Chapter 9

Outside, a car door slammed. Greta rose and went to the front door. She opened it and I heard her ask, “Are you Mister Ostrowski?”

He must have responded in the affirmative, because I then heard her introducing herself and inviting him in.

By that time, I had the coffee steeping and had set the timer, so I went to the door, arriving just as the lawyer reached it.

Ostrowski looked to be about forty-five, of average height, though noticeably rotund, with a pale complexion, and a bald pate surrounded by short, curly hair. We shook hands and his was a bit damp, though with a firm grip. He was carrying a black briefcase, one that opened at the top.

“Please, come in,” I added mine to Greta’s invitation. “We’re having coffee and doughnuts. We saved you a couple.”

“Great, I didn’t even stop for coffee.” He seemed personable and unpretentious.

At the table, I introduced him to Tate and Turner. About Tate, I said, “The Sheriff is here as a family friend.’ Ostrowski shook hands with each, then said to me, “We need to talk in private.”

“We can use my office, downstairs.” The kitchen timer went off and I said, “Let me get the coffee, and I’ll pour you a cup. There’re your doughnuts, if you want some.” I pointed to the glazed and cinnamon doughnuts on the plate. I added, “Just don’t move the plate too close to the Sheriff.” I went to tend to the coffee.

He said, “We need to talk, before anything else.”

I grabbed a lidded travel mug from the cupboard and returned to the table. I handed him the travel mug and said, “Here, use this. There’s sugar and half-and-half there on the table.” I picked up my own mug and the plate with the doughnuts, and told him, “Just come down the stairs, when you’re set.”

I went down to my office which, besides the requisite desk and comfortable wheeled office chair, had a four drawer file cabinet and a couch of the fold-out bed variety, with a lamp on a table at one end. The walls were painted a dark cream, except the wall with the window, which was a dark brown, more toward gray than red. The window was covered in an insulating blackout shade. I set the plate with the doughnuts on the table next to the couch, then stood waiting.

Ostrowski came in a few seconds later. I invited him to sit on the couch while I sat on the desk chair.

He took a sip of the coffee and, by his expression, it was still a bit too hot. He said, “First, let’s get a few of the niceties out of the way. I charge one hundred twenty-five dollars an hour, in fifteen minute increments. That means, if we sit and talk for twenty minutes, you owe me for thirty minutes, or sixty-two dollars and fifty cents. So far, this morning, you owe me...,” he looked at his watch, “ ... one hundred fifty-six dollars and twenty five cents, plus mileage, at fifty-six cents per mile.” He looked up at me.

“So we need to talk fast, then, huh?”

He smiled, but said. “Seriously? This is my livelihood. It’s not something I take lightly.”

“Of course not. So far, we can afford you.” We had about a hundred and thirty thousand in an investment account and another twenty-five thousand in a savings account, the money a result of both of our parents’ estates.

“In court, I charge two hundred fifty dollars and hour, in fifteen minute increments.”

I simply nodded.

“Do you have a business card?”

“Yes.” I pulled one from the center desk drawer and handed it to him, to find him holding out several for me. We exchanged cards and he took mine, looked at it, then handed me a form.

“This is our contract. I will require a five thousand dollar retainer to activate it. Any balance will be refunded within ten business days whenever you specify, at which time this contract ends. Print your name at the top and sign and date at the bottom. I’ll fill in the rest back at the office, or Nina will. She’s my wife and my assistant. She usually answers the phone. There are a couple other people that work for me, but don’t worry about that right now.”

The contract specified what he already told me, noted that the confidentiality that would remain in effect even after the contract was terminated, and cited some governing state laws and regulations. I filled in my name and signed it, handing it back to him.

I said, “We don’t have five thousand in our checking account, I’ll have to transfer it from savings. I’ll need to aske the bank if there would be a delay in honoring a check.”

He asked, “Can you cover a thousand dollar check?”

“Sure.”

“Do that, for now.”

I opened the drawer again to get the checkbook and wrote the check, handing it to him.

“So tell me what happened.”

And I did, mentioning everything that had happened that morning, why I was there, Greta’s affair and our resolution of it, and finally the recent attack that had put me in the hospital.

