Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We won. Emerald had begun screaming because she was hungry. I got the bartender to run her bottle under hot water and popped it into her mouth. She spent the entire second round finishing the bottle. Meanwhile, we crushed it. We’d caught up and were now sixty points ahead of all the other teams.
Detective Lehmann, who’d come with his pretty wife, Gloria, got the last empty booth in the place. He had a draft beer while she had an appletini. They didn’t seem to talk much, mostly he was watching us all. Or maybe not all of us. Maybe just me.
The game finished up. We won, which meant we got a gift certificate, twenty bucks, to come back to Main Street Café for dinner.
I had no intention of socializing with these people, so I hurried out of there as quickly as possible.
On the ride home, I was grateful for my grandmother’s SUV.
The snow was thick and wet and coming down fast. I clutched the steering wheel tightly, while my sister sat in her car seat, happy for once, discovering that she had fingers.
The next morning—and I do mean morning, it wasn’t even seven yet—I was still in my UCLA blue-and-yellow pajamas and had just finished feeding Emerald.
Her first experience of apple sauce. She seemed to like it.
Anyway, what I’m trying to get to is that there was a sudden pounding on the front door.
When I got there, I opened the door and there stood Detective Lehmann.
Without a hello or ‘how ya doing’ he said, “I need you to come with me.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, so I said, “I’d rather not.”
“Fine. Henry Milch you’re under arrest for interfering with a sheriff’s investigation. If you come with me peaceably I won’t cuff you.”
Then he read me my rights, which were extremely boring, especially for something that important. When he was done, I said, “I can’t leave my sister alone with my grandmother. She’s not well enough to take care of a baby. Can you come back at noon? There will be someone here then.”
“No, I can’t come back at noon! You’re being arrested.”
“Yes, I understand that. But it’s not convenient.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
“I’m fairly certain Michael Jackson was allowed to make an appointment when he turned himself in. And I’m fairly certain you’re not here about child—”
“You’re not Michael Jackson.”
“Well, no, I’m not. I like older men.”
“I’m on the verge of cuffing you.”
“Okay. Come inside. I can change out of my pajamas, can’t I?”
He signed heavily and stepped into the house. I started toward the stairs but stopped when he asked, “Do you have guns in the house?”
“I don’t think so. You’ve got two of my grandmother’s weapons. You’ll have to ask her if she’s got any more. She’s in the kitchen.” Then, before I went up the stairs, I asked, “Is there going to be a mug shot? Because if there is, I’d like to wash my hair, maybe shave.”
“You have five minutes.”
I rolled my eyes at him and went up the stairs, wondering what I should wear to be arrested.
As I stood in front of my closet, I imagined Martha Stewart giving me advice: ‘Comfort is the order of the day whenever one is arrested. Loose-fitting jeans or even sweats are appropriate. A bulky sweater over a simple tee is wise, as holding facilities can vary widely in temperature. No jewelry, of course. The guards will only take it away from you and are likely to share amongst themselves. And definitely nothing constraining around the wrists. Handcuffs are constricting enough.’
I should probably take this more seriously, I thought, as I pulled on a pair of purple sweats. But it was hard to take being arrested seriously when, on the one hand I hadn’t done anything, and on the other if I hadn’t refused to be questioned he wouldn’t have arrested me at all.
I finished dressing: a black-and-pink plaid flannel shirt and my trusty lime-green sweater. When I got downstairs to the kitchen, Detective Lehmann was chatting pleasantly with my grandmother.
“How long have you been up here?” she asked him.
“Three years.”
“Your people in Grand Rapids must miss you.”
“I get down to see them often enough.”
I picked an apple-sauce-covered Emerald out of the high chair and plunked the car seat onto the table so I could put her in there.
“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” Nana Cale said. The baby was already getting cranky.
“Yes, I do. Call around and get one of the girls to come over. I’m being arrested and I have no idea how long I’ll be.”
“Arrested? You said you’d stopped doing drugs.”
“I’m being arrested for interfering with their investigation.”
To Lehmann she said, “He never could mind his own business.”
That wasn’t exactly true. I was minding my own business quite well in Los Angeles. It was only when I got—hey wait a minute. No one in Northern Lower Michigan minded their own business. She really was being unfair.
“Call Hamlet for me.”
“What’s his number?”
“Call information in Grand Rapids. Hamlet Gilbody Investigations.”
“They charge for information.”
“Nana, I’m being arrested. Spend the quarter.”
“You’re two seconds away from being cuffed.”
I grabbed my puffer jacket, my piano scarf and my floppy eared hat, and said, “I’m ready, okay?”
We went out the backdoor and walked through the paths I’d shoveled, sloppy but functional, over to a black Ford Explorer with SHERIFF in big gold letters on the side.
Detective Lehmann opened the back door and I climbed in.
A glowering deputy sat in the driver’s seat.
When Lehmann got into the passenger’s seat and shut the door, I said, “They don’t let you drive? ”
Neither of them said a word. This was going to be cheery.
We were at the end of the driveway and about to turn onto M-22, when the deputy asked, “Why isn’t he cuffed?”
“It’s not necessary,” Detective Lehmann said.
