Murder in the Dog Days (Maggie Ryan) (7 page)

Betty Morgan beamed. “I think so too! And the weather has cooled off enough, don’t you think? Here, Josie, won’t you change your mind?”

The girl looked sideways at her sister, who was now leaning against Donna’s arm, sipping sleepily at her cup. “Okay,” she consented. Betty Morgan distributed the rest of the cups, even coaxing Higgins into accepting one. He took it with a suspicious look, propping it on one uniformed knee. Well, with that paunch he was probably right to view it as the enemy.

A car door slammed and Olivia whirled to look through the curtain again. The old red Vega’s lights went on. and she saw the blonde at the wheel as the car pulled out past the streetlight. Was there a second person in the car too? Then the other cop appeared in the archway. “Who’s the reporter?” he asked Higgins.

Higgins nodded toward Olivia. “Redhead.’’

“Okay, ma’am. You’re next.”

At last! Olivia thrust her chocolate into Jerry’s hand and raced across the room. As she passed Maggie, she heard, “Don’t ask her anything personal.”

“Oh?” Olivia slowed.

“But you might ask her if the Colbys should be arranging for a place to spend the night. I doubt if they’ll be finished over there any time soon.”

Olivia glanced at Donna. “Good point. See you soon.” She went through the door Patterson was holding for her and into the fresh damp night.

Detective Holly Schreiner was in the hall talking to the pudgy male detective when Olivia and Patterson arrived. Olivia had a moment to study her: sturdy, muscular rather than fat, with mid-length khaki-colored hair. She was dressed in conservative tailored summer skirt and blouse, comfortable sandals. Only the holstered gun not quite hidden by her loose blouse betrayed her occupation. Olivia was fascinated: cops had been the other side for so long, college demonstrations against the war, feminist marches, and now that she was a reporter they too often served as tight-lipped obstacles to getting a story. But this cop was a woman. An ally? She’d soon know.

“Let’s phone them right away, Gabe,” Schreiner was saying to the pudgy detective.

“Sure,” said Gabe. “But Harrisburg may take a while. It’s almost eleven already.”

“Yeah, well, get it in the works. And I want to know about Ryan too. Margaret Mary. Check New York City on her.”

Wow, so her sister-in-law was being checked! Olivia wondered if she would be too. It came home to her suddenly, viscerally, that this was real, not just a newsworthy event, not happening to someone else. Dale was really dead, and that fact had entangled her, her relatives and friends. She remembered writing about colleagues and relations of Joanne Little’s murdered jailer, laughing at some of their claims about the victim’s flawless character. Would her own claims be any less biased?

Well, she’d try. Stay objective, collect facts, use her skills to help figure out what the hell had happened here. Don’t ask anything personal, Maggie had warned. But the questions of the official interrogation itself would be revealing. She might be able to read between the lines, find out what the police were thinking.

She focused again on the detectives. The one called Gabe was heading down the hall for the den again. Detective Schreiner’s serious dark eyes, underlined with weariness, turned to Olivia. She said, “You’re Mrs. Kerr?”

“Ms. Yes,” said Olivia.

“Right.” There was no flicker of sisterly approval, but no hostility either. “You worked with Dale Colby?”

“Yes, since I started at the S-D a year and a half ago.”

“Let’s sit down.” Schreiner gestured with her notepad toward the sofa in the living room. Olivia followed directions and settled into the cushions, feeling strangely self-conscious to be taking part in this formal rite of truth-searching. Solomon, Pilate, Oliver Wendell Holmes: the law’s lineage was ancient and solemn compared to her own profession’s checkered history. Embraced by the creaky scaffolding of rules of evidence and due process, she and Detective Schreiner would play their appointed roles in the attempt to pick out the currents of truth in the muddy-bordered runniness of reality. Olivia’s role was to be witness, source of information. How many times had she bantered about sources? And now that was her own sole function. But Detective Schreiner was more than curious reporter. Her role was weightier: priest of logic, justice, retribution. She studied Olivia with those grave eyes and began the ritual questions: full name, address, date of birth, ID.

