Chief Gardner and I found Olivia Redding in the cramped room behind the reservation desk working a computer and her cell phone simultaneously—Barbara had not been allowed to accompany us. Olivia gave us a wave that basically indicated, “I’ll be with you in a moment,” even as she spoke into the phone.
“I understand,” Olivia said. “No, I understand. I appreciate everything that you’re doing. Okay. Okay. I’ll talk to you soon.” Olivia set her phone down and tapped the end call icon. “First guy I’m going to fire. I’ve been on the phone all day; sending emails. There’s so much to do. Lawyers. Most of the people at the company have been cooperative, sweet even. Some have decided that now’s their chance to take advantage of me.”
She was wearing the same tight jeans and boots from the evening before along with a sweatshirt bearing the name and illustration of Redding Castle. For the first time since we met, she looked old.
“Ms. Redding, I need your help,” the chief said.
“I was going to say the same thing to you. I’ve been talking to a funeral home about conducting services maybe here, maybe the Cities, both—I haven’t decided. I’m told that it will be some time before Ben’s body is released for burial.”
“We need to give the medical examiner time to finish her work,” the chief said. “A couple of days at least. I’m sorry.”
“I understand.” Olivia chuckled; if you can call the strained sound she made a chuckle. “I’ve been saying that a lot lately. I understand. I wish it were true. You said you needed my help?”
“Is it possible for you to unlock Ben’s cell phone for us?”
Olivia chuckled again.
“No,” she said. “One thing Ben and I never shared, that we never left unattended for the other to find, was our cell phones. Certainly we never told each other our passwords and unblock patterns. You must think we had an appalling marriage.”
“No,” I said. “Unconventional, maybe, but … I saw you dancing together.”
Olivia stared long enough at me that I thought I might have said something awful.
“I forgot what I was going to say,” she told me. “Oh, Chief, you sealed my bedroom. It’s a crime scene. I understand—there’s that word again. Except, can I go up there and get some clothes; some other things? You can come with me to make sure I don’t do anything wrong.”
“I need to contact my office,” the chief said. “McKenzie will go with you.”
“Thank you.”
I tore the yellow crime scene tape from the bedroom door and opened it. Olivia moved past me and went directly to the walk-in closet, being careful not to look in the direction of the bed or the spot on the floor next to the bed where Ben had fallen. I did, though. There wasn’t much to see except for the bloodstain on the hardwood floor.
That’s never coming out, my inner voice told me.
I listened as Olivia packed a bag behind me.
“I’ll just be a moment,” she said.
I moved to where I thought the killer must have stood when he fired the three rounds into Big Ben’s chest; even brought my hand up as if I was holding a gun.
He must have known his killer well to allow him—or her—to get that close.
“Just a sec,” Olivia said.
She moved from the walk-in closet to the bathroom. I heard her opening cabinets.
I turned from the bed and looked toward the bathroom. There were chairs arranged in front of the fireplace that stood between me and the bathroom. On the cushion of the chair closest to the bathroom door was a copy of a hardcover novel.
The Round House by Louise Erdrich.
“Olivia,” I said. “Is this yours?”
She came out of the bathroom.
“What?” she asked.
I pointed at the book.
“No,” she said. “That’s not mine or Ben’s. I’ve been meaning to read it, though. Why?”
“Just wondering,” I said.
After making sure she had what she needed, I shooed Olivia out of the bedroom. As she was moving down the corridor, I called Chief Gardner. She answered her cell phone almost immediately.
“McKenzie,” she said.
“You need to get up here.”
A few minutes later, Chief Gardner came through the door, carefully closing it behind her. I was standing in the center of the bedroom. I was about to speak; only the chief demanded silence by pressing her index finger against her own lips. She also stepped into the center of the room and spun slowly, taking in everything around her. She did this for several minutes before she sighed dramatically.
“All right, dammit,” she said, “what did we miss?”
I pointed at the copy of Louise Erdrich’s novel sitting faceup on the cushion of the chair in front of the fireplace. The chief stared at the book until its significance became clear to her.
