Dead of Winter Read online

  “Meaning what?” Hurley asks.

  “Meaning a liquid lunch,” Mickey says. “Can’t say I blame the guy. I mean, the poor bastard really wants to see his play produced, and with Rebecca’s father footing the bill, he’s kind of over a barrel with Rebecca’s demands, you know? Hell, Rebecca’s not even that good of an actress. Dalrymple is going out of his way by just letting her be in the production.”

  “And you think Mr. Dalrymple might have been inebriated this afternoon?” Hurley asks.

  Mickey waffles with a waggle of his shoulders and a sigh. “I don’t know if you could say he was drunk, but he definitely wasn’t feeling any pain. He kept stumbling over his words, and he was walking kind of heavy, you know how some people do when they’ve had a little too much?”

  “How did the rest of the crew get along with Dalrymple?” I ask.

  Mickey makes a face. “Dalrymple isn’t the easiest person to work with,” he says after a moment of contemplation. “He’s very picky about a lot of stuff. And he isn’t a particularly patient man.”

  “Has he had arguments with other members of the cast?” Hurley says, scribbling away in his notebook.

  “Of course,” Mickey says with a shrug. “But for the most part, it’s just the usual crap that always happens when these big egos and creative types try to work together.”

  “Did you observe any disagreements today?” I ask.

  Mickey thinks for a few seconds, and then nods. “Well, I didn’t hear what was said, but I know that Rebecca and Roger had a tense discussion of some sort this morning. And then Roger and Brad got into it this afternoon, because Brad is insisting that he wants to play his character as more of a Klinger type, you know, the guy who kept trying to get sent home on a Section 8 in the TV show M*A*S*H?”

  I nod. Hurley is busy writing.

  “Roger wants him to play it as someone who is gender confused. They argued about the beard, and the amount of makeup to use, and the way Brad would walk and talk. Brad tried to do it Roger’s way, but today he went off on him and said it just wasn’t working, and he’d have to do it his way or not at all.”

  “Did Dalrymple cave?” I ask.

  “No,” Mickey says. “In fact, he threatened to fire Brad. I think Roger was tired of being bulldozed by Rebecca and took it out on Brad. Anyway, the two of them stormed off in opposite directions, and Dalrymple turned up dead about half an hour later.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Things aren’t looking good for Brad Levy or Rebecca Haugen by the time we get done talking to Mickey. It turns out he knows a lot about each of the people involved, since his position as their stylist often creates long periods of time where talk fills the awkward silent voids. People confide in him, much the same way women tend to confide in their salon stylists, and as a result, Mickey is a fount of information.

  We learn that Rebecca, with her demands and her air of privilege, is universally disliked by everyone else in the group; Helen and Roger were rumored to be having an affair; young Corey has a crush on Cass, our receptionist; Dom is considered by everyone to be one of the best singers, as well as one of the best actors, in the group; everyone, to a man, dislikes the murder victim, who is, or rather was, in Mickey’s words, “a pretentious, nitpicky asshat.”

  We also learn that none of our suspects had any inkling of where the others were at the time of Dalrymple’s death, or if they did, they weren’t letting on, though everyone agreed they heard Dom come in the back door after the body had been discovered. While this makes things look good for Dom, it doesn’t rule him out completely, as Hurley points out to me after Parker leaves. Dom could have, in theory, come in the back door, climbed up onto the catwalk, and pushed Dalrymple, then gone back down and out the back door so he could come in again a short time later with an apparent alibi.

  Our final witness is Helen Niehls, who by now has grown apoplectic at being the last person talked to.

  “My time is worth something,” she snaps at me when I come to fetch her. “Do you really think I have all day to just sit around here waiting on you people?” She storms past me, heading up the aisle and out to the lobby area. I see Junior roll his eyes and shake his head.

  When Helen reaches Hurley, she stops, cocks one hip out to the side, and plants a hand on it, arm bent. “Would you mind explaining to me why I’m the last person you’re talking to, when I was the first one to find Dalrymple’s body? I should think my story would be the most important one. I’m your key witness, am I not?”

