Love 'Em or Leave 'Em Dead Read online

  “He’s in pharmaceuticals.”

  “Sells or partakes?” I said.

  Natalie cocked her head, studying me. I smiled.

  “Oh, you’re teasing,” she said, breaking into a smile. “He’s in sales.”

  “His name?” I asked.

  “Julius Freeman.”

  “Did you stay in contact with your father while he was living?”

  “Somewhat. He managed a visit once or twice a year and phoned every now and then.”

  “Was Sonya included in those visits?”

  “No.”

  “Did you inherit anything when he died?”

  “We each received two million—small potatoes compared to what Daddy was worth.”

  “Where’s your mother now?”

  “San Antonio. She has an advanced case of Parkinson’s.”

  “Was she mentioned in his will?”

  “No, but she received a generous divorce settlement and invested wisely, so financially she’s set. My father had been cheating on her for a long while. I believe once the shock of being dumped had worn off, she was relieved to be out of the marriage.”

  “Did you ever listen to Sonya’s radio show?” Tamika asked.

  “No.”

  “Not even once for curiosity’s sake?” Tamika asked.

  “No. Look, I don’t blame Sonya for my parents’ divorce like Kent does, but I disconnected from her when I was young because I never felt her approval.”

  “Who’s Katie, who you referred to earlier?” I asked.

  “Kent’s daughter—she’s nineteen.”

  “Does Kent have any others?” Tamika asked.

  “Just Katie. Carrie didn’t have her until she was thirty-nine.”

  “Do you have children?” Tamika asked.

  “No. I never wanted any.”

  “Thanks for staying . . . and being candid with us,” I said.

  “I should be on my way to my luncheon.”

  “Okay, thanks for meeting with us,” I said.

  As she was about to exit the room, she turned and said, “I’ve been unfair to my brother. He’s actually a good man in most respects, and he certainly wouldn’t kill anyone.”

  TAMIKA AND I PARKED outside of the Logan house and walked to the garage. Thomas Falcon met us wearing a sheepskin vest, a black turtleneck, jeans, and cowboy boots. He showed us up the stairs along the outside of the garage and into the studio. There were four desks just inside the door. A room with a set of double doors was straight ahead with an “ON AIR” light flashing green. Two young ladies, somewhere in their mid-twenties, were sitting together at a table eating doughnuts and drinking coffee. One was petite and brunette, the other had a sturdy frame. Her brown hair was pulled into a topknot, with spiky strands trying to escape bondage.

  Thomas pointed to the girls and said, “Abbie Brotherton and Jordan Larson. We call them the Courageous Crew of Two. Their tasks are many: screeners, social media, research, etc. And Sam is our sound man.”

  Sam was a lanky kid with a man bun and dark-framed eyeglasses. “Was,” he said.

  “Yes, sorry . . . was our sound man. Detectives, help yourselves to the coffee and doughnuts.” He pointed to a small rectangular table up against the wall.

  “Not all cops like doughnuts,” I said.

  “Yes, we do,” Tamika said, grabbing one.

  “Well, if you insist,” I said.

  “What’s happening with the show?” Tamika asked.

  “We’re finishing the week by rebroadcasting the best shows as a tribute to Sonya.”

  “How long were the broadcasts?” I asked.

  Thomas leaned against a desk, his legs crossed at the ankles. “Two hours, but a two-hour show extended to five or six hours with the pre-show meeting, rehearsal, the actual broadcast, and then a post-meeting to discuss the next day’s show.”

  “Was her show local or national?”

  “National on Sirius XM.”

  “So Sonya broadcast from right in that room?” Tamika asked, her expression incredulous.

  “Yep. Monday through Friday,” Thomas said.

  “Did Justine work here as well?” I asked.

  “She preferred to work in the house. The rest of us worked here in the studio.”

  Thomas handed me a packet with the guest schedules for the past six months—Justine scheduled the guests at least four to six weeks in advance, he mentioned—and names and phone numbers of every caller who had been aired for the last month, which was as long as they held on to them.