I started to speak, again.
“Shh,” the chief said. At the same time, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and tapped a couple of icons, including speaker. I could hear the phone ring; heard it quickly answered.
“City of Redding Police Department, this is Officer Phillip Holzt.”
“Phillip…”
“Hi, Chief.”
“Phillip, I need you to do something for me; I need you to do it now.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“The county’s Investigative Division took God knows how many photographs and video of the crime scene at Redding Castle last night. They should be uploaded in the case file. Pull them up for me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The chief told her officer what she was looking for. It took him several minutes to locate it.
“Yes,” he said. “A book on the chair cushion.”
“Enlarge the image; tell me what’s on the cover.”
“It’s gray with what looks to me like chunks of wood floating around and the words ‘A novel, Louise Erdrich, The Round House.’ Why is that important?”
“Chain of custody. Thank you, Phillip. I’ll talk to you later.”
The chief moved swiftly from the room. I lingered long enough to restore the yellow crime scene tape and rushed down the corridor. I caught up with her just as the chief was entering the computer room. It was vacant. Olivia must be off changing clothes, I decided. Chief Gardner worked the computer until we found the footage from the security camera taken the previous evening.
“I have copies at the house, but I don’t want to take the time…” She ran the video forward until the time stamp read 10:23 P.M. “Here’s Anna entering the lobby. She’s carrying a copy of The Round House.”
“She said she went to the lobby to read,” I reminded the chief. “She said she was catching up on her Louise Erdrich.”
Chief Gardner fast-forwarded the video until the time stamp read 10:37.
“Here she is leaving the lobby with her book in her hand,” she said.
Again, the chief fast-forwarded the video, slowing it to real time at 11:33. The seconds ticked off. We saw Nina helping Jenness down the stairs and to the sofa. We saw Anna Redding entering the lobby at nearly the same time. She moved toward Jenness, her hands extended, as if to ask what had happened.
Her hands were empty.
“I’ll be right back,” Chief Gardner said.
It took her only a few minutes to walk to her SUV, open the truck, and remove a nine-by-twelve-inch clear plastic evidence bag with write-on panels for chain of custody information. She returned to the castle and made her way back to Big Ben’s bedroom. At this point, I was just following her around.
Once inside the bedroom, she filled in the write-on panel, moved to the chair, and very carefully placed the book inside the evidence bag. She sealed the bag and held it up for me to see.
“Where’s Anna Redding?” she said.
“You’re asking me?”
“Let’s go get her.”
“No, wait.”
“For what? McKenzie, the timing works perfectly. Anna leaves the lobby at exactly ten thirty-seven. With her book. She circles the castle, goes through the kitchen, climbs the servant stairs, and knocks on her brother’s door. With her book.”
“Why sneak around?”
“Because she doesn’t want anyone to know that she’s sleeping with her big brother, that’s why. Ben lets her in. They screw each other’s brains out for a half hour. They get into an argument. Anna shoots him with her father’s gun. That’s at exactly eleven seventeen, forty minutes after she left the lobby. Only Jenness Crawford is so quick to the bedroom door that Anna can’t get out. Next we see you entering the lobby at—I have eleven eighteen—you go upstairs and two minutes later come back downstairs, exiting the lobby at eleven twenty to search for a ladder. You find a ladder, use it to climb into the bedroom; you find Ben dead, and go through the door into the corridor. Let’s say ten minutes from start to finish. Make it fifteen just to be generous. At eleven thirty-two, Anna sees her chance and escapes down the ladder, leaving her book behind. She circles the castle and comes through the lobby entrance empty-handed at exactly eleven thirty-four. Sure looks guilty to me.”
“Why are you in a hurry, Dee?”
“Haven’t you heard? I have less than twenty-four hours to make an arrest.”
“You don’t give a damn about the sheriff and his schedule, cut it out.”
“McKenzie…”
“You told me not to let you fuck up. You told me that was my one and only job.”
“You think I’m wrong about this?”