“You said you’ve been working at the Sun-Dispatch a year and a half?” Her voice was courteous but colorless.

“That’s right,’’ said Olivia. “Mostly features, some news rewrites.”

“Did you know Mr. Colby well?”

Olivia shrugged. “Not well enough to know what’s going on now. Socially, he and Donna came to our Christmas party last year. That was about it, until this picnic. Mostly we talked at the office, joked around.”

“Can you tell me anything about his current work?”

“Only a little.” Olivia saw that her hand was squeezing the arm of the sofa and relaxed her fingers consciously. “You see, he was working at home temporarily while he got used to his new medication. The way I understand it, Edgerton considered him half-time this month, and Dale sent stuff in from home.”

“Edgerton?”

“Kent Edgerton, our managing editor. He kept him pretty busy. Dale was calling in a couple of times a day or sending a messenger. Once or twice he asked me to stop by here to pick things up on my way in. Dale was definitely doing a lot of reporting. He’s such a workaholic anyway, I don’t think half-time made any difference to either of them. Except he was doing all his interviews by phone.”

Detective Schreiner’s head was bent over her notepad, the ash-tan hair drooping over her face. “Was he due to go back to the office soon?”

“Week after next, I think. But that’s just a manner of speaking. Normally he’d be away from the office a lot, getting interviews and so forth.”

“I see. Well, what can you tell me about his current stories?” The detective lifted her eyes to Olivia. She didn’t smile much.

Olivia leaned forward on the sofa, forearms on her knees, hands clasped as she thought. “Today he was working on a follow-up on that Representative Knox plane crash back in January. He’d been doing stuff on the progress of the new subway lines into Virginia too. The I-66 controversy.”

“Can you explain about the plane crash? If it was in January, why was he still writing about it?”

“They’re still investigating it, you see. Representative Knox wasn’t happy with some of the original work. He said it was too hasty. He got them to repeat some of the tests.”

“Why would they be too hasty?”

“Well, it was a small plane. Five deaths. Not like a big commercial plane crashing. But Representative Knox was scheduled to be on the flight originally, so naturally he wanted a thorough investigation.”

A quick nod as Detective Schreiner wrote it down. This interested her, Olivia thought, trying to remember what else she knew about that crash. She’d have to check the files tomorrow. And Nate Rosen—he’d done some of the early reports on that story. Though mostly it had been Dale, out in the January weather, shuffling back into the office with snowflakes melting on his coat, grousing about the congressman’s press aide.

The detective asked, “What had the new investigation found?”

Olivia leaned back in the sofa and crinkled up her face in the effort to remember. “Let me think. A couple weeks ago they reported the pilot’s last words. I know that they concluded he hadn’t seen trouble coming. But there was going to be another report. It wasn’t out yet, that’s why I can’t tell you much. But soon, I think.”

“Had Dale said anything about it recently?”

“Not much. He said he’d started talking to relatives of the people who died in the crash, updating their ideas. But I don’t know what he found out.”

“Who were the relatives?” The detective’s voice was still neutral, but her posture had altered slightly, her back straighter, her eyes more alert. Olivia felt an uncomfortable little shiver of complicity with the power structure. She felt like a snitch. But, hell, this wasn’t a political struggle, was it? They all wanted to find Dale’s killer. Anyway, it wasn’t confidential.

“Moffatt,” she said. “There was someone named Moffatt, a rich businessman, who died in the crash. His son Leon came to the office today. And, well, he was complaining about Dale.”

“I see.’’ The information went briskly onto the notepad. Official now. Part of a different order of reality. “What was his complaint?”

“Very general. He called Dale an asshole reporter.”

“Mm. Did he say why?”

Olivia shrugged. “Probably he did, but not in my hearing. Edgerton took him into his private office. You’d better ask him.” And I’d better too, she thought eagerly. This was important. She and Nate and Edgy should get their heads together as soon as possible.

“Had Moffatt been to your office often?”

“No. At least, not while I was there.”

“Okay. Now, do you know who else he was talking to about this crash?”