  “I found copies of Sonya’s radio shows at her home in Dexter,” I said. “Any insight for me?”

  “Those were the copies of the most contentious shows. She was writing a book.”

  “Was Cyrus Fischer’s wife’s call in this batch?”

  “Definitely. It should be in June of this year.”

  I handed Thomas my business card. “Let us know if you think of anything that would help us.”

  “Sure will.”

  JUST AS WE FINISHED QUESTIONING Sonya’s employees, Martha Gill called. She’d arranged a 2:30 meeting with Zabrina’s friends on campus. She said if I picked her up we could grab some lunch before we met the girls at Hamline University.

  When she hopped in the car, she said, “If you’re up for Turkish food, may I suggest the Black Sea? It’s a short distance from Hamline and has fabulous food.”

  “I’ll eat anything,” Tamika said.

  “Sure, I like to try new foods,” I said.

  I found a spot in the lot reserved for customers. The restaurant was a little hole in the wall and nothing fancy. The menu was displayed on the wall, and their prices were reasonable. The women ordered kebabs and I selected a gyro. While we ate our lunch—which was delicious, by the way—we drafted a set of questions for Zabrina’s friends.

  On the way back to the car, Martha said, “Thanks for picking up the check, Cal. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “No problem. Good choice of restaurants, Martha.”

  I picked up the check because the server put the bill in front of me. I wrongly assumed everyone would chip in. Okay, I admit I’m cheap, but we aren’t business tycoons on expense accounts.

  We were to meet Zabrina’s friends at Starbucks in Anderson Center on the Hamline campus, located a short distance up Snelling. The center was a modern building with a dramatic glass front.

  When we walked into the coffee shop, Martha touched my arm and said, “I’ll check those two out.” She walked toward two girls sitting together.

  The aroma of coffee was calling my name. I worked my way through the crowd and stood in line. Tamika came up behind me and said, “Will you get me a tall salted caramel mocha?”

  I put out my hand. “Am I the money train?”

  She gave me a look but she reached into her fanny pack, pulled out a five and slapped it in my hand.

  Martha moved up beside me. “It’s them.”

  I asked if she wanted anything. “Just a black coffee—tall.”

  I joined the four women at the table with a tray of coffees.

  “Looks like dessert, Tamika,” I said. She giggled.

  “Try it,” she said, thrusting the cup mounded with whipped cream in my face.

  “No . . . thanks.”

  Martha said, “Can I pay you for the coffee?”

  Yes. “No, I got it.”

  After she introduced us all to the girls, Martha said, “We want to talk to you about Zabrina. First, could you please state your full names, where you’re from, and how long you’ve known her?”

  The round-faced girl with blond hair and blue eyes said, “Sure. I’m Autumn Jane Spencer from Minneapolis. I’ve known Zabrina since we were BFFs in high school.”

  I looked to the other girl, who was rolling her short, dark hair around her fingers. Her T-shirt said, “Don’t bother, I’m not drunk yet.”

  “Interesting saying on your shirt,” I said.

  “Oh.” She pulled her jacket closed.

>   “Your turn,” I said to the dark-haired girl, whose face had turned the color of cotton candy.

  She let out a nervous giggle. “I’m Molly Estes from Stillwater. I met Zabrina the first day we moved into Schilling.”

  “Molly lives on our floor,” Autumn said.

  Martha asked, “Was Zabrina having any problems with anyone? Boyfriends? Girlfriends?”

  “No.”

  “No stalkers?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “What about her family?”

  “Her mom was real nice,” Autumn said, looking to Molly, who nodded in agreement.

  “She got along well with her mom?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What about her grandmother?”

  “Well . . . she could be crabby. You had to be real careful around her. One night we were having a sleepover at Zabrina’s and were making popcorn. I guess it was toward midnight. Anyway, her grandmother came up and yelled at us to go to bed. After that we only went there when her grandmother was gone.”

  “Zabrina didn’t get along with her grandmother?”

