Relative Malice (11 page)

17

Friday

Ryan Nashlund looked only a little less sullen when Kendall arrived at the station the next morning. Playing the injured party, he’d still refused food or drink during the night. After an unsuccessful attempt to engage him in conversation, Kendall went back to her desk.

Nash showed up minutes later.

“I’m not sure this experience has enlightened him,” Kendall said. “He hasn’t eaten or said a word since we brought him in.”

“I’ll deal with Ryan when I get him home. Thanks for going along with the tough-love plan.”

“No problem. I found a computer person. I have names of four pedophiles in the vicinity, those who prefer babies.”

“That was fast. Who did the work?”

“I’ll have to tell you about that later. Turns out I’m driving to Milwaukee today.” Kendall and Brynn had worked until one a.m. when a joyous Brynn announced she’d found the missing girl, Brittany Markowicz. Kendall had been impressed by the discovery; Markowicz had changed her name. She was living in an apartment in Milwaukee near Marquette University and was registered there as a first-year student under the name Georgia Hughes.

“I thought you were off today,” Nash said.

“I was.” She looked around to be sure no one was listening. “But I want to talk to that missing girl I told you about, the one who went missing shortly after the virgin emails hit cyberspace. My source located her for me; that’s why I’m going to Milwaukee. If I can get the case put to bed, I’ll have more time to work on finding the Glausson baby.”

He didn’t ask her for details. “Sounds like a plan. My wife’s leaving to stay with her folks for a couple weeks and taking Ryan with her, so I’ll be able to work with you this weekend. What do you think?”

Kendall still had serious doubts about working with Nashlund. “I don’t know how much time I’m going to have. It’s at least a four-hour drive to Milwaukee, and I might have to stay the night, depending on how it unfolds.”

His face furrowed. “I have an idea. Let me make a call.” He left the room with his cell phone tight to his ear.

When he returned, he was grinning. “Bingo! Booked you a roundtrip to Milwaukee and you’ll be back in time for dinner.”

“You have a flying carpet?”

“Better. Gray has a little Cessna. I’ll give you directions to his hangar. He’ll meet you there in an hour.”

Kendall headed for the airport doubting the wisdom of letting Glausson take her to Milwaukee. He remained a person of interest even if he did have an alibi, but technically the Glausson case wasn’t hers anymore. When she arrived at the hangar, Gray Glausson, dressed in jeans and a blue denim shirt under a deerskin jacket, was examining the plane with an attendant wearing blue coveralls.

“Detective. You’re right on time.”

“Thanks for the ride. Do you have business in Milwaukee?”

He handed a clipboard to the man in coveralls. “I do now. We have offices and warehouses there. I was due to go, anyway. And I’ll do anything I can to help you to find my niece. Even if it means an unscheduled visit to Milwaukee.”

He pulled over a wheeled staircase and adjusted it next to the plane. Self – conscious with him, she was glad she’d let her hair down and worn her one pair of pants that fit her tall frame. Kendall climbed up into the passenger seat, hoping her anxiety wasn’t visible. She’d never ridden in a small plane.

As the Cessna ascended easily into the air, Kendall’s stomach rose with it. When the plane leveled out, she realized being in a small aircraft felt like being separated from the world she knew, an experience unlike that of flying in a commercial jet. Glausson was so close she could smell his expensive cologne, and when his hand brushed her thigh to reach for a control, her anxiety spiked. But he handled the plane expertly, which shouldn’t have surprised her; he’d had a seven-year stint in the Air Force.

When they landed, a company car met them at a small Milwaukee airport. Kendall had called ahead to the Milwaukee Police Department. Their computer crimes department hadn’t heard about the emails, but they were sending an MPD detective to join her when she interviewed Brittany Markowicz.

Glausson dropped her off at the station, where she met a tall, dark-haired detective named Richard Conlin. He introduced himself as being from the homicide division.

Kendall asked, “Homicide? We may be looking at something like statutory rape or solicitation, Detective Conlin, but no homicide that I’m aware of.”

“No worries. We’re short staffed this time of the year like everyone else.”

“And you got the short straw?”

