Relative Malice Read online

  Ruby, who looked enough like Chelsea Glausson to be related, nodded, a cloud of strawberry-blonde curls bobbing with the movement of her head. “Sure, I’ll drive you.” They walked to her car, a rusty old K-car, a model Kendall didn’t remember seeing since the nineties. Watching them from a distance, she realized Ruby’s resemblance to Mrs. Glausson was mostly due to the hair. An attractive girl, but her edges were sharp, nothing light or perky about her. Kendall made a mental note to question her; she might have known Sienna.

  The cat complained when Kendall slid into the driver’s seat. “Quit your bitching, cat. Things could be a lot worse; you could have gone home with my partner.”

  The cat began howling as the Highlander picked up speed, the force of the feline cries amazing Kendall with their sonorous volume. By the time she reached the station the howls had become infrequent, diminishing to a low, pathetic mewing.

  “You must be running out of steam. Hope that’s not catching.” Kendall stepped out of the car. The animal would have to wait it out until she made arrangements for its board.

  She found Jeremy Dahlgren in an interview room. When he accepted her offer of a soda, she took advantage of the time alone to take out her phone as she walked to the break room. There were at least five calls from her father. The man didn’t know when to quit. A retired cop, he still had an ear to the force’s grapevine. Since he’d found out about his daughter’s living situation, he hadn’t let up on insisting that she move in with him and his brother Al. The two men had been sharing her father’s bi-level since her mother left more than four years ago.

  Kendall entered the break room and punched in her father’s number.

  “Kenny, I saw you on the news.”

  “Dad, listen—we’ll talk later. I have to ask you a favor. Will you keep a cat for me for a few days?”

  “A cat? You don’t even have a place to stay and you got a cat?”

  “I didn’t get a freaking cat, Dad.”

  He wouldn’t stop talking at her, and Kendall had no time to assuage her father’s concerns about her personal life. He should know how busy she’d be after a multiple homicide. The clock was ticking on the investigation. She might have to cut him off, find some other way to deal with the animal.

  Finally, his relentless dialogue ended. “Oh. It’s the family’s cat.”

  “Right. You’ll need to pick up cat food and a litter box.” When he hesitated, she said, “I can’t talk now. You want to help me out? Pick up the damn cat.”

  Kendall returned to find Jeremy Dahlgren with his elbows on the table, his head in his hands. She passed him a can of soda and sat across from him. “I’m sorry about Sienna, Jeremy. And her family.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Can you tell me where you were last night?”

  He jerked up straight in the chair. “You don’t think I did it?”

  “Relax. It’s a formality, but we have to eliminate you as a suspect. Then we can move on and find out who did this. Right now everyone’s considered a person of interest.”

  “I was with my study group until about ten. Some of us went out when we were done and had something to eat. I think I got home about midnight. My folks were still up, you can ask them.”

  She passed him a pad of lined paper. “I’ll need the names and phone numbers of your friends. And your parents.”

  While he wrote, she asked, “Tell me about Sienna. Did she have any enemies, anyone she was having a problem with?”

  He stopped writing. “This wasn’t just about her, was it? Her whole family was murdered.”

  “Part of finding out who murdered the family is determining whether this was done by someone who had a problem with the Glaussons or even with a single family member. We need to know as much as possible about all of them.” Kendall didn’t mention the infant. They were keeping a lid on the baby situation, at least until they got the results of the analysis on the blood drops found in the baby’s room. For now, there was no reason to let it be known the baby could still be alive.

  “So, you’ve been dating Sienna for how long?” Kendall asked,.

  “About a year and a half, two years.”

  “Is your relationship an exclusive one?”

  Jeremy finished his list and passed it over to Kendall. “Yeah. For about a year now. Sienna didn’t have any enemies. Everyone liked her. Her family kind of kept to themselves, you know? I don’t know why anyone would have anything against them.”