  “I’m not saying that, but Zabrina worried about what she thought. Her grandmother had a lot of influence in big things like where she went to college, what she was going to major in, that kind of thing.”

  “She tried to please her grandmother?”

  “Oh, yeah. Her grandmother wanted her to attend an Ivy League college—like Harvard or Yale. Zabrina applied to several but didn’t get in. Her backups were Hamline and UCLA, which is where she really wanted to go. She ended up at Hamline because her grandmother refused to pay for UCLA, which made me happy.”

  “Did her mom have any say?”

  “She said it was Zabrina’s decision, but it really wasn’t.”

  “I liked her mom,” Molly said. “She was nice.”

  “She was always happy to have us over, and they have a maid and a cook who made us anything we wanted,” Autumn said.

  “Like a hotel?” Martha asked.

  The girls giggled. “Yeah, sorta,” Molly said.

  “So how often did you visit her home?” Martha asked.

  “Maybe one weekend every six weeks,” Autumn said.

  “Who else does Zabrina hang out with, other than you two?”

  “Her boyfriend, Grady.”

  “Did Zabrina date a lot in high school?” I asked Autumn.

  “Not really. She was with boys, though.”

  “Hooked up?” Martha asked.

  Autumn nodded. “They didn’t mean anything until Grady. He liked her, not just for . . . you know.”

  “Sex,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “Were you with her last Thursday and Friday?” I asked.

  “Not Thursday night, but Friday night she invited us to Grady’s.”

  “Which is where?” Martha asked.

  “By the U on Seventh Street. He lives in a house with some guys.”

  “Did you see her at all on Thursday?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Early. We ordered a pizza in the dorm before she left and drove over to Grady’s,” Autumn said. Molly nodded.

  “What about Friday during the day?” I asked.

  “Yep. After lunch I went back to our room to get my books for my afternoon classes. That’s when she asked us if we wanted to go to a party at Grady’s that night.”

  “So tell us about Friday night,” I said.

  Molly said, “We had just gotten to the party when her mom called to tell her about her grandma. Everything was pretty quiet after that.”

  “What time was the call?”

  Autumn pinched up her nose. “Seven, maybe eight. Zabrina was hysterical. She wanted to drive right up to the lake to be with her mom. We had to take her keys because she already had too much beer.”

  “Does she get drunk often?” Tamika asked.

  “Just beer on weekends. None of us do drugs or anything,” Autumn said.

  “Did she go back to Hamline with you that night?” I asked.

  “No, she stayed with Grady,” Autumn said.

  “Does she sleep over at Grady’s often?” I asked.

  Nods from both girls.

  “Do you like him for her?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh, he’s an awesome boyfriend,” Autumn said. Molly nodded her agreement.

  The interview may have been a waste of time, but we gave the girls our cards in case they thought of anything, then headed back to MPD. Martha got a text from Ryan.

  “Fischer’s in custody,” she told us.

  14

  RYAN HAD BEEN INTERROGATING Fischer for an hour when he left him in the interview room to come out and brief us. His eyes flashed with excitement as he told us Fischer had had Thursday and Friday off and didn’t have an alibi for the times of the murders.

  “What does he do?” I asked.

  “He’s in IT for a cable company. We have a warrant, but he gave us permission to examine his laptop.”

  “Which means there’s nothing incriminating on it,” I said.

  “We’re also checking phone and email records to try to retrieve the harassing emails Fischer sent. Anyway, he’s waived his rights, so have a go at him.”

  As I walked into the warm room, the sharp stench of perspiration hit me. Slouched in his chair, Fischer raised his eyes to meet mine as I took the chair across from him. He jutted out his lower lip and crossed his arms over his large belly. I didn’t expect this defiant excuse for a human to cooperate, but it happened more often than not.

  “Mr. Fischer, I’m Detective Sheehan from Birch County. Do you know where that is?”

  His eyelids fluttered. A facial tic manifested below his left eye. “Ah, sure . . . north of St. Cloud, west of Brainerd?”