“So you think that attack is somehow connected to this murder?”

“There were two killings up around Coldwater Junction last week, and that mysterious rifle in the dumpster. They’re either connected or we’re piling up a shitload of coincidences out here in the boondocks.”

He was thoughtful for a moment, then said, with a grimace, “Well, it’s nothing we can work with right now, in any case.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s go see what the detective is going to do.”

“She knows you, from Kingston. She was on the city police and remembers you as a prosecutor.”

“What’s her name, again?”

“Turner, Lindsey Turner. She was a cop there for, I don’t remember, seven or more years. She ended up as a detective and left after divorcing an abusive husband, who was also one of their cops.”

“O-oh, yeah, I read about that. There was quite a brouhaha. The department wouldn’t take any action because there was no evidence against him. It was all he-said-she-said. There was one trip to the emergency room she cited, but, at the time, she’d said she tripped and fell or something, so ... Yeah, it was in the papers; I still keep track of what goes on in Kingston.”

He looked at his watch again. “Well, let’s go talk to her. Then I’ll need to talk to your wife, and maybe the Sheriff.”

Back in the dining room, Greta said, “Could you make more coffee. You need to get a bigger pot.”

Since the dining room was mostly visible from the kitchen over some counter-topped cabinets, I said to Ostrowski, “Go ahead. I can hear what’s going on,” and headed for the kitchen.

He said, “Detective, I understand you were on the Kingston cops when I was working for the county prosecutor over there.”

“Yeah,” Turner said, smiling. “I watched you chew up a few witnesses. So you’ve gone over to the dark side, huh?”

“I seem to recall that you hired a lawyer from the dark side when you were fighting with the department and your husband.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just the least offensive lawyer joke I know. As to the dark side, I’m a firm believer in innocent until proven guilty. Everybody has a proper and important role to play in that.”

He was nodding, “Which brings me to my next question: What are your intentions toward my client?”

“I need to question him.” She looked around, and added, “Down at the cop shop.”

“Why not here?”

“It’s not intimidating enough.”

From the kitchen, I interjected, “You might keep in mind that I’m a frequent visitor to the county jail, as part of my job. If you really want to intimidate me, you should question me at the edge of a high cliff, or maybe on a commercial radio transmission tower. Heights get me all aflutter.”

“I’ll make note of that.”

Ostrowski said, “Just to be clear, there will be no questioning of Mister Mazur if I’m not present. My client has invoked his right to an attorney and I want to emphasize that it is a Constitutional right, not just a casual routine, or something that can be circumvented with clever words or tactics. It is an absolute right.” Seeing the scowl on Turner’s face, he said, “No offence to you, Detective. That is my standard warning to protect my clients. Too many police officers think that the Bill of Rights is a challenge to their creativity rather than the law of the land.”

Though she still looked unhappy, she said. “Yeah, fine. Can we do this now?”

“Mister Mazur?”

“Sure.”

“Then let’s go ahead. But I have to be back in Plattsburg by one thirty for court.” Then he looked at Greta and Tate. “I need to talk with both of you, too. It seems unlikely they’ll be time this morning, but we’ll see. Missus Mazur, I’ll remind you that, as Gary’s wife, you can’t be made to testify against him. If the police question you, I recommend you take a lawyer with you.”

“Couldn’t you be there?”

“No, ma’am, and I’ll tell you why. As Doctor Amundsen’s paramour, you, yourself are not above suspicion in this matter.”

“What?” Greta shouted. “Me? I was asleep right up there in that bedroom until an hour ago. How could I have done it? That’s ridiculous. And why would I have wanted to? No, that’s just stupid.”

“Even so, Missus Mazur, that’s why I can’t represent you.”

“Greta,” I said, “talk to Tate about it, okay? After we leave?”

She was shaking her head, looking at the table top. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Then she looked at Turner. “You need to figure this out quick, so we can get back to our usual fucked-up lives before we’re bankrupted.”

Turner asked, “What makes your life fucked up?”

“Duh. One week my husband is nearly a murder victim and the next week he’s a murder suspect. And that guy,” she hooked a thumb toward Ostrowski, “is no doubt already planning on the Hawaiian vacation we’ll be financing.”

