Very Bad Men (10 page)

I broke in then. “Why the change?”

Delacorte looked me over as if he had forgotten I was there. It was a cool, efficient look, intended to remind me that I was out of place: a civilian sitting in on a meeting where technically I didn't belong. Delacorte had allowed me to be here as a courtesy to Elizabeth.

He smiled briefly to let me know he would indulge me by answering my question.

“Mr. Loogan,” he said, “if I understood why women do the things they do, I'd have a better job than the one I've got. If I had to guess, I'd say Madelyn told the truth the first time. But once she thought about how much trouble Scudder was in, she decided to cover for him.”

“What about witnesses?” Elizabeth asked him.

“Charlie Dawtrey lived alone in a cabin in the woods. No close neighbors. No one heard or saw anything.”

“Murder weapon?”

“We didn't find it at the scene. Coroner said it was probably a metal pipe or a tire iron.” Delacorte's lips made another brief smile and he laid his hand atop the manuscript. “I know how much that pleases you, since it matches what's written here. But I have to tell you that our coroner likes to talk to the press. Whoever wrote this could have gotten the tire iron idea from the newspaper.”

“And I imagine you're going to tell me Kyle Scudder owned a tire iron.”

The smile came back, and this time it held a hint of self-satisfaction.

“Everyone owns a tire iron, right? We got a search warrant for his truck and his house. Funny thing is, we didn't find a tire iron. He says he had one, but he lost it. The story is, he stopped to help a lady with a flat a few weeks ago. He thinks he might have tossed it in her trunk by mistake. He never got the lady's name, of course.”

“You think he's lying,” Elizabeth said.

“I think he had time to dispose of the tire iron. Charlie Dawtrey's body wasn't found until late the next day. His son went over to see him. Madelyn's boy—Nick. Rode his bike over. They were supposed to go fishing.”

Elizabeth leaned forward and I watched her in profile. She gazed at Delacorte as if she were trying to read his thoughts.

Finally she said, “You're not worried that you're making a mistake—that Kyle Scudder might be innocent?”

“I just don't see it,” Delacorte said. “But it's really not my call. I've turned everything over to the county prosecutor. I'll pass your story along to him, but he believes we've got a solid case.”

Elizabeth drew a long breath and I could tell she had decided to let the matter rest.

“Let's talk about Terry Dawtrey,” she said.

Delacorte nodded his consent.

“He was serving a thirty-year sentence,” Elizabeth said. “Does it seem strange to you that they would let him out, even for a few hours?”

“The warden at Kinross made that decision, but I can't say it surprises me. A man's father dies, you try to make allowances.”

“But Dawtrey was a high-profile prisoner. He went away for shooting Harlan Spencer, and now Callie Spencer's running for the Senate.”

Delacorte sipped coffee before he answered. “The way I heard it, the warden ran the idea past Harlan Spencer, and he didn't object. That doesn't surprise me either. I used to work for Harlan, when he was sheriff. I couldn't say if he's forgiven Dawtrey, but I know he's made his peace with what happened.”

“Two of your deputies picked up Terry Dawtrey down at Kinross and drove him to the church, and to the cemetery.”

“That's standard procedure. I assigned Sam Tillman and Paul Rhiner to handle Dawtrey. They had escorted prisoners before—without incident.”

“What went wrong this time?”

The sheriff looked around the diner, and I thought he meant to summon the waitress for more coffee, but he was making sure no one was close enough to overhear.

“This is between us,” he said.

“Of course,” said Elizabeth.

“Tillman and Rhiner are suspended right now, and the whole thing is under review. What I tell you can't go any further.”

“I understand,” she said.

He gave me a warning look and I gave it right back to him. I think he decided I was harmless.

“The fact is, they screwed up,” he said. “Terry Dawtrey behaved himself at the church service. When they got to the cemetery, Tillman and Rhiner let down their guard a little. They should have stayed right at Dawtrey's side the whole time, but they didn't. Tillman is a member of the congregation at Saint Joseph's. He stopped to chat with the priest at the graveside. Rhiner let Dawtrey wander off. Dawtrey told him he wanted to visit his grandmother's grave. Rhiner followed him, but at a distance. They had Dawtrey in shackles. Where was he going to go?”

“But Dawtrey managed to free himself from the shackles,” said Elizabeth.

“He had help. Someone left a vase of roses in front of his grandmother's headstone, with a handcuff key in the grass beside it.”

I pointed to the manuscript. “That detail is in here.”

“It was in the newspaper too,” said Delacorte. “We're not sure where the key came from. Access to handcuff keys is supposed to be restricted, but I've seen them for sale on eBay.” For my benefit he added, “Handcuff locks are pretty much universal. They all open with the same kind of key.”

The waitress came around again with coffee, and Delacorte did his thing with the cream and sugar.

“What about the roses?” I asked him. “Did you try to trace them?”

“A rose is a rose. We couldn't tie them to a particular shop. No prints on the vase.”

He raised his brows as if inviting me to ask him something else. When I didn't, he turned back to Elizabeth and continued where he had left off.

“Once Dawtrey had the shackles off, he made a run for the cemetery fence. Rhiner ordered him to stop. Dawtrey climbed the fence and would have gotten away if Rhiner hadn't shot him. Someone had left a car for him on the other side of the cemetery hill. An old Camaro that belonged to a kid who delivered pizzas. It'd been stolen the night before. The kid left it running outside an apartment building while he made a delivery, and when he came out it was gone.”

“Any leads on who stole the car?” Elizabeth asked.