  “Sienna was an extremely attractive girl. Maybe someone was jealous of her, or another guy resented that she only dated you—“

  He stopped her. “No, there was nothing like that. She would have told me about it.”

  “How about girlfriends? Anyone she was close to?”

  “Sienna had lots of friends. Probably Jennifer and Katelyn were the ones she spent the most time with.”

  Kendall turned the paper around and had him add the names of Sienna’s friends and how to contact them. “Did the family have any relatives you know of?”

  “Not that I heard about. And I never met any.”

  “What about the rest of the family? Are you aware of any problems?”

  “No. I told you, they were all nice people.”

  Kendall remembered the cat. It might not be too late to intercept her father. “Would you like to take Sienna’s cat?”

  Jeremy’s eyes filled with tears. “I can’t; I’m allergic to cats. Will he be all right?”

  “Don’t worry. If we have to, we’ll find a home for him.”

  Kendall passed him one of her cards. “I’ll have to talk to you again, Jeremy. If you think of anything before then, call me. Sometimes what seems like an unimportant detail could be vital information.” As he rose to leave, she asked, “Will you send Ruby in now?”

  Ruby Rindsig, her wild curls tamed with an elastic band, took the chair Jeremy vacated. She sat primly, her buttocks nearly on the edge of the seat.

  “Why do you want to talk to me?”

  Defensive, are we? “Were you with Jeremy’s study group last night?” A question Kendall already knew the answer to; her name had been on Jeremy’s list.

  “I was. We were at one of the guys’ apartment until about ten.”

  “Did Jeremy leave at the same time you did?”

  Ruby wrinkled her patrician nose. “You don’t think Jeremy could have done this, do you? He loved Sienna. He was like—part of their family.”

  “Please. Just answer the question.”

  “Yes, Jeremy was with us. Five of us went out for a pizza at the Pizza Hut over by the university. We were all there until close to eleven.”

  “Did you know the Glaussons, Ruby?”

  “I knew Sienna from school, but not real well. She was a year behind me.”

  Kendall explained once more how important it was for them to rule out the possibility that the murders were personal. “Is there anything you can think of that might explain their deaths?”

  “No. Like I said, I didn’t really know them.”

  Kendall concluded the interview. She didn’t care for Ruby Rindsig. Dahlgren might not be aware of it yet, but she had a feeling the girl wanted to take Sienna’s place with him. In Kendall’s opinion, a woman who moved in on a man right after his girlfriend was murdered couldn’t be trusted.

  Whitehouse motioned Kendall to his desk as she came out of the interview room. “Get anything?”

  “No. He seems like a good kid. The girl not so much, but she didn’t really know the family. She went to the same school as Sienna, but said she didn’t know her.”

  Whitehouse reached in a pocket and frowned at the empty candy wrapper in his hand. “I talked to Mark Glausson’s brother, Graham. He’ll be in tomorrow. Said he and his brother have been ‘on bad terms’ for some time. Wonder what that’s all about. He’s a bigwig at one of the paper mills, lives on Lake Wissota. He didn’t seem too concerned about his brother, but sounded pretty broken up when I told him about the rest of the family. When he comes in, we’ll take him to make the formal IDs; then we can interview him.”

  Thinking about the ID process sent a shiver up Kendall’s spine. Definitely not something she looked forward to, but she’d have Whitehouse with her.

  “No other relatives?”

  “None. The brother said their folks passed about six years ago. Glausson’s wife grew up in the system—parents killed in a car accident when she was six.”

  “Any close friends?”

  Hank referred to a rumpled notebook. “Yeah, got one name. Betty Ruffalo. A neighbor said she was tight with Mrs. Glausson. Ruffalo runs a pizza joint called Emilio’s on the north side of town. She sounded pretty shaken up. She couldn’t leave yet because one of the employees called in sick tonight. She’ll be free about eleven when things slow down at the restaurant. I told her I’d send you over.”

