Dearly Departed

“Screw you, Taylor.”

“God, I’m loving this, A

“It’s not over yet. Teeters said that Irene Brown confessed that she followed Alison home the evening she disappeared. Brown said she was going to give Alison a piece of her mind.”

“Does she have any to spare?”

“She said Alison met her at the front door with a small gun in her hand. She said Alison told her to leave, and that’s what she did. Brown insists Alison was alive when she left.”

“Well, she would, wouldn’t she?” I told A

“Brown claims that she didn’t tell the police because she was afraid they would accuse her of killing Alison.”

“Did she admit to making the harassing telephone calls?”

“Yes, and the flowers and dead cat, too. She also claims that Raymond Fleck had nothing to do with any of it.”

“I wonder.”

“Yeah, I do, too. Is she still protecting Raymond?”

“The ru

“Teeters said that Brown insists they were hers, that they fit her better than women’s shoes.”

“Why did she keep them all this time?”

“She said she had no reason not to. She said she never imagined that she left a print.”

“Unbelievable. What does Teeters say?”

“Teeters is ecstatic. He’s so happy, he’s actually speaking in complete sentences. He figures this will get the media off his back.”

“Now the big one: What does the Dakota County attorney say?”

“I’m getting this all secondhand, you have to remember. The way I hear it, Dakota County is impounding Brown’s car and having forensics conduct a search. If they find any blood, any hair samples, any physical evidence at all that puts Alison in the car or in any area where the suspect had access, the CA will go for a murder indictment even if he can’t establish corpus delicti. If not, I don’t know. Without Alison’s body, without corroborative physical evidence, he’ll have a helluva time proving that a homicide was even committed. The defense could argue that Alison decided to become a blackjack dealer in Vegas—”

Or take a trip to Bermuda, my i

“—and you know juries; they like to see a dead body in a murder case.”

“Still, if he pushes it, Brown might cop a plea, go for manslaughter,” I suggested.

“Depends on her attorney.”

“Or Fleck might open up.”

“Yeah.”

“Let me know?”

A

“A

“Yeah, well, you did a nice job.”

“Thanks, A

“Probably, but you’re the one who nudged her, not us. Make it eleven-thirty?”

“See you then.”

I turned off the phone, collapsed the ante

“All right, I’m waiting,” she said.

“Waiting?”

“For the self-congratulations.”

“Cynthia, you wound me.”

“Uh-huh.”

I locked my fingers behind my head and leaned back. She continued to watch me, continued to smile.

“The other day you asked why men enjoy sports,” I reminded her. “It’s for the same reason I enjoyed being a cop, the same reason I like being a private investigator now. Yeah, there’s plenty of greed and fraud and ignorance and stupidity and corruption, and sometimes you wonder why you’re wasting your time. But if you stay with it, occasionally you’ll be rewarded with moments of pure joy, like when Kirby Puckett hit a home run to win the sixth game of the 1991 World Series or when Black Jack Morris pitched a ten-i

“Or when Holland Taylor solved a seven-month-old murder before lunch,” she added.

I gri

nine

I was late to my office the next morning. It was such a beautiful day, I stopped at the University of Mi

“It is un-ac-cept-able,” the operator told me, sounding a bit like A

Gulp.

I tried to explain to the woman that it wasn’t I who had called four times between eight and nine A.M., making angry references to various parts of the operator’s anatomy when I wasn’t there to answer the phone. However, she didn’t see it that way, and I was forced to promise that I would “speak” with Mr. Truman. Either that or dig my old answering machine out of the closet.

But first I fortified myself with a cup of Blue Mountain Jamaican coffee—I grind my own beans—and sorted through my mail. Except for a large brown envelope from Publishers Clearing House, nothing excited me. I turned my attention to my newspapers. I get both the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Mi

I was studying the stats of today’s probable pitchers when the phone rang. I let it ring six times before I answered, knowing it was Hunter Truman.

“What the fuck is going on?” he wanted to know.

“Pertaining to what?”

“Goddammit, ain’t you working for me? I gotta get my news from the fucking radio, from some greaseball on TV?”

“Are you referring to Irene Brown?”

“What the hell you think I’m referring to? Jesus, Taylor.”

“If you’d shut up for a few minutes, I’ll explain.”

“Goddamn, Taylor—”

“Shut up Truman. Will ya?”

I told him all about Irene Brown, about how I spooked her into tossing the shoes, about what the Dakota County folks were going to do next. Truman surprised me by not uttering a syllable until I was finished.

“What do you think?” he asked at last.

“You asked me for my best guess. Well, my best guess is that Irene Brown is guilty of murder. Only I doubt Dakota County can make the charge stick even if forensics does discover corroborating evidence. Without a body, a good defense attorney should be able to clobber the county attorney. Hell, Truman, even you could win this one.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” he agreed. After a long pause, he asked, “Is that it?”

“That’s it. I’ll send you a bill.”

“You’re not looking into it anymore?”

“You wanted my best guess. Well, you have it. There’s nothing more that I can do.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m having lunch today at W. A. Frost with someone involved in the case. If I hear anything new, I’ll give you a call.”

“Fine,” he said and hung up.

“Yeah, pleasure doing business with you, too, Truman,” I told the dead receiver.

“I should warn you before you order that I’m not buying after all,” A