“Something like that.” He laughed, the lines at the corners of his eyes, next to the silver hair at his temples, giving away his age as somewhere around fifty. Taller than Kendall, he was well built, but not as tall or as magnetically handsome as Gray Glausson.

Brittany Markowicz’s apartment just off Wisconsin Avenue was in an old brick building housing eight units. It looked rather elite for a college student’s budget, but the girl could be sharing with other students.

Appearing little like her high school photo, the girl who answered their knock was nevertheless recognizable as the missing Brittany Markowicz from Eau Claire.

Conlin addressed her by the new name. “Georgia Hughes?”

“Yes?” She reached up and tucked her long blonde hair behind her ears.

He showed his ID and made the introductions. “Do you mind if we come in?”

If she was nervous about their visit, Brittany Markowicz hid it well. She gestured to a room adjoining a U-shaped kitchen area.

They took chairs around a glass-topped table, which along with the other furnishings, weren’t those typically found in a student’s residence. The décor looked like it had been arranged with a one-day shopping trip to the nearest furniture store; too perfectly matched to have been developed over time. There were no signs anyone else shared the apartment.

Kendall began the questioning. “Georgia, we know you’re Brittany Markowicz. Are you aware you’re being sought as a missing person? Your parents are worried sick about you.”

She shrugged. “They didn’t give a crap about me when I was living there.”

“They hired a private detective to find you. But changing your name, made it just about impossible.”

“I had to change my name. I want to make something of myself.”

“You couldn’t do that as Brittany?”

“Not if I’d stayed at home. And not if they found me. They’d find a way to ruin everything.”

Kendall suspected she knew what “everything” referred to. “Just what would they ruin for you, Brittany?”

She waved her hand, indicating the room. “This apartment. School. I’m in pre-law at Marquette and have a 3.8 GPA already. At home I’d be delivering pizzas and sharing a dumpy place with four other people while I went to UWEC. Or worse, I’d be living at home.”

“We know what you had in your bank account when you left—three hundred dollars. How can you afford this apartment and Marquette tuition?” Kendall asked.

“I’m an adult now. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Kendall pressed, “Maybe you can explain how you got accepted into Marquette with a fake name and no high school records.”

“I had connections.”

Conlin dropped the bomb. “We know about the emails. That’s how we found you.”

Her body, encased in designer clothes carefully crafted and layered to look carelessly casual, betrayed her first sign of nervousness. She began crossing and uncrossing her legs, repeatedly tucking the same strand of hair behind one ear.

He asked, “Who’s paying for all this?” When she said nothing, he continued, “You may as well tell us; we can find out easily enough.”

“Then I guess that’s what you’ll have to do.”

Conlin and Kendall exchanged a look. Kendall said, “We’ll arrest him, Brittany.”

“You can’t do that! I wasn’t a minor. I was eighteen.”

Conlin said, “He used the Internet to purchase sex—that’s a crime regardless of age.”

Kendall admired the ease with which Conlin exaggerated Brittany’s benefactor’s culpability, knowing how hard it would be to make a case against him.

Brittany sat back and crossed her arms, a determined pout on her glossy, pink-tinted lips. They got nothing more from her before leaving the apartment.

Kendall had gained little except the ability to assure Brittany’s parents their daughter was alive and well; there’d be no need to tell them the girl’s living arrangements. She’d give the Markowiczes the information on their daughter’s whereabouts and let them find out the rest for themselves. Before they pulled out into traffic, she noticed Conlin busy on his Smartphone.

When he put it away, she asked, “What do you think? Any possibility of an arrest?”

“Probably not. I just got the guy’s name from the apartment rental records. Tenzin Chopak. He’s married, lives in town, and rents her place under the name of his business. It’s supposedly a haven for out-of-town clients. I’ll pay Mr. Chopak a visit; see if he’ll cough up anything on who was behind the website. Want to come along?”

Kendall was torn. It was basically Milwaukee’s problem now since that was where Chopak resided. “If you’re all right with it, I’ll let you take over.”

“We’ll have to find out if he was involved in the site itself or just a customer. We can’t arrest him for solicitation without proof, and the girl seems happy with the arrangement. I’ll see what our computer guys can do.”

