shot the decedent is a yooper, but the guys with him are from around here and they vouched for him. So I can’t make the decedent’s death into anything except a hunting accident. But too many things don’t fit. You’re no hysterical schoolgirl, and you didn’t go running into the woods in a blind panic just because you got bad vibes from this guy. There’s something you’re not telling me. You might want to re-think that approach, because if my theory is wrong, then right now I’d say the decedent was right about one thing: you were in danger, and you still are. The sheriff’s office and the Highway Patrol can’t do much for you if you won’t tell me the whole truth.”

  Melissa lowered her eyes briefly to show respect for the intense law officer. After all, he was right.

  “There’s nothing more I can tell you,” she said.

  “Then you’re on your own. Enjoy the rest of the day—what’s left of it. And please get word to me when Ms. Stewart arrives.”

  It took Kuchinski forty seconds to come back in after Oldenberg went out. Melissa overheard a short, sharp conversation in the interim.

  “How did it go?”

  “Fine. What’s a ‘yooper’?”

  “Someone from the UP—the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It’s a natural part of Wisconsin, but Michigan wanted it so we gave it to them. Raised the average IQ in both states.”

  “That’s the second new thing I’ve learned today,” Melissa said. “I also found out that Ruger makes hunting pistols that look like small cannons.”

  “Well, here’s number three. Rep and Gael Stewart are about a hundred yards down Old Logging Road Lane, making themselves scarce until the deputy leaves. She’d like to speak with you alone before she talks to him.”

  Chapter 34

  “Do you think I was having an affair with Ken?”

  Melissa and Gael were alone together at the cabin. They had been talking for about twenty minutes.

  “I’m quite sure you weren’t,” Gael answered. “This will sound arrogant, but I don’t think Ken was capable of cheating on me like that. He might have spent a night now and then with call girls on some of his out-of-town trips, although I’m not sure he even did that. But from the day we were engaged, there’s no way he had a romantic relationship with anyone but me.”

  “He adored you.”

  “Yes, he did. He gave me everything he had emotionally.”

  “This must be a terrible loss for you,” Melissa said. “I’m deeply sorry.”

  “Ken’s death is an incredible jolt. I feel like several of my emotional circuit breakers have tripped. I’ll have a lot more sobbing to do in the next few days, but for now it’s comforting to focus on the needs of the moment.”

  Gael settled back a bit farther in the couch near the fire and sipped black coffee that Melissa had made. She glanced at the pint bottle of Jim Beam that she’d taken from a carry-all and put on the end table, then shook her head.

  “Better save that until after I’ve talked to the constabulary,” she said, glancing at her watch. “I’ll be seeing them before long.”

  “They don’t know you’re here yet?”

  “No. I plan to get to a ranger station by four o’clock to speak with the investigating officer. I’m not just a widow, though. I’m also a lawyer. As cold-blooded as it sounds, I’m hoping to learn what you told him before he questions me.”

  “I think I’ve covered it.”

  “I see.” Long pause, deliberate coffee sip.

  “You sound dubious,” Melissa said.

  “If what you’ve shared with me so far is everything you’ve told the deputy, then I think there must be a lot you didn’t tell him. I’d like to know what it is. Feel free to tell me that it’s none of my bloody business, if you like. I give you my word of honor that you won’t hear anything you say to me repeated in front of a jury. You don’t have to believe that, but I hope you will.”

  “I told him the truth but nothing close to the whole truth,” Melissa said flatly. “My Grammy Seton would have said that what I did was worse than actually lying—that simply lying without making any bones about it would have been less dishonest than dancing around the real facts.”

  “That’s uncomfortably close to what lawyers tell witnesses to do. Tell the truth about what you know, but don’t volunteer information and don’t talk about what you just think or suspect. If you don’t mind sharing, what specifically didn’t you tell Deputy Oldenberg?”

  Melissa reminded herself that she was talking to a woman who had just lost a husband o
f almost thirty years. A man who had adored her. A man who had killed for her.

