She's Not There, стр. 62
TJ stood up. “I didn’t come out tonight and freeze my ass off just to play guessing games. You want to tell me what’s going on? Then fine, we can talk. If not, I’m outta here.” She picked up her coat, aware of him scrutinizing her. Clearly he was torn between stopping her from leaving or letting her walk out.
Until the door clicked shut behind her, she’d been certain he’d ask her to stay.
75
The next night at seven, Richard and Justin, his partner, stood on Eric Schindler’s doorstep. Eric, dressed casually in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, greeted them at the door. “You have news for us?”
“We need to talk to you. All four of you.”
“Sure. Come on in. You’re just in time for dinner. We can set two more places.”
“Thanks, but we can’t stay long. Just a few questions and you folks can get on with your meal.”
They accepted coffee while Lisa and Shannon put the finishing touches on the table setting.
Lisa knew Richard watched the reactions of all four of them. “We’ve come across something that could possibly throw suspicion on James Wilson as the person responsible for the missing women. If he were your killer, it would also implicate him in the Ventura murder and Denison’s dubious suicide. We thought maybe Marian Bergman, too, but we haven’t uncovered anything proving her death wasn’t a suicide.”
Richard scrutinized their faces. “There’s nothing really conclusive; the only thread is this.” Richard tossed a photo of Ronnie Rommelfanger’s face onto the counter. “This is James before plastic surgery. He grew up as Ronald Rommelfanger. He looked like this before having his face destroyed in an accident and a plastic surgeon turned him into a good-looking guy. Makes him fit the profile Orth came up with—the killer having some kind of handicap, now or in the past, giving him a serious grudge against women. James wouldn’t have had any problem attracting women, and tracking down abused women would have been a cakewalk.”
They gathered round the island. Lisa said, “He would have been bullied mercilessly as a child.”
Richard waited patiently until they’d finished discussing Wilson’s former appearance. “Whether he’s a murderer or not, we have to investigate his death. That said, I have to ask all of you where you were when he was shot. The autopsy report narrows the time of death to roughly from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. the night Jeff Denison died.”
TJ crossed her arms over her chest. “You know where we were that night—we were all here. None of us knew about this Rommelfanger thing.”
Justin said, “Sorry, we’re going to need details.”
Eric volunteered, “TJ and I left Jeff’s townhouse together sometime around two, after you arrived on the scene. I drove her to her apartment so she could pick up some of her things and we came back out here. I gave her a strong sedative and she slept until morning. We believed Jeff had been murdered, so I increased security again and asked Lisa and Shannon to move back in here until this guy is caught. We all spent the night here
“If you want further confirmation, Maggie Petersen stopped in later that night, and so did Jon Engel.”
Richard frowned. “So TJ was down for the count, and the rest of you were here all night?”
Shannon stood up, irate. “We explained that already. Somebody killed Jeff and who knows which of us would be next? You’re treating us like suspects and all we’ve ever tried to do is find a murderer for you.”
Visibly surprised at Shannon’s outburst, Richard had no comeback.
“I’m the only one without an alibi,” Lisa offered. She took a sip of wine. “I was with TJ at Jeff’s until about two when I left to do some errands before going to Eric’s. I developed a migraine. When I got home the pain was so bad I had to lie down for a while. I fell asleep and didn’t get out here until sometime around ten.”
Richard and Justin exchanged a look.
Shannon shifted in her chair. “Uh, there’s something I have to tell you. Well, tell Lisa actually.”
The room went quiet as the morning after a ten-inch snowstorm.
“After it stopped snowing that night, I went out to pick up a prescription. Sorry Lisa, but I didn’t want you to think I was checking up on you, so I never said anything about this. I stopped at your house to be sure you were all right. I was worried about you and wanted to ask you if you needed me to drive you over here. I let myself in. You were really out of it and didn’t even wake up when Phanny barked. I figured you needed the rest, so I left. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d think I was being overprotective.”
Lisa explained, “I took something to make me sleep. Maybe that’s why I didn’t hear you. I had an alarm set for nine.”
Lisa sighed, relieved when Conlin and his partner left, but realistically she knew it wasn’t over. But if the worst happened and she ended up behind bars, it would have been worth it.
When Lisa went up to bed carrying a pot of tea, Shannon, who was staying with Lisa in the second bedroom of the apartment above the garage, said hopefully, “Hope you brought me a cup.”
She wondered if Shannon would bring up the lie Lisa told. Shannon had either been there, seen Lisa was gone, and decided to cover for her, or not gone at all and told the lie. Either way, she was sheltering Lisa.
Shannon put down the book she’d been reading. “I was upset they actually thought we might have killed somebody. I did go out for a bit that night—but I didn’t go to check up on you.”
Lisa exhaled—it worked out better if Shannon didn’t know she’d been gone.
“I thought about it, but I was afraid Phanny would bark like she does when someone comes in and wake you up. I hope they’ll leave us alone now.”
“They’ll probably be back sooner or later.”
“It felt weird to lie to a cop, but I knew you were there. They might have made a big deal of it otherwise. Then where would we be?”
76
With Wilson dead, the group had decided it might look suspicious if they all returned to their respective homes, although TJ had started spending time at her apartment. Their determination to locate the bodies came to a stalemate when everyone balked at another visit to Geo Turner, TJ’s computer guru. That’s the only way TJ thought they’d find out if Wilson owned property where he might have buried the missing women. If they rested on the bottom of Lake Winnebago, they might never be found.
TJ didn’t work at the bank on Fridays and took advantage of her time to breathe some life back into her business. When her cell phone buzzed, seeing Richard’s number surprised her. She hadn’t heard from him since he’d questioned them at Eric’s. She opened the phone. “Hey, what’s shakin?”
“I haven’t talked to you in a while and thought I’d see how you’re doing.”
Yeah, right. Richard never called without a reason. “So, how’s the case coming? Find out who killed the asshole yet?”
Richard laughed. “Is that any way to speak of the dead? Nah, the damn thing is going cold on me. The county guys don’t have jack, and I think the chief is losing interest. He’s assigning us other cases.”
“Hunh! What a shame no more taxpayer money’s gonna be spent finding out who killed the killer. Guy should get a medal. Hey! Maybe it was Charles Bronson.”
“Funny. I didn’t say I’d given up on it, did I? In fact I’m driving up to Fond du Lac again to question a witness once more. A kid.”
The witness might be the person Lisa saw. “What kid?”
“A kid who lives near the snowmobile trail saw Wilson drive by the day he got shot. That’s how we pinned down the time of death. We questioned him a couple times. The second time he admitted he’d seen Wilson go by, but I still have the feeling he’s holding something back. I have the day off, so I’m going to drive up there, pull him out of class. Shake him up a little.”