Deer Season (15 page)

“We will be talking to anyone who might help us get the shooter,” said Ray, knowing that he was doing a poor job deflecting Plumb’s questions.

Dirk looked up at him, his arms resting on the table. He did not immediately respond to Ray’s greeting. Finally, he fixed Ray in his gaze for a few seconds, made a low guttural response of recognition, and looked down again.

Ray settled across from Dirk, “Would you like some coffee?”

Dirk looked up briefly, “Yeah.”

Ray filled a worn ceramic mug and pushed it within Dirk’s reach. As he poured himself a cup, Sue Lawrence entered the room and sat at the end of the table at Ray’s right. They exchanged glances, Ray wishing that he and Sue might have had time to debrief before this interview.

“This all must be a horrible shock to you,” said Ray. He looked across at Dirk, whose present demeanor and appearance contrasted greatly from his usual swagger and spit-and-polished look. Dirk’s hair was uncombed and oily, his eyes bloodshot, his face unshaven. After taking a sip of coffee, Dirk unzipped and peeled back his parka, a woodsy camo design, exposing a frayed and soiled hooded sweatshirt. The stink of tobacco, perspiration, and hard drinking filled the room.

“Yeah, it’s a shock,” he responded without affect. He remained silent a long time, then asked in a hostile tone. “Am I a person of interest?”

“Do you know anyone who might want to harm your wife?” Ray asked, not responding to Dirk’s question.

Dirk looked up at Ray and held him in an unsteady gaze. “Let’s cut the shit,” he responded. “We all know that I’m suspect number one. When a woman is killed, start with the husband or boyfriend and nine times out of ten you’ve got the assailant.”

“Okay, Dirk, let’s start with you,” Ray said. “Where were you yesterday morning at 10:00 a.m.?”

“I was on the road heading toward the U.P.” Dirk delivered his answer directly to Ray in a hostile tone, without showing any recognition that Sue was in the room. “And I got a witness to where I was in the U.P. and when I got there.”

“So let’s go through your story, Dirk. I want the complete chronology of your trip. According to your Away From Duty Form you were going to be gone for two weeks.” Ray placed the form on the table in front of him. “And you were going to leave this area on Thursday and go to the U.P. Is that correct?”

“Yeah, just like I wrote.”

“But today is Tuesday, not Thursday?”

“Yeah, well I was going to stay around till after Thanksgiving dinner, and then head up hunting, but things changed.”

“What changed?”

“The bitch had me served.”

“I’m not following,” said Ray.

“Sunday night when I came on duty, well you know the routine. I took care of some stuff and was heading out towards my car when old Nat Peters came walking up. I stopped to talk with him and asked what the hell he was doing out in such bad weather. He says he’s got a delivery to make, and he hands me this big envelope. I sure as hell knew what it was. And I don’t know why she had to do it in that way, having me served. Shit. I told her I’d talk to the lawyer, and we’d work it out. But I guess I wasn’t going fast enough for her.”

“So you were served. Tell me what you were served with?”

“Are you listening or what?” said Dirk, angrily. He glared at Ray through bloodshot eyes.

“Dirk, we’re going through this step by step. I’m going to ask for detail, and if I don’t understand something, I’m going to have you provide some clarification. You were served with divorce papers, what did you do then?”

“I sat in my car and started to read them. Before I got through them I had to respond to an accident. And that’s how the night ran. You can check my log. Bad driving conditions, fender benders, or single vehicle accidents—people running off the road. And I had to bring one drunk to jail. It was a busy night.”

“It looks like you signed out early,” said Ray, holding a time sheet in front of him.

“Yeah, I wanted to go by the house and get my hunting stuff before anyone was awake. Like I said, I’d planned to hang around till Thanksgiving, then go hunting. But after I had been served, I just thought the hell with it. I’m just going to get out of Dodge. Her and her family can go fuck themselves.”

“The two of you had not discussed divorce?” asked Sue.

“We’d barely been speaking for months. Sometime in the summer we’d talked about going to see a lawyer, but it never happened. Obviously, she went ahead and did it on her own.”