  At the words “pizza joint,” Kendall’s mouth watered. She’d had nothing but coffee all day. She didn’t ask why her partner wouldn’t be accompanying her; it had been a long day, and she’d welcome some time alone. “Sure. I’ll stop over there when I leave.”

  “Monson and Burnham were over at St. Luke’s talking to some coworkers of Doctor Glausson. They did an inventory on his floor—no drugs missing and no incidents of missing pharm since Glausson started. Hopefully, that eliminates the doctor/drug angle. Far as the hospital goes, anyway. Everyone liked him, no obvious grudges, yada, yada. Looking more like a random hit.”

  “How about a disgruntled patient?”

  “No hint o
f that so far, but they’ll be going back to the hospital tomorrow to question the day crew.”

  “Any word from the field?”

  “They’re still searching all the areas around the house. Nothing so far and nada from the neighbors. The houses are all pretty far apart in that subdivision, and everyone minds their own business.” Whitehouse rubbed his eyes. “I’m gonna take off pretty soon. Not much more we can do tonight.”

  What was Whitehouse thinking? A case like this could keep them going all night. It wasn’t like him to ditch a case, but he’d been openly unenthusiastic about this one. Kendall’s mind crawled with copious lists of things that still needed to be done. For starters, they would have to interview Chelsea Glausson’s coworkers, even though she worked from home. There was an FBI agent who kept calling, someone would have to talk to him, and they needed to have a group meeting. “Before you leave, we should probably get everyone together, go over what we have so far and give out assignments for tomorrow.”

  “I’ve already set it up. Tomorrow morning, eight o’clock.”

  It irritated Kendall she hadn’t been consulted before he set the meeting. The others assigned to the case would want to hear from them tonight. She realized there was nothing stopping her from interacting with them herself—have a pre-meeting, which could get things organized for the next day. But Kendall would have plenty to do to fill in the time until she went to talk to Chelsea Glausson’s friend.

  Ed Lipske called over to her. “Hey, Kenny. Someone’s looking for you.”

  Her father stood at the front desk, dressed like he had a date. He usually did. Ignoring a barrage of his questions, she hurried him out to her car and handed him the cat carrier. “He’s all yours.”

  “It’s a boy?”

  “What? I don’t know what it is. I felt sorry for it, okay? Poor creature, his whole family’s dead.”

  “Kenny, I’ll take care of the cat. But what about you? You can’t stay at that Bates Motel forever.”

  “It isn’t a Bates Motel, Dad. The place is clean and the owners are fine. It’s temporary. I’ll figure things out.”

  “I told you not to move in with that dyke.”

  “That’s enough, Dad. I’m an adult. Who I live with or don’t live with is none of your business. I don’t have time for this.” She turned to go back into the station.

  “Kenny, wait. Al knows this guy, Morrie Wychen. He owns a bar near and has some apartments upstairs. One of them is empty. He’d love to have a cop living in the place.” He held out a piece of paper. “Here’s the address. At least give it a look-see.”

  She took the note, glancing at the address and the name of the bar. Catering to the over-sixty crowd, The Rat Pak was an old-fashioned tavern featuring an antique jukebox that cranked out the music of Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Tony Bennett and other crooners of the ‘40s and ‘50s. Not the kind of place the police got called in to break up bar fights; the clients didn’t have the strength or the energy.

  She gritted her teeth. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll check it out.”

  3

  After leaving her father, Kendall started putting all the information from the case on a whiteboard. Since she couldn’t very well do an end-run around Whitehouse’s plan to put off a meeting until the next day, she talked to the other officers and added everything they had accumulated. It wasn’t much, but it would keep things organized and would look like progress to the lieutenant.

  When her phone rang, she saw the call was from her uncle. She opened it, certain more pressure to move into the apartment above The Rat Pak was imminent.

