Death in a Summer Colony (16 page)

32

R
ichard Grubbs opened the passenger-side door of his sagging Volvo for Sue Lawrence. She settled on the seat cushion—torn vinyl exposing crumbling foam rubber—and peered out through the windshield at the dull, oxidized finish on the hood. The interior smelled of gasoline, mildew, and petroleum-based grime.

“Just got a 400 thousand mile badge from the company,” bragged Grubbs after he dropped into the driver’s seat. “Sure hoping this baby will make a half a million.”

Sue sent a weak smile his way. “How far are we going?”

“Just a few blocks. We probably should have walked. I’ll go in and introduce you to Tom and his mother. Then I’ll disappear. If you need me, I’ll be here reading a book. If Tom has a meltdown, come and get me. I’m good at talking him down.”

Grubbs parked near the back of the cottage next to a late model Chrysler van, and they walked to the rear entrance. His gentle rap brought an almost instantaneous response.

Pushing the screen door open, a sixtyish woman stepped out, gave Grubbs a quick hug, and then held Sue in a long, suspicious gaze.

“What’s going on, Grubby. Some sort of problem involving Thomas?”

“Nothing of the sort. Sergeant Sue Lawrence, here, is with the Cedar County Sheriffs Department. She’s investigating the death of Malcolm Wudbine. Several witnesses saw Tom near the auditorium Saturday evening.”

“He’s not suspected of….”

“No,” said Grubbs, reassuringly. “But if Tom was in the area at the time of the crime, they are wondering what he might have witnessed outside the Assembly Hall. Sergeant Lawrence would like to have a conversation with Tom.”

“He’s out on the beach smoking. He’s not allowed to smoke in the house. We have this agreement about where he can smoke. I’ll walk you out there, but,” she looked toward Grubbs, “have you explained Tom’s fear of the police?”

“Alice, yes. And I’ve made it clear to both the sheriff and Sue that this questioning might have unexpected consequences. They were most insistent.”

Sue followed, letting them lead the way across a chamomile lawn, and onto a path through the dune grass to the shore. She held back, giving Grubbs time to explain to Tom the situation before she entered the circle.

“I don’t want to talk to her. Why is she here?”

“Tom, I just told you. She only needs a few minutes of your time. Will you please cooperate?”

“Do what Grubby says,” counseled his mother. “You know he’s always been your friend.”

Tom looked over at Sue, then back at Grubbs and his mother. “Okay, but I’ve got important things to do. She can have five minutes.”

“Can we sit over there?” asked Sue, pointing to weathered picnic table.

Tom stood up, brushed the sand off the back of his jeans, and ensconced himself on one side of the table.

“We’ll leave you now,” said Grubbs. “I’ll wait in the car.”

“What do you want?” asked Tom, lighting a cigarette.

“Saturday night, the night of the play, were you near the auditorium?”

“That was awhile ago, I don’t know.”

“People saw you there, you had a ticket to the play.”

Tom looked thoughtful, “Ticket?” Then he smiled with delight. “It was a wonderful ticket, a piece of art. But those crazy little bitches, they wouldn’t let me in. I went to one door and then the other. They laughed at me. I don’t like that. I hate it when people laugh at me.”

“When you couldn’t get into the theater, what then?”

“I think I watched through a window, they were open. I could hear what was happening until it started to rain and thunder.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Well, I don’t know. I think I went down to the picnic area. It’s covered. Yes, that’s what I did. The picnic area.”

“Could you see the Assembly Hall from there?”

“Lady, it was raining so hard I couldn’t see anything. And then I almost got electrocuted. Boom, crash. I could smell sulfur. I knew the devil was lurking.”

“Were there any lights on in the back of the auditorium?” asked Sue.

“There’s one, you know, the kind that turns on when it gets dark. It’s on the wall above some equipment stuff. It’s always on, summer and winter.”

“Was it on Saturday night?”

“Probably, till everything went out.”

Tom tossed away the cigarette with his left hand.

“Do you remember seeing anyone on Saturday?”

He pulled another cigarette from a crumpled pack, removing the filter and flicking it with the index finger and thumb of his left hand toward the beach. He fumbled with the lighter, his hand unsteady, finally igniting the loose strands of tobacco that extended beyond the paper.

“Like I was telling you. There was someone out there. I remember wondering why they were in the rain. I thought maybe the devil. Maybe a witch.” He looked at Sue, his eyes wide, his grin displaying tobacco-
stained teeth.

“Man, woman?”

“It was…it was…a woman.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know the difference…I gotta take this call.” He fished a phone-like object from his pocket, gave Sue a quick glance, and said, “I had it on vibrate so we wouldn’t be disturbed.” Tom brought the object to his ear. “Hello. Garr. Hey dude, what’s happening? How’s the weather?”