“No, I don’t, but you have time to make sure. Anna Redding isn’t going anywhere. Your guys running fingerprints; checking on DNA—let them do their jobs before you do something you might regret.”
“Like what?”
“Like arresting the wrong suspect. You know how that always complicates the prosecutor’s case when it gets to court.”
Chief Gardner took a deep breath. She never struck me as someone who counted to ten, yet it was a good ten seconds before she spoke.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll hold off for now.”
“On the other hand, I didn’t say we shouldn’t hear what the woman has to say, you know, in the natural course of our ongoing investigation. Just don’t arrest her.”
“Not even if she confesses, like they do on Murder, She Wrote?”
We found Anna Redding sitting outside on a bench with a nice view of Lake Anpetuwi, although she seemed much more interested in the screen of her cell phone. I sat on her right side. Chief Gardner sat on her left. Given the circumstances, most people would have found our abrupt appearance disconcerting. Anna behaved as if she had been expecting us. She spent a few moments signing off her phone and placing it into her pocket before she spoke.
“Chief Gardner, McKenzie,” she said. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“We have questions,” I said.
“I thought I explained myself at length last night. Or was it early this morning?”
Chief Gardner produced the copy of Louise Erdrich’s book.
“Oh, you found it,” Anna said.
She reached for the book. The chief pulled it back.
“Where was it?” Anna asked.
“In your brother’s bedroom,” I said.
“How did it get there?”
“That’s what we would like to know,” Chief Gardner said.
“I’m afraid I can only speculate,” Anna said.
“Feel free,” I said.
“Clearly you believe that finding my book there proves that I’m responsible for my brother’s demise. I assure you, I am not. I took the book with me when I left the lobby last night to search the night sky. After some time passed, I went into the kitchen for a glass of water. I set the book on the counter. After enjoying my drink, I went back outside, leaving the book behind. Later, when I returned to the kitchen to procure hot chocolate for my niece, I noticed that the book was missing. How you came to find it in my brother’s bedroom, I cannot say. Perhaps Ben came downstairs for a drink of water, as well, spied the book and took it back upstairs with him. Perhaps someone else discovered the volume and took it upstairs when he—or she—went to visit my brother. Are there any other possibilities?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Such as?”
“Dr. Redding, you were outside for a long time last night,” the chief said. “Considering how you were dressed…”
“I’m a Minnesota girl born and raised,” Anna said. “The cold doesn’t bother me. I recall a period when I was performing as a field experience student, a student teacher if you will, as part of my degree program at the University of Colorado. My charges would often marvel that I would be comfortable wearing little more than a sweater while they were bundled in their heavy winter garments.”
“You said you saw no one entering or leaving the castle.”
“I doubt those were my exact words, yet they convey my meaning. If I may be allowed, you people…”
You people? my inner voice asked. Really?
“You seem to have embraced the hypothesis that someone in the Redding family is responsible for my brother’s death.” Anna pointed at the evidence bag in Chief Gardner’s hand. “That I am responsible. You are greatly mistaken. I recommend instead, that you concentrate your suspicions on individuals outside the family.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“I suggested a possible suspect at the city council meeting Thursday night.”
“Veronica Bickner?”
“You said it yourself, McKenzie, as a principal of Boeve Luxury, Veronica had as much at stake in the vote to sell the castle as anyone. The vote went against her. Given her on-again, off-again relationship with my brother, I would not be surprised if your evidence technicians discovered her fingerprints all through Ben’s bedroom. In fact, I am convinced of it.”
“We’ll see,” Chief Gardner said.
“If there’s nothing else…” Anna stood; she gestured at the evidence bag on the chief’s lap. “I look forward to the return of my property.”
Anna strolled back toward the castle while the chief and I remained on the bench.
“Oh, she’s good,” I said. “You’re not going to trip her up during a Q and A.”
“You don’t think, McKenzie, that she might actually be innocent, do you?”
“I think we’re going to need more than the book to prove that she isn’t.”
Chief Gardner’s response was to pull her cell phone from her pocket and make a call. I heard only her side of the conversation.