Ostrowski said, “Missus Mazur, let me point out that you were just questioned by a police officer and you freely volunteered information about yourself and your husband. Please don’t do that. I urge you to retain an attorney.”

“Yeah, yeah. Do you get a finder’s fee from him?”

Ostrowski said, “Are you ready, Detective?”

Another side effect of the Wall Street Recession was that the Coldwater County Sheriff and the Leaufroide Police Department ended up sharing a single headquarters building, at the site of the old jail. We were sitting in a ten-by-ten interrogation room that I had used several times to interview prisoners thought to have a mental or emotional illness. Most of them had been intoxicated, a condition that, for the most part, could mask or mimic psychological issues. The jailers soon learned that it was pointless to call me before the prisoner was sober.

The interrogation room, in the tradition of damage-resistant construction, had walls, ceiling, and floor of poured concrete. The one-way observation window was protected by a sheet of some not-quite-bulletproof polycarbonate. The steel door was painted a semi-gloss gray, the same color as the rest of the room. Add in the gray metal table and chairs and, just like the old jail and the new Detention Center, you had an echo chamber that all but demanded soft vocalizations if your sanity was to be preserved. Either that or some of those hearing-protective earmuffs.

At some point in the 1970s, acoustic tile had been affixed to the ceiling, but they had then painted it with the gloss gray paint, effectively negating the acoustic properties.

Fortunately, both Ostrowski and Turner seemed to realize the auditory limitations of the room, and my interrogation proceeded at a tempered volume.

To some degree, I was disappointed with the experience. I pretty much went over things again, as I’d done with Stan Ostrowski. But though she had questions, Turner never seemed to put the pressure on or throw any trick questions at me from left field. Or am I mixing metaphors, again?

“How long did you know Phil Amundsen?”

“Not quite four years. Well, three-and-a half. We got here in that nasty January snowstorm. Remember?”

“Other than work, did you have any contact with him?”

“Only at the annual Center picnic. But we never, like, had him over for dinner or anything like that.” Ostrowski’s elbow was pressed against mine. If he poked me, I was supposed to shut up and consult with him. So far, things had been copacetic.

“When did you find out he was having sex with your wife?”

There was a slight tremor in Ostrowski’s elbow.

“August, last year.”

“How did you discover it?”

I sighed. “I noticed that Greta seemed to be more, ah, libidinous on Thursday evenings and I started to wonder why. Eventually, I figured it out.”

“Eventually? What does that mean?”

“I am an observer of behavior, Detective. It’s my stock-in-trade in dealing with folks who have mental illnesses. They are dependably poor in self-reporting symptoms or problems in daily living, at least real problems. You have to figure things out from what’s going on, how they behave, or how they look or talk.”

I shifted in my seat, sitting up straighter, then went on.

“I realized Greta tended to be horny on Thursday evenings, or even after work on Thursdays. And since Greta is reluctant to talk about her feelings, or even admit she has them, I just started considering what went on in her weekly routine on Thursdays. The only thing that stood out was her weekly supervisory session with her boss, Phil Amundsen.

“So, with the cover story that I was trying to figure out the best ways to provide supervision to my team members, I asked a few of the substance abuse therapists what their experience of supervision was like. I came to realize that Greta’s supervisory meetings were longer and more frequent than anyone else on that team. At the same time, I knew that Greta probably was likely the one person on that team who needed the least supervision. Then I coupled that with the knowledge that she had been on an increased number of business trips, all with Phil, and she’d worked late with him a few times. As it happened, one of those times was last August, and I followed them to Phil’s home, where they spent several hours.

“Later, when I asked Greta if she’d had any supper, she said that Phil had a pizza delivered to the office about six o’clock, when I knew they’d been at his house with no pizza delivery.

“QED, Detective.”

“And this didn’t make you angry?”

I sighed again, only deeper. “In a word, no.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Some asshole’s boinking your wife, and it doesn’t piss you off?”

I chuckled. “Thanks, Detective. I’ve been feeling like I’ve been cheated out of a real police interrogation experience. That type of question is more what I’d been expecting. But no, I wasn’t pissed off or angry by any other name.”