  Her attitude is one of obvious annoyance and impatience, but that dissipates fast when Hurley comes back at her with, “What you are is a key suspect.”

  Helen looks appalled, then disbelieving. “Suspect? Are you serious? Why the hell would I be a suspect?”

  “Because you disliked the victim,” I say, my camera already rolling.

  “Everyone disliked Roger,” she says in a Captain Obvious–sounding tone, giving me a brief glare before turning her attention back to Hurley. “Just because I’m the one who found him doesn’t mean I had anything to do with his death. And, frankly, I’m insulted that you would think so.”

  She drops her arm to her side and straightens her hips. “Can we get this over with, please? I have places to go and things to do.” She taps at the wristwatch on her right arm. “Ticktock, time’s a-wasting.”

  I can tell from the expression on Hurley’s face that he greatly dislikes Helen Niehls, and I suspect if he could figure out a reason to do so, he would arrest her right now and throw her in jail, just on general principle. Instead, he takes a slow, bracing breath and starts in with his official questions.

  “Can you please tell me where you were in the minutes leading up to you finding Mr. Dalrymple’s body?”

  “I was on the main stage,” she says. “I was out practicing my lines and needed to use the bathroom. I heard that horrible noise, came backstage, and found him there. Then I screamed.”

  “Did you hear anything, or see anyone else, when you were on stage?” Hurley asks.

  “No.”

  This strikes me as odd, since Rebecca Haugen had said she was also out in the main auditorium right before Helen screamed.

  “And when you saw Roger on the floor, did you try to touch him, or talk to him at all?”

  “I already answered this question,” she says irritably.

  “Humor me,” Hurley says.

  Helen emits a sigh of disgust. “Like I said before,” she says with barely contained anger, “no, I didn’t. I used to be an EMT, and I could see from his neck that he was . . . well . . . I knew it was bad.”

  “Okay,” Hurley says. He purses his lips and stares at her for a few seconds. I’ve seen other people wither beneath that scrutiny, but Helen just stares right back at him, looking as exasperated as ever. “When you screamed,” Hurley says, “did you scream a word, like ‘help’? Or his name?”

  Helen’s brows knit together. “I don’t know,” she says after a few seconds of thought. “Maybe I screamed, ‘Oh, my God’ or something like that.” She pauses and shakes her head. “No, I don’t think I screamed that. That’s too many words. It doesn’t feel right. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t say his name.” She stares off into space, one finger tapping at her lips. “I might have said ‘help,’ but that doesn’t feel right to me, either.” She gives Hurley a frustrated look. “Isn’t that silly? I honestly don’t know what I said. Did you ask the others? What did they say I said?”

  “Speaking of the others,” Hurley says, deftly avoiding her question, “who was the first to arrive at the scene after you?”

  Once again, Helen’s brows knit together, her eyes narrowing in thought. She doesn’t answer right away, and other than shooting me an annoyed glance, she doesn’t look at either of us. “You know, I’m not sure.” She looks at Hurley apologetically, but also with a hint of worry. “When I try to picture it in my head, it seems as if everyone was just there all of a sudden. I can’t remember any one person arriving. One minute, no
one was there, and the next, they all were there.”

  “So you can’t tell me where any of them came from?” Hurley asks.

  Helen shakes her head, looking both surprised and a bit miserable.

  “Did you go up on the catwalk for any reason today?” Hurley asks next.

  “I did,” Helen says. “First thing this morning, when I got here. I went up there to adjust some lights for Roger.”

  “Did Roger typically ask you or the other actors to go up and do things on the catwalk?”

  Helen shrugs. “He asked periodically. I don’t know if I’d call it typical.”

  “Have you worked with Roger Dalrymple before?”

  “Yeah, we all have. He’s a prolific playwright.”

  “Does Rebecca’s father often subsidize your plays?”

  “He’s done a lot of them. I haven’t kept tabs.”

  “Who else supports your group?”