  “Kenny, I know your dad told you about the apartment. Listen, Morrie is a good guy, and he’s real fussy about who he rents to. A cop living there would be cheaper than an alarm system for him. I think he’d give you a break on the rent.”

  She acquiesced. “I’ll take a look at it when I have a chance.”

  “Your Dad and I are going to our Sons of Norway meeting tonight. We can stop in there when we get done. Maybe I’ll see you there later?”

  “Don’t plan on it. I have to talk to a witness at eleven.”

  “Morrie said he’d be around till closing.”

  “All right. I’ll stop in if I’m done before then.”

  Kendall closed the phone and saw Gene Tarkowski, an FBI agent out of Milwaukee who covered northwestern Wisconsin, walking toward her. Would the FBI try to muscle in on them?

  “Hi, Kendall. Whitehouse around?”

  Kenny wondered how long it would be before she’d be respected as half of an equal partnership. “No, he left for the night.”

  The agent walked over to the board she’d filled in. He studied it for a minute. “Don’t have much, do you?”

  “It’s a start. Nothing links the crime to anything personal with the family yet.” She resisted asking him the purpose of his visit.

  Tarkowski’s bushy, gray-threaded eyebrows met over narrowed eyes. “What do you think?”

  Asking her opinion. That was a start. “My gut says personal, but I couldn’t give you a concrete reason why. The girl, I suppose. The perps—or perp—spent a lot of time on her. It was ugly, with a lot of damage done to her face. She appeared to have been fiercely raped in every possible orifice.”

  He studied the photos of Sienna. “Without anything else to go on, I’d have to agree with you. Have you looked into similar invasions?”

  “We’re short-staffed—haven’t had a chance. The chief called a couple guys back in from vacation—deer hunters. They’ll be here in the morning, kicking and screaming.”

  Tarkowski chuckled. “We’re in Wisconsin and it is November, isn’t it?” He took a seat in the chair next to Kendall’s desk. “There were some break-ins over the past twelve months or so that are similar to this one. The first was in Green Bay, the other one happened over in Stillwater last March. We got involved on the second one because it crossed the state line. I wasn’t on the case, so I don’t know any details off the top of my head.”

  “I remember those. Were they the same doers?”

  “There’s a possibility the Green Bay attack was drug related. There were never any strong leads on either one, but there were similarities. The same gun was used in both of them, which makes it pretty certain there’s a connection.

  “I’m on my way up to the casino in Hayward to take some statements on an illegal gambling situation. I’ll see what I can get for you on the other invasions and stop back in tomorrow on my way home.”

  The attitude among most of Kendall’s coworkers was not positive when it came to the FBI wedging themselves into one of their cases. But considering her partner’s abrupt dismissal of the case, Kendall figured they’d need any help they could get. She’d never heard anything negative about Tarkowski himself.

  She watched him walk out, his stride long and purposeful, his reddish hair graying, his tall body still fit. Although younger than Whitehouse, probably in his early fifties, Tarkowski was just as close to retirement.

  Kendall noticed the lieutenant moving in her direction; she thought he’d left for the night. Things just kept getting better and better.

  Lieutenant Ray Schoenfuss ushered Kendall into his office and shut the door behind them. He faced her without taking a chair or offering her one. “Kendall, Hank just had a heart attack.”

  “What?” That was the last thing she’d been expecting.

  “Diane just called me. He’s going to be okay, but they’re doing a bypass on him tomorrow.”

  Kendall felt shallow realizing she wanted to ask Schoenfuss how Hank being gone would affect her. “That explains why he was in such a hurry to leave; he wasn’t feeling well. I’ll go see him. Which hospital is he in?”

  “Diane said they didn’t want him to have visitors tonight. Not until after the surgery.”

  Kendall didn’t know what to say. Was he going to make her ask him what he planned to do about Hank’s absence from the case? “We have a meeting set for tomorrow morning. I have everything outlined on the whiteboard, and I’m going to interview a friend of Chelsea Glausson’s tonight.”