He waited for the answer, then responded, “Hot. Hey, I’m not surprised, man. You were into some pretty deep shit…What am I doing? I’m talking to some police lady.”

Tom listened for awhile, nodding his head, his eyes focused on Sue.

“Fuckers! Shot up the place! RPGs and firebombs! I know, get a lawyer and tell them to stay the fuck away! I’m on the case, dude. I won’t tell them shit.”

Tom stood, as he dropped the phone back into his pocket, he leaned over the table, his face only a few inches from Sue’s. “Garr said you were the one. You were shooting at him. You blew his place up. You sent him across the river Styx. Bitch!” His final word was accompanied by a spray of spittle.

Sue remained still, fighting the impulse to push him out of her face.

“I’m not talking to you anymore. I know my constitution, my God given rights. Don’t think you’ll get me like you did Garr. Now I’m getting the fuck out of here. I just hope you don’t shoot me in the back like you did to Garr.”

Tom pushed himself up and then scampered down the beach in long strides, turning and looking back once just before he disappeared into the dunes.

Sue sat for a long moment, stood, and walked to the lake’s edge. She looked at the point where Tom had entered into the woods, then quickly scanned the beach before reaching for her phone.

“I think we have a problem,” she said when Ray answered. After the conversation, she walked back to the cottage to tell Grubbs and Alice Lea how her conversation with Tom had ended.

33

R
ay stood near the empty boat slip with Terry McDaniel. As he listened, he looked down river past the seawall on the left to the open water of Lake Michigan. The wind was calm and the lake flat, with only a gentle swell breaking the mirror-like surface.

“I had just brought the grandkids in, my wife was running them back to the cottage. I was going to get more gas and do a few small maintenance jobs I had been putting off.” McDaniel looked at Ray, “To be honest, Sheriff, I was looking forward to some quiet time. We’ve had the grandkids, four boys from five to ten, for almost two weeks. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great kids and all that, but two weeks. My wife does better at this than I do. But then, she used to be a third grade teacher.”

“So tell me exactly what happened,” pressed Ray.

“Well, Tom comes springing in here all breathless like. I’ve known him since he was a boy. So much promise, smart as a whip. You just never know what’s going to happen. I guess we were lucky with our own kids. You know what I mean.

“So Tom arrives, says someone’s after him. He wants to know if I would take him out on the lake for a while. I explain that I’m almost out of fuel, that we would have to stop at the marina. And I try to stall for a little while, saying there are a couple of things I need to do onshore first. As I climb on the dock, he jumps into the boat. Initially, I didn’t think anything about it. I’ve been taking Tom out for years. It’s very therapeutic for him. Being on the water is enormously healing, and I think it gives his mother a break. Alice, that’s his mom, we go back a lot of years. Knew her when we were at Albion. That poor woman has….”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, I walked back to my car. Like I already told you, my wife had our other car with the grandkids. When I got back here, the slip was empty and my boat was heading down the river with Tom at the wheel. I’ve let him drive a lot. He’s perfectly competent. I yelled at him, but I’m sure he couldn’t hear me over the sound of the engine. This is a no-wake zone, but he wasn’t paying attention to that. Tom was hell bent for open water. I don’t know where he’s going, but he doesn’t have too much fuel.”

“How far can he get?” asked Sue, who had been silent up to this point.

“I don’t know for sure. There was a quarter of a tank, maybe less. If he holds it at full throttle, he’ll burn it real fast.”

“Any idea where he might be headed?”

“He likes the islands up north, but there’s not enough fuel.” He paused and looked out toward the lake. “Good thing its calm out there. He’s not going to get bounced around waiting for a tow after the tank runs dry.”

“When did this happen?” asked Sue.

McDaniel pulled a phone from his pants pocket and looked at the screen. “Musta been about an hour ago.”

“Why did you wait so long to call us?” she asked.

“Tom can be a real joker on his good days. I thought he might turn the boat around, come back, and we’d have a good laugh. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. He’s probably off his meds and in full meltdown. He does that from time to time. If that’s the situation now, who knows what might be going on in that screwed-up noodle of his.”

“Was Tom carrying anything?”

“Like what?”

“A backpack where a gun or other weapon might be hidden.”

“No, it was Tom in his summer uniform, old jeans and a T-shirt, the kind with the pocket for his phone and cigarettes. I never let him smoke on the boat.”

“Have you called his mother? Does she know what’s going on?”

“No, I thought I’d call you first. I didn’t want to worry her. She will be frantic as soon as she hears. The poor woman has dedicated her life to that kid. Where will this all end?” McDaniel looked at Ray. “What are you going to do about this, Sheriff?”

“I’m thinking. What’s the make, model, and color of your boat?”
 

“It’s a Four Winns Sundowner, mostly white with some blue and tan trim.”

