Chasing a Blond Moon(132)
Newf pouted when he let her out of her run. No sign of Cat again. He threw his dirty clothes in the washer.
What did Honeypat mean, she’d been with Limpy too long, knew all his ways? Did she believe she could outthink and outmaneuver him? Was she telling him she saw Limpy go into the house, that he had killed Outi? He doubted that. Limpy was a lowlife, but he wasn’t a killer.
He and Newf drove into Escanaba and parked in the lot facing Little Bay de Noc and went inside to the sheriff’s office.
Undersheriff James Cambridge was at his desk.
“Don’t think I like the look on your puss,” the undersheriff said.
“I’ve been thinking about Outi Ranta.”
“That case is all but closed.”
“Do we know if Outi Ranta knew Mary Ellen Fahrenheit?”
Cambridge said, “There was no sign of a struggle.”
“What if Outi didn’t know she was there? We don’t know that Outi even knew the woman, so why would she let her in?”
“What the hell are you getting at now?”
“I don’t know,” Service said. “I’m just thinking out loud.”
The undersheriff followed him outside and grabbed his arm. “Fahrenheit was positive for nitrates, her blood full of alcohol, too much to drive without killing herself.”
“What if somebody gave her to us?” Service asked. He had just connected some dots that left him feeling very uneasy. “James, have you requested Outi’s home phone records?”
“Why would I?”
“Find out who she called, who called her.”
“Seems like a waste of time and energy—and budget,” he added.
“Counties don’t have the budgets, thanks to Clearcut.”
“What if Fahrenheit was set up?”
“That’s a reach at best.”
“So is a woman driving this far to shoot another woman in cold blood.”
“It happens,” Cambridge said. “We don’t need you to go complicating this on me.”
“I’m not trying to complicate it. It just seems a bit strange. I’m thinking maybe there’s something in the phone records to put our minds at ease.”
“Like a call from Fahrenheit?”
“That would suggest they had at least talked.”
Cambridge considered what he had heard. “I guess that’s reasonable. I’ll talk to the prosecutor today. It’ll take a couple of days to get phone records.”
“Just as long as you see them,” Service said.
Service sat in his truck, thinking. Outi insisted Honeypat had engineered everything. Charley Fahrenheit had dealt only with Outi. Colliver had dealt with an old man Fahrenheit never saw or met. What was Honeypat trying to accomplish?
Follow the greed, Cal Shall had told them long ago: wanting something you didn’t have, or more of what you did. Kitella, Colliver, and Fahrenheit were all linked by bear hunting. Kitella had attacked the Wisconsin men to drive them off turf he considered to be his own. Trapper Jet believed Kitella burned his cabin. Was Trapper Jet the old man?
He called Les Reynolds as he departed Escanaba heading south, and told him that he wanted to talk to Charley Fahrenheit and Colliver in the Marinette County Jail in Wisconsin.
Fahrenheit was morose.
“I’m sorry about your wife,” Service said.
Charley shook his head, a response Service couldn’t read.
“Hard to believe she’d drive all the way up to Michigan to shoot Outi Ranta. She have that kind of temper?”
“Flash and done,” Charley said. “I told youse she hated guns. Tried for years to teach her so she could protect herself, but she wouldn’t have none of it.”
“Sometimes a wife’s temper goes into overdrive when another woman is involved.”
“This wasn’t the first time,” the prisoner said.
“Not the first time her temper flared?”
“Not the first time there was another woman.”
“She’d caught you before?”
“A few times.”
“And she didn’t get mad?”
“Mad enough to go right out and find a man to take to bed. Said fair was fair.”
“You were okay with this?”
“Hell no! It’s just how she was. She’d go off with some guy, come home and tell me all about it. Said getting even was better than getting mad.”
“Did she ever threaten any of your girlfriends?”
“Said it was all my fault, not theirs.”
“How was Mary Ellen’s mental health?”
“You mean, like, was she off her rocker? No way.”
“Do you know the names of the men she went with?”
“She always told me. She wanted me to know.”