“What, did it turn you on, knowing another man was making your wife scream in pleasure?”

That brought a genuine laugh. “Ah, you don’t know Greta.” Another sigh, as I calmed down. “This might make for a long story, but the fact was, I was intrigued, not by their sexual liaison, but by my reaction to it

“See, it’s my belief that love-based relationships should be expanded, not limited. But I know the major, ah, deterrent to that is jealousy. I was intrigued to see how I dealt with the green-eyed monster. With the proper perspective, I thought one ought to be able to tolerate a multiplicity of partners, polyamory, as it’s called. I don’t know if it was the fact that I took a clinical interest in my own reaction, or if I simply didn’t mind that much, as I’ve never considered Greta to by my possession, but there you have it, jammed into a nutshell. I wasn’t angry.”

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re saying you weren’t upset with Phil because Greta was involved in a relationship that you thought was a further expression of her love?”

“Well, not exactly. I really doubted love had anything to do with it. I think they both had carnal urges the other could meet, without really having to become involved. For Greta, I think it was the thrill of the illicit. For Phil, I think he got off on the idea of cuckolding me.”

“And that didn’t bother you, being cuckolded?”

“But I wasn’t. Like I said, Greta is my partner, not my possession. Phil didn’t take anything from me, though he likely thought he had. Truth be known, I actually felt a little sorry for Phil. He was grasping for respect and admiration and he thought he could trick people out of it. Plus he was a lazy sod.”

“But he was friends with your boss. He could influence things at work.”

“Yeah, Jimmy, another asshole. Tell you what: if he ever turns up dead, then you’d be wise to look me up.”

“Gary!” Ostrowski said. “That’s enough of that kind of nonsense.”

“Yeah, sorry. Let the record show that I was only joking. Like the Buddha said: I wouldn’t belong to a club that would have me for a member. Or was that Groucho Marx? Anyway, my historical response when job conditions got too stupid is to find another job. As long as Jimmy continues to pretty much leave me and my programs alone, I’m happy enough.”

She consulted her notebook, then looked up at me and asked, “What about you? Have you ever polyamory-ed other partners?”

I was about to consult with Ostrowski, as I hadn’t mentioned Emily to him, but then I realized that, if I mentioned her, she might be seen as another suspect. And if I consulted my attorney righ then, Turner would draw the obvious conclusion. So I acted as if I hadn’t understood the question then, when I supposedly grasped what she was asking, I smiled and said, “Are you volunteering, Detective?”

She did not seem amused. “Can you answer the question? Have you had intimate relations with anyone besides your wife, Greta?”

I was about to deny it, when I remembered that lying to the police could be a felony and so far, I had broken no laws. With one more sigh, I turned to my attorney. “Can we talk?”

He looked a bit surprised, but said, “Sure. Detective?”

She got up. “I’ll wait outside the door. Just knock when you’re ready.” Then she paused. “How about we all take a bathroom break? You can do that after you finish talking.”

Ostrowski pointed to the camera hanging from the ceiling in the corner. “Could you shut that off, please?”

She hit the switch next to the door, and the red light on the camera went out. I had the incongruous thought that every other surface in the room was hardened, but that camera seemed uniquely vulnerable to damage, from a swung metal chair, for instance.

Turner shut the door, then Ostrowski asked, “What is it?” So I told him about Emily. And her gay husband.

Talk about opening a can of worms.

To be precise, I suppose Greg Iverson might be more accurately described as bi-sexual, or whatever the latest politically correct terminology is. But his clear preference is to companion with another man, hence his living arrangements near Seattle, where his live-in was a man, a post-doctoral researcher at a university, though not the university at which Greg was a member of the faculty.

So, why hide one’s gender preference, and why the subterfuge marriage, in this day and age? For a couple reasons, as I explained to my attorney, both of them having to do with money.

First of all, Greg Iverson was a well-known and respected sports psychologist. His reputation stemmed not only from the success of his treatment interventions, but also the fact that he had been a world-class athlete in his own right, having been on the varsity ski team, and selected for the US team at the Olympics. So he knew of which he spoke.