  “That’s right. Have you ever been there?”

  He gave me one nod. “Yep.”

  “When?”

  “Oh . . . ah . . . last year, I guess. Me and my dad went fishing.”

  “Where did you stay?”

  “At a resort on Rodgers Lake.”

  “I know the one. It closed two years ago.”

  “Oh. Then maybe it was the year before that, because that’s where we stayed.” I nodded. “Mr. Fischer, I’m in Minneapolis investigating the murder of Sonya Donovan.”

  He screwed up his nose. “Who?”

  “You called her radio show and left harassing messages and emails. So let’s skip the silly I-don’t-know-what-you’re talking-about bullshit.”

  He slouched even farther into his chair. I leaned forward and folded my hands on the table and spoke my next words softly, as if telling him a secret. “I know you know she was murdered.”

  He leaned in and whispered back, “Just between you and me, the bitch got what she deserved. I hope they cut her fucking head off.”

  My gut reaction was to jerk back away from this foul-melling piece of shit, but I stayed put, looked him square in the eye and nodded. “Why so hostile?”

  “Why? Because she wrecked my life.”

  “How so?”

  “Are we pretending you don’t know?”

  “I don’t.”

  He took a deep breath and leaned back. “I gave the story to the other cop.”

  “I haven’t heard it, so oblige me.”

  “Is that one of your tactics to trip a guy up?”

  “Sometimes, but not today. I just got here.”

  He drummed his fingers on the table. “Okay, it started when my wife called the radio show and told fucking lies about me, and bingo bango bongo, she tells her, ‘Throw the bum out.’”

  “Were you listening to the broadcast?”

  “No, my ma does, and she recognized Lilly’s voice. Called herself Susan, but Ma said it was definitely Lilly.”

  “Doesn’t seem fair not to get both sides. What lies did she tell?” I asked.

  His face softened. He leaned in like I was suddenly his pal.

  “Things like I don’t help around the house, how all I do is watch sports and expect
her to wait on me. Crap like that.”

  “Even if it were true, sounds like a typical guy thing to me, eh?”

  He nodded. “Exactly.”

  “She must have said something else.”

  “Okay, she said I slapped her, but she didn’t tell the broad she hit me in the face with a pork chop first.”

  “So you hit her back.”

  “The bone fucking cut my face.” He pointed to his check bone. I couldn’t see a damn thing but greasy skin. “Ah, I just tapped her on the head a little. So this bitch tells my wife to dump me—right on the air, see? So Lilly hangs up the phone and texts me at work saying we’re through. I tried texting and calling her back all day. I can’t just leave work to fight with my wife, you know, or I’d never get any time in. Anyways, by the time I gets home, she had the locks changed and set my things in paper bags on the goddamn step—not even the suitcases . . . which I paid for, by the way.”

  “So you blamed Sonya?”

  “Shit yeah, I blamed her. Lilly’d never of left me if she hadn’t been told to.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I went to my parents.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Nordeast, on Pierce and Thirty-third.”

  “Is that when your mother told you about the radio show?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what did you do next?”

  “I got an efficiency apartment because that’s all I could afford.” “And how did you make contact with Sonya?”

  “I looked up her website.”

  “And?”

  “I sent her an email.”

  “One?”

  “A few.”

  “How many days did that go on?”

  “Until she filed a restraining order. Well, what about my first amendment rights, huh? Freedom of speech and all that?”

  “Harassment doesn’t count as freedom of speech, Mr. Fischer.”

  His jaw muscles flexed.

  “You’re still angry with her,” I said.

  “Damn right. And now just cuz I sent a few emails that cop thinks I was the one who killed those women. Don’t he?”

  I scratched my neck. “I gotta be honest with you, Mr. Fischer, the thought crossed a few minds. So tell me about your job.”

  He cocked his head. I had changed gears. “I do tech help for Central Com.”

  “In this job, you can open accounts, see how people’s computers are working, that kind of thing.”