  “I didn’t tell him that I thought Ken had come here to kill me and Rep,” Melissa said then, in the kind of flat, unenthusiastic, let’s-get-this-over-with voice you might use to confess a petty theft. “I didn’t tell him that I thought Ken had killed Vance Hayes to keep your confirmation from being blocked, and that he’d killed Max Levitan to cover up the Hayes killing. I didn’t tell him that I thought Ken was trying to frame Leopold for the Levitan murder.”

  If any of this shocked or infuriated or even surprised Gael, no such reaction showed on her face. What Melissa read in her expression was something like I asked for it and I got it, so no whining.

  “You’d be good at a pretrial deposition,” Gael said. “I hope I’ll be that good when I have my little chat with the deputy.” She glanced at her watch and put her coffee down. “Speaking of which, I’d better get moving. With not much more than an hour of daylight left, I’d rather be early than late.”

  Melissa and Gael stepped out of the cottage to see Rep standing beside the Sable and Kuchinski next to his Escalade.

  “Here’s the theory, your Honor,” Kuchinski said. “Rep will drive you. I’ll lead the way, because I know where the place is. Rep will stay there during your interview and drive you back when it’s done. That way, you three can head back tomorrow morning. I’ll drive over to deer camp, show my trophy here off to my buddies, and pack Rep’s gear up. He can collect it from me when we’re both back in the office after Thanksgiving.”

  “That sounds fine,” Gael said, “except that I don’t need a chauffeur. I can follow you while Rep and Melissa spend some time together.”

  “No, no,” Melissa said quickly, “Walt is absolutely right. The last thing you need to worry about right now is navigating rural Wisconsin.”

  “That’s very kind of you. I can’t say I was looking forward to the drive.”

  Melissa went back into the cottage. She would have loved spending the next two hours wrapped in her husband’s arms in front of the fire, or cooking some improvised meal together, or just trading a little verbal by-play with him. But those thoughts only sharpened her sense of Gael’s loss. Gael’s needs took priority over Melissa’s wants.

  She started toward the work-table she’d been using, then turned back and bolted the front door behind her. No sense taking chances.

  She intended to pack up tonight. Before she packed, though, she had an essential task to perform: making sure Ken had completely erased her transcription of the decoded email from her computer. She could do the work over again later, if necessary, but she wasn’t going to leave the fatal words readily accessible to people who might have mischievous ideas about them.

  As she booted up the computer, she felt a chilly intuition that someone else was in the cabin. She reproached herself for behaving like some frail and timid heroine in a gothic romance. Then she heard the voice.

  “My God,” Roger Leopold said as he strolled into the room, “I thought they’d never leave.”

  Chapter 35

  “Don’t think about running,” Leopold said. “There’s nothing to run to. While I was looking for a place to hide on the property I stumbled over the snowmobile that Stewart stashed down there. I figure you know it’s there as well. I know how to start one of those babies, but you don’t. Anyway, there’s nothing to run from. If you do what you’re told you’ll be okay, and if you don’t—well, you can’t outrun a bullet.”

  “Right,” Melissa said. “Ken Stewart couldn’t outrun one, could he?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Was it really that poor hunter who killed him, or did you do that?”

  “I never made a shot that good the best day I ever had,” Leopold said. “I wanted Stewart alive. He was going to pay me some more money.”

  “Well, in that case it was quite inconsiderate of him to pass away this morning,” Melissa said. “Speaking of running, though, wouldn’t this be an excellent time for you to start? If the police catch up to you, I think you’ll find yourself short of character witnesses.”

  “Running is exactly what I have in mind. With the people I have after me, the Milwaukee cops are a vacation.”

  “Well, don’t hesitate on my account.”

  “I need money. I spent what little I had left coming back here to get some more, and I haven’t gotten any yet.”

  “There are some credit cards and about eighty dollars in my purse,” Melissa said. “That’s all I can contribute.”

  “Gael Stewart can contribute a lot more,” Leopold said.

  “You mean you plan on selling her the same Persian carpet you already sold her dead husband once and were trying to sell him again? Promise not to disclose compromising information if she’ll write you a check?”

  “More like if she’ll go on-line and order an immediate wire transfer to an offshore bank account of mine. As soon as receipt is confirmed, I’ll be on my way and out of your lives forever.”

  “You can’t go on-line from here,” Melissa pointed out. “You can’t even make a cell-phone call from this cabin.”