However, most money was in men’s sports, of all kinds, except for soccer, of course, and many male athletes had a propensity to avoid, some might say a prejudice against, homosexual men. Ergo, a wife was a necessary accessory to maintain his legitimacy among male athletes, especially in a healthcare field about which those athletes weren’t too keen to begin with. That lack of appreciation stemmed from the fact that Greg was usually called upon to step in when an athlete was in some sort of trouble, from a batting slump to spousal abuse.

Greg’s other financial problem was the family trust which supported much of his affluent lifestyle. It was drawn up in the early part of the last century, in the heyday of American railroads, which industry had been the source of the trust’s original principal. The notably old-fashioned trust documents contained an extensive morality clause, one requirement being that the beneficiary be married. There were others, but a cautious man could successfully bamboozle the anti-sodomite requirement. A marriage, on the other hand, was a matter of public record.

So Greg, who had a dual-engine commercial pilot’s license, flew his own Beechcraft King Air to Leaufroide twice a month to spend the weekend with his wife, Emily.

In fact, Greg was a nice guy, smart as they come, and serious about his work. Greta and I enjoyed spending time with him. We had even accompanied them on excursions to San Francisco and Lake Tahoe, courtesy of Greg’s plane and piloting. Plus, he sincerely loved Emily, she just was not his preferred life companion. He was aware that she and I were involved and had told her he was happy she’d found someone, especially as he knew and liked me. His advice had been to bring Greta into the relationship.

To get back to the can of worms, though, the revelation of my relationship with Emily could have some far-reaching effects.

When I finished my narrative, Ostrowski sighed. He said, “You know, there’s always something like this, some odd circumstance that makes a simple situation irretrievably complex. At least you didn’t make it worse by lying about it.” He shook his head. “But there’s no help for it. You’ll have to tell her about Miz Iverson. That doesn’t mean you have to tell her everything. Simply answer her questions in as few words as possible. If she wanders too far afield, I’ll say something.”

“I can’t just plead the Fifth?”

“About what? Extramarital affairs are not a crime. More to the point, murder often involves relationship issues. It’s a matter of statistics. She’s right to pursue those leads. Besides, it’s not the kind of thing that will remain hidden. You don’t expect your friend, the Sheriff, to lie for you, do you? Would you have him jeopardize his freedom and livelihood? You won’t be helping anyone by trying to conceal this. It’s just bad luck that it has all these overtones.”

My turn to sigh, marking my resignation to reality. “Well, like you said, I guess there’s no help for it. Can I go to the men’s room now?”

When I was in the men’s room, I sent Emily a warning text. She texted back that she’d already heard about the murder and that I was under suspicion. Her only reply to my warning was, “WTV, ILY.” And there you have it.

When I came back to the interrogation room, I saw Turner and Chief Schoenfeld in the hall, tête-à-tête, and, just outside his office door, Tate talking to Ostrowski. I had hopes they were all talking about lunch plans, because all I’d had so far today was one doughnut. Alas, that was not the case.

After the three of us sat down again, Ostrowski said, “Sheriff Plummer had an interesting question. What if Mister Amundsen was not the target? What if the assailant intended to kill Mister Mazur? After all, one would have expected to find Mister Mazur there, early in the morning, not Mister Amundsen.”

Turner said, “Quite the coincidence. The Chief just suggested the same possibility to me.” At least I knew, now, who’d been watching from behind the mirror.

Displaying, once more, my abysmal inability to keep my mouth shut, I said, “I’m not buying it.”

Ostrowski immediately said, “Gary!”

I said, “Yeah, I’m sorry, Mister Ostrowski, but I want to get to the bottom of this, so that I’m not just less suspicious, but off the hook entirely.”

He said, “Then we should talk, first.”

I said, “Okay, let’s talk.”

He said, “Detective? Please?”

Turner stood and went out the door, turning off the camera as she left.

“What is it you want to say?”

“That I don’t think it was mistaken identity, but that it was a frame job, made to look as if I’d killed him.”

“And why not mistaken identity?”

