Dana Stabenow - Better To Rest

Diana thought of the toys found in Karen’s house and reserved judgment.

She had interviewed Stan Jr. at his house, a ranch-style home with two bedrooms and one bath in the Anipa subdivision, painted forest green with white trim and a corrugated metal roof. Inside there was a lot of overstuffed furniture, a fireplace, a kitchen of near-sanitary cleanliness, a large bathroom with a soaker tub and terra-cotta tiles. It looked very comfortable, and very expensive. Stan Jr. was pale and tightly controlled. He shook his head when she asked him if he knew of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Karen. He’d seen her with a number of different men, most recently with Roger Hayden, who worked for the Newenham Telephone Cooperative.

“When was the last time you saw them together?” Diana asked.

He thought. “About a month ago, I guess. They were having dinner at Bill’s.”

Lastly, Diana had interviewed Jerry at his place, a cramped, barely one-bedroom apartment in a six-plex next door to the Last Frontier Bank. It was painfully neat, partly because it looked like Jerry didn’t own much. He scurried into the bathroom after letting her in, probably flushing his stash down the toilet, and she wandered around, poking her nose into this and that. The kitchenette cupboards held four place settings of flowered melamine and a set of Ecko pots and pans. The glasses and flatware were from Costco, and it all looked brand-new. The refrigerator was almost empty but for half a loaf of cheddar cheese, a carton of eggs with one left, and a quart of two-percent milk with a week-old expiration date. The lesser part of a case of Rainier beer filled up the bottom shelf.

The bedroom held a full-size bed, neatly made with white sheets and a flowered comforter that no man had picked out. The dresser drawers were only half-full of underwear and T-shirts and socks, and a spare change of bed linens. The closet was echoingly empty, a blue suit, two lighter blue shirts, a pair of black oxford shoes, a pair of sneakers. The suit was inexpensive and so new it still sported a tag. Betsy had probably bought it for him for Lydia’s memorial service, scheduled for the following Saturday afternoon.

The baseboard heating clinked as it came on, and the smell of burning dust filled the air. She went back into the living room and sat down gingerly on the nubbed fabric of the hard, narrow couch. On the wall opposite was a velvet painting of the Beatles back when they shaved. Copies of Alaska Magazine were stacked in two neat piles on the press board coffee table. There was a stereo, in her opinion the only evidence of human habitation, and a collection of CDs, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones. Jerry was a rock-and-roll boy.

There wasn’t a book on a shelf, or a family photo in a frame, or a birthday card or a graduation announcement on the refrigerator. She’d never seen a lonelier or unlovelier five hundred square feet in her life. It depressed her just to look at it.

The sound of the toilet flushing for the third time faded away and Jerry emerged from the bathroom, ostentatiously drying his hands on his jeans, and sat down on the matching nubby chair next to the couch.

“I’m sorry to bother you so late at night,” Diana said, “and I’m sorry to have to ask these questions at a time like this, but can you tell me the last time you saw your sister Karen?”

His thin, anxious face seemed to sink in on itself, but she couldn’t tell if it was from grief for his sister’s death or apprehension at having to deal with a cop. “Last night, I think. Or was it this morning?” He stopped. “I can’t remember, exactly. I can’t believe she’s dead.” He leaned forward. “Are you sure she’s dead, ma’am? I mean, couldn’t you have made a mistake? Could it maybe have been someone else who got killed?”

“I’m sorry, Jerry. It’s Karen. Your sister Betsy found her. There’s no mistake.”

His eyes were shiny with tears. “She was so cute when we were little. I liked her best of all. We used to hide together from Bossy Betsy.”

“Jerry, I really need you to concentrate. When was the last time you saw her?”

“I don’t know,” he said helplessly. “I think- Oh, wait. It was when we went to the lawyer’s.”

“What lawyer?”

“Ed. He wrote Dad’s will. And Mom’s.” A tear rolled down his face. He smeared it with the back of one hand, leaving a shiny track down one stubbled cheek.

Diana made a note. “Did Ed read the will to you this morning?”

“No, but he told us what was in it.” As an afterthought, he added, “Karen was mad.”

Diana sat up straighter on the very uncomfortable couch. “Mad about what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Mom gave away something Karen wanted.”

“Do you remember what it was?”

He screwed up his face. “A picture, maybe? It was old. I didn’t care.”

He was lying; it stuck out all over him. Karen might have been mad about something, but it hadn’t been a picture. “Betsy and Stan Jr. were there, too?”

“Yeah.”

Diana made a note. “Jerry, was anybody mad at Karen, that you know of?”

“Nobody ever got mad at Karen,” he said earnestly. “Everybody loved her. Why, every time I went over to her house, there was somebody there hugging her and kissing her.”

Diana gave him a long, thoughtful look. He meant it, every word. “Do you remember who you saw there the last time you were at her apartment?”

He shrugged, and she gave it up for the night. “Okay, Jerry, thanks. I might have to talk to you again.” She got to her feet. “Are you going over to Betsy’s?”

He looked at his feet. “I don’t know.”

Translated, that meant that he knew he usually wasn’t welcome. “She’ll want you there, and you shouldn’t be alone. I’ll give you a ride over.” It was impulsive, and with this family she didn’t know if Betsy really would want him, but she couldn’t leave him alone in that cold, bare excuse for a home, mourning the loss of the only person left in his family who seemed to give a damn. Or at least Jerry thought she had.

She left him in Betsy’s driveway and returned to the post to type up her interviews. She hadn’t discovered a hell of a lot about who might have killed Karen, but some areas of interest did present themselves.

Karen had been upset at the meeting with the attorney. Why? Neither Betsy nor Stan Jr. had mentioned it, only Jerry. She made a note to call them both in the morning, and Kaufman, too.

Karen slept around, most recently with Roger Hayden, the telephone guy. It was almost three o’clock, and Diana was bone-tired. She’d call him in the morning, too.

Karen owned the town house free and clear, no mortgage. Unusual for someone so young, and so unemployed. She also had a very healthy bank balance. If it had all come from her father, and if the other three kids were in the same financial health, Stan Tompkins Sr. must have been a very good fisherman indeed. Diana made a note to ask Kaufman if Karen had a will. If Karen hadn’t, as too many people of her age did not, it would be interesting to see where her money went. She’d call Brewster Gibbons, too, to get an update on Karen’s bank account. If Karen had so much money, why hadn’t she paid off her Visa bill?

Either Special Agent James G. Mason was older than he looked, or he’d had some excellent and intensive tutoring in the horizontal arts. Jo, deeply appreciative, lay flat on her back and stared at the ceiling while she waited for her vision to clear and her heartbeat to return to normal.

“I believe I have just discovered the secret of the universe,” Special Agent Mason said. His head was at her feet.

She discovered she had enough energy left to laugh.

“But my thesis may require further investigation,” he added, and crawled up the bed to flop down next to her.