“Sheriff said—”
Ah, that was what was going on. Crocker had reached out a long arm from Florida and messed with Lehmann’s investigation. No wonder he was grumpy.
The sheriff’s office was part of the Wyandot County Municipal Center. A group of three contemporary brick buildings which in addition to the sheriff’s office and jail, housed court rooms, clerks, commissioners and various others who did the mysterious work of a county.
I had the distinct feeling my cousins were still in the jail section of the sheriff’s department.
They hadn’t been able to make bail—the point of making it so high, one million each—so they had to be somewhere.
Fortunately, I was not put in a cell with them.
I was instead led to the maple-paneled interview room, which I’d been in before. Fun times.
Detective Lehmann got us both coffees. I had mine with plenty of sugar and artificial creamer—the kind that came from artificial cows. He sat down, and without any kind of ice breaker asked, “Has Melanie Frasier admitted to killing Bobbie LaCross?”
I was still a little fuzzy on what I could and couldn’t say. But the honest answer was actually beneficial to my client, so I said, “No. Can you ask me questions about my client?”
“I can ask you anything I want.”
“But do I have to answer?”
“Are you working for her attorney?”
“Nnn—yes.”
“Are you? Or aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure.”
Well, it was confusing. First, we were working for Melanie’s insurance company. Then we were working directly for Melanie. She hired a lawyer so maybe we were working for them now. For all I knew there was an email at home explaining all that.
It was possible.
“Can you tell me why Melanie killed Bobbie?”
“She didn’t kill her. How can I tell you the reason for something that didn’t happen?”
“But Melanie did have a motive?”
“No, I told you, we caught Bobbie in a lie. There was no way the lawsuit was going to proceed. It was all over. Melanie didn’t have a reason to kill her.”
“So what was she doing at Bobbie’s place the night she was killed?”
“She said she went to the bar to tell Bobbie off, but then she ended up feeling sorry for her. Bobbie was drunk and went full-on pity party, so she drove her home and made sure she got into the trailer safely.”
“None of that sounds likely.”
“Which part? The part where Melanie was being kind? Or the part where Bobbie was being manipulative.”
That earned me an icy stare.
“Tell me everything Brian Belcher said to you.”
“Brian Belcher? Why are you interested in Brian Belcher?”
“He was sitting right next to you. He must have said something.”
“Mostly that Patty was really nice to his family.” Then something hit me. I did have information he’d find interesting. Possibly useless but information none-the-less. “Patty told me Bobbie killed a man.”
“Go on.”
“She said it the first time I talked to her, which would have been before Bobbie was killed. Then last night she said she was just being mean. Then she told me a story about Bobbie killing a man in Detroit who was trying to drug her by swapping drinks. I didn’t believe it.”
“What do you believe?”
Good question. I thought about it a moment. “I think the first thing she said was probably true. But now she wants to cover it up because it might have something to do with Bobbie’s being killed.”
“Do you think Patty killed her?”
That hadn’t occurred to me. She seemed to have gotten Bobbie out of her life. Did she still have a motive?
“If Bobbie had still been living with her, I’d say yes. But Patty got rid of her last spring.”
He frowned at me. After thinking for a moment, he said, “She was probably being mean when she said that. By the end of their friendship, they hated each other. That’s right, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“It’s sounding like a common theme in Bobbie’s life.”
“Did you talk to Hal Buckwald last night?” he asked.
“No. Should I have?”
Actually, I’d wanted to. I hadn’t because Lehmann was sitting in the back booth, and I didn’t want him seeing me talking to the victim’s son.
I would have said that, but he’d have used it as evidence that I knew what I was doing was wrong.
It wasn’t wrong, but I knew he’d think so. Which almost made it wrong.
“You’ve been asking questions about him though.”
Should I have been? Was he Lehmann’s main suspect?
“Was he seen near Bobbie’s place the night she died?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I didn’t. I’m asking if you heard it?”
“I didn’t hear it. The only person seen at Bobbie’s was Melanie Frasier.”
“A lot of people live on the Campbell property.”
“No one saw anything.”
“Yeah, but maybe one of them killed Roberta.”
There was a knock on the door and the deputy who’d driven us over said, “Rudy, there’s a lawyer out here. Bernie Schaub.”
“Junior or Senior?”
“Junior?”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Says this one works for him.”
This one was me.
“Excuse me, I’d like to see my investigator,” Schaub said, pushing his way into the room. Of course, I’d never seen him before in my life. He was barely older than I was and looked a lot like Dennis the Menace after a mild puberty. He wore a gray three-piece suit that he hoped to grow into.
He asked Detective Lehmann, “Are you charging Mr. Milch?”
“I’m considering it.”
“What are the possibilities?”
“Interfering with a criminal investigation.”
“Melanie Frasier is my client, and since you seem to think she’s a murderer, Mr. Milch has been investigating. That’s not interfering. That’s mounting a defense.”
“She hasn’t been charged yet.”
“And hopefully you’ll have enough sense not to charge her at all. Have you been asking Mr. Milch questions about Ms. Frasier?”
“Of course.”
“You’ll need to stop that. Attorney client privilege extends to investigators.”
I could see that Lehmann was clenching his jaw over and over. Finally, he turned to me and said, “Get the fuck out of here.”