“Do you have the registration number?” asked Ray.

“It’s on the boat in my wallet. Like I said, I was going to get some gas. Is that going to be a problem?”

“No, we can pull it off a database if we need to. Are there any weapons on the boat: firearms, knives, flare gun?”

“No, nothing of that type. Sheriff, I don’t want Tom arrested. I’m not going to press charges or anything. I just want him safely back on shore, and I’d like my boat back. This is all my fault, well at least partially.”

Ray looked over at Sue. “Why don’t you talk to Tom’s mother, explain what happened, and that we are starting a search for the boat. And see if you can get a sense of the best way to talk him down.”

“She may not be there,” said Sue. “She and Grubbs were going to look for him. She tried to reassure me that it was probably nothing I did that set her son off. She said he has these episodes. He usually wanders home on his own, or she goes out and finds him.”

Ray walked Sue to her Jeep. “Did you learn anything from Tom?”

“We just got to a point that sounded interesting. Tom said when it started raining he went down to the picnic shelter. He saw someone near the back of the auditorium.”

“And?”

“Then he took a phone call, a call from Garr. And then he flipped out, accusing me of killing Garr. I really thought he was about to attack me, but he took off down the beach instead.”

Ray just shook his head, “We better get going. There are only a few hours of light left. I’ll establish a rendezvous point when we get a fix on the boat.”

34

“T
his is Tom’s usual pattern after he’s had a meltdown,” Alice Lea explained to Sue. “He goes into full panic mode. He believes that anyone who comes close to him is trying to kill him. And that’s how he’s gotten in trouble with the law. There have been a number of incidents where people have called the police for assistance in handling him when he’s gone out of control. Tom just thinks he’s going to die, but he’s going to put up a good fight on the way. He sometimes ends up assaulting the police officers…it’s just not pretty.

“I thought you would be okay, that you could question him without incident. He likes the attention of attractive women. Usually he’s quite charming.” She gave Sue a weak smile. “There are parts of his brain that are normal. In terms of threats, he differentiates by gender. Males are bad, women not. The really bad confrontations have always been with men. And most of these have led to his hospitalization.”

“Can you walk me through one of the episodes?” asked Sue. “We need to know what to anticipate when we locate him.”

Alice Lea looked thoughtful. “Simple question, complicated answer. The safest response is that there is no pattern you can depend on. That said, most of the time he crashes after one of these episodes. He falls into a deep sleep, sort of a stupor. When he wakes, he’s usually lethargic the rest of the day. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes he goes through this whole cycle a second time.” She looked at her watch. “He gets his meds twice a day, so he’s long past his afternoon doses. I don’t know if that will make a difference.”

“Does Tom have any weapons—guns, knives—or does he have access to anything like that in your house?”

“Absolutely not. There was a shotgun from my grandfather’s time. I gave that away years ago. Tom has suicidal tendencies. He’s tried it more than once. I’ve made sure there’s nothing around that would give him an easy exit.”

“He told me his friend Garr gave him a gun.”

“Garr is a fantasy friend. I don’t think he ever knew the man. But that’s all Tom has talked about since that horrible day. Tom has some kind of romantic fantasy about that whole incident.” She paused and looked at Sue, “What’s going to happen now?”

“We will try to locate the boat. Mr. McDaniel told us there was very little fuel onboard. So if Tom took it way out into the lake, he’s probably just sitting there. Or he might have landed somewhere and is off on foot.”

“I need to be close by when you find Tom. His big fear is going back to the hospital. If he sees me, he knows he’s alright.”

“We will do our best to make sure that happens. Give me your cell number, and we’ll stay in contact.”

“I’ll be back in a second, let me go write it down.” Lea disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing a few minutes later.

She handed Sue a slip of paper, “I went to an early morning yoga class today. I had Tom’s pillbox laid out with his breakfast,” she held up the blue, plastic container. “He didn’t take his meds this morning. This is not good.”

“I will call you when we find him. Please bring those with you.”

Ray handed Sue the binoculars. “You can see the boat just left of the island. That was probably his destination. He ran out of gas a few miles short and right smack in the shipping lane.”

“Any signs of life?”

“Not that I’ve seen. The pilot of the coast guard chopper says someone is sprawled on the floor.”

“That’s consistent with what his mother told me.” Sue quickly summarized her conversation with Alice Lea.

“So what’s our plan?” Sue asked.

“Brett’s on his way with the Zodiac. I thought we’d run out and tow him in. But given what you’ve just told me, that’s not a good idea.”

“There’s not a lot of daylight.”

“Two hours at best,” said Ray.

Hanna Jeffers joined them. “Are we paddling?”

“No, change of plans. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you.” Ray explained the situation.

“How about the doc?” asked Sue, looking at Hanna.

“We can’t put her in that situation.”