  “I’ll take care of that detail after I have Judge Stewart under control.”

  “You’re going to kidnap a federal judge along with me, take us someplace private with Internet access, and extort money from her?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Leopold said. “And then get out of your hair. You probably don’t believe that part, but what choice do you have?”

  “Actually, I do believe it. You’re smart enough to know that if you leave a dead federal judge behind they’ll never stop looking for you. If you leave a quiet federal judge, they’ll never start. What do you want me to do?”

  “Keep your mouth shut. Don’t scream when she comes back. Don’t try anything. Let her walk into the cabin for a constructive dialogue. Then come along like a good girl while we take care of business.”

  “Makes sense. You want something to eat while we’re waiting?”

  “Food can wait. I need to take a thorough look around first.”

  ***

  There might be ranger stations somewhere in Wisconsin, but Rep and Gael didn’t end up at one of them. Kuchinski led them instead to a squat, brown, wood frame building, roughly the size of a ranch house in a post-war subdivision. Gold letters and numerals on a brown signboard identified it as Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources District 16 Game Warden Post. It had taken them nearly forty minutes of driving down the lakeshore and then around the narrow lake’s tip and finally back up the shore to cover the fifteen road miles that separated the post from the cabin.

  Rep and Gael waved goodbye to Kuchinski as he drove off, and went inside. As soon as they did a young warden behind a waist-high counter noticed them and called, “Mrs. Stewart?”

  “Yes,” Gael said.

  “We’re very sorry about your husband,” the warden said as she lifted a section of the counter to create an opening. “Deputy Oldenberg is waiting for you in the small office back here to your right.”

  Rep started to accompany Gael toward the indicated office, but the warden waved him back. Left alone, Rep wondered how much time he’d have to kill in the twenty-by-twenty-foot room. Full color posters decried the wickedness of shooting from moving vehicles or hunting on private land without permission. Small booklets offered details of Wisconsin fish and game regulations. That pretty much covered the available diversions. Ten minutes of pacing around it was all he could take. He went outside to see if the twenty-degree wind-chill could take the edge off his boredom.

  ***

  He’s taking his time—good. Melissa watched Leopold saunter around the cabin, checking doors, windows, and sight lines. For her benefit he flaunted the tan finish semi-automatic pistol he had stuck through his belt. He told her it was a Heckler and Koch Mark Twenty-three, in the reverential tone you might use to identify a Stradivarius.

  She thought that about
twenty minutes had passed. The only thing she’d accomplished so far was to turn on every light she could reach. Winter sunshine still poured into the cabin from the west and south, but she flipped on lamps all the same.

  “Get that fire built back up,” Leopold said, rubbing his arms as he looked through the window nearer the door.

  Melissa moved to comply. As she walked past Leopold, he snap-kicked her from behind. The startling burst of pain filled her for an instant with white-hot fury, but she willed herself back under control. As coolly as she could, she analyzed the violent outburst. Carefully calibrated. Hard enough to smart but not to bruise. Meant less to intimidate than to infantilize—to put me in my place.

  “What was that about?” she asked matter-of-factly as she knelt at the hearth to pile more wood in the fire.

  “That was for what you were thinking.”

  “I wasn’t thinking anything.”

  “That was in case you were.”

  Interesting. And important. He’s afraid. He kicked me because he’s scared. That means he’s probably too much of a coward to leave Gael and me alive even though he knows that would be the smart thing to do.

  With that conclusion, all doubt about her situation disappeared from Melissa’s mind. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she now knew what she wasn’t going to do. She wasn’t going to sell Gael out. She already had the blood of one Stewart on her hands, and that was enough for one day.

  She took her time with the fire. When the flames had caught and the wood was crackling, she stood up and turned toward Leopold.

  “Do you want something to eat now?”

  “Good idea.”

  Listening to the steady hum of the generator outside, Melissa strode ahead of Leopold into the tiny kitchen. As she passed the electric stove she turned its oven on. Then, in almost the same motion, she opened the refrigerator. In addition to a foil-wrapped salmon filet and what was left of the roast, she took out carrots and a bowl of mixed fruit. She left the vegetable compartment drawer pulled slightly out, so that the refrigerator door wouldn’t close completely.