  “Well, there are other individuals who donate time and money, and we have received grants over the years. And then there are the students from U-Dub who come and volunteer from time to time.”

  “Were you and Roger Dalrymple having an affair?” Hurley asks this question with the same level and tone of voice he’d used with all the others.

  Helen opens her mouth to answer, but freezes, saying nothing. She cocks her head to one side and narrows her eyes at Hurley. “Who told you that?” she says finally.

  “Were you?” Hurley repeats.

  “No.” Helen tries to stare Hurley down with her answer, but this time, his blue-eyed intensity is too much for her. I suspect it’s because she’s lying. She looks away and makes a pretense of covering a cough—a theatrical gesture if ever I saw one.

  “So you’ve never dated Mr. Dalrymple?” Hurley says.

  Helen bites her lower lip. “Well, we might have gone out for a drink or two, at one time or another. Roger likes his drinks.” Something about the way she says this, and the expression on her face, gives me an idea.

  “You wanted something more, but Dalrymple wasn’t giving it,” I say.

  Helen shoots me a look of incredulity. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffs.

  Hurley and I both stare at her, saying nothing.

  “Okay, fine,” she spits out. “I liked the guy and made a move on him. What of it?”

  “Did he take you up on it?” I ask.

  Once again, she opens her mouth as if to answer, but stops herself. She sighs heavily and does another one of her coughs.

  “How many times?” I ask.

  “What?” Helen snaps, looking confused and irritated.

  “How many times did he sleep with you before he broke it off?” I see Hurley look at me with a bemused expression.

  Helen is gnawing at the inside of her cheek, fussing with the cuffs of her sleeves, and tapping one foot anxiously. After an interminable amount of time, she looks at me with this wounded, angry expression and says, “Men can be such assholes sometimes, can’t they?”

  CHAPTER 23

  We let Helen leave without getting a final answer to our question, though it’s clear to us that she was a scorned lover to our victim, which keeps her high on our list of suspects.

  “What do you think?” I ask Hurley once she’s gone.

  “I think we’re going to have to talk to all of these people some more,” Hurley says. “Dom included. There are some dynamics here they haven’t made us aware of, and I think those dynamics might have played an important role in all of this. But I want to wait and see what the autopsy turns up, if anything.”

  I glance at my watch. “Why don’t we check in with Richmond and see what he’s managed to accomplish with the Liesel Paulsen case.”

  Hurley nods, takes out his phone, and jabs at the screen a couple of times before putting the phone to his ear. After nearly a full minute, during which I assume he’s going to be sent to voice mail and have to leave a message, he says, “Hey, Richmond.” He listens a moment and says, “Okay”; then he sighs. Covering the bottom of his phone with his free hand, he says, “He asked me to hold on for a minute.”

  I nod, and then hear my own phone ding out a tone that tells me I’ve received a text message. I look and see it’s from Not a Trace, informing me that my hearse is clean and the keys are with our office receptionist.

  “Yeah, I’m still here,” Hurley says. I watch his face as he listens to whatever Richmond is saying, wishing he’d put the call on speaker. His expression gives away nothing, and the only things he says are “Really?” very early on in the basically one-sided conversation, and then “Too bad,” a minute or so later. And finally: “Gotcha. I’ll meet you back at the station later and we can plan our next step.”

  He finally disconnects the call and I wait eagerly for him to fill me in. “Come on, Hurley, give. What did Richmond have to say?”

  “How bad do you want to know?” he teases.

  “Hurley,” I whine impatiently, my expression darkening. “I’m not in the mood for games.”

  “Okay, fine. Come on, I’ll fill you in on the way.”

  We gather our stuff and head for the stage area. “Richmond was able to get a search warrant for O’Keefe’s place in the Dells. It makes sense in a way that the guy lives there. A vacation spot like that would be prime pickings for kid snatchers. But his house is a rental, and when the local guys served the warrant, no one was home, so they had to have the landlord let them in. And it looks like O’Keefe has flown that particular coop.”