“So after you went off duty, what did you do?

“I drove home, loaded my stuff into the SUV, got the trailer with my four-wheeler out of the barn, hitched it up, and took off.

“Did you see anyone at the house?” Ray asked.

“Just that French girl; she was in the kitchen.”

“You didn’t see your wife or daughters?”

“No one else was up yet.”

“The SUV, that’s Lynne’s vehicle?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you take your truck?” Ray asked.

“I was having trouble with the wiring harness for the trailer. There was a short somewhere. I was going to get it fixed this week before I went hunting, but I didn’t get a chance to do that.”

“Was Lynne aware that you were taking her vehicle?”

“No, but like I cared. And I didn’t want to be hauling the trailer to the U.P. with no lights in this kind of weather. I’ve done a lot for her over the last few years; she can do something for me while she’s getting ready to boot my ass out.”

“Okay,” said Ray, “Then what did you do?”

“I started for the U.P. How much detail do you want?”

“I want it all, every stop.” Ray pressed.

“I stopped in Grayling for gas, again at the rest area just before Gaylord, the toll booth on the north side of the bridge, and then I stopped in Munising to see an old friend.”

“And…”

“We spent some time in a bar, had dinner, went to her house for the night.”

“Your cell phone working?”

“I didn’t take a cell phone. I left it right in that tray between the seats so Lynne would know that she couldn’t call me.”

“When did you hear your wife had been shot?” asked Sue

“This morning, one of the troopers told me after they took me into custody.”

“This woman in Munising, does she have a name?” asked Sue.

“I don’t want to get her involved in this.”

“Well, she is involved. We will need to talk to her. What’s her name?” Ray asked.

“Sheila Maddox.”

“She was with you the whole time?”

“The whole time I was in Munising.”

“So let’s go through this again. What time did you leave the area?

“Like I said, a little after 6:00 in the morning.”

“What time did you cross the bridge?”

“It was after eleven, I was creeping till I got to 75, then I was probably averaging about forty, sometimes less.”

“And you stopped in Grayling and Gaylord. Anywhere else?”

“Oh yeah, I stopped in Cut River and got a whitefish sandwich and a beer.”

“How long were you there, in Cut River?”

“Not long, forty minutes, maybe an hour. The waitress’s name was Marge.”

“You stop anywhere else?”

“I topped up the tank in Engadine.”

“How long were you there?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“How did you pay for the gas?”

“Credit card.”

“Grayling too?

“Yes.

“How about lunch?”

“I used a card there, too. All the receipts are in the car.”

“And this woman in Munising,” Sue looked down at her notes, “Sheila Maddox, did she know you were coming?”

“She was expecting me Thursday night. But I called her from a pay phone at Cut River to say I was going to be a few days early.”

“Tell me about your marriage,” said Ray.

“What do you want to know?”

“You’re being sued for divorce; you indicated that you knew this was coming.”

“Lynne told me she didn’t think we had much of a marriage, then she got a bed for the room she used as her office and started sleeping in there. She said we needed to talk to a lawyer.”

“When did that happen?”

“Late spring, early summer. I thought things might improve, that she was just going through one of her bitchy hormone things.”

“Were you surprised by her assessment about not having much of a marriage?” asked Sue.

“No. I sort of agreed. Great sex in the beginning, but after the girls were born she lost interest in me. The divorce was just a matter of time.”

“How do you feel about this?”

“What do you mean?”

“The end of your marriage, the pending divorce. Are you angry, sad, upset?” pressed Ray.

“Look, she used me; I used her. We both got what we wanted for a time. Now we’re not. It’s just the way things are.”

“So you can walk away with no bitter feelings?” asked Ray, putting less than a subtle hint of incredulity in his voice.

“I’ve been down this road before. I get bored being with the same woman. They probably get bored being with me.”

“How about your daughters?”

“How about what?” Dirk responded. “The truth is that I don’t find little kids very interesting. And they were Lynne’s little girls from the beginning. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, we’d never gotten married.”