“I don’t get it,” Kendall said. “Is money enough to keep a pretty, intelligent young girl in a long-term affair with a married man twice her age?” Maybe she just couldn’t fathom it because she’d never been able to pick and choose men at will. Her few relationships with men had been strictly chance affairs and always at their whim.

Conlin snickered. “He’s a means to an end. The girl’s ambitious; she’ll drop him like a hot rock when she has what she wants.”

“Or he’ll move on to the next virgin and leave her high and dry,” Kendall added.

“There’s always that. But I have a feeling this one is shrewd enough to have a plan B ready for a rainy day.” He looked at his watch. “I have to make a stop at home. Mind riding along? It’s only a few minutes from here.”

Gray’s meeting wouldn’t be over until two. “Sure. I’ll have Mr. Glausson pick me up there, if that’s all right.”

They stopped in front of an old brick duplex north of the valley bisecting the City of Milwaukee. A tasteful brown sign with gold lettering hung from a post in the small yard. T & J Security. Kendall wondered how a cop could be involved in a business on the side.

He noticed her looking at the sign. “Not mine, although I’m getting a lot of pressure to join the staff. It’s a security agency run by my girlfriend. She’s a former cop.”

The office must have been adapted from the front half of a first floor flat. Heavy, dark walnut woodwork prevailed in the floor, the doorways, and the built-in glass cabinets on the far wall. On the left was a waiting area furnished in mission-style chairs and tables, the shelves packed with books, many of them true crime and suspense fiction. The other side of the room had a large oak desk with a wall of matching file cabinets and two rust-colored leather barrel chairs in front of the desk. Both areas sported large, leafy fig trees in bronze containers and brightly printed area rugs.

A woman casually dressed in navy jeans, white turtleneck, and a short, blue corduroy jacket entered the room. A denim sling with a baby tucked inside hung from her neck. Her cobalt blue eyes sparkled. “Hey, you made it.”

Conlin put his arm around them. “TJ, this is Kendall Halsrud, the detective from Eau Claire I told you about.”

Kendall sat down next to TJ on one of the long leather sofas in the waiting area and watched her ease the baby out of the carrier. The child couldn’t have been more than four months old.

“He’s cute. A boy, right?” Kendall held one of the tiny pink feet, its little toes wriggling as the baby twitched his arms and legs and made soft baby noises.

“Yeah. This is RJ, for Richard Jeffrey.”

TJ didn’t mention the baby’s last name, and Kendall wondered if Conlin was the daddy; neither he nor TJ wore wedding bands. “He looks brand new.”

“Just popped out a couple months ago. Thought he was stayin’ inside forever, for a while there. Wanna hold him?”

The child felt like it weighed no more than the white cat, so delicate Kendall could see his veins through the whisper-soft skin, like one of those science models that exposed the internal workings of man. When TJ jumped up to take a phone call, Kendall kissed the baby’s soft cheek. He grunted and grabbed at a strand of her hair. When he started to make fussy noises, she stood up, walking him slowly around the room, enjoying the feel of him in her arms and his powdery baby smell.

TJ came back in a minute later. “He loves that. Could walk him all day and he wouldn’t complain.”

“How long have you had this business?”

“Not long. I’m doin’ mostly security stuff right now, but I’ll branch out when I get someone to work with me. Got a friend who comes in part-time, helpin’ me get things set up.”

Kendall couldn’t help admiring TJ’s looks. She managed to be enormously attractive with no signs of makeup. She had high cheekbones over a wide smile, framed by a smooth-as-caramels, mocha complexion.

“Detective Conlin said you used to be a cop.”

“Ancient history. Seems like a lifetime ago.”

Kendall was about to ask why she quit the force when her cell phone buzzed. She transferred the baby back to his mother.

“Detective Halsrud.”

“It’s Gray. Are you still working?”

“No, we just wrapped it up.”

“My meeting’s over, but there’s a storm going through Madison. It’s moving northeast. I’d rather not fly through it, so why don’t we have lunch somewhere before we leave?”