“Dr. Evers please … Chief of Police Deidre Gardner … Angie … Yes, it’s me. The DNA from the fluids on Ben Redding’s dick … I get that it takes time. What I want you to do is match it against Ben’s DNA … To find out if he had sex with his sister … I know it’s messed up. Angie, I don’t have to tell you to keep all of this to yourself, do I?… The sooner the better … You’re the best.”
The chief put her phone away.
“Any thoughts, Jessica?” she asked.
“Three things. Four, actually. First—Carly told us that she heard someone at the top of the servant stairs trying to work the latch; that’s why she took off before clearing out the art gallery. Second—Veronica Bickner worked at the castle when she was a kid, so she probably knew about the servant stairs, if in fact, she had climbed them. Three—I’m curious to learn why Anna is so convinced that we’ll find Veronica’s fingerprints in Ben’s room. It’s almost as if she knew she was there.”
“What’s the fourth thing?”
“I wish you’d stop calling me Jessica.”
“Help me close this case and I’ll call you any damn thing you want.”
The first thing that made me go “hmm” was the realization that Veronica Bickner’s home was only a ten-minute walk through the woods from Redding Castle. I knew this, of course. Anna told me just before the Redding City Council meeting that Veronica had purchased a bungalow on the wrong side of the street that circled Lake Anpetuwi, only it didn’t register until we called her up on my phone’s maps app. The second thing was when she met us at her door wearing a black nightgown and matching robe. She didn’t say “hello” or “good-bye” or “come in” or “go to hell,” but left the door open and walked back inside the house without any of us uttering a word.
The chief and I glanced at each other, a “what’s all this then?” expression on our faces, and entered the house cautiously. We found Veronica sitting on a sofa in her small living room, her legs tucked beneath her. She was sipping from a clear glass tumbler. There was orange juice in the glass and ice and from the glazed expression on her face, a lot of something else as well.
“Mrs. Bickner,” Chief Gardner said.
“Did you come to tell me he’s dead? I already know. Cassie called this morning.” Veronica lifted her glass to us. “Can’t you see? I’m in mourning.”
“Were you with Ben last night?” the chief asked.
Veronica nodded her head.
“For the last time,” she said. “Every time I was with Ben Redding I thought it would be for the last time and now…”
Veronica took another pull of her drink. I stepped forward and took the glass from her hand.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “I need that.”
The bungalow was small; it was very easy for me to find my way to the kitchen. Veronica chased after me and watched as I poured the drink into the sink, rinsed the glass, and filled it with cold water.
“Is this a police thing?” she asked. “Am I under arrest?”
“No, ma’am,” Chief Gardner said. “You are not under arrest. We have questions we’d like to ask, though.”
I tried to hand the glass back to Veronica. She shook her head and refused to accept it.
“I don’t want it now,” she said.
“Please,” I said.
“Fine.” Veronica took the glass and drank the water down in one go. “Happy?”
I took the glass from her, refilled it, and handed it back.
“Are you my mother now? McKenzie, right? I don’t need a mother. I need…” Veronica wrapped her arms around herself, barely holding the glass upright; her mouth twisted in a painful-looking grimace. “I need…”
“Mrs. Bickner,” the chief said.
“I need to sit down. Sit down before I fall down.”
Veronica moved to her kitchen table, pulled out a wooden chair, and sat. She held the water glass in front of her with both hands.
“When Cassie told me what happened, my first thought was that Olivia did it,” she said. “But Cassie said that was impossible. They were both eating pad thai at the time.”
Veronica drank half of the water.
“You went to see him last night,” Chief Gardner said.
“Yes, although no one was supposed to know that. It was supposed to be a secret, like everybody didn’t already know that we’d been having an affair for the past forty years. Like Olivia didn’t know. I’m sleeping with Ben while she’s sleeping with my niece. It sounds like a plot to an adult film, not that I watch adult films.”
Veronica finished the water and handed me the glass. I took it, refilled it, and handed it back.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You went to see him last night,” Chief Gardner repeated.