“No one saw anything, naturally,” said Delacorte. “And the car had been wiped clean of prints. We found the keys above the visor, some cash in the glove box, and a change of clothes and shoes in the trunk.”

“That's some reasonably sophisticated planning,” she said.

“Yup. And then there was the diversion. Two boys on bikes who set off fireworks in the cemetery parking lot. They drew attention away from Dawtrey at just the right moment, so he could unlock the cuffs.”

“You haven't been able to identify them?”

He hesitated, looking down into his coffee cup. “You need to understand the situation. My deputies had their hands full. Rhiner hated having to shoot Dawtrey. After he'd done it, he climbed over the fence and tried to perform CPR. Tillman had a crowd of mourners to deal with. He got on the radio and called for backup. Neither of them had time to chase after a pair of teenagers on bikes.”

“And none of the mourners could help you identify these kids?”

Delacorte looked up from his coffee and sighed.

“I don't know how to say this without offending you, Detective Waishkey.”

“Just go ahead and say it.”

“We've got a bay near here called Waishkey. It's named after a Chippewa chief. Are you part Chippewa, Detective?”

“Waishkey is my ex-husband's name.”

“That's not an answer to my question,” Delacorte said, “but I don't mind. Charlie Dawtrey was half Chippewa. His son Terry was a quarter. I'd wager that everyone at the funeral had some Chippewa blood. I deal with Chippewa people all the time, and most days they're as cooperative as anybody else. But in this case a white deputy shot a Chippewa man—never mind that he was a prisoner trying to escape. That makes people angry. And then the sheriff comes to them asking for help tracking down a couple of Chippewa kids? Nobody at that cemetery was willing to tell me anything.”

“So no one told you they saw a man with a rifle on the hill?”

“No.”

“And no one said they heard an extra shot, apart from the one Rhiner fired at Dawtrey?”

The sheriff's face took on a pained expression. “You ask around, you'll hear all kinds of talk about extra shots. Some people confused the sound of the fireworks for the sound of gunfire, and some people would just like to stir up trouble. There are rumors that Rhiner emptied his clip into Dawtrey. But I can tell you there was only one shot fired that day.”

“So neither of your deputies heard a second shot?” Elizabeth said. “It might have sounded like an echo.” She gestured toward the manuscript. “According to this, the man with the rifle pulled his trigger just as he heard the sound of Rhiner's shot.”

“That cemetery is surrounded by hills on three sides. Anybody who thinks they heard an echo probably did.” Delacorte patted the table with his open palm—a sign to let us know he was ready to wrap things up. “We could go back and forth about this, but I've got business to attend to and you've got better things to do with your time.”

He reached for his wallet and started counting out bills. I did the same. The waitress had left the tab midway between us.

“Long as you're here,” Delacorte said, “you owe it to yourselves to see the Soo Locks. Busiest locks in the world: ten thousand ships go through every year. And if you get a chance to cross over to the Canadian side, I recommend the train tour through the Agawa Canyon. Can't beat the scenery.”

He slid out of the booth and got to his feet.

“Far as this other thing goes, it's like I said. There's no question about what happened to Terry Dawtrey. He tried to run and he got shot. Your man on the hill and his rifle—I don't need them. I can make sense of what happened without them. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the true one. There wasn't any man on the hill.”

O
utside the diner Walter Delacorte slipped on his sunglasses and walked us back to our car. The last we saw of him he was strolling along Court Street. As soon as we got in the car Elizabeth said two words. “Rod Steiger.”

It took me a second, but I understood.
“In the Heat of the Night,”
I said.

“He played the chief of police. That's who Delacorte reminds me of. Rod Steiger, only with more charm and less integrity.”

She started the car and pulled out into the street.

“He reminds me of William of Occam,” I said.

“What was he in?”

“The Middle Ages. He was an English philosopher.”

After the briefest pause, she said, “Occam's razor.”

I nodded. “Occam's razor. You should never multiply entities beyond necessity. So if you can explain what happened without positing a rifleman on the hill—”

“—then there was no rifleman.”

“Exactly. Sheriff Delacorte just gave us a lecture on metaphysics.”

“Then I guess our trip to Sault Sainte Marie wasn't entirely wasted.”

“I think we've still got time to see the locks.”

She lowered the driver's window and the wind caught her hair.

“I hate to disappoint you, David. But I don't think we're going to make it to the locks.”

WE SPENT THE NEXT hour and a half taking in the sights of Sault Sainte Marie. Our first stop: the office of Arthur Sutherland, Kyle Scudder's attorney. Elizabeth gave Sutherland a composite sketch of the man in plaid and a copy of the manuscript describing Charlie Dawtrey's death. And though he interrupted her five or six times—because his phone kept ringing and he kept answering it—by the end of the meeting she had convinced him that he might actually have an innocent client on his hands.

Next we drove by Deputy Rhiner's house, a tidy place with a granite birdbath in the front yard. There was a Buick parked in the driveway beneath a walnut tree, but no one answered to our knock. Elizabeth left her card in the mailbox beside the front door.

We had about the same luck with Deputy Tillman, who lived in a woodframe house on the west side of town, between the interstate and the railroad tracks. A dog barked at us from the side yard as we climbed onto the porch. The woman who came to the door looked frazzled. She had a baby on her hip and a toddler clutching the hem of her skirt. Both were girls, both had ribbons in their hair. Looking past them, we could see a third girl inside, maybe around six. She was running in circles and singing along with a song from a CD of children's music.