“Representative Knox’s office, obviously. But I really wasn’t keeping track of that story.” Dumb, she thought to herself; she should have asked Dale more questions. A national politician involved in this almost-local story. The airfield was in this county, the hills where it had crashed not far away. But even Dale hadn’t seemed too excited about it. Except—she said slowly, “I saw Dale for a minute before we left for the beach. I told him Moffatt was upset at him, and he seemed pleased. Like he was finally getting somewhere.”

There was a little amused twitch at the corner of Schreiner’s mouth, as though she recognized that situation. Olivia blurted, “Your job is a little like a reporter’s, isn’t it?”

“A little.”

“Wish I could get search warrants and things,” Olivia observed enviously.

“Wish I didn’t have so many forms to fill out.” Schreiner’s tired eyes looked at Olivia almost kindly. “Now, Ms. Kerr, I’m going to read you some names. Tell me if you recognize any of them. First is John Lewis, also known as Corky.”

“Corky Lewis. No, don’t recognize that name.”

“How about Priscilla Lewis?”

“No.”

“Moffatt we’ve done. How about Ann Kauffmann?”

“Guess I’m striking out. No.”

“Frank or Doris Resler?”

“Hey!” Olivia bounced upright on the sofa. “I’ve heard—listen, Mrs. Resler was in the S-D office today too, talking to the editor! Not upset like Moffatt. But there’s something else. Dale was on the phone to Mrs. Resler when I stopped in right before we left! Doris, you said?”

“Doris and Frank. Can you tell me anything about them?”

“Resler. Resler.” Olivia pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Frank Resler. A lawyer, maybe.”

“Yeah. Criminal lawyer.”

“Hey, if you know already, why—oh, hell, same reason I do the same thing. Fresh angle.” Olivia looked eagerly at the detective as a stratagem occurred to her. “Maybe if you told me a little about the others I’d remember more.”

“Okay. First tell me about the phone call. How do you know he was talking to Mrs. Resler?”

“I just heard the end of the conversation. He was saying sure, Mrs. Resler, I’ll be discreet.”

“Discreet about what?”

“I wish I knew. But he hung up then.”

“I see. Can you tell me anything else about the Reslers?”

“Not yet. But I’ll sure look them up.”

“No doubt,” she said drily. “Do you recognize the name Peter Church?”

“Peter Church. Yes, actually,” said Olivia, surprised. “I remember now, when I saw the list of crash victims in January, he was the only one I’d even heard of. He was one of Representative Knox’s aides.”

“And where had you met him?”

“I didn’t meet him, just talked to him on the phone about press releases last year.”

“Ann Kauffmann was another aide in Knox’s office,” offered Schreiner.

Olivia filed away the information. “I’d heard there was a second aide. But I don’t know anything about her. How about those first people you mentioned? The Lewises?”

“Corky Lewis was the pilot. Priscilla Lewis is his sister.”

“I see.” Olivia decided to find out about Corky, maybe at the little airstrip where the plane had taken off. “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about them.”

“Anything else you can tell us? About Church, about any of the other names?”

“No. But we’ve got stuff in the files at the office. Dale probably has good files here at home too, knowing him. And of course Representative Knox’s office will have a lot of information.”

“I see.” Schreiner paused to read through her notes again. A thorough woman, obviously tired but still alert, double-checking everything. Strange to be in law enforcement, Olivia thought, a traditional man’s job even more than the newspaper business, where it was tough enough to get yourself taken seriously. And yet Olivia could imagine the appeal. Not just curiosity, or desire to be allied with the power of the law, or a yen for excitement, though all that was real enough. But to see life at the raw edges, to be part of the forces that knit it back into order after it had been ripped apart—

Come off it, Olivia scolded herself, or next thing you know you’ll be signing up at the Police Academy yourself. You, who tried to get yourself arrested for peace at least twice. But plenty of women really had signed up. From traffic cops to detectives. And jailers, she thought suddenly. If Joanne Little’s jailer had been a woman, the tragedy would not have occurred. And what was it like to be a jailer? She could sell Edgerton on this, she realized. Tie it in to the Joanne Little story, a whole series on women in law enforcement.