18

Nash didn’t think he’d ever seen his wife get ready to leave as quickly as she had after he brought Ryan home. Granted, it had been a while since she’d visited her parents, but taking off like this in the middle of their visit made him nervous, even though she purported Ryan’s latest brush with the law to be the reason for the sudden trip. He couldn’t shake what Brynn had told him. Was Shari getting ready to leave?

After Nash left the force, he’d expected Shari to be content. She’d hated the hours he had to put in, and the long absences during his undercover work put a strain on family relations. If his career change made her happy, it hadn’t been visible. Nash preferred to go with the flow of the relationship and not look for problems. If they weren’t fighting, then everything was cool.

It hadn’t taken long before he discovered the PI license wasn’t going to enable him to support his wife and child. The job at CPP came along at the right time. In so many ways, it was a real gravy job—great hours, benefits, decent pay—but boring as hell.

The fortune-teller had probably been right. His marriage was in jeopardy, and until Shari and Ryan came home there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Now he had the weekend off to dwell on it. At least if everything went as planned, he’d be working with Kendall on Saturday and Sunday. Remembering the list of names she’d shared with him, he wondered if she’d be pissed if he checked on one of them without her. But she was eager to get going and time was everything in cases like this.

An hour later, he was headed north on 53. One of the names on the list was in Cameron, a small town about an hour north of Eau Claire. As he drove, the radio announced a storm system headed for the area, but hopefully it wouldn’t hit while he was on the road.

The guy’s name was George Iseroth, and the address was a street name with one of those annoying fractions they used around the small county lakes in northwest Wisconsin, 26-7/8 Street. When he pulled off the highway and entered Cameron, Nash stopped at a convenience store to ask for directions since the address was off the radar of his GPS.

The residence was on the upper end of Prairie Lake, part of a chain of lakes bordering Chetek, a town right off of 53. After driving around on what seemed like every road touching the northern end of the lake, he spotted a mail carrier who quickly pointed out where he’d gone wrong. The address was that of a small cottage behind a lake home at the tip of a narrow peninsula. He’d probably driven past it three times.

He parked at the entrance to the short, wooded street leading up to the main house. Its owner, according to the mailman, was Viva Jennemen, an eccentric woman in her 60s with yellow hair and a habit of talking a person’s ear off, given even the tiniest opening. Her property had two cabins in the back that used to be rented out to vacationers. One of them was currently rented long-term to George Iseroth. The carrier had never seen the man whose mailbox sat next to Jennemen’s at the side of the road.

Nash opted to talk to the property owner first. If she lived up to her description, he might get all the information he needed without even talking to Mr. Iseroth and unnecessarily alerting him. She answered the door at his first knock. Her brassy, yellow hair had gray roots nearly an inch long, and her floral-patterned dress hung to within a few inches of her red and white Nikes.

“What?”

Her abrupt welcome hardly seemed like that of a woman who loved to talk. “Mrs. Jennemen, my name is Adam Nashlund.” He pulled out his PI creds, glad he’d kept them up despite their non-use. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

She wore a faded, black cord around her neck holding a pair of reading glasses. After perching them on her beak-like nose, she studied the card. “I guess this will get you in the door.” She stood aside to let him enter.

He walked into an aged kitchen outfitted with harvest gold appliances and wrinkled wallpaper. It was open to a living area decorated in heavy Mediterranean-style furniture from the seventies. Although shag carpeting had made a comeback, the shabby, gold floor covering didn’t look like it could be part of the new wave in home decor.

He turned down her offer of coffee and took a seat in the living room. “I’d like to talk to you about your renter, George Iseroth.”

She screwed up her face. “Him? Don’t know what you’d want with him, he never goes anywhere, an’ never does nothin’ but sit in that cottage and watch the TV.”

Nash remembered Iseroth was in his fifties, rather young to be incapacitated, but who knew? “Is he handicapped?”

She chuckled, her heavy bosom bobbing. “Only in the head.”

“Is Mr. Iseroth mentally challenged?” Nash asked, satisfied he’d remembered the politically correct term.

She waved a meaty hand. “Nah, just weird. Only goes out once a week. The bus that picks up the old folks from the rest home and takes ‘em out shopping, picks him up, too. Don’t know how he managed that.”

“So he doesn’t own a car?”

