“I separate them, ask for IDs and registration. The first guy gives me his license and I do a double take. Kurt Swann, address in Swann’s Flat. Bear in mind, I’ve been on the job about three months. I’ve seen the town on the map, but every place around here’s named for some or other dead person. I didn’t know there was any actual Swanns. He’s smirking at me, waiting for me to connect the dots. The other guy, it’s his tow truck.”
“Dave Pelman,” I said.
“Yeah. I ask the woman for her license. She doesn’t have it. Doesn’t have any ID. ‘Okay, what’s your name.’ ‘Leonie.’ ‘Is that your husband?’ She won’t answer. I’m trying to get her story and Kurt’s begging from over on the sidewalk: ‘I love you, I forgive you, come home.’ ”
“Forgive her for what?” I asked.
“Who knows? But now it’s looking like some sort of domestic dispute. She’s jumpy, but she doesn’t have any visible injuries. I offer to bring her to the station, speak with her in private. She won’t budge. Clams up totally. I have her open the Dodge to get the registration from the glove box. Sure enough, it’s in Kurt’s name only. Then I hear something in the back seat. I peek over. There’s two big suitcases and a baby in a car seat.”
“She was leaving him?”
“Maybe. Maybe she was going to visit her mother and would’ve ended up coming back.”
“Most of them do,” Regina said.
Gallo nodded. “One thing’s for sure: I’m out of my depth. I get on the horn to my supervisor.”
“The guy who used to sit in that chair,” I said.
“Correct. As I’m talking to him, Leonie goes and hands the keys over to Kurt. She gets in the Dodge with him and they drive off.”
“Willingly?”
“So far as I can see. I’m not about to go chasing after them, ’cause—”
“There’s a baby,” Regina said.
“Correct. I head back to the station and tell the sergeant what happened. He shakes his head. ‘Fucking rednecks.’ ”
“He’d dealt with Kurt before,” I said.
“That was the implication. He doesn’t have me do anything right then, but the next day he tells me to take a partner and do a welfare check. I remember being on that road for the first time, thinking anyone who’d live down there had to be out of their damn mind. Then we get to the house and ho-ly shit. Here’s this supposed redneck, and he’s living in a palace.
“Leonie comes to the door. You can smell the booze on her from five feet away. She says she’s fine, please leave them alone. Kurt comes running from the stable, screaming his head off. ‘You sonsabitches, step onto my land, threaten my family.’ He herds her inside, slams the door, and runs around, yanking down the shades. Pretty soon the whole house is blacked out, and we can hear Kurt, ranting and raving.
“We try to radio in, but the reception’s for shit. We’re calling and calling and it’s not going through. We don’t want to leave before we’ve ascertained there’s no danger to her or to the child. So we decide to split up: I’ll stay behind, my partner will drive till he can get a signal.
“Before he can leave, a new vehicle pulls up and a young guy gets out, ’bout the same age as Leonie. He’s smiling like it’s the greatest day of his life. ‘Why hello there, Deputy.’ ”
“That sounds like Beau,” I said.
“Yup. He tells us Leonie called him and said Kurt’s acting up. ‘Lemme talk some sense into him.’ He knocks. ‘Open up, Kurt. It’s me.’ Door swings in, and I tense up, thinking he’s gonna catch a face full of buckshot. But Kurt steps aside. Ten minutes later they both come out. Kurt’s done a one eighty. Meek as hell, like the kid shot him up with a tranquilizer.
“Beau goes, ‘These gentlemen don’t mean you any harm. They’re just doing their job. They just want to ask questions. Isn’t that right? What can we do for you, gentlemen?’
“I tell Kurt I’d like a word with Leonie. Beau says, ‘She’s not feeling well.’ ‘I need to hear that from her.’ ‘Of course, Officer, right this way.’ I’m talking to Kurt and this punk’s answering. Then he tries to escort me in. Like it’s his house. I said, ‘Both of you, stay outside.’
“Leonie’s laid out on the couch. She’s got the baby in a playpen. She says, ‘I never called you, I have a headache, please leave.’ Talking toward the front door, loud enough for them to hear her out on the lawn. She won’t even look at me.”
“She must’ve been terrified,” Regina said.
“Yes, ma’am. The baby starts crying. Leonie doesn’t move a muscle. It’s howling and turning red. I said to her, ‘Do you need me to pick her up?’ That sets Leonie off. She jumps up and screams at me to leave them alone. Screams. I’m tripping over myself to get out of there.”
Gallo tented his fingers. “So now me and my partner have a choice.”
“Bust Kurt,” Regina said. “He’s free in forty-eight hours, goes home to take it out on her.”
“Bust them both and see if she wants to seek protection,” I said. “But she’s not giving off a cooperative vibe.”
“Plus there’s the baby to think about,” Regina said.
“Or?” Gallo smiled. “There’s another option.”
I said, “Apologize for the misunderstanding and be on your way.”
“Bingo,” Gallo said. “I didn’t have any DV training. Was pretty much a kid myself. I’d like to think that if I had another opportunity, I would’ve known what to ask and how to ask it. But she never called.”
“They usually don’t,” Regina said.
Gallo frowned. “True. But since then there’s no evidence she’s not fine.”
I said, “Could we talk about the night of Kurt’s death? Were you on the scene?”
“Everyone was,” Gallo said. “It was an all-hands situation.”
“The coroner’s report is based almost entirely on Dave Pelman’s account. Was he ever considered a suspect?”
“It never got that far. I can tell you we spoke to Pelman’s ex-wife. She runs the hotel.”
“Jenelle Counts?” I said.
“That’s her. She told us Pelman had a thing for Leonie.”
“Were they having an affair?” Regina asked.
“She didn’t come right out and make an accusation. More hinting. And it’s his ex talking, you gotta take what she says with a shaker of salt. In the end, the coroner was strong on it being an accident. We had to abide by that. As you, Clay, are no doubt aware.”
“The report doesn’t mention the Bergstroms at all,” I said. “Were they interviewed?”
“Not by me.”
“They weren’t suspects, either.”
“Like I said: accident.”
“I’m asking your opinion.”
“My opinion didn’t matter. I wasn’t the sergeant.”
“You are now,” Regina said.
“Yeah,” Gallo said. “So I can imagine his thought process. Are these folks in Swann’s Flat a buncha weirdos? You bet. So’s everyone else in a hundred-mile radius. We got lots bigger problems, more so back then. Cartels muscling in, shooting each other up, setting fire to grow sites. Now you have this redneck, and his woman’s losing her mind if you try to touch her baby. My opinion? Nobody’s shedding tears over Kurt Swann.”
Chapter 34
We left the station and set out west beneath gathering clouds, Regina at the wheel.
She said, “Takeaways.”
“Beau having Kurt on a leash interests me,” I said. “I’ve thought of them as a management-ownership arrangement. The Swanns hold title, the Bergstroms do the work. But this makes it seem like Beau and Emil have serious leverage.”