  “That stupid doctor probably tipped him off,” I say.

  “Probably,” Hurley agrees. “Too bad I couldn’t have arrested the guy for real. At least the Feds are watching his place, so if O’Keefe shows up there, we’ll get him.”

  When we reach the auditorium, we see it is empty, and when we check the backstage area, we discover that Dalrymple’s body is gone and the area has been cordoned off with yellow police tape. Junior is there, finishing up the processing of the crime scene. Over by the wall, I see a large collection of evidence bags and boxes containing swabs.

  “Who picked up the body?” I ask Junior. “The Johnson family is kind of waylaid today.”

  “Yeah, I heard,” Junior says. “Izzy ended up calling the Keller Funeral Home. There was some new girl who showed up. Kind of cute.” He wiggles his eyebrows salaciously.

  “Don’t let Monica hear you say that,” I caution him.

  “Monica and I broke up.”

  “Oh no! When?”

  “Officially, a few days ago, but it’s been coming for a while.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him, adding him to my mental list of men who need to get fixed up with someone, though I put Junior at the bottom. He and Monica have been an item for a long time and he’ll need time to recover.

  “Thanks,” Junior says with a weary smile. “How did the interviews go?”

  “They were interesting,” Hurley says. “The only person we were able to rule out, more or less, was Dom, since everyone agreed he hadn’t been here until after Dalrymple’s body was found. I mean, technically, I suppose, he could have done it, but it would’ve required a lot of precise timing. And I don’t see Dom for this.”

  Junior nods his agreement.

  “Anyway,” Hurley says, “I suppose I’m going to have to chat some more with all of these people down at the station at some point.” He looks over at Junior. “How’s your schedule looking?”

  “I have some things on the burner,” Junior says, though I suspect he’s stretching the truth a bit. His primary area of investigatory focus is vice-related stuff, which in most cities means things like gambling, pornography, and prostitution. In Sorenson, most of the gambling that goes on is friendly bar bets related to sporting events, and the purchase of lottery tickets. As for pornography, I suppose the pictures some of the local farmers pass around of their bulls, stallions, and boars during breeding season might qualify, but these days most pornography makes it through the doors of homes via the Internet. A small police f
orce like ours doesn’t have the type of resources necessary to make much of a dent in the online porno industry. Prostitution occurs, but not all that often, and the most likely sex-for-money deals that take place in town typically involve the breeding of farm animals.

  We do have our share of burglaries, drug offenses, and vandalism, and most of the time that’s what Junior spends his time working on. He is available, if needed, to assist with death investigations, however, anytime Hurley or Richmond asks for help. And I suspect the man is desperate to be involved. His girlfriend, Monica—or ex-girlfriend, now—told me a few months back that Junior was so bored with his current job that she wouldn’t be surprised if he became a serial killer just so he could have something more interesting and exciting to do. Hurley’s inquiry now, with its implied promise of involvement in a homicide investigation, is job crack for Junior.

  “I could use some help looking into these theater people,” Hurley says. “Not to suggest that Roger Dalrymple’s life isn’t just as important as anyone else’s, but I really want to stay focused on this Paulsen investigation.”

  “I’m happy to help with anything you need,” Junior says, looking an awful lot like my dog, Hoover, whenever I open a bag of dog treats. “I can even take lead on it, if you want.”

  “Let’s see what the autopsy shows,” Hurley says. He looks at me. “Think Izzy will do it right away? It’s four-thirty already.”

  “Let me call him and ask,” I say. “I don’t want him to overtax himself,” I add as I place the call.

  Izzy answers on the second ring. “Hurley wants to know what the time frame is for the Dalrymple autopsy,” I say.

  “It won’t get done until tomorrow, if then. Otto is supposed to be taking over for me tonight, but I got a call from him a little while ago. He got caught in this storm and ran his car into a ditch. He got picked up by someone, but he thinks he broke his arm and he isn’t going to be able to make it into the office for a few days, maybe longer. Not sure if he’s going to be able to do autopsies until his arm heals.”