“So what are you suggesting?” asked Hanna. “I paddle out there, check out the situation, and see if I can get him comfortable enough that you can tow him in without him jumping into deep water?”

“That’s the idea?” said Sue.

“We can’t put a civilian….”

“I’ve dealt with this kind of situation lots of time, especially in Iraq. Help me get my boat off the car.”

Hanna Jeffers dipped one paddle blade into the water, then the other, side to side, catch, pull, rotate. Connected acts, each contributing to the rhythm that propelled her long, slender kayak through the mirror-like surface. From the launch point, her destination was less than two miles out. The marine radio on her chest was switched off, as was the phone in the waterproof bag secured under the bungees on the deck in front of her.

Her target had been in view from the moment Ray pushed her kayak away from the shore. As she approached nearer, she could make out the lines of a speedboat sitting dead in the water. When she was twenty yards away, she stopped paddling and listened. A steady, pulsating sound came from the direction of the boat, deep breathing or perhaps snoring.

She closed the distance by half and shouted in the direction of the craft. “Hello, anyone on board?”

No response, just the sound again, louder. She paddled to the stern of the powerboat and secured her boat to the teak swim deck. She released her spray skirt and carefully climbed onto the deck. Then she peered into the boat. Tom was sprawled on the floor, eyes closed, chest gently rising and falling.

“Hello,” Hanna said. She repeated herself three more times, raising the volume of her voice each time. There was still no response. She moved closer, grabbing a shoeless foot and shaking it, first gently, and then more vigorously, her gaze fixed on Tom’s face.

One eye opened, closed, and opened again, this time wider, slowly moving in her direction.

Hanna tensed, surveying the boat for possible weapons and routes of escape. She had been in this situation before in the military, dealing with patients emerging from psychotic episodes, some quiet and spent, others physically and emotionally out of control.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly. She held her position beyond his grasp.

The other eye opened. “Bitch, you killed….”

“ I didn’t kill anyone. I’m here to help you.”

Tom crawled forward to the front of the boat, sprawled on the cushions and looked back at Hanna.

“Where did you come from?”

“My kayak, it’s tied up back there. I saw the boat dead in the water. I thought maybe the driver had a heart attack or something. I’m a doctor. I came onboard to see if someone needed help. What’s your name?”

“I don’t need any help.”

“It’s going to be dark soon. It’s already starting to cool off. Don’t you want to be on shore? Get a warm meal.”

“I’m good to go. I like sleeping under the stars.”

“Storm coming in later tonight. You’re going to get tossed around when it hits.”

“I’m thirsty. Got anything to drink?”

“Water. Want me to get you a bottle?”

“I need caffeine. How about Rock Star or Red Bull?”

“All I have is water. You want a bottle? I have to go back to my kayak.”

“Okay, water.”

Hanna moved toward the stern, her eyes fixed on Tom. She crawled onto the transom and pulled a plastic water bottle from under the bungees. Then she moved forward in the boat and rolled the bottle toward Tom.

“How do I know you didn’t put anything in this?”

“Check it out. It’s sealed. Just twist the top.”

“Are you a cop?”

“I told you, I’m a doctor.”

“Why are you wearing a knife on your life vest?”

Hanna looked down at knife. How could have I been so stupid? she thought.

“It’s a piece of safety equipment. It’s for emergencies.”

“Let me see it.”

“You want a power bar. You must be hungry.”

“I want to see your knife.”

Hanna pulled a bar from her vest and tossed it in his direction. “Double chocolate. Red Bull in a bar,” She moved back in the boat, getting into a defensive position. In a soft voice she instructed, “Eat the bar. It will make you feel better.” She switched on her radio.

“That water was poisoned, and now you’re trying to give something else. You cops are all alike. You killed Garr and now you’re after me.” He tossed the bar at her, then the water bottle. Pulling himself to his feet, he started toward her, finally lunging in her direction. Hanna moved to the side, tripping him with her hand as he went past her. He fell hard on the carpeted deck, his head striking the back of the boat.

Hanna scrambled toward the bow and waited for Tom’s next move. After a minute or two she cautiously crept closer. He appeared to be unconscious.

“I need help now,” she said, squeezing the transmit button on her radio. The Zodiac that had been lurking a half mile off the stern, roared to life. Soon Ray and Sue were at Hanna’s side as she checked Tom’s vitals.

Hanna was in scrubs, waiting as Ray came through the emergency entrance. “I just talked to the radiologist. The CT scan is unremarkable. They sedated Tom for the scan. He’s awake now, but remains quite subdued. His mother is with him. He’s been admitted for observation and most likely will be released in the morning.” She chuckled.

“What?” asked Ray.

“I was in the room when Tom started to become aware of his surroundings. He kept looking at me with this confused expression. Finally he said, “You really are a doctor.”