“Why did you marry her?” Ray asked.

“Like I just said, she was pregnant; she wanted to get married. I told her to get an abortion; she wouldn’t hear of it. In the end I think I was flattered because a beautiful young woman wanted to marry me.”

The three of them sat in silence for several minutes: Dirk, looking defeated, his body slouched forward onto the table; Sue and Ray exchanging glances, each wondering in what direction to move the interview.

“Did Lynne tell you about any threats she might have received?” Ray asked.

“Like I’ve said, we haven’t been really talking for a long time.”

“Might she have had an outside romantic interest?” asked Sue.

Dirk was slow to respond. “I didn’t see or hear anything, but who knows. Maybe she was getting it on with that skinny-assed French girl,” he said bitterly. “They seemed like quite the pair. Or maybe she had a thing for that old fart psychiatrist.”

“Dirk, you’ve been in police work a long time. Arresting and putting people in jail, it’s hard not to make some real enemies. Is there anyone you can think of who might shoot your wife as a way of getting at you?”

Dirk slowly moved his head from side to side. “Lots of people have been pissed at me over the years. I mean dozens of the assholes that I put away would be happy to put a bullet in me or flatten me with their pickup. It’s part of the baggage that goes with the business. We all have to deal with it.” He stopped and gave Ray a knowing look. “I can think of lots of people who’d like to get me, but I don’t think anyone would do that to Lynne.”

“What kind of financial arrangements do you and Lynne have? Does she have a life insurance policy that would help you with a mortgage on the house if something happened to her?”

“There is no mortgage. Her old man bought the land we built on and paid for the house,” he answered with hostility. “The property is in a trust with a trustee who would manage Lynne’s assets in the interests of her daughters. That was put in place when her father gave her the house.”

“So there’s no joint ownership there.”

“No.”

“Do you own anything together?”

“My truck is in my name, same with my property in the U.P. and some rentals down here.”

“Do you have a will?”

“I’m going to die intestate and let the scavengers fight over my bones.”

“So Lynne has an estate and trust established, but you have nothing in place?”

“Like I said before, I was the outsider, so I didn’t play any of their games.”

“Whose games?” asked Sue.

“Lynne’s family’s,” he answered bitterly.

“How about your insurance with the county?” Sue asked. “Who are the beneficiaries on that policy?”

“Kids from another marriage. They’re grown now.”

They sat in silence again, until finally Dirk asked, “Am I a person of interest? Don’t you want to know if I’m pissed enough at Lynne to hire someone to blow her away? Or maybe one of my girlfriends might want her dead. I’m a real catch,” he said sarcastically.

“When are you planning to come back to work?” asked Ray.

“I got lots of vacation time. If you don’t have any problem with it, I think I’ll stay off for a few weeks.”

“I think we can arrange that,” Ray answered.

“Would one of you accompany me out to the house?” asked Dirk.

“What for?” asked Ray.

“I started moving out weeks ago. I want to get my old pickup and the rest of my possessions, and I want you to see what I’m taking. Then I will give you my keys to the place. I want my life completely separated from Lynne’s, so I don’t have to deal with her parents if she doesn’t make it.”

“I’ll take you,” answered Ray. “You have a place to move to?”

“I own a few rentals in the area. One of them came vacant last summer, and I started moving my stuff there months ago.” After a long silence, Dirk said, “If you don’t have anything else, can we get going? I’m dead tired and want to get this over.”

“Okay,” said Ray.

Dirk stood and left the room.

“Stick around, will you? I should be back fairly quickly, and we have a lot to discuss,” Ray said to Sue.

“I’ll be waiting,” she responded.

“What’s that?” asked Ray, pointing at the bags.

“It’s supper and a peace offering.”

“Why the peace offering?” Ray asked.

“I thought you might be upset that I went out of county without talking to you first?”

Ray shrugged his shoulders and grimaced.

“I got you won ton soup, shrimp in garlic sauce, white rice— no MSG—and a fortune cookie. I thought I’d feed you before you fire me.”