“Uh-uh. He lives on some sort of assistance; don’t ask me what kind. Walks with a limp, but that’s his only problem I can see. The man doesn’t work, and us taxpayers are supporting him.”

Nash had more important things on his mind than Iseroth’s subsistence. “How long has he lived here?”

“About three years. Pays on time and lives quiet. Good renter.”

Three years would coincide with his latest release from incarceration. Nash wondered if Jennemen was aware of it and decided against bringing it up unless he had to. “Does he have many visitors?”

“None that I’ve seen. What do you want to know about him for?”

“His name came up in an investigation. Nothing to worry about, he’s not in any trouble.” Nash wondered if he even needed to talk to the guy if he didn’t own a car and never left the house. “What about your other cottage? Do you rent it out?”

“Nah. It needed too much work, so I shut it up. And the septic’s old. If I do too much remodeling, the county will make me put in a new one. Costs an arm and a leg.”

If the second cottage was empty . . .

“Mrs. Jennemen, does Mr. Iseroth use the other cottage for storage?”

“No way. He doesn’t pay me enough as it is. I keep it locked up tighter’n a drum.”

“Do you check on it now and then?”

“I check on both my places regular-like.”

Nash could picture her dropping into Iseroth’s place every week after the bus picked him up. “So you’d know if anything funny was going on?”

She twisted her mouth to the side. “An owner has to be sure a renter is keeping up the place, doesn’t she?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Keeps the place neat as a pin, if you must know.”

“Does he own a computer?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“And do you own one?” He hadn’t seen one when he’d walked in, but there were two bedrooms and the door to one of them was closed.

She laughed. “Me? No way. We had one when the mister was alive. Until I caught him looking at naked ladies on the damn thing. The next time he left for work I took it out and threw it in the landfill.”

Nash nodded agreeably, but thought that without a computer and married to Viva, the poor guy must have passed shortly after.

It wouldn’t be impossible for Iseroth to have a computer. Jennemen had a large TV set in the living room. There’d have to be a cable hookup of some kind, since Nash hadn’t seen a dish on the property. They’d have to check utility records. Nash stood. “Thank you for talking to me. I’d better drop in on Mr. Iseroth now.”

She walked him to the door. “He hasn’t done nothin’ has he? I’m all alone here. Winters we’re the only ones left on this end of the lake.”

He said wryly, “I’m sure you’re safe, Mrs. Jennemen.” He didn’t add that she was too old by many decades to be of interest to Iseroth, whose preferences involved babies.

The back of Iseroth’s cottage sat only a few feet from the lake, which by today’s tougher DNR regulations, wouldn’t be approved. Nash never had understood the endless “grandfathering in” process of things that didn’t meet code.

He tapped on the door and practically had to stick his foot inside to keep it from being slammed in his face. Iseroth muttered a quick “Go away!” as soon as he saw Nash standing on the stoop.

“I’m not a cop. I just want to ask you a few questions.”

Iseroth opened the door only enough to see the card Nash held out. “Ask.”

“Can I come in to talk to you? Kind of cold out here.”

“No.”

It probably didn’t matter. If he’d had any signs of a baby around, Jennemen would have commented on it. The cottage was much too small for anything to remain hidden. Nash figured he could see at least half of the place from where he stood once Iseroth opened the door. Nothing looked remotely suspicious.

“Mr. Iseroth, I’m working for Gray Glausson. I’m trying to locate his niece. She disappeared after the Glausson home invasion in Eau Claire.” The guy had to have heard about if he was a TV addict.

“Fuck you!” Iseroth slammed the door. Nash heard a bolt snap into place behind it.

Nash walked back to his car. Some cop habits never die; he added a few notes on Iseroth to those he’d collected while talking to Jennemen. Reading them back, he wondered if he’d missed anything. He made a note to look into Iseroth’s finances and do a background on Jennemen. Short that, the only other thing to do would be to come back on Monday while the guy was on his weekly, golden-agers bus excursion.

Back on the highway, the wind had picked up, the sky dark and threatening as the first of the snow began to whiten the asphalt. He thought about Kendall and Gray flying back from Milwaukee in a small plane and made a quick Sign of the Cross.