“Yes. Didn’t I tell you that? Ben called me. He called me twice. The first time was about six thirty. He called to say that the Reddings had voted against selling the castle to me and Cassandra. Ben didn’t say that he cast one of the votes against us, but I knew he had. I knew because of the way he tried to sugarcoat it; saying how we’d still be able to see each other now when he came back to visit the castle. He was talking about Christmas, for God’s sake; how we always met for Christmas. I was angry. I own twenty percent of Cassie’s business. This deal would have made me rich. I might even have become as rich as Ben. I told him that we were through, finally and forever. I told him not to call me again. And I hung up.
“He called back at about ten o’clock. Of course I answered the phone. I always answered the phone. Ben said that it looked like Olivia’s meeting with Cassandra was going to last all night. I said in that case…” Veronica laughed at herself. “I had no pride and no shame when it came to Big Ben Redding. None. I said, in that case, he should come on over. This is where we’ve been meeting ever since I bought the house ten years ago. Only he said I should go to the castle like I used to when we were teenagers, him sneaking out or me sneaking in. Like on prom night.”
The chief read the same chapter in the interrogation manual that I had; the one that insisted once you managed to get a suspect talking, you let them talk, which explained the angry glare she flashed at me when I interrupted.
Only I had to ask—“Mrs. Bickner, did you ever meet Ben in town?”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Veronica said. “It’s a small town, McKenzie. Reputations are easily ruined. Ben said he didn’t care about his, but he cared deeply about mine. We were always very careful when we were in town together.”
Chief Gardner tried to get Veronica back on track.
“Ben called you at ten o’clock,” she said.
“A little after,” Veronica replied. “He told me to come over to the castle. He told me to sneak up the servant stairs like I did when—it must have been decades since I last did that. So, I walked over, walked in—the Reddings never locked their doors. I went up the stairs
“Mrs. Bickner, did you happen to see a book lying on the kitchen counter?” the chief asked.
“No. Do you think I turned on the lights and made myself a sandwich? Besides, I didn’t go there to read. I went directly to the servant stairs.” Veronica chuckled. “I had forgotten how to unlatch the door. I must have spent five minutes before I figured it out. Once I did, I slipped into the corridor—it was exciting, like when I was a girl. I knocked on Ben’s door and he let me in and it was the same as it had always been with us—me and him and nothing else in the world for nearly an hour. And then I told him…” Veronica laughed some more. “I told him if he thought I was going to spend the night he was crazy. I was still mad at him. I got dressed, which didn’t take long; I was wearing what I’m wearing now. You know what Ben did? He dressed, too; put on his robe. He said he might take a walk in the woods later. I said not to let the big, bad wolf get him. Then I left the castle, walked home, and waited for him. I waited all night. Only he never came.”
Veronica drank more water.
“When did you leave the castle?” the chief asked.
“I don’t know. Eleven o’clock? I know it was ten after when I got here and the castle is only ten minutes away. Chief Gardner, I didn’t kill Ben. I loved him so much.”
The exact same words that Olivia used, my inner voice reminded me.
We spoke for another twenty minutes before Chief Gardner was satisfied. She thanked Veronica for her time and we left the bungalow. We were following the path back toward Redding Castle when the chief remembered why she was miffed at me.
“The question you asked her about meeting Ben in town, what was that about?” she asked.
Before I could answer, the chief’s cell phone rang. She read the caller ID before answering it.
“Chief Gardner.” She listened for a moment, said, “Hang on for a sec,” and put the phone on speaker. “Go ’head.”
“I said I didn’t send the DNA samples to the county,” Dr. Angelique Evers told us. “I have a male friend…”
“Male friend?” the chief asked.
“You don’t think I can have a male friend?”
“It was just the way you said it.”
“He’s a forensic scientist who works out of the FBI’s resident agency in Mankato. He did a rush job as a favor to me. He thinks I’m gorgeous.”
“We all do, Angie.”
“Anyway, your DNA samples—siblings share about fifty percent of their DNA, half siblings, uncle, aunts, nieces and nephews about twenty-five percent, first cousins twelve-point-five percent and so on all the way down to sixth cousins who share zero-point-zero-one percent, which they don’t.”
