“How long has he been sheriff?” I asked.
“Couple years.”
“Turn it over to the Department of Criminal Investigation,” I suggested bluntly. The DCI was the Wisconsin equivalent of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a statewide investigatory unit created to lend aid to local police departments that didn’t have the resources to handle major cases.
“That’s what I said,” Loushine told me. “But Bobby doesn’t want to give it up, and neither does the county attorney.”
“Where is the county attorney?” I asked.
“Vacation in San Francisco.”
I gave Loushine another stare.
He shrugged. “What can I say? Man likes his job; he wants to be re-elected next year.”
My stare intensified. “Unbelievable.”
“It’s a sorry situation,” Loushine admitted, and I sighed dramatically. But the truth was, I couldn’t have been more delighted. Giving a police department guidance during an active criminal investigation? A free hand to do whatever I want, all with the department’s support? That’s like a PI’s most forbidden fantasy come true.
“Okay,” I said and continued walking.
“Okay,” Loushine echoed, falling in step with me. “Where are we going?”
“What do you know about Alison Donnerbauer Emerton?” I asked in reply as we crossed the street and headed for the Saginau Medical Center.
“Never heard of her,” he said. “You mentioned the name the day of the shooting. Who is she?”
“I assume Gretchen Rovick is still in the hospital?”
“Yes,” Loushine replied, then added, “Who is Alison Donnerbauer Emerton?”
“Deputy Rovick’s best friend.”
We cornered the woman doctor at the Saginau Medical Center. I asked her if she had any updated information concerning Michael Bettich’s condition.
“Still critical, last I heard,” she said.
“What do you think her chances are?” I asked. I wanted the doctor to promise that Alison would be all right. But she was unwilling to commit herself. I changed the subject.
“How’s Deputy Rovick?” I asked.
“She’ll be fine,” the doctor responded. “She should be on crutches in a few days and walking normally in ten more. The wound was superficial.”
“Where is she?” Loushine asked.
“Second floor. Two-oh-two.”
“Can we see her?” the deputy added.
“Be my guest.”
We started toward the elevators.
“By the way,” the doctor stopped us. She looked me in the eye and said, “It was you who administered first aid to Michael, right?”
I confirmed her suspicion.
“You saved her life,” the doctor said and patted my arm. “For a while, anyway.”
I was proud of the compliment, but the way the doctor phrased it sent an uncomfortable surge of electricity through my entire body.
We found Gretchen sitting up in bed, reading the latest mystery by Nevada Barr. Her leg was elevated under the covers, which were rolled to her waist, revealing a teal nightgown trimmed with lace that I found particularly alluring. Apparently Loushine agreed.
The way his eyes kept finding Gretchen’s ample chest, you just knew this was a side of his colleague that he had never seen before.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Fine,” she answered cautiously before turning to Loushine. “What’s he doing here?”
Loushine explained.
“No way!” Gretchen protested.
Loushine shrugged. “Sheriff’s orders.”
Gretchen returned her gaze to me. “But he could be responsible.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“There are people who wanted Alison found,” she insisted. “You found her for them.”
“Alison?” Loushine asked.
I silenced him with an upraised hand. “Why did they want her found?” I asked Gretchen.
“Because …” Her voice was high and excited, but something stopped her. After a few moments of reflection, she said, “No, you’re right. They’re probably all angry enough to kill her, but my understanding is that the people she left in the Twin Cities needed her alive; they wanted to prove that she was alive and that they had nothing to do with her disappearance.”
I had come to the same conclusion the day before and revisited it several times since then. Nevertheless, it was comforting to hear it from someone else. Part of the reason I had returned to Kreel County was to prove that I had nothing to do with the assault on Michael Bettich—mostly to myself.
“Tell me about Alison,” I told Gretchen.
“Who the hell is Alison?” Loushine asked again.
Gretchen sucked in her breath and started talking with the exhale, talking so low that Loushine and I had to move to the foot of the bed to hear her. From where I stood, everything she told him was the truth—except maybe why Alison had left the Twin Cities in the first place. She seemed as unsure about that as I was.
Gretchen told us that Alison simply appeared on her doorstep late one night eight months ago with a battered suitcase and a fascinating if not altogether heroic tale. She was seeking asylum and anonymity, and Gretchen agreed to provide both. The deputy was delighted that her friend had come to her, and if Alison now insisted on being known as Michael Bettich, that was just swell as far as Gretchen was concerned—although she did confess that her police-officer mentality had compelled her to take a keen interest in the goings-on in Dakota County, Minnesota, until she was satisfied that her friend was not fleeing criminal charges.
Michael soon settled in and began building a new life for herself. Her brilliant mind impressed King Koehn so much that he gave her a job overseeing his investments after their first meeting; the fact that she was also pretty probably didn’t hurt, either—King liked pretty. And after dating around for several months, Michael settled on Sheriff Bobby Orman, moving in with him two months ago.
When Gretchen had finished, Loushine shook his head. “Nobody tells me anything,” he muttered.
“It didn’t bother you that Alison had left so many people in the Twin Cities holding the dirty end of the stick?” I asked Gretchen.
“The way Alison explained it to me, they all deserved it.”
“Probably did,” I agreed. Gretchen responded to my remark with a weak smile—she wasn’t sure about her friend, I concluded. After all this time helping to protect Alison, she still wasn’t sure. Hell, neither was I.
I smiled myself and removed a small notebook from my pocket and flipped it open. I read the names that I had written there the night before while sitting at Phyllis Bernelle’s kitchen table. “Who in Kreel County had motive to kill Michael?”
“You ask that like she’s dead,” Gretchen protested. “Michael is not dead. Stop talking like she is.”
Gretchen was right. From the beginning, I had been treating the case like a homicide investigation, when in fact there had not been a homicide—and saying so was like putting Alison’s photograph on the cover of Sports Illustrated: It was a jinx and lessened her chances for survival.
I rephrased the question. “Who wanted to hurt her?”
“Nobody,” Gretchen insisted.
“Nobody?!” I shouted, then checked myself. “Nobody,” I repeated in a softer voice, waving my notebook. “I’ve been in town for only a couple of hours, and I can name at least six suspects. How ’bout you?” I asked, turning toward Loushine.
“I only have one. Thilgen.”
Chip Thilgen looked good, I admitted; his was the first name on my list. But it bothered me that the car used in the shooting had been stolen out of town the day before Alison was shot. If the crime had been premeditated—as the theft would seem to indicate—it seemed damned unlikely that Thilgen would have announced his hatred for Michael one hour before shooting her. And if it wasn’t premeditated, why did he steal the car?
“Sure, there’s Thilgen,” I said. “But how ’bout Ingrid?”