“Because we look nothing alike, even from the back. He’s shorter, stoop-shouldered, and always wears a collared shirt and tie, and always a sports coat, on rare occasions even a three-piece suit. In the bakery, I always wear a white T-shirt and a white apron. He has longer wavy, gray hair with a visible bald spot on top, mine is brown, and I’m partial to this high-and-tight cut. He wears glasses, I wear contacts. Unless the assailant was unfamiliar with us, which seems unlikely at this point, he would have known the person whose head he was bashing in wasn’t mine. Moreover, it begs the question: What in the hell was Phil doing there at that time of the morning? No, I was set up, that’s pretty obvious, at least to me. There’s something going on that has nothing to do with Greta’s affair with Phil, or mine with Emily, for that matter.”

“But the mistaken identity is a bird in the hand.”

“Yeah, and I want to let it go and chase those two in the bush. But I believe my best bet is in finding the murderer, not just in muddying the water.”

“It has a higher risk, though, for you and your future.”

I shook my head. “Until the truth of this is established, my future is crap.”

He said, “Well, the truth is the preferred course, but just don’t elaborate too much.”

And so, I explained my reasoning to Turner.

“Actually,” she said, “that’s more or less what I told the Chief, that a frame-up was more likely than mistaken identity. However, I also told him that, statistically speaking, what was most likely was that you killed him.”

I said, “That’s unfortunate, because I’m a big believer in statistics, unless they’re skewed in some fashion, including in their presentation or interpretation. But crime stats straight from the FBI are not usually given any spin.”

“What do you know about FBI crime statistics?”

“I was in a gun control debate in a college criminal psychology course. My opponent was a policeman. He was anti, I was pro-gun control. I had graphs and charts, he had what he presumed was common sense. He lost, and later asked to borrow my charts and graphs for a debate in another criminal justice class. My charts and graphs had been based entirely on FBI stats.”

She just shook her head, then said, “Let’s just assume for a moment that someone is trying to set you up for this murder. Who do you imagine that might be?”

Looking at her face, I had a feeling this question had both right and wrong answers, as her look seemed and bit more intent.

I thought for a moment and said, “Realistically? I haven’t got the foggiest. On a statistical likelihood scale, I’d have said Greta, but she was sleeping soundly when I kissed her cheek just before I left, and I’d consider her, personally, as basically incapable of working up that much expendable emotion. And ruling out her only leaves me with just about anyone else in town this morning, though I couldn’t guess what the motive might be.” Then I said, “Except maybe for Phil, himself, which hardly seems likely, give the outcome. Unless it was primarily to jam me into the grinder, but I can’t think of a motive for that, either.” After another short pause, I added, “But I just have a nagging suspicion it’s got something to do with that rifle I found in the dumpster.”

“The phantom rifle?” she jibed.

“The phantom M1 Garand rifle,” I replied. “Obviously, your note-taking leaves something to be desired.”

She looked at her notepad and said, “My notes do remind me that I had asked you about extramarital relationships.”

I sighed. “I have been so involved.”

“With whom?”

“Emily Iverson.”

“Who is that?”

“She’s a nurse practitioner here in town.”

“How long have you been intimate?”

“About nine months.”

“Does Missus Mazur know about it?”

“Yes.”

“When did she find out?”

“About ten days ago.” She wrote another note.

“What about Missus Iverson’s husband? Does he know?”

“I believe so, though he and I have never talked about it.”

She looked mildly surprised. “You and he spend time together?”

“Greta and I have spent time with the two of them. We’ve even taken some recreational trips together.”

“So you’re what, a polyamorous foursome?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Outside of my intimate relationship with Emily, we’re just two couples who enjoy each other’s company.”

“What makes you think he knows about you and his wife, then?”

“Emily told me she’d told him.”

“When?”

“When did she tell him, or when did she tell me?”

“Uh, well, both.”

“She told him after our second time together, and she told me the next time we spoke after that.”

“And he’s made no objection?”

“Not to me.”

“What about to her?”

“She says he hasn’t.”

“That doesn’t seem plausible.”

Hearing no question, and contrary to my usual behavior, I remained silent. My attitude had been dampened by the topic. I hated outing Emily and, probably, Greg.