“Who don’t?”
“Ben Redding and his lady friend. There is no genetic relationship between the two samples at all except that the pattern of SNPs indicate that both subjects are approximately eleven percent Welsh. What are the odds?”
Chief Gardner thanked Dr. Evers for her time and hung up the phone.
“What did I tell you about getting my samples early?” she said.
“Ben didn’t sleep with Anna. After talking with Veronica Bickner, I didn’t think he did.”
“I don’t know why I’m relieved, but I am. You were right about not slapping the cuffs on her. Except the book … How else could it have gotten in the bedroom? Veronica said she didn’t touch it.”
“Print the book.”
“Duh, Dick Tracy.”
“In the meantime…”
“Would you rather be a Jessica or a Dick?” the chief asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Just this once.”
“Ben Redding spent time with an identified female at the Riverboat Hotel in Redding on Tuesday afternoon. I saw him leave the hotel while I was chatting with Barbara Finne. I confirmed later that Ben had checked in and checked out; the woman he had arranged to meet left just a few minutes before he did.”
“That’s why you asked the question? If he wasn’t meeting Veronica…”
“Who was he meeting?” I asked.
“You know what? I’m still going to call you Jessica. Tracy had the toys, but Jessica had the brains.”
“Is that a compliment?”
Back to the City of Redding; I was pretty sure I could have made the drive with my eyes shut by then. The chief and I got lucky twice. The first time was when we found an empty parking spot directly in front of the Riverboat Hotel. The second time was when we discovered that the young woman I had spoken to on Tuesday afternoon was working the reservation desk.
“May I help you?” she asked.
She spoke cautiously. I think she was intimidated by Chief Gardner’s immaculate uniform.
“Do you remember me?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, no. Should I?”
“Last Tuesday, I asked about Big Ben Redding…”
She stared for a moment and smiled.
“You were late for a business appointment,” she said.
“Only Ben had left just before I arrived.”
“I remember.”
“You said his business associate—a woman—had departed just before he did.”
“You’re the one who said it was his business associate. I figured it was his date. I mean, think about it.”
“What was her name?”
“I have no idea.”
“You didn’t ask her name?” Chief Gardner asked.
“Why would I?”
“She came into the hotel…”
“Mr. Redding was waiting for her in the lobby. They embraced and went up the stairs together. Two hours later, they came back down the stairs. She left the hotel by the rear entrance. He checked out and left by the front door. Then this gentleman came in. That’s it.”
“You don’t know who the woman was,” the chief said.
“It’s not that small of a town. I mean, I knew Ben Redding. Everyone knew Big Ben Redding. Only not the woman. Does this have anything to do with him getting shot?”
“Hang on a sec,” I said.
I took my cell phone from my pocket and searched for a website. After I found it, I searched the site until I located a pic and filled my screen with it. I held the phone up so that the desk clerk could get a good look.
“Yeah, that’s her,” she said.
“Are you sure?” the chief asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes, I am absolutely sure.”
“I might need you to make an identification in court.”
“Yeah, well, I mean, if I have to.”
A minute later, the chief and I were standing on the sidewalk next to my Mustang.
“You know, the most common motives for murder are money, jealousy, and vengeance,” Chief Gardner said. “In this case we might have all three.”
“It would seem so.”
“Dammit, it shouldn’t take more than two hours to run fingerprints. Why the hell haven’t I heard anything yet?”
“It’s the weekend,” I said. “There’s probably a backlog. I remember one case I worked, it took three days.”
“You’re not making me feel better, McKenzie.”
“The prints might not even be in the system.”
“Shh, God might hear you.”
“Although…” I accessed the same website on my cell as I did in the hotel and after perusing it for a moment, switched to another site. The chief watched me do it.
“Yeah, they should be there,” I said.
“So, what’s the holdup?” she asked.
“If you’re so worried about meeting the sheriff’s deadline, I have an